Drabble+: Nightmare

[strangetomato]

There's nothing quite like breaking your own rules, is there? I'm contrary like that, so actually coming out and saying I'm not going to post much will obviously make me want to write something. So here it is... a drabble+.

Prompt: A character wakes from a nightmare in the middle of the night to the person they least want to see at that moment.
Characters: Tank Grunt (and others, but you'll have to read it to see)
Wordcount: 400
Warnings: language, violence




Then Johnny stopped moving. Tank held his neck in his hands, and Johnny looked back at him with lifeless eyes.

He was dead, and Tank had killed him.

Finally.

Goddamned alien piece of shit.

But why did he feel so empty?

Oh, god. He had killed him.

"Johnny... Johnny?!" Tank shook him. "Shit... I didn't mean it. Wake up, you asshole!"

Frantically, he tried to revive him, but it was too late.

Then Ripp was there, wailing. He fell onto the corpse in despair. "Johnny! You've killed him. You've killed my Johnny!"

"Stop it!" Tank yelled, "Stop crying!"

"You killed him. My brother... you killed my brother."

"I'M your brother."

Why, Ripp? Why him? Why not me?

"I hate you."

Had he said the words, or had Ripp?

Then he was choking him, pressing Ripp to the floor, and feeling the life go out of him too.

Why not me?

He was killing him.

He wanted to stop, but couldn't.

He tried to break out of it, but couldn't.

He tried to scream, but nothing came out.

"Tank?" Frances was on him, shaking him. "TANK!"

Tank still couldn't move or say anything. He couldn't even catch his breath. He could see the room around him, and Frances reaching down at him, but he couldn't move. Frances had his hands reaching out towards his neck, and he thought he must be trying to kill him too. He tried to yell, "Get the fuck off of me!" but nothing came out.

"Tank?! What's wrong with you? Stop it! Wake up! You're scaring me." Frances felt his panic rising, and the next thing he knew, he had slapped Tank squarely across the face. "WAKE UP!"

Tank woke up.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Tank wanted to escape, to shove Frances aside and get out of there, but he felt a strange comfort in having him there too.

He didn't want to be comforted.

He didn't need it.

How much of that had Frances been able to witness? Had he cried out in his sleep? Dreams were blurring into reality, and he didn't want Frances to see that... to see what he had done. He didn't want Frances on his bed either.

"You... hit me."

"I'm sorry." Frances bit his quivering lip, and tried not to cry, but the panic and relief were too much for him.

"God... don't cry."



 

Comments

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

He's actually not THAT different. My Frances is still a snob and a worrywart, since I didn't change his personality. I'm having too much fun writing him and Guy that Part 1 of chapter 3 has become basically all about them! (Shameless promotion because I'm an attention whore and you know it: as seen in this drabble. :P)

Okay, I totally will. Maybe not this week though, because the secrets get posted tomorrow. I have to prepare for another craft fair that snuck up on me and I'm trying to sell something new anyway.

Oh, so me to make it an actual secret? Damn that's going to be hard since my love for Frances is as clear as this icon.

[xel-squirgle-ox.livejournal.com]

So YOU WANT me. Wow what is wrong with me and the typos today? And why do I have to be so obsessive that I have to correct my grammar in another comment?

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

I can totally understand the whole interaction draining thing. Your posts now get like 230834809 comments and I can't even imagine how tiring it must be for you, especially since you tend to be pretty thorough in your responses. It's great to get to hear what you're thinking, but I understand that after the first thousand and some comments it starts to kind of drag.

(probably i'm not helping by leaving such big ass comments. if you feel the need to reply to me but are overwhelmed by the length just leave me: "LONG COMMENT TOO TIRED JOHNNY ROCKS AREN'T JRO SWEET? END." i feel like that is basically covering everything my comments touch upon)

It did feel extra charged!

I love that possessive side of Ripp. How when he has something he really OWNS it. It's probably not a good thing, because it'll really feel like losing a part of himself if that something would ever leave/die.

I've never actually killed someone in a dream. And the only dream I can remember being killed in, it was by someone I didn't know at all. I don't think I have the right amount of intensity inside of me.

Oooo now I want to see Tank cry at some point! Unlikely, sure, but it could happen - not like a Ripp-sob where he breaks down in the bathroom, but something involving punching walls and hot tears.

[ikichi.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I'm not even sure why I put them together. I know part of it was that I was pissed at Johnny and the matchmaker causing a generation's worth of @sspain for me. I wanted to play with Tank and I guess I was trying to keep Johnny distracted (it only sort of worked. :\). If I were to stick him Padres, I wouldn't pair him with Johnny. Simantics set a great stage for them, but it'd be hard to make it work.

As bad as I am with being too-indulgent, I can't expect everyone's life to end up puppies and sunshine. Actually, a comic I read for years ended that way (for all but 1 character) and it felt so fake it really put me off (especially since it felt so damn rushed).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I know. *snicker* I seem to suck at hiatusing. If I wanted to actually take a break, I should have said I'd post every day. I just have to make a liar out of myself. The minute I acknowledge my lack of focus/interest, it comes back. It's always the way... (That, and I suspect I might be crazy.)

Yeah, it's an idea. I'm mostly just picking away at a number of different chapters and sections now, so I can't see any of them getting finished soon, but you never know. If a do a few more drabbles, and I could be bursting with inspiration.

Thanks. I have the same regret. I still think that killing him was the right thing to do (especially from Olive's side of the story), but I wish I could have done more with him. Now that you've mentioned it, I'm feeling like I'll slip a little flashback to when he met Lyla or something. It would be interesting to think about what he would have been like as a young, single guy.

Then there's his ghost, who just started haunting Nervous (Buzz was in an urn in a secret room, and not the cemetery, so he wasn't moved). That's one angry ghost. His anger thought cloud alternates between one of the dogs (who snarl in his direction), Tank, and the family sim icon (which is a little odd). His ghost will make an appearance in the story at some point.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the can't stay away thing. I keep telling myself I won't play games while at work and the next thing I know, I'm getting my Chuzzle on (and cake mania--man, I love that shit).

I don't know that offing Buzz is something to be regretted. It flowed nicely with the story (and helped to springboard the story of his kids--who are the real focus of the whole thing).

As for flashbacks and such, how sensitive IS Nervous? If Buzz's ghost is hauting him, perhaps Nervous could be your gateway to get some Buzz flashbacks going. He could be tuned in to Buzz's festering anger and see Buzz's memories or something like that. That way the flashbacks wouldn't come out of left field (and could actually give some forward momentum to the story). (just a random thought)

OR, you could indulge your Buzz flashbacks through drabbles and things like that. I like using drabbles and extra/bonus stuff to show some of the "off screen" things going on with more minor characters.

[sadieg79.livejournal.com]

LOL Have you seen/read Stephen King's Tommyknockers? Where the resident writer has this machine hooked up to her typewriter, and it writes out her ideas while she sleeps? That'd be an awesome tool for us, wouldn't it? ;) Just leave the computer on, plug in some kind of dongle that receives telepathic thought, and we're all set! :D

Piece of advice: never work with a group of young muses. I've started calling it Single Parent Syndrome, 'cause sometimes it feels like I'm the mum telling them all to be quiet now and then to give me some peace...

belated reply is belated

[tanathir.livejournal.com]

I'm not a Stephen King fan so I avoid his stuff, but I can imagine the general premise.

LOL I imagine my Muse as looking like Hugo Weaving, which is distracting in itself because Agent Smith = HOT as well as SCARY.

[hannahspring.livejournal.com]

OK, this was first scary but the "oh please don't cry" sentence made my laugh very hard! LOL