applesaucedream | Sweeter than the First Time [Open to All]

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Sweeter than the First Time [Open to All]

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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.]

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Eliot's been trying to stave off dreams the last couple nights, and he's a little disappointed that a hard evening's drinking didn't just knock him out. Still, the environs are much more... calming than the last time, and he gets the distinct sense that this is a capital D Dream and not just his own mind screwing with him. Okay, he can deal with this. Probably nothing here is going to kill him (though the decor is so rustic it's painful), he might as well relax.

The place seems built for relaxing, and before long Eliot's set himself up in a nest of blankets on a couch, resembling a large fabric burrito. If only he weren't alone, that would be perfect, but he feels so guilty about what happened to Johnny in his last dream. The burrito pouts.

It's not long after his brief and uncomfortable conversation with Johnny that he spots Eliot on the couch. It's not likely that Eliot had anything to do with Johnny's strange mood, but for the moment the thought that anyone else but himself could be responsible is comforting.

He plops down right next to Eliot and leans against him, matching his pout. "Did something happen with you and Johnny? Y'know, Johnny, dark hair, bad attitude." bad attitude as of two minutes ago, anyway.

Eliot frowns but can't bring himself to ask Gabe to move. It is chilly in here, after all.

The question puts him on edge, and he goes very still. "What did he tell you?" he asks, his voice tense. Johnny wouldn't tell Gabe about the shit in his head, right? Or maybe the encounter with the Beast was so awful that he had to tell Gabe, and now Gabe is here to do the angry boyfriend thing? Ugh, no thank you. Eliot sits up a little straighter. "Listen, I had no control over that, I'm not some maniac going around dragging people into horrible dreams. I don't want people getting caught up in my head."

"Huh?" As Eliot sits up straighter, Gabriel does the opposite, slouching further against him. "He didn't tell me anything about a bad dream. He was all-" He waves a hand vaguely. "Weird. All shifty and 'I need some time to myself'.

He grabs a blanket from the back of the couch with one hand and drapes it over himself. "What happened in your dream?" If there's a possibility that this is about Eliot and not him, he wants to know about it.

What, is he drunk or something? Eliot wants to shove Gabe away, tell him to fuck off, but the questions give him pause. He had thought, he had hoped that things were okay with Johnny, that Johnny didn't blame him for what had happened. But now he has doubts, and that makes wisps of fear coil up again in him. Eliot shivers.

"Why, do you have spiritual counsel to offer?" He smirks humorlessly and sighs. He should keep this to himself. Better still, he should get up and leave, but he was here first, and he is fairly comfortable.

"Listen it was...just something, a stupid mashup of a kids' fantasy book world and..." and his worst nightmare, being that helpless in the face of suffering. "This thing that happened a few years ago at my school, a bad thing, and it..." No. No, he's not going to say it, he keeps trying not to see it in his head. "Johnny died," He says finally, rubbing a hand over his head. "But I mean he said, afterward, like he's died a million times in dreams, he said he was okay, so could it really have been that much worse than the other times?"

Aw shit, apparently this turned into angel therapy after all. Eliot really wishes he had a drink.

From how Johnny was acting, this isn't really what he was expecting. He's seen Johnny after dreams like that. He actively sought out company. He was willing to talk about it. To have him stick to himself after something similar just seems strange.

"That's true. I wish it didn't happen as often as it does. Or that he'd call me to come fix it. He can be very stubborn." There have probably been a few times that it's happened any Johnny didn't want to bother him with it, but he doesn't like that thought. He'd like to think that someone would be there for Johnny when he's upset. If not him, then Eliot.

"How bad was it?"

Eliot likes how stubborn Johnny is, he doesn't see it as a problem. It certainly made him come over at three in the morning to help Eliot process the nightmare, and for that Eliot's going to be grateful for a damn long time. But he supposes that same stubbornness made Johnny go after the Beast in the first place. Eliot frowns for a moment, considering, like he's done a thousand times since the nightmare, what could have happened differently, if they both could have made it out alive. But he doesn't think so.

"Listen," he says, taking his irritation with himself out on Gabe a little bit. Unfair? Yes. But the angel did ask. "I don't know what kind of cosmic shit you've been through, and I'm sure if we held some sort of trauma pissing contest you'd win, whatever, I don't care, but for me? This was pretty fucking bad."

And he wants to leave it at that, he wants to, if only to sit in stoic silence for a while and see what kind of glib comeback Gabe can come up with, but just making an oblique reference to the nightmare was bad enough, and now he can't help it thinking about it, he has to keep talking to keep from getting overwhelmed by it.

"This thing ate him," he continues, his voice getting quieter as he stares at his lap and tightens the blankets around himself. "And there was nothing I could do, it stopped--it kept me from moving and I just had to watch it happen."

There you have it, buddy. Eliot's not sure what kind of response he expects from Gabe, like how do you even respond to something like that, other than maybe confirmation that Eliot is bad and he should feel bad. That's probably the best he can hope for.

Sunshine is not feeling lonely. There is absolutely nothing grating about the fact that everyone else is snuggled up with at least one other person. She doesn't even like snuggling that much, okay? She just felt like stretching her legs a bit, having a wander around. And if said wandering leads her to a reasonably friendly and familiar person with a normal frigging body temperature, and if she just happens to trip and fall more or less right on top of them, well, that is just a coincidence.

Hey, there's Eliot, looking about as cheerful as she currently feels. Perfect. They can both be Totally Fine, Shut Up™ together.

"Scoot," she says by way of greeting before flopping down next to him.

He raises his eyebrows but scoots, slightly, in the minuscule time Sunshine gives him before she just sits down anyway.

"Hey hon," he says, leaning over to boop her head with his own. His hands are currently trapped under layers of blanket. "You need to steal some of my nest? It's ridiculous this place is so cold, right?"

Eliot would offer to try and magic up some warmth, but he's not so sure his skills function in dreams, given the last couple attempts.

Thank all the gods and angels for Eliot. "Yes," she says with feeling, plucking at the outermost layer of his burrito. "There's a fireplace in every frigging room, and it's still cold. Someone needs to caulk all the windows or something."

It's too bad she can't magic up some warmth. Having an affinity for sunlight means she's good at handling heat - much better than she is at handling the cold - but conjuring it up has never been a particular skill of hers. More's the pity.

"It could certainly use redecoration, might as well renovate the whole thing." He sniffs, looking around the room. "Though I suppose it isn't too bad, especially with good company."

Eliot smiles and leans into her a little, trying to rearrange the blankets so they're both adequately covered. "So how have you been?"

Sunshine smiles at that, brief and wry, then devotes her attention to getting settled under the blankets. That's better. Three cheers for warmth.

When he asks her how she's been, she opens her mouth to say 'fine,' then shuts it. Okay, so, she doesn't want to talk about her feelings, or retread the horrendously shitty turn the path has taken re: certain vampires. What a waste of the cheery atmosphere that would be. But she's also with pretty much the only person who might be able to offer some insight - or at least some informed sympathy - and she feels safe.

She doesn't want to lie about her feelings, either.

The silence has dragged on long enough now that she's pretty sure he'd call bullshit if she tried to backtrack into Everythingisfineville, anyway, so she doesn't. Instead, she turns her face into his shoulder with a drawn-out "hrrrrrrrrrrrngh" of general dissatisfaction. Then, dryly, "You?"

Edited 2015-01-27 21:48 (UTC)

Okay, so this took a turn. Eliot can tell that something is up, given the awkward silence and Sunshine's complete collapse of verbal skills, but he gets it, he's been there before. It's probably something to do with feelings. Feelings are the worst.

He pauses a bit at her question, because there are a few ways he could answer. Whether it's something about the quality of the dream environment or just that he feels like he can talk to Sunshine and be real, instead of snarky and world-weary, honesty seems to be winning out tonight. Go figure.

"Uh, much the same, probably, if we're speaking the same dialect of hrrrrgh." He pats her hair and sighs. "It's been...well, I'm glad this dream isn't horrendous and terrifying, let's just say that. How bad is your thing?"

Oh, gods, the kali awful dreams are catching. Sunshine lets out a humorless laugh and tucks her hand into the crook of Eliot's arm. "Look at us, twins in dream-based misery," she says wryly. But there's really no way for her to go into detail and maintain any pretense of dry humor, so she falls silent again, trying to come up with the most concise breakdown possible so she can get it over with as quickly as possible. Like ripping off a band-aid.

"It's… bad." But she can do this. If anyone's going to get it, Eliot will. She pulls in a breath. "I got dropped into some flashback nightmare of Spike's. From when he was all pre-soul. He, uh… didn't remember me, or recognize me." Eliot can probably guess what happened next, and she paints with the broadest brush possible: "So he attacked me, and I had to kill him."

Okay, that might have been too broad a brush. It sounds so absurd, put that bluntly, that she lets out a hiccup of laughter. But it doesn't last; the heaving of her shoulders morphs into something far worse than laughter, and she curls into Eliot in equal parts misery and embarrassment. Just crying into his chest, like a goddamn child, that is what's happening, now. "Gods," she moans, appalled with herself.

Oh, shit. Eliot remembers enough of those ye-ancient-of-days episodes to have some idea of the context, and for a minute he wants to ask about specifics, like was it the one in China? But questions, it becomes rapidly apparent, are not appropriate here. It's also becoming apparent that Sunshine is a complete mess, how long has she been holding that in?

"Oh shit," Eliot says, for lack of anything else to say. But it doesn't really matter what he says right now, because Sunshine is sobbing and helpless, and words aren't really going to make any difference. He wraps his arms around Sunshine and holds her close, letting her cry as much as she needs to. "I'm so sorry," he murmurs.

Privately, Eliot is a tiny bit glad that this is a dream, since he has no reservations about anyone getting snot on his shirt.

Sunshine would be tempted to classify this as 'the worst' if she didn't know just how much worse it could be. As it is, this will just have to be filed under 'really goddamn embarrassing,' and she lifts a hand to her face as if that will make any difference, like Eliot lacks object permanence and if he can't see her it'll be like she isn't sobbing into his shirt. He's being a hell of a trouper, though; gods, she owes him all the drinks. Just. All of them.

It's only a few nebulous minutes of dream time before she's calmed down enough to actually make words happen again, though she keeps her hand over her face. "He felt awful," she says, a flat statement of fact. Of course he felt awful. It hadn't made much difference, though. And when it comes to reassuring platitudes, 'he would never' loses quite a bit of power when accompanied by the sensation of fangs in your neck. Go fucking figure. "But I can't…" she trails off with a short, frustrated sigh. Can't let him touch her. Can't talk about it coherently. Can't, just in general.

"I get it, I think," Eliot says, once he's reasonably sure Sunshine isn't going to break down again. He's not going to tell her it's okay, because he knows how useless that can be if you're messed up enough. And it's not okay, clearly. She's not okay.

He gives Sunshine a bolstering squeeze, and addresses the top of her head. "Listen, you know you can always come chill at my place if you need some space, or just want to talk about shit. I promise it won't turn into alternate universe pop culture gossip hour."

It's a steep promise to make, but these are the things Eliot will do for his friends.

Gods, this is just unacceptably pitiful behavior. She wipes her face, a few impatient swipes with the heel of her hand, then curls her fist beneath her chin. "Thanks." Uncurling her fist, she gives Eliot a pat. "I might take you up on that." The getting some space part, anyway. She's not so sure about talking about it in any more detail than she just did.

Well. It's not like she can play the 'I don't remember' card on this one. She remembers everything. That, as per frigging usual, is the problem.

"What about you?" she asks, slinging her arm around him. It seems like the thing to do. "What godsbloodyawful trip were you treated to?"

"Uhhhhh well," Eliot begins, snuggling unabashedly because apparently this is just emotional cuddle hour. "It was a nightmare about a thing from my world, sort of, and this...monstrous body horror thing showed up and Johnny had the misfortune of sharing my brainspace at the time."

Eliot's also loath to talk about it in a lot of detail but after Sunshine shared her thing he owes her, and he can't just leave it at that. "He uh, he got eaten." He raises a mimed glass in a toast to their shared misfortune. "Not sure what it means to dream about dead boyfriends but I sure as hell don't want to go through that again."

"Ugh," Sunshine says, with feeling. "Gross."

Okay, so that wasn't the most sympathetic response in the world. "I'm sorry. Just… toxic kali nightmares all around, huh?" Poor Eliot. And Johnny. Poor everyone. She gives Eliot an encouraging squeeze. "We should start a club. It can be like drunk brunch, but... drunker."

Jay is ready to drape himself over anyone, right now - he's usually very physical and affectionate, but now he feels a pull towards others that's almost magnetic. And to his joy, he spots the young man Iman introduced him to. For a brief moment, he can't remember the young man's name and he panics - that could be so very awkward, after all - but eventually it comes to him.

Eliot.

Yes. And Eliot looks like he might appreciate some friendly company. Jay perches on the sofa next to him and gives him his best radiant smile, before leaning against him.

"'Noon, darling," he purrs. "It's nice to see you here."

Jay hasn't quite realised it's a dream yet. He's a little disoriented, but it's easy to not worry about that when you're enveloped in dream-logic.

Well look who it is! The perfect cure for sulky blanket nesting. Eliot grins, delighted to see the sexy elf, as he's been mentally referring to Jay. Even though that's probably not correct.

"Jay," he says, "hello. Join me in my lair, won't you? It's so cold in here, simply obscene to have to be by oneself." Eliot quickly unbundles himself enough that Jay can get in under the blankets as well. This accomplished, he drapes an arm over Jay's shoulders.

"Now tell me, have you been settling in all right?"

Jay's smile ramps up a notch, even though that shouldn't be possible and he scoots close to Eliot, pressing himself against the other's side. He lays his head on Eliot's shoulder and pulls the blanket tightly around them both. He closes his eyes, extremely pleased with both himself and his current position. It's so nice to meet people who are forward and show their desires clearly!

"Oh, I've been ... ahh, I suppose I've been fine," he says, his tone a little bit vague. He's been getting lost an awful lot and he can't figure out half the things in his apartment's kitchen or the television or anything else that appears remotely interesting, but he's not going to tell Eliot that. He'll get to grips with technology without others' help. It's less embarrassing that way. "But I've been rather lonely, truth be told--" That isn't half of it, of course - with his sister not around, he doesn't quite know what to do with himself. But that's too private to admit, even to someone as friendly as Eliot.

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Sweeter than the First Time [Open to All]

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turns up a week late with starbucks

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