faderift | open | brain heat meme

Entry tags:

open | brain heat meme

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.

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I. SLUMBER PARTY:

Ellie's been fighting it. The first night she managed to stay awake. Managed to get through it. She's taken cat naps at her desk, because her normal haunts (the stable hayloft, the Aerie) are being flea-bombed, and are all being overrun by well-meaning alchemists.

But nothing would be more embarrassing that having a good fucking scream on the floor in front of all of her coworkers. She's already on-edge enough.

So she tries to find a corner, tries to read a book. But eventually the candles gutter out, and the book ends up resting against her cheek.

And then the nightmares begin again.

It's subtle at first. Twitches, tight breathing. Small gasps and twisted expressions. A cold sweat breaking out over her skin. She shivers, first, curling around the old wound in her stomach, and then the sounds of the thunderstorm start to seep in.

The hiss of rain, the scent of fires. The salt of sea air.

And then a thundercrack hits hard enough to bring her from the nightmares, exploding like a gunshot across her skull.

Ellie wakes up with a scream. Loud, harsh, desperate, breaking and punching holes in her voice with the violence of it. It leaves her breathless and in a cold sweat, eyes wide open, still seeing something that isn't there, fingers clawed like a cornered animal.

Later, she'll be mortified. For now, she's just trying to survive the next ten seconds.

III. CAT NAP:

Maybe it's in the library, maybe it's up in a stairwell where she hopes she won't disturb anybody. Maybe it's one of the storage rooms, where she's tucked herself into a corner where she won't accidentally break anything. Maybe it's at her desk in Scouting, where she's settled her forehead down for just one moment to rest her eyes.

It's not a scream this time. Instead she's crying in her sleep, exhaustion catching up with her, the panic finding no more tinder to catch.

Ellie fights herself awake to stare at nothing, her eyes open, tears tracking down her cheeks. Every catching breath is as quiet as she can make it, like she's hoping no one notices. Like she's hoping she can disappear.

She takes rabbit-fast breaths, unable to hold them long enough to let Blue take her out of sight, to safety.

Wildcard: Ouch

It's probably not intentional. Everyone is on edge. Everyone is hurting. No one is sleeping well, and that's all it takes for one misstep. Tempers are short and desperation makes monsters.

Wherever it happens, it happens. Maybe it's a bumped shoulder in the hallway, maybe it's a startling corner taken too fast. Maybe someone approached just a little too quietly from behind.

But when Ellie lashes out this time, it's not so harmless.

Though she's small, she knows how to make it hurt, and she's so used to being hunted. So used to hesitation meaning death.

Ellie responds to being startled with a closed fist, a sharp punch that she pulls back on at the last moment, but only enough to prevent serious injury.

It's still enough to hurt.

Best to take it, though- self-defense may trigger worse before she fully pulls herself together.

Abby, having taken the corner too fast for some (apparently), goes oof in response to being punched in the solar plexus. Ellie is so lucky she doesn't respond the way she normally would. She's been dragging herself about the Gallows today, dull-edged and listing impressively; in her exhausted state she grasps for her attacker's wrist too late-

misses, her fingers closing uselessly around nothing, jesus- "What the fuck," she says, her voice catching.

Oh. It's Ellie staring back at her, wild eyed. Abby stares right back. She... thinks it was a mistake but she still says, "Watch it," gruffly. "Thought we had a truce."

I. SLUMBER PARTY

[ Yseult has no desire to participate in a slumber party. But she returns late to the Gallows, the last ferry is already gone by the time she's learned of the flea situation, and a cursory search finds her rooms being smoked and her preferred alternative sleeping locations already occupied. And, most importantly, Darras has already set up in the makeshift dining hall barracks.

So when she starts awake in the middle of the night for the third time and carefully extricates herself from beside him, it's to the kitchen at the back of the dining hall she goes. She lights a candle and then a stove, searching through the cabinets for tea with the quiet efficiency of a thief. Once she's found a packet of leaves and has a pot of water on the burner, she takes a seat at the long work table, head slumped into hands, and waits. ]

III. CAT NAP

[ On the other hand, Yseult has always been a cat napper. She just doesn't usually get caught at it, rarely napping outside her suite and adept at sensing approach just in time to look awake. She's failing at it now, which should probably be a harbinger of the sleep deprivation apocalypse. Whether it's in a quiet corner of the library, at her desk at the front of the Scouting workroom, tipped back in her chair in the dining hall between meal times, or beneath a tree in the Gallows garden with a report in her hand, she's a few seconds slower to wake than usual, just long enough to get spotted as she jerks awake and rapidly transforms expression and posture to appear like she's been alert and hard at work all along. ]

VI. WILDCARD

Hit me.

i. slumber party - adjacent.

There is a place for John in the dining hall, a camp in a far corner where he and Flint have spread out their sleeping rolls. It is not dissimilar to their arrangements when last most of Riftwatch was obliged to share sleeping space in the Donarks in both the laying out of their bedding and the humidity and the annoyance of nearly all of Riftwatch being less quiet than they think they are while others are trying to sleep.

The operative word: trying.

At a point, John has given up on the idea of a full night's sleep. Woken again, whether by his own dreams or someone else's conversation or the crack of thunder overhead, he has levered himself up from his sleeping mat. The door is open into the dark of the courtyard, where rain is coming down in sheets. The overhang is just enough to shelter the landing and the first few steps, where John settles himself to wait until he has worked his way around to resigning himself to attempting another restless hour of sleep inside the dining hall.

There's room on the landing, for any others fleeing the close quarters.

iii. cat nap.

This is not the first time in John's life where a good night's sleep has become an elusive thing, though normally there is some concrete cause to assign blame.

A week of squalls. Pulling a poor watch assignment. Sharing a ship's hold with noisy companions.

The doldrums.

But there is no particular reasons for this, and so John has run himself through a number of fixes, including but not limited to—

Brief, snatched stretches of sleep, minutes at a time, during the course of the day to tide him over. Some occurring in the relative privacy of his office, but others in the shaded bench in the Gallows courtyard or leaned in a corner of the ferry or even, very rarely, at a table on the balcony of any of his favored taverns.

He comes awake quickly, practiced at jolting awake under the pressure of scrutiny, but it's more difficult to go from drowsing to fully alert when what lies behind all of this are nights of poor, sparse sleep.

But still, the polite thing is probably not to mention being caught drowsing, yes?

wild card.

Don't let your dreams be dreams.

Edited 2022-06-21 06:02 (UTC)

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!)

For a second the two of them stare at each other, nightmares and reality warring before Ellie remembers that they aren't trying to kill each other anymore.

It's hard, when the subject of so many of her bad dreams is right there in front of her. She shudders, physically shaking off the adrenaline, and draws a deep breath. Fear tastes so fucking awful.

"You're the one who fucking snuck up on me," she mutters, but it's without fangs. It's kind of hard to pretend the high ground when she's the one who panicked and tried to punch Abby's dinner out of her.

Come to think of it. Ellie gives a hiss and shakes her hand, irrationally pissed off about how bad that stung.

"What are your abs made out of?" she mutters. "Rocks?"

"Enough for a second cup?" comes a voice out of the dark.

John has grown very nimble on his crutch, maneuvering quietly even by the meager light cast by the candle.

No, he cannot sleep either. He has left Flint to uneasy sleep in the dining hall, avoided the temptation to put his crutch down on any of their snoring compatriots, all to walk himself into the kitchen in hopes of perhaps the same thing Yseult has already secured.

Not that John has ever been much for tea. But these are desperate times, after all.

"Jokes?"

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

"Many people think medicine is quite humourous."

Get it?

ii. room share.

There's no charge for the narrow little room over the dockside warehouse. Geordie Alois has a long-standing enthusiasm for Riftwatch, enough so that he seems thrilled to be housing its' agents beneath his roof.

There is hardly enough room in this space to turn without knocking a knee against the frame of the cot or an elbow into the shelving jutting out from the wall. This is likely a space meant for storage; the cots have been crammed in, leaving a strip of walking room, but traces of dust and cobweb have been left behind.

It'll have to do.

Kneeling on the cot farthest inward, Derrica cracks open the slats of the window.

"Do you think you'll be able to sleep?" she asks, propping the latch to keep the slats from sliding closed.

It's not meant to be a prying question. Yes, there is the obvious implication: no one has been sleeping very well. But right now, the biggest hurdle may very well be these rickety cots, rather than anything in their subconscious.

iv. camp out.

Is this a welcome change from bunking down in the dining hall on the hard stone floor of the Gallows? Maybe, as long as the weather holds.

The fire has been snuffed out, and there's nothing left to do but settle in, consider the question of—

"Should we decide who's taking watch?"

Or will they both be awake all night anyway, so what's the point?

wildcard.

Sweet dreams are made of—

i. slumber party.

There are too many people in the dining hall.

It's not really an unfamiliar thing. Ellis has slept in barracks, crowded in with so many others before the watch rotated or some of them were sent out and away on assignment, and before—

The sacrifice. The coup. The way everything fractured around him.

Riftwatch had always operated in stark contrast, so much so that even this temporary similarity feels surreal.

Or maybe that's just the lack of sleep. Either way.

Regardless, Ellis shores up in far corner. He keeps his back set against the wall. Ruadh stretches out beside him, where Ellis' hand scratches behind his ears, strokes his wrinkled forehead. Occasionally drowses with his head tipped back against the stone, before some floating conversation or sudden movement within the room jolts him awake again. A book is pinned open across one thigh, holding his place.

There's space alongside him. If someone cared to claim it, he probably wouldn't interject.

iv. camp out.

Sleeping rough is nothing new for Ellis. This is all common place. He was doing it regularly, even more so before he joined up with Riftwatch.

Even the part where he isn't getting very much sleep.

They'd gone through all the motions, as if this were any other mission without any particular difficulty hanging over their head beyond the war, and the inherent danger of Venatori and Imperium groups ranging across the Marches. The Wounded Coast is cooler than Kirkwall, sparse prickle of foliage rain-drenched even as the actual storm passes out to sea. The crash of surf can be heard; they'd picked a good spot for a camp, just close enough to be out of sight while still observing the whole length of the beach.

It would be a good night for sleeping, if such a thing were possible of late.

Ellis comes awake near-silently. (With a sharp inhale of breath, every muscle momentarily locked tight, hands clenching into fists before his eyes opened.) If unobserved, the signs of what had jolted him awake would be so easily missed that it could be assumed he'd simply woken of his own accord.

Nothing is said of it, beyond some murmur of greeting as he rolls up from where he'd been lying on his back, turning towards the smoldering remains of their fire.

"Anything?"

Business as usual: check in on the goings on, consider whether they might move closer to the surf, what they might put into their report, and so on.

What other topics could there be?

wild card.

Dream a little dream of—

Edited 2022-06-22 01:27 (UTC)

i. slumber party.

So, joining a Division to get a private room turned out to be a scam.

Well, not technically a scam. But still, the timing is regrettable. Move in to a new space, and immediately have to pack up and move into the dining hall to camp out in the world's worst team building exercise.

Seth's complained. At length. Mostly to Richie, but who knows, maybe someone else has been in close enough proximity to be on the receiving end.

However, having given up on sleep for the moment, Seth has made his way directly to the kitchen. Is he supposed to be rummaging in here? Maybe not.

Is he rummaging? Yes.

"Hey," is tossed over his shoulder, casual acknowledgement of whoever might have wandered in behind him. "They keep any alcohol in here, or is that something we have to steal a rowboat to get at?"

wild card.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream...

Edited 2022-06-22 03:18 (UTC)

"I'm literally just walking."

She's so tired, it makes her pricklier than she'd typically be with Ellie, or anybody, really. Shockingly, the nightmares don't help. Ellie herself is seldom the subject of them but her grisly work takes center stage far too often. Abby closes her eyes for a moment, pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Only when you punch them," she grunts, and adds, "You okay?" Even though it's a stupid question, because none of them are okay. She's looking out for a colleague okay, she's... trying. That's the theme of their relationship right now.

Edited (ROAR) 2022-06-22 22:01 (UTC)

"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."

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."

It's not uncommon these days to catch people dozing in the library, and so long as they don't get too violent on waking or scream too loudly, Mobius is content to allow it. It isn't that the sleep is any more restful this way. But it's spacious and quiet. He's been keeping a spare blanket tucked under the desk in case of his own naps in the times he can feel them coming while here.

This time, he brings it over to Ellie. She's finally gotten herself awake. And she looks like she's trying to suck in every last drop of air in the building.

Wordlessly, he drapes it over her shoulders, leaves his hands there as a solid and very real and not at all dreamt up weight.

Sometimes, it's kindness that can seep into a fault line, widen the cracks until everything breaks apart.

She doesn't see him coming. But she feels the warmth of the blanket as it sweeps over her, down around her shoulders. It's safe, comforting, not quite a hold, and she manages to catch a full breath. It lodges in the back of her throat, then, Mobius lays his hands on her shoulders.

The weight is real. And in the twilight of a nightmare, coming back to reality, the ghosts are all so close.

And it feels like Joel.

Ellie turns to put her forehead on her folded arms on the library table, and cracks right down the middle.

She sobs aloud, like her heart is breaking.

It...maybe should have been something he expected. Maybe he should've thought this one through. Come from the front or the side, in view. Said something. He's not thinking straight. He's made a mistake, made it worse.

It's a few long moments before the thoughts finally turn into further action, and he lifts his hands. Feeling awkward. She might not be receptive to an apology at this very moment, though. So he scoots out a chair next to her and sits. There. Existing. And will still be there when she's done.

Maybe someday, he'll realize that it was exactly the right thing to do.

The storm is intense, but it does pass, leaving Ellie taking deep, slow breaths, shivering now and again as she gets the last of it out. She's been building to this for a while, and he just happened to be there, to touch the right place.

Ellie wipes her face on her sleeve a few times, cleaning herself up, then lays her cheekbone against her dry sleeve, turning her head to look at him. The blanket is still settled across her shoulders.

The warmth, now, is from her. Maybe there's something in that.

"Thanks," she whispers, faintly embarrassed.

Someday, when he's not running on the same lack of good sleep as everyone else. Maybe even later, when it all catches up to him. Right now, it seems like a mistake. (But it also seemed like the right thing to do. He's too tired for this shit.)

That she thanks him, at least, eases some of the tension. And he reaches to her again, rubs her back through the blanket.

"Looked like you needed it. You don't have to keep it all in."

He wants to ask something like are you doing okay, but given circumstances, it's inane chatter and nothing more. So he doesn't. No one is doing okay.

"Should be."

Yseult's not taken by surprise, but she still takes a moment to lever herself back upright on the bench. Both hands smooth back hair toward her braid, but she makes no attempt to straighten the rumple of slept-in clothes. It'd be futile anyway.

"Plenty of tea. And I probably filled the pot."

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."

Is it possible to take Yseult by surprise? Probably not, or it probably requires elaborate orchestration.

Similarly rumpled, John eases onto the low stool aside the bench. Stretches his leg out. His coat is missing. The laces at his throat loosened. It's very late.

"Am I imposing?"

Beyond the obvious. They are all very much in each other's space at the moment.

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.

She's trying. They're trying. Ellie bites back the shitty retort that's on the tip of her tongue, more because she's tired than because she's actually mad, and because this newfound almost friendly air between them is too fragile to not tend to.

They could easily backslide into bullshit if they're not careful.

"You're the only person I've punched so far," she grumbles. "Maybe that's worth something. You?"

The way her expression crumbles a little at the edges when he rubs her back? Easily gives away the reason for the tears.

For once, she's grateful that she's told someone what happened. She doesn't have to explain.

"Yeah, I know. I know. Cry it out and... all that." Ellie knuckles that last of the tears away, sniffs, and looks down at her folded hands. Gives a slow sigh. The rubbing does help.

"He used to do that," Ellie confesses. She doesn't know why. Maybe just because of the ghosts still so close. Because she needs to remember something other than what she was dreaming about. Because she feels like she owes Mobius an explanation for losing her shit over nothing.

"Joel. I'd fall asleep at my desk sometimes. Reading. Sketching. He used to say it was too cold out in the damn garage for me to be doing that."

She reaches up, grips at the shoulder, pulls the blanket more securely around her.

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Page 1 of 13

open | brain heat meme

I, III

ouch??

yseult

john silver.

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ouch!!!

slumber party.

slumber party

derrica.

ellis.

seth.

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naptime

library's open for snoozing apparently

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so you had a bad day.mp3

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