villagelogs | 037-040 » the reason for time

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037-040 » the reason for time

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias
WHEN: Day 037-040
WHAT: The dead return and the living wake to changes within Mathias Township.
WARNINGS: Some explicit sexual content in threads. (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Kammarheit "Sleep after Toyle, Port after Stormie Seas"

DAY 037
THE DEAD RETURN
“The only reason for time is so that everything
doesn't happen at once.” —Albert Einstein
The dead return to Mathias forever changed by their experiences. Waking along the beach, near the tree line, or among the graves, they will find that their bodies are not as they remember them. They are whole again and not torn to shreds by the shadow creatures that cannot be described, but they are also not as they were before the Hunt. These residents will find, so strangely, that their bodies are in the physical state in which they first arrived in Mathias — any injuries or recovery they have made since their initial arrival no longer exists, as if their time in Mathias has simply been a horrible nightmare. Except they all now carry a last reminder of the Hunt with them: spiderweb-thin healed scars marking their injuries from the Hunt. Those who were injured by fire in the other realm also carry those burns with them.

The dead are not the only things that have returned to Mathias. Inexplicably, fall is back, with the temperature finally reaching above freezing and snow falling from trees to reveal beautiful autumnal colors. As the sun rises higher in the lightly cloudy sky and the day warms, the snow begins rapidly melting, puddles growing in the slowly revealed grass and little rivers forming in the streets. And with that snow comes the frozen blood from the deaths to the Hunt, tinting the street river on Phillips Drive a sickening shade of red.

Another oddity that residents will notice: houses with broken windows from the encounter with the fog on Day 015 have now been completely repaired, though any boards put in place are still there somehow. A small bit of good news, at least? And truly, how kind of Mathias to clean up its own mess.

Finally, alcohol is back. Enjoy in moderation, friends, for more will not be arriving the following morning.

THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the beach near The Grey Gull. It's quite chilly out with their wet clothes, but surely there's something to help warm them inside the restaurant. Indeed, their timing is perfect, for alcohol has finally returned to Mathias Township — and not just the cowboys' homemade moonshine.

DAY 038-039
THE CHANGE OF SEASON
The continued warm weather proves that the unseasonable shift of the previous day was not merely a fluke. Once again, the sun rises and brings with it a temperature that feels almost spring-like, save for the fact that each day there seem to be more and more leaves on the trees in hues of red and orange. For those who have been in Mathias for some time, this new type of weird may be almost normal at this point, but newer arrivals will likely find it quite odd.

The gently trickling river running along Phillips Drive is still somewhat pink in color as the snow continues to melt and refreeze each night. By Day 040, the bloody snow will finally be gone completely, though the relief will be... short-lived.

DAY 040
THE BLINDING WHITE
In the late morning of Day 040, when the sun is visible through patchy greyish clouds, the fog sweeps into town like a like a tidal wave. It moves in quickly and without warning, not from the waterfront but the forest, cascading through every street in a thick wave of white. Rather than a soft blanket enveloping the town, it is a heavy weight pressing down, blotting out the sky in a way that almost feels suffocating, for none can see further than their outstretch hand.

Those outside when it rolls in are left wandering blind, stumbling toward shelter as you're unable to even see your feet beneath you, let alone any obstacles in your path. Perhaps you call out for help, hoping for another voice to guide you toward shelter or simply another living soul. Or perhaps you were lucky enough to already be inside when the fog descended, quickly closing doors and windows to keep it from creeping in.

Unlike the last time the fog swept into the town, residents who encounter it are not immediately killed. Instead, they are simply disoriented, possibly losing their sense of time and place, and it is only after prolonged exposure that they will begin to feel off. A sense of being ill will cling to them if they are in the fog for too long, including dizziness, lightheadedness, or nausea — the time it takes to manifest varies from person to person, as does the duration it will last after leaving the fog.

By nightfall, the fog still has not dissipated.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER conditions are fairly typical for late fall: chilly "sweater weather" days and nights that can dip just below freezing. You don't want to be outside without a coat, but it won't kill anyone if they bundle up. Probably.

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the western section of town, beginning just past Hill Lane, before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be between Hill and Stine Road. Venturing into the fog blocking these areas is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue. Castiel and Sam Winchester have vanished, and Dean Winchester has not returned with the others after his death during the Hunt.

— THE GRAVEYARD has now seen around a dozen burials, both below and above ground. With the weather warming, though, something may need to be done about the handful of temporary graves aboveground...

— ALCOHOL has returned to Mathias! A small stock of beer and cheap wine may be found at the General Store, and some homes may have a small store of alcohol in the fridge or pantry. The Grey Gull has also been restocked with its lower-end offerings of a variety of alcohol types. Alcohol does not replenish in the same way as food.

— THE GREY GULL has been cleaned up and stocked with moonshine. Along with the newly restocked usual offerings, the place almost seems like an actual bar again.

— THE GENERAL STORE is in a bit of a state following the brutal slaughter of two residents during the Hunt. Cleanup on aisle 3, anyone?

OOC NOTES

— FOOD is now being mysteriously restocked as per usual, including inside homes and at the General Store. Alcohol is not being restocked. Use those rationing skills, friends.

— REWARD REDEPEMPTION is back and will soon have a new option for anyone looking to spend big AP and learn a bit more of the lore of the town.

— MADNESSES due to the Hunt have been earned by Klaus Hargreeves, Ellie, and Malcolm Bright and may now be claimed. Players may also claim additional sanity loss from the aftermath of the Hunt; only losses from the Hunt itself have been deducted from totals thus far.

— SANITY REGAIN is now available! Players will submit a form with some details of the progress their character has made and the mod will review and decide on the numbers of points that will be regained.

— MOD STATUS The usual reminder that it's mostly just Amy steering this ship for now, so things will probably be pretty slow for a while. Apologies in advance, and please don't feel shy about pinging me if you're stuck waiting for something.

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Malcolm wasn’t asleep.

He saw the door open. Saw Raylan deposit the hat right where Malcolm had kept it in his absence. Saw the unsteadiness in his steps. Saw his form in the dark as he made his way to the floor bed.

“You can sleep up here,” he offered into the dark.

A long silent moment stretched out before Raylan almost shamefully kicked off his boots and crawled up into the bed, a leg and an arm tangling across Malcolm. With a deep breath that breathed Malcolm's scent in, Raylan sank into the bed. He'd slept in one since coming back but any chance to soak in the smallest indulgence. He pressed his lips into Malcom's shoulder before speaking.

"Sorry I'm late," he murmured huskily. "Figured you'd be asleep by now. Why're you still awake?"

He set his hand on Raylan’s arm, almost clutching it.

There was a long silence, then finally he admitted barely above a whisper “I wanted to see.... someone. I didn’t know who would come, but I didn’t want to go to sleep by myself.”

He looked at Raylan, barely able to make out the sharp lines of his face in the dark.

“Is Doc mad at me?”

The arm around Malcom tightened as Raylan turned his head to rest on Malcolm's shoulder. "Told 'em I'd take the next few nights. Let 'em rest." Right now it seemed like nothing, whatever kindness it might have been in the sober world.

Foolishly, his buzzed self had assumed that Malcolm was already on the train to sleep town. He was incorrect.

"No," Raylan assured softly, thumb brushing back and forth over Malcolm forearm. "He's just not a talker. You are. Different breeds." If he was of sounder mind, he'd have stopped himself. It reeked of Dog Show terms, even if he fell right into the same class as Henry. "You want to talk everything through. He doesn't. It's not how he works." How they worked.

"Just give him some space. He'll be okay. Past few days been hard on all of us."

Malcolm nodded, curling into Raylan’s touch.

“He’s overwhelmed. Even before what happened to you... you’ve seen the hole in 1307 right? Just... find out how we can help him. I got it wrong. I feel like... he’s reluctant to confide in me now.” He tilted his head to look at Raylan. “Thank you for coming, though. I’m glad you’re here. Relieved.”

He’d truly been hoping it would be Raylan.

"Men like us, sometimes you gotta withstand a damage, that's all. Better it get taken out on the walls then you or Neal or any of our relationships here." He'd asked a few questions, but he knew not to push Doc too far in any one direction if he wanted to get answers and not stonewalled.

Everyone was a little overwhelmed; nothing was fixed in a day, but little steps would get them there, eventually. Doc and Raylan wouldn't let themselves be put above anyone else in that department, no matter what they were suffering.

Raylan shifted his head up on the pillow to meet that thanks and hummed softly in return. "You worried I wasn't comin' home too?"

Malcolm pressed a kiss to his cheekbone.

"When you were dead, I was worried you wouldn't come back. After yesterday afternoon... I knew you'd come home. Eventually. I didn't know if you'd come straight back to night shift. You didn't after the tunnels. I thought maybe you'd need more time."

The hand over Malcolm tightened in response to the kiss, his body curling into the smaller man as much as it could, given the restraints and their position.

"Who coulda guess that we would. Feels... arbitrary. Like we were picked but people like John. Or Dean. He hasn't come back." Talking about that felt easier than talking about the walls closing in, like doing so might trigger another onset. But he knew he had to give Malcolm something or risk him getting 20 questions til he did.

"More to do with the room than anythin' else." Malcolm may or may not have noticed the way Raylan moved through the living room now, when the fireplace was lit, putting his shoulder nearest the furthest wall like a blind rat working a maze. "And I know nightmares are comin' but I can't stay up much longer without at least a few hours.. If I get a few hours." He huffed a breath, lips turning back down to Malcolm's shoulder. "Got more company than you expect on that train."

"I'll be here when it happens," Malcolm murmured, his hand clutching the front of Raylan's shirt. "Close your eyes," he urged gently. He gave him a gentle kiss. "Trust me."

He trusted Raylan in the night, when he knew they were coming.

That was the trap of sleep wasn't it. The guard that was let down, the slump that his vigilance took in favor of any respite, but the comfort of sleep was too much to resist and Raylan was too tired to fight it forever, no matter the consequences. Little did he know how bad that particular feeling could get here.

He did as he was told, giving up that trust, fairly confident that it wasn't misplaced and that he wouldn't suffer more for it. It took him a few minutes to sink under, but he sank hard, drifting off quickly.

Two hours later, Raylan was sweating in the bed, on his back, twitching as he ran from a fire he couldn't escape. Just like the night before, whimpers broke from his throat as the flame wrapped around him, burning his flesh inch by inch, flooding his nose with the smell of himself - Wouldn't Will find it funny that some part of Raylan wondered if sauce would change the smell? - and Raylan woke up with a sharp yelp in a cold drenched sweat, scrambling to push himself up to a sitting position, like he could run from the fire consuming him. His heavy breathing seemed to echo in the room around him and while he couldn't see any fire licking at him now, the feeling of that echoed with a legitimate pain that he wasn't sure he was going to get used to, no matter how much time was given.

The movement woke Malcolm from his light dozing and by the time Raylan sat up, he’d slipped his restraints to wrap his arms around the marshal’s shoulders.

“It’s over,” he murmured.

The blankets had to be kicked off, a hand running down his legs as he swung them out and to the floor. He was frantically unaware of Malcolm's arms until he'd settled in his turn, head hung as he tried to force himself to believe the reality of him not being on fire. His shoulders shuddered unevenly with the panic in his breath, but with a few deep breaths, started to slow.

"Sorry," he muttered, knowing it wasn't needed or necessary but finding himself saying it anyway.

"Why?" Malcolm asked, setting his chin on Raylan's shoulder, not stopping him from moving but following the movement. "You don't think I should be sorry and I'm... considerably louder and more violent."

He canted his head slightly, to see Raylan's profile.

"What did you see?"

Raylan just shook his head, running a hand through his hair before letting his hand drop back between his knees. He couldn't answer that question. Seemed the thing to say. An apology for a weakness he wasn't used to bearing.

"I-.. It was crawlin' up my legs.. It didn't move like real fire, Malcolm, it.. jumped for no reason, Eatin' me-" He inhaled sharply, almost swallowing the word 'alive' with the gulp of air.

"I can't get the smell of me outta my nose," he muttered.

The smell? ...Oh. The smell. Of burning flesh. He'd smelled it before. It was acrid.

He pressed a gentle kiss to Raylan's shoulder.

"That's horrible. That's a horrible thing to have to suffer."

Was he ready to talk about it or would asking make him leave?

"How did it happen?"

He decided to chance it.

Raylan couldn't really hug Malcolm back, but his back pressed into him like it would be enough to wrap all the way around him and sink in. Though considering how sweaty he was, that might not have been the best idea.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, just fiddled with the horseshoe ring on his finger as he debated reliving it but the truth was, he wanted to tell someone. To tell Malcolm, to get it off his chest and hopefully out of his head without being judged. It was stupid to think that way and he knew it - he knew it wasn't his fault that he died, and that there was nothing he could have done differently. That didn't make anything better, just gave him more feeling to store in his colon until it turned cancerous.

"A storm," he stared quietly after a long second. "I don't know how long we were there but the sky was... angry. Left that tight scent of rain on the air, a tension that tells you somethin's comin'.. So I booked it back towards the town. Didn't.. didn't want to get stuck in the trees in the dark." He rubbed his face and leaned back into Malcolm's weight more freely.

"It started because of lightening. Struck the town hall first, it looked like and then.." He exhaled the breath it felt like he'd been holding, despite the fact that he'd been breathing smoothly. "I wasn't concerned about it gettin' me. I know how to not run into burnin' buildings or stand next to 'em when they're collapsing. Just concerned about gettin' to the beach, and gettin everyone in the way there too.. I didn't stop..

"But it got me anyway. Jumped... jumped off a buildin' and onto my leg. I tried to use the snow to damp it out but it just.. spread." He turned his hands out in front of him, half expecting to see the burns he felt there. "I felt all of it. I couldn't get it off me, I couldn't.. call for help, I could only... scream.. Last thing I saw was Neal runnin' up.. Couldn't tell if he was screaming to or if it was just me.."

His hands dropped into his lap and continued in a small voice. "Did everythin' I was supposed to - this wasn't supposed to happen. Shouldn'ta happened." That was another faucet of all this. It shouldn't have happened and while that fit Mathis's rules, it was a break in his that the bend couldn't cover.

Malcolm shifted around to straddle Raylan's lap, arms resting loosely around his neck, so he could look him in the face.

"Cruelty for the sake of cruelty," he said softly. "Torture for the fun of it. This place is a sadist."

He reached up and pushed Raylan's bangs back from his face, fingers threading through his hair.

"The things that got you... I talked to some people. John Carter... he said he saw one and he can't describe it. Like it was there and not there. That wasn't a fight. It was a massacre. If the fire was like the creatures... they never meant to give you a chance. Maybe a sort of hopelessness is what they want you to feel."

He was taken without argument, one hand settling around Malcolm's weight as one came back to rest on the bed and help hold all his weight up. Malcolm was right, no matter which way Raylan looked at it. Some part of him hoped that he could find someone to blame it all on. A choice to be punished instead of what felt like arbitrary, almost animalistic hunger for them.

Raylan sighed heavily, eyes closing for a few seconds at the hand through his hair as his own tightened around Malcolm in return. "Another John, hmm? Now all we need is a Dick and a Harry."

It was a lame joke, but something, anything to keep him from bobbing under the water level too far. "I still don't know if it was really there. I.. saw it.. before I died but.." He shook his head. Any details that he did have, he couldn't pull up right now. Of course, Raylan blamed that on how much he was trying to process instead of any effect of Mathis directly.

"Maybe you're right. I don't know how to stop it though. Not like this." It left them nothing to hold onto.

"What if you don't stop it?" Malcolm suggested quietly, stroking his fingers through Raylan's hair again because it seemed to help him. "What if you let yourself feel it so you can move through it to the other side?" Another stroke through his hair. "I've been in therapy for a long time and one thing I can tell you is that when your feelings are too big and too much, stopping them is like trying to stop a tsunami by standing on the beach and holding up your hand. Sometimes you just have to... let it pull you under for a moment so you can find the surface and get your head above the water again."

It did help, though Raylan couldn't say why. Narration would argue it was because he was only ever this hopeless around his mother and Malcolm's question sunk Raylan back to the last time he'd felt this helpless all the goddamned time. Ironically, with his mother, ten years old, waiting for a drunk furious Arlo to turn his attentions onto his son.

Raylan's jaw worked as he inhaled through his nose, eyes still downcast on a nebulous nowhere, answering the only way he felt he could. "Can't go back to feelin' like that. Not ever again. Got responsibilities. Expectations."

A man like Raylan? If he were to give up to hopelessness, it wouldn't be a short slip and that alone made it feel more consequential. When people looked to you and leaned on you, hopelessness would get them all killed. He couldn't shoulder that guilt as well for having invited it.

"Back to?" Malcolm questioned softly, continuing to stroke his hair. "When did it happen before?"

The next breath he took was a steading one and he reached up to stop Malcolm's hand, slowly pulling it down so that he could wrap their fingers around each other's. He couldn't handle that kind of tenderness in the face of everything that Arlo is. Couldn't handle thinking about what Arlo would say if he really knew what Raylan was doing with his free time.

"I suppose I haven't gotten around to really tellin' you about Arlo. Tonight ain't really the best but.. Apparently, my timin' is shit all over the place. I was born after he came back from 'Nam, so I never knew what he was like before but growin' up.. Arlo drank like nothin' else. More than I ever could - Dedicated day drinkin'.. Sit up at the Veteran's bar two counties over til a buddy or a sheriff brought him home. Least til I was big enough to reach the pedals and drive. Then he had me wait outside after school. Can't say when he started beatin' on my mama, Frances. Maybe he always had, I dunno. But by the time I was about nine, ten years old.. I knew there wasn't any mercy or love in that man's heart. He'll say now that he loved Frances but.." Raylan shook his head a little, lips turning down in a faint, passing frown.

"The way he laid into her.. And when he was done layin' into her, he laid into me. What started as belts and spoons turned into full hands and fists.. There was no sayin' the right thing or doin' the right thing. One way or the other, he was gonna get'cha.. Didn't even matter if I was already in bed, listenin' to the fight downstairs." There was no escaping Arlo Givens, not in that big empty house with a mile and a half of nothing around.

Finally, he turned his eyes back up to Malcolm's, clear but resolute. "I can't go back to livin' like that. Not even for a moment."

Edited 2021-03-07 22:04 (UTC)

Abusive father. He'd called that. But the story was so much worse than the label; it always was.

"Most victims of child abuse become abusers. It's extraordinary that you choose kindness. It's rare," he murmured. "You regret that you couldn't protect her," he surmised. "You were a child. It was their job to protect you. He failed. Not you."

If only Malcolm knew how Raylan treated the criminals he dealt with. He wouldn't call it abuse on it's face but Raylan knew where it stemmed from.

"Not too many people back home would agree with that statement. Me choosin' kindness. Then again, this feels like the longest I've gone without shootin' someone." Another gold mine of self-aware analysis that Raylan was NOT going to go into.

"I tried to stop him, a few times. But he wasn't the only one. Men who came lookin' for him treated us much the same. She tried. Wasn't her fault. And him? He's more worthless than a piece of shit. Can't say I don't feel a similar way about Mathis. What she's doin' to me. Us, collectively. I give up the last bits of my hope Malcolm and this place.. she's gonna destroy me."

Madness isn't what he wanted but he knew that there were always so many possibilities.

“You chose a profession where you protect the powerless from the violent,” Malcolm pointed out. “Maybe you’re not so kind to the violent; I never said you were a pacifist. But you don’t blame the powerless for what the violent do to them. Abusers do. He told you it was your fault he beat you, right? That you made him? He told her the same thing, right?”

037-040 » the reason for time

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