What happened

"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theater that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real."

Nothing but shadows.

Dick tended to find himself relating to the gypsy characters in things. Granted, the one here was a 17-year-old stage actress who had just fallen hard for a bratty little Narcissis with a fancy portrait of himself. But for that paragraph, he... sort of actually got it. The life of a superhero was one that, when you took a big step back, was really rather ridiculous, but while you were living it, it was more real than anything else. Having a super-fancy car, and jumping off of rooftops was normal. Getting into fistfights with complete strangers was just part of a regular routine.

Sigh. And he'd thought the library would be a good place to relax, instead of thinking about things.

He was upended in an armchair that rested against the wall. His head barely had space on the seat, and his legs were stretched up along the wall, crossed at the ankles and in a comfortable sort of stretch. He turned the page.

"Yes," he cried, "you have killed my love! You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away."

[Text from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.]

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Wilkins’s office was the one piece of this city that was everything perfect. His photos of important people and him hung right where they belong. There was no dust. Everything was straightened and crisp. His humidifier provided faithfully the right temperature for anyone with any sort of sinus conditions to be pleased.

“Please, sit.”

He took his own advice. He leaned back in his throat and drew one leg up. It created a little table as one leg crossed over to the other’s knee. This is where his hands sat. They created a little steeple.

“Feel free to begin. You have all my attention.”

[ Baron Mordo ]

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Never make a deal with the Devil. You always ended up on the losing side.

Dream knew that. He'd known it for millenia. But sometimes, deals were inescapable.

Traveling in the City, he began to seek out some of the superpowered humans, the metas, the ones who might be able to assist him in this kind of ordeal. A journey into Hell was no light matter, by any stretch of the imagination. Across all the span of time, among all the creatures capable of having dreams, not once had the Prince of Stories ever encountered a single entity whose dreams of Hell were anything short of a nightmare. Especially of those who resided there.

Morpheus found himself in a diner. It seemed the mortal way - when one is searching for answers, to find it in the bottom of either a whiskey glass, or a coffee mug. Dream wondered briefly if answers could be found in such a way. Time would tell, perhaps?

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Darien's latest case was a murder. From the surface, it had looked like a grudge killing. Eddie DeCosta was found stabbed in the back behind a grocery store, the knife still sticking out of him. There were no prints on the handle, it was a common type of kitchen knife, and there were no footprints around the body thanks to the asphalt. The victim had an ex-wife that looked like the type that might kill, but Dairen wasn't convinced.

DeCosta also had some connections to a known drug dealer here in the City, and unless he missed his guess, that was probably a lot closer to the truth. George Kellner was a small-fry compared to the other dealers, but still big enough to do something like take out a hit. The problem was that Darien didn't have enough solid proof on his hands to get a warrant, and he wasn't friendly enough with anyone to pull some influence.

Lacking a warrant wasn't going to stop Darien. Not when he had the skills to get the evidence he needed himself.

After some snooping around, he heard a rumor that DeCosta had debts towards Kellner. Not the sort of thing you can work off with two part-time jobs. Kellner owned a house in an upper-class neighborhood, a house which he was only at every other night. Staking out the place had arguably been the most boring part, but also left him with a buzz of anticipation. It had been too long since he had done this. Even if it was just some two-bit dealer's house, he felt the same excitement that he did every time. This was why he had become a thief.

He picked a night when Kellner wasn't home and paid his house a visit. Darien was clad in black clothing, a black beanie over his head and a backpack of supplies along with him. He didn't have anything high-tech, but he doubted he'd need it.

Sure enough, the burglar alarm was an electric eye one, fairly common and all too easy for him to bypass. The back door had three trancievers all up and down the door frame, but the door itself also swung inward. Pulling his lockpicks from his pocket, he directed a flow of Quicksilver over his lower arms, waiting a half-second for it to fade from silver to invisibility. Darien picked the lock without a peep from the alarm system, pocketing the lockpicks again before going completely invisible. The door swung open, and he was in.

That had been way too easy.

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Setting: Babs' house, sometime Monday afternoonish
Summary: Helena comes home to find that she is no longer the only houseguest...

Work had been long. Her cases seemed to be particularly perplexing of late, not to mention that the District Attorney's re-appearance was throwing everyone into a frenzy. Helena had yet to meet Mr. Dent, but she already disliked him, if only because she was tired of half the office running around in a panic. It was interrupting her own train of thought, and given the cases she was working with, that was a very bad thing.

And so, tonight she had promised herself a night off from it all. She would be returning home at a normal hour, and she was going to take a hot shower, slip into her pajamas and watch a movie. Maybe Barbara would even be home to join her, for once.

She reached the kitchen door, pushing it open and dropping her keys on the table, instinctively locking the door behind her before kicking off her shoes and heading up the hallway towards the bathroom.

"Barbara?" she called out hopefully as she moved through the house.

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who sam and felicia.
what sam bumps into pretty girl, she invited him up to her apartment after he spins a story about dean wanting to move. fun times.
where uhhh. some street.
when today.

SAM·· Leaning back on the car he and his brother shared, Sam had a take-out cup of coffee in his hand and hazel eyes on the building in front of him. He hadn't had a dream for days, but somehow the building in front of him seemed familiar. It didn't look out of the ordinary compared to the rest of the apartments around, but for some reason... He had a vibe about the place. He couldn't say if it was a good vibe or a bad one, though, so he didn't move to go inside. Whatever it was, he couldn't see anything wrong right at that time, so he didn't really move.

He and Dean had come down to this particular neighbourhood so that Dean could visit his favourite coffee shop. He'd said that a friend had showed him the place and that they had amazing coffee, so Sam had just followed without a care. That was, until they passed that building. Since their run-in with Progo, the boys hadn't really seen much supernatural action, but Sam couldn't help but notice that this building was different from the rest.

Lifting his shoulders in a shrug, Sam pushed away from the dark green of the Chevy Impala. Dean had headed home to check if there was anything up with that particular building on the internet while Sam headed back to check out the physical thing. Whatever it was, it wasn't all that important yet, he guessed, and so moved towards the front of the car. And bumped into someone on his way, good job, Sam. "Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized, lifting his eyes to whoever he'd bumped into.

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Ok time to really take a good long look at things.

In the past day she'd found a place to stay, it wasn't the Four Seasons but it was clean and looked reasonably safe. Safe.. funny what a new concept that was for her. She'd been married to a costumed super hero for so long that she'd all but given up ever leading a normal life worrying about muggers and thieves. When one ran toe to toe with nemesis, intergalactic symbiotes and maniacal geniuses bent on world domination a mugger tends to be laughable.

But that was all before Pete....died. She hadn't thought it was possible but even he had his limits. The city lost a hero and she lost a husband, where was the fairness in that? There was none. That was why after her day full of getting appointments with agents, finding place to live and getting some more clothes, M.J. had taken a walk. If she knew she was going to the graveyard she never told herself about it. Ambling steps just lead her that way. She should have bought flowers, on the odd chance Pete was here she would have liked to have something to leave.

After twenty minutes of roaming the stones she still hadn't spotted Peter Parkers name, unsure if she should be happy or sad at lacking even that much of a connection she crumpled to a seat on a cement bench and dropped her head in her hands. Softly weeping for the first time in a long time. Not for Pete, but for herself. Fat greedy tears of her own misery fell to her feet, her distraction making it all the easier for the shambling shadow behind her to inch forward with it's nervous twitching gait.

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Who: Babs and Desire
What: Desire wants to give Babs a gift, which doesn't exactly sit well with Babs
When: Thursday Evening

Barbara - Babs was used to working at night. Even on nights when she shouldn't have been working. She knew she should have been home by now, asleep and letting her body rest up for the mounds of work she had to do in the 'real world' tomorrow. There was paperwork and a meeting with a few of the school board members. It was going to be a long day.

Yet here it was, two o'clock in the morning on Wednesday and Babs was still in her clock tower. She'd finally gotten her files from Arkham at eight that evening, and it had been with a girlish excitement that she'd turned around, gone straight back up to her office, and commenced in reading and entering data onto her computer. Her computer which was working now. Babs almost didn't want to leave its side. It had been working since Saturday evening, really, but one never knew what could happen.

Time flew by, and it wasn't until she glanced up at a clock by accident that she actually realised it was two in the morning. She wasn't even really that tired. She didn't start packing up to go home upon realising the late hour or anything like that. She simply pushed back her chair from the desk and moved over to her coffee maker. A little caffeine and she could make it 'till five, no problem. Then, a two hour nap and she would be ready to face the day. That was what the couch was for, after all.

Desire - Desire draped himself over an extra chair nearby where Babs had been sitting. A cigarette hung from pouty lips. Cat ears rested on a head that carried red hair. Desire's new favorite color for hair. She looked at Babs.

It was easy to know what the woman in the wheelchair wanted the most. It floated on the surface of her thoughts. But ... well. What kind of fun would that be?

Instead, Desire turned himself into what Babs desired most in the way of people. That was more fun. In her would be reflected the face of the one that Babs would be most likely to fall for. To lust for.

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Proginoskes never had any doubts about how odd he looked in terms of life on Earth: there was no species that quite resembled a giant ball of wings with more eyes than any creature ever needed. Birds came close, but no birds ever breathed fire. He'd taken to wandering around invisibly, just to save himself the trouble of dealing with people staring at him. It was a very uncomfortable and off-putting thing to put up with, even if he did have a habit of staring, himself.

There was a certain element of chaos in the City that hadn't been there before. He didn't quite understand it - surely, without all of the metallic distractions humans had made for themselves, they could actually try and think about what they were, and what they should be doing.

Progo was a bit ruffled. It was the only explanation for why he suddenly materialized inside what appeared to be a bar. It was certainly crowded. Alcohol seemed to be popular when things went badly. One moment, he was hovering around next to the bartender, staring at the variety of bottles lining the wall and taking in all of the colors.

Then someone was pointing at him, and then he realized he wasn't invisible.

The pointing and staring was followed by a moment of shocked silence, and then, probably, the realization that he was actually a real creature. Then the screaming started, and the panic. The bartender tried to smack Proginoskes with a baseball bat, but a wild, instinct-driven burst of flame took care of that. People ran out into the street. A few dropped to their knees and started praying, drunkenly. Most simply fled, babbling things about angels and demons and dragons.

Inside the bar, Proginoskes drifted over the barstools, feeling rather smugly proud of himself, despite the trouble he caused.

Silly humans.

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"Vincent! Vin- stop! Bad boy!"

Nothing worked. The labrador seemed to have a mind of its own. Shannon couldn't keep up, but the leash was wrapped firmly around her wrist, and it wasn't going to come off in a hurry. It was useless trying to drag him back, too. Vincent was very strong. What does this dog eat, anyway?

She was too busy running to really notice what she was passing. Cars, for instance. And other people. Most of them avoided the girl with the dog, but inanimate objects can hardly jump out of the way.

"Shit!"

Shannon swerved to avoid a pole, only to bowl straight into someone who was innocently walking along the street.

There was a small snap! as Vincent's collar broke.

She watched him run off, and felt like crying. She didn't even think to apologise to the guy she ran into.

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Characters: Jennie, Darien
Summary: Jennie does laundry and runs into one of her more interesting neighbors...

Another long week was just beginning. Unfortunately, last week had been so hectic that Jennie had completely neglected the growing pile of laundry at the foot of her bed. It was a good thing she had a lot of clothes-though the laundry was completely spilling out of her wicker hamper, she still had yet to run out of clean underwear.

Even so, if she didn't do laundry soon, she would have to take to borrowing clothes from her shoots, she thought with a wry smile. Not exactly something she was keen to do, as most of the photo shoots featured over the top, extreme fashions.

And so, she trudged down to the elevator, taking it down to the basement, juggling her hamper and two baskets, cheating a little bit with her abilities to help balance the large load.

Once the elevator let out into the basement, she took to sorting her clothing into lights, darks, delicates, etc, trying not to notice the overwhelming silence, punctured only by the whir of the machines.

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