I knew you once upon a dream... Who: Linnaea and Zio What: Lotto post = dreamy time Where: the woo woo subconscious When: January 6th
It was well after 1:30 in the morning before Linnaea managed to settle herself into bed when exhaustion trumped being upset, a shower, flannel pajamas and Flash games online. The entire evening had been a complete disaster. Not only did she get called in to work on her day off, she had to deal with Christy trying to whore herself on Zio (of which she was sure she would hear about the next time they worked together) and Naea came to his rescue because, well, most people deserved rescuing from Christy. He had been nice enough to bring her home and rescue her, though his reaction towards her curiosity once they’d reached their destination cemented his position as someone she should never make an effort to willingly approach again. She had thought there might have been a mutual connection because of the peculiarity of the feelings she felt being around Zio or brushing against him (at least two of which were of his doing). The first incident in the elevator had made her feel like she’d been an idiot for treating him like an asshole in the first place.
Naea sighed heavily as her shoulders finally found themselves relaxing in their happy place in her big King-sized bed (that which used to be David’s was now outfitted with new soft yellow, insanely comfortable Egyptian cotton sheets instead of those weird satin sheets he liked) and she pulled her comforter up to her chin while closing her eyes. She had a thesis to finish in the morning. She was so close to graduation... Just relax, Linnaea... There’s nothing about him you really need, anyway...
Naea walked across the cool forest barefoot dressed in, of all things, her flannel monkey pajamas, braless and her dark hair down and flowing. Birds chirped, flowers were starting to bloom in all sorts of shades of red, yellow and blue. It felt like mid-spring--the air was mostly warm but the breeze that came through was still fairly brisk. While pondering the beauty of the unknown wood, Linnaea realized that she actually was on her way somewhere and not simply roaming around like Red Riding Hood without a basket or a red hood for that matter. Where she was going was an entirely different question in her mind, but her bare toes and soul seemed to know the way. She followed them without hesitation or complaint.
It wasn’t long before she happened upon the gaping maw of a cavern carved into the side of a decently large hill, big enough that she couldn’t see what was over it unless she took the day to climb over. I have to go inside, she thought simply. I’m supposed to. Why did this seem familiar?
“Because it is.”
The low voice interrupting and answering her thoughts was too familiar by half and she peered deep into the dim shadows within the cave. A flicker of motion drew her attention and a laugh, dry and amused, drifted out to her ears. “I thought women always dreamed of romance and white knights,” came the voice again. The other person paused then and the silence echoed with a sort of heavy anticipation as if waiting for the next jarring statement. Finally, a sigh answered both her patience and the unspoken question. “Because this has to be a dream, doesn’t it?” the voice asked. A thread of somber resignation in the words pulled at her but she resisted the urge to take a step closer.
“Because that’s the only way you’d come within ten feet of me again.” In the surreal manner of dreams, one minute no one stood to own the voice and, now, there was Zio standing half in and half out of shadow, watching her with dark, guarded eyes. He was also barefoot as if caught from his own bed and dumped in this strange land. He stood before her in what had to be his pyjamas, a loose pair of cotton sleep pants and bare-chested.
Except she could not for the life of her imagine that Zio normally wore gaudy bits of pink and red knitted chain at his wrists when sleeping. Nor could she even begin to correspond the Zio she knew with the faint, barely-healed scarring slashed across the sculpted torso before her.
He watched her watch him and finally held up both hands, palm upwards. “So it’s a dream,” he repeated in a tired voice.
Her head canted to one side gently as he spoke. It was a rare occasion that having a dream clicked the signal of knowing it was a dream while still experiencing it, but neither of them seemed readily disturbed by the fact. Naea allowed for her eyes to trail over his form, strangely unabashedly, and finally rested her gaze upon his face. “I’ve never dreamed of romance and white knights.” Of all the things she could have said, that was the phrase she chose. She couldn’t have told you exactly why, though the most likely reason is that for her, those things were mythical creatures and there was no sense in becoming entranced with such things.
His hands were a curious thing to her. Just as she had in the car, she wanted to touch them; hold them against her own; the chains at his wrists filled some place in her heart with the ghost of an ancient grief that flitted away just as quickly. Linnaea, even in this imaginary (or was it?) place, didn’t dare reach for him for any sort of comfort for either of their behalves, and focused on his piercing and oh so tired eyes instead. “We have to go inside,” she said, almost whisper-like. A step closer, the soft, mossy ground suddenly yielding to smooth rock under her bare feet, causing him to step back in unison as she moved her small, svelte body towards the darkness inside. “There’s something we need to see.”
Why was he in her dream, anyway?
“I think it’s something you need to see,” he murmured. “I’ve already seen it.” Standing behind her as he was, she did not see Zio rub his wrists, picking at the knots of colored rope about them. He could not seem to get them off, no matter what he did. Part of him wondered if Linnaea would be able to remove them but he hesitated to ask. Why would she behave any differently in a dream than she did when they were awake?
Instead of asking, Zio padded along behind her and his eyes proved fast to adjust to the dim light. He touched the fingertips of one hand to the cool stone wall as they walked and made a small noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to wake up before the monster gets you, Miss Benson?” he asked mildly. If there was any cynicism to his tone, she was hard pressed to find it.
“If I don’t see the monster before it gets me,” she replied quietly. “how will I understand it?” And that, Linnaea, was a very good and very ominous question. Naea could feel Zio so very close behind her, the only semblance of warmth that came from the dank of this cavern. And yet, it was all ridiculously familiar. Something was bidding her to move forward, to find that something. But what? was the persistent question in her mind, and it sat alongside Zio who was, for some reason, still following her, even though he said he’d already seen what was needing to be viewed.
It wasn’t long before they happened upon a larger part of the cavern, thin streams of light coming from small holes in the very top gave minimal, but better light to the area. In this place were piles of stone and boulders, one of which that was particularly flat had thinner, taller rocks surrounding it. The sense of grief that Naea had briefly encountered when she arrived came back with a heavy thud of her heart. She stopped in her stride as her eyes rested on an oddly placed object. “A bowl?” Indeed it was, and she knew it meant something.
Naea’s eyes narrowed and she took a step back to turn and say something to Zio, but she had misjudged his closeness and backed into him instead, and whatever it was she had to say disappeared in that moment. Even in this dream, her body decided to betray her in various ways, including the fact that she didn’t immediately jump away from him. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to find her voice. “It’s... just a dream,” she muttered softly, but she wished it wasn’t one.
Zio had automatically reached to steady her the moment she had stumbled into him and he let his hands linger on her upper arms just a little bit longer. Her skin felt warm beneath his fingertips and he realized just how cold he was. He closed his eyes, lost himself in the moment, and then shook his head imperceptibly. Carefully, he set her upright again and stepped to the side. “Of course it’s a dream.” He looked ahead at the pile of rocks and then turned away, striding towards the nearest wall and contemplating the grooves and pock marks there. “I told you it had to be.”
Linnaea shivered as he released her. For what reasons, though, she could not say. “But in a dream, your hands would not feel so damn cold,” was her soft reply. Nor would it pain me for you to let me go. Her eyes rested on the bowl that sat by its lonesome on this massive rock and she calmly stepped towards it. None of this made any real or logical sense. Who sits a bowl with nothing particularly unique or interesting about it on a rock in a cave? There was nothing logical about dreams, though. There might as well have been leprechauns dancing with Dutch unicorns wearing wooden shoes.
This, of course, was not that sort of dream. There was something they were supposed to know.
She stood in front of the bowl for what seemed like ages, studying it without touching and considered just how unassuming it really was. So why was she hesitant about picking it up to get a closer look? A bowl isn’t going to hurt you, Linnaea Bea. Isn’t this what you were looking for?
His skin crawled as, without turning to look, Zio knew Naea was looking at the cursed bowl. The damn bowl. When he had first woken up in this strange place, curled awkwardly atop a flat rock, he had touched it. The jolting shock received still lingered in his touch-memory. He should let her learn her own lesson. Little girls shouldn’t put pennies in light sockets.
“Don’t touch it.” Why did he say that? Hadn’t he just decided that she should learn on her own? Reaching out, Zio settled one of his palms against the rock wall in front of him. It felt warmer than his own skin. “What are you thinking?”
What was she thinking? Why did he care? She had to admit that he actually seemed concerned about her actions, if not for his own selfish reasons. “I am thinking that this is what I am supposed to do.”
So why was her hand shaking as she reached down to touch the smooth wood?
The sensation was instant, and it ran through the course of her body.
Anger. He’d betrayed her and others. Who’s he?
Fear and despair. They murdered her children and will do the same with him. Who are they?
Love. He was all she had left. He had given and taken away almost everything.
Who?!
Later on, Naea would consider the oddity of such a feeling as love after the first three. For the moment though, there were flashes of what she assumed were memories; she had no other way to describe it. Each one lasted less than a second and were in no chronological order that she could tell but seemed to go on the tighter and longer she gripped the bowl. She never realized that she cried out in anguish and barely acknowledged that she went to her knees. Why was this dream so cruel? Who were these people? Why did she have anything to do with it?
Her heart was pained. She found it difficult to catch her breath as tears ran down her pretty cheeks. None of anything made sense.
He didn’t want to move. He certainly did not want to return to the tumbled pile of rocks or look into the depths of the bowl again. But he heard her tears (though she made no sound) and Zio had to turn towards her again. It was worse than... Than anything in the world, he thought, and that made no sense at all. He was Nunzio Moreno. Since when could a bit of rock or a bit of girl shake him?
He found his hands resting on her shoulders again, light and careful. His body seemed destined to drain all warmth from hers but he could not move away. Not this time. “I told you,” he whispered in a leaden, toneless voice. “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
Somehow, the strength was found to let the bowl drop, and it rolled on its side for a moment before twirling to a stop a few feet from them. His touch made her relax ever so slightly, but the emotions that had shocked her system were still flowing freely. “Because,” she finally managed. “You never tell me anything worth listening to.”
Zio was so close and still seemed a billion miles away. She savored his skin against hers for all it was worth, but the reasons behind it were still highly unknown. Naea’s tears slowly subsided as she found the strength to stand up; her face streaked and her eyes red. For the moment she would take in the nearness because when they woke up, it would all be just what it was: A dream. The waking minutes would go by and all would be forgotten as these fleeting things so often were. Would you this time, Linnaea Bea? Taking a deep breath, she finally spoke. “What did you see?”
He meant to lie. The lie was right there on the tip of his tongue but dreams were more true than anything else in the world sometimes and, before he could catch his wayward voice, Zio murmured, “Nothing.” He carefully turned her around and reached up his hands to frame her face. His thumbs brushed at the tear tracks over her cheeks, drying the dampness with his cool touch. The soft knitted cords at his wrist brushed against her with the motion. “Nothing but I felt things.”
His hands on her face, the way he wiped her tears gave Linnaea the elation as though she’d discovered something she thought was lost to her forever; the tickle of the knits around his wrists gave her a much different sensation-- one of loss. Don’t get attached. When your eyes open, it’s gone for good. She could not help but lean into his touch, her hands finding a place on his stomach to rest. Zio did not feel as cool to the touch this time, but goosebumps speckled along her skin.
Blue eyes looked up at him from under a fringe of dark lashes. Linnaea’s face was very natural--no makeup that she usually donned and generally did show up even in her dreaming world. No mascara to run as she cried, no rouge to reapply. “What did you feel?” came forth in a half-whisper. Must you know?
“You’re so nosy, bella,” Zio whispered and a trace of velvet appeared in his voice. It was both better and worse than the deadness; he watched as his words triggered minute reactions in her and silently crowed with pride. Maybe he did have some control in this world, after all. Maybe he could control her. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he felt the urge to laugh and muffled it in her hair, bending to bury his face against the side of her neck in an instinctive gesture. “This isn’t a dream of white knights and unicorns” came his non sequitur of an answer into the soft skin and tendrils of dark hair.
While his initial words and the smooth tenor of his voice actually made her smile, and his breath brushing along her skin made her want to give him anything he dare ask of her, it was his noting about it being a dream that made her take pause, turn the smile into something less cheerful and push against Zio in an attempt to keep him at bay. She’d just bared her soul to him without saying a word; he was more interested in anything else but. This was, after all, the man who seemed to find ways to make her back off. “I told you,” Naea muttered, somewhere along his bare shoulder while trying to keep him off of her soft neck. “I don’t dream about white knights or romance.” But he hadn’t said ‘romance’ this time.
“You should,” he responded immediately. Now that she was in his arms, he saw no reason to release her. Not now, not ever. Her warmth chased away his lingering cold and he allowed his eyes to shut, cheek pressed against her temple now. “You should dream about whatever makes you happy. Not this place. We should never have come here again.”
Again? There wasn’t much she could say... The place was incredibly familiar, but not in a way she would have hoped. The other problem was the fact that he was holding her as though he had a right; as though it were second nature to him. It both bothered her and pleased her immensely--It felt good and right, but this was the same man who had essentially laughed at her when she tried to make sense of why she was feeling as she did.
Linnaea tried to push at Zio once more, and failed miserably. Where his cheek rested felt like home. “Romance and white knights have no place for me,” she whispered against his skin.
“No, I guess not.” He resisted any attempt to dislodge him; he could not risk seeing her face while they stood in this place. A sense of urgency rose in his stomach, dread creeping up the back of his neck. “Don’t leave,” he suddenly whispered, “but you have to go. Why are you doing this to me?”
She didn’t understand. Then again, there was far too much about any of this she didn’t understand. From jerkass to desperate soul? The words made her heart heavy and tears she thought were done came forth once more. “Min kärlek,” whispered Linnaea, forehead pressed against his collarbone. The words had come easily, and for the life of her she couldn’t remember where she’d heard them, but she knew what they meant and part of her felt horrified that she would dare call him that. Zio Moreno was no such thing! The other part of her that felt completely amazed just by being in his arms once more welcomed them. Oh, but he is, indeed.
Her hands now rested just over his solar plexus, feeling his heart beat and his now-warming skin. “Why do you think I’m doing anything to you? None of this is up to me. I did not ask for this.” Her tone was non-accusatory, merely curious through the tears she shed that brushed against his chest as they fell.
“You’re crying.” Zio wanted to bite his tongue at the obvious, inane statement. Of course she was crying. She was trapped in some stupid dream. He didn’t care that she said she never wanted knights. All women wanted some sort of knight - white or black, shiny or tarnished. He would refuse to be hers. He always had control, always had that choice. Nonetheless, his hands moved over her back, soothing and careful. “You should wake up now,” he whispered. “This is... If you wake up, so can I.”
He didn’t know how he knew that but he felt sure, from top to toe, that it was the truth. How could he loose control in a dream? He needed to escape. Someone would pay for doing this to him.
“Then let me go,” she murmured through tears while attempting to figure out if she really wanted or needed to leave him. “I’ll mean naught to you when you wake up; none of this will matter. Why hold on to only make it worse for me when I remember how you holding me as I am your own feels?” This time, she pushed with both of her small, delicate hands just hard enough to push some of the wind out of him so that, perhaps, he’d let her go and maybe she would forget what the feeling in the pit of her stomach meant every time she would see him, hear his voice or catch a waft of his scent in places he had recently been.
“You’ll never know what it’s like to not take something for granted.” Naea felt as though he thought he was doing her a favor by keeping his arms around her. “Not, at least, until that something is no longer there when you need it the most.”
“And you do?” Zio’s hands shifted and closed on her upper arms. Suddenly, he pushed her away though his grip remained firm. He searched her face with dark eyes, glinting with a strange gold shimmer. His mouth resembled nothing so much as an old, tired scar - thin and unyielding and full of wordless pain. Then he released her abruptly and stepped away. Snatching up the bowl from where she had dropped it, he offered it to her with a mocking bow. “Well, my dear, take it then,” he whispered. “Take it and see all of that again. Look and see it and enjoy it. Me? I’d rather say fuck these headgames and wake up.”
She reached over and smacked the bowl out of his hands rather violently, barely paying it any mind as it bounced twice off the cold ground. Her body was shivering--she was freezing and tears still flowed freely. He’d taken her warmth as his own. He seemed to be good at things like that. “I’ve been alone since I was fourteen. I learned a long time ago to never take anything for granted.” The word ‘alone’, whether she meant for it to be or not, sounded like the most abysmal and sad word in the world when Linnaea said it. “You should learn how to experience that feeling sometime, because that’s going to be what you are in the end.”
Naea searched his face through blurred vision. “The end, min kärlek**.”
”But my dreams, they’re not as empty as my conscience seems to be...”
His hand came down hard on the clock radio, a fit of unguarded anger sending it skittering from his elegant night stand to land with a music-killing crack on the floor. With a pained groan, Zio rolled onto his stomach and buried his face against the pillow. He felt his muscles shaking and his skin seemed to radiate cold until he had to clench his teeth against a chatter. It was ridiculous. It was a dream.
It lingered. He never had dreams that he could remember. He told himself that was the only strange thing about it. With another groan, Zio pushed himself onto his back again and sat up, shoving the sheets away and swinging his bare feet to the floor. The feel of cool wood against his soles grounded him a bit and he fought down his relief that it wasn’t bare rock.
It was just a dream.
The fact that he was dreaming about Miss Linnaea Benson, the most frustrating of women in the building, did not surprise him. It had become a point of personal pride to find the cracks in her, the handles, and apply the proper pressure until she opened for him. If his mind continued to mull over her strange, contradictory behavior while he slept, so be it. For it to twist their strange sparring matches into a fairy tale gone wrong, though...
Zio padded to the bathroom and turned on the taps, holding his hands beneath the warm water. He stared at his wrists. Finding no traces of rope burns at his wrists, he scowled. He should not have even thought that. He raised his eyes to stare at his reflection. For a moment, his eyes unfocused and he stared at reddish hair and a scarred mouth. Then he blinked and the world went right.
“Goddammit,” he muttered as he reached for his toothbrush. “I fuckin’ hate riddles.”
**((ooc: Kärlek is pronounced ‘shar-lek’, and there’s your Swedish lesson for the day.))