Mitch Rapp (rapp) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-02-15 06:32:00 |
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The previous night had been a replay of any number of nights since Jaz and Mitch had been in college. A few beers had led to more beers and before long they’d ended up going home together. This time to Mitch’s place, which was far more comfortable than hers given how undomesticated she was. That aside she should have been waking up in a vague post-coital glow with a slight headache, maybe, if she hadn’t drunken enough water. Instead Jaz was wracked with dreams - no, these weren’t dreams, they were visions. Of her in another world filled with vampires and others that she had no worldly reference to in her daily life. It wasn’t the creatures that terrified her, though. It was her. The person she became in the visions. A CIA assassin, for fuck’s sake, tasked with killing some senator-vampire and his nest. The Jaz in her visions was so cold. So calculating. So damaged that she barely recognised herself, despite feeling a weird affinity for the woman who was so hurt. She’d lost everyone and everything that she’d cared about and all that was left was a husk of a human with scary skills. She jerked awake when Assassin-Jaz decapitated Almand, the vampire she’d been assigned to kill. It was gruesome, disturbing and most of all too… tidy. The vampire had turned to dust and faded from view, leaving the red-head alone with her gun. Who named a gun? Jaz sat up, curling the covers around her and knowing that no amount of warmth would stop the cold she was currently feeling. She flipped the switch on the lamp, not wanting to go back to that dream-darkness. On the bedside table sat the gun. Grief. Jaz let out a despondent sob and shuffled away from it, wanting to put distance between her and it. * Mitch had been sleeping perfectly fine until he heard the click of the light being turned on. He kind of ignored that and tried to go back to sleep. He kind of heard Jaz moving around, but that wasn’t what finally woke him up. Her sob now that got his attention and he couldn’t help but wonder what in the hell was going on. He rolled over onto his back and looked over at Jaz and asked, “What’s wrong?” The look on her face said something was wrong right along with the sob he had heard a few seconds ago. * She hadn’t meant to wake Mitch. In fact the thought of him seeing her quite this unhinged actually scared Jaz. Given how much he’d seen of her psyche over the years, that really was new. “I think…” she pointed at the gun on the bedside table, “...I might be going crazy.” Part of her wanted Mitch to see nothing. Nope, nothing there, it was all in her head! Or would that be worse than having things from dreams coming true? “The dreams… they’ve started” Jaz turned to face him, knowing that she had to look utterly terrified by what had disturbed her sleep. She wasn’t an idiot, she’d seen things on the network but Jaz hadn’t expected anything so cold and visceral. “I wasn’t me,” she said meeting Mitch’s eyes and knowing the fear she felt must be reflected there. * “You think…” Mitch was confused until he sat up a little more and looked over at the bedside table that Jaz had pointed towards. “Uhh, what is that and where did it come from?” He had never seen it before and it sure as hell wasn’t there before they fell asleep. “You can’t be going crazy, you were already there,” he teased, trying to get her to shift gears. “Shit…” They had seen people talking about them on the network and as much as they didn’t want them, it looked like they were coming. “Do you want to talk about it?” Whatever the dream was, it had to be bad. He hadn’t seen Jaz this freaked out looking in a long, long time. * He could see it? Crap. “Grief. It’s called Grief,” Jaz said in a hoarse whisper. “It’s hers,” she said to Mitch, hoping he’d understand what she meant. She managed a small smile and had a sudden rush of affection for her friend who was trying his best to make her laugh even when she felt like she was falling apart. “I’m batshit. She’s broken,” Jaz told him, “like, totally dead inside.” Worse than the vampire whose head she’d taken off. “Yeah, shit about covers it,” Jaz’s eyes flicked back between Mitch and Grief, trying to get her head into the kind of shape to make sentences that would make sense. “Talking would be good,” she said nodding in a disconnected kind of way, “hugging would be better.” Just having another human hold her, even for a second, told Jaz she was not that girl. * “Grief?” What kind of name was that? He looked away from the weapon and looked back at Jaz. He got it “So, dream you carries that thing around, huh? Why?” He was asking questions, yeah, but he wasn’t so sure if she’d answer them. If she told him to stop, he would, though. He wasn’t going to push. “That sounds…horrible.” As much as the dream thing sucked, at least she didn’t have to deal with it alone. At least she was here with him tonight. “Okay. Start wherever you want.” Seeing Jaz like this was kind of freaky. Whatever happened in the dream, it had to have been really bad and he was almost afraid to hear how bad. “Come down here then.” If he needed to hold her for the rest of the night, he would. * She gave a small nod at the question, that woman carried Grief like a badge of honor. “It has a magic button,” Jaz told Mitch in something of a daze. Why that had seemed important she didn’t know but the other her treated the gun more like a comfort blanket than a weapon. “I… she works for the CIA,” Jaz told him. “Has since college but four months ago something happened to her,” which killed her insides? “I don’t know the details but now she’s an assassin and she’s terrifying.” When Mitch gave her the okay she pulled the covers with her and rested her head on his chest, holding tight like he might be all that came between her and madness. “She was on a mission,” Jaz started to explain about the vampires and the rest and how the other her worked to eliminate this particular threat to their nation. “I don’t even care that she’s an assassin, Mitch,” Jaz said looking up at her best friend, needing him more than she ever had, “I guess someone has to do that shit, right? Just like we have to pick up the pieces of accidents and tragedies.” She tried to frame what had really disturbed her so damned much. “She was totally untouchable, like, literally untouchable. If someone had offered her kindness she’d have flinched away and the coldness radiating from her…” Jaz curled up tight, “...she wasn’t a human person. She was a machine and I don’t want to be her. Don’t let me be her,” she felt another sob building and fought it back. * “A magic button?” Mitch asked, eyebrow raised. “Do we need to know what this magic button does?” Hopefully it didn’t make anything go boom. “So dream you is a CIA assassin that’s broken. Yeah, that sounds pretty fucked up.” The second that he could, he put his arm around her and held her as close as he possibly could. And as she started to talk more about this dream version of herself, he listened. “Yeah, I guess.” That was one way to look at it. “You’re not going to become that fucked up version in your dreams. I won’t let it happen and I’m pretty sure you’re strong enough to not let yourself fall into whatever is going on in that fucked up dream.” He kissed the top of her head and gave her a little squeeze. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore.” * Jaz gave a half-hearted nod, “turns Grief from a normal gun into some vampire-shooting crossbow,” or so it had seemed. It had all sounded way too crazy to take in entirely as she’d watched it unfold. “Yeah, that seemed to be the long and short of it,” she replied to Mitch’s question and her reaction proved she agreed entirely with his summation. Okay, human contact was good, Jaz told herself as she started to breathe normally again. Mitch didn’t sound as confident as she did about being all pro-assassin, though Other-Jaz hadn’t been pro-murder, just really, scarily efficient. “She didn’t take any joy in it,” she told Mitch, “but she knew it had to happen and that she had the skills to do it.” That and the lack of all feelings. “You know, when I heard about the dreams I thought maybe I’d get to be a superhero or get some amazing other life,” Jaz said as she held tight to Mitch. “I thought it was going to be fun,” she said looking back up at him with scared eyes. “This girl’s life is a living hell and I don’t want to see any more,” she told him tucking her head into the crook of his neck. “Will this change us?” she asked Mitch softly, “cause what if your dreams are as bad as mine? What if we can’t handle them in our heads?” * “Oh, great, like you need that…we should hide that thing.” He wanted to say they should get rid of it, but he wasn’t sure if the thing would just reappear or not and Jaz was freaked out enough without other weird shit happening. “Just keep telling yourself that it was a dream and you’re nothing like her.” He really had no idea what else to say. “Apparently these dreams are not fun.” They didn’t seem fun by how people spoke out them all over the net. He was still glad he hadn’t had any. “Why would it change us? They’re just dreams. The only way they would change us is if we let them. We have dealt with a lot so far in our lives. What makes you think that we can’t handle some fucked up dreams?” * She managed to give a small smile as Mitch spoke about Grief. “You don’t trust me with a gun, huh?” she asked looking up at him. “You’re just afraid I’ll shoot you,” she said with a shake of her head. “No trust, that’s your problem,” Jaz told him with a soft sigh. If she was even vaguely honest she wasn’t sure she trusted herself with the gun. Especially after seeing it in use and how Other-Jaz used it like another appendage. “Either hide it or force me to practice - a lot,” Jaz suggested, “cause it could have come in pretty handy during the zombie invasion!” Could Jaz tell herself that? “It really didn’t feel like a dream, Mitch,” she answered chewing her lip. “Not fun is a serious understatement and one that should be written out of the lexicon immediately,” she decided. Mitch had a point when it came to the rest, though. It shouldn’t change them, should it? But it already has whispered her conscience, unhelpfully. “I think,” Jaz said taking his hand and holding it tightly, “we’re going to need one another more than ever through this.” Was that okay with him? She’d be there for Mitch if he’d be there for her, it was kinda their pact and deal with one another. “We have to handle it, somehow, right?” and she had no clue what was coming down the line for Mitch. “Part of me wishes it was all over in one fell swoop, so I knew all the stuff, how it related, how Other-Jaz got to be such a fucking psycho,” she told him. * “No, I don’t. Who knows what you might do with it.” Mitch could already imagine Jaz trying to figure it out and accidentally hurting herself or some innocent bystander. Or worst, yet, himself. “I’ve seen the trouble you can get into. Trust has nothing to do with it.” Hiding it seemed like a good option. He was going to put it somewhere once she wasn’t around. “Hiding it is the best option. Even if something like that happened again, it would be useless; you’ve never shot a gun before.” Now she was starting to sound like everyone else on the network. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say that their dreams were fun.” Which still made him wonder why these dreams were happening. What was the point to them? Was it to torture them? Was it a past life replaying in their heads? “Of course,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. They’ve been there for one another through everything else. Why not this? “We’ll handle it.” He was sure of it. “Maybe it’s a good thing that you don’t get it all in one fell swoop. It would probably fuck you up more than just getting the bit that you already got.” * If Jaz was honest about the whole gun-thing she wasn’t entirely sure she’d trust herself either. After all, she and Mitch had seen every day the results of people who’d carried around guns they couldn’t control. Did she really want to become one of them? Her eyes went back to Grief and she frowned, “can’t help but think they gave me that for a reason,” Jaz said looking up at Mitch, “no clue what it might be, but it still feels… important.” Mitch was doing his best to cheer her up and she knew it and she even smiled when he told her he was hiding it. “Fine, you take care of it until I know how to use it right,” Jaz said by way of compromise. Would she really want to go and learn to shoot, just to keep hold of the gun? Not at the moment but maybe it would become necessary. “Someone out there must have good dreams,” she said frowning, “cause not everyone in the world has a bad life, do they?” Maybe one day someone would dream of going to work 9-5 in a dull office with a watercooler to talk around and a pile of filing. “Right now a bunch of filing sounds like a dream I could get behind,” she said, following her own train of thought. Mitch’s grip soothed her and Jaz wanted to believe everything was going to be fine. “So in your mind I could actually be more fucked up than I am?” she asked looking up with a wry smile, “that’s possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever said!” * “Until we know that reasoning, you don’t really need it, do you?” He still thought hiding it away was still the best option. But in the end, it belonged to Jaz and she was going to do whatever she wanted to do. “Alright.” It looked like he won this round. The gun was going to get hidden. “It doesn’t seem like it.” Just from the bits he had seen on the network, he was beginning to think everyone had horrible dreams, which made him want them even less. “I never thought you were fucked up. I always thought you were crazy. There’s a big difference there,” he told her with a smile. “Do you feel better now?” * “No, I don’t need it,” she agreed feeling weirdly like she was giving up part of herself. Then again she trusted Mitch with all her other parts, so why the damn gun should be different Jaz didn’t know. “Just… look after it?” she said feeling a little defensive. “Don’t just toss it off a bridge and pretend it got lost,” Jaz told him, “cause I do think I’ll need it,” at some point. She just had no idea why she felt that way about a stupid gun! It wasn’t like it was her vibrator or something, it was made to kill people (and vamp-people) but dream-Jaz needed it. Well that was a depressing thought! She frowned as she looked up at Mitch and answered, “maybe they get better as they go along?” Jaz suggested, having to keep some kind of hope alive because if these dreams got worse… hell, she might as well bury herself in the closet and never come out again! She even laughed when he told her she was crazy and hugged him, “good to know. I’m clearly crazy cause you telling me that actually cheered me up,” Jaz said with a grin. “Yeah,” she said as she curled back into his body, “I feel better. Thanks.” She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, “so you wanna sleep now or fuck?” * “I would never do that…” Actually, the thought had crossed his mind to just toss it and never bring it up again. But since she said it, he wasn’t going to do it. He’ll just hide it until whenever. “I doubt it.” He couldn’t imagine a reason why Jaz would need it. Not to mention the fact that she had never shot a gun in her life before. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m no dream expert here.” He never had them. He had only read them. Anything was possible. “Glad I could put a smile back on that face of yours,” he told her, grinning right back at her. “Hmm…surprise me.” |