on_thecouch | 12.4.
12.4. "Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of the week." - WILLIAM DEMENT, Newsweek, Nov. 30, 1959
Nightmares weren’t exactly foreign to Riley, but they usually only plagued him when he was stressed or exhausted. He shouldn’t have been surprised they’d caught him on the Edinburgh trip when he was jetlagged and unsettled about Beth’s parents, but that didn’t make it easier to come out of it when he was ripped from the depths of a disturbed sleep drenched in sweaty, tangled in the sheets with his heart pounding and breath coming in short, panicked pants.
He reached up to swipe at the beads of sweat on his forehead and realised his cheeks were also wet. He’d been crying in his sleep. His throat was dry and sore, making him wonder if he’d been shouting or screaming, but a glance down at a still sleeping Beth didn’t hold any answers. To make it worse, he remembered the dream and it was making him feel sick and almost claustrophobic in a bed and a home that wasn’t his. A wave of homesickness washed over him and he peeled the wet sheets away from his legs to get out of bed.
His legs felt weak and unsteady, but he just had to get out for a few minutes. Fresh air. He needed fresh air. He pulled on his track pants and reflexively picked up his smokes and cell phone from the nightstand. A small backtrack had him tearing a handful of tissues from the nearby box and then he quietly left the room. It wasn’t hard to make sure hit footfalls were soft. He’d learnt that the first night they got here and he had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
As soon as he got downstairs, he paused and rubbed his throat, dragging a long, raspy breath to try and calm himself down. His heart was still pounding and he could feel the light sheen of sweat over his body. The tissues were in a crumpled ball in his palm, so he unfolded some of them and wiped his cheeks and nose. He needed a smoke; probably not the best reaction but it was all he had for the moment.
He made it out to the garden of Beth’s parents’ home. The Edinburgh summer night air was cool, but not unpleasant. He was sure he could get away with sitting out there without his shirt on for a little while. He was already opening his packet of cigarettes as he sunk down onto the back steps, setting his handful of essential items on the welcome mat beside him. His hands were shaking, so lighting the smoke wasn’t as succinct as it usually was but he eventually got there, inhaling the nicotine and trying to use it to ease out of the anxiousness aroused in him.
What the nightmare was scared him. How could it not? The horrible dream had started with him sitting on the edge of an ER gurney, and Cameron had been standing there with a smirk on her face as she sliced open an envelope with a scalpel. He’d asked her what was so funny and she just rolled her eyes and told him he was an idiot for hoping the result would be negative. Then, as dreams have a tendency of doing, the images veered to him sitting in the Infectious Diseases clinic at PPTH and a faceless doctor across from him had a blank envelope slotted between his fingers. Riley had been bracing himself for the results of his HIV test, but instead of that, the doctor told him tests had revealed he and Tab had been switched at birth and she wasn’t really his sister, let alone his twin. The doctor had started to laugh, then asked him how he had really believed all these years that she was his twin when they were so different. Of course, none of it made sense, but it explained the tears.
It left him with a distressed discontent and the notion of the dream made him want to throw up. Where the fuck had his mind been for him to dream that first, his tests came back positive, and second, that Tab wasn’t his sister? The homesickness clenched in his gut and before he could stop himself, tears were flowing again. He thought he was about over the emotional instability of the needlestick, but clearly it was still a source of pain for him. He knew there wasn’t any immediate fixes, but he did know exactly where to find a band-aid… the only band-aid he really knew how to apply right now.
He picked up his cell phone and hit speed dial, waiting for an answer, which soon came, feeling like a cup of hot milk on a freezing night. “Tab, it’s me. Sing me a song or something, yeah?”
- Beth Anderson [phtgrphcscot] and Tab Browne [asinthecity] referenced with permission
Word Count | 799
Nightmares weren’t exactly foreign to Riley, but they usually only plagued him when he was stressed or exhausted. He shouldn’t have been surprised they’d caught him on the Edinburgh trip when he was jetlagged and unsettled about Beth’s parents, but that didn’t make it easier to come out of it when he was ripped from the depths of a disturbed sleep drenched in sweaty, tangled in the sheets with his heart pounding and breath coming in short, panicked pants.
He reached up to swipe at the beads of sweat on his forehead and realised his cheeks were also wet. He’d been crying in his sleep. His throat was dry and sore, making him wonder if he’d been shouting or screaming, but a glance down at a still sleeping Beth didn’t hold any answers. To make it worse, he remembered the dream and it was making him feel sick and almost claustrophobic in a bed and a home that wasn’t his. A wave of homesickness washed over him and he peeled the wet sheets away from his legs to get out of bed.
His legs felt weak and unsteady, but he just had to get out for a few minutes. Fresh air. He needed fresh air. He pulled on his track pants and reflexively picked up his smokes and cell phone from the nightstand. A small backtrack had him tearing a handful of tissues from the nearby box and then he quietly left the room. It wasn’t hard to make sure hit footfalls were soft. He’d learnt that the first night they got here and he had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
As soon as he got downstairs, he paused and rubbed his throat, dragging a long, raspy breath to try and calm himself down. His heart was still pounding and he could feel the light sheen of sweat over his body. The tissues were in a crumpled ball in his palm, so he unfolded some of them and wiped his cheeks and nose. He needed a smoke; probably not the best reaction but it was all he had for the moment.
He made it out to the garden of Beth’s parents’ home. The Edinburgh summer night air was cool, but not unpleasant. He was sure he could get away with sitting out there without his shirt on for a little while. He was already opening his packet of cigarettes as he sunk down onto the back steps, setting his handful of essential items on the welcome mat beside him. His hands were shaking, so lighting the smoke wasn’t as succinct as it usually was but he eventually got there, inhaling the nicotine and trying to use it to ease out of the anxiousness aroused in him.
What the nightmare was scared him. How could it not? The horrible dream had started with him sitting on the edge of an ER gurney, and Cameron had been standing there with a smirk on her face as she sliced open an envelope with a scalpel. He’d asked her what was so funny and she just rolled her eyes and told him he was an idiot for hoping the result would be negative. Then, as dreams have a tendency of doing, the images veered to him sitting in the Infectious Diseases clinic at PPTH and a faceless doctor across from him had a blank envelope slotted between his fingers. Riley had been bracing himself for the results of his HIV test, but instead of that, the doctor told him tests had revealed he and Tab had been switched at birth and she wasn’t really his sister, let alone his twin. The doctor had started to laugh, then asked him how he had really believed all these years that she was his twin when they were so different. Of course, none of it made sense, but it explained the tears.
It left him with a distressed discontent and the notion of the dream made him want to throw up. Where the fuck had his mind been for him to dream that first, his tests came back positive, and second, that Tab wasn’t his sister? The homesickness clenched in his gut and before he could stop himself, tears were flowing again. He thought he was about over the emotional instability of the needlestick, but clearly it was still a source of pain for him. He knew there wasn’t any immediate fixes, but he did know exactly where to find a band-aid… the only band-aid he really knew how to apply right now.
He picked up his cell phone and hit speed dial, waiting for an answer, which soon came, feeling like a cup of hot milk on a freezing night. “Tab, it’s me. Sing me a song or something, yeah?”
- Beth Anderson [phtgrphcscot] and Tab Browne [asinthecity] referenced with permission
Word Count | 799