[closed] All the blood lying on the floor

[a_shadow]

Who: Tex and L
When: Night of April 30
Where: Their condo
What: Tex has her first nightmare
Warnings: Descriptions of blood and gore, taken from the OOC post for the current plot

She awakens suddenly, clenching her fist against the sheets, breathing more rapid than usual. It's dark, the middle of the night, and she blinks against the haze that seems all around her as she comes to full consciousness.

Tex doesn't dream much. It seems to be because of the interfacing of her consciousness with a human brain—the brain needs to sleep, but she doesn't need to process the days's influx of information the way a human does, so when she does dream and remember those dreams, they tend to just be replays of memories from her memory banks. This has never really bothered her at all, though the fact that she needs to sleep does annoy her sometimes. But she deals with it. It's just part of the whole package, especially since she's chosen to mainly remain in her human body these days.

So she's never before experienced what someone would consider a nightmare. She doesn't even realize the fact that she cried out as she awoke, trying to wrench herself out of the bag of blood that she seemed to have found herself trapped in before regaining consciousness. She's left now to try to calm her breathing, and she sags back against the mattress and rubs her face. None of that was the sort of thing that would even ordinarily bother her—she's seen and shed plenty of blood in her time. But the sensation of being trapped, the inability to get away—apparently it had all been too much.

Comments

[ryuuzaki]

Her cry would have woken L if he hadn't already been in the process of waking in the same way. It's been a while since he's had a dream like this... not much since the Midway Hub... and longer since it it's been the apparent product of anything other than residual anxiety.

But pushing out of all that blood... it feels real in the moment, and suffocating, and when he gets through it, it's to wake with a jolt and a gasp, half-sitting without intending to. He realizes almost instantly that he's in his bedroom, safe enough, and that Tex is beside him, and... awake. She's awake, and he doesn't think it's because of anything he's done, consciously or not. He looks over at her.

[a_shadow]

Her first impulse after the initial shock is to roll toward him, not to awaken him or anything, but simply for the comfort of that fact that he is there. And he's awake too, he's alert and everything. Even in the darkness, she can tell that.

"What happened?" she mutters, because it seems perhaps he's about to climb out of bed.

[ryuuzaki]

He falls back against his pillow, which feels damp. His racing heartbeat begins to subside to something more normal, and he can catch his breath.

"I had a bad dream."

He glances at her again. There's ambient light from the window and his eyes are getting used to the dark, and he can see that something is wrong... maybe not very wrong, and maybe it's more a feeling than a look, but still, it's something.

His tone changes, to something both more resigned and more curious. "I didn't wake you."

[a_shadow]

"No," she says. "I...I guess I had a bad dream too." She sounds confused when she says it, in a way. This would be the first time she's ever mentioned having a dream to him and it's strange for it to be in this context.

[ryuuzaki]

He rests against the pillows, blinking, then reaches out to touch her arm.

"I think I'm going to make some coffee. Are you interested?"

He has no desire to go back to sleep at the moment, tired or not; he can grab an hour or two later. It's weird that they were both having nightmares, but not that weird. And something about his is already tugging at him.

[a_shadow]

"Yes," she says, shifting a little at his touch, bending her elbow so she can touch her hand to his arm as well. She actually doesn't want him to get up, she wants him to come closer, but she can spare him that long.

[ryuuzaki]

He tilts his head and looks at her.

"Come with me?"

[a_shadow]

"Of course." She sits up and swings her legs in his direction—when he climbs out of bed she'll crawl across the bed and follow him in that direction.

She pads out to the kitchen, following him, wearing the silky shorts and spaghetti strap tank that she typically wears to bed, her hair hanging about her shoulders messily. The images of the dream are still being blinked back, and she takes a spot at the counter near the coffee machine, out of the way though, so he can get the machine going. She watches him for a moment before rubbing her face again.

[ryuuzaki]

He's wearing boxer shorts, but he grabs a cotton robe from a chair after he stands, slipping it on without tying it.

The nightmare bothers him as he pads through the living room, past the wide sofas and all the plants, and into the kitchen. It wasn't like the nightmares of being lost in hallways, or things happening to one of a few people, or a voice in his head...

As he reaches the kitchen, he realizes that's what it is that's getting at him: it wasn't like any of those things. Most of his nightmares are variations on a theme of the Tranquility... this one hardly was at all. It could have something to do with the manticores, processed through his subconscious, but why a dream like this now that isn't just the same thing? Work keeps him busy, but there's nothing especially threatening happening, certainly not in the previous week, nothing to shift the subjects and content of his worst dreams.

It feels like something equally terrible, but almost completely new, and with no obvious trigger.

He pads over to the coffee maker and starts it -- the coffee is already in it, waiting for the timer to go off in the morning.

"I don't want to go back to sleep." He looks at the clock; it's indeed very late.

[a_shadow]

"No," she says. "We can stay up together, it's okay." She steps up to him and slips a hand into his robe to wrap around his waist. They are both self-employed; it's all right if they mutually take a morning off to sleep in later.

She's not one to typically talk much about her feelings or what she's experienced but the dream is still so bothersome so feels something about it ready to be blurted out. "I've never had a real dream before," she says softly. "I usually just dream memories, and that's all."

[ryuuzaki]

He's been focused enough on his own dream that he hasn't worried much about hers, outside of the fact that she's had one and it's left her rattled and subdued, which any bad dream might. When she slips her arm around his waist, he briefly clings close to her, leaning his head down to rest against hers, but when she begins to talk, he pulls back and looks at her with interest.

"Never?"

It strikes him as a little peculiar, even for an A.I... isn't her brain supposed to mimic a human one in a lot of respects? She doesn't lack imagination in her waking life, and yet --

[a_shadow]

"Well, maybe I do and I just don't remember," she says. "People do that, right?" She shrugs a little, sighing, and brings her head closer to lean on him the way he'd been doing a moment before. "I just can't shake the feeling of being...trapped," she mutters. "It was like being in a water balloon, except it was stuck to me, and it was full of blood."

[ryuuzaki]

He lets her settle in again and brings his head up to her hair when she leans against him, and when she begins to describe her dream, he listens sleepily. Everything in their kitchen still has the typical middle-of-the-night haze of unreality, and --

and then he registers what she's saying, and stiffens.

"Full of blood, and you couldn't get out?"

[a_shadow]

"Yeah," she says, not having registered the way he stiffened. Instead she takes it as a cue to cling to him a little closer, slipping her other arm in his robe as well and setting her hand on his hip. "Normally, it wouldn't be a big deal. I could get out of that kind of situation. But I...I couldn't, I..."

[ryuuzaki]

He's now completely unresponsive to her increased overtures; his hand is still on her head, unmoving, but his pose doesn't shift at all the way it normally would when she embraces him and sets her hand on his hip.

"It's a big deal," he says, and realizes that he feels a little sick. It's been a while since he's had the same nightmare as someone else at the same time. The implications are bad. How bad, he isn't yet sure.

[a_shadow]

She pulls back slightly, looking up into his face. He's not looking down at her in return. "What are you saying?" she asks.

[ryuuzaki]

He looks down at her, but his movement is slightly jerky.

"I'm saying that I had the same dream." He detaches a little and leans against the counter. "It's already a little unusual that we would both be having nightmares at the same time, particularly without any recent obvious stressors... but unusual isn't the same thing as impossible. The same nightmare, however..."

He doesn't finish, only looks flatly into her eyes.

[a_shadow]

She looks almost skeptical for a moment—and then her brow furrows and she looks angry. She takes his cue and pulls back slightly, lowering her hands from his sides. "Someone got in my head," she says. "That's what you're saying, right? That someone planted this nightmare in you and in me and they got into our heads."

[ryuuzaki]

He frowns. His eyes are dry and tired and so he pushes the lids together again and then opens them. He and Tex are in their kitchen; there's nothing to fear -- for now. It's completely safe to close his eyes momentarily if he needs to.

"'Planted' implies intent. It may not be something so mechanical... there are any number of questions to ask. Did they intend for other people to see it, or are they someone who sometimes broadcasts this sort of thing without meaning to -- which could imply a relatively recent arrival. If they intended for other people to see it, were they able to select targets, or was it random, or pervasive? If it's pervasive, I suppose we'll know in the morning.

"Or if it just you and me, and if so, was it planted or... what? A matter of proximity, a matter of contact?"

[a_shadow]

"Hell if I know," she says. "They better hope I don't find out." She's obviously getting ramped up in her anger, even without him encouraging her in any way—the thought of someone putting thoughts in her head is almost as triggering as the idea of someone going through and taking them out, as the Director did.

[ryuuzaki]

For a moment, he thinks she might be mad for his sake... but no, that isn't it. She's probably mad because she's been frightened. Not much frightens her, and then, he thinks, she tries to play it off.

"I suppose the test will be whether or not we continue to have dreams of that nature, and then whether or not they're the same things at the same times." He shakes his head. Thinking through it has enabled him to calm himself, to a degree: he still feels tense, but not as frozen and horrified as he had a moment before.

There isn't much point in telling her not to get worked up -- that will only upset her more.

[a_shadow]

The coffee machine starts to burble, and Tex lets out an exhale she's been holding and looks at the machine. She holds there for a moment, calming herself, then steps to the cabinet. She opens the door and pulls out two clean mugs and sets them on the counter. "Go, sit," she says. "I know how you like yours."

[ryuuzaki]

He gives her a long, narrow look, then nods and meanders out into the next room to a sofa. The chairs are mostly out in the apartment's big, open main room.

When he reaches his destination, he collapses into it, curling up and tucking his knees under. He's very tired, but paradoxically, he has no desire at all to sleep.

A sack of blood... it can't be the old things, can it? Nothing from the Tranquility should be touching Tex in any way, unless it's somehow related to their trip to her ship in the Amissis-Re Ingress.

But if it's something new, how bad can it get? And why here and now? It's extremely worrisome.

[a_shadow]

She mixes his sugar into his coffee and puts the spoon in the sink, then pours her own mug of black coffee and joins him on the couch. She hands over his mug, then mirrors him, tucking her feet under and pointing her knees in his direction. It's quiet for now, and she curls her hands around her cup, taking a sip. The idea of someone rooting around in her mind makes her very anxious, very upset, but she is doing as she often does and shoving it down, so her outer appearance is now one of poise and calm.

[ryuuzaki]

He looks up at her distractedly when she enters the room, but he accepts the cup from her, then takes a slow, contemplative sip without initially saying anything. It smells good, tastes good. He stares at nothing much, then, thinking.

There are no noises in the distance outside of their unit. If some catastrophe were gearing up, there would be rising chaos outside, but there's nothing like that. Eventually he'll check the news, but if the nightmare is pervasive, it may take a while for the truth of it to get around.

Something nudges against his foot and he flinches, without spilling any coffee -- it's Hachi, nosing at his toes.