station72 | [ open ] the house was awake with shadows and monsters...

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[ open ] the house was awake with shadows and monsters...

CHARACTERS: Rogue & Anyone
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Red Coast - The Barracks
WHEN: Day :028 - :033
SUMMARY: Rogue has nightmares, including of her time during the war. Anyone in the Nest and especially Avior is welcome to experience them in any fashion and/or be present for the aftermath and/or approach her about them during the day.
WARNINGS: Torture, death, imprisonment. Likely concentration camps and suicidal thoughts.

[ She doesn't mean to, and she'll feel terrible each and every time it happens. The nightmares have been near nightly companions for years now, ebbing and flowing through her sleep like oxygen through her lungs. A sound sleep is nothing more than a ephemeral dream for her now, and hard as she tries to shore up her shields each day, there are still too many cracks in the walls of that old plantation house to keep those dark thoughts contained. The memories of the war, the twisted hallways of her mind, the echoes of screams. She tries so hard, and still every night she wakes with a quiet gasp, shaking on the small bed and clutching the blanket she's been provided, trying with all her might not to wake the others.

Some nights she stays there in the little house, finding what comfort she can in the presence of her Nestmates, and other nights she pulls on her costume and flees, needing fresh air and open skies to remind her that she isn't a prisoner any longer. Sleep isn't something that will come to her easily again, and so she'll be awake for hours to come, even staying up to see the sun rise in the sky. It's a sight she's sorely missed, and even now it doesn't feel quite real. There are times when nothing feels real at all. ]

{ NIGHTMARE : the forest }

[ She doesn't feel the branches that tug at her uniform and scratch at her face, tearing strands of hair as she runs, every ounce of energy focused on staying upright, keeping moving, fleeing for her life. The others are up ahead, she'd stayed behind to give them more time, even seconds too precious to waste now. There are footsteps thundering close behind her, and the searchlights of the Sentinels pan nearby as they work to pinpoint the mutant gene within her.

It's a stone that is her downfall, quite literally. A simple rock the size of her hand, enough of a deterrent to cause her to stumble, balance tipping just long enough, and then there's a body ramming into hers and she fights. Like a wild animal, she kicks and punches with every ounce of strength she has left, scrambling for purchase among those layers of fabric to find even an inch of skin. Just one touch, that's all she needs, but the soldier's snapping a collar around her neck before she can manage it. A collar for the animal they believe she is. And still she fights. ]

{ NIGHTMARE : the lab }

[ Cerebro. The mansion. These monsters had gutted the place she'd called home and turned it into— Hell. She'd seen the gates around the perimeter, heard the screams as she was dragged down to the basement levels. The metal plating that had once been warm is now icy to the touch, barren of familiarity and stained with the souls of every mutant brought inside. Because she knows none of them leave, that isn't what this place is for. They're making the Sentinels stronger by studying mutants, and to do that—

Strapped to a metal table, they stand over her, scientists covered in sterile garb, practically every inch of them hidden from view. They might as well be alien, for all their resemblance to human beings. And as they cut into her, again and again, she sees that cruel humanity in them again. It's for science, the way they slice away a strip of skin from her forearm, right above the string of characters tattooed into her skin. M4827. They're doing their duty as the burn her other arm, searing the skin until it bubbles and blackens. They're saving the world by wheeling in another mutant, restrained and wearing an inhibitor collar, and forcing her bare hand to press against his skin. His scream echoes in her mind as she absorbs him against her will, and she begs them to stop, the words a jumbled mess as his healing factor becomes her own, the wounds vanishing as the skin regenerates, but they don't stop until the light leaves his eyes and there's no one staring back at her anymore.

I'm so sorry. Long seconds pass as they record their findings, and then it begins again. ]

{ NIGHTMARE : the mind }

[ The only home she has left is the one within her mind, the great plantation house Charles had helped her erect nearly two decades ago. Painted white and nestled within a sea of green life, sometimes she sits on that sprawling porch and enjoys a moment of peace and quiet, this being the only place she can retreat where none of the psyches will venture. Her sole source of solitude, a few dozen square feet of space within her own head.

But then she ventures within, passing the tall windows and rising staircases leading to the upper levels where her friends reside, the psyches imprinted over the years who have helped her survive. She moves past all that streaming light, further into the house where things darken and the echoes of those she hadn't been able to save are hidden away. And then down, stairs that creak and moan, into the catacombs where the darkest minds reside, the ones who call to her when she slips, who would rather see her fall and suffer than ever live a free life. The locks are methodically checked on each door, even as they rattle and the shouts within increase in intensity, the insults falling with the same sharpness as always.

Monster. Murderer. Abomination. Maybe they aren't wrong. ]

Threaded | Flat

[ He picked up on it during the night, but he hadn't approached - because Joshua's own default coping mechanism is don't let anyone see what you're dealing with, and he's perhaps a little too quick to ascribe that to other people as well.

Still, it bothers him. The accusations. The insults.

Joshua thinks he has a good sense about bad people (only more so, if one believes the idea that it takes one to know one), and if someone had asked him to rank the nest on a scale of "bad news" to "no worries here," Rogue wouldn't have landed anywhere near the top.

It's going to keep nagging at him, as long as they're sharing brainspace, so he finally approaches her during the day, once he finds a moment where nobody else is too close at hand (even if you can't get that far from anyone, with their situation). ]

Hey. Can...we talk?

[ She'll probably have no trouble telling what about. ]

[ The otherworldy thing that lives in the swampy depths of the woman called Annie Westwind observes. It likes nightmares. They are satisfying: a concoction of strong brain activity and adrenaline, sweat, panic. Something its psychic nature enjoys, like a human might enjoy a good true crime novel, gruesome but engrossing. The touch of tentacles does nothing to soothe Rogue's nightmares. They make it worse. Amplifying all the little details of Rogue's trauma into unescapable awareness.

This is especially easy when Annie shares so many of them.

It makes an ugly conglomerate of a nightmare. Too many dead bodies. Too much loss. Too much fear and helplessness. Things caged. Destroyed. But nothing is linear any longer, everything oozes organically into each other.

It's not exactly the first time for Annie, but it is the first time she's melted into another host quite so vividly. ]

...Sorry, about this.

[ For a very, very long moment, it's too easy to get caught up in Rogue's nightmare. There's so much of Bucky and Shiro in Sam that it folds itself into his time in the Raft, in the too bright lights and the smell of bleach and the squeak of footsteps on the floor, memorizing the guards' route and knowing that anything out of that means they're going to try their luck again -

they can try, they can keep trying but they're never gonna get it out of him, they're never gonna get anything out of him

And it's the hiss of pain in his arm - what arm, they took it and they made it a weapon and he can't - and the clipped orders in a language he doesn't understand but he will - you're doing great work, you're invaluable listen to the crowds cheer -

What's his and what's theirs and what's hers he doesn't know -

He's drowning and there's water in his lungs and -

No.

Sam knows, he shakes himself enough that he can feel the difference between reality and what this is, he can feel the pull of Rogue's mind and suddenly he's there, fingers laced through hers as he holds her hand, as he ignores the scientists in the background as if they weren't even there.

He doesn't completely understand, but he knows - she can hurt everyone else but she can't hurt him, not here, not like this. This isn't real, he reminds himself, even if he can't tell her that, not when he's not willing to try to take control here and pull her out of this. He doesn't want to fight her demons for her, he just wants to help.

Sam holds her hand, and concentrates on the fact that she can't hurt him, on the feel of skin to skin, the warmth of her palm to his, and nothing else. ]

( You're not alone, darlin', come here. )

[ grand old house and its grand old bones. it's a wondrous thing at first, like walking into a peaceful painting from a time he's only read about on earth - lush and green on the outside with a wide open porch and doors that are just as open. it's surreal, the way he can feel her going through each and every one of the motions, step for step like a ghost. the hallways start off as any hallway might in such a house, ensconced in daylight from tall windows, but rapidly shifting the further down she goes, an almost descent that he can feel prickling along the edges of his consciousness, catching on the barbs of his mind and pulling down until she makes her landing with careful steps.

it doesn't sound like distress at first, not until the voices start as she lays her hands on each lock. quiet little hissing things from the dark, behind doors that tremble and rattle loudly and locks that respond in kind. down here, it is dark, crypt-like almost, a methodically kept prison where things moan out, unforgiving, unrelenting. he can feel it pitch deep in his chest as their whispering goes on: monster. murderer. abomination.

(but what's been birthed into that empty space in avior doesn't feel nearly as horrific as they voices say. the softest impression of a person that leaves a sweet aftertaste on the back of his tongue like chocolate in the past few days. it's quite hard to believe that all of those names belong to her.)

he doesn't quite realize he's on the steps leading up until something cool like a rail is under his hand, watching her now with his eyes (or with his mind's eyes? both perhaps?) as she is bowed over one lock in particular, the thing inside jeering monster! monster! like a school child on a playground, taunting. but he's here now, wherever here is, a house like a body, with its soul as much in its windows as it is in the depths of its basement, howling. he stands on the bottom most step. beautiful and terrifying, aching sweetly. ]

( Now, now, name calling's not very nice. )

[ his voice is soft, a muted brushed velvet, a kind offering of silk, a warm jacket stretched out and offered. ]

( I think you've spent enough time down here, darling. )

Edited (laskdjf just repetition. don't mind me.) 2018-01-11 14:41 (UTC)

[It's the metal table that does it.]

[He's not as attuned to the distress of Rogue as he would be someone else. Someone he was closer to. But the similarities. The table. The restraints. The cold stares -- looking at you like you're something beneath concern. Beneath their compassion. Like you were just a thing.]

[He can feel it start. Feel the threads of panic and the familiar tint of purple taking over his dream. The people of her mind, of her memory, giving out clipped orders in a language he doesn't understand, phantom pains in an arm, in what arm they took it...]

[He screams.]

[Things are dripping from the ceiling. Bubbling like the poor man's arm in her dream. There are whispered words and remembered cheering crowds and you will be our weapon in a promise as if it's going to save the world...]

[Somewhere, he reaches out. Blindly. For anyone - for her. Metal fingers grasping for the mind he can feel. Someone has to stop this.]

[Someone, please...]

[ The nightmares are sort of inevitable, from Seth's position. Pack a bunch of people together, link their brains, and of course whatever shit they've got keeping them up at night is going to overflow. Seth's been managing to barricade the worst of everyone else's thoughts during the day, but at night he's not having as much luck. It's hard to keep your guard up when you're trying to get some sleep, he's found out.

Finding the culprit takes a day or two. Seth doesn't like deliberately touching other people's minds. He treats it like bumping into people in a crowd, knocking elbows and muttering an apology. All he has to do is go down the line of the newly arrived folk, one by one, until someone's mind strikes familiar. ]

Not sleeping well?

[ It's a fairly blunt opening salvo, though Seth puts a cup of tea down in front of her in some attempt to soften it. His veils are still on, though the barracks are emptying out for the day. He doesn't usually come back after he's set out, but he suspects this isn't the kind of conversation that should happen out in the open anyway. ]

[ Elliot's sleep schedule is whack. It's mostly out of a desire for solitude: easier to get if he sleeps through the morning into the afternoon, then takes advantage of the night to have his time alone. Sometimes he doesn't bother finding anywhere private, just sits in the barracks with the other sleeping hosts, awake and skimming his mind along their dreams, practicing synergy with his symbiote, trying to get better at blocking.

What that means tonight is that he isn't woken up when Rogue rouses, pulls her robes about her and steps out. Curious as a little cat, Elliot follows — but as quiet as he tries to be, he's not a ninja, and even if he was would it matter? She's one of the new arrivals, and they're connected on a gut level, some soul deep knowing. He can follow her through the dark because he can feel her — there's no doubt that she can feel him too.

But he doesn't speak first. ]

[ what did Nureyev say to him that first time they met? back when he was playing at being someone else entirely, with a high sweet voice and a cruel tongue. some kind of comparison between a person's house and a person's mind, that you can tell a lot about one from the other; and then that Juno had implied everyone has a monster stalking their halls, when he'd really just been spouting off the usual snappy pessimistic bullshit he always has running on director's commentary. but — well, he has to admit. if it's true, then Juno already knows that the monster in the halls of his home is himself.

so he feels strange, on-edge and almost guilty, about wandering through a place like this. it's not like any home he's ever been in, and it's not a feeling he's ever felt, this heady mix of warmth and tranquillity in the atmosphere like an incense, cloying in his senses. he's sure that if he touches anything, it will rot under his hand, love peeling away from the walls in decay. he doesn't touch. he follows the vague pull towards what seems like the center, which must be whoever owns the dream he's wandered into. it's an easy conclusion to reach, even with his limited time in the Nest so far and mostly hazy recollections of other people's sleeping minds; this couldn't possibly belong to him.

he finds Rogue down below and the feeling there is much more familiar. home sweet home. ]

( Nice place you've got here. ) [ he doesn't bother being delicate about it. he's in her head. they're miles past the point of delicacy already and there's no way to soften the blow, so he won't waste either of their time. ] ( It's too bad about the company. )

[ the joke might be lost without the impressions shared in a hivemind, but with that connection, it's clearer that he's being funny — he means himself. he's the bad company, get it? after all, he was making himself into a shrapnel bomb when he and Rogue met, and he's sure she doesn't want him in her head any more than he wants to be here. ]

Threaded | Flat

the mind, day...29 i guess?

does this work? somehow this is what I typed.

the lab

( the mind )

lab (8

idk what day but def the morning after.

no subject

MIND.