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 blinks in surprise at the sudden shower of metal, centered around Daniel but some still hitting Seth, and creating a hefty little pile on the floor. Once the shower is over, he reaches up and picks a few of them out of his hair.

"Well, if we need to scale a wall or something, at least we have something to make a rope out of," he says reaching down to pick up a handful. Not the most comfortable rope, or the most practical considering it has to be assembled. He unbends on as well, and tries poking it into the lock experimentally, though it doesn't do much good. He has no idea what kind of lock is in these things, or how you open one.

[peacefulexplorer]

"All right, so not the most practical application, I'll give you that," Daniel replies patiently. "Paperclips are easiest. And hey, if they help us get out then I'm not gonna complain."

Unfortunately, Daniel himself knows very little about lockpicking. Door consoles on foreign spaceships he has scant knowledge of; old fashioned key-in-the-lock scenarios he has not.

"I can try for scissors?" He shrugs helplessly, fully aware of how ridiculous it sounds. "Those are harder. And I've never been able to make them, so."

[fucking_ebay]

"You're both mental," Peter informs them even as he's bending a couple paperclips into what he thinks will be the right shapes. He has at least a little more idea than Seth as to the basic mechanics of lockpicking, but judging by the sort of aimless manner in which he prods the lock with a couple of quickly made picks, he's not going to show much more experience or finesse.

"We should just wake up," he points out, still working at it. "Or you could try for some pruning shears and take one for the team by cutting your hand off."

That was uncalled for and he knows it.

[powerdealer]

"Doubt they could make it through these," Seth answers, giving up on the lock-picking. The chains unfortunately seem a lot sturdier than the wall they were attached to.

"Hey," he responds sternly to Peter's not-so-helpful suggestion for Daniel. He can easily ignore these things when they're directed at him, but he doesn't want Peter trying to bully Daniel. ...And furthermore, pruning shears does definitely not fall under 'office supplies'.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Mm, no thanks." Daniel dismisses the suggestion without taking his eyes off the keyhole, trying to get a better handle on how the internal mechanism works. "That's a brachial sever. I'd bleed out in minutes. Tried that once, didn't agree with me." The bleeding out, not the hand-lopping-off thereof, but Daniel doesn't bother to clarify. Anyway, Seth's being massively more helpful, what with his fending off of Peter's jibes and making actual, useful observations and suggestions.

He gives up on the keyhole and instead turns his attention to the door.

"Looks sturdy enough but maybe all three of us could weaken it enough to break it," he observes slowly. "Not a fix for the chain problem, but at least we'd be going somewhere."

[fucking_ebay]

Peter, on the other hand, does look up from the lock he's working on. "You tried cutting your hand off?!" he asks. He hadn't meant it, though he wonders now how animals chew their legs off in traps if they just bleed out afterward. Peter keeps that thought to himself as he pockets the paperclips, giving up for now on the prospect of lockpicking.

"Whatever gets us out of here," he mutters, dubious about their collective ability to do anything about a door.

[powerdealer]

Seth also looks up and blinks at Daniel at that. He's not entirely sure whether Daniel means the hand-cutting or the bleeding out - though he has twice now had to deal with the threat of Daniel bleeding out in dreams, so, that bit he knows is true enough. Then again, with Daniel's apparent experience with dying, he might've actually managed to do it properly at some point. Seth does not enjoy that thought.

[peacefulexplorer]

"I tried bleeding out," Daniel says, now running his hands thoughtfully over the door. "Several times. Didn't stick. Maybe if we try ramming it." The last sentence is directed primarily at the door, it having captured his full attention. "Not sure if we can get it open by sheer force but it's worth a shot, right?"

He can always try and go for a pair of scissors but he's never really succeeded in anything like that. It's always been pens, paperclips, post-its, other small miscellany.

[fucking_ebay]

For a second Peter misinterprets that as maybe bleeding out will stick if we try ramming it, which is both morbid and nonsensical. He has to stand pretty close to the door to let Daniel run his hands over it, and makes a little movement for the barred window that drags Seth's hand up. Sighing heavily to himself, he asks, "May I? There might be a latch we can just reach through the window."

Whoever built this place would have to be a piss-poor dungeon designer to make that possible, but you never know. Trouble is, there's no way Peter's getting either arm down through there when he's got someone chained to him on both sides.

[powerdealer]

Oh, for God's sake. Did they both forget what Seth's power is? He may not be extremely keen on dragging both of them through a dozen walls, since that seems like it would get very exhausting very quickly.

"How about I just..." he says, sticking his hand through the door close to where the handle is. He feels around for a bit on the other side, dragging Peter's hand a bit. The chains go through the door, but Peter's hand doesn't. It only takes a couple seconds for him to find a latch and push it open with a satisfying click, before pulling back his hand.

[peacefulexplorer]

Or, okay then, they could do the logically sound thing and not shamelessly overthink their situation like Daniel so often tends to. He flashes Seth a grateful look, steps over the scattered collection of paperclips haloed at his feet, and gives the door a tentative shove. It feels wedged shut but there's no handle on this side, naturally, so pushing seems to be the only option.

He ends up having to brace his shoulder on it and throw his entire body weight at the thing, grateful he's at the end of their little chain link, but with a rusted squeal the door finally swings outward.

"Well," he pants, stepping back and almost folding his arms before realizing the movement would be impeded by the chains. "That's progress."

[fucking_ebay]

Having his arms hauled around by these two is going to get old really quickly. Peter is able to find fault in even the simplest of successes, though. "Why didn't you just pull us all through it, then?" he asks as though Seth's chosen method didn't just work in a matter of moments. "You keep saying how keen you are to put me through a wall again."

[powerdealer]

"Cos it's exhausting," Seth answers, as if that were obvious. Even magic powers take energy from somewhere. "And I'm not sure I could do it to two people at the same time, anyway." He could maybe bring Peter all the way through, then reach back and get Daniel through as well, but. Preferably that will be only a backup, because it's not something he's keen on doing a lot.

And good thing they have at least one person on this team with a certain amount of body weight and strength. He leans forward and looks out, but there's no one there. Then again, if there were, they might've been freaked out by the randomly appearing hand, or the loud noises of Daniel trying to smash open the door. "Shall we, then?"

[peacefulexplorer]

"We're gonna have to move carefully," Daniel warns unnecessarily. Yeah, like they hadn't figured that out already, but then Peter had spent his first few minutes of dream consciousness waving his arms around haphazardly with little regard to the people chained to them, so maybe it bears mentioning after all.

The outside corridor looks, from here, to be exactly what one would expect to find in a dungeon of this size and nature - unremarkable, appropriately dismal stone brick walls, dimly lit, and, in their favor, completely empty.

Daniel typically isn't the one to take the lead in this type of situation - he wouldn't consider himself a leadership type of person by any means - but letting Petter leave first would be an exercise in painful bruising and perpetual physical space management, and he'd rather not Seth be the first one to face whatever it is that might potentially be down here with them. So, shooting the other two a meaningful look in warning, out the door he goes.

[fucking_ebay]

"Yes, mother," says Peter, rolling his eyes. He's not getting much from their surroundings, either, but he dutifully follows along close enough not to tug on Daniel's hand. He keeps his voice low, but even so it bounces off the stone walls along with the sounds of their footsteps, echoing off to who knows what listeners. "I take it the paperclips mean your power doesn't include the ability to find a way out of shitholes like this one."

[powerdealer]

Seth is perfectly content bringing up the rear, as he is pretty practiced in keeping an eye out for anyone following, casting a glance back every so often. Not that he needs to. The place seems surprisingly deserted, all things considered. Even as they pass door upon door, there's nothing indicating there's anyone in them. Then again, difficult to know without checking. But they are hardly in a position to organise a mass escape, if they can't even escape from one another. Although there is power in numbers, and perhaps someone could help.

Then again, if this is a dream, anyone else they meet is unlikely to be an actual real consciousness. Just a figment cooked up by their combined minds. Seth thinks he'd be able to tell the difference in just a small shared dream like this, when he was able to tell it was a dream so quickly. But it's hard to be sure until he can test it.

"Well, this place is probably drawn from one or more of our minds," Seth points out quietly. Though the gentle rattling of their chains is probably doing a decent enough job of letting anyone present know they're on the move. "But it doesn't really look familiar to me. At least, not the specific location." The type of setting is familiar enough. Much, much too familiar. So familiar he would happily never see another cold, lifeless dungeon ever again. Yet is seems to be a theme recently.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Well," says Daniel slowly, wincing over what he knows is not going to be a popular opinion, at least not with Peter, "I confess I've spent a, um, disproportionately large amount of time in places like this. Enough that I honestly can't remember if I've actually been in this exact structure." When you save the galaxy on a semi-regular basis, you make some enemies and sometimes those enemies happen to be low-tech worlds with real nasty, low-tech prisons. That's hardly Daniel's fault now, is it?

Thankfully he's spared from having to elaborate when they reach a flight of spiral stairs. Or maybe not so thankfully, because that leaves them with two not-terribly-pleasant choices - turn around and go back how they came or brave the stairs and hope they go somewhere. Either way one or more of them will probably end up tripping over someone else's feet and swearing magnificently.

"Up or down, do you think?" he asks, craning his neck to see if there's anything of interest in either direction with little success.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter's ready to say it's obviously not him, they can think what they want about his fashion sense but it has nothing to do with any kind of dungeon except maybe the kinky kind. Then Daniel just owns the responsibility for their circumstances without being prompted and he's spared the self-justification and can skip right to the amused tittering.

"Where the hell do you even come from, because I thought I'd already met all the weirdos," he says. "We should go up, obviously. No windows means they've got us buried."

Logic!

[powerdealer]

Seth glares a little at Peter's back when he calls Daniel a weirdo, but he doesn't comment at the moment. A lot (if not most) of the times it's just simpler to ignore Peter's offensiveness. Even if it's not as easy when it's directed at a friend rather than at himself. He doesn't have the full context to defend Daniel anyway, though he's assuming his familiarity with a place like this has to do with the intergalactic explorer and diplomat thing. Probably the archaeology is also involved.

Kinda makes him wonder what the hell kind of life Daniel's been living though. Getting shot isn't new, being thrown in dungeons apparently isn't new, dying isn't new. The dreaming is one thing, but how do you end up going through all of that so often that it becomes almost routine.

"Sounds like a fair assumption," Seth agrees, though he somehow manages to sound like he's disapproving. He's just starting to feel more and more unkind towards Peter tonight. He's going to have to try to summon some patience from somewhere. And furthermore, no windows is hardly a guarantee. Still, they've got precious little to go off here, so why not.

[peacefulexplorer]

Up it is. Maneuvering is going to take some work, especially when they really can't afford to move very far from one another before things get more uncomfortable than they already are. Daniel starts shuffling up the stairs as diagonally as he can given the spiral construction, trailing his chained hand behind him to allow as much room for additional movement as he can.

Peter's question provokes a little pause. He considers his concise, vague answers he's used for that specific query before, how he's eased people into the possibility of being a spacefaring explorer and then thinks, well why not?

"Oh, I'm from space," he says easily, tone just as light and casual as if he were informing Peter that he was an architect in undergrad school. "Intergalactic explorer, you know."

[fucking_ebay]

Peter very quickly realizes he's getting shafted in this equation. With one hand held up to trail along after Daniel and the other out behind him thanks to Seth, he doesn't exactly have a hand free to steady himself against the wall. That he has to go up more or less sideways to avoid pulling his arms out of their sockets only makes it worse for him.

"Space," he repeats with an ill-suppressed huff of laughter. "Lots of dusty old castles out among the stars, are there?

[powerdealer]

"Well, when you're a diplomat for the human race, you're bound to be thrown into an alien dungeon or two," Seth answers, seeing where Daniel is going with this. He hadn't wanted to give out any information about Daniel's life that seems like it should be private, especially to Peter, but if this is the direction Daniel wants to take this then he is very up for it.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Yep." Resisting the childish ridiculous urge to shoot Seth a grin, he continues in just as conversational a tone. "You'd be surprised how many planets out there aren't as technologically advanced as Earth. And how many seem to think that visiting parties are invading demons that need to be thrown into prison and burned at the stake." Okay, so maybe that particular instance was one time, three or four at most, but the dungeon bit is a mission-wide consistency. At least those unpleasant experiences are getting put to some marginal use here.

His foot chooses that exact moment to slip on the next step and his free hand flies up to grab at the wall to prevent the potential domino-style backslide. The hand chained to Peter, however, seems to forget that it is chained to Peter and instinctively tries to do the same, only to strain against its tether.

[fucking_ebay]

"Bullshit," says Peter, though he's not so sure it is. He glances back at Seth on the instinct that he might be better able to tell if he's shitting him than Daniel, though it's not as if he's spent much more time with Seth. He's thus got his face turned back with Daniel stumbles and yanks him forward and up, with the result that Peter trips over his own next step and tries to throw both hands under him to catch himself, with extremely limited success.

[powerdealer]

Well, the domino effect seems to sort of happen anyway, but at least they don't all fall backwards. Dream or not, landing backwards on the stairs and having both Peter and Daniel (especially Daniel) fall on top of him would've been pretty damn painful, if not potentially deadly.

Instead though, his arm too gets yanked up and forward, making him trip as well, though at least he has one free hand to break his fall a little and make is slightly less painful when his shins and knees hit roughly against the stone steps. Which, still, ow.