[Action | Closed] A nightmare by any other name-

[treesus]

Who: Trahearne and Tannusen
What: Nightmares, not the sylvari corrupting kind, just regular shitty nightmares.
Where: Their apartment
Warnings: Angst

Orr rarely changed in his dreams. The weak but growing life he'd finally brought this withered place was gone. It was weak, sick, and dying, the illness of the land weighing on him as he walked along a winding stone path. The stone was oily and damp under his feet, jagged bits of shell and dead coral bit into his bark.

It wasn't a path he recognized, it never was in dreams like this. He could never quite remember what this bit of Orrian hell looked like when he woke but it was familiar enough to his sleeping mind that he started running before he even heard them behind him. It did him no good, they were fast on his heels, their cries growing louder no matter how many twists and turns he took to avoid them. His lungs burned and the smell of rot was so strong he gagged. It didn't matter, he had to run.

He was alone, as always, vulnerable and alone, no one to help him if he was hurt or torn apart. Even alone he could hear screaming and the scenery became darker, the smell of smoke overwhelming decay. The noise was unbearable, screams, cries of pain, and an awful, incoherent something in his head that was so awfully loud he felt his skull might burst. This was another dream, blended into an old nightmare, and he felt no less trapped and terrified.

Brian was knocked off the bed with a thump and a surprised yowl. Trahearne was on the bed, tossing back and forth, agitated, face twisted in fear of whatever was plaguing his dreams. He cried out hoarsely and both cats retreated from the bed, going to the door to paw under it.

Comments

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen was in the living room, wide awake as usual at night, quietly working on something on his laptop. He'd been at Velvet for most of the early half of the evening, but had come back to the apartment for the quiet after a while. Sometimes it was a bit much, even for him. Tigers weren't exactly party animals.

At the sound from Trahearne's room, the pooka blinked and looked over at the closed door. He could barely see around the glow of his screen, but he squinted for a moment anyway before shutting his laptop and setting it on the coffee table. The little paws sticking out from under the door cinched it; if the little cats were in distress, something was up. He got up from the couch and padded over to the door, debated for a moment, and then opened it to let the cats out.

The tiger slipped in as the little cats fled, and he left the door open for them as he approached Trahearne. "Hey," Tannusen reached out with a gloved hand to tug at a green ankle, ready to let go and possibly dodge back in an instant. "--Wake up."

my phone's autocorrect is a dick

[treesus]

Luckily for them both, Trahearne's first instinct was to retreat, not to lash out. He jerked his foot away from Tannusen's hand, which felt so awful, clammy and dead to his half awake mind. Panic coursing through him, he pushed himself up and back, smacking his shoulders into the wall behind his bed and knocking some sense into himself.

Pupils blown wide in fear, he stared at Tannusen, the fae's pale face slowly taking on a less horrifying visage than what he expected to be peering at him in the dark. Just Tannusen. His breathing was ragged and his throat itched from the cold air and shouting. How pathetic.

The panic hadn't yet left him as he slumped against the wall, expression turning sour and shamed. His dreams betrayed him when he wanted to keep all of that hidden, controlled.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen lingered with his hand halfway back from where it had been, watching Trahearne go through several very familiar stages of recovery. Well. Not a surprise, with what he knew of the guy, but... well. The blond finally straightened, lowering his hand to his side. "It's not a big deal."

Waking him up, or the fact that he'd been having crazy dreams to begin with?

Yes.

[treesus]

Trahearne looked away to turn on the lamp on the bedside table, knocking a glass to the floor in the process. Thorns. He pulled his hand back quickly and passed it over his face.

"Mmm." Yes he had a lot to say right now. Tons. There was a lot he wanted to ask but the only one he could ask any of those questions avoided him like he intended to gut him. He wasn't sure what to say to Tannusen. It's not like the fae didn't know he had his troubles. It was still unpleasant to be caught in the middle of a nightmare.

"Are you alright? The cats?" He glanced to the doorway, where Brian could be seen, trotting along like nothing had happened.

[black_black_heart]

"Everyone's fine," Tannusen picked up the glass and put it back on the table, and then sat on the edge of Trahearne's bed. "You wanna talk about it?"

He wouldn't be offended if the sylvari said 'no', but he understood the value in having someone ask. Someone who actually wanted to know, anyway. Words that refused to move otherwise could be dislodged by such a simple thing.

Even if the sylvari said no to talking, he intended to stay long enough to make it all less... immediate. Yes, this was familiar territory. Neither Isaac nor Tannusen had ever slept easily, waking each other up had been a normal part of life.

[treesus]

For a while, Trahearne was silent, watching Tannusen with those bright, cat like eyes. The look in his eyes was cautious, wary, not of Tannusen's intentions but what answering honestly might open up. Trahearne was generally quite honest with his concerns and issues, but some things ran very deep and hurt for years on end. Things he barely allowed himself to touch and work through.

He held a hand over his mouth as he considered the question, his uncertainty obvious. He lowered the hand to speak, returned it for a while, and then tried again.

"I would," he said at last. "I'm not sure what to say, or if it's right to say it."

[black_black_heart]

"Mm," Tannusen folded his gloved hands in his lap, not quite looking at Trahearne. Not directly, anyway. "I hate it when things get stuck. It's like you swallowed something wrong, isn't it..."

Yep, he knew the sensation.

"Why wouldn't it be right to say it? I'm not going to tell anyone."

[treesus]

Trahearne didn't try to make eye contact, it was easier without that pressure. He moved his hand to the back of his neck to rub at one of the circles that lined his spine. Something uniquely sylvari, as far as he knew. Being unique and new hadn't panned out well for his people.

"Some things I don't want to burden others with, it's not my place to do so. Not without compensation at least." He paid Amberdrake handsomely. "Other concerns could change how you see me."

Trahearne trusted Tannusen. Trust didn't stop things going wrong.

[black_black_heart]

Very familiar, indeed.

With Trahearne sitting up, his legs weren't in the way of Tannusen flopping back onto the bed from where he sat, cross-wise. So he did just that, gazing up at the ceiling with his folded hands on his stomach. "Well, I'm listening anyway, if you manage to push any words out. I get the general sentiment, though. Shit knows there's plenty of things I should talk about but don't."

See, maybe they were both nuts.

[treesus]

"I oftentimes wish you would, Tannusen," Trahearne muttered as he turned his gaze up to the ceiling as well. It could be easier to talk when he didn't have to see Tannu's reactions. He felt calmer for it, though he didn't speak again for a while, he needed time to see what words did come to him in the wake of that nightmare.

"The distraction of this place is more than I can bear sometimes," he said so faintly it could've been said just to himself.

"I've faced such a thing before," he went on, clearer now. "A task and a fear so great it threatened to devour me. I was never under any illusion that the war I faced had become any less terrifying. I'm still afraid, I suppose I always will be until it's done. It was... fainter when it was there to face. I suppose planning for the worst felt like some control amidst the chaos. My dreams exist to remind me that, right now, there's nothing I can do and I may well have caused a horrible tragedy."

"It's worse for not knowing for sure."

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen didn't reply to that initial mutter. That was a conversation for another time, if ever at all. Right now, he just wanted to help the sylvari.

"A horrible tragedy?"

He understood the rest, to a degree. Having to stew in maybes while unable to do anything about anything...

[treesus]

"I made a dire miscalculation." It wasn't only his mistake. Scouts had reported the way was clear, deceived, most likely. His commanders- well, in the end it didn't matter. He commanded the Pact, his word went above all. It was his decision and his mistake.

"I wished to strike down the dragon quickly, before it got its claws in the minds of my soldiers. My sylvari soldiers. I led them right into madness." He sighed heavily.

"My people are especially vulnerable to this beast. I underestimated the power it would have over us and, in turn, underestimated how thoroughly it could destroy my fleet. Sometimes I wonder of this time away from Tyria is a strange kind of punishment for that error."

[black_black_heart]

Tannusen glanced over at Trahearne for a moment, but then went back to looking up at the ceiling as he processed all that as best he could with what context he had. There wasn't a whole lot to say, was there? He had a familiarity with mind control and the perils of responsibility, but both on an entirely different scope and scale.

"...You know," he said finally, because it seemed uncertainty was the worst part of it all, "we don't know when Telsen is from. If he's from ahead of you, he may know what's come of it all. I can ask him, if you want."

[treesus]

"I had considered that," Trahearne said slowly. "Do you think he'd agree to that?"

Whatever the other sylvari was, criminal, courtier, or just excessively nervous, he didn't want anything to do with Trahearne. He'd done his best to respect that, despite his deep curiosity to know how Tyria was currently. Mordremoth? The Pale Tree? What of the Pact?

He barely spared a thought for his place in it all in whatever time Telsen lived in, he just needed to know if his forces were successful and if his people could continue to survive.

[black_black_heart]

"He might, if it's through a third party like that," Tannusen said thoughtfully, and glanced over again. "Guy acts like you're the boogeyman."

[treesus]

Trahearne frowned, yeah he got that impression. "You mentioned that and wondered if I was far more vicious than I appear. I can't be sure why he thinks that about me. I have ideas, but it's his business."

The other sylvari could be whatever he was as long as he wasn't causing any harm to anyone else. If he was a courtier, it was doubtful he could impact the Dream here. The only Dreamer around was, well, Trahearne. Good luck to the nervous thing if he wanted to try his luck there.

"If he'll agree to reveal anything, I ask to know about the state of the Pale Tree and Mordremoth. Those are my most pressing concerns."

[black_black_heart]

"Alright, I'll ask him. At worst, he'll clam up and not tell me anything," Tannusen went ahead and sat back up, "or perhaps doesn't know. We'll see."

He looked over at the sylvari again, "You going to get more sleep, now that you've been up for a little bit?" It may not come rushing back, with the period of wakefulness. Some nightmares did, but most didn't. "I took the rest of the night off, I can hang out in here if you want. Or I can herd the cats back in and give you your privacy back."

[treesus]

"Thank you, Tannusen." Trahearne finally left the bark of his neck alone and folded his hands in his lap. He was exhausted and, even with his strange face, that was obvious.

"I'll rest after a while. I think I'll spend some time in the study to clear my head some more before I try to rest again."

[black_black_heart]

"Good idea," Tannusen agreed, and left him to it.