savingthrows | Inbox for ximilia

[It's 2 in the morning, or whatever equivalent the station has — the time most people try to get some shut-eye, anyway. Newt had been someone in that very same situation himself, pleasantly dreaming of home and friends he hasn't seen in years, just before the skies turned dark and his nose had began to gush blood —

Only he had woken up to no blood. No dark skies, no chittering precursor voices. But it's enough to startle him to his feet and out the door; he forgets his glasses as he goes — not for the first time — and ends up pacing the halls and chewing his thumbnail like a paranoid freak.

It's where he very nearly runs right into Eleven, and he looks at her blurry outline anxiously.]

What're you doing up right now, kid? You should be getting some sleep...!

[He says it fast and breathlessly, maybe even with exasperated irritation, like someone who is just trying to get her out of there so he can self-destruct in peace. But there's no peace to be had, and as he paces even still, he rubs his own arms and tries to settle the choking fear of a million beady black eyes on him.]

[ She's nearly drowning in an oversized shirt that she clearly intended to wear to bed. But truth be told she never quite got there. She does something at night sometimes that she knows she's not supposed to do.

Eleven spies.

It's not always. It's not even every night. But sometimes, when the shadows creep in, when closing her eyes brings monsters or labcoats into her mind, she stays up instead. Ties cloth over her eyes and looks in on the people she likes. Sometimes, she just goes and sits in the sunlight room.

Tonight, she saw someone she's grown to like wake from a nightmare. It's not coincidence that Newt very nearly runs into her. But he doesn't need to know that. Instead, Eleven softly says: ]

I do what I want.

[ Because that much is true, always. And after watching him fidget and rub his own arms, Eleven eventually holds out her hand. ]

Sunlight. We can sit. You can tell me.

[Maybe someone else would see Eleven has a young kid who shouldn't be tasked with listening to an adult man's issues. Maybe they'd want to shield her from scary concepts and turn to adults who are more 'capable' of understanding. But Newt spent his younger years constantly warring with adults in his field, forgoing teenaged normalcy with finding a place of respect among peers who were old enough to drive and drink.

Besides, she's literally smashed apart giant brain aliens with her mind.

So he doesn't tell her to go away, go back to bed.

Frankly, he doesn't want to be alone. So he slips his blurry hand in hers. It's sweaty and shaky as he clasps back. Sitting down and trying to school the panic that is trying to overtake him sounds good, honestly.]

Okay. That's — Okay. I could use a little sunlight.

[ She can be a confusing duality, utterly childlike one moment, and then surprisingly mature and insightful the next. And her damage means there are things she understands on a very baseline level in ways many adults sometimes struggle to give voice to.

So she's quiet as she leads Newt to the Sunlight Room, but squeezes his hand every now and then. She doesn't know about paper bags and all that. But she knows hurt, and thinking there's a monster in your head.

In the sunlight room, she leads him to a cozy spot under a tree with low hanging branches, the simulation so realistic that Eleven almost believes they're outside. She still has no concept of how it works - to her it's like Kali's powers. To see something that's not really there, and feeling like it's real. ]

Here. It's nice.

[ And then without any sort of preamble: ]

I get nightmares, too.

[It is nice. It's a hell of a lot nicer than the place the precursors used to keep him in while he dreamt, or the room he would wake up in that felt suffocating. He sits next to her with his knees pulled up and his hands beside him, anxiously picking at the grass. There's a nervousness in the way he glances around with blurred vision, as if a rabbit who had narrowly escaped a hawk's claws and still surveys the scene for a second attempt.

So, not the most graceful he's ever looked. It'd be comical if it wasn't so sad.]

Y-yeah.

I got them a lot, before. And I couldn't remember them. Most of the time.

I'd just wake up scared, but not knowing why. Just knowing something was wrong.

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action; sometime in the night! | cw: anxiety/panic attack-like symptoms

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