Honey & Ivy When crossroads converge

[Markus Eldridge]

Markus took another drink from his glass, realizing the conversation had been getting quite low. He wasn't usually one to drink beer, preferring to stick to spirits, but something about the memories and conversations today had brought back old pains and fears. He almost chuckled, remembering how drunk he had been the first time he met Max. He didn't want to make it a theme.

As Max spoke up again, Markus would listen and cock an eyebrow. 'Cessair' wasn't a name he was familiar with, but he was obviously related to the supernatural. Markus committed the name to memory if only to know the connection to Max in the future. The topic, however, was far more interesting, getting rid of spirits. He wondered if it was some sort of exorcism, banishment, murder. Before Markus even thought to ask, however, Max finished making it clear that he didn't learn the secret.

“I see,” Markus started, contemplating. He wasn't really sure how he felt about it. If it was a ghost, then it must have been a person, and while it was angry, what Max said about it being tortured stuck with him. He wasn't sure how he would feel about getting rid of it, killing it really, when it had already probably gone through so much. “Probably for the best, I have no intention or need to hunt ghosts.”

[Max Kuryakin]

Max chuckled, suddenly thinking about jumpsuited nerds with thick rimmed glasses, countering the supernatural with technology. A suddenly humorous thought in the wake of what they'd discussed. Max let the thought move his mood away from the pensive concern of before.

“True enough, I'm not nerdy enough to be a Ghostbuster,” Max said into his beer with a little chuckle. Not that kind of nerd, at least, he'd been an average student of the sciences. He amended, “Well, unless ghosts hate being quoted literature.”

[Markus Eldridge]

Markus gave the other man a sidelong look as he chuckled and even smiled when he heard the ghostbuster reference. Markus, for one, was glad he didn't have a flashy jumpsuit and vacuum on his back when he was dealing with the spirit. The hassle would have probably gotten him killed.

“I mean, their gear was totally impractical anyway, ” Markus said with a smile. “Literature, huh?” He decided to ask. Markus was never good at his humanities; that was Victoria's thing, but he did find other people's interests fascinating. He did, however, wonder which is worse for a ghost, quoting Edgar Allen Poe or quoting scripture.

[Max Kuryakin]

The shift in the conversation was welcomed, Max belatedly realising he didn't have the technical chops in magic to theorise how realistic ghost-busting equipment was. Markus picked out his mention of literature to continue their talk, letting the complicated magical theorising behind, which worked out for Max.

“Yeah, literature,” Max agreed, huffing a laugh. “Got a Masters I only use to check what sort of bullshit I'm running into is. My thesis was on folklore and popular media.”

Smiling crookedly, only Max was privy to the irony. At the time it had been funny for the werewolf to dig into, but he'd learnt plenty of what was real and what wasn't about shifters, and the way folklore hinted to truth, but popular perception could add in inaccurate bits. Useful, overall.

[Markus Eldridge]

Markus raised his eyebrow as Max explained. It actually made a lot of sense, and he himself had only recently started looking into folklore to try and make sense of anything.

“I see, no wonder she liked you.” He said with a smile, knowing Victoria would have been fascinated. “Is any of it useful? I always wonder how much of it is relevant. Like, I assume vampires don't sparkle, but what about the spontaneous combustion of Dracula, I feel like that would have been caught by someone somewhere on video.” Markus comments. Perhaps he would meet a vampire one day.

[Max Kuryakin]

“You'd be surprised at what people can brush off,” Max pointed out, thinking about the discussions around spontaneous human combustion, and the arguments around it being real or just a case of external combustion making it look spontaneous. Before now, Max would've thought any claims it was spontaneous was bullshit, but now... who the fuck knew?

“But as far as being useful...” he scratched his chin, thinking it over. “In my experience, some of it is, but not everything,” Max admitted. He knew the werewolf stuff was a lot of popular culture bleeding into local legends, which changed based on which area of the world you found yourself. But even that wasn't reliable now because Max was pretty sure globalisation had hit figures out of folklore, emigrating from their native areas. “Sometimes it's exactly like the myths or folk tales, but other times it's like... like you're lookin' at it through a funhouse mirror. The broad strokes are there, but the details are all muddled.”

[Markus Eldridge]

Markus hummed as Max first spoke. He didn't want to believe people would brush off such things so easily, but he realized that it was true. Between the conspiracy theories, social media, deep fakes, and more, it was possible, and even likely, that people would brush off much more than Markus was comfortable admitting.

As Max spoke about his experience, and clarified Markus nodded. “I see,” Markus murmured, he didn't expect an easy answer, but he would be lying if he hadn't hoped there was some clear-cut, this folklore got it all right, scenario. “Any examples, or scenarios, you would be willing to share? I recently learned someone I knew was a merman, and... well... I guess the tail was certainly exaggerated.” He said, fishing for more info.

[Max Kuryakin]

“Well...” Max began, leaning into the bar as he looked upwards, mentally filing through his experiences. He wasn't sure if he ran into quite a few situations because he was a werewolf, and sometimes did seek the weird out if he thought he had to deal with it, or if that was the norm for someone who knew what was happening. He didn't have the benefit of ignorance to explain shit away anymore.

“I ran into a hydra, once,” he began, looking back at Markus, tipping up a shoulder like it hadn't been a big deal, “but it wasn't a real one, even if it looked and hit hard enough to be real in all the ways that mattered. It was some... transformative magic attached to a cursed mask. It was easier to deal with than what Hercules went through, but cutting off its heads worked.” The werewolf shrugged. “So keep an eye out for creepy masks and shit, I guess?”

God, all the advice he could think of felt vague like that. Keep an eye out for weird shit, not the most helpful, but pretty vital.

[Markus Eldridge]

Markus raised an eyebrow, he seemed to remember overhearing Max talk about a hydra once before, it was the day they met. Markus had really hoped at the time that he had heard wrong.

“I see,” Markus says with a pause listening to the story. The fact that magic items could do such things was an interesting discovery. He knew there were stories and legends of shapeshifting. “So, I am hoping the heads didn't grow back...” He remembered the Disney movie, and cutting off the heads was certainly not the answer in that, he seemed to remember Hercules won by causing a mountain to collapse or somerthing. “Keep an eye out for creepy shit, and cut off the heads of monsters that attack, I will keep it in mind.” He says with a grin. The advice might be obvious, especially considering the conversation they had, but it was still good to keep in mind.

[Max Kuryakin]

Max huffed a laugh at Markus simplifying the encounter like he did. Taking the head off things was usually a permanent way of dealing with it, but that meant you had to be close enough to pull it off. Max remembered the burn of the acid, the sharp teeth digging into his shoulder and more or less biting off a chunk of him. He'd only had to cut off one head before whatever magic held it lost its spark, but that hadn't been a simple thing.

“So you've met a tailless merman,” which, Max thought, didn't make it much of a merman, did it? He'd only met the... lobster centaur thing, of the watery types. “And there's vampires out there too, but I haven't seen one sparkle. Overheard someone complaining about ghouls in the graveyard. The classics, you know? Shapeshifters. Werewolves. But not all of them will try to fight you. S'like people, some pick fights and some don't.”

Far be it from Max to forget what he was, even if only a couple of people actually knew it. That was how he liked it, after all, and he said it with no special emphasis. He couldn't count the werewolf that'd blown the whole thing open for him as the worst he'd run into, but it had changed him the most.