Re: After Dinner- Around 9:00 - Everybody.
Raj used to dream about learning that all sorts of supernatural myths and legends were real. Honestly, he still did. That was his nature. Mutants and werewolves. Vampires and warlocks. There was always something comforting about the prospect. It would be rad, for starters, but the insecure, beaten, unaccepted voice of his inner child would always believe if all these crazy things were real, that would explain why he never quite fit in with the majority of his peers. Not because he was weird, but because he was trying to fit into the wrong world. He wasn't special, but his place was still with the witches and fairies and mermaids, not the jocks and prom queens.
He was fairly confident every single person he met at conventions longed for that same reality to come true. Raj had never precisely pictured the scene where the curtain was lifted for him, but he definitely wouldn't have imagined it like this. His family supported him for who he was, but that didn't mean he expected them to be present when his eyes were opened, let alone responsible for it.
Raj stopped talking because he was thinking. He was still listening, still absorbing the conversation as it took place, but his thoughts were occupied. He'd been in Willow Creek long enough that he'd wondered about people the same way he wondered about everyone eventually. Not with true intent or belief, but simply with wistful curiosity. Hopeful wonder. He sketched the barista who was always nice to him with fairy wings. He recreated that strange, fuzzy bar fight that still swirled incoherently through his memory with Jesse as a caped crusader, and the drunken thugs as snarling demon beasts with lethal claws.
His drawings weren't guesses, but now they could be. They could be. And that was what he was processing. Not the craziness of Cassie's story -- since, to him, it wasn't crazy at all -- but the possibilities.
Seth's voice filtered in, same as everybody else's had as they spoke, and something dawned on Raj. He jerked his head up, and, grinning, looked at his friend. "Dude/. Like Nevermore."
It was right there in front of his nose, and he'd never seen it before. Which really made him wonder: what else had he missed? If he kept his head down, he was going to keep those wheels turning. Which, as tempting as it was, wasn't fair. He cleared his throat and looked around the rest of the table. His gaze settled on Cassie. "This is and has always been a given, Cass, but whatever you need, just say the word. We're a family. All of us."