[moving]

[kindnessyoucantafford]

Caroline's tired. She's due to move again. She doesn't even like it here anyway, but she's tired of moving. Even though she has plenty of reason to keep on the move like some kind of paranoid migratory animal, she's just... tired. She's lived so many places since she left home. Maybe... maybe she could actually pick somewhere and stay for once. That would be nice.

She doesn't want to go back anywhere she's already been. For her own piece of mind, sure, but also because most of the places she's already been kind of suck. Been there, lived in that shitty neighborhood already. (Sometimes the bridges are a little crispy around the edges too, but never mind that.) So that rules out uh... a lot of places. But mostly the east coast. That's fine, there are other directions. She ends up picking northwest partly because it's kind of the opposite of where she's been, but also the climate's nice. She likes rain. And she shouldn't stick out too badly. She doesn't have any particular attachment to where specifically she ends up, but she has better luck finding things in Oregon than Washington. Sure.

As she winds her way west on what's hopefully the last of her roadtripping for a good long while, she spends her evenings in hotels looking at places to live. Caroline's quietly hoping she can find something nicer than she usually manages, since she's planning to stay. It'd be nice not to have stairs in her bathroom or mirrors on the ceiling or anything.

One of those evenings, she forgets to check or uncheck some setting and ends up on a listing for a really cute house. It's got a nice spooky farmhouse vibe going for it-- right up her alley. And then she realizes it's for sale not a rental. Fucking hell. She's just scrolling back up to glare one last time before closing the tab when she sees the estimated monthly payment. Damn. No wonder she hadn't realized it wasn't a rental. It's fucking cheap. Maybe she'll just... find out what the hell's wrong with it. Just to see.

The... realtor? agent? she emails is super eager to please. Caroline gets a bunch more pictures than the listing has and a webcam tour scheduled for a couple days later. That turns out to be really useful and more than a little hilarious. She sends the poor woman all over the house opening cabinets and leaning on doors and knocking on walls and everything else she can think of. The realtor's really cheerful about the whole thing though, so Caroline doesn't feel too bad. As far as she can tell, there's nothing wrong with the house at all. So she gives in and asks.

The catch is the really cute house is in Buckaroo. The realtor takes Caroline's silence for an awkward pause and launches into a spiel about the many virtues of the little town and how it's totally not like people think. Mostly Caroline needs a moment to place why the name's familiar. That's right, the serial killer town. Yeah, that'll do it. She can practically hear the poor woman wringing her hands over the phone when Caroline tells her she's going to need to do some research.

She's not as put off by her cute spooky farmhouse being in Buckaroo as she knows she should be. (And since when is it "her" house?) But hell, Caroline's lived in all kinds of shady places before. She's from one. So... it might not be a deal breaker. It really depends on what she can find out. And what she finds is actually pretty encouraging. For being such a producer of serial killers, Buckaroo has very little violent crime. Pretty much no murder. Apparently all the Buckaroo Butchers go out into the world to do their killing. And there's not much assault or other violence either. Even accounting for how underreported those kinds of crimes tend to be, and it being a small town. It's... pretty chill there? Huh.

The realtor eagerly confirms all that when Caroline gets back in touch. And then goes ahead and admits to the other, more specific reason the house is so hard to sell. It's the next house over from the old Warren farm. Meaning Caroline would be living next to the Nailbiter's childhood home. Caroline has to put her hand over her phone so she can snort at that. Yeah. Sure.

So... barring anything really unfortunate when she gets there, Caroline is going to... own a home? How fucking weird. Caroline Lichfield, homeowner. Wow.

Comments

[thenailbiter]

There's so many things you can't get in Buckaroo. Sure, there's the usual assortment of small-town businesses - mom and pop grocery store, hardware supply, that sort of thing - but if Uncle Billy Bob's Big Boy Foods doesn't carry it, you're going to have to leave town to get it. Maybe even go all the way to Portland. Which, by no coincidence at all, is where Ed Warren is spending his day. Home Depot is calling to him. His aging family home is in need of repair, and the local hardware place refuses to sell to him on principle. Not that it's undeserved, but still - he's hardly going to commit murder with a caulking gun.

He tucks his hair under a stupid baseball cap in hopes he won't be too recognizable, but that's about all he does. He loses track of time wandering through Home Depot's expansive aisle. His home needs a lot of repairs, a lot. He starts filling his cart with various supplies and tools until he gets sidetracked with all the display models of things. Cabinets. Faucets. Lights. Couldn't the farm use some better light fixtures? It could certainly do with new knobs on everything, too, he's not terribly fond of the 70's thing it's got going.

He finds himself wandering through all the tub and shower displays, eventually. He inspects a few choice ones. There's some really especially fancy glass door styles, too bougie for him but nice enough to waste time staring at. He even amuses himself by climbing into the full size display models. This one would actually fit one of the bathrooms. That one is just kind of silly; how many shower heads does one man possibly need? And one ends up ominously shadowed enough that Ed thinks he managed to accidentally spook a large football player-looking customer out of his aisle. Delightful.

[kindnessyoucantafford]

So. Seeing the house in person went well. Caroline's in a Home Depot in Portland doing some browsing because there's a few things she can already tell she'll want to update. Nothing's horrible, but you know. It's a kind of rundown spooky farmhouse. It needs tinkering. And isn't that what you do when you own a home? You start a bunch of stupid projects you're never gonna finish?

She's got some stuff in a cart and is just kind of idly browsing for a bit. Oh hey, there's the big bathroom fixtures aisle. Yeah, Caroline is totally gonna just buy a fucking bathtub. Uh-huh. Maybe one day she'll put one of those big dumb garden tub things in one of her bathrooms. And a shower stall. That's fancy, right? Yeah.

There's a hilariously ominous one further down that's full of creepy shadows and it's kind of amazing. Is that too on the nose or just on-brand enough? Caroline considers hopping in it for a minute just to be a creep. She stops just past it to look at some really goofy looking faucet and then turns around and holy shit there's a guy in there. Caroline startles badly enough that she kind of half trips and catches her foot in the fucking wheel of her cart. "Ow, fucking shit!"

Yeah, that's dignified. Caroline leans on her cart enough to try and stretch some of the throb out of her foot. "Wow, what a nice lurking shower."

[thenailbiter]

Ed's still considering the shower when another customer wanders down the aisle. This time, it's a small red-haired woman. He pays as much attention to her as he can get away with, without being noticeable; he'd rather not be kicked out, but he'd also not like to be snuck up on, either. At least, that's until she stops, turns, yells, trips and flails. A nicer, more polite person might ask if she's okay, or perhaps apologize for startling her. While Ed is not without capacity for politeness, he's not... particularly invested in using that. So he starts slow clapping from inside the ominous display shower.

"Eight out of ten. Almost flubbed it but saved it with the finish," He says, opening the shower's glass door to step back out. "It's like a car wash in there. Showerheads everywhere. I think there's even a wax option and an air freshner dispenser."

[kindnessyoucantafford]

Caroline snorts and gives a brief little half bow. "Thanks, but I'll never bring home the gold now." She sighs and stares mournfully into the distance for a moment. "So much for all those brand deals." Caroline shakes her head. "I was really counting on those." How will she ever win her Olympic pageant mother's love now? Life's hard.

"Yeah, but does it come with a nice big air dryer or just those giant swiffer duster looking things?" Caroline Lichfield: asking the important questions. Now that she can actually see Mister Lurker here, he looks like some kind of hilarious redneck-hipster hybrid. Hillster? Hipbilly? Something like that. She figures that's probably a demographic she should get used to seeing since she lives in fucking small town Oregon now. (In a home! That she's gonna own! That's still weird.)

At least he doesn't have one of those really obnoxious neck tattoos. Or stretched ears. God, stretched ears are the fucking worst.

[thenailbiter]

"Only if the top contender doesn't have some kind of tragic, unforeseen accident," Ed says mildly. He glances back at the shower and plays with the door, considering it thoughtfully. "Probably. It has almost everything else. I think I saw an espresso maker option on the shower head. Hit the wrong button and make yourself into a latte."

She's little and - while Ed doesn't know everyone in Portland - clearly not from around here. She also doesn't seem to have recognized him at all. At least, not yet. His radar for that isn't as keen as he'd like to boast about, but he has not yet been, say, spat on. And it doesn't feel like she's fucking with him either. It's almost like he's a regular person. A regular person who lurks ominously in shower-stalls at hardware stores. Yeah.

[kindnessyoucantafford]

Caroline straightens up and makes a wide-eyed face like she's been caught. "Who told you about that?" she asks in a horrified stage whisper. The whole effect's kind of ruined when she grins right after, but hey. It's the effort that counts, right? Right. Yeah.

"Espresso huh?" She wrinkles her nose. "Nah, that's not gonna do it for me, I'm afraid. I need an entire salad bar in my shower or no dice." Caroline folds her arms and nods decisively. "Can't compromise on the important things, you know." Like exfoliating with stupid little carrot shreds. Or something.

"So are you actually shopping for a car wash, or do you just like lurking?" She asks after a moment. "I mean, it's a great one for that." Since, you know, she was gonna do the same damn thing and all.