everyonelives | as we pass through arrangements of shadows

( After ditching the first car and gaining a second, it gets late and it gets darker. Katherine suggests they stay somewhere for the night so they can be up and on the road early. Since she's become a hunter, she's on hunters' hours and hunters rules. The sooner they get to Kansas to this 'bunker' off the map, the safer they'll be.

They are equally infamous having the same face.

The highway gets darker until she sees a lone motel up ahead, the VACANCY sign blinking in its electric blue hue.

She pulls up and into the gravel parking lot. There are no lines indicating parking, but there are parked cars. She parks, making sure nobody can block her in or cut her off should they need to get moving. )

We shouldn't stay here for more than a few hours.

( She undoes her seatbelt and climbs out, her heels clicking along the rough asphalt. It needs to be repaved and painted.

The front door's bell rings as she lets Elena through.

A burnout in a tattered XL grey shirt leans against the front counter.

🎵 )

Edited 2022-03-03 05:57 (UTC)

( Damon wasn't planning on abandoning his life, his car, or his house, but in the blink of an eye, most everyone he knows in town is heading in the other direction. Caroline implies he should too. It's on theme. What's left for him, but a woman he'll always love who's moving in with her new boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend (and probably his best friend, his almost sister-in-law, and her boyfriend). On second thought, he should be happy he's not under the same roof of that zany sitcom.

He makes the arrangements he needs to from the airport. His assistant manager understands. He exudes confidence. Damon is expecting ten calls a day. The time zone difference will bite them both in the ass, but Damon has no choice.

He tried calling his brother but, again, time zones.

Not knowing what to do with himself alone in an airport, he sits at the only open bar and proceeds to get wasted. )

( In a different part of the country, the ladies leave the men to do mens' work. They get to pay for the rooms. Allison and Lydia spent hours in the backseat unable to discuss ... well, anything. Allison has a boyfriend and Lydia left someone she was interested in because Allison died. As things usually do in their lives, things snowballed from there. Being with a Winchester leaves everything pedal to the metal, literally, in the Impala. But, she likes not being followed by rogue hunters. She doesn't like hearing about her friends being in their crosshairs. Isaac confirms he and everyone are okay. Scott's going to help a witch with the Underground, where Jackson is, and Stiles is actually answering messages again.

Suffice it to say, Lydia and Allison have things to discuss.

Allison jokes and tells them not to wait up. Dean has a conversation coming to him, anyway. And he needs sleep. Not that Allison is an expert on who needs sleep. (Dean needs sleep.) He just does.

The bar next door is dark, but tinged in a red and pink glow. She likes the borderline rave aesthetic and they both need a drink.

A little later, Allison sits on the edge of the bar, her legs dangling, and plays with the straw in her drink before taking a sip. The bar only did simple drinks, nothing 'fancy,' but also only liquor. Allison has a vodka cranberry. )

Now that we've lost the guys. That was a ride.

( They must go through two bottles of wine, and that's after the first bottle before the premise of the evening blew up so thoroughly.

The top floor, or the property Rebekah's brother owns (or rents, it's unclear), has more bedrooms than needed, and gives Neal and Sara the privacy he thinks they need to properly freak out. Neal Caffrey is unflappable. Even when he loses it, he keeps it together. But, it takes every ounce of restraint to sift through Rebekah and Doc's long lives. Rebekah's a viking? John Henry is the Doc Holliday?

His tie is somewhere in the main room a few hallways back, but Neal still turns toward the mirror to take it off.

Remembering it's not on his person, he goes through the motions of getting ready for bed. He decides to remove his belt, but keep his pants on. His shirt stays unbuttoned because at some point, he just forgets to take it off.

His ass sinks into the edge of the front of their borrowed bed. It still hasn't sunk in. )

Rebekah is older than every painting I've ever stolen.

( The sun cracks through the clouds as Ezra opens the trunk of the Adin-Gainor's vehicle. Shopping was both a gesture of good will for Jacqueline and an attempt at getting a few hours between him and Elena. He just needs to keep buying time. Collecting what he and his husband had packed, and a few shopping bags, he closes the trunk again.

He parked across the street from the compound, leading the way up the front walk, letting his husband and Jacqueline in through the metal door.

Once they reach the front door, he speaks in the Colony's tongue, an older pre-English English announcing the three of them and then he turns to David to do his thing. David has the power and the clearance to get them inside.

Once the door is open, they're presented with a far different architectural design than one might expect from the outside.

The member that greets them is dressed in a sequined black belted pencil dress. Allura, of whom David and Jacqueline are familiar, is higher echelon. One wouldn't think someone from this high up would greet members just checking in. Something might be wrong. The lobby isn't as bustling as it usually is, but it is also early in the morning. Or, this may have to do with the Adin-Gainors being the ones who are checking in. Or Jacqueline. It remains to be seen. She eyes the shopping bags, but doesn't say anything.

Except... "Good morning." )

Edited 2022-03-03 06:55 (UTC)

( Having driven all night, the two cars stop just outside of Central City, at a rest stop. The cars and the passengers need to refuel. Now that the sun is up, William promises Mia he'll take over when they get back into the car. He gives anyone that asks his order (coffee, a bagel) and takes the time to really stretch his legs.

Mickey breaks off from the group to change his clothes.

William doesn't join anyone inside, having waited for a more thoughtful time to give his uncle Barry a call. )

( The Gilbert Gallery hosts in-state artists and out-of-state artists, and rarely the gallery owner's own work. Because his curator met him at home for something, Jeremy was caught mid-project and convinced he should show his own work for once. With Jeremy's name comes the customer interested in the rare and in the mysterious. It's one painting in a show of other artists. It's Dawn who convinces him to go, and on his arm no less.

He never likes to be the face of his gallery, wanting the art to speak for itself.

That is, when he's not hunting. Hunting is still his main activity, under the nose of his family members. Dawn is the only one who knows he hunts and understands. She's the only one who understands all his stories, his mistakes, where he's come from and the family legacy he carries with him every day. Her mom's gone like his and her dad might as well be. She also has an older sister. And she's -- well, the equivalent of adopted and she learned about it when she was also a teenager. He and Dawn just click.

The night of the show, he refuses to look at his own painting, preferring to stay in the other room in the gallery. He holds one glass of champagne out of politeness and sticks close to his girlfriend. )

Thank god we're showing tonight and not next week. You know Alaric and Jo would insist on coming.

( The family descends midday, but after fussing over Rebekah's well being, their nephew, and their guests?, night falls and the siblings retire to their chambers. Either Bela or Freya will be tasked to cloak their whereabouts, but for the time being they feel safe. Healing needs to happen and Henry will be a big part of it, much like Hope was at one time, before things went to Hell. But, that is their cycle.

Doc takes their charges onto the terrace with more wine to assuage any of the insanity (and to answer another round of questions) which leaves Elijah handing his sister a glass of champagne.

He takes a seat opposite hers in one of the chairs on the first floor, the fire going in front of them. )

Despite the circumstances, it is good to be under the same roof again. Minus Kol.

( The Underground is always moving It is everywhere it needs to be and nowhere it once was. Jackson has had a rewarding run so far, a whirlwind romance he didn't see coming, and a few new friends. ...Well, people who tolerate him, who are as rough around the edges and even less warm. For a group of people hell bent on helping others, they're not personable themselves.

Julian volunteered to be undercover. A recent recruit friend-of-a-family-friend, Julian didn't fit in like Jackson did. Julian smiled. He worried about what happened to their clients after they relocated. He cared. And while Jackson and the others cared, they didn't wear it on their sleeves. They didn't live with it. And, if they did, they didn't talk about it. They talked about what was in front of them, they helped, they got out.

Until this job is done, they can't leave. No man left behind, even when that man is undercover. Jackson thinks he burned out. He took it too far, got invested and now they don't know what's happening. Their scries can't sense him, and now his sister on the warpath is on her way down.

For the record, Jackson voted against him coming on. Someone that Scott McCall had something he was hiding. Something dark. (Scott McCall's his litmus test for genuineness. There's Scott and then there's everyone else.) )

We should cut our losses.

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