forum rural town, strange happenings, you've heard this story before - oxo - closed

Started July 06, 2022 by @larcenistarsonist group

tune

It's 1986, the height of cars, drugs, and hair metal bands. In Leeway, Oregon - a small town located near the Idaho border, population 648 - the graduating class of 1987 has been 34 people since the third grade. That is, until a newcomer on a vintage motorcycle and slick leather jacket arrives at Leeway High School with a cigarette between his teeth and sunglasses over his eyes and ruins the sense of normal that had fallen over the quaint town. He doesn't talk much, he never removes those stupid sunglasses.

Your character is just another junior at Leeway High School. You have a group of friends, a nice family at home, and a dog that likes to chew at the chair legs. You like normal. Things have always been normal. But ever since this newcomer arrived, there have been strange happenings.

Lights flicker occasionally. The teachers blame it on the low budget. The radio garbles and releases static much more than usual. Your father blames it on bad service. Your dog howls in the middle of the night. Your mother blames it on the temperature change. But none of that's plausible, none of it makes sense. Nothing like this has happened before. Nothing like this has ever happened before the arrival of the newcomer.

There's something odd about him. There's something that needs to be discovered. He's brought something to this damned town. He's ruined the normalcy that comfortably shrouded it. Nobody believes you when you tell them your theories.

Hell, guess it's up to you to figure out what's wrong with the newcomer.

-

hnngg mystery small town 80s shenanigans with some maybe rivals to something more

I'll be playing the newcomer, you'll be playing the guy who's sus of him

I'd rather not do templates for this to continue the ~mystery~ aspect, so yeah.

my rules are pretty simple: don't be an ass, be somewhat active (response every 1-3 days is good, I'll try to also hold myself to that), swearing is fine, slurs are not fine, have good grammar, and I have the right to decline and/or ask for a sample if I need it.

Oh I am all the way in on this

Ohoho hell yeah, any questions? if you want this to eventually get into a romance, you're character will have to be attracted to guys, but if you don't want it too, then that's fine as well!

Nah nah nah, I need a rivals to lovers arc so bad

Leeway, Oregon - quite honestly one of the dullest places on Earth.

There's a singular stoplight in what the citizens call "downtown." In reality, it's just an intersection with store fronts on all four sides. A supermarket, a Blockbuster LLC, a gas station with a plastic green dinosaur perched upon it, a hair salon, a run-down arcade, a McDonalds, an A&W and a thrift store that hasn't changed its window display since '83. There's a few trees lining said "downtown", all of them looking fairly bare in the mid-October weather. There's a soft honk. The thrums of engines fill the morning air.

The "Teenage Crowd"- as the middle-aged residents dubbed them - dominate this time of morning. All 124 students at Leeway High School - either crowded in busses or lip-syncing to the radio in their own cars - bustle to get to the school on time.

It's 54 degrees outside, almost seven in the morning. Students file into the old building, taking their sweet time to get to their homeroom classes. The teacher's won't even begin taking role until half past. There's no rush.

Mrs. Beck, a tall and spindly English teacher with large glasses and multi-colored skirts, stands at a chalkboard. She's one of two Junior Homeroom teachers. The other, a History teacher named Mister Harlem, resides just down the hall. As the clock ticks closer to its halfway point, her students begin filling in the seats. She smiles and waves at most of them. The bell rings eventually. There's an extra desk in the room, crammed in the very back corner.

"Good morning!" She calls. A few groans fill the silence that follows. "Welcome to another Monday! I hope you all had a good weekend." She clasps her hands together. "Now, before I call role, I have a quick announcement." Mrs. Beck smiles. It looks too bright for the early morning, too sweet for this dull school environment. She opens her lipstick-lined mouth to speak, but before she can get a word in, the lights dim. Her nose wrinkles. The lights flicker. "That's odd," She observes before the lights return to normal. "Huh, the school must be behind on its electric bills." She sighs forlornly. "Anyways, back to the topic at hand. We're going to have a new student!" She points to the empty desk in the back. "Oh, heh, he's not here yet."

Dean Bruen was an average person. Average student, average friends, average life. I mean, it's not like he could be very interesting in a town like Leeway. But there was one thing about him that was unique. One thing that made him stand out just a little bit more. He knew how to read people. Dean had almost a sixth sense when it came to people and his intuition was top notch. It was honestly a little freaky, even if people didn't believe it was real 90% of the time.

So when he dropped into his seat that morning in homeroom, still half asleep from his late night catching up on his new comics that he'd gotten that weekend, he wasn't expecting too much. He'd known these people since he was eight years old, there was nothing new to learn. Well, except maybe the gossip about what happened that weekend from the whispers of the people around him. Like how Susie and Micheal had been seen together at the movies that weekend holding hands when everyone knew Micheal was going out with Jenny. Dean just rolled his eyes, settling down onto his desk to take a nap until role call when Mrs. Beck said she had an announcement.

Dean lifted his head a little at that. This was Leeway, what could possibly need announcing that people didn't already know. Then the lights flickered before she announced the new student. That caught his attention, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. A new kid? This late into their school lives? That was news. Dean chewed on his lip in thought. Something about how the lights flickered right before the announcement didn't sit right with him. Maybe he was reading too far into things but his intuition had yet to be wrong.

Mrs. Beck checks her brightly colored swatch watch, luckily not too out of place on her person considering she's only seven years older than her students. Hell, she had even met her husband at and graduated from Leeway High. She laughs to herself quietly, swishing over to the door to see if the new student would be wandering lost in the hallways. The building isn't all too complicated, but she's spent eleven years there. She knows every hall and corridor by the back of her hand. "Well, uh-" She laughs again, awkward smile painted on her face. "I suppose I should take role then? The new student should be here any moment."

The teacher retreats to her desk, digging around in the drawers for the clipboard the janitors stowed away over the weekend.

The lights hum, sounding like a trapped bumblebee against a microphone. One of the students - Chad Perrington - looks up from his front row seat. He nudges his best friend - Brody Hemrick - with a pencil before jabbing it up at the light. Odd.

Right as Mrs. Beck finds her clipboard, quiet footsteps sound outside. She smiles and adjusts her wide glasses. "Here he comes!" She stage-whispers to the suck-up TA, Tina Wells.

The student who enters has blonde hair, slicked back like it was glued there. His eyes are hidden by a pair of reflective aviators, his jaw and lips set to be unreadable. There's a loose leather jacket over his tall shoulders, a bulge of a cigarette box visible in the front left pocket. He's wearing light skinny jeans, a sky blue Journey t-shirt, and heavy black combat boots. Dangling from his hand is a threadbare forest green backpack, and from the looks of it, there's nothing inside.

"Welcome!" Mrs. Beck claps her hands and scuttles up to the front of the class. "Welcome, welcome, welcome to Leeway! Now, please introduce yourself to the class! Where are you from, why are you here in Leeway, what sort of fun stuff do you like to do?" She practically gushes, just oozing with excitement over the new student.

The newcomer sighs, his expression unchanging. "Ash Vaughn." His voice is low, tired, slightly raspy as if he just finished smoking. "I came from Nevada. I like motorcycles, rain, and being left alone."

Mrs. Beck looks as ecstatic as ever, hell, maybe even more. "Welcome to Leeway, Ash! I'm Mrs. Beck, one of the English and Homeroom teachers here. Please, I hope you love it here!" She goes to put a hand on his shoulder, but decides against it. "Your seat is all the way in the back. Sorry about that, we haven't had a new student here for almost a decade!"

Ash says nothing. He only finds the seat with his obscured eyes before making his way down the aisle to the back, plopping right down in his seat behind a boy named Dean.

Dean only chewed on his lip harder when Ash entered the classroom, swiping his light brown hair out of his blue eyes as his brows furrowed together. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off of him since he walked in, something he almost never did. Dean didn't stare, it wasn't in his nature. But something felt so wrong about this kid. He just couldn't figure out what. He wanted to brush it off as maybe it was just his stomach acting up from being around a new person or his stranger danger instincts kicking in. But that couldn't be it. Dean knew what those felt like and this wasn't it.

And now the kid was sitting behind him. Just his fucking luck. He tried to ignore it, shaking his head like it could shake the weird feeling with it. It didn't. And now he was slightly dizzy. Good job on him for forgetting breakfast that morning and now any kind of movement made him a little lightheaded.

Mrs. Beck watches Ash take his seat with sparkling eyes. She claps her hands once he takes his seat and finds her clipboard, eyes flicking over her class to take attendance. Of course, she knows all of her students by first, last and middle name, knows exactly who's there or not by just a quick glance over the room, but she can't help but to feel overly giddy. A new student! In Leeway of all places! Who would've guessed? She finishes up her attendance sheet and passes it off to Tina to take to the office. It's homeroom. Twenty minutes to catch up on homework or with friends.

Ash fishes a chipped no. 2 pencil from his backpack - seemingly the only thing in the forest green bag. He swipes a hand through his hair, the perfect sweep a practiced and perfected maneuver. He jabs the graphite tip into the wood of the desk. And again. And again, the soft knocking of lead on wood tapping through the fairly peaceful air. Brody and Chad marvel over Crystal Tanner - the senior cheer captain. Tina Wells re-enters the classroom with a click of her gum and glare towards her estranged boyfriend Cody Reemes. Ash continues to tap away at the desk, the repetitive ticks lost on nearly everyone.

Dean just tried to sink into his usual homeroom routine. Watch everyone around him, overhear all the latest gossip from over the weekend, and generally try to get some much needed sleep. However that was all tossed out the window because of the incessant tapping coming from behind him. Dean wasn't a confrontational person, in fact he was easily the quietest kid in class. But if the tapping didn't stop, he was going to lose his mind.

He sighed, picking his head up off his desk and turning around to look at Ash. "Hey, can you cut that out? It's driving me crazy." It was a surprisingly calm statement considering how distracted Dean was. He hadn't really gotten the chance to get a good look at Ash and now that he was this close, his eyes kept scanning his face. Dean himself wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for but he knew he'd know when he found it.

The newest addition to Mrs. Beck's Junior Homeroom class barely looks up when the kid in front of him whirls around. "Cut what out?" Ash drawls, propping his chin up on his elbow as he continues to poke at the wood with the other hand. His dirty blonde eyebrows slightly furrow, dipping behind the semi-expensive reflective lenses of his sunglasses. Ash glares at the other student through his shades, lips tucking under his teeth to press his mouth into a line. The chatter around them continues, the jocks bitching about some rival quarterback, the nerds ranting about their scores on the latest pop quiz, the drama kids reading over their lines for the Hamlet production happening sometime in the winter.

Dean gestured to his pencil with a vaguely deadpan expression. "The tapping. It's a little irritating." He could already tell that this kid wasn't going to make this easy. He shouldn't have said he found it annoying, now he was going to use it to just further drive him up the wall. Dean mentally kicked himself, he knew better than to say things that could be used as ammunition against him. He always chose his words extremely carefully because of it. The last thing he needed was to become the class punching bag.

"Maybe you should suck it up a little bit, snowflake," Ash retorts in his same, monotonous voice. "I don't see anyone else bein' bothered by it." Done with the conversation, Ash turns his attention to the neighboring window. It's second floor, overlooking the front courtyard. The grass could use a little more upkeep. The trees all look sad without the auburn leaves that usually signify the October season. Ash keeps up his tapping. In fact, he doesn't even seem conscious of doing it. The clock ticks in a tempo ever so slightly slower than Ash's pecking, the minute-hand creeping past the forty-minute mark and signifying homeroom's halfway point.

Dean blinked at him a couple of times, now slightly annoyed. What was his problem? All he asked was a simple request. Whatever, not like there was anything that he could really do about it now and there was no way he would tell Mrs. Beck like some kind of elementary school tattletale. He just sighed with a roll of his eyes and turned back around. Just a little longer and he'd be able to be away from the incessant tapping that was starting to drill into his brain.

The bell comes soon enough, a majority of the class standing from their desks to head to their first period. Ash slowly makes his way to his feet, lolling his head around his neck and sighing at the satisfying pop that comes with it. There's a crinkled and balled schedule in his jacket pocket, right next to the half-empty box of cigarettes. Mrs. Beck waves and smiles to the leaving students. There's a stack of grammar worksheets nestled in her elbow.

"Heyyy-" A girl - blonde, brown-eyed, draping letterman jacket around her shoulders - slinks up to Ash's side. "I'm Becky Woods." She smiles, cracking her gum with it. "Lemme help you find your next class-"

"No thanks," Ash grumbles, pushing past the girl and accidentally knocking her right into Dean's desk in the process. He leaves the classroom without looking back, a No. 2 pencil behind his ear and empty backpack hanging limply from his hand.

(OKAY I KNOW IT'S BEEN A WEEK I'M SORRY I'VE BEEN DEALING WITH IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF WRITER'S BLOCK)

Dean, who was in the process of standing up when he was knocked into, unceremoniously tumbled over onto the floor. Face first. He wasn't exactly sure what had happened, he just wanted to leave to go to his geometry class, but he knew he was now on the floor after nearly biting through his lip and there was definitely blood on his face. He pushed himself up with a groan, feeling blood gush out of his now bleeding nose. Just. His. Luck. He glared at the retreating figure of Ash. What was his deal? Had Dean done something to make him have a vendetta? What was going on?

(as;dklfj no worries my guy! i totally get it)

"OMGosh, Dean, are you okay?!?" Becky drops to a crouch and fishes a white handkerchief from her pocket. "I'm like- so sorry. I didn't mean to, like, run into you." She presses the small cloth to Dean's face, trying her best to mop up the blood spurting from her nose. "I was just totally trying to be nice to Ash, and he just totally ran into me. Not cool." She cracks her gum.

Ash only looks at the two of them for a brief moment, halting at the door. The lights dim. He exits the room.

(Dramatic "I've just come back from the dead" gasp I LIIIIIVE! It only took me over a month, sorry about that 😅)

Dean took the cloth with a pained smile. "All good Becky, I know it was an accident. I'll be alright, thanks though." He pulled the cloth away to check if he was still bleeding, sighing quietly in relief when he noticed it had slowed down although it had yet to fully stop. "Do you mind if I keep this? Just so I can clean it, I'd feel awful handing it back to you like this." He chuckled awkwardly, motioning to the handkerchief. Maybe he could use it to make Ash feel bad along the way.

(alksdfj don't worry man, I understand!)

"Don't you worry about it!" Becky giggles, she waves her hand. The students from Mrs. Beck's first period class begin filtering in. "I got a few more in my locker." She looks over to the door, an unhappy twist screwing at her lips. "I thought Ash would be a total babe but he feels kinda douchey." She huffs, blowing a piece of fluffed and hairsprayed-to-hell blonde hair out of her face. "Anyways, I'll - like - catch you on the flipside, Dean!" She waves and bounces out of the classroom, quick on her way to get to her first period class on the other side of the building.