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

True or false?: i like making all my CR ten times worse

[dedikated]

The gods only know where she's appeared. The visions skip past Kate so quickly she doesn't have any real time to understand what any of them are or could mean. All she knows is she feels the anger building, hot and toxic. It's overwhelming in a way that is completely unfamiliar from her own icy hatred of the few things that ruined her life. But it feels like she should know them, know these people as they flash by her eyes.

It feels like she should hate them but the why dangles just beyond her reach. It floats out of her grasp, out of her mind like it's taunting Kate, daring her to follow it. And she does. She takes the bait and goes with it, because what else is there to do?

And she finds herself staring at the mass of a titanic man and buckling under the burning rage that's all around her. It's oppressive, like the wave of heat that comes from a Creature defending its home, and God it is so fucking hard to keep her knees from giving out. But Kate has done this millions of times before, has stood against the heat and the race of her heart-

So she manages to keep herself upright. Just barely, but enough to allow herself to look at the man before her.

"Shit."

Recognition comes quicker than she expects. She knows exactly who this is. She remembers conversations from the time she started working at the Clinic and she knows exactly who this is.

And she has no idea how to deal with it.

[zen_en_vert]

The Hulk stares back at her. His eyes are violent, narrowed to mean slits, and a poisonous colour of muddy green. His lips are bared back in a snarl, and his teeth are mossy slabs. He could crush her. He could tear her to pieces so easily that despite his rage, he doesn't begin to try.

(He has been better, so much better lately, at not being angry at things that are smaller than him, and afraid.)

Still, it's a near thing, given the low growl that tears out of him as he watches her back.

[dedikated]

Plan number one in situations like this is usually violence. Stop whatever is from attacking regardless of the price, because the consequences for not doing so are so fucking dire for other people. It's something ingrained so long ago that no matter how many years pass since The Agency employed her, Kate still finds it hard not to toss knives and fire shots. And his rage is making it so hard not to as it presses down on her, as threatening as it is pulsating. Give into it and it will all be so much easier. Becoming loser or victor would be so much easier than trying to placate a rage like this. Would require less thought and be so satisfying.

If she could only give into this anger all around her, things would be two-dimensional and simple. No effort required and everyone's a winner.

But it burns too hot to be real, to be hers. It's broken bones and torn hearts, not icy stares and emotionless torture. It's too jarringly strange to allow Kate to fall into it.

She buries it deep in her gut and thinks of it like doubt or most other emotions - something to be ignored and suppressed as she deals with things more important than that. Things like remembering what he told her about this transformation.

There must be another way to stop it. Somewhere, hidden in that description that she can only vaguely grasp, there must be something that she can use to combat it. Something that doesn't involve giving into the ever boiling rage she keeps forcing back down.

"Bruce." It's - he's - already seen and heard her, so what difference does one more word make?

(Still, Kate keeps her hand next to her weapons bag and the muscles in her legs tense, ready to bolt.)

[zen_en_vert]

He looks from her, to her hand, to the bag, and grunts in fear panic rage warning- he twitches like a dog contemplating a lunge. His wide nostrils flare, and his brow furls, creasing just a little deeper as he growls a nasty, subsonic warning.

Running is fine, Kate, but weapons are a very bad idea. The fire burns, and burns, and refuses to bank, even at the sound of his human name. There are a time even the mention of Bruce Banner, doctor and mild-mannered alter ego, would send him deeper into a spiral, but it's better now- it's a call back to the surface, rather than a taunt about puny Banner.

[dedikated]

Weapons are all she has, really. But even they feel like they'd do nothing. What are knives and ropes (even enchanted ones) against this form that lurks in her boss' mind? If she'd even had the bombs she desperately misses, would her enchantments make the slightest bit of difference against a force so possessed by emotion? Or would they only be a plaster for a bullet hole, inadequate against the flow of blood?

The weight of her bag is, at least, comforting as it always is, letting her concentrate on the solidity of it and the feel of the faux leather against the tips of her fingers instead of the fury surrounding and infecting her like a poison.

She doesn't move, and God she really has no idea what to do. The urge to run was screaming through her legs, telling her to bolt and save herself, but would there be a speed fast enough to outrun him? What would that even mean for Bruce, if she just turned and ran without trying something to help? Would he just continue to spiral into the anger and never leave it? Because it's all in the air and even Kate feels exactly how tempting it is. Just give in and break.

How does a person even calm a rage like this? How do they calm any anger? She knows plenty about controlling fear, how to breathe through the urge to vomit and how to think under the pressure of racing thoughts, but anger is a completely different beast and one she's generally stood by and watched consume others. (Felt consume herself.) Kate tries to concentrate, to dredge up conversations and memories and fuck he never told her how to stop this. What would Dagny do in this situation? Her mentor had always been the picture of calm, facing battleground injuries with poise and a smile, always managed to diect and heal even while one of her apprentices broke down at the sight of all the blood. Dagny would be able to face this, she knows, as would Faith. They would both stand here without flinching and figure it out.

(All she has to do is think like they do, right? Control the flow in the direction she wants-

Way easier said than done.)

Her only movement is her hand away from the bag, no weapons in sight. "Do you recognise me?" Probably not, but maybe, maybe if she keeps talking something will come loose. "Kate. We work together."

If he attacks, she'll bolt.

[zen_en_vert]

Kate. It helps that he's dreaming, that the blur between Bruce's mind and his own provides him with several images, of sitting behind a desk and watching her, looking over papers, hanging out on a rooftop together.

He doesn't lash out. He settles, breathes, and begins to drift towards lucidity- within the dream and out of it, too. As Bruce surfaces, he surfaces, coming awake in the real world with a start.

He is at a desk. There is paperwork. He lifts his head up, looks around his little office in the clinic, and moves to rub the sleep out of his eyes, the crick out of his neck, trying to orient himself. Part of that felt very, very real, but-

"Kate?"

He calls, to check.

[dedikated]

It's an oddly easy wake up, for once, drifting back into consciousness and finding herself in bed. The images all seem to blur into one and the only thing that really lingers is that unsettling feeling of anger, still unnatural and unfamiliar in her gut. Kate blinks and runs a hand through her hair, pulling it out of its ponytail with a shake of her head. She grabs whatever clothes are on the floor and heads into the bathroom to change, deep breaths pushing the anger out of her body.

Thankfully, she's always been fast - at getting ready as much as she is at moving - because... well, it feels all too wrong not to check on the clinic, on Bruce, after that.

(Just in case.)

"Hey, you up?" The place is still standing - that's got to be a good sign.

[zen_en_vert]

He is. He looks up from polishing his glasses, and slips them into his pocket, swallowing hard, giving her a serious look and then a crooked smile.

"I'm here. I just-"

How to ask?

"My memories are kind of jumbled. But was that-?"

[dedikated]

Yes, she was acutely aware that asking if he was up after that entire experience was a bit stupid. Sue her, this isn't an every day occurrence. Her hand automatically goes to the belt of her bag, fiddling idly, letting the smooth, aged surface of the leather calm her down and keep her head in one piece.

(It was very good at that.)

"Real?" She leans against a counter top and shakes her head. Maybe it isn't what he meant, but realising that this place hasn't been destroyed was enough of a start for her so... Maybe? "Least- not outside of our heads." These dreams certainly feel as though they're real. Unnervingly so. Even nights later, she can still remember contents of dreams as vividly as if they happened. She's half sure that body parts still ache from injuries in them.

[zen_en_vert]

"This is getting dangerous. Whatever is happening. That could easily have-"

He looks up, still plainly a little rattled, a little overtired.

"I need to find somewhere else to stay for a while."

[dedikated]

"Where?" She blurts that out a whole lot more forcefully than intended. But it's a legitimate question when the indescribably intense sensation of being thoroughly outclassed and scared for your life still rattles around in your chest. Is there anywhere in Hadriel that would be an appropriate cage for such a problem? Even if they'd been back in her world, with all the technology and supernatural abilities she can think of, Kate isn't sure that something would hold that.

"It's not like you can sleep in the caves," she growls out, hands curling into fists because this is so fucking stupid on so many levels. From the Gods' stupidity in creating this idea of a fun bonding time to the very idea of letting him go somewhere as dangerous as the caves on the off-chance something did happen. That was just inviting problems.

(Maybe it should just happen and he can crash into the Gods' temples. Maybe then they'd get why no one likes this shit.)

[zen_en_vert]

"I've changed here twice now. It's easier- I wear myself down faster as long as I'm outside of the downtown core. Too many people, young men in particular, pull guns or swords on me."

That's an ongoing problem.

"It just makes it worse."

[dedikated]

"Great." The growl's gone from her tone, replaced by an exhausted sigh, trying to keep herself calm but just getting more frustrated with every second this is discussed. She gets it, god knows after seeing the transformation she does, but as a solution it seems no better than rampaging through the city. "What if you don't transform?" There is at least one thing about this place: it is comparatively safe if put against the places outside it. What if nothing happens after this night and that entire excerise only makes things worse?

Kate's still, her only movement the shift of her arms as she folds them, and that's probably the most worrying thing of all. The aftereffects of the dreams - the adrenaline, the anger, the sheer terror - have resumed their pulsing shift through her body and she has to keep swallowing them back.

This is so fucking stupid.

[zen_en_vert]

"Why would this exercise make things worse?"

He wonders, every bit the calm to her ire. This has made him cautious- but it hasn't really rattled him. It is, after all, where he lives, every day.

[dedikated]

"Because-" She bites down on her tongue before the words spill out too fast and furious, too thoughtlessly. These hair-trigger emotions, pushed forward by the dreams, made everything so much more difficult than it had to be. They made it all too easy to flip out with worry, pushing images of every terrible thing that could possibly occur right to the front of her thoughts.

"Unless I'm missing something, there isn't much in the way of a safehouse out there." She manages to keep the frustration out of her voice, to sound like she's observing nothing more than needing to grab more bandages before next shift. "And what if something else happens while you're out there?" She wouldn't put it past this place to decide that it was the perfect time to let the beasts loose or worse. She's not even sure how likely any of this really is, whether it's just her mind latching onto the worst parts of this week and deciding to run with them, but the images of something finding freedom and attacking while Bruce sleeps come all too easily and vividly to ignore.

"Least tell me you're not going out alone."

[zen_en_vert]

"Kate."

Bruce says, breathing in, then out, then in again, before proceeding, much more delicately;

"If something attacks me in my sleep, the absolutely safest thing imaginable is for me to be alone out there. I once shot myself in the head and woke up green and angry about it. There is nothing, there is nothing in all of Hadriel that can hurt me. I will be okay. And, I'd like to keep everyone else okay, too."

[dedikated]

She blinks, the confession stopping her rambling thoughts in their tracks. As a -- situation, it goes far deeper than she could have fathomed. As the dream worked to alert her to just what the other guy was and how overwhelming the entire emotional component was, so did that outburst work at shocking her into shutting the fuck up for three minutes.

(Not literally, but still.)

"Fine. Alright." It comes out as an exhale as she unwinds. Arms unfold and she rocks back on the heels of her hands, leaning heavy on the counter top. "I'm letting it drop." Which is basically as close to 'I'll trust you' as she can manage to say right now. Because, yes, she's still worried, even with that knowledge settled in the back of her mind.

[zen_en_vert]

"I won't go until I'm ready to try to sleep, and I will be a literal phonecall away in case anything goes wrong- and then I'll be back in the morning."

He promises, very steadily and reasonably, meeting her eyes and meaning this.

"There will be almost no time for anything to go wrong."

It's around here that he gets the sense, decides that this is about the month, more than it is about him, and so that if he's going to be a good colleague, friend, boss thing he should probably pause and just ask.

"Are you okay?"

[dedikated]

Alright. She can handle this - yes. She definitely can. No one is about to die during this hellish nightmare of a week, which is really all anyone can ask for.

(Right?)

Kate nods at the plan. That- that sounds doable. Like enough of a compromise that she won't have to worry about things going to hell outside of her own mind for a while. And after the progress of this week, she expects that she'll need as much to be normal during waking hours as possible. Killed once, meeting the ugly green twin, and the very thing that shook her to her core when she first heard about this place returning the dead

(Marc can't come back, can't be killed again and lie in a pool of his own blood while she fails to save him over and over-

What kind of defacto big sister lets her brother die again?)

they've all lodged themselves deep inside her soul, shaking out emotions she wants to keep bottled up. Soaking her hands in visions of blood that are so real she can nearly smell them, practically goading her to spill the truth. All she wanted when she agreed to this job was to keep her fears locked up inside and private, to avoid the almost certain look of scepticism at allowing someone who spends her life trying not to break down at stab wounds to work in a clinic. She just wanted to keep at something she'd learned to enjoy, helping people instead of killing them.

Her fingers dig against the counter top as she forces herself not to shrink back at the question. The gods have taken this choice away as well, it seems.

"I-" she stops immediately. The sentence doesn't work. It feels wrong to just drop it without the explanation.

"When I was twelve," she corrects, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling, "my parents were murdered. I- I managed to see the scene before it was cleaned." Saying things like this is much easier when she can state them slowly, like reciting answers to one of Dagny's quizzes rather than getting caught up in the sight of her parents' bodies, eviscerated and gory with blood. She doesn't explain that she managed to zip past disoriented police officers, nor how things went after.

"Haven't really... Done well with blood since." And maybe he's guessed that; in fact Kate expects he's guessed that much, because sometimes, after seeing particularly difficult injuries, she'll retire to another room talking about checking stock and other excuses. It's never really affected her work here, not until now when she can't even look at her own hands without seeing blood dripping from her fingertips. Nine months, six before coming here and continuing on until this week, there's been no issue with it. Nothing more than the occasional hitch of her breath at the clinic or wince of disgust when hunting. She was finally doing well.

But the gods had to take that away as well.

[zen_en_vert]

"Is that coming up for you this week?"

He wonders, listening closely, but first things first, trying to place this story- it doesn't take much to come to the conclusion;

"Have you been dreaming?"

His dreams from rage have been ugly things, but not traumatic, not picking at old wounds in the way other people have had to contend with. From what he has seen, he can imagine having come upon something like this.

"We need to make sure you aren't overly exposed during your day to day work in the clinic, then, for at least the next little while. At least what's happening doesn't seem overly violent."

One day I will not write a giant block of text... Maybe.

[dedikated]

Have you ever inhaled so much that you think you're going to pass out? Where your lungs are so taut with oxygen that it feels like they're scraping your ribs and your head spins with the dizziness? It's disorientating, but at the same time the only thing that keeps Kate breathing normally while going through all of this in her head.

"Yeah," she answers, counting ceiling tiles rather than looking over. (1 2 3 4 is death, didn't Diana tell her that once?) It isn't a whole truth: the dreams aren't spilling her parents' blood, no dream has done that for a long time, but going into the actual contents - into Marc, her failures and the actuality of the job she hated before starting her apprenticeship in Denmark - is beyond her capabilities at the moment. The wounds are too freshly reopened to explain the whole story, and the whole story is irrelevant. Marc's death never made her fear blood, it was just another night in a long line of triggers.

And she honestly half expects the next words out of his mouth to be 'you really cannot work here' because that was the reaction everyone who wasn't Dagny or Jonathon had back home. Other students of her mentor rolling their eyes and whispering behind her back. The kind of training she did should have only taken three, maybe four years. Not seven.

But they're not, and her head snaps back down and out of the clouds. "I-" What? "Er, thank you." The words stumble out of her mouth unnaturally, like someone trying to get their head around speaking in a foreign language. It's definitely the first time she's said them down here. "That'd... Be helpful."

lmao no worries, I'm enjoying them! I'm sorry Bruce is often so quiet in response

[zen_en_vert]

"Okay." He says, watching her, reading the flit of expression across her face, the clammy look of panic to her. "Hey, everything is going to be okay, right? You're thinking about, you're talking about something very hard, but right now you're here with me, you're in the clinic. You can sit down, and catch your breath, and have a cup of tea- even if it isn't very good tea. Right?"

And the nice thing is, the side effect of his condition is, no one can project soothing quite like Bruce Banner.

"What else do you need right now, to be okay?"

what's it like, having a quiet character...

[dedikated]

"You're also a qualified therapist?" It's meant nicely even in the defensive snark of it all, her brows raising slightly and lips almost, almost getting to a good-humoured smirk. An instinctive reaction that lets Kate pull her walls up, just a bit, before this gets way too fucking personal for anyone to handle, least of all her.

"I'm fine," she adds, choosing to stay against the counter and shifting her hands into her pockets. "For certain values of that word." The ones that mean she'll be a wreck for the moment but elect to keep it from looking too obvious. Better to focus on other things than visions of corpses dancing in her head, like the fact that somehow this has all gone far easier than she hoped. That words managed to make their way out before she bristled and rolled into an emotional ball. She's somehow survived giving out information freely - well, free-ish - and kept the urges to drop back into old, closed off habits mostly at bay.

Maybe there was something more to her time in Denmark than simply learning to cope with her fears.

His last question elicits a pause, a momentary shift from her position at the counter to walk aimlessly around the office before answering. "Saying don't tell is obvious, right?" Not for everyone, she knows that for sure, but if anyone in this dump gets the fact that some things should be shared by the subject alone, it's the guy who turns into the Grinch's 'roid raging older brother every now and again. She shrugs, "Just keep me busy." Or she'll have to keep herself busy, and the shelves will probably be reorganised five times per day.

sometimes lovely, sometimes like pulling teeth gdi

[zen_en_vert]

"I am not a qualified therapist. But I have been through every anger and stress and anxiety management program currently deemed even remotely credible anywhere on my planet."

He reminds her.

"For many people that would be hyperbole, but for me, it's been a long, long decade. So."

All this is still gentle as can be, while he moves to go get that kettle on.

"Of course I'll keep this to myself. It's your business, especially if you continue to be able to manage it as well as you have. I'd have had no idea if you hadn't self-disclosed."

Wtg bruce you're just making her more protective.

[dedikated]

Maybe it's like working undercover, where you're convinced every twitch of your fingers gives off a vibe of 'this is what is wrong look at it' and you'll be caught out for breathing too loudly. Something overthought and built up in her head until hearing that Bruce wouldn't have know genuinely catches her off guard. Kate pushes her hair over one shoulder and collapses into a chair, stretching her legs out in front of her unti she hears the pop of joints in her knees. She bites her tongue on the urge to comment about this being his campaign for boss of the year - possibly boss of her life at this rate, really - and stretches and twists her arms out in front of her instead.

"That long?" Instead of delving any further into her psyche, which currently lies beaten and whimpering in a corner of her mind, or quipping needlessly, she latches onto something he says and runs with that. It's a better distraction than useless defensive snark.