thelongnow_logs | (no subject)

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WHO: The Shifter & You. Yes, you.
WHEN: An ambiguous time that feels like a few hours but will, in fact, be the 24-ish hours 'til plot's end.
WHERE: [See NOTES]
WHAT: The house chases The Shifter.
WARNINGS: Language, violence, disturbing images, etc.

NOTES: Everyone in the house (including Castiel and Annie) has perhaps fallen asleep. The dream resembles reality, or vice-versa. You're not entirely sure. Wounds sustained in whatever this is will hurt and act as real wounds; weapons used will work properly, etc. People can form one large group or multiple smaller groups.

You will be encountering nightmares. These will be of your own devising and not The Shifter's direct creation, so please play them out within your group(s) and try to balance and mix multiple peoples' nightmares together (ie Owen might appear alongside Alastair in an empty school hallway, or you might find yourselves in Hell alongside Michael with key!Dawn trying to help you out). Please recall there are other monsters if you care to use them.

The Shifter will enter when he is found (yes, he will be found).. but that means that it's up to the players to get through at least one round of nightmares. A tip: work together! Please also be mindful of other peoples' activity and either break into groups based on that OR be patient. No one should be left out. If you break into groups, every group will get a Shifter and it will be up to you guys to figure out which is The Shifter.

tl;dr Work together, have fun, create your own nightmares and I'll torment you near the end with The Shifter.

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"HEY-" Sam shouted as he came around the corner.

He had been on his way to meet everyone in the common room when this began. The normally well lit halls were dark, a dirty bulb flickering here and there. It was silent, quieter than it should have been with the alarm raised, and there was something sluggish in the air. Like that feeling you got when you were in a dream.

In fact, that's exactly what it felt like. And then it hit him. This was a dream. Whatever was behind all of this must have caught wind of their plan and attacked before the house could congregate, leaving them scattered, undisciplined, and unarmed.

But here they were all the same.

Realizing what was going on, he launched into action, rushing to close the space between him, the shifter, and the wounded Leo. Without thinking, he raised his weapon (the fire poker from his room) and swung, hoping to beat the creature away from Leopold before it killed him.

The shadow didn't turn around, but it was looking at Sam all the same. It waited for him to swing the fire poker, making no move to stop him.

The poker connected, and the figure fell sideways, clutching its side. "You think you can defeat me with that?" its voice whispered in Sam's head. "Are you even trying to defeat the real me?"

A figure identical to the one in front of Sam melted out of the shadows behind him. "Now there are two. But which is real?"

The sound of a gunshot rang out. Suddenly, Rose Tyler was standing off to the side of Sam and Leopold, feet planted, knees bent, Boswell aimed at the second shadow.

Well, this was nice. She wasn't dead, after all. The real question, though, was whether or not she'd woken up.

The blonde looked toward Sam, but darted instead to Leopold, who seemed to need her more. Rose dropped to her knees by the Duke. She swallowed hard, trying not to react poorly to the amount of blood. The last thing Leo needed was someone screaming over his obviously awful wounds.

"Can't leave ya alone for a second, can I?"

Edited 2010-07-29 02:26 (UTC)

"Wh..." The question died in mid air as the thing split into two identical halves. He glanced from the twins, to his weapon, then to Leopold, and finally back to the shifters.

"Shut up." Delivered with as much menace as possible - swinging at the second shifter's head before Rose's gun was fired.

It was a lucky thing they hadn't gone after the same shape, or it would be Sam on the other end of that bullet.

The second shadow stumbled back when Rose shot it and fell to the ground. The first looked up at Sam.

"Am I dead? Or are you only dreaming?" Then Sam hit it with the poker and it, too, crumpled.

"I don' think tha' was it," Rose frowned, looking up at Sam. Her insides were unable to settle. Even after both shadows were erased, nothing felt particularly different. There was still an eerie thickness in the air, and she didn't feel safe. Most importantly, the Duke was hurt.

"Please tell me ya still 'ave tha' Medical key."

"I think so." He replied, searching through his pockets for the key. He found it and held it up for her to see.

Sam agreed that this probably wasn't the end of things. It was never so easy as a solid smack or shot in the head. "Those things were probably decoys. It can multiply. I'm guessing as much as it wants."

It should have been strange for Rose to have shown up out of nowhere, but this was a dream, and that kind of logic didn't apply. Just like the crumpled bodies of the shifter had crumbled into black ash before dissipating into the air.

"Nice shot, by the way."

Rose allowed herself a slight amount of relief. Decoys or not, the shadows were gone for the moment. They could concentrate on Leopold.

"Thanks," the girl replied, pulling herself to her feet. Rose's face changed as she remembered why she'd been looking for Sam in the first place. She reached behind her, finding the Enfield revolver locked in her belt loops by its barrel. It surprised Rose that it hadn't been dropped; she wasn't complaining, though. "'ere." The blonde held out the weapon with a small smile. "As promised."

There was no way she'd give away the shotgun, which meant that Rose's arsenal was now emptied. She moved to be near Leopold again, crouching back down, but looking at the ceiling. She definitely wasn't awake yet. The space above her seemed ambiguous, and entirely unlike where she'd fallen from.

Sam gave his own thanks and took the revolver, checking to see if it was loaded and how many shots he had. The answer was yes, and six, so he'd have to make every shot count.

He, too, knelt down beside Leopold to take a look at the damage. His guts didn't seem to be spilling out, so there was hope, but they'd have to move him fast or he could bleed out.

The atmosphere was dark and heavy, carrying the hyper-realism one might expect in a horror film. It was completely different from Rose', of course, but that was because of the dream's origin. And in this case, it was between Sam and Leo. Naturally, the surreal forests and invading robots were replaced with old world class and slinking demons.

Somewhere in the distance, they could smell the sour scent of fire. Curls of smoke began to pour down the walls, defying gravity as they plumed downwards and crawled across the floor.

Sam flinched, feeling something wet drop on his face. He brushed it off, then examined his hand -now red- and reeled back. A choked gasp echoed through the corridor and as he looked up, another drop or two fell on the trio.

Above them, a young woman was pinned to the ceiling. Her pale eyes wide with terror as she looked down, pleading for help. Blood dripped from the gaping wound on her abdomen, white nightdress soaking with the stuff.

"Jess!" He choked out.

He'd seen this before. Too many times.

She tried to speak, a sick, wet, gurgle escaping her lips.

"JESS!"

And then it was a split second before the fire they could smell erupted from her body, savagely devouring the ceiling and walls around them.

Leopold watched the tableau unfolding in front of him with an odd detachment, as though the proceedings have nothing to do with him at all. The appearance of a strange man, unknown to him, but clearly familiar to Rose, who appeared shortly afterwards. The duel with the strange dream-creature. Or creatures. Everything is very confusing. He thinks Rose spoke to him at some point, but he’s not certain.

When she comes to crouch near him, he tries to smile for her. “Must we continue to meet under such…unpleasant circumstances, Miss Tyler?”

Her face is out of focus for some reason, but he thinks she smiles at him. He blinks to clear his vision, then tries to sit up. “Stomach wounds are messy,” he tells her, voice faltering as he gives up on the attempt. It just hurts too much. “There’s nothing to be done for it.”

He knows she is from a time far from his own, and his pride needs an answer to a question these dreams have raised in his mind. “I wonder if you might satisfy my curiosity on one point, my dear?” The brilliant purple of her jacket and gold of her hair are all he can make out, so he continues while he still has strength to speak. “Do you know what an elevator is?”

Rose didn't notice the smoke or smell of fire. She was busy concentrating on Leopold. As the Duke foolishly attempted to sit up, speak, and generally hurt himself, the blonde tried to coax him back into relaxation. Her fingers gently brushed through his hair, and she smiled down at Leo. Rose wished her kind gestures could mask the evil around them. The injured gentleman deserved better. "Yes, Duke, I know wha-"

She hesitated when something dripped into her hair. Suspecting a roof leak, Rose looked up. She immediately locked eyes with the horrific woman on the ceiling. Releasing a shrill gasp, Rose could practically feel Sam's psyche burrowing into her own. Jess?

There wasn't a moment for questioning, for thought. Rose didn't even look at the Winchester before the trio was locked in a cage of flame. The entire world was orange, straining Rose's eyes, ears, and lungs. She would have cried out Sam's name, but the immense heat choked the letters from her throat. The girl looked in every direction, and saw nothing but death. She panicked. An attempted scream became a fury of coughs.

Fearing the most for Leopold, Rose leaned forward. She put her arms around the Duke, attempting to shield him from the burning ceiling.

The flames rolled across the wallpaper and carpet, clawing at anything it touched. And unlike real fire (though this certainly felt real), the dream fire moved both fast and slow. It's aggression was like lightening, but the plumes of red and orange crawled along like a tired animal. Sam stayed in his place, eyes transfixed on the bits of Jess that were still visible through the fire and smoke. If it weren't for Rose moving to protect Leopold, he could have stayed there forever.

"Move!" He yelled over the roar, snapping back to attention and signaling for Rose to get the hell out of the way. In normal life, Sam could probably pick him up, or at least drag Leopold to safety. But the rules weren't quite set right now, and Sam somehow managed to pull the injured man into his arms. The floor bowed as they ran towards the infirmary, rippling and unsteady. The flames, too, became warped - turning black and chasing after the trio.

Only they had ceased to be flames. They had become trails of black, curling, smoke. Demons. And they were right behind them.

Leopold only had time for a pained smile at Rose’s answer before the world exploded in flames. In his prone position, he could not help but stare up at the terrified woman pinned to the ceiling. Someone else’s nightmare, he was sure of it, but completely horrifying nonetheless. The cloying scents of smoke and blood assaulted him as he tried to breathe. It was suddenly very difficult to see or move or speak.

He knew that struggling to stand might do more damage than the bullet already had, but staying here would mean certain death. He was just summoning up the courage and proper words to tell his two companions to leave him and run when Sam scooped him up, none too gently. Surrounded by heat and smoke, Leopold’s final thought before he blacked out was nevertheless that he had not failed after all.

Sam didn't notice Leopold passing out as they ran, at this point he was concentrating too hard on just putting one foot in front of the other. Leo was a big guy, and heavy, and bleeding, and they were being chased by demons. Awesome. Why couldn't he ever have nice dreams?

Probably because nice things never happened to him when he was awake, either.

They finally rounded the corner and Sam whipped around. the Med Ward was right ahead of them, but his hands were full.

"Rose, The key is in my pocket, hurry!" He pleaded, looking over his shoulder in case the shadows caught up.

"We don't have much time."

Rose was used to running. She and The Doctor had run from just about every nasty thing in the universe. The monsters that tended to pursue her, though- that was the stuff she could never get used to. The shadows skittered across the walls, oozed about the floor, and consumed the hallway behind them. Leopold's blood was streaked across her chest. She didn't dare look back.

Rose had never been that fast, and though she'd started out ahead, Sam managed to beat her to the Infirmary. Her feet pounded around the corner. She knew she'd have to get the key before even asked. The Boswell was unceremoniously thrown to the ground. "Wha' pocket??" Rose demanded. Not waiting for an answer, she fished roughly through Sam's clothes.

The girl's hands shook so violently that she almost dropped the precious thing when finding it. As she slammed the key into the Infirmary door, Rose's entire body went with. The blonde tumbled into the Medical Ward. "Come on!" she cried, pulling the shotgun to her.

Sam Winchester had a LOT of explaining to do.

He was through the door in an instant, letting Rose close and lock it as he laid Leo down on the closest bed.

"Crap-"

There was a lot of blood. but first thing's first. Sam looked around to room to see if there was anything at all useful to keep the demons away, and to his surprise, there was. He didn't know where it came from, but he found a few jumbo size permanent markers while rifling through a drawer and ran back to the door - popping the cap off one and scribbling across the floor.

"Rose, I need you to get, uh- Some warm water, and bandages... Try to stop the bleeding, okay?" He instructed as he worked, drawing an intricate symbol across the tiles. He didn't have any salt, but a Devil's Trap (http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/images/2/2a/Devil%27s_Trap.jpg) would work just as well.

Edited 2010-07-30 04:26 (UTC)

When Leopold came to, he wasn’t exactly sure what had pulled him back to consciousness. It might have been the relative quiet of the room, or the sudden jolt of being put onto the bed, or the frantic conversation of his companions. The reason why ceased to matter shortly, though, as the seering agony in his stomach eclipsed every other sensation in his world. A groan escaped him in spite of all his efforts to stay silent.

He bit his lip hard and occupied himself with trying to remember if he had ever been in this much pain before. No, he decided, nothing had ever hurt this badly. He focused on just trying to breathe, slow, shallow breaths that jarred the wound as little as possible, and tried to make out what his friends were up to.

Rose was out of his line of sight, but his erstwhile rescuer seems to be engaged in drawing some sort of pentagram. Leopold could not see what possible benefit this might have, but objecting to anything this man, whose name he does not even know, might do is the farthest thing from his mind right then.

Using every ounce of concentration he could muster, he lifted his hands and started to fumble at the buttons on his shirt and waistcoat.

Rose tipped a cot up against the door while Sam moved the Duke. The barricade probably wouldn't hold anything back, but it at least made her feel like they were trying. "Nurse Sammy returns," she commented, though there was no humor in the Companion's voice.

She rushed to search for what Sam needed. Some wrappings that resembled gauze, as well as a few more modern bandages, were quickly located on a shelf. Rose also grabbed an old brown towel. Clean water, however, was proving to be difficult. Her boots tracked blood and ash across the white carpet as she hunted.

It was then that she saw Sam. Arms full of supplies, Rose looked down at the boy and his artwork. Her face expressed a whole list of things, but she probably appeared somewhere in the realm of lost. "What the 'eck are ya doin'?"

Before the Winchester could offer any answer, Rose spotted Leopold, amazingly conscious and yet again acting like a twit. "An' you," she scolded in his direction, "stay down." Maddening. In stereo.

Leopold did as Rose ordered, dropping his arms to his sides and letting his head fall back. Even those small movements jarred painfully. He stared up at Rose, touched by her earnest helpfulness even if she was scolding him. “There is nothing for it, truly. I have seen wounds like this before--”

He stopped speaking as the reality of what he was telling her washed over him. He had seen bullet wounds like this during his time in the navy, and never seen a man who walked away after one. Leopold sucks in another shallow breath. “Too difficult to clean,” he finished quietly, sounding utterly defeated.

The second Sam finished his Devil's Trap, he was up and next to Rose - wanting to get a look at the damage for himself. He would have to explain the drawing later, there just wasn't enough time right now.

As this was the stuff of dreams, a tray full of equipment was standing near by, but as he dragged it over, the hunter could see it wasn't what you'd normally find in a doctor's office. The tray held tweezers and clamps in all shapes and sizes, as well a scissors, needles, and stitching floss. Beside it all sat an amber bottle of whiskey.

It might not seem like it, but this was a good thing.

"You're going to be alright." Sam promised, unbuttoning Leopold's shirt as quickly as possible.

And all things considered, he was lucky. The hole was small. This must have come from a handgun, too, judging from the minimal mess it left behind. Had it been a rifle or shotgun this would be a very different scene.

Taking a breath to relax, Sam grabbed the whiskey first and unscrewed the top, circling around to help his patient take a drink.

"This is gonna hurt."

Leopold blinked up at the man suddenly looming over him and tried to compose himself. “I am not used to finding myself in the debt of men whose names I do not know,” he whispered. “You have already done a great deal more for me than many would have, you and Rose, and you seem prepared to do more.”

Pausing to take a breath, Leopold grimaced at the pain even that small movement caused, not at all looking forward to the surgery to come. He privately did not believe that he was going to be all right at all, but he kept his doubts to himself. At times like these, he wished he believed in God.

He lifted his head as much as he could when Sam held the bottle to his lips, gulping the liquid gratefully. He coughed as it burned his throat, but most of it did go down, dulling the pain a little. “I cannot fathom how you Americans drink that stuff,” he spluttered, trying for a little levity.

"You get used to it," He answered with a half laugh. "And, my name is Sam."

Sam pulled back the whiskey and poured it over the wound. Under normal circumstances he would have used a proper antiseptics, but this was what the dream provided, so it was what he used.

Moving quickly, he picked up a pair of long-nosed tweezers and removed the bullet, the small lead ball making a familiar tink! as it hit the aluminum trey. After that, he used one of the bandages Rose had found to sop up the gush of blood before threading a needle and making five neat stitches.

"It was shallow." He murmured, cutting the last stitch and setting the needle down. "You're going to be fine."

“Sam,” Leopold repeated, looking the other man in the eye. “I’ll thank you to do this quickly.”

He knew what would be coming next, that his second experience with whiskey would be far less pleasant than the first, and if his hand gripped Rose’s before the alcohol met his wound, well, perhaps some things were forgivable under the circumstances.

It hurt exactly as much as he had expected it to, and only by clamping his jaw shut by main force could he keep from crying out. The sting had hardly passed when Sam put the bottle down and reached for something just out of Leopold’s view. He could feel it shortly, though, but the bullet was found quickly with a minimum of digging, for which Leopold felt intensely grateful.

He knew that the wound could not remain open, knew that there would be a needle involved in the proceedings at some point, but this one felt red hot every time it entered his flesh. He listened to Sam’s reassurances, but the man seemed to be speaking from very far away.

Leopold took a firm grip on the shreds of consciousness remaining in the pain- and alcohol-induced haze that was quickly suffusing his brain. “Thank you,” he breathed. “Both of you, thank you.”

"We've got to stick together." Sam replied, taking the whiskey again and taking a sip for himself before offering it to Leopold.

"Besides, you'd do the same for me."

To be honest, he was glad for the calm moment of refuge the Med Ward provided. Even if it had it's own traumas. And this poor guy laying here... Sam could only hope his injuries would be gone when they all woke up.

"I don't think I ever caught your name."

Admittedly, Rose was only half-concentrating on the proceedings in front of her. As she held Leopold's hand, her eyes were mostly transfixed on the door. She fully expected company to come breaking in at any moment. Plus, blood made her a bit queasy, AND she was actively resisting the urge to bombard Sam with questions. Now just wasn't the time...

"'is name is Leopold. Duke of Albany," she explained, not wanting the man to strain himself further. Her thumb ran soothingly across the top of Leo's fingers. Smiling, she added, "an''e's very smart, an' very charmin'." Rose lowered her voice and leaned in so that only Sam could hear. "'e's from a differen' time. Late 1800's, I'd say. There's a couple o' these blokes. Commodore Norrington is from th' 18th century 'imself."

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THREADJACK.

O HAI

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