The Music Room

[Nerys]

As he'd turned to thinking Nerys' had skimmed the room quietly with her eyes. They were alone, Peter had disappeared and that more than anything that had happened worried her. She felt a headache starting behind her eyes, a dull constant pain just beginning to take hold where the pressure had been building.

Keegan's voice pulled her attention back to him and she blinked slightly, listening as he thought aloud and watching him whilst trying not to appear like she was staring. After everything he'd already done for her that morning as simple as it might have seemed, she was hardly going to decline his thoughts on the matter, anything that might prove insightful would naturally be helpful and Nerys was never 'precious' about solving these things. It honestly got tiring doing it all alone all the time, she did it that way because it was her burden, it was in her blood and whether that seemed stubborn or not she didn't know.

"... Peter." She murmured, her eyes losing focus a little with the revelation provided by Keegan's suggestion, "Of course...I said at the time how 'childish' it seemed filling my bathtub and sink with water but, ugh, If I'd been paying attention I might have made the connection..." It was all falling horribly into place, starting to make a sick kind of sense to the medium and she felt the nausea kick up a notch.

[Keegan]

Keegan shifted on the floor, almost without realising he was moving his weight as his thoughts ran feverishly through his head, and he ran a hand over his bearded bottom jaw, looking to Nerys as he became still and attentive once more. He watched her as she put the pieces together as well, seeing the slightly distant look in her eyes as she put information he didn’t possess together with everything else, making it take on some kind of shape and substance.

“So where does the bleach come in?” he asked, still making sure, even with his ‘intrigue’ — for lack of a better word — to keep his voice low in case someone happened along and overheard them. He was still itching to close the door to the music room, but as he had thought previously, he was certain that would draw attention; reverse psychology, not unlike the well-known ‘don’t look behind you’ that always made people turn their heads and look at what they weren’t supposed to see.

He didn’t want to intrude on Nerys’ business; he really didn’t, but he thought that perhaps, if he helped her push through this piece of the conundrum, then it would make the rest of her ‘work’ easier for her, and somehow, the idea of helping her, if only in the somewhat accidental sense that he had accomplished so far, then Keegan wanted to.

[Nerys]

"The bleach," Nerys repeated, her eyes narrowing in thought. She tapped her fingers against her lips, thinking back over the hundreds of years she had spent doing exactly what she was doing right now. She has a good sense for human behaviour in its extremes, and that was not to say she could predict what someone would do at any given moment, but she dealt with puzzles all the time and human nature was the biggest factor in the larger potion of the spirits she dealt with.

She sighed, "I was in a kitchen," she started to explain, "She was standing over a sink, one of those old fashioned, rectangular ceramic ones." Green eyes met hazel for a brief moment as she frowned, looking down at her own hands, so deep in thought she wasn't even thinking of the door to the Music room being open. She was trying to hone in on details, "She was washing her hands. That's where the bleach comes in. She was washing her skin in it, her face and hands. She had her sleeves rolled up; she was scrubbing right up to the elbows, her skin was raw with it."

The Medium paused, her hands hovering over her lap, "She hung herself," inwardly she struggled with the words but the calm outer demeanour was returning, helping to keep her fraying nerves together, "She washed her hands and face in bleach and then hung herself, like she knew that was what she was going to do. The rope was waiting for her, and Peter..." A hand swept over her lips silently as understanding hit her like a car crash, "Oh God... Peter..."

[Keegan]

When Keegan realised she was revealing the details of some kind of vision — perhaps what had made her collapse — to him, he blinked in silent surprise. He was more than a little taken aback by the revelation, but after a moment, he was over the surprise, and right back to listening as if every little detail mattered, which, he supposed, it did; if she had seen them, then they were bound to be important.

As the words left her lips and her hand went to her face, Keegan reached what he suspected was the same conclusion as the female werewolf’s in front of him, and he frowned, sighing to himself almost without sound. After the notion of drowning had hit him, this all made sense now… as much sense as something so horrible and painful could make, that was. But Keegan was somewhat used to making sense out of, well, nonsense, after the mess that was his past, and he averted his gaze from Nerys while she came to grips with it.

But as he let it sink in, he realised that perhaps it needed to be said between them, in case they actually hadn’t come to the same conclusion, and, not that it really mattered, he wasn’t wholly comfortable with that kind of confusion. “She drowned him,” he said as quietly as he could if he expected her to hear him. “And then hung herself.” His eyes had lifted as he’d spoken, and he looked at Nerys sadly, almost regretting that he had helped the story fall into place.

[Nerys]

Nerys nodded torpidly, completely unable to speak for a long time; she was more than a touch annoyed at herself for not picking up the warning signs. The lack of manifestation on Victoria's part spoke of guilt, her son's silence a sign of obvious trauma as a result of his murder and the pale complexion of Peter himself, the bluish tinge to his lips should have been a give away too. The bleach had been Victoria's grief stricken way of washing away what she had done but none of it, not a single shred of it explained why. The Medium wanted to know and at the same time she didn't know if she could work up the strength to ask the all important questions that were throbbing at the back of her throat. It felt too close, it felt like she'd lived it and the images were so strongly interconnected in her mind.

"Something doesn't feel right..." she almost sighed the words, eyes on the wall opposite her. Of course nothing about it felt 'right' but in the sense of what she was used to dealing with; everything was off by a few degrees. After a moment of blank staring she shook her head and clarity once again seemed, on the surface, to return. She looked around for another silent moment, "Seems they've decided to leave me with that little revelation, for now."

[Keegan]

The male wolf’s eyes deviated from Nerys after she, he assumed, referred to the spirits, and he cast them around the parts of the room that he could see from where he was sitting without having to twist, as if he expected he would somehow suddenly be able to see them for himself. Of course, he couldn’t, and he knew that, but it was instinct to look all the same, almost as though he could feel eyes on him, even though he knew they weren’t there. It unsettled and almost annoyed him, in a way, knowing they were there, even if not right at that moment but at random points during the day, and he never knew exactly where, or when, or why…

“So…” he began, as if he feared he were now overstepping his boundaries and invading on something that was truly her duty and nobody else’s, which, really, he supposed in a way, it all was; it was her ‘gift’, and nobody else could understand what she went through because of what she saw, and had to do. He had seen her out at the fire pit more times than he could count, silent, watching something burn, but he had always turned and walked away, or stepped in from his balcony, not wanting to seem intrusive.

“What happens now?”

[Nerys]

"Now...the waiting starts." Nerys spoke softly, tucking blonde hair behind her ear with a sigh. The kind of information that she needed to help Peter and Victoria, to unravel the rest of the puzzle was the type she wouldn't find in her well kept records, it was the type that was personal and couldn't be put down on paper. It was possible no one but Victoria had known the reasons in the past, for now at least that was the case.

These spirits were different for so many reasons she was starting to lose count, it had been years since she'd spoken so frankly about what she saw, what she dealt with and how she went about it. Firstly with Morgan whose interest and sensibility had brought a refreshing contrast the normally solitary work and now Keegan whom she would never think of as intrusive. "I can't force them to talk to me and until they do I can't help them."

It could be minutes, it could be hours but sooner or later she knew one of them would have to come forward and until then, as insensitive as it might have seemed all she could do was to get back into her routine. She looked at her watch, clamping her fingers into a 'relaxed' fist to relieve the shaking as she did so, "With that in mind... as soon as the kitchen calms down I'm going to make a cup of tea." She smiled gently through the words, a plain message that there was no need to walk on eggshells.

[Keegan]

Keegan couldn’t help but be wary around Nerys, and not only for the reason he always neglected to admit even to himself, but because he felt she had been through so much, so intensely, that he somehow needed to be cautious around her. It wasn’t that he thought she was fragile or easily offended, but the matters she had dealt with were what he saw as ‘sensitive’, and he didn’t want to accidentally bring up the past if it might cause her pain, physical or mental, even if only accidentally. He knew she had lost her mate, and that she dealt with death every day…

Not going there, he told himself bluntly, tearing his mind off the track it had started to follow, and he looked up at her. He had acknowledged her response to his inquiry with a definite nod, and at her comment about perhaps heading to the kitchen, he relaxed a little, as if the end of the conversation surrounding spirits was somehow a relief to him, when in reality, he had felt… honestly glad, in a way, to be even remotely helpful.

Tilting his head over and scratching one hand lightly through his thick hair, he said, “Actually, I might have to follow your example.” His smile was a fraction sheepish, and he lowered his hand, looking to her as he did so.

[Nerys]

If Keegan was wary around her, Nerys was either unaware of the fact, or simply used to it from everyone to some degree. The medium was aware of the certain level edginess she had the habit of inspiring and a lot of the time it was only natural. She knew that by instinct her wolf shrank away form the supernatural contact she had day in and day out; since last night her wolf had been quiet and docile, only surfacing earlier when indignant that Nerys had been pulled into a 'vision', the invasion something it rarely sat back and took. Now it prowled quietly though her mind, ears back and tail down; disturbed and displeased. For all those reasons she was unsurprised by a little caution from her peers; but she was entirely oblivious to any other reasons.

With a small smile she shifted her weight and slipped her hands underneath her knees on the piano stool, "Nothing negates insomnia like tannin." She offered somewhat dryly; though her smile was warm her wolf gave a disgruntled sigh.

[Keegan]

“Ah, tannin… a tea-drinker’s best friend.” Keegan immediately paused, disbelief clear in his narrowed eyes, and his smile was apologetic. “I… blame the insomnia. Obviously.” The smile loosened a little, and he angled his shoulders back subtly to rid them of some of the stiff tension that had settled in since he had sat himself down in front of the piano. He would need to get up soon; he had already been sitting still for too long, in his body’s general opinion, considering he had been perched on the drum stool as long as he had. His limbs felt heavy and awkward, as if a good warm-up in the training room was in order, but that could wait until later. Nerys’ mention of something to drink had put those kinds of musings out of his head.

Lingering in the back, though, was the automatic mental reminder that he had to check in on ‘the brood’; he hadn’t done so yet that morning, and he had a feeling Rory would be chasing him for that bag of… whatever he had given him. Keegan remembered stashing them in some random closet. He would be able to retrace his steps and find them again, he was sure.

[Nerys]

"Obviously," Nerys agreed rather than echoed, smiling good-naturedly. "It doesn't make it any less true though." She was given over to not making a whole lot of sense if given enough time without any sleep; as calm and collected as she often managed to look it was usually a front and she was looking forwards to the whole event being over so she could flop onto her bed and pass out for a few hours. Hopefully they'd be interrupted and not too long in coming.

Despite not knowing where Keegan's thoughts were turning, her own were drifting in the direction of Landon. Throughout the night she had been thinking of the younger blonde who had spent the same time in the basement. Usually she tried to see her before she went downstairs but what with being late home from the gallery last night she'd completely missed her and hadn't been around this morning either. The Medium could just picture the sullen expression, not that it was unusual for Landon to look sullen, but Nerys had slowly started to be able to tell the difference in the ]levels of sullenness.

[Keegan]

Relieved that she had smiled at his verbal slip, he returned the expression, no matter how briefly the smile lasted. It wasn’t his default ‘setting’ after all, but that didn’t mean he walked around with a face like thunder, as he supposed some people expected fighters ought to, always prepared and vigilant, ready for action. He had never really believed that. Just because he’d had some bad, or rather retched luck in the past, he tried not to let it rule him in his day-to-day behaviour, and how he treated others.

“Just as a warning,” he began, leaning back to put his hands on the ground behind him, if only to try and loosen more stiff muscles, “if we see Rory, he’s likely to… jump on me.” Keegan looked weary in advance of that, but he was smiling subtly at the same time. “I’m surprised he hasn’t found me already, actually… he gave me something to look after last night, and I… put it somewhere.” After a moment of looking sheepish, he shrugged. “Maybe I’ll tell him he has to find it; call it a game.”

[Nerys]

Nerys laughed lightly at the image of Rory scouring the Hotel for whatever it was he had entrusted to hi 'big brother'. She assumed that is wasn't anything hugely important, otherwise the fighter wouldn't have... mislaid it, judging by his expression. "Well that would keep him occupied, you'd probably be safe until he realised the reason he was the one looking for it. If he realises that is."

Without realising it for the most part, her own demeanour was similar in that laughing and smiling while sometimes sporadic for the Medium, was employed frequently enough so that she wasn't constantly moving about the Hotel with a miserable expression. The air around her was harder to clear though, she knew, and the sadness that seemed to just... hang onto her was hard to shake. She tried not to let it rule her actions and the way she interact with others but sometimes it was simply out of her control.

[Keegan]

Keegan showed another smile, nodding his shaggy head in agreement. “It’d give me time to drink tea and then… hide.” The smile fleetingly became a grin, and he chuckled lowly at himself. He and Rory often engaged in brotherly-like ‘contests’ of some sort; one time, he had stolen and hidden a book of Rory’s just for the fun of it, and the younger werewolf had tried to retaliate in kind, neglecting to realise Keegan would have seen it coming — the fighter had locked his room in advance, leaving the smaller wolf trapped outside without revenge. That was only one example, though.

Studying Nerys subtly as they descended once more into a kind of comfortable, shared silence, Keegan once again tried to understand how it was the female werewolf handled what it was she had to do… spirits, visions… did it affect her dreams as well as her waking hours? His frown was discreet, but he realised he was more or less staring at her while her eyes were averted in another direction, no doubt thinking. Blinking to disturb his reverie, he rolled his shoulders again, and pulled himself to his feet, feeling his muscles start to loosen and stretch, though not without minor protest.

[Nerys]

Straightening up and moving her blonde hair over one shoulder and out of her face Nerys nodded, with a light laugh at the idea of Keegan hiding from Rory. The younger pack members, she had to admit, were something of a relieving presence in the Hotel for her, somehow they reminded her that not everything was death and darkness though really that had been her 'world' for hundreds of years. The fact that they could laugh and enjoy their young lives away from the things she had seen and experienced... well that was something important that she had come to realise she clung to.

"Maybe the scavenger hunt will tire him out enough to sleep, after last night I don't think it would take much," Nerys suggested smiling still as she now looked to Keegan at an upwards angle from her seat on the piano stool.

It had been a very long time since she had felt that disturbing lack of control that led to the change three nights a month. In fact she had adjusted to being a werewolf with surprising ease, a part of her she had come to terms with quickly and smoothly; mainly because she had worse things to worry about, but that sounded melodramatic to the female so she banished the thoughts by breathing out and moving to also stand up.