Event - Lullaby

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Lullaby

➥ For You Never Shut Your Eye

(cw: supernaturally-induced sleep/fatigue, supernaturally-induced sleep disorders/somniloquy, needles/injections)

The line between waking and sleep is beginning to blur. People will find themselves sleeping far too much, but it never feels like enough. The music is growing more prevalent and persistent throughout town. The effect is still weaker within the building, but as October wears on, more and more people are affected and ADI staff are more intent than ever to find the source and also figure out how to block the effects. Characters will find themselves conscripted (between Halloween Party preparations) into assisting with building or testing anti-music and sleep devices along or with helping to try to track down the source of the music.

For those helping to build and test devices, there is an R&D lab in the basement levels of ADI that will be available. Devices native staff have been able to devise include:

• Headphones that play different frequencies to try to cancel out the sound of the singing.
  
• An armband that periodically stabs a small needle into the arm with a small dosage of adrenaline.
  
• Headbands set to a constant low vibration.

The efficacy of all of these devices is… questionable, but perhaps others may have their own expertise to lend to the efforts, attempting something on a broader scale than just personal protection devices.

For those helping to track the source of the music, finding it seems to be impossible, but there is a definite pattern that characters will note as the days pass. The epicenters of the music are moving, migrating out of the graveyards and converging on ADI Headquarters. As this goes on, the building will become less and less of a safe haven, the music penetrating its walls and affecting the staff there more heavily. You might find yourself having to help a neighbor who's fallen asleep while working. Or you might not even be able to fully tell they've fallen asleep as they sleepwalk and talk almost like they're actually still conscious. Even those who have never been prone to sleepwalking and talking may find themselves affected and… far more open with what they say when in the unguarded state of semi-unconsciousness.

➥ Till the Sun Is In the Sky

(cw: supernaturally-induced sleep/fatigue, thanatophobia, character death, death by poisoning, blood, choking, emetophobia, death by crushing)

By the 25th, some people may find waking up to be a challenge in and of itself. But they do manage to wake up. Seemingly. Perhaps the day is much like any other, heading to ADI or out around the city, grabbing coffee and- something is wrong. Something is very wrong. That cup of coffee you just drank had tasted a little different than usual. A touch of almond to it? It hits you that your throat is burning, bile and blood rising up and choking you as you hack and gasp and vomit. Your legs grow weak, you're losing control of everything, falling, dying.

And then you wake up.

Just a nightmare. Just a bizarre and horrible nightmare. You head out and… is this home? You're home! Or maybe… wait, this doesn't seem right. Have you gone somewhere else? Some things might be familiar, memories intertwined and mixing with fantastical elements, some your own, some not. You notice people you recognize, ones who might be as confused as you are. This isn't where they should be and they remember dying, too. Or seeing you die or someone else. It doesn't make sense, but somehow, they remember they had a dream they shared last night. And then something falls from above and nearly crushes you or your partner. Or maybe it does crush them, and you're suddenly looking at a dead body as the world and this nightmare that feels so very real becomes more and more hostile. Maybe something falls on you.

And then you 'wake up.'

➥ When the Blazing Sun Is Gone

(cw: supernaturally-induced sleep/fatigue, thanatophobia, character death, body horror, detailed description of painful physical transformation, description of the loss and regrowth of teeth, violence, mental status alterations, temporary power-loss, spiders)

Even with people dropping left and right thanks to the odd sleep effect taking hold, ADI staff are hellbent that their Halloween party will not be completely ruined. And on the 28th (a little before the actual holiday), everyone wakes up. Or… seems to. For those trapped in dreams, it will seem very much that they've woken up, the music has stopped, and they can actually carry on. For a few days, it even seems like things are normal. The party on the 31st is a blow-out bash. The entire first floor of ADI HQ has been transformed with decorations. The canteen is serving festive food and has set up a dance floor with holiday-appropriate music playing. Some of the offices feature additional activities, including party games like bobbing for apples in a trough that's been brought in, a guess this gross food booth, and more general party games. For a quieter time, there are also areas set up with board games and card games to play. And for some extra fun spooks a mini-haunted maze has been set up with faux spiders and webs, along with other goofy-looking monster creatures.

It's around 9 PM when the music and lights suddenly cut out. There's nothing for several seconds. Then, a voice begins to sing, filling the halls of ADI. It's a young girl's voice.

"Bye-bye, bye-bye,
Quickly you will die,
On the morning will be frost,
And you’ll go to the graveyard, the graveyard.

Grandfather will come there, too,
And he will bring the coffin.
Grandmother will come along,
Her tears, they will not soften.
Mama sings the prayer song, then,
And falls down on her knees.
Daddy takes you to the grave,
No one can hear his pleas.

Bye-bye, bye-bye,
Quickly you will die,
On the morning will be frost,
And you’ll go to the graveyard, the graveyard.

As the last notes of the song fade away, all hell breaks loose. Those who had been wearing particular sorts of costumes, ones that are more monstrous in nature, may find themselves transforming, growing, twisting, shifting. It's not a clean change, but a violent, agonizing one that cracks bones, tears and reshapes muscles and tendons, pushes out teeth to make room for new ones. Those transformed will find themselves compelled to chase, to hunt, to kill anyone they can get their claws, teeth, or other appendages on.

For those who stay themselves, it's not just their transformed friends who pose a danger, but the decorations they've set up, as well. Those fake giant spiders and webs? They're no longer fake. Neither are any of the other demonic little creatures. The goal of everything in ADI and even outside for those who manage to make it out the doors, is to remind you how very, very mortal you are. Those typically possessed of fantastic abilities will find that they have been sapped away. There's no calling on magic or innate abilities. You are mortal and you are going to die like everything mortal does.

In the chaos, characters will catch glimpses of a young girl flitting amongst the chaos, seeming unperturbed by it all. Trying to catch up to her or speak to her is fruitless, but she's there, and she's humming that song from before.

➥ When He Nothing Shines Upon

(cw: supernaturally-induced fatigue/malaise, thanatophobia)

Those who are killed at the party will find themselves waking up wherever they actually fell asleep a few hours or even days ago. If your character was one of the lucky few who somehow managed to escape the effect, you'll notice people waking up all over ADI HQ and elsewhere. There are no signs of damage on the bodies, but those who died in the dreams will find themselves feeling incredibly weak and generally ill for several hours to several days after the experience.

The music has actually stopped, and this time, it would seem you've actually woken up. Depending on how long you were passed out for, that may be a more unpleasant experience for some than others. There's a message posted from a random ADI employee's phone a few days later to the network:

Mr. S was right. This was fun! I'll have to come back next year to play with you. - Ava, the Lullaby Girl

P.S. Sorry for stealing your phone, horsegirl67. But I wanted to say, hi. C:

Unfortunately, there are no further messages and attempts to respond to the message will receive no reply for now.

But... fortunately…? All of the Halloween preparations are still up, and there's a festive party to attend if anyone actually feels keen on trying it in real life. Pam Ruan, the main organizer is bloody-minded about it now and will have her God damn Halloween party, but those who work themselves up to attend out of festive spirit or morbid curiosity will find it a distinctly muted affair that breaks early in the evening.

Happy Halloween, Gloucester!

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players are welcome to play NPCs for themselves when they are needed in a thread. If you need more information on general behavior for these types of NPCs, please feel free to ask! In general, the information provided in the prompt should be sufficient and you're welcome to make up any details beyond that for your specific scene. The Lullaby Girl (Ava) can be seen throughout character dreams, but they will not be able to interact with her during this event. They will either wake up or simply find that the physics of the dream are warped and she cannot be reached or there's a sheet of glass between her and the character or whatnot.
  
  
• FOR YOU NEVER SHUT YOUR EYE (15-24 October) - Characters are welcome to develop their own devices for attempting to stop the music. Characters will have modern day technology available to them along with a few slightly more advanced electronics and tools. Please do not go too out there. This isn't Tony Stark's array of tools and the like. But characters can create additional devices to test within reason. Some of them may be more or less effective, but with how sporadic the effect is, it might be difficult to tell what's actually working or not. There can also be negative side-effects from devices, if you'd like to play those out. Characters with the appropriate magical charge may also attempt to supernaturally block the music, but this will not be condoned or facilitated by ADI. Characters searching for the source of the music will not be able to find it, just discover that it is moving. For characters who are sleep-talking, they may find themselves unusually honest. They may or may not recall conversations with other characters and all that they told them.
  
  
• TILL THE SUN IS IN THE SKY (25-27 October) - Characters will experience repeated nightmares of dying in a shared dreamscape. They will remember every time that they die in the dreams. Feel free to get as creative and gruesome with this as you would like. These are dreams and fantastical situations that might not actually happen (e.g., a robot showing up and shooting a laser through your character) may occur. Players are welcome to introduce elements of their memories into the nightmares and mix those memories around between characters who might wind up in a dream together. Please ensure all top-levels are appropriately tagged for any and all content warnings. Add content warnings as you go along, if needed. Dying in the dreams will trigger the sense of waking up. This can be a fake wake-up or characters might actually wake for a short while and find others passed out around them.
  
  
• WHEN THE BLAZING SUN IS GONE (28-31 October) - Again, this will be a shared dreamscape where characters will be under the illusion (at first) that all has returned to normal. For those who investigate, everything seems to be real, nothing too off, excepting the night of the Halloween party. Once the Lullaby Girl finishes her song, characters who are dressed in costumes that depict animals or other monstrous creatures may find themselves transformed into their costumes. Transformed characters may gain powers for the duration of this prompt/event related to their monstrous forms without mod approval. Go wild, kill your friends and neighbors, and generally trash everything around you. The decorations that come to life will be attempting to murder all characters, transformed or not. If characters escape into the city, they will find all of the festive decorations out there have come to life and want to kill them, as well. Death is unavoidable for this particular prompt, but it can be something swift and painless or something drawn out and horrible at player discretion. It is the only way to actually wake a character fully. Players also have the option of keeping their characters awake. They will not experience the shared dreamscape and will just be stuck with a lot of unconscious people around them for the duration of this portion of the event.
  
  
• WHEN HE NOTHING SHINES UPON (31 October) - Ava, the Lullaby Girl, cannot be contacted or immediately located, but she will be available in future plots for interactions with characters. There is no immediate information regarding who Mr. S. is. Players may have the general sleep/death malaise last for a minimum of two hours and a maximum of three days. Regular medications for the flu can ameliorate some of the symptoms, but they will ultimately clear up on their own. Characters may wake up in whatever state players would like. Feel free to play out the effects of them having been slumped in a corridor for three days without food or water. It's going to be a bad time all around. Those who attend the real Halloween party will be thanked profusely by Pam and showered with candy. At least they'll get a few HR brownie points?

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Comments

[sorser]

[The night stretches on slowly for a survivor who’s brushed up against monstrous danger too many times for his liking. He’s long since split up from Barnes—separated amid a particularly harried monster attack—and without either his magic or a hyper-trained soldier to aid him, Stephen doesn’t have many options.

The exits are untenable, and there is a surreality to ADI that didn’t quite exist before, as though every path of escape will always be unavailable to them, and that they should simply try to survive as long as they can. Stephen moves down a corridor as quietly as possible, favoring one leg that continues to bleed, a gash cut deep across the calf. He’s bruised and scraped and has been tossed around like a plaything more than once, but he’s still alive — he tells himself, in all technicality, that he’s faced worse.

He pauses when the sound of shuffling echoes down the hall. Something big, something inhuman, something that breathes heavily and hungrily. Stephen doesn’t waste time before ducking into the nearest room, back pressing against a wall, and eyes scanning the environment on the off-chance that this new creature doesn’t just pass him by.

It looks like an empty conference room, with a few chairs and tables already overturned, signs of a struggle long passed. No one else here. That’s good.]

[sorser]

[Fragments of thoughts, each statement of Tim’s severed either by a mind addled by the dream, or a loss of blood that isn’t really happening — is it?

He shakes his head, the memory of the hospital already feeling as though it’s ages away. Someone had been hurt, screaming; are they the ones who are okay, now? It’s hard to disentangle what belongs to Tim and what belongs to himself. He could have sworn that was the Metro, his old stomping grounds when he was someone altogether different.]

I remember Time differently. That looked like oblivion, which— [A shrug of his shoulders, barely noticeable in all the color.] —might as well be the same thing.

Though, we’ll wake up if we can figure out what’s keeping us here. That’s a big “if”, currently. …Are you sure you’re all right?

[A portal opens up, engulfing them whole. It spits them out unceremoniously on the other side, straight into the red-orange dust of a barren planet, devoid of life, with the ruins of what once existed lumbering over them like the husks of dead animals.

Stephen lands in a stagger, though he manages not to fall over, whirling around to make sure that Tim’s right behind him — and that nothing particularly worrisome has followed.]

[sorser]

Without Winter here, a knife would be better than nothing. Better than his bare hands and fists, which would in fact be a far worse detriment.

But since he is here, and far more reliable in this particular set of monstrous circumstances, he’s going to take his word for it. The offer is met with a scoff, but not a dismissive one; what timing. And "if" he survives. Thanks.

“Something tells me you’re a strict taskmaster,” he says, keeping close to Winter as instructed. That’s not a no, technically.

[stations]

"Oh, hey," he greets, and if Caduceus looks closely enough he might notice a little bit of relief slipping into Jack's posture. It's his first time here, it's nice to see a familiar face. His therapist back home is a total douche canoe, it's made him a little wary of talking to people, but it's... also kind of necessary, given what's going on with his stupid broken brain.

"Yeah. Are you like a counselor here? Is there like a... private room or something we go to?"

Vastly preferable to a public area — the other therapist he tried fucked with him by leaving the door open to see how he'd react. Turns out, when you think you sound crazy, you want to minimize the number of people who listen to you sounding crazy.

[stations]

I don't know.

( He snaps finally, abandoning the broom and turning his attention to Stephen properly. Jack's got a mellow personality right up until he doesn't, at which point he loses all semblance of a filter. )

It'd be nice to know if the thing I just died to five billion times is what's headed to my home with my friends, but we can't always get what we want, can we? Did you even, like, check? You know, with your whole... organization full of world-protecting sorcerers? Or were you just like not my problem, job done, let's go get ice cream?

( It's unfair, it's presumptuous, they have no actual way of knowing. Just because it sounds similar doesn't mean there's not more than one cosmic... entity of pain and suffering.

More likely, it's his fraying remaining willpower after months of fighting, his degrading mind straining under sleep-related complications, the feeling of overwhelming futility about his own future, and the emotional fatigue of having died over and over again all coming together that's making him latch onto this unfortunately similar sounding coincidence. He's not exactly considering that possibility yet. )

If you're asking whether or not I did something to bring us here, I didn't. I don't have magic... awesome super powers, which is why it's gonna be really fun to deal with that thing when I get back and it tortures me for eternity or whatever.

[sorser]

[There’s something to be appreciated in the simplicity of it all: when more finely-tuned frequencies don’t work, why not just yell into someone’s ear and startle them awake? And Stephen will appreciate it later, especially when it means waking up circumvents the terrible nightmares that follow, one that had already begun to drag him under.

But at this very moment? With screaming and high-pitched noises booming in his ears? He starts awake, lightning in his veins, and reacts about the same as anyone else would: wide-eyed confusion, then the tearing of the headphones off of his head, followed by total and utter indignity as he gazes up at the man who must be responsible(?). Strands of hair fall across his forehead in this one moment that seems a lot more frenzied than it really is.]

What the hell are you doing?

[Eyes latch onto the man, whose face is suddenly very familiar, which is just another round of surprise and confusion dumped into Stephen’s lap. Because, wait, what—

Only just having returned to reality from sleep-land, it’s only natural he’d blurt out-]

Thor?

[sorser]

[And there it is, a topic that was sure to find its footing between them eventually; Stephen had merely hoped it wasn’t amid a potential nightmare hellscape. But Jack is suddenly all fire, his concern lobbed aside like it was nothing, and now replaced by the bothersome idea that maybe, just maybe, Stephen had sent Dormammu out to terrorize some other world.

His expression hardens, but traces of a shadow line his brow.]

You're making assumptions. There’s no way of knowing that’s what happened. I made a deal, and that deal was for him to return to the Dark Dimension. Even if it were true, I can’t control his actions beyond that.

[He doesn’t have that kind of power. He was obliterated innumerable times as proof. Indignity flares in his gut, but it doesn’t quite overcome the shard of concern, too.]

He was only overtaking my Earth because other sorcerers had instigated a ritual to summon him. He’d likely need the same in your case.

[An invitation to waltz right over and subsume another world. If the track record holds, then it may be a hollow concern.]

[stations]

( It's a frustrating lack of anything for him to either latch onto or feel comforted by; I can't control his actions is absolutely fair, and yet it hits Jack as unbelievably lame in this moment. Fifteen things flair to mind to say — variants on how sending a serial killer away from your house doesn't mean you get to rest easy because you can't control his actions. Any time he tries to formulate the words for it, it sounds stupid — something he'll probably examine a little more deeply in hindsight later. ​)

Likely?

( A little irritated, judgmental skepticism there. )

There's no chance it could be like cool planet, now that I know it exists let's go find another version? Also — ( and way more immediately: ) what the fuck was that?

[thatsreallygreat]

"Yeah, something like that. And sure, I've got a room."

Technically he shares that room with one or two other counselors, but they are never on duty at the same time. He gestures to an open door and follows Jack in. The room is ecclectic, either because it had been thrown together with leftovers or because three different people were adding touches that they thought would make the place more comfortable. Caduceus has to duck to avoid one of the hanging plans and he lets Jack choose where he'd like to sit.

He finds the electric kettle and fills it with water from a bottle, then turns it on to get it heated. There's a few mugs on a bookshelf, possibly Caduceus's contribution to the room: an owl, a cat, another cat, and one that one of the other counselors got for Caduceus.

"How are you doing?" He doesn't ask if Jack is okay. That seems like a foregone conclusion.

[stations]

The room is way, way more comforting than Dr. V's office, which was all... clinical. All the drawers in the patient rooms were empty, free of anything that could cause self-harm. Everything was white and hard-edged, except the pens, which were soft and malleable. Probably to prevent them from being useful stabbing weaponry.

He falters for a second trying to parse out which seat is counselor and which seat is patient, and ultimately settles on the couch. That's kind of what they do in movies and stuff, right? It seems a little presumptuous to grab himself a mug, so he holds off and instead focuses on the question.

"I'm okay," he answers initially, and then— come on, Jack, you idiot, you came to the counseling place, why are you lying? "No, actually, I'm kind of awful. How are you?"

[thatsreallygreat]

Caduceus considers his answer as he retrieves his box of tea from on top of a bookcase. On the one hand, this is not at all about him, nor should it be. On the other, lying to someone who is about to confide in him also seems wrong. He holds the tea box.

"I've been better," he admits. It isn't the nightmares or strange hallucinations that got to him, but turning into a monster that hurt people. "But I'm better than I was. Do you want a cup?"

He rests one hand on top of the wooden box.

[stations]

Reciprocity wasn't really a thing with his therapist; Jack has a tendency to try and reverse-analyze, or to figure out why he's being asked a question rather than answering it honestly. It used to annoy the shit out of Dr. V to no end. It's probably a little less inappropriate (and seems a little less defiant) here, so... yeah, he really is curious how Cad's doing.

And he appreciates the honest answer.

Also, the tea.

"Okay," followed by a pause and a tentative, "...can I use the black cat mug?"

He's not too proud to admit it's adorable, okay. He has no toxic masculinity.

nightmare

[deslumbra]

I do not really know.

[and she isn't exactly thrilled about it. in the typical fashion of nightmares making no sense and defying all natural laws of nature, wanda finds that she's actually walking on the walls of whatever maze-like hallway they've found themselves in. stephen's horizontal half looks like a hospital, her own an inhospitable place with debris covering the floors.

she looks up (or down?) at stephen.]

You are upside down.

[medicative]

"Yes. It's not the time to be showy - survival is what matters most."

To get out of here, to get safe and away from it - whatever it is. She won't open the door until she sees that he's ready, turning the handle and trying to slowly open it so that the hinges won't creak too badly. Whether that's successful or not, she's ready to tiptoe out.

Only, the door opens onto a large open area, seemingly empty - space to flee, to go, to leave this place behind before something else appears. To run feels only natural, only the right way to go, to escape. Always seeking a way out.

What isn't expected are the floodlights that start to switch on.

[sorser]

[Even Stephen would agree that it’s a bit cold, a little too pragmatic—I can’t control his actions—but it wouldn’t e the first time he’d have made a difficult decision at the risk of others. Though perhaps, in retrospect, it would have been more beneficial to add more specificity to their deal, to avoid these kinds of doubts in the first place. He doesn’t like it; it makes him feel like things have slipped away and beyond his control, when he was of a mind that he had done something good for the planet. Even if he did have to break a few rules.

Even a shadow of a doubt is enough to muddy the waters, after all.]

He knew about Earth long before I ever dealt with him. If he wanted to go searching for others, he’d probably have done it eons ago.

[Probably. Likely. He can’t say anything for certain, but he has to at least provide some reassurances — for whatever it’s worth. Whether it’s to make him feel better, or Jack, or both, is up for debate.]

What the fuck was what? Dormammu? Ruler of the Dark Dimension and overall cosmic terror seeking to engulf everything to make it his? [Sarcasm-] I guess you could call him an imperialist.

[thatsreallygreat]

A slow smile creeps across his face. That one reminds him of Caleb.

"That was gonna be my next question." He takes down the black cat and the Mushroom Daddy mugs and sets them by the electric kettle. "Any particular tea you're feeling?"

None of what he has in the box is labeled, but he can put something together to Jack's liking, he thinks, if he knows what he might be feeling. Caduceus sets the box down when he realizes he's sort of holding it like a security blanket. That won't do.

"What's on your mind?"

Sometimes it's easier for people to start talking if it seems like the person listening is also doing something else, sometimes not. He figures he'll give Jack that opportunity.

[stations]

No, not-- that as in him, I mean that as in... us just being there?

( Because fixating on that other part of this conversation isn't going to get them anywhere; Jack can't prove it to justify his anger, Stephen can't disprove it to put it to rest. Digging in any further is just him... losing his shit for no reason. He's perfectly capable of stewing about illogical things in silence like a normal emotionally constipated adult, thank you very much. )

Why- how- why? Did somebody dose me with ayahuasca again, is this like a weird monster-induced hallucination thing, what's happening?

[stations]

"Not really," he shrugs. "Surprise me."

He's not picky, and he's also not super familiar with tea aside from your basic Earl Grey and sleepy time herbal — the latter he drank way too much of when he first got his insomnia diagnosis, with no helpful effect.

Cad's smart. It is a little easier to launch into it when he doesn't have to make eye contact, and when it doesn't feel like he's being leveled with the full brunt of someone's attention.

"Well... I'm a little messed up because... everything that's effected everybody this month has happened to them while they were sleeping. Like, dreaming. But the thing is... I don't sleep. So I don't... really know what's happening to me, or what's... real or not anymore? Which... I'm kind of used to, I mean, hallucinations have been happening off and on for a long time now, but not... like this. I don't know if it means I'm getting worse — it can't, right? Because it wasn't just me, they were other people's dreams. Mostly."

So, in summation: what the fuck?

[ployboy]

God, that sucks.

[Behold: the boy acts his age, says what he feels, speaks without thinking. And it's all because Time and Oblivion are one and the same and he had fished Bruce Wayne (World's Greatest Hypocrite) out from its depths single-fucking-handedly. And subsequently resolved a whole lot of nothing in everybody's lives.

He doesn't want to think about it.

So it's a... small... blessing... to be eating dirt the next instant, yelping more because of the so sudden stop that made him trip over his own feet than because of any pulling pain at his side. He doesn't care about pain so much, anymore. He blabs to save face, to find his footing somewhere]

Yeah. Fine. Who needs a spleen? I've never dreamt of sepsis getting the best of me before. But there's a first time for everything, right, Doctor?

[--even if it's at Stephen's expense.

(This is a twisted cosmic joke. Tim's standing now, tells himself to not jinx anything, and to not even dare to think of Darkseid.)

Hubris. Hell of a drug. --he's being a dick. Tim... ventures on. They've got to... get to the root of this crap, right? There's death. Everywhere. Tim doesn't think he can take it for long.]

A... god took someone important from me. [Even in a confession, it's all him-him-him. Selfish, selfish, selfish.] I couldn't-- I got him back. [The point, Drake, you imbecile.] This place looks like Apokolips.

[thatsreallygreat]

He picks up a tea bag and starts to fill it with a mix of loose-leaf things. He ties it off and makes another one. Something warm and relaxing, with a faint bit of spice that brings a touch of sweetness but not too much.

Caduceus peers over at Jack after setting a bag in each mug, then looks away again as he pours the hot water.

"I've experienced a lot of weird things since getting here," he says. "And I come from a place that most people might think is kind of weird, I'm learning."

Not everyone he comes across, but enough that he's beginning to understand that worlds like his might be uncommon. Caduceus takes the tea bags out once they're done steeping, then puts the mugs on a tray, along with a bottle of honey shaped like a bear, a little jar of sugar, and a small container of milk from the mini-fridge tucked out of the way. He turns and sets the tray on the small table between the sofa and other chairs, plucks up his mug, and finally settles into a chair.

If Jack isn't ready to really look at him yet or have full attention, he can always take a few seconds to prepare his tea.

"I think the barrier between things is a little more shaky here. Easier, maybe, to experience someone else's dreams or fears, harder sometimes to feel if something's real or not. The trouble is that your life was already like that." He looks down at his tea, considering. "I can't decide if that gives you a leg up on the rest of us."

Jack already questions his reality. What happens if he decides nothing is real?

[abrightboy]

“You mean you were also sent packing in disgrace?” Martin said, laughing at his own joke and glancing at his son, who lifted his eyes to meet Martin’s with a glare from under his brow.

[septieme]

"Eating food off the ground" isn't a qualification for any job I know of back in my world or in this one, and for some reason, I don't think yours is any different. I did say "priest" and not "canteen worker", I don't believe I've stuttered.

[she's not even looking at him as she takes another sip of her Sleepytime™ with no sugar or cream, which means she's no longer staring holes at his sugar sludge filled mug. It also means his little eye gestures are completely ignored, F his wasted effort... not rly tbh,]

You're doing the same thing. [Deflecting, but she's heard enough from his yapping facehole to know that he'll just ignore her comment entirely, as he had already clearly done to pretty much everything she's just said. Sure is inconvenient that she can't just brainwash people at will here, smh... Ignoring the fact that she herself screwed up when she first brought up her own habit in front of him, but details.]

What's rude is a man obnoxiously badgering a woman for her personal information regardless of reason. That sort of nosiness is unhealthy and suspicious, you know. And while I am somewhat curious as to what sort of shady ulterior motive a man like you [yes there is clear emphasis on the "you" here, an emphasis that she does not need to elaborate upon,] may have, I don't think I'm bored enough to ask, at least not tonight.

[stations]

It's really nice to hear the situation summarized — he feels understood, which can be kind of rare when most people just default to making him feel crazy. Yes, exactly, you get it.

"Well, I have a leg down on the rest of you so I guess mathematically it kind of evens out?" A little wry, dark humor — before he realizes he's not actually sure if he's ever mentioned it, so he gestures to his leg. "It's... funny because I'm missing one... Amputee humor."

Ha ha. Ha. Okay. Golden rule, if you have to explain it, it isn't funny, it's just awkward.

The humor is obviously and unsubtly a little deflection — the truth is, it's far more likely that instead of deciding nothing is real, Jack will decide everything is real. Everything, every threat, every monster, every misplaced misconception about the person he's talking to. That, in a way, can be far more dangerous. Especially given what he was dealing with back home before he got here, and how many mimics he had to kill.

[thatsreallygreat]

Caduceus blinks, and he definitely needs the joke explained (it's not you, Jack, it's that low intelligence score) but as soon as Jack does, he genuinely laughs.

"That's clever." Maybe he's not quick to catch on to some jokes, but he does appreciate dark humor. Even if Jack is deflecting, it's still funny. Caduceus takes a sip of his tea, lingering over the taste with a quiet hum.

"I know this is maybe going to be something you've heard before, or maybe it'll be something more difficult here, but. I think it's good that you talk to people. I don't know if you've found anyone here you feel comfortable around, but maybe talk to them about being a grounding force. Like... hm."

He ponders. He also shifts so that he's not completely sitting on his tail.

"I think none of us can completely depend on our perception of reality here, sometimes. But something like a code word or phrase from someone you trust. Something that lets you know they're seeing or experiencing something, too."

[stations]

Oh nice, it got him a laugh, cool. Look at him over here feeling about 5% better about himself. Thanks, Caduceus.

The suggestion isn't a bad one either.

"My best friend showed up recently, actually," which is maybe the most optimistic thing he's said. Still pretty muted because that's Jack's resting default state, but decidedly happier than anything else so far. "We already have one code word, another's probably not a bad idea."

Casper Van Dien — it means shit's popping off, duck or move or something! Usually followed by a flying projectile. Jerry spent weeks throwing tennis balls at his head until it became a reflex.

Speaking of which--

"He might, um. Wind up tracking you down to ask you about your special tea. His name's Jerry. If there's anything like that to be found, he'll usually find it, it's kind of his thing. He's the one that ayahuasca'd me."

Also... Jack might have mentioned it to him. Sorry, Mr. Clay.