2020-08-03 - You Won't Believe What Happened On My Way Home

There's coming home drunk and disorderly. There's even such a thing as crawling in on all fours singing loudly, or being delivered to the door by a convenient police car. But what's here and now is a tall Scandinavian letting himself in and looking like a thundercloud. His blazer sleeve is damp and from the looks of it, he's been in a scrap -- it's not water that's been splattered on him. He looks grimy, as if he'd been falling over in a wet ditch. Grass stained. Bruised. And to top it off, he's apparently taken a roll on a beach, because there's sand everywhere.

All in all, par for the course in Gray Harbor but how is a newcomer to town supposed to know that?

Ravn lets himself in with a grumble, looking around quickly to see if the flat's official resident is around, and whether he can perhaps manage to claim a shower. God knows that he needs one.

Whether Aidan's around (and awake) is a bit of a crapshoot most of the time. The odds are pretty decent (though not quite certain) for 'there and probably asleep' around 4 or 5 am, and certainly there are times he's more likely there than not, but really, it seems to be... somewhat unpredictable. Much like his wardrobe and his menu, frankly. That chicken bag is not the weirdest thing in his strangely well-stuffed closet, and there may well have been an offer of bacon with marshmallow fluff at some point, and just as likely a really rather decent ham and vegetable frittata.

What does not seem terribly unpredictable is his disposition; the energy level seems to settle somewhere between average and high on most days, but it generally comes along with 'cheerful and optimistic', broadly. And, on entering the trailer, this appears to not have changed, as he's in the kitchen, singing along (not well, alas) to "Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time" while he chops some vegetables. He's currently barefoot, in red plaid pants and a black tanktop covered in sequins, protected by a navy apron with a pattern of scattered pineapples. It has yellow fabric for the ties at the neck and around the waist, as well as trimming the bottom. And a yellow pocket on one side. Baylee is not currently in evidence.

When the door to the trailer opens, its owner glances over with a grin that dies as he stops mid-sentence, looking Ravn's state over. "Shit. You okay?" he asks, setting the knife down. "Let me check. What happened?"

The Dane looks like he's not sure whether to laugh or swear. His blue-grey eyes are amused but his blazer sleeve is ruined; should one explode or laugh out loud?

He settles for pulling the blazer off and heading for the kitchen sink to wash off at least some of the sand and mud. "I think I just got my first taste of Gray Harbor's stories. And before that, one of my co-workers got shot. In church. I know you all did warn me but... I guess there are some things you don't really believe until you're bolting down a forest path with a British horror writer, and there's a big headless guy on a black horse swinging a sword at you." Maybe it's no wonder there's a mild undertone of hysteria to the man's voice. In good news, though, the blood on the blazer sleeve seems to not be his; there are only superficial scrapes on his hands.

Aidan winces a little, even as Brendon Urie informs them that he roams the city in a shopping cart, with a pack of camels and a smoke alarm. "So... headless horseman kind of thing?" he asks, as if this were not in fact an odder possibility than, say, a couple dudes with knives in an alley. He's giving Ravn an exceedingly thorough once-over, eyes slightly squinted in appraisal. There are some places it might well get him decked (and others it might get him some sort of invitation) but presumably he would've made any assessments of that sort a good deal prior to now if he were going to.

It ends in a small, satisfied nod, and a touch of relaxation. "Okay," he says, "you're okay then. I mean, physically. I know the rest's kinda..." He trails off. "See, the thing is, people tend to think I'm crazy if I tell them about certain stuff? And I'm really not, I swear, except that's never really totally reassuring to have someone say, so." How nosy is Ravn? There are definitely pill bottles in parts of the bathroom that support the claim of what people have thought. "But if something does hurt you, I can probably he--" a pause, a flicker of annoyance or perhaps just unhappiness, and he amends, "make it heal faster. Um. Who got shot and by what?"

Ravn splashes water on his face then stares at the mirror over the sink for a few moments. If he's noticed the pill bottles he's not said anything about them so far -- though whether to write that up to an unfamiliarity with US pharmaceuticals or just politeness; hard to say. He's not commented previously on being looked at, nor seemed to be under the impression that he was invited to stay a bit under pretext of paying with, ah, personal favours.

"I'm okay," the Dane repeats, tasting the words and then nodding at his reflection. "I'm okay. A bit shook up. But okay. Yes."

He takes a deep breath and turns around. "Crazy. Yes. If someone'd told me about this a week ago, that's exactly what I would have thought. If that white-haired girl, Lyric, had not showed me what she can do... I might still have thought so. At least I knew what to expect from the --"

Another deep breath. "From the beginning. Right. You know that church in the middle of town? We went to look at it. Lyric was showing me around and there was some kind of tour on except everyone was acting like we were walking into the lion's den. Sure enough, two minutes later some guy is trying to blow people away with a firearm. My co-worker got shot. The guy got shot too."

There hasn't been quite that sort of looking-at before, what with the dearth of Ravn getting himself scuffed and wounded before, and there probably won't be again until he does again. If he does again, with Aidan running across him after.

Lyric the white-haired girl -- that rings a bell, clearly, though not as much as the church. Probably in multiple senses. At any rate, that's what gets a nod, and he listens, brow furrowed, at the rest. "You should have, like, a seat and a snack or something," he says, then pauses, "Or a shower, I guess, and then a seat and a snack or something. Being sandy sucks." Also the blood that isn't one's own, even if it's only a bit. Not that the blood that is makes a great improvement.

"Were they okay? I mean, as okay as 'got shot' gets, anyway? Was it weird or just people being shitty?" Another pause. "I mean, like, headless horseman weird." Because yeah, it still doesn't qualify as 'normal' otherwise, thankfully.

"I think the guy may not be okay." Ravn glances down at his foot. "Vic blew his brains out all over the church floor."

He should be traumatised about that. He clearly realises that he should be, the expression on his face almost baffled for a moment that he is not. Slumping down on a chair the Dane murmurs, "And I was just about getting to have a quiet little anxiety attack in a corner, you know, do the sensible thing, flip out, yell about your insane gun laws, decide to go home, all the ... normal things. When suddenly I'm running through a forest and right next to me there's the writer -- Dante Taylor. And there is indeed the freakin' headless horseman coming after us. I think that... Qualifies for weird, doesn't it?"

Ravn pulls his gloves off -- for the first time in Aidan's presence too -- revealing long-fingered slender hands. The gloves are pretty ruined; mud, sand and blood are not good for kidskin. "Chased us through a forest. We ended up crossing a stream of running water and then we were here in Gray Harbor but maybe a hundred years ago or more? We buried his skull in the cemetery and then we were on the beach. Dante's the one who did the bleeding -- the horseman nicked him with his sword. I just beat the shit out of his horse."

Aidan makes a face at the mention of what happened to the guy, but nods. "Yeah, that mostly doesn't end up counting as okay," he says, which by all rights should be a joke of some description, but instead sounds fairly matter-of-fact. He looks a bit sympathetic at the description of 'the sensible thing', with a quiet murmur of, "Don't really like guns either," and a firm nod to the assessment of qualifying as 'weird'. "Yeah. I'm not totally sure about the gun thing, 'cause... sometimes, you don't always know when it happens. Sometimes things still seem normal, or at least, you know, like they could happen in, I dunno, Seattle maybe. And then sometimes it's headless horsemen or the Harlem Globetrotters and a Gilligan/Skipper combo monster thing throwing explosive Gingers at everyone."

Welcome to Gray Harbor. Everything is Fine.

"Dante Taylor. English dude, right? With the suits, only, not the one who runs the bakery. Did someone do something about the bleeding? I mean, he's gonna be okay, though?" There's something of an antsiness through him, and he makes a face. "'til like a couple months ago I could just heal it, whatever it was. Then things changed. I really wish they'd... quit changing." He considers a moment. "I'm pretty sure I've never beat the shit out of a horse. Was it dead? Well, I guess I mean undead. But no one ever talks about beating an undead horse."

"I'm not sure what it was except big and black and coming right at me," Ravn admits. "I'm asthmatic. I'm not going to try to outrun a horse."

"English fellow, yes. Writes horror novels. Owns a restaurant or nightclub -- I'm actually not sure which. He said he was all right and pretty much... walked off. I stayed on the beach for a bit, just trying to find my feet. I got the impression off him that this is... normal. That it's happened to him before. And it's the weirdest thing, Aidan..." The blond Dane reaches half-heartedly for a dish cloth and starts wiping dirt and grime and sand off his face. "I mean, I must be more screwed up than I realised too because it was fun. I know how it sounds. It's just... I've studied stories all my life. I've never been in one. I'm terrified, I admit it, but I'm also very fascinated. I have got to figure out how this works, what's going on here. It's pretty obvious to me now why I'm here, somebody needs to find out."

Oh. He's reached that point.

"I guess I need to... shower. And hit the library." He pauses. "And I guess I'll be staying. Here in Gray Harbor, I mean. There's no way I can just get on the next bus out of here now, pretend that that did not happen, that everything is just normal. I'd be spending the rest of my life looking at every small town strangely, wondering if the local loon is right about having met Elvis on Main Street. God, I'm rambling."

Aidan takes a second to think about it, then offers, "Piano bar, I think? At the casino. Bay and I were gonna go some time but haven't gotten around to it. But yeah, I remember having a talk with him about ways he'd die in a horror book, like, having his books ripped up and fed to him until he chokes on his own words, or like, all the ink seeping out of the books and drowning him. You know, that kinda thing." Cheery!

He doesn't protest the use of the dish cloth -- there's a couple others and he can wash the thing, after all -- but he does watch it a bit, mostly because that's where he's looking as the other man talks. "It's... kinda normal for here, yeah," he says, "...if you sparkle. I run into other people when I'm There a lot but pretty much always they sparkle too." He, if Ravn is more aware of this sort of thing now, glimmers like the equivalent of Times Square. "Sometimes, it really sucks. You can get hurt bad, and-- sometimes, people don't come back. For a long time, or maybe ever." It gets a little softer there, before he shakes his head, curls bouncing and throwing off the touch of distress. "But sometimes? Sometimes it is fun. Sometimes things don't want to kill you. And sometimes when they do I guess, yeah, it's kinda exciting? But, um. You're prolly gonna kinda develop a highish pain tolerance if you don't have one already. Sorry about that."

As far as the figuring it all out... well, he's not going to discourage the attempt. Maybe Ravn will be the one to figure out why their abilities keep changing! Which leads him on to ask, "D'you know what kinds of things you can do, yet?"

"I steal things," Ravn says softly, picking sand out of his morning-after beard. "I mean, not in a criminal way. I do... the three cups game, card tricks, the occasional house key nicked, to impress somebody. Stage magic is a bit easier when things really do magic themselves into your pocket. But I guess you already know that. Lyric lectured me on the same thing -- get better at using your abilities, make friends, make connections so that when you disappear, someone will actually bother to go looking for you."

As an afterthought he can't help a chuckle. "Oh, and according to that Dante fellow, the proper coping mechanism is sex. I think I may pass on that one."

"Well, I mean. He's not wrong, though," Aidan says, giving that assertion some thought, "'least up to a certain degree of 'ow'. And I dunno about proper, but I'm pretty sure the most common coping mechanism's booze. 'cause folks can manage that one even with, like..." He glances down at his shirt (and apron). "Well, like, I took an axe to the chest last year, and I am not tough enough to get in the mood when I can basically see my sternum and stuff." He tilts his head. "Can't remember if I drank any, though."

Back to the rest, there's a nod. "I used to steal things in a criminal way, sometimes? So, I mean, not gonna judge mostly. But yeah, like, I can set things on fire for example, so there's this trick where I use that, and I could do it other ways but it's easier and kinda looks more stylish. I think though..." He studies Ravn thoughtfully for another moment. "So, I dunno how much's come up. But the way I see it, there's kinda... three main flavours of what we can do. And it kinda feels like you maybe got a little bit of each? A little more in what I'd call the space dimension, so, it makes sense if you're moving stuff around. But probably you're gonna find more stuff you can do, if you're using it and stuff. And it's kinda never a bad idea to have friends, so, yeah."

"Friends... are good." Ravn looks thoughtful a moment. "I've never really... put down roots anywhere before. Always just -- passing through. I have this strange feeling things might be different here, though I can't quite put my finger on why. It just... feels like home, far more than home ever did."

His blue-grey gaze wanders over the other man a moment, clearly trying to picture him with an axe buried in his chest. Then the Dane shakes his head, dismissing the macabre vision. "I think that if I'm going to survive this, I'll need to come up with other solutions. I'm not a fighter. I'm definitely not a fighter -- and I didn't get to bring my inhaler to that dream earlier, either. I think... What I do is pretty much just that, though. I swipe things. I mean, I've never done anything... healing-like. Or whatever the other thing is. Dante made a church steeple fall down."

He pauses again and returns the dish cloth to its knob (no doubt mentally promising himself to do laundry later because if there is one thing Aidan cannot have failed to notice by now it is that the tall Dane actually enjoys cleaning things, bizarre person that he is). "I should find somewhere permanent to stay, too. I mean -- I've enjoyed being here but I can't stay in your living room forever."

"Well, I'm, you know," Aidan looks down at himself again, considering, "...not a normal fighter? Like, I'm only kinda average-strong, and I'm kinda okay in a fist-fight kinda thing but only 'cause people kept trying to beat me up. But here, I mean Gray Harbor here, and over There? I can do a lot of other things if I've gotta fight. You'll figure out what else you can do and prolly get better at it. Most of the time, folks who're best at the space dimension? They end up throwing shit at enemies with their minds. Heavy stuff, or maybe sharp things. It's the one I'm worst at, I couldn't do it at all until I came back here. And, it makes you kinda... tougher? You can sort of think it outward and it makes it harder for anything to get through and hurt you."

The church steeple thing gets some interest, though not really surprise. "Probably he was using the essence dimension," he says, "which, I dunno if there are real words for these, but this's how I think 'em, anyway. Space, thought, and essence. It's kinda not perfect but that's how I see it. That's the one I'm best at, with healing and fire and kinda taking things apart. I'm pretty sure you got a little bit of it in you too."

A glance to the half-chopped vegetables. "Prolly not forever, nah. But you're welcome 'til you're ready. I mean, you clean up after yourself and everything." A grin, there.

"Could rent a boat," the Dane muses. "Might still have to pester you for a proper shower every so often, seawater is ... well, salt."

He looks back at Aidan and for a moment those grey eyes seem a little darker, a little haunted. "I'm serious about the home thing. I've never felt I belonged anywhere before. If you're still up for... You know. Swapping tricks. Teaching me the ropes a little. That sort of thing. I'll do the dishes in return." Sweet promises.

"Boats are cool." Approval is granted, this plan must be! "And sure, mi shower es tu shower. I mean, unless I'm in it, prolly. Or Baylee is, I guess that's prolly up to her."

As for the rest, hazel eyes meet blue-grey, and for a moment the haunted quality seems mirrored. Aidan opens a cupboard to pull out an old but clean casserole dish, and dumps what vegetables are already chopped into it. "I've been some places I felt like I kinda belonged. Do people who move around a lot together count as a place? But it kinda feels like we, I dunno, belong to Gray Harbor. If that makes any sense." Turning back, he nods. "Deal. I mean, I dunno how great a teacher I am? But I'm down to try."

Ravn can't help laughing. "I promise to knock before waltzing into the shower with a rubber duck and a loofah," he vows. "Just in case it's occupied, indeed. Much as I'd like to meet your girl -- maybe not that way." Then he nods. "That's it exactly. It's not that we belong here. It's that we belong to here. Spot on. We've been claimed."

He stands, looking at the dish cloth with disappointment. "I should avail myself of that shower, while it's empty. If I do get that boat though -- mi boata es su boata." Someone is clearly not a Spanish speaker. AT ALL.

"Well I mean if you bring a rubber duck and a loofah I might just invite you in," Aidan says, grinning again. "But yeah, exactly. And, gracias." Someone else is clearly not much of a Spanish speaker, at best. Thankfully none of the town's actual Spanish-speaking population are around to wince at them, right now!

"Go ahead," he says, tilting his head toward the bathroom, "If you take your time a little, there might be chicken and veggies not that long after you're dry. And pop-tarts. Well, technically there's pop-tarts now, but they don't hold up well in the shower." And he sounds as though he's tried.

Ravn disappears bathroom-wards -- the blazer may never recover from its bath in Dante's blood, but the rest of him eventually will look human again. All the way to that artful stubble which is absolutely and definitely intentional and kept just so. It's not that Ravn is vain. He just has standards -- even if they are apparently very personal standards, and the origin of them probably involves pissing off somebody who tried to inflict a more conservative appeal on him. The man has history, no doubt.

Clean up. Look human. Feel human. Then go learn everything. There's a library in this town... In fact, I met Aidan there. Time go to read up on headless horsemen and psychic abilities. Welcome home, Ravn. They speak English here.