Dahlia Jackson (plaininsight) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2022-06-12 17:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, dahlia, dahlia x grady, grady |
Who: Grady and Dahlia
Where: Dahlia’s apartment
When: Night, Monday, July 2
Status: complete
Grady and Dahlia didn’t really get to enjoy a lot of sleepovers. He was still working a ridiculous amount of hours and he wasn’t comfortable leaving Jen alone in the house at night. Occasionally he got lucky and had an evening off when Jen had plans, and tonight happened to be one of those nights. Knowing that she was sleeping over at a friend’s house put his mind at ease and while he might have invited Dahlia to come to his place for once, he had a brother still crashing at his place that would take great pleasure in making the entire situation as uncomfortable for Grady as he could. So Dean got the house to himself for the night and Grady got to fall asleep next to Dahlia. It felt like a win-win to him.
At least until he started dreaming. It was like he was a kid again, climbing that tree as dusk fell upon his street. When it had happened, Grady had been with his friends, running around the neighborhood all summer like they were meant to. The man in the tree had scared him so badly, he’d fallen and broken his arm. His friends just thought he was clumsy. They hadn’t seen the bowler hat.
Even now, dreaming about that moment again, it felt like his dream-self knew what was coming, even as he grabbed the branches and climbed. On some subconscious level, Grady tried to wake himself up. He didn’t want to see those teeth again. He didn’t want to fall and feel that bone crack.
He was restless in bed, sweating between Dahlia’s sheets. He kept climbing, higher and higher. And then those long, skinny fingers curled around the branch Grady had just grabbed, startling him just as it had years ago. Grady looked up to see the wide smile, the only part of the man he’d ever seen beneath the bowler hat. The man’s face came fast at Grady, his teeth sharpening as he opened his mouth. And then Grady was falling… only this time he didn’t land on the ground, or hear the snap of his arm. The man grabbed him, sharp nails swiping across Grady’s shirt to cling. He could feel the nails slice through his shirt, only it felt like his flesh was ripping open.
Grady yelled in surprise and pain even as the man let him go, that smile growing ever wider as Grady fell through the branches, towards the ground.
He woke up before he hit the ground, yelling again as the scenery changed around him, shifting from a dead, tangled tree in his parents’ front yard to Dahlia’s darkened bedroom. Grabbing his arm, he was sure the pain he was feeling was the result of another broken bone… but he realized it was his chest that stung. The deep welts were bleeding, though not terribly bad. It was still disconcerting and he blinked dumbly, still not quite sure where he really was.
Dahlia woke up with a start, unsure for a second if she’d actually heard the shout or dreamed it. She could immediately feel Grady’s distress though, radiating off of him in pulsing waves that made her feel a little nauseated. She quickly sat up and turned to him in the dark, reaching out to touch him lightly. “Grady? What’s wrong, what happened?” she asked in a hushed voice she hoped wouldn’t startle him too badly. Sometimes it was hard to adjust to sleeping in a different environment, and they hadn’t gotten to do this very often together yet. She thought he must have had a nightmare, and gods knew if anyone had plenty of nightmare-fuel in his brain, it was the sheriff of this weird dark town.
Still breathing heavily, Grady pushed himself up into sitting position, one hand moving to his chest to tentatively touch the welts. Had he done it to himself? He had to have. The alternative seemed impossible and not something he wanted to consider. "Just a dream," he managed, once he was able to find his voice. "I'm fine." His chest stung with the force of the scratches he had endured and he moved to slip out of bed. He didn't want to mess up Dahlia's sheets, and he needed to take a look in the bathroom mirror to see exactly what he'd done to himself. "You can go back to sleep," he murmured, sparing her a quick glance as he climbed out of bed. "I didn't mean to wake you."
As if she could really just roll over and go back to sleep without worrying about him. Men were so silly sometimes. “I know, it’s all right,” she murmured. Dahlia moved to get up with him, snagging a light silk robe from the chair she’d tossed it over. Slipping it on, she stepped out into the hallway while Grady went to the bathroom, not wanting to hover directly over him if he needed a moment to himself. Dahlia peeked into Elodie’s room even though she was fairly certain it would still be empty, and she was right. That girl was like a stray cat, honestly. Quietly closing that door again, Dahlia continued to the kitchen and to the fridge. She poured them both a couple of mugs of milk, warmed them up in the microwave, and added some honey to both. After a moment’s thought, she added a shot of whiskey to both mugs as well, stirred them up, and started to carry both back to the bedroom.
In the bathroom, Grady examined the welts on his chest, grimacing at the sight of them. His own fingernails were clean, so he knew he hadn't done it to himself like he initially thought. There was some phantom pain in his arm, reminding him of when he had fallen out of the tree in his dreams and broken it. The dream tonight had felt so real. Did that mean the man in the bowler hat was able to stalk people in their sleep now? Physically hurt them? "That's fucking crazy," he muttered to himself before turning on the sink to splash his face with some cold water. After a moment, he began to clean off the blood from his chest. Dahlia would ask questions, but he thought he could probably slip his t-shirt on before she noticed. Once he felt ready, he turned off the light and returned to the bedroom. Of course Dahlia was in there with something to drink and he sighed a bit before walking over to the bed. "I'm fine," he told her. "Just a nightmare."
“Mmhmm, you already said that,” Dahlia murmured with a little smile. She hadn’t turned any of the bedroom lights on before she sat cross-legged on the bed, but her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see the streaks running across the pale skin of Grady’s chest. They looked like scratch marks. Frowning faintly, she dialed into his emotions more closely and she could feel the confusion and worry and pain he was hiding from her. Dahlia picked up the mug intended for him from the bedside table and offered it over as Grady got settled again. “Here, even if you’re fine, this might help you get back to sleep,” she told him softly. “You wanna tell me about it?”
Grady cocked a brow but took the mug with a small smile. "Warm milk, huh?" It smelled pretty good and it gave him something to focus on, so he was appreciative. He really didn't know if he wanted to tell her about his dream or not. There was the obvious worry that she might think he was crazy, but how many times had he warned her about this town. And the dark man was something that haunted Point Pleasant for decades. Maybe even longer. Settling back against the headboard, Grady took a sip of the milk, pleasantly surprised to taste the honey and whiskey. Definitely not the kind of warm milk his mom used to make him when he was a kid. "When I was a kid, I was climbing a tree in my yard... just normal kid stuff. But turns out, I wasn't alone. There was this... man in the tree, above me. He was uh, wearing a suit? And a bowler hat. I couldn't see his face, just his mouth... his teeth." Grady cleared his throat and sipped his milk again. "He smiled at me and I was so scared I fell and broke my arm." She would probably remember Elodie sussing out the old injury when he brought the girl home a while back. "That's what I was dreaming about. Except instead of breaking my arm, the man grabbed at me and..." He motioned to his chest. "Scratched me."
Dahlia definitely remembered the story about Grady’s arm, and she was briefly confused about why he was telling her again ... but then he got to the man in the tree. She studied him as he spoke, her eyes drifting over his face and her mind tuned into his emotions. Dahlia could tell he wasn’t lying or just making it up, he definitely believed that was what he saw. Grady and Elodie both had warned her many times about this town and how strange things could be. Dahlia looked down at Grady’s chest, and she could see the scratch marks on his skin. She took a long sip from her mug before she answered, mulling all of that over. “And you woke up with those?” she murmured, nodding toward his torso. “Do you dream about that incident a lot?”
Grady touched one of the welts again before lowering his hand to his thigh. "I don't... not really. I, uh... saw him again when I was in high school. My friends and I were getting into trouble at the Fallows." He smiled faintly at the memory. The son of the town Sheriff, getting high with his friends as a lame act of rebellion. Trying so hard to be his brother instead of Sheriff Barrett's golden boy. Now look at him. "I saw him in the weeds. Thought it might have been the weed, but I knew it wasn't. Jeremy, he was my best friend at the time, laughed when I told him what I saw." Grady looked over at Dahlia. "Jeremy went missing a couple of days later. I never knew if it was connected or not, but I felt like Jeremy had seen him the night he disappeared. I guess I got lucky with just a broken arm." He cleared his throat. "The dream tonight though, felt real... in more ways than one. Even when I do dream about the man, I never wake up physically hurt." It made him worry about Jen, but she was at a friend's house, with adults, and that eased his mind some.
It all sounded very dark and haunting, and her heart went out to him. It seemed like Grady had been exposed to the fucked up parts of this place early in life. It made her want to hug Elodie tight and take her away from here, before she got hurt even more. Dahlia was silent for another moment or two, reaching out to gently brush the skin just under one of those scratches. Could he have done it to himself, lashing out in the midst of a nightmare? Dahlia hadn’t even felt the bed move until he woke up, and she was kind of a light sleeper. “I have to be honest, Grady ... that’s really scary,” she murmured, her brow still knotted. “This place is really teaching me that there was a lot I didn’t know about the world. And the way you can just talk about it so calmly ...” She trailed off and shook her head in amazement, moving to take his hand in hers. “What do you think it means?”
Grady blinked in mild surprise before he understood. He was talking about it calmly, wasn't he? A normal, well adjusted person might be panicked... desperate to leave. But the abnormal was normal in Point Pleasant, as much as he wished differently. His fingers curled around hers. "I don't want you to think I'm making light of the situation," he began, "but I grew up here. I've been the Sheriff for over five years now. The things you see and hear... somehow it becomes as normal to you as anything else. I don't know why. Sometimes I think it's the town itself." He brought her fingers up to his lips to kiss. "I don't know what it means, if anything. The man, the thing, is still around. Jen and I saw it a while back, in the backyard. I wish you didn't have to be exposed to this stuff, but it's just a part of living here, and I hate that."
The fact that Jen had seen it too put more unease into Dahlia’s gut. Had she woken up with injuries too? Grady had said this had never happened before, but maybe it had to his daughter. Had it happened to Elodie? Anything similar? It was impossible not to worry, and it made her want to tell Grady about her empathy, so he would know that she was a believer herself. To a certain extent, at least. “The people I care about the most are exposed to it, so I want to understand as much as I can,” Dahlia told him, quiet but firm. She squeezed his fingers gently. “I don’t think you’re making light of it, it’s just ... well, people can adapt to just about anything. I hate it for you, that you’ve had to deal with all of this.” She sipped from her mug again, then put it down on the bedside table to cuddle in closer to Grady. Dahlia slipped an arm around his waist and laid her head on his chest, careful of the scratch marks.
Grady set the mug on his own bedside table, more than happy to relax with Dahlia holding onto him. Maybe he would be able to get back to sleep. His chest still stung but there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't need stitches so it was likely it would just be sore for a while. There was the fear that this could happen again, or that the dark man was stalking people in their homes now. Or maybe just their dreams. He didn't know how to process that yet, but he would have to somehow. "It's the job," Grady said after a moment. "Probably not the same job as other towns, but I think here... you've got to believe or you're going to sink real quick." The longer Dahlia lived here, the more she would see and experience. He wished he could protect her from it all, but that was practically impossible. He was glad that he'd had this dream with Dahlia, instead of waking up alone. That would have been worse for so many reasons.
Dahlia was quiet for a moment as she laid there and listened to Grady’s heartbeat, her fingers gently stroking his side. He was such a good man, she’d already fallen really hard for him, and part of her wanted to tear him away from this place, to just pack him and Jen and Elodie up and move them all somewhere far from here. But at the same time, she could practically feel the roots he had to this town, the deep connection and love that drove people into thankless, exhausting civil service jobs. She lifted her head to kiss his chest lightly, avoiding the red welts. “I believe,” she murmured. “I believe a lot.” She paused to lightly breathe in his skin, then looked up at him. “Can I tell you something that might be upsetting?”
He really hoped she did believe. It might end up saving her life someday and Grady wanted her to be careful. Just like with Jen, he couldn't always be around. Her stroking fingers were incredibly soothing and Grady could feel his eyelids growing heavier with each passing second. But then she spoke again and he cracked open his eyes to return her gaze. Something that might be upsetting. That sounded a bit ominous. But Grady nodded wordlessly, trying not to let any momentary panic grip him.
She had her own anxiety brewing under the surface -- Dahlia could count the number of partners she’d told about her empathy on one hand, and none of them had ended well. Maybe now wasn’t the right time, considering Grady’s state of mind ... but maybe it was. He’d earnestly shared something with her, and her romantic feelings were getting to the point where it didn’t feel right to keep secrets from him. He deserved to know who he was with. With a little sigh, Dahlia sat up and turned to face him, one crossed leg leaned against his hip. She kept hold of his hand. “You should know, I believe because, well ... I can do something that other people can’t,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if you’ve encountered many psychics in your line of work ... but I’m what they call an empath. I can feel the emotions of others around me, and it gives me ... insight.”
Grady tensed for the briefest of moments when he heard the word psychic but then she explained what an empath was and the fear of Dahlia being a mindreader of some kind dissipated into curiosity. "I've heard of empaths," he admitted after a moment of digesting the information. "I mean, I'm a cop so you say the word psychic and I guess it's ingrained in me to be immediately skeptical. But I've seen too much not to believe you, obviously." His lips twitched into a faint smile. "What kind of insight does it give you?" Was it like telepathy, only less invasive? It was odd to think about but not something that would turn him off.
Compared to scary grinning men lurking in trees to hurt little boys, Dahlia figured her revelation was pretty tame on the surface. She just hoped that level of forced transparency wouldn’t end up scaring Grady out of this relationship once it had time to really sink in. She smiled back at him anyway, equally faint. “I see through lies like they’re windows, for one, with most people,” she told him. “I know what everyone is feeling when they’re talking to me, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading them and kind of sussing out the motives behind them. It just means that nobody can hide their true feelings from me. Which is kind of overwhelming for me sometimes ... but even worse, it tends to doom my relationships, once I’m honest about it. It’s hard for people to give up that ... narrative control, I guess you could say.”
Grady cocked a brow, letting that sink in too, on top of everything else. He supposed on one hand he could understand how that might put lovers off, but he also could see how hard that could be on Dahlia. "Narrative control... you mean, people want to be able to lie and get away with it?" he asked dryly before squeezing her hand. "If you never need a job..." It felt okay to make light of it, only because Grady didn't want Dahlia to think he was going to run away because of it. She had been honest with him, and he appreciated that. "I'm glad you told me. Does it... you said it gets overwhelming for you. Does it hurt?"
“Maybe not even big lies, just like ... saying ‘I’m fine’ when you’re upset, or embarrassment over things you don’t want to be embarrassed by, if you’re not actually in the mood for sex but doing it anyway ... I see through all of that,” Dahlia clarified. People lied all the time, to each other and themselves, and while Dahlia knew one’s emotions weren’t the final word because they were involuntary reactions, they were often extremely illuminating. Relieved that she didn’t sense any revulsion from Grady, or that internal scramble to put up walls, Dahlia squeezed his hand back. “It can hurt, if I’m in a big crowd of people, yeah,” she went on, touched that he’d thought to ask. “Like amusement parks are kind of hellish for me, even though I technically like rollercoasters. Everything everyone’s feeling is so intense. I get headaches at funerals. I’ve learned to shut it out for the most part, but certain environments are just ... too much.”
That... was a lot. It was a form of telepathy, only with emotions instead of thoughts. It was slightly unnerving, but still not so much that he was eager to leave. He cared about Dahlia and it was clear her ability took a toll on her. "How you live in this town and not suffer from constant migraines is a miracle," Grady said after a moment, bringing her hand up to his lips so he could kiss her knuckles. "If we're ever out and it's too much, will you tell me?" He was too tired to think back on all the dates they had been on, or the times he had come to see her after a particularly hellish work day, but he was sure there had been times she had felt his more negative emotions. He had to hand it to her for taking everything in stride.
“Like I said, I’ve had a lot of practice at ... kind of turning down the volume, is more accurate, I can’t really block it out completely,” Dahlia said, then smiled faintly. “Proximity makes a difference too, like I can’t feel anybody in the other apartments. They have to be closer.” it was a saving grace sometimes, Dahlia hated to think how unbearable it would be if her radius was bigger. “But yes, of course I will,” she added, brushing her thumb against his cheek. He was so sweet and considerate, it amazed her sometimes. “I just ... hope you know that I don’t try to be invasive, I think some people feel like, monitored. That’s never my intention. So ... please tell me if you’re ever uncomfortable about it, okay?”
Grady nodded as she explained it a bit more. Maybe he would have more questions in the future, but he was glad that she trusted him enough to tell him this now. Maybe it would have chased him off when they had first met, but now he felt pretty invested in the relationship and it didn't feel like a deal breaker. "I'll tell you," he promised. "Let's just take it... one day at a time." He motioned for her to lay down with him, ready to curl up against her and try to sleep. His chest still stung but he felt better mentally. It was like a nightmare had pried him open a little and the two of them were closer now than before.
It was late and they were both tired, and maybe tonight hadn’t been the best time to talk to Grady about all of this, but Dahlia found herself glad that she had. It was something she’d been wanting to do for a while. It was possible that Grady would sleep on it and wake up with second thoughts, but she couldn’t exactly control that, she just hoped he would want to work through it with her instead of just ending things. For now, she felt good about it as she moved to stretch out at Grady’s side again. “Wake me up if you need me,” she murmured as she settled in, snuggled against him. “Even if you just can’t sleep.”
Grady spent a lot of his life saying I'll sleep on it. It certainly helped him make decisions, especially when it came to work. But this was different. As long as he and Dahlia were honest with one another, things would work out. He had no intent to lie to her and hell, maybe her ability to read his emotions would be a blessing in some sense because Grady had learned a long time ago to suppress them for his job. Right now he held her close, pressing a kiss against the top of her head. "Thank you," he said, closing his eyes. "Who knows, maybe I'll dream about cotton candy and the beach now."
“Mm, sounds deliciously gritty,” Dahlia murmured with a soft smile. She did hope that his brain decided to be kinder to him for the rest of the night ... or whatever force had allowed such a nightmare visitation. Maybe it was kind of crazy that they were just going back to sleep after something like that, but it felt strangely natural to do. Staying up all night worried about Grady’s dreams wouldn’t solve anything. Dahlia just hoped that nothing worse came about next time. She hugged Grady a little tighter before she relaxed again, shut her eyes, and tried to get back to sleep.