honest_johns | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's late in the morning when they return. The sun is bright and the air cold, and they walk in silence.

Too late to sleep, Alain thinks. Maybe not. He's been up all night. He's done more on less sleep, of course, but there's not much sense in carrying on stubbornly when there's no reason to. Maybe he'll nap.

The world is even more surreal than usual, this morning. Just a few hours ago he was sitting by a

(Reap Night)

fire with the dearest friends he has here, the knowledge of the clearing and the path passing between them; now he is walking down the hall to his room at Milliways alone, and he feels bizarrely doubled, half in this world and half some nebulous elsewhere. There's a strange dulled sound to his footsteps, to his own ears.

It solidifies a little when he puts his hand on his doorknob, and turns it.

And then pauses, the door half-open, the world sharpening into more clarity around him. The sound of breathing -- someone's in the room. And asleep.

There are... something vaguely resembling guns, hanging on his bedpost. These aren't weapons, though. They're bulbous, and made of bright-colored plastic, and suspiciously glittery.

Alain opens the door fully, a little worried and rather more touched to find Lilly curled up in his armchair.

And heartsick, too. He has to find a way to broach this subject with her. Soon.

But not this morning. Not now.

She's covered in glitter, face slack in sleep, and the folds of the chair arm have left faint red lines on her cheek.

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Lilly stirs, a little, at the sound of the door opening. Her eyes blink open, and she starts to smile as she focuses on Alain.

"You're back."

He smiles at her, a little, as he moves further into the room. It's strangely touching, and twists painfully at his heart, to find her waiting up for him.

"Just the night."

Lilly blinks.

"You've been gone three days, 'lain."

There's worry creeping into her voice now.

Alain blinks at her, taken aback.

"...I think we'd have noticed."

There's a brief moment of doubt -- but, no. Time slipping is one thing, but not to miss an entire span of daylight. They would have noticed.

"You would think," Lilly says, looking up at him, the wrinkle in her forehead deepening.

"But... I was here. You guys left Saturday morning, it's Mon-" she glances out the window "-Tuesday morning now. You... you didn't notice?"

"We left in the morning. Spent the night. Started back a little after it got light."

He's frowning too, now.

"Just the one day. I'd swear to it."

"Tuesday?"

"Tuesday," Lilly repeats.

"S'why I'm here, I was starting to wonder if you'd taken off or something."

She pauses.

"Where did you guys camp? The further you go back, the closer you get to the Dreaming and time kinda does the wacky."

He needs to talk to her soon. Very soon.

But not right now. All talk of taking off is carefully ignored.

The crease between his brows deepens. "Back past Susan and Susannah's Riza-yard -- I didn't think it was so far back. We tried to stay out of the Dreaming. Time was softer, there. I thought -- maybe we were closer than we realized."

He's not sure he likes this idea.

"Maybe," Lilly says, before shrugging and letting it go.

"Anyway, you missed a lot of people in leather and a lot of glitter."

She glances down at his armchair. It sparkles back at her.

"Okay, maybe you didn't miss all the glitter."

There is an eloquent, ironic glance at the armchair.

And the girlfriend.

And the floor.

And the... um. Guns. For lack of a better word. There has to be one, but he's too drained to think of what it might be.

Well, even if he could think of the word there's no guarantee he'd actually use it. It's Alain, after all.

Lilly's more awake, and smiling brighter now.

"You're kinda lacking in the shiny, 'lain. This is a terrible thing, but I think I can help."

She stretches, glitter shimmering on her stomach and face and legs and hands and hair.

"C'mere."

That? That is a wary glance, from where he sits on the edge of the bed.

Also an amused one, though.

He's right to be wary. Lilly uncurls herself reluctantly from the armchair, and smirks at him.

"I'm a little hurt that I haven't gotten a kiss yet."

"You're plotting to glitter me," he points out, reasonably. Not unamused.

Gods, he's tired.

"Yes," Lilly says, standing up and moving closer.

"But at least I'm also plotting to kiss you." She smiles at him, bending her head to kiss him warmly.

And not incidentally, get a light sprinkling of glitter on his face.

This is one of the hazards of dating Lilly. You learn to pick when evasion is worth the effort.

Alain tips his head up to kiss her back, with a small smile.

Ordinarily, he'd be settling his hands on her waist, but he's still holding out a faint hope of avoiding that much glittering.

Ordinarily this would be a fool's hope, but Alain is still wearing his gunbelts. If Lilly's learned one thing from dating a gunslinger, it's that you don't mess with the guns. She pulls back after a moment, smiling down at him.

The smile fades a little as she gets a better look at his face, and she reaches out to gently trace the line of his jaw.

"You look tired, 'lain. You should get some more sleep, make up for the lost time."

Alain's smile softens, and he turns his head fractionally into the caress.

"I am," he admits.

"Then sleeping is probably a good plan," Lilly says, smiling at him.

"Want me to stay? I could..." she glances down at herself, and laughs.

"Well, I could try to deglitter as much as possible."

He laughs, too, quietly.

"If you want."

His sheets are going to end up glittery for weeks, aren't they.

...If they have weeks.

The dimming of his smile could be put down to tiredness.

Lilly takes his face in her hands and bends to kiss him again. More glitter falls onto his neck and shoulders before she steps back and starts brushing herself off.

"You look really seriously tired, get in bed already. The Halloween stories can wait till you're more awake and able to properly appreciate the number of people I covered in glitter."

"I don't think I'll ever properly appreciate it," he points out drily.

But he toes out of his boots, and stands to unbuckle his gunbelts. They get hung on the usual bedpost -- the unglittery one, say thankya.

Lilly sighs heavily.

"Your loss, 'lain. I'm going to tell you all about it anyway, though."

She's succeeded in dislodging a lot of glitter... onto his floor.

"I've no doubt of it."

Thank the gods for whatever magic it is that cleans everything. (Alain does not know about the details of the cleaning staff roster. Such as the fact that it's all Oompa Loompas. He would be a good deal more unnerved if he did.)

He settles down on the bed. Still mostly clothed; it's late morning, nearly midday, and this is only a nap.

Lilly's as free of glitter as she's going to be, and so she gives up on the rest and curls up next to him.

"Not now, though. You're tired and I may have substituted goldschlager for sleep a few too many times this weekend and napping sounds awesome."

She may have also gotten more used to falling asleep next to someone than she realized, but that doesn't get mentioned.

He turns into her, resettling himself more comfortably. A light kiss pressed to her forehead, and he closes his eyes.

Tired or not, he expects it to be a while before he falls asleep.

Lilly closes her eyes, smiling as Alain kisses her forehead. Only three days, but she'd missed this.

She moves just a tiny bit closer.

"Night, or morning, or whatever, 'lain. Love you."

Silence settles over the room. Just the sound of breathing, and occasional faint noises from outside filtering through the closed window.

It doesn't take Alain as long to doze off as he'd thought.

Lilly drifts between dozing and waking, unable to really settle back to sleep. It doesn't bother her.

It's quiet and peaceful lying next to Alain, listening to the steady sound of his breathing. Even if she can't fall asleep, she's not going anywhere.

He's building... something. He knew a moment ago, but he can't think of it now. It doesn't occur to him to wonder or care; it's important, and so he's building it. Fetching rocks and sticks and saddles and sand, anything lying around, and piling it onto the heap. It becomes part of the structure, falling tidily into place no matter what it started out as.

But they picked bad ground for it. He knew that from the start, or maybe he forgot then but remembered later -- anyway, he's frustrated now, but it's too late to change anything. It looks like a level field, and feels solid under his boots, but it's swamp all through. What he's building is sinking nearly as fast as he piles things on.

In his sleep, Alain shifts a little, and resettles with a soft sigh.

Lilly blinks sleepily, Alain's movement and sigh pushing her closer to waking than sleeping.

She slides an arm around his waist, presses a light kiss to his shoulder, and closes her eyes again.

He's still building, trying to work as fast as he can, but it's still sinking. He's growing more and more frustrated -- he knew this was swampy ground, but they picked it anyway. It's too late now, and he tosses a tumbleweed onto the top and grabs for a head-sized rock, trying to keep ahead of the quagmire, and glances up at it.

It's not a building.

It's a pyre.

It's a bonfire and it's lit, a huge pile of wood and cornshucks and dead leaves all crackling with orange flame.

And Susan.

Susan's on it and she's burning, it's burning, everything is flame and heat-haze, the air scorches in his lungs, and he built it, he was tricked and he built it ans Susan is burning on it and he can't move.

In his sleep, his head tosses, a tiny restless movement, and he shifts again. There's a small frown line between his brows.

Lilly blinks again, more awake this time. She peers up at Alain, frowning herself when she sees his face.

"'lain?"

"'lain?" asks Lilly, bewildered. Her hands are tied together, coated in red glitter; it scatters over the wood. She's in the middle of the flames, and in a minute she'll catch fire, her long blond hair will light like a torch, like Susan's already is -- Susan is burning, burning, and the wind wails high like a woman screaming, and the fire crackles like the wheezing cackle of Rhea of the Cöos.

He wants to shout to Lilly, scream for her to move, disappear into the Dreaming before it's too late -- wants to pull them both off -- but he's frozen. He can't move, can't talk, can't do anything.

"'lain, what's wrong?"

"Alain?" His mother's voice, but he can't see her anywhere.

The torches in his hands have burned down, and flames lick at his fingers, scorch his wrists.

A low sound, in his sleep.

Lilly props herself up with one arm, the other stretching across Alain's chest to settle on his shoulder. He makes another noise, and her frown deepens.

It's not exactly hard for her to figure out what's going on.

"s'okay, Alain. It's just a dream, I'm right here, it's okay."

The witch's grip settles on his shoulder, her cracked and ragged fingernails digging through his shirt to the skin, and he can't see her but he knows the leering smirk on her face --

His eyes snap open. He's awake, breathing hard, whole body tense.

It's a moment before he realizes where he is, and his eys focus on Lilly with recognition as he slumps back onto the pillow.

Lilly presses closer to him, her hand moving from his shoulder to cup his face.

"You okay, 'lain?"

He smiles at her, faintly, and nods. He's still breathing a little too fast, and the dream swims in his mind, fading slowly into a muddle of flame and Rhea and pain in his hands.

Lilly smiles a little ruefully

"Yeah, well. I know how those can be."

She bends her head, hair falling across his chest, and kisses him softly.

He relaxes a little bit more, one hand lifting to brush back her hair. (This has the side benefit of getting it away from his neck. It tickles.)

Hardly the first he's had in life. Or even here. Usually, Lilly sleeps more deeply than he does.

"'kay," Lilly says, kissing him one more time before dropping her head to rest on his shoulder and wrapping her arm around his waist again.

It'll be a while yet before he can fall back asleep. Before he can close his eyes without worrying about what he'll see.

But he holds Lilly close, feeling her warm solid weight against him, while his breathing evens out. And it's all right.

An oasis, edged and touched by nightmare. It's the closest there is to peace, in Milliways.

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