2021-04-05: How Dare You Take Dream Xander's Side
- Log: 2021-04-05: How Dare You Take Dream Xander's Side
- Cast: Xander Lovell, Riley Arwell,
- Where: In dreams, mostly
- Date: April 05, 2021
- Summary: Having journeyed through the Elw teleporter to Spira, Riley and Xander are now subject to shared dreaming in an unfamiliar setting. It goes... poorly.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The Fangs demand a hunt. It's a compulsion. A need. Trying to resist it is like trying to hold his breath, where the longer it goes on, the more his body tries to make him, and the harder it is to keep from giving into those overwhelming demands. And like holding his breath, if he ever managed, he'd still black out and breathe eventually -- black out and hunt.
Xander thinks he doesn't remember, except that when he sleeps, something like memories play back in his mind. Images of fresher kills intermix and mingle, and some of it must be imagination. Yet he knows the ghastly reality of what happened in Cereza must also lurk within the nightmares he has when he's alone. The screaming. The bodies. The blood. A scythe called for reaping, harvesting indiscriminately in brutal, bloodletting sweeps. But did he even know to call it at first, or had he ripped his first kills open with a dagger -- a dagger he didn't yet have?
In that moment, it was only Xander and his bare hands. What he once could not scarcely conceive has come up with a hundred ways he might have done it. Over and over they play out. Again and again, Cereza's blood is sacrificed until he runs out of ideas on how he could have taken their lives. Every new murder adds to the possibilities.
What's left is Xander splattered with blood, his missing eye a fresh wound as ragged as they day he lost it. He stumbles aimlessly into nothing in a futile effort to escape himself, but he's already in himself. There's no where to go but into a cold void, haunted still by cries calling his name in confusion and horror, begging him to stop.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Despite everything, Riley often has positive, even wishful dreams that explore different ways his life could have gone. Sometimes, they're fanciful, but other times they cut very close to reality. Tonight is one such night, and his dreaming mind takes him back to the day four years ago when he boarded the train that would take him off to his new life.
Only this time, Xander is there, running up onto the platform with packed bags.
He changed his mind?
The thought calls into question all of Riley's heartbroken assumptions, but there is a problem. Xander missed the train, Riley is inside it, and it's already pulling away. Riley rushes in a panic to the nearest exit door, and with only a moment's fearful hesitation to consider the potential consequences, throws himself out of the train and rolls roughly to a stop, covered in scrapes and bruises, but otherwise intact.
He has scared the shit out of Xander, who hurries over to check him for broken bones, but Riley just throws his arms around him, laughing with happiness.
Because of course they wouldn't have been separated here, when they were so deeply ingrained in one another's lives and always dreamed of having an amazing adventure together. He should never have doubted Xander felt the same way. ... ... wait, does he feel the same way? Maybe he just didn't want to lose his best friend!
Riley pulls back, trying to retroactively fake casual. "Umm, so I guess you wanted to come with after all, that's cool, I'm glad..."
A nervous Xander confesses instead that he might rescind his invitation to travel together when he hears what he has to say. Except, it's nothing terrible at all. It's everything Riley ever wanted to hear. And things are going to be wonderful from now on.
...Hm.
How long ago did that happen? And where is he, now? He peers into a misty void. Maybe he's on one of those adventures, except he seems to have lost track of Xander... and a lot of things, like what day it is and what he's supposed to be doing. But that warm feeling of happiness and relief stays with him, making it hard to get too nervous.
"Xander?" he calls. "You're here somewhere, right?"
He spots his shadow in the mists, and moves closer. Details sharpen, and his stomach drops. He breaks into a run, catching up to Xander and holding his face in his hands as he stares at him with horror and concern.
"Xander, your eye, what happened!?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Riley calls his name. That lifeline, always, dragging him from the emptiness. He fought to ignore it once, terrified of leaving, and terrified of the words that would follow. Before he can ask if he's supposed to be ignoring it now, suddenly Cereza's gone and Riley's there.
That's the exchange he made.
The warmth of Riley's on his face burns into his skin as Xander stares back at him.
YOU happened to my eye, is what he'd normally snap back with, but there's something wrong about the way Riley says it. It's not the usual callous teasing -- it's with open concern that leaves Xander shaken.
"I lost it," he says, searching Riley's eyes for some sign of a joke. "Because you -- don't you remember?"
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Because you -- don't you remember?
"No, I..." Riley looks around, grasping again for some more context, but nothing comes. "I guess my head's a little muddled, I don't remember how we got here or anything like that. Are you all right? Do you need treatment? Are we still in danger?"
It's hard to catch, but if Xander happens to be looking for it, he might notice that Riley doesn't have any fangs.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
This isn't right. This isn't what happened. Riley found him broken, calling for him, tending to his eye while apologizing before he learned he could make a joke of it.
Xander just stares a moment, slowly shaking his head as a dull, vague answer, dazed and trying to guess what could possibly be at play here. How would -- why would Riley forget...?
Then he does see it, but only because he's so frightfully searching. He suddenly tries to grab Riley by the chin to use his thumb to push up Riley's lip to look into his mouth and see where fangs aren't.
"The Fangs," he says. "Do you remember the Fangs?"
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley is too boggled to try to stop Xander from inexplicably seizing his jaw and examining his teeth. "Nooo?" he says. "Did I grow fangs recently??" He tries fruitlessly to look downward at his own face. He can only assume that's what Xander is looking at. Or for.
He squints, trying to draw a connection between turning into a vampire (??) memory loss, and Xander losing an eye.
"Could you maybe give me a quick summary, because I'm lost and this is very weird and worrying, and your eye, Xander, are you sure you're not having a medical emergency we need to deal with..."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Did I grow fangs recently??"
YES?
Xander is once again caught in a silent, blank eyed stare. He opens his mouth, loss for words, slowly withdrawing his hand and lashing his own tongue against his teeth. The Fangs are still there. Why would only Xander have them...?
"You found the Fangs," he says. "We tried to get rid of them. We couldn't -- we had a fight. You gave them to me. You --" It's already shaping up to be a disjointed, fragmented summary as it is, but Xander stops himself as he looks over Riley. Openly concerned, fangless, Fangless, and... what? What does it mean...?
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
This is, indeed, not a helpful summary. If Riley has ever heard of the Fangs of Valmar at the stage of his life this dreamscape has frozen him in, it was in passing, in the midst of some religious lecture that barely made an impression on him. So Valmar is not the first connection he makes now. And he can see Xander's fangs as he checks for them.
Riley seizes Xander by the shoulders, his face and voice urgent. "Are you telling me I turned you into a vampire?!" Is that even a real thing?!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"What? No!" Xander brings his hand over his missing eye, his gaze lost into nothingness with his own scrambled thoughts. He needs to start over.
He closes his eye and takes a deep breath. Riley's grip on him isn't right for the situation. "What do you remember?"
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
What do you remember?
"...you ah, you had just stopped me from leaving Cereza without you," Riley says, his cheeks reddening with the memory.
"Somehow I've forgotten everything after that? Is this our first adventure or have we had a lot?" He pulls back a bit, putting his hand over his mouth in troubled contemplation. "What are we going to do as vampires?? How will we eat? At least we're vampires together..."
Riley he just said you weren't vampires! Well, Xander looks enough like a vampire that the idea was a little hard to dislodge. "...I like your vampire outfit, though."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander tensed expression, oscillating between confusion and frustration, suddenly drops, and his whole heart with it.
"I did?" If they weren't already so close together, it might be impossible to hear him ask it.
Nightmares. The thought's scratching at his thoughts. He's having a nightmare again. This one's... different. Drowning not in shattered memories of a harrowing night, but instead forced to face a new devastation.
Only Riley's quip slaps him from that brooding thought. "My what?!"
But it's true that Xander of the past wouldn't drape himself in a dark mantle or dare leave his shirt open out because life is short and fuck buttons. The Xander of the past wouldn't do a lot of things. Xander's already pale, but somehow the rest of the color is fleeing from his face.
"Riley -- forget about vampires. What did I say?" he asks, despite knowing he's inviting another knife into his heart.
Shouldn't you know? he asks himself. You rehearsed it thousands of times over three years.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley is distracted from ruminating about vampires and admiring Xander's gothic fashion choices and the slashed V of his shirt by a very pointed question.
"Wh-why do you need to know what you said? Are you going to answer any of my questions?" ...but he asked like it was important, so Riley obliges with some embarrassment.
"I mean, you said that you love me and you didn't want to be without me and you want to hear my songs every day..." This is, of course, the version of the confession that Riley's psyche came up with, not the one Xander may have been preparing in his own mind.
"You remember it, right? Or did you forget things, too?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
You said that you love me.
Xander sucks in air sharply. He reaches for Riley's face, fingers ghosting across his cheek when it seems, suddenly, too far away to reach. His chest hurts, but there's no thorns in his heart in the dream.
It sounds like the things he wanted. But would he have said it like that? He doesn't remember how it felt back then, or how he imagined it'd feel. He knows what he wish his stupid past self had said now, but what had he truly wanted to say?
Why can't he remember? Why can't he, for five fake fucking minutes, pretend in a dream that he could say any of it now?
"I don't. Because I'm not him, Riley."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
I don't. Because I'm not him, Riley.
There's something so chilling and final in that statement, for all that the words don't make sense. Of course he's Xander. He's changed his clothing around, and he's been horribly injured, and there's something different and sharper in his manner, and... and maybe he's a vampire now or whatever, but it's not like Riley's talking to a completely different person he's simply mistaken for someone he's known since childhood.
"Um... what?"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander gives Riley a pained look, but withdraws on himself where he wants to reach out. He pulls away, back a step, jaw clenched. It's another nightmare, showing him something unobtainable. Untouchable.
"I'm not him," he repeats. "I'm not your Xander. I'm just what's left of him."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
This is quickly spiraling out of control -- Xander looks like he's in anguish over something, and Riley doesn't even have the shreds of context to figure out what it is. Fangs? A fight between the two of them? Vampires? Not vampires? A lost eye...
He reaches for Xander's shoulders. "Xander, sorry, but what the hell are you saying? What happened that I forgot? It sounds horrible."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander raises his arm to smack one of Riley's away as he steps back, looking up at him and baring his fangs with his tensed expression.
"I didn't say anything, Riley! You left without me!"
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Xander's response startles and alarms Riley, and he looks at him with hurt in his expression that he doesn't usually allow himself when he can clearly remember his own role in Xander's plight.
I didn't say anything, Riley! You left without me!
"...what? No, you came to the train station and..." What does it mean if he's saying he didn't do that?"
"What, so we're from alternate universes or something? Or I'm just... remembering it wrong?" That's an unsettling, threatening thought, but with all his other memories muddled, can he really trust that one with Xander right here telling him it never happened? Could he have gone into some deep denial or something?
"Um, did I go crazy?" he asks, with forced levity stretched over some real fear.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The expression Riley gives twists the pain in deeper. Why can't Xander, even in this dream, be him anymore? But he never was the version this alternate Riley fell in love with. That one at least said something.
You came to the train station and...
The memories of packed bags he never found the courage to take out the door nearly knocks him over. Xander makes a strangled sound and sinks to his knees, digging his nails into his scalp.
"Stop. Just stop!"
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley wraps his arms around himself in a protective gesture, because it feels like his reality is crumbling and somehow just trying to ask about it so he can try to put some of the pieces together is hurting Xander.
What happened? What the hell happened?
"I'm sorry," he whispers, not without bitterness. His tone becomes more distant. "...T-tell me when you're ready, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
He has to say it. This nightmare is going to make him fucking say it.
There's no steeling himself for this. There's nothing that braces it. There's nothing that makes it gentle. He claws into himself until it hurts so much he's forced to think again. (And how could it hurt so much in a dream, he doesn't think to ask.) Slowly, his hands fall, and he doesn't get up as he starts to speak.
Even Riley's tone of voice right now is too much.
"...I never came after you," he says, tired. "You left, alone. We didn't see each other for three years, until you came back with the Fangs of Valmar." He looks up at Riley. "We couldn't remove it. It ended up in me and -- Cereza's gone. I destroyed it."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Xander finally tells him.
Riley takes it in silently, juxtaposing the dark words against the happy memory that's still so fresh in his mind.
Xander never came after him. He just... wanted him to and made it up. Instead, he was alone for years and became corrupted with evil... spread that evil to Xander... and now everyone they knew is dead.
It's just words. It feels so much less real than those images of the train station. But this Xander is real. His pain is real. And what he's saying is supposed to be reality? But how could things have possibly gone so wrong.
He exhales slowly, his arms tightening in their grip around himself as he forces a smile. "...no wonder I became a delusional amnesiac," he says.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
It feels like hurting him all over again, even though it's a dream, even though it's not even Riley. Just some idea of who Riley would have been if Xander hadn't been a coward. Delusional... Maybe sometimes, Xander does want to accuse Riley of that.
"I'm not the one you're in love with," he says. "So just... go. Who knows? Maybe there's a fake me out there for a fake you."
Maybe he's trying to joke, but Xander doesn't laugh.
[OOC] Xander Lovell says, "*blu-ray just change that to "Delusional..." because maniac was never a part of it"
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Just go?!
"I'm sorry if I... I checked out left you to deal with it all alone, but--" Wait. He imagined everything about that reunion. Does Xander even want his "help" to cope with the situation?
I'm not the one you're in love with.
I'm not the one who said that.
Xander said that Riley spread a Part of Valmar to him! He sentenced him to death! The real Xander probably hates his guts.
Riley's eyes mist with tears as the weight of it settles on him. What is he supposed to do, now? Who even IS he? He's supposed to figure all of this out alone...?
He was so sure he wasn't going to have to be alone. It seemed so real.
"...all right. If you want me to go, I'll go."
He retreats into the mist with no destination in mind, mostly just wanting to turn his face away before the tears can fall.
...
Back in their little camp on Besaid island, Riley stares up at the ceiling of the tent for some time. Granas, that was intense. He's a little rattled in real life, even. Even though he is trying to be gentle with Xander while he's full of thorns, he still decides to (gently!) shake him awake to be petulant at him.
"Xander, Xanderrr. How could you be so mean to me in my dream? You broke my heart!"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander can't bear to watch Riley walk away, burying his face in his own hands and resigning himself to silence as he's left alone in the void. A Riley he'll never have -- a Riley that'll never exist because of Xander's own cowardice. He has no right to be anywhere near him, let alone chase after him.
...
He's startled awake with a shake, coughing up blood that gathered while he slept immediately and grabbing a nearby kerchief to catch at least some of the blood. Uncharacteristically, Xander fell asleep with his back to Riley as a precaution to avoid the very scenario of accidentally coughing on him during the night. Xander blinks his eye open with a wince, everything feeling slow to reach him. He has not, since the curse, been anything resembling a morning person.
"I told you before," he says. "If it wasn't in the garden, it wasn't me."
But guilt gnaws at him for all the things he had said in his own dreams to the Riley that appeared before him. He can't pretend to remember who he was, but maybe he can pretend Dream Riley found Dream Xander and leave it at that. It was a dream all in his head, after all. It can be whatever he says it was, however absurd.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley rubs Xander's back sympathetically as he coughs, but continues to nudge at his supposed crimes without mercy. "Listen, all of the dream Xanders in my psyche are modeled after you, so you are at least 20 percent accountable for their actions."
All right, maybe it isn't Xander's fault at all, but the way that dream ended, Riley just didn't want to be alone and wanted to confirm Xander's presence. Even if he really shouldn't be disturbing his sleep when he's actually getting some...
"I dreamed had amnesia about the Fangs, and then you dumped the whole story on me and told poor amnesiac me to get lost while I was still trying to get my head around it..."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
For as reluctant for comfort Xander's been since the thorns sprouted inside him, he relaxes now, letting his eye fall shut as he tries to breathe easy. "All right, all right." But it's dubious if he's even listening in his half asleep state.
But then Riley describes his dream and a cold dread sinks through Xander's body. He shoves himself up and stares at Riley. No. It's some kind of fucked up coincidence. It's got to be -- they're both feeling raw from that stupid moment of hope when they were beholding Filgaia far away in the sky.
"Maybe," Xander starts, looking away again sharply, "Amnesiac you shouldn't have taunted him with everything he didn't do, then."
They're just two idiots having a fight about two completely different fake dream arguments, or Xander's going to have to pick a fight with some garden flowers later.
(And lose.)
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley recoils in indignation. "You're taking dream Xander's side? Amnesiac me was just innocently trying to figure out what was going on! Dream you was the one who started making a big deal out of how I needed to know my memories were all fake and he didn't have any feelings for me."
He doesn't immediately question why Xander seems to know more about the dream than Riley actually told him. At this rate Riley's filter on the dream proceedings might actually help convince Xander they really are talking about different dreams.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Since that is certainly not what Xander believes he said, he breathes out a sigh that has a little relief in it. An absurd relief. What is he even thinking right now? They really must be reeling from the whole situation.
The amnesia part is a bizarre coincidence, though... But Riley sounds like he forgot everything in his own dream, not that he inserted a new reality like the Riley he met had.
"Fine, I'm sorry for dream Xander," he relents. "I promise I won't send you away if you lose your memories."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
I promise I won't send you away if you lose your memories.
"Good, this is all that I ask of you," Riley assents grumpily. He leans on Xander, taking hold of his arm and resting his chin on his shoulder for possessive emphasis.
...they have failed to realize they were sharing the same dream and may or may not now be doomed to repeat their mistakes.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The intensity of his dream (their dream) still has hold of Xander, too, as much as he's trying to shove it aside because he knows blaming real Riley doesn't make any sense unlike some people. But Riley dreaming of a Xander that didn't love him, and Xander dreaming of a Riley who loved a Xander that didn't existed...
With Riley's possessive grip, Xander's breath hitches. Tears well up, but he at least has something to blame it on with his persistent cough, and at least Riley isn't directly looking at him.
He finds Riley's hand to clasp onto in silent support.
...Oh no, they're stupid.