open

[missingbuttons]

Who: Coraline and You!
What: DISTRACTIONS.
Where: Most public areas around the lobby.
When: 5/21-5/28
Warnings: None, will change if necessary.

[As soon as the dreams started showing up on the network, Coraline stopped looking at the network. She'd already seen a couple, and she feels very strongly that she probably shouldn't have, despite her curiosity. So to keep herself from watching more, whether accidentally or on purpose, she's just... not checking the network anymore.

Instead, she's keeping herself occupied and distracted in the best ways a sixteen-year-old knows. She's exploring every nook and cranny yet again, until she knows the whole place like the back of her hand, and she can also be found doing things around the rest of the public areas:

The Fireplace: She's hanging out by the fire, with some stolen paper and a pen from the front desk, and she's trying to draw. She's not that good at it, but it's something to do. Sometimes she's copying the pictures from the encyclopedias that are there, sometimes drawing the fire, sometimes drawing things in the lobby.

When she gets bored of that, she's reading the encyclopedias.

When she's bored of that, she starts using the volumes to build a tower. No respect for literature.

The Screening Room: She's not paying attention to the movie. She's watched it enough already, she can probably recite it. In fact, she does, sometimes, sitting upside down in the chair with her head hanging down so her hair brushes the floor.

The Front Desk: She sits behind it, folding paper airplanes and tossing them through the lobby. She's also writing notes and drawing stupid cartoons that don't really mean anything, just whatever pops into her head.

The Ballroom: Cartwheels. That's all.

If someone stops and talks to her, she'll talk back. She's friendly, after all, and SO FREAKIN' BORED.]

Comments

Fireplace book tower | 5/25 okay?

[unpurify]

[Hell hath nothing on a sleep-deprived moose in mourning.

He's still holding out hope, of course. Neighborguy Coulson had been unfortunate enough to get whacked his first day but now he's back again, if a little worse for wear. There's still a chance that one of the friends Sam's made since his impromptu, unwanted, dazed arrival isn't gone forever. Bouncing back from little things like death is practically the Winchester motto, and maybe that's contagious.

What isn't contagious is the fever that was initially dialing itself back a bit but is now raging at him in full force after days of shrugging off the temptation of sleep. But. No more nightmares. No more nightmare broadcasts. Sam is putting his foot down, damnit, and that means he's going to sink shakily into one of the threadbare armchairs and stare at the fire and try not to fall asleep and try not to think about Hell.

It's really hard. Because he's staring at a fire. A la Hellfire. Like an idiot.

Lucky him, there's a distraction going on like, right there because holy crap Alec was right, and this place has kids and that somehow makes it all so much more incredibly fucked up. She can't be more than, what? Seventeen? and seems to be busily assembling her own impressively encyclopedic ziggurat.

For a minute Sam just looks at it, because he isn't really sure what one is supposed to say to that. When he finds his voice, it sounds about as frayed and ragged as he looks.]

So, uh. Leaning Tower of Lexicon?

yup!

[missingbuttons]

[She's been stealing glances at him because holy cow does he ever not look good. She's this close to actually saying something to him when he talks first.]

Isn't a lexicon a dictionary? Or something?

[It's something like that, she knows. She balances another book on top of the tower and has to climb on the table to get a better angle on the next part. It's not her fault she's short for her age, shut up.]

You look terrible, by the way. You feeling okay?

[unpurify]

Dictionary, yeah. Or just words. In general.

[Much coherent very word. He huffs bitterly and scrubs a hand over his face, like that'll make him seem any less half-dead to the world.]

Just trying not to sleep, y'know.

[Which, granted, bad idea. Especially when you're already sick. But he doesn't see a lot of other options if he wants to avoid digging up more old crap.]

[missingbuttons]

[She frowns and leans some of the books against each other.]

It's the encyclopedia, not dictionaries, but whatever.

[Coraline steals another look at him.]

I mean, not that I blame you, because, well, obvious, but it's not doing you any favors.

[unpurify]

No, I know. [He leans forward tiredly and has to push the hair out of his eyes because he's just gotten progressively more unkempt since he got here. He's pretty sure he's going to have to start taking steps so as not to be mistaken for Cousin It in the near future.]

Just better to deal with this than whatever might get - [he wiggles an equivocal hand. Broadcast. Sent out. Whatever.] - you know. [He pauses, jaw jutting out as he frowns.] Is that why you're here?

[missingbuttons]

If by here you mean definitely not looking at my tablet ever again or at least until this blows over then yeah, that's why I'm here. My dream's already out there, so it's not like it can get any worse for me unless I go poking around in other people's.

Which. Is kind of an invasion of privacy. And I don't really trust myself not to look, because. You know. Curiosity killed the cat.

[She finishes the level and looks at the books she's got left. Four. Perfect.]

[unpurify]

Yeah. I just kinda hid mine after a while.

[Which means she probably didn't see Lucifer. Which is good. 'Seeing Lucifer' is not a thing that should happen to kids. And who knows if it'll try broadcasting again? Ugh. God. He doesn't want to know.

So instead he looks at the tower. Book towers are more palatable than nightmares, as a general rule.]

What's that for, jenga?

[missingbuttons]

[She snorts.]

Does it look like jenga?

[Because no, no it does not. It looks a little like she tried to take the concept of sugar packet towers and something like this and... well it's kind of amazing it's standing, honestly.]

[unpurify]

[He tilts his head almost a full ninety-degrees, like that'll make it seem any more like a game of wordsy jenga.

He supposes she's got a point.]

Well, it's very architecturally sound.

[Maybe not so much on the 'very' but it is a nice tower. Very...sprawling. It has character. And why a hotel needs encyclopedias, who knows, but whatever, it's entertainment, sorta. Anything's better than sitting in his room and staunchly trying to ignore the tablet notifications.]

[missingbuttons]

[She balances the last few books on top and steps back, hopping down from the table to get a good look at it.]

Well it's standing, anyway.

[unpurify]

[He's way too young to feel creaky when he stands (and wobbles and straightens and wobbles a bit more and finally evens out), but to be fair a mystical malaise will really do a number on your physical coordination. He folds his arms and looks at the completed tower appraisingly.]

Impressively enough, yeah. [He steps forward to run a finger lightly along one of the book spines. He's kinda missed research nights, he won't lie.] Wonder how long it'll last.

[missingbuttons]

Until I get bored and knock it down, probably.

[Which is in... 5... 4... 3... 2... aaand she kicks at the bottom and the whole thing collapses. She laughs, delighted.]

That's the best part, honestly.

Ballroom. Date Unspecified.

[notafraidofyou]

[Tim has been looking for things to do. He's not one of the sleep-deprived masses. At this point, his big secret is out, and as far as he's concerned, that's about the worst that could have come out of this dream-sharing thing.

So he's actually in a surprisingly good mood when he finds Coraline turning cartwheels in the ballroom.

This is totally a game he can play. He gets into a handstand and starts handwalking toward her.]

Hey.

[missingbuttons]

[She's cartwheeling away when she hears him enter the room, and she fumbles a cartwheel at the sight of him so easily walking over on his hands, collapsing in a heap and laughing in surprised delight.]

Oh my god that's cool. I wish I was that good at handstands.

[notafraidofyou]

Practice. [He's grinning.] Plus my kind-of-brother is an acrobat, and sort of a fanatic.

[missingbuttons]

Kind-of-brother?

[She tilts her head to look at him, then goes up into a handstand, but can only hold it for a moment, so she tumbles out of it quickly.]

[notafraidofyou]

[He shifts his balance to one hand and holds the other one out, tilting it from side to side.] The terms get a little weird when no one was technically adopted, and he doesn't live at home anymore.

He's annoying like a brother, though. [Said with affection in his voice.]

[missingbuttons]

[She snorts.]

Show-off.

[She sits, crosslegged, in front of him.]

I've never had siblings of any kind, almost or not.

[notafraidofyou]

[He laughs.]

I am totally showing off.

[He tumbles out of the handstand and settles cross-legged to face her.]

I didn't before Dick. I was an only child when I was a kid. I'm still mostly an only child. Dick doesn't visit all the time or anything, and he and Bruce don't totally get along, so it's kind of... tense when we're all together. Sometimes.

[missingbuttons]

Sounds like kind of a weird family.

[notafraidofyou]

[grin]

Kind of. But I guess it works for us, so. [He shrugs. The weird doesn't bother him, actually, and he's pretty crazy about his crazy family.]

[missingbuttons]

Sure.

So you learned all that from them?

[notafraidofyou]

[He nods.] Most of the cool stuff, yeah. Definitely all of the neat tricks.

Screening Room, 27thish;

[thatimpossiblegirl]

[Clara has seen a few dreams, commented on a few even. She thinks she probably shouldn't be watching, but it isn't like no one else is doing it and there's benefit in getting to know the people you're trapped with. And besides, she'd figured her own dreams would end up there sooner or later.

For a while, she'd tried not sleeping, but eventually, she'd fallen asleep anyway. She'd known she would. Then? Nothing had happened.

She's feeling a little more inclined to avoid poking into the private memories of others now that it seems she's gotten lucky in the dream sharing lottery, so she's doing some exploring of her own. Not that she hasn't already seen pretty much everything there is to see.

The screening room's mostly empty when she decides to give the movie a go one more time, nothing better to do, but then she notices at least one seat's occupied. She recognizes her easily, even upside down, and drops into a seat next to her.]

This is one of the better ones.

[missingbuttons]

[She looks up at Clara, grins and shrugs.]

I dunno, it's just as boring as the others, since. You know. Not a huge selection.