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

Current Music: Evening of August 14th/Morning of August 15th, 2013

Sweeter than the First Time [Open to All]

photo dream party visual_zpsua3sjlqf.jpg

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If they're cuddling, it's definitely only the setting-appropriate platonic kind. The dream seems to push them towards this kind of interaction and proximity - Seth passed a few other ~~couples~~ pairs cozied up together on his way here. So it doesn't necessarily mean anything, if it's just the default mode in this particularly dream.

It's nice though. It's very nice.

Except Seth is having a problem wherein he keeps having these terrible impulses. Like he wants to turn his head to kiss Daniel's hair, or even just lean his head against Daniel's. Or he wants to reach over and take his hand, winding their fingers together, or maybe just draping it around Daniel's waist.

It's a constant barrage of affectionate impulses he needs to keep a lid on, and probably large part of the reason he's still managing it is because he doesn't want to jostle Daniel, doesn't want him to lift his head. So he stays still, nervous energy - thankfully somewhat mitigated by the drowsy feeling of the dream, with the crackling of the fire - only manifesting as minor fiddling with his hand, picking at the edge of the blanket.

"Could present in much worse ways than making puns, I suppose," he answers, smiling still. Unable to really stop smiling, currently. "In better ways too, though." He can't be seen to be too approving of the puns, clearly.

Seth's fidgeting wouldn't be so distracting if it didn't happen to be the only part of either of them that's moving. Daniel rearranges himself slightly, into a position that maybe doesn't elicit so much hesitant twitching from his impromptu apparent partner in cuddling, but it doesn't seem to be working.

"Puns," says Daniel with a concentrated, grandiose deadpan that nearly slips at the completion of the syllable, "are an extremely sophisticated sense of humor. They are," and he has to bite his lip to keep from dissolving into extremely undignified snickers, but his amusement is still painfully obvious from the thickness in his voice, "a paragon of linguistic ingenuity."

And, ah, he can't do it. The straight face collapses and his face cracks into another broad grin. "A punagon, even." That was terrible, and even Daniel will admit it.

Seth's fidgeting stops at that, but only because he's too busy closing his eyes and leaning his head forward in defeat as he lets out a small groan. He pretends there isn't still a smile pulling at his lips.

"If you keep this up, I'm revoking your book privileges," he jokes.

He regrets it almost immediately, reminding himself he's actually had that both threatened and carried out against him, to rather impressive effect, when book privileges were one of the few only good things he had. He's even sort of received the threat from Daniel himself, although even within the context of the dream it was just for pretend.

He's suddenly strangely frustrated with himself, letting himself feel so safe that he completely forgot for a moment. Even if he knows he should be glad. But even after all this time, it still feels a little bit like he doesn't deserve to forget.

Something about Seth's demeanor decreases after that, an odd melancholic dampener on their formerly comfortable rapport. Daniel lifts his head off his shoulder properly to give him a searching, evenly quizzical look.

"What's up?" He says it quietly, lightly, implicitly asking Seth's permission to delve into whatever topic he hasn't disclosed while allowing him the equally tacit opt-out.

Oh, and now he made Daniel move, too. Damnit.

"Mm," he answers, glancing over at Daniel and giving him a tiny, reassuring smile. "Book privileges..." he replies meaningfully, feeling a bit muted suddenly. He shouldn't though, they're having such a pleasant time, and he feels a bit guilty bringing the mood down. He's such a mess, why can't he just enjoy a situation while he's in it, instead of dwelling on what's long gone?

He shakes his head a fraction, indicating they don't really need to pursue it. There's not all that much to pursue anyway.

Daniel searches Seth's expression for a minute, wondering where that tangent could possibly lead that would be uncomfortable for him to discuss. Privileges has a darker connotation, and - but Seth shakes his head and Daniel takes that as his cue to let the topic drop. It's a little upsetting, but it's such a pleasant atmosphere and if Seth doesn't want to pursue it, Daniel won't force him.

So instead he stretches, arcing both arms behind his head and tensing his neck back to let the dream-muscles loosen a bit.

"Well, I'm definitely liking this dream better than the last one," he remarks, partially to Seth and partially to the ceiling, as if hoping the Rift may overhear. "I vote we get more of these. Nice dreams, you know. They're not half bad."

Seth turns his head to look at him, and suddenly he's reminded of the dream with their.. inner animal spirits, or whatever it was, Daniel's stretching being vaguely reminiscent of that of a cat. The thought makes him smile, a bit less forced.

"Which last one?" he asks, curious if Daniel's had a more recent one. His previous shared one was almost a week ago, though that one had been pretty terrible at times. There were some okay bits in the middle, but between the gift-wrapped claustrophobia and the abduction by giant cats in a giant crumbling house, well, it wasn't exactly as pleasant as this. But since then, Seth's troubles have been mostly rooted in the waking world.

The first example Daniel's mind flies to is the bit with the cats and the wrapping paper and all the associated terror besides, but that, unfortunately, doesn't really count as the most recent.

Like a sledgehammer the memory hits him all over again and his stretching abruptly shrinks, his eyes dropping, downcast. It's warm and pleasant by the fireplace, surrounded by books and blankets and Seth, but ice creeps into his veins regardless, Daniel being made to relive things he never wanted to relive.

Daniel swallows hard, suddenly wishing very hard that he hadn't brought it up. He hadn't been thinking.

"Just," he says, and the word comes out a little too pained so he swallows, breathes, and starts over. "Just a, um. Bad dream. Bad memories."

That's close enough.

Daniel's demeanour changes so rapidly it would be impossible for Seth not to notice. He seems to crumple, and despite being both taller and broader than Seth, he suddenly doesn't seem it.

Seth knows that Daniel has just as many unpleasant memories as Seth does, if not more. Even just the ones Seth knows about would be enough to cause this sort of reaction, and Daniel probably has plenty more where that came from. It's not particularly important which one it is, unless Daniel wants to talk about it.

Daniel sounds so upset that Seth feels completely justified in lifting his arm and putting it around Daniel's shoulders, giving him a little squeeze of support. He has no idea what to say, but he wants Daniel to know that Seth is there for him, like Daniel has been for him. Only a couple days ago had Daniel been holding Seth like this while he was going through a bad time, though the circumstances were pretty different.

He remains quiet for a little while in case Daniel wants to elaborate, vent some of his worries, but it doesn't seem like he wants to. Which is also fine.

"We're hopeless, huh?" he says finally, voice soft. "Rift finally gives us a setting like this, and neither of us even manages to reliably take advantage of it."

The gentle pressure around his shoulders is welcome, even if Daniel can't lift his gaze from the seam on the blanket Seth pulled over both of them, toying with a loose thread that seems to have sprang up specifically so he could fiddle with it.

"We really are," he says in a stumbling attempt to jar himself back into the formerly warm atmosphere they'd been sharing before. The smile he tries to form quickly flutters and fades. "Well, hey. It's what happens when you take us someplace nice for once."

Seth keeps his arm draped around Daniel, wishing he could make things better but unsure how, except distracting him and making sure he doesn't get lost in his own bad memories - like Seth himself has a tendency to do. Daniel generally comes across as a lot more put-together and stable and solid than Seth is, so when Daniel actually does show vulnerability, Seth immediately becomes very protective.

"I think it's the 'for once' that's the problem," Seth answers, nodding. It's easier to pull himself out of his own melancholic thoughts when he's making the effort for Daniel rather than for himself. "If the Rift gave us stuff like this more regularly, we'd be more used to dealing with it."

He makes another staggering effort to haul himself back into the now, away from the memory of the invasive, disturbing, personal dream, or nightmare, that he doesn't want to think about. His second try for a smile is no less weak but this time it stays.

"No kidding." He tilts his head at the bookcase and scans the titles thoughtfully, almost forcing his pattern of memory to adhere to the associations that spring from those instead of his previous dream experience. "Pretty sure that's even some of my home library mixed in there." Which in any other context might be seen as disturbing but here Daniel can only find oddly grounding. Familiar. The thought of his old office comes with its usual pang of homesickness, but he makes a valiant effort to tamp that down as well. Isn't Daniel just a bundle of cheer tonight.

Seth moves his gaze from Daniel up to the bookcase, squinting at the titles. Most of them sound ridiculously complicated or unbearably boring. Or rather, the kind of stuff he'd have to get into through someone like Daniel for it to sound interesting. Seth likes the idea of books and learning, but is limited in what he feels like he can absorb or understand on his own, especially through reading. Which helps explain why his school career was so disastrous.

"Well, the general assumption is that the Rift draws on our memories and thoughts to create these settings, even when creating places that seem new to us," he answers, jumping on the new subject easily. "The other books might be from someone else's mind."

"Mm, that makes sense, actually." Relieved at the somewhat ungainly shift in subject, Daniel quickly latches onto it regardless. "Instead of creating an entire new environment, why not just make sort of a, a collage from everyone else's memories so it ends up a mix of 'new' and 'familiar'?"

It'd be creative, almost, if it wasn't so distantly unnerving. Comforting, in a way, to have those fragments of home buried in dreams, but not something Daniel wants to think at any great length. The Rift has already shown itself capable of rifling through his memories to stir up some truly terrible spots in his past and he's not keen on dwelling.

"The fucked up thing is the idea that someone else could stumble on something that's not just familiar to you, but also personal," he points out, leaning back a little and considering. Having random books from his personal library might not be so bad for Daniel, but what if he had something like a diary that ended up in here and someone could read it.

"That, um, that actually happened with me and Johnny," he adds, suddenly remembering another dream. "There was this one room in a dream that was just filled with all these pages from a book he wrote. A very, um.. Well, private book, I guess. I accidentally read some of it."

...He's not sure if the direction of this conversation is actually helping anything.

"Johnny wrote a book?" That's Daniel's first takeaway, the second being: well, shit. So Seth's been tossed into one of his more haphazard, morally reprehensible memories before, but the unfortunate bit is that wasn't even the worst possible memory the Rift could have chosen, as he now knows too well. And he doesn't want Seth - or anyone, really - rifling around in the more private sections of Daniel's past. Particularly if they involve Ascension.

Daniel's tensed up again despite the general calm air of the dream, rubbing one hand over his chin in pensive agitation.

"Honestly, wish there was a way to safeguard against this kind of thing," he mutters, and pulls off his glasses briefly to scrub said hand over his eyes. "My brain's really not one that should be exposed to the masses, especially when we've got, y'know, Satan running about." And especially considering the unnerving amount of interest Lucifer had displayed in Daniel's head, rife with memories of another plane. Crap.

Seth gives a half-shrug to the first question. It's not like Johnny would let him read it. From what he could tell, there was a pretty good reason for that. And also somehow connected to his power. Somehow. Seth may have experienced that power, but he sure as hell doesn't understand why it did what it did to his brain. He doesn't think he wants to understand, really.

"Yeah..." he answers with a sigh, unconsciously rubbing Daniel's shoulder with his thumb, a small comforting gesture he's not really aware he's doing, just a reaction to the tension in Daniel's body. He doesn't have any solution for that.

"And, um, he didn't write it, really, he found it and finished it. At least that's what he told me. But, um, I probably wouldn't mention it to him?" he says awkwardly, frowning to himself. "I dunno, I think it really fucked with his head, and.. I think it's connected to his power somehow? Not sure..."

Seth doesn't want to say more than that about the book or Johnny's experience surrounding it though, since Johnny didn't seem to want Seth to know about it either, and he certainly wouldn't like Seth to go around talking about it. He just wants to make sure Daniel knows not to bring it up. Being confronted with it did absolutely nothing good to Johnny's head, as far as Seth could tell.

He understands the not wanting to mention certain subjects well enough, and nods his acquiescence. If it's a sensitive topic, Daniel doubts it'll crop up in casual conversation anyway. Anyway, he's a bit distracted by how Seth is sort of kind of - massaging his shoulder kind of? With his thumb? Just a bit, but now that he's noticed Daniel doesn't know what to say about it. Seth doesn't seem to be doing it consciously, and maybe drawing attention to it might make it awkward. Besides, they're already more or less curled on this chair-couch hybrid under a blanket together, so it's not really - oh my god, why is Daniel even worrying about this? Whatever, it is really not a big deal and really not something he needs to be concerned about? It is a thumb.

"I'll do that," he says, dimly recognizing that talking is a thing that is still happening and so dropping out of verbal register might be a little odd. "I mean - I won't do that. You know." He knows. He absolutely knows.

Daniel's reply seems a little distracted, but Seth assumes it's still just because he's thinking about the dream, so he doesn't inquire about it. The point is to make him stop thinking about it, not to remind him. Seth just nods a bit in reply.

Actually, does Daniel know what Johnny's power is? Seth knows they've met. But the details and how well and whether they've met again later, Seth doesn't know. Or whether they discussed Seth, for that matter. He wonders what either of them would say about him to the other. But he's not entirely sure how to inquire about that.

"You met Johnny, right?" he asks, a more general prompt even though he technically knows the answer.

"What? No, I have." He goes back to gnawing his lip, like that's some adequate form of distraction to the thumb gymnastics occurring on his shoulder. Is Seth just not aware of this? He's not really the most tactile person out there unless Daniel's basing his perception of him off those bizarre and frankly not-entirely-discernible dreams he's had in the past, and he is not going there right now, he doesn't have the brain capacity for that. "Um, the last group thing? We tried to get out of the house and, um, there was this thing with this cat, which, uh." Which probably neither of them want to remember.

But Daniel gives himself another little shake and continues. "No, he, he told me a bit about the thing with the power, er, his power. And how there was this whole disparity in trying to transfer it between the two of you, but he didn't really get into specifics."

"Oh."

Well, at least that put an end to the unconscious thumb gymnastics. In fact Seth pulls his arm back, not really because of anything Daniel did so much as the reminder of that whole event - or rather the fact that Daniel is aware of it, is not altogether pleasant.

"Yeah, it..." he begins, looking down and rubbing awkwardly at his right hand - the one he generally uses for power transfers. He's not sure where to go with that sentence. He lets out an annoyed huff of air.

That definitely had an effect, though Daniel doesn't know if it's really the effect he was looking for. It put a stop to the...confusing stuff with the thumb why is he worked up about a thumb and Daniel's bizarrely torn between confusion and relief. Why relief? Why confusion? Ah, help.

"You don't have to get into it," he amends quickly. "Really, it's, um, fair to say that it probably wasn't a pleasant ordeal, as, as far as I can tell."

Seth frowns, considering. He's not sure if he does want to get into it, but he's also not sure if wants to simply brush by it either. It, well... It's sort of the reason his claustrophobia has gotten so much worse. After being locked up, the sensation of being trapped was definitely one of deep unease, but it didn't really drive him into such a state of panic as Daniel had been witness to in that same dream Johnny mentioned this to him.

"To be honest, I'm not sure what happened. I don't remember much of that day," he says after several moments of silence. "I just remember it was like something was watching me. Just this.. intense paranoia." He gives another shrug, staring into the crackling fire in front of them, not really seeing it.

He's not entirely sure why he's sharing this either. Except he hasn't really spoken about it to anyone. Gabe knows about it, and of course Johnny knows, but Seth hasn't actually shared it. And, well, maybe just letting it fester in him isn't the best idea.

"Anyway, by the time Johnny got back, I was completely out of it, I'd been shrinking the house around myself. Almost crushed us both..." he finishes quietly, looking at his hands, not at Daniel. He doesn't remember the details of what exactly had happened, just that he'd been scared shitless.

"Oh my god." No wonder Johnny said the power was dangerous, and no wonder Seth is so clearly, violently claustrophobic. Daniel can't guess the reasons behind why that would happen - the power is too intrinsic to Johnny, it's somehow different in comparison to the other powers Seth's transferred, the Rift wanted to add its own cruel twist - but whatever the internal reasoning, it sounds utterly horrific.

"It's why he said he couldn't get rid of it." That additional understanding is a slow and subtly terrifying retroactive realization. Daniel can only shake his head for a minute and quietly process it. "That sounds - I'm sorry."

Seth inclines his head a little in silent acknowledgement, feeling like there's not much more to say about it. He's fairly certain Daniel understands it wasn't Johnny's fault, or at least no more than it was Seth's for letting it get out of hand. They'd been naive and over-confident. Johnny had tried to warn Seth, but he'd been certain he could handle it.

"Was abou' two weeks before we met," he adds, giving Daniel some context on the timeline. "Yours was actually the first power I took after that." So if Daniel had noticed any nerves on Seth's part surrounding that particular event, well, that would be why.

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