Who: Carson, Jane, Jules, Neil & Nic Where: Castell's tea shop When: Friday afternoon 11/10
Jane had been absolutely right that dealing with whatever was happening should be a priority but Neil quickly found that getting together such a varied group of individuals was like herding cats. They all had work and other priorities and even outside of those obligations it just seemed hard to get everyone together. They had finally settled on Friday night and while it had been ever so tempting to meet up at an actual cafe or restaurant, Nic's tea store was again the preferred meeting place. Maybe it was better not to bring attention themselves, although this time Jules Cooper would not be the only female present. She would still be an underage girl surrounded by adults so a very public place might not be optimal.
Neil parked outside the tea shop and he would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous. Bringing Jane into this meant both that he owed her a favor and that she knew more of his weaknesses. He liked neither of those things and he wasn't sure how things would go down with the rest of the group. Not to mention he was still a little rattled from Dylan Bailey's unexpected visit, dredging up old memories and bringing up uncomfortable questions. Neil was rarely happy but he was extra unhappy this week. He sat in his car for a little while, staring out at the shop through the rain as he hoped it might stop for a minute while he ran inside. No such luck, of course. It was pouring down with no end in sight. At least he had an umbrella. There was a light on inside the store though the sign said it was closed and Neil knew Nic would be there waiting for them. Were the others already there? He couldn't see, not with the heavy downpour. With a heavy sigh he got out of the car, quickly opening his umbrella before stalking up to the store. He rapped on the door and huddled his shoulders, offering up a little smile when Nic opened up. "I hope I'm not late," he muttered, though he knew he wasn't. It just seemed polite to say so and he wasn't the best at small talk to begin with.
Nic didn’t mind them meeting at the tea shop. He couldn’t think of anywhere he would have felt safer, surrounded by the tools of his trade, and positive that no one would be listening in on their conversation. There’d been no more dreams since their last meeting, but Nic didn’t assume that meant they were over. Things like this didn’t just stop, not with the way they’d been building. So he was glad that Neil had pulled through and gotten Jane to come talk to them. He wasn’t sure what they’d do next, but maybe they could at least put together a plan. When someone knocked at the door, Nic moved to answer it, a bit surprised that Neil was the first to arrive. He offered him a small smile. “Come on in. I was just making some tea.” Which sounded so old fashioned, but it was a tea shop. It wasn’t like he had cookies for them.
Neil was hardly happy to be the first to arrive. He felt awkward with the group but at least with the group he could keep back and let them do the talking. Being alone with one of them was far worse. He did perk up at the mention of tea because tea was really one of the few things in the world Neil actually loved. It made this place even better for meeting, it smelled good, a mix of scents that somehow didn't clash. Of course he wasn't entirely sure if Nic was offering, he'd just said he was making some. "I'll take some, if you have enough," he mumbled and instantly felt like an idiot. They were in a tea shop, he was sure Nic had plenty and he could have worded this differently. He shook out his umbrella before closing the door behind him, giving Nic an awkward and wry smile. Another car parked out front and he hoped it was one of the others coming their way. The sooner they all got there the sooner this would be over.
Jules was definitely feeling a little nervous about this, even if she was doing her very best not to show it. She sent Jasper a text about where she would be as soon as she parked in the lot for Nic's tea shop. It wasn't that she was afraid something would happen to her, but he had wanted her to tell him about this stuff, so that's what she was doing. Hopefully it wouldn't even take long, because Jules did not want to spend her entire Friday night hanging out in a tea shop talking about creepy stuff. She just wanted to hang out with her boyfriend and be normal for like, two hours. Three, even, if she got lucky. After sending the text, Jules slipped her phone into her purse and got out of her car to head inside. Neil was already there but it wasn't like he was super talkative. He looked perma-grouchy, if you asked her. "So, like, no dreams this week, right? Do you think maybe all of this is over or something?" That was probably an optimistic view, and wishful thinking, but Jules was willing to cling to it for the moment.
Nic grinned at Neil’s comment, but didn’t correct him. Yes, he had enough tea. He had enough tea for the whole damn town. He took a minute to put on the kettle and prepare the pot, sure they’d all like some with the weather they were having. As much as he liked the rain, he knew the cold made it miserable for most. When Jules walked in, he looked up and gave her a small smile, but then shook his head. “I’m not holding my breath. In my experience, things that build like this don’t just go away.” Not without something major at the end. A climax, of sorts. If he’d been on the outside, he would have been curious, but caught within whatever this way, he quietly dreaded whatever it was that was coming. He just hoped they could be prepared. “It’s been nice having a week off though.”
Neil had shaken his head at Jules's question but that didn't mean he'd had a week off as Nic put it. He was still scared and stressed, he still worried about AIR coming after him and he didn't know how to deal with the people who kept coming to him with uncomfortable questions. A climax of sorts sounded like they might all die before this was over and he sighed miserably and wondered why it couldn't just fizzle out and become nothing. "I've tried to see patterns in when and where it happens but no luck," he mumbled. "It doesn't seem linked to anything, really. I'm holding up for hope that it ended at Halloween but..." He shook his head. "It's hard to apply logic to something so illogical.”
Carson arrived a bit late, he saw as he pulled up and parked. Everybody else’s car was already there. He took an extra moment to try and gather himself before he got out and walked to the tea shop door. He knew he looked a mess, tired and haggard and sloppy in rumpled sweatpants and a hoodie that hadn’t been washed in a while, but there was no help for it. Carson had been having a bad week, to put it mildly. He just hoped this meeting didn’t make it worse. He stepped inside and shuffled over to where everyone was standing, hands in his front hoodie pockets and the hood still up. Carson nodded around to everyone with a quiet, “hey.”
Jules watched Carson approach and her gaze ticked over his apparel. He looked like he had been sick for a few days, or maybe he was going through a bad break up or something. Definitely not as put together as she was used to seeing him. "Are you okay?" Jules asked him, her brow furrowing with concern. They all looked tired, sure, and they were all scared about this whole thing, but at least their clothes weren't wrinkled.
Nic agreed with Neil— it was hard to do anything without a pattern. Though he didn’t have Jane as a resource, he did have Lem, but there’d been no dreams the nights they’d spent together. Even if she stayed with him nights in a row, he had no idea when the nightmares would strike next. He frowned a little when Carson entered, though his expression was more out of concern than anything else. Carson looked worn down and his first thought was that maybe he’d been having then nightmares while no one else had. Jules voiced the question before he could, so he stayed silent, waiting to see what the answer was.
They were all staring at him all of the sudden, and Carson felt the avoidant urge to just turn around and walk out again. He pushed his hood back and ran a hand over his short hair, which only served to mess it up further and encourage the cowlicks. “Yeah, fine,” he said, trying not to let the discomfort from the scrutiny show. “Long night. Unrelated.” It hadn’t been, he’d actually been sleeping way too much this past week, but better they think he was just out living it up than know the truth. At least not yet. Carson nodded at Neil. He wanted to get to the business at hand and get it over with. “Did you talk to the woman? Jane?”
"Yes," Neil said quietly and didn't do a very good job of hiding his own concern. Carson really did look like hell and not in a way that said he'd just had one too many to drink the night before. "She should be here any minute." He hoped that was true, for all he knew she'd revel in joining them late just to make him look bad. It was impossible to say which would be stronger, her curiosity to meet them or her urge to be mean to him. In Neil's mind the latter was probably stronger but he could hope she'd be there soon.
Nic looked at the door, hoping that at any moment Jane might walk through it. Without her, they were in the same place they’d been a week ago. A little more worn down, some of them more than others, and a little more weary, but with no more answers than before. He took a deep breath. “I made tea, if anyone would like some. While we wait.” It would help warm them up a bit, if nothing else. He might as well play host.
Jane wasn't sure if she was early or late when she parked near the tea shop, but she didn't really care either way. She was there to meet the others and it was probably best to be a few minutes late to ensure they were all there. She was betting Neil would probably want to get this over with as quickly as possible and maybe Jane knew taking her time would irritate him. In any case, there were four cars in the parking lot when she arrived and her lips twitched into a knowing smile before she walked into the spice shop. Her gaze was drawn to Neil and three others. Two men and a girl. Talk about an eclectic crew. She walked towards them, one hand clasping the strap of her shoulder bag. None of them looked overly happy, but Jane smiled anyway. "Is this everyone?" she asked, her gaze ticking between the four.
Neil nodded and cleared his throat. "Jane, these are Carson, Nic and Jules," he said as he gestured to the others in the order he introduced them. "Everyone, this is Jane." Perhaps that was too formal but he didn't know how else to do this. They needed introductions and they looked at him so expectantly he couldn't help but feel like he should be making them. "I've already told her a little bit but... Not really everything. If anyone wants to explain the situation."
Carson was glad that Jane arrived when she did, since it took the attention off of him. He might be bound to these people in some weird way, but that didn’t mean he wanted to lay out all of his problems to them. Especially since they were now of a very sensitive nature. He planned to talk to Nic after this meeting was over, but for now Carson was glad to forget about it for a minute and focus on his other bullshit. He nodded as Neil did the introductions, then gave a brief glance around. Nobody immediately volunteered to speak, so Carson cleared his throat a little. “We’re sharing dreams. Only two so far, but they’re pretty fucked up. But also some weird ... mirror events. Independent reflections, whatever you’d call it. And nosebleeds.” That was a start, at least, somebody else could fill in the details.
Nic offered Jane a little smile as Neil introduced them, lifting his hand in a wave when Neil said his name. He didn’t know how much Neil had told her, but it didn’t sound like much at all from what he said. Carson got them off to a good start and Nic added on to that, focusing on the dreams, since he wasn’t all that sure a dream walker could do anything with the mirror part. “We’re usually running through the woods in the dreams. Something’s chasing us, but I’ve never been able to see what it is. And then, when we finally get to a point where we see each other, we can’t seem to talk, but there’s this scream, like a— like a banshee or… I dunno. I can still hear it ringing in my ears when I wake up.” There were probably lots of little details he was leaving out, but that felt like the important parts. Of course, more came to him as soon as he stopped talking. “One time resulted in sleep walking. I’ve never walked in my sleep before,” he added. There was probably more, but he’d let the others chip in.
Neil had told her enough, but Jane listened to the others anyway, nodding a bit here and there as she studied each of them, committing them to memory so she could slip into their dreams later. Jane caught sight of the teenager girl who was chewing her lip, looking like she had something to say too and Jane arched a brow. "And what about you? Same things?" Jules nodded, focusing on the small piercing in the Jane's septum.
"Our school bus ran off the road on the same street where we're having the dreams," Jules explained. She tugged her sleeves down over her wrists, feeling oddly nervous about telling a stranger these things, even though there was a possibility the woman could help. "I got knocked out for a second and I had this like... I couldn't even call it a dream, but it felt like one. But I was alone on the street and whatever's been in our dreams was there."
"You didn't see it?" Jane asked. Jules shook her head and Jane twitched her lips to the side thoughtfully. Finally after a few moments of silence, she spoke again, her gaze ticking between the four. "It sounds like you're having lucid dreams. You seem to be aware that you're dreaming, right? In the moment?"
Neil nodded and glanced at the others. That was a fair assumption though he wanted to point out that they weren't always asleep when things happened to them. Dreams were one thing, he felt like he could quiet them down with a sleeping pill or even some weed, but the things that he'd seen and felt while awake made this whole mess a lot more terrifying. "I usually realize," he replied though he wasn't going into detail about how it was the sinking feeling of terror that told him what was happening.
Carson nodded along, glancing between everybody as they spoke. He noticed the nervous way Jules played with her sleeves and felt another stab of guilt that she was there, out of her element with adult men who were just as clueless and helpless as she was. It had to be scary. He just hoped Jane could help them. “Yeah, after a minute or two,” he answered as well. “Or what feels like it, anyway. But it’s like ... gotta be more than lucid dreaming, right? With all of us sleepwalking into the goddamn street, and all of us waking up with gushing nosebleeds.” Something more was happening here, that much was obvious.
“Even if it’s lucid dreaming, I don’t feel like we’re really in control,” Nic added in. “We all seem to do the same thing. Wake up at the same time. It’s just… weird.” And Nic was used to weird. This was something beyond anything he’d ever heard of. He couldn’t predict it or prevent it. No spell he’d tried had seemed to help. He knew magic wasn’t a fix for everything, but this felt like an instance where it should at least be applicable. Instead, he felt as useless as everyone else.
Jane nodded and was quiet for several moments as she thought over everything Neil had told her, and what they were describing now. "I suppose it's possible that the four of you could be experiencing some form of astral projection. I couldn't say for sure, because I've never known anyone experiencing an OBE to sleepwalk during it. But this isn't exactly textbook, you know? Whatever is in your dreams with you could be the one in charge. The nosebleeds could be from it fucking so much with you, especially if it's somehow drawing your mind out of your body while you sleep to take you to that road. I just don't know for sure."
She shrugged casually while her gaze ticked between the four of them. "I can dreamwalk, but Neil said your shared dreams aren't predictable. So we have two options here. One, I can wait until a night where this dream occurs again, but that would mean visiting at least one of your dreams every night until it happens. Or two, we can choose a night and I can try to trigger it. It's complicated and I don't even know if it would work, but it wouldn't hurt to try. If I can walk in that particular dream, I could see things you four might not be able to."
"Choosing a night seems more prudent," Neil said - maybe a little too quickly. He didn't want to say much unless it was to protest awful ideas but Jane's idea was good and so much better than knowing she was 'dropping in' at random times. Maybe she already was but Neil preferred to believe she wasn't. "It might not work but it's worth a try." He sounded less certain about it the more he said and ended up with his shoulders hunched again, hands pushing down on his pockets.
Carson nodded his agreement with Neil. If that was something that could work -- and all of this sounded like fucking lunacy to him, but he was well aware now that was just how the world actually worked, and he was along for the ride -- then it was better than stabs in the dark. He didn’t want his mind invaded any more than it had to be, like anybody else. “Let’s try to make it happen then,” he said. “And if it doesn’t work, we’ll ... wait for one, I guess.” Carson sounded a little doubtful about that -- the dreams themselves seemed few and far between, and he wanted this resolved. He knew the others did too. “So when do we wanna try?” he asked, glancing between them.
Nic didn’t like the idea of someone he didn’t know poking around in his dreams every night, but he would have gone for it if it would guarantee them a chance at solving this problem. He didn’t know if trying to trigger it would work, but since everyone else seemed to want to go that route, he figured it couldn’t hurt. The worst that could happen was that it didn’t work, in which case they could always fall back on her popping into their dreams nightly. “I say let’s do it soon, get it over with,” he suggested. “I don’t want to go another week wondering if one’s going to hit me up.” If he knew it was coming, he could be prepared.
Jules wasn't super thrilled at the idea of some stranger roaming around in her dreams, but things were what they were and they would have to try something, right? "Yeah, the sooner the better," she said, agreeing with the others. She wished she had more to contribute, but she felt a bit out of her depth there, surrounded by adults. Not that she was a kid, but she was acutely aware of her age in that moment. Why the hell had this Thing chosen her anyway? It was probably all random and just a really shitty twist of luck, but still.
"Sunday night then," Jane said after giving it a moment of thought. "Don't take any sleeping pills, if that's your thing. Try to fall asleep naturally, so there's nothing affecting your subconscious. You may be aware of my presence once I'm there, assuming it works, but you may not. Either way, I'll reach out to you guys in the morning, once everyone is awake. I can't promise this will work, or that I'll have anything of value to tell you, but... you never know. It can't hurt to try."
It was better to try than to sit there, waiting for the inevitable to happen. Not that Neil was in any rush to experience the nightmare again. It was proactive but that had never been his strong suit and he wished he could opt out of all of this - but if that was an option they all would. "Sunday night," he echoed in agreement and hoped this wouldn't affect work too badly the next day. He hated calling in sick and staying at home all day would just drive him further into depression and anxiety.
Carson nodded. That meant he couldn’t smoke himself to sleep like he’d been doing far too often lately, but he guessed he could give it up for one night. In the name of getting something accomplished with all of this bullshit. “It’s more than we’ve been able to figure out on our own, so ... thank you,” he said to Jane, giving her a little nod. Now that they’d made a decision, he was antsy to get this done with and the others out of the shop so he could talk to Nic alone.
Nic nodded along with Carson, agreeing completely. They were at a dead end and Jane was the only person who seemed like she might be able to help them. There was always a small chance that Lem could catch him in one of the dreams, but this seemed like a better option in that it was far more predictable. And controlled. Hopefully. “Neil can give you our numbers. Hopefully… hopefully, this will help. So, yeah, thank you.”
"Sure." If she hadn't been getting any benefit out of this, Jane would have been more reluctant to help out. But it was worth it to try and push her own abilities, and ultimately having Neil indebted to her should she actually be able to give him some answers. She didn't want to hang around longer than she needed to, so she looked at Neil and gave him a smile. "Text me the numbers. I'll reach out to you regardless of what happens Sunday night. Until then, you know where to find me." Not that she expected Neil to seek her out unless he absolutely had to, but at least she put it out there for the others to hear. If they had questions for her, they would go through Neil. She was betting he was just hating all of this. It was more entertaining than it should have been. "I've got to head out," she told the others. "If anything happens between now and Sunday night... well, let me know. We'll go from there if we have to."
She was right in that Neil was hating this. He was grateful she was helping, of course, but he wished it was a paid service - rent a dreamwalker - because he knew she would use this against him one day and he was not looking forward to that. These dreams took precedence, they had to be dealt with because Neil was fairly sure that if they carried on unchecked they'd be the death of Neil and everyone else involved. "Thank you, Jane," he mumbled. "I suppose we'll see each other Sunday." He hoped she wouldn't think to visit his dreams before then just to mess with him, one dream-manipulating monster was enough.