Who: Nick & Silas Where: Books and Beer When: Thursday evening, May 31st
When Toby was not there to take care of Edgar, Addie and Silas took turns spending time with their dad, usually reading to him from books they knew he liked. Silas picked some of his magazines as well as going over the accounting because he weirdly liked that sort of thing. It was terribly drab of course but Silas put up with it in the same way he put up with the music his dad liked that was so beneath his own taste. That was just how love worked. Time had sludged on that way for a long time now. Taking care of the funeral home, comforting other people grieving their lost ones, keeping things running smoothly, reading to dad. It had become routine and the only thing Silas really missed about the city was the dating scene and yet at the same time... No not really. It was somewhat easy to just slink into becoming a hermit and not subjecting himself to heart palpitations and heart ache all the time.
Addie was living her life to the fullest and Silas liked to joke to her that he was clearly a good luck charm as she'd landed a pretty hot guy right off the bat after he got home. It was a crappy joke as far as jokes went but some part of him almost believed it, like he needed to believe something good had come of all of this. And so far, Nick was good for her. He was hot as hell and Addie was pretty much walking on sunshine these days and Silas was happy for her. And just a touch jealous, if he was honest with himself. At this point he wasn't even sure if he was jealous of her or Nick, maybe a part of him had looked forward to ice cream singles nights at home with his sister. He was having plenty of those by himself now, though fortunately Addie wasn't spending all her free time with Nick.
It didn't really come as a surprise when Nick invited him out for a beer, not as such. They'd met a few times in passing and Silas had given them plenty of space but they'd had plenty to talk about when they did meet and he could understand wanting to know the brother of his girlfriend. It just meant he was more serious about things than Silas had thought and that was a good thing. Unless he was there to test the water on how to get out but Silas sincerely doubted it. They weren't in high school and Nick seemed quite taken with Addie. Nick had suggested the Porch which Silas hadn't flat out said no to but his hesitation was answer enough and they settled on meeting at Books and Beer. It was a nice little place that closed entirely too early but Silas figured that if they wanted to stay out later and keep drinking, they could always move on to Dragonfly.
Nick hadn’t really expected to fall in love with Adalyn, especially not so soon after his complicated feelings about Madison, but it had happened anyway. It had happened and pretty much changed his purpose in Point Pleasant. Enough time had passed now that Nick knew their feelings were more than a passing fancy, and he had been happier with her than he had been in quite a long time. Which was saying something in this town.
He knew that Addie didn’t care, but Nick was still overly aware of the difference in their ages, and he knew how that sort of thing could look from the outside. He was still in his prime, of course, and Addie was well into her twenties, so he wasn’t like a seventy year old man creeping on some young thing fresh out of high school ... but still. Nick worried about that sort of stigma, especially considering that he had some money. The outside world didn’t matter much, but he wanted to make sure Addie’s family approved of their relationship. Since her father was in the state he was, that left Silas. Nick liked him from the few brief times they’d met, but he really wanted to get a feel for the man, make sure Silas knew his intentions were good.
So he’d been glad when Silas was amenable to having a few drinks with him, and Books and Beer was a good place for it. It was quiet enough to talk, they both liked books, there were chess boards scattered around if their conversation started to die. Nick had put on something casual, told himself not to be nervous, and headed out. He caught sight of Silas near the bar as he walked into the bookshop and gave him a broad smile. The other man had beat him, but didn’t seem to have ordered a drink yet. “Silas, hey,” he greeted, offering out a hand to shake. “Good to see ya.”
Silas held no judgment for Addie's affection for Nick, he was hot and successful and oh so tall, not to mention that so far he was treating her well. Silas just hoped Edgar would like him too when he woke up and he needed to believe that he would. "Hey," he greeted him back and grabbed the offered hand. They hadn't quite gotten to the hugging place yet though Silas was sure that if the relationship got any more serious there'd be plenty of that. Nick seemed at ease with himself and rather affectionate for a straight guy. "You're not late, I got here early," Silas told him with a smile. "What are you drinking? I was thinking of trying one of those hipster beers they're experimenting with." He glanced at the menu again, amused by some of the names though they didn't really tell him much about the contents.
“Addie’s always early too, I think it’s genetic.” Nick chuckled as he sat down in the seat next to Silas at the bar, grabbing one of the small laminated drink menus for himself to look it over. He’d been here before, but wasn’t a regular, so he wasn’t sure what-all was on tap. “Experimental hipster beer sounds about right,” he said with a grin. “I’ve tried a few at this place, they’re usually pretty good. Something dark, maybe, a stout ...” He trailed off as he examined the options, then picked one out that sounded good to him. After the guy behind the counter had taken their order, Nick turned his attention back to Silas. “I’m glad you came out, man. I feel like this has been a little overdue. But I know how busy you guys are.”
"Drilled into us from birth," Silas chuckled and it was definitely not a good look to be late when working for a funeral home. They were always punctual, near-invisible and appropriate on the job, sometimes it bled into their social lives, he supposed. He leaned against the bar and smiled at Nick when he spoke again, nodding softly. "I take it things are serious with my sister or you wouldn't have asked me to come," he remarked. "I'm glad," he added quickly. "You seem to make her very happy." It helped that he liked Nick too and didn't have to put up with some annoying twit showing up at the house all the time. Silas had high tolerance for all sorts of people at work but his private time was somewhat more holy.
Nick was always careful and respectful about Addie’s schedule, so he’d never just turned up at the funeral home when one was going on. He sort of wanted to see her work, just because he found it interesting how different people could be in a professional setting versus personal, but he knew how invasive that was in her field, so he’d never asked. Funerals weren’t for spectators. Silas’s approval made Nick grin broadly, and he felt a fun little flutter in his stomach. If anybody knew what Addie was like when she was happy, it would be her brother, right? So he took that as a good sign. “We don’t have any serious plans yet,” he said, just to clarify. “But the way I feel about her ... yeah, I’d call it serious. Which is a little scary for me, I’ll admit, but she makes me happy too, so I’m gonna see it through. Your approval matters a lot, she talks about you all the time.”
Silas grinned because Nick could have taken the 'about you' out and the sentence would ring very true. He was sure she talked about him a lot because she talked about everything a lot and he loved her for it. Never a dull moment, never awkward silences. It would probably weird Nick out how quiet and serious she could be when she was working, such a polar opposite of her personality. "Well let's try not to get into some weird rivalry," he said with a smirk. "Then we can all be happy." Addie had only good things to say about Nick of course and Silas hoped she wouldn't be disappointed. Charming, good looking men who didn't cheat and lie were hard to come by and if things blew up, Silas was the one who'd be there with the tissues and ice cream. God he hoped it wouldn't come to that. They got their drinks and Silas automatically led them to his favorite table. He came here sometimes on his own or to meet a friend or two and unless his seat was taken - well, habits were hard to kick. "Are you writing anything currently?" he asked when they were seated. "I'm sure there's plenty to write about here."
He had no idea what they would have a rivalry about, but Nick had avoided getting serious with girls who had crazy families. He thought being with Addie would be worth it though, if Silas did turn out to be jealous or possessive or anything like that. Nick felt like they were all too mature for that kind of thing though. Nick settled in at the table with Silas, getting comfortable before he took a swallow of his beer. He hummed an approving sound and then nodded to Silas’s question. “Yeah, I’m working on the first of what might be a series on this place, if I can sell the package to my publisher,” he said. “The first one is about some of the stranger disappearances around here, I’m hoping that might rope in some of the true crime market too. Then I’ll drop a book or two on witches and cryptids.” He chuckled a bit.
"Plenty of all of those around here," Silas murmured and thought of his brother with a little pang of discomfort. If Nick became family, would he one day know about Elijah? If he kept coming around to the house, staying there more and more, making himself at home - would he ramble onto that door and question why it was always locked? "You could probably stay here for years writing about this place," he pointed out. "If you find the right sources." That might be the only obstacle; getting people to talk about everything that had happened, but Nick had been in town in the great fog, he probably already had enough source material for at least a couple of books.
“That’s always the difficult part,” Nick agreed as he lifted his beer for another sip. From everything he’d found so far, and the things he knew from his major outside source, there was plenty of book material here. It would be good cover if the agency he contracted for decided to keep funding his stay. Things had been quiet for the past few months, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of past weirdness to dig into, and that happened to be what he was best at, so they hadn’t demanded his services elsewhere. Nick was grateful for that. He didn’t want to leave Addie now. “What about you?” he asked Silas, his tone light as one eyebrow bobbed again. “You’re a native, right? Any fun stories for me?”
"I honestly wouldn't know where to start," Silas admitted as he thought about all the stories he'd heard growing up, some he knew to be true others he wasn't sure about at all. "When I was a kid we were warned against going to certain places," he murmured between sips of his hipster beer, which he had to admit was pretty good. "Don't go to the tunnel because people died there in mysterious ways," he echoed the grown-ups warnings in a dramatic retelling. " Of course we went there anyway because people died there in mysterious ways." He let out a little laugh at that, thinking of tiny brats wandering the woods in the summer, daring each other to go to the mouth of the tunnel, listening for the train. "I think I was nine or ten when a girl got pushed in front of the train out there and we never went there again. Not after we saw the police tape everywhere. My friend has since gotten wind of just how bad that place really is so I know for sure there's evil in there. I'm kinda glad we were cowards as kids."
Nick laughed softly over the innocent defiance of children as well -- always wanting to go where they weren’t supposed to. In most other places, those warnings from their parents were just empty threats, meant to keep them safe from human terrors, but here ... “I’m glad you were too, or you might not be here talking to me,” he agreed. “I’ve read a lot about that tunnel, including the story of that girl, but only been out there once to have a look.” Nick shook his head and feigned a little shudder. “It’s creepy as fuck, even without all the deaths around it. ... I’m curious about your friend though, how do they know there’s true evil there?” He kept his tone light and casual, then added, “Off the record, of course.” Nick wasn’t a journalist, per se, but he didn’t want Silas to think every word he said would end up in a book someday. Nick just loved to gather the information.
"It's all rumors and whispers," Silas replied. "But rerouting the train didn't do anything good for that tunnel. I'm sure you've heard the urban legends - except most of them are based on fact. That guy who walked through there and murdered his family? The group of kids whose friend walked in and never walked out again? Half the town thinks they killed him and buried the body but... It was the tunnel." He sipped his beer again and shrugged in a matter of fact way. "Did you ever hear of the Blackwater Butcher case? It was a busy, busy year for our cops." He wasn't exaggerating when he said he didn't know where to start, thinking of his own personal run-ins with the town's more unpleasant events.
Sometimes Nick got an itch in his brain, one that led him to really dive deep into a story, and what Silas was saying was giving him that feeling again. He wanted to talk to all of the people surrounding these events, get their sides of the stories so he could weave them all together into a tapestry of information. The subject matter he usually dug into was almost always dark, but there seemed to be something extra sinister about this town, and it was so fucking fascinating. “I read a bit about it, yeah,” he answered with a slow nod. “Terribly tragedy, no matter what actually happened. Did you know any of the victims personally? I don’t recall the age ranges at the moment ...”
"I didn't know them well," Silas replied. "But a few of the guys who went missing in Blackwater were just a few years older than me. I remember Josh, I had a tiny crush on him back in high school. Two of them worked at Mercy at the time. I did have a close friend who died here back in two thousand and eight, people say it was an accident but I don't believe it. There's just no way to find out what really happened, the cops ruled it a tragic accident." He gave Nick a mirthless smile and huffed. "Wow, there's been so much tragedy, I should be such a sad sack." He raised his glass to toast to that but if he was honest there was always a part of him that lingered in that grief, a raw sadness under the carefully procured delightful surface. "Let's see if I can remember everyone's names. My friend is obviously easy, Catherine Stoke. She walked home from a party in the dead of winter and instead of turning left into Seaview she just kept going. They found her on Witcham Road the next morning. The Blackwood crew was Simon Ward, Josh Lewis, Adrian Moretti and the Acosta brothers." He counted on his fingers, narrowing his eyes. "I'm forgetting someone."
Nick didn’t know Silas well enough to really say if he was affected by the tragedies in his life or not, but he knew Addie’s heart well enough to think there was a core softness that ran through the family. He and Silas weren’t close enough to really discuss it though, so Nick let the flippant comment pass and focused on the rest of it, making a mental note of the name Catherine Stoke to perhaps look up more about her. “Brodie Simpson,” he supplied the name with a little nod. Nick was familiar with the case, especially since his first book was going to be on mysterious disappearances. “He was the cop, from out of town. And everyone thought Cruz Acosta murdered them all?”
"Ah yes, Brodie," Silas muttered and he'd known him too, just about as well as the others. Never cared much for him but that wasn't something you said about a person most presumed dead. "And yes, Cruz Acosta did time for it, I'm not sure what they had on him to be honest. He showed up back in town last year but the rumor mill is strong in town and I doubt he stuck around to deal with the aftermath. I don't think he killed them though; that's five grown men, one of which was his brother, it just doesn't add up. They never found their bodies, except the one Cruz dragged out of the woods. I mean, why would he do that if he went through the trouble of burying all the others so well nobody can find them?" It was clear Nick already knew about these cases so he wracked his brain for a good one. Or a bad one, really. "I could make you a list," he said with a wry smile. "The mausoleum, the tunnels, the woods. So many places I can't recommend going to."
He already knew all of those details, and he agreed that Cruz Acosta had probably fucked off for good now. Nick hadn’t been in town when he’d been there, as far as he knew, but he heard from a couple of sources that Cruz had been seen around town, then disappeared again. Nick wasn’t invested enough to try and track him down, because he didn’t think the guy was guilty either. He was inclined to believe that whatever had killed those men couldn’t stand trial in a court of law. Nick gave Silas an easygoing smile and lifted his beer again. “No worries, didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Can’t imagine it’s a fun subject for someone who’s seen a lot of the awful aftermath too, so ... what can you recommend? What do you personally do for fun around here?” It wasn’t so much that Nick needed recommendations -- he had been in town a while, after all. He just wanted to learn more about his girlfriend’s brother.
"Oh Nick," Silas sighed with a faux-sympathetic smile. "Darling. You've been here long enough to know all the interesting things to do, I won't be telling you anything new there either." He knew that much was true and he honestly didn't go out all that often but when he did it was limited to three places - not counting restaurants. "Karaoke," he started, holding up a finger for each of those places. "Dragonfly and this place. I suppose you might enjoy the arcade but it's a little too noisy for my taste. Don't get me wrong, I can handle loud music, but that place has too many machines with too many different songs and chimes going at once. You like the Back Porch, my friend works there but I always feel like the guys who own the place would kick my ass if given the chance." He quirked a brow and smirked as he sipped his beer again.
“Just curious as to what fills your personal time,” Nick clarified with a lopsided smile. He knew that Point Pleasant wasn’t exactly a bustling cultural hub. But what people chose to do with themselves in a small town like this -- especially intelligent people he respected -- was always of interest to him. Nick may have built a career around writing about monsters and supernatural events, but it was the human stories around them that really made them interesting. “I do like Dragonfly ... the arcade’s okay, I just feel ancient in there.” He chuckled and took another sip. “The Porch takes a certain kind of seedy mood for me, but at least you can play pool with no kids around. I am from Georgia, after all, I can appreciate a dive bar ... but I see your point. You’re not exactly their regular clientele.”
"I went to school with the owners," Silas said with a somewhat jokingly terse smile. "They were idiots to put it mildly so I guess it's just hard to take them seriously, even as adults. The library is a pretty happening place though." He tittered, knowing it didn't exactly fit in with bars and arcades but Nick probably appreciated them anyway, he was an author after all. "They have a surprisingly good selection here, both old and new. Very dedicated staff. It was absolutely a sanctuary when I was a teen here." Which should come as no surprise to Nick, both Silas and Addie were bookish, they'd both read his books and Silas had never thought he'd actually be having a beer with an author he'd liked in the past, especially one currently dating his sister.
He adored a good library, and he happened to love the one in Point Pleasant, so Nick grinned at that. “Oh I’m very familiar,” he said, amused that Silas would bring it up. Considering what a book nerd Addie was, it wasn’t surprising in the slightest that her brother had the same tendencies. Nick had come into his book-nerd-ery later in life, but he was so glad he had. The world had opened up to him then, and he’d found his life’s purpose. “It’s a great place, I’ve spent a lot of hours there doing research ... and just reading in front of those big windows they’ve got. Did you find it hard to grow up here? I know high school’s hard on most people, but is it particularly ... regressive here?”
"Yes and no?" Silas replied. "I wasn't the only gay in the village or anything, even in high school, and I was never threatened or hurt over it but there was this subtle mockery of it. I mainly escaped it by being fabulous, obviously, but I also had amazing friends and hobbies. Even so, sometimes you find yourself alone and you wonder just how safe you really are. So you hide at the library until your best friend isn't busy anymore." He wondered if a guy like Nick could understand that but who knew, maybe he'd been scrawny as a kid. "I would hazard saying I was somewhat popular in high school, in my own way. There are just always people who make you nervous and Caden Lucas was definitely in that category. Even if his best friend struck me as... well. Perhaps not entirely as straight." He wouldn't ever have suggested as much, but a guy could speculate. "Thankfully those two didn't show up all that often."
It was hard for Nick to personally relate -- once he’d gotten through the gawky awkward early-puberty phase that everyone seemed to go through, he’d been fairly popular among his peers. He’d definitely never feared for his safety just because of who he was. That privilege had kept him blind to a lot of things, but he’d developed a pretty keen sense of empathy as a writer, and he saw a lot more now. Nick listened to Silas speak and nodded slightly. “I was never that kind of target, but I saw my share of those types of bullies,” he said. “I’m sorry you didn’t always feel safe. I’m sure the less fabulous kids didn’t either. I’ll keep that in mind about the Porch.” Nick didn’t want to hold people’s high school idiocy against them all these years later, but he didn’t want to knowingly give money to bigots, either. Maybe he would find another regular pool table, and only go to the dive bar when he needed to listen to some local yokel stories.
"Oh," Silas said and waved his hand dismissively, a little taken back and touched by the gesture. "There's nothing to keep in mind. By all means keep going there. It's mostly their clientele that's a little dodgy, present company excluded of course. They might not even be homophobic, maybe they hate everyone equally." The more he got to know Nick the more Nick seemed to prove himself as a decent human being and an ally. Of course, he was a writer and he might just know exactly what to say to get on people's good side but Silas had a feeling he was being genuine. If not, well, they could enjoy his company while it lasted, Addie would get over it eventually. "Have you personally encountered supernatural things?" he asked to change the topic and try to stop himself from getting as rambly as his sister.
Nick chuckled a bit at ‘hate everyone equally’ -- he’d known plenty of those people in his life, too. Tragically cynical, a lot of the time. Or maybe Nick was naive, because he genuinely liked most people, even those who were vastly different than him. He found them interesting. But it took all types to make the world go ‘round, didn’t it? As his mother used to say. He was just glad none of the Lucases or their friends had made Silas’s adult life hard. Nick’s brow quirked up at the question and he gave a lopsided smile. “Absolutely,” he said. A lot of those encounters had come through the Foundation, so he couldn’t talk about them, but Nick had had enough run-ins on his own to fill in the gaps. “I’ve encountered a few here in PP, even. Besides the uh, the fog that nobody could get away from.” He waved a hand as if to dismiss that whole ordeal. “I can personally verify that Juniper is haunted. I also know a fair bit about werewolves.”
Ghosts came as a no surprise to Silas who'd seen his fair share of something at the mortuary and beyond, but werewolves? His brows arched slowly and he sat back a bit, humming curiously. "Well that explains some of the news," he said. "I considered it, wild animal attacks within the town seemed a little odd, but it felt a bit... I don't know. Young Adult novel'ish. God, remember when werewolves and vampires were just terrifying in fiction? Feels like a lifetime ago. Probably was." He was getting off track so he reeled himself in again and gave Nick a curious look. "Possibly a crazy question since you might not have lived to tell the tale but - have you seen one?"
Nick chuckled deeply, well aware of the genre that Silas was referring to, the kind of depictions that drew in overly romantic young girls and fed into those ‘bad boy’ fantasies with supernatural douchebags. Those books had their places, of course, but they were nothing close to reality. “I have, yeah,” he answered Silas, glad that he could answer that one honestly. “It was the first supernatural thing I saw, in fact. Or at least that I was aware of seeing. I was a teenager ... it got one of my friends, so that’s how I lived to tell the tale.” Nick gave a wan smile. He had seen a handful more of them, but the conditions under which he had were much more difficult to explain to someone else. “It sure as fuck didn’t look like a broody teenager to me.”
"Oh," Silas said quietly, furrowing his brows and giving Nick a brief sympathetic look. He almost slipped into professional mode there, it could be hard to draw the line between his own genuine reactions and what he fell back on as comfort for himself and others but he managed to pull back in time. Mostly. "That is a horrible way to go," he muttered and despite everything he was relieved his best friend had gone quietly, dozing off drunk in the snow. "I'm sorry if my joke was in bad taste, I would much prefer dealing with broody teenagers than the reality of that." He made a mental note of no werewolf movies if they ever had a movie night. Despite living in Point Pleasant he could enjoy camp horror movies but he was nothing if not mindful of people's potential triggers.
It was a kind reaction, and Nick appreciated it, even if it was wholly unnecessary. He gave Silas a warm smile. “No apologies needed, but thank you,” he said. “It was a long time ago now, he wasn’t the closest friend I had, and it led me into my career, so ... I’m not going to say it was worth it, I’m not that selfishly callous, but I don’t grieve it anymore.” It had been a terrible trauma that had taken him years to reckon with, but Nick felt very reckoned now. He wished the guy hadn’t lost his life, of course, but it was no longer a minefield for Nick to talk about. He’d seen too much now. Nick took another sip of his beer and then chuckled. “Listen to us, being morbid motherfuckers. Do you have any fun childhood stories about Addie? I feel like I don’t have enough to tease her about.”
Silas arched a brow at that and gave Nick a highly skeptical look. "Something she has not told you? Are we still talking about Adalyn Rayner, my sister? Because I'm pretty sure she doesn't really keep secrets." Well, he knew that wasn't true, fortunately Addie was plenty capable of keeping secrets to protect her family but something trivial like this? "Let's see, something she may have forgotten perhaps." He had to take a second to think about it, but fortunately there were favorite stories in the family that were easy to dig up. "She did take an urn to show and tell once, I forget how old we were. Traumatized her whole class because she thought it had bones in it. Try to tell a bunch of kids that and see how they react. But Addie, how could you fit a whole person in there? Oh, it's just the bones!" He tittered at the memory. "Obviously it was empty, just a show piece. Maybe it wasn't even show and tell, maybe she just brought it for the hell of it.”
Addie did tell him a lot, even when she didn’t mean to, and it was just folded into some rambling, and Nick loved it. There was a certain kind of intimacy that could only come from those open-hearted people. It was like some transparent innocence that he adored about her. It made Nick feel guilty sometimes, about having his own secrets. He wished he could speak as freely as she did. Maybe in time. Nick laughed heartily at Silas’s story, very able to picture a tiny version of Addie, proudly displaying her urn full of people-bones and not understanding why it freaked the other kids out. “I’m sure she was a delight to her teachers, so full of educational information about bodies and embalming and all the stuff she loves to tell me over dinner,” Nick said, grinning. “That woman was born without a filter, I swear. It’s the cutest shit.”
"She didn't know much about embalming at that age," Silas replied, delighted that he'd made Nick laugh. "What did she call it again? Inbowling? Which just brings to mind some unpleasant ideas about the procedure. It was something like that. Inbowling, pretty sure it was not bowel'ing which would have been oh so much worse. But yes, I always feel a little strange hanging out with people who aren't chatty, then I get rambly to fill the silence, I guess." It was always nice when he didn't feel like he had to, when he could just be quiet with someone without feeling uncomfortable but that sort of connection was sadly rare and he did not count Elijah among those people even if he ticked that particular box.
The silly word made him laugh again, and he tucked that little detail away to remind Addie of later. “Yeah I imagine it’s not usually quiet at home,” Nick said, the affection obvious in his tone and face. Some people might find Addie’s near-endless chatter grating, but he loved how open and bubbly she was. Plus he had some methods of distracting her that weren’t available to anybody else. So far he was interested in everything she had to say, and that really said a lot after several months. They just vibed together well. “Where did you live again before you came back here? Were you in the same business there?”
"I didn't go far," Silas replied. "But yes, I worked in a mortuary in Bangor on and off after I graduated, coming home was painful for a while. There's something about this place though, I kept coming back. I'd leave again every time but, I don't think I'll ever fully be free of Point Pleasant. By the looks of it, it's got its hooks in you too." He doubted it was all to do with Addie, the town had a way of roping people in and keeping them there. He'd had many talks about that with friends, about how much they all loved living there despite all the tragedy and strangeness. "Can you picture yourself leaving again? Living somewhere else?"
Nick had heard several times about the sticky power of Point Pleasant, and he found it as fascinating as everything else about the place. “I can picture it, but ... who knows if I’ll actually get there,” he admitted to Silas, giving a little shrug of one broad shoulder. If he got officially reassigned, would he even go? Nick didn’t know. He was a loose contractor for the Foundation, he could say no to moving if he wanted to. Chris and Kenzie weren’t so lucky, they’d signed their lives away. He wondered idly if they felt the pull of Point Pleasant, wherever they were. If they wanted to come back. “You know how in those science shows, when they’re trying to depict gravity, how they have that grid like a floor and it dips under the sun and planets at different levels, depending how big they are?” he asked Silas, making motions with his hands. “I feel like this place is like that. It’s got a stronger gravity, at least on people. Hard to crawl outta that dip.” Nick paused for a thoughtful moment. “Do you plan to leave again?”
Silas hoped not, if Nick left it meant Addie would be heartbroken - or given time, leaving with him. The thought of being left alone in the big house with their comatose father was depressing as hell so yes, he hoped Nick would stay in town for a variety of reasons. He liked the analogy, especially how animated Nick was in describing it, smiling and nodding along because yes, that made perfect sense. It was cute how dorky Nick could get, he certainly wasn't as boring as his author picture on his books tried to paint him to be. The question caught Silas unaware and he frowned in thought because logically, he should be planning to leave. There should be some plan in place for the long term and yet he kept treating it like this was it. Edgar was in a coma, he and Addie took care of the business. "I honestly haven't thought about it," he muttered after contemplating it for a moment too long which was probably telling. "Bangor feels so far away suddenly. Like leaving would be a hassle. Maybe in a year or two, everything feels so uncertain right now."
He gave a sympathetic nod. “That’s understandable, with your dad and all,” Nick said. He didn’t know a ton about the elder Rayner’s condition, just that he was comatose and had a part-time nurse caring for him, but he knew it was hard on Addie, so it was probably hard on Silas too. Nobody liked to see their parents suffer ... well, most people didn’t, anyway. Nick would’ve been extremely surprised if Addie and Silas were the other kind of people. “Just play it by ear, that’s all you can really do in life anyway. The cosmos laughs at our plans.” He huffed and shook his head ruefully, but it was in a lighthearted way. Nick certainly hadn’t planned on being in Point Pleasant, much less falling in love there and staying for the foreseeable future. He’d always kind of lived like a leaf on the wind, but now he was getting the feeling that he was supposed to be here. Was that the town’s gravity working on his brain, or was it true? Was there a difference? Who knew.
"I do like it here," Silas told him with a smile. "I'm not just stuck in this town's mental gravity. I have family and friends here, favorite haunts and I love our house almost like it's a whole creature of its own. There are so many memories attached to every little nook, and now that the pain of loss has faded I can enjoy them all again." And there had been a lot of loss, first their mother, then their brother, then his best friend. "It took a few years," he said with a faint smile. "But every year when I come back it hurts a little less. I found coming home this year was, well, aside from dad's condition it's been lovely." He squinted at Nick, considering for a moment before concluding. "I do hope you stay, it would make Addie happy and I do like having you around."
If he was being perfectly honest, Nick liked it too. There was so much suffering in this town, so many dark ghosts haunting it, but it was a fascinating place and he’d never been bored. He liked a lot of the people, Adalyn of course being on the top of the list. But it felt like fertile ground for all the things that interested Nick, and he did genuinely want to stay ... for now. Maybe Point Pleasant just hadn’t punched him hard enough yet, but Nick had no plans yet to leave. He grinned brightly at the last part, touched that Silas would say so out loud. “You’re gonna make me blush,” he said, dropping a wink as he lifted his beer again. “Don’t fret, I don’t plan on going anywhere yet. Just kinda playing it by ear right now, and my focus is here. Likewise though, I know Addie loves having you home, and so far you’ve been a pretty cool girlfriend’s-brother to me. Those aren’t alway easy to find.” Nick chuckled.
Silas kind of knew this already, but it was still nice to hear it and he put his hand over his heart with a sappy little smile and a quiet 'aw' in response. He was happy to be home and he and Addie had always been close so it wasn't a surprise, still. He tittered at the idea of being a good girlfriend's-brother and tried to imagine what it was like to not be; to be the kind of guy who was aggressive and overbearing, feeling the need to protect his little sister and possibly harm her in all that alpha macho bullshit behavior. "Well you haven't given me a reason to be an obnoxious girlfriend's-brother," he murmured with a grin. "You're practically family by now."
Nick had dated some girls with shitty brothers, and he always found it weird. He’d grown up with some old-fashioned ideas floating around him, but trying to own a female relative’s sexuality and police who she dated had never made sense to him. He didn’t have sisters of his own, so he really didn’t get it. So he was glad that Silas was cool and hadn’t displayed any weird jealous tendencies. It was Nick’s turn to ‘aw,’ and he chuckled as he did so. “Well, I’ll try not to give you one,” he said. Addie was wonderfully sweet, but Nick sensed a harder edge in Silas, and he was sure the man could tear him down with a few well chosen words. He just seemed like that kind of man. Nick glanced around and nodded toward one of the other tables that held a chess board for patrons to play with while they enjoyed their beer. “You play?” he asked.
Silas glanced over to see what Nick was gesturing at, then nodded slowly. "It's somewhat of a family tradition, yes," he replied and he didn't love the game but then playing against Nick was probably less arduous than playing against Elijah was. Nick could carry a conversation for one and having something to do with his hands might slow down his drinking. "I'm not as into it as dad is but I will admit I softened up to the game as a kid when I found out there was a musical about it." He quirked a brow and grinned. "Want to play? I'll try to refrain from belting out show tunes at you."
“There’s a chess musical?” Nick asked with a laugh. He was a dork about a lot of things, but he knew nothing about musicals. “Now I need to hear some show tunes.” He was already standing up to move tables, probably a little too pleased that chess was a family tradition of the Rayners’. “My dad loved to play too, and he always told me that you could tell a lot about a man over a chess game ... especially when he was a few cocktails deep.” Chuckling, he settled in and started straightening up the pieces on the board. “White or black, what’s your preference? Or is that too personal of a question,” he added with a crooked grin.
Silas took a moment to be absolutely mortified that Nick did in fact not know about the musical, so much so that the following question nearly didn't register as anything but an innocent chess jab. "Oh my god," he breathed and huffed, then laughed. "I honestly have no preference in those matters but good lord, Nick. Chess. Broadway? ABBA. You've been robbed." So perhaps he was being a tad too dramatic but that was always more fun. Once Nick was seated he placed his hand on his heart again and sang, not too loudly so as to not overwhelm the other guests but just loud enough to hit the note. "I cross over borders but I'm still there now." It was a soulful song and the line hit a peak of that vibe so he absolutely felt a stirring of emotion just thinking about it. "That song will forever make me emotional and it's a damn anthem for Russia of all places."
Silas had a lovely voice, and even at a low volume, it carried well and made Nick smile even brighter. The drama was fun -- maybe it was homophobic in a weird stereotyping way, but he’d always enjoyed hanging out with flamboyant gay men when he got the chance. “Sorry, I’m uncultured swine when it comes to theater,” he said lightly, turning the board so the white pieces were on Silas’s side. Nick liked not going first. “A lot of other things too, probably. I’m from Georgia, that’s the only excuse I can muster. It sounded beautiful though. You might have missed your calling as a leading man.” Nick made a mental note to look up some details about this musical in particular so he could throw a few references at Silas the next time they were together.
"Once a theater kid, always a theater kid," Silas said with a grin and of course he liked getting compliments, he was certainly not above that fluttery feeling praise could evoke. "I sometimes sing for my current clients." Of course they weren't always 'there' to enjoy it but it was nice to sing while he worked. He didn't mind going first in the game, moving his first piece without thinking much about it and then again once Nick had made his move. "So what kind of clubs were you in in high school? I'm having a hard time picturing you as a teenager and you've been so full of surprises that I can't rightfully stereotype you and say you were the jock, but I have a feeling you were the jock." He narrowed his eyes in thought. "That your geekier side remained hidden until you were older and wiser? Am I far off base?"
There was something weirdly endearing about picturing Silas singing show tunes to the corpses as he got them ready for their final rest. Nick kind of hoped whoever prepped his body would sing to him too. He glanced between Silas and the board as the first couple of moves played out. “I wouldn’t say I was the jock,” he said with a soft laugh. “But I was a jock, yeah. And an awful cocky asshole there for a couple of those early high school years. Insufferable. I was always good at school though and I liked to read, I just didn’t tell many of my friends about that part.” He made another move and then lifted his beer for a sip while Silas examined the board. “I played football in the fall and baseball in the spring. Dabbled in track one year. I didn’t really get into anything but sports until college, then I was all about the student publications, reporting, writing, editing ... The geekier side, I guess.” He gave a good natured smile.
"College is so damn liberating," Silas said with a smile and none of this really surprised him. If anything he was kind of glad he'd gotten it right. "College is the place where people you thought were jerks in high school suddenly become decent people, like the social pressure lets up and they can finally relax and be whoever they want to be." He moved a chess piece and snorted softly. "With exceptions, of course. Some people never seem to grow up or get better. I'm glad you got in touch with your writing side, it would have been sad to miss out on your books." Not to mention he wasn't so sure Addie and Nick would have met if Nick wasn't a writer in the first place.
Would Nick have found his writing side if he hadn’t witnessed the violent death of one of his friends in high school? Maybe. But he didn’t think he would be writing about anything as interesting as he was now. Maybe he would’ve ended up a sports reporter or something. He much preferred his life now. He thought Silas was right on the money about college freedom changing people -- it certainly had for him. “Thanks, I’m glad too,” he answered. “I also might have stayed an insufferable asshole.” Nick shot him a grin across the table and moved his next piece. He thought he could see where Silas was going with his moves, and he was mildly impressed with the strategy. “What do you think you would’ve gotten into, if this ah ... sadly essential business wasn’t in the family?”
"Ooph," Silas huffed, because that was a heavy question. "I had some dreams, most of them highly unrealistic. I wanted to go into theater or fashion, direct movies maybe." He chuckled. "I didn't have any solid plans. For a while I thought I could do anything I wanted. Addie probably told you already about Elijah." Not everything about Elijah, certainly, but that he'd died. Things like that tended to come up in long term relationships, the family tragedies but not necessarily the family secrets. "After he died I stepped up for a while and then I abandoned Addie to take care of it all. Not my proudest moment, but she had dad at the time and they kept the place running smoothly. All those dreams feel more like hobbies now, I'm pretty content doing what I do."
Nick gave a sympathetic wince when Silas mentioned Elijah and nodded a bit. Addie hadn’t gotten into all the details and Nick hadn’t asked, but he knew their brother had committed suicide after they’d lost their mom. It was a tragic thing that sometimes made him wonder how Addie was so chipper all the time. Granted it had been years ago, but time didn’t actually heal all wounds, Nick suspected. At least not completely. He was a little touched that Silas admitted to making a human mistake like that to him, like they were really bonding. “Pretty content is better than how a lot of people have it, so that’s nothin’ to shake a stick at, as my dad would say,” Nick offered with a faint smile. “Sometimes passions are better as hobbies than careers anyway. Is there any local theater around here? Maybe you oughta start some up.”
Silas chuckled at that idea and shook his head vehemently. "Oh god no, it all looked so glamorous and fun when I was a kid but now I know the stress behind it, and I would probably die if I had to deal with no-talent amateurs on a daily basis. God that makes me sound so stuck up but it's true. Maybe I am stuck up. I dipped my toe in it in Bangor and-" he puffed softly. "Not for me. I like my quiet audience and there is always karaoke. You and Addie should join me and Miles sometime, we'll show you how it's done." He grinned and wondered if they could do that soon. These days it always felt like they took turns going places as nobody wanted to keep their hired nurse working late into the night.
The phrase ‘no-talent amateurs’ made Nick laugh, though he wasn’t at all surprised to hear Silas had that opinion -- from what he’d seen of Point Pleasant, Nick didn’t think it was a secret garden of talent or anything. Maybe he was stuck up too. There were always diamonds in the rough, but probably not enough to put on a good production. The mention of karaoke made him grin again as he made his next move. “Oh, I may not know much about musical theater, but I can sing,” he said, sitting back again. “I’ve already taken your sister out to karaoke a few times, she can vouch for me. We harmonize beautifully.” Nick flashed that grin again. “So we’ll definitely have to do that.”
"I heard," Silas said with a knowing smile, then laughed at how it could be interpreted as suggestive though he had in no way meant it as such. "She had a great time," he added. "We've always been musical in the family, doesn't matter if you could sing or not, everyone was always humming along to something. Mom always said it's good for the soul and body to sing. Strengthens your lungs and lifts your soul." He agreed with her, music was an incredibly healing force in his life and he absolutely loved the new karaoke bar. It certainly made Point Pleasant a more fun place to live. "That's settled then, we'll rope Toby into staying late sometime so we can all go to the Empty Orchestra." He smirked and glanced down at the chess board. "I think you might be in trouble," he said, curious to see if Nick knew just how to get out of his current predicament.
Nick nodded his own agreement to Mrs. Rayner’s wisdom, in full agreement with her. He might not have much latent talent for it, but he loved music and the way it could change the way he felt like magic. And singing with Addie at the Empty Orchestra ... that always definitely felt like magic, and he couldn’t get enough of it. “Sounds like a plan,” Nick said with a happy smile, then chuckled as he looked over the board. “Yeah, I tend to do that to myself ...” After a couple of moments’ thought, he made his move and picked up his beer again, already thinking of challenging Silas to another game if he got his ass kicked in this one. Nick was in no hurry to be anywhere else, and he was enjoying the other man’s company, which was something of a relief. He had fallen in love with Addie and was starting to want a future with her, and that included her family. Nick had never had a brother of his own, and if things worked out and Silas got to step into that role? Nick felt like he’d be happy with that.