The Dark Team (part 9)
Warnings: trauma struggles.
Disclaimer: I have no idea who this pic is from, I found it around. If you know whose it is, please tag them!
It’s normal to have nightmares the night after you go through something like that.
It’s also normal to have dreamt with the one that saved you. That took you out of the hands of Death and embraced you with soft-spoken words, reassuring you it’d be fine, leaving no room for you to even think you wouldn’t come out of that.
It’s normal your brain had created fictional scenarios, but, what was your subconscious trying to tell you? So ambiguous, so… out of every context you could’ve possibly provided from your real life experiences. What was that place? Who was that bearded man who shouted incessantly at Loki?
You couldn’t figure out where you were, but in the dream you seemed to know exactly where to be and where not to. People dressed like the Norse Gods you already knew had you cuffed with chains too strong for you to even fight it. And, from a corner of that huge place full of gold and marble details you couldn’t stop to appreciate, you observed cautiously the discussion.
It didn’t seem so much like an argument, for Loki wasn’t allowed to talk back. He still said all the words he couldn’t speak through his magnificent talent of face expressions. The bearded man mentioned a dungeon and Loki resisted being taken away. He fought, but got even more restrained. The bearded man’s gaze finally laid on you, ordering someone to execute you.
Screams, you weren’t sure if yours or someone else’s. Maybe Loki’s.
“You have a choice”, echoed in your head. Whose voice was it? You don’t know. What did you choose? You were now somewhere else. A tinier place, not less bright than the previous one.
You reached for a hand and the hand wrapped around your eyes, blinding you from something. Or protecting you. Or…
“Don’t leave me”, it was your voice, this time. “I’m begging you, don’t leave me”, you cried. But there was nothing there. Only darkness, an empty room, and the reminiscence of an apology. “If you do this now, I’ll never forgive you”.
“How would you know”, said the darkness. Was it the darkness? Why did the shadows have a voice?
“Execute them”, the bearded man’s voice resonated in your head once again. The balcony, heights. Yelling. Yours. Loki’s. You were falling again, and Loki wasn’t there to catch you. The bearded man laughed obnoxiously at you while you cried. Debilitating you. Making your heart beat fast enough to wake you in a cold sweat, shivering, trembling.
You stabilized yourself, looking around to ground you. Blankets covering your fully dressed body; how uncomfortable to sleep in your suit, but how necessary. By one of your sides, Loki slept soundly in his bed. Bucky, sitting on the floor, tried to figure out something about his smartphone to pass time faster.
“Yes”, you lied with a hoarse voice. “I’m good”.
“Nightmare?”. You shrugged your shoulders and he sat on the feet of the bed. “You know, this phone doesn’t make me feel very smart”. You chuckled, still incapable of taking those images out of your head. Now fogged, you could only remember the traces of intense emotions they drew all over your chest. Your breathing was still irregular, difficult to align. “Wanna talk about it?”.
“Too strange to even explain it”, you breathed out. “Felt so real, as if I could’ve reached the marble patterns of the walls and remember the sensation in the tips of my fingers”.
“I don’t know, I’ve never been there”.
“Yes, I would remember. It was too much”.
You knew Bucky wanted to say what he always said; trauma deletes memories. But that implied such context… you wouldn’t be able to forget it all. Hell, there was Loki, and you just met the man. Bucky swallowed his words, knowing they would only get denial from you. This had happened so many times, he knew exactly what to say and what not to say. It wasn’t the first time either you had intense nightmares, so real and so surreal at the same time. They were impossible. But so imaginative, so creative for your mind to have created that alone. It defied the limits of your own imagination.
“I don’t want to go back to sleep”, you said to Bucky as your eyes closed and your sleepy head wanted to drift off to another land, another dream, another nightmare. “I don’t want to go back there”, you repeated, and Bucky patted your shoulder, saying things you weren’t capable of comprehending anymore.
Your head heard you, and the next few hours your dreams were nothing you could fear from. You didn’t even remember it once you awoke again. The curtains were half opened, but no lights from the outside bathed the room. Only the moonlight. It wasn’t silent. The soft rain picked in the balcony, and the door was half open. The tall silhouette of Loki held a phone to his ear, and Bucky slept on the other bed. They must’ve changed positions while you slept. Still half asleep, you eavesdropped his conversation.
“Gør þú svá vel”, he pleaded. You understood his words, or so you thought. Please, he had asked. He heard the long words on the other side of the line, and he insisted “gørvel, Þórr”; please, Thor.
You pretended to be still asleep, but it had caught your attention too much to ignore it. Was that your sleep-deprived brain making up a translation? You were certain you didn’t speak Old Norse. And what was Loki begging Thor about? This all was so onyric, you almost laughed to yourself.
Even though you were sure you were still either dreaming, or so sleepy you made up the meanings of those foreing words so softly spoken by the God; you couldn’t put your focus away. Thor seemed to be explaining carefully something Loki had predicted, and didn’t look like he would put on much more of a fight to get it done.
You managed to distinct Thor’s words from the very light sound the phone allowed you to, and he apologized with a “fyrirgef mik” and a trace of regretfulness.
“Allt er gott”, it’s alright, he accepted, sighing. Thor, on the other side of the line, excused himself for whatever reason he couldn’t do what Loki had asked him to. “Góða nótt, bróðir. Sof þú vel”, he ended the call. Good night, brother. Sleep well.
