Explorean Resort, Cozumel, Mexico, Saturday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

She probably should have expected the nightmares. Raven's text had upended her sense of safety; even thought she wasn't on the island now, knowing that her home was gone and all of her supplies were inaccessible had messed with her pretty hard. Sleep had been long in coming, even as exhausted as she'd been, and when it came, it had brought old friends along with it.

She was back in the basement again. It's where she was kept, when Rodney wasn't using her body, staring at a wall. In the dream, those were the best times, even though she stood silent and unmoving, staring at a crumbling brink, cloudy gray eyes unblinking. Because when she wasn't staring at the wall, it meant Rodney was puppeting her body around, his mind overriding hers, his will dominating her body. She could feel him, like cold oil spreading over her brain and down her nervous system, stealing control away from her. She tried to fight him off, tried to keep him out, but it was no good. Rodney wanted control of her body and he could take it.

"No, no..." she whimpered in the real world, starting to thrash. "Leave me...don't make me...no..."

No matter what she dreamed, Kathy felt like a prisoner in her own mind. When she dreamed of being a free ex, she still had to watch as her body moved of its own volition, attacking anything that moved. Sometimes she killed and ate people. Other times, she remembered the pet store and the mess that had been left when she was done. But those were still better than the Rodney dreams, when she was literally enslaved to his will and he could make her do anything he wanted.

Like now, when he presented her with the bound forms of her friends. Anders. Dante. Eliot. Raven, , stuck in her vulnerable human form. Ringo. Alluka. "You think there's nothing worse than being controlled my me, puta?" Rodney asked, voice coming from her own throat. "Tell you what. Here, I'll let you go. See how you like that."

To her horror, Kathy felt the cold ooze steal back up and out of her body, leaving only the ex behind. And the ex looked at her friends and saw only meat--warm flesh and hot blood. She lunged at the closest of them--Ringo, no, please!--and bit and bit and bit while Rodney's mad laughter rang in her ears and her head.

"It's always in you, girlie. Always. Just waitin' to get out. This is what you are..."

The taste of blood filled her mouth as she struggled up towards consciousness, hitting and kicking and trying to scream but blood, so much blood she was going to choke.

[For the guy with her. Violence and such under the cut.]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

If it helped, Kathy didn't much like this new version of herself, either. She was working on it, but every step forward was an uphill battle.

"Like, regular person safe? Or Kathy's crazy safe?" she asked. "I mean, the crew are all masters in their own fields. Logically, I know nothing's going to get into their house that they don't want."

Except for sharks. Awkward.

"But it's not the same. And I can, like, kind of ignore that for a little while? Like how I'm here with you or the night I crashed at Dante's house, but the longer I stay somewhere, the worse it gets. Because I can't let my guard down."

And that was exhausting.

[not_every_mage]

"I meant Kathy's not-crazy safe, and I wish I could just stay with you and protect you forever," Anders admitted. "But that doesn't solve the real problem, does it?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy paused a moment before shaking her head. "I wish that, too, but it doesn't," she said. "It's not a problem you can solve."

She clung to him more tightly. "But I love that you want to and that you're trying to help talk me through it. You can't fix anything, but you might help me find something that does help. I get all...caught up in my head, running around and freaking out. Sometimes I just need someone else to help remind me there are other options, you know? Because I get to the point where I can't see them."

[not_every_mage]

"I'm not the right kind of healer to wave my fingers and make it all go away," Anders agreed, with some regret. "So, talking is what I have."

He dabbed a finger over her lip. "I could make this go away, though, if you want."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy licked her swollen lip again and winced when her tongue came in contact with the bite. "Could you?" she asked. "Otherwise it's gonna sting for days."

[not_every_mage]

"You bit yourself hard," Anders agreed, letting the healing energy flow to his fingertips with a buzz of blue light. "Have you ever done something like that in your sleep before?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah," Kathy admitted, closing her eyes and letting the energy wash over her. It felt like warmth and comfort. "Consequence of, uhh, bitey dreams. I had to throw out a couple of pillowcases because I bled on them. I'm just lucky it didn't scar."

[not_every_mage]

"Keep it up and you might need a muzzle," Anders said, though the joking tone was forced. "I wondered if you were dreaming that, you know. The biting."

[spin_kick_snap]

The word muzzle earned him a slight wince, but it wasn't anything she hadn't thought herself before.

"I was," she said softly. "A basement dream that turned into a bitey dream, the worst of both worlds."

Basement dreams didn't include eating people. Bitey dreams didn't include feeling Rodney's presence in the back of her head and feeling when he took control of her body. This dream featured both.

[not_every_mage]

"Dear Maker," Anders said, full of sympathy. "That's just cruel, a dream like that. No wonder you wake up panicked."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Not sure what's worse," Kathy said softly. "The memories of the real strangers I ate, or the dreams where I'm eating my friends."

[not_every_mage]

"Which was this?" Anders asked, equally soft.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Friends," Kathy said, unable to meet his eyes. "You. Dante. Raven. Ringo. Alluka. Eliot. Rodney dragged me out of the basement and then pulled back just enough for the ex to come to the fore while I was standing over all of you."

[not_every_mage]

"But that'll never happen," Anders promised, though his stomach was twisting at the powerful mental image. "It's just a dream. Bad old memories playing with your mind."

Religiously, he thought it was a bit more complicated than that, but he wasn't sure where nightmares about being an ex fit into the Fade.

[spin_kick_snap]

"He...he said--at the end of the dream, he said..." Kathy's hands shook. "He said that it was always in me. That it was just waitin' to get out. He said that that is what I am. Always."

[not_every_mage]

"But it's not," Anders said, earnestly. What she was saying sounded close enough to anti-mage propaganda to cut to the bone. "Alluka got that out of you, and it won't ever come back."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I know that?" Kathy said, though her voice wavered. "But it's hard to make myself believe it. Because... because what if it's not? What if it's still lurking somewhere, deep inside, and one day I wake up and it isn't me anymore?"

It was a stupid and illogical worry. But that didn't make it go away.

[not_every_mage]

Anders hesitated. "Do you want an honest answer, or a comforting answer?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Honest," Kathy said without hesitation. "Always honest. I have enough trouble--"

She paused, trying to figure out how to word it so it didn't sound like she was a different flavor of crazy than she actually was.

"I spend a lot of time trying to figure out if the way I'm reacting to people is right," she said slowly. "I spend a lot of time analyzing what they've said and what that might mean and how I'm allowed to feel about it. Telling me something comforting might be nice in the moment? But all it's going to do is make me wonder how many other times in the past you've told me a comforting half-truth instead of being honest. And that's a really quick way to make me doubt...well, everything."

Him. Her. Them. Everything.

[not_every_mage]

"Well, there's a lead-in," Anders said, with an uncomfortable little laugh. "All right. Honestly, Dante and I could both take you down if you -- went that way again. Even if we could find a cure again, it wouldn't be fair to put your spirit and body through it. Was rough enough the first time."

[spin_kick_snap]

"And considering whatever Alluka did last time wasn't enough to free me of it entirely..." Kathy surmised. "I--that does help. But I know you could both take me down, power-wise--"

Let's face it, a single zombie on her own without the element of surprise wasn't much of a threat.

"--could you? Could you kill me?" She was sincerely asking. She figured Dante could without flinching. But could Anders?

[not_every_mage]

"Hard to say when I've never had to do anything like it," Anders said, feeling his stomach twist in his body at the thought. "But if it was that or risk you taking innocent lives, I could."

He paused for a steadying breath. "Could you, if I was possessed?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "Not unless you did something drastic. But I've dreamed of killing you too many times to do it in real life, I think. I have the memory of killing too many people to make another."

She slid her thumb over the inside of her left wrist where seven tattoo'd hashmarks rested.

[not_every_mage]

"I hope I never have cause to feel that way," Anders said, sincerely. "But anyhow, I wouldn't want you to let me hurt anyone."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh, I'd try to stop you, even incapacitate you," Kathy said. "I don't know how useful I'd be, but I wouldn't just stand around wringing my hands and saying 'Woe is me.' I just don't think I could kill you. Has anyone ever fought off possession in your world before?"