2019-08-14 - Angsty Back-Stories

Hang around a hospital enough and it's easy to pick up tidbits of information. Like when a certain resident is on schedule, and the round-about time they take their lunch. It's not ~crazy unusual~ for someone to be at the park at this time, because it's a nice day out and the drizzle is intermittent. School's out for the summer, which means there's a gaggle of kids on the carousel, but Harvey's at a picnic table right next to the walkthru from the hospital to the park.

Sure, Hailey could be taking her lunch inside. Sure, it's ~entirely possible~ for Hailey to opt to go an entirely different direction. But Harvey's hedging his bets. So he sits at this hear picnic table with a sandwich that he's nibbling on while he works on a tablet - he's just some normal non-stalker dude doing some work at the park.

John Lennon wrote that 'life is what happens to you when you're making other plans.' For Hailey, lunch is also what happens to her when she's making other plans. Right now, she's got her phone to her ear, held by her shoulder, and her brown paper bag of lunch in hand, being pawed through while she navigates her way out from the hospital. No spidey-senses tingle, no stalker-alerts go off, she's just telling her phone something about a walk-through later? "Let's say," watch-check, "around seven?" More phone-talk, she hangs up, she stops in her tracks.

"Hannah?" Wait. "Ehm. Harvey? Hi. Small world." The carousel likes to remind people of this fact, so she shares it.

Harvey definitely doesn't have that tablet situated in such a way that he can keep his focus on the hospital while pretending to work. A few clicks here, swipe a few words there, he's totally doing business. So when Hailey 'unexpectedly' stops in her tracks somewhere near-to him? He looks convincingly surprised. "That's what it says on my driver's license," he jokes. "Harvey, not Hannah. This joke's gonna get old real fast, huh?" There's a chuckle as he sets his tablet face-down on the picnic table, pointing with his sandwich at her own brown paper bag.

"You on your lunch break? You can sit here if you want. Great views, far enough away from the carousel that the damn song doesn't get into your head. I won't bother you, was just finishing up myself actually." It's a lie, but with that dimpled smile of his, perhaps it'll be a convincing one. "Any luck on the roommate hunt?"

Spelling it out in the air with a swipe of her index finger, "Ha ha?" Because HAiley and HArvey are funny? She looks sorry for having made that joke the second it's out of her mouth, and curls her finger in on itself, bad finger, bad joke. At least all this keeps her from paying even the faintest attention to his troublesome tablet, or from even developing the faintest inkling that homeboy is not entirely on the up-and-up.

Which is why she'll sit right down on the opposite side of the table, drumming up a quick smile of thanks; she should invest in dimples, they are extremely effective, and the reason she busily focuses on unwrapping her sammich. "Not really. No one that already has a place seems to want a roommate, so I'm just going to rent something myself and sublet the extra rooms. Which is probably how I'm going to wind up getting murdered by a serial killer, sigh. You? Did you find someone that has a room to rent?" Her super-hopefulness there really isn't on his behalf; it's just that, if they're both on a wild-goose chase, that will be really sad.

There should really be a cursory laugh for her attempt at a joke, but he didn't really understand that she was making a joke in the first place? So instead, she gets a lift of is brows and a grin that deepens the dimples on his cheeks, while he shifts his tablet back into the satchel on the seat beside him. See, Haily? He was getting ready to go, he's totally on the up-and-up. Unfortunately his sandwich is only a quarter of the way finished, and he's got an entire bag of potato chips that he pulls out in place of his tablet. "I haven't entirely given up hope yet. I had back to back to back prospects yesterday, it's starting to feel like I'm speed dating and agreeing to a really fast commitment," he chuckles, the bag of chips crinkling as he tears it open and sets it in the middle of the table, silent offering to share if she's hungry.

"Kinda looking forward to my next meet-up though. Big biker dude, about a thousand tattoos. I figure he doesn't fit the usual serial killer profile so I should be good. Plus, I'm pretty sure he'll scare off any actual murderers," His lips curve into a smirk as he shakes his head, "Sorry about your luck though. It's a pain in the ass moving to a new town, starting a new job, and then having to look for a place on top of it all."

Yes, yes. They could just live together and solve their whole housing crisis, but that's a less entertaining narrative.

Anyway, Hailey passes a sympathetic smile for the speed-dating scenario. "At least, with a bad blind date, you can always ask a friend to give you an emergency call. This is - " Instead of saying sigh, she sighs, nodding at the way he sums it all up: yes, those are the words she would also use, a pain in the ass. "Wait, wait. You're looking forward to living with a big biker with tattoos?" This makes her eye Harvey in a whole new light (ngl, 'oh he's into dudes' flits through the back of her mind, bums her out), ended when she adds, "You don't worry that his big biker friends will... I don't know, have big biker parties at your house? Or," what other grim scenarios can she conjure, "eat you in your sleep or something?"

"What?" Harvey chuckles around a bite of his sandwich, swallowing before he continues. "He's like a living caricature, something straight out of a bad movie," he points out. And then, to dispel the whole 'he's gay and clearly into bears', "Plus he's a family man. Got a wife, no kids, so hopefully they do those big biker parties at the single bikers' houses," he grins, taking another bite of his sandwich before he sets it down on a napkin. "Still, you may have a point about getting eaten in my sleep," he considers, bobbing his head in a slow nod. "Guy said he had a python, one of the big ones. I just assumed a six foot snake can't fit under a bedroom door?" He looks to her for reassurance. "The rent's really cheap."

"You're going to move in with a big biker and his big biker-wife?" Hold on, Hailey needs to look at Harvey in another whole new light. This one involves him in the middle of a tattooed sandwich, leaves her peeling back a slice of bread on her own sandwich to look at the meat in the middle like o.O - and that's before it gets worse. "And their six-foot-snake?" She takes a bite and says around it, "It'd have to be." Really cheap, she means.

So as to stop thinking about Harvey getting eaten by a snake (and a biker and his biker-wife), she shares, "I went to look at a place yesterday that was really cheap. There were about four thousand bats in the attic. Which wouldn't have been a problem? Except I was pretty specific about no pets." Wait! Brilliance! "I wonder if pythons eat bats..."

Hey, all things considered, Harvey would look tasty AF as the meat in a big biker sandwich. "I mean it's between the big bikers and their snake, the guy who offered me one half of the couch in his trailer, or the college party girls who absolutely would eat me alive faster than the biker and his snake would," there's that grin again, the flash of the dimples, as he takes another bite of his sandwich. "Not gonna lie, I considered the party house for a lot longer than I should've. Buuuut," big sigh, "I think I'm well past my prime for college girls and I appreciate my sleep more now than ever before."

There's a chuckle that accompanies the words and deepens at her talk of bats and pythons, though he shakes his finger at her. "Nuh-uh, biker dude's mine. But maybe I can get you a good lead on where you can get a python of your very own?" he laughs, leaning forward slightly to plunk an elbow on the table. "Could be worse. Could be ghosts in your attic. Not entirely out of the realm of possibilities, considering this town.."

I mean, Hailey's definitely eating the sandwich that she was using as a physical representation of her thoughts about Harvey-in-the-middle, so she must be okay with the mental image! Or else just very hungry. "I did not get a call from the college girls with the party house. That's sexist, right? Something something something, the Fair Housing Act?" She pretends to be too busy chewing to say anything about the biker-dude belonging to him already, limiting her response to a wide-eyed 'who, me?!' innocence.

More interestingly, she swallows quickly and asks with intrigue, "Have you ever?" No, she doesn't mean banged a biker and his wife and his snake all at once. "Had a run-in with an actual ghost?"

"That's totally sexist. We should absolutely report them," Harvey agrees while he bites on his sandwich, which is PB&J so he's not fantasizing about anybody being the meat in the middle. "Alternatively, I can write a scathing editorial. 'Rampant Sexism in the Housing of Gray Harbor'," he spreads his sandwich hand and free hand outward, displaying an imaginary headline, before he flashes her another dimpled grin. "I could always give you their number, though I think if I had to choose between an attic full of bats and constant college ragers? I'd take the bats," he smirks.

But ghosts. Ghosts are another story altogether. There's a twitch on the bench as he finishes off his sandwich, the amusement brought by the prior conversation fading into something more somber. Nevermind that he was purposefully leading the conversation in this direction - it just needed the proper tone. "Nah, not really. I mean I read a lot of stories, but San Francisco wasn't exactly the mecca of the glittery people, you know?" he motions between the two of them to indicate. "Closest I ever came to living in a real-life Paranormal Activity was when all this happened to me. And it was WEIRD but it wasn't Gray Harbor weird. This place is the creme-de-la-creme of weird."

"Gasp," with her fingers pressed over her mouth. "Rampant sexism? Sounds like a career-making scandal you've uncovered, Mister... ahm. Mister Harvey." Hailey shoulda thought that through before she started down that road, oh well. At least it means she's eager to leave this useless conversation behind, so gg Harvey, mission accomplished.

"At the risk of crossing firmly into the None of My Business Territory... What happened to you? When this," she just kinda flaps her hand vaguely in his direction, "happened to you?" At least she has the good sense to lower her voice and lean forward across the table. Not that anyone's paying them the least bit of attention - since 99% of people aren't stalkers! - but she broaches the subject with cautious eagerness: she so wants to know, but - "Sorry, that was really personal." BUT STILL ANSWER.

Harvey doesn't offer up his last name - he just lets her linger in that awkwardness, because it brings about the rapid change in conversation. And hey, he doesn't mind her leaning closer across the table - sure, he was only really talking to her to begin with because he wanted answers of his own, but she wasn't terrible to look at either.

"Err.. I mean, it is kinda," pretty personal, he didn't want to seem overtly eager to divulge. So he shifts in his seat, sliding to the edge of the bench and putting his elbows up on the tabletop, chips and sandwich remnants forgotten as he leans close enough to keep the conversation quiet. Just between them. "I don't know if I necessarily mind sharing? But it's definitely one of those.. I'll show you mine if you show me yours sorta thing," he admits, nose crinkling with the statement, as though he knows he could've worded it better. "Er.. I mean, you know what I mean. It's not like I've had a chance to talk to a lot of people about it, you're the first one I've met here where we've had a conversation past the 'hi how do ya do'." He shrugs. "It'd be nice to hear somebody else's experience. One of those, 'you're not alone in the universe' sort of things. Misery loves company?" So. Agree to show him yours, you know you wanna.

That's sweet. Hailey should get someone to make her a nice cross-stitch picture that says that: People only talk to you because they want something from you so it's lucky you're not terrible to look at.

Thankfully, she can't read minds, or this conversation would be over never have started in the first place.

Yes, yes. "I know what you mean. And that's fine. Fair. That's fine and fair. But you have to go first." Said no woman ever. She probably finished that sandwich, leaving her hands free to hold up her chin; totally focused on Harvey now, go!

The cross-stitch would look great in her bathroom~

"All right, all right. Fair enough," that he'd have to go first. He drums his fingers along the wood grain of the tabletop, the corners of his mouth twitching into something of a frown. "It was uh.. 2009." He was a late bloomer. "I was .. dating someone at the time, taking her up to a park? Actually kinda like this one, with the old fashioned carousel and everything," his eyes drift as he motions towards the carousel in question, the somberness taking on a genuine quality. This wasn't an ideal memory and it shows. "We got held up. A couple of thugs, it was late. And they were pissed 'cause I didn't have enough cash on me, they had guns on the both of us. And I think they got spooked.." His brows collapse into a furrow, wrinkles forming in his brow. "They shot, and I.. pushed the bullets back into them. Into their legs, I didn't .. It was just really chaotic."

Turning to bring the carousel into her field of view, like she needs the visual for it, Hailey watches the thing spin while she listens. It's a courtesy; this way, she's not just staring at Harvey while he's talking about what they've already established is extremely personal stuff. "But you're - ahm, I don't even know how to phrase this." Which leaves her frowning at the carousel briefly, turning over the matter in her mind. "That's not your strength. Now? Right? Stopping things? Or, I guess really, moving things?" She looks back to Harvey before she continues to rattle off nonsense at him: "You're in people's heads. That's what you do." There is the faintest lilt of a question there, but she's pretty sure she got that read right yesterday: he's a Mentalist!

It's a question that makes Harvey lean back - way back - staring at her with genuine interest. "Uh, yeesss?" There's definitely a question-mark at the end of that, brows lifting high up towards his hairline. When he pulls back in, it's to stare at her better. "How'd you know that? 'Cause it doesn't sound like an educated guess sort of thing, and I can't .. just randomly figure out what you do," he frowns. "The mental thing came after," as an aside. "Nothing traumatic. I was just looking through some old things and bam! I got memories that aren't my own. I actually had the apartment water tested to make sure nobody was sticking drugs in the pipes."

Hailey makes the wordless but universal sound for 'i dunno' about how she knew that. "How do you know what color someone's eyes are? You look," she leans forward, makes hers wide, looks at his (not into his; that's danger!), "and you know." Then the wide eyes squint. "Except. You're blind when it comes to this," she realizes belatedly, pulling an apologetic face. "Whose memories? Because one time," just so it's not like she's dragging everything out of him without sharing, "I caught the bouquet at a friend's wedding, and it was like someone threw a bucket of ice cold regret in my face." Nose-crinkle. "Suffice it to say. They got divorced before their first anniversary."

"Yeah, but," to her point, "I look at you and just see blue eyes. Not blue eyes and whatever psychic powers," Harvey replies, leaning forward just enough to settle his hazel gaze on her blue squint. His smile softens, if only for a moment, those dimples still there but not prominently dug into his cheeks. Then, there's a laugh at her apologetic face, a shrug of his shoulders - no skin off his nose, he seems to say from body language alone. As to the bouqet story, he grimaces at the thought. "So you got it like me," he maneuvers around her question. Really, he just flat-out avoids it. "But different, too. I take it the emotional stuff isn't your strong suit?" It's mostly rhetorical, he's assuming. "Was that your first time? The bouquet? A lot nicer than mine, even with the regret."

Spend a couple years with the crazies and learn to notice things like... when people don't answer questions like 'whose memories.' But then have this conversation after knowing someone for, like, fifteen minutes, and maybe it's enough to just frown confusedly for a second and let it go, sigh. Still, Hailey notices, and that's what's important. "I dunno. Saving your girlfriend from gang-bangers with guns? Doesn't sound so bad. And no." The emotional stuff isn't her strong suit. "Plus, it feels... violatey?" SHOULD BE A WORD. "Given my job." Thumb-point to the hospital.

The thumb hangs there, still pointing, and she tiptoes around the angst: "The bouquet was many years later. I was in a car accident when I was twelve, and I wound up in a coma. And when I woke up? This was my life, ta-dah."

"I wasn't some big damn hero, it wasn't like that at all. And you know, I just.. things between me and her, it deteriorated from there," Harvey replies with a shake of his head, a deeper furrow of his brow. It wasn't the whole truth, but it was something of the truth, so help him God. There's a bobbing nod of his head at the rest of it. "Violatey? Oh, for some reason I thought you were a regular doctor. Not a, you know.." he tap-taps his temple. "Head doc. I guess that really would be violatey." Harvey likes this word, he's going to use it more often. "I can't say I haven't thought about the ethical implications a time or two. Back in San Fran, it was too easy to slip into using it to get a read on somebody for one story or another. But then it becomes more of a crutch, yanno? Like you can't just do your normal thing without it. Plus, the Dreams got worse, and.." well, she knows the rest. He shrugs.

"I spent a long time trying to cope," he finishes, "But shit, twelve? I can't imagine dealing with all of this as a kid, fuck," there's genuine empathy there.

"I'm sorry." About the deterioration, with equally genuine empathy back at him. "If it helps any, I've - " Nope, Hailey dithers on what she was going to say, then reels it back in with a quick head-shake. She should be like WHY DID YOU THINK I AM NOT A SHRINK?! WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT THAT, but instead just rolls with it. "I am. Studying internal medicine." The term 'regular doctor' gets him a Look from beneath a lifted brow. "But I started my residency," tiptoe tiptoe, "at a mental health facility, plus. Regardless. It's enough that I make people turn their heads and cough, I shouldn't be doing that to them, too."

All this because the other part of the conversation is really hard. So good job bringing it up, Hailey! "If it helps any," is what she was saying earlier, and now maybe will finish that thought. "Everyone that I've met like us? Is just trying to cope, one way or another. You seem..." She looks at him for a long time, like she really really needs to think of how to finish this thought (before she blurts out SUPER HOT). "...together enough."

Big breath. "This conversation got very dark. I'm sorry."

"You've...?" Harvey ventures, though he doesn't pry further. Besides, she's tiptoe-tiptoeing the door wide open, what with the comment about working in a mental health facility. "Yeah? That must've been rough," he says of her former residency. But he isn't about to bust open this door and get to the deeper, seedier aspects of her last two years. It's just left hanging there, as Harvey moves onto the latter points of the conversation

"I'm trying," there's a lopsided smile that dimples in the right cheek but not the left. "You seem to have your shit together, too. Honestly what really helped me out was this book I picked up, by Marcia Mulligan. Parting the Veil, you ever read it? I don't know if she was like us, but she definitely had her thumb on the pulse of all of this." It's another shrug, the crooked smile straightening to dimple either cheek.

"Yeah," the conversation did get dark. "Definitely less 'getting to know you' and more 'fifth date' territory, but whatever," he chuckles, "Nice to talk about it sometimes. With people who really get it." And with that?He picks up the strap of his satchel and pulls it over his shoulder. "I should probably let you enjoy the rest of your lunch in peace. But it was nice seeing you again, Hailey."

There's no fuss as he gets to his feet, but there's a furrowing to his brow as though he's really contemplating something. It comes out soon after: "Hey, so, I realize we're probably not destined to be roommates and really annoy each other with shared living spaces. But if you wanna grab coffee sometime.. You know." Shrug. "Feel free to text."

A shrug answers for the roughness of Hailey's time at Crazytown, both shoulders lifting till they just about touch her ears, held there like that shrug is going to answer for her togetherness, too. And the book. She really fits a lot of responses into that one gesture - which at least saves her trying to come up with anything to actually say (and thus inadvertently plunging the conversation back into the dark territory into which she steered it in the first place).

Just to be sure he's not left with the impression that he was being a pest, she warms to the smile, answering it in kind. Which, honestly, isn't a conscious decision so much as a thing she can't not do. Anyway, she answers, "Thank you, it was nice to run into you." She thinks it was pure serendipity, poor lamb.

Having gotten herself all set to surreptitiously watch him leave, the 'hey so' catches her by surprise, hence the blinking he gets while he's all brow-furrowing. Re: destined to be roommates, it's "Oh. Yeah, that's - " Something, she fails to finish the thought. But if she wants to grab coffee sometime, you know, "I will. Good luck with the roommate search. Try not to get eaten by any snakes. Or bikers? Bye, Harvey." She's pretty cool about keeping her gawking under control while he leaves, just finishing her lunch and looking in that general direction casually.