villagelogs | 026 》sweet troubled man are you giving or taking?

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026 》sweet troubled man are you giving or taking?

characters: Malcolm, Neal, Negan, Raylan, Doc
location: 1306 Phillips Dr
date/time: day 26 morning
content: the reset Playstation button was pressed
warnings: tbd

After the strangeness of the past two nights they were likely fully expecting to awaken in the same strange, different, not-so-new anymore places they found themselves in in the past two days.

Instead everything seems to have reset, again. The three permanent residents and two guests are back in 1306, exactly where they had been two nights ago. Malcolm was in his own room, Neal was in Doc's and Negan in Raylan's master bedroom. The two displaced cowboys are downstairs sharing one too-small couch, a night of drinking culminating in fighting over couch space and who gets to be the bigger spoon.

The fire in the fireplace had gone out and their Winter 2020 Collection of bespoke lanterns have vanished, but nothing else seems to be awry.

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When Negan makes it to the door he will pass the commotion over breakfast in and around the kitchen and find a six foot tall shadow just outside the front door. Doc looking at the blanket of snow, hat back in place, lighting a smoke up.

He turns half over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening and reaches down into his long coat pocket, pulling out his cigarillo tin case and flicking it open to offer a cigarette to Negan.

"Did you sleep well last night?"

"Hey--" He pauses, brows furrowing at the sight of the man. Hell yeah, he'll take that cigarette. He needs something to calm his nerves a little bit after--

whatever the hell that was.

"Tell me I didn't just hallucinate a bunch of shit?" He doesn't think he's gone totally loony, but he needs an outside confirmation right now.

"Was I gone or did I just have one impressively realistic dream?"

"You were gone," Doc confirms. "We all were. If you are inclined to stay," which Doc thinks he is not because he's on the way out and Negan wouldn't have known someone was outside already. "Or at least return, we could share some of our experiences a little later."

This is a free country, last he checked. A man is free to come and go as he pleases, despite Doc's firm insistence and protestations. He knows this door is always open.

He lights Negan's cigarette while he's still got some shelter from the doorway, shaking the match out and flicking it away into the snow once it's lit.

"Unless you went away to that pool surrounded by beautiful women. Then maybe don't bring it up. The boys will get jealous."

"I mean, there was a chick, but she wasn't in a bikini." He takes a drag off the cigarette, starting to relax with the confirmation that he's not insane. Okay, he can work with that. Maybe.

And maybe he can stick around for a minute or two. "Share some experiences, huh? Sure..."

Not like they haven't already shared plenty anyway. "Not even sure where to begin. Woke up on the dining room table, away from here."

"Don't sound too disappointed now. Look at all this snow." Who would be sporting swimwear in this weather?

Doc isn't referring to those experiences. Thankfully they're sticking to the topic of the last two days.

"Someplace you have been before? Were you with anyone you recognise?"

"You're right... next time we blink and wake up somewhere else, it better damn well be at a pool." Or a beach. Fuck, somewhere warm. He'd kill for it.

"Boarding house, yeah. Malcolm was there. Uh, the kid-- Ellie. A couple others." He shrugs his shoulders absently. He's seen Zed around, he thinks, but not sure about the other chick. She seemed new, confused.

Or maybe they had all just been confused. "How about you?"

"Malcolm?" A pause. "Did he... wake you?" They were vague when they warned Negan about Malcolm's 'sleep troubles'. For his part, because Doc is too polite to air another man's hard time to someone else.

"I had awoken in a house I had not yet explored. I recognised almost everyone there, except for a doctor by the name of John Carter. There was another doctor, Helen. Mister Coulson and young mister Coldwater were there. Dean Winchester and Castiel too. I do intend to go searching for the house later. There was... something strange about it."

"He tried to not sleep." He's not sure he should tell off about the incident that happened... The Boarding House is gonna need some new dishes and ASAP.

"What do you mean by strange?" He arches a brow curiously. "Some weird shit happened where I was too."

"That is a common thread running through these parts," Doc agrees. They have reached a point where uncovering a new part of Mathias and not discovering that something is awry would be considered 'weird shit'.

"Do you remember seeing those phantoms, with the lanterns? They appeared to be in the mirrors in the house. Not standing in the house, behind you, just- in the reflection. And then there were these noises." Doc isn't going to mention how he finds the scratching and the knocking unsettling. It seems a little... Cowardly? Unmasculine? Whatever the word is. They're two gruff men, tough as nails, who would scoff at Unsettling and take anything on. It did not adhere to that image.

"Yeah... Did you get a good look at them in the mirrors?" He frowns, arms crossing over his chest as he considers what he's being told. Sounds like a hell of an adventure, to be sure.

"There were noises where I was too. Scratching, like shit wanted to get out." He's not going to say it was freaky as shit, but damn, it sent a shiver through him late at night.

"Dealing with poltergeists... is that what we're doing now?"

"No. Couldn't make out what or who they were. They were all... wispy." He had thought that maybe they were the people in the photographs after something had happened to them. But he had, perhaps stupidly, said hello to one of them, tried to communicate whilst keeping a bit of distance, and nothing happened. They had other things to worry about when the power went out, anyway.

"'tis not my realm of expertise, I'll admit. You saw the phantoms too? Anything else of note happened where you were at?"

"I heard shit, man. Scratching and... just noises. One of the chicks stuck in the house with me sat guard to keep people out. I was going to check it out since I mean, usually those sorts of noises? Come from the undead variety of threats."

Distant noises. "Then the lights went out every night too. Didn't do shit to calm anyone's nerves."

He shrugs his shoulders. "Do you believe in that kinda shit? Ghosts or whatever."

"I think it is safe to say we all did, wherever we ended up last night." He had thought that the noises might have been related to the phantoms in the mirrors but now he cannot be sure. It is one of the more vexing traits of Mathias - that one cannot be sure of just about anything.

"In this town alone I have seen eggs reappear in the refrigerator door with nary a chicken in sight. The dead come back to life, physically unscathed. Men who can perform feats that cannot be explained, or disappear in one place and reappear in another. One of our neighbours claims to be an angel. I was supposed to succumb to my illness a hundred and thirty years ago and here I stand before you. Could you proclaim that ghosts are impossible?"

"Yeah..." He lets out a sigh, rolling his shoulders to try to work out some of the tension settling in. Mathias is still a place he can't say he's used to, but he liked to think he was settling in before the latest ordeal. Well as could be expected.

"No, I guess not. Just never thought I'd be dealing with'em, you know?" Just the ones that haunt his nightmares, maybe, but those were ones he was used to. Couldn't actually jump out and hurt him.

"Anyway, you remember anything else? How you got back here, maybe?"

"They are certainly not something we were ever prepared to deal with," Doc agrees. He was raised to try and survive the West, and he recognised the importance of being good with his guns, to foster good relationships with other gentlemen, to be cordial with women. There were no ghosts. There were no books or expectations or guidelines for how to deal with ghosts.

"Unfortunately I do not." He does not even remember going to sleep in Raylan's arms, even though that was how he had awoken. But he's not going to mention that to anyone, and most especially not to Negan. He would have a field day with that little factoid, turn it into something it most definitely was not.

"I just woke up, downstairs, over there." Doc just kind of gestures deliberately vaguely. Just in case he had asked Raylan and he specifically said he woke up on the couch. "It was where I had fallen asleep, previously. But there is no sign of anyone breaking in or any tracks in the snow to suggest we were put back where we had been taken from."

"Yeah..." Maybe he'd be poking for more details if he wasn't distracted by their overnight trips around the fucking town with no explanation, and no clear way to prevent it. Fuck, he does not like people dicking with him when he sleeps.

"Woke up in bed." Which Doc probably already knows, probably assumed already. He lets out a sigh and runs a hand through his hair, smooths it back.

"... So, what the fuck do we do? Just forget the random teleportation and go on with our goddamn lives?" That doesn't settle well with him, he's got to say.

"I know. I went upstairs to check in on you." Doc pauses for a beat. "Just to ensure you had returned safely to us and were in one piece." Don't get any ideas or make it weird now, Negan.

"What do you propose we do?" They do not have an address to file a complaint to their captors to. They cannot threaten said captors. Malcolm may have been tied down when he was taken - Doc hasn't asked but he thinks it's not an unsafe assumption to make - so tying themselves down just in case there is a next time isn't going to be doing anyone any favours.

"We were randomly teleported here and we have carried on as best we can. Is that not all we can do? I suppose I could salvage a few extra locks and install them here, if it would make you feel better. You are planning on staying, are you not?"

"You did?" He won't make it weird. Right now. Probably. "Well-- thanks. I think I'm in one piece though."

More or less.

He lets out a sigh, biting down on the frustration that threatens to pop up. Not at Doc really, but he doesn't like getting jerked around by even unseen forces. "No, that's-- I know there's not a goddamn thing we can do. I'm used to shit I can deal with head on. Being played with is like a fucking punch to the balls every day."

More locks won't help though, he's so of that.

"... I hadn't made any plans, but Malcolm offered." He shrugs his shoulders. "So yeah, thinking about it, I guess. Better to stay in groups in my experience. Watch out for each other."

"It is fine to let someone else worry over you every once in a while," Doc observes, but he doesn't push on that particular matter. It is not simply a matter of giving someone the wrong idea. Just a statement of fact, that in this house they all watch each other's backs as best they can. And while Negan has mostly managed on his own and mostly seems to keep to himself, he is part of the group too, for as long as he wants to be.

"An offer from Malcolm is an offer from us all. You are welcome to, if you find this place suits your needs." And they will just take him under their wing. It's not like Doc has even really moved into the room that Negan is currently occupying. All the things he has salvaged and rebranded as his own are still packed in the duffel bag, like he's ready to leave at a moment's notice.

"Yeah..." He can agree, mostly. It's just usually he's the big guy in charge, the indestructible leader. He's not sure what to do without that safety net sometimes. Easier to shrug that off though, push it down for now.

"Well, then... guess we might see each other around a little more often."

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026 》sweet troubled man are you giving or taking?

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