2020-02-12 - Tell me about your dreams.

The world isn't literally over, so Patrick is here, working. It's really not a bad job, his, but he's got the pinched eyes of a person struggling with a monumental headache. Which probably explains why he's broken down, admitted he's old, and put on his glasses while he reads whatever he's reading. It looks like an invoice or something, one carbon-page of an invoice, something he's just walking away from the front door of the house with, heading toward the stairs.

There's not a lot of traffic on a weekday afternoon in February, no tourists, just one of the workers roaming around, dusting things. So there's no one to see him being old and wearing his glasses is why that's relevant.

Alexander at least isn't a tourist. He has the advantage of having nothing like a real job, so he makes his own hours, so ambling into to Addington House isn't that unusual. He's got a new scar on his forearm, and although he's taken the bandages off, there's still an impressive set of bruises creeping down out from his hair line, and down his neck and shoulders. Brushing his hair is REAL FUN.

Which may be why it looks so disheveled--oh, no, wait, that's just Alexander, really. His sweater is impressively oversized, almost like a dress on him, and he's got some of his thickest pants on against the chill. He looks around; he's not an unfamiliar face to the tour guides, and regularly comes by to stare at the antiques and wander like a creeper. This time, though, he seems to have a purpose in mind, and when he sees Patrick heading towards the stairs, he starts in that direction. "Patrick." A blink. "You wear glasses?"

"Clayton." Patrick peers through those glasses, dragging a look over all the things that mark Alexander as being Alexander having had a rough go lately. "That depends on who's looking." He takes them off and puts them in his pocket, saying as he does so, "What did you do this time?" <-- He was specifically NOT going to say that, but oh well.

Alexander offers a tentative smile at the acknowledgement, although it dies into a confused and defensive look, his shoulders hunching at the final question. "What? Me? I didn't do...what did you do? Why is it my fault?" The words are rapid and low, a mutter given with narrowed eyes.

The same hand that had been stowing his glasses is employed to wave at Alexander, with Patrick uncurling his index finger to point at the bruises, the bandages. He lets that gesture answer all the questions. "Come in." Even though they're already inside, he still stops using his hands to demonstrate at Alexander and puts it to beckoning toward the front parlor. Not that there'll be any sitting on the furniture, but it beats standing in the foyer.

"That doesn't count," Alexander says, although now he looks guilty along with defensive. "Occupational hazard. It wasn't my fault." Sort of. Maybe. Still, he doesn't avoid following the gesture, and slinks towards the front parlor with the air of someone who has been summoned to the principal's office. Still. Once he's in there, he paces restlessly, not attempting to sit on anything or touch anything, but staring at everything. Except Patrick.

Patrick touches relatively little in the house, as a rule, so at least they have each other for company. He's not as much a pacer, though, so he just crosses over to the front window, folds his arms across his chest, and watches Alexander for a handful of his paces, entertained rather than annoyed. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Clayton?" he finally gets around to.

Like he can't take a guess.

Alexander pauses in his rambles long enough to roll his eyes. "You know to what," he says, giving him a look. "You felt it, right? Anne said she did. And Isabella. I did...but concussion, so I've been feeling a lot of weird things lately. But they both are pretty solid, so I believe them." He turns his stare on a rather nice little sculpture sitting on a shelf. "I wanted to hear your take on it."

Watch Patrick lie to Alexander's face: "Of course I felt it. It woke me out of a dead sleep." TECHNICALLY, since Alexander hasn't defined what 'it' is, Patrick's just doing a very good job of toeing that line, made easier by the preoccupation with statues and stuff. "I - " Shaking his head, he only misses half a beat before he figures out a reliable answer. " - haven't got a take. I'm assuming someone touched something they shouldn't have. Again." He draws in a big breath, turns it into a sigh. "But that's the purest of speculation. The statue's harmless, by the way." Actually, with a dull smirk, he tacks on, "It used to be, anyway."

Alexander gives Patrick a sidelong look. "I just thought it looked pretty," he says, after a moment. "The statue. It's nice. I like antiques." Then he turns to face him more squarely. "Don't look at me. I was in the hospital. Gohl's grave is gone. None of us had reason to touch it." He looks away for a moment. "And I don't know of anything else that's particularly 'should not be touched'. If it was the carousel or the Asylum, it'd already happened...probably." He raises a hand to rub at his temple, mind shying away thinking too hard about whether they ACTUALLY went to the Asylum - or if maybe they never left.

Those are bad thoughts, and they never end well.

Eyes moving though the rest of him doesn't, Patrick looks around at the antiques all around Alexander, then puts his attention back on the man instead of the decorations. "Of course you were." In the hospital. He's not even surprised. Though he is surprised enough to let a short, scoff-sounding laugh bark out of him at the information about Gohl's grave. "Someone robbed the grave of an undead serial killer. That's just - " Words fail him, he'll just have to show Alexander the a-okay symbol. Sobering with a sniff, he concludes, "Any idea who might have been grave-robbing?"

Beat.

"It wasn't you, was it? This isn't just your way of confessing?"

"If they robbed it, they deserve a prize, because apparently they took everything - including every evidence that anyone had been buried there at all," Alexander deadpans. His lips tighten at the 'of course you were', but he doesn't argue with it. He does seem to end up there more often than anyone should. "And no. I didn't rob the grave. I wanted it where it was. I did have a dream, but it wasn't about the grave. Exactly."

Patrick holds a skeptical squint at Alexander juuuuuuuuuust long enough to convey a lingering (but not authentic) doubt about the man's innocence. But any plans to continue implying that Alexander is totally a guilty guilt-face fall to the wayside beneath a lift of both brows, interest piqued and no effort made to pretend otherwise. "What was it about? Exactly."

"Forty gorgeous naked people who informed me that I'd won the lottery and been elected supreme ruler of the world, and they were there to ensure that all my stress was thoroughly addressed," Alexander says, tonelessly. "No. Wait. This is Gray Harbor, so it was about pain and horror and deeply unpleasant things happening to vital bits of myself. Obviously." Congratulations - Patrick manages to make Alexander sarcastic. He sighs, and rubs at his head. "I was very tired. I think I had been sleeping for a very long time...or wanted to sleep, in the dark. But I was woken, and I was crushed, and I was destroyed. Eradicated to the bone."

One more time with this roll...

Well. Patrick definitely doesn't give away anything with his expression, other than really liking the sound of that first dream... and then easing into the second one with a sympathetic nod. He listens quietly till the end, then winds up tapping the ends of his index fingers, one against the other. "So what does a dream of being crushed and destroyed have to do with an empty grave? Perhaps you just," this is really what the roll covers, the ability to look Alexander in the eye and suggest, "had a nightmare."

Oh wait. On second thought, "Unless you were Gohl in your nightmare. Then I can see the correlation."

Alexander sighs, heavily. "Wouldn't be unprecedented. The last time someone destroyed some of Gohl's bones, I sort of burned alive for a while. It wasn't fun. But no. I'm not the only one who had the dream, so I don't know that it had anything to do with Gohl, although I admit previous experience made my mind go there." He studies Patrick for a moment. "So, you haven't heard of anything weird going on?" A beat. "More weird than normal for this fucking town, I mean."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I've heard..." Patrick inhales, holds it in his lungs, really racking his brains here. It also buys him a moment to make sure none of the help are milling around, eavesdropping. Like help do. (They aren't.)

"I've heard that everyone special," he gestures between the two of them, "woke up in the dead of night with a sense of something changed, most seem to think it was for the worse. But that might just be this town's tendency to make people pessimists. And I've heard that a ghost murderer's grave got robbed. And I've heard that Alexander Clayton apparently fantasizes about being the supreme ruler of the world." Because comedy comes in threes.

Alexander stares, waiting impatiently for what Patrick's heard.

And then? Then he sighs, and lifts a hand to scrub wearily at his face. "First, everyone wants to rule the world. They wrote a song about it. A couple of them, I'm pretty sure. So that's not abnormal. Second, I am trying to be serious." But at least he's not yelling. Or breaking things. Or trying to electrocute people. So this is Alexander at his best calm. "Should I ask the question again and try to be more specific, or just accept that you either don't know anything or aren't going to share?" An eyebrow raised as he mumbles the words around his hand.

Leaning forward attentively at whatever comes first, Patrick chokes down a chuckle that suffices to express his disagreement. Second, "You're doing a very good job of it, too."

plz at least don't break anything important 🙁

"I don't know anything more than you do. Actually, considering you just told me about the grave? I probably know considerably less than you do. The nightmares are interesting, though." For no reason, ahem. "Anne didn't mention having one. Isabella?"

"How is that I get punched more than you do, Patrick? It seems a fundamental inequity in the goddamned universe, if you ask me." Alexander at least doesn't try to balance that account. Actually, he seems less twitchy than usual, but that may just be because his brains are still a little rattled. "Yeah, Isabella had it. Actually, all of the people I know who share certain common ancestors seem to have had it." A shrug. "It's fucking weird, Patrick. The Old Lady hasn't said anything?"

Was that question rhetorical? 'Cause Patrick answers it, if it was. "Oh, that's almost definitely because of all the money."

Moving on. He happily lets Alexander tell him all the things and sits on his one big nugget of information. It's a horrible thing for him to do. Just the worst. But Alexander mentions the Old Lady, and suddenly it's all justified. Patrick leans back from the question, like the mere mention of Margaret requires extra physical distance. "To me? God no." After dithering briefly, he shares, "Hyacinth and Enzo drew the short straws. They're either knocking on her door," watch-check, "right about now. Oooooor she's already killed them and is deciding what to do with the bodies. I honestly wouldn't put it passed her to eat them."

"Fundamental. Inequity." It's only half under Alexander's breath, and he slumps in place. "Well, there's two of them, so presumably one can throw themselves into the path of certain destruction while the other escapes with the Death Star plans. Or something." A pause, before he adds almost like he CAN'T help himself, "The human body is actually a terrible food source. Tends to be very high in fat, and of course whatever parasites are in the meat transfer very well to the eater. There's ritual significance to cannibalism, of course, but usually that's specific vital organs. Eating one's way through a single adult corpse, much less two, would be unlikely. Tossing them out into the Harbor with weights tied to the bodies is more efficient and triggers fewer digestion issues. I'll keep a look out." It's all perfectly toneless and apparently serious.

Patrick gets as far as, "Why do you even know - " Then stops, holds up a hand in front of himself, waves it faintly, and realizes, "On second thought, I don't want to know why. The mystery is delightful." So as not to have been the King of Withholding, he goes on to share, "I'm having breakfast with my cousins tomorrow," FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON. "If you haven't already held Hyacinth down and made her tell you every nuance of her conversation with Tommy and Marge, I'll send her or the other one with the stupid name your way if there's anything worth knowing?" He pauses. Squints. "If there's anything Margaret's actually willing to tell them that's worth knowing, rather."

"Crime is interesting," Alexander says, with a shrug. Because whether Patrick wants to know it or not, he will be enlightened! "And I'm pretty sure Hyacinth could kick my ass if I tried to hold her down. She's at least mildly terrifying. That'd be appreciated, though. And if they're dead, I'll send flowers or something." He looks openly skeptical that Margaret will tell them anything, but nods. "And Yule and I were thinking of having drinks one night. Talking about the time we got lost. Possibly getting drunk and trying to forget it happened? I'm not really sure there's a plan. But it'll be fun. You should come."

Patrick nods sort of sadly, sort of embarrassedly. "You're probably right." About getting beat by Hyacinth. "Go after the other one. Vicenzo." (Still not his name, Patrick.) "He's squishier."

This is where he starts walking toward the stairs, not so much to show Alexander out as just because that's where he was going at the start of this scene, so it stands to reason that he'd be finishing whatever-he-was-doing from here. "Lost," he repeats with an amused look shot toward Alexander. But, "Yes," is the answer to the fact that he should come. "We can compare notes. What could you do when you were ten that you couldn't when you were twenty? When you were thirty? Forty? And then get black-out-drunk and forget everything." He really likes this plan; it makes him smile broadly.

"Vincenzo," Alexander corrects. Like spouting horrifying crime facts, it seems to be one of those things he just can't help. "And I don't disagree."

He follows, hesitating only briefly at the point where their paths diverge. "Yes. Lost." Stubbornness meets that amused look; he doesn't give up the vocabulary of a life time just because it might be WRONG. But he does smile, brief but wide and bright, when Patrick says yes. "Good. Yes." The smile is tucked away again, as if he's afraid of anyone seeing it, and he jerks his head. "A plan, then. Don't die before then." And then he turns and retreats at speed.

Patrick puts his glasses back on and goes upstairs to be all texting his whole family like GUYZ I THINK WE DID A BAD SO SHHH <.<