you land badly, but you crash standing [closed]

[eliotwaugh]

[[ooc: tw in this one for trauma and dissociation, various anxiety attack symptoms, also vomiting. Yeah it's real fun.]]

He doesn't know how long it goes on, only that the sound of his phone's chime cuts through him like a knife and he feels like falling, jerking awake in bed. Sleep paralysis, he thinks. Funny how part of his brain can put a name to the sensation when the rest of him is just shaking and can only barely register that he's awake, and alive, somehow.

Eliot kicks his way out of the sheets, clinging and cold and damp with sweat. It's dark, too dark, he needs to turn a light on but he feels fragile and too weak to reach the lamp. His hands are shaking too much to start an illumination spell and all he manages is a faint glow about his fingertips. He tries to get out of bed and slides slowly to the floor, boneless and shuddering.

Phone. The phone woke him. He fumbles on the bedside table and it takes him a moment to parse words and try to get his hands to work enough to reply to Johnny. He wants to explain, to apologize but how can he? How can he even begin to make sense of that, how can Johnny be okay when Eliot saw, the Beast made him watch--

The roiling wave of nausea hits him as soon as he thinks about it, the afterimage burned in his mind, and he scrambles to the bathroom. Afterwards he turns the faucet on the sink all the way and leaves it running. It's a nice sound, a normal sound, safe white noise to drown the memory of the dream. Eliot curls up on the floor, resting his head on mercifully cold tile, and tries to breathe.

His pulse is still fluttering and he feels very distant from himself as he finds the phone again, tries to apologize but it's insufficient. Eliot does manage to turn the light on before he pulls the comforter off the bed and huddles on the floor with the weight of it wrapped around him like armor.

Comments

[johnny_truant]

It takes fucking forever to get to Eliot's place, Johnny thinks, nevermind that it's almost three in the goddamn morning, he just wishes he could bear to ask Gabe to teleport him or something, anything faster. He used to be able to just open a door from one building to another, no matter how far apart, now he can't do that anymore, not since he got the power back from Seth. He sits tense on the train, his leg twitching, his hands trembling - no, he's not okay, this is what, the fourth time he's been literally eaten alive in a dream? - but at least it's happened to him before, whatever. It's Eliot who needs help right now, Eliot who knew what that was, who dreamed it. He has to focus on that. Get his hands to stop trembing.

When he finally arrives he doesn't bother texting again. He lets himself in the front door, and then again into Eliot's apartment. The lights are mostly out. There's dim illumination coming from the bedroom, so he cuts right for that, stepping in, out of breath.

Eliot's on the floor, curled up in his comforter, shaking.

"Fuck," he murmurs, stepping in close and sliding down to his knees. He rests one hand on Eliot's shoulder and another on his forehead. He doesn't know what to say. He's not good at this. He's always the one who needs taking care of, never this. "Eliot?"

[eliotwaugh]

For a while Eliot loses track of time, engrossed in the grain of the hardwood floor. Wood is safe, solid, not like whatever treacherous substance dreams form out of. He studies the whorls and lines, feeling very cold despite the comforter he's cocooned himself in, and tries not to think.

He doesn't hear Johnny come in, but then Johnny is there, in front of him, and the only thing Eliot can think is to apologize for not getting up to get the door.

"I'm sorry," he offers, and his voice is calm and far away. He can imagine it echoing, down deep in his chest, where it becomes something darker and hollower and more true, more afraid. He wants to apologize for dragging Johnny into the mess of his head, but for now all he can do is try to account for poor apartment etiquette. "I should have gotten the door, did you get in okay?" God, he sounds hysterical, manic. He'd kill for a drink, if only he could move.

There's pressure, Johnny's touching him but it doesn't register for a moment and when it does Eliot pulls away slightly, shivering.

[johnny_truant]

How does he even respond to this? Johnny bites his lip, hovering over him for a moment.

"I let myself in," he says quietly. "I can do that. It's okay."

When Eliot shudders away he lifts his hand, watching him with contorted sympathy and concern.

"It's okay," he says again, stupidly. "It's okay, it was just a dream. It's over now, we're both fine. I'm fine."

He's not fine. He still remembers that thing lifting him up, crushing him, devouring him. He remembers too, too much of it. But Eliot doesn't need to know that.

"Can I get you something?" he asks, a little desperate. "Water? Coffee? Do you - want help getting up?" Please, he thinks, just let there be something he can do.

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot starts to laugh, okay, Johnny says, how could any of this be okay? It's the biggest lie in the world right now, as if just a dream has any bearing on the damage that's been done. The fallout is all too real, and once Eliot starts to laugh at Johnny's reassurances he can't stop, the high panicked spasm of sound bleeding out of him until he feels dizzy, distant. This is so bad. His head is buzzing and cold.

"I-I'm--sorry, water?" he asks, finally, unsure of words or the quality of his response. Water seems like the right answer, right? Even though he's pretty sure he needs a drink, but maybe Johnny would worry about that if he said it. He doesn't want Johnny to worry. He feels so shitty for making Johnny worry already, making him come here when Johnny's the one who's the victim here, and Eliot is just the one to blame.

[johnny_truant]

Shit, he's not handling this well at all. But it's not like he has experience being on this side of it. Eliot's completely ruptured state is more familiar to him. Johnny bites down on his lower lip, not sure what to do as Eliot laughs sickeningly, his body jerking. He wants to reach out to him and try to hold him still but he knows that probably won't help.

"Yeah," he barely breathes when words finally come. "Yeah. Can you get up?" He shouldn't be on the floor. Maybe he can coax Eliot out into the living room, onto the couch.

[eliotwaugh]

"Sure," Eliot answers without thinking, because this is the sensible thing to say. "Yeah." But then he tries to make himself move and it proves so much more gargantuan an effort than he's capable of. He shrugs himself halfway out of the blanket and spends a few moments frowning, trying to leverage himself and instead flapping his arms limply against the floor. Has he lost all control over himself? Come on, body, stop being a failure.

He risks a glance up at Johnny, half expecting that he'll have gotten sick of Eliot being useless and just want to leave. "Guess not," he admits finally, and holds his hand out. "I'm sorry."

[johnny_truant]

"It's okay," says Johnny softly, and takes the offered hand, giving him a gentle hoist. He puts his other arm around Eliot's back, pulling him upright and taking most of his weight. "Come on, buddy."

He walks Eliot slowly out into the living room, leads him to the couch and helps him down there, wondering if he should get a blanket or something, deciding to get water first. He pours a glass from the tap, brings it over and sits down, close but not touching.

"Are you okay?" he asks after a moment, not sure what else to say.

[eliotwaugh]

Once Johnny actually has him and helps him to the couch, Eliot doesn't want to let go. But he can't say that, that's too...something, and what would he even say, please stay right here so I can be sure you're still real and in one piece? So he sits and watches Johnny get water from the kitchen, and nothing comes out of the shadows to grab him, so Eliot lets out a breath he was holding.

He takes the glass but doesn't drink any of it yet. When Johnny sits down the feel of the couch dipping is a comfort, a solid reminder that Johnny's here, with him, and they're both awake and alive, and for a moment he closes his eyes and just lets that fact sink in.

"I threw up," he says. That's not an answer to Johnny's question, not really, but it's all Eliot can manage right now. God, he sounds like a fucking child.

[johnny_truant]

"It's okay," says Johnny again, feeling pretty useless. He reaches out tentatively and rests his hand on Eliot's back. "I've done that lots of times. I mean. This is not the first time something like that's happened to me. Really." Not even close.

Maybe that's not helpful. He hesitates, stroking Eliot's back. "Was that thing..." This probably isn't helpful either, but he's having trouble not asking. "Did you know what it was?"

[eliotwaugh]

This is the part he was dreading, of course, because he owes Johnny an explanation and there is no satisfactory answer here. This is not a problem with a neat and tidy solution.

Eliot takes a few cautious sips of water to stall for time and try to gather thoughts into words.

"It's..." he begins, and stops almost immediately to frown at the glass. "No one really knows what it is, but it's a thing, it happened back when I was still in school. Showed up one day in a classroom, just out of nowhere. A girl died." He gestures vaguely at Johnny, not wanting to look directly at him. "It was...it was bad, and it didn't even happen to me, my friend Quentin was there but I just heard about it later, I don't know why it would show up now, here..."

He doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to think about that thing bleeding into this world.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny winces at the story. Jesus.

"Well, it didn't show up here," he says softly. "You had a bad dream. I know a thing or two about those. Trust me."

He knows too much, as well, about dragging your monsters around with you. God, he hopes Eliot never suffers a similar fate at the hand of Johnny's nightmares. Hopes with all his heart.

"I'm sorry," he says after a moment. "I'll, um, I'll stay here as long as you need me."

He doesn't exactly what to be around Gabe right now anyway.