magnus (kidcam) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-04-29 21:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, nick |
WHO: Nick & Magnus
WHERE: the B&B
WHEN: Oct 17th, breakfast
STATUS: finito
WARNINGS: none
Magnus was a lot of things—and a morning person was not one of them. His joints still ached from the long car ride from Chicago, it was notably colder out than he was personally comfortable with, and his first night in the inn’s bed hadn’t done him any favors yet, either. His glasses pushed high on his nose, his hair somewhere between artfully messy and man-actively-on-the-run-from-combs, Magnus stumbled into the breakfast area of the Juniper Inn a man radiating early morning stupor.
Hence, Magnus found a seat at the breakfast table, the one closest to the steaming pot of coffee, and slowly came around to his surroundings half a cup of java later. The breakfast area was still empty, and he wasn’t sure whether Noah was still asleep or had beaten him to breakfast and was out on a morning jog (who knew?), nor what time it really was, but his brain processes hadn’t gone much further than ‘coffee, now,’ and once he figured he could pass for human, he’d knock or text him.
The only thing Magnus had managed to bring with him was his latest literary treasure, Hunt for the Skinwalker, found at one of the gas stations along the way. Did reading these things in public make him look a little like a nutcase? Probably. Did he care about that? Not remotely. Besides, he reasoned the only people he was bound to see were the innkeepers. So, once he’d refilled his cup for a second time and buttered a slice of bread, Magnus got as cozy as he could at the table, and flipped his book open.
Nick woke up in a surprisingly good mood for a Monday morning. Not that Mondays had as much shitty connotations to him as they did to most working people. It was just another day for a freelancer, and he had some interesting leads to follow up on around town. He rolled out of bed decently early, took a quick shower, and loaded up his messenger bag, intending to be gone for most of the day. It looked a little gloomy and rainy out the window, but that didn’t bother him either. It was like mood lighting in this town.
He was starving, so he headed down to the dining room to take advantage of that free breakfast. There was only one other guest in there, a young looking guy with wild hair with his nose in a book. Sounded about right. He was sitting near the coffee, which was Nick’s first destination, and curiosity got the better of him as he approached. He tilted his head a bit and leaned to peek at the cover of the book the young man was reading. To his delight, he recognized the book cover. “Kelleher, huh?” he commented as he grabbed a mug and started to fill it up with delicious caffeine. “Met him at a conference once, really fascinating guy.”
Pulled from his book, Magnus needed a moment before he blinked up at the stranger for a moment, then took a glance at the cover of his book again—not that he needed to reassure himself what he was reading, but at the surprise that someone would recognize it. “Oh. Yeah? He seems like—“ Magnus paused, pursed his lips as he tried to find a good way of phrasing what he wanted to say, “Like he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Y’know. Given the subject matter. They… don’t all.” Was that diplomatic enough? He hoped it was. There was a line between ‘hi, I’m one of the nutcases’ and ‘wow, look at these freaks,’ and he was trying to find it. It being Monday morning didn’t make that any easier.
Though, so far Kelleher really didn’t sound like a raving maniac, which helped. The other guest, for what it was worth, also wasn’t sporting a tinfoil hat. “I’ve heard about skinwalkers here and there, but this is pretty thorough. But I could live without the cattle mutilation details.” Which was not a great breakfast topic, he realized a second later, and gave a somewhat awkward smile with that. He waited for the other guest to fill his cup, then refilled his own coffee and gave the other guy a small smile, his curiosity piqued, and his brain slowly waking up. “What kinda convention was that?”
Nick chuckled over the guy’s choice of words. It was diplomatic, more so than a lot of people were when they talked about his profession. Not that this dude knew Nick was one of those same potential nutcases, but it was still nice that someone recognized that they weren’t all loony tunes. Once he’d dumped a bunch of sugar into his coffee, he helped himself uninvited to a seat at the table with his newfound friend. Some people might think it was strange that he was running into so many fans of the paranormal in this tiny town, but this was Point Pleasant. It seemed like the kind of place that drew those types in. Like him.
“It was an author’s convention,” Nick said, stirring up his coffee before taking the first testing sip. It could’ve been sweeter, but oh well. Good enough. “Specifically authors of the paranormal ... which honestly could’ve been better subdivided, if you ask me. There’s a big difference between fans of books like that --” he nodded at the Kelleher book, “-- and the vampire-versus-werewolves romance fangirls.” It was probably snobby of him to sound a little disparaging of that last group, but Nick couldn’t help it. Those books were universally awful, in his opinion, and so wrong. He offered his hand over to the young man. “Nick Cooke.”
Magnus certainly didn’t mind some breakfast company; even if mornings weren’t his favorite time of day, he enjoyed meeting people, and he wanted to know more about Point Pleasant, its people and reputation, and the kind of people it attracted. It seemed like his new breakfast friend was here for similar reasons as he was—it didn’t really seem like much of a tourist destination otherwise. He grabbed one of the unused napkins from the table to use as a makeshift bookmark and put his book aside, so he could reach out and shake Nick’s hand. “Magnus Johnson.”
Nick Cooke, however, that vaguely rang a bell somewhere at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “So you’re an author, too? I feel like I might have read some of yours,” he mused out loud, and squinted at Nick across the table—as if his face was the recognizable part. Magnus couldn’t even remember the last time he had looked at the author’s portrait in a book, unless it was to check for tinfoil hats. “Ravaged by the Werewolf I assume it wasn’t. Not that I’m not a big, big fan of those, but…” He couldn’t help but smirk, then shrugged. It would annoy him for a while longer that he couldn’t properly place the name, and he poured more coffee into himself, to kickstart that thinking process. “What brings you to Point Pleasant? It’s kind of. Out of the way from, uh. Everything. I guess.”
As a general rule, Nick tried not to disturb people who were reading. One of his own pet peeves was being interrupted while he had his nose in a book. But he just couldn’t resist in this case -- this guy was staying in the same place he was and reading an author he’d met before. If that wasn’t an unwitting invitation, he didn’t know what was. He gave a nod as they shook hands, thinking he wouldn’t forget that name anytime soon. Nick was pretty sure he’d never met a ‘Magnus’ before, and combined with his last name, it kind of sounded like a dick joke. Not that he was going to say so.
He wasn’t disappointed that Magnus didn’t recognize his name immediately, in spite of what his ego thought, he didn’t want a town full of fans of his, and Adam had already fanboyed a bit. Nick chuckled. “Yeah, can’t say ‘Ravaged’ is anywhere on my list,” he said. Nick was tempted to list off a few of his titles to see if this guy had read anything of his, but decided not to unless he was asked. He could keep his ego in check a little. Sometimes. “I’m working on a new book, actually. This place is ass-deep in weird shit and dark history. Seemed like fertile ground for a project. How ‘bout you?” He took another sip of his coffee, eyes on the younger man across from him.
“That’s a shame, I’ve been told it’s a booming market.” Magnus couldn’t quite keep the grin off his face, even as he tried to, badly, hide it behind his coffee mug. Books of the ‘in love with the sea monster’ sort had certainly made it into his inventory here or there, if only because they were usually a dollar fifty, and reading excerpts out loud to Noah and trying to keep a straight face was a very good way to stay awake. Usually. “What kinda project?” Magnus was never quite sure where the line between pleasant conversation and curiously prying was, but he was usually toeing it even on the best of days.
Contemplating how to best explain why he was here himself, he took another sip of his coffee. “There used to be this radio show out of Point Pleasant, maybe you heard of it. It’s only been off the air for a month. About all the kind of weirdness and history of this place?” Phrased as a question only because, clearly, Nick already knew plenty of it already, too, if it had drawn him here. “And I kinda knew the host. So I figured I might just stop by and check it out for myself.” ‘Also he went missing and apparently I fancy myself a junior sleuth because I run a youtube channel’ was the part Magnus left out, because if reading about Skinwalkers for breakfast didn’t make him look looney yet, he was pretty sure that would.
“A new book or three,” Nick casually answered his first question. That was only half of the truth, but it was the only half he was at liberty to share. It served its purpose to cover his real motivations well, at least. He sipped on his coffee and listened intently to the rest of what Magnus said. A local radio show about the supernatural sounded familiar, Nick thought he might have read something about that when he first started researching to town, or seen it referenced on a couple of message boards somewhere. It was a small enough detail that he hadn’t sought out any clips from it or anything. Not yet anyway. “Haven’t heard much about it, no,” he admitted. “Why’d it go off the air? Do you know if there’s any of it in podcast form anywhere?” Nick was always up for gathering first-hand accounts from the locals, pre-recorded or not.
“Or three? The town is that fertile grounds for it? Most of what I’ve heard wasn’t very… in depth. Mysterious, but ultimately kinda threadbare.” It still nagged at him—Magnus was pretty certain that he knew Nick’s books, and yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He was sure he would remember it the second they parted ways, probably. “I think there might still be some of the shows up on the channel’s website,” Magnus mused out loud, then shrugged. “Actually. I have a few recorded from when I couldn’t catch them on air, if you’re that curious.” Alright, that was probably leaning towards outing himself as weirder than he usually would over small talk. Magnus wasn’t entirely sure how much he wanted to share, but at the same time… Sooner or later, word would probably spread of why he was here, anyway. “The host, Danny, he actually… up and vanished, pretty much. No one’s got any clue what happened, apparently. Just another Point Pleasant oddity.”
There would be no judgement on anybody’s weirdness from Nick. At least not as far as someone’s interests went. There was a long list of things he was interested in or directly knew about that would make other people think he was crazy -- many of them had told him so, on the internet, at conventions, in the GoodReads reviews of his books. It took a thick skin to do what they did. “You wouldn’t believe how fertile,” Nick said first with a chuckle. If this show had been kind of threadbare, the host hadn’t been doing his homework, in Nick’s humble opinion. He’d already found several topics to really dig his teeth into. But he knew he was more ruthless and experienced than some amateur kid running a radio show. A kid who disappeared, apparently. “Interesting,” he murmured as he rolled that around in his mind. “People vanish around here like it’s going out of style, that’s fucked up. Sorry for your loss, since you knew him and all. But yeah, if you don’t mind, I’m interested now to hear some. Can you email ‘em to me? So you’re here to look into his disappearance?”
“Yeah, I guess this place does have a whole lot of different supernatural, uh, problems.” It looked like Nick had been doing his homework in regards to the town and its strange history and occurrences as well. “But yeah, apparently they do. I feel like that would be a great sign to leave town, but people still live here, so…” Magnus raised his eyebrows and shrugged. There were usually logical explanations for most supposed hauntings, but some things even he found it hard to argue with. “I feel like… You can write off, like, Mothman sightings or what have you, but it’s hard to deny people are genuinely going missing at, well—an above average rate, to say the least.” Still, he flashed Nick something of a grin. “But then again, didn’t deter us from coming here, either, so.” It probably said something about both of them, somewhere between disbelief and thinking such a thing couldn’t happen to them. “Yeah. I’m not sure what good it’ll do, but I couldn’t just sit on my hands at home while my friend disappears from Weirdtown, Maine, without a trace. If you give me your email, I’ll pass them along.”
Nick had been in several places where it didn’t make sense that people still lived there, but they did. It took a lot to get people to abandon a town, especially if they had family history there. Point Pleasant had a rich and long history, and he knew that some of the original founding family lines had stayed in the area, so of course it wasn’t a ghost town. “The power of human denial, my friend,” he chuckled as he dipped a hand into a pocket on the front of his bag. Nick pulled out one of his business cards and slid it over to Magnus. It had his pen name and contact information on it. Having a bunch of those was far easier than writing the same shit down a million times when he was trying to hunt down sources. “Don’t let anything deter you. Keep digging until you hit truth, if you can. I lost a friend too, in rather different circumstances, but it changed my life. And if I can help, let me know.” He tapped the table near where he’d left his card and sat back with his coffee again. He was very aware that something might happen to him someday, that he might join the ranks of the missing, but Nick felt more prepared for that than most. “Any leads yet?”
“Thank you.” Magnus took the card and replaced his makeshift napkin bookmark with it, for safekeeping, and gave Nick a smile. It was an unexpected source of possible help, but—he genuinely appreciated it. As optimistic as he was trying to be about all this, he wasn’t sure how long that could possibly last him. “I’ve got a feeling I won’t make a lot of friends that way—” Which had happened before, and usually it didn’t bother him; usually, he didn’t care so much about the outcome, though. “But I guess that comes with the territory.” Magnus straightened up a little, his morning sleepiness finally slowly but surely leaving him, and propped his elbows up on the table. “Have you been doing a lot of digging around here already?” Considering he had arrived in Point Pleasant less than a day ago, he hadn’t made up his mind about the town yet. If it were only for Danny’s stories, Magnus would have chalked all of it up to folklore and rumors, but no. He had to have gone missing. “None yet. I’ve listened to his last few shows, to see if there was anything that seemed off, but nothing much. So now I’m hoping friends and family will be willing to talk to me at all.”
Unfortunately, that did come with the territory. Nick had alienated more people in his life in his pursuit of the truth than he could count. He was generally fine with that, since he wasn’t ever really personally invested in the stories. Trying to find out what had happened to a friend was a different story, but Nick thought that might just make him more tenacious. He nodded a bit -- he’d been digging a lot. “I’ve more or less picked a main direction to pursue, but I’ve been dipping my fingers into everything to some degree. And there’s a lot.” He had no doubt that Magnus’s friend had disappeared. He would’ve been one of many, this just seemed to be that kind of place. Some of the kids came back, but most everyone stayed gone. “Got my fingers crossed for you,” he told Magnus, sitting back in his chair a bit. “I can tell you a lot of disappearances around here don’t get solved, though, just as, ah ... a warning.” Nick looked regretful about it, but this poor guy was going to need to be prepared to be disappointed. The odds weren’t good.
“What is that direction?” Magnus’ curiosity was piqued, but if Nick didn’t want to share whatever he was finding out. Probably better for book sales if he didn’t advertise what was working on. And yet… “Yeah, so I’ve heard.” Magnus grimaced even as he said it, but… he knew how many people had disappeared in this town, roughly, from Danny himself and from even the most cursory check of the town’s newspapers. Nick’s attempt at keeping his expectations down was well-meaning, even if he didn’t want to give up hope this early. “I kind of think—” He pursed his lips as he contemplated what he wanted to say, how he wanted to say it, but went on, “I don’t have a lot of trusts in small towns. Even statistically. Crimes get solved less and pinned more on imaginary strangers when everyone involved knows everyone. When half the town’s related or friends with the local police.” A shrug. “But it would be too easy if it was just that, right? That doesn’t hold up with the rate that things happen in this city.” He heaved a sigh, and smoothed some of his messy hair back—more a gesture of habit than any interest in what his hair was up to. “There’s something very rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Nick didn’t want to talk too much about what he’d chosen to focus on for his new book -- such things changed as he went sometimes, and it wasn’t actually his main purpose for being in Point Pleasant -- so he let that question roll on by. Instead he nodded slightly as he listened to what Magnus had to say. If only he knew how right he was, on multiple fronts. “Ain’t that the truth. A lot of the time, it’s more than the local PD can chew,” he commented, just to give them the benefit of the doubt. “The Good Old Boy Network is for real, and I’m sure a lot gets covered up, but sometimes they’re just not equipped to deal with what’s really going on. Sad but true.” He happened to believe that whatever was causing most of the town’s disappearances was supernatural in origin, but Nick would leave that for Magnus to suss out on his own. He drained the last of his coffee and moved to stand up. “Keep me posted if you want, and I’ll keep an eye out for anything that might be related,” he promised. Nick shouldered his bag and gave the young man a nod. “Best of luck,” he said.
Magnus didn’t press when Nick glossed over his question; he understood it, and he wasn’t the prying type. (That was a lie. But… in different circumstances.) “Yeah, I guess that’s fair,” he agreed after a moment’s thought. He could be a little cynical when it came to relying on official channels, but Nick had a point, especially in a relatively small town like this; there were only so many people around to do what little they could. If they tried. “If anything turns up, I just might. Else you’ll probably find me at the coffee pot.” There was something almost comforting about the fact that he wasn’t the only one who had come here to dig around in Point Pleasant, and at the same time it was a little worrying, considering he wanted to believe all the stories were just stories. Either everyone was mad, or… “Thank you. I appreciate it.” Magnus picked up his cup of coffee and toasted him in goodbye with a smile, then turned back to his book about Skinwalkers--at least he knew now that the oddness of the place wasn’t just drawing him in.