WHO: Lewis Caroll and Piper Addison WHAT: Late night cuties WHEN: Fuckin'...Saturday? WHERE: Their place WARNINGS: TBA depending! Talk of nightmares concerning sexual assault and violence. Also I swore in the description WHICH IS A GREAT SIGN, RIGHT?
Cold hands grabbed at him from the dark as he tried to scramble away, only to jerk awake, his skin slick with sweat. Disentangling his legs from the red sheets, he kicked all the blankets off of him. Claustrophobia had set in, and he didn't want anything covering him or making him feel confined. With a flick of the bedside lamp, light filled his room, chasing shadows from the corners.
His lungs filled with air and expelled it with deliberate effort in an attempt to slow his heartbeat and calm his panic. It still pounded a frantic tattoo inside his chest as he pulled himself up into a sitting position. He was safe in his room at the end of the hall. Two wonderful women lived here in his warm apartment as well, breaking centuries of solitude and loneliness. Those desperate hands could not reach through time or his dreams to hurt him now. The man they belonged to was long dead. He had rotted in the ground, leaving nothing but bones and bad memories behind.
He dragged his fingers through his hair and, leaning back, his head gently met the wall behind it. He could give into despair, or refuse to let those nightmares plague him in his waking life.
The book on his nightstand was creased and tattered with age, and it rustled as he picked it up. It was a compendium of myths and legends collected by an editor no one remembered, and he had read it in his childhood. The written word had a way of comforting him that very little else in the world could, and this book had seen him through many a dark time. Well worn pages shuffled as he found his place, and began to read. Light from his lamp streamed under his door, a signal to all in the hallway that he was awake.