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Who: Kurt Weller + YOU
Where: Around the mansion
When: June 17 and beyond
Rating: PG (I think)
Summary: Broken, haunted ~~emo~~ FBI agent dealing with his emotional baggage. Come say hi! Get drunk or train at the gym with him. Or insist he just relax a little and have some pie. XD
The Story:

b a r;

He's been in Wonderland for a few weeks now, but sleep still eludes him. So many people think of dreams as a chance to escape the realities of life, to be free. But his dreams are tainted with darkness, entrapping him in memories he's sure he'll spend the rest of his life reliving, over and over again. The ghosts come when he closes his eyes; all the people he couldn't save, all the families destroyed with two single words: I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't save them. He's used the words so many times, he wonders if they hold any meaning for the people left behind to pick up the pieces from a lost life. He used to wonder, if he apologized enough times, would she come back - in that quiet place between dreams where Taylor's still alive? Would she know he meant it, that he would never let her go again?

He's discovered quickly enough that in Wonderland, there is all manner of magic. It's nothing that makes sense to him, it's nothing he can even believe most of the time, but it has its uses. He could ask for a pill to help him sleep, maybe. See if there's a doctor around here to help. Anything. But he won't. He'll live with the ghosts because in his dreams, he gets to see her again. Taylor.

Frustrated, he gives up trying to sleep and leaves the mansion around midnight, making his way outside. Kurt casts his eyes up to the sky, thinking how different and similar it looks at the same time. They made s'mores together under skies like this. They sang songs, they took shelter together in his tent when the sky unleashed a torrent of rain, muting the stars and the light from the moon until all that remained were shadows. She was scared of those moments, that absolute darkness, and the earth trembling with thunder. There was never anything to fear then, Kurt thought. The monsters that existed in this world were easily vanquished, or so his youthful mind thought. All he had to do was hold her and promise to protect her, and the monsters wouldn't dare come near them. He had no idea, of course, that the biggest monster to fear was his own father, that the best friend he cradled in his arms and swore to protect would one day be nothing more than a pile of bones buried beneath the earth by his own father.

He rubs a hand over his face, looking back down at his hands, clenching them together to stop them from shaking. There's no point in trying to sleep now, so he goes back inside, makes his way to the bar, and decides he'll spend the rest of the night tucked into a glass of liquor.

training gym;

The absence of a daily routine is unnerving to Kurt. It makes him restless and uneasy; not that he'll ever be comfortable in a place like this, but he's desperate for at least something that feels more normal, grounding like if he were at home. He's been told about the training gym, so he tries to get there often, finding comfort in the familiarity of it. He finds himself often at the punching bag, landing strike after strike, finding it almost meditative as he tries to unravel all the chaos in his mind.

around the mansion;

Kurt's not the type to openly socialize with anyone, though he tries to be friendly when approached. He's communicated with people through his phone-like device, and that's easier somehow than getting to know people in person. There's a barrier, it keeps him safe from getting close to people he's not fully sure he can trust. But he's met some people here who seem...decent, and with everything he's heard, the more allies he can find, the better. So he tries to get out of his room fairly often, and when he's not at the bar or the gym, he walks around, just getting a feel for the place and the people here. Nothing much seems to happen here between events, but he wants to keep an eye on things regardless.

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Kurt's not the only one who isn't sleeping, though Miranda's is less due to an inability to sleep. She doesn't need as much of it, and she's used to keeping odd hours, even if the bar isn't usually her port of call. Miranda's not there for the same reasons that he is - not because she needs to be, but it's a change. Some times it's nice passing some time with a drink.

Miranda recognises him when she enters, remembering his face from his search for information. She wonders if he's found any since - anything that Shepard hadn't told her, or that might be useful. He'd sounded determined at the very least.

"It's almost a cliché." It's also just a conversation opener, not a real topic, as she sits with him, getting her own drink.

He's had trouble sleeping before after particularly rough cases, so he knows eventually this insomnia will pass. For the moment, though, being here seems like his best option. At the very least, it's better than laying in bed and staring at the wall, willing sleep to come. He figures it's not so bad if he gets to know a few people a little better.

Kurt recognizes her in return, giving her a slight, friendly nod as she sits down. The remark draws a smirk from his lips and he tips his head a little, agreeing with her by half-nodding again.

"Of all the bars in all the worlds..." He trails off, not knowing if she'll get the joke, and really, it's not that funny when it passes his lips, mostly because it's half-hearted with a dull inflection. He clears his throat, trying again, with a better reply as he looks over at her drink. "How's that taste?" She obviously likes it, but he wonders if it's harsh or more mellow and light. What do other people opt for when they drink late at night?

She gets the joke, though it's definitely more of a comment than a joke, and not just because of his tone. There's a though to his next question, another sip of her drink taken before Miranda answers. She's never really thought about what it's tasted like before.

"Not as good here." Not as well made, anyway. Wonderland might be able to get the right ingredients, even potentially make the perfect drink but there's something about it that's not quite the same. Maybe it's the atmosphere, or the time. Or the lack of aliens.

"But it's palatable." Although that didn't really describe the taste, either. "It's strawberry."

That's a curious thing; Wonderland can supply them with drinks or food that is essentially what they'd be able to get at home, and yet the taste can't always be replicated exactly. It's subjective, of course,, but it's something he's noticed and finds interesting.

"Strawberry. That's a new one." He wouldn't know how to describe his drink, exactly, though he makes an effort, raising his glass a little. "This just tastes like heat."

"It's popular on my world." Well, less the world but more the universe. She'd ordered it on a few planets before. His drink though - it sounded a lot less appetising.

"Why would you drink heat?"

It's a good, fair question, and any immediate answers he can come up with just sound like they would create more questions than answers. He could say he feels like he deserves the sting of it, or that it's strangely comforting (when it shouldn't be).

"Right now, I just...needed it." Which is still probably a vague answer, he knows, but it's the most explanation he can offer up. But, diverting the conversation, he asks, "What's your world like?"

It's not really an answer but thankfully Miranda isn't really the type to pry. He needed it, it's good enough. As long as he's getting what he needs.

"Different from here." No kidding. They're just on land here, and Miranda hasn't settled in one place for a long time. "I live in space."

He remembers her implying that things weren't so good where she was from. Or, that was what he'd inferred from her comment, anyway. It makes sense now; being out in space can sure as hell be dangerous, he'd imagine. If she lives there, they've probably got technology far beyond what he's used to, but it still seems like there'd be too many variables, too many ways things could easily go wrong. Not to mention - dealing with whatever other lifeforms are out there.

Curious, he probes a little, "That must be dangerous."

"If you're dragged into it." Because there certainly were people who managed to live a peaceful and safe life. Well, until recently anyway. Now everyone was in danger - and still would be through to Shepard's time.

Though, for saying that it was dangerous if you were dragged into it, it wasn't like Miranda's life had exactly been peaceful before she'd met Shepard. She'd brought her own danger there.

"When humanity is under threat it's dangerous."

He's seen plenty of movies about humanity being under threat while traveling in space, or just being invaded by hostile foreign space invaders. And he's sure it's not really anything like that, but those films have influenced his perception of what it means when humans explore space and happen upon other creatures.

"Does that happen a lot?"

"Every fifty thousand years." They were just that lucky to fall into that period of time. But they had the best chances of stopping it - if Shepard was right, anyway.

"We might be the last time."

Every fifty thousand years doesn't sound particularly ominous, but then she mentions that her group might be the last time, so it's not anything to be relieved about. God, what are the odds? To go that many years with relative peace, and just happen to be thrust into the exact point in time when you're facing something incredibly dangerous.

"Can you stop it? Them - what you're facing?"

"That's what Shepard's for." Humanity's only hope. Isn't she a lucky woman? At least she's proven that she's up for the job, and dedicated to it.

"If we can't I don't suppose we'll know." They'll all be dead.

"That's a hell of a lot on one person's shoulders." Although obviously, it's not just Shepard handling this threat. Leading it, certainly. "You got a lot of people with you?"

"Shepard started it." Well. Sort of. She's the one that brought the Reaper threat to the council and fought them about it when they didn't believe her, but the Reapers would have come anyway.

"Everyone's fighting to save themselves." Who wants to just sit and die, really?

He's wondered sometimes, what would happen if a major threat surfaced, something that threatened everyone. He sees so many terrible things, people doing horrible stuff to each other, that he's not sure they'd pull it together. With everything going on with Jane back home, he's even just trying to figure out how their own team will pull it together to figure out where she came from and what her former group's endgame is.

"There's something to be said for that, working together to save yourselves. It's good to know most of them won't just sit back and do nothing."

"You'd be surprised by what humanity is capable of, especially when most of them normally wouldn't do a thing."

But the end of the world, the possibility that they might also die? It shows how dedicated to living people are, even if they're helping more to save themselves than anyone else.

He thinks about that statement for a long moment, looking down at his hands. "Guess the instinct to survive is always pretty strong." He sees the worst in humanity a lot, but there's a lot of good, too. That will always be true, alongside the will that people have to survive.

"No one really wants to die, as much as some people think it." People are so frivolous and careless with their lives as if dying wouldn't impact them much, until something real happens anyway.

Kurt's met some people who seemed pretty insistent on wanting to die, but he does think the instinct to keep living, to fight to stay alive, kicks in eventually. For most people. It's not a point worth clarifying, or mentioning the things he's seen.

"So all that stuff - is that what keeps you up at night? It's kind of late. Most people are asleep by now."

"I don't sleep like most people." She sleeps, just not as much. It's partly through her perfectionism at work but also her being enhanced - she's at peak physical condition, and she doesn't have to sleep as much as most people would. Or she's just gotten used to it from the threats.

"It would probably keep most people up." It kept Shepard up.

"As long as it's enough for you," he nods a little. Everyone's bodies have different needs when it comes to sleep, he knows that.

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