2021-10-28 - I Hope Your Carpet Doesn't Have Eyes

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Where the fuck did your boat go. Are you dead? Or in Europe?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : My lawn. Where the fuck did you go. Are you dead? Or in the Veil?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : You okay? Thought you'd taken your own advice and bailed town tbh.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Since when do you have a lawn? I think I'm alive.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : When have I ever taken my own advice?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Since... Well, according to the papers, since mid-August. Which is when I apparently bought the house that comes with the lawn. I don't remember it, of course, but considering that Aidan Kinney and I had been talking about getting some place to be roomies in, it makes sense enough that we'd get around to doing it at some point.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : (Yes, I've learned to not say we're shacking up together, people insist on reading that the wrong way).

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : You don't remember anything, either.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : The only one of us I've met who does is Hyacinth Addington -- she was in Toronto when the skip, whatever you want to call it, happened. The rest of us woke up, looked at changes in our lives, and blinked. A lot of blinking.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : The Roens woke up pregnant. We actually had an office betting pool down here about whether someone would, and sure enough...

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Possession?

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Both of them?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Well, they seem happy enough about it, and they are married, so I suppose it's natural progression too?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : ... No, Eleanor's the one with the chest burster, August presumably just helped install it.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : No. I mean. Are both of them pregnant. Seems unlikely, but it's Gray Harbor.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Ah. Good.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Wait. Chest bursters are bad. I'm not sure you know how pregnancy works.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I had a fiancee once who kept insisting we should start breeding. I got into the habit of calling 'em chest bursters to piss her off, honest truth.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : The dead one? Or did you almost get married again?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : The dead one. Although I am in fact dating someone, not that I saw that one coming, either.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Are you okay? Correct number of limbs, etc?

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Is this voluntary dating, or 'three months disappeared and now I'm in bed with someone' dating.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : I am not okay. But all limbs are intact, and apparently someone was paying my bills. Maybe me. The house still exists. It flooded. Storm? Someone fed my animals. They're alive. Maybe me. I don't know.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : More like, I was in Toronto and Veil creatures told me you were dead and now we're doing this instead of both of us avoiding the issue for another three months, and yes, actually, once Hyacinth Addington sets her mind to getting something done, it gets done. The other thing happened to Perdita Leontes, though.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I think most of us are kind of in a state of 'as okay as you can be when you lost three months of your life' -- and more so when none of us can figure out what the Veil actually did with all that stolen time. Most of us still waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Oh. Maybe I was dead. I don't know. I feel alive. I don't know Perdita Leontes, but doesn't the name mean 'danger'?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : She's pretty dangerous when she wants to be. Ex-grifter, shines, came into town to hide from somebody, and you know how that story goes. We get along pretty well since we have a lot of overlap on past history, I suspect.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Oh. Good. I think. Anyone dead?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : There are a number of people not accounted for. You were one? But the thing is, no one seems to have gone through the kind of thing you'd expect. No one waking up severely traumatised, broken, ruined. Most of us just... huh, life apparently just plodded on without us for a while.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : A few folks had trouble from not taking their medicine for three months but nothing serious came off it.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : I was covered in mud and I can't find my shoes. No injuries, though. McCloud found me on the roof of the theatre. Told me about the three months. I don't remember much since March, though.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : You should drop past the HOPE centre sometime, though. The boardwalk guys are where I get most of my news on what's going on in town these days. They're surprisingly astute. Because I'm not buying for a moment that the Veil just decided to throw us a bone and give us a break in order to be nice.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : You did kind of go radio silent before the skip? Sometime around May the fourth? I remember that.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : What is the HOPE centre? And yes, bums are good sources of info. Most of them stand out, but can't control it. It eats them, but they have info.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Community centre. Ignacio de Santos' baby, though I do most of the everyday coordination. Officially? Outreach project, help people help themselves, self help groups, therapy, what you'd expect. Less officially? Fighting back.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Oh. Good. That sounds nice.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I remember you telling me altruism is anathema to the dolorphages. That's what it is. Weaponised do-goodery.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Yes. Good.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Got a couple of the boardwalk guys coming in daily. Which is a pretty damn invaluable source of information on the Veil's mood.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Still haven't managed to coax Mac out of her shop. 😕

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Good. Do they remember anything?

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Is she okay?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : No -- they lost three months too. Everyone like us seems to have just blinked and lost three months -- except Hyacinth who was out of town.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : I disapprove.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Honestly, no, she's not okay. She's managing, she's taking care of her shop. But she's still convinced she's too dangerous to be allowed in the streets.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Why?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : She killed that guy at the police precinct -- the one who sent her to hospital before she killed him. And she's not able to move on from it. Talked to me about other people who had 'accidents' around her, and how she's too powerful, too dangerous. I can't snap her out of it. Heaven knows I've tried.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Oh. I understand that. It's not true, but it feels true. And it is a little true.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : It's true insofar she's got the power, yes.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : But I was at the precinct too that day and I tried to kill a bloke too. I used a pair of scissors instead of mind powers but it boils down to the same thing. Sometimes, you have to do something, or other people get killed.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Yes. She will always have the ability to do that. It's hard. Everyone else okay? I haven't contacted anyone. Just walked around town, noticed your boat was gone.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I don't think anyone is flat out okay. I also don't think anyone is badly off. We're all confused. All worried about what it means, what the Veil did that needed for us all to not be around to see it happen.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Personification of the Veil. Data insufficient.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : We have no idea what entity made this happen or why. We do know a few facts. Want me to run you through them?

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Yes.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Thank you.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : You're familiar with the Slavic trickster figure, Baba Yaga?

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Chicken hut, eats children.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : I saw someone with that as their license plate, once. Investigated thoroughly. No eaten children.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : That's the one. She turned up here around... May, June. Gave people readings. I thought her a fraud at first but frankly, she knew things no one else here would know.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Predicted that a storm was coming -- a supernatural one. Also dished out valuable life lessons because that's what she does mythologically after all, put the urchin hero on the right path.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Did anyone shoot her?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : And then -- well, somehow, Grant Baxter got involved. I'm not sure of the finer details but he made a wish of some kind. About you Baxters, about making things right.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : oh no

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : 🙁

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : And the storm came. Mundane world, tropical hurricane.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Lots of supernatural stuff going down, pretty clear the Veil was pissing its pants too.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : And then -- time skipped. And we have no damn idea what actually happened.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : I'm going to dunk him in a barrel.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : So that's where we are -- we don't know if this means the curse is broken, or the dead Baxters are at peace, or Granny Addington is powerless, or.... We have no idea.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Not a peep from the other side -- although the Exorcist did a tableflip and quit.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : If something good happened, then there will be a cost. A nasty cost. Wishes are stupid.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I'm a folklorist, tell me about it. Though if anyone -- anyone at all -- can pull this on Baba Yaga, it would be Bax.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : She has a thing for pure-hearted peasant heroes.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : And eats children.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I spent the better part of six weeks arguing with her every damn time I spotted her in the street, warning people to not give her anything too personal and definitely none of their hair or fingernails. Believe me, I know. If there was ever a dualistic trickster deity in mythology, she's it.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Things from over there should stay over there.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : We do have a new entity from over there I'm trying to sort out.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Set it on fire.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I need to find it first. But someone's doing small reality rewrites. Undoing some of the Revisionist's damage. The Pourhouse got its old name back, that sort of thing.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Definitely set it on fire.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Myeah, it seems to do... some weird things. Not all of them seem to be -- bad as much as just fucked up weird.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : Same theme as usual of course -- trying to hit people where it hurts or trying to get them to use their power.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I make an adorable Maid Marian, just saying.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : It could be making flowers and puppies, but something has been FUCKING WITH MY H EAD, Ravn, and I am not okay with it.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : And there is mold in my carpet. Why would I pay my bills and not clean the fucking carpet? Who does that?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : No one's okay with it. Most of us are coping, in the way of what the fuck can we do but cope? No one's ... okay.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Look who's alive.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Fuck.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Theoretically alive. Hello.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : Well shit, Shady's back, tell a friend. How's things?

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Trying to catch Alexander up a little on the time skip affair.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Things are fucked, apparently. Glad you're alive. And my name is Alexander. You might have forgotten.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : SNAFU never applied more.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : I don't offhand remember anyone coming out of this terribly damaged, do you, Seth? None of us are thrilled with the whole mess, but I don't remember anyone turning up -- you know, half dead, missing limbs, marriage ruined, something.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : In Spokane at the moment with Vic. Catch up when I get back? Have a 'What did you do in the last few months' party. Nah, nothing bad that I know of. BIlls were all paid, didn't get unexpectedly married, etc. If anything good things happened. Vic's house got more done and I don't remember putting in the work...lol.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Good. That nothing is broken. Other than our minds.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Well, like I said, I think we're all still expecting to find out that something is broken, but the shoe hasn't dropped yet.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : I am going to find out what I was doing.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : A lot of mud appears to be involved.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : I live on Oak Street now, by the way -- when I can't live on the harbour. Craftsman's villa, look for my boat on the lawn and Kinney's truck in the driveway.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : All right. I'll look.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : ...

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Back up, what the fuck, you're in SPOKANE, Seth?

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Spokane isn't bad. Unless it's on fire or something?

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Long story. Involved some people who ended up needing help at the HOPE centre. Maybe the kind of story that should be talked about over a beer, rather than on a cell.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : Yes. I'm in Spokane. Work.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Oh.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : Did you tell him about the laundry, Ravn?

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Hrm, no. Bad thing for phone too, innit?

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : ::shrug:

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : If you don't tell me, it will eat at me until I scream.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : The incident I'm referring to was a ship's fire on the harbour some time back. Turns out girls were being trafficked on the ship. We helped them get out of town.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Good. That's a good thing.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : Ravn and I had to do a bunch of dirty diapers and clothes during the massive storm. It was....gross, wet, and amusing.

Oh, that fire. I wonder what happened with that? Glad he girls were saved though, that was a good ting.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Oh man. Nothing supernatural about that, though.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : ... Although we did steal a school bus, and I'm glad no one remembers that.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : But amusing. I smiled.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : ... I suppose technically breaking into a laundromat is still burglary too.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Hello, NSA guy, I confess, I did it, I stole a schoolbus and burglared a laundromat, to cope with the diapers. Atli Addington made me.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : Stole a school bus. Broke into a laundromat. Hey, we left money... More than enough to cover the cost of the use of the washers.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : I am pretty sure no internal communications in Gray Harbor are monitored by national intelligence services. Maybe by monsters, though.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : I'm inclined to agree with you but that's also why I'd still keep it clean, because why give the Veil a free ticket to punching you where it hurts.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : Oh, hey! I put a ring on it.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Wait, what?

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : A ring on what?

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : Vic's finger. Gotta go! Talk to you later....

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : What is it with everyone getting married and having babies? This better not turn into a trend!

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Congratulations. Don't die.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Oh well. It took me three months and another three months' time skip to get to 'we are dating'. I'm probably not high risk for putting rings on things. Whatcha say we catch up sometime in not too long over beers? Try to sort out what happened, where you went, what you were doing?

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : <insert photo of Vic's finger with ring>

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : (insert photo of Vic's hand with ring...looks like it was taken on the sly in a car)

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Congratulations, man. And I will come for your kneecaps if you give Hyacinth ideas.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Nice. And yes. Beers sound good. I will find shoes before then.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : It's just a cover. I was hoping for more surprising reactions... You all suck and ruin my fun.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : (or is it)

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : It better not be.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : I don't remember the last eight months. Everything is a surprise. But nothing is a surprise. And that is at least a good surprise. If it were real.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : I vote firmly in favour of savouring the good surprises, we get enough of the bad.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Also, I miss just hanging out, knocking back a few cold ones, and breaking Seth's nose.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : ...

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : I imagine Seth only misses some of those things.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : :🖕

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : I'm going to graciously pretend I think that's a 'points to above'.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Why are you pretending to be married in Spokane?

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : It has nothing to do with boat fires or saving women from sexual slavery, I can assure you.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : One good thing about Gray Harbor. At least our underworld has some kind of -- decency.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Some portions of it.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Nothing's perfect.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Alexander, HOPE's on Spruce. Right across from the Pourhouse. Anytime you want to drop in, drop in. Ask for Denny maybe -- he's kind of the volunteer janitor, and the guy on the boardwalk who knows everything. He has a thing about carnivorous mermaids but if you can get past that, he's got all but a hot line to what the Veil is up to.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Sounds like you've never been bitten by carnivorous mermaids. Lucky.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : I've seen his carnivorous mermaids. He's not making that shit up.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : Didn't think he was.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : I did, or rather, I thought maybe the raging schizoid disorder he's diagnosed with was true. But the mermaids are real enough.

(TXT to Ravn Alexander) Seth : I don't want to know. I had enough with the damn carousel eyes and that fucking peacock.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Oh god, that bloody carousel.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : You realise I'm still trying to find the damn kid and put her to rest?

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : The schizoid disorder is probably also true. We're easily broken, here. I walked past the carousel. It seems broken? Is it broken?

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : It was more that somebody stole all the carousel animals' eyes because one of them turned murderous, and its eye seemed to be why. So we were hiding... a bag of plastic eyes, for a while. They've been returned.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : But it's connected to the Baxter souls, and I can't find Muriel Vernon -- the ghost girl who seems to be in charge of it all, if anyone is.

(TXT to Ravn Seth) Alexander : I'm going to clean my carpet. I will let you know if there are eyes.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : Nothing is ever fucking simple in this town.

(TXT to Seth Alexander) Ravn : And I hope your carpets don't have eyes.