logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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It looks all right.

( he peers closer before sighing and then nodding. )

Yeah, you're all in one piece. If anything starts falling off, I'll let you know just in the rare case that it's actually happening. Wouldn't want you to walk around without your nose or something.

[ It may or may not be a bit concerning how she’s managed to get used to the whispers. The all too familiar voices describing how she’s failed, how she’s doomed the world she abandoned, etc. etc. so on so forth. Honestly? They can get in line, presuming she’ll ever stop beating herself up. In short, it’s just more of the same. The hands on the other hand… well. She still had her blindfold on because they creep her the fuck out.

At least she can use what’s left of her hearing to find Daylight now… Oh great. It’s edgy mcedgeface doing his best impression of a marionette. Not concerning at all.

She’s just starting to turn away (because fuck this), when he actually addresses her and she’s just. So fuckin tired. ]

What!?

[ She snaps out, whirling around with a glare. ]

Edited 2019-11-08 22:12 (UTC)

"Yeah, that's kinda the point, I figure," the Sergeant says, smoothing back his hair again. "Realistic fucking hallucinations. I keep gettin' shit from the war, and these. Creepy Words." The nature of that word as a title, as something important, is practically audible. "Not sure why they're doing this-- got half a dozen theories-- or even who's really behind it, but it's pretty realistic for everybody. Glad I could help, though."

A very ugly demon.

( the less said about that the better. he sighs and rubs at his eyes. )

A very ugly demon who was hell bent on killing my family and I. It wasn't a highlight of my life.

[Quentin is at the river again, watching the stars and universes swirl around in the water, all sparkling and bright. Like guiding lights, almost. Like something he should take a closer look at, except he keeps getting distracted.

There's Julia, calling his name from beyond the trees. Her voice low and beckoning, until she starts to plead.

Please, Q, just come back to me

And he wants to talk back, even if-- because how could she not be real? Even if she trapped him again, she would still be telling the truth. That none of this was real, that all of this was just his broken mind making stuff up to keep him here, keep him away from his life, because for some reason, he wanted this. Wanted to be miserable. Just like the Winter's Doe told him.

Oh, poor little Quentin. Feeling all alone and lost again, Alice jeers, her hand flashing blue fire from his left and she sound close enough to be right behind him. You know, I told you this would happen. You should have listened to me and let me go.

He turns, fast and unsteady.]

No, Alice! That's too dangerous and you know that! If you were you, you'd know that!

[Only, there's no Alice there. Just someone looking like Eliot, stepping out in to the small circle of light from Quentin's lantern on the ground.]

[ the flame turns blue, and he doesn't know why exactly why it's then that quentin turns, shouts so angrily. for a flash it seems like it could have been mike, but calling him alice? and that shake in his voice? mike never had that. eliot lets the flame die, tries not to flinch as he takes a cautious step forward. ]

Quentin? [ it's frightened. uncertain. things that eliot isn't, and yet, there's a familiarity to it, a moment in a park, barely a minute to say what needs to be said before the monster swallows him up again. ] Q. You're. [ he needs a moment to realize where they are and when he does, his heart clenches tightly in his chest. ]

What are you doing?

[Everything comes to a screeching halt as the Monster takes a step closer, the orange flames in his borrowed eyes and while the lips doesn't move, Quentin still hears it-

Will you play with me?

The childish infliction and the curious tilt of the head.

Except.

No, that's not it. Because there's also-- there's Eliot. Voice shaking and brimming with emotions too complex for the Monster to ever come close to aping.

Are you sure about that? Alice hisses, angry and cajoling in turns. Maybe you should ask him to take his dick out.]

Shut up, Alice! I--Eliot?

[He takes a slow step forward, away from the river, holding his breath and trying, trying, trying and failing, failing, failing to keep the hope out of his voice.]

Eliot?

You must enjoy the power.

The reversal.

[It's an observation, not an accusation. But who can say whether the inflection and intention are enough to soften the blow. People born into power and prestige aren't supposed to enjoy it- not openly so. And those that spend their lives chasing it, like Penguin and Sofia Falcone, are looked down on for the pursuit of it.

Bruce is less concerned with the social implications and conditioning than for what it suggests about their relationship. Todd's posture relaxes. It's something he's see Selina do a dozen times, a softening to her stance or a shift of her weight, as if she's so comfortable saying something that of course it must be the truth. It hasn't been, in Bruce's experience. When she's been honest with him she always looked a little frustrated, as if she was annoyed at herself for doing it at all. Annoyed at herself for doing it for him.]

You told me already that I can't take responsibility for it, but I won't pretend that I don't want to know.

It would give me the opportunity to change.

Someone should pay for what's happened, shouldn't they?

[ there's relief when quentin recognizes him, says his name so simply. none of the hallucinations of him ever sound right, and just like that, eliot breaks. ]

Quentin. I. You weren't. You didn't come back, and-- I couldn't find you? [ he steps forward again, careful. it's the river. he can't be careless. there is nothing deadlier than a siren's song. ] What are you doing out here? I was worried sick. Thought you'd. Left. [ me. ]

[They aren't coated, they're chalk, because the supplies that arrive in Beacon make their lives easier but not that much easier. There's a moment where he's left partially on his own- as Peter visually backtracks through the space looking for something to take the tablets with. It leaves Bruce with the kind of space that his peers, especially Tommy and the others from private school, would grab hold of with both hands. More than enough time to grab a few choice bottles and bolt, to avoid the conversation and the lecture that's waiting in the wings.

What does it say about Bruce that he doesn't take the out while he can get it?
Then again, even when he'd been out with them at all hours, buying clubs and drinking his weight in champagne, waking up brutally hungover to police clearing out the manor- he'd never really fit in. He was always strange. They drank whatever he would buy and went wherever he did, but they weren't shy about reminding him either. (You're a real freak Wayne, you know that?)]

Well no offense, but it doesn't look like 'neurotic' worked out all that well for you.

[He takes another bottle off the shelf and adds it to his bag instead. Alcohol can kill bacteria but it can also damage exposed tissue; vodka he can use to disinfect equipment.]

I mean, you're here aren't you?

I-- did?

[The words come, but slowly. Like he has to drag them up from somewhere far away, and Alice is really starting to piss him off. Her voice goes shrill and accusing, and there's a delicate hand pointing at Eliot. Quentin tries to tune her out, focusing on Eliot. Eliot, who looks-- it's hard, because there's a second face overlaying it. Like there's two of him, existing in the same space, but tired and worn down, the lines between his eyebrows too prominent.]

Julia. [It comes out as a gasp.] She's in the cabin. I-- I can't listen to her anymore. She keeps finding me, and I-- and I don't know what to do.

[ that's certainly interesting—and something he'd love to know more about. what kind of demon? how long had it pursued them? why? fortunately, kol knows how to read a room and doesn't ask that. he does make a mental note to see if he can ask later, once all emotions are less heightened.

kol purses his lips, eyebrows rising slightly. ] I think that's a rite of passage. [ he smiles as he jokes, ] If an ugly demon isn't trying to kill your family, have you really made it as a witch?

[ he may be a vampire, but he still counts as a witch, okay! he survived the rite of passage... or perhaps succumbed to that demon. ]

What?

[ that's news. no, julia never came. ] Julia isn't here. Remember? It's just us. We didn't-- Julia has magic again. Because you. And then I. [ he shakes his head. ] I haven't seen her. Not here. Are you remembering correctly?

Q, let's. Come home with me? Please.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard that before. [ it's a dismissive reply, the verbal equivalent of a shrug — peter's not entirely sure if bruce is trying to wind him up, if he's testing where the edges to peter's patience lay. he's never been particularly good-tempered, particularly as a teenager — he'd been easy to antagonise, easy to make fun of, and he'd never really tried rectifying it until after ben, after high school. when he thinks about it — really thinks about it — there had been a reason he and flash had butted heads so many times, and it wasn't always undeserved.

it'd been an odd moment of self-reflection.

even now, he's not what he'd particularly describe as social — his group of friends is more or less the same group from college, with the odd new face from a workplace here and there — the bugle, front line, horizon labs, but he's more comfortable with all of it. more comfortable with himself.

but as for his temper? it's still there, but more often makes itself known in his humour, in sarcastic retorts less well-meaning than some might assume; he more often lets it out on patrol. it's only the really personal things that get to him; stress and worry, that make him lash out. ] But do you mean here or Beacon? Because— [ he opens the tonic water and the aspirin. two, right? that was what most people took. normally he takes more, but normally that's when he's alone, or with mj, when he doesn't have to make up an excuse for 'oh, those are just guidelines, yes I'm aware that overdosing on painkillers is ironically a very painful way to die, no, please don't worry, I'm not—'.

he pulls a face. (chalky. gross.) ] —wrong place, wrong time. Let's pretend I'm passing on sage wisdom about not spending too much nighttime alone time in Central Park. [ beat. ] And the Invincible provides food. I'm a terrible cook. [ another pause; a glance at bruce, eyebrows knitting. ] —Listen, I don't think neurotic works out well for anyone. Is there a larger point you're trying to make?

It’s not always about power, Mr. Wayne. That’s a pretty black and white way of looking at it— and I always thought I tended to lack nuance... at least, that’s what I’ve been told.

[he offers a mild shrug. He knows better than to tense, he knows what has worked, or “worked” in the past. But there is an angry part of him that wouldn’t allow anything less than indifference. A total lack of deference. An insistence on his way being the right way— he had already compromised so much.

Let him have this.]

Whether or not someone should pay for any hypotheticals is irrelevant, I think.

[maybe it’s about time Bruce leave. Jason can tell when he’s being needled for answers. And he has to remind himself... he still doesn’t owe Bruce anything.

And if he was lucky, maybe he never would, in Beaconz]

What? I-- no. No, listen. I think-- I think it's like last time? I think she's. I think maybe I'm under a spell again? I don't think this is real, El. I don't think-- are you here?

[And Quentin stumbles forward, hand out and he brushes it over Eliot's cheek. There's stubble under his fingers and hair against the back of his hand, the scent of cinnamon and sugar all around them and he wants to gag.]

Maybe-- maybe this is all just in my head?

[ a spell? ] You mean like a dream? Like that dream where you were in your head? The asylum. You said you though Alice and I were together there. That place?

Q, that was. Ages ago. And. She's not-- [ he reaches forward and draws quentin in, steadies him, unlike the monster who would simply drag him along. ] We're dead, remember? In Beacon? She probably wouldn't even be able to do that here. Magic just feels so different. Remember?

[ his touch is light and careful. respectful. taking quentin's hands gently and holding them still. ]

I. You're really here too, right? Y- you didn't go? I didn't-- [ eliot swallows thickly, and mike pulls at his coat from the small of his back. 'do it. kill him. the water's right there. that's what you do best,' he laughs. ]

I-- yes?

[So confused, and Julia isn't helping, calling his name like he's a missing puppy, all smiles and soft and Quentin tries to wrap an arm around Eliot, tries to ignore what he's seeing in favor of what he's feeling. Eliot, the sound of his heart beating under under his ear and the rasp of the breath in his lungs. The vest under his face and Eliot's steadying hand on his back and he hugs him tightly.]

I remember? I remember, but Eliot-- Eliot, I can hear her? She's-- she's right there, in the cabin. And--and Alice. Alice is here, too. I saw her, I. I'm here. I'm here and maybe I'm not? Am I here? Is-- I think my brain is breaking.

[ he cradles quentin carefully, afraid he might break in other ways. ]

I. I'm not sure. I'm seeing things too. Hearing. Hearing things. Bad, very bad, not-good things. It's. I'm. I thought you look liked Mike? At some point. I don't. I can't even remember why. I.

[ eliot presses his lips to quentin's crown, too frightened to move away. ]

Something happened. Something must have happened. I think everyone is-- There's just. I think I feel like I understand what it's like to be a puppy? All the. Unsolicited touching. And prodding. And. And maybe there's that one kid that's an asshole trying to choke you but he's there. A lot. And he doesn't like you. He wants something bad to happen to you because he's angry he didn't get a puppy when he wanted one too.

[ there's a beat after as he thinks over what he just said. ] Maybe I'm breaking too.

Edited 2019-10-28 21:24 (UTC)

You feel like... a puppy?

[And Quentin is following, is trying to stay focused, listening to the words, the tone of them and feeling just Eliot's mouth move against the top of his head.]

I-- someone keeps choking me? I mean, isn't that just-- what you were saying?

[His heart is pounding, fear flooding through his limbs as he voice goes quiet, almost whispering.]

I'm not Mike. I'd never be Mike, I'm not the Beast. I'd never hurt you, I'd never, ever hurt you if you're Eliot.

Perhaps it is just a matter of mental fortitude. Some people seem to be having a much worse time of it than others.

( Javert, himself, is mostly unbothered. It isn't the hands or the visions that are wearing him down, it's the voices. It's the way that they are dredging up all of his insecurities, questions about himself that he's been trying to bury for months. He looks across at Kol, frowning as he considers their predicament, then asks, )

Are not seeing them now?

"We ain't heard about any-- sorcerers," the Sergeant says, looking around as of they might see them right now. All he sees are hands trying to dig themselves out of the dirt, quite possibly to drag bodies after them, who the fuck knows. "Would the Keeper person have warned us if there was somebody like that around? Or d'you think it might be the spirits." He hoped not. The Soldier really liked them. "Or, shit, that Keeper person herself?"

[It's hardly a lecture and that's for two reasons- the first that Bruce knows he has no business advising anyone on the subject of neurosis. He's been called paranoid more than once and knows that his habits and preferences certainly fall under that umbrella. But the second is that 'Bruce Wayne' isn't supposed to lecture at all. Bruce Wayne is supposed to be cavalier- he pokes fun at more serious personality types, he's flippant and doesn't think about the consequences of his actions. Bruce Wayne is supposed to be a spoiled, mildly annoying teenager that's more concerned with getting top shelf liquor than the big questions that determine their future.

This is precisely the reason that he makes a small performance of looking for a champagne flute, and smiles blithely when he hooks a stem through two fingers.]

A point? Not at all. I was just trying to make conversation.

But you know, maybe it's one of those signs from the universe I'm always hearing about. A little- [The flute waves carelessly in air.] change of pace. To keep things interesting.

[Wait him out Master B. Alfred's voice travels to him like a memory, but then that's everything Bruce has heard since these hallucinations started. There's nothing new and creative, only repetitions of conversations that have already happened, that can't be changed. Maybe there's something telling in that- that the things that haunt Bruce most are in the past. Things that can't be prepared for. Things that are part of him.

The snap-punch of Riku's fist slams the inside of Bruce's cheek against his jaw, tearing tissue and splitting his lip, flooding his mouth with the taste of blood. But the blow he lands is enough; Bruce has his opening, and he takes it.

His teeth grit, streaked with red, and he shoves, rolls. Dirt is dug up beneath their heels and behind his head, it's under his clothes and in his hair and Bruce doesn't stop for anything. Riku seems to falter immediately, a whole body recoil to finding himself on his back. His hand comes up between them and spasms, tries to maintain a few inches of space and with it a few inches of leverage. His fingers flex in the fabric at Bruce's throat, they slap against his collar bone. But Bruce keeps bearing forward, drives his knees into the soil over Riku's hips, low enough that he can't get momentum beneath his legs when he tries to swing, low enough that the socket is trapped in a half-rotation. Bruce turns his face and spits, clears the worst of the copper and jerks back around.

He expects the fight in Riku to accelerate, fueled by rage and adrenaline, but instead he watches his attention divide. It looks like his awareness is half inside the woods and before Bruce can wonder at the cause, about why Riku's punches have slowed, he screams Sora?!

It's a horrible sound.
He doesn't need to ask, to know what he's imagining.

His body starts to go taut, the moment before he'll inevitably begin to break free with renewed desperation and Bruce's relative safety will be moot. He reaches immediately for the smoke grenade inside the cuff of his shoe and takes a deep breath, holds it tight in his lungs. The detonates it. Bruce's fingers go to his waist again, something he's practiced, as he reaches for the cable fastened there. It means that he's left himself open out of necessity- because he can't effectively pin Riku to the dirt while he draws it free. He has to hold him down with the weight of his body alone, slow him by bending his knees and locking his feet around Riku's own as if he's riding a horse.]

Oh, yes, that sounds quite like the plague.

I really hope this doesn't last very much longer...

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Page 54 of 72

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

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An Open Invitation aka coraline is Tired TM

Daylight is a good <3

but his puppy dog eyes!!!

The end.

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i'll upload a black icon just for you!

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