Who: Team Monster Movie When: Late June, a few days before the rift plot starts What: Chloe Dreams, Henry lets the L word slip, and the Hole demands attention Where: Henry's crazy apartment Rating/Warnings: Pretty low - log contains SFW links
Ever since Chloe had decided to join Simon, Derek, and Rae on the trip out of Lyle House the dreams had been ramping up. Derek had officially confirmed himself as a werewolf and she was still trying to get a hold of her powers as they ran away. The warehouse had been awful because it was the first time she had encountered seeing some kind of repeating suicide of a man stepping into a large industrial saw. It was startling and she had no idea what had been happening until it repeated. Then the group with Dr. Davidoff came and she and Rae had to split away from the boys and she had made the dumb decision to call her Aunt.
The reason for the call was a hope that her Aunt would be able to save them. Unfortunately that wasn’t what happened and she was taken to some sort of hospital that was being run by people associated with the Lyle Group. And her worst fears were confirmed when she was able to summon Liz to her bedside and Liz recognized the hospital and it only made Chloe know for sure that her poor roommate had been killed here. She woke up with a bit of a gasp and realized that she was holding the same green sweatshirt from her dreams in this world. Liz’s green sweatshirt. A small shriek was made and she tossed the sweatshirt from herself like it had been hot to the touch.
There had been a time once in which Henry had been a deep sleeper. He didn’t wake up in the morning so much as sort of evolved from a sleep state to a human state. However, hearing Chloe’s cry of alarm, Henry jerked awake. He hadn’t quite fully woken up, but he was already pushing himself to sit up, blinking sleep away from his eyes. “Wha - what is it? What’s going on?” He half expected to find another ghost hovering at the side of the bed staring at them. Or maybe the windows of his bedroom had taken to rattling or some other haunting that had decided to make itself present in the middle of the night.
A quick look around and Henry saw no ghosts. He had long since accepted that he was going to be seeing a lot more ghosts now that he and Chloe were a couple, and he was absolutely fine with that - so long as none of them attempted to stick their cold ghost-hands into his chest or back. Summoning Ghosts was an ability that was a part of Chloe and a fact of life Henry was learning and willing to deal with. However, he was thankful that none were in his room at that exact moment.
He was also thankful that there wasn’t anything weird going on his bedroom either. No rattling windows, or clocks going out of control, or - the latest in the continuing cycle of weird hauntings - no disgusting boil like things growing out of his walls. Breathing a sigh of relief, Henry looked at Chloe next to him. “Are you alright?” Amber eyes looked at the sweatshirt she was clutching in her hands. “What is that?”
Poor Henry. Chloe had forgotten that he was in the bed with her and if she had realized she would have attempted to be a little quieter about things. She normally didn’t wake him up with a scream, so she instantly felt bad about it. Breakfast would be made to make up for it later and she was just thankful that Liz hadn’t made an appearance here. It was hard enough knowing that her roommate was dead and that she hadn’t been able to stop it in her dreams. She was about to drop the bomb that she wasn’t any kind of shaman but in fact a poltergeist. Liz wasn’t going to take that very well.
Blue eyes glanced over to her adorably ruffled boyfriend on the other side of the bed and she reached out to grab his hand. “I’m so sorry. I just -- I was dreaming and woke up with that in my hands and it freaked me out because I had just been holding it,” Chloe explained to him with a sigh and reached her free hand up to run her fingers through her hair, “I was using it to summon someone and I didn’t expect it to just appear here.” But as long as there wasn’t a ghost attached to it then Chloe could handle this. She knew that Henry was willing to put up with a lot of weird stuff in their relationship, but she still wanted to protect him.
To be fair, Chloe had to put up with a fair amount of weird shit dating Henry too, and Henry figured there was going to be an amount of “is this your weird Dream Thing or is this my weird Dream Thing?” as their relationship continued. Honestly, he was kind of looking forward to it. Not having to go through this alone made him feel better, at least.
Considerably more awake now, Henry looked carefully at the sweatshirt. “Sometimes things carry over from our Dreams. Like, the most random things too.” Like guns, or shabby dolls. He looked at the green sweatshirt a little more closely. Chloe was learning how to use her powers, which was good. The more she learned, the more she could control her power, use it without it using her. “Who were you trying to summon…” then a little more cautiously, “why were you trying to summon them?”
If he voiced the fact that he was looking forward to them trying to figure out their respective dream issues then she would playfully shove him and call him a weirdo. But she had to admit that she did enjoy it on some level. He was one of the better boyfriends she had ever had and she was certainly falling for him even though it had only been a couple of months that they had been together. But she had come to rely on him for a lot of things and he was the first person that came to mind when it came to dream things.
“I -- I wasn’t expecting this to just show up in my hands after I just dreamt of it. It’s a little unnerving,” she admitted to him with a tiny frown. The green sweatshirt was sitting at the end of the bed and she felt like it was alive and just waiting to make her go crazy. A hand reached up to brush her hair out of her face and ran her hand back through it, “My ex-roommate from the Dreams, Liz. She was murdered and I couldn’t figure out if she was a ghost or a shaman of some kind. We were escaping the Lyle House and I got separated from Derek and Simon, made the dumb idea to call my Aunt, and ended up in a hospital with people who were trying to hunt us down. I’m a little scared to be there.”
“Liz,” Henry repeated thoughtfully and nodded. “Yeah, I remember you posting about her before when she disappeared.” Henry frowned. There was a lot of death in Chloe’s dreams. It really shouldn’t have been surprising, given Chloe’s abilities as a necromancer and medium, but still. Everytime she talked about them it seemed as though someone had died some kind of terrible death. Henry could relate. Everytime he met someone in his dreams, they ended up dying. On top of that it seemed like just about everyone in her dreams with the exception of Derek was out to get her. Henry wasn’t sure which was worse, being trapped alone in his apartment and no one being able to hear him call for help or even noticing he was gone; or being surrounded by people, but every time you reached out to one of them, they hurt you. Both were very isolating and scary. Henry sighed and put his arm around Chloe and drew her close to him.
“You’re safe here,” he said. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
Dramatic was the right way to categorize her dreams. There was so much going on and Chloe really wished they would just figure out what they wanted to do in the dreams. Staying in the group home wasn’t an option, but now this group of people wanted to take them into their custody. Chloe wasn’t having any of that and really wondered what was going to happen once she got out of the hospital because she wasn’t going to stay in there. Simon and Derek needed her and they had to find their father and get this all figured out. And if people could just stop dying that would be perfect.
When he pulled her in close she let out a sigh and moved to snuggle up against him, “I’m so glad I have you. I just want these dreams to be done with, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”
Henry wished he could tell her that it would be over soon, but the unfortunate truth was there was no sort of rhyme or reason to the Dreams. He knew some people who finished mere weeks or months after they had started and at the end were really no worse for wear, and he knew others who seemed to have been dreaming forever. Henry himself felt as though he was one of those. In fact, he couldn’t remember what it was like to not Dream. The only one who really would be able to say one way or another with her dreams was Chloe herself.
Henry sighed and stroked her hair soothingly, resting his head near hers. “I’m here,” he said, “and I’m not going anywhere.” He lifted his head from hers and leaned back to glance at the clock on the nightstand. It was a little early for breakfast, but Henry figured comfort food might not be a bad idea. Maybe some chocolate chip cookies, a package of which he was pretty sure he had in his pantry.
He looked back at Chloe. “Do you need anything? Want anything? Something to eat or drink to take the edge off? I have cookies.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Chloe answered him with a bashful smile. Yep, she had definitely fallen for him and she was so used to him being around that she wasn’t sure what she would do if he just disappeared from her life. Hopefully that would not be something she has to experience anytime soon. She stayed snuggle up close to him and let out a laugh when he mentioned cookies. “I think something strong to drink and cookies might be a lot of fun. Do you want me to get up and help cook something? We can make omelettes…” She was more than willing to get up and be around him if he wanted to eat something.
They usually had fun trying to cook together and not get distracted by each other. It didn’t hurt that she had taken to wearing his clothes when she was staying over at his place now. She had helped him with his laundry the first day they met, so there weren’t any secrets for that part. “Actually, yeah, let’s make a big breakfast or something. We can drink and cook.” It was never too early to some drinks after dreams. She pulled away from him, tossing her long hair around before pushing it back with her hand, and grinned at him.
Getting up and out of bed for a bit would probably be a good idea for the both of them. Besides, omelettes sounded really good. They could cook a good sized breakfast and then take it back to bed and eat it there all nice and cozy all thoughts about Dreams and weird shit far from their minds.
At least Chloe was smiling. That was good. Henry climbed out of bed and finding a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt to throw on. As enticing as it was to cook in the nude, that was a good way to get burned somehow. Returning Chloe’s grin he handed her one of his oversized shirts. There was something about seeing Chloe in one of his shirts that Henry really liked. “I’ll get the eggs out of the fridge. I think I got some cheese and maybe a half jar of salsa we can put in them. Come join me when you’re ready.”
The shirt was taken from him with a tug as she pulled him in for a quick kiss. She loved wearing his clothes and she would probably get to the point of wearing his boxers if he would let her very soon. But for now she slipped the shirt over her head and pulled her hair through. She slipped out of bed and looked around for her pair of undies from the night before, which would be fine for a brief period of time before she ran back to her place to get new clothes for the day. “That sounds good to me, I’ll be there in a second,” she slipped her panties on before she padded barefoot to the kitchen and stood off to the side for a moment as she watched him.
It was adorable to watch and she couldn’t help but keep smiling as she made her way over to him. She looped her arms around his waist, pressing against his back, and leaned in to press a kiss to his neck as she stood on her tiptoes, “You’re wonderful.” Sometimes she got a little affectionate with him, but she wanted to make sure that he knew how she felt about him. She had passed the test with Revy and now it would be smooth sailing for their relationship as they navigating the crazy OC waters.
One of Henry’s hidden talents was cooking. As a teenager regardless if he was living with his mother or his father, he was often left alone to his own devices since both of his parents worked long hours. His mother as a nurse caring for the terminally ill and his father handling multiple client accounts at the firm he worked at. Henry usually found himself cooking meals for them to eat whenever they came home. He was mostly self-taught, though his maternal grandmother had shown him the proper way to hold and use a knife and the difference between broiling and baking. It was a talent that had come in handy in his adult years when he went out on his own as a freelance photographer. No matter where he was or what he had on hand, Henry had never once gone hungry.
He had just set a pad of butter in the frying pan when he felt Chloe’s arm around his waist and her body press against his back. It brought a smile to his face, these moments of affection that let him know just how much she cared about him. Any fear he may have once had that she may not have felt the same way towards him as he did towards her had long been dashed. Hearing her say he was wonderful made him smile even wider. He never thought he’d ever hear anyone say that about him the way she did.
He put one hand on her arm as he used the other to spread the melted butter around the pan. The words came without Henry even stopping to think what he was saying. “I love you.” No sooner had they left his mouth when he realized what he’d said.
Despite knowing that Henry could cook for her she wanted to make sure she could do the same for him. She had surprised him a couple times with dinner, but she was quite pleased to have found a boyfriend who could cook like Henry. Cooking lessons had become a thing lately because she watched him carefully when they were in the kitchen together and tried to pick up on the things that he was doing. It didn’t hurt that she even showed her skills off to her roommate and fed her a few times when Henry had been working late.
Being near to him was fantastic and it easily made her feel a lot more relaxed and comfortable after all the dreams she had been having. She hadn’t expected to find someone to ground her so easily, but the two of them fit together really well. So well that when those words slipped through his lips that she didn’t even bat an eye at them. They hadn’t been together long, but they had been through alot together and she felt the same way for him. Her heart started to beat faster as she looked up at him in surprise. Did he really say that?
There was a momentary pause as it really clicked in her mind and she knew how to respond. Hands moved from around his waist to reach up to cup his face with a smile. “I love you too,” simple would have to be enough as she leaned up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss to reiterate what she just said.
Had he really just said that? Had he really just blurted out that he loved her? Henry knew he had fallen for Chloe. Hell, he was aware of that when he was sitting alone in the subterranean crypt watching over the dead body of a certain captain and Chloe had kept him entertained with random texts throughout the day or had sent him food to be sure that he was eating. They really hadn’t been together that long, but they had shared so much about themselves with one another, helping each other come to terms with the things they Dreamed about at night so that they could continue their lives here as normally as possible. The words had just come out so easily, so naturally, and furthermore they had felt right. After the first flutter of his heart when he heard himself tell her he loved her, Henry held his breath waiting for how Chloe would respond.
It was only a moment before his face was in her hands and her lips were to his mouth. In that moment the butter in the pan on the stove was temporarily forgotten. She loved him too! Oh, God! Henry couldn’t have been happier!
A large smile broke out over his face. “You do?” Silly boy. That kiss, the way she was holding his face, of course he knew she was telling him the truth. He laughed a little “I had kind of hoped the first time I told you that would have been more romantic, but...I guess making omelettes has that sort of effect on me.”
The kiss was full of emotion and she could feel her heart fluttering just slightly when her lips were pressed against his. It was a whole other feeling when you finally figured out that you loved someone and there was a shiver of pleasure that ran through her body, making her toes curl just slightly. She pulled back from him and she couldn’t help but giggle at his expression. He was the most adorable man on the face of the planet and he was all hers.
The giggling continued as she nodded her head at his question and she managed to stop long enough to speak to him. “Of course I do. Not every guy would put up with a girl that can raise the dead. You are a very special person, Henry. And I think that you making omelettes is very romantic. Although, it would be a lot better if you weren’t wearing a shirt or if I could see your butt.” She was teasing now as she moved her hands down to around his waist once again. Oh yes, she would happily take adorable rumped Henry in his pajamas making her an omelette any day.
“Raising the dead is part of your charm,” he smirked at her. “Besides it fits in with the whole Monster Movie motif my life has, which, you know, isn’t exactly easy to put up with either,” he half-joked. He was about to comment about how next time he made her breakfast he’d be sure to serve it to her in the nude when the smell of something burning wafted up from the stove and stung at his nose. Henry jerked his head towards it and saw the butter he’d been melting had not only melted, but was coming very close to catching fire. “Crap!” He jerked the pan off the stove and set it aside. He looked back at Chloe sheepishly, a hand going back to rub his neck. “I really am good at this, I promise.”
“We are the epitome of an odd horror movie couple. And I think I am doing a pretty good job of putting up with --” her words trailed off when suddenly there was a foul stench of burning in the air. Oh no! The butter! Okay, it was actually kind of hilarious and she started to laugh as she tried to find a towel to fan at the smoke before the alarms started going off. This was making their day even more memorable and she leaned over to gently bump her hip against him, “I believe you. I totally distracted you. It will be a fun story to tell people.” Especially if they ever had children and she would tell them all about how their father declared he loved her and then burnt the attempt at making breakfast, but it would be far more dramatic as time went on.
Henry reached up and clicked on the stove’s fan, which effectively sucked up any smoke the almost-on-fire butter was producing. He laughed a little when Chloe bumped him with her hip. “I don’t know if anyone will see the same humor in it,” he admitted. Though, it was a funny story for the two of them to have as a couple. In a few years they could look back with fondness about the first time they said “I love you” to each other and then proceeded to set the butter on fire. There was a pun in there about flaming butter and a hot passion, but Henry wasn’t quite clever enough to come up with one.
Once the pan had cooled a bit, he took it to the sink to clean out the buttery remains and start again. “After we’ve had breakfast in bed, what do you want to do today?” Henry wasn’t against the ideal of hanging around the apartment in their underwear, but considering what Chloe had been dreaming about, she may want to get out and have a bit of a distraction.
“They don’t have to. It’s our little story and we’re going to grin every single time we talk about it or even think about it,” Chloe pointed out with a lazy smile as she reached up to brush some hair out of her face and stepped out of the way as he made a move with the pan to the sink to clean it out. It was a little disappointing that he would have to redo all that because she was starving, but she would be able to handle it. Her stomach protested just slightly and Chloe blushed as she pushed at her stomach to calm it down.
“Ooo, in bed? Aren’t you getting fancy. And I’m pretty much up for anything,” that was the only downfall to a lazy day was that she was willing to do anything at this point. She knew that Henry would probably prefer a concrete answer, but she didn’t have one just yet, “You could show me the photos you took over our vacation.” She had been patiently waiting to see them and knew better than to interrupt whatever process he had for doing his photos.
“We totally deserve a morning of lazy bed eating,” Henry said then paused as he realized how that sounded. Sometimes Henry-isms didn’t translate so well from his head to spoken word. “I mean...eating in bed...not literally eating a bed because...that would be both weird and hard. Also probably murder on the digestion.” Dork.
After he finished cleaning the pan, he returned it to the stove and plopped another pad of butter in to melt so he could actually make omelettes this time. “I have most of the pictures from our vacation developed,” he said. It had been a slow process, especially since he didn’t have his own darkroom and had to make-do with what the studio provided. “They came out pretty good. The one of you on the beach I took our second day at sunrise is probably my favorite. You know the one where you’re wearing one of my shirts as a cover-”
Henry was cut off when a loud thump came from his bathroom. Henry’s head jerked in that direction, eyes wide. Despite the weird hauntings in his apartment recently, the hole itself had been mostly quiet since the event last January.
A small unlady-like snort was given when he started to backpedal and explain what he meant, “Henry, I got it - don’t worry. You don’t have to explain that to me. And it would be murder on the digestion.” She reached up to gently stroke his cheek because he seemed to be a little flustered, but she was mostly amused when he went into things like this.
If he mentioned that he wanted his own darkroom she would probably start putting in calls to her various contacts to see if she could find someone to help out. It wouldn’t be hard. Someone had to have a darkroom that he could borrow some time in. “And that sounds absolutely lovely. I really can’t wait to see it -” any words she was intending to add after where cut off when the thump happened.
It didn’t help that Henry had a reaction like that. He looked almost frightened by it and she raised an eyebrow, “What was that?” She was tempted to assume it came from the bathroom, but she didn’t want to be wrong. Maybe a picture fell or something as simple of that. Please don’t let it be something with that freaky hole in his wall.
Henry frowned, eyes narrowed at the small hallway that lead towards the bedroom and bathroom. He wanted to ignore the sound and continue on with this pleasant lazy morning in which he and Chloe would lounge around, have breakfast and bed and he would show her the pictures he’d taken. However, the hair on the back of Henry’s neck was standing on end and goosebumps had spread down his arms. He’d appointed himself a guardian of that god forsaken hole, he didn’t really have a choice but to investigate what that damn noise was.
“I don’t know,” he sighed wearily. He turned the stove off and set the pan aside. Breakfast was going to have to wait. He leaned over to give Chloe a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll go check it out. I’ll be right back.”
Definitely not good. That look on Henry’s face concerned her and she could see the goosebumps on his arms and she knew that something had happened. She didn’t know that the hole had been quiet for so long and hadn’t had a chance to really see what the deal was with it in the first place, but she wasn’t the type to just wait around for her boyfriend. She accepted the kiss on the cheek before taking a minute to grab a couple pieces of fruit out of the fridge and then padded down towards the bathroom.
She took a bite of the apple and approached the open door with the other one in her hand. “Mmm, I brought you an apple so you can at least eat something,” she spoke aloud as she got closer to the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway and her eyes were wide when she took in the sight of what was going on, “What the he--”
The hole had gotten bigger. Henry was staring at it, hardly believing his eyes. In his dreams the hole got progressively bigger after he’d visited each world. In Orange County, the whole had remained the same size it had been when it had first appeared. Now all of a sudden it had grown to nearly it’s full size. Strange, but familiar - at least to Henry - rune-like markings had started to form around it’s edge, as though someone had taken the painstaking liberty to etch them into the tile.
The floor of his bathroom, where one might have expected to see bits of tile and drywall chunks and dust from the destruction of the wall was clean and devoid of any kind of debris. The hole may as well have been there since the apartment building itself had been constructed.
Hearing Chloe’s voice, Henry looked back over his shoulder. He almost told her to go back to the kitchen, but held his tongue. Just as he had come to expect weird cross-over from her dreams, she had come to expect the same from his. He couldn’t tell her to ignore this thing and go on with her day as if nothing had happened.
He took a step towards her. “It grew,” he said. “It’s about the same size now as it is in my Dreams. I don’t know what this means…” he trailed off when he heard a familiar sound coming from the hole itself. It was almost like a breeze, and on that breeze a whispering voice that Henry couldn’t quite make out.
That did not look good. It was a lot larger than it had been previously and Chloe was concerned by what that meant. There had to be a reason that it was growing and she didn’t want to know what that reason was; especially if it was something bad. Henry was taking it like it was something bad and she pursed her lips together as she stepped into the bathroom and tried to take it all in. How in the hell did he live with this in his apartment? Chloe would have hightailed it out of there in about five seconds after it appeared in her bathroom. Apparently Henry was made of a stronger constitution than she was.
“So….what are we going to do about it?” she voiced after he said that he didn’t know what it meant. Something needed to happen. There had to be some way to get the hole to go back to normal. She ran a hand through her hair as she approached him, hearing that whisper and brow furrowed, and slipped her hand into his, “I’m not letting you do this all by yourself.”
Truth of the matter was that the thought of abandoning his apartment had never really crossed Henry’s mind when the hole had appeared. Yes, it had freaked him out, but he’d been dreaming of going through the hole for a few weeks before it had made its appearance. According to his Dreams, the hole itself was harmless. Nothing had ever come out of the hole, per se. In fact, the fog that had plagued Orange County back in January with it’s monsters and twisted architecture had basically rolled in from points unknown and not out of Henry’s bathroom.
“It grows in the Dreams,” he told her. “Every time I...complete-” that was the only way he could think of to describe how he stopped going through the hole into one world and started going into the next, “a world in the Dreams, the hole grows just a bit bigger. I think…” he hesitated a moment, “I think I’m supposed to go in it again.”
That was the last thing that she wanted to hear. He had to go inside. Well, she sure as hell wasn’t going to let him do that all on his own and she tugged on his hand gently, “Well, if we want to get inside of there then we need some real clothes and if you have any weapons that might be good.” She didn’t have any, but she was tempted to learn how to use a gun if this stuff continued. She didn’t want to be defenseless and useless when it came fighting.
“So, explain to me how you ‘complete a world’ in your Dreams? What exactly does it entail?” Chloe was walking towards the bedroom to find her clothing. She could run upstairs to get a whole new outfit, but she didn’t want to waste anytime when this seemed like an urgent situation. Once in the room she picked up her clothing and put it back on and left his shirt on as she put her bra back on underneath.
Well, that was not an easy question to answer. It wasn’t as though Henry didn’t want to tell Chloe how it was he “completed” a world, the issue was he had no idea how to describe it. He intertwined his fingers with hers as he thought how best to explain.
“Each world I’m...sent to…” because he sure as hell didn’t choose to go to them “I’m presented with a kind of puzzle. Like...the last world I was in - the Water Prison - I had to figure out how to get Andrew DeSalvo out of the cell he was trapped in.” Henry paused for a moment. He still didn’t understand how he knew DeSalvo’s name. The man never actually gave Henry his name, Henry had just...known. It was weird. He shook his head slightly, “once I’ve solved the...puzzle, I guess, usually the person I’ve met in that world gets killed somehow and the next thing I know I’m waking up back in the apartment, as if I’ve been teleported or something. Then the next time I crawl through the hole, I wind up somewhere new. I don’t really understand how it works or why I’m being sent to these places to do what I’m doing...but...it’s got to have something to do with this serial killer I keep hearing about.”
Henry paused as Chloe got dressed again and after a moment started to put on a pair of pants and a t-shirt as well. The desire to venture back into the hole was different this time than last time. It wasn’t beckoning to him, pulling him towards it as it had done the last time. Now it was as though he felt as though he should go through the hole. There was a possibility they’d meet Sharon the Ghost again, or maybe someone else slightly less terrifying, who could give Henry a little more insight to this prophecy Sharon had spoken about.
It made sense with the way that he explained it. It sounded a lot like playing a videogame where you were able to move along in the storyline once you finished doing something that was required. Although, it was a little disturbing that there happened to be a serial killer involved with all of this and the fact that someone wound up dead - hopefully never Henry, but she had no idea. A look of concern passed over her face as she drew her hair up into a ponytail and then walked over to him.
“Well, at least you know what’s going on. I don’t know if I’ll be a lot of help in there, but I don’t want you to go by yourself,” once she reached him she reached a hand up to cup his cheek and gave him a smile, “Do you think that if you finish solving all the puzzles that the hole will just disappear?” She just really didn’t want anything to happen to him and that prophecy that the ghost had told them was weighing on her mind from time to time. Hopefully it didn’t mean anything and they would be just fine.
Her concern was very much appreciated. Henry had no idea what was in store for him as he continued through the dreams. Sharon’s prophecy about the 21 Sacraments and the death of the Receiver of Wisdom had been lurking at the back of Henry’s mind for weeks now. But no one who Dreamed actually died, right? He was going to be fine.
Right?
At least he didn’t have to go through this alone like he did in the Dreams. Here he had Chloe. He had Chloe and so many others who would always back him up. He reached up to take her hand from his face and kiss the back of it before giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” he admitted. He let go of her hand to pick up his gun from his night table. He checked the safety and amount of ammunition he had in the clip as Revy had shown him before putting it into the holster he had bought for it. He just wasn’t comfortable with carrying it around in the waistband of his pants. He glanced at Chloe for a moment, as if considering something, then went into his closet to pull out a rusty looking ax. Another more recent gift from his Dreams. He’d woken up to find it leaning against his side of the bed as if he’d left it there the night before.
He felt as though he was sufficiently armed now. He could always give Chloe the ax if they came across something they needed to fight. Henry held out his hand towards her. “Ready?” He asked.
Her life had gotten very strange since she joined this network and she knew it was 100% true when she watched Henry get out his gun and she didn’t even bat an eye or get nervous. It was necessary to where they were going and they had to protect themselves. If this was pre-network Chloe she would probably have thrown a bit of a fit internally at the sight of the gun being loaded. And it got even weirder when he pulled the ax out of his closet and she reached out to take it. Could she actually do any damage with it? Who knew, but at least she had something to do instead of just standing around.
With a swing of her arm she lifted the ax up to rest again her shoulder and she gave him a nod, “Ready. Let’s do this. I love you.” Her hand reached out to take his and she really hoped she didn’t have to let go of it for a long time while they were inside of there. This was a big step for her and she knew that she trusted Henry implicitly. So, with that she took the first steps towards something new and hoped that the creepy hole in his bathroom would be kind to them.