ph_logs | [OPEN] While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now?

[OPEN] While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now?

Who: Jonathan Sims and YOU!
What: Open prompts for the end of summer!
When: August
Where: Around Marrow Isle
Warning(s): Cursed objects, potential descriptions of gore (More warnings pending)

1. Looking towards the future, we were begging for the past

With a sound of effort, Jon drops the last of the tools he'd been carrying too many of, letting out a winded wheeze as he tries to collect himself.

It's been quite an undertaking, collecting ins and odds from Calloway's Curios before they fell into hands, not knowing what they are or what they're capable of doing. He's not certain of the particular qualities of a few of these things, but he's seen enough things and read about even more to know when something is simply here to cause problems.

Sprucing up the unused shed behind his cliff-side home is proving to be even more of an undertaking, considering he isn't especially gifted at carpentry, but sometimes you've just got to make due.

He's so engrossed in his work that he doesn't notice the presence of anyone outside of Grimmly the Dusknoir, the large Pokemon lingering, watching with what can only be described as single-eyed skepticism. The red eye follows Jon as he moves to collect the scattered metal rods of the lock-system he'd purchased, once again trying to carry all too many things at once.

To say the least, he's far too distracted to notice anybody coming up the short path to his home - especially as, with his heavy carry load, he staggers, stumbles, and topples back, dropping the rods in a spectacularly-noisy explosion of parts around his person.

Grimmly bellows with strange, wavering, ghostly laughter, the mouth on his stomach throwing his upper half backwards, with no regard for the daggers Jon glares his way.

"Oh, laugh it up, you shit, very funny. You could be helping with this, you know, you've got two perfectly good hands!"

2. Well, we knew we had the good things

Amid all the bustle he's been dealing with recently, Jon manages to find time to write and hang a flyer on the bulletin board.

Seeking assistance from the technically inclined for a repair project.

I am in possession of three tape recorders, and need someone who could potentially lend me a hand with fixing the wiring within the machines, as well as potentially making their power sources able to plug into a wall outlet. The tapes are in pristine condition, and I will only need assistance with at least one recorder, though all three being repaired would be preferred. Offering a reward of 200B for assistance.

If interested, please contact me via sending stone or telephone. Thank you.

-Jonathan Sims

With a reward like that, it's clear he's pretty serious about getting these fixed. He'll answer just about any call about them - be it someone who's ready to help him fix these, someone with questions about them, or friends with concerns about the devices. (It may be easier said than done convincing him not to fix them, if one even could, though.)

3. But those never seemed to last (Closed to Neil and Martin)

After meeting Martin on the beach, Jon was in more of a hurry than he'd care to admit to get to Neil and confirm dinner plans. Everything's smoothly in motion, and as ridiculous as it feels, Jon's more excited about this than he can rightly recall having been in a fair bit.

He's never been an incredible chef, but he's gotten a handle on home cooking since arriving in town, and throws together a plan quickly enough to have everything just about ready. It only takes a short trip out to the markets to have the supplies for everything: lemon chicken (the citrus specifically chosen for the occasion), mashed potatoes, and supplies for a light salad, hopefully making for something of an exceptional welcome-to-town dinner.

The sun is only just dipping towards the horizon when he's wrapping up, and judging by a quick glance to the clock on the wall when a knock at the door rings through the house, Martin's at his most punctual that Jon's ever seen him. Maybe he's as excited about this as Jon is? (He surely hopes so.)

Leaning as close to the kitchen's doorframe as he can while not straying too far, keen to finish wrapping things up as quickly as possible, Jon doesn't hesitate to call out towards the front of the house.

"Come in!"

4. Oh, please just last (Wildcard)
Want this guy somewhere, sometime? Shoot me a PM here or on Discord to plot, or just go wild and drop something!

[EDITED EXTRA PROMPT]

5. Beneath the Watcher's Eye

The more time passes, the more Jon feels his resolve beginning to slip.

At first, it's simply accidental, compelling people for statements when they're not looking to share. It sustains him, he feels terrible about it, and there's another sore spot to try to navigate around on this cursed island. The more time that passes, however, the few statements that are offered by the call of his bulletin-board posts simply don't provide like they used to. More often, the fatigue hangs heavy on his bones, even without the work to wear him down. Thinking grows difficult, and simple ordeals feel as though they've gained ten new steps overnight.

He tries to fight it off; he really, truly does. The itch sinks deeper into his bones with each passing day, though - no amount of reading old statements or reading books on things that had happened in town scratch it.

There comes a point with all itches that you've simply got no choice but to scratch it.

He adds his flyer to the bulletin board once more, crisp and neat. Sending stone calls are acceptable, events that have happened within Pumpkin Hollow are valid pieces of information to offer, and anything of any magnitude will be heard. The net is as wide as he can possibly cast it.

Waiting for the net to fill is an impossible task, however. Despite himself, he begins to hunt.

His search doesn't have the physicality or brute force of a Hunter seeking prey - but in energy and approach, they're shockingly alike. He's patient, calculated, and mindful. He stays out late during the nights of shore leave from the Mipha's Grace,, finding new haunts to insert himself into. Restaurants, taverns, bustling public events, and coffee shops are his most frequent targets; if he finds the perfect candidate outside of one of those spaces wearing marks that are heavy enough, though, he won't be picky.

Once he finds scars adequate enough, he sinks into action. The approach is simple and polite: if there's too many people around, he'll ask to step aside. If it's a quiet space, he'll move to stand near, to sit across from, to linger by whoever he's got his eyes on.

And then, he'll speak. The supernaturally inclined feel static begin to build in their ears, and even those who aren't get a sensation of their own, unnatural and tingly, something akin a sleeping limb beginning to wake up.

"You have seen something great and terrible, something beyond comprehension. Tell me your story."

[Extra notes: this is my general prompt for Jon taking statements! You can play this any way you want to. If you want their CR to stay positive, your character can show up at his house and deliver their statement normally, talk afterwards, whole nine yards. For anyone who'd prefer negative CR, though, or want to have Jon take a statement but have characters who would keep that to themselves, put him wherever your character might be and have him compel it out of them!

Additionally, closed to close CR: characters are welcome to bust him compelling statements out of someone! He is doing it fully intentionally this time, and while he'll generally see himself out while emotions run high from the person he took it from, he can be caught by someone who knows what's happening. He won't target people he's friends or generally friendly with intentionally, but it can happen accidentally. Hit me with anything! \o/ ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You're absolutely right. An ex of mine had a cat who would honestly help me sort out tangled ideas and thoughts more easily than any person would have. The Admiral, his name was, he was a good cat."

Jon steps in, and lets his eyes wander as he moves for the table he was directed to, starting to get the tape recorders in order. As tempting as it might be to simply stand around and have John go through introductions for his full farm, maybe even enjoy some rabbit-based soothing of nerves, these are the first priority. Should the contents of the tapes be not too bad (or just bad enough), maybe he'll have to ask Rambo about that rabbit visit later on.

For now, though, drinks! He looks up from where he's started to unpack, lifting his brows with distinct interest. While this probably isn't the best occasion to drink, it's too tempting to pass up.

"I can't say I've ever had the opportunity to try dandelion wine, how is it? If you're keen to share, I'd be happy to try it." A beat, and a more curious look is tossed back once more. "Wait--- are you a father, John?"

John’s expression registers surprise, then a touch of sadness in his smile. He knows that’s nothing he can ever have, not being who and what he is…not when there’s no hope of even having a partner, much less kids. Edgar and Radar, babysitting for Lou sometimes—or waving to Gwen, Sally, and her fiancée across the fence…that’s the closest he’ll ever come.

“Nah—not a dad.” He replies. “Edgar ‘n Radar are in their twenties—well, Radar’s nineteen. They’re just…part of the family. Spend a lot of time out here, don’t mind hanging around me. They’re good kids. And it’s not just boys, Kitty’s been coming around a little bit, too. She’s sweet as sugar, that one.”

And the open adoration on his features as he talks about them isn’t something he’s aware of.

He is aware of babbling, though, so he shakes his head and heads for the kitchen to pour a couple of glasses of dandelion wine, bringing one to Jon before sitting next to him on the couch.

“Okay, let’s have a look before I bust out any tools…”

The adoration is noted, very much so. Finding family in this place isn't something that surprises him, but it's something that strikes a quiet, sentimental spot within him. Considering the scars that Jon can see bearing down on John, even without truly digging deep for them, he's someone who needs that family.

With a quiet word of thanks when he accepts his wine, Jon settles into the couch, perching an elbow on his knee and setting the glass aside. He'll get into it while Rambo takes a crack at the tape players, but for now, he'll have to show them off.

"They're crusted in sea salt, seemingly battered around against some of the rocks, and thoroughly cracked," Jon explains, picking up the broken one and turning it over as he emphasizes. "If you can see through the plastic, however--- which is a chore, I know--- the tape is perfectly intact. A magically-inclined friend of mine said they're not your standard tape, but something with a sort of spirit of their own, she said; the word she used was fate. I'm worried about physical impact causing damage, though, or... prying it open would just break pieces off, but not get the compartment open."

And, passing it over, he offers it to the expert. Your move, John. (Meanwhile, he attends to his dandelion tea - which is, in fact, very good.)

John accepts the tape recorder—and yeah, it’s pretty battered. Turning it over in his hands, he follows along with John, peering at the cracks and testing a couple of the buttons to no avail.

He’s not seeing a lot in the way of rust in some critical areas. The screws on the bottom are showing some rust, but that could make it easier to open up…

“Not a lotta sign of rusting—salt buildup is the worst part.” John surmises, rising with the tape deck in hand to head for the table by his phone. Grabbing a pen out of the drawer, he snaps off the nib as he comes back to the couch, trying to work it flat.

“Remind me to invest in some watchmaker’s tools.” He mutters with a small smile, using the nib to start trying to work the small screws on the back off. “They don’t make the kinda screwdrivers you need for electronics around here, but watches or jeweler’s tools may do…hell, maybe I can talk to River ‘bout making my own…”

Jon leans over to watch with interest, wine glass in hand, and notes everything that John does. It doesn't hurt to know, in case he can't find anyone when he's ready for the third tape to come out; it does have the unfortunate downside of leaving his already intense gaze fairly focused on John's work, though. Sorry for any heebie jeebies, Rambo - he just can't help it.

"Might be worth it, since it seems like Calloway's finding something new and almost modern every now and again," Jon agrees, tilting his head gently. "The pen's a good idea, though. Have you had to do that before? I've never needed to repair one of these. My old employer from home had a... surplus."

Now is not the time to get into the "randomly appearing tape players due to evil eldritch magic" thing. That's not a good lead-in conversation with someone new in your town.

John nods with a small smile, never looking up from his work.

“Yeah, plenty. United States Army, Special Forces.” He replies while working the screws loose. “I keep a stocked survival knife, but had it made here. Been hoping for a while something of mine might turn up at that dude’s shop, like the real knife or my tags…”

He trails off, thinking about Sam—the person he would have wanted to give them to, like Sam gave him the dreamcatcher.

Shaking it off, he refocuses on the task at hand—and is distracted enough by his pain that, for once, it isn’t all that troubling to admit—

“I, uh—I served in Vietnam. Busted out of a POW camp by giving myself dysentery, so…I’m good at improvising.”

Oh, so that explains the Slaughter marks on him. Doesn't say much for the Lonely that hangs on him like a heavy morning fog, but he's helping with something important; that's his business, Jon doesn't intend to pry.

"That sort of thing would make you particularly resourceful, wouldn't it?" Jon notes, without judgement or reservation. Simply a casual observation while he watches. "I haven't got any experience nearly so... intense, is the best word for it, I suppose. The evil things that lurk in my own world aside, I don't think I would have ever lasted a minute in the military."

As if anything more than a single glance at him was needed to figure that out...

John huffs a little, setting aside another screw that comes loose from the bottom.

“Nobody survives in the military.” He replies quietly. “Not Special Forces…they get you in the door, and you don’t come out. They don’t make soldiers, they make weapons.”

He thinks of Hope, of how he almost died there…would have if not for Mortanne, of all the new and creative ways a bunch of podunk deputies and one king shit sheriff broke him…

“And when those weapons don’t work anymore, they throw ‘em away.” John replies quietly. “Not responsibly, either.”

Unlike the other statements that Jon's actively been on the prowl for, this one isn't intentional - it's more of a reflex than anything. A string dangling in front of a cat, who reaches to swat at it before they even know what it is. He doesn't meet John's gaze to ask, but he still Watches nonetheless.

His voice is soft, but it still beckons and tugs at the threads in John's mind.

"How do they throw them away, John?"

John focuses on the tape deck. He's got the screws off and he's lifting away the bottom...

But he's still talking. It just--happens. Not like it did with anyone else he's told, those rare and precious few, but...

It doesn't hurt or feel bad, but it's...like he can't stop himself.

"I came home in 1974--they called it a nervous breakdown. It was an honorable discharge. I served Special Forces, the Green Berets--know what they call us? Navy, they call 'em squids, Marines are jarheads, Air Force are flyboys...Special Forces are snake eaters. That's who we are, that's how we're trained...do whatever it takes. Survive at any cost. Don't stop 'till you win...well, my unit, there were eight of us. Only two made it back to the States, least that's what we thought. Everyone else died over there...I watched one of my closest friends blown to fucking pieces. Held him as he died--as many parts as I could get my hands on while he screamed about how he wanted to go home..."

John swallows thickly, setting aside the base of the cassette player.

He keeps talking.

"I couldn't function. Couldn't hold down a job, couldn't...be with people. Around them, talk to them--hell, the last time I slept with anyone was during my deployment, a whore one of my buddies bought for me. That was the last time anyone touched me without wanting to kill me. Eventually, I got--I was so fucking lonely that I finally busted out my address book. My best friend, Delmar--the other guy who made it? Wrote down his address for me. Told me to come find him, so...I did. Hitchhiked my way to Washington...that's when I found out he'd died the summer before I got there. Cancer, from Agent Orange. He was my last hope, all I had left...I gave his widow the last picture I had of all of us, tossed the address book in the fire, and I took off."

He blinks, realizing that...yeah. He did--he didn't even remember that before...

"I hiked my way into this little mountain town, Hope. I was kinda reeling, I guess, but I was just hungry. Figured I could find a place to eat, grab some food, head out again like I always do, y'know? I barely crossed the town boundary when this sheriff's car pulls up and the asshole inside starts talkin' to me...Teasle was his name. I was, uh--I had on my jacket. Military issue, the flag patch on it? He says to me, 'You know, wearing that flag on that jacket, looking the way you do, you're asking for trouble around here, friend.' Then he offers me a ride...right outta town. Asks me where I'm headed, and it wasn't the kind of offer I could say no to without causing trouble. Tried asking him where I could eat, he says a place thirty miles out--made it real clear I wasn't welcome, and dropped me off outside of town again. Didn't want a drifter like me around--a drifter with a military jacket and duffel. A fella that just wanted something to eat."

John's nearly got the case in pieces by this point--only one side of the plastic breaking as he removes the innards with the cassette deck and the tape inside.

"I just started walking back into town and he saw me--that's where it started. Fucker arrests me for vagrancy, runs me in, tries to book me. I could've stopped him. Didn't--I was hungry, I was reeling, I was a mess on a good day and I just wanted to get it over with. Pay my fine, move on, but they were all fucking savages. This one guy with a down home drawl, real friendly sounding, starts poking me with his billy club swearing he's gonna make me talk. And I'm...I spent time in a POW camp, y'know? Six months, gave myself dysentery to escape. And yeah: I was tortured. They cut me up, I still got the scars...I had to strip in front of these men. I obeyed, put my hands up, I did everything they asked and they still hit me with that fucking club for no reason. Turned a firehose on me...then they tried to shave me dry with a straight razor and my scars were burning, my ears were ringing, all I could hear was the Vietcong and the knife scoring my chest while I was...while they had me tied up, strung up, choking like that billy club at my neck and trussed up like the guys holding my arms..."

John's hands are shaking as he keeps unscrewing the pieces of the tape deck.

"I ran. I got away and ran, that's it--hit a couple people but I didn't hurt anyone. They didn't just track me, hunt me down, they sicced dogs on me--they were tellin' people I was violent and on the loose, that I did it all on purpose. They...they brought in a chopper and that deputy with the drawl, he was trying to kill me and--and he fell out of the fucking chopper. Man died, and they blamed me for it...they even found my commanding officer, had him try to bring me in but it was too late. I was fighting for my life--I was at war with them, and I was Special Forces. I am Special Forces, a snake eater...win at any cost."

"So...when they blew up the cave I was camping in, tried to kill me in a cave in? I crawled through rats 'n tunnels. I found my way out. I survived...and I blew up half the fucking town. And I still didn't hurt anyone. Gas station, hunting store...only man I wanted was that fucking sheriff who thought he could draw first blood 'n not suffer the consequences. I was looking for him at the end, in the sheriff's station..."

John blinks, realizing there's tears coursing down his face.

He still can't stop talking.

"My commander, Colonel Trautman--he tried to talk me out of there. I just--I fell apart. I told him everything. How I was the last one standing, how people fucking hated me just 'cause I got drafted into a war I didn't know I couldn't win--wasn't allowed to win. How no one understood the shit I saw, how I had no one, how I hadn't...nobody even wanted to touch me unless they wanted to kill me, and those fucking deputies beating me and hassling me and yankin' me around, it's the most human contact I had in ten fucking years--"

John flinches hard as a shot rings out--only it's not a shot.

It's the guts of the cassette deck, the lid snapping open and exposing the intact tape inside.

The snap makes Jon jolt upright, reeling back into a focus. He reaches over in the stark silence, gingerly pulling the tape from the broken lid, and turning it in his hands. Perfectly intact - Rambo managed to extract it perfectly.

"It's alright, John."

His words are quiet, pressing on the pane of glass that the quiet of the room had settled into, but unwilling to break it with a hard push. He doesn't reach over to touch, to offer that physical reassurance; someone who's touch-starved doesn't need that from a stranger. But he does offer words, measured yet gentle, offered with care like offering a hand to a nervous dog.

"It's alright. Your war was left behind when you made it here. It should have been left behind when you returned home, but... it isn't here. Not anymore."

The quiet is too much. It feels like the silence that came after Danforth breathed his last, transformed from a broken man begging for salvation to a mangled sack of meat. Jon's voice is gentle, but every second--every demeaning, terrifying, confusing moment of anguish and grief and rage is branded so sharply across his memory he can almost see it overlaying the room. The cells, the blade, the blood, the sight of a wounded Teasle against the stark white of an ambulance stretcher...

Trautman's arms around him, stilted and stiff. Unwilling comfort, colder for how little he wanted to give it. The agony of every sob catching in his throat, how much that embrace hurt for how cold it was.

Unbidden, his words to Trautman return, spoken as they crossed the tarmac of an American army base on the Thai border.

"I'm the last one of my team left...as long as I'm alive, it's alive." he replies quietly, releasing the tape as Jon takes it from him. His eyes are still shining, still streaming in utter silence--and his hands are shaking badly.

"Even when I'm dead, it won't let me go...especially then."

"But you're not alive, John."

Perhaps Jon's speaking out of turn, perhaps he's a bit harsh, too direct - but it's honest, and comes from a place of care. Even if he doesn't know this man all that well, he cares. Call it the sense of community starting to truly sink in, but he cares.

"I can't imagine what you've been through," Jon relents, falling into hushed tones once more. "I've seen terrible things in my life, but never war. Monsters, human and no longer, but you were torn to pieces by a system. A system crafted to do exactly that to you, to create tools, and toss them aside once they no longer work. But..."

For emphasis, he holds over the tape. A fragile thing for John to hold. With his other hand, he brings forward the functional tape player, sitting it on the table just before Rambo's seat.

"A tape and a recorder are tools. At times, they're for interrogation, trading secrets the recipients were never meant to have... but music, as well. Memories. In a similar vein, rifles are used for war--- I'm sure I don't have to tell you as much. But they're also used for sport, sustenance, protection. If you're a tool created by a system, then you should have the same right as any other tool. A right for declaration of new purpose, now that your former purpose is long passed."

He gestures towards the tape player.

"You haven't got to decide your purpose today... but I do think you deserve the right to see which one that tape holds."

But I will be.

He wants to say it but doesn't--because he's alone that way, too. The only one who seems to know the whole fucking system works, that if they don't fuck it up they can, they will all go back to survive.

He did. And he fucked it all up by caring about Co. The war pulled him back...

It feels kind of impossible not to listen to Jon. Holding up the tape, pushing the tape recorder closer, still fucking talking. Worst of all, still making sense.

New purpose...yeah, John tried that, too. At Sam's encouragement--tried to be something other than a soldier, be something more. That didn't work, either.

He hurt Sam. He'll hurt others--the further away he gets from people, the safer they are. The boys, Kitty, Laios...

That's what snaps him out of it--thinking about them. Not being there for them, being without them. Something happening to them because he's not there. No, maybe he can't let himself be part of the human race anymore--maybe he's lost that right--but he can still look out for it. Look out for good people who need him.

Shaking his head, he sniffs, scrubs a hand over his face--then takes the tape and a few deep breaths so his hands will stop shaking as he slides it into the player, shuts the lid, and pushes play.

What a sad, strange irony it is, to have no idea that the other considers themselves so much less than human. There's a new, suffocating weight to the quiet after Jon finishes speaking--- though maybe that's only on his end, feeling a bit like he's shoved his foot into his mouth, poking in places where he ought not have--- but it's quickly replaced by the clicking of the tape recorder. The tape whirrs to life - the extraction did prove truly successful, and the recording begins to play.

Once more, like the last, it's his own voice that begins to speak. It doesn't stay that way for long.

Voices bridge together, one after the other, some familiar, others less so. Statements about portals, about time, about places that were not of the world they took the space of, with strange tearing sounds interrupting each one, utterances of familiar names, all mashed together as though the tape was stitched together from fragments of others. A single phrase repeats, sticking in his mind with a persistent, lingering weight.

You are here.

When the tape finishes and stops playing, Jon is tense, panicked, and has no idea how to wrap his head around any of it. He looks to John, and goes to speak, but he loses anything that he might have said at first. His voice catches in his throat, for a mere moment. What could he say to this poor man, who volunteered to help him, opened up about the incredible pressure on his shoulders, and then has to hear something so thoroughly and utterly not of his world? When he finally does manage to speak, he's hushed with disbelief and bewilderment.

"What the fuck?"

John listens, and in the aftermath remains silent. Strangely, this calms him, this strange revelation which…makes an odd sort of sense looked at the right way. The implications make his head hurt a little, that they’re…God knows where…

Another world. Beyond that, he knows it’s another world. They all do, but…maybe another universe, one so far divorced from any other…

“The anchor.” John breathes. “The cultists, they said that locket was an anchor—fuck, the goddamn leaf…”

An anchor for this…what? Microcosm of reality? An alternate world, a capsule of existence? However you look at it—

It hits John right then, so hard and so sudden he starts shaking again, has to rise from his seat and start pacing, moving, doing something.

“Schrödinger’s cat.” He breathes. Reality is perception, all things are real until you see them, faith becomes fact once you know, and the knowing limits.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be…

“…world without end.”

John stops and turns to Jon, eyes wide.

“I don’t think we’re on Marrow Isle—and I don’t think we’re dead.”

Jon's attention snaps up to John's pacing, and attentive, alert, and just a touch panicked, he listens, hanging onto Rambo's each and every word.

By the time he's drawn to his conclusion, Jon's jolted up to his feet, as well. His pacing has a bit more direction than a simple back and forth; he's stepping sharply over to his abandoned bag, fishing out a notebook. The second his hands are on it, he's jotting out messy notes, haphazard but desperately quick in getting the information on the page.

"Where would we be, if not on Marrow Isle, though?" He asks - there's no disbelief in the question, but intensity, as though he were trying to solve some complicated math problem. "But we're--- if we're in another world, could we still be alive, in a sense? We function as living, breathing people. We change, we age, we just don't--- die. Curse aside, that's as alive as I think one could get, but..."

Jon rewinds the tape, and clicks it on with a great deal of urgency. It's hard to wait for the part he wants to hear, but when he catches it, he stops the tape, just after the mention of a crack.

"Hear me out. There's something at play here, something that's not only brought us from our world, but I'd wager that, perhaps--- it's a similar something that's bringing in the things that would seek to level this town. Mortanne wouldn't do that, but, I wonder--- in this strange state of existence and non-existence, if there's something that keeps Marrow Isle from being able to be placed back where it once was. And if there is something, like--- like that crack, what other things could it be causing?"

In his flurry, his desperation for emphasis, he takes John's hand, giving it and urgent little shake.

"You are here. This is some sort of Marrow Isle, one way or another, and we are here, but there's something else. Something else is here that is causing everything."

He pulls back, in his great hurry, and picks up the tape recorder; his mind is clearly racing, and he's all over the place, but he can't recall the last time something had stoked the fire in him so thoroughly.

"I've got to get this information out there. If we've got this much from just the two of us, if we put the minds of the other experts in the community together--- I think we may just come out of this with a significantly clearer picture."

"You're in a situation where you could die, get ripped out of that second before it happens--you're alive and dead at the same time, like the damn cat." John replies. "We're all the cat, this is the box, and the radioactive crap..."

Jon keeps going, and it...makes sense. And it doesn't--it's so far out of John's frame of reference, his scope of understanding that he's barely clinging to it but it makes sense. The thing that could kill the cat, or not, preserving this place or destroying it. But no, that--that wouldn't be the element decaying. Maybe the Geiger counter?...

...but what if the Geiger counter is broken? What if the box has a hole in it? What if what if what if what if.

The crack. Something's broken--and when Jon grips his hand, John is gripping back and it doesn't hurt.

John forgets that anything hurts, just for a second, straining to make sense of the whole thing until Jon lets him go and he suddenly remembers.

Rolling his shoulders to try and shake off the sudden, sharp chill that sweeps in to fill that void where, for an instant, he felt connected, he rubs his arms briskly and refocuses on Jon.

"Whatever you do, I'm in." John assures him, gathering up the pieces of the tape recorder to bundle them up for Jon. Wrapping them hastily in a bandanna from his pocket, he hands them to the other man as he gathers his things.

"Could be clues to where it came from in the pieces--save 'em for scrap at bare minimum. The working tape deck breaks? You got parts."

"I'll keep you up to date on anything that I find." Jon's quick to reassure him, and confident as he speaks - especially so, considering he barely knows the man even still, but what can he say? There's some inherent trust that comes with discovering something like this together. John's a good man, and while Jon would generally try to keep people uninvolved in this sort of thing from getting sucked into it, he's here, and he's been a part of this island's community as long as Jon can remember. He deserves to be a part of it, just as much as anyone else.

He carefully tucks away the broken pieces of the tape recorder into his bag when they're offered, and at first, looks confused about doing so, but is quick to accept the idea.

"Brilliant. This tape deck is going to be our lifeline for figuring out what the hell is going on here, and anything that happens to it could be a massive set-back," He prattles a bit. "I've been meaning to try to find someone who can develop a power source, possibly splice together one of this world's plugs into a battery seat--- something to work in case we run the current one dead while trying to figure this out. Is that something you've got any experience with?"

John considers that for a long moment, then nods slowly.

"Not the R&D, but I could figure something out with the mechanics." he replies. "I did some work in demolitions, so I got basic electronics down--you show me a cord 'n a plug and I can join 'em."

He frowns, reaching up to scratch his left temple with the back of his right index finger.

"Might be able to help seat an outlet, too, if a power source can be developed. Could look at a cord, too, if we need something stronger 'n what's available so we don't fry the damn thing."

He's about to consider what else he can do, then thinks of Laios and Mairi and Ylva...

His frown deepens. "You considered magic? As a power source, I mean. There's some folks here who work with the stuff, and...I dunno, we might be able to fake some of it with metaphysical help. Shit's real, I've seen it work."

A beat.

"I was a crab once. It was...an experience."

Demolitions? Well, that's not something he needs now, but who knows when that could come up. It's a good thing to keep in one's pocket, at least.

He falls just as deeply into thought as John does, and when he suggests magic, he brightens - and just before he speaks, John hits him with the crab news.

Jon's words of enthusiastic agreement trail off into a hilarious squeak.

And, then, a sputtered laugh. Not mocking, nor cruel - but just so genuinely taken off guard and amused by the notion, it brought his train of thought to a grinding thought.

"You got turned into a crab? ... Why?"

"General chaos, and a star bear." John quips, but can't quite stop a smile of his own as Jon erupts into laughter. "Seriously, this buddy of mine, Mairi--blue skin, great tits, loves to fight--was locking up with one of those star monsters back during the meteor showers? She needed help, I helped. Asked me if I wanted to be a giant crab, I said yes...so I was a giant crab. Weirdest fuckin' thing that ever happened to me, and I'm including showing up in this joint."

"A giant crab. That's very different than a tiny crab," Jon jokes right back. "I'm not surprised to hear that, though! That it was weird, I mean. I imagine for people like her, though, it's a normal Tuesday."

"Pretty much." John agrees with a grin. This...feels weird, too, but not so different from the weirdness of being a crab. A good weird.

"Jon...listen, beyond keepin' me posted about this situation: you're welcome to drop by any time." he adds. "And--thanks. For listening to me, before."

"Oh, well, I... do live just up the street," Jon notes, a bit thoughtfully. "Up on the Bluffs. I've been meaning to do more than work and go back home, and... I certainly wouldn't mind getting to make a social call for something that isn't a dubiously-evil tape."

A beat. He's not going to tell this poor man that he literally fed off that fear. That's a conversation for another time.

"It's no trouble at all, though. I'm happy to listen when an ear is needed. Do feel free to call me, though, alright? Maybe I'll have to come back soon, convince you to teach me how to make that wine."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[OPEN] While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now?

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CW: graphic violence, death by explosives, vivid wartime imagery, outdated references to sex workers

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