at the cullen house;byakkoyagirlNovember 1 2011, 19:53:15 UTC
The request she was given threw Paprika for a bit of a left field. Not because Jack, who she only spoken to on a few occasions, was suddenly requesting her services. It was rather what she was being asked to do for him. Dream Suppression. Never was she requested to suppress a dream and for good reason. The entire basis for dream therapy was the exact opposite. Not that suppression wasn't impossible, but she naturally felt a bit uneasy about it. She could always turn him down, though the consequences of doing that did not bear good results either. This was the kind of situation she couldn't really win in. More than that the question of "why" still lingered in the air. Dreams are just dreams. It wasn't like whatever Jack wanted to suppress would suddenly leap out of his head anytime soon
( ... )
"You're making a man nervous, love," Jack commented as he walked into the room. He knew enough to look in the pictures; this one had belonged to the house's original inhabitants, but it was particularly beautiful, so he'd left it up. Some sort of rainy, upland forest. Sometimes Jack stared at it and idly wondered how it would feel to climb to the very tops of those great trees and leap from treetop to treetop, rather like a spider monkey.
Paprika turns to him as he says that, but doesn't respond yet. She was still quite unsure about this predicament and if he noticed her nerves, then it only makes what she is prepared to do more unsettling.
"Not a cure, so much as a solution. ...Are you sure you want to do this?"
He'd lose them...but lost, they were safer. No one else could ever know about them.
"Joyce is the eldest. She's there the most. Then there's Xander, but he's a quietish sort. And Annie's the littlest. Dawn suggested a middle name for her--'Tara.' Must've been a friend of Dawn's or such. Pretty name. Annie's...
Her expression doesn't change as he describes the children, however compassionate and heart-filled the visions he has seen are. It's obvious how much he cares - he gave them names and assigned who were the youngest and eldest. She already resolved herself to go through with this, if he was absolutely sure he wanted to do it. There must be good reason for this and that is what keeps her anchored to this assignment. She is not one to turn down a person in need. And, as a professional, she cannot waver. Not when her client is right in front of her.
"It should take maybe an hour or two at best. Depends on how quickly you can get yourself to fall asleep. I'll enter in and we can begin," she says in a plain voice. Not excited, though not worried or saddened. Just like a doctor, explaining a procedure.
Luckily, the constant trips to tend the Joanna in the high waves and tides over the past few days, coupled with his anxieties about Buffy and Jilly, had left the pirate in need of a good deal of sleep. The one full night he'd gotten on the 30th had been the most sleep Jack had gotten for days.
"Just get to sleep and we'll take it from there. Have a good rest."
She waves him off and then moves to leave the inside of the picture. She needs to prepare to take the leap into his subconscious. More than that, prepare to suppress his dreams rather than let them flourish. Not something she was exactly looking forward to.
Sparrow settled into his hammock, pulling his now-much-battered copy of A Better Man in Seven Days in with him. The hammock rocked gently as he redistributed his weight and opened the book to a chapter he had been too afraid, before now, to read.
Chapter 17: Being There: A Better Path to Better Fatherhood
By the time they reach fully realized adulthood and young children enter the picture, men may begin to look to their own fathers for--
He quickly flipped past that part.
The best father is able to embrace his 'inner child,' that is, the spirit of youth, innocence, and light within himself. Too often a man who has endured frequent punishments as a child learns to punish himself. He smothers his inner child with strictures and confines him to a lonesome existence. The yearning for what was lost comes to replace the joys that may be found in the present if this child is simply nurtured and embraced. If a man--....What the hell did any of that mean? Jack stared at the diagram of a stylized man-figure cuddling a stylized child-figure
( ... )
2/2 I just realized this would work better if I gave Paprika a dream to go into : |@lists_to_portNovember 1 2011, 22:43:37 UTC
At first, everything in the dream was hazy, resolving after a few moments into a pre-dawn morning on the beach by Port Royal.
Why here? Jack wondered as he set off across the sand. "Joyce? Annie?!"
He could see three sets of children's footprints in the sand before him. Eagerly, Jack hurried off in the direction they were heading, calling the children's names periodically.
"Xander, lad?! Joyce?"
He'd know them when he saw them. Joyce, always happy and brave and confident; Xander, quiet and bold; Annie, a twinkling bright little cricket. He'd know them.
Paprika had entered the dream as soon as Jack went to sleep. Naturally, she began the process almost immediately upon her arrival. But, there were only so many things she could do as a foreign entity in his headspace. Her plan was clear cut and one thing was certain: she would not let Jack see the children that his dreams had created. It was simply not an option. Even one sight of them could cause a lapse in the process and negate the suppression. It was both an automatic and controlled process, and a break in the latter would ruin everything.
So, as Jack follows the footsteps, the pirate will soon come to cross with a woman. Standing in the middle of the path and slowly breaking apart the footprints with her bare feet, as she waited for him to draw closer.
She made no movements. Neither in her body or her expression. So this is how it was going to be? This was really worse than she first imagined it to be. Just the way he acted around the kids, smiling and holding them and playing with them. It was going to be difficult for sure. To suppress this idea that bloomed in his mind would take a lot of effort. But, he said he was positive. So, she won't doubt him. Even if the behavior he exhibits contradicts his earlier proposition.
When he finally finishes and declares the three wide-eyed children by his side to be his, she makes her own declaration.
At those words, Xander went directly to Annie's side. She had been off trying to show Jack how she could cartwheel---mostly this involved planting her palms on the sand and kicking up her bare feet in the air. The boy stopped her and pulled her to his side, wrapping a protective arm around her. He looked at his father with a mixture of disappointment and longing on his face.
If Jack could have gone back in time and seen his childhood play out, he would have recognized it as the look that crossed his own five-year-old features when Teague left him for months at a time on some voyage or other.
Something inside him was fighting this.
A father never abandons his children because--
NOT abandoning! Saving. Protecting. Concealing. Guarding.
Suppressing. Caging.
...They're together. The boy is with her. He'll look after her. He always has.
"Those are not my children," the pirate repeated, feeling the warm little hand in his tighten its grip as Joyce realized what her father was doing.
She didn't focus on the children as the moved, her eyes steadily on Jack. If anything, this would make the suppression easier. The children were just images created by his own mind. They did not exist, but Jack did. Jack was the only she was here for and not them. To remove these 'children' in his mind, for better or worse. On some level it seemed the kids realized they were being threatened. Not a shock, as a fellow dream was denying and slowly suppressing their presence.
So, she moved closer. Only a step or two, which seemed relatively small, but could easily be mistaken as a large leap.
"Who are they? They are only fading images with name tags that you gave them, so that you could label the emotional arousal that came from your imagination. They do not exist."
The sky above grew rosier as the morning sun made its appearance over the eastern horizon, and Jack chanced opening his eyes. He found himself staring into the reproachful green eyes of a small boy who was accepting his fate quietly, and into the brown eyes of a very little girl who was smiling at him happily.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut tighter.
"NOT. Not real. Fading images. Fade, damn you."
When the sun crested the horizon line, red morning light spilled onto empty sand where the two had been standing only moments before. Triumph.
Reply
"Have you my cure?"
Reply
"Not a cure, so much as a solution. ...Are you sure you want to do this?"
Reply
He'd lose them...but lost, they were safer. No one else could ever know about them.
"Joyce is the eldest. She's there the most. Then there's Xander, but he's a quietish sort. And Annie's the littlest. Dawn suggested a middle name for her--'Tara.' Must've been a friend of Dawn's or such. Pretty name. Annie's...
She's the littlest. How long will it take?"
Reply
"It should take maybe an hour or two at best. Depends on how quickly you can get yourself to fall asleep. I'll enter in and we can begin," she says in a plain voice. Not excited, though not worried or saddened. Just like a doctor, explaining a procedure.
Reply
"Does it matter where I lay myself down?"
Couch, or hammock?
......Not the couch.
"I'll be in my room, I suppose."
Reply
She waves him off and then moves to leave the inside of the picture. She needs to prepare to take the leap into his subconscious. More than that, prepare to suppress his dreams rather than let them flourish. Not something she was exactly looking forward to.
Reply
Chapter 17: Being There: A Better Path to Better Fatherhood
By the time they reach fully realized adulthood and young children enter the picture, men may begin to look to their own fathers for--
He quickly flipped past that part.
The best father is able to embrace his 'inner child,' that is, the spirit of youth, innocence, and light within himself. Too often a man who has endured frequent punishments as a child learns to punish himself. He smothers his inner child with strictures and confines him to a lonesome existence. The yearning for what was lost comes to replace the joys that may be found in the present if this child is simply nurtured and embraced. If a man--....What the hell did any of that mean? Jack stared at the diagram of a stylized man-figure cuddling a stylized child-figure ( ... )
Reply
Why here? Jack wondered as he set off across the sand. "Joyce? Annie?!"
He could see three sets of children's footprints in the sand before him. Eagerly, Jack hurried off in the direction they were heading, calling the children's names periodically.
"Xander, lad?! Joyce?"
He'd know them when he saw them. Joyce, always happy and brave and confident; Xander, quiet and bold; Annie, a twinkling bright little cricket. He'd know them.
Reply
So, as Jack follows the footsteps, the pirate will soon come to cross with a woman. Standing in the middle of the path and slowly breaking apart the footprints with her bare feet, as she waited for him to draw closer.
Reply
Reply
She made no movements. Neither in her body or her expression. So this is how it was going to be? This was really worse than she first imagined it to be. Just the way he acted around the kids, smiling and holding them and playing with them. It was going to be difficult for sure. To suppress this idea that bloomed in his mind would take a lot of effort. But, he said he was positive. So, she won't doubt him. Even if the behavior he exhibits contradicts his earlier proposition.
When he finally finishes and declares the three wide-eyed children by his side to be his, she makes her own declaration.
"Those aren't your children."
From here, the suppression would begin.
Reply
At those words, Xander went directly to Annie's side. She had been off trying to show Jack how she could cartwheel---mostly this involved planting her palms on the sand and kicking up her bare feet in the air. The boy stopped her and pulled her to his side, wrapping a protective arm around her. He looked at his father with a mixture of disappointment and longing on his face.
If Jack could have gone back in time and seen his childhood play out, he would have recognized it as the look that crossed his own five-year-old features when Teague left him for months at a time on some voyage or other.
Something inside him was fighting this.
A father never abandons his children because--
NOT abandoning! Saving. Protecting. Concealing. Guarding.
Suppressing. Caging.
...They're together. The boy is with her. He'll look after her. He always has.
"Those are not my children," the pirate repeated, feeling the warm little hand in his tighten its grip as Joyce realized what her father was doing.
Reply
So, she moved closer. Only a step or two, which seemed relatively small, but could easily be mistaken as a large leap.
"Who are they? They are only fading images with name tags that you gave them, so that you could label the emotional arousal that came from your imagination. They do not exist."
Reply
Slowly the two small children who were huddled together before them began to fade.
Reply
Jack squeezed his eyes shut tighter.
"NOT. Not real. Fading images. Fade, damn you."
When the sun crested the horizon line, red morning light spilled onto empty sand where the two had been standing only moments before. Triumph.
Reply
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