Definition of Normal Who: Mal and Finn Where Lumber yard When: Morning Warnings: Mild swearing
It was a good feeling, working outside when the weather was like this. Not too hot, not too cold. Birds singing away in the background. It felt good, or at least that’s how it felt to Mal. He and Finn were assigned to stack some woodpiles over to one side of the lot. It was heavy lifting and hard physical work, but Mal enjoyed it. He enjoyed the simplicity of the entire thing - just working at a task, and one that he knew he’d feel it in his muscles when he went home that night.
Finn wasn't thinking about work much. Yes, he was going through the motions, and with his usual intensity, but he wasn't actually focused on what he was doing. It was just the same motions as ever, things that weren't all that hard because he was strong, but his mind was definitely elsewhere. He hadn't had a chance to talk to her yet, but he was worried about Audrey seeing things like the Zania had. And he was worried about her being upset with him. It made sense, with his mind being elsewhere, that he messed up their rhythm with lifting and moving and almost dropped his end of the log when Mal lifted it faster than he had.
“You’re quiet today, kid - things on your mind?” Mal asked as he lifted another couple of logs and started the walk from one place to another. He liked the younger man. Sure, he could be a little odd at times, but after everything people had seen, he could understand that. Different people coped in different ways, after all.
Finn wasn't sure he was ever the talkative type, there wasn't a need to waste words on idle chatter now was there, but he did look up at Mal spoke to him. And then he looked around as if Mal might be speaking to someone else, when it was just the two of them. "I suppose, yes," he admitted after a moment, regaining his footing and starting into the task at hand again.
“Sometimes it helps to talk about it,” Mal suggested, dropping the wood down and making sure it was stable on the pile.
Finn made a little face. That sounded like Audrey and her questions that he'd done his best to forget. There was no real forgetting them, but he'd tried his hardest to do as much. "Ran into someone whom believed she was seeing ghosts," he said, going with Zania's issue and leaving Audrey out of it for now.
Mal raised a brow and leaned back against the woodpile. He crossed his arms over his chest, but his pose wasn’t judgemental - more relaxed and interested. “Ghosts?” he asked. That was a new one, even for him. “As in ‘woooo...’, ghosts?” he asked, making the appropriate ghostly sound and wiggling his fingers to get the proper atmosphere.
Finn made another face, obviously not amused and looking at the work at hand. "I did not say that I was seeing them, just that she was." This was why he wasn't talking about it.
“Yeah - I heard that part, kid,” Mal acknowledged. “But - your friend said she was seeing ghosts. She tell you any more than that? Like what they looked like, or when it started?” he asked, still not sounding like he was judging. Mal had been raised to accept the things that most people would decide where impossible. Like, say, the dead rising and trying to eat the living. People said that was impossible, yet it happened. Who was he to call bullshit on the existence of ghosts?
"Not my friend," Finn said before he could stop himself. It wasn't that he hadn't liked Zania, he'd just found himself very sparing with who his friends were. "She said they were trying to talk to her. But she was trying to avoid them, so I don't know if she found out more information. She also said she was not the only one."
Mal held up his hands. “Okay, okay - not your friend.” He wondered at the immediate explanation there. “She some kind of crazy person?” he asked. Sure, he was willing to believe in ghosts, but that didn’t mean that he was going to walk blindly in based on the ravings of a mad woman, if that was the reason that Finn was so certain that they weren’t friends.
Crazy Person. The term hit Finn a little hard, something he'd heard before and he didn't know how to adjust to properly. It was so familiar and yet...not. It twinged at the real person underneath, the one who realized just how broken he was. But Finn didn't have any real contact with that side of himself so the term just put him in an odd place for a moment or two before the fantasy whisked it away again. "I do not believe so. Perhaps, but she seemed more frightened than insane."
"But not someone you're friends with," Mal said - it wasn't a question.
That left Finn at another impasse. For a long moment he chewed over the statement then shook his head. "One from my party was seeing something as well. I am still not entirely sure if it was the same thing or not."
Mal considered that, then nodded. "Okay - you wanna work this through?" he offered. "Did each of them say what they saw? Did they have any similar features? Can you work out from what you know what they might have been experiencing? Could it be anything else - anything more plausible, or 'normal', or could it only be ghosts?"
“Are ghosts not normal?” Finn asked, but with an air that he thought Mal was wrong in that statement. “I don’t know what Audrey saw. She didn’t say. I just know she was seeing things that I could not see and it upset her. Hearing that Zania was seeing ghosts had me wondering.”
“When I said ‘normal’, I meant the kind of thing that anyone and everyone would accept without question,” Mal clarified. “I think that some people seeing things that other people can’t, cannot be said to be ‘normal’ under that definition. So - you couldn’t see what she could?” he asked, pressing on that point. “You were with her when she saw something?”
“I was with Audrey. Zania as well I suppose, but yes. Audrey was looking at things I couldn’t see, but she attempted to brush off my concern and then...” Finn trailed off because the rest was confusing and something he still hadn’t sorted out. And it had nothing to do with the ghosts.
“And then?” Mal prompted, figuring that the ‘then’ had something to do with the ghosts. He didn’t consider it might be anything else.
Finn shook his head, trying to focus on work, not meeting Mal’s eyes as he hesitated before answering. “Then she got upset with me and I am still piecing together what happened.”
Mal opened his mouth to reply to that when it happened - suddenly, everything went dark. There was a faint amount of light coming in from outside the dome, but nothing else. Mal had never appreciated quite how much artificial light they used here, and to suddenly have that taken away... He looked towards the other man, squinting in the half light.
Finn was anxious already, but that didn’t help matters in the slightest. It was almost as if it went from midmorning to late evening without warning. Then the noises started and he jerked his head around, trying to find the source. “What was that?” he dropped things, trying to look for some sort of weapon.
Mal didn’t get an opportunity to answer as the ghost appeared just as the noise started. They were speaking, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Mal reached behind him, picking up one of the smaller, longer logs that he knew would be there - the best weapon immediately to hand. He didn’t have to look - after the years of training and constant fighting, his brain seemed to automatically tune into what was on hand, as much as he would prefer to be able to switch that skill off now.
Finn backed up as he saw the first ghost. Then he turned in another direction seeing another. This was bad. Really bad. When he looked over Mal, the man had something in his hand, and Finn knew he wanted the same. The closest axe wasn’t far, a few paces away at worst and Finn went for it. “What are they saying?” he asked before dashing around a ghost and reaching for the axe.
“Don’t read lips,” Mal said, shaking his head. He had the log up, ready to swing, yet the spirits didn’t seem to be any immediate threat. As he watched, the grinding noise came to an abrupt halt. The spirits remained for a moment more, and then they too abruptly disappeared.
Then they were gone. Finn was gripping the axe handle, looking around, then above them. What had just happened? Whatever it was, it wasn’t mattering. He needed to know where his party was. Now. “I need to go,” he started, moving away from Mal and looking around them.
“I need to come with you,” Mal said. There was no way he was letting the kid go off on his own, and there was no way he was just going to ignore what had happened just now. Something had happened. Something that meant that this wasn’t just going to be a normal, ordinary, peaceful day. Fuck it to high heaven.
“What?” Finn said, not expecting that as he looked back at the older man. He didn’t need him to come with him, he was going after his party, he needed to ensure they were safe, and just thinking of Liam out on his own had Finn starting in that direction. He supposed if Mal felt the need to follow, he would, but Finn was in full Ranger mode and at this point, he was more than capable of being on his own.
“Me, you - going wherever it is you need to go. And finding out what the fuck just happened - because that wasn’t in anyway ‘normal’. Not in anyone’s definition,” Mal told him, already striding across the yard to pick up his backpack.
Finn made a face, but he let the man get his things, slowing only slightly to shift his grip on the axe and to reach for something else, something smaller, more of a hatchet and his bag as well. He tucked the hatchet in his belt and started off again, towards the hospital.
Mal watched as the other man armed himself and made a conscious decision not to do so. It made him twitch, his fingers itching as he dropped the log he had been holding and shouldered his pack. It felt entirely alien, to be facing the unknown and to be unarmed, but he had made a life decision. No more war. “Lead the way,” he said to the younger man, following on behind him.
That was better. Mal asking him to lead. That fit with the Ranger who gave a curt nod and started off towards the hospital again, leading the way. He was good at leading the way and it worked for him.
“Where are we going, anyhow?” Mal asked him, after they had been walking for a few minutes. He had caught up and was keeping pace easily as they walked. No sign of anything unusual now, or any immediate danger, though Mal habitually scanned the area constantly.
“Hospital. Liam is there. He’ll need me first.” Because Liam wasn’t as good under this kind of pressure. He was fine with healing, something Finn wasn’t, but in the moment of panic, of things happening? Finn felt better if Liam was safe. “Then we’ll find the others.”
“Sounds as good a plan as any,” Mal agreed. “Hospital it is.”