𝚐𝚘𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚊 𝚋𝚘𝚡 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚙𝚞𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗

[texas]

WHO: Joel Miller, Gene Hicks, Jai Kinvaio + whoever else ambles by
WHERE: dreams! dreams dreams dreams
WHEN: dreams
WHAT: also dreams
NOTES OR WARNINGS: cws: violence, gore, potentially mentions of child abuse.

notes: There are some open starters and a lot of closed ones, hit me up here or @vitarays on plurk if you'd like a character-specific starter! Or drop me a dream of your own for me to throw someone at! Just specify who you'd like.

starters in the comments;

Comments

[texas]

What?

（ he's used to dreams. nightmares. just about every time he closes his goddamned eyes, it's one thing or another. losing sarah. losing ellie. tommy, christ, sometimes it's tommy too. the thing is — joel just ain't equipped to deal with a world where people can step into each other's dreams. it doesn't penetrate in that way, he just seems startled and wary. the sounds echoing from the corridor don't abate — if anything, they get louder.

and then abby comes up behind jason, golf club raised. joel reaches out, grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him out of the way with a snarl of look out! and the club catches joel against the arm he put up to deflect it. the sound it makes isn't quite right — it's more the meaty, wet thunk of someone taking a piece of metal to a body that's well past the point of having bones to break. joel grunts with the phantom pain and shoves at jason. ）

Get the hell out of here!

（ no time, and now they're about to be beset on both sides. ）

cw: remember that scene where jason dies (child abuse, maybe death? hmm)

[reneger]

( jason isn't good at managing his night terrors, either. this is the kind of shit that he calls in someone else for, someone who knows how to deal with their own traumatic bullshit so they don't get pulled down into his, too. except joel pulls jason right into his own and--the club doesn't bother him, at first sight. abby doesn't. until he hears the impact. jason, who had been ready to raise his revolver up and take care of it, flinches.

screws up his face; expression tightening for a moment before he curses under his breath, raises both hands up and--the entire goddamn dream shifts again.

instead of joel's nice old mechanic shop, they're in a warehouse full of boxes of all shapes and sizes. it's dark, hard to make out damn near anything, but joel will notice that he's. alone. there's the sound of laughter, loud and maniacal, that same wet thunk, over and over again.

a loud, bemused, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it does me followed by a quiet, wheezy gasp.

following the voice will find joel towards the middle of the warehouse: a man standing over the body of a boy. the boy has his hands tied behind his back, mask broken, blood leaking from the side of his face, his midsection, his mouth, as he struggles to pull himself away. the man has a bloodied crowbar in hand which he swings, again and again, straight into the boy. )

rude (cw injury)

[texas]

（ the dream shifts, and to him it feels like the world drops sideways, and everything falls out from under his feet. he's standing with all the still wariness of a wounded predator — arm held fast against his chest because it hurts like the seven goddamn hells, but there's no clickers he can hear, no infected. no spores, either. nowhere he recognizes, but then — he's seen so many goddamned warehouses it's hard to tell for sure.

that sound, though. that sound is unmistakable. a dream, the kid had said. a dream.

feels pretty fucking real from where he's standing, blood dripping from the shattered wreck of his arm, soaking the off-white of the bone.

he follows the voices, and comes across the scene — a kid laid out on the floor, some deranged lunatic standing over him. chest heaving with exertion, the crowbar is caked in gore and bits of tissue and hair. it ought to stir him to something. disgust. horror, maybe. but he's seen the way this manner of thing plays out all too often. he's been the one holding the crowbar. he's been the man beneath it.

but he drew the line at kids. always. so while calm indifference may have been enough to ride him out — folks beating each other to death ain't his goddamn business at the best of times — cold fury takes its place.

he has a gun again. it's just the way the shift worked out. he draws it and without preamble shoots that fucking clown in the head. then he crouches down beside the boy, pulling a medkit out of his backpack. ）

Easy, son.

（ boy looks like hell. and joel thinks — those wounds aren't the sort you walk away from. instinct tells him he should leave it. put a bullet in the kid if he's feeling merciful and walk away. but that's not what ellie would do — she'd want to help. so. he's going to help. much as it'll be hard with one arm working, and painful on the both of them. ）

[reneger]

( this isn't the first time jason has gotten stuck here. this is a reoccurring nightmare, an event he gets himself tangled into far more than he truly ever would want. but it's--the first time it's happened quite like this. he bitched at joel for it being fake, for him being able to throw himself out of it if he wanted but jason--is stuck inside of it. doesn't know how to push the part of his head that recognizes this is just a dream to the forefront and--shift the narrative.

it hurts just like it always had. something has punctured a lung, a few ribs are definitely cracked, maybe broken. his arm is fucked up. the side of his skull is smashed. there are several smaller fractures and he's--definitely not living long without immediate medical attention that he won't get for months and months to come. joel ends joker, and jason--lets out a wheezy cough, presses his cheek against the ground because he remembers. all the bits and pieces after this, who he became, who he is. but the memory isn't enough to shove him out of it. )

—told you. ( another breath in, but it wheezes uncomfortably. it's fake, it's a dream, this isn't real, he can get rid of the pain any time he damn well wants to, he doesn't have to be stuck here. but repeating it to himself doesn't fucking fix it. ) 's a dr— ( another breath. a little steadier. not without the wheezing. ) dream. Fuck.

( eyes screwing shut as he tries to breathe through it. knows better. knows he doesn't get out of this, and that really isn't helping to set his nerves. to help him figure out how to change the scenario, push himself/them into something different. with less blunt objects that break skin. and it's hard as hell to center himself when he doesn't feel like he can fucking breathe. like the world is crashing down around him, like he's moments away from the building going up in a giant blaze and searing off a good bit of his flesh as he kicks the bucket.

there's the casket after. that moment, when he'd pulled air into his lungs for the first time. the nails tearing at the top of the casket, digging through layers of cushy fabric then the hard wood he'd been buried in. the broken fingers, nails torn from nailbeds, barely making it out on top before he'd run out of air and—

that's not where they want to go with this either. another breath, and he shoves himself over onto his side. purposefully. pulling himself back into this moment rather than throw them into a shittier nightmare. )

—a sec. ( as in, give me one. )

[texas]

（ nothing about this feels right. joel's had nightmares aplenty. sometimes about the infected. most times about that night he lost sarah. her blood staining his shirt. in dreams and reality both, he'd carried her for two days before tommy convinced him to bury her, but in the dreams she crawls out of the grave again, the infection taking root on her skin.

but this isn't anything he's ever dreamed, and the cracks start to show at the foundation. a dream, the guy had called it. just a dream.

but this setting, this stage — there's the whisper of truth here, same as in his. but the fact that it's so alien from anything he knows is jarring — there's something of his being here that's intrinsically wrong in a way he can't parse.

the boy rolls over onto his side, and he reaches out to steady him with a hand at his shoulder, but otherwise lets him do as he will. who's he to stop someone from spending their last moments how they please? ）

I can get us out of here.

（ it's said quietly. an offer, as much as anything. at least they could see the sky. it matters to some people. ）

[reneger]

( he'd shove joel off, if he was capable of it. reach up and tell him to fuck off, leave him alone, he's--well. lying and saying he's fine seems like a stretch, he's clearly not fine. but he's getting there, maybe. slowly. another breath in, but it fucking hurts and it sputters out harsh. shakes his head instead of talks. he's fine. he's done this before, he can--get them out of this mess. probably.

it's always the traumatic bullshit that pulls them in deep, isn't it? and he doesn't want this. doesn't want the grave. wants a door out. at least something that physically hurts less so he can pull his goddamn head together.

another breath in, and they're outside. it's still the same goddamn place, but instead of jason being--fifteen and in pieces, he's a few years older. he's not bruised and battered, and the warehouse is little more than rotting wood laying on the ground. there's nothing else for goddamn miles, just--a batjet, parked a good few kilometers away. )

Told you. ( voice still shaky and jason raises a gloved hand, shoves it through his hair. he's standing, in one piece, definitely filled out his frame more. closer to the jason joel had told off on the moon, albeit still a bit younger. ) It's a dream. None of this shit's real, you just gotta figure out how to maneuver around it.

[texas]

（ this is all too goddamn much for him.

jackson didn't put the nightmares to rest, but they made it easier to bear in some respects. a place, a home, a community. somewhere he wasn't always fighting just for one more day, but could think about — what came after that one day. the future. he'd imagined that he had years left, a chance to watch ellie grow up, a chance to be as normal as anyone could in the ruin of the world.

but his dreams have always been private — except, it seems, when they ain't — and joel is scowling at the change in scenery, arms folded, mouth drawn in a line. ）

The Hell was all that, then?

[reneger]

An old nightmare.

( not a lie but not the whole truth either. jason--clenches his jaw tight, takes a breath in through his nose. lets it out through his mouth. he got this far, which is better than how far he usually manages to pull himself to. progress, or whatever. )

You ever hear something shitty and it immediately fucks you over and throws you back into the same old shit you remember getting fucked over with before?

( don't talk to him about his mental health. )