lottawork: (nightmare)
Nicholas Rush ([personal profile] lottawork) wrote in [community profile] applesaucedream2015-02-13 10:29 pm

sound and fury drown my heart, every nerve is torn apart [open to multiple]

[warning: this dream deals with claustrophobia, hydrophobia/drowning, suicide ideation, mental invasion, alien abduction, and related medical squicks.]

where is the ship

Immediately Rush knows where he is, and the thought fills him with indescribable horror.

He would struggle but he can only drift without purchase, resist without means for resistance. He has no cognitive self-defense. His mind is flayed and open - they have stripped his neurological architecture bare and reassembled it with fascinated laziness, they have analyzed everything he is biologically, fundamentally, psychologically, they know his blood type and the sensation of a hammer slamming over his fingers in the steel mills of Glasgow and the disordered burst of sympathetic nervous overload that generates panic. They've shredded into his head, they've come shrieking into his silence; nothing can be kept in isolation as they eviscerate his subconscious, invade each molecule, unmake his construction, unbury his core, shear into what he cannot hide from them, intimately, with sleek, strategic tendrils of thought that are alien, malformed, wrong.

He is floating in a tank of ionized water in a spectrum of blue-silver-grays. He's kept nothing from them, save what they want to know most.

where is the ship

There is the weight of water pressing down and all around him, the dull tingle of cold against the bare skin of his neck, head, arms. The thing keeping him alive is wrapped around his face and rammed partially down his throat, a silver breathing apparatus clamped over his mouth, silencing him, muzzling him. He is floating in a tank of ionized water and wishing he could breathe the water, fill his lungs with blissful icy fluid and end the endless sequence of prolonged neural attacks. That language, their language, is high-pitched and chittering and utterly unintelligible, an irradiating aural torment that sluices into the layers of his brain tissue and strangles his dread into utter numbness, they will never allow him death, they will never allow him death, they will never allow him death.

He is floating in a tank of ionized water, freezing and alone and psychically paralyzed. One hand slams against the vitreous walls of the tank in frenzied, fruitless desperation, the distressingly impenetrable surface spread beneath his fingers. He hammers at his prison and wishes he could drown.

where is the ship

The water is ionized. The water is conductive. The water is transparent, and so is the glass. A silvered flare of bubbles flutters upward, darting between the tubes trailing out from the subcutaneous entry points beneath his clavicle. Every movement is hopelessly inhibited by the thickness of water resistance, pulling at his clothes and his hair as they fan out in slow drifts. He remembers breaking out. He remembers his prison shattering under application of blunt force and pressure, and he remembers tearing away the mess of tubing and the breathing mechanism and the telepathic entry point stapled to his head, and he remembers wriggling free, getting on a ship, getting out. He remembers this. He remembers it. He remembers Manhattan. It must have happened. It must have. So much has elapsed since then, that cannot all have possibly been manufactured. Unless he has simply never left, and they courteously let him believe otherwise. They could have distorted his perception of that. They're capable of it.

He breathes through a breathing apparatus in a tank of ionized water and his only defense is his hatred of his captors.

where is the ship

They leave him in aching silence. Time drags. It's impossible to tell its passing, until Rush can finally reconstruct his bearings, his physical position, his own name. He is floating in a tank of ionized water, and this time he has no escape. If he were allowed an open mouth, he would howl. If he could thrash at his confinement, he would slam himself into the clear walls with claustrophobic ferocity. All he can do, now, is knock an open hand feebly against the glass and wait for dissolution.

[ooc: this is a recurring nightmare for Rush, so just pick a date if you tag in for dream-y funtimes. For context: Rush has been kept on an alien ship for some time and he sure would like to get off that wild ride. The aliens that took him look like this - cw for unnaturally tall or skinny things - and he's being held in a thingy that looks like this - cw for people jars.]
theoldgirl: (inscrutable)

mmmorning August 24?

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-03 04:32 pm (UTC)(link)
The TARDIS has inadvertently gathered quite a bit of experience identifying and alleviating human nightmares found in the telepathic current. It's unfortunate, what human minds do to themselves, but also natural, so she doesn't usually concern herself with them. Sometimes, though, she comes across a familiar mental presence, a small pinprick of consciousness that she hates to see suffer, and she helps. Because that's what the Doctor and her have always done.

Rush's mind generally seems to be in a near constant state of stress, of frustration or aggravation or anxiety, judging by the few times she's seen it. But this is so much worse than that. This is sheer horror and fear and agony radiating hotly, searingly into the telepathic current and she's worried immediately. There are far too many creatures who seek to attack people in their dreams here, and she's not going to let Rush be hurt in her presence a second time.

She touches his mind cautiously, first of all taking a look around for any outside influence. As she does so she projects her human form doing the same, a slow turn on the spot to scan the scene. He is obviously dreaming about a ship, architecture and technology not resembling anything she's ever seen from humanity in her own universe. Could this be his ship, the one she would have so liked to meet? No, a moment later she has sifted through his roil of emotions and sees that this is profoundly alien and terrifying to him. At least she can't detect another mind, this is all his own pain.

She finishes her look around and faces Rush himself, trapped in a sort of semi-conscious stasis. It's not the sight of the contraption that dismays her so much as the feelings of stifling, blinding confinement and torturous helplessness. He doesn't need to be suffering any of that. Unfortunately she wasn't made to make precise changes in human minds outside of her translation function, so she can't easily brush all this aside and place him somewhere more pleasant. But she can very much encourage his mind to do so on its own.

The TARDIS steps up to the glass and places a hand where his is twitching desperately. When she speaks, her voice carries perfectly through the glass and the fluid. "Nicholas, you are dreaming. You don't need to be here." She spreads a calming sense of safety and wide open spaces over his panic, complete and tightly knit as a blanket, seeking to quell his terror like flames. "You are not trapped."
theoldgirl: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-03 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
It's very regrettable, though not surprising, that his first reaction to her help is yet more fear and resistance. But his mind has already wrought itself into such exhaustion that his brief struggle barely even registers against her gentle but firm influence, and then he stills and she feels his relief. There, see, no reason to be afraid. She's only suppressing his panic for now, she can't just erase it, but once he's calmed down more he should be able to regulate his emotions himself. That will be healthier and more stable, too.

Releasing him from his perceived prison might also help. He is too worn out and passive to break out on his own, not like Johnny did when she'd soothed his nightmare, but his weakness means the setting is a little more easily suggestible than when he had a tight utterly panicked hold on it. She doesn't bother with the control panel behind her, doesn't concern herself much with the internal consistency of this dream, instead carefully imposes a single thought; there is simply no more water. Evaporated, or drained, or whatever he expects of this context, but it is gone and he is dry and the glass slides out of the way with a hiss.
theoldgirl: (concerned)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-03 07:21 pm (UTC)(link)
She steps aside to give him room to free and reorient himself, letting him work through a number of new emotions, mainly relief and confusion. They should start working on a different setting soon; his panic is still roiling and flaring underneath her influence and she'd really like to do something about that. Already some new anxiety is blooming into life, and it seems as though keeping his panic under control is like trying to put out a house fire.

Why wouldn't she do that? What an odd question and she frowns mildly, but speaks with nothing but patience. "I want to help. And there is really no need to be afraid, Nicholas. You're dreaming. You are not on this ship." Aside from not wanting him to suffer, he was hurt before because of her mistake and she hates it; she should not have let that leech-like creature inside. She'd failed to protect those under her care, and she refuses to let him be hurt again, even if it's just his own mind doing the hurting.
theoldgirl: (arguing)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-03 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
His mind really is quite invested in the integrity of this dream, though the telepathic current itself often seems to boost and linearize human dreams in that way too. He's shaking miserably and struggling to make sense of everything and it's just so unnecessary. Why is it never as simple as telling them they're dreaming? Humans are such stubborn little things. It really would be easiest to just wipe away the whole thing and project something new, but she is hesitant to increase her already rather forceful intrusion; it's so hard to gauge how much of her a human mind can bear.

She sighs and nods in acknowledgement of his half-expressed objection, yes, she can see how it feels. The sudden destabilization of the setting doesn't help, and it's another spike of panic that she barely catches before it can spread. She of course stands unaffected by the tremors, but he was already unsteady on his feet to begin with and so scared. So she reaches out to grasp his arm and offer support, speaking with sympathy but firmly, "Don't mind any of this, you are not going to get hurt. I'd like to take you somewhere else, come along." She tugs gently at his arm, confident that the dream is more likely to change on the move than if they remain standing right next to his awful prison.
theoldgirl: (huh)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-04 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
This is not getting better as quickly as she'd like. He is so overwrought that he just keeps finding new things to be terrified of; now he is torn between doubting the dream's existence and hers and that is really no good. But a moment later he offers a disconcerting explanation for why he is struggling so much to believe in his true reality and she stops their awkward shamble down a starkly unremarkable corridor to look up at him in surprise, and then sorrow. His words wouldn't have made much sense to her, if she hadn't taken note of some rather appalling mental scarring in him when he first stepped inside her console room. It doesn't make much difference to her whether this is mostly a memory or imagination, but now she knows which is more likely.

"If they were really here, they would find me quite impregnable and very unkind," she assures him grimly, radiating protectiveness. "And I would not allow them to invade you again. But they aren't, and I have never been to your universe, so how do you think I am here? You know connecting to another mind is possible while dreaming near the rift, we met in one of these before." Reason is what he needs, a straight line of logic out of this mess. The shaking and shivering must be distracting though, so she decides to stretch her reservations about manipulating his dreamscape just a little further and lets a sense of calm and warmth wash over him, the stability and quiet hum of her floors beneath his feet, something to help him think.
theoldgirl: (attentive)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-04 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
Finally he seems to be making some progress and she nods encouragingly as she senses his thoughts, terribly disarrayed by fear and pain, slotting reluctantly into some tenuous but workable order. It would be nice if his genuine effort were a little more stable, but given the despicable thing that's been done to him and left him so scarred, she doesn't blame him for struggling. There is a painfully familiar frustration in being unable to truly alleviate this sort of permanent damage, but that only makes her more determined to change at least this dream for the better.

For now she's happy to follow his suggestion and give him the opportunity to change the scenery himself. A mind like his isn't going to be walking down a nondescript corridor for long. He is a little steadier now, so she releases his arm and takes his hand resolutely, assuring a clear, secure point of contact with her. "Tell me more about your ship," she says as they walk, trying to redirect his focus as subtly as possible. "I would very much like to know what it was like."
theoldgirl: (side)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-04 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
He was supposed to enjoy talking about the ship, perhaps even begin bleeding a representation of it into this hostile setting. But he stops amidst new rising panic and she can only watch in dismay as all his hard-earned clarity starts to disintegrate at her question, dragged back into the relentless context of his dream. She hadn't meant for this to happen, loathes to have made it worse, she needs to be helping. Humans are so fragile and sometimes even she feels a sort of sorrow for that fact.

She squeezes his hand back reassuringly and turns to face his past tormentors by his side, though she sees nothing remarkable about them. Not that cruelty is ever outwardly visible. "They aren't real, Nicholas," she repeats steadfastly. "They can't hurt you, and if they could I would stop them. You are dreaming, and we were leaving." She turns back towards their ill-defined path and gives his hand an encouraging tug. "I will tell you about myself, then, if you come along. You have seen so little of me yet."
theoldgirl: (downcast)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-04 12:12 pm (UTC)(link)
"We are perfectly safe, I promise," she replies patiently, resolutely ignoring the painful noise and sense of threatening pursuit behind them. "There is no one else in your mind. I made sure of it when I found you." She watches his tenuous grasp on surety with concern, wondering how often he's even had this dream. The mental scarring is certainly extensive, and the relentless resistance of this scenario to all her efforts doesn't bode well. She brushes her thumb over his hand in a calming rhythm.

"My planet of origin was called Gallifrey," she begins, trying to think of facts about herself that will be interesting enough to draw in his focus. "I was grown and technologically augmented by the Time Lords there. I travel Time via the time vortex, a plane of reality superimposed upon normal spacetime which allows me to materialize at any point therein with no ill effects on the stability of continuity." That should be quite impressive, even if recalling it fills her with worn out despair and longing. "The vortex is beautiful and I miss it," she sighs. "I'm blind here, I cannot connect to this universe properly."
theoldgirl: (headtilt)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-04 06:44 pm (UTC)(link)
This is exactly what she had in mind; more and more of his attention focuses on her and the grating sounds of their pursuers grow dimmer while the hallway loses some of its oppressive clinical alienness. If he just focuses a little more it might even turn into one of her own and-- the dream is trying to invade again, to pull him back into terror and she narrows her eyes at the harsh figure grotesquely mirroring her position at his side. But he is resisting quite admirably and she is relieved and pleased to see that she has been able to make a difference for him. It's always astonishing to her, the resilience of human beings.

As well as his capability for empathy towards something as fundamentally incomprehensible to him as she is. She appreciates his sympathy and nods in gratitude. "I have endured worse," she says simply, if a little grimly, and then moves on; dwelling on unbearable confinement is the last thing he needs. "In my own universe, I draw most of my power from a star on the brink of collapse into a black hole near my heart. And I reconfigure reality according to the needs of my inhabitants by a combination of particle rearrangement and block transfer computations." She's not sure that last part is meaningful to him, even though it is something he would love, so she tries to explain with clumsy human words to the best of her abilities. "The building blocks of my universe are of a mathematical nature. I... recalculate, and so reality becomes within my structures."
theoldgirl: (haughty)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-04 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
She has just enough time to smile warmly at his understanding and wonder and his continuous effort to cling to stability before he is being torn away from her grasp, and even she staggers momentarily as his mind convulses around her benevolent intrusion. When she has reasserted her place in his mind she finds them surrounded and Rush weighed down with terror, and she really has had enough of this. It seems she's going to have to keep increasing her influence rather than the more desirable opposite, but she has run out of patience with these creatures and the dreadful marks they left on him. Any reasonably healthy mind would have reached a measure of stability by now; this is what they did to him. It's infuriatingly similar to what Zagreus did to Ianto's mind, but these wounds aren't catastrophically sensitive to her presence like Ianto's and she's going to take advantage of that.

The TARDIS places herself in front of Rush and takes measured steps towards the blockade, while spreading more of her influence over the violently scarred parts of his mind like a heavy, numbing blanket, though her reach is too broad and she covers much the rest of him as well. The process drives him further into unconsciousness than normal sleep and someone looking on from the outside might be tempted to call it the beginning stages of a coma, but that is perfectly fine for a little while. He can use the imposed rest, anyway.

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow at the aggressively chattering hissing creatures in front of her and they explode in a cloud of golden particles, but this change, too, is not terribly precise and erases the rest of the hallway, leaving nothing but a swirling bright cloud of energy that pulsates faintly in the rhythm of the TARDIS' engines. Well, hopefully his mind will fill in the blanks for them soon enough. In the meantime she turns around and steps past him to do the same to the second obstacle.
theoldgirl: (attentive)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-04 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
The second group of aliens bursts into nothingness just as easily, wiped out for good now that she is exerting quite a bit more control over his mind than is really wise or proper. It's only a temporary measure and he will recover just fine, of course. He was simply in desperate need of an opportunity to recover, and she would hardly deny her help.

Already he is renewing his efforts to direct the dream, giving her hope that now they can properly work together; she will continue to drown out the nightmare any time it rears its ugly head and he will replace it with something better. She returns to his side and kneels down, resting one hand over his. "You are doing very well, Nicholas. What are you remembering?"
theoldgirl: (excited)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-05 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
His answer puts a small smile on her face even as he is still suffering from his exhausting struggle; she is confident that his old ship is the best place he could be imagining for himself, judging by the feelings of purpose and devotion associated with it. Also, she's glad to get a chance to learn a little more about it. She waits patiently for him to stabilize the manifestation and then gets to her feet, helping him up without letting go of his hand.

Homesickness settles around them like a fog, a bitter longing that is painfully familiar to her. It isn't a positive emotion, but she's not going to meddle with this; it originates from the healthy part of his mind and should serve to ground him here. Instead she looks around, taking in the rather utilitarian, determined architecture. This ship wasn't a place for much comfort, apparently. She wonders if its purpose was equally well-defined and blunt. "Will you take me on a tour?" she asks kindly, looking back to her charge for the night. "I would quite like to... make its acquaintance." Or what is left of it in his memories, anyway.
theoldgirl: (wtf are you on about)

[personal profile] theoldgirl 2015-03-05 04:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Rush navigates this new topography instinctively and with reassuring purpose and she merely has to follow, gleaning rather a bit more about him in the process than about the ship itself. There is a bond here, and feelings of such awe and responsibility that she thinks he would make an exceptionally dedicated pilot. Or perhaps did, before he was separated from his ship. It's likely that he wasn't wholly compatible with Destiny, not being of the race that built it, and that is a shame, but she hopes the ship was able to see past that to a degree and appreciate him nonetheless.

The wide view he offers her of a universe slipping past isn't beautiful to her the way it might be to a human, but she regards it with a yearning sort of fondness all the same, drawn in by the sense of unrestrained travel. Though she frowns at his words, not seeing much sense in it. "What makes you think so?" she asks just as softly, looking up at him. "Surely its architects did not intend for it to travel towards its almost certain destruction."

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