Well, it's a little like normal ale, except that it's got this metal aftertaste and it feels like a kick in the chest if you have too much. Good for staying alert, as Dwarves do.
[So no, not much like normal ale.]
So tell me what this coffee is like. What's it made from?
[Or at least like it has more of a point to drink.]
Coffee's made of ground coffee beans and hot water, kind of like tea. But it has this really distinctive flavor and even though it's kind of bitter on its own, you can make it sweet if you want. Best of all it's got a ton of caffeine in it.
[Chris has to be a bad influence sometimes, and one of those times is now.]
It's a chemical that keeps you awake. It's not super strong, and some people are more affected by it than others, but it's definitely useful.
[Whether you need to stay up and study, or wake up on an early morning, or function when you barely sleep some nights because of trauma-induced insomnia and nightmares. Good stuff.]
[Because staying alert when you're plagued by nightmares, need to focus on healing, writing notes, or just plain don't want to sleep because shadows are spooky is something Carlisle can definitely relate to.]
I'll have to try some sometime, if you don't mind. I suppose it'd give me an excuse to get out of the house.
I don't have a whole lot else to be doing so I'm there a lot, but if I'm not it'd be either Emily, Josh, or Ash; they're my friends from home. Em especially knows her coffee stuff.
[So she could probably help figure out how Carlisle would like his coffee, if just to show her knowledge of the topic.]
Yeah. And I mean, it's just the four of us here right now, but Sam, Mike, and Jess have all been here before too. Seven of the eight of us that were on the mountain the night before we got here have been here at least once; Mike's been here twice.
[So yeah, it's... Definitely a noteworthy pattern.]
[His brow furrows, and he finally starts wrapping his arm up in that bandage again, covering those holes in his glove once more.]
I was brought here after having been spirited away once already from my world. There are some people here I recognize, but they no longer know me. It's as if we never met. That's both good and bad, but it is terribly inconvenient.
[Well that's interesting; Carlisle had told him before about being from another place other than his world, but not the part about knowing people who don't know him.]
Really? That's uh... The first time I've heard of that happening.
[And the only connection between them is that he owes them amends -- he'd used his curse against them in the jungle, and he needs to repay his debts, lest he be shunned in the eyes of his goddess. But how is he supposed to do that when the people he'd wronged have no idea he'd done it in the first place?
He finishes wrapping his arm, only to start picking at his ink-stained bandage immediately as he falls silent, lost in his own head for a moment. He needs better nervous habits.]
[Chris is quiet a few moments also, thinking that over.]
Maybe they're um... Maybe there's like, a timeline thing going on. Everyone from my home is from a different point in time, so we all know different amounts of like, what happened. Maybe it's the same way for the people you know, and they just haven't met you yet?
[He's heard of that before -- people from the same worlds, but different times. It's another odd phenomenon when it comes to people being pulled from various planes. After all, why bother taking someone later? Was there something about them then that the hadn't had earlier that drew the attention of the Door or false gods or whomever was stealing people away?
He gets the feeling he's not going to get an answer for that, either. That is frustrating.]
Perhaps. It is disheartening to say the very least, but no matter. I simply need reacquaint myself with them. Only marginally more work than meeting someone entirely new, I'd say.
[It's definitely weird, especially since in the case of Chris' friends everyone is from the same ten hour span of time, but different points within it. It's a little weird there isn't more variation in time; if they're not all from the same point in time, then why still the same night?
He'd talked to Sam about the possibility of people being pulled in from time when they felt a lot of emotion, but he isn't sure. Chris wasn't feeling much of anything other than exhaustion when he'd first arrived; shock had settled in by that point.]
Yeah. And, I mean, if you were friends before then you already know you get along, right?
[Oh, that clarification came out rather quickly, before he could shut himself up. His eyes lock themselves on that jar of ink on the table, a suitable place to put his gaze so it isn't on Chris as he finishes that half-statement. It's already out, so he might as well.]
[He'd figured they were friends because Carlisle seems bothered by whoever it is not remembering him, but maybe there were... Something else? Something more complicated? Who knows.]
[He continues to pick at that bandage as he tries to swallow down his nerves. They weren't friends -- weren't exactly just acquaintances either, certainly not him and Rey. Maybe they hadn't been full-blown enemies. So just what were they?
No real point in asking now, is there? It's not as though they'll suddenly wake up one day and know who he is, he reminds himself.]
So, er.
[Another moment of uncomfortable silence as he grasps for another topic. Self-degradation is one he knows well.]
Sorry, lad. I'm not a very good conversationalist sometimes, I'm afraid. I'm used to people, um. Confessing and such. I listen, they talk.
I uh... I'll be honest here, I know like, nothing about churches and religion and all that.
[He didn't believe in any of it at all until the whole wendigo thing, which... Confirms that supernatural beings--or at least these specific monsters--exist, but as far as Chris is concerned isn't much inspiration to believe in anything else. Kind of the opposite, really.
But that's just his world, and he knows things work differently in others; not to mention just the general idea of someone being around to listen to others is a nice thing. So he's not judging, he just... Doesn't know anything about the whole subject, really.]
But... Yeah, I can imagine the appeal of the whole confession thing.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[He didn't really drink a lot of ale when he did drink, but he's had it before.]
Coffee's way better than ale though. Especially since there's like, a ton of ways of making it to whatever your taste is.
no subject
[So no, not much like normal ale.]
So tell me what this coffee is like. What's it made from?
no subject
[Or at least like it has more of a point to drink.]
Coffee's made of ground coffee beans and hot water, kind of like tea. But it has this really distinctive flavor and even though it's kind of bitter on its own, you can make it sweet if you want. Best of all it's got a ton of caffeine in it.
no subject
[Things Carlisle Does Not Need and Doesn't Know It Yet: Volume 25.]
no subject
It's a chemical that keeps you awake. It's not super strong, and some people are more affected by it than others, but it's definitely useful.
[Whether you need to stay up and study, or wake up on an early morning, or function when you barely sleep some nights because of trauma-induced insomnia and nightmares. Good stuff.]
no subject
[Because staying alert when you're plagued by nightmares, need to focus on healing, writing notes, or just plain don't want to sleep because shadows are spooky is something Carlisle can definitely relate to.]
I'll have to try some sometime, if you don't mind. I suppose it'd give me an excuse to get out of the house.
[Which he clearly doesn't do very often.]
no subject
[It's both to the first comment and the second.]
I don't have a whole lot else to be doing so I'm there a lot, but if I'm not it'd be either Emily, Josh, or Ash; they're my friends from home. Em especially knows her coffee stuff.
[So she could probably help figure out how Carlisle would like his coffee, if just to show her knowledge of the topic.]
no subject
They're all from your world? Sounds as though the false gods have their eyes on you.
no subject
Yeah. And I mean, it's just the four of us here right now, but Sam, Mike, and Jess have all been here before too. Seven of the eight of us that were on the mountain the night before we got here have been here at least once; Mike's been here twice.
[So yeah, it's... Definitely a noteworthy pattern.]
no subject
[Carlisle looks a hair disgusted by the mere prospect of that.]
no subject
[And the whole thing had been more than a little weird.]
He remembered being here before, but no more time passing at home between leaving and coming back.
no subject
Desth-- er, Cisth. Sorry.
[His expression says that was probably a profanity where he comes from, and he used one that was harsher than he ought to in front of polite company.]
This business with other worlds is troubling, I'll admit.
no subject
Yeah. It's uh... Weird; I mean, this sort of thing is just sci-fi where I'm from. But it's real here, so there's got to be some specific way it works.
[Because things have to have some sort of reason to them, no matter how strange those reasons might be.]
no subject
[His brow furrows, and he finally starts wrapping his arm up in that bandage again, covering those holes in his glove once more.]
I was brought here after having been spirited away once already from my world. There are some people here I recognize, but they no longer know me. It's as if we never met. That's both good and bad, but it is terribly inconvenient.
no subject
Really? That's uh... The first time I've heard of that happening.
[And it's definitely weird.]
no subject
[And the only connection between them is that he owes them amends -- he'd used his curse against them in the jungle, and he needs to repay his debts, lest he be shunned in the eyes of his goddess. But how is he supposed to do that when the people he'd wronged have no idea he'd done it in the first place?
He finishes wrapping his arm, only to start picking at his ink-stained bandage immediately as he falls silent, lost in his own head for a moment. He needs better nervous habits.]
no subject
Maybe they're um... Maybe there's like, a timeline thing going on. Everyone from my home is from a different point in time, so we all know different amounts of like, what happened. Maybe it's the same way for the people you know, and they just haven't met you yet?
no subject
He gets the feeling he's not going to get an answer for that, either. That is frustrating.]
Perhaps. It is disheartening to say the very least, but no matter. I simply need reacquaint myself with them. Only marginally more work than meeting someone entirely new, I'd say.
[Look at him, trying to be optimistic.]
no subject
He'd talked to Sam about the possibility of people being pulled in from time when they felt a lot of emotion, but he isn't sure. Chris wasn't feeling much of anything other than exhaustion when he'd first arrived; shock had settled in by that point.]
Yeah. And, I mean, if you were friends before then you already know you get along, right?
no subject
[Oh, that clarification came out rather quickly, before he could shut himself up. His eyes lock themselves on that jar of ink on the table, a suitable place to put his gaze so it isn't on Chris as he finishes that half-statement. It's already out, so he might as well.]
We weren't friends, exactly.
no subject
[Oops.]
S-Sorry.
[He'd figured they were friends because Carlisle seems bothered by whoever it is not remembering him, but maybe there were... Something else? Something more complicated? Who knows.]
no subject
No real point in asking now, is there? It's not as though they'll suddenly wake up one day and know who he is, he reminds himself.]
So, er.
[Another moment of uncomfortable silence as he grasps for another topic. Self-degradation is one he knows well.]
Sorry, lad. I'm not a very good conversationalist sometimes, I'm afraid. I'm used to people, um. Confessing and such. I listen, they talk.
no subject
No, it's uh... It's cool. You uh... You mean confessing like, the whole priest thing?
[He's pretty sure Carlisle said he was a cleric, or something of the sort, but about all the familiarity Chris has with clerics comes from D&D.]
no subject
That's right. I run the church in my home town. Am the only one running it really, so there's never a lack of people who need a listening ear.
no subject
[He didn't believe in any of it at all until the whole wendigo thing, which... Confirms that supernatural beings--or at least these specific monsters--exist, but as far as Chris is concerned isn't much inspiration to believe in anything else. Kind of the opposite, really.
But that's just his world, and he knows things work differently in others; not to mention just the general idea of someone being around to listen to others is a nice thing. So he's not judging, he just... Doesn't know anything about the whole subject, really.]
But... Yeah, I can imagine the appeal of the whole confession thing.
(no subject)
(no subject)