villagelogs | 028-029 » the winds of change

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028-029 » the winds of change

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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Malcolm's expression softened as he shifted over as much as his restraints would allow, reaching carefully over Raylan to pull the blanket up over his shoulders and tuck it around him. He rubbed a hand up and down over his arm, on top of the blankets, to try and get his circulation going.

"Good. You should have nice pillows."

Helping as much as he could, Raylan hunkered down into the pillow and stared at Malcolm across the bed. He wasn't going to admit that he was warmed or enjoyed the hand rubbing up and down him but.. he did.

He thinks you want a bedwarmer. Funny how little things stuck in someone's craw, dropped there like a grain of sand not meant to help grind anything but his own stupid resolve to protect himself.

"How are you doin' after dinner? After.. all that." Klaus, the sex dungeon talk, all the rest. It had been a party, after all.

"Oh... not the worst faux pas I've seen at a dinner party," Malcolm admitted. "I grew up in a house of dinner parties. Before my father's arrest, my mother was a hosting force of New York. I remember at one, when I was about seven, one guest let it slip - in passing - about another guest's mistress and the apartment he put her in on the Upper West Side. I didn't really understand the implications at the time, but. Everyone was scandalized. I understood that much."

He was babbling again. Oops.

He searched Raylan's face for a moment.

"But that's... neither here nor... there," he murmured distractedly. He let his eyes flicker down to Raylan's chest. "Doc drank a lot. I hope we'll still be able to get him to the meeting tomorrow."

Raylan's eyebrows lifted, eyes half mooned in their lazy opening. "New York really does it different, huh." It was amusing to say the least and had no reflection on Malcolm himself, though it was clear where he learned how to be so chill with it being brought up.

He nodded softly, eyes drifting down the hand between them before coming back up to Malcolm's. "He's not throwing up, but I've got him on his side, propped so he can't roll over, just in case. He'll be okay. I'll get him movin' for it, somehow. Even if I gotta drag him by his boots. Might be he just enjoyed the party a lot," Raylan lied, knowing full well neither of them drank for the raw fun of it.

Malcolm lifted his eyes to meet Raylan's.

"You guys get turns to be taken care of, you know. You don't cash them in very much but... Doc is tonight, I guess," he said with a soft smile and a breath that is almost a laugh.

He lifted his hand and hesitated a moment in uncertainty before placing it on Raylan's chest with a rustle of his restraints.

"Thank you. For stepping in at supper. I was off-footed when he first brought it up. You really helped."

Malcolm could say that easily, but Raylan wasn't so sure. He wasn't likely to get blackout drunk without a good heartpained reason and he hadn't fallen into any positions to get him there yet. What would he cash them in for? That touch he so badly wants? He'd tried that.

Maybe he should be happy with his few stolen hours and stop feeling sorry for himself.

He took an equally uneven breath in at the hand slid up onto his chest and fought against the urge to say to hell with it all and just scoot closer, wrap him up. Instead, he brought up a hand to put it over Malcolm's in some form of.. reassurance maybe. Or maybe it was just an excuse to touch him back.

"You provided the distraction, I just called back to it to help steer things. It was good he apologized for it. That's whats important. Without even needin' to, what manners." Honestly, he was a little impressed.

God, Malcolm yearned for Raylan to put his arm around him like he had the night before. He could still feel the warm radius of that thumb rubbing comfort on his back. But the hand over his hand wasn't a rejection. He scooted a little closer.

"He's a good guy. He just gets carried away. I'm reasonably sure he has anxiety and this place is... just a bunch of walls."

He swallowed and looked up at his face again from under his brow.

"Raylan... I... " He paused and took a breath. "Is the closed door still a thing?"

"He is," Raylan agreed, voice still rougher from the moonshine and the late hour than normal and he couldn't help the brush of his thumb back and forth across Malcolm's hand. He could feel the inevitability of them sinking back into the same position they'd left when Doc came back the other night. He was still fighting it.

He knew Malcolm would feel his heartrate rise again and he stared at Malcolm, unsure the best way to answer.

"I don't want a bedwarmer, Malcolm," he whispered. "And I don't want to hurt you." He didn't want to be hurt in return either. Raylan took a shallow breath in before he continued. "Historically speakin', I'm apparently somethin' of a mess and an asshole."

Malcolm looked confused for a moment.

"....Bedwarmer?" he questioned. He shook his head, setting that aside. "You're not an asshole," he said. "And nobody is a bigger mess than I am. And nobody here is... not a mess. All... all any of us has is the people around us here. And I like being around you. Whatever form that takes. I just... don't know where the walls are. I didn't think you could be interested in me, to be honest. And maybe I had too many feelings about it when you kissed me. But I don't want you to regret it." He pressed his lips together. "Neal kissed me the other day," he admitted. "Regretted it immediately. But we're still friends. He just. Got carried away. Is that... all that happened with us?" he asked carefully. It was an out for Raylan, if he wanted it. He got carried away in a moment. It wasn't what he wanted. Like Neal.

He wasn't going to start with 'Doc said'. What Doc said was between him and Doc.

Raylan looked down as Malcolm spoke, thumb brushing back and forth some more, for both their sakes. He knew that, with exception to him being an asshole, Malcolm was right about all these things, and it still didn't make it easier for Raylan himself. He looked up at the mention of Neal kissing Malcolm, maybe a little more interested or concerned, he couldn't tell which, in it having happened at all.

He swallowed thickly. "Malcolm, before this place, I've had exactly three romantic thoughts about another man. I am not...." He'd already talked about this with Doc, in the garage, days before, but it felt significantly harder, doing it in this order. He took a deep breath through his nose and tried again. Everything sounded terrible in his head, something too easily twisted and taken the wrong way.

"Bein' in bed with you.. And Henry-" He was a part of this, regardless of what was easiest in this already not easy at all thing. "-these aren't careless choices. I would not be here if I was not interested." He looked back up at Malcolm to put a point on those words. "I wouldn't have kissed you at the clothing shop if I didn't already know that you liked me... I don't know if that's enough to make you reconsider the ruling on my level of asshole."

"There's nothing wrong with not wanting to take a chance on rejection when you're already taking a chance on... everything you always thought about yourself," Malcolm told him reasonably. "Were you going to say you're not gay?" he asked, then added before Raylan could answer "Because sexuality isn't black and white. It's a spectrum with many shades of grey." He paused, then something occurred to him. "Is... that why the rule is only behind a door?"

"I'm not like New York. Or you or Neal or Doc," he said taking in a deep breath and letting it out, eyes somewhere down in between them. "People get beaten to death for doin' this kinda crap where I'm from. I know this ain't Harlan but.. Embracing what isn't the social norm is.."

He shook his head a little. "Not anyone's fault here. And I don't care about what people do behind their own doors. I just didn't expect to be findin' myself wanting to do the same.." He looked up again. "I don't need a therapy season or.. the world explained to me. It's not somethin' I ever considered for myself. Old habits are hard to change."

Malcolm looked a bit chastened by that.

"I wasn't trying to be your therapist, I just..."

He talked too much, was what he did. He always had to know things.

"...I was trying to be your friend," he said quietly. He thought maybe it would be some comfort, that information, but - while he was no stranger to stigma - he did not really understand Raylan's struggle.

He watched Raylan's face for a moment.

"What do you need me to do to help?" he asked gently. "Back off? ...Don't back off?"

Raylan shifted to cup Malcolm's face, with a soft 'Hey' before he could get too far down into any spiraling hole.

"Darlin', you already are my friend. No tryin' needed." No matter how conflicted he was, that was still very much the case. He cared about Malcolm and it wasn't meant to be a chistisment. Only a statement that Raylan understood how it was for everyone else. It just.. wasn't as simply put for him.

"I don't want you to back off," he continued, hand shifting a little to brush his thumb across the contour of his jawline. "And I don't want to stop kissin' you, even if its behind closed doors. I enjoy this. You. You bein' here, kissin' or not. I don't wanna lose that if I don't have to."

Darlin'.

Any pretense of guardedness that Malcolm was capable of evaporated at Raylan's reassurance and touch, leaving his eyes a little wide and his expression wide open.

He leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his mouth.

"You don't have to lose any of that," he murmured. "I... thought I said too much last night. Made you uncomfortable. An old friend of mine from school said I don't have any friends because I'm too intense."

That was it; some barrier broken, the fight given up as Raylan breathed Malcolm and the feeling of his lips on his in, he scooted closer and moved his hand from the side of Malcolm's face, fingertips dragging as they pulled away as though they were reluctant to leave, and moved it around Malcolm's waist instead.

Maybe it was weak. He didn't care. He was tired of wanting, of yearning, of fearing, of dancing. He just wanted what.. everyone else seemed to be getting here. He didn't want to be alone and lonely.

"I don't know what it was that you were sayin' you understood. Not when I'm barely keepin' up myself and I've got a front row seat to my own head. I just.. This place. I gotta take it one day at a time. We all do."

Malcolm kept insisting he was this wonderful sweet kinda man but he knew the truth of himself. One day Malcolm would see it too. Doubly so here in Mathis where they were tormented by the environment and everything else. One day he'd crack; one day Malcolm would see.

“Just... I thought I was being too intense and that you wanted things to be more... casual. That’s all. I’m not... I just wanted you to know how I felt; I’m not expecting you to marry me or something.”

Raylan was better than Raylan thought he was. Maybe he’d see.

“And I didn’t think it was even new information, after you heard me talking to Doc. I... know you think I’m idealizing you. This isn’t hero worship. Of course I appreciate everything you do for me. I know I can rely on you. But... I promise I don’t think you’re this perfect being.”

"It wasn't too intense. It wasn't new information," he assured. "That's not what I-.." He inhaled sharply again with a shake of his head. Malcolm didn't know what he thought. He didn't think it was hero worship. He thought it was someone that saw the good in as many people as he could as a mechanism to help pull them out of their specific ruts. A way to manipulate them toward doing what he wanted to in a situation.

He might be drunk, but he remembered the handbook.

"You don't know what kinda Marshal I am. And I can be as good as pie at the core, but that doesn't mean that I don't.." He stopped, mouth closing and opening again as he changed tact. "You're kinder than I am. That's all."

Malcolm couldn’t help his expression crumbling just a little at that assertion.

“You and Doc both keep telling me you’re not kind people, fundamentally. But you helped me. For, at the time? No reason. Except kindness. You know, normally, when a party guest you barely know has a psychosis in your kitchen? Most people put them on their feet and thank them for coming and make sure the door is locked behind them once they’re shown out of it.”

His hand clutched at the front of Raylan’s shirt. “But if you think I don’t understand what you are, then tell me. I want to know.”

He was a profiler, not a psychic. Raylan would have to tell him what he thought or Malcolm would never know.

He wanted to know. The problem was Raylan was, to be frank, bad at that kind of strict definition. He was human, there was the urge to be blatantly honest but doing it wasn't natural and he'd already bent himself fairly far.

Raylan's lips parted at the fisting of his shirt and his struggle at answering the question culminated in a sound from the back of his throat as he sank in, stealing Malcolm's lips up in a kiss that did not hesitate in dipping into deepness the longer it held. What was he? Needy, hungry, frustrated, devoted and loyal and too stupid to get it all out at once.

It didn't even register that he was kissing a man who was restrained to his bed, couldn't stop him if he wanted to without violence and even if it did, now it wouldn't come with the same concern as it did before. The dynamic had changed somewhere. Malcolm had more power over Raylan than most people in his life, though that was largely due to the constraints of him not being able to flee.

Malcolm wasn't interested in stopping him. The hand at his chest released the front of his shirt to slip up to his collar and grasp it there, pulling him closer even as Malcolm leaned into him, opening up to the kiss as Raylan deepened it, lingering in it... savouring it.

It was more warmth than Raylan had been able to enjoy in months, Winona or not, and he pushed his hand up under Malcolm's shirt with another helpless little throaty noise as he pushed his weight over on top of him. His now free hand slid up Malcolm's arm to his wrist, tuggin' the belt loose and free so Malcolm could have a free hand of his own.

He still didn't know what he was doing, but instinct got him a long way.

[Adult content over here.]

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028-029 » the winds of change

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