applesaucedream | Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

photo encampmentunderthesea_zps98ceddce.jpg

Since the dreamers of Manhattan had such a lovely time at the last vaguely-nautical-themed party, the Rift has decided to step things up a notch. Tonight, the dreamers will find themselves in what appears to be a city very much like the one they inhabit in the waking world, full of towering skyscrapers, neon signs, and heavy traffic. But there is one rather crucial difference: this city is located deep underwater, and the aforementioned traffic is mostly whales and fish, with the occasional submersible thrown into the mix.

The walls and windows are heavily reinforced to withstand the pressure of the water outside, and the people who dwell in these buildings seem to be doing rather well for themselves, for the most part. Buildings are connected by enclosed walkways, so barring any horrible accidents, the dreamers should have no problem getting around without getting too wet.

Much like the city they inhabit in the waking world, some areas are more obviously affluent than others, and the dreamers are as likely to stumble upon an upscale club as an underwater pub. But while the chances of a full structural breakdown are slim, there are definitely some areas that are on the leaky side, and a general sense of claustrophobia pervades the city wherever you might find yourself.

Explore. Or, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, attempt to escape. Either way, take care - it's hard to say what might be lurking in the darkness just beyond the city lights.

[ooc: Y'all know the drill. All characters are welcome, whether they are in the game or not. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dreaming at the player's discretion. And the party never stops - backtag into infinity!]

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Johnny shrugs. "Newbies don't tend to know about the dreaming. But I guess not everyone can tell right away, either. Some people have a sense for it, or something."

He hates that he always knows.

"I'm Johnny, by the way," he says, and holds out his non-wrench-wielding hand. "How long you been in town?"

"Daniel Jackson," he says automatically, accepting the hand. "Few days, give or take."

The hall might be a step up from the room where Daniel had nearly drowned, but he still finds it unsettling. He shifts restlessly, glancing over his shoulder and scanning the disconcertingly blank walls. It feels weirdly, horribly off.

He snaps his focus back to Johnny. "Yeah, so. New at this. Try not to remember my dreams unless they're important or, I don't know. Significant." He can already tell this will be very, very different.

"Hah." Johnny's laugh is bone dry. "Lucky you."

He starts moving toward the door with the broken control panel. Maybe he can convince it to open with some well-placed bludgeoning.

"I never really had a choice about remembering them or not," he mutters. "But you get used to it. Eventually."

No you don't.

You never get used to nightmares.

"I'm gonna try to abuse this door open," he says. "That's what the wrench is for. Not, you know. Attacking waterlogged ninja people. Though I guess it could have been for that. If you'd been a ninja."

He glances back at Daniel before he starts swinging. He's being a bit of a jerk. He's just not very good at this whole 'welcome to your new life' thing. "You got a place to stay yet? I was homeless for a while. First few days are rough."

Daniel crosses his arms and watches curiously, head cocked to one side.

"Yeah, actually. Staying with someone named 'Lucy.' Got lucky, I guess." He scowls a little at the control panel. "Might be we could just poke some buttons, see if that does anything. I'm not a scientist, though so - well, actually, kind of. Archaeologist. But not, uh, not really the same thing."

He leans toward the panel, studying the wires and buttons. Yeah, this is way beyond his tenuous grasp of technology. He figures Johnny has the right idea about the brute force.

Johnny freezes briefly. Lucy. Really? There's gotta be more than one, right? Common name.

"That's nice," he says cautiously. "Yeah, I got a hotel room with another newbie who had a gift for hacking ATMs, but the first few days were definitely sleep-in-the-park kinda deals. Or not sleeping at all. Which has its advantages, obviously."

He waves the wrench to imply move over. "It's totally busted. The one on the other side is locked. Trust me, I've been here for a while."

With the area cleared, he raises the wrench and gives the control panel a good solid thwack.

Miraculously, this does the trick. The door opens with a startling pneumatic hiss.

"Oh," says Johnny. "Well that was a freebie."

He decides to keep the wrench, just in case. Not to say he doesn't trust the rift, but he doesn't trust the rift.

He steps through, into a long, tubular corridor, and freezes again. Lotta that going around tonight.

"Holy fucking shit," he says. "We're underwater."

The tunnel is made from iron and glass, really thick glass apparently, because all around them is ocean. There's a whole city out there, like from out of a comic book, on the floor of the sea. What in the fuck.

"Okay, I'm officially freaking out," he says, sounding fairly calm in spite of it. "Drowning just got a lot more possible. Let's keeping moving, yeah?"

He presses onward, heart pounding heavily. God, there's fish swimming around out there. He needs a distraction.

"Lucy, huh?" he says as casually as he can. "I know a Lucy." Biblically, he doesn't add. That's about the extent to which he knows her, in fact. How fucking awkward is this about to be.

He backs away from the panel obligingly, asserting to himself that following Johnny's lead is looking to be the best course of action. He's been here a while by his own admission and definitely seems to be more self-assured in what he's doing than Daniel is.

And then they step through the door and yep okay they are underwater. They are. Completely. Underwater.

Fantastic.

"Good plan," Daniel responds lightly to the suggestion of moving forward. Lingering would be a bad idea. That glass looks thick, but he's not inclined to trust it. He doesn't trust glass at all, conceptually, physically, ideologically, and in all ways one can distrust glass, with its deceptive appearances of strength and its easy breakability. It just takes a well-placed bullet or a couple good strikes and -

Yep, just gonna leave that thought where it is, thanks.

"Oh, really?" Daniel brightens a little as Johnny mentions Lucy. Then he wilts as he remembers the last person who mentioned Lucy. "How'd you meet?"

"Uhhhh." Johnny is not sure about sharing that piece of data. "You know, around. In the rifty pub. You been to Wilmot's? That's where we go to meet each other. In addition to here."

This stupid tunnel is so long. He can see the door on the other end, distantly, and picks up his pace a little.

"But I mean, there's gotta be more than one Lucy around, right?" Maybe? Is he that lucky? I mean it's not like Daniel would react like Peter did, but still.

"This one was a little shorter than me? Blond? Pretty?" Extremely fuckworthy, he doesn't add? Yeah, too bad about that one.

Daniel nods. He's been to Wilmot's all of twice, though both experiences were memorable in their own ways. He can see Johnny speeding up and he hastens to keep along with him.

"English?" Daniel adds. "Think we might be talking about the same person. She's nice. Helped me out, let me stay in her apartment."

He looks back over his shoulder to the door they'd come through, rapidly shrinking as they progress. He's glad Johnny's moving faster, because he wants out of this tunnel too. He keeps expecting to glimpse hairline cracks in the glass, threatening an immediate, horrible death. Yeah, he's had his fill of those. None of them agreed with him.

Greaaaaaat.

"Yeah, that's the one," he says vaguely. "Nice. Yeah." She wasn't exactly nice to him, but that's how he wanted it.

"Just pray you never meet her ex," he says with a mild laugh, shouldn't have added that but OH WELL it's out nowwww, and fortunately there's the door to distract them. This time the panel has no keypad, and it seems to be working, so he presses the switch and hey! Door open. Beautiful. And hey, this room has no windows looking out at the crushing depth.

"Better and better," he says, stepping through.

Actually, though, no, this room is awful. Rundown and rusted, scary post-apocalyptic graffiti all over the walls... fucking great.

"Or not," he mutters.

"I, uh." Daniel coughs, small and embarrassed. "I think I did, actually." He doesn't mention that he handled that conversation spectacularly badly, never mind that he had no way of knowing about Peter.

Lucy's private life aside, Daniel's in firm agreement with Johnny regarding the new room. The lack of glass, at least, is an improvement. The horribly desolate look to all of it? Yeah, not so much.

"Great," Daniel mutters, casting about for another exit. "Well, could be worse. Least there's no one else around or -"

He chooses that moment to glance over his shoulder again because crap he probably just jinxed it, didn't he?

He probably did. Oh you fucker. Johnny turns as well, just as sharply, heart thumping so loud he's sure whatever is lurking in the dark will hear it; but there's nothing. Quiet. Some distant drip echoing across the metal surfaces.

He relaxes his stance a little.

"Peter?" he says after a moment. "Yeah, he's a fuckin piece of work." Also Johnny slept with his girlfriend. But it was complicated. And he, too, had no way of knowing about Peter.

"He calls me 'Rabbit Man'," he says, rolling his eyes. "What even is that. Come up a real insult, jackass." Nevermind that it's kind of accurate.

He turns back around, and comes face to face with a man in a fucking wooden mask with fucking twig antlers on it.

"Hello," says the man in a totally drunken, maniacal-grin sort of way. Johnny does not have time to react; not to scream, or recoil, or raise his weapon, before fuckin Nightcrawler here grabs him by the throat and catches his wrist, squeezing so tightly he drops the wrench in shock and pain. He lets out a frantic, strangled gasp; Treemask presses his hard against his windpipe, before casually lifting him right off the ground.

One minute Johnny's ragging on Peter - with Daniel in silent agreement, not that he'd ever admit it - and the next minute this thing, this -

It grabs Johnny, right at the throat and then at the wrist, casually disarming him, obviously preternaturally strong and masked except what if it isn't oh god what sort of evolutionary pathway would this thing have to have in order to get antlers? And then, with a low, rasping sound that sounds horribly like some deranged form of laughter it just straight-up lifts Johnny from the ground.

Daniel unfurls and acts on instinct. He snatches the dropped wrench from the ground and whacks at the masked face with the impromptu weapon and the blow cracks the wood but it just keeps on strangling Johnny, apparently undeterred, and shit shit shit Johnny is going die if he doesn't do something so Daniel does the last thing he can think of and it also happens to be really fucking stupid.

He lunges right at the masked person-thing, throwing his full dead weight and wrapping his arms around its middle, managing to topple it and sending the whole lot of them sprawling. The upside to this is that Johnny is no longer choking. The downside, naturally, is that now this thing has turned its full attention on Daniel which, of course it has.

Daniel tries to scramble away from it but its locked its grip around his ankle, grasping it like fucking iron, and begins to drag him towards it.

Well, shit.

Johnny's locked both his hands around the thing's wrist in a desperate, helpless attempt to gain some leverage, but it's nowhere near enough. Daniel takes a serious swing at it with the dropped wrench, wow what a trooper; the mask is cracked but the grip doesn't even falter, oh god, oh shit, now he knows it's going to kill him, fuck fuck fuck not again, not again-

And then Daniel just tackles them all to the ground. Johnny's head strikes the hard floor with a sick sounding ring and he lies limply for a moment just gasping and coughing. He can hear the thing snarling and crackling, his voice like a fucking monster, and manages to push himself up in time to see it pulling Daniel in, crawling over him, and Johnny scrambles back, fuck fuck fuck what does he do, what can he do. Daniel just put himself in active danger to save his sorry ass, so...

Johnny grabs the wrench, and rises like a puppet on a string. He steps forward and raises the wrench and it's not real, it's just a dream, it's not real, it's not even human

He loses track of how many times he hits the thing, until its grip has loosened and Daniel's crawled back out, and he keeps hitting it then, too. Again and again. Like the dreams, the waking nightmares, the shitshow with Gdansk Man, and most of all Raymond, cracking his tooth, scarring his face, fuck him, fuck Gdansk Man, fuck Zampanò, and Zagreus, and the house, and the Rift. And Gabe for trying to die, and fuck him, for almost killing Seth, for taking the power back, for this, right now. Fuck it all.

He comes back after a moment, and the wrench is covered in blood, it's on its shoes and his clothes and his hands, and the thing is dead, and Daniel is staring at him.

He drops the wrench and then drops to his knees. His throat hurts. Screaming? Probably.

"Oh," he blurts, his voice sort of shaky. "Oh, god."

Daniel has just enough time to think that this is his worst idea yet before the thing drags him closer and -

- and Johnny just goes to town on it. He's coming at it with the wrench, vicious and unrelenting and slamming into it repeatedly and it's making an awful high-pitched shrieking noise and there's blood, there's blood, there's really a lot of blood, what if the thing is human, what if it was a mistake, and Johnny just - won't - stop.

He drags himself away from it as it screams, and as Johnny screams, as it howls, as Johnny smashes into its not-face again and again and again and again and again and again.

And then Johnny stops, he's left there panting, and Daniel's mouth is working soundlessly and trying to relocate the concept of words.

"Are you -" Daniel stops himself. Dumb question. He tries again: "Johnny, hey." He swallows hard. He's going to be reassuring. That's what he does, isn't it? That's it, that's his unofficial job, the fucking garbage disposal for all the universe's Terrible Things to be funneled into, and this is just one more person he can help. He can do that. He can be reassuring. He'll try.

"Johnny, look at me." Daniel is keeping his voice level. Calm. Reassuring. Projecting as much you're going to be okay as he can into each word. "It's okay. You're okay."

No. No he is not. Johnny looks at Daniel with a wild-eyed stare. He's hyperventilating a little bit.

"I," he says, his voice weird and strained. His hands are buzzing. "I didn't mean to, I..."

Oh fuck. So much for meeting new people. He turns away from Daniel, curls inward, smearing his bloodied hands on the floor. He's sobbing silently, big dry heaves, his entire body shaking.

"I'm sorry," he hears himself saying at a distance. "Oh, jesus christ."

He wants to wake up. He wants to wake up now.

Daniel scrambles to his feet. Or tries to. Apparently the ankle the masked thing grabbed onto isn't in walking condition, because pain rockets up it and it folds beneath him instantly, bringing him down onto one knee, which, ow.

He looks back up. Shit. Johnny's not taking this well. He's really not taking this well. Daniel wants to get up, get over to him, but his ankle is refusing to cooperate. At exactly the worst time.

He reaches at him with the hand that isn't supporting his injured ankle, palm out. "Johnny. Johnny, it's okay." He keeps speaking steadily, slow, but Johnny isn't even facing him anymore, oh shit. And he's sounding horrified and tremulous and those are definitely the early stages of a panic attack and Daniel needs to get over to him, like, right now.

Fuck it.

Daniel wrenches himself upright, grabbing at the wall for support, and limps over, doing his best to willfully ignore away the pain. He's...not really successful, but that's hardly important. Johnny's not in good shape. That's what's important. He's dreaming and pain is relative in dreams but emotional scarring is not. He maneuvers his way to Johnny's side and hisses between his teeth when he notices that the man is visibly shaking.

"Johnny, listen to me. It's okay." He stretches one hand out to hover over his shoulder, unsure of whether physical contact will help or just make things worse. "I'm okay. You're okay. It's a dream, and that thing can't hurt you anymore. You're safe."

Johnny lets out a frustrated growl at Daniel's attempted comfort - who the hell is this guy to try and make him feel better about that? - and twitches away, feeling the proximity of his hand even without contact.

"I know," he grinds out, digging his fingers into his hair. "I know, all right? I had to do it. But I - I just-"

This time what comes out is a strained, pressurized sort of whine, coming through gritted teeth. He tugs at his hair, opening his eyes enough to glimpse the burns on his arms. No, no, no.

He could pray, he realizes, ask Gabriel to come here, hold him, fix this. But he doesn't want that either. The anger he felt, so far away now, was so terrifying and real, he couldn't just ask Gabe to come and take care of him, not when moments ago he'd felt like that.

He doesn't want Daniel hovering over him, worrying like this, god he's so pathetic, this poor freaked out stranger has to babysit him now - so he forces himself to calm down. He does the breathing thing, counting, five in, five out, a few times over. He doesn't feel better but he can breathe normal, at least. He lowers himself even further, until his forehead is resting on the ground, like a praying man.

"I understand if you want to go," he mumbles. "I wouldn't want to be around me either."

That attempt at consolation apparently wasn't the best course of action to take. Noted. Daniel draws his hand back, watching Johnny with wary concern because he has no clue how he should address this.

Okay, no. He has some clue. He changes tactics.

"What, you kidding?" Daniel gestures hopelessly at his ankle, which is now trembling with the effort of holding him up for so long. "I don't think I'd make it very far on my own." And of course his ankle chooses that moment throw dignity to the winds and give up. He ends up half-falling, half-sliding onto the wall, quickly grabbing at it to awkwardly prop himself upright.

"Basically," he ekes out through clenched teeth, now sounding thoroughly strained. "I don't think I can walk. Currently. Er. But, really," he adds, ignoring the agonizing contracture of leg muscle as he inches himself into a less uncomfortable position, "it's thanks to you I'm still here, so. You know. There's that."

Johnny looks up at the sudden collapse, startled out of his panic and self-loathing for just long enough that he automatically reaches out to grasp Daniel's shoulder.

"Shit," he says, seeing the messed up ankle. "Oh, shit. Fuck, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it-"

Well, no, of course he didn't.

"Shit," he says again, uselessly. He sucks air through his teeth. "I, um, I don't know how to... Fuck, why do these dreams have to be so real, huh?" He laughs, forced and manic. Ooookay, not doing that again. He finally lets his body relax a little, leaning back into a hunched sitting position. "Well I guess we're staying here, huh."

Yes, all right. Mild success. At least Johnny's not panicking anymore.

Aaaaaand there goes the rest of Daniel's leg strength. He slides down the remaining length of wall with tired acceptance until he's fully sitting, back to the wall, head tilted back. Breathing. Breathing is good. He's fine. The pain is relative. The pain is relative.

Unfortunately, while Johnny seems calmer than before, he's still a little on edge. That's okay. That's fine. That's understandable.

"It's not so bad," Daniel says with a shrug. And immediately afterward - "Ow. I mean, like you said, dream. Not real. And I've had worse." He considers this for a minute. "I've had way worse. Just...you're gonna have to trust me on that one."

He eyes the corpse of the masked person-thing suspiciously. He'd really like to get Johnny away from that thing as quickly as possible, but now Johnny's settled down beside him, okay. Well, they'll work their way up to that.

"Yeah..." Johnny does trust him, feels like maybe they've had a bit of the same shit luck in that regard. "Me too."

He looks dully at the corpse as well. He feels numb, which is better than panicking.

"My first shared dream was shitty, too," he says. He gives a hollow, humorless laugh. "Right down to the monster and the broken bones." He looks at the hand Zagreus had broken, now stained with so much blood. "They don't all have to be like this," he murmurs.

Is this even helpful? He doesn't know how to set bones, and he doesn't have healing powers. He can't really do anything.

Wait. Maybe he can do one thing.

Oh, stupid. He should have tried this ages ago.

"Let me just, um..." He thinks carefully. He shouldn't be able to just create rooms, as opposed to shifting around what's already there, but he sometimes has more power in dreams. That one time he made Charley's bedroom - yeah, he can do this, right?

Gradually, the room fades out, into a different one. Corpseless, carpeted, with potted ferns and even a couch. Which would be great if he had any hope of actually lifting Daniel up. It's the thought that counts?

Also windows, but they're distant, a high glass ceiling, and the water shimmering down on them doesn't seem nearly so ominous as it did before. He can't take them out of the dream, but this place feels a lot safer, at least.

He sits back. "There," he says. "That's a little better."

Edited 2014-09-29 16:11 (UTC)

"Oh, hello." Daniel blinks at the sudden shift in everything. The whole room just changes, right out of nowhere, and wow, yeah, this is definitely an improvement. He stares, eyebrows raised, faintly amazed before shaking his head. "Suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Dream, and all."

Still, though. Vast, vast improvement. Still underwater, which Daniel's not wild about, but there's no graffiti, no corpses, and a significantly reduced chance of being jumped by creepy masked-things just by sheer ambiance alone.

He turns to Johnny, who seems...calmer. Still not in the best shape.

"Did you do that?"

"Yeah." Johnny slumps back a little and hugs his knees to his chest. "It's a thing I can do. It works better in dreams than when I'm awake." Can't create furniture for one thing. Also a lot more consequences.

"It's just houses," he explains, half-assedly. "I can reshape them. Whatever. It's not as convenient as it looks."

He doesn't think he has the capacity right now to explain why and how much this sucks. He says heavily. "Sorry about your leg, man. It's gonna be all right when you wake up, I promise."

"What, this?" Daniel frowns at his pretty much useless leg then waves a hand in a vague, "what-can-you-do" circle. "Nah, not a big deal. Like I said, I've had worse."

Actually the ankle really freaking hurts, like the nerves are being dug into by little fragments of bone, feeling nothing like a dream and very much like reality. But Johnny says it's a dream and the logic has been bizarre and meandering enough for him to be inclined to believe it.

"Houses, huh?" Daniel raises an eyebrow. "Sounds handy. Also oddly specific. But, you know, not gonna hear me complaining."

Johnny suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. Handy, yeah. Everyone thinks it sounds so convenient.

"It is specific," he says. "It's also based on my worst fucking nightmare and almost killed a friend of mine, so 'handy' is relative, I guess."

Okay, that was more prickly than necessary. He sighs. "It's hard to explain," he mutters. "But sometimes it's good to have. I guess." He'll admit that very begrudgingly.

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TW: strangulation

Re: TW: strangulation

TW shitshow: extreme violence! beating, blood, massive PTSD. this is the worst tag I've ever written

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aaaand another panic attack

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