(no subject)

[princehonorable]

The dreamshade burns through his blood.

It's not that Charming hadn't believed Hook when he'd described the sheer torture and agony that the poison would cause in his veins, but it had only been the lightest of scratches. It hadn't been enough to tell Emma and Snow about, but now he was beginning to worry. When they'd entered Neal's cave, Charming had followed along and instead of the cave, he'd been back in the hotel, clasping his side and staring around him as panic gripped him, fighting with relief.

He could rest here. Maybe he might even be able to slow the poison using some sort of medicine they had readily available here that wasn't in Neverland, but the fear that the cure is only on the shores of that dark island grips him and holds the panic in.

Angrier than he's been in ages, Charming takes it out on the nearest wall, putting his fist through and creating a hole that has his torso singing with pain as the dreamshade lances through his body. He supposes that he might need to start taking it easy, given that the bloodflow would only distribute the poison faster.

It's a sad, horrible state of affairs, but for the first time since Charming had set sail to Neverland, he finds himself knowing that his best chance is a world away and it's Hook. He stares at the damaged wall, regretting his actions. "Sorry," he says, to the passers-by. "I'll clean it up, if you give me a moment."

Comments

[malachai]

"Impressive," Nick said as he approached, looking at the new hole in the wall and nodding. "I'm well acquainted with that kind of anger, holed-up more than my share of walls and doors. I'm more curious about the why. Because if you were trying to swat a fly, there might be a bigger issue going on."

He looked at the guy carefully now that they were closer, partly to make sure he didn't feel an increase in rage that he'd need to defend against, partly because he looked familiar somehow.

[princehonorable]

Charming rests his hand on the hilt of his sword, adjusting his stance to look at the other man. His smile is sheepish because he isn't proud for having caused this kind of damage, but there's a little bit of honour in the fact that he could. Which, he probably should tamp down. "I was trapped here for months," he explains. "I finally got back to my world, only to get stuck here again," he says.

He doesn't need to mention being poisoned. He still doesn't know if it's going to affect him, hasn't seen if it will spread or stop.

[malachai]

"I've heard that's something of a problem," Nick commented. "Some come and go, some are stuck, some get alternate versions of home they can go to whenever they want. Just another level of fun at Hotel Freaky. Sucks, though, being pulled back in again. I'd say sorry, but I've got shit of my own to answer for, I'm not owning up to what this place pulls."

He'd noticed the sword, and the hand on the hilt, which was why he kept his distance. "I'm not about to charge you or anything," he added, with a nod towards the steel.

[princehonorable]

"I can never get anywhere," Charming says, because it hadn't mattered which door he'd tried. Door after door after door, and all he could find was more of the hotel until one day, one day, he'd found Neverland. Except that hadn't lasted long. Only long enough for him to get into trouble.

He glances down to the sword, shaking his head. "Sorry, bad habit," he admits. "I was somewhere a little too dangerous to go without having one hand at the ready."

[malachai]

"Don't need to explain it to me, man," Nick nodded, and relaxed his own stance. "Even though I know the version of New Orleans through my closet is just a copy, doesn't stop me from strapping my shortsword to my back before I go there. The irony of dying because I left the damn thing at home is just too much to risk."

He nodded to the door. "it's disconcerting, isn't it? To start thinking of this place as sentient?"

[princehonorable]

"Home would mean a lot less swordfighting," Charming assures, because it's not that Storybrooke doesn't have its own dangers, but it usually gets faced with more civilized techniques. "Where I was...well, maybe the sword wouldn't have even worked there, but it's all I had." He shifts to remove his hand, pulling at the poison-laced wound and making him tense up minutely. "I think of it more as bearing its own kind of magic," he admits. "Which isn't as foreign to me as it being sentient."

[malachai]

"But no less uneasy-making. At least you can attempt to reason with sentient. Quirky magic run amok? All you can do is strap in and hold on to see what happens next. I'm not the biggest fan of that much uncertainty."

Nick grinned. "So, yeah, I'm not going to blame you for keeping the sword handy."

[princehonorable]

"You sound as if you've got quite a bit of your own experience," Charming says, warmly welcoming the notion that he might not be so alone when it comes to being utterly out of his depths when magic is on the plate. "Where I come from, the magic can at least be wielded and used for a purpose. I don't know what good it could do here, especially since I don't have it, but it would be nice."

[malachai]

"Magic, or any kind of power, is both a blessing and a curse," Nick nodded. "You can bring down your enemies, sure, but using it puts a target on your back from those that want what you have."

Something Nick had had to face a long time ago, that every demon in his known universe wanted nothing more than to snap a collar on him and use his powers for their own.

[princehonorable]

"Lucky for me, I don't have any," Charming replies, possibly more pleasant about it than he should be, given that they've discovered that Emma has magic of her own, as a result of the true love between him and Snow. "Though living in a world where someone can bring you down with the flick of a finger was definitely something you don't really appreciate," he jokes.

He winces, mildly, but ducks his head to hide the pull of his face. "Have you seen someone around here named Graham? Might go by the Huntsman?" He should start looking for people who know the Forest and might know of dreamshade poisoning in Neverland.

[malachai]

Nick thought over the new faces he'd seen and shook his head. "No one I've met, no, but there are a lot of new faces around the place lately, so that's not saying much. Why, should I have?"

[princehonorable]

He shakes his head. "No, I don't think that he's really making friends with everyone else. I doubt he's even really made too many strides forward to that," he jokes. "He's someone I know, though. I was hoping, on the off chance, that maybe he could open a door to his home, which would get me to mine. It's a long shot," he fully admits. "I know."

[malachai]

"Long shots are all we have around this joint, but if he's from the same place you are I'd say the odds are probably better than most. So far, either here or the other place, I haven't come across anyone from my world. A few close calls - names I recognize - but no one that knows me or what I am." He snorted a little laugh. "Its enough to make someone question whether or not they really do exist."

[littlerubyred]

The two months that Ruby had been in residence at the hotel had given her some time to accustom herself to the overwhelming realization of worlds beyond the one she knew, and get herself sorted. She felt much more calm, much more like herself than she had the first day she'd arrived, and Storybrooke seemed further and further away than ever. She missed her Granny, truth be told, and she missed Mary Margaret and Emma and everyone else too, but this new world was just so exciting and new, and she'd made friends here as well. She was perpetually in a state of guilt these days, wondering if she should try harder to find a door to go home for a bit just to check on Granny, to ensure that those she cared about and had inadvertently left behind were still as she left them, and still there was a fear that, once she was in Storybrooke again, she may not be able to get back.

It was for all these reasons that she felt considerably more gentle when she spotted David Nolan having apparently just driven a fist through the wall, her brow creasing in momentary concern for what could've upset him so much. She did not appreciate how he had treated Mary Margaret, but he was from home and Ruby did not like to see anyone hurt.

"Oh, Mr. Nolan," she said as she hurried up to him. "Goodness, you'll hurt yourself. Is your hand okay? We should get some ice on it." She held her hands up for him to let her inspect his wounded hand. It was obvious that there was something greatly upsetting him if he could act out in such a display of violence, but she didn't want to press unless he felt like sharing.

[princehonorable]

He hissed when the air hit the open wound, pressing it against the fabric of his jacket as tightly as he could. For a second, he looks at her with a discerning stare, trying to figure out if she's remembered yet, but there's something about her that doesn't give him much hope. He lets her take the hand, staring at it, grateful that this wound won't reveal the other.

Maybe, just maybe, he can imagine that all the dreamshade will ooze out and bleed away. It's an optimistic and hopeful (delusional) thought that he knows he can't hold onto. "I'd found them," he says, words frustrated. "I found my way back to Mary Margaret and Emma and..." And now he's here again. Trapped.

[littlerubyred]

Ruby really had no experience with cuts or wounds or broken bones outside of the occasional burn she'd experienced while working with food. She really didn't know what to do with David's hand, though she thought taking him somewhere to clean it, or perhaps taking him to Joan to see if he'd broken something, was really the best idea. At his words she glanced up at him, her eyes widening fractionally.

"You mean you found the door back to where you came from?" She said, her head tipping. It seemed strange that he was so upset about being back here as, in her limited understanding of how the doors in the Nexus worked, she'd assumed one could return from wherever they had gone at any time and by choice. If he'd been forced back, that made her whole conundrum a bit more complicated. "Oh no. I'm sorry, Mr. Nolan," she said. "We can talk about that if you like, but shouldn't we do something about your hand?"

[princehonorable]

"Not exactly," he says ruefully, because while he might be getting more comfortable with the dangers that Neverland presents, he's never going to consider calling it home. He breathes out, knowing that the hand is probably his pressing concern, even though the arrow scrape is probably going to be a bigger issue down the road. He'll come to that later. No one needs to know about it.

They don't need him to distract from getting Henry back. "Does this place have some kind of medic?" he wonders.

[littlerubyred]

"Uhm," Ruby said, unsure of what to make of his vague answers, but wanting to be as helpful as possible. She didn't like to see anyone hurt, and she wasn't sure what was going on that would make him so angry or desperate to get back to Mary Margaret or Emma, but she figured the whole thing had to be pretty serious.

"I do know of one doctor, though I don't know if she's here," Ruby said. She wasn't sure what sort of doctor Joan had been, but she had to know how to fix up a busted hand at least. "She spends most of her time in her home in New York, I think."

[princehonorable]

He looks at his hand, flexing it and trying to brush away any of the drywall that might have transferred onto it, as a result. "If we can find some clean water and bandages, I'm sure we can do this ourselves," he says. "I've patched up enough..." he trails off, not wanting to say 'soldiers'. "...pets," he finishes. "How different can a hand be from a paw?" he jokes.

"Besides, the sooner I'm patched up, the sooner I can start trying doors again."

[littlerubyred]

Bandages and water Ruby were things Ruby was pretty sure she could manage, and his joke made her feel like perhaps the situation wasn't so dire after all. She grinned up at him and shook her head. "You'd better hope not different at all," she teased. "I'm fairly certain we can get clean water from just about anywhere, but there has to be a first aid kit somewhere for bandages, right? If nothing else, we can rip up an old shirt and bandage you that way. You'll fifty kinds of tough and awesome."

[princehonorable]

"I always did think the rugged look suited me well," he says, and though he might sound capable and confident, he's not entirely sure he feels it. There's doubt running through him, including the fact that he knows that thanks to the dreamshade, he'll never get back to Snow, who always thought him handsome no matter what he looked like.

He offers Ruby a friendly smile. "Come on, might as well get started," he says, trying to stay optimistic.

[littlerubyred]

"Yes, I'd think we better," Ruby said, though she smiled back in return. She was smiling, though it hadn't escaped her notice as to just how bad Mr. Nolan was injured. The fact that he'd apparently done it to himself in some sort of rage was doubly alarming, but she figured he'd tell her if he felt like doing so.

"You've been here longer than I have," she said. "Thankfully, I haven't acquired any wounds yet, but should we go somewhere specific for bandages, or should I find someone tasty to sacrifice his shirt in favor of saving your hand?"

[princehonorable]

He knows what she means. He knows that she means it in a flirtatious way, but there's a part of David that remembers what Red looks like as the wolf that has him momentarily pausing, a frightened look on his face as he gapes at her. And then, it's gone as quickly as it had arrived, his calm nature returning to him. "There's a small infirmary, I think, for the hotel doctor. I'm sure they wouldn't mind us borrowing a few things, at least, especially not if I pay them back."

[littlerubyred]

Ruby was long used to getting mildly shocked looks from people for one thing or another, though the fact that Nolan had just looked at her with something akin to fear was enough to have her pausing for a moment. He fell back into his former demeanor so easily that she was almost convinced she'd been seeing things, but because she was who she was, she decided to joke with Nolan a little more, just to test the waters.

"That sounds like a plan," she agreed, keeping up with him as, weird looks and her attempts at humor aside, she did want to see his hand tended to. "Or," she continued as she decided that whether he thought she was frightening or not, a situation with blood could always use a little lightening, "we could steal the bandages and then they'd have to call security, and then Sheriff Graham would show up. He's of the honorable sort, so I'm sure if we told him he needed to sacrifice his shirt to save your hand, he'd do it willingly enough." She nudged him with one elbow. "C'mon, Nolan. Even you'd have to admit that'd be pretty bitchin', right?"

[princehonorable]

"David," he says, when she keeps calling him by that name and it makes him cringe to remember the false personality Regina had implanted him with. "Please, just David is fine," he says, calmer and more polite when he realizes he's been curt with her. "But you know, I don't think burdening Graham with this one is a good idea," he points out, because he can only imagine the disappointed look on his face.

"He can buy the drinks later when we're all mended as a reward for not stealing," he suggests.