Daisy Hughes (cyberblonde) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-11-13 11:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, carter gray, daisy hughes |
WHO: Carter Gray & Daisy Hughes
WHAT: The morning after.
WHEN: Tuesday morning, Nov. 13th.
WHERE: Room 3a, Daisy & Jodi's room.
WARNINGS: None.
STATUS: Complete.
Daisy woke with a start, pulling against the ropes. But they weren't ropes. They were arms. Familiar arms. Daisy felt Carter move, and she turned to face him in her bed, burying her face against his chest. Her heart was pounding against her rib cage. Pain was throbbing in her head and from her arm. She'd need to take more painkillers soon. The light of morning was trickling into the room, but Daisy remembered hazily that they did not have to go to classes today. Thank God. Daisy wasn't sure she ever wanted to leave this bed again. Although the idea of sleep had been difficult -- terrifying, really -- exhaustion had eventually taken over. It hadn't been a sleep devoid of nightmares, but at least these nightmares were the kind that ended when you opened your eyes. Carter hadn't slept. He was exhausted; after all, his nightmare had been an endless night plagued with eerie carnival tunes and demonic clowns. He hadn't been able to sleep there, either, for fear of what he might wake up to. Here, in real life at IVI, it was different. He knew he was safe (and that Daisy was, too, here in his arms) but he did not feel safe. He felt as though another nightmare, terrifying and all too real, was a mere second away, and all that kept him from spiraling down the rabbit hole was his ability to stay awake. And so he hadn't slept. The night had been a long one, punctuated by moments of terror when he'd let his eyes shut for a moment too long (was he back there in the house of mirrors? was that shadow not a shadow at all, but the very same clown that had caused them so much pain?). His arms still throbbed, but had been deemed injuries too slight to need the attention of Anthony or Caleb or Richie. Carter had received stitches instead -- ones that he knew would leave scars, not that he cared. He already had more than he could count. "Hey," he murmured. Daisy looked up into his bloodshot eyes, realizing now how terrible Carter looked and wondering if he was thinking the same about her. Bruises and scrapes marred his skin. It hurt, just looking at them, and she wished that there was a way to take it all away, to erase their nightmares entirely. But she couldn't, and so Daisy lightly kissed an unbruised area on Carter's neck, realizing as she did so how tender and sore her own face felt. She had no desire to look in a mirror; Daisy had a feeling she wouldn't like what she would see. "Did you sleep at all?" She re-positioned herself slightly, bringing her face up next to his, noses almost touching. From the look of his face, she was pretty sure that she knew the answer. Carter sighed, shifting his aching body so that he faced the ceiling instead. "A little," he muttered noncommittally, unwilling to admit just how much his time in dreamland had affected him. There was a brief pause and then, "You?" Carter knew that if she had slept at all, it had been a fitful sleep at best. He'd felt her tossing and turning in the small bed throughout the night. "A little," Daisy echoed. She was worried about him. She'd felt that way for days -- although days was not a very accurate way of putting it, as Daisy too had been stuck in a nightmare of unending night -- but that had been a different kind of worry. There, she'd been sick with his absence, hardly able to think of something that wasn't Carter. Now, at least, she knew that he was safe. Bruised and torn up in more ways than he might want to say, Daisy knew, but at least Carter was alive. She put a light hand on his chest. Daisy was having difficulty processing everything that had happened to them. It was easier when she concentrated on what was in front of her, simpler just to focus on what she could feel. "Bad dreams," she said, almost wanting to laugh. There was a dark humor in the idea, but she couldn't quite bring herself to find it funny. The terror was still too close, too real. Carter snorted. It was ironic, wasn't it? They'd finally escaped their never ending nightmare, only to be plagued by ones of their own fucking imagination. Some welcome back present that was. Still studying the ceiling, he sighed. "I know what ya mean, blondie." He was curious about where she had been and who she had been with, but Carter was hesitant to ask. They had barely talked the night before, exhaustion overcoming any curiosity they might have had. And now, he was certain she was as reluctant to relive her experience as he was to relive his own. Nevertheless, Carter turned his head to the side, giving Daisy a piercing look. "It'll get easier." He didn't know if that was true, not by a long shot. But it comforted him to say. Daisy too was comforted by his words, more because he was the one saying them than because she believed it, but she let them hang in the air while she looked at Carter, returning his gaze. "I missed you." She broke the silence. It was what Daisy had started to say back where they'd been on the terrible fairgrounds, only moments before he'd been pulled away from her once again. "I missed you so much, and I was so scared that... that something would happen to you," she whispered the words, closing her eyes as if the memory caused her some kind of physical pain. Carter may have come to terms with the fact that he cared for Daisy -- a lot -- but he had yet to come to terms with how to face his own emotions. His feelings were a conversation topic practically guaranteed to leave him feeling uncomfortable and flustered, just as they did now. At a loss for how to respond, he simply reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. "I'm fine," he muttered, blinking and breaking eye contact. "We're all fine, right?" Were they, though? Daisy wasn't sure. She didn't feel fine. And looking at Carter, she was pretty sure that he didn't, either. Whereas Carter had trouble vocalizing his own feelings, Daisy was the opposite -- she had always had problems keeping them bottled up inside. She'd always had the privilege of feeling entitled to her own emotions, there had always been someone there to listen to what she had to say and help comfort her fears. She wanted that now, although what Daisy felt this morning was new; rather than a genuine sort of fear or sadness, what Daisy felt was numb. Numb and jittery, like she was standing on the edge of some freezing cliff side, afraid to move. It was only the warmth of Carter's hand that seemed to be grounding her. "I just... I don't know," she said, for once not using the phrase as mere conversational filler. Daisy really didn't know what it was that she wanted to say. She didn't know how to express her feelings about the recent nightmare to Carter, though she certainly wanted to. "Do you feel fine? Because... like, even though we're here, I don't feel like... normal, I guess. Like, I'm still scared that if we like, leave this room, something awful might happen." There was fear in Daisy's voice now, real fear, and as Carter squeezed her hand she felt herself shiver, a vision passing through her mind of the man in the mask, winding his rope around her arms, the man who had bled yellow blood. She tried to push it away. He didn't feel fine. The image of the fearsomely grinning clown was still vivid in his mind, as terrifyingly real as if it had happened only yesterday. For all he knew, considering the odd timeflow of the dreamscape, it had happened only yesterday. Carter was not soft. He was used to violence -- he'd been in many a fistfight, thrown many a punch. But killing somebody, even a fantastical clown in a horrible nightmare, wasn't something he'd ever done before; it wasn't something he'd ever really been prepared to do. He knew it wasn't real -- and he'd killed many monsters since that first, out on the battlefield (what else could they call it?) but no memory was as vivid as that of the clown's face, caved in with the force of the rock Carter had smashed against its face. The blood that had pooled around its head, stained its eerily white suit. But, he thought as he glanced at Daisy, he was certain that he felt better than she did. He wasn't fine, no; but Carter wasn't broken either. "Nothing's going to happen, blondie," he murmured, gazing into her hazel eyes. "Cooper's dead. Cooper's dead, and we're fine." His voice was reassuring. Even if she didn't truly believe Carter's words, Daisy still found comfort in the familiar sound of his voice. She was worried about him, and worrying about him helped distract her from her own personal terror. She wondered if he would ever open up to her about what had happened there, in his nightmare. Like Carter, she wanted to know but also realized how much she dreaded recounting her own. "Promise you'll tell me about it later?" Daisy asked in response, intertwining her fingers with Carter's. "Whenever you're -- whenever we're ready to talk about it. I want to know what happened to you." Before he could answer, she moved to kiss him. It hurt when she pressed her lips against his, a dull ache in her cheek breaking out into a sharp pain. But Daisy didn't let up from the kiss. At least the pain reminded her that he was real, that this was real. |