WEAFF snippet 4

[gilascave]

Part Four

Demons do not dream.

He's always known that, and when he first arrived on Earth, and overcame his reluctance to be anywhere near humans at all, he would sometimes creep into campsites and villages and peer through windows and tent flaps to watch. Sleeping mortals, sometimes tossing and turning, sometimes lying still as the dead. In those early years he was incautious enough to extend a sliver of his power and look into those sleeping minds and read the dreams as they unfolded.

He learned a lot about humans that way, not only how to speak their various languages but to make himself appear as something no more unusual than themselves. He had to learn to differentiate between realistic dreams and surreal ones -- how was he supposed to know humans created things in their sleep which were never real? He'd never dreamt, never known anything that dreamt well enough to have a conversation about it. Luckily there had been only two disastrous attempts at fashioning himself after the contents of human dreams before he figured it out.

Soon enough he was able to learn how to appear human from interacting with humans and he stopped peering into their dreams. He never forgot what they looked like, and once or twice as he re-invented himself, he would find himself overcome with curiosity. It was dangerous to let his shields slip, so when the science presented itself he flung himself into the study of psychology and psychiatry, examining dreams again from a more distant perspective. For the longest time that satisfied him, and he found himself, for nearly a hundred years, content to learn as he could and live his lives the best he could manage.

Then he found himself surrounded by four humans who knew his true name and still called him friend.

And he slept beside three of them in a large, comfortable and listened to them sleep.

He wanted to reach out again. He told himself he could even justify it, for these humans had, themselves, built a machine to look into each others' dreams. All it would take was a word of explanation and Ray, for one, would leap at the opportunity to help Peter explore. He'd ask a million questions in the morning, and his eyes would light up as he scribbled down notes as though there were journals which published papers on the psychology of demons.

Peter wasn't even completely sure why he didn't just ask. Even if Ray had the sort of dreams he'd be embarrassed by, he'd never deny Peter anything in the name of research -- in the name of helping Peter learn everything he could about being human.

Maybe he would end up asking. In a few days, or a week, when he needed to distract Ray from something weirder and more uncomfortable. He didn't quite blame Ray for his enthusiasm -- and he found he rather liked the way that his friend spent so much effort on his behalf.

But that wasn't why he lay in bed at night while the others were asleep. It wasn't why he stared at the ceiling, watching the tiny cracks in the plaster play with the light to create shadow dioramas. He didn't even know if he could explain why it was why it was -- because for all he knew exactly what he was thinking, laying there, not sleeping, he had no idea why he was thinking it.

He poked at the sensations he felt in his stomach, in his legs. He'd catalogued a variety of physical feelings and let Ray help him catalogue things which corresponded to the names he had. Fear, joy, relief, anger -- things he still didn't know if he could feel, though he'd finally touched the lesser ones like relief and embarrassment. The things he was thinking didn't match up with anything he'd read, nor anything he remembered from those long ago dreams he'd seen.

He turned his head, looking across the room where Ray lay, sleeping. Clutching his stuffed dog he resembled a twelve year old boy, lost from the world in a land of his own making. His dreams would be gentle, and accepting, and if he knew Peter would be watching he might even tell himself as he fell asleep to dream of things which would help.

Beyond him, Peter could see Winston moving restlessly on his bed, and Peter knew without asking or looking that any dreams he found there would be tinged with violence. Perhaps a more familiar territory for a demon, but he knew that neither he nor Winston would feel right for his asking to share those dreams.

It was when he turned his head the other way, and saw where Egon lay, that he had to fight the urge to invade. Drop his shields that tiny bit to allow himself to sneak in, settle himself into the corner of Egon's mind, and watch. He didn't think Egon would deny him the chance for study -- if Peter approached him with the idea, couched carefully in terms of experiment. He might hesitate, he might yield the opportunity to Ray, since for the purpose of watching it wouldn't matter who. Peter knew all this, had been telling himself variations of it for the last several nights. If the point was just to learn, then Ray would do just as well as anyone.

So Peter didn't understand why he never broached the subject without knowing how to explain why he wanted it to be Egon's dreams he saw. He didn't understand why he turned his head towards Egon's bed at night and wondered what he was dreaming, and what it would be like to reach out and touch them, and whether Egon would welcome him or slide away to rebuff him. If Egon would agree if Peter asked, or if his eyes would shutter at the request.

Peter lay in bed and watched Egon sleep, and asked himself for the four hundred and twenty seventh time, why in the Hell he cared.