IC Inbox

[lastdecember]

This is the after hours contact for Nicholas Wolfwood, Logistics. If this is an emergency, stop wasting everyone's time and page me.

Comments

[lastdecember]

[ Goddammit!

...He has a friend. Saverem is his friend. Does that mean he's Saveren's friend too?

How the fuck do you be a friend?! ]

You're a real asshole, you know that?

[ And then, sent immediately after: ]

Tell me what you dreamed. All of it, every detail.

[plantussy]

[ If Vash snickers at that comment in Engineering, that's just for him and Sheryl to know. ]

I'm okay with that.

[ There's a pause. ]

Okay. Just let me think.

I was on some kind of ship, but it was sailing on sand rather than water. It looked old and had a lot of mishmashed pieces. Kind of like the fringe hovercrafts, only the size of a building. Things must have broken around us, maybe from a fight, and I got the feeling that the ship had lost control.

[lastdecember]

Being stuck on a crashing ship sure sounds like a lousy premonition. I vote that the only part of all that to turn out real is me being pale and skinny.

[plantussy]

not that skinny, just
younger, I guess?

[ Alley cat, Vash thinks to himself. ]

anyway
we're arguing
this Wolfwood says we have no time, that he's going to make the ship self-destruct
there are so many people on it, though
thousands
so I ask what about them?

[ Sigh. ]

And you say we don't have time for that

[lastdecember]

[ DO NOT ever call him that! He will piss on everything you love and give you fleas, motherfucker. ]

Hey, I'm a lot of things but suicidal isn't one of them. This dream guy doesn't sound like me at all.

[plantussy]

[ Pspspsps ]

it's because we're heading for a city
and his orphanage is there
the thing he wants to protect more than anything

and I tell him I will find way to save both
and he says that if I can't kill anyone I can't save anyone

[lastdecember]

[ You dreamed a version of me who owned an orphanage? he wants to ask, but that last line stops him cold.

So maybe Dream Guy sounds a little like him after all. ]

Then what happened?

[plantussy]

[ It takes quite a while for Vash to write the rest, trying to go through everything as thoroughly as possible. ]

We argue more I tell you there is a way
I don't know what that way is, but I seem confident in the dream
maybe desperate
but dream Wolfwood shoves me away and says that we'll do it my way
just once
because he owes me

but if the orphanage is destroyed
he'll hurt me so bad that i wish I was dead before he kills me
and I can see the pain in his eyes
the fear, and how he uses the anger as a shield

I say 'Wolfwood' and he tells me to shut up
that he's the punisher
Nicholas the punisher

I don't know if that's a title or what he does, but it ends there
but the whole time, that Wolfwood's suit is full of bullet holes and blood
like he's taken a dead man's jacket
but somehow I know it's his

[lastdecember]

[ The more Saverem talks, the more Wolfwood's sure this was just a dream. Maybe they'll crash land in a desert ocean and prove him wrong, but this dream Wolfwood wanted to protect some innocents. He was willing to kill for that, willing to die for that, and from what he's hearing, the Wolfwood in Saverem's dream might have already been dead. Spooky shit.

Maybe he dreamed about strange eyes and then woke up with strange eyes, but this dream? This is just Saverem's unconscious mind going back over all the things that have happened in the past couple months. There's nothing prophetic here. ]

You should have been a writer. You tell a good story. This one sounds like it could be a ghost story don't you think? Maybe they stop the ship and then it turns out that this punisher guy died years ago and his ghost haunts the place keeping it safe.

[ There's nothing prophetic here, but there's something about that phrase, Nicholas the punisher, that he really doesn't like. It feels wrong to say, like it really is going to summon an old ghost. ]

[plantussy]

It was so real, though.
so real

[ Sigh. ]

but it does really sound like a ghost story now that you say it

I was just really worried

[lastdecember]

You're stuck on a ship in the middle of nowhere with a skeleton crew and some jerk who tried to kill the captain. It's not surprising that kind of stuff is messing with your dreams. It's getting to me too you know? I'm dreaming about bad stuff too, but it's just dreams. And I know before you say it, yeah, the thing with your eyes was weird. But that was something some overly emotional space whale did to you and I'm sorry about that, but that thing is gone now so nothing like that should happen again. You'll be okay.

[plantussy]

[ There's a long pause at that. ]

if you really believe all that, then why are you avoiding me?
killing your friend was just a dream, after all

[lastdecember]

[ What the...? Stop fucking perceiving him, dammit! ]

You don't know anything about me sunshine.

[plantussy]

[ How can Wolfwood be both an open book and hella confusing at the same time? It's impressive. ]

maybe not. But I want to

[lastdecember]

I'll remind you you said that.

[plantussy]

coffee later?

[lastdecember]

17h09m now fuck off

[plantussy]

Okay! 🍩

[lastdecember]

[ He wasn't going to respond. That was the perfect closer to this conversation, he was not going to say anything more, but he has to ask! He has to know! ]

Is that supposed to be a rusty washer?

[plantussy]

WHAT
no it's a DONUT

🍩🍩🍩

[ How dare you, sir! ]

[lastdecember]

Oh.

[ A donut?! ]

So it means something like 'donut forget about getting coffee'?

[plantussy]

You know what, NOW it does.

[ It's perfect and Wolfwood thought of a pun! ]

You've forever changed the meaning of it for me. Before, it just used be cute, but now
a sign of our friendship!

[ Does joking travel well over text? ]

🐺🍩

[lastdecember]

That's not what it meant before? Then what did it mean before?! Those stupid little pictures always mean something so what was it!

[plantussy]

It means


I like donuts
That's all.

[lastdecember]

You don't make any kind of sense at all sometimes!