Ellie is no stranger to nightmares. She’s learned to keep herself awake to avoid the frightening images that her brain likes to produce. But what can she do when these nightmares come to haunt her while she’s awake? It’s a haunting of faces and voices that belong to strangers in her head, but that are so familiar to her heart. She’ll be in her home, at school, the park, anywhere and hear her named be called. Sometimes the voice belongs to a man; a gravelly voice that tugs at her heart. Other times it’s a woman; something light and silvery. There are other voices, almost none of them are pleasant to hear, and Ellie walks a little faster when she thinks she hears them.
Her hand is starting to cramp as she makes one of her nightmares come to life on paper. The tip of her pencil is almost none existent and her hand is being colored black by the led. She only looks up as she hears footsteps approaching, and smiles at her visitor. “ On a scale of one to ten how crazy would I sound if I told you that the world is going to end. And the reason, you may ask? Zombies. ” She keeps her tone light and teasing.
She flips her journal over to show them the sketch she’d been working on. It’s a person, or rather it’s many people or what used to be people, all melded into one huge being. There’s fungus and blood covering most of it, as though the bodies were glued together as their decomposition just started.
The woods around the Hunting Dog Cabins weren’t exactly John’s favourite place, but he knew them well enough after visiting Evie and Rick so often; still, he was so clearly a city boy that everything, from his sunglasses to his really very nice (and too expensive), looked vaguely out of place. He had time to kill after his visit, though; his next shift wasn’t until the following morning and he was dawdling down the wooded trail with his headphones in, trying to convince himself that hey, maybe he could live here, it wasn’t so bad, when he saw the kid sketching.
Coming a little closer, he realised she wasn’t a kid, exactly; she was older than she looked at first glance, and he pulled out one headphone and tilted his head in interest, fully snooping with no shame. He liked people and far preferred conversation to isolation - yet another reason why he wouldn’t survive in the wild. Grinning a little, he made a show of flinching back, though in reality he was the furthest thing from squeamish.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, tapping a finger on his jaw, “as gross as that is, that actually doesn’t surprise me.” It really didn’t. He’d been having a lot of weird nightmares lately; not exactly zombies, but certainly things that shouldn’t be alive chasing him through tombs. Clearly he’d been spending too much time listening to Evie drone on about archaeology. The sketch was disturbing, though, for a girl with such a nice face and he squinted at her. “This is, like, very gross though. Should I be concerned? Start an intervention?”
“oh, really!” evie could no longer contain her frustration – she was just on the brink of banging the bloody thing against the counter as a last resort; the only thing stopping her was knowing that if she hadn’t broken it already, she would surely break it then. “i repel technology, and i have no idea why we must use it for everything.” the gadget in her hand should have been able to look up any member of the library by their library card number, but she’d be damned if she could even get it turned on. finally, with a frustrated sigh, she gave up and put it aside. “i’ve always been more of a pen and paper kind of girl anyway. what can i do for you?”
Remus pulled up the seat opposite the young librarian’s desk, feeling if not exactly awkward, then at least a little worried he’d caused her any distress; then again, examining her further, he thought it was probably just her temperament to express herself so, well, firmly. He couldn’t help but grin a little at the thought and said, “I’m the same, to be honest. Hence...” He waved the tattered list at her with a slight wince. “This stupidly long list. I’m sorry in advance, but I’d really appreciate an extra pair of hands in finding these. My brain shuts down when confronted with the Dewey Decimal System, even after all this time.”
“huh,“ rick huffed, rolling his shoulders back as he squinted off towards the front lawn of the courthouse and law offices. “well that’s different.” he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth before placing his hands onto his hips. to him, someone toppled a tree and then attempted to run it over. “i mean, it’s a government building so i can’t be mad, but i’m also the hired landscaper so i’m pretty damn mad.” he paused and turned to make sure whoever had walked up was still there and he wasn’t just talking to himself. “anyway, hope you enjoy the show while i try to figure this out.”
It wasn’t deliberate that John had happened upon Rick, but it wasn’t an unpleasant occurrence either way; Jonathan was hungover, miserable, and exhausted, had worked twelve hours then gone out for six, and wasn’t much in the mood for being alone. However much he drank he tended to be up and about, unless he’d been working nights, and preferred to try and battle with his head in the fresh air. He remembered the days of being eighteen - back when a stiff coffee and a bacon roll would’ve sorted him out - with blissful regret and squinted at the lawn himself over the top of his coffee. The bright sunshine was making his eyes blurry. “Is the actual line of the grass wonky, or is it just my double vision?”
REMUS LUPIN - ━━ ◤ ( TEA AND TWEED AND SOFT CLEAN WOOL, RAPID STITCHES DONE UNDER KITCHEN LIGHTS, YEARS OF LONELINESS, BETRAYAL, AND REUNION AND GREY ) welcome, REMUS LUPIN, HE/HIM. before you move in, tell us what you remember: THE BATTLE OF THE DEPT OF MYSTERIES. excellent, now we are pleased to accept your offer to live in HUNTING DOG CABINS, and your new job as ENGLISH TEACHER at EDLUND HIGH SCHOOL is waiting for you to begin. ( HARRY POTTER AND HUGH DANCY )
THE BASICS
NAME: Remus Lupin
NICKNAMES: Moony (? to be plotted because I haven’t made a decision on this one yet!)
BIRTHDAY: 10 March
AGE: 38
PRONOUNS: he/him
LAST KNOWN MEMORY: The Department of Mysteries and Sirius’s death
ORIGINATION: HP (fuck JKR)
FACECLAIM: Hugh Dancy
THE DETAILS
FAMILY: Hope Lupin (mother) ; Lyall Lupin (father) ; James Potter (adoptive brother) ; Sirius Black (closest friend)
THREE FAVORITE THINGS: tea strong enough you can stand a spoon in it; the smell of an old book, well-loved; cranking up an old stereo so you can hear the crackles
EDUCATION: high school ; ivy league (undergraduate degree in english literature; master’s degree in comparative medieval studies; phd specialising in medieval mythology specifically surrounding lycanthropy and ‘madness’)
SKILLS: kind and empathetic; an excellent teacher more for this reason than for any ability to stick to the curriculum. surprisingly dry and sarcastic. attractive when he wants to be, and occasionally even magnetic. terrible cook, alright dancer, horrible singer.
HEADCANONS:
CANON. everything we already know except also he’s gay.
DECIMATION.
Remus never thought he wanted to teach, until he was doing his MA and became a learning support officer for several of the undergrads. He even put it off for a while; his mother was an art teacher, and he had always seen it as sucking the life out of her, even more than his constant illnesses as a child had. But even after doing his PHD, the desire still lingered, so Remus moved to Decimation to join the ranks of the damned: high school teachers.
When he’s not trying to inspire uninspirable kids, Remus can be found wandering the woods in the middle of the night (his insomnia is chronic and incurable, especially around certain times of the month), frequenting local coffee shops because of his inhumane resistance to caffeine, or nose-deep in some dusty tome in the library. He always tells himself that he won’t teach forever - just until he finishes his book - but frankly even he’s starting to doubt his lie.
WHAT THEY’RE PLANNING TO DO IN DECIMATION:
Learn how to be happy again. Hopefully inspire some kids. Try and not feel like eating raw steak every time there’s a full moon.
JONATHAN CARNAHAN - ━━ ◤ ( THE ROAR OF GUNS AND THE MUD OF THE TRENCHES, THE SMELL OF THE DESERT AND THE FEELING OF WORN GOLD UNDER YOUR FINGERS, EXPENSIVE WHISKEY SOMEONE ELSE BOUGHT YOU, MARBLE STAIRS, A RIFLE YOU CAN’T REMEMBER FIRING, AND FOREST GREEN ) welcome, JONATHAN CARNAHAN, HE/HIM. before you move in, tell us what you remember: THE SECOND DEFEAT OF IMHOTEP/ESCAPING THE COLLAPSING OASIS. excellent, now we are pleased to accept your offer to live in GOLDEN FIELDS APARTMENT COMPLEX, and your new job as an EMT at ST MIRACULOUS GENERAL HOSPITAL is waiting for you to begin. ( THE MUMMY AND ILHAN SEN )
THE BASICS
NAME: Jonathan Carnahan
NICKNAMES: John, Johnny
BIRTHDAY: June 5th
AGE: 33
PRONOUNS: he/him
LAST KNOWN MEMORY: Escaping the collapsing oasis (end of the Mummy Returns)
ORIGINATION: the Mummy (1999) & the Mummy Returns (2001)
FACECLAIM: Ilhan Sen
THE DETAILS
FAMILY:
Evelyn O’Connell: baby sister ; Rick O’Connell: brother-in-law ; Alex O’Connell: nephew ; Howard Carnahan (deceased): father ; unnamed mother (deceased): mother
THREE FAVORITE THINGS: spending money he doesn’t have, making people laugh, late nights
EDUCATION: A Levels; Combat Medical Training
SKILLS: unfortunately spent more than ten years in the British armed forces as a Combat Medic, with three tours in Afghanistan. Now an EMT at St Miraculous. Also a very talented thief, swindler, smooth-talker, and all-round charming chaotic neutral asshole. Makes a fantastic spaghetti bolognese.
HEADCANONS:
CANON. John was 18 in 1914; of course he signed up, worked as a medic in the trenches, and served at the Somme, Verdun, and Passchendaele. It’s mostly his medical skills that stop Evie, Rick and Ardeth from ending up on the radar of the British govt every time they nearly get disembowled by the undead.
DECIMATION. He never knew what he wanted to do with his life, except that seeking adventure, according to his father, was a foolproof plan for any man; the army, which approached him some time after sixth form, when he was floating about spending his inheritance, seemed like the best place to find it. He was wrong, of course; John is rarely right, something that most people don’t notice because he’s so charming about it.
Leaving was a huge leap. The trauma bonding is real and the sense of being useful (something that, though he’d never tell Evie, he’d never felt at home in London) is an almost unbreakable thread that ties every medic to the army - but he was sick to the stomach of it all. Adventure, as it turned out, looked very much like war, and where had adventure led his parents anyway? Into a burning plane, that was where. So he served his final deployment and moved to the States to be closer to Evie and start some sort of new life.
So far this new life seems to consist of brutally long shifts and depressing interactions with the American health insurance system, along with wasting time picking up men in bars - though that’s not a change from London - and irritating Evie by teaching Alex bad habits. He’s an alright brother (by some standards) and an interesting friend (by many others) as long as you don’t give him any money for dubious “investments” and keep one hand on your expensive watch.
WHAT THEY’RE PLANNING TO DO IN DECIMATION:
Get enough sleep to keep functioning while working enough to fund a stupidly lavish lifestyle. Find a path in life that at least slightly relieves his nightmares - which somehow seem to involve the worst of two wars, one modern, one trench-based. But he doesn’t talk about those.
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