abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] break the earth with your tiny head.

Ronan sure as shit knows Hennessy isn't stupid enough to believe not this. She's either lying to him or to herself. It was probably an easier lie when she knew she'd never have to face the evidence of what she'd done. If she never saw the body, she could tell herself she never killed him.

"No one here has ever seen this," he hisses. "No one even knows what this is. They're not going to figure out anything when they won't even look at me."

They don't owe it to him, though. Not like Hennessy does.

"Have you been able to take anything out since this started?"

"I thought they all loved you. Don't they owe you enough by now?"

Wasn't he Thorne's pet dreamer? Hennessy helped grudgingly, never giving more than she strictly had to unless it held a clear benefit to her. But Ronan wasn't selfish. She'd have thought he'd built up enough goodwill here even if his boyfriend weren't the head of his own wizard brigade.

His question earns a grimace; she doesn't want to talk about the state of her own dreams, but at this point her help is less likely to kill them both than waiting around for the Singularity to get its shit together.

"It's all messed up. I didn't pull out the Lace yet, but it's the same dream. Just a different angle. I got lucky twice; testing it further seemed like a bad plan until now."

She looks resigned; she's already decided she'll try to help him before she'll watch him drown in nightwash. It's just probably going to kill them both.

Ronan scoffs. She knows as well as he does that people only stick around as long as they're getting something out of it. The second it becomes more work than reward, they're gone.

Hennessy's no different, which is why he hesitates to ask. He fully expects her to come up with some excuse and fuck off the second he suggests it. But he's out of alternatives.

"If we dream something together, maybe..."

Ronan's already more work than reward, as far as Hennessy's concerned. He makes her feel things she doesn't want to, and calls her on her bullshit every time. Bad enough that Jordan had that right -- at least Jordan was her own fault and her own responsibility. Ronan had just shown the fuck up and never left.

Even when she killed him.

Hennessy likes being in his debt even less than she likes watching him melt from the inside out, so she barely even hesitates before sighing and flopping dramatically back down next to him.

"It's your funeral either way. At least if I fuck up badly enough you'll have company in whatever shitty afterlife we get."

She pauses before lying all the way down, glancing at the doorway.

"Should I go get Kylo? Just in case this goes about as badly as is usual when I'm running the show?"

She doesn't actually care if the Lace eats the entirety of Thorne, but in the event they don't die, she doesn't want it to take her out while they're both waiting to regain control of their limbs.

Ronan follows her gaze to the door, although he can barely see it through the black smeared across his vision. "Kylo will come," he says without doubt. If Kylo isn't on his way already, he'll be turning toward them now that he senses their intention. Ronan only ever need to think of him to summon him.

His attention returns to Hennessy. She's the one he doubts. After everything she's done, he has no faith in her courage. The idea that she feels any loyalty towards him is laughable. She's stayed in Thorne until now because Ronan has been keeping the Lace away, and now that he can't, he has no reason to believe she won't abandon him in the dream as soon as the Lace appears.

"Hennessy, this won't work unless you believe it can."

Hennessy shoots him a glare for that. She's so sick of hearing it's her fault for not believing hard enough, like her magic was Tinkerbell and she just needed to clap her hands a little harder.

"You have no idea how tired I am of hearing that phrase. You have to survive this so I can tell you in excruciating detail how badly I hate it, because clearly it hasn't gotten through."

She hops off the bed anyway, to grab FROM CHAOS and the sleep mask that's a replica of the ones they'd used with Bryde. She resented it now just like she resented all reminders of that time, but sometimes it was still necessary to dream on the spur of the moment. Her tools acquired, she sits back down next to him with a huff.

"It'll work. We're still a good team when we want to be."

On cue, Kylo appears. He looks, honestly, rough— like he's been burning the proverbial candle from both ends, except both flames are eating their way outwards from the centre. His movements are noticeably stiff in comparison to his usual smoothly solid flow, and there's visible effort being poured into everything he does. He's in control, still, but it's difficult. Taxing.

"Two dreamers together," he mutters as if turning over their plan for himself. It seems promising. It has to be.

He sits himself down on the side of the bed Ronan has been slowly covering in black, putrid ooze, and carefully wipes the sludge from Ronan's eyes so he can see his face. He's here. Just like he promised he would be when Ronan needs him. He reaches for his hand, then looks across to Hennessy.

"Help him," he demands. "You know how. I know you do."

Hennessy knows better than to comment on his appearance. None of them are at their best right now, and she's fairly certain Kylo is going to murder her if this goes awry. It'll still be better than watching Ronan slowly be unmade.

"No pressure or anything."

Okay, so she couldn't resist a little snark. But she reaches for Ronan's other hand as she pulls the mask into place, as much to reassure and anchor herself as anything else. She forces a grin that doesn't reach her eyes, but she'll be damned if she goes into this visibly fearful. She can do this, otherwise what's the point? If her brain can't get it together in the eleventh hour to save Ronan, it's sure as shit never going to get it together for anything else here.

"Welp. See you on the other side."

With the sleep mask settled over her eyes, she's asleep the instant her head hits the pillow.

Ronan can't delay long in following Hennessy. There's always the Lace to consider, and the risk of leaving her in a dream without guidance. But when he meets Kylo's eyes, he can't immediately turn away. Not when Kylo's looking at him like that.

"She's pulled me back from worse," Ronan assures him, squeezing his hand. He wishes he could promise Kylo it'll be alright, but a lie like that would be wasted on him even if Ronan tried to tell it. There is no guarantee he can give.

Instead, he strokes Kylo's hand very gently with his thumb. "Something for you," he murmurs. "That's what I'm going to dream."

Kylo's mouth tugs as if it knows the curve it should pull into but can't quite get there, his gaze more than steady. There's a hunger in the dark of his eyes, deeper than worry and more demanding than fear, wilder than the command Kylo presses into his voice without ever meaning to.

"Bring me something no-one else has ever seen," he murmurs. "Something new, Ronan. Something secret, just for me."

And then he leans in, slow, to bless Ronan's brow with a kiss. If the ailing dreamer needs help sliding into the dark, Kylo will carry him there.

Hennessy opens her eyes into darkness and for a moment she fears it's all gone wrong from the start, that this is the essence of nightwash distilled into dreams or that the Lace has finally consumed her. Then she reaches out and finds a wall with her left hand, and simultaneously feels FROM CHAOS in her right. She holds it aloft to illuminate the space and realizes the entire space is somehow blurry, the vague shapes within refusing to coalesce into the familiar or the new.

Don't think about it.

"Anytime you wanna show up, Lynch."

She shuts her eyes unnecessarily and focuses on the floor beneath her feet. It's solid and carpeted, which means it's not the Lace dream. Not yet. She just has to wait a minute for him to materialize and they can talk it into being something different.

One foot in front of the other. You can't trip on something that isn't there.

[ OPEN ] break the earth with your tiny head.

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