2022-04-25 - The Shower is NEVER Getting Fixed

Changes are happening. Gradually. Their backyard is absolutely stunning. Still. The backyard is the best part of the house, and as strange as it may be to the neighbors. Everyone just justifies it. Myles got a new hammock set up in the backyard, capitalizing on the beauty of the area to give Nicasia and Myles an escape from the grungier, darker sides of the house.

Myles got Leonard's bed removed. Nicasia's bed is in. The living room actually has furniture now. A combination of Nicasia and Myles' furniture from their perspective Vegas apartments making up the living room. They're really making progress. They're a ways off from being settled, of course. But they've come a long way.

Something they haven't conquered. The fridge. Myles stares at a carton of potstickers gone bad. Because of this damn fridge. Its become personal now. The fridge has cost him something dear, and this wrong must be righted. Myles is in the kitchen, staring at the fridge as if doing so will solve the problem. He's sucking on a vape pen, letting out the smoke. He probably shouldn't be smoking in the house but... Who's gonna yell at him? Nicasia. Nicasia will.

But who knows where she is right now. "Who's this dude comin' again?" The mysterious plumber set to arrive any moment as Myles stares a hole in the garbage-fridge.

One house on this stretch of Elm is much like another house on this stretch of Elm, which may or may not explain the mysterious problem Nicasia was talking about at the hardware store. It is two stories, but that just means it looks extra cramped on its lot, the front yard not nearly as spectacular as the back, which is halfway hidden behind high wooden privacy fencing. The front... well. The porch maybe needs an entire step rebuilt before somebody puts a foot in the wrong spot and goes right through.

Nicasia is very much going to yell at him, especially since they HAVE a backyard now to smoke in. She's been upstairs trying to sort stuff, which is perhaps no longer the monumentally unconquerable task it was. Pardon the stack of boxes out on the corner, full of assorted crap that needs to be hauled off or stolen by one of the neighbors or the trash faeries or the Grouch clan or who even knows what. But as the time ticks closeish to the agreed upon meeting with this dude she makes her way down the stairs. Mercifully not to the kitchen, and so is blissfully unawares of the rules violation, more generally aware of the large dog following on her heels.

"His name is Robin.. something." The less important detail on his contact information than was "He's one of the kool-aid company, I guess. But he seemed a lot more normal than some of the others have been."

Only a couple of minutes before the agreed-upon time, an ancient van pulls slowly up the street, as though looking for house numbers, and eventually pulls into the particular driveway of Nicasia and Myles's house. Although the van may very well be older than its driver, it has been lovingly (if eccentrically) maintained. The engine rumbles smoothly, and there are no signs of rust or damage. It /has/ been painted quite creatively, in a geometric pattern in various shades of dark, medium, and light blue, with touches of pink that provide small pops of contrast here and there. Something that looks suspiciously like a window air conditioner is strapped to the back window.

After only a moment, the engine dies and Robin hops out. He strides around to the back, and after pulling out a tool box, locks up the van and heads up to the porch. He takes note of the weak spots on the stairs, stepping carefully, and knocks on the front door.

"I met a bunch of them motherfuckers at the coffee shop this mornin'." Normally Myles wouldn't call otherwise nice people motherfuckers, only with Nicasia. She knows there's no malice. It's just a term of endearment. Something. "They were nice. Apparently, that big goofy dude is a joke. Always tries to pick fights. Said not to take him for real." He takes another puff before putting away the pen before Nicasia comes downstairs. "Oh. Shit And I met a vet."

"She said I could bring Lady by for a visit soon. She's one of.. them. Us." Shrug. "Figured I'd take her soon. Lady hasn't gone in a while, right?" Speaking of Lady, she's running for the door as soon as there are knocks. No barks. She's a GOOD GIRL. But she is staring eagerly at the door. Myles makes his way to the door. "Alright Robin Something. Don't be a tool." Is muttered lowly before the large man opens the door.

"Ay. What's good, my man? Myles." His hand offered out to Robin. "Nico said you're gonna help us out. Robin, yeah?"

"They do seem to flock. Maybe some kind of instinctive schooling urge." Nicasia maybe isn't yet sold on the 'us' tier of this involvement yet. "How do you not take a mammoth like that for real? Somebody like that picks a fight, you..." Well. She's not going to pick a fight. Lady's heard the van stop outside and gone to the door, so much better than a doorbell. "She hasn't been since last year. Her shots are up to date and all, but, yeah, she'll be due for a checkup soon."

Myles can open up the door. She loiters in the arch that leads into the living room, kind of out of the way, a familiar-ish face behind the mammoth that is the actual homeowner, and offers a two-fingered wave from yonder. "Hey," she calls. "Thanks for coming over. And no holding us accountable for anything you might discover upstairs. I remain sure the last guy who lived here gave up maintenance when we were in grade school."

"Hey, how's it going?" Robin replies, with an easy smile and a shake of the man's hand. "Nice to meet you, Myles. Yeah, I'm Robin. I said I'd have a look, see if there's anything I can do." He catches sight of Nicasia past Myles and gives a little wave. "Hey, there. I get it. Mine's a fixer-upper, too." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder toward the van in the driveway, then wiggles his finger in a friendly greeting toward the dog, the top of his hand offered for her to investigate at her leisure. "So the indoor fountain is upstairs?"

"Just ignore his goofy ass. Let him be an idiot somewhere else." Myles rolls his eyes. "Ravn said he threw plates at him or some shit. First because he thought he was hittin' on his girl and then because he wasn't. Or somethin'. Point is: He's a dumbass." Myles is now talking in front of Robin. A little. Myles takes a few steps backwards. Allowing Robin space to enter, once Lady is done sniffing Robin's hand.

"What is he helpin' us out with? The shower, or the toilet?" There's a beat. "I could've fixed it, Nico. You didn't have to hire out." No he couldn't have. But he's waving Robin through anyway.

"Ignore him. Right." Easier said than done, maybe, though Nicasia seems less inclined to discuss it now that they have company. She does look out the front window, spots the van, and actually laughs a little. "House on wheels, huh? That's kind of a sweet little thing. Maybe a little bit Mystery Machine, but maybe that's just exactly the kind of thing you need around here, huh? You paint it?" Curiosity is boundless.

Then there's a narrow-eyed look at Myles. "You didn't say anything about the toilet. Seriously?" Her eyes roll ceilingward and then close for a moment, but she lifts her chin in the direction of the stairs. "Gotta get that damned shower fixed so you can stop using mine. I don't even know if I explained the problem right. And sure, you can fix it, but now your schedule is totally cleared so you can deal with the fridge instead." The bathroom in question is indeed upstairs. Halfway down the hallway, sandwiched between doors that probably lead to bedrooms, but that have mercifully been closed as if to spare the moving-in/moving-out mess that pervades the rest of the house.

Robin seems content not to comment on the conversation that clearly predates his arrival. "Hey, Scooby Doo was the shit," he counters, with a broader grin. "And yeah. Had to fix up the engine, painted it, the works. It's got a sink, bed, mini fridge... Pretty much everything you need." He pats the dog on the head, then starts hauling the toolbox to the base of the stairs as he talks. "My dad helped a bit. I'll just go up and see what's going on, eh?" And off he goes, climbing the stairs to find the upstairs bathroom.

Myles gives an up nod to Robin as he makes his way up the stairs. "To the left there." He directs with a smile. The smile fades as Robin disappears out of sight. "This kid looks twelve years old. Tops." He murmurs down to Nicasia. "You sure he knows what he's doin?" He lets out a grunt and starts his way up the stairs. "You uh, want a hand up there, Robin?"

As for the toilet, Myles gives a little helpless shrug. Smile. Very charming.

"Nice." Nicasia seems to approve of the van conversion. She watches Robin depart, not quite moving to follow; the dog will! The dog is extremely curious about their guest and not exactly nosy but also not exactly about to let him out of her sight, which is probably only a bad thing for someone who doesn't like dogs. "Good luck," she calls. And, "Probably can't fuck anything up worse than it already is."

As for Myles, she rolls a laaaaazy little shrug at him. "Not a goddamned clue. He showed up at the hardware store a few minutes ahead of the sasquatch. Offered to help, is cheaper than an actual plumber." She glances up at the ceiling. "His card says he's a Finder."

Robin doesn't /seem/ to have a problem with the dog, though he keeps an eye on her as he's climbing the stairs to make sure he doesn't trip. "I'll let you know!" he calls back down to Myles, just before he disappears into the bathroom. The toolbox is set down with the metallic clattering of the tools inside, and a few minutes later, the sound of water running. "Shit. You weren't kidding, were you?" After a minute or two, he pokes his head out again. "Do you know where your water shutoff is?"

"FInder? Like the TV show?" He squints. Frowning. "That was a good show. You remember watchin that? Michael Clarke Duncan was in that shit, remember?" He presses his hand to his heart. "Rest in peace." Swinging his hand up to the sky as he starts to THUMP THUMP THUMP up the stairs after Robin before he hears Robin calling out he'll let him know. Myles lingers on the middle of the stairs, looking down at her. Water shutoff. Myles flicks his eyes down to Nicasia as if she would know.

"I guess?" Nikki has no idea what a finder is, outside of the TV show. Maybe. Although. "He did show up at the store and lift a wallet out of one of the shelves." A definite maybe. Then comes the question about the water shutoff and she shoots a very blank look back up at Myles. "The... basement?" It's a guess at first, which as she says it triggers a look of vague dismay. "Aw, hell no, I'm not going down to look for it. With my luck you've got a zombie locked up down there, or there's a crack in the floor that leads to one of the nine hells or something."

"Hmm. Water heater's down there?" Robin asks, stepping out of the bathroom to start back down the stairs. Halfway down, something gives him pause, and he turns back. "One sec." When he returns, it's armed with a flashlight that was presumably in the tool box. "Where's the basement door?" He heads down the stairs, and much belatedly, adds, "Not like the TV show. Good show, though."

"It was a good show." Myles agrees. "I'll never forgive them for canceling that shit." When Nicasia says she's not going into the basement, Myles rolls his eyes. "I'll take you." Making his way towards the basement. When Robin grabs the flashlight he gives a little nod. There's a door that Myles goes to near the garage. Rarely used. Myles opens it. Bravely. And goes to flick on the light which obviously doesn't work. Myles takes a few steps down the stairs that creak loudly and pauses halfway down. He squints for a few moments before heading back down.

He stops short when he hears something. Looking up to Robin he grunts. "You hear that shit?"

Maybe Nikki meant that she wasn't going down alone. Or first. There are variations on vehement refusal to go in search of the water shutoff valve, anyway, and she's actually not all that far behind them when they venture forward first. It's questionable whether the basement door has even been opened since they moved in, since there were boxes in front of it that needed to be moved first. The light is old and busted enough that it still has one of those stringy pull cords, and despite Myles pulling it a few times it doesn't actually come on. Because of course not.

But she's right there behind Robin, anyway, leaning up on her toes as if this somehow helps peering down into the darkness. Ugh. "Lady, stay." Poor dog.

Robin lingers at the top of the stairs as Myles goes down, suddenly quite a bit grimmer than he was a few moments ago. He flicks the flashlight on to shed some light down the stairs. His non-flashlight hand clenches and releases a few times, but Myles's question snaps him out of it. "Yeah. Probably the house settling or something. You might want to have the foundation checked, though." With a tight smile, he starts down the stairs after Myles, keeping the light pointed just ahead of the other man's feet.

Myles is hesitant. Glaring down in the darkness. "Baby do we have that other flashlight, you wanna grab that?" There's a knit of his brows, narrowing them before he lets out a grunt. "Sorry. Nicasia." There's a grimace as he looks up to the two people standing on the stairs above them. "Maybe.. That other light. Don't we have one?"

"I swear if there's a zombie down there, or the ghost of your father in some kind of drunk-ass rage..." Nicasia can be heard mumbling increasingly under her breath in a manner that maybe doesn't entirely inspire confidence, unless she seems like she might be more useful mad. It's not a long way back to the kitchen drawers where the flashlight is though, right by the door that leads out to the back garden. She even has the foresight to click it on (and off and on and off) to make sure it'll illuminate everything properly before heading back to the basement door. "The shop light's in my trunk. Maybe I can find a lightbulb?"

"More lights would be good," Robin agrees, though he cautiously descends the steps as far as possible without crowding Myles. He tries to shine the flashlight down into the basement to see what's down there, frowning faintly at the shadows. "I'm pretty sure zombies don't exist," he offers, in a distracted tone. "But it sure looks haunted, doesn't it?"

Myles looks up the stairs to Nicasia when she returns with the flashlight. He reaches up, and unless she keeps a firm grip on it. The flashlight leaps out of her hands and down to his. Only then is he turning to pivot down the stairs. Shining the light down there. He glances over his shoulder. Zombies don't exist. "You sure?" He growls, slowly moving down the stairs with his light held steadily.

Not even a little bit. Nicasia had the flashlight, and then doesn't have it, and for a split second looks vaguely alarmed by the way it pulls out of her fingers and goes zipping down the stairs, past Robin. "You know you could just ask." As with the flashlight, she also tries the string on the light, but it doesn't do anything. Not even a flicker of light. Robin's comment about how it looks prompts a very sharp sort of smile. "See, a week ago I would've told you ghosts don't exist. And I honestly am still about 50/50 on that, but since everybody keeps insisting that they're real - and might actually be the least worst thing that could be down there - I'm not sure I'd take that bet anymore." Which apparently reminds her of something else, which could've been asked earlier. "Have you seen any of that shit?" Poor brave sir Robin.

Robin snorts faintly. "Pretty sure. But that doesn't mean shit." He keeps sweeping the flashlight and continues just a step or two behind Myles, now and then wiping his palm on the side of his pants. He answers Nicasia's question without looking back. "I've seen a lot of things, but I don't know what they really are. Call them ghosts, monsters, zombies, shadows, nightmares... My theory? It's just different words for the same thing. None of it's real, but unreal things can still fuck you up."

Myles just grunts to Nicasia's comment about just asking. He pauses as he moves down the steps. "Wait you don't believe in any of that shit? I thought you were..." Myles looks up to Nicasia then back down to Robin. "I thought you were--" He squints. Then takes another step down. Off the stairs, into the basement. He heads around a pile of boxes, deeper into the basement. "We should all stay---" He doesn't finish the sentence.

Maybe Nicasia should've gone for another flashlight, but maybe she's disinclined to actually leave them to the tender mercies of the mystery basement. Maybe she should've brought the dog, they could almost have had an actual Scooby Doo moment. "What do you mean, none of it's real?" Her question comes almost the same time as Myles's, though it's entirely different. She catches some of his expression, her vantage on the stairs lasting only so long, but long enough that she can shrug at him. "He is, isn't he?" And, "You know, it's not too late to burn the house down." Then Myles goes quiet, mid sentence, and she freezes, head tilting very warily to listen.

"What?" Robin prompts, tone dripping with dark amusement as he follows down into the basement, sweeping his flashlight around over stacks of boxes and other moldering debris. "A kook? Look, it's complicated, okay? I just try to steer...clear..." He squints at something in the dark, frowning as he pauses there just long enough for Myles to disappear around the boxes. The mid-sentence silence roots him in place for a moment, but he wets his lips and gathers himself quickly enough. "Hey, Myles? Stay where?" He nudges Nicasia without taking his eyes off those boxes. "Stay close, eh?" And he heads over to the corner and looks around it.

There's nothing there around the boxes. No Myles. No sign of anything. Though there's a corner that he maybe turned around?

Oh, Nicasia is right behind Robin, never fear. Total invasion of personal space here, and given that they are about the same height she ends up looming over him on her toes to try and see over, around, through, whatever. "Myles?" She echoes that once. Then a second time. "Myles?!" The second time has a glassy edge to it, a peculiar brittleness, the kind that robs her of her caution and sees her shoving past, right around the other side of the boxes again, like there's a better than zero chance he just wandered around one more bend. The fact that it is dark apparently no longer matters, the lack of ambient glow from his flashlight not enough of a hint. Stay together? Not so much.

Robin jumps to try to grab Nicasia before she can take off, but he's a little too startled by her sudden flight to succeed. "Nicasia!" he barks, but he hangs back a moment longer than he should before he can convince himself not to just turn back and try to find the exit. "...God /dammit/." With that growled curse, he rushes after her, trying in vain to keep up before she can round the next corner.

Nicasia and Robin catch up to Myles soon. But the basement has changed. Myles is shining his light down the alleyway. The basement is far far bigger now. The boxes stretch endlessly into the sky. They stretch endlessly out before them. Myles shines his light into the lane of boxes before them. Turning as he hears Nicasia and Robin catching up to him. There's a little frown.

"Think it's up there? Or off to the right there?" He points the light up to one of the box towers, then off to the right down an endless lane of boxes.

He's still looking for the water shut off valve.

That edge of what is a cousin to panic falls away when Nicasia spots Myles. At least she ceases what was otherwise going to turn into kind of a blind charge off through the dark and slows, and then stops; it's a long enough sequence of events that by the time she looks over her shoulder Robin has caught up and so maybe she can be forgiven, for a moment, for not registering that the dimensions of the basement have changed. She does reach out to grab Myles by the shoulder, however, to give him a little shake. "Don't fucking do that." She sounds more relieved though than angry.

Then the beams of his flashlight go skittering off the boxes, and the stacks are indeed a lot taller than she remembers them being. A lot taller than she remembers the house being. "...um."

Robin slows and eventually stops as he catches up to Myles. The sweep of the flashlight revealing the towers of boxes and endless lanes causes him to freeze and blanch. His hand is a bit unsteady on his flashlight, sending the beam wavering to create dancing shadows along the box towers. Yet, when he speaks, he manages to keep his tone relatively calm and steady. "We need to leave. Right now." He glances between Nicasia and Myles. "This is not a safe place." In the distance, there's an echo of children snickering, and though Robin flinches slightly, he doesn't look toward it.

"Do what?" Myles growls defensively as Nicasia catches up to him. Shaking him. He looks over to her with a knit of his brows. He's turning to shine his light back towards Robin, tilting his head. This is not a safe place. Myles continues to look confused. "What you mean? We gotta turn the water shut off--"

Children snickering in the distance.

"Nope. Nope. Nope. Fuck no." Myles barks out as soon as that sound is out. He is immediately reaching under his hoodie to pull out his gun. Apparently he has absolutely no qualms defending himself from laughing children with a gun. He's turning around and heading the opposite direction, trying to usher Nicasia with his body.

Nicasia is an awful lot less inclined to move away from the light sources now, like some lost moth desperate for that hit of illumination. The only safe thing seems to be to turn her back on Myles, and she does, turning in a slow half-circle to look around, mouth open, though before she can respond there's that taunting little giggle off in the distance and she, too, flinches.

"...the fuck," she murmurs. It has rather less to do with the gun and more with wherever they suddenly are, though. "What?" There is a look at Robin, then. Intent, demanding. "What, we can just turn right around and walk out the way we came in?" She lifts her chin thataway, but the row of box towers continues on that direction apparently just as far, though it's difficult to gauge distance given the absolute blackness. She'll be physically herded in that direction, yes, but "What is all of this?"

Robin gives a startled jerk when the gun appears, apparently half expecting it to turn on /him/. When Myles just starts ushering Nicasia away, he recovers and trails after them, keeping an eye toward the back in case anything should try to sneak up from that direction. "I call it a nightmare, but it's more real than that," he offers to Nicasia, in a voice quickly becoming shakier, as that sound of laughing children seems to suddenly be significantly closer, coming from no particular direction or perhaps from every direction. "It's too complicated to explain. But we can't walk out the way we came. We have to find our own way out, now that we're here. If it's /my/ nightmare, we re- really need to get out fast. Like. Ten minutes ago." He sweeps the flashlight down a couple of side alleys, but for now they remain empty. "Careful shooting anything. Sometimes when you try to hurt them, it just rebounds back on you."

The stairs are gone. The stairs that they literally just came down. Myles is gaping at the endless alleyway of box piles. "Shhhh-fuck." Myles scowls as he slowly looks back to Robin. Warning him not to shoot. His features contort all the more. "The fuck? How do we fight?" The children? Despite his protests he holsters his gun. "Okay. So how do we-- fuck." Myles lets out as the childrens laughter gets closer. He looks over to Nicasia. "No. Nope. No." This is the type of horror movie Myles refuses to watch. Freaky kids. Laughter. With his gun put away Myles is shining the flashlight around, his hand going down to take Nicasia's hand. For her. He's fine. "So what the fuck do we do to get away?"

"So this is one of those so-called Dreams?" Nicasia is trying to keep her own shit together. Now that they're back together she's doing a marginally better job of that. Safety in numbers, maybe? She doesn't reach for a flashlight, though: she's awfully content to just not hold one, at all, something she might regret later since she has no control over what gets illuminated, and the only thing worse than looking at these towering, looming, tottering towers of moldering cardboard is only being able to catch glimpses of them before some other segment of the alley is lit up. "Why," she wonders, "Would this be your nightmare? You piss somebody off recently, or are you just super special, or should we really in the future just stay the fuck out of creepy places in groups of more than zero?"

Who's watching behind them? Because there's a little flicker of movement, yonder. Too far out to see what it is, too far even to be sure it's not just a trick of the light, or the shadow, but the laughter is everywhere and nowhere, closer and closer still. "Somebody said something about having to think your way out? Use your powers? Fuck. What are your powers?" There's another almost expectant look at Robin. "Can we use anything here? Maybe we can't hurt them, but..."

She ducks away from Myles and steps to the side, giving the precarious pile of boxes there a hard shove with both hands.

"Fight?" Robin echoes? His eyes are starting to look a little glassy with panic, the whites of his eyes catching glints from the flashlight as he looks this way and that, trying to see where the laughter is coming from. "You don't /fi-- What?" There's a brief moment of clarity as Nicasia's question grounds him. He gives an only half-hysterical bark of laughter, and shakes his head. "I /know/ those kids. That's how I--" His eyes well up, and his hands are shaking so badly that the flashlight might as well be a strobe light. "I can't-- I can't--" He seems to be having a bit of trouble breathing, and when Nicasia pushes the boxes over, he gives a startled yelp. The flashlight slips out of his fingers, and he covers his head as though expecting the whole thing to topple directly on them.

The tower of boxes Nicasia pushes wobbles and heaves before going down. Down. Down. Like a giant pillar tottering it goes flying towards the ground. When the boxes hit the ground there is an explosion of glass shattering. Hundreds of bottles shattering, the smell of alcohol is immediately filling all of their nostrils. Myles is distractedly looking down to Nicasia, frowning at the fallen tower. At the approaching laughter.

In the wake of the boxes, that direction is now a street. A poorly lit street. Rain has poured down recently. There's headlights. A car slowly approaching. Red and blue lights flash briefly, but instead of a police siren its the amplified sound of the childrens laughter.

"Okay. We're running." Myles demands, glaring over at Nicasia, trying to grab at her hand to get her running

There is perhaps a moment wherein Nicasia looks very hopeful about that tower of boxes going over because, for a moment, it looks like it might be opening the way into something like freedom. Something open, anyway, no boxes over there.

Then the first bottle hits the asphalt and she flinches like it's a bomb exploding, and as they crash together - again and again and again - she skitters in the other direction, shoulders lifting into a defensive coil that only becomes worse when the disco lights spin up, red and blue, blue and red, reflecting off a thousand tiny pools of black water. For a moment, it's like a thousand tiny red and blue eyes peering at them. Laughing at them.

Myles swipes at her and she pulls back away from him too, goes a step closer to Robin just as his flashlight tumbles to the ground. That light distracts her long enough to remind her of something, and she goes to round him up in turn, to look him in the eye. "Hey. Hey, Robin, look at me, okay? Deep breath. We're gonna get out of here. We're going to get out here, we're gonna be fine, okay?" She sounds calm. And for a moment at least radiates calm, a soft pulse of warmth and stillness and what isn't exactly quite light but certainly not so dark.

Just for a second.

Then, "Okay. Let's get the fuck out of here."

As bottles of alcohol explode, Robin falls to his knees, eyes squinched shut and breathing in short, shallow gasps. His mouth opens as though to scream, but nothing comes out. Then...suddenly there's Nicasia, intruding into his panic bubble. For a brief moment, he struggles to focus on her, but then their gazes lock. He stares with something akin to wonder, and then? He takes a deep breath. And then another. A couple of tears spill onto his cheeks, but he brushes them away quickly. "I-- Okay..." he whispers. "Okay. Yes. It's okay." If he's confused about what just happened, he doesn't have time to question it. He scrambles to his feet, gathering up the flashlight as he goes, and races after Nicasia and Myles. "Use our powers. What's my power? What's my power?" he mutters to himself as he goes, brow furrowed. But he's a bit distracted by all the running to propose an answer.

Finally they can start running. The big man goes to dart.

Forgetting he's a very big man.

His shoulder catches another box tower and down it goes. Down, down, down it goes. Another cacophony of shattering glass splintering into a million tiny pieces as more alcohol soaks the basement... streets? Myles glances back at the cruiser, advancing on them. On the laughter getting louder. There's a glance to Nicasia and he jumps to the side. Ramming himself into another box tower. Then another. And another. All the while they are retreating, Myles is bringing down the towers, each one an explosion of shattering glass. Each one the intoxicating scent of booze grows ever stronger. Alcohol literally flooding the ground they run in. Reaching up to their shoes.

The cruiser is chasing them now, and Myles is throwing another tower and then another in the way. Backpedaling to catch up with the others.

It is pretty hard to do powered things and run at the same time. Especially when you're new. Especially when you're kind of panicky, and to be fair that little wash of calm is going to scrub off pretty quickly because Nicasia has no idea what she's doing - or likely any idea that she actively did that. She's happy to run. Or would be until Myles rams into another tower of boxes and sets off another cascading explosion of bottles, whereupon it's pretty much her turn to look like she's just a wrong turn in this maze away from breaking down, herself. Worse, they're down a flashlight: the one Robin dropped will disappear behind them pretty quick.

The cruiser's lights have ample opportunity to reflect off the liquid underfoot. She splashes through it, her steps sort of frantic, but not quite as much as her muttered, "Come on. Come on, how do we get out of here? We need... stairs? A ladder? A fucking door?" There is a door up ahead. A fire exit, rusty steel and peeling paint, with a flickering red EXIT sign above it. It might look more welcoming if it weren't covered in crime scene tape.

Robin runs like his life depends on it. With each crash, he flinches and half-ducks, but his feet keep slapping the pavement...then sloshing the pavement... At one point, he almost slips on the booze flooding the street, but he manages to stay on his feet. His real problem is that as Nicasia's false calm wears off and the car continues to blast that laughter at them, his eyes are starting to get that glassy, panicked look. Maybe it's that panic that causes his reaction to the 'EXIT' sign. He halts in the middle of the street, staring at it, and then something seems to snap. "HEY!" he calls. "Guys! This way!" He points toward the exit, sketch as it may seem, and starts running in that direction. He barely glances to see if they decide to follow.

Myles keeps running and ramming into towers like a human wrecking ball, causing more wreckage. The blue and red lights are still reflecting off the now, flowing river of calf deep alcohol. It apparently is keeping the cruiser at bay, but they are literally standing up to their shins in Hennessy. Myles turns around rapidly as they're calling out the exit and rushes after both Robin and Nicasia, splashing with each step, picking his legs up to gain better movement through the literal river of alcohol he has created.

The fragrant alcohol they're splashing through isn't just getting deeper. There's a current, an undertow, one that threatens to push and pull, to drag them all off course, to sweep them away from the door that Robin calls attention to. It almost gets Nicasia; she makes the inevitable mistake of looking back at the police car, her ashy features limned briefly in the crimson and cobalt light, and she misses a step as one of the towers is knocked over. She doesn't quite topple over but she runs into one of the towers as well and sends it crashing over, inevitably hurrying along the great flood. But she doesn't need to be told more than once to run, to keep running, though she's just a step behind their Finder in the terror department, breath wheezing with each splash.

But the door is now right there.

Of course, so too are the children. There's another high-pitched ripple of laughter, which sounds like it's right behind them, pint-sized players in a lethal game of tag, just one lunge away from tagging them out.

As the police car nears, it's possible to see through the blue and red glare of lights to the shadowy interior, and the outlines of human figures within. The cruel sneers are not worn by officers of the law, but by teenagers. Maybe fourteen or fifteen years old at the most, but with very adult looks of gleeful hate in their eyes.

For Robin's part, he does not look back. He knows better than that. He sloshes through the whiskey as quickly as he can, given that the river is already at his knees. He comes right up to the dark doorway, staring up at the Exit sign. It reflects glints of red in his eyes as he stares at it for an uncomfortably long moment. Then, he closes his eyes, brow furrowed, muttering something to himself. "Come on, come on, come on..." Some of it is too quiet to overhear, but something about a toolbox. Then, he reaches forward, fingers splayed and hand outstretched. The car bears down, even with the flow of the alcohol river to slow it down, and now the boys are hanging out the windows, hooting and jeering.

"Grow some /balls/ whydontcha!"

"Hey Fletcher! Heard ya LOST SOMETHIN'!"

"Look! Freakshow brought some friends!"

The howling laughter threatens to distract Robin, and the outstretched hand quivers... But then he clenches his fist, twists, and /pulls/. His muscles strain, as though pulling at some great weight, and suddenly there's a great thunderous tearing noise. The air in the doorway seems to split where Robin has grabbed the air. There's a flash of light, another thunderclap, and suddenly the other side of the doorway is the upstairs bathroom of the Elm Street house. The toolbox is still open on the floor.

Gasping for breath as hard as if he'd just run a marathon, Robin sways and sags against the wall next to the doorway. "Go quick."

Rushing through the door from the growing river of booze, Myles gets to the door with Robin, with Nicasia. Robin tears the door open, the large man's eyes go down to Nicasia. To the bathroom. "Go, baby." In this moment, he doesn't correct the word, glaring back at the cruiser, but he doesn't go before Nicasia. Waiting for her.

Never fear. Nicasia has zero desire to be left behind in this, whatever this is, and she's only a couple - five, six, eight, whatever - steps behind Myles. Unfortunately for Myles this means he has to stay there and watch the manifestation of the occupants of the car, and perhaps they are less terrifying now than the alternative would have been, and perhaps not, but she isn't going to stay and make friends.

No.

She flies through the door and twists on the other side, skips a step, trips over the toolbox and ends up tumbling down into the tub on the other side. In the process she makes a mad, frantic swipe and ends up catching the shower curtain and brings the whole array down onto herself with a terrible rattle of brittle plastic and a desperate, in fact hysterical yelp. She bats and scrapes and scratches at the milky sheet for several seconds before realizing what it is. "Fuck." And, "Fuck." And "Goddamned fucking motherfucker what the HELL WAS THAT?"

If Robin has to grab Myles and /push/ him through the door ahead of himself, he will. But either way, once both of the others are through the doorway, the younger man falls through it himself. Literally, he falls to his hands and knees on the other side, scrambles away from the doorway, then looks back just in time to see the doorway flash shut in the hate-twisted faces of the boys in the cruiser. With the veil door shut for now, he collapses backward, sitting hard on the floor with his back against whatever wall, cabinet, or vanity presents itself as a backrest as he shuts his eyes and tries to catch his breath. "I'm sorry," he gasps. "I'm sorry..."

Once Nicasia is through, Myles is pushing through as well, with not quite as much stumbling into the bathtub. He blinks down at Nicasia in the bathtub. Over at Robin panting and apologizing. Myles takes a few moments, growing incredibly silent.

Then he's reaching into his hoodie and pulling out a flask. A very long pull is taken from it before its handed down to Nicasia, under her protective barrier of old and probably moldy shower curtain.

The bathroom is not very big. Not big enough for three people, comfortably, but who's really counting? The sun is shiny and bright outside. There are no horrible teenagers, no cruisers, no drowning river of booze, no tottering towers of boxes. There are a few stacks of boxes out in the hallway but they are very mundane. The room is very mundane. A little grimy. Cracked tiles, mildew in the grout, water from the previous shower incident still speckling most of the surfaces, but it's definitely not whatever that was.

Nicasia takes the flask when it's offered and up-ends it, pouring some into her mouth to swallow down, and then reflexively passes it toward Robin without actually looking at him. He's apologized a couple of times before she realizes it, and then dismisses it. "I hope that wasn't your fault." And, "Unless you knew there was actually a portal to.. to..." She doesn't even know.

Slowly, gradually, Robin's breathing slows to something approximating a normal tempo, but he doesn't move from where he landed on the floor just yet. It takes him a moment to realize Nicasia is talking to him, and he reluctantly opens his eyes and looks toward her. Another slight delay, but he takes the flask and swallows a healthy pull before giving it back. He coughs a bit and shakes his head. "It follows me," he explains, as his guilty gaze wanders away. "But I'm not sure why? I don't /think/ I'm doing it. If I am, it's not on purpose." He scrubs hard at his face, and takes in a deep breath. "Other people don't usually get dragged along."

Myles stands up and takes the flask himself. Looking down at Robin before back to Nicaisa. He takes another pull. "Fuck this." Before he's stepping out of the bathroom entirely and heading down the stairs. Apparently he needs a minute.

Nicasia makes another vague, rustling attempt at getting herself untangled from the shower curtain now that she's marginally calmer, now that her breathing is slowing and her heart is no longer trying to fuel the marathon. She starts to sit up when Myles peels off and goes galumphing down the stairs but it's just too much, right now. "Fuck," she says again. "Was that you? It.. ate ..Myles first," is the first thing she can come up with, the first vague attempt at rationalizing something that is totally irrational. "It's fine," she says then, though it's clearly not. "We just... won't go into the basement anymore. Fuck."

Robin puts a hand over his eyes, seeming quite a bit smaller than he did when he arrived. "I don't know," he murmurs. Without warning, he pushes away from the wall and climbs unsteadily to his feet. "I'm sorry," he repeats, as though they couldn't have heard the first three times. "I'll just... go. Um. Sorry." He fumbles in his pockets, making sure he has his keys, and then flees the bathroom. Myles would probably just hear his pounding footsteps as he races down the stairs, then out the front door. He's probably out of the driveway before even Nicasia has a chance to realize his toolbox is still sitting on the bathroom floor.