riverviewlogs | (no subject)

The dream was starting normal enough, he was exploring the Crystal caves, only his father was there rather than his wayward brothers. Bruce lifted him up to get some Crystals off the cave wall when he’s lowered and looks over, it’s not his father standing behind him but his mother. Talia’s green eyes weren’t boring into him with their usual cold distance, but with warmth and kindness. She raised a hand, caressing Damian’s cheek, he couldn’t remember if she’d ever done this before. If she had the memory was so faint it might as well have been a dream.

“What have you found there, Damian?”

Damian looked down but there are no crystals in his hand, instead, his hands are smaller and a the is a hood over his head that is being slowly peeled back. It was a bat cow. Somehow draped over him. “Father!” He finally answered his mother, sounding pleased. ’Wait, where's father?’ He looks over and sees him standing in the doorway, he wanted to go over to him, but his mother was holding him back. Her arms seeming to snake around him, closing the cowl over his body. “Mothe--?” He stops when he sees a sword sudden pop out of his father’s chest. The man tries to make a sound but is muffled by his own blood filling his mouth.

“FATHER!” Damian tried to run to him, but his mother is holding him back, Damian only able to watch helplessly as his father fell limp to the grown, reveal Ra's behind him, flinging blood off his sword and started to drag his father’s body out of the room. Damian struggles harder as his mother holds him in place. “LET GO!” He screamed, trying to hit her, but his hits didn’t feel heavy enough. Too small. Too weak.

“You’ve grown soft, Damian. Such a waste.” She hisses at him as she starts to morph into something she always turns into in his nightmares.

Edited 2018-02-04 02:58 (UTC)

It had been a good dream. He hadn’t had one of those in a long time.

Tim sat in the living room of the old brownstone they’d moved into; the last place his family had lived. He was the gamemaster and everything on the table was his domain. He could see his father and Dana, comfortably chatting in the kitchen, and his friends, old and new gathered around a round table that was far too large to fit- not that it mattered. Kon and Cassie were floating, stars hovering around them, Bart was perched on a dragon’s snout, pushed through the window. Ives was healthy, draped in a sorceror’s robes.

There was pizza from the place that used to be two blocks away, more boxes than even A group of hungry metas could finish, and everyone was in high spirits.

Then Tim looked up and where the door had been that led to to the spare guest room, he saw a cave. He remembered that cave. He’d gone to map it out. And then he saw Bruce. Not the dark spectre that Batman donned, but the man who had grown to be a father. He was happy. He was holding Damian, who looked very small indeed next to his father. They were talking, but he couldn’t hear it.

The blue glow of the cave was an outlier, a strange chill inimical to the sunshine hearthfire cheer of his own dream. And yet— no, Damian was screaming.

Tim got up and passed through that door. Like entering water, he dove into it, and looked up just in time to hear Talia hiss, transforming into a monster. Tim ran towards them, throwing his heavy lorebook at the vision as he rolled into a kick, hoping to dislodge Damian from her arms.

Edited 2018-02-04 12:35 (UTC)

Damian's mother bared down on him but then stopped when a large book slammed the side of her face. Taking her attention off him and loosening her grip enough for Damian to kick himself out of her hold. She screams at the intruder and starts to charge him.

"Drake!?" He called out in a mix of surprise and fear. Drake was alive? He shakes his head, breaking out of his stopper when he realized, he was just rescued by a book. He was not some pitiful simpering child! He glared at his hands only they weren't small anymore. They were in Robin gauntlets, that's right. He wasn't a child, he was Robin. His potential was not a waste, it was just now aimed at something more. Something worthwhile, saving people instead of trying to rule them or hurt them.

Pulling out a grapple he shoots at his mother, the ropes snaring around her and allowing him to hold her in place this time. Just in time and inches away from Drake. You're not dying on him again, Tim Drake.

Tim hadn’t actually expected the book to work, somehow, but he wasnt complaining. Except for the ten-ton Talia running at him. Tim leapt back, rolling out of the way, before ralizing she had been stopped, straining against the steel cable of a grapple. That was impossible in the real world. It was a good thing they weren’t in the real world, then, wasn’t it? Out of the corner of his eyes he could see Damian grown taller, dressed in Robin reds. That was right. Robin was many things but at the heart, Robin was the steel in their spines, their armor and their weapon.

Tim blinked and his bo was back in his hands. “She isn’t real! You don’t have to listen to her- she doesn’t exist. Let her disappear!”

Damian grit his teeth pulling with all his might to make the impossible work and well it was working! He wasn’t really thinking logical, all he knew is that he was angry and much like when he had Kryptonian strength post-death, he didn’t really think about what he was doing, he just did them. She screamed, thrashing, Damian hears Drake shouting something at him, but it’s mostly muddled by his mother’s shouts.

’Let her disappear!’

He caught the last on Drake’s shout. She turns to him but rather than fear he shook his head. “I...” The Al Ghul's always wanted him to make a choice between his two families. He was raised to be a loyal soldier, but Damian was willful, they tried to brainwash him, show him the way of the demon was the only way.

But it wasn’t a matter of choice. He made his choice. He chose Robin. His Father. Gotham. He wanted to be better, but the Al Ghul was always there. Like a black mark on his life, he’d never truly be rid of them, but they didn’t run his life anymore. The Talia started to charge towards him, slacking the rope and making him stumble back into the wall.

’Let her disappear!’ ‘Let her disappear!’ ‘Let her disappear!’

The teen held his ground, hearing Drake’s words repeat in his head. He glances for a moment at the other teen still shouting at him. “Just disappear!” He closes his eyes as she runs into him, disappearing in a mist.

"Damian!" Tim started for him as Talia decided to switch targets. He struck her fleshy back with the staff, but it didn't seem to even register- dreams didn't know pain. He should have thought of that. Just like how fear sustained them.

He could make the staff, that meant this was their dream, not just Damian's. So he tried to visualize Talia disappearing, puffing into smoke- and Talia did. He had no idea if that was his work or- more likely- Damian's but for the moment, they were safe. He walked up to Damian to check on him, but he didn't seem any worse for the wear. Much better than what he'd walked in on, at least. "Hey. You okay?"

Their surroundings were starting to dissolve, the blue glow dissipating into the gray darkness and chittering bats of the Batcave. The familiar giant penny and the tyranosarus rex still sat under still yellow spotlights, but the equipment was old, from his memories.

Damian slowly opened his eyes when nothing started ripping him into pieces. You have no idea how much of a relief that is. He lets out a breath he hadn't know he was holding. It takes him a moment to realize Drake was talking to him, the usual mix of cold and anger rose upon seeing him, but after all the just happened it was quickly snuffed out and he just nodded. "Yes, of course..."

He looked around as the cave seemed to settle into a new shape. A more familiar shape...yet not. This tech was outdated and where was Batcow's stable? "This your world's cave?" He asked, not sure he cared for it. "It needs an upgrade." He lowered his hood.

"What just happen--Father!" The cave shook, threatening to morph again when a spike of dread shot through Damian's heart.

Edited 2018-02-05 07:36 (UTC)

"Sort of. It's from back when... a little after I started." Tim shook his head a bit. "The computers are ancient, even for me." Not that it hadn't been cutting edge at the time- the technological boom just hadn't really taken off as much yet.

Tim blinked as the edges blurred. "What- Bruce is fine." By some definitions of 'fine', anyway. He really hoped someone found the data he left back home and brought Bruce back. Preferably not R'as. The thought of the old coot summoned a shadow. Tim closed his eyes, scowling, and banished it.

"It wasn't really him. Just like... that wasn't your mother," he said, keeping his voice that even-neutral tone he tended to use to calm victims down. He wasn't sure why he'd felt compelled to come here- but Damian was clearly as much of catalyst as he was, moving through this soupy dreamscape like a boat lost at sea. Cogito ergo sum. Right here, right now, they were both real. Or real enough.

He reached out to touch Damian's shoulder, tentative and braced for reprisal. It was... it was what Dick would've done. He told himself that.

The room seemed to settle when Drake touched him, his body giving a flick though, still feeling so raw and exposed.He looked at him almost feeling like he couldn't recognize what he was looking at. Not that Drake hadn't been in his dreams before, in fact, it became more common ever since his death, it was just... never like this. No sneers or judging looks, which considering what was just here, had been fully expected.

'Wait, father is fine? Yes and mother...' The woman was a monster but never a literal beast. He shakes his head, the dreamscape starting to crack around them. "He's okay..." Damian repeats. “But, you, your not... you died. Long before this, you died...” This in the area started go gray and a feeling of melancholy weighed on them. “You went on a mission and... didn't come back. You were just... gone.” A light drizzle of rain started dripping in the cave.

Edited 2018-02-09 21:09 (UTC)

Tim blinked as the surroundings changed again, as easy as thought. So they were still dreaming- had somehting pulled them in? Before he could pursue that thought any further, the arin started to fall.

"What? What are you talking about I'm---" Tim paused, remembering what Damian had said in the cabin. "I'm okay," Tim reassured.

It wasn't him. This wasn't about him, he reminded himself. But Damian-- it seemed like he was close to his own Tim, even if he might not realize it himself. And that was kind of a shocking thought, in itself. His dream self's hand wavered, a little, but he stayed.

The trickle of rain was starting to come down harder; colder. "We're all okay. I didn't get trained by the world's greatest detective to come to nothing."

Damian doesn't seem placated, but the room stops shaking, instead, they're on a rooftop, ufos in the air, surrounding a lone figure. Drake, his Drake, standing brave and firm. The image is a little dramatized since Damian wasn't actually there to witness it. The image coming mostly from recordings of the incident. He is watching intently, his jaw clenched as a familiar dream plays out before him.

The UFOs surrounding the dream Drake and all at once open fire. Damian covers his ears, making the sounds of the scene muffled. Loud gunfire hitting concrete and Drake's from making the older teen scream. Damian tries to keep watching, but he always ends up turning away.

Years of witnessing horrors and training that would kill normal men, yet this scene always made Damian turn away. "Stop!" He said, the world around him going dark and Damian sits up in bed, finally awake.

Tim watched in morbid fascination as a familiar face- his own, but not- starred in a fatal tableau. He didn't take his eyes off the scene, not until he saw Damian flinch back and cover his ears.

Tim looked back towards him as he yelled for it to stop, the dreamscape unraveling around them like unspun wool. He woke up breathless, still shocked as he stared up at the ceiling in what had been Dick's former room. Ceiling was probably generous- he'd fallen asleep in his chair again.

His bones groaned a little as he readjusted himself, pushing his hair back from his face as he tried to process. That had been- that had been a very weird dream. He'd dreamed of Damian often, immediately following his departure from Gotham. But that Damian had been a nightmare-thing, much like Talia had been in this one, fangs and blood and expectations.

This one had been-- vulnerable. Small and child-like, for once. He'd watched that other Tim die. The more he thought about it, the more the leaden feeling in his stomach grew. It felt like he had swallowed a whole anchor. He'd never really given Damian much credit. It was hard to, even with this new one. But whatever misgivings he'd had-- not even Damian deserved to be so traumatized. With a sigh, he got up and pushed the door open, looking down the dim hallway as his eyes adjusted and headed for Damian's room.

He knocked and opened the door. "Damian?"

Damian snapped his gaze to the door when the knock came. The dream so fresh in his mind that hearing Drake's voice made his body tense up. It was just a dream though, wasn't it? Drake hadn't... really seen all that had he?

It all felt so real though, he could almost still feel his mother's coiled grasp trying to smother him and smell the gunfire from the ships. Really though, Drake's death shouldn't have stood out for him so much, it was just another life snuffed out. He'd taken plenty of his own, not that he was very proud of that anymore.

Just how many fathers, mothers or even children of people had he killed under his family's orders? Or even for his own survival... and at times for just amusement. It was a question that had been weighing on his mind ever since he came back from the dead. All through his attempt at redemption. So why did Drake's weigh on his mind at all? He hadn't even been responsible for it...

"What?" He growled out when he realized he hadn't answered.

Edited 2018-02-21 04:59 (UTC)

Dreams space. CW for murder, blood and scary imagery.

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