xp_logs | Amadeus and Quentin

xp-rockme.livejournal.com posting in

Another nightmare for Quentin, and the discovery of where they're actually coming from, finally pushes him to the breaking point.

He was back in the nightmare. It was cold and smelled medicinal, and the floor was damp under his bare feet. The medical equipment surrounded him and glowed green, looking radioactive in the dim light. He was in a huge room, and plastic sheeting divided it into small sections, with wicked-looked examination chairs in the middle of each. Tables full of sharp medical instruments littered the rest of the area, and there was a persistent sound of beeping, like a heart monitor.

There were voices, coming from inside the other cordoned off areas, he could see blurred figures moving around him. He recoiled and hid behind the chair, as the voices suddenly ceased and there came the sound of footsteps.

A hooded figure approached slowly, he was all in white, and barefoot, and the closer he got the more terrified he became. He fell backwards and scooted away, knocking over a table of instruments before getting up and running. But he pushed away the plastic sheeting only to be confronted by the hooded figure. One look in his eyes, and a memory sparked white hot against his skull. A needle going through the ocular cavity.

He tried to shout, to cry out for help, but no sound came out. He could not breathe, could not move. The world went dark and the only sound was of the retreating footsteps on cold stone floor.

When Quentin woke, he was lying face-down on the carpeted floor of the room he shared with Amadeus. There was a small wet spot, from drool or sweat or tears, he could not tell. His legs were caught in his twisted blanket, which he angrily kicked off before stumbling back to his feet and sat back down on his bed to catch his breath again.

This time he wasn't greeted with a zoned out roommate. Amadeus was also awake, having kicked off all of his sheets while in the throes of a nightmare. He sat on his bed, head in hands, trying to calm his breathing. Flashes of it still fired in his brain, the needle and the hooded figured...

He shuddered.

The same images lingered in Quentin's mind no matter his attempts to dispel them. So he reached under his bed for some chemical assistance, but grunted angrily when all he came up with was a couple of empty bottles of gin. Fuck.

"The fuck's with you?" he rasped when he finally noticed that he was not the only conscious person in the room.

"Nightmare," Amadeus said, feeling himself bristle at Quentin's tone. At first it was fun to mess with his roommate, but unfortunately living with him was like living in a toxic waste dump, he was ok on the outside, but he was being slowly poisoned on the inside. Not much flapped the ever-unflappable Amadeus, but Quentin had crawled under his skin, and he'd been tempted more than once to start experimenting with untraceable sedatives.

Quentin frowned. It was not improbable for two people to have sleep-killing nightmares on the same night. But at the same time, when one of them could read minds? He was half-tempted to see for himself what had Amadeus so spooked, until he remembered the kid's warning about the trap set in his brain. The direct approach it is, then.

"What about?"

"Just--" Amadeus scrubbed a hand over his face. "You know, standard nightmare things. Hospitals and needles and shit. Wait-- why do you care?"

The answer made Quentin pale, and the only sound in the room for a moment was his heart thumping loudly in his chest. "Needles . . . to the eye?"

There was a spark of pain in Amadeus's brain again, the same that always came with that particular memory trigger. "Ow," he slapped a hand over his left eye. "Yes," he snapped, he looked suspicious. "Were you in my head?"

"Not intentionally," Quentin insisted. That was going to become a regular part of his conversations now that his lessons were actually making progress. "Must've been a pretty fucking strong nightmare for you to send it my way."

"I've been having it since my incident," Amadeus said. "I can't remember what happened exactly, just pieces of it. Then my subconscious occasionally throws up." Medical equipment, the needles, a strong need to do something-- a stinging pain lanced through his head again. "Jesus," he hissed, and then doubled over, head in his hands.

Quentin stayed where he was, as if unable to move. He felt rough hands, much bigger than his own, pin him to place. "That . . . that actually happened?" he asked, eyes wide and breathing hard.

"I don't know," Amadeus said into his duvet, as the spasm of pain released him. "Maybe?"

Quentin ran down a large, dimly lit, concrete corridor . . . no, wait, a sat in a man's office . . . no, a dingy operation theater, strapped down to a gurney, struggling against the restraints as a needle slid into his arm . . . he understood, he made his choice . . .

He was back in the dorm room in Westchester, sitting on a twin-size bed in only black-and-red trunks, his body coated in sweat. That nightmare a month ago wasn't his, either. It belonged to Amadeus.

"Whatever it was, you brought it on yourself," he accused, standing up and going to his closet to retrieve one of the suitcases he kept there. "And I'm not sharing a room with some psycho who's passed his expiration date."

Amadeus's head snapped up. "And I'm done sharing a room with a pink-haired little brat. I'm sorry Mommy and Daddy didn't love you, but now I'm beginning to see why," he got to his feet, fists clenched, wearing an angry expression identical to Quentin's.

"Look, if I could trade places and have my parents get shot in the face instead, then I would. Use that big brain of your and build a time machine and you got it. Then we'll both be happy."

"You really are a pile of human garbage," Amadeus snarled. "Oh, poor widdle me! Nobody loves me! Somebody pay attention to me!" Amadeus mimicked a baby crying. "One of these days someone's going to throw you into a pit and dissect you, and no one will come to get you because it'll be what you deserve."

"If it's the choice between an ignoble death or living the rest of my life a walking zombie who covers up his emptiness and complete lack of purpose with a thin veneer of flippancy, then I'll choose the former. You know, never mind." Quentin set aside his suitcase and grabbed his phone, wallet, and a pair of pants from the floor. "I'll get my shit later."

"Whatever," Amadeus said to the slamming door. Then he sat back down on the bed and held his head like a burden.