Rose Ward (Senna Miller) + Dwayne Hicks (Dwayne Waddington)
pg-13 (mention of violence) | complete
CHALLENGE THREAD
rain + flaky + orange + remain + tendency + tree + amused + gleaming + key + pan
The nights were getting colder, the days a little bit shorter as the season continued to move into fall. Senna was struggling to sleep, dreams of sneaking around, being someone else, living a different life had been overwhelming her sleep. An odd unease around her brothers whom she considered herself close to, a distance between herself and her boyfriend. Things were just wrong and she knew it wasn’t just her. It seemed like everyone she knew was struggling with who they were.
She’d taken to walking at night to try and clear her head. Senna was playing with her keys in her left hand as her mind was filled with a memory of being in a seedy town somewhere in Eastern Europe when she rounded a corner and nearly ran straight into someone, her first reaction was to jump back and take a defensive position ready to fight if she needed to. She relaxed as she focused on who it was.
“Dwayne,” Senna said relaxing slightly with an attempt at an amused smile.
The nightmares were getting more horrific. Dwayne hadn’t thought that was possible when they began but he’d been wrong. Even worse, he was beginning to think they weren’t actually dreams but something that had genuinely happened to him. He’d started taking all the night shifts he could since while the nightmares never went away, it was easier and more calming to wake up to daylight than a pitch black night that might contain the monsters from his dreams.
Patrolling the campus also made things easier. The movement and needing to keep watch kept his mind away from pelting </b>rain</b> on an alien planet and light gleaming off sharp teeth and a curved carapace. At least up until he nearly bumped into someone and he raised an imaginary weapon. He let his hands drop as quickly as he raised them and drew in a deep breath.
“Senna,” he said with a nod as he wondered why it seemed strange for someone to call him by his name and why he wanted to be called… he couldn’t quite grasp the name but it was there. “You’re here late.”
Shrugging she nodded to his observation. She really was around late. “Couldn’t sleep, figured I’d try to get some work done, even if it does seem a little bit pointless.” Senna frowned as she let her mind go to the thought of the fact that something was really off and she felt like she was missing something important, really important.
“I haven’t seen you around lately,” she commented. Senna had a tendency to pay attention of when people where around but lately she noticed she was paying attention to even more details than she used to. Her eyes naturally panned any area she was in.
“Pointless?” he said, though he kind of felt the same in a strange sort of way. Like whatever he was doing here was pointless and he should be somewhere else doing something else. It fell into the same category as the reaction to his name. He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I’ve been doing a lot of night shifts in the last couple of weeks. It’s been easier for me to sleep during the day.”
Movement out of the corner of his eye made him whirl in that direction, raising his torch like a weapon almost as if he expected something to come leaping out of the bushes, but it was just the orange light of the nearby street light shining on the leaves of a nearby tree as it moved in the breeze. He turned back to Senna with a wry smile. “Sorry. I’m a bit jumpy at the moment.”
“It’s probably going to sound crazy but I don’t feel like my work is my work,” she frowned as she nodded as he told her about night shifts and easier sleeping in the day. She completely understood it.
Instinctively she reached as if she was trying to grab a gun as he jumped and took a fighting position. Looking between Dwayne and the tree she frowned remaining where she was. “Is there something more to it?”
Hicks forced himself to relax. It was just the wind in the tree, there weren’t any fanged monsters coming after him. He then frowned. Hicks? Where the hell had that come from? He knew his mind could be a little flaky after everything he’d been through but the last thing he needed was for it to start making up names. He pushed that - and the thought that Hicks sounded a hell of a lot more like him than Waddington - aside and shrugged.
“I know how you feel.” He grimaced. “I mean, saying I was a soldier feels right but saying I served in Afghanistan feels… wrong. And not in an existential ‘why were we there?’ kind of way but in a ‘I’ve never set foot in Afghanistan’ kind of way. Add that to the nightmares that look like horror movies but feel more real than real life…” He sighed. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”
“Horror movie?” Senna asked as relaxed her stance with a small frown. She had a strange feeling she’d seen a few things herself that weren’t exactly normal.
“If you’re going crazy, I think we’re all going crazy, see, I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but at the same time I know I’ve been there.” Senna frowned. “Along with a few other places,” she whispered shaking the feeling away. “What time does your shift end?” She asked. “Because I’ve got a bottle of scotch in my desk and I get the feeling we both could use a drink.”
“Monster and aliens,” he elaborated. “Or monsters that are aliens.” He shuddered and glanced around. It was easier in many ways to be awake at night but that didn’t get rid of the creeping fear that there was something hiding in the dark, something that was going to kill him… or worse. He was absolutely convinced there was an ‘or worse’ there.
“My shrink tells me I’m perfectly sane.” He snorted. “Or as sane as someone with PTSD can be.” He checked his watch. “I’m off in about half an hour. That should give me time to do one last patrol of the campus. Meet you in your office?”
Something about monsters and aliens rang some distant bells as she nodded. “I’d guess a mix of both.”
Smiling Senna shrugged one shoulder as a feeling of familiarity washed over her. “Well, shrinks like to pretend crazy isn’t a thing,” she commented lightly with more familiarity than she really could figure out.
“Meet you at my office, good look on the last patrol,” she meant it to as she put a hand on his shoulder before heading to her office.