027. Video

[foolishwren]

<sub>[ooc: Forward-dated to the wee hours of the morning, around 3:00 or 4:00.]


[So she'd been having some problems with fire lately, and it had been rattling her nerves. That was normal, right? This was normal.]

[When the camera turned on, there was the usual firelight that indicated that Heather was, once again, sleeping out in some sheltered area of the woods on account of A) Being totally broke, and B) having a increasingly-strained relationship with those Center nurses. But this time, the fire's a fair distance away, leaving most of Heather's features in shadow.]

[Normally she was okay with fire in most situations. She could light matches without freaking out, and while campfires weren't exactly her favorite thing in the world, they were kind of necessary for, y'know, camping, and they didn't make her want to run screaming for the hills or anything. But tonight... tonight, for some reason, that fire sent vicious little shivers down her spine and she'd realized that she did not want to sit near it.]

[Even through the shadows, the glaze of sweat on her skin was visible, as was the fact that she was unusually pale. In her lap is Arty, who seems to be a little confused at being used as a squeeze-toy, but is holding abnormally still for once, whiskers twitching and black eyes glistening in the fire's light. She can tell there's something wrong.]</sub>


H-hey, um...

... That was a pretty crazy storm earlier, huh?

I can't be the only one still awake.


.... James? Uh-- ... man, what am I saying, you're probably not even awake. _{[Forced, awwwwkward laugh. Of course he wouldn't be awake, and anyway, he was going back to get his wife, he didn't have to hear about her fucked-up dreams. In fact, why would she even want to tell him? They were just dreams! So what if they were about...]}

.....

_{[Nightmares like that had to be normal after everything she'd been doing, right...?]}


.... SOME weather we've been having lately, huh, guys?

Comments

[video]

[restardom.livejournal.com]

[ guess who was unnerved by the fog? Guess who hasn't been able to sleep? Guess who is also using Kanzeon the Furret as a stuffed animal? ]

... Heather?

[video]

[foolishwren]

_{[~*~FURRET BUDDIES~*~. It's like a late-night sleepover, except with more terror and it's over long-distance instead of under a blanket tent.]}

H-hey, Rise!

_{[Heather grinned, trying her best to look like it was another casual late-night 'lol look at me, I'm totally awake! Haha, aren't I wacky?' conversation.]}

You can't sleep either?

_{[No eldritch abominations had come lumbering up out of that fog outside her little hollow yet, and she didn't think any WOULD, but she just couldn't shake that calm-before-the-storm feeling. It wasn't that it was unusual to get that feeling after .... these nightmares, but... this time it almost felt tangible.]}

[video]

[restardom.livejournal.com]

[ the advantage of being an idol (or the disadvantage) is getting used to being up at all kinds of odd hours. While she doesn't appear to be her perky, playful self, Rise for the most part appears to be alert. And oddly tense, but she smiles back easily. ]

No... maybe it's just one of those nights, you know? I didn't think anyone else would be up, though.

[ of course she's curious. Is she going to ask? ... Normally, yes, but with Heather, she knows better than to pry. ]

[video]

[foolishwren]

_{[Heather's quite the night-owl, but one effect Route, the constant physical traveling (no buses? ARRRRRG), and the fact that she couldn't just flick on the lights in the house and flop back down to watch TV when the sun set, had all had on her was enforcing a slightly more normal sleep schedule.]}

If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that there's always somebody awake.

_{[Trying to pry into Heather's affairs was often futile an frustrating. Of the few here who'd tried, Otacon was likely the only one who'd succeeded... and after finding out what was really up, he... just might have regretted it. ~*~TMI~*~.]}

[hasavision.livejournal.com]

[Wataru looks so, so tired. But at the same time, he looks fairly unnerved.]

Huh...?

... that icon is like, the ultimate woobie face.

[foolishwren]

_{[... Oh. A stranger. ... OH WELL IT'S A PERSON. C'MON, MISTER, LET'S HAVE SOME CONVERSATION!]}

Well HOWDY.

Wataru is indeed very much a woobie.

[hasavision.livejournal.com]

Hi.

Umm... You sent out a call?

[foolishwren]

I did!

I wanted to prove my theory that other people were awake.

And I did!

Hallelujah.

_{[She's... kind of overcompensating, but she really, really wants to forget about those bad dreams...]}

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

...some weather, yeah. All this fog is kind of...weird.

[HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE BUDDIES GO]

[foolishwren]

Yeah.... I hate fog, personally... so this is like... the worst weather ever. _{[She'd RATHER have rain, to be totally honest. At least then she'd just me miserable, not miserable and tense as a violin string wound too tight.]}

So what're you doin' up so late, Lawyer-Man?

[cheapblusuits.livejournal.com]

We don't get much fog where I'm from. Smog, mostly. _{But yeah, this is pretty bad.}

I...woke up. And, er, couldn't get back to sleep. [What a marvelous understatement. Don't pretend like you didn't sit around hyperventilating for thirty minutes because when you have nightmares, Phoenix, you have NIGHTMARES.]

[foolishwren]

Fog's kind of the trademark weather pattern in my neck of the woods. Nasty stuff...

N'yeah, me too.

_{[She hadn't hyperventilated so much as sat very still for a long period of time, eyes wide open and ears straining to hear any foreign sound. Like some kind of awkward, gangly rabbit.]}

[Video]

[pillowichooseu.livejournal.com]

[Surprise surprise Heather, James actually still awake. He hadn't exactly been able to sleep himself. The fog had been plague him much like it had in that damned town. A memory he really didn't want to think about--especially since he had Mary back...]

[Which is the funny thing, he thought he'd be so happy with her here but there was just something... Wrong. Maybe it wasn't the weird weather that was keeping him up, or the odd feelings he had been experiencing since it's arrival, but something else.]

Heather, I'm up... Are you okay? You look pale.

[James doesn't have much room to talk, he looks as though he's been without sleep for a day or two and could really use some rest.]

[Video]

[foolishwren]

_{[Oh dude what he's actually awake! It's been awhile since Heather's seen her Silent Hill survivor bro, and they both look sort of worse for the wear. When his face comes up on the screen, she looks surprised, then grins sort of sheepishly.]}

Hey! I-- uh, yeah, I'm fine. I didn't wake you up, did I?

_{[... And then...]}

... You don't look so good, yourself...

[Video]

[pillowichooseu.livejournal.com]

Oh no not at all. I uh.. I've been up.

[Though James didn't really wanna say why exactly. He was a grown man and as much as nightmares effected everyone... Well, he was a grown man, it wasn't exactly the manly thing to admit that scary dreams were keeping you up.]

I'm fine. So uh, this weather... It's pretty umm.. familiar isn't it?

[Video]

[foolishwren]

Oh... okay, good. _{[The funny thing is that in a less worrisome situation, she wouldn't have apologized for waking him up at all. In fact, she'd probably have been incredibly obnoxious about it. But right now, things were weighing on her just as heavily as the fog was.]}

Yeah... actually, that's why I wanted to talk...

I um... I've been thinking about that place a lot.

Y'know.

_{[He'd know.]}

[video]

[usednastyplot.livejournal.com]

[Was pulling an all-nighter.]

Problems?

[video]

[foolishwren]

Objectionable weather.

_{[Like hell she's gonna tell a still-near-stranger about her nightmares.]}

You?

[video]

[usednastyplot.livejournal.com]

I'm not overly tired so I've decided to forgo rest for tonight.

[video]

[devilbatshit.livejournal.com]

The weather has been pretty bad, but I've seen worse.

Trouble sleeping?

[video]

[foolishwren]

Kinda. The damp doesn't do much for my beauty sleep.

What're you doing up?

[video]

[devilbatshit.livejournal.com]

I was training and I wanna check out the fog.

[ That's not to say he hasn't slept already, though ]

[video]

[bakaitoukid]

[Like most people, Kaito's been trying to avoid sleep, particularly after the doozy of a nightmare he had the previous night. Not sleeping isn't helping things though, because now he's positive he's seeing things... which is causing him to be far jumpier than he normally is.

Heather's post to the network provides a reprieve, though he can immediately tell something is wrong with her, too]

Hey.

[video]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Not that it's much of a comfort, but it is at least some relief to be seeing these familiar faces. Worrying about herself is one thing, but worrying about so many people at once is another entirely, and it's something she's not used to. So with each new ping from someone she'd been hoping to hear from, it's a little less tense.]

[But she doesn't HAVE any reason to actually be worried, right? It's not like That Night she'd come home too late, after all. It's just late-night, post-nightmare paranoia, right? .... Right? god forbid the dawn come.]</sub>

Hey you.

Can't sleep either?

[video]

[bakaitoukid]

[Truthfully, he's wondering why he's letting himself get so worked up over something like this. Usually, it's easy for him to shake off his nightmares, at least to the point of where they don't affect him outwardly. Inwardly, of course, is another matter entirely.

Talking to Heather will help him get his mind off of his problems, won't it? That way he can shove them down so far they never see the light of day, just like he normally does. He can handle this... he had learned how to a long time ago]

3 a.m. is a nice time of the day to be awake during, that's all. Would be nicer without all this fog, but... you take what you can get, right?