Sweeter than the First Time [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Hello, dreamers of Manhattan. The Rift knows that things have been kind of rough, lately. The last dream didn't go as well as it had hoped. Consider this an apology of sorts, and a hearkening back to the good times you've shared.

It's a grand old (and potentially familiar) cabin house that the dreamers will find themselves wandering. The furniture is plentiful and comfortable, the floors are strewn with cushions and blankets, and there are cheerful fires burning in the grates. It seems a little odd that the house still manages to be on the chilly side despite looking so warm, yet it is.

Oh, well. You'll just have to find another dreamer or two and spoon up and fall asleep like little baby cats get cozy. It shouldn't be difficult; most of the dreamers (excepting those with strong telepathic defenses or deeply ingrained cuddle-averse personalities) will find themselves feeling friendlier than usual, along with an almost overwhelming desire to snuggle up to someone. How convenient that the house seems designed for that very purpose!

And if some of the cushions are Hello Kitty themed, well, that's just coincidence.


[OOC: Standard dream party rules apply. Characters will be affected by the dream-whammy to whatever degree makes the most sense for them, and will remember or forget the events of the dream at the player's discretion. Backtag into infinity.]

Comments

[postictal]

This isn't like any house Tim's been in before. No seedy hotel rooms, for one, and that's become something of a staple for him even in the newest city backdrop of his life. Nothing here is broken-down or burned either, which is an odd change of pace.

There's a fairly out-of-the-way armchair that Tim wastes no time in claiming with a faint, contented sigh. One hand creeps idly to the faintly rattling pack of cigarettes in one pocket, but he realizes he doesn't feel the itch. This is nice just like this. Whatever...this is. He doesn't think he's ever felt this weirdly relaxed. The sound of someone approaching causes him to automatically stiffen and grip the arms of his seat, but it's purely reflexive. Can't blame him for being wary. Just look at his life.

[wildmage_daine]

Don't be alarmed! It's just a dog - a very friendly dog whose tail is fanning the air in obvious canine goodwill. Daine figured it might be less alarming for her to explore the house in this shape, though the downside is that her fur is so short. She probably should have picked something fluffier.

Or she could just join this fellow on his nice armchair. He won't mind, right? Most folk like dogs. Daine trots up to the chair and hops nimbly up onto the cushion beside him with a little grunt. There we are. She flops into his lap with an overblown sigh. Hullo, she says, tail thumping against the arm of the chair. Don't worry, I'm nice.

[postictal]

He immediately loosens up when he sees it's just a dog. Dogs are nice. They're not like people, they're friendlier and less liable to judge and all in all just way less likely to get involved in things they shouldn't despite repeated warnings. He even grins a little when it leaps into the seat with him and simply curls up on his lap. Privately a little delighted by the physical contact, he offers it a tentative scratch behind the ears.

"Hello, boy," Tim says quietly, though he freezes when - is that him, or did it just talk back? Or should he say she? "Uh. Hi," he says again, much more carefully, now uncertain if he should be answering or even assuming this is a dog in the first place.

[wildmage_daine]

Those ear scritches were nice - why did he stop? Maybe she shouldn't have spoken. Daine tilts her head to look up at him. Don't worry, she repeats, her tone as reassuring as she can make it. This is a nice dream. We're safe. She wags her tail again for good measure, resting her chin on his convenient little paunch of a belly.

Maybe some polite conversation would help put him at ease. I haven't seen you before. Are you new? I'm Daine!

[postictal]

A dream? Is this like what Johnny told him about? Tim sharpens up a little at that, tensing in his chair and glancing furtively about. It doesn't feel like there's anyone in his head, and that's a feeling he knows all too well. It's like they're just both in the same space, almost.

Tim forces himself to relax and tries for another smile, though it's too weak and worried to be much believable. As long as he doesn't say much it should be fine, right? But then he didn't need to say much before, either, it was just knowing people in the first place that got almost all of them killed. Fuck.

There's about a five second window before whatever he says next becomes awkward, or suspicious, or awkwardly suspicious, and his time's up.

"Yeah," he answers cautiously. "Yeah, I'm new. I'm Tim."

[wildmage_daine]

It's nice to meet you, Tim. Honestly, everything is nice, here - she's not sure why he's so twitchy. Maybe she can figure it out by asking very carefully-put questions, like one of George's spies.

Why are you so twitchy? Is something wrong?

Nailed it!

[postictal]

"Uh..." He stares at the apparently fairly perceptive dog, feeling mildly like he should be offended but entirely unsure as to how one goes about being offended at a talking dog. Or no, not a talking dog, but yes, kind of? This is weird. And not the kind of weird Tim's used to; talking dogs don't fit neatly into headache-nosebleed-periodic-blackout-fucked-up-neurochemistry weird.

"Never had a dream like this, I guess." And it would be a hell of a lot safer if he didn't have dreams like this. Isolation is pretty fucking pivotal to everyone's lives not getting neatly screwed over, and this dream is circumventing that little objective very nicely.

[wildmage_daine]

Oh, she understands his nervousness, now. It was fair strange the first few times it happened to her, too. Daine gives him a sleepy blink of reassurance. You'll get used to it. Most folk do. It's happened often enough to me that I can almost always tell it's a dream right away. See? It'll get easier!

She considers Tim a moment, tail still wagging, then asks, Would it help if I was fluffier? I can be very fluffy.

[postictal]

Unfortunately, this isn't really something Tim wants to get used to. Or, well, maybe he wouldn't mind it. Maybe it's not half bad. But he shouldn't get used to it and if it means more people will come creeping into his awareness, the likelihood of anything ending well just sort of plummets.

He goes back to petting the sort-of-dog cautiously, but her next words prompt another confused look.

"What do you mean by that?" In Tim's experience, dogs don't usually sprout copious amounts of additional fur spontaneously?

I - I COULDN'T HELP IT

[johnny_truant]

Johnny almost lets his glance slide right over the man in the corner chair, like there's someone reasonably talented at hiding away - but then he realizes he knows the guy. He wheels back and heads over, lifting his hand in a friendly wave.

"Hey again," he says. "So, uh, how are you liking your first rift dream?"

WELL HOW DARE U

[postictal]

It's almost comfortable enough to start dozing, but Tim's been doing a decent job of holding it off. The abrupt presence of someone else startles him enough out of the pleasant haze he's been settling into. Wait, hang on - okay, so it's Johnny, right?

"Uh," he says, momentarily wrong-footed as he gives the fireplace a dubious look. This is a dream? It just feels really...really real. He shifts a little in his seat. He's not sure he likes that. "It's all right. I guess." His eyebrows raise a little and his shoulders creep up, the slightest signals of his discomfort. "How can you tell it's a dream when it feels so...?"

gaaah

[johnny_truant]

"Practice," says Johnny, and sits himself down on the floor opposite him. Chillier down here, part of him would much rather see about getting into the chair next to Tim, but he's way too much of an unknown for that. Plus he doesn't look like he'd necessarily be into that. "Honestly, I had so many fucked up dreams before I even got here, I was already kind of an authority. I guess I just - have a sense for it now. Or the rift gave me some kind of predisposition. That can happen, you know." He picks at the fraying cuffs on his thin hoodie. "People get new abilities sometimes, when they come through."

He lifts his head, chancing a look up at Tim. "This is actually a really good one," he says. "Shared one, like... this isn't your head, it's just a... neutral space. A lot of those are awful. Or they can be awful. This one..." He shrugs, looking around at the cabin. "This one's safe."

[postictal]

Dreams, huh. Yeah, Tim's had his share of those, and the only thing he wakes up with are headaches and a hope that he never remembers what's in them. It's an odd shared ground to have with someone. A shared ground he's going to leave undisclosed.

He relaxes incrementally when Johnny continues.

"Oh," he says, nodding a little. Whatever logic is at work here, well, he's going to hesitate to call it 'logic' in the first place. And Johnny's been...friendly, more or less, though Tim will hesitate to entrust him with any personal details. Personal details haven't led down good roads. "Well. That's good, I guess. That we're not in, you know, my head."

That's too much information. Fuck, he's trying to get away from everyone. It's what's safest. It's what's best.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny nods, smiling faintly. "I know," he says. "I'm glad we're not in mine."

The comment can mean a lot of things, for both of them. Everyone has secrets - it's always mortifying to find someone else in your dreams. But Johnny kind of doubts it's just that. Tim's a little cagey, casual but cagey, and it takes a practiced pretender to spot it. He's not interesting in asking questions - he doesn't really want to have to reciprocate. But it's weirdly comforting all the same.

"Can I bum one of your duvets," he says, gesturing vaguely at the nest of blankets.

[postictal]

And there it is again, that weird sense of solidarity, like they've both seen the shit that sneaks right past the realm of logic or human understanding and looked at it without any choice in the matter and had to deal with it, and then been made to live with it afterwards. He feels like Johnny gets where he's coming from a little bit, but he's not basing a potential friendship on that. He's not basing potential friendships on anything, because potential friendships are just going to get more people killed, and it'll all be on his hands.

The reasonable thing to do would be to be off-putting and unfriendly until Johnny decides Tim's not worth his time. He's done it before. He's fucking excellent at it.

Tim tugs out his dwindling packet of cigarettes - do they count when they're in dreams? - and wearily lights one up, waving a have-at-it hand. "Yeah sure, man."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny leans forward and pulls one of the various fluffy comforters - it's fucking cold down here, and all things considered he'd much rather have body heat, but that still seems like a no-go. He's got enough of a grip on himself not to drape over a person he's still getting to know, so to speak.

He nods at the cigarettes. "Can I bum one of those as well? They'll still be there when you wake up. Freebie." He smiles. He doesn't know entirely why he's being so friendly with this guy, just that... whatever he's picking up on, about him, between them, some kind of shared caginess, it's something he wants to hang onto if he can.

And maybe it's a little bit like the fucking puppy he couldn't save. Something so small and broken just like him. So important not to let it slip through the cracks.

[postictal]

He shrugs, and offers the packet with its cheap, sparse contents. Are dream cigarettes higher quality than the crap he's used to? Tim takes an experimental pull on his. Apparently not.

"Not bad," he admits finally, blowing out a curl of smoke and looking at the cabin's wood ceiling. "For a dream, I mean. Better than my usual." Anything's better than his usual. Suits, ties, faces without faces, the long dark tendrils of things that shouldn't exist.

Yeah, Tim prefers this.

[deadeyedchild]

Where is he?

Losing time again. Waking up somewhere new, only this time it's not in a car or the woods or another anonymous hotel room, this time it's in... is this a cottage?

Pull yourself together, Jay. Where's the camera.

Oh god, where's the camera.

He has an actual moment of panic when he realizes it's not there, not the chest camera (Tim has that one now) and not his own. Where is it where is it.

The panic is short-lived, dying back down once he takes a minute to look around. Crackling fireplace. Plush armchairs and sofas. This is not a hotel. It's probably not even Alabama. Fuck, it's cold. He shivers.

He picks himself up and wanders, awkward and shaky like a newborn deer, from room to room. There are a lot of people here but no one seems to notice him, which is fine. Some kind of house party? It's been so long since he actually spent time around people. He needs to find a corner to hide in.

And then he does. And it's populated by someone he thought he'd never see again. Why would he think that? He can't remember. There's an uncomfortable tug in his gut when he tries to remember, so he doesn't. He pushes that away.

"Tim," he murmurs softly, coming up to the chair, slow-footed, like he doesn't know what to expect. And he doesn't, really. They didn't exactly part on good terms.

HOLY CRAP A JAY

[postictal]

The single syllable hits Tim like a punch to the gut, the last time he heard that voice -

He stiffens in the chair, rigid, fingers digging into the arms, throat taut. How is he here. How is he - ?

Tim's eyes jolt shut for a minute. Fuck. He can't have expected to get away from this. It's his subconscious, or his memories, or something, he saw what happened to Jay, he'd stretched a hand out and trembled and stared at the body that lay sprawled there in horrifying stillness, the fresh red still drooling out between slack fingers, and Jay cannot be here because he cannot have lived.

"Jay," Tim answers, unsuccessfully trying to keep his voice level and calm in the face of someone who shouldn't exist. It's his head. It's always his head. It's always in his head. He's had these dreams before. Fuck. No. "What are you - doing here?"

The words drop out dull and flat, surprise tearing into simply not being able to process. What's Tim supposed to say to this thing that can't be real, that must not be real, because Jay is gone.

[deadeyedchild]

"I, uh," he forces a little half-smile even though absolutely nothing about this is funny, "I don't really know."

He feels stupid, standing here all skinny-armed and cold with a fire roaring literally right next to them. Tim looks all cozy in his oversized chair, under blankets and everything, but what is he supposed to do, crawl in there with him? This isn't their room-sharing days and even then the thought of sharing a chair would have been laughable. But now, after everything, the knife, the fucking zip ties, fuck, he should apologize, shouldn't he? He was an idiot.

Instead what he says is, stupidly, "What are you doing here?" Like they're at some kind of casual event and have catching up to do.

[postictal]

Does he - not know? Is he not here, or is he from Tim's head, or is he - he's not -

Fuck. Tim can't be dragged through this again. New world, right? New everything, right? That's what Johnny had said. But Tim can't have thought that would be so easy, he can't believe he ever let himself think it, even for a second, that he could just get the hell away from any of it. He's the source, the central fucking catalyst, and it's all wrapped around him, and he can't escape what he's such a core part of.

"I'm," Tim starts with more decisiveness than he has any right displaying, then halts when he realizes he has no idea where that sentence was planning to go. He deflates, shoulders curling up into a confused shrug, shrinking into his chair. "I just got here. It's Manhattan. I think."

No weirder than any of their ordinary bullshit, right? What does he even say about any of this? Sorry for being the reason for it. Sorry for getting you killed. Sorry for fucking everything up. Sorry, sorry, Tim's so fucking sorry, and he doesn't know what to say about it. Does Jay remember? Can someone remember something like that? Fuck. Fuck.

[deadeyedchild]

"Manhattan?" Jay does laugh at that, a dry, brittle sound like dead leaves. "Since when does Manhattan have cottages? Manhattan Kansas?"

No answer makes sense, and it doesn't make much difference anyway. He shivers visibly, and drawing his arms around himself and looking down at his feet. What little humor there was fades out. They can't pretend anything is normal, or ever was, for that matter.

"I, um," he says. "I don't remember everything that happened." He runs his hand over his own shoulder in an echo of comfort. "I remember, um, showing up at your house, and..." He huffs out a breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - I left you a message, didn't I? Did you get my message?" Finally he looks up, searching Tim's eyes. "I didn't - I wasn't acting right. I'm sorry."

[postictal]

Tim sits there, at a complete loss, hands clenching and then unclenching, until he has to stand and move despite how cold it is, because he's shaking and uncontained and restless.

"You don't, uh," Tim trails off, biting back an utterly humorless sardonic urge to tack on you don't remember dying? What the fuck, Tim, really? "You don't remember what happened - after that? I mean." He has to stop, unconsciously pushing one hand over the back of his neck, frustrated. "I mean, I, I never - I didn't get your message. Hell if I know why. And what happened after, um."

Jay isn't here. He isn't real. He can't be real. Unless he is? Fuck, Tim left this behind, this should not be happening and this should not be complicated because it should be over.

[deadeyedchild]

Jay stays put, watches Tim pace and feels to blame for it somehow, which he supposes he is, just like he was to blame for everything - he was getting better before and who knows what he just stumbled into, maybe he was getting better again. He doesn't like what Tim is saying, or isn't saying, talking around. It makes his skin crawl.

"I, uh..." His eyes slit, sifting through the jumble of memories, always jaggedly put together, a messy clipshow. "I went - I followed you? We went to Alex's old school, right? You went." He followed. Stalked.

"Alex was there?" he says abruptly. It's a question, but he's pretty sure he's right. "Alex was-"

He doesn't like this. He covers his face with his hands and tries to pull himself together but ends up just sinking down into the chair, the nest of blankets Tim has abandoned.

"Tim, what happened to me?" he whispers through his fingers.

[postictal]

Alex was there. Fuck, fuck, he does remember. He remembers some of it. Not all of it, clearly, clearly, fuck, Tim doesn't want to do this, he can't do this.

What does he say? How the fuck does he go about dropping this sort of fucking bombshell, oh, by the way, you're fucking dead and I got to fucking watch.

"Alex shot you."

It's cold, it's blunt, and Tim hates how utterly detached it comes out. Of all of them, Jay was the one who knew the least about any of it and should have been able to get out alive, he was the one who fucking deserved to get out and not Tim, who lied and stole and killed and clawed his way out of that mess only to learn he was the cause of it in the first place.

"I went, um, through the footage," he adds sloppily, staring at the rug without seeing it, it's so fucking cold and Jay is standing right here and none of it was supposed to happen, none of it, and this is a dream and it doesn't matter what Tim says anyway, because it's only a fucking dream. Is this meant to be closure? Tim doesn't fucking want it. He didn't fucking want closure then, he didn't want to be the only one to live through this, and here he fucking well is. "Alex shot you. You, uh. It didn't - you didn't look -"

Fuck. Shit. He can't just say this, Jay, you're dead, you're dead and I didn't do shit about it except stab Alex in the neck and hope that fixed everything.

(It didn't.)

(It doesn't get fixed. Not while Tim's still alive.)

"You died. Okay?" Not okay. That's not how you break that news to someone. Is there a good way to do it? Is there, at all?