[OPEN] Didn't I see this movie?

[edgeoftheknife]

Characters: Erskine, Bakura, and OPEN
Date: August 10, 2016
Location: Central Sector
Situation: Erskine has been failing to deal with some Bad Things from his past and now it's catching up to him. He's having a bit of a nervous breakdown and, as an Elemental sorcerer, is going to be setting fire to a building in the city as a result. Tag-ins welcome from anyone! Come help put the fire out before someone gets hurt. Come shuffle the kedan away from the burning building. Come yell at this idiot?
Warnings/Rating: Bad headspace. Possible violence. Arson. Vague spoilers for the SP series through the end of book 8; will try to keep specific spoilers to a minimum unless noted otherwise. Please let me know if you're okay with spoilers or not and I can adjust as necessary ♥




He'd asked for help.

That thought echoed small and almost forgotten in the back of Erskine's mind. He'd asked for help. It shouldn't have come to this. Maybe he'd been too late, or maybe he'd been past the point of saving.

The evening was hot--too hot. Everything was hot and dry and the fire spread too quickly, jumping from the awnings of an outdoor cafe to the quaint little building behind it. Fire bloomed a brilliant orange against the skyline, against the deep blue of the sky. Kedan screamed, scrambled to get away, to get their loved ones away. Screamed at him, though from a safe distance.

Who wanted to get too close to the man with fire in his hands and rage in his eyes?




((ooc: Please note that for the sake of continuity/planning/etc, Bakura is going to be the one to take Erskine out of the area, and no one is going to die no kedan are going to die. Otherwise feel free to interact as you see fit, even if it's not with Erskine! Fight fires. Be heroes, do cool stuff. Yell at Erskine. It's all good.))

Comments

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine nodded, hesitantly at first then more firmly. He understood.

He stepped back into the kitchen to make the call, speaking with Anton for a minute or two without bothering to lower his voice--giving Bakura plenty of opportunity to eavesdrop on at least his half of the conversation, if the man felt the desire to do so. Just as he was about to hang up, Anton asked to speak to Bakura. Erskine dutifully trotted the handset back into the other room and passed it off, moving back into the kitchen once again to avoid eavesdropping himself. He didn't need to know. He didn't want to know.

While the conversation finished up in the other room he took one last gulp of the wine still left on the table and resumed his cat's cradle.

[denyamenti]

Bakura's conversation with Anton was short and fairly terse, but the thief was relatively assured the Hotel's proprietor wouldn't change his mind and try knocking on the dojo's door in the middle of the night. He returned to the kitchen, set the radio handset on the counter, and stretched his arms over his head.

"I'm going to clean up in there," he said, nodding at the opposite door that went back out to the dojo. He had ordered the kedan to leave in a hurry, and they'd simply dropped everything where it fell in order to comply. "You can go wherever you want, though there's not much interesting to see," he said, gesturing to the rest of the apartment, but the dojo by extension. Despite tonight's incident, hovering over Erskine like a fretting nursemaid wouldn't help the man at all; it needed to be conveyed to him that this had not reduced him back to a negative value of trust.

"When you're ready, the bedroom is the last room," he added. "Shower's there too."

[edgeoftheknife]

Shower. As badly as Erskine needed sleep (bad enough that part of the city had paid for it), the thought of a shower was too tempting to ignore. Even if it wouldn't remove the smell of ash and smoke from his suit, at least he could get it off of his skin and out of his hair. It might help him sleep.

"Thanks. I just need a chair or a couch to sleep on, somewhere out of your way. I will take that shower, though."

It wasn't strictly true. He was enough of an insomniac that although he'd fallen asleep on just about every conceivable type of furniture, that didn't mean he'd ever slept well on any of them. Then again, he was passing back into that stage of fatigue that made it hurt just to be awake. He might even be able to sleep on the floor for all he knew. He just wasn't particularly of a mind to inconvenience the person sheltering him from whatever was going on out in the city right now.

[denyamenti]

"The bedroom is out of the way at the moment," Bakura said, stopping at the doorway and looking back at Erskine.

"I'm not going to sleep anytime soon, the sun's barely down. Besides, heriret, your unconventional attempt at chivalry aside, I have a vested interest in making sure you sleep restfully, as does everyone else. I won't be far away."

[edgeoftheknife]

There was an argument on the tip of his tongue, caught just short of escaping his mouth. He let it die there, because after a moment he couldn't actually find a valid excuse to fight Bakura's decision. The man had a point. Several, in fact.

Erskine nodded in lieu of thanking Bakura again and moved in the direction that had been indicated, heading straight to the shower. He probably took longer in the shower than was strictly necessary, and most assuredly used too much hot water, but after he emerged and donned the bare minimum of clothing necessary to stay decent he was almost asleep before he hit the bed.