you're riding with me.

[seeingyou]

WHO: OPEN to all passengers.
WHAT: General mingle log for the first part of the month, including new partner pairing stuff.
WHERE: Navi, all over.
WHEN: Now until the next event (Dec. 6-19).
WARNINGS: If things get messy and/or upsetting, please put warnings in your comment subject lines! And if you absolutely can't keep from strangling your new partner, please report it on the death page.

Hello, passengers! Today begins just like normal, but it’s far from an ordinary day. On this fine point in space-time, passengers will notice a little something different when it comes to the glyphs marked on the backs of their hands.

They're glowing. The light is a deep shade of blue, and it's slowly blinking on and off. Maybe it's searching for something? It's entirely possible, because affected passengers will also feel a gentle tugging sensation that stops once they've come face to face with their partners. The glyph will switch to glowing a steady blue once partners are synced with each other, and they'll be able to communicate telepathically with each other, too.

Have fun getting to know each other a little better! Or, you know. Yelling at each other. Just try to keep the murder to a minimum, OK?

Comments

[albatrossomen]

"Unlikely, certainly not complete strangers. I cannot think of many who do not value their privacy," Says the guy who often disregards that and violates the hell out of everyone's privacy. Not that he always has a choice in the matter, mind, but he was absolutely a massive hypocrite. After a time Murmur actually levels his full attention on her, it had been easy to miss before as he had such a casually easy going manner about being generally alert to his surroundings, but when he focused his attention something shifted.

There was a piercing weight to it, as though one's very soul was laid bare before him. It didn't last long, only a few moments, before he politely looked away again.

"On the topic of invasiveness, forgive my presumption but you have the look about you of someone to whom sleep deprivation is not a novel affliction. Are you quite well?"

[11calls]

There's something uncomfortable about the weight of his gaze on her, and Alex just shifts her weight a bit from foot to foot without really meaning to. It's not something that she'd expected honestly, even if maybe considering the people on board Alex maybe should have. Oh, she doesn't think that there's something supernatural going on here, not really, but there's enough of people here who are touched by it that Alex isn't entirely discounting it either.

"I don't sleep very much," Alex admits softly, her hand brushing over her forehead as she says it. "It's not new, not really. It'd been going on for a year back home. Or at least close enough of it to not really matter. It hasn't gotten any better here." Making a bad joke is a standard Alex Reagan defense mechanism and this joke even has the added benefit of being true as well. "I guess no matter where you are, you're always there, you know?"

[albatrossomen]

An expected reaction, all told. For as well as Murmur can disguise his presence from his brethren, keep his power hidden away from prying eyes, humans still sometimes have a sense for it. Especially when far too many eyes are leveled at them at once. Which is why the gaze doesn't last long, he has no desire to truly make her uncomfortable. Only to Know.

He nods, once, in understanding. Yes, as he'd thought, she did appear to be touched by something dark to him, though he didn't dare pry deeper than that. Even so, it might be something he could assist with in the meantime.

There is a faint, wry smirk offered at her attempt at making it into something humorous. "Have you spoken with Jack? I trust by now you've sought medical assistance, but if that has failed to be... sufficient, there may be other methods." A few beats as he considers his next words carefully. It has been a very, very long time since he's done anything one might call more mundane angelic duties, he scarcely recalls how to go about it. And yet... here was a person in need.

He would be remiss in ignoring her plight. The very thing he found most frustrating, perhaps he should be less of a hypocrite. "Though... if you were so willing, I might be able to offer a temporary reprieve. Should you choose."

He emphasizes that last part very slightly. It was one of the sticking points, in order to offer assistance someone had to ask.

[11calls]

"Yeah, I definitely did back home. Sleep meds, sleep therapists, it was an entire thing. But nothing that we've done works, not really. I mean it's been a long time." Which is entirely an understatement really. It's been two years since Alex had walked into a little abandoned cabin deep in the woods in California and had stared at what Strand had called a 'Devil's Door'. Two years since Tannis Braun had turned tail and run from the same thing. He'd survive a horror movie, Alex herself may not.

There's some part of her that doesn't want to ask for help, because it seems like everyone and their grandmother had always had a suggestion for handling her insomnia issues as if Alex hadn't tried everything that she'd read online multiple times. Any old remedy--yoga, meds, pot, everything and yet Alex still couldn't manage to turn off either her thoughts or her nightmares and she hates that with every fiber of her being.

But Alex is by nature a curious creator, so she just asks with her interest betraying her: "what kind of thing are you talking about?"

[albatrossomen]

He nods, having anticipated as much. She seemed like the level-headed type who would have pursued every reasonable course she possibly could. To little avail, from the sound of it. "If I may ask, how long?" Really, now he's curious just how long she's been fighting with this.

Her concerns are perfectly reasonable as well, and Murmur knows that his suggestion is liable to sound completely ridiculous. It probably would be coming from anyone that wasn't an angel, or a particularly skilled soothsayer of some form.

"Well, since as you say you've attempted every recourse available to you with little success, and given your history that we've discussed thus far I believe the source may be less internal, and more external. With that in mind I can offer a small blessing, I know how it sounds, but it may be enough to at least temporarily block out what afflicts you. Particularly with the great distance that should be between you and the source." He remembers the nightmare as well, he's just refraining from bringing it up again.

Of course he knows it'll work, but he can't very well tell her as much. He needs her to ask, after all.

[11calls]

"All told about two years now. I've never slept particularly well, not even when I was little bit there was this... thing that happened while I was working on my show. There was a kid who had been abducted, and he was found in a cabin that was covered in sacred geometry and equations. A friend of mine called what had been made a 'devil's door.' When I was visiting it with a psychic he like lost it and ran out. Strand just kind of... stared at it and lectured to me about history." Alex tries a little smile, but it's difficult considering everything else.

"Since then, I haven't slept well. The worst was last year, it actually got kind of scary. For a long time, I was only sleeping like two hours a night. It's a little better now, but I can't tell you the last time I had a good night sleep."

Sighing, Alex just gives him a nod. "I would appreciate any help you can give me, please. Even if it's just a placebo effect, I always need sleep." Which is probably a massive understatement considering Alex's sleep debt.

[albatrossomen]

"That is a very long time to go without sufficient sleep," He remarks quietly, frowning faintly. No wonder she looked so exhausted, it really wasn't justthe recent happenings. He did faintly raise an eyebrow as she continued explaining her experience. "Playing with demons is it? No wonder your sleep is troubled. I'm not surprised your friend had the sense to leave quickly." He did find it strange to hear the door also included written equations, that wasn't exactly common practice, but whatever works. The details weren't always the most important part. Of course Murmur made a mental note to keep his tattoos from her for now, somehow he doubted she'd take well to them given her experiences thus far.

He did huff a faint sound of amusement at the description of Strand's reaction. "I take it this Strand does not take these things very seriously?"

But she did, or she wouldn't be attributing her sleeplessness to it. He doesn't think she's wrong to do so, or rather he knows she isn't wrong to do so.

"Then let us see if I can assist in alleviating that for you," Now that she's asked he's free to offer his aid. The rules truly could be a hassle at times. With that in mind he went silent, closing his eyes as he brought his hands together in prayer, briefly, before moving to hover them just over her. While he didn't say anything aloud, he did look as though he were in prayer or meditation. It wasn't flashy, no glowing lights nor fanfare, but after a few moments Alex would experience a gentle sense of peace wash over her. A weight lifting as the dark shroud that loomed to torment her dreams was peeled away, and a protective shield of light placed in between.

For a placebo, it certainly would have a swift and notable, if somewhat subtle, effect. Once he was finished he let his hands fall, tucking his thumbs into his pockets, waiting for her appraisal.

[11calls]

Alex shakes her head violently, and she adds quickly. "Trust me, I was definitely not playing with demons. They're the one of the few things that really scared me even before this started. I mean like... it was one of the things that I wanted to investigate the least." Alex frowns for a moment; she can't help it and her hand just brushes against her forehead. There had been something about those hundreds videos in Strand's father's house that had been bugging her for the several months that she'd been here. He'd had hundreds of cases, but he had picked and chosen the ones that he showed her to curate her experience with his tapes, and he'd picked one that had scared the shit out of her on purpose. Her frown is fixed with a mix of realization and a very real hurt that she'd not thought of this before. Frankly, she'd always known Strand was a fucking asshole but she'd not even considered this.

"He doesn't think they're real. He's an...evangelical skeptic. He refuses to see the things that are directly in front of him. It's so weird because he does take them seriously, but it's in his way that he attempts to disprove them. Richard Strand has had a lot that has happened to him in his life and he has his reasons for it but..." It doesn't feel right to give those reasons to someone else considering the show isn't a thing here, and especially because they'd just been discussing how they wished that they could keep information private. Alex maybe understands Strand for the first time.

But all of those thoughts are alleviated when he begins to... well, pray? At least it looks like Murmur is praying, and the tension that's been in her shoulders for far longer than Alex ever could admit sags into relaxation. "Oh. Oh." Breathing seems easier, less like her heart is racing and the smile that Alex gives him is bright and wide and real and it goes down into her very bones. "Oh my god, thank you! How did--" but then she cuts off her question and whispers softly, putting it together and jumping through the massive leaps of logic that are an Alex Reagan signature move. "You're an angel, aren't you?"

[albatrossomen]

"Oh! My apologies, I did not intend to imply that you were the one playing with demons, but whoever was responsible for those markings." Of course coming into contact with such things was generally enough to give someone nightmares. Or worse. Noting her troubled frown Murmur echoes it, tilting his head to the side in an unspoken question of curiosity. What realization had come to mind that troubled her so, he wondered?

Murmur offers something of an amused, if faintly derisive, snort. "Ah, yes, one of those. A mind so closed that even a bludgeon of evidence that challenges their worldview cannot crack the wall of skepticism." They're frustrating, but at the same time they're useful. Nothing short of actively performing rather spectacular miracles or boxing them upside the head with his wings would ever be enough to break the illusion. There were certainly times Murmur would have liked to do the latter.

Yet... Alex was under no such strict illusions, and for a brief moment Murmur looks actually surprised and pleased. "Well, well, you are sharp. I'll have to be more careful around you." He offers a faintly amused smirk. While it isn't a direct admission, it's close enough that she could very easily take it as such. It isn't breaking any rules if they figure it out themselves! He just happened to drop the hints that were needed in the first place. Totally not cheating. Then again he's not even convinced that actually is a rule, just a suggestion. These things always were fuzzy. And as far as leaps of logic go... she wasn't wrong, was she?

[11calls]

Alex just gives him a quick grin when he says that she's sharp. With all of the things around her show, she often gets a reputation for being slow or stupid when in actuality she's playing the common person who may or may not need some of the complex things that had happened within it. Often, she needs to ask the simple and basic questions because she knows that if she doesn't then she's going to hear about it on the reviews from someone who doesn't understand. It's not great but that's how it happens to be and it's always worse because she's a woman and people assume the worst of her.

Of course last year Alex hadn't been her best, but she was able to admit it both to herself and to the show.

"You can't help until you're asked, but you can kind of almost lead people to asking, right?" It's not a question as much as it's a conformation, and Alex just frowns for a moment, because she can't help it. Certain fears of Alex Reagan are as much at her core as her determination, drive and complete lack of self preservation and she can't help but bring it up and to ask him directly: "you could tell there were demons affecting me, couldn't you? It's why the praying thing worked."

[albatrossomen]

That is a point people would be quick to miss, isn't it? There should be no shame in creating a solid foundation for knowledge, but he understands how impatient and judgmental people can be. Quite the precarious position she's in, Murmur can understand to an extent. He's long born the burden of other's unfounded judgment upon his character due to short-sighted perception.

Of course persistent lack of sleep will take a toll on anyone.

"Correct, I am permitted to guide, but not to interfere," There's a small, but distinct difference. He can offer, he can lead, he can even play hidden games but ultimately the choices still must be made. Another amused, quiet huff. Sharp. "I can sense their touch on you, yes. That isn't to say it wouldn't have for any other affliction, but in those circumstances proper medical intervention would also suffice." Never discredit the value of science, humans were always astonishingly clever and inventive. They could solve plenty of their problems on their own, eventually perhaps even those of supernatural origin.