Sleep:
A short Dresden Files fan fiction based on what I think Bob experiences when he's sent back into his skull. From The Dresden files TV series. Characters belong to the Scifi channel and Jim Butcher.
I'm experimenting with perspectives. I think I'm going to write this one in first person perspective from Bob's point of view. It's my first Dresden Files fan fiction from anything other than third person perspective but I'm feeling sympathetic right now.
Setting: Just before Things that go bump. I know around this point of the show Harry stopped sending Bob to his skull (at least in front of the audience) but it was the first scene I could think of.
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Sleep:
Harry was insulted. He did not like that I had mocked him about his yoga practice. It wasn't that I think yoga is silly... I just think that HE looks silly when he's doing it. Harry is not the type to match the proper stance of someone practicing a form of bodily contortionist art for bettering one self's well being in mind, body and spirit. Oh, yes, he knows how to perform Yoga but Harry is a very modern, very Western man. To put it bluntly he does not look right when doing it. And how could he really blame me for mocking him? Every few months he deems himself 'out of shape' and attempts to make of himself more fit in mind and body. And of course I take pride in the fact that he makes the effort but alas it never lasts. All he needs is for something like a bit of string to distract him for a few moments and suddenly he'll have forgotten all about wanting to improve himself all together.
So I might have made a sarcastic jibe or two. He returned the favour. Was it really necessary to send me back to my skull for it? Must he be so petty?
I don't think Harry ever
fully appreciates how unpleasant a sensation that is, to be sent back
into my skull. He never asks. I doubt he would really want to know
anyway. I won't tell him unless he asks me and he has never asked me.
It's my experience and mine alone. When the command is given and it's
made clear in the annunciation and wording that it is in fact a
command from my... master I feel a sensation. It doesn't start off
painful. It's more like a tug.
The manacle bracelets around my
wrists (that have been there for far too long) seem to become
heavier. The physically manifestation of my binding. And there's a
tug. There's no other word to describe it. It's like the slack
invisible chains that bind me to my skull suddenly become taut. It's
not really at my wrists. It just seems that way when I take human
form. Believe me, if I was in my more essential form- the light Harry
sees when I emerge from my skull in front of him- I could feel it
through my whole being but since I was in the illusion of life I felt
the sensation in what would be my wrists. That's where it begins,
where the manacles hold me...
The longer I resist the more the sensation changes. I can't say it actually hurts per say, not by the classic definition of pain but it does become more... intense. It leaves my wrists, or rather it expands from there and it encompasses me, this compulsion and need to comply. It pulls my entire being in a way that shatters all sense of will. It's as if this energy, somewhat electrical comes through me. It's not cold. It's not hot. It's a pressure. And it creates a discomfort where it's hard to focus on anything other than the command. It's hard not to flinch.
There
are two sides to why I won't let Harry see me flinch in response to
the sensation of being compelled to obey. A part of me doesn't want
Harry to see me flinch. One part remembers the boy I tutored and how
innocent he was as he looked up at me with those large eyes, unaware
of his uncle's dark plans for him and the secrets that I kept. I know
that boy. I know his pity. I know his mercy. I don't like being
pitied. It's humiliating.
The other part sees the man Harry grew
into, the man who still looks on me with resentment for the secrets I
held from him as the boy I remember. The man who torments himself for
having killed his uncle with black magick. I've come to know that man
as well as I knew the boy he used to be. There's a darkness within
him, dim but present, like a shadow casting itself over a flame, a
flame that refused to go out. A flame I secretly envy Harry for being
able to maintain. Sometimes I underestimated that shadow within him.
Sometimes I over estimate it. But there is no denying that it's
there. He can feel it as surely as I can. And a part of him still has
not forgiven me for keeping Justin's secret, for being Justin's pawn,
for helping his enemy and for my knowledge of black magick. Does
Harry know I'm the one who taught Justin the Thaumaturgy he used in
killing his father? He must know. Deep down inside he must be aware
of where the knowledge Justin used came from just as surely as he
knows Justin had a copy of my first Grimiore in his collection. But
he must also know why I taught him how to defend himself against that
magick. He must know...
But I digress. It's this resentfulness,
this bitter contempt in Harry that is the second reason I won't let
him see me flinch from the command. I don't know what would be
worse... to see pity in Harry's eyes or to see him indifferent to it.
I am not entirely sure which is more unbearable; the humiliation of
being pitied after having once been an all-powerful sorcerer humbled
to this pathetic state of perpetual servitude or to know that a
fragile, delicate and important part of Harry had been so damaged-
and I had a hand in that- that he could potentially feel nothing
about it or worse yet, take delight in it. I mustn't let myself
resist long enough to cause the pressure to increase enough to cause
me to seem to flinch as my illusion of life reflects my true
feelings. I won't let him see how much discomfort... how much pain it
can cause me.
Now then...
After I relinquish my hold on my guise of humanity I recede into my more natural-unnatural state. I am aware. I have no eyes. I have no ears. I have no hands and I have no face to show my feeling but I am aware. I see through all angles though it is not what you would call sight. I am aware of every noise and movement and every object and it's texture and substance, it's colour and form. I am aware. There's comfort and torment in this: I am aware. I am weightless. I am always a little frightened in this form. There's a sense, for me, of being helpless, of being somehow nothing. I choose to not remain in this state for very long when I am given the choice. I will myself to move. I tell myself to go forward (or is it backward?) and I do. I will myself, with a little help of that pulling of invisible force of my unseen chains , toward the skull. My own skull.
I feel myself falling, I plunge down
into it. A painful spasm as all that I am seems to rumble, to
convulse painfully for a moment into that constricted space. I'm not
inside the skull. I AM the skull. I merge with it. The light engulfs
the skull from the inside out. I am that light. I feel myself
descending into the very bone. The eye sockets, where my eyes should
be I feel myself most of all behind that. The teeth that can't part
to form words- there are no lips, no tongue, no muscle, no saliva- I
feel that too or I am aware of it actually. I take shape within it,
molding myself within the skull, all through it, the physical and
hollow of it.
My awareness dims. It becomes hard to focus. I
can't think clearly. This is sleep for me. This is as close as I get
to sleep. It's not pleasant though. Especially when I want to stay
'awake'. It's hard to think. It's hard to string thoughts together
unless Harry calls to me while I'm here, then I could find my voice
and manifest as light inside the skull and think clearly but right
now I cannot. I can be compelled to clear thoughts and focus but the
natural state of being for me in here is to be in a haze. It's so
hard to focus. Sounds and vision are dim. I am looking through the
eye sockets, just barely aware. If I focus, if I try very hard I can
'see' or rather I know what's directly in front of the skull as if I
still retained my own natural eyes and they weren't long, long gone.
I can't call this vision.
It's a struggle to retain
consciousness. I feel like I might slip into oblivion, which though
impossible still frightens me somewhat. It's sort of like when you're
laying in your bed early in the morning and someone might be talking
in the next room. You're vaguely aware of it but you don't care. You
want to care but you can't bring yourself to care. It's hard to
concentrate on what you're hearing, to link to words together and
remember the meanings to what is being said no matter the tone of the
conversation. You struggle to hear because it might be important but
you're still half in dream so your mind blurs fantasy with reality
and everything becomes distorted by thought and dreaming and you're
helplessly between dream and reality, neither here nor there.
It's
not a dream for me. It's a void. A vast empty void in which all I
have are my own thoughts, memories and most private dreams. A cold
dark space of my own creation within my own soul. It's better here
usually, deep down inside, than the half-consciousness of struggling
for coherency within the skull 'surface'. I am still 'hearing' dimly.
Defenses... Something about defenses. I heard a voice talking about defenses. Or was that my own thoughts? I don't care. I was thinking about an old spell I invented. Something to do with thunder and... did I ever finish that spell? I can't remember from within the skull. It's so hard to keep the thoughts together. So difficult. The words are suddenly clear enough to break the haze. 'Are your defenses up?' That's Morgan's voice! I know that deep timbre anywhere. I will myself to 'wake up.' Gathering myself to focus. How long was I gone? Hours? Moments? It's so disorientating. It is like sleep but it's not.
I gather myself, my components. I push myself up and
out. I rise from the skull. I know what I am. I'm like a flame
surrounded in smoking black, bits of sparks of me stretch out and
spread. I am aware and I know what's in front of me and around me and
it feels so good to be out of there! I'm pushed from the eye sockets
but a little of me is always behind, not just chains that hold me
there. I feel like a projection of myself. Coming out of the eyes. I
see.
I concentrate. I need to take form. What form though? Well,
that's easy. My own form just contemporized. Shorten the hair to a
modern style. And the clothes... clothes of this sort never existed
in my lifetime but it's fashionable and it's a style that's been
fashionable for years and will remain fashionable for years. An
ageless suit of fine material and style. Dark, that's like the
clothes of my time, the colour. I liked clothes of good materials
that were black. The suit isn't entirely black. The vest is a dark
cranberry. And the illusion of handkerchief is gold. It needed a
splash of colour. The jacket is pinstriped black with dark gray thin
stripes running vertically, I'm an expert at detail to maintain my
illusion. The trousers are black. The shoes are black and polished
leather, or at least that's how they look. My eyes, I will to appear
gray. I know my own face, my own skin pigment. Those are constant no
matter what century. Me. Me through eternity. The fashion and hair
cut change but the essential look is easy, it remains the same and
now, as I'm used to doing it, only takes a few seconds to manifest.
It's the change of suit and keeping my manifestation rapid that
requires skill. And I have skill at it. I do everything, even now,
with style.
The rings on my ever nibble and eager fingers are the
rings I had in life. Dark, heavy stones that I had been accustomed to
wearing in life. I can't feel their weight now, they're not real. I
can trick myself into thinking I feel them and then I feel more
alive. They're not real though. In fact the only thing I can feel are
the things I try to be discrete about. The manacle bracelets around
my wrists. I feel these these as a weight on my very being. A weight
that now seemed to manifest at my wrists, slight but present. The
sigils on them are the spokes of the third pentacle of Saturn, much
like the very one carved within the skull to compel me and to bind me
among several other sigils and runes of many lands with similar
purposes in holding me captive for all eternity. I try to keep these
manacle bracelets, hidden. They can be seen just slightly under the
suit cuff that I created. They hold me with invisible chains that I
can feel as a constant presence holding me to the skull as if they
were real chains.
Once I am certain my form is solid and can pass for a real person (it makes me feel real) I relax. I have summoned my awareness to at least 'seem' like my life's senses, holding my whole being in this form. Morgan is in the other room. The fogginess of being inside the skull is gone now.
I walk to the
wall and pass through it. I'm in another plane of being, neither here
nor there, bound to the physical world (via my skull) but not of it.
The wall is not really there for me. I'm in a dimension of my own
personal Hell. I'm used to this. I'm detached. I pass through the
wall though I'd rather pass through an open door likes a real person
(but I can't turn the door knob, much to my own frustration). I speak
before I'm fully on the other side. 'Harry, I thought I heard...' Oh,
I don't like that look on his face! Murphy! What is she doing here
and with Morgan and other wardens and... Oh, dear.
I stepped back
quickly, back into the lab. I stand alone in the lab, still aware of
what's going on out there and 'eavesdropping'. Did everything just
get dark all of a sudden?