[closed] Temporarily powerless and homeless

[powerdealer]

It seems every day is more monotone than the last, like he's walking around in a zombie haze - though thankfully without any real zombies, he'd prefer not to do that again. But you'd think a city as weird as this would have more going on. That's what he gets for staying out of trouble.

He sighs as he unlocks the door to his apartment, dropping the keys on a table and running a hand down his face. He sits down in front of the telly, but gets bored almost immediately. Perhaps he should simply go out. Or perhaps he should go hang out with Gabe. He hasn't seen him for almost a week, he realises with a small pang.

Usually Gabe shoots him a text or something if he wants to hang out, or Seth just heads upstairs, but that hasn't happened lately. Probably he's just been busy. Yeah, that's what he'll do, maybe that will shake him out of this funk.

Not bothering with the keys just now, he heads for the door again, simply walking through it before heading upstairs. He knocks twice, but there's no reply. Guess not, then. He's about to leave, but then decides if Gabe's out, he might as well check if Scout's there and if he needs something, so he steps through the door.

Comments

[powerdealer]

He doesn't really do euphemism well. This is also why he prefers straight-talkers. Though he suspected at least that Johnny wouldn't have a problem with it.

He smiles and nods. "Well, I don't have any on me, so it's just good, old fashioned alcohol tonight," he answers. And he generally doesn't smoke a lot of it himself. It can be nice socially, though.

"He wasn't to enthusiastic about it to be honest, but he seemed alright with it when I told him it was just -- well, plants."

[johnny_truant]

"Yeah, I mean... we're all adults here, right?" Johnny shrugs. Seems like Seth doesn't really have the immunity with Gabriel that he has. He definitely doesn't want to cause any unfriendliness between them, though he can't imagine Gabe is going to turn into a mother hen about his recreational drug use.

"And hey, alcohol's fine with me," he says, raising his glass and finishing it off. Oh man, definitely starting to feel it now. He sets the glass down and rests his elbow on the table, running a hand through his hair. "I will take what I can get."

He grins and works on finishing off his fries. "Are you down for more drinking in the hotel?" he asks. He definitely wouldn't mind heading out sooner, and nor would he mind continuing on this promising trajectory. Having a solid drinking partner is such a great gift, thank you rift-jesus.

[powerdealer]

The 'I'll snap your neck' hadn't made it evident before that he doesn't have immunity?

Seth's not feeling it as much as Johnny is, probably because he didn't have whiskey, and because he's actually eaten since noon. Probably a good thing, he needs to self-medicate soon, and he'd rather not be drunk for it.

"Yeah," he answers with a nod. "Either pick up something on the way, or we can just go out again after we know we've got somewhere to sleep." Either sounds good to him. A nice coping method for all the shitty stuff that's happened today.

[johnny_truant]

Well obviously that factored into it, yes.

"Great." Johnny nods and sits back. "So this whole situation is fucked," he says after a moment. "But you're pretty cool, at least."

Is that too friendly too soon? What the fuck ever.

[powerdealer]

Even if it is, it's practically his thing to be unfazed or maybe just mildly annoyed at the weird shit that goes on around him. And someone calling him pretty cool isn't all that weird.

Seth smiles and clinks his glass against Johnny's empty one, before finishing off his own drink. "Gotta take comfort in the little things."

Since he's still got over half his chips left, he picks them up by the paper to bring it along, and pays for the secound round. "Coming?"

[johnny_truant]

Johnny raps his fingers lightly on the table and slides out. Standing up is always an adventure after two shots of whiskey and very little food, but he's doing all right. He follows Seth out of the pub and into the street, the sun is starting to get low in the sky.

"Been a while since I had to live in a hotel," says Johnny, folding his hands behind his head as he walks. "I was holed up with another newbie for a while. Like a week of nothing but bad fuckin dreams. Do you ever have the shared dreams? What's up with that shit?"

[powerdealer]

Seth checks his phone to make sure he knows where they're going. There's not all that many hotels in the Hell's Kitchen area, so they'll have to walk for a little while, but that's alright.

"Ah, yeah," he answers, putting the phone away. "To be honest, I just try to.. avoid attracting attention in those dreams. Stick to myself. You've got all sorts entering them, rebels and Romac people alike, I'd prefer to avoid both."

[johnny_truant]

"I can't do anything but attract attention there," mutters Johnny, dropping his hands and frowning at his feet. "Not from those people, at least not so far. I'm like a magnet for metaphysical assholes. I don't mean the way Gabe is an asshole. Like... monsters."

How else to describe them, really? Ugh. He wishes he could never sleep again.

"You know how many times I've died in one of those dreams?" Johnny says, with the same tone he would use to tell a complicated joke. "Five fuckin times. You know how many of those times I was murdered? Three." Two and a half, really, since Topher's memory of Gabriel only sort of counts, but he's sure as hell not about to go into that. "That's not counting any of the times I've been tortured or threatened with grievous bodily harm, barely avoided death on I don't know how many fucking occasions. And I haven't been here that long, as you know."

It's really not funny, not at all, but he laughs anyway.

[powerdealer]

Seth makes an impressed whistle, and offers Johnny some consolation chips. "Harsh. But at least no one's been murdering you while you're awake." He shrugs. Shit happening in the dreaming can be traumatising, but at least it's not generally life-threatening.

"I dunno though, I spent about three months without the Dreaming, and you start to miss it. Not the grievous bodily harm, of course, but.. Sometimes there's nice things, too." And given Seth's recurring regular nightmares, some time to relax other places can be nice.

[johnny_truant]

"Not for lack of trying," mutters Johnny, remembering his first brush with Zagreus in the pub.

Seth's next remark makes Johnny glance up at him in surprise, still taking his consolation fries. "Three months?" he echoes. "How'd you pull that off?"

[powerdealer]

"Both Romac and the rebels have rooms that block off telepathic contact," he answers, in a would-be casual way. Never mind that room translates to cell, and he didn't have any choice in the matter. It's probably rare for them to offer up these kinds of rooms to people who simply didn't want to enter the Dreaming.

[johnny_truant]

"Huh," says Johnny, a little perplexed by this information. "What for?"

The question isn't so much meant to dig further at Seth's personal experience; more than he doesn't know hardly anything about these factions except neither is to be trusted, apparently. Any information is helpful, at this point.

[powerdealer]

Seth half-shrugs. "Protection? Like you said, murder and bodily harm." He eats some chips, as if considering. "And sometimes there's people they don't want contacting the outside world." He's doing really well at skirting around the issue today. Although he expects he'll tell Johnny eventually, if they become friends. Or maybe Gabe will, inadvertently or intentionally once he hears they're becoming friends. (He's still refusing to really acknowledge the idea that Gabe won't come back.)

[johnny_truant]

Johnny's right there with him, refusing steadfast and stubborn to even think of Gabe in the past tense.

He "hums" softly, considering it. Many of his shared dream experiences have been awful, certainly, but to skip out on them entirely would almost feel like cheating, somehow. And he would never be able to see the TARDIS.

"Why are they so goddamn shady?" he asks, more or less rhetorically. "Kidnapping people and shit. I mean, I know Romac does that. I would have assumed the rebels were like, an answer to that shit, but Gabe always acts like they're no better." He shrugs. "I'm glad I didn't get picked up, anyway. Something tells me I wouldn't really fit in, with either of them."

[powerdealer]

"I think they started out better," he theorises, looking absently into the distance. "But the more power and advantages are at stake, the easier it is to bend the rules. At this point I think they're about equally bad when it comes to methods, they just have different ideas about what to do with us."

[johnny_truant]

"Yeah..." Johnny nods, mulling this over. Makes sense, comfortingly familiar in its resemblance to "The Establishment" in the sense he's always known it. He borrows another fry and raises it as if toasting. "Fuck 'em," he says brightly.

[powerdealer]

Seth smiles and raises a chip as well, mimicking the toast. "Fuck 'em," he agrees, and eats it.

"So.. Basically, you came through mid-May, lived in a hotel for a while, then befriended Gabe, and he's looked out for you since?" he asks, checking if he's got that right. "Met any other 'pretty cool' people? You know, ones that didn't try to murder you."

[johnny_truant]

"Yep," Johnny confirms. "And yeah, a few. More than have tried to kill me, anyway." He gives a lopsided grin. He doesn't mention Jodie, since she still mostly likes to stay hidden, but the others are probably all right. "The TARDIS. Daine. Uhh, I met this guy named Andrew in a dream recently, he seemed all right." Better than Peter, he doesn't mention. "This total badass, Charley. Uh, Charlotte." He smiles a little and feels around in his pocket, wishing he had his phone. How much would it suck if she called him while he was locked out? A lot, is how much.

There's Lucy and Eliot, too, but Johnny's not sure his drunken hook-ups are really stories he wants to share. Anyway the mornings-after of both of those were kind of... complicated.

He shrugs. "There's a few others but those are the big ones, I guess."

[powerdealer]

Seth frowns. He's at least vaguely familiar with all except this Charley, and he still hasn't met the TARDIS, despite hearing about her now and then from Gabe. And he doesn't actually know he met Daine, considering she was a seal at the time.

"Andrew - the guy who looks like Peter and the Doctor, by any chance?" he asks. Assuming Johnny knows who either of those are. If he knows the TARDIS, he should at least know the Doctor.

[johnny_truant]

"That's the one," says Johnny. "Well, except the Doctor's got a different face now. Or it's... a different Doctor? Or same Doctor but like a different version? I don't really get it," he confesses, raising his hands. "It is way over my head. Anyway, now he looks just like the guy who swings by my dreams to torture me every few nights, so..."

He shrugs. It's not the Doctor's fault, and according to Charley and the TARDIS he is a solidly good guy, but...

"I don't know if I can get used to that," he admits.

[powerdealer]

Seth continues to frown, first at the confusion over not hearing about multiple Doctors (How did he not hear about that? Well, maybe it's not widely known, and he hasn't spoken to Gabe, so.) and then even more at someone 'swinging by torture' Johnny. He's not entirely sure if he's just being flippant and hyperbolic, but given the number of dreams Johnny's been murdered in, he might actually mean actual torture.

"Who's he?" he asks, watching Johnny. He'd like to know if he could help out in some way.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny chews his lip and stares at the ground for a moment. He really wants to avoid going down these dark paths, but he did bring it up, for better or for worse. He sighs.

"His name is Zagreus," he says. "He's not really a person? More like... concept made flesh." That's how Gabe had put it, anyway. "I met him in a dream and he tortured me and left his traces all the fuck over my brain, and now I can't get rid of him."

Not the first time. Johnny feels like he doesn't make that clear enough when he tells this story. This is so much like what he's already experienced, it's almost like he can cope better because of that. Nightmares living in his head, eating at him. At least this time he has people he can talk to.

"Gabe and the TARDIS try to protect me but I don't know if anyone can really do anything about him," he says, shrugging, trying to lighten his mood. "It's fine. He's just an asshole. I get the feeling maybe he'll get bored and leave me alone."

Yeah, you keep on believing that, kiddo.

[powerdealer]

Seth is not particularly good at offering emotional support beyond, well, "Sorry." Particularly not while mildly inebriated. But he has a feeling it wouldn't make much difference, so he just offers some chips again. If neither Gabe nor the TARDIS can do something, chances are Seth can't either. Short of taking Zagreus's powers, but he has a feeling if that was a viable option, he would've been asked? Perhaps he'll suggest it to Gabe later when he comes back from whatever it is he's doing.

"Lots of fucked up shit in this town," he observes. And not nearly enough being done about it, probably because no one's organised enough, and those who are are often part of doing the bad shit.

[johnny_truant]

"Yeah, I'll drink to that," mutters Johnny, taking another fry. He's eager to move on. "But it's not really any more fucked up than my life before. Just a different kind. And it's not like I had anyone like Gabe where I came from."

This isn't really a lighter subject, considering the situation. But it's also true, and important for him to acknowledge.

"I'm really fuckin lucky I met him," he murmurs.

[powerdealer]

"You and me both," he agrees quietly. And now he's god-knows-where. And they don't have powers. Here's hoping the ones looking for him have lost their powers too.

He falls silent after that, contemplating.