01<@Ardweden> [Day: Monday, September 27. Or Tuesday, September 28? Regardless, it's late.] 01<@Ardweden> [Tyler, Heather, and Tiffany worked on the paper for history class all through the night- or, at least, Tyler and Heather did. Tiffany's phone rang about two hours in, she left the table to take it, and then she came back, grabbed her stuff, and effectively ran off without much more explanation. Something about her mom, though. She looked kind of pissed. Or upset?] 01<@Ardweden> [That wasn't so great because Tiffany was actually the best at that subject, and that left Tyler and Heather to stumble through. At least Heather knows the library pretty well! But who made those Cold War texts so *boring*.] 01<@Ardweden> [That's neither here nor there, though, because they're standing in the middle of a cornfield at the height of summer, plunged into a night made less dark only by the full moon and seemingly infinite twinkling stars above.] 01<@Ardweden> [Start!] 06* Tyler blinks looking around. "What...the...hell..." 06* Heather is in a cornfield! She stares up at the moon. 06* Tyler looks at Heather, he's freaking out a little. "What's going on?" 06* Heather shrugs. "Your subconscious wants you to be a farmer?" 01<@Ardweden> [The moon is beautiful tonight, full and bright, beaming down with a silver glow that Heather feels she can almost swim through.] Riiiight, you've known me how long/ 01<@Ardweden> [Heather and Tyler are wearing exactly what they remember wearing earlier that day. Tyler still has a black eye.] 06* Heather reaches up towards it, in an attempt to see if she actually can. You never know! 01<@Ardweden> [She reaches into the silvery light, and there's some resistance there, sort of thick and almost liquid, but still air. Strange.] I..what happened? Looks like you got punched in the eye. 06* Heather attempts to swim upward. 01<@Ardweden> [It works! Heather starts swimming off of the ground.] 06* Tyler feels very confused and can figure out they are dreaming, but he didn't have his dream catcher and oh god what is this. 01<@Ardweden> [It's not flying, though. Definitely swimming.] 06* Heather swims through the air. "Wheeee..." Not a very enthusiastic cheer but it's there. Heather, why aren't you freaked out? 06* Heather shrugs. "Why should I be? This is fun." 06* Heather swims around. "It's like a pool where you never need to come up for air." Because this isn't right. We were in the Library. 06* Heather shrugs. "Maybe you fell asleep. Or I did. Or Tiffany did after leaving. Who knows?" They were pretty boring books. 01<@Ardweden> [Heather finds that even if she's not swimming anywhere, she still has to tread moonlight to stay afloat. As it were.] 06* Heather does that. Totally! That doesn't explain anything! It doesn't not explain anything, either. 06* Tyler sighs. "So are you my dream or real or... I'm so confused." 01<@Ardweden> [The corn, by the way, comes up to Tyler's shoulders. Them's tall corn.] Or I'm real and you're fake. Maybe you're a butterfly, dreaming you're a man. ...great. The walrus in heather form. Your mom's a walrus. 06* Tyler rolls his eyes. "Fine, you stay here. I'm going to go find a way out." 01<@Ardweden> [Just as Tyler says that, Heather sees an enormous shadow below her, and she's suddenly falling in the lack of moonlight.] 06* Heather shrieks as she plummets towards the ground. 06* Tyler turns and dives trying to catch her. "Easy!" 01<@Ardweden> [Tyler dives to catch Heather, and she lands in his arms... but he loses his balance and falls over into the dirt. As they tumble and sprawl, Heather can look up and see a walrus. An actual walrus. Falling from great height straight for them!] 06* Heather rolls out of the way! Hopefully. "Holy shit, your mom really IS a walrus!" 06* Tyler is suddenly terrified. "WHAT FUCK NO NO NO NO NO NO!" He's diving, scrambling moving to get away. 01<@Ardweden> [The walrus (not to be confused with the Walrus) slams into the ground, snapping corn beneath its weight, barely after Tyler gets out of the way. The thing is a huge, blubbery mass, its great head slamming into the ground after the rest of it. In the silver moonlight, it's clear that it's also wearing, however improbably, a walrus-sized black, flowing skirt and a walrus-sized woman's blouse, though the sleeves are out of line for its flippers.] 06* Heather (assuming she wasn't crushed horribly and dying under the walrusmom) stands up, gasping for breath. "Holy shit," she repeats. 06* Tyler shudders and looks back, taking a deep breath. "He's not the right one..." 06* Heather corrects him without thinking, "She." 06* Tyler shudders more. "Okay. Okay. Calm down. Okay. So. You're here. I'm here. You're not freaked out. Have you been here before? Not here here, but here in general? Dream here?" 06* Heather stares wide-eyed at him. "Do I LOOK not-freaked out to you?! Fuck." 06* Tyler looks around and grabs heather's hand. "Come on. Let's leave this place." He focuses on the haven. That might not be the brightest idea, but it's Tyler and he's going to drag Maybe Heather there. 01<@Ardweden> [Tyler starts dragging Heather through a cornfield! Assuming Heather lets herself be dragged.] 06* Heather is dragged! No serious protesting Come on, I know some place safe. As long as there's no walruses falling from the sky. God I hope not, it would be worse if there was. The real one talks and sings and... It's like Barney and the Teletubbies gangbanged the Beatles and had a sarcastic cartoon character kid. Who wouldn't want to gangbang the Beatles? 06* Tyler is silent as he keeps dragging Heather. 06* Heather is dragged! 01<@Ardweden> [Above flies a UFO. Seriously, they don't know what it is, but there are some twinkling lights involved, and they weren't stars. It disappears as soon as they notice it, though.] 01<@Ardweden> [Besides that, it's just the sound of insects and the smell of corn and earth. Ignoring the terrible experience of nearly getting crushed by a walrus dressed like Tyler's mom, it'd be like any midsummer night in the rural Midwest.] 06* Tyler sighs. "Damn it. I can't find it. I thought it would be nice to be somewhere safe and we could relax and you don't need stupid shit happening to you like that." He stops and just drops to the ground. "You're pretty and fun and why the hell is someone as good as you wrapped up in this shit?" 06* Heather eyes Tyler on the ground. "I've been called a lot of things, but 'good' usually isn't one." 06* Tyler shrugs. "You're good. You don't cause issues." 06* Heather leans forward, giving Tyler the opportunity to look down her shirt. "You say that now, you don't know me that well." Maybe I should get to know. 06* Tyler smiles a bit. "I promise I won't run away screaming when I do. I'm sure you're good" 06* Heather quirks her mouth. "And if you're wrong?" 06* Tyler laughs. "I'm not that scared off and you're cute" 06* Heather straightens back up. "Do you want to have sex?" 06* Tyler nods. "Sure. We can." 06* Heather sighs slightly. "Okay." She starts removing her shirt. 06* Tyler starts to undress as well, going slowly, a bit bashful. 01<@Ardweden> [Tyler is blushing. He is *totally* blushing.] 06* Heather has her top of in short order. She stands with one hand on her hip, the other holding her bunched up shirt, and watches Tyler expectantly. 06* Tyler moves in, close, kissing her cheek, being gentle. 06* Heather doesn't raise an objection. She doesn't particularly move to kiss him back, though. 01<@Ardweden> [And they Do It. Well, they don't immediately *do* it. There's making out first, after all. Tyler's strangely gentle, and Heather's strangely passive (given she asked), but they do get to the doing it part. Afterwards, at least mostly naked and definitely dirty in the silver moonlight of the corn field, they're catching their breath, and they hear a voice - a male voice - from above and to Tyler's right. "Man, you are such a fucking virgin."] 06* Tyler jumps and looks up over his shoulder. 06* Heather tiredly glances thataway. 01<@Ardweden> [Standing there, arms folded, is Josh, greasy hair and all. "Probably best," he says, "Thought you were a fucking faggot." He nods to Heather. "How's it feel to have the sloppy seconds?"] What? WHAT? WHAT! 06* Tyler stares broken. 06* Heather smiles up at him. "Fuck you too, Josh." 01<@Ardweden> [Josh smiles back at Tyler, wide and cruel. Upon hearing Heather speak up, he turns his smile to her. "Bet you'd love to. That's all you're good at, isn't it? Being a fucking slut."] 06* Heather sits up. "At least I'm real." 06* Tyler starts looking confused, shaking his head. "Fuck off Josh, you watched me fuck her. Who's the faggot?" 01<@Ardweden> [Josh throws back his head and laughs. "You didn't fucking *mean* it." He looks at Tyler, and it feels - to Tyler - like his eyes are somehow burning into him. "You were doing it 'cause it was fucking well expected. You don't have the guts. Just like you're not gonna stop me from doing what I want to do." And with that, he starts moving for Heather.] 06* Tyler watches Josh. "You're fucking wrong. Not here." He tries to grab Josh's legs to stop him. 06* Heather gets to her feet, looking indignant at that. "In your dreams, Josh. But not this one." Regardless of whether or not Tyler catches his legs, she throws a punch at him. A wimpy girly punch, maybe. 01<@Ardweden> [Tyler grabs for Josh's legs while Heather throws her punch, landing it squarely in his stomach. He doubles over slightly, then goes, "You little BITCH," he snarls, slashing out with a knife while Tyler grabs his legs and pulls. Josh is fortunately thrown off balance and 'only' slashes Heather across her arm instead of somewhere deeper and worse.] 01<@Ardweden> [And Josh falls and Tyler can do his follow up. As for Heather... that fucking hurt. She's never gotten *slashed* before. Blood's already welling up in the cut.] 06* Heather stares at her arm, wide-eyed. "Ah...!" She clutches at it, grimacing in pain. It may be a dream, but it sure felt real! 06* Tyler snarls at Josh. "Fuck you Josh. FUCK YOU. You never cared about me, you never cared about any of us. You're just waiting to hurt us!" He's just punching wildly at this point. 01<@Ardweden> [Tyler gets on Josh and he punches him. And punches him. Josh starts laughing, but with Tyler's punching, that gets pretty difficult. His face becomes increasingly unrecognizable, turning into a bloody mess.] 06* Heather is too distracted by her own bleeding to say anything. 01<@Ardweden> [Eventually, Josh stops laughing. For that matter, he stops moving.] 06* Tyler doesn't stop punching for a while after that and finally does breathing heavily. 01<@Ardweden> [When Tyler stops, he can see his own knuckles are bloody and raw, some skin having peeled off of them.] Fuck shitter. 06* Heather finally glances from her own wound to Tyler, then Josh, then back to Tyler. 06* Tyler rolls off the body. "Come on. It's not safe here. This isn't a good place to be." 06* Heather scowls at him. "So what, I guess you're expecting me to be grateful? I was just the damsel in distress you needed to finally face your fucking issues?" Fuck you, you have issues here too. You wanted to be raped? You don't deserve that. No one deserves that. Tiffany doesn't deserve that. He was real enough to do that and more. Screw it. I don't need you. You'll just betray me like the rest. 06* Heather stoops to gather her clothes, hastily getting dressed. Blood gets on her shirt, but she doesn't care at this point. "Not so sure I'm 'good' now, are you? You're just like every other guy I've slept with. You all claim you understand me. You say you care, you say I'm important to you. You say you don't believe everyone else. But once you've got what you wanted, it's 'fuck you, Heather'." 06* Heather glares at Tyler as she slips her shirt on. "Well you know what? This isn't the real world, and I don't have to take shit from anyone here, so fuck you too." 06* Heather stomps off angrily, not waiting for a response. 06* Tyler laughs hard. "Fuck you. YOU got what YOU asked for then you didn't care or need me anymore. Don't you dare turn this into my issue. It's all on you." 06* Heather calls back, "Yeah, they all blame me, too." 01<@Ardweden> [And so they storm in opposite directions, their feet getting impossibly light and the moon getting impossibly bright until they both groggily wake up, their faces in Cold War books in the library. Fortunately, nobody drooled.] 06* Tyler grabs his stuff and starts to pack up quickly. "Heather. Good luck. Seriously, take time for you and don't go looking for a guy." 06* Heather checks her arm for injuries, quietly responding. "Uh." Smooth. 06* Tyler snarls. "Everyone will betray you eventually. Best if you don't let them close. Sorry it happened so fast." And with that he's storming out. 06* Heather glances at Tyler as he leaves, whispering just as he exits, "That's the truth." 01<@Ardweden> [End!]