2020-07-31 - Saturday Night Live

Another Saturday night
And I ain't got nobody
I got some money 'cause I just got paid
Now, how I wish I had someone to talk to
I'm in an awful way

Cat Stevens is playing over the sound system, along with other classic tunes of the late 60-s to early 80s, mostly in the rock genre, so it's clear that tonight it's Vic's playlist being broadcast. Her ex-Army father raised her mostly by himself after her mother passed away, and his musical tastes have stuck with her through adulthood. The tall woman seems to have still not bothered getting her blonde roots touched up on her light brown locks, and she's wearing well-worn jeans that have become soft with many washings, along with a black t-shirt with the Two if By Sea logo on it, and black boots that look to be military or tactical in origin. Her hair is in a ponytail to keep it out of the beverages she serves to the customers.

She is currently glaring at a patron she's just served a beer to, who hasn't looked her in the eye once, his gaze firmly fixed on her chest. She's used to it, but it doesn't mean she's all right with it. Keeping her 'day job' is the only thing preventing her from grabbing the guy by his 'I'm slumming it from Seattle' Seahawks tie and smashing his face repeatedly into the bartop. She really is the worst bartender.

Truth of the matter is, Ravn would probably be worse, at least if you tried to order anything that doesn't come pre-bottled and pre-labelled. He wanders in some ten minutes before his shift supposedly begins and waves a 'hello' at Vic before heading out back to drop his tote bag off before wandering back in. In his black clothing -- seems to be a recurring theme, that -- he could pass for some snooty art director or self-proclaimed arist easily enough; as it is, though, he does not seem to suffer from the fear of actually having to do something useful often associated with that kind of people. He glances at Vic in passing, not wanting to interfere with the actual paying customers, but making her aware that he is there, he's going to pick up the glasses from that abandoned table over there and wipe it down, and if there's something else he should be doing, just holler.

There's that cop- or soldier-like vibe that Vic often exudes, where she seems to always flit her eyes to the door whenever it opens, taking the measure of anyone entering or leaving the bar, doing a threat assessment of some sort. Those cold blue eyes rest on Ravn, and she gives him an upnod, confirming she groks what he's indicating. She pushes off the counter and moves to another customer, rolling her eyes when they order an appletini, but making them one nonetheless, her facial expression the only commentary on their shitty taste in booze. Before Easton had a talk with her, she'd had slapped a draft beer in front of them and walked away. Now she makes the actual order, but she sure as hell doesn't stick around to listen to their problems or be friendly like you'd expect from a bartender.

She wipes her hands off on a bar towel and moves out from behind the counter, leaving it to the other tender on duty. She strides over to where Ravn is working and watches him for a moment. "Settling in?" she asks flatly. It's less conversational and more perfunctory. Customers seem to put her in a mood, so why the hell did she take this job?

The Dane looks up and smiles lightly. "Well, wiping down tables and doing dishes doesn't seem to require a bachelor's degree. So far, I haven't managed to break anything so I could definitely be doing worse -- here's to hoping you haven't regretted taking me on yet."

He seems to be, on the whole, a pretty friendly fellow. Still looks a bit funny, though, that he wears gloves at all times, even when wiping up spilled beer off a table.

If he's seen her on a few shifts, Vic has some peculiar quirks of her own. Like she never seems to work a full shift, often getting texts or calls and heading out early. Some days she doesn't show at all, but doesn't seem to get in trouble for it. And even if she wears something like a tank or crop top, she always keeps her back covered with a button-down left open or the like. The fact she's generally unfriendly to most customers makes her presence in the job all the odder, but here she is.

Her eyes sweep to his gloved hands and a brow quirks upwards. "OCD?" she asks. She's noticed he had them on every time she's seen him, and that's where her brain goes.

Ravn looks up, and then follows Vic's gaze down to his hands. He shakes his head. "No -- acute sense of touch. I'm not really comfortable touching most things without some kind of protective layer." From the sound of it, he's been asked this question many a time before.

"Say, do you know anything about what the bay here is like?" Ravn asks casually now he's got Vic's attention in between customers anyhow. "I'm thinking about renting a boat -- you know, to have somewhere to sleep that isn't somebody else's couch. Seems safer than the, ah, murder motel. The rate people are warning me against the forest and the pond, though, I figure I should ask about the ocean as well before I naively go ahead and assume it's all blissful tranquility out there."

Vic's head tilts a little in curiosity at his explanation about his sense of touch. "Huh, I imagine that can be a blessing and a curse." Blessing? She's thinking of feeling the reverberating click of a tumbler falling into place picking a lock, or being able to minutely sense the stability of whatever is under your feet or hands while trying to climb or balance.

"The Bay?" she asks, frowning a moment as she tries to recall if she's heard any horror stories about things happening on the water there. "I haven't heard anything, but I haven't been in town that long. You're better off asking a local or someone who's lived here more than a few months. But it's not like the Pond or the Sawmill. I got warned away from those pretty quick. And the woods, I think bad things come across in there easier or something."

"The motel, the pond, the sawmill, the woods -- but so far, no one's warned me against the ocean," Ravn nods. "It's all real, isn't it? I've made a friend in town, a girl who tells the most... bizarre stories, really. I'll be honest, if I hadn't seen a few things already... I'd assume she was batshit insane."

Vic nods to Ravn and flits her glance to the door again, watching an exchange of patrons flowing in and out. "There are other places that are," she nose-wrinkles, "thin is how I heard it described, but not nearly as thin as here. Portland had some spots, so this was something I grew up with, sort of. I was like you, thought it was just a quirk, or I was crazy. But after a while, the evidence piles up and you meet other people like you, so if you're a nutjob, so are a lot of other folks."

"Having friends in town is good. I suggest you make a few more. That way, if you disappear or get in trouble, there will be someone who notices, and who can tell others, so they can try to find you." Well now, THAT isn't ominous at all. "But as far as rumors go, the Bay itself seems to be mostly mundane. Don't expect a nice view though, they built a damned floating casino in the middle of it." She grins at that, because both her real boss, and Easton are part owners of it.

"Nah, that's fine, if I was in it for the ocean view I'd go home. Ocean view's what we've got -- endless amounts of it." Ravn chuckles and stacks ashtrays on top of each other, balancing them with ease. "She said the same thing though -- make friends. Become 'one of us'. I thought she was on something at first, I'll admit, but the evidence piles up after a while, doesn't it? I've seen people bend spoons with their minds on stage, that sort of thing, but this girl... is something else."

"Yeah well, just be careful. Sometimes the things this place puts people through? It can make you cuckoo. Like batshit insane. Seriously. And rumor has it there are people like you and I, and regular folks, who work for Them." Vic shrugs and flings the bar towel over her shoulder. "Listen to me, I sound like a goddamned crackpot. But it is what it is. Be careful. Don't feed Them your fear or despair if you can help it."

"It sounds like full on crackpot, lock me up in a padded cell, give me a nice jacket with super long sleeves," Ravn agrees. "Until it doesn't. Until you see something. Until some girl in a coffee house literally glues you to a chair by the seat of your own pants just by looking at you. I mean, yes, you sound like a crackpot, this whole town does. And I do too, so maybe everyone's right and I'll fit in just fine." He does not sound particularly frightened -- fascinated might be a more apt term. Stories are being waved in front of the nose of a man with a PhD in stories.

"Has anyone showed you what it looks like, Over There?" Vic asks quietly, folding her arms over her chest with a crease in her brow indicating she's actually concerned at his ease with the whole insanity of Gray Harbor. Like it's just begging for him to get eaten.

"Over There sounds ominous," Ravn notes, looking up at the sombre tone. "No, I don't think I've seen anything ominous yet. I have been warned that if things happen in dreams here, they... God, I do sound crazy now, don't I. That it's real. That if something happens in a dream it... happens. For real." It's obvious that he's listening to himself and mentally wincing oh so very hard.

"I can show you, sometime, open a door, just peek in for a moment. Not here though. I don't want to bring any trouble to Marshall's bar. Maybe someplace near where you're thinking of putting that boat, so we can make sure there isn't anything bad too close?" Vic offers. She's being nice to a newcomer. Someone mark it on the calendar.

"I was thinking of putting it down on the docks -- got the idea because I saw there's another house boat down there already so I figure another one won't bother anyone's idea of a nice ocean view." Ravn studies Vic's face a moment, then seems to decide that yes, she is in fact being serious. "So you do... things too. And you can open doors into fairyland. I mean, I'd be an idiot to say no to that, but I also have a feeling I should be asking what kind of safety precautions to take. No one here sounds like this is all one great, big joke. That's probably one of the reasons I believe you -- there's no way everyone could be in on this, and no one cracking up at the idiot foreigner buying it, or trying to add something to the story for shit and giggles."

"All right then, before your shift tomorrow, drop me a text and I'll meet you down there, and we can take a look at what's on the Other Side. Don't want like, giant mutant squid right next door waiting for a window to slither through, right?" Vic asks, looking amused. She's clearly joking, right? Or not. She shrugs. "We're just going to poke our heads in to look, not step through. I can do that, but it's probably not something you want to do right away. It can be a bit disturbing."

"Giant ... mutant... squid..." Ravn blinks. "I guess not. No. Not unless we put calimari or Japanese comic books on the menu, no."

He straightens up and looks at Vic as if -- well, not as if he's seeing her for the first time, because he's certainly seen her before and noticed what she looks like, but like he's considering a few options that had not occurred to him previously. After a moment -- and a few more ashtrays getting washed -- the Dane murmurs, "So that's your trick. You open doors. And get people out of Fairyland if they get stuck?"

Vic snorts at the assessment. Ladylike is not one of her better qualities. "I can do those things. I'm no hero though," despite the fact she's trying to help the new guy not get eaten his first few weeks in town. Maybe she has a soft spot for people without a real home to call their own. Hers has wheels. "I just had a bad experience shortly after I got here, and I don't want to have to hire another barback so soon." She smirks.

"Yeah, well. I'm not keen on becoming part of a Frutti dei Mare pizza. So let's hold the giant mutant squid, indeed." Ravn nods firmly. "But I guess I'm supposed to show you mine now -- not that it's much, compared to what people around here do. I just steal things really well -- don't need to be touching small things for them to end up in my pocket. Comes in handy for things like the three cups one nut game, stuff like that. I don't steal -- you know, actual things." Things to tell your boss before they hire you. Or maybe not at all.

Vic seems to regard him in a new light at his admission, her head tilting again as her expression goes thoughtful. Something to let her other boss in on. Joey Kelly at least. He might have a use for a Grade A pickpocket with Glimmer assistance. Just don't mention the Glimmer to Joey, he just doesn't understand it, even if he's got it in spades.

"Interesting. Why are you telling me this? I mean, what if I'm an undercover cop?" she asks. It's not that far off, that's what she used to be, though it was in narcotics, and in Portland, and hasn't been the case in half a decade.

Ravn shrugs lightly. "It seems fair? You're showing me yours... Besides, no one expects the shell game to be honest, do they? Everyone who plays it knows the guy is hustling them. You pay to see how he does it, what kind of distraction he's going to run, not because you think you can actually catch him cheating. I mean, I can show you sometime if you like, but -- you'd have to be a hell of a lot more naive than you look, to think that the shell game is ever not rigged."

Vic chuckles, a throaty sound that seems genuine. Then she sobers. "Would you maybe be interested in using your skills to make a little money now and then?" Does she mean the shell game? Or picking pockets and stealing things?

"I thought I already was," Ravn says with a hint of cheek, spinning a clean ash tray on a fingertip. "I wasn't kidding when I said I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I'll do pretty much any kind of manual labour as long as it's legal and no one's getting hurt. Wouldn't be the first time I've done some kind of carney work to pay my way along."

Oh well.

It's the 'as long as it's legal part' that Vic seems to grimace at. "I'll keep that in mind." Dammit. Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out, frowning at a text. "I need to head out. But text me tomorrow and we'll scope out that spot for a boat, ok?" she offers.

"Sounds like a deal. I'll hold the fort here." Ravn seems to have caught on to the way Vic pops in and out but doesn't seem to feel it's his place to question what kind of job arrangement she's got; he's perfectly content with the one he's got. "Your number on a note behind the bar or something, or you want to toss it in for me quick?"

His cell phone cover is pink and sparkly and sports the Hello Kitty logo. This guy very obviously is either colour blind or does not take himself very seriously at all.

Vic pulls up their prior text conversation on his phone, where she hired him for Bennie. She adds her name to the profile for it, and hands it back. "There you go. I'll see you tomorrow. Not too early, ok?" she pleads.

"Not going to turn up before dawn, promise." Ravn winks at her. "Take care -- and thanks again. I do appreciate it all."