(no subject)

[dont_feel_it]

There's been a break from the weird stuff.




There often is. Even with the Troubles rising again, sneaking from the shadows and striking where they're least expected, they don't stop normal, every day life and the normal, every day problems that come with it. Bar fights and treed cats, elderly folks forgetting where they'd put the barbecue grill last fall and reporting it as stolen; parking tickets, beach permits. Everything needed to keep Haven running smoothly, cheerfully. Just another friendly little town on the coast of Maine. Stop by. Have some pancakes.

It grates.

He takes to wearing his sleeves rolled down after the third time he caught himself staring at the burn on his arm. Eleanor patched it up, taped on a clean gauze pad, and scolded him for being careless, but the bandage fell off in the shower and though he'd conscientiously replaced it, he's sick of looking at it. Remembering. How it didn't feel. How it did. Pressure in his chest, watching the flame lick at his skin like he'd been watching it on TV.

So he buttons his sleeves at the wrist, and ignores it. It's not like there isn't plenty to keep him busy. Parker still doesn't know the ropes in town, and she's not likely to for a while yet. Haven folk are glad enough to take a tourist's money, but let them stick around and they soon find the layer of steel under the welcoming sand of the town. She's been running into one closed door after another, and getting frustrated, and he wonders if maybe she doesn't toy with that old Herald photo just about as often as he runs his fingers over the shape of the bandage that sits under his shirt sleeve.

Nothing much happened today, though. A few calls, some paperwork, going over the filing system with Parker and finalizing the paperwork necessary even for an on-loan federal agent, and now it's quitting time, meaning he's headed out, walking with long, measured strides that he's got to pace against Parker's shorter ones, reaching to open the door out to the street as he's glancing over towards her.

"Need a lift?"

He wouldn't mind, and the Bronco's right there.

Or, would be, had the stairs and street not vanished, to be replaced by what looks like a bustling bar.

Nathan's eyebrows climb slowly up his forehead, the only outward sign that he's looking at anything out of the ordinary at all, but all he says is: "Maybe not."

Comments

[dont_feel_it]

Mr. Wuornos, she calls him, and it's another nail in the coffin of not-quite-right.

Nobody calls him that. He's been Nathan to everyone in town since he was a boy; he'll be Nathan til the day he dies. Haven doesn't put a lot of heft in titles, witnesses and suspects are just as likely as Mrs. Miller down the street to call him by his given name instead of Detective.

But nobody ever calls him mister.

He doesn't correct her, though. His eyes are caught on something other than the two drinks sitting on the polished bartop: a little square-cut glass of toothpicks, one of several he can see space more or less evenly down the bar. For when patrons get their end-of-the-universe popcorn stuck in their teeth, he guesses, but he reaches out to tug one loose, even as he shakes his head slightly at her question. "Not much of a drinker."

Definitely not right this second, surrounded by the odd and the impossible, with Parker's materialized dirty martini staring him in the face. Not until he knows.




There's magic here. Maybe. Of some kind that might be different from whatever's in Haven, and, anyway, if Miss Kate Barlow is right, they aren't really in Haven anymore. Maybe aren't even in their own world, anymore, and before anything else happens, he's got something to try. Closes his fingers in a fist around the toothpick, leaves one end just slightly sticking out.

And then he presses the pad of his thumb down into it, as hard as he can, while looking back up at the two women. "Beer's fine."

It looks just like he's making a fist. Squeezing a hand at his side. Nothing to concern themselves with, unless something happens, but --

Nothing does. He presses harder. Nothing.

There's no disappointment that shows, no flicker of anything. He just pushes the toothpick into his jeans pocket like that was his plan all along, and shrugs, mouth twisting into a wry expression that's not quite a smile. "How's your Bar with pancakes?"

Beer's okay. Pancakes are better.

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

Audrey's busy eying her drink, and listening to Kate. Observing without too much focus, or hiding of the watching, that Kate just drinks her drink down. Without pause or delay, no any suspicion. Audrey's attention is definitely elsewhere, especially when she's leaning over to see the tiny angel drawing. Her brow puckering even as a smile is tugging at the middle of her lips.

It's crazy. But it kind of seems like a harmless crazy. Under the right circumstances and care.
The way she's beginning to look at things back home. Marion Caldwell, Bobby Driscoll, Ray McBreen. Even--

It's a little hilarious before she can think his name he's asking that question. Those words that seem to shoot out of his mouth more often than anything that isn't rueful, stoicness about how she'll figure it all out. Whether it's The Troubles. Haven. Or her past. Nathan's go to food. Nathan whom she is settling with a wrinkled nose, and crinkled edges to her blue eyes, with an unruly look of affectionate disbelief and exasperation toward Nathan.

Because. Pancakes, really? In a bar? Audrey couldn't help herself, "Nathan here'll be your best friend if you say yes."

But you know, it's about as far off the mark as her own words, too. Nathan Wournos had a whole lot of citizens, denizens, people who'd known him all his life and who even doted on him affectionately even through his his self-imposed distance. But Audrey would be hard pressed to point a single person who looked like Nathan's friend. Or a friend of Nathan.

[ikissdhimbck]

They're an interesting pair, and no mistake. It doesn't escape her notice when the fella fishes out a toothpick and it suddenly disappears, the calm tenor of his voice about as interesting as the clenched fist at his side. She doesn't exactly know what he's doing, but it's not her place to ask anyhow.

So she smiles instead, eyes crinkling, like she's looking up at her very best friend.

"Only one way t'find out. Place an order. Be specific, now — any kind'a pancake, with any kind'a toppin' your heart desires."

She wears that delighted, I've-got-a-secret look like a badge of honor. Like she's showing off, or challenging him to stump this place.

She smiles at Audrey.

"I could go on for hours, but somethin' tells me you folk are used t'askin' questions. What else can I answer for you?"

It's a small offering of solid ground. A bit of control, in a place that's otherwise completely out of their power to influence.

[dont_feel_it]

His eyes move to Parker, and they're crinkled just enough at the edges to suggest that, just maybe, that line was as much for her benefit as it was his. Even he doesn't normally go for pancakes right after work, and they're not his first choice in a bar or restaurant -- whichever or whatever this place actually is -- but in terms of working with the evidence in front of him, it's not a bad place to start.

Mixing a drink is one thing. Food is more complicated.

The way Miss Barlow's looking at him, though, seems like she knows the place has an ace up it's sleeve, and he shrugs under her amused glance, turns his own to the bartop. "Blueberry buckwheat, and maple syrup."

Simple. Nothing fancy. But in Haven, the blueberries are fresh and wild all summer, and the maple syrup is made in town. You can't get pancakes like that just anywhere.

But you can get ones like them, apparently, as a plate appears with his order, steaming gently. The bar even put the syrup in a separate glass dispenser, featuring the slide-top familiar from his childhood, and when he picks it up, it's got the liquid movement of syrup that's been heated to just the right temperature.

Actually, the glass is probably too hot to hold comfortably, and he puts it down before he accidentally burns himself. "Who runs this place?"

And how? Is there a kitchen, are there bartenders, wait staff, janitors? What makes a bar at the end of the universe tick?

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

The smallest things really do make him seem pleased. Because happy is the wrong word. Definitely, for Nathan Wournos, who still needs to learn to smile when he's ribbing someone. So that at least certain people can even begin to tell when he's being serious and when he's just being an attempt at a stoic funny boy.

Not that certain people mind the challenge any more than that barely there, wrinkle, that might have been something in his face for a second there, but might not have been, now that it was gone and he was distracted in the appeared plate. Because they did appear. A stack of pancakes and a container of syrup. The kind that makes her think of retro diners.

Huh. Double huh, she supposed, at this point. Especially since Miss Kate had said it made anything not alive or a weapon.

Audrey lifted her drink carefully to her lips, even as her eyes went from Nathan asking more questions toward Kate as he was asking them. They were questions worth knowing. She wanted to know about this security group more, already, too. But she could taste her martini and wait for that next round of answers first.


Or, give a surprised mmm mumbled, with a relaxed press to her shoulders, in delight at how good the martini was.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Folks 'round here call him the Landlord, but nobody's ever seen 'im."

She sobers slightly, giving due regard to the seriousness of the question. The smile's still playing at her lips, particularly as he examines his pancakes and she makes a sound of approval at her drink; Kate wants them to feel at ease, as much as possible.

"Frankly, nobody knows why this place exists, or who decides who comes here an' why. For all intents and purposes, Miss Bar runs the place. Like I said, she takes care'a folk. There are rooms upstairs, an infirmary, stables, grounds; li'l bit of everythin' for anybody. There are bartenders, too — even a magic Bar has t'rest every now an' then. Mike an' Sally are the head tenders, an' they know all there is t'know 'bout this place. Others are part time, or volunteers.

"I help run the stables. There're two other stable managers. Head'a security is Miss Mel, she's got a team of about — gracious. Maybe a dozen? Dr. Tam an' Dr. Ford head up the infirmary, but you're likely t'see Dr. Sandhu more. Let's see ... Nope, I think that about covers it, so far as leaders go. Lots of folk from all different walks help out 'round here, though."

[dont_feel_it]

He's sliding onto a seat and picking up a fork as she answers the question, but what she says makes him forget pancakes, syrup, and fork all at the same time, leaving the tines hanging over the surface of the stack as he looks back at her, a faint frown narrowing a line between his eyebrows.

"Stables?"

In a bar?

The rest is just as strange, and he looks around, wondering whether or not any of the people she just mentioned are currently around. "These people -- the ones who help out. They live here? In the bar?"

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

Magic food, in a magic bar, and Nathan's surprised there are horses? Given everything Kate's said, it'd just fall in line that they'd be some kind of magic horses. But it does slams some walls. Like Bars are solitary places. Buildings. Insides with smokey atmosphere's and bar stool, like they're sitting on now, taking up a space like they are some kind of patron.

You don't think of them as having surroundings. Which she's seeing as she gives a look toward the far walls of this place. Windows that show toward an outside, and there's a set of doors over there look like they lead outside. One with weather that doesn't look anything like evening in Haven. Lots of green. What looks familiarly like the glitter of water.

"And how big, exactly, is here?" Audrey asked looking back from the windows and door to Kate.

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate's lips twitch.

Sure, they just saw the universe come to an end outside the Window, but the stables are where they pull up short.

"Some do. Live here, that is. But not all. We all come from someplace, an' come an' go as we might. It jus' helps t'have a place t'hang your hat when time gets all bendy."

Beat.

"I could take you on a tour, if you'd like."

Judging by her grin, she'd be delighted to. It leads straight into her answer to Audrey's question, which, for all intents and purposes, is straight laughter.

"That also gets bendy. It's — big. S'like someone found a chunk of paradise and plopped down some real estate. The universe puts on a show every hour for the patrons who come t'eat, an' for the rest, well, there's a li'l bit of everythin'."

[dont_feel_it]

His eyes move from Parker's skepticism to Miss Barlow's amusement, and he shrugs, subtle. Food and drink in a bar is one thing. You expect it, no matter how strange the bar itself is. But horses? An infirmary?

He doesn't like places that stretch past where they're supposed to end. It's too like Haven, doors opening to rooms that shouldn't be there, twisting halls, the forest full of shadows and deep, unexpected pits. He doesn't like the idea of bendy time much, either. He wonders if someone's responsible. If it's a Trouble, or something like one.

Miss Barlow doesn't seem fazed. She's just about ready to shoo them out that other door already, giving them the easy, assured smile of someone who knows exactly what's coming and isn't worried about it.

He wonders how long in a place like this it takes to get that inured.

He keeps his questions and opinons to himself, though, and instead turns to Parker, eyebrows barely lifting in a silent question that he thinks he knows the answer to, already. She dove headfirst into Haven; she's likely to track this trail wherever it leads, too.

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

They're already in, aren't they? Audrey doesn't see the downside of seeing as much and as far as she can.
Not that it doesn't come with a firm belief that whatever she gets shown is only the top, public layer of this place.

That it won't explain what's under it, or any of the people in it. Won't explain the catch to it all, and she definitely believes there is a catch. It's too good to be true: everything you could need or want in one place, a magical place, with time unlimited for it and not price attached? She's been alive and working cases long enough to know what it means when something looks too good to be true.

"We should let Nathan at least try his pancakes before we rush him out the door," Audrey said, smile still there if more firm than curling. "How long has this place been here? And where exactly is here?" Saying the end of time and space was about as much putting a dot on a map as heaven, or here there dragons, or wild blue yonder.

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate nods. She's got that relaxed, easy manner common to folk from her where and when. She's in no hurry, and it'd be a shame to let their first drink and meal respectively go to waste.

She blows out a slow breath, like a silent whistle.

"S'hard t'say. I surely don't have them answers, beyond what I've already told you. Milliways was here a long time 'fore I ever arrived, an' 'here' is—"

She shrugs, gesturing to the Window again.

"The very edge of the universe. The last spit of land, Lord knows how far from Earth. Ah, beggin' your pardon — folk from all different worlds come here. Wherever you're from, we ain't there no more. I once asked 'bout the doors, a long time ago; 'bout how they stretch to all kinds of different places all over the universe. Best answer anybody could give me was 'wormholes'. I don't know much 'bout that, but y'can travel from place t'place in the blink of an eye jus' by goin' through that door with somebody."

[dont_feel_it]

None of it especially whets his appetite. Not that bit about the very edge of the universe, or wormholes, but the pancakes are there, and he's not one to let them go to waste, even if they're from some unseeable source. It couldn't actually be buckwheat, or blueberries, or maple syrup, but he sits down all the same, pours the syrup over the stack, and cuts off a bite as Miss Barlow continues.

And they're good. It's only loyalty to Haven that makes him balk at saying just as good as home, but all he does is chew, swallow, cut a second bite.

Which is about all he's planning on. This isn't the time, and he's yet to decide it's the place to settle down to a short stack of pancakes, no matter how fresh the berries, how pure the syrup.

"Strange," he opines, fork resting in his hand, eyes trained on Parker, before they go tracking around the room, glancing at the window, pausing there for a fraction of a heartbeat, and moving on. "Mind if I ask where you're from, Miss Barlow?"

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

Kate's right. It doesn't really help. Answers that aren't answers.
That have to be taken on faith. By trust. From people you don't know.
Who appeared out of nowhere, work on and by magic, and have no answers.

That supposedly no one knows the straight, right, true, correct beat on the answer to. With no evidence to back it up but personal statement handed down. She's had worse introductions to places, through the foster system and on the receiving end of a gun, but it's not the best foot forward she's ever seen or had in a place. That much's for sure.

It gives her more questions, not less. Leaving her taking another drink of her martini while watching the other two.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Texas."

Short, easy to digest statements.

"Earth. Jus' outside of Green Lake."

And then the harder to chew:

"Year's eighteen-eighty-eight for me."

[dont_feel_it]

His chewing slows slightly, but all he does is finish his bite. Swallow.

"So when you say people come from all over, you mean different times."

As well as places. Times and places. Times, place. Worlds.




It's flatly noncomittal, as he folds his arms on the bartop to look at her. "Guess they're all available, at the end of the universe."


In a manner of speaking, wouldn't everything have happened by then?

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

"Time, and worlds." Audrey added, over the rim of her martini glass, pulling it away again.

Times and worlds. Because she's saying there are other worlds. And that she comes from 1888. On Earth. Which supposedly is their Earth? Or a different Earth? Audrey'd really never been one for diving into science fiction. The furthest she got were the vampire books, and that was all the same world, just a step over, and most of them were entertainment more than sense.

But those two facts. They hadn't even been in the same sentences. One had been generally about the place, and the other had been about herself. "Green Lake -- ?" Audrey added, questioning the location, when the name didn't ring a single bell. Making her wonder if it was gone, or on another Earth. Either seemed as applicable, if she was supposed to be taking this seriously, stacking facts.

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate actually chuckles at Nathan's tone. It's not the worst reaction she's ever seen.

Nodding:

"Most folk tend t'come from around the twenty-first century. Y'can imagine it was a big shock for me, first time here. But, well, the proof is in the puddin', sir. Take a look around the room. These ain't elaborate costumes, or crazy makeup."

To be certain, there are humans aplenty, but there are also robots, and furry bipeds, elves and dwarves, creatures of all different colors, wearing all different styles of dress. And, naturally, there are the waitrats.

"A lotta folk seem t'think they're dreamin' or hallucinatin' when they first come in. Helps ease the blow, I reckon. Shame you two came in together, it kinda puts an end t'that."

Then, turning to Audrey:

"Ah, it's a small place. It's grown into a respectable town in my day, lots'a money, but it's been sufferin' drought the last few years. Couple folks I've met from further in the future say it ain't very big, if it's the same place at all. Port Lavaca an' Corpus Christi have grown bigger, no surprise."

[dont_feel_it]

Taking her cue to look around the room again, Nathan has to agree; assuming this was a hallucination or a dream probably would ease the shock of it all, or, at the very least, provide a reasonable explanation for the bar's bizarre patronage.

He'd hate to see this place throw a costume party.

Green Lake doesn't ring a bell for him, either, even after Miss Barlow elaborates, but Corpus Christi is familiar enough to elicit a nod. Texas, late eighteen hundreds. Vince and Dave would think they'd died and gone to Heaven. He spares a moment's gratitude that they aren't here to smother Kate Barlow with questions.

It neatly kills what little appetite he has, though, so he puts the fork down after another bite and pushes his plate away, while turning a leery eye on a knee-high rodent scurrying past, bearing a tray with a few delicate mixed drinks and one individual pot of tea.

Maybe it would be easier, but he much prefers having come in with Parker, all the same. "How about that look outside?"

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

Audrey doesn't actually like the implication. But then Audrey doesn't like less than the truth.

Especially when she's a got it lot lately. In Haven. Blatantly. Like it's all fine, if they're obvious but silent.

She'd really rather not want to think this whole place and it's 'weird-ness' is some kind of funky food reaction or crazy dream she's going to wake up from at any moment. Not if it isn't. Fake guardrails really aren't her thing. But she's following the mentions of Texas. Making a note of it all. She looked up things on far less concerte facts. Kate Barlow. Green Lake Texas. 1888.

But it's Nathan's question, that makes Audrey look down. As much as its actually down, Nathan isn't that much shorter than her sitting all that height of his on a stool. Dry sort of teasing tugging just enough at one curve of her mouth trying to come back to it. "You sure you're done already? What'd you get? One, two bite--"

She's glancing between him and the plate though, when her expression falters with some surprise. Because it's already gone: the plate. Replaced with a white take-out box that looks the same the universe over. Even when there's a small, bright pink, azalea resting on top of the container.

"Huh." Again. But with a faintly crazy tug to her smile. The oddly cheerful ruefulness erring on teasing that comes with the crazy they seems to hit daily in stride. "It looks like someone here likes you." Audrey's gaze finding their guide again. "I guess that puts us back in your capable hands, Miss Barlow."

[ikissdhimbck]

She grins.

"There's not many folk the Miss don't like. Still, I like t'think she's got good taste."

Makes it easier, being in a room with countless weapons, not sweating bullets every time. Waiting for that one fatal card game, or that one ill-advised insult, to end her time here.

She knocks back the rest of her drink and straightens.

"Pleasure. I promise not t'wear you out. Outside first, I reckon, but feel free t'stop me if somethin' particular snags your attention."

She tips her hat, and leads the way to the back door. They'll pass the kitchens, staff hallway, infirmary, and restrooms on their way out.

[dont_feel_it]

He's giving Parker a look that should point out without requiring words that they've wandered into a multi-dimensional bar that should have been Main Street, and that pancakes can wait until after initial reconnoitering, but her words trail off midway through her own sentence, and he follows her glance to see the neat little take-out box sitting where his plate had previously been.

He considers it for a second. Reaches out, picks up the azalea, and brings it to his nose, then carefully places it back on the box as Miss Barlow turns to go.

He can come back for it. For now, he unfolds from the stool, hands sliding into his pockets, follows Kate and Parker with that same ground-covering, slowed down stride, and if he doesn't give much away on his face, it doesn't mean he isn't paying attention as they pass a number of doors and a further selection of the odd patronage making themselves comfortable here.

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

Lanky, tall Nathan Wournos, holding a small pink flower, between his fingers, against his face. For the smallest pause, right after giving her that expectation, patient look, like she should know better, that somethings were more important. Which is why he's stopping to smell a flower. It's such an odd combination, and Audrey shakes her head, maybe even only to herself, looking to Kate and the bar with a pressed smile.

She tilted her cup and took a big gulp of martini, even though it didn't finish it. Then, placed it on the bar to leave it, too.

"I'm good with outside." Audrey put her hands in the pocket of her well-fit jacket, falling in line next to Nathan.

[ikissdhimbck]

The back door swings open to a friendly outdoor porch, a few chairs scattered about where folk can sit and enjoy the evening. The glistering lake is immediately noticeable, and beyond that ...

Mountains, fields, forests, pathways forking this way and that. Down a ways past the lake, the stables and the forge. The firing range, the baseball diamond. Gardens, and a greenhouse. It's a whole world out here, some things stretching too far for the eye to see from their current vantage point. It takes exploring. A walkabout.

"This is outside. Protected from whatever's goin' on outside the Window on the other side'a the bar."

It looks a little bit like Scotland, and the day star hanging in the sky looks a lot like the sun. It's comfortable, easy; breathable. At night the constellations are different, and the climate can change in a lick depending on where you're standing, but for all intents and purposes it feels a lot like Earth.

[dont_feel_it]

It looks like a park. The kind of park put together by someone who'd been living inside, maybe among too many buildings, for too long. There's a huge, sweeping expanse of open space, a beach, a forest creeping up the slopes of hazy blue mountains. A greenhouse. A baseball field.

He wonders if there are Little League teams here, or how many people inside even know how to play the game.

"This is a different planet?"

He can smell the sweetness of growing grass, the faint salt twist to the air that's like and unlike home. There's no briny low-tide smell, and this place lacks the cool mist that always seems to hang in the air along the tidal flats of Haven, but it's close.

Which is strange, because that looks like a lake, not an ocean.