#shared nightmares

Her hand suddenly reached for her wrist, gripping him as tightly as she could. He could barely feel her touch anymore, something he pushed down as he cupped her cheek, his temple pressed against hers. She could only stare blankly as he wiped her tears, taking shallow breaths against his lips.

And then none at all.

She was frozen in place, her breath hitching in her throat as she stared at his weak figure. Her heart stopped as she begged her body to move, to do anything but uselessly stand there and watch. Her best friend, her lover, her world, was taking shallow breaths, dying before her very eyes.

Her shoulders trembled, her lip quivering as she opened her mouth only for no sound to come out. She wanted to shout at the universe, to destroy every part of it for taking away her beloved. She wanted to open her eyes and realize none of it was real, that he was laying beside her, tracing her fingers up her spine.

When she shook her head, covering her mouth, two pairs of arms wrapped around her, dragging her away. With everything she had, she started kicking and screaming, thrashing in their hold as she demanded to be let go of, to run to him, to at least comfort him in his final moments. She became a caged animal as she begged herself to be strong enough, to fight for what was hers. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she let out gutwrenching sobs between screams, pleading for any kind of mercy.

When she was dragged outside, his body out of sight, she gasped as she sat up. Barely a second later, she heard him do the same, panting like he had escaped death. They were sweating through their clothes, violently shaking as they escaped their worst fears.

Turning to her, he sniffled as he wiped his face with a trembling hand. Prying it away, she firmly cupped his cheeks, making sure he was real. Placing his hands over hers, he took a deep breath as he felt her warm skin against him.

“It’s okay now. I’m here. I’m right here,”he promised, leaning his temple against hers. She took a shaky breath as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him as close as possible.

“I won't let them take you from me. Not again,”she promised.

“I know. I’ll be there. I’ll be here for you.”

No matter how much WICKED tried to convince them otherwise.

@mystical-tmr

Who is dead, and doesn’t matter anymore. Who can’t help him and who he cannot mourn, unless it’s the last thing he ever does in this house. Thinking too much about Nanda will ruin every ounce of identity he’s tried so hard to create, locked in a cage telling himself he’s human, at least a little. He can scream as loud as the people in the basement, or he used to, before Brute and Robert made him scream so often that his voice went raspy and never got better.

He makes it to the door to the basement just as the screaming starts again. It’s not any of the voices he remembers, that he’d cataloged one by one because everyone deserved a witness to remember they had once been alive. He turns the knob, careful and slow, and the door opens silently even though he knows it usually squeaks.

Needs oil on the hinges.

But now it’s quiet, and his progress goes unheard.

He should run, and leave the dying person to be bait for Robert’s attention and then a corpse to take his anger at a victim escaping. He should run, and save himself, because no one else is ever going to save him.

There was only one man who ever would, and he died.

The pet had watched him die, seen the life leave his eyes as he fell backwards, down the stairs. Looked with uncomprehending terror at a body that no longer housed a man before it ever hit the floor. 

No one ever saves you but yourself, when you’re what he is.

He should run out the front door.

Instead, like anyone trapped in a horror movie, he takes a step down the stairs. His weight leans heavily on the rickety railing as he drags his feet forwards, thumping them down one by one against the ache. 

He makes it to the bottom step and then the cool dirt of the basement floor just as the screaming stops again. This time, there is no hitched sob or wail to follow. He looks up and sees her laid out on the floor, covered in blood, her eyes turned to look at him but gone.

They’re Nanda’s eyes, after he hit the floor, just before the pet shook him, begging him not to go - but after he was already long gone. 

Robert’s hands are smeared red as he pushed himself up in his dirty coveralls and turns, sweat-shining in the dim light of the single swinging lightbulb. It should smell sickening down here - fresh blood over old decay, the chemicals in the blue barrels he uses to break down the bodies of the people unlucky enough to meet him alone.

Or be found by him alone.

Or be working the overnight shift at a gas station alone.

Or have stepped briefly away just to take a bathroom break on a hike alone.

Or-

“You’re too late,” Robert says, shaking his head. He rubs his hands together, then on his coveralls, leaving red streaks that start turning brown as soon as his fingers pull back and away. On the ground, the dead woman stares with Nanda’s eyes. “Come on, dog.” He tosses a shovel to the pet, who doesn’t even try to catch it - only watches it fall at his feet, then slowly looks back up to meet Robert’s gaze.

“Do what dogs do best,” Robert says, with a cock-eyed grin. “Dig a hole.”

Jameson shudders in his sleep, rolling from his back onto his side and curling into a ball. The lean muscles in his thighs twitch beneath scarred skin, and his fingers curl tight until nails dig into palms. His breathing is shallow and too fast, but he’s alone in the bedroom in Nat’s house and there is no one to hear except for Trash Cat, who flicks her tail and watches him, eyes glimmering as they catch the moonlight shining in through the window. 

Hundreds of miles away, in the sleeper cab of a semi truck parked at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, a different man sleeps on a bunk attached to the sleeper cab’s wall. His angular face bears scars, too, some in different places than Jameson’s. He doesn’t have the softness returning to Jameson’s natural expressions, has never lost the severity that took over after he barely made it out of his own horrors alive.

His hair is shorter and blond, kept clipped brutally neat. He never lets it get shaggy anymore. Never again.

Never again will he have hair long enough to grip into, for fingers to twist and force his head down. His legs don’t bend themselves, but his arms ache unless he’s holding himself, and he shivers underneath the five blankets piled on top of him until they weigh him down to the present.

They can’t keep his mind from finding the past.

In his dreams, the same man stands in the same basement next to a dead body, but he doesn’t hold out a shovel. 

“Too scared to even try,” Robert taunts instead, and the basement doesn’t smell like anything but Finn Schneider is surrounded by bones climbing up from the very earth to shame him for doing nothing to save them, not any of them, not one. “That’s you.”

“Nein,” He whispers in his sleep. “Nein, nein, Ich konnte Ihnen nicht helfen…”

“You never tried.”

Robert puts a hand against the side of his face, and Finn shudders, powerless and small. The muscles he has spent years building since leaving that house don’t exist. They never existed. They are just a fever dream he made up of a life he might have lived if he made it out. 

“My little Mouse,” Robert says, almost affectionately. “You always do what a mouse does best, don’t you?”

Finn looks up, just enough to meet Robert’s cold eyes. 

“Was soll das-”

“You hide.”

Finn Schneider - now Charles Ingvall, or Brandon Sanderson, or Nate Gregory, or Richard Koenig or any one of the twenty-seven names he uses on a whim - wakes in silence, his eyes opening in the silent dark.

Somewhere near the rest stop, a coyote yips and then cries, mournful and sad, singing to the sky.

Finn groans and rubs over his face with one hand. He pushes himself up to seated, shoving the heavy layers of blankets down to his lap. His back aches, and he’s wide awake. “Scheisse,” He mutters. 

He won’t get any more sleep tonight.

In California, Jameson’s eyes open at nearly the same moment, as Trash Cat paws gently at his face, leaning over to look down at him with curiosity and - he likes to think - concern. He manages a smile for her - and even unbends his fingers with painful effort enough to rub at the fur, soft as bunny ears, at the top of her head. 

Robert’s voice is still a slimy film over his skin, and he sighs as he rolls onto his back and feels the throbbing ache of his legs. It’s going to be a bad day for them, he can already tell, and the sky isn’t even graying towards dawn yet.

He manages to force himself to sit up.

Then he mutters, “Shit,” as he realizes his legs hurt too much to walk to the bathroom.

Both men, in different places, watch the sun rise.

Each haunted by the same ghosts of people they never tried to save.

-

@finder-of-rings  @endless-whump  @astrobly  @thefancydoughnut  @newandfiguringitout  @doveotions  @pretty-face-breaker  @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow  @boxboysandotherwhump  @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump  @whumpiary  @orchidscript  @nonsensical-whump  @outofangband  @eatyourdamnpears  @hackles-up  @grizzlie70  @mylifeisonthebookshelf  @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp 

“Are you sure it’s fine to do this?” Kade asked, looking at the others “You know they’re just going to blame anything that happens on me” 

Killian leaned against the doorframe of Kade’s room.  “Yeah... I know that” he said “But no one argued with us when we asked if you can join us...  and besides it’s a giant sleep over for the graduating class”

Kade frowned before shaking his head.  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea” he said “You know nightmares are not good for my shadows”

“You know...” Bell said as she stepped into the door “I don’t think this is normal nightmares”

Killian and Kade turned to her.  “what do you mean?” they asked. 

“Well... I’ve heard about this ability that can cause mass nightmares” Bell said “And if my research is correct you guys aren’t the only ones that’s been having the nightmares”

The two guys blinked.  

“What?”

Bell nodded.  “Yes” she said, before frowning “I’m surprised the two of you haven’t tried to figure this out...  You’re usually the ones that’s first in line to cause trouble”

“We’re tired” Killian said flatly “Not even we have the energy to do anything at the moment”

“Of course” Bell said, shaking her head.  

“Good” Riley’s voice said from behind Bell, “Alright... if you guys are done chatting, we’re about to start the movies”

“Yeah.. I’ve got popcorn!” Beck yelled, holding up two bowls of popcorn.  

“You’re all idiot” Kade said “Fine, let’s go”

The group made their way down to the giant TV room for the graduating class.  There were space for everyone.  Some of the graduates were curled up under blankets, other lay on each other with pillows and some sat on the couches.  

“Come on, sit down” Killian said.  

The group made their way over to the open couch.  Bell sat between Kade and Killing, with Riley and Beck on the floor at their feet.  

It did not take very long before everyone started falling asleep.  Kade just stared at the TV screen without taking anything in.  He could barely keep his eyes open.  

***

The nightmares started slowly.  Each of the graduation class were pulled into the same nightmare.  Gasping sounded as fear started filling the air.  As the nightmare continued, everyone effected started moving around.  

Kade started gasping, where he sat slumped back, with Bell and Killian all but sleeping on him.  

Terror filled his body.  

It felt like he couldn’t breath.  

Soft whimpers started sounding through the room, followed by a few sobs and cries.  

Kade knew he was back.  The torture THAT man put him through.  It kept on happening.  Over and over again.  As soon as that disappeared, he was falling.  He couldn’t breath.  Terror rushed through his body.  

A terrified scream sounded from one of the other graduates.  

No one could wake up.  

They were all trapped.

The nightmare changed.  This time he was trapped in a small room, banging on the walls.  It almost felt like he couldn’t breath.  

A terrified sob sounded form one of the students.  

Then he was drowning.  

One fear after another, rushing through him.  

He couldn’t breath.  

Everything was closing in on him.  He could feel all the others’ emotions.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  He shouldn’t be able to feel it.  There was something seriously wrong.  

Kade tried to fight his way back from the nightmares.  They just kept on becoming more and more.  

He felt his shadows surge.

The power rushing through him, ripped him from the shared nightmare with the others.  His power broke the hold that was over the entire class.  

He gasped, eyes flickering around, searching.   He couldn’t breath.  As fast as he could, he managed to get away from Bell and Killian without waking them up.  Stumbling he quickly moved through to door.

Kade barely made it out into the hall before, the panic completely set in.  He sank to his knees, one hand gripping his shirt over his chest.  

It was dark.  

He couldn’t see anything.

The sound of that man’s laughter echoed in his ears.  Screams followed.  All he was aware of was the feeling knives going over his skin.  And it hurt.  His skin crawled.  He could feel the blood running from the multiple cuts on his body.  He couldn’t breath.

His mind did not want to focus on anything.  

It was a haze of fear and pain.  

He did not even hear as the other graduates started waking up.  Nothing of it reaching him through the pain and fear.  

***

Killian jerked away from the nightmare.  Immediately he sat up, looking around, trying to catch his breath.  The first thing he noticed was that half of their class were already awake.  It was clear that they all had the nightmares again.  

But this time something was different.  

They had the nightmares, but it just disappeared.  

It might be possible that the one that was causing it, were caught or something like that.  

Killian just shook his head and then he froze.  His eyes flickered over the entire class.  There was one person mission.

Kade.

Immediately his eyes snapped towards Bell, but she was still asleep.  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the shadows moving strangely.  Quickly he got to his feet.  

He moved through the other students, towards the door.  It seemed like the shadows were at their thickest there.  

Killian opened the door and slipped out.  He froze for a moment as he saw Kade, sitting on the floor, knees pulled up against his chest.  If he looked closely, it almost seemed like there was images filtering around him.  

The nightmares.  

“Shit...” Killian swore as he quickly went over to the other guy, kneeling next to him “Kade...  can you hear me?”

Kade flinched away from Killian.

“...alright...” Killian said softly “Kay...  It’s me... It’s Killian.. You’re alright...  Everything is alright...  You’re save....  But you need to breath, alright?  You’re hyperventilating”

Kade shook his head, one hand clutching his chest.  

“...C-can’t...”

“That’s alright....  Just try....” Killian started, as he noticed the way Kade was all but scratching at his wrists, like he was trying to get something off.

Carefully Killian took Kade’s wrists in his hands, stopping his friend from hurting himself any further.  

“There’s nothing around your wrists, Kay...” he said gently, squeezing Kade’s wrists slightly “You feel that....  that’s me....  my hands are warm, it’s not cold like the shackles”

For a moment, Kade’s shoulders stiffened almost pulling away from Killian. 

“Feel that...” Killian said as he slowly let go of Kade’s wrists “I’m letting go... you are alright....we’re at the dorms....  Just breathe”

Slowly Kade’s eyes focused on Killian’s hands around his wrists.  He managed to take a proper breath.  

“There you go....” Killian said, as he let go of Kade’s one wrists “It’s over... it’s alright”

Kade’s green and pale green eyes focused on Killian.  

“...you’re here...” he whispered.  

Killian nodded.  “Yeah....” he said, putting his free hand on Kade’s messy brown hair, ruffling it slightly “You good now?”

Kade nodded slowly.  

“...I’m fine...” he said as he slumped back.  

“Alright...  Do you want to go back inside, or go to your room?” Killian asked.  

Kade’s eyes flickered towards the door, before shaking his head.  “No....” he started “I’ll just.... got....  I just.... gonna drink some.. water”

Killian nodded as he got to his feet, pulling Kade to his feet.  The other guy swayed slightly before getting his balance back.  

“yeah...  You’re not going anywhere alone” Killian said, shaking his head. 

Kade gave him a flat look, before narrowing his eyes.  “You’re not going to the bathroom with me” he said, his voice a bit stronger than before.  

Killian chuckled, patting Kade’s shoulder.  

“You do not yet realize your importance,” Vader continued as she scrambled backwards. “You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength,” Vader’s voice rose. “We can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.”

Anger flooded her, and she roughly shouted; “I’ll never join you!”

“If you only knew the power of the darkside,” Vader declared, clenching his left fist together. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”

She turned her head around, feeling righteous fury continue to rise in her. How dare he speak of her father - the man he murdered!

(But Vader hadn’t killed her father…at least, not directly. Tarkin had given the order to do that…)

“He told me enough!” The words sounded foreign to her mouth, but she managed to swing herself onto another part of the gantry, glaring up at Vader from her perch. “He told me you killed him!”

“No…” Vader rumbled, and she was confused at how soft it sounded, like the Dark Lord was attempting to console her.

And as Vader pointed to himself, Leia awoke with a start, breathing heavily. Blinking, she rubbed her eyes, and frowned.

It happened again.

For some reason she kept dreaming of Luke fighting Vader on Cloud City.

And she knew Luke was the source of the nightmares, for he constantly looked exhausted, barely ate, and subconsciously rubbed at where his prosthetic hand met his flesh arm.

Kicking the blankets off her, she pulled on a jacket, laced up her boots, and marched out of her room.

She had to find Luke, and get to the bottom of this.

And, if she was able, find a way to help him.

She stopped in front of the room he shared with Wedge Antilles, and peeked inside. Immediately, she saw Luke twitching in his sleep, muttering incoherent words.

Leia carefully stepped inside, mindful of Wedge’s passed out form, and gently shook Luke awake.

“Luke,” she whispered as his eyes snapped open. “It’s just me.”

“Leia?” he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes as he sat up. “What is it?”

“It’s about…” she deliberated. “We need to talk.”

Luke raised an eyebrow, but slowly nodded. “Okay,” he said. Leia passed him his jacket and waited for him to slip his boots on before they both crept out of the room.

“What is it?” he asked once they both settled on a mattress in the rek room.

Leia pinned him with her stare. “Your nightmares.”

Luke immediately looked away. “They’re nothing, I can handle it-”

“Luke, no,” Leia interrupted. “You’re not fine. I know Bespin…I know Vader is the one haunting your dreams - stalking them, really.” she sucked in a breath. “And I have something to tell you.”

At Luke’s wary, inquiring look, Leia confessed; “I think I’ve been experiencing your dreams - your nightmares of Bespin. Of Vader.” At Luke’s alarmed look, she added; “I don’t know why, and I don’t mean too, but that’s just what’s been happening.”

“What…” Luke looked almost sick with horror. “What exactly have you seen?”

Leia folded her hands together, and bit her lip. “Carbonite room. Underbelly of Cloud City. And when Vader…” she glanced down at his prosthetic.

“When he cut off my hand,” Luke finished quietly. He peeked up at her from underneath his bangs. “Any…anything else?” he asked hesitantly. Leia frowned slightly at his tenseness.

“No…just up to when he asks about your father.” she scoffed at the reminder.

Luke, however, seemed to be staring off into the distance.

“Luke?” she prompted gently. “Did something else happen? After that?” When Luke clenched his right hand, Leia knew something did.

Hesitantly, Leia slowly stood from her seat and sat down next to him, rubbing his arm. “Luke,” she began. “I don’t want to force you to tell me, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s bothering you.”

Luke didn’t answer, nor did her look at her, but she felt him slowly relax. She reached her arm around his shoulder, and he rested his head on her shoulder, and Leia began to gently run her fingers through his hair until his breathing slowed and he nodded off.

Gazing at his face, she longed to know what was troubling her best friend, longed to know what Vader had said to him, but she knew she could not.

Not yet.

Leia was willing to wait for Luke to take that first step. But for him to feel comfortable to do so, she had to extend the offer to tell her this night.

But she’ll have to wait a little longer to find out.

For Luke wasn’t ready yet, and she had no desire to force him to relive something so traumatic.