Sirens and smoke

[kyunnii]

Muses: Cho Kyuhyun (kyunnii) and Jung Nicole (backhugs)
Date / Time: 02/27, 2AM
Rating: PG-13
Type: Thread
Status: Closed; Completed
Summary: Nicole ends up inside Kyuhyun's dream, which quickly degenerates into fear-fueled nightmares.

Comments

[backhugs]

Nicole had learned about pregnancy, of course. Even at her "special" mutant training academy, they had enforced the appropriate standards when it came to sex education, and had huddled them all into an auditorium in her first year to force them to watch the joyous, albeit terrifying video of a woman giving birth. Even a few years later, she couldn't get over the surreal quality of it all - a fetus growing within the womb, the vagina expanding in diameter, the hours spent in labor - but then, people were complicated. It only seemed right that the way they came into the world was just as complicated. "I will." she promised, words more huffs now than anything else. Everything else was left unsaid. At least you won't have to experience it.

The backdrop was almost totally silent now, Nicole's control influencing more aspects now that Kyuhyun was zeroed in on her wellbeing. A totally clean transition would be ideal, but she wasn't sure she wanted to rip this moment away from him just yet, not when he was doing so well. Plus, there was that itching, underlying curiosity about his background.

"Me?" she hiccuped, shaking her head. "None. Orphan. Abandoned," It was so much easier to just admit the truth than build up lies, even if she knew he probably wasn't going to remember this portion of the dream. It was a truth she never admitted aloud, so even in dream space, confessing her painful past as an injured young Japanese woman, it felt therapeutic. But it wasn't about her right now. "What..." He was wrapping gauze around her - that was a good sign, right? No need to waste supplies on someone who was on the verge of death. Her pale countenance brightened with optimism. "Married?" she asked, a playful, teasing smile slippery on her lips. "You look. Young."

[kyunnii]

An orphan. Kyuhyun felt a small twinge of sadness. He'd always felt bad for those who came into the world with no one to look after them, guide them. There were far too many orphans, and each time he ran into someone who claimed to have left a child on their own he wanted to shake some sense into them. Human lives were so short, the amount of time it took for a human child to grow into an adult even shorter, but those years were crucial. He had no respect for someone who would leave their own blood to face a cruel, cold world on their own.

(His own parents had left him once he was old enough to understand what he was, but that was different. That was expected of his kind, who would spend eternity alone anyways. Humans were different, they thrived in families, in groups. And he felt for each one left by the wayside, for whatever reason.)

Married? Kyuhyun's hands paused in the middle of securing the gauze. He had been married. But it had been so long ago, he couldn't even remember her face. Just small, insignificant details, like her high-pitched laughter and clumsiness that had resulted in more than one sprained ankle or wrist. Of course, the accidents had quadtrupled once she was pregnant and couldn't even see her own feet anymore (he remembers teasing her about needing to be carried everywhere to get where she wanted to go in one piece).

"A long time ago," he repeated his previous words, voice quiet. He wished he could remember her face.

"There...you'll be all right, we need to get you somewhere safe." Securing the end of the gauze, it was thinking of his wife that made him remember where he was, what had been going on. Because his wife and three of his children had died in that village fire. Glancing around, he noticed for the first time how...quiet everything was. He could still see the fires raging, but the bodies were gone, even some splotches of blood. Hadn't there been a corpse right next to them? Why were the streets so empty? His gaze landed on a car sitting not that far away, metal covered in soot. "...?"

[backhugs]

"A long time ago..." she repeated under her breath, her disbelief disguised under her appearance. While his reactions told her he was being honest, she couldn't fathom what it could possibly mean right at that moment. (Just when did this guy get married? When he was three?!) But there wasn't a moment for her to dwell further on the information when she noticed he was looking away, using those precious seconds to change back. Nicole looked like herself again, offensively bright turquoise garb replaced by casual day clothes, the blood and gauze nowhere in sight.

"Hi." she spoke again to grab his attention, hands held up in case his mind didn't accept the sudden change as natural. He might grow hostile, attack her even, but she was willing to bet on the chance that he wouldn't. Somehow, his mind seemed a lot different from the others she had treaded through, filled with more vivid details that had almost immersed her into the dream completely - she couldn't remember the last time something like that had happened, if at all.

"My name is Nicole. Would you be so kind as to tell me where I am? I'm afraid I'm a bit lost." She stopped, mouth still parted to speak but thoughts seizing her. Was introducing herself the wrong thing to do? While she had no problems being forgotten by the individual when he or she woke up, she wasn't completely sure she could guarantee the same for Kyuhyun. Everything in this had not been what she expected - the reality of it all might translate into him remembering her in his dream and that would complicate things. The very last thing she wanted to be was remembered.

But it was too late now, she figured. Hopefully his memories would focus on how he helped the woman she had conjured up for him, remember his dream in a more positive light because of it. The small hopeful smile that spread across Nicole's face was genuine. "What's your name?"

[kyunnii]

Kyuhyun was starting to notice the strangeness of the dream, how it wasn’t progressing how it usually did. Usually, he was too caught up in his fears to notice it was a dream, but with someone influencing it…he was slowly becoming lucid.

Eyes scanning his surroundings and lingering on the small details (signs of modernity in the rural village, a few pebbles floating nearby), Kyuhyun’s attention was grabbed by a voice next to him. When he turned back, he nearly jumped in surprise upon seeing the young, injured japanese woman was gone and replaced with… with the same girl from before?

Like before she definitely didn't fit in with the rest of the villagers, but now he could see her clothing for the modern fashion that they were, instead of just accepting it as part of his surroundings. But if he was seeing modern clothes and modern cards... was this not real? “…What?”

He was confused…and suspicious. This was not normal. He was sure he’d never met her before, even if the name sounded vaguely familiar. “Who are you?” he asked sharply, ignoring her questions. “What are you doing here?”

[backhugs]

Her smile remained, softening into something a little less optimistic, more reluctant. "I'm Nicole," she repeated, hoping that he wouldn't wake up remembering it. She could see he was starting to distance himself from the dream now, taking notice of the ridiculous factors that would pass as appropriate otherwise. "I'm here because I wanted to help you." While it was the truth, she wasn't sure what she'd say if he pressed for how she got in - admitting that part of the truth was out of the question. But his mind was working quickly, catching up on changes much faster than she would have hoped for. Best case scenario, he would accept her as just another figment of his dream, the logical part of his brain stepping in.

"You were re-living a part of your member in your dream. I'm just here to make sure you don't do that to yourself," She almost continued with "again" but that seemed a little forward, almost rude. An assumption, no matter how much experience she had had with dreams before. Plus, there was that whole 'he was definitely not any kind of human she had encountered before' thing. Best to proceed with caution. "I'm not here to hurt you. What you just saw... you didn't have to go through it again and I didn't want you to. I don't think you wanted to, either," Nicole paused, plunging on. "You seem like a nice person. Someone who likes helping others while not making a big deal out of it."

[kyunnii]

Eyeing her, Kyuhyun looked around again. A dream...it was only a dream. It was the year 2014, nowhere near the 1800's or the much more distant 600's when Silla had been conquering the other kingdoms in the Korean peninsula. None of this was real, just old memories resurfacing as they always did.

But her... Kyuhyun's gaze returned to her, eyes wary. The name Nicole...it was familiar, like he'd heard it before, but he'd never met her, that much was certain. She had interfered with the nightmares, something that had never happened before. Just what was going on?

If he had been an ordinary human (or even just a few centuries younger), Kyuhyun might have just brushed it off as a figment of his dream. As just a coincidence, someone he passed on the street and happened to notice appearing in his sleep. But Kyuhyun wasn't born yesterday. He hadn't lived this long without running into all sorts of beings with far more power than him. There had been countless encounters with vampires, shapeshifters, magic-using humans, demigods with horribly inflated egos...he was even one of the few supernaturals to ever have run into a jiangshi who wasn't being the stereotypical zombie. He recognized what wasn’t normal.

Listening to her, Kyuhyun's jaw clenched slightly. Just who was she? Who was this person who had invaded his mind...the one place he couldn't ignore his fears or weighted guilt? He grabbed her arm, barely keeping the presence of mind to grip tightly but not hurt her. “If you’re not here to hurt me, then why did you come here in the first place?” he seethed lowly, eyes dark, angry. “How did you get in? What gives you the right to mess around in my head?”

Just then, the fact that she recognized the nightmare as something from memory (and therefore couldn't possibly come from a human) didn't matter. What mattered, what angered him, was that someone had seen that nightmare without his consent. Someone had seen his weakness, had seen him start to break down as he was hit with the realization that he couldn't change the past, couldn't truly save anyone. And that was far too personal. He had to fight to keep himself asleep, starting to become too lucid to hold the dream. He was going to get answers from this stranger.

[backhugs]

She could feel the growing anger before she even saw it on his face, lips thinning with mental preparation for the questions that would undoubtedly come. As it was, Nicole didn't blame Kyuhyun in the slightest - how he was currently perceiving her interference was how she viewed it herself. Intrusive. Balancing the dream state before it all dissolved around them, she met his gaze head-on, smile replaced with something more serious.

"I have no right," she admitted, barely acknowledging the hand that gripped her arm. He had figured out the alien quality of her presence - there was no real reason to hide it now. The least she could do was say as much of the truth as possible and hope that it alleviated some of the frustration that was seeping in, threatening to overwhelm. "I didn't mean to get in, I didn't want to. But I can't help it, I end up having to --" Nicole took a deep breath, forcing back what she could, trying to buy them some time. He was starting to merge into consciousness and if he tipped over to that side, he would most likely remember everything - her features, her name, what she had just done-- "I didn't target you on purpose, nor did I know this dream would be yours."

The dream was starting to rock, buildings still upright but rolling unnaturally, the mountains that filled the backdrop fading out of existence. She could only do so much in the face of the dreamer's emotional state, his knowledge sliding everything back over to reality. He would know she had mutant abilities, if he awoke now, he would know. Her panic wasn't setting in just yet but Nicole knew it would as soon as she awoke again. But what could she even say, now that she had been found out? "Please." she whispered, unable to say much else.

[kyunnii]

It wasn't enough. The knowledge that she hadn't invaded his dreams on purpose wasn't enough to appease Kyuhyun just then, humiliated that his personal fears and weaknesses had been discovered. Just another thing he couldn't prevent. How was he supposed to guard against someone who could enter his dreams? The positive feelings earlier were gone, forgotten in the face of this invasion of privacy.

Please? Please what? 'Please' wasn't going to prevent what had just happened. It wouldn't erase what she had seen, nor would it erase the sudden awareness from his mind.

"You're not welcome here. This wasn't for you or anyone to know about," he snapped. "Stay out of my head!"

The dream shattered, Kyuhyun's eyes snapping open as his whole body went rigid. After a moment he started breathing properly again, chest rising and falling and fingers slowly uncurling themselves from their death grip on his bedsheets. He could feel the sweat dampening his shirt, sending chills down his spine as he groaned and shifted onto his side. The alarm clock beside his bed flashed 4am. He could hear Lian snoring by the foot of his bed.

Slowly his heart rate settled back to a steady pace, no longer trying to escape from his chest. Just a nightmare, he thought, closing his eyes. No...not just a nightmare. A nightmare that had been invaded by an outside force. A strange supernatural girl...which races could even do what she had just done? Who was capable of walking through another's dreams? Her name was...was...

Reaching out and grabbing his phone from the side table, Kyuhyun opened the notes application and jotted it down before the details of the dream could slip from him.

Nicole.

[backhugs]

The blankets were tangled around her legs when she work up, tears tracking down her cheeks. While her body used to the strenuous exercise her mind went through every time she walked in dreams, it didn't make it any easier when a dream went badly. Nicole sat up, breathing labored, hands coming up to wipe at the tears instinctively. He would know, he would remember, was all she could think, his angry words mixing into her thoughts until she cringed with shame at the comfort of her own bed.

But the horrendous outcome didn't undermine her confusion about Kyuhyun. If anything, it was the evidence to prove that she hadn't been paranoid when she noted irregularities between his dream and other's dreams. A vivid detailed memory dream - one definitely set in a time period that would be found in history books, his role as the doctor in a village, the raid out of nowhere (the point of the dream with most chaos, emotional turmoil, she remembered with a shudder), his calm answers to her questions. A long, long time ago. He had been so kind when taking care of her, fighting instinct giving way to medical responsibility. But he wouldn't remember that as much now, or as positively as she had hoped.

Nicole blinked, more tears spilling out. Disappointment was hard to bear, another thorn to the fact that her power was eclipsing her control by leaps and bounds. Even the fact that she tried to help didn't excuse the fact that she was essentially trespassing. Another shudder, a sigh, hands smoothing over her blankets before she laid back down. She'd get rid of her pajamas in the morning - she wasn't sure she'd be able to look at them again without remembering his angry words and even angrier eyes.

It was a long time before she could fall asleep again.