2019-05-30 - Unexpected Visit

It had been a gorgeous afternoon, bright and sunny as it had been for a few days, but as the evening had worn out, a storm had kicked up and now it was raining outside, the weather having gotten rough. The lights were on inside the little cottage on Bayside road, however, making it seem warm and inviting from the outside, with its little garden outback and it's semi-obstructed view of the water beyond.

Raf had gotten distracted. He had really meant to come out here earlier in the day, but he also had learned not to put things off. The card was a bit rumpled from the time he spent ignoring it but luckily the address was still legible. He sat in his beat up heap of a car which he bought just before leaving the city. With a sigh he grabbed the umbrella from the passenger seat and popped it out the door before getting out himself, making the quick sprint up to the cottage door. After a moment's hesitation he poked the doorbell. No going back now.

There's a moment or two after the doorbell rings before a tired and freshly-showered and changed Tobin comes to open it. He's dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with the logo of the fried fish place down on the boardwalk on it, well-worn. He hadn't been expecting anyone to show up, and so he blinks when he sees Rafael standing beneath an umbrella on the doorstep. "Oh," he says with a blink, and then a smile, "I was just.. oh, it's wet.. come on in." He opens the door wider and steps back so that Raf can get in out of the rain.

Yup. It's Raf. Standing under an umbrealla wearing jeans and a button up shirt. But by the way he blinks when Tobin opens the door it's obvious that is not who he was expecting to run into. "Tobin?" Yup, he even sounds a bit baffled. He steps back a bit to look at the house numbers before looking back at the man in the doorway and just nods. "Thanks.." He sounds unsure, not about coming in, but just about the situation as he steps inside.

"Still Tobin," he confirms, looking a little bit confused, but still pleased to see Rafael as he lets him inside out of the rain. The house is just as warm inside as it may have looked from outside. There's just a cozy feeling to it, established by Tobin's mother and maintained as bet as he can by him. "Would you like some coffee? I can put some on. I just got home not too long ago. I'm surprised to see you, I mean, pleasantly surprised.. just surprised."

Raf shuts his umbrella and looks for a place to put it out of the way where it won't drip on anything important. "Coffee would be great, thanks." He digs in his pocket for the old card, and shakes his head. "I'm actually kind of surprised to see you, too. I was, um, told to come here for information. To ask for a Lillian, your sister?" He arches his brow as his eyes follow Tobin.

Tobin makes his way into the kitchen and gets the pot going, pulling two mugs down from the cabinet and setting them down before going into the fridge for a bit of cream, and sets out some sugar as well. He turns then and glances over toward Rafael and notes the card in his hand, his brow furrowing a little bit. "Lillian is my mother," he says. "Someone sent you to come and talk to my mother?"

Raf looks around a bit, not taking a seat as he stands a bit awkwardly watching Tobin making coffee. "Yeah. About.." He rubs the back of his neck. "Well, at the risk of sounding completely insane. About being able to do things." He hands out the card if Tobin wants to take it. Thought it's just some coffee shop's business card with the name and address written on the back.

Tobin takes the card that's offered out to him and he glances down at it. It's his address on the back, and his mother's name written in pen on the back of a coffee shop card. He flips it over and looks at the informationa bout the coffee shop and notes the address is in New York, which gives him a moment's pause, as does Raf's reason for seeking her. "No," he says with a slight shake of his head. "It doesn't sound insane. Can you do things?" he asks, and then after a few moments he says, "I can."

The handwriting though, is definitely Raf's. Or well, not familiar to Tobin. "I'm guessing by the way you're looking at that card I'm guessing you know who told me?" He shakes his head slightly and takes it back, though it's fairly useless now. "I can. The guy I talked to seemed to.. figure out I could as well. We got talking, he said if I really wanted to know more, come out to this town and, well.." He lifts up the card before tucking it away in his pocket. Then that last bit seems to pierce his brain. "You can?"

"Well, I'm sure there are other people who left town who knew what she could do, but I know my father moved to New York. I barely remember him, but.." He shrugs his shoulders then and says, "Or it could be a coincidence." He takes a deep breath and then lets it out slowly, running a hand through his hair. "So weird." He then leans back against the counter before he looks back to Raf, "Yeah.. I.. don't usually tell people, but, if someone sent you here for answers, and you're planning on staying here, you deserve to have them, especially if you've got the abilities too."

"Honestly. I don't even know what to ask." Raf says as he finally finds a seat. "I just.." He runs his hand through his hair. "What do you even ask? I honestly put that card away with every intention of ignoring it, but, well, I kept thinking about it." He shakes his head. "So I look up the town. Then I have dreams about the town. And it's like a hundred little hooks pulling me here until I couldn't ignore it anymore."

Tobin turns to pour the coffee, a mug for himself and one for Rafael, and brings them over, setting them down on the table, along with the cream and sugar. He adds a splash of cream to his own and then takes up his own chair. "Okay, well.. I'll tell you what I know. There are those of us who can do things. What we can do.. is different from person to person, and we can sense it in each other. Like.. I never looked for it in you but.. I can see it.. I can sense it. I think I was um, too distracted to notice, when we first met." There's that faintest flush of color that touches his ears for just a moment before he says, "You can probably see it.. sense it, if you look for it.. the glimmer."

"There's something." Raf admits. "I've felt it around a few people in town, but, I was told it's more common here. Back home.." He shakes his head. "Probably not." He accepts the coffee adding a bit of milk to it before taking a sip. He does smile a little at Tobin admitting he was distracted. "Well, a least I'm not coming off as stalkerish just showing up at your door."

"No, I mean.. even if it wasn't because of this, I think I just would have been surprised. You did kind of do a hit and run there at the end," Tobin says with a little smile as he looks down into his cup of coffee. "I wanted to see you again. So I'm not complaining." The contents of his cup must be fascinating the way that he watches the slight swirl of cream in the coffee. For a moment or two, he forgets that he was trying to explain things, but then his expression sobers and he says, "Weird things happen here, too. It isn't just people who can do things. People have dreams here, too, but sometimes they happen when you're awake, and what happens in them is as real as what happens here, in the real world. If you get hurt, you come out bleeding. It's also dangerous around here, especially for those of us with those abilities. The light attracts a kind of darkness. Which, I know sounds insane, and believe me.. the last thing I want to do is scare you away, but now that I know you have it too.. it might be safer if you didn't stay."

Raf smiles a bit more at Tobin's words. "Well, I didn't know if I was reading things right, and, well.. You know there's stories about small towns and that kind of thing. I'm sure most of them are exagerrated but.. it's in the mind." He sips at the coffee, tapping the mug. "This doesn't count by the way. For the, uh, getting coffee later." He shakes his head. "Even if I did decide to up and turn around, I don't have the cash to do another move. Even had to buy a car. And if I'm here I might as well make the best of it."

"No, I get it," Tobin says with a little bit of a grin and then laughs and says, "No, this doesn't count. This was unplanned coffee. We're definitely going to have to have planned coffee again later." He pauses then and says, "Provided I haven't convinced you that I'm entirely insane and you haven't fled town by then." He smiles a little faintly then, but nods. "Then you're going to need to be prepared for the stuff that happens here. My mom? She used to slip in between, to wherever that place is that we go when we dream. It happened a lot when I was a kid. She'd be gone for a day or two at a time. Then she'd turn back up. My dad couldn't handle it. They got divorced when I was little and then he left and we haven't heard from him since." He takes another small sip before continuing. "One day, before graduation, she disappeared, but this time it was different.. it just felt different. The kettle was on, her tools were in the garden.. and this time it wasn't just a couple of days. The cops searched for her, but no one ever found her. I think she's still there.. between, somewhere, and can't get back."

"Maybe make it a whole breakfast." Raf smirks as he sets his coffee down on the table and looks over at Tobin, listening to the story quietly. "Well, definitely different from my family drama, but we all have that. If someone tells you their family doesnt have problems, they're lying." He crosses one leg over his knee and shakes his head. "If you feel she's out there, then maybe she is. If.. we.. can feel things about this stuff, maybe trust those feelings."

"It's why I haven't left, because believe me, you're going to get tired of ending up in the middle of some random insanity when you least expect it," Tobin says as he slumps in his chair, still looking exhausted despite the coffee. "But I have to believe I can figure out some rhyme or reason to all of this, and that I can find her, or at least if I'm here, maybe she can find me. All my friends growing up left town for the most part, and just came back not too long ago. None of us even really realized what we were all going through as kids, growing up in this place with all that. But now, here we are.. trying to figure out what we can do, what it all means." He looks back to Rafael and says, "Would you believe me if I told you I went to see Macbeth tonight with my a couple of my best friends, and we ended up in the middle of the Scottish play, being shot at with live arrows? And that when it was over, and the lights came up, we were back in the theatre, and the rest of the audience didn't even realize it happened?"

"It's bad luck to say that name outloud. That was probably what caused it." Raf says with a completely serious tone, even if the corners of his mouth curl up. He hides the smile behind a sip of coffee though. "And yes, I would believe you. I've had some weird ass dreams ever since... And thinking on it. Some of them might have been more real than I can explicitly give them credit for." He sighs with a shake of his head. "Memory is a little fuzzy on some of the more pertinent details but, it sounds like something that could have happened.'

"Yeah well, since I've already been shot at from the castle walls today, I'm not feeling that my luck can get all that much worse for saying it's name out loud at this point," Tobin says with the faintest of smiles, though it is a smile. He studies Rafael, and when the man doesn't seem to think him completely nuts he says, "Well, some friends and I are working on trying to figure all of this stuff out. If you want to join us, you're more than welcome to. I figure the more of us working together, the better, at least if anything to learn how to defend ourselves."

"I also went to a performing arts school, it's a habit." Raf shakes his head and drains the rest of his coffee. "I, uh, should probably be going. I had only intended to stop by to introduce myself and maybe set up a time to talk. I'm taking a look at a place in a bit." He taps the mug as he stands up. "Thanks for the coffee. And I look forward to, um, more coffee."