Mason Matthews (homeisse1) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-06-09 11:26:00 |
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She wasn't apprehensive, not really. It wasn't that she was nervous about Mason's powers, really she was entirely fine with him dreaming with her, especially if it meant he could get some sleep. When she told Mason she trusted him, she was being honest, she did. What she was worried about was her brain and where it might go to start with.
If Mason's power could shape her dreams then she knew they'd be okay, no nightmares where she ended up in the wrong exam or sitting the SATs in a different language, no weird talking frog dreams, hopefully nothing overly embarrassing. But she knew that she tended to start out dreaming some peculiar stuff at times. Raven said it was a sign of her constantly active mind, and she could understand that for sure, but she didn't really want Mason to walk into her dream and it to be her family having a weird breakfast with upside down appliances, or that one she had about mantis people.
Trying to make herself tired before she went for their training -and napping- had been easy, she hadn't slept more than a few hours the night before and she'd put in a small work out before going to the hologym, a nice long run and squats with the full warm up and cool down like Holly showed her. Then a warm shower and changing into comfortable clothes that wouldn't make her feel too hot or too constrained. She'd even had a hot chocolate to soothe her a little.
Having already found a simulation that would work out okay, a park with a large tent already set up, a small campfire and a calm night sky with twinkling stars, it was a lot like the few camping trips she'd had in her youth. Hopefully Mason would like it too.
Mason walked into the hologym already pretty prepared for a nap. He hadn’t had anything sugary today, or an energy drink. He’d eaten a huge breakfast and was suffering from post-food drowsiness anyway, so he was pretty much set to roll up and have a nap. The only thing that was stopping him was this strange worry about taking a nap with Dove. They’d be under separate blankets, possibly even in different tents or one huge one depending on how the set up was so it was really nothing to worry about, was it?
But still, his mind kept racing around the subject. And he hadn’t used either of those powers for such a long time, he worried that he might hurt her. What if he’d lost the ability to control it, that fine-tuned mastery he had previously. What if he couldn’t give good dreams and could only give horrible ones? What if he could only create nightmares?
He raked his hands through his hair and decided that since Dove was trusting him, it was only fair that he returned the favour. He needed to trust her and he needed to trust in himself, the same way he kept telling her to do.
Once in the hologym, he shrugged out of his hoodie, leaving him in an oversized t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. Not normally clothes he slept in, but he had to make do. He offered her a quirked smile and resisted the urge to stuff his hands into his pockets.
“Alright, love?” he asked, rocking up onto his toes when he came to a stop nearby. “Nice set up, this.”
The sleepy feeling was at least a little warming; it helped Dove feel like this would be a positive exercise, that it would go well and they’d get some rest. Which was something she really felt like Mason needed. “Isn’t it, I think it’s some hiking spot somewhere, it looks really welcoming, right?” It would be a nice spot if it was somewhere in the world, rather than all of it being a fabrication of ideal settings.
“So, I checked, we have sleeping bags inside, with pillows. I’m pretty sure this is a really safe simulation, no like surprise bad guys, it was in the calmness programs so I assume its for unwinding.” Hopefully not for anything else.
“Y’know, if you wanna go right into things?”
Mason nodded, “Might as well get this over with,” he said. Not that he didn’t want to do it; he was actually looking forward to a decent nap but it was still embarrassing and he had some very real concerns about what would happen when his power came into contact with Dove.
He rubbed his hand through his hair and moved towards the tent to lift the flap, “Ladies first,” he offered gallantly, “last chance to back out, Dove.”
"I'm not backing out," she gave Mason's shoulder a squeeze, trying for encouraging in her smile, "You're not going to hurt me, and I trust you."
Pushing into the tent, which was already laid out for two of them, sleeping bags looking cosy and turned down with pillows and a small lamp for light. It really was entirely reminiscent of just any old camping trip, without too much background noise to be annoying. It wasn't overly warm, and Dove toed off her shoes to lay them at the side, shuffling into her sleeping bag to find it fluffy and comfortable. "Okay, I might come back here to sleep because this is genuinely as comfortable as bed."
Although the camping thing might wear off after a while.
Just burrowing into the sleeping bag, pulling the edges around herself and laying her head down, Dove could feel the draw of sleep already nagging at her, which just proved she'd thought out the working herself tired very well. She didn't bother hiding the yawn. "Should we set an alarm?" It came out in a stretched yawn, already heavy with sleep.
Mason did much the same, except as he crawled into the tent and opened his sleeping bag, he tugged off his shirt and dropped it onto the floor. He raked his hand through his hair and offered Dove a wry, slightly shy smile before he, too, toes off his shoes and climbed into the sleeping bag and zipped it up.
“Probably wise, you think this thing has a timer?” He glanced at the top of the tent, scowling at it a bit before he raised his voice. “Set a timer for an hour and a fourty five minutes?” He asked the room.
It bleeped. He turned his head to grin at Dove but it was somewhat obscured by a yawn. He settled with his arms behind his head, watching her out of the corner of his eye. She really was pretty.
“Okay,” he said, trying to shake off the weirdness that had him worrying about her, and napping in the Hologym with another person where anyone could walk in on them, “get some sleep, yeah? I’ll see you in a minute anyway.”
She was sure Mason was saying something, it might be important, like count backwards from a specific number in order to get to the dreams together, what if he fell asleep before her and it all came down to her not paying attention.
She had seen boys shirtless before, this was not a big deal, but she had to push her lips together and try to get her attention back on Mason -not just on shirtless Mason. Thank goodness it was dark and he could hopefully not make out her blushing. “Okay, sleep, right. Sleeping. Let’s do that.”
Rustling a little as she got comfortable, Dove lay on her back and blew out a breath, refocusing on sleep and not dreaming weird things -like Mason without a shirt on, damnit. She’d even take the SAT dream over that. She was probably going to embarrass herself so bad. But she knew there was no point fighting the heavy feeling seeping through her, as her mind started to slow down and her body relaxed, Dove slipping into sleep from one thought to the next.
It was the school gym, she was dreaming about school, which was really just sad at this stage of things. Shouldn’t she be dreaming cooler things by now? Parties, or even something from a movie. Couldn’t she do something like that?
It took Mason a little longer to fall asleep than Dove, his mind was busy whirring on the fact that they were doing this, that she was willing to let him into her mind - no matter the fact that it could end up with him seeing some of her darkest secrets with the flick of his wrist and she’d never know. He also needed to try and relax himself into the fact that the Hologym wouldn’t just open for anyone with an active simulation running. They’d be left alone and he wouldn’t be stuck, embarrassed and humiliated as to what was going on.
Eventually, though he did drop off, eyelids heavy. He rolled onto his side, tucked a hand under his head and smiled at Dove’s sleeping face before he was tucking his legs up and letting sleep claim him, powers automatically reaching out for the nearest sleeping mind to slip into.
And slip he did.
He turned around on the spot, looking at the location and rubbing his upper arm. He was in some kind of jock’s uniform, a letterman jacket sitting over his shoulders. That really wasn’t his aesthetic, so he shrugged his shoulders and the outfit he was wearing changed to jeans and a t-shirt, something far more comfortable, even though it was just a dream, to Mason all of this felt real.
Dove was standing in front of him and he approached carefully, clearing his throat so as not to make her jump, putting conscious effort into being visible.
“Hey,” he greeted, not really used to interacting with someone in their dreams unless he was being a sixteen foot monster trying to intimidate the crap out of someone to get information. “School gym, huh? Those are quite an impressive set of climbing bars on the wall.”
This was the school gym before Dove had opened up a wall, before the concussive force of her energy build up decimated a wall and part of the ceiling and nearly crushed half of the cheer squad. “Hey,” in her dreams, powers didn’t seem to work, and Dove didn’t need to worry about turning too quickly, her ponytail swishing and her cheer skirt fanning out slightly. “My dreams usually start at school.”
She shrugged a little, although she felt bad it wasn’t anything exciting. The place was empty, because people weren’t on her agenda right now it seemed, thank goodness, she wasn’t about to be naked and embarrassed. “The wall is really cool, it comes out from the side and tilts, so you can face an incline, and then it’ll also move, so like, it’s a bigger work out.” She wasn’t sure why they had a fancy rock climbing wall in the school, it had been installed the year Dove and Raven were seniors. “I don’t get it.”
Maybe the school was going to start a rock climbing competition. And then Dove wondered if this was something that was really in her school, or something she made up in her dream, “What happens if I think too hard about the dream vs reality? Will it boot us out?”
Mason grinned, “That’s not as uncommon as you might think,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure her or just let her know that school-based dreams were relatively common. As she thought about the wall, it changed behind them, shifting and expanding into the rock climbing wall at a slight tilt. Banners started dropping from the ceiling and a trophy cabinet appeared on the far wall.
“Nah,” he looked around them, eyes having dropped briefly to where her skirt swished. He cleared his throat, averting his gaze and rubbing the back of his head like that would dislodge the brief flash of colour that crossed his cheeks, “but it’ll probably shift with your thoughts, so when we walk out of here, the next place probably won’t be the hallway, it’ll probably be somewhere else, like a cut scene in a movie. Takes a bit of getting used to,” he added, “normally in dreams you’re not aware of the abrupt shift from one place to another with nothing in between. So it might all seem a little weird. If we’re heading somewhere you don’t wanna go, let me know and I’ll change it.”
Holding out his arm for her to take, “Milady,” he started walking them towards the doors.
That made sense. Dreams were usually fuzzy pictures, Dove rarely remembered more than just minor details, little bits here and there where she was amused or scared or just plain confused. “Like when I wake up, remembering that the school mascot was chasing me, but I don’t remember why or how?” It was just that it happened.
Hopefully they could avoid the weird beaver thing today.
“That sounds fine,” although there were few things that she was really worried about in her dreams, they were usually boring, and that would be the problem. That they’d be boring and Mason would be rested, but bored. “We should go somewhere fun, somewhere we can’t go easily.” Which really was anywhere, because they were trapped here. She slotted her arm through his, smiling sweetly.
The door to the hallway opened up, with a bright light, and when they stepped through, Dove’s feet sank into warm sand. “Oh, beach.” It was a California beach, or it looked a lot like one, with the rolling blue waves and the sandy beach spreading off into the distance. Like it just kept going forever. “I love the beach. Do you?”
Mason flinched in the bright light, lifting his other hand to shield his eyes from the sun. He tipped his head a little, and moments later there was the sounds of birds wheeling overhead, the sun itself seemed warmer, actual heat touching their skin, and the air became crisper.
“Beaches in the UK are nothing like this,” he confessed. “They’re littered in shit and too many knees.” He gave an exaggerated shrug, keeping his eyes out for anything on the horizon just in case her subconscious started to play up. He did hold his hand out, though, and a bottle of suntan lotion appeared. “Better put some of this on though, kinda made the sun a little more real. Don’t want you to wake up with sunburn.”
He smiled a little, eyes casting over the beach, then Dove, then the water. “Yeah, it’s beautiful here. I’d be more interested in hanging out here than Blackpool or something.”
“Too many knees.” Dove wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but she smiled through it. “I love California beaches; they’re so sandy and warm, and the waves are nice. You get a couple of surfers, but they tend to chase the waves up and down the coast.” Although she did love how the sun felt genuinely warm against her skin, rather than just some subconscious thing, whatever tricks Mason could cook up seemed only to help things.
“That’s so cool,” the way he could just pluck things out of air, which she knew was mostly because they were in some kind of dream reality in her head, but still, she was sure if she tried something she’d get a giant surfboard sized bottle of sun lotion. “How do you change clothes, I don’t wanna be in a cheer outfit on the beach.” It was too hot, wrong clothes, she should be in shorts and flip flops, a tank top -not a bikini, she’d never stop blushing if that were the case.
“I’ve never seen Blackpool, they have the little version of the Eiffel Tower there, right?” But she was glad that Mason wasn’t entirely averse to what she’d landed on.
“Just think about it really hard, it’s your dream,” he told her with a small smile, “so you control it. I can help out if needed.” He wet his lower lip, “The main thing is that I can make stuff in your dreams real, so you could get sunburn if you’re not careful, or y’know-” he cut himself off, deciding that it probably wasn’t wise to tell the beautiful girl who’d been kind enough to let you get some REM sleep that if she hurt herself in a dream she’d have the same injury upon waking.
He cleared his throat. “It’s kind of a shithole, to be honest,” he said with a grin. “Nothing like this beach. Tacky rides, too many knobbly knees and shit.” He looked down at his own outfit, not really fitting for the beach but he waited to see what Dove changed into before he shifted his own outfit; he didn’t want to assume something that wasn’t a thing.
He did, however, get rid of his shoes to feel the sand beneath his feet and between his toes. “You good with switching your outfit or do you need a hand?” He looked like a deer caught in the headlights for a second, realising just how wrong that sounded. “I- uh- I didn’t mean- you know-” He ducked his head, a little embarrassed.
Concentrating to make the change made sense, and she assumed it was maybe a little bit like Inception, only in Inception nothing carried over; no sunburn or aging. “So this isn’t like Inception? If I get like, shot in the knee or something, I’ll wake up with a bullet wound?” It was all the more reason not to dream about anything like James Bond or being a spy.
She did blush a little at Mason’s offer, mostly because he seemed to get a little flustered himself. It just made her flash back to him taking off his shirt in the tent, and that was a dangerous road to go, because she didn’t want the beach populating with shirtless Mason look-a-likes. “Um, let me try, if I end up in a tarp you might need to take over.”
Focusing on what she’d been thinking was proper beach attire, sandals that she would wear to school sometimes on hot days with little peach straps and a toe loop, the washed out denim shorts that were comfy but not too long and a little peach coloured tank top, not the one with the silly clown on the front, just something plain. It was an after thought before her hair loosened from the ponytail, curling a little in a messy tuck back. “How’d I do? Nothing looks mishmashed or tarp-y.” Which was definitely a plus, “But I’m totally going to need suntan cream now.”
“No, it’s not like Inception,” he offered, “I mean it kind of is. I can implant ideas and stuff if I really wanted to, but it’s a lot of effort and kinda makes me feel wrong.” Which was mostly true, though also partly not true because he had done it in the past. He had done that and more. “I guess, without the horror element, it’s a little bit more like nightmare on elm street?” He grimaced, obviously uncomfortable making that comparison even though it was accurate. “If you got shot in the knee by a dream I’m controlling, yeah you’d wake up with a bullet wound. I guess the opposite is true though? If you came in injured…” he’d never tried it. He’d only ever gone after people, made them spill secrets and hurt them so that they’d talk.
He didn’t regret most of the stuff he’d done, certainly not when he’d gone after the people who had killed his mum. But some of the other stuff he’d been talked into doing - that he’d done to try and make himself worthy of the respect of his crew.
In the distance, in response to Dove’s thoughts, a number of the people on the beach changed gender but it was only a flicker, like a ripple across the dreamscape, and Mason was too busy being distracted by her change of outfit to notice. His mouth immediately went dry.
“You- uh- yeah-” he swallowed, clearing his throat. His cheeks caught a little colour and he looked out at the sea. “Yeah, you look great.” He held the bottle out to her. “Uh- yeah- you probably will. Don’t wanna burn and all.”
Inception had been really cool, Dove liked the way the dreams were built, and the idea of dreaming in dreams. It was really cool that Mason could do something kind of similar to that, although his mentioning of not really doing the implanting a thought thing was probably for the best, “Yeah, the woman in that went crazy from that thought, so maybe it’s best to be careful what you make them think, y’know. If you ever did.”
That would probably be useful for the Regiment though, Mason being able to invade a person’s dream, putting an idea in them. Like to over turn the Super Equality stuff, or to donate a lot of money to a politician that would do that, she could see why Mason would be edgy about talking about his power.
It was like she suddenly realised that his power could be really dangerous, despite him telling her that several times and checking in with her. “Is that why you don’t talk about it on the network? Do the handlers not know you can do that? Like incept people?” Dove wouldn’t tell a soul either way, but if he needed someone who could keep secrets, she’d definitely make a point in not even telling Raven anything.
She was a little absent minded in taking the bottle of sunscreen from him, a little busy preening that he said she looked nice and getting some cream on her arms and nose. They were always her problem areas. “Will you do my shoulders?” Because she was definitely going to miss the back of her neck. “You think there’ll be like a boat rental or something, and we can take out a little boat or something to the water?”
Because Dove had managed to forget again that they could make a boat rental if they wanted.
“Nah, they don’t really know about this side of my power,” Mason said. “Kinda hard to prove anything y’know?” He watched as she put the cream on her arms and nose, taking it off her after a moment when she asked if he’d do her shoulders. He blinked a couple of times before he just nodded, clearing his throat and indicating that she should turn around. “Also don’t really want them knowing as much as is possible, though can’t always keep this kinda shit from them. Deacon’s sure as hell gonna wonder why we’re napping instead of training.”
He squirted some of the cream onto his hand and started applying it carefully and thoroughly to Dove’s shoulders, the top of her back and the back of her neck. He focused on what he was doing, but did hear something about a boat rental.
“You mean like that?” he asked, an assortment of water-based vehicles appearing on the shore. Jet-skis and dinghies, a sort of small row boat too. There was also a car on the shore which looked like it had just come right out of James Bond. Mason frowned at it and waved it away, just because he wanted to go underwater and drive along the bottom of the sea didn’t mean Dove did.
If they didn’t know about this, it meant his powers wouldn’t be allowed to go on outside of training, and that meant he wouldn’t be getting proper rest with an REM sleep cycle. Dove wasn’t so keen on that aspect, because it had to be exhausting all the time for Mason.
Her skin tingled where Mason’s hands ran over, but she tried to keep her attention on the case at hand. “I won’t mention anything to anyone, not even Raven.” Which was a big deal, because normally she’d tell her best friend about the dream adventure she went on with Mason, she’d lay out more detail than Raven would want. But Mason’s power was secret, so she wouldn’t say anything. She trusted him, it was just right that she prove to him that he could trust her.
“Oh, exactly like that!” Although she noticed the car being there and then blinking away, like maybe it was a fluke of the dream, or a momentary skip in her subconscious. Like when you saw those movies where the cars were sinking to the bottom of the lake or whatever, and people needed to leap in to save whoever was stuck inside.
She didn’t think she wanted to have one of those dreams where people nearly died. “Do you know how to drive one? Or is it sail? Do you call it sailing?” She twisted a little to look behind her, were Mason was, eyebrow raised and a somewhat serene smile on her face. Even just dreaming, it was the most fun she’d had in awhile, it was definitely the most carefree and relaxed she’d felt in a long time.
Mason lifted a shoulder. "If you wanna talk about adventures in dreamland I'm not gonna silence you," he told her honestly, "but I'd appreciate it if you just... kept the finer details outta it. Like the inception stuff. The walking is okay, I guess if someone found out about that, it’s pretty innocuous, y’know?”
He held an arm out for her to take as she cast her eyes over the boat and chuckled at the barrage of questions. “C’mon, love, it’s a dream. It’ll sail itself. We don’t have to do anything.”
Waiting until she took his arm, he walked them down to the seafront which morphed into a pier, allowing them to walk along it until they reached a medium sized yacht. “M’lady,” he said, indicating with a sweep of his hand that she should go first.
It felt so fucking good to be able to exercise his powers like this. Mason could feel himself getting reinvigorated just by being here and he was hardly stretching himself, or his limits.
“No, it’s too sensitive, I don’t wanna be responsible for someone poking about and learning something you don’t want.” Because that wasn’t fair, and Dove wasn’t going to do it. She’d just keep this to herself, just something they knew and that was fine.
Sailing for the sake of it, and not being sea sick because she could totally make sure she didn’t feel that, was exciting. With a warm sun and she could totally feel a soft sea breeze, a lovely yacht to go out on. She was beaming with utter excitement, and she knew she didn’t need to worry about leaking light anywhere either.
“This is like the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” Stepping onto the yacht, hands running along the railings. “We should go adventure at sea, like modern pirates or something. Find some whales or sharks.
“You gotta start setting your bar a little higher, darlin’,” Mason teased as he followed her onto the yacht. Once they were both on it, it started moving without them needing to do anything else. She looked bright, and happier than he’d certainly ever seen her, like any cares she had when she was awake had just melted away.
It was good to see, and it felt… it felt nice that Mason had done that for her with powers that had previously only ever been used to hurt people.
“You wanna play pirates?” he asked with a chuckle, “But we can do a sea adventure, what d’you want, pirates and whales, or dolphins?”
“Next time we should do a proper pirate dream. With the pirate ship and a treasure map and like, a skull island or something.” Of course, when Dove thought pirates she went to Muppet Treasure Island, and that was probably a little too tame for things. She needed to raise the bar, right?
But for right now, something a little more simple didn’t seem like a bad idea.
“Dolphins.” Dove’s eyes were bright with excitement at the prospect, she was a typical girl with that adoration of dolphins, but educated enough to hate the idea of trapped dolphins in tanks, swimming in tiny circles rather than crossing miles in the oceans daily. She’d never visit an aquarium to see a dolphin or a whale or a shark or seal. She just thought it was horrendous to keep them in those places. “I love dolphins.”
Mason laughed, “I’ll get my research hat on then before the next time,” he told her. “Get some pirate stuff concocted so that you can get your Robert Louis Stevenson on.” He nudged her gently and then stepped away, spotting the starry-eyed delight that crossed her face at the mention of dolphins.
What was it with women and dolphins?
But still, the boat slowed to a stop in the water and Mason shifted, changing in a split second into a pair of boardshorts, with bare feet. But he was hoping that she was looking at the water, because coming up along the waves was a pod of dolphins, clicking and whistling at the boat.
“You wanna go in?”
There was some degree of attention on where they were, the waves slowing, the yacht slowing somewhat. Dove’s attention slipped to Mason’s outfit shifting again, she was trying not to stare, cheeks heating from more than just the weather before she needed to turn away. She was trying not to embarrass herself after all.
The clicking and whistling got her attention though, Dove leaning over the side to peer at the water where little noses were popping out of the water, dolphins bobbing in and out of the water around the side of the boat.
“Oh my god, seriously?” Of course, it was a dream that Mason had complete control of. And even if Dove’s dreams would possibly turn to some kraken pulling her under to devour her, Mason was likely way better at keeping the dream from slipping into that chaos. “Hell yes.” And it was barely a second thought before Dove was standing up, focusing on her own outfit.
She could do this, she changed the other one, she could do it. It took a little bit of focus, her energy diverting from excitement about dolphins to bikini shorts and a little matching top, both in turquoise, because pink wasn’t actually her favourite colour.
“I mean, it’s not the same as swimming with dolphins in real life,” Mason commented, since he’d never experienced dolphins so he was just exercising his imagination. That meant that the dolphins in the water were probably a little bit more anthropomorphic than they might have been in the wild, since they flipped in the water and waved their flippers in the direction of the two people in the boat. “But sure.”
When she shifted into a bikini, Mason’s eyes dropped from where he’d been watching the horizon to look at Dove, clearing his throat at the expanse of skin suddenly shown and he quickly, politely, re-diverted his gaze. He rubbed the back of his neck and hopped down from where he’d been on a higher level, moving to stop beside Dove and smiling a little.
In the water, the dolphins whistled and clicked at them again. In the middle of the pod, two babies poked their heads out, tipped and grinning at the pair of humans, waiting for them to dive in.
This, right here, was still likely as close to getting to really swim with dolphins as Dove would ever get, because it wasn’t like the Regiment was going to approve a vacation to Mexico to do it, were they? So this, right here with Mason, in her subconscious, was probably as close to the real deal ever and Dove wasn’t sure how to express that properly.
As the little dolphins poked their noses out, whistling up at them, Dove turned to Mason with the biggest grin on her face. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” She was still laughing as she climbed up over the edge of the boat, arms thrown in the air as she leapt from the boat into the water, the dolphins seemingly just parting for her like they knew.
The splash into the water didn’t feel like much for a while, until the cool feeling washed over her, refreshing and cool, Dove’s mind seemingly catching up to remember what splashing in water felt like, just at the same time as a fin nudged into her and Dove was swam back to the top of the water by a grip on a dolphin.
Mason laughed and swung down into a seated position on the edge of the boat, leaning against the railing and just watching. Dove was radiating delight and honestly, he was just happy to watch it.
They sat like that for a while, Mason enjoying the warmth of the sun and watching Dove swimming around with the dolphins, who came and went along with a family of sting-rays and tropical fish who followed Dove’s every move like she was the leader of their shoal, when he heard the sound of something permeating the dreamscape, it was only faint, but he knew what that was.
An alarm.
Bollocks.
Needing to get out of Dove’s head before she woke up - so he didn’t end up trapped or something because that was probably what would happen and that would be awkward as fuck to explain to Scott - Mason got to his feet.
“Alright, darlin’, this is where I gotta love you and leave you,” he told her. “You’ll be waking up soon. But, y’know, enjoy the dolphins until you do.”
He looked skyward and then just dissolved from her dream like a mirage in the desert, returning to his own mind so he could wake up easily, if not a little groggily, and wait for her to join him.
Dove was having the time of her life, soaking up the sun and just embracing the freedom that came with dreaming, when Mason caught her attention about waking up. She felt almost sad about that, about having to go back to reality when this was so fun. As Mason disappeared, Dove felt her spirits drop a little, even as she was nudged a little by one of the baby dolphins she’d been playing with.
Even if it was a dream, all made up and not real, she felt a little like she was losing something going back to reality. Hugging the dolphin tightly as she bobbed in the water, Dove screwed her eyes shut as the sound of the alarm started to reach her ears. The boat had vanished, and the sun wasn’t warm any more. She couldn’t feel the coolness of the water either. “I had the best time with you.” It was silly, whispering things to her dream, but she still wanted to say goodbye, even as she was left alone in the water before started to feel the ground under her as she woke up.
The tent was exactly as they’d left it, and Dove half expected to wake up soaking wet, but she wasn’t. But every moment of her dream was crystal clear in her mind, which was unusual, and the grin was hard to keep off her face.
Mason was lying on his back by the time Dove joined him in wakefulness, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand and stretching his other arm above his head, stretching lazily and laboriously. He felt so rested, and didn’t that make a change. Sitting up, he pushed his hand through his hair- it really needed a cut, it was starting to curl a little - and the sleeping bag fell to his waist. He hadn’t zipped it up; he felt too trapped in that way.
Turning his head when he heard the sounds of Dove waking up, Mason chuckled and lifted a hand to wave at her, wiggling his fingers.
“Afternoon.”
There was a weird lump in her throat again, Mason had just been in her dreams, and now he was sitting, shirtless in the hologym with her. Her cheeks might’ve warmed a little but she managed to keep her smile, a little less of a grin, “Hi,” it was strange to nap in the afternoon, stranger still to be more active in the nap than beforehand.
“How’re you feeling?” Since the whole point of their nap was to help him get some energy back get through a proper REM cycle, even just the one, where he could recover some energy.
Mason didn’t often grin. If asked, he told people that his face didn’t work that way, but at Dove’s question, he was halfway through tugging his oversized t-shirt back on so when his head popped out the top he was grinning. A bright, wide smile on his face.
“Fucking great,” he told her genuinely. “First decent nap in months. Thank you.”
“Good,” Dove beamed, glad that she’d at least managed to help out, that he felt a little better rested. “So, maybe every other training we do? I mean, you’re helping me with my powers, I would really like to help you keep yours trained up, and help you rest.”
It seemed fair in Dove’s opinion. One training session for her powers, one for his. And if they got to go on wild adventures during his training sessions, that was even better.