We Are Bulletproof

Minh's question was meant for Avery but Cain whispered something and then set a rosary on his leg. Huh? Minh looked down at it and wrapped his hand around it questioningly while he listened to Avery. Not sure, he said. A spontaneous hiking trip brought him here. Hm... Minh tilted his head slightly in thought. It didn't sound suspicious to him. What it sounded like was... something pulled Avery here, probably in the same way it pulled Minh here. Others, too. This place had a sense about it, wondrous at times but also darkly foreboding.

"I wouldn't say luck," Minh said. "It happened for a reason. This place..."

He trailed off. This place was a strange one. Minh had experienced a lot of strange things since coming here. Cain being one of them. After a moment, he looked down at the rosary that he now held, still wondering why Cain sought him out, how he found him, and why he brought the rosary to him. He frowned slightly in thought, then looked back up at Avery, who seemed to be pretending not to notice Cain's presence. The boy did have an unsettling air about him, so Minh couldn't entirely blame him for it.

"I was pulled here, too. I didn't hike." He offered Avery a crooked smile. "But my arrival here was just as spontaneous... This place is strange, isn't it? There's something about it..."

"Heh... yes, we've come a far way from home, haven't we?"

He realized a moment later that it sounded as if he and Cain knew one another previously but really, they were barely strangers to one another. Minh only just met the boy a short time ago. They certainly didn't travel to Oregon together, either. With his clothing carefully dumped into the machine, Minh paid for some detergent and popped a few quarters in to start the wash.

At the man's compliment towards his jacket, Minh looked over and he smiled.

"It's probably my favorite one," he admitted, although he wasn't supposed to favor earthly things. Sometimes, Minh didn't think his faith was as strong as it should have been, especially after seeing what kinds of things laid dormant within their world. And this town. Hazleton was such a dark place. There was always something repressive in the air and Minh felt inexplicably watched--all the time. Maybe... maybe it was just little Cain, though. One could only hope that was all it was.

"It looks good on you," Minh said without an ounce of facetiousness. There was nothing wrong with complimenting another man. "And I'm Minh. Nice to meet you, Avery."

As he always did when meeting a new person, he moved away from the machine as it began its cycle and he put out a hand for Avery to shake. "And this is..."

He didn't have to say it for him this time. Cain introduced himself... to the ground, rather than to Avery himself. Minh took a seat at one of the benches near Avery.

"So what brings you here?"

Shrugging out of his leather jacket, Minh handed it over to the poor unfortunate soul that was stuck with a cheap hotel towel and nothing else. It really was such a shame, although it was... interesting. Minh wasn't so guided by repressed hormonal responses that he couldn't be a decent human being, though. Often he thought this was where he differed from some of the scoundrels he met during his travels.

Once the jacket had been handed over, Minh looked down at the clothes he'd brought. There was no point in leaving now, despite his earlier misgivings. He might as well do what he came here to do. He was about to move towards one of the machines to start his own load of laundry when Cain tugged on him and whispered so lowly that Minh had to physically bend toward him to even hear what he was saying.

"Ah."

Odd that Cain couldn't say it himself but Minh smiled and said, "This one's from England." He shifted the basket against his hip. "And I'm from Scotland. Whereabouts are you from?"

"Right," Minh said, with a gentle cough into his fist as he turned his head away and tried not to look at the naked parts of the man that he could see. Thankfully, his most private body parts were covered but that didn't mean his chest and shoulders weren't something of a distraction, especially to a man that had been practicing celibacy for so long that it sometimes messed with his head. And perhaps his hormones, even if he was no longer a teenager.

Minh was about to edge his way back out, fully intending on apologizing and leaving the other man to his devices--he could come back and do his laundry later--when he heard his name spoken in a familiar voice. Blinking, Minh slowly turned to see young Cain Plunkett wheeling around the corner, only to come skidding to a halt. It wasn't much of a shock to see one so young turning bright red and hiding his gaze from the nearly unclothed man before them. (Well, he was unclothed--just a tiny towel covered his lower body.)

"No need to apologize," Minh said, with more confidence in his tone than his drumming heart would have revealed. He was doing his best to keep his gaze on the man's face and nowhere else. "These are actually all I have, too," he confessed, tilting his chin down toward the clothes he had gathered up to wash. He could feel Cain hiding behind him and grasping onto him like he thought the poor man was going to assault him. Minh didn't think so; if he happened to be a pervert, he certainly wasn't acting like one. He seemed as embarrassed as the rest of them.

"...do you want to borrow my jacket?" he asked. It wasn't much but it would cover... some things.

There was something keenly wrong about Hazleton, Oregon. Minh felt it the moment he stepped onto the desecrated soil. Something evil definitely dwelled here and although it wasn't his job to dispel evil on his own--he was not a well trained exorcist, although he knew the basics--he had to do something. The problem was, he didn't know exactly what that thing was. So he found a hotel in order to stay and perhaps find out more.

The hotel wasn't the best one he'd ever stayed at during his worldly travels but he had to admit that it also wasn't the worst. There were times in which Minh had to lie beneath the stars with his pack tucked under his head as a makeshift pillow. At least this hotel had pillows.

Minh had been awake for some time, poring over his copy of the Holy Bible in the hopes that he could find answers. Surely, God would show him the answers. Surely, God would open the book to the passage that would point him in the right direction. Nothing rang true to him during this reading, though. Was... was some evil entity hiding God's voice from him? Was it the evil of Hazleton? The unnamed evil that he needed to track down...?

Minh ruffled his hair and slid his hand up over the crown of his head as he lowered his gaze to the desk he sat at. How long did he sit there? Far too long, really. Letting out a long sigh, Minh gently closed his bible and tucked it into a pocket in his pack. As he did so, he remembered that he had to get his clothes down to the laundry. When he came in last night, it was late. Minh pulled out the clothing from his pack and held it under his arm, marching out of the room and heading toward the archway that handily told him where the LAUNDRY was located.

What was all that noise though? Minh could hear it down the hall. Slowly, he approached, then peeked around the corner and looked one way and then the next. Laundry room. Looked pretty standard, if cheap. He stepped fully into the room, then saw where the loud noise was coming from. And also...

"Oh!" Minh's eyes widened and he actually loosened his grip on his clothing, some of it falling over onto the floor in his surprise. "I didn't..." He didn't know what he was going to say as his brain short-circuited. He didn't expect somebody to be inside? With all the noise, that was unlikely. He just... didn't expect the lone occupant to be... well. So... unclothed.