open | brain heat meme

[cozen]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Nightmares, slumber parties, etc.
WHEN: Throughout Justinian
WHERE: Kirkwall and surrounding areas
NOTES: Ignore the first prompt if you're bothered by bugs. Also, while this is primarily to help people RP about their nightmares, feel free to use it for any kind of RP you want. (I.e., you have permission to set up a truth or dare game at the slumber party.) Talk about dreams OOC over here

This month, our heroes' sleep is getting more and more troubled. Here are some excuses to write about it.

I. SLUMBER PARTY: Mid-month, an infestation of hardy, prolific Antivan fleas requires everyone to avoid spending prolonged periods of time in their bedrooms while local alchemist Lloyd Meyers eradicates the bugs with his proprietary smoke bombs (and an equally proprietary flea bath for the Gallows' many pets). While the rooms air out for two or three nights post-treatment, bed rolls are available on the floor of the unstaffed dining hall. Sleeping outside in the courtyards is also an option, but a sudden squall of a thunderstorm will drive people inside on the second night.

Footnote: Characters who live in the city are welcome to join this slumber party anyway. Maybe they miss the ferry ashore, maybe they're afraid of tracking fleas into their own homes, maybe they already did track fleas into their homes and Lloyd is treating them too, etc.

II. ROOM SHARE: Does the thought of sleeping in the dining hall with all of your coworkers make you break out in hives? Have you missed the ferry on any other evening of the month? Lowtown has inns, and Riftwatch has a docks-side warehouse with a few side rooms outfitted as bedrooms. But there are only so many rooms available, so you might wind up sharing a room (or a bed) with a friend or whoever is nearby and desperate.

III. CAT NAP: A lack of sleep—whether it be from the nightmares, the workload, routine insomnia, or staying up too late playing Truth or Dare during the Antivan Flea Incident—might make a cat nap on a desk, in a reading nook, or over breakfast particularly appealing. And bad dreams don't need more than a few minutes to get rolling.

IV. CAMP OUT: Investigating reports of enemy scouts in the mountains, traveling along the roads to a neighboring city-state on a diplomatic errand, looking into reports of weird magic on the Wounded Coast, or heading north to provide some assistance to the war effort? All might require pitching a tent and bunking down for the night with your colleague, whether you like them or loathe them.

V. NORMAL NIGHT: If you’re already sharing a room or bed with someone, you don't need this post. But you can still use it for your nightmare threads.

VI. BETTER IDEA: Do whatever you want. Live your dreams.

Comments

[armd]

SLUMBER PARTY:

Look. A group sleeping situation isn't Abby's favourite, but it's not like she hasn't spent time before lumped in to sleep with other people. She knows the drill. Everybody else will most likely shove up against the edges of the hall to keep well away, so she drops her bed roll right in the middle, spreads it out. Claims a spot.

She tries to stay up that first night, as long as she can. It isn't easy. There have been a lot of shitty, sleepless nights this week, and for once, her mind isn't buzzing with energy. Abby is actually tired. Bone deep.

If you're awake and sitting close by she'll appeal, sleepily, for some entertainment. "... Know any jokes?"

But if you're unlucky enough to be residing next door when she finally falls into a fitful sleep, you'll get an earful all night of her grinding her teeth heavily while she dreams. Maybe you're even treated to Abby shooting awake with a sudden jolt and a wet gasp, sitting upright in the dark.

DOG NAP:

... The dog isn't actually there (he's off getting flea bombed much to his indignance), but the way Abby twitches in her sleep could be said to be dog-like. She's slumped over an open book in the library, and tense all over. She jolts every so often, but never hard enough to wake herself up.

On the other hand, she'll shake somebody awake if she catches them in the throes of something awful, reaching out to touch a shoulder, or forearm. "Hey." She knows the risk. Abby can take a few hits if she has to. "Wake up. You're dreaming."

HAD A BAD DAY:

What's a bad night sleep and a bout of terrible nightmares good for? Shouting at people for the slightest grievance. Maybe you've knocked into her on the way through the corridors, or dropped a bit of work onto her desk in the Forces workspace, or scored the last bread roll out from under her nose at dinner time.

Whatever it was, it certainly doesn't warrant the way Abby sets her jaw and snaps, "Oh, fuck you."

WILDCARD:

(Have at!)

slumber party

[indissection]

"Jokes?"

Sidony pauses, thoughtful for a moment, before she hums, an absent little noise.

"Many people think medicine is quite humourous."

Get it?

[armd]

"Wow," Abby says, yawning hugely, "Yikes. That's so bad."

Medical humor.

She searches for a moment and returns, "Why's a doctor always calm?" Her dad loved this one. "They have a lot of patients."

[indissection]

Unfortunately, that doesn't even inspire a chuckle out of Sidony - instead, her nose wrinkles and she shakes her head, leaning back.

"That was appalling, and incorrect. I have often been the opposite of calm."

But that is missing the point of the joke, and she does give Abby's leg a little nudge with her own, in camaraderie.

"Have this. 'You are very sick', said the doctor. 'Might I have a second opinion', asked the patient. 'Yes, you're also rather ugly'."

[armd]

"I'd love to see that." Sidony being the opposite of calm, that is... that'd be a sight. Abby nudges her right back, and the joke makes her laugh. She feels a little better. Hanging out with a friend doesn't cure how tired she is but at least Sidony can make her smile. That's a rare thing as of late.

"That'd be me if I were a doctor," she confesses, "My bedside manner is shit."

[indissection]

"It rather depends who exactly is wounded. I've been known to be quite the scold when it comes to my nearest and dearest." It means she is able to tell off the sorts of people that other people are less content to do, which makes her feel rather smug.

It's the mark of a healer, to be allowed to be so.

"Mine is hardly much better," she shakes her head, scoffing a little. "Some of the injuries people get are, frankly, ridiculous and they need to know."

[armd]

"Yeah?" ... Is Byerly that reckless? He has self-described as a coward to Abby more than once now. Odd.

But, "I know what you mean." Especially when people are being stupid. When it's some lump or bump or sprain that could have been avoided. "And remind me not to come to you the next time I fall off a horse."

naptime

[favoriteanalyst]

The library is usually where Mobius is, and that has not changed in the wake of...all this sleeplessness. He hasn't been taking up sleeping in the bunks lately, but with all the...everything else happening, well, he's especially not doing so. He'll avoid the sleepover, too, for the same reason he's temporarily abandoned his bed. Too many people in the same place, each afflicted with the same. damn. thing. Too much moving, crying, annoying, frustration, occasional screaming, lack of restful sleep.

So. Mobius has been in the habit of nodding off in odd places at stupid times, too, and the library is as good a place as any for anyone else to do the same in relative peace.

Abby's out, and he's content to let her stay that way because she needs it. So long as she doesn't drool heavily on the pages or anything. Until the twitching starts. It can't be restful, not with the way she's tight and tense, muscles bunched up. He leaves her to it for a bit; it'll either pass or she'll wake herself. But neither happens.

He takes a seat across from her. A little bit of safe distance, he thinks. And reaches out to gently shake her arm. He hates to wake anyone, but this is the part where it just won't help the body much. "Hey, you're okay. You're okay, open your eyes."

[armd]

The twitches are from all the running, the nightmare standard fare. She's had several different versions of it before now. The Gallows are being invaded by the infected and Riftwatch, none the wiser, are fighting back. Abby is sprinting down the dream, going flat out, but try as she might she can't make up the distance. She can't get there in time to warn them of the bite. It feels like she's dragging her legs through wet cement, arms churning uselessly at her sides.

Clickers gurgle and shriek, the sound guttural and cut suddenly with familiar screaming–

She wakes up when Mobius touches her, eyes open but glassily unfocused, only for seconds. Then she surges violently upward, and sends the book underneath of her flying off the desk. It clatters to the ground, and makes her realise where she is.

Library. Right. She was reading. "Fuck."

She sinks back into her chair with a big sigh, pressing over her heart with one palm. Wow, okay. She's so glad Mobius got to see that happen. She peeks one eye open at him and huffs, "Sorry."

[favoriteanalyst]

It's no real surprise that Abby jolts when she's awake enough to do so. There is reason he didn't sidle up beside her or shake a shoulder to rouse her from behind. And his reflexes are good even in his age, but under these conditions, someone might have gotten hurt.

So he just watches with a slow blink, smiles at her when she seems to calm. "I think I'm the sorry one. Maybe I should've left you to it?"

Nightmares are hell on the psyche, but you're still actually getting sleep, even if it's really not all that restful. Some would rather suffer that.

[armd]

"Nah." She's shaking it off now, and sits up straight, rubbing her neck. Ugh, she's so stiff... "I'd rather wake up."

The lack of sleep is unpleasant but the nightmares are worse. He got her up right before it twisted into something much nastier too, because Abby's just placed that scream right at the end of it: Lev's, sharp and panicked.

Yuck.

But, "I'm so fucking tired." Her voice cracks a little at the end of the sentence, her face dropping into her palms.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Join the club," he says with an exhausted type of amusement. "I keep a blanket at my desk just in case. It's not any better here than anywhere else, but at least it's generally quiet."

He hums and leans a cheek in propped hand. "Time for a terrible question: want to talk about it?" Terrible and potentially rhetorical. He's closer to Ellie than Abby, that much has been made clear if it wasn't already apparent, so he would hardly be offended if she said 'fuck no'. It's not like he particularly wants to talk about any of his, even the ones that don't immediately out his history.

[armd]

For a moment Abby really thinks she's about to cry. It almost gets her, her eyes burning, blurring, but she breathes in steadily and manages to hold it back. She waits until she's certain she's not going to lose it before lowering her hands again.

Clearing her throat, she concedes, "I guess. It's not exciting."

She's assuming he understands a bit about their world, if he's spoken to Ellie. "I keep dreaming the infected followed me here through a rift, and attack the Gallows, but none of you know you can't let them bite you."

Sometimes nobody wakes her up and she has to watch them all writhe painfully on the ground as they turn, paralyzed by grief, "And I never get there in time to warn anybody."

... Gotta be some symbolism there, right? She sighs, and knuckles the space between her brows. "It's so stupid."

so you had a bad day.mp3

[heorte]

That whiplash of a response doesn't bring out a reaction in kind. Ellis' hands lift, roll held loosely, before it's surrendered back to the wicker basket on the table.

No offense meant.

Concern pinches at his brow, but anger doesn't follow. It had been a thoughtless, absent motion, grabbing what was left on the table. If Abby wants it, then it costs Ellis nothing to give it back to her.

[armd]

Abby glares at him steadily until he releases the roll, and then she abruptly realises that she's overreacting. She's even angrier that Ellis didn't just tell her to fuck off, it's not like she wouldn't have deserved it, but she sucks in a breath and holds it, and sighs through her teeth.

Calm down.

"Sorry." She takes the roll, and tears it in half. The bigger bit can go on Ellis' plate as a peace offering.

[heorte]

Even the offering is unnecessary, really.

Ellis is fairly certain none of her anger is about him. He's shaking his head over it, dismissing the apology as it comes. Not necessary.

"Are you alright?"

Maybe an unnecessary question. Nearly everyone is on edge, and the reason why is easy to discern. The disarray of the dining hall illustrates it nicely, with bedrolls stacked along the walls while the tables are set out again. They're all a little too aware of each other's sleeping habits these days.

[armd]

"No," she sighs, and knuckles between her eyes with her free hand. She's been nursing a headache all day but that's no excuse for telling Ellis where to go. She doesn't even want the bread roll half now that she's got it, not really. "Can't sleep. Too tired. You know the drill."

Everybody does. The entirety of Riftwatch feels like it's hanging on by a thread right now. "You're the first person I've shouted at today, though."

And it's dinner time, so technically she's doing very well.

how did i lose this

[heorte]

"You needn't think on it."

Yelling at him. Ellis is taking it in stride, so much so that it might as well not have happened.

"I know it's been trying. The lack of sleep."

And Abby is young. Ellis is reminded of that now more than ever, looking at her face across the table. How many times has she had to put up with something like this? What little he knows of her indicates some familiarity with hardship, but this sort of ongoing mess of circumstances—

It's a lot to bear up under. Ellis knows that.

i buried it in the backyard

[armd]

She will think on it though, no matter how much he tries to play it off. Surely that's natural after shouting down a friend over something as innocuous as a bread roll, but Abby will keep that lingering guilt to herself.

She shrugs, and makes herself start to eat it. Better, after all the trouble she went through to get it. "... It hasn't been this bad in ages."

Kinda reminds her of what it was like right after her dad died? Most of the nightmares have been about him, and she's as sleepless as she was then. She shrugs a shoulder, and says, thickly (around the bread, not because her throat aches suddenly), "Dunno how much more I can take."

dog nap.

[elegiaque]

Poor sleep and poorer dreams are nothing new or unusual to Gwenaëlle, whose sleeping habits have backslid badly since her separation from Thranduil; it's unlikely she's had a particularly good night's sleep in more than a full year. Nightmares and even night terrors have been a staple of her life since childhood, only the scenery changing, the fears.

(The memories.)

So it's insult to injury, frankly, for this plague of dreams to catch her as well—for her to be sleepless enough to fall asleep someplace she shouldn't, would strongly prefer not to have done. It will be, when she realises that it's happened, infuriating—

but that's not the first thing that happens. She's all angles and no chill, so when she's jostled awake the first thing that happens is that she lashes backwards with an elbow into Abby's face.

[armd]

On a better day Abby might have caught that arm before it had a chance to connect at all, but she's been having a shit one for what feels like at least a week, now. Her reflexes are shot. The elbow connects with her mouth and jaw, and she bites her lip on impact even as she jerks backward, away from the painful radius of Gwenaëlle's limbs.

Swears, bitterly. Her hands jerk upward to check her face, fingers probing a split lip. They come away very bloody; wow, what a great fucking idea that was.

(Adds a little insult to injury that Gwen would be the one to do it.)

"Nice," she says, thickly, feeling sorry for herself. It feels very stupid to add, "You okay?"

The aim of the whole thing had been to save her from the nightmare, though.

[elegiaque]

“What sort of mind-numbingly stupid question is that,” is actually sort of impressively articulate for someone coming unexpectedly out of a disturbed sleep, but given that it's Gwenaëlle — that might just sort of be something that her mouth does, without requiring all that much input from higher function. There's probably somewhere on her body you can hit with a reflex hammer and get an automatic cunt.

(It's literally anywhere if you hit her with a hammer, what the fuck.)

[armd]

"Oh fuck off," she replies, without any heat. She's got her sleeve wadded up against her mouth to catch the drips, "Can I sit?"

This is stupid. Her and Gwen avoiding each other and not saying anything after what happened in Antiva is fucking stupid and Abby doesn't want to do it any more. She may as well find out whether or not they're still friends, right here, right now. After she finds out, she can put the whole thing to rest. "Move over."

She's sitting regardless of the answer, they're doing this.

[elegiaque]

With the disgruntled expression of a cat still pissed off someone saw it fall, Gwenaëlle says, “Apparently you can,” with an eyebrow raised, edged, and she's slight enough that it really doesn't matter whether or not she moves over.

She does not.

One doesn't have the kind of mouth Gwenaëlle Baudin has become known for through the Inquisition and Riftwatch and not grow accustomed to the idea of being a fairly alienating personality; it hasn't occurred to her, at any point including this one, to wonder whether or not they're friends. Having assumed that bridge burned in Antiva, it isn't immediately obvious to her what's happening now, other than the unpleasant experience of having someone witness something she'd prefer on the whole for them not to have.

It leaves her prickly and off-balance, and any emotion can be anger if you try hard enough.

[armd]

Oh boy, what a great angle to be coming at this from. Abby raises an eyebrow but she doesn't say anything else, she simply lowers herself to sit beside Gwenaëlle, and stretches out her legs. To add to the list of current discomforts: now, her mouth hurts. There's a dull aching pulse from the spot where she bit it.

She sighs, and keeps blotting at it.

"... You've got a pretty good arm," she grumbles, and sighs, and says, "Have you been avoiding me?"

It'd be fair enough if she had been. Abby has been avoiding her, so.