fandomtownies | The Boards (Yes the Boards) Late Sunday night through all day Monday

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The Boards (Yes the Boards) Late Sunday night through all day Monday

The trouble with having let Mavis go off with Johnny on a trip around the human world was that now that his baby girl was gone, the Hotel was just a hotel. And apparently Drac was the worst boss ever. Or so the entire housekeeping staff had told him when they'd threatened to walk out.

(When he found out who had unionized the hotel staff, there would be trouble!)

So Drac was on the island and in a snit. Well, he had been in a snit. Then he'd gone to the theatre and yelled at some of the zombies, non-union ones, and now he was feeling a little better. He found a pile of scripts on his desk and pulled the top one to read...

"Hmm... A play about Twelve Angry Men? "

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Raven had taken to occasionally peeking into the Boards just in case Drac happened to have reappeared. It was like gambling: most of the time she wasn't rewarded, but then a day like this one came along.

"Ooo, that's one from my time."

Drac looked up, the irritation clearing from his face as he saw who his visitor was.

"Raven! Welcome. You are familiar with this play?"

"I've heard of it. It was a tv play last year, in my time. I didn't see it, but Charles couldn't shut up about it for about a month." Raven smiled. "Nice to see you back in town."

"TV play?" Drac was still a little confused by technology, but he was getting used to the terms at least? "So it's popular? Enough to actually try?"

He waved to a free chair. "I do apologize for not being around; I've been back in my world more, recently."

"Well, it was popular 60 years ago. I'm not the best person to ask when it comes to the current zeitgeist." Raven shrugged. "I figured. How's Mavis?"

Drac's eyebrows raised high and he almost beamed with pride at her. "That is a very old word!"

"Mavis..." Drac's face fell again. "Has found her Zing. She's on a tour of the world with him right now."

DRAC WAS ALOOOOOOONE!!

"Hanging around Kathy's expanded my vocabulary," Raven said. "Mavis found her -- wait, what?" Drac had never actually defined his relationship to Martha that way out loud to Raven before. "That's a . . . bad thing?"

"Her Zing? No. That's a good thing, of course. You only zing once in a lifetime, you know." Well, in his world at least. "Even if it is Johnny, I'm glad she found her One."

"I guess I'm just being a dad? I don't want my baby to grow up."

"One true love?" Raven guessed. It wasn't the most obvious thing when you weren't from Drac's world. "Aw, good for her. And hey, you're still her one true dad, right?"

Drac nodded. "But you don't stay forever with your dad." As Drac knew very well. "And what if she decides to live with his family?"

"Then you'll visit her and she'll visit you. Would that really be so different than when you were still on the island and she'd gone back to the hotel?"

Drac opened his mouth, then closed it and turned his head slightly. After all he'd tried to teach Raven, Drac was embarrassed to say it aloud, but he didn't want to lie either: "Johnny's a human. She'd be living in the Human world."

"But -- she wouldn't try to pretend, would she?" Raven had lived like that. It sucked, even for a shapeshifter. "I mean, Johnny must know the truth, right?"

"Oh Johnny knows. He's known from the start. He accidentally found the hotel while he was on a walking tour, apparently. I had to disguise him as a monster, actually." He chuckled a little. "I dressed him up to look like Jonothon, when he was large and blue? I thought it very fitting."

"Well, I'm always a fan of blue," Raven said. "You're worried his parents might have an, uh. Anti-monster prejudice?" She asked, then lowered her voice. "Or are you worried how you might react to them?"

Drac considered the many ways he could answer that.

"I'm worried that it will all happen again." He wasn't being very clear, but Raven might actually understand? "And that this time I won't be able to save even her."

Raven didn't understand 100%, but she knew enough to get the gist. "Oh Drac. I'm sure it won't."

Drac straightened a moment, then relaxed again to smile at the young girl. "I'm sure you're right." No he wasn't, but he was really good at faking it. He'd been a single dad for over a century, after all. "I'm just being over protective."

"So what have you been up to? Besides increasing your vocabulary?"

"Oh, you know," Raven shrugged. "Senior year. I finally got a roommate who won't disappear on me, and we're planning to live together after graduation, too."

Drac gave her a puzzled look. "Your roommates disappeared?!"

"Three of them. Well, Theo warned me before he went back home. The other two just kind of . . . wandered off."

"And no one has gone looking for them? Is there something attacking again?"

"No? They probably just went home. They just didn't say goodbye first or anything. You know how people do that, sometimes."

Drac had the decency to look abashed at that. He hooked a finger in his collar and tugged a little, embarrassed. "Yes. Well, I do apologize for doing that myself. It was no fault of yours."

Raven hadn't actually meant it that way at all, and she pressed one hand to her mouth as she realized what it sounded like. "It's alright," she assured him. "I understand. You've got a whole life back home you have to take care of, too. I'm just glad to see you come back and visit when you can."

"I wish I could say I let time get away from me because of work and home, but that's only partly true. At first I was healing, then I had to sort out a few things, yes. And then," Drac's smile went soft. "I'm afraid I was running away."

"What happened to you was pretty scary," Raven agreed softly.

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The Boards (Yes the Boards) Late Sunday night through all day Monday

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