Time is all around, except inside my clock

[changingtheodds]

Ruvin has had several very startling realizations. The first, she's almost seventeen. In just under a week, she will be. She'd all but forgotten about birthdays.

The second--she's been in Chicago for a year, as of today. She's paused where she is, in the middle of crossing a street to look up at the sky in surprise.

Winny is standing in front of

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[thehighestwing]

Have a Phoebe, Tomei.

She's been helping decorate the common room and she's got tinsel in her hair. She skips her way over to him with a bright smile and her usual sunny disposition.

"Ooooh. That smells good. FEED ME, TOMEI."

[marchforthedead]

He turns and holds out a spoon full of a thick, brown stew-ish-thing he's been working on all day. It's fatty and spicy and rather rich. HE'S BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO SHOW UP, PHOEBE.

And yes, he will feed you.

He would ruffle your hair, but his free hand is under the spoon to catch dribbles.

[thehighestwing]

Phoebe will hop onto the counter beside where he is cooking, swinging her legs and bouncing about cheerfully.

One must wonder how much sugar she consumes on a daily basis.

She wrinkles her nose in genuine curiosity at the spoon and what it contains. "Whazzat?"

[marchforthedead]

"Food," he says. How in the world can he explain it's mixed-organ stew with dumplings? He cannot. Phoebe must find that out for herself.

Poor Phoebe.

At least if she likes meat and salt it'll taste good.

[rattle_thecages]

Rachel was picking something up for Rosie and is just now exiting the pet store, waving to the kind man that helped her at the counter.

She hasn't spotted him yet, or she wouldn't be smiling.

She's smiling to herself, head bowed, as if she has a secret. She doesn't. She's just content.

[silkandstone]

Well.

Well.

What an unexpected surprise.

"Rachel. You're looking well."

[rattle_thecages]

There is hardly a reaction. Shock doesn't allow her to have much of one. Her heart is hammering inside her chest but Rachel does not turn around at the sound of his voice at first.

"No thanks to you." She turns on her heel, not moving an inch. She meets his eyes. "In front of the world, whoever is watching. I will rip your heart out if you come near me again."

[silkandstone]

He takes a step forward and spreads his hands wide. "Do it."

There's something in the reaction that forces that particular coldness on him, that still victory that comes before tearing a victim's--a guest's--hopes apart. "Kill me, and remember how death feels."

[savesomelight]

Piper's just minding her own business, wandering aimlessly about Chicago, peering in shops, and wishing she had the money to buy gifts for her friends. Even if Santa comes again this year, she'd still like to give people personal gifts.

She's eying a Christmas display with her mittened hands pressured up against the glass when she feels the sudden surge of panic and anger from nearby that makes her back away. There's a lot of emotions around and she knows to filter them all out to keep herself from going insane, but sometimes emotions that are close by and don't blend into the others get through.

She rubs her head and wanders into the alley, gasping when she sees a man threatening another man. Her heart beats a bit faster, but then she remembers the man in the bar, the one who threatened her, the one she made complacent.

She doesn't even have to think anymore. She just reaches out and grabs the man doing the threatening's mind and forces guilt on him. You don't want to hurt that man. Leave him alone.Piper's getting a little too

[crimeatthetime]

Guilt, in some ways, is a selfish emotion. It presupposes responsibility for a person's troubles, their feelings. It redirects the focus of an event onto oneself, even as it shows care for the others involved. Feeling guilty and feeling bad, sad, are different. Guilt turns the sharp edge of a situation on a person. Feeling guilty does more damage that sympathy every could.

Adrian has never just felt bad for things that happen around him.

You don't want to hurt this man.

The thought hits him on the heels of Piper's influence, and before he can even register that it's not his own feelings, it's not his own--

It is.

His mother, the starving of the refugee camp, Michel and his men, the victims of Dachau and the soldier who spoke to him, Mag and Natalia--Natalia, Natalia, who he loved and couldn't save. The dozens of dead he's left in his wake. Rachel. What Mag did to her. What that torturer did to her.

He should have been there. He should have been there, it should have been him

[savesomelight]

....

She's never broken anyone before, and she can feel it, and all she can think is I did that, and I'm just like those demons in the books. The kind that twist and break for their own amusement. Tears well up in her eyes and she runs to the man, flailing at the other man to run away, run far away, and she'll deal with this.

Once he's gone, she kneels in front of the man she just broke, not caring that the packed snow is soaking into the knees of her pants, crying slightly.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I didn't mean to do it- I can fix it. Please let me fix it."

[crimeatthetime]

She's just a kid. What is she even doing out here?

"Nothing to fix." He doesn't even know what she's asking, not really. The words take effort. More than they should. He just wants her to leave him alone.

[suchrottenluck]

Lucy likes bookstores... Or rather Lucy's alter ego likes bookstores, but Lucy's alter ego likes just about anything. She's still all dolled-up in a furry hat and fur-trimmed coat and for all that it's a cloudy day, she's wearing sunglasses.

At the moment, she's flirting shamelessly with a clerk not far from where Aniki is standing. He's backed against the Romance section, giggling like a schoolgirl as Lucy gushes fanatically about how her dear aunt Cecilia won't take anything but the trashiest bodice rippers.

She is really sparing no detail and the poor boy is either embarrassed or turned on.

"Oh, sugar, I've done gone and talked too much, now haven't I?" She laments in a light southern accent.

"No, no!" The boy laughs, nervously. "...Actually, I think we have something like that in the back."

"Oh, you're a sweetheart," Lucy beams, chucking him under the chin and wrinkling her nose at him. He flushes and ducks under her arm, promising to return in a few moments

[anjelsword]

Aniki glances in the direction of the vanishing clerk and shrugs.

"If you like them breakable."

Never mind the clerk is probably older than she is--he's a kid. He's acting like one, anyway, if this woman's talk and simper can get him so ready to bed her. "Might think you enjoyed leading the poor lad on. If I didn't know better, of course."

[suchrottenluck]

Lucy could smile at that, but she doesn't. She does laugh gaily, like it's all a big joke.

"Oh, you know boys. If you don't put them in their places every now and then, they'll start thinkin' they run this place."

She practically sashays over to see what Aniki's been looking at. "Oh, well then! That's a surprise. You did not strike me as the kind of girl who likes fantasy."

There's a bad memory rocking around in this girl's head about those books. She always heard wanderers were fascinating creatures.

[anjelsword]

Aniki smiles at her, sweet as a honey-soaked bear trap. "And you seem just the sort to enjoy books about things you've never done yourself. Do hope the boy finds your newest."

She turns to walk down the aisle and away from this scummer-swilling bitch.

[nothingsodivine]

And exiting the movie theater with a complimentary candy cane in his mouth is one Desmond D. Descant. He's just seen New Moon. They didn't have the Twilight in his universe and he kept hearing things and... It was inevitable.

There are some very annoyed teenagers coming out with him. Des lets his disdain and lulz be KNOWN.

He notes the blonde woman contemplating the theater and leans down as he starts to pass her by, "Don't see the one with the sparkly vampires. You will thank me," he says around his candy cane.

[whateverthemess]

She stares at him.

And stares at him.

And, after a moment, finds her voice. "Sparkly. Sparkly--"

She presses her fingertips against her mouth to keep from saying something rude. Deeep breaths, Murphy. "The only way vampires sparkle is if you set them on fire."

[nothingsodivine]

Des throws up his hands. "That's what I'm saying! When did vampires get to be romantic heroes? What is the world coming to when that is what the female youth of the world wants in a man- sparkles and blood-drinking. I thought the Plagues of Egypt thing was bad, but this is pure evil." He gestures vaguely at the nearest poster.

He's pretty sure Stephanie Meyer is an Antichrist.

[whateverthemess]

There's the white court vampires, but vain as they are, even they don't... sparkle. Though Murphy wouldn't put it past Thomas's sister to diamond-plate herself, if it wouldn't be considered gaudy.

Still, she can't help smiling a little. This guy reminds of Harry. Just a bit. "A conspiracy, maybe. Get girls to go after vampires instead of the other way around."

...Actually, that sounds creepily like something vampires would do.