WHO: Tobias Parker → Matthias Helvar WHEN: Middle of the night between September 7 and 8 WHERE: His bedroom SUMMARY: Tobias has a dream about Matthias that leaves him feeling a bit pained, thanks to a lot of factors, specifically someone's crow's head cane. It's the memories that come with the pain that leave him introspective, both regarding that life and his actual one. WARNINGS: Brief mentions of violence
It was very rare for Tobias's mind and body to succumb to deep sleep. Years in the military, often stationed in dangerous places, had done that to him. But the sleep that he was always pulled from when he found himself in another world entirely -- sometimes in the snows of Fjerda, most often reliving the horrors of Hellgate and the dreams Matthias's own sleep brought him -- was always deep. It was jarring when he was ripped from it, sometimes needing full minutes before he understood where he was, that he was safe, that he wasn't Matthias Helvar.
Tonight was no different. He woke with a shuddering gasp, one born more of pain than of shock. He sat up and felt nothing but numbness in his arms and one of his legs, his body aching as though it was covered in bruises. There was even a sharp pain in his kidney, remnants of a swift kick before the person who had done too much of the rest of the damage had left him on the floor.
"Demjin."
The word came out as a growl, his voice not belonging to himself. And it was that -- the stark difference between the sound of that one word and that of any other time Tobias might speak out loud -- that really allowed him to leave Matthias behind.
Though Tobias felt more himself, there was still a steady presence of anger lingering under the surface. Taking long, steadying breaths, he tried his best to push through it. It had become a habit now, weeks of these dreams and being forced to navigate his way through Matthias's mind making it so. It becoming a regular part of his life was frustrating, to say the very least; Tobias had plenty on his plate without Matthias Helvar and his particular brand of damage.
It wasn't until Tobias felt the hard press of his wedding ring against his temple that he realized that the numbness had left his arms and he could move them once more, his thoughts so distracted as he recounted the escape from Hellgate and the aftermath he had just lived. The realization that he was wearing the ring at all came on the heels of the first, bringing with it a whole different wave of emotions. He'd slipped it on during a moment of weakness earlier in the evening, an act that had done nothing but pile on nothing but feelings of self pity and irritation at himself. Still, he'd been unable to take it off, promising himself he'd do it before bed. He hadn't.
There was an uncanny number of similarities between himself and Matthias Helvar, the military background and his connection to Nina through Stella being chief among them. It was that connection between Nina and Stella that left him utterly relieved once he had come to the understanding that he and Rei were not dreaming about the same world. Given the darkness that existed in Matthias's life, he wasn't prepared for what sort of equivalent the dreams might have tried to draw between the two of them; he had, after all, just lived through Matthias making a very real attempt on Nina's life. The feelings that he felt surrounding Rei were complicated enough without the dreams making them even more so.
Not that he had any right to feel anything complicated about his ex-wife, Tobias reminded himself, slipping the band from his finger and leaning over to let it drop with a solid thunk into the drawer in his bedside table. Rei was making an effort to move on from him, after all, as was her right to do. His feelings needed to figure out how to unravel and simplify, and soon.
Tobias glanced at the clock. Nothing was going to simplify at this hour, not his feelings for Rei or the anger and confusion of Matthias. Sleep might not come again tonight, but he could at least try.