bridgescribble | what sounds better? revenge or popcorn?

"They say time erases all," Claudia told him, unmoving, still as a doll in the open window, watching him keenly. "In five years, ten, fifty...don't you think the details might fade?"

They both did and didn't, in fact: at least for her, some details remained sharp, but others she forgot, the less important things. She had no conscience to be haunted, however. That was a mortal problem she was not burdened with.

"No, I don't." He didn't even have to think about that one, it had already been years and the nightmares were still just as vivid as ever.

Which, sure, probably had more to do with the fact that shit was still happening than it did the longevity of memory, but he wasn't thinking that part through, there was no reason to think that deeply when he was in the middle of another dream, mostly just waiting for it to take a turn.

"So certain. You've a strong heart."

She slipped down from the sill now, skirts rustling: full skirts, her dress lavender and cream lace, an old dress, an old style. Like something from a Victorian or Edwardian portrait, tight bodice and rustling layers of skirts, those golden curls tumbling in a rich riotous mane down her back. Her little slippered feet were utterly silent on the floor, soft slow steps approaching him. Slow, to seem near-mortal in the dim light. Slow, that he might not spook.

Because his heart was strong indeed, a rich heavy drumbeat that she could hear: blood singing through his veins. Alive and young and strong, the soft smoky rich scent of mortal life.

"Would you want to forget?" she asked, coming to stand in before him, tipping her head back to see him. There were pearls at her throat, a tiny little necklace.

Well that one he did have to think about, especially as the question came right on the heels of the statement about his heart which made both things sound more than a little like a threat, but not one that he could actually pin down in any real way.

But finally he shook his head, "No." There were parts of it he'd like to forget, but he knew those parts were tied too tightly with things he didn't want to forget under any circumstances, "Not when it would mean everyone's still in danger." That was really what it boiled down to, sure, he could forget about what had happened in the Russian bunker, but that would mean forgetting that he could win a fight, and what Robin actually meant to him, why she trusted him the way she did.

That was how it was with every piece he might want to forget, forgetting that piece would lead to forgetting more, and it just wasn't worth it in the long run.

"Strong...and generous, to think of others." Claudia's little smile was remote, a private amusement behind it. What generosity she could not comprehend herself, something essentially mortal that she did not have. A doll's cold expression, fangs hidden behind lips pressed together, shell-pink and perfect.

She lifted her arms, a child's demand to be lifted, tiny found-fingered hands, arms shaped still like the chubby rounded arms of a mortal child. "Help me up?" she asked, so softly, guileless as she had learned to lure mortals in, blue eyes so wide. The kinder their hearts were, the easier it was for them to fall for her little-girl guise.

So few ever saw the predator beneath...but he was interesting. She didn't think she'd kill him.

"Yeah, sure." He was pretty sure she could have made it herself, it wasn't that high, but if she was going to ask he wasn't going to be rude, hoisting her up easy and careful to sit on the foot of the bed, "Still trying to figure out who you're supposed to be, though, just y'know, for the record."

He gave a little shrug, "Figure it's got to be Nancy or Robin. Maybe Chrissy, but don't know why you'd be haunting me if that's the case." It was definitely the first time he'd dreamed of anyone who wasn't already a child as a child, though, which was throwing him off more than it probably would have otherwise.

He didn't set her in his lap, or hold her, though she was certainly small enough to do so. He had no younger family, she surmised, and set straight and still as a little doll, feet dangling over the edge of the bed. He listed off names, and she smiled, amused, hiding her fangs.

"Oh? I can't merely be myself?" she asked, softly, playfully. "Or are your dreams always so logical?"

Dreams were not, as she understood it, but she had not made a detailed study of the mortal psyche. She knew already there was no point. She would not understand it.

He was definitely an only child -at least so far as he knew- and any of the kids he knew were old enough to get squirrely about hugs, and considering he still thought he was dreaming, he didn't know that she'd expected anything different, but he nodded at the answer, "Nancy."

Though he squinted at her a moment later, as if trying to find anything he recognized as being Nancy, just shaking his head when he failed to do so, "And I guess you could be yourself, but if that's the case I don't know who you are."

She laughed at the name said so decisively, made it a childish high-pitched giggle instead of her usual low soft laugh. Something a little less sensual, and she delicately crossed her hands in her lap.

"Such determination! I suppose I can be your psychopomp. Yet we have already decided that living forever is not what you want: yet what is it, then, that you do want?"

"Psycho what? Don't think psycho-anything is a good thing." Vocabulary words had never been his area of expertise, and he couldn't be sure if that was more proof or less proof that she was whatever his subconscious had decided a child-Nancy would be like.

The direct question that followed was a good one, and it would have been even better if he'd had a direct answer to give, but he didn't, partly because he just didn't and partly because he knew better than to answer something like that in a dream unless he wanted the opposite to happen, which -in his experience- didn't also work in reverse.

Which was why what he asked in turn was: "And what can you even help with? You're like nine." It was probably an incorrect guess, but he knew she was younger than Dustin, and probably younger than Erica, and while she might be Holly's age, he couldn't really be sure. He also wasn't sure if it even mattered, in the end.

“Ah, but wisdom is ageless, or so they say,” Claudia returned, smiling. Pity she couldn’t dig deep into his thoughts, pull out the memories of this ‘Nancy,’ twist his mind around to see her…no, she could only see the vague shape of his thinking.

She sat perfectly still, still as a little doll: she only needed to breathe while speaking, after all. No fidgeting, no restless shifting, hands folded white and still in her lap. It tended to unnerve mortals, her stillness, but he hadn’t yet noticed. He might not.

"Do they say that? I haven't heard anybody say that." Chances were good that he wouldn't clock the stillness, most things he was used to being threats moved wrong instead of not moving at all.

That and he was still fairly convinced this was a dream which meant anything that was just a little bit off would be written off as that.

His brow furrowed a moment later, regarding her again, "So what wisdom do you have for me?"

Claudia laughed, low and soft, not entirely childlike. “Living forever isn’t so bad. But perhaps avoid future blows to the head. Your dreams might be less dangerous.”

She smiled, soft and sweet…with slender sharp fangs dimpling her lower lip.

Hunger had won over her curiousity.

Dream or not, he understood a threat when he saw one, and knew that his own dreams had a tendency to go wrong, even now. The problem was that she was between him and the nail bat currently propped up against the dresser. The only reason it was there and not closer to the bed was to prevent it from becoming a trip hazard as he was rarely at his best first thing in the morning.

The fact that his dreams usually insisted on following the same logic was frustrating. Which was still not enough to make him realize he wasn't dreaming.

No, instead he just said: "I don't think that's actually how it works. I was definitely having nightmares before I took one too many hits to the head."

what sounds better? revenge or popcorn?

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