seaoftroubles | 301 preplay

Duke and Nathan fight in the galley. Nathan gets Duke pinned and starts choking him, then sets Duke's trouble off and he throws him across the galley. More fighting. They're both on the ground, trying to reach a gun first, when suddenly everything metal in the galley flies up and sticks to the ceiling.

Nathan immediately suspects Duke of doing it. Duke says that's not in his wheelhouse. Nathan says he just threw him across the room. Duke explains the rush his trouble gives him. More arguing, then Nathan locates his chill and agrees to let Duke and Danny help look for Audrey.

We covered all this in the other post.

This stuff gets summarized before the first OCD thread: They find out that the magnetism thing happened all down main street in town. Nathan asks Dwight to take care of it while he focuses on finding Audrey, finds out another woman has been abducted, the owner of an inn outside of town. Nathan and Duke head out there to go find out if it's connected to Audrey.

OCD starts here with the son of another abducted woman: The woman's son is a conspiracy nut with a hard-on for UFOs, and claims his mother was abducted by aliens. Duke plays along to try to get the guy to go to the police station, but he runs off on a motorbike, and Nathan, Duke, and Danny give chase.

Second OCD thread: Nathan's truck dies, as do all the phones and radios. Nathan stubbornly tries to fix the truck, resulting in an argument with Duke about not being able to fix everything (which Danny is sure to be highly amused by), capped off by either Nathan or Danny getting dragged off by their ankles into the middle of a crop circle.

Then a UFO floats by and crashes into the ground not far away. The phones and truck start working again, and they decide to go check out that UFO. It landed right next to UFO guy's house, where he's gone to get his alien fighting equipment.

Summarized, not played out: They discover all sorts of clippings and news reports taped up in the house, all about aliens showing up around the country. It's all the things that have been happening in town. There are two that haven't happened yet: strange lights in the sky, and a big blast from a UFO taking out an entire town. RUH-ROH. Meanwhile, Audrey has managed to escape from her kidnapper and finds a phone. She calls Nathan, tells him she and other woman were being held in the basement of the Inn.

Next OCD thread: Nathan, Duke, and Danny rush over. Duke finds Audrey first, tries to calm her down, but when she sees Nathan she all but flings herself at him. Duke has very visible Feelings about this.

Lights appear in the sky. Followed by a massive, threatening UFO. TOWNWIDE DESTRUCTION IS IMMINENT. Audrey tries to talk UFO guy down from his trouble by empathizing with having your entire world view and identity turned upside down. It doesn't go super well. Duke starts wondering if he's going to have to use his trouble to save the town, which freaks Nathan out. Instead, Nathan talks the UFO guy into letting himself get abducted so the aliens go away.

Last OCD thread, mostly me until the end: Duke has a whole "wtf, how was that plan better?" conversation with Nathan that ends with "You're a hypocrite, Nathan" and Duke storming off. He decides that, yeah, he's getting the fuck out of Haven again. He tries to talk Audrey into doing the same, up to and including offering to take her to Fandom with him, but she refuses. She still has too many questions. Duke hates it, but he understands. He heads back to his boat to sail home, offering Danny a ride, though I'm gonna guess Danny will just portal back to Fandom instead. ;D

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From:

betterthanaplan

The meteor, it turned out, had landed just down the road from the inn, in the side yard of Wesley Toomey's house. Where he'd returned, it seemed, after losing them on the road, to go get some of his "equipment". Dwight had beat the Bronco to the house, and discovered a hell of a conspiracy board inside, filled with articles from around the country about strange occurrences blamed on aliens.

Nathan's theory was that Wesley's trouble was causing his belief in aliens to come true. Considering that everything that had happened so far resembled something in one of the articles on the board -- up to and including a police officer getting dragged off into a crop circle by his ankles -- it was hard to argue with him.

There were only two articles left which hadn't happened, in fact: strange lights in the sky, and a "blast from an alien ship" levelling an entire town.

"Of course it's going to blow up the town," Duke said with a groan. "Why wouldn't a trouble threaten 20,000 people at once?"

From:

hatesparadise

"And people live here willingly," Danny added. You know. Helpfully.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Yeah, well." Duke scuffed his foot across the ground. "People are stupid."

The sun had set again while they were in the house, and the cloudy night sky was suddenly lit by what looked like a floating ball of lights.

"Lights in the sky," Wesley whispered anxiously.

"These incidents seem to be following him," Dwight said.

"They may just be following the ideas he has in his head," Nathan said. "Locations that are familiar to him."

"I can start evacuating the houses around here," Dwight offered and headed off.

"That's it?" Duke said. "That's your plan? You're just going to let this happen?" He could fix this. Claire's words from before he'd gone into the woods after the Benton sisters were ringing in his head.

Whose trouble are you more worried about?

Right now, the one that promised to obliterate the town seemed way worse than the one that would just take out one guy.

From:

hatesparadise

Don't even think about it, Duke.

"Or we try talking to the guy," Danny said. "Does he even realize that he's the one causing this?"

From:

betterthanaplan

It was way too late for that. Duke had been thinking about it pretty constantly for ages now.

"That's so crazy it just might work," he said, looking at Wesley with a shrug.

"The troubles are a myth," Wesley said. "This is science! My grandfather taught me all about it before they took him!"

From:

hatesparadise

"I've been here all of three days and even I know they're not a freakin' myth," Danny replied. "Look. I get it. But even if you don't buy it, do you really want to endanger this entire town? When you could keep people safe?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"That's what I'm trying to do!" Wesley protested. "If you'd let me get to my equipment --"

Nathan's phone rang. "Wuornos." His eyes went wide. "Audrey?! Where are you, are you okay?"

He listened to her intently for a few moments. "Parker, we're with her son. He needs to see her. This could stop his trouble, where are you?" Another pause as she spoke. Then dead air on the line. "Parker, are you there? Audrey. Audrey!"

"Nathan," Duke said. "What?"

"She's at the inn," Nathan said, already in motion. "It's just up the road, come on!"

From:

hatesparadise

"C'mon, pal," Danny said, ready to drag Wesley along with them if he had to.

From:

betterthanaplan

"I need my equipment," Wesley said, and dashed for his front door.

"Swear to god, if he runs again," Duke muttered.

"We don't have time." Nathan jumped into the Bronco, determined to set off after Audrey with or without anyone else.

"Dammit, Nathan!" Duke grabbed onto the passenger door handle as Nathan started the truck up. Thankfully for everyone involved, Wesley was back out of the house again with an old-fashioned magnetic tape player clutched to his chest. "Get over here, man!" Duke called to him, scrambling into the truck. "Danny, you coming?"

From:

hatesparadise

Danny hustled the guy into the car from behind in case he decided to pull another runner on them. "In. Go."

From:

betterthanaplan

Wesley tumbled into the backseat, tape player and all. Nathan barely waited for Danny to climb in before hitting the gas and racing up the road.

Audrey carefully crept through the empty inn, a rusted sickle she'd found in the basement room where she'd been held clutched in her bloody hand. She'd had to saw through the ropes holding her wrists with a piece of a lamp that had shattered when the meteor hit and rocked the inn. She was sure her captor was still here with her. And Rosslyn, who'd been held captive with her.

Something swooped out of the shadows, pinning her arms and covering her mouth before she could scream.

"It's me," Duke hissed. "Audrey, it's okay, it's me."

"Duke." She clung to his arms, her knees all but giving way in relief. Until she spotted Nathan, hurrying over from where he'd been searching on the other side of the lobby. "Nathan!"

. . . Right. So everyone knew who she was choosing, then.

From:

hatesparadise

"Rest of us are here too," Danny said dryly, giving Wesley a little shove forward.

From:

seaoftroubles

"He's -- he's still here," Audrey said, talking so quickly she was tripping over her words. "I heard him moving around and I didn't hear a car leave and I'm pretty sure that he has Roslyn --"

"Slow down," Nathan urged.

"-- And I promised her that nothing would happen to her. You have no idea what we went through down there --"

"No, I don't," Nathan said. "I'm sorry. But we have a situation." He gestured to Wesley. "This is Wesley. He's Roslyn's son and he's troubled."

"How can you stand in front of her and say that?" Wesley asked. "Look at her! She was taken too!"

From:

hatesparadise

"Pal, we need you to listen to us here," Danny said with a sigh.

From:

seaoftroubles

"What's going on?" Audrey asked.

"Wesley thinks his mother was abducted by aliens," Nathan said. "And they're preparing to destroy Haven."

"Because that's what happening!" Wesley insisted.

"Was that -- the explosion I heard?" Audrey asked, shaking her head.

"Yeah, that was part of it."

"And it's about to get a whole lot worse," Duke pointed out.

"Roslyn couldn't have been taken by aliens," Audrey said. "She was taken by the same man who took me."

"You think it was a man?" Wesley asked, looking tired. "What did he look like?"

Audrey frowned and shook her head. "I -- I never saw -- I never saw his face."

Wesley nodded. "Exactly."

From:

hatesparadise

And then there was that very distinct, very acrid smell of smoke that was familiar from something he'd really rather not remember.

"...anyone smell that?" Danny asked, immediately going more obviously alert.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke sniffed. And shuddered. "Aw crap."

Nathan was already moving, dashing out the door and around the inn to the enormous outdoor oven on the back veranda. There was a fire burning in it. And on the fire --

"No no no no no!" Wesley dashed past all of them, lunging for the flames. "That's my mother. The bones, the prosthetic leg, that's my mother!"

Audrey pressed her hand over her mouth with a distressed noise as Nathan and Duke both grabbed onto Wesley to pull him back.

From:

hatesparadise

Danny looked maybe a little green around the gills at that before he sort of had to force it back down to get the job done. Even if he still couldn't help but look stricken.

"Jesus," he muttered. "C'mon, let's get him away from here."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke, meanwhile, was focusing very firmly on Wesley to avoid thinking too much about the fire.

"I'm sorry," he said, pushing Wesley back against the inn wall. "I'm so sorry, but -- you know the truth now. Aliens didn't take your mother!"

Wesley shook his head. "They didn't keep my mother."

Oh for -- "What are you talking about?"

"This is what they do!" Wesley sobbed. "With the bodies they can't harvest, they burn them! It's why there's so few real accounts!"

From:

hatesparadise

"This is what you believe they do," Danny snapped.

From:

betterthanaplan

Before Wesley could reply, a loud humming filled the air. The ground trembled as an enormous, spherical ship came to hover above the inn.

Duke stared up at it, his stomach sinking. They were never going to be able to convince Wesley to stop this.

"Now will you let me use my equipment?" Wesley asked plaintively.

From:

hatesparadise

Danny shot Duke a look, clearly following that train of thought. "No."

From:

betterthanaplan

"It's the only way to save everyone!" Wesley said, misunderstanding. He rushed back into the inn, Audrey and Nathan hot on his tail.

Duke looked at Danny, eyes wide, and swallowed. "I can't let all those people die, Danny."

From:

hatesparadise

"There's another way," Danny insisted. "There's gotta be."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke looked up at the ship at the sky again. "There'd better be."

He headed into the inn, keeping a sharp eye on the ship through the windows. The moment it looked like it was going to fire, the moment --

He'd do what he had to do.

Wesley knelt on the floor by his equipment, an old headset pressed to his ear as he fiddled with the dials. "If I can find it, I can disrupt their navigational frequency."

He didn't look at all certain he could find it. Which, of course, meant he couldn't.