abraxaslogs | Reality doesn’t always give us the life that we desire

Hit me with your best shot

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There'd been a time where Lucifer would have considered that he didn't need sleep, ever. He's gone beyond that. There'd been a time where Lucifer considered that he didn't need sleep after injury-exhaustion. He's gone beyond that. There'd been a time where Lucifer would have considered he didn't need sleep after bone-dead tired, worn out, excessively drained energy and a no-nothing month, but...

Well.

He's trying to work through that.

Things are trying to settle back into "normal" and the puzzle pieces are so misshapen that they don't fit right anymore, the way they used to. Lucifer would normally think himself the problem but he can see the signs in the other Summoned, knows what to look for in the ones that had been non-stop at work while the others were taken. Doesn't so much know how to read the returned Summoned, and that's--wrong. Lucifer's always been good at reading people, for ill intentions sure, but he knew regardless.

He supposes the difference now is that he doesn't want to set anyone off, while he did not give a damn about such things during the last month. That everyone rebuffed and rolled with his aggression is miraculous.

They'll put the damn puzzle back together with glue and painted over if they have to; it'll just take more time than any of them want. Ambrose and every other stooges can deal with the consequences of what that new shape looks like.

The benefit of temporarily rooming with Rhy and Kyle is that typically they were not all trying to find some semblance of sleep at the same time. They were often always on task, at different times, different days, or simply ghosting through the dining hall because they'd given up. So, Lucifer is used to waking up and people be "missing."

Istredd is not stupid enough to go to the library in the middle of the night without making it completely known and acknowledged by Lucifer. Lucifer calls him an idiot a lot (because he is). But Istredd is not that stupid. So when he wakes up at some ungodly hour of the night, barely a day or two after they've returned to Thorne, and Istredd's bed is empty but ruffled, the instant spike of panic claws at his vessel's heart and sends his mind in wild overdrive.

Underneath all of that first reaction he knows, with faintest reassurance, that the link isn't blocked again, but Lucifer is still struggling with having enough time and enough rest to fix his end of things, so there aren't words, no question, just alarm, alarm, alarm--

Istredd has never been that great about sleep. His mind works too much, he's gone decades with a few hours here and there a night, and he's sustained by Chaos, but he did always rest when he wanted to. The freedom and safety of being isolated but never in any actual danger. His almost charmed life before here, in comparison.

He didn't sleep much at all for the entire month either. Every time he did, something happened. Vines tried to strangle him. People were taken away to the rituals. They tried to kill one another. Shrines were opened or monsters were fought. He wasn't able to focus enough to go into the Horizon, sleep eluded all of them, the place was designed to constantly distract.

When they first got to Nocwich though, everyone was too tired to worry about it. Between the healing and drugs and recovery, it was easy to slip into deep unconsciousness and not worry about it. It changes when they get to Thorne. The dreams really begin. Istredd keeps finding himself back there, thinking being rescued was the actual dream. His nightmares include everyone being dead there but him, delusionally imagining being back in their room to cope with the tragedy.

Or the vines are climbing on him, or Ciri's back on top of him, a blade to his throat, saying she knows what he did. It doesn't matter, the point is, his body needs to sleep more than ever before, and his mind simply won't let him. As he keeps snapping awake in his bed, the darkness of the room reminding him of the darkness in there, he feels so far away. The comfort of the mattress and the blankets and the pillows aren't enough.

He does consider hiding in the library with a pile of books, thinking that might help him, but Istredd is afraid of going outside the room at all. Too many dark corridors. Too many ways to get lost or snatched again. He wouldn't say he actually thinks through this decision at all. He considers first moving his bed all the way over so that it is next to Lucifer's, feeling the closeness will help, but he is ashamed of what that would make his friend think. That he can't handle it, that he's coming too close?

It's not rational but this seems like the only reasonable medium ground, which is that he takes his blanket and pillow and crawls underneath Lucifer's bed. It is also dark and small there, true, but that means he feels very surrounded by physical reminders of not being loose in the pit. And his mental connection to Lucifer is strong with how close they are. It lulls him almost immediately into feeling safe enough to sleep. It's not restful but it is sleep.

What he does not expect or even think about is the other end of this because he had hoped he would be able to sneak back into his bed before Lucifer knew. Instead, Istredd is asleep, not that deeply but just enough, when panic floods through his mind and then his body and it's not the creeping terror of his experience, it's someone else's fear. He can't help it though, he jerks up, and then their bond isn't just panic. It's pain.

Because he slammed his head against the underside of Lucifer's bed enough to see stars for a moment. "Fuck!" he shouts, a little muffled, from underneath.

Lucifer could scream.

He doesn't.

The need though vibrates through his lungs, throat, mouth. It stays bottled up. There's enough wards to block the sound from their neighbors--as though anyone else has gotten the fitful sleep, Jack's likely sleepwalking, Kyle's likely freaking out much the same as Lucifer. They all used to be better than this. Lucifer used to be better than this.

He sits up, shifts, and presses his spine straight against the wall, blankets bundled around him as he props his legs up and lays a hand over his forehead.

Lucifer does not swear. Not to the extreme that humanity likes to drop expletives left and right. He is, however, connected to a mind that does on occasion, like this very moment. It bleeds. Churns over Lucifer's distress, heavy in his voice: "Istredd, why the fuck are you under my bed?"

It's stunned him for a moment, both the impact and also realizing where he is, although Istredd can already tell this worked because he is less spiraling about whether this is reality. He knows where he is. He knows this is real. Although at the moment he kind of wishes he could just pretend it wasn't happening because he feels abruptly guilty. Guilty and confused and ashamed and not quick enough to curb those feelings fast enough to hide them.

There isn't enough space for him to sit up really, he's already tall, so he just goes onto his back and looks up to where he knows Lucifer is on the other side. Istredd also rarely swears, but if there was ever a time. He's silent for a few long seconds as he tries to put it into words. Istredd hates when he feels things that are illogical because he is cerebral and explaining things is second nature to him. When it doesn't make sense, the words are soup.

"It feels safe." His voice is very quiet, a little bit above a whisper. "It was too wide open over there." Which probably sounds insane since there are walls and things in the room that shouldn't make it feel wide open, but it did. Like if he put out a hand he would touch a body like before, everyone sick and sometimes crying in their sleep.

"You didn't think to, I don't know, warn me that you intended to sleep under my bed?"

The adrenaline from the panic is still lingering. It colors his thoughts, literally. Blots of spreading color, rolling around and muting the static. Had they not almost immediately lost the bond in the beginning when Istredd had been knocked out and relocated, he'd have recognized the panic as a near-exact match.

"That maybe, just maybe waking up--" he breaks off, scratches out 'with you gone', continues, "wouldn't have been a concern?!"

Istredd did think of that, it was one of his first thoughts. "I thought I could move back before you woke up." Lucifer's more able to sleep deeply now that they are here and past the incident and past Nocwich. It seemed like a good chance the tossing and turning Istredd would wake up first and crawl back to his bed in time.

There is shame connected to this which is why he was so reluctant to bring it to his attention. Shame that swallows people whole. It means he isn't as strong after all. He's afraid. He doesn't want to leave the room. It's not good. Istredd tried to be very rational about it and pointed out it was inevitable for their minds to struggle.

"I'm sorry. My mind is subconsciously more comfortable close to you." This seems like a good way to get it without causing trouble. Istredd sighs and moves the pillow under his head. He does feel truly bad about scaring him, apologetic in tone and on their bond.

"I also thought putting an archangel between me and the door was a strategic move" Slight humot.

There's a wheeze in his breath. His emotions aren't doing any one thing specific, indistinguishable. They're supposed to be done with the panic trips now. It's not all smooth sailing but, oh, 'there has not been evidence that any of the Summoned were abducted while within the walls of the castle' and 'the Summoned are safest when in the castle'--right, Ambrose?

So he shouldn't be feeling any of this while in their own damn room, right, Ambrose?

"Don't do this again," he drags out, words unsteady. The color through his thoughts immediately freezes its spread, and for the first time actual words cross over the bond again, reacting quicker than he can talk, That's not what I mean. "You can--" He thinks about Wilhelm, in the mountains, hugging him. How he keeps making allowances that he wouldn't usually. "Do what you have to. Just..." What? Don't send him into a panic again? Lucifer can't make Istredd promise that. That isn't fair.

He thumps his head once against the wall.

"Just think a little more next time before you do something else like this."

Istredd knows none of this is reasonable. He doesn't actually think someone is going to come into their room in the middle of the night and take him again. He already suspected this would happen given some time but preparing for it didn't solve the problem right away. If he could think his way around this, he would have already done it.

He slides out from under the bed and sits next to Lucifer's bed instead. He is tall so he does come into view although it probably is a little silly to see his head poking up from under the bed like that. Istredd knew that those of them in the pit would have lasting trauma from what happened to them. Now he sees that those left behind would have it too.

I'm sorry I scared you. Istredd knows Lucifer is adapting just as much as he is. Being scared for others? New. It feels so much better now that he can dive into his mind again, soothe and caress, soaking it in since the distance had been hard. He told him the truth before. Their bond was not supposed to be like this. Istredd's desire for intimacy made it too deep.

"Whenever I sleep, my brain keeps telling me that this is the dream. That I'm still there dying, and I'll never get out." Being unable to tell dreams from reality is not great because it doesn't really end. Being awake could be a fantasy. Their bond is the only reassurance right now.

I won't disappear on you again like this, I promise.

His thoughts buzz in annoyance at the mention of his fear, but he doesn't deny it. It's a bit silly at this point, especially when all of Thorne had seen Lucifer cracked open in more ways than one. It quickly got to the point where it was just too laughably useless to keep up appearances.

"Don't make that promise. You can't make that promise," Lucifer growls, low in the dark, only the faintest glow from the log Lucifer had carved as a cover to talk to Mat during Luna's Winter Solstice. "You're all so easy to disappear again and," I can't change it.

If he had watched Wilhelm more closely, would it have helped? If he had done more than made him aware something was very wrong and gave him a weapon? Hell, Kell he'd only found out was snatched when Rhy cornered him in the castle hallways. Rhy's distraught unwinding and anger and saying that Kell told Rhy to find him. To trust him. That he'd know what to do.

What a load of crap.

"I meant by my choice. I can't control what happens to me from external sources." Like cultists or even the Singularity, if it decides to kick him out of this world eventually. As far as Istredd knows, no one has ever been able to see that coming or stop it from happening. So that is always hanging over them as a possibility. He wonders what it would be like to wake up and Lucifer's just gone. Like he never existed in this world.

Fear of loss gets to him too. In a way they're similar, having spent so much time intentionally being alone, only to make connections here they didn't want to lose. Istredd hadn't really been afraid of dying; he thought he would be. He was afraid of losing others. Of failing them. In that they're alike too.

Istredd gets up and sits on the end of Lucifer's bed, the glow just enough to see him in the shadows. Still enough of a distance not to get too close, although skirting on the edge of that. We really messed up, didn't we? He smiles faintly, shaking his head. Neither of us was supposed to care about this place and these people.

It was a doomed venture from the start.

Falling back into thoughts is like riding a bike. Well. Lucifer's never ridden a bike. Like flying, maybe? You never really forget how. ... Unless you're Future Castiel, maybe. Ha. That's how he could ruin Castiel's life. Tell him that he ruined Heaven redux version by causing all the angels to fall and getting everyone's wings actually broken.

For all the Lucifer is considered a "fallen" angel, his wings have always been intact.

Mmm. That would feel really nice. Michael would likely back him up on it if Castiel thought he was lying. Jack would be able to back it up in some way, not that he'd want to if he knew Lucifer's reasoning.

It's a tangent, anyway.

He's able to slide more into the mental communication than he was when he met Istredd in Nocwich. It's helping more now that sleep, while still on his periphery, is receding. The adrenaline is too, finally. A steady beat of his resting heart rate, but much lower.

Too many wild cards. ... Wild people. Feral and unsocialized chaotic monsters, the lot of them. Himself included. Thorne tightened the leash in that first week. I tried telling you a little of it. It made the already small box smaller, and when they opened it up unnaturally wide for us a week later, I don't think any of us even absorbed the breadth of it.

He's been staring at the ceiling this whole time. He was leading into a point, wasn't he?

I don't know how the other two factions reacted entirely. I know they were working. But I don't for a moment believe they were as adept in their survivability as Thorne, because the Thorne Summoned always operate like they have something to lose. People, freedom, control. There's a similar vein through each of us, unable to be ignored.

Lucifer told him when he got more sleep the static would recede and Istredd's grateful when it does. Not only because he is greedy for connection, but because it is an adjustment for him too, going from no telepathy to unexpected noise. He looks forward to smoothly sliding into Wanda's connection again and understanding what it feels like with Louis when they aren't going crazy. But this is special.

I love how the words on their own would seem insulting, but the way you say them sounds like the highest of compliments.

Feral unsocialized chaotic monsters, on the outside it would seem critical of them. He knows that for Lucifer it's him talking about his own kind of people. Istredd doesn't disagree with him, that all sounds about right. He has said before that they're trapped and the other factions can't understand. He knows they have much more freedom.

They can't stay here forever. Our kids. I don't want that for them.

They've been calling them 'the kids' for long enough but it's clearly more than that. It may be Kell and Wilhelm for Lucifer, but Mat is Istredd's, his student and he swore to help him be less afraid of magic. He is responsible for them too. He spent all his time and energy protecting them, only for them to end up right here again. Back in the cage.

Before Lucifer poked at him with a reference to his past, that he wanted them to have the choice he never had, and it's true. Even his freedom was always at the end of a leash.

I don't want it for you either.

Wildcard

and I hear there's healing just around this corner ♫

never heard this song and I love it

literally plucked it out by chance and went "yup, perfect"

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I'm cheating. - takes place pre-banquet

idk what you're talking about this is definitely posted on time

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