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Snippet #2710350

located in Gretna, Louisiana, 1922, a part of Vice & Bloodlines, one of the many universes on RPG.

Gretna, Louisiana, 1922

None

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Harlow Brynn B. Character Portrait: Rem Bates Character Portrait: Roux Bates Character Portrait: M. Boone Character Portrait: ANNA LEIGH DECLAN Character Portrait: Sophia Moon Character Portrait: Atticus Montgomery Character Portrait: Noel Bates
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↔Harlow Brynn Bates↔

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Sufficing to say that fury was a comprehensive feeling in the good lands turned bad was a subtlety. Wasn’t much about Gretna that was meant for this type of disorder. It was a homely place with a lack of hostility, abundance of silliness and sloppy misdemeanors. But not felonies. Graves done dredged it all to hell, cut it loose and played in the surplus of the madness while fattening his own salary. Went and twisted the values and tested the integrity of their small town, and boy was he gonna’ be sorry for that. But first, Marvin would be.

'Cause he more or less wrote the invitation.

Couldn’t keep herself from making an example out of him, and Roux better’a considered himself lucky that the fire in his brother’s wife was slowly sizzling out thanks to the weather. Harlow had unceremoniously walloped on the drunk stripling and made him wanna' cry out for his own mama. Roux got off easy.

Mire around the place was mixin’ and a’minglin’ with all the rain runoff, looking like the swamps more than the delightful nest beside the river. With Boone sunk into the earth, it sure looked a rotten mess. Harlow showed no signs of submission save for the mud painting down the front’a him and breathing’ all deep-like to get her daily serving of Louisiana air. Her hair turned fawn in the dampness, fixed to the clenched facet that had Marvin there reconsidering ever using his tongue for much else than servility of the Honey Stop variety.

Mama instincts kick in ‘fore too long, what with company arriving and crowding around the spectacle. Without twisting her neck a pace, she missed not even one beat when she dressed down grimly, “Don’t know where your parents decided to up n’ run to when you popped out your ma’, Marvin, but if it’s parenting you need, you’re gonna’ get it. Considering the pickle you put some folks in without thinkin’, I think you’re good right here with me. And I’ll tell you another thing
” When she finally got him clutched up by collar and end of wits, she stared daggers into him and murmured, “You better stay god damn sober with that motherfucker walking ‘round this entire county looking for his next promotion. You could be it. And I ain’t gonna’ let that happen.”

With a thrust and relinquished grasp, he hit the wet dirt with a final icky, aqueous ‘thud’. Like the soil was suckin’ and leeching for him before he collided again. Honey looked him once more over. Poor kid, really. In the springtime of his life. Handsome, even, when he wasn’t sporting the stink of rotgut, bruises and bad decisions. Was a shame his mama couldn’t squinch up a bit to give her babies better. But she did her best, and now Harlow was next to play guardian.

“Am I?” There was a feigning of understanding but ol’ Boone knew it was time to admit he ain’t had a pot to piss worth reason. He’d lost this one, mighta’ had his fun on the way down with the taunting of Roux, but boy did he lose somethin’ ugly. “Get your behind out of the mud,” she stated matter of fact, like she wasn’t the one who put him there, and only a dumb sonma’bitch would have pointed a finger at her in defense, “Now.” He might have been a lot of things, dumb for certain. But not that dumb.

Cold followed the drizzle, now hitting the brakes like storm was just short of taking down a lamp post or two. Got quiet, with the closing wind and shoes scuffling on the porch. The show was over but the habitués had much to discuss.

“Come on now, Hun.”

Low chitterin’ got up out of him between the scraping of his stubble, and rockin’ Nola with an amused smile. Harlow glanced with her head cocked, still poaching under her apron with residual anxiety and rage. But she didn’t have it for her husband. ‘Cause there he was with his weight creaking porch panels, meaning well with his stock beaming that never got old or less familiar. And she needed him. Loved him. More than ever.

Rem was a curiosity, most folk jus saw him as a bad boy who settled down for once. Never knew how smart and meticulous a man he were when the chips were down. Lotta’ underestimating going on in that town. Not just by the worst of outsiders, neither.

The inner circle at the Stop had a whole ordnance depot as far as the true colors of Gretna was concerned. But Harlow had a special knack for seeing past just the raw color, and recognizing why people did the things they did. Just k n e w the way a Truffle hound knew the difference between blood and bone. Yet she mostly left the fine print and dealings to Atticus, Rem or Noel. If there was somethin’ the three of them couldn’t figure out, then it was gonna’ be a load of trouble for the rest of the whistle stop.

ImageShe’d have to get on with the rest of her day. “You stop laughing, Remington Bates,” she threw a rag over her shoulder, long drenched in the affair as two soles flat and stood up again, “We ain’t living in high cotton if everybody done stopped working and doing their homework to watch this lush make a mess out of my dining room, my porch, and my apron, are we?” She gave him a hard time, and he let it roll off knowing well as she that the pot been stirred and had maybe mere days before it tipped over and burnt the shit out of everybody. “We need a plan, Rem. I don’t feel like playing today, I’m tired.” Moving past him, her fingers traced his shoulder like petals, barely there, and then gone again. Woulda’ taken Nola, but she’d likely have caught a cold from being pressed up against her mama all waterlogged and shiverin’. Last thing they needed was a sick baby.

“Anna, you might as well put that nasty thing out before you black up your lungs and my property. Go heat up a kettle for my Sophia, alright?” With a reassuring smile, Honey nudged at the elbow of her kindred spirit who’d been gone too long. Sure, had a few things to cut the two apart. Like the fact that Sophia had a walk about her that claimed the hearts of men in a way that Harlow’s pie did to stomachs. But one thing about them, the most important of all, was very much the same.

They’d die or kill for what meant most to them.

“I got a few ideas to run by you, Miss Moon, so before your head’s all pumped up with devious ideas can I get your opinion on some things in the back room?” With a restive jerk, she padded into the dining room and towards the walk in pantry. Wrung her hair out as she waited patiently under the dull light of the ceiling, certain that Sophia’s motives were predacious when her eyes caught the right subject.