2020-10-02 - Don't Get Attached

"The Swedish Connection: Washington State Woman Abducted For Celebrity's Drug Experiments"; Ravn Abildgaard kept that copy of The National Enquirer. The picture of Maggi Gyre leaning out over the railing, fists balled, angrily shouting at the sea. Taken with a cell phone camera by the female half of the elderly couple on a large catamaran a couple of berths over. The name of his own boat, the Vagabond, clearly visible. The beach and the marina in the background, easily recognisable. The copy, describing Maggi Gyre as a local blonde woman slash activist slash bar owner, lured on board the sail boat only to be roofied to the point of submission. The article mercifully does not go into what kind of submission exactly, but it leaves no doubt as to what the writer imagined. Ravn is pretty certain Bunny and Herschel's story to whatever newshound the Enquirer sent was decidedly more innovative than his actual sex life ever has been.

Fuck you, Bunny and Herschel. Except, actually, I'd rather not.

It's not the only paper in the Dane's growing copy of gossip rag headlines that he simply doesn't know what to do with. He's been chased by newshounds before, back home, but never like this. Back then, it was his fiancee's suicide by ramming a road tree at a hundred and twenty per hour they wanted to talk about. Now, though, it's him.

He can deal with that. Even laugh at it a little. But it's not quite so funny when other people are getting hurt. Like Maggi Gyre, drug addict. The journalist speculates that she will easily get a divorce from the husband whom she cheated upon. The journalist ignores that technically, being roofied into submission is not cheating, it's being a victim of assault. Apparently, it's not assault if it's carried out by a male celebrity -- not that Ravn wishes to be arrested for assault, but still.

"Do A Swede Russian Style: Alternate Lifestyles in the Marina". A Seattle gossip rag of less circulation (fortunately) ran the story of Ravn himself and Itzhak Rosencrantz going at it like rabbits on the Vagabond's aft deck. There were no pictures. There were no pictures because Rosencrantz ruined the paparazzi reporter's camera. But the story's still out there, and Ravn is furious about it. Rosencrantz is in a relationship. Captain de la Vega isn't likely to think that there's any actual meat on this bone; the police captain does not strike Ravn as someone who'd be shy exactly, about making his displeasure known if he believed this manure. But in a country where a police captain needs to keep a low profile about living with another man, this has the potential to cause a lot of hurt anyhow.

It's simply not fair.

Add the shorter bits in the Who's Who sections in the morning papers. The sensation of Swedish Celebrity Chef Ravn Abildgaard coming to Gray Harbor to film some show or other is no longer fresh news. But there's still a note about star gazing (and more, no doubt, much more) with local attractive businesswoman Bennie Oakes who just so happens to be single. Or, well, was generally perceived as if not single, then at least as a grieving widow at the time the gossip rag went to print. He wonders, briefly, what that very same paper will make of today, then, with the Twofer shot up and all its windows blown out, and her partner returned from wherever the Veil will claim he went. Jealousy drama?

Because it's a law of nature that every single person in the universe is desperately looking to get un-single.

Paired with Aidan Kinney too. Or rather, with 'a young, unnamed transperson or non-binary person' in a long red coat, making a 'fashion statement' and 'helping demonstrate the famous Swedish liberal attitude in all matters sexual'. Ravn shakes his head at the pile. He thinks of Itzhak Rosencrantz' injured hands and while he cannot blame the newshounds for those, he certainly can blame himself.

I'm sick and tired of people getting hurt because of me.

'Don't get attached. Not to people, not to places. Don't let anyone get attached to you.'

But he did, and other people are paying the price.

Beware what you ask for, lest you receive it.

Who knows that tenet, if not the folklore expert?

Ravn is going to write that Revisionist. Whatever exactly a Revisionist is. Doesn't matter. Put a letter in the black mailbox. Dare destiny, or God, or the Dark Men to do something else to him, just him. People not getting hurt because of Ravn Abildgaard, that's what matters.