capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO:

sdrawkcabcigam
WHERE: Zatanna's house. Ish.
WHEN: June 20th, late at night.
WARNINGS: TBA. Idk.
SUMMARY: Arthur's worried about Zee and she is... frustrated and going to bed. Naturally, he decides to invade her dreams. :|
FORMAT: Whatever you feel like!

The last thing that Zatanna had needed was a heart-to-heart. Or, maybe, it was the first. It was one of those things she might say that didn't want but deep down did. No one else had asked how she was holding up. No one else asked about Lassiter. It was like he hadn't even existed. In some ways, it was easier. She was coping fairly well with him leaving. In reality, the problem was more that everyone else kept leaving. Or avoiding her. Or... whatever.

It was all of it together that had left her feeling as she did and the only person that had even bothered to ask her about it was the last person she had expected to. He'd been calm and patient and part of her had really wanted to talk with him about it, but... as always, she held herself back. Like the problems would just dissolve if she ignored them long enough. It never did, though.

The conversation that they'd had ended up leaving her feeling emotionally and physically drained. She couldn't even wrap her head around how she might feel if she'd discussed her life with him. Going to bed early felt like it was the only option to shake that feeling off -- you know, that one where you feel like your stomach is impossibly tight and it spreads to your chest and to your eyes, where an invisible pressure remains until you cry.

She'd changed into her pajamas and had half a cup of tea before climbing the stairs to her room, leaving the door cracked just a little before making her way to her bed and collapsing on it. Within a short while, Zatanna was asleep and dreaming.

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Arthur doesn't like to worry about people. It's not that it's an unknown emotion - after all he had spent two years worrying endlessly about the Cobbs, both living and dead, but it's something uncomfortable. Worry implies that there's nothing he can do, and Arthur is, if nothing, a doer. So while this may be a terrible idea, he does it anyway.

In his hotel room in London, he gets comfortable in a chair; lucid dreaming happens in chairs, not in beds, in beds he doesn't dream at all. He pockets his totem and rubs the track marks on the inside of his wrist - old scars, hidden by a watch, but the signal to his body is familiar and warm. Time to go under. Time to dream.

He finds Zatanna's dream quickly enough, and watches for a moment, taking time to walk through the streets of a city he's never seen before. Where is Zatanna, here? Is she in an apartment? The dreamer appears wherever the subject is, usually, and he adjusts his tie with secure fingers and begins to look for her.

The main area of her room is somewhat small; nothing special. Beyond her canopy bed is a walk-in closet and a rather large bathroom, but it is otherwise fairly empty, save a nightstand mostly littered with books. In her dream she isn't asleep, just sitting. Staring.

It usually takes a moment to be aware of her dreams, when she chooses to be. And in those, she often dreams of sleep or sorts out her thoughts. She chooses not to remember the next day, as well.

Still, other times she uses it to confront the worst and the best of her past. More often than not, it's people. People who are all beginning to look the same in her dreams, blurs with only the vaguest differences. A year is a long time to be in another dimension. It's just enough time to forget the deep-set wrinkles under Doctor Occult's eyes and the way his lips curl into disapproving frowns so naturally. It's enough time to forget David calling her name, forcing her out of the way. It's enough time to think her cousin's eye color is blue -- no green, no brown? It's enough time to feel even more lonesome than she did back home.

So she sits, a leg hanging over the side of her bed, arm draped across her stomach as her subconscious mind begins to unfold in stories that she sees from a distance, as an observer. Passive and trapped, without a choice in how it ends.

Arthur considers, builds, skyscrapes, does things that come so naturally they're like breathing. When he's in a dream he is at peace, in a manner, although the rush of it is something he's addicted to. He finally finds her, because he knows how to use paradox - how to open doors that lead to other doors, how to climb a staircase down.

He doesn't make himself known right away. Instead he waits in the door, watching the room; it's quiet, lonely. There's a lack of projections, like Zatanna doesn't know how to let her subconscious keep her company. Is that the case, then?

Is she that lonely? The idea is like falling into limbo.

But then the stories come, and he knows then that she's the most dangerous kind of dreamer - lucid, like him, like Cobb or Eames or...Mal.

She reminds him, in a brittle, fragile way, of Mal. Not because she is weak, but because she hides her fears behind layers of person that need to be peeled away. He steps carefully towards her, now. "Zatanna."

With the ability to control the way one's dreams go, some might expect her dreams to be more than they are. Her dreams are memories, playing over and over again like a broken record. Very rarely does she indulge in the sorts of fantasy that will leave her smiling as she wakes. Furthermore, those are the ones she doesn't control. Those are the times that she's powerless and the next day she is left with little more than a warm feeling that quickly fades.

Zatanna often dreams of John, perhaps more than anyone else. It's hard to say how much of it is choice or subconscious or, if in some strange way the strength of his personality is able to push all the others somewhere off into the shadows. Sometimes it's a memory, sometimes he just says what she needs to hear. Never what she wants to hear, though.

When Arthur speaks, the memory is barely in focus, barely beside her to tell her about Baron Winters when it disappears in a cloud of smoke, leaving only a replica of her room and her behind. It isn't that much different than usual in some ways.

Though she has heard his voice, it takes Zatanna a moment to realize it isn't an echo from beyond the dream. She holds on tightly and molds her perception to how she sees fit and she acknowledges him, nodding her head before becoming more than just a mannequin in the room, fingers plucking on the straps of her silk nightshirt. "I didn't know you could walk dreams." By all means, her tone should be annoyed. It isn't, however.

He shrugs, as if that motion explains away everything. He doesn't like to lie, but he can, effortlessly, completely. He chooses, however, not to. "Are you sure I'm dreamwalking, or are you just dreaming of me because we talked for a long time today?" The question is stubbornly difficult, much like she considers Arthur, but he's actually not as complex as she makes him out to be.

He looks out into where the memory was, and sits next to her on the bed. "We should go for a walk."

She doesn't really need an explanation. She knows that he can now. "I'm sure you entered my dream, not that I pulled you here." It is an interesting question, though. Perhaps part of her own feelings had pulled him here, but it was his choice and his choice alone to accept and feel that pull.

In the blink of an eye, she's dressed. Ready to go. Almost too compliant. Maybe it was being in a dream, maybe it was the fact he was putting in effort where no one else did even while she was awake. "To where?" She'd been all over, seen a million cities (about half of which were from hotel rooms, but she still had a rather large amount to pick from for the backdrop).

He loops his arm in hers - touch, touch, he's never touched her before. Arthur doesn't touch many people, he's a cold kind of man, touch is reserved for moments of reassurance.

He takes her to the door and opens it, and like a blossom, the world unfolds in front of them. This is dreaming at it's riskiest, but Arthur loves this risk, the challenges of mazes and labyrinths created by pure inspiration, no methodical mapping, no architect to tell him yes or no. He's addicted to this rush of creativity.

It's Venice, then. Arthur doesn't like the real Venice very much - it smells, there are tourists everywhere, the canals make the city unbearable - but the dream one is pretty enough, empty, mostly. "Is this good enough?"

Zatanna is a sentimental sort of woman, but she hadn't noticed that he was less of a touchy-feely person than she was. Zatanna was the type to touch someone as she spoke to them, hand against a bicep or hip to hip. She gestured a lot, hands explaining how she felt just as much as her tone of voice.

Without a thought, she gives his arm a squeeze. She doesn't expect him to take charge in her space and though whatever world he comes from is surely very different from her own, that sort of thing could be risky. It was like a magical battlefield, beyond sky and earth. What he used could be science or a meta ability. It didn't matter, though. She didn't feel as if she was being violated. It wasn't an attack.

Zatanna takes a moment to take in the landscape he's so expertly crafted (she hadn't brought her into her dream, she's sure of that now). It isn't an exact likeness, but she gets the feeling he wants it that way. It's like a postcard, just the sort of place you want to visit. Perfect. "More than, yes," she pulls him along at a slow pace, "Any reason you chose Venice?" Or whatever it may have been called in his world.

He considers lying to her, but dismisses that. He wants her to trust him, because in a lot of ways, she reminds him of Cobb - less self-loathing, but equally destructive, in their own ways.

He hopes for an instant that her boyfriend isn't lurking around the corner waiting to shoot him in the kneecap.

"Once, between jobs," he says, softly, the lights of Venice during the day slowly dimming, "I came to Venice, because I had never been. It was a couple of years ago, I was still a young man, I suppose," there is almost the tone of a joke there, he certainly sounds like he's having fun, "and I thought there might be something romantic there." He looks around and pauses, then, leaning to look out onto the canal from the bridge, his arm still entwined with hers. "I was dating, at the time," he adds, "and it was hard on her, because my work took me from place to place. She called me while I was in Venice, and she told me that she had put my things in storage."

He laughs - it's a rare sound, but it makes him seem younger, pleasant. "I thought I was upset, so I went there, to that bridge," he points, "and I stood there for an hour, got a sunburn, and did all the things you're supposed to do when you get dumped. Swore I would never love again, vowed to hate Venice, promised that I would never be so stupid." He looks down at the water. "I guess it helped that I thought it stank a bit and it was summer, so no one would leave me alone."

He pauses and looks at her. "There are a lot of cities in the world but not many of them mean anything to me. I've only told one other person that." There are words he doesn't say. I chose Venice because I don't know how to get you to open up, and I opened up here. I chose Venice because everyone grieves, and this is how I do it. I chose Venice because this is how I connect.

She listens without saying a word. For all she teases, she's completely respectful to him right now. There are few things she appreciates more than honesty, even if she'd never asked for this particular truth.

There is a moment where it clicks in place better than it had anytime before now. Zatanna understands that this is his way of relating to her and of showing that he does trust her. That he isn't here out of boredom or to make sure her mind doesn't wander from work. It's his own special brand of concern.

Her feet move on their own. In this dream, she's connected to him, what he wants to do. Following him is easy because she wants to. She wants to offer some sort of comfort to him, something other than an anecdote of her own. She has so many of them. A hundred or more cases of heartache and of loss.

"I... appreciate this," she's careful in her choice of words, so careful that it might even come off as being insincere at first. "It's my turn, isn't it." Not a question. "I'm not sure where to start. It's one thing after another."

She knows the beginning is where she needs to go to explain her misfortune, but it's more difficult than she thought it would be. While she searches for more to say, she takes her free arm and uses it to lean against the bridge. The other, still connected to Arthur, pulls him closer.

In dreams this is easier, for Arthur; easier to be softer, even when he's working. Even with someone who infuriates him like Eames, it's easier, simply because this is a dream, and sometimes even the most lucid dreamer is caught unawares by the lowered barrier between the conscious and unconscious. And when he's not working, the difference is even larger.

When she pulls him close, he moves his arms, disentangles for a moment before one arm goes around her waist. It's not romantic, even though a passerby (if such a thing were possible) might think so. This is comfort on a level that Arthur can offer, accommodate.

"Just start at the biggest piece." Not at the beginning. So many stories don't really start at the beginning.

She doesn't misconstrue his action. To her, it's just an offer of kindness. Another way of conveying his concern.

"In my world," she begins, certain that this is the place she should be at, "Magic comes with a price. Some people become ill, but most trade in luck or happiness. It seems fair or... maybe even a dangerous trade, but it would happen whether you use it or not. Most of us suffer in the area of our social lives." It couldn't be all blamed on the curse of magic, on what has been a part of her since birth.

She doesn't explain about how it works for others anymore, about their own special brand of curse. She goes straight for her own. "Everyone I love is dead." Not entirely true. Zachary was alive and most of her magical comrades were alive, but none of them were particularly close to her.

He considers that, for a moment. Arthur has lost a lot of people - friends, mostly, some family, but he can't say that everyone he knows is dead. He can't imagine that world, because even though he hasn't seen the people he loves in such a long time, he can rest assured knowing they're alive.

"That's your price? To lose everyone you love?" It seems steep, and harsh, and cruel, but Arthur doesn't know the extent of Zatanna's power, he doesn't know how she can make thought into reality with words spoken backward.

"Maybe. Maybe it's coincidence. My father died for my sake -- took a spell meant for me," she never told more than that about his death, "My mother died so I wouldn't have to suffer in her place. Guys I date that aren't trying to get me to conjure up yachts or use my celebrity die or worse." Worse like what David had to suffer through, worse like what Terry had was forced into. "Last guy I dated was burnt alive, back home. After that, another..." David. She hated herself more and more each day for leaving him in Hell, alive. It didn't matter if it was at his behest. She should have gone charging back there by now, saved him. What about Bruce? Though he hadn't died per se, shortly after she had been sort of involved with him, he'd been lost. Almost directly following an illusion where they had been married.

It was all too coincidental.

"Here, people keep leaving. I know that's unavoidable, but somehow I never expected to be alone in a big house with just myself and a cat all over again." Just like home. "Well, myself, a cat, my only surviving ex, and a girl who is just crashing there until she finds a new place." Thinking about it, John was perhaps, quite literally, the only person she'd been involved with at great length that was still alive. And it was still as complicated between them as ever. "I can't say if it's a price, coincidence, or bad luck of some sort. I just always end up alone."

He pulls her closer. It's like listening to Cobb all over again, except damaged differently, damaged in ways that Arthur doesn't know how to repair. Arthur isn't good at this, but he's trying, because he knows he can't back out now, not after hearing this.

"And that's where things stand now," he says, "with you alone, with only your manager, your ex, and Bond to keep you company." Jesus Christ, no wonder she was eating mountains of cake and taking Bond to the beach. Anything to distract from that. He doesn't say anything, though. He just stays close, as if this physical proximity that isn't will help. "I don't really believe in fate, you know."

I don't think you'll always be alone.

She allows herself to be moved like she's a stuffed toy or a pillow, something small and fragile and just there.

"There are other people," as she was sure that he knew, "I keep most people at arm's length." She speak with people, hang out with them, whatever. But they were still not anyone she'd allow to hold her or listen to her cry. She wouldn't approach them and tell them of her feelings. "There is always someone, even if it is just casual. But lately it just... it's hit me. Bad." That overwhelming feeling of being so completely and utterly useless. Of not having someone there to reach out to, even if it's just a hand to hold in silence. There was Bruce and Ted and hell, she could even go to John if she really needed to, but she didn't want sympathy. They would offer it and then disappear, too.

"Can't say I believe in fate, either." She cracks a bit of a smile. This was mostly out of the way, wasn't it? She'd said what she needed to. "...when you get back we should go to Venice. The real one. Fill it with good memories." It's the least he deserved for putting up with all of her crap, right?

He takes a moment and listens to her, and nods. He doesn't want to ruin the moment, even though he knows the smile is only partially real. Eames would have wiped it off her face. Cobb would have...been oblivious to her pain. But Arthur doesn't ignore it or focus on it. Instead he listens, and when she stops speaking, he tells her, "You don't have to talk to me. You just have to know it's possible."

He looks around for a second, and the sunlight glimmer off the water. "Next time I go to Venice for real, you can come with me. Although since I don't take vacations, it might not be as fun."

He sure had gone through a lot of trouble to let her know just of mere possibility. He was a good manager and maybe even better a friend. She hadn't known him very long, but that was irrelevant. There were people in the Justice League back home who she'd known for years and they'd never spoken to her at great length, let alone offered to come get her from Vegas or wherever she was even when there was no cost of doing so other than their time.

"Guess I better conveniently need to be there for business, then." She'd redefine what vacation meant. Or turn it into an order.

Arthur's idea of fun usually involves a long research process and breaking into someone's mind. No one would guess it, with how serious he is, but that's the truth.

"I could always arrange a show there," he says. "I don't have any contacts there but that can be easily remedied. What do you think of a stint during carnival? You'd be very popular."

It's an easier guess than... say, he secretly likes to go to Coney Island alone and ride the carousel. That would probably be the last one she'd assume, as lovely of a picture as it may paint in her mind.

"You could," she replies a little too quickly, not even giving it a second thought. "I've always enjoyed carnivals, you know. So long as I needn't share the stage or change the costume, I'm game for most anything." Her father used to do sorts of mini-circuses. The one-man army of Vaudeville revival, picking up those who couldn't seem to find a place in the modern world any longer. If Zatanna didn't loathe puppets so, she might have followed in his footsteps in that regard.

It's an odd thought - Arthur on the carousel, possibly because he hasn't mounted one since he was five years old. He doesn't even really remember being on it.

He looks at her from the corner of his eye for a minute. "I thought you might," he finally says, "it seems like something that you would enjoy," he adds, a smile ghosting on his face for a moment.

The sun is setting in this dream, touching the edge of the water even though in the real Venice the world doesn't quite work this way.

"I'm surprisingly predictable, aren't I?" It doesn't seem to bother her, being a predictable woman of the mystic arts. So long as she's able to keep that air of mystery up in battle.

Turning so her back is against the guard rail, slouching. Her smile is as wide as usual again, which is hopefully a pretty good sign that his job here has been done. She allows a comfortable silence to grow between them just long enough to acknowledge it before speaking again. "I'm glad I met you."

He smiles, almost - a tender moment from Arthur, who is normally not tender at all. "I'll remember you said that, you know," he tells her.

Although he would rather no one know that he can enter dreams, he'll let this go. He won't mention this dream unless she brings it up, because it seems so self-contained, special in a way. It reminds him of when he dreamshared with Mal. Lovely, and quiet, and almost peaceful.

"I didn't think you'd bother if this would all be forgotten tomorrow." She didn't peg him as the sentimental sort, but sometimes people indulged. Hard to say, but she still firmly believed that he probably wouldn't have bothered coming here, like this, if he didn't want recollection of what happened. If it was a different sort of conversation, maybe...

There wasn't much of a reason to bring it up, aside from the plans they'd just made. "Anyway, shouldn't you be going? I'm not certain how much time has passed, but it must be at least morning now in London." It wasn't rushed and she appeared content, so it wasn't about being rid of him.

He shakes his head. "I wouldn't forget it."

Suddenly, as if anticipating her works, the sweet lull of Edith Piaf soaks the dream. "You're right, I think that's my cue to go." He gives her one last smile, soft. "I'll see you on Thursday, all right? Dinner."

He opens his eyes, then, and turns to turn off his radio. He's a little stiff, just like he always is when he dreams lucidly, so he stretches and rubs his eyes before he looks around at the hotel room and gets up to get ready for his day.

There's not much time to adjust, to respond. She barely gets in a "Yes," before he fades out of her dream, leaving her alone in the landscape of his creation.

It all melts away into reality as she jerks upright under her covers and wakes up in the house that used to be owned by Diana along with herself. Feeling a little cold, she pulls the blankets tighter around her frame and she considers going downstairs for a glass of water.

Zatanna had been tired earlier, but staying awake a few hours before catching up with sleep again couldn't hurt. After all, she had to figure out the perfect place to go for dinner.

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