2019-07-14 - Holy Shit

It's not like getting from the hospital back to the apartments takes a whole lot of time, so it might not be a surprise that she's there fairly soon after saying she'll be there. When she lets herself into the apartment she looks like normal, not like anything crazy had happened to her at all.

Today she's wearing a suit, as usual, a pale powder blue one with off-white heels and an expensive leather hobo bag hanging from her elbow, "Byron?" She calls, pushing the door closed loudly enough that if he doesn't hear her call out he might hear the door shut. Despite her outward appearance of calm she drops her keys and her purse on the chair and heads directly towards the bar to pour herself a drink. Not wine, not champagne, nothing mixed either. It's a straight double of whiskey, no ice.

The message that he'd received from Vivian was alarming and despite her taking the oddities of this town in brave stride, Byron was afraid that now that she was exposed to the mysteries of Gray Harbor, her life would be in constant peril. The text message said it all really. Someone had died in her presence. He knew that she was on her way home, but there was this need to just grab his keys and head down to the hospital himself to pick her up.

With his phone left sitting on the island counter, Byron anxiously paces about the room, sometimes checking to see whether she'd left another message or not. Sure, not much time had passed, but if you're ready to hop into your car to drive out there, it really feels as if he'd been pacing around this one spot for an eternity.

When she does let herself in, his pacing has taken him out to the terrace. Though with the weather this bad, he lingers inside. With how large the main room is, perhaps, it is an easy thing to miss. "There you are. Now tell me what happened. Who died?" His pace quickens now when he moves back to the island, but he doesn't look as if he'll be taking a drink from the bar himself.

"Doctor Marshall....a psychiatrist that had been diagnosing patients and shipping them off to a mental hospital that no one can find." Vivian replies as she lifts her drink up to take a swallow from it, steadying her nerves before she sets it down, leaning forward for a moment against the bar. Then she steps back, moving towards him, a hand reaching out towards his arm, "I was looking into this hospital for someone, evidently people have been vanishing after being committed. Most evidently not returning, although a few have."

It all sounds even stranger when spoken out loud, and when slightly out of the full context of the situation. The glass is set down on the counter, and a deep breath is taken before she gets to what she's clearly decided is something that has to be shared with him, before everything else, "He told me about a patient that had died before they got to finish their...treatment, a man that he called Billy the Ghoul." She takes a moment to let that sink in, blue eyes studying his face for his reaction.

"No relation to Easton Marshall, I'll assume." Byron says, lingering by the island, a hand reaching out to grab his phone again. He'll eye the prominent notifications, but ignores the rest as he slips it back into his pants pocket. "This hospital, when you say no one can find it, do you mean it's non-existent or carefully hidden under subterfuge and medical red tape?" This talk of vanishings though brings his concerned look within his eyes.

While she may seem perfectly calm and collected, Byron can tell that all of this really is a bit much. His gaze drops to watch as her hand reaches out to touch him and he scoots in close to wrap an arm around her, "Want to have a seat?" He says, his eyes flickering momentarily towards the couch.

With a hand rubbing along the length of her arm in a comforting motion, he watches her expression to observe those small hints that things really are not OK. Even when Billy's name is brought up, it does not falter his action. "Billy.. the Ghoul? Why was he called the Ghoul? And do you know what year this was?" If this patient was under the care of this particular doctor, it's definitely something more recent, he figures, that back in the good ol' days.

When he scoots in to wrap an arm around her she moves both hands against his arms, almost in an unconscious mimicry of the movement of his hand against her arm, fingers pausing a moment to give his upper arms a light squeeze as she allows herself a moment of getting lost in the feel of warm, living flesh beneath her hands. His flesh. Safe and sound, unhurt, and very present in the moment. While her hands move against him her expression is thoughtful, a small furrow forming between her brows before her eyes find his face, his eyes, down to his mouth before she settles once more on his eyes, "I love you." Her hands move up from his arms to his neck, thumbs brushing against his jaw before she leans in to press a hard kiss against his mouth, hard, but short.

While making sure that certain things are voiced, just in case she ends up like the last psychiatrist, there are still other things that need to be shared. Important things. Teeth briefly catch her bottom lip before she nods, finally answering the question of if she wants to have a seat, arms curling around his neck so that where ever he goes, she goes. Letting him determine the direction as she digs up the memory of the last words the man spoke to her, "He said that they only had Billy towards the end of his time, and that it was a brief time. That his life was hard, which the bones seemed to show. That hard life.." She closes her eyes for a brief second, "He said that sometimes they wanted them out in the wild. I think he was meaning people like Billy, or you...or Mister Clayton, maybe. Me....people who shine, who can do things. They want us doing things, and if we do the wrong things they will put us in this place. I think....He mentioned that to do what he does you have to seek out people, diagnose them, have them committed. I think this is how they got people out of the way, covering their tracks. But also...maybe..."

This part is where she seems to hesitate, carefully choosing her words, "Where ever this place is, it isn't on any book. There's no record, not even behind hospital red tape, it's like it only half exists, and they are doing terrible things to people there."

It's not uncommon for Vivian to seek out closeness and intimacy from him, but this was a far different moment than the others. The way that her eyes study Byron with that look that could either be read as melancholic or relief to go along with those three spoken words. There was just something in her voice when she speaks of love that is enough to tell Byron of her mental state of mind. It wasn't a tone full of warmth or teasing. Maybe it was fear that he'd heard. He'll take her in his arms and hold her close, drinking in her very essence when her lips press fully against him and when she pulls away, his hold on her doesn't loosen.

For now, he was content with standing here, her arms wrapped around his neck, staring eye to eye. So he doesn't budge, simply standing there to hold her. "When you say they? Sometimes they wanted them out in the wild? You mean those of us who are not committed into this mad hospital?" What she says next helps to confirm this. "What are the wrong things? What gets people committed into this hospital that does't exi-- Does it exist in a dream?"

"Near as I can tell it would exist in a dream, in whatever other world is on the other side of a threshold, or through an alley." Vivian continues to watch him, her hand sliding along the back of his skull, absently brushing the strands of hair upwards like she were petting a cat the wrong direction. "He said that if he took me to it, to show me the facility, that he couldn't promise he could get me back safely. I tried to convince him that he should show it to me, to take me there, that I wanted a job....To help him in his work." She shakes her head faintly, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, "Before you chastise me for taking a risk like that, I know...but I was trying to find it, and find those that are trapped there. I judged it a risk worth at least trying to take."

Maybe that's why the far too serious I love you. That need to make certain that he knows. Just in case.

"They, I imagine, are the same ones seeking Billy's bones. The ones that everyone is scared of...and the them they are letting loose I imagine are those not committed. Yes. Pure supposition, of course, since he didn't say any of this explicitly, but I can take at least a semi-confident stance that this is what he was meaning. But what the wrong things are, I don't know. Angering them, working against them, I don't know. I was hoping to speak with you, and Mister Clayton, about what you both might think was the wrong things in this situation."

On the outside, very much like Vivian, Byron tends to come off as cool as a cucumber in most situations. Here, Vivian can feel that tension in his shoulders, along his neck. In recent days, things had become so stressful, that it was difficult for him to hide his frustration. However, in this very moment, just feeling those fingertips running along that tense neck of his, brushing through his hair, it's enough to keep him calm, despite their current conversation.

"You told him wh--" He starts, just as Vivian quickly explains herself before he can continue with her chastisement. "That's," he shakes his head, the hands placed at her sides give her a reflexive squeeze. Not too hard. "I can't let you do that." His head then stills, "You said that the man died. The one who gave you this information." There's some part of him that hopes this is true so that she's not lured into doing something crazy.

"So the shadow people, the Dark Men," He'd heard them called that lately, "Are at the hospital too?" That's when something dawns on him, his eyes narrowed, "Is this about Alice Whitehouse?" She can feel his breath exhaled through his nostrils, as he considers all of this. "What did any of these people do to be sent there?" He then asks, "Do you want me to message Clayton?" Though she is fully capable of calling Alexander on her own.

"I'll message him tomorrow about it. There's not any reason to message him now." Vivian shakes her head at the offer, her fingers working their way down to his neck again, less light, casual strokes of the fingers now, instead pressing a little harder into those tense muscles, "He died when he was explaining to me what happened to Billy the Ghoul...He said that...he doesn't like us talking about....Something. Billy, their plans, he died before he could finish the thought."

The man is dead. Which means that he at least can't be sweeping her off to hidden hospitals.

"It's about Alice Whitehouse, but she's not the only one that has been sent there. Some are back it seems, at least one name on the list I recognized as someone in town, right now." Vivian slides her fingers beneath the collar of his shirt before she leans against him, forehead finding his chest for a brief moment before she looks back up at him. "I could have gotten in, I'm sure of it. If I had, then I could have found where this place is. Everyone thinks that it is upstate, maybe it is. Maybe it's really just the mirror world of the hospital itself, his office it was there. I thought I was going into someone elses office when I found myself face to face with Doctor Marhsall. So..."

So indeed, the thought is enough to make her pause, "Maybe it is the hospital, and isn't anywhere else upstate. Just no one knows it is there because it's on the other side of these Dreams."

Byron has had enough of Alexander for the day, so he looks content to let Vivian be the one to reach out to the other man. He's about to ask, the edges of his lips tugged downwards a touch, what Alexander has anything to do with this, just out of annoyance. But then this was a Billy thing. Billy the... "Why was he named Billy the Ghoul? And after Billy died, what did they do to his body that someone is looking for him even now?"

Feeling her nuzzled up his chest, one of the hands held at her side, snakes behind her back where he rubs at his gently. "How did Marshall die?" Ever since she mentioned that the man had died, he was curious just how it happened. "Did he suddenly have a heart attack? Did something happen to him? An accident, maybe? And you very well may be right. It almost reminds me of the Archivist's domain at City Hall. I'm sure it doesn't really exist there, down in the basement, but still it was there. Some Harry Potter world." There's this brief look of curiosity now, "Whose office were you heading to anyway?"

"Doctor Reyes." Vivian replies easily, "I'd arranged to meet with him today to discuss the research I'd been doing in finding out about who was committing all these people, and where this facility was." She continues to rub her fingers lightly against his neck, at least one hand, the other slides down to his chest, settling her hand over his heart, "If I had seen a gun, or heard a shot, I'd say he was shot. It was out of no where, he just choked and coughed up blood before clutching his chest, I could see the blood beneath his sweater, but I couldn't tell exactly what the cause was. It was fast, between the moment he coughed and his last breath was....a minute, maybe. At the most."

When he mentions the City Hall she glances upwards towards him, her chin resting against his chest as she studies him, thinking, "Exactly like that, perhaps that is why no one can find this facility. Because it doesn't exist at all in this world, which would explain how these people are vanishing after being committed so easily. They aren't really leaving town, they've been here all along." She shakes her head after a moment, "I don't know why they called him the Ghoul, and I got the impression that he died before they were finished with him. Maybe they...think if they have his bones they can finish whatever work they were doing."

Byron isn't sure if he knows of this Doctor Reyes and if he'd met the man, it slipped his mind. "Why was he having you do research on something like that? Not that it isn't interesting or relevant." He mutters dryly, "It definitely seems relevant, " His volume raises, "Does he shine as well? Because those are the only types of people that would most likely be sent to this hospital." Feeling her hand against his chest, he tucks his chin in, gaze lowered to watch as it stops over his heart, which she can feel beating at a steady pace.

A visible frown forms on his lips now, eyes lifted to meet with hers once more, "If he wasn't supposed to tell you any of this, why did he? Knowing that he was risking his life. I mean, from what you've said, he was willing to hire you or bring you to the hospital. But if he wasn't supposed to talk about Billy... then why? All I know is I'm just glad that you didn't get hurt in the process."

Then he brings something else up, which may, or may not, be connected to any of this, "Dr. Faust is currently in the ICU. I don't know if you had time to read the paper this morning, but she was found in a pool of her own blood. Her brother, who is from here as well, and moved on to play professional football. He didn't make it."

"He was considering it...Doctor Marshall, he kept trying to push me away from this, warn me it felt like." Vivian flattens her hand against his chest, taking a moment to focus on the very steady beat of his heart before she starts to slide her hand down, "I think the reason he told me was because I told him that maybe I could help him with his work. Like an apprentice." She glances up at him, looking through her lashes for a moment, waiting to see his reaction to the fact that not only was she suggesting getting a job there, but getting that sort of a position. "I don't think he really intended to tell me about Billy though, I think I just got lucky and caught him off guard enough that he told me without thinking."

The hand that has slid down his chest settles on his hip, expression distant for a moment, "Reyes wanted me to check into things under the guise of needing a difficult patient dealt with, someone that needed to be committed. He thought that based on my specialty that I'd have more luck getting information out of other shrinks in town. Which, seems to have worked, I got Marshall's attention." She pauses a moment, frowning at the news of Dr. Faust. "You think it was because of the bones?"

"You're really pushing it aren't you?" This is a little joke about her apprenticeship that is emphasized with a small, brief smile though in Byron's mind all of this was serious business. Not something to take lightly. "And would you have gone if he didn't die? I mean, after he was supposedly shot, where there doctors around to determine what killed him? Or did this happen in the other world, because you were in his office?"

"And how are you going to follow up with this again? What does Dr. Reyes want his next step to be? It's not like you would be able to visit Marshall's office again, you'll just be in Reyes'. But where do you both want to go from here?" There is this look of concern in his eyes, believing that Vivian may be getting in too deep with this, something that he has no real knowledge about until now.

The tragedy surrounding Faust has him gesturing to the bone bag on their coffee table. He'd taken them out of hiding. "Clayton said that he didn't believe what happened to Faust has anything to do with the bones. Only because the other deaths, the Addington ones, they had nothing to do with the bones. But I'm not convinced. Maybe what happened to Faust had nothing to do with the Addington murders." He says murders, plural. "Erin Addington's parents died some time after leaving her apartment. It was reported to be car accident, but some of us aren't so sure."

"I was pushing it, but now there isn't anyone to push it with." Vivian shakes her head faintly, the hand on his neck moving to brush her thumb against the corner of his mouth, chasing that brief smile before she leans up again, pausing just shy of his mouth, voice quiet, "He's dead, there are no more leads, and I don't know if we are going anywhere with this. But it was just me and him in an office in the Dream. I was able to see Reyes' office when I opened the door, still standing in Marshall's office. but Reyes couldn't see anything but the hallways beyond. No one else saw the body but me, and I assume he'll rot over there like Billy did."

Seeing that look of concern she smiles faintly, but doesn't address it at first, instead she nods about it maybe not being related to the bones, "I'm sorry about Miss Addington's parents, and I'm sorry for Dr. Faust. I'll go by the hospital again tomorrow....Hopefully she is moved out of ICU by then." Which is only a mildly troubling thought, that there is a mysterious reason people are dying.

But as soon as her initial thoughts are finished she completes the movement to his mouth, her hand sliding around the back of his neck as she presses into him. There is no great rush to the kiss this time, just a firm press of her mouth for a few seconds before she breaks it. A step forward is taken, in towards him as she tries to push him backwards, the hand on his hip putting in a small bit of pressure, "I'm being careful..." It's probably meant to be reassuring after the day she's had, and the murders and accidents that have been happening. "But right now...I think that I'd rather get you naked and forget about all this for a little while."

It helps to put his mind at ease, listening to Vivian explain that without Marshall, they were at a dead end with no other leads. It doesn't help that as she's explaining, his mind is being pulled away by the topic at hand with just how close she hovers from him, her lips just an inch from his own. "So Reyes doesn't know?" His own voice is soothingly quiet. There was no need to raise the volume up when they are this close.

"Without knowing how Mrs. Lewis' killer got into the complex to begin with, I don't know what more I can do to keep Erin Addington safe. I can try assigning her a personal security guard, but that will give her little privacy and.." There's this quiet pause, "These Addingtons, maybe even Faust and her brother, they all could have been attacked in a dream. Which is why nothing shows up on my video cameras."

All the while, his eyes are on her, feeling her warm breath against him when she speaks. Then she moves in, cutting off any words he would have said and feeling her press against him, easing him back so that he bumps up against the edge of the island counter. When she breaks off that kiss, there is a quick lick of his lips, one of his hands already working to undo the tie at his collar, "Whatever you want," It comes out rather playful, "We've both been through a lot." He leans his head forward, brushing his lips against hers once more, then withdrawing to add, "We could use some time to ourselves." Another kiss. "And unwind."

"I would put good money on these things happening in a Dream." Which, on the surface, not comforting, really. How do you even stop a Dream?

But the idea to put the conversation firmly to the side is grasped onto, and while his hand moves to undo the tie her hands move to the front of his pants, a smile spreading easily across her lips as she banishes the other thoughts to focus on him, "I'm glad you agree with me...I'd have put in the effort to convince you how brilliant my idea was, but you agreeing makes it so much easier." The heels she's wearing are kicked off, potentially to be a hazard sometime in the middle of the night, once the lights are out and people are wandering around blind between one point and another in the apartment.

With those few extra inches her heels granted her taken away when she leans in to give him another kiss she has to push herself further up onto her tiptoes, balancing herself precariously so that she can catch and keep his mouth this time. By feel alone her fingers work his pants open, and any belt that he might be wearing is unbuckled along the way as well, but she doesn't wait to get them off him, instead she slides one of her hands inside the pants.

Byron had brought those bones out for a reason. He was going to get rid of them. Or move them out of his abode if necessary, just in case it was the bones that got Penny's brother killed, while she barely escaped with her life. In fact, they've yet to hear word on whether she would actually live through this.

For now, even those bag of bones is forgotten, leaving them sitting there on the table for anyone to get their hands on if they so wished to.

The tie easily comes undone, hanging loosely at his collar, that's he makes quick work of his the buttons on his shirt, after fussing the ones at his cuffs. There's this hunger to his kisses, this need to vent off all of his frustration in one hot passionate moment. When her hand slides beneath his waistband, his hips jolt suddenly and she can hear that quiet sound of his breath being caught within his throat, before being released out as a heavy sigh. The cuffs are undone and that once professionally pressed white business shirt was now partially spread open exposing part of his chest as he begins to toy with those final buttons.

Recklessly things like bones and murders are forgotten perhaps. But Vivian isn't stopping now, not with that reaction. The kiss is broken, but before she moves to far from his lips her teeth catch at his bottom one, giving it a sharp nip and pull before she starts to kiss her way down to his jaw, then neck before venturing down further to the exposed skin of his chest. Her mouth presses against him, lingering there as the hand inside his pants moves to slide past any scraps of fabric that remain between her hand and his bare skin.

The fact that her hand remains in his pants makes the next move that she makes harder, a little more awkward. But her other hand starts to tug her own jacket off, sliding her arm out of it to leave it hanging from her other arm where it can't go any further due to where her hand is. With the jacket out of the way that frees her up for dealing with her own shirt eventually. All through out dealing with the jacket her mouth continues to kiss against his chest, every so often the sharp bite of her teeth are scattered through those hurried, hungry kisses.

There's a spark of excitement in the pleasure-pains of intimacy, every little sharp nip and bite, even the scraping of one's fingernails across the skin, enough to leave behind a hot red trail. The sharp bites at his bared chest helps to spur him on further, even if it truly isn't necessary. Soon his dress hangs from his arms as he works to shrug out of one long sleeve. In the process, once that arm is freed, that strong hand, at first, grips at the curve of her hip giving it a squeeze, before he tries to assist her in tugging and pulling at various articles of clothing from her person, all the while working to force the draped shirt to slip off his one still sleeved arm.

Down below, she can feel his own hips sway and buck pressing himself up against her groping hands. His murmured breaths begin to come out at a quicker rate with his lips now, lowered to press kisses into the top of her head.

The painful inevitability is that eventually she's going to have t remove her hand to get her shirt and jacket off. When she finally does, though, that is the beginning of the end for getting the rest of the clothes off. No more playing around about it, no more being her own worst enemy and slowing herself down. With both of their clothes off, fully off, there isn't anything in the way any longer and her hands roam across bare skin as she returns to his mouth.

Earlier he asked if she wanted to sit down, the couch just over there. At the time she didn't want to, or then he didn't want to move, but now the hurried progress towards the couch might end with the throw pillows on the floor, and the coffee table bumped out of the way. Every ounce of pent up worry and frustration gets worked out over the course of the rest of the evening, not quite a frenzy but certainly something that is nothing less than passionate.

All the while the bones are there. Watching.

Waiting?