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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

From:

hatesparadise

Danny shot Nathan and Audrey A Look past Duke, just to see if maybe one of them had a better plan than what Duke had. Because this was gonna break bad, fast.

From:

seaoftroubles

Audrey wrung her hands and went to crouch down next to Wesley.

"Wesley," she said softly, a slight wobble to her voice betraying her shattered nerves. "You -- you've studied all this for years, haven't you."

Wesley nodded to her, still futzing with his equipment. "Since I was a kid, yeah."

"Because you wanted to discover the truth about what happened to your grandfather."

"Which -- now I do."

Audrey smiled sadly. "Then these people show up and tell you something completely different. And that's gotta be hard to hear, right?"

"Because it isn't the truth."

"Or maybe because it's scary?" Audrey suggested. "Maybe thinking that everything you thought you were, you really aren't?"

The building shook harder, knocking lamps and knickknacks off tables. Duke stared out at the ship, hand twitching towards the gun he kept tucked into his waistband.

From:

hatesparadise

Danny snagged him by the arm. "Let her try."

From:

seaoftroubles

Duke looked back at him, gritting his teeth.

"Wesley," Audrey said, leaning forward. "The troubles are real, alright? I've seen it before. You're doing this."

Wesley shook his head, pressing the headset to his ear even harder.

Duke lost his grip on his patience. "Okay, we need to do something right now!"

"We are doing something," Nathan insisted, looking at Audrey. "But if you want to take off, now's the time!"

"I'm not leaving. But it is like freaking Battle of the Planets out there! If we don't act now we are all going to die."

"So what do you want to do, save us your way?" Nathan asked. "Kill him?"

From:

hatesparadise

"Look, you're used to people not believing you, right?" Danny said, crouching down with Audrey now. "Why is this so different?"

Edited Date: 2020-10-18 06:13 pm (UTC)

From:

seaoftroubles

Wesley stared at him. "Because I know what's real!"

"You're one of the lucky ones, Wesley," Audrey said, reaching for his hand. "You can stop your trouble! All you have to do is open yourself up to the truth that none of this may really exist!"

Wesley glared at her. "You can't just erase what has been part of my life — part of my family — since I can remember."

Nathan lifted his chin, his eyes going wide. "Family." He had a plan. Duke watched anxiously as he headed over to where Audrey still crouched by Wesley. "Wesley, your grandfather disappeared in 1983?"

Wesley nodded. "Yeah."

"That's the last time the troubles were here. Wesley's grandfather probably had the same trouble."

"So?!" Duke asked.

"So he made it through without destroying the whole town. Maybe he decided to leave to save the town."

From:

hatesparadise

"Left where?" Danny asked. Because it'd just follow the guy, wouldn't it?

From:

seaoftroubles

"Earth?" Duke said with a derisive growl.

Wesley pulled the headset away from his ear, though. He was listening to Nathan.

"Your grandfather couldn't make the aliens go away," Nathan said. "But he realized maybe he could finally learn the truth."

Wesley swallowed. "That's why he went with them." He looked intently at Nathan. "You think he's still up there?"

Nathan nodded faintly. Wesley looked at the others.

Duke set his jaw and looked away. He hated this plan. "Maybe."

Wesley's lips shook, his eyes going wet. "Maybe he's waiting for me."

From:

hatesparadise

"Maybe he can help you with this," Danny said. Because it was possible that it could be controlled, right? With time.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke shot Danny a sideways look.

Oh sweet, summer child.

The rumbling increased. The door slammed open with a crash. A bright pool of blue light shone on the lawn outside. Wesley stood and slowly made his way out the door.

He looked back once, then stepped into the center of the pool of light. And lifted up into the air. And vanished.

The rumbling ceased. The mothership flashed its lights once, and drifted away, vanishing into the clouds.

It was over.

From:

hatesparadise

Look, he didn't understand the genre because he was from a police procedural!

Danny let out the breath he'd held there, covering his face with his hands. "Jesus."