I need some sleep/It can't go on like this

[stonyfaced]

Characters: Vimes (stonyfaced) and Genius (man-genius
Date/Time: BACKDATED to April 26th, early morning
Location: The Bazaar
Rating: PG-13 for presumed mention of both Genius' and Vimes' grisly dreams
Summary: Vimes gives up on sleep after having two nightmares and decides to walk around, whereas Genius goes out for some comforting starches. Cue an early morning

Comments

THINGS PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT VIMES: YES HE IS SOCIALLY INEPT HE JUST HIDES IT WELL

[stonyfaced]

"Sorry," he said, knowing that he probably shouldn't have blurted it out like that, but looking too tired to look properly apologetic. His mouth quirked. "Still, better you find out straight before everyone goes tip toeing around you--unless you'd prefer that."

More coffee. Right. He really didn't want to have a conversation like this half-asleep, though neither did Genius. There was something about the brink between the night and the day that made people honest, Vimes found. Those unused to these hours tended to regard it as a special sort of time, where nothing felt quite real. Even as one used to these hours, Vimes could understand. There was something about these misty hours that felt somehow detached from the regularities of the day and the nighttime.

He wasn't quite able to keep the grimace off his face when Genius admitted to having his dream. "Damn," he muttered, and carefully looked off to the side to tap some of the burnt cigar off the end. "I hoped that no one saw that one, but you were probably hoping the same thing."

He waved off Genius' apologies. "It's fine," he said, though it wasn't fine, someone disappearing could never be fine, should never be fine. "It happens to everyone here, especially if they've been here as long as I have."

He wanted to ask if Genius had went to talk to someone, he really did, but he had already slipped up once. He'd wait for a proper segue, he decided.

YES GENIUS IS QUITE SHOCKED

[man_genius]

"Er I guess." He scratched as his head. "This is probably better." Probably. It was still too early to tell. What was Vimes after?

He felt a little guilty when the older man's face twisted up at hearing about his dream. "Pretty much." He looked into his coffee. "It's clearly not fine so don't bother trying. I met that guy in your dream. But I never met his sister. I...it's good to see that you remember them."

Remember Me. Even months later, Evil Ben's dying command to Genius still echoed in his mind. Remember the forgotten. Sear them into your mind and only there, for no where else is safe. He probably understood Vimes' dream better than anyone would think.

He really didn't know what to do now. Did they talk about their dreams? It was sad how blase he was becoming to his psyche being shared with total strangers. Hell it had just happened to him with Ben a week ago, it almost wasn't traumatic anymore. Almost.

"Argh." He took a giant swig of coffee and ignored the burning in his mouth. "I'm not awake enough for this. Why do I even try to have the illusion of normalcy in the face of the obvious? The first step is always acceptance. I give up man."

Stupid Calkins. Her psych babble was beginning to get under his skin.

IT'S EASIER TO FAKE IT WHEN YOU'RE OLD, BECAUSE THEN YOU'RE JUST A TYPICAL ORNERY OLD MAN

[stonyfaced]

"They were good kids," he said, then shrugged. "Mostly. Everyone here makes an attempt at remembering everyone who comes here as long as they can, not that this place makes it particularly easy."

He remembered everyone who left. So did the others, he figured. Bastet, Justice, Sky... they were the old ones. He wondered how many they knew he didn't. Or how many he knew that they didn't. Too many, he knew, from the books upon books in the musty old library. He hadn't visited it lately. There was always an excuse, he knew--he had to tend to the books, there were new recruits. There was always an excuse. In truth, he fell out of the habit when he adopted Blood, not wanting to go down the path of death like Ghost did, and didn't pick it back up again. It was hard being there when he knew that each book represented a person gone forgotten. It was like being in a room full of empty lifetimers.

"Look at the time, Genius," Vimes said with a sardonic twitch of his mouth. "It's too damn early to be awake enough for anything, let alone this. I think another cup of coffee is in order at least." He downed the rest of it in an impressive show of truly ravaged tastebuds, and flagged the coffee shop owner down to come and refill it.

"And too damn early for tact, I'm afraid, so I'm going cut straight to the chase. Frankly, your dream was pretty disturbing, but I have no room to talk 'cos mine was too. What I'm curious about is... well, did you try talking to someone at Wellspring like I suggested last time we saw each other?"

this is true!

[man_genius]

Kids. Genius had the suspicion that everyone was a kid to Vimes. There were a number of people Genius knew that had left. But he was in the unique position of having most of his special people, his family, still with him. They were only missing the children, Lotus and Promise. "It might be really hard for the little kids here," he mused. Those without parents, like that child Apple. Maybe that was why so many of them disappeared so quickly.

Genius followed Vimes' actions and downed the rest of his coffee so he too could get a refill. He was going to need it for this conversation.

"Geez, don't hold back or anything," he grumbled under his breath. Then louder, "Wait. Was it really that disturbing?" Cause it was one of his milder dreams honestly--ok no, not admitting that out loud. "I mean, you're so bad ass medieval, like King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table style, swinging around swords and--vampires. You dreamed about vampires and werewolves so your concept of 'disturbed' should be different from mine and if it disturbed you then I am really really disturbed."

He took a breath. "I ah..I am. I have been for a while. Twice a week with Calkins. It's...helping."

Sort of. It was nice to talk to Calkins and he loved being constantly fed by the woman, but there was something...draining. About being around her so often. It was probably just his own baggage that made the sessions so tough, since she was such a kind woman.

"It would help if this place would stop doing something traumatizing every five seconds."

[stonyfaced]

"Might? It is. Harder for them than the older ones, and the older ones seem to have enough troubles as it is," he noted dryly, then nodded to the man who appeared at his side to refill their cups. "Thanks."

Genius was quite right to take some sort of offense to how direct he was being, but Vimes couldn't be arsed to act otherwise. He had to try to be tactful every day to every damn fool to step foot into his office to complain about one thing or another, but right here, right now, there was no point. He had seen Genius at his weakest, curled upon the muddy ground like a child and Genius had seen him at... no, not his weakest. But he had seen him after the zombies attacked, and that certainly counted for something. The Sphere had an odd way of throwing him into meeting those he usually wouldn't bat an eye at.

"Medieval--Knights of the Round Table?" He shook his head, bewildered. "You're speaking a different language than me there. Besides, I don't hold up with kings. And vampires don't count as disturbing on their own, even if I hate the bloody things. It's only disturbing when they're looking to stick their teeth in your neck. Werewolves and vampires are normal. But when I say disturbing, I don't mean the images, just the way everything was laid out."

He may be blunt, but not blunt enough to say, Well, you had animal bits in jars and your dream-friends said that you hurt them, which is pretty damn out there, and the whole just a dream thing was pretty creepy and all in all it made you look like a right loony.

He slid the scaldingly hot coffee cup between his hands as he considered the dream once more. The fact that the dream was even more troubling in retrospect - but not quite so troubling as his own, latent fears coming to haunt him while his guard is down, while he cannot take the responsibility of watching himself - was distressing, but he was cheered that the counseling helped. "Good. This place... I can't see it changing that whole traumatizing bit, so it's us who has to change."

[man_genius]

"I never really thought about them." Genius curled his hands around his mug. 'I hadn't really though about anyone else.' The thought was left unsaid. He was changing so much in the sphere. Was it for the best? The nightmares and constant paranoia said otherwise.

He merely sighed at Vimes' confusion. "I always do." Nobody ever understood him. "We come from different worlds. Vampires, werewolves--even kings--aren't normal. Just humans were I come from. Plain old non magical homo sapiens." He had a chip on his shoulder about being so mundane in comparison to the rest of the sphere.

The thing was Genius was lacking in perspective. He had worst dreams, horribly twisted, nightmare scenarios, about being covered in blood, about Qi crying in his arms as they stood over the dead body of an unknown man, about taking memories, selling people and Ben touching him in ways that were just too traumatic to think about. So it wasn't the worst dream right? He was lucky that the sphere had chosen that one to show. All the same...

"Maybe I'll go back on the sleeping pills and teas." They made him dopey but maybe it was better to walk around like a zombie than be thought of as a fucked up freak. "Or maybe I'll just go find some more of that stupid rainbow sand, cause I think I preferred being in comas than this."

He felt so messed up and yet too exhausted to really feel panicked about it. Numbness. That's what it was, too much, too soon. Thanks to the support of his friends, Genius was actually stronger than he gave himself credit for. What would have broken him a year ago just bent him down, cracks along the surface but still together. Just barely. Numb.

[stonyfaced]

"The kids? I suppose you didn't. Not a lot of people pay attention to them. Not as many as they need, I'm sure. It's damn easy to slip through the cracks here."

It was true. Sometimes he went down to the library and checked who had disappeared. Sometimes, he had no idea who that person was. And neither did anyone else he checked with. It was a horrifying thought, that among this little community of theirs, there were those who knew no one, said nothing, then disappeared. No one knew who they were, or what they could have been, but once they were gone it no longer mattered. Or the newborns that disappeared, and hell, there were a lot of them too. They wrote in the journals once, same as everyone else, introducing themselves and expressing their confusion and just... vanished.

"No kings," Vimes mused. "Now that, I wouldn't mind. It's a bloody awful idea to start." When Genius spoke of wishing for more sleeping dust, he tilted his head in thought, then said gruffly, "I'd be careful what you wish for, lad, at least out loud. Knowing this place, it'll listen right when you don't actually want it to. Besides, this place has a way of getting around your defenses; even if you take sleeping pills, I figure you'll have others' dreams whether you like it or not."

His mouth twisted in a wry half-smile. "It's not as if many people are open about whose dreams they got. At best, everyone'll just ignore it."

[man_genius]

"Ya ever wonder why someone didn't just start an orphanage or something? Instead I guess everyone just kinda leave them to their own devices. It's not right."

A year ago he wouldn't have cared or thought about it. Now though his thoughts lingered on Promise and Lotus, living somewhere without their fathers. It seemed like such a worse fate than being the parents left behind, except that Genius saw what it was doing to Rick. Slowly eating away at him. Didn't Vimes have a kid too?

Genius snorted at Vime's comment about kings. "I don't know. Then you're left with democracy and that never works. Government by the people for the people turns into whoever has the most money to rig an election and push their agendas above everyone else. You can make a king, how is that any better than a bloodline?" Maybe ES had the best government of all, which was to say none.

Oh. He hadn't thought about that. "It would only freak out Rick too." He remembered how Rick stayed up waiting for him to rehatch. He didn't want to put him through it again.

"Maybe I could blame it on bad pizza." He sipped at his coffee. "I dunno what's more worrying, the fact that everyone's had my dream or the fact that I can't bring myself to care much." He should be freaking out right? Maybe he was out of freakouts to give.

[stonyfaced]

"Probably 'cause most of them have a primary caretaker, even if they're not the best caretaker in the world," Vimes reasoned. "That, and it'd be a bloody difficult job, watching those kids disappear all the time and worrying about disappearing yourself."

He puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. It wasn't that Genius could give him any ideas - gods knew he had his hands full enough with the Watch and he wasn't charitable enough to make a godsdamned orphanage - but he had to admit that as ideas went, it wasn't a bad one.

"Haven't got a democracy," Vimes said, as cheerfully as he could at this hour. "That's best left to the Ephebians. We've got-- that is to say, I'm used to having a Patrician. You can arrest a Patrician, but you can't arrest a King without hauling him off to get his head chopped off."

There was a lot more to say. In fact, he always had more to say on the subject of politics, even if he detested them. In the real world, in a world with government, it was a whole lot more complicated. It came down to making a city run, he figured. A King just waved his hand and got whatever the hell he wanted regardless of how he acted. A Patrician... yeah, all right, it was more or less the same thing at times, but the principle was sound. It was easier to kick a single elected man out of office than it was to kick out a bloodline of weak-chinned, heavy-bottomed nuisances who ate off the plates of the people and acted surprised when there were riots in the street.

Not something Genius was interested in, he figured. Though from the sounds of it, Genius wasn't interested in much at the moment. "Suppose there are worse things, and you've seen enough of them," he reasoned. "Compared to a lot of things here, maybe this dream wasn't so bad. But I figure it's something you ought to care about eventually, 'cos I'd warrant some of your friends will be interested. And gods know you've got enough of 'em."

[man_genius]

"Do they?" He didn't know. He had no clue how most of the sphere lived outside of his circle of friends and he was a bit ashamed of that. "I guess we're all lucky worst things don't happen." It was amazing to think that no one exploited those children. Now that he really thought about it.

He really didn't want to think about it. So he pushed it firmly out of his mind and focused on easier topics like politics (har).

"The who? A Patrician? Is that like an aristocracy or something?" He only had a vague notion of the word. "You can't really arrest a President either. You can impeach him, but they just quietly slip away and later get pardoned by the opposite party to hide the mess under the rug." He shrugged. "No government is perfect I guess."

His friends. Genius shook his head and slid further into his chair.

"Just kill me now. I can claim memory loss when I rehatch. I mean I love them, dearly. I'd do anything for them but they are so. I don't know. So." Spammy? Overprotective? Nosy? "Everywhere. I can't--I'm not supposed to have friends."

Why was he admitting this?

"I don't remember having them, I mean. Having people who care if I don't come home in the morning, people to come home to, has never felt normal, not really. So I don't want them to have to deal with...me. Never mind. I don't know what I'm saying." His face twisted up into a miserable look of frustration and existential angst.