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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"Oh, good." Yeah, ow, the ache is slowly seeping back into his nervous system and while he appreciates being able to think again, he hasn't missed this bit so much. According to Seth, this is "minimal."

Wonderful.

He doesn't know how he'll handle maximal. Or how long it'll take for maximal to kick in. Okay, so he's...not going to dwell on that.

He still inhales a little sharply when he tries to move, but it's nowhere near as bad as the "dangerously close to passing out" levels of pain from before. That means - good. Yeah. Okay. He's going to try this.

Grunting with the effort and stopping frequently to breathe and focus on not blacking out, Daniel tries bracing himself with his elbows and sitting up. It could be going better. The muscles in his lower back feel like they're tearing and the section of his midriff that got slammed through with rebar still burns with every movement and the going is slow and long and painful and...painful, but finally he manages it.

"Agh." Breathe, breathe, breathe, god that hurts. "Please stop me if I ever try to do that again."

Once Daniel starts showing his intention to sit up, Seth immediately moves over to support him. He doesn't push him up though, it's important he knows Daniel can actually manage this before they start wandering around.

"Which part? The throwing yourself at a piece of rebar thing? Cause yeah, I'd definitely advise against that," he says, giving Daniel a little smile.

"You know, you don't have to move. We can just stay here for a while." Because, well, Daniel doesn't exactly look like he should be up and about if he can avoid it.

"Mm. Also sitting up or, or just moving in general." He tries to straighten up a little more. "Ow."

He has to stay in that position for a little while and ride out the refreshed ache with gritted teeth, leaning on Seth to give the abused muscles some respite.

One of Daniel's eyes cracks open.

"What, you kidding? I'm doing fantastic, all things considered. Couple minutes and I'll prove it to you. We'll arm wrestle. I'll race you out of this place. Two minutes, let's go." He makes no actual movement to do any such thing, but the talking helps. It always does.

"Pretty sure you'll win an arm wrestling match no matter the condition you're in, your arms are twice the size of mine," Seth comments, and he feels like he's only exaggerating a little bit. The guy is kind of huge.

"And, well, especially now, since I dislocated one arm and then you kind of fell on the other one," he adds. Which, ow.

And also why Seth isn't doing a better job at supporting him, and is probably gonna have a little trouble eventually helping him to his feet. At least him giving away his blood has only given him some mild light-headedness and somewhat weaker muscles. Not that they needed to be weaker given how exhausted he already was.

"Sorry about that." Daniel winces. He remembers landing on top of something that had promptly cried out and even while not exactly in the right state of mind, he'd known that couldn't be a good thing. "And thanks," he adds, turning to squint at him. "I thought it was touch and go for a while there."

Then he squints harder. He still misses his glasses; he doesn't need to be doped out on morphine to take notice of that.

"Listen, Seth, don't take this the wrong way, but you really don't look so good."

"Well, apparently you've died enough times for one person already, so..." he jokes, because the best way to deal with thanks or shit like this is clearly to make weak jokes.

At the comment, he smiles wryly. "Keep talking like that, and I won't go out to dinner with you," he answers. Yep, definitely the best solution is to always brush away legitimate concert with humour and pretend you're fine. Otherwise it might seem like things are actually serious or like you've got feelings or something.

"Seth, seriously, you're -" He starts to reach out with one arm and that turns out to be a really bad idea because he immediately cringes and almost slips and quickly has to drop the hand to help keep him upright.

"You - ah - your arms." He has to grunt that last bit out, halfway hunched over and trying not to die inside, it feels like his guts are revolting, good god what a horrible idea that was. "Ah. Not good."

Seth winces and frowns with worry when Daniel cringes. He really wishes he could do more. And it's a little worrisome that this is with the effects of morphine.

"Are bruised and aching, yeah, but nothing that won't heal," he finishes Daniel's sentence, shifting a bit to look at the wound on his back. The blood-soaked shirt is sticking to him just there, but thankfully the blood's not gone dried and crusty over the wound, so it mercifully doesn't stick to the slowly-forming skin when Seth removes it. It looks about the same as the front - kind of brutal, but healing.

"And that -" Stop, swallow, breathe for a minute. Continue. "Ow. My arms. What the hell."

He's peering at the track marks that look too varied and manifold to be the product of one morphine injection. And he's having trouble recalling everything that happened in the immediate aftermath of said injection. Some of it's a bit of a worrisome blur.

He has to really narrow his eyes to see Seth's arms, but unless he's mistaken -

Daniel's eyes abruptly widen.

"Did you do a transfusion?"

It's probably a good thing Daniel's not wearing his glasses, otherwise he might've noticed Seth has way more track marks than Daniel does. Seth instinctively pulls down his sleeves, silently glad both the shirt he ripped up to use as makeshift bandages and the one he's still wearing have long sleeves. But then he doesn't really wear short-sleeves shirts anymore for that very specific reason.

"Um, yeah," he answers. "You said you were A positive, and, well, you would've reacted to it by now if something was wrong." Clearly the thing Daniel is worried about is that it was a risky thing to do, not that Seth made himself weaker to help Daniel.

Daniel has to blink very rapidly for a minute to process the inanity of that plan.

"Just because it could be worse doesn't make that a good idea," he hisses, shutting his eyes. If he felt it were safe to lift a hand off the ground, he would be pinching the bridge of his nose. "Were you planning to throw in a little meat grinder surgery while you were at it? No, I'm -" He lets his head fall back and sighs at the ceiling. "I'm sorry. And I am grateful, I am, but that was...really just -"

He can't summon a word that properly encapsulates how he feels about that, so he moves on.

"You shouldn't have done that. What if you'd gone too far and passed out? You were already in bad shape. There was no, no reason to make it worse on my account."

Seth ducks his head guiltily at Daniel's scolding. Except he doesn't want to feel bad about it, because hey, Daniel's not dead! Just the mere fact that he is capable of giving Seth this lecture is reason enough it was worth it. But he finds it a little hard to listen to Daniel's disapproval.

At the last bit though, he has to object. "Yeah, no reason except the hole clean through your stomach." Seth may be in bad shape, but even if had passed out, he'd wouldn't be anywhere near mortal peril from it.

"You gave me your healing power. It was working. It's still working." Well, all right, so he's still having trouble with the whole sitting-up-and-talking thing and it still hurts like hell and there's probably still internal damage, but (he has a but, he has a point, he has a good point that he is getting to) he's now fairly certain that he will live through this after all.

(Probably.)

(He has lived through worse and he will keep telling himself that.)

"You didn't need to do that to yourself. 'Cause, I mean, aside from the morality factor - and don't think I'm done with that, because I'm not, at all - now we're both in bad shape. And what's more, it wasn't worth it."

He really hadn't intended to let that last remark slip out, but it's done and he's too tired and aching too much all over to do much about it now.

Seth is just going to sit here frowning at his shoes. He seems to be incapable of looking at Daniel at this very moment. Because what he's saying, or perhaps mostly the way he's saying it, kind of stings.

He really, badly wants to shoot up now. Both for the aching in his body, and to just be blissfully ignorant of everything for a little while. With that option ruled out, he wants to get up and walk away from this conversation, just put a little distance between them, but given the fact he's actually yet to get properly to his feet since they were carried down the river, he's not entirely sure he trusts his legs. And he really doesn't want to give Daniel any further proof it was a bad idea.

It takes him a moment for the meaning of the last sentence to sink in, and he looks up sharply. "What, you're saying your life's worth less than mine?"

It almost sounds like if Seth's offended by the implication. Even with the limited familiarity he has with Daniel, it's pretty obvious that's bullshit. As if Seth - selfish, closed-off, drug-addicted Seth who's built a career on exploiting people - could be worth more than someone like Daniel.

"What I'm saying is that my life isn't worth any more than anyone else's," he retorts, "including yours. It was a stupid thing to do. I'm sorry, but there it is. You could have gotten out and instead you -"

He clips the sentence oddly. He's opened a can of really ugly, personal worms and he doesn't want to sort through them individually and by name. Unfortunately, that looks to be exactly where the conversation is going.

"You could have gotten out," he starts again, dismal and worn, "and you didn't. You could have made it outta here, but now it's more likely that we'll both die instead."

There is the very slight potential for survival for them both, true, but it's not looking good. Neither of them are in any condition to walk very quickly, much less run if the situation calls for it. They're stuck. Because Daniel couldn't move out of the way fast enough.

Seth rolls his eyes at how ridiculous Daniel is being. It might have been reckless, but given the result, it wasn't that stupid.

He has quite a few arguments against what Daniel is saying. For one thing, his chances may have been decreased a little by weakening himself, but there is no way to know he could've gotten out. Conversely, is no way to know they won't both still escape. What he knows he did do is give Daniel a much better chance at survival, at limited cost to himself. And if their lives are worth the same, then decreasing Seth's chances a little while increasing Daniel's chances a lot is actually a pretty good trade.

However, at the moment he is far too frustrated and tired and in pain to properly argue this point, and words don't seem to want to come, and he doesn't want Daniel to look at him right now because his eyes are stinging. So instead he gets to his feet - carefully, thankfully not stumbling even as his muscles protest painfully - and walks off to the glass wall, staring out into the endless blue.

Edited 2014-10-03 06:42 (UTC)

Oh, good, now Seth's moving away, gingerly, with all the slowness of someone who shouldn't be moving at all. Daniel's head drops to his chest as he silently berates himself; he doesn't know how badly off Seth is and now, thanks to not having his priorities in line, there's no way to tell. Unless he...well, that would be a bad idea, given his current state, but Daniel doesn't have a lot of options. He's certainly not going be able to to apologize or pep talk or whatever by calling it at Seth's back.

He's already sitting, so there's step one. Good. That's good. Next he needs to - carefully maneuver his legs beneath him so he can - ow ow ow ow ow - he can do this, he's fine, he's fine, he's just been recently impaled, that's all, no big deal really -

Daniel realizes approximately halfway through that this is an extremely bad course of action and he's forced to abort, awkwardly, shoulders jerking, while he's still in the transitional stage of half-kneeling and half-crouching, and he has to plant both hands on the ground while he slides back down, arms trembling with effort, until he's mostly just sitting back on his heels, painfully, hands on his knees, breath hitching in his throat and abdomen on fire and it's a miracle he's managed to keep himself from yelping from the agony piercing through there, but he's fine, he's fine.

Okay, so.

Bad idea.

He looks back up at Seth, who is probably pissed off at him and himself and the place they're trapped in and the water and everything. And even Daniel has to admit to himself that, yeah, he could have handled that better. Seth saved his life and practically the first thing he did after waking up was snap at him for the way he did it. There's no nice way of putting it - that was just a dick move. Daniel knows it.

He's furious with himself. He's furious that he just gave Seth what roughly amounted to a stern talking-to when Seth's been having just as rough a time of it as he is, if not more so. He's furious that any of that was even necessary to begin with, because Daniel should have moved out of the way and been smart about it. He's furious that they're stuck here, both injured and hurt and angry and unwilling to talk to each other, and he's furious that this is his fault. And he's still furious with Seth, more abstractly, for doing something stupid and noble and heroic and saving his life, and Daniel is being hypocritical because he would have done the same had their positions been reversed. Except for maybe the blood transfusion part. Yeah, no, he definitely wouldn't have done that.

"Look, I'm sorry." Immediately after he says it, he's seized with the bizarre urge to laugh, bitterly, because that word has already been said way too many times today and it's practically lost its meaning at this point and it doesn't convey half of what it needs to.

Seth leans his forehead against the cool glass, and shivers a bit, closing his eyes and not turning around even as he can hear Daniel shuffling about. He doesn't really need to make himself colder, his inactivity and not yet dry clothing has been doing a good job of it. Yet here he stands.

Even when Daniel apologises, Seth doesn't immediately respond. He's wondering what it would be like to try to swim if he's phasing through the water. Would there be anything keeping him up or would he just plummet? Obviously you can't walk on water, so the way he does it when walking through walls, only staying solid in relation to the floor beneath him, that wouldn't work in an ocean, because what's keeping you up is the air in you making you float.

He sighs and finally turns back to Daniel, then immediately frowns at how he's clearly been trying to get up. "For fuck's sake, lie down, you moron," he says, walking hastily back over to Daniel to help him into a less painful position.

Edited 2014-10-03 08:02 (UTC)

Daniel gives up and allows Seth to help him sit back down.

"All right, so not one of my better ideas." The words come out strained as he sinks back to the ground. "Noted."

With aggravating slowness and no small amount of unpleasant twinges in his thoracic region, Daniel is gradually able to scoot backwards until he can lean against a wall and just - put all his weight on that surface instead of propping himself uncomfortably on his elbows. Yes. That's good. That's better.

"I am sorry. I mean, I'm lucky you were here, or I would've had to add 'impaling' to the long and illustrious list of 'Ways Daniel Jackson Has Died In Exceptionally Painful Ways'." There, he's trying for a bit of morbid humor, tentatively, even if he's having trouble cobbling together something appropriately eloquent to follow that up with. "Not to be confused with the, uh, less long and illustrious list of 'Ways Daniel Jackson Has Died in Mundane and Uninteresting Ways'."

Oh my god, why is he still talking?

"I'm trying to thank you and, ah...doing an admittedly very poor job of that. I'll have you know I'm choosing to blame the morphine."

A not terribly small part of him still wishes Seth had just - gone and gotten out. He probably could have, phased through everything with his power, bypassed the inconsequentialities of mortar and concrete, and gotten someplace safe. But he didn't. He'd gone and rushed in without thinking to save someone he only sort of knew, even at the risk of his own life. Back home, that had always been the unspoken policy: no one is left behind and if, by some error, they are, you turn around and damn well go get them back. There's the whole having-each-other's-back mentality that holds fast in a military setting, one of the few things about that environment that Daniel had agreed with. It gelled with his own set of morals. He's been like that, always, even to those outside his immediate friend circle. He sees a sword coming someone's way and he walks in front of it, with or without the guarantee that it will be removed.

He doesn't know what to do when someone he's known for all of a day does the same for him.

Seth might not have meant it, but he'd made a very distinct statement when he'd pulled Daniel free and then, with no regard for his own injuries, given him his healing power without a second thought. Something along the lines of finding Daniel worth the trouble and he...has trouble wrapping his mind around the thought. He'd been stupid, he'd messed up, he'd paid the direct consequences, and the universe worked out its perverse need for karmic retribution rather nicely, only Seth had been there to intervene and shift the whole cycle of the thing.

To be honest, he doesn't know how he feels about that.

Morbid humour, that Seth can do. That's nice and familiar. He scoots up next to Daniel, listening to him talk, not saying anything but at least noticeably softening at his words.

Well, until Daniel mentions the morphine again, and Seth tenses up just a little, eyes flicking to the kit still lying on the floor. It would be great if he could forget the existence of it for at least five minutes or something. He reaches up and rubs at his arm again.

"Well, it's the thought that counts, and all that," he answers, once he realises Daniel is done talking for the moment.

The drugs are wearing off in earnest now, thankfully, leaving Daniel observant enough to see Seth shoot a look at the morphine kit once he mentions it. The gesture is just as ambiguous in meaning as it is in context. He files it away.

"Well, we were lucky that you had that with you." He inclines his chin at the kit. "Even luckier that it wasn't washed away. If only my glasses were so lucky." He smirks wryly and lets his head thump back to rest against the wall, using the motion to shove all the worries and issues with self-worth and Seth and stupid heroics and unsanitary, ill-advised blood transfusions out of the forefront. "God, what a day."

Seth smiles bitterly and gives Daniel's shoulder a comforting pat. He's not sure if he could be trying to move his arms as little as possible, or if he needs to make sure they don't stiffen up.

"Well, if it helps, the whole blood-stained shirt and stomach wound goes a lot better with the broad-shouldered action hero look you've got going on, more than the glasses did," he jokes tiredly. Though Daniel does look a bit like a different person with them. They did really do a lot for the studious look.

"Truly a relief to know that even when I've been impaled, my machismo remains willfully intact," he answers drolly. Seth is talking and smiling and joking again, even if it's all still pretty well steeped in the realm of gallows humor, and that's a step forward. "I was worried about that."

Seth snorts gently at that. "Pretty sure you never have to worry about that, mate," he answers. God, he wishes he had a beer or something. Something to do with his hands. And something to take the edge off. Somewhere amidst the exhaustion, hunger is starting to make itself known too.

He sighs and reaches up to rub his eyes. "So, what are we gonna do?" Yeah, for actual planning, Seth is just going to look to the one who's actually with the military and has been exploring alien planets. His plans are usually more like 'make it up as you go and hope for the best' most of the time.

"Well, ideally, we should find a way out. Call me paranoid, but I don't think 'underwater concrete maze' exactly screams 'safe'."

He looks up and around as he says it, studying the building's interior. He still has no idea what sort of purpose this place must have. Or had. It seems abandoned now, which is perhaps why it doesn't have an obvious function.

"Then, if our luck hasn't run out by then, we can find someplace that is safe." He adjusts his position against the wall and winces. "Preferably with a greater variety in medical help than just morphine. No offense."

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