CHAPTER TWO ♔ a sigh escapes from heaven and worlds end

[savemyself]

♬ The Dream Within - Lara Fabian

WHO || Rafael Giovanni, Burt Becksworth, Isabella Alessandro, Finnick Odair, Myrilandel de Tanos, Buffy Summers, Spike, Elena Gilbert, Dawn Summers, Desmond Descant, Jeanne Gar, Kat Samcelot, Mark Sandazhard, Violet Fiore, Sterling Archer
WHAT || CHAPTER TWO: Following the traumatic and tragic events of Finnick and Rafael's concert, our heroes are taken to be interrogated at the police station
WHERE || Concert Hall > Chicago Police Department, Chicago, IL
WHEN || July 3rd, 2013 [ forward dated]
HOW || Actionspam

Nothing is okay.

What was meant to be the Knights' triumphant collaborative effort to cut off Chad Becksworth's bid for total control of NOVA Records, allowing them to follow the trail elsewhere, has descended into chaos. Rafael's songs triggered some kind of reaction in Jade that allowed her to regain her lost memories, only to have their reunion cut tragically short by the actions of a hitman who took her hostage on stage, demanding her necklace. While Myri and Violet attempted to convince him that the necklace did not lie with her, Jade signaled to Rafael that she meant to utilize the distraction to break free - but things went out of control and Rafael's bullets struck Jade instead. The Knights felled the hitman, as the world watched, and Rafael begged a distraught and enraged Des to end his life. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure that only Buffy & Spike could see assisted Myrilandel in healing Jade enough to hang on for a little time more...

Time for people to say goodbye.

In the meantime, the police have arrived, arresting Rafael, Archer, and Des (or attempting to), and preparing Jade to be taken to the hospital. Everyone else is being ordered to head outside to be taken down to the station for questioning. It's a hectic scene, but people can finally snatch a few moments amid the chaos to try to make sense of what just happened...

Comments

THE AFTERMATH

[savemyself]

[ ♬ si volvieras a mi - josh groban

the fires are being put out, weapons confiscated, the scene photographed from every angle, and the police are rounding people up to ask them to head out the back door to a long line of cars waiting to take them to the police station. only archer, des, and rafael are getting the handcuff and escort treatment, though, so it's possible to mill about, talk to each other, investigate things before you get kicked out, or whatever. \o\ feel free to make threads below, and threadjack, threadjack, threadjack. this is for anything happening leading up to the process of people riding off to the police station. ]

[isisagent]

Woah! Calm down, guy. I'm Sterling Archer... with ISIS.

[He starts to dig for his license to kill]

It's probably above your pay grade, but if you touch me, I'll fucking kill you - alright.

[notaroundme]

[Elena's realized by now that her hearing isn't coming back any time soon, and it's left this cold feeling in her stomach, because she doesn't know if that's something that can be fixed. That, combined with the emotional impact of watching Jade get shot, and catching a glimpse of the remains of the hitman, has left her in a bad way. The silence is all the more stifling, not being able to hear when people are approaching, not sure if it's really all over.

Because it's not yet. Not for her. Not for anyone.

Her shoulders are dotted with drops of red blood that dripped down from her ears, which look a mess in comparison, and she seems out of it. Distant.]

[bigbad]

[Spike is mostly worried about Buffy and Myri right now. Archer may be a knight, but he's also a crazy person, and really Spike's not gonna complain about him being arrested. Rafael he feels a modicum of pain for, but he doubts physical location makes a difference to the pathetic lout now. Behind bars, a spa, neither's gonna soothe his torment. Only Des does he feel much real worry for, but he's pretty sure Des can take care of himself.... when he heals at least. Besides, he didn't kill anyone on live tv, just waved a gun about.

His heart aches a little at the thought of Jade dying. He hadn't been all that close to her, but they'd been, at least in some respects, friends. They'd fought by each other's sides.

Affleck he feels no pain for. That bastard got her killed, even more than Rafael did.

The rest of the knights, he is, of course, concerned for. Especially Elena, whose ears seem to have exploded, and Finnick, who seems to have completely snapped. But mostly, it's Buffy and Myri, neither of which he intends to let out of his sights. Which could get complicated if they split up.

For the moment, it's Myri he's hovering over mostly, making sure she doesn't go rushing after Jade to heal her. Hell, he'd rather she didn't rush after anyone to heal them for now. He's not sure it's healthy for her.

He's also ignoring his own considerable wounds. He's had worse. And he'll heal. No reason to worry about himself when the people he cares about are in danger.]

[starfucker]

[ burt's hanging by the camera broadcast area until someone pries him away for now, asking the important questions: ] Did they cut feed in the middle or did all that broadcast?

[savemyself]

[ isabella stands rooted to the floor, watching them take rafael out, and then turning her eyes to watch the stretcher carrying jade leave. a spot check of 15+ can see the tears in her eyes, and she doesn't approach anyone else, doesn't move. ]

[rationalizes]

[ kat's over by gar, close to where the bodies of the backstage baddies were, and the two of them are talking quietly about something. gar looks ready to be sick - kat just looks angry as hell. ]

[witchwoman]

[Later, once she's no longer sobbing, Myri starts to make her rounds to be certain that everyone is okay. She stops with some longer than others, comforts in any way that she can, but she has to keep moving. This team is her family and she needs to be sure that each of them are safe.

Unfortunately, her head count comes up one short. After walking the length of the stage, searching backstage, and combing as much of the audience area as she can, Myri looks deeply distressed. She turns back towards the majority of the Knights, not directing her words to anyone in particular. Her voice is pitched with emotion, as if she's on the brink of tears again.]

Where's Finnick? Has... has anyone seen him?

[nothingsodivine]

[Des can't get up with his collarbone still healing, so he's left staring up at the officers coming for him with a sardonically sheepish grin. He might be in pain in more ways than one, but his natural defense mechanism is sarcasm.]

Would you believe that everything looks worse on TV, officer?

[slay]

[ once buffy's done with myri and spike, she's marching right up to the police officers because she has authority issue and realizes full and well that this is some bullshit. ]

I'm sorry, is this your first day? Last I checked, there was nothing wrong with self-defense or defending others.

A psychopath just came on stage and threatened everyone in this theater, and you're arresting the people that helped stop him? Where the hell were you to keep him from going all Columbine on this whole theater?

[ tbh she doesn't care about archer but she feels like des doesn't deserve to go to jail right now. her opinion on rafael is to be decided, but she's not going to get the chance to talk to him and re-evaluate that if he gets arrested and put in jail for murdering his girlfriend. ]

[watcherjunior]

[ The prospect of being questioned by the police seems daunting. Especially since this was supposed to be just a concert and easy and not involving the police. So Dawn is grabbing the nearest passing knight or squire who's been there longer than her. ] So uh... [ She tries to keep her voice down. ] What exactly are we supposed to do?

[65]

[ tonight's drama is over (or at least has climaxed) and myri is okay. she has everyone else to take care of her. you know, all those people who aren't completely useless. now he's moved on from feeling panicked to feeling ashamed of himself, and has no desire to see or talk to anyone in their group right now. he has a feeling he's lost their respect and their trust, so he slips out of his catatonia to escape by hiding in the exiting audience. he's kind of aimlessly wandering right now, but he'll show up at the hotel sooner or later (to check up on myri.)

OR AT LEAST THAT WAS WHAT HE TRIED TO DO UNTIL HE WAS ASSAULTED BY ALL OF HIS FANS. GOD BLESS CRIT FAIL. ]

[romanticidal]

[ not so fast, finnicksan. don't forget ALL YOUR ADORING FANS. now that the police are here, many of them have their nerve back, and as he heads towards the lobby, there are screams and he's bullrushed by a swarm of ladies, asking if he's alright, and poor baby!!!111 and oh my god did you get shot??? ]

INTERROGATION STATION

[behindcloseddoors]

[ everyone who was involved in the stage kerfluffle is carted off down to the Chicago Police Station, where they'll be each taken into small interrogation rooms one by one, to be asked a few questions and give their statement on events. the officer asking the questions is a mustached man in his fifties, who looks like he's starting to get a little bit of a donut belly, with tired lines around his eyes. his name is officer morrison.

i'll post a number of stacked comments as responses to this thread, of questions that EVERYONE will be asked. please respond to each question with a comment of your own. your character's answers might be fine by themselves, or they might prompt other questions which will play out as a thread response to your initial answer. ]

[behindcloseddoors]

[ officer morrison pours himself another cup of coffee. gonna be a long night. ] Alright, first thing's first. State your name, and I'd like your account of the events that transpired tonight and your role in them.

[behindcloseddoors]

Can you please explain to me what your relationship is to Rafael Giovanni, and to NOVA Records, if any. How long have you associated with him, how did you meet, et cetera.

closed to finnick

[witchwoman]

[Being questioned by the police had taken more time than Myri had hoped. But the reality of it was that she hadn't wanted to go at all, so even if it had been minutes instead of hours, she would have been tapping her foot to leave the whole time. She was confident that they hadn't given too much away, though, and tried to keep that thought as a torch to carry through the rest of the evening.

It was late, but as she rode the elevator up to the hotel room, her mind was racing with many thoughts to think of sleep. Finnick had said he was heading back to the hotel, but what if he had changed his mind? What if whatever had caused him to run earlier in the night had caused him to leave again. What if he would contact her this time? She was going to make herself sick with the possibilities, so she tried to push them away as she opened the door and slowly stepped into the room. The rest of them would be coming soon.

After scanning the living area and the balcony, she moved towards the room they had been sharing for this trip. Seeing the bedroom empty caused her to frown, but it was only a moment later before she noticed the light coming from the bottom of the bathroom door. She stepped closer, one hand reaching for the door knob, but quickly noticing that it was locked. Her free hand knocked lightly on the door.]

Finnick? Are you in there?

[65]

[ as much as he loved myri and wanted to see her again, part of himself was dreading the conversation that would come with it. the longer she took, the more he agonized and built the whole thing up in his head. yes, locking himself in the bathroom seemed kind of crazy, but it seriously was the most private space you could be in, and he didn't feel much like talking to the rest of their rag-tag team if they came back and had ideas about checking up on him. (he definitely didn't want them to. he wanted to somehow pretend he was fine when he was anything but.)

there's a long silence before he drags himself off the floor and pops the lock on the door. he stares down at her looking more like himself than he had at the concert when shit went bananas, but still kind of jittery and anxious. and, notably, he keeps standing there instead of moving to hug her or anything. ]

[graveflowers]

[The first thing Vi does when she gets back to the hotel is climb into bed, bloody clothes and all. She doesn't stop for a drink or a shower or something to eat. She climbs between the covers and cries until she passes out -- considering she is thoroughly exhausted in every way, it doesn't take much.]

[behindcloseddoors]

[ ♬ in this twilight - nine inch nails

she's so drained that she has no defenses left to fight off the intruding nightmare that descends, enveloping her just as before, although this time the images are from the recent past - tonight, replayed in horrifying detail. more than anything, as before, she feels that sense of powerlessness amplified, just as in the last dream. what she couldn't do to stop it. how she couldn't save jade.

and then there he is, once more, that overwhelming presence, again, not threatening, but certainly emanating a great deal of power. as before, he sits on a high-backed throne, his face obscured by the long, white sheets of hair that hang down over it.

he speaks, and his voice is all there is. ]

Violet.

You see now what need you have of all I can offer you.

Would you wallow in your weakness or fulfill the desires of your heart, and know the strength that might save those you cherish?

I bid you once more:

COME TO ME.

[ another image flashes before her eyes: sand dripping through an hourglass, and then a face dances before her, and she knows that he is her path to contacting this stranger, somehow, if she chooses to heed his call.

and then she awakes again, as before, as if surfacing above water. ]

Closed to Buffy... and later some other people

[nothingsodivine]

[As soon as it's safe to let his guard down, Des lets his shoulders slump- all the cocky bravado going completely out of him. He does this professionally, so it's no big deal to slip into Bullshit Mode and pretend like nothing is bothering him about it, but the minute he's back at the hotel, he drops the act and soldiers on to the bar, grabbing Buffy's arm as he goes.]

You're with me, Blondie.

[slay]

Okay, okay, don't have to be all macho caveman about it.

[ buffy allows herself to be dragged, then catches up and shakes her arm free as they near the bar. the sarcasm doesn't reach her expression, which is filled with sympathy and concern as she looks at des. she doesn't voice it - he probably wouldn't be upfront with her, anyway. but she is obviously worried over him. ]

[bigbad]

[Shortly after his interrogation ends, Spike heads back to the hotel, but he only stays long enough to drink some blood until he no longer feels more dead than usual. Then, he heads out to find a bar where he can be reasonably alone. He just intends to drink for a few hours before heading home, nothing too extreme......

Which is fine, until he wakes up around 6 AM with his head on fire. Again.

It takes him a while to get back to the hotel due to all the dodging and running and putting out the flames that spring up on when he can't or doesn't avoid the direct sunlight. But finally, he makes it there, and he crashes into the elevator with only minor damage to the upholstery.

By the time he reaches their room, he's only lightly smoking. But still, not the cigarette kind.

He absently pats out the last of the charring as he walks in.....

And sinks to the couch as he finally notices the giant bloody hangover he's been ignoring in favour of being on fire for the past hour or so. He covers his face with his arm.]

Bloody hell!

[As the sun starts to creep through the giant hotel windows..... his boot catches on fire.]

[slay]

Buffy hasn't slept yet.

She'd been pretty far into drunk when her and Des had been coaxed back up to the hotel room, but she'd just showered and sipped at coffee until she sobered up. The headache had since passed in the wee hours of the morning, and shortly after Spike returned, Buffy came back into the room from a coffee and donuts run to get the rest of the team back at it.

"Might wanna put that out." Her remark is nonchalant, marked by a kind of hollowness in her voice. She glances at his boot, then moves to put the box of donuts and the carrier of coffee on the counter. (It's important to note that this carrier is actually three carriers stacked on top of each other because there are too many damn people on this fail boat. It's a good thing she has Slayer dexterity - dex 18.)

[notaroundme]

Elena wanted to write in her journal. Something. Anything. But as she sat there with the pen to the page, she couldn't do it. The words wouldn't come.

It was all too fresh, too painful. Maybe someday soon she'd be able to get them out, and maybe that day wasn't too far away. But right now? All she wanted to do was sleep, and yet she'd tried that already. She only saw the events of the concert repeating over and over every time she closed her eyes.

It would pass, she knew that. Just like the events in NOVA with Anderson and that zombie creature had passed, gotten duller as time passed, but it wouldn't go away. It never did entirely.

She just had to be strong.

She shut her journal with an audible slap, and set it aside, moving into the kitchen for more coffee.

[slay]

"Can we talk?"

She can tell from the way Elena's warring with herself that the last thing Elena wants to do is address what happened, but there's something Buffy needs to know. On prior legs of this mission, she's struggled with … well, with keeping reality real. Sometimes, she's seen things that weren't exactly there in the strictest sense.

Elena and Rafael are the only ones who could honestly confirm, and she could only hope Elena had seen him - even if it meant the girl was probably having the same trouble sleeping that Buffy was since. But, Rafael wasn't available to ask, and that meant Elena was her only hope.

EVERYONE ❧ big group decisions thread

[rationalizes]

[ ♬ ballad for dead friends - dashboard prophets

it's a long, long night.

one at a time, each of them is interviewed and released, to roam the streets or return to the hotel and try in vain to sleep. mark and kat are the last to stumble in in the wee hours of the morning, along with elena, and dragging buffy & des. gar finally comes out of her room, looking exhausted emotionally. she asks kat to gather everyone up, because she's finally spoken with wynn.

she moves to pour herself a splash of brandy while she waits... and then re-evaluates and pours a little more.

when everyone is finally inside and arrayed around the room, she turns to face them, taking a sip and pulling a face for a moment at the taste. ]

Well. [ her voice is small, on the edge of defeated. ] Here we are.

[slay]

Some of us, anyway.

[ buffy is here to be depressing yr welcome. at least she brought coffee and donuts for everyone while she couldn't sleep :') ]

Des & Raf | closed

[romanticidal]

[ des arrives at le slammer, and the officer on duty asks how he might help him, without so much as looking up. rough day, his boss quit last night :| ]

RANDOM ICON IS AWFUL HOLY CRAP

[nothingsodivine]

[des grins.] I hear Velma Kelly made bail. I'm here to pick 'em up.

DES & RAF RETURN | everyone

[romanticidal]

[ after people have more or less decided on tasks at hand, there's the sound of approaching footsteps... and the door opens to reveal rafael, followed by des. he looks slightly unkempt, but certainly a little more with-it than when des found him. his eyes sweep the room, a heavy gloom weighting down his usual demeanor. he doesn't say anything, just waits for someone else to. ]

[slay]

[ buffy stands and turns towards the door when she hears it open (listen 12). she stills then, unable to move from the spot, gaze riveted on rafael standing in the doorway. all the pain is there in her expression, flooding it, but so is a heaping helping of confusion.

with a will save of 18, she manages to glance away and look down at the others. ]

Don't we have a police station to break into?

CLOSED ♔ dawn & gar

[rationalizes]

[ it's after the others have taken off for the hospital and archer's left to go buy up all the city's fireworks, and isa's stormed out to go who knows where, while mark cloisters himself up in his room, that gar comes to knock softly on dawn's door. she looks drained entirely, and it's clear that she didn't manage any sleep last night, and might not for a few more. ]

I... I thought we should probably talk.

[watcherjunior]

[ Dawn isn't sure what to expect at this point. This was supposed to be an easy mission, maybe even fun. It's ended with hostage situations and people dying and people getting arrested. Being held and questioned by the police and having to lie. She doesn't join the others headed to the hospital, not out of some coldness or lacking. She doesn't quite know how or what she feels right now, with everything being a tangled mess in her stomach. It's about not knowing Jade as well as the rest of them and giving them their space.

She sells it to herself as 'holding down the fort' in her head.

When Gar knocks, she invites her in with a gesture, making note of her knight's appearance. ]

Yeah, it's... things to talk about.