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A Fallen Guardian - Part One (June)

With the perfect life
Westminster, 18 June (1:19 am) - Open to first responder only

Simon had been out with friends. For real, this time, celebrating the end of uni and the beginning of the rest of their lives. They'd gotten heartily drunk at a favorite pub, then gone to a club and done some more drinking. The only reason he hadn't stayed out all night was because he had to be at the Night Council early-ish the next morning, even though it was a Saturday. Unlike the rest of his friends, he already had a career--one that had very little to do with the degree he'd just spent the last three years of his life working towards.

And that was, ultimately, what killed him.

Later, he'll dissect every second of his death, or at least the ones he remembers, wondering what he could have done differently. Wondering how he could be so stupid as to be drunk and alone when he'd known for some time that the vampires were out hunting werewolves and shapeshifters to please their new leader, not to mention the fact that being a Guardian already put a target on his back in some parts of the supernatural community. At least it had been quick. Just a halfhearted fight (and he'd gotten some good hits in, he thought), a searing pain in his neck, and the warmth of his life blood seeping into the pavement.

And that's how he'll be found some moments later, when the vampire (newly turned and a bit of an idiot) hears footsteps coming towards them and spooks, leaving his dying victim crumpled against a wall.

Simon hasn't got long.

Where you never die
Westminster, 23 June - Open

There'd been a vigil two days after the murder, which was quite nice. Flowers and candles and people who'd never known him but thought he looked like a nice young man (plus his parents were quite famous, weren't they?) all standing next to the police tape that hadn't come down yet, crying about a boy with such a bright future ahead of him. Only the sensitive would have been able to tell that the boy hadn't quite left. A cold spot on the pavement, a certain prickling on the back of the neck, were certain indicators that a ghost lurked nearby.

Because that's what Simon figures he is now: a ghost. It's actually not as bad as he'd thought it would be. The first few hours after his death had been particularly traumatic, of course, watching his body be photographed by police and then carted away in an ambulance and wondering what would happen to his family and friends without him around anymore, but now he's gotten a little more focused. He's seen his Door. He knows that there's still something he needs to do to get to it and whatever lies beyond, and he's pretty sure that something is finding whoever it was that did this to him and making them pay.

Now if only he can figure out how to tell someone all this, he'll be well on his way to accomplishing his goal.

You just press rewind
Westminster, 30 June - Closed to Natasha

All right. He's made contact. Sort of. Now he just needs to make the right sort of contact. He has friends; they're going to have to help him sort this all out. When one of them approaches his little patch of pavement, he concentrates as hard as he can until--there.

A pale, shadowy figure materializes out of the air.

"Pleasant evening, huh?" Simon's ghost grins.

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It's late evening when Natasha comes by, naturally. With sunset at around9:30 this time of year, she didn't have a lot of options when it came to getting out earlier. She does come by though, and not for the first time. Not because she was expecting to run into him haunting the place—it's hard to know when a ghost will decide to hang around—but because Simon was a good kid and a reminder of how off the rails things have gotten with Islington lately.

When he does appear, she isn't surprised. She's not far short of it though, and Simon has the honor of seeing her put back on her heels for a split second, her expression blanking briefly while she catches up. The instant passes that quickly, though.

"Nice enough. Funny who you run into on a night like this, isn't it?" She presses her lips together tightly, then returns his smile. It doesn't reach her eyes though. "Simon. So you are still here."

"As much as I can be, yeah." Simon sticks his hands in his pockets (which he still has, oddly; he died in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt and it seems that's what he's going to be wearing for the rest of eternity) and shrugs.

"Though I've got to say, it's a lot easier to talk to you than anyone else who's come to visit me so far. Is it because we're both, you know, dead?"

Edited 2016-06-18 19:18 (UTC)

"Something like that." Natasha rarely thought of herself as dead—she was physical, and for the most part there weren't many things living people could do that living people could do that she couldn't, and her limitations often felt more arbitrary than related to being living or dead. Then there were times like this that reminded her that whatever she was, it wasn't quite alive.

Maybe that was why she didn't often look for ghosts.

Just now, it was a blessing though. "I'm not going to ask if you're all right," she says. At least he understands what's happened to him. Ghosts who can't process that they're dead are sad things. "Is there anything you need?"

Simon gives Natasha a slightly exasperated look. "I'm glad you aren't going to ask me that, because I'm not okay. I'm a fucking murder victim. A vampire ripped my throat out and didn't even have the decency to stick around long enough to get caught." His voice grows increasingly bitter and the surge of emotion that he allows himself to feel interferes with his ability to manifest. His face goes fuzzy and indistinct for a moment before he takes the ghost equivalent of a deep, calming breath and shakes his head.

"What I need is to pass on, but I can't do that until my 'unfinished business' gets solved. So unless you're willing to go vampire hunting, I'm stuck haunting this little bit of road. It's boring. Can't exactly read a book or watch television to pass the time."

"You say that like you don't think I'll say yes," Natasha says slowly. There's no reason for him to know that she's killed other vampires regularly, for one reason or another. Natasha's killed more vampires in her time than most vampire hunters. "If you want to move on..." She shrugs one shoulder. Not all ghosts do. Sometimes the fact they're afraid to is what keeps them around in the first place. Simon seems to know what he wants, though. "I'm not saying no."

"That's a relief." Simon sits down at what he's come to consider "his" wall, leaning against it. Or pretending to lean against it. Nearly two weeks dead, and he still hasn't figured out how physics works for him. Being incorporeal is really frustrating.

"I thought it'd be different, dying. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this."

"I don't think dying is ever what you expect." She crosses her arms as she says it, inclining her head slightly. If she notices a chill, she doesn't give a sign of it, but her posture does seem tired. She didn't know Simon that well, but there is a sense of loss. And a sense of responsibility.

"Do you remember how it happened? Any details about the vampire who did it?"

Simon shakes his head. "It was dark," he admits, "and I was piss drunk. Not my finest hour. It was a man, that much I remember. Fast, and that was surprising because I'm fast." He blinks, rubs his temples and tries hard not to think about how weird it feels to do that since he doesn't actually have temples to rub any more. "Was fast. I guess. Not fast enough. I think he was a bit shorter than me; he had to reach up to grab me. Dark clothes. Sharp teeth."

That's not much to go on. He's a pretty poor witness to his own murder.

"I know I punched him a couple times before he got me, but I reckon that's probably healed by now. Oh. One more thing. He smelled like smoke. Not cigarettes or marijuana or anything like that--wood smoke. Like a campfire. It was in his hair and his clothes."

It's a start, but a pretty weak one. There are things she can infer for the time being that will help narrow the search down; the killer was almost certainly young and trying to curry favor with the new leader by way of a shortcut, he wasn't too smart and he didn't have any position to speak of at the moment, and he may be claiming credit for it otherwise what was the point?

That probably described a lot of young vampires right now, though.

"Campfire smoke?" she repeats, a faint frown puckering her brow. "You're sure?"

"I used to have a pretty good nose," Simon points out. Not anymore, though the one bright spot in all this is that he doesn't have to smell the overflowing dumpster from the restaurant across the road, or the pee on the wall from all of the shitfaced drunks coming out of the same club he'd been at before he died. His little spot of pavement isn't in the best part of town.

"I'm definitely sure it was campfire smoke."

"I believe you. I'm just not sure what it means yet." Her lips tighten briefly. Of course, if this were easy, Simon probably wouldn't be a ghost if it were simple. He'd know what had happened to him—and he'd have a direction, there wouldn't be a mystery. He'd already have been able to let someone know, if it was anger alone that motivated him.

"I'm going to find out, though."

Simon smiles at that, a little sadly. "Thanks. I'd do my own snooping, but..." He gestures vaguely at his semi-transparent torso. "Don't know what I'd do even if I could move away from this spot. I'm suddenly very popular as far as death tourism goes, and it turns out a lot more supernatural-type people can sense ghosts than I thought. Don't think I'd be all that effective."

He laughs. "Which is kind of bullshit, since I'm literally invisible."

"Ghosts can be more effective than you'd imagine, if they put their minds to it."

She says that, but not as encouragement. Natasha would really prefer he not turn into the angry, hungry kind of ghost. Simon had struck her as a pretty good kid in life, a little awkward maybe, a little anxious, but generally decent. Not someone who deserved to die, and not someone who she wanted to see twisted by death.

The hazards of being a vampire: she'd seen what being murdered could do to a person.

"Just hang tight, okay?" Not that he had a lot of choice but to be patient. "I know some people. They might be able to help. And maybe if you give it some time, you'll remember more."

"If you know how, I'm all ears." Simon's voice is dry, sarcastic. He doesn't necessarily like this particular line of questioning because it brings to mind just how damn powerless he is. "I can't even fucking haunt properly. Was there some sort of ghost school I was supposed to go to?"

He can't even tip a bin or blow paper along the pavement. He'd love to be able to influence his environment even a little, but that seems entirely beyond him. He's not exactly going to be Poltergeist of the Year.

"I'm a shitty ghost and I was a shitty Guardian."

"I don't know how, no." She doesn't think he was asking in seriousness, but she answers anyway, calm and a just a little grim. "And I don't know that it would make you a better ghost if you could."

She'd say something else, but his last statement distracts her from pursuing the first line of conversation further. "You were a Guardian?"

Simon blinks. "You didn't know?" He thought it'd been common knowledge that he worked for the Night Council in addition to whatever the hell he did for Redbright.

"I got the job around New Year's. I'll be fucked if I know why I got nominated for it. I wasn't very good at the job."

There it is again: the past tense.

"Well, it's not like you brought it up at the bar," Natasha comments wryly, maybe a little regretfully. Natasha had tried not to be too aware of some things. It had seemed safer at the time. She regretted that choice now, though.

"Someone must have thought you'd be a good fit for it."

The news of Simon's death had come as something of a shock to Sirius. It was hard to believe really, and death was never a good thing to hear about. Especially if it was of someone that he'd considered a friend. (That brought back memories he wasn't quite ready to deal with yet.)

At the very least though, he could visit the site, and maybe see if there was any evidence left over. He waits until the vigil is over, not wanting to draw attention to himself. That could bring trouble on a number of levels, least of all him being suspected for the crime. Although when he gets there, he figures he shouldn't be surprised.

"Guess you're not as gone as I thought, huh?"

Oh come on, not Sirius.

Simon's been watching the world for the last several days, unable to interact with it. Unable to do much of anything, really. He's had to watch as people he loved and cared about came to the wall to mourn him and left him unable to comfort them. The worst had been his thoroughly unsupernatural parents, who hadn't been able to feel his presence at all.

And now Sirius, the only other shapeshifter he could call a friend, is at what basically amounts to his graveside. Talking to him. Does he...?

Simon feels tired, so very tired, but he ignores it. He puts all his energy into the small stain on the pavement that was what was left of his blood seeping out onto the cement and focuses on it as hard as he could. His first attempt is only enough to create a small breeze, ruffling Sirius' hair a bit, but then...

A colorless figure crouches against the wall. He's a bit fuzzy and out of focus, and when he speaks he sounds like he's coming from far away, but he is definitely Simon.

"You can see me?"

Edited 2016-06-19 17:35 (UTC)

"Well, you're a little fuzzy around the edges, but otherwise, yeah. It's the animal senses," he says, glancing around briefly to make sure that he was (mostly) alone. "They pick up on stuff like this."

He'd grown used to it, having known a few ghosts in the past, and finding several of them quite helpful, in their own way. He's familiar with the superstitions that some shapeshifters have around ghosts, but had never really chosen to believe in them.

"So, how's the afterlife treating you?"

He's doing his best to keep things light.

"Oh." What else can be said? Simon feels too many emotions as it is: anger at his situation but elation at being seen, frustration and grief for the life he lost. There's too much to process right now. He's drowning in it all.

Still, he tries to smile, for Sirius' sake. "I'm beginning to think all those horror movies about ghosts and hauntings got it all a bit wrong. I can't even--"

Simon's voice is suddenly cut off as his ghost winks out of sight. He returns a few seconds later, fuzzier and fainter than before.

"This is exhausting."

"Yeah, usually in the movies that doesn't happen."

It would certainly cut the tension if the ghost suddenly disappeared in the middle of a haunting scene. Especially if they knew it was tired.

"I think it's something you have to get used to, unfortunately. Build up your reserves."

Simon doesn't look entirely pleased with that suggestion. "Well, time's one thing I've fucking got," he spits bitterly. His anger and annoyance and frustration give him some more energy somehow; his lines are clearer and more distinct, voice sounding much more present. Apparently strong negative emotions make him a bit more powerful.

Wait, is this how ghosts become poltergeists?

"I'm going to have to get used to it. I'm stuck like this. You can't put me back in my body even if I still had one."

"Yeah, that bit's a little difficult," Sirius replied with a nod. "And I can't imagine being a zombie's an improvement."

What with the shambling and needing brains and everything else he'd picked up from various places.

"But you can put that time to good use. Any idea who got you?"

"Vampire," Simon shrugs. "Fangs and all that. Shorter than me by a couple inches. Lightish hair. Smelled like smoke."

That's really all he got before drowning in his own blood.

"It would be a vampire." Of course it would. With Millicent gone they've become an outright menace, as opposed to the general menace that Sirius thought of them before.

"I suppose I can take a look around for you, with that description. He's probably got your scent on him as well."

Although he'll have to be sneaky about it, sincerely this time. Not his usual brand of sneaky that typically winds up with him in trouble.

Simon nods. "If he hasn't washed too well, yeah. He'll still have my scent. It wasn't a very clean kill." How utterly bizarre to be thinking of his own corpse in that way. But it hadn't been a clean kill. The vampire had done a really shitty job of murdering him. He'd missed the main artery and left his victim to drown slowly in a puddle of blood; hardly the quick, clean death that Hollywood had convinced the world vampires were capable of.

"I'd appreciate it. I can't help all that much from here, but I'll..support you in spirit." He smiles ironically.

"Let's hope he hasn't, though stuff like that does tend to linger."

Hopefully enough that he can pick up a lead of some sort. Sirius returns the smile.

"You aren't bound to that one spot, are you?"

Roddy didn't know about the murder. He didn't know that someone had died here, and he certainly didn't know who or why. All he knew as he passed over that spot was that he suddenly felt cold. Unnerved. Like someone was watching him. Roddy glanced around, but he saw no one. He sniffed the air a little, but he smelled no one. Still, he couldn't help but feel that someone was there, watching him.

Someone is there, and he's bored as fuck.

Since talking to Sirius, Simon has experimented with manifesting, and mostly he's been disappointed. He doesn't have enough energy to keep it up for very long, and most people can't see him even when he does. He also can't seem to leave his deathplace. The stain on the cement that is all that's left of his human body (he's pretty sure his parents had him cremated) seems to root him to this one spot.

It just so happens to be a very boring spot.

When someone comes to it and starts sniffing around, he decides to have a bit of fun. He doesn't expect this someone to be able to see him if he manifests but he tries to anyway, appearing as a pale figure just in the corner of Roddy's vision for a moment before disappearing again. If he's going to be stuck haunting a particularly uninspired bit of road, he might as well be the spookiest damn ghost he can be.

Roddy spots the ghostly figure and jumps about a foot, turning as he did so only to see...nothing there.

"...holy shit." Was that a ghost? "Is...someone there?"

He looked like he might bolt.

There's another flicker--Simon's starting to have fun with this game. Yeah, it's kind of mean, but it's also the most he's gotten to do since his death several days ago, and it's not exactly like he can go update his Facebook or check Instagram from beyond the grave.

But light shows are tiring for a ghost that is quite new to the whole ghosting thing, and the next time Simon manifests he does it for just a second or two longer than he planned. A pale, human-shaped figure crouches over the blood stain, making faces.

Edited 2016-06-23 18:15 (UTC)

Another flicker. Another jump and a slight stumble from the very skittish Roddy. And then the ghost appeared again, this time staying a bit longer. It drew his attention to the stain, the stain whose smell had likely faded quite a bit since the blood had first been spilt, but as he sniffed again he caught a faint whiff of what it was.

"Is that where you..." He trailed off, not knowing if he should continue. Were ghosts aware of being dead? Were they violent? Roddy really didn't know. The ghost also seemed to be making some kind of face, but he couldn't quite make out the details.

Oh. He's definitely been seen, and not in the way he wanted.

Simon sighs (only not really, since he hasn't got any lungs and doesn't breathe, but the sound he makes is remarkably like a sigh) and materializes again, still next to the bloodstain.

"Is it where I died, you mean? Yeah."

Edited (oh, autocorrect) 2016-06-27 22:51 (UTC)

Roddy was still tense, but having the ghost materialize and answer his question meant...well, at the very least this wasn't a 'terrorize and destroy' type of haunting.

He wasn't going to go any closer to the bloodstain or ghost, but after a moment he tentatively asked, "What happened?"

"You're a shapeshifter, right?" Simon vaguely remembers his face, seen briefly across a crowded train station. He remembers his smell.

"Vampires are going after shapeshifters. I was drunk, on my way home. Couldn't get a taxi."

"Yeah," he confirmed with a little nod.

The news that came after...well, it made the whole situation seem that much more real. It was no longer the vague idea that he and other shapeshifters were in danger, now it was the reality that this shapeshifter right here had been killed in a place he himself could have been, had his own luck been worse.

"That...I've heard about that, but...that really sucks."

The whole situation really sucked. Roddy didn't recognize the other guy, mostly because their previous meeting had been so short, and his image was kind of fuzzy on top of it, but that wouldn't have made much of a difference to this situation regardless. Sure, anyone could get killed any time by random chance, but this was different. They were being killed...and from what he could see, this guy wasn't that old, either. Older than Roddy, but still.

Simon laughs bitterly. "Yeah," he echoes, a bit sarcastically. "It does suck."

He was twenty-two. And it's even worse that he's already thinking of himself in the past tense. He was twenty-two. It's been less than a week since his death and even he is buying into the ways in which people refer to the dead.

"Anyway, be careful. For what it's worth. Being a ghost is fucking terrible."

"I will," he said. He didn't want to end up haunting his own alley, after all. "So you're just going to be stuck like that until...whenever, I guess?"

Was the unfinished business thing real? Was there anything anyone could do for a ghost?

Cooper has watched the young vampires running around this city like they're children loose in a candy store. He'd heard of at least one werewolf leaving town to avoid the bloodbath and was sure there had to be more. The ones that were left were becoming even more aggressive and the hunters seem to be focusing more on vampires as of late. What a clusterfuck all the way around.

As an Earl, it was his job to keep the young ones in order. Someone had informed him there was a particularly enthusiastic nutter trying to murder enough werewolves and shapeshifters to get higher up in the rankings. Cooper had been trying to track him down this night with little success. By the time he's caught up to the fellow's handiwork, he is long gone, and there's someone dying in a puddle of blood at his feet. He looks the boy over and shakes his head. Death is only a few minutes away at best. "Can't help you, kid. The damage has been done." Vampire blood could save someone an inch from death, but this kid didn't look like he even had the strength to drink.

It hurts.

The first thing Simon wants is his mother. He wants her to cradle him like an infant and tell him everything is going to be okay, because it's increasingly dawning on him that it isn't going to be okay. Every time he tries to take a breath more blood seems to bubble out of the hole in his neck and the sense a creeping coldness gets even stronger.

When he sees a pair of feet, he tries to call out, tries to get someone to call an ambulence, but the only sound that escapes is a weak "pl-please" and a low gurgle.

Cooper kneels by Simon, reaching out and gently stroking the boy's hair. It was a long time ago, but he can still remember how terrifying facing his death had been. Simon is young, too young to be facing such a gruesome ending all on his own. There's nothing the vampire can do but provide comfort the only way he knows how. He leans over the boy's torn-up neck and laps up a bit of blood, just enough so that his mind manipulation will work. When he speaks, his words calming and soothing, there's a push of something a little bit more behind his words, something that Simon's mind will respond to. "Shhh, Calm down. It's okay. Help is on the way. You're going to be just fine."

The words themselves feel meaningless as the blood continues to pump away, oozing down Simon's neck and onto the sidewalk.

Simon struggles fitfully when he realizes what's happening, what his "rescuer" really is, but Cooper's magic is like a shot of morphine and he finds himself starting to relax, embracing the weakness that's suffusing his body.

"...cold..."

"It's alright. Soon, you won't be cold anymore." Or ever again, he thinks to himself. There's nothing he can do but watch as the life ebbs away from the boy's body one heartbeat at a time. That heart is starting to falter and he can hear the beats beginning to slow down, each one more sluggish than the last. He's tempted to order the boy to close his eyes and go to sleep. He'd obey, but that would deny Simon his last few minutes of life.

"You don't have pain any longer. Just relax. It'll all be over soon," he says in that same calm, convincing tone.

He doesn't feel any pain, doesn't feel much of anything besides an exhaustion like he's never experienced before. All he wants to do is sleep, and he can't quite figure out why he's fighting so hard against the leaden weights on his eyelids. The world is out of focus; he senses the other person nearby but doesn't quite register him anymore beyond the low, pleasant buzz of his voice.

He's just so tired.

Simon O'Neill makes a harsh rattling noise in his throat and then goes still. He was twenty-two years old.

Daryl had heard the news within hours of it getting around and when the vigil happened, he showed up. Stood near the back and had his arm tentatively around Maria, the woman who had once thought Simon was her soulmate. She'd found out when it hit the media and had contacted him right away, asking if it was true and distraught beyond words. Daryl hadn't wanted to see her go the way of being drunk near train tracks again and offered to come over. She'd been the one to suggest attending the vigil together. He knew she wasn't really over him yet, despite never being with him, just working on getting back on her own feet. But the timing of all the shit going down with the Vampires was terrible and Simon deserved his death least of everyone involved. Simon was a good kid.

Later, after the vigil and taking Maria home and agreeing to come see her again that week to check up on her, Daryl went back to the scene. He just stood there, arms crossed, looking down at the flowers and candles. Even lit the few that had gone out after all the other watchers had disappeared.

"Sorry, kid," he murmured, throat tightening more than he cared to admit.

"'S okay."

Simon's ghost hovers over by the candles, slouching, hands in his pockets. He doesn't know how long he'll be able to keep this up--manifesting takes energy, and he doesn't have a lot of that right now. But he'll try. Simon has been expecting Daryl, ever since he spotted the other shifter at the memorial. He would have liked to get to get to know him better, but being forcefully and permanently removed from his body kind of made that more difficult. At least Daryl can see him. Most of his visitors haven't been able to.

"Thanks for coming out."

Daryl's head swiveled and his eyebrows scrunched together. He thought he'd felt something off, but until the kid talked, he hadn't put two and two together.

"No problem." It came automatically, sure, but he meant it. Daryl shuffled a foot and blinked a few times, took a deep breath, "What's keeping you here?"

Simon shrugs. "Revenge, probably," he says uncertainly. "I think that's what I'm supposed to do. Solve my own murder. Get justice. Or any of that other high-minded shit." If he were corporeal, he'd kick the wall in frustration but he can't, not now. His foot would just go right through it.

"But that's stupid because I can't do any of that. I can't leave. I've tried. The furthest I can go is to the shop on the corner, and I only managed it once. It was exhausting." That's about three meters. He's not going to be able to solve much of anything with that kind of restriction.

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A Fallen Guardian - Part One (June)

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Where you never die

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Where You Never Die

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With the perfect life

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Where you never die

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