applesaucedream | Better to Receive than to Give [open to all]

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Better to Receive than to Give [open to all]

Somewhere in the cosmos, there is something bright, and young, and playful. Somewhere, this being watches over their little flock and does their best to make those people safe and happy. Somewhere, that godling and their flock celebrate the winter holidays in the happiest of dreams.

And somewhere closer at hand, a sleeping giant stirs.

The bright tapestry of dream threads gathered by Zephyr is suddenly yanked hard enough to pull it from its temporary mooring. Something entirely unlike the little godling reels in the dreamers so neatly gathered and packaged up for it, bringing its own toys back to their proper place and taking all the others it can with them. Unsatisfied, it reaches out again and again, dragging in dreamers from all across the multiverse. It will snare them, all of them, and then it will possess them completely.

Perhaps it's fitting that when the stolen dreamers arrive in this new shared mindscape, they'll find they've been designated the Rift's Christmas gifts to itself. Each might awaken inside a dark box, or cocooned in…is that tissue paper? When they claw their way out they'll be greeted by the sight of an enormous evergreen tree laden with twinkling lights and kitschy knickknacks looming overhead. Beyond the shadow of the tree the rest of the world -- that is, the living room -- is just as large. Or is it that the dreamers have just become very small? Giant packages wrapped in bright paper form an obstacle course, but the wooden floor of the room is wide open between the tree and the hearth where an enormous plate of cookies and glass of milk await a cataclysmic Santa Claus.

All in all, things are fairly normal as far as the rift's dream gatherings go…at least on the surface. The more telepathically sensitive among the dreamers may notice an undercurrent of something darker, more urgent, and more possessive than normal. The rift isn't just sampling the wares of other worlds tonight; this time it means to play for keeps.

[OOC: This is the second part of our crossover with

wethelost! Part one can be found here. Usual dream party rules apply: all players and characters are welcome regardless of whether they are currently in the game, and characters may remember or forget the events of the dream party at the discretion of their players.

For reference, characters of average human height are roughly four inches tall according to the scale of their current surroundings. There is an entire giant house beyond the living room; characters will find a kitchen and dining room on the same floor, a staircase outside the door of the living room that leads up to a second floor with two bedrooms and a bathroom, and another staircase off the kitchen that goes to an unfinished basement. Feel free to add details as needed!

This event takes place on evening of August 8th/morning of August 9th in Applesauce time, and December 31 in WtL time.]

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"Yup." Johnny shrugs. "He's a good guy."

How much does Daniel know about Seth? How much does Daniel know about him? Does he know about Seth's imprisonment, his power - and what Johnny's power almost did to him? He doubts Seth just goes around telling people about that last one, but he feels a guilty, uneasy twist in his gut nonetheless.

He looks at the other boxes around them, and the twist becomes a steady sick feeling at the close memory of where he just was, and the thought that others might be in the same proverbial boat.

"This is really fucked up," he says unnecessarily. He feels like he should do something, but what can he do? He can't manifest scissors. He can only...

He shivers involuntarily. "This house is way too fucking big," he murmurs.

He imitates Johnny unintentionally, glancing up and around to scan the space that is, quite truthfully, far too big for anyone's comfort.

"Yeah." His forehead furrows into a characteristic frown. "Either everything's huge or we've been downgraded." Courtesy of the Rift, as per usual. Ugh. "I've been trying to get people out, but, well. There's a lot."

But now Daniel starts peering around hopefully. If this is a house, it should have a door out, shouldn't it? Granted, that wouldn't actually tell them much other than whether these specific surroundings are sized to the extreme or if everyone else has just gotten a significant reduction in individual stature. And getting out might prove problematic in its own right, because then where would they go? Would the Rift even let them? There are always limitations of a sort to these dreams, aren't there?

"Think maybe there'd be a way to get out?" he suggests anyway. "Not just out of, you know, but I mean the house itself. Door's probably oversized but there's gotta be a way to get it open." That's...assuming there is one. Daniel's going to be optimistic here and assume just that.

Johnny tries very hard not to think about how he might be able to open a door, oversized or no. The thought of acting on a house this size is dizzying, sickening, overwhelming. Maybe they can find their own way out. If the Rift will let them. If the house will let them.

"Lay on, MacDuff," he says with a hint of resignation, creeping to the edge of the box they're sitting on. It's a longish way down, but not unjumpable. "Let's just try not to roll any ankles."

He lowers himself off the edge slowly and hoists himself down. He lands on his feet, managing to keep himself loose enough that he doesn't actually hurt anything. Not fun, but now he's on the floor, which is better than on a box.

Daniel's mouth opens to protest as Johnny pitches himself over with an alacrity that he finds vaguely alarming, but he lands evenly and seems fine enough. After a brief hesitation Daniel follows, gripping at the box's edges with both hands before dropping. He still gets a slight shock to his lower body from the impact, but an experimental flexing of both ankles proves nothing broken.

"Okay, so step two." Step two being - locating the door? Except this place is massive, and any progress they make in the wrong direction will take just as long to subvert. "Any idea which way?" They look to be in a living room type of establishment. That's typically where the tree goes in Daniel's experience. The door shouldn't be too far away?

Johnny scans their gargantuan surroundings and points out several options of door. He has a vague feeling that the double door nearest them has already been tried - whatever that means - so he ends up angling toward one on the far side of the room.

"How do you feel about walking for a ways?" he says dryly, as if they have a choice. "Let's try that one over there? Get as far from this mess as possible."

"I feel pretty good about it," he answers amiably, inflecting the words with a lighthearted pitch. Walking is well within his skillset, and anything that takes them from the great mass of needled foliage in the room is fine with him. There's a lot about this particular setup that Daniel finds profoundly unnerving, but the tree's towering apex and the web of presents around it is especially off-putting. He starts for the door with a deftness that belies the swirl of agitation in each step. "Not sure how we'll get it open, though."

"I think we might be able to crawl underneath," he says as he falls into step beside Daniel. He leans down a bit to squint at the distant door; he's pretty sure the line of light running between it and the floor represents a width sufficient for his skinny ass - Daniel might be a problem though.

"Well, I might be able to," he amends. "Um. We'll figure it out when we get there."

He's gonna feel pretty fucking stupid if they get all the way over and Daniel can't fit and they have no other options. He sure as hell isn't about to scale a door and turn the knob with his weight or some borrower type bullshit like that.

There's not much he can do besides nod until they do get there. By the time they do, Daniel drops onto all fours to peer at the gap between the ground and the door, head angled in quiet evaluation. It helps that he's basically four inches tall, but getting stuck underneath a door is not on his list of Ways He Wants to Die in Dreams. Or at all, really, and the fact that he has a list at all should be somewhat worrying but he's not getting into that right now.

"Yeah, not sure I'll fit under there," he mutters, sitting back on his heels. "Could give it a shot, at least."

Johnny shakes his head. He really doesn't want to do this, but he wants Daniel getting stuck under a fucking door because it was 'worth giving a shot' even less.

"Fuck," he mutters. "Unfortunately for me, I have a better idea."

They've reached it now, and yeah, it doesn't look promising for mister side-of-beef here. Johnny sighs and gets down on his knees, reaching a hand under the gap, resting it on the wood of the door. He can feel a cold draft coming through, which chills him even more.

It's huge, but this is a relatively small shift, isn't it? It's not like he's going to open the door. He just needs to lift it up a few inches. He draws a breath and lets it out slowly, then lets his thoughts focus on shrinking the wood, or warping the actual reality of the dream, whatever the fuck it is that he does. Dimensional something or other, as Gabe described it. Who cares. He doesn't care.

Even this, a tiny little shift, makes him so dizzy his head spins, if he weren't already kneeling he'd have tipped right over. His vision blacks out for a second and he feels the press of pain behind his eyes and under his skull that harkens back to how he felt when he first met the TARDIS. He grunts and draws his hand back to cover his face for a moment, breathing sharp and shallow through his fingers.

"Fuck," he gasps, muffled through his hand. "Oh, fuck. Jesus. Fuck you, too, house."

He did it. The house, or the Rift, whatever, clearly didn't like it, but he did do it. As his vision swims back he can see the gap is a little taller now, roomy enough for Daniel to crawl comfortably through.

He'd hate to feel what would happen if he tried anything bigger on this place.

He bites back the knee-jerk impulse to protest, insist that Johnny doesn't have to - he's already done it, so there wouldn't be much point. He remembers easily enough Johnny's description of the thing, the 'nightmare' that almost apparently killed someone he knew. The fact that he's acting on a house that's been dramatically scaled up probably isn't helping in the slightest. The guy looks pretty unsteady on his feet just with the initial warping so Daniel hastily wriggles under the door to keep him from having to hold it or keep it shifted or - whatever it is, however that power works - any longer than absolutely necessary.

It's only upon exhaling on the other side that Daniel realizes he was holding his breath in the first place. He peers back under the door at Johnny, sincere and sympathetic.

"Thank you," he says. "Really, thanks. You, um. You're gonna be okay?" It's a dumb question, because Johnny doesn't look particularly okay and having to act on a house of this scale can't have been pleasant at all, but it's the only way Daniel knows how to help.

It doesn't go back. Johnny doesn't think he could put it back. That requires energy, too. He just has to leave it there, a little flaw in reality.

He slides himself under, ignoring the wave of nausea, the momentary certainty that it will jump back down and crush him, and then gets to his feet, trying not to look sickly or fragile.

"I'm fine," he mumbles, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "It's just kinda hard, sometimes."

And it almost killed Seth. Should he say that? He doesn't really want Seth to have to tell him, if it ever comes up.

"I told you about it once, right?" he says. He occupies himself by looking around the new space. There's carpeting in here, plush and thick, difficult to walk on at this size. Two doors to the left and the right. The left would take them back in the general direction of where they just were, so right seems the best option. "How it almost killed someone?"

Johnny still looks shaky but at least they're moving away at a steady pace. Putting distance between him and the door is probably a solid plan of action as far as plans go. But Daniel doesn't know what to say in the face of that, in reflection that this power is based off something Johnny finds abhorrent and disturbing on some personal level no one else can conceptualize. He's not exactly radiating waves of 'so-let's-talk-about-our-problems' and given their current situation that would difficult to accomplish, logistically.

"Yeah," he says, speaking to the ground in quiet indecision. "You mentioned." There's no need to revisit the context of said mention. That was an unpleasant experience for entirely different reasons. "I'm - sorry." An apology out of left field, seemingly for nothing, and immediately Daniel blinks his eyes shut, wordless and self-directed vexation.

Johnny shrugs, keeping a few steps ahead of Daniel to avoid eye contact, or any glimpse of his facial expression. "It's just, uh." He reaches a hand up to the back of his neck, fingertips tracing his scar, Daniel can't see it because his hair's just a little too long, thank fuck. "It was Seth. I don't know if he would have ever..."

He grunts. What more can he say about it? He doesn't expect anger, or defensiveness, or even a healthy amount of wary caution - he would like it if people were cautious around him, he thinks, that's what they probably should be - but he doesn't want pity either.

"He tried to take it off my hands, and it got the better of him. I had to take it back or it would have..." Well, and this is where we came in. He stuffs his hands aggressively back into his pockets and stalks, shoulders hunched, toward the door. This one, he notes with relief, is already ajar.

Various shreds of reference come spinning together, and Daniel's mouth opens a little as he nods, silently ohh-ing his fresh realization.

"He mentioned that," he says, but quickly amends, "I mean he didn't, he didn't mention you or that power specifically, just said that at some point a power kind of - backfired." That was the general gist of it, anyway. This door is thankfully open, but as useful a segue it is Daniel isn't sure how willing he is to relinquish the current topic. Clearly it's not something comfortable for Johnny, but it's the slight slant of guilt to the explanation that rubs Daniel wrong.

"You couldn't have known." And he's probably heard that enough times. God, is Daniel even helping? "And - Seth seems okay now, so." Relatively. When one overlooks the traumatic past and the recurring nightmares that occasionally drag Daniel unbidden into them. "So."

So, the wordless question of whether Johnny is okay following that. They've only skirted the surface in terms of what happened - it got the better of him could mean any number of things, none of them good - but he doubts Johnny wants to get into much extensive detail. And recovery from something like that isn't an immediate process, neither for Johnny nor, probably, for Seth.

"So," Johnny echoes. He appreciates Daniel's attempts at reassurance, but he doesn't really know how to show it. He feels awkward having brought it up at all.

"The thing is I kind of could have known," he says vaguely. He approaches the edge of the door and leans around it, peering into the room beyond as if scouting for predators, or a potential homeowner - or both, they're not mutually exclusive. "The power's dangerous, it always has been, it's just that I think the Rift built on something I already had, sort of. Foisting it off on someone else was just fucking stupid. And I know he doesn't blame me, but it was still completely fucked."

The next room looks, he thinks, like a kitchen, judging by the amount of white cabinet doors. It also seems empty.

Now desperate to change the subject, however clumsily, he turns to Daniel with a ragged grin and says, "Wanna raid the fridge?"

Daniel looks at him, fully aware of that redirection and the reasoning behind it. Finally he shifts his weight, dropping the concerned tilt of the head and the apologetic, sympathetic frown. Johnny isn't eager to rehash those specifics and that's entirely understandable. He won't press the topic or its inelegant denouement, at least not here. Here is really not the best place to be doing that.

"Ahh, why not." He gives the hulking white block of a fridge an appraising lift of eyebrows, and shrugs. "We're in a dream, might as well."

Yes, because that reasoning has never resulted in anything horrible.

Johnny chuckles as he pads across the linoleum floor, looking askance at the towering kitchen table, the massive oven. Being in here gives him the creeps even more than under the tree, like any minute someone's going to stamp them out like a pair of cockroaches. Or drop them in a pot to boil. Because that would make sense.

He skirts past the fridge in the end, because there's no way they're getting it open, even if that was a remotely practical idea. He's interested in getting out of the house.

Past the fridge is another door, this one wide open onto a yawning, dark expanse. Basement steps? Johnny approaches, peering down. Not the basement, or not all the way down, anyway - just a few steps (cliff-walls, to them) and then the back door. There's a light on outside, glowing faintly in the apparent night, casting gloomy shadows across the short staircase. Difficult to navigate, and terrifying, but it's an exit. And most importantly, Johnny's pretty sure he sees - yeah.

"Jackpot," he says, managing to actually sound pleased. "Backdoor. And there's a cat flap."

That, they can probably get through with a minimum of strain, and no unwanted power usage.

"All we gotta do is get down the stairs," he adds wryly. Kind of a major caveat.

Well, that's one more exit than what they had available to them a minute ago, so Daniel will call that progress. For a minute he stupidly scans the wall for an interior light switch before remembering it wouldn't matter one way or the other, seeing as they'd never be able to reach it.

"Better than the fridge," Daniel answers decisively, crouching at the edge of the first step. "Not the most inviting place, is it?" But creepy staircases and darkened pathways have hardly deterred him before. Undaunted, Daniel drops from the first step and lands with a soft oof onto the second, staggering a little to keep from overbalancing but admirably not tumbling down in an undignified, painful sprawl.

"Down is easier than up, at least," he offers. Which, hopefully they won't need to head back up in a great hurry. You know, in case the cat comes home.

In case the -

Nope. No, not thinking about that. Very definitely not.

"Yeah," says Johnny, shuffling himself awkwardly over the edge. He lands a bit more clumsily than Daniel, falling back on his ass. He snorts and says, "Well, relatively."

He gets to his feet and makes sure he's still in good condition to attempt the second drop. He really, really doesn't want to ask Daniel to catch him, though this is a case where height and muscle mass are actually a plus, and Johnny has none of those. Still, though. No fucking way is he asking that.

"Yeah I don't actually know what we'll do if we have to turn back," he says after a moment, considering the step they just leapt from. He's pretty sure they can't get back up there. Maybe if Daniel gave him a boost, but is he strong enough to then haul Daniel up? He'd need to find a dollhouse stepladder. Or he'd need to mess around with the house some more. This is starting to feel like a bad idea.

Too late now. He laughs off his remark and lowers himself a bit more carefully this time, hanging from the step before letting go, landing only a bit less awkwardly.

Seems they're both stuck on that unfortunate line of thought. That's fine. That doesn't mean there's actually a cat or an equally monster-sized pet of some kind. The owners themselves have been absent, as far as Daniel can tell; there's no reason to suspect they have a cat or that it might come calling. Right? Absolutely.

"Maybe," Daniel begins, eying the previous step over one shoulder, but the suggestion he was about to make trails off pointlessly when he realizes he didn't actually have a suggestion, just talking aloud for the useless comfort of it. Right now the only other reassurance he can grasp is that at least they are moving forward which is pretty much what one is meant to do in dreams. They're moving down, granted, but down also promises to mean out. That's the hope.

He turns back and follows Johnny down the next step with a minimum of stumbling but the third step nearly has him rolling down the remainder of the angular incline in what would have been a long and painful trip, then hastily drops down the next one before he can reconsider whether this idea really was the best option they had available to them.

At the bottom now, Johnny is left staring up at the cat door, mentally working out the mechanics of how to get them through it - it's not too high up and it can't be that heavy, maybe Daniel can sort of push it open enough for him to scrabble through, and then he can hold it open for Daniel - and then what? Hopefully escape, maybe into another, safer dream. That would be nice, if things would actually work out.

"Okay," he says slowly. "I think we can do this."

He steps forward and stands on his toes, pushing at the flap with his hand. It budges slightly, Daniel will likely have an easier time with his stature and strength, so hey.

"Yeah," he says, and turns back to Daniel, smiling optimistically. "Yeah, so-"

Behind him, the flap lifts up and clocks him in the back of the head. He staggers forward and falls onto his knees, winded. He grunts, baffled and annoyed, and then freezes, staring at the floor, as a huff of warm breath pours over the back of his neck.

He looks up, very slowly, at Daniel. There is something behind him, something big and possibly predatory, but he can't move or speak, so he just stares, eyes wide and demanding what the fuck is that.

He almost can't believe their luck in reaching the cat flap unaccosted, and Johnny's able to shift it a little which means that together they can probably shove the thing open long enough to escape. Of course, that should have been Daniel's first clue that things are going too well at this point. Because the Rift's modus operandi tends toward progressively making things worse and oh my god the flap is moving the flap is moving and something is coming through it.

He reaches instinctively for Johnny when the other man almost faceplants, but the impulse to help him to his feet stills into paralyzed, awed horror at the colossus unraveling itself from the flap in a slow, graceful spill, crowned with tufted ears, complete with paws that plant themselves behind Johnny's quadrupedal form in noiseless menace. Distantly, clinically, ridiculously, Daniel takes dazed note of the wispy quality of its fur, of the thick ruffed fur at its neck that informs him that this, in fact, a kitten. It is a kitten and it towers over them, over him, over Johnny who doesn't look like he dares to move, and Daniel gulps hard when he realizes he's managed to overlook the most obvious, directly terrifying thing about their monstrous visitor.

Its eyes.

They stare unblinkingly at him - or at least, he thinks they do, because he can't tell, because they're apparently without iris or pupil, simply milky white sclera limned with a pale, otherwordly glow.

It's right in front of him. It's right above Johnny.

Daniel swallows again, and then, slowly and deliberately and idiotically, raises a hand. And waves.

"Hi," he says weakly, and the word breaks halfway.

Naughty little creatures, trying to escape the dream. Isn't this a fun dream the Rift has made for them? Full of holiday cheer and everything, and they want to leave? Rude.

The kitten quite enjoys being this size. Sure, size doesn't matter when it's interacting with them in the physical space, due to it not being particularly bound to that world, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice to sometimes be a bit, yanno, awe inspiring. Creepy, sure, that's easy, but not always that threatening. So this is pretty great.

'Hellooo there, Danny,' it answers in a sing-song voice which might seem like it comes from the direction of the cat, but not so much because they actually hear it, rather that, well, where else would it come from? 'And Johnny, of course.' The cat looks down at the back of Johnny's head.

What the fuck? Daniel is talking to whatever it is, is that really-

-but then it answers back.

Johnny goes cold, not just from the blast of outside winter fucking air, but from the voice, resonating in him, in the house, everywhere. This is deep blood-and-bone chill. He can't make himself turn around, and he doesn't really need to, because in a moment he realizes it's standing right over him, treelike front legs flanking him on either side, fluffy with white and grey, ending in paws that would be dainty if it were scaled to him.

He thinks it's a cat. He's not sure how he knows that precisely, he's too freaked and too small to identify that from terrifyingly monstrous paws in his periphery, but somehow he just senses it. Cat. But obviously not a regular cat.

Finally, breath coming shallow, head still pounding from the blow, he twists his neck to look up.

"Fuck," he breathes.

Oh god, and it talks. Excellent. Good. Well. At least. At least that means communication is an option, right? Diplomacy, negotiation, all things that land squarely in Daniel's area of expertise. Giant telepathic cats aren't even a first anymore, even if this one only sounds friendly in way a spider is friendly as it caresses a fly. His eyes flutter down to Johnny, then back up to the thing's broad, white-eyed face. How does the cat know their names? The purring, visceral voice that creeps calmly along the back of his head feels horribly intimate, hushed in that chilling, knowing sibilance.

Daniel forces himself to breathe, in and out, eyes flicking back down at Johnny in a look he sincerely hopes comes across as reassuring. Then he takes a tiny step back, raises both hands in a gesture of pacification. It doesn't look violent, which is good. Which is - probably good.

"Hi," he repeats. A small frown puzzles the look of trepidation, but his voice is mostly steady. Mostly. "How, um. How do you know our names?"

Better to Receive than to Give [open to all]

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