undergrounds | Mr. Sandman

6 Feb.

It's February, still cold but Valentine's Day just around the corner and people starting to think of spring, it might not be surprising that romance seems to be in the air. Hard to pin down just what the difference is—but romance seems to be nagging at a lot of minds.

It might be because last night, you had a dream. Nothing clear, but bits and pieces stick with you. Maybe it was just stolen glances and light kisses, or maybe it was flashes and surprising jolts of something more physical, more raw. Either way, the dream doesn't quite fade away when daylight comes.

The strangest part? It's about someone you normally try not to think of that way.

Dreams are like that though, sometimes. It's probably nothing.

10 Feb.

A few days later, and the dreams keep on keeping on. For at least one person, it's every night. For others, it may be more intermittent. It may be just happening for the first time, after a visit to the Redbright Institute or passing through the surrounding neighbor, or after chatting with a particular vampire. It might happen spontaneously. Either way the dreams keep coming, and they continue to be about someone in particular, someone who you've been denying or ignoring your attraction to, but it's getting hard to pretend you don't feel a little warmer when you think about them.

It's starting to seem like there's something a little weird going on here. Even weirder? There's a chance that the person you're dreaming about is having the same dreams. Not just romantic dreams—the exact same shared dreams.

At least, they are if they're dreaming of you too.

14 Feb.

It's been a week now, and the dreams keep escalating. Not only do they become more frequent, they're more vivid. What started with disjointed images and feelings, more impressions than anything else, have evolved into full narratives—ranging from chastely romantic nonsense, imagining that the object of your desire is a knight coming to rescue you from a dragon, or arrived to offer comfort and support in a bleak moment, to intensely erotic. Some of them may be down right silly.

But the common thread is there. They are all about the same person, and they all expose the fact that you care about them in a way that's not as platonic as you've pretended.

And maybe it's about time you confronted that?

On the other hand, maybe you're just riding this out.

Either way, this is getting sorted out tonight. There's not going to be a better time for it

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"No, not at all." Joss says distractedly, turning off the TV. He can resume the wholesale slaughter of aliens (admittedly a poor substitute for the real life violence he's been denied in the era of Jean-Claude's dukedom) later. It's not as if he hasn't played this level before.

He pulls out the chess set Natasha had bought him for his birthday the month before. "White or black?" he asks, beginning to set up the pieces.

"Let's say black," Natasha says, raising her brows. Letting him lead gives him the advantage of setting the tone of their game, but it will also better allow her to get a sense of his playing style—to see how he opens a game, given the choice.

While in some ways this visit is a distraction for herself, that doesn't mean she's not actually interested. Joscelin has had centuries to develop his strategy, likely remembers styles of play Natasha has rarely been exposed to. She's looking forward to what she might be able to learn from the challenge.

If Natasha is hoping to learn new strategies from Joscelin, she may be disappointed. His first move is hardly revelatory--a cautious pawn scouting the field. Nothing to indicate any surprising gambit in store.

But the game's only just started.

"I suppose I ought to have offered you some refreshment," he says in an almost apologetic way. "I'll even be nice and not offer blood. I'm sure I've a bottle of champagne left over from the party last month."

Why does he keep thinking about those dreams? Part of him wants to keep her close, to please her. Part of him wants to see her smile.

Too early to say where this will go, but Natasha notes it, considers her moves, considers all of the potential moves beyond that—and responds cautiously herself. It's probing more than anything, watching him while she keeps the gambits to herself for later.

"That's kind of you to offer. Is it really the occasion for champagne, though?"

"Probably not," Joss admits. He claims the first casualty of the game--one of Natasha's pawns--but leaves his knight curiously open to attack. Did he mean to do it that way?

"I believe I also have half a case of beer and some Coca-Cola in the fridge, if memory serves."

Natasha pauses as she considers the opening. Is it intentional? She has to believe it is, and it's early yet. Hard to say what he might have planned. She can imagine a few courses of action—but none of them too compelling.

She stands, taking another moment to consider her options. She takes his move very seriously, and doesn't intend to rush her countermove. "I won't say no to a beer," she tells him, accepting the hospitality. "Should I grab anything for you?"

Joss stares at the board, seeing the opening he's left. What a silly mistake to have made. It's early in the game yet and he's got centuries more experience than his opponent, but he can't feel that there's something different this time. His head feels curiously cloudy.

"No, nothing for me," he says, still staring at the board.

She comes back with a bottle a moment later, sitting across from him; she's decided she'll go after the knight. Natasha isn't deeply invested in winning. She is, however, interested in seeing what Joscelin has planned.

Taking a sip and the white piece, she watches him expectantly. "Let me know if you change your mind."

Edited 2017-02-20 01:56 (UTC)

The knight is sacrificed, and Joss can't fault Natasha for taking that move. He can even pretend that he planned it that way, since chess is all about strategy and skill and knowing when to give up pieces for the greater good. In retaliation, his bishop advances the board, taking out her rook.

Which was also a stupid move to make, though it frees his queen to move. He glares at the board. This is rapidly shaping up to be the worst game of chess he's played in at least two hundred years.

"I'm fine," he snaps.

A pause before Natasha says, "All right."

There's no anger in her tone, and she's not exactly taken aback, but his sudden snappishness does more than his second mistake to let her know this might not be what she expected. Still, it's early to assume he's losing on purpose. He's sacrificed on knight and left his bishop more or less useless in the corner, provided she doesn't move into its line of attack.

She moves a pawn, taking a cautious move. If he isn't faking, she'll have the opportunity later on to make up the space on the long game. But on the short, it's a less obvious push.

Joscelin continues to play, with fewer major mistakes, though his early missteps keep coming back to haunt him. He just. Can't. Focus. He keeps thinking about those damn dreams like some sort of idiot adolescent child discovering a first crush.

Then, an hour into their game, he makes the greatest mistake of all.

"Check," he says smugly, moving in for the kill. But in doing so, he has left his king wide open and handed Natasha the game. He doesn't give her the satisfaction of calling the move; he simply knocks his own king over and storms into the kitchen.

That game didn't go as expected. Natasha sits a moment longer, letting Joscelin have a moment of privacy for his frustration while she does the math on the game. Her postmortem reveals Joscelin isn't as good at chess as his enthusiasm and age would have suggested. No real shame in that. She'd assumed too.

He was always a bit tetchy. Considering his personality, it follows that he'd take the lose poorly.

Well.

A short moment later, she stands and takes her beer to follow Joss into the kitchen. "Everything okay?"

"Peachy keen," Joscelin replies sarcastically. It was a fluke. It had to have been. He sighs and straightens

"But I shall be as magnanimous in defeat as in victory. Did you want to play again, or can I get you another drink?"

"I'm game for a rematch if you are." Natasha has a new strategy in mind for this one. Perhaps it's not entirely fair, but she came here expecting to play a centuries old strategist, but while Joscelin might have experience, he's just as impulsive and childish in other ways as ever.

"But we don't have to rush into it. I'm still working on this beer."

Mr. Sandman

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