applesaucedream | A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Current Music: April 3, 2013

Entry tags:

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

As far as dreams go, this seems surprisingly...normal. True, the dreamers of Manhattan and beyond will find themselves stranded in the middle of the ocean on a fairly deserted rocky island, but it's nothing so unusual as the labyrinth from last time, and no one appears to have become an animal or reverted to an insane past (or future) version of themself. Besides, well, rocks and grass, there's nothing here but an abandoned lighthouse, the doors and windows broken, and the spare furniture worn by the weather. You can go up the spiral staircase to look at the view, but there's nothing to see but the endless ocean. One might almost think tonight was a night for simple socializing via the telepathic current.

As if anything to do with the rift is ever that simple, you silly bumpkin. How quickly each person realizes what is unusual about tonight's dream will depend in large part on their personality. Some might go the entire night without noticing (except from the distress of others, naturally), but some will find out the instant they open their mouths to converse with another dreamer. You see, each and every dreamer will be completely unable to tell a lie for as long as the dream lasts. The truth might be evaded by omission, but any attempt to say that which is untrue will result in the corresponding truth emerging instead.

Good thing it's just a dream and everyone's going to forget in the morning, right? Right??

[Mod note: As usual, players can choose to have their characters remember or forget anything that happens in the Dreaming. As per usual party rules, both members and non-members are welcome to play any character in this post, regardless of whether that character is currently in the game. Unlike usual, tonight's theme is not optional; all characters will be subject to the enforced truth-telling. Have fun!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Peter glances back over his shoulder, giving Gabriel a dirty look and a little shake of his head. "I mean it's too normal. There's always a gimmick, so what is it?"

"I don't know about the dream's gimmick, but right now mine is getting a spectacular view of your ass." Okay, so maybe he had ulterior motives.

"What do you think it is?"

A lesser (or greater) man might blush and try to amend the situation. Peter just snorts and says, "Yeah, enjoy that. And it's probably going to turn out we're in a terrarium or something."

"Complete with giant lizards?" Gabriel laughs, but hey, it's not outside of the realm of possibility.

It takes a little while, but eventually they make it to the top of the rockface. Gabriel takes the opportunity to look around. Well, no giant lizards, so he sits down on a short wall and looks over at Peter instead.

"So what's happening with you outside of fascinating and ominous dreams? How's Lucy?"

Peter chuckles as well...but his gaze flits about the horizon at giant lizard height. Maybe they shouldn't be talking about this; they'll bring something into existence.

He's obviously too tough to need to sit down after that climb, so he just ~~slumps~~ leans against the wall instead, hands stuffed in his pockets against the imaginary cold. Same old boring Lucy, he opens his mouth to say. "She's almost perfect."

Gabriel chuckles at the uncharacteristically honest response. Peter must really have it bad if he's willing to share that out loud. "Almost perfect is so much better than perfect, trust me. Perfect is boring."

The corners of Peter's mouth draw down. What just came over him? Wet dream jokes aside, he's not a teenager. He doesn't do soppy. He tries to amend it with We're just friends with benefits, really, only to say, "I think I might be serious about this."

Fuck. Fuuuuuuuck. Peter's hands clench against the rock wall, and he clenches his jaw as he looks back out toward the sea, not wanting to see if Gabriel's looking at him.

He is totally looking at Peter, because this is adorable. "That's real cute, Peter. When's the wedding? Can I throw the bachelor party?"

"I'm not asking her to marry me!" snaps Peter. Oh, good, that came out like he meant it to.

Wait, that came out like he meant it to. Peter pauses, trying to figure out what's different about the last thing he said, and why it didn't change when he went to say it. He's not asking her to marry him What about that is different from Lucy is a friend with benefits?

One is true, he realizes, and one is not. He's not proposing to Lucy, but she...fuck, she's not a friend with benefits. That's kind of a surprise to him.

Experimentally, he tries to lie about something less private. And I wouldn't want a bachelor party, is both untrue and probably not dangerous, and he's almost expecting it when it comes out as "I wouldn't mind the party, though."

Gabriel snorts at the response and mentally wonders if throwing a party would actually be such a bad idea. Lucy could even come along. It'd be great. "I'll think about it," he answers. "You've already got the full bar. Just a few arrangements to make after that." Because, yeah, he really doubts that Peter got rid of all that booze he left at his place.

Peter is agitated by his discovery, but perhaps his apparent anxiety can be chalked up to Gabriel's teasing and the expectation of more where it came from. "What?" he asks, not making the connection for a second despite the fact that all his cabinets back in the waking world are overflowing with bottles. Seriously, he can't even store as much liquor as Gabriel gave him...not that having bottles perched on every horizontal surface has prompted him to get rid of any.

He's distracted, too, by the whirling of his mind as he tries to decide what to do with his discovery. He draws in a breath with the thought to ask Gabriel what's going on, since of course Gabriel must know, but then a realization comes over him and he lets it out again in a whoosh.

What if Gabriel doesn't know? What if this is the gimmick of the dream, and Peter's the first one to figure it out? Magical truth serums aren't entirely unheard of, and this is exactly the kind of thing the rift would throw at them. It could just be Peter who's being forced to tell the truth, in which case this is going to be the shittiest dream of all time, but if it's not....

He must have questions he wants answered, he thinks. Unfortunately, none of them are springing to mind at the moment, and he's sort of been staring at Gabe in silence for a few seconds, probably with a weird expression on his face.

"Going out, lovely ladies without clothes on, that sort of thing," Gabriel answers easily, thinking that Peter was asking for clarification on what sort of arrangements he meant. He wonders at the same time if Lucy would like male strippers, and if Peter could handle that without having a fit. Probably not.

He's so busy being amused by the hilarious mental image of a muscled man in a thong gyrating against a horrified Peter, that it takes him a moment to notice that Peter isn't responding. Something seems...wrong. Or, in the least, Peter is acting very strange. His smirk falls off his face and he raises his eyebrows in question. "Peter?"

Gabriel just might be misunderstanding one or two of the fundamental aspects of a bachelor party, here. Were his mind on the matter, Peter would probably have misgivings about letting Gabe organize a party for him, but he's barely following the current conversation.

Shit. Shit, has he been staring? Question, question, probably only going to get to ask one question --

"What are you?" he blurts, completely failing to be in any way casual about it.

Gabriel narrows his eyes at Peter. He is acting weird, but it's possible to write this off as an objection to the party idea.

"Your friend. Come on, the party was your idea. I don't know why you're getting so huffy about it." He tilts his head to the side, considering. "There don't have to be strippers, if that's what you're worried about, but they are traditional."

Peter lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. That wasn't the answer he was looking for, not by a long stretch, though it's ~~reassuring~~ surprising to hear that Gabriel still thinks of them as friends. Gabe's got to be suspicious now, though; there's no simply asking for clarification without giving it away.

Party. Apparently they're still talking about a party.

"It's you," he points out, going with vague truth. Growing bolder, he adds, "It's not the strippers. What, in all the time you've known me, makes you think I don't like strippers?"

Yes, he's definitely suspicious, but he doesn't have enough information to start throwing around accusations yet.

"Nothing," He answers succinctly, "But I do think you'd be scared about what your darling Lucy thinks of you liking strippers." He smiles. "She strikes me as the type that wouldn't mind, as long as she gets to come along for the ride. What do you think?"

Okay, not actually the best topic of conversation right now. Peter opens his mouth, shuts it again. Flaps it silently like that once or twice more. "We're not exactly exclusive," he finally manages, afraid to say more and relieved he got even that out. He doesn't know what they are, exactly, but Lucy's attempts to talk about it have always been met with refusals from Peter. What they have is good; once they start labeling it, things will go wrong.

Frowning, he adds, "I thought this was supposed to be a bachelor party."

He's actually a bit surprised at the lack of exclusivity, but he's definitely noting it.

"No bachelor party if there's not going to be any wedding. Anyway, I'd rather have a party with general debauchery and have Lucy there. Bigger party that way. Have I mentioned that I'm great at parties?" He totally is.

It was supposed to be a friends with benefits arrangement. It's not Peter's fault -- well, alright, it's mostly his fault -- if they never got around to figuring out boundaries once it progressed beyond that.

"Define general debauchery." Because that is both relevant to his interests and giving him pause when he thinks about debauchery that involves Lucy and possibly people other than himself.

"Sex, drugs, rock and roll." He's says this as if it's obvious, gosh, Peter. "For varying levels of each, of course. A lot of people, hopefully as naked as possible. A lot of booze. Enough music to keep everything moving. Trust me, Dionysus would be proud."

And Lucy as naked as possible, presumably, which both gets Peter a bit excited and makes him a bit annoyed and territorial. Yeah, the lack of exclusivity isn't an issue with him or anything, nope.

He perks up, though, as he suddenly sees an opening. "Dionysus?" he asks. "Old friend of yours? I thought you said you were one of the Norse gods."

Which isn't to say he believed Gabriel when he said that. As irritating and outlandish as Gabriel is, he's much more normal than Loki would ever be.

Edited 2013-10-07 02:42 (UTC)

I am, he means to say, though it comes out as, "I was, sort of." And this is where he starts getting extra suspicious, because he really hadn't meant to add on that qualifier. Or the past tense. He was in the Norse pantheon, and worshiped as a god, but he was never an actual god.

He continues carefully, paying attention to his own words. "Different pantheons are allowed to interact with each other, y'know. I knew him, but we weren't exactly buddy buddy." When nothing else strange happens, he's almost ready to write it off as a passing peculiarity, though he's not going to stop watching himself now.

Okay, now Peter's wondering if he got it wrong after all. Gabriel isn't really Loki -- wasn't Loki, even 'sort of,' because that would mean Gabriel is thousands of years old...and that multiple pantheons of gods are real. Peter's not sure he's ready to deal with either possibility.

"Sort of?" he asks, grasping at that qualifier like it's a lifeline.

No, not sort of at all. Completely, one hundred percent Norse mythology. "It was a new identity. Pagan gods don't party with archangels."

His eyes go wide and it immediately clicks what's happening. A string of curses a mile long goes through his head. Why is it that the rift has it out for his secrets?

Well, when in doubt, run away. He tries waking himself up, realizes the dream isn't letting him, then stands up instead. "It's been...interesting, Peter. See ya later." Walking away in a definitely not panicked state is totally the rational thing to do here, right?

ARCHANGELS.

Peter doesn't keep his cool much better than Gabriel does. He stands up straight with a jolt, staring at the shorter man with big, round eyes. "No," he breathes. Catching himself, he makes an effort to close his expression off, expecting Gabriel to turn around and reveal that it's a joke at Peter's expense, that he was stupid to think a dream could make Gabriel tell the truth and that Gabe knew all along what he was playing at.

Gabriel does not do that. In fact, after what looks like a moment of concentration, Gabriel attempts to flee the scene.

Well, shit. Shit on a shit bun. Peter can't even process what the hell this means, can't reconcile the Gabriel who showed up drunk to his apartment and left it full of booze and lake water with that Gabriel, but he's not going to let it go at that, either. "Wait!" he calls, stumbling as he hurries after Gabriel. "You're not -- you're not the Gabriel?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject