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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"Are the two of you really going to turn the Grey Gull into a saloon? I suppose bartendin' might teach you some manners," Doc muses with a crooked smile. There would have to be some rules or Raylan would have to drag his drunk ass out and throw him out with the trash every night.

Pursing his lips and nodding a few times in the dark, Doc indicates with a grunt that he had heard of Tom Petty and the Eagles and he approves, even though Raylan can't see him nodding.

"No. I had a walk around when I first saw the place, but. Wouldn't know what to look for. Maybe you have to take me there sometime." Making plans after they get out, like it's assumed there will be an 'after'. It's helping to calm his nerves and settle him. Even if Raylan is planning on messing with him with Nicki Minaj or something horrendous.

"Been a while since someone has taken me out." For a date, he means, not out back and getting shot.

"Hey, I got manners," he argued almost playfully. "But yeah. Gives me somethin' to do. Gives him something to do. I've been in enough bars, even tended one for some extra cash through collage." He'd slung a few bottles and learned how to best swing that Southern charm and smile.

Raylan huffed a half a laugh, head rolling back against the stone.

"Let me cook you dinner first and we can call it a date. We can stop by the clothin' store, goin' on a shoppin' spree. Find an extra pack of smokes or somethin' for dessert."

"Sounds like we might need another tub," Doc muses. Maybe even break out those packets of frozen berries to make gin. They have time travellers and magicians, they shouldn't need to wait the full time it would take to age their alcohol.

It would be the ultimate hipster move that neither of them would understand enough to find amusing, to take a fellow hat out on a date and pick up some clothes, visit a record store, have dessert. Even if Doc might warily stare and scowl and have a short rant about cheesecake. Why would anyone do that to cheese?

"Well. At least you're not taking me for a cheap whore you can solicit in the latrine." That was a jab at Negan, and even though Negan isn't here to appreciate it, he imagines that Raylan would after everything he had mentioned this morning. "I would gladly accept your offer."

"Could always steal one," Raylan suggested. "I'd say we could hunt out a house with more room nearby but I like bein' right next door to it." For various reasons, only some of them safety.

Of course, Raylan was using the term 'date' in the loosest possible term, more akin to lunch date on a calendar than flowers and wine. He'd try not to notice all they were missing was the proverbial flowers, since their near nightly drinking sessions checked off the 'wine' box. Don't worry Doc, he's more an ice cream man. Something creamy to lick.

Raylan lifted his eyebrows, amused at the jab, craw filled with yet another probably annoying question, and opted for something significantly more neutral for the moment.

"That mean you're gonna be less than an arms length away at some point?" He wouldn't note the time - day, night, hours; the sense of it hadn't started stretching yet. All he knew was that the darkness made distance nebulous and far reaching in a way that was starting to scratch at his nerves. "Since you're gladly acceptin' offers an all."

Doc samples the goods on the regular before they even make it to the final phase of being bottled up, placed in the crate and brought back over to 1306. He knows of these various other reasons.

"That depends. You gonna hit me in a way I do not enjoy?" Doc teases back, finding the tension that sat awkwardly between them, drawing an outline neatly around it and cutting it out with the precision required to work a scalpel. It brings some light to the elephant in the underground chamber without focusing too much upon it.

Doc shuffles in closer until he bumps his knee against Raylan's and the outer edge of their boots thud against each other's. Sitting with the sides of their butts touching is probably too close, so there's still a sliver of space between them.

"Might get colder than this, later." Doc doesn't want to quantify how much later. But they'll probably know when the temperature drops in the middle of the night.

He knew they were joking. That they were circling something else all together but the idea of hitting on Doc in a 'way he didn't enjoy', slingshoted him back home. Back to Arlo. Back to the angry abusive man he was trying in all his power to not become. Doc having sat outside of arm's reach was its own statement that he felt directly reflected on his break in temper.

But the darkness's yawning reach snapped back like a rubber band at the casual bump of their knees and boots. It was grounding - someone he knew was alive and real and here, not whatever crawled up out from the back of his head. It made breathing a little easier and a little less hard to draw.

"Might have to get close and share this coat of yours then. Or trade it off. Latent body heat and all.." He shuffled deeper into the coat like he could stock up on the warmth of it and chewed over whether he should reassure Doc that he wasn't that kind of puncher, or if it was pathetic and pointless to clarify what kind of man he was. Wanted to be. "Or we walk back and forth til we're tired or hot, one of the two."

"Mmm. You would just get hungry sooner." There's no real need to run around moaning and wailing reciting a dramatic soliloquy asking why God had forsaken them until they're all out of gas. Sitting next to each other will suffice.

"This would do me fine, just sitting here." Raylan... hadn't been terribly opposed to sharing a bed with him before. They can... huddle. Hopefully without too many comments. If it's between something clawing in the roof or under the floorboard trying to get to them, or this kind of relative silence save for their breathing, talking and clothes shuffling, he would much prefer this.

"Think you'd be able to get some sleep?" Maybe they wouldn't be able to hear Malcolm screaming from down here.

"I ate dinner; I'll be fine." You work enough 3 day stake outs, you get used to a little hunger. Still it would have taken energy that Raylan didn't have loaded up. "But this is better, for now."

He couldn't help but huff half a laugh at the question, looking over at where he knew Doc's face was. "No way in hell. Do you?" If Doc said yes, Raylan would be shocked.

Of course, after enough hours and enough silence and enough contact, Raylan would inevitably dose, but any actual sleep was off the table completely. It wasn't in his nature to sleep underground or in caves. There was too much that could happen down here. Too much that could happen above them. What if someone did come looking for them? He couldn't stomach the idea of missing the opportunity to get out because of some shut eye.

"Not yet. I am worried, about Malcolm." And yes, their predicament also. That should go without saying. But what if they could hear Malcolm screaming from down here and he just ends up screaming without anyone to help him? It would be a new kind of torture he would not wish to be put through. Malcolm should be fine with Neal and Negan around. But he doesn't trust them to the same level as he trusts Raylan. Not yet, anyway.

He doesn't know how well this place would be able to sustain a string of aftershocks, either. But he doesn't want to say that aloud, not wanting to breathe life to an idea that might also keep Raylan unnecessarily preoccupied, worried, and on high alert.

"Once he's settled and nothing comes to get us, I might consider it." Or just pass out here from sheer exhaustion before that. That would work too.

"That what you do? Stuck in near a life or death situation." He shook his head, eyes finding more nothing to focus out on. "He'll be okay. Not as good as if we were up there but.. Neal will handle him if Negan doesn't. And he's been doin' this for twenty somethin' years. He's capable, however... tortured. I think this is the one time he'd be fine with us not worryin' about him."

Raylan cared about Malcolm but he couldn't extract himself enough from his current situation and his own survival worries to spare some for the New Yorker. He didn't know what that made him - hard, cruel maybe.

"If we can hear him down here, I'll be very surprised," he ended quietly. "Maybe that means they won't hear us either, no matter how much we scream." Unnecessary preoccupation was the name of the game down here and Raylan was already deep in the hand of it.

"I... it doesn't bother me, dying here. I would rather something come gushing out that passage to finish me off than sit here for a hundred days listening to you suffer." Is that selfish? Maybe. But it's part of why he hates watching Malcolm just... deteriorate. It seems cruel. Or maybe Doc just has the privilege of not worrying about death in the same way as anyone else.

"I'm not sure thinking about myself would get us anywhere." He's had plenty of time to think about himself in the past. It didn't lead to anywhere nice. It wouldn't help them get out of here.

"It helps to think about others. About you, perhaps."

It wasn't selfish. Raylan didn't begrudge him that, not with Klaus's grief still echoing in his ear. Grief and death weren't terribly far off from each other in sound sometimes. Neither was pain. He knew the howl of a man that had caught a fresh bullet in tender meats.

"It bothers me," he admitted freely. "Hell, it bothers me that we ain't moving but logically, I know it's because the statistics say that you're better off stayin' put. Only god knows what's in these tunnels anyway. It'd be safer to go with a group." That was about all the talking about himself he could freely offer without a little pushing. If push came to shove, Raylan would rather die getting lost in the tunnels than die sitting here with his thumb up his ass. Thankfully, they hadn't gotten to that juncture yet.

"Thinkin' about you might, Mr Immortal Man. You've got the advantage here. Unless being down under that long kills the urge to survivalism. Somehow, I doubt it and even if you said it did, I wouldn't believe you. Worried about Malcolm; would you be content to sit here knowin' that there might be a door just that way that would get you back up top and tendin' to him?"

"What statistics?" They didn't really talk about those back in the day. Just words of wisdom passed down from the previous generation that taught them how to do some basic tracking and told them to stay put if they ever got lost out in the woods, that kind of thing.

"We can go take a look, if it would put your mind at ease, but. I do not think there's a door." Doc might have a kind of persistence and resilience that has seen him live this long, but. He also has a kind of learnt helplessness after being trapped underground for so long. He had spent weeks, maybe even months, combing around for an escape route. He even tried starting to dig upwards to climb a way out with just his knife and his bare hands.

"Would be nice if they'd built a natural sort of way out. Maybe it's in one of the routes we haven't explored yet." They might get lost but. Honestly Doc is worried about Raylan losing his shit at a dead end. This place doesn't exactly exude calming energy.

"Not until we have to." Not until they were sure that Malcolm and Neal and even possibly Negan weren't coming to look for them. The idea had settled somewhere and was sitting on a knife's edge, propped up a fraction of hope that he still had left. Then they could go off to their deaths. Doc could even walk back and let the Marshal die out there alone in the dark.

All the better to spare you the trouble, my dear. Even he wasn't looking forward to resolving himself to that kind of end. He'd had other plans on how to go. This wasn't in them.

"Enough people have gone missing and enough brains have been thrown at it that over a very large number of cases, they look at success and fail rates. Tells them what paths of action are more likely to end in rescue or death. If someone's missing more than 48 hours, the chances of them being dead go up by 23 percent." He rattled of more - the rate of people likely to own a gun and get shot by it on accident, the number of people that successfully are rescued or escape from kidnapping. For a guy who didn't say much, he wasn't dumb or shy about it. Just not as loud as others.

Doc could worry about Raylan's temper as much as he wanted - there wasn't a chance in hell that Raylan could trust himself to let that can vent even the slightest without devastating consequences to his relationship with Henry. Not after that. He hated the idea that he made anyone feel the way he did when he was eight and Arlo was drunk and ranting. It had never mattered what it was. It was never really anyone's fault but Arlo's fury never cared, doubling down on his son when his wife ran into Noble's holler to let Raylan take the brunt of it.

Edited 2021-02-13 04:23 (UTC)

Well Doc wouldn't be a gambling man if he put as much stock into statistics as he probably ought to. But hey, he understands how it works in a pack of cards. He'd prefer not going too far anyway so if it makes sense for them to stick around for a while, that works out better for him.

"As long as those odds are greater than zero. I like them." He reaches over in the dark to give Raylan's forearm a reassuring squeeze. He wouldn't lie to his face and tell him everything's going to be fine. But he would at least reassure him that he's here for as long as he can be.

"If the Earth shakes again, we ought not to stay. We'd be in more trouble under a pile of bricks."

Raylan took a deep breath at the hand on his forearm, head rolling back as he closed his eyes and tried not to give into everything churning in his chest. He wasn't good at being afraid, he had tools for that and when those tools were turned bluntly moot and useless, he floundered. He'd never had to flounder the way Mathis was forcing him to.

"I don't wanna die down here, Henry," he admitted quietly, though it seemed like no matter how quiet he tried to speak, the tunnels echoed it and made it larger. Too large to pretend that he hadn't said it. "I'm supposed to catch a bullet, not die in a mine - this isn't Harlan." He hated feeling like he was back home.

It wasn't fair and if his temper couldn't break a little, this had to.

"Tell you what, son. I find a bullet 'round here, I'd save it for puttin' you down." No, this isn't as bad as getting stuck alone, after all. Even if neither of them are keeping their shit together. They don't have to talk about this after they get out - and they've both got out before; they can do so again - so they can say whatever's on their mind and have the decency to just put the lid back on everything once it's safe to.

"Used to think the same thing, y'know. Wanted to die with six holes in my chest, not. God damn tuberculosis." He's not sure it was such a good idea after all, being so insistent and stubborn trying to get his way. Didn't exactly get him anywhere good.

"We're going to die trying to get out. We will not die sitting right here and right now." So while right here and right now stretches out and lasts them a while, they should be okay.

"Well I'd thank you for that if you didn't call me son," he huffed before sighing. He wasn't offended or ruffled in any way but he was a Givens for better or worse and while he might have sorta almost adopted Art as a semi-surrogate, that was by accident. "But if you got a bullet, I got one so let's do each other a favor and not test that draw. I don't miss."

And he had no plans on going around killing his friends.

"Can't imagine that was easy to come to terms with." Nor what surely happened to Doc while he was sick, keeping him from doing everything he was used to, sapping his strength. "TB was a plague. Hell, we weren't able to really treat or cure it til the 1950's."

He took another uneven breath. "Sitting here for a while will be okay. Later will come later."

A beat passed. "I don't particularly want to die gettin' shot, you know. But if it's gonna happen, me dyin', that's how it's gonna be, as many barrels I end up starin' down. That part stopped botherin' me when I was fifteen. And I can't say somethin' in me doesn't enjoy drawin' down on people stupid enough to take it on."

It'll be a while yet before Doc can unlearn his 'darling's and 'son's. It may be unlikely that he would be able to drop those terms completely.

"Bah. Don't tell me that, Raylan," Doc whines, giving Raylan a friendly elbow nudge. Sometimes it's better not to know that they missed out on a cure by a hundred years. He would have given anything if he could have saved his mother.

Sometimes Raylan reminds him too much of himself. It has him falling quiet, musing their mortality, the way they have lived their lives, the choices they had made.

"It's gonna happen one day. That still how you wanna go when you're eighty? And what about your- your ex and your little one?"

Raylan would take the darlin's. 'Son's was different. He didn't want to be Doc's 'son'. What he did want hadn't been given breath and would remain where it was unless some other sign was given. Far be it from Raylan to go out there and take any chances.

He huffed another half laugh and scooted a fraction closer so that their shoulders almost brushed against each other.

"Why not? It's progress. No one else has to suffer. Thought you woulda been kicking heels at that." But he could understand why not. The 'why not me' question tended to be a prevalent one.

"When I'm eighty? No, by then I'll be glad to die old and warm in my bed. But Winona is her own woman and Willa will be too, I'm sure. Once she's 18.." He sighed. "That's it. What I want, what I think won't matter anymore. She'll be off, livin' her own life."

A good thing, over all. A sad one too, from a fathers perspective.

"That still how you wanna go?"

"No, you're right. But a lot of people who didn't have to die already had, by then. Seems like a damn shame." He turns towards Raylan at the sudden shoulder bump but doesn't pass any comments. Maybe Raylan wouldn't mind if he just- turned, a bit. And rest some of his back against his shoulder. He is slightly more meaty and comfortable than the wall.

"I'm not sure about how I'm going. Dying old and warm in my bed was never in the cards for me. Best I can hope for is an honourable man who loved me enough to put me down, clean shot between the eyes." He breathes out a sigh, running his fingertip over the rim of his hat. "Or woman. I ain't fussy that way. Hell if it was an Earp girl who'd do it, that'd be even better. At least she'd only be sad for two seconds and just get the hell on with it. I ain't nothing worth loving or mourning over."

"S'the way it goes," he said, in a it is what it is kinda tone. "Can't do nothin' for those people, just save those who we can."

No, no he didn't mind the adjustment at all. It was more content, more grounding, more.. Doc. He couldn't argue that it was comforting in its own right, even if Doc's hat was it's own barrier.

"Well, hows about if I ever have a spare bullet that you need." How romantic, a murder pact. He smirked. What a strange promise to make someone else.

"But you're wrong about that last part. You're plenty worth lovin' and mournin' over, you just spent so long not knowin' any different that you accept it as the way it is. Most people wouldn't care for people like Malcolm. And I seen the way you go around takin' care of everyone else. How you think that's not gonna earn you some fond feelings."

"Not if I kill you first. Don't want you living with it." If that isn't worth loving and mourning him over for, then surely nothing else would be. Maybe this is how cowboys flirt. Sitting in the dark with their fingertips in the dirt not knowing that they are so close they are a hair's width away from practically holding hands, promising to put each other down while they still think themselves as good men.

Doc's hat will make its way mysteriously into Raylan's lap. He still smells like Malcolm's nice shampoo, despite the cigarettes' best efforts to get into all his clothes and weave into his hair.

"It's about as barren as the sky was when we first got here," Doc comments when he tips his head back and gazes upon the roof of the tunnel, bumping his head lightly against Raylan's. He lets his head roll to the side until his temple and forehead grazes against the wall. Not even a faint stream of light from the buildings above them between the cracks in the floorboards or nothing.

"Used to be I always knew where I was going. We'd lie on the side of a dirt road and Wyatt made sure I knew every single star in the sky. Didn't need no angry Siri lady recalculatin' and hollerin' all the time. I 'on't know where all the stars went anymore. Hell I 'on't know anything anymore."

"Guess we'll have to see, huh?" He'd lived with putting enough people down that he was sure he'd find a way if he had to. More drinking, if nothing else, to burn out whatever guilt and morality he might have left around it. He'd never put down a friend but sadly, he knew he'd be able to do it if he had to and he was skilled enough to be fairly sure he'd win in a draw down between them.

He couldn't help but consider it all as Doc's hat settles in his lap, the mixing scents of the shampoo they all use wafting up at him. It was better than then damp of the tunnel, even if it made him want to sink into both the scent and the man it came with. Turning his head a little, mindful to not bury his nose into Doc's hair like a fucking weirdo, he hummed a quiet note of acknowledgment.

"That's the way it is out in Harlan, stars aside. No technology knows how to get around or where it's at. They can't send cars up there and they're too scared to send people.." Hill folk and the stories that came with them and all. "There bein' no stars here freaks me out. Wasn't no dirt road and I can't name 'em but I used to lay out in a field and stare at 'em. Think about the astronauts.." He took another deep breath before turning his head back towards Doc's. "Nobody knows nothin' here. About the only place where it might be half okay to be that way." It was okay to not know, so long as he had the intestinal fortitude to keep trying, despite that. "Ya know, a little shift here and you wouldn't have to have my shoulder in between your back."

It just seemed like it might be better for both of them if Doc.. just sat between Raylan's legs and leaned against him. Save them both from most discomforts, the cold of the stone being one of them.

"The what?" Doc had missed the space race. Moon landing. JFK. These are topics that don't come up in conversation in Purgatory.

He straightens up a bit to give Raylan some space and a few seconds to adjust, and while he can't really see shit down here even though he has had plenty of time to get used to seeing in the dark, he waits for the sound of the shuffling to stop before he carefully lowers his back again. His hat ends up in his own lap and he is happy to fiddle with it while he makes himself comfortable, one leg bent with a forearm on his knee and the other leg outstretched like they based novels and shows after his poses.

"Nothing really changes whether you're in Harlan, Purgatory, Mathias, if it's 1879 or 1979 or who the hell knows what the numbers are," Doc concludes with a wistful sigh, plucking between his fingers and thumb a few invisible thoughts off of the brim of his hat. "The only time you can be comfortable with somebody is if you've had so much to drink you don't give a shit. Or if you're alone in the dark." Like they had been, in the master bedroom.

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cw:child abuse

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