[log] And broken things [closed]

[bookofnope]

Characters: Angel, Rhys, Fiona, Beckett, Haurchefant, Rydia, Watson, Ecks, Stein... and other visitors perhaps MAYBE WE'LL SEE
Location Buildings 34/35
Date: Days 113 to 115
Summary: Sad vampires! Broken noodles! Mourning elves! Alcohol! Maybe brain surgery! Catch-all/mingle log for Days 113-115 because a lot of shit goes down.
Warnings: Brain injuries, suicide and death talk, Stein doing lobotomies, alcohol, THIS LOG IS A MESS.

[This is a pretty big log so you know the drill POST TOPLEVELS WITH DATE AND TIME NERDS. Log kicks off Day 113, Beckett and Haurche arrive around midday. Watson, Ecks and Stein join on 114. Rydia probably comes on 115. 115 is also Rhysbotomy day so that gets a thread of its own I guess?? GO FORTH DO THE THINGS.]

Comments

[jumpthegun]

Day 114 - Option A
[With the weather cleared up, it's a relatively quick jaunt from the school over to the clinic area. John is in relatively good spirits... as good as anyone can be when they're about to meet a patient with epilepsy and probably-frostbite. At least he has what Rhys asked for: socks and some cups of ice cream, along with other rations from the school. It's nothing warm, but it's edible and such.

When John, Ecks, and Stein reach the house with the hot water, the doctor raps sharply out of habit before just opening the door and holding it for the others. Two tall people with stitches across their skin and one short, graying blond man enter. John's eyes immediately go to the windows and any other doors before settling on the people inside.]

One traveling doctor for a Mr. Rhys?

Day 114 - Option B
[He's had a look over Rhys, delivered the aspirin, ice cream, and socks he's brought with him, and now John's set himself to looking over the supplies in the cabinets. The doctor is trying not to show off his paranoia, but he pauses every few seconds to glance up and at the others in the room. If anyone approaches, they'll receive a broad, seemingly-genuine smile.]

Something I can do for you?

OPTION A

[headjacked]

[ And Rhys, upon hearing his name, stumbles to greet the doctor and his traveling companions. His slightly terrifying traveling companions. Dr. Watson... apparently has a type. A creepy, stitchy type.

He gives them a wide berth and approaches the good doctor, limping slightly. ]

I'm a Mr. Rhys --

[ His leg judders before giving out, and Mr. Rhys goes down. He smiles awkwardly and laughs. ]

Aaaand now I'm on the ground.

OPTION B HELLO

[bookofnope]

[Talking to anyone was not, in theory, on Beckett's agenda for the day, much less someone he barely knows. In fact getting up had not been on the agenda. But sometimes near midday he wakes up in a quiet panic one too many times and it is damn well enough. He can't go on like this. Kindred aren't built for nightmares. Pride can go to hell. He gets himself up and out of his corner - though he stays resolutely wrapped in one of the blankets - and goes to find the doctor.

He's seen Watson a little about the network. Looked sensible. Maybe even not the fussy sort. And if he had a mind for it he'd even be curious about the man for some obvious reasons. At the moment he's mostly hoping to get his request through without being sat down to a full medical interrogation. Well. Any actually sensible doctor would see that, physically at least, he's got nothing worse than a bad cold. Right?]

Dr. Watson - I'm sorry to bother you, but I seem to recall you mentioning prescriptions on the network?

option B

[ecks]

There are too many people in this building.

[She's still carrying that throw pillow around. Also, standing directly in front of him and just...staring at him. She's apparently decided it's his fault there are too many people in this building.]

[jumpthegun]

Day 115
[Following a very unproductive conversation with Stitches, John sets down his tablet, removes himself to the bathroom, and then punches the wall with enough force to splinter the wood, the crack loud enough to likely draw attention. He closes his eyes, rests his head against the wall for a moment, and lets his hand fall to his side, knuckles aching.

Damnit. Damnit! Damnit!

When John steps out of the bathroom again, his expression is completely blank. He just needs a moment to process and plan and deal with the fact that he knows a man is about to have chunks of his brain pulled out by a literal maniac who trains child soldiers and lobotomized himself while he was a teenager.

This is not all right. He heads over to his pack and pulls out hand sanitizer and his double-sided tape. In the absence of band-aids... There are a few small cuts on his hand now that he'd like to take care of before they become a problem.]

morning 115; pre-Grand Theft Rhys

[phaseshifter]

[ Angel has been very quiet today. Very solitary. Secretive. As the saying goes, she's being shifty as balls.

She has good reason for it, at least. Waking up to a special delivery from the admin - a delivery of an extremely dangerous chemical that isn't even native to this planet - isn't something that happens every day. Eridium. The same substance that kept her enslaved back home is what's going to free her - free all of them - from this whole mess. Angel is going to get her powers back, phaseshift every gosh-darn lock in the town, and shred her way through the network firewalls with her mind. It's going to be awesome as heckie.

And she'll be able to fly again. That'll be nice.

It's late morning when the excitement gets to be too much, and she scampers into the bathroom with the glowy vial tucked up her sleeve. With the door firmly closed, Angel begins loading the syringe. It's the real deal, for sure - Even through the plastic she can feel it resonating with her. With her siren-ness. That certainly isn't something that would happen if the admin had sent her a placebo, right?

Which means she's definitely for sure holding something that could kill her if this goes wrong.

Well. Too late to back out now. Angel grits her teeth, holds her breath, and slides the needle into her arm. ]

 

[ A few seconds later, anyone within eyeshot of the bathroom will likely notice the intense violet glow that briefly flares from the crack at the bottom of the door. It's followed by some tentative muttering, a short silence, and then... ]

FUCK!

[ LANGUAGE, YOUNG LADY ]

[headjacked]

[ Rhys does not see any purplish glow, zonked as he is, but that expletive is hard to miss, even in his condition. He leaps to his feet, alert and anxious. ]

Angel?!

[ His mind starts racing. She could be in danger!

Or. Maybe she just fell in the toilet.

Rhys is clearly thinking more along the lines of the former, as he rushes to the closed door, stumbling a bit as he careens towards it. There is a mighty metallic THUD, the door rattles, and Rhys bounces right off.

He Tried. ]

[plundering]

A - Day 113 or 114
[Fiona's retreated to a corner, sitting crosslegged on the floor with a skein of rainbow colored yarn and her tablet beside her. She's been feeling oddly energetic and restless, which she's chalking up to the fact that they haven't been moving much, with Rhys the way he is. Still, it means she's desperate for something to do, which is why she's knotting lengths of yarn into what is obviously a very brightly colored friendship bracelet. Every ten minutes or so, though, she'll stop what she's doing and check her tablet, almost compulsively. It's easy to get a feel for the people she's trapped here with when they're so ready to bare their emotions on the network, but it's not like she's checking any specific post in particular. It's just that making the bracelet itself doesn't seem to be enough to hold her attention for long.

If she senses anyone watching her or approaching, she glances up, eyebrows slightly raised.]

Yeah?

B - Day 114
[There are a lot of people crammed into this house now, more than Fiona has seen in one place since arriving. It's a great opportunity, really, because it means Fiona can observe how everyone interacts with one another. She's always found it fun to figure out how people tick, almost like a game, but beyond that, it's a survival mechanism. Mentally, she's sorting everyone into categories—who seems particularly friendly, who might be most trusting, who she should watch out for or keep an eye on. And, of course, who she could manipulate or rob blind if she needed to. That wouldn't be the best idea when she's packed into a building with seven or eight other people, all locked in until morning, but it's something to keep in mind.

Watching only tells her so much, though, so eventually she starts making the rounds. Not obviously, and not in a short amount of time, but over the course of the night, she approaches everyone at least once, or locks eyes with them casually.]

This isn't the crappiest house I've been in, but it's close. Are we drawing straws for the couch?

[Though, to be fair, she secretly thinks Rhys should get it, with the brain damage and the whining and all.]

A!

[phaseshifter]

Uh - sorry. I'm not bugging you, am I?

[ Angel watches people by habit. It isn't even a thing she's generally aware of, so it's always a little weird to be caught doing it. ]

I was just wondering what - you know. What you're up to?

B

[jumpthegun]

Could always share. Warmer that way.

[John offers a shrug and a crooked smile. He's been keeping an eye on Fiona, looking for a good opportunity to approach her after dealing with Rhys. That she's coming to him... probably means she's bored. Well, that's all right. The doctor is more on edge with this many people he doesn't know packed into a small space, but he's putting on a smile, anyway. And Fiona helps to make it a little more genuine.]

[bookofnope]

[Beckett wasn't even angling for the couch. A corner is more than enough for him right now, someplace quiet and out of the way where he can curl up like a wounded animal, try to sleep. Try being the operative word. Fiona happens to catch him just as he half sits up in despair from it. Lying down makes his head feel full of sand, and there's already so much roiling about inside it. Can't get comfortable, can't stop thinking. Ugh.]

I'm not getting up, [he lets her know with a tired shrug.] Can I trade my claim for some water, if you have any?

[ecks]

Evening 114 - Option A
[This is the most people Ecks has seen in one place since she ran away from her maker, and she is not the slightest bit at ease with the situation. She keeps pacing back and forth through the two rooms, skulking along the walls only to have to walk around people seated against them. She eyes the couch each time she passes it, eyes drawn to the cushions. She wants them. She hasn't taken off her pack yet, nor put down the throw pillow she carries everywhere, though she has at least let down her guard enough to set down her plastic basket.

Until, at one pass, she abruptly stops, grabs one edge of a couch cushion, and attempts to walk away with it.]


Evening 114 - Option B

[Ecks's restlessness of earlier has abated, but she remains unable to relax. Her current behavior is likely very familiar to her two traveling companions: she has commandeered the bedroom closet. She sits on the floor inside with the door cracked open, her possessions piled around her. She's busy tapping away at her tablet, but every time someone passes by the door she stops what she is doing to look up and stare intently at them with expressionless yellow eyes.]

A OF COURSE

[plundering]

[It just so happens that Fiona is sitting on the couch, focused intently on her tablet. She doesn't bother looking up when someone begins to pass, because there are a million people in this house and everyone is moving around. That means she jerks in surprise and nearly drops her tablet when Ecks reaches out and yanks on the cushion she's seated on.

Ecks doesn't walk away with it, but she does manage to tug the cushion—and therefore Fiona—forward a bit.]

Hey!

[Fiona sputters for a second after that intelligent and in-depth protest.]

What the hell are you doing?

[bookofnope]

Day 113: High-octane angst

[Considering Beckett's very specific ideas of what comprises pride and dignity, there might be something awkward about showing back up at the house he'd left three days earlier on such purposeful note. But as it happens that is the last thing on his mind as he as Haurchefant stumble through the last few dozen yards. He's not even thinking about the school, or about his aching head and the depressing almost-certainty of having caught a cold from all his little stops to sit in the snow yesterday. He's barely thinking about Gehenna at this point. His only solid concern is having to tell Angel that he'd almost broke his promise to her.

She'll understand, he tells himself, but somehow that doesn't make it better. Worse if anything. She has every right to be furious at him... at a few more lucid moments during that hike, it occurs to him that he might be looking for reasons to feel guilty. Like he's earned a telling off and won't be happy until he gets it. But lucidity doesn't do much for him right now.

They're finally at the door. He lets Haurchefant do the knocking and the greeting, staying huddled in the blanket-cloak that he's half-pulled into a makeshift hood. If Haurchefant tells them that he'd found him looking to die... well, he'll take whatever they say. He has nothing useful to say in return.]


Day 114: Potentially just a little less angst

[Sometimes in the earliest hours of the morning, the sheer combination of three sleepless nights, a miserable cold, and just sitting in one corner doing nothing for hours finally manages to get the better of Beckett, end of the world or not. He's only mortal now, and for a little while he sleeps like the proverbial dead. New arrivals find little of him but curled up pile of sometimes twitchy blankets and quiet congested snoring.

He spends the day flickering in and out, drifting and dozing, not all there even when he does wake up. Waking up usually involves a fit of sneezes or coughs, which is the easier option; those are awkward and disgusting but really just an embarrassment. More rarely waking up involves a brief but intense nightmare, which is a distinctly human problem he's even less equipped to deal with, and all he can do is sit and shiver and be rather grateful for the cold because he can excuse his sniffling as something other than tears.

And then now and then he hits the magical zone of being awake enough to be awake, but not coherent enough to be miserable. Those are the best times. They usually involve looking up from his corner cocoon and blinking blearily at passers by with one very important question.]

... I don't suppose there's anything to eat...? I mean anything good.

day 113!

[phaseshifter]

[ When the greetings are done with and everyone is more or less settled, it begins. The thing Beckett has only contemplated in the darkest corners of his nightmares.

The fussening.

Angel gently steers him into his own little corner and begins swaddling him with half of the blanket supply that Rhys has spent the last few days hogging. She feels his forehead with the back of her hand, makes sure he has food and water, and finally offers a tiny solitary pill. ]

Eszopiclone. It will help you sleep if you have trouble. Only use it if you need to though, because I'm only giving you one.

[ Does she need to say why she isn't offering more? He might take them all at once. Even if she rations them out, he might pretend to swallow them and save them up until he has enough to overdose with.

She's not mad. She's scared. It's an important distinction. ]

Day 114

[ecks]

[Ecks has been pacing since she arrived, trying now and then to settle down in the closet and be calm about things only to emerge again to make the rounds of the rooms, accounting for people's locations, watching for changes. She is tired but she does not want to sleep among so many strangers, and the restless movement keeps her awake.

This is the first time she has seen this particular stranger awake himself. She pauses, considers.]

There is food. There is food from the school.

114~

[headjacked]

[ Rhys has been diligently watching over the sad, delirious vampire. When he's not delirious himself or having seizures in the bathroom. So, okay, he's been semi-diligently watching over the sadpire.

It counts for something.

When he stirs in his vamprrito, Rhys looks up from his current task (shakily eating a small cup of vanilla ice cream). He's about a third of the way through and has the beginnings of a vanilla 'stache clinging to his upper lip. ]

...hey. How do you feel about ice cream? In... near-mint condition?

Evening 114

[silverfuller]

[The news of Emmanellain's death has darkened Haurchefant's normally sunny mood.

The knight stands by the window and gazes out with eyes as cold as the drifting snow. This, he thinks, is standing guard.

He's already failed his own brother, he cannot fail his current companions.]

[headjacked]

[ Giant guardian elf man will eventually feel the awkward poke of a cybernetic finger on his back. There is Rhys, standing before one of the very few people in Norfinbury who make him feel small.

He has a small cup of vanilla ice cream. ]

I know... it's, uh. It's not a steak, or anything piping hot, buuuut... this always makes me feel better.

[ And, with a little hesitation, he offers his precious ice cream. What a sacrifice.

(Odds are he has one or two more, but ehhhhh this makes him feel noble. ]

[phaseshifter]

Um - Haurchefant?

[ Angel only mispronounces it slightly. It's a very good effort, okay. ]

I'm sorry. About Emmanellain. It isn't fair, he wasn't - mmh. Can I do anything? Get you anything?

[jumpthegun]

[John doesn't really know Hauchefant, but he recognizes the look of a man at the ready immediately. He's on edge, himself; though, his focus is inward on this group rather than outward on external threats. Standing next to the other man makes him feel like he's back in the Army, though, where most of the other soldiers dwarfed him. Not quite to this degree, but still.

It's a strange sort of comfort, even when Haurchefant is something that shouldn't exist.

John steps up next to him, his own eyes looking out the window into the driving snow as he clasps his hands behind his back.]

Anything to report?

[bookofnope]

[It's already nighttime when Beckett approaches Haurchefant's side. He hasn't looked at his tablet for a while, doesn't know just what is wrong. But even with his moments of lucidity few and far in-between, he notices the change in the other man, and he can't ignore it. It's a very visible change in someone like Haurchefant.

If nothing else, it's something to think about, something to do.

He comes up, huddled and sniffling, eyes hazy - not all there, but his normally tense or snappish manner softer for it. His voice is low:] Did something happen...?

[circumsutus]

Day 114
[Stein can't feel the cold anymore. He does, but it doesn't matter, nothing matters, nothing other than what's right in front of him. What's in front of him is mostly snow, which he hates, and John and Ecks, who he's been talking with (talking at) for the past few days. He's not sure exactly how long he's been talking, just that his throat is sore and he's covered all these topics of conversation once, twice (three, four times) before. There's only so much anyone could want to know about Stein's time here, and every possible theory that's crossed his mind regarding their current situation.

But he stopped sleeping entirely a few nights ago, and his mind is still on high alert and running in circles, tripping over thoughts and ideas, fumbling and confused. He handles the hyperactivity the same way he always has, by pushing himself to exhaustion and waiting for the restlessness to pass. It doesn't, which is frustrating, infuriating.

When the door swings open, Stein stumbles in (even if he doesn't recognize the cold anymore, his body still feels the limitations). A quick glance takes stock of the room, the entrances and exits, the people inside and their possible threat level, the status of injuries and clothing.]

Has anyone used the hot water today? [He says, to the gathering at large. Stein's got a loud voice, and he's incredibly tall, a starved-looking figure wrapped in a worn mismatch of clothing, features concealed behind reflective glasses and a scraggly grey beard and a strip of dirty fabric wrapped entirely around his head to protect it from the cold.]

Day 115 - Early
[Stein hasn't slept. This is the third, or maybe even fourth night that he's paced through. Death the Kid is here now, which gives him another set of problems to mull over. The boy isn't prepared for this, even if he had been able to keep his godly abilities. Without those, Kid is dead.

So he paces, and paces, and paces. He can't do anything for Kid here, but he has a job to do. There's something moving in the shadows, and he ignores it.]

Day 115 - I don't believe this man's ever been to medical school (Closed to Rhys)

[It's late, and lockdown is approaching quickly. He's cutting it close, but the risk was calculated, and this is necessary. A tap on Rhys' shoulder to get the man's attention.]

Rhys. We need to leave.

[headjacked]

Uh.

[ After the Girl Problems catastrophe, Rhys has quarantined himself in a corner riiiight by the door. He's hugging his bag like a teddy bear as Stein approaches and staring at the opposite wall with a faraway look in his eyes.

Stein does, however, successfully get his attention, and he blinks tiredly. ]

...uh-huh.

[ Words are, apparently, difficult at the moment. Rhys forces himself to his feet and goes to grab Stein's arm. He ends up grabbing his sleeve instead and clings, looking extremely lost. ]

Day 115, post Rhysnapping

[phaseshifter]

So. Rhys has been abducted.

[ Angel has entered a disturbing state of unnatural calm. Panic won't help Rhys. Crying won't, either. There is, in fact, nothing they can do to help him right now except prepare - and if Angel is going to be taken seriously, she's going to have to keep it together.

So. Right now, she's Calm Angel. Composed Angel. Faux Artificial Intelligence Angel. The Angel who knows how to take down bad guys, because she's pretty sure she used to be one. Guardian Angel. ]

We know Stitches has taken him to the next building over. None of us were notified beforehand. I'm missing items from my pack: sleeping pills and turpentine.

[ And a sharp piece of rubble, but that's less noticable. And she's pretty sure she'd have noticed anyone unfamiliar digging through her stuff. Mrrgh. ]

So we're very likely looking at an unauthorised surgical procedure. Potentially to steal parts from Rhys' cybernetics, in the best case scenario.

First of all: we don't tell anyone about this. None of us. We deal with this ourselves instead of causing mass panic. Agreed?

[jumpthegun]

[ John balks at the idea of keeping this a secret. He's not terribly trusting, but if Stein's on the loose... Steve was in the area not to look ago. He might be able to help. But Angel has a point about mass panics. ]

If we can't get to them in the next day or two, we need to tell people. I don't want someone unstable running around when people don't know to be careful of him.