Overwhelmed

Who: Corwin and Delilah
Where: Corwin's house
When: Dawn

Corwin. Corwin!

"Wha-- what. What?"

Dawn's coming. You really oughta get the doors closed.

"Oh... oh. Damn, I fell asleep?"

Yeah. But it doesn't look like they came, anyway....

Corwin felt around for the wall, then followed the wall to the basement doors. He shut them by feel alone; the thick forest and lingering night beyond blocked out all the light. Maybe the attacks were over... maybe with dawn, they'd be safe....

"Is Delilah...?"

Asleep, Eric said. Or, well, quiet. She's in bed, so I'm guessing asleep. Kirk and Alexi are both up on the bed with her.

"I think she's just a dog person," Corwin chuckled a bit, and made his way blindly across the basement to the stairs up into the rest of the house. He didn't bother turning on any lights. It was his house, he knew it well, and any cats in the way would move for him. He climbed both sets of stairs, creeping into his bedroom... currently Delilah's bedroom.

He could hear her breathing, low and even... her heartbeat, slow and steady.... He wanted to see her, not just hear her. He wanted to see her sleep, sprawled or curled or however she slept, in his own bed. He knew a little light wouldn't wake her up-- she was blind. He could watch in silence, not disturb her, then slip away before she woke, and she'd never know.

Licking his fangs just a little, he leaned over to where his lamp was, felt for the switch with the tips of his claws, and switched it on with a soft click.

What he saw first was not Delilah-- what he saw was shadows. At least a dozen of them, probably more, but he didn't have time to count. What he did have time for was to yell: "Delilah! Delilah, wake up!" and to leap across her and the dogs to keep the descending claws from touching her.

Delilah was deeply asleep, entrenched in her comforting velvet blackness. She'd been tempted to Walk when she'd laid down in the spacious bed that smelled of Corwin, but the exhaustion from the day and the loss of the blood she'd offered up to him had combined and dragged her down into real sleep. Or what passed for real sleep for a Dreamwalker. The warmth and soft breathing of two dogs hadn't hurt, either, and she was comfortably between Alexi and Kirk and in a far off place when the shout filtered through. It was belated, but she jerked awake a millisecond before the bed jostled with Corwin's weight. She let out a startled shriek and tried curling tighter. She only really managed to curl more into Alexi and get an arm over her face, the terror from the morning before coursing through her again.

Corwin had two stakes on his person, which were the only weapons he'd ever had on hand, but he was never without them since the shadows started coming out of the mirrors. But right then, he was far more interested in protecting Delilah than getting to his weapons. Kirk was up and barking immediately, lunging at the nearest shadows. If it had been yesterday, they would have ignored him-- apparently today, they weren't ignoring. One of them turned on Kirk and swiped at him with a clawed arm.

"Kirk!" Corwin yelped as the dog let out a howl and bolted back. Corwin started trying to get for his stakes then, but there were more shadows than just that one... who was, just then, drifting after the dog and towards the stairs. Hissing at new cuts, he tried to keep himself between them and Delilah. "Delilah, get-- get off the bed!" he tried, hoping maybe he could at least cut a path for her to get to the bathroom and behind a door.

Alexi halfway joined in, but more with a chorus of barking and raised hackles than biting. He pressed backwards into his mistress, growling at the shadows around. To Delilah, it was just a mess of noise and movement and being halfway squished. She was letting out a sort of pant-whimper sound she wasn't aware of, and despite Corwin's shouted command, she couldn't move a muscle. Everything had locked up and her mind was racing with babbling Russian, and she was just ... stuck.

Delilah was not helping. Corwin at least got some good use out of his enhanced strength from being undead by shoving the shadows away from him... they were solid enough that he could throw them right into the wall, actually. He scattered them, taking the hits he had to take to do so, and grabbed for Delilah's arm. "Delilah, come on-- please!"

She was being grabbed, and his voice was filtering through her terror enough that she followed the tug. Her free arm stayed over her head and face as much as possible, but she scrambled off the bed in the direction she was being pulled. Delilah was utterly disoriented, didn't know where she really was in the room or where they were going. She just got her feet under her -- with a bit of a stumble -- and cowered in close to Corwin.

Crowding her back, keeping her behind him, Corwin kept swiping with his free hand, his stake in hand finally, trying to keep the shadows back. "Back, Delilah-- the bathroom door-- is behind you. Right behind you. Just open it--" He punctuated each phrase with an attempt at stabbing a shadow, but he only actually succeeded once.

The dreamwalker groped for it, feeling wildly around herself. She hit the knob with her arm and fumbled it open quickly, slipping backwards into the bathroom. She slammed the door shut at first, then made a little squeak and opened it again, groping for the back of his shirt. She got a fist full of it and started to pull. She'd been safer in the closet, maybe they'd all be safer in the bathroom. ... unless the mirror was still in there. "Alexi, come!" she cried.

Lucky for Delilah, Corwin had already smashed every mirror in the place-- killing several of the shadows in the process, for good. Lucky for him, too, because otherwise there would have been more shadows here than he could handle.

... okay, there were already more than he could handle, but it would be worse. At least without Delilah to worry about, he could just throw himself into the fray and hope to god he killed them all before they got past him and to Delilah. Or they cut off his head-- but he had long since learned to protect that.

He didn't get a chance to do more than lunge once, though, before Delilah pulled him off balance and he went crashing backwards, instead, falling on his rump and scooting backwards in panic as they tried taking advantage of the situation.

He landed partially on her, which earned a squeak. Barking at the shadows, Alexi bounced back and forth on the other side of them. He lunged to bite one at the back, and it whipped around and scratched at his muzzle. Delilah heard him yipe before he bounded back and growled.

"Alexi, stay back!" Corwin growled at him. He didn't want the dog hurt more than he already was-- like Kirk. God, he hoped Kirk was okay. Cowering in the basement, now, probably. Corwin kicked at the nearest shadow and tried making a comeback. This time Delilah stayed back, along with her dog, and he managed to get the door shut on them both with a quick yank. "Stay there, please."

It was another long fight.... Corwin managed to keep them all from getting to Delilah, but it was a near thing a couple times. He counted sixteen of them-- Theresa even appeared, stayed there just long enough to take care of a few before vanishing entirely again. Two of them even immediately targeted her when she appeared-- apparently they were "hers". Eric just stood there and let them hack at him, uselessly-- that was one he got before they turned back to Corwin, at least.

When it was all over, Corwin slumped against the wall again, shutting his eyes and wiping blood from his eyes. Thank god Delilah couldn't see him. "They're gone, for now," he called.

By the end of it, Delilah was just sitting against the far wall of the bathroom, as far as she could get from the door, curled up as much as she could be, clinging to Alexi. She had no idea how things were going from the noise, and she'd stopped being able to track it after a while. Instead she just held on and kind of disconnected. Her useless blue eyes blinked a few times, slowly, after she heard Corwin's call. It took a moment to sink in. "Are you all right?" she called back, probably too quietly.

In the pause between Corwin's announcement and Delilah's reply, he rested. Just... rested. Almost drifted off into a nap right there on the floor, while his wounds slowly closed, but her voice, faint though it was, jerked him back into full wakefulness. God, I'm a mess. At least he was ready to pass out instead of go berserk. He paused to wipe some blood from his face and lick it from his fingers hungrily before he answered. "Will be in a minute or two.... You? Did they get you?"

It took her another second to answer that, though it shouldn't have. She thought dimly that she might be in shock, but wasn't sure what-all that entailed, so ... perhaps not. "No," she called back. She was aware that she should probably move off of the wall and go to him, but her body didn't want to cooperate. Alexi whined a bit and twisted his head around to sniff at her face.

Thank god. Corwin pushed himself tiredly off the wall, considered whether he was not-hungry enough to be in her physical presence, then limped to the bathroom door, pushing it open and peering inside. The sight of her curled up in the corner between the bathtub and the linen closet was heart-wrenching, and he hurried over. "Delilah-- come here, it's okay. They're gone." For now. He wanted to break every mirror from here to Chicago if it'd keep her from looking so scared, but all he really could do was reach out his hands-- then drop them to his pants to scrub the blood from them before doing so again-- and slide them between dog-fur and cheek to cup her face. "I'm not gonna let them get to you. I swear."

Her head had perked a little as she heard him come in, and the dog stretched his neck out to sniff tentatively at Corwin. The tenderness of the gesture and his words bubbled emotion up in her throat. It caught at a certain point and dissolved, her frightened numbness breaking down into tears. Her arms left her guide dog go and moved to Corwin so she could cling and cry. God, when was this going to end? Didn't they deserve a moment's peace? And to be faced with a foe that she couldn't even see and was largely defenseless against ... it was awful. Just awful.

Corwin gulped a little in surprise and embarrassment-- he was sticky with blood and his clothes were a mess, practically rags now. But she didn't... seem to mind, and he really didn't want to move her away, so... sticky, bloody, ragged hug it was. He put his arms around her, one hand rubbing her back soothingly, and kissed her hair. "It'll be okay," he murmured, a promise he hoped would come true. "We'll be okay. I--" --love you. God, he was messed up. "I'll keep you safe," he finished instead.

Delilah didn't care what he was covered in, or that he was sticky. He had saved her life -- as she was aware that those things could've killed her, and wouldn't have stopped until they had -- twice now, and she was scared and exhausted. She nodded some against him, still weeping. She tried to believe that it would be okay, that they or somebody would figure something out to make this stop, but it was hard. Alexi paced around them and whined worriedly in his throat.

Really, Corwin's experience with crying people-- who weren't himself, sadly enough-- was rather small. All he could think of to do was hold her close, stroke her back and hair gently with fingertips and clawtips both-- seeing as it was hard to get one without the other-- and let her cry herself out. Maybe she'd feel better after. "It's okay, Alexi..." he added softly for the dog's benefit, before pressing his lips to her hair again. He even hummed a little, one of the few soft ballads his various punk bands produced.

She quieted down after a brief while, degenerating into sniffles and a bit of embarrassment. She pulled back enough to wipe at her leaking eyes and nose. "I'm sorry, I ... I'm very sorry. It's just all been ... quite a lot," she said, by way of weak explanation. It wasn't a very good one, she ought to be more together than this, but it was more than rare that she faced any terrors outside of the realm of dreams. At least, it had been rare. She started to pick herself up. Dignity dictated that she needed to wash her face.

"It's okay," Corwin assured her warmly, getting up, too, and putting his hands under hers as an offering to help her get up the rest of the way. "To be honest, I'd probably be in the same boat if I were alone through this." If he didn't have someone to protect and keep safe. If it were just him. Having her there did a lot, really, though he hadn't really thought about it like that until that moment.

Delilah accepted the help and felt her way to the counter and the sink. Alexi followed her, sitting down and looking up at his mistress with a worried expression, before glancing at the door again. She ran some water and cleaned her face off before straightening up and realizing that she had no idea where a towel was. She hadn't learned the bathroom that well yet. "Which way to a towel?" she asked.

"There's one hanging on the towel rack, about hip-height on you, right behind you," Corwin answered, hanging back a little and just watching. He probably ought to change and shower sometime soon, here... and make sure all the doors were as soundly locked as he could, before he did so. Just in case they came back. "They won't get in again," he promised, voice quiet. "I... I fell asleep with the basement doors open, last night, and they snuck in while it was dark."

She turned completely around and took a small step forward before reaching. Her hands hit terrycloth and she moved in closer to it to dry her face off. She nodded a bit at what he said, though the whole thing still was jumbled and didn't make an overabundance of sense. She seemed to still be having trouble processing it all, and thusly talking about it. "Can I do anything to help?" was all she could really ask at the moment, so she did.

"I don't know," Corwin said after a moment. "I just don't want... I don't know. Stay upstairs again, I guess?" It was all he could think of. And this time he wouldn't fall asleep, or he'd-- make one of the cats keep watch if he did. He couldn't think terribly well, either, which wasn't boding well for much of anything. "I'm sorry." For letting them in, for letting them frighten her, for having to keep her here... he didn't even know. He was just sorry.

Delilah's face turned sympathetic in his direction. "Don't be sorry," she said quietly. "You did not bring this, and you're doing your best to fight against it." She shuffled toward him and reached out, patting his arm lightly while the other hand lowered for Alexi. "I'll stay up here," she promised.

"Thanks," Corwin answered, just as quietly, though he still felt bad. If he hadn't fallen asleep.... He took a step closer to her to give her another hug, but this time it was brief. "I'd better, um, take a shower and get cleaned off... I'm all sticky." So had she, actually, if just because he'd gotten her sticky. Ugh, poor thing. But his was coming first, and for once he wasn't going to berate himself for being selfish about it. After all, it wasn't really selfish, he figured, if he just didn't like the idea of smelling like blood for longer than he had to. It was safer that way.

"Of course," she said, managing a faint little smile. She got her fingers into Alexi's collar. She would have to clean up more after he did, she knew that he'd gotten blood on her, but had no issue with his going first. Delilah clucked her tongue at her dog and the two of them moved out of the bathroom and out of his way.