applesaucedream | Enchantment Under the Sea

Current Music: Evening of July 12th/Morning of July 13th, 2013

Enchantment Under the Sea

Tonight, the dreamers of Manhattan will find themselves transported to what is unmistakably a high school gymnasium. Granted, it's lavishly decorated in blues, greens, and violets. There are jellyfish made of tissue paper and streamers, painted cardboard fish are dangling from ceiling, and an abundance of transparent balloons serve as substitute bubbles. Tables and chairs are clustered around the periphery for those who'd like to sit, but the majority of the floor is open for dancing. Along one wall, folding tables hold snacks and bowls of punch. There's no DJ to be seen, but a sound system is playing a steady stream of classic dance songs.

It's impressive work for a nonexistent prom committee, all things considered.

But the setting is not the only thing that hearkens back to one's teenage years. The dreamers will find, regardless of age or species, that they're now saddled with the hormones of an average sixteen-year-old human being… and with the delightful mood fluctuations and bouts of irrationality that come with the package. (Dreamers who are already teenagers might be said to be getting a reprieve… but dealing with adults in such a state will be trying enough on its own. Someone has to chaperone, right?)

The good news for dreamers who aren't into dances is that there's an entire high school to explore, though the hallways will only be half-lit and many of the classrooms will be locked up. Even the parking lot and athletic fields are accessible, but dreamers may find themselves getting mysteriously turned around if they try to actually leave school property.

[ooc: you all know the drill. Any and all characters are welcome, regardless of whether or not they're in the game. Dreamers may remember or forget the events of the party at the player's discretion.]

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"Oh!" Aziraphale sputters for a moment of utter bafflement when Crowley actually punches Spike in the face - over what, even? Crowley's called him variations on 'nerdy arsehole', and plenty worse, a thousand times before. And although his instant reaction should be to scold the demon and see to Spike's wellbeing - though an undead semi-immortal demon-type person, he is a person, after all - he instead feels his confusion resolve quickly into an acute sort of pleasure, like, er, well... what is he, even? Exhilarated? Flattered? Chuffed?

Crowley recoils in pain, and Aziraphale is at his side in an instant, pawing worriedly at him. "Are you all right?" he asks, idiotically, HE'S the one who started it!! but he can't help it. "What - what's gotten into you?"

Either of them, really, but let's start here.

Spike lifts his hand to his nose while Aziraphale flies over to Crowley's side like he hadn't been the one that just threw that punch. "What do you mean is he all right!?" The indignity of it all. He hadn't even done anything wrong! It'd been Crowley that had gone all macho-bullshit on him, not the other way around.

He can't just let this rest. Crowley can't just do that without consequences. And he had wanted to see how well Crowley can fight, right? He's got all of this unreleased tension boiling under his skin- this might be just the thing. It'll feel good to return the favor.

"Sorry, angel." Spike steps in with a smile on his face and yanks Crowley back by his ridiculously fancy tie. While the demon is still off-balance, he punches him across the jaw, then kicks at his knee, trying to get him down. He's not letting go of the tie just yet.

'Ng-ack!' Crowley chokes on an undignified noise as Spike yanks him forward by his tie, arms flailing for moment without any dignity whatever as he fights to keep his balance. He's not quite out of his own control enough to shout at Spike that he's not allowed to call Aziraphale that, not that it really matters when Spike suddenly wallops him across the jaw.

'Ssssson of a bitch!' Crowley spits, his sibilants getting away from him in the heat of the moment, and then, 'Oh, no you bloody don't,' as Spike swipes a leg out to try and knock him to the floor.

Crowley manages to dodge the kick, but still halfway overbalances, a skewed mess with his tie still firmly in Spike's hand, spine bending inhumanly to keep himself upright. And then, just to even things up, he throws himself at Spike in what is, all things considered, a fairly decent rugby tackle. Arms around Spike's thighs, he scrambles as soon as they hit the floor to get himself on top.

Edited 2014-09-01 01:12 (UTC)

"Wh- oh." Aziraphale can't offer much more than that, standing back and gawping at the display. This is - this is ludicrous. They're both going to come out of this all roughed up and bloodied, and........ He realizes with a deep scarlet flush that he's gone rather glassy-eyed and hazy at the notion. What is the matter with him. Flustered by his own inexplicable, inexcusable appreciation of the uncouth event unfolding before him, he winds up flatlining and hovering uselessly, fingers pressed to pursed lips, vaguely tracking their slipshod clumsy movements while trying to figure out he feels about this. Crowley's fighting... for him???

"Stop that," he hazards, but it doesn't sound like he means it at all. He's beginning to feel too warm with the ridiculous suit and his own burning embarrassment, and he rather wants to miracle himself out of there and hide his face forever, but then he would miss this.

"Whuh!" Spike is dazed for a moment as he slams down onto his back. His hands go automatically to Crowley's shoulders, but Crowley is just as strong as him and easily climbs up until he's straddling him. This might be a great time to land a punch, but he's a little distracted by the feel of Crowley on top of him and how he kind of likes that. That's just because of the fighting, right? Must be. He's just feeling very amped-up in general.

Crowley lands a punch and Spike smirks up at him from behind a bloodied lip. When Crowley punches again it's enough to spur Spike into action. He dodges, though only half successfully. He can hear his ears ringing from the impact.

He doesn't have much force to deliver an attack from where he is. He needs a distraction, so he spits up into Crowley's face. That gives him enough leeway to push up and flip them both over so he's on top. From there, he happily deals Crowley another blow.

Despite the general clamor in the gymnasium, it's not difficult to spot the tell-tale signs of a tussle going on in one corner. And when Daine realizes that one of the men causing such a ruction is Bee's friend from the roof, she decides - for Bee's sake, if nothing else - that someone really ought to step in. She's a little surprised to see Aziraphale gawking at the fight instead of doing anything about it, but questions can wait until after these two have stopped pummeling one another.

Despite their size, elephants can be wonderfully quiet creatures, and her grey coloration blends well enough with the general dimness of the room, so the combatants get very little warning of her approach. One moment, they're pounding on one another, and the next, there's a muscular grey trunk wrapping itself around Crowley's midsection and hoisting him half a dozen feet into the air. Daine shifts her weight so she can place a large foot on Spike's shoulder to discourage him from any further violence. Both gestures are quite gentle; she could exert a lot more force if she wanted to, but she's hoping her size will be enough to make them think twice about turning on her, instead.

Now, now, she says in stern disapproval, sounding more like her ma than she realizes. That's more than enough of that.

Crowley snarls as Spike flips them, but it's more than half a smile, open-mouthed and sharp. He's actually mostly forgotten why he started the fight by this point, caught up in the weird, manic, blood-thumping enjoyment of releasing energy by rolling around on the floor and whaling on someone. And if some of that enjoyment is sexual, well. He's just gonna ignore that, because seriously this dream is fucking weird.

He struggles as Spike pins him, spitting blood back up at him from the punch to the mouth and grinning horribly. 'I see how it is; wanted to be on top, huh-- ga-ahh!'

Crowley yelps as he is suddenly and unceremoniously hoisted into the air by something warm and incredibly strong wrapped around his midsection. He flops and flails for a moment like a landed fish, twisting in confusion. 'Oi! What the--?'

The something is evidently the trunk of a large and deeply exasperated-looking elephant, and Crowley stops struggling with a slightly poleaxed, 'Oh.' Well, that's unusual. His hands hover for a moment above the trunk around his chest before settling on it with a little pat. Best not to antagonise the elephant. 'Ah, quite right.'

Spike manages to stop just short of complete bafflement as an elephant steals Crowley out form under him. He's flipped onto his back, and is about to get up and protest the interruption when the huge foot settles down onto his shoulder.

"What!?" He grapples at the foot, trying to push it off for a moment, but then the thing speaks and he has to stop for a moment to realize that yes, this is definitely a dream. Seeing as the elephant is more in favor of the fighting stopping instead of participating, he stops fighting trying to get himself out and starts wondering why there's a talking elephant.

"This is a bloody weird dream." He throws an accusatory finger in Aziraphale's direction. "And you should control your demon!" Nevermind that Spike had really been the one to get the fight going and had enjoyed a great deal of it. The token protest seems to carry a lot of weight when he's being pinned down by a talking pachyderm.

Aziraphale has been quite distracted what with all the punching and rolling about going on, a hideously complicated soup of emotions and grotesque bodily reactions that he can't even begin to deal with - like his 6,000 year old manner of dealing with things, his whole angelic consciousness, has just been spirited away, astrally projected elsewhere, leaving him only distantly aware of his blushing and lip-biting and stammering and little murmured gasps at all that violence and... masculine aggression. His ears feel hot; his palms are sweating. He rubs them self-consciously on his trousers. Any moment now he's going to intervene and break this fight up. Any moment now.

The elephant is a surprise. Embarrassingly so. Just how wrapped up in this was he, to not notice an entire elephant approaching? If he'd been remotely more level-headed he might have remembered that elephants are often deceptively sneaky. But as it is, he is overwhelmedly concerned with Crowley having been commandeered. He snaps into action, coming right up to the elephant, which is not an elephant at all.

"Daine!" he cries, startled and alarmed. They're all behaving abnormally; is she on some sort of elephantine rampage? "Put him down! It - it's all right! He's my demon!"

This comes out abruptly almost on top of Spike's accusation, only reinforcing Crowley as his demon. Ugh, the idea! Aziraphale chews his lip in immense, adolescent consternation and says petulantly, absurdly, "You control him!" He reaches a hand up, as though forgetting for a moment that he could very easily miracle Crowley right back down if he wanted to. "Daine, please?"

Daine has absolutely no intention of putting anyone down - or raising her foot, despite Spike's struggles - until she's certain they're not going to start right back up where they left off. She hoists Crowley a bit higher in response to Aziraphale's approach, trying to keep him out of fist-swinging range.

Your demon? she repeats, giving Aziraphale a dubious look out of one eye. The person in her trunk feels like a regular two-legger to her, though looks can be deceiving. Well, whatever he is, if he's truly Aziraphale's responsibility, then the angel should've been the one breaking things up instead of standing idly by until she stepped in. She rumbles her disapproval, a sound less heard and more felt through the waxed wood floor. How disappointingly typical for an angel.

And you didn't see fit to stop him fighting with folk? she asks with a pointed, almost prissy flap of her ears. I thought you were a better sort of angel than that. And as for you, she continues, directing her gaze toward Spike, I don't think Bee would be very impressed if she could see you just now. Honestly, they're all acting like such children. She turns her disapproving glare on each of them in turn, then announces, You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves, causing a ruction like this. What if you'd hurt someone else on accident?

"Fucking- we weren't going to hurt someone else. I'm a better fighter than that, even with him flailing around." Or the opposite of flailing, which was really more what Crowley had been doing.

Wait, how does the elephant know Bee? And why does it think that Bee's opinion matters to him? Setting aside that very confusing piece of information, he figures that Bee might approve of the fight, given her interest in sparring. She probably wouldn't approve of how the fight had started, but who could blame them in this dream? Everyone's hackles are up.

Sunshine, on the other hand, probably wouldn't be at all pleased about the fight. He lets his head fall back onto the floor with a soft thud and glares up at the animal. "Just let me go. The happy couple can stay here."

'Ack!'

Crowley clutches hard onto the elephant's trunk as she suddenly jerks him up, his legs curling up under him, kicking like he could get a grip on the air. There's a definite indignity to being swung around in the air like a child holding a sweet up out of the reach of a younger sibling.

Of course, there's also a definite indignity to being chided by an elephant for brawling. An... elephant whom Aziraphale apparently knows, at that. Speaking of, he twists, frowning down at Aziraphale. 'Your--?' Chri-- Someone, this whole situation is mortifying, as it suddenly hits him that that is basically why he'd started the fight with Spike, and he wilts slightly.

'Look, um,' he pats the elephant's trunk. 'Madam. I'd appreciate it if you let me down. Ignore him.' He waves a hand at Aziraphale, his tone sliding away from awkward and into something as smoothly persuasive as he can manage. 'A misunderstanding, that's all; I promise I'm not generally given to... causing ructions of this nature.'

Horrifyingly, Aziraphale feels his lip tremble when Daine calls him out for not acting. She's right, he knows she's right, and he's suddenly so completely overcome with shame. And in front of Spike and Crowley - it's too much to bear.

"You're right," he mumbles, and oh no, oh no, tears are coming. He pushes the back of his hand against his eyes, for a moment more baffled than embarrassed, staring at the wetness on his stupid, bright orange cuff - what a ridiculous suit! Why didn't he change it?! And that's not even important right now. Selfish, Azirapahle, always so selfish and prideful and lustful - why is he so bad at this?! So much so that now more than one young human woman has had to put him in his place?

"I'm a - a terrible angel!" he wails, and drops his face into his hands. Oh no. He needs to get out of here right now. Crowley's being very polite to Daine and she'll probably oblige him now - they don't need him. And Crowley won't want to even look at him if he's being like this.

"I- I'm sorry!" he cries, and, too pitiful to face any of them anymore, disappears into the ether.

Oh, for… Daine heaves her massive grey sides in a sigh of mingled consternation and regret. Odd's bobs. She might not be pleased with the three of them, but she hadn't meant to make anyone cry.

What is wrong with everyone? she muses to herself as she carefully lowers Crowley back to the floor, rotating her trunk so he lands on his feet. Behave yourself, she adds after she's released him, giving him a firm poke in the chest with her trunk - not enough to unbalance him, but enough to get her point across.

Turning her attention to Spike, she takes her foot off of him, coils her trunk around one of his arms, and hoists him to his feet with a mild, Up you get. You might want to wash your face.

He's wondering a little about just why Aziraphale is suddenly being so weepy and melodramatic, but he doesn't have the chance to ask him about it before he disappears entirely. Maybe once they'll all woken up.

Once he's on his feet, Spike makes a show of adjusting his jacket in one swift tug and runs a hand over his face to attempt wiping off the blood. Yeah, he'll definitely need to wash this off. True to his word (though it's negligible now that Aziraphale's run off) he stomps out of the room, but not before making a face in Crowley's direction.

What the fuck? Crowley boggles down at him as Aziraphale starts crying, and then, of all ridiculous things, vanishes, crying about how he's a terrible angel. That is-- what? He's torn between UTTER AND COMPLETE BAFFLEMENT and uncomfortable embarrassment at the display. He has no idea how to react to that. Fortunately, he is currently about eight feet in the air and therefore, he feels, somewhat at a remove from having to decide on a method of response.

Still, he's relieved to find himself on his feet again, and he sways a little as the elephant prods him in the chest. 'Yeah, yeah, of course.'

In response to Spike's face, Crowley (maturely) sticks his tongue out at him. With Crowley's tongue, the gesture has a little more emphasis than it would with anybody else's. 'Wanker', he mutters under his breath, before swinging back to eye the elephant.

'So, um, you know Aziraphale?'

Daine blinks in surprise at the very non-human shape of Crowley's tongue - not a normal two-legger, after all, though 'demon' doesn't mean much to her. She has a vague memories of biblical mentions of them, but who knows if he's even that sort of demon? He could be from a realm where the word means something completely different.

At least he's being polite to her. That's good for a few marks in his favor. And now that everything's settled, there isn't much need for her to stay in elephant shape - not for a proper conversation, anyway.

Spike's already stormed off, so only Crowley is treated to the elephant's sudden, blink-and-you'd-miss-it transformation back into a teenage girl with a wild mop of brown hair and still, stubbornly, a fancy lavender dress. "Oh, yes," she says, absently smoothing her palms over the fabric. "I actually saw the rift drop him into the lake, so I fished him out."

She gives him a curious look. Odd's bobs, his eyes are something different, too. But she's seen far stranger things, so she mentally shrugs and moves on. "How do you know him?" Then, with some concern, "You don't honestly belong to him, do you?" She might be surreptitiously checking for a slave collar, but she doesn't see one.

Edited 2014-09-02 01:13 (UTC)

Crowley blinks, his line of sight refocussing down abruptly when the elephant suddenly turns into a short, slender girl. Well, that would explain why the elephant could talk, if nothing else. Shapeshifting being very much in his purview, his only reaction is a vaguely impressed face, eyebrows up and mouth twisted down at the corners. 'Nice trick.'

In the process of pulling that face, he becomes aware that he's missing his sunglasses; obviously they'd got knocked off when Spike punched him in the face, though he'd been rather caught up and must not have noticed in the moment. With a thought, he materialises a new pair. Call it a comfort thing.

Upon hearing that Aziraphale arrived by being dumped in a lake, he barks a laugh. 'Hah! Oh, perfect.' Because that is hilarious, and he can absolutely just picture Aziraphale's sodden, prim irritation at the poor taste of the space-time event.

'What? No!' he exclaims, hand going to rub at his throat when the girl asks if he belongs to Aziraphale. He's not some kind of errant slave-boy. 'Very definitely not. We're, ah, old associates. Crowley, by the way.' He gives a little wave; there's definitely half-dried blood smeared over his hand.

Daine blinks as the sunglasses make their sudden appearance. This Crowley fellow must have some magic tucked away, then. It's sort of reassuring, especially on top of his insistence that he and Aziraphale are on equal footing.

It occurs to her, belatedly, that the fight really could have been much worse than it was. Perhaps she ought to be grateful all Crowley did was punch the other fellow as opposed to turning him into a tree or having the ground swallow him up.

"Daine," she replies in turn, though Aziraphale's already introduced her, if indirectly. Brow furrowing, she adds, "Is Aziraphale… has he ever been like that before?" She still can't quite believe she managed to hurt his feelings so terribly. Oh, she'd been sharp with him, but he's an angel. She'd sooner expect one of the gods back home to laugh at her, or punish her for being pert, if she attempted such a thing with any of them. They certainly wouldn't break down in tears and run off.

'Nnnoooooo.' Crowley drags the word out to an improbable length, nose wrinkling. 'I don't-- yeah, no, definitely has not.'

He doesn't think he's ever seen Aziraphale cry, not even when he'd been suffering from near-lethal wounds and in actual physical agony. He might be sensitive in a metaphysical sense, but he's not emotionally sensitive in the remotest. The opposite, even, Crowley would say if pressed.

He shakes his head. 'Yeah, I dunno. Then again, I'm, um, starting brawls over nothing is not usually a thing I do either.' He's in the bizarre position of simultaneously being aware that that is not at all like him, whilst feeling, in the moment, that his actions were perfectly understandable. Feeling uncomfortable with this train of thought, he turns his attention to Daine, eyes narrowed behind his dark glasses.

'What are you?' Well, that was blunt. 'I mean, you're more than just a magically gifted human, I can feel that much.'

Daine's trying to decide if she should be reassured that Aziraphale isn't normally like that or just worried about why he's being like that now when Crowley puts his rude question, and then her eyes narrow sharply.

"There's no what about it," she replies, hands akimbo. At least this means Aziraphale hasn't already told Crowley all about her, which was good of him. But is Crowley sensing her parentage, too? Odd's bobs, she could do without that. "I have wild magic," she says, figuring that's explanation enough to be getting on with. "That's what lets me take animal shape."

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Enchantment Under the Sea

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