Working man [Open to multiple]

[vlad_dracul]

Once Dracula learned that the soil of this land would give him sleep, he set to work. He had no desire to become involved in the conflict between ROMAC and the rebels, particularly with such scant information. Fortunately, his actual needs were simple. He needed blood, easily supplied by the rats and vermin of the city. He also needed a place to sleep. Well, sleeping in a coffin, even one occupied, was something he had done before, when necessary.

He preferred a comfortable house or apartment, though. For that, he needed money. He had a small bit of gold in the lining of his jacket, a holdover from more dangerous times, but selling the gold would probably draw more attention than he wanted. Dracula needed a way to earn some honest money. He refused to stoop to crime, especially theft, which he despised. Fortunately, this city, even more than others, had a criminal underbelly willing to cater to those in need of new identities. After earning a small amount of money doing odd jobs, Dracula was able to get enough identification to get a job...at least in places that didn't check backgrounds too carefully.

Now, Dracula is gainfully employed as a bouncer at Wilmot's End. His job includes breaking up fights, preferably before they begin, and making sure minors don't sneak up onto the second floor. Dracula goes back and forth between the floors, making sure the clientele can see him clearly. Wilmot's End has a reputation for not tolerating trouble and Dracula has not hurt that reputation at all. He wears the uniform of black jeans and a black button up shirt well. It's an easy job and Dracula rather enjoys it, even if it is somewhat menial. Ah well. He's developing a solid reputation and gets along with most people.

Even on busy nights, Dracula tries to find time to talk with the clientele. The more they know him and the friendlier the relations are, the easier it is to get people to listen and cooperate. He's always willing to chat for a bit.

What happens when you bring the mistress to see the missus [closed]

[alwaysalright]

The Doctor's still experiencing a mix of many different emotions related to seeing Charley again (most of them happy) as he heads back towards the TARDIS.

Breathing in the cool evening air, hands in his pockets as he strolls along, he doesn't feel too bad. The closer he gets, however, the grumpier he becomes about being locked out earlier, and worried that she still won't let him in.

The latter seems not to be an issue though - the door pushes opens easily this time. But now it's his turn to shut her out of his head as he walks inside, throwing his coat over the railing. He wants her to know he's not pleased about her behavior.

Muss es sein? [closed]

[johnny_truant]

[[OOC: content warning for post-traumatic stress disorder and its side effects]]

Johnny dear, don't be afraid,
I will keep your secret safe.
Bring me to the blind man who
Lost you in his house of blue.


Johnny wakes up bodysoaked in sweat. Typical. If he had a nickel for every time this happened. He'd have quite a few nickels. Maybe enough to actually pay his rent. That'd be the day.

This time however he's got a real bad feeling on top of the sweat. No under it. Under his skin. Bad feelings are typical too, in fact they're a fucking way of life, but this one's different. This feels specific. This has a linear, tangible cause. Directly connected to something that happened in the night, in his head, in the room. Here. With him.

He sits up and then he knows, knows like a punch in the gut, it's nothing in the room at all. It's the room itself.

Everything is wrong. Misshapen. Walls that are not where they were before. Floor tipped and angled. Ceiling much, much too high. Doors. Everywhere. So many fucking doors.

Johnny grabs his head, hands like claws, hard enough to hurt, to bruise. Ducks down into an aborted fetal position like from out of an airplane safety pamphlet and screams and screams and screams. Harsh animal sounds that cut into his throat. Raw, guttural fear, fear he hasn't felt in so long, not like this, not so acutely. Screams like he's dying. Screams to make his ears bleed.

Not even words at first, then words, misshapen just like the room, but words all the same.

“No,” mostly. “No no no no no no stop it stop it go away!”

It chased him here. Found him out. Stupid to think he could have ever escaped. It'll follow him forever. Place to place, city to city, universe to fucking universe. It's in him. Part of him. There's nothing to distinguish him from his curse.

And then, quite all of a sudden and for no reason that makes itself readily known to him, he shuts up. Goes silent. His throat burns. He can taste blood.

He opens his eyes and goes totally, inhumanly still.

The room is back. Snapped into place like a goddamn rubber band. Nothing stretched or compressed, nothing unearthly. The right number of doors. Like nothing even happened.

He sits there and breathes. It was wrong, he knows it was wrong. Not just in his head but really. It was not some leftover inch of a dream. It was real. He is wide awake.

Slowly, trembling and shaky like a baby deer, he climbs to his feet. Some instinct maneuvers him to the closet door. His hand hovers over the doorknob, not quite touching but close enough to feel the electromagnetic field tugging at his skin. He doesn't want to. He has to. He has to.

All at once, like ripping off a band-aid. He seizes the doorknob and turns it and opens the door. Nothing. His one change of clothes. The floor. The walls.

He shuts the door again and gives himself another moment to breathe. Thinks, inchingly, uneasily, only because he feels like he has to—what a stupid phrase, doesn't exist in German, German's too sensible and too efficient. In German he must. Muss er. Es muss sein.—thinks, what if, this time, not a wall but a hallway. Long, long, black.

Exhales in a gust and opens the door again, his gut drops and his vision goes out for an instant. Only to be replaced with what's before him, length and depth and darkness. His hallway. Physically impossible but it's there.

He did this. He did this.

He's going to be sick. For a horrible moment he thinks he is sick, but it's just adrenaline, just wildfire in his blood threatning to crack his skin and burn him from the inside out. He realizes he's just standing there; he hasn't made his dark creation disappear. Instead he stares into it, like he wants the darkness to swallow him. For a moment he does. He wants it to take him and he wants to never come back.

No. He slams the door hard enough to break the hinges. Go the fuck away. What use does he have for his own however-many-minute hallway? He needs escape. He needs to be somewhere else.

He throws the door back open and for a dizzying instant he's looking back into his own apartment, a sickening mirror image, and his foot stutters over the threshold before he trips through it and collapses onto the floor. It's not his apartment at all. He hasn't escaped, he's still within the confines of this same building, just taken a shortcut as it were, trespassed impossibly past walls and corridors, right into Gabriel's apartment.