2022-06-28 - Out of the Frying Pan

Somewhere in the Veil, there is a space under a common set of stands, like you'd find in just about any sports field. Slanting orange sunlight barely filters through the seating above, catching on dust motes and casting crazed shadows from the networks of metal poles that support the seats above. Somewhere beyond those seats there's an (American) football field, though it's not accessible through the narrow gaps between the seats. An aging wooden-slat fence blocks the back side of the area. To either side, where there /should/ eventually be an exit, the stands seem to extend off into infinity, eventually fading into a foggy distance, creating a space that resembles an odd, triangular-shaped tunnel.

"All right. Here I go."

The murmuring voice echoes under the stands, as though from a far distance. Then...

"...Dammit."

Another long pause, as something balances on the precipice between Here and There.

Then, the sound of a body tumbling to the packed dirt floor, along with a startled grunt. It takes Robin a moment to recover from the shock of finding himself dropped into this space, since he fully expected to step out onto a concrete sidewalk. Slowly, he pulls himself up to his knees and looks around, round-eyed and stunned. The door he came through is technically still open, but irrationally located at the very top of that triangular tunnel, far out of reach of the man who just fell through it.

"Oh /crap/."

Were time and space playing fair, Robin would be joined only by someone entering through the same doorway-- but alas. Time and space are jumbled, and the flying body that follows him in was nowhere near him when he left Gray Harbor: Una Irving was safe in her own home, doing nothing more than opening the pantry door to make her shopping list.

(The metaphysical calculations involved in transporting a grown woman, even a short one, through a pantry door and into... well, this, will have to wait for someone far more intelligent. It goes without saying that the process is not the most pleasant.)

Una lands-- thankfully not on top of Robin, but not far away.

"Oh fuck," she swears.

And that's before she's even recognised who else is there.

"Robin?"

Della, from that high door: peering through, careful -- so very careful! -- to not actually cross.

"Robin, over here!" She's waving, sack on shoulder. She can't have seen Una yet.

...And then she's falling, quite as though someone's shoved her, because something has.

"Oh shit."

There's a Danish saying, that need teaches a naked woman to sew a dress. Ravn is not quite a naked woman but he recognises the meaning of it -- enough that by now, there is no way he's entering or leaving the tiny bathroom stall on his boat, the Vagabond, with his pants open. Mostly because this is the third time in one week that he thinks he's going to the bathroom only to find himself stumbling into some other reality.

Reality hopping is something you generally do not want to be doing with your pants down around your ankles, after all.

And poetically, he joins the choir, if in his native. "For helvede da osse!"

Dawning horror crosses Robin's face as he lifts his gaze to find Della looking through the door. "Don't--!" he begins, but too late. Acting on instinct, he makes a warding gesture, trying to shove Della back through the door (and boy must that be an experience for /her/) but the door slams shut and she falls anyway.

So Robin does the next most logical thing and punches the ground.

".../Ow./"

"That," says Una, beginning to pick herself up, "isn't going to help anything, I assure you." She glances around, now, picking out their location, the lack of exits, and who else has ended up here. For Della, a wan smile; for Ravn, a wince.

And for Robin, a somewhat less pleasant glower.

"Ow." That one's Della, just from falling, and the dirt and...

..."Hi?" -- "Una! I was just texting -- " and then there's Ravn and...

...she turns away once she's up, not to look around but to test her ribs: that was quite a push-pull. "Oof. Oof." No screaming, though, so things are good! "Robin," wryly, turning back, "I have your phone."

For a moment Ravn contemplates just face planting in frustration, too. He mutters a few choice truths to himself about the inconvenience of bathrooms that play interdimensional conduits whenever it suits them, and then looks around to find out where he is -- and whether there is any imminent danger. Most of these unexpected 'door' trips have not been immediately dangerous, but none of them have been a walk on roses (or maybe they have, given how many thorns those things tend to have).

He's not really a sports fan. The finer details of this place elude him. All it boils down to is a mild twinge of panic. Oh shit. Here's to hoping no one expects me to play baseball, or whatever this is.

Baseball is the one with the, uh, bases, right. Not basketball. Which has baskets. And polo has... mints.

The folklorist glances back; who else is here? Irving, Mayfield and -- oh. The angry guy. Right. This is going to get interesting.

At first, Robin has not noticed who else it is who dropped in after him. He's too busy glowering at the place where the door used to be. Della's words snap him out of it, but only just. Better to be irritated than terrified, right?

He takes his phone, glances at the screen, then drops it into his pocket. "Thanks, I guess." A beat, then he remembers he's not the only person in the room having a bad day. "You okay?"

Then he sees Ravn and Una, and frowns. "Oh great. You two." It comes out flat and dry, with a shakes of his head. "Lose the battle of wits with the fairies?"

"If we have," says Una, sharply, "then so have you, since we're all here." She's still glowering at Robin, and turns her head away, now, so that she doesn't need to look at him. "I should've known this would happen. Della, you... know him?"

Him. Una sounds exasperated.

"Coping," Della says with a sigh. "I'm just glad I wasn't holding the drink." Somewhere back there, root beer has spilled. Or not; maybe Della happened to leave the can on top of the van the way you're never supposed to do. "No service," she reports for everyone.

But, peering at Una -- is Una okay? -- "Robin? Of course I know him. Remember the guy I told you about back when, has good hands with a bike? Only it was raining? The Finder -- " who, coincidentally, was telling her about this very topic just minutes ago, and so she turns wide, expectant eyes on the man in question. "He can do what you can, Ravn. Finding ways out." Maybe she should be looking at him.

"Lost a battle with my bathroom door, apparently." Ravn tries hard to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Really, Veil? Whose leg does a man need to be humping, in order to be allowed to safely visit his own bathroom at least once per week? He glances at the others, and then at Della. "Are we on the Other Side? Dropping doors randomly in Dreams tends to not be very reliable. I've done it once because where we were was honestly worse than anywhere we could go to."

A side glance to Una. "I mean, seriously worse. As in, I don't think we're ready to talk about it. This looks -- pretty harmless? Unless somebody expects us to play whatever this is. Probably not waterpolo."

"I've only done it /once/," Robin stresses at Della, and dismisses Ravn and Una to go peek through the seats out at the field. For now, it's abandoned, which doesn't seem to make Robin any less twitchy. "And I had a door to work with."

"It's football," he adds for Ravn's benefit, without looking back. "If we were supposed to play, we'd be on the field, not under the bleachers. All kinds of shit goes down under bleachers..." He goes over to investigate the fence, finds it just as impassable, and so he turns a random direction and starts walking away, following the fence.

Una's glance towards Della hastily becomes a stare at Ravn, which hastily turns into her eyes dropping towards her feet as her cheeks flame. Whatever story Ravn is referring to, whatever thing that was that much worse, she is clearly disinclined to speak (or indeed, even think) of it.

It means she's not doing much to try and find them a way out. It means, too, that she's no longer glowering at Robin, or side-eyeing Della for her dubious taste in friends.

"Oh?" becomes an ahh. "I don't know about the Other Side," Della says, but distractedly, because Una. Una's face.

Tap tap tap. (No picture.)

"American football," she briefly clarifies, pocketing her own phone and stabilizing the sack on her shoulder, then lifts her voice Robin's way -- "See any cigarette butts?" Just because there aren't any here doesn't mean there aren't there. "Or anything else?" Signs of life. For her part, she goes to knock on one of the poles, to see whether it sounds like metal, feels stable like metal. And if she can peer between the seats...

"Can't say I know a whole lot about bleachers beyond the fact that apparently, they're a place, and not some blokes who clean dirty linen." Ravn looks around. "I learned that during Hurricane Cimaron, when one of the women in the shelter suggested we go do the dirty in the bleacher and I was, to be blunt, very confused at that suggestion until she explained it."

He probably didn't accept the invitation either. Or maybe he did. Things got pretty wild in that hurricane shelter, according to some locals. Some good weed was passed around before the roof caved in. (Under the weight of the sixteen tons dragon most people couldn't even see).

He looks back at the others. "I can try to open a door out but unless we are in fact on the Other Side, we might very well end up somewhere far worse. So maybe we should look around for a regular exit first. Maybe there's some kind of narrative, something we need to see. There often is."

"Don't see any!" Robin calls over his shoulder, as he starts fading into the mist. He vanishes for a moment, apparently lost, only to reappear coming from the /other/ direction. Hello, video game rules.

When Robin sees the group appear in front of him, he stops and looks back over his shoulder. Then back at the group. "Well. I guess we aren't leaving that way." He eyes Una for a moment, but then something clicks, and he looks sharply at Ravn. "Wait. You can make a door without having a door?" He almost immediately realizes that doesn't make sense and shakes his head, waving a hand. "I mean, you don't need a door frame to work off of?"

Una's face flattens itself, as if by forcing it to smoothness she can forget whatever it is she's... clearly trying to forget. She drops, instead, to a crouch, focusing on the floor, and what she can see ahead and to the side of her; Robin's trip around the circuit-- that infinite, impossibly unpleasant loop-- draws half a glance, and she sighs.

"You don't need a door to make a door," she agrees, desultorily. "But Ravn's right. It probably won't help here. We're not on the Other Side. We're trapped... and I bet we're trapped for a reason."

Della squints. It's bright out there and, so far, fairly quiet: a few noises, hard to place. It's not helpful.

She glances back at Robin's question, then double-takes -- back so soon! -- before crossing back, by Una, to try the slats.

Under her breath, "'Just give me a reason / just a little bit's enough...'"

"I can open doors, yes." Ravn's grey gaze glazes over a bit as Robin re-enacts the sail off the screen to the east and appear in the west routine of early computer strategy games. "But there's a catch. There's a reality immediately parallel to ours, and I can open a door out of that just fine. Anywhere else? We may end up back home, or we might end up somewhere else that's decidedly less pleasant than here."

He looks around. "I knew this shit was going to happen. What kind of Veil entity would see three people argue and miss out on the shit and giggles of putting them in a locked room together?"

Robin eyes Ravn skeptically. His fingers twitch, itchy to try it, but he refrains for now. "How do you open a door to somewhere random? Either you Find your way back or you don't..." The question may or not be sensible from Ravn's point of view, but Robin doesn't stop to explain. He looks around, taking in the space, and crosses his arms.

"If this is the best they can do..." He starts, but gives a slightly twitchy glance toward the seats. He follows Della, crossing his arms, and peers at what she's doing.

Una drops from her crouch into an actual seated position, cross-legged. It seems she's given up: not on everything, but at least on the prospect of finding her way out. Ravn's comment has drawn a rueful nod, and now, finally, she glances back at the others: at Della, for whom she has a slightly hesitant frown, and for Robin.

"Clearly we have something we need to do before we'll be released. What could it be? Because I'd like to get home to my shopping list shortly, if you please."

Beat. "I hate football."

Della must be listening to the talk of doors -- the speculation of why they're here -- and certainly she glances Robin's way when he approaches, but mostly she's methodically messing with the slats: pushing, pulling, tapping, would-be skewing. She'd play them like piano keys if she could.

There's a moment when it seems as though one might move... but no.

"Can you see over, Ravn?" Every time she tries jumping up, it doesn't help, and she and Robin are of much the same height.

And as long as she's adding to their list of questions, "If it has to do with your arguing, and not with keeping Una from her butter," bad Veil! "why wouldn't it have locked you up sooner?"

Ravn walks over to make the attempt, at least. He is by far the tallest person present.

"I don't know how much sooner there is. It's been what, a day or three, since I apparently managed to piss -- " he glances at Robin " -- that bloke off." So flattering, doesn't even remember the name of the man he apparently argued with. "The Veil picks up on that sort of thing, though. Why miss a great opportunity to see us try to claw each other's eyes out? Bloody hell, I hope this isn't one of those two man enter, one man leaves Thunderdome dreams."

"If it only grabs people when they try to go through doors, I've been sitting in my van avoiding them," he points out to Della. "So it took the first chance." He leans his back against the fence, frowning at Ravn. "Screw the Veil. I'm allowed to be irritated at judgy dickweeds." He pushes away from the fence, looks toward the sky, and calls at the air, "Hear that? I'm not playing your stupid game, whatever it is!"

In the distance, there's a sound like voices, some laughing and some argumentative, but it's too far away to make out words.

Robin is /slightly/ intimidated... But he clenches his jaw, eyes a little too wide, and repeats, "I'm /not/."

"Who judged whom?" Una speaks up for that, and boy is she irritated. "You judged Ravn before he even opened his mouth. All Ravn did was try and be friendly."

She's not moving from her position, apparently. Let the others try and scope out a way out: she's going to sit here, and look irritable.

"Good point," Della admits. "I am sorry about that, by the way. The Door."

She side-eyes Robin; "Even if it would have taken you sooner or later."

"Which reminds me. Everyone, check this out." Rifling through her bag, Della comes up with (a) a good-sized bottle of water that, given its condensation, looks cold; and (b) a roll of toilet paper. Given the bag's bulk, there are other things as well, but these are, "Just in case. Anyone thirsty?"

"The weird thing is that I wouldn't have thought the Veil would want you guys to find reasons to get along. I mean, I do, because I like all of you, but the Veil? Maybe it is Thunderdome. Or hair-pulling."

"Well, we're not exactly getting along, are we?" Ravn offers Della a tired little smile. "And in the meantime, you and Una can sit and wonder if your safety depends on us hugging and making up. It's all about the anger and the anxiety. Good thinking about the toilet roll though -- I need to add some of those to my Tetris bag. Which I haven't brought with me this time for the very obvious reason that I don't usually bring my shoulder bag to the bathroom with me."

Robin rolls his eyes. "Yeah? Well. Maybe I did at /first/. But damn, lady, sometimes you have to learn to make quick judgements if you don't want to get your ass kicked just.... constantly." He paces to the seats, peering out at the field in search or nothing in particular. "Anyway, he /did/ call me childish. You guys can walk it back all you want, but I heard what I heard."

He takes a few steps back. "All right. I am done with this. If you aren't opening a door, I will." He will try, he means. He squints at the air, and holds out his hands, brow furrowing as he tries to decide where to start.

Una, however, gives Della a look of horror. "There is no way I am peeing while we're here," she tells her housemate, flatly. "I'll pass."

She presses her hands flat upon her knees, rolling out her shoulder as if she intends to meditate-- but no, this is just a sitting position, just a way to keep her body moving without spending too much time fidgeting. Or exploring a place she's confident there is no way out of.

"Why?" It's tired. It's aimed at Robin. And maybe she intends to leave it there, except: no, she doesn't. "Waving dicks around is childish. But if there's a reason for all of this... something we can talk out so we can all move on? I'd prefer that to opening Doors that could be to far worse places."

Far. Worse.

"'Tetris bag'?" Della questions, and hops a few more times to see if somehow, magically, she can now see whatever it is Ravn saw. Nothing too interesting, presumably, but...

And, "Not yet, re: the getting along. Please to remember the whole 'rah rah have each other's back' business."

She grins back at Una. Just grins. She doesn't press.

She certainly doesn't sit.

"I have this shoulder bag," Ravn tells Della. "It contains -- well, more than it should. Hence, Tetris packing. It's difficult to explain -- like folding space. I've heard some call it a Bag of Holding, from the D&D game. It kind of does work like that. I try to keep everything in it that I might need on these crazy excursions. Which is probably why the Veil tends to get me when I'm in bed or otherwise nowhere near it."

He tries once again to sneak a look out. He's just as successful this time. Being tall is not enough, apparently.

Then the folklorist glances Robin-wards. "I will open a door when I feel it's the last resort. Because where we might end up going potentially is a hell of a lot worse than where we are. And even if we look through and decide to stay put, something may come through from the other side. This week I've been face to face with the literal Devil in one of these experiences, and I really don't need another go at that."

"None of your business." Robin plucks at the air, as though plucking at invisible strings that only he can see, but he hasn't summoned a door, yet. "And trust me, lady. If I wanted you to see my dick, you'd know it."

He squints at nothing, distracted by his current task, only to glance up with a quirked brow at Ravn's explanation. For Della's benefit, he adds, "He's got a Mary Poppins bag." He smirks faintly, then grows a bit more seriously. "Look, my dude. I get it. I really do. But sometimes the only way out is through."

He reaches out in the vicinity of the area where he'd been plucking at the air. He clenches a fist and /twists/... but nothing happens. "Damn. How do you do it when you're not running for your life?"

Una has no return grin for Della, just that sharp, thin line of her mouth, and the imploring glance that-- well. It was imploring. It got distracted, first my Ravn's mention of the devil (a wince), and then by Robin's-- well.

Well.

"I don't care about your fucking dick! My fucking god," this is not nice, sweet, normal Una. This is frustrated, rage-y Una, all over again. "What the fuck happened to you, that you are so quick to distrust everyone and everything? I thought I was bad, but no. No, you just want to lash out at everyone, just to prove that you're not the insecure," she pauses for a beat, managing-- even while on a roll-- not to go for the obvious 'little man' line that could so easily follow, "uptight man you seem to actually be. I get it; you've got baggage. Jesus Christ, do you have any idea how much baggage we collectively have?"

She may have just run out of air.

Maybe.

Della doesn't sigh. She really, really doesn't sigh.

At least she's stopped hopping; she listens to Ravn with great interest, and partway through directs a meaningful look at Robin -- and then afterwards catches his smirk and tosses a hint of one back. While she doesn't mention toolboxes, "Lucky. Does it get heavy? Can other people lift it?"

She tries to read Una's imploring glance, tries and then: "The literal Devil." That's flat.

And then. And then.

"Well, I suppose that depends on what's in it. At the present? Reckon you could." Ravn nods at Della. He has yet to try to pack several hundred kilos into one bag -- the weight of it all might be twenty kilos at best. (And the space, several more bags, folding space is useful).

Then his ears catch up with his mind and insist that yes, he just heard that explosion, and he stares blankly at Una for a moment. Una Irving? Quiet, shy Una Irving who speaks the language of cookie love and never wants to upset anyone, is yelling at somebody about their dick? There's something he did not expect to see in this life.

If Ravn edges towards Della with the obvious intent of having somebody between him and the other two, that's probably not coincidental. "The literal Devil," he murmurs. "And it really was that bloody awful. I visualise a door on a surface, and then convince myself that when I reach for the handle, there actually is a handle."

"But you can't just /make/ things exist..." A beat, and there's a flash of that nerdy excitement, fingers twitching to try it. "Wait. /Can/ you--?"

He stops, attention thoroughly distracted by Una. Whatever momentary thrill of discovery he had is dashed. He blinks several times and lets her finish, but there's a distinct clenching of his jaw.

In the end, he addresses Della instead of responding directly, brow quirked. "Does she /always/ refer to herself as 'everyone'? Your friend is kind of Karen-y."

Some part of Una is aware, more or less, that she's yelling, and that it's probably not doing her case any good (and, also, that it is making her friends uncomfortable, because, yes, this is not actually particularly usual). Some part of her is also aware that if she gets much more angry she's probably going to do something she'll regret, and that now might not be a good time to discover that she can, in fact, animate plants. Or burn the stadium down.

There's also some part of her that doesn't care.

"Fine," she says. "Be a bigot."

Della may not be able to do the door thing, but she's sure interested in nerding out with the pair of them. Pity it didn't last.

"Hey. Hey," she says, her hands lifting, opening. "Let's hit pause, okay?" That should've been press pause, but sometimes words escape. She seeks to meet each gaze in turn, Una's, Robin's. (Ravn gets to hide.) "Just... let's please not escalate."

"Most people get defensive when they are accused of seemingly random things by some random stranger," Ravn says quietly. "No one likes being abused. Della's right, though. Whatever your beef is," he looks at Robin, "it's with me. So, keep the ball on the court or something."

He glances back at Della, noting that little spark of interest in a dark eye. "Opening doors in is not difficult. Opening doors back out -- is. And that tells you all you really need to know about why we get these powers. It's all honey trap."

Robin's face goes white and then red, and suddenly he is /very/ still. It really is a lucky thing Della is there, because her words seem to reach him just before he does something impulsive.

He snorts as he snaps out of it, and looks at Ravn instead. "I don't even have a fish sandwich with you, dude. I mean. Yeah, I /kinda/ thought with the whole glitter bomb thing that you might be like... one of those creeps, you know. Also the..." He waves his hand to indicate the black clothes. "Creepness. Clearly I was wrong. My bad. But you people /do/ keep shadows in your yard. And you /do/ act like it's no big deal. And this?" He holds his arms out, indicating the area at large. "/This/ is why I think that's stupid."

He crosses his arms and shoots a dark look at Una. "But if she wants to be a bitch, bring it on."

There go those disembodied voices again, snickering on the wind. Robin flinches slightly, then steadies himself.

It's not the first time in her life that Una has made this kind of impression; but she can probably count the occasions on the fingers of one hand.

And have leftover fingers.

Maybe that accounts for some of the emotions that flicker across her face: hurt, anger, dismay, horror, and more.

But either Della has calmed something in her, or her anger has burnt out as quickly as it came, because she has nothing more to say.

He'd given Della the translation guide not long, not very long at all before. (Deliberate on the Veil's part? Or miscalculation? Or the simple human push to not leave that van any sooner?)

"Robin," Della says suddenly, and she's smiling, in her eyes, her voice, if not the firm set of her mouth. "Shadows. You're talking about the faerie circle, aren't you?"

She moves. She (abandons Ravn and) moves to Una, not up behind her but into a comfortable half-crouch nearby in solidarity. To Una, pitched so Ravn can be in on it too, "Tell him what you really think about the faeries, about the Veil fruit. We didn't realize, back then. Tell him what we're going to do. Robin's been worried about what we went through."

"With good reason. But I think it's worth pointing out a small detail that may seem semantic, but which is in fact quite important. We don't keep faerie, or shadows, or anything else. Faerie moved into my backyard and we're working on how to make them decide to move back out." Ravn nods slightly. "I don't believe in solving things with flame throwers. I also don't believe in eating the fruits of goblin men, to stay in the vernacular."

Robin looks between the various faces, defensiveness slowly turning to a weaker puzzled look. He takes a half step back, but finally settles on Della. "I don't understand. Why you don't just /leave/." He offers that, but for the rest, he just waits, ready to hear whatever else they have to say.

Una's stubbornly not looking at Della, or indeed at Ravn, though she waits until the latter has spoke before putting in her somewhat sniffy (not in the sense that she's crying, mind, because she's not, but in the sense that she's dismissive, which is totally sniffy), "We already did." Tell Robin, that is-- or close enough to.

She does, however, glance back at Robin now. Her expression's far from warm, but the question seems genuine enough. "Why don't you?"

Because he's asked it of her, Della gives Robin an answer: "I don't just leave because I told myself I'd stay. I've signed a lease," though does anyone imagine she couldn't break it, eat the penalty, if she chose? "...but more importantly, Una and Jules, our other housemate, are amazing. Una -- 5 Oak was her grandmother's house, and now she's making it her own. I've seen her be protective," slight glance at Ravn there, "and compassionate, welcoming and funny. Interesting. Creative. You painted your van, didn't you? Una remakes clothes to fit what she wants and needs. She works hard. She rescues what others might toss away, makes them shine. You'd be lucky to have her back you up."

Which is to say, "We're in it together, we help each other out, and -- " with more humor, "we've figured out the shower rota, and they don't steal my beer," which might be that much more funny to those in the know, given that (a) Della doesn't drink much and (b) she's also not the beer/wine/whatever snob here. "Someday I'll move on from 5 Oak, from Gray Harbor," if that's what he was really asking; "People do. I've thought about what it might take. And it would suck to be here on one's own. Is that what you wanted to know?"

If nothing else, for all her quiet intensity, she might lull them to sleep.

Ravn listens for the faint whispers of mockery -- long enough to murmur under his breath, "If there are any fucking macaques here, I'm grabbing one and taking it with me wherever a door goes." He has some kind of macaque issue, apparently.

He nods slightly at Della's little speech. Only when she falls quiet does he add, quietly, "Most people don't get a speech like that. All the more reason to keep your beef with me, and leave Irving out of it."

Robin gives Una an odd look. "I do. Over and over." He's at least respectful enough of Della to let her give her speech, something /almost/ wistful there as she describes the house as Una's grandmother's. When she's done, he looks off into the video-game mist, frowning thoughtfully.

"I live in a van. I grew up on a bus. I don't have any place like that, and I don't want it." So he claims, but there's only a beat before he adds, "That hasn't stopped them coming for me, I guess. I guess you gotta defend your home, if you got it." He scrubs at his face, and sighs.

"I only stayed here because there seemed to be a lot of people like me. People I was learning from." He glances between the other three, but eventually lands on Ravn. "I don't want 'beef' with /anyone/. I just want..." He trails off, unable to formulate an end to that sentence.

Una, cross-legged upon the ground, beneath the bleachers, is just barely keeping it together, and that's not helped at all by what Della says. In another moment, there might be pleased blushes; now, there's just brittle silence, punctuated only by the steady inhale, exhale, of her breathing.

It doesn't mean she's not listening. Not to Della, or to Ravn. Or Robin, too, in turn, and that sharpens her expression even more-- but not, this time, in anger.

"Then don't have beef," she says, very quiet. "We're not the enemy."

Beef. It's not what's for dinner.

Della manages not to say it. They're talking; they're talking calmly. It's a start. She's tried to keep their faces in view, particularly Robin's -- she can tell more from Una and Ravn's body language, their voices, than she can from him -- and now she opens the bottle of water and takes a swig before setting it more towards the center.

(Guess there aren't glasses for four in that bag.)

"If by people like you, you mean people with strange powers, often hunted and tormented by otherworldly beings, then yes, there are a lot of people like you in this town." Ravn nods slightly. "There's some safety in numbers -- or at least some sanity, knowing that you're not the only one who sees the weird things. And some debate as to whether there actually is any packing up and leaving. People do leave -- but they rarely pack up a truck and drive off for California. It's usually more a realisation that you haven't seen someone in a year, wonder what happened to them, and no one really noticed."

He hitches a shoulder. "Might be you'd like Monroe Lane. He lives in an old bus with his kid brother."

Robin eyes the water for a bit, and awkwardness abounds. It's enough to make him twitchy, especially with the disembodies laughing in the background. "Okay, cool. Fine. I'm getting out of here, now, okay." He turns, squinting at the area he had earlier been exploring. This time, instead of grabbing at an invisible doorknob, he clenches a fist in midair and /pulls/. The air itself appears to tear, ripping an irregular and roughly Robin-shaped hole in the air with a bright flash of light.

"Monroe's good people," agrees Una, though if she intends to say further on that subject, she stops: Robin's made his hole in reality, and the redhead now has no choice but to stare at it, frowning distinctly.

"Can you see where it leads?" she wonders. "Because..."

It's a mixed bad. She's not yelling, but Robin is still clearly not on her list of favourite people. On the other hand... she does not wish random door adventures on anyone, either.

But.

"Monroe's good people," Della supplies, only to send a glance at Una and half-laugh; "They -- "

Only to break off, scooping up the water and stashing it in the bag as she stands, hurrying with real worry towards Robin. Not up to him, not to push him in or get pulled in herself, but to see without having to wait because look at that --

Ravn stares at the all but cartoon cut-out in reality, resembling the shape of Robin. He has never seen the door power used quite like that before -- but it makes as much sense to him as anything. After all, what he does is visualization -- imagine up a door handle, pull on it, open the door. If somebody can visualize themselves just popping from one reality to another -- then why not?

The real question here is, will that door or rather, Robin-shaped hole, work for the rest of them? He reaches a tentative finger towards it, and tries to look inside. Sometimes, you can see the dark and the slime, before you jump into the xenomorph nest.

You would think that if you could step through something, you could also /see/ through it, but these things are not always logical. The hole in nothing flickers and churns with bits of light, almost like a television on a dead channel, about to go out.

Robin stands still, hands held up and frowning with concentration. "Can't see through, but I've only done this once before, and we didn't really want it to stay open. Not sure how long I can keep it going..." He looks between the others, and shrugs. "I'll keep it open as long as I can. You guys stay if you want." And with that, he hops through.

"Well shit," says Una, staring at the door with obvious consternation. "Are we... going through? Fuck, what if he's dead? I don't want to-- what if it goes somewhere worse? I mean, this place isn't so bad, right? It could be so much worse. It's just a football field."

She doesn't move.

Well, damn.

Della hasn't been where Una and Ravn have been, hasn't seen what they've seen; she gives them a pleading look -- "If it's worse, I have to help." Never mind if there's not much she knows how to do. "The river."

One hand over her eyes, as though impromptu sunglasses could work for light and tentacles both, she makes for it.

Ravn nods his agreement, though he allows himself a tired sigh. "We tell the bloke we try to have each other's back. We don't get to just shrug and say whatever, good luck. If we are jumping from the frying pan and into the fire, I'll have to try next."

A pleading look goes out to Una. "Maybe we can sit him down and explain this shit to him later. I have no idea what the hell's gone wrong here, but I get the distinctive feeling he'd rather be lost out there between an infinity of possible realities, than stuck in here with us, and that's pretty damned bad."

And he joins Della, because doomed if you do and doomed if you don't, and the only solution is to try to stick together.

Faced with a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea? Una hesitates only a moment more, then launches herself to her feet and throws herself after the others.

Fine.

By the time the other threw make up their mind, Robin has had the time to get out of the way... Which is a pretty good thing, because the portal exits on the driving compartment of his van.

Immediately upon falling through, Robin climbs across to the passenger's seat and out that door, but he stays there watching, holding the door open for the others.

As each person comes through, he does /try/ to usher them out. But if they wind up in a tangled heap in the driver's seat, not his fault!

It's not worse. Except, wait, they're where? Is this really--

Della really should be getting out of the way faster (and what happened to their drinks, anyway?); it's just that her reflexes are failing her, even with Robin's encouragement, and this is a driver's seat she's never sat in, and that's a stick and she can drive stick but now she hears something and she isn't supposed to get out of the driver's door, she's supposed to get out of the other door? and she hurries but there are people all of a sudden and... was that the horn?

Sorry, neighbors!

Once she can extricate herself, can get to solid ground, "Robin?" And, even more excited, "You did it!" And then, "Wait, you can get out of this door just fine?"

Of all the things Ravn expected (and feared) to be jumping into, landing more or less on top of Della inside a van is not what he expected.

It's not what his nerve system expected, either.

He scrabbles and all but teleports out the van's door that Robin is trying to get him to leave through. Yes please! Several paces away, he stops -- and looks for all intents and purposes like the van bit or burned him. He pants, and grits his teeth, and tries to just keep his mouth shut.

It's a good thing that Ravn moves so quickly. Una's far enough behind that she doesn't show up until after he's scrambled out, not that it makes much difference for her: she positively squeaks, attempting to roll her way out the now-opened door-- and mostly just falling into a puddle of limbs on the pavement below, because, no, rolling is not one of her skills, thank you, but no.

"Ow," she says.

Indeed.

Robin jumps back out of the way in time for the others to get out, then peeks back in to make sure nothing follows before closing the portal down with a sweep of his hand. Della gets a crooked, uncertain grin. "...Apparently? I went out before I thought of it."

He looks between Ravn and Una, grin fading slightly. "Everybody okay? Still got all your fingers?"

Della's own grin is sudden, delighted. "Fantastic." Until --

Bit. Burned.

"Ravn? Did you... pick up something, from the van? 'Resonances'?" That's before she's really seen Una; she's slower than she should be to realize, to help her friend up, still looking at Ravn every other moment. Whiplash.

It takes the Dane a few more breaths to be able to respond -- but he can shake his head at least.

Another couple of steadying pulse beats. "I have a neuropathic condition." Another breath. "Unexpected touch -- hurts. Hence the --" he holds up his hand. The black kidskin gloves that he's never seen without. "Just need a moment."

Turns out falling on top of people and drivers' seats is not great.

Una recovers herself, at least enough that she can give Ravn a sympathetic glance-- and then turn her attention back to Della and Robin. She pulls herself up, dusting road dust off of her uneasily. "I'm okay," she reports. "I'm okay. We're all okay, right? Ravn just needs a minute, and you guys are fine, and I'm fine, and--"

"We're okay."

Robin looks at Ravn for a moment, nonplussed, then shrugs. "Fair enough..." Once it's clear that everyone is okay and in one piece, he closes the van door and tucks his hands in his pockets. "So... I don't think I'll be able to move this for a bit. You think I'll end up getting towed?"

Della's eyes fly wide. So that's -- Then, "Of course."

Stop looking, Della; she averts her eyes to check on Una, any reassessing going on behind the scenes. She'd known about the neuropathy in the abstract, but how this one manifests... "We're okay," she agrees, readjusting her bag, reaching to dust herself off too, just in case. "We made it."

"I don't know about towed, though; we could call it in, say it's legit, don't tow it? Would that help? Add a sign for the windshield?" And then, remembering, urgent, "Robin, your toolbox. It was on the driver's side, where it fell out." Where he dropped it.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," says Una, determinedly. Her expression is not precisely soft as she glances at Robin, but at least she's not actively hostile.

Also? "You could come inside, if you needed to."

Beat. "There are cookies."

"Maybe that would work? I don't usually leave it." Robin stares at the van for a moment, but Della's reminder sends him around to the other side of the van to fetch the small toolbox. It gives his hands something to do, which is good, since he seems a little shaky in spite of his earlier bravado.

He shoots an only slightly wary look st Una. Starts to say one thing, but thinks better of it. Instead, he just gives a little half shrug. "Yeah. Okay..."

He glances between all three gathered, then tentatively offers, "Maybe I can help with your fairy problem? Maybe not, but... You know. Maybe."

He's got the toolbox; she's offering cookies; Della... Della's looking relieved, even before the fairies.

Soft-voiced, "That sounds lovely." All these things.

"Good," says Una. Is she relieved? It's so hard to tell.

"Come inside."

Who said these Doors can't be forces for good?

... sort of.