And this isn't Shadowfoot Island, either! [closed]

[biscuit_powered]

This again. The second time around the place is more familiar, which is weird because right up until reappearing in the exact same spot as the first time (minus weird lying man and helpful druid) Asmodia had completely forgotten that New York was ever anything more than a strange dream. And of course it took her from home when she was resting, again, so she and Biscuit are just as woefully unequipped as before. She's got her spell component pouch and a little bit of cash in her pockets this time, but no corset, no protective wonders, and no dagger or rod. What's really weird is that she does have her cloak of human guise, which she knows she didn't have on her before she got here.

At least this time she knows to put it on right away. A quick test proves that she can lie, too, which is just about the greatest mercy she's ever received. That begs the question of whether her magic is going to work this time, and another quick test confirms that yes, it does. That the test also renders Biscuit invisible is a bonus considering she's pretty sure she remembers that druid telling her this world lacks donkey rats.

Right. Strange world that's not as strange to her as she'd like it to be, no sign of her friends, and no gear. The situation is terrifying more than a little worrying, but she sternly reminds herself that as a slayer of devils and a traveler of demiplanes she can damned well handle this. Just let anyone try to hurt her and they'll find out firsthand why one doesn't meddle with witches. Alright, so there was a bit of panicked sobbing in the bushes in those first few minutes, but she is a mighty caster and a force to be reckoned with and no one is ever going to find out that the first thing she did when she realized she was back here was have a cry with her rat. No one is going to find out, either, that the second thing she did was to get hopelessly lost in a city park.

The third thing, though? Yeah, she's pretty sure the third thing is going to be good. She was aiming for the underground lair she'd been taken to before, but this fountain isn't a bad thing to come across -- this was supposed to be the center, wasn't it? No one would ever know it from all the people milling around it. She's been lurking at the edge of the crowd for a while, trying to remember which way to go, when it strikes her: She can use her magic this time. Portals and gates aren't exactly her thing, but it won't be hard to at least get a read on just what this thing is. Glancing around to make sure no one's watching her too closely, she mutters the words under her breath and curls the fingers of one hand just so --

Blinding waves of what her brain interprets as lime green and magenta light erupt across her entire field of vision, and her ears fill with the roar of her own blood rushing through her veins. The light parts and for a moment she thinks she's going blind until she realizes that no, she can see but there's nothing to see in the yawning chasm of nothingness that opens before her --

Then, mercifully, all perception shuts off as her stunned mind loses concentration on the spell. She doesn't register her knees buckling under her until she hits the ground, landing awkwardly on her invisible tail. She sways blindly, seeming not to hear the urgent squeaking of her invisible familiar, and finally gives up and slumps the rest of the way to the ground in the hope that it will make her head stop spinning.

we will drag you from where you are to where you belong [closed]

[postictal]

[tw: some brutality and beating, later some panic and flashbacking to hospitalization]

Keep your head down, stay off the radar, just act like the normal person you aren't, and everything will be fine.

That was the general idea.

Was.

But then, he should've expected something like this. When you come home from work and the door's not been open a minute before a couple ominously stone-faced guys come striding in, it generally throws up a few warning flags. And when opening your mouth to ask um sorry, but what the hell incites one of them to bring you down in a hard tackle that sends your cheek stinging against the carpet and your knees scraping along the ground, pure fight-or-flight impulse kicks in. Fight and flight, actually, and Tim manages to crack one of them a solid right hook across the jaw that leaves a darkening bruise before they wrestle him into submission. Maybe if he wasn't him right now - fuck.

In the end, there isn't much he can do against two guys who look to have something like six inches on him, and a few minutes of hopeless thrashing and several well-placed kicks to his ribs later, it's pretty much a lost cause. The apartment interior's a wreck; Tim definitely heard something shatter on his way to the ground, and he feels the distant, bizarre urge the apologize to Jay for being responsible for fucking things up yet again. He's sorry, Jay, really he is. He didn't mean to this time, honestly.

And that's when one of the guys sinks a fist into his stomach, and Tim loses track of things for a little while as his entire respiratory system promptly goes to shit.

He wakes in a little square room of concrete walls and windowless gloom.

Fuck. Fuck no. He lurches to his feet, all dizziness and nausea, and pounds at the door that looks more solid than any locked hospital door fuck, and he screams let him out and is anyone there? and please I need help please until his voice rasps into hoarseness and his vocal chords feel wet, as if they're torn and bleeding. His fists sting from banging against the door, its impassively hollow tone drumming against his ears. His jacket's gone. His medication. They fucking took it off him, they took everything, they took him away, and if there's anything he can do to help his situation, it's think and be calm and be compliant and be cooperative and not panic right now, which he isn't, who would even think that?

Because he's not a scared little kid anymore. He's not, he swears he's not. There's nothing tall and specter-like in the room with him, and he's not curled in the corner with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them and he's not huddled like he's eight years old again, because he's not the lost little boy crammed into a hospital room with a plethora of confusing and contradictory symptoms. He's not.

It's just a dream, and any moment he's going to wake up.