2021-05-30 - Let's Be Each Other's Therapists

It's afternoon, early in the month of June, when Nicole decides to pay a visit to Ravn on her day off. She knows vaguely where he lives; on a boat docked in the bay. How hard could it possibly be to find? She comes armed with an insulated tote slung over one arm, dressed casually in a yellow-orange sundress, making the blonde look more radiant than the day itself, what with the crazy weather. Speaking of crazy weather, hopefully Ravn's boat is securely docked. If worst comes to worst, they can always picnic on the dock itself, she supposes.

It's not creepy in Gray Harbor to walk along the line of boats, ducking to peek into windows that are not curtained, trying to see if she can catch a glimpse of the tall Dane... right? Just so she isn't mistaken for a criminal or something, she also calls out occasionally, "Ravn?"

The Vagabond is on the smaller end as far as leisure yachts go. It probably does qualify as one -- it has bunks and a kitchenette, after all -- but when you think 'floating house', it falls rather short. You can live there. If you know someone nearby who don't mind you using their shower. It's not that difficult to locate, though -- mostly because its owner tends to occupy the aft in plain sight rather than bump his head against the low ceiling under deck. He and the small black cat that claims true ownership of the boat are seated on opposite sides of the U-shaped bench back there; one with a book, the other busy grooming herself.

When his name is called out, though, Ravn looks up -- and then lights up in a smile upon recognising the voice and its owner. He plops the book down and stands, ready to walk over and assist if it should turn out that Nicole is one of those people who don't at all feel secure on a deck that moves slightly under their feet. "What brings you out here today? Are we sailing for Acapulco before somebody notices we're gone?"

Nicole knew he lived on a boat, but not what kind of boat. When her peripheral vision catches him rise up on his own boat, she looks that way and seems surprised. Perhaps she expected a houseboat, or... something bigger at least. Nonetheless, she smiles brightly and heads his way. "Oooh, Acapulco! That sounds amazing. Perhaps..." Her gaze shifts to look out over the water, though her eyes go further out than the bay. "Perhaps when the weather in the ocean is better?" She smiles again as she gets ready to climb aboard. She is about to reach for him for a bit of added balance, but suddenly shifts to grasp the railing with one hand, the other holding onto the insulated tote. She is wearing simple sandals that are not that hard to walk in, so hopefully won't have any trouble. "But no, I brought lunch! Hopefully nothing you like, hate." Once her feet are on the deck of the boat, she says, "man, and people said my trailer was small... tiny living, am I right?" She smiles again. "But um, I just thought I would stop by and see if you were about. You seem to be friends with Joey, and well, you and I have had an experience or two... so I thought it was maybe high time to get to know you better."

"I'm a single guy with a cat -- I don't need a lot of space." Ravn grins quietly, and then adds, "Also means less housework, right?"

He keeps ready to assist in case something does go haywire, but as it seems that Nicole does in fact have a reasonable idea of where to put her feet and hands, he doesn't press the issue. The Vagabond's deck is narrow, granted, but navigating from the prow (that rests against the pier) to the aft (where the seating area is) hardly requires somebody to graduate with full honours from the Academy of Congolese Chimpanzees.

When Nicole does straighten up and look around the Dane settles back down and reaches over to gently nudge the cat. "Make room, Your Majesty. Maybe there's a bit of lunch in it for you."

The black cat looks at him as if he's a bloody idiot. Then, with cool aloofness, she retreats to the central point of the U. Which means that if the boat's going anywhere she'll be steering, but then, maybe this is not an immediate risk.

"I have a couple of cold beers and I have bottled water," Ravn suggests. "Or I can put on a kettle for instant coffee. I'm afraid the kitchen facilities are a bit limited. Lunch sounds like a great plan, though -- and I guess talking would be a good idea. That walk in the fog was -- something else. Brought back some pretty ugly things. I don't think I'd have liked your ex very much, not going to lie."

"Much less housework," Nicole agrees with a nod. "Still, living in a house where no one has to duck through doorways and actually having space to cook is... nice. But, you can't pack up and move a house as easily as a trailer or a boat, you know, if you needed to...." She turns her head to look out towards the water again. Surely, she never had to pick up and leave like that. Clearly. "Plus, your view is kind of to die for." She walks the narrow path towards the aft (though she surely would not know it was called an aft) with him, sitting once the cat makes a bit of room. "Well, thank you, Your Majesty." A look goes up to Ravn and she asks, "is that her name, or just her attitude?"

"Oh! I brought beers..." Setting the soft-sided cooler beside her on the bench, she unzips it and pulls out two bottles of her usual; Corona. "Unless you prefer your own. I brought a lime too!" She smiles, going back into the bag for that, and a tiny cutting board about the size of a hand. From the front pocket she gets a small but sharp looking knife. "I came prepared. Nothing fancy though. I have.. let's see..." She starts pulling out the things she brought. It mostly seems homemade; a couple small ziploc bags of pretzels, two sandwiches of wheaty-grainy bread with lettuce and cheese, one with ham and one with turkey. "I wasn't sure which you would prefer. I have mustard or mayo packets too, your pick..." Next out comes a bunch of grapes and a small jar of pickles. Looking to the cat then, her nose wrinkles slightly. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting feline. Next time I will bring tuna..."

"Yeah... uh... the fog was... unexpected." She tilts her head down, blonde hair falling to obscure much of her face. "Very ugly things," she nods, not realizing that he might be talking about his own ugly things. "Yeah, he uh... he started out good but... that changed." Glancing up at him as she pushes her hair behind her ear, her eyes looking sorrowful, she says, "I am so sorry you got dragged into that. I am glad you were not like, hurt bad or anything... I woulda felt awful."

"Her name is Kitty Pryde. It's a god-awful pun, I know, but -- she's a kitty and she's proud. Bossiest little thing I've ever known." Ravn watches Nicole settle and rootle around her provisions. The smile remains as the Dane adds, "I'm honestly quite good with almost any kind of beer -- the only kind I can't quite get along with is the thick, dark ones like a Guiness. If I have to chew it to get it out of the bottle, it's too stout for me."

Kitty Pryde, first of her name and queen of the marina, looks at Nicole with a green stare that offers some grudging acceptance. "It's because you're a woman," Ravn says upon noticing. "She doesn't like men. Me included -- I get to touch her sometimes, but only after sufficient bribing."

Then, somewhat more seriously, he shakes his head. "Don't apologise. That's what my fiancee would make me do all the time -- apologise. Explain. Ask people to please just be understanding and patient. But we don't owe it to them to defend them. Your ex and mine both came back, and they both came ready for a fight. They're the ones who should be apologising, not that I want to see either one come back a second time to do so."

"Kitty... Pryde..." Nicole blinks slowly, once. Reaching up to rub a finger behind her ear, she asks, "aren't all cats the bossiest things?" She has dogs, as he knows, and perhaps has only a mild understanding of cats in general.

"Oh, Guiness has its place. Usually in a pot for cooking something in. I don't really want to just, sip a Guiness. I'm no beer snob at all, but..." Lifting the Coronas again by wrapping her fingers around the necks, she gives them a gentle wave in the air. "This is my usual go-to.

"Oh?" She holds her hand out towards the cat, much like she would a dog she doesn't know, letting the cat sniff her before she tries to touch it at all. "Was she a rescue? Did something happen to her before?" Nicole knows a bit about adopting animals in need.

"Oh," she says yet again, nodding. "Yeah... there were lots of 'sorry's.. none from him of course. " She looks up at him again, her gaze meeting his. "Yours came back too? Yeah.. no.. he can stay in whatever hell has embraced him. Fucker..." Her lips pout after the word. "I'm .... um. Uh... it sucks you had to go through that too." She is trying not to say 'sorry'.

"As far as I've been able to piece her story together, she got dumped by a guy because his wife didn't like her. She ran off and, well, claimed me and my boat as her new service providers. I like cats so I'm kind of okay with this arrangement." Ravn holds a hand out for coronafication -- because who does indeed not like a beer that you don't need to chew?

He looks at Nicole a moment and then decides to not dodge the subject, unpleasant as it is. "Yeah. I mean, it does suck. She came back -- and I'm pretty damn sure she's still regretting going for Gina Castro for talking to me. She got trapped between Castro, Rosencrantz and Roen. Which is to say, she got torn to shreds. It was -- I'm not sorry because whatever she was, she wasn't my fiancee anymore. She was crazy while she lived, but this? This was the Veil giving her the power to actually hurt people. And she wanted to, you know? Much like your bloke -- death took her from asshole to murderous."

The Dane looks at the cat. "It's -- hard to talk about, isn't it? Because you can't help still feel that it's somehow your fault that somebody else ended up in the line of fire. But it's not, you know? You didn't bring the guy back, and you sure as hell didn't ask him to pick a fight."

"Poor girl," Nicole kind of purrs towards the cat, offering her a brief scritch at the top of her head before reaching into her tote-o-food again and getting out a bottle opener. She pops off the tops of both bottles and asks to the man, "lime?" Setting the bottles down, she is after the lime with her knife, cutting a slice for at least herself.

Glancing up at Gina's name, she lets out an , "oh-ho.. yeah. I wouldn't mess with her." Followed by a blink when he further mentions Itzy and August. "So yeah, she was fucked. But you are right, whatever it was that was her, wasn't her really... and even more so, if your fiancee was like mine, they weren't themselves even then.... Right?" She shrugs. It is an uncomfortable topic, but perhaps comforting to have someone to talk to who kind of gets it. "I am pretty sure he woulda ended up killing me if I... if he hadn't you know, died first. No matter how bad I felt about it, I had to remember that it really was down to him or me... and I am less of an asshole to have in society." She squeezes her lime wedge into the top of the bottle, then pushes it down inside, offering another to Ravn if he had been so inclined. The rest of the food is arranged within reach, letting him take whatever he wants.

"Yeah... it is. I mean, yeah, I probably will always feel part of it was my fault. The middle part, where he became an abusive asshole, was not. I know I have nothing to feel bad about there, other than apologizing to myself for not getting out sooner, you know?" Nodding, her lips twitching slightly to the side, she says, "yeah. I definitely did not bring him back, or want him back. I pray to never see him again, in any form." Eyes on him again, she says, "but, you stabbed the... shoe... does that like, make it so he can't come back?"

Ravn accepts the lime for his beer with a smile that seems a little distracted; probably because while lime and beer are an important issue, they are perhaps not an issue he has quite as much emotional investment in as abusive ex-lovers.

"The -- thing with the shoe," he tries to explain, "was an attempt to play along with the story. A lot of what the Veil does seems to be lifted from our own minds. That's why a lot of the time, these experiences seem to kind of follow 'the rules'. Everyone knows that a vampire is afraid of a crucifix -- so if I ever meet a vampire in a dream, the first thing I'm going to look for is a crucifix. The Veil could just dictate that actually, this vampire is afraid of oysters instead -- but it's not very likely that it will. It lifted the idea of 'vampire' out of somebody's head -- and vampires being afraid of crosses is part of that idea. I was trying to play along with the narrative. In most cultures, angry ghosts can be bound or neutralised -- typically by things such as salt or fire. Footprints are often believed to be connected to the person who made them. I was trying to essentially bind him there, with the rules of story."

The Dane offers a wry little smile. "Whether it works -- I want to say that of course it does, but I don't think Gray Harbor ever comes with guarantees that anything will work. I hope that after Roen, Rosencrantz and Castro more or less turned Benedikte to paste, I will never see her ghost again. But I think the really important thing to learn from it all is -- it's not our bloody fault. We may have displayed bad taste in partners, but we never asked for them to turn abusive or violent. It's not on us. It's on them. That took time for me to process. That her jealousy was not based in anything I actually did."

Nicole takes a swig of her beer as she listens to Ravn talk. Adjusting her position to get more comfortable, she turns to the side, one leg up on the bench with knee bent, the other foot set down on the deck. Setting the bottle down in the triangle her leg creates helps keep her sundress tamed and preserves her modesty.

"That... I never thought about it like that, but it totally tracks with what The Exorcist said... that like ghosts are basically just our memories. Joey and I have a hard time thinking that way though, what with Ma around. But, what you said makes sense about Dreams at least. Ma isn't a dream. I wasn't sure seeing Mitch was either, but, some Dreams are harder to recognize as Dreams I guess. Or it just affected me personally more so than like, french speaking crustaceans, so maybe it seemed less Dream like because of that. But yeah... "

"No, we certainly did /not/ ask for them to be abusive, manipulative, violent, fuckwads. That is for sure. But for me...." Nicole looks up, dark hazel eyes meeting Ravn's. "The guilt is that like, I didn't just leave. His death... I um... that part... I think... " Clearly this is hard for her to put to words. "Um.... that part was my fault, I think. I think I caused him to.... do that."

Ravn falls quiet a moment, and then decides to address the technical side of things first because the emotional side is harder. He nods and tastes his beer, enjoying the bitterness of the lime, before replying, "Ma Kelly is a bit of a square peg in a round hole. I think the Exorcist may have been talking about ghosts created by the Veil or the pain eaters -- things taken from our own memories and given shape. But there's more to it than that -- I think sometimes, the memory is the ghost's own memory. Ghosts don't just exist here, and in thin spots. My family home is haunted to kingdom come, and that's on the other side of the planet. Some ghosts are little more than memories, just doing the same thing over and over again. Some of them are -- aware. Have something they want to do. Mitch and -- Benedikte -- were like that. I don't think the Veil created them -- though I do think it amped up their power so they genuinely could hurt us. Ma Kelly is like that too, it's just that her agenda is 'stick around and look after the boys' -- which is a hell of a lot less terrifying."

He pauses after that little speech, and looks at Nicole with grey eyes to match her hazel ones before shaking his head. "No. Unless you're going to tell me you literally put a rope around his neck and kicked the chair out under him, no. It takes two to argue and fight, but suicide is a choice only one person can make. Same for Benedikte when she got in that car drunk and rammed a road tree. Her choice, not mine. If I could have restrained her, I would have, but I couldn't, and she went ahead."

"I mean, at the time, she was mostly talking about Grohl. Gohl? Whatever his name was... so yeah. We did mention ma, but she was pretty adamant about ghosts not being able to do anything we didn't allow them to do, including her. But I think Ma is entirely different, like you said. But um... pain eaters? I don't think I've heard that before... What is it?"

"Right?" Nicole asks, her hand lifting and gesturing towards Ravn with her palm up. "Like, you hear ghost stories and paranormal stuff all over the place, not just thin spots. Yeah..." Nodding again, Nicole is fairly deep in her thoughts. "Yeah, you are right. Some ghost stories are just, there's this ghostly apparition who walks down the hall every night, or stands in the window looking for her love to return every night, or something. Then the ones like Ma that, well, I mean, she can be terrifying if you move something she doesn't want moved, but... yeah, she's mostly just refusing to leave her family."

"Then there's assholes like Mitch and," she takes a bit longer to pronounce the name of Ravn's ex, "Ben-eh-dik-tuh. I agree, the veil didn't create them, but made them... more, Same with Gohl, William, that one... he was a major fuck, but I don't think he was a figment of the veil, but definitely given power and... purpose by the veil?"

"It's um... right,. I agree with you one hundred percent on that. suicide is a choice, and a rather selfish one, if you ask me, in most cases... and if I didn't know better, I would completely think that for me too. Not my fault. His choice... but... my uh... glimmer..." Her fingers wiggle in the air. "I didn't even know I had it, and generally it is weaker like, almost non existent in places away from thin spots... but from my understanding in research I've done... my fear and anger could have unleashed it, and the combination of them all exploding at him..." Nicole bites her lip, squinting up her left eye as she shrugs her shoulders.

"Gohl is before my time here, but of course I've heard about him and the trail of bodies he left in his wake," Ravn agrees. "My home has a lot of those, though -- the people who just walk down the hall or stand in the window. And a number who are more like Ma Kelly though I'm the only member of the family who actually sees them. But none of them are malicious -- they just don't want to move on, for whatever reason. Most of them are quite happy to ignore everything and everyone and just do their thing." He pauses, and then adds, with a half-smile, "One of the older ladies of the family likes to appear and scream at sloppy maids. I'm told it used to be a problem back when."

He studies Nicole for a bit as she trails off unhappily. Then he shakes his head lightly again. "I'm open to the idea of accidental manslaughter. That you could have done something that caused an accidental death. You'll have to tell me what happened if you want my opinion on that. But that's as far as I will go -- unless you tell me you actually walked into a room with the firm intention of killing this man. And I'd like to stress that 'fear and anger' are not words that should be used to describe a relationship between two consenting adults. You don't cause somebody you love to be afraid of you."

"Yeah, I thought it was, but people still talk about him fairly often." Nicole nods a bit, then listens to what his house is like. She actually chuckles a bit at the thought of a ghost yelling at sloppy maids that can't hear her, the image breaking through the more gloomy thoughts, at least temporarily. "Where is 'home' for you? Like, this house, where is it?"

"Well, the officials declared it a suicide, through and through. His family kind of fought with them on that, trying to make me look guilty, cuz I was preparing to get out of dodge and they said it made me look guilty. But... um... " She brings her other leg up, sitting cross legged on the bench. She takes a fairly large swig of her beer then nestles it in the triangle of her long legs again. Her gaze lowers to it and her fingers fidget around the neck of the bottle as she speaks now. "Things were great for awhile. I thought we would even end up married. I don't even know what changed, or like, how, what caused it... but it started becoming volatile. Nothing I did was right. It was verbal, at first, screaming matches, you know... then he started hitting me... more and more often. One night, I came home and before I even knew what was happening, like, I had just walked in the door and uh... he attacked me and hit me so hard he knocked me out."

She sighs, deeply, lifting her hand to brush her fingers through her hair, though her gaze does not lift. "When I woke on the floor... he just left me there... I felt so confused. I didn't even know at first that it was him who hit me, that's how fast it happened. But there he was, sitting on the couch drinking beer and watching baseball, like I wasn't even there. I barely remember all the conversation, but I recall asking him what was wrong, what did I do. He was mad I came home late. Claimed I was out 'whoring' or something. I told him I sent him a text. One of the girls from class... I was just about to get my license... got engaged so we had a little impromptu party for her. And he wasn't buying it and he lunged over the couch and came at me again and....."

Despite not looking at him, if Ravn is watching, he might see a few tears fall from her cheeks to her lap before she lifts a hand to wipe them away. "I screamed. I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted him to stop hurting me. I wanted him to feel all the pain he had made me feel. I remember pushing..." She lifts her head then, and her hands, pushing them out in the air before her. "I don't even remember if I was yelling words or just sound. My head was already throbbing from being knocked out, but it was more so then. I felt like my entire body was throbbing, I could practically see the waves in the air like ripples coming off me, that's an exaggeration, but, just, that's what it felt like. And I just pushed all of it at him... all of it." Lowering her head again, she practically whispers, "then I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in. I stayed there all night... and in the morning.... um... that's when I found him."

There's nothing Ravn can say to make Nicole's story less awful. He doesn't try. Some memories are that terrible, and trying to talk them down is disrespectful of the horror it was to live through them.

"Benedikte was jealous," he says after a while; with one terrible story out there, it seems appropriate to share his in return. "At first, when we met -- I've never really been good at the whole relationships thing. I used to be a whiny brat, let me just be honest about it -- the insufferable kind of nerd who's convinced that the reason no one likes him is that he's so much smarter than them. I finally met a girl who seems to be willing to make the effort, and of course I fell head over heels for her. After some months, though, she began to change -- or maybe I did, I'm not sure. I found it easier to talk to people. Some of those people were female. And Benedikte -- convinced herself that they were going to try to steal me from her. I kept telling her that I was not interested in other women, and heaven knows I wasn't. It got bad."

He pauses a moment and mirrors Nicole's discomfort, fiddling with his hair for a bit before continuing. "She didn't hit me. She didn't need to -- I have neuropathy, any unexpected touch hurts. A little pinch, a small shove -- the not knowing if her touch would hurt was worse than the actual hurt, to be honest. She undermined my confidence, made me think that maybe it was just me not signaling 'no thank you' clear enough to other women. It got worse -- she'd argue with other women, tell them off. Even get into a fight a couple of times. I decided -- that it had gone too far. That I wasn't certain if I was crazy or she was, but this had to stop. I told her I wanted to break up our engagement. And that's when she took off, drunk, and rammed that tree."

The Dane sips his bottle, possibly to keep his hands busy. "The police didn't implicate me. I wasn't in the car, and I wasn't drunk when they arrived at my house. They did make inquiries because of the texts on her phone, making it obvious we argued. Tried to imply that she killed herself because I cheated on her, or she thought I did -- but cheating is not illegal. I did end up settling a deal with her family's lawyers to keep the press out of it. As far as the world knows it was just an unfortunate accident."

He shakes his head, dismissing the images from his mind in favour of answering the first, less unpleasant question. "My family's house is in Denmark. It's an old manor house -- deeds exist from the 15th century, though the current buildings are from the 18th century. My family's lived there pretty much always, so of course we've accumulated a number of ghosts over time. It's an art school now -- I mean, I still own it but it's been rented out since I'm living abroad. 'Old manor house' sounds very romantic but what it actually is is a black hole to shove money in, as far as repairs is concerned. This way, it more or less pays for its own maintenance."

Ravn was polite enough to listen to her story, so Nicole in turn listens to his. She watches him as she does, and snags one of the small baggies of pretzels, nibbling on them in between sips of beer. She wrinkles her nose when he says he was the type of person who thought he was smarter than everyone else. He was probably incredibly smarter than her, but he is right, people who act like that tend to be insufferable. She says nothing though, not about to interrupt his story.

She reacts though, to his words, his story; shaking her head when he speaks about how she manipulated his neuropathy. "I can't even imagine," she whispers.

"Well, glad they didn't implicate you... clearly you were not at fault. As you said, it was her choice to get behind the wheel. Can't blame a person for breaking off a relationship, people are responsible for their own actions in response to something happening in their life." Obviously, Nicole doesn't see her own situation as following that idea though, as she still holds onto her part in killing Mitch. It wasn't his response to her screaming at him, it was her response, her fighting back. "I don't know what I would have done if they did bring me up on charges. Not like I could claim my innocence due to magical self-defense..." She takes a breath and sighs, plucking a grape from the vine then nudging the sandwiches his way, urging him to take his pick.

She seems quite happy to move onto different topics. Her eyes are wide with interest as he speaks about the manor. "It does sound very romantic... also drafty. It also sounds drafty." She nods to herself. "Art school? That's pretty cool. Are you artistic?" She smiles then, looking at the boat they sit upon. "Must have been quite a change to go from a huge manor to... this."

"Well, they'd also have to prove how you did it," Ravn points out. "Humans generally can't do the things people here can do. A medical examiner would probably come up with an electrical discharge, freak lightning, something that might create some headlines but nothing that could send you to jail. Humans aren't electrical eels."

He settles on a sandwich at last; this is the time to demonstrate that he is a very picky eater -- not in the matter of someone who is choosy about what they will eat, but in the manner of someone who picks away at food forever. He drives Vyv Vydal crazy on a weekly basis, committing slow, distracted murder of elegant little dishes at the Pātisserie -- picking, dissecting, taking forever to actually eat things.

And art schools are decidedly less uncomfortable topics -- at least in comparison with, well, death. Ravn shakes his head. "I'm not. It's not something I handled, either. My family is pretty well off. Me, well -- as you've noticed, I live on a boat. There are a lot of old manor houses in Europe, but at least in Denmark, most of them are being turned into hotels or some other commercial venture, because maintaining them -- well, it's been a while since a manor house came with a fief and a couple of hundred serfs, you know?"

"We aren't?" Nicole asks with a small smile, holding her finger out and making a 'bzzt' sound.

She takes whichever sandwich Ravn did not. Whether the ham or the turkey, she opens a mayo packet to spread on her own before taking one of the halves and munching. Nicole is not a person who picks, she just eats. Generally. Sometimes a lot. She likes food.

"I am crafty, but not artistic... Sparrow would probably disagree and tell me that what I do with hair is artistic." Tilting her head, she teases. "You mean, you aren't a Baron or something? I sometimes watch restoration shows, like remodeling and restoring homes and stuff." Yeah, she's kind of a closet nerd. "And I have seen a couple shows where they remodeled castles. I can't even imagine all that it takes to make some of them more up to modern standards, and yeah.. upkeep. Me? I never lived anywhere big. Grew up in a ratty ranch, lived in various spots. The house in the burbs in Arizona was nice......" Unspoken 'until'. "I really liked fixing the trailer up though. I have plans to improve the Kelly house a little, whatever Ma will let me do."

"I like it small," Ravn agrees. "Here? I've got everything I need. I want to attach a small camping shower to the kitchenette at some point but until I get around to it, I shower at a friend's up at the trailer park and that works out all right. We've talked about maybe renting a place together -- he's in a long distance relationship so as far as living arrangements go, we're both bachelors. When she does visit? Odds are I'll be out here on my boat anyhow."

He can't help a chuckle at that inquiry, though. "No, I'm not a baron. That said, you have to be English or American to really care about that sort of thing. In Denmark, we did away with the whole noble privileges thing in 1849. All it means now is you can put a coat-of-arms on your stationery if you think you're posh enough that you want personal stationery. Me, I tend to make do with a notepad from the local book shop if I need to write something."

"I still own my trailer, so I mean, you could go there too. I might rent it out some day, I dunno. It's just... I can't get rid of it. It was my freedom, you know?" Nicole shrugs. "But, there's a tiny shower and a tiny tub in it. Your friend's space might be bigger, but, it was big enough for me to shower in comfortably." And she's not exactly short, but nowhere near as tall as Ravn either. "Unless we left Gray Harbor, I can't imagine Joey living anywhere but the Kelly house. He's kind of reluctant to change things, but I will start with like, improving some things, like the sliding door that always jumps off track..."

"But wouldn't a fancy coat-of-arms stationary make you look all the more intelligent and book-ly or whatever?" She teases him. "Just kidding. Honestly, I am glad you aren't an intellectual snob anymore. You probably wouldn't associate with me if you were." She finishes off her bottle of Corona and reaches into the insulated tote for another one. She asks him as she pops hers open, "want another?"

"Please." Ravn smiles lightly, a little lopsidedly and accepts a bottle replacement. "I was a brat as a teenager. I'm thirty-one, I like to think I've grown out of it. Not sure that a coat-of-arms makes you look anything but presumptuous. Kelly seems like a great guy to me. From what I've seen, he does a lot for this town and the not so fortunate kids in it. That's the sort of thing that makes someone important -- not whether they've got a stud book with their family name on."

He sighs, and raises a hand in what might be a gesture of vague surrender. "I'm sorry, I've got some baggage there. I don't really talk about my home or my family a lot. Most people couldn't care less but every so often somebody reads the room wrong and then I have to deal with them either thinking I want special treatment, or that I am an asshole who probably wants special treatment. I'm a teacher who lives on a boat in some small, strange town in the US."

The Dane shakes his head as if to put an end to that line of thought, and asks, "I'm guessing Kelly is in no rush to change things because it'd confuse his mother?"

The easiest way to get Nicole to change her mood from dark and down to, not, is bring up Joey. And yes, she had mentioned him, but, Ravn expanded the topic. She is all smiles when he speaks of how good a guy Joey is. "There was a time I had to constantly point that out, how /good/ he is. He wasn't seeing it for some time. Thinks he's just doing what needs to be done... which, I mean, yeah, but, he is one of the few that sees what needs to be done and does it. I still remind him, sometimes. " She cuts another lime wedge for both of them, handing one to Ravn before placing her own in the new bottle.

"Oh, no worries. I don't talk about mine much either. Granted, most people around here, the ones who grew up here, know some of it, but... " She shrugs. "I mean, where we come from, who we come from doesn't really mean all that much. It's what we make of ourselves that matters, right? So like... Some baggage can be stuffed with old books and shoved in a closet as far as I am concerned."

Nodding as she takes a bite of her sandwich, murmuring a hummed agreement before she swallows, she then says, "Yeah, probably mostly. I also think it's all kind of part of his identity?" She shrugs again. "Also, like, they moved a table once and I guess Ma threw it at Sparrow and whoever else was there? So yeah, that is likely the biggest part." She laughs.

"That's what being good is. Seeing what needs to be done, and just doing it. Talk is cheap, elbow grease isn't." Ravn nods and picks at his sandwich in ways that no doubt is causing Vyv Vydal somewhere to break into a cold sweat that he can't quite explain. "I know Kelly isn't -- always what the police would consider clean. He's involved in some things. I try to not ask, not see, because I don't want to know. As far as I'm concerned, he's a guy who helps out kids that other people aren't helping -- in a town that eats troubled kids like cereal. That's how you tell a man's real character -- how he acts towards people who have nothing."

He smiles. "Watching the two of you -- it makes me happy, you realise? This is how it should be. I know a small handful of couples like that -- I realise this makes me sound like some kind of crazy stalker, really, but I like watching them. Just, to remind myself, this is what it's like when sane, healthy people have relationships. This is what it's meant to be."

Nicole watches how Ravn eats his sandwich, curious but not judging. When he mentions Joey being involved in 'some things', she gets a look on her face that reads very much like a practiced, 'I have no idea what you are talking about, Officer'. Having such an expression practiced and ready might be a requirement for dating Joey Kelly. Maybe. She nods and adds, "he's a coach." That makes her smile, because, Joey /is/ a coach, and a damn good one too. "He knows what it's like, to have nothing, to fight for the nothing that you have. Now that he's in a place to help people feel like they have something, that there is hope... he does all he can." Many things can be said about Nicole Stein, one of those is that she is very proud of Joey and all he does. "He's a good man."

She begins to blush though, when Ravn speaks of watching them together. Not that she thinks it is weird (and not in THAT way, people), just that it makes her think of how much she cares for Joey, and he her. "It doesn't make you sound like a stalker," she assures him. "Though I bet he would laugh if he heard you call him a sane, healthy person." She chuckles a little, then looks up to him. "I tried not to. I tried so hard not to fall for him. After what I went through, I swore I was done with relationships. No way. Not me. Fuck love. Then... along came Joey with his amazing stripping act on amateur night and his promise of pancakes and all the little amazing things and... god, I was done for. Still, I tried to resist. Told myself, nope.... can't do it. Made myself go out with someone else to prove to myself it was all just loneliness clinging to the first person who paid attention to me or whatever. But... that only made me realize I was wanting to spend that time with Joey instead. And that wasn't fair to the other person either. I just couldn't stop thinking about him."

Her head tilts back and her eyes go to the sky. "And oh God, I did not think Joey was ever going to want a relationship either. I was pretty convinced he was as against them as I was... so then it was that awkward... 'um, so... are we... you know. Um... what are we?' conversation. I don't think I have been that petrified since high school... if even then." She's looking at him again.

"Still, I was pretty sure it was all going to go tits up. I haven't exactly made the best decisions when it came to men... But here we are now. And..." Nicole's lips spread into that goofy kind of grin that speaks one simple phrase, 'I'm in love'. "I really can't imagine it any other way. He has my back, I have his... but we respect each other. Like, we are part of one another's lives, the part we chose. That doesn't mean we have to consume each other's lives, right? It means we complement each other's lives."

"Supposedly, being together means sharing your lives -- not turning into Siamese twins. It sounds like a healthy relationship to me -- and I have to be honest, I'd be a hell of a lot less comfortable if I thought I might have to deal with jealous boyfriend for you coming out here." Ravn can't help smiling; every now and then, happy endings actually happen. It's a good reminder, and he treasures the moment.

Then he can't help laugh a little. "That's -- me, that's where I am now. Not going there again, not going to make the same mistake a second time. Not going to get burned again. Maybe I'll change my mind too if the right person comes knocking. It's not something I think about a lot if I have to be honest. I'm used to being by myself, and I'm not really the kind of bloke who goes prowling around the local dating scene to shake trees and see what falls out."

"Yeah, that's not how we operate. We trust each other," Nicole says, shaking her head. Joey isn't the jealous type.

Nodding, she grins at Ravn, leaning to take a few grapes into her hand. "Yeah, I was there a long time. Hell, it pretty much took Sparrow dragging me out of my comfort zone to even get me to go somewhere aside from work and home. I was pretty much a hermit for a couple years when I came back. So who knows, maybe there is someone out there for you. But I totally get it. I didn't think about it at all. Then boom, pancakes, when I least expected."

"You know... I think I asked before, but I honestly can't remember. What brought you to Gray Harbor all the way from Denmark?"

"Running from the ghost of my ex," Ravn says quite openly. "I hitch-hiked my way down through Europe until I ran out of Europe in Malta. Then I got on a plane to New York and started over, working my way west to Seattle. Was heading down south, figuring I'd aim for Tierra del Fuego next. Just staying ahead of her, keeping my head down, and not talking to anyone -- particularly not anyone that might conjure up her jealous ghost. I didn't intend to stay here -- but you know how this place works. And she did catch up eventually."

He pauses and backs up a moment. "Sparrow -- that's Grant Baxter's friend, right? Met her twice, I think. Seemed pretty friendly the first time, flew in my face the second. Not sure what was going on there -- I'm honest to God not good with women."

Another pause. "And this is where I rush to add, but of course I don't see you as a woman. Which would be ridiculous, except that you're not on the dating scene. Whenever I run into a woman who is, she tends to either decide that I'm invisible or some kind of creep. There's one I keep running into lately? She alternates between being furious at me for not flirting with her, and trying to goad me into a fight about it." He shakes his head. "Not going to pretend I understand what's going on there. I'll keep an eye out for boom, pancakes."

"That will do it. Basically why I came /back/ to Gray Harbor, only, I didn't know he was a ghost yet..." Nicole nods, listening to his tale. "Wow... I never realized how much we had in common. I mean, I can't say I hitchhiked through Europe, that's pretty amazing... but, when I first left Gray Harbor, I did hitch and work my way around the states a fair bit, til I ended up in Arizona and... well, you basically know the rest after that."

Chuckling, she says, "Sparrow is kind of friends with, everyone. Like, everyone. Surprised she didn't try to flirt your pants off. Wait... flew in your face? Does that mean she was angry?" Her head tilts, curious.

Laughing again, she looks down at herself and back up. "Last I checked, I was very much a woman, but yeah.. I'm not on the dating scene." Her expression as she listens to the story of this woman he keeps running into lately looks almost apologetic. Shaking her head, she admits, "man... all I can say is there are a lot of messed up people out there. A lot who think they know what they want, but really don't. A lot who just want you to want what they want.. and, well, a lot of women... I might be a traitor to my gender, but a lot of woman are just fucking nuts. Clearly that one is not pancakes worthy."

"Oh, I'm pretty certain no one gender gets to claim nuts." Ravn chuckles softly. "There are a lot of messed up blokes out there too, and probably also a lot of messed up people who haven't decided on either side of that fence, or sit comfortably in the middle. And in a town like this? No wonder a lot of us have baggage, considering the things we've seen and done on our way to where we are now."

He shakes his head lightly at the mention of Sparrow. "Seemed pretty fun the first time we met. Second time, I'm not sure -- she told me to butt out of the conversation so I did. Probably was Bax trying to recruit me for some science project she was doing -- possibly without consulting her first."

Stealing a grape the Dane lets it dance across his gloved knuckles almost absentmindedly, because that's just a perfectly normal thing to do. It flips from one knuckle to the other, spins a little, and then back again, as if powered by an invisible and very small source of energy. "Most people don't seem to know what they want. I do know -- if I get back in the game some day? It'll be because I meet somebody who's patient enough to deal with my disability, shares enough of my interests that we have something to talk about, and confident enough to trust me. I've had my share of jealous partner."

"Well, that is indeed true, on all accounts. We...." Nicole smiles impishly. "We're all mad here." Just a small Alice in Wonderland reference.

"Or, she could have just been in a bad mood... She really is pretty awesome though. Perhaps there will be a third time, sometime, and all will be well." She smiles then watches him make the grape dance over his knuckles. "That was pretty fancy, Mr. Abildgaard." Looking up then, she asks the question that perhaps she has wanted to ask since she met him. "So... I mean, I hope I don't offend you with this, but, I don't really know about neuropathy much. How do you deal with it? Like, you have to touch things a lot, and people, I imagine, touch you a lot. How do you get past that?"

Ravn looks up; the grape cheerfully dances from one fingertip to another before hopping back to where he took it. "Well, there are many forms. The word neuropathy just means that nerves hurt, after all. What I do is -- not touch people? Most people do respect it when I tell them to please not touch me unless they make sure I see it coming. That's what makes the difference for me -- if I don't expect touch, it can feel like anything. Like ice, or fire, or someone peeling my skin off with a cheesegrater. If I know it's coming it's not so bad. I wear the gloves in order to not accidentally brush against something and feel like I burned my fingers."

It's not the first time he's had to answer that question, it seems.

"To be honest? The only time it really really bothers me is when someone thinks I'm just trying to be interesting. That woman I mentioned, the one who wants me to be angry with her? She bloody well keeps squeezing my shoulder or swatting me lightly, and I'm sure she thinks she's just being cute, but it makes me want to bloody well strangle her."

Frowning, Nicole says, "that sounds too much like your ex, and you should tell this woman to fuck off. No means no, for fuck's sake. 'This hurts me' shouldn't make someone think you are lying and do it anyway. What the fuck is wrong with people?" It seems she is angry for him, even if he seems calm about it all.

"But okay... say you meet Pancakes, right? And like, she super respects you and definitely does not want you to feel like you're being made into a quesadilla." Cheesegrater, grated cheese, quesadilla. This is now Nicole's mind appears to work. "If you know a touch is coming, are you able to turn off the hurt? Like.. I am probably being way too nosy in like.. personal things. And you can quite easily tell me to shut up and I will never ask again... but... like.. do you just tolerate it if there's someone you care about? Or can you.. you know, get to not be in pain but like the person... you know.. touching you." I mean, she's being nosy, but she's at least trying to be polite about it. She could simply ask if he ever enjoys intimate touches, or, you know, /SEX/, but that is just not how she is.

"If I know what's happening and I feel comfortable with the person, it's not more of a problem than it can be worked around," Ravn confirms, grey eyes glittering with amusement. It's probably not the first time he's had to answer that line of inquiry, either. "My brain gets the signals mixed up. It's... inconvenient as heck sometimes, not going to lie. But as disabilities go, there are far worse things people deal with than having to ask others to please not randomly hug them. If I do meet Pancakes? I'm going to have to ask them to not surprise me, and probably to be a tad patient at times. But if that's an issue, then Pancakes is probably not the right person, either."

He nods a little. "I think that's an issue for everyone with some kind of chronic condition that's not visible. There are always people who simply do not understand that if it's not visible, it's still real. It's not malice -- just, plain lack of awareness. There's medication I could take but -- well, they do numb the pain, but they also make you feel like you're walking around in some kind of glass egg or bubble, and I can't stand it."

Then Ravn cants his head a little. "Speaking of, though? Invisible disability, that is. I have a friend who's going through a really hard time. Some things happened that were -- well, it's Gray Harbor, you won't be surprised to hear that they got mixed up in god-awful. I was there myself and I still wake up in a cold sweat at times -- and I got off lightly. I think you know them? Mac, the green-haired girl who runs the game store? She's kind of ... not doing so great. I want to help her, but I don't want to patronise her or pressure her. I know her hair's a pretty big deal for her, and since she doesn't go out anymore she hasn't been to see you lately. Suddenly struck me, do you do gift cards? And if you do, can you be talked into doing home visits, too?"

Nicole nods a few times. "I can understand that to a small degree at least. Like, if you are ticklish and know the tickle is coming you can usually not tickle so much? In theory. It doesn't always work, I suppose." She's trying to put herself in another's person's shoes, basically, to comprehend better what they go through. "Oh, yeah, There are so many horrible things some people have to deal with. Kind of how that saying says something about, no matter how bad you think you got it, there's always someone dealing with worse." She pauses, then says, "I can't imagine being that ONE person out there who is the end of the worst. Like, that's really really horrifying." She shakes her head, not really wanting to think on that too much.

"Yes, Pancakes has to be the right right person." Nicole ods on that point.

"Or plain lack of trying to understand. Lack of compassion," she says then in a thoroughly unamused voice. "Some medications, you really have to weigh whether the benefit makes it worth it in comparison to the side effects. Some out there, just aren't, I think. Sure, they make this one thing better, but they could bring on a host of other issues. And maybe if that one thing is so detrimental to your quality of life, then its worth it, but only the individual can decide that."

She tilts her head again, listening to him speak about his friend. "Oh! Mac! She came into the salon. Nice woman. I like her a lot." She nods and says, "we have gift cards, yeah. I um... for special circumstances, I can see myself doing home visits. She seemed really uncomfortable in the salon when she first came in. I like to think I helped her relax a little? I hope I did. I tried to be respectful. I... don't know what she's dealing with, but she didn't seem to like a whole lot of contact either. So I tried to be gentle, and tell her what I was doing."

Ravn nods. "She's got a touch phobia. Really doesn't like close physical contact. I'll come by the salon tomorrow, pick up a gift card, send you her way? Probably have to ask you to go there without making an appointment to be honest -- she'll find some way to avoid making it happen otherwise. She's convinced herself that avoiding dealing with anyone is better."

He pauses and looks out over the water. "I shouldn't really speak on her behalf like that, it's just that I worry about her. I do know what happened -- because I was there. A bloke tried to kill her, and she -- well, she killed him instead, with her powers. There's no question of whether the guy deserved what he got. One of Liu's blokes, when they raided the police precinct, sure as hell won't be missed. But Mac's convinced now that she's dangerous, that she uses her power too lightly. I'm trying to draw her out of her shell one step at a time -- and I think maybe getting her hair touched up might be part of that? Remind her that the world outside is a thing."

Ravn makes a helpless little shrug. "Look at me, trying to play shrink. I just want to help."

"I can certainly try," she says about going to Mac's place without an appointment. "I can certainly understand being freaked out that your powers killed someone. I just didn't understand that I had powers beforehand. But I felt it, the guilt, anyway." She nods a bit. "And, in both cases, it was self defense. It's not like it happened to someone innocent. He tried to kill her first."

"Tell you what, since you just want to help, and I want to help, just pay the cost of the products used. I don't want to be paid for it. If it helps her, that is what is important."

"I'll gladly pay for an entire barber shop quartet in the background, if that helps matters along." Ravn smiles lightly.

Then he sips his beer and looks a little more serious. "I don't think my powers can kill -- at least not without me putting a lot of deliberate thought to it, like distracting someone so they don't notice they're walking into someone's line of fire, things like that. But on some level I'm failing to parse why it matters, I think. Whether you pull a trigger or fry someone with lightning, they're still dead. If I'd had a gun and a chance to use it that day at the precinct, it would have been me and not Mac who killed that bloke -- and I'd have been perfectly all right with that. I'm not a killer -- if anything, I'm a pacifist. But when someone proves themselves willing to kill innocent bystanders then as far as I am concerned, they signed themselves right out of the human race, and taking them out is just taking out the garbage."

He shakes his head. "I didn't think like that before I got here. I mean, normal people don't go around rationalising why it's actually okay to be okay with killing people sometimes. But here? Does it really make a difference whether it's one of Reyes' men willing to kill a random person to prove a point, or a Veil monster out to eat you because you are prey? I'll shoot at either -- but the Veil monster I will at least feel a bit sorry for, since it's just trying to eat."

Laughing, Nicole shakes her head. "No quartet necessary. Maybe you can play some tunes you know she likes though, make a playlist that might help?" Her shoulders lift slightly, unsure if it would help, but music helps her get through things, so maybe.

"What exactly do your powers do? I don't think I even truly know." She pauses then asks, "so, mind stuff?" She nods at him saying if he could've, he would've been the one to kill the guy who attacked Mac. "Yeah, I mean. First, it is self defense and second, some scum need to be cleansed from this earth." She nods, agreeing with him wholeheartedly.

"I mean, I grew up here. Lots of us had a hard life, even as kids. I can't say I never thought of what I would do. I probably thought it way too much. " Shaking her head, she takes a swig of beer. "Nope. Definitely does not matter. Both are monsters in my book." Her nose scrunched up and her eyes squint slightly. "I mean, the same could probably be said about Reyes men. They are just trying to eat too. However, like, you don't hurt innocent people to do it. That should be a line you don't cross. Like, make your boss happy, but don't hurt innocents."

"If you ask Mac, I'm an illiterate caveman where pop culture is concerned, and she'd just end up complaining about my poor taste in music." Ravn laughs softly; he's got few illusions in this regard -- the game shop owner never made a secret of the fact that she considers him a relic from 1950. And not in the fun Marlon Brando on a motorcycle kind of way, either.

He steals a grape -- by pointing at it and letting it float onto his palm. "That -- that's what my powers do, pretty much. I'm not very gifted. I can move tiny objects -- car keys, lighters, coins, that sort of thing. And that's -- pretty much it. I've got just enough, it seems, that the Veil doesn't rewrite my memories the way it does for most people, but barring that I'm pretty much just a normal guy hanging out with people who have super powers. It's fascinating."

The grape spins on gloved knuckles; that, at least, seems to be manual dexterity rather than the applied use of moving powers. "I watched Liu kill a receptionist for being too noisy," the Dane adds after a moment. "There's doing what you have to do in order to pay your rent, and there's having handed in your membership card for the human race. I can't say I had a hard life as a kid -- or ever, really, I grew up pretty privileged. Thing is, where there's money, there's people like Reyes -- human sharks. I prefer an honest criminal just trying to make things work to a smug banker or lawyer who knows he's untouchable and there won't be consequences for anything he does."

"So what I am hearing is... I need to introduce you to pop culture. I'll have a playlist and a list of things to watch for you soon." Nicole smiles at him then finishes off her sandwich, just in time to watch Ravn float a grape. "Still... that can be a super helpful skill at times I think. And hey, if it keeps you more sane than the rest of us, bonus for you, am I right? I just wish I had better use of my whatever. It comes so easily for others... like, they look at something and it just goes boom. Me? I have to make myself super emotional." She sighs and shrugs. "Someone once said I shouldn't have to, but that's... how I learned it. It doesn't seem to work without high emotion. Granted, most times when I need to use it, I am feeling pretty significant emotion already... but anyway, I have been practicing."

She frowns deeply when told Liu killed a receptionist. "That is so true." She nods and says, "and sometimes it takes the honest criminals to make the untouchable... touchable."

"The difference between a criminal and an honest citizen is often just a good lawyer," Ravn nods with a small hitch of a shoulder. "My parents could afford to bail me out of trouble. If not, I could have been one of Joey's troubled kids -- I certainly got myself into trouble often enough, trying to get their attention."

He lets it go; no reason to dwell on unpleasant memories, and no reason to skirt around the fact that both of them are closer to the town's criminal elements than anyone not a criminal themselves ought to be. It is what it is.

Instead, the copper blond looks back at Nicole (and finally eats that bloody grape). "I appreciate you coming out here. This town -- it keeps you busy just staying ahead of trouble a lot of the time. Easy to forget to look after yourself and other people. I have a lifetime of bad habits when it comes to staying in touch with anyone, and I'm trying to change it. As long as folk here look out for each other, the other side can't win. Making friends is a pretty big deal."

And then he laughs softly. "Also, you realise, you broke my track record. So far, every woman who's set foot on this boat has ended up in trouble, or putting me in trouble. And here we are, eating grapes and definitely not getting in trouble. Unless, of course, Mac eats us both alive when we turn up to do her hair."