by a route obscure and lonely, haunted by ill angels only...

[ushered]

[Open to threadhopping, but no Roderick tags, please!]

The Kashtta is deteriorating. The signs are everywhere, and have been-in the way the walls seem to be cracking more each day, the paint fading and flaking; in the floors that creak and moan; in the air itself, so dank and foul, just hanging in every open space

Comments

*needs to rearrange his icons so they have the painting one again*

[smileforaliving]

He's willing to admit that the Tower unnerves him. There's just smething abut the building that sets him on edge in general and it's only been getting worse this past month or so

[burkethejerk]

Peter hasn't been sleeping all that much himself lately, but he'd been trying to change that. He had meant to be asleep now, in fact. He had been in bed, he had been trying, and he'd tired enough to sleep, it just hadn't worked

[smileforaliving]

Neal has no idea what he's missing tonight but between how angry the storm sounds and the general creepiness of the Kashtta these last few weeks, he's not in any mood to find out.

He sees Peter and grins, moving out of the way fo the coffee maker. Far be it form him to be in the way of Peter Burke and his coffee.

Tapping his mug against Peter's when he settles in, he grins. "I didn't think you'd be up," he points out, taking a drink. "Not that I'm complaining. I don't actually think there is an area of this place that isn't a little unsettling right now."

The kitchen didn't used to be creepy, he remembers that, apparently that stopped being true at some point.

[burkethejerk]

"Nowhere that I've found," Peter agrees, sipping at his coffee. "I couldn't get to sleep. Figured if I'm going to be up, I might as well be fully awake."

He hadn't quite decided if he was going with that plan -- he was going to see if walking around made him any more tired -- but he'd rather hang around the kitchen with Neal than try to sleep again, so it's decided now.

"Taking a break from painting?"

[starryeyed_cass]

[OOC: Not sure what the hell I'm on tonight. BUT THIS IS A WARNING. Cassie's dream is her being murdered by Kaden. It's very graphic gore-wise and distressing. I've whited it out and you can read it by highlighting. Pleeease don't read it if it you don't want to, I don't want to upset anyone. I'M SO SORRY YOU GUYS OKAY. ;;]Nightmares are not uncommon for Cassie. The amount of things she’s seen in the sixteen months she’s been in Chicago have done nothing but break her brain and she often puts up with the violent mesh of miserable terrors every so often. She doesn’t remember them that much, though. Most of the time she wakes up just anxious at what had just happened; at the snippets that she can remember

[physics_magic]

Spencer is not sleeping

[starryeyed_cass]

It takes a few minutes for Cassie to realize Spencer's even there. She's far too worked up, the dream still raw in her mind's eye and she can't get the pictures and pain out her head. She just sits there, shaking and crying fiercely.

Finally, she manages to hold back her wails for a moment to try and speak. It doesn't work out well, most of her words are so hard to hear. "He.. he was killin' me!" she half-shouts, "It wouldn't end! And.. and I tried so hard to get away, but I couldn't move!"

Her words fail her. Her face crumples and she slumps, putting her head in her hands and letting out another wail. She's never been so terrified of a dream before, never had one so real that she can still feel it, the blade under her skin.

"It still hurts," she sobs, "I can feel it,"

[physics_magic]

He sits next to her, never quite breaking contact until he's settled down so that he can put an arm around her. He doesn't say anything, just lets her cry and rubs at her back. Only when she starts talking does he try and respond further.

"It's okay<" he says quietly. "It's okay, it was a dream. NO one's doing anything to you. You're here, you're safe."

He holds onto her tightly, his eyes closing as he speaks. "I know it's hard, I know the feelings are still there but it's just your mind, Cassie. You have to push it away It's not really there."

[please_see_me]

Dusty is, in the recesses of her mind, hanging from a rough St. Andrew's cross. The wood is rough and splintered against the backs of her arms and legs, her skin raw from trying to escape, her wrists and ankles bleeding where the rope has dug into her skin. While she can't remember exactly how it happened, she knows she's been beaten - her nose is bleeding, and there's a cut somewhere above her left eye. She hangs by her waist and wrists, too weak to hold herself up, her hair damp with sweat and blood, hanging limply in front of her face

[askthemoon]

Not long after the sun comes out, Remus can be found sitting on the ground outside the Kashtta, grim and pale and chain-smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes.

He's still tired -- he's let his schedule slip into late hours, and he only got to bed around three in the morning, so lucky him, he only had a few hours of nightmares before the sun came up and he managed to find his way back to awareness. But there's no way he's going to try to sleep again any time soon. He's not even sure he wants to be near his room any time soon.

There had been dreams. They'd started with running and blood and his own death, and those had been the better of the dreams that the night had offered. The worse ones, he's still trying to stop thinking about

[princerat]

Saul had slept too much today. Though morning is when he should be getting to bed, he's still very awake. And a bit out of it, which has become a normal state of mind for him this week. He'd really rather not go back to sleep, not with the dreams he had earlier.

Daytime is not normally a comforting sight to him, but he heads outside to see it anyway, bringing a cold box of beer with him. At some point during the night he'd decided beer was necessary, so he'd gone down the street to the nearest shop and took a couple of boxes without paying or being seen.

There's already someone sitting out here, which is fine by him. Smells like wolf, this one. Unusual. Saul himself smells like rubbish but mostly, to those with a good nose, he smells like rat. "Good morning," he greets in his strange too-deep voice. When he does so, be becomes visible to the other. He sits down and wordlessly offers the man a beer.

[askthemoon]

Remus is too wound up not to jump when somebody suddenly turns visible near him, but it only takes a moment for him to get past it. It's not like people appearing from thin air is new to him, between apparition and James' cloak -- though it doesn't seem likely there are any invisibility cloaks floating around Chicago. Then again, one could have fallen out of a rift for some lucky person to find.

He's beyond the point of putting anything past Chicago.

"Morning," he responds quietly, watching the other as he takes a seat. The drink is taken with an equally quiet, "Thanks," and examined for a minute before he pops it open and takes a drink. He pulls out another cigarette and offers the pack and the lighter forward towards the other man, and asks, after a moment of contemplation, "Is that a present from the rift? The reappearing act?"

[princerat]

Saul's very accustomed to startling people at this point in his life as a rat. He'll be impressed with himself if he ever figures out how to not startle people.

He doesn't smoke-- well, not tobacco that is-- but he takes a cigarette out of the pack and lights it anyway. It's a social thing, and he's feeling social. He hands the lighter and the pack back and thanks him.

"No," he answers. "That's from home. Rat magic," he says those last words carefully. He had debated for a moment whether or not to even mention rats. Though he can be talkative, he likes to keep his secrets. But this is a wolf he's talking to; he's assumed that a wolf nose can smell a rat for what it is and so he doesn't give that another thought. "I can't be seen until I talk to the person who's supposed to see me. Scaring the fuck out of people is an unintended side effect." He smiles apologetically.

[i_robert_capa]

Capa is used to bad dreams. Even before he fell through the Rifts - he dreamt of falling into the surface of the sun. Always the same. It never seemed to bother him too much, he never bothered to tell Searle - he didn’t want the team psychiatrist poking at his mind for it.
But this time, it’s different.

Having passed out sometime during the night - his dream started out the same: back on Icarus II, stood inside his bomb. The metal creaks around him, the sound bouncing around the structure. But he feels calm right now, it’s familiar to him. The sounds comfort him in a way he can’t really explain. This is his bomb, he designed it - he made it.

He hears a familiar voice that startles him, brings him out of his state of tranquillity.

”Still dreaming of the sun?” Cassie asks him.

He turns and stares; her skin is scorched, falling away. But she’s smiling and his heart twitches. He.. he loves, he loved her - but… the sight of her here frightens him. She steps forward, ”Hey, Capa. We’re only stardust,” And with that she grabs him by the