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

[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.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Sorry!" pants Daniel, fighting to regain his equilibrium and not fall directly on top of both of them. "Sorry."

Before he can let Peter verbally question the wisdom of allowing him to go first (as he's sure he's already mentally doing and has been long before now), he manages another two steps, one hand planted firmly to the wall, and reestablishes the tenuous balance he had.

"Sorry." It bears repeating. He shoots them both a rightfully guilty look. "You guys okay?"

[fucking_ebay]

"FUCK!" Peter bangs his hip as he falls sideways up the stairs, his arms spread wide each way and utterly unavailable for things like catching himself. He kicks at the stairs below him to find purchase and avoid sliding down into Seth's legs, but ends up stuck sitting awkwardly on the steps.

"I could really use my hands about now," he points out testily, very much not accepting Daniel's apology.

[powerdealer]

"Yeah..." Seth says, sounding only mildly pained, but at least not annoyed at Daniel like Peter is. Annoyed at circumstances, but that's different.

He manages to get to his feet again, with the help of his free hand against the wall, and stretches out his arm towards Peter so he can at least have enough reach to get himself up. He might've actually helped Peter himself, but somehow he doesn't think Peter would welcome it, and Seth isn't feeling that giving towards him either.

[peacefulexplorer]

"All right, all right, here." Daniel backtracks in an effort to release some of the tension on the chains and hopefully give Peter more maneuverability. As grating as the man's being right now, he can't exactly blame him for that. He's in the most unfortunate position out of all of them by far, even if the other two have to listen to him be fully aware of that fact.

This entire endeavor is going to be an extremely slow effort if this kind of poor coordination persists. Daniel exhales when he fully processes this fact, short and annoyed, and looks up ahead and hopes that the staircase isn't that long, and while he's at it he silently curses his subconscious or whoever's subconscious it was that's responsible for filling out this dreamspace, because spiral staircases are the least helpful staircase design possible.

"We're really going to need to get better at this," he points out, completely unnecessarily.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter resists the childish urge to yank on the chains now that they're both being decently helpful about it, and instead just takes advantage of the slack to brace himself on the wall and get back on his feet. He follow's Daniel's gaze upwards -- there's really not that much more, but after that fall it looks like much farther than he'd really care to go.

"If you two weren't so heavy I could have us up there already," he grouses. Really, for Peter that's pretty good -- at least he's thinking in terms of how to get everyone where they need to go. "It's almost like you've never been in chains before," he says, cracking an unexpected smile.