doc

Who: Doc
Where: Newberry mental asylum
When: Evening

Burma was far behind him now, a distant afterthought of swamps, bloodshed, and misery. He'd cut through the sky for hours on end, watching the occasional shimmer of a plane above or below him embarking to destinations Doc could only guess at. And for the whole of the trip? He was praying that his hunch was wrong.

Who: Doc, messages to Oz, Grayson
Where: The Martens residence
When: early afternoon

Oh lord, was there ever work to do. Out in the garage, Doc was pacing eagerly in front of the open furnace, clad in an a-shirt and old jeans, basking in the heat as he held his phone to his ear and a beer in his free hand. He'd seen the news, and what was more, he was getting calls.

who: Doc and Jocelyn
Where: Mya's Diner
when: early morning

Jocelyn still wasn't used to a normal sleep schedule, but she'd told Doc to meet her early in the morning so she was here. Tucked into a corner both in the back she was doing her best to prep herself for this meeting. Her palms were pressed flat on the table her coffee untouched in front of her. She really shouldn't be nervous about meeting the man she was sleeping with.

Who: Doc and Grayson
Where: Babylon
When: early evening

While he'd been doing his best to keep a calm disposition about things, Doc was wearing thin. It had been riling him on a personal scale all day now, the fact that Grayson had hit Kayos blindly with accusations of being demonic, and he'd meant it when he said he was going to speak to the lycanthrope about it. Sure, he understood why none of it had gone well. Grayson was defensive of Jocelyn and wary of the unknown, but Doc refused to think it all would've had to go so badly.

Who: Doc and Pandect
Where: Streets around town
When: midday

As a professional hazard, Doc was used to surprises. As a man who had seen and done the impossible more times than he could easily count, he expected surprises as much as any man could without trying to anticipate them. And while he'd gotten good at rolling with the punches, so to speak, there were still plenty of times when he was genuinely caught unawares by his life and the world around him. But he hadn't expected it to happen with music.

who: kayos and doc
where: her building
when: late

He knew it wouldn't last, the way he felt okay with things right now. It never did, and that brought memories to the surface of Doc's mind. 'Impermanence is the way of all things, and in this, so is permanence' he'd been told once, decades earlier, by an old comrade who had fought with him and Kayos. In those days of warfare the words had held little meaning, they were the musings of a man whose ideologies only lined up with Doc's on one point; that they needed to fight. And in those days, that had been enough.

Who: Doc and Jocelyn

Where: Babylon

When: midday

who: doc and kayos
where: the Martens residence, back porch
when: later evening/night

Kayos had set up hotel accommodations for herself and Nemo, and she'd actually gone all ritzy-like and chosen the Landmark Inn. Which was probably far better than Nemo was used to and the like, but whatever. She didn't feel like going elsewhere, and it was closest to the building she was already having Teddy push through paperwork so she could own the damn thing. And by push through paperwork, she meant figure out how she could come up with a deed or something so she could start the renovations.

Near as I can tell, Kurt Petersen was born in a small farming village on the outskirts of Dresden in 1907. He showed up on the Health Ministry's records in November of that year, though a great deal of records from that era through '45 were lost during the second World War. What I know is this:

Who: Doc and Eris
Where: Babylon
When: Late

Who: Doc, Jocelyn, and Kayos
Where: The safehouse
When: late morning

Who: Doc and Kayos
Where: Somewhere in Wyoming
When: Late

Who: Doc and Pandect
Where: Outside Bethesda, Maryland
When: Evening (also 1982)

There was, as always, a job to do. Very rarely was there ever not one, in fact, but that was the way life went when you were part of a war pack. Doc and his partners were always on the move, always correlating data and news reports to glean where the next bout of trouble was going to hit. Sometimes it was the Enemy, the people whose names they didn't even use, but just as often it was any number of other supernatural presences out there. Really, someone was always overstepping their bounds.

I don't think I've used my coat for a pillow in about twenty-five years now. And sure, I know it's going to be uncomfortable, but I don't mind that. What worries me is what comes next. Sleep. I haven't done it since everything changed, since I took this job. I know what's inside my head, and if anything scares me? I do.

Who: Doc
Where: Wyoming
When: Late afternoon

Impossible as it was, Doc was feeling both younger and older at the same time. Walking in solitude in the sparse, patchy surroundings, he was transported back in time on some level. Days spent like this had definitely been simpler ones; he'd found a hunt and chased it down, tipped the scales for no other reason than that he needed to. Really, Doc had been running from thinking too hard about everything he'd left behind. In stark contrast, he was immersed in what was waiting for him back home now.

Who: Doc
Where: Skull Valley Reservation, Utah
When: Afternoon into early evening

Who: Jocelyn and Doc
Where: over the wire (phone)
When: Late night

Who: Doc, messages to Grayson, Jocelyn, Kurt, and Oz
Where: his backyard and onward
When: 5 AM on

'Early' didn't hold much meaning for a man who didn't sleep. Beyond the notions that other people held for concepts like that, Doc simply saw each day as a whole section of time that reset with every sunrise. Still, he knew it was early enough that the town slept around him in time with his children inside the house as Doc slipped out the back door and into the yard.

who: doc and maddie
where: maddie's shop
when: late afternoon

Maddie was in the shop proper, sitting behind the old desk she'd had brought in so she could sit and do some of the finer spellwork that she tended to do. At the moment she had a whole mess of beads, feathers, stones, and other odds and ends spread out over the top of it. The place smelled nice, both from the scented candles that burned and the incense that perfumed the air.

Who: Doc and Jocelyn
Where: the phone, the shoreline, the safehouse
When: afternoon
Other: turns NSFW

Who: Doc and Eris
Where: Babylon
When: afternoon

Sent in the morning.

Hey. I've been trying to get ahold of the kid again for the past few days, but haven't been able to. I think he's dropped off the grid. Don't know what to do next about it. you had better access to shit than i did.-oz

Who: Doc, open to Grayson, Jocelyn, Kurt, Seph, and Syn
Where: The Martens residence
When: Evening

In the end, Doc had opted against Chinese for dinner, though he hadn't strayed far. Thai worked just as well, and he had a procession of cartons and plates laid out on the coffee table next to a cooler of beers and sodas. He'd made the necessary round of calls earlier, cluing the others into the when and where, but it all felt so odd.

Who: Doc
Where: His room
When: early afternoon

As always, the sunrise hadn't failed to impress Doc, but it never did. He could get lost in a single vein of changing color, watching it bleed from deep blues and purples to softer reds for the whole duration of the dawn. There was just something about the promise of a new day, or maybe the end of the night. Or maybe neither.

Who: Doc and Jocelyn
Where: Babylon
When: early morning

It was too early for a drink, even if Doc was hanging around a bar. He'd returned to Babylon not long after opening, a safe and quiet spot for most people, but one that was giving him some anxious feelings as he waited. At least there'd been coffee to occupy him as he composed his thoughts, though really? No matter how much time Doc ever had to prepare, it always seemed wasted when he actually found himself in the moment he'd been waiting for.

Who: Doc and Eris
Where: Babylon
When: Close to closing time

Torn on the issue, Doc still knew he had to be here, to do this. Babylon was a mystery to him, by and large, as much as its' owner was. There was power at work in the place he'd need time to understand, but time wasn't something Doc had. What had happened with Jocelyn left him feeling uncertain on some levels, though talking with the twins and Kurt had gone a long way. It hadn't solved everything, but at least he knew now that he needed to follow through and find out what the price might be for Jocelyn to join the fold.

Who: Doc and Seph
When: early evening
Where: Martens house, in yon garage

Seph pushed the protective shield over his face up to arm some sweat off of his forehead. He frowned at the big floppy glove that kind of got in the way and slung his arm down to get it off. In the other, he held the tongs, hovering around the opening to the actual fire-part of the forge. He was working on Syn's Christmas present, trying to get the feel of working with finer, smaller metals. He'd already made a few crude daggers, done some bullets in the mold, that sort of thing. But silver and gold? Goddamn. He stuck it into the heat for a few seconds, then pulled it back out and bent over the anvil again, going to work with a small hammer.

For such a roughshod image he presented in the flesh, Doc took meticulous care of his car. The pristine Superbee rolled up into the garage after having left much earlier that day, a day spent out with Kurt scoping out local vehicles for sale, restocking his pantries, and just talking the way two comrades could do without necessarily saying much. Doc's hopes were high for the vague plan he had for the twins and his 'associates' to meet, to plan together. If he could bring them all together, he'd hope the rest would go well on the merits of everyone involved.

Hopping from the vehicle, he grinned at the few inches of space between the garage door and the concrete, as well as the light from within. Even with the new ventilation, it got devilishly hot inside, and if airflow was being regulated? Seph was inside. Doc grinned at that, still heartened by his time with Kurt earlier. Both men had their sorrows, but together? All of them together? They could do this. Now he just needed to tell Seph the plan, and admit that he'd spent the previous night with a woman Seph probably could've gone to highschool with. Tugging the garage door up enough to slip under, Doc yanked it back down quickly and shed his coat as heat enveloped him. "Hey," he called over, grinning wider through his beard at the sight of Seph working at the anvil.

Who: Doc and Kurt
Where: around Kurt's house, mostly
When: later afternoon

Really, after a life spent unraveling the secrets of the universe, after seeing a whole world die and taking his place in this one, Doc should've been the sort of man who was blessed with patience in all things. Personal affairs, however, still cut through any professional defenses he'd built over the years. Case in point, the way he sat on his unframed mattress in his room, puffing a cigarette and staring at the buttons of his cell phone. He'd meant to call Kurt a full fifteen minutes earlier, had even punched in the numbers, and for what must've been the tenth time today, yesterday caught up with him in neat columns of Good, Bad, and Messy.

Grayson was on board, that was inarguably good. Jocelyn nearly was, another plus. The night with her? Had been beyond good. But it was also the sole occupant of the Messy column, at least insofar as how it had him thinking. What had it meant to him? Or to her, for that matter? She was a pro, right? And what about Eva? For a man who had, not two days earlier, orchestrated a new crop of fighting in the middle east with a few words, Doc was certainly getting tripped up over what were little details in a big picture. So he needed a distraction, he needed work or at least the people he shared it with. His cigarette was down to the outer edge of his knuckles, removing his last distraction that let him wallow in his thoughts. Thumbing the call button finally, Doc sighed in frustration as he raised his phone up and listened to it connect.

Who: Doc and Synnove
Where: The Martens home
When: morning

Who: Doc and Jocelyn
Where: Bablyon
When: even later night.

Note: Def NSFW

She'd done good. It had been months since she'd actually had to be downstairs at Babylon for longer than a few minutes. All her clients had agreed to just be ushered up to her room and she'd not left besides to grab food and then head back upstairs.