It happens to everyone - sometimes, you have nights where you just can't fall asleep, no matter what you do. It could be for a number of reasons, or no reason at all. And this is what's happened now: you've been laying in bed for what feels like hours, just tossing and turning, and nothing seems to help. So what's left to do? Get out of bed and go wake someone else up, of course. If you're not getting any sleep, then why should they?
i n s t r u c t i o n s • Post with your character (note the name and fandom in the subject).
• Other people reply to you by generating a number from 1 to 10.
• Have fun!
o p t i o n s 01 • FEAR. Maybe you're hearing strange, indeterminable noises; maybe there's a severe storm happening outside; maybe you watched a scary movie before bed? Whatever the reason, you're terrified and it's keeping you awake. You just want to wake someone else up so they can protect you from the monster in your closet.
02 • HUNGER. Your stomach is growling and it just won't stop. Or perhaps your throat is so dry you could cough up a tumbleweed? Well, you've gone to the kitchen to remedy this and hey, that was a pan that just dropped on the floor. It was loud enough to wake the dead! Oops.
03 • PAIN. Your body is completely worn out, be it from exercise, battle, sickness, or what have you. Either way you're in enough pain to keep you from sleeping, so maybe someone else has a home remedy or something, or can at least help you take your mind off of it.
04 • SOLITUDE. For some reason, your bed just feels so empty at the moment. You're feeling terribly lonely and really just want someone to keep you company for a while. Maybe it'd be easier to fall asleep if you're with them...
05 • DISCOMFORT. Your room is an oven. Either that or a freezer. Or maybe this bed is just really uncomfortable? Who knows why you can't get to sleep, it feels like it could be anything. Why even bother trying? Maybe someone else can preoccupy you until you feel tired enough to ignore your discomfort.
06 • PENSIVE. Something's on your mind, and no matter how hard you try to focus elsewhere, it's just not going to work. Your body may be tired, but your mind is incredibly busy and it's virtually impossible to get to sleep. Surely, talking it out with someone else will help?
07 • SADNESS. Something terrible has happened that day, perhaps; or you could just be severely depressed. Either way you're trying your hardest not to cry yourself to sleep, and it's not working at all. Better find a way to get it out of your system somehow; you need a shoulder to cry on.
08 • ANGER. You are just... fuming. Who knows why - that annoying dog is barking again, or maybe the people next door are getting busy and keeping you awake. Whatever the reason for your ire is, you'd better put an end to it so you can get some damn rest already! Go wake up a friend so you can complain to them.
09 • RESTLESS. You're far too energetic to sleep right now. Maybe you're just trying to do so out of necessity - you have to be up early tomorrow! But you just don't think you'll be able to fall asleep for a while now, so why waste the time trying to sleep when you could be doing something else? Namely bothering someone else - you're totally jealous because they're getting more sleep than you.
10 • WILDCARD. Choose one of the options above, or make up your own scenario. |
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bakerstreet2016-07-25 09:47 pm
brooke maddox ( scream )
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Murder changes a town. Bruce has experienced it before, so he's not surprised by the shift in atmosphere. Now that he's a teacher, though, he can't just retreat into himself the way he did when the Brandon James murders happened. Now he has to deal with the fallout among his students.
Most of them are relatively okay: shaken up, but not harmed in any lasting way. The kids that were involved, though - those ones make Bruce worry. It's clear that they've all been traumatized, whether or not they admit to it. It keeps him up at night sometimes. They're all good kids; they don't deserve what happened to them.
Of all of them, Bruce worries about Brooke Maddox the most. Despite her veneer of popularity, she strikes him as incredibly vulnerable. She's smart, too, smarter than she knows. He started giving extra lessons after school to make up for the material they missed while Piper was at large, and in those smaller sessions he grew to appreciate Brooke's intelligence.
He's not an idiot. He doesn't look at Brooke the way Seth Branson did. Still, he cares about her - cares enough to keep thinking about how he can help her, enough to keep him awake long after he's gone to bed, enough to make what he knows is probably a bad decision.
The students in his extra lessons exchanged contact information with him so he could send them assignments. As he rolls over and grabs his phone from the nightstand, Bruce tells himself this isn't strange. As he types out the message, he tells himself it's not creepy for a teacher to text his student at one in the morning. As he hits the send button, he tells himself he's being an idiot.
Hey, Brooke. Can't sleep. Hope everything is alright with you.
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quinn maddox comes to the decision to sell the place, move them into a bigger house on the opposite end of town, and brooke seeks shelter in the motel room her mother always kept on standby for spa weekends. sometimes jake, or emma or even audrey will stay with her, but mostly she's there alone. attempting to study and get back to some semblance of a normal life.
in public, everything seems perfectly fine. brooke is an active participant in class --meaning she doesn't fall asleep and every now and then even manages to get an answer right. when she's not trying to dumb herself down. she smiles, and laughs with her friends as if nothing has changed. as if people they loved weren't brutally murdered weeks, days ago.
privately is another story entirely. her appetite is almost non-existant, and sleep, when she manages to get any, is fitful. the wound on her side, her arm, the palm of her hand. they've all healed, but when she lays down to sleep, the temperature seems to drop until her breath comes out in white puffs and no amount of counting to ten or rapid blinking can clear away the image of riley, her beautiful best friend, alone on that rooftop.
her fault. it was her fault.
everything is harder to deny at night, so the quiet buzz of her cellphone is almost a blessing. a welcome distraction from the pain, even if the sender is something of a surprise. ]
i'm alright. just trying to figure out the homework you assigned.
[ a lie. she finished it hours ago. ]
i don't sleep much these days anyway.
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There's an ache inside of his chest, though, something he can't ignore. He wants to help Brooke, wants to somehow ease her grief. How can he tell her all of that without seeming like he has an ulterior motive? He knows enough about her history with Branson to know he's on thin ice already.
The first part of her message is easy to reply to, though he can't help the fear that he's coming across exactly the way he doesn't want to. ]
If you need any help with it, we can go over it together.
[ The second part makes him frown, his forehead creasing with worry. He's not the only insomniac around here, it seems. His first instinct is to offer advice, to suggest that she see a doctor or meditate or something - but he has a feeling that she doesn't want any of his advice. She probably gets enough from the other adults in her life. ]
Same here. Being alone in the dark isn't so great. Makes me think too much to sleep.
[ He's pushing it, he knows, but that ache is just too strong to ignore. ]
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okay, so maybe the comparison isn't impossible to avoid, and maybe there's a faint pang of guilt for having made it in the first place. she's careful now, in a way she never was before piper came into their lives like a tornado, uprooting everything in her path.
teeth catching at her bottom lip, she starts and stops and starts and stops her next message. torn between telling him the truth, that she can't even close her eyes most nights without reliving the whole thing over again, or allowing him to be the distraction she so desperately craves. ]
is it okay if i ask what keeps you awake?
[ distractions are easier and, after all, they both know why she doesn't sleep. the whole town does. ]
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He's heard a million and one things about Brooke, about Branson, about what ostensibly happened between them. He doesn't care about any of it. The only important thing here is Brooke's well-being. Catch Bruce on a bad day and he might make an offhanded comment about what he could've done, what he should've done - but it's too late now. Whatever guilt he carries for not intervening sooner is stuck with him forever.
When Brooke messages back he smiles despite himself, glad for this small connection between them. Attempting to figure out a reply is more difficult than he'd like, though, since the truth is a little too damning to admit. ]
I worry a lot.
[ He hesitates, knowing he should stop there. Then his fingers move on their own and he sends a second message: ]
I worry about you, and my other students. I worry about what I can do to help you.
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[ it's sent before she can think better of it, though censoring herself has never been something she excels at. realizing that this is a potentially dangerous path for the both of them, one she really shouldn't be going down --unsure entirely of whether she's following or leading-- is also not something she's great at recognizing apparently. ]
that does a lot more than you probably realize. you're a good teacher.
[ it's where she ought to let things lie, but instead she keeps going. too far, maybe. ]
you're a good guy, mr. b.
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There's just something about Brooke's words that make him happy. It's not the praise - he isn't that desperate for compliments - it's something else. ]
And you're a good kid. A good student, no matter how hard you try to convince everyone otherwise.
[ He's in dangerous territory now - but if they've gone this far, if they've dedicated themselves to this conversation, he wants to be honest. Brooke deserves that. ]
I know we aren't that close, but if there's anything I can do to make things easier, please tell me. You deserve to be happy.
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for a long while, she considers making light of the entire thing. asking him for the tests to his next quiz. anything to deny that she's struggling as badly as she is. ]
maybe. but i don't deserve it more than anyone else.
[ certainly not more than riley. does he know, she wonders, that it's her fault riley is gone? ]
i wish i could just forget everything. even just for a little while.
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But when his phone lights up again something funny happens in his chest, and he has to berate himself for getting too involved. This feels a little like dependence and he knows that's a bad idea. He's been selfish too many times not to recognize the signs, and he knows that offering to help is, for most people, simply a way to make the helper assuage their guilt.
And then there are the myriad methods of 'helping' that aren't really help at all, but merely more ways to mess things up. Bruce knows he needs to be even more careful now because everything within him is telling him to say something, to offer something, that he shouldn't. Something that will only lead to more problems and unhappiness.
But he can practically see the sadness in Brooke's eyes and it kills him every time he looks at her, knowing he could've done something to help if he hadn't been such a coward. He missed his opportunity before; he's determined not to do it again. ]
I'm more than happy to be a distraction. I have a large supply of cat videos if you want me to send some to you.
[ He hesitates, then decides to go ahead and add something. He's already damned himself; might as well go all the way with it. ]
:)
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i suppose that answers the question "what do you do when you're home alone?"
[ no. absolutely not. she did not send that. except that she did, and without a second thought, at least until it was already too late. it could get her in huge trouble. it could get him in huge trouble. but it's out there already.
and the strangest thing isn't that she said it. that she typed the words and, at the time, thought that it was a good idea. no, the truly strange thing is that she doesn't actually regret it. not even a little. ]
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...And yet. He doesn't understand why, but seeing her messages makes him feel a sort of happiness that's been absent from his life for longer than he'd like to admit. Knowing he's managing to cheer her up enough for her to make comments like that fills him with joy. That's his only intention here - to help. ]
I'll have you know that I also do yoga, thank you very much.
[ There, an innocent response. Nothing dangerous about it at all. ]
It helps a lot with stress, even if it looks a little ridiculous. I can teach you some poses if you ever want to learn.
[ It doesn't mean anything other than what it says, he tells himself. It's just a harmless gesture. ]