13942/Dream-running

Dream-running
Date of Scene:	10 November 2021
Location:	Lucifer's Penthouse, Melville
Synopsis:	Weird dreams, exaustion spawned. No zombie apocalypse thankfully, but anxieties came to light, however subconscious they were.
Cast of Characters:	Sinister, Lucifer

---

Sinister has posed:
There is no time here. There's no definition that isn't expansive and psyhadelic. This is the stuff of fantasies and nightmares. Humans decompress night after night, sort out their troubles of the day, dream of their worries and the experiences they had and occasionally in the sorting out of things, fun imaginations occur.

Sometimes though, it's the opposite, where incomprehension, inability to cope, stress, anxiety and otherwise, causes a cascade of neurones to create terrible scenarios that one must watch on the video screen of one's own mind.

ANd occasionally, it's just a carnival of what the actual flock!? Jumbled, mixed up, head-tripping flights of fancy where one rides races on snails, or goes house-tasting in a neighborhood. Or in this case, is condemned to a sort of hell in a gigantic megastore of lift music and nothing being where it's supposed to be in the aisles. Pushing a shopping cart, no less. Late middle-aged, Sinister's wearing beat up jeans, a metallica T-shirt and an expression that requires coffee. In one hand, he grasps a shopping list as he trudges his trolley through the monolithic walmart.

Lucifer has posed:
"You know, it's the weirdest thing... I went looking for our favorite pickled herring and there's none to be found where it ought be. Like this whole store is one big topsy turvy version of itself.." Lucifer's voice comes up from behind. He looks a bit..knackered? Not wholly here. Almost like he's partially invaded the dream so he's here but not. A part of and not wholly able to stop. "Also, I can't find a single person to ask for help from. It's almost like no one works here... watch.." He picks up something from the shelf, in a glass jar, the contents are...something...indiscernible really. He drops it so the glass shatters and the contents splatter over the floor. "Cleanup on aisle six hundred and sixty-six!" He calls. Then shrugs. "See. Nothing."

Sinister has posed:
"Oh, there you are," missing zero context because it's a dream and his physical self is too knackered to exert any kind of higher intellectual magic to the whole affair, Sinister pauses, watching the shattered sauce jar of whatever it is skitter everywhere. The contents seem to be radioactive green and are chunky and apparently able to try and crawl away like a viscous sentient evil. "Can't toss it into the inferno, either. I feel like that's what's supposed to happen. Did you check the ingredients list?" He gestures at it "All those artificial ingredients, FDA approved except in the state of California, where they cause cancer. Moral of -that- story is don't buy it in California, right?" Tsking softly "You'd think it's the English language, they'd understand how it works by now."

Looking wearily at the transluscent Lucifer, he observes "You're not all here. I wonder what that says about things. I've been here for what seems like days. I think the zombie apocalypse is happening outside, or something."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer watches the radioactive green oozey things attempt to crawl across the floor, and he leans down to pick a piece up and slurps it into his mouth. "Hmmn. Tastes like chicken." He offers and then shrugs his shoulders. "I checked the ingredients of list. There's not a lot here that can be applied to there. The forward backwards ADF non-approved wholly sensical hogwash of cancer-killing ideologies exists every-here." Then there's a flicker, like Lucifer is trying to become less translucent and more whole, but it's a fight to get himself fully immersed into the dream. Mares are weird.

"Also the apocolypse zombie hasn't arrived yet. The clock on the wall is wrong."

Sinister has posed:
"Clock?" Sinister looks around, sees only graffiti, but the words are all blurry. "I only see the writing." With a sigh, he pats the fuzzy Lucifer's shoulder and turns down the next aisle, which all appears to be pet products. "We don't have a pet. Well, we do, but we can shop for him in the hardware section and buy a new mop for his birthday. But we can't turn around..." he sighs, attempting to steer the trolly but it just won't turn. "Doesn't EVERYTHING taste like chicken? Nuclear fall out... tastes like chicken. Couch cushion... tastes like chicken. I think someone ran out of flavours at one point and therefore everything that you can't define tastes like chicken."

Sin pauses, rubbing his face with one hand. "So tired. You know, the dumb thing is, I've never been into one of these places. I abhor them. In Europe it's a different matter, we went to Karstadt, no problem. But here, it seems like it's all about the advertising. Buy buy buy. More more more. Did you need it? Of course not, but it's got lovely packaging."

Lucifer has posed:
"There is no backwards. You have to go forwards in order to go back. Up one, down the other, over and over." Lucifer offers, and then there's a grunt and head shaking. There's a pause of steps and then he laughs. "Chicken. Chicken chick chick...." Then he stops and there's a twitch and another.

"Confound it all. Let. Me. IN!"

Finally translucent Lucifer is no more, now is more solid Lucifer who shakes his head, and then shakes out whatever the hell that primordial riddler was who stole his form. "You're sleeping, love. You realize this yes? Where has your mind taken you to now?"

Sinister has posed:
Sinister pauses in his steps, to watch the almost-seizure take the dream devil, until the whisper on his shoulder rebels and forces himself wholely into this scenario. "Was that me? Or you?" he asks, lifting a finger to tworl it up into the ether. He looks up but the ceiling of this place is as high as the highest cathedral and the shelves seem to bend in with forced perspective. "I'm going to go with six of one and half a dozen of the other." He presses lips though at the question.

"Am I? Well, that would make sense, I think. This doesn't seem wholely logical, but it does seem familiar in odd ways. I'm usually quite a lucid dreamer, I think I must have taken a lot of out of myself." He stares around, then looks down at himself. "It appears to have taken me into a strange kind of purgatory. Or Limbo. Or just one of my hidden fears."

Lucifer has posed:
"Lost in a sea of things that don't make sense? Puzzles that have no answer?" Lucifer takes a few guesses from the last thing Nathaniel says, working almost backwards in a sense. Or, in no particular order. "Also I think that was half you and half me. You're sort of stressing in bed, so I peeked...and then got sucked in. Sort of. Had to fight to get all the way in because I couldn't just pull myself away." He explains this and then takes a slow breath. "Is there anything I can do to help?

Sinister has posed:
"I don't know. I mean, maybe?" Sinister ponders the rest of what was said there. It's interesting in a way, because one can tell it's him, but he's fragmented as people usually are when they're not all -there-. Only aspects of his subconscious are filling in strange details. He frowns, wrinkles his nose and reaches behind himself, trying to scratch between his shoulder blades. "Augh..." twist, turn attempt. He grabs something in the shopping cart, which looks like it might be a squeegee. Yes it's a squeegee... in order to scratch behind himself.

Bizarrely, NOW a couple of employees appear around the end of the aisle and move up it toward them, coming up behind Sinister and waiting until he's finished scratching with the squeegee, before they reach out to the thin air at his back and grab nothing. THey yank and he yells out as his wings come off and are carried away, still beating pathetically as they fail, by the two uninspiringly average employees. He falls forward over the front of the shopping cart, looking shocked.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer listens and nods, not really sure what more to add in the moment. As Nathaniel deals with that sudden itch, Lucifer steps forward with intent to help except the man pulls out a squeegee from the basket and itches himself that way. "Always annoying to get an itch between the shoulders..." He offers this as it seems that the itch is relieved for the moment.

When the employees arrive, there's a sudden sort of WTF moment before Lucifer can react. "Hey!" But this is a dream? Right? He turns to where Nathaniel is slumped over the trolly and places a hand on his back. There's a moment of panic, because it's a dream so he doesn't *have* to go after them except... something compells him...and so he shifts to run after the the uninspiring employees. "You bring those back!"

Sinister has posed:
"Wh'why?" one word out of SInister but then there's the chase! They're only walking back to the managers office, but it's THAT kind of a chase, where you're running and they're walking and you only seem to catch up two steps for their two and a half, always just out of reach.
"Mwah mwah mwah?" "Mwah wah wah wah.."
They're placed on an end cap of an aisle at the end of the management office, hung up like curtains on 'discount holiday items' and scented candles.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer looks back behind to where he left Nathaniel's side, feeling quite guilty for leaving him there asking why. Though, he can't answer why if he doesn't catch up to the person - people - who took them. "I don't understand..." He whispers to himself, looking at the wings as they hang there, walking up to them, looking them over. He scowls sharply and then reaches to take them off the end cap...

Sinister has posed:
They come off easily enough. They feel paradoxical. Extremely light as if they're made of crepe paper and papier mache and unimaginably heavy. It makes going back to Sinister a slow affair, as though they're light as anything, they're so heavy it makes the feet drag. Why indeed? What nonsense was that, that the psyche played silly buggers with it?

Sin is sitting on the display for dog bowls by the time Lucifer gets back, his head in his hands and downy feathers dotting the floor all around, like he got into a fight with a cat or something. "Why did that happen? That wasn't supposed to happen..." he looks up as the devil approaches, dragging his wings with him.

Lucifer has posed:
The affair of dragging the wings back to where Sin sits is a burden, but one that Lucifer is quite willing to bear. As he approaches where Sin sits, he shakes his head at the question. "The mind is a weird thing, my love. Perhaps you have a fear of losing them?" He offers this and then looks to the wings themselves. "They aren't real...so I don't know what to do here...I...I am a bit lost. I..." He frowns, looking guilty and...painfully sad. "...I don't know how to help..."

Sinister has posed:
"You know, I think there's something bizarre about that statement," Sinister says with a shake of his head "...I can't put my finger on what it is, but it's nigh ironic. Not real. So why did you chase them?" He shrugs, spreads hands and glances at the feathers littering all around. "You know. I think I probably ought to try and wake up. This is ridiculous and I think the zombie apocalypse /is/ going to break out soon and then we'll have to try and find the outdoor sports aisle to build a fort with and do silly raids to the food stores and the guns, and make this giant walmart into the Lord of the Flies."

This makes him shake his head and he looks at the guilty, saddened Samael. "You're in here. Yell at my brain would you?"

And provided that the devil does, abruptly? Bed. Ceiling. Wakefulness and disorientation.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer blinks. That is a valid question. Why did he run if they aren't real? Perhaps to ask why, but he never caught the people who did it. At that last request, Lucifer smirks and then nods. "HEY! NATHANIEL ESSEX'S BRAIN! SNAP OUT OF IT AND WAKE THE FUCK UP!" Yes. Yelling. Abruptly. To the point that when waking happens, Lucifer is ejected from the mind and back into his own. Eyes snap open and he sits up some, shaking his head and rubbing his temples. "Are you alright?"

Sinister has posed:
"Nnnngmf," comes the reply, Sinister struggles upright, curling over his lifted knees to hug them. It's almost a shell-shocked position and it takes a moment for him to reorient to the living world. "..." inarticulate sound of something or other. Indignation perhaps? Or... -- flexing his back, the right shoulderblade contorts, the skin bulging out, a repeat on the left hand side and with a hiss, both black pinions are birthed, spreading wide to the corners of the room, ravenlike. They hang there, with his spine showing clear against his skin where he hugs knees, a'quivering. Then they fold themselves in as he mutters the angelic words of 'go away' but they don't. They quiver and settle against his back instead -- "...I think so. I haven't lost them."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer waits a moment, and then watches as those wings unfurl from behind the man who is checking to ensure they truly are still there. Lucifer shakes his head some and then shifts to sit up cross-legged and shuffles to more of the middle of the bed. From there, he reaches and gently coaxes his lover to shift and sit in front of him, even if he still wants to curl over bent knees, that's fine. What follows - should Nathaniel move as Lucifer wishes him to - is a gentle preening and stroking. Each feather, from the top down, checking them, stroking them, and being quite gentle. "I feel as though something truly bothers you... and perhaps you're not telling me. Aside from you over exerting yourself...it just feels like...you're holding back something." He offers these words gently as he continues his work on the feathers. "I could be wrong. Only you can tell me."

Sinister has posed:
It takes a minute or so for Nathaniel to catch on to what is being asked of him, but when he does, he instead crosses his legs infront of Lucifer and arches completely forward, stretching his arms over the devil's legs, with his hands dangling on either side of hips, forehead resting on the angel's lap. The wings take no time to respond, they are after all, quite keyed to the one that gifted them, after their initial rebellious protests after their birth. The feathers relax, fluffing up so that there's ease of access and occasionally they quiver, fluffily. A 'whirr' of sound that speaks of not-really-avian contentment. THEY are happy at least. Instinct is instinct. "I don't think that I knew that there was a problem until that strange silliness. Conciously, I don't think I knew it was bothering me. You know me. I'm not usually riddled with any doubts. But clearly, my subconscious keeps track of all of that. Maybe some of me underneath thinks I'm not worthy. Maybe it's more about grace taken from me, so very easily. It might be a mild amount of insecurity."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer's own wings suddenly emerge, and being as large as they are, he easily wraps them around and lays them over Sinister's own where they can reach and sort of entwine. This frees up Lucifer's hands so he can then pay attention to the hair on Nathaniel's head. "Doubt? Not worthy? Of what? Of me? Of this?" He asks, trying to make sense of it. "...If Vlad coming to live here bothers you that much, my love, we can always go back to the original idea of him moving his Keep closer. In truth, it should not be you that adapts to me... I should be able to adapt to both you and Vlad. And I.." He strokes scalp, takes a breath. Feeling like he's back to square one, about to lose the man in front of him all over again - and he's not sure he can take that. "I need to know what's broken so I can help fix it, Nathaniel...please...tell me?"

Sinister has posed:
Sinister makes a little sound at the emergence of wings, they make a distinct noise when they arrive after all. And feeling them atop his own, his own still. Welcome the warmth. Wrists that had been limply dangling over thigh and hips, curl inward, taking a hold as he pushes up just enough that he can look up in the shadow of black and white; his eyes are as brilliant as ever they are now though, after some actual sleep and dream. The ruby red glows, casts both of them in their glow. "Luci... stop. You're tying yourself in a knot that you don't need to do. I am not ... consciously upset. You asked, I won't lie to you, so I extrapolated as much as I could from that bizarre subconscious nonsense. It was a dream. Dreams are /just/ dreams, even if they pay a little nod to life, I am more than my anxieties, as you are also. If part of me is worried that I'm not worthy, I shall simply have to make sure that I am, no?" It rings mostly true, in that he believes it, there's simply a little bit of fear that he might not be able to live up to all of his own expectations. An unintentional half-truth, perhaps.

He used to be a human once, after all.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer shifts hands away from scalp and hair as Nathaniel lifts his head up just enough to cast red eyes to his own blues. Palms shift to cup either cheek and hold that gaze as he listens to the words Nathaniel offers. A breath, another, and then he nods. "You are right. We are more than our anxities. But I will say this..." He pauses, as if he's trying to actually form his thoughts into words. "If you were not worthy, you would not be here. And I suspect, if I were not worthy of you, you would not be here for that fact as well." He leans forward, kissing the man's forehead. "Every night, we will lie together, and every morning you will wake up to me. I will always come home to you, and you will always have a berth with me. You may not know this, but I am humbled before you more and more as you show me ways of the world I never dreamed of knowing. I admire you, and I love you. There is no power in the universe nor heaven or hell that can or will cease such a thing. You -are- worthy, Nathaniel Essex, and I will make sure you know this every day." A smile and a kiss then before hands shift upwards to stroke through hair once more.

Sinister has posed:
This earns nothing more than a smile. But it's the quality of the smile, really, that makes it: wonky, uneven on his face, goofy even. When the emotion behind it is fighting with itself and other emotions for dominance; relief, love, affection, foolishness, everything under the sun but the negative and one single deadly sin: pride. That's absent from this line-up for tonight. And with the cupping of his cheeks, he does not surrender, so much as accept, then rise out of indian style to be on his knees, spreading his own upon either side of Lucifer's and inching close. A hug, and because he's no longer horizontal but vertical, the broader black wings curl under Luci's own and around, allowing the larger wings to form the outside bubble as he wraps arms around and buries his face in neck and shoulder, envelops in arms, to limit free space between bodies. Becoming close to the inferno, he has no fear at all of the burn. At least not now.

Lucifer has posed:
Within that bubble of feathers made, as Nathaniel presses himself close and buries head into neck and shoulder, Lucifer holds him tight. Hands drift, bodies shift, and while there's no hint at going further - Lucifer intends to at least prone himself with his lover and perhaps just hold there for whatever more or not may come. At the very least, holding close and not letting go. Not for a while yet anyway.