[Open] Do you feel the chill crawling at the back of your neck?

[seeingthings]

Who: Richie Gecko, Seth Gecko, Others
Where: The Lodge
When: Near the end of and post snow storm.
Rating: Swearing, otherwise TBD
Summary: Richie comes back from out of the snowstorm after looking for Kate in a pretty sorry state. Angst ensues.
The Story:

[Closed] For Seth

Richard was nearly frozen to the bone when he finally stumbles back into their room.

He and Clementine hadn't saved anyone. It had been too late to do anything for her friend except shoot her, and Kate hadn't been out there. He'd known that going in that she probably wouldn't be anywhere. That she had probably gone home the way so many people did. But she was going home to die, the same way she would have died out in the storm, so what was really the difference?

There's frost forming on the edges of his skin, in his eyebrows. It's only the fact that he's bundles in heavy coats and gloves and a scarf that he made it back at all, and it was likely through sheer willpower.

He knew Kate's disappearance would fuck up his brother too. Losing both of them wasn't gonna fly.

The door shuts behind him and he leans against it, sliding down until he hits the floor, his expression vacant and lost.

He's not taking this well.

[OTA]

He's not his usually self as he roams around the Lodge. He's always got a bottle of liquor on him, it's never full, and his tie is half undone and hanging loosely around his neck.

This place has never been more fucked up. And to think most people considered this event a 'fun' one. Fuck that.

No skiing for him. He's staying in, people watching, and drinking by himself for the most part, but he's not going to bite if people bother him.

Probably, anyway.

Comments

[seeingthings]

Richie has his suit jacket on, at least, but he's nearly cold-blooded in a technical way, and he had too close of a call with the storm earlier. He won't be out long, but the liquor in his veins will make him feel like he can stay out longer than he probably should.

"No problem."

More for him.

He pops the end of the cig in his mouth, lighting up before passing the lighter back to Tim once they're outside. He leans against the outer wall of the lodge just off of the front door, dragging in a long inhale and holding it before letting it out the side of his mouth, the cigarette never leaving its spot from between his lips.

[postictal]

"Not a fan of this event, huh?" It's an assumption, but he doubts it's that big a stretch. He might not be able to drink himself, but he recognizes the signs of someone else who's chosen to up and make a weekend out of drowning their sorrows. Some vices are simply inescapable.

He'd know.

[seeingthings]

"I'm cold-blooded."

He says it as if that's normal and explains everything. Except it doesn't, and it's sort of a lie. While that part certainly sucks, that isn't the reason he's drinking himself into oblivion.

"Someone I know got sent home."

He tries to keep his voice as even and apathetic as he can when he says it. It's easier with the liquor burning through his veins not to care so much.

[postictal]

...uh. Tim kinda wants to know if he should be interpreting that metaphorically, but knowing this place? Probably not. He's probably completely serious. After little more than a token glance from beneath furrowed brows, Tim decides, fine. Fine.

His shoulders lift incrementally in a shrug. He can accept that.

If he were the sort to laugh at that admission, albeit bitterly, he would have. But he can't, so he doesn't. He simply huffs out through his nose, head bowing to regard his feet scuffing at the snow crusted around the edges of the doorstep.

"You too, huh?"

[seeingthings]

Probably better if he doesn't explain it. It's pretty weird, not that Wonderland isn't already high up on the scales in general. He doesn't know who's used to his kind of creepy and who isn't.

"Yeah. Me too."

He takes another drag off his cigarette and finally pulls it from his mouth, flicking ashes off into the snow.

"I guess I should have expected it, huh?"

[postictal]

"Doesn't matter if you expect it," says Tim, almost rueful. He expected it from Jay from day one, the other man simply dissipating the same way he came. Dematerializing to go back to moldering in the ground, or maybe frozen in a permanent state of rigor mortis in that dark place, with the stark black trunks for trees and no light.

It doesn't matter if he expected it. When it happened, it still struck him like a sucker punch to the gut.

"It's always sudden."

[seeingthings]

He nods his head in an absent sort of way, as if he doesn't entirely want to process that properly, as if his mind is partially somewhere else, rolling along on a side tangent that he's avoiding as much as everything else.

That's what the booze is for. He can't think too hard or he might really lose it.

"My brother's still here."

The way he says it speaks volumes though; his brother is here, which means he could up and vanish too. That's the only thing that might be worse at this point.

[postictal]

His brother's still here. Well, that's something. There's a breath of relief to the admission, and Tim glances away, fleetingly struck by the notion that he's maybe witnessing, hearing something, private. Between family.

Keep talking. Be casual. Act normal, for god's sake. You can do that much, can't you?

"Anyone I know?" It's little more than idle conversation even if, unbeknownst to Tim, he does know Seth Gecko - and the last time they met, Tim's childhood nightmare glowered him down, and left utter mental chaos in Its wake. As It tends to.

There's a lot of people in Wonderland, after all.

[seeingthings]

Richard doesn't know normal. He never has, really, so he doesn't know what it's supposed to be like enough to notice one way or the other.

"I dunno, maybe. You know Seth Gecko?"

There's a lot of people, but it often feels too small even so. There's only so many places to go and people to meet, and there's no escape. Not deliberately, anyway.

[postictal]

"Yeah, actually." He mentioned having a brother, and thus - this is said brother. If he can remember his name - "Richie, right?"

Small world. But that's actually turned out to be the case anyway, hasn't it? Wonderland isn't really big enough to allow for anti-sociability, and the pool of people is limited enough for it to be inevitable, frankly, that he'd run into someone else who knew the same people he knew.

Including, apparently, Seth's brother.

[seeingthings]

Wonderland is like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon except fewer degrees and everyone is Kevin Bacon.

Seth always was better at meeting and talking to people than Richie was, so it makes sense that he'd run into people that knew his brother rather than the other way around.

"Yeah. That's right."

[postictal]

"He mentioned you. He was, uh, stealing a...space car." He's pretty sure that's not about to be a shocker - he wouldn't know the nature of most siblingly relationships, but they seemed fairly close, as far as brothers go.

That wasn't the last time he saw Seth, but the less he says about the thing leering at them through the tear in reality, the better.

"Back in the Citadel, I mean."

[seeingthings]

"No shit? I wonder if that was before or after we robbed the bank."

Definitely not a shocker in the slightest. Richie sometimes hot wired cars just for fun. Criminal activity was something they were born into.

"We didn't get to keep any of the money, but it was something to do."

[postictal]

Somehow, it's not the least bit surprising that Seth was involved in a space bank robbery, apparently because he simply had nothing else to do. He certainly wasn't hotwiring space cars because he figured he'd get to keep them, that much had been obvious from the beginning.

"I guess everyone needs a hobby." He finishes off his cigarette, stomping his feet to warm them slightly. "You guys pulled off a bank heist, just because you could?"

[seeingthings]

Richie's taking the last drag of his as well, flicking off the remnants of ash as he holds the smoke in his lungs for a few long moments before he exhales, flicking the remainder into the snow.

"It's kind of our thing."

Understatement. They'd done an obscene amount of jobs at a young age, just getting truly into the game, and they were the best.

"We were talking about setting up a gambling den in the mansion. Just for something to do." He didn't feel so into it now, for obvious reasons, but throwing himself into a project was better than thinking.

[postictal]

"What would you be gambling?" Not that Tim's any kind of gambler, or even someone who's in any position to judge people for less than legal life choices. He's done his fair share of criminal activity, albeit unwillingly. Trespassing, arson, petty theft -

Murder.

Normal stuff.

[seeingthings]

Sounds normal to him.

"That's the hard part, isn't it?" Hard to come up with something to wager when you could get whatever you wanted at any time. "We'd probably just have to do chips. Like I said, it'd just be for the hell of it. You win, you get bragging rights."

[postictal]

"Maybe you could gamble favors." Does that sound too middle school? Too much of like, a childish truth or dare sort of thing? He wouldn't know. He's never exactly had any sort of hands-on experience with games like that, that all children are allegedly meant to have grown up playing.

"Might have some interest. I dunno."