revivalproject | Shelter From The Storm

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, Dustin, You?
WHERE: The Diner
WHAT: Sheltering from the Blizzard
WHEN: During the Blizzard
WARNINGS: CW: Discussions of accidental explosions

I. Keeping The Food Going

For once there was a proper way for Tommy to distract himself from the madness of the storm. And he always needed the distractions. The storms made him less himself, took away his power, took away his strength. Tommy hated nothing quite like the storms. He'd been hurt so many times during them, been lost, been broken in his heart and mind.

"Here," he says as he whips the space blanket off of his shoulders and draped it over another person's shoulders. "I'm trying to get the fire going to cook. Just, uh, give me more time. I've got some dried meat you could nibble on if you need."

II. Judgements Spoken | CW: Discussions of accidental explosions

It was later in the day and things were settling down when it happened. Tommy finally had an open fire going near one of the vents in the kitchen so people could stay warm. It was sorta cramped staying back there, but they would do what they had to do. But he was getting ready to settle down and then it happened.

A shadowy figure seemed to manifest as Tommy was moving to sit down. One he recognized. A high school aged girl, who looked scared, and unerringly right at Tommy, who paled.

"You're not real," he hissed at the ghostly form. "You're not real. Like all the storm images. Go away!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, don't glare at him, Cat. He was making sure.

"Never met Salem, but got told there was a talking cat. I was told Salem was a male, but that doesn't mean cat voices have the same 'male versus female' characteristics I'd recognize, you know?"

And he wasn't that young. He was a lot older than he looked, but Maximoffs aged fucking elegantly. He'd probably look young and handsome well past sixty, if he made it that long.

"It doesn't mean anything. It's just my name."

"Really?" That has her up and out of the blanket, at least far enough to turn and stare. A name without meaning? Just... just a noise? "Wh— how did you pick it, then? Did you just... like the sound?"

It's bizarre, the ways this place's culture disconnects with her own. Every time she thinks she's found a floor that surely can't be shifted, something opens up a sinkhole and down she goes.

"Sorry, I— shit," both paws now, dragging down her face, a remarkably primate gesture, "This whole place, it's just so... weird. I feel like I'm an idiot, I keep putting my foot in it."

"Hey, it's like you're me!" says a voice from the back, droll and drawling.

"Shut up, dog, nobody asked you," Quintet snaps back without thinking— and then freezes with her eyes wide and the fur slowly lifting along her back and neck in obvious alarm.

"Harsh!" The apparition appears with the suddenness that only an unexpected canine can produce, putting his long front paws up on the counter next to Tommy. He tilts his head to grin at him, a lollopping, open-mouthed, doggy grin; not a dog, a wolf. Maned wolf, with its ruddy coat and high mane, legs seeming only too long for its already stretched-out body, "You can't even be nice to me? I'm only 'dead' because of you, you know!"

"Humans don't pick their own n-"

Tommy doesn't even get to explain it all before he's yelping and jumping away from the manifestation. Not a dog, but close enough to make Tommy very on edge. Hell, he almost looks like he's about to throw something.

It takes her an embarrassingly long moment to realize that he can see it too. Her first thought is that this is, somehow, Coroner's Otiose Tintinnabulation. Nothing else makes sense; for it to be that doesn't make sense either, of course, but what the hell else could it be?

"You... you stupid dog, do you want to die again?" She tries for acidic, but it comes out as a question. Meander or the ghost of him, leaps up onto the counter and paces along it without a care, paws sliding through dishes and food and condiment bottles as if they weren't there.

"If you wanted that, all you'd have to do is leave, right? You weren't there the first time either."

"...I'm not doing this," She says, and realizes abruptly the noetic envelope would have collapsed immediately with an opening line like that. If he's acknowledging death, and she's not denying it, then. Puffed up with alarum, she turns to Tommy with fear-wide eyes, "I'm not doing that. I don't know what this is. That's my friend, but he's— he died. I don't know what this is!"

Of course she's not doing it. It's a storm. She can't do anything. But that doesn't stop Tommy from grabbing a metal mug and finally throwing it at the ghostly form. Which, well, didn't hit the area. Tommy's aim wasn't the best. It bounced off the corner of a table and he cursed.

"Storm fucking ghosts. They're the worst. They try and get people to hurt themselves by being stupid."

"Storm ghosts? Storm ghosts?" Ghosts aren't real, is the first thing she wants to say, which is particularly stupid under the circumstances. Instead she stands there, completely flummoxed, trapped between the forces of impossible reality and unstoppable outrage, "...I...wh..."

It's the dumbest thing she's ever been forced to believe in, and she's been in plenty of sparring matches with Meander. The real Meander.

"...Why?"

"They come with the storms. They can't... Normally other people can't see them unless they're the attacking type. You see them and follow them into the storm and they try and trick you into dangerous places."

And while he says it all he's shaking a little. You know what, don't mind him, he's going to be down here, behind this counter. Just... Scared. Thanks. No need to check on him. Hearing's perfectly fine.

"The storms are why we're here. To stop them."

Shelter From The Storm

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