Death and the Dreamwalker Who: Caleb and Roxie Where: Dreamscape; her duplex
Roxie could take Caleb anywhere she wanted in a dream - In this world or one entirely crafted by her. Into a parallel universe even, as long as she had the key which was always the hardest part of Caleb’s dreams to capture. But when she went seeking him this time she was happy to find that not only was he sleeping but it felt like he’d left a door open for her.
So she took it, stepping into a replica of her duplex with just a few small changes. Namely that two steaming cups of coffee were already on the table by the couch and that, instead of hanging up in her bedroom, the painting Caleb gifted her was framing the living room wall.
Roxie didn’t bother with wasting important energy on fixing her arm in the dream, choosing instead to settle in on her couch and send a light out from the duplex as if it was a lighthouse to guide Caleb to her.
It was a unique sort of sensation, being guided. It wasn’t like he’d not felt it before, he did sometimes with D, and now with Star. But this time, he felt Roxie behind it, felt the warmth that was her, that little piece of his life that always read as ‘home’. Locations weren’t so much important to Caleb as people were. As he walked up the porch and into the duplex, he smiled at Rox where she was posted up, not even realizing that there was one or two major changes to his dream-being. And that was, the smokey wings that you could barely see even when he allowed them to be out - they were present here, smokey, ever moving tendrils that cast huge shadows behind him. Beneath his shirt, there was a faint blacklight glow, just off the heart.
“Hey,” he said, leaning in the doorway, hands shoved into his pockets where they seemed to belong most of the time. “We could be anywhere, and you picked here?” he asked, but it was with an affectionate grin.
Roxie had just settled her arm onto a pillow when he joined her and instantly her face went from surprise to recognition. Of exactly what she wasn’t sure yet, but recognition that she’d been right in the courtyard. There was something he hadn’t mentioned. She whistled low, grinning at the end. “Look at those wings. Wow.”
Wings and something else, a little glow under his shirt that she couldn’t place immediately. She figured he’d get to it in time, so she just shrugged a little. “Don’t get me wrong, I considered a bunch of places, but I’m pulling the lazy card.” That and this was the place. Their place.
“Wings?” he asked, then glanced behind himself, over his shoulder. “Huh,” he said, nodding slightly. “Guess here, they’re just out,” he noted. He turned his attention back to her. “They are kinda cool though, right?” he asked, letting himself take just a second to recognize that despite everything, he had fucking wings now, and maybe that was awesome. He walked into the place, picking up his mug there and taking a drink, settling in at the other end of the couch from her, stretching his legs out most of the way, but veering off the edge where she was, getting comfortable, the smokey wings shifting to accommodate the new position. “So…guess who’s Death now?”
“Well damn,” Roxie exhaled, a contemplative look on her face. “Guess you win coffee talk this time. You go first.” She took a sip, glancing back at the wings as they dissipated and swirled again, an endless cycle like fog rolling over the back of the couch. And right before she took another sip, it clicked. “Wait, that means you know Star?”
He laughed at that, and sipped at the coffee, savoring a taste that he was pretty sure only existed in dreams. “So, long story short, yes, I guess I do know Star now. I…” he noticed then the glow from under his shirt. Right. “...I was kinda dying,” he admitted. “We match now,” he said, gesturing between the glow and her own chest. “I got shot, straight through. Was bleedin’ out. She showed, and I don’t know if I’m so much healed as…suspended?” he suggested, not sure how it worked. “But I’m not dead. Just Death now.” He sat up a little straighter to tug the neck of his shirt down enough to show her the mark there, the way the scar glowed a little, way more brightly here than in real life, but how it looked like a star shaped scar, the points held up or in place by the thorned branches of the mark of D. “How do you know Star?”
That hit differently, seeing that glow and feeling the phantom ache of it in her own arm. She stared at it then glanced down at her own shoulder and back again as she tried to piece together his words. “...Can we ask her? If you’re suspended? That feels like really critical information…” And possibly the only way to stave off this panic starting in her.
“Apparently she left me a present, through Azazel.” Roxie fished the beautiful glass nail file, swirling black and clear glass in a pillar shape, from her hoodie pocket to hand it out to him.
He considered that. “I mean, if you want to, we can,” he said. “I guess to me it’s more, I know I have a job to do, I was saved to do that. So whatever it is, so long as I’m doing my job, I’ll be okay, I don’t have to understand it,” he offered. He set his mug aside, sort of feeling that anxiety kicked up in her. “Hey-” he said, shifting to sit next to her. “I’m okay. And it isn’t like we ever figured I wouldn’t go out like that. Way I figure it, I have extra time.” He put his arm around her, and rested his head against the side of hers. “We both walked away,” he said, voice light.
He took the file when she produced it, arching a brow at it. Mostly because he could feel power thrumming through it. He smirked at that. “...I’d say if you’re ever in a tight spot? This would fuck someone up worse than they could possibly imagine,” he told her. He didn’t know specifics, but yeah. He could feel the power in it like he felt it in his own weapon.
Roxie leaned right into him, doing her best to keep her breathing even and her eyes from welling up. Showing up in Caleb’s dreams with the key was not something she regularly did and she did not want to start a waterworld situation here with her own tears. So she took a breath and exhaled slow, nodding. “We both walked away,” She repeated. “But we almost didn’t and that was really fucking scary.”
She cleared her throat. “That’s good,” Roxie answered in favor of the nail file. “Especially if there’s an actual apocalypse on our heels, with your new job and all… What does it mean, exactly? To be Death. Does it feel weird?”
“I know,” he said, voice quiet. He hugged her to him, settling in there, resting his head against hers. He knew he should probably be more concerned with certain things, but it was an oddly zen feeling. Like okay, he’d died. Or almost died. Was dying. Whatever. It had happened. Now, from here out, it was extra. He could do with it what he wanted.
He thought about it. “...weirdly, no?” he suggested. “I know it should. Like, objectively, it should be weird. But it feels natural. Like I’m the person for the job. I don’t feel overwhelmed or daunted, just like…confident? Like I’ve got this,” he explained. “I haven’t felt this kind of thing, maybe ever. But it’s like this inherent feeling that I know what to do.”
The initial shock was wearing away and the room seemed to settled around them again, like both she and it had taken a bit exhale. “That makes a lot of weird sense,” Roxie agreed. “I kinda had a meltdown a little earlier - got really scared about how close I’d gotten to actually dying this time. But I also feel like that too, like look at all the time I have now to do what matters. Be with the people I love… Emotions are weird.” She pulled back enough to look at the glowing on his chest again. “Plus, now we have a more badass equivalent of matching tattoos too so there’s also that.”
“Like it took the pressure off somehow,” Caleb said, landing on that being the feeling underneath the whole ‘well, kinda almost sorta died, now that’s taken care of…’ He smiled. “Emotions are very weird,” he agreed. He let her look, tugging the shirt down out of the way again if she wanted to see his scar, and compare with her own. “You can’t get more badass than this,” he agreed. “...I remember the moment. The first thing that crossed my mind was you. That it was just like yours.” In that strange suspended moment before time rushed forward and the real bleeding had started. “I haven’t told Marie everything yet, she seems…really fragile right now,” he admitted. “Like collectively we’re doing better than her right now.”
She did want to compare it to her own so she moved her hoodie aside and compared them for a moment or two. “Spooky,” Roxie added, feeling that solace he seemed to have start to wash over her too. She hadn’t died, neither had Caleb nor Marie, Charles or Azazel. And everyone fought to save their town. They were still fighting, but for something bigger this time; this time it felt different though. Like they had all leveled up together.
But his mention of Marie made her give a little sigh. “You’re not wrong. She came to see me after you. She’s not doing great. Said she and Lane might be through. They apparently got into a huge argument; there’s a lot of guilt she has about this all being her fault and really fresh hurt about feeling abandoned… It’s heavy. I tried to steer her toward Kaori but I don’t know if it’s gonna work.”
He looked between them and laughed a little at her assessment. “Agreed,” he said. But there was part of him that - ignoring all of the actual real horror associated with them - kind of liked the connection between them. Something they shared, something pretty unique. It tied them together in a way that was going to be just between them.
He listened to the rest and sighed. “He definitely wasn’t in a great place after the battle. He was pretty out of it, and I know he said something about her not wanting him around or something, I don’t know. So that’s not great. And…” he paused, thinking. “Kaori’s a great idea, but fuck, I don’t know if she’ll do it. I mean, we’ve both at different times tried to talk her through some of her shit, but she hangs onto it. And I know, I’m one to talk. I could write a book on how to never let go of anything, but I don’t want that for her. I tried telling her this wasn’t her fault either, good to know that she ignored me,” he sighed. Not that that was shocking.
He looked at her. “...tell me how you are,” he requested.
Roxie thought on what Caleb said for a moment, conflicted enough on whether she should get into details to really pause and consider. Ultimately, her concern for Marie outweighed the potential backlash of an angry response from her other best friend so she exhaled.
“So she came over, right? Asked me how I was feeling, I asked if we should start with an easier question because, y’know, all the almost dying stuff is a lot to process and she thought I was gonna lay into her too. Like why would the question be difficult to answer unless I was going to just yell at her like Lane apparently did. Which I’m sure she yelled right back at him too but…” She exhaled.
“She thinks this is all her fault, and that she’s not worth the effort of being loved. I told her that was bullshit, but the only way she’s gonna start to understand that is if she’s ready to do the work to figure out where that feeling comes from. I think it might have worked to at least get her to reach out to Kaori but I dunno. It just feels…bigger. Feels like when I was spiraling and no matter what you or Marie said, I had to be ready to hear it. So…I’m worried.”
Roxie shifted on the couch, drawing her knees up as close to her chest as she could for a change of position. “I feel like I go from really exhausted-depressed one minute to wildly excited and super grateful the next, I can now conjure up real ass nightmares and it makes me scared of myself again and I don’t want to be. Plus now Azazel says Star’s brought out the horsemen and you’re Death, which is badass as hell but also super scary, and I’m kinda looking at the prospect of losing each of you to this super war apocalypse and…” She exhaled again, talking fast to try and keep herself from getting too emotional in a space she controlled. “Yeah, I’m worried.”
Caleb nodded, understanding all of that. Which was why he was just as worried, because yeah. Help only helped if you were ready for it, and Marie’s stubborn streak was wide and damn near impassable. “I’m afraid if she doesn’t get help, then she turns into some hermit that no one ever sees, and she sits alone in her house feeling justified that she was ‘right’ when she’s the one who made sure she didn’t let anyone in. Self fulfilling prophecy and all that.” Which was something else he understood all too well.
He shifted with her so she could be as comfy as possible while he listened. He was quiet a moment as he thought through her words and how to respond. Not trying to handle her or anything, he just wanted to be sure he got all of his thoughts out there. “I get having something scary at your fingertips. You know what I can do, and that was before the whole Death thing. But one thing that you’ve always shown, Rox, is that the dreamwalker thing is part of you - but isn’t who you are. You wanted to help people through dream therapy. You’ve helped me I don’t know how many times, just by being you. So yes, that’s huge and potentially terrifying, especially considering you could draw from my nightmares, but still. Being able to do something and abusing that thing are different and I know you. And if I needed to trust someone with power that big, it would be you, all the way.”
He rubbed her back lightly, soft little circles, steady. “You’re not going to lose me,” he told her, voice soft. “I know one thing and that’s if I’m going to be able to do this shit, I will need my support system, even if it’s just to remind me that I’m not just a title, that I’m Caleb Rose, massive fuck up but pretty good friend to have around most of the time. But I know it’s scary.” He paused, and watched her. “...do you want to help me with the apocalypse shit, or be there to help me when I’m spiraling because we both know it's always only a matter of time with me.” He was lightly teasing with the last part, but the question itself was serious.
By the time Caleb asked that question, Roxie was already welling up but luckily the self depreciating joke was enough to make her chuckle a little and wipe away the tears in her eyes. She took the time she needed to get her words right before speaking. “Massive friend, pretty good fuckup,” Roxie corrected.
“You know I do,” She answered, leaning in to rest her good shoulder against his. “I’ve been listening, too… to everyone. I’ve been promising to take it slow, not be the hero, and heal more than just physically. I feel like I’ve promised that to pretty much everyone lately. But if the world is ending and my people are involved, I’m going to be involved too. Plus I have this new nail file from someone I never knew existed. Azazel thinks it means Star is pulling me into the fight… But at the end of it all, my world is here. My world, my people, and they need me to be cautious, but they have to know that I won’t be able to sit on the sidelines the whole time.”
A big inhale and exhale later, Roxie looked back up at Caleb. “I want to help however I can.”
"Maybe she just knows you're close enough to too many people in the middle of it to leave you helpless," Caleb suggested, reaching out to help wipe her tears. He nodded at her words, knowing they were true, he couldn't counter a thing. "I'm giving you a choice," he told her, looking her in the eye. "I can mark people. Like capital M mark," he explained. "I sort of accidentally did it to Tad, in the middle of the park battle, just I knew I needed that area covered, and he was the guy for the job. I know it connects people to me somehow, like an ethereal tether or something, and gives them a boost too. I can mark you," he said. "But know that it means you'd be like a soldier on my side, that I could call you up to help me with things when I needed that. Or I don't, and our bond remains the regular kind of ride or die, that doesn't need any supernatural bullshit to keep us together."
She took her time thinking this through, thankful that she didn’t have to worry about silence in any length of time where Caleb was concerned. He’d always given her the space she needed to think, and pushed her forward when she got stuck in her own thoughts. So she thought of all the scenarios she could imagine, the pros and cons of both sides, and at the end of all it of she’d made her call.
She didn’t know what it would mean to be marked by Caleb, exactly, and it seemed like he didn’t know all the details either but that had never stopped them from standing side by side in the past. And like hell she was going to abandon him simply because he basically got a new job. What she hoped, in addition to being able to be there for him and support him regardless of when or what he might need, was that the mark he gave her might serve another purpose too - she might have a better idea of when shit was really hitting the fan versus just the spiraling anxiety that continued to flare in her body. And the boost he mentioned came from Caleb, not someone she didn’t trust, so no matter what what it meant to be boosted by him, she could trust in their relationship and hopefully learn how to trust herself again with, hopefully, a little more control over this new power.
And lastly - he was actual Death. It was oddly comforting in a way that it hadn’t been before this talk - she’d been so scared of losing everyone. Of losing him and Charles, Azazel, and Marie, but she also knew that Caleb was fair and he didn’t lie to her. Having that reassurance helped ease her earlier concerns.
After a few minutes, she nodded. “Of course I’m on your team,” Roxie answered, making sure to catch his eyes again when she spoke. “Let’s do it.”
He smiled at her, and nodded. Then without having to think about the placement, he reached out to put his hand around her arm, right over the scar there, the mark that reminded them both of that first nightmare, the first time they had been thrown into the fire together and lived to tell the tail. It wrapped black branches around her arm, weaving with the scar, almost highlighting it beautifully instead of covering it. A blue rose bloomed on it as well, the petals subtly creating the suggestion of a skull. Then there she was in his head, like Tad was, a presence just beyond the surface. He brushed his thumb over it, then sat back, looking to her eyes. "And you’re Marked." He wasn’t quite sure what it would do for her, but knew Tad had noticed perks immediately.
Roxie watched the process unfold, enrapt by each swirl of branches as the mark settled into her skin and surrounded her scar like it, too, was a thing of beauty. She couldn’t help but smile when she saw the whole piece settle on her skin and when he took his hand away, she took a moment to rotate her arm around as best she could to capture all the detail but where she expected there to be a pull in her wound or a spike of pain from the movement of her injured shoulder, there wasn’t. Instead it just felt kind of tingly, a little bit like she’d slept on it for too long.
And then she started to notice other things - like how her posture straightened up and the tension of pain and healing in her body seemed to relax. She wasn’t completely healed; the wound was still there and she had to wonder what it might feel like outside the dream but in here it felt so much more manageable. By the time she looked up at him again, Roxie was beaming. “About time I got a Caleb Rose original. Thought it was gonna be a tattoo but this is better.” Then, Roxie reached out to take his hand again and hold it, making sure she caught his eyes because this was important.
“Thank you."
"You know I love you," he told her, kissing her forehead. "Thank you for always having my back, no matter what fuckery happens next," he said. He didn’t know if she fully understood the scope of what that had meant over the years, how it had helped him through some of the roughest of times - even if he hadn't gone to her. Just knowing he could was something that in Caleb Land was huge. She was the first non family member to be ride or die with him, and it would never stop being important on a fundamental level.
Roxie smiled when he kissed her forehead because she did know that he loved her; the same way he knew she loved him. She mirrored his action and leaned in to kiss his forehead right back, squeezing his hand when she pulled back to catch his eyes again. “Like you could get rid of me,” She answered with a smile. And sure, if anyone could it would be actual Death, but she wasn’t worried anymore. Death was a lot less overwhelming when it came with a Caleb face.