"What was that? What was that? Does anyone know what on god's green earth that was?"

"Cripes. Cripes."

"Great question." I saw it in a nightmare, so that's fun! Oneiro-- onai-- dream-prophecy is not really all it's cracked up to be.

Oscar's still shaking a little, even inside. He hates that there are so many people here.

He is trying so hard to not look out the windows and to not betray to anyone that he's so profoundly scared.

"God didn't create that thing."

"I think possibly we should be somewhere more private."

Yes away from the people.

"Somebody -- somebody needs to -- they need to know about -- about Jennings--"

"...we're the last people to see him, aren't we? God, that's going to be really fun to explain."

"Yep. We can figure that out in two hours. In the meantime can we go upstairs."

At some point he's going to have to go back outside and he doesn't want to again. The sky is wrong. It's big and it goes on forever. Why aren't other people noticing that it's wrong.

(Jing Yi is looking at Oscar, like he can see him being frightened of the windows. He looks embarrassed to be even having to sit at the same table as someone doing that.)

"That is going to look stranger," Sal hisses, but is not going to break from the group.

Jing Yi is looking at him. Jing Yi can tell he's afraid and he's going to tell everyone Oscar's unstable and untrustworthy and they're going to put him away. Like Roby.

"I--" god why aren't her words working, "it's, it's not really about looking strange," she wants to be able to talk about things without worrying who's listening except that's dumb because no way does anyone else in this pub speak Polari.

She wants to be pacing and pulling her hair. She wants Joan. She wants Joan to never find out any of this happened because she's going to be so mad, that's a terrible impulse but Inaaya still has it.

Jing Yi has never given a damn about his being okay and he threatened him and he'd kill Oscar if he could probably.

Oscar's trying with limited success to not cry.

"We should probably go somewhere private, considering what we're discussing."

Fuck this. There are too many people here. Sal is on the verge of a meltdown.

"One of you needs to tell someone about the body so they can send the police," he mutters at the boys, and then follows Inaaya, who is presumably going upstairs, just as she said they should.

If he goes upstairs with them, a majority of people will be going in one direction and will be better than just whispering about privacy.

Oscar's just staring at a nondescript beige bit of wall and his shoulders shake a bit. He is teary-eyed and doing a shamefully bad job at concealing it.

Yeah okay cmon Oscar you're coming upstairs with us.

(Is this because Inaaya wants to get him somewhere private where he can melt down in peace or because she doesn't think he's capable of doing this on his own? Who can say. Not Oscar probably.)

Okay, cool. Terrence ignores the thing about telling someone about the body, because he is not at that point, and heads upstairs too.

He takes a deep steadying breath in an attempt to look composed. It does nothing and does not steady him, because they were assaulted by demons! Aaaaaaaaaa!!! Cripes!

THIS IS SO SUSPICIOUS. THEY WILL GET ARRESTED AND GO TO PRISON FOR MURDER. NOTHING CAN SAVE THEM. NOT EVEN SAL, BECAUSE SAL IS HIDING IN A CORNER OF THEIR UPSTAIRS ROOM REFUSING TO TALK OR MOVE OR EXIST.

Oscar flinches but goes with Inaaya. He starts crying a bit harder though.

Jing Yi waits at the stairs for Oscar to be escorted up. "Sorry about the bait comment. I was just trying to get you to move," he says quietly.

(To Oscar, he sounds so, so insincere.)

Oscar freezes. You were trying to kill me, he thinks. He's staring at Jing Yi pathetic and wild-eyed and openly crying. He wants to run back down the stairs but there's nowhere to go.