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Date Posted: 01:57:02 03/17/02 Sun
Author: Tristan
Subject: Wake up, sleepyhead
In reply to: Ravin 's message, "Java and plans" on 10:38:10 03/15/02 Fri

Tristan was dreaming again. It wasn’t bad enough to be considered a nightmare, though it made him frown and grit his teeth in his sleep. But what made it all the worse was that it was one of those dreams where he could actually tell he was dreaming, but couldn’t do anything about it. The sort of dream where you find yourself shouting, “Wake up, it’s only a dream!” and then waiting around for a few seconds, only to find that nothing has changed. You’re still dreaming.

It was brief and stupid, and didn’t make any sense at all. He was standing outside somewhere in the desert, surrounded by a group of people he didn’t know. They were walking around and around him, laughing and sneering and pointing at something on his shirt. That’s when he looked down and realized the arrow was still protruding from his left shoulder. Suddenly, the wound burned as though newly injured, even though he was pretty sure Val had pulled the weapon out before he’d fallen asleep.

The people kept circling him, and he had to strain his ears to realize they were shouting at him to pull the arrow out. They were all laughing because they thought he couldn’t do it. He narrowed his eyes and clamped his hand around the shaft, squeezing his eyes shut on reflex. Before he could stop himself, he pulled, feeling the arrow sliding out of his flesh as his lips curled back against his teeth and he screamed.

He opened his eyes, still breathing hard. His right fist was currently shoved against his left shoulder where the wound was—and he had rolled over in his sleep, putting all the pressure on his injured side.

“Ohh, shit,” he groaned, shifting slowly until he was lying on his back. Most of those scratches were scabbed over and relatively painless, but he thought that the shoulder wound might have reopened in his sleep. Served him right for having such silly dreams anyway. One day, he’d get over that complex of his, and stop imagining that everyone was always picking on him for some reason or other.

After a while, he finally sat up, carefully swinging his legs over the side of the bed as he did so. When he put a bit of weight on his injured leg he smiled tentatively; it scarcely hurt at all. The only thing that bothered him was his shoulder, so he guessed he wouldn’t be swinging his sword around much for a while.

He looked around the room, the frown returning to his face when he realized that he was alone. Where was Marz? He tried to shrug away his disappointment at his not being close by, his eyes settling on their pack instead, which was lying on a nearby table. Immediately, he decided a change of clothing was in order, and since it didn’t make since to put clean clothes on a dirty, bloodied up body, he guessed he ought to take a bath first, too.

Grabbing the pack on his way out, he made his way to the hot spring just a few yards away from the door, baring only a slight trace of a limp. He glanced around, his brow furrowing at the several sets of weapons and clothing lying scattered about the edges of the pool. He recognized Marz’s sword and boots the moment he saw them, but decided not to think about their owner’s whereabouts just yet.

Again, he glanced around, feeling slightly nervous. The closest houses and giant stalagmites blocked his view of most of the cavern, but it looked as if the coast was clear. He couldn’t spot a single soul in sight. He chewed on his lip for a few seconds before suddenly moving to undress with unusual speed. Within minutes, his clothes had been kicked aside and he was in the pool, the warm waters already working magic on his aching shoulder.

He leaned his head back against a rock and closed his eyes, only to have them snap open again. He blinked dazedly, realizing he’d fallen asleep, and tried to figure out what had stirred him. Sounds of a skirmish of some sort could be heard, coming from the far side of the cavern out of his immediate view. He ignored it, feeling slightly guilty as he sank even deeper, until the top of the water lapped against his chin. Look at me, he convinced himself, I’m useless. I couldn’t fight a street thug right now.

When his muscles had finally begun to relax enough for the pain to lessen, he figured it was time to get out and get dressed. After quickly washing himself with a bar of soap and shampooing his hair, he turned around in the water, grabbing for the nearby pack he shared with Marz and dumping the contents out on the stone floor. After picking out a black pair of pants and shirt that had been neatly folded, he stuffed the remainder of the clothing back into the pack.

This time, he wasn’t so skittish as he crawled out of the water and began pulling his clothes on. Obviously, no one was here to see him, so he could take his time and maybe not cause himself more pain by accidentally stretching some of his scabs and bruises. Once his swordbelt was finally buckled on, he shouldered the pack, gathered up Marz’s belongings, and set about to look for him, since this seemed like a reasonable thing to do. After all, it was only natural to be concerned about the one you loved, and to worry about him when you didn’t know where he was. At least that’s what he told himself. It had nothing to do with his dependent desire to be around him at all times, no matter what.

Carefully, he put his ear against the closed doors of several of the houses, listening for snores and signs of sleeping bodies. None of the occupied buildings held Marz, though, which was a little disturbing. The signs of the skirmish began to die down, so Tristan started to scout out the uninhabited parts of the cavern as well. He wrinkled his nose when he spotted some of the others standing around some recently dead spider bodies, careful to keep his distance.

He passed a couple crevices and small caves in the wall, finally stopping when his nose caught a familiar scent. Smiling happily, he ducked inside, his eyes widening at the sight of a nearly naked Marz curled up on the floor, sound asleep. Tristan swallowed, feeling his body temperature rise slightly as he knelt beside him, tracing a finger down his bare back. Since he was in no condition to follow up the intense feelings that were beginning to burn within him, he pushed his desire aside and shook Marz awake, smiling again when his lover’s dark eyes finally opened to stare up at him.

“What are you doing sleeping in here?” he asked, tilting his head curiously. “If you were tired, you could have come and slept next to me. And here,” he dug through the pack and handed him his clothes, “I brought your stuff. Why are you sleeping in your underwear, anyway?”

He had to admit he was completely baffled over Marz’s behavior, and hoped his lover hadn’t gone ill in the head while he’d been out. Also, when he thought about it, he was actually a little hurt that Marz had chosen to fall asleep here instead of with him, in the little spider house. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have had that horrible dream if he’d had Marz to hold on to and cuddle up with while he slept. That was a horribly sentimental thing to think, but he couldn’t help thinking it, anyway. Hell, he was too shy to say stuff like that aloud, so he might as well say it to himself. And sometimes to Marz, if he were just feeling plain uninhibited, which, he realized, was happening more and more these days, whether he approved of it or not.

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