2019-05-21 - That time that Yoda was so fucking right.

While everyone else in town was apparently having a grand adventure off on Gilligan's Island, Logan was land-locked. He has a guest! She called ahead on the morning of the 18th, asking for a room through [whatever date RL Sunday is], and arrived sometime around dusk that day, ever so Glimmery and yet... dark, the reflection of the sun on an oil-slick, drinking the brightness and giving back a sort of dimmed glint that was no less arresting.

Emily had been off since Friday night. Logan had been off since Friday night. They were having one of those silent arguments, where they probably both did something wrong - she should have known better than to try to be normal and stop for drinks, and he shouldn't be such a fucking alcoholic - and can't either one of them just get over it. So it's been a shitty weekend, and this woman showing up has just made things worse. There was a proper argument in the basement, because Logan knows that woman is off-the-charts, like Lucy was, and Emily says she thinks he's just being dramatic. So that's how Sunday went.

Now it's early Monday morning, and Logan has to get out of bed first to go make breakfast for his guest. He's finished this chore. Emily will be coming upstairs soon, down there getting dressed for work, but it's this dark Megan that comes in first. Logan knows she's poking around in his head, can feel her doing it. Not like Lucy used to, with her little flashes of sunshine-and-cheer, her loving good-mornings. This woman is blatantly looking for cracks and crevices.

"Good morning, Logan," she says as if perfectly normally, waiting at the kitchen threshold. "How are you today?" But how is he really? How is he feeling this morning?

Logan was in a foul mood, and it shows in the way he stomps up the basement stairs after the alarm on his side of the bed went off. He hasn't yet built a bridge to get over the fact that Emily came home tasting like bourbon after spending the past several weeks screaming at him like some kind of redheaded banshee to stop drinking. Maybe he never will. But what was worse was her having the gall to call him dramatic when he brought up the new guest's brightness. Did he ever call her dramatic at her white rose bullshit? No. Never. Maybe once. Fucking shut up, Emily, GOD, why do you always have to be such a bitch?

Either way, his weekend was ruined and the fight that erupted Sunday meant that he couldn't sleep because he refused to get under the covers and it was fucking cold in the basement. So, great start to his week, and look, it's only getting better, because he can feel this woman poking in his head. Breakfast this morning was oatmeal, because he doesn't have fucking time for this shit, but it will be the best goddamn oatmeal anybody's ever tasted. Look at that roll.

"Morning. Breakfast's in the dining room," not here in the fucking kitchen, is what his gruff voice doesn't say, but his brain surely does.

Wow, this is going to be the best oatmeal of all time! Megan will be very excited when she gets to that. She says a pleasant, "Thank you," and starts to peel away toward wherever this dining room is. Starts to because she's only a step or two away when that dark head tilts, holds in this questioning skew, and she turns back to look into the kitchen at grumpy Logan. "I'm sorry you're having a bad morning." Beat. "Both of you." She exhales sympathetically, the big, dark eyes ever-so-sad for him. (ACTING!)

"But don't you get frequent guests who are... different?" She's going out on a limb, maybe, and guessing at the source of this friction being herself, not such a far-fetched guess. "It shouldn't make you afraid." But he's not afraid, is he? Just pissy?

Logan shifts away from where he was stationed at the stove, pointing a helpful hand in the direction of the dining room where she can go on her way now and eat her delicious oatmeal, tyvm~. He will, in turn, shuffle over to the coffee maker to make himself a mug, keeping Megan in his peripheral. It means that he sees the tilt of her head, and he has to bite down on his tongue to keep from sighing aloud.

"I'm not afraid," he says immediately, knee-jerk reaction, it's almost defensive. It makes him flinch, and he takes his coffee cup to the kitchen table where ~he~ will have his breakfast. It is, after all, perfectly situated in front of the basement door, so he can properly glare at Emily when she joins the rest of the fucking world. But for now, his attention falls upon Megan, and he sets his cup down. "You've been a very .. uh, pleasant guest. And Emily and I are.. fine, thank you," because who talks about their personal lives to their B&B guests?

"Oh," says Megan, like she didn't know full fucking well that he's not afraid until he told her. Before she really peels off entirely, dawdle dawdle, she explains with a smiling apology, "Sometimes, the wires get crossed." She touches the ends of her two index fingers together, overlapping them faintly, and then drops her hands. He says they're fine, and she nods. "It must be hard." Then shuffles off to the dining room, where the world's most incredible oatmeal is waiting to be eaten. Unlike some people, this little weirdo doesn't want raisins in her oatmeal.

But, at the same time the chair scrapes back from the table in the other room, there comes the thought - with a flood of apology attached to it. << I'm sorry. It's none of my business. I'm trying not to, but you feel very loudly. So does she. >> It's not like 'omg weeping' apology, just like 'whoops, sorry for invading your personal space by accident.'

"Huh," Logan responds when she mentions the crossing of wires. Because what else is he gonna say? That he gets it, when he clearly doesn't? So instead he sits himself at his kitchen table and wraps his hands around his mug. "Life is hard, Megan. But we manage to make it through." Mostly.

He was all about enjoying this cup of coffee when the ~feeling~ of apology floods through his brain. It catches him off-guard, leaves him gasping for a breath, and his fingers tightening around the cup. It's been a long time since he's heard someone there like that, and with the apology and the words comes a flood of other memories that he'd very much like to forget. On the outside, Logan manages to process what's happening without so much as a blink after that initial hitch of his breath. But on the inside, his mind was firing off some dark thoughts.

The chair scrapes back and he rises to his feet, leaving his post of glaring at the basement door to linger instead in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. His gaze falls heavily on Megan, his brows climbing. "I'd prefer to talk face to face." At least the words are polite. His thoughts aren't.

The thoughts... no, she doesn't know exactly what he's thinking. But the feels? There's no keeping her out. She absorbs them, and only lets seep from her such returns as are fit to share. The apologies, the sense of understanding, of knowing that life is hard, Logan, they all walk hard roads. Her dark eyes are on the bowl of oatmeal; her dark thoughts are all up in Logan's business. The former stay on her breakfast, unlifted when he arrives in the doorway, but the latter are still wandering around his house and his head.

"I'm sorry," she says aloud, reinforcing the apology that was shared moments ago. "I thought you maybe didn't prefer to talk at all." Again, the fingertips overlap, the wires crossed? But if he wants to talk, okay. Let's do this, Logan: "Who else is in the house? You and Emily and...?" She pokes the end of her spoon at the air toward The Rug At the Bottom of the Stairs.

His feelings aren't very polite either. Particularly when she points a spoon at the Rug, and Logan doesn't have to follow the line of sight to know where he ends up. It's like a hot knife through the gut, the pain that comes, and he swallows back another breath. "And yourself," he says pointedly. He does not come to join her at the table, and instead continues to shadow the doorway, leaning a hip into the frame of it. She might not look at him, but his eyes are all up on her, while he lifts his cup of coffee to his lips and sips.

"What is it you do for a living, Miss...?" He didn't catch her last name, before. Just ~Megan~. "You're just passing through?"

Doubt seeps out of her, across the table, like some physical thing: the cold mist that haunts this fucking town, spritzing Logan down to his bones. Emily and Logan and Megan and no one else? It splashes and sizzles right across that hot knife, twists it hard, and then retracts, leaving a gaping gnaw of uncertainty. "Just us? I had thought it must be the house. Is it not the house? Is it you? Is it Emily?"

Listen, he said he'd prefer to talk face-to-face. Be careful what you wish for!

Oh, last names. "Keene." Unless he asks for I.D., in which case - this gets awkward, hah. "I'm an actress. The Seven Ages. You two should come to the shows." These two in particular!

Logan flinches, visibly, at the uncertainty that spills and fills him up. "I don't know what you're talking about," he lies. "And Emily isn't here, so.." leave her name off your lips, bitch. Those last words come with a surge of feeling that temporarily washes away the uncertainty; the feeling of need to protect someone, to keep them safe. It was bone-deep. He shifts in the doorway, rolls his shoulders along the frame, and takes another deep drink of his coffee.

But she mentions the theater, and his brows climb. "The shows?" Listen, Logan's basically a hermit. "I'm not a theater person. What kind of show?"

Emily isn't here so... "No, but she'll be back in a minute, I think." It's awfully quiet in that basement. Process of elimination, then; "If it's not Emily and it's not the house - " She puts her spoon in her bowl, all done, and looks at Logan, the last possible source of whatever dark cloud envelops this pretty house and the poor souls that inhabit it. Even the dead one.

She should keep pimping the theater to him, but this is where Megan fails that one little duty. Mostly because she basically just told him that his sister-in-law/whatever is not in the basement where she's supposed to be, that sucks, and then accused him of being the thing that's haunted. And, well, << That probably won't go over well. >> "Sorry. That probably won't go over very well."

No, that wasn't going to go over very well at all. Whether it was the accusing him of being haunted thing, or the fact that she just said Emily wasn't here in a way that suggested she wasn't just not upstairs, Logan was gone. He didn't even say excuse me. It's like he just plunged into a frozen lake; the panic is sudden and extreme, it was like he was struggling to breathe.

And so he pushes from the door frame, he sets his coffee cup down at the first flat surface he finds, and he slams the basement door open. "Em? EM!" he shouts, and takes the steps down two at a time.

He manages not to fall.

Bummer.

Megan will just wait. Not that she has to. She could follow him. Or just think things at him. But neither of those things happen. The only thing that chases Logan is the quiet sense of a soul-deep sigh from this dark thing with the empty bowl of oatmeal in front of her, a sort of dull impatience when he goes tearing ass down the stairs.

He just told her that Emily's not here. And she just agreed with him, so wtf is the point of running down the stairs? The basement is goddamn empty, stupid. They had a whole conversation about it. So either Emily is a ninja... We should check that.

Nope. She's not a ninja. So here we are: she definitely didn't sneak out, and she's not in the basement. His house guest will just wait till he reaches the inevitable conclusion on his own. Take your time, Logan. She's patient.

Logan's a smart man. Sure, he doesn't have wits for days, but he's got enough that puts two and two together very quickly. It must be terrible to be Megan in the moment, to get that plunge of ice-cold panic followed swiftly thereafter by burning rage, as in the basement Logan picks up the nearest hard object and throws it across the room. "God DAMMIT! Bring her fucking BACK!" he shouts at nothing, at no one.

Yes, just terrible. She's up here, feeling terrible about this. More likely, she's up here rolling her eyes at his theatrics - which is funny, since she's the actress. The ghost is also up here, rolling her eyes at his theatrics. If Emily was here, she'd probably roll her eyes at his theatrics, too. Story of Logan's life, maybe?

After that banging noise hits the wall - there are a few seconds of nothing, and then... as if tentatively... as if she's loathe to break the edict that he prefers to talk face-to-face... comes this quiet little thought, a whispery one, trying not to intrude but is it worse to come down to the basement than to think at him from upstairs? Which is really more private, his bedroom or his brain? That's a tricky question. << They don't listen to you. You'll just have to wait. I'm sorry. >>

Maybe he really was dramatic. Either way, he was down here, where he can't see all those sets of rolling eyes (corporeal or not). Whatever he broke against the wall is in a dozen pieces on the floor now, and he was just about to find something else to smash .. or maybe a bottle to drink .. when the words cut through his brain.

He flinches, pushing his fingers into the corners of his eyes and pinching towards the bridge of his nose, the invasion only just adding more heat to the rage. But he wasn't about to walk all the way back upstairs, because he needed to be down here. For when Emily came back. So he does what any warm-blooded American man would do in this situation: he yells back up the stairs at her, demanding an answer: "What do you know about Them?!"

Yeah, Mr. Didn't Leave His House For a Year is maybe a little dramatic. Maybe.

With that same sort of apology, like she's really just super sorry for everything that he's going through and the whole hassle of having to yell up the stairs while she can just think at him... << More than some people. Less than others. More than you, though. >> Whose laughter is that? Hers? The goddamn ghost's? Are they up here right now getting their jollies off on Logan's suffering? (Truth: Yes; Megan is at least enjoying the shit out of this in a terrible, perverse way. Like how they chained up the goat to feed the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Logan is the goat. They are the T-Rex. And she's the opposite of that girl all freaked out about the goat getting eaten.) << Why are you yelling and breaking things? Emily is gone until she's not. Yelling and breaking things doesn't change that. >>

Oh, adverbs. Why are you so cruel. << She will probably be back soon. >>

Hey now, Logan left his house. He had to get his bottles of bourbon from somewhere.

At the moment though, he had no intention of leaving the basement, let alone the whole house. He does realize, somewhere deep down, how unprofessional this all is - throwing things, yelling down in the basement, it wasn't exactly a good look (he should see the TripAdvisor rating now: 'comfortable bed, owner is crazy, may be fucking his dead wife's sister?'). So maybe that's what gets him up, to stomp up the stairs again, and meet Megan face to face there in the dining room.

"They keep changing the rules," that's Emily's complaint, but she's not here to make it. "Maybe it's time I change a fucking rule. I should be able to go in there after her."

She throws him a bone (not that kind): Megan was truly not expecting him to come up the stairs at all right now, leaving her blinking at him in the doorway like he's the actual ghost and not just the thing the ghost fools around with all the time. She washes a shade paler, if that's even possible, and puts away her blinking with a tiny little tremble.

She regains her composure (no dice) by the time she asks, head tilted curiously again, "Whose rules?" Pity. It can be such a cold, brutal thing to someone with the wrong kind of pride. From the wrong kind of person. But hers is all wrapped up like something soft and precious, like she truly feels for this awful, impossible situation between these two. "I'm so sorry. You don't understand anything at all, do you? I thought the two of you must know more." She looks down at the table in front of her, the portrait of apology and regret on his behalf. So sad.

Wouldn't he be the one to throw her that kind of bone? Anyway, he was already risking a less-than-five-star rating, so might as well go for broke. He was pissed - angry at Emily, at Lucy, at this pale-blinky-eyed bitch who's coming up here into his B&B asking questions like she KNOWS something - and so he slams his hands down onto the dining room table.

"Fuck your pity," is not something you should say to guests, Logan, "I understand enough. I understand enough to know that this is bullshit and that you know things you aren't saying. Is there a way that I can go in there, with her? To her? Tell me!"

Megan takes out her phone and puts her rating on TripAdvisor... yeahno, don't worry. She's clearly not here to fuck up his business.

Just everything else.

"I don't know that." Or she does and he'll never know the truth. She looks him right in the eyes, regardless, and she shares this sorrowful sense that she doesn't know, Logan, and she's very sorry that she doesn't know, but she really doesn't know. "I don't know a lot about where she is. I know about other things, though. I can't get you where she is, and I don't know if you can go there, but I can help you hurt less? I can help her be afraid less?" With the lip-bite and the regret; "But help doesn't come cheap."

It's not the answer he wanted to hear. His expression crumples, and he pushes himself into a chair, stiff as a board. "You said you knew more than me," he points a finger into the table, tap tap, making a point. At least he's not shouting anymore. "So what is it you know that I don't? How can I help her?" Because really, Logan doesn't care about himself. If he wanted to hurt less, he would've killed himself months ago. "If I can't go there and pull her out of that fucking place, what can I do?"

"There's nothing you can do right now. She is where she is, and you're here." There's a soft, slim-shouldered shrug that slithers its way right down the length of her spine. It should hurt, shrugging with a new tattoo, but just going out on a limb: she probably got that shit fixed already. Not that Logan knows anything about that; it's just in this pose for funsies. "But you can help keep them," << THEM. >> "From noticing her so much in the future, if that's what you want. You just have to have something to distract them, something to trade. If they're occupied someplace else, they won't bother you." Her face twitches, nose scrunches, this pitch is a lot easier with the selfish people! "Or Emily."

Promise: "They never hurt me and mine any more."

There's nothing you can do right now. The words rattle in his brain, remnants of days even worse than this. He flinches visibly again, and pulls back in his chair. God, if she was dead, if she came back dead, her blood on the carpet just like Lucy's own..

"What?" The words register seconds later than they really should've, because he was having that momentary flutter of panic again. "What are you.." Breathe, Logan, take just a second to really think about what she just said. His fingers curl into fists. "You're talking about making some kind of deal, aren't you? A deal with Them? They killed my wife."

It can't be Megan, because Logan knows when she's doing things, doesn't he? He felt it the second she walked through the door, that poking and prodding. So this dread... this horrible shadowy thing that descends on his panic and wants it... it's something bigger than this one actress sitting at his dining room table. He can see it and smell it and hear it, the metallic whiff of blood, muffled crunch of breaking bones, skin that grows cold so quickly.

And the woman sits separate from that, her head tipped, her brows moving to a curious arc. "Why would you think that they would kill your wife? I haven't known them to kill many people." She gets his capital-Them, but she's on a first-name basis, so casual, so cavalier her tone. "But I suppose it's not beyond the realm of possibility that they could. And if they've done it before..."

One redhead looks much like another when they're face down in a pool of their own blood. Deal with that image, new friend.

Logan would have composure for days if he rolled the dice, but that wouldn't be fair. Because this is the kind of thing that breaks a man. This is the kind of thing that has already broken this man. The color drains from his skin at the scent and the sound and the images that flash through his mind, and closing his eyes suddenly and hard doesn't chase it away. There's only two things in the world that can make him stop thinking like this, and Emily's flushed all the oxy down the toilet because he stupidly told her where he's hiding the stuff. "Please stop," he whispers, whimpers, but he's not talking to her. He drags his hands through his hair and tugs, pulls, and he has half a mind to slam his head into the table if it'll stop the thoughts for a second, for a lifetime.

But he doesn't. He doesn't. He sucks in a breath and peels his eyes back open, and they are blood-shot and tear-rimmed and he stares at her. "Things like that don't just leave you alone. They won't just leave us alone. They'll always want something, something more. Did you make a deal with Them?"

"I told you all you have to do to make it stop. Give them something else." She looks across the table at Logan. And Logan's agony. And she blinks slowly, drawing in a breath that fills her lungs from the top all the way to the bottom. The way someone might take a deep, wonderful breath when they step outside on a nice, sunny morning.

She pushes her chair back from the table quietly, dragging her hands off the table and letting them fall in front of her, limp and useless things. "I did make a deal with them. I told you that, too. I'm sorry for you, Logan." The empty bowl of oatmeal between them gets a glance, pulls at the corner of her mouth as if she wasn't just apologizing for pushing him to the brink of suicide. AGAIN. "But everything has to eat."

"Give them someone else, you mean," Logan's voice is a little bitter there at the end, but he's really on the edge at the moment. He draws his own chair back, the legs eeeeek across the floor. He gets to his feet, and this conversation is coming to an end. He needs to go back down and wait for Emily anyway. If she comes back alive, he wants to be there to apologize.

"I forgot that I'm double booked for the rest of the week. You're going to have to find a different place to stay, Miss Keene," his voice sounds as dead as his wife is. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. The Seaview is nice. Down by the Boardwalk. I'll comp your room for you."

She says, "Of course. I understand."

Pushing in her chair tidily, the actress smiles at his courtesy, the idea of not having to pay for her room for the night. "I appreciate that. I'll just go get my things?" And walk across the Rug, her light steps slowing briefly while she lingers at the bottom of the stairs, her hand on the banister, fingers gliding up it along with the rest of her.

She thinks, << Consider the offer. Neither one of you can take much more of this. We can break you. Or we can break Emily. Or you can give us someone else to break. >>

Maybe it's the whisper of feet on the Rug that covers up the floorboards where his wife had laid dying. More likely, it was the latter part of that threat, with the knowledge that Emily still was not here. She'd kill him if he was, for even having second thoughts ... but if she wound up dead, if they wound up killing her because he wouldn't give them someone else? Well, there was no point in living anyway.

"Wait," he sounded clearly torn, as though the words physically hurt to say. But he'd say them before she made it all the way up the stairs. "Is that why she's gone? Are They.. is she going to come back?"

She waits. The agony of indecision works as well as any other kind of agony, so he can have all he time he needs. She doesn't turn back to face him, but there's a thread of sympathy that comes out of her, a little tendril that understands just how awful this is. None of them are alone, she's had this knot in her lap and had to unravel it for herself once upon a time. "Probably. People usually come back?" She could not make that sound like a question, but she lets the lilt at the end stay there anyway.

"She's low-hanging fruit." The thought is contaminated: not just low-hanging fruit, but overripe fruit, something that should have been picked and eaten long ago and is now just as likely to fall off and be left on the ground, splatted and rotten.

"No she's not," the response is defensive, but with just a hint of uncertainty. Like maybe Emily really is low-hanging fruit. "You don't know her. They don't know her. She still has fight left in her." Or he hopes. Is there even a thread of hope left to hold onto? It seems to be slipping out from between his fingers.

Logan moves forward. Just a step, two steps at most, towards the stairs. "There's a whole fucking town out here for Them. Why can't they leave us alone?"

Her fingers stay on the railing at the bottom of the stairs, moving faintly across the grain of wood for a moment contemplatively while she reels back in that thought of something spoiled and swollen, the sort of something that the crows would find and peck at greedily. Like time rewinding itself, not gone too far anymore, the very limb that holds it stops dipping so low, springs buoyant and flexible. "It's a nice thought, anyway." And then it dissolves, the whole metaphor is gone.

She steps one step off the floor, so she's not standing right there where his poor wife died. Just one stair above it, the last place she might have touched before she was dead and gone for good. "They could. Buy why would they? Why hunt something that might get away when you can just catch something that can't run any more?" There are those sad, apologetic eyes again. She's so sorry that it has to be this way. "If you won't give them what they want, they'll take it. That's just how it works."

Logan doesn't move again. He doesn't even attempt to move closer to the stairs, but then again he's probably just avoiding the Rug, the same piece of carpeting he's actively avoiding looking at to begin with. His hardened stare focuses on Megan, as worse sights play through in his mind's eye.

"What you're offering doesn't make any sense," Logan says finally, because really, it doesn't. "If we're low hanging fruit, if we're easy to catch, why would They let us go? Who could I possibly fucking provide? I don't think you did your homework, Miss Keene. I don't know anybody. I've got Emily, and that's it anymore."

<< There's a whole fucking town out here for Them. >> Does Logan have any idea how tired his voice sounds sometimes? How over this whole Life thing he sounds? He does now. "It doesn't have to be a one-for-one trade. You don't give them Jane Doe so they leave Emily alone. Nibble-by-nibble, and then they won't need to come looking for big bites." She lifts another of those slim shrugs, and she turns back to the stairs, taking them in no particular hurry.

"Just think about it, Logan. The next time someone like me comes here, and you don't want your ghost to meet your guests? Let her. The next time you might be able to fix something that someone loves? Break it instead. Hurt instead of heal. Nibble-by-nibble, drop-by-drop, it's not hard." There's a pause, her spine stiffening, her shoulders tensing, but only for a second. Only long enough to share the teeth-chattering terror, the white-knuckled denial, the burning lungs that are so tired of running but there's nowhere to stop and no breath to catch that isn't ruined.

"It's considerably easier than the alternative." This conversation can't have been more than... what? A half hour? But there's the sense that poor Emily has been back for a while now, alone in the basement for LIFETIMES while Logan is up here arguing with someone he ought to just fucking choke.

Gosh, he does sound tired, doesn't he? And he was. Tired of this conversation. Tired of her face. He didn't take back the part where he said he needed to leave. And through three paragraphs of dialogue, all tired Logan has to say is: "I understand."

But he's got that sense. That sense that Emily's back, that sense that he needs to hold her. Maybe they could forget what happened over the weekend. Maybe she wouldn't taste like bourbon anymore when he kisses her. "Enjoy your shows, Miss Keene. I'm sorry you can't stay here, I'm sure you understand," he murmurs, the polite having made a resurgence. And he retreats, away from the woman with her Devil deals, and even if he's considering them there in the very back of his mind? Well. If she wants nibbles...

When she goes to collect her things, she'll find the handles of all her bags are broken. There are tiny holes in some of her clothes; not all of them, but in a pair of pants and a skirt and a shirt, the heel on one shoe now snapped clean off. It was little, little bites. Enough to irritate, annoy. Enough to put a smile on Logan's face, as he heads down the basement stairs, to reunite with the woman he loves.

Megan shouldn't have put all her points in Mental. If she had some Physical, she could levitate these broken bags down the stairs. But now she has to carry them down in her arms, gdi. But you know what? She'll take it. Know why? DO YOU KNOW WHY, LOGAN?!

Because - Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

That Muppet knows wtf is up.

Fuck Yoda.