For justprompts: Unmaking
Quote: "Sleep, riches and health, to be truly enjoyed must be interrupted." - Jean Paul Friedrich Richter from post September, 2010
River isn’t the only one with nightmares. She tries to remember that, remind herself enough that she fades out of her uniqueness and into the calm banality of being just like other people. It takes time and effort and focus that doesn’t lend itself well to going back to sleep, but she practices. Quietly stays awake and holds it as solidly as she can in her mind and waits for the day it becomes natural.
Considering the Extras, their empty no-dreams and no-thoughts buzzing wordlessly at all hours while the crowd of those who were real seemed to plateau at about forty spread all over the city, Taxon requires more effort from her than usual to accomplish the task that had become only slightly difficult when the boat was full.
---
With Xander and Simon both gone, old habits bubble back up. Strange and comfortable in the custom, River goes back to spending nights in Dawn’s room at the Summers’ Castle. It wasn’t exactly normal, but no one questioned it and Dawn never turned her away, so she maintained her schedule.
First, she spends the nights sitting awake but drowsy in a chair to keep watch over her friend; logic dictated that watched pots never disappear without a trace.
Then, on a night when River pinky-swore to not run for Buffy and the sisterly comforting charm therein, curled up with Dawn like some great, gangly teddy-bear with security blanket hair.
---
It's the Unmaking Nightmare, not the Angelus Nightmare or the Mistakes Nightmare or the Weird Slayer-y Nightmare, that comes in by surprise and reminds her of trying to fade. Dawn tosses as she explodes into brilliant light, beautiful and horrible with power, becoming everything and nothing. She takes the whole 'verse with her when she goes and River only watches in awe from Serenity's bridge. The Unmaking takes everything, every memory ever made, the sun and the moon, but so bright, so bright that River feels blind as she blinks awake and sits up a few seconds before the girl next to her even realizes that it's just a dream.
"A nightmare," spoken evenly as River can manage. She wants to question it, say it was beautiful (it was), say she's scared, too (she is), but none of it gets out from behind her owlish stare.
In contrast, and trying very hard to not sound as agitated as she is, Dawn throws an arm over her eyes and mutters, "That would make sense, yeah." Having a psychic friend will always be foreign, and she wants to be selfish and annoyed instead of worrying about what it is River saw or if she's okay or about to start screaming.
River doesn't scream, though. She is fading, looking at Dawn, through Dawn, unfocused and wobbly and wondering if on the day she stops being this in-between she'll explode in fury and light, too.
When Dawn finally peeks out, shedding indulgent selfishness in favor of slowly blooming worry, River is bringing her focus back to a cowlick that's formed over Dawn's left ear.
"Just a nightmare," she says again, shifting her gaze from unruly hair to worried eyes and giving the phrase as much meaning and reassurance as she can manage and wobbles tiredly from the effort.
Dawn stares back, wobbling her own way up to sit and half-understand. The other half is thankful her friend is erring on the side of quietly incomprehensible instead of loudly inconsolable. A moment of quiet passes as Dawn does her own practiced fading.
"Wanna go drink chocolate milkshakes and beat all the high scores on Andrew's video games?"
Standing with a blanket pulled over her like a cape, River nods. Then she amends, "No zombies."
"Nope, no zombies."
---
Buffy finds the two of them the next morning, sleeping soundly with their heads on opposite ends of the couch, empty chocolate-lined cups on the floor between them and Andrew standing off to the side eating a toaster strudel as he tries to catch up to all their new records.
River isn’t the only one with nightmares. She tries to remember that, remind herself enough that she fades out of her uniqueness and into the calm banality of being just like other people. It takes time and effort and focus that doesn’t lend itself well to going back to sleep, but she practices. Quietly stays awake and holds it as solidly as she can in her mind and waits for the day it becomes natural.
Considering the Extras, their empty no-dreams and no-thoughts buzzing wordlessly at all hours while the crowd of those who were real seemed to plateau at about forty spread all over the city, Taxon requires more effort from her than usual to accomplish the task that had become only slightly difficult when the boat was full.
---
With Xander and Simon both gone, old habits bubble back up. Strange and comfortable in the custom, River goes back to spending nights in Dawn’s room at the Summers’ Castle. It wasn’t exactly normal, but no one questioned it and Dawn never turned her away, so she maintained her schedule.
First, she spends the nights sitting awake but drowsy in a chair to keep watch over her friend; logic dictated that watched pots never disappear without a trace.
Then, on a night when River pinky-swore to not run for Buffy and the sisterly comforting charm therein, curled up with Dawn like some great, gangly teddy-bear with security blanket hair.
---
It's the Unmaking Nightmare, not the Angelus Nightmare or the Mistakes Nightmare or the Weird Slayer-y Nightmare, that comes in by surprise and reminds her of trying to fade. Dawn tosses as she explodes into brilliant light, beautiful and horrible with power, becoming everything and nothing. She takes the whole 'verse with her when she goes and River only watches in awe from Serenity's bridge. The Unmaking takes everything, every memory ever made, the sun and the moon, but so bright, so bright that River feels blind as she blinks awake and sits up a few seconds before the girl next to her even realizes that it's just a dream.
"A nightmare," spoken evenly as River can manage. She wants to question it, say it was beautiful (it was), say she's scared, too (she is), but none of it gets out from behind her owlish stare.
In contrast, and trying very hard to not sound as agitated as she is, Dawn throws an arm over her eyes and mutters, "That would make sense, yeah." Having a psychic friend will always be foreign, and she wants to be selfish and annoyed instead of worrying about what it is River saw or if she's okay or about to start screaming.
River doesn't scream, though. She is fading, looking at Dawn, through Dawn, unfocused and wobbly and wondering if on the day she stops being this in-between she'll explode in fury and light, too.
When Dawn finally peeks out, shedding indulgent selfishness in favor of slowly blooming worry, River is bringing her focus back to a cowlick that's formed over Dawn's left ear.
"Just a nightmare," she says again, shifting her gaze from unruly hair to worried eyes and giving the phrase as much meaning and reassurance as she can manage and wobbles tiredly from the effort.
Dawn stares back, wobbling her own way up to sit and half-understand. The other half is thankful her friend is erring on the side of quietly incomprehensible instead of loudly inconsolable. A moment of quiet passes as Dawn does her own practiced fading.
"Wanna go drink chocolate milkshakes and beat all the high scores on Andrew's video games?"
Standing with a blanket pulled over her like a cape, River nods. Then she amends, "No zombies."
"Nope, no zombies."
---
Buffy finds the two of them the next morning, sleeping soundly with their heads on opposite ends of the couch, empty chocolate-lined cups on the floor between them and Andrew standing off to the side eating a toaster strudel as he tries to catch up to all their new records.