2019-12-15 - First Meetings

One'd think he'd've had more than enough of the sea, considering how he arrived here. It's not like Joe doesn't have his little boat moored to the dock, bobbing peacefully. But there he is on the beach, sitting calmly on one of the flatter rocks, gazing dreamily out to sea. With the cold and rain finally gone, he's more or less basking in the bright sunlight, wearing nothing more than t-shirt, jeans, and boots.

Kass finds inspiration everywhere. A leaf skirling around on a breeze, the waves coming in from the ocean, often just from inside her own head. Today has found her on the beach, shuffling along in her darkwash skinny jeans and a dark grey tanktop under a red and black flannel shirt. She's in her bare feet, a pair of bright red Chuck Taylors tied together and slung over one shoulder. Her messenger bag bangs against her hip as she moves along the beach, just letting the wind blow through her hair and enjoying some rare time out in the sun. When she stumbles across Joseph, however, there's a myriad of expressions that flitter across her face, running the gamut from fear and suspicion to indecision and a faint sort of hope. In the end, she approaches, clearing her throat when she gets within range and offering a brief glance and flickering smile, both of which skitter away quickly as she works to be 'sociable'. "Uhm.. hi. Is.. is it alright if I..." she motions towards another of the rocks that looks suitable for sitting.

Depending on how clear her memories....she knows that hatchet profile, the sleepy blue eyes. He glances over lazily, at first - and then Joe goes abruptly still, blinking at her. A few beats of pause, and then he says, slowly, "Sure."

He lets the silence sit for a moment and says, "You seem familiar. I did a stay in a ....hospital that was near here. I might'a known you from there?" God knows he doesn't sound like a local. But then, they brought him a long way for that 'hospital stay' - the Asylum's place in real world geography is uncertain, at best. Holding himself carefully, as if he feared frightening her away.

Kass chews at her lower lip and settles in on one of the rocks, setting her sneakers, then her messenger bag, on the rock next to her. She reaches inside, withdrawing a good-sized sketchpad and a some charcoals and pencils. His next comment has her flicking her gaze towards him again, lingering on his face as she frowns. Her brows draw together as she murmurs, "...Maybe... its. Its hard to remember being there. But.. your eyes are familiar. You were... short. Your stay. In and out.. I didn't.. I didn't see you much... I don't think." SHe glances down to her hands, forcing them to relax before she snaps her charcoals. Setting them carefully down, she breaths, then asks, "Are you here to take me back? Is it time?"

Body language still deliberately calm, slow - like someone doing his best not to frighten a skittish animal. "No, I wasn't there long....and a lot of the time I was there, I was in solitary." Not literally a padded room, but close. Some torments could only be borne alone. He shakes his head, schooling his features to keep from showing revulsion, disgust. "No. I am not. You think you gonna go back there - that someone will come for you? Does that happen to all the patients, or....?" Despite his attempts at calm, there's a wash of goosebumps over his arms. The scars there were bandaged wounds, and then new, raw lines then. Now they've faded somewhat to mere pink seams from wrist nearly to elbow.

Kass gives a slow nod and picks up her charcoal again, looking out towards the ocean then down to the pad. She starts her sketch, big sweeping gestures at first, the broad strokes to make the base. Soon enough, however, she's setting down one and picking up another, finer-tipped stick, and starting to fill in details. She glances up occasionally while he speaks, the increasing barrage of questions not seeming to phase her as her hands continue the sketch. "They already tried once. Said I'm being too 'flashy' and 'obvious'.. more, than I'm not doing the things They want. I've been fixing instead of breaking and They don't like it." She lifts a shrug and glances over towards him, "If you keep a low profile and don't overdo yourself, They'll leave you alone for the most part. You might have some weird Dreams, and you gotta be careful in them.. but they won't like.. come snatch you out of bed just for existing."

Someone who knows. Someone who'll talk to him frankly, and not merely drop portentous hints. His shoulders sag a little, in relief. "I, ah.....listen. I'm not tryin'a make you talk about what you don't wanna remember, or do or say somethin' that might cause you more trouble. But....I've been circlin' the drain on this problem for three years now, it damn near killed me. I don't know where to go or who to ask. Who or what are They? What is all this? Why is town thick with those who shine?"

"I cause my own trouble... could say I'm almost daring them to take me back. Or kill me. One or the other. This side is so strange sometimes, don't really feel like I fit.. anywhere, anymore. But I know the asylum. Spent nearly as much time there as I have here." Kass lifts a small shrug and looks down to her sketchpad again, She continues with her drawing and the conversation, her eyes flickering between pad, sea, and man as she creates. "They.. are indefinable. At least, I think they are. They have lackeys, of course they do. But They aren't really something you can put a name to. But They are bad news. At least for us. And people in general. No idea where they come from or if they've always been here or what." Kass pauses briefly, glancing up and over to Joseph with a wry half-smile, "You'll have to be more specific as to what 'all this' entails. There's a lot of 'all this'. As for this place?" She lifts shrug and shakes her head, "My personal theory? There are thin places in the world. Places where the veil between This Place and the Other Place might be more like a membrane than an actual veil. Easily pierced. I think people like us tend to be more prevalent at these places because there's more of this... shine, glimmer, whatever thing... that gathers here. It gets into the place, right into the bones of it. Into the people. And so.. you have us. And then people -like- us are drawn to these places too. And where there's us.. there's Them. So it really ends up being a chicken and egg sort of question." Her free hand comes up, tucking a lock of hair behind one ear, leaving a streak of charcoal across the rim. "But that's just a theory."

"More than I've had to go on so far," Joe says, quietly. "I figured some of it, on the gut level. 's why I haven't moved on. I knew my direction and I knew when I'd arrived." He sounds.....resigned. Like this is the shore fate has washed him up on, and there's nothing to be done save accept it.

Belatedly, embarrassment appearing, he holds out a hand. "I'm Joe, by the way. Joe Cavanaugh. And I was bein' too vague, sorry. It's just...." He sighs. "I'm an engineer by training. So the urge is to try and understand and classify this whole ecosystem. That other place, the humans who see and touch it, and those predators that come for us. I wonder if they create us out of potentials, the way a farmer might breed livestock....or just find us..."

Kass gives a small nod, "Wish I could offer some sort of consolation but... I was born here. This has been my whole life. I honestly don't know if there's anything else out there, or if I could survive in it." She shrugs once more and chews lightly on her lower lip in contemplation. When she glances up again, there's sympathy there, though a guarded sympathy. People are dangerous, after all.

Her eyes drop to his hand when he offers it, staring for an uncomfortably long time before she slowly reaches a hand to take his. Giving a single firm shake before quickly withdrawing. "Kassandra Hughes. Kass. I guess that's something that made it easier for me, in a way. I never really had a set conception of the world or its workings before I was taken. I was still learning what the world was and who was in it. Then The Incident happened... and I 'went away'. Sorta like being 'sent upstate' except its a whole other kinda prison." She looks back to her pad and reaches down, starting to smudge and blur some of the lines using the tips of her fingers. Heedless of the charcoal that smears onto her skin. "Couldn't tell you that part. I think that's part of the whole 'eveyrone has a different theory' thing."

To be plunged into it that young, before you know who you are or how it's supposed to work.....that's hard. Ready commiseration in his face, but there's still that burning curiosity in the blue eyes. Joe's very clearly trying to restrain himself. His hand's warm and callused, and he shows no sign of awkwardness at her hesitation.

"What incident?" His voice is quiet, hushed, barely audible above the sound of the surf on the beach. "And....anyone else I should talk to, that you would suggest?" It's like a game of flashlight tag - him blundering around in the dark, uncertain, too scared to flick the light on, for fear of what he might attract.

Kass cringes when he mentions the incident. It doesn't matter that she brought it up in the first place, the reaction is instinctive. Letting out a breath, she murmurs, "I, uh... 'manifested' early on. Really young. Only got stronger as I got older. And, well.. you know.. teenage hormones and being a girl and all that.. teen years were.. rough. I ended up in a fight with my parents. It shouldn't have been anything. Some shouting and yelling, me stomping off to my room and slamming my door, maybe sneaking out to go hang out with my delinquent friends..." She pauses, staring hard out across the ocean but seeing none of it. "Instead.. I lost control. I got angry and lashed out. And.. I.. hurt them. Badly enough they were hospitalized for a few days. Badly enough that I was sent off the asylum as soon as my dad could hold the pen to sign the papers."

Clearing her throat after a few moments, she props up a flagging smile and offers, "I spent.. ten years there. I was thirteen when I went in. Twenty-three now and I still don't know how I know what I know. I can do things I don't ever remember learning. But I know them. So here I am. Working in a strip club because I don't even know if I have a GED or diploma from anything and trying to figure out what's worse.. not remembering ten years of my past.. or not knowing the next however many years of my future."

Pausing, she frowns, "Aaaaaaaaaand now I'm rambling. Uhm. Others. Right. There's.. there's people I've met. In Dreams. We'll all get dragged along on something. I still think they're experiments. Something They do to test us. But I don't know.. um. I don't know anyone that actually talks about any of this stuff. Nobody's ever talked to me about it."

Joseph lifts long hands, worn palms out, that old gesture of peaceable intent, as if to ward off any upset. "If you want," he offers, gently, "I'll do what I can to help. Startin' with figurin' out if you have formal schooling on the books. I've had those Dreams, some...." And wears the evidence on his body of one, yet.

He closes his eyes for a beat, inhales deeply, setting that particular memory aside. "People talked to me about it a little, in the hospital. But I didn't retain it. Memory was not workin' well while I was there...."

Shrugging lightly, Kass shakes her head, "I have a diploma on record. I just.. don't know if its real or if its something They made happen. I guess it doesn't matter. Most people don'e seem to remember much of what they learned in high school anyways. I just.. skipped the part about learning social cues and stuff." She glances over when he mentions the dreams, glancing down to his arms, then back up. "Did it happen in the Dream or after?" her voice goes quiet, subdued, as she asks about the scars. Before he can answer, she sets the pad and pencil aside and shrugs down the flannel. All along her shoulders, her arms.. dozens of small scars. Some more apparent than others, nothing life threatening certainly. But she knows they're there, and perhaps that's the point. Quickly pulling the flannel up again, she murmurs, "Who heals the healer?" then shrugs and reaches for her pad again.

She glances aside at him, "I just.. showed up at my parent's house. I.. vaguely remember being released and.. sent home but... I don't remember how. I just remember being there and then... then getting out of that house as quickly as I could." Quickly enough she took a job at whatever place would hire her fastest and let her afford whatever crappy little place she has. "It won't.. not about the Other Place. There's something about it.. it fogs the memory.. makes things real hard to remember sometimes. I get flashbacks, sometimes. Just maybe 5, 10 seconds. A face. A room. Some undefined feeling of deja vu or having met someone before. Bout it. Sometimes its scary, sometimes it nice. But there's nothing set in stone with that place."

"In the Dream," he says. He doesn't have to ask what she means. They're obvious. "I didn't know what it was. I came to this late - I was a scientist, an aviator. Then I was in an accident and things.....went wrong. My body was hurt pretty bad, but as it healed, the mental stuff got worse. Voices, things moving...." He trails off, and for a moment there's a terrible, lost look on his face. Joe turns it out to sea. "Yeah. It's hard to know what's a true memory of there and Them and what's just....neurological artifacts. Brain damage. I'm sorry you went through all that, but God, it's a blessed relief to talk to someone."

Nodding, Kass offers a wry half-smile, "If its any consolation, I don't know much more than you do and I've had it my whole life. What I've gotten has been culled across time and... I don't know. I guess at some point some of us started talking, because I know some things, but not much, and I don't know at all how I know them. A lot of it, though, is just theories. Probably always will be. We have, for all intents and purposes, entered the Twilight Zone. Science is still here, and useful, but it can't quantify this. Us. Them. That Other Place." She clears her throat a little and tries a small, more natural smile. Its still a bit forced, but it definitely looks better. "Sounds like you're telekinetic and telepathic. That's good, there's lots around like you. Should be able to find people that can help you with, you know.. that stuff. I'm.. well.. its weird. Powers of destruction and creation are the best things I can think of to name it. Pyrokinesis is part of it. But.. I can also harm someone directly, without ever touching them. Or I could heal them, too. Even like.. broken bones. Diseases. I can also break or mend items. Its.. sort of a grab bag. There's all kinds of stuff involved. But.. its helped some folks, whether they asked for it or not, so that's good enough for me."

Joe listens to that, raptly. He's still pale - remembered distress, perhaps. He rubs a hand over his face, and says, "I gotta go. But.....here." He's old school enough that he writes name and number down on a scrap of paper, proffers it to her. "I'm stayin' at Bayside, but I gotta little boat there," He nods at the dock. "Surprise, slip eight. You need any help I can provide, you wanna talk, just....get in touch. I know you don't need a stranger up in your business, but you've already done me a hell of a favor."

Kass takes the scrap of paper from him, looking it over with aa faint smile, "Thanks, Joe." Inspired, she scribbles something in the bottom right corner of the sketch before tearing it free and offering it up to him in return. Flashing a brief grin, "In case you need anything yourself. I live at the trailer park, but I hike all over and I'm up late more often than not. So.. you know. The same goes for you. Questions, problems.. if you just need to talk to someone who knows. Feel free." The sketch is of the ocean, and damn good at that! The waves almost seem like they're still in motion, with a few birds diving and circling up top. The beach reaching back and giving the impression of a first person view of the beach and surf. In the bottom righthand corner are her name and number. "Welcome to Gray Harbor."