Stuck in the middle with you [CLOSED]

[fucking_ebay]

When he comes to himself, Peter cannot see. He gasps into awareness, his own breath rasping loudly in his ears, and it takes him several moments of straining to understand that he is not blinded but blindfolded. His wrists are heavy when he reaches up to tear away the cloth tied over his eyes, and when one stops partway to his face, halted by tension, he realizes that he has been chained. Hurriedly, almost panicking, he yanks off the blindfold with the hand that can reach to find himself blinking in the dim light of a stone room.

On either side of him is a man in a similar predicament, one of Peter's wrists connected to one of the wrists of each by a chain about two feet long. Each man's other wrist is chained in turn to a bolt in the crumbling walls of either side of the cell, and each is similarly blindfolded -- or was. Peter recognizes both of them as he turns his head back and forth to stare at each in disbelief -- first Seth on his right and then on his left --

"Oh, come on!"

Comments

[powerdealer]

Seth is jerked awake by being quite literally jerked awake. He looks up in confusion, realises he can't actually see anything, then realises why. He struggles for a moment to get the blindfold off, confused why his arms will only reach partway and he has to lean towards his own hand to manage it. Getting the blindfold off answers a few questions, but raises a whole lot more.

'Oh come on' is a pretty apt reaction. Seth is so done waking up (if you can even use that phrase) locked in rooms in dreams. This is the third time in a very short span, and it is frustrating as hell. Two upsides, though: It's not the rebel base, and he's not alone.

Although that last one is sort of a mixed blessing, considering who it is chained to him. For a moment he just stares at the two of them, dumbfounded.

[peacefulexplorer]

The indignant yelp that startles Daniel awake is quite loud and uncomfortably close to his right ear, but he very quickly discovers that this is the least his problems. The first and foremost being that he cannot actually see. A few seconds of struggling against some very disagreeable chains (chains? Really? What century is this?) gets the blindfold off with minimal loss of dignity, but the subsequent visual assessment of Daniel's situation quickly confirms that he didn't actually have any to begin with.

Even without his glasses (glasses are hardly lethal and he can't see why his captors always insist on taking them), he can recognize the man chained to his immediate right all too well. Thankfully, he can also make out the slightly blurry figure of Seth, who also gets to endure the misfortune of being chained to their disagreeable, literal middle man.

Daniel gives their accommodations an appraising sweep before turning back to his chained fellows.

"Well," he says breezily, "this is different."

[fucking_ebay]

"This was not me," says Peter, preemptively defensive and quite content to imply it must be the fault of one or both of them instead. He hasn't had the displeasure of any dreams like this for a long while now, and that it's a dream at all has escaped him for the moment. He's sitting a lot closer to Rabbit Man 2.0 than he would like, the chain between him and Seth considerably more stretched out, which explains his difficulty in moving his right hand earlier.

He doesn't intend to sit around waiting to find out why they've all been strung together, nor does he intend to hang around with the surprisingly muscled dweeb on his left any longer than he has to. Peter struggles to his feet between them, apparently not caring that he's pulling on both men's arms. "What the fuck?!" he demands, raising his voice to address the closed door with its cliched little barred viewing window. "Where are we and why?"

[powerdealer]

"Not that different," Seth comments wearily. In fact at this point it seems pretty par for the course. He sighs when Peter decides to move and drag both their arms with him. Though he's going to let him shout for a little. He'd like to know the answers to those questions too. If there are any.

He leans a little sideways to catch Daniel's eye. "Daniel, this is Peter," he says, assuming they haven't met. It's possibly, of course, same building and all, but he's aware Lucy's been avoiding Peter for quite some time now, and hasn't heard anything to the contrary. And he doesn't know how to describe Peter while being both truthful and, well, not insulting. And he wouldn't exactly describe Peter as a friend.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Yeah," says Daniel, sounding utterly resigned to his fate as Peter's movements tug at his arm, "I know."

He's just going to assume that Peter's impression of him hasn't changed since their woefully uncomfortable first conversation. And while Peter's questions are perfectly reasonable, his indignant shouting really isn't contributing much to their presumed goal of getting out of here as soon as possible.

"I don't think the door is going to answer," Daniel supplies unhelpfully. He's grateful that Seth, at least, is being appreciably calm about this.

[fucking_ebay]

"They can bloody well hear us through that thing!" retorts Peter, trying to gesture toward the door but finding the movement curtailed by having to drag Seth's arm up into the air to do it. Disgusted, he shoots an impatient glance at the Seth in question. "We've met," he summarizes, voice dripping with derision.

[powerdealer]

Oh, great. Well, if anyone could get off on the wrong foot with Daniel, it'd be Peter, wouldn't it? Seth's hardly even surprised. He's not entirely sure he wants to know the details. Though he wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with Lucy, partly since that was the case with Johnny. At least Daniel is staying at her place, it makes more sense.

"There doesn't necessarily have to be a they," he answers, testing the chain attached to the wall. He tries phasing out of it, and he's not surprised when it doesn't work. Couldn't have been that easy, could it?

[peacefulexplorer]

"Yeah, um - who, exactly, do you think put us here?" Daniel asks, bracing his non-Peter-attached hand against the wall. Using the vertical surface for leverage, he pushes himself to his feet and thus hopefully spares his arm any future abuse of being waved about by Peter's rather illustrative hand movements. He's actually genuinely curious to know Peter's theories on who would put them here and, more specifically, whose idea it was to put Peter in the middle.

"Either way, it doesn't sound like there's anyone around to listen." He tips his head back to stare at the nondescript stone ceiling but finds nothing of interest. "Definitely keep shouting about it, though, cause that seems to be helping."

[fucking_ebay]

"That's what I'm trying to find out!" snaps Peter, confused and irritated by how calmly both of them are taking this. "Someone's put us in a fucking dungeon with fucking chains, and what -- you two are going to sit here and be quiet about it? Bugger that!"

When in doubt about how to move forward, be as annoying as possible so people will be desperate to shut you up. It's a tactic that has served Peter well in many personal interactions and disastrously poorly in many more.

[powerdealer]

"It's a dream, Peter," he answers with exasperation, following the trend and getting to his feet as well. He has to suppress a smile at Daniel's sarcasm, though. It's something he hasn't gotten to see, and he definitely appreciates it when directed at Peter. Or, well, mostly he'd prefer Peter to dial down his aggression a tad, but his (admittedly limited) experience with him tells him that will be unlikely.

"And I can't phase out of these," he adds, gesturing. Hell if he knows why. He wonders if his other powers are working, but they're kind of difficult to test.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Figures," mutters Daniel. He's getting a little tired of dreams about inescapable prisons and while the addition of Peter is new, that doesn't necessarily mean it's welcome.

The news that Seth's power isn't working is also rather worrying. Daniel's hesitant to give his own power a try as he doesn't know how much good office supplies will be, unless one of them happens to be an expert in paperclip lock-picking - which Daniel most assuredly isn't.

"I just think if we stay calm we have a higher chance of figuring a way out of here," he says, looking at Peter pointedly. "And not, oh say, helpfully alerting anyone who might want to stop us?"

[fucking_ebay]

"...Oh." Peter deflates for a moment, almost as if he's ready to be reasonable and listen to their criticism with an open mind. It being a dream does change things.

But it doesn't change things that much. "If it's a dream it's not going to matter, then, is it?" he asks testily. "Look, I'm getting out -- you enjoy being chained to the walls."

And with that, he tries to teleport himself out of the middle of this little chain gang. For just a fraction of a second it feels like it's working -- flames lick up over him and his body seems to clap out of existence -- but then the chains wrench hard on both his arms and he snaps back into place with a cry of pain. From Daniel and Seth's point of view the chains connected to Peter are suddenly pulled very quickly and forcefully inward, like he's briefly turned into a black hole, and then he's back and they go slack again.

[powerdealer]

As per usual, Daniel is speaking rationally and intelligently, and Peter jumps into poorly-thought-out action. Having actually had Peter's power for a while, Seth realises what he's about to do just a moment for he does it. He's also tested its limits, and these chains were impervious to his own power, which is why he figures teleporting out of here is a very bad idea.

"Peter, don--" is all has time to say before it suddenly feels like his arm's pulled out of its socket, following the other trend in these imprisonment dreams of hurting their arms and shoulders. He barely manages to not get tipped over, and the other arm gets pulled pretty hard too, yanking on the chain attached to the wall, but not as bad.

"For fuck's sake, Peter," he says with gritted teeth, trying to reach up to rub his shoulder, only the chain's a bit too short for that.

[peacefulexplorer]

He opens his mouth to protest but Peter just goes ahead and self-immolates, okay then. Daniel has a terrifying fraction of a second to wonder what in the hell before his chains yank unceremoniously inward then snap back out again in a large, unfairly disproportionate surge of kinetic energy. He barely gets his free hand out to steady himself against the wall in time, more than a little rattled. He has to shake his head and blink rapidly to clear the neon silhouettes of the flames from his vision.

And whatever the hell that was Peter tried to do, it evidently didn't work. Daniel's ears are ringing a bit regardless, but he can hear Seth being incredibly pissed so he assumes his hearing's just fine.

"So um, ow," he mutters, irritated. He squints at Peter who, despite his rather startling light-show, appears to be undamaged. "You okay there?"

[fucking_ebay]

"Aah-aaaah!" gasps Peter, holding his arms out to the sides a little like he's afraid they'll fall off. The exhalation is followed by a string of breathy curses as he gingerly lowers them and finds that his shoulders are not, as he feared for a moment, dislocated. "Why can I even feel pain in a dream," he asks rhetorically.

[powerdealer]

"A more pressing question is why the hell you thought it was a good idea to try to teleport out of here," he answers in annoyance, figuring he should inform Daniel what the hell just happened, since he looks pretty surprised. "When A, it doesn't work when you're tied up, and B, I literally just told you my powers didn't work on these chains."

[peacefulexplorer]

Power-nullifying chains, fun. But apparently that was a spot of unsuccessful teleportation and not self-immolation, all appearances to the contrary. At least that clears things up a bit.

"Well obviously it's a going to be little more complicated than simply zapping out of here," Daniel reasons, raising his eyebrows at the recalcitrant Peter. "I hate to say it, but it means we're going to have to work together on this one. And, uh," he waves the manacled hand closest to Peter demonstratively, "coordinate."

[fucking_ebay]

"I never tried it when I was tied up!" snaps Peter. "And how would you know --"

Oh. Right. Still, though. "Did you have a night of bondage or something when you had my power?" he asks, choosing to heckle Seth rather than respond to Daniel's reasonable obnoxious request for teamwork.

[powerdealer]

Yeah, right, because Seth is so incredibly sexually active these days.

"No, because unlike you, I make a point to actually test and use my new powers to figure out what the limits are," he answers impatiently. He does sort of realise he's not adhering to Daniel's request to cooperate very well either, but he's annoyed at Peter. Perhaps partially because of his animosity towards Daniel.

[peacefulexplorer]

"All right, guys?" Daniel interrupts a little desperately. "Can we maybe do this later? Like, once we're out?"

He jerks viciously at the bolt chaining him to the wall which, evidently, got significantly loosened from Peter's rough teleportation attempt because it crumbles out from the wall and lands on the ground with a dull clunk and a shower of stone dust.

Daniel stares at it, uncomprehending for a minute.

"Huh."

[fucking_ebay]

"...You're welcome," says Peter, realizing what probably happened (and what he'll take credit for either way). "Come on, let's do the other one and get this over with."

See? He's being productive. And cooperative. And he's making sure Daniel is, too, because he's going to go right ahead and haul Daniel over to Seth's side of the room if Daniel lets him despite being stronger than Peter.

[powerdealer]

Seth is chastised by Daniel's words, but then they're all a bit distracted by how easily that chain got tugged out from the wall, and he forgets his annoyance. Even though Peter does a pretty good job of reminding him.

He grabs hold of the chain with one hand, and then with the other once Peter gets close enough, and braces his foot against the wall. This one is a bit more stuck than the first one, but eventually it comes out as well, and Seth stumbles back, spitting a bit at the sudden stone dust in his face.

[peacefulexplorer]

Peter just goes and drags Daniel willfully along and Daniel, torn between irritation and sheer bewildered amusement, goes along with it. He can't help but marvel. The unmitigated, overpowering bravado of the man. He'd almost find it fascinating if he weren't currently chained to him and therefore completely unable to maintain any reasonable distance.

"Hey," he says once Seth gets his own bolt out, shooting him a vaguely sympathetic raised-eyebrow look. "How you doing?" That trick Peter pulled didn't look to have done Seth's shoulder any favors, and Daniel has had quite enough of injured shoulders in dreams to last him a lifetime, thanks.

[fucking_ebay]

To his credit, Peter does lift a hand to Seth's shoulder as he comes stumbling away from the wall. Less to his credit, he shoots Daniel A Look at the question very obviously not directed at him. "Better, since you asked," he replies.

Why between these two, he wonders. It's not like he knows them from the same place. "You two know each other?" he asks belatedly.

[powerdealer]

Seth's about to answer Daniel, but Peter beats him to it. Now that they're not chained to the wall anymore and Seth can actually maybe use his hands, he finds himself a little less annoyed about it, though.

"We're friends," he answers Peter's question. "And I'm fine," he answers more softly aside to Daniel, though he does reach up with his now sort-of-free hand to rub at his shoulder a little. Just a bit sore, nothing that won't heal, and Daniel and Peter looked like they experienced about the same.