thoughtformed | YOU BURIED ME ALIVE, YOU DICKS

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YOU BURIED ME ALIVE, YOU DICKS

WHAT: So I heard you like dreams about being buried alive.
WHO: Anyone and everyone!
WHEN: Any point during the nighttime hours of Thursday - Sunday.

Nathan's growing tired of dreams within dreams. As a child, he trained himself to wake up from nightmares when they got too bad — one absent parent and one working double time to pick up the slack meant no crying to mummy in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, immortality has made this more difficult. Of course.

Sexy times with a faceless lady had turned into being ripped apart limb from limb, so he shakes himself from the dream. Wake up. Wake the fuck up. You're dreaming. His eyes open — but it's still dark, unnaturally so. Nathan lifts his hands and finds they meet solid wood, not more than six inches away from his face. "For fuck's sake," he mutters. No amount of telling himself to wake up will work at this point. Got to find a way out.

Odd, this feels more lucid than most of his dreams, so he resigns himself to banging on the coffin lid. Underground or not? Once he got out, only to find the coffin was at the bottom of the ocean. That's just uncalled for, subconscious.

"Oi, help me!" he yells, like he always does, like he did back when this happened in his own life. It didn't work then and it probably won't work now, but he hits and kicks anyway.

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It's not unusual for her to dream of death and all the connotations. Even before her parents turned out to be evil, Nico found herself questioning the difference between life and death and what happens beyond; this is largely in part due to her Christian upbringing, where everyone is shamed into believing that they have to be the best person possible or they will go to hell. Or, in many cases, it's already been decided, so it's better not to fall down that path. Every aspect of belief ends with death. Every person is vying to get there.

Except now things have changed—the dreams of death are less falling off buildings with the echo of promises of damnation in her ears, and now they're replaced by a different damnation. It comes before death, covered in rocks or eaten by giants, others would find it ludicrous, but for her, it's the abstract of her life played out over and over. Sleeping is a difficult task to achieve when this is often what's waiting for you.

(And sometimes, though, she has the rocks falling on her while her parents are just off in the distance, reminding her that she's a slut or that she's evil for what she's chosen to do—for how she's chosen to give up their brand of salvation.)

So when she finds herself in a coffin in this dream—it's unmistakably a coffin, even if she's never been inside one herself—surprise barely registers for her. She only wonders why and how it is she died this time, a vague, fleeting thought that won't occur to her later when she wakes up unless she tries to examine it closely. (If she remembers. These types of dreams tend to blur together.)

Shock doesn't register. A need to escape doesn't register. Nico accepts that death would come eventually, so she closes her eyes and waits for it to be a reality.

Only it's interrupted by the sound of a familiar (grating) voice. Why is it that Nathan is here? Why is she lucid enough to question this?

"You're dead," she says. But she doesn't explain why he's dead (something nags at her that it isn't possible, but it isn't reaching her here, not in this world) or why they're here together (no point; Nico always figured she'd die with someone at her side and that it would probably be her fault). "They're not coming."

"Shit!" Nathan tries to jump away, but in the confined coffin it amounts to a full body seizure and whacking his head against the lid. He's not used to other people appearing in his dreams. Even if it's someone he knows well, they're usually a faceless facsimile — they may not even look like a person, but he knows who they are. So dreaming about Nico makes the least sense. All the same, there she is.

He scoffs at the girl and tries to fold his arms over his chest in the tight space. "Was dead. Not anymore. This has happened before, but nice try on the creepy voodoo shit, love."

Nathan reaches out the and pushes Nico. Definitely solid, definitely there in the flesh. Well, there's a first time for everything! "Alright, time for you to get the fuck out of my dream."

She registers her words, but defiance fills up inside of her and scoffs. His dream? Nico isn't surprised, really—it's not that Nathan is all dominating all over the place, but it's like him to claim this dream. Even if this is unfamiliar territory for her, it was only time until she dreamt about being inside of a coffin. If anything, being on New Moore promised more of that feeling.

"No," she says, and as much as she wants to stick to her guns about this being her own dream, uncertainty bubbles over. If it's his dream, then ... no, that's impossible. He's around enough because of Victor that he might creep in. Especially if it's something involving death and coming back.

(She can't place her finger on why there. Does it matter?)

"How do you know this isn't mine? It could be." It's revealing, but it's a dream, so really, he probably knows already. Dialogue sequences always do go better in a dream world.

It's hard to turn his neck to face her and it's not like there's that much to see in the dark, but Nathan does so anyway. "Cos I have this dream all the time." That sounds bad. But it's true, so fuck it. "What're the odds you dream about being buried alive too? I'd say they're pretty slim."

He remembers what the dream was before it turned terrible on him, and a rakish grin crosses Nathan's face. "Of course, unless you're here for other reasons."

The sound of Nathan's voice draws Aradia, who has, until now, been wandering rather aimlessly. She's not sure, exactly, of the purpose of a human cemetery, and so she has been stopping every once in a while to peer curiously at the engraved stones before moving on.

She kneels beside the stone bearing Nathan's name, and conveniently realizes she has a trowel in her hand. She stabs it into the ground, and leans forward, whispering a careful, "Hello?"

Nathan freezes at the muffled voice. He tries to shout louder, but his throat seems to close off every time. Come on, he wills himself. "A little help?" he finally manages to choke out. "A guy buried alive could use a hand. Or a shovel!"

He pounds a few more times on the lid of the coffin for good measure. Nathan has never had a person come to rescue him in a dream. Maybe this has something to do with accepting his shadow.

Or maybe it's just New Moore's usual bullshit.

Nathan's voice doesn't come through, but the sound of him hitting the coffin does. Aradia jumps back a little. She wasn't exactly expecting a reply.

She grabs the handle of her trowel and pushes it in deeper, removes some dirt. It's not exactly the most effective method.

"Okay," she says, louder this time. "Anyone or any...thing, that's in here, I'm going to try to help, but I'm not sure this will work!"

After all, she's not sure what the rules of dreams are, here.

The voice is still there, although too muffled to understand, but he hears moving dirt. Nathan continues beating his fists against the coffin. "Keep going!" His voice is getting stronger — probably some shite psychology about having someone to help him through, blah blah blah, who cares.

"Whoever you are, you're bloody fantastic," Nathan shouts. Then he ruminates on this for a second before adding, "Though I bet you can't hear me, what with the two metres of dirt and all."

It takes a little while, or maybe longer than that--but it's a dream, so time is really not that important anyway--but eventually Aradia has dug up enough dirt that she can actually hear Nathan's voice a little.

She repeats her earlier greeting, a little louder, and continues to dig.

"I think I'm getting closer to where you are!"

As more dirt is removed, there's more give as the hits the coffin. The action of the dream reaches a fever pitch, and against all logic, Nathan manages to burst out — he still has to fight his way through a bit of the dirt, but ultimately he's out.

"You!" He points at the troll girl before hoisting himself out of the earth, not bothering to brush off his clothes. "You're brilliant, you are, has anyone ever told you that?"

When he manages to stand to his full height, Nathan realises he completely towers over her and smirks. "Honestly thought you'd be taller though. Thanks anyway, pipsqueak."

"Oh! You're the human Karkat is always yelling at. Well, one of them anyway!"

Aradia offers him a friendly grin. She wrenches her trowel free, and twirls it in her hand. "Thank you, though!"

She peers inside the coffin, and frowns, "What were you doing in there, anyway? Is this a human thing?"

Ugh, right, Karkat's weird foetus friends who give each other horn jobs and talk way too fucking much. This one's alright, though. Nathan stretches his arms high over his head and shakes out his stiff limbs while he answers her. "What, d'you freak aliens not have funerals?" Actually, considering half the weird shit Karkat says, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't. "It's where we put dead people, except for the most part they tend to stay dead."

"I'm immortal, big reveal," Nathan continues. "But apparently sometimes people forget that fact and throw me in a coffin anyway!"

"I don't know what happened to my body!" Aradia remarks. "Probably it just stayed there at my hive, since my lusus wasn't around to take care of it either. Besides, I think other lusi end up eating remains anyway..."

Of course, she smiles at him when she finishes saying this, like it's not kind of a creepy subject.

"I'm kind of immortal too!" And a well-placed fluttering of her wings places her next to Nathan.

"Sorry you died, though."

What the hell? No, really, what the hell. These alien kids are mental. Nathan's watches the girl, bemused by her cheery demeanor on the subject of death and corpse-eating. It's actually kind refreshing. Is that weird? Ugh, that's probably weird.

"Course you are," he sighs. "I'm beginning to think we've got more immortals than regular people!" Once upon a time, that was a special superpower and he was one of a kind. Then New Moore happened.

Nathan gives his back one final pop before walking off, motioning vaguely for her to follow. No use in hanging around a graveyard. "I don't care about dying anymore," he says lightly. "C'mon, you're immortal, surely you get that."

Aradia skips after him, sparing the grave a last glance.

"I guess--" Aradia starts, suddenly lost on how to talk about this with someone who's a little like her, but not exactly. "I guess that is one way of looking at it it! Sometimes I joke about it too, but I don't think I ever want to die again, you know!"

She neglects to tell him that for her, in the right circumstances, it can stick. Maybe she'll bring it up later.

Someone knocks on the side of the coffin. "Please be quiet," a whispered voice with a foreign accent says. "You'll spoil the illusion."

Tamaki is, of course, in his own coffin, dressed in dark and elegant satins and wearing high-quality fake vampire fangs and a top hat. Once their guests arrive, this cosplay will have the perfect sort of forbidden allure that this party calls for!

The jeans and hoodie he was buried in are suddenly replaced with an elaborate red and black tuxedo. Is that a cravat? Jesus fucking Christ. This is actually more unforgivable than being buried alive!

"It's a shit illusion anyway," Nathan barks, pounding on the coffin once more for good measure. "Who in their right mind throws a vampire party?"

"Anyone seduced by the dark romance of the night's stately and sinister immortals, of course!" It shouldn't be possible to throw as much cheer and enthusiasm into that sentence as Tamaki does, but even muffled through the sides of two coffins, it's unmistakeable.

However, a moment later there's the creaking noise of a coffin lid opening, and footsteps, followed by a surprised noise as Tamaki discovers that the latch to Nathan's coffin had somehow become locked, the rattling noises as he fiddles it open -- and then, finally, light, as the coffin is opened to reveal Tamaki's suavely composed face peering down at him in some concern.

"Is everything all right, Nathan-kun?"

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YOU BURIED ME ALIVE, YOU DICKS

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