white_oleander | Room 210; Very Early Thursday Morning [08/20].

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Room 210; Very Early Thursday Morning [08/20].

Nightmares were nothing new for Astrid,; she'd always had them. Well, she'd had them ever since the death of Barry Kolker, and the whirlwind of events that set into place, meaning she'd been whimpering and tossing in her sleep since pretty much her first night at Fandom. She was used to them by now; she suspected Sabine was used to them now, too, but that night, her dreams had been...different. They weren't moody Impressionist scenes filled with more feeling than physical substance, they weren't flashes and snippets of various little moment in her life, they didn't have that overwhelming feeling of longing and loneliness that they usually had. They were....desperate, in a different way, mingled with fear and adreneline. She was escaping something, something powerful and oppressive, but in a very real, physical way. Danger. Life-threatening. And she wasn't by herself, that usual oppressive alone-ness that usually filled her dreams like it's own presence absent, replaced with other people. Did she know them? Who were they? She felt she knew, but she didn't. The only thing she felt she really knew was that if she didn't move, she..they... wouldn't make it, so she moved, she had no choice.

But she was also distinctly not herself, and she didn't know who she was, there were bigger things on her mind, until she caught a sight of her fleeing figure reflected in the smooth, slick surface of her futuristic, sci-fi surroundings, and she realized...

...she was Sabine.

It was enough to jolt her out of sleep with a gasp, feeling the racing adreneline of the scene in her chest, her heart beating like a bird furiously trying to escape her ribcage. She was sweating, it was hard to breathe, but she tried to slow it down, tried to calm down, tried to listen instead to the breathing on the other side of the room.

Then, as she attempt to process what had happened in her head, she leaned over to click on the lamp on her bedside table, peering into the shadows of the rest of the room as she said, in a loud sort of whisper, "Sabine? Are you there?"

Not are you up, because even if her dreams had been someone else's, that cold grip of abandonment was still clinging onto her like it was a second skin just then, cutting through even everything she'd just gone through in the nightmare.

Please, god, be there...

[[ for the roommate! And a big fat probable Content Warning, because a lot of Astrid's trauma deals with death, suicide, and abusive parenting ]]

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Sabine frowned in the dark, because that was some funny timing there.

"What was the dream?"

Astrid frowned as she tried to think of how to explain. "I don't really know," she admitted. "It was really...chaotic. And vague. And I think I was you, and I was trying to run away from something, or escape from somewhere..."

It was nothing like her normal dreams, but it was so strong in its influence that it didn't even really feel like that much of a blessing that it wasn't.

Edited 2020-08-20 15:23 (UTC)

Sabine went really, really quiet.

There were a lot of things (most things) that she tried to keep private, because pulling at one thread could unravel all of the things she simply refused to deal with.

"The Academy?"

It was like a Monet or a Magic Eye; knowing what you were looking at sometimes made it clearer.

"...yes," Astrid said, and even though that seemed right, she was still a little uncertain. "I think that was it..."

And she took a few moments to describe it in more detail, as well as she could, to paint Sabine a better picture with her words.

Sabine sat up.

"What the hell. Why would you know any of that?" It wasn't like she told anyone. She wasn't even sure she'd mentioned the Academy to anyone besides Lana.

"I don't know!" Astrid said, a little defensive now, especially after the wince she felt at Sabine's reaction. "It was just a dream! It's..."

And then some of the desperate confusion cleared, and she blinked, then groaned, closing her eyes tight against that horrible but familiar feeling.

"Another Fandom thing."

It had to be. Apparently having them share all their thoughts through conversation like last time wasn't enough, now it was broadcasting things directly to their brains...

"It's not just a Dream," Sabine said. "I don't like this Fandom thing."

Which was probably pretty obvious?

"I'm sorry?" Astrid offered, quietly now, and uncertain, because she didn't exactly choose this, that she could think of. "I didn't mean to; I...don't know why that..." She frowned, not that it could really be seen, she imagined, not even in the lamplight. "Is it giving me your thoughts, or something? Your memories?"

"Yeah," she said after a moment. "That was how I left the Imperial Academy."

"...oh," Astrid said, after a moment, after realizing that there probably wasn't much else to say. There were questions, of course, but it was clearly not something Sabine wanted to talk about, especially not at...however early this was, when she wouldn't have even wanted Astrid to know about it, much less exerience it through a dream.

Not a dream, Sabine had said, and Astrid shivered a little at remembering, because that felt right. It certainly felt like far more than a dream. She turned over on her side, pulled her blanket up tightly.

"I'm so sorry, Sabine," she said again. But this time, it was for the fact that that had happened to her. Everything about that felt awful.

"I got out. That's what's important. It's fine."

So fine that she'd never brought it up and just said she "left" there.

It didn't sound fine, and Astrid almost said as much, but she reconsidered, especially since the rest of what she said just...resonated.

"That's true," she eventually said, latching onto that like a mantra. You get out. That's what's important. But it got more difficult when what you were escaping didn't want to let you go...

"I'm glad you did..."

"Me too. I'd say it was a nightmare, but..." she joked, but there definitely wasn't anything she wanted to share voluntarily.

"Whatever. I'm here now. In a town that should really stay out of people's heads."

"And apparently figured my own nightmares weren't enough," Astrid murmured, "it's got to give me someone else's instead, too..."

At least they weren't turning into physical manifestations to chase her through the woods again, though. ...yet.

"You've had them too?"

Well. More than usual, but Sabine wasn't going to say that.

"So bad I almost don't want to sleep," Astrid found herself admitting, with an inhale of breath. Because she should be used to this, but something was definitely going on that must be amplifying it.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

It was easier than Sabine talking about herself.

"Not really," Astrid admitted.

But, a moment later, she said, "Unless...do you think it might help? Or only make it worse?"

Then, another moment later, after considering some of the more confusing dreams she'd had, and now realizing that there might have been some odd bleed between Sabine's and her own, she had to ask, "Do you know anyone named Annie?"

Maybe she'd been one of the people her dream-Sabine-self had been with in the escape, even if that didn't make a lot of sense, since she vividly remembered snippets of conversation that didn't fit that context at all. Make tinkle for Annie, like a child being potty-trained.

Sabine was not one to ever try talking things out, so she was maybe not the person to ask.

But she could say, "No. Who's Annie?"

"I don't know," Astrid was frowning now toward the ceiling, before her eyes shifted to the wall, the shadowy shapes of everyone on her mural. "But she was un my dreams, too. Maybe I'm picking up someone else's, too..."

But whose? And, more importantly, why?

"I'm going to find out what's causing this and I'm going to blow it up."

She was serious.

Astrid was quiet for a long moment again.

"What if what's causing it is just in my head?" she asked.

Although she was starting to feel that maybe just blowing up her head wasn't such a terrible idea. If anyone was going to do it, she would want it to be Sabine, too, because Sabine could at least make it artful.

"Why would what's causing it be in your head?" Sabine wondered.

"Why wouldn't it?" Astrid asked. "Are you having other people's memories right now?"

"I don't think so." She wasn't going to say it, but seeing someone else's might be a decent distraction from her own brain, at least. "But why would you see mine, unless it's a Fandom thing?"

"It might be a Fandom thing that's messing with my head, I mean," Astrid said softly. "Maybe something got in there, like...memory worms, or something."

Sorry, Sabine, this whole.thing was definitely igniting the gloomy and macabre side of your roommate.

Edited 2020-08-21 14:05 (UTC)

"Then at least it's probably all of us," Sabine said wryly.

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Room 210; Very Early Thursday Morning [08/20].

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