Sage Monroe (turnitup) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2019-08-21 21:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | #december 2017, gabriel, gabriel x sage, sage |
Who: Sage & Gabriel
Where: Main Street, The Salon
When: Starting @ 4pm on Dec 27 through Dec 28
Status: Complete
“Shit,” Sage cursed as he slammed on the brakes, a dense fog completely cutting off his view of the road in front of him. It seemed to come out of nowhere, rolling through town like a tidal wave, drowning everything in its path. His fingers drummed on the steering wheel as he waited for it to pass, trying to be patient as his anxiety rose. He remembered the last time they’d had bad fog. Nothing could get him out of that car. Nothing. Five minutes later, he put the car in park. Half an hour after that he began to rummage for food, locating a candy bar and a very flat, half empty soda bottle in the back seat. He was late for work at this point, but he was pretty sure Nate would understand.
By 9pm, Sage had crawled in the backseat to sprawl out and play on his phone until the battery died. With nothing left to distract him, he became more aware of the darkness all around, like a car in a tunnel with no source of light but itself. He knew the headlights were on, but he couldn’t even see the end of his car. He briefly considered driving, but knew he’d just end up hitting something if he tried. All he had left to do was sleep, but instead he stayed up late into the night, hoping that he might see something, anything, in the fog.
It was a wish he’d soon regret.
Sage woke to the car jostling, shaking like something had brushed up beside it. He shook himself awake and gazed out into the darkness, the first hints of light filtering through the fog to give it a gray, dreamy state, allowing him to see without flicking on the overhead light. His car still ran, keeping him warm, but the radio remained silent, just as it had been ever since the fog rolled in. Sage listened, his heart speeding up as something outside moved. There was a rustling, a rhythmic sweep of something against the ground, barely there but also loud compared to the silence of the night. Sage leaned into the front seat and turned off the car so he could hear it better. For a minute it was quiet, then there was a screeching, a scratching like nails on a chalkboard, and his car trembled with him inside it. The car had felt safe, keeping him from the fog, but now he felt like a sardine and all it would take is a couple quick twists to open up the can. The noise grew louder and this time Sage was sure that something was at the door. Rather than wait to see what it was, he bolted out the opposite door, running blindly into the fog.
Ten, maybe twenty, steps in, Sage smacked hard into a car. He felt his way around it, trying to tell if it was parked or in the middle of the street, all while glancing back over his shoulder into nothingness. The noise grew closer and he kept moving, feeling his way through the fog. Another car, a telephone pole, a park bench. Where the fuck was he? He’d lived there his whole life, had walked and driven down Main Street a countless number of times, but nothing seemed familiar now. He wanted to run, but couldn’t do so without possibly running face first into a tree.
The pain came out of nowhere, wrapping around his arm like knives, shredding the material of his coat. Sage screamed and jerked his arm back, hot blood dripping from the wound. He turned instinctively, his eyes catching just a glimpse of something huge and horrible, with long claws that were dripping with his blood, and then began to run. It didn’t matter what he ran into this time, every little scrape was a sign that he was still alive. He tripped over the curb, then continued forward, crawling, sleeve soaking and dripping in the snow, until he came to a door. “Help!” He screamed, banging as hard as he could with his uninsured hand. “Please! Help! Anyone in there?!” If not, then he was as good as dead.
The fog had been bad. Gabriel had been at the salon when it had rolled in, sweeping up after his fourth customer of the day had left, and the big picture window in the front of his ship gave him an incredible view as it rolled in. It was like someone dragged a giant cartoon eraser across the world, erasing everything in its path. Gabriel had expected it to move on. All evening and all night, he waited for it to go, but it didn’t. He’d reached out to any animal minds he could find in his range, and all of them were hiding, all of them were scared. Gabriel tried to coax some birds into the air so he could get an idea of how big this fog really was, but he couldn’t make them do it. Self preservation came first.
So he’d waited, watchful as that foreboding feeling in his gut grew and grew. Anubis -- the only familiar he had with him -- was restless, pacing around the shop and guarding the doors. He didn’t like it either. Eventually, late at night, Gabriel had curled up with him on an old couch in the back and caught some sleep.
Anubis woke Gabriel up first, a sharp, wordless alert dragging the witch out of sleep. Two seconds later, there was someone banging on the front door. Gabriel could hear the cries for help. Anubis barked twice before Gabriel hushed him and dragged himself up to run to the door. He didn’t even question the sanity of it, just twisted the deadbolts to unlock them and yanked the door open. It was a guy on the ground, sounding scared for his life. Gabriel grabbed his jacket to pull him into the shop, then slammed the door shut behind him and locked it again. There was Something out there, he could feel it, the presence of an alien-animal mind pressing against his. He couldn’t read it, it made him feel crazy to even sense it out there, but it was dangerous, he knew that much. “Are you hurt?” he asked the guy, his voice a bit sharp with alarm.
The door gave way and Sage scrambled to get inside, smearing blood across the floor as he attempted to get away from the door. He clutched his arm where the-the creature had scratched him, the fear almost as bright white and blinding as the pain. It had been years since he’d been that scared, since the incident at the tunnel, he wondered if it had finally come for him, the thing in the darkness. “Yeah,” he nodded, eyes wide and filled with panic. He was hurt, but he was alive and that was what mattered. “Stay away from the windows. There’s-- there’s this thing. It… It… It scratched me. Fuck, it hurts,” he gasped, leaning his head back against the wall.
Anubis had backed away when the man came crawling in, a wary growl rumbling in his chest that was lost in all the human talking. Claws clicking on the floor, he moved closer to Gabriel, but stretched his neck out a bit to sniff at the newcomer. He was definitely hurt, the dog could smell the blood. Gabriel warily glanced back toward the windows -- he couldn’t see or hear anything, but Anubis was on guard and that was enough. There was definitely something strange in the air. He started striding deeper into the salon. “Come on into the back,” he said. The guy was still upright and on his feet, so Gabriel figured he could walk on his own. “We’ll get it cleaned up and bandaged.”
Sage stared at the windows, expecting the creature to burst through the glass at any moment, but nothing happened. His breathing began to slow, but the pain was so intense it made him dizzy. He nodded, rising to his feet as he cast a glance towards the dog. “He… He won’t bite me, will he?” Normally he’d try to phrase it a little differently, some people took a question like that like an insult, but right now all he could think was that he was a stranger dripping blood on the floor. Sage fully believed that animals could smell fear and it had to be radiating from him in waves. He followed Gabriel to the back of the shop, glad to be as far from the window as possible, his hand clutching his arm where the creature had attacked him. It hurt like nothing he’d ever felt before, like his arm had been split open and cut down to the bone. He knew it wasn’t that bad, he still had full functionality of it, but if he’d been hit again in a similar fashion he would have blacked out from the pain alone.
Gabriel happened to know that Anubis could indeed smell the guy’s fear, but the dog was well under his control. He wasn’t in any shape to be a threat, and Anubis knew that. “He won’t bite you, I promise,” Gabriel assured his injured visitor. His heart was pounding sick and hard in his chest, but he was doing his best to project calm. It seemed like it was needed right now. He led Sage into the back room, the walls lined with shelves of supplies, and nodded toward the big metal sink set into one of the counters. “Take your jacket off, let’s see it,” he said as he went to a cabinet and opened it up to find the first aid kit. “What kind of thing was it that scratched you?” Gabriel wondered for a second if there was some mountain lion on the loose or rabid bear or something, but what he’d felt when he’d tried to reach his senses out had definitely not been any wild animal he’d ever encountered. He couldn’t even wrap his head around what it had felt like, not yet.
Sage held tightly to his arm as he followed Gabriel, his breathing labored as pain shuddered through him. He’d never thought of himself as squeamish, but he was scared to see how bad it was, frightened he might actually faint. Besides being humiliating, it was the last thing he wanted right now, not trusting a door or window to keep the creature outside. Sage leaned against the counter with the sink and began to peel his jacket off, cringing every time the material brushed his injury. “I… I dunno. It was big. With long claws and teeth. I didn’t get a good look.” He knew it wasn’t anything of this world, but he felt like he’d sound crazy if he outright called it a monster.
It was a crazy situation already, with that unnatural blanket of fog and everything being disconnected. Gabriel was certainly unsettled by the prospect of some kind of big monster lurking out there, but he didn’t think Sage was crazy. He’d seen some shit himself that he couldn’t explain, and he’d been repeatedly warned about this town. He just hadn’t expected shit to go so spectacularly sideways so soon. “You made it though,” he murmured as he came in closer to Sage to look at the wound. Gabriel ran the warm water a bit and grabbed a clean towel off the rack to get it wet, then started gingerly cleaning up the blood on the guy’s arm. “What’s your name, man?” he asked in the meantime.
“Yeah. Yeah, I did,” Sage said in response, though it was mostly to himself. He’d made it. He’d survived again. Others wouldn’t be so lucky. He had to hope and pray that his family was somewhere safe and had the good sense to stay inside. Jacob and Jocelyn were smart, but he worried about them as well. Just like last time, this had come out of nowhere, attacking when they least expected it. At least this time they knew what was up, that the world was insane. “Sage,” he answered, glancing at the wound and then quickly looking away as Gabriel helped him clean it. Just looking at it made him woozy. “You?”
Gabriel had a couple of people now in this town to worry about, but he knew that Zania could hold her own, and his aunt could too. As far as he knew she was at work, and thusly surrounded by cops. It was reassuring. He was focused on Sage for now, gingerly cleaning the skin around the guy’s wound. He’d bled a lot, and still was, sluggishly. “I’m Gabriel,” he answered the question, setting the rag down and reaching for the alcohol wipes. Gabriel tore one open. “This is my shop, I’m pretty new in town. That’s Anubis,” he added, nodding to where the Doberman was standing guard in the doorway. “This might sting a little.” He started wiping lightly at the wound with the alcohol pad, hoping it would be enough to disinfect against whatever weird shit had scratched the poor guy.
If Gabriel was new in town, Sage wondered how much longer he’d stay after this. Nothing said ‘Welcome to Point Pleasant’ like blood staining your freshly laid tile floors. “Holy Mother of God,” Sage snapped through gritted teeth as Gabriel began to disinfect the wound. All he could do was look up at the ceiling, focus on breathing, and hope that was enough to keep him from passing out. “Where’re you from?” he asked, hoping that might give him something else to focus on other than the pain and the blood. The faster they could get through this, the better.
It was a pretty strong reaction to rubbing alcohol, but Gabriel only paused for a second. The wound needed to be cleaned before they could do anything with it. It made him wish that Zania was there with some of her medicinal herbs and salves and stuff. Gabriel had never been great at healing magic, and it was risky to try and do anything complex in front of a stranger. “New Orleans,” he told Sage, gently rubbing the pad all around the edge of the big scratch. He moved to lightly dab at the open flesh, hoping that it would be strong enough to kill whatever weird-ass bacteria might’ve gotten in there from whatever monster-thing had attacked the poor guy.
“Shit,” Sage hissed through gritted teeth, his attempts to form a coherent reply derailed by the pain. He’d been injured before, broken bones, gotten tattoos, but nothing compared to this. He wasn’t sure if it was because the flesh was ripped or because of the amount of blood, but it made his head swim and his knees weak. Sage sank to the floor as his vision blurred, his grip on consciousness wavering as he tried not to scream. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck that hurts!” There wasn’t much more he could endure and it didn’t seem worth it. This had to be making it worse.
Gabriel’s eyes widened a bit as the guy fell to his knees, and he quickly stopped cleaning the wound. “Okay okay, shit, I’m sorry,” he said with a bit of alarm, holding his hands out. That seemed unnatural; as a rough-and-tumble young man, he’d disinfected plenty of wounds on himself and others, and he’d never seen a reaction like that. It made him wonder if that had something to do with where it had come from. Sage looked pretty damn pale, like he might pass out at any time, so Gabriel quickly pulled a chair over and helped him into it. “Aight, we’ll just uh, we’ll just wrap it so it stops bleeding, okay?” He reached for the gauze, his concerned eyes still on Sage.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s do that,” Sage nodded eagerly, his breathing hard and his hands still shaking. He was doing better now that Gabriel had stopped trying to clean the wound, but it still stung like a motherfucker. He steadied himself, closing his eyes for a second as he tried to find a sense of calm, then looked up at Gabriel. “Sorry for bleeding all over your floor,” he panted. “This isn’t normally how I like to meet people.” He hadn’t really even taken in where he was. A hair salon? That was cool. Maybe even a place he’d visit, provided he was welcome back after this.
The apology was so ridiculously unnecessary that it drew a short laugh out of Gabriel. “Me neither man, but nothin’ to apologize for,” he said. He put a folded gauze pad over the wound and started wrapping the stretchy stuff around Sage’s arm. “And the floor’ll clean up. It’ll give me somethin’ to do.” He finished with the tape and stepped back, cocking an eyebrow at Sage. “How’s that feel? I got some aspirin too if you want some. Not much stronger than that, I’m afraid.” He’d had a bit of weed on him when he’d come into work, but that was long gone now. “And the couch is all yours if you wanna lay down. Think we’ll be stayin’ for a while yet.”
Though his arm still hurt, it was no longer the agonizing pain that Sage had felt while Gabriel had been cleaning it. Now it was just a constant throb, slowly dulling down, bearable by comparison. “Still hurts, but not like I’m gonna die. I’ll take some of that aspirin though,” he said. “It’s better than nothing.” Sage slowly climbed to his feet and shuffled over to the couch, then gingerly took a seat while doing his very best not to get blood on it. “Thanks,” he finally said, closing his eyes for a second. “I owe you one. Or a million. Pretty sure I owe you a million.”
While Sage moved to the couch, Gabriel stepped into the small bathroom to open the cabinet and pull out the bottle of aspirin. He took a bottle of water out of the mini fridge and brought both bottles to Sage. “Nah, it ain’t all that, man,” he said with a low chuckle. “Just glad you got to my door in time. I dunno what the fuck’s goin’ on out there, but it sure don’t seem friendly.” He pulled one of the molded plastic chairs in a bit closer and sat down himself. Anubis trotted over and sat next to Gabriel’s leg, leaning against him a bit as the witch scratched at his head. “There’s a door leads out back, just in case shit goes sideways out there ... I dunno how far we’d get, but it’s an exit.” Gabriel nodded toward it, beneath the glowing red EXIT sign.
Sage looked towards the EXIT sign and the door below it as he popped a couple aspirin in his mouth and washed them down with the water. “I think we wanna do everything we can to avoid going out there. Maybe it we stay away from the windows, nothing’ll be tempted to try and come in.” Of course, if the thing had a scent for blood, he’d left a nice little trail of it right up to the door. Shit. It wasn’t like they could do anything about that though. “I hate to ask this, but you got any food? I’ve been living on car snacks since the fog rolled in.” Which wasn’t saying much. Sage didn’t exactly keep his car stocked.
One good thing about smoking weed fairly often was Gabriel had a pretty good stash of snacks. He’d been munching on some things before he’d fallen asleep, and he was happy to share with Sage. “I don’t got anything real solid, I ate my lunch like, ages ago,” he said. “But I’ve got some chips, granola bars and yogurts in the fridge, cheese sticks, shit for the munchies, y’know? Glad I restocked the other day. What do you feel like, man?” Gabriel stood up again and went to the small counter that housed the mini fridge and the cabinet above it with more food.
“Granola bar would be great,” Sage said with a little smile. So would the stuff that would give him the munchies, if he was being honest, but he wasn’t entirely sure getting high was a good idea right now. If that thing tried to get them, he wanted to be a hundred percent with it. “I should start keeping food in my car for things like this. Water bottles, protein bars. Snacks. God, I sound paranoid,” he said with a little laugh that made his arm hurt. Sage whined a little and shifted uncomfortably. “You get shit like this down in New Orleans?”
Gabriel grabbed a couple of granola bars from the box, dipped into the fridge for a yogurt for himself, and returned to where Sage was sitting to offer the bars over. “Don’t sound paranoid today,” he said with a rueful smile. “Sounds smart.” He’d already thought about stocking his shop more thoroughly, if he made it through all of this. He’d warded the place as much as he could, but defensive magic wasn’t exactly his forte. He didn’t know if it would do any good against whatever was out there. Gabriel took a seat again and peeled the top off of his snack. “Naw, not like this. Not that I remember, anyway. We got our problems, but this goddamn The Mist shit ain’t it.” He took a bite of yogurt and looked at Sage curiously. “You a local, then?”
“The Mist a scary story?” Sage asked, feeling like he’d heard of it, but that wasn’t his thing. It felt too close to reality. He wondered what it would be like to grow up in New Orleans then, a city with a history of witches and voodoo, but maybe without all the real shit that Point Pleasant had to offer. He might’ve thought it was fun if it wasn’t real. “Yeah, lived here my whole life. Tried to leave a time or two, but... I don’t mean this to sound rude, but you should get out while you still can. Eventually, you’ll be stuck, too.” He’d thought Jocelyn and Jacob had escaped, but even they came back eventually. Everyone did.
“Yeah, it’s like ... dinosaur monsters in a heavy fog, been a while since I seen it,” Gabriel said with a faint chuckle. It was kind of just like this, but that seemed too crazy to really be true. Maybe his imagination was filling in what could be out there for him. There had definitely been plenty of weird shit in New Orleans, and if Gabriel knew Sage was In The Know about magic and such, he would’ve filled him in more, but he was careful by habit. Gabriel tilted his head at what the young man said and looked curious as he took another bite of yogurt. “How d’you mean, stuck?” he asked.
“Maybe ‘stuck’ is a bit harsh,” Sage sighed. “I just mean… we all plan on getting out, getting away from this place and all the fucked up shit that happens. But we all come back. Maybe not right away, but… it’s like it gets its hooks in you, you know?” He probably sounded crazy. If so, hopefully Gabriel would attribute that to the fact that he’d been attacked by a monster in the fog. That could make anyone lose their mind a little. “You think a whole town can be haunted?” It might be dramatic, but it was the only way he knew to explain the things that happened there.
Lucky for Sage, Gabriel was extremely open minded for obvious reasons. On the surface, that observation sounded just like any other small town that the young people wanted to escape. It was a cliche by now. But from what he’d already seen and heard, there did seem to be something extra about Point Pleasant. Gabriel pursed his lips a bit as he listened, then nodded to Sage’s question. “I think there’s places that attract more bad shit than others,” he said. “‘Dark and bloody ground’ I heard somebody say once, and it resonated. New Orleans’s that way. My auntie’s been livin’ up here a while now, and she thinks it’s the same sorta place. Maybe worse, more concentrated ‘cause it’s so small. This’s ... this’s more than haunted, though.” The last part was softer as he looked through the door toward the front of the shop and the windows with all the gray-white on the other side.
Sage nodded, taking a moment to chew on the granola bar, his stomach highly appreciative. “When I was in high school, me and some friends were hanging out by this tunnel. Drinking and smoking. Just goofing off. Then… things got weird. We started fighting. And… then this thing grabs Grayson and pulls him into the tunnel. The police, they thought we did something to him. They never found the body.” The hair on his arms stood on end and his heart pounded in his chest. Sage realized he’d never actually told anyone about this. Everyone knew, or thought they knew. Nobody believed the Cooperdale Five. “I tried to leave a few times, but I’d have these nightmares. They stop when I come home. But my friends are back and I’ve started seeing Grayson around town. He looks just like he did the day he disappeared. I used to think it was just the tunnel. It’s not just the tunnel though.” It was everywhere, even right outside Gabriel’s barber shop.
Gabriel did not expect this to turn into some kind of confessional, but he listened to Sage with a slightly raised eyebrow. He wanted to ask what kind of ‘thing’ it had been that grabbed his friend, but he looked pretty traumatized, so Gabriel thought maybe making him go over all the details wasn’t the best course of action. He let a silence settle for a couple of moments, the back part of his mind marveling at how quiet everything was with this fog around them. Gabriel could easily imagine some dead teenager standing outside the window, just out of sight. Fucking creepy. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he finally said softly. “That sounds traumatic as fuck. ... have your friends been seein’ him too?” They definitely didn’t have to talk about it if Sage didn’t want to, but he’d brought it up and now Gabriel was curious.
The apology confused Sage, in part because it was a long time ago, but mostly because nobody apologized to the kids they thought killed their friend. Even the people that didn’t think they were outright murderers still thought they’d done something shady. “I wasn’t...I wasn’t trying to sound dramatic, just...just trying to explain.” He had a story, but almost everybody had their own flavor of weird around here. It was hard for him to understand how someone from the outside would come to Point Pleasant willingly when everyone that lived there seemed determined to get out. Sage took a deep breath and shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I haven’t really brought it up. It’s hard to tell if it’s real or not and… I don’t know if I’d rather be losing my mind or seeing ghosts,” he said with a lopsided smile.
Gabriel had come to Maine by necessity, more or less, and now that he’d found people he cared about here besides JC, he was inclined to stay a while. He wasn’t a standard sort of resident, and he felt like he could look after himself here well enough to survive, maybe even thrive. Events like this made him wonder if that was accurate, of course, but Gabriel supposed he would find out. He might not get a choice in the matter, if what Sage was saying about being stuck was true. Gabriel offered him a half-smile back, some sympathy in his eyes. “I would rather go with ghosts, my man,” he said. “At least then you know it’s not you. And maybe he’s here to tell you what really happened to him. Who knows.”
“Maybe,” Sage agreed. Weird how it was easier to tell a complete stranger than his friends, but then he wasn’t worried about scaring Gabriel off the way he worried about Jocelyn and Jacob. They’d left once and they could leave again, and probably should. The selfish part of Sage just wanted them to stay a little while longer and he was sure that telling them he was seeing Grayson’s ghost would cut that short. “So, now that I’ve aired out all my dirty laundry, this your place?” He asked with a little smile. “I hadn’t noticed it before.”
Gabriel gave him a wan smile. “Yeah, it’s new,” he said. “Just opened up officially last week. Ain’t caught fire yet, but we’ll get there.” He paused and tossed another glance toward the front of the building. “If we all get through all this, that is.” He hated to be a negative person about anything, and Gabriel had faith he could pull something out of his ass to save himself if he needed to, but ... this was some heavy shit. He could sense it in the air and hear it in the animals he could access outside. There weren’t many that had stuck around, and Gabriel couldn’t blame them. He tried not to dwell there, turning his attention back to Sage. “What about you, what do you do?”
“We’ll get through this,” Sage said. “These things don’t last. Once I get all patched up, I’ll have to see if you can do anything with this mess on my head.” He’d always colored it at home and it probably showed, especially since he went for bright colors. He could use a touch up, his roots starting to come through. It would be nice having someone in town that didn’t glare at him as they cut his hair. “I’ve got a band, so… I guess I’m a musician. Which really means I teach piano and guitar lessons, and I bartend to pay the bills. But my passion is for music.” He’d always hoped he’d get out and make it big someday, but these days he was satisfied with local gigs and a tiny fanbase.
It was pretty surreal to sit and have a chat with a guy about his job and interests while the world was possibly coming to an end outside, and Gabriel had a moment of true internal weirdness that made him feel a little dizzy. He’d seen some shit, he believed in a lot more shit, and he wasn’t in denial about what was possibly happening out there. Sage obviously wasn’t either, Gabriel just hoped he was right about how it wouldn’t last. Hearing it from a lifelong local was mildly reassuring, at least. “Nothin’ wrong with hustlin’ when you got to man,” he said with a faint smile. “What kinda music do you do? What’s the name of the band? I wouldn’t expect much live music up here, I guess, but I’m into it.”
It was definitely a weird conversation for the moment, but it provided the distraction that Sage needed, something to focus on instead of the pain. “Sucker Punch Drunk,” he answered. “We play mostly alternative rock, maybe a little bit punk. Depends on the song. There’s not a lot in the way of live gigs, but sometimes places around here will have openings. Most of the time we take a little road trip. We’ve got a tiny little local following that’ll usually show up to hear us play.” It would never be enough to live on, but he liked that they had a fan base, however small. If they could’ve gotten somewhere with more exposure, maybe they’d have made it, but Sage couldn’t seem to leave Point Pleasant, no matter how hard he tried.
Gabriel hadn’t heard much punk music that he’d actually liked -- it seemed like such a White People scene. Not that he was going to say so to the white guy sitting in his shop. Diversity was the spice of life, if that was what he was into, that was what he was into. Gabriel didn’t judge. He just wasn’t sure he would go seek out a show on his own. “That’s pretty awesome man,” he said, giving Sage a little smile. “There’s a lotta musicians back home, of course, and I always admired anybody livin’ their dream. Even if it don’t pay the bills.” Personally, he could sing decently well, but music wasn’t a passion of his, beyond consuming it. You had to be passionate to get up on stage for anything, in his opinion. Gabriel finished up his yogurt and stood again to toss the empty container out. Anubis stood up as well, and Gabriel absently scratched his ears as he peered back out into the front of the shop. All seemed quiet, but it had before Sage had started pounding on the door, too. “I think it’s all the waiting that’s the scariest,” he muttered. “I can deal with some shit, but this bein’ trapped shit’s for the birds.”
“Thanks,” Sage smiled. “I hear the music scene down there is fantastic. I’m not much of a blues guy myself, but live music is different.” He could get into almost anything when he was there to feel it all coming together, the vibe of the band and the way they meshed with their audience. He might not want to play it himself, but he could enjoy listening to it. He looked towards the door as Gabriel peered out, unable to see much from his current vantage, but okay with that. “It was worse in the car,” he said. “I’m not usually claustrophobic. I thought I could wait it out, but...if I’d known what was coming, I’d have left the moment the fog hit. This isn’t so bad.” At least he wasn’t alone. It was so much easier to pass the time with someone to talk to, even someone he’d just met.
“Yeah, I feel pretty lucky I was here,” Gabriel answered ruefully. He wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck out there. He’d stepped out once or twice early on, and learned pretty fast that the fog had brought a cold with it that cut through to the bone. Especially with his thin Southern blood. He knew the first winter up here was going to be a challenge, but fuck, this was something else. Gabriel crouched to give Anubis a few pets and a snuggle, then went back to his chair to settle in. Whatever was happening, they were obviously going to be there for a while. Beyond possibly saving Sage’s life by opening the door, Gabriel was glad to have the human company too. He just hoped it would all be over soon.