ataraxionlogs | 09. he then played every song from 1993 (open & closed)

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09. he then played every song from 1993 (open & closed)

CHARACTERS: William Tsang, Heather Mason, Remus Lupin, Brad Colbert, Robyn Oakes, & everybody else I will force to RP with me
LOCATION: Dreams in sundry
WARNINGS: PG-13 for conversational potty language, discussions of violence/horror themes
SUMMARY: Because dream manipulation went incredibly well last time, William visits with friends and acquaintances in places that they may not remember.
NOTES: Hi I'm doing threads in which William essentially uses various, sometimes bizarre dream worlds like a virtual reality simulator to communicate, despite that he's generally avoiding people. Permissions are here, but feel free to Plurk/PM me too if you want to do a thing.

Backdated and in-person starters available too, just let me know.

Heather Mason

[When her subconscious fills color in between the lines, the world abruptly sharpens into almost unbearable clarity, high-definition and fine-grain, as real as reality, but distinctly absent the truth of it.

Not unless she was raised in the 20s.

Smoke circles lazily under incandescent lights, mimicking the shape of the tight curls popular to the styled curls that many women of the era favor. Their table is small, clothed in the same wine-stain color of the walls, and they aren't drinking anything, but the clink of glasses and mumble of nearby conversation mingles with the sound of the jazz band up on the brocaded stage. William is smoking a cigarette, cheek smeared across the heel of her hand, looking a little bit dapper and not ill at all; looking at her a little intently.]

Are you fucking lucid yet? [he asks.] Oi. Don't get brassed off about your hair, all right?

[That she's brunette, he means. He's obligated, of course, to add:] It weren't my idea. [This may be more convincing given that her selection of pleats and gathers are in orange.]

Remus Lupin

[The blistering electronica stops when the sound booth catches fire. Screams break out across the concert audience, a couple of fingers popping out of the sea of faces and bodies to point panickily, despite that staying low would be wise.

Needles of energy weapon-fire flash out overhead. The bolts slice through the iridescent canopy that had backdropped the concert-- Moon Ra has long since been scuttled off the stage by security staff, but the canopy starts to fall, folding, and the fine-grained crystals structuring the complex holographic display start to shatter and fall like razor-edged rain. A foot caves into his calf and he feels the stampede begin to surge against him, all ripped fingernails and skewed makeup and comms dropped, abandoned in favor of brute elbows, stickily organic, hot and sour with terror--

--the ringing of metal hooves. Lambent-eyed, the cyborg horse comes galloping through. The sonic buffer radiating off its torso cleaves space through the crowd, thrusting people back from the surety of falling crushed under mechanical legs and instead into the possibility of being squashed by each other. There's a private security logo stamped luminiscent on the machine's rump, but the hand that descends for his doesn't belong to a crowd control officer. The lady who hijacked the beast from him in the Sins of Sycorax, maybe.]

Remus Lupin! [Estelle shouts. BTW she's even prettier in night dreams. Note also she is dual-wielding and steering with her knees.] Come on, Tsang is waiting!

Brad Colbert

[The humvee rattles and jumps gently in the tracks of its own tires, crawling along with the rest of the column of reconnaissance marine vehicles. The sun is ever hot through the window, the air ever dry; the stench of exhaust, sweat, rancid-breathed conversation and spent cordite are intimately familiar. As these old collections brighten and intensify in the palette of Brad's unconsciousness, though, a few wrong notes abruptly pop out upon observation.]

MANDALAY BAY

LUXOR
LAS VEGAS

EXCALIBUR
[Even in the daylight, the unlit signs are eye-catching, conspicuous. Probably not as eye-catching or conspicuous as the platoon moving down the Strip, but for some peculiar reason, the tourists and local employees rambling the streets aren't much bothered, continuing to go about their business, toting Sony cameras and Starbucks drinks, congregating by Louis Vuitton displays. The radio is jangling Britney Spears, circa 1998, and Ray Person isn't singing along. Ray Person isn't there at all.

When the driver's helmet tilts back to look at him, it's William Tsang, as anachronistic as anything else here. He looks profoundly different in marine colors compared to the Tranquility suit, and maybe that's enough to jar Brad into lucidity.] There's an oyster bar, [he says.] How'd they fuckin' get oysters in the middle of the desert?

Robyn Oakes

[Grey sand stretches in every direction as far as the eye can see. Seashells, smashed and whole, stand out in white or colored relief against the surface, patterns that provide forensic evidence of some early violence, where a creature was eaten or merely dashed to nothing between sea and earth. Though the wind carries the susurrus of breaking waves, no water flows in view, neither sea nor lake, not so much as a puddle sinking into the granular surface of the beach. Big birds soar overhead, made small by the distance.

William is waiting for her already. Khaki pants rolled up at the knee as if in preparation to wade, a white buttondown shirt open at his throat. He's remarkably tan, for a bloke who's been trapped in space for months now.

A few yards behind him, there's an indistinct stranger-- certainly male, distinctly handsome, but his face rather hard to see somehow; the helper carries a bag over one shoulder. Nothing of him speaks to Guangtou or any of the other beings that Robyn and William will have heard of; he's generic, voiceless, if not powerless than a mere extension of the other's power. William doesn't even look at him. He looks at Robyn.]

I've found fish bones, [he says. He's frustrated, from the sound of him, which might be why he forgets to think she'll be confused and perhaps frustrated too by mystique and nonsense.] But nothing larger. I've found fuck-all. I don't know. Have demons got bones?

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[And just like that, with a sensation like her ears popping, she is lucid. Blinks under the unfurling realization that what she says next is entirely up to her, and she smiles and thumbs across his cheek where it nests in the warm cup of her hand.]

What about my hair?

[Looking around, and she has no idea if the pitted, grey-speckled mirror behind them was there before or is just there now because she wants it to be, but either way it casts as decent a reflection as she can hope for in the dim, smoky light.

Her hair is dark, set into shining pin curls nested close against her skull. It makes her eyes - already large - look huge, bright and shining above her dark-painted, bee-stung lips. The perfect little pout is ruined slightly by the cocky, lopsided smile that takes over her face.]

Oh, it's cute! You think I should dye it back?

[Yes, that's her comment for now. It might take a bit of sinking in.]

[ Confused, maybe. But that's alright. There are worse ways to be.

And she isn't dressed in much at all, save for a seal pelt swaddled around her to preserve her modesty, or maybe William's modesty. Her legs are white and her toes grip at and feel the rough sand, and her choppy dark hair flutters in a wind that doesn't make much sense. Robyn tips a look up at the sky, the birds dotting it.

Keeping her back to William as she thinks about that question. ] I think he's got your bones.

[ Now she turns, hands gripping the edges of the fur. She is small, and familiar, except her eyes have filled in completely black, and seem slightly rounder in her face than they should be.

She pokes a finger at the figure standing ignored. ]

Who is that?

I think there ain't a need, personally.

[Dreams and all, but sinking in should be done slowly, so William doesn't press the point. Or make fun. He's a very nice boy, for a young demon-ridden unlicensed-yet-practicing functional alcoholic doctor who recently nearly made everybody on the ship kill each other. He's a very nice boy indeed, leaning back in his chair now, the creak of brocaded upholstery and riveted wood seeming terribly lifelike. He grins at her, hugely, then refocuses on the imperfect reflection behind her.

Her skin looks like it's glowing, and only half because the lights were early and the mirrors weren't machined perfect in this time and era. She looks happy. His eyes crinkle; he pays no mind to the smudge of ash that falls on his shirt cuff when he wiggles his cigarette.] You're a natural. Maybe it's got something to do with how surreally fucked up your homeworld is.

Really? Human skeleton bones o--oh, [says William, getting it, even as he palms the many-holed husk that a sea urchin's person once resided in. His brow furrows, the thought rebounding on itself again. He nearly does start to look for any glimpse of human remains in the vast grey plateau, but then she asks a very relevant question. His eyes go up again. Over to his companion.]

No one, [he says.] Someone I made up, [he amends.] Something to look at while I'm here. Y'know. Oh--

--fuck, do you want some clothes? [--like he only just noticed, about her fur. He takes a step or two closer, leaving the impressions of his heels burrowed shallowly into the sand. His faceless companion matches him.]

I'd prefer an ocean.

[ It's probably a little embarrassing, that she spent some literal months, maybe longer than that, dressed in little more than this. Blunt teeth set on pale, near bloodless bottom lip as Robyn eyes off the shadow figure dogging William's step, but otherwise accepts his explanation.

It's hard to tell outwardly, with the way her eyes are now, but William can still feel when she's looking back at him. ]

I don't have a lot of clothes, [ she says, apologetic ] just this and the uniform.

Edited (er) 2015-01-07 10:09 (UTC)

[ he's in a humvee. that is not at all unusual — brad has spent weeks in a humvee; he is intimately familiar with the rattle of it, knows how to tilt to avoid hitting his head when ray hits a hole in the road.

there are far too many holes in the roads in iraq, and recon marines aren't supposed to be spear-heading an invasion in open-top humvees, but no one's asked them for their opinion, and so brad being in a humvee is not unusual.

seeing signs for las vegas, luxor or excalibur in the iraqi desert is unusual, but what makes him realise that he is not in iraq, that it is not april and that this cannot be real is only this:

it isn't ray person behind the wheel.

for almost all of the invasion, it had been ray. sure, walt had driven once while ray was conked out in the backseat while they rolled into baghdad, but that had been the one time. it should be ray behind the wheel, and instead it's william tsang in woodland camouflage. ]

What is this? [ from one moment to the next, brad feels out of place, and it makes his tone sharp, puts his mind into overdrive. something is wrong, and this is not real. ]

[William says,] I can do an ocean. [His eyes crinkle, not like he's trying to be reassuring but mostly because he's always liked that about her. How seamlessly she seems to fit in her own, pardon the pun, skin.]

Here.

[When he's in reach to hold her hands, he puts them out. He also closes his eyes in case she's worried-- as if eyes and bodies matter so much here, but anybody who's had an embarrassing naked dream knows they do, so. Such as it is.] Do you care how deep?

I mean back in the world, dipshit.

[Which is. Very rude, not at all a nice way to speak to someone who has whisked you away to a beautiful mental movie full of the kind of music you've never listened to but always thought you'd have a taste for (spoilers: she doesn't), fashions and attitudes that through the filter of books read and movies viewed seem just right. For emphasis, she picks up his free hand and brings it to her mouth, sharp pinch of white teeth and quick release.]

Probably. But I don't want to talk about that. Somewhere like this would have been as welcome as a fart on a first date, that's for sure. Booze, music. The Devil/.

[She's wiggling her eyebrows impressively, here. See how demonic???]

Nothing has dipped my fuckin', [William starts to say, wistfully and wildly irrelevantly, before he abruptly decides not to ruin the mood. A grin flashes over his face minnow-quick, retires as he reaches over to stub out his cigarette into the ashtray with the silky ash of its cousins.

Would that all demons were as personable and reliable in William's life.] The Jump's tomorrow, [he says,] So I'll drag my arse up for that, but otherwise I been pretty fucking out of touch with the world. What's been happening? Has Ned managed to get his cock up yet? Has Kennex's cyborg solidarity turned into a fucked up supremacy movement allied with Smiley?

Eaten Natasi's muff yet? Are you skipping showers? How's the garden? How the fuck are you?

[ She pulls the seal skin over a shoulder to drape and to hang, only just concealing the important parts, white flesh and skinny hip, legs mostly unshorn because fuck it, that's why. Her hands place on his, her expression portraying interest and a little

uncertainty, because she's never seen anyone summon an ocean before. ]

No, but you might.

[EEEEEEEWWWW. Heather reacts the was she always does when she is utterly scandalized by something William says, which is to say she briefly attempts to look grossed out before dissolving into giggles. Terrible, just terrible.]

I'm fine. The garden's good, all this radiation crap hasn't messed it up. Uhm. John's too loved-up to be dangerous, I haven't eaten Natasi's anything, and Netherlands - yes.

[Is she grinning? She's grinning. It's a nice change for her. Since William went into his self-imposed exiled there's been a little seed of bitterness in her, something sad and frustrated and childish that throbs like a fresh bruise over things like Robyn (who, whatever else she may be was definitely not boring). The sound of his voice, the flicker of expressions over his face relieve the pressure.]

[ The bar on level fourteen is as glossy and empty of other people as it always is, and Charles is neatly dressed in sweater and shirt and slacks and shiny brown shoes. He already has a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and he's brought his record player with him as a kind of white noise substitute for voices of past and present, whispering ever at the edges of his brain.

The song that's playing is something by Jefferson Airplane. If he really thought about it, he'd remember he never received that album in his locker.

But he's not thinking about it. The drink is Dalmore, the whiskey that Ilde had given him before he kissed her on this very bar top, and the cigarettes are from home too, the pack he had received and used up some time ago, but these strange details are only cohesive threads woven into the tapestry pulled around him while he, in reality, sleeps.

The ribbon of smoke lifting off the end of burning cigarette seems random enough to trick him. ]

[Shrieks of laughter aren't out of place in this-- place, if place is the word for it. It dissolves into the silky dissolution of smoke in the air, the greasy warmth of light, buxom velvet furniture. William smiles at her, and it crinkles all the way up to his eyes. It's a little bit about the garden and John's bliss and the remote ideal that Natasi poses us all, but mostly about Netherlands and the resurrection of his libido.

\o/

And maybe he's felt a little guilty about fucking off that way, because there wasn't enough guilt to go around about everything else. Maybe. But he doesn't let it on right now; when it's easier to reach over, and rearrange two of the curls on her forehead so that the dark curlicues form a heart, or something akin, stark relief against her fair skin.] Well come on then.

Fucking tell me, [he says. But he's also offering her a hand, like they could go and dance. She could do worse, at imaginary prom.]

[It's good to see him smile, to have the closeness of touch even if it's only in her mind. Her eyes, briefly crossed when they track up to watch the movement of his hand, are still full of light when he presses. Maybe more so, and she rolls her shoulders in a shrug that's the absolute opposite to her normal I-don't-care gesture.]

Well, we haven't actually - [and here, gentle reader, an eloquent and elegant little gesture of index finger poked through a loop of finger and thumb, and Heather maybe not entirely unaware that the following action of taking William's hand leads to her laying her digital representation of Netherlands' prodigal boner in his palm - you're welcome -] but. It's been amazing. Like - god, I told him about that time I sent Erik a picture of my ass and he was all "I want it" so we tried to recreate it and - we got a little carried away. He's kinda on a hair trigger though, I guess 'cause it's been so long?

That's true, [he says. But he makes it deep anyway.

For only a split-second, there's white water capping up on grey waves-- only fifteen feet tall, but vivid and cold, a concave face of water breaking up into seams of foam, bubbles and spray bouncing out of formation. The wall of water curls like a familiar hand around her, blots out the light.

And then her skin is wet and her feet are treading and sunlight strengthens, so that it's a lattice bleeding through the surface. Around her, the water is very blue; the distant bottom greenish. Off to the left, the gradient shifts to black, deepening. William is a funny pair of legs beating around overhead, his feet and toes looking very silly and human as he treads water. He's a better swimmer in dreams than he is in person. His companion has vanished entirely.]

It's a dream, [William answers, very upfront, as simply as you can under the circumstances, which probably do not seem very simple all things considered. William glances back to check that Brad is okay. Brad's face hasn't changed much, but that's probably more of an Iceman thing than a being okay thing.] I made it. It ain't going to mind-control you into running around murdering any poor cunts aboard the Tranquility this time, though.

I was just checking in. [And trying to put pause to a series of grisly and morbid and creepily disconnected PTSD nightmares, admittedly, but William thinks better than to admit that. The smell of exhaust and the cough of hard-driven engines wafts gently through the air, along with the momentary redolence of fried chicken. Vegas has a lot of restaurants, what can you do?]

[Whether or not William thinks about the lie built in to this scenario is neither here nor there. He slides onto the stool next to Charles, a vague impression of squeaky sneaker heels on the rung and then his elbows landing lightly on the hard counter top. William already has a drink, which is impossible for any number of reasons, but people don't pay attention sometimes. Who cares about that.]

Have you got a moment, mate? [William asks. There's no irony in his voice. Charles doesn't look busy, but he does rather look like he's waiting for someone, if you aren't looking at him from the perspective that Charles is fast asleep.]

I had a question. Not to worry, [he hastens to reassure,] no new shit you've got to clean up after me. Look-- no glass. [His fingers squeak holes of transparency into the condensation of his cup when he shifts the drink to one hand, freeing the other one to point at his face. Which is glassless. He looks at Charles with naivete that is addddmittedly a little bit artificial; he certainly didn't happen upon this place by accident. Much of what William should have noticed awake, would have had he not been busily absorbed in his own bottle-smashing hands-wringing gay nonsense, becomes more apparent in places of dreaming.]

Edited (fiXED HOPEFULLY) 2015-01-17 21:58 (UTC)

You made it. [ his tone is flat, if perhaps not quite flat enough to confirm william's suspicions. the fact that his expression and tone are still neutral is an iceman thing — good under pressure, and this isn't the same kind of pressure as seeing men in the trees while unable to move in any direction with the humvee, but it's pressure nonetheless.

(brad would prefer men in trees he can fucking shoot to a lot of what the ship's thrown his way since he got here.

he thinks he might prefer it to this, too.) ] And you dragged me into it. [ it's not even the strangest thing that's ever happened, is it? the corners of his mouth still tighten, and showing his displeasure means both that he's not pleased and that he trusts william with that. ]

Couldn't just call, Tsang?

I don't characterise you as insanely violent or particularly predisposed to drunken dramatics.

[ Reassurance. It was just that one time. What's a few angry tears in the scheme of things? Charles would probably think it's weird to be dreaming of William if not for the fact he is not cognizant to the fact he is dreaming. Telepathy is different to whatever it is William can do.

At least, for now. Encountering William in a bar is perfect ordinary, even if it's his bar. Obviously, William was looking for him. The network is acting up, anyway. (Maybe he shouldn't be drinking in a crises.

Oh well.) ]

What's the question?

[ Does it matter, if it's a dream, or if it's real? All at once, Robyn is submerged in a world that she can control, feel the tug of every current and shift like it's dictated by the pumping heart. She rolls, looking up at where William is bobbing like a cork.

Muscle and blubber both are warm and thick beneath her skin, and she passes by William like an immense grey torpedo, spotted and sleek, having effortlessly seamed from human to seal. Cute face, fat body, agile fins. She turns him in a circle. ]

[glsjfls William flounders in water and gawks at her a little. He'd seen her in trainings, a few times, but he was inevitably relegated to land along with the rest of those who hadn't been born into households where swimming was an available recreational pursuit or somewhat toxic necessity. Up close, though, she's got these whiskers and these big eyes that don't seem to have any whites, all liquid dark mirth. She kind of looks like she's smiling.

In that moment, William knows he could turn into a seal, too. Her experience of it, her love of the water and her round body is real enough to breathe a whole world into living, and that is ever the point.]

I turned into a crockpot once, [he tells her, blinking water out of his eyes. It remembers to sting this time, from the salt. It's amazing.] You ain't so fucking tough.

[ She rolls over as she turns, pulling off a tricky manoeuvre for 'worth it' levels of result, in her opinion -- slapping him upside the head with a tail fin.

It's pretty firm. There's a lot of muscle that goes into the flap of her tail, propelling her across oceans in great artic migrations. He only gets a hint of it. ]

You're really here, aren't you?

[ She can't normally talk, as a seal. But fuck the police. ]

In my head.

I applaud and fail to understand the drawn-out ceremony, [says William, whose hand/invitation to dance was abandoned, but who isn't really bothered by it. He just claims her hand again when its done penetrating the make-believe vagina formed by her other one.] Although that sounds like good flirtation. Revving his engine up, are we? [William tugs at her. Dream-dancing is way easier and more conversational than normal dancing. Seriously. You are an expert at anything, when you're dreaming; until you stop believing you are, or remember that you aren't.

The band doesn't strike up a tune just yet, caught in the lull that seesaws between Heather's subconsciousness and the young dreamweaver picking at her manicured fingers.] I'm glad things are going well. Are going better, [he adds.] Did you figure out what the fuck was going on with him then? Or was ass pictures the unequivocal cure?

I haven't really been capable of holding a phone, [William says, apologetically, but not as apologetic as he probably should be about the whole intrusive nonsense he's pulling right now. Vrr. He veers the humvee slightly off to the right, goes out of formation, so that he can pull up to the curb. A tourist, a girl with puffy pigtails, snaps a photo of Brad through the window.] I mean, I'm all right, just a bit. How do you say.

Flaccid, when I'm dream-walking, [William decides is the best term. His eyes crinkle at the corners lOOK IT'S A JOKE BRad don't be too mad. But he turns the key in the ignition and the engine goes quiet, allowing the clatter of pedestrians and the mumble of the passing entourage to go by.] We can get out or look around, [he says, a little hopefully, and not very inobvious about it.] Or--

[William folds his hands around his drink, which doesn't taste so good in dreamland anyway. gdi snape. It perspires realistically into his fingers and he thinks about being tactful, but supposes he wouldn't be, even if they were awake.]

How come it ain't been you, helping me with my fucked up head, after the cluster the other cycle? You're a telepath. [In the tone of simple fact.

William doesn't even ask if Cassandra's better or more experienced in the art of healing. He knows that isn't it. She's Gunnery, Charles is Xenogen; she has the title 'Judge' wafting around her self-concept, and Charles is Professor. If Charles doesn't characterize him as anything loathsome, then.

Then.] Don't get me wrong. Anderson's sharp as a fucking tack.

[ The expression Charles makes is a subtle one, more telling thanks to the pause that comes after. Because he doesn't know why. Well he knows why, but--

There's a subtle shake of his head. ]

I've not been taking telepathy-related cases for my department for a while, now. Since I came back from home, actually.

Did Professor Snape refer her on to you?

[ there's a part of brad — the part that is training and instinct and 100% recon marine — that protests instinctively against william breaking formation and pulling the humvee to the side of the road, because breaking formation means vulnerability, it's strategically unsound — but this is just a fucking dream and so strategy isn't worth shit right now.

even if brad's not pleased about the situation, he still snorts at the joke. do you really want to hand out ammunition just like that, william, really? ] I hear they make pills for that. Something with a 'v'.

[ he gets out of the humvee, and maybe he slams the door shut a little harder than necessary, but again: it's a fucking dream. the hopeful look on william's face doesn't quite help. ]

We're not drawing anything out. It's like, the exact opposite.

[Wiggling her fingers in his grip, and this is more of a hello than an attempt to get away or illustration - the dark polish on them matches her lips, like her hair not a color she'd ever consciously chosen for herself, but cute now that she sees it. It looks good when she turns close and lays her hand against his shoulder, close to his neck, like she's done this kind of dancing before ever. She's not even aware enough of the boost in expertise the dream is giving her to be impressed with herself.]

I don't think he'd be able to get it in before it was all over. It's like he's a damn teenager all over ag-

oh. Ohhhhhh. Oh, my god.

[She's really good at keeping her thoughts to herself, this one.]

[Ahh ahh. William winds up flailing around in white water, having to wipe salty!! unpleasant liquid out of his eyes. But when his hands sink again, there's a grin on his face. He thinks her talking seal situation was a good decision. He likes that she can make decisions in here.]

Yeh.

[His feet fan white under the translucency of water, toes splaying, not as good as flippers by a long shot.] This pissing you off? [he asks. Accidentally gets water in his mouth, has to pwah it out again.] Did I fuck it up.

No! It's brilliant.

[ She swims around to bob in the water before him, keeping buoyed with a little more ease. Influence saturates into water, makes it easier for him as well to stay afloat, even as the ocean's wildness can still be felt like a brewing storm.

Look at her one way, and she's still Robyn Oakes, black hair plastered to her skull, white lips pinched into a smile and hands splayed to balance on dark water. Look another way, and she's still the seal, spotted and smiling. A loose sense of self -- so it can go, in dreams. She is mainly the seal, except between words. ]

Is this a training exercise?

With input from the Chief Security Officer, yeah, [William replies. He'd say that they've figured out some things, that it's worked. They're making progress. He understands something of what's happened to him better than he did before.

But this isn't about that. Nice try Captain Telepathy.] Something went tits up at home, then, [he says. It has the quality of a question to it. His thumb goes white where it presses down on the lip of his glass.] Something that changed the way you see fuckups you used to clean up after.

[And William starts laughing.

He's the most lucid dreamer and entirely unconscious and he just keeps laughing like he can't stop. As a consolation to Ned's hypothetical affronted spirit, maybe the dream version of rib pain is a headache and William will regret this later but

for the duration of this tag he is just laughing and ergo perhaps once stubbing Heather's foot mid-dance.

The jazz band doesn't care; they play on.]

Stop that! I'm trying to have a goddamn revelation here!

[Less convincing because she's laughing too, even while she thumps him in the arm, the bounce and swish of her dress and the clatter of beads as they dance just illustrating her bouyant mood.]

I'm trying to deal with the idea that my boyfriend might be a new baby nation and my jerk best friend is too busy laughing at my sex life to support me. If we ever do get married? I'm having one of the wizards magic you up a bruise-purple taffeta bridesmaid dress. With an assbow.

Yes, well.

[ Nothing William is saying can be argued and nothing about it does Charles wish to address, but here they are, and he taps some ash to distract himself with, takes a lungful of dream-smoke and breathes it out into dream-air. A harsh exhale, dismissive. ]

I might not have demons to blame, but I know what it's like, to have your abilities betray you. My sense of control is as such I shouldn't be mucking around in anyone's mind.

Nah, mate. [William starts to float better. float float float. His teeth flash bright, whiter than the soles of his feet underneath the water. He thinks it's cool, that the in between and the certainty of her is equally comfortable in both shapes. He wasn't the same way, even before his powers went off on him.] This is--

[he spends a moment thinking.] Safe, [he decides. A little wave laps over his ear.] Safe--ish. Won't fuck you up-- I mean nightmares can, but if you've got two people involved it tends to be a bit more stable. [He screws up his face like he finds this notion distasteful, probably because it's true:] We're our own worst critics. I think that tends to come out in bad dreams.

Not that you've usually got that problem. From what I can remember.

[The term 'assbow' is hardly going to cure William of the giggles anytime soon. His whole face crinkles, lit up, brilliant and utterly free of equivocation, not like he's been in the real world at all, although

although the peculiarity of the first part of her hella run-on sentence brings him around in a moment, somewhere between the saucy brass in the background and the waitress tripping over a snag of carpet.]

Baby nation, [he says.] What's this, a fucking reincarnation cycle? [He supposes something horrible probably did happen to most descendants of the original Dutch persons-- a theory they'd shared, but that hadn't finished in a quasi-spiritual conclusion.]

Yeah.

[Run-on sentences are the result of run-on thoughts, and she's been having a lot. Perhaps, if the situation were calmer, she'd lay it out for William - that they hadn't had sex since before Heather lost her leg, and if it's long enough to gain a BFF it's long enough to gain concerns about your attractiveness, and the excitement of finding that you do not, in fact, have a guaranteed boner-killer a handspan beneath your right hip, and the joy of looking at someone with that balance of love and lust in your eyes and seeing them return it -]

Maybe.

[She twists, left foot kicking up behind her right knee, body torquing in time to the music.]

He said he felt the Gardens. Like home. Like - you know. Holland.

[Heh heh. Nor William, really. (It's not skepticism at all, but there is a sidelong quality to William's glance when he says:)]

It's for my own good then.

[Charles has already begun to draw the comparison. William thinks about that for a fleeting second.] Do you find yourself having to make excuses for not turning up, [he asks.] Shit like, 'they was fine before I came along, they'll be fine without me now.' Or, 'I'll do more harm than good.' That sort.

It's not the sort of skillset with an awful lot of problems. None like that.

[ Not a training exercise, then. Context seems to come back to her, for a moment, and she's human enough to reach out a hand and touch his arm, not requiring the kind of flailing about that would normally come with keeping one half submerged in deep water. As soon as she does, that similar security settles around him, a subtle lift of unnatural current.

Her smile is thin and pale. ]

How's your head lately?

[ It is for William's own good, or just enough so that Charles can be convinced. Side long quality to comment isn't acknowledged -- he remembers his drink and takes a sip, catching the last of stinging alcohol at the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and keeping his attention forward at the way William's questions seem to have prying claws.

He's pretty sure William needs more immediate help than he does, resistance bowing his posture ever so, but at the same time-- ]

Perhaps with better grammar. Sorry, [ comes quick, unsure if joking came across appropriately light to be an actual joke instead of 'being a deflective dick'. ] But I do think it might be true this time, here. [ He allows; ] It hasn't always.

[ALYSSA I WAS SEMI-RIGHT

I MEAN

MY THEORY WAS THAT NED'S BRAIN WAS READJUSTING SO THAT HEATHER BECAME HOME BUT THE GARDENS IS PRETTY CLOSE, SHE WORKS IN THE GARDENS, SHE'S PART OF THE GARDENS, IT'S ACTUALLY SUPER ROMANTIC!!!!!!!!11ELEVENONE11 UNLESS EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TO GO HORRIBLY WRONG

ANYWAY WILLIAM'S FACIAL EXPRESSION IS PRETTY MUCH ALL-CAPS THIS, REVEALING A NOT-TERRIBLY-WELL-HIDDEN NOT VERY CLOSETED ROMANTIC :)

k.] You're so drippy, [he says, recovering after a few bars of slinky jazz music.] Both of you. I don't even know why I bother to keep you around. Fucking losers.

Nobody better set the gardens on fire or we'll be in some shit, won't we?

[William shrugs-- nonchalance that isn't.] Full of water and fish shit, [he says.] And fifty times better than it was. Feels good, to be in here. [If that's a cowardly thing to say, he doesn't appear to know it. A grin stretches its way across his face, and then something in the water changes. If faintly: a greyish sheen to the blue, not the ugly hue of oil or other sickness, but a quality of mutability.]

I miss her, though.

[And there's a flicker of light in the water, color in the grey, like a movie projector turned on far below. Superimposed over the make-believe lens, there's a picture of Heather Mason's face, her flippy blonde hair and wide white smile brighter than it is the way anybody who's using just their eyes might see it. She certainly looks happier, unequivocally happier, than she has since William met her. Since she lost her leg.] And this twat. [Snape next, his oily hair and the glacial precipice of his nose peering out, the kind of hostility that's nearly democratic in its liberty.]

Other people. [Remus' little ringlets swirl deeper than the eddies of foam on the surface, Mila's austere yet winsome smile, close-lipped, forklift eyelashes in sharp contrast to Lily's red and white, Weatherwax's shoulders hunched thoughtfully over a batch of potions coming by, Galadriel and Luthien standing numinous and peculiarly anachronistic against the cold chrome of the lab, Caprica's ridiculous tanktop and terrifying array of teeth-- the circles under little Cora's eyes that don't make her less pretty. WILLIAM HAS A PROblem where everyone looks pretty, unthinkingly.] I might miss work, a little, [he supposes. There is a flicker of other faces. Different departments. A couple naked butts as seen during the Jump.]

What are you up to, when you ain't sleeping?

[William is under no illusion that he's perfect, even in absence of proper, cognizant, moral self-awareness re: that he's still hacking people's brains without permission. He makes a face at the dig at his grammar, says,] Prick, [and takes a drink from his fake drink. He studies Charles in the reflection across the counter.]

Do you think it was brain damage?

I'm not taking the piss, [he adds.] I'm just saying. If you was knocked in the head, the nanites will probably undo the damage over time. Or we've got neurosurgery and some of the best neurosurgeons in all the history of time, aboard this ship. Besides, neuroplasticity's on your side. [William is familiar with the fact that Charles is A Scientist; he predicts that Charles either knows what that means or he'll guess close enough.] There's a lot we can do, even beyond Cassandra training you back up or whatever.

[IT'S GOING TO GO HORRIBLY WRONG but hopefully not irretrievably so I guess time will tell

but meanwhile Heather is beaming at William's drippy face, and while at this stage she hasn't expressed to Netherlands that she would, as a matter of fact, very much like to get married with fancy clothes and vows to love and all the accompanying foof - if it happened, she'd want William there, doing her makeup and arranging her dress and holding her bouquet and smirking at her because he fucking told her so months ago.]

'cause you looooove me. And if anyone starts a fire in the gardens you're helping me beat the shit out of them. We already know you're good at that.

[GRIN]

How'd that turn out, by the way? You patch things up with Remus?

[William is instantly snorty and defensive, in a way that he thinks isn't snorty at all or even the slightest bit adolescent in that particular way. He makes a dismissive sniff, maybe, is all.] Nah, love, [he says.] There's fuck-all to patch up. I think we've got an understanding, [as they dip around the corner of the dancefloor to a saucy arpeggio of brass.] Or a comfortable misunderstanding, what with the mystery of nearly-murder that happened back in the wizarding world.

[He had perhaps glimmered a bit at that throwback to his own attempted murder of wizrds. Not something he'd ever admit to that in the waking world. Thug life!! with tiny persons typically designated as gardeners and doctors. It's gritty and real.] Why? Have you run into him 'round the ship or something? [he asks, despite that he really would rather be planning Heather's wedding.] If he been saying some shit-- [He doesn't really think that Remus would, actually, and certainly not to Heather Mason.

Remus is so nice about all the everything that happened. It's obviously at least ten percent passive-aggressive, but William would like proof or an eyewitness account that the other ninety percent is an ugly doomed mess as well. Not trying is definitely the best option.]

No shit!

[cheerful, bubbly. Because why wouldn't it be? She's bopping around the dancefloor with her bff, sweet dreams a pleasant escape from how fucked everything else is.]

I was coming to see you and I got stuck in that creepy fucking magic mistletoe, and he got me out. It was pretty funny, really. I figured he was kind of a wimp, but after a little peck didn't work he really fuckin' went for it.

[The inference being that she can't imagine how good he must be if he's into it, so go William!

She hasn't had many close friends, which is our excuse that the above should perhaps have been made explicit if not avoided altogether.]

[You'd think in a dream where William's superpower is literally he can control things, he could at least keep his own face clear. But it gets a bit

cloudy is all. Let's not say he grows cold or categorically dark. It certainly can't be termed storming, but there's a distinct, uh, overcast quality to the previous delight that had been shining out of his eyeballs and smile. He only wavers for a split-second, and maybe almost misses a step, before carrying on.]

That's funny, [he says, which ruins it because his voice actually sounds like he means 'that is causing my blood toxicity to increase incrementally and I may throw up a little in my mouth.' His eyebrow twitches as soon as the words are out of his mouth-- he knows.]

Oh. Oh.

[This is terrible this is actually terrible and entirely her fault, because. She should have told him sooner and she should have realized it was not funny, and it shouldn't have happened in the first place!!! When Remus was all "lol i could burn them" she should have been like "nah call my boyfriend" and everything is awful.]

Um. He. Was very gentlemanly about it all. Probably figured - do a decent job, don't have to do it again, you know?

[SHE'S GOING TO THROW UP.]

[Dreampuke isn't much better than real puke, so William hopes not, as soon as he has the wherewithal to focus on something other than the burny buzzy uncomfortable dreamfeeling in his dreamhead. He straightens a bit. At some point the music squealed to an off-key silence and their feet were stymied into an awkward left-right prom shuffle. He presses his mouth into a smile.]

Yes, [he says. As convincingly as any claim he might make to enjoying enjoying bellyflopping on a sea of vertical needles or a nice bout of pinkeye. It's not that he thinks it isn't true; Remus is a good person who prefers not to leave bystanders subject to the whims of carnivorous magical plants unleashed by his best friend.] Well, [he has to add,] you're pretty fit too, you know.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

09. he then played every song from 1993 (open & closed)

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TILLY UR TAG IS SO NICEly written

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I DIDN'T HIT SUBMIT AAAH

but now you have triumphed

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thIS THREAD GOT VANished from my inbox but im here now 8)

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:3

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