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I don't get visions,

[Oscar explained, keeping his tone as calm as possible, holding onto those trembling hands as best as he could without a body of his own. ]

Usually I'd just talk to Oz in my head, or find memories that I didn't know I had.

Here... I sometimes dreamwalk and visit other palebloods I know, but I've gotta be planning on it before I go to bed.

[Everything was intentional-- just like the telepath from Vacuo had taught him.

Oscar usually thought in words, but in that moment he tried to conjure an image for Paul-- the aurora above Solitas, almost close enough to touch from Atlas-- the city in the sky.

-- hopefully, it would help me take Paul's mind off of worry, so they could tackle the problem later. ]

I still hate this place, sometimes.

[ Baleful words for baleful thoughts. Paul levers himself to standing and rolls his shoulders back, letting Oscar's vision drift across his field of view. It's beautiful, the dipping veils of the celestial dancers of the magnetosphere, and Paul accepts the calm that comes with it.

Water never hurts. Paul sets out to the kitchen, pushing back the strangeness of the encounter. It was a Trench thing, and that was all. A product of their odd situation, or a trick of Mariana's, or pure coincidence. He has heard of more outlandish things, has lived them.

It's nothing to worry about. So he won't. ]

I'm sorry you had to see that.

It's not your fault.

[Because, he understood what Paul was talking about. Trench threw everyone's understanding of the world out of sync. The strangeness of their entire situation was only amplified by the knowledge that they would never have been in a parallel position if they weren't in trench.]

I told you that I'd help you, [Oscar said, in a small but gentle voice.] That means with the good parts... and the scary parts.

[ Paul laughs, which is a mistake immediately rewarded by a stab of agony down the centre of his skull, so it cuts off into a wince as he fills a glass from the over-loud tap. (He doesn't think of painkillers; for all the pharmacology that has gone on in his life, he has never needed them, so they do not come to mind.) ]

Thank you.

[ It wasn't a mocking laugh. He's just resigned to this, swallowing tinny water slowly to ease its impact on his stomach as he settles into a crooked leg chair and closes his eyes. ]

We can talk about it later. I think I - need to sleep. Or lie down.

[He felt that stabbing headache as if it were his own-- from a distance. It was his, yet not his. Just like how this body, during the scattered times he borrowed it, was his and yet not. ]

Just rest, okay?

[Oscar said with the tired heaviness of someone that didn't know what to do. He still recalled Gerry's words, and the feeling of something pressed into his hands...]

I'll keep the lights on and the doors closed. Try to sleep for now. You're safe.

[ Paul smiles, wanly, as he lets his neck bend to rest the back of the chair against the base of his skull, digging it in for the distracting pressure on his slender vertebrae. ]

Lights on, doors closed.

[ No formless voids, no woman who move like lions and smell like smoke and sandalwood. No flickering eyes, in his face or hers or tattooed on the knuckles of a stranger. ]

I like the sound of that.

[No flickering eyes, except for the ones that gleamed yellowy with reflected moonlight that he probably saw once his eyes closed. The Pthumerians of Trench had born witness to the owl shape Oscar had crafted for himself in Deerington and saw fit to subtly change the boy to fit the theme. As far as changes went, these were among the most benign and harmless.

Long, lonely nights had become somewhat familiar to Oscar after nearly a year of being nocturnal.]

You don't need to worry about the sheets, either.

[Oscar explained with a smile in his voice-- and flicked on the lighter as he had seen Gerry do numerous times. Paul might feel the thrill of warmth at his finger tips, but there was no actual spark.

Just Oscar, offering a night and a warmth equal to that of a warm cocoa on a chilly afternoon.]

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