defector: (♠ leave the soul alone)
Dominic Sorel ([personal profile] defector) wrote2010-08-25 10:43 pm

Dream ♠ o14

Warnings: Mild spoilers for Eureka Seven, implied death. Oh, and HTML abuse.
Dream Effects: A generous heaping of guilt and self-loathing, mostly.
Filter: None.


(Hollow words befitting of a hollow man.)


There’s laughter—spiteful, empty laughter.

“What can you do?” Anemone asks, still laughing, and Dominic has no answer.

Laughing—
What can you do
 
Then—it changes. The laughter doesn’t stop even though Dominic wishes it would, but the tone gradually changes—from a girl’s to a man’s.

He recognizes it all too well. It's a poisonous voice, ensnaring him in its grip and he just wishes there was some way to free himself.

And then—it ends, with a whisper:

“Off
with
her
head.


“—I give up! And if you do too, I…” Grieving words, shouted by a hurting child. And the one they’re directed to?

Renton’s far from in the best condition—he still needs the support of nearby crates just to stand, and yet—

“… But I can’t. I can’t, and I don’t think you want me to,” he says. “I don’t either. Giving up’s the last thing I want to do.”

Really, Dominic can empathize with him. But there’s a failure that rests on his shoulders, a painful reminder of what he understands now—a lesson Renton needs to learn.

“You should listen to the boy—” the first time he’s spoken since the child’s speech “—You have limits, Renton. Accept them.”

He has the scars to prove that he did all he could to protect Anemone. He believed and believed and tried to do it with everything he had—

—but believing and trying aren’t always enough, and they don’t mean anything if one doesn’t succeed.

“I, too, have been a fool… thinking, somehow, that I could save Anemone without anyone’s help. But I couldn’t.”


He couldn’t,
couldn’t,
couldn’t—
—So why did he think he could this time?
 
“I don’t know,” he admits, because he just doesn’t know. “Because I thought that comparing Vincent to world destruction, even if it was Vincent, was ridiculous, I guess.”

He was a fool. A complete and utter fool.

“… But it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”

He didn’t protect her.

His own advice not taken, a promise broken again and again—
—A head on the floor, and he throws up.


(If we were to take away sweet little Anemone in the dead of the silent night, I do wonder what would be left behind. Sir Dominic.)


---

[Dominic wakes up to Gulliver, who's sitting on the bed, making what could probably be interpreted as a concerned sound. Smiling softly, Dominic pats it on the head.]

... It's all right. I'm all right...

private / 30% unhackable / voice [2/2]

[identity profile] unfearful.livejournal.com 2010-08-26 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)
[... But yelling isn't going to do him any good, is it? It seems Gilbert has every intention of defending his brother.]

... Forget it. If that's what you want to think, then that's fine.
ext_436989: (tastes like socks what)

private / 30% unhackable / voice [2/2]

[identity profile] failingsohard.livejournal.com 2010-08-26 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)
No, I - !

I'm not saying anything - I know what Vincent is like, but...if he did, I need to make him realise that I know what he had done. How do you know that it was him? Do you have any physical evidence?

private / 30% unhackable / voice

[identity profile] unfearful.livejournal.com 2010-08-26 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't have any physical evidence, but he called me just before I received his 'gift' to wish me a happy birthday, even though it's nowhere near my birthday.

[A pause]

The beginning of this dream is... also accurate to some extent, regarding another message of his.

[Oh, and he's just been threatening him for more than half a year. Not suspicious at all.]
ext_436989: (dancing the cancan?)

private / 30% unhackable / voice

[identity profile] failingsohard.livejournal.com 2010-08-29 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
[Gilbert files that away to ask Vincent about later.]

'Off with her head'?

private / 30% unhackable / voice

[identity profile] unfearful.livejournal.com 2010-08-29 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
[... He hates to remember this part, but he knows he has to.]

How I knew she was dead. He... sent me her head.

[The state her head was in, he'll leave out.]
ext_436989: (these aren't menthol cigs!)

private / 30% unhackable / voice

[identity profile] failingsohard.livejournal.com 2010-08-29 01:35 am (UTC)(link)
[The headhunter, the headhunter -

He stares at his dreamberry, glad that Dominic can't see his face right now.]


It - [might just be coincidence, but that would be pushing it.]

I'm sorry. I'll - I'll call you back.

private / 30% unhackable / voice

[identity profile] unfearful.livejournal.com 2010-08-29 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
[If Dominic knew what Gilbert was thinking, he'd say that it was just Vincent referring to the story. Since he's not a mindreader, though...]

All right.