New Winslow S8E21
Yelling at Noah wasn’t going to do any good. So when Andrew had told her that Noah was at Iris’s apartment, Olivia did her best to not just swallow down her anger, but to let it go entirely. She didn’t want to be angry. Not after a year of improvement and especially not after the way he’d fallen apart the other night. Noah had told her something earlier about errands before work and she’d been so busy dealing with a meltdown Mia was having over lunch, that she hadn’t questioned anything about it. And she knew missing his plan wasn’t on her. None of his behavior was.
But he was very clearly backsliding and if she yelled, he was going to push her away even more. So Olivia was just left with the dull familiarity of realizing she had no idea what to say or do to fix things.
Instead of saying anything when he walked into the house behind Andrew, she’d pulled him into a hug. He seemed surprised by this at first, then held her just as tightly. Noah was warm, and slightly damp from the rain. And he wouldn’t meet her eye when she let go and looked up at him.
“It’s alright,” she’d said. “Just tell me what happened.”
He’d apologized, of course. He was always apologizing, whether he needed to or not. They told her what happened with Iris and she believed them, even as the chill crept down her spine. But at least this answered whether Iris would be able to talk to Billy McBride through Noah, even if it wasn’t the answer Noah had been looking for.
Maybe it’d be safer now. This idea of lucid dreaming seemed a lot safer than risking him consciously reliving Billy’s death over and over with Billy lodged in his mind. So she was happy to help.
“Alright, so I guess here’s the plan?” she said. “You sleep down here with me so I can be with you in case you’re successful tonight. He’s going to… I mean, we’ll need some kind of sign that he agrees, right? Outside of your dream? So I’ll be here for that, but we’ll stay downstairs this time. Your room is too far from Mia.”
To her relief, Noah nodded. “That’s fine.”
There was magic involved with this plan, but none of it seemed to be connected with or altering Noah in any way. Instead, Andrew was going to set up that little beacon attuned only to Billy. She just had to trust that it was only for Billy and nothing else would be drawn in. A quick phone call Andrew had had with Celine was encouraging too, even if Olivia was sure that she wasn’t going to be sleeping well tonight at just the thought of opening the house up any further.
“I could go sleep somewhere else,” Noah said as they sat in the living room, clearly guessing exactly what she was thinking.
“No, it’s alright,” Olivia said quickly. “Andrew knows what he’s doing.”
“No pressure there,” Andrew muttered with a laugh as he scribbled across a piece of Mia’s construction paper. She tossed a pillow at him. Noah smiled slightly, but still looked at her.
“Listen,” she said, resting against him with her head on his shoulder. “There were already spirits in the house before. I’d wake up to them telling me about their orchards and the various ways they fucked their neighbor’s wives. It’s alright.”
She knew he wanted to argue with her and say that she was doing what he was doing. Which she wasn’t, and she’d argue right back with him if he had the wherewithal to actually put up a fight right now. “This is a call going out to one spirit, who has shown he can access you here, anyway. I’ll have my medallion on the entire time until I take it off to talk to him.”
Apparently lucid dreaming started with setting intentions and deep focus. Olivia knew this was part of magic, but it didn’t involve stitching souls or giving the keys to another entity, so it was as good a solution as they were going to get. It was late, so they might as well get started now if she and Noah were going to bed in the near future anyway.
Noah went to take a shower, and she looked over at Andrew. “Is it weird…” she started, feeling silly but needing to get it out in the open.
Andrew looked at her, puzzled, then her meaning dawned on him. “Oh! Like, is it weird that you and Noah are going to- while I’m-”
“Yeah.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, it’s not weird. It’s you and him, it’s not like it’s something new or strange. But I am going to go upstairs and feed Her Royal Majesty if you two could perhaps keep your hands off each other for the next fifteen minutes or so.”
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The book was interesting, Olivia had to admit that. She flipped through the sections on lucid dreaming as Noah showered in her bathroom. He’d been about to go up to his own apartment, but then she’d read something about setting an intentional ritual by using your senses in ways that you generally didn’t. Between her and Andrew, there were multiple different shampoos in that bathroom, so that was as good a place to start as any.
“You’re not jacking off in there, are you?” she called over her shoulder as she turned the page and realized he’d been in the shower a lot longer than usual. “This says to set up a routine outside of what you usually do!”
Noah laughed and said something in return, but it was lost in the shower stream. The water cut off a second later and then he came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. His eyes looked red, but she could pretend it was the steam.
“Better?” she asked, catching the scent of violets on him.
He nodded without saying anything.
“This says to meditate before bed, are you going to do that?”
He nodded again. “It might not work.”
“I mean, it’s possible. We can only control things to a point, right? Isn’t that what you tell me?”
“Yeah, but it’s easier to give the advice than take it.”
Olivia laughed and hugged him, the scent of violets stronger up close. “You take my room if you want to read through this a little more,” she said. “I’ll be in in a little bit. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll try again tomorrow. And the day after. We’re not giving up, I promise. None of us are. We just need to be careful.”
She almost wished she hadn’t said the last part because he immediately looked ashamed. But instead of apologizing yet again, he gripped his towel, picked up the book, and headed out of the kitchen toward her room where his clothes were waiting. Olivia sat back down at the table and cautiously allowed herself to be relieved.
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