voidtreckerexpress | [open] i make a penny, the train makes a dime

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[open] i make a penny, the train makes a dime

Who: Tidus & You! (Open!)
Where: Kitchen car, around, where pets can be petted (or bite him)
When: Grasshopper 16 onwards (can include a few days before)
What: Tidus has a 'bet' that's less of a bet now and more 'see what doing chores consistently does for your points', but also just generally around the train too!
Warnings: should be nothing!

1. aid // for purple team CR:

best

find out

2. cleaning:

( a. kitchen )

I'll

( b. bathrooms )

3. around

gynasium

training gym

does

cinema car

music car

upper quiet car floor

pet

( ooc: Tidus will easily approach others so if you want to set up a thread where he'd need to be the one to say hi, go for it! above is some areas where he'd be to do such or even for your character to do it first. o7 )

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"It'll still exist, it just -" Ronan pauses. He was about to say falls asleep, but he's been carefully talking around the exact mechanics of how his powers work. "- becomes static, if that makes sense? Sorry, I don't really talk about what I do to other people."

Usually he doesn't describe what he does, people just trust him to take care of things and he does them. He's also been careful not to call it magic, because it isn't exactly. Dreaming is slightly left of magic, where he's from. Adam's the magician. Ronan's just a Dreamer.

"Things still exist, they just stop where they were."

"That's alright," earns the apology, amicable in tone. Tidus knew a minimal amount about Ronan's world, even less about the guy, but he was aware of stories of where people came from that not anything was straightforward. And Ronan's powers as they were sounded...unusual.

But that gave some food for thought.

"So, no chance of moving them around?" Hm. "Anything you make, we should mark it, just in case."

In case they forget he did, and whatever they were using just stops being...usable, the second the train decides it doesn't need him anymore.

"Most of them are marked."

He turns the journal he's been holding over, so Tidus can see what would be the back. There's a barcode printed where a price tag would go, 1101 under it. Anyone who could read the barcode would find it nonsense that didn't match the numbers underneath, because the barcode part is mostly for aesthetics. The 1101 is the thing that marks it as his.

"I can do it on everything, but Peter's got some unmarked stuff." He usually labels things with his birthday unconsciously, but he can do it intentionally if that's what Tidus wants. "Other than that everything unmarked is personal."

Well that made things easier.

"Just whatever you make for us! So we can keep track." Whatever Ronan go to others personally or kept for himself wasn't any of their business, right? Tidus hums a little in thought.

"Sounds like it wouldn't hurt to find you during a mission and see if you can make whatever we need more of." More lights at the time wouldn't have hurt in the slightest. "Extra lights, jackets or weapons--you think they'd be alright for you if we made a few at a time, however many we need? And then you can," he shrugs, shaking his head, "disappear them at the end?"

They could keep them, sure, whatever made sense. It was the weapons that made him think that, adding, "At least the weapons. Don't think some of us want them staying with people after what happened. But I don't know if you can track that, or feel comfortable making those."

"Anything I make doesn't disappear unless you destroy it." He pauses. "I guess I could make them to disappear. I'd have to get back to you on that."

Smaller weapons are less of a problem. He knows what a knife is and he could probably manage a sword, but anything more complicated runs the risk of bringing something he doesn't want with it. He's fairly sure he can set things to exist on a timer, but he'd need to test it first before he's comfortable doing it.

"The bigger issue is cover. It's not like magic, it doesn't just happen unless I'm in Lindenmere." God, he misses Lindenmere. That was the first thing he tried to dream and the closest he managed was an ever-shifting sphere he would never show anyone. It had the look of his forest, but none of the power. "So it leaves me vulnerable, which isn't necessarily great if what you want is weapons."

He's going to have to give up the mechanics of what he does, Ronan realizes. It's too hard to talk around the fact that it's dreaming, that he Dreams things into actuality and it's powerful but it's different from magic. Unfortunately, that probably means a practical demonstration. Seeing is believing, after all.

"Look, do you want a practical demonstration of what I can do?"

He hears Lindenmere, but what does that mean, and what was the difference between--well, the train and elsewhere, when he's made things here? That's what Tidus wonders at first, but then the offer comes, and he nods. If the guy needs cover, then it might not be a problem--

But there's something else here obviously.

"You need me to move back?" He asks, just in case.

"No, but I'm gonna need an object you want me to bring back."

Technically he could bring back whatever he wants, but it's a better proof of concept if Tidus picks what he dreams. Normally Ronan wouldn't do this in a public area but if he's going to be providing dreaming as a service then he's going to have to get used to keeping less secrets. Ronan sits on the floor and whistles for Chainsaw to come. She looks over, and carefully flies over to land on Ronan's outstretched arm.

An object? That's giving him thought, brow stitching as he decides to join Ronan on the floor, sitting where he is cross-legged and with a "Well..." to lead him on the way down. A potion? Nah. A weapon? Eh. What to ask for...

Something then enters his mind, and he wonders--would it be possible. And it seems too tricky, but...

"...A clock?" he asks hesitantly, expression to match. Could you even make a clock for somewhere that you never knew the time for?

"That's gonna get weird." Ronan huffs out a noise that's something between a laugh and a sigh. "Guess that's a good demonstration on the limits of what I do. This is gonna take a couple minutes, and it's probably gonna appear right there."

Ronan points to the space at his left. Things don't always appear next to him, but a clock is almost certainly going to. He shifts Chainsaw to his shoulder, breathes out and closes his eyes. It probably looks like meditation, but Ronan's just perfected the art of falling asleep instantly.

Nothing happens for a couple of minutes and then an object blinks into existence to Ronan's left. It doesn't slowly appear or build itself into being, the clock is just suddenly there and though anyone watching would know it wasn't previously? It doesn't feel like it wasn't there previously. It feels like it's always been there. Like it's always existed.

Ronan himself takes a little longer to come back into consciousness, Chainsaw making soft noises as she gently pokes him on the cheek. When he wakes he looks over at the clock, trying to figure out what's wrong with it. Momentarily, it seems to be fine if stationary but then he realizes: the clock is still ticking and the hands are set to the exact time he last sent Adam a text message. The text message that Adam never responded to, which gives Ronan a sinking feeling he knows what the clock is tracking and that's just fucking embarrassing.

The problem with dreaming is that whatever you subconsciously want is what you get and Ronan wants nothing as deeply and desperately as he wants to know that Adam is okay.

"Fuck."

When Piccolo made things, it was just there, a moment taken to inspect the item to be duplicated, and then formed. He isn't sure what to expect with this--something follows, Ronan had warned, sometimes. And it makes him curious to sit there, the way Ronan's head dips forward. Hands resting on his knees.

It makes him itchy through the wait, though he knows not to say anything, anticipation just a strong force for him. But then, he isn't sure what he was waiting for. A clock. Except a clock's right there? Tidus stares at it, confused, a torn reaction in him he can't quite explain, looking back over to Ronan with a question in his mouth he doesn't know how to put into words. Chainsaw's pecking, and he does try to lean over, just to rock his knee gently, a concerned "Ronan?" coming out--but he'll stop if Chainsaw has any disagreements about that.

It's around then that he realises though just exactly what Ronan was doing, compared to what Tidus thought he was doing: sleeping. Sinking in, dawning on him, where he's confused but this isn't his first experience with a dreaming power. That's too close to home, and he wants to distance himself from the thought; turns his focus back onto Ronan, brow knitted. Half-forgetting about the clock, his own personal dreams pushed aside.

"Are you--okay?"

"I'm fine, that's just not what I meant to bring back."

Ronan's picked the clock up and flipped it over, looking for what he already knows will be there: an engraving. In someone else's handwriting, neat and looping, the engraving curving across the top of the clock reads Ronan est tamquam alter idem.

It's an inscription that wouldn't mean anything even to someone who understood Latin, because what would "Ronan is a second self." even mean to anyone else? It's an obvious play on a phrase Cicero said, of course, with Ronan's name replacing the Latin for friend, but even that doesn't account for the shaky way that Ronan breathes out at the sight of it. That's held in the way Adam kissed him and whispered it, not long after Gansey came back as Cabeswater in the shape of Gansey.

Ronan is my second self, Adam said to him and Ronan had said it back until it became theirs. Other people said I love you. Adam said tamquam and Ronan always responded alter idem. That's how it was supposed to be and how it was, until Ronan said it and Adam hadn't responded because there wasn't a single version of Ronan that could go with him to Harvard. Maybe there wasn't a version of Adam who could follow Ronan onto the train either.

"It doesn't measure time," Ronan says, trying to swallow down emotions he can't be having right now. Not in front of someone else. "Not really, anyway. I don't know how to explain what it's measuring."

There's something off, that much Tidus can tell. Something about the clock, about Ronan, the way he looks at it after he flips it, his response to push it aside from their conversation too, brush over. It's not exactly directly telling, but subtly. Tidus gets the feeling he shouldn't press, Then, what's it measuring?

And it doesn't matter. It doesn't tell the time, but Ronan did exactly what he said he would.

"Well, you know, I think it'd be hard to tell the time for a void travelling train anyway," Tidus says lightheartedly, a way of brushing over the object himself. "That's fine. But you still just--brought it. Made it! I've never seen a clock like it, but that's a clock."

And that's pretty rad regardless. But more important, though it twisted in him moments before to realise:

"And you...dreamed that? Is that your power?"

The power of dreams. The power to make anything. Aeons, a city--lives.

Ronan startles when Tidus says it, less because he's lost in his own thoughts and more because he - someone is killing Dreamers, that much is clear. It's not something he has to worry about on the train, maybe, but the fear of it has been solidly kept in his mind since his father died for what he was.

"Yeah," Ronan says. It's the same tone he would use in Confession, because that's what it is. "That's what we call it: dreaming."

We. It feels weird to say that too, because up until a few weeks ago, Ronan hadn't known there were - well. He knew there must be more Dreamers. Kavinsky existing proved that dreaming was not a secret exclusive to the Lynch family, but he hadn't been able to fathom that the reason the secret existed in the first place was Dreamers die because people kill them.

"I'd appreciate that not being common knowledge, though."

He can't police what Tidus does, obviously, but he's pretty sure that Tidus won't go shouting it everywhere if Ronan asks him not to.

It's not the first time Tidus has had that request. It's not even the second, but it still catches him to hear, that desire of secrecy. What it implies, though what Tidus isn't going to look to confirm in any way right now. But Ronan did say that people get stuck in sleep...

"No problem," he says easily, waving his hands. "We can just call it...conjuring. Or summoning." If it came up at all with other people, or even just with Light. But Ronan seemed to want to help by offering his work, so all he had to do was be careful with what he said. Easy enough.

But there's the thought of Kitty, of that other guy with his husband and child; the stigma around their abilities, and maybe it's why he goes on. A nagging in him, and his gaze dipping aside.

"The world I come from, Spira--there were people called the Fayth. They dreamed for a long time, and with their dreams, people called summoners could use their power to fight. Or even...they could create a city made from their memories. Or more. We didn't really know everything they could do."

He's not sure what he's trying achieve, blinking up at Ronan and then glancing away for a second. A small uncertain breath like a laugh escaping him.

"They moved on before I showed up here, but...it's not the first time I've heard about what dreams can do."

Dreaming an entire city made of memories is a little like a forest, Ronan thinks, if you consider that a single person could carve out something like Cabeswater. What would happen with an entire city of Dreamers, all with the nearly limitless ability that dreaming provided? That's unthinkable for Ronan, who has only ever known a handful of Dreamers. When they're together, with a ley line, they can accomplish anything. He still remembers that: the rush of knowing that anything was within their grasp as he worked with Hennessy and Bryde.

"The things I bring back," Ronan says after a moment, hesitation running through the words, "keep me alive. If I don't dream, I'll get sick and die. There are people who think Dreamers need to die, though, and I -"

Chainsaw makes a mournful noise and Ronan's attention immediately refocuses on her. He quiets her, holding Chainsaw close to his chest the way he did when she was much younger and he was terrified of having brought a living thing into the world. There are so many living things that are his responsibility now. So many lives that depend on him and him alone. He can't let what happened to his mother happen to Matthew.

".... They go to sleep when I die," Ronan says finally, "and they won't wake up. I can't let that happen."

It's a step that Tidus can't take back. A gate that he opened, leading down a path he knew would cross into becoming personal. Not just for him, but the both of them; similar, but different at the same time. Seeing in from a perspective he never really got to before; even if it's not the same craftsmen, not the same world or predicaments taking place. But he'd never have the chance for that now. He's not even sure if he felt this surreal emotion before, the times he got close.

Did humans get to experience this?

But the thought that strikes deeper than Tidus could have comprehended is when Ronan finishes speaking, Chainsaw to his chest as a creature comfort, the finality of his--not creations, his lives. They go to sleep. They won't wake up.

He's never had to guard himself from a discussion quite like this, and it leaves him speechless. Knowing, for all that Ronan's said, that he still doesn't know anything, and yet-

"...They disappear, when the Fayth stop dreaming," he says once he finds the words. "When they go too. Their dreams." Not looking at Ronan, a tension heavy in his brow. Gaze down on his folded legs, but somewhere else entirely; the note of his voice dropped to. "Their city...it had to disappear. But I know...they really appreciated being alive. Everyone in it."

And it stings, it hurts, in a way he's refused himself to think about: the lives in Zanarkand. They were a dream, but--they were all alive. All of them. They lived, they dreamed, they had hopes. They didn't know what was going on, they...

"If anyone knows you or bother you--" Tidus interrupts that descending spiral, voice steeled and forcing himself to look at Ronan, "let me--let someone know, okay? Light, the woman you spoke to about your powers, or a guy--Roland Crane. You don't have to tell them everything, but--No one's doing anything to you here."

Not for that. He might not know the full story, but he doesn't care, even as his gaze on Ronan may falter and he takes it away before long.

Intellectually, Ronan is aware that sometimes people from the same world show up. It's been a few platform stops now, though, and nobody he knows has arrived. He doesn't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, because the parts of him that love his friends don't want them here. The rest of him, the parts of himself that dream things to fill the gaps, desperately want something familiar. Something safe.

"Semper tutum est Greywaren," Ronan says instead, almost to himself. Cabeswater meant it differently, when it expressed the same sentiment. Then, it was a reassurance: the Greywaren is always safe. Now, it's a prayer. "Sorry. Yeah, I'll - I'll do that."

"Kerah?" Slowly, Ronan releases his hold on Chainsaw. She makes a slightly disgruntled noise but stays in Ronan's arms all the same. "Kerah, snack."

"Later." Ronan shifts Chainsaw in his arms, putting her back on his shoulder. "We can't all be you and eat whenever we want because people think we're cute when we beg for snacks."

There's a shift, a puzzlement at what Ronan first says, not understanding. But then he moves on, and Tidus accepts it; realising quick that he wouldn't mind moving on, this growth of emotion in his gut he now doesn't know what to do with uncomfortable.

Realised as he watches the pair, the smile on his face small and stiff.

"How about," Tidus starts, a flicker to the clock but then down at his hands he moves in a needless gesture as he speaks, "me or Light tells you the kind of things that'd be useful, and if you get an idea that'd work with your dre--powers," he quickly corrects, a sheepish face lifted to Ronan before he continues, "you can give it a go? The lunchboxes, or--a way of giving us some extra bandages, first aid. Just small things. Light'd be good to talk to; she's more, uh...experienced than me on missions."

There's a pause, and he adds, pointing a finger to the floor, "But if you make anything on a mission and need someone to watch your back, I can."

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[open] i make a penny, the train makes a dime

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