everyonelives | why is it you always get to sit in the shade

Self-induced. And we're sure my niece's fingerprints are nowhere near this?

( He's been there, okay? )

No, whoever did this wasn't Hope. The person who severed the spell acted quickly and without hesitation.

[No offense intended to her niece, but it takes finesse to cut a spell this cleanly. Finesse and zero hesitation.]

As talented as our girl is, this is above her skill level.

( The joke is ill-timed and poorly placed, but alas, this is still Kol, even in life and death circumstances. He turns to Kieran. )

When's the last time you've gone into a sibling's head?

[She shakes her head because Julian hasn't afforded her many opportunities. She still feels like she knows him better than anyone, and while their father trained them in terms of breaking out of chambre de chasses, he didn't have the chance to give his children as firm an education as he would have liked.]

We didn't really play those kinds of games.

Your brothers and sisters weren't vampires.

( It wasn't a game, but they have on more than one occasion, gone into each other's heads.

To Freya: )

How many can you send?

["I can send both of you. Davina and I can handle it from here. But be careful. We don't know what kind of temporary world our leech set his mind up in."

That she can at least manage, and with Kol there to guide her, she can just focus on the Julian of it all. She just hopes that they can convince him to snap out of it. Or maybe find the key on their own.]

Thank you, Freya. I know this is probably inconvenient.

["Hardly. Sounds much more interesting than sitting in a penthouse and watching my brothers snipe at each other while Rebekah eggs them on." She's kidding mostly, those are her favorite kinds of family gatherings. But this is where she can be useful.]

Oh yes, terrible to miss that. Davina?

( They weren't having the nicest moment earlier... )

[She nods as she steps forward, glancing at the space around them.]

Let's get him on the floor, so Freya and I can be on either side.

[The couch doesn't really make it easy for them to maneuver if they need to.]

Plus we'll need more space for the two of you.

( Kol assists them in moving Julian's brother to the floor. Balancing on one foot, he retrieves a pillow from the couch to position it under his head. )

Where are we needed?

["Chalk?" Freya asks, and Davina passes it over.]

You both have to be touching him and each other. So maybe shoulder to shoulder?

[It'll make quite the large circle, but it'll also be the most comfortable for everyone.]

( Climbing over Kieran's brother, he settles next to Julian, crossing his legs, giving her access to his back so she can sit against him. He then places one hand on Julian's chest. )

Kieran settles in the indicated spot next to him, reaching out and placing a hand on her brother's shoulder before nodding to Davina.

Davina nods in return, before reaching across for Freya's hands. Once they connect, they begin to chant and the three of them sink further into the spell.]

( Sinking is a good word for it. Not only do Kieran and Kol sink into the spell, but Freya, too.

The three of them stand in front of the Connor's childhood home. The diminishing sunlight and orange and pink sky is indicative of it being dusk.

Kieran, make a spot check.

Meanwhile, outside of the spell, Davina's chanting cuts off as the spell cuts off her connection, jettisoning her backward. Very few spells have that kind of active capability, she can note. But, she is awake, if dealing with a brief moment of vertigo as her senses return to her. )

[Kieran blinks as the city comes into view, a familiar place even if she hasn't been home in a long time. There's a small sigh of relief when she sees the familiar sky, before she glances over and frowns at Freya.]

You're not supposed to be here.

[Freya makes a face. "No, I'm not. Something must have gone wrong with the tether."]

Perhaps the spell prefers its' family affairs.

( Family saving family.

Kol is not familiar with his surroundings but he can see they mean something to Kieran.

With an (18), Kieran sees a few things. While this is her childhood homes, the other homes around it do not match that neighborhood's. It's wrong compared to what she remembers. And this isn't just her home, it's her home at a period of time. The door is painted black, not yellow, which means her father hasn't died yet. The abandoned bike, the porch swing that breaks a week later, the broken upstairs window from a pickup game of baseball in the street neighbor kids played the day before.

This is a significant day to her and her brother.

She knows the back door should be wide open because neither her brother nor her closed it behind them when they got home, not for a few hours anyway. He made her eat something. Sat with her in silence if she wanted to talk.

Their dad's favorite record played until it scratched and Julian finally turned it off.

As far as she knows, that record player has never been used again.

As for the other buildings, she doesn't recognize them. )

Is that common, being trapped inside? ( He glances around them. ) Where's Davina?

["Maybe she managed to withstand the pull of the spell? I don't know. It's an old spell, we might have misjudged the power it still held."

As Freya and Kol discuss the mechanics, Kieran is making her way towards the yard, looking over the old relics of what her life used to be. She runs her fingers over the handle bar of the bike when she gets close enough, tipping it back so she can see the sparkling unicorn stickers that she had slapped over her brother's hand-me-down bike in order to make it more her own. Remnants of the girl she used to be. She knows she lost some of that sparkle, whether she wanted to or not.

She knows what day this is, when her world turned sharply off it's access. She doesn't particularly want to relive it, but she's here to get Julian out, which means she needs to be able to face it.

She heads up the stairs to the front door, pushing it open a little wider and poking her head inside.]

Jules?

( Mechanics keep them talking, as Kol assumes that the spell, old or not, is clearly capable of taking Freya with it, it's got Julian in its' thrall.

The front room is as she remembers it that day, the record player still on, the hoarse, scratchy sound emitted from the needle. The den is to her left, dining room to her right, stairs go straight up and beyond the stairs is the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, and door to the basement. )

[She stops the record player, resetting it back to it's static state. She takes a deep breath of the inside of the house, smelling like cracked leather and dust. She hasn't been home in so long, chasing after a cure she may never find.

She scans her options, trying to figure out where he would hide. What loop would he be trapped in that would cause the most pain. Part of her just wants to go to her father's bedroom, find one of his big heavy flannels and hide in them for a little while. She used to do that after he died. It felt like he was still there, holding her, and not that she and Julian are completely alone. But that seems to be too easy, so she slowly steps forward, glancing in the entrances of each of the rooms before she gets to the stairs.]

( He is not in any of the rooms.

The smell of burnt pancakes pervade the downstairs. Julian tried making them that night, but he was never the family cook. That was their father. He never learned. Part of the reason why she worried for her brother. He is actually incapable of feeding himself. But, he and his microwave are big fans. He used her Green Chef subscription for a little while. And when he'd met up with part of the Underground, they all shared cooking and food and meals.

As she climbs the stairs, she can hear the faint sound of a bath being ran from their shared bathroom. The door to her room is open, the door to her brother's is not, likewise their parents. The string to their attic hangs, wind from an open window blowing.

Kol realizes his girlfriend has gone inside. )

Kieran?

( A hand on his sister's shoulder, he follows. )

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