• F • R • A • C • T • U • R • E •

Who: Chase and Kyle, Chase Kyle and Adam, Kyle and Adam
Where: Round the hotel
When: Morning

The last place that Kyle expected to be when he woke up that morning was his bed back in the hotel. It was disorientating, to say the least. For the first few moments, he had no idea where he was - only when he caught sight of the ripped pages of abandoned drawings by the side of the bed did everything come slamming back. He sat bolt up in bed, looking round the room. He was back. He wasn’t going to get lynched and burned at the stake or anything horrible like that. The relief was overwhelming - right up until the moment that it clicked in that he was alone. He scrambled out of bed, throwing on jeans and a shirt. He needed to go check on the others, make sure everyone made it back okay.

( Finding people )

Who: Kyle and Adam
Where: Their tent
When: Morning

Kyle pounded out all of his frustrations on the cart rim the blacksmith had him mending, pounding the strip of metal as if it was personally responsible for the fact he'd barely slept overnight, and that he was pretty sure his boyfriend was pissed off with him right now. Kyle had never been particularly good with dealing with issues and he had fallen back into old habits: he had thrown himself into work. He would have stayed at it all day as well, if the blacksmith hadn't pulled him to one side and indicated that Kyle needed to stop before he fell down, plus he was ruining the cart rim rather than mending it.

Banished from the forge, Kyle made his way back to their tent, wondering what he would find.

Adam hadn't gone looking for Kyle right after talking to Kennedy. He wanted to, but he knew Kyle was at work and really he needed to process things, what Kennedy had said, before he started spouting off questions or accusations. Not that he was going to accuse Kyle of anything, but at the same time Adam was worried. Had Kyle only wanted him because he didn't trust him not to sleep with Kennedy? Had that really been all it was? Professions of how much he cared about Adam, about how Adam was his everything and at the same time, was Kyle still trying to keep him from making his own decisions about things? And was Adam that girl that falls for the first guy who sticks around in the morning?

( The guy and that girl )

Who: Adam and Kyle
When: Evening
Where: Their Tent

Adam had just barely survived the second match with the giant knight. He'd been faster yes, but it turned out that it was more like 'fast enough to not get killed' instead of fast enough to win. Out of the tournament, he'd slunk back to the tent alone. There he peeled out of his clothes and was doing his best to clean and wrap a cut on his bicep. It wasn't terribly deep but it would definitely scar. He was peppered with bruises too, red marks that were starting to sink to purple, but he wasn't focused on those. Not yet.

( I'm not a hero )

Who: Chase and Kyle
Where: Near the arena
When: Afternoon

Chase had watched Justin's first two matches, completely pleased with how his knight was doing and trying not to focus too hard on how easy it was to slip into thinking about him as 'his'. He just had to keep that out of what he was doing with Justin and he'd be fine, but it was fun to cheer him on and now, to watch his coat of arms move up on the scoreboard. Definitely proud. He'd have to tell him later.

Kyle had stuck to his guns. He had avoided all of the rounds. Instead, he had made a deal with the blacksmith. The smith had been overworked with orders, and having seen Kyle work the day before had been happy to trade direction and training in exchange for free labour.

By the time midafternoon rolled round, Kyle was covered in soot and sweat and ravenously hungry. Deciding to take a break, he pulled off his shirt and rinsed off at the well. Rinsing out his shirt, he left it hanging round his neck as he collected some food. He was feeling really good. Working had taken his mind off of all his worries, and whilst his muscles ached, he had the deep satisfaction that came with creation - even if all he'd been doing all day was sharpening swords and repairing armour. It gave him the confidence to wander over to the scoreboards. To finally look see how Adam was doing.

( Do I know you from somewhere? )

Who: Kyle and Mazie
Where: Out and About
When: Early morning

It had been late when Kyle had finally made it back to the tent the night before. He’d waited until things were quiet, then headed back and ended up wrapped up in blankets with Adam. After everything, it felt like the right thing to do. Still, he found himself awake before dawn, and extracted himself from the blankets whilst his boyfriend was still sleeping, figuring that he would go for a walk or something. There had been word at the banquet last night about exactly what today would bring for the ‘knights’. Stress and worry wouldn’t let him just lie there any longer.

Mazie had slipped out of the tent early enough to go sweet-talk her way into some freshly baked bread from one of the merchants in town. She was walking back toward the tent with a loaf under her arm and a half-eaten croissant in her hand when she saw Kyle. "What's up?" She asked, heading his way with a grin on her face. "Want some bread?"

( Baked goods and conversation )

Who: Adam and Kyle
Where: the castle
When: evening
Warning: NSFW

( and secret gardens )

who: kennedy and kyle
where: the party
when: night

Kennedy had been wandering around the party, sort of doing her own thing. She'd been talking to people here and there, messing with a few heads, all that noise. She'd spotted Adam, and had been going to talk to him, but while she'd seen him, she noticed someone else paying pretty close attention to him. So, she scoped that out for a while, and yeppers, that guy was totally watching Adam like a crazy stalker. Or like, a lovesick puppy, or something. Whatever. Either way, she sidled up beside him, watching Adam too. “Might wanna watch that gaze, guy. In this day and age, they were pretty fucked up when it came to shit like that.”

Kyle looked at the woman, who was now standing next to him, sideways. He figured from the way she talked that she was someone from the hotel, but she wasn’t someone he had seen before. That alone made him a little cautious. “I work for him,” he said, short and sweet and to the point. “Making sure he has everything he needs is kinda my job for the night.”

“Uh huh,” Kennedy said flatly. “You go with that,” she said with a nod. “And your name is...?” she asked, since Adam had been talking about some dude, so she wanted to see if this dude was the same dude or if there was someone else out there who wanted to eye bang Adam a bunch. Or something. Really, maybe this guy hadn't been eye banging him but wasn't it a fine line? It was.
( Jealousy! Possessiveness! Deliberate Baiting! )

who: Kyle and Monica
where: the party
when: night

Kyle had never been at a party where he wasn’t exactly one of the main guests. Sure, he had been ‘invited’ along with everybody else, but he knew his position was, apparently, Adam’s squire, and he figured that definitely meant that he was there as an add on to Adam. At least, that was how he interpreted it and he had decided that he would rather be wrong in that, than act any other way on find he was wrong then. If he really was meant to be here as some kind of servant to Adam, then acting out of that role would reflect badly on the other man. The other man who was expected to go around with a sword, and who had a shield that clearly stated that someone had tried to beat the crap out of him. Kyle wasn’t taking any chances. As such, he was playing the part of the perfect servant. Bringing Adam food and drinks as necessary. Standing near the other man, but far enough away so as not to be intrusive. And, because this was Adam and Kyle didn’t trust the other man’s ability to get what was going on and actually play along - far enough away that Adam didn’t do something stupid. Like talk to him. Or try and touch him.

Monica had been lying low. This whole thing was really doing a number on her head, and now they were in Ren Faire land, and she had to go with it. What she did know was roll with it she could definitely do. She'd woken up with a new shiny violin that she was loving. It was beautiful, and the sound? Was just amazing. She was even dressed in a manner she could get behind, though she'd taken the time to dress it up herself as well, putting her own flair on it along with her traditional red and white color scheme.

When she spotted Bathtub Guy through the delightful crowd, she smiled and decided to go check on him. She waltzed on up behind him, then rattled a stick with streamers and bells on it in front of his face, reaching around him to do so. “Be merry!”
( also, crying! )

Who: Kyle, Mazie and Adam
Where: Lavel
When: Morning

Kyle swam into consciousness feeling disorientated, lost and… cold. He pulled the itchy blanket further around his form and tried to cuddle up more - only to find that there wasn’t a body within easy reach. He grumbled. He didn’t like this. And the bed was hard. Far harder than he remembered. Prising his eyes open, he looked around. “Oh fuck,” he cursed. Not another damn day where he woke up somewhere he certainly didn’t go to sleep. “Seriously?? I have had enough of this bullshit!” he exclaimed, jumping up and looking around - and then down at himself. “And what the hell am I wearing???” Some kind of oversized, knee length white shirt and baggy, been washed too many times, brown woollen leggings and who the hell wore something like that outside of a Shakespeare play anyhow.

The yelling woke Adam out of a deep, sated slumber. Though because it was yelling he jolted out of his bed, not realizing it was smaller and he fell off one side of it, winding up flat on his face on the floor with a groan. Only it wasn't the floor. It was ground. "What is..." He pushed himself up, looking around. "What the hell?"

( Misunderstanding, breakdown and blacksmith )

Who: Kyle and Adam
Where: The bar, their rooms
When: Evening/night

Kyle was weirdly nervous. ‘Weirdly’ because he didn’t think there was any chance that he would be badly received in his date, but still, the feeling was there. Throughout the day, it had been building - the feeling that it was of utmost importance that he made more than a good impression tonight. He wanted to leave Adam speechless, entirely floored. Kyle needed to be perfect. Nothing less was good enough.

( Didn't intend is to go like this! )

Who: Christer and Open
Where: Someone's Room
When: afternoon

At Lindsey's suggestion, Christer tried the door out of the hotel, hoping he'd wind up outside of it. She'd said he could be the one the one to get out and to get them help. It was all the motivation he needed. Only when he went through the door, Christer felt weird at first and then he was blinking, staring at somewhere that definitely wasn't outside of the hotel. No he was standing in another room, one he was sure wasn't his.

Who: Kyle and Ella
Where: Around the hotel
When: Around lunch time

Ella listened to some of her favorite songs on her iPhone for twenty minutes. She listened to forget where she was, to forget she had missed work and to wonder whether or not she was missed by her family. She couldn’t believe she had been plucked away from family so abruptly, but she was trying to make the best of it. Besides she had been arguing with them lately so some time apart could do a lot of good. A few minutes into her music marathon she heard a knock on the door and upon opening it realized it was lunch time. There was a cart outside her room with food on it and she wheeled it inside. It didn’t take her long to finish the tuna wrap, bottle of water and apple she had been provided.

Once listening to music grew tiresome she decided now was a good time to draw. Unfortunately as she rifled through her bag she didn’t see any newspapers. She would need them if she intended on sketching. The medium she loved using, charcoal, had a habit of staining surfaces if you weren’t careful and since she didn’t know who was paying for her stay at this hotel she wasn’t going to risk being charged for damages. She grabbed her room key and headed out in search of newspaper, taking her sketch pad and box of charcoal with her too. She hoped there was some available and that the lady at the front desk would be nice this time. She wasn’t in the mood for another rude encounter with her.

( in search of newspapers for artistic expression )

Who: Bianca & Kyle
When: Morning
Where: Kyle's room

Bianca was pissed off. On a serious level. She'd already been through waking up believing she'd been roofied again. Though it didn't feel like anything that wasn't consensual had happened. Except for the fact she wasn't even remotely near where she'd gone to sleep the night before. Which meant someone better have some fucking answers. After a truncated morning ritual she'd wheeled her suitcase down into the lobby, had one half of a screaming match with the lady behind the desk (only one half because the lady wouldn't even budge beyond a monotone), and now she was getting ready to trash her phone because she couldn't dial out. Without paying much attention, she hurried toward the front door, her focus on the display of her phone rather than what was ahead of her. She expected to feel a breeze or hear traffic and looked up after a moment to see she was in someone's hotel room. "Oh what the hell..." she asked in a low tone.

Who: Adam and Kyle
Where: Kyle’s room
When: Early

Adam had barely slept. He’d tried. He really had. But the hotel thing was weird. And eventually he had passed out, at first surprised to wake up in the bed. Or the same bed at least. For a long moment he waited to make sure it wasn’t a dream and then he was up again, getting showered properly, putting in his contacts and getting dressed. His things were packed neatly, the way he always had and eventually he found the nicest shirt he had - something in a dark green plaid that he wore over an undershirt and his best pair of jeans. Really, he looked the same as he always did, even with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but he felt like he looked nice.

The whole process took about fifteen minutes as he rushed through it and then rushing down to Kyle’s room, very aware that it was early. Really early. Yeah he probably needed to wait, but he didn’t want the dream to go away. He was very aware of another fact, the one that Kyle might not want a repeat of what had happened the night before. So all Adam could do was hope as he knocked on Kyle’s door, bouncing on his feet, too eager and nervous to stand still.

( you should have brought coffee )

Who: Adam and Kyle
Where: around the hotel
When: afternoon

This was the worst day of Kyle's life. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know how he got here. He hurt all over. And he was fairly sure that since apparently he wasn't dreaming, he really had had some kind of a psychotic break. The only thing which was nice about today was the bubble bath which he had taken. Oh, and the room number he had for Adam - who was the closest thing he had to a friend around here. That was assuming that Adam was even real and not a figment of his imagination. Either way, he was a glow of certainty in this uncertain world, and so Kyle was going toward that light. Even dressed as he was in a borrowed white robe, fastened over a towel which he had slung round his hips. He hadn't actually bothered to dry himself after getting out of the bath. He had nothing on his feet, and his clothes were bundled under his arm as he walked through the hotel and up to Adam's room. He knocked on the door.

( Better this time...kinda )

who: Monica and Justin (with a touch of Kyle)
where: around the hotel
when: late morning

Monica stumbled ever so slightly when instead of walking out into the dreary land of Ohio, she was simply in a long corridor that was clearly still part of the hotel. She pulled up short, hugging her bag to her stomach as she stared, wide eyes.

Justin almost ran into her as he stepped through the doors. He had been moving faster than her, but he hadn’t thought she would stop so soon. He stepped to the side as he stopped. A corridor. “Oh yeah - you know exactly where the doors are gonna lead.” He paused for a beat, then added. “Gotta say - of all the things I expected, this wasn’t even on the list.”
( also - Backstory! )

who: Kyle and Monica
where: Monica's room
when: mid morning

Monica was lying awake in bed. She was aware she needed to get going, get up, get dressed, and face the day. Buuut she didn't want to. Not really. She was going to have to take a look at the script for the first film and she just couldn't face it yet. Sighing, she stared at the ceiling, and recognized that her back ached slightly. Okay, she really needed to get up. Stretching, she got up, tossed her hair up into a messy ponytail, and stared at herself in the mirror. Ugh. She looked at her nightie, which was pretty much the same type of thing she always wore. Why didn't she have just some cotton comfy thing, instead of a long silk off white lace trimmed number? She wasn't impressing anyone in her hotel room. And yet.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she started toward the bathroom, intent on taking a shower.

Kyle walked through the door, rubbing at his eyes, head down and walking fast enough that he didn’t change his mind and stop to go back. His brain registered that there was carpet beneath his feet at approximately the same time that he walked smack bang into the woman in the room. “Shit, sorr… What the fuck?” he asked, looking wide eyed around the bedroom. What the hell? He’d just walked out the front door of the hotel - ending up in someone’s bedroom was not part of the plan! “I’m dreaming. I’m really, clearly dreaming.” First meeting Adam, who was being possibly even more clueless than before. Ending up in some strange place. Walking out. Now… this. Definitely a dream.
( ACTING! )

Who: Kyle and Adam
When: First thing
Where: All over

Comfort. Warmth. Soft covers that were pulled up around his neck.

Those were the first sensations Kyle encountered when he woke. Safe, secure, warm, wonderful. And entirely unexpected. He opened his eyes, awake in an instant. This was wrong. He saw up, light spilling in through the curtains. A strange room. Where was he? Some kind of a hotel. He hadn’t gone to sleep in a hotel. He didn’t have the money on him for this kind of thing. He had finally gone to sleep in the park, on a bench. It hadn’t been that cold out and he had been so tired and where was he?

Kyle stumbled out of bed. He was still in his clothes from yesterday. He could feel the remnants of tears and snot on his face from crying too much last night, when the reality of Nelson’s death and what he had caused had caught up with him. Feel the bruises on his body from where Harry had hauled him out of the apartment. He reached up and touched his face. A split lip, maybe.

None of it compared to the question of Where am I?. He groped for the door, missing the note in his room entirely. Opening it, he stepped outside. A corridor. Clearly an hotel. Where am I?

( What We Want )

Who: Adam and Kyle
Where: A diner in NYC
When: flashback - 5 months ago, night

The next time Kyle walked into the diner when Adam was working, he was soaked to the skin. It was dark, cold and very definitely raining. Kyle had been wandering the streets for a couple of hours regardless. Harry had told him to make himself scarce, which meant that he couldn't go home. So, he'd wandered for a while, until the rain became too heavy.

The diner was just as dead. The weather had kept people at home which meant Adam was bored out of his mind. It was warm in the diner though, bright lights and grill keeping it that way. Adam was mopping, which he hated, but what else could he do to avoid it? When the door chimed he glanced that way and grinned at first sight of the guy only wound up frowning. "You're drenched."

( call it quits, or get a grip )

Who: Adam and Kyle
Where: A diner in NYC
When: flashback - six months ago, evening

Adam’s boss reminded him that he shouldn’t be hungover when he showed up for his shift that started at five, but in his defense, he was still coming down off his last high and hungover from the night before. It didn’t help that it was a slow night at the diner, very few customers and just too long of Adam leaning on the counter, sipping on coffee to stay awake and ease the headache that after the sun had gone down had started to ease. He had a plate of fries too, nibbling at them idly as he watched the door, hoping someone would show up so he could do more than keep filling the cup of coffee that the guy in the corner booth had ordered and would likely give him a few cents tip for. You would think that it was freezing outside, when in reality it wasn’t a bad night, warm enough for Adam to be in just a t-shirt that he realized after he’d gotten to work wasn’t his and was a tiny bit too tight, and didn’t quite reach the top of his jeans.

( a chance encounter )