applesaucedream | This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

Current Music: Evening of September 6th/Morning of September 7th, 2013

This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

The Rift wouldn't say it's sorry for the fit it threw the other day, because the Rift never needs to apologize. It is (mostly) perfect, and all of its decisions are well reasoned and just. Obviously. But perhaps it has fallen into a bit of a post-tantrum sulk, because this dream is milder than one might expect. In fact, it's downright nice.

The dreamers will find themselves in an archipelago of small islands - most only a few acres in size - connected by narrow strips of sand or pebbles. The surrounding waters are calm. Little waves lap against the shorelines, and no rising tide will cut the islands off from one another. The islands themselves seem to have been lifted from every climate zone on Earth and several from beyond. Some are tropical, some colder and home to hardy conifers, some mossy and boulder-strewn, some covered in multicolored sand and odd, coral-like trees.

Most of the islands boast some kind of manmade or otherwise non-native structure, be it as small as a bench or as large as a pavilion, though there are no houses or shops to be seen. It's more like parkland, just civilized enough for a nice picnic. Some of the islands even have little grills, and a sufficiently motivated dreamer might be able to rustle up some hot dog or burger fixings if they poke around a bit.

And they'll have an extra pair of eyes to help with their searching, because their beloved dæmons have returned… again. Or perhaps they're being introduced for the first time. Regardless, it's the bi-annual dæmon dream party!

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His breathing is still labored, which is the only thing that keeps him from bursting into incredulous, manic laughter.

"What," he says thinly. "No. Nooo. You're..."

Well. Why not. Greta comes from fairytales and she's a perfectly normal person. This guy, this scary fucker with a less scary fucker's face, there's no reason he couldn't be some old monster. Ridiculous name and vague memories of an ugly-faced imp aside, Rumpelstiltskin was a monster, wasn't he? Taking people's firstborns and shit. He can't really remember. Johnny doesn't have a firstborn and the way things are going he doubts that will ever change.

His posture relaxes, though not by much. The lizard is still holding his soul down, if less aggressively than before.

"Okay," he says, like he's getting used to the idea. "Uh. Okay."

He's unmoored. Where was this going?

"And you want my..." He doesn't let himself finish that. He doesn't want to say it. That would feel too much like an offer.

He cycles through the typical excess of doubt, incredulity, and refusal all quite rapidly, and lands upon acceptance even quicker. He did not immediately recognize the Dark One's name and face, and in Storybrooke it has become clear that the associations clustered around 'Rumpelstiltskin' are somewhat more varied and imprecise than those of fact. And yet, here he remains. And here is his target, unlucky and untethered.

"Power," says Rumpelstiltskin, "is a currency with which I deal on regular basis. I realize my reputation has a tendency to - precede me." He smiles, knowing and sharklike.

Johnny straightens slightly, eyes narrowing.

"You don't want mine," he says coldly. "It's bigger than you." He may not believe that but it is. How it fits in someone so small and insignificant is on the Rift, apparently.

"Yeah I want it gone," he admits, resolve weakening a little. "More than anything. But you don't want it."

"I see you're quite certain of that," he says, adopting a bored tone, examining the other man with an evaluative, sweeping look. "Charming. But you've no need to worry on my account."

Dreams are funny things. One moment Rumpelstiltskin looks as he did in Storybrooke, as human and innocuous as his target. The next, there's the flicker of something changing, and as quickly as it shimmers over his skin and into his eyes, igniting them with something ancient and hellish and strange, it is gone again.

"The Dark One has life eternal," he says, his smile assuming a jagged edge. "Power eternal. That is the price of my curse."

Johnny flinches back at the little shift, nearly imperceptible, did he imagine it, did he, he never fucking knows he never knows what's real does he, that's his whole problem, always been, always will be.

"The fuck," he hisses, and he feels a little twinge as Nova jerks reflexively beneath her captor's claws. Johnny swallows dry and rust-flavored. "Maybe I don't want someone like you having something like this."

"I'm quite certain you're not of my world," says Rumpelstiltskin with a genuine disregard for the profound effect that little demonstration generated. "Nor are you from mine."

This much, at least, has been proven obvious to him. It does not particularly matter from what world this man hails; he has power, and this is of interest to the Dark One.

"In the context of our separate realms," he smiles, thin and inviting, "does it truly matter?"

"It might," says Johnny, soft and faltering.

But does it matter, to him. Does he have any stake in this guy or his 'realm' or any of it. Would it even stick, if it happened in a dream? Would he wake up and have it gone? Or would it be gone only in dreams, like Zagreus' scar, a continuity unto itself?

Would it mean he never dreamed about the house again?

Unlikely. Maybe it's worth a shot. Maybe it isn't.

"Fine," he says softly, weakly. "Fine, take it." He slumps a little and Nova gives a much more violent jerk.

"No!" she rages. "Don't be a fucking idiot, Johnny, don't!"

"A curse can be a terrible burden," he says, as much for the benefit of the rabbit as for its counterpart, as his tone is not unsympathetic. "One whose weight I can well imagine."

He does not engage in contracts whose every point and addendum he does not know. Intimately familiar as Rumpelstiltskin is with the act of exchange, the concept of the deal, he is not one to enter in an agreement whose every constituent has not been clearly delineated to both parties.

"Tell me," continues Rumpelstiltskin, ignoring the rabbit quite steadfastly, "what's your name?"

"Johnny," he murmurs, meek and faltering. She just said that. "Johnny Truant." He leans nervously around the tree, searching out Nova. He wants to get her back, out from under Rumpelstiltskin's lizard, into her arms, and maybe they can fucking run. Flying leap off the cliff. Whatever.

"Please-" he says, stretching a hand out to reach for her.

"One more question, Mr. Truant," says Rumpelstiltskin mildly, with all the creeping menace of an implied threat. Grizelda doesn't move save for the flicking of her tongue and the glittering of her dark, beady eyes, watching Johnny intently. She does not let the rabbit go, but neither does her grip tighten.

"What is your curse?"

Johnny stops, awkwardly frozen mid-reach, and looks up at Rumpelstiltskin with a suspicious stare. "It's this," he says slowly. "It's the power, what I do. What, you want to know the details? I think I have a handbook somewhere."

Sarcasm has always been his defense in terror.

"I manipulate houses," he says curtly, straightening back up. "Structures. Can do anything you want with them."

"You're such a fuckhead," snaps Nova.

"You shut up," he snaps right back. He's into this now. He raises a hand in a weird mockery of Rumpelstiltskin's flourishy gesture and tilts his head kind of smugly, there's that false bravado Zagreus was talking about (will talk about? when did that even happen?). "You wanna see?"

What an oddly specific gift. In lifetimes past, in another land and with another face, he had often reordered the rooms in his castle with the flick of a wrist, one of the many unique facets and benefits granted to him by the ~~curse~~ privilege of being the Dark One. The aggression, powered by a fear he does not bother to conceal, is curiously appealing. Rumpelstiltskin has always appreciated those that do not lie about what they are. The face this man presents to the world is his own; he simply does not ask that anyone interpret it.

"I believe a demonstration would be in order, yes." Ever courteous, ever polite, the warning receding just as easily as it came. "If it is not inconvenient. I believe your word, however, is all that is required."

The power of the deal does not work when one party is lying, or unwilling. Tricky beasts, deals. They follow their own set of rules that even Rumpelstiltskin, their lord and master, must adhere to.

"Fine," he says, spreading his arms in a gesture that is somehow simultaneously embodies defeat and an attitude of apathetic recklessness. Fuck it.

"Johnny," Nova begs, she's afraid, not because she's pinned but because what he's about to do might kill them right out of the dream, and he knows it.

Would that be so terrible.

There are worse things.

Feeling Gabriel stab ~~him~~ Topher was worse. Watching Gabriel die by giant panther, an absurd experience he nonetheless remembers too well. Watching Daniel die, for that fucking matter.

Killing Rush with his own nightmare escape attempt.

Almost killing Seth in real life.

Oh, look at that, his nose is bleeding. That can't be good.

The island isn't gone, necessarily, but it's half wrong now, rock and soil and moss turning seamlessly to hardwood and weird, unsettlingly soft black earth, the trees before him still trees, those behind him bleeding into walls, hallways and doors that probably open into still more hallways. It's more than almost anything he's done, shifting this massive locale halfway into the house, a disgusting bastardization of space. He buckles and collapses hard on his knees, breathing heavily, one hand planted in dirt and the other in ash.

The shift of the environment is prefaced only by the barest trembles of another energy, one he can detect but cannot recognize. When the shape of the island resettles, it is warped, distorted, blending wrongly from roughened bark to lacquered wood and back again. He studies the construct with the air of fascination, and Grizelda stops hissing long enough to stare, tongue darting in and out restlessly. He can feel the thrill of her alarm, her fear - but to the lizard's limited credit, she does not release the rabbit. The rabbit stays where it is.

Intrigued if unperturbed, Rumpelstiltskin strolls over to one of the freshly-made walls and, planting his cane into the ash, leans over to knock against them solidly. Swirls of gray-white stir at his feet and around the tip of his cane as it comes to rest in the ground. There is an undeniably flawed sense to the thing, to its presence, the distinct air that it is not supposed to be here, that space was never intended to be bent this way.

"And you can do this regularly?" he asks, curious and measured, apparently untroubled by the way the young man has appeared t have keeled over by the effort.

Johnny breathes slowly, staring at his hands, remembering when Lucifer trapped him in the midst of the floor and then forcibly pushing that memory away with a little inward curl and twitch. "Yeah," he grits out. "I can, but I don't. This shit is dangerous."

He twists to look up at Rumpelstiltskin over his shoulder, look at him unconcernedly studying the house as though it were just an interesting bit of wildlife, not the stuff of nightmares. "It has a mind of its own," he says.

"Many curses do," he comments absently, fingers delicately skimming the rippled transition between bark and wood. "One simply has to adapt to the change. Exploit it."

He had shouldered his curse without knowing, truly, what it was he had been shouldering. He could not have guessed, then, the things that would be whispered, the ancient lives that would be remembered, the terrible temptations of rage that would hold him in thrall.

"And some curses are not meant," continues Rumpelstiltskin, attention still studiously locked on the dream's warped texture, "to be born by the mortal man."

"Yeah, well," says Johnny, eyes narrowing with contempt, "mine was made specially for me." So fucking kind of the rift, really. Considering him like that.

Meanwhile, Nova. She's still pinned under the lizard's claws and she's holding steady, surrendered, essentially, and there's a kind of give and take to them, Johnny's realizing, one of them has to be broken and one of them has to be stupid, that's how the balance works. He's got stupidity to spare and Rumpelstiltskin's still facing the wall.

He lurches back and snaps both hands out to grab the lizard at her sides, this is a fucking dumb idea but he's done it before, he knows how horrible it feels, and surprise is the only weapon he has. "Give me back my fucking rabbit," he growls.

Grizelda spits, a hostile, furious noise, and Rumpelstiltskin only barely turns to acknowledge the tremendously unwise course of action Johnny seems to be taking.

"Oh, I don't believe we're quite done," he says mildly, and lifts one hand with an otherworldly purple shimmer. The same magic that once sprang up around the rabbit to hold it still now ripples itself over Johnny, rooting his legs to the ground.

It is only when his target is still that Rumpelstiltskin turns to face the man again, hand gliding back down to rest neatly atop his cane.

"It's not very polite to interrupt a business transaction," he continues, soft and reproving.

"Johnny-!" Nova yelps, wriggling violently. Johnny's hands are yanked back to the ground, his legs still folded and frozen beneath him, oh god, fuck, he can't move, not even to struggle, this is so much like what Lucifer did to him no no shit fuck shit

"Let us go!" demands Nova, taking over the role of 'angry dumbshit' right on cue. And to round it out now Johnny can't function, can't acknowledge this situation, can't do anything. He stares at the floor he made, to which he's now pinned like a fucking insect.

He draws a shuddering breath - he could speak but he doesn't, just looking up wordlessly.

"I want your power," the Dark One says evenly, "and you want it gone. I understand that we can form some sort of arrangement. Now," he continues with a subtle twitch of one finger that lessens the magic's hold incrementally. Freedom, he finds, can be as good an incentive as any. "If you're disinterested in that offer, I'll be quite happy to take my services elsewhere."

Perhaps it will not be enough. He locks eyes with the other man patiently, never lifting his voice from its measured lilt.

"I will not remove your curse unwillingly. But this may be your only chance."

"I already said you could fucking have it," says Johnny through his teeth, feeling something loosen, just enough for him to squirm uncomfortably. No, you stupid fucking idiot, no, do not let this fucker have it, if it doesn't turn on him like it did Seth then he'll abuse it, both outcomes would be terrible, do not do this do not

"Johnny," says Nova, her voice steady, but with a sort of pleading edge.

"Just take it!" he snarls. "Get it out of me and let me go. Come on."

It's just a dream. It's just a fucking dream.

Dreams are nothing, except to you they are everything.

You never really get used to nightmares.

"Excellent."

Johnny is released in a snap of energy, and Rumpelstiltskin strides neatly forward to face him directly. He holds out a hand.

"This, I think, should be enough to seal our contract in this environment." He pauses, an almost theatrical instinct, before his mouth curves thinly into a faintly mocking smile. "Unless you would prefer that I outline the terms."

The tension he built up while immobilized breaks and his elbows buckle, pitching him downward with a softly murmured oof.

"Johnny, don't," begs Nova, and he ignores her. He's very good at that. Ignoring the voices in his head.

He glares up at Rumpelstiltskin, his smirk, his offer of proper methods. Too far gone to give a shit Johnny takes his hand hard, almost slapping it, staring into his eyes with barbaric desperation.

"Do it," he says.

He nods, unflinching and unblinking, his expression closing with the unmistakeable air of victory.

"I do hope you are pleased," he says, "with my end of the bargain."

Because Rumpelstiltskin never breaks a deal.

Slender fingers tighten over Johnny's and there comes a great rush, the whipping of wind, the gusting of some ethereal, unnameable force. There is an indescribable surge that jolts sharply through them like a running circuit, a hard bolt of energy snapping from Johnny to the skin the Dark One wears.

He always did have such a flair for the dramatic.

And with a crackle of power, pooled bottomless and deep with the thick smell of dried leaves and scaled claws, Rumpelstiltskin wraps both himself and lizard in amaranthine smoke and is gone.

His smile almost seems to linger in the space where he was.

"Johnny," Nova cries, breathless, scrambling to him; he catches her like clockwork, automatic, still staring dead and hollow at the earth.

"It's gone," he whispers. "I can feel it."

"Is this permanent?" she asks, pawing at him, trying to drag his attention back. "Is it always going to be like this now, maybe just in dreams or maybe both, Johnny, what the fuck did you do that for?"

"I don't know!" He holds her closer, trying to console her, trying to shut her up, he doesn't know. "I don't know. Please, just. Stop."

She's silent for a little moment, her nose twitching against him. "I can't," she says softly. "We can't."

Yeah, he knows. Life of fear. Always glancing over the shoulder. Always waiting for the worst. That's why he's a rabbit. Bottom of the fuckin food chain. Always, in every universe.

He settles back against a tree and stares at his monstrous house creation, which he now can't remove, and pets her for a while, and they try, they try real hard, to just let themselves be.

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This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

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