agogelogs | i think to myself

Entry tags:

i think to myself

WHO? henry & you
WHAT? dream stuff, ota
WHEN? when the hotspots spread
ANYTHING ELSE? mostly violence

[dream log 01]

You wake up in the middle of a tranquil field, muted and chilly but covered in delicate white flowers. The ground slopes gently where a small stream cuts through the grass. The sky is a greyish blue, like it might start snowing any second. Next to you, Henry is shivering, like he's sick and grumbling under his breath like he's experiencing a nightmare. A dream within a dream?

It's only when he awakes with a start that the dream seems to move forward.

"What the—?"

In the distance, there's a mechanical sound of...something. Maybe it's footsteps? Either way, it's getting closer, and she looks ready to rumble. Wait, she? Yes, she. This time, she's not alone, however. Behind her, like a nightmare train of anime and terrible boss fights (he's pretty sure he sees Pizza Batt Jr. in there somewhere), they bubble out from underground and follow her towards the both of you. It's not too bad, there's like ten of them.

"Oh bloody hell," he gets up, then looks down at you with resigned sort of sigh. "Come on, get up. They're not going to leave us alone until we kill them all."

If you want to go back to the other side, I have no choice... I've got to kill you.

[dream log 02]

You're in a house, it's about 10PM. Henry seems to be in a rush to get his things in order: gloves on, tie straight, skull pin fastened, and making sure his cross saber is fastened to his belt chain. He pats himself down, making sure he hasn't forgotten anything and then flicks his head in the direction of the door. If you make any noise above the sound of a whisper, he'll hiss at you with a finger in front of his lips.

Once the door opens though, a small, sleepy voice comes down from the top of the stairs. She's not entirely visible, as the hallway is dark and obscures her from the shoulders up. From her silhouette alone, she appears to be 6-7 years old.

"Papa?"

Henry freezes, then lets his shoulders sag a little in defeat. He gives you a brief flash of an apologetic look (or depending on how loud you were earlier, a bit of an accusatory one) and turns to her.

"Jeane, why aren't you in bed?"

She shifts a little, almost guiltily, going silent before taking a small breath to answer...

(ooc: feel free to npc her, any reply is a-ok. it's dreamverse, after all!)

[dream log 03]

A younger man, in his late teens, sits rigidly in a chair in the middle of a room. It is unmistakably Henry. His hairstyle is the same and he's dressed in a dress shirt with a tie, slacks, and dress shoes. The walls are a soft reddish pink color, easy on the eyes. You stand right across from him, a good twenty feet away.

From seemingly nowhere, a young girl wearing a white, slip-on dress possibly no older than 15 approaches Henry from the side with a small dagger in her hand. She seems very casual about it, a smile on her face, her heels clacking on the floor which is also the same color as the walls. She acknowledges your presence by glancing at you over her shoulder with a knowing look in her eyes.

She eases into his lap, straddling him while letting the blade drag up his neck. He doesn't react, his eyes only flickering down to meet her eyes and maybe catch yours if you're still watching. A thin, red line forms, and while you can't physically see it from there, dream logic dictates that you know exactly what's going on.

The longer you wait, the more lines she cuts into his skin.

[hotspot 01]

He fell asleep by the training area, sitting on a bench of sorts to take a quick break from his sets. Sweating profusely, it's a good thing he's wearing only what he needs for a work out. Unlike his sleeping dreamself, he doesn't make any noise or stir too much, though sometimes his eyebrows pinch together and he grimaces in his sleep.

Any slight noise wakes him though with a start, and his hand automatically goes down by his hip where his saber would normally be resting. Nothing. A wave of panic washes over him before immediately settling again as he realizes he's just sitting on the bench.

"Jesus..."

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He has no problems giving Henry time. At his look, he nods, lets him go to his daughter to say goodbye.

From here, it's hard to track the conversation, but he has a good idea of what it sounds like. Hushed assurances that he'll be back, even if it's never a promise. Not when Henry's got a career in assassination. That paints a giant target on his back– Jeane is too young to know that. She shouldn't be privy to it.

When he glances up again, Jeane's going back into her room, light weight barely making the floor creak as she does. Henry comes down the stairs in a rush, goes right past him through the front door. Arthur follows less quickly, shuts the door with a soft click.

"How often do you see her?"

His steps slow down just a little bit, as if waiting for Arthur. It's not that he needs the company, or at least he tells himself he doesn't, but just leaving a guest in his headspace in the dust like that seemed a little rude.

"Hm, the times in between visits vary."

Depends on the job, depends on the day, what's coming up, if he was feeling ready that day to face her and her questions only to fail her once again...

He's aware of his idiocy, he should do more, but always puts it off. By then, weeks go by and the wider the gap grows the more he worries. To avoid those worries, he buries himself further into finding work, keep him busy, fulfill whatever weird meta destiny he had back in his world.

"A real piece of work, I am." He mumbles it under his breath. Dream-selves are prone to being more open, it seems.

Of course it varies. With a demanding career like his. He thinks of Cobb's demanding hours prior to the great escape. How he'd cut back on those simply so he could enjoy his time home with his family. Otherwise, he'd be in the office constantly, building and drafting.

He frowns at Henry's back.

"Is there a reason you don't stick around?"

He scoffs, though perhaps it's a more self-deprecating sound than anything.

"Mm, kids, curious little buggers that ask too many questions. Much more perceptive than what people give 'em credit for."

Then he just makes a sort of vague, general gesture at himself.

"You saw her," he continues on, "She isn't meant for my kind of world, no sense in exposing her to that bloody mess...and I can't give that up, either."

"Perceptive and honest. They're not going to hold words back just because they think it'll hurt your feelings." As he'd discovered when Philippa was young. When she was going through her tantrums about Dom, she'd hurl the worst names at first– called him stupid, mean, terrible. There'd been a brief stint after he helped Dom flee the country that "do no wrong" Uncle Arthur had been placed in the same basket.

It hadn't been a comfortable time.

So his frown gets a little deeper, a little more judgmental when he hears Henry's excuses. The first one? Makes sense. You want to keep your family safe. That second one:

"Can't or won't?"

"Yes, sometimes they do it specifically because they want to, but we've all been there. It's a learning process and I'd understand why she'd do it."

Not that he was around enough to hear it from her own mouth. She probably still thought of him as some sort of imaginary hero, only available to her in pictures or stories from her mother. She'll grow to resent him soon enough, though. He knows it.

"Can't." He confirms, his tone a little clipped. He starts to walk again.

A dreamworld curse, he calls it. The things that escape his mouth and immediately regret has his jaw clenching in frustration. If he had been awake, this never would've happened. He doesn't need some guy judging his life choices, no matter how terrible they were. He already knows the mistakes he's made; countless plans were created to try and rectify them but never came to fruition but that's his business. Not anybody else's.

"It's not an occupation that you can just 'quit'."

He should stop while he's ahead, but he can't. Dreams dictate he speak a little more freely and his role back home dictates remain a foil as long as the protagonist lives. It's not like he has much of a choice here, but he can't expect anyone to really understand this position.

The initial sound Arthur makes in return is just shy of neutral. It ranges into the judgmental territory, because he isn't convinced. Sure, Henry's secondary reasoning makes sense on a surface level. Assassination, he's sure, is not an easy thing to get involved in, let alone get out of.

But, maybe it's just him, he knows there's always a way out. Or rather, where there's a will there's a way. He's just chased Cobb all around the globe to prove that very point– even a wanted man can get his charges erased, get back to his family. The measures will be drastic, but the end result is what matters.

So of course he isn't going to let Henry off the hook that fast.

"No, I'm sure you'd have to put your two weeks in and all." A bite of sarcasm, dry as the desert. "What is it really? Too invested in your work to be home for your daughter? Blackmailed into it? Sign some ridiculous blood pact?"

There's a pause before he keeps pressing on, because he's stubborn as hell.

"You brought her into this world, leaving her behind shouldn't be an option."

The taste is bitter in his mouth, all his excuses and all his legitimate reasons. He knows what Arthur says is true and that really burns him. It's a good thing he's nearly perfect at hiding it, even in his much more talkative dream state.

It's not fair, to be so peeved at his 'guest' here, but here he is. Peeved as hell.

"No, it shouldn't be," he says, finally, his voice a little tighter after trying to suppress all of it not even a minute before. "Let's just put it this way, shall I? To live the life I want not only for myself but for her, I'm going to have to kill someone of my own blood. Which, unfortunately, is impossible."

This is incredibly difficult to parse into words that wouldn't make him sound absolutely bat-shit crazy. He's just glad this is a dream; they'll wake up and he could make excuses and say that the weird shit was just dream talk. Not real.

He knows he's digging and it's probably not the best idea. Especially since, relatively, he doesn't know Henry very well. They've shared some arguably intimate things, but that doesn't mean anything. Because there's naked and then there's naked, vulnerable. The center of a clam, unguarded.

Still, if this reflects reality, he isn't about to let it go. He thinks of Philippa and James, how much they missed Cobb. How they went from two parents to none in less than 48 hours. Watching Dom go further and further into a spiral, into desperation. The joy in the kids' faces when they finally got to see their dad again, that he was there to stay, courtesy of Saito and inception.

He doesn't want that for anyone's children. They shouldn't have to go through it.

"What's stopping you?"

The way Arthur keeps digging makes Henry laugh, though there is no joy whatsoever in the sound. Guess the man has a soft spot for kids. That's not to say Henry doesn't love his own daughter. He cares about her, her well-being, etc. It's just that he's absolutely terrible at working around his occupation and strange meta destiny. He still hasn't figured it out yet. It hasn't gotten that bad yet, as he still visits her time to time. While he's here though, well, obviously he can't do anything.

"What's stopping me from killing my own blood? Well, I'm sure one of these days, you could ask him that yourself."

In truth, he's also afraid of what would happen if he stops. Would he cease to exist, would he lose all importance in the narrative, would that resolve his weird early-mid-life-crisis? Would keeping all that be more important than her? Even after giving that all up would he still be able to have a normal relationship with her or one at all? There's so many questions, none he can answer with certainty, and that's what makes him clam up.

"It's time to go. She's watching us from the window."

They probably can't see her that well from here, but there might be a glimpse of a small figure in the dark.

"Does he deserve it?"

Death, that is. Of course, everyone's version of deserving is different. But he wants to know. Wants to understand why there's this rift here. He's coming from a place that's so different; Cobb was running towards his kids, Henry is running from and away. Arthur has no doubt that being around Dom for so long has colored his perception of family and what lengths one should go to for them. Especially when they're young and naive. When they can't be blamed for mistakes or missteps in their youth.

"Alright." And that's that. Arthur steps off the porch, down the stairs and into the front walkway. He doesn't look behind him to know Henry must be following or keeping up. After all, he's the one that wants to leave.

Another question he can't answer with full certainty.

"Yes."

But he does it anyway, mostly to get Arthur off his back for five fucking seconds. Clearing the air, getting all his grievances and excuses out in the open is tempting and it sounds good in theory but he can't deny that uncomfortable dread that forms in his gut just thinking about it. He likes Arthur enough, but not enough to trust him with so much.

As Arthur moves, he does too. He doesn't want to hang around here longer than he should before the guilt becomes too much. He doesn't know how this dream ends, but it tends to fade into nothingness. He hates it when that happens— having a violently abrupt ending is better than that.

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