[prologue]

[murphy_pendleton]

There aren't a lot of places Murphy expected to end up - prison, most likely. Some shitty apartment back in Baltimore, maybe, if he's lucky. The general handyman/groundskeeper of a wilderness resort...thing? Not so much. It hadn't been an interview he expected to get much out of. Just some gasoline wasted on a pretty drive.

He's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Hartfield's nice. Decent weather. Tiny town nearby. A nice lake and some rivers off in the forest, probably with some decent fishing. He hasn't gone fishing in a long time. He's looking forward to that, when he gets a chance.

Murphy's considerably less excited about the apparent onslaught of tourists coming out to watch the leaves all change. Tourists. Lovely. He's already hoping that he doesn't actually have to deal with most of them, though that's likely to be mostly in vain. Customer service might not be the main parts of his job description, but the summer staff is packing up and leaving. He'll have to pick up the slack.

For now, though, he's got a few things to keep him busy before this round of guests shows up. He still needs to build up the firewood stores considerably before winter hits - that's a big fucking task, because apparently his predecessors never replenished what they used. It's also one he can only do some much of in a day. Eventually, he's just got to give up and wander down to the lake with what amounts to his lunch, axe in hand still. He never know when he'll need something like that.

Comments

[pavelachekov]

Pavel startles a little from the sudden voice from somewhere behind him,over by the tables. He hadn't exactly overlooked this guy. Just... had perhaps gotten a little lost in his picture taking.

Once he's over the initial surprise, he turns to smile politely at the other man. Guest? Probably. "Oh, yes. Wery scenic." He awkwardly shuffles his ceel between his hands. It's rude to keep fussing at its screen, isn't it? "Wery... rustic, I think is the right vord?"

[vicsage]

That's a lot of accent. Russian. Sounds kind of like something out of a Bond film. Vic grins good naturedly at the kid. "Yeah, rustic's a good word for it. I feel like I oughtta be wearing plaid and eating pancakes." That's outdoorsy, right? Or maybe Vic shouldn't have skipped breakfast.

"This place has a lot of history too, I hear," he adds after a minute and a sip of coffee. "And ghosts, if you're into that." Vic scratches at the back of his neck like he's embarrassed to have brought it up.

[pavelachekov]

"Plaid and pancakes," Pavel repeats, brows furrowed curiously. "Is zat some kind of american tradition?" It's not one he's ever heard of, at least. But America is very big and has a lot of weird things it does just because.

"I heard a little bit about the ghosts." That's a lie; he heard a lot, mostly ridiculous sounding things from his friends. Ghosts? Really? "Wery spooky," He adds, emphasizing it with a dumb spooky ghost noise.

[vicsage]

"I think the plaid is a lumberjack tradition," Vic says. That's not entirely a joke. "The pancakes might just be my stomach talking." If this were a sitcom, his stomach would growl on cue. Fortunately, it's not and it doesn't. That would be terrifying.

"Not a fan, huh?" He chuckles at the spooky noise. "Maybe it was the groundskeeper in a mask the whole time."

[pavelachekov]

"Oh. It vould be, I guess." Pavel's expression doesn't get any less confused. Is this man a lumberjack? He doesn't look like a lumberjack to Pavel, but he doesn't really know. "Pancakes are nice though." As if that needs saying.

"Not really. Seems a bit... silly to believe in zat stuff." He laughs quietly, a tad apologetically. He actually feels bad about that, as if he's somehow insulting the hotel people with his vocal skepticism.

[vicsage]

Vic seems to have confused the poor kid with his plaidcake talk. He feels a little bad. Guess Russia doesn't have lumberjacks. "I hear they make good pancakes here," he says after a moment. "Too bad I slept through breakfast, huh?"

Vic shrugs good-naturedly. "Yeah, probably. I always thought it was kinda silly people believe in Bigfoot when it's obviously Elvis in hiding." He gives the kid a grin somewhere between 'I can't believe I just said that' and 'Vics gonna Vic.' He winks for good measure.