Carson Durand (dontlaugh) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-04-16 17:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | #group scene, #january 2018, carson, jules, neil, nic |
Who: Nic, Neil, Jules, and Carson
When: afternoon, Monday, Jan 15th
Where: the Castells’ Spice Shop
Status: Complete
If there was one place Carson didn’t want to be, it was in a room with the other dreamers. The last dream they’d had had shaken him up something awful, as he assumed it had done to the rest of them too. All of the cats were out of the bag now -- they all knew what all of the rest of them could do ... but Carson couldn’t help but feel like his secret had been the worst. Jules could open portals and Neil could shoot electricity, but he was a monster. He’d spent a couple of days after the dream doing his best to telepathically hide. He didn’t want to face any of them -- even Nic, who’d already known. But when they wanted to set up a meeting to discuss everything, Carson couldn’t exactly say no, could he?
He was late showing up to the spice shop, considering he spent half an hour in the car talking himself into driving there, but he showed up. Carson knew that they were all stuck in this bullshit together for whatever reason, so it wasn’t like the group could get rid of him, but part of him was terrified that Neil and Jules would never look at him the same. He reminded himself again that making friends wasn’t the point, and it wasn’t like any of them chose this. So he straightened his shoulders and walked into the spice shop, wiping his boots off on the mat before he headed toward where the others were gathered.
Jules wasn't exactly thrilled to be at the spice shop again either. But she didn't think any of them were super pumped about it. Jules was starting to feel overwhelmed by everything that was happening. She was only seventeen, and winter formal was coming up. More than anything else, she just wanted to be freaking out over not having a dress yet, instead of these dreams and her hands and all the batshit crazy stuff that seemed to be happening. While they waited for Carson, Jules wandered the shop, checking out the different teas and spices. She supposed she could talk to Nic and Neil but why bother when they would just have to start all over again when Carson got there? He was the one she was most eager to hear from, because she had her suspicions about what she saw in that dream, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions. Though... watching him start to turn into an animal was a pretty conclusive conclusion.
She had started walking back up toward the counter when the door opened and Carson walked in. It was kind of funny how often the four of them had met, or talked in each others heads, or dreamed of one another... and she still felt a little awkward and unsure around them. "So..." Jules began, shoving her hands into her coat and managing a small smile. "This super sucks, huh?"
Neil had debated making some excuse to not show up. He was so tired of all of this and he didn't know if Carson really was some kind of monster or if that had just been his own dream going haywire. There had been absolute radio silence this weekend and in a way he couldn't help but take it as some admission of guilt. He knew the others didn't want to be there either, he couldn't be the only one who was exhausted and confused when they'd all been somewhere so disgusting that Neil had felt compelled to take a long shower to scrub off the memory - after he put out the small fire in his room. in the dream Nic's magic had gone haywire too and Neil had wondered if that had affected his waking hours as it had Neil but he hadn't asked. They'd all been shell shocked, he supposed, still were.
Neil stiffened uncomfortably when Carson entered the shop, but at least he looked human and every bit as weary as the rest of them. "Carson," he mumbled with somewhat cold politeness and now that they were all here they could talk. He wasn't even sure what talking did anymore but it did make him feel a little less alone in this mess.
While Nic knew they needed to talk about the dream from the other night, he also wondered what purpose it would serve. Every time this happened they got together, tried to hash it out, and came up empty handed. It felt like they were being sent a message, yet he couldn’t figure out what and he just wanted it to stop at this point. He had other things to worry about besides possibly prophetic shared dreams, but he knew he couldn’t ignore this, especially since the others had seen Carson shift. Even though it wasn’t news to him, he wanted to be there for the support. “Pretty much sums it up,” Nic said with a huff and a small smile of his own. He looked from Neil to Jules to Carson. “Everyone okay?”
Carson had a wan smile for Jules, a nod of acknowledgment for Neil, and a sheepish sort of look for Nic. The others knew what he knew now, and Carson wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but he hoped that they would be reassured by the fact that Nic wasn’t afraid of him. Carson leaned his hip against the counter, his hands tucked into his coat pockets, and glanced around the group as well. He was doing his best to keep his mental walls up, and got the sense that the others were doing the same. Jules was right -- it did all super suck. “Physically, yeah,” he answered Nic’s question in a murmur, glancing around again. The others apparently had powers that weren’t dependent on the phase of the moon, so Carson thought they’d been more at risk than he had been.
Jules was getting the impression that they were all going to be awkward and not talk, or at least wait for someone else to talk. She had always thought guys like to be in charge of stuff, but that didn't seem to be the case with these three. Considering Nic's question Jules figured she could lie and say yes, or just tell them the truth about stuff and see where it led, if anywhere. This had been going on forever and they still didn't really have any answers. "The dream we had," she started, not really in the mood to do the uncomfortable small talk thing. "It felt real. Different than the other times, like we were really there. When I woke up I was cold, and my hands hurt. Which yeah, I can like... see alternate dimensions or whatever nerds call them." She held up her hands, one of which was still bandaged from the gross icky stuff from the school. "I can't help it when it happens. I don't know if I did that or not. But you guys were there with me, so I think it's all like, connected. And with the fog... I don't know what that means but I think it's like... a premonition? Is that the right word?" She scrunched up her nose for a moment. "I don't know. But like... remember the mirrors, when we saw... what we saw... my reflection said they're coming. Maybe that meant whatever was in the fog." Jules paused to take a breath, her eyes shifting from one face to the other to see if they kept up with her brain dump.
Neil had shaken his head at Nic's question because he didn't feel okay at all. Carson seemed very human right now so he had no idea what to make of that or how to behave toward him and then Jules was speaking and Neil's confusion just kept growing. He didn't know anything about her hands and this was the first he was hearing about her connection to other dimensions. She wasn't being terribly clear about it either so he stared at her as she spoke, feeling even more lost than he had just minutes earlier. "Whatever is happening, it's escalating," he said and now he wondered if he should have invited Jane to meet them too. It was ridiculously strange that at this moment she felt the closest to an ally in all of this than anyone else. "There were other people there, did you see them?"
“You’ve seen alternate dimensions outside of the dream?” Nic asked as he tried to piece together everything that Jules had said. Until the most recent dream, he’d never really thought they were in a real place, but the last dream had definitely put them on Main Street, or some version of it. Had Jules been the one to bring them there? “I definitely think it’s a premonition of some sort,” he said, agreeing with her. It was the same conclusion that he and Lem had come to when he’d woken up. “Not a good one. It seems to be triggering any abilities we have and…and driving them out of our control.” The combination of his powers with Neil’s had been dangerous, but Carson shifting had been potentially deadly. He hadn’t thought that was even possible without a full moon. “I saw their shadows, but I didn’t get a good look at any of ‘em. I think the monsters were there too. The ones from the fog.”
Carson didn’t remember much from the dream after he’d started to shift -- even in a dream that pain blotted out everything else in him. He vaguely remembered lightning and water, but not Jules opening anything up. He frowned vaguely, glancing between all of them as they spoke and feeling like he shouldn’t be there. If they had powers they could control and he didn’t, he was a huge liability, and he had no idea how he’d been tapped for whatever this bullshit was. These premonitions they couldn’t do jack shit about. “It felt real to me too,” he offered quietly, wishing Rylee was there with him. “And like a warning. Did it feel to any of you guys like the fog things and the shadow people were like ... on the same side?” Carson glanced at Jules, feeling more sheepish about her than the other two for some dumb reason. She’d confessed to him what she could do -- or more accurately, what was happening to her -- and he hadn’t told her what he was.
"I've... it's only happened a couple of times," Jules explained. "I was in a car accident when it first happened, but I don't know if that's what started it. But every time it's happened, it's been... here, Point Pleasant, but just... a different kind of Point Pleasant. A different version. And never a good one. I don't know what it means, except maybe the Point Pleasant we were stuck in actually exists... like, somewhere else? I don't know." Jules licked her lips, feeling weird and wishing Jasper was there with her. She would have felt so much better. "I saw the people in the fog, with the creature. But I couldn't make out any of their faces, only the shapes of them. But they felt scary to me, dangerous, like they were... on the same side, like you said," she told Carson, "like they were a part of--" Then she paused, feeling her chest constrict so painfully that for a second she couldn't breathe. Carson's words seemed to trigger something in her mind, even if she wanted to push it aside and completely ignore it. Once she was sure she wasn't going to faint, Jules looked at the three of them, pale and feeling nauseous all over again. "Do you guys know anyone who got hurt when those things were here? Like, really here?" she whispered.
Neil didn't know anyone but he wasn't so oblivious that he didn't know people had gotten hurt - some of them by those large creatures. He didn't understand how anyone could survive it but when Jules asked about it he couldn't help but wonder if there was a reason for that. He was plenty used to anxiety being a part of his life but the dread that built in his chest at her question was so much more intense and he only ever felt it in connection to these damn dreams. "Do you think-" he started. "They were infected? Like werewo-" he cut himself off, paling as he looked at Carson. Not the best analogy if that was what he really was. That part of the dream felt like the elephant in the room and Neil didn't feel right bringing it up but now he somewhat had - unless they let it slide. He tried to dodge around the topic but at this point he was kind of stuttering. "Ki-kinda cursed? Or... they- maybe they-" He was looking around helplessly, hoping someone had a better way of putting this.
“My neighbor was attacked,” Nic said, hoping they could stay on this topic a while longer before veering into werewolf territory. While that probably needed to be addressed, he didn’t think it was the big picture problem. If it fit in somewhere, he’d yet to see how, but nothing felt like chance anymore. They all had some kind of ability and that couldn’t be totally random. “Vex,” he added, since Neil knew him. “Lem said he’s been acting weird lately. Weird for him. Moody. You think...you think they’re connected.” He’d meant it as a question, but it didn’t come out that way, a chill running through him at the possibility. If Vex was a part of this, it wasn’t good. Not for him, and definitely not for Lem. “Um… My sister’s boyfriend, he was with a guy who was also attacked. And… who else?”
Carson’s eyes ticked only briefly to Neil at that slip of the tongue, but he stayed resolutely focused on the matter at hand. He didn’t want to talk about himself at all. He knew he would probably have to very soon, but there were more important things going on. He’d known that Vex had gotten scratched, and the implications of that were just now hitting him, like they seemed to be doing with everyone else. His brow furrowed with worry, Carson tried to think of anyone else he knew who might’ve been injured. “My uh, my buddy’s boyfriend, he’s a cop, uh uh,” Carson tried to dig the name out of his scrambled mind, snapping the fingers of one hand like that might help. “Solomon! Ty Solomon. He got hurt.” Jared had mentioned it in passing when they’d caught up at some point in the past few weeks, but Carson hadn’t heard anything more about it. Which wasn’t really surprising.
Jules thought of Sebastian's mother. And Elodie. She chewed on her lower lip, feeling sick, though she tried to tell herself it wasn't connected at all. It was just fog. And maybe... completely different fog creatures. Maybe. "Um, the mom of one of my friends? And a girl I go to school with." Jules found it difficult to say Jasper's name. She felt like if she did, she would be betraying him somehow, even though that was super irrational. She wanted to help him, if something was really going on. Maybe all of this was connected, and this was how she could protect him. Jules licked her lips. "My boyfriend... he was hurt. He was having some really bad mood swings. And like, feeling really energized one minute and super tired the next. He thinks it was the wound that was messing with him somehow." Jules looked at Nic. "It sounds like he and uh, Vex, are dealing with the same thing. I've asked my friend's sister to keep an eye on her mom and let me know if she's been acting strange."
Neil listened and tried to keep count. Six people that they knew of so far, how many others? He couldn't help but picture a small army of people, all mutating to start looking like those things in the fog, going crazy, killing people or spreading this thing like the black plague. He had the common sense to realize he was blowing things out of proportion since they really didn't know anything yet but he couldn't shake it off as a possibility either. "Alright so we know about some of them," he said and shrugged helplessly. "What does that- what can we even do? Should we be notifying the authorities of a possible... I don't know. Outbreak? If they're infected with something..."
“Solomon is a cop,” Nic reminded them as he ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know that anyone would listen to us. Most people would think we were crazy. Even if we could identify all of them, I don’t know what we’d do. Gather ‘em up and…?” He gave a little shake of his head, unable to come up with an answer. His brain said that if they were infected, then they needed some kind of vaccination, but it felt beyond him magically. Experimenting on someone would likely kill one or both of them. “I had a dream a while back. It was weird. I haven’t spoken to Ty Solomon in years, but he was in it. And when he looked at me, his eyes were red. I didn’t know at the time that he was one of the ones who got hurt.”
Carson’s eyes widened as Nic started to talk about his dream -- he had completely forgotten that he’d had one just like it, in spite of the perturbing phone call with Vex that had followed. But pretty much every conversation with Vex was like that, in his limited experience. The guy was weird as fuck. “I had one like that too,” he said urgently, glancing around the room once more. “Only it was Miriam D’Onofrio. Vex was in it too, like ... they were in The Boathouse talking, and they started to leave and she looked at me and her eyes were red. And I called Vex about it and he told me that it really happened. Him talking to her, I mean, not the eyes. Those felt ... I dunno, just for me.” His voice quieted a bit at the end and he looked at Neil and Jules uncertainly.
Jules so didn't want to tell anyone who was in any position of authority about this. Jasper and his family had a bad reputation in town as it was and she could only imagine what he would think if Jules went to the cops about it. It was probably bad enough that she went to his dad. She glanced between the men, her brows drawn together in confusion and then thoughtfulness as she recalled a dream she'd had a while ago. Once that felt vague to her now, but she had brushed it off as nothing. "I had a dream about my friend's mom... the one who got hurt. She was at work, she's a real estate agent, and she was talking to someone, but her eyes were red too. I just figured it was a random like, subconscious thing." And she had completely forgotten about it, even when talking to Phee. Jules felt sick to her stomach and her head hurt from trying to figure all of this out. It felt like there were pieces to put together to create a bigger picture, but they all seemed at a loss. "So... so we're having dreams about the people who were hurt in the fog... and then we dreamed about the fog. I don't know what it means. Are they... are we supposed to think they're... evil or something? Infected with something bad?"
Neil had had his own theories after his dream of Rost's girlfriend with her red eyes but it had all felt too big and he'd admittedly been smoking a lot of weed since it happened. He had hoped he was wrong about the connections he'd made and then he'd decided he was wrong and that had enabled him to let it go for a while - long enough to get on with his life at least. Until now. Listening to the others just made his heart sink again because it seemed his crazy conspiracy theories had been correct. The people they had their dreams about were also the people hurt in the fog and the pieces were all clicking together uncomfortably. "My friend's girlfriend was hurt," he said quietly. "And she's the one I saw in my dream. Red eyes. He says she wasn't herself after that, acted strange for a while. So we had dreams about four of these people, we know of seven who were hurt... It felt like there were more people in the dream. Maybe we could- does someone have access to medical records? Police records? We could try to find out who else was injured. If they are... infected with something. At least we know where to look?" He wasn't quite willing to jump on the theory that they were all evil now but the feeling was there, festering.
“Even if we could identify all of them, what would we do with that information?” Nic asked the group, since that seemed to be the direction they were going. He couldn’t buy into the idea that they were evil--Vex was weird, but he wasn’t bad, and any plan that threatened him felt like a threat to Lem. If they were infected, what could they do about it? He didn’t think anyone at the hospital was prepared to deal with the kind of disease they were proposing, one that came from the monsters they’d all seen in the fog and in their dreams. “If they are...infected...with something, do we think it’s contagious? Are they hurting anyone?” Were they really a threat? Lem had said Vex was being an ass, but that didn’t seem like a big enough reason to act against him. This felt too big to wrap his head around and the more they dug into it, the worse it seemed.
Carson wasn’t terribly comfortable with any of this either. He didn’t know anybody that had been mentioned so far very well, but if Jules’s boyfriend was on the list, and Vex ... well, he was the last person in the room who should be calling anybody evil. “I don’t think it’s contagious,” he murmured, glancing at Jules again. “You’ve been around your boyfriend plenty, right? And you don’t feel different? Besides the, uh ... the hand thing. And like, I think Neil’s friend would’ve caught it from his girlfriend too. And Lem. So whatever it is, I think it’s just affecting the ones who got hurt. As for how serious it is ... even if their symptoms aren’t that bad, we pretty much know now that they’re tied to all of this, and the fog. I just wish we could figure out what the fuck it all means.” He nibbled on his bottom lip and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. All of this was infinitely frustrating and opaque. If something was trying to communicate with them, it was doing a piss-poor job. “And we know we’re outnumbered, anyway,” Carson added in a mutter.
Jules swallowed hard, wanting to just go home and hide under her blankets for a while. She didn't like talking about this. She didn't like thinking Jasper could hurt anyone, or would hurt anyone. Was she going to vomit? It felt like maybe she was. Her stomach was doing somersaults and she was feeling a little sweaty. But her hands weren't burning or tingling, so that was something. Carson saying they were outnumbered caused her to pale further. Outnumbered for what? Would those people hurt them for some reason? "They could be... affecting other people," she said after a moment. "I mean, I don't feel different, but I'm not around him all the time. I can ask his sister? Maybe his dad." Ugh, that would mean talking to Gavin again which was so weird and not anything she really wanted to do. But she would, if she had to. "If they're tied to the fog, and we're tied to the fog...I mean, do you think they were in the dream? Were they the ones with the creatures?" Jules scrunched up her nose in thought. "What if they know more than we think they do? Maybe they're not telling anyone. Maybe they're having dreams too?" She was thinking out loud, not really sure of anything at the moment. "And okay, there's four of us, but like... you're a witch," she told Nic before pointing at Neil. "You have like, literal lightning coming out of your body and you..." Her gaze landed on Carson. "I mean, you're a werewolf, right? That's major."
Neil felt empowered by her words and it sort of made sense she was a cheerleader, even if she wasn't actually doing the whole yelling and dance routine, she had that gift, he supposed. At the very least she made him feel a little less like they'd be on the losing side if this turned out to be a whole thing. Until she pointed at Carson at least who very visibly was not empowered by her words so much as he was embarrassed. The shade of red he turned was hard to hide and Neil felt some of the same discomfort because she just... came right out and said what they'd all been thinking. Carson was a fucking werewolf. He cleared his throat, drawing the attention away from Carson again. "I just don't understand how it's us versus them if we were all pestered by the same creature, the one in the dream looked like the ones in the fog, maybe smaller though, maybe that's... Maybe it's time to bring Jane back in. Maybe she can force another dream and we can try to get some answers instead of just piling on more and more questions."
“I dunno,” Nic frowned. “The dreams are getting more… more dangerous. That last one didn’t just trigger my magic in the dream. I woke up and there was water everywhere, like I’d done it in my sleep.” It probably just sounded like a mess, but Nic knew it could have been much more serious. He could have drowned Lem, or frozen her to death. At least when they were awake, they had control. Or he did. He realized that wasn’t entirely true for the rest of them, but it made him start to think. “If all of us could control what we could do, could we use it to our advantage?” he asked, throwing that out there. He didn’t have the answer, but it felt important, like maybe they were onto something. “We need to find out if they’re really a threat. I can watch Vex for sure. Jules, watch your boyfriend and maybe ask your friend about your mom. Carson, maybe you can find out about Ty. I’d say stay away from Miriam D’Onofrio. She’s… I think she could be a problem.” So could Vex, but that was a different story.
Heat flooded into Carson’s face and neck when Jules called him out, and the rush of blood to his head made the next several sentences blurry in his ears. He felt even more horrified when Nic told them about the water -- had he started to turn in the real world? Could he even do that when it wasn’t the full moon? Considering what had happened the time he’d been loose as a werewolf, Carson didn’t even want to entertain that thought. “I don’t ... think control is an option for me,” he said, keeping his eyes on Nic for the moment. He would do what he could to back up the others if back up became necessary, but he really couldn’t see his curse ever working to their advantage. “But yeah, I’ll uh, check with Jared, about Ty. We’re pretty friendly, I think he would tell me. With the way this feels like it’s escalating, I get a feeling we won’t need Jane, we’ll have another dream soon.”
Jules didn't see it so much as her calling Carson out. But it was what it was, and it made no sense to pretend they hadn't seen what happened to him in the dream. Controlling what she could do sounded nice, but Jules didn't know the first thing about it. Maybe if she... practiced, or something. But what would that do? Probably something horrifying. But she could definitely keep an eye on Jasper, and ask Bash or Phee about their mom. But what if things continued to look and feel normal? At least to them? She couldn't keep an eye on them twenty four seven. "I guess I could try and control it," Jules said, but she sounded skeptical. "But I don't know if I want to do it all alone." Her gaze found Neil. "When you started doing the lightning thing... can you control it now? Can you just make it happen when you want it to?"
Neil's mind was racing as he thought about checking in with Rost again and how they all needed to be far more vigilant now. The direct question was almost lost on him and he looked up and blinked before it sank in. "Oh, no. I mean, yes. Kind of. But I too woke up to a small incident. A small electrical fire. My neighbors probably hate me now what with the fire alarm and..." He'd taken to sleeping with rubber gloves over cotton gloves, which was intensely uncomfortable but far preferable over the possibility of burning to death in a house fire. "When I'm awake I can - I've practiced. Not on a grand scale, I have no idea what would happen if I tried to uh - reenact what happened at the library with that thing outside the window but yes, I can... Sort of control it now."
Nic didn’t know much about the kind of abilities Neil and Jules had, but he knew what it had been like learning to control his own. It had taken time and practice, which could be hard when their abilities seemed chaotic. “If either of you need a space to practice, you’re welcome to use our house, or the yard. We’ve got all kinds of wards up that could maybe mitigate the danger. But otherwise, at least have someone with you,” he said, mostly for Jules. The thought of her opening a portal and having to deal with it by herself worried him. He almost suggested she find a witch to keep her company, but the only witches he knew that were her age were too inexperienced to be of much help and he didn’t know if she’d want someone like him hanging around. Zania would have been better, or even Reagan Kelly, but he couldn’t just throw names out there. “If it’s hurting your hands every time, I might be able to give you something for that at least.” He didn’t know what he could do for Neil. And then there was Carson… “When’s the next full moon?”
The others learning how to control their abilities sounded like a good plan. They could be useful later, if things went really really badly. Carson was hoping they wouldn’t, but that hope was tenuous at best. He zoned out a tiny bit as they talked amongst themselves about control -- something that was beyond him -- but Nic pulled him right back into the conversation. Carson licked his lips and shifted his weight again, hands digging deeper into his pockets. “January 31st,” he answered quietly. His gaze ticked to the others. “And just to ... come right out and say it, I guess, yes, I’m a werewolf. I got attacked by one in October, and this’ll be my ... third? Third full moon. We’ve uh ... got precautions in place, I spend full moon nights in an iron cage in Vex’s basement.” He shot Nic a sheepish look because it was pretty obvious now that the witch had known all about it, but Carson still felt like it wasn’t something that needed to be shared with the others, it had never related to their dreams before. Now that had changed, so all cards on the table.
Jules wondered if she could control it. And if she could control it, that meant it would never ever happen again because why on earth would she ever want to do what she's done twice now? She nodded gratefully at Nic, because having something to ease the pain in her hands when it happened would be nice. She wasn't sure she could stop the puking, which was a really horrible side effect, but at least her hands wouldn't feel like they were on fire while she was throwing up. Jules didn't really mind it that Nic already knew about Carson's problem. She didn't think it was any of her business anyway, or wouldn't have been if she hadn't seen him in her dream changing into one. And it sounded like he was being careful about it, not running around every full moon killing people. "And you can only change on the full moon?" she asked him, feeling like she knew enough about werewolves from movies, but she also knew movies weren't exactly real life. "Did you feel weird about the dream? You weren't changing in bed or anything, were you?"
Being asked direct questions made Carson’s skin crawl a bit, especially from Jules, but he knew the curiosity was completely reasonable and understandable. Hell, maybe even important, now. If he was starting to change in the dream, who knew how it would connect to everything in the future. If there was something out there that could make him shift ... fuck, he didn’t even want to think about that too much. “I wasn’t shifting in real life, as far as I know,” he said. A thought of Rylee being a witness to that crossed his mind, but Carson tried to smother it quickly. “I just woke up scared. But yeah, I only change on the full moon. So far, anyway. And it better stay that way, ‘cause it’s not pretty, guys. I have no control when I’m shifted, it’s just all ... rage.” He sounded grim about it, because it was fucking grim.
Disgusting too, if Neil's expression was to be believed. He couldn't quite contain the horror he felt as he'd never been one who easily hid his emotions and this was well outside of his comfort zone. And now he knew the lunatic Vex had a cage in his basement supposedly for a good reason but what else could a cage like that be used for? Neil wanted no part in any of this and if he'd had any damn choice in the matter, he'd have left a long time ago. "At least it didn't affect you here," he muttered, desperately trying to find a silver lining. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that's a relief." He wasn't sure how Carson turning into a raging lunatic every month was supposed to be helpful to them at all, it really did sound more like it would become a burden down the line, possibly the thing that would end up getting them all killed. He shuddered at the thought, wrapping his arms tightly around his skinny chest. "At least we have some plans this time," he muttered. "I speak with Rost, you speak with those you know, we find out if all these people are suffering the same symptoms. It's not much but it's a start."
Nic was glad to hear that Carson hadn’t shifted outside the dream, but he wondered what it all meant. If it was a premonition, then… they had two weeks to figure out what the hell to do. They had some ideas on what to do next, but it felt like things were coming to a head and they needed to think fast. It was a lot on top of everything else that was going on in his life, but at least they had a plan. “That sounds good. I think we need to figure this out before… before something big happens.” He didn’t want to say what because he didn’t know for sure, but based on their dreams it wasn’t anything good. If any of that became reality, they needed to be a lot more prepared than they were now. “Try and stay in touch?”
Jules knew they didn't have a lot to go on other than to talk to people and find out the connections, but it was frustrating not to know where it was all going to lead. She was still scared, and she was worried about Jasper. She was worried she would just be helpless to stop whatever the hell her hands were capable of and she would send the entire town into that creepy place in her dreams. What was she supposed to do? Jules couldn't exactly ask them, because they couldn't help either. "Okay, so then what should we do if we have another dream like the last one?" She wondered if Carson could control his werewolfness. She knew right now he couldn't, but maybe this was a sign that he could, and maybe he would need to with whatever was happening.
Carson didn’t want to think about a repeat performance of that dream. What if it escalated more and he did start to shift in bed with Rylee? Would the shift stop if he woke up? Would it be a physical change or would his mind snap into violence? It made him feel sick to even wonder about, but he knew he couldn’t just cross his fingers on this. Carson glanced around at the other men at Jules’s question -- nobody really knew what to do, it was pretty obvious. “... try to control your powers in the dream?” he suggested. “Use them against ... whatever’s invading? Maybe ... maybe the dreams are supposed to be a practice run, or we can fight back through the dreams, keep it from actually happening.” They were just theories, of course, but that was all any of them had right now.
"Maybe we should try to trigger another dream," Neil said quietly. "With Jane's help. Maybe she can help if she's there and we can try to use whatever we're capable of doing." The thought of actually going into one of these dreams willingly wasn't appealing but being unprepared was even less so. "I still can't fully wrap my head around why it seems that we and the people who got hurt are on opposite sides, if we're all affected by the same creatures. I can't say that our dream experiences have been benign so I'm reluctant to trust that we're on the side of good here - if there is even such a thing. It feels like... we're wrapped up in somebody else's war and we don't understand the politics of it." He stopped himself speaking before he started really rambling, frowning worriedly.
“I dunno,” Nic frowned. “I mean, I guess we could, but I’ve had control of my abilities for years and I didn’t in the dream, so… it doesn’t feel like a reliable source of information. Maybe it’s trying to tell us we need to all come together and do something, but if we do what happened in the last dream we’ll most likely electrocute ourselves. I can do a lot more than summon water.” Everything else required a spell though, so maybe that was part of it. Nic wondered to himself what else he could do that would be more helpful, but without knowing the objective it was hard to know what spell he needed to perform. “I wonder if we can… can fight those things in the fog without hurting the people that seem affected by them.”
Jules didn't want to believe they were on opposite sides of anything, because that meant Jasper was... what? Evil? He wasn't. She was sure Bash would say the same about his mom too. But she had no real answers to this, even though it felt like they were slowly coming to the end of all of it. "You two could do that," Jules pointed out to Nic. "You and Neil. But I can't fight those things. Carson... he can only shift on a full moon, right? And like, if he doesn't even have control of himself, if it was a full moon, he could come after us instead of them? I don't know." She wasn't going to start panicking, but her chest definitely hurt the longer she thought of all of this. "But maybe you couldn't control yourself in the dream because it was a new environment, and we were all like, out of our element and stuff. Maybe if we were there again, it would be different. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try. I'd rather do something than just sit around and wait for this to happen again. Or like... if this happens." She held up her hands. "In the dream, when all the crap was happening, I wanted it to be done, I wanted to be home again. That's when we woke up. Or when I woke up. So maybe... I can just try to control it better." Jules blew out a breath, feeling as though she was rambling. Hopefully some of that made sense.
Carson thought that Jules could probably do more than she was giving herself credit for. She’d shown him what she’d done and seen the first time her hands opened a portal, and he thought if she learned to control it and maybe aim it at people, it could be a powerful weapon. He sure as fuck wouldn’t want to be blipped into the dimension she’d seen. Carson felt very ill-equipped to help here though. He felt dumber than the rest of them -- even the high school cheerleader -- and not nearly as powerful. He couldn’t do anything except put them all in danger if his curse somehow got triggered. He was a liability, and he wished fervently that he’d never started having these fucking dreams. “I’m okay with trying another dream with Jane,” he muttered. He couldn’t kill anyone in their dreams, at least. As far as he knew. Carson told himself he would try to spend that night in the cage at Vex’s house, just in case he did start to change in the waking world. He couldn’t risk Rylee’s life like that. “But I’m not seeing how I can be anything but a liability if this shit happens in real life. They picked the wrong fuckin’ guy for this, if we’re supposed to do something.”
"You were in the army," Neil mumbled and immediately blushed faintly because maybe thinking Carson had some war like abilities that could be useful in this situation was dumb. He had done a good job of not making a fool of himself for a long time now but these dreams were throwing him out of the loop, putting him in impossible situations, making him say stupid shit like this. "I mean... You know how to use a gun and- strategy?" Maybe it wasn't dumb, maybe it was helpful since he honestly didn't want Carson to feel like a liability but he still wanted to stop talking now and he wished he hadn't said anything at all. "I'll call Jane. We should do this as soon as possible. Is there any particular night where any of you really can't participate?"
“I’ve got something Saturday, but I don’t have to go if that’s what works for everyone,” Nic said. He was always looking for reasons to get out of local social events, but casino night had sounded mildly entertaining. There was only one big reason that he shouldn’t go and he’d been wondering if he should mention it to this group as well. It might not matter, but Nic had the feeling that if he didn’t say anything he’d regret it later. “The only thing is… I’m also kind of dealing with… another issue. If we figure out how to solve it, that’ll take priority. But we don’t have anything yet, so… whenever.” He knew that was horribly vague, but had the feeling that mentioning a demon and the possibility of critters attacking him might be worse.
"I thought this was all random at first," Jules told Carson. "But now I don't know. There's got to be something about you that... I mean, there has to be a reason you're in this with the rest of us." Maybe they wouldn't know until it happened. Maybe he was just meant to shift into a werewolf and maul them all to death before they could stop the fog creatures... if that was what they were meant to do. Jules didn't even know. "But I can't Saturday either. It's Winter Formal and I can't miss that." She could, but she didn't want to. There was so much bullshit going on in her life right now that she just wanted to get dressed up and go to a dance with her boyfriend. They couldn't blame her for wanting to do something normal.
On some level Carson appreciated them trying to make him sound useful. It was nice of them, but he just didn’t see it. He’d been a grunt in the Marines, and the shit they were dealing with here was not the type of shit you could just point a big gun at. Carson didn’t even have any big guns anymore, and he didn’t think any of these people did either. Maybe Jules was right and there would end up being some role for him to play, or maybe they were just grasping for meaning where there was none. He didn’t want to be a drag, so he let it drop. “I’m free all week but I think we really need to do it before Saturday,” he said, digging his hands deeper into his pockets. “Who knows how fast this shit’s escalating.” His gaze ticked to Neil. “Just talk to Jane and let us know.”
Neil almost pointed out that they'd all be asleep in bed on this mission so it really shouldn't affect any plans but he knew things could go very wrong and the next day could be absolutely ruined - if not their whole lives. "I'll call her," he promised. "I suggest Wednesday or Thursday, that would give us enough time to prepare and uhm... you'll have time to recover before the weekend." The weekend would have been better for him, he was now thinking of work and how this could completely ruin his day but one bad day seemed sort of like a best case scenario all things considered.
Though he wasn’t thrilled about having another one of those dreams, Nic supposed it had to be done. If they just waited around to see what might happen, they might not be prepared when whatever was coming actually came. At least, he assumed something was coming. At this point it was too much to believe all this was for nothing. “Let us know what she says,” Nic said. “I think we’d all probably like to get it over with.” That didn’t mean they’d be done, but at least maybe they’d know their next steps. So far it just felt like they were meeting to discuss what happened without any real plan. If they could figure out what they were supposed to do, they’d have made some real progress for once.
Jules nodded, because she couldn't exactly say no, and the only reason why she'd want to would be to avoid being in that place again. But they needed to figure this out. Jules just wanted it to be over, and maybe if they could fix all of this it would all go away, including whatever crap was happening with her hands. "I can do either night, just... let me know, I guess. All of this just feels like... hurry up and wait." She thought that was the right phrasing. It was driving her crazy. She was seventeen. She only had a few months left of school. Prom, graduation. Jules so so sick of dealing with all of this. It wasn't fair.
A faint smile crossed Carson’s face at that phrase from Jules -- he’d heard that so many times in the military. Hurry up and wait. This was far more frustrating than that waiting had been, because there was nobody in charge, nobody with a plan. At least nobody on their side to guide them. He didn’t know how they were supposed to figure any of this out when it was all so fucking cryptic, but they could only do waht they could do. “Either one works for me,” he agreed, a bit of finality in his tone now. They weren’t really getting anywhere, and he was ready to go. “So ... everybody be careful, hope your extra shit works out, Nic. And we’ll talk again soon.”
"I'll send you all a message when I've spoken to Jane," Neil muttered. He'd picked up on the tone in Carson's voice and was ready to leave as well. Maybe not at the same time as Carson, he realized with some shame. There was a lingering fear there, even if the moon wasn't full yet. "We'll aim for Thursday night if nothing changes." That way he'd only miss one day off work if things got weird. Or so he hoped. For all he knew this dream might trigger a catastrophic event, killing them all or even ending the world. No pressure. "Just remember to reach out to the people you know, the ones affected - the ones injured... We need more information, whatever we can get our hands on." He didn't think he'd used the word 'we' as often in his life as he had since this ragtag group of people got thrown together by weird fate and it still felt weird coming from his mouth.
“Sounds like we’ve got a plan,” Nic sighed, trying to be hopeful, but a little more overwhelmed than he was willing to let on. He knew the dreams were pressing, that something horrible was probably building up, but the demon threatening his sister’s life, and his own, felt a little more urgent. But he didn’t have any answers there either, so all he could do was bide his time and keep looking for answers. “Jules, if you’ll give me a second before you leave, I’ll make you something for your hands,” he said, about ready to start gathering supplies. It felt like they’d talked about it all they could. Now was the time to take action and hopefully that would put them on the right path.
Jules nodded, giving Nic a faint, but grateful smile. Like the others, she felt a bit hopeless. But she was going to figure this out. She would reach out to people she knew who had people affected by this. It felt like they all had the pieces but couldn't quite figure out the puzzle. And it wasn't even like they could ask witches for help, because Nic was one. Jules hung back, already thinking she needed to maybe call Jasper's dad again and ask him how things were going at home. "I guess we can just like... brain talk to each other once we know stuff," Jules said. She didn't really like them in her head, but it was kind of convenient for some things.
They were all reasonably intelligent people, it seemed like, so it was frustrating that they couldn’t figure this out. But it was a crazy, esoteric weird thing that they obviously couldn’t solve on their own, so he tried not to feel like they were failing here. If some being out there was trying to tell them something, it needed to be more fucking clear, dammit. It seemed like they had reached the end of this little meeting, so Carson nodded to what Jules said. He would reach out to Jared and see how things were going with Ty and then report back to the others. The telepathy could definitely come in handy sometimes. “All right ... everybody take care, we’ll stay in touch.” He glanced around at each of them, then turned to head for the door to make his exit.
Neil zipped up his jacket and popped his collar, getting ready to brave the cold. They hadn't gotten anywhere but he still felt weirdly better. He usually didn't mind dealing with things by himself so it felt strange to take comfort in their company. None of these people were someone he'd have befriended under normal circumstances and Neil was far from patient with even his own family but he felt closer to them than he had anyone before. Of course a part of him hated it but it was what it was and this situation was too big for him to deal with alone anyway. "Be safe out there," he muttered and bravely headed out after Carson. The man wasn't going to turn into a werewolf without the full moon, he reminded himself, and he'd always been polite and pleasant. Neil could leave at the same time and not be a baby about it.
“See ya,” Nic gave the guys a wave as they left, his focus turning inward as he prepared a salve for Jules. It felt like things were coming together, but they still had so many questions. There were blanks needing to be filled and he had the feeling that it needed to happen sooner rather than later. Hopefully Jane would be able to initiate a dream for them and they’d figure things out. Otherwise they weren’t going to be prepared for what was coming, whatever that was.