[action | closed] and I don’t want the world to see me, 'cause I don’t think that they’d understand

[amberdrake]

Who: Sanzo and Amberdrake
What: Drake has a nightmare
Where: Hotel room
When: Early-mid August
Warnings: ANGST, character (dreamed) corpse

- - - - -

They -- faceless, forgettable -- led him to the site where it had happened. The area was torn apart, and in the middle of it was a still figure in blood-drenched white robes. Amberdrake tore away from the forgettable 'they', rushing to the body, falling to his knees in the mud beside it and scooping up Sanzo's muddied head and shoulders into a desperate embrace. A heart-wrenching sob ripped free of him, feeling like it tore through his throat on the way out with sharp barbs and hooks.

One pale hand was still around the gun, in the mud. The sutra, a flash of green, was still on the body's shoulders. Drake didn't care; he ignored the weapons completely, even the dreaded sutra now being pressed between the living and the dead in that embrace.

"I'm... I'm so sorry enar ves'tacha," Amberdrake cried, rocking the body, "I'm so sorry. I couldn't be there, I couldn't comfort you. I'm so sorry."

Comments

[badly_behaved_priest]

Sanzo took several seconds to adjust. There wasn't a lot to take in, at first, the 'people' he stood among were insubstantial, just stand ins, he couldn't remember if they had faces at all as soon as he looked away from them. And then there was Drake. And a body.

Seeing his own corpse was surprising but that alone wasn't why he was locked in place, staring at Drake. Sanzo had cheated death far too many times and come out of it looking no better than the corpse. The high risk of death was something he'd accepted a long time ago, so no, the body wasn't the problem. Watching Amberdrake sob over his corpse was the punch in the gut, on top of being so surreal to watch.

He should fix this, say something to disrupt the nightmare, but he stared instead. It felt like he'd forgotten how to breathe.

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake's heart was shattering into a thousand pieces, cutting him up inside worse than if he'd swallowed a bucket of broken glass. The sound of his grief reflected that, sounding as painful as it felt, as though blood would come out pouring of his mouth along with the apologies he kept repeating. In Common, in Kaled'a'in, even in Haighlei, Drake couldn't stop apologizing for not being there when Sanzo had needed him most.

Dreams were strange things; dreams projected between two Empaths were even weirder. Memory briefly overlapped the dream, playing out in between Drake's painful, wracking sobs.

     "This is too much!" he sobbed bitterly, as whoever was holding him rocked him a little, like a child. "Waiting here, waiting to see who comes back in pieces--who doesn’t come back at all. Not being there when they're hurt and dying."
     "We know," Tamsin murmured, a world of sorrow in his own voice. "We know."
     "But you don’t know the rest of it--rewarding the ones who survive, when inside I cry for the ones who didn't."
     There was nothing they could say to that.
     "I'm sick of detaching myself!" he burst out, in another flood of tears. "They come to me to forget their pain, but when am I allowed to mourn?"

It was gone as fast as it had come, leaving Drake gasping out desperate, sad words in Kaled'a'in into the corpse's golden hair. The Healer was barely even coherent.

[badly_behaved_priest]

Sanzo jerked into motion once the memory had passed, he couldn't watch much more of that. He didn't know how he was supposed to be detached here. That wasn't usually a problem but anything involved with Drake was so far outside what he was used to he rarely knew how to react. He didn't want to face this, he didn't want to deal with it. Help Drake, yes, he wanted to do that, but this carried a lot more painful thoughts and feelings with it than he could easily process.

He found himself behind Drake before he'd fully decided if he was going to help or turn tail and escape.

"Drake." His voice was even, to his fleeting relief. He wasn't sure how long it would stay like that, he wanted to end this quickly.

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake didn't seem to hear that single word, lifting a shaking hand to crumble drying mud out of the corpse's hair. The body's face stayed pressed to his shoulder, so that he wouldn't have to look at the open mouth and glazed, dead eyes anymore than he already had. Not yet, anyway.

He'd have to take care of the corpse, he'd have to... there was no one else to do it, was there? No Hakkai here, no Gojyo or Goku. Drake was all he'd had and he hadn't been there in his final moments!

"I'm so sorry, Genjyo..." he whispered again, and that sparked a fresh torrent of painful sobbing.

[badly_behaved_priest]

Of course it wouldn't be that easy. It wasn't getting any easier, it took a lot out of him just to keep his head clear while desperately trying to keep Drake's distress from overwhelming him. Looking at the dead but otherwise perfect replica of himself was growing more and more unsettling, just to make everything about this so much worse. He pushed down his own dismay, trying to focus through all this crap.

Careful not to touch the bloodied version of himself, he shifted to Drake's side, reached down, and jerked his shoulder sharply. Look up, look up!

"Drake, look at me!" Sanzo spoke with more force this time, unsure if he could pull Drake out of this at all. Look up damnit!

[amberdrake]

Drake looked up. His eyes were red and swollen, and his whole face was wet. At first, he didn't seem to register who he was looking at, but then his eyes widened.

How?

The Healer peeled one shaking hand away from the body he still held close, and reached up toward the living Sanzo beside him. Surely, he was hallucinating. Surely, he'd gone mad with grief...

[badly_behaved_priest]

"A dream-" When did he forget how to talk? There was too much emotional noise to think through! "It's not real, that's not real. I'm not dying that easy."

There was too much bite to his words, he knew it but he was too busy not dwelling on how this all made him feel to control his tone. He couldn't afford to get too locked up by the nightmare he had to pull Drake out of. Fuck, being a jackass would be more convincing!

[amberdrake]

Drake took a fist-full of Sanzo's robes in his shaking hand, visibly startled to find that he was solid. "You're real?"

But the body held in one arm against his shoulder felt so real, too.

"I wasn't there," tears were threatening to start again; Drake's eyes were far too damp, "I'm never there. Not when it matters most."

[badly_behaved_priest]

"I'm alive, there was nothing to be there for." Sanzo was so tired on top of everything else clawing for the forefront of his mind. Could he risk trying to get Drake away from the body? How was he supposed to prove his existence other than by continuing to be there? And what was he supposed to say to that?

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake let go of Sanzo's robes so that he could shrug out of his own, laying it out on the mud under the body's lifted half. He eased it down onto the decorated cloth, and draped one wing-cut sleeve over that lax face.

It wasn't his first time doing this.

"If you're real," Drake finally said, and lifted his hand again, "take my hand."

[badly_behaved_priest]

Sanzo looked away while the corpse was moved, it was too surreal. It looked too real, when everyone else in the dream aside from himself and Drake barely existed at all. He didn't want to think about how many times Drake had pictured this scene for it to be this clear.

He looked back, reluctantly, when Drake spoke. There was no pause to take his hand, he hadn't expected it to be this easy to prove himself. How many times...?

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake immediately climbed to his feet, clutching that hand as he did but not pulling on it for help up. He grabbed the living Sanzo in an almost-crushing embrace, burying his face in the priest's bony shoulder. The sutra was ignored in his absolute relief.

Both the body beside them and the dream itself faded, and Drake woke with his face in much the same place it had been in the dream. "I'm so glad you're okay," he whispered. Normally, he'd show far more restraint, but relief warred with lingering sorrow and he found himself hugging Sanzo just as hard in real life, too.

[badly_behaved_priest]

Sanzo had expected the hug but not waking up barely able to breathe because of it. If it wouldn't be cruel to escape- Which he very much still wanted to do. He had his own feelings on the matter to detangle and a painful realization dangling over his head that he was doing his best to not acknowledge. There was no denying anymore that Drake was still very attached to who Sanzo was now, not just who he'd been before losing so many memories. He felt like an idiot now for thinking that was the case for as long as he had.

But he couldn't leave now, not right now, not unless he wanted to cause more damage than he had tried to prevent to start with.

"I'm fine," he said, lamely, feeling all the duller for stating the obvious. He couldn't bring himself to do much more. He didn't move the arm that had found its way over Drake at some point but that was about it.

[amberdrake]

"Yeah," Drake was just as lame, if much more muffled with his face full of shoulder.

He finally relaxed his death-grip on the other man's ribcage enough to allow for normal breathing, but didn't let go completely. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

It would be easy to assume he just meant the corpse. Drake would let Sanzo assume that if he needed to; Amberdrake was forever the kestra'chern.

[badly_behaved_priest]

Sanzo knew better than to assume that was all that Amberdrake meant. He could pretend that's all he took from it but Drake would know. If not right away, it wouldn't take long. At least he could delay his response by catching his breath. It was a pity this was no time to be making snippy remarks about Drake trying to break his ribs.

"If it bothers you what I see, you know I don't have to." Sanzo would never accept this dream sharing bullshit if it was only one sided!

[amberdrake]

"Leaving you to the mercy of your nightmares would bother me more," Amberdrake countered without hesitation, turning his head so that it was the side of it against Sanzo's shoulder, instead of his damp face. "I can still be sorry for what you see in mine."

[badly_behaved_priest]

"Don't be an idiot." That wasn't helpful. Sanzo glanced at Drake's face and then quickly away. He knew Drake would take that wrong but it was better than him knowing why Sanzo didn't want to look him in the eye right now.

"I don't care about apologies for things that don't warrant it. I want to know if anything was actually accomplished?" 'Did I help?' was too open for him to ask. That he cared would be obvious but he couldn't state it so clearly.

[amberdrake]

"Yes," Drake answered the unasked, as was his way, "you helped. That nightmare never ends so quickly, or cleanly. There's never relief, just..." well, everything they were both pretending Sanzo hadn't had a close-up view of. Amberdrake's heart shattering into a million razor-sharp pieces... all those words, spilled freely for what he'd been certain at the time was a Sanzo who could no longer hear him.

"Last time I had that dream," Amberdrake decided to elaborate, "it was Skan they led me to. I'll probably have these my whole life, after all that war. Always waiting to see who came back... and who didn't. I often caught myself wishing I could go out and fight, too, so that it wasn't just... waiting. Powerless waiting..."

[badly_behaved_priest]

Sanzo wasn't sure if he really understood Drake's dilemma. In a way he did, though Sanzo faced his fear of loss through reducing what he had to lose. Dogged attempts to detach himself from concern for others and inserting himself directly into danger was the best he could do for it. To have to wait with no control over the situation would drive him mad. That he couldn't quite grasp, being able to suffer through that.

"So the best we can hope for is I show up to knock some sense into you for these damned nightmares." He was frustrated he couldn't do more, frustrated at a lot of thoughts and feelings running through his mind. What would happen if he did give in and leave Drake to that nightmare like he'd been tempted to? The guilt just the idea brought him wouldn't let him. He hoped.

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake smiled a little against the priest's shoulder at that unique Sanzo phrasing. "Yeah, I suppose so," he agreed quietly. He honestly wasn't sure how effective Sanzo would be in dreams about other people, but... well, Sanzo was the most common variant of those particular nightmares. And even in others, some comfort taken from Sanzo's presence wouldn't go amiss.

"...What would you want done, if it happened?" Drake asked; he couldn't help but to ask. "I know you're tougher than nails, but... if."

[badly_behaved_priest]

"I haven't thought about it." Sanzo had but never in depth and never for long before dismissing the idea. If he died, that was that. He'd be one more rotting corpse in the trail of bodies in his path. However it was dealt with was for the benefit of whoever even wanted to handle that task, not for him, if there would even be someone to do so.

"The sutra would still need protection, that's not saying anything new." The thought he could die here and the sutra remain away from his own world was disturbing. Yet, for a brief moment, the idea of denying those assholes one of the last pieces they needed for their fucked up game was terribly satisfying. That wouldn't be his luck though, living or dead.

"Do what you want, that's as much as I care about it." If he died, he failed. Thinking about his death only distracted from staying alive.

[amberdrake]

"Well, we did adopt you into the Clan," Amberdrake said thoughtfully, "so I suppose if you have no other preference, I'd just do what we do. A pyre under the stars, preferably in moonlight. The sutra... if your friends weren't here to take and guard it, I'd hide it. That's the best I could do."

Guarding items, Drake was not suited for. Guarding secrets, however...

[badly_behaved_priest]

That would have to do if the sutra wasn't returned to his world. He didn't know enough himself to train a replacement here even if he thought it was a good idea. With how relatively peaceful it was here, he wasn't concerned with needing someone to protect the sutra if he ended up dead. Even if Drake hid the sutra instead of carrying it himself he'd still be a target...

"Right." Sanzo didn't ask for details. He didn't want to know and he especially didn't want to think about what he would have to do if Drake was killed. "Nothing's tried to kill me here yet and I doubt anything will. No one gives a crap about taking shots at me unless they want the sutra."

Sanzo had been trying not to give anyone a reason, for the sutra or otherwise. He didn't need that trouble again and any such attention he attracted would turn onto Drake by association. At some point his hand had gone from lax where it rested against Drake's back to gripping his shirt, possessive almost. Sanzo was faced with the internal debate if he should pretend he hadn't noticed he'd done so or pull away now and try to preserve some of his dignity.

[amberdrake]

Drake chuckled at that, and released Sanzo from one arm so he could wipe at his own eyes with his thumb. Drying, the tears had turned gummy in his eyelids. "Same, as far as assassination attempts go. I do actually have to deal with those on my world."

He didn't comment on or outwardly react to the grip on the back of his shirt, just settling his arm back into place once he was done de-gunking his eyes. "I'm the k'Leshya Clan chief," he decided to finally tell Sanzo, "and thus also the 'king' of White Gryphon, since we adopted everyone there into k'Leshya, too. But here, I'm just some random 'therapist'."

The word really didn't do the job of kestra'chern much justice.

[badly_behaved_priest]

"Being unknown works better than a disguise." Sanzo had poor luck with disguises and very little motivation to maintain one. He paused as the impact of what Drake had said sank in. Had this been mentioned before? He was struggling to remember everything that had gone on early into finding out he was trapped away from his own world. He couldn't say he was that surprised at the revelation, nor that it was unfitting. Assassination attempts only added to his ever present worry for Drake's safety but he was used to that anxiety by now.

"You don't take a break from worrying yourself sick over everyone else's lives." How Drake could deal with that he had no idea. "You don't even settle for being a 'random therapist' with all that you do."