2021-07-07 - To What Do We Bear Witness

The Pourhouse was technically open, if by meaning there was staff inside. Leon and Maggi had basically converted a storage room on the second floor of the building into a place for them to sleep. The house was safe and insured, on a high bit of land, boarded up. They might lose some shingles, but nothing Leon couldn’t repair and claim. The Pourhouse on the other hand? Maggi had insisted on being there just in case, maybe thinking she could repair the place in real time if things went south with the storm. Leon didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

He did convince her to go check on her folks for a few hours, and to take his Jeep, so he was sure she was safe. Honestly, there wasn’t much to do. He was looking at his phone, and his laptop. He had some map program open on it while two little arrows very seldom moved on it, likely his two trucks. His employees he’d told to keep safe as well, but he’d hired good guys. They insisted on working, so he’d found them some jobs much further inland with the caveat they keep driving to a minimum and let him pay for motel rooms if they needed them.

So besides that? Leon just watched the weather while he tried to decide if he should just go cook something on the plancha he’d heated up like a half hour ago.

Across the street, HOPE technically is open too. The door is not locked and there is a note taped to it behind a sheet of transparent plastic, reading SHELTER AT THE HIGH SCHOOL. That's open, sort of. And a few homeless guys who did not want to brave the high school shelter are in fact camping out. Ravn Abildgaard checks on them when there is a lull in the storm because he wants to make sure both that the property is still standing, and that nothing came out of the basement and ate them.

Nothing did. And that's why he glances back and then nips across the street instead of heading back to the shelter. There's a light on at the Pourhouse and good Lord in Heaven and all ye little angels, saints, and pigeons, does he need a stiff drink. He knows things about people now that he never wanted to know. He's given serious consideration to murdering and burying Vicky Barrett, the resident militant vegan. He's stolen Mrs Jankowski's 9mm firearm -- and handed it over to the chief of police while a thunderbird out of native myth tried to decide on whether to eat them or not. He's watched Frozen twenty-nine times.

Give this man a stiff drink.

The sound of wind fills the main room of the Pourhouse after Chelsea forces the front door open. "Come on, boy... there you go." The short blonde is accompanied by a healthy, and extremely wet, golden retriever whose leash is held particularly tight today. Chelsea forces the door closed while Biscuits shakes himself off.

"Okay. Sit. STAAAAY." - "Good boy!"

Leaving the excited good boy near the door, Chelsea heads in toward the counter. "Hellooooo, anyone he.... oh, hey boss! Where's Maggi?" Leon receives the most innocent of smiles. The particular smile one gives a protective boss when they know they are about to get a 'What the hell are you doing here?!'. "They're good at the animal shelter so I thought I'd check and make sure everything's peachy here."

“Ravn!” Leon calls out as he sees the Dane enter, a sigh emitted from the big man, the type that was glad to see a person safe. He was standing up from the booth he had set his things in, about to head for the bar when he saw Chelsea walk in. Again, a heave of the man’s shoulders, a stern flattening of his lips. But it was probably going to go mostly ignored, as the blondes in his life basically knew the man to be a pushover when it came to certain things.

“Chelsea...” his hand lifts to wipe his face, “Did you walk here?” He asks in a tone that was probably containing at least two stages of grief. Still, he strides over so he can drop down to a squat and greet the dripping wet dog. He was already cocking his head toward the door to the kitchen. “There’s clean actual towels back there If you need them.”

A tired smile greets both from the Dane as he makes himself comfortable on the bar stool and proceeds to semi-dramatically fake a face plant on the counter. "Please. Whiskey me up. Must not kill Vicky Barrett. Or Mr Oleander from Olympia who wants to sue the city for damages to his yacht. Which is now a pile of very expensive toothpicks floating around the marina. Or maybe somewhere up Bayside. Or perhaps part of one of the Chehalis surges. Either way, I'm in Hell."

Ravn is not usually a particularly dramatic type; if anything, the Dane tends to be a little understated. Almost aggressively non-flamboyant in his usual black jeans, shirt, and blazer or leather jacket combination. The last man on the planet to start a brawl or shout loudly in an argument. The first man out the door at the mention of the word 'karaoke'. He did attend one karaoke night, once. People threatened to shove him onto the stage, and he's not been seen for that kind of bar night since. And yet, he's also the bloke for whom Leon started keeping a bottle or two of stupidly expensive stuff sitting around; Ravn is nothing if not a whiskey snob.

"I may have?" Chelsea answers Leon's question with a tone that suggests she's more asking than answering. "We weren't walking by the coast, I promise! Just to the shelter and back." Biscuit's tail goes into overdrive and his front paws threaten to lift off of the floor when Leon squats down. Butt stays down, though. Still technically sitting, see?!

Ravn's tired smile earns him a more energetic smile from the blonde before she is moving behind the counter. One of Ravn's favorites is located and Chelsea takes her time making sure she fills a glass with a proper pour. Davis may eyeball these things but there's a right way for a reason!

"Here you go!" Chelsea's 'service smile' is presented as she sets the glass in front of Ravn. She leans up and sideward to glance toward the entrance, toward Leon squatting near Biscuits, "Are we trying to stay open through all of this? Davis said we were closing as of last night."

"We're not really trying to stay open, it's more like we're just here already." Leon says hands carefully reaching in to give Biscuits some cheek and chin scratches. Leon always did show weakness for dogs, reminders of the service animals he'd dealt with when he was enlisted. He stands finally and gives Biscuits a final pat before moving over to the bar and retrieving a rag to dry his hands.

"Your boss, my loving wife, seems to think we should be here in case of emergency. The house's insurance is good for whatever happens, but here..." The situation is summed up by the toothy grimace he makes while twisting his neck. "She thinks she can just..." Another move with his hand instead of words, sweeping it forward and wiggling his fingers. "...If it goes a certain way." His hand goes to his back and he stretches it, "So air mattress it is..."

"And she probably can," Ravn murmurs. "Thank God for that. I really do need just a moment or three of relative peace and quiet."

He raises his head from the counter, done with the dramatics, and accepts the tumbler with a smile. "Lifesaver. How are you weathering things at the animal shelter? The high school is pretty packed -- we even have twelve cats. Everyone was warned to shelter pets well before the storm, and who's really surprised that several families didn't? We had to turn a class room into a cattery, because we've also got people who are allergic to cats, and people who hate cats."

He takes a sip and adds, "Hell, I had to steal a Sig handgun from one of the latter, lest she start shooting at the damn cats."

As the other two speak, Chelsea returns the whiskey bottle to it's proper place (on the top shelf, of course!). The talk, or 'not-talk' to be more specific, of what Maggi will do if '...it goes a certain way' goes without any comment from the blonde. Instead, Chelsea sets her hands on her hips and lets her gaze wander the main bar-room until something Ravn says snaps her attention back.

"A handgun?! You're joking!" She favors him with a wider smile that is no longer 'fake service smile' but instead one made up of a mixture of shock and amusement. "Did you check her ankles? Don't they always carry a backup down there in the movies? And things are okay at the shelter. I stayed over the last two nights to help out. The critters are losing their minds."

Chelsea makes her way back out from behind the bar. "Do you need me to see if they can spare any food or litter?"

“Never understood the ankle holster.” Leon comments offhandedly, a grin sent Chelsea’s way, though the statement was just generally made, “There are so many other more convenient places to holster a gun then having to bend down. If I’m down on the ground looking for a gun, things have already gone pear shaped, and the pieces that even fit there are not even close to doing the job.”

He shakes his head, then tosses a glance toward the booth with his laptop. Still no motion. No news was good news. He settles onto a stool near Ravn, but leaving one between them. It takes him a long moment to ask, like he was having to build up for something, a markedly different thing for Leon, always seen in the thick of bar socialization.

“The Dreams been weird for you two?”

"Not joking." Ravn shakes his head, laughing softly. "Although to be fair to Mrs Jankowski and her hatred of cats, she was terrorised for months by Veil creatures masquerading as cats. Still can't have her shooting at Mrs Neely's perfectly innocent American shorthairs though. She's not insane, just -- well, like a lot of us, she's seen some things."

He glances up at Leon, attention caught not so much by the man's very sensible observations about ankle holsters as by his hesitation. "I have had... some experiences... at the shelter. Faerie women. Things on the roof. A pied pier with a horde of weasels. But they were shared experiences -- other people were in there. Including Mrs Jankowski, shooting weasels, which is when I stole the Sig. People do keep talking about shadows and things in the woods."

Chelsea's smile shifts into a lopsided grin as she listens to Leon express his opinion about ankle holsters. A bowl is recovered and she fills it with water for Biscuits, who has been such a good boy and not moved from his 'stay' spot. "Whose my guy?! That's right! You are!" It's not quite as bad as watching a gushy couple. Not quite.

Leon's question has that lopsided grin vanishing fast. The blonde doesn't always talk about 'that stuff'. Why busy yourself with worrying about all those things when there are thirsty customers to serve and hunger puppers to walk? That's not denial, is it?

Biscuits sloppily laps at the water fish while his owner distractedly strokes his back. "...come and see..." Chelsea murmurs under her breath before she rises to her feet. Biscuit glances up, ears lowered, at the sound of his owner's voice and watches as she rises and claims that seat between Leon and Ravn.

"Something terrible has arrived with this mess, hasn't it?"

It was probably easy for Chelsea to avoid the topics around Leon. Of the two owners, he was most often the one that didn’t talk about it, avoided it, left that thing in its drawer in his van, locked shut. But these were different times, and thus conversation almost needed to be had. That didn’t stop Leon from heaving a sigh and looking at a loss for words when she asks the straightforward question.

“That’s... I don’t know... Like... Before I moved back, all the... problems I had were just my own. This feels like... What’s the movie with the giant thing in the mist?” The Mist, Leon? Cmon low-hang-... “Cloverfield?” He shakes his head, probably still naming the wrong movie, but moving on. “Like, my senses are just...” More uses of hand waves. Jittered fingers around his head, the energy and the buzz made somatic.

“Part of me wonders why the mayor didn’t just evacuate the whole city... Part of me worries the...” he doesn’t speak the word, just makes a wave for ’over there’, “...wouldn’t let him...”

"Might not be the Mayor," Ravn murmurs into his whiskey. "Mayor's an Addington, is he not? Old Margaret runs that clan and the town with it, with an iron fist."

He looks into the glass, studying the golden liquid in it, watching the sparkle in the ice cubes. Tired man is indeed tired; and no wonder, considering he managed to go from 'guy who's sort of trying to put some repairs into an old shop, maybe do a bit of community to work' to 'guy who is somehow responsible for 250 people in a hurricane shelter'. "I think, the Dane adds after a moment, "That it would have made no difference. The crone -- Baba Yaga, she was pretty adamant about the storm coming and us being here to bear witness. Maybe whoever should be making the decision to call for an evacuation got that memo, too. I don't think we could have dodged this bullet, Leon. Sometimes, the only way is through."

Chelsea shifts and settles into her chair between the other two and she faces forward while listening to each of them. "It's like the animals know. Maybe it's just air pressure from the storm system?" That's it, Chelsea. Just like it was something else when you made that cat at the animal shelter come out from under the sofa where it was hiding. That's better than facing the more logical, and scary truth. "Do you think they're can feel what we feel?" The target of the question isn't made clear, as the blonde is facing forward rather than angled toward either of her companions.

Biscuits, for his part, contributes nothing to the conversion. With his thirst sated, the golden retriever moves off to inspect every corner of The Pourhouse. 'Stay' is over, right?

Leon leans back on the barstool, facing much the same direction as Chelsea was, eyes focused on one of the windows facing outside, the rain pouring down as they watch. He has a bit of a blank look for a moment too before he’s answering. Ravn’s talk of Baba Yaga, the reminder of the dreams has him churning away at his thoughts.

“Shit, Chel, I don’t even know what I’m feeling most of the time.” A brief glance made over and down at the blonde, though a friendly enough grin made to soften the language of it, “I don’t think I’m qualified to guess what an animal feels.” That said, his eyes do follow Biscuits, notes the wet paw prints, at least he’d have something to do later. Mopping was something that didn’t happen too often in the Pourhouse, and now he had the time and excuse.

Ravn too glances at the dog. "Stories always talk about hounds howling and cats spitting. Modern times too -- people talk about how the animals sense an earthquake or tsunami coming, and get out of there. I suspect they might. But if they do, maybe we don't need to be quite as worried as we are, because most animals I've seen the last couple of days have been behaving like -- well, like cats who are quite annoyed at sitting in a crate most of their time, taking turns having the run of one classroom. They're not happy, not even close, but they're also not trying to dig through a concrete floor to escape, you know?"

He shakes his head again. "Or maybe I'm just not very good at reading animals. We did have a herd of weasels trying to kill people, but I'm pretty certain those were not actual weasels. More like, things from the other side, in the shape of weasels. They were a little too smart."

Chelsea offers Leon a small smile that lacks her usual jubilant energy. Biscuits returns from his exploration and curls up on the floor, chin on his front paws, near the base of Ravn's chair as the man talks. The canine glances up at his owner when she shudders at the description of Ravn's weasels.

Quick to change the topic, Chelsea taps the counter top with both hands. "So! What can we do around here to get this place 'storm ready'? Should we raid the fridge in-case we lose power later?" Leon would know about Chelsea's fridge raiding habits. Money's tight and a college student will take food where-ever she can get it. "Need another scotch, sweetie?"

Leon lifts a palm and whacks himself in the head with the heel of it. “I hadn’t even thought about all the stuff in the freezer. Yeah, Chel, go ahead and take some stuff, if ya want.” He seems wistful, rolling over things in his head. He could probably claim... He stops to think, then turns. Talking over Chelsea would be easy given the two men’s heights.

“Ravn, the school cafeteria has fryers, doesn’t it? Do you need food for people? I got like cases of potatoes and chicken tenders, wings... I can probably claim it all perished in the storm and get insurance to pay.” Because sometimes clever accounting should benefit everyone.

Ravn looks up even as he slides his glass towards Chelsea, because today is not just a two shots kind of day, today is a put the bottle on the counter and give me a straw kind of day. "Several shops have been very generous -- Sweet Retreats is probably going to be the reason we end up with half a dozen diabetic kids, but at least they're busy eating ice cream that would otherwise spoil. I'm not going to say no thanks, mind -- we have no idea how long this storm will go on, and the longer we don't actually have to get in touch with emergency services for help the better. Pretty sure the responders have their hands full with the people on the Chehalis' banks whose houses are washing into the river."

A smile to Chelsea; he too has been a penniless student. "I'll fight you for the chicken wings but you get dibs on the rest."

Chelsea is on her feet quickly. "Fight me for those wings and I'll sick my dog on you." The blonde's smile is back along with her usual positive energy. "Doesn't he look fierce?" Biscuits's ears perk up but his chin barely leaves his paws as he glances up at his owner. Chelsea moves back behind the bar and retrieves the bottle from earlier. "Want one, too, boss? Did you hear from Davis? Does he have his kids right now?" A second glass is retrieved, filled, and exchanged for the old one which is stowed below the counter in a dirty dish rack. The blonde college girl surveys the area behind the bar as if looking for another chore. "...so what do you think we are supposed to come and see?"

There’s something about the way Leon’s eyes go from Chelsea to Ravn to Biscuits in a way that says out of the three offered combatants, he wasn’t sure who would come out on top. The thought seemed to amuse him though. He nods to Chelsea on question of a drink for him, “Yeah, it’s feeling like a Maker’s day.” He gives the other thing thought.

“I told him to eat crow and just ask to stay with his ex wife, that way he could be with his kids during the storm. I think he split the difference and grabbed a cheap motel near them. He’s been making slow progress at that fixer-upper, I’m not sure how great it’s gonna weather. Oh yeah, and you asked, but Maggi’s visiting her folks. She took my Jeep. When she gets back, I’ll give you a ride back to your place.” Not a question. Protective Leon. And the last bit? A helpless look toward Ravn, current resident theorizor of the unexplainable.

"That's a very good question," the Dane murmurs into his second whiskey. "We know so very little. Although what we do know -- I want to say that it's something good, except, we're in Gray Harbor. The entities we call Dark Men or dolorphages won't settle for something here being good, they'll find a way to sour it."

He hitches a shoulder. "Somebody made a wish -- and somehow, got heard. They wanted to -- I'm not sure, stop the bad things happening to Baxters. The murders, the destruction of their ghosts before they can pass on, all of it. And this, somehow, got picked up on by -- whatever it is, we're supposed to see. If you ask me, repairing broken things is good. So is not hurting people, living or dead. But this storm doesn't feel very good-natured, you know? Shades and monsters walking around in a hurricane, houses washing into the Chehalis, the sheer destruction. I can't help feel that we're actually in a war zone -- that there are numerous things out there, fighting each other over what's going to happen. And we're just unfortunate enough to be sitting where the manure lands after a trip around the windmill."