Fireflies.
Firestorms.
Bray.
Angie's eyes popped open the second the name died on her lips. She laid there, her entire body quivering with terror. Bray stood nearby, watching it all as he causally leaned against the wall nearest the bed. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't awake. The nightmare still had hold of her. From his vantage point, he could see that the terror that had gripped her so completely in her sleep, had obviously followed her as she had woken. Her skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, while her breathing was increasingly ragged. It was obvious to him that she was still trapped in it.
Leaning forward, Bray cleared his throat in an attempt to distract her, it didn't work. He tried again, a little louder this time, only to get the same result. Growling, Bray resorted to a more direct option.
"Angie." Again she didn't respond. Her eyes were firmly fixed to the ceiling, looking like they were about ready to pop out of her skull. "ANGIE!" That broke the spell. Her eyes snapped over to him, her breathing increasing as she stared at him. It looked as if she was getting paler with every breath that she drew in.
"Bray" Her voice was rough, sounding strangled and chaotic. "Oh god…" She looked away from him, her eyes dropping to the comforter. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough." She slowly looked back up him. He could see that some of the terror had subsided, but not all of it. In its place had come a new horror; embarrassment.
"Don't look at me like that." Bray only got more concerned. "I mean it Bray." She quickly covered her face with her hands, so she wouldn't have to look at him anymore. "Stop acting like you're worried."
"I can promise you the concern on my part isn't an act." She peaked at him through her fingers.
"Well it should be. I had a nightmare. That's all."
"I believe a nightmare is an understatement, don't you think?" He scratched his nose as he continued. "You were thrashing and carrying on in your sleep." Angie just groaned at that. "According to Erick, it started the second your head hit the pillow." She let out another groan, this one louder than the first. "It's been a long while since I've seen terrors like that." He paused, more for effect than anything else. "Something troubling you Colombe?" Her hands fell away from her face, smacking against the mattress with a thud.
"Don't call me that." She looked at him. "Not now, not ever. Call me Angie if you have too, but don't fucking call me Colombe again." He smirked at her, the worry temporarily vanishing from his face.
"Sadly darlin, you don't get a say on that. My compound, my house, my rules." The smirk grew larger. "I'll call you what I like to call you."
He moved away from his spot on the wall, coming closer to her. "And I like Colombe." He stopped at the end of the bed, giving her an even larger grin than the one before. Angie just rolled her eyes in response, turning her head away from him, so she wouldn't have to look at him.
"Can you please not be difficult with me?" She briefly looked at him again. "I've had a bad morning."
"So I've gathered." He wrapped his hands around the footboard, lazily leaning forward. "According to Luke you've had an exciting day."
"I wouldn't call it exciting." He chuckled.
"I hear you had quite the interlude with Mr. Reigns. From what I understand, he was less than a gentleman towards you." She scoffed, glancing at her hand for a second.
"Less than a gentleman is not how I would describe his behavior." Angie looked back up at him. "Obstinate swine seems more fitting." Bray grinned at her, obviously liking that comment.
"It does, doesn't it?" She didn't indicate yes or no. "Of course according to him, you were deserving of it. He recounts that you were less than a lady to him." She raised an eyebrow to that.
"I didn't realize I was required to be polite to people who go through my phone and threaten me with private information." She paused, toying with a stray strand of hair. "Maybe he should try being less of an asshole next time." Bray's grinned waned.
"Is that what's bothering you then? Idol threats."
"No." She quickly looked away from him. "I told you not worry about it. It was just a bad dream."
"Bad dream or not." She heard him come around the footboard, moving closer to her. "You calling my name in your sleep peaks my curiosity."
Her head snapped back in his direction faster than either of them could blink. She fixed her eyes on him, hoping to mask the fear in them, but she failed miserably. "You can't hide from me colombe." He shoved his hands into his pockets, giving her a thoughtful look. "Not here." She paused, her expression becoming more distressed.
"I'm not…It wasn't…" She was desperately trying to find a lie to justify her need to hide, but she couldn't come up with anything. It was clear to Bray that her mind was just to muddled too. Her lack of sleep was working against her. "I can't help it." She paused again, her shoulders sagging with the knowledge that she was going to have to resort to telling him the truth. "Everywhere I look I see ghosts." Bray found that interesting seeing as she had been here less than half a day. It shouldn't have been a surprise given her history here, but it was. He had always wondered if she had repressed that time to the point of forgetting it entirely. Obviously she hadn't. "I see things that never should have been…." He watched her look away, her eyes traveling around the room. "And things that never were." Angie's eyes came back to him. "I can't escape them, not even in my sleep." Tears formed in her eyes. "It's worse in my sleep." Bray got the distinct impression that the haunting hadn't started when she had arrived here. If anything, he suspected that coming here had only made it worse.
"What do you see in your sleep darlin?" She blinked back tears, simply shaking her head in refusal. "Is it that terrible?" She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of answering, at least not directly.
"You should have heard him Bray." By him Bray assumed she meant Roman, but he couldn't be one hundred percent sure. "It was awful. He was awful." Bray narrowed his eyes slightly. "He sounded just like all the rest of them." Angie blinked back more tears. "He just assumed he knew the truth."
"Fiction is far better than reality to people like them. Lies are what keep them going. The more sensational the better." She scoffed again, wiping some of the tears away.
"You're lucky. You're immune to it."
"Immune?" Bray gave her an incredulous look. "I'm not immune." Her eyes drifted back down to Bray. "I move through that world, same as you. I see their faces, I hear their lies. Only difference between you and I, is I choose not to give them power over me." Angie quickly sat up, firmly fixing her eyes on him. That had struck a nerve.
"You think it's a choice?" The tears went from ones of distress to ones of anger. "It's easy for you to dismiss them. You have the option of hiding." He furrowed his brow at her. "You have the boys or a dressing room or even here to shield you." She gestured at the room. "You can just shut yourself away and not have to hear it." She swallowed hard. "I don't." Angie swallowed again, trying to force the lump that was forming in her throat back down. "I can't face this again." Her voice was quieter, a shaky sort of calm over taking her. "I can't go back to being an object of constant ridicule and ire." Bray's face changed slightly, indicating he instantly understood what she was talking about. "I can handle losing the job. I really don't care either way about that." She paused, taking a shaky breath. "The idea of the rumors though, that scares me." She took another breath, this one shakier than the last. "I never wanted to be here again." A tear fell from one of her eyes. "Everything I've done since then has been to ensure that I never had to face something like this ever again. Yet here I am, right back where I started." Another tear fell. "I just….it won't stop will it? It doesn't matter how far I go." She took a third breath. "It's just going to never stop." She fell silent, another tear falling onto her cheek.
Bray watched her for a second, doing his best to seem sympathetic. She just sat there staring up at him with those big eyes, making him question the soundness of his next move. On one hand, she was exactly where he needed her to be, at least emotionally. He could have it out with her here and now and just be done with it for good. Her muddled state would play into his favor, as he could convince her to go along with his plan without too much worry; or at least he thought he could. One the other hand, she was still herself and odds were that she would shred his plan into a thousand pieces faster than he could breathe. Bray knew he wasn't ready to take that chance. More so, he knew he wasn't ready to have two battles with her. The first one would be enough. He wasn't interested in fighting a second one with her after she realized he had taken advantage of her during the first. No, he wasn't interested in that at all. She needed to rest now. It was better for her if she rested. Let the battle wait, it wouldn't hurt any of them if it did.
Stepping forward slightly, Bray reached out to her, lightly running the pad of his thumb over her cheek. He brushed the tear away with a flick of his wrist, sending it flying in the general direction of the floor. "It will stop colombe." The second he had touched her, her eyes had closed. Now at the sound of his voice, her eyes fluttered open again, staring up him. "I promise you it will." She shook her head, her eyes drifting away from him.
"How can you promise me something like that?" She looked back up at him. "It's your fault it happened at all." That felt like a knife to his gut. A fist to the face would have been an easier thing to take or that comment, mainly because he hadn't been expecting it. "Do you ever wish…" She reached out, weakly taking his hand. "Do you ever wish you could go back?" Angie stared up at him curiously. "Do you ever wonder how happy you could be if you had gone another way…. Or if none of it had happened at all?" Again, a fist to the face would have been easier than that question.
In truth he had done exactly that. He had always wondered what if. As he had learned, there was always another way. Things with Angie really shouldn't have been any different. But he had always supposed he had been too young to see things like that. He had been so focused on other things, on doing right by other people, that he hadn't considered things could be different. "Bray?" She squeezed his hand catching his attention again.
"No." It was a lie, but he wouldn't dare admit the truth; at least not yet. Of course, she didn't look like she believed him. She had a knack for being able to tell when he was lying. He suspected now was really no different than every other time she had ever caught him. The only change was that she choose to ignore the lie and continue on. "Do you find yourself wondering what if?" She blinked, staying silent for a moment before she finally answered him.
"Maybe." She looked away from him, her eyes dropping back to the comforter. "More so lately." He moved again, seating himself on the edge of the bed. The mattress sagged and whined in protest at the addition of his weight. "The last 24 hours has been…interesting." She yawned slightly, her eyes coming back up to his face. He could only chuckle at that. Interesting was one way of putting it. "I can go long spells without ever thinking about it, but then one day it just hits me all at once." She made a gesture that mimicked getting hit in the face. "Or the nightmares will start and I won't sleep for days on end." She let out an odd sort of laugh. "Tends to be worse when we're down this way, but then I suppose that's to be expected."
"Only because you keep lying to yourself about it." That didn't get a happy response, but he hadn't been able to hold that in.
"I'm not lying to myself."
"No? I must be mistaken in my assumption that frequent nightmares and emotional break downs are a sign of true happiness." She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Because you're such an expert on the subject." Her jaw was clenched in annoyance. "You obviously know how to make me happy." There was an iciness in that, which Bray didn't like. It was a not so subtle warning to stop. That warning was further emphasized when she fixed him with a hard stare. ""Don't start with me. I'm not in the mood to fight with you." He pulled away slightly, letting go of her hand.
"I'm not starting anything with you." Not directly anyway. "I'm not here to quarrel, but make no mistake, you and I have things that need to be discussed."
"I'm not here to discuss anything. This isn't a social call Bray. I came to get Dean. I plan on leaving with Dean." He grunted, not liking that answer. "If you don't like it then tell Luke to throw them both in the car and I'll leave with them right now." He definitely didn't like that.
"We agreed that you would stay till Monday morning. You gave me your word you would." She gave him another stern look.
"Then don't start your psychobabble bullshit with me. I don't care how tired I am, I'm not going to fall for it." She threw her legs over the side of the bed, shakily standing up. "You don't get to lecture me on why I'm unhappy, understand?" Something inside him snapped.
Bray grabbed hold of her arm yanking her back onto the bed with a fair amount of force. He wasn't going to be instructed in general, especially not in his own house and certainly not by her. He was off the bed in a flash, standing over her with a cross stance.
"You dare to tell me what I can and cannot do in my own home?" She laid there, staring at him with a shocked expression. "Your place is not to instruct. Your place is to listen!" He spit the last word out with a harsh tone, his lips curling into a sneer. He stood over her, watching as the shocked expression that had been on her face vanish. In its place came a cross glare that was identical to his own.
"Wrong." Her voice was forceful, to the point of being defiant. "My place isn't either, because I have no place here." She sat up, easily brushing her long hair out of her face. "This isn't my world, remember?" The snide remark irritated him. The defiance irritated him even more. Had it been anyone else, he probably would have been inclined to slap them; but he chastened himself with her. Instead he chose to grind his teeth in annoyance, making his displeasure evident with the expression on his face.
"You have a place while you're here and while you're here you'll do as you're told. I will not be disobeyed in my own house; not by anyone, but most of all, not by you. Understand?" He matched her snide tone from earlier, seeing her sneer at it. "You can spit and hiss all you like about it, but we will settle things between us." She folded her arms, staring up at him in disgust. "If you choose to drag it out then, so be it. I'll throw the lock on that door and you'll stay in here until you change your tune." Her expression and tone changed almost instantly. The defiance fell like a weight, crashing down around her.
"You can't do that. You promised me…." Her voice had gone from forceful to small. She reminded him of a scolded child, doing her best to stay his hand from punishment.
"I promised you that I asked you here on good intentions. I never said you could leave on those same intentions."
"Good intentions or not, I'm leaving on Monday." She was trying to sound authoritative. She wasn't succeeding, but she was trying.
"You'll leave when I say you can." He said it a manner where it shouldn't have been a question. Unfortunately with her, everything was a question; no matter how definitive it was.
"Then you better say it's Monday. The company knows…."
"They know you're in Louisiana darlin. As I recall you told them it was a family thing, right?" He grinned at her. "You're family ain't around here anymore." He leaned forward looking her in the eye. "If they come looking, it won't be here."
"I still have my phone and the rental. There is nothing stopping me from breaking one these windows open and climbing out." Bray only laughed at her. It was true, there was nothing stopping her from doing that.
"You're welcome to try and fly away colombe, but that's going to be a touch difficult since you left your car keys with Luke." All the color drained out of her face. "As for that pesky little device…" He shrugged. "How easy do you think it would be for one of us to just take from you?" She swallowed hard, unable to find an answer to that. "The sooner you and I settle this, the sooner you can leave. That's if you want to leave at all. You may decide you want to stay when it's all said and done."
"I think the last thing I'll want to do, is stay." He chuckled at her. "Never the less, if that's how you want to play it, then fine; that's how we'll play it. You and I can attempt to settle things, but I'm fairly sure nothing will change." Bray took that as a challenge.
"We'll see." He gave her a final grin slowly stepping back. "But I suggest you get as much rest as you can. I have a hunch you'll need it." He reached the door, slowly opening it. "Pleasant dreams." He gave her a wink, missing her infuriated face when he turned away from her and closed the door behind him with a thud.
Let battle commence.