eswareinmal | Action: but you never tire of dreams

Entry tags:

Action: but you never tire of dreams

Characters: Any willing dreamers
Open? Yes
Where: In your minds
When: After the party
What: Part two of the dream plot!
Warnings:

The party went on, with the beast's head on display. A proud, twisted thing. Behind false ruby eyes, it waited. And as the music became slower and the wine less plentiful, it waited still.

Those who had gazed upon it at the ball. Those who had seen it once living in the forest. All heroes who dared to look upon its face and dream still that they would be able to live another day...

There are all sorts of ways of living. In waking. In sleep. Perhaps, now, they would find one in between.

(ooc: Feel free to keep tagging into the party post! Once your characters go home and go to sleep of their own accord, that is when the dreaming will begin. Remember, it is up to you to set up what kind of world your character is trapped in and how best to help them. Plotting post is here, make use of it!

The beast's power will wane once the bulk of the dreamers have escaped his curse. If your character was not at the party but you still want to involve them in the dream plot, that is fine! They can either help get people out or have seen the beast wandering in the woods before it was killed and have caught its attention that way.

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"That would be nice. I-I would...like that. Traveling with you and Ginia." He can't really think of anything better at the moment. Well he could. Four instead of three but that's another thought that sends a painful jolt through his chest, right where his heart lay. Four instead of three would be a dream come true.

Helios is shaken from his mulling when he he's the change in scenery. "L-Luceti?" He sounds confused and he turns to look behind thinking to see the cold misty cemetery but it's no more and it's simply filled with trees.

Four instead of three. Giles had been thinking much the same thing, but he hadn't wanted to give voice to it. It isn't impossible, he thinks, that one day Elise might be swept their way. But it's a faint possibility, and he doesn't want to either get Helios' hopes up or dash them, and Giles isn't certain which one he would accomplish.

"Funny thing, dreams." Giles taps his flash lightly against Helios' in a silent toast. "Come on. I'll, um, I'll walk you home."

He remembers the way. It's only been a few days, after all.

Elise. The mere thought of her makes Helios sigh in long lost love struck adoration. He doesn't voice it either because he's afraid that it might somehow never come to be. He can hold out hope as much as he likes but he knows, he knows that it's not a possibility...and yet all this time it could be. Luceti's ways have made him curious about death and how it's dealt with there. But that's a thought for another day, another dream maybe.

"Funny thing, yes. You would think we'd be used to it by now. What with all the funny business we've been through." He shrugs a little and continues following Giles' lead.

"It's peaceful out tonight." His gaze ticks up towards the stars their brilliant glow reflecting off his glasses.

"There were peaceful nights."

Buildings pass them by as they walk, muted and a bit faded by the dreamscape but otherwise recognizable. The library. Seventh Heaven. The grocery store.

"Most of them were peaceful, actually. Three weeks out of four. Really, um, compared to home...compared to here...it, i-it was practically a vacation."

Community Building Seven rises up before them, a familiar shape casting a familiar shadow. Giles pauses beneath it, his face just as much as shadow as he stares up and up at it.

"...remember when you had to drag me back here, Helios?" During one time of many when the Malnosso had all but cracked Giles and all his defenses into a thousand fragments.

"Of course there were. When we went out on the boat all those times. When you..." he pauses looking a bit sheepish at the recollection and remembrance of such things, "when you read t-to me." Even now it makes him shake his head and laugh a little. Having to have someone read to him, not his most defining moment. But he says nothing on the matter especially not what caused it as Giles readily knows as is.

"I-I don't have it as bad as you a-and Buffy and Willow d-did. T-To be honest if I could help you back in your world I would do so in a heartbeat. But there were things that happened in my own. G-Getting away from it all is nice, isn't it?" Even if Luceti wasn't the picturesque getaway that people would want. There were darker things about it, deeper and more heinous than what even some other worlds had. But it did give people chances and a new life where some didn't have that anymore. Helios blinks looks up at Community Building Seven and the familiarity of it all. His first really residence here. Even if the house was more quaint and spacious. He had...so many memories in this place, he never really got over missing it when they moved. Silly but maybe he was just too sentimental that way.

"I-I do." A nod as he looks back over at Giles with a small frown. "Why?"

"...I don't know." Giles seems a bit shamefaced to admit as much. "It's just...thinking back, um, I, I-I could, well, really kick myself. It's always that way, isn't it? Hindsight being twenty twenty, and all that. But...gods, if I'd known then how little time I would have, I could have kicked myself for not taking advantage of all the time I could. I miss this place, Helios. Ginia is here, and that's...indescribably wonderful, but...we, w-we aren't here."

Even so, Giles sets his feet on the steps. One last walk up. One last time, if only in his memories.

"I'd just started to accept that we might be allowed to stay."

"It always is. If you could see into the future though I wonder if that would have made it any better?" His voice is sad and dour when he says that. Elise. If he had only know how quickly he would lose her. All the things he never got to say, do, experience with her. All of it was due to poor judgement and a lack of hindsight. Helios follows pausing slightly at those words. If they could have stayed...

"I-I think a lot of people started to accept it. It, it was nice while it lasted. I miss it too." More for the people than anything.

And up they go together, the steps sounding just the same under their feet as they always did. Giles can give only silence in response for the first floor or so.

"I asked a man, once...a time traveler...what that was like. Being able to, um, go further in time, or back, or, or see things with a hindsight most people can't ever have." He'd asked the question in the intervening, endless week of Helios' death. The issue of time, specifically of skipping it, had been heavily weighing on Giles' mind, back then.

"It, i-it probably wouldn't have. I know that. I'm, I'm not sure I would have believed myself, in any case. Certainly would't have been the first time one of us was, um, shown a false future just to demoralize us."

Everything sounds just as it would. It almost makes Helios think they're actually back in Luceti aside from the lack of wings and the fact that this is a dream.

"I p-probably would have been...more careful. If, if I could have seen what would happen. I don't know if-if I would have believed it either. I was bit too careless. I-I should have been careful to begin with." He should have been a lot things back then. But he knows better now even at the price being so great. A frown as he looks at the empty apartments. Too quiet for this building especially with the neighbors being so close.

"You should be more careful in general, Helios. That's, um, just what we talked about. Y-You'd, you'd be doing me a favor, really."

Giles never really knew too many of their neighbors, just one of many regrets he's carrying with him. So they can't appear, here, not even in this odd dream that isn't quite theirs', isn't quite anyone's, and started off as a trap they've only just figured out how to escape. So the floors are dark, the doors are closed, no voices issue from within. It's how the place had seemed for the longest time to Giles.

"...y-you deserve to be safe. You deserve a world that's...a bit less harsh to you."

A sheepish look and laugh from him. Yes he knows, he's working on it okay? But when you don't regard yourself as anything special or worth being careful over, well, tends to make it hard to do so. But he is certainly going to work on it if only for Giles' sake.

"You deserve the same thing Giles. A-And I know you probably won't believe that but...but you do." Said very sincerely because both of their worlds haven't been kind to them and it's really no secret that they both deserve something nice, something normal in their lives.

"From a certain point of view? I have all of that now, Helios."

The world can't do anything to him anymore besides occasionally turning him physical again. It's the problems he causes for other people in this state that are really weighing on Giles' mind.

But he still does have his friend, and that is a real blessing.

"...certainly since I met you."

As far as people being kind to him and bringing him out of his shell goes, Helios ca claim credit for a lot of that when it comes to the former Watcher.

Helios looks a bit a sheepish at that admittance from Giles. He knows he's helped the other but he never quite gave himself all that much credit for it. It was a joint effort between everyone who cared about him after all, and Helios was just a small part of it or so he thought.

"O-Oh. W-Well I-I'm glad then that I could...help you Giles. You helped me as well you know. A-And don't think for a second that you haven't." Everything they've been through since they met one another it certainly has been good on them both. Sure there were rough patches times when Helios thought Giles would leave and never return, especially after Halloween, but they got through it. Somehow they managed to get through a lot and he often wonders how, given who he is and how he is at times.

"I'm glad to have you a-as my friend..." and brother. It's an unspoken statement but certainly there. Always will be. Even if Helios fears the times and thoughts of what would happen should Nero find out. It sends a chill through his body but he shakes the thoughts off just for now. Not the place to thinking those things, not right now.

Giles pauses on the steps for a second. Since he's a couple of steps ahead of Helios, his back is to the other man, and therefore Helios can't see the look on his face. But he might hear something in his voice.

"Friends. Brothers. Family. Honestly, Helios, all the things I've, I-I've felt for you, considered you, in the past...sometimes I have a bit of difficulty keeping it all straight."

It's not as though he hasn't wondered for himself what it might be like if Nero ever showed up, to have Helios torn between a brother he'd chosen and a brother he'd been stuck with and likely to bleed for it, whatever happened. Giles had always silently sworn to protect Helios, keep him safe...but in a world like Luceti, there was only so much he could do, and Giles knew that.

But then, with that, he resumes walking. Only one more flight of stairs to go, now.

"Used to confuse me to no end, trying to sort out for myself exactly what I felt about you besides enormous affection. It's, i-it's just...s-something I had problems with. Trying to sort out what my feelings meant. I never really had the chance to, before. It was just...work, a-and responsibility, and people came second, so when they were finally in my life...I, I never knew what to do."

Helios quietly listens to the other man. What Giles considered him in the past...

He makes to catch up with Giles falling into place just behind him. Only one more flight to go. It feels like deja-vu because they used to do this so very often, for almost a year, and Helios feels perfectly natural doing it. It makes it all the harder to think that this is a dream. But that's all it is, isn't it? Just a dream and nothing more than that.

The look on Helios' face is one of mingled affection and gratitude. His question more to himself in pondering than anything. But Giles can probably hear it anyway because it is his dream after all.

"Wh-what do they mean? I-I, ah, n-no nevermind. You don't...you don't have to explain if you don't want to, of course. I-I can...understand how you feel. P-People coming second..." because for him he was always too afraid to get close. And when you had no people to get close to anymore it made it difficult doing so. Being an outcast is something that's affected him more than he would like to admit. But its the truth and he has Giles, Ginia, Grune and others to thank for at least allowing to open up a little.

Edited 2012-06-02 17:12 (UTC)

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Action: but you never tire of dreams

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