#rose atkinson

“So,” Damien said, and then coughed, like the single syllable needed any kind of emphasis. He seemed uneasy, which wasn’t unusual for him, but this was less general distrust and more animal in a cage kind of a vibe. “This is the place. It’s roomier than I expected.”

“Yeah, well, it houses four people, so….”

She trailed off before she could finish whatever embarrassing end that witty comment would surely have had. Possibly, she shouldn’t have even mentioned her family members as Damien wasn’t the most stable of people, but there were pictures all over the wall of them as kids, so it was kind of hard to get around.

“Do you want some water maybe? Or a… I don’t know. Whatever you normally have. Ah, wine?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have wine? Aren’t you like, nineteen?”

“Almost twenty,” Rose filled in quickly, not totally sure why she was defending the point. Damien had a habit of wielding the age difference like a weapon sometimes, and it got under her skin more than she liked to admit. “And not technically, but my parents have some.”

He waved her off. “Nah, it’s okay. I’m pretty sure it would be better to do this sober anyways. My thoughts can get… well.” He grimaced. “It’s just better if I’m clear-headed.”

Vague. Again. Rose felt that itch at the back of her mind that she couldn’t help feeling around people now, that desire to know. Comments like that used to irritate her before, but now they filled her with a strange, and potentially toxic, sense of excitement at solving the mystery of it all.

Not a full mystery, though. The bits and pieces of their last session crept into her mind—the field, the fading parents, the sad, pretty man. She clenched her hands into a fist by her side, trying to steel her nerves.

She nodded towards the couch he kept hesitantly looking over. “Do you want to take a seat?” And then, awkwardly sidling past him to take one herself, “It doesn’t bite, I swear.”

That cracked a rare smile out of him that sent a thrill of achievement running through her despite herself. He sat down carefully on the couch regardless, the material barely moving under him, like he weighed nothing at all. "A couch with teeth might take the cake on anomalies I've seen, and trust me, there have been quite a few."

“So I’ve gathered. Or so you’ve implied, really. You haven’t provided much on the details department—”

“So, where do you want me?”

The words were pleasant enough, but they effectively cut off that line of questioning. Fair enough. “Here works, I guess. Or you could—well. Here works.”

Having saved herself from suggesting her bedroom as a potential option, she stood up hastily, gesturing to the couch. “I have some melatonin in the kitchen if you wanted. Or maybe tea? That usually helps when I’m trying to fall asleep.”

He raised a brow. “Do you need help falling asleep?”

Annoyance prickled up her spine. “Rude. I’m making you tea. I think it will help with your attitude.” She stormed into the kitchen, trying to remind herself that Damien was a known prick that had gone through some traumatic times to come out the other side in this state.

She heard his voice call out from the other room. “I’ll take the melatonin if you’re offering!”

They were running low on most of her favorite blends, but she managed to find some store brand chamomile shoved in the back of the pantry. Not the best, but given his attitude that night, it would do. She put the kettle on and went about preparing a mug.

Damien had been the one to suggest they do a follow-up session. The call had come as a surprise—a welcome one, but a surprise, nonetheless. After how the last time went, she hadn’t expected that he would want her rooting around in his head anytime soon. She didn’t know what his own motivations were in having his dreams examined, and he refused to answer if she asked. She was only allowed one dream, and he was to be told explicit details of what the dream contained afterwards so there’d be no uneven information in case she saw something he didn’t remember. She had scoffed at the time. Though she was mostly there as an observer, usually if someone knew she was entering into their dreams then it would take on a more lucid quality as their mind struggled to fit her into it. Damien had not found the concept as ridiculous, so she quickly assented after the tense silence that followed the conversation.

Rose had determined to be especially polite this time around as gratitude for allowing a second chance to see into his mind, but his usual charming self was making that difficult.

She emerged back into the room a bit later with the tea and melatonin, setting the cup down beside him. He took the container of gummies instead, popping a few into his mouth. His eagerness made her wonder when the last time he had truly slept had been. He sat back on the couch and crossed his hands over his stomach like he was a corpse getting ready for his wake. It was an unbearably awkward pose, and she decided not to comment on it.

“You gonna take the floor?” he raised an eyebrow. “Or do you need me to make room on the couch?”

“I figured I would use my bedroom,” Rose said, taking one of the gummies herself—it never hurt to have insurances. “My range is pretty far, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Just get yourself comfortable and get to sleep. I might slip into it a bit early myself and meet you there when you arrive.”

Damien cracked a grin at her wording. “I’ll see you on the other side, then.”

Twenty minutes later, Rose was asleep. There was always a sense of relief when she first slipped into the dreaming world, as if she had been living her whole life in a haze and now she had finally tapped into reality. It was the exact opposite of how she should feel. It was a dangerous feeling, and one that was becoming more and more common as she dreamt. She should probably have mentioned the feeling at her last meeting with the AM, but guilt and desire for this strange world had kept her from it.

She opened her eyes to a forest, large and looming in terrifying skyscrapers around her that created an endless shadow over the grass she stood on. She whistled. “Nice job, subconscious. Very impressive.”

The edges of the trees were blurred as was often the case in dreams. If she focused hard enough, their lines straightened out and the detail cleared into carved lines of oak and cedar. It took an immense amount of concentration, however, so usually she just left things a little blurry.

Rose doubted Damien was already asleep, so she allowed herself to wander for a bit. Exploring one’s own mind was often meditative and she enjoyed it immensely. She was truly grateful to the AM for allowing her to hone that skill. There was a path leading through the trees, and she followed it for a bit, noting every tiny bug or creature that skuttled along beside her. A flock of butterflies as would never group together in real life floated by her head, and she held up her arm to allow several of them to land. She smiled as they crawled around, admiring the way light bounced off their colorful wings despite the lack of light present to create this effect.

As was always true in her own dreams, she could feel the edges of her thoughts creeping in, this time manifested as soft echoes in the distance. The name Emily swirled and swooped and dashed out of sight when she tried to listen to it. Rose sighed. Even her own mind was hiding the subject from her. Elation and dread surrounded the name. Rose had been avoiding her for a bit now, especially as her meetings with Damien increased. She didn’t know how to explain who he was or why she was hanging out with him in a way that Emily would understand. Knowing her, she’d think he was a creep. Which she wasn’t exactly wrong about—unfortunately.

Her thoughts were diverted by that familiar warm tug in her gut that said someone was dreaming nearby. Damien. He must have just entered the dreamscape. She allowed his thoughts to tug and pull at her until she could feel the diameters of his dreams more clearly and stepped inside.

The first thing she noticed was a sound—laughter, and hushed voices arguing or agreeing, it was hard to tell. She was standing inside a dingy hotel room. This was a lot less surreal than Damien’s last dream. The hotel room seemed real in its grime and beige, textured walls. There was takeout food sitting abandoned on the counter. She was in the kitchen, and the voices were coming from a bedroom to the left. Typically, if she entered a dream not in the same location as the dreamer themselves, it could mean that the mind was trying to hide information away from her. Her curiosity only grew as she hesitantly peeked into the bedroom door, her eyes widening at what she saw.

Damien was splayed out on the bed, arms crossed behind his head and grasping the sheets of the mattress in a death grip. Straddling his waist was the pretty man from the other dream. He was smirking in the dream, but most importantly, his hands were moving underneath Damien’s sweater. From the way Damien was squirming and flushing, Rose realized with a start that the pretty man was tickling him.

“This can all end if you just bring your arms down.”

“F-Fuck off, geh!”

“Unless you want to keep getting tickled, of course—”

“Do you nohot know the m-meaning of fuhuck off? It means fuck off, stop talking, l-leheheave me alone!”

“You’re being rude. I’m truly not sorry for what I’m about to do next.”

“What—MARK! Shihihihit!”

Dream Damien nearly brought his arms crashing down as the wiggling forms under Damien’s shirt moved up to his armpits. The pretty man, Mark evidently, smiled with an adoration in his eyes that was difficult to conceal.

Rose lurched back from the doorway, heart hammering in her chest. She couldn’t stop blushing and she patted her cheeks a few times to try to get the heat to leave.

She had stumbled across intimate scenarios in people’s dreams before. Those kinds of activities tended to sit at the forefront of most people’s minds and often leaked into their subconscious’s as well. Usually, she tried to avoid those dreams and move on to something less personal (or at least less risqué), but in this case, she wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate for her to just leave. Damien had specifically set this up so that she could report back on his dreams. Would it be fair to give up on the experiment so soon just because it was a little awkward?

Besides, it wasn’t as though they were having sex. It was just tickling…. But there was something about the emotions clouding what was either a memory or a fantasy. They were all warm and fuzzy and intense, almost excitable. She couldn’t tell if it was Mark or the tickling that was prompting these feelings in Damien. Possibly both. Either way, this was clearly more than just two guys messing around with each other, and it made Rose feel like she wasn’t supposed to be here.

She peaked her head back into the room, taking a steadying breath to prepare herself for whatever came next.

Damien was still getting tickled, thumbs hooked into that spot right above his ribs that was making him howl with desperation. It was a wonder they didn’t have neighbors bursting in and demanding that they keep it down. If this was a memory, anyway. She thought it was. She was usually pretty good at being able to tell these things. Memories had sharper details, and the colors in them popped with a liveliness simply not apparent in mere dreams.

“Mahahahark!” Damien barked out a laugh and bit his arm, muffling out a protest into the skin. He was clearly getting desperate, but the other man hardly seemed to care.

“Give it a rest, Damien, I can feel what your influence is telling me to do, and it certainly doesn’t want me to let up anytime soon.”

Rose’s brows furrowed. She had no idea what the hell influence was supposed to mean, but whatever it was, it made Damien blush to the tips of his ears when it was mentioned. He shook his head, arms trembling. Maybe this other man had the power to hold him there? But something about the struggle in Damien’s features told her it was his own will that kept his arms up. Damien, or at least this dream Damien, wanted this to keep going.

She smirked a little. “I can’t believe that grump likes being tickled,” she murmured under her breath, shaking her head in amazement.

Damien wheezed on the bed, drumming his feet desperately into the mattress as Mark tickled him with a skilled precision. Eventually, he moved on from his armpits to grip his hips instead, and Damien nearly jumped out of his skin. His arms did come down this time, but Mark was quicker, snatching them up and pinning them back over his head. Damien flushed, and she could have sworn she saw his pupils dilate.

“Nice try, dumbass, now you don’t have any free hands either.”

“Oh, is that what you think?”

“What do you mean—no!”

Mark, still pinning him, had leaned down and begun to kiss and bite and rub his face into the crook of Damien’s neck, causing the other to squeal out a very un-Damien-like squeal as well as a variety of curses that Rose had never heard before. The development definitely seemed to imply these two weren’t just friends. She felt a little pleased that her guesses about his feelings for this Mark character were correct, no matter how cagey and defensive he got about the subject.

It was kind of cute seeing Damien like this. Not that Rose had any kind of feelings like that towards him, but it was nice to see him light and happy for once, risen out of the gloom he seemed eternally stuck in.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt the dream change slightly. Nothing visibly did, but her control slipped on her hold of the dream, grappling with another’s. When she glanced back over at Damien, he was staring right at her, his eyes wide with a panic she had never seen on him before. Rose lurched back as if bitten, hiding behind the doorway with her heart racing.

He had started lucid dreaming.

In an instant, Rose pulled herself from his dream, using everything she had learned at the AM to force herself back awake. Once people became aware they were dreaming like that, it was fairly easy for them to pull themselves out of the dream if they had enough incentive to do so. She slowly blinked her way into reality, pushing through the drowsy haze of sleep that always hung onto her after dreamwalking. Once she had gathered herself, she sat bolt upright in bed. She heard a groan from the other room. Damien. He was awake.

She leapt to her feet, rushing around the corner to the living room where Damien was sitting up in the same bleary state. He stared at her for a few moments, gathering himself, and then seemed to realize where he was and who she was—and what she had just done. They held eye contact for several, tense seconds. Then, he flew into motion. Shoving his feet into his shoes and getting to his feet, he stalked over to grab his coat.

“Damien, I—”

She didn’t manage to get a word in before he was out of the house, the door slamming hard behind him.

Rose sighed, leaning back against the wall as she watched him go. That certainly could have gone better. Knowing Damien and how he was, that could very well be the last she ever saw of him. No way he’d want to be around someone who had that kind of information on him.

She groaned, closing her eyes and banging her head back once, softly against the door.