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[He tries to ignore it, really. The way Raikou acts in his sleep, long after he doses off. Certainly, Tsuyukusa is a heavy sleeper, so it isn't so hard to pretend that he's out cold when Raikou wakes, still halfway caught in his own night terrors.

But after a while, it's too much to ignore, too much to pretend not to notice. So this time, when Raikou jolts awake, the tree spirit rolls over, wraps his arms around him and tucks him in close against himself. He has his single eye trained on Raikou's face, carefully checking for his reaction, but he isn't likely to let go any time soon.]

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[Sleeping next to someone regularly has helped. When another body is close, it's instinct not to thrash around too much, to kick or scream. But it's pretty regular for him to toss and turn and mumble protests and the names of people who are dead. Sometimes it gets really bad, and there is screaming and struggling against nothing.

Tonight's one of those nights. Heihachi is off spending some time with his other friends, and Raikou wakes up shouting "no", pale as a sheet. Tsuyu's touch is at once helpful and not. It's good to be held because it's warm and smells like earth and leaves instead of the cold iron and steel and blood in his dream. It's bad because it's restraint when that's the very thing he's fighting against in the nightmare. So though he's half-awake, he's still not entirely back to reality yet, and he shoves at Tsuyukusa, closing his eyes and tensing as if bracing for a blow.]

Let go of me!

[Tsuyukusa doesn't allow himself to be pushed away, tenses and snarls and remains a firm, immovable presence. But he doesn't pull Raikou any closer than he already is, doesn't retaliate past that, just stays and refuses to let that change.

Maybe it isn't the best way to deal with this, but it's something.]

No!

Don't--

[It's so hard to break the spell of trauma. The progression of things is routine, the same reliving of his worst moments, the things not even Tsuyukusa or Sakata know about. The things that caused so many of his mental and physical scars -- it's not like Tsuyu knows he never received many battle wounds, and that any marks he carries are recent.

But he doesn't cry. He didn't cry at the time, and he won't in his memories. He's just angry and scared, and those things come through.]

I'll kill you! I'll kill you. I'llkillyou...

[He repeats it like a mantra, like a defense. As usual in these dreams, he behaves like he's struggling, not like he' fighting a fair fight. It's noticeable when he dreams of the night he lost everything, because that's aggressive, panicked, vengeful -- but usually it's like this, like he's already lost and desperate, like he's going through past events that don't match anything he's ever spoken about.]

You won't.

[And he's rolling them, putting himself beneath Raikou, in a place of vulnerability. But he has a tight grip on the human's upper arms, and he isn't going to escape easily.]

If you haven't yet, you won't now. Or do you think you even can?

I...

[Being moved that much is enough to help him wake up more, so he stops, staring down at Tsuyukusa wide-eyed and white-faced.

After a few moments of hard breathing, he goes mostly limp, and laughs weakly under his breath.]

I thought you were someone else.

[Tsuyukusa takes advantage of the loss of tension to flip them again, looming over Raikou with a more serious expression than he can normally keep without looking angry, but he seems anything but pissed.]

Who did you think it was?

[The lingering bits of dream make Raikou look more uncomfortable with this position than he usually is -- but that's normal for these incidents too.

He hasn't answered those kinds of questions yet, and he isn't answering them this time. These burdens are too delicate to hand over to someone else so easily. He doesn't make eye contact, either.]

What makes you think I'll tell you that now? It's just someone from my dream.