taxonomites | 梦见: [ location: serenity

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梦见: [ location: serenity | accidental visual ]

River hasn't been sleeping, not well, not since Dawn, and when the tablet clicks on from its place amidst a haphazard pile of flowers to show Serenity's cargo bay.

Every few seconds she walks across the frame (step step heel turn step heel turn step turn step step step). She's holding her necklaces (one a cross, the other a locket of vervain) taut enough to dig in at the back of her neck but not hard enough to break, and if she'd hold still one might notice some impressive bags under her eyes.

It's been days. Multiples. She can see them stretching out in front of her nose, a snake of exponential progression winding into a giant coiled ball, growing and growing until mass present exceeds the limits of volume and everything breaks. Maybe that's how they'll get out, eventually. The city will be too full of snake-days and their husky skins to let the barriers stay in place...

River snorts an unamused little laugh as she turns back around. "That's not likely. Adjustments... It's thoroughly biodegradable husk."

A beat passes and she stops, heel on the ground and toes in the air ready to make another step. Any second now.

"Smells like a graveyard," is her only irritated observation before she's off again.

(Step step heel t urn step heel turn step turn step step step.)

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She stands very, very still, wearing the clothes she did in December. The stain is there, dried but still growing in its own memory.

Behind her is a man, young enough but older than Stefan, a little taller than River with the same dark hair but blue, blue eyes. His mouth is drawn in a thin line of concentration, head tilted back and chin out, looking every inch the doctor he was always supposed to be. Clean and polished and good. Secure and solid and constant. Every molecule the idolized brother.

She stands very, very straight, good posture stretching vertebra into a taut harp string. The notes are in her fingertips, the ready ready ready heartbeat of panicked foxes running in her veins. They twitch in anticipation without moving.

"You aren't--" and her eyes dart between the fixation points of his face (chin ears eyes mouth eyes nose ears nose eyes mouth forehead eyes mouth eyes mouth eyes mouth) as if they can pin it in place. Then her demeanor changes, fingers twitch freely, she half-smiles and half-frowns and back again. It's almost like she's completely forgotten she just ran through his available mind and pulled out his own nightmares. "He came for me," she says, enunciates each syllable with reverence and care as they drop like weights off her back.

River frowns again, eyes dart (eyes mouth eyes mouth eyes mouth) as she maps out differences. Schisms. Contrast. Draws the lines of the parallels that will never ever meet.

"You can't be him." Clear, firm, decided.

What's unclear is whether she says it for Stefan's benefit or her own, but the phantom-Simon shifts his weight and crosses his arms to illustrate his projected agreement on the matter.

"Fratellino."

Stefan turns away from the sight of River and her brother - name, there's a name there, and Stefan tries to pull at it, but it's as if there's a wall up in her head he can't quite tear down - to look in the direction of his own. For a split second, it's the Damon in Taxon; expensive, dark blue shirt and slacks, unscuffed shoes that should carry the evidence of things he's done, but don't. And then, it's not. It's the brother he used to know, the one who wasn't a murderer or had moments where he was barely holding on to his sanity and ability to disern right from wrong. He's in clothes like his, greasy, messy hair shoved carelessly under a hat.

"The bridge," Damon says to him. "Come on. I'll race you!" And then he takes off.

He makes a move to run, but a warm hand on his wrist stops him. Stefan turns his head to see Callie Gallagar.

And then images whirl together too quickly, far too quickly.

Damon killing Callie, hanging out with socialities in New York, a Bon Jovi concert in the 1980s with Lexi dancing at his side, the Tomb Vampires tying him up and torturing him, the sense of relief that washes over him when Damon walks into that basement, the taste of Elena's blood--

With a gasp, Stefan ends the dream, barely having enough sense about him to grab hold of River and drag her into the realm of the waking. Stefan's sweating and panting. What the hell was that?

River wakes up with a shout and a scramble, backwards against the bulkhead, feet kicking like they can propel her through it and out the other side.

They don't. They stop. She breathes, ragged panting breaths, hair in her face and hands over her eyes.

It hasn't registered yet that Stefan is there, that the dream wasn't just a dream. For now she's focused on making sure she's awake, feeling metal that's metal and skin that's skin.

Edited 2011-06-09 08:19 (UTC)

Stefan shakes off his own disorientation in order to take control of River. He pulls her back from the bulkhead, pinning her legs with one hand flat against both her knees - he normally doesn't use that superhuman strength against others, but he doesn't want her to hurt herself with that kicking she's doing - and holding her steady with one hand at her shoulder.

"River," he says. "River, calm down. It's me. It's Stefan. It's okay. You're okay."

There's a long moment where River still tries to kick, to squirm and pant and fight.

But there's words and voice and face and someone else, so she settles, still panicked panting shaking. Even with the superhuman strength, she can't help but think of Simon, a second of thinking this might be home.

"They come inside," and her voice is keening between gasps, "with blood-- With it and falling..."

When she looks up it's not Simon's face. It's Stefan's and it's Taxon and it's all wrong.

Her hands go up as her face crumples, covering Stefan's and pushing weakly.

"Aren't him. You aren't."

Stefan sucks in a sharp breath, the weight and intensity of her emotions squeezing at his heart and for a moment, he can't breathe at all. She wants him to be her brother and he's not. He empathizes with this - in more way than one - more than she'll know, or perhaps she already does. If Damon were to be absent from Taxon, Stefan would miss him terribly; he'd function and be realitively fine, but there'd be a missing piece of him that couldn't be replaced.

He's not Simon, and he can't replace him, but he can do his best to be there for her and make life in Taxon less lonely.

"Oh, River," he says gently, emotion thick in his voice and tears in his eyes. What he's feeling is only half his own, the rest is hers. "I know, I know," he says again and again like some sort of mantra, pulling her into a hug.

Her hands fall but they keep pushing, a token of resistance even as her head falls forward on his shoulder. She's too exhausted and shakey shaken for anything else. There's no one else to cry to today, no Simon, no Dawn, no Sol, (no Godric, no Kaylee), no one left. Just this brother-shaped thing in front of her she can't fully understand.

"You aren't," and she matches him repetition for repetition, like it'll make it clearer.

It's not enough to make Stefan back away, his own emotions twisting with River's, entangled in such a way that he can't tell which ones are his and which are hers. Maybe it's because he was just inside her head and that connection hasn't completely diminished. There were instances when if one toyed with the mind of another enough, a residual bond could be formed and accessed for a while, like when Damon had compelled Caroline from afar when he'd locked his brother in the cellar.

"Shhh," he soothes, stroking her hair with one hand. "I'm not, but I'm here."

Eventually, breath by breath, she quiets. Pushing arms fall slack, sobs fade into wet and shakey sniffling. She looks around the little cubby hole they're in with tired, idle interest.

"He left," she says after a few minutes of just sitting, voice thin and sleepy. "Taken. Took."

River frowns with distaste at the walls, all cried out and limp from the whatever this was. "Entrance is easy. The staying is complex."

Stefan translates her words with ease. River's broken, almost disconnected way of speaking is pretty tangible to him, most of the time. If he can't understand what she's saying directly, he can at least pick up on the general gist of things. There are, however, moments where he has no utter clue what she's trying to express, but now's not one of those times. Her words are clear, as are their meaning.

"Your brother was here, in Taxon," he says. "But now, he's not. They sent him back and you're still here."

"Twice," she chokes out in explanation. Then swallows and sniffs.

But there's significance in that, the doubles and the pairs. It always comes in pairs, even she's coming up in pairs. When she mumbles, "Two by two," a shudder makes its way up her spine.

It's been a long time since she's thought of them like that. Taxon has been men in suits and dead things and isolation, but them? Of them close and threatening, blood boiling out the eyes and blue, blue until it hits the air, blue out in the black, and River tries weakly to rear back with a frustrated, anxious whine in the back of her throat.

"Blood, and... Blue." The panting roiling fear is back. "Circles back. Hands, and they reach in, they reach inside."

She's pushing again, because he reached inside, too, and it's all too much a muddled mess for her to pull them apart.

"Who?" Stefan demands gently, curious and concerned. His hands latch on to her wrists, pulling them back from his form and holding her hands between them. "Who reached inside? I'm trying to understand, and I-- I might be making the wrong leap here, but... What did 'they' do to you?"

She strains against it, looks anywhere but at him.

"They dig," and her focus shifts to the ground, face kept still just to be contrary while she tries to yank her hands back. At this angle, Stefan might be able to notice the neat little scars. One dimpled dot in the middle of her forehead; a group on each temple, though there are more on the left; a couple near her eyes. They dug deep.

River will let him know the who and the where once she can get to her tablet.

Stefan drops her hands, curious and concerned, wanting answers he's not sure he deserves or should have. He's not her brother, not someone who should be making another close connection and putting them in danger by proxy. River knows so much about him - too much, and maybe that's what drives him to know more about her. Give and take in equal amounts. But, he also wants to understand her better, to give the girl someone who gets it without question more than he already does, who can hopefully help her more once he's got more pieces to the puzzle that's still incomplete in his head.

Hands returned, she pulls her tablet out of a pocket on her dress. The movement is a jerk of irritation and the little capture of her and Simon clatters to the floor. River leaves it for now and starts hitting buttons. When she shoves the tablet at Stefan with the map hovering above it, the tiny dot marking the Academy as hers is blinking out in Wilde.

"Made it echo."

If he wants to know so badly, fine. He can find out for himself, the same way as most new people in Taxon did.

Stefan takes the tablet from her, squinting at the map and eying the dot like some sort of beacon indicating long lost buried treasure. That's not what he'll find there, but maybe... answers. Something that will help shed some light on the mystery of River and make him able to help her more. He wants to help her, and it's been a long time since Stefan's wanted to genuinely go out of his way to help someone so disconnected from the things he was involved in. Elena was tied to him, as was Vicki and Caroline, but River? Had nothing to do with the mess in Mystic Falls, yet... He wanted to help.

In a way, it made him feel more like that boy River had glimpsed while their minds were linked than anything else had in a very long time.

"Thank you," he says. "Whatever happened? I'm sorry."

River ignores him, opts to curl up and slide down to lay on the cold, dark metal of Serenity. Not Veritas, not the estate on Osiris, not a torn hospital-issue mattress underground.

Overall, it's much more comfortable and her eyes start to droop.

"Next time," she informs him with a belated sniffle and wipe at her nose, "ask permission."

"Okay," Stefan says, setting the tablet down and scooting over to her. Yet, despite being told to ask permission for one thing, he doesn't for another, picking the girl up by her arms just enough to guide her head into his lap as he settles back against the bulkhead. Her necklace is retrieved from his right and placed into her hand.

She doesn't object or fight it, just draws her knees up a little higher and fists her hand around the locket.

Then she reaches for the capture with her free hand and hugs it to her chest.

"Made it," River offers as her eyes close, sleepy conspiratorial and friendly, demeanor fluctuating like so many ripples on the waters surface. "Thought it was a carrot but it was a root."

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梦见: [ location: serenity | accidental visual ]

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