as_damaged | ☤ forty-nine

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☤ forty-nine

This room has a door, and the door is securely locked. By a lot of locks, actually. More locks than any sane person puts on a door, spanning the whole right edge, with a few scattered along the top, even on the hinge side. Most of them have simple knobs to turn; a few dangling security chains are clipped in place, and one or two can only be opened by a key. Of course, lucky you, these are all on your side, meaning you’re not trapped here. Right?

Except, locks are meant to keep things out. Slowly, certainly, the knobs are starting to turn, as whoever-- or whatever-- is on the other side of the door makes their way in.

[ooc; all threads treated as different iterations of the dream, feel free to jump on in~ may be sloow but i will backdate until the end of days <3 ilu]

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If she were trapped, the cage would be built for two. He couldn't say how he got here, or how long it's been, except that he can't presently remember anything before being in this room, in the corner with his feet at right-angles to the wall, watching her. Watching her watching.

If she notices, turns away from the door and the slow dismantling of her defences she'll see a face she knows or knew four years ago. His hair as long as it was back then, curling just under his ears. His clothes even traceable to a certain point in their history, before there really was much of a they to speak of. Against the blank sheet of the wall his colours are muted, as though he's dreaming himself in sepia. He seems to know her better than he should, although the first thing to break the silence besides the metallic scrapes of locks and keys is a question.

"Why are you doing this alone?"

That's a question she can't answer, not because she doesn't know why but because it's too obvious to vocalize. clack, clack; two bolts slip out of place as she refastens one. Cameron spreads her arms to go at this with both hands, a little clumsier for the split in her attention, flat against the door. It doesn't really help.

"It's just a matter of time..."

She glances ever so briefly at him, before returning to her task.

"What is?"

He pushes away from the wall and circles around her, narrowing the distance until their shoulders touch. He slides a bolt home, feeling the resistance behind it and wonders what she's waiting for. Keeping the wolf from the door.

The answer wasn't obvious. As he reaches to drive another lock into place and catch another half way to opening he almost asks again why alone, but maybe the answer will come another way. A matter of time. Maybe she really is this stubborn.

"Until I can't keep up," she answers, deceptively calm. There's more to it than stubbornness, but very little she can voice. Even having him here... If one were compiling a list of things that scared her, in any possible way...

The pace of whatever is on the other side picks up, as though the assistance he's offered can't be tolerated. Bolts fly out of place even faster, the force necessary to counteract it growing. Cameron never despairs, though; something nightmarish in itself, the firm set of her jaw in spite of the terror in her eyes.

A few heavy pounds shake the frame itself.

"Damn it..." Chase notices the pick up in speed, too, and briefly considers stopping the effort to stop up the locks and simply shouldering his weight against the door instead. Failing that, he casts glances around the room for something else to use as a barricade.

For now: a knee against the door so that every shove reverbs down his shinbone, and redoubled efforts, fighting her hands to get to the locks.

"Then maybe you should tell me what's about to join us. Do you know? They're kind of persistent if they're selling something."

"No idea."

There's nothing here, no way to barricade the door; Cameron hasn't slowed in spite of the banging, doing her best to keep her terror under wraps. The pace never slacks, constantly accelerating, the clattering din of bolts flying open and home rising. It's punctuated by those same heavy thumps; and after a while the door flies open in spite of their combined efforts, throwing both doctors aside. Whatever rushes in is probably not familiar to Chase; Cameron knows it, remembers it, as many people in the City would-- a thick and oily mass of ragged, animate hair. It pours in, splintering into tendrils and wrapping itself around limbs and throats, its texture simultaneously slick and sharp. And then it's gone-- no harm done-- no damage.

Oh, but Chase; you're holding a gun, and it's pointed at Cameron.

[ooc; orz if that's too godmodey i will change? D: he is not compelled to shoot or anything, it's just a matter of creating the right image for her nightmare <3 ;;]

Well it's hard to keep track, when one minute his fists are wrapped around something suffocating and immense, and the next they're gripping cold steel. He stares at Cameron, still sputtering from the acrid taste of the thing that had been using multiple methods to strangle him and words already formed - "What the hell--" before he looks down and finds the sentiment silently repeated.

Eyes wide, he drops the gun and sends it spinning across the floor away from him. It seems to take hours before the last rotation stills and leaves the barrel pointing lamely into the corner, and by the time he looks up from it his expression has faded from shock into something almost hurt.

"You... have nightmares about me?"

Her reflex action is to back up when she sees the gun, though she stops as he tosses it aside, eyes wide, still traced with terror. She looks at the weapon as it spins away, then back at him, taking another step back.

"What? No..." she murmurs uncertainly, coloring slightly. Loss of control, another quiet fear creeping into this unreality. "I don't... it's not like that."

"Then..."

He lets the question fade, shaking his head and locking away as his teeth drag down against his lip. Yelling at her for the state of her subconscious isn't what he wants to do, and there's no threat to either of them here right now.

Raising his hands, almost a surrender, he tries a step forward half the length of the one she took away from him. "Calm down. Nothing's going to hurt you while I'm here."

"If you are here." That's a borrowed terror of sorts, the uncertainty and unreality. Chase has always threatened the suspension of disbelief that lets Cameron get through every day, every curse, without trying to attribute everything to her own subconscious.

"How can you be sure?"

"What kind of question is that?" Chase queries, almost amused if it weren't for the wide-eyed fear he can see in her. Still, he plays it lightly, voice and manner gentle.

"Are you sure you're here?" a hint of a smile and he looks down for a fraction of a second, "I hope so, because you've always been surer than me."

"Sometimes I don't want to be."

That statement falls between them with an almost palpable weight, carrying all the synesthetic significance words in a dream can. She doesn't move but seems distant nonetheless. It's a space movement can't quite close.

"But what does it matter?"

"If you started admitting what you're afraid of, it might. I'm not a mind reader, Cameron." Shrugging his shoulders, he folds his arms across his chest and seems to inspect his shirtsleeves for damage left by their furry visitor. "Even here."

She shakes her head slightly, slowly, her demeanor not stubborn but sad.

"You don't want me to tell you."

"How do you know that, when you've never tried me?"

He sighs and seems to slump a little at the knees as though looking for a wall to support him. "I know I've let you down before. I'll probably do it again, but if it makes a difference? I'll never not care. If you're going to hold out for some ideal of a person who never lies, never screws up... well you're going to be holding out one hell of a while."

"I know," she insists, chewing at her lip because she can't illustrate her convictions without explaining all the things she can't explain.

"It's not... I'm not waiting for anything. I'm not." Again the distance seems unnavigable, without any change in their positions. Cameron frowns, unable to find adequate words.

"You were waiting for something to come through that door." he points out, indicating with a jerk of his shoulder. "You're still waiting for something. We're still here."

He holds out an arm, palm up, for her to take if nightmare fears don't have her too stubborn. "So why don't we start by getting out."

It takes a long time for her to reach for him, the moment bending like light through water before her fingers wrap around his wrist, feeling unusually thin in their tension. All the reassurance in the world can't do anything to dispel the fear she feels, something baseless and inexplicable for a thousand reasons.

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☤ forty-nine

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?

and if i lose myself, what if you find yourself where you are?