[Open] Price is simple, Rather sparing. Time is slipping.

[ghflskhu_ph]

Who: Bill Cipher + Arya Stark + and YOU!
Where: IN YOUR D R E A M S-- no, literally.
When: During Sleep Curse event
Rating: PG at worst, will follow up.
Summary: A catch all for the Sleep event! Bill has a deal to make and dreams to visit! Need a companion in your comatose slumber? Want someone to laugh at you while drinking a martini while you angst about your regrets in the nightmare fire room? LOOK NO FURTHER!
The Story:

[Catch all OTA:]

Bill watched the communicator with rapt attention.
It's a crying shame it had already been announced the Sleep spell would last a mere 24 hours. Having a surplus of hostages he alone could communicate with would have made for a great bargaining chip! Still, not a total loss. He has more than a few people he has been intending to visit, and now makes for the perfect time.
In fact, with this amount of people falling prey to Henry's curse and unexpected dreamscapes cropping up left and right, it's getting a little harder than usual to navigate them. Bill wouldn't be surprised if he wound up in an entirely different dream than the one he intended. Those new rooms of pure misery and hellfire certainly looked entertaining!
Who knows, maybe you might even walk in on him.

[Closed to Arya]:
From the moment she first answered his call it seemed this was destined to happen. So ready to ask questions, to curious for answers-- so vulnerable a state. Bill barely needed to impose any will at all in tugging Arya Stark's conversation in his needed direction. She was ready to make a deal.

Peering into the girl's memories, Bill reached for something familiar and comforting. A large room with thick fabric-laden chairs, with wooden floors and a roaring fire. That was just the tip of the triangle, of course! As a bonus he kept the atmosphere loose enough for the girl to bend the room's make-up however she pleased. A bit of trust to help ease her in. Didn't want to scare off his first customer in Wonderland, after all!

Both parties had a bit too much of something to gain.

Comments

[punful]

He doesn't flinch when the glass smashes, but his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around his ketchup. Glass is a problem. Glass, ceramic, some materials are just good at shattering wildly, and the patterns of flying shrapnel are erratic, almost impossible to dodge. All the glass is ending up in the fire for now, though, and...and besides, it's just a dream. Bill could theoretically hurt him as much as he wants, but it won't carry over into the real world.

Shouldn't carry over.

Probably won't carry over.

"yeah, well. taking away a pretty fundamental pillar of reality tends to be a bit of a rug pull at first. gotta learn how to keep your balance. otherwise it trips you up."

Still trips him up every time he feels that stumble-jolt of a Reload, but he's gotten better at getting his feet back under him.

"what do i know, though? i'm not a watchmaker."

[ghflskhu_ph]

It doesn't escape Bill just how tense Sans is appearing to get over a little glass shattering and the Triangle smashes the next tumbler even harder, in the hopes of more provocation. The skeleton's words halt the drive for violence by quelling it with curiosity, however.

“IT DOES, HUH?”

It's spoken casually, but it's more of a question than it probably should be. Apart from what felt like a blink of his time running Weirdmageddon, Bill could scarcely recall the last time he felt much of anything, the amusing synapse firing from his various puppets aside.

One didn't feel themselves 'tripped' up by traveling through the various nooks and crannies of space and time when none of it was real to begin with. Reality was an illusion-- It was all in his head. Well. Not usually his head. More like whatever sap happened to be constructing his living space at that given moment. That wasn't the point.

Bill can't just dismiss Sans words so easily though. Its probably the first bit of info he's been fed from the other, that wasn't composed entirely of puns and evasion. Still. There's something annoying about it.

“SOMETHING is only UNPLEASANT when its DIFFERENT from what you KNOW. BALANCE is MEANINGLESS unless you decide RIGHT SIDE UP, is the only way to be.”

If Bill no longer felt the disorientation of being lost to space and time, the rest of existence could adapt- and if they couldn't what good were they for any way? The triangle snaps his fingers and the whole bar flips upside down, He, remaining perfectly in place. Sans wants to keep his balance? Let's see him think fast enough to keep it.

[punful]

Sans doesn't react further. He's always had a hell of a poker face. If you only give people the bare minimum and do your level best not to let anything bother you, then no one ends up knowing what parts of you to pick at. It's infinitely safer that way.

The question is interesting, or at least Bill's tone is interesting, like he's genuinely not sure. Like he genuinely doesn't know. Used to knowing how things will play out, isn't he? Used to moving the pieces around on the board himself, planning for every eventuality.

The universe has ways of throwing that type for a real loop. Or at least Wonderland does.

"heh."

He's about to say more than that, but then the world flips.

He's been through this song and dance before. He knows a certain someone who liked to mess around in his head with shit like this, changing orientations, changing perspectives, changing--values, in a sense. The world shifts on its Y-axis, and it's like that tug of blue, the feeling of gravity switching its direction.

Still, Sans isn't very good at being startled. It takes him a second, and his eyesockets widen as he tumbles a few feet toward the ceiling. But it's a dream, either way, and this is no different than being blue. So halfway there, he just teleports and lands easily on the ceiling.

He looks around.

"...man. looks like it's been awhile since grillby cleaned up the cobwebs."

[ghflskhu_ph]

Watching Sans sufficiently flounder, even for a fraction, considerably brightens Bill's mood. For a moment there, he was starting to feel as if he wasn't in total control. This was a space not entirely of his creation. Could it be the red room was trying to manifest not just Sans but his OWN emotional turmoil?

PFFFT. YEAH RIGHT!! As if Bill even understood the concept of regret enough to be affected by this sad spell's tendencies for self reflection! Pathetic.

Bill's eye looks down- up? to Sans from where he is standing, still impassively failing at washing the dishware.

"YEAH, you'd think having a FIRE MONSTER for a BARTENDER and all that ARSON his HEAD would be causing woulda taken care of that problem."

He reaches for San's unfinished ketchup bottle. Hmmm, to drop it or not to drop it?

[punful]

Sans resigns himself to just hanging out on the ceiling for awhile and leans against a support beam. It's mostly just boring up here. Down here. Whatever. He's pretty used to gravity being essentially just a suggestion, so the grammar doesn't matter.

He shrugs casually. Just a skeleton on a ceiling. No big.

"what can i say? it's magic. he doesn't burn anything unless he wants to."

Also, he's pretty sure Grillby has fire insurance.

Sans watches Bill go for the ketchup and his expression turns mock-forlorn.

"aw, come on. don't go wasting perfectly good dream condiments."