kore_logs | And every time you go to sleep...

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And every time you go to sleep...

Who: Meyer Lansky and all y'all
Where: ~Only in dreams
When: Day 83-88
What: Meyer is having some dreams. Perhaps you'd like to stumble into them.
Warnings: There is definitely disturbing imagery in here. There's copious amounts of murder and blood, kidnapping, drug dealing, and traumatic childhood memories that most definitely include murder and gore. There is also swearing, of course. More warnings will be added if more come up during the dreams.

[[This is an open dream log, to keep things tidy! I set up a couple specific threads for people, but other people can jump in as well, or they can make their own thread, or they can jump into the collective dream thread!

Please just note what day the dream is occurring on if you tag!]]

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Charlie's heart is going a mile a a minute. He was there in the room, with Meyer bound on the floor, but not matter how hard he ran he couldn't get any closer to him, and each time he reached for him he was just too far away.

But then Meyer is running, and he is too, following him but just out of reach. The reach the pool table together, colliding, all that running and reaching and needing resulting in Charlie nearly bowling him over.

"Meyer."

He tries to understand where Charlie came from, why he hasn't heard him behind him, how he could appear so quickly that he nearly knocks him over into the table. He could have sworn he was alone as he ran, could have sworn he was alone in the warehouse, except for the bodies and his captors, whose faces he somehow couldn't picture now. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe he's safe here. That doesn't mean he doesn't look around himself nervously, as though assuring himself that Charlie is the only one here, Charlie, the one person who'd never hurt him.

"Charlie," he replies, somewhat inanely, heart still hammering in his chest, blood still pumping through his veins so loudly he can practically hear it. His wrists and knees still hurt, a deeper ache than he'd have expected for the relatively short amount of time he'd spent on the floor. He wants to ask Charlie where he came from, but the words just won't come out.

"Meyer."

He said his name already, but it bares repeating. After all that, after trying to get to him desperately and failing, the solid warmth of him under his hands feels like a lifeline. He holds onto him tight, leaning their foreheads together to feel Meyer's ragged breath over his own.

"You're hurt."

"I'm fine," he says instantly. How many times has he said that, how many different ways? He's always fine. And he is fine, isn't he? He's in one piece, and he's in a seemingly safe room now, and the warehouse and what waited for him in it is gone, perhaps just behind the door or perhaps gone forever, he can't tell.

"How'd you get here?" That seems relevant, somehow. Where had Charlie come from?

"I tried to gets to you, before. But I wasn't there."

And how many times has he kicked himself over that? That Meyer had been tied up and scared and fearing for his life and Charlie had been cities away. But wait, how can he remember it if it just happened?

"You tried to get to me?"

He feels slow and stupid, not understanding how Charlie possibly could have tried to get to him if Charlie wasn't in the room at all, if Charlie hadn't witnessed what had happened. True, Charlie had shown up in this room, the eerily silent room with the pool table, but he hadn't been there seconds before. How could he possibly know what had just happened?

"I was scared." The words come out unbidden -- he hadn't even been thinking anything like that a second before, had been too busy puzzling over why Charlie was suddenly here -- but now he's said them, and he stares at Charlie with consternation, wishing he could take them back.

"Meyer." He keeps saying his name, like it will make a difference. Like it will communicate everything he's been feeling. The fear, the hatred, the helplessness. His grip around Meyer's face tightens. "I was scared, too."

"Why?"

It's a simple enough question. He doesn't know what Charlie has to be scared of. Charlie wasn't there, even though he seems to know quite a bit about what had happened, so he can't be afraid of that. Maybe he's referring to something else.

He leans back against the table, feeling unsteady and off kilter in an unpleasant way. Something's wrong here, but he can't figure out what it is.

It's hard for him to answer. He wasn't scared before, when he hadn't been there. How could he have when he hadn't even known? Afterwards he'd been angry. Angry at Nucky and his goons, and angry at himself for not being there. But he hadn't been scared.

But being there, in the room with him, the fear had been palatable. It had gripped his heart, squeezing it into ice. He couldn't tell if it was Meyer's fear, infecting the air and the two of them, or his own for not being able to stop it.

He follows Meyer to the table, leaning against him, buring his nose in his hair. He's loathe to stop touching him now that he has him again. When he speaks again it's mostly into his skin, mumbling against him. "I don't know."

"There's nothing to be scared of," he says, but even as he's saying it, he knows how untrue it is. There's plenty to be scared of, plenty that has him lying awake at night thinking about how eventually their luck will have to run out. He feels old, he feels tired, and while he's never been ashamed of fear -- fear has kept him alive when bravado would have killed him -- he suddenly despises the fact that everything in his life is filtered through that fear.

He's envious of the anger Charlie can conjure, because it's something more, something tangible. He's never been able to get that mad, and it bothers him in a strange and inexpressible way. There's something he wants to say, he thinks, something he wants to tell Charlie, but he can't get the words out, because he sees the door they'd come through slowly begin to open, and in the bizarre way of dreams, he just knows that something or someone awful is going to come through the door.

There's dread in his eyes as he looks up at Charlie. He doesn't know whether they should run. He doesn't even know what's coming for them, but he knows it's bad.

"What is it?"

The words are barely out of his mouth when he feels it, senses it more. It feels like someone dropping a chip of ice down the back of his collar. The chill passes through him, leaving a tingling in his fingertips and a dread creeping into every corner of him. He reaches for Meyer, presses a hand against his back.

"What the hell is that?"

There's something coming through the door now. A man, maybe two men, he can't quite make out the figures. The room is suddenly too dark to see properly, although he could have sworn that it had been well lit only moments before. Whoever they are, whoever's opened that door, are walking towards them closely, and while he somehow can't make out their faces yet, he can see that there are two of them, that they're carrying guns, that they're walking almost ominously slowly.

He knows, somehow, that they're here for Charlie. He doesn't know how he knows, only that he's seized by an irrational fear. He finds himself unable to speak as he watches their approach, realizes that he doesn't have a gun on him. The men, whose faces are still obscured by shadow and by their hats that they wear tipped down low on their foreheads, seem to be taking forever to approach them, the room somehow growing bigger, giving them more space to cross.

He wants to warn Charlie to run, but he can't speak.

Charlie can't make out their faces either, and he leans in closer, trying to make them out. He can feel the panic and fear coming off Meyer is waves, but he feels nothing but confusion.

"Meyer, what-" he turns to look at him, eyebrows furrowed. He looks frozen, like he can't move a muscle. All the while the men move closer, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees a gun raised.

He sees the gun raised, too, and instinctively wants to raise his hands to reach for a weapon, for anything that will defend them against the two men, but though he finds that he's no longer frozen in place, he's stopped short by something. Looking down, he's suddenly struck by the queasy realization that his wrists are now chained to the pool table. Even if there was something close, he couldn't get it.

"Run." He doesn't know what language he's speaking, but it doesn't matter. The intensity in his voice is enough to speak volumes, even if he's speaking a language Charlie doesn't or can't understand. He wants Charlie to get out of here, but even as he's saying it, he's aware of the sound of a shot ringing out, at once sounding very far away and very close. He tries to throw up his hands to protect himself, to protect Charlie, but the chains hold him back, and he struggles futilely.

He turns around to look at the two men, but it's like he's moving through molasses. Even lifting his arm feels like the hardest thing he's ever done. He wants to say something to Meyer, wants to tell him he's not leaving him again, but all that comes out of his mouth is a whispered croak.

And then the shot hits.

He staggers, hitting the pool table behind him. His movements are still slowed, the pain he must be feeling far away in his mind. The men are gone, just as soon as they came, and he knows this clear as day even though he can't see the door. Blood is pooling on the table as he falls backwards, seeming to take an eternity.

The noise that comes out of his mouth as Charlie falls back against the table is almost inhuman; no words, simply a sound, something between a shout and a wail, a noise he's never made before, a noise he didn't know he was capable of making until he sees Charlie there, bleeding.

He's suddenly unchained, as though he'd never been restrained at all, and he's immediately bent over Charlie, trying to sit him up, trying to put pressure on the wound, trying to put Charlie's blood back in his body. It's coming out too fast, staining the green table red, and there's blood coming out of Charlie's mouth, too.

"You'll be okay," he says, but he knows he won't. Neither of them will be. His hands are soaked with obscenely red blood, and they shake as he desperately tries to stop the bleeding.

It doesn't hurt, but that must be the shock. He can see the red spreading around him, staining the table and Meyer's hands, and all that comes out of his mouth is "You've got blood on your shirt." And then he's coughing, and more blood splatters Meyer's face. He hates seeing him with blood on him, because all he can think of is that tiny nine year old kid he used to throw his arm around, the one he promised Meyer's Ma he'd look out for.

"They'll be coming back for you."

"I don't care," he says, and it's true. He doesn't care about the blood on his shirt or on his face, doesn't care about the fact that the guys, whoever they were, will be coming back. "I'll kill them," he says, and he's already thinking of how he'll do it, of just how much he'll make them suffer, because it's easier than thinking about what's happening in front of his eyes.

His hands are still trying to find the bullet wound to stop the bleeding, but there's so much blood he can't seem to find the source of it to apply pressure, and Charlie's growing paler and paler, and he knows that look, knows the grey tone that people take in death, has seen it many times before and hasn't let it affect him, but this...

"You'll be okay," he says again. He's normally honest with Charlie, but he needs to lie now, for both of their sakes.

He can feel himself slipping, the world becoming fuzzy around the edges. He doesn't know if it's death or just passing out, but he knows what he wants his last moments of consciousness to be.

"Kiss me."

He's not one to resist a request like that; not normally, and especially not now, when he can see Charlie's consciousness (he doesn't want to think of it as being something more drastic than that, so he doesn't) slipping away slowly. Gingerly, he leans forward and kisses Charlie, not caring that Charlie's blood smears on his face, on his lips, not caring how he'll look after all of this is over. He can't even think about this being over. This isn't how it was supposed to end.

He can't tell if Charlie's breathing anymore, and it terrifies him. He pulls back from the kiss, desperately trying to see any sign of life.

He tangles his hand into the front of Meyer's shirt as they kiss, holding on tight. He feels like the moment he lets go will be the moment of giving up, of falling back into that black abyss of nothing, so he keeps clinging real fucking tight. His knuckles are turning white from it, nailing rending the cloth under them.

But he's still falling, no matter how hard he holds on. Meyer turns to vapor under his hands and he can't hold on any longer, slipping through him and down, down, down.

He starts to yell as soon as he sees that Charlie's falling away from him, that he's dying that this is real. No actual words are coming from him, no pleas for Charlie to be alive, no begging, no swearing, simply yelling, trying to cling to Charlie even though he knows there's no hope, that Charlie's gone.

He's still yelling as he wakes up with a start, his back aching terribly from the stitched up wounds, his heart pounding so hard he swears he can hear it nearly beating out of his chest. He's breathing as though he's just sprinted a mile, and he's still not sure what's a dream and what's reality.

Charlie is still sleeping in the spare room, not trusting himself not to roll onto Meyer in the middle of the night. But that dream wakes him with a start, trembling and sweating. The first thing he does is check his chest for a bullet wound, as dumb as it is to do so. Then he's throwing off his covers and padding into Meyer's room. He'll give it the context of checking up on him if he's awake. He'd never admit to needing to check on him after a particularly vivid nightmare. But his heart is hammering up a storm and he still feels he needs to anyway.

Though he's stopped yelling by the time Charlie comes into his room, he's still sitting bolt upright, despite the fact that it hurts his back unspeakably badly to do so, looking around frantically for Charlie. He's disoriented -- the various drugs he's been taking for the pain medication don't help that, nor does the horribly vivid dream -- and he's not quite sure where he is, but his eyes are wide, and he looks horrified.

"Meyer."

Why does that feel odd, just saying his name? Like he's done it a lot recently.

But he hasn't known Meyer this long without being able to read him like a book, and everything about the way he's sitting and breathing and holding himself tells him something's wrong. The idea of it being connected to his nightmare is too ridiculous to even contemplate, so his mind takes the more logical leap. "You're hurting."

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