(open dreamshare log) (muffled twilight zone playing in the distance)

[hackitude]

WHO: EVERYBOOOODYYYY (yeaaah) (rock your booodyyy) (yeaaah)
WHERE: DREAMSPACE
WHEN: The night of November 1st (slightly forward-dated to give people more time to play out threads mmk)
WHAT: DREAM SHENANIGANS (event info here!)
WARNINGS: None up here, but players please tag the subject lines of your dreams if they have NSFW or triggering content in them.

It's Saturday evening. What are you dreaming about, imPorts?

Some of you might find strangers intruding on your regular dreams. Others might find themselves suddenly in the dream of someone they've never met before. Or perhaps someone they're close to...? Either way. Seems like you're in for a bumpy night.

Comments

[lyingheart]

You talk too much.

[ There's something hideously intimate in all of this, in Kaneki's screaming and struggling, Annie keeping her hand on his chest the whole time, sick at heart in knowing the one thing she might be able to do to break this other woman's grip is horrible enough on its own. She doesn't need the certainty of knowledge that comes in being awake and aware to know the strength of them both.

Her solution doesn't make sense from an outside perspective. Kaneki is caught up in his own sobbing torment, and Annie has to ignore that, ignore Rize talking even as she acknowledges that the topic on hand is eating Annie, to let that ice at her core come forward, a shimmer that travels down her arm and over her fingers, spreading across Kaneki's chest. Annie can't cover herself at the same time as someone else, she knows that, knows that as she continues to build the barrier that slides between Kaneki and Rize that she's left vulnerable. That if Kaneki breaks first, she is the target, as promoted by Rize and whatever's within him.

She takes the risk. Rize is a bother, oozing all this grotesque false intimacy, egging on for something that made Annie's mouth turn dry. It's hard to say what's accomplished as the shine of something almost crystaline crept across Kaneki, between him and Rize, especially as it did nothing at first outside of reflect blood red light and the images of both Rize and Annie, fractured and cracked. Not until she has a sense that she has all of Kaneki covered does Annie make a move, closing her eyes to break eye contact with Rize.

Pushing as she does so, an expansion of the barrier she's put in place between Kaneki and Rize, adding her force to trying to break Rize again. If it succeeds, it doesn't free Ken from her words, or the fact that Annie is still relatively defenseless before him. Her expanding barrier will only encase the two of them in a bubble shield, keeping her as trapped as he is, Rize on the outside, unable to come in. ]

[anthropophagite]

[ it's intimate because she is deep within Kaneki; she is part of him, she turned him into this, even if not as her fault. Later on, he will even use her in order to break.free from his mother's ideals, that is how INTIMATE Rize is to him - not the actual Rize, but the one Kaneki imagines in his mind. Her kagune, her kakugan, her ghoulish nature, her hunger, even her smell; she is so intrinsic within kaneki, that he can't help but to see just that. But it's still painful and disgusting, and what he saw of Rize that night is the only thing he remembers of her true self: a hungry sadistic predator. So it's fake too, it's violent and it leaves him crying.

With his eyes full of tears, Kaneki's screams of protest become incomprehensible and eventually die in his throat. he is breathing fast and the whole world around them is shattering just like the crocodile that turned into glass did. And after another jerk, one last attempt to free himself from Rize, one last strand of "nonononono..." Kaneki feels his mouth getting full of saliva, that drips from the corner of his mouth. He doesn't react to the ice crawling over his chest and then between himself and Rize.

The smell of something nostalgic fills the air, but it's, in fact, Annie's smell. He rejects it still, he isn't that far lost. But Rize eyes the other woman and eventually lets go of kaneki, but not before she adds something else: ]

Eat her, ghoul.

[ Keneki rises his eyes towards Annie. They are dry, and he is drooling. He is so hungry.

That's right. She is his long waited meal.

And behind the crystal barrier, Rize vanishes and Kaneki suddenly jumps on Annie. His hands try to capture each of her wrists and he attempts to force her to the ground with his strength. A waltz song starts playing in the background, but Kaneki's hungry grunts can be heard easily. ]

That's right- [ Kaneki whispers, feeling the pain of hunger taking over him. All of him, even his human mind. ]

I will eat you-

because we are friends...! [ and it'll taste amazingly because of that same reason. ]

[lyingheart]

[ They go down, Annie's wrists encircled by his hands, and as he leans in, as he states his intentions as fueled by Rize, the concept of Rize that haunted his mind, gave a voice to parts of himself he refused to accept, they keep sinking. Th bubble she's encased them in flashes, then solidifies, taking in light and reflecting it off countless planes as they sank beneath the surface of the ground. On the far side, they broke free of heavy cloud-cover, suspended in the air, cloud vapor clinging as the sun tries to blind them both. ]

Friends don't eat each other, Ken.

[ Her heart hammers in her chest, the fear feels real enough, but she can fight and keep her voice level. Being eaten isn't a new fear, just strange, adapted to someone here, not to the people and places back home.

It's so disjointed. So unreal. She'd always thought she needed to fear the large mouths, teeth the size of her hands, her head, her abdomen. Annie is petite and slim beneath him, stiff but not struggling. Thinking. Even in dreams, she's not given to certain kinds of futilities. ]

At least, friends don't kill each other. They shouldn't. I don't want to kill you.

[ He has her pinned, is drooling to the point where his saliva dribbles down on her, and she's the one issuing the death threat. It helps calm the fear, glossing over it with a sense of capability, and even greater sadness. Don't make me. Don't make me eat you. She moves her head to the side, baring her shoulder, and by extension, her neck. ]

Do your worst. I refuse to die.

[anthropophagite]

[ he doesn't listen and he doesn't register. A ghoul's hunger is hell and nothing can stop it but to fill the stomach with the flesh a ghoul craves; it's painful and it takes away whatever self control one might have, and strips away any feeling and any morale one might have. All there is left is hunger and the predatory need to satisfy it.

When Annie pulls her head to the side, Kaneki quickly dives in, and his teeth touch the flesh - however, he stops himself before they actually sink in.

Kaneki doesn't say anything, staying frozen in place, head practically hidden in Annie's neck, and then there is a soft sob again, that will grow in intensity and turn into something a lot louder, much more pained than before. It's a dream, and that's probably what saved Annie from a bite. It's a dream and the words Kaneki's mother once told him - "Instead of hurting, become the person who hurts" - ring louder than ever.

His hands release her wrists, finally, and Kaneki pulls himself away from her, or at least tries - his back presses against the crystal. He just wants to hide and to stop it all, stop the point and stop the hunger, but above all, he doesn't want Annie to see him like this, to see him like a monster. ]

I'm an idiot-

I'm sorry, I don't-

[ and he keeps repeating "I'm sorry", crying like an adult probably shouldn't cry, and trying to hide his face - specifically, the eye ]

[lyingheart]

[ She holds still, waiting and listening, eyes turned back to stare at him when he's too close to see anything other than his hair, then watching what of him she could when he pulls away. Annie rubs at her wrists, bruises fading into nothing. Light continues to dance through their living prism, mixing with words as if sound and light could be the same thing. I'm sorry splintering white light into reds and greens and yellows, purple and blues and oranges. Prisms hidden in tears.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Words she'd said looking down at the body of a comrade she'd never spoken with, who she trained alongside for years, who she'd had to pull into the carts and burn knowing that she's part of why they died. This pointless carnage, this destruction, is part of who she is. A part she won't deny, and a part she can never apologize enough for.

It's a dream, and that makes it someplace where Annie doesn't hold herself as separate as she could. There's nothing jarring in how Kaneki cries, not to Annie, from her world where tears are simply part of living, and those who cry are nothing to find off-putting. There's no "should" for crying, when one must.

And Aracely has taught Annie something of what it means to try and offer comfort, in seeking it from Annie, and in offering it unspoken. She sits up, sighing out. Blue light circles around them both, the rainbow breaking into individual parts that fill their space in turn. It's a soft fade in, a softer fade out, and the skies outside break into the brilliant colors of sunrise.

Annie reaches out and pulls Kaneki into a hug, patting him on the back. It's a very odd mix between what might be considered feminine and masculine to him, but it doesn't register as strange to Annie. Especially not compared to the rest of this dream, it's simply a part of it all. ]

Sorry changes nothing.

[ ... she's not good at comfort, even in her dreams. ]

Some things you can't pretend aren't true.

[anthropophagite]

[ Kaneki jerks when he feels the hug, forgetting how to breathe. And right there and then, he misses Hide; he misses his friend who can tell when Kaneki needs a hug, needs words of support, needs to be told "don't torture yourself, I'm still here". Even if Kaneki never sees it himself, Hide knows exactly what Kaneki needs at what time.

Like a hug now. He needs it.

That's why he remembers Hide.

Kaneki's arms wrap around Annie and his subconscious takes place. The lonely Kaneki who is so desperate in his solitude, clings to the companionship offered and he can only think that he will lose it now, that Annie will pull away, call him a monsters, accuse him of all the terrible things Kaneki has seen and perhaps done. ]

Don't leave...! [ among the continuous apologies, Kaneki begs the other to be there, even if it's so selfish of him, after he tries to eat her. Because he is lonely and he doesn't want to be. ]

I'm not a monster, I'm not... I'm still human, I promise...! [ as if that is a reason to make someone stay. But not even Kaneki's mind allows him to feel completely human, not even in dreams.

Something on his back pierces from within by his waist: three red tentacles, the color of blood, come out and undulate to touch Annie's hand that pats Kaneki's back, Annie's shoulder and Annie's face. They aren't sharp, but they are hard enough to feel like they are stronger than a bone (much stronger, actually). Overall, the touch is gentle, they are not in an attack position.

They are just there to remind both Kaneki and Annie he is isn't JUST human ]

[lyingheart]

[ How many people ask for that alone? Don't leave. The idea that no one wants to be alone, yet Annie has planned her life with that as the ongoing consequence. Their crystal bubble slowly falls through the sunrise colored skies, spiraling down toward the dark shadows splayed over the lands below. Unrecognizable ones - a mountainside in one instant, expansive fields in the next, a cityscape that grows from a village to something immense, shrinking down again.

She doesn't let go. What she does is turn that hand that had taken to patting his back, a there-there that became a stroke for hush somewhere along the way, and transfers the same motion to the tentacle that's touched her hand. She doesn't need the reminder. Annie has lived in her own complicated place between human and not, has identified as not human at times to save her sanity, and ultimately, ironically, to save her humanity. Titan. Human. ]

You're human. [ She says, and the word from earlier, Rize's word, comes to her tongue as easily. ] And you're ghoul. You're both, Ken Kaneki. What makes a monster are things you can't always control... fears from people who aren't like you. Situations you can't change. Circumstances beyond your control. It's how you act, who you are, that decides if the monster is really you.

[ If in swallowing those people, if in murdering for the sake of nothing, if in so many actions taken, monstrosity was the explanation, pain and hurt were the keywords to an unhappy phrase. ]

Don't be an idiot. Denying yourself only gives her the power to drive you over the edge.

[anthropophagite]

[ It's like the Manager told Kaneki when he accepted him into Anteiku: you are both. Both ghoul and human, part of both worlds. It's a privileged place, because Kaneki can see the two sides and gather from both: humanity of a human, and help those who are ghouls. But seeing those two worlds is not easy; it's so painful because kaneki can see, better than anyone, how they clash together and attempt to silence each other.

But here, he doesn't have the Ghoul world. There is only the human world, which Kaneki is desperately trying to be part of, like he was once; because he can't be a ghoul here, being human is the only thing left for him. The only place left. So he tries and he tries, and sometimes he slips and the ghoul tries to force its way out. And here, that's the most dangerous thing it can happen because if does get out, there won't be any other ghoul to help and he will lose his place as human.

Kaneki's sobs stopped by now. He is pressing his forehead against Annie's shoulder and looking to the side, at the crystal walls around them, the colors and the landscapes changing -Kaneki doesn't question any of it because it feels so natural- and he doesn't say a word. ]

I'm so tired. [ that's the only thing he says, and he doesn't move an inch. His kagune does, one resting against Annie's hand, and the other two tentacles are lying to the ground surrounding them both ]

[lyingheart]

[ She stares through the fractured planes of crystal, seeing reflections of the beautiful skies she longs for as a symbol of the freedom she may never have. Slowly, they begin to crack, bright, tinkling sounds that sound almost like children's laughter. A warmth floods through them, a summer's wind heady with flowers and scents Annie all remembers from the mountainside she grew up on, swirling around and tugging at their hair before it leaves, moving onward. They touch down, featherlight, on the edge of a cliff. Sunrise continues in the distance, showing through jagged teeth of an unfamiliar mountain range, the world infused with more and more color as the quality of light continues to improve. ]

We all are.

[ A quiet statement, more thought than words. In the end, all she has to say is: ]

Rest. I'll keep first watch.

[ To keep him, and her, both away from toppling over that cliffside. Moss spreads out underneath them, soft and forgiving, bearing imprints of their bodies should they move away. The songs of birds waking in the morning filter through the air, tangled in with their heartbeats. ]

[anthropophagite]

[ As the new place engulfs Kaneki into it as if he is part of the picture from the very beginning, kaneki feels warm and calm. The sounds make him feel relaxed, the wind from the cliff caresses his skin and it's so gentle and soft, something that he has been needing for a while now.

A place to rest.

Though it's sunrise, he is so tired and he feels like if he closes his eyes he won't ever wake up. As kaneki lays down on the moss, his kagune disappears, his kakugan follows and the eye returns to normal, and Kaneki's sudden hunger was subsided like that. Maybe he just needed to cry.

He looks up at Annie, watching the sun bathe her as it comes up, and as Kaneki finds a good position, a smile finally comes to his lips ] You look a lot older than you really are.

[ not too far from the two, Rize watches, but she won't approach or say anything. She is there, but Kaneki won't see her now, nor feel scared. Annie is keeping the first watch, after all ]

[lyingheart]

[ She breaks away from looking off over the cliffside, down at the country below. She looks older, huh? ]

Maybe I am.

[ Or maybe she's not. Still, she does look older right now, more like a woman in her thirties than someone half that age. It's the no longer present baby fat in her face, the way she's holding herself as she sits. An age she may never reach physically, but one of many she feels like she's been for some moment or another during the course of her existence. ]

Good morning, Ken.

[ Good night. ]

[anthropophagite]

Hm. Wake me up when it's my turn.

[ He closes his eyes and sighs softly ]

Good morning, Annie.

[ and he falls into a dream within the dream inception, as if there is nothing to worry about because everything is solved, and everything is all right.

All is right with the world ]