meadowlarklogs

Of course it's Ian. They seem to trip into each other's dreams so much she really should have guessed it, but even the knowledge that this is a dream doesn't stop the rush of terror when she sees that... Thing. It's so massive it's hard to wrap her mind around it.

They're at that level of trust now where as soon as he pulls, she follows, not even paying attention to where he's taking them. "What the fuck is that?"

The truth is he doesn't know where he's taking them either. This is a stress dream — every single narrow alley, every street, every sidewalk is just a gateway to another. Twists and turns and corners that don't seem to take them any farther from the thing than when they started.

"It's them," he breathes, heart beating wildly. "Shit, we gotta get out of the city. They're gonna rip it out of the ground..."

His panic is making her anxiety ratchet up, and she doesn't even have the empathy bond to use as an excuse. It's clicking now that this is what he meant when he told her about those aliens that destroyed his world, but she still half expects to see those shapeshifting monsters from a few weeks ago, hunched and lurking in the shadows of every building they pass.

"Can't you stop it?" She asks, fear edging into her voice. If this is a dream, he should be able to, right? But then again, so should she, and she can't focus enough to even try.

He's asking two questions at once when he turns to rasp out an incredulous, "How?"

How do you stop a fucking alien invasion, and how do you dictate your own nightmare? He's never had great control over his dreams, whether or not he's aware of them doesn't really change that. Might change his decision-making, but it doesn't influence the environment. There's a duality there in his lucidity — half recognizing that this is a dream, half convinced it's all real despite that. The consequences, the fear, the pain, it all seems so close to the surface.

His feet grind to a sudden stop at the mouth of an alley. What stands at the end might at first register as a monster, until its humanoid proportions and unnatural stillness make it distinct. It isn't that first-thought look for an alien, no little green man, no almost comedic disproportions. It's organic, it's real, it's horrifying.

The voice that comes out is most assuredly not human. It warps around English syllables with an accent that doesn't align with any earthly speech, a rough and dual-chambered set of syllables that you can almost feel more than hear.

"Submit and be judged."

Edited (GOTTA BE EXTRA) 2020-09-03 19:23 (UTC)

She doesn't know, which a part of her recognizes is unfair. This can't possibly be just his nightmare, anyway. How would he know the details of her life back home? If she's influencing that, she must be able to influence this, but she can't think. The mounting helplessness and lack of control is suffocating.

Ian skids to a stop and Kyna nearly bowls into him, reaching up to grip his sleeve. She hadn't pictured little green men, but she certainly hadn't envisioned this. The sight of it, the sound of its voice, taps into something deep and primal in her, an instinctive knowledge that makes her desperate to run. It's the sort of fear she's overcome over and over again back home, hunting spirits and monsters, but this... She has no defense against it. No knowledge or magic or matched power that could possibly protect her.

Suddenly, she can't breathe. A distant part of her is screaming that she needs to run, but she can't move.

Somewhere up above, an apartment with an open window begins to play music as clear as if it were Bose surround sound in their alley. Ben E. King's dulcet voice drifts through, startling him out of his stupor.

No I won't... be afraid... oh, I won't be afraid...
Just as long... as you stand... stand by me...
So darlin', darlin', stand—

His hand tightens around her wrist, and he takes two slow steps backward.

"Kyna," whispered low, eyes still on the Judge soldier. "Kyna, we have to go..."

It stands stock still, unmoved, unphased, not reacting to the movement yet. Still, because this is a dream and it doesn't quite work the way reality does.

An ominous shadow blots out the sun overhead.

If the sky... that we look upon...
Should tumble and fall...

Just beyond the alley, Kyna's brother is being wrangled into submission. Hands behind his head, down on his belly, lined up with dozens of others in a neat row.

This is like a horror movie, and something about the incongruity of the music snaps her back into focus too. Kyna follows Ian's lead, backing up slowly, eyes locked on the thing in front of her, but then motion out of the corner of her eye makes her heart stop.

This is just a dream. It's just a dream. None of it matters.

She repeats it in her head silently, like a litany, even as Nico lifts his head and her breath catches at the blood dripping from his temple.

Just a dream. It isn't real.

Then Nico tries to free his hands, to squirm away from the group, and one of the aliens forces him downward again, his head slamming into the ground.

"Let go of me," she snaps at Ian, not a plea but a harsh demand. Before he has a chance to react, she yanks her wrist out of his grip, twisting away and sprinting towards the group, heart in her throat.

She twists away, and his heart drops through his stomach to the ground. It takes him too long to catch up, to grab her by the back of her shirt right before she makes it out of the alley and yank her back.

The judge that was standing like a sentinel isn't there; being a dream and all, nothing strikes him as odd or inconsistent about that.

He hisses low, barely audibly, "If they see you they're taking you to a work camp. There's no leaving, you understand me? The only way out is suicide bus."

Or, you know, death by horrific living conditions.

He stops her momentum so sharply that she stumbles when he pulls her back, knocking right into him. She has to grab the front of his shirt for balance.

"So I'm just supposed to let them take my brother? For what, to save my own ass?"

It's a dream, part of her says, but seeing Nico lying there, blood streaming down his temple, hearing the urgency in Ian's voice... It's so easy to think that it's not.

"Because it's stupid," he urges, furling his fist unrelentingly in the side of her shirt. Doing his best to use his height and his strength to steer her flat against the alley wall. Harder to spot, harder for her to get away. "You're not gonna save him, you're just gonna get caught with him. Then you're both fucked for no reason. Think about it."

He's so much stronger than her that it isn't even a contest. Her back hits the wall and she sucks in a sharp breath, anger flaring. Maybe he has a point, maybe running in with no plan is stupid, but just letting it happen feels cowardly. She reaches up to grip his shirt with both hands, staring up at him defiantly.

"I wouldn't leave you, either. I'd rather get caught than just stand by and let it happen."

It's rare that Ian gets pissed off. He might've been passive aggressive to her, they might have had friction during that patch job in the bathroom, but he's never been really angry at her.

He is now.

"Don't you fucking dare run out after me if they get me. Fuck that, I don't wanna live with doing that to you and neither would your brother." Not that he knows Kyna's brother at all, but any decent human who cares about someone wouldn't want them to suffer like that just because they're impulsive. "If you go out there, you're gonna fucking die. Do you understand me? Even if you live, you're gonna die. You haven't seen them, I have, people board entire busses made for suicide because they'd rather that than live in those camps. One flaw, one defect, one health problem and they're gonna put you down. When people get sick, they cull the herd. If they get hurt, if they get too old, they cull the herd. Don't be the fucking herd, and don't think I won't drag you out of here, right here right now."

His vehemence, that intensity, is enough to stun her into silence, but only for a split second. Then her anger flares up all over again.

For Ian, this is all tangled up in something very personal. For Kyna, it's not. It's a simple, broad thing—how could she live with herself if she just stood in the shadows and watched someone she cared about get dragged off? The thought of it makes her heart twist.

"You wouldn't be doing shit to me. What the fuck am I supposed to do, just write him off as a lost cause? Write you off as a lost cause if the same shit happened?"

"Yes the fuck I would," he corrects near-instantly.

And anyway, he's not holding her back because he's a coward, though he is. Not just because he's practical and strategic, though he is. "If you want even a chance at getting him out you're not gonna do it from the inside."

There are groups that do this kind of thing. He never hears whether or not they manage it, only that they try. A series of safehouses (that get less and less safe the closer you get to the hubs) dotting an almost straight line to this coast's closest camp.

She scoffs, reaching for his hand, trying to pry it free of her shirt. She doesn't even care when the empathy bond flares to life, her frustration and anger flowing through it. She's so sick of this, so sick of doing almost nothing, so sick of being at the mercy of things more powerful than her.

"What if they kill him before that? What if I never find him?"

Back home, she could have handled something like this. She knew the rules, and she was dangerous enough to be a threat in her own right. Here—whether in the real world or this stupid dream—she feels like she's been stripped of everything that makes her matter.

"What if they kill him while you're there? Stop being fucking stupid." What the fuck is that accomplishing? Watching him die, and not a damn thing more. It's not even like he'll get to say goodbye, no last hugs, nothing but a terrified look and then a spike to the brain from behind. Clinical, efficient. They even take away the bodies, nobody knows where they go.

But there are a few ideas.

The judge recycle absolutely everything. Nothing wasted.

"Screw it," declaratively, and he dips to bodily pick her up. He's gonna carry her fireman style over his fucking shoulder out of this alley, and she can hate him later because she'll be alive and around to hate him. That's better than the alternative.

Kyna's so shocked by it that when he grabs her, she doesn't even try to wiggle away until she's already over his shoulder. It just makes her more furious, furious enough not to check her volume when she cries out, "Ian, what the fuck! Let go of me!"

It's loud enough, apparently. One of the aliens stops what it's doing, swings its head around toward them.

Her shrill voice even startles him, and he whips them both around to check and see if they were spotted.

Of course they were.

"Shit," snapped out, but-- holy fuck is he less defenseless than he was back home in real life. If he could do this before, Jamill would have never gotten taken.

(He feels like he's getting away with murder, not being able to tell Nia what happened. Getting taken before she knew. It was his fault.)

His free hand shoots out and up, and the asphalt in the alley rises with it. High and wide, blocking off the path, before he turns to take off.

It won't hold them for long. They can bust through it.

But fuck it, he can keep making 'em, right? It's bound to slow 'em down.

Edited 2020-09-14 22:30 (UTC)

If there was any chance of them sneaking off, it's gone now. The asphalt wrenches out of the ground, and now the whole group is turning towards them.

As though Ian's use of his powers remind her that she has her own, she phases through him, hitting the ground with a thud as the air is knocked from her lungs. This would be the perfect distraction to go back for her brother, but even if she phased through the wall and the aliens, she has no idea how she'd free the prisoners and get them away.

Ian is right, but it doesn't make her feel better. It just makes her more furious.

"God damn it, Ian," she says, grabbing for his hand to run. She's not even sure how much of her anger is for him, though. She's mad at everything. All of it. How fucking stupid and unfair everything is.

She scares the ever-loving shit out of him when she falls, and it's not in a jump scare kind of way. He thinks for a second that he's dropped her, or that he's-- that he fucked something up, somehow. He doesn't have time to process it before she's on her feet, and she tugs him from the thought with a sharp jerk to the hand.

The relief is almost staggering.

They turn an alley corner, and then another. Buildings are stacked in more closely than reality should allow, and somehow they never make it to a street or a sidewalk. Just damp, claustrophobic alley after alley between hulking behemoths towering over them.

"We have to get out of the city, we have to get out right the fuck now," he manages breathlessly. "They're gonna rip it out of the ground in blocks."

Some of her anger ebbs when she's hit with that relief. He's just trying to protect her, as frustrated and helpless as she feels. But really, this is nothing new, right? Her hands were tied in the sim, with most of the monsters she encountered, even with figuring out why the hell she's been dragged to New Amsterdam in the first place. Why shouldn't this be an extension of that?

It's getting harder and harder to tell herself that this is a dream she has control over. Her emotions are too tangled and messy to be rational about it, and soon enough all she can focus on is keeping up with Ian's longer strides, looking for a path out. She doesn't have much luck. Every time she thinks she sees a promising alleyway, the buildings seem to creep towards each other, blocking their escape.

They turn another corner, what feels like the millionth, and Kyna nearly skids right into one of the aliens, hulking and so terrifying her blood instantly runs cold. Kyna barely has time to think before it's lunging at them. She doesn't have time to process anything but Ian's hand in hers, all-encompassing panic, and a rush of desperate protectiveness.

She doesn't do it consciously, but before she can duck away, the thing's arm passes through them—both of them—and the only reason she realizes what's happened is the glow of her chest.

"Fuck fuck fuck."

Yeah, he is not even remotely prepared for that. He doesn't even get the chance to dig in his heels before he's already halfway through a fucking alien, and his eyes go saucer-wide. No time to stop, his feet skip a beat long enough to look back. Hell, a second later he throws up a wall behind them.

"What the fuck was that," he shoots at her breathlessly, steering them around a corner and slowing from a run to long-legged strides.

"I don't know."

She's still reeling from it, so distracted that the concrete suddenly ripping from the ground makes her flinch. God, so much for a useless power, Ian.

He slows, and she slows further, trying to drag them to a stop and grab his other hand. That might not be the best idea if their fear starts one of those feedback loops, but it's instinctive.

"We should try to wake up, right? Like the other times."

He thinks it's that he put in all of his Useless Power dues for months while other people did kickass stuff like flying or waterbending or walking through walls and electrocuting shit. Week after week of changing the shape of his screwdriver mournfully in the back of a safehouse.

It's sort of like the universe is consoling him and rewarding him for his shitty circumstances.

His eyes flicker from her to the wall to make sure it's still holding, and then he nods absently. "Yeah, except that was you waking up every time, I still have no idea how in the fuck you do it."

He's always been a deep sleeper. His body's first instinct in the morning is usually 'nah'.

Oh, God. She can't believe he's putting her in charge.

"You totally kicked me out that one time."

That counts, right? But then maybe he'd just be trapped in here without her. But okay. Okay, sure, she can make it work. She tightens her grip on his hands, trying to anchor herself, and squeezes her eyes shut. All she has to do is block out everything else and focus, just like during a ritual. Just like last time.

And it takes a moment or so, but it works. She's waking up in her bed, blinking up at the ceiling, her heart still racing.

That must have woken Ian up too, right? God, she wishes she knew the rules for this shit. She half trips out of bed, tries to be quiet enough not to wake up Lance as she slips out of her room.

"Ian?"

[OPEN]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)