Log - OTA! - What’s the difference between a corpse and a shirt?

[bossyboiler]

Who: Everyone.
When: Wednesday evening, Jan 11th
Where: A rented out bar, downtown.
Summary: The wake for George Milton.
Warnings: N/A (will update as needed)

If anyone of the forcibly kidnapped to Gloucester deserved to be remembered, it was George Milton. In many ways, he was the best of them. He had been kind. He had always been willing to help and lend a hand. Unlike some whose first choice was violence (because what else was there), he had chosen to forgo that route and had come up with a much more clever solution. The solution saved lives.

It had not felt right to have a formal service for him. To put it simply, he was not a formal person. And so after much calling around, a bar had been found where they could rent out the entire place before business got too busy. It was just for a couple of hours. People could come and say nice things about George. It's what he deserved after all.

So come on in, have a beer or two, and sit a spell. Maybe you'll feel like sharing a story about George or maybe you're just there to pay your respects. There's a break in the weather, the clouds only filling up half of the nighttime sky. No acid snow for tonight.

Comments

[bossyboiler]

"My hero." Kate responds to his suggestion with a small smile. She is grateful for the offer of help. The sun is long gone and what little warmth it had provided is long gone. It's cold outside. More people to help means fewer trips out into the night to put things back in the van.

She has a plan. Along with the van, she'll take the left over food back to ADI. The van will get parked and the food put into the refrigerators in the lunch room. The food will still be good in the morning. At least that is her plan once she leaves the bar. It's cold enough outside that the food will be fine.

Kate starts the process of gathering everything up. "Did you ever get to meet George?"

[easilyamused]

Methos shakes his head slightly, expression shading just a little rueful. "We crossed paths once or twice - enough that I can put a face to the name - but we never really spoke. I do know Katrina considered him a friend."

And if by some chance the mermaid isn't well and truly vanished, she will no doubt be furious upon her return to find out that she hadn't been there to wreak havoc on George's killers.

[bossyboiler]

"George was a good person. He really was." They've lost so many people. The worst part is that no one really knows where the missing have gone. They could be anywhere. While she is fortunate that she hasn't lost anyone that is close to her, it's the not knowing that gets to her. "We've lost Nick too. Apparently, his hat was found near George's body." Her voice trails off. She doesn't know if it means anything to Adam or not.

She finishes condensing one tray to another and then a second. The rest of the trays are made from plastic. They can be thrown away once the food is taken care of. "Okay. You carry those two and I'll hold the door?" While waiting for an answer she quickly gathers the plates and utensils so that she can carry them out with him.

[easilyamused]

Rueful transitions into concerned, genuine enough, though he'd never really spoken to Nick, either. His first thought isn't vanished, but taken - if some members of the cult remain, perhaps not immediately connected with the main branch, then they might well want a captive, for revenge or information or whatever bloody sacrifices their god demands.

"That doesn't sound good," he says. "Has there been a search?"

He dips his head in a nod and picks up the trays - their shape slightly awkward as such things always are, but not heavy enough to be a burden - and heads for the door.

[bossyboiler]

"Well." She begins as she heads for the door, just ahead of Adam so that she can open it for him. Once he's outside, she follows so that she can open the van. "Malcolm said that he was going to go out and look for Nick but..." She hesitates, unsure whether or not she should tell him or not. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. Malcolm was the one who found George's body."

[easilyamused]

Methos tips his head back as they exit onto the pavement, scanning the sky for any sign of looming clouds. For the moment, all is clear, a few stars gleaming bright and brittle through the minor haze of light pollution that comes of even the smallest of cities.

"They were friends?" he asks. They wouldn't have to be for it to be traumatic. Even he, who has seen more than anyone's fair share of corpses - had made more than anyone's fair share of corpses, once upon the time - finds stumbling upon the dead something less than pleasant. But it would add another dimension to the horror, pull even the possibility of sound judgment into question.

[bossyboiler]

"They were. Apparently they were very good friends judging by how Malcolm is acting. George invited him out to this same bar to throw darts and I don't know if you've met Malcolm or not but I don't think he has many close friends." It's not a conscious decision to tell him. It just rather spews out of her a bit like word vomit. The food gets loaded and the van is secured back. "I think he's very broken up over it which makes me feel even more worried for him, finding another dead body is the last thing he needs."

She would consider herself friends with Malcolm. He had kept her from falling down the path to Avatar status.

[easilyamused]

Privately, Methos wonders if finding a living captive might not be even worse, if the man's not in a stable mental state - but saying as much would be less than productive, and would leave him open to questions he'd much rather not be answering.

Instead, he wraps an arm around her shoulders to provide a little human warmth for the walk back in, and asks, "Does that mean you want to help with the search?"

[bossyboiler]

"I don't know." She says honestly. "There might be nothing left to find and I certainly wouldn't want you to send you on a wild goose chase." She presses in closer to him. It's nice having a human windbreaker. It's even nicer to be touched. "For everything that's possible, Nick could just be another one of the vanished."

[easilyamused]

"True," he says. "And likely, if the numbers are anything to go by. Still, it wouldn't do any harm to make some calls - hospitals, police stations, in Gloucester and the surrounding area. If he hasn't made contact with anyone by now, I doubt the news would be good, but it might at least provide some answers for the people who care about him."

[bossyboiler]

"Valentine, I think is what his last name is." She works in Administration. She sees a lot of personnel files. It's innocent knowledge. "It's a good idea, calling the hospitals and police stations. It wouldn't be the first time I had to bail out an ADI employee." It had been Winter that she had gotten released from jail. "It sounds like you have some experience in this sort of thing."

[easilyamused]

Methos lifts his free hand and tips it back and forth - so-so. "A little bit," he says. "Nothing formal. A friend's daughter dropped off the radar for a while, and he couldn't get the police to take it seriously - adult woman not answering her father's calls for a couple days? Didn't rate, in their estimation."

He pauses a moment, then adds, "Turned out fine in the end, but it did give some insight into the sheer number of people who might have information when someone turns up missing."

[bossyboiler]

"That's a shame. Something could have happened to her. It's good you were there." She considers his words. "Do you think he really could just be laid up in a hospital somewhere in town?" Maybe Nick didn't have an emergency contact listed? Perhaps that's something they all need to consider.

They reach the front door and Kate looks back up at Adam. "You know we don't have to go back inside. We could go someplace else."

[easilyamused]

"I think we need to look at the mundane options, and not just focus on the magical," he says. He doesn't, in truth, think it's likely that Nick is just laid up in a hospital - not after so many days without contact. But dismissing the simple answers without ruling them out seems like a good way to go completely mad in a place like this, and that's not a trip he's particularly interested in making.

He's seen how that turns out, more times than he'd care to remember.

"We could." He looks down to meet Kate's gaze, smiling ever so slightly. "Is there someplace you'd like to go? Normally, I'd suggest just wandering a bit, but this isn't the weather for it."

Not the cold so much as the risk of acid snow, which still sounds faintly ridiculous to him, like the plot of a B-grade sci-fi movie revolving around the dangers of pollution.

[bossyboiler]

"That's a good idea. It's certainly easier to call all of the area hospitals than to figure out which Entity is at it again."

They should go somewhere and get out of the cold. She has a very good idea as to how they can both warm up. "We could go back to your place or mine. Or we could get a hotel room."

[easilyamused]

"A hotel room sounds like a marvelous idea," he says. "We can pretend we're just on a trip to the coast. No monsters, no responisibilities for a night."

No dealing with his teenaged flatmate, or her terrifying ones.

[bossyboiler]

"Just us. Alone. We can even turn off our phones and pretend that the outside world doesn't exist." It could be wonderful.

[easilyamused]

"Hmm. Best make our escape quickly. Before anyone thinks to come looking."

For her. His ties are, for the most part, loosely held, and by design.

[bossyboiler]

Kate giggles, she actually giggles a little bit. She reaches up for his hand to begin to lead him back to the van. "Shh. Don't jinx it."

[easilyamused]

It's a good sound, given the weight of the evening that's proceeded it. He lets her tug him along without resistance. "Do you want to drive, or shall I?"

[bossyboiler]

"I'll drive." She knows where they are going after all. They reach the van and with a click on the keyfob, she unlocks it. "Why? You're not scared are you?"