Entry tags:

!complete, doug ramsey (cypher), kitty pryde (shadowcat)

WHO: Doug Ramsey and Kitty Pryde
WHAT: Doug comes to Kitty with a problem
WHEN: Recently.
WHERE: Her place
WARNINGS: Talk of deaths
STATUS: Closed and Complete

The nightmare never seemed to end, and he staggered as he moved to her door, the itch in his arm painful almost.

Doug stood, shivering at the door, knocking lightly, then harder. He was pretty sure she was home and he was hoping she was alone for the moment. He needed her advice and hopefully to just hang out. This was a mess of a dreamset. Who became a different person, for a second time, in their dreams?

He rubbed his jacketed arm over the spot where the techno-organic virus, inert at the moment, sat in his skin and shivered again. Fucking dreams.

He really hoped Kitty was home.

***

Lucky for Doug, Kitty was home, plotting for a righteous cause. She bounced up from the couch, and came to the door. “If this is Avon I’m full up. … Doug?”

She smiled at him. “Hey, guy. It’s been awhile. Come in!”

She stepped aside, letting the door swing open while simultaneously pushing an inquisitive cat aside with one foot. Something seemed off about Doug, but she wasn’t going to say anything until he volunteered some more information.

***

“Hey! Thanks.“ He smiled as he stepped in, past the door, glancing around, and turned to face her. “How’re, how’re you doing?”

Delay, delay, delay,... was not a good thing, He sighed. “Ah… I dreamed about being Douglock.”

There, that was part of it. A little part. Yes.

***

“I’m fine.” She closed the door. It was mostly true, with some exceptions that she didn’t really want to get into. Besides, she was more concerned with Doug, especially after that particular revelation.

“You’re very not fine, do you want a beer?” Kitty kept her voice calm - too many conflicted feelings about Douglock and Doug to focus on.

***

“Yes, please. And I’m… fine-ish. In the vague neighborhood of fine.” He paused and chuckled. “Possibly just in the same city as it.” He felt tired, and worried, and achy, but he was okay. He thought.

“Maybe several beers.”

***

“That’s not that fine.” She returned from the kitchen with a beer, then pointed for him to take a seat. “Sit. Let me see that.”

She wasn’t a doctor, and she’d never had first-hand experience with the virus, but she needed to see how bad it was. She was already thinking of asking Jemma for help, or the network in general. This wasn’t something to take lightly, for Doug or for the rest of California.

***

Doug sighed and stripped off his jacket, revealing the golden-yellow circuitry patch on his arm. The jammer on his wrist glowed in time with it, blocking it from spreading or infecting others. “Yes, Kitty.” He sat, and took the beer, and watched her as he held out his arm to be seen, and assessed.

“As far as I can tell, and as far as Dream knowledge is telling me, this jammer is keeping it from infecting others or growing in me. But I don’t know many dream doctors and none off my head who would know how to tell me how much it spread before I woke to see it.” He felt tired and sounded it.

***

She grimaced, hesitant to touch it, but leaning in to get a better look. “The Agency might have a few tools. I don’t think waking world medicine is going to be able to tell us much, or how far it’s spread.”

Medical wasn’t her field, and she’d never been as close to Warlock as she had been to Doug or even Douglock. Then, she hadn’t been very mature when it came to the New Mutants at first.

***
Doug nodded. Yeah, he needed help.

“I’m willing to work with them if you think it a good idea. I don’t want to hurt anyone. My dream self seems to be… well, okay. More like a merger of me and Warlock. Totally doesn’t quite feel like… me, you know? But he controls it, and so maybe I can learn to do so too. For now, though, I just want to not be a danger to anyone.”

He spoke softly, passionately.

***

“Douglock was never evil, and he never hurt anyone,” Kitty assured him. “It took me some time to accept him, because he wasn’t you, but in time I did.” After sticking her head in his grave to make sure his body was there, anyway.

“And if he could control it, you can. And we’ll make sure the Agency helps you with that. And other dreamers too. Not all the doctors on the net are with the Agency.”

***

He nodded. “I’m just afraid, I guess.” He swallowed.

“Thank you, Kitty. Somehow you always have answers. I’ll try whatever you think is right. Because this is all our of my league. I’ve spent the last two weeks making things, and then dreaming of Douglock, of being him, and struggling free of Phalanx.”

***

“I’d be afraid too. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that.” Kitty couldn’t name the number of times her dreams had made her afraid. She usually deflected with a quip or a snarky remark about them, but they scared her. Especially with how relevant her most recent were to the world they found themselves in.

“But look at it this way. There isn’t many ways it can be worse than dying.”

***

Doug shivered, then sighed, releasing some of his tension as he smiled a little at her. “Thank you, Kitty. Sometimes, they really scare me. Douglock was always afraid of being lost to the Phalanx. And I can feel that fear, still, even while awake.”

He nodded then to her words.

“Yeah. Dying sucked.” He rubbed his shoulder where he still had a healed bullet scar, a relic of that dream.

***

At least Kitty knew what it was like to die now. Not just the time with the ritual. She’d died in several of her dreams. Trampled to death in one. Eaten by a zombie in another. Incinerated after ripping out Emma’s heart and she was pretty sure she died after she’d phased her arm into Logan’s head and bled out. Different universes, different deaths.

She wasn’t that afraid of dying any more, she was more afraid of dying pointlessly. Like the zombie.

Okay the zombie one still haunted her.

“But he never was. I can tell you that much. He tried to be more and more human, but he never lost to the Phalanx.” Kitty didn’t have the heart to tell Doug that Douglock had just been Warlock with his memories.

***

“That’s good. Good. Then I hope I am as strong as he is.” He smiled faintly at her. He worried. He had been an idiot much of his life, and not exactly a bastion of strong will. What did he know about beating disease? Not much.

“Okay. So, not sure if anyone in the waking world can tell us much, and I might have to just… deal with it, and move forward, yes?” He wasn’t trying to be defeatist, just trying to face and add up what she had told him.

***

“We’re not quite the same people we dream we are. But there’s still enough of us there. If he’s strong, you can be strong. I know it.” Kitty gave him a smile with more energy than she felt.

“Doesn’t hurt to try, though. Hope but prepare for the best.”

***

Doug nodded. He took a deep breath. He could do this, right? Right.

“Alright. Who should I reach out to then? Er, if you have advice in that area. I don't know any Agency people, it's rather none that have told me who or what they are.”

So he wasn't sure who to ask for help.

***

Kitty pondered that for a moment. “There are a few I can think of? It might be a good idea to make a generalized post. No need to go into detail, but I know a lot of the doctors do keep tabs on the network and more than one will offer to help.”

There was that part of Kitty that was still hopeful and idealistic about people and it was shining through right now.

***

“Okay.” Doug nodded. “Should I make a post? I’ve never done this before. I could appeal for help, with, like you said, just a general idea that I need special medical help, because of dreams?” That sounded good, actually, and Doug nodded, wondering if Miss Sato, his hopefully-soon-to-be-boss, would know any such people.

He made a note to ask her, maybe, too.

***

“I think you should try that.” Kitty grinned at him, and patted his hand. “And you can be vague. No need to alarm people or air your personal laundry. You can get into more detail in DMs. But I’m only alive because of the Agency and people on the network. It’s a good resource, and there’s no shame in asking.”

***

Doug nodded. “OKay. I can do that. Yeah.” He smiled at her and her handpat. Her fearlessness and her solidarity meant a lot to him.

“And that makes sense, yeah. I will get on that right away.” He looked down, and took a long breath, feeling a little better, a little more hopeful. “Thanks, Kitty. You are, as always, a life saver.”

***

“That’s what I’m here for,” Kitty boasted. “Kicking ass and saving lives, and I’m all out of ass kicking today.”

What, it totally worked!

***

FIN