inbox.

[nightmarist]

Comments

text

[mofi]

i want to change my room
how dos this dream thing work?

[nightmarist]

you take a nap in your room & i meet you in your dreams

[mofi]

sounds romantec
but how do u get into my dreams?

[nightmarist]

the same way an idea does

[mofi]

u just pop right in?
what happens to ur body?

[nightmarist]

bold of you to assume i have a body

[mofi]

the boldest.
what do you have then?

[nightmarist]

it's hard to look at

[mofi]

will i dye if i look at u?

[nightmarist]

no you just won't understand what you're seeing

[mofi]

come into my dreams
and let me see u

[nightmarist]

once i'm in your dream i'll look like your dream

if you wanna see me i have to show you outside of it

[mofi]

so i wont even see u in my dream?
yeah u got me all curious now
i kinda want to see u first

[nightmarist]

you'll see whatever you wanna see in there

i can be there in a second just brace yourself and don't shit a brick

[mofi]

yeah i get that
but how the hell am i supposed to know ur in my dream?

i can promise u i wont shit a brick. [ Murphy literally has no clue what he's about to witness. ]

[nightmarist]

you'll know

[ With that, he's no longer elsewhere, though he doesn't exactly appear before Murphy. Time goes a little funny around Ronan, so that it's impossible to pinpoint the moment he arrived, and instead feels like he was there the whole time.

Only... not as the boy who shares Murphy's face.

The thing that is presumably Ronan looks like a flickering light floating in midair, but it can only be seen out of the corner of Murphy's eye. If he looks straight at it, it's obviously not a light at all, but what it is becomes impossible to determine. Murphy's human brain interprets it as music, then corrects it to the smell of iron, and reconfigures it as the branch of a tree. Look away again, and the apparition is undoubtedly light. It's impossible to keep watching. It's hard to stop looking. ]

[mofi]

if u say so

[ Murphy doesn't have any time to contemplate how Ronan is going to look because something has happened just then, a blink of an eye. Or maybe even faster or slower. Murphy can't tell. It's just here now. A flickering in the corner of his eye. ]

Ronan [ , Murphy drawls. His name is a passing thought because the light reels his attention. But what he sees is not what he expects to see, the flickering light that's suspended in the air. Murphy isn't too sure what he is seeing.

And now a lot of things are happening simultaneously. His senses go through a rapid cycling, not bothering to slow down for Murphy's brain to process. Iron, it's so strong. It fills the room, fills his nostrils but then it's gone the moment he recognizes the smell and then the light is there splintering like branches of a tree. Or maybe it's an actual branch. He doesn't have time to decide because then it's music.

He looks away from a moment. Murphy closes his eyes, tries to calm the tangle of confusion in his head. It doesn't help, of course, because, like clockwork, it happens again when he looks at it head-on. There's this urge to reach for it, to touch it and Murphy inches forward with his hand reaching out. ]

[nightmarist]

[ It doesn't feel like anything. As tangible as a thought. Even when Murphy's hand reaches him, Ronan can't be touched. He slips between Murphy's fingers. Through them.

...Into them?

Briefly, the light glides inside his hand, illuminating it. Murphy's veins glow in neon branches spreading up through his arm, before going dark again as the little dream spark slips out of his body and floats back around. ]

[mofi]

[ Murphy's never experienced anything like this in his entire life of seventeen years. There's nothing to feel when they make contact. Or maybe there's no contact at all, something intangible.

His fingers splay, watching the light. The smell. The sound. The thin branching of dendrites. It soaks into his arm, making it glow. Murphy looks around when the glow in his arm dies out. ] I told you I wouldn't shit a brick [ , he murmurs. ]

[nightmarist]

[ With that same murky shift in time that occurred when the light first appeared, the boy Ronan has abruptly taken its place, sitting a couple feet in front of Murphy. He looks like he's been sitting there a while, only of course he hasn't been. ]

Yeah, you don't scare easy.

[mofi]

[ The concept of time appears to be self-evident, straight-forward, but it can get very complex very quickly. Time is not always linear.

And, just like that, Ronan appears. A smirk hangs on the corners of Murphy's lips ]. Only if you're a mob trying to kill me.

[ He pauses, gives himself a few seconds to consider his next choice of words. ] So what are you exactly? I thought you said you looked like your dad? Unless your dad looks - is whatever the hell you are.

[nightmarist]

[ Ronan points to his face. ]

This looks like my dad.

[ Now he gestures toward the air, indicating... whatever it was Murphy just saw. ]

That looked like my mom. Who was a dream. Dreamt by my dad. Who was a dreamer. Which makes me both, I guess. Or something new? I don't fucking know.

[mofi]

[ Murphy chews on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. Ronan can see that Murphy is trying to make sense out of the things he's telling him. ] Okay, so, you're dad dreamt up your mom. And they made you so you're a dreamer dream. Dream dreamer. Are you the only one like you?

[ Murphy plops down onto the floor, sitting across from Ronan. This has clearly piqued his curiosity. ] Do you see and hear things differently when you're-- [ His hand lazily waves into the air, mimicking Ronan. ]

[nightmarist]

[ Ronan shrugs at the first question. He's only known two dreamers. One was his father and the other one - Kavinsky - is as gay as Ronan, which doesn't exactly lend itself to biological procreation. If dreamers are rare, then dream dreamers are certainly rarer. ]

I don't see or hear when I'm like that. It's more...

[ How to put this... ]

I just know. Like my senses are everywhere. And if I go inside your head, then I know everything you know and you can know everything I know. And if I'm in more than one person, then I know everything they all know. And I can bring us together, like we're all one consciousness... which isn't usually as peace-love-and-harmony as it sounds.

[mofi]

[ Murphy is quiet (a rarity so please take a mental picture of this moment, Ronan), slowly digesting everything that Ronan is explaining to him. ]

It doesn't sound like something I'd want to experience. [ That sounded too much of an overload of information that Murphy could live without. ] Is that how that works when you go into people's dreams?