ʀɪᴄʜɪᴇ (beepbeep) wrote in evaluation, @ 2019-12-09 10:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !rooms: 3: day 2, it: chapter two: richie tozier, the shining/doctor sleep: dan torrance |
Who: Dan & Richie
What: Washing dishes and having a talk about disturbing shit
When: Day 2, morning
Where: The dirt-coffee shop slash bakery
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
The coffee shop, such as it was, looked like a shed from the outside - in that wooden, weird roof sort of way and the inside was just as rustic and jumbled, like a combination of furniture but most of it raw timber, and few colors. But you didn’t have to wait in line in the cold for wares, and if you wanted something resembling coffee (close your eyes and it tasted pretty authentic - it wasn’t a bold French roast, but whatever) you just needed to wash some dishes for awhile. Or part with your tea - but while Richie wasn’t a tea fan unless it was tea with 40 proof alcohol that was going to be an aid in surviving the dark and windy winter, he still wasn’t about to part with it. He was saving it, in case either he or John caught their death in this arctic tundra even though the tea in rations was like, sugary and shit. But still, it’d be hot and so he’d keep his tea until you pried it from his kung-fu grip. Or however long they were here for. Hopefully not that long - amazing how he too wanted to move on from Prank Land, though now that he thought about it, being there was actually kind of nice. In comparison, anyway. Bread in the Soviet Union was cheap, and actually pretty good, and that was how visitors were welcomed in this particular knockoff snowy hell, then and now - with bread and salt (or sugar). So coffee and pastries was an okay deal and dishes weren’t awful - reminded him of his childhood, when they didn’t have an automatic dishwasher either and at first he’d needed a step-stool for reaching the sink (because clearly those dishes would just pile up if he didn’t do them, thanks drunk mom and nearly-invisible dad), until his growth spurt. Yay. “Okay, assembly line,” he said to Dan, passing him a plate to dry. Richie’s hands were wet, the water was soapy, but he didn’t have anything else planned for today so he didn’t mind this. Much. “This is the best way to talk about shitty childhoods.” Dan had never been to Russia… or pseudo-Russia, since this country had a name he didn’t recognize and wasn’t sure he could pronounce anyway, whatever. Details. His travel hadn’t extended out of the US and this wouldn’t have been his first choice for getting to be abroad, but. Given that he ought to be extremely deceased, he supposed that in this case, beggars couldn’t be choosers or else beggars would be corpses. Or something like that. He needed to work on being more pithy. Wit had never been on his list of strengths. “Is it?” He mused, taking the wet plate from his companion. “News to me, but a lot of this is.” Chuckling quietly under his breath, Dan did his best with a towel that had clearly seen better days, and had never been introduced to an ounce of fabric softener. At least he was a practiced hand at cleaning. It had been a solid part of his job for years, so he hadn’t blinked when they’d been told that coffee came in exchange for dish duty. Stacking plates to one side, he glanced to Richie. “How bad was small town Maine, then?” Hot water might be a lot to ask for, but you know. Richie would dip his hands into a cold splash, might even become numb to it. There were more dishes to wash - how long were they supposed to be here? Hours, was the answer - but they’d get it done. Teamwork. “Pretty bad,” he snorted a laugh - he didn’t talk fondly of his hometown. His tone was like, maybe two packets of Splenda sugar substitute in a beaker full of acid. And why would he talk fondly? It sucked. In all ways. “So like, a millennia ago, I don’t know - this eldritch monster from space crash-landed there and its presence basically infected what would eventually become the town with evil. Lots of crime, arson, murder - cops didn’t get very far in their investigations, and it was always like something in the air. Sucking the joy out of everything. Turned out to be the monster, which took the form of a dancing clown to hunt and kill people - kids, mainly, it fed off of kids and then went into hibernation once it was in a food coma.” Which still bothered him. How the fuck did Eddie think he was going to - you know what, nevermind. He passed a few utensils to Dan. “My friends and I, one summer, we killed IT. That was what it was called, literally - the clown form was called Pennywise, but I mean. Whatever, so we killed the fucking clown, then made an oath to return if it wasn’t really dead. Twenty-seven years later, we were back in that shithole town and killed IT for good, only...not all of us made it. So. Wouldn’t recommend Derry, Maine as a vacation destination even if it’s not literally soaked with blood anymore.” He’d never go back. No reason to. It was a chapter closed, a chapter that continued to sit heavy on his heart. Well, that was a hell of a story. Dan thought his was strange enough, the kind of strange he shouldn’t repeat to anyone in case they thought he was crazy, but his didn’t have evil clowns from space. He listened, caught somewhere between amazement and confusion, and kept his eyes on the towel he was methodically wiping across a series of forks that were probably going to spot anyway. “Why you guys?” He asked, finally. “Did you draw the short straws?” There were choices he’d made as a kid that he’d been backed into by circumstance. He couldn’t picture making them voluntarily. Then again, he’d never been particularly brave. Dan was good at keeping his head down. It was usually the smarter play. “I don’t know,” Richie shrugged, twisting one of the creaky knobs on the sink to see if he could get any hot water, any at all. Maybe a trickle. “We sort of - we had this bond. You know, like. Love and childhood innocence and all that shit. It was enough to defeat it. Also because we believed that we could.” It sounded like some Peter Pan ridiculousness, he was aware, but it turns out that the greatest weapon against Pennywise wasn’t anything manmade, not a blade or a flamethrower or a bazooka, but just the power of belief. Wild, huh? “What about you?” he asked. “What’s your story?” Love and childhood innocence. Dan wondered what that was like. He’d never gotten the chance, not with his early visit to the Overlook. He’d never collected that kind of childhood friend, never believed in anything strongly enough to wield it like a superpower. That was kind of inspiring, in an incredibly fucked-up kind of way, and he nodded absently as he reached to carefully slot spoons into the little caddy nearby. The last thing they needed was for him to dump them all into the floor so they’d need another cleaning. Drawing a breath, Dan considered the best angle for telling his story, considering the gaps and spots and weird places that didn’t even make sense to him, even now, and exhaled with a quick shake of his head. “My dad,” he started, soft and low, “Was an alcoholic. He picked up a job at this hotel when I was five. Huge place in Colorado. The job was to be the overseer in the off season, so we were the only people there.” A pause and he tacked on a dry, “The only living people, anyway. It was haunted. Really… really haunted.” Another spoon, another methodical pass of his fingers and the threadbare towel. “It wasn’t just the ghosts. The whole place had… an energy. It twisted my dad around. It kept trying to eat me.” Dan snorted, quiet. “I’ve got a… thing. Always called it the shine. Some things can feel it, other things can feed on it. Hell of an experience for a little kid, you know?” He could still close his eyes and picture the first time the Overlook took a swing at him. Sometimes he wondered what would’ve happened if he’d let it get a better grip. “Dad tried to kill us. My mom got us out. He… ah. Froze to death. The place had a big hedge maze and he got lost in there. Didn’t make it through alive.” Jesus. That kind of thing, it lingered - fear and terror, it clung to your ribs and settled oh-so-uncomfortably in your chest. The nightmares, Dan probably had nightmares, didn’t he? Caught by a different set of jaws home to razor sharp teeth, but it was similar in the end - that type of fear, yeah, it took a bite out of you. Richie knew. “Only people in a hotel, I can see how that’d go south quick,” he sighed. Besides the hungry beasties, the cabin fever probably didn’t help matters either. Especially if it was wintertime. “What’s the shine?” he asked next, grabbing a few coffee mugs to dump into the sink - they were mismatched too, and clinked together gently as he soaped them up. Dan would always have nightmares. His problem happened to be that they weren’t always his nightmares, and they weren’t always about whatever gibberish his unconscious might cough up in the dead of night. Sometimes he dropped into other people’s dreams, or he got a peek into the future. Or past. All in all, it meant that sleep wasn’t always restful, but he’d learned how to manage. Alcohol had been the easy, early answer, but he’d gotten past that years ago. “I guess it’s an easy way to say I’m psychic,” Dan answered, slanting a faint smile in Richie’s direction. “The complicated kind of psychic, anyway. Mine’s… a lot. Not everyone’s shine is the same kind. I can… hear your thoughts, or I could make sure you heard mine. I can share dreams… or watch through your eyes when you’re awake. I can see the past or the future. Talk to spirits….” He sighed, lifting a shoulder as he reached for the next clean mug. “Like I said, it’s a lot. So easier to just call it the shine. When I was a kid, they thought I was autistic, maybe. Or there was something else wrong with me. Turns out I was just talking to ghosts and predicting the future.” “Wh - what?” The mug dropped from Richie’s already slippery grasp - luckily he caught it before it crashed onto the floor, but his reflexes may have looked a little comical there for a second. But excuse him, he just had a moment where his heart did kind of a thing where it was thrown off a figurative horse and then did a somersault into the air. Okay, uh. Pull it together, Tozier. Here in pseudo-Russia, everything was cold and dreary and his brain wasn’t playing safe, cozy host to a virus that he didn’t even understand. A virus, a presence, he didn’t comprehend - he just knew that John couldn’t touch it, and they needed to find someone who could. Or at least help him reel it back before it leaked around the edges, water seeping through a cracked fish tank. “You can see the future?” he clarified. “I - so it sucks, right? I mean. You’re not even supposed to be able to do it but yet you see things, like this fucking factory, and you want to warn people but you can’t because you don’t even know what the fuck you’re doing...” Maybe it was just him. Oh. That wasn’t a great reaction. Dan paused, pulling back slightly, tension leaching into his shoulders as he shifted weight to one foot in case he needed to clear out. Instinct said that he needed to get ready to run, to duck, to avoid the moment when surprise became anger became violence. But apparently he was misunderstanding Richie’s surprise. Bewildered, and still a little wary, he watched the other man process through what he’d said and come back with a question that made Dan reframe things again. “Yeah,” he agreed, cautiously, “It does kind of suck sometimes. When I was a kid, I didn’t… get it. The things I was seeing or why, and I never could explain them right.” Not that adults believed him. Or listened to him. Dick had been the only one, and that was only because he had his own shine. “Do you… obviously you see the future. Have you always been able to?” Dan couldn’t do a damned thing at the moment. It was strange, being the only person in his head. Kind of a nice reprieve for now, but it would probably wear on him with time. If Dan had run off, Richie probably would have tackled him to the floor in a mess of lanky limbs - and caused a scene, but point was, he was the one. Like, someone over the age of twenty-one who knew what it was like to be burdened with this shit. Richie could probably learn tarot from a teenager but anything else, he just didn’t want to drag someone so young into that. He didn’t want to drag someone he just met into it either, but. Maybe tips? Something? “No, it’s pretty new,” he chuckled bitterly. Back to the dishes, nothing to see here. “Remember how I mentioned killing IT for good? Well, at one point during our epic battle, the thing made sure I looked right into its true form. For the human mind, we see it as lights - bright lights, Deadlights. And then it’s like - injected into you. Or me, in this case. It happened to one of my friends when we were kids, and she had nightmares about our future selves and us dying for years - so yeah, I see the future now. It’s creepy and wrong and I don’t know how to control it.” Grimacing, Dan picked up a fresh towel. The one he’d been using was too damp now to hope to dry anything. “That’s… fucked,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t want to suddenly find myself with any kind of unexpected power, but especially not that one.” Being able to see the future was a burden- the twisty, confusing kind that often left even Dan shaky and puzzling for answers. And he’d been this way his whole life. Well. Most of his twenties notwithstanding. “I, ah. I can’t do anything here. I hope that’s the same for you.” His obvious sympathies if not, but with he and Rose both left floundering, he had to assume it was something impacting everyone... unless they were special and lost their shine in death. Shaking that thought aside, he forged on with a mild, “But either way, I can probably. You might not have the shine, but you’ve got something and I know how bad it can be when you don’t know how to handle what your brain is doing and you just want it to stop.” The water sloshed as Richie cleaned more mugs, thumb swiping over the ceramic. “It’s the same for me. I can’t feel it,” he confirmed. He didn’t have a grasp on this fuckery, not even a chance, but in Schitt’s Creek he’d been able to sense its presence, at least - something in his mind’s eye, flesh and bone, shadows dancing there. There was no hope of controlling when the visions came, or even controlling them to the point where he got them to slow down enough to actually comprehend, but he could still feel that bit of extra. Sitting there. Heavy as a loaded gun. “My, um - person?” He said the word like a question - because calling John his boyfriend felt ridiculous, like they were in high school at a slumber party. “He’s kind of a warlock. He tried to get rid of it - it didn’t work. So he said, maybe I might need a clairvoyant to help.” He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with his arm, a twitch of it since his hands were soapy. “So it’s - you can help?” “Well,” Dan mused, reaching over to help Richie adjust his glasses, fingers careful to remain just on the frames, “I’ve never met a warlock, but people like me… we seem to understand each other pretty well. I’m willing to give it a shot, anyway, if you’re willing to put up with things like meditation.” He offered a faint, crooked smile as he pulled back, mug in hand. “There’s a lot of meditating. It’s about as interesting as it sounds.” He wouldn’t touch too hard on that person thing. That seemed like none of his business, though Dan would adamantly state that he wasn’t homophobic or anything. So long as everybody was happy and consenting and an adult. Warlock was a different question for another time. He was trying to keep a mental list. He cleared his throat then, glancing aside as he exchanged a dry mug for another wet one. “Are there no other psychics here? Mental powers of any kind?” That would be a relief for him, to know Rose couldn’t change her mind and go prowling when and if they did get their shine back. Meditation, coooool. That pulled up images of yoga mats and downward facing dog. Though the only yoga position he knew was lying flat on his back and passing the fuck out, thanks. “I’m in,” Richie grinned a bit in return. “I don’t know if I can sit still enough for meditation but I guess we’ll find out.” And he was willing to try anything - he wanted to actually kind of harness this so it could be useful. Even if, in the back of his mind, he worried it wouldn’t matter - that he wasn’t supposed to be able to do this shit, and it was like jamming a square peg into a round hole. Maybe you could squash it and make it fit but ultimately it wasn’t going to. He guessed he’d see. As long as he didn’t keel over and die, it was fine, right? Right. “I’m not sure what everybody’s got going on,” he admitted, scraping something gunky off a plate. Yuck. “There might be more. There was a kid who offered to help me read tarot cards but that’s all I know for certain,” he said. Dan blanched, fingers stuttering on the towel so it was his turn to nearly drop a mug. Fortunately the towel was looped in, functioning like a flimsy, very damp hammock and catching the mug before it got too far out of his grip. “Fuck,” he sighed, shoulders bunching. “Okay. I… ah. I died. Before turning up here, I mean. The thing that killed me, she also turned up here. Right now she’s as human as you and I… I think.” He hoped. She might be fucking with him about that, but her rage seemed genuine enough. Just as genuine as last time, anyway, because he was so lucky as to be able to compare the various stages of Rose is pissed and going to eat your soul, no fava beans necessary. “But normally, she’s one of those things that feeds on shine. I don’t know if that applies to anybody else’s power, but I think we’d all rather not find out. So if you know anybody who might be at risk… maybe go ahead and warn them? Her name’s Rose.” “The fuuuuuuck?” was Richie’s brilliant reaction, but yeah, alright. He was busy trying to comprehend all of that. And then suddenly remembered the name of the person John was having dinner with tonight (if you could call it dinner - more like the first step to needing insulin shots) and wow, he fucking would, wouldn’t he? Make friends with a goddamn vampire, that is. “Yeah - yeah, I’ll do the warning. That’s - are you okay though?” He was actually very concerned about Dan. Since he just admitted he died and all. That had to be difficult to deal with, whether or not you were blindsided or at peace with the choice or what. It was like some weird transition, after hopefully many years of a long and fulfilling life on this side of things. “I mean, if it helps? My person says the afterlife is what you make of it. It’s not terrible. So at the very least, it probably involves less communism.” “Me?” Dan seemed surprise at the inquiry, then shrugged it off again. “I’m okay. Relatively, anyway. Surprised to be here now, and I did kind of think it might be hell at first, but all signs point to no.” He re-evaluated a beat later with a dry, “Most signs, anyway. Rose’s presence did basically confirm my first theory, but everyone else seems to be arguing for the second.” He hadn’t worried about dying. It wasn’t a choice he’d made for himself, but he’d sort of embraced it by the end. Might as well make it worthwhile, anyway, and he’d done that. Probably. He couldn’t contact Abra to confirm, not from a place that didn’t let him shine, but… eventually, if he got lucky. “I don’t want to panic anybody by calling her out in a big way, so I figure… you seem to know what’s going on enough to warn the people who need it. She’s already killed me, so it’s not like she can do worse than that.” Dan snorted, softly. “I killed her, too. So I guess it all evened out.” Until they’d turned up here, anyway, but they had a tentative truce in place for as long as it could be maintained without bloodshed. He was aiming for a week and he’d reassess later. Small steps. Maybe he’d get Rose a chip. Yeah, no, that made sense. For one very iron-clad reason. And what was that reason? “This crowd doesn’t do well with mass panic anyway,” Richie agreed. “The first room showed us that.” It would just be a giant clusterfuck and would probably involve fire (since it didn’t even take ‘hey guys, there’s a vampire in our midst’ for someone to set just one tinderbox space aflame for...reasons he wasn’t even sure of). That was the last thing they all needed, especially in close quarters. If the apartment building didn’t burn to the fucking ground, they’d all be lined up and executed. Russian style. “But still, I mean - you’re gonna help me out so if you ever need anything?” he offered. “I’ve got your back. Welcome to the posse.” It was admittedly kind of a small posse, but the people in it meant a lot to Richie. “No crowd does,” Dan allowed with a small smile. He pushed a damp hand through his hair, not that it helped much, and finished the last of the mugs. They’d managed to help clean up from the morning coffee push, if nothing else, and the next intrepid visitors could handle the next set of dishes. It wasn’t the worst system he’d heard of. Offering the towel to Richie, since he was more in need anyway, Dan nodded. “I appreciate it, Richie. Never had a posse before, but if there was a time for it… looks like now is it.” |