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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He nods a little. “Yeah... he agrees quietly. He gets it. His intermittent bouts of sleep through the last three decades had never been exactly great either, but this place really did thrust some shit onto them. Subconsciously, his fingers stray up to the faint scar peeking up out of collar along one side of his neck. Instead of tracing the reminder of his own brutal death, he lets his fingers slide of the chain that hangs, ever-present against his neck, never quite sliding down to the tags at the end of it.

He thinks managing isn’t going to get any of them very far, but he still feels the same now as he had when he was talking to Malcolm: he still wants to do that group therapy thing, but he’s nowhere near the right space to be able to do it, now. He’s a little at a loss.

And alcohol, the good kind or the home brew, is such an easy way to pretend he can forget. “Too bad it’s not, we could have used a little more of it around here.”

Group Therapy, however well intentioned, wasn't a place that they'd find Raylan willingly. He'd made strides here in saying a little more than he had back home, largely in part to the fact that he felt they were ragdolls here, to be kicked and moved around like sentient marionette puppets. Trapped and forced to keep moving.

Raylan can't help but glance at the dog tags before putting his face in his cup. At least Dave got the easy way out, didn't he.

"How many more nights we gotta blunt until they stop," Raylan muttered on the topic of drinking before shaking his head and shifting away from the counter, still antsy and restless with nothing to do. "I got a feelin' our livers are in a race with Mathis but I'm not really sure that matters anymore," he replied properly, the casual cadence back in full lighthearted force despite the words coming out of his mouth.

As long as he could keep doing that, he'd be fine.

The trick was going to be to, well, trick them all into it, see. He and Malcolm had it all worked out. And then Mathias happened and it stole all his will for it, for the time being.

"Probably not," he mutters sadly, but a smirk takes over a second later. "But you got awhile to catch up to me, my liver's been in this race for over half my life, buddy." He winks and sits at the cup in front of him.

He recognizes the antsy movement, he's prone to it himself. "Wanna go for a walk?" They could walk and talk at the same time, and movement was better than inactivity at times, even if the movement didn't have much in way of a purpose.

"Pretty sure that I'm older than you by fifteen years and that's when I started drinkin' on the side.. Sometimes," he granted with a little bob of his head and a halfhearted smile. It wasn't like he was hitting a bottle of Jim Beam every night at 16 or anything but it was the country. A sip of whiskey or Mags Bennet's Apple Moonshine wasn't unusual.

The question has him glancing up at Klaus and then the living room with a passing concern, like everyone might be staring at them but they weren't and he nodded. "Yeah, sure. You need to uh..." He gestured at him. "Get changed or anything? A coat at least, it's.. not exactly summer out there."

Yes, he worried. Klaus looked like the kind of guy that got sick easily, even if the declarations of alcoholism was likely to burn out anything unfortunate enough to decide to settle in their systems.

"Wait, what?" He blinks in confusion. "I'm thirty-four-- time travel math is complicated, so just take the answer on the surface, okay?" Otherwise, you'll be getting Klaus' convoluted explanation of how, technically, by birth-year, he's still 29, but he experienced one birthday in Vietnam and four more in the 60s and really, it's just safer to go with it. "How old are you?" He figured Raylan was a few years older than him, but he didn't think it was that much of a stretch.

Raylan is absolutely right about that. Honestly, his immune system has long-since been shot for all the years of shoving chemicals into his system, at this point. It was a good point to make. "Yeah, hang on," he disappears just long enough to grab both a jacket and a pair of shoes and then he's back.

While Klaus got 'dressed', as much as it was, Raylan grabbed his coat with a word to those gathered in the living room that he and Klaus were stepping out for a minute. The paranoia that something would happen too them was too strong for Raylan to not let people know but once that was covered, he met Klaus at the backdoor.

Ignore the cup in his hand that may or may not be spiked coffee.

Once they stepped outside, Raylan picked their conversation back up. "I'm forty three. Nearly a decade, close enough to count. How old did you think I was?" An interesting question and not one that he asked.. well, most anyone. Unless they were young and flirting with him.

He gives a casual wave of his fingers at anyone that's gathered in the living room at the time before leading the way outside. He turns to his company when he comes to join him and admits his own age. "Oh." He seems pleasantly amused? pleased? Hard to tell with that high-pitched trill in a single word. "Damn, you are rockin' forty-three like it's nothin'." He grins. Yes, he's flirting. No, he doesn't expect a damn thing. Raylan already knows Klaus thinks he's pretty from that time in the mansion anyway.

He bounces off the steps, picking a direction and walking that way with the expectation Raylan will just follow because that's how walks work. "I dunno. I knew you were older than me, but I guess I didn't think you'd hit forty yet." He shrugs a little.

Raylan smirked and bobbed his head, properly humble about the good looks he knew he had. Had being the past tense; he didn't know how that rating was altered by the new scars across his face and chest. He wasn't sure what to take with Klaus's tone, but he'd take the compliment for what it was.

"So I've heard. I'd say somethin' similar for you but thirty four is kinda the prime. I saw the way you were sittin' in Negan's lap last time you were here, I know you probably don't need to be told it." Klaus wasn't nothing, especially when he smiled. There was a particular brightness about him that Raylan found enduring, despite his best internal warnings for admitting so. Softness wasn't to be tolerated; it only invited more of the same, that he couldn't readily afford.

"Suppose I oughta say thank you for that. I'm near halfway to bein' an old man." That didn't stop people from hitting on him and he knew it. "Not that I feel like it yet." Not that he fucked like it yet, which was, really, the important part.

"Is it?" He glances back over at Raylan. "Like, ninety percent of my life is basically one giant trauma-party-overdose blur," he mimes something moving fast away from him with one hand. "so I guess I don't really know what my prime is even supposed to look like." He laughs a little at the comment about the last time he was over. "Oh, yeah, were you a little jealous, wanted a little lap action for yourself?" He teases lightly, grinning the whole while.

"I just call it like I see it." Which is actually a very large part of how Klaus lives his life, and it doesn't always do him any favors. But at least it leaves him genuine in wherever he may stand with someone. "You still got plenty of time before you're an old man." he assures him with another wild grin.

He knows he shouldn't be smiling this much. Feeling this light, in the wake over everything. But sometimes? Sometimes it's easier to overcompensate in the opposite direction just so he doesn't completely fucking lose it. He's sure everyone's noticed the scar creeping out of his collar up one side of his neck, but they've politely not said a word about it.

"I'm sure there's some science study somewhere that'll back that and about fourteen other variations of it," he granted with a bob of his head. "First one I heard, it was eighteen and having been eighteen before, I can confirm that study was total bullshit." He was a mess at 18, angry and trapped and desperate for anything that wasn't turning into Arlo. Some things never change.

Raylan slid Klaus a squinty eyed look that played a smile on the corner of his lips at the teasing questions. No, he wasn't going to answer that directly, Klaus can think what he'd like of the expression.

"Gonna havta look up the limits on that rule, find how much more time I got to work with. People I meet just keep gettin' younger and younger it seems." Klaus's sentiment had been echoed and shared by quite a number of people, but Raylan got less action than everyone assumed he did. ~~Unless they had ears and paid attention that coming night, anyway.~~

"Can I ask ya somethin?" He waited for the confirmation before continuing. "You uh.. get any new.. 'art' now that we're back?" The scars that ran across Raylan's face being the kind of 'art' in question.

Edited 2021-03-28 19:14 (UTC)

He snorts at the commentary about a scientific study. He's probably not wrong, there really do seem to be studies for everything any more. "I was on the streets at eighteen, that was definitely not my prime." he shakes his head.

Klaus doesn't think too hard about that look, other than the fact that it worked for him. Honestly, if he didn't know Malcolm was so into him (even if Raylan had let him down easy), he might be more brazen about things with the cowboy, but it felt wrong with Malcolm's feelings taken into account. So instead, he leaves it nice and harmless, playful with no real intent behind any of it.

"I'm sure you can sort it out yourself." he chuckles softly.

He nods, "Yeah, shoot." he glances over at him, curious what he felt the need to brace with a question before the real one. "Oh, uh-" He nods, eyes dropping down to the ground beneath their feet. "Got a few..." he can't stop one hand trailing up to his neck, sliding his fingers over the scarred skin there. He shudders at the memory.

Edited 2021-03-28 22:11 (UTC)

"I don't think anyone was in their prime at eighteen." They were all too young, too stupid, too proud, whatever it was that was the inherent curse of being eighteen.

Klaus was a good friend to Malcolm on that basis alone. Raylan could guess at why Klaus wasn't taking more liberties but they'd all be wrong. He had no idea what Malcolm had told him but he was fairly sure, on account of his life here not blowing up, that Malcolm hadn't said anything too revealing.

Raylan just nodded at the stammered answer, the slight touch, the shudder. "I can't stop lookin' at 'em when I'm near a mirror. When I'm not keepin' track of every little goddamned thing behind me in the image." The mirror thing from the mansion still haunted him.

He lets that vein of conversation go, nodding his serious agreement over that statement. He wouldn’t give up anything of his twenties or even his thirties to be eighteen again. Nothing would be worth reliving that era of his life.

“Yeah, me too. They’re mostly covered, but,” he shrugs. He still knows they’re there, feels the wrongness in his skin in the way it feels when his clothes brush against him.

He takes a slow, deep breath in, counts, and eases it back out again. “That feeling- like someone’s watching you or- or like there’s someone standing behind you? I’ve lived with it for as long as I can remember.” He cuts his eyes up toward Raylan again, “Doesn’t make it easier to deal with, for the record.” He huffs a soft noises and continues, “Don’t take this the wrong way... I wouldn’t wish this on anybody... but— I dunno, I-I guess it’s just... nice to know I’m not the only one that feels it. I always was- cuz nobody else could see the ghosts.” He shrugs, he already feels like an asshole for saying it, and he tries to swallow it down. “Misery loves company, I guess.”

He’d meant it all in a solidarity sort of ‘You’re not alone’ way, but he’s not sure it came out right. There’s already a tangle of knots forming in his stomach as the anxiety of the possibility of Raylan taking the meaning wrong sinks in.

Raylan nodded slightly. "I think I'd be better if I could hide mine." Scars under his shirts were already accepted, but the ones on his face were harder to swallow. Mainly because people could stare at them, wonder what horrific accident he'd been in that rendered his face marred in such a way.

Yeah, there was still some surviving ego under there, but not much.

He looked over as Klaus continued and huffed a breath with a little pull of a faint smile, earnest despite it's size, chin lifting a little. "That seems to be the way of the world." Raylan shook his head again. "How do you deal with it? I find myself runnin' outta sheets, moonshine and ideas."

Klaus glances over at him and smiles, something soft and a little sad. He can only imagine how it feels, having that constant reminder staring back at him in the mirror every time he catches a glance of himself. Near as he can tell, Raylan's taking it pretty well in stride, though. "You could," he points out softly. "but I'm guessing you're not gonna wanna let me near your face with foundation and concealer." He twists it into a half-joke, half-serious suggestion, Raylan could take it however he liked.

He laughs softly at the question, but its a hollow sound with no mirth to be found tucked inside of it. "I didn't, Raylan... I never got used to it, I never got over it... I just did drugs to hide them." At least, mostly. The last three years have been... different. He's been more in tune with himself, his powers, but... it's all for nothing, because they're useless here anyway.

He huffed and bobbed his head, eyebrows lifting and falling in a faint dismissal. "Only because it probably doesn't mix well with the dust and blood I'm used to. That and I doubt I'd be able to apply it without ya."

No, it was better to get used to what he was dealing with. He shook his head. "No use in runnin' away from it."

Klaus's answer made him sigh and nod again. "Kinda figured that's what the answer would be. Can't imagine what that was like as a kid, considerin' what it's like now. People gone to drugs to hide less." It wasn't Klaus's fault. "How long have you been off 'em?"

Drinking didn't count, for some reason.

"I've been used for worse things." He smirks a little. He thinks he understands why Raylan doesn't want to hide it, or from it, though, so he won't press any more on the topic.

"Yeah. Think of the most brutal murder scenes you've been on." He pauses, then says: "Now think of seein' that at the foot of your bed when you were four, and instead of daddy doin' what he's supposed to and chasin' the monsters away... he tells you you're a liar, to stop playing games, and go back to sleep." He shakes his head and sighs a ragged breath. "It took awhile before Dad figured out I wasn't lying. Then I was hooked up to all kinds of EMF equipment at night. Fun times."

But that's a tangent he hadn't really meant to get on and he clears his throat, focusing his attention back on the question Raylan had actually asked. "Three years. I was completely sober for three years. Few months in the 60's, a really terrible encounter with-" Oh, yeah... he's told Raylan about Dave. "a younger version of Dave who hadn't met me yet and... dove headfirst into a bottle a few days before I showed up here."

Raylan's expression pinched and he stopped his hand from reaching over to slide out across Klaus's shoulder. Maybe in a second. For now, he could only look at where they were walking with a soft cluck under his breath as Klaus continued. That was some extreme stress for anyone, much less a little kid.

"If your daddy wasn't already dead, I'd offer to beat him into the ground for you," Raylan admitted with a tight little downturn of his lips. He had a lot of feelings about how kids were supposed to be treated and he hadn't heard anything from Klaus that suggested he ever got what a kid deserved. In any way.

"Three years is a good long time. Can't've been easy. Maybe when you get back, you can get back up onto the wagon. I don't think I've been sober by the end of the night for longer than three days in.. years. But it ain't what's making my life what it is, so that's all that matters." He wasn't only an alcoholic, he functioned and very well outside of that, but most evenings ended with him and a bottle of some kind.

"Point is that you did it once, you can do it again."

He smirks a little at that offer. "Well, I appreciate the sentiment." There is no love lost between Klaus and his father, even if there are complicated, messy feelings associated to the man's death all the same.

"In the start of the hippie movement in the 60s, to boot." He laughs softly. He misses Destiny's Children in a way he hadn't really thought he would, for as exasperated as he had grown to become at the whole accidental cult-ness of it all. Hopefully Keechie was doing all right taking up the mantle of leader. "If it isn't the booze, then... what is? Making your life what it is." Whatever that even means to him. A mess? Hectic? A shitshow? Klaus can't be sure.

"Oh, I've gotten clean tons of times." He practically sings the words, a rueful smirk on his face. "Just- that time was definitely the longest stretch. I know I can, the question is whether or not I will." He shrugs. "I've got no clue what's gonna meet us back home. This was.... where me and Five ended up," He splays a hand to vaguely indicate Mathias as a whole, "but I think that's because something made us take a detour. He was taking us home, to our time, in the proper timeline, two Apocalypse aversions later..." He scoffs softly, shaking his head. How in the hell meek, mousy little Vanya managed to be the almost-end-of-the-world, twice, is... beyond anything he can figure out.

With the luck of the Hargreeves? Anything on the other side of Five's jump wasn't going to be great.

Sometimes, that kind of sentiment was all they had. Raylan, at least.

Raylan had to chuckle at that - Ironic to get clean in the decade of love and peace. But the tilt of a smile simmered down to something smaller, kept on his face out of habit alone. "My job is what makes my life what it is. I'm good at it. Better than good. No other options for me at this point. I'm gonna be a Marshal until they take my badge or I turn into Art, some old man runnin' things from the van.."

He missed Art. Tim. Rachel. The whole office, really.

"Knowing you want to, havin' done it before.. That's all a start. Makes it easier doesn't it? Knowin' you can do it? If you could do it in the 60's, might not matter what you find at home. You're still you. You can still do it."

"Yeah..." He nods a little. "I guess so..." He smiles a little over at Raylan. He falls quiet for a long moment after that, not really sure what else to say. It isn't often Klaus manages a companionable silence, too much nervous energy that just ends up spilling out in anxious babble, but there's something easier about it this time.

There was something about Klaus's face that made Raylan reconsider his earlier decision and he reached out, sliding an arm over and around Klaus's shoulders and pulling him into a side hug as they walked. He didn't have any words to fix anything, but he knew that a hug would probably make Klaus feel a little better.

It wasn't nothing that he was getting one.

"You think we're gonna get a quiet couple of days? Some kinda return on the bullshit we're gettin' put through?"

Edited 2021-04-06 01:49 (UTC)

He leans into Raylan's side when his arm goes around his shoulders. He knows the Marshall isn't free and loose with things like that, can take it for the important gesture that it is. He's used to curbing that touch-craving that constantly gnaws at him for people who aren't the same way, so he won't make him linger in it any longer than he might be comfortable with.

He shrugs, "Who knows... maybe. We can dream."

"You don't walk around with a lotta hope to spare in your pocket, do you." Raylan squeezes Klaus's shoulder before retracting it, fingers hooking into his jean pockets as they moved.

"After every big thing that happens here, we get a few days." Of course he'd noticed. He would be a pretty shit Marshal if he didn't see that pattern after five weeks. The days 'off' had been different between each bullshit chapter, but it was there, nonetheless.

"You ever do yoga?"

Edited 2021-04-07 00:49 (UTC)

He shrugs a little. "Not really... life's been nothing but one shitshow after another, hard to hope after a point." A brutal and gloomy outlook, perhaps, but at least he's honest.

He smiles a little at the question, nodding. "Yeah, actually, uh-" he slides a hand through his hair. "got really into it when I was getting clean, last time." He gives him a curious look. "Why? You don't strike me as the yoga type."

037-040 » the reason for time

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