Laurent Rousseau (itsjustadream) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-10-21 12:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-30 |
In your head stealing your dreams
Who: Chloe and Laurent
Where: Dream-land
When: Sleeping times
Laurent remembered that he had said he would go looking for Chloe’s dreams one night. He had just gotten distracted and side-tracked by several other things. The only comforting thing was that he knew that Rae, who had a terrible habit of poking her nose into everything that he did, could not follow him into the world of dreams. So whatever he did there was completely his business and not hers. Nor anyone else’s. Except for, maybe, the person whose dreams he was in. “Chloe,” he reminded himself as he slipped off his shoes and stretched out on his bed, hands folded behind his head as he closed his eyes and let himself relax. He had been doing this for so long that it only took a moment for him to slip off. He kept his mind focused on where he wanted to be and when he ‘opened’ his eyes he found himself in... what looked like an abandoned street. “Huh,” he said to himself, looking around, hands in his pockets. “Not exactly what I expected.” From what Chloe had said he definitely was not imagining an abandoned street with seemingly empty apartments and shops about. But this was hers, had to be, he could practically feel her somewhere in it. Shrugging Laurent started off, keeping his eyes peeled to see if he could locate the quirky elemental.
There was a sense of fear involving Chloe, and she had no idea why. It was just a street. Very empty, true enough, and her surroundings felt oddly silent, but there didn’t seem to be a reason for fear. And yet, here Chloe was, in the middle of a street she’d never been in before, scared out of her wits with her mind racing with thoughts of fleeing. But where to? The answer to that question, seeing as Chloe was as confused as she was scared, was to the pink haired girl to run forward. Especially after hearing quite the menacing groan. “Oh God, oh my God.” She mumbled as she ran forward into a mildly dark and misty street she had never seen before - and yet looked quite familiar. This wasn’t Scarlet Oak. Why did she feel like this was London? “I’ve never been in London!” She yelled as she ran, bending a corner and, quite instantly, her suspicions were confirmed. Or maybe this was just ethnocentrism on her part. But the truth was, there was a very familiar pub right in front of her, and she hadn’t seen many if any of those in America. Then again she had never been to Europe either. Suddenly, Chloe saw someone off at a distance, to the right of the pub. She turned, and waited. “Hello?” She called.
Laurent heard the sound of running footsteps and started towards them. Before too long he heard them stop and picked up on the form of whoever who had been making them. “Oh there you are,” Laurent grinned, taking his hands out of his pockets as he walked up to Chloe. Having not been a fan of any sort of modern cinema he had no idea why they might be in a dark, misty London with a vaguely menacing feel to it. London had never felt all that menacing to him when he was there. “So cherie... where are we?” The vampire blinked and looked around at the buildings, still seeing nothing all that interesting. Really, he had always thought that air elementals dreamed about lighter things. Maybe it’s a nightmare.
It took Chloe a little while to recognize who it was who was greeting her so jovially, but soon enough she found herself grinning back. “What are you doing here?” She asked, immediately disinterested as she thought she’d seen movement out the corner of her eye and went to pursue that instead by turning slowly 180º until she was facing Laurent again. “London, I guess. A suburb of London, not actual downtown, obviously.” Either way, it being deserted was only unsettling. The only thing even more unsettling than that, was wondering how she’d come to be in a suburb of London and coming up empty. “What am I d-” Chloe was preparing to ask Laurent to see if he knew, but the thing was, if he didn’t know where they were, chances were he had no idea why they were there, either. And in any case, her speech was interrupted by a grunt of sorts. Not human, but not animal either. In fact, Chloe knew exactly what it was; she was not an authority, but the truth was zombie movies were a special kind of feel good movie for a lot of people, herself included. “Zombies.” She concluded, opening her eyes wide in fear. “Zombies! Oh my God that’s it! There’s no one here because everyone is a zombie!” To hell with being with a vampire, she highly doubted there was much of an advantage if the zombies decided he was edible too.
Ah, London. A very dark and empty London. “Zombies?” Laurent repeated with an arched brow, turning towards the noise that he had heard as well. Now what exactly - oh, right, zombies had become a sort of ‘thing’ for people these days. He had heard of no less than half a dozen movies a year, if not more, with some sort of focus on zombies in this or that way. One thing that they all had in common was that they ate flesh and had no ability to focus on anything else. Now how it always seemed to be such a problem he did not know because his mind automatically went to how sure, zombies could live for a certain amount of time, but what happened when winter came? And they were dead, dead bodies decayed. I doubt that Chloe wants to hear about that, it’s her dream and she actually seems frightened by them. Because of course it was not a dream to her, it was real. “And what exactly does one do with zombies?” Laurent had no clue and it could be... interesting to play along.
“Zombies.” Chloe repeated yet again, although for all the fear she felt, she also found herself highly excited - excited enough to grin. “One hunts zombies, Laurent. Duh.” She rolled her eyes at his lack of knowledge on ‘zombie protocol’. “Oh, and one hopes not to become one. So. Grab something like a weapon, I guess we’re going hunting.” She told him, quickly breaking one of the picket fences to get herself her own weapon - a white and somewhat prickly wooden blunt object that would probably aid in the removal of heads, or at least in smashing them. Chloe looked around, ready to fight, and was disappointed when no zombies seemed to come their way. It was as though she knew they existed, they were around, but they were not there. She pouted. “I guess we have to go look for them.”
Zombie hunting. Now there was something that Laurent truly was unfamiliar with. Humans these days, what will they think of next? But Chloe was grinning so apparently this was supposed to be some sort of fun thing. But a weapon? “I don’t think that I could become a zombie,” Laurent remarked, though he made it look like he was scrounging for something. Really it was easy enough to think up a perfectly serviceable sword. Who needed guns? Besides, Chloe had a piece of a fence. If that was good then so was this. “Now what exactly is the purpose of hunting zombies?” Laurent asked as they started off, listening carefully for the sounds of anything out of the ordinary. “And why are they here again? I’m afraid I’ve forgotten in all the upheaval.”
Blinking, Chloe crossed her arms, waving the bit of fence around carelessly. “Well fine, if you want to stay there by yourself, I’ll just go be awesome on my lonesome.” She said, with a disdainful shrug. She peeked over his figure for what he was doing, and when he presented a sword, Chloe didn’t think it weird at all, simply smiled contentedly and started off in some direction. She didn’t know if that was the right one, but it couldn’t hurt. Or it could, in case they found a horde of starving zombies. She shivered at the thought. “You hunt zombies because otherwise they will keep biting people and spreading their disease and soon the world will be overrun by them.” She glanced at Laurent and shook her head with disapproval. “Though I guess it could be thought of as a sport, as well.” Chloe smiled again then. His question made her stop for a second and think, but soon enough she found she couldn’t reach a conclusion. So, Chloe shrugged once again as she swung her makeshift bat about some more. “I don’t know, a virus, maybe. I don’t know. Does it matter? You can’t kill their first and they will all die, that’s not how they work.” She didn’t know how she knew, but she was sure of everything she was saying. Suddenly, it became very dark, nightly so, and the street lights were dim enough that Chloe couldn’t really tell where she was going precisely. “Oh, brilliant.” She sighed.
Laurent was not going to lie. The idea of zombies and zombie disease overtaking the world was ridiculous and he found it hard not to just laugh at all of it. But hey, it was Chloe’s dream and she was a child of this time in the world so he supposed he shouldn’t be all that surprised by it. Though he wondered what she would do if he just made a bunch of zombies disappear when they came upon them... hmmm... that was a thought to keep tucked away. “I’ll think of it as a sport then, seems more interesting.” Though he supposed that if zombies were really in danger of overrunning the world then he would care a lot more. Humans were his blood supply after all and he could not very well be without them. Him or the rest of the vampire world for that matter. But zombies only exist as necromancers make them, surely. And wait, had it just gone dark? Sighing, Laurent blinked a few times until his eyes adjusted to the change of lighting. “That came on fast,” he remarked, turning slowly until he was facing Chloe again. “What, can’t you see in the dark? Use your eyes.” He reached up and tapped her forehead. Her dream, her rules, if she wanted to see in the dark then that was what would happen. “Going to get bitten if you can’t see.”
“Well, yeah, it adds fun to an otherwise very morose and dangerous situation.” Chloe agreed with Laurent’s approach of seeing zombie hunting as a sport. She’d never been one for sports much, merely lying around in the grass feeling the breeze, but this was a sport she could definitely partake in. “Yeah, you know. London is a weird place like that.” She shrugged. It was as though she’d ever been to London and was extremely used to its sudden change from day into night. Of course Chloe didn’t find any of this that strange. She pulled her face away from Laurent’s hand, glaring. “Why are you tapping my forehead?! That doesn’t help! And no, I’m not a cat, owl or bat, so I can’t really see in the dark.” She looked to the side, hearing noise. And found that she could see fairly well. “Oh. Did you have a lantern with you or something?” She asked, turning back to Laurent. Suddenly she heard a groan coming directly from behind her. Holding her breath, Chloe swang her makeshift bat around to hit the zombie, though he was too fast for her, and grabbed her wrist, forcing her to drop it. “Oh, shit! Oh shit oh fuck shit fuck!” She screamed as the zombie grabbed her other wrist. Oddly enough, however, instead of biting the everloving crap out of Chloe, the zombie chose to dance with her instead. And Chloe went along with it, why not? Dancing zombies were cool since Thriller, after all.
“That’s an impressive amount of swearing,” Laurent had to admit as the zombie - he assumed it was a zombie based solely off of her initial reaction - grabbed hold of Chloe. Though he had always assumed that they were more likely to bite someone than dance with them. But it was not his dream so, aside from influencing bits and pieces of it, he was not really capable of knowing why things were going this or that way. Like dancing zombies. “So that’s what you like to do with zombies,” he chuckled with a shake of his head, crossing his arms over his chest. None of the things were bothering him for some reason, probably because he was not actually the dreamer or interested at all in them. Let him get bitten and wake up back in his own room or whatever would happen, he had done as he said and checked in on Chloe’s dreams. Chloe’s very, very odd dreams. “Now, I thought you said we were supposed to kill them. I can take this one’s head off if you want.” Or they could keep dancing. Now if only there was a way to carry a camera around in a dream then he would have done that. This was the sort of thing that would continue to be funny for a couple of decades at least.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet...” She murmured, taken away in the arms of a zombie who was also a very good dancer. Suddenly, for some reason, Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen was playing. And Chloe was havign the time of her life. “Are you just going to stand there? Dance! Evidently one doesn’t stop dancing upon death!” She told Laurent, signaling toward the zombie, who had since let go as they were doing a more relaxed dance. Queen wasn’t exactly a waltz. At Laurent’s offer to kill the zombie - as more approached but didn’t seem all that threatening or, indeed, all that fast (unless they were dancing), she stopped and turned to face him. “I don’t know... Do you think he’ll keep dancing without a head?” Chloe had to admit it was an interesting question. One she would like answered!
Maybe now I can claim that I really have seen everything that there is to see, Laurent reasoned with himself as the music started up. Where it was coming from or how it was changing was anyone’s guess. Oh, right, it was just a dream and anything could happen in one of those. Though dancing with a zombie was not really forefront on his mind. The last time he had danced with anyone had been... quite awhile ago. “Well, I suppose that maybe I could try my hand at it for the next song, this isn’t so much my style.” Modern music - or slightly recessed modern music - was not his favorite. He preferred stuff from his own time or at least a little further back. But for now there was a question that he could put to the test. It’s your dream. “Let’s find out, shall we?” Grinning, Laurent took out the sword he had imagined up and turned to the nearest dancing zombie, loping its head off far easier than he had any right to. That was what happened in a dream, what you wanted to happen did. “Ah, there, now let’s see if it keeps dancing.”
It didn’t. It fell flat on the floor, its head rolling off to a distance, and Chloe was left standing there, disappointed but still nodding her head to Queen. She looked at Laurent. “Well I guess you have to take his place.” She said, pulling him close in order to dance with him. And suddenly, they didn’t seem to be on the street anymore, given all the lights. It looked like some sort of ballroom or disco, or whatever, and Chloe was wearing a dress, and some Latin rhythm was playing. In this dream, Chloe was a perfect dancer. She didn’t know how to dance like this in real life, but all the same it didn’t look that strange to her that she knew how to dance here. “Come on. You scared?” She asked Laurent, who remained oddly unchanged despite the definite 1950s Cuba feel of the whole thing now. Except that there were zombie couples dancing around them, of course.
And all of a sudden Laurent was the one being pulled in and everything was changing. Laurent just blinked at the surroundings. Had he been younger and less used to this then he would have been disoriented and potentially confused. That happened to be the price paid for being the one actually awake inside of someone else’s dream. Coherency. Even if that coherency was not really helping at the moment. Laughing, he allowed himself to be pulled into the dance and with a thought he was suddenly dressed like he was supposed to be at a Latin dance. These pants are far too tight, he thought after taking a glance down. And the hat was probably too much but it was a dream and Chloe would not hold it against him. “Scared of a little dance? Please, cherie, I’ve been dancing since before your great-grandparent’s grandparents were in diapers. Though the zombies add a certain flare.” So much for hunting them and dying because of them. Seemed like the creatures were more likely to break out a stick and start limboing before they took a bite out of anything. “You’re a pretty good dancer.” As was the rotting corpse over there but, even in a dream, Laurent wrinkled his nose at the thought of dancing with something that dead.
At a turn, Laurent suddenly looked different; but of course Chloe didn’t think twice about it. She wouldn’t while awake, let alone here. They were dancing some sort of salsa-chacha hybrid (bits and pieces of steps Chloe had picked up somewhere, no doubt) and Chloe was having the time of her life. “Good to know, I was starting to think you were going soft on me.” What a horrible pun she didn’t even intend. Shrugging, Chloe kept dancing, looking from side to side at the ballroom dancing zombies. “They’re good, yeah.” One leg back, switch leg, back, side to side, side to side...”You’re not bad yourself, I guess all those years do pay off.” She laughed heartily. In this dream Chloe didn’t have forgetfulness problems, apparently. She had tried dance classes once, and given up after about two weeks. The ability to remember a whole choreography was just not there. But it looked to be here. “I don’t even know why I’m dancing with you, I usually dance with the Graverobber.” She commented offhandedly. The Graverobber from Repo!, however, was nowhere to be found, so she supposed the old but pretty French vampire would have to do.
“No,” Laurent laughed, keeping pace even though he doubted that he was actually supposed to know whatever this dance was. “I’m not quite that dead, thank you.” Imagining what it would be like to be among the ranks of the actual dead was something that he would be than okay with simply imagining instead of making a reality. Just because he lacked a heartbeat did not mean that he was quite ready to lay down in the earth and make an end of it all. Who knew what he would miss if he did that? Dancing zombies. “You’re dancing with me because I’m here and probably much better looking than whoever that Graverobber is,” Laurent snorted. Like he could even believe that someone was better off than him in a dream. Unless they sparkled and could cry diamonds then no, they were not. And perhaps... Laurent grinned and tugged Chloe in, leaning down. “I promised I’d visit you in a dream.” There was always that risk that either they would believe and, more often than not, wake up; but there was also the chance that she would laugh and not believe him. Either way, Laurent would be amused to see the reaction.
“No,” Chloe repeated. “You don’t look very dead at all!” That made no actual sense, but who cared? She laughed at what Laurent said next, shrugging. “Oh, I don’t know, he’s pretty sexy. In that dark, dangerous sort of way.” Laurent was also sexy, just not that dark. Of course that didn’t really matter, he was still a very good dancer anyway. And then he said it. He said it, and Chloe realized she was dreaming. “Oh, what a bummer. You ruined it. I’m gonna wake up any minute now.” She announced. It happened, sometimes. She realized she was dreaming, and couldn’t hold on to it anymore. It was a real bummer on certain occasions, and really good on others. Somehow Chloe hadn’t quite mastered the skill of staying asleep and knowingly dreaming. She pouted. “Thanks for stopping by, anyway.” Things weren’t so clear now, like they were wading away though they really weren’t. It wasn’t as though when Chloe realized she was dreaming, entire sceneries just fell apart and she found herself standing alone in nothingness. They just seemed distant, and eventually she’d wake up.
Aw, too bad, looked like Chloe was one of those people who went and woke up when she realized she was in a dream. Laurent wondered if he had been like that when he was alive and still capable of having dreams that were just his own or if he just had a knack for dreams. Either way, everything was starting to fade and he sighed. “Sorry Chloe, wasn’t sure how you’d react to that. But it was fun, I’ll have to drop by again sometime and see if you’re dreaming of dancing zombies again.” His eyes sparkled and he leaned in to kiss her forehead. Watching dreams fade could be such a depressing thing and he was not quite ready to be ‘awake’ and back in the real world yet. Which meant he needed to go and find another set of dreams to look in on. But at least he had seen Chloe’s like he promised. “Sleep well and sweet dreams if you have anymore.” With a wave he let himself move off into something else. Though he really did doubt that he would be finding something as interesting as what he had just witnessed. One in a million, that dream.