fh_dungeon | Twisting Paths of the Dungeon, Somewhere, Thursday

Twisting Paths of the Dungeon, Somewhere, Thursday

The pathways of the dungeon had changed overnight. Anyone who had stayed in a room beyond their welcome had found themselves booted out back onto the hallways that belonged to their camp and feeling pressed down by the sudden increase in gravity. The doors of yesterday had closed. Other doors had now opened.

And other routes.

[ pathways | gremlins | space battles | room of the past | flooded room | free space | strange vault | ooc NOTE: room doors not belonging to your camp will lock when you enter. so please designate whether you're from camp 1 or the joint camp 2/ camp 3 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Natalie reached for his shoulder. "Come on, Peter." She'd said that before, but whatever. "Let's just... push through."

Because she thought she could hear something else, and while she hoped that was just paranoia, it didn't lessen her urge to get the hell out of here.

Peter's head shot towards the source of the sound - and the touch. His siblings were never too fond of people touching them with permission, and Peter wasn't much different, especially in this state.

He tugged his shoulder loose and took a few steps forward. "I think I came from over there," he said. "Think I see something there now."

Natalie pulled her hand back without much in the way of a reaction, though she did make note of that for further reference. Getting out was the goal, and she just breezed forward.

But of course she didn't get to the door. Just a hotel room.

"So, tell me that. Tell me that's what this is. Tell me you spent all last weekend and all this weekend with me, pretending you were happy and that you wanted to be with me and that things were working out knowing that you were gonna end this. Tell me that this is the end."

So that was Sam, standing by the bed, staring down at the Natalie who was sitting on said bed, looking down at her lap. About ready to cave in.

And the Natalie who'd just walked into this situation swore under her breath and tried to turn away.

Edited 2013-04-11 17:25 (UTC)

"Damn," Peter said, stepping forward until he stood next to her. "This place is sadistic, isn't it?" Torturing her with break-ups, torturing him with the boredom of those break-ups...

Hey now, this one also happened to be the single most humiliating moment in Natalie's life! That had to count for something! Because Natalie-on-the-bed buried her face in her hands, and started to sob. Quite literally shaking and crying, yes.

So now Peter had seen the two times in her life that she'd been a crying mess to that ridiculous a degree. That was just grand. Natalie-on-her-feet refused to watch, trying to find an exit, muttering to herself to cover the sound her crying past self. "Come on, come on..." But no, it looked like they were stuck here until the room deemed things done.

And Sam just looked at the poor crying girl. He looked pained, but at least he wasn't making a fool of himself. "Okay. I get it. You wanna end things. I really wish you wouldn't have strung me along and made me think things were fine before dropping it all on me now but whatever, it's cool."

"I think they call that passive-aggressive," Peter commented.

He was a dangerous person to leave this kind of information with, definitely. But these days, only if it benefited him on a larger scale, and it was unlikely that it would.

"Mm hmm, he does that," Natalie commented, trying for a neutral, flat tone, and not quite hitting it. "But it's a human thing to do and he was hurt. You do it too, and so do I."

She was really just talking to drown out everything said in the memory. It worked fine enough for Sam adding that he was going home and she could have the room until she felt like leaving. But not the moment where the other Natalie pulled her shaking hands from her tear-streaked face, and stammered out, "I –– I wasn't stringing you along."

Natalie flinched at the sound of it.

Edited 2013-04-11 17:54 (UTC)

Peter looked vaguely interested for at least a moment.

"I wonder why you so often make this the centerpoint of your life."

Because she was damaged and a romantic and a realist and a bunch of other things that didn't mesh well with each other.

"I don't."

""Sure, whatever. Because taking advantage of me being here the past two days, sleeping with me and cuddling with me before doing this isn't stringing me along."

Sam began to pack, shoving things into his bag, and Natalie found that it didn't really matter that she wasn't watching because she still knew everything that happened. This was her memory, after all.

"Oh, don't lie to me, I'm better at it than you are," Peter said. He was still watching. "You've broken up how many times? And you're still surfing on the edges of this black hole because-- what? You think it's the only thing you've got? Because sometimes it feels good? You can get the same experience out of a serotonin shot in your butt."

He watched Sam shove those things into his pack. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're better than this."

He wasn't even really talking about Sam as a person or anything. He'd seen Todd just now and that was the same thing.

"I want to love and be loved, Peter," Natalie said, seriously considering clamping her hands over her ears, now. "I don't think that should make me better or worse than anything."

"I wasn't trying," Natalie-on-the-bed said, pausing in the middle for a breath, "to break up with you."

"But you just did!" Sam snapped "You just did, Natalie. Because I asked you to tell me you wanted to end it and you didn't deny it. You are speaking in past tense. You 'gave', you 'wanted', you've 'tried.' It's past tense. I'm not stupid. And you haven't said anything else one way or the other!"

"It's not in your priorities, and trust me, I wish it wasn't in mine, either."

"I just wanted to talk to you!" The sobbing was starting up harsher again. "I was just trying to talk because I –– I couldn't handle it on my own anymore. And I told you because I thought you deserved to know."

"Don't pretend to know what my priorities are," Peter said. "I want to be loved, too. But I think my self-respect is more important. Besides, this doesn't look like love, and the reason you can't look is because you know it. This is humiliation. You're being humiliated. And you go back for more every time."

"I deserved to know weeks ago."

"It's a two-way street, Peter," Natalie said. Staring at the wall because it was the least hurtful thing here. Sarcasm would work, right? "Two to tango, right?"

"Weeks. Before it got this bad. Before you started using words like doubt and distance and all that. But you didn't tell me until now. And even then, I made suggestions. I wanted to help. I wanted to bend over backwards and do even more to see you."

"He's not even wrong, you know. He's not lying."

"But it wasn't enough for you, Natalie. You do remember telling me that, right? That anything I basically said doesn't matter because I wouldn't be here permanently."

"Will you actually look at this, Natalie?" Peter said. He glanced her way. "Or is it easier to keep going on about love when you're not staring this right in the face?"

Natalie glared at him. "You think easy even enters into the equation?"

"So, you tell me. You tell me what you want to happen, Natalie. Tell me."

"I don't have to look at it," she told him. Not even glancing at the room at large. "I know how it goes. I've had variations of this conversation enough times. This isn't even the time we broke up for good."

"So tell me," Peter said, making a grandiose gesture at the imagery in front of him. "How often did this happen?"

"As this much of a disaster? Just this once." Well, maybe disregarding the conversation where they'd actually broken up for good. That had been equally painful, but not as combustive. And she was doing her best to keep her voice very, very level, now. Like that would protect her, somehow, even when she was honest. "But thematically, almost every time we talk. Just with less crying."

Speaking of which, past Natalie was still doing that, and it made it hard for her to talk. "I just don't want you to go."

And maybe that was the reason. She didn't want to be left alone.

"I love my siblings more than anything on this planet, or in this multiverse, for that matter," Peter admitted. It wasn't exactly something he said often. "Both of them left me. One because I had to send him away, one because she'd rather spend her life with the brother who left than the brother who stayed."

He watched Natalie-on-the-bed for a few long moments.

"I loved them and I wanted them to love me," he said. "But it wasn't to be. We're family, so I'll never be completely rid of them, but there's no point in sacrificing your self-respect when you know it's not going to work."

"It's not a question of me not respecting myself," Natalie muttered, while Sam asked, "Why not?"

"And even if it was, I'd sacrifice some of that if it meant I could be happy."

"Why don't you want me to go? I can't help you, Natalie. You told me that. So, tell me why you want me to stay."

But being happy was hard, wasn't it? Ridiculously so. And then you ended up carrying these kinds of memories around. And trying to be friends with someone who didn't want to do that because he still felt too much, and suddenly you were With Benefits without the friends part.

"Because I love you?"

"You should make that a statement and not a question."

"Val, I was afraid you wouldn't believe me. That you wouldn't believe I could do it."

"Peter, I believe you could do anything, and probably will."

Fun: Peter's memories were getting in the way of it all again. But at least this wasn't a terrible one, and he let the words settle until he was sure that was it.

"I see that's really worked out for you," he said. "I've lost the people I love. I'm still going. I'm not looking back. I'm not letting whispers into my head to steal my dignity."

"You're not letting much of anything else in, either," Natalie replied, finally half turning away from the wall. Hazarding a glance at the scene that she hoped would fade soon because past Natalie still looked like she could barely breathe, and present Natalie was worried about ending up in the same state if this didn't go away soon.

"I'm sorry. I'm just... I'm sorry."

"Maybe not," Peter agreed. "But maybe it's time for you to stop acting like your priorities are much better than mine. If anything, they seem to be making you much more miserable."

"I never said they were better."

The hotel room finally, finally began to fade around them, to the sound of Sam saying "Yeah" like he simply no longer found anything else to say. Natalie shuddered and tried to regain her composure even though she felt like her insides had just been pulled out for the world to see.

Maybe one day she'd be in another cruel room like this and this would be the memory replayed for her enjoyment.

"Oh good, we're not doing the 'special occasion' bit. Guess that's something."

"No," Peter said, though he lifted his chin at the expanse of grass in front of them, the tiny shapes of a twelve-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl just up ahead. "Looks like I'm up to bat again. Hope this is the last one, or we're going to be stuck here for a while."

Natalie wiped the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand and didn't bother being discrete about it.

"I just want to get out of here."

Actually, she wanted to go home. But she'd persevere, now that the focus was off her again.

Twisting Paths of the Dungeon, Somewhere, Thursday

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door

Re: An Aged Door