villagelogs | 065-071 » assign to oblivion / part iii

065-071 » assign to oblivion / part iii

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 065-071
WHAT: The residents of Mathias reunite under unnerving conditions.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross "Outside"

DAY 065-071
ASSIGN TO OBLIVION
“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes
place in the interim, there are some things we can never
assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.”
— Haruki Murakami

Only two days have passed since the town was fractured, leaving residents cut off from those they'd come to know and even care for. A mere two days of wandering the new streets, uncovering more secrets that continue to make little sense of this strange place. Two days with sunrises, sunsets, and nights that seem like any other.

And yet.

When residents wake on this third day, they will find that much has changed. All around them, wherever they may be, there are signs that time has passed without them. Dust covers everything, indoors and out, even areas that were spotlessly clean seemingly hours ago. The residents themselves are covered as well, dust clinging to their hair, skin, and clothing—

Clothing that they may not have been wearing when they went to sleep. Each resident, regardless of the state they were in previously, is now clad in a pair of white pajamas, with long pants and button-up shirts. Those who thoroughly explored Baneberry Hall will easily recognize these articles as identical to those well-stocked in the decaying great house. On top of this, the clothes they wore from home have disappeared, along with anything else they may have brought with them when they arrived or items from home that have been found within the borders of Mathias.

There is no sign that anyone has entered their place of shelter, nor is there any sign of what may have been done with these items or how they came to be wearing these clothes. The dust all around them is undisturbed, almost as if they had been sleeping there for quite some time, though it seems impossible for such a thing to have occurred naturally.

THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the lawn of Town Hall, at the center of the little town square. They, too, are bereft of any items from home and clothed in the identical white pajamas. There are shops all around them, with houses just beyond, and at first glance, everything seems almost picturesque. Except for the silence that is at times so complete as to be maddening... Welcome to Mathias.

SUMMERTIME
— When summer arrives, so too does an outdoor stand in front of the General Store. Sporting a handpainted sign proclaiming Whateley Farm, the stand is overflowing with a variety of produce: berries, plums, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, green beans, leeks, onions, peppers, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, and garlic bulbs. These do not replace the produce offerings normally found inside the market, but they do behave strangely. The stand replenishes sporadically, sometimes every other day or every five days. There is no discernible pattern to when it replenishes, nor is there any sign of how it came to be there at all.

— With the now-complete reverse change of season, much of the autumn debris has cleared from around town. Only a few stray leaves and fallen branches remain, their crisp colors at odds with the warm summer days. The forest has also cleared of much of the fall detritus, making it easier to both follow the paths and potentially spy things that might be out of the ordinary.

CONDITIONS UPDATE
— THE WEATHER Summer has arrived in Mathias, bringing with it warm days that average 70°F and comfortably cool nights. The skies are clear throughout the week save for Day 68 when a light rain falls from a grey sky throughout the day.

— THE FOG has maintained its new boundaries.
— Residents may now wander the southern stretch of the forest surrounding Mathias Township — it is possible to leave the paths but potentially unwise to do so.
— The fog has also retreated from the western section of town entirely.
— Access to the northern section of the forest is still blocked beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline; this section of fog will urge residents to stay huddled within the town proper by inducing a physical reaction of panic and fear.

— DISAPPEARANCES AND DEATHS continue! Max Guevara and Liz Brundy have disappeared, and now that everyone is back together, residents will notice that Yennefer, Number Five, and Tony Stark have also vanished.

— ALCOHOL supplies have run dry, save for any dregs that have been squirreled away by individual residents. Moonshine can still be acquired by those in desperate need.

OOC NOTES
— UPDATES Don't forget to report updates as they come up! Changes to locations (like toppling a few bookshelves in the library), big plots you have coming up that will affect the game (parties, major property destruction, etc), or exciting discoveries that may tie into the game's mythology (even the things provided by the mod) are very helpful to have in one place so relevant page updates can be made. IC events are also helpful to know about in advance so they can be included in the log write-ups.

— MOD STATUS My non-RP life is busy and chaotic and I continue to ask for your forgiveness and understanding as game things continue to be slower, as I cannot promise timely mod responses beyond weekends and even that is not wholly guaranteed.

— ITEMS FROM HOME All items from home that characters would normally possess have vanished for this log and will return in the next. This includes clothing and possessions they had when they arrived in Mathias, items that were found in the rain, and items that were found in Baneberry Hall and removed from the property. Items from home that were left behind by other characters no longer in the game have also vanished. (All other items and clothing still remain, it is only items from characters' homes that have disappeared.)

— BANEBERRY ITEMS The items from home that were not removed from Baneberry Hall in the last log have vanished from the property. These items will not reappear in the next log. (Please be sure to comment in the appropriate spot on those logs about the state of your character's item for inventory purposes, ie whether they were removed from the property or left behind.)

— ACTIVITY CHECK Beginning with June's AC (posted at the start of July), all tags that consist of only dialogue will count as 0.5 points, not just those that occur in an inbox thread — this applies to both AC and AP totals. This adjustment is an extension of what has been in place since the start of the game: that all dialogue-only inbox tags counted for a half-point. Since such tags have occurred regularly in log threads as well, the half-point status is simply being extended to all tags regardless of location in order to be fairer in point distribution. (Examples will be provided in the AC post to assist with proper counting.)

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For once, the first response in his head isn’t ‘what if it’s not?’. A watery smile that’s only verging on the edge of happy tears meets Raylan’s declaration and he kisses him fiercely.

He brushes his nose against Raylan’s jaw, then rolls to reach for the far restraint.

“I’m going to use one,” he decides. He looks at Raylan over his shoulder as he buckles it. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he explains, before shifting position and reaching for him with his free hand. “Come here.”

“Well… for example… my sister is here. But she’s here from months later than I am. And she only arrived a few weeks after me. She was taken from a different time than I was,” he explains.

Jessica Whitly had been just as relieved to take a break from Malcolm and his needs as she was fiercely invested in controlling Ainsley’s. There was no saving Malcolm, so there was no harm letting him hang around someone who was at least a good male role model. Ainsley, on the other hand… Ainsley could have the normal, proper life the rest of them had been denied.

Except that was a plan always doomed to fail. Her father is a serial killer too.

“If he hurt Gil like that and then threatened you… I would do it,” he whispered. “I’d do it. Of course I did it.”

"We'll figure it out, Malcolm. All of it. We'll change it when we go back, it'll be okay." It has to be. Because her brother can't fall even more apart. She's not sure any of them can handle that, least of all Malcolm himself.

He nods, covering his mouth with his hands for a moment and then threading the fingers of both hands into his hair.

"It's my worst nightmare," he whispers. "Becoming him. For any reason."

"Stop," she gets up and goes to tug his hands down away from his hair. "You're not. You won't become him. Look at this– look at you... do you think Dad would ever feel like this over even the thought of anything?"

She takes his face between her hands and makes him look at her. "Malcolm... you're not the same."

He rolled a shoulder, making a joke of the macabre subject with a pull of his smile. "I like breakin' a mold or three, what can I say. One day you'll have to tell me what Paella is." That sounded a little too cultured for such a man as him.

"I've already dodged that bullet," he conceded, not unaware of his own situation. "If one of 'em were gonna kill me, they woulda already done it.." He sounded ambivalent. Raylan was anything but that. Rather, he'd prefer to not talk about his relationship issues anymore tonight, unless it was talking about his relationship with Henry somehow. He doubted that was really on the books.

"That was brought up to me the day that I was diggin' them but I figured I could keep them up. And if I don't, shit," he scoffed with a shake of his head and a lift of his glass. "I'll dig three more. Might as well make it my new career here. I can backfill the other ones because we put the dirt just on the tree line. Dirt's too valuable to try and get rid of. Maybe you'll help me with those and we can work off some of our drinkin'."

Suddenly, Raylan was very happy that he'd asked this question while he was on the date with Malcolm. It stepped them right over any of the normal platitudes that Malcolm had no doubt heard before. No matter how earnestly meant, Raylan knew how they could sting.

His face stayed steady and studious, pinching faintly in sympathy until the end. Raylan had spent all his time hiding where he'd come from, what kind of people he was related to. Here was, of course, different, but the lack of relation stood. He couldn't imagine what that must be like. But at the end of Malcolm's story, the faint pinch furrowed further and he nodded a bit as he stared down at his sandwich for a second.

"I wish I had somethin' reassurin' to say but I can see why she might not reply." Accidental murder attempts tended to put people off. That wasn't second date material and fear was a powerful thing.

"I will say that you won't be havin' to worry about that with me at least," he offered with a soft, hesitant smile over. "Unless you've got someone locked in an attic I don't know about. Then we might have a problem." He was teasing, he swears!

That makes him laugh. “I promise the only person I’d ever lock in an attic is me,” he shoots back lightly. He takes a sip of the broth and looks over. “I knew you were different,” he says more soberly. “You’ve never been… I mean, if you were put off by this particular brand of disturbing, you could have left me on the floor in the library.”

“He’s… not capable,” Malcolm mumbles, falling back on diagnosis, analysis. “He can’t… there’s no remorse.”

He snorts tiredly, shaking his head. Well-- how the fuck can he argue with any of that really? Well, he probably could. He could be a fucking decent son of a bitch and keep himself distance, or...

Well, doesn't matter.

"Alright... alright. I'll come back."

"It's. Everything thrown in a pan and hoping for the best." Which is probably not the most flattering description of paella, he's had some fantastic ones over the years, but a lot of things Doc does in the kitchen is more or less throwing everything in a pan and hoping for the best. Occasionally if he's not feeling all that lucky, he'll use the microwave. Neal had put his culinary expeditions to shame.

"You ought to come on supply runs with me," Doc suggests. He has nothing against gravedigging - he's dug a few with Raylan, he doesn't think it's overly morbid or necessarily even a waste of time, and it's not the worst way to pass the day - but between preparing for the dead and preparing for the living, the latter might feel like a more rewarding endeavour for Raylan.

Besides, Doc doesn't mind the company. People will start mistaking them for day time friends and night time lovers if they're only together on the porch and occasionally in bed, as much as neither of them so much as breathes about what happens in bed.

He empties his glass of moonshine and breathes out a long sigh, rubbing the back of his neck and slumping a little in his chair.

"I will help you with your graves. And you can come be my pack mule." Sounds like a fair deal, doesn't it?

Raylan nodded shortly, pleased with the answer even though it didn't show immediately on his face. He was the kinda man that once wound up for what he expected, had a hard time dropping back down into 'regular ass people' mode.

"Good. Doc'll handle himself. The boys will be pleased. And hell you're already ahead of Tim, who won't even stay on the goddamned street." Raylan took a deep breath and looked around. "'Sides, no offense to this lovely abode you seem to have taken up in, I think ours is better."

Yeah, he's just going to wrap you up into that 'our's as well Negan, tough titty.

"Got anything you need to grab or should I just expect to see you at the house come nightfall?"

Raylan smirked softly, but he knew that Malcolm might lock himself away, if he thought he had to. It made his heart hurt a little.

He ducked his head with a little bob of his shoulder as he looked over again.

"Ain't no way that was gonna happen. Even if I was put off by it. I don't leave people in the shit if I can help them out of it somehow. Hand them to someone who can help them better." He didn't tend to keep the people he saved. Malcolm was just an exception to the rule.

"No decent person woulda left you there, Malcolm. You give me far too much credit for that."

“Right.” She nods, glad he did what she expected he might. Malcolm works is logics and analytics, and sometimes that’s really annoying, but this time it’s actually in her own favor. “But you do— you feel, Malcolm. Ways he never would. Can’t.”

There’s a waver in her voice but it has nothing to do with Malcolm. It’s a sort of slow, sinking realization about herself that she’s never had any reason to look at very hard or in any particular way.

(But I don’t always feel the right way at the right time…)

That’s a thought track she absolutely does not want to follow, but the leaps are already right there, so easy to grasp, barreling through her mind like a train with no breaks.

But it’s all calm on the surface, and she gives her brother a smile, “You’re not like him… you never will be.” Her voice is light, but so sure, like she’s stating any number of easy facts: The sky is blue, the grass is green, and her brother is nothing like her father.

Edited 2021-08-21 23:51 (UTC)

Those were the only kind of waterworks that Raylan ever wanted to inspire; those happy almost tears at the simplest idea of just sleeping and his hands tightened on him briefly before he smiled and leaned into the brush of Malcolm's nose. How did he ever get so lucky?

"We can renegotiate later, but I'll take it for now," he murmured, scooting in and leaning into whatever Malcolm was going to pull him into, what he assumed was going to be a kiss. After it broke, Raylan kept their faces close.

"I love you Malcolm Whitly Bright. I want you to remember that, no matter what happens."

Raylan's eyebrows bobbed. "Sounds pretty good. Some of the best meals I've ever had were just stuff thrown into a pan. I can't knock it." Doc was talking to one of the most low rent men in Mathis - Neal's cooking skills were almost wasted on the man that barely tasted anything as he shoveled food into his maw.

Maybe Doc was right about Raylan never getting any better.

The Marshal looked over with an intrigued look at the offer, eyebrows staying half lifted in his not so subtle surprise. "I thought you used those to get away from us for a little while. Not that I'm sayin' no. Especially if bein' a pack mule gets me some help in the graveyard."

Help he was secure, foolishly, in the hope that Doc wouldn't vanish like others had. Raylan knew that was setting himself up for a shattering disappointment if Doc ever did vanish like that. He was willing to work his half of a deal. Especially if it earned him more time next to the gunslinger. Yes, he was greedy, no matter what other's might see or say about it. He was slowly coming to a point where it didn't matter; a healthier perspective than had previous been taken.

"Might keep us both busier on the edges, fill in some of that wanderin' time. I'm still minding the fog in the treeline. It keeps movin' on us. The ebb and flow. Too much like the tide and the beach, if you ask me. I'd rather have something to keep my hands and brain busy when I'm not lookin' at it. Keep me from goin' fully overboard."

Honestly, he might be there already. His attention to the trees bordered on unhealthy, but it was the only thing left that wasn't consistently covered by someone else.

"I promise I won't saddle you with small talk unless you want it."

"I'd have been fine," she says, and it's not really bluster; she's lived through a lot of traumatic shit, after all.

She thinks maybe Malcolm could have handled some of it, that last terrible day of Joel's life, the last day that Ellie remembers feeling like a human being. Malcolm deals with serial killers. She thinks it would have broken Doc's heart, because he cares too much. Some of the others, she's not sure. But it's not anyone's goddamn business being in someone else's close memories like that. Man, fuck this town all over again.

Either way, maybe missing out was the best she could have asked for.

She steps through the door and whistles.

"Man. Bet whoever lived here wishes they'd stayed. Worth the trade off, y'know? Crazy shadow people but at least you get a mansion." Joking is one of the ways she deals with the horrors of being alive in general.

"Just things that need to get done." Honestly, Doc doesn't mind the alone time at all, but he doesn't necessarily duck out for those long hours just because he wants to be left alone. He's had quite enough of alone to last a few lifetimes.

"If anyone can glare that fog into submission I suppose it'd be you." They haven't had to fend off another bout of vicious fog. Strangely enough, the days where they were only worried about the fog seemed like a blissful window of their time in Mathias. Things had seemed so much less complicated than they are today. Or at least, they (naively, perhaps) only had fewer things to worry about back then.

That Doc is worried about Raylan having gone overboard already is left unsaid. Doc worries about a lot of things, even though he might brush them off or play them down. It's evident enough to see in his eyes and in his posture. They don't need to comment about it unless Raylan is feeling particularly defensive. Nobody would blame anyone for going overboard by now. Least of all John Henry. They shoulder more than anyone humanly should.

"I wouldn't mind the other distractions you come with. Small talk or... whatever else catches your fancy." They can save small talk for the porch, although one might argue that porch talks are far more important than just idle banter. Or pillow talk, if cowboys do anything other than sleep and snore on them. Empty another bottle of 'shine and Doc might start mentioning something downright scandalous.

"I'm not drinking you dry, am I?" He can always go fetch another ~~crate~~ bottle, but then he'd have to get up and leave the house.

“I won’t forget,” he promised, a little blindsided hearing that name applied to him sound like acceptance rather than condemnation. “Just… don’t disappear on us,” he added knowing Raylan had no control over that, but his grasp tightened a fraction anyway.

"No I don't. I met a bunch of people before we ended up in the lighthouse. You and Doc are the only ones that tried to rescue me from myself. You're a good person. I fell for you hard when I realized that," he admits, practically blushing down into his broth.

He nods, wiping his his cheeks with the heel of his hand almost impatiently.

"I need to tell Raylan. We need to tell him it was me, not you."

"I think he was a crazy shadow person," Malcolm tells her. "The front of this house is where we saw him before."

"...Are you sure?" She frowns a little. That seems like a thing that would wreck that perfect little bubble of his. "Aren't you worried... what he'll say?"

"I'll try," Raylan promised, tangling their legs together. "However I can."

The name seemed natural in Raylan's mouth, so he didn't give it a second thought. He was sure that Malcolm had a middle name; everyone in the North seemed to, says the man with his own, but both the Whitley and the Bright had to be acknowledged. He was neither. He was both. Malcolm was a conflict of names and it perfectly fit the chaos of the man.

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065-071 » assign to oblivion / part iii

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