She doesn't want to explain this. Even to other mutants, her ability to walk through dreams, to project her own mind into those of unwitting people, is something that they aren't comfortable with. People found out that Reb could walk into their dreams and they treated her like a pariah, like she was setting out to disrupt their sleep on purpose. It was horrible and she'd run away rather than be accused of targeting the people she loved most.
Most homeless people, Reb had learned, didn't question when they had horrible nightmares. No one became homeless who wasn't haunted by something. Reb had managed to slip through the cracks since she'd run away, had managed to somehow keep other people from finding the person responsible for their nightmares. That reprieve was up, now, and she had to explain herself to this behemoth of a man and hope that he didn't go after her for it. She slipped her left hand into her pocket, curling it around the knife she kept there. She was too small to do any real damage, but maybe she could surprise him enough that she could slip away if she needed to.
She took a long moment, trying to figure out where to start, what to say. Henry, when he'd asked, had been understanding. He was her father. He loved her. He'd wanted to help her. Reb's own stubbornness and inability to believe that anybody would truly care about her after everything her mom had put her through had been what made her leave. They were the same thing that made her stay away. None of that had changed. If anything, it had gotten worse. She knew her dream walking was out of control, that she was projecting in a way that harmed more than it did good. She needed to get it under control, but first she had to explain it to this man.
"First," she finally said, pushing the pan with fry bread more so it was in between them, an open invitation to share her food with him, "I should apologize. Whatever you saw, that wasn't my intention. I didn't send it to you on purpose. I would never knowingly invade someone's privacy like that."
She paused, fingers tightening around the knife before loosening, hand slipping back out of her pocket to push a lock of hair out of the way. She didn't want him to react to her as a threat so she needed to appear as casual as she could, even if it was a lie. She'd be better off if he didn't think she was out to hurt him.
"I'm Reb," she told him, not yet explaining herself. Maybe she was buying time. It wasn't exactly something she wanted to admit to, especially to this stranger. But if there was anything that she'd learned since living on the streets, it was that sometimes you had to be vulnerable with people you didn't want to see you like that. Sometimes you had no choice. This was one of those times. She didn't know what this man would do if she couldn't explain in a way that satisfied him. She didn't know if he would be violent, if he would react with action. She couldn't take that risk. She may not like her life right now, but she wasn't going to seek out losing it.
"I don't really know what to tell you," she tore a piece of fry bread off, partially to assuage her own hunger, partially to show him it was safe to eat. "I don't really understand it much myself. It's just- sometimes I can project my dreams, when I'm asleep. I don't know how I do it, but people have told me that I send them what I dream. I think I can do it the other way around too, but I'll be honest with you, I don't want to have this power at all. It's not- I don't want to be invasive. This- It's so invasive. And I'm sorry that it affected you. I can be gone from this camp in an hour, if you don't want to risk it again."
She'd left a few homeless encampments for that very reason. She was running out of places in Oklahoma City, but if she could hop a train she could probably go further East. Maybe she'd be safe there. Maybe she'd be safe somewhere. She hoped.
kianamaiart
germansingergirl
baratheonpilled
izzy806
andulkaphoto
blakekathryn
vaporwave
