applesaucedream | Can't Stand the Distance, Can't Dream Alone [open to all]

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Can't Stand the Distance, Can't Dream Alone [open to all]

The sleeping rifties might have a difficult time realizing they're dreaming this evening, in part because tonight's dreams are atypically vivid, even compared to the rift's usual efforts. Perhaps that is because it's drawing so heavily from the memories of the dreamers, themselves, and using that information to recreate their home worlds in stunning detail. And that is the real reason the dreamers might not be eager to accept the unreality of the situation: the situation is one that many of them have been hoping for for months or even years. In their dreams tonight, the rifties are going home.

Perhaps they arrive in the same moment that they left. Perhaps months have passed at home, or they might even find themselves arriving before their departure point. But those are small details when compared to the overwhelming realization that they're back where they belong.

They're not alone. Many dreamers will find the rift has given them a companion for the return trip. Well, an uncomplicated return home is probably more than anyone could have hoped for, anyway. And for the unwitting visitor, perhaps another universal displacement will be easier to bear with the addition of a local guide.

[ooc: usual dream party rules apply; all are welcome, and dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Also at the players' discretion: when their character arrives in their 'home universe,' and how many (if any) locals they'd want to run into.]

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Seth nods tersely. It'll have to do. It's not the most reassuring, and his stomach is in knots thinking about what could potentially happen once they get there. But... Well, what choice does he have?

He doesn't manage to return the smile. There is, at the moment, very little to smile about. Currently he's leveled out a little, but he knows as soon as they're inside, he'll be fighting off another breakdown. Which could get not just him, but also Daniel killed. He needs to focus on keeping it together. On just following Daniel and doing what he needs to.

Finding an entrance to the bunker, one aside from the entrance Daniel desecrated, proves to be more of a challenge than he would like but they find another grating that leads to the underground hallways eventually. There are no surface sentries and the weapons fire is pretty limited to what they can hear in the city, so Daniel assumes the insurgents have staked out tightly around the gate. That would make sense; it's the symbol of their rebellion, and it could prove vital in negotiations.

His stomach wrenches a little at the thought and Daniel fervently hopes Jack isn't bargaining his life for the offer of military support to the rebels. He knows he's been gone long enough for Jack to get desperate, maybe desperate enough to pull something as ill-advised as that. Moral qualms aside, that scenario would just see more lives pointlessly lost on the battlefield.

They get close enough where Daniel can glimpse a few sentries around one corner. He ducks back before they notice and nods to Seth.

"All right. Stay behind me, phase out if they get too close in case a shot gets lucky. Gateroom isn't far but it'll be packed and it'll be noisy. First grenade is the diversion. The second is my signal that you move in." He digs out a pencil and a slip of paper and scribbles seven symbols on it, offers it to Seth.

"Those are the symbols you dial. Stick to that order, and don't go through until I say. All right?"

He searches the other man's gaze, jaw locked. He wishes Seth still had the gun. He doesn't want to send him in defenseless, but at least he has a means of evasion.

Seth nods at the instructions, accepting the piece of paper. He studies the symbols, trying to commit them to memory enough that he'll recognise them quickly. He doesn't know how many symbols there are in total, so it's hard to say how long it would take. He keeps the note held tight in his hand, since it's pretty important he not lose it.

Finally he looks up and nods, teeth gritted. He doesn't quite trust his voice at the moment. And to be honest he's almost a little glad he doesn't have a gun. One less thing to focus on, and he doesn't think he'd be much good with one anyway.

Now he can just concentrate on a few simple things. A) Try not to get shot, B) try to avoid Daniel getting shot if he can, and C) open the gate. He supposes as long as it's not a fatal wound, they can deal with getting shot as long as they get through the gate. A military base would probably have the equipment to patch that up. That's one good thing at least.

"Okay." Okay. Deep breath. "Okay."

He shoots Seth a brief, fortifying smile and tears out from around the corridor, opens fire on the two sentries. Before they've even slumped against the walls, now slick with trailed red, the sounds of running footsteps and shouting indicate he's raised a decent ruckus. Daniel stoops to retrieve one of the fallen rebels' weapons and bolts down one of the adjacent hallways, praying Seth will wait for his signal. He leads his pursuers on a brief but merry chase before he's able to pick them off, then doubles back to start shooting his way to the bunker's gateroom.

The one-man assault works surprisingly well, at least at first, primarily thanks to the confining nature of the halls and the rebels' general disorganization. They've been gaining ground through force and conquered resources, not necessarily due to any great tactical skill. As anticipated, most of them have clustered around the gate as their holy symbol. Daniel pulls the pin out of grenade number one and lobs it into the small, vulnerable tomb that is the bunker's gateroom, steels himself against the crescendo of panicked shouts and the scramble of doomed footsteps.

It goes off in a loud spray of dust and howls, then silence.

Daniel breathes.

The remaining rebels will start spilling his way any minute, and Daniel needs to head them off to give Seth time. He tosses the signal grenade in with a nauseating tearing in his chest; he doesn't dare confront what kind of man he is in that moment.

He locates suitable cover a safe distance from the gateroom, takes his position, loads his second-to-last magazine, waits for them to come and hopes they come quickly, before he has enough time to examine what he's doing for his and Seth's sake.

It takes an awful lot of willpower for Seth to keep a clear head at this point, following after Daniel. He very deliberately does not look at the bodies - for a moment he wonders if he should grab the other one's gun, as a deterrent, but he doesn't know how to work it and he doesn't think it will actually stop the rebels unless he actually hits them, which he doesn't want to do. Besides, he doesn't want to run into an Earth military base armed either, if they have no idea who he is.

He mostly manages to keep out of sight, though at one point two rebels spot him unexpectedly and start shooting. Being on as high alert as Seth is probably capable of, the bullets pass right through him, and he ends up ducking through a wall into a thankfully empty room. While there, he can hear the first grenade go off and he closes his eyes for a moment, trying not to contemplate what is happening, trying to distance himself from the reality of it.

When he steps back out through the wall, the two who had spotted him are gone, and Seth continues on his way, his mind filled with steely resolve to try to block out the fear and disgust. Once the second grenade goes off, he hurries into the gateroom.

It's not pleasant. For a moment it's all he can do not to throw up again. The worst thing is the smell, he realises, which is also the hardest to block out.

But the pedestal is easy enough to spot, and at least he can focus on that. Just dial Earth, and it will be fine. It's a bit more complicated than a phone, with something like three dozen symbols, and he unfurls the piece of paper, which has gotten pretty wrinkled from how hard he's been clenching his hand around it. It takes a lot of effort to hurry while still being certain he's pressing the right keys.

But each one lights up in an encouraging way when he presses it, with satisfying chinks, and there's lights on the gate as well. He presses in the seventh symbol and looks up at the gate. Nothing seems to be happening, and there's a flash of panic that he did something wrong.

The gate lights abruptly go out, then light up again with the chunking of locking chevrons as someone else starts dialing from the other side.

A fresh wave of blue sprays outward then compresses into the shimmering wall of its localized wormhole. Immediately, a good dozen or so heavily armed soldiers pour through, all clad in SG-team BDUs. Several train their weapons on the first figure they see, the one that apparently was attempting to dial out before Earth could get a lock on Tegalus.

"Rebel?" one of them asks, directing the question at the colonel present.

Daniel, meanwhile, is being forced into a retreat. His last magazine stutters and the gun clicks, useless, and he's left with no other options than to run and hope that Seth's managed to dial the gate successfully. He sprints down the hall but there's no sound of pursuing footsteps, just a clatter that would indicate -

He grimaces and speeds up. Why would he be the only one with grenades?

With the constraining nature of the bunker's schematics, Daniel knows there's no way he'll be able to clear the blast in time. He registers it hollowly and tries anyway, pushes himself forward, he can see the bunker gateroom just ahead an instant before the outward projection of force slams into him and kicks him forward. The momentum carries him in a stunted, skidding roll and he can hear distant shouts, make out the faint pulsing glow of blue from the gate - Seth got it open, he did, but there are too many people in front of it, did the diversion not work? Daniel knows the explosion's done something but his nerves feel like they've been burned out and he can't distinguish one form of pain from the other.

He needs to get up and move but he's having enough trouble staying conscious.

Edited 2014-12-06 18:34 (UTC)

Seth watches the unresponsive gate with increasing dread, until something definitely happens, but somehow it doesn't seem to be him that's doing it? He jumps back in alarm at the sudden eruption of what looks like water coming out of nowhere.

And then suddenly there are guns being pointed at him again, and Seth's arms go up automatically, the universal sign of oh God please don't shoot. The outfits match Daniel's though, which affords him a glimmer of hope and relief. As much as you can have when you are being threatened with firearms. Hopefully these are the reinforcements Daniel mentioned.

When someone asks if he's a rebel, he shakes his head fervently, even if they weren't actually asking him. And just in case they decide to open fire, he's keeping himself intangible, despite the toll it's taking on him. He knows he'll have to stop doing it before they decide to touch him, lest they find out what he can do, but while all those guns are trained in his direction, well...

And then all of sudden there's another explosion, and Seth whips around immediately. "Daniel!" It would be impossible to stop himself from reacting, and equally impossible to keep the desperation and terror out of his voice. Seth's frozen in place, wanting to run to Daniel, but terrified they'll shoot him if he does. Oh God, please let him be alright, oh God...

"Jackson!"

"Oh, fucking christ."

"Come on, get him out, get him out!"

There are numerous hands moving him and apparently trying to be gentle about it but Daniel's ears are ringing too loudly for him to make sense of it, much less recognize who any of the words belong to.

He dimly registers, however, the one figure that is not uniform, that stands with its hands up and is so plainly terrified, and Daniel remembers Seth, Seth needs to get back to Earth too but those are an awful lot of guns aimed at him for a precautionary measure and Seth doesn't do well with guns, even with Daniel's limited exposure to him he knows this but the foreign hand that reaches to support his head comes away slick and red. At some point he exists in an upright state though not of his own volition. Someone must be supporting him. Someone - he can't tell who.

"Seth." Daniel must align all his focus to make the word articulate, he concentrates all his willpower to get his eyes to stare at the shape that he desperately hopes is Seth, that certainly resembles Seth but his perception of movement is so delayed that he's having trouble believing it.

"He's a friend," he slurs, wishing he had the muscle memory to implement pointing, just so he could pick Seth out from the smeared mass of shapes that is all he can distinguish currently. "He's a friend. Doyouundersan'?"

There's a colonel nearby, probably, and that's who he's going to assume that question got forwarded to. The SGC puts a great deal of faith in its colonels.

"You sure, Jackson?"

"He's pretty bad off. Sir."

"You think the man's taken a complete leave of common sense?"

"Think he had any to start with?"

"For fuck's - you!" The words are barked with more hostility. Directed at Seth? Daniel hopes so. "Come on, let's move!"

Daniel needs to warn Seth about the transfer, how disorienting it can be the first time through, but he's falling through the gate before he can pin down the words necessary.

Seth realises dimly that he's shaking again, but he almost can't feel his body anymore, it's like all he can feel is the panic and despair at seeing a bloodied Daniel being carried towards the gate. For a terrible moment Seth thinks he might actually be dead, but no, he's moving, he's conscious, he's looking at Seth.

His voice is so weak and slurred that Seth can barely hear him, and when he realises Daniel is calling him a friend, there's a sharp twist in his stomach that reminds him yes, he does still have a body and it is capable of feeling things that is not fear. And all he can do is watch, he wants to help, he wants to run over and help carry Daniel and reassure him it's going to be alright, to not let him out of his sight, but he can't.

He flinches a little at being suddenly addressed, the combination of worry about Daniel and the guns pointed at himself giving him an incredibly heightened sense of anxiety and skittishness.

However, there's only about a second's hesitation before he does what he's told, following towards the gate. He assumes at this point they won't actually shoot him unless he does something obviously aggressive, but he doesn't know what they'll do with him, and it's pretty obvious they're not even slightly inclined to trust him. He keeps his hands out from his sides and clearly visible, even if he is very obviously unarmed. It's not like he could really hide a weapon in what his basically his pyjamas. But he's hardly going to take his chances with this.

He hesitates again at the liquid-like substance, but he's not given any chance to steel himself for it, because almost immediately someone roughly nudges him in the back with the butt of their gun, and he more or less stumbles through.

It's not a fun experience, but at least it's over quickly. He doesn't have time to really take in the room he enters, except for it being grey and utilitarian and filled with even more guns pointed in his direction, because going through the gate after already being so weakened and strained and pushed to his limit makes him completely disoriented. He half trips, half simply sinks forward onto his hands and knees, and for a moment he can't stop himself from retching, even if he probably expelled all he could earlier. He lifts his head and he can see Daniel being carried off, and he desperately wants to follow, but he neither thinks he's allowed nor able to.

The medteams have gotten an incredibly impressive response time down for obvious enough reasons, and they're just as unfailingly adept at performing their jobs as usual when Daniel comes through. He's out by the time he hits the embarkation ramp, and Seth will have to deal with SGC security on his own.

"Stand down," growls the colonel wearily at gateroom security, his name patch indicating him to be Col. Reynolds. "Just a refugee. I'm assuming?"

The gate security teams reluctantly lower their weapons, eying the latest recipient of Daniel Jackson's insufferably charitable humanitarianism guardedly.

"All right." He's not pointing a weapon at the guy but he's looking at him like he'd like to. "We're taking a walk to iso, so you can spill. Why was Jackson so sold on getting you here?"

Seth despairingly watches Daniel disappear out the door, and it takes him a moment to readjust his focus to his actual surroundings, the people who now have to deal with him.

He wipes at his mouth with his sleeve, though there's nothing there but some spit and dust. He's remained remarkably blood-free in this whole affair, apart from the few scrapes and minor wounds he's gotten from shrapnel and debris. He hasn't had time to examine himself, he just knows he kind of hurts all over. But surely some of that is simply his mental state, shock, whatever.

Sitting back onto his heels, he looks up at the man speaking to him. He thinks he might be too exhausted to go anywhere without help, but judging by the phrase 'taking a walk', he's not sure he has much choice. The rest of his words take a bit longer to parse, and his brain seems to be working unbelievably slowly now he's no longer in mortal danger. He wouldn't go so far as to say he's safe, but he's no longer moments away from death.

Jackson, he realises after a moment, means Daniel. 'Iso' takes a bit longer. Isolation? He prays that's not what he means, because that sounds like the last thing he needs right now, but again he's not sure he can really argue. He also doesn't know what to tell them. Telling the truth isn't always the best idea with hostile government personnel, but since he has no idea what they want to hear, making something up would probably be even worse. Especially since Daniel is not here to speak for him. He'll at least have to stick with the things he's told Daniel, so that when Daniel wakes up, their stories will match.

"I'm from Earth," he says, his voice sounding surprisingly hoarse. He holds out the piece of paper he's been clutching this entire time, since he no longer has any need of it, and hopefully it shows that Daniel had definitely been intending for Seth to come here. "He was helping me-- We were helping each other get back."

Not that he was an awful lot of help. More of a burden, definitely. Daniel would probably still be fine if didn't have to drag Seth around everywhere. Sure, Seth had saved their lives earlier, but Daniel probably wouldn't have needed saving if it weren't for him. And now Daniel is injured, and who knows if he'll even make it, but no, Seth can't bear to think about that possibility right now.

Edited 2014-12-06 22:24 (UTC)

"For the love of - all right, come on." Without invitation, Reynolds hooks one arm under Seth's and pulls him upright, casting around for the nearest SF he can hand him off to. "SG-3's done here. Someone gonna get this guy to iso?"

Someone does. Seeing as he's not in a state of medical emergency, two someones, both SFs and with very little consideration for Seth's apparent discomfort, escort him up six levels and through the subterranean halls into a small and windowless room furnished with one table and two chairs and little else, where their orders have apparently decided they leave him while the information makes its way up the appropriate strata of command and back down again.

For hours.

This is not typical protocol, but the implementation of subconscious terrors in nightmares hasn't stopped with Daniel's own past regrets; it's pulling from Seth's lingering fears as well and applying them just as liberally.

That doesn't mean Daniel's subconscious won't be throwing Seth a bone, however. Eventually, after the seemingly interminable waiting period, the door opens.

Seth flinches automatically upon being grabbed, but as much as he wants to pull away, he doesn't. He's done this before. This is all painfully, sickeningly familiar. Right down to the featureless underground corridors. He wonders where they are, how deep down they are. America, presumably. Though not necessarily, it might just be an American operation. Apart from underground, there's really no way to tell, apart from asking, and, well. Even if he had the mental capacity to inquire about such things, he doubts his escorts would be chatty.

As it is, Seth remains quiet, and they don't ask him anything further, and then he gets dumped into what is definitely an interrogation room.

Under different circumstances, he might've railed against this treatment. Demanded to be seen, to be informed what's going on, to be acknowledged at all. He knows himself well enough to know he's not above lashing out at his cage and his captors.

Two things are stopping him. One is the hope that soon Daniel will wake up and come see him, or speak for him, and that if Seth behaves aggressively then that will definitely count against him. The other is that he's just so completely exhausted. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. Spiritually too, but he's not sure he's been all that great there for ages.

Most of his time is spent on the floor, leaned against the wall. There's a chair there, sure, but it's not actually that much more comfortable, and when he's all alone it somehow just makes everything more stressful. So exposed, in the center of the room. He'd rather be along the edges, back to the wall. It's easier on his claustrophobia, seeing as much of the room as possible, rather than having it pressing in from all directions.

Time passes unbearably slow, and it's impossible to guess how long he's been in there. He's tired and hungry and thirsty, but physical needs seem to take a backseat. Regardless of how tired he is, he couldn't sleep here. He wonders if they'll keep him in here long enough to go into withdrawal. He wonders if it's already starting.

He breaks down twice while waiting, each time until it seems like there's no more emotion or tears to wring out of him. He's not even sure what he's specifically upset about when it happens. It's just all too much, and it doesn't seem focused on one particular thing. Sometimes the sounds or the images of the people Daniel killed. Daniel asking him to kill. Memories of his Daniel, the one who knows him, both things that happened and things that didn't. Gabe, and Johnny, and his apartment. Kelly, or Shannon. Even Manchester, which he hasn't seen in years. Happy and sad things alike. The topics capable of upsetting him seem endless.

And then, at last, at long last, the sharp sound of the door opening, and Seth lifts his head to look.

A silver-haired head pokes its way into view. "Helloooo."

He locates the guy at last, huddled in the corner and not in one of the two perfectly serviceable chairs that are right there? Jack O'Neill is a little offended. The accommodations aren't great, sure, but chairs have gotta be better than floor, right?

"Hey there," he says, a little cheerier than the situation really merits but he's just received the first piece of good news to come his way in months and that's bound to make him a mite chirpy. He enters the room bearing a tray of nondescript food and bottled water. Both objects get set down on the table as Jack takes a seat in the chair closest to the door, which has swung quietly shut behind him, leaning back in an untidy slouch of disarming unprofessionalism.

"Commissary grub." He indicates the tray with swing of a hand, nudging the chair opposite him with one toe meaningfully. "Not five-star, I know, but gotta be better than that offworld stuff. Yeesh."

He looks at the room's other occupant expectantly. You gonna come out of your hole there, gopher?

The main reason Seth doesn't stand up immediately is confused surprise. Well, that and the exhaustion probably plays its part. But largely it's because he's taken aback with just... the amount of cheer, which seems extremely discordant given Seth's situation.

He feels like he's seeing one half of a good cop bad cop routine. But the surreality of it at least shakes him out of his thoughts a little, since it's so completely against expectations, he has no choice but to deal with the present rather than what he thinks is supposed to happen.

Seth wearily gets to his feet, approaching the table and sitting down with a certain amount of trepidation. Still, the offered meal is impossible to pass up at the moment. "Thanks," he says, opening the bottle and gulping down a good quarter of it in one go. It's not even that cold, and yet it's blissfully refreshing.

"How's Daniel?" are the first words he speaks once he sets the bottle down, a little breathless now.

He moves slow and caged and it's not like Jack blames him, it's just that he doesn't get why base security toted him all the way here instead of to one of the guest quarters. It's not like he poses a whole lot of threat. Maybe a teaspoon of threat. A thimble.

"He'll be sore in the morning," answers Jack amiably, one eyebrow arching up at the stranger's concern. Daniel doing that intense-personal-bonding thing with offworlders isn't new, and neither is the immediate first-name basis. Daniel has that effect on people. "Still out. But he'll live." In a stunning turn of events.

He leans forward, dispelling some of his lighter air, but his expression doesn't shift from its amalgamation of expressively bored and politely curious.

"So." Brightly delivered, pitched upward, laden with meaning. "Let's skip right over the weather. Mind telling me a bit more about you, yourself and...you?"

That was meant to be mildly clever. Which it was, damnit. Not quite the intensively sincere spin Daniel would put on it, but supposedly he's gotten that routine already.

A whole lot of tension seems to drain out of him at the news that Daniel is going to be okay. Not all of it, not even half, because there's plenty tension to go around. But it makes everything else just a bit more bearable.

That seems to be all the pre-amble they get, though. Right on to the amble.

"Uh," Seth answers eloquently, unsure where to begin. Unlike Daniel, he's never been the most good with words, and his abilities are currently very limited.

"Seth Johnson," he says, picking a new last name, though not a very different one. He tends to switch them up whenever there's a significant change in his life, and this is, well, it's certainly significant, but he's gotten used to the J.

From there on, what else to say becomes less obvious, but he struggles on. "From Manchester. Live in Manhattan. Was there, until I.. wasn't. Suddenly I was in that, um, that gateroom, on..." He frowns, concentrating. "Tergalus?" Close enough. "And Daniel saved me."

Unsure where to go after that quick summary, he starts picking a little at the food. He certainly won't turn it down, but it's strange to be interrogated while he's having dinner. Or, the other way around, probably.

This summary will surely lead to questions he can't answer, but in any case they'll wonder how the hell he got there, so he might as well be upfront about having no idea. Well, he has some idea, but not one he can easily explain and not sound like a complete lunatic. Besides, mentioning the Rift brings up so much other stuff. Some of it he would prefer not to share.

Edited 2014-12-07 01:18 (UTC)

Well that's a lovely, wonderful, terribly fascinating, completely ordinary story that doesn't even begin to explain what section of woodwork this little security breach sprang from. Security breach. Now that is just - really, come on now. The guy doesn't look like he actually meant to security breach anything, let alone one of the most highly classified military facilities on the planet. And yet, here they are. One of life's many mysteries.

"Yeah, he does that," drawls Jack, folding his arms. "Real savior complex...thing."

He watches Johnson for a minute with the sort of faint unconcern that means he's less unconcerned than he'd like to display.

"Speaking of which." Moving right along, why don't we? "I'm hearing all sorts about your little planetside escapades. Word 'round the water cooler has it that you helped get our boy back, not that he's really in any position to verify." He pauses meaningfully before adding, "yet."

As Seth realises how hungry he is, he starts digging into the food a bit more quicker, despite how it's not very good, despite how he's felt permanently nauseous since he got to this universe. But he's currently locked up, with no idea how long that will last, no idea when the food will be taken away, or when more will be given to him.

The next bit of conversation this man - O'Neill judging by nametag (Irish, fancy that) - brings up makes Seth frown a bit.

"I tried," he answers, and he's been given plenty of time to contemplate this now, sat here in this room for ages, picking apart his own failings as a way to pass the time. "Not sure I did much good." Considering the fact Daniel is still unconscious.

He's not sure if this is the kind of thing he should be saying - he should probably argue for his worth and how he helped, convince them he's on their side, or at least not against them. But he can't really make himself brag about something that feels entirely undeserved.

"Dr. Brightman begs to differ." Oh there, now the guy really goes after the food in earnest. Jack doesn't think he's ever seen someone put down commissary fare so eagerly, but he'd know from experience that being stranded offworld will do that to a man. Jack shudders at the thought. Terrible. Just terrible.

"And we did get a dial-in, incomplete, just before we dialed out but, you know. We kinda needed to dial out. For obvious reasons." He watches Johnson idly, with more scrutiny than his seemingly uninterested gaze lets on. "Reynolds said you," here he points at Johnson with a tiny spinning gesture, "were the one at the DHD. But y'did say you're from Earth where, as you may or may not know, DHDs are not particularly common. Where'd ya learn a trick like that?"

All the while, Jack's delivery is good-natured and casual. Any minute he'll be asking if Seth caught the game last night, just wait.

So his dialling was incomplete. Shame he doesn't actually know what was missing. He's going to assume the DHD means the pedestal thing. He doesn't know what exactly "not common" means. He doesn't know how many gates there are. There's quite a lot of things he doesn't actually know. Given how high security this place is, even if there were plenty of gates and DHDs (come to think of it, he hadn't actually seen one in the gateroom here), they'd probably all be locked up tight. No way for Seth to have familiarity even if he was from this Earth.

The way O'Neill approaches this seems very familiar. It reminds him of how Gabe questions him, actually. With very practiced casualness, as if to put him on his ease, yet still going for the difficult questions and the veiled accusations.

It's probably a good thing, actually. Seth responds better to that than to bullheaded militarianism. Though O'Neill doesn't have that same performative flair that Gabe does, which, is probably also a good thing.

"Daniel explained it to me. I can't fight, so I was supposed to dial while he provided a distraction and defended the gate," Seth explains, having to pause his eating to get the right words out. "He wrote the symbols down on a piece of paper, I showed it to -- that guy who brought us back." Was that Reynolds? Seth hadn't been conscious enough to read his nametag. "And then I was supposed to wait for him, for Daniel, until he sent... something, so that we could go through."

He frowns in concentration. The tricky thing of having to explain all of this is having to filter out all the dead bodies and the explosions and the terror. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the crumpled piece of paper, putting it on the table. Reynolds had seemed entirely uninterested in it, so Seth had kept it. "Only it didn't work, I punched in all the seven symbols and nothing happened."

All right, see, now they're getting somewhere. Jack nods sagely, though that explanation really doesn't put together the full picture. He could pick out one or two three big honking details Johnson could be conveniently leaving out.

Nearing the conclusion of the possibly-fabricated story, the room gets a knock on the door. The SF on the other side mutters something at Jack with the air of urgency before retreating and closing the door again.

"All righty," says Jack, leaning against the door as he turns back to Johnson. "'Fraid we're gonna have to cut this little session short. Not that I'm not curious about how you managed to accidentally land yourself in the most heavily classified military facility known to man. But, you know. Duty calls."

He knocks on the door and the SF swings it open again from the outside, and Jack promptly makes a big show of acting like he forgot something terribly important, how silly of him.

"I'll see what I can do about the room services here," he re-enters the room to tell Johnson, his face Very Serious. "See if I can't get you a transfer."

Presumably, this promise doesn't pan out. Seth would have no way of knowing, but he might be able to take a guess due to the hours that crawl by without any further visitors.

Seth is surprised at the short length of the interrogation. Based on the time he was kept here, he'd've thought this questioning would last a while. But the man's barely been here for a few minutes, and already he's leaving.

Hearing that he might not have to wait in here much longer is promising, but Seth stops himself from becoming too hopeful. He has plenty reason not to trust when he's told stuff like that. The fact it's treated in such a joking matter also doesn't necessarily do a lot to make him trust it.

He pockets the note again, since no one seems overly interested it (you would think if it was that secret, they'd take it from him), and continues to eat until it's all gone. Who knows when they'll deign to feed him again. He only drinks half the water, since their unwillingness to answer his questions when he knocks on the door means he's not actually sure he can count on getting a trip to the loo.

This time he spends a lot of time pacing. He wonders if it's a tactic, trying to break him down, or if they've simply forgotten about him. Neither would surprise him. And neither is anything he'd expect of Daniel, so presumably he's still out. The knowledge that he's going to be alright does a lot to fortify him, though. Though not nearly enough. This is a different Daniel, one who doesn't know him. One who's killed dozen of people in one day. Seth can hardly rely on him to be exactly the same. He's not even sure he wants him to be, because that would mean the Daniel he knows has also done these things. Not unthinkable but... tough to swallow.

Several hours later of pacing, sitting down and getting up in various places in the room, of trying to sort of everything in his head and mostly just falling back into the same self-destructive patterns of thought, Seth has ended up asleep, curled up on the floor near the corner. Pure exhaustion won out against anxiety in the end, though it's by no means a deep or calm sleep.

With the buzz and click of a mechanism unlocking, the door opens again.

Daniel's looked better. One arm's in a sling and a there's a row of butterfly bandages just above his temple and he moves with a gingerness that suggests he's much worse for wear underneath the blue BDUs and probably shouldn't be moving around at all.

"Hey," he says, inching in anyway. "Hey."

He spots Seth in the corner and his stomach wrenches. God. Jack had mentioned they weren't treating him too well, but this goes pretty solidly against standard procedure for treatment of offworld refugees.

"Sorry about - this." Daniel braces his good hand on the table with a sharp, pained intake of breath. "Believe me, if I'd been awake sooner I'd've. Well."

Not that there's much he can do about it now.

Seth awakens immediately at the sound of the door, and looks up blearily. Realising it's Daniel affords him the first smile he's managed in, well, who knows how many hours now, even if it's a brief one. He pushes himself to his feet, a little clumsily from not being entirely conscious, not to mention bruised and stiff.

For all his discomfort though, Daniel definitely looks worse. Seth's relief at seeing him is immediately replaced by worry. He wants to hurry over and help support him but he's afraid he'll just end up hurting him instead, so he hovers anxiously, clenching and unclenching his hands uselessly.

"Not your fault," he answers, though knowing Daniel he'll probably have decided Seth is his personal responsibility since he was the one to bring him back, and will no doubt blame himself for anything bad to happen to him. Again, assuming this one is like the one Seth knows. Seth has to keep reminding himself they're not the same.

Can't Stand the Distance, Can't Dream Alone [open to all]

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tw: npc deaths galore

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tw: explosions and injury and pain

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tw: suicide ideation, so much trauma, very heavy

tw: more trauma, more suicide ideation, this thread is awful

tw: actual suicide attempt

tw: injury, guns

tw: just assume the earlier warnings keep applying

see above re: this thread is in all ways terrible