It's said that our dreams help us process and compartmentalize the evens that happen to us over the prior day. Some we remember, most we don't, and on the whole scientists still haven't been able to explain exactly why we dream, just that we do. So when the day Darcy has can only be defined as truly horrible (complete with a job that almost gets her punched in the face by an irate client, a fight with her mother about finding steadier employment as a result of the aforementioned incident, a broken strap on her heels, a lost Metro Card, and some creepy dude who smelled like burnt rubber and would not leave her alone until the bouncer threw him out at the bar she went to with the roommates to drown her sorrows) is it any wonder that her dreams that night are less than pleasant?
She's running. Her booted feet pound the dusty pavement as she runs full tilt away from the screams of metal and the heat behind her. When she dares to look behind her, which she can't help but do, Darcy can see the streets of that little New Mexico town set aflame, wood and brick crackling and crumbling beneath the onslaught. Pacing ever so slowly up the middle of the street is the Destroyer, steady step after step after step.
"What the hell is that?" she hears Steve breathe behind her. His presence should make her feel more at ease, safer, but instead Darcy only feels the need to run. They have to run as far and as fast as possible otherwise that thing will fry them.
"Evil," she says, spinning in place and pushing at Steve's torso, trying to get him to move. "Run, please, run." Darcy shoves at him again until he turns, grabs her hand, and begins to pull her along.
In real life she had worked to get the innocents out of the way, to make sure that the fire breathing robot had as few targets as possible for its anger. She had Thor, and Jane, and his alien friends there as well, which gave her courage in a weird way. She wasn't alone in the fight, and that always helps.
But now it's just her and Steve, and as strong as Steve is she's sure that he won't be able to take the Destroyer down on his own, so there's really only one option. Run. Run as fast and as far and as long as they can, until they're sure the thing is left in the dust behind them.
So they run. Darcy runs until her lungs are burning and the sweat is dripping down her back, making her clothes feel heavy on her skin. Her fingers are clammy where they wrap around Steve's, hot and sticky from all of the kicked up dust that clings to them. But even in her dreams she can't keep up with him, and she's constantly stumbling and tripping over whatever detritus is left behind in the streets.
Darcy doesn't know if it's a rock or a trash can or whatever that trips her up for the last time. But it does, making her lose her grip on Steve's hand and go stumbling to the ground, tearing her hands and knees open on the pavement. She can hear Steve call after her, screaming out her name so that it can be heard over the sound of the chaos all around them. The Destroyer is at her back then, though, and she can feel the flames beginning to lick up her legs, burning away clothes, skin, and muscles until there's only bone left, and even that won't last forever.
Darcy awakes with a shout, taking deep ragged breaths like maybe she can scrub the images from her brain. The breaths aren't able to lessen the roiling in her stomach, however, and combined with the amount of alcohol she'd had earlier, is definitely not a good lies still for a minute, thinking that maybe the lack of movement might help to calm her down.
Nope, no dice.
She rolls out of bed and bolts for the garbage bin in the kitchen, thinking that since the bathroom is all the way on the other side of the apartment and her room is right next to the kitchen, closer is always better. Darcy crashes to her knees in front of the bin and tries to blot out the next few minutes of her existence. She's always hated vomiting.
Her forehead leans against the edge of the bin until she's sure she can get up without throwing up what little is left in her stomach. She can deal with the head-pounding and the shaky legs once she's back in bed, but she's got no desire to spend the rest of the night leaning over the side of the mattress and sleeping with her head in a bucket. "Damn beer," she mutters, flipping the plastic lid closed and staggering ungracefully to her feet.
Darcy braces her hands on the windowsill for a moment, looking out at the alley below. Her eyes make their way upward, noticing that the light in Steve's living room is on and that he's standing right there in a very tight t-shirt with a concerned look on his face. Dammit, he was there in the dream too, wasn't he, she thinks. 'Are you okay?' she can see him mouth. Darcy nods.
Unfortunately the nodding motion sets her stomach all aflutter again, and she drops like a rock back to her knees with her head in the bin. Once it's all over but the dry heaves, Darcy lifts herself up again. She wants to signal to Steve that everything really is fine (he was in the army in the middle of a war, he had to have seen people suffering from the effects of overindulgence in alcohol, right?) but while the lights are still on in his place he's nowhere to be seen. When she looks downward she can see a dim figure crossing the alleyway between the two buildings, and she swears under her breath.
Suspecting that Steve wasn't going to leave her be until he's sure she's all right, Darcy stumbles her way into the bathroom, shoves her toothbrush into her mouth, and goes to open the apartment door. The minty flavor doesn't help with the nausea, but it's better than having anyone see her with vomit breath. She gets there just in time to see Steve coming up the stairway, eyes darting around the space and looking more than a little bit lost. When his eyes land on her she waves, toothbrush still in mouth, and motions him inside the apartment.
He follows her through the dark corridor silently, and doesn't say anything as she stops in the kitchen to get rid of the toothbrush. With a nod of her head he follows her into her bedroom, not saying anything until her door's shut and locked and the small light on the thrift store bedside table flicked on. "You, uh, you're a little underdressed," Steve says, pointedly not looking at her. Darcy looks down at the tank top and shorts she's wearing, and rolls her eyes.
"Welcome to women's sleepwear in the twenty-first century," she says, waving at him to take a seat. Still, she crawls back under the covers of her bed and pulls them up around her shoulders. The temperature is still in freezing range outside, and the heat in the apartment has never worked right. There's also a draft coming in from the skylight, which doesn't help with the goose bumps.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay. It looked like you had passed out there," Steve says, sitting down in the overstuffed armchair in the corner of the room. "That was a pretty intense dream."
Darcy curls up into a little ball under the covers and looks over at him. "It wasn't anywhere near that bad in real life," she replies, but then backtracks. "Who am I kidding, it was horrible. Kind of fun at first really, but pretty scary at the end."
Steve tugs at the cuffs of his leather jacket which looks squeaky and new, like it's been barely been worn despite its vintage styling. "Still, you survived it," he eventually said, not looking at her. "And you didn't seem to come out any the worse for it."
"Possibly," she concedes, which finally brings Steve's eyes back up to hers. "But it was one of those things that you can't go back from, you know?" Darcy blurts out. "Like, you suddenly know that there's so many scarier things out there in this world that no one else has got any idea about, and they all think that you're the lunatic for trying to cope with this newfound knowledge as best as you can." It hits her that she must still be a bit drunk if she's letting her mouth run off like it is. She's talkative on a good day, but the words keep spilling forth and she's too buzzed to figure out where her off button currently is.
Steve's mouth curls upwards at the corners. "I think I can understand what that's like."
"Which is why I'm commiserating with you." Darcy's stomach flip-flops again, and she groans as she rolls onto her back. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply through her nose, trying to get the step dancers in her belly to give it a rest.
"Do your nightmares often make you sick?" Steve asks, and even in her state she can hear the concern in his voice.
She snorts sleepily, her eyelids suddenly too heavy to lift. "No, that's 'cause of the beer." Darcy takes in another deep breath, and rolls her head in Steve's direction even though her eyes are now firmly shut for the night. "You know where the door is, but if you wanna crash on the chair, that's cool too."
With that Darcy slides back into a shaky, drunken sleep.
A/n: From here on out the dreams are going to be posted in a separate story called: "Come into My Life (Regress into a Dream)". Please note: the story/universe is not over! I will keep going with it – the next dream is actually written up already – but for organizational purposes the dreams will have their own story. So keep an eye out for that story, and thank you for reading!