2020-10-07 - Like it Insulted Her Dad

Victoria Grey didn't think she'd ever own a home again. Not with her current line of work. Not the bartending thing, her real job. But she's come to understand how the city of Gray Harbor works, and she recognizes that she's not likely to leave it in any manner that doesn't involve being in a body bag. The Airstream trailer was fine for a temporary place, but being crammed into 22' of living space, with a tiny shower, isn't a good solution for her to live permanently. Plus there is the whole flammability of the mobile home park issue.

So it is, she took out a loan and bought a 'fixer-upper' on Elm Street, kitty corner from Joey Kelly's house. She can be near her real boss, while having some privacy, quiet, and places to hide the tools of the enforcer trade. However, the things that need fixer-upping are many, and it's going to keep her busy a long time. She'll need to hire pros for the serious things, but she can do her best to un-70s the decor as best she can. And that means starting with the green shag carpet in the dining room. Dear god, it's the color of the inside of an avocado. There are dark green swags over sheers on the windows, and there are popcorn ceilings and vertical striped wallpaper in shades of yellow and burnt orange. It. Is. Hideous.

The Amazonian blonde is in gray sweatpants with an old Stevie Nicks tee, her hair in a pair of braids, and safety glasses on her face. A toolbelt is settled around her hips, but she's no repair expert. She can use a crowbar to pull up tacked down tacky carpet though, so that's what she is doing. The table and chairs have been shoved into the "parlor" as some would call it. They may be firewood later when she goes to IKEA for a shopping trip.

Being a sucker and promising to help Vic with some of the work the night she spent plastered drunk on his couch with the hopes she would forget it in the morning, (Spoiler alert. She didn't), Seth makes his way the couple of doors down from his own residence carrying a toolbox on one hand and a gaggle of other tools like a crowbar, and a sledgehammer slung over the other shoulder. Dressed down, he is in a pair of old torn jeans, and a paint-stained t-shirt that advertises the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. Having his hands full the enforcer uses the toe of his steel-toed work boot to kick a the door in lieu of a proper knock.

"Yo! Grey! Open up."

Ravn, conversely, has had the foresight to not bring a tool box. He's the kind of bloke who's more likely to hurt himself with one and at least possessed of the self awareness to realise it. What he has brought is a bag of fresh paninis from one of the better places downtown, as well as a sixpack of a local beer that he's seen Vic drink willingly a few times.

He's ditched the blazer in favour of a leather jacket, courtesy of the season, but apart from that, the black theme remains as he trots up behind Monaghan. "Fancy meeting you here, Monaghan. Miss a proper G&T so much you hunt down the real bartender in her home now?"

One of the benefits of being a strong Physicalist. Vic gestures from the dining room, and the deadbolt on the front door slides back, and the door opens slightly to let Seth in. "Hope you have a strong stomach, Monaghan, because you're about to see what the bad taste of the 70s looked like, first hand." Pause. "Is that my Sith Apprentice with you?" she calls as she hears Ravn's voice. "Come in."

And oh God it is bad. The parlor off the front door has green wallpaper with lighter green large circles, there is cheap wood paneling on the other wall. The carpet is a brown background with white, gold, and burnt orange designs on it in a large print that looks straight out of the Brady Bunch house. The furnishings clearly came with the house and are all musty, from the same area, and shoved together to make room for the dining set, clearly none of it being remotely used by the new inhabitant. To the other side is where Vic is diligently trying to pry the fugly ass carpet up out of the dining room.

Glancing over his shoulder at Ravn, Seth lets out a little chuckle. "She roped you into this as well, huh? Well, maybe I will get a proper G&T out of this at the end, but i'll settle for a beer...which it looks like you brought. Not even you can screw that up, unless it's Bud Light. If it is Bud Light I may become violent."

The door swings open, and Seth uses his foot to open the thing the rest of the way, "Oh Christ," he exclaims as he walks through the front door. "The fuckin' 70's threw up all over your house, Grey. I mean, The Brady Bunch called and wants their wallpaper back as soon as Alice is done doing whatever that butcher's name was. Mel? Mac? Butch? Whatever. Yeah, I got your padawan in tow. Where do you want us?" Seth exclaims as he drops the sledgehammer to the ground with a large THUD. "I'll just go get the gas and matches, we will have this place fixed up in a jiffy."

"Hell, even in Denmark we know that Bud Light is for thirteen year olds who think American Ice Beer sounds exciting." Ravn follows in the wake of Seth, and looks around with an expression that can best be described as interested. "So, wait, if I'm a Sith I can't be a Padawan. Anyhow. Yes. Reporting in to kill the younglings and or the furniture. This will be therapeuthic -- part of my childhood home looked like this when I inherited it, and I had everything torn out and burned."

He beams. Fire good.

Vic snorts and shoves her safety glasses up on top of her head. "Well, I was house hunting on a budget. I figured those assholes on HGTV can make a dump look like a million bucks, I can at least make this 70s nightmare livable." She looks around herself with a frown. "Granted it might take the rest of my life to get it there."

She scowls at them both. "No fire, please. I've had enough fire for a while. Do you know how many fucking washes it took to get all of that burnt weed smell out of my wardrobe?" She gestures at the carpet. "Trying to pull this up today and see if there's still old hardwoods underneath I can get cleaned up. Probably will need repairs too but I bought the house on the cheap so I can swing paying some pros if I need to."

She glances over at them with faux horror. "Just, if you have to use the bathroom, be prepared. It's not exactly green, but not quite blue either, and the color is everywhere. It gave me a headache the first time I was in there."

"Speaking of bathrooms," Seth says as he looks over the absolute horror that is the interior of this house and dropping his tool box onto the floor near the room Vic is working on, "I'll be right back. I need to use the facilities. Maybe I will try not opening my eyes and save myself from the vertigo the colors scheme is sure to induce. If I am not back in a few, send in a search party...i'll be back. Hopefully."

Ravn glances after the other man and then looks around again. "I'm not even joking. Literally looked like this. I had one indoor designer rant at me that we should absolutely keep it. Call it the Seventies Suite. I fired him." A grin. "So, what can I actually do for you, with my ten thumbs and no craftsman experience whatsoever? Besides food runs, that is."

Vic waves Seth off with the sign of the cross as if to bless him on his perilous excursion to her bathroom. "Upstairs, second door on the left," she calls after him. Then she's looking back to Ravn. "I think you can do what you do best, trash collection and cleanup. We're gonna be making one hell of a mess. I have heavy duty trash bags and cleaning stuff in the kitchen, if you're brave enough to view the horror in there."

"I mean, I may have to tear my eyes out before we're done. But yeah -- cleaning things, I'm pretty good at that." Ravn heads kitchenwards -- and emerges a moment later, carrying some of those large bags and tools. "Good lord. Vic. You need to turn this place into a museum. You can't live here. You'll be haunted by the ghosts of fashionable living anno 1973. I swear, this is the kind of place that's haunted by people with porn moustaches and flare pants."

He pauses. "Coming to think of it, you're probably scarier than any fashionably late hippie still mourning the death of Janice Joplin though the only song of hers he can remember is the one with oh lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz. Never mind. Carry on. Poor ghost."

"That's the only Joplin you know? Christ, we need to educate you, my apprentice," Vic quips back. She pulls her iPhone out of her pocket and connects it to a portable bluetooth speaker. A few taps and she's pulling up her classics playlist. Janis comes on to belt out "Another Piece of My Heart."

Vic sings along quietly to the song even as she crouches down to start prying at the carpet in one corner of the room. It's been tacked down real good. This might require both elbow grease and Physical Glimmer.

"Come on, come on, come on, come on..."

"No, that's the only Joplin your kitchen ghost probably knows if you've got one. This place? Obviously decorated by people who got in on the whole hippie phenomenon in 1971, when everyone else got on board in 1968. People who wanted to be hippies but they had money. The kind of people you'd meet today wearing a designer suit but not know how to walk in one. Fast car but they never drive above the speed limit. Yacht in the marina, no idea how to sail. That sort. Not rich but thinking they are, and at the same time, trying very hard to be bleeding edge on whatever's hot and hipster at the moment, only -- perpetually three years behind." Ravn gestures vaguely at the hideous interior before unceremoniously grabbing on to an iron spatula to help stripping wall paper.

Vic grunts and heaves and hauls and finally puts some Glimmer behind it to pry at the carpet. "What the fuck did they use? Titanium tacks? This is ridic-..." SCREEEUNK! It finally comes up in the corner. A tiny bit. This is going to be quite an adventure of the hard labor kind. Vic stares at the eensy bit of progress with an expression so angry, it's like the carpet insulted her dad. "Son of a bitch. Fire is sounding better and better."

She peels that tiny corner back and the padding beneath it and whoops out a yell. "Hallelujah, hardwood!"

Elbow grease will have to do for Ravn; he'd probably tire himself out faster trying to use his very limited shine than just using his hands. He's a skinny type and definitely no jock, but he's surprisingly good at using those hands at least. And of course, being him, thinking about anything else at the same time because if there is one trait that characterises Ravn Abildgaard, it's that his mind is usually at least one track over from the one his hands are on, and the communication between the two may sometimes be quite erratic at best. "You know, I've been meaning to ask. Marshall -- what's he like? As an employer, I mean."

"Three Apples?" Vic asks. She looks amused at her nickname for Easton. The man is short. Vic has a good four inches height on him, so the name is a reference to the height of the Smurfs being 'three apples tall'. "He's a good guy. Direct. Funny. Badass. He was a marine, lost a leg over in some desert nation fighting for freedom. And he's a damn fair boss. I think you'll like him."

She begins work prying more carpet away from the floor little by little with grunts and enough curse words to make a sailor blush.

Ravn is the closest thing to a sailor present and he at least learns a few new interesting euphemisms. "Yeah? I've worked for a lot of people in my backpacking life but he's definitely the first to threaten to shoot me on my first day. The whole rumours thing, you know? I think we're straight on what happened and didn't happen, but that one's definitely going on my list of Strange Things About Americans."

"Shit, you didn't bang Bennie did you?" Vic asks, smirking. She knows he didn't. "I told him about your touch issues. Pretty sure that'll defuse any rumors about you messing with anyone where he's concerned." She gets out a box cutter and slices a section of the pulled up carpet away, chucking it across the room to start a trash pile.

Ravn groans theatrically. "No, I did not bang Bennie, or anyone else. Come on, that bloody rumour is over at last. Now I breed combat lobsters, and you know what the great thing about combat lobsters is? You stick one of those near your private bits, everyone will know about it from the screaming. Should be done with these rumours now and heaven knows I will absolutely bloody not miss them. Half this town thinks I slept with the other bloody half, or want to."

"To be fair, half the town has slept with half the town," Vic chimes. "At least it looks that way from the outside. I think those who shine, I think they feel like life is short for our kind, and they are trying to live life to its fullest." Except her. She hasn't seemed to have hooked up with anyone in the time she's been in town. Hazard of her real job perhaps. Or maybe she has some personal hangups.

More carpet goes flying across the room into the pile as she starts to get into a groove with removing it.

"As long as both halves are consenting, they can go at it like bunny rabbits as far as I am concerned." A long tear of wall paper comes off, revealing an exciting amount of paisley beneath. Ravn stares blankly at it a moment, then shakes his head and goes to work on 1967 next. "Direct, funny, badass. I can work with two out of three there. I do like my job and I honestly don't much feel like finding another if everything just transitions smoothly. Marshall's one of those people everyone has an opinion on, you know?"

"You know how harsh a judge of character I am. He's someone I consider good people. He might come across like an ass now and then, but when the chips are down, he'll have you back." And that is high praise coming from Vic. "Plus, Bennie loves him, and if sunshine and rainbows does, he can't be bad." She grins over her shoulder at Ravn.

Then she looks aghast at the paisley under the stripes. "I wonder how many layers are under there. I think the house was built in 39."

"Going to guess one for every five years or so," Ravn murmurs and mentally armours up for an excursion through modern American history. "Everyone's an ass now and then, though. I've certainly worked for some quite serious levels of asshole. Bumming across the world, it's not all hippie communes and brotherly solidarity, either. Things just started off a little awkward here, but with the whole Jumanji thing, I'm pretty sure that Marshall's got enough to worry about. He did say he wasn't going to make any sweeping changes."

Vic shakes her head. "Nah, he's probably going to leave Bennie as owner even. She's done a great job in his absence, and she's more open to special events and karaoke and the like. He recognizes that as being a good tourist draw and local money too."

She sits back on her heels and scrubs a forearm across her brow, sweating already. "Pass me one of those beers?" she asks.

Now there's one thing Ravn will use his power for, apparently: Jedi-ing over a beer and knocking the cap off it before offering it over. "Eh, karaoke's never going to be my thing. But somebody needs to muck out after it too, so that works out, I figure. I'm still awkward as hell about that bloody bar -- I figure that's why Monaghan loves to rib me about it. But it's probably healthy, you know?"

Vic grabs the floating beer out of the air and takes a deep swig from it. Then she belches. Such a lady. "You're doing all right with the bartending. You're smart, and you learn quick. Plus, the ladies love you, so you'll make decent tips."

She herself seems to give zero fucks if she gets much in the way of tips. She's only passingly polite to customers for Bennie and Easton's sake. At least she does know how to mix drinks.

Making his way back downstairs, wiping his hands on his pants in an attempts to dry them, Seth exclaims, "You know, you could have told me I needed to bring my own towel or something, Vic." He snorts, pausing by the door to get his tool kit and make his way into the room proper to gaze over the monstrosity that is the shag carpeting.

"Are you totally sure fire is out of the question? Not even a little one?" the enforcer says with a sigh. "Or, you know, we could just bulldoze the whole thing and start fresh. This is making my eyes bleed...now where is the beer?"

"Here," Ravn says and repeats his little showing off incident; use the Force, young apprentice. "You know I'm not in it for the tips, right? I get by fine as it is. I'm in it for the people. Would have gone for teaching if it was about the money, put that bloody PhD to use."

"If you'd asked I'd have told you they were in the hall closet up there. Just hadn't put any in there yet, for fear I'd make some sort of mystic pattern with all that not green or blue and summon an Elder God," Vic quips back at Seth.

She gives Ravn another snort, before setting her beer nearby and working on more carpet pulling. "In it for the people? People suck." Vic is so not a people person. She's like a grumpy old man in a hot blonde's body.

Seth blinks at the floating beer bottle, shaking his head and sighing as he reaches out for it, not wasting any time to lift it to is lips to take a swig. "I am never going to get used to that shit. I really should figure out how to tap into whatever it is I did when I was a kid. That could come in helpful...especially for this carpet."

He glances over at Vic with a grin, "I didn't think I would have needed to ask. That might have been information given freely, but I think you could do worse than summoning Cthulhu or Dagon. At least then you wouldn't have to stare at this insanity anymore."

Seth sets the beer down on the floor, moving to the opposite corner of where Vic is, producing a knife out of his pocket and using the blade to start prying up a section of the carpet to get a handhold and giving it a good yank to start tearing it up the old fashioned way. Brute strength.

"Probably shouldn't get too used to it. There's Team Humanity, and there's the other team, and not all players on that other team are not human. But as it happens, both of you already know what I do, so it's a little bloody late to be sneaky about it." Ravn glances at Vic again. "I do like people. In general. Sure, there are assholes. Most are decent. It's why I wanted this bloody job, instead of applying for some night shift cleaning or pizza delivery, or whatever, where you're on your own. I'm the kind of guy who keeps to himself. Working at a bar forces me out."

"You're probably safer if you don't tap into it," Vic notes to Seth. "Using that shit just attracts Their attention. My apprentice should know better, unless he's just eager to be a mer-tuna again. Or would that be a tuna-man?" She's starting to make progress, cutting chunks of the shag away, then prying up the carpet tacks with the end of the crowbar. Those get tossed into an empty coffee can so she doesn't find one with a bare foot later. She doesn't comment on Ravn's reason for wanting the job. For her, it's just a cover, but it's also a little nostalgic since her dad owns a bar back in Portland.

"I don't know, being able to Jedi over a beer might be a handy skill to have sometime." Or a gun, or a knife. "People talk about 'They' and the other team. Anyone care to elaborate for the uninformed? I know about as much about this stuff as I know about crochet. Which, in case you didn't guess, is nothing at all. When I was a kid and I did try to talk about it, I got looked at like I was a loon." Seth tears up another chunk of the carpeting and then uses the knife to slice off the section. "Hell, in my line of work being able to manhandle someone without even touching them would be a benefit, not that I get a lot of fights at the Firefly, but if I did..." Besides, it would also be helpful in Seth's 'real' job as well. Ah, covers.

"Oh, speaking of manhandling...Ravn, when did you want me to teach you those self defense pointers? If things in this place are as dangerous as people say, then sooner is likely better, but if the things you are talking about aren't human like you said, things might have to be adjusted somewhat."

"Pretty much as soon as we can get you, me and Zoey into one place." Ravn nods at Monaghan. "Look, I'm not -- Vic here thinks I'm a completely blue-eyed fool. Which is obviously inaccurate -- my eyes are grey, for one, says so right in my passport. I'm not going to ask you awkward questions about where you learned things. Teach me how to drop a bloke or a tentacle monster before it can drop my asthmatic self, and I am a happy camper. Don't think Zoey's going to ask any more questions either -- she's picking up on the idea that life here may not be all roses and violets, too. You need to know these things."

He looks up at Vic. "She's the one to ask for the speech, though. Heaven knows she's schooled me on it."

"Whatever you do, Seth, don't talk about it around your cousin. He, uh, really doesn't understand." Nor does Felix glimmer at all. Vic looks serious about that warning. "And our mutual neighbor," Joey Kelly, "Doesn't really get it either, but uses it without realizing he is." She squints over at Ravn, "Care to tell him the things I told you about it all, padawan? Prove you learned it? And I don't think I can teach you, Monaghan. I don't think we have the same flavor of shine, unless you develop that one from somewhere." She only has a tiny touch of the Spirit Glimmer herself. She's mostly a Physicalist.

"No shit, Grey. Who do you think I went to when things first happened to me? He was the one that looked at me like I was crazy, so I just shut up about it and never looked back. Not until recently anyway." Seth says with a snort as he looks over to Vic. The enforcer tears up another section of the carpet with a grunt, tossing the section of shag over in the ever-growing pile that is accumulating in his corner of the room.

He looks over at Ravn, "I'm a doorman, which is nothing more than a glorified bouncer. It's part of the job description to know to handle a rowdy person or two, and dropping them fast is always better than prolonging things." Unless you are getting paid to prolong things, but that is a whole other job description that isn't on the paperwork. "I can certainly help you with dropping a guy easy enough. Tentacle monsters on the other hand might be a bit more of a challenge."

"Got to start somewhere. I'll start on people, work my way to tentacle monsters like a good Japanese schoolgirl." Ravn glances at Seth's handiwork. Some people are definitely more suited for physical work than other people. The realisation prompts a small chuckle; some bars are set so high you might as well not bother jumping.

"The team thing. It basically boils down to, there are bad men in the Veil. The more of this stuff you do, the higher the chance that one of them decides to use you for a chew toy for a while. It usually won't be fun -- first time it happened to me, I got to be Ichabod Crane, and let me tell you, I have a very odd relationship with horses and broadswords now. So it's us against them, on some level -- shit happens, we all try to have each other's backs. But there's people on our side who work for them too. You won't know who they are. I suspect that if that gets out, odds are that they end up in a ditch somewhere because this is survival." Ravn is absolutely the mild-mannered scholar talking casually about dropping corpses. "I only learned the bit about there being -- humans, working for the other side, a few days back. In a way, this is the Cold War from Hell, literally, us against Hell."

Vic grunts and she grabs her beer again, sitting back on her heels once more. "Shit, I need some pliers for these stupid staples. And knee pads. "I'm gonna make a hardware store run. Any suggestions on other stuff we might need?" she asks Seth. Ravn has already admitted he's not the handy sort. He's welcome to chip in on industrial 70s-removing cleaning supplies though. "And probably some wallpaper remover stuff."

She gets up and dusts her knees and thighs off, removing the safety glasses again. "Something about people like us, those who shine, makes Them want to feed off our misery and pain. I think we battle Them by holding onto hope, to love, to compassion. Those things, I think, are alien to them." She moves to the hall to grab a canvas jacket off a hook. "I'll be back within an hour, unless, you know, They decide to take me for a ride. Just remember, usually in a Dream, the only way out is through."

With that, she grabs her truck keys and heads out, leaving the two men in her house of home decor horrors.

"Well that sounds like a barrel of fuckin' monkeys." Seth says with a grunt as he pulls up another section of carpet, before slicing it off and making it a bit more manageable to maneuver. "So not only do you have to worry about things from another world, things from another world have sleeper agents here that play for the visitors team. Wonderful. And using this shine shit is like a beacon that draws them to you? So...I guess the obvious fucking question is why in hell does anyone use it? Willingly? For fucks sake man, I could have walked over and grabbed a beer, you didn't have to float it over. " Speaking of beer, Seth reaches down to pick his up and take a swig.

As Vic gets up and preps to leave, Seth pauses for a moment making some mental notes, "Uh..some carpet knives, goo be gone to get any carpet tape up off the floor, probably a sander, sandpaper, varnish and sealer to redo the flooring underneath. Masks so we don't breath in that shit, and I am sure a whole host of other things that I can't think of right now, but it is never a true home improvement project unless you hit the hardware store at least 3 times for all the things you forgot the first couple times. I'll try not to burn the house down while you are gone, Vic, but no promises."

"Honestly? Because I've done this stuff all my life and it's a bloody habit." Ravn glances after Vic as she leaves and waits until she's out of earshot. "And because on some level I'm still telling myself this is real. I thought I was the only person who could do this stuff. But, and I'm pretty sure I've said this before, I'm an absolute amateur compared to most people here. Vic gave me the straight talk right away. I guess I'm trying to impress her just a little -- be a good apprentice, something." He shakes his head. "Pretty stupid of me, really. Anyhow, you got it pretty much in one. Which is not helping my ego since I took a month to get to that point."

Seth tears up another section of carpet and tosses the shag monstrosity onto of the ever growing pile that is accumulating over in his corner of the room. "I suppose I get that somewhat. It's like smoking...people know it is bad for them, but they do it anyway out of habit or just because they don't give a damn about he consequences."

The enforcer shrugs, picking up his beer and making his way over towards Ravn, to lean against the wall as he takes a sip. "Impress her huh? Do you have an interest in her?" Seth says with a bit of a shit-eating on his face. "I might suggest against a workplace hook up like that. They rarely end well, and the breakups can be murder." And because she is likely to break you in one way or another.

Seth shrugs a shoulder and sips at his beer again, "So....want to snoop around while she is at the store?"

"Not that kind of interest, no. More of a -- hell, how to explain it." Ravn pauses a moment to think. "She did me a solid? I'd like to do her one back. Vic comes across to me like someone who has been punched in the face over and over by life. Wouldn't mind seeing her smile. I feel I owe her, you know?"

Beat. "We are absolutely snooping around. With cell phone cameras. This horror needs to be preserved for posterity. She will thank us ten years from now when she's showing the pics of look how awful this house was before I bought it to somebody."

Seth grins, nodding to Ravn, "Oh, of course. Posterity. I can't believe this place is such a horror show. My god, did the last resident just up and die and nobody came to check the place out since the 70's? I swear, I want to know who Vic bought this place from!"

Being in the same line of work as Vic, Seth has to assume she is professional enough to have anything incriminating safely hidden in such a way that a casual snoop of the house won't reveal anything...and if she didn't that is a bridge Seth will just have to cross at that time. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Seth pulls out his cell phone and snaps a picture of the room they are in, torn up carpet and all. "Rooms only, though. Leave the lady her privacy unless you want to accidentally stumble on her..." Guns? Knives? Bloodstained overalls? He just leaves that last word off, letting Ravn fill in whatever unmentionable he wants in the blank.

"Yeah, no. There's preserving the horror and using it to tease her later, and there's setting up for a broken nose." Ravn probably filled in the blanks with something entirely non-murderous and mundane -- she probably collects My Little Ponies on the sly. Who's he to talk? He apparently breeds combat lobsters. "Kitchen first. Then bathroom. And then -- I bet you, the true horror of this place is the nursery, wherever it may be. Onward, brave soldiers."