LOG; Harper and Uhura

[deusexmechanic]

Who: Harper and Uhura
What: Nightmares and serious faces :|
Where: In the ~bedroom~ B]
When: In the DEAD OF NIGHT.
Warnings: DREAM GORE. I tried to keep it not too explicit, but the nightmare's got some creepy themes and unpleasant images going on in it.

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[lt_n_uhura]

Uhura had been through this twice before with him. The nightmares that made him wake up screaming had been shocking, but she always assumed that it was from what had happened on the Barge. She never really wanted to ask him about them before, fearing hat bringing it up might just make things worse. And yet, this was too frequent now to just be...unrelated.

His screaming broke through her own sleep and she was instantly awake, sitting up and turning towards the sound. There was no time for her own confusion, either.

"Harper," she breathed, jittery from being jolted awake in such a way, and trying to get her bearings. She reached out blindly in the darkness and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, hey, calm down."

[deusexmechanic]

For a moment, Harper couldn't separate everything. There had been something inside him and Rex and Tyr and Magog and then someone was saying his name and touching his shoulder and he couldn't see so he jerked away from her hand like he'd been burned by it.

Then the world slowed down a few paces. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he remembered.

Rex was on the Barge. He was on the Barge. Uhura was on the Barge.

"Sorry." He said, quietly, "I just-- you know. Weird dream."

[lt_n_uhura]

She moved her hand away quickly and instead leaned over to turn on a soft light that would at least fight the darkness off a small amount. When he seemed to come back to himself, she tried to relax, but her fingers were still jittery and she didn't think she was going back to sleep any time soon.

"Don't apologize," she said, trying to reassure him. Again, she reached out and just gently put her hand over his. "It's alright. What happened?" It was the first time she had actually asked about it, but she was starting to get worried about it.

Worried about him.

[deusexmechanic]

Harper let out a breath, twisting his hand over so that he could close his fingers around Uhura's. The light helped. Being able to see her helped. He shifted closer to her on the bed, "I didn't mean to wake you up. It must really suck trying to get a decent nights sleep with me, huh?" He tried to get his voice to sound teasing, relaxed... but he just sounded stressed and guilty.

He paused for a moment, then added: "It was just a dream. A really weird dream. You shouldn't worry about it."

[lt_n_uhura]

With her free hand, she pulled her blankets up around her more and just leaned forward to kiss his forehead. "I wasn't worried the first two times it happened, Harper. I'm worried now." And she'd continue to be worried, no matter what he said, really. Him telling her not to worry just made it worse. She wanted to know what was happening to him.

"If it was just a dream, you wouldn't wake up like that." She honestly didn't care about her own night's sleep. She was used to strange hours. Being up at the Academy and staying up to listen to communications really got her used to going on a little sleep.

[deusexmechanic]

Harper tilted his head back slightly and intercepted to kiss with his lips, "Okay, so... maybe nightmare would be a better characterization of it than dream. You still shouldn't worry. It's just..." He trailed off slightly, shifting up to lie beside her in the bed, "You know when, a bunch of stuff that happened a long time ago kind of gets thrown forward with what's happening right now? And then you dream about it? That's all this is."

He slid an arm around her, running his palm up her back gently as he forced himself to calm down. To at least do a decent impression of calming down, so that she could calm down a little.

[lt_n_uhura]

Sneaky, sneaky. But she didn't try and stop him from the stolen kiss. As long as it kept him talking and not slipping back into whatever mindset he had been in before, then she wasn't going to fight it.

When he seemed to settle down and get comfortable, she did the same thing- snuggling down and resting her forehead against his shoulder just briefly to let him comfort her. But his explanation only made her look up to him sharply.

"That's all? Don't make it sound so trivial, Harper. It's obviously not."

[deusexmechanic]

Harper shrugged slightly, his voice slightly exasperated when he spoke again, "Well what am I supposed to do? It's not like I can go back and not have it happen, and it's not like I can just choose to stop-- to stop waking up with it. It'll settle down Uhura. This only happens like... a few times a year, and there's just been a lot going on recently..."

He paused, considering practical offerings he could make, "Look, maybe... if you wanted to, we could work something out for where I sleep after we... you know. So I don't wake you up."

[lt_n_uhura]

Frustrated, she shook her head. "This isn't about that. It's not about me or anything like that. It's about you. I just..." And here she sighed, anger and frustrating just dissolving into her being...generally sad and worried. The late hour wasn't doing anything to even out her emotions.

"I just want to know what's going on with you."

[deusexmechanic]

Harper half pulled away, caught between not wanting to make her any more worried than she already was, and not actually wanting to... well, to make things worse by keeping things from her. Where the hell were you even meant to start with something like this though? How much background information were you meant to give before you dove right into it?

"I-- I thought there were some things inside my stomach. So, I asked someone I used to know if he'd take them out of me, and I cut open my stomach for him. So-- he put both his arms inside me, but what he took out wasn't..."

He trailed off briefly, then swallowed, "I didn't get a good look at what he was taking out."

[lt_n_uhura]

She listened to him with a look of mild horror on her face. That seemed like quite a nightmare, but he had earlier mentioned that it had something to do with things that happened a long time ago...and that was what worried her. However, he didn't seem to want to tell her about that.

She did the only thing she could at the moment. Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a soft kiss. "You're alright now, though..." The way she trailed off hinted that it might be a question or an invitation for him to say more, should he want it. If not, she might have to pry.

[deusexmechanic]

Harper leaned in to the embrace, resting his head on Uhura's shoulder, "Mmm. I'm alright now. It's just... this place, you know? Everything you think you've just gotten past gets dragged back up over and over again." He lets out a breath against her neck and plants a little kiss there, just beneath her ear, "I guess it all comes out somewhere, you know?"

[lt_n_uhura]

"Yeah," she said softly, already relaxing enough to allow her eyes to close. She didn't anticipate sleeping again, but she could rest. "Sometimes I just wish we could leave those things behind, though."

She had her share of nightmares, too. They just didn't make her wake up screaming in the middle of the night. And they were usually forgotten by the time her eyes opened.