i keep my visions to myself.

[nightmarist]

Who: Ronan Lynch & Noah Czerny
When: November 2
Where: The Hub
What: Ronan has a bad dream.
Warnings: Blood and gore and spoilery talk.

[Nothing should be simpler than creating a flower. If Ronan could create an entire forest, then a flower should be the easiest thing in the world. A small bud to replace one of the plants Kavinsky destroyed. Is that so much to ask? It's the most rudimentary practice.

What Ronan brings back with him is not a flower. His hands are covered with a substance that looks like mud soaked in oil, sprinkled with the brittle skeletons of small woodland creatures. His shirt soaks through with blood, a shallow gash appearing across his torso, as if something just barely missed gutting him.

He's not in his bed. He never sleeps in his own bed, never in the room he shares with some unsuspecting person he's yet to even meet. He always finds some empty place that's safe and far from others, and tonight, that room is the recording studio. Sprawled out on the floor, he remains trapped in his body as always, paralyzed for a good several minutes.

Finally, when he can move again, his eyes flutter open and he chokes out a gasp. His filthy fingers grope blindly for the wound over his stomach, pressing the cloth of his shirt into it. He has no idea how bad it is or it isn't, but it hurts, and he thinks he's alone so he whimpers with mingled pain and fear. He's losing it. He really is. He's right back where he started with all of this.]

Comments

[nightmarist]

[Ronan wishes he could reach out, grab hold of Noah's arm and keep him here. But he's filthy with the nightmare's poisonous soil, so he doesn't.]

Could you tell it was coming? Did you feel it before you got pushed out?

[deadthing]

Not exactly. [He looks away, fumbling for words.] I mean, I knew it could. But I didn't feel it until right before.

[That's only half the truth, of course. The other half being that sometimes he doesn't feel it at all. Noah Czerny is a faded, tattered thing with more cracks than substance, easily supplanted. But he doesn't want Ronan to know about that, how little of him there is. His situation is different.]

[nightmarist]

[It's true, he's a very different creature than Noah, though Ronan would never consider Noah lesser. To him, Noah may be faded but he's still complete. He has to be. Ronan can't accept anything other than that.]

...It's in my head.

[Maybe Noah knew that already.]

I thought it couldn't reach me all the way out here. But it's still in there. And I think it's getting stronger, or I'm getting weaker, or...

[Both? Ronan looks at his hands again.]

[deadthing]

[His gaze returns to Ronan and he stares at him like he's trying to figure something out. It takes him entirely too long to blink.]

I think... it's only part of it. [He can't say for sure. This is one of those tricky time things. For him, the demon is dead. But for Ronan it is very much alive, its corruption still spreading through his dreamscape, unmaking. The question is whether its influence truly stretched across space and time or if Ronan's more personal demons were merely borrowing inspiration.

He presses one bloodied hand to Ronan's shoulder and gives it what he hopes is a reassuring squeeze.]

You have to keep fighting.

[nightmarist]

[For all the iciness of Noah's touch, Ronan does find it reassuring. The most terrifying part of all this has been trying to survive it alone. As much as Ronan frequently kept to himself back home, there was always Matthew's sunshine and Declan's hovering and Gansey's fretting and Adam's... Adam-ness, enveloping him like a protective spell.

Whenever Noah flickers out, Ronan will be alone again. As long as he's here, it feels like Ronan's the one drawing strength from him and not the other way around.]

What's the point of fighting anymore?

[Isn't leaving their world the same as dying? Cabeswater must be lost, and his mother with it. Matthew and Orphan Girl, too. Their dreamer is already gone.]

[deadthing]

Don't say that! [Noah's eyes widen in distress and he finds himself clutching at Ronan's shirt without meaning to. Even the suggestion that he might succumb, that those thoughts have crossed his mind, is unbearable.]

Don't- Just. Take it from me, okay? Nothing gets better once you're dead.

[nightmarist]

I'm sorry.

[That was a careless thing to say, and not in the usual careless Ronan Lynch way. He shouldn't talk about wasting his life when Noah would probably give anything to be alive again.]

I just don't know what I'm supposed to do.

[deadthing]

[Noah can't imagine being alive again, can barely remember what it was like when he was, and somehow that's even worse.]

I know.

[He sighs, letting his hands drop to his lap and scooting back a little.]

You should probably wash your hands.

[nightmarist]

[Ronan's lips tug into a rueful smile.]

Probably.

[The wound could use some cleaning, too. And a bandage. He doesn't want to go to the medbay and deal with the fussy staff and their questions, but he might just have to.

First: a shower. Ronan climbs to his feet, wincing all the while.]

[deadthing]

[Noah seems to skip a few frames of movement in between crouching and standing; he's doing one, then the other. Traces of concern still cling to his face like cobwebs as he watches Ronan go. As much as he wants to, there's nothing more he can help with tonight.]