ArchivedLogs:Nightmares

Nightmares
Dramatis Personae Rasa, Peter
In Absentia	2014-04-11 Part of Perfectus TP
Location <XS> Medical Lab - B1
Gleaming and sterile, the school's medical facility is all cool science in contrast to the mansion's old-world old-fashion. All stainless steel and antiseptic tinge, the room is filled with the quiet whir-click of the various implements that comprise its medical equipment -- all state-of the art. The hospital beds are curtained off for privacy when they have patients, and in one of the alcoves there is a small operating theatre visible. More heavy-duty equipment is visible in the lab in the back, where the securely locked cabinets keep sensitive equipment out of the reach of teenage fingers. Rasa is not having a good morning, but at least ze now has some form of entertainment. Ze is curled up on a bed, the bed situated in an upright position, pillows bracing hir in some sort of 'comfortable' 'relaxed state. The teen has also looked better. Ze is an ashy gray color, with dark stringy hair, and dark circles under hir eyes. Ze is starting to look a little emaciated, blankets piled up on hir lower half and IV fluids fed in to hir arm. Ze has acquired one tablet from Sebastian, complete with ear bud head phones, hir gaze transfixed on the surface of this tablet as a movie about preteens and teens in an underground cavern seeking pirate treasure plays on it. There is a tray with breakfast beside hir, but it doesn't appear as though ze has touched it. Ze fidgets from time to time, trying to keep the blanket around hir shoulders, but also leave hir forearms free of the wrapping to hold the tablet in a viewable position. This seems to be an endless, slow motion battle. "...is that... Goonies?" Peter's voice is tiny, a little meek; it emerges from the other side of the medical bay -- where he is starting to shuffle toward Rasa steadily, step by step. He is clad in his standard dark black hoodie and sweat-pants; the hoodie's hood is pulled down to expose his chitin-clad face -- his expression one of cautious optimism. He is shuffling from foot to foot, like a bundle of barely contained energy; he looks like he might want to dart forward and tackle Rasa with a hug at any moment. But... he doesn't, because. Well. Hurt. The painkillers Rasa are on are somewhat strong and sedatives are still filtering out of hir system. It takes hir a moment to realize that Peter is there and speaking to hir. One finger moves across the tablet and pauses the playback, hir brow furrowing as hir hand then reaches up and pulls one of the earbuds out. "Hmm? Hi, Peter." Ze turns and puts the tablet down beside hir tray, remembering a little too late to take the other earbud out, and deals with the jerking of the tablet and the pulling cord for a second before everything is bundled up a little better and placed safely away. Then there is a self conscious rearranging of the blankets over hir lower half, hir knee sliding up a little bit to distract the eye from anything else there. "You missing class?" "Yeah, but I'm already going to get an A anyway so who cares," Peter replies, slipping a little closer -- creep, creep, creep -- until he's besides Rasa. The carefully controlled optimism grows flustered a bit as he sees Rasa closer -- the ashen skin, the way zhe's hiding hirself under the blankets -- smothering away. His expression darkens; his eyes linger, however briefly, on that shifting knee... "...are you going to -- do they know if you'll be able to recover? Physically, I mean, I don't know everything that... I heard it was bad," Peter finally admits. "Really, really... bad." His hand shifts, leaning down on the bedframe, a frown lingering on his face; his eyes drop down to Rasa's throat. "It... was bad," Rasa agrees. Ze lets the blanket fall over hir hand before reaching out for Peter's, resting hirs on top lightly. "I... am not dying anymore. I don't know about... recovery." Hir words are slow, hir throat tight. Hir eyes study their hands for a moment, wordless. Hir thumb rubs against the blanket as if trying to comfort the other boy, hir head tilting a little to one side. "What did you hear?" Peter shakes his head; his hand lifts a little beneath Rasa's, pressing up against hir palm -- the thin layer of blanket separating his skin from hirs. His eyes remain focused on hir throat. "I only heard... they made us come to the auditorium, told us mutants were being abducted. And Anole, with his missing arm..." The words trail away. His chitin flushes with just a hint more color, bordering on violet. Rasa nods slowly, gnawing on hir lip. "Oh. Okay. B knew everything when he came to visit." Ze starts shifting over, to make a little room on the mattress. "Do you want to sit?" There's another pause as ze studies his face. "Do you... want to know?" Peter pauses at this; his other hand reaches, grabbing the back-end of a chair -- and dragging it closer with a slow creeeeeeeak. Before, without moving the hand that's still under Rasa's, he sits down. He's managed to drag his gaze back up to Rasa's eyes; the violet has been smothered back to his familiar dark-blue. His expression is... hesitant. Nervous. A little frett-y. "Yes," Peter tells hir, before adding: "But only if you want to tell me." "They... grabbed me just outside the Grindstone. Had coffee for a bunch of people. Made a good weapon. But... guy was a speedster or something. Started choking me. dragged me into a van. Fought hard - but couldn't breathe. Couldn't phone." Hir words become a little choppy, sentences left with out subjects, pertinent facts highlighted, most of the rest sort of falling way. "Lady reached inside. Hurt my lung. Couldn't... anything. Hurt... so much." Ze swallows hard. "Rooms. In basements. Smelled of dank and fast food. Blood and... fear. Took my skin, bits at a time. large sections in the end. just got dragged off, drugged, and gone. Hurt, but can't... remember a lot of it. Always drugged. Always awake, always asleep. Found Dusk. Spence came. Asked for his phone. Sent him home. Days. Losing bits." Ze closes hir eyes, turning hir blanket covered hand up to squeeze Peter's tight and hard - though hir strength is lacking. "Then... my leg." Peter's expression shifts, from nervous and frett-y to quietly worried, then to confused-worried, then to horrified worried. By the time Rasa mentions hir leg, his eyes are wide; his own grip on hir hand has tightened, almost uncomfortably -- squeezing down on it as he slinks closer toward hir. "They... your skin? But they... your -- why -- your leg--" The worry breaks into something a little more fragile; Peter can't bring himself to look Rasa in the eyes, now -- focusing back on hir throat, his mouth tensing up, teeth clenching. His breathing grows a little more erratic. "Why..." And then, with a slightly hitched gulp. "--find them. We should find them, and..." Peter's grip tightens a little more; now it is painful. But just for a moment; his grip is instantly relaxing, forcing himself to pull back. Rasa makes a little noise when Peter grips hir hand too tight, but it's distant, almost an after thought. Hir head swings back around groggily. "Shouldn't have. Apologies. Talk about it, people go get themselves hurt and killed. You're the worst. Always brave. Always going. Such a good Peter, but I don't want you to go." Hir skin darkens to the color of wet concrete, hir face looking weary beyond measure. "B... wants to kill, too, not stopping to think how." "...no, I mean -- I." Peter's breath hitches again; his eyes grow a little wet, focused largely on Rasa's sternum. His grip on hir hand relaxes completely, but it requires an act of supreme will -- the rest of him is a tightly wound ball of trembling energy, of confusion and sadness and rage. But he's pushing it down. As hard as he can. "--won't. Won't go after them. I promise, I won't. I don't think I could..." He sighs. His eyes close. "...stop myself. I want to hurt them," he says, hushed. "But... I think it's more important. That I stay here. And maybe -- look after you, for a while." "Please?" Rasa's free hand reaches over to sandwich Peter's hand between two of hirs, blankets still providing protection. "I'm not ... completely unrealistic. He needs to be stopped. He probably has to die, but this isn't a search and destroy situation. We have to be smart. Pick our battle ground, ready our weapons. Hone. Think. Plan." Ze is able to talk a little more freely the further ze gets from hir personal issues, fingers clinging to the fibers of the blanket, holding on to Peter. "He's building an army and we scraped to rescue a couple handfuls of people. This isn't Prometheus. This a cult of desperate people with powers they've stolen. My powers - and that of an unknown number before." "...I understand." Peter's own hand -- the second one, unfettered by Rasa's grip -- descends to touch the back of hir hand as zhe sandwiches his, squeezing back down. His eyes now meet hirs, dragged back up; the wetness has been blinked away. He seems steadier, more sure -- a little grim, but also very focused. "Professor Xavier will... know what to do. I think that..." Peter moistens his lips. "I think that, under the circumstances, the X-Men might be needed to... stop him. Stop him hard." "{ I'm sorry, Peter,}" Rasa adds in Russian, meeting his gaze. "Feel like I'm putting everyone in danger. Can't think straight. Want to, but everything hurts so much. Just ... want to be me again. Want to walk... talk like me. Be strong. Talk big and important things like how to keep the other kids safe, how to make things right." A tear falls down hir cheek, hir hands too busy to wipe it away. "but I'm so... damn... scared." "Rasa--" Peter begins, before squeezing down on that hand, leaning forward toward hir; so close he almost touches -- before laying his head down, slowly, atop of hir shoulder. Careful -- oh-so-careful -- to make sure it doesn't hurt. To make sure he doesn't make accidental skin contact. Not unless zhe wants it. His eyes close again, pressing his nose down into the blanket, into hir shoulder. "{I am still scared,}" he tells hir, in Russian -- his voice a fierce, harsh whisper. "{I wake up screaming, some nights. Some nights I wake up thinking I never left; that the time I spend here is the dream, and the nightmares are what is real.}" Once he's opened this bottle, he can't recork it; the words continue to come in hitched, gasped Russian: "{Some nights I just -- want to die. They give you therapy and you talk about it and it helps a little but it doesn't make the nightmares stop and you keep thinking you're going to turn around a corner and find out it was all just a dream, you never actually got away, they are going to put you back in some dark place and you'd rather die than go back so--}" The words get a little less choppy, now, a little more even; Peter's breathing slows, squeezing his face down on Rasa's shoulder. "{--but eventually, the nightmarish parts get a little smaller, a little shorter, and the lovely parts get a little bigger, a little longer, and you start to realize that -- one day the lovely parts will outnumber the nightmare parts, and it will be the nightmares that wake up screaming in the middle of the night.}" "{It... gets shorter? smaller? I... just want to die now.}" Rasa rests hir forehead against the top of Peter's head. "{I am so many pieces, scattered to so many bad people. I... am not me.}" A couple more tears fall. "{I know,}" Peter says, and despite the slowness of his breath, the next gulp for air is a strangled sob. "{I'm sorry. I -- maybe it will get better. I hope it will. It will. It has to.}" His thoughts are weak and shakey; smothered thoughts of <<want to help>>, <<please don't die>>, <<don't know what to do>>. There's a gnawing hunger inside of Rasa, a churning so strong to eat that it has doubled back on itself and turned to nausea. This feeling is reinforced by the horrible memory of someone trying to put something in hir mouth while a man stands over hir, eating hir leg. Hir mouth tastes like bile and acid not matter what. Helplessnes swaddles hir tight, keeping hir pinned to the bed. The only good thing in hir mind right now is the feel of Peter's hand in hirs. Something solid to hold on to. "Ah--" Peter exclaims, the sound tiny, followed by a slight *hic* of breath -- the sensation transferred from Rasa to him vivid enough to make him shudder, clench and twitch in response. The nausea hits him in a wave; his teeth grind at the memory, trying hard not to wretch, not to vomit. He manages, squeezing his eyes shut, just continuing to hold Rasa's hand. "--oh," he manages, his voice tiny and weak, but not pulling away. Rasa curls up into a ball, still leaning heavily against Peter, the memory pulling back as well, into a dark knot, pressed down, down, down, beneath all the pressure ze can manage, beneath all the water in the lake until a memory of the boathouse surfaces, one now tinged with fear. << He'll be so sad, >> ze admits, studying the memory of Ivan's face when they were close that once. << He'll be so sad that i've only got one leg... he'll never come back. >> << No, >> Peter responds, the nausea and sense of vertigo still lingering even as the memory is suppressed, his tone ragged, tired -- though not quite as ragged and tired as Rasa's. << He'll come back. Everything will be fine. I promise. >> << You're very silly making promises, >> Rasa remarks, just a hint of humor behind hir thoughts. << S'alright. Better than the truth right now. >>