028-029 » the winds of change

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Days 028-029
WHAT: A town meeting is called.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Ikiryo"

DAY 028
SOMETHING ON THE WIND
Another day dawns in the fair town of Mathias. The sky is a blanket of light grey, tiny specks of snow lightly falling as the hours pass. It makes the town feel almost quaint, the scenery quite peaceful in its winter garb. But beneath the veneer of peace there is a pervasive dread of something approaching. Something inevitable is on the wind, something that has come before and will come again...

Throughout the day, residents will consistently experience feelings of deja vu, that sense of having done or seen or said something before that can never be fully recalled. It happens again and again, tugging at the back of their minds, the memories just frustratingly out of reach.

Residents will also notice a note pinned around town:




The note can be found on the town hall's bulletin board and the front doors of many town establishments, including the Grey Gull, the library, and the boarding house. At the bottom of the note it is specified that the meeting will take place "tomorrow, when the sun is over the town square."


NEW ARRIVALs
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake on the frozen lawn of the town hall atop a snowdrift. They had best hurry inside and get warmed up before hypothermia sets in.

DAY 029
A GATHERING OF MINDS
In the late afternoon when the sun hangs over the town square, residents will converge upon the Town Hall, where a larger meeting room has been filled with rows of chairs. After most people arrive, John Constantine stands and addresses the room... and then sits again. A grand introduction, truly.

Residents are encouraged to share their experiences and information they have gathered in the town while holding questions until the end. Rather than getting tangled in the intricacies of each person's tale, it seems better to absorb the broad strokes and try to connect the puzzle pieces to get a look at the bigger picture that is the mystery of Mathias Township.


THE INEVITABLE
As the meeting comes to an end and residents begin to converse among themselves, the feeling of something approaching and sense of deja vu begin to build, becoming almost oppressive as night falls. An hour after nightfall, residents learn the reason for these sensations that cease immediately as the earth begins to rumble. The buildings shake, furniture tumbles, and breakables crash to the floor as the earthquake sets in without warning.

The tremors last around a minute, far longer than a normal earthquake, and then the town settles again. There are no aftershocks, which many may note is quite unusual. Residents will find quite a bit of mess in their homes and other locations around town, but there is no structural damage to be found despite the intense shaking.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER is fairly typical of a northern winter. The sky is grey, the temperature hovers just below freezing during the day (colder at night), and a light snow falls during both days. Residents should bundle up when going outside and not venture too far into the dark night...

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be. Venturing into the fog is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue with Sherlock Holmes being the latest victim of the town's unsettling whims.

---

OOC NOTES

— TOWN MEETING STRUCTURE The town meeting section of the log is designed for characters to share any information they would like to with the other residents in attendance. ICly, characters should "hold questions until the end" with the intent that they can get the Big Picture first and connect any dots they see. OOCly, this means players should post their character's information sharing tag in the Meeting section, but the actual conversation about whatever they share happens after the meeting proper in the Mingle section. That way, these conversations can happen however players prefer, be that one-on-one or in small or large groups.

— HOUSING Please be sure your character's housing arrangements are up to date on our list. We're missing a few people and it really helps to know where everyone is for planning. Frequent updates for wandering characters are perfectly acceptable.

— THE BULLETIN BOARD has been updated. Players should note there is a change to the wall near the board that may be of great interest to some residents.

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Comments

[thering]

"Your brother, disappearing. The impending end of the world he no doubt would have told you about. You must have waited, thinking the next door you opened you might see him there. Maybe he could pop back in the way he popped out and everything would be back to how it was. Maybe he didn't make it and you would have seen him standing there anyway, and he would have told you all about it. Sometimes you watch him go out that door, the way he does like he's got a bone to pick with the world, and you think maybe this time is the last time you will see him again. It cannot have been easy for you."

For a casual, glib talk about Five's journey masks a great many pains about the people left behind, and even though Doc didn't have a comment at the time - there was nothing anyone could have said to alleviate the awkwardness of highlighting the suffering of a lonely man making a grave mistake in his brash childhood that he could not walk back from - it didn't mean Doc was too busy stuffing his face or wasn't reading between the lines.

"Everyone is too caught up in what is happening here to want to talk about what is happening at home. But we are the same people carrying the same problems with us wherever we go. And your brother, he-... he drinks, he thinks, he acts. He does not stop to talk. Especially not to you."

[bestfuneralever]

Doc is barely three sentences into his spiel before Klaus can feel the prickling of tears at the edges of his eyes. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep them from falling. He hates this. He hates how good Doc is at this. Does he even realize, as he's talking, how many things he hits, dead-center-bullseye? Now, he moves over to one of the available chairs and sinks down into it. The cigarette rests still between his fingers as he balls his hands into fists in his hair.

Every single thing the older man says is all part of things he's carried with him for the last sixteen years, with no outlet to talk about it. Sure, he'd been in countless numbers of shrink offices through the years. Always court-mandated, never by choice. But there was only so much he could explain without being assumed high, or highly delusional or otherwise mentally disturbed. Sometimes it landed him a short in-patient stay, but it gave him a bed, regular meals, and got him high on the government's dime, taking high-powered medications he didn't really need for psychological issues he didn't actually have, so he didn't mind it much at the time.

His family wasn't an option; they'd all been broken apart and shattered for over a decade. And they had never been good at any of this stuff even before that. They weren't allowed to nurture those types of skills.

"Your emotions make you weak, Number Four. You have to put them aside if you're going to save the world. There are bigger issues to concern yourself with than feelings."

He can still hear the words in his head in a perfect echo of his father's sharp cadence.

So yes. Every word Doc said is true (and more that he didn't, and couldn't begin to guess at to say were, too). But it's the last part that catches in his chest wrong. This sudden burst of a desire to tell him it's not like that, to explain, and to defend his brother. Especially his actions here. His lifts his head, steals another quick drag from his cigarette before letting his hands drop back into his lap as he leans forward on his knees, eyes focused up on Doc. "No, no, no," he shakes his head. "I- it's not like that! He's been working- you know-- to- to--"

He rolls his wrist, cigarette tucked between fingers as he tries to find the right words. "get us all home, where we belong. And- and he's honestly been...really... really good to me, since--" Since he found him dead on the beach. "since we got here, you know? It's- I don't know. It's different, I guess." It's not, not really; it's just that things are so much more limited here, and they're all so closely in each other's orbits, it's impossible not to notice when things are off.

[thering]

"I know," Doc says gently. From all the conversations he's had with Five he knows that the not-young man is working hard - probably one of the hardest out of everyone in town that he has seen - to get them out of here, whether it's because of that saviour complex, or because he thinks he's got time and space and therefore all the answers at his fingertips, or some other reason.

"He doesn't mean to hurt you, when he gets..." Doc waves his hand vaguely, looking for a more formal, polite term and settling for something more colloquial. "Snippy." Doc has not had to deal with an obstreperous sibling but he too, likely, would be more terse than accommodating once they start getting all up in his personal affairs.

"And I know you do not mean to hurt him either. There is no rule that says that only the one who time-travels to the future and inadvertently becomes stuck is allowed to feel the repercussions of it, and no one else is allowed to feel his loss." Holding his cigarette between his fingers, he crouches down, far away enough from Klaus to not make him feel like this is some kind of confrontation or lecture, but close enough that it still feels like a casual chat reserved for only both their ears to listen to.

"But it would be doing him a kindness to let him come to terms with it himself, and let him share only what he means to share of it." Maybe he sees and talks to dead people so much, he has to be their voice because no one else can. But in this instance, Five has his own voice. And as tumultuous as their relationships must be, in such a big family, harmony and cohesion might be a long shot but it would be nice for the siblings to at least find some middle ground. Five could be a little more open. Klaus could afford to think twice before saying something.

[bestfuneralever]

"No, I- I know that. That- that's my fault. I shouldn't have..." He bites his lip, a frown breaking across his features. Klaus' mouth and his emotions have always gotten the better of him; if he thinks it, it's out of his mouth, and if he feels it, it's written so plainly across his face. Blocking people off and compartmentalizing the way Five does, the way Allison and Diego do, has just never been a strong suit of his. Sure, he can ignore things with the best of them, but all those things he shoves under the rug in his mind never go away, they don't get placed in a box in his mind to be looked at when it's more convenient, it all still influences him under the surface and sits, ever-waiting, at the edge of his mouth, to be dropped like a bomb at the worst moment possible. Just like this tonight, with Five, and with Malcolm, like a thousand other instances he could drag up from his memories just like it.

He finishes off his cigarette and puts the remnants of it out on the garage floor, wraps his arms around his knees as he drags them up toward his chest. Nothing ever makes him feel quite as small the way looking at all the ways he fucks up all the time does. He knows that isn't Doc's intent, but that doesn't stop Klaus' own mind filling in all the worst parts of this, and often in his own father's voice just to add insult to injury. He rests his chin on the tops of his knees and struggles to come up with the words to explain it all.

"And I get that, I do, but, Doc, you don't understand....he won't deal with it or process it if that's not forced on him like running into a brick wall. It's not new, he was like that even when we were little kids, but--" He shakes his head. "I'm not saying what I did was right, wrong time, wrong place, I shouldn't have said all that in front of everybody, but you don't understand..." So... he's going to try to explain, at least some, and his own understanding of, all of this.

"Five disappeared when we were thirteen, and... everything he's done has been to get back to us, and I don't know, sometimes- sometimes I think he got so wrapped up in that for so long that he's lost himself to the means. And... maybe he forgot that he was going to have to face everything that it took to get there whenever he eventually got to the 'and now what' part..." He shrugs. "I don't- I don't know, I think he thinks... if it keeps the rest of us alive, it doesn't matter if we hate him. And me...?" He shakes his head, and his eyes flood with those earlier unshed tears again as he shakes his head. "I want to help, but I can't. I can't help him, because he won't let me. And- everything here..." He shrugs. "The only thing about me that's ever been beneficial to anybody doesn't work right here and-- I'm fucking useless."

He can feel the tears streaking his cheeks but he doesn't care. He never has, and that was always part of the problem. He drops his head back down onto his knees and lets silent sobs wrack his frame. He wants to help, but without his powers to give them clues from the dead? He doesn't know what else to do. That's the problem with growing up being told there's only one thing worth a damn about you; it being something that you spent three decades of your life terrified of doesn't help matters at all, either. And now that he's finally okay with the ghosts? He can't do a damn thing with it in Mathias.

[thering]

Oh, hell. They really need to stop meeting like this.

There's always a surge of panic when the waterworks come on. Especially more so when Doc is the inadvertent cause of it. He quickly stubs his cigarette out so he doesn't burn either of them or start a fire and shuffles in closer, gets down on the one knee so he can wrap one arm around Klaus and cup the side of his head with the other hand, hold his head against his chest. This has always worked in the past. Surely it should work now.

It's okay to fall apart. That's... what Doc has agreed to be here for. He has no reassurances to offer on that front. At some point in time they have all been made to feel useless in this place, belittled and sometimes humiliated by the way these external influences outside of their control have been treating them. What consolations could he give? That they are not all useless? That everything they do working towards their common end goal of leaving is not going to be all for nothing? There are no certainties on that front. Only the assumptions and the lies they keep telling themselves so that they have a reason to wake up in the morning and go about their day.

So he lets Klaus have his moment, patting him on the arm, rubbing his back. He does not have the same strength of character to wear his heart on his sleeve so openly. To allow others to take parting shots at it, like this. He respects Klaus's resilience enough to let him despair, and agonise, and weep. And then he tries to pick up the pieces after.

"Being some kind of-- conduit for the dead is not the only thing that defines you. Nobody in this house can do what the two of you do. We're all just ordinary people, helping each other out. Sometimes - and I know it sounds like a whole lotta nothin', but. Sometimes all you can do is tell someone you're there. He will deal with everything, in his own time. He will come back to you. I promise."

[bestfuneralever]

It's not Doc, it's Klaus-- he just feels too much, too big, always.

This, at least, doesn't last quite so long as the last little breakdown Doc had found himself on the receiving end of. He leans into the touch, he'll always seek physical comfort when it's offered (and sometimes when it's not). He can't help the bitter scoff that comes with those first words. "Tell that to two decades of being reduced to nothing else except that." He shakes his head. He knows that sometimes, he uses everything from the past as a crutch or an excuse but there is truth to it, too. Those things hard-wired into him during his most impressionable and formative years are near-impossible to put away as unimportant, or just plain false.

"Plus," he leans back in the chair and sniffs, dragging a hand through his hair. "You guys have other skills. I don't. I spent like twenty years partying and sinking into addiction to escape my life and the inside of my own head. Without that," he huffs softly, dropping his hands down into his lap. "I don't have anything to offer." He shakes his head. "People don't want that. 'Specially around here. Nobody wants to fucking talk 'n hug it out, Doc, just about everyone in this stupid foggy hellscape is emotionally stunted in some way or another and would rather bottle it up and die than admit to anything that might be shaped a little bit like a weakness."

He watches people. He knows the ones he sees more than they realize. Klaus has always been far more observant than people would expect. But he knows what people think of him, too. The emotional wreck with a big mouth that would be better off left shut; the junkie no one would trust with anything of import; the annoying thorn in their side they tolerate, but would rather he leave them alone.

[thering]

Hey now don't call his emotional stuntedness out while he's trying to be comforting. That's rude. Doc wrinkles his nose and tries not to get immediately defensive over how some of them are dealing with their present situation. Bottling it up is the only way they know how, as unhealthy as it might be. For some of them, talking doesn't actually make them feel any better.

"We really don't, Klaus," Doc tries to reassure him. "I spent twenty years drinking heavily and smoking opium, drifting from one town to another. This town has no use for artists, lawmen or cowboys. We still get by. Just barely, some days." They're not as together as they look. If they look like they're pulling anything off from the outside, that's just a bonus, or people not looking closely enough.

"What would make you feel more useful?" Because they could sit around all day and just despair at how utterly not in control they are of everything that is happening around them, to them. It is good to have a day or two to do that, to get the frustrations out instead of letting it hang over everything they do, eat away at them until they feel it is pointless to do anything. But days will come, after those days, and they cannot wallow in their misery forever.

"Is there something you would like to do? Or something you would like to learn? Can we help in any way?"

[bestfuneralever]

Putting Doc in that category wouldn't even really occur to him, considering all their interactions being so heavy on the feelings. He listens to what he has to say about himself, but it's so jarring to think of the older man so on par with himself. Booze and drugs and drifting. That doesn't match whatever image he'd built in his head about him. "Really?"

And then he's asking the big questions.

Klaus freezes at being asked that. He doesn't have an answer, not even a vague one. "I don't know." He bites his lip and frowns, staring down at his hands in his lap. He fidgets a little, uncomfortable in not having a real answer to what seem like relatively easy questions. "I... I never thought about that kinda stuff. When we were kids... that was already decided for us. We-we were meant to be heroes, save the world. That's what Dad said, that's what we did. But... there was never anything else. I never thought about what was supposed to be next."

[thering]

"I was living on borrowed time. I didn't care for putting down roots or being an upstanding citizen of anywhere or doing any kind of honest work. I-... still don't care for any of that, if I'm honest." He tries to be a gentleman the way he was raised but beyond that, he is not as respectable as Klaus had maybe conjured him up to be. Doc is quick to dispel the myths that make him out to be a better man, but slow to correct the misconceptions that paint him in a worse light than he really deserves to be.

Doc pulls away a bit, just enough to make eye contact without making Klaus feel like he's trying to put some distance between them.

"Your esteemed father, as... ambitious and controversial of a figure as he seems to be, is not here. You steer your own legacy now. Might I suggest you take some time - not tonight; tonight is for drinking and relaxing - to consider what you would like to do beyond entertaining the whims of the dead. Something for yourself or to maybe be of assistance to your brother. We can reconvene on a different day to see how we might accomplish it."

[bestfuneralever]

It's still such a weird clash with the image he's build of Doc in his mind. Just proves how little he actually knows the man in front of him. Still, the honesty in it all gets him points, too, and it makes one corner of his mouth almost tilt up.

His face scrunches in disgust, "Esteemed isn't the word I'd use..." Not about his father. He manages a weak smile. "Yeah, I know, it's just-" His gaze drops down to his lap, fidgeting again. Everything out of his mouth always feels like an excuse, somehow. "it's really hard to let go of stuff that was drilled into me from- from birth, really."

(He hates how easy it is for his mind to conjure up his father's voice in his head. "Excuses, Number Four. Again!)"

"But..." He lets out a long sigh before he nods. "I'll try to...figure something out." He brings his eyes back up to Doc's face again. "I promise." And he means that.

[thering]

Hey, he hasn't let go of stuff he's been holding onto from the bad old days either. Cowboy hat, waistcoat with pocket watch chain, and a kind of chivalry that can be borderline stifling that has long since died out is testament to Doc's inability to completely let it all go, too.

"These things take time," he reassures Klaus. "You may not have a revelation as soon as you wake up tomorrow morning. You may need to try one thing or another before you settle on an endeavour, or even discuss things with someone else. Hell I'm still figuring out what I'm doing here. But we have a lot of time here, so it's okay to go slow."

[bestfuneralever]

He nods a little. There's something so impossibly encouraging about this man, and all Klaus can think is how much different he might have been with just a fraction of attention like this growing up. "Yeah... okay. I'll keep that in mind."

There's a release of pressure in his chest at having this conversation out, but everything feels just a little too serious. He can't stop himself from letting a smirk curl his lips, "You know, we really gotta stop meeting like this." Doc's going to start to think he's made entirely of breakdowns, at this rate.

[thering]

"Well I am open to other suggestions for meeting," he says lightheartedly. He gives Klaus a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.

"Come on. Let's get back inside, before you freeze out here." Their cigarettes are finished and they have moonshine to be drinking, unruly men to be supervising, and Doc might not have plans to have a private word with every single one of them but he will probably end up doing so anyway.

[bestfuneralever]

He huffs a laugh at that and nods at the suggestion to go back inside. “Yeah, we got a party to go be a part of.” He grabs the glass he’d set down earlier on his way back into the main part of the house.

The switch from the mess he had just been out in the garage to the social created he was instantly upon walking through the door was a sight to see for sure. Almost like flipping a on a light switch, an easy-as breathing second skin he wears so close to the surface there is no effort slipping into it on a dime.