Work Text:
The thing about dissociation was that nothing seemed real.
He had just been discharged from the hospital, having convinced the powers that be that he was, by societal standards, fine. He had repressed the little signs that he’d been “touched”, all in all, and therefore, posed no threat to himself, or to society. It wasn’t even that the “threat” had been high, because David was usually a placid creature, humble and ready to serve. Yet, the idea of “danger” was not important in itself; it was simply the possibility that had kept him in that white-walled, pleasantly stale environment for ages.
As he looked at the Outside with a new perspective, there was a certain clarity that he hadn’t had before. It was all really there. The corporeality of it had once eluded him, but now, he felt it in his bones. He was no longer merely some entity floating around the earth, untethered by most things except gravity.
*
He dreamt of the dreams that he used to have. David had heard of past lives, and of alternate universes. He wanted to believe that they existed, because reality was droll. There was a certain allure in dreams that eluded him… An allure of the unreal, it seemed. It was like reading a really good book, but sequenced atemporally, and narrated as an experience, full of agency or the lack thereof, instead of visual or verbal means.
A dream within a dream, indeed; it filled him with nothing but a deep longing as he woke up, brushed his teeth, and washed his face.
*
In that dream, he wasn’t David, not quite. He had assumed a new identity, which his partner, “Locus”, called him. He was “Washington”.
Funny how, he thought, identities change. I was me there, but a different me.
The “him” that was in that dream was different from the “him” of reality.
A dull ache filled his waking moments with a sense that everything was meaningless; whereas, in that dream, he had a purpose that he was working towards, and a partner to work with.
*
There was a particular scene which stuck with him.
“Locus” lifted his gun to shoot the alien. They looked at each other, wordlessly. “Washington” quickly stooped down beside the body to give it a quick search.
“Let’s go,” he said. “It’s not here.”
Locus stood there for a moment too long.
“What’s the matter?”
His partner turned quietly, unresponsive, and strode out of there as if he was fleeing from something.
*
David wondered if Locus would have told Washington why, if he had asked, under another scenario. He wondered if the reason he had these dreams was because “Locus”, as it was, was a figment of his imagination, and therefore, a reflection of how screwed up himself was – perhaps not in that dream, but in this reality.
When he took the buses and the trains and walked along the street and he looked at the faces of strangers in shops, he was searching for him. David was a realist. He didn’t believe that he would find anything.
He doesn’t exist, David thought, because I dreamt him up.
*
Years passed.
David had resigned himself to a life that was dissatisfying on all levels; he had gone back to the hospital a few times because living without hope was far too harsh. He had developed a habit of gazing down on the ground as he walked, looking at nothing in particular. He expected to find nothing, so he searched for nothing. It seemed like a reasonable response to a life that had been resigned to him. If Angel Kervokian was with him, he would have asked for his mercy – of course, it was not to be.
He thought of his dreams sparingly. They seemed too far away and too surreal, and yet, they were the only reason he got through the day.
Resting his chin on his hand, he waited quietly as a colleague came in. They greeted each other, and David quickly averted his eyes when he saw that there was a stranger behind.
His eyes widened as their gazes met.
He knew, instantly, even though it defied all common sense, that this was “Locus”, and that “Locus” was real.