sleeping beauty requires more than a kiss ((tag Clark))

[slayers_desire]

Trouble was coming. April's voices knew that... and the only way they could warn her in time to make things right was to take over her dreams.

At first, there is no immediate reaction in her slumbering body. But it won't take long for her to start to mumble in her sleep. Thrash slightly in reaction. Or tense up like something is happening... even though she is safe and sound in bed, beside her husband.

Comments

[kalel_ofkrypton]

Clark frowns in his sleep, and jolts awake when one of her thrashing movements hits him. It takes him a moment to realize what's going on, and he reaches out over the bond. April?

[slayers_desire]

You're bleeding... He gets an image of April standing in the kitchen, fussing of a dream Clark, who is bleeding.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

He frowns, and closes his eyes to better focus on the images she's broadcasting. Something which might make him more vulnerable to being pulled in himself... You're dreaming, April. I'm okay.

[slayers_desire]

Somethings wrong. Somethings is not right April can't escape the dream until she finds out the reason behind it.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

He's not sure what to do. This doesn't seem like a normal dream. And he only has one way of helping her with her dreams...

Clark isn't sure how to join her in her dream, and tries to project himself through the bond, like knocking on a door asking to be let in.

[slayers_desire]

He is granted access, and slips into the dream world. Replacing the dream Clark. April looks up to him, she knows that something is different.

"Dream you told me the VRA took away your powers."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

He looks at his fingertips, and the sensation of pain is just as realistic as he remembers from when he's been injured before. Clearly this is no ordinary dream. And willing it away doesn't work, though whether it's because this isn't his dream or because it's something different isn't clear to him.

"How could they do that?"

[slayers_desire]

"The strange part was that dream you wasn't being honest. Not really."

April glances around the dream kitchen. She finds a dream newspaper. "Look at the date. This is only a few days from now."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"None of this makes any sense." A dream set a few days into the future, a dream-him that lies to his wife (or at least withholds the truth)...

[slayers_desire]

Several whispers... soft and echoing... comes at them from all directions. Don't trust... they play... they take and they play.

Children children run while you can. Big Brother watches.

Silent silent in the night. The spider waits for the fly

April doesn't look surprised. "My voices. Those are my voices."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

He's heard her voices before, when she's shared them, though sometimes they haven't been this cryptic. "Do you know what they're trying to say?"

[slayers_desire]

"I think my voices are showing us a future. Trying to warn us of something. And its related to the VRA."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"Then we'd better find out what it is." Even though it's only a dream, he still has to actually take care of the cuts on his hands for them to stop bleeding. And as he does, he checks to see if there are any new marks on his skin to show what the VRA might've done to him to take his powers away. "I feel human... not like with blue kryptonite."

[slayers_desire]

10010101 0010110 10110110110 Her voices whisper again.

April blinks. "They have never used computer code before."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

Clark's just as confused. "Could whatever's blocking my powers be disrupting yours too?"

[slayers_desire]

"No I don't think so. I wouldn't have heard my voices in the first place if they were disrupted. I think it is a message."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"Why would they try to communicate in binary?" He doesn't know it, and he doubts she does either.

[slayers_desire]

"We will have to figure it out."

She is about to say something else, when a hazy image appears in the living room. It looks like Chloe plugging Dream Clark into a machine. Dream Chloe is saying 'Put him back under'.

"Did you just see that?"

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"That looked like Chloe... experimenting on me? That can't be right." Her voices have to be wrong. Chloe would never do that.

[slayers_desire]

"I think we should go to Watchtower. Or the Dream Watchtower."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

He nods, and reaches for his PINpoint. Which isn't there. "No superspeed and no PINpoint. I hope the truck is outside."

[slayers_desire]

"If not... this is a dream. My dream. We should be able to bend reality."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"At least you might be able to... I already tried. But this isn't my dream."

[slayers_desire]

April concentrated, and when she opened the door to the house, they were looking inside the Watchtower. "You were right."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"I guess I'm along for the ride..." It's disorienting, almost, but there's that same feeling that you get in a dream, when something unusual happens and you accept it as normal while you're asleep.