Event Log: Dreamwalker

[hadrielmods]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Dreamwalker event
Where: In your comfy bed and your sleepy head.
When: May 16th-26th
Warnings: Good dreams, weird dreams, bad dreams, straight-up nightmares. Please remember to tag for warnings in the header if things are going to be bad!

Have you been having trouble getting a good night's sleep? Tossing and turning, unable to rest those tired eyes? Or maybe you don't sleep at all, and never have. Not to worry! For a little while, you'll have no trouble at all falling asleep - in fact, as night falls, you'll find yourself overwhelmed with exhaustion whether you want to sleep or not. Lay down and rest your weary head, friends. Everyone could use a little extra sleep.

But what will your dreams bring? Something happy, images of a perfect day? Something hopeful, something you've wanted for a long time? Maybe you'll dream of anger, of the face of your worst enemy. Or maybe - just maybe - you'll have a horrific nightmare, and wake screaming, covered in cold sweat.

Not before others have time to see it, though. As you sleep, as you dream, the other residents of Hadriel, friends and enemies and people you've only met once, might find their way into your dreams. Or you might find your way into theirs - and then have to deal with someone's else's nightmares, or hopes, or anger. For the next ten nights, you'll find yourself either a host or a visitor, and no matter how you try you won't be able to stay awake once night falls.

Sweet dreams, Hadriel. Don't let the asshole fear gods bite.

► This log covers May 16th-26th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► You can't die in the dreams, but if you somehow manage to trip and fall and kill yourself getting out of bed, please report it on the death post.

Comments

[strangelic]

[ Haggard is one word for it. Frazzled is another. Castiel seems, if anything, a little burned out by the entire experience. His dreams have not been pleasant, and being forced to sleep is like having his own control pulled out from underneath him. At least Sam and Dean don't have that problem; no mysterious entity is flicking them into unconsciousness with such ease that they feel helpless. Giving them dreams, yes, but that's surely something they're used to.

Dreaming isn't anything Castiel is used to. Dreaming his own dreams. It's discomfiting in every possible way not to have control over his subconscious, to be trapped in the hysteria of his own mind in a palpable, inescapable way. How do they stand it?

He doesn't answer Sam's question. It's evasive, safeguarding himself, but he can't help it. ]

You should be sleeping, [ he says, instead. ]

[hollowly]

( it's definitely something that he and his brother are used to – but, for the most part, he's almost positive that either ( or possibly both ) of them could take or leave the dreams they're given on any given night, no questions asked. there's only so much that his unconscious mind can handle when it comes to the past catching up to them all over again, because he knows that neither of their dreams are ever good things, and if they are, they never linger. sleep may not be much of a novelty to them anymore, but it's surely not the same as what it is to castiel right now, finding himself an unwilling participant.

actually, he's positive that it's nothing like that. remembering the time he'd spent without a soul, remembering the lack of a need for sleep, it goes without saying that being forced into unconsciousness wouldn't have been a welcome thing. ( and that's saying something. )

regardless of the fact that castiel ignores his question, he isn't going to let this go, because he knows that look when he sees it, knows evasion when he hears it – and above all else, castiel has never been all that great at keeping secrets from the winchester brothers. the line of sam's mouth thins, and his head tilts to the side in a way that says little more than really?, even as he rubs idly at the back of his neck.

he's not wrong. )

Not tired. ( he lies, which is something that he has always been bad at. )

[strangelic]

[ Sam is so very good at that look. Very good at it. If Castiel had even known his father, or known his elder brothers very well, he would have imagined them giving him that look when he dodged the truth the way he was dodging it now. Sam had had a little more trouble believing that Castiel hadn't been through everything that they'd experienced together, and while he wasn't in a hurry to give Castiel any grief either, his methods of drawing a line under his evasiveness were much more efficient than his brothers.

It helped, of course, that Sam could actually talk about his feelings, unlike Dean. They showed in everything he did, and his concern and unpreparedness to accept Castiel at his dodge of the question? Those were Sam things. Dean on the other hand would let it go, because discussing what was actually wrong was too much hard graft in the emotional scale.

Of course Castiel knew he felt everything just as much if not more fiercely than anyone else. Just because he didn't demonstrate those feelings outwardly with as much ease didn't mean that they didn't eat him up on a near constant basis. It was angelic prerogative to pick those things up.

So he was cowed under the wordless question, dipping his head slightly and reserving himself for the explanation that would likely as not come, particularly since he's about to call Sam out on his own evasion; his lie. ]

You're not a very good liar, [ he points out. Which let's face it, Sam already knows. So they're back at square one. ] I'm not... I'm not enjoying my dreams, [ he continued. ] Any of them.

[hollowly]

( sam … has been overcompensating for his brother's complete and utter lack of ability to share his feelings as far back as he can remember. for one of them to be so emotionally stunted, downright constipated means that the other is bound to wear his heart on his sleeve, the beat of his heart in the shift of every expression. this is more than enough of an explanation why his interactions with castiel are far different from the ones dean gets, but he brings that on himself, far more adept at shutting everything out and letting it all work itself out without giving it a second thought.

but that's just the nature of dean. their separate relationships with castiel are what they are because of it, and what they have with him as a whole is something else entirely.

which is to say that, by now, both the angel and the younger winchester are more than capable of reading one another like open books, even without the infallible thrum of heaven's power to act as an amplifier on castiel's part. and of course, there is the fact that sam has never been a good liar, something that he will readily admit to even when it doesn't keep him from occasionally brushing off the truth in favor of wanting to either stop an argument before it starts or avoid an unpleasant conversation. so, he sighs, just a little, an admittance if nothing else.

the answer he gets is one that he wasn't quite expecting – if only because he'd been expecting to keep dancing around the real reason both of them are skirting the truth. but at the very least they can agree on this. )

Mine have been … strange. ( that's putting it mildly. sheesh. ) Wanna talk about it?

[strangelic]

Not particularly. [ I mean. That is the obvious answer to that question, isn't it? Not that he doesn't look at least the tiniest bit guilty about it. ] But I will.

[ He moves over to make more room on the couch, pulling his knees up toward his chin and wrapping his arms around them. With his attention fixed on Sam, he tries to work through what he wants to say first, more wary about saying something that set himself off, or that might irritate Sam. He didn't even know how to broach discussing that he'd been into Sam's dreams himself, although he wondered if the hunter even remembered. His own presence hadn't disturbed the place much, and the other time, when he'd realized Sam had been dreaming of Hell? He'd been grateful he was dream walking rather than sleeping, for the speedy escape he'd made before he'd even been acknowledged.

His own dreams, and Dean's dream of the bunker--they'd been absolutely terrible. It had brought to life in vivid detail things that Castiel thought had already long faded, pain he thought he'd put behind him, or at least covered up with layer upon layer of angelic lacquer in an attempt to hide it completely. The dents still showed through, but here he was, not in a vegetative state, managing to keep his head above water either so. ]

I know you dreamed of Hell, [ he began, softly. ]