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iStoleYurVamps
iStoleYurVamps
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 Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 10:01 pm
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The rain had stopped. Well, the constant rain had stopped, but the damage had been done. Marcus's garden was no exception and he mourned the loss of his small flowerbeds. They could handle a lot of things, but roots being flooded for days on end hadn't been one of them. Come spring he'd need to replace them. For now, all he could do was remove them and cover the ground with a few of his smaller lawn decor items.
He'd gone to the local garden store to start planning when he remembered his conversation from a few months prior with Jeremiah. The man's eyes had unnerved him then, and he'd never asked. At the ball, he'd noticed them being off as well and it nagged at him. Sure, he'd still given the man the info he'd asked for, (seeing as it hurt no one and really only benefit those curious to strange event locations), but the fact remained.
Marcus had avoided the man as of late.
Things were not better than they had been before the events of the court, but they had also not been getting worse. At least outwardly. Gloom's talk of the changes happening set Marcus at a slight unease. He didn't spend his free time reading about past global revolutions and think for even a second that the whole cage being broken would result in no changes. In fact, if anything, this was a lull. A calm and false peace before the storm that might throw everything into chaos. What that would mean for Ashdown and it's residents was hard to say, but Marcus didn't like it. Too many unknowns, too many variables.
Just like his poor flowerbeds, he felt like everything would come down at once, and he'd be left to drown.
The only thing Marcus could do in the meantime was try to find answers, to see what was happening under the surface of everything. And one person who would know would be Jeremiah. Alg had been the human representative they elected, and Jeremiah and he were close obviously enough. Marcus just needed answers. He needed to know what had happened past face value.
People might not be ready for truths, but Marcus was not like peoples.
He was a man who thought in theories and disjointed connections. He thought about how he had to work harder to fit in. How he wouldn't understand unless he tried to. The phone call had been brief. Heck, Marcus had been vague as he normally was, but this time, he'd been insistent that Jeremiah meet him outside the office. Both because one, Marcus didn't know where his new office was. Two, he wasn't sure he had a new secretary or not. Three, Jeremiah's new office might be bugged. Four, it might even be the real Jeremiah, (he did not tell Jeremiah the last reason).
The had agreed, rather quickly too after Marcus implied he had something new about 'That thing which we discussed prior and agreed to not talk about because of very important reasons'. In other words, the veil places and Other Ashdown.
So that was how mid-day, Marcus was sitting in his car by the dog park, without a dog, eating his way through a large fry from Burger King.
It was all just a waiting game now.
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iStoleYurVamps
iStoleYurVamps
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 4:41 pm
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Seeing Jeremiah walking over, the remainder of the fries were hastily shoved into his coat pocket like he hadn't been stuffing his face up until a few moment prior. Besides, food for the road never hurt anyone, (his coat's pocket lining would beg to differ. Oil stains were a b***h and a half.).
"Hey Jeremiah. Been a while." Marcus said, stepping out from his car and locking it from habit. More than a while since they spoke if he was being honest with himself he mentally noted. A fair amount of time and not a single peep. Not even a passing, 'Hey, congrats on the new job, hear you have infiltrated the top local brass of the system. Just be careful if they offer workplace vaccines or health plans that include therapy'. (AKA mind control) Actually, he figured there was no better time than the present to give his congratulations.
"Heard you made chief of police. That's something. Bet it helps when dealing with some of the other things that must float across your desk." It was a small quirk, a tilt of his head and lit in voice that held the small seed of suspicion. Had Jeremiah become a part of the system? The eyes... The eye bothered him. Nagged at his mind and now Jeremiah was head of the local police. Either that was very good or very bad. It all depended. But Jeremiah had to be the real deal. Only the real deal would have known this location. Only way was if it was the same man.
Still, Marcus was uncertain. He always was.
"I've got to be honest- I don't trust you a whole lot right now." Marcus tapped the side of his face, finger pointing to his own eyes.
"Something is off. Has been for a while. Mind telling me?" Sometimes being direct was the fastest and easiest way to get answers, especially with people involved with Other Ashdown.
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Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 1:39 am
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Jeremiah's eyes were, for the moment, that odd blue-green that they always were. They were his father's eyes but no one here had ever had the misfortune of meeting him.
"It has been, Marcus," he spoke in that same calm, even voice as always, his hands sliding into his jacket pockets. Away from, away from his husband, and Jeremiah was cold as always. His ability to cope with it, however, had reached a point that he had to be close to blue before he would buckle. Marcus's comments, of course, just had him quirking an eyebrow because clearly this was about something.
That's something made him let out a huff of breath. "It does help but it also means I'm well aware of just how little they're able to make sense of things with the tools they have." Then of course, Marcus was tapping his eyes and Jeremiah was blinking at him once, then twice.
Really.
"You don't trust me because of my eyes?" That was certainly new but not exactly unheard of. Jeremiah was almost expecting I don't trust you because I ran into you over the past couple months and you were a charming but evil villain.
"You could have asked when you first noticed, I would have told you then." He shook his head but continued on. "I can see magic and the places where the veil between the two sides is thin or broken." His hand pointed down the path. "That small dog ramp, for example, is half-in and half-out at the moment." To his eyes one half of the ramp was a bright red, the other half was cracked and broken and faded. To someone else? All red and new looking.
"... but I assume you're probably talking about the fact that they glow? They don't normally do that here but with the cage breaking, magic is getting a little more active on this side and sometimes they do." Then he paused and snorted. "To be honest, it's not even really glowing, my eyes are just reflecting light back like a cat's do." Which meant, yes, he could see in the dark and no, he did not like it when flashlights got shined in his eyes.
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iStoleYurVamps
iStoleYurVamps
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Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 6:38 pm
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While Jeremiahs eyes did not change in the light, Marcus's own blue orbs had decided at that particular moment, to change to a vibrant, almost neon orange red. Very decidedly unnatural, and if Marcus knew, he would have denied it. Such ironies were lost on him.
"The eyes. The promotion. The court of the Sorrowful one. You're close to them Jeremiah. One thing might be one thing, another another thing. But both? The little additions like your eyes? The connections? Jeremiah Mercer I've known about you for a while, if only because I am that guy." Marcus was scarred. It wasn't an emotion the man openly expressed. But his neurosis was firmly rooted in him. Fear of the unknown, of change. Of something stable becoming unstable were the things that kept the theorist up at night, and as of late? Jeremiah had been worming his way into that box of worry and fear more than Marcus liked.
"It's not normal."
Normal- subjective. Something Marcus had no room to judge on, to judge by.
He was nervous, and he was being aggressive. Fear and panic of change morphed into another. Driving away a man Marcus was hesitantly one to call a friend. Jeremiah might be different and maybe he wasn't. It was uncertainty. It was terrifying.
"You still knew though. You knew where to come, and only Jeremiah would know that. How could I ask back then though? You never believed me back then when I told you things. Then I showed you that place and you saw what I saw for once. But you also had those eyes. I kept wondering if something was wrong. That maybe they had gotten to you." Illuminati. Back then, it wasn't magic. It was the government testing. It was secrets designed to control and hide things from others.
"I-" A deep breath. It was a lot. Almost too much. Marcus was terrible at sorting it all. Where did his theories start and realities begin anymore? When had magic become real and distorted everything? Looking at the ramp, all Marcus saw was a ramp. Red with a still yet to be covered in claw marks coating of paint.
But then.
"Gloom said things are changing. The cage is something no one is sure about in terms of what it will change. Only that things will change. Thus far, the biggest changes I've seen have been to you."
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 1:03 am
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Jeremiah absolutely would not comment on the color changing eyes because that was seriously not even worth him trying to prove. Also: hypocrite.
He did not speak until he thought Marcus was finished and shook his head with a barely exhaled sigh, a huff of breath that was pulled from him. "Of course you would notice, Marcus, but you've always picked up the little details that are innocuous and others dismiss." Jeremiah was the same way but he kept himself in check.
"The magic of other ashdown changes you and I've been dunked in it more than once." So the changes were vast and likely he did not even know what they all were or what they would all be. "So, yes, I've been changed and there's little I can do about it besides adapt and make sure that I help others if they're dealing with similar."
Still- Marcus had brought up the cage and that had Jeremiah's attention more than anything else. "The cage was - is - for both us and The Enemy. What cages him, cages us, and it's now broken. I don't know what all Gloom told you but he is right. With the cage broken we are seeing things that have never been seen before- Magic is coming here, Marcus, and it can't be avoided. So expect more changes. Not just with me but yourself as well and anyone else who knows of other ashdown."
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iStoleYurVamps
iStoleYurVamps
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 4:28 pm
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Marcus just felt tired with it all. Tired of being outside while walking inside of the social circles. Tired of pretending things were normal. Like how they used to be. He tried to cope by making sure people didn't get close by being odd, different. By blocking out reality and living in a world he constructed in his head. He knew that. He knew it in the back of his mind he wasn't healthy, that he needed help.
Now it was all messed up.
Reality wasn't the same for everyone, and there were two Ashdowns. One was here, in 'reality'. The Other was full of unknowns and dangers untold and hardships unnumbered.
"I just want to forget sometimes. Pretend things don't happen. But we can't and so we just act like nothing is changed." It was bitterness on his tongue. Grief was hard to swallow. This new reality was the death of an old one.
"You're still you though. That's what I wanted to know. Had to know I guess?" He wanted to have a friend. Or at least someone who didn't just dismiss him as outright crazy based on how things were before this whole debacle they had at the court.
Blinking, hands were tucked into his pockets and shoulders slumped as Jeremiah said the thing Marcus didn't want to hear. Change change change. It was a lot for him, and he didn't enjoy it one bit. At first he saw no harm in the cage. In keeping it or breaking it. Then keeping it seemed better. But it was broken now and they didn't know of a way to fix it. Make it go back. Living with consequences was hard when it was a choice made somewhat for you and outside of your control.
Life was strange here in Ashdown. It always had been but now, even that wasn't covering everything.
"Do you regret it?" The question came out with sincerity and a genuine ennui. It had been made to seem like this huge thing, that chaos would come down crashing like glass spires.
"Letting the cage be broken. We can't change it, but do you regret it? I mean, we made a choice to become involved. Now we might have involved everyone if they like it or not. We might have done something terrible and we don't even know."
He hadn't though it would be like this, scare him like this. He regret it now, only after he was able to understand how it alter their way of life. His way of life.
"If i got magic I don't think I could complain but I don't think that can justify the risk we've taken and what we have done. Hindsight twenty-twenty I guess."
azuredreams sorry i am slight spring boarding cuz his memories but its rly good place to do so dfghj otl
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Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 12:05 am
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"I can't regret it," he replied, "because if I do then I won't be able to do what must be done in the future. To protect others, to see people through everything ..." Jeremiah understood, he did. The man walked a fine line between Jeremiah Mercer, Chief of Police and Jeremiah Mercer, Noble of the Court of the Sorrowful One. It was not easy when one had more than just a foot in other ashdown.
Now, more than ever, his ties were more to other ashdown.
"The fact of the matter is, Marcus, that this side we live in? It may not even be real." Which with everything that was happening was beginning to seem more and more like a truth. "We're meant to have this magic, we're meant to experience it and have it be part of our lives. The lie, the falsehood, is this life we live without it. It's a bitter pill, I know, but it's ... what I've come to understand."
With a roll of his shoulders, never quite able to ease the pain or the ache that was there because of the ice on his spine. "I'm grateful that I am in the position I am in now because it better serves to protect and perhaps help where I can. Not everyone knows, not everyone believes, and those are the ones who need the most protection." His eyes glowed a moment as he looked over to Marcus. "There is very little to justify what we've done, what we've pulled the rest of Ashdown into."
i5toleYurVamps shhh, shhh, i like ur werds <3
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iStoleYurVamps
iStoleYurVamps
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Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:12 pm
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That was comforting to know as well. Regret would eat away at a person, and while he might not know Jeremiah well, the job of police chief in a town where people went missing and magic was going to run wild was not going to be stress free. Especially in playing the precarious balance of truth and fiction to the higher ups and to the masses.
"That's why you're good at what you do. You care more than the rest of us. You do things when people like me? I'm fine with watching. I feel of more use out of the way than getting involved, even if at this point, I know I am and I can't untangle myself from it anymore." He couldn't even if he tried. He was too curious. To wanting to have answers, knowledge. If he stepped away? The unanswered questions would nag at him for years, he knew they would.
"I don't think you're right though, about us supposed to live with magic. Humans are dumb. We can barely handle the notion that we're not the only sentient race of beings in the cosmos. I mean hell- Sure we've adjusted okay to all the things Other Ashdown might have but the second it gets out? They bring in military, scientists. We stop being human. We start being subjects." Marcus had.. shifted once more. But he also liked to think he wasn't wrong.
"Humans are afraid of what they can't understand, what they can't control. It's not humans who need the most protection if you think about it. It's them. It's this place. We means those involved. Beyond that? The world wouldn't care." The world wouldn't be as nice as Ashdown was to magic.
A kick to rocks, Marcus walked towards the dog ramp. Half in and half out. That's what they were but the idea that somehow, it was supposed to be together? As one thing? That was terrifying for reasons that had nothing to do with what lived in Other Ashdown.
"You've taken on more than others, and I am grateful for that. I'm just worried. One side is going to hurt and hurt a lot. Even if this side isn't reality, it's real enough. It matters. What is real is different for everyone. And now we're changing it, changing everything." A long sigh. The sound of melancholy mixed with acceptance.
"I think too much don't I?" He asked, a small smile pulling at the edges of his mouth.
"I get lost with it all but- thank you. I'm glad, even with all my worries that you're still you. Maybe different, but the man I know I can trust is still there. That's what matters."
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:21 pm
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Jeremiah really gave Marcus a look, as if he was realizing that he probably did not give the man enough credit for his observations. It was a rare individual who, even without knowing him, knew that he cared about everything and everyone to his detriment. He had been, before he had become a noble, been stretched thin in trying to look after everyone.
Now? Now he shouldered the burden with a new resolve. Jeremiah would see people through what needed to be done, of that he had no doubt.
"That," the talk about military and scientists and people being afraid of what they didn't understand, "is exactly why I made sure that the truth of Blackfriars was not entirely known. There are people who would have become test subjects, who would have been whisked away ..." Jeremiah shook his head. "I couldn't allow that to happen. They're good people, every one of them, and no one deserves that. Not just people like us who are touched by magic, but the regular citizens of this town. They're in more danger than us."
He paused at the dog ramp, head tilting towards Marcus and wondering he wanted to cross over. They could if they just walked across it and perhaps he could help ease Marcus's fears of it- show him something that was a wonder and not a horror. There were good things in that place, for all that it was other.
"It's no more than what I think about too," he offered, giving him a small smile, "but you've got to watch out for it consuming you." Jeremiah's shoulders rolled and stretched, trying to ease the ache along his spine. "It's the least I can do, Marcus, trying to make sure we're not all blind. I'm also grateful for your trust, more so now than ever. You're a good man."
word count: 1333
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iStoleYurVamps
iStoleYurVamps
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:31 pm
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A solemn nod of his head. Marcus had been through his own version of tests, of being a subject. Walls of white and countless questions. But that was then, when it was just about trauma. Mental stability. Now? Now it was other worldly. That was likely, far worse, far more intrusive.
"I wasn't involved with that, but I caught whispers. If you lead the cover up?" He smiled, eye softening. "You did a good job."
Following Jeremiah, Marcus hesitated at the ramp, eyeing it yet going no closer. His stance spoke of uncertainty and his hands remained in his pockets. Closed off.
"Good is always subjective Jeremiah. It is good we have broken the cage. But is it just as good to have left it? Perspective is a tricky thing, and words have loose definitions." Like free and 'salty'.
McDonalds fries were salty. Burger King fries were just crisp.
"Thank you though. It's.. nice to hear." He ginger took a step forward though the gate. He trusted Jeremiah. The man saw the world differently than he had in the past and so? The least that Marcus could do for him was try the same.
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