may old acquaintance be forgot

[eyething]

Who: Damon Salvatore, Peter Parker, Clementine + everyone
Where: a l l o v a h
When: a l l d e c e m b e r & j a n u a r y
Rating: PG-13ish. Maybe R.
Summary: Catch all for all my characters. If you'd like a surprise starter, find me on plurk at varymydays or PM a journal. :)
The Story:

Comments

so i'll hit the lights and you lock the door

[eyething]

[damon has spent all of hell searching for elena. they once again did not appear in the same place, and he has been terrified. they were supposed to have their date, but it's a far cry from where his mind is at. he moves abruptly through the whole village, and when he doesn't find her there, he moves further around, circling the village, listening, trying to find her wherever she is.

she's human, and he's not anywhere near her. his heart beats too fast in his chest, remembering holding her dead-- no, holding her unwaking in his arms.]

Elena?

[her name drags from him as he searches relentlessly, endlessly without rest until he finds her.

everyone else is freaking out with their darkness taking over. damon can't say he feels any different, but he's pretty damn used to wrestling with his own darkness.]

so i'll hit the lights and you lock the door

[interpersonal]

[ faith told her to stay put, and elena didn't listen.

couldn't listen, when everyone else remained unaccounted for. elena didn't know if they were hurt or worse. she couldn't stay put when she could be helping instead, and just like faith suspected, elena was met with more trouble than she could take on. when damon finds her, she looks worse for wear and runs on pure adrenaline.

blood trickles freely down her right arm, and she sports a cut on her forehead.

her hand is shaking as it keeps an impossibly tight hold on her dagger, a green, goo-like substance dripping from its tip. she fought a battle and won, but it was a closer call than she'd have liked; a closer call than damon will like. all the training in the world doesn't change her body is breakable.

damon reaches her, and elena wordlessly collapses against his chest in an effort to lean on something, her legs no longer steady. ]

don't be such a grinch or you'll get coal in your stocking

[eyething]

[damon finds himself at angel investigations (not looking for angel but for faith). together they sort of tag team when it comes to elena's training. she's doing pretty incredibly. she's worked hard (and she is still more likely to get hurt than him because human. in fact, she was hurt badly in hell, and she had exactly 0 amounts of desire to become a vampire even with her blood loss so offering his blood to heal her is not something he can count on anymore). so maybe he wants to take the training up a notch with that fear in mind. he has an idea for the next level he can take it too. he walks around with a reindeer mug which is full of blood. it's okay. the icy nature of the mug means it's hard for the red color to come through, but anyone with super senses or a vampire will absolutely smell the blood in his glass.

it's a risk he takes, but he doesn't exactly hide being a vampire as stringently as before. he got that idea from angel actually. mr. she's important to me.

he had no idea angel investigations looks the way it does like big and swanky, like it's straight out of a hotel.]

What the hell? [he takes a drink from the glass, making a face at the blood floor under his feet.] Did I go back in time? To some mismatched decade...

<3

[vampdetective]

[Angel smells the blood before he hears Damon at all, the copper tang of it strong enough to carry all the way into the office tucked away behind the front desk, where he'd been reading through one of several books he'd opted to borrow from Wonderland's library. He marks his place before snapping it closed, frowning as he makes his way out to the lobby to investigate, emerging just in time to see Damon walk through the door.

Oh. Him.]

Place was considered an architectural masterpiece in the 20's.

[Just in case you were wondering.]

Can I help you?

did words completely escape you?

[eyething]

[the reindeer mug is damon's preferred way to drink anything this december (one for blood, one for alcohol). he's not really one to get into the christmas spirit at all, but he's often ridiculous despite being a psychotic killer too. it means embracing the ridiculous reindeer mug in his hand as casually as can be as he strolls down the hallways.

he carries the reindeer mug into the bar, knowing he hasn't actually seen simon since his trip to mystic falls for about five years. and he's changed a lot since the person he was when he was here... and he bit his neck at the first emotional outburst he had. he's stayed close to elena (so used to her being trapped in that box, unmoving). it still takes effort to walk away, to leave her, but if he lingers too much, she'll start to question more (his reactions, the reasons for them)

he waltzes up to the front of the bar, hammering it down on top as if to signal his arrival.]

that never happens to Simon

[luckynumberthree]

[ Simon glances up in his own version of 'festive cheer of the day' and arches an eyebrow at the vampire currently standing on the other side of his bar.

And at the size of the mug he'd just smacked down atop the wooden surface. ]

Yo, I already donated, dude. I didn't agree to an encore. I know I'm probably tasty, but you could at least buy me dinner first if you think we're gonna be getting kinky on the regular.

i was cleaning the chimney

[saved]

[peter spends more time in the lab now that he's discovered it even if everything inside the lab seems to be breaking lately. he was assured by people that's not how it usually works. usually all the machinery actually works so why's it all on the fritz?

he's procured a corner of the lab, and he rests with his back against the wall, shoulders hunched, hair a mess. the corner is an actual mess, because he's written notes as he tries to get out different gadgets to see how fast it takes them to break in the lab when outside of the lab, they're fine.

his web shooter is set on a counter, and though he's nowhere near it. it goes off, pinning peter against the wall. groan. this is how caitlin will find him.]

[trigeminalheadache]

[ Even though Caitlin has her own lab, she finds herself visiting the shared one often. It's more for the company than it is to get any work done, at times. Here, she doesn't have the lingering reputation of being a pariah of the scientific community. (She usually tells herself that doesn't matter, that she believes in the work she, Barry, and Cisco do and not in anyone else's opinion.)

She's actually looking for Jemma today when she enters. While sharing parts of the Velocity-9 formula proved to be a disaster back home, she feels a certain confidence that her fellow biochemist won't follow in Eliza's ill-fated footsteps.

But instead of Jemma, she finds Peter. Peter, who is webbed to the wall. Which only strikes her as odd for a half-second before she's opening drawers, looking for something very very sharp. ] Experiment gone wrong?

with my life howling the same, did I have to live this way

[shorthair]

[hell was hard.

it was less to do with the atmosphere, the monsters, the destruction. she's used to an apocalypse where things want to eat your brain and people act with violence and mistrust first. she's been living in one, carved and remade by it. it was the darkness brought out more intensely by her there. it was the violence, the desire to survive at any cost (even if that meant leaving a friend to die).

it's late. most people are asleep but not this this apocalypse child. she can't sleep. her gun is in its holster, luke's hatchet in its own holster as she steps into the dining room. her hand remains on the gun as if she expects some attack, as if she's still on edge, and she is.

she hasn't quite lost the darkness from hell. the event's over but it woke what was already inside of her, what she has never had to acknowledge before. it's not new but her examination of it is new. she doesn't expect anyone else to be in the dining room at this late hour, and she stills.]

...hi. Didn't want to sneak up on you. [where she's from that could easily get someone killed accidentally, people react defensively]

[signalized]

[bruce got in right after hell, but he heard enough from people to imagine what it might have been like. it's every night in the streets of gotham, fighting monsters who were capable of horrific things. the joker and harley quinn. the scarecrow. two face. the mad hatter.

we're all mad here in wonderland perhaps but it hadn't been any better back home.

bruce isn't good at sleeping. or eating. without alfred to remind him of basic things it's been well...an adventure...and he's partly here in the dining room because he can't sleep and partly because he was starving.

thank god the plates provide them with food because he can't cook.

what he doesn't expect right now is company, let alone that of a child. his expression softens at her voice. ]

Luckily, it's not easy to sneak up on me.

[He usually tends to be the one who appears out of seemingly nowhere.]

as we drifted towards the storm

[shorthair]

[christmas is on its way (or so the mansion says), and she has no idea if she'll be any good at celebrating. she hasn't done so in a long time. the lodge had this christmas tree up, and she helped find the topper. she picked an angel to make sarah happy. and now what's going to happen to sarah? (the same thing that happens to everyone).

clementine feels exhausted like everyone else. she doesn't like sleeping, because of the fake world (is it the future?) it's not like the sleep helps. it's restless. she sometimes forgets what's real and what isn't real (she remains the same either way, but everyone in that dream world seems to expect her to be so much different. it makes sense. the real dream her, she must have forgotten like everybody else. if she forgets her home, it must be so much easier for her to be happy, to act her age). she's used to sleep deprivation and exhaustion, but this is an entirely new level of it.

she does want to check in on katherine. it's probably another event, but there's never telling how long those will last or what it will be like for the person experiencing it. she carries a little wrapped present under her arm as she knocks on katherine's door.]

as we drifted towards the storm

[manipulative]

[ even though katherine is most certainly frazzled by the current predicament that's coated itself over wonderland, she doesn't look it when she opens her door after clementine knocks. she'd been able to hear her come from a mile away — katherine hasn't made herself completely blind to those around her, taking note of how someone presses their feet against the ground and learning exactly how they hold themselves by the sound the soles of their shoes make against the ground. ]

Clementine. [ although her hair is curled impeccably and there's a lack of dark circles beneath her eyes, the stress is all in those syllables of her name. katherine sounds a little relieved to see someone whom she knows is right. clementine looks like this in the real world. it's what she can use to ground herself when she feels she's about to go crazy. ]

[ opening the door wider, she steps to the side. ] Come in. The white halls and white everything of this mansion is blinding.

they say, I'm a sometimes hero, sometimes zero

[saved]

[peter parker has taken up regular patrols as spider-man ever since faith's death, which means he takes to crawling on the ceiling mostly. it's better than someone running into him in the dead of the night while some guy in a spandex suit's walking around like it's totally normal and not going to freak anyone out.

people in wonderland don't think spider-man is a menace (in fact, some of them have even read the comic books), and he'd like to keep it that way.

he doesn't expect to run into anyone else all suited up though. in new york city, he's kind of the only masked crusader around though he knows it's different in wonderland. spider-man doesn't have to be as much of a loner even if he's just... kinda used to operating that way.

he hears a strange sound and then drops down from the ceiling, landing in a crouching position, poised like a spider]

they say, I'm a sometimes hero, sometimes zero

[accelerate]

[ yeah, barry isn't a fan of spiders. ]

[ running at the speed of light, that sound peter can most likely hear is the crackling of electricity. wonderland's been blinded by the gold of his kinetic energy, and it zips into the halls of the mansion, almost charring half of the plaster and woodwork as he goes. ]

[ once that spider drops, it pulls the flash up to a stop. skidding, that kinetic energy wrapping around him pops like a bubble and the being standing before a crouched spiderman is the flash — red suit, lightning bolts over his ears and the white logo on his chest. ]

[ and the flash lets out a: ] Woah! Dude. [ then his brows furrow together and he tilts his head. he's leaning slightly away from peter. he's met the green arrow, a man in a metal suit, a guy who blasts ice from a gun, and a freaking man-shark, but a spider? it gives barry some pause. ] Is this a part of some spider-infested event?

this is for the ones who stand, for the ones who try again

[saved]

[peter steps out of bonnie's room with his hair and clothing all a haphazard mess. he'd gone to her to plead with her to help him figure out what to get for caroline since she ended up his secret santa (and he is definitely not nervous at all about this. nope.) however, the rambling he did while bonnie supplied purposefully unhelpful answers to troll him in that frustratingly adorable way of hers and smiled at him in that way she does which makes his unending mind quiet, and it led to making out, which led to-- well, discussions ceased.

he catches sight of stefan leaving his own room.]

Uh, Stefan. Hey. [he waves, walking over in that direction.] How are you? Also, how... well do you know Caroline?

this is for the ones who stand, for the ones who try again

[stefanged]

[Ah, teenagers.

Stefan doesn't have to be a mind reader to guess what Peter had been up to (and truthfully, he's a little envious considering how dead-in-the-water his own love life is). He waves back when he sees Peter, stuffing his key in his jeans pocket.]

Pretty good, I'd say. [He tilts his head thoughtfully.] As for Caroline, uh, well, we are best friends. How come?

i know now that i'm forever dirty

[longer]

[damon waltzes through the mirror side without much of a care. handy part of having his emotions all shut off. he can't feel much, but what he does feel? it sucks. it hurts. it terrifies him to think of going back to mystic falls, to that world.

and this world isn't great either.

elena is here, but her emotions are off. she hates him, and he can't reach her.

and the elena, on the other side of a mirror, gets a far more put-together damon at her dispense though he still writes to her whenever he can.]

...well, look what the cat dragged in.

Caroline. [she probably won't understand the bitterness in his voice, and he definitely doesn't care.]

[pettifogs]

[As if her day couldn't get any worse. Not that it wasn't any worse than any other day, but any day where she had to see a Salvatore brother was instantly a bad one.

And they showed up in the mirrors all the time, so...]

Wow, you managed to use my name for once. I'm shocked.

and i close my eyes and i take it in

[saved]

[it's at some random hour of the night when peter ends up in the cafeteria. he has his webshooters out but also blue prints beside them. he's thinking about improvements based on what he talked to fitz about and other people in the lab about, and he is also trying to stay awake.

he doesn't like that other world. he's sure the him that's there is plenty happy, but--

it's disorienting

so he's seated on top of a table, making a pyramid out of energy drinks, which he'll down when he feels near passing out.

this is totally safe and healthy. it helps being part spider. healing has to kick in to help him adjust. ish. but he can probably last longer without sleep than the average person.

he hears someone else step in and whirls around in that direction trying to look cool, calm, and collected.] Uh, hey.

[thisismadfreaky]

[Cisco has been guzzling coffee like nobody's business, just so he could at least say that he's staying awake on his own terms, dammit. But running on this little sleep is...damaging, to say the least.

He finds himself in the cafeteria at a ridiculous hour because, as it turns out, if you're awake at ridiculous hours, you also get hungry at ridiculous hours. He isn't sure why he expected the place to be empty with so many of them running around being self-inflicted insomniacs, but he's still surprised when he finds some guy perched on the table with a stack of energy drinks big enough that it genuinely looks like it would be dangerous for one person to consume.

He makes a vague, sweeping waving gesture with one hand.] Insomniacs unite?

whatever you do do it good

[saved]

[spider-man crawls over the ceiling, trying to keep an eye out for trouble, but it's hard to do this when peter parker is sleep deprived. he is not as good as usual, which means he is less aware of someone coming down from the hallways to the entrance way of the mansion.

while he uses webbing to lower himself to the floor and slides a hand behind his neck with a wince.]

This is not my day.

Or night. Why can't spider powers include never needing sleep?

[he doesn't realize there's anyone else around while he's talking to himself. out loud.

yep.]

whatever you do do it good

[deathlessness]

Do spiders sleep?

[Important questions with equally sleep deprived Freya Mikaelson. It's been a long week and change.]

I can't say I've ever tried to engage one to find out.

i may just have to get hero hair of my own

[eyething]

[Damon has had a traumatizing time since this event started. Finding Elena couldn't be woken up, it was the most terrible moment he's had since he returned, and if he hovers, he will make it all worse for himself, for her. He's in the library (hovering since Elena isn't far away), creating the biggest known chain of dominos in this library ever because why the hell not? They're lined up from one aisle to another, using books to create a ramp too.

It's preventing him from thinking.

It's not helping with the exhaustion though.

He takes a long drink from his coffee. Don't trip over these dominos, Ed. Seriously.]

[transmutate]

[Ed is definitely tripping over the dominos.

He feels half-asleep, only if he were actually half asleep he'd be half in that weird, white Wonderland and it's awful, it's all awful. The library, at least, is an old friend. He stumbles in, looking for something interesting to read, but only barely able to watch where he's going until he trips over one of the book ramps, crashes face first into the ground and sets off the domino chain.]

What? Who puts books on the floor? There are perfectly good shelves all around us! [He picks up one of the dominos and glares at it like it might have the answer.]

where did you sleep last night?

[shorthair]

[neither dipper or clementine want to sleep right now. well, dipper wants to figure out what is going on over there, but clementine wants no part of it. she thinks she'd be more curious if not for what she has lived. curiosity kills people, and she only knows survival (even if she wants to remember what it's like to know how to do more, to be more).

she asked dipper to help her stay awake so they're in the cafeteria, and clementine has cups of drinks which are supposed to help. she had a couple of sodas when she was younger but that was a really long time ago. she doesn't usually drink caffeine.

and now there's this cup of coffee in front of her, and she wrinkles her nose.]

It smells weird.

[krmvgivv]

That's cause it's coffee. Tastes weird too.

[Dipper doesn't drink much coffee. He's bad enough about sleeping as it is, and while he's pretty sure the coffee stunting your growth thing is a myth, he's always been really hesitant to try it just in case. But this seems like a really excellent time to start.]

Here. [He slides her some milk, sugar, and chocolate syrup.] You can disguise the taste. And just be glad you asked me for help, not my sister. You do not want to expose yourself to Mabeljuice.

and lately i want to dream

[eyething]

[damon and elena are... bickering adorably like an old married couple, but they bicker as they step into the cafeteria where cami already sits. this is before the event, before sleep deprivation sinks into everyone whether they sleep or not. he's clearly at the end of a rope atthe moment but refusal comes regardless.

he's always low key worried about being sent back in the middle of his own sleep (it's how he left after all in the middle of sleep and then he experienced five years which followed and the last three of those years have been a kind of miserable hell that damon didn't realize was even possible.

worse than any pain he's ever felt before). he makes a face.]

I'm a vampire, Elena. Sleep isn't necessary.

and lately i want to dream

[interpersonal]

[ scream.

damon you're dumb and your face is dumb and so is your argument. ]

You were the one who once told me that as long as you keep a regular ... diet, your body functions mostly like ours does. In case you've forgotten, that includes sleep. [ he cannot evade it forever. the fact he's even trying is ridiculous. ]

and i saw what it was i had done

[eyething]

[beckett is most likely expecting to find elena in her room, because... well, it's elena's room. however, her room is also occupied by a certain vampire who has decided that he can completely keep his distance while elena goes through a normal day as she normally would if he didn't have her hovering over her shoulder. he got very good at growth, at knowing how to back away and give her space (and then she fell into a magic coma until her best friend dies because of his mother and-)

beckett knocks on the door, and it's damon who saunters up to the door, swinging it open.

he's shirtless, hair tousled, narrowing his gaze at the sight of someone he doesn't recognize (it's strange for him to not recognize someone in elena's life, but he's not the same stalker as he once was or he's... trying not to be).]

...yes?

and i saw what it was i had done

[lamiae]

[ when damon opens the door, beckett sees him, but she doesn't see him. not at first, anyway. it's not the drool-worthy sight of a shirtless, immortal man that greets her. no, it's the image of him dressed like someone straight out of gone with the wind. her brow furrows and she has to blink a few times before the echoed overlay fades, giving way to the half naked man before her.

only then does she take a step back and bring a hand up to shield her eyes. she doesn't dare look down to see if the rest of him is clothed or not. ]

Oh! Sorry. I think I have the wrong room. I was looking for Elena Gilbert. I thought this room was hers.

had a very shiny nose

[eyething]

[damon finds himself at the bar. once again, he's trying to avoid hovering over elena. this elena has never lived what he has. she doesn't know what happens, and he means to keep it that way, but it's really, really hard for him to be away from her right now. he's managed an hour at most.

he has his reindeer mug at the bar, and it's full of some spiked eggnog instead of his usual bourbon, hoping to get magically drunk enough to ignore the time as it passes him.

he drinks from it, setting the mug on top of the bar, with a low sigh. the event hasn't started yet, but it's days from breaking out, stealing restful sleep from all of them.]

Merry fucking Christmas.

[morethan084]

[Well. Free booze was free booze, which is why Daisy is here sipping at her second beer. Shifting in her seat when someone takes a seat next to her at the bar, Daisy cocks a brow at his mug.]

Don't the antlers get in the way?

at my feet lies the intersection of two distinct paths merging at a point of vulnerability | nsfw

[interpersonal]

[ damon and elena's new years eve date was amazing... klaus and lucifer nearly killing each other notwithstanding.

damon has years worth of intimate experiences with future!her under his belt, and wonderland!elena? wonderland!elena just experienced her very first date with him, still navigating these uncharted waters. it's new and it's exciting and more than a little complicated, but every day she feels closer and closer to damon.

that said! their relationship remains new enough to elena that when she steps into damon's room thoughtlessly in the morning to ask him a question and finds him wearing little to no clothes, she turns immediately and looks up at the ceiling. heat sinks into her cheeks without warning. ] Sorry.

two minds with the same thing in mind

[eyething]

[there is a decided lack of clothing on damon salvatore as he has his morning breakfast of blood. damon lifts an eyebrow at her. amusement and fondness intense in his expression, because she somehow manages to blush at the very near naked sight of him. it's one of those beautiful reminders this is still new for her. she's still exploring what this means and who they are together, and the very half naked sight of him can take her by surprise still. he likes it. his gaze drifts over her slowly and lingers at those bare legs of hers as he walks over to her.

the towel hangs really low.]

You... remember you've now seen me naked, right? I might be a little worried if you'd somehow forgotten.