xp_logs | Mini-log: Erosion (Nathan, on Friday)

It hadn't felt like waking up. When you woke up you were supposed to be able to open your eyes and be back in your waking life. The world was supposed to feel right around you, right and solid. Not like tissue paper that could be torn by too harsh a breath.

The room was still going in and out of focus, even now. He had stopped trying to pretend he was asleep, because having his eyes closed made it worse. In the dark, the world around him, this world, faded even further and all that was left was the other.

It was like an ocean, that other world, Nathan thought dimly, the image coming to him. Waves made of memories that swept over him--gently, for now, sending ghostly fragments flickering through his mind, thoughts and emotions that eroded his own away, slowly and inexorably, as if they were sand giving way beneath the water. But he knew that if he let them, the waves would drag him back out to sea and he would be lost. And even if he didn't let them, there would be more storms, he knew, with waves that would shatter him, rather than simply beckon.

He had been so stupid, he thought desolately. To have let himself begin to believe, even for a moment, that it was over.

Moira was in the room, somewhere close, but all of the worry and pain and fear on the link seemed so distant. He wanted to tell her... something, anything to reassure her, but the lie wouldn't come. He knew he needed to fight, to hold onto the link and use it to pull himself back like the lifeline it was, but he couldn't summon up the strength.

#~Little brother,~# the ocean whispered to him, in Her voice. #~Do you see now, little brother? Do you understand?~#

"~Go away,~" he murmured aloud in the same language, his voice a broken whisper. He heard Moira stir, but she was so far away that he didn't feel it when she reached out for him. "~Leave me alone...~"

#~We need you,~# she persisted. #~We need you to see us.~# A sigh, like the wind, and then the sky that wasn't really there over the ocean that wasn't really an ocean started to darken. #~What is, is, Nathan. We will all do what we must. And you are ours, whether you would have it so or not.~#

The waves were growing stronger, their pull harder to resist. A soft, shattered laugh slipped out before he could stop it, and Nathan buried his face in the pillow, trembling as if he really was standing on that cold shore, waiting for the storm.