and we could run away. [open]

[deuteranope]

WHO: Maverick Taylor and OPEN (mostly/semi).
WHAT: Maverick’s nightmares rear their ugly heads again. Time for late night stress relief.
WHEN: Night of February 20th (into the 21st) “officially”, but time is fake and nightmares happened on more than one night, so chase your bliss.
WHERE: Lumi3/outside and around.
NOTES: Smoking and swearing, as a Mav does.

( SKITTERING - closed to Imelda. )

[His feet are bare against the cold ice, and part of his brain tries to tell him that he should be slipping and splitting his head open, but there isn't time to argue because he needs to go, he needs to be faster, he needs --

crrrack.

He’s falling. The only one reaching out to him is the sharp-nailed, glowing creature he was running from in the first place...but arms still catch him. They're cold, probably from being so far beneath the ice in this dark pit, and dirty. He can't find where any of them stop being an arm, even as that one twitches with a crack and starts slithering over to him, crawling, nails scrabbling. He shouldn't open his mouth, but it's the only thing he can still move, as the cries for help rise up within him.

Maverick sits up with a yelp and an overwhelming feeling of nausea, like those fingers really had clawed their way down his throat and were stirring up his stomach, now. This room is -- weird. But it's his, still. Just the one at the academy. He’s here, and he'd yelled, but not for help, and he wasn't crying, and thank fucking god it had been years since he'd ever wet the bed from this shit. He doesn't know how much lower he can let himself sink. He runs his hand through his sleep-addled curls to try and stop it from shaking, but when that doesn't work immediately, he reaches for a pair of headphones coiled around the bedpost to clamp over his ears and -- ugh, fuck, where was his phone? He doesn't want to turn on the light… If anyone had woken up -- or was still fucking awake -- then he needed some kind of plausible deniability. Totally still fucking asleep…]

( SMOKESCREENS AND SNOWBALLS - open, around campus. )

[The fear had faded some, letting anger take its place. Adults weren't supposed to have nightmares, only little kids -- and yet there he was, eighteen years old, and waking up in the middle of the night scared out of his wits time and time again. All because of some fake bullshit his brain came up with! He needs...something real. And a goddamn smoke.

He’s already working on a second cigarette by the time he's settled into packing snow into something that is a maybe vaguely human-shaped lump? His movements are agitated and restless, punctuated now and again by a string of curses or a cloud of smoke intermingling with his breath, clear from the cold. He's gotta suck it up and build an army.

And then he's gotta take that army out with the metal bat resting on the ground beside him.]

( SORRY NOT SUBTLE - open, Lumiére 3 common area. )

[Now that he’s worked out all that anxious energy… Okay, no, he still can't fucking sleep. But at least he can come back inside and curl up on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate. He’s swapped out his bat for his laptop, drooping eyes scanning the screen as he scrolls through various, brainless sites. Mav’s got music going, but with the low volume he's set it to, someone probably has to get pretty close to recognize one of many songs by The Cure. Soothing rock.

...there are literally a dozen packets of hot chocolate resting next to him. He probably has more than enough to share, during these lazy, godless hours.]

Comments

[suddenlybees]

[ You're a pal, Mav. Kano hooks his arms around the bars so he can rely on arm strength and not hand grip to keep him from slipping, and waits until he sees the top of Maverick's head exiting the building and swinging around below him.

...You know what would be mean? he thinks to himself. It'd be mean if he purposely lets out a shout, just loud enough to be heard from the ground and cause Maverick to look up, to see Kano hanging from the railing with one hand and legs kicking the air like he's about to fall.


Kano is mean so this is what he does. ]

[deuteranope]

[sigh

yep

this is just as he expected]

I don't know why I fucking bother, [he tells himself quietly, then cups his hands around his mouth.]

If you're not dying, I'm gonna fucking kill you, you stupid fucking maniac! If you are dying, do a fucking flip!

[buuuut there he goes, sprinting back inside and up the stairs. Gotta fucking save this asshole just in case.]

[suddenlybees]

How am I supposed to do a fucking—-!

[ But Maverick's gone inside already and maybe Kano doesn't want to make Maverick a murderer, so he sighs to himself and slides his arms out from where they'd been clamping himself to the bars so he can hang onto the railing with one hand. ]

[deuteranope]

[what sort of logic is this

Panting and a little flushed, but honestly more from being so agitated than the effort of hauling his ass all the way back up here, he reappears to assess how dire things currently are.

Ugh. He has to just set up this stupid wire for him, doesn't he? Unwisely, he wraps it around his arm for extra security in addition to attaching it to the railing, and with his other arm he reaches for Kano's wrist.]

All right. Come on, you fucking bipedal disaster. I swear to fucking god, I hate you so fucking much...

[suddenlybees]

[ There might have been a leap here and there in his thought process, but Maverick is here, so Kano's worries about splattering to the ground tonight abates to zero, reaching for the wire with his free hand and winding it twice around his wrist before letting go of the railing with the other so that the entirety of his body weight is at the mercy of the railing and Maverick's arm. ]

Oh~ I think it's holding... You did a much better job of it~! Watch that knot, alright? Lemme try to make it to the ground!!

[deuteranope]

[well at least he got told he did a good job tonight]

You're such a fucking shit.

[He is Mad about this, you hear him!!! But with a grumble and a lot more cussing, he'll comply, hesitantly releasing his grip on Kano and instead doubling down on holding the wire steady and secure.]

[suddenlybees]

I know, I know, and you're a saint~

[ For tonight, he is, putting up with all of this. Kano, for his part, lowers himself down inch by inch by unwinding and rewinding that wire around his wrist until he gets to his window. ...This is really slow...

The fire escape would work great for when there's a real fire and he needs to get to the ground, but in terms of climbing up? Just around twenty feet... ]

Alright, I think this is a good enough test run! Can you haul me back up now!!?

[deuteranope]

[ugh!!! also keep it down, they don't need Imelda up here.]

Just out of, I dunno, curiosity or some-fucking-thing... Do you think I'm built for lifting fuckheads up a fucking rope? Is that a thought this trim physique inspires in that pea-sized brain of yours? Dumbass?! Not even a fucking rope, but worse!

[Nevertheless, he braces one foot against the railing, using his stronger leg muscles to help him as he starts pulling the younger boy back up. The beasts of his nightmares won't be the death of him -- it will be Kano.]

[suddenlybees]

[ Maverick's loud and fighty just like Ellie is, and she could wrestle Kano to the ground even back when she was four and he was six, so he has all the confidence Maverick doesn't have in his strength and willpower not to let somebody fall to their deaths. ]

I have faith in you!!! The human body is capable of incredible feats when it comes to life and death, you know!?! You're doing a great job!! Keep it up!!!! Incredible!!!!!

[ He'll at least assist by not hanging there like dead weight, but bracing his feet against the side of the building and walking his way up as Maverick pulls him. ]

[deuteranope]

[That's different than pulling! He's never had to work his pulling muscles before. Kano not being useless does help, though, so it doesn't take as long as it might if it were a real life or death situation. This night is so fucking stressful.]

Some other fucking night, we'll add little fucking climbing holds in the walls.

[suddenlybees]

[ Now Maverick will be exhausted both physically and mentally and once the stress lifts he can crash and sleep for five days straight. Kano's justifying his actions in this way, glad to finally be back on the rooftop with his hands in his pockets and rubbing them against his thighs to get the warmth back into them. ]

Climbing holds... That'd probably work, wouldn't it? We can get a bunch of knives and stab them into the walls and use that to climb! Why wait until another night? You're not tired yet, right? I made you tea!

[ Surely there's some caffeine in the five tea bags he'd steeped into one cup. ]

[deuteranope]

[The secret about caffeine is that it takes a while to kick in.]

You made me something, but I wouldn't fucking call it tea.

[But he isn't sick yet! Good signs. He shakes out his own hands, inspects them, and sucks on the underside of a few of his fingers. Bleh.]

Go ahead and stab a wall and see where that fucking gets you.

[suddenlybees]

[ So Maverick will be dead tired but also wired in about half an hour... Sorry. ]

I don't have one on me! Lemme borrow yours?

[deuteranope]

Go fuck yourself.

[His knife!!!! He needs it, Kano is never getting it.]

[suddenlybees]

Not now. We'd really have to leave it for another day, huh? Disappointing~

[ Stretching his arms up above his head, he heads back to the stairwell to go back inside. He's pretty tuckered out too, he really should've just taken the chance to kick open his window and go back to his room when he was hanging out there. ]

Don't forget to brush your teeth before going to bed, 'kay~?

[deuteranope]

[That would have really annoyed Mav, so...small blessings, I guess.]

I already fucking brushed m -- [ughhh he drank that weird concoction... he probably should brush them again. He ruffles his hair through his hat with an annoyed groan.] Damn it...

[...]

Uh.

[...and that's it. Because he can't think of how to thank Kano for being so distracting, and he doesn't really want to.]

[suddenlybees]

"Uh"?

[ Kano catches that prompt and echoes it back before Maverick can pretend he didn't say anything. ]

Were you going to say something? Something liiiiikke... "Good night, Kano!! Sweet dreams~!!!"?

[ He doesn't expect a thanks either, but at least niceties! ]

[deuteranope]

[what a brat...the worst boy. Maverick shakes his head, but mostly it's to keep his small smile of tired amusement obscured. Which is silly, because his next step is to give a big smirk and pitch his voice sweetly.]

Good night, cricket! Sweet dreams~!

[suddenlybees]

[ That makes Kano laugh— the fact that Maverick can do the tilde voice too, that he can do it without looking absolutely disgusted with himself the way Michael did when he had to copy Kano's sing-song way of speaking. ]

Night night, Mav~!!