The Dreaming Gods

[cyan_maid]

Who: Jane Crocker (post Airlocked R1) and Dave Strider (post DRRP R3)
Where: Dream bubbles
When: Uh idk time is fuckin weird in space, but at the very least after the events of both rounds mentioned above.
Open/Closed: Closed
Rated: M for dead bodies and gore and all that shit
What: Murdergame crossover between two living canonmates

[Six hours to the Vegas Quadrant. Six hours to kill in a tiny spaceship with the people who have come to mean the entire world to Jane over the course of seven weeks - people she loves like family despite their faults, who love her in turn in their own ways, who are knit together through their pain and tears and stubborn wills to live, and one gleaming, distant goal that zips through the uncharted cosmos. And she is tired.

Granted, you could call what had been done to her an extended nap in and of itself, but being able to cry real tears and shout with real strength, and the thrilling rush of reclaiming her real belongings, holding Lightning's real knife in her hands and finding the weight just as comforting as it had been in the simulated space station...she was exhausted. And, well, they had plenty of blankets and horrid shipping shirts and clothes that weren't going to be worn. The others can have beds if they need them - Jane doesn't want one. The pile she makes in the office where she and Togami had found so many things is a private sanctuary, and despite the weird, lumpy accommodations she falls right asleep.

At first, her dreams - the first real dreams she's had in two months - are properly dreamlike and weird. Jake has rabbit ears and white eyes, bleeding profusely from a wound that cuts him straight through and makes her own scars ache as she chases him through a verdant wood and tumbles down an endless hole. Dirk pours tea for thirty-five empty settings, flickering and pixelating, sometimes missing his head, sometimes missing his shades to reveal white eyes. Roxy flits in and out of the corners of her vision, the pink of her own eyes brilliant and startling as a striped cat's tail brushes Jane's cheeks and she apologizes again and again, she didn't know, she had to go, John would fix everything Janey, they had to leave-

And then the dream shifts. Jane takes a step, and she's on the transporter of the space station, in the cafeteria. A chill overcomes her bones and blood until she realizes that no, she's not back there - they hadn't left Seth's horrid paintings up, after all. Chitanda's, Toby's, and the Griffin's mutilated portraits have been joined by the rest, for all the paintings, even the ones of the people she knows are alive, have been marked in some way. Xander's is slashed with red. The Doctor's is smeared with gold. Her own sports a tiara of cuts and blood left to drip down her face...she heaves a sob and falls to her knees.]

What is this...what is this...

[It has to be a dream. So why...why can't she wake up?]

Comments

[callbacks]

...I'm a Hero of Time, you know.

[The words come low and reluctant out of his mouth. Even now, as tightly as he clings to his powers, he hates everything that comes with them.]

I should have been able to make it all not happen.

[Flat, steely, impenetrable. This is a fact, and he will not brook any kindness telling him it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't responsible for the game. That doesn't matter. He spent three years wishing he didn't have those powers, and only when Monaka stripped them away did he realize what he had to lose.]

But I couldn't even do that in SBURB. Sure as hell couldn't do it with my powers shut off like I forgot to pay my fuckin' utilities. And after, when they came back, I didn't...

[He trails off, then looks down and away.]

I was scared to try. Didn't want to go back in. [He breathes out a little shakily.] Thought I might get stuck and have to live it all over again.

[cyan_maid]

[She looks up at Dave at that part. The "not happen" part, because it shakes her to her core, because - because if things didn't happen, then there wouldn't be any pain, then neither of them would be scooped out husks of people.]

...I. I...[Jane shakes her head.] Look, Time...is not something I can even grasp, so I can't...I can't tell you what you should've done. But, if you think you'd end up looping that whole game, then...well...maybe it was for the best you didn't try. And besides, if I had my powers there...they still wouldn't have come back. We - we were stuck in a simulation. In the goshdarned Matrix.

[Jane turns away, looking down at the floor. It almost looks like it's covered in syrup and lemonade again. In blood. In bleach, in scorch marks, in pool water-]

...God. Just. Fuck that horrid game and everything it stands for.

[callbacks]

[Dave closes his eyes hard behind his shades. Among the syrup and lemonade are splashes of sickening neon pink. It would look like paint, if the way it's drying weren't so... blood-like.]

A-fuckin'-men to that. Cheers.

[Blindly, he reaches for Jane's elbow, and only opens his eyes briefly when his hand doesn't immediately connect. There, the solidity of contact, even in their dreams.]

Come on. Let's get out of here. Nothing good's gonna happen in this place.

[cyan_maid]

[The contact yanks her out of whatever she thinks she's seeing, and she looks at Dave hard, unwavering.]

...Okay. But...where will we go?

[callbacks]

Out of here, who cares where.

[He lets her go again, striding towards the door through which the bunnies entered, but as soon as he sees what's beyond this room, he recoils, shock and disgust writing themselves large across even his face.

It's still a little jumbled between her world and his, but out there--outside the cafeteria, the hotel restaurant--a body. There's a body in the lobby, bright with that pink paint.]

Shit.

[cyan_maid]

[She follows close behind, nearly running into Dave when he stops.]

Hey, what's - [And then she sees the body.] - Oh...oh...w-what the hell...

[callbacks]

Sorry. That's mine. She... she was one of mine.

[Dave turns and tries gently to block her view and guide her away from the scene. It's a small woman, maybe college age, slumped against a wall with a sheet of long, black hair falling around her.

She is very definitely dead.]

It's fine, you don't have to look. M-my bad. Sorry.

[cyan_maid]

[The age is wrong, but the black hair is

the black hair

the

There's a creak as a door down the hybrid hotel/space station hall, and Jane glances out of the corner of her eye, and then pointedly looks away, shivering.]

Oh, Jesus.

[callbacks]

[He stands there, eyes closed a moment, before he swallows and breaks the silence.]

If I turn around, there's gonna be more, right. The dream bubble's taking both our shit and just slapping it down all over.

[cyan_maid]

[Jane brings both hands to her mouth, trying to breathe and not scream at the same time.]

I'm sorry - I'm sorry, it's - it's the art room, I can't - it's where she...

[How do you make it stop how do the dreambubbles stop]

[callbacks]

Hey. Hey.

[He doesn't... fuck, he doesn't know her name, but he puts his hands on her arms anyway, the contrast between worn yarn and skin a thin line to ground him.]

It's okay. You're out. You told me, you got out and you're going to get them back. We're both, we both got through.

[He breathes a ragged breath and forces himself to look her right in the face.]

Come on. Look at me. You know I wasn't there, so if you look at me you'll know you can't still be back there.

[cyan_maid]

[She doesn't really 100% know his name, either, if it's even the same as it was in her universe. She gasps a breath in, meets Dave's eyes, turning her arms so she can hold his, too, like a lifeline.]

We're - we're out. We're both out. That's right, we're...

[callbacks]

Everything here is a dream. It's in the past, and the only thing real is you. Like... uh, here.

[He hesitates, the determined look on his face melting into awkwardness a bit, but then he pushes his shades up to sit in the pale bedheaded muss of his hair.]

Focus on something else. Count my freckles or some shit. It sounds stupid, but it helps.

[cyan_maid]

[It gets a weak huff of a laugh out of her. Maybe it is stupid, but it's something, and something is better than nothing. She'll take note of Dave's red, red eyes first, a bit of wariness creeping into her own - Jane's renouncement of the color is still fresh - before glancing lower at his freckled face.]

That's...that's alright. It's fine. I'd rather look at something that's real over...over all else. Yes.

[callbacks]

Yeah. ...Yeah.

[And he goes quiet again, pale and shaky and eventually dropping his faltering gaze, because this... this is apparently as far as he can drag himself out, by himself. Without Wash or Meridiana, he can't concentrate on anything but the memory of death all around, etched indelibly into his bones like a bar code: This is what his life costs.

If neither of them can imagine themselves someplace else, then their bubble is stuck here. Forever.]

...I. Um. I don't know your name.

[cyan_maid]

It's Jane.

[She used to add her last name to it, but. Let's just start with the first.]

And...I'm fairly sure I can guess yours, but. What's your name?

[callbacks]

Dave.

[After a while, after a tremulous exhalation, he offers a weak, mirthless chuckle.]

I'd offer to try and wake you up, but I dunno if I can live with myself if it doesn't work.

[cyan_maid]

[She keeps her gaze riveted on his, to avoid looking at this place, this mingling of horrors, this special hell.]

Thought that might be it. [She huffs out a breath that, in a happier time, might have been a laugh.] I'd rather...stay asleep. After all, what if - what if you're stuck here alone? Neither of us should be...

[callbacks]

[He makes a soft, flat noise.]

...'M used to it.

[As if to counteract how completely depressing that sounds, he adds:]

And I'm older than you. I think. Probably. So I'm the one who should be making sure you get out of here first.