two ○ voice / text

[mylegacy]

Who: Caesar Zeppeli & u
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: None this time!
When: Late night, 7/28

( joseph : voice : 1 am )

[The dreams are always the same. A great wind comes and cuts his skin; he is alone, and it hurts, but he doesn't cry out, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth in the dry air. Blood bubbles out of his nose. He is very afraid.]

[He's pretty sure he doesn't make any noise during these dreams. No one's said anything, anyway. He could get away with keeping it to himself. But tonight something at the base of his skull urges him to tell secrets.]

[His voice, when it comes, is very quiet.]

Are you awake?

( public : text : 2 am )

I have questions about nightmares.

Do you have them? How often? What do you do to make them go away?


( ooc ; caesar is affected by augment glitches / compulsion! )

Comments

private voice, etc.;

[nextlineis]

[The noise the communicator makes when he gets a private message is enough to pierce through Joseph's sleep. He wakes, but his eyes stubbornly refuse to open. Then stubbornly refuse to stay open once he manages to peek just a little bit. Thus, he's mostly reaching around for his communicator blindly, and once he has a hold of it, he's squinting at it until he gets the right combination of buttons and can just leave it on the pillow beside his head. He lets one eye fall shut and forces the other one to stay open.]

No. [Joseph's voice is rough with sleep. There's a slight pause, though the communicator is close enough that it's not completely dead air and traces of his breath, steady and deep, can be heard. The words are a little slow to make it from his brain to out his mouth.] And you shouldn't be either.

this thing until further notice

[mylegacy]

[There's a sound - a sharp exhale, not quite a laugh. Such a deep sleeper. This would be the time to retreat if he's going to do it, wouldn't it, to make up some excuse that Joseph probably wouldn't even remember by morning.]

[Words come out anyway, unbidden.]

I need to talk to you.

[nextlineis]

Now? [Joseph turns his head away from the communicator to yawn. Rubbing at his closed eye with the heel of his hand, he looks at the communicator again.] I guess you wouldn't have called this late if it wasn't important.

[Or so he hopes. He will smother Caesar with a pillow though if he's just waking him up for no good reason. But he doesn't think Caesar would do that. It's more Joseph's style to be that kind of pain in the ass.]

What is it?

text

[experiencepoints]

[Well, Nightingale isn't sleeping tonight- As little as possible, until Ino gets back to her about the tea leaves. So something like this catches her attention pretty easily.]

Every night.
I used to have special tea that made you sleep without dreams.
I ran out of it here, though.

[mylegacy]

Does anything else work?

[Because right now he would give a lot of money to sleep without dreams, frankly.]

[experiencepoints]

Not sleeping.

Text -> voice

[innercactus]

Somteimse but motstiems i dont remmeber tehm cleer

[ Okay, Asteffiel recognizes that as a bad idea. Also he's sleepy and it makes typing harder than usual.

So here is a whisper. ]

I don't usually remember them. But talking about what I just remembered to my little plants help. Or going and laying on my friends.

voice!

[mylegacy]

[Oh, okay. We're doing this? We're doing this. He hesitates briefly, then switches over to voice, too, matching Asteffiel's tone.]

Laying . . . on?

[He has questions about the plants, too, but this seems more weird and pressing.]

voice!

[innercactus]

Their beds aren't usually big enough for me to sleep next to them, so I lay across their feet.

[ To be fair, the friends in question are also Sylvari, so it's less uncomfortable than it sounds? ]

text;

[ino]

[ Oh ... :c

Well, she has plenty of experience with that, as unfortunate as it is to say. ]

It helps me if I feel safe when I sleep.

[ Aka, when she's sleeping next to someone, or with someone she trusts nearby ]

Meditating before bed can help a lot too.

[mylegacy]

[He wasn't expecting her to respond - was sort of hoping that she wouldn't - and his heart sinks a little when she does. Still, she's offering, and he desperately needs help.]

I've tried breathing exercises. They didn't help.

Safe?

[ino]

[ Sorry Caesar! :( But hey, if she can be helpful, she will be. Especially towards someone she actually thinks is pretty nice. ]

It's not just the breathing -- clearing your mind is important, too.

Well, most of the time when I have nightmares it has something to do with a situation I was in where my life or the life of my friends or family was in danger. But if I feel like I'm safe where I'm sleeping, it seems to help that anxiety go away a bit.

Text

[save_the_souls]

[ There's a looong pause as he debates answering.]

I sleep with my pet in my bed.

[ FIGHT ME I'M STILL MANLY. ]

[mylegacy]

[That's actually a decent idea that Caesar hadn't considered (and definitely still manly). What's a pet going to do if you wake up from a nightmare, judge you? Only one problem here:]

I don't have a pet.

[save_the_souls]

Ah...right. I've only seen fish sold on the planet, and they aren't very good to have sleep in your bed...

[ Hrm. ]

Then again, they do glow...so if there's a tank in your room, it might feel less lonely? [ Maybe? ]

MOSTLY private - she is still new at this - text

[touchofrogue]

[...oh boy, is this the story of her life.]

It's never any one thing that works.

A lot of times, exhaustion would do it. Just - working myself out until I was too tired to breathe, let alone think. It can take sleep to a place where other things can't reach.

mostly private!!

[mylegacy]

Clever.

[The nice thing about working out, too, is that you don't have to do it alone - can't, in fact, if you're sparring, which is what he'd most likely be doing. Stay awake, fight, fall into bed, dreamless sleep. He can do that.]

You said "not just one thing".

text

[lord_wizard]

From time to time. I have ways to combat them, but it's never foolproof.

[mylegacy]

I don't know of many things that are foolproof.

Textybits

[tothefly]

You could always try not sleeping.

[mylegacy]

That's a temporary fix.

[Not that he's rejecting the idea offhand, just pointing out a flaw.]

[child_of_bhaal]

I have them often. Nothing I can do about them though.

Sorry. That is unhelpful.

[mylegacy]

It's helpful. Waking up in the dark is very lonely. This isn't.

text;

[birdsbirdsbirds]

[oh, a kindred spirit...]

Oh, very often. Ever since I was little.

My way of making them go away is a little... inconvenient, though.

text; i'll beat the tag up for you babe

[mylegacy]

Inconvenient's better than impossible.

[Spill, man.]