|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 4:26 pm
The space around Khaldun's makeshift bed had begun to look more like a miniature hospital room. There was always a bowl of fresh water and a few rags, clean bandages well within reach, and a myriad of pills from pain killers to sleep aids. The couch had been transformed into the most comfortable bed Kaia had been able to manage, with pillows stuffed under his head and blankets wrapped around him - at least when he wasn't having a fit and throwing them off. If the living room of Tanzanite's apartment had become his own personal emergency room though, the pale dreadhead attending him every hour of the day was definitely his nurse. She had a look of constant worry on her face as she checked his bandages every day to make sure he wasn't bleeding, but she was well aware that what you could see wasn't even the worst part.
After the first day, when his mind had recovered enough to begin remembering, he had been having.. nightmares. It was the only word Kaia could find to describe the terror that woke him up at all hours of the day in panicked screams. She'd lost count of how many times she'd struggled to calm him down, how often she'd had to hold him back from harming himself. Sometimes she had to henshin up just overpower the strength that came from his imagined danger.
Even for all the times he woke up in a panic, all the times he seemed awake, Kaia had yet to actually see him surface in those dark eyes. He was a prisoner in his own body and all Kaia could do was try to make it bearable. She made soups and tried to rouse him from consciousness long enough to get him to eat some of it, she washed his face down with cool rags when he seemed troubled in his dreams. Apart from comfort and the few pills she had to ease the suffering, she knew that recovering from this was his job - she couldn't see into his mind and guide him out of it, not even as the senshi of guidance.
She pondered these things as she stared down at him, perched beside him on the edge of the couch cushions. She looked tired and a little worn out herself with deep, dark circles under her eyes. She'd been waking up in the night to his screaming and having trouble sleeping regardless because of the worry. Yet she persevered, she was dedicated to helping him find his way back to the world, and she had yet to give up or get frustrated with him. Her gentle hands began to unwind the bandages she had been keeping around his head and ears, confident that he was through with most of the physical damage of the event. They came away clean and were set aside as she reached for the bowl of water and a rag, dipping and ringing it before she reached out to brush the cold cloth across his forehead.
He seemed peaceful for once, content and dreaming, and she didn't want to ruin that by waking him up to a world that would just trouble him.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 2:17 am
Tanzanite had no idea what she'd done - nobody knew. At Hematite's request she'd simply punched a neat hole in that immaterial magic they had proven to be there; the spiderweb of cracks, the instability, began later, as the magic desperately warped and twisted to preserve itself at any cost. But all that was Kaia's job to deal with. There was no distinction between reality and dream, for him. While he was asleep he recalled things vividly, but briefly, as his subconscious flitted from one memory to another with no regard for timelines, as though it were a seamless transition of insanity. And sometimes he saw no places or people. Sometimes he was just suddenly choking on his own blood, or asphyxiated by a monstrous black hand. Overwhelming feelings of being watched or followed could chase him into wakefulness. Nothing came with him out of his subconscious but the fear and confusion and the desperation to make it all stop. But the trauma wouldn't allow for him to be fully awake for long. And the cycle continued.
Briefly there were times it wasn't so bad. And times things seemed stable. There was this one recurring dream... Kaia was some kind of phantasm, a shadow-person, no more real or imaginary than any of his other nightmare figures. But in this one, while he wasn't alone, but it wasn't that horrible preyed-upon feeling.
He was waking up slowly for once, already an unusual thing. He could hear water and feel cold. The world was blurry and indistinct with light, with some shape cutting across his vision. He shifted his arms underneath the blanket till he freed one and, still dazed, made an attempt to grab for Kaia's wrist as though to prove it was real. His hand was cold and clammy but it was the first time in all that time Kaia had had any sign of her patient really coming to.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:37 pm
As that hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, Kaia froze. It wasn't because it hurt, and she certainly wasn't afraid he intended for it to, it was simply that it was the first conscious gesture the boy had made since Kaia had come to stay in Tanzanite's apartment and take care of him. There had been a dozen or more dream-induced frenzies, all manners of attempts to fend off invisible foe that tormented his mind, but this was the first true reaction he'd had to reality at all as far as Kaia had seen.
She remained frozen like that for the span of a few breaths, suddenly unsure of herself and what she should do. She hadn't wanted to wake him but that cold, clammy hand around her wrist was a sign of something. The last thing she wanted to do now was let him sink back down into the darkness, especially if this was some kind of turning point.
"Khaldun?" she spoke softly, afraid to scare him, but attempting to bring his full attention to her - or whatever attention there was to give. She still wasn't sure how perceptive he was. "Khaldun, it's alright, let me go." She slowly brought her other hand up to where he was holding her by the wrist and set gentle fingers on the back of his hand, trying to coax him into letting go. She didn't want to be forceful with him in case it scared him into one of his fits, so instead she was treating him with all the care she could - sort of like one might treat a child.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:09 pm
A child. That was about all that was left of his mind, at any rate. No sudden recovery or recollection, no sense of self, just a sort of blank curiosity as he stared across the couch at Kaia. He didn't even remember his nightmares, just the feelings and the fears they brought, and that he'd been suffering them for as long as he could remember. And for all he knew, 'here' was some dream or nightmare too. But at least that lack of normal Negaverse paranoia seemed to make him pretty complacent in comparison now that he was conscious. He would take any respite.
His gaze broke off briefly to try and assess if anyone else was around before he glanced back at her. There was no one else she could be talking to but him.
"Okay," he agreed. His voice was rough and depleted from all the yelling he didn't remember doing. But Kaia's wrist was free as soon as she asked. He lapsed back into silence for a while longer, then asked: "Are you a nightmare?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:49 pm
She watched him in those few moments between her request and his compliance, studying his reaction and the things he did in those first moments of consciousness. She had no idea what to expect out of him - could he understand her, could he speak? When that one raspy word answered her, she was relieved in ways she couldn't have explained to him then. At least now she wasn't completely in the dark about the extent of the damage; she had something good, progress, to report back to Tanzanite for once.
As his hand retracted, she drew her own away from where it hovered near his face and reached out to drop the rag carefully back into the bowl of water. She kept her eyes on him the whole time, as if she were afraid he might fall back asleep and all opportunities of the moment would be lost. Just when she thought she should break the ice by asking him if he was thirsty or hungry, that unexpected question surfaced.
She knew what he meant because she was about ninety percent sure he had no ability to be anything but blunt and obvious with his questions but the different ways she could answer and all the different meanings it could have held were not lost on her. In many ways she was a nightmare to many different people, she represented something different to everyone. If he had no memory though, then he wouldn't understand even a portion of that, and to him she was only Kaia.
"No," she said finally, after her own stretch of silence, "I'm not a nightmare, my name is Kaia." She brought her hand up as if she were going to offer it to him to shake, then realized that he might not even understand the gesture. So, instead, she set it reassuringly on his upper arm, giving a very small squeeze as if to remind him that this was real. "You're awake, Khal, there are no nightmares here." Unless Tanzanite decided to teleport into the room at that exact moment - that one might have been difficult to explain.
She wanted to ask him so many things then, about what he remembered and if he knew why he was there. She afraid that she would scare him though, or that trying to remember it all would cause some backwards reaction. So, instead, she gave him a pleasant smile and asked what any good caretaker would. "Do you want something to drink?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:04 am
"Kaia," he repeated, trying to commit the name to memory. She got a small smile for giving him that new bit of information about her (not to mention she was real, not some weird dream person, she said so herself). He was sidling up into the corner of the couch on his end and pulling the blanket with him. The apartment furniture and decoration was all pretty alien to him, judging by the way he sized up every little bit of it. Another look of hopeful curiosity was cast Kaia's way; he seemed to have completely forgotten her offer in favor of a more pressing issue. The most pressing issue, really. "How... how do you keep the nightmares away from here?"
He buried his face in the blanket suddenly at the idea he'd brought up. Of more nightmares.
"It was bad," he tried to explain, feebly and a bit muffled. He was more upright next to her in that he was actually sitting instead of lying down, but he was halfway to curling into a ball in his corner of the couch. He didn't seem to have more than a basic vocabulary. He also didn't seem to be aware he'd been out for days and rather violent about the nightmares. Whatever happened, it didn't seem to bleed over into wakefulness. There was some kind of transition that must have taken place. Kaia was just taking care of a scared kid now, it seemed. The captain hadn't survived. Wouldn't Tanzanite be thrilled to hear there was nothing left of Hematite but... this. "I don't want to sleep ever again, Kaia. I won't. I saw bad things."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:36 am
It was almost painful to watch him and the way he curled in on himself, so much like a child trying to hide from monsters. What his monsters were, she couldn't say, she'd only seen the horror in his face and the panic in his voice when they came down upon him in the middle of the night. Somehow this scared boy in front of her was hard to connect to the terrorized teenager that fought her every time she tried to comfort him and hold him back. He was really nothing more than a child then, lost and confused and looking for comfort.
How did she answer something like that, though? How was she supposed to explain to a nineteen-year-old that things like monsters didn't exist? It felt like she was degrading him somehow, mocking him. There was no help for it though - that look in his eyes, the way he tried to hide in the blanket, it all pulled at her motherly instincts. Even if he wasn't a child he still needed someone to protect him.
"The nightmares can't follow you when you're awake, Khal." Even as she spoke the words she knew that they would aid in his sudden ban on sleep. She also knew that eventually he would have to sleep and that trying to fight it would do more harm than good. "But you're still very sick and the only way you're going to get better is by letting your body rest." She reached out then and set one gentle hand on his arm where it was curled in on himself beneath the blanket. It was meant to be comforting, the only kind she felt safe offering, because she wasn't sure if actually cuddling him like a child would be some kind of invasion of his personal space - or appropriate in any way.
"But I'll always be here, okay? Even when you are dreaming and trying to fight off those nightmares, I am here. Just try to remember that." She wasn't sure that he had the ability to be aware that he was dreaming, not when his dreams were probably more like resurfacing memories that just plagued him in his sleep. She did know what she said was true though and that even if he didn't know it unless he was awake, she was still here every time he screamed out for someone. She only wished she knew someone that could have been of more comfort or if he even remembered anyone that would have been.
"I think you need to try and eat something while you're awake though." She glanced towards the kitchen briefly where she knew she could heat him up some of the soup she'd made and stored in the refrigerator. She just didn't know if he would be very receptive of her leaving to go do that, even for just a few minutes. "If you eat it will help you get better faster, which will mean sleeping less." Well, that was the round about version anyway, but all that mattered was getting him to eat. Even with the aid of faster healing and a more resilient body from the negaverse power, he could still suffer worse things than memory loss if he didn't start eating. Dehydration and malnutrition were nothing to play games with - she knew, she'd watched a documentary on it.
"Can you do that for me?" she asked, smiling at him in a way that a nurse might at a sick child in the hospital. It was comforting, but there was still an underlying goal.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:46 pm
The teenager stayed lodged in the corner of the couch, head down, pulling his knees in as if it would do anything to protect himself. He remembered nothing but the echoes of a changing dreamscape, and no experience to fully convince him this wasn't just one more eventual nightmare. It was a confusing world to be processing right now - the less he saw, the easier it was not to freak out. And as long as Kaia was around...
He felt the pressure of a hand on his arm, and shifted slightly so he could look up at her without completely peeling himself away from his little corner of security.
"Okay," he mumbled into the blanket.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 10:16 pm
She smiled sadly as he answered her, lingering for a moment and gently patting his arm with the hand that had already reached out to comfort him before. He seemed so pitiful and lost that leaving him might cause more harm than letting him go hungry. He had to eat though, and even if he looked like a lost puppy, it was for his own good.
"I'll just be a minute or two," she said softly, then pushed herself to her feet and forced herself to walk to the door of the kitchen. She opened the fridge, spooned out a bowl of the pre-prepared soup, and quickly put it in the microwave to nuke. The seconds ticked by much slower than she anticipated but when the timer finally beeped, she opened it, checked the temperature quickly, and then grabbed a spoon and straw for him to eat with. It seemed like forever to her, but it was probably a record considering how much she was rushing it.
"It's a little warm," she was saying, even before she had come back through the doorway of the kitchen, "don't burn yourself." She walked back through with her head down and her hands carefully cupping the almost too full soup bowl - it was always hard to tell how full a bowl was until you tried to walk with it, she found.
She was just about to set the bowl down on the living room table when she finally looked up at him, then she promptly froze in place as if any movement might set him over the edge, the bowl half poised over the tabletop.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 12:51 am
He was standing on the other side of the coffee table from her, though for the time being he looked equally as afraid of moving as Kaia did. She'd left him alone. She'd left. What was a minute to someone who had no concept of time? She couldn't just leave. She was the only other person, the only thing keeping everything stable. It didn't take long to disentangle himself from the blanket and really look around the room again. Harmless as it might have looked, none of it felt real. It was insane. Panic rose suddenly and he'd made to follow her wherever she had gone. And just as he feared, reality began to warp again.
It wasn't a conscious decision - how could it be conscious, he didn't even know what had happened - but it took only a moment. It felt at first like a rush of power, or a burst of adrenaline that didn't fade. And then his hand closed around a curved piece of jet-black metal and a chain, things that should not have existed, should not have just suddenly sprung into being. He dared to glance down. The ragged t-shirt and jeans were now a black military uniform and a coat. More chains across his chest and shoulders protested by clinking in mid-motion, forcing him to freeze in place. Even motionless, there was constant out of sync ticking coming from his boots. His fingers tightened on the mysterious objects until the metal edge began to slice right into the middle of his palm. Even the pain and the blood running between his fingers was unconvincing. Kaia was wrong, he'd never really woken up.
Kaia's return changed nothing. Blood still dribbled from the cut in his hand, no change in his too-tight grip on the boomerang. His look toward her was confused and pleading - as far as he knew she was just as aware of this delusion as he was, given that she was just another part of his nightmares. Eyes flickered briefly down to the unexplained outfit and back to her, and all he could manage was a hoarse, single-word question he fully expected an answer to: "What--?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 1:25 am
Alkaid stared in what could only be described as horror for a few fleeting seconds, her eyes trailing from the expression on his face to the blood dribbling from his hand onto the pale carpet next to his feet. She released the bowl slowly, setting it on the table, as if she were afraid the clinking sound might jar him and cause further harm and then she slowly straightened herself.
She hadn't seen him as Hematite since the night Tanzanite had brought her to the apartment to take care of him and the sight of him now was almost as terrifying at it was then. The only difference was that it wasn't his face covered in blood this time.
"Khal, just calm down," her words were soft, like a mother talking to a child, and her hands were held out in front of her in a gesture of peace as she slowly began to cross over to him. "Let go of the weapon, Khal, you're hurting yourself." The sight of him holding that weapon was almost as terrifying as a five-year-old with a bomb - it was just unthinkable. "If you let it go, I can explain all of this. I promise it's perfectly natural."
She stopped once she was just short of arm's length with him, her hands still held in front of her so he'd be able to see them. Her face was pleading and the concern was legitimate - she was really frightened of what a brain fried Captain could do, both to himself and her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:33 am
There was no reason he had to question her demand. On command, the bloody boomerang and chain clattered to the carpet. A huge gash burned across the center of his palm, bleeding down his fingers in a red spiderweb. The captain suddenly jerked forward and locked his fingers around Kaia's wrists, inadvertently wrapping one of them in a bloody handprint. He pulled himself closer to her, away from the weapons. Even towering over her by nearly half a foot, the desperation he radiated made him feel small in comparison.
"Just tell me what's going on please Kaia, I don't understand and I can't calm down and I don't know where I am or why I'm here or for how long and I got rid of it I got rid of the weapon like you said-" Words poured out of him in a torrent, hardly a pause for breath. There was just as much fear in his eyes as hers, if not more. As he seemed to be gearing up for a second round of yelling in her face, the grip on Kaia's wrists loosened slightly. He swayed, unsteady, voice withering into something just above a whisper. Something was wrong. "Help me--"
The uniform shivered and faded back out of existence, as did the weapon and the beacon of dark energy. For a moment it seemed like maybe he'd gotten the transformation thing under control, that he'd powered down on his own. And then gravity took hold of both of them. He was unconscious before he hit the ground - the unexpected power-up had drained him of what little energy he'd had. Kaia just had a teenager-sized dead weight dragging her down by the arms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 3:01 am
The desperation that rolled off of him in waves sparked a deep well of pity in Kaia's heart. His mind was fragile, she knew it, and she hadn't expected something like this to happen for a very, very long time. She could relate to what he was feeling - she knew the confusion of waking up to a strange world where nothing and no one made sense. She saw herself in him, she knew that the expression on his face had once been her own, and her heart sang with sorrow at the sight of it.
"I know, I know, I know," she said it over and over, trying to keep him from speaking and trying to calm his panic. She was relieved when the weapons clattered to the floor, but more so as he finally closed the distance and held onto her for support. A tall, frantic and confused captain was probably not what most people wanted clinging to them but Kaia saw it as an act of trust. It didn't matter that he was covering her wrist in blood, or that he was almost yelling in her face. It was progress.
"Take a deep breath, try to calm down, and I will explain ev-" She cut off as his uniform began to flicker. She wasn't a negaverser, but she'd seen what it looked like when they intentionally powered down. It was the only warning she had before Khal was dragging her down to the floor.
He landed in an unconscious slump, half pinning her legs, but at least her hands were free once his muscles relaxed. She pushed herself up with one elbow and managed to get into a sitting position even though he was face down and crushing her calves. She wriggled and used her hands to push and, after a few tries, managed to roll him away and onto his back. Then she was in doctor mode.
She crawled across the carpet on her knees and first picked up his palm to examine how much damage he'd done - it seemed like a shallow wound, at least. Then she shuffled up to examine his face or, rather, the parts of his face that had once been pouring blood. Spying nothing, she let out a deep breath, glad that his sudden power up hadn't done any damage towards his healing.
She reached out then and brushed one dread away from his face in a tender moment, staring down at him with all the care one might see in a worried mother's face. He was a fighter, she knew, because it took someone strong to power up when they barely had the energy to stand. In that moment she had no doubt that he would make a recovery and would one day look back on this and laugh - or maybe groan.
Her only regrets were that she hadn't managed to get him to eat and, as she looked between him and the couch, that there was no one around to help her get him off of the floor. She just sighed and pushed herself to her feet, ready to begin the task of guardian once more. It seemed to her that as long as he was still recovering, her job would never be done. At least she had the endless patience to deal with it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
