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]

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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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I can take interest in whatever I please."

And that includes anthropologists with specializations in Egyptology who act and sort of look like his former vessel. Sorry, Daniel, it's just the luck of the draw, and you got dealt the genetic hand that makes you Sam Winchester lite.

"And what isn't interesting about a human who has ascended multiple times to a higher plane of existence?"

And also the Sam thing.

And oh, how Daniel regrets bringing that up. He really does. Just his luck, being this statistical and scientific anomaly that keeps dying and keeps breathing, surviving even a few ascents up several planes and then some rough demotions back down again. Mentioning that sort of thing offhand to Satan was bound to have some repercussions.

"It's really not very interesting," he lies, completely unconvincingly. "Or maybe it could be, but it's not like I remember." Mostly. There are those on-and-off almost extrasensory capabilities that mostly just ping when, as far as he can tell, he runs into something vaguely higher-plane-ish. But it's sporadic, unknowable - leftover from Ascension? Bolstered by the Rift? Exclusive to the angels from Lucifer's universe? There's no way of knowing, short of maybe letting Lucifer poke around there himself and Daniel is - not entertaining that idea.

"Of course you don't remember. Your brain would never be able to contain that much information, nevertheless process and comprehend it."

He could go brain-spelunking in Daniel's noggin to try to find the source of his weirdness, but that could also damage him. And with his Grace limited in this universe, he isn't too eager to do damage that he isn't certain that he can repair.

Daniel is interesting. Daniel is potentially useful. And Lucifer has a certain sentimentality when it comes to his vessels, or things associated with them. It's not the same, being stuck here in Nick when he knows what it's like to be in his true vessel-- it's like wearing a suit that doesn't quite fit right. He thinks, if he were ever in a position where he was forced to choose a new vessel, that Daniel would not be a terrible fit. Not Sam, but better than poor Nick.

The unfortunate drawback to descending - the loss of all that knowledge. But it when it boiled down to the choice between actively helping and simply knowing he could help, Daniel came down on the side of hard altruism, unsurprisingly. And was promptly exiled, memory-scrubbed, and abandoned for it.

"Right. I can't remember, so I can't exactly be useful in that area, if that's what you're interested in." And he really hopes, for everyone's sake, that it isn't. Ascended beings didn't always stick to their own universes, after all, and the last thing anyone needs is Lucifer of all people figuring out exactly how they managed that. "So I'm back to square one. Nothing special."

Unless he's simply - interesting. Daniel doesn't know what to make of that, seeing as small, exceptionally vocal creatures tend to get quickly crushed beneath one's heel rather than kept alive for amusement's sake.

"What you remember is immaterial. The things that you have been through have left marks on you that are more than just physical, Daniel."

The sensitivity and enhanced perception, for one thing. Whatever process it is that takes a human and makes them ascend, it fundamentally changes that person in some fashion. Lucifer knows a thing or two about the fundamental alteration of humans, and here is a wholly different specimen for him to look at.

Small, vocal creatures also sometimes get put in cages rather than trod on.

"Oh, don't I know it." It's said quietly, fringed with self-disgust. It wasn't just that his body had been restored - it had been left with traces, maybe fragments of knowledge he'd meant to drag to Earth with him and maybe simply pieces that had come along for the ride regardless of intent.

Which makes him more than a little wary over how much Lucifer is willing to invest, for lack of a better word, in examining this. Not that Daniel wouldn't mind knowing what's going on in his head that he can't fully detect, but he doubts he wants the literal Devil performing that cranial examination.

"What's that make me, then? A subject? Your exciting latest project?" he asks, dry as he can make the words without suffusing them in the undercurrent of dread that that's exactly what he is to Satan.

"Daniel," he says with a long-suffering sigh, "must you make the worst of everything?"

As much as Daniel might try to hide it, Lucifer can feel the anxiety radiating off of him, as though he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Is it so hard to believe that we might have common goals? I want to leave this universe, and I know that you do as well. I don't think that we've been brought here by random chance, and understanding what it was about us that attracted the Rift's attention might be key to figuring out how to get out again."

He gives Daniel something of an indulgent look, like he's patiently explaining a simple concept to a simple child.

"And, all-in-all, I'm not a poor ally to have, Daniel."

The concerned frown on Daniel's face deepens. But that's just the problem - Daniel doesn't want Satan to be an ally, or an associate, or anything. But forcing him to be the opposite would simply be a death sentence, or the Daniel Jackson equivalent since death sentences don't seem to have their typical permanence when extended to him.

"What, you, you think we were brought together on purpose?" He doesn't want to entertain the notion that the Rift could have placed him here specifically for Satan's benefit. He really doesn't. But he only arrived a few days before the Devil himself, and they met almost immediately after the bloodbath that was Lucifer's introduction to Manhattan and - oh god. Oh god. "Like some - like, you mean fate?"

Daniel has a lot of goals in life. Being destined as something of a secondhand vessel or affiliate for Satan really isn't one of them.

"I wouldn't call the Rift a vehicle of fate, exactly," he says, "but it's very coincidental, don't you think? Especially that there are multiple people from the same universe here. What are the odds, out of all the people in all the universes that it could have picked from, for it to, say, have randomly selected Gabriel and myself?"

The odds were too astronomical for it to have been simple chance. The probabilities of randomly picking two people from the same universe, and from within a few months of each other in the timeline, is so remote as to be basically impossible.

"Even if the Rift isn't sentient or sapient, you have to admit that the only reasonable explanation is that it has some sort of criteria for the people it takes. And, for one reason or another, both of us matched, Daniel."

"All right," Daniel concedes delicately, staring fixedly at the faint wisps of steam rolling off the surface of the disturbingly real coffee. "So I'll, I'll give you that. We have - something - in common." It's true, what he's saying about the odds. It's simply so unlikely that multiple entities from the same universe would be drawn out and displaced to here, exit point Manhattan, within months of each other. The Rift's cruel sense of humor? Does it even have a sense of humor?

With visible effort, Daniel forces himself to look the Devil in the eyes again, trying and failing not to shudder at the veil of darkened presence he can barely perceive. The embodiment of sin and destruction and pride, clad in an innocuous man and chatting with Daniel over coffee.

He continues despite it. "But no more or less than any of the other rifties. They're victims of the same set of circumstances that we are. There's nothing about our - association, or relationship, or whatever you wanna call it, that makes us any different."

He hopes.

"Maybe, maybe not."

At least he's acknowledging the possibility that there's only a tenuous connection between them, but he doubts it. What are the odds that the Rift would bring in a man who is so very similar to his former vessel, and then would bring them together so quickly?

Or, perhaps, it's that they would find each other so quickly, no intervention by the Rift required. His connection to Sam had been like gravity, pulling him to Lucifer like iron to magnets. Inevitable. Perhaps Daniel has been drawn by the same force, albeit more weakly-- a paramagnetic mineral instead of Sam's ferrous.

"I noticed a trend, Daniel. You, myself, and Iman arrived here within a few days of each other. Aziraphale arrived a week before I did. Two angels, one former Ascended, and a dimensional physicist. All people who operate on or within a different plane of existence, and doesn't it seem odd that the Rift would bring in several of those all at the same time?"

Aziraphale. Daniel remembers the name - Melanie's caretaker, apparently an angel as well? From Lucifer's universe? There's a paradoxical mix of emotions in that. On one hand, if she's being looked after by an angel she's probably being kept safe but on the other, Lucifer seems to have some elevated interest. Daniel folds his arms over his chest, an unconscious display of the associated worry.

"So, what? It's, it's harvesting specific extradimensionally-inclined individuals?" The thought is more than a little concerning, however more concerning it can be over Lucifer taking an unmediated interest in the unwilling subject of Daniel Jackson. "For what purpose? You think that means we're all connected somehow? That we're meant to - better understand it somehow?"

The Rift operates on its own agenda, if it has an agenda at all, but why in the name of all things holy and unholy would it recruit Lucifer to this cause? Or are they, is Lucifer, rather, searching for patterns where there are none? Unless he has some greater understanding of the great cosmic butterfly's wings, even in this limited space, which is entirely possible. But Daniel's quite certain he doesn't want to get drawn into an investigation if said investigation is going to involve working beside Lucifer - though, really, he wouldn't have a great deal of choice if that were the case.

"I can't speak on the Rift's intentions, if it can even have any," he says. "I haven't been able to examine it closely enough to determine if it's even sentient or not. It could be acting on its own accord, or it could be a tool used by something else, or it could be simply a natural phenomenon of this universe."

He couldn't really say if it could act on its own agenda, so speculating on what that agenda might be is pointless until they have better information. All he can do now is point out the patterns-- and it's fairly obvious that, sentient or not, the Rift is capable of discerning between wanted and unwanted individuals, based on some sort of criteria.

"But it certainly makes for an interesting little ontological mystery, doesn't it?"

Daniel's eyes narrow incrementally as he slides his fingers between the book's pages and lets it fall open on his lap.

"Maybe," he answers, acharacteristically laconic as he processes that particular theory. It's admittedly intriguing, but it's not something he wants to discuss over coffee with Satan.

He looks at Lucifer again, expression careful and composed and even, but quite unable to completely mask the darkened undercurrent beneath.

"Or maybe you're looking for patterns where there aren't any. Maybe I'm just Daniel, pulled in at random, and maybe you're seeing something in me that simply doesn't exist."

Immediately after he says it, the breath tightens in his chest. Oblique challenges to Lucifer or not, suggesting what he's suggesting might be the surest way to confirm to the Devil that Daniel is of no interest to him, consequently increasing the risk of possible immediate painful death.

"That is, technically, a possibility, but it's immensely unlikely."

Lucifer is unfazed by Daniel's challenge; he sees it less as an equal intellectual critique and more like a scared child stubbornly yelling 'no' because he doesn't like the answer. Stubborn children might be annoying, but they must be forgiven their outbursts because they simply don't know any better.

"Pardon me if I'd prefer to play to the odds."

"Hang on, let me - you, you think it's more likely that our meeting was orchestrated by fate than the idea that it wasn't?" His eyebrows climb up, skepticism mounting as he eyes the Devil even more dubiously than before. "I, I take it fate was kind of a bigger force in your universe than it was in mine, then."

Which, according to infinite universe theory - all right, fine, he's one of the first to concede that anything is possible. But this universe has its own set of laws, some that defy physics and some that simply go beyond it, and to what extent destiny plays into those rules here is more or less undefinable from Daniel's standpoint, or anyone's.

"You're quick to ascribe divine inspiration."

After all, fate is a power or agency that predetermines set events, making them unavoidable, in adherence to natural order-- that agency generally being a deity of one form or another.

"That being said, yes, fate played a role in my universe, in a manner of speaking. My Father's orders are inevitable. However, I still don't think that the Rift is a vehicle of fate, just as I don't believe that any outside force acting on me is fate. Not all things are fated, Daniel, and not all fates are immutable."

Though Lucifer's was, apparently, if his earlier conversations had any meaning whatsoever; the Devil, fated to be beautiful and fated to fall just the same. Some intricate, divine plan, apparently in place since his universe's conception, made to be immutable.

Was Daniel just the same?

Was he fated? Was he always meant to die in repetition and Ascend without answers, or did fate only ever exist in his universe for as much as those higher-plane beings would define it? Just like Lucifer fell, was Daniel also intended to fall from the ranks of the Ascended, predestined to be cast out for his rebellion before he even knew he was going to be one of them?

He doesn't want to inspect that idea.

"I just don't think we were meant to come into collision," Daniel replies carefully, though visibly unsettled. "I think it happened because I happened to get lost in the park, and Iman happened to find me, and we all happened to converge upon Wilmot's."

Maybe random chance doesn't quite have the ring the Devil is looking for. Daniel's content enough with that explanation, weak an argument as it is.

"And that I can agree with. The manner of our meeting could easily be chalked up to chance. The fact that we are here, in Manhattan, in this universe? That, no."

But, at that point, it doesn't matter if the actual manner of their meeting is scripted or not. The fact that they are all concentrated in Manhattan, combined with Daniel's ability to sense extradimensional beings and his inability to refrain from getting involved and Lucifer's penchant for high-profile violence meant that they would inevitably intersect at some point. No script required-- if something had wanted them to meet, all it had to do was wait and play the odds.

High probability and fate aren't the same thing, but sometimes they could look very similar.

Morality, fate, chance - it seems Lucifer is rather big on discussing the appropriately heavy topics. Daniel would be much enthused to as well, provided his partner in conversation was not the literal Devil. As it is, he's more inclined to be incredibly, justifiably suspicious.

"I got dragged into Manhattan during one last mission before I planned on transferring to another galaxy," he explains with a cautious shrug. "It doesn't feel like there was much predestination involved in that." He'd been so intent on finally getting to see Atlantis. Now it seems like he never will. Interdimensional universal barriers are a pretty permanent obstacle, even apparently for beings more supernaturally inclined than him.

"I don't think that the Rift would particularly care if it was convenient for you."

Lucifer got yanked right when he was falling into the Pit, after all, while in the body of his chosen vessel, which is either extremely inconvenient or very convenient depending on whether or not he could manage to return to his home universe in a different location. If he could-- fantastic, than he can avoid that pesky trapped in Hell thing while his brother hangs out in his old prison. That's a poetic justice that even Gabriel should be able to appreciate.

"All right," says Daniel, flipping through the book's pages at random with a sort of fervent need to distract himself from being the subject of Satan's interest, a stark kinesic exhibition of his mental unrest. Then, in a movement that manages to be both fluid and stumbling, he grips one arm of the chair and wrests himself to the feet, book sliding from his lap to hit the ground with a dull clunk and the coffee mug soon following in a disordered cascade of spattering liquid and shattering porcelain.

For a minute Daniel stares in complete distress at the mess on the floor of the cabin before looking back at Lucifer, questioning and at an end to himself.

"Whatever it is you want with me," he fights to keep his tone level, the sheer unnerving calm the Devil consistently radiates managing to spook him despite the dream's calming influence, "just tell me and, and be done with it. I can't, I don't -" He scrubs one hand through his hair, at a loss. "I don't know what you want."

My, Daniel makes such a little mess with his outburst; the book on the floor and the mug in splinters and coffee everywhere. It's a little rude, too, to be so unconcerned about it, especially when someone might trod on one of the pieces. Just because it's a dream doesn't mean that it wouldn't hurt to step on a ceramic shard.

Lucifer snaps his fingers and the mug returns to its previous form, whole and full of coffee, balanced on the arm of the chair. The floor is clear and clean.

"I think you're overreacting, Daniel," he says. "There's nothing that I can take from you that I would want."

"Overreact -" he begins hotly, but breaks off to look away, staring at the unremarkable cabin wall as realizes just how much he is shaking. He jams rigid, trembling hands into pockets and looks at the Devil and knows he looks completely, utterly terrified in not knowing. He has no idea what Lucifer wants. He can't even begin to fathom why the Devil finds him so interesting. There are plenty of intriguing beings drifting in Manhattan, and there's an entire Rift to observe and explore, and here, in this dream, the Devil has chosen to occupy himself over studying Daniel. Does he have a plan? Is he simply trailing Daniel for the sake of trailing Daniel?

It's the wild, horrified wealth of hypothetical possibilities that follow those questions that horrify him, simply because he can't summon an answer to any of them. Man's fear of the unknown, deeply ingrained and always petrifying, even for the man who made a living out of being fascinated by that same unknown.

"Then why?" He transfers his stare to the floor, to the unmarked expanse of rug. "Short of coffee and stimulating conversation, you're not gonna get anything out of me."

"Perhaps I enjoy coffee and stimulating conversation," he says, and, since Daniel doesn't seem to want it, takes the coffee for himself. It's only a dream, but the ceramic is an excellent simulacrum of warm under his palms; Daniel has exquisitely detailed memories to draw from.

"Do you know how hard it is to get good conversation while you're locked up in a box in the bowels of Hell? Worse than a GOP convention."

Sweeter than the First Time [Open to All]

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