Who: Ciri & Logan What: Drowning OC weirdness in booze When: Some time after this[backdated] Where: The Nightcrawler Rating/Warnings: PG-13 (drinking, swearing) Status: Complete
Logan was at the bar, mopping up a mess from a brief fight. He’d broken it up and tossed the assholes into the street, but now he was out a nice bottle of whiskey and some shot glasses.
It was almost enough to bring a man to tears, but there’d always be more whiskey. And if not, then the world wasn’t worth living in now was it.
Setting aside the mop, he picked up a bottle of beer he’d left on the bar, popped a claw on his right fist, and pried it open with the tip.
Ciri had showered and made herself feel considerably more human. The dreams had spooked her, the things she’d seen and the visceral remembrance of parents that weren’t hers (or might have been, she had no idea).
Catching an Uber to the Nightcrawler, she walked in and let out a breath, pushing her fingers through her short hair and rubbed the back of her neck. Fuck.
Spotting someone near the bar, with a mop nearby, popping a bottle open with a metal claw in his hand - which, uh, okay? - she cleared her throat and raised her hand in greeting.
“One slightly traumatised visitor looking tae drown their sorrows, as promised?”
None of those were things that Logan would find fault with. The dreams, for all their ups, had too many downs. To dream of losing one's family again was a cruel thing.
He'd lost a wife in both places. Friends and other family. Had watched his world torn apart again and again and again before death had finally claimed him on both of his dream worlds.
Logan was, as odd as it sounded, much more content in his dreams in the wake of his deaths.
Looking up from his beer, Logan jerked his chin towards a booth in the corner. "Hey. Ciri right? I'll bring you somethin' in a few minutes."
Ciri nodded her head, tugging her green hoodie tighter around herself and making her way towards the booth. She had no idea what she was doing, unsettled by what was probably the start of a lot more dreams and she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue. Tonight would be a test to see if liver damage was a good way to avoid dreaming.
“Nice bottle opener, by the way,” she said, Scottish brogue wrapping around the words. “Did that come out of yer hand or is that a fancy magic trick?”
Once he’d gotten the mess cleaned up, he grabbed a bottle of scotch and some glasses, and made his way over to the booth. The girl had 6 or 7 inches on him, but most people had some inches on him. He still had a presence to him, and he grinned at her as he set the bottle and glasses on the table, formed a fist, and popped three claws between his right knuckles.
“Gift from my dreams.”
“Did you keep the receipt?” Ciri’s eyebrow lifted when not one, but three… claws slid out from between his knuckles. “Fuck. That looks painful.” She figured it had to be, where did they even live under his skin when they weren’t out and pointy? She glanced down at her own hand, thumb pressing between her knuckles briefly before she reached out and tugged a glass closer to herself.
Suddenly, dreams of a magical shipwreck and the native monsters of Skellige seemed like a relief. At least she hadn’t woken up with claws, or the head of a harpy in the bed beside her. And, unlike one of the people she was talking to on the journal system, she was still human. She was human in her dreams, far as she could tell, so it didn’t really seem to be a… fuck, what was going on?
Pouring out a glass for herself, and then one for Logan, Ciri sighed heavily. “Moving here was meant to be a fresh start. Without any screwed up weirdness.”
Being faced with the dreams, and the proof of them being shoved into one’s face was enough to make most people drink. Logan sheathed the claws, and the skin of his knuckles healed up as though nothing had ever happened. “It hurts. But it comes with the ability to heal from almost anything.”
He picked up the glass, looking down at it. “Also means I can’t get more than a buzz for a short while when drinkin’. Since it heals poisons too.” Knocking the drink back, he gave Ciri a look. “Can’t tell you it won’t get weirder. But it can be a fresh start still.”
“When you say ‘weirder’...” Ciri started, wondering how much weird she could take before it started to take a toll on her. Someone wasn’t human anymore, this guy had some kind of super healing and claws that sprung out of his hands. What was in store for her?
She shook her head. “Aye, if I can escape it all following me into real life, that’d be nice. What do ye think my chances are of that?”
“Fucked up might be a better turn of phrase.” He toasted the air, then refilled his drink. “An’ if you’re on that network, an’ dreamin’ of another world?”
Logan shook his head and favored her with a smile. It wasn’t pity, more like … understanding. “It’ll bleed over, somehow. If not an actual change in you, then somethin’ from that world will appear in this one. I’ve seen dragons, aliens, robots, even alien ships kilometers tall.”
Having claws and healing actually helped.
Ciri leaned her head forward until it thumped on the table. She already knew that she didn’t want things from her dreams to bleed over into her real life, and she’d only had two of them, one after the other like episodes of an HBO show. Game of Thrones eat your heart out, she thought.
“Anyone found a way of stopping it yet that doesn’t tread dangerously close to just never sleeping?” she asked, largely out of curiosity than an actual intention of trying to stay awake indefinitely. She’d gone without proper sleep for nearly a week when she’d been at St Andrews and had been micro-napping all over the place and was practically a zombie.
She lifted her head, only to rest her chin on the wood and look at Logan through hair that had flopped over her face. “Dragons?” she asked, “Fuck. I researched this place when I arrived, looked on the internet. Said nothing about dragons.” Her eyebrow twitched and she sat up straight again, taking a sip of her drink.
Logan rubbed his chin. “Only time I’ve heard of it stoppin’, is moving away for longer than’ a few months. Otherwise, they go until they just end. Usually because you died, or whatever story the Dreams are tellin’ ended. Sometimes they come back. Mine stopped and started for a bit, then I dreamed of another version of myself, followin’ different events. Those eventually stopped too.”
He looked at her seriously. “They do a damn good job of keepin’ that shit secret. Ain’t none of us want the government showin’ up tryin’ to do tests.”
Ciri was pleased that she didn’t look completely alarmed at the thought of potentially being dead in her dreams. With so many monsters around, she was amazed that the life expectancy in Cintra wasn’t twenty-five. She took another sip of her drink and rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. “How long’ve you lived here?” she asked, because if he was dreaming of all sort of different times, and places, all with himself as a… character (was that even the right word?) she dreaded to think what might be ahead.
She huffed out a breath. “And no one’s asked around here? I mean- shit. I understand the need for secrecy but tae be honest I’d think I was going insane if it wasn’t for the network.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Does anyone have the same dreams?” Was she alone in this? In her dreams? Was Logan?
If Kitty was around and Ciri had voiced that life expectency thought, she'd have made a joke about mutant life expectency being about the same. Black humor was sometimes the only way one could get through the sheer train of trauma that represented their shared dreams. Logan could imagine others with similar feelings on their own.
"Here in the OC? 'Bout seven years, give or take. Little longer than that I think but been dreamin' about that long."
Slowly, he topped off her drink, like he was going to give her potentially bad news. "Some smart folks been tryin' to figure out the cause, but ain't made much progress beyond theories. I got my own. Some of us share dreams. Sometimes we dream of someone but they dream of a different universe that's... similar. Some people are alone in their dreams, which if you ask me is worse."
Ciri swallowed, seven years was a long time. She hoped her dreams didn’t last that long. She rubbed the side of her head and watched the liquid fill up in the glass. She had a sinking feeling when he did, expecting bad news. And, sort of bad news she got.
She wondered if she would be alone in her dreams. She’d thought maybe Jaina had the same as her, but it seemed not. She hoped she wasn’t going to be alone in dreaming what she was, without someone to understand what she was seeing.
“What’re your theories?” she asked, “I’d too much tae hope that it’s just dreams, hmm.”
Having people around who understood the dreams helped, Logan knew, but it wasn't quiet the same as being close to someone who dreamed of the same world and same events. He hoped she found someone, too.
He looked at his glass, then drained it, the buzz wearing off almost as soon as he'd downed it. "Alternate universes are a frequent thing my dreamself encounters. Changes in timelines, other versions of myself. So it ain't much of a jump to think the world we're in right now is just another timeline, an' we're getting some kind of mental and emotional bleedover from other realities."
Ciri blinked, “So like, some sort of insane multiverse theory,” she hummed and took another sip of her drink, rolling the glass between her palms. “Shit, and tae think I thought most maths stuff was a bunch of crap.”
It sounded intense, way intense, the thought of alternative timelines, other realities, all clashing and bleeding into each other. Messy. It had never happened before, and Logan said mentioned stopping the dreams only happened if someone left OC so it was obviously concentrated to this area.
“But no,” she mused, “I guess not. It’s enough tae be here and knowing I’m not insane is a good start. Let’s just hope I don’t wake up tae a harpy’s head in my bed.” She wondered what the similarities were like for Logan; she was a princess in her dreams, and she was a princess here, too. Not that she was interested in advertising that. After all, she’d come to OC looking for some anonymity and she hoped that most of the people she ran into weren’t all that interested in European gossip magazines.
"If you wanna talk math an' the science behind it, I can refer you to a couple of people." He was smart, but not the kind of smart like Kitty or Tony, where they could delve into the mysteries of the universe or some poetic shit like that. Logan liked things tangible. If he didn't have claws and a healing factor all of this would be a lot harder to believe.
"You get a harpy's head - or a live harpy, I can come take care of it for you," Logan promised. "Can't promise I won't make a mess though."
Ciri shook her head, “Nah,” she waved a hand and sipped her drink. “I’m not much for the existential stuff. It’s interesting tae think that we’re dreaming of some kind of other reality but that’s enough for me. I like folklore and fantasy but mostly in books. Not in my sleep.”
It unsettled her that she was being faced with something that she couldn’t just punch or verbally eviscerate. She rubbed behind her ear and leaned her elbow on the bar, propped her chin up wit her palm. Her lips curled up into a small smile and she nodded, clearly grateful.
“Here’s hoping it won’t come tae be,” she muttered, “but I’ll hold you to that.”
“It really is kinda like a comic book or somethin’,” Logan admitted, sounding about as amused as someone could be about the prospect of one’s life being at the whim of writers with a dubious understanding of one’s character.
Logan raised his glass to her. “Hope we don’t got nothin’ that needs guttin’ for a good while yet, anyway.”
Ciri snorted and raised her glass in toast, “Mm,” she agreed, “here’s hoping that nothing comes through that means I need tae call you. Thanks for the drink.”
Leaning over, she clinked their glasses together, feeling like this was the beginning of a friendship she would value. A lot.