Work Text:
This is his house. Dude lays on the floor of his house, knowing full well that it doesn't exist, he's dreaming, and he's lucid, which is pretty cool, but this is, nonetheless, his house. He groans and gets to his feet, (bunny slippers?) and tries to take stock. Okay. He's wearing some absolutely absurd clothes, but he's not really inclined to run around wearing nothing, so sure, he'll keep it all on. He checks the window, and that opens in a pretty smooth motion, not just open-close, there's an actual state where it's moving between those positions. Sick.
He pokes around the place, finding screaming people running from him. They're in his house but aren't people he's used to seeing- Of course they aren't, dreams are like this, they just throw random shit together with no reason. Dude shoves past them, barely feeling them, just understanding that he's making contact with completely smooth bodies. It's unnerving, and he does his best to not think about it. None of this is real.
The garage has a shovel in it. It's a normal shovel, except hey, no it isn't, it's also a chainsaw. This detail passes right through Dude without pausing to let him take it in, and he picks up the shovel. It's comfortable in his hands. He checks out a room to the side, and there's a key that he doesn't quite pick up, just gets near, and it disappears, but he understands that he has it, and that's good enough?
Pausing in the living room, he sits down on a couch he's not entirely sure was always there. Something is really off about this place. It doesn't exist, for one, but it keeps- Wait, there's no one down here anymore? Dude searches the downstairs, but yeah, no people. Did they just leave? He stumbles up the stairs and into the attic, opening it with his key. The people are there, and they shy away from him. He looks to the side and finds a gun.
It's in his hands. He knows how it works, and also knows that the obvious place to test it is the people in front of him. They're trespassing. He shoots them and douses his attic in blood. That's that, then. He heads downstairs, and hears someone leaving as he does. Nothing's moved when he looks around, all his furniture is right where he left it, and... And..?
Dude shakes his head violently. Get it together, you're dreaming, he fusses at himself. He holds his shovel again and shoves his hand straight into the rotating blades. It doesn't hurt him at all, though he can see blood flying and painting the kitchen a dark red. This place is the fucking worst. He leaves the house. It's a bright day. Infinite identical lawns and cookie-cutter houses span the sky in loops and rings.
Someone shoots at him. He shoots back, thoughtlessly, and keeps staring at the sky. Nothing comes to mind when he thinks about it, but he keeps looking, so something about it must interest him? He closes his door behind him, no way to lock up, but he doesn't think this is a bad neighborhood. He walks down the street, looking at all the boarded-up houses juxtaposed with backyard parties and cheerful people. Odd.
The end of the world spans out before him, a gap in the road. All that tax money towards fixing the roads, and this is what comes of it? No respect for anyone not holed up in those high-end neighborhoods with their rich people funding everything themselves.
Time seems to stand still on that precipice. Dude turns and wanders into a party. One of the people there cheerily invites him in, offering him something off the grill. He accepts it, not really knowing what it is, but he knows it smells good. He does not set down his shovel, which makes eating one-handed something of a challenge. It's good food, he thinks. He's not too sure he's eating it. Another partygoer throws back a can of beer and eats three burgers in quick succession. Dude claps politely.
He leaves. The street seems a lot more friendly than it did a few minutes-days-weeks ago. He goes back to the ruined road and finds it paved perfectly. Going down that path, he finds himself unbothered by the various gun-toting old men wandering about. Of course they're fine. He's got a gun too, though right now he isn't holding it. It's... It's somewhere. He has it.
No one seems to mind when he opens the few unlocked and unboarded doors on the street, so he peeks inside a few houses. One is stuffed to the brim with toilet paper. Suddenly full of whimsy, he takes a pack of the stuff and starts tossing rolls over the house next door. He laughs, delighted, and continues on his way.
Another house has people in it, corpses with gems hovering above their heads. Dude comes back to his senses for a moment and shoves one of the bodies off a bed, sitting down on it himself. Seems his lucidity is coming and going. Not the worst thing in the world, though it's certainly annoying. He resigns himself to laying in bed until he wakes up. Nothing outside seems too interesting, and he'll just go back to his whole "part of the dream" business. Dude goes to kick off his slippers, but finds they stick to his feet no matter how much he shakes them.
Irritated, he sits back up and goes to tear the slippers off by hand. They don't move in the slightest. The rabbit ears sway, but nothing else shifts from where it has seemingly glued itself to his foot. He's mostly just very annoyed at this, when, in some kind of suddenly-calm daze, he tugs at the shirt of the corpse he tossed aside. That doesn't move either.
Dude sits still for a while, then gets back up and leaves the house, refusing to think about anything at all. He thinks anyways. It's a dream, this is normal for those. Not remembering any other dreams he's had in years and barely remembering being awake doesn't mean anything. He's in a dream, they do that. But he's lucid. The clothes thing doesn't mean anything, his brain is just trying to put less work into things, for whatever reason. Probably the bullet still in there.
His thoughts shift to that other him he knew for a while, that just up and left. Dude has his voice. Did he always? He enters another house and curls up on their couch, shutting his eyes. He can still see. This doesn't matter, he's just asleep, none of this is real, it's fine, he's just having a bad day and his mind is playing tricks on him, it likes to do that, see?
He knows all of this. He also understands that he's just some part of the dream, same as everything else in it, and despite knowing that this probably isn't true, he can't get the thought out of his head. He's fake, like everything else in the place. Dude curls up tighter. He's thinking for himself, doesn't that set him apart? But everyone else here acts unique, even if they look the same. They don't have faces. He does, he thinks. He doesn't want to check.
There's nothing else to be done for it. Dude checks, and yes, he's got a face. And sunglasses, and a beard. So much unlike all the normal people scattered across this neighborhood. He's more like the things that try and shoot anything that isn't one of their ilk. That would explain the shovel. Dude leaves the house, apologizing to the inhabitants, and takes up wandering again.
Once more, time doesn't work quite right. The sun never rises or sets, nor does there even seem to be one, so Dude simply walks down a street until he can see above him a place he's already been. Right above him, or right below him, depending on where you started looking from, is his house. He jumps towards it, thinking for a second that maybe he could go back, but nothing of the sort happens and he's left with an arm extended towards the sky. He keeps moving.
However long he spends on the street, he spends it in a haze. People around him are cheery and he is polite back, though he never remembers what he or the others say, he just knows that conversation is happening. Why would it happen between two fake people with no one around to see it? He looks around, wondering idly if the actual dreamer is anywhere nearby. No such luck.
He never sets down his shovel, though he has long since stopped thinking about his gun. He's long since stopped thinking about most things. Until someone walks past him and he realizes that they're unique, almost, he spends who knows how long standing in place and doing nothing. The person who walked past him, though, they- He's familiar.
Dude chases him. It's a slow thing, Dude having to get used to moving again, and this other person walking at a steady pace away from him. Dude calls out to the other man, or he intends to. No sound escapes his throat, which he had until now forgotten he had. He tries again.
"Hello?"
It's a pitiful greeting. The other man turns to face him, and looks exactly like he does, if wearing a bit more clothing. Dude could laugh in relief. Either this is the dreamer, and everything makes sense and Dude does not have to worry about his own existence anymore, or he's found another one of whatever he is, another of his type like everyone else has. The other him tilts his head curiously. He isn't holding a shovel.
Dude isn't entirely sure what he's doing when he catches up to the other him, he simply extends the shovel in an offering. It's taken, and the other him leaves, and Dude stands still where he is, waiting for nothing. It's a nice day out.