And the Boats Drift On [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

The water is calm, and the night sky is filled with stars. The only light is natural: a patchy, bioluminescent glow coming from the water below, and the bright swath of the Milky Way above. It's not much, but it's more than enough to see by.

The dreamers will find themselves sitting in their own little rowboats, each stocked with two oars, a length of rope, some cushions, and a little picnic basket full of snacks. There is no visible shoreline, but it won't take the dreamers long to realize theirs are not the only boats in this shallow sea. Anything stirring in the water, be it fish or paddle, causes phosphorescent plankton to glow a bright blue, so there isn't really anywhere to hide.

Feel free to paddle around and visit the other dreamers, perhaps tying your boats together and sharing your snacks in an impromptu picnic. Or you could go for a swim - the bioluminescence makes it difficult to see the bottom, but it's not too terribly deep, so the risk of drowning is all but nonexistent. This setting, unlike the last one, isn't actively out to kill you. Or you could simply lie back and look at the stars.



[ooc: Same drill as always, folks. All are welcome, regardless of whether or not your character is in the game. Characters may remember or forget dream shenanigans at the player's discretion.]

Comments

[theoldgirl]

Gabriel doesn't need to ask twice; with the Doctor gone, he is the very last comfort left to her. She reaches out to him gratefully, and utterly refuses to engage with the dream, simply appearing in his boat leaning against him rather than trying to climb over.

"I dislike boats," she informs him stiffly, still just as tense despite the reassuring softness of him and all the plush. She might be mistaken for sulking, if her strained mood wasn't perfectly justified.

[has_a_horn]

He wraps an arm around her and smiles, tight lipped, as if he's holding back a larger grin. She might be able to tell that something is worrying him, but he's trying to not think about having seen Lucifer earlier. She has her own things to worry about and, if the Doctor doesn't reappear, it's going to become a problem for both of them.

He offers over a glass of wine and dips his head down to kiss her cheek. "You don't like boats? Is that some sort of boat/ship superiority complex?"

[theoldgirl]

As she scoots closer into his embrace, she glances up at him, noting a sort of guarded unease in him. A part of her is suddenly afraid that he might have something unpleasant to confess, again, and she would almost rather just not know of it at all. So she decides to wait and see if he'll bring it up on his own.

Instead she graces him with a put upon look for his silly question, though it's somewhat mitigated by his kiss. "I am not that sort of a ship," she tells him in a slightly scolding tone, taking the offered glass. "My physical form reacts extremely unfavorably to the unsteady motions. I do not enjoy being reminded of the sensation." She takes a sip of her drink, only to raise her lips at the sour taste and tilt the glass towards Gabriel, along with an expectant mental nudge. Something sweeter would be greatly appreciated here.

[has_a_horn]

She's a time machine that gets seasick. It's probably a sign off how far gone he is in loving her that he thinks that's cute. If the water were choppier he might attempt to even it out for her sake, but tonight this ocean (or whatever it is) is about as calm as it gets. There's a very gentle lapping against the side of the boat but for the most part it's only their movements that causes the boat to jostle at all.

When she nudges at his mind he smiles and fulfills her unspoken request by switching out the contents of her glass with an incredibly sweet dessert wine.

He's still upset about his brother's appearance, but being with her is helping to ignore the feeling. He takes up his own glass and takes a sip before looking up at the stars. This doesn't feel like Earth to him, and the stars seem to confirm that suspicion. None of them are in the right place for this place to be mimicking anywhere he's familiar with. "Do you recognize any of them?"

[theoldgirl]

She takes a sip of the new drink and then nods appreciatively, trying to let its sweetness and his affection ease her tenseness a little. That's not so easy though, when she can still feel his own restlessness at the edges. But she makes the effort to go along with his chosen distraction for now, resting her head against his shoulder as she follows his attention to the sky.

"Mutter's Spiral is in the right place, but the rest..." She gives the constellations her careful consideration, using a part of her mind that functions far more like an impossibly fast computer than anything organic to compare the image to the recordings in her databanks. After a few moments, she shakes her head lightly. "Whatever universe the rift is drawing this image from, it isn't one I have been to." Which is fairly depressing, to be shown stars she isn't allowed to explore.

If there's so little comfort to be had in his distraction, she might as well find out what is bothering him. Careful to only show him her concern without her trepidation, she gently brushes against his unease. "What's the matter?"

[has_a_horn]

He's grateful for her asking, and a little disappointed in himself that his worrying had been so obvious to her. He wants to comfort her, not burden her with anymore of his own problems.

Instead of answering her immediately, he keeps looking up into the sky. "Maybe it's random. Or someone else's memory, from a different universe." He lifts his hand up and makes a wiping motion with his hand, replacing the dream's stars for them with those that belong above Las Vegas in late spring, a hundred years before a single building was built there. It's still as dark and shining as before, but now it's a little more comfortable to look at for him. Hopefully, it will make her feel a little better about this dream too.

He sighs and looks down at her. "I saw my brother here. I think it was really him."

[theoldgirl]

The sentiment behind changing the stars isn't lost on her and she tries to appreciate his concern, but ultimately what she sees here isn't real enough to matter to her either way. Especially when there are things that do matter, like his answer to her question.

And it's not one she could have been expecting at all. Immediately her mind is full of more questions - which brother, what happened, what news of his kind, of his universe? But after a moment of stunned hesitation, she meets his gaze and settles on, "How was he?" Perhaps the rest will follow.

[has_a_horn]

"The same. Like the last time I saw him." He takes her hand in his and threads their fingers together, seeking a little more comfort.

"He's not in New York. I would know." If any of his family ever make it though the rift, their presence would be like a beacon. Impossible to ignore. Logically, he knows that it would be a terrible thing for Lucifer to appear in this universe, but there's still a part of him that wants to be near his family- no matter what.

He sets his glass aside and runs the freed hand over his face. "He doesn't know anything. He's still tumbling around in the cage with Michael." Or, at least, that's what he said was the case. "Lucifer."

[theoldgirl]

She reacts to his request for comfort quickly, brushing a thumb over his hand and warmth and sympathy against his mind. As conflicted as he feels about his family, it's not difficult for her to understand that meeting one of them but still being alone in this universe would be troubling and disappointing.

The rest of what he says doesn't make as much sense to her; she's not sure what cage he is referring to, or what 'tumbling around' in it entails. "I know very little about your brothers," she reminds him gently, wondering if he might feel a little more inclined to talk about his family than usual now. Going by the literature, Lucifer doesn't seem like a pleasant individual, but she's never put much stock in those vague sources, and he's the one who taught Gabriel illusions, so there must have been affection there. "I'm sorry he had no news of your kind, though."

[has_a_horn]

"Mm." He hums in answer, but her nudge has reminded him how little she really knows about his family beyond the biblical stories. He's still reluctant to explain everything. It's a very long and very complicated history, but he can give her some context.

"He tried to kill me, the last time we met. He an Michael were going to go for the final showdown...jump start an apocalypse, destroy the Earth..." For a while he thought maybe he should let them. He'd gotten so tired of the fighting and the mess and living. It felt like an inevitable conclusion. "The usual."

But he didn't want to see either of them dead, and he didn't want to see the Earth burn away in the crossfire between them. His only choice was to see that they got locked in the Cage. "I couldn't kill my brothers. So I gave out the info that'd get 'em both locked away in hell for good."

[theoldgirl]

Well. That certainly makes a few things clearer, like his sometimes low opinion of his family and why he is so slow to trust. She frowns as she hears his explanation, concerned and a little horrified, and her mind thrums with sympathy. It sounds like he made the right decision, as hard as it must have been to lock away his brothers forever. Better that than kill his own kind.

"I am glad you were able to save the Earth without sacrificing them," she says after a moment, a little distantly, but still stroking his hand. "How did the rest of your family feel about this?"

[has_a_horn]

Gabriel shrugs. "The other archangels were already dead in one way or another..." They had been his real family. The ones he'd known the longest and loved the most, and there's an ache of loss there older than the recent shock. "And after good ol' Luci tried to shank me, I went off the radar so..." He trails off and listens for a moment. "So I never knew what they'd've said."

He looks down at the TARDIS and raises his eyebrows. He needs to quickly give her this information, because Johnny is in trouble. "A friend needs a rescue. I'm bringing him here. I'd appreciate radio silence on the angels thing."

In the next moment, Johnny is sitting at the foot of the bed.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny whips around violently, tension snapping back, abruptly freed from the weight and pressure of his latest tormenter. He's - on a bed? No, still a boat. A bed in a boat. His flailing causes it to rock a bit as he turns to see, mercifully, Gabriel, and not just Gabriel but the TARDIS as well, sitting close to him, holding his hand in fact. What? What?

Doesn't matter, he's so overcome with fucking relief to see them both.

"Oh thank god," he says, his voice choked and trembling, as he scrambles towards them, desperate for contact. "Gabriel."

[theoldgirl]

The TARDIS is a little startled by the interruption, one moment sharing Gabriel's grief at the loss of his family, the next sensing his attention abruptly drawn to something in the distance. But she has time enough to raise her eyebrows at him in return, feeling it rather unnecessary to remind her not to give away his secrets to anyone, even an apparent friend.

Of course, when Johnny appears, she goes from startled to outright shocked in a second. They're friends, too? And oh no, he needed rescuing again? Even in a dream that isn't strictly his, it isn't hard to feel his mind still racing with panic and the aftereffects of pain, and that quickly overshadows all confusion.

After staring at him in bewilderment for a moment, she sits up straight and reaches out for him with her free hand, concern washing over her. "John! What happened to you?"

[has_a_horn]

As Johnny crawls up next to the him, Gabriel wraps an arm around him and looks him over. He seems physically alright, but it'll take a while before all of that panic washes away. "You're okay now. Good job remembering to call me this time." He means it. He'd like Johnny to be able to reach him when he really needs him, and this definitely looks like it applies.

He looks askance at the TARDIS when she calls him by name, (well, John, which sounds a bit weird to his ears.) curious about how they know each other, but he'll wait til Johnny is settled before he asks about that.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny presses immediately into Gabriel's hug, clutching at his shirt for a moment before reaching out to meet the TARDIS' hand. There's residual pain and panic still, but he's safe here with the two of them, and he can feel his heart rate and his breathing slowing, bit by bit. Eventually, once he feels like he can actually talk, he shifts back a bit, eyes downcast as though he's ashamed (and on some level he is, of course). He wishes he could just swallow it all up and never think about it again, but it'll always haunt him just like everything else, and anyway, they might be able to help him better if they know. He draws a breath and closes his eyes against their inevitable reactions.

"Two things," he says, spilling it out in a single, monotone presentation. "First, Zagreus attacks me, we fall in the water and he holds me under until I drown." He grimaces slightly. "I woke up and then... I guess I fell back asleep, and then, fucking immediately, this redheaded psycho woman shows up, I have no idea who she was, but..."

He gives an involuntary little shudder, the pain still etched into his skin. Just finish, finish the damn recap and then you can work on blotting it out. "She tried to make me tell her... my story? I don't know," he mumbles. "I don't even know what that means, but... when I told her I didn't want to, she... she hurt me."

He curls inward slightly and leans back against Gabriel, breathing out slowly. "And then I called you, and that's all."

[theoldgirl]

Johnny's still frantic motions are making the boat rock enough that the TARDIS stiffens a little, gripping Gabriel's hand more tightly. But she is too focused on the boy's distress to object, and she listens to his recount with rising anger and disgust. She'd known about Zagreus, but the details are outrageous and she feels bitterly hateful of it, of him. And apparently now there's someone else out there who callously hurts others at the slightest provocation, just what everyone needed.

As always she wants to comfort Johnny, to soothe his anxieties and help him recover, but he seems a little more drawn to Gabriel. She doesn't exactly mind, though she is still a little confused and rather curious about that, and she can't help probing at Gabriel's feelings for him a bit. At the same time, she squeezes Johnny's hand reassuringly and then lets go so he can settle in with them more comfortably.

[has_a_horn]

After the TARDIS squeezes his hand, the boat settles back to normal quickly. He's reminded that she doesn't enjoy the motion, so things should stay fairly level and gentle from now on, even if Johnny decides to move around again.

He feels the TARDIS looking a little closer at his feelings, and does nothing to hide from her. At the moment, the most she'll find lies in his concern for Johnny and his frustration at him getting hurt again while he wasn't around to help.

He rubs at Johnny's back, hoping to comfort him while he wonders who this other person is, if not Zagreus. It seems like Johnny can't catch a break. "You're safe here."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny nods, and shifts around nearer the TARDIS, sitting cross-legged before them, wanting to be close to both of them if he can. The more he manages to calm down, feeling relieved and protected, the more his nerves are replaced with intense curiosity about what he's just stumbled into. He really had no idea they knew each other, arguably the two most important people he's met so far. He's happy he can see them both at the same time, though he feels a little awkward too, like he's interrupting.

He draws a couple deep breaths and lets them out slowly, gradually calming himself down. He's fine now. Everything is okay.

"I'm really glad to see you both," he murmurs, pulling away slightly to glance between them. "So, uh." He smiles faintly, not sure how to ask this. "Hhhow do you two know each other?"

[theoldgirl]

It's interesting and heartening to see that Gabriel feels much the same about the boy as she does. She can't help him in the waking world, so it's reassuring to know that Gabriel is looking out for him too. Not that that stopped him from getting hurt once again, she thinks and shares in Gabriel's frustration. Sensing Johnny's need for contact and wanting to comfort him as he calms down, she opens her free hand to release a large blue morpho butterfly. It flaps over to Johnny and settles on his arm while she smiles at his question.

"We met here five months ago. We are... very important to each other." She glances at Gabriel to see if he'd like to elaborate. Although she likes his Enochian word for what they mean to each other, she can't translate it accurately enough for it to make sense to Johnny.

[has_a_horn]

Gabriel smiles at the butterfly, then shifts his gaze over to the TARDIS to smile at her instead. Just by the way he's looking at her, it would be clear to anyone that what she said is true, but he's more than willing to elaborate. "She decided to introduce herself by dropping into one of my dreams. We got along, so it grew from there." After they managed to finally trust each other. The recent lapse in that trust had hurt him more than he cares to say.

It's strange to him that all of this has happened over a span of months. For as deeply as he feels for her, and for as much has happened between them, it seems like it should have taken longer. He dips his head to kiss her cheek. "And wow did it grow."

He looks back to Johnny, gauging his reaction to this. "The amazing sex doesn't hurt the situation. Like, really good sex."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny startles slightly when the TARDIS sends him a butterfly, only because he doesn't expect it. He smiles warmly when it alights on his arm, gazing at it for a moment as its wings fold open and closed gradually, then glances at the TARDIS with a grateful smile. He still remembers the first time he saw her butterfly room, or the warped approximation of it, how desperate he'd been to help, and how helpless he really was. He'd felt that intense protective desire before, maybe only once before, to take care of a weakened creature, but never on that scale, thousands of them all around him, and tied inextricably to a being he holds in such high regard. That she would give him a little reminder of that now, almost like it's a secret they share, makes him feel such an immense swell of affection, it's nearly overwhelming. There's absolutely no analogue for this in any of his life experience so far.

And that whole internal revelation comes before Gabe elaborates, and when he does, Johnny feels like the floor has dropped out from under him.

He stares at them with momentarily unmasked emotion, a mix of emotions really, shock and fascination and - what, jealousy? Eagerness? Something he can't quite pin down. He recovers quick enough, covering it with a lopsided grin, a bit amusement and a bit disbelief.

"No shit," he says. "I'm just trying to picture this. God and timeship."

Jokes aside, holy shit, they've fucking had sex. He wants details to an improper, embarrassing degree, but he's afraid to ask for them. He's afraid, too, to let it become clear (or clearer) how much they both mean to him.

[theoldgirl]

Not even that kiss can stop her from giving Gabriel a fondly exasperated roll of her eyes for that additional remark, not out of any sense that it might be private, of course, but because she'll never understand why he chooses to brag about that of all things. Though she's far more interested in Johnny's reaction and watches him curiously.

Just like his pain and terror earlier, it's easy now to get an idea of his affection and surprise despite not being in his mind proper. It makes her smile, glad to have helped change his mood so completely. Besides, having apparently rather impressed him with their relationship is a bit amusing. God and timeship indeed. It's clear Gabriel doesn't explicitly mistrust the boy, so he probably mostly just enjoys the reverence the title affords him. She's not going to comment on it, but that doesn't mean she can resist a mocking mental prod at Gabriel, a sort of metaphysical really now?.

Anyway, now it's time to satisfy her curiosity too. "And how come you two know each other?"

[has_a_horn]

At the mental prod from the TARDIS, he raises an eyebrow at her. Not telling Johnny that he's an angel in a completely reasonable precaution, as far as he's concerned, especially given how interested Zagreus is in the guy.

"I assume you two met in the dreaming? I met Johnny during the whole...Godzilla thing." He waves a hand, brushing away the importance of talking about Godzilla or the events of that day. "And he agreed to come live in my building." He smiles down at the TARDIS, then shift his glance back to Johnny. "I helped him discover his latent bisexuality."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny blushes, laughs awkwardly, and averts his eyes, picking at his shoes. "Yep," he confirms, eloquently.

He glances over at the TARDIS, feeling especially shy with the two of them together like this. "I, uh, met her in the park, actually," he murmurs. "But I can only really be around her here. In the dreaming, I mean. If I get too close to her, uh, physical form, it... hurts."

Why does he feel so embarrassed to explain this? He wraps an arm around himself, hand clasping at the opposite shoulder, curling inward. "It's because of what I can do, I think."