eswareinmal | (no subject)

Characters: Shin and anyone asleep
Open? Yep!
Where: the Dreaming
When: Nighttime, RD12
What: Shin goes dream walking.
Warnings: Lots of capitalized Ds

Even in Dreams, Shin was restless. Without the normal background hum of hundreds of Dreamers, the Dreaming felt empty. Hollow.

Far to much like it had when his Dreaming had been sealed.

There were still the doors to the dreams of everyone who was asleep, even if so many of them seemed like cardboard cut outs... It was easy to spot the ones of those who weren't native of the world. They were more real, solid, and he could feel more clearly who was behind them. It was something he had noticed before, back home. The doors to fellow Dreamers were the more vibrant and real, and those who had strong powers were a close second. Idly he drifted through the insubstantial hallway, knocking on some to announce his presence, others just phasing into the dream and looking around. After all, it wasn't as if he expected most people to hear him knocking. They'd have to be aware for that, and he knew for a fact that there were no other Dreamers around and active dreamers were rare.

[[OoC: Feel free to notice Shin entering your characters dream, or to just set up a random dream for him to step into!

Edit: Also, since Shin power allows him to manipulate dreams, let me know if you don't want him to be able to with your character's dream, please!]]

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"If you have the same nightmare every night, doesn't much matter now does it?" Shin countered. "But by all means, if you want to just have your cross, far be it for me to talk you out of it."

"Different nightmares every night since they died," Sasuke corrected, flatly. "My family is intelligent. Creative. They wouldn't be so repetitive and boring."

He thought, somewhere, that he could hear the voices of his parents and grandparents approving.

"And apparently bitter as hell and giving no shits about your well being," Shin added dryly. "And utterly insecure if they think they need to torture you to get them to do shit for them from the afterlife. Some family."

Sasuke's blood froze with fury.

"Don't insult them," he said, voice quiet, toneless--dangerous. "Don't you fucking say SHIT about my family!"

He stood up, hands shaking, eyes wild. "My family was massacred and I can't do them the courtesy of putting them at rest--nine years I've been failing them, over and over, and you call them bitter--?"

He was aware that he was screaming. Didn't give a shit. He wanted to lunge, to choke the life out of the worm, the filth spitting on the Uchiha name.

Shin floated back, eye's widening a little at the sudden rage. "...Bitter's pretty accurate..." he replied, tone a bit slow. "That's kinda what happens when people get frustrated that long, calm down..."

Nine years of tormenting himself over that... no wonder that guy was so twitchy....

"I WILL NOT CALM DOWN."

His chest was heaving--images of his old teachers and teammates telling him the same things flitted through his head, and he was sick and fucking tired of sitting down and shutting up and trying to be the bigger person.

It hurt. And no one seemed to understand how much, how deep it ran.

The fury that boiled through him felt like an accumulation of all of it, built up from every moment in his life he'd tried to push it away. And he lunged with a howl.

Oh shi--

Shin floated back, becoming insubstantial so that Sasuke would go right through him.

...Crap. How unstable was this jerk? He couldn't just leave things like this, think, how could he--

Maybe.

He reached out into the dream, pulling into existence something to take the appearance of what Sasuke wanted to vent his rage on. Sasuke's mind would fill in the details and let him do what he willed with the figure, whatever it would be.

...as long as it wasn't him.

Sasuke's fist slammed into a familiar fabric.

He looked up, and into a glassless mirror.

The body was pathetic. Thin, bony, haggard--and the emotion, the rage and fear on his face, was like a spoiled child.

Worthless.

"Worthless piece of--"

He went for it--delivered punch to his other self's gut hard enough for his knuckles to smart and warm blood to spatter onto his own shoulder. It was sickeningly satisfying.

He grabbed the clone's hair and smashed his forehead against its nose, feeling the cartilage splinter and more blood pour down his face. After that, it was mindless--clawing, kicking, whaling on himself with increasing fury.

At some point, the howls of rage turned wet. Tears made tracks through the blood, his own and the other's, unnaturally bright red and smeared on his face.

Wrapped in his dream, he had forgotten Shin's presence.

The other teen could do nothing but stare, rather disturbed by the whole scene.

That... hadn't.. at all been what he had expected to happen. Had he just made things worse...? He couldn't even tell.

With a gentle gesture, he made the blood and increasing gore fade, leaving nothing but darkness again, trying to lull Sasuke into a deeper, true sleep.

The apparition faded, slowly, like dissipating fog.

Without the force of the fight to hold him up anymore, he sank to his knees, pressing his now-clean hands to his face. His body shook with silent sobbing, and it felt like each one pulled a little more energy from him.

It was cathartic, in a way. Restful. Darkness wrapped itself around him like a soft, heavy blanket, pulling him towards silence.

He let it come.

Shin stood there a long moment, watching. He'd make sure no more dreams pulled at Sasuke before he retreated back to his own mind.

He couldn't help but wonder if he'd made a bigger mess of something already ready to explode. But Sasuke was a powder keg of the worst sort.... Maybe a small explosion would help burn some of that off.