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[never_very_good]

This office is slick and modern; well-appointed but not cluttered. There’s a massive white desk, with a comfortable, large chair behind it, and a smaller seat on the other side. Above it is an unfamiliar logo-- a large white circle with a rectangular piece bitten out. Everything is strangely lit from unlikely angles, the whole room crisscrossed by dim blue shadows. When you look for the edges of the room it seems to bend, blurring in a way that suggests it’s not all there; an imperfect reconstruction from distracted memories. Perhaps that’s why this mundane place seems so ominous.

A little further down the wall, about a yard from the end of the desk, a wide picture window breaks the white plane. Frankie Dalton is standing beside it, staring down at something you can’t quite see, from where you are.


[ooc; all threads are different instances of the dream, and what you see below will vary by person <3 so feel free to tag on in! May be slow, will backdate forever and ever and ever. ilu.]

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[fatespoken]

He knows, by Frankie's stillness, that this is a dream of memories. It's as if his posture caries his true age in its silence, juxtaposed with the intensity of his expression that Amory imagines, as Frankie stares down below; the tension in his fingers say as much. This is the City and this a curse, and so a dream must be a nightmare, stripping the core out of fear and pain until it's condensed into a caricature--biting, sensational caricatures like cheap, haunted-house tricks. It'd be wise for him to linger in the background, leave the man to his own reflection without the prying eyes of an intruder. Amory wouldn't have to say anything to intrude.

And Amory cares enough, thinks of Frankie as enough of a friend to consider him over his own curiosity. Or at least, he tries. He remains in the shadows for the longest while, watching, keeping his breaths quiet in the still of the room. Amory runs a tongue against dried lips and reaches into his pocket to check if his smokes had made it with him, for later when he exits this dream and tumbles into the next. The motion disrupts a pocket full of change; heavy, metal coins banging into each other, breaking the silence.

It could have been intentional.

[never_very_good]

"Not here for your entertainment," he says quietly, without looking up, words tinged with a bitterness that has absolutely nothing to do with Amory's presence, and everything to do with Alison Bromley, caged like an animal. Any minute now. He wonders, what will it be like to see himself?-- To watch as an outsider his biggest mistake, the crowning failure among so many?

He shifts his weight to cross his arms.

[fatespoken]

"There's no where to go. All the doors are closed," he replies, impassively, leveling his gaze toward the back of Frankie's head. Slowly, though not hesitantly, Amory walks toward the other man, approaching him as unobtrusively as he can manage, until he stops a few steps away from his backside. Enough room to be an observer, enough space for Frankie to have some measure of privacy.

He doesn't ask who she is, but his curiosity can't be hidden. Amory studies her intensely.

[never_very_good]

"Nowhere for her, either," he answers, the words drawn out on a low breath. Alison leans against a corner and lets herself slump to the floor, never once looking up. Maybe that's for the best; Frankie's not sure he could stand to make eye contact with her.

[fatespoken]

He draws his hands into his pockets, continuing to observe with an expression fixed at indifferent. Who was this girl? What is her connection to Frankie Dalton, and why is she trapped? Literally? Metaphorically?

"Who is she?" he questions.

[never_very_good]

"Alison Bromley." His lip curls up in a cracked grimace, pulling back from his teeth. "She's dead."

[fatespoken]

"An old girlfriend?" he raises an eyebrow at that, going first for the lighter implication of Frankie's expression. He can, of course, think of an answer far more terrible; a normal course for the pessimistic pathways of his mind.

[never_very_good]

He snorts dismissively, still staring at the girl, fingers twitching faintly on the window sill. "My brother works for her father. When Ed..." He shifts uncomfortably. "Bromley and I both wanted to get him back. Asked me to do him a favor."

[fatespoken]

"What does she have to do with the favor?" he questions, curiously. There's no sense of judgment in his voice or in his demeanor, only interest on a personal level, as he joins Frankie beside the sill. She's pretty and caged in like a bird. That's all he can discern from this distant a perspective.

[never_very_good]

"Didn't wanna turn. Ran, when everyone had to." Frankie's waiting, chewing at his lower lip. Any minute now, any second, he ought to be coming through the door, impossible as that is. One might think it would give him some peace to think that if he's up here, he can't show up down there... but this dream isn't about that, it's the creeping anticipation, the suffering of waiting for a foregone conclusion.

[fatespoken]

"Had to, or be labeled cattle?" he replies dryly, humor absent from his voice. To Amory, Frankie's word seems too terrible to be an actuality, or at least to imagine: a nightmare, even for Amory who is far too acquainted with nightmares. "This girl important to him? Or is she dinner?"

[never_very_good]

The little twitch of his lip isn't a smile, isn't a frown... just a nervous tic. Strange, how these things didn't bother him at the time. "His daughter, he wanted to... keep her close, y'know?" Frankie runs the tip of his tongue over dry lips. "Didn't do much good."