The Shavings Off Your Mind are the Only Rent [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Picture a house. Actually, picture two houses. They're (almost) identical structures that share an uneasy coexistence, tangled together on a quantum level. One of the houses is Good: bright, cheerful, full of comfortable furniture and a pervasive feeling of safety. The other house is Evil: dingy, dilapidated, and haunted by the dreamers' greatest fears.

The good news - and bad news - is that travel from one house to the other is as simple as passing through a door. All a dreamer has to do is walk through a doorway, any doorway, and they'll find themselves in whichever house they weren't in before they crossed the threshold. Perhaps they'll step out of a beautiful library and find themselves in a threatening hallway - or perhaps they'll flee a menacing kitchen and find themselves in a perfectly safe dining room. That is the nature of the houses' entanglement: every door is a portal between the two.

There are, of course, complications. Dreamers in one house can't perceive the other; if you're in the Good house and looking through a doorway, the space beyond will look as nice and inviting as the space you're in now (until you step through that doorway, of course). Dreamers also can't really perceive one another if they're in the same room, but in different houses, though they might see a flash of movement out of the corner of their eye, or think they heard something.

Perhaps the greatest complications are the houses themselves. They have rather strong personalities, and they aren't very fond of one another. Each house will want to keep you if it can (keep you safe, in the case of the Good house, or keep you for itself, in the case of the Evil one). Dreamers may attempt to cross a hall and find the door that looked open and inviting a moment ago is now barred shut, leaving them trapped in the hall - or have doors suddenly close in their faces before they can end up anywhere unpleasant. Still, there's only so much either house can do, and even a locked door can be jimmied open or busted down.

Escape from the houses is possible, but the formal gardens beyond are similarly entangled, with neatly trimmed lawns and expertly plotted flower beds becoming overgrown tangles of nettles and algae-choked reflecting pools. An archway is as good as a door, as far as the gardens are concerned, and there are plenty of arbors and arches over the paths. Of course, dreamers may find that a sound arbor in the Good garden has collapsed in the Evil one… and heaven help anyone who dares to explore the hedge maze.





[ooc: y'all know the drill. ALL characters are welcome, regardless of whether they're in the game. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.

Also, this dream party marks the aforementioned calendar freeze. For the next three weeks, the IG date will sit on July 3rd. Posts dated July 3rd or earlier are allowed and encouraged. The calendar will resume forward motion at a 4:1 ratio on Saturday, July 26th.]

Comments

[johnny_truant]

Johnny whimpers softly when Niall steps away, fearing irrationally that he'll be left alone here, bound like this to the wall, or perhaps truly swallowed up in the dark. It's almost worse that he simply closes the door, defying the apparent good will of the house. Johnny resumes his fight when the doctor paces back toward him, squirming, almost writhing, and drawing shallow, frantic breaths.

"But-" What, you idiot? There's nothing he can say. This is what he asked for, what he wanted, and still wants, somewhere down in the dark pit of him. Still, reflexively, he strains against the bonds, wriggling his hips, pushing his head forward and down, like a man trying to curl up and make himself sink.

[yfeltihtend]

'Shhh,' Unthank breathes, crowding further into Johnny's space, gradual as an advancing tide, until stomach and chest and hips are lined up against him, craning down to murmur wetly against his ear. 'Don't fret. I've got you.'

The words are a parody of comfort, and his hand strokes insinuatingly up to alight, again, at Johnny's neck. The pulse is racing fit for Johnny's heart to burst, if this were his physical body, and Doctor Unthank leans further to taste the pulsepoint just under his ear, paper-thin skin and bird-bones beneath, and hums softly with the sheer, indulgent pleasure of it.

'Ask,' he says. Commands. 'Tell me what you want, hmm? Give it words, and I'll give it you, with pleasure.' Whiskers bristle against Johnny's neck as he smiles again, drawing back to brush his open mouth over Johnny's, damp skin catching for only a moment, before there's nothing more than breath between them. He looks down at him with hooded eyes.

'And if you're good... hmm, I think I'll have you suck me after.'

[johnny_truant]

Oh, oh, oh. Fuck. Johnny can't even keep up the pretense of fearful revulsion, breath shuddering and catching as Niall's hand traces back up to his throat, wet lips and needle-sharp hairs brushing over his skin. Parody or no, the words are exactly what he needs to hear, sending a warm pulse through his body, his stomach flipping over - yes, Niall's got him, cornered, possessed, this is what he asked for, what he wanted, needed. Deserves. God, he's so fucking hard, and he's pathetic and disgusting, squirming, rubbing himself against Niall's body like an animal. His chin tilts up in an automatic reflex, responding to what seems like a kiss but is barely even contact, leaving him staring, breathless, lips wet and parted, up at his captor.

"I," he breathes, and swallows hard, shivering beneath Niall's hands and the press of his body. "I want you to use me." He hears himself speak the words at some distance, or under water, looking outward at himself in horror and rage, as he so completely, desperately, hungrily surrenders.

It only gets worse. "Touch me," he whispers, his eyes fluttering shut. "Ruin me." A sob almost escapes him and he clamps it down. "Please."

[yfeltihtend]

Ohhh, he is magnificent. It's a rare thing, for a man to know so explicitly, so immediately, what degradation he needs, deserves, but Johnny Truant barely needs hesitate. Just look at him, all empty eyes and wet, parted lips, begging to be used and broken. Doctor Unthank feels his hand spasm briefly, tightening on Johnny's throat, the sheer, exquisite utterness of it for a moment overwhelming his customary restraint.

'Ohhh,' he breathes, voice so soft. 'Cry, boy, do.' He leans in again, just barely, enough to curl his tongue up and under, to catch on the upper row of Johnny's teeth and his lip. 'They say it's good for you, don't they?' he breathes, smiling a mockery of consideration, 'Your modern doctors.'

And then, just to confuse the senses, he slides his hand down between them, palming the taut, shivering plane of Johnny's belly before sliding under the waistband of his trousers. His other hand pops the button, and the pressure of his wrist is sufficient to part the teeth of the zipper, whereupon he draws his prick out without ceremony, fingers curling around the hot length of it.

The shadows he's conjured all around them are cold, unnaturally dense, and his grip will feel an unnatural-- or perhaps a too natural-- counterpoint to the clutching at Johnny's calves and arms. Pulling back enough to get a good view of Johnny's face, he twists with his wrist, starting a slow, tortuous jerk, eyes always on Johnny's face, not bothering to watch what his hand is doing. His knees and thighs are still pressed to Johnny's.

'And what will you give me, if I do?'

[johnny_truant]

"Nnh-" Johnny whimpers, his breath quickening under the sudden, short-lived press of Niall's hand. The soft incitation chills his blood. He does not obey, not for defiance but for sheer paralysis. He strains forward to meet the doctor's lips but again he is rebuffed; Niall isn't interested in kissing, but tasting.

Johnny would be lying to himself if he said that wasn't exactly what he wanted.

The hand leaves his throat then, brushing over his heaving chest and quivering stomach right to his jeans, and he can't help a nervous inhalation as Niall opens him up and takes him in hand.

He twitches and writhes against the shadowy bonds pinning him to the wall, cold and unyielding, such that Niall's grip is a grounding point of contact; and as he tugs and rubs slowly, agonizingly, Johnny can only stare up at him, silently begging, wholly destroyed.

His first several attempts at speech come out breathless and silent, until a sharper jerk draws a plaintive cry from him, breaking the spell, and he says all at once, the words tumbling out of him on a desperate moan, "Anything, anything. Anything you want." He gasps and sobs as soon as this is uttered, and softer, he tells his master "Please."