thought i saw the future

[magnetic]

Who: Erik Lehnsherr and OPEN to... someone with a death wish, possibly? Anyone who enjoys talking through a door?
What: Arriving.
Where: Arrival cells, The Valhalla Inn.
When: Late Misdi night, and however many hours/days afterward.
Notes: me so angy
Warnings: None at this time.

Shunted from her purpose by a living whirlwind, the prototype jet spins and spins, her extremities breaking apart, the wind skinning her and flinging her pieces into the sea. The little bodies inside her rolling, white-knuckled, dreading the inevitable crash. Erik is affixed to the steel hull by means of his gift, and through his palms and his knees and his skull he feels every vibration, every groan and shriek of rent metal, and through his chest he feels the resonance of his friend howling in terror beneath him. He will be safe, held there, or they will all of them die together, screaming.

Erik collides with something hard, then—only him, Erik alone, the Blackbird's hull suddenly absent from his awareness—and rolls away from it purely by the rebound, confused by the loss of momentum even before his body stills. He stirs again not a moment later. It is with the drunken, but dogged movements of a stunned body yet determined to rise that he then lifts himself from the floor, aware even through the mess of dizziness that he recognizes nothing, that everything he knows is gone. A wall—it was a wall. He's in a room. A cell. The surge of emotion triggered by this realization is unnameable, and it is deep, and fierce, and it consumes him in full.
The meat of his fist is first to find the door, and again and again, then both palms banging hard, and his voice raises above them, raw, defiant of language. In a sudden cessation his forehead touches the door's surface, and he waits there, panting, hoarse. Listening for anything, any sign of a presence. He waits. Nothing. Head clearer, he now steps back from the door and gestures as though tearing it, miming handfuls, meaning to disfigure and make useless this prison that he hates. Straining hard. Teeth bared at no one. Nothing. His breath creaks loose and then comes in a sudden rush, out and back in, and with tears flowing freely from all his futile effort he goes utterly berserk.
A powerful racket follows—not merely powerful, but sustained. Inanimate groaning, squealing, slamming; a long, splintering crack; something like metallic hailstones. Each time the noise abates, the man inside the cell is temporarily silent, or gasping audible breaths, or else he cries out you can't do this or I almost had him or where are they or the most subtle I'll kill you, only to begin again.

Over an hour passes before he is worn to weakness, before his body is too weary to keep up with his will, and by then the cell door is not only seriously dented from the inside, but it has bowed outward. The entire door, still sealed around its edges, now faintly convex toward the hallway.

In Baedal, it is standard procedure not to release immediately those who arrive in the throes of violence. Such creatures are to be left locked away until they reach a manageable state, whether that means internal calm, or malnourished weakness, or death. Often, death seems most prudent. (These rooms are tiled for a reason.)
Erik shows his teeth to the first official to ask after him and, by grace of the wards, but certainly not for lack of trying, fails to drive a now sharpened table leg through the man's head. Nonplussed, the official tells him to have it his way, and leaves behind a sign on the handle of the door. It's inn standard, the same as on any rented room: DO NOT DISTURB.

Comments

Cheers for horrible ideas?

[coffeeking]

Ianto had just been making a last sweep of the room he was moving out of, ensuring he didn't leave anything behind, before heading to the front desk to tell them he and Jack had bought a house and would no longer be requiring accommodations. It's on his journey there that he catches sight of the damaged door, and the 'do not disturb' sign, and Ianto slows to a stop.

He stares at the door for a few moments, sure that this is a bad idea, but some curiosity or sympathy wins out. Cautiously, he approaches as close as he dares. "Hello?"

heh heh

[magnetic]

No response—at least not immediately. First there is a period of silence, and then, perhaps, should he be close enough to hear, a soft shuffling. Thick fabric moving against itself. Maybe the scrape of a boot against the tiled floor.

Then comes a low voice, which states, hoarsely but firmly, "Open the door."

[coffeeking]

"Love to, mate," he replies, his Welsh accent clear and cautious. "The arrival room isn't very cheery, but then, it appears you aren't either. Not that I can blame you, but I don't suppose I can have some guarantee you aren't going to do to me what you did to the door?"

Everyone has to be let out of the arrival room. If Ianto doesn't, someone else will have to.

[magnetic]

"Who do you work for?"

This gentleman—well, man—speaks with an accent, too, though it is quite mild and only distinguishable by certain notes, none of which have been hit thus far. He sounds only mildly aggravated, which, for the record, is due to exhaustion alone and belies nothing of the unrelenting emotional clench inside.

[coffeeking]

The question takes Ianto off-guard for a moment, and he almost replies that he works at a coffee shop before he understands the gravity of the question. He sighs, and though Erik can't see, he rolls his eyes.

"You haven't read the pamphlet, have you?"

[magnetic]

Almost comically, this gives him pause, and he actually twists to look back at where he remembers said pamphlet lies. It's on the floor, of course, under a...well, it's under things. He actually considers answering the question, very briefly, before deciding that it is in fact a stupid one and that the resulting conversation would only frustrate him further. Also, that sigh kind of pissed him off.

"Who do you work for?"

[coffeeking]

"I work for a coffee shop here in Baedal. Baedal is the name of the city you're in, as the pamphlet would explain in its usual condescending manner, if you'd care to read it. I'm not responsible, directly or indirectly, for bringing you here. None of the people you'll meet here are. We were all brought here."

Ianto can already tell this is going to be like pulling teeth. He's no fan of the stupid pamphlet, but it's good enough for a basic 'you are here,' and it's bothersome when people refuse to read it.

[magnetic]

"Never mind responsible, you're not mentally capable of this kind of abduction if you honestly think I'm going to believe any of that."

There: vague hints of a Germanic upbringing, watered down through practice to sound closer to English.

"One way or another, I'm getting out of here, and if you do not open this door immediately, sharing its experiences will be the least of your problems."

Erik this is not the way to make friends.

[coffeeking]

Oh, thanks, Erik. That's quite enough to annoy Ianto into ignoring his better sense, the one that tells him to leave you in there to rot.

"Right. Fine." The knob is twisted with the door, the latch jammed, but Ianto braces a foot against the wall and pulls. "You're one to speak of intelligence, threatening people who offer to help you out." He yanks, and it gives a little, but not fully. Not yet. "But if you insist, you can come out and discover it all on your own, without any help from me or the damn pamphlet. Or anyone, with that attitude."

With a final twist and pull, the door jerks open and Ianto swings it wide. "There," he swings his arms out before placing them indignantly on his hips. "Happy now?"

[obscuredvision]

Ava roams the halls of the inn when she's restless, when her room feels too small and stillness and quiet just don't agree with her. This is one of those times. She's got no clear destination, no goal in mind besides movement, a bit of exercise to clear her head.

She's lost inside her own thoughts, letting her feet carry her up this corridor, down another, stairs, and so on. She looks up as she approaches the arrival area, the sign on one of the doors catching her attention--she's never seen that before. She moves to the door, examining it closely first with her eyes and then tracing the the way the wood has bowed out with her palm, to confirm that yes, she is in fact seeing what she's seeing.

She's heard they don't let people out of the rooms if they aren't safe. If they took the arrival badly or they're likely to hurt someone, themselves. And maybe that's what's happening here.

But maybe that's just something they say. Maybe they keep people locked up for a different kind of trouble, or at some whim. She has to know. And her kind heart can't abide the idea of someone locked in one of these rooms all alone.

Ava knows for sure that she will die on a sunny July afternoon when she's eighty-four years old. Today, she's but a young woman of twenty-three.

She can take the chance.

"Hello?" she calls out, curling the hand on the door into a fist and rapping gently. "Hello, is someone in there?"

[magnetic]

"Yes."

The voice belongs to a man—well, it sounds male, at least—and its origin is rather close to the door, as though the cell's inhabitant were standing directly opposite her. As though he were waiting there, already. It is low, and earnest, and still rough from screaming.

"Let me out."

[obscuredvision]

"Give me a moment." It's a snap decision, entirely made with her heart and not her head. Winding up here is a traumatic enough experience without an extended stay in that claustrophobic room.

She pulls on the handle. The door doesn't open. Maybe it's stuck, the way the door's been bent out a little. She pulls harder, jiggling the handle, even bracing a knee against the frame to try to budge it.

"Darn it." She steps back, and grasps the handle with both hands, trying to budge it. "I'm so sorry, sir, I think they've locked the door." Ava lets go of the handle, frowning. "I can go try to find someone to let you out."

[magnetic]

"Hurry," he says, still quite close to the door's surface, not daring to compromise this girl's confidence in her own benevolence by saying anything more. His voice sounds weary enough; let her imagination fill in the blanks.

One hand flat on the doorframe, the other in a fist, he waits there. The warmth of his own breath reflected back upon his face, slow and shallow. The adrenalized beating of his heart. Staring at nothing. Listening.

[obscuredvision]

It occurs to her that if the inn's management are the ones keeping him in there, she's not likely to get much help from them in letting him out.

There's a small flurry of quiet sounds from her side of the door--the do not disturb sign being slipped off the handle, the shift of her body as she kneels to inspect the handle and to try to slide the sign between the door and the frame.

"My name is Ava," she says as she feels all around the handle, in case there's a button or a latch, anything to unlock the door, "and I was brought here too." She sighs; there's nothing. "I can't get at the lock. I'm sorry. Sit tight, I'll see if I can find someone to help. I'll come back as soon as I can."

She grasps the door handle for balance as she gets to her feet, still holding the sign in one hand.

[magnetic]

Erik listens to these signs of effort in silence, and he is not exactly calm, but he is still. His fingers touch softly to the narrow gap between door and frame when the shadow of the card passes there, in case he can assist—but it does not feel familiar to him in the way certain things do, so he can only watch it recede.

Too easily let down from that prior moment of...not exactly hope, but something like it, the moment she originally tried the door, the sounds of the latch now aggravate him.

"Hurry, Ava." Something stirs behind him, in the dark. Quietly. "Please."

[baedalites.livejournal.com]

Did anyone say management? Or think it, whichever. Here she is, moving down the corridor with collected purpose. Summoned, no doubt, by tales of unruly arrivals and the terminally curious.

"Hello, miss." Savitri appears to be quite serene though there is an overture of someone who talks people down from ledges for a living. "Is there something that can be done for you?" Door and new quest: pointedly ignored.

[obscuredvision]

"Hello."

Ava is good at the whole smile-in-the-face-of-people-thinking-you-nuts game, and she summons a bright smile now as she gestures at the door with the sign. "Yes, please. There's a man locked in this room and he needs to be let out. Can you help?"

Set after Ianto, before Ava

[billycanfix.livejournal.com]

Boredom is a powerful motivator for a speedster. Every second of inactivity drags out to minutes, hours even, depending on just how little stimulation there is around. And Baedal post-ants is... not very stimulating at all to a kid who's used to the rush and havoc of being a superhero in modern Manhattan.

So it's understandable, then, that Tommy runs around the City a lot, trying to find things to do. Billy and his mother keep him from going into most of the seedier parts of town (so far), but the Inn is safe enough, considering, and he' hasn't been there since he got to Baedal, so he decides to check it out. It's not all that interesting, though. Boring walls, boring people, boring boring boring-oh! Ooooh.

The bowed out door catches his attention. Someone dangerous (read: not boring, and therefore cool) must be in there. Tommy stands in front of the door for a moment. Should he enquire politely as to who might be inside the room, or should he just be an asshole as usual?

And was that even a legit question?

He taps on the door.

"Knock knock."

[magnetic]

There is a delay before the cell's inhabitant responds—long enough for Tommy to inquire again, probably—but he does respond, albeit somewhat wearily. Groggily, even. In fact, it sounds rather like he's only just woken up. And having indeed woken just now, on the floor, more or less in a daze, is the only reason why he doesn't immediately make a demand related to the current state of the door.

"I'm in here," he says, like a lost body waiting for rescue. It's a moment of comparative weakness he won't repeat any time soon.

[billycanfix.livejournal.com]

"No, you're supposed to say 'Who's there?'! How can you not know what Knock Knock jokes are?"

Tommy doesn't really notice Erik's distress because... well, he's running on the assumption that people are all treated like he and Kate were when they arrived. The thought that someone might not be allowed out promptly and politely doesn't even come to mind.

"Oh geez, are you from a world that doesn't have them? 'Cause that would suck. I mean, how can you get through life without ever understanding the interrupting cow?"

Since he's decided that the inhabitant of the room is probably a little dumb, the pace of his speech is actually slow for him. His words still come faster than normal, though, blurring together at the edges.

[magnetic]

Lovely. He is trapped in a small room, no one will give him a straight answer about where he is, his head feels as though it's about to split apart, and now this. It's not that Erik doesn't like children, really... well, no, some children he just plain doesn't like, let's be honest here. Let us say that now is not the ideal time for fair social judgment.

Still, he tries—even though, for all he knows, this person isn't really a child at all. "...Excuse me, I didn't quite hear you the first time. The door, it muffles things a bit."

[billycanfix.livejournal.com]

With a snort, Tommy flops back to lean on the door. "Sure whatever 's not like I haven't heard that one before or anything, but you sound old, so I'll let it go."

He considers things for a long while (for him, that is) then taps at the door like a small child banging the bars of the lions' cages at the zoo.

"Knock knock."

Because a good knock knock joke really isn't something you can just waste.

[magnetic]

Erik feels it's perfectly reasonable to waste a joke in this circumstance. But then, what else can he do but indulge the boy, really? He could tell him to bugger off, but he's in just the sort of worn-out emotional state that he'd get to feeling a little contrite about it, and the last thing he needs on top of being locked up is even temporary guilt over snapping at some random kid.

So he sighs, and closes his eyes.

"Who's there."

This is ridiculous.

[billycanfix.livejournal.com]

And Tommy's day just got made. Even Billy doesn't indulge him like this... there's something to be said for having a captive audience.

"Boo."

When he speaks, it's with a little bit of a giggle to it. Honestly, the way he's acting, he sounds about twelve. What a dip.

[magnetic]

Literally captive. This is unfair. ...And Erik knows precisely where this joke is going, and it's almost a shame no one is there to see the long-suffering look on his face, because it's kind of entertaining. You know, beneath all the dirt and whiskers.

He glances sidelong at the door, like Really? Is this really what my life has become?

"Boo who."