2020-05-06 - Keene To Know More

It's not really one of the greatest days to be on the Boardwalk, and it's not yet what passes for Gray Harbor's tourist season, so only a few die-hard vendors are open. Otherwise, the boardwalk seems bleak, grey on grey, with a misting rain and the lonely calls of seagulls piercing through the background sound of the waves. Unless you happen to have food, then it's more like 'the shrieks of a million seagulls as they fight you for it'.

Alexander, although sort of a sucker for animals, hasn't yet lost enough of his sanity to feed seagulls, though, so he's alone as he strolls among the empty stalls, looking left and right as if scanning for something. Or maybe someone. He keeps checking his path in reflections and mirrors, as if he wants to see behind him, but doesn't quite wish to turn around.

Maybe not its best face, no, but more than enough for Joe, who has a cup of coffee in hand. The mist is pearling in his hair, on his glasses, but he doesn't seem to mind. There are fading bruises on the left side of his face, jaw and temple and cheekbone....and surely more beneath his clothes, by the way he moves. The most immediately notable thing about him, though....is that his Glimmer is gone. Oh, he was never a bright spark, a bonfire in the dark like Ruiz or Itzhak, but he had some, his own steady glow. Now it's down to a few shimmering threads, like the remains of torn cloth.

"Clayton," he says, quietly, as he comes up on the other man. "Just the man I've been wanting to see. Roen and Marshall were both saying I should talk to you...."

Alexander turns when Joseph appears. His eyes flick over the bruises, but after the first moment, that's not where his attention rests. He /stares/ at the man, eyes narrowed and face blank with focus. "What the fuck happened to you?" he asks, proving that he's still breathtakingly incapable of tact. But he moves closer and adds, "Do you need to sit down? Or medical attention?"

"I'm fine, at the moment," And he seems to be - no drunken reeling, no sway, no slurred speech, beyond a hair caused by the fading swelling at the corner of his mouth. "If you're asking about what I think you're asking about.....a woman named Megan Keene happened to me. The bruises...." He flips a hand, negligently. "Mundane disagreement about something else. Not relevant."

"Megan." Alexander knows that name; that much is clear. And he turns to look behind him, as if expecting the woman to appear. When she doesn't, his shoulders hunch and he jerks his head towards a little boardwalk cafe that is almost entirely empty of people. Even the proprietor is mostly asleep. "Let's sit down. You don't /look/ fine. Your name...it was Joseph, wasn't it? You were at the Asylum?" He's clearly running through his mental rolodex of facts about the other man, and finding it unpleasantly sparse.

It's not in him to demur, even if he's already got coffee. Obediently, he heads in, settles at a table. He can buy a cookie or something, rather than endure the fisheye from the proprietor. Even that motion is gingerly, but that's nothing new. "Joseph Cavanaugh," he confirms. "I go by 'Joe'. I was. 'bout threequarters of 2017."

A beat, and he adds, "Because of what Keene did....I remember all of it. Without losing other memories."

Alexander buys a coffee. A plain, black coffee which he pays for with a couple of crumpled paper bills. He takes a table where he can put his back to the wall and look out at the boardwalk. His eyes flick from Joe, to there, to Joe. "You...can? So can Alice. I thought it was because..." a long pause. "Never mind. Was the price why you're all blurred, now? You don't stand out hardly at all, anymore."

The sailor nods, quietly. "I remember Alice, from the Asylum," he adds. "Why do you think she can? And yes. It was a willing trade, even if done somewhat in ignorance. I know. She said it wasn't permanent, and it does seem to be better now than it was."

Joe props his chin on his hand, carefully. "Everything except some of the coming and going. I don't remember how I got back from here to Savannah. My family says I flew. Might as well be true. They paid for the ticket, got me at the airport."

Alexander eyes Joseph. "What was Alice like? In the Asylum. And /why/ would you let a murderous Dark Man cultist mess around with your innards? It's not a good life choice." He huddles in place, hands around his coffee, looking for all the world like a wary homeless guy Joe talked in off the street. "I thought Alice could remember because she's possessed by something horrific."

His expression goes inward-turned, thoughful - the long face still, for a few moments. "I....she seemed sweet enough, in terms of what few encounters I had with her. I was in solitary a lot. Probably because of my age, though the suicidal tendencies didn't help, either." He's matter of fact- they're still written large on his body, no hiding them. "And I didn't know who or what she was. Roen filled me in a little," he adds, looking up again. "What is she possessed by? One of Them?"

"I don't know," Alexander says after a moment. "I don't even know if 'possessed' is the right word. But 'murderous' is definitely accurate. She and Megan have been spotted working together, and now Megan is stalking me," another glance at the boardwalk, "so if she's also going around stripping people's...how did she even do it? How could anyone?" He takes a deep breath. "Sorry. Not the point. I. You were told to talk to me? Why?"

"She didn't, if that's what you're worried about," Joe's voice is level, even. "It was just suggested to me by both Roen and Marshall. Roen especially - I think he thinks you have the most experience with Keene. In league with Them, either way, eh? I don't know, though admittedly she didn't do it until I at least nominally agreed." Shoulders a little hunched - he's not entirely fine, despite his claims.

"She was with them once. Part of a group of actors who lured people in and fed them to the Shadows so that they didn't get," Alexander reaches up and taps his head. "We killed them. Except for her. She ran. I don't know what she's planning now." And he really doesn't like that, it's clear from his expression. It doesn't stop him from studying the astronaut. "...do you need healing? What happened?" Never mind that Joe deflected that before, apparently.

There's something cold, in the blue eyes - a kind of alpine remoteness, as he gazes at the man across the table from him. "She mentioned something like that. Kidnapping people from the theater. Roen said....that there are those who buy Them off by throwing others who shine under the bus. Bluntly...if you killed all the rest, what's stopping someone from killing her, too?"

....did he just volunteer?

Possibly.

Another flick of a hand. "Disagreement. Nothing to do with Keene. It's healing on its own. I'm retired, I don't work, so I can lie around and let it happen. Knowing what I know of the costs to those who heal, I'm not disposed to make use of their services unless I gotta."

"Disagreement with who?" Alexander responds, as patient and subtle as a bull unleashed in a china shop. He does pause to take a sip of his coffee. "Could kill her. Maybe. Less certain of that than I was before seeing you. If she can yank our abilities, our /potential/ away from us? That's a fucking problem if we're talking about trying to contain her, much less stop her." A pause. "Why did she approach you? Offer your memories back? What was her price?"

"It's not relevant to the discussion we're having, so I'm not giving you that name." Joe's tone is patient, a little dry. "Can these abilities stop someone from sniping her at a distance? You have to understand, I'm still very new and relatively unversed, so I don't know where the boundaries are, in terms of what can be accomplished. I don't know if she can do it to the unwilling. She claimed it was as a means of getting back at the Asylum. You're better equipped than I am when it comes to judging the truth of that claim."

He takes a deliberate sip of his coffee. "What she gains from me having them back, I don't know. Other than maybe tempting me back into Their orbit? Or having my mind break under the strain. The price was some of my shine, for a time. The trade wouldn't be permanent, or so she said. It doesn't seem to be - it's slowly recovering."

Alexander's head tilts to one side. "Why not?" He seems genuinely confused by why a near-perfect stranger doesn't want to talk about a fight he had with someone. One hand slips away from the coffee cup, and beats out a frustrated tattoo on the tabletop. "I don't know," he says, at last. "Can you snipe someone from more than a mile out? I can reach at least that far, even now. I can pick up on when people mean me harm, if I'm paying attention. And both Alice and - apparently - Megan can do things I can't. I don't know if that's a lack of knowledge, or that their abilities are even greater than my own." He frowns. "They do hate the Asylum, though. Alice wants to burn it down."

"You can hit someone from more than a mile, yes. Well, a trained sniper can. I can't. But I know at least one. I don't know if he'd be willing to do it in cold blood, or if she could sense it if he were to try." Joe rubs at his forehead with the heel of his palm, sighs.

"I imagine so. Hell, I'd burn it down, too, if I thought it were that easy," he says, simply. "But from what I understand, the way that world works....it wouldn't be as simple. The consequences might be far beyond what we can foresee."

"I'd rather not murder people," Alexander says, tonelessly. Which isn't the same as not being /willing/ to, but does rather feel like he wants to at least put it out there that it's not his go-to solution. Correctly or not. "Does it help anyone? The Asylum? Reports seem to be...mixed. I think we went. I don't remember it. But they let us come, and they let us go, I think. And at least one person has wanted to get back there. I don't know enough to make that kind of decision. Destroying it or not."

He tilts his head, a fraction, raises his brows. Not even a shrug. "I'll do it, if we have to. If we can." Why not - he's killed before, and for worse causes. Joe worries his lip, for a moment. "I don't know," he says. "I'm honestly bewildered that they let anyone go alive from there at all, unless it's a case of like....tagging prey you intend to find later. Nearly everyone I saw was vastly younger than I am, children and adolescents. Some of it was....more or less like the mental hospital near Savannah I was in, like the military hospitals I've been in."

And then there's a shudder, like someone's just dumped ice water down his spine. "But then....the rest of it was torture, for Their sake. There was a thing in a nurse's outfit...."

Alexander frowns. "You don't have to remember," he says, gently. "Even if you can. You don't have to." He looks down, expression apologetic as he studies his cheap coffee cup. "Sorry. So it is a bad place. Clearly. But Megan and Alice are clearly...something. As well. Not good." He takes a sip. "How are you dealing? With having the memories, I mean. Are you...okay?"

A beat where he pauses, lips parted. How can he explain the seductiveness of it? All of it, for someone like him. "I chose it," he says, after that moment or two. "It is what it is. Whether it's got a purpose that isn't unabashed evil, I don't know. I wonder. I want to know more, even if my gut instinct is to show up there with a few cans of gas and a Zippo lighter."

Another little tilt of the head, neither headshake of denial nor nod. "I don't know. It's a lot to carry. I already had PTSD from multiple sources. I carry it, I carry them."

"I'm sorry," Alexander says, shoulders hunching more. "You seem nice. You shouldn't have...all of that shit in your head. But once it's there, it doesn't really ever go away, does it? Do you have," a long, awkward sort of pause, "friends? People to talk to? About things. That can help, sometimes." A shrug. "Sometimes."

He drums on his coffee cup with fingertips, for a few instants. "No, it doesn't. That's true for mundane trauma, let alone this kind of stuff. I mean, that's how I ended up there, though I am ever more sure that my suicide attempt was mostly due to Them. I'm....I've been through a lot of psychological screenings, and they're pretty good at weeding people out on that front."

A definite nod for that. "I do. I don't lack on that front, happily." Then he's eyeing the younger man keenly. "You? Do you those who can help you?"

Alexander bobs his head at Joseph's words. "Yes." A pause, before elaborates, "You only need to look at the suicide rates here. Or homicide. Or death by overdose. They're always /pushing/ people. I don't know how many people they direct kill, as opposed to just...pushing and pushing until they can't take it any more. But I think it's too many of both. And a lot of people with abilities get the worst of it. It's hard not to draw their attention when you have abilities."

The question in return makes him go silent. He stares back, fixedly. "Yes. Now. Isabella, August, Easton. Others. People talk to me now. Some people. That's better."

"A last glorious flood of food, since that's what They feed on, pain and distress and agony," Another shudder at some memory. "That's what I understand. The healers most of all, but anyone foolish enough to use an ability that isn't promoting what They want," Joe's voice is low, rasping.

His own gaze is level. "Good," he says, quietly. "Marshall and Roen especially seem to be very good people. People didn't talk to you before?"

"They are good people, yes," Alexander says, quietly. He looks back down at his coffee. "And yes. That seems to be the case - as long as you feed Them, you can be safe, but if you don't, and if you decrease misery, or try to, by using your powers, they hunt you. It's odd. The Shadows themselves are...odd. They can bargain with people. They have agents. But at the same time, they seem tremendously alien. Maybe it's something like how wildlife perceives hunters. Dangerous but incomprehensible, with powers they cannot hope to comprehend."

The last question has him looking past Joseph, towards the boardwalk. "No, not really. It's a small town. I'm crazy and not very pleasant to be around. Most of the town would have preferred I was sent away. A lot of /problems/ are sent away. To the Asylum, or elsewhere."

"They do seem to be. There's no way to directly injure or block or kill Them, is there?" Joe wonders. "I've yet to meet anyone who claims they could, or that it was really even possible, beyond a gut feeling. Rosencrantz's instinct is to defy, to fight, but....he didn't offer me any concrete evidence." Nothing censorious in his tone. Not everyone's an engineer, and in this strange world, demanding things play by the rules science uses isn't helpful.

"How are you crazy?" Tone only inquiring. No 'oh, you're not crazy' immediate reassurance. For all he knows, Clayton's a whole Dole plantation's worth of bananas.

Alexander's brow furrows. "I don't...know. I've never been able to harm one of Them. I've never even seen one of Them. Until I started talking to other people /about/ Them, I wasn't entirely sure they really existed, and weren't just something I made up to have an enemy beyond the Dreams." A weary sort of shrug. "A dead ancestor of mine says he knows how to save everyone from them, but he burned people to death when he was alive, and I don't think that having his soul shattered and bound for eternity in the Veil necessarily helped his reasoning skills? But he seems convinced."

He nurses his coffee for a while before even trying to answer. There's a hint of a smile turning up one corner of his mouth. "How everyone /thinks/ I'm crazy, or how I'm actually crazy? Two different but overlapping answers. I scare people, mostly. Or I did, when I was a kid. And I don't, uh, regulate, well. I hurt people, when I get angry." His eyes skip to the bruises on Joe's face again.

"How do you know it really is your dead ancestor? IS he a ghost or a walking corpse? How was he broken and bound?" Of course he's going to ask questions. He's used to meeting after meeting where it's all about stairstepping his way through problems, through challenges.

No shyness or embarrassment about it....and when he does, that accent is elided from the usual molasses-slow drawl into something far crisper, far closer to generic American normal. "Both, then," he says, with a prompting upnod. "How do you scare people? And how do you hurt them?"

"Neither of those. A shattered, bound soul. Not even the Exorcist seems to think there's a way to...undo it." He takes another sip. "It's something Margaret Addington, and maybe more Addingtons, did to us. They sacrifice our bodies to bind our souls. Maybe to keep us from...taking? The abilities with us, when we die." He holds up a hand. "Don't ask how we can do that, or how Margaret managed to bind the souls, or anything like that. I don't know." He frowns at the follow up questions, bristling for the first time; he doesn't hide his emotions well, and the flash of wary irritation is easy to read. "The usual ways, Joseph. Why do you care?"

"You're an Addington, then, by blood?" he wonders. "Are all of them....participants in this? Is it more of the propitiation of the Shadows, as you call them?" He gently sets his chin on his hand, cocked at just the angle to favor the fading bruises. "You assume I know what the usual ways are. I don't. I'm interested. I'm not sure that you're crazy at all, and just because other people in this town may have dubbed you that doesn't mean it's true."

Joe blinks at him, lazy as a cat.

"What?" Alexander blinks several times. Then he bursts out into laughter that makes the shop proprietor glare at him. He does his best to stifle it, but it takes a while. "I...no. Definitely not. Uh. The furthest thing from an Addington you can get. My great grandfather was a Baxter." He seems to recognize that this probably means nothing to someone not steeped in horror-filled small town gossip, and elaborates, "The 'old family' that doesn't get talked much about. The Addingtons pretty much tried to erase them from existence, I think, unless they did something horrible. Serial killers, kidnappers, murderers, all of that." He looks down at his coffee. "Bad blood, they'd say, around here. If they said anything about the Baxters at all."

The rest, he doesn't respond to for a long moment. Then he says, "I'm pretty crazy. Not...maybe not in the way most people mean when they call me Crazy Clayton, but," a shrug. "Still crazy. Less than I used to be. I got these, um, abilities? Very young. Didn't have anyone to explain them. I'm an empath. A six or seven year old doesn't really know how to deal with the shit in people's heads in this town. I had my first, uh, Dream? When I was about nine. My stuffed animals tried to cut me open and replace my innards with stuffing. No one believed me. People thought I was always hurting myself. Sometimes the feelings would get too much. I tried to bite a parent's throat out in elementary school. Not my parent. Just a parent. His daughter hated him so much. I got swept up in it." It's all recited blunt and toneless, like he's reading a notecard somewhere.

That he absorbs with his brows arching up, listening, patient. "Okay," he says, when the explanation about the families is done. "Why is that? Were they directly opposed to the Addingtons and what they wanted from this town? And the subsequent bad reputation of the Baxters is just a hatchet job?"

He takes another sip from his coffee, but doesn't seem to be paying it much attention. "No, that isn't crazy," he says. "Your experiences and abilities are both objectively, demonstrably real. You're not delusional. Maybe...emotionally unstable? But that's far from crazy. By those lights, I'm crazy. But I'm not crazy."

Alexander shakes his head. "The unfortunate part about a concerted campaign of erasure is that questions like 'why the fuck are you doing this' don't easily get answered. The Baxters were first, here in Gray Harbor. They sold all the land to the Addingtons, and that's," he sighs, "about as much hard information about the history that remains. Everything else is pieced together here and there."

There's a faint smile at the rest. "They're not. Objectively, demonstrably real. I can't /prove/ that my stuffed animals vivisected me when I was nine. I remember that happening, but I could be wrong. You should know by now that memories aren't easy to depend on. Sometimes I don't know when things are /real/, or when they're just the sort of /not real/ that can still hurt you." He just smiles more at the last sentence, his eyebrows going up, but leaving the 'are you sure' unsaid.

"You can't prove it, no. But the abilities are. Dreams are real as are their effects. I've been in a few myself, just a few. Memories...." He makes a little moue. "Are never reliable. But that's true in ordinary life in ordinary places, it doesn't mean much. I've lost some of my own, but that doesn't mean that the events they referred to aren't real. Some of those are documented."

"So no," he finishes. "I don't think you're crazy. It's a word so loosely defined as to be nearly useless. I willingly chose to do a job that came with a sizable risk of painful death or crippling injury, on a daily basis, no matter how good I was at it. I wasn't paid anything like what most people would think it was worth. But I did it and I enjoyed it, very much. I also enjoy a lot of other things that most people would deem 'crazy', because they'd find them unpleasant. Does that mean I'm crazy?" Another shake of his head.

"That's nice of you to say," Alexander replies, and then looks away, checking the boardwalk again. Coast still clear. "I have no way of judging your state of mental illness - or lack thereof. I try not to. Seems unfair." He looks back, something like a smile twisting his features. "And I'm really not qualified. But if I were, I might say that anyone who stays in Gray Harbor past the point where they realize what this place is, and what walks in the shadows here? Probably not entirely sane."

"You underestimate a scientist's curiosity. Even in the ordinary world, they'll do insanely risky things for the sake of answering questions, for broadening knowledge," Joe points out. "But I worked with engineers for fifteen years. Also....you assume that leaving would make me safe. Or even safer. But They already found me in Maryland and in Georgia, and even at sea in the Gulf. Bluntly, I don't think fleeing would get me out of this situation, even if I were inclined to."

Alexander stares at Joe. It goes on too long, and it's too direct, and just a LITTLE too unblinking to be anything like comfortable. "Have you been attacked by Them since you lost your abilities?" It's an abrupt question, fired off like he might have just thought about it, and was overwhelmed by the need to get it out. Maybe before Joe wises up and flees for the hills.

His own stare is patient, level, a little tired. Withdrawn, mabye. "Not that I'm aware of," he concedes. "Not directly. No bad Dreams. Flashbacks and depression, but not to dangerous proportions. I've got medication that works on both fronts. "Why? Do you think my lack will protect me, in that I'm no longer worthy prey, or that I'm that much more vulnerable than I was?"

"Patrick has a theory that if you don't ever use your abilities, you won't be directly attacked. Although you might get sucked into things when people around you are attacked. It's hard to gather data, because everyone uses their abilities. But you can't. I thought I'd ask." He drinks. "Seems to support the hypothesis, that you haven't experienced any harassment. Especially if they were attracted to you before."

"My abilities aren't totally gone, though," Joe points out. "I've used them recently, in fact. The other day. So...." He spreads his hands, a little. "And there is that. Dreams ....do they only ever absorb those who Shine? Or do ordinary people get sucked in, too? Is it purely location."

He wipes at the corner of his mouth with his hand. "It's more of an injury than an amputation, I'm thinking. If I ever get back up to strength, we'll see."

"Other people can get caught up in Dreams," Alexander admits. "They remember it differently, afterwards. It's all explainable, never supernatural. Assuming they survive. Sometimes they do. But we have a lot of disappearances here in Gray Harbor." He peers with interest at Joseph. "What were you? That you worked with engineers and the risk of painful death or crippling injury on a daily basis?"

Now, despite himself, he smiles. It's a wan, faded version of the usual dazzling grin, but genuine enough. "At first, I was a naval aviator, then a test pilot. And then I went to work for NASA as an astronaut. I've seen men end up smears of fire on a carrier's deck. I saw a man get sucked into a jet engine and actually live to tell about it."

Then the smile fades. "I got into the astronaut corps not all that long before the Columbia disaster. Which meant I spent of of my early days helping identify debris and remains from that incident."

"That all sounds interesting." Although it's stated in what seems to be Alexander's usual abrupt, awkward style, something in his face lights with interest, and he tilts his head back a little, looking up as if he might be able to see through the ceiling. He quotes, "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings..." A glance back down at Joseph. "They never talk about the smears of fire and chunks of men in jet engines when rhapsodizing, I notice." A faint smile. "But I hope you enjoyed it, despite the horrors."

His smile is infinitely wistful, as he adds, gently, "....done a hundred things You have not dreamed of..." Then that wry tilt of his head. "No, they don't talk about it. Humans want to go anyway, though. For every opening, hundreds of applicants. I did enjoy it, and I miss it still. For all the work it took to get there and all the pain that came after, I wouldn't trade a moment of it. Not for anything. It was worth it."

"Of course they do. For many of the same reasons that even if we objectively proved that /not/ using your abilities makes you safe from the Shadows, most of us couldn't manage it more than a couple of years." Alexander's voice shades dry, a little rueful. "Everyone dreams of doing something extraordinary. It's hard to turn down the opportunity when it is in front of you. And there's beauty in it. Doing the ordinarily impossible. Whether with steel and fire, or," he reaches up and taps at his forehead.

"Precisely," Joe admits, without any hesitation at all. "And that's why I can't leave this alone. I won't ever be there again." An uplifted finger indicating all the airy, starry realms beyond the purely ordinary ceiling of the coffeeshop. "But this I can explore. This other world beyond the Veil I can learn about, even if it doesn't bear reliable mapping. I can learn about these abilities, these Dreams. It's a whole other realm, even if I'll never get a medal or publish a paper for doing so."

"Even if you die horribly?" Alexander asks, softly. Then frowns, and shakes his head. "Sorry. Stupid question. Everyone says 'yes', and you never really know until it's right there. Unfair question. Sorry, again." His fingertips beat out a rhythm, fast and complex, on the tabletop. "I don't like it when people die, though. I'd rather they didn't. So. If I can help with the staying alive part. I will."

"I thought I was going to die badly, more than once....and even then, no," Joe's voice is quiet. "But I don't want to die, not anytime soon. I have a lot of living to do, yet." Then his phone is chiming, and he glances down. "And speaking of.....I need to be on my way. But it was good to talk to you, Clayton," he says, rising. "I'll both you more about it, soon. And if you find out more about Keene or what she's up to, please, let me know."