2019-10-26 - House Call

When the guard lets him in, Elias comes up to the apartment. He does have the first aid kit tucked under one arm, and is dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, plain black, with dark green sweater over it, and green Doc Marten's. He knocks a couple of times on the door and attempts the handle, to see if Dante left it open or not.

Despite Dante's lack of response, the doorman seems to have been told of Elias' visit. He's allowed to go up to the flat without any trouble. The door is in fact, openm and there are a series of dirty footprints on the otherwise immaculate floor. The trail leads towards the kitchen, where he's precariously balanced on the breakfast nook stool with a thousand yard stare. He's drinking from a glass that holds whiskey, if the bottle sitting by his elbow is to be believed.
He's wearing a blue cotton robe that barely covers up the dirt and scratches caking his entire body. One of his toes is bloody and looks stubbed at the very least. There's another trail of muddier footprints leading from the bedroom. He looks over when he hears the door open, a sort of disjointed smile twitching at his lips. He lifts his glass in greeting before he downs the full shot and a bit that was in it a moment ago.

Elias comes into the apartment and closes the door, taking in the floor for a moment, and then following the footprints all the way to the man in the breakfast nook. He sets the kit down on the counter and surveys both the man, and then the footprints and mess everywhere. "Tell me that you don't actually need help hiding a body," he says as he walks over and studies Dante from head to toe. "How badly are you hurt?" Because as much as he can't resist the quipping, there is genuine concern in his eyes.

"I don't think so," croaks Dante as he fills up his glass again. He's looking glassy-eyed, but it's hard to tell if that's from the drink or from the experience. "It's hard to say. I haven't really looked." He does tug the shoulder off his robe with some effort, revealing at least a half dozen long, shallow scratches. It looks like he went one on one with a bramble bush and lost. There seems to be a fair bit of caked blood, but nothing actively bleeding except the slow flow from his toe that drips onto the formerly pristine tile.

"May I?" Elias asks, as he holds up his hands in front of Dante, but doesn't seem like he's actually going to touch him. "I can help." He waits to see whether or not he has permission to do anything, but he allows himself to sense Dante's wounds, to get a feeling for his injuries, both internal and external if there are any. He senses the scratches and the injury to his toe, and anything hidden from view, and then he glances back toward Dante's features.

Dante nods once, slowly. He sets his glass down and coughs a little, though it's hard to say what provoked it. His wounds are, for the most part, superficial. There's a deeper gash on his knee, but his sprained toe is the worst of it. It's almost as if the wounds were designed to avoid hitting major arteries, or only going deep enough to inflict paint, but not inflict serious damage.

Elias doesn't need to touch him to do anything at all, but it's very likely that Dante can feel both the use of the Glimmer, and the pain as it begins to ease gradually from all of the cuts and bruises. It's like a soothing warm light from within that seeps through his body and into his limbs, radiating outward. The scratches heal up entirely as though they were never there, the gash on his knee knitting, and only lastly, his toe beginning to heal up over the course of moments as Elias very gently simply holds his hands out in front of him a little and lets his eyes close, sensing the wounds, and gradually healing them all. The first aid kit was entirely superfluous, but he wasn't sure exactly what he was going to find, and sometimes even his healing abilities can fail.

It's a very strange sensation, but then, Dante's felt more than a few of those this evening. It's only after it's done that he realizes he was holding his breath almost the whole time. He inhales sharply, then looks down at his hand to watch a bloody gash heal up, leaving only the dirt and blood behind. "How did you...?"

Once he is finished, Elias lets his eyes drift open again and he takes a moment to draw in a breath and let it out slowly, sliding his hands back into his pockets. He seems a little bit more relaxed once he knows that Dante is in better shape, at least physically, than he was when he arrived. "It's one of the things that I can do," Elias says, "I can heal people and fix broken things. I can also hurt people, and break things, but I've never had occasion to do so. I try to be a good witch, even if a mischievous one at times." His lips tick just a little bit upward at the edges. He reaches out then to take hold of Dante's bottle of whiskey, adding a little more to Dante's glass, and stealing a sip from it himself before setting it down. "Would you like to tell me how you ended up bruised and clawed and bloodied like that? I didn't see any blood and dirt leading down the hall to the apartment.. so I'm assuming it wasn't a natural occurrence."

"Does it hurt you to do it?" Dante asks. It's the first non-halting words he's said since Elias arrived. "I can't imagine that comes without a cost." He watches the drink get refilled, then tugs it towards him. He starts to lift it, pauses, set it down, then lifts it again to drink. "I...fell asleep. Or at least I thought I did. And then I woke up somewhere that looked like the moors around my childhood home. In the dark. In the cold. Naked."

Elias leans up against the wall with one shoulder and shakes his head, "It doesn't hurt me. The cost is the ping that it sends out into the world, to the Dark Men and their ilk, like a submarine ping. It might attract unwanted attention, and I may end up finding myself in such a Dream. But it's a risk I take willingly, so don't worry about that too much." He nods then as Dante explains what happened to him. "And what happened?" he prompts, just listening for now.

Dante stares off into the middle distance again, jaw muscles clenching. "There were things in the shadows. Things that rushed me and slashed at me. And then a much larger...thing." He swallows. "I ran, I tripped, I fell. I woke up back here." His words are halting and unsure, quite unlike his usual confident delivery.

"That was a Dream, with a capital D, the sort in which you are physically transported to that place where Dreams occur, and you were really there. If you'd been killed, you would really be dead," Elias says, which he knows is not reassuring, but is the harsh truth of the matter. "You have the ability to protect yourself. I can sense that you have some of the same ability that I do, the one I use to move things. It can also protect you. I am going to try and teach you how to use it. You're going to need it." He reaches out gently then, resting his hand over Dante's. "I'm sorry.. that you encountered that darkness alone."

"It was..." Dante laughs humourlessly, "...it was like something out of one of my books. Isn't that poetic fucking justice?" He lifts a hand to his face and rubs his forehead. The hand is still dirty and bloody. He recoils from his own touch. "I should...clean up."

Elias smiles faintly, but sympathetically. "It's.. strangely apropos, but not in a good way." He then nods when Dante says he should go and clean up. He runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. "Do you want me to go? Or..?"

Dante blinks a few times. Then he tries to smile, though it's strained. "I'm so sorry, Elias. We've not known each other very long. This is...a lot to put on you. I just didn't know who else to call who I know wouldn't call me mad." He looks down again at where a scratch was. "Thank you."

"There's nothing for you to apologize for," Elias says, a smile touching his lips. "And if you'd like me to stay, I would gladly stay with you. I just didn't want to assume. And no, we haven't known each other long, but I think I've been pretty clear that I want to know you, and that I'd like you to know me. So you can call me any time, day or night, and no, I will not call you mad. I'm glad that you called me."

"That's a hell of an offer," murmurs Dante. "I promise not to abuse it." He looks around his apartment, then back at Elias. "I'm...going to go give myself a rinse." His smile comes back, this time at least looking more genuine. "Make yourself at home. Pour yourself a drink." He waves in the general direction of his well-stocked liquor cabinet.

Not that Elias hadn't already made himself at home, and poured himself a drink, in Dante's glass, and took a sip from it. But he nods with a little smile and says, "Okay. Take your time. I'll be here. And I wouldn't have made the offer if I didn't mean it." He then waves Dante off, and while he is off, Elias does make himself at home, but not to get a drink. He looks under the sink and wherever one stores some cleaning products, and he goes to work on cleaning up the mess a bit, at least in the entry and on the tile. He doesn't go into Dante's room, but he does putter around, removing some of the evidence of the Dream.

Dante slides himself off the stool and nods once before heading back for the ensuite. He doesn't linger too long, but long enough for Elias to clean up the most visible of the mess and have a little time to kill. Despite the fact that he has been in the apartment awhile, there are very few personal touches. Everything is also impeccably neat and very uncluttered. It feels like an AirBnB that is never someone's home. What items that are his, are perfectly in order. The fridge doesn't have much in it, but what's there is arranged purposefully. The same can be said for the cupboards, his liquor cabinet, and the cleaning supplies.

He emerges after a few minutes, this time in workout pants and a black t-shirt, his hair still wet and curling. A cloud of expensive-smelling bath products seeps out from the bathroom. He looks down at the floor. "You didn't have to do that."

Once done with his preliminary cleaning, and satisfied that the place looks like a little less of a disaster for Dante, he simply plunks himself down on the couch, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing one ankle over the other. He is thus sprawled, his hands folded on his stomach when Dante returns. "I know," he says with a slight shrug of his shoulders, "But you've had a rough enough night. At least this way you don't have to tread through it now that you're cleaned up. Besides, it was that or go through all your drawers and snoop," he teases.

"If you did that, all you would find was perfectly organized cutlery," says Dante with a grin. He picks up his glass and moves towards the couch. "I might sleep out here tonight. My bed is a state." And the idea of lying back down there seems to spook him. "Now I wish I had kept the bed in the other room. I had it moved out to make an office."

"You could come to my place if you wanted," Elias offers and holds up a hand, "And stay in one of the guest rooms in a perfectly platonic gentlemanly and non-coffee related way. But then you'd be somewhere that you weren't alone. That's all I'm suggesting." He's careful, this time, to be clear that he's not using any euphemisms for anything at all. "My sister moved out recently, and it's just me and my cousin Daniel at the moment. The place is kind of a revolving door of family coming and going."

"Ah, I appreciate the offer. But I'm a bit like a cat. I don't do as well in unfamiliar surroundings. And this..." Dante looks around, "...has become at least somewhat familiar." He looks into his glass, which he hasn't drank much of since he carried it over to the cuch. "How do you...deal with all of this? How do you wrap your head around it and live something like a normal life?"

Elias nods and doesn't seem put off by the answer, as though he'd been expecting it, anyway. "Of course," he says. "Imagine what it might be like to have seizures. You're going about your day and suddenly you collapse in the middle of the room and have a grand mal seizure. People freak out, because they don't understand what's going on. People who do help make sure you don't hurt yourself as best they can. And eventually, you're okay again. You have no control over it. You lose that time that you were 'gone', but what can you do? You can't get it back. You can't do anything about the condition other than do whatever medical prevention is available, and go on with your life. You can't stop living because something happens that is out of your control. I kind of look at it that way. These things? They happen. I choose to go on living the life that I choose to live, because in that way, I defy these Dark Men who want to fuck up my shit."

"But if...moving away would make it stop, why not leave? I know..." Dante lifts a hand and gestures, "...we talked about this before. But..." that was more hypothetical. Now he's seen it with his own eyes. "Is a little magic truly worth risking your sanity and your...well, I don't know if I believe in souls. Essence? Being?"

"Because moving away would essentially lobotomize me, and make me forget half of who I am, where I came from, my history, my family. Yes, I'd remember they were my family, but half of my life would be replaced with false memories, and yes, after a while I wouldn't even remember what I'd lost," Elias says, "But while I have it within my power to make the choice? I would rather be who I am, here, where I can cope with this.. than out there being.. what? Who? I don't even know." He says, "Though, I would very much understand if you packed up tomorrow and fled town, now that you've experienced some of the potential for darkness that is here."

"I've...made my career imagining the dark things in the shadows. Not just the things, but the darkness inherent in human nature." Dante bites the edge of his lip and exhales an amused sound. "Turns out I can't handle my own medicine. There's some poetry in that, I suppose. And if these things can use your own imagination against you, I've got quite a deep, dark trove. Which I fully admit is terrifying. But," he looks away for a moment, then back to Elias. "...I've always prided myself at not shying away from the darkness. But to face it, and to mine it for meaning. But they say pride is a sin, yes?" A rough chuckle.

"Nothing would stop you from continuing to do that. You'd just forget that the possibility of it being very real is.. well, real. It would go back to being a vague sort of nightmare, something half-remembered but explained away. And if you go back to moving around, finding that home that you talked about, then you could go on writing about all the darkness, without ever truly being touched by it," Elias says, unsure if that's a true possibility, but figuring for those in places where the Veil wasn't thin, a far better prospect than in Gray Harbor. "I can't shy away from it. It's part of who I am, and someone needs to eventually figure out how to protect others from these things. I have to believe that I have a purpose here, even if it's just to help heal the damage that they do until I can learn more."

Dante ponders a moment, then, if he's not stopped, he reaches out to take Elias' hand and give it a squeeze. "You're a braver man than I. It's taking everything to not load up my car and leave town without ever looking back. But I wouldn't be a horror writer if...if the darkness didn't also fascinate me. I've spent thousands of hours thinking about what lies in the shadows. And now I have an opportunity to actually know."

Elias doesn't stop him at all, instead, returning the light squeeze. "Brave? Stubborn? Foolish? I suppose that's all up for debate." His smile is a little self-deprecating. "And you /will/ know if you stay here. It's not a matter of if, but when, in Gray Harbor."

"I suppose the question is, am I strong enough to know?" Dante sounds like he doubts it, or at least worries about it. "I mean, here I am going to pieces over what to you must seem like the mildest little trip into the netherworld."

"You found yourself naked, cold, and alone, and attacked by things you were not prepared to face, Dante. That's something perfectly reasonable to go to pieces over," Elias tells him, brushing his thumb lightly against the other man's hand. "That's terrifying. The only reason that I can be calm about it, is because a) I wasn't there in that situation myself, b) I have a lot more experience with finding myself in those sorts of situations, and c) I want to be here for /you/ right now. Your reaction is more than reasonable given the circumstances."

"So it gets easier?" Dante asks, "This business with the monsters in the dark being real, and psychic abilities and all of this? You get better at handling it?" He sounds like he wants to believe it, but isn't quite sure. He squeezes the hand in his unconsciously.

"I am uniquely unqualified to answer that since I don't have the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with this," Elias admits. "There are plenty of folks who have moved here from out of town who Glimmer, though, and they stay, so I have to assume that they find a reason to, and that they find a way to cope."

"Maybe I should start a support group. Outsider Glimmerers Anonymous." Dante seems to be settling, relaxing, and calming down. Either that or he's just pushing the experience to the back of his mind for the moment. "Am I keeping you from anything?"

Elias chuckles and says, "I'm kind of surprised that there isn't one already. Or maybe there is, but it's so secret that I haven't heard of it yet." He muses a little on that, and watches Dante's profile, noting that little bit of settling, and seeming satisfied by that. The question garners a slight shake of his head, "No, nothing at all. I was just at home, listening to Daniel rattle on about his classes at school and not watching whatever was on TV."

"I haven't smoked in years, but I admit this has me wanting a cigarette. Maybe I should take up smoking weed. It's not nearly as bad for you, and I've heard it can calm the nerves as well. Or maybe it just gets you so stoned you don't care anymore." Dante's more genuine easy smile comes back, but the trouble hasn't entirely washed away.

"I do find it relaxing from time to time," Elias says, on the topic of smoking weed. "Frankie and I used to get high every so often." He then says, "Sometimes the Dreams aren't so terrible, either. Have you ever seen the movie Pleasantville? Where the town is all very 1950s and in black and white, and as people start to come out of their boxes, and think for themselves, and that sort of thing.. they slowly begin to colorize?"

"I think so. On a plane years ago. I remember something about painting. And...I want to say, Tobey Maguire?" Dante's eyebrows arch. "Are you saying the dreams are like that literally or metaphorically?"

"I'm saying that I was pulled into a Dream like that the other night. I stepped out on my front porch and the whole neighborhood was in black and white, girls in poodle skirts, the whole nine yards," Elias says with a little smile. "Neighbors who were disapproving of the unruly kids running through their yards, everything."

"Was it...pleasant? Or terrifying? Although I suppose that would depend if you hold any affection for the 50s. Or at least, the Hollywood version of it." Dante smiles a little. "The real thing, well, I would not want to go back then. The suits were nice, though."

Elias chuckles, "It was.. interesting? There were others there, from my neighborhood -- some of the college kids from 7 Oak, I think? They were all out in the street. Some were playing along, getting into the 'theme' of the movie, and others were just being silly. They got to musing if food would taste funny in black and white, so I mused that we needed an ice cream truck. And lo and behold, one came rolling down the street. I tried to buy ice cream for everyone, but then the truck driver seemed to get a bit antsy about that." He smiles and shrugs his shoulders. "When one of them got all excited about the rocket pops and went running through a yard and grabbed one, it suddenly came through in color, as did the image of the rocket pop on the side of the ice cream truck. It was.. kind of fun, really."

"It sounds...very much like a dream. Where the logic doesn't quite..." Dante makes a vague motion with his hand to indicate connection. "You said earlier that you think I have abilities. How do you know that? You seemed to know what they are as well. Can you..." he waves to himself. Mister talkative seems to be having issues with words. He smiles awkwardly. "Does it have something to do with your healing?"

"It was quite odd, and the next day, I received a gift on my front porch. Apparently Miss Sparrow decided that since I admired her poodle skirt, that I deserved one of my own. I'll have to find some occasion to wear it to thank her for it," Elias says with an amused grin. But then he switches topics with Dante's question. "Yes, in a way? The ability that lets me sense your illnesses and hurts also lets me sense the particular flavor of Glimmer that you possess. There are three main branches, that I've been able to determine. And you seem to be strongest in the same way that I am."

"Well you certainly have the legs for it," Dante drawls, tilting his head for a moment. But then he relaxes back against the couch. "Is it intuitive? I don't think I've ever moved anything with my brain." But then, "...perhaps now isn't the time to experiment, though. I'm not sure my brain can take any more breaking."

Elias stretches out one of his legs, pointing his booted toes a little and then snickers, letting it fall back down comfortably where it was, one ankle crossed over the other. "I do have great legs," he says in an offhanded tone that is totally joking. "It depends. For some I think it takes practice and teaching and others, it just happens. A lot of times, the first time someone figures out they can do anything at all is when it happens accidentally, as the result of some fright or trauma."

Dante flexes one of his hands and looks down at it. "Ah, yes, well, I've certainly had both of those in the last few hours. But baby steps, perhaps?" Then he's quiet for a moment before he says, "Can I ask you something a bit personal?" And perhaps pivot the conversation away from the supernatural for a moment.

"I wasn't suggesting that you try right this moment," Elias says with a little shake of his head. "I think perhaps you've had more than enough of the Dream for one night." He gives a faint little smile, then, clearly agreeing that perhaps now is not the best time for experimentation. "If you want to try sometime in the future, then I will be happy to help. But not tonight." Then he pauses and says, "Of course."

"I guess it's more than a bit personal," Dante's eyebrows lift, then fall. "I em, well, no very gentle way to ask this, so I suppose I should just be out with it. Do you like girls as well?" For a man who tends to come off as quite confident, he looks a bit sheepish.

Elias smiles a little bit curiously at that preamble, wondering what it is exactly that Dante is about to ask him. The question that does come, however, seems to puzzle him a little bit, but he doesn't hesitate to say, "Yes. Why?" It doesn't seem to bother him to be asked, though.

"Just curious. And I suppose, wondering about the um, the tolerance level of this town." Dante looks out the window, even though it's a view of the bay and not the town itself.

"Frankie and I have had a friends with benefits thing going for years," Elias says with a little smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "But, seeing as she's engaged, that won't be a thing anymore." He seemed more hurt by the fact that he found out about the engagement after others did than the fact that whatever they had going on is over, though. "Honestly, nobody's ever said boo to me and I've been out since high school."

"Oh, I don't know. I've seen open relationships when parties were married." Dante matches the little smile. Then, "That's good to know. That certainly wasn't my experience when I was younger. Though I did go to an all-boys school for a good portion of my schooling. It seems cliche, but you do the math."

"I don't get the impression that Greg would be into that," Elias chuckles, "And to be honest, this is her first real relationship and she seems really head over heels into it. What we had? It was fun. She's my best friend, always will be. Not having sex won't change that." he then chuckles and says, "All the stereotypes of all boys' schools come rushing to mind." Then he says, "I went to public school here in town. Some of my cousins had tutors and that sort of thing, but I liked public school."

"Ah, see that's the curious thing. Public school in England, is the opposite. It means a place with tuition and sometimes boarding. I went to Eton, which is pretty much the most cliche place for a British man with some trace of noble blood to attend. But my father is a staunch traditionalist and he wore down on my poor mother. For a time." Dante pauses a moment for effect, "Until she divorced him." He grins. "Anyway, theatre at Eton, well, you could write a book on the homoeroticism."

"Ah, that would be a private school here, with the boarding and all of that. I have some friends who went. I could have, but there aren't any around here, so it would have meant going out of state and.. well.. Webers don't usually leave Gray Harbor for long," Elias says. But then they've had that conversation before. "Theatre at Eton," Elias repeats with a little curve of his lips, "I might actually read that book."

"Aheh. Well, I'll keep that in mind if I ever decide to venture into romance novels." There's a bit of a twinkle in Dante's eye. "Though maybe an all-boys college set a few decades ago instead. Go fully into erotica."

"You should. Hell, maybe I should," Elias considers with a chuckle. "Not that I haven't written a little here and there already -- just nothing that I've published." He smiles as that twinkle returns to Dante's eyes, seeming pleased that the man seems to be relaxing a little bit, getting some distance from the Dream. "I should probably not overstay my welcome, though," he says after a moment or two of thought. "You could probably use some actual rest."

"As much as I am...apprehensive about going back to sleep, you're probably right. If I wasn't actually asleep, that means I've been up for nearly twenty hours." Dante presses a hand to his forehead. "So perhaps if I do rest, I'll feel a bit more like myself." He takes a deep breath. "Thank you for coming. Apologies if I startled you."

Elias pulls himself up from the couch, then, rising up to his feet. He nods and says, "You've been up for a while, and didn't get any real rest. The good-ish news? I've never been pulled immediately back into something like that after coming out the other side .. so, hopefully you will be able to rest. If you can't.. or if you need company, you know how to reach me." He then shakes his head and says, "Dante.. I was glad to come, and I was glad you called me. I was worried, of course, because I care. But that's really not such a bad thing." He then makes his way over toward the kitchen, to reclaim the first aid kit he'd brought with him.

Despite his fatigue, Dante seems determined to see Elias out. He gets up and follows him towards the kitchen. "Still. I'm..." he rubs the back of his neck. "...not especially accustomed to relying on others. Especially those who I don't know very well. Plus I'm English, and I'm tired enough that I keep forgetting whether or not I've thanked you."

Elias tucks the kit under one arm and turns back toward Dante. He steps in close to him then, and gently reaches out to cup the side of his face with one hand, "Well, for what it's worth -- I'm fairly sure calling a friend when you've experienced a reality-bending experience doesn't in anyway reduce your self-reliance cred." He seems to consider something for a moment, and then he brushes his thumb gently against Dante's jaw and lets his hand fall. "You're welcome," he says, with that little smile, and then he moves toward the door to slip out.