Blackout

[skeggsismad]

Griffin had told him to go drinking.

When do I ever listen to Griffin? Ransom thought to himself, sitting on a barstool that was the furthest away from everyone else as he could possibly get. The music of the club was hurting his ears, and he hadn’t dressed up for the occasion, wearing his typical t-shirt and jeans that he wore nearly every day. It was a wonder that the bouncers stationed at the entrance had even let him in looking the way he did, but they had.

Maybe they want someone to pick me up so they can torture me and murder me and dump my body in a river, because no one would notice, no one would care.

It’s a good thing Ransom didn’t think too much about the possibility of people being able to read other’s minds. For…if someone had read his mind when he was thinking things like this and he found out, he’d be forever embarrassed and self-loathing to a degree that somehow could  go beyond what he was already experiencing.

Though he had come here to drink, because it was his 21st birthday and all…Ransom hadn’t ordered a single drink. The bartender had come around several times like a shark, asking him if he wanted something or if he was still deciding, offering up suggestions, and on occasion when he wasn’t tending to other customers the fellow tried to make small talk with the freshly of age youth. Ransom managed to deflect everything cordially, but his mood was definitely depressed…no amount of acting could hide that.

His hoodie was pulled up over his head, in a failure of an attempt to drown out all of the excessive external sound. A lot of the music they were playing he actually listened to and recognized, but his main issue was that he never listened to these songs this loud.

What had been going on repeat for the past half hour he had been sitting at his position was the dread of having someone remember him from somewhere. Even if the person couldn’t remember where they had seen him, those type of people were the worst, because Ransom knew where he had met them and never wanted to be reminded again about that portion of his life. The others who knew him by name were his former and sometimes current clients that he painted for. Sometimes they could be just as bad because they thought they were his friend, asking questions, chatting it up, trying to get him to go to their house and hang out. Ransom didn’t want to hang out with the people that he painted. Most of them, anyway…and the few that he did have an interest in he was always too afraid to display it.

People get crushed like biscuit crumbs
And laid down in the bitumen
You have tried your best to please everyone
But it just isn\'t happening
No, it just isn\'t happening

[/SIZE]

[WorstEvangelist]

There was a commotion at the entrance of the club. It seemed to go largely unnoticed however. The aggression and raised voices were absorbed by the music so that only those close by, or sober enough, payed attention. A spindly man in heavy trench boots was pushing against the burly arm of a bouncer as he tried to gain admittance. The perpetrator had his hair pulled back in a bandanna and the messy result spiked chaotically from his scalp.

For a while the stranger and bouncer struggled, then with a flash that may have come from the neon lights outside the attacker suddenly backed off. Retreating toward the street, the tall man hurled profanities back at the doorman while making suggestible gestures with his hands before disappearing into the distance.

Reeves appeared in the club moments later, by the bar, upsetting a stool as if he had just walked up to it. This time, cunning creature he is, the wraith sported a flimsy cardboard party hat atop his head. Taking a quick look around and readjusting the elastic under his chin, he made sure his entrance and disguise were appropriately subtle. Apparently satisfied and ignoring the irritable but resigned look of the bartender, Reeves leaned carefully against the bar.    

This didn’t last long as the restless spirit began to fidget, shifting weight from one foot to the other causing the floor to quietly creak. His lopsided gaze browsed the surroundings looking for something entertaining, but there was nothing in the club of notice. In fact things made a point of giving the tilted spectre a wide birth. If this continued he’d have to make his own fun…

Reeves casually looked down at his side and almost fell over as he finally noticed the hooded person on a stool next to him. Putting a hand over his chest he staggered back “Christ Almighty! Where did you come from?”

[skeggsismad]

There was too much going on in the club for Ransom to pay attention every single detail. It was overwhelming in many ways- all of that noise and sound blended together and created a mess of confusion for his senses. With the hooding adding a thin, nearly useless shield to block it all out, everything sounded a little fuzzy.

Of course, Ransom did spot the stranger apparently before he had realized he was there. Or maybe the man had been only pretending to not notice him and this was all part of an elaborate plan to trick him. Ransom would think up a thousand terrible things that could be an explanation before he’d ever accept that not everyone had malicious intentions when dealing with him.

The man was huge , especially considering that Ransom wasn’t particularly tall. Strange, odd details poked out about him that made the boy sitting next to the wraith on the bar uneasy. Besides his size, he was dressed all wrong. Of all things, the man’s was wearing a children’s hat that you saw at birthday parties. The stranger, probably somewhere in his thirties, was much too old to be wearing something like that.

He blushed, looking away as quickly as he could, promptly embarrassed by the behavior of the man who had yet to notice him. Just the moment had looked away, a voice spoke out and…

Ransom jumped in his seat from the suddenness of it, taking a deep jag of air. Despite that he had known the man was there, he hadn’t been expecting that he’d be spoken to. The young man looked over nervously to the man’s eyes, still feeling uneasy. He tried to get himself to respond, opening his mouth.
No sound came out the first time.

He closed his mouth and tried again, practically shaking with nervousness.

“I-I…c-c-came….” Ransom had begun to speak, but realized that it wasn’t what he wanted to say and that he had also spoken too softly considering the noise levels around here. He hadn’t appeared suddenly the way the stranger was implying. In fact, he’d been here the whole time, but the words to explain this had just passed him mind. He couldn’t think straight.

This was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have listened to Griffin. I should leave, right now. I need to get out of here.

He knew, though, that he couldn’t just get up and leave. The crowds of people had been hell to push through to get in and he’d probably have a panic attack if he had to have people’s bodies rub all over him when he walked through them again.

“Um..” He stumbled once more, still speaking somewhat silently.

“I-I was…here…um…already,” This time, Ransom shouted a bit to be heard, though he felt ever so guilty about doing it.  He couldn’t keep his eyes on the stranger’s anymore. He knew he should have, but just couldn’t. Thus, Ransom’s eyes diverted and he tilted his head to look at the bar tabletop, thumb running over the texture of it nervously.

“Sorry. Um..”  Another mutter came from as his fingers continued to trace circles on the bar tabletop idly.

[WorstEvangelist]

A thousand terrible things ran through Reeves mind before he realised the young man had started talking. The wraith was too busy contemplating the frustrating frequency with which witnesses seemed to appear in his morbid scenarios, thus he failed to pay attention to what was being stuttered. While he considered himself a distinctly sociable individual, Reeves had always had trouble concentrating around large groups of people for whatever reason. Perhaps he’d lost some of his identity when his heart stopped beating, or while his stomach and eyes had decayed into a writhing mass of bloated lava.

But where was he again? Reeves shook him self free of the cobwebs that gauzed reality and looked around again momentarily confused. In the living darkness of the club, dancing shadows nestled in the scars running over the wraith’s face making them stand out against his grey flesh. The chromatic lights pulsed in time with the music, blinding and dazzling Reeves by turns. With an audible click, the gears of the wraiths mind bit and began to turn again. Reeves turned his half dead gaze back to the small framed man just in time to hear him mutter something and then turn toward something, which must be incredibly interesting, on the bar tabletop.

Impudent as always, Reeves simply carried on the conversation as if he’d been listening attentively. “Oh yes, terribly sorry about all, I was just startled.”

The tall spectre tapped the side of his head with one finger as he tried to remember if the hooded man had mentioned where he was from.

Probably not.

“Oh really, you know I used to have family up that way. Great weather, nice beaches… um… …not enough grocery stores,”

The wraith was distracted from his nonsensical charade by the intensity with which barstool boy regarded the top of the bar, and how with each word he seemed to shrink into himself. Reeves giggled as he imagined the young man squeezing himself harder and harder until crimson beads began to sweat from his pores as he wrung himself out like a wet sponge.

Recovering quickly this time, before he got too distracted, the ash wraith decided to come from a different angle before the human had time to react to his lie.

 “So my good friend what were you drinking?” as he asked this Reeves raised a hand in an effort to attract the bartender.

[skeggsismad]

Whatever had upset the stranger that was talking to him, Ransom hadn’t been looking to know what it was. It made him kind of nervous- because if there was something that could startle a man that looked like the one sitting next to him, he didn’t know how in the world he was going to be safe in a place like this.

Some weird things make people nervous.

His thought aided him in trying to shrug off what he was seeing. For, the flashing of the lights in this club hit a core nerve in his psyche. He’d been wanting to run home since he got here, staying for god knows what reason. Sudden bolts of light like that simply reminded him of…

Cameras.

He didn’t like those too much.

Focusing on the table like one would an interesting newspaper article, Ransom listened in a semi-confused state to what the man was going on about. It didn’t make any sense at all…though, he knew from experience, drunk people seldom did. Probably everyone in here was drunk or on some kind of drug. He’d been a bit surprised to notice that not all of them were shouting at each other and throwing things. Ransom couldn’t process the fact that not everyone reacted to the chemicals the way his mother had. Avoiding drunks most of his life, it made sense. How would you know that people could be different if you’d only allowed yourself to see one bitter, awful type?

Too, the laughter emitting from the fellow beside him made him feel innately insecure.

What is he laughing about? Me?

Ransom’s mind filled with all of the cruel insults that the man could be compiling in his head about him, waiting for the right moment to spit them out.
But Reeves didn’t insult him with his next words- or so, the boy didn’t interpret what had been said as anything but an inquiry.

He generally avoided answers questions like the plague just because once you answered one, people felt comfortable and started asking more until they became more and more personal. But this…he’d answer this, not to risk being thought of as rude.

“Um…I…I wasn’t drinking anything.”  Ransom spoke up, having to force himself to speak over the sound of the music. His ears were ringing and, it probably didn’t help that he was shouting at the bar table rather than the direction of the man he was trying to communicate with.

Please go away. Please don’t try to buy me a drink. Please.

Part of the reason that Ransom hadn’t been drinking was that he couldn’t bare the idea. The other part of him didn’t only because he was cheap, and couldn’t muster the willpower to shell out the cash for even the lowest price alcoholic drink on the tab. If the man got him something…he’d feel guilty not to take it and…

I should just leave.

The boy wound his head up, giving a brief look to the exit door before looking back down at the table as if he’d done nothing, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

There were just too many people from here to the door for him to want to risk it. Maybe the man would go away.

Maybe.

[WorstEvangelist]

Clapping his two hands together with a heavy crack, not unlike the sound of two cinderblocks crashing into each other, Reeves gave an exaggerated sigh. He’d been down on his prospects since murdering three men in the bathrooms of Risk two years ago. And while he’d turned the situating into a con to enter the Sacramentums ‘employ’, vampires tended to live for quite a long time. That was bad for business, and the eccentric wraith had found his pockets emptying quicker then he could fill graves- despite his forceful attempts to pick up the slack. The result being Reeves’ current lack of any form of currency. Not that the dimension hopping spectre found that resentful, he had little need of money, or anything that it could get him. In fact Reeves had intended to get his new friend to pay for the drinks once the bartender hovered over, through he wouldn’t admit it, even to himself.

Instead- ever the optimist- the wraith smiled his dagger filled smile and gave a good natured laugh, even if it did sound a bit like breaking glass “What a relief! Ya’ know I’m a recovering alcoholic? Yes, if it weren’t for your unintentional sponsorship I’d be going back down that self destructive spiral even as we speak!” he punctuated his speech by twirling a slab like finger in the approximation of a spiral.

“No, that was a good catch there and I’m grateful. You have absolutely no idea how much this means to my friends and me,” through his predatory eyes Reeves could see how insecure the young man was, how he shied away from the lights and other people like some small wounded animal. Ransom’s discomfort gave the wraith a sort of perverse pleasure, but not much. He’d dealt with spineless people before- in every sense of the word and state of life. Still he kept talking, seemingly heedless of Ransom’s reactions.

“Yes you did a good thing. If there’s anything you need you just let me know. You have my lifelong gratitude.” Reeves scratched his chin and he considered the down turned Ransom a moment longer, honestly puzzled about what he found so interesting about the bar top. To hide his ignorance he got the attention of the bartender with a switch of his mind and called out “Two water’s please!” his voice leaping over the bar to attack the man behind it.

[skeggsismad]

The man sure did clap loudly. Ransom shivered unintentionally just by the sound of it.

His intention of acting like he wasn’t paying attention much and hoping the man would go away if he stare down for long enough dropped the instant he heard the word alcoholic drip out of the stranger’s mouth.

It was strange, he’d never predicted he would react this way to anyone merely mentioning that they used to be a drunk like his mother had been when he was little. But it was a commonality- something that he could relate to.

Suddenly he didn’t feel like he was so much out of place. He was in a bar full of drunks but with someone else who didn’t want to be drinking either.

The young man’s blue eyes connected with Reeves’ again and he looked interested. The nervousness still clung to him in the air- as he didn’t let down his hood and his face was still shadowed by it, but it was an improvement nonetheless.

His face didn’t respond to the rest of the stranger’s words, but when the man had finally stopped talking, Ransom found that he had one or two things to say himself.

“…Really?” He asked, quite softly again. He didn’t like shouting his words, but he tried again.

“Why did you stop drinking?” The young man amplified his voice this time, eyes sparkling with curiosity. He didn’t seem to think at the moment how inappropriate and personal the question might have seemed. There was something there with the idea that the man had stopped drinking.

His mother had stopped because she’d almost died.

He sort of wanted to know if someone out there had stopped drinking for a decent reason without hurting people in the process.

[WorstEvangelist]

Reeves pouted out his bottom lip and lifted an eyebrow while he tried to remember what he had said to make the introverted human come out of his shell. Maybe he hadn’t said anything and the boy had just got sick of the smell of liquor so close the bar’s top.    

For a moment Reeves just stood there, considering the young man’s eyes. He wondered- off handily- if they would bounce. He knew if you did it right you could take out a man’s eyes without it hurting, there were few nerves behind the eyeballs.  

A glass of water was set before him, jogging his memory. That’s right- he was a recovering alcoholic. The ash wraith put a hand over half his face as he strained to think of a way to answer the hooded man’s question. His mouth split in a jagged smile as the corporeal flesh prison that was his body compiled something together from the diseased consciousness of the soul Reeves had tortured into madness.

“Ahhh…” he began, the surprising intensity of Ransom’s inquisitive gaze drawing the words out of the wraith’s mouth. “Well to be honest they were mostly selfish reasons,”

Once he began Reeves was quick in getting into his usual light hearted and ungracious way of speaking. “It was to get fitter mostly!” he pumped his gangly arms for emphasis. “The stuff’s poison mostly anyway, and my brain and mussels are rotted enough as it is.”

The spectre stooped so his eyes were level with the human and he rubbed two fingers together under his nose “Then there’s the price- it was costing me a small fortune just to sabotage my relationships and, let’s be serious, there are cheaper ways to get rid of someone,” at this his toothy smile widened.

The wraith backed off and gave an exasperated sigh, the corners of his mouth dropping only an instant “But it’s hard you know? Without the alcohol I feel empty and alone. It’s like the whole world is pressing at me from all sides but I still feel far away from everyone I meet. A drink can make me forget about the sick sense that I feel like I’m barely alive,” Reeves closed his brown eye and pointed at his temple, his hand an impression of a gun. The wraith’s tone never seemed to match the content of his words, he spoke at a relaxed volume; a reckless glee colouring his speech.

“Sometime’s I just want to stop feeling the bad things… But…” Reeves pulled the ‘trigger’ “… After a while I guess you can either endure the bad things or become them.” The grey skinned man screwed up his face and shrugged his shoulders, as if dismissing what he had just said, and grabbed his glass.

[skeggsismad]

As Ransom gazed upon the stranger again, he decided there was no way of denying how hideously frightening the stranger look.

It must be the lighting of this place.

Ransom reasoned to himself, clearly not assuming anything supernatural in nature was the reason for the oddities he was observing. He couldn’t quite make it out- but it looked one of the man’s eyes were a different color from the other, and besides the tone of his skin the man was just a giant . Too, Ransom couldn’t help but notice Reeves teeth. It was all very unnerving, enough to make a meek young man like him jump up and run.

But it was the stranger’s voice that seemed to quantify the situation. As strange as Reeves looked…he sounded terribly sincere and humored about everything he said, taking any creepiness that Ransom might have normally felt and throwing it to the side. Obviously, he still wasn’t comfortable, yet he wasn’t as frightened as he should have been considering it all.

Ransom interpreted at the stranger\'s show muscles he was supposed to laugh at some sort of joke being made or at least act impressed- but all the young man could do was lift the corners of his mouth for a shy smile before dropping all together. It had been a polite gesture- not entirely felt, but instead forced.

The way Reeves described being without a drink…it was how he felt, almost always. Was that because he was just like his mother? If he took a drink, would it make him feel the way the stranger said it had made him feel? Would it make all of the pain slide away?

As he listened on- Ransom found himself dumbfounded. He’d never really thought about it all that way…maybe because he had so many fears swimming around in his mind he never had time to think critically.

“Oh.” He spoke in response, unsure of what to say.

His thoughts had all been a muddle as he listened, and too, he really didn’t think spitting out that much personal information to a total stranger in some unfamiliar bar was a bright idea. Ransom was still looking at Reeves, still paying attention and engaged in what little of the conversation he was contributing to.

He wanted to say something, but half of what he wanted to say or ask would reveal too much about himself that he didn’t want the other person knowing.

“Did you make them better? Like, um….your relationships?”

He wasn\'t sure if it was even possible for a drunk to make anything better, even when they\'d sobered up. But if Reeves had done it...he was eager to find out how.

[WorstEvangelist]

The wraith could tell he was confusing the seated man but he wasn’t surprised. He reasoned there were few things in the world that made sense after all. Shaking his greasy yellow hair in an effort to surface from his own thoughts, he regarded his new friend. The young man seemed intent on something that must have come off the bar top and onto Reeves’ face.

Whatever it was, the nervous kid was thinking about it way too much. The gangly wraith took a drink of water. Thinking about stuff like that just added uncertainty and fear to a place that had had enough of it already. He just might be able to help the young man out, because of course dead people didn’t think.

But he liked blue eyes; the way he jumped a little at shadows, and despite his obvious reluctance to communicate, the way he was forcing himself to. And beside it’d be a shame after running his mouth for so long- just to get the kid to talk- only to silence him again.  

Reeves mentally sighed, scolding himself for being so inconsiderate. It was selfish to keep someone alive just because he didn’t want them to die. Wait… did he want to die? The wraith couldn’t quite remember. He’d ask the young man later.

Probably.

It took Reeves a while to remember he’d been supposed to answer a question. When he finally realised he spluttered on the water he’d been drinking and hurriedly set down his glass, waving a hand in apology. “Oh sorry about that, just had to rearrange my thoughts a little bit ya’ know? It’s hard for me to talk about these things,” the shadow creature laughed casually, the corners of his smile twitching.

“Let’s see… my relationships. Oh yeah definitely. I’ve started talking to my father again, and I’ve been going out with my friends a lot more. They were really supportive during the whole deal, that kind of stuff.”

He thought for a bit longer and readjusted the party hat on his head so that it hung around his neck like a tie. “But I couldn’t fix everything. I’d distanced myself from some people. Or I’d hurt them too much. Loosing them hurts I guess, but I can always meet more people,” he gestured with long arms at the buzzing, shifting crowd within Tantric enthusiastically, only half-thinking what it was he was actually saying.

“Things are good, I’ve got three jobs which I enjoy. I recently started working for the owner of the Y.D.M studio, well I s’pose I haunt the old lady more then anything,” the wraith indiscreetly winked his colourless eye.

[skeggsismad]

Ransom eye’s seemed to grow at the way that the man had so jerkily reacted to his question. It made him feel remarkably guilty in a way he couldn’t explain. Too, learning that it was particularly difficult for the stranger to speak about these things only intensified the sensation he was experiencing. How did the man act so cheerful if that was true? Ransom didn’t understand it at all.

The next keyword that struck him was father .

This man has a father? Of course- everyone had a father, even if they didn’t know them. He always wanted to ask what it was like to have a father to those who had one, and when he had been younger he’d asked some of his friends plenty-a-time. The explanations never satisfied him.

It didn’t make sense, about how the stranger had distanced himself from people in order not to hurt them. Ransom tried to wrap his mind around the concept, but he didn’t get it.

Wouldn’t leaving people hurt them more?

But what did he know? He wasn’t the drunk.

He works at the Y.M.D. Art Studio? That must be great.

Part of Ransom was half inclined to ask Reeves what he did there- was he a featured artist there, did the man make art of any sort? Or did he mean, he was more like a maintenance worker. Who was the old lady he ‘haunted’? The whole phrasing didn’t make sense to him, and his face flashed confused. No, he wasn’t going to admit he had been confused.

That would make me look stupid.

Ransom was already paranoid enough as it was of people thinking he was uneducated, dumb and worthless. He didn’t need to do anything deliberately to make it obvious to other people that he was.

His mind leaping back to what Reeves had said at the start of his conversation, the young man concluded he shouldn’t ask his questions.
He didn’t want to be invasive about something the man didn’t really want to talk about it. Yes, the stranger was strangely cheery as he spoke about the things that made him uncomfortable, but that didn’t mean that he could keep asking questions about it.

That would be rude.

Of all things, Ransom wanted to be seen as someone with manners, someone who enjoying keeping the social order. There was degree of humor that went into the fact he was trying to keep the social order with someone who clearly didn’t give a damn about it. The unusual clothing of the ash wraith, including his party hat, seemed to indicate he was far from trying to conform.

These details just didn’t fall into place for Ransom.

“Um. I didn’t mean to ask if….um….if you don’t like to talk about it.” With that, the human looked away, for the first time gripping the glass of water that had been placed in front of him and raising it to his lips. He was a little paranoid about doing so, and there was a visible pause before he took a swallow.

Didn’t people put stuff into other people’s drinks?

Admittedly, his eyes hadn’t been on his drink the whole time…so he didn’t know. The bartender even could have done something to it and he wouldn’t know until it was too late. Though he’d already taken a sip and remained thirsty, the curly haired man put the drink down and pushed it away from him in a quiet gesture. He could drink water when he got home, or maybe if he got thirsty enough he could spend a couple of dollars on something bottled with one of those safety caps that you had to break.  Probably not, though- he was a tightwad, as tight as they came.

[WorstEvangelist]

It was a long time while the wraith finished his water, the crystal liquid pooling over his cemented organs and backing up the corpse creature's useless throat. What spilled from the corners of Reeves' mouth collected an ashy film of dust before disappearing behind his collar.

With a sigh like the air escaping a long buried tomb Reeves placed the glass back down on the bar with a thud. Even amongst the intoxicating sounds and lights of the nightclub the gesture screamed of a finality that left those within earshot deaf. A shower of sparks rained down from the ceiling as filaments and fuses exploded to Tantric patrons erupting in cries of excitement, which surged to fill in the silence left by the quieted music.

“I'm bored now,” Reeves told the curly haired human at his side, his blind eye unerringly focused on Ransom's face. And although the spectre’s words might have been lost within the chaos of evacuating guests, that glassy stare cut through the darkness of the blackout to hold Ransom hostage in his chair. “And I'm running out of time.”

Already a trio of the nightclubs staff, who were anything but mortal, was searching through the throng of bodies to find whomever had sabotaged the power. For now, however, the identity of the poltergeist remained a mystery.

A grim grimace cracked over Reeves' face and the blackness around him pressed outward with a phantom force that caused the bottles of liquor behind the bar to detonate. Spirits and glass flew through the air and the wraith had to duck his head, surprised by the spectacular results. Mismatched eye's wide, for the first time a genuine laugh escaped the toothy cage of his lips.

“Welp! It was a blast while it lasted buddy. You look full of self confidence and assertiveness.” Reeves placed a hand, almost as large as a catchers mitt, on the stunned Ransom's shoulder. “You got this one friend.” Then with a wink and a quick look over his shoulders at the fast approaching authorities, the spectre vanished- as if he had never been.