Dr. Simon O'Neill (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
protagonized) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
undergrounds2016-04-21 09:43 am
protagonized) wrote in undergrounds2016-04-21 09:43 am
Entry tags:
A Daily Mail Exclusive [open/closed]
#herodog trended in the UK for a grand total of forty-eight hours in early March, long enough to spark several articles about the incident in various local tabloids and newspapers, a fifteen minute segment about it on BBC Breakfast (complete with an animal behaviour expert), and two @herodog and @londonherodog Twitter parody accounts. Then the world turned and the sensation died down and few people remembered Maria Mitchell's little brush with fame.
Except Maria herself, of course.
She had been at a low point, but the hero dog ended all that when it dragged her off the tracks and away from danger after she'd drunkenly fallen off the platform, right in the path of an oncoming Circle Line train. The dog had done more than save her life, she'd tell her friends. It had given her purpose, a reason to stop drinking and start living.
She became obsessed with finding the London Hero Dog. If she could find it and thank it, or--well, they obviously shared a bond so maybe she could give it somewhere to live for the rest of its life! Right! The universe was telling her she was meant to adopt this dog.
She just had to find it first. And maybe look at some cell phone video she'd drunkenly recorded later that night...
i - No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (18 April - Open to Previous CR)
Simon's phone has been ringing at odd hours since Friday. He's taken to just ignoring the calls, since the number is usually blocked and whoever it is must not want to reach him that badly because they don't leave voicemails or a callback number.
But today is a bit different, because today he gets a text message. It's...huh, who would be sending him a video? This is all really--
Simon pales visibly.
"Oh shit. Oh shitting fucking Jesus Christ."
He hands his phone to his companion. The video is about five seconds long, showing a white dog that blurs and then suddenly isn't a white dog anymore. The only other message is a hashtag: #herodog
ii - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (21 April - Open to Hillingdon House)
Hillingdon House. Simon's heard of it, of course; he's reasonably well-versed in supernatural politics these days and as a shapeshifter he know that Hillingdon House ought to be his spiritual home. Had things been different and Sylvia Redbright not scooped him up and put him in her school back when he'd been a confused teenager with brand new powers, he probably would have ended up here. Shapeshifters from Hillingdon had been some of his first contacts within the supernatural community; Redbright had just gotten to him first.
But he'd never actually been here until today.
He takes a deep breath. What he's about to do is unsanctioned, potentially suicidal. He's probably just a couple of steps away from ending up a statue in the Night Council chambers, but he will definitely end up a statue in the Night Council chambers if he is the reason that the entire supernatural community ends up being exposed to the normal human one.
Simon doesn't know how Maria--he knows the woman's name now--found out about him, but Maria knows and she's threatening to go to the press about it. The Daily Mail would probably pay thousands for an exclusive on the witches and vampires and shapeshifters and everything else who currently inhabit London. They'd have a field day with it.
"How do I place a bounty?" he asks, approaching a likely-looking person.
iii - The Statute of Secrecy (29 April - Closed to Guardians)
"I've got a stalker," Simon says, and it's meant to be a joke but it's anything but. He looks even more exhausted than usual.
"I saved one person and suddenly I've got a 'hero dog' groupie."
He laughs hollowly. "She's trying to blackmail me into being her boyfriend. Says she'll expose me if I don't."
Except Maria herself, of course.
She had been at a low point, but the hero dog ended all that when it dragged her off the tracks and away from danger after she'd drunkenly fallen off the platform, right in the path of an oncoming Circle Line train. The dog had done more than save her life, she'd tell her friends. It had given her purpose, a reason to stop drinking and start living.
She became obsessed with finding the London Hero Dog. If she could find it and thank it, or--well, they obviously shared a bond so maybe she could give it somewhere to live for the rest of its life! Right! The universe was telling her she was meant to adopt this dog.
She just had to find it first. And maybe look at some cell phone video she'd drunkenly recorded later that night...
i - No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (18 April - Open to Previous CR)
Simon's phone has been ringing at odd hours since Friday. He's taken to just ignoring the calls, since the number is usually blocked and whoever it is must not want to reach him that badly because they don't leave voicemails or a callback number.
But today is a bit different, because today he gets a text message. It's...huh, who would be sending him a video? This is all really--
Simon pales visibly.
"Oh shit. Oh shitting fucking Jesus Christ."
He hands his phone to his companion. The video is about five seconds long, showing a white dog that blurs and then suddenly isn't a white dog anymore. The only other message is a hashtag: #herodog
ii - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (21 April - Open to Hillingdon House)
Hillingdon House. Simon's heard of it, of course; he's reasonably well-versed in supernatural politics these days and as a shapeshifter he know that Hillingdon House ought to be his spiritual home. Had things been different and Sylvia Redbright not scooped him up and put him in her school back when he'd been a confused teenager with brand new powers, he probably would have ended up here. Shapeshifters from Hillingdon had been some of his first contacts within the supernatural community; Redbright had just gotten to him first.
But he'd never actually been here until today.
He takes a deep breath. What he's about to do is unsanctioned, potentially suicidal. He's probably just a couple of steps away from ending up a statue in the Night Council chambers, but he will definitely end up a statue in the Night Council chambers if he is the reason that the entire supernatural community ends up being exposed to the normal human one.
Simon doesn't know how Maria--he knows the woman's name now--found out about him, but Maria knows and she's threatening to go to the press about it. The Daily Mail would probably pay thousands for an exclusive on the witches and vampires and shapeshifters and everything else who currently inhabit London. They'd have a field day with it.
"How do I place a bounty?" he asks, approaching a likely-looking person.
iii - The Statute of Secrecy (29 April - Closed to Guardians)
"I've got a stalker," Simon says, and it's meant to be a joke but it's anything but. He looks even more exhausted than usual.
"I saved one person and suddenly I've got a 'hero dog' groupie."
He laughs hollowly. "She's trying to blackmail me into being her boyfriend. Says she'll expose me if I don't."
2
Good thing he'd come to her.
"Well- come, sit down. Do- do you want to talk about it, first? I'd, uhm, like to know why you're placing it." Sometimes it helped to talk it out. Annie lead Simon into the living room and gestured for him to sit down. "Fancy tea? I just put some on."
no subject
And yet it's an oddly gratifying way to start off the whole business of putting a bounty on a woman he barely knows. "Tea sounds wonderful." How very British of them.
"I..." Where to begin?
"I think someone is stalking me. A human."
no subject
"Let's wait on that, till there's tea," she tells him, because that's how you do it. You have a spot of tea, then you talk about why you're actually here. Until you calm a little, Annie doesn't want to hear it.
"How do you take it? Cream? Milk, sugar?" If you're not taking it with milk and sugar, you are taking your tea wrong. Whisky is also an acceptable substitute. But only sometimes, as Annie wasn't a fan of drinking. It made her lose more touch with reality than she could afford.
no subject
And surprisingly, the simple act of sitting on a couch, waiting for tea to be prepared, does have a calming effect. He's still extremely spooked, but he's significantly less jumpy when the girl comes back. He accepts it grateful and sits with the mug cupped in his hands, considering.
"I saved her life and she's latched on to me because of it. I was shifted at the time; fuck all knows how she saw me changing back to human. I'm usually much better at checking to see if I've been followed. She got it on video."
no subject
She hands him his mug with milk and two sugars, before sitting down next to him, crossing her legs at the ankles.
"So you want to kill her, after saving her life?" This was the important thing here, Simon. "I just want to make sure I understand."
no subject
no subject
no subject
He shakes his head.
"I wasn't about to ask her for a drink."
no subject
"Ask her to stop, ask her why she wants to hurt you if she cares, maybe? I think she must be lonely." Annie hummed to herself at the end of the sentence.