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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The guy is shaking so badly that Daniel's worried he won't be able to stay on his feet, much less open the access hatch. He manages it eventually, to Daniel's immense relief.

He fires off one last round, eyes squinted against the clattering shells, the acrid scent of cordite, then ducks back behind their cover, peers up the vertical shaft with the ladder rungs that almost certainly lead to the surface. He nods to himself, jerking and sharp. This can work.

"Definitely surface access," he breathes, relieved, then tugs out his sidearm, offers it to his charge handle-first. "I'm gonna have to cover our six, but you can't go up there unarmed. It's - it's a warzone, I mean a literal warzone up there. You know how to fire this?"

Edited 2014-12-04 18:19 (UTC)

He stares at the offered gun. He feels sick just looking at it.

"I-- I don't..."

Seth has very specifically avoided using guns, despite them not being entirely uncommon in his line of work, especially when he was growing up. He's seen what they can do from an uncomfortably young age, and decided that he was probably safer without one. But he still has enough familiarity with one to know what to do, at least theoretically. And then, well, long-term imprisonment didn't exactly do him any favours when it comes to comfort level around weapons and authority figures.

It's also a confirmation that Daniel really doesn't know him. He wouldn't offer it to him so lightly if he did. With the current circumstances, he might have had to do so anyway, but he would've been more hesitant, more understanding and reassuring. Seth is strongly tempted to refuse, but they don't really have time to argue.

He nods, clenching his jaw. Even with the amount of self control it takes to reach out and take the weapon, his hands are still shaking as he checks that the safety is on, and it feels uncomfortably heavy in his grip. He has no intention of firing it.

Daniel hates that he has to induct someone into this, someone who clearly loathes the idea of militant violence. It rings too harshly with a distant part of himself, the uncoordinated civilian who first opened the stargate with its row of arcane glyphs and tumbled through without having fired a gun in his life, without any intention of ever doing so, and by the end had died himself as a result. He'd been lucky about the apparent situational reversibility of the last part, but the rest - all the rest - would change, bitterly.

"All right," he orders his charge. "Let's go, come on."

He rattles off another salvo as a final deterrent before bolting up the ladder after the civilian. The cover was performed more out of necessity, but now hopefully some of the insurgents will have to trip over the bodies of their fellows in order to follow. Daniel bolts the hatch behind them. It won't stop them, but it can at least buy some time.

Pale blue strands of daylight filter their way though the grate at the top. The distant crashing and shaking of warfare mercifully still sounds detached from their current location, though Daniel knows that if the rebels have gotten their hands on any of the larger missile facilities distance won't matter.

"Doing fine," says Daniel encouragingly, now doing his best to scramble up the ladder one-handed while the other hand searches through one of the tac vest's lower pockets for one last stopgap measure against their pursuers. "Just open the hatch and try to find cover. If we're far enough away, no one will see us and we can clear the area."

He's speaking completely randomly; he has no idea if they're even remotely far enough away, basing the deduction entirely off their general position relative to the sounds of weapons fire.

Seth has to stuff the gun into the back of his trousers to climb, not trusting his current grip or strength to hold onto it while climbing. Even so, he's probably going nowhere near as fast as he should, but he's pretty sure it would be worse if he slipped and fell on top of Daniel.

When they reach the hatch and it's time to climb out, Seth hooks his arm around one of the ladder rungs, resting his forehead against the cool metal and closing his eyes.

"Listen," he begins, trying to make himself sound calmer than he really is, with debatable success. But he needs to say this, because Daniel might not know Seth right now, but Seth knows him. At least well enough to have some idea of what might happen, and how Daniel might feel about it.

"If I get shot or blown up or something, it's not your fault. You didn't bring me here." He swallows hard. The last thing he wants to be is a liability, or another reason for Daniel to blame himself. Or for Daniel to get killed. "So don't do anything stupid to protect me, okay?"

His head jerks up sharply to stare at the unidentified civilian who's speaking, oddly, with much more equanimity than he's been acting under so far. And he's talking like - like he has some idea of who he's talking to, the nature of the man under whose care he's been unexpectedly placed.

The skin around Daniel's eyes tightens in the faintest, pained ghost of a smirk. The sentiment is nice but it's not deserved, not by any stretch of the imagination.

"No," he answers finally. "It is. It is my fault. You don't - this world, it's falling apart and that's - it's because of what I -"

Fists bang against the hatch below, and he jumps. Daniel swallows hard, tightens his grip on the rungs, finally locates what he was looking for in his gear. He tears his gaze down and then back up again, desperate. This discussion is going to have to be put on hold.

"We gotta go. Now."

Seth is glad he took the time to secure his grip, because the sound makes him jump more than is safe right now.

Without pausing to consider what he might find above, he reaches up and pushes the hatch open, and the sight of open air, however smokey, is an amazing relief. He doesn't do great underground.

He climbs out and steps onto the grass, glancing around, but he can't see any people, armed or otherwise, at least not on first look. So rather than running for cover, he turns back to make sure Daniel gets out alright.

Daniel does get out all right, scrambles out immediately after Seth and casts about for any sign of trouble. The entire area still tremors from the occasional missile impacts but he concludes that they're not in any immediate danger. Daniel swiftly crouches to press his sole block of C4 just under the hatch, then swings the whole thing shut. He pulls the trigger mechanism out of his pocket, thumb braced and ready to set the thing off at a moment's notice.

"Okay," he mutters as he rises, one hand dropping onto the civilian's shoulder. "We're set, we just gotta move. Get you somewhere that's, well." He doesn't want to use the word 'safe' because nowhere is safe right now short of Earth, but that's not in the cards right now.

He pauses, scanning the horizon to get some sense of his bearings. They're in the outskirts of the city, very much exposed in the more open space. The denser areas will have the benefit of more ways to hide versus the risk of more rebels. And they can't afford to get too wide a distance margin from the gate.

"All right," says Daniel with a decisive nod, steering his charge toward the not-terribly-distant line of denser cityscape. "We'll see if there's refuge in the city because, honestly, I don't even know if the local military authorities are still standing anymore."

Seth flinches a little at the hand on his shoulder. It's Daniel, he has to remind himself. Someone he trusts, who has no intention of hurting him. The last time he put his hand on his shoulder, Seth had welcomed it. But it's so hard to block out these reactions right now, it's completely automatic, visceral.

He wants to ask Daniel not to touch him right now, but he's having trouble with words at the moment. The entire situation, and Daniel carrying around explosives, and... whatever the hell kind of mess he's stumbled into. From what he can tell, Daniel really wasn't joking when he said warzone. How did he even get here? This very obviously is not Manhattan, or anywhere near it.

And he's in his pyjamas, barefeet in the grass, and he's probably having a subdued, slow-burning panic attack or something right now, judging by the tightness of his chest, how clammy he feels, how his hands won't stop shaking. But he knows if he breaks down properly, he might not be able to pull himself together again. So instead he allows himself to be led, swallowing down his nausea.

"It'll be okay," Daniel says automatically. It won't, but the guy still looks terrified out of his mind. He needs to hear it.

He gauges their distance from their escape hatch carefully, then once they're far enough away flips the trigger switch.

"Brace yourself," is all the warning he has time to offer.

The C4 detonates in a concussive chemical decomposition of nitrogen and plasticizers, rumbling the ground and leaving the now crater-like area behind them belching thick plumes of smoke. Daniel spares it a wary backward look over one shoulder as he carefully guides his civilian onward. Any rebels left in that facility won't be following them any longer.

Edited 2014-12-04 21:28 (UTC)

It's definitely not enough warning. Even knowing what Daniel is doing, the force of the explosion seems to rip through Seth. Not literally, because they're far enough away that he's not even knocked off his feet, despite how unsteady he feels at moment.

He doesn't look back. He wonders how many people just died because Daniel pressed that button. Surely the people who by now might've been making their way up the hatch. Probably more nearby. Dozens, maybe. Perhaps even more. Seth can't gauge the logistics of it.

Images make their way unbidden into his mind, now there's nothing but walking to focus on. The closest ones would've been blown to bits, dead in an instant. The ones further away won't have been so lucky. They'll still be alive, but not for long. Body parts blown off, letting them bleed to death. Or getting trapped under debris from the cave-ins undoubtedly caused by the explosion, crushed to death, or perhaps slow suffocation.

He wonders what they're thinking. What they're fighting for. Whether they know who's killed them. What their names are. He wonders if Daniel knows.

Without warning, he drops forward onto all four, and empties the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

Edited 2014-12-04 21:41 (UTC)

The guy goes down anyway despite being a reasonable distance from the blast radius and Daniel drops into a crouch beside him, wrapping one arm over him for support. He's not handling this well, and this is exactly the wrong time for this to be happening.

"It's okay," he says, again and again and again, a formless orison buried in uncertainty. "It's okay."

They can't stay here. They can't stay here. They need to move.

Daniel sees the projectile heading straight for their position before it hits, and his stomach drops in an agonized knot.

"Down," he orders pointlessly, because they're already down, but he has to push the civilian down anyway and shield him from the worst as best as he can in the split second he has.

The projectile, the bomb or the missile or the mortar or whatever it is, strikes close enough to send fragmented shrapnel spinning their way. Daniel's vest takes the brunt of the force but several shards of debris bounce off his shoulders and legs and the back of his neck in tiny, stinging pellets. It's too close. That is way too close.

The distance they'd achieved is evidently not enough. Their position is compromised. They need to move. Their position is compromised. Their position is compromised.

Seth wishes he could stop shaking, that he could believe Daniel's words and move on. But even if he doesn't believe, it's comforting to hear Daniel's voice saying it, because this is still Daniel and Seth trusts him and Seth needs to remember that.

A closer look at his own sick isn't exactly what he needs right now, he thinks dully as Daniel pushes him down. He quivers at the blast. It's probably a good thing he can barely feel his limbs at the moment, because it muffles the sharp pain of debris hitting his legs, the parts of him Daniel can't cover. But they're still alive, and Daniel isn't crying out in pain or anything so it can't be that bad.

He pushes himself up a little, grabbing onto Daniel's vest, trying to signal he can move again. Mostly because he has to. "Go," he chokes out, wishing he could deal with this, wishing he could be even remotely useful.

God, this guy is practically falling apart, one hand fisted into the thick fabric of Daniel's vest, trembling so hard Daniel can feel it. He keeps one arm wrapped around the other man's back as he pulls him to his feet as quickly as he dares.

"I'm sorry." He shouldn't be moved, he really shouldn't, not when he's shaking like this and not when he's dealing with everything so poorly, but they do not have the option. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry this is happening."

And then they have to move, because the next impact smashes into the building closest to them and blows half the thing out, chunks of wood and plaster and molded steel tumbling between choking clouds of thick white dust. Daniel practically has to haul the other man alongside him to hare away. Fleetingly, he wishes he could move him gently but knows there simply is not enough time, makes a zigzagged path to the nearest building.

They don't enter it; that would be tantamount to suicide with the way the missiles blasted through the last building so easily. Instead Daniel makes for the relative cover of the back of the faintly militarian boxlike walls, blinking away runnels of sweat intermingled with heavy dust.

"They've found us," Daniel informs the other man tautly. "The rebels, they - we need to get someplace they can't follow."

Things mostly seems to go by in a blur at this point. The numbness is not just in his body now, but also starting to cover his mind. Thankfully, it makes it a lot easier to deal with being forcibly dragged around, and not be completely terrified out of his mind by all the explosions. Or perhaps this is being terrified out of his mind, he notes distantly, because his mind does seem pretty far away. As they run, he's starting to feel disconnected from it. He sees and hears just as much but it seems only tangentially related to him.

He gives a detached nod at Daniel's words. It's not like Seth has any suggestions. Well. Maybe there's sewers or something. But Seth does not want to go back underground.

Now the guy's just faded into complete desensitization it looks like, which is really not good. That kind of compartmentalization is what precludes a sliding lack of caution, and Daniel did not just destroy the lives of what was probably at least a dozen people to watch this unnamed, unarmed civilian die due to his own manufactured apathy.

"You're gonna be okay," Daniel says, offering his shoulder a tight squeeze before releasing him. "Just - okay, here. Tell me your name, your world."

Get him talking, get him communicating, get him alive in every sense of the term before they need to move again. Relation. Connect. Keep him breathing, get him out of this.

The good thing about this detachment is it offers a bit more clarity of thought. He can go through what he knows. Daniel knows this place. Daniel is here deliberately. Daniel is not the same one Seth knows. This is not Manhattan, or probably anywhere near it. It doesn't look like the same timeframe either. Yet it doesn't feel like a dream, even now.

The amnesia and time passage theory is not completely unthinkable, but he's wearing the exact same thing he was when he was at his apartment. And there's just a lot of shit that must've happened between then and now for this all to make sense. And, well, the only other time he's experienced this extreme kind of displacement... So. The Rift's spit him out somewhere else. Daniel's universe. At this point it seems to be the only reasonable conclusion.

So, where are they? When are they? Hell if he knows. Daniel looks about the same age. 2005, or a few before? Except this doesn't look like 2005. Well. Daniel's an intergalactic explorer, right? This might not even be Earth, and that's a strange thought. But it makes sense, especially with how Daniel is asking him what his world is.

Right. He blinks and looks up when he remembers Daniel just spoke to him. It takes him a moment to realise he should probably answer.

"Um... Seth. Earth, England. Mostly," he answers. He doesn't quite seem to be at the stage of full sentences yet.

"Earth? You're from Earth? You mean - you are Tau'ri." Daniel squints at him, momentarily flummoxed. "How did you - never mind, not, not really important, okay." He sucks in a quick breath, runs a scratched and dirt-stained hand through his equally dust-covered hair. This isn't good. This is - the odds of this, he's sure, are astronomical. He'll have to ask Sam when he gets back to the SGC, when they get back, because Daniel isn't just going to leave this guy here.

"Okay. Okay." Rapidfire explanation. They're running out of time. "This? This is a planet called 'Tegalus.' Right now it's in open civil war between, uh, between the two continental powers and a third faction of fanatical insurgents, and -"

The shrieking whistle of an incoming ballistic projectile breaks him off. The building they've taken cover behind rattles ominously in response to the too-close-for-comfort collision but its foundations hold. Daniel can't imagine it'll survive a second strike.

Is that even remotely enough of an explanation? It'll have to do.

"Right, we need to move." He turns to the guy, the civilian - Seth, apparently - and jerks his head tersely at the cityscape. Now that he's forming words and working his way up to complete sentences, hopefully it means he's recovered enough coordination to get moving on his own. Daniel doesn't want to manhandle him all the way there, especially since the guy isn't even wearing shoes. "City's our safest bet. They're less eager to fire on densely populated areas."

Okay, well, apparently Tau'ri means... Human? Earthling? From the Milky Way? Who even knows. Hopefully not important. He tries to absorb the explanation, though most of it has already been made decently obvious. He doesn't really care about much more than that. He knows he'll just follow Daniel for as long as possible. What he'll do if that becomes no longer possible, well, that depends on where he is then.

This time when he nods, he seems a little more present and conscious. He even thinks of a question that seems important enough to ask. "And, uh. People who won't, won't shoot us?"

"Depending on who they are and who they think we are, it's really - not easy to tell. I think we're best avoiding everyone until I can recognize a friendly." With a slant of his chin, he indicates their next available cover, the slightly smoking skeleton of what had probably once been a house at some point, now bereft. Some thin walls still cling to their structure, upright enough to shield them for a few seconds.

"If you see anyone, if anyone sees you - don't answer, just run," Daniel warns. "Come on." After a rapid sweep of the horizon, he darts from one temporary shelter to the next.

Seth hurries along right behind him, though honestly he's not really able to keep much of a look-out while he's moving. It wasn't so bad out on the grass, or inside the base, but out here it's a different story. He needs to be very aware of where he's putting his feet, and yeah he's most definitely going to end up scratched and bruised, but he'd like that to be the worst of it. If he steps on something particularly painful, he might end up losing his balance, which is not something he wants while he's running for cover. Still, he manages.

They make their ducking, halting progress from cover to cover, and gradually the sounds of weapons fire become faint enough that Daniel can nurse that tentative hope starting to wriggle in his chest. If he can just figure a way to draw the rebels away from the gate, he can get him and Seth home and it won't be -

They're just at the city's edge, populated areas well within sight, when it feels like everything around them goes off at once.

Daniel instinctively torques, about-faces, slams into Seth and brings them both to the ground once more but that protective measure is the exact opposite of what they need, Daniel realizes too late, because the architecture surrounding them is groaning overhead, buildings threatening to topple - teetering -

The structures fold inward, rubble pouring at them, Daniel curses himself for not thinking to run instead, and his thoughts fly to the innocent who was dragged into this without reason or purpose, and he thinks of being crushed to death in rockfalls, and this will be his fault. Isn't it always?

Getting slammed onto his back on the incredibly solid ground is not fun, his back probably bruised from his very first landing here. But at least this time he doesn't get his breath knocked out of him, there's just pain, and right now he can deal with pain. Pain is focusing, in a way.

He can see the walls crumbling at them, about to bury them, and he acts in pure instinct, making the rubble fall through them instead of onto them.

"Don't let go of me," he orders Daniel, with a hell of a lot more intensity than he's shown since he got here.

This is important. If Daniel lets go, it won't end well. But they can't stay here. Seth can't keep them phased out like this forever, especially with his current physical state. And if they get properly buried by rubble, even if they won't get crushed by it, there won't be any air to breathe. Holding onto Daniel tightly, he pushes at him and tries to get to his feet.

Daniel braces himself for the hail of rock and debris that would seal them in their impersonal detrital cairn.

He waits for the ring of a boulder against the base of his neck that will shut off his brain functions all at once.

(Again.)

And the skidding and sliding of rubble is clear and distinct in his head, and he opens his eyes and can see the rocks moving through him and the civilian, the, the - Seth, Seth warns that he can't let go but Daniel's immediate reaction is to tear away, he is intangible, no, no no no no no no this is not good, he -

Seth is moving him. Daniel grips the fabric of his shirt far too tightly; it is his turn to shake, it is his turn to freeze, just for a moment until they can get - the hell - away -

As soon as they're in the clear, Daniel jerks away from other man, hands raised in a half-defensive, half-surrendering gesture.

"What was that?" he asks, his hands trembling, one fist clenching and unclenching to assure himself of his solidity, his heart roaring in his throat, his epinephrine spiking horribly even though he could stay so calm as he murdered dozens in their sealed little hatchway, distantly sickened and fascinated in equal, horrible measure. "What the hell did you do."

He is solid. He is solid. He is solid. He is here and he is solid, he has always been solid except for the times when he hasn't, but those times are not now because he is here and he is solid. He is solid.

Seth doesn't expect Daniel to react the way he does. What with how calm and collected he's been so far, and how he's surely died at least once at this point, you'd think he'd be more okay with weird shit.

But he hadn't reacted all that great the last time Seth had done it to him, had he? The one time he'd been properly conscious for, back in that underwater place. Perhaps it's a thing with him. Not when Seth does it maybe, but when it's done to Daniel.

It's almost more frightening than anything that's happened so far, seeing Daniel so scared. Seeing Daniel so scared of him, even. Jerking away like that. It's painful to see, in a way more painful than the beating he's taken today.

Breathing hard himself, temporarily exhausted by the effort of that, Seth sinks to his knees and sits down, trying to gather himself. Doing it briefly isn't too hard, but having to maintain it for ages while they got clear took its toll on his already worn body.

"I can pass through things. And, um, extend the effect," he explains. That much had been obvious of course, but he's saying it mostly to acknowledge and confirm that he knows what happened, that he did it intentionally.

He watches Daniel worriedly, waiting for Daniel to regain some of his calm, cause Seth has neither the energy nor the knowledge to actually take charge of this situation.

Clearly exerting that heretofore unknown reflex is exhausting on some level, because Seth is breathing heavily and looks like he's about to collapse from sheer weariness. Daniel eyes him with faint suspicion, horribly tempted for a minute to point his weapon. He decides against it. The guy did not react well to weapons fire of any sort, and it wouldn't be necessary.

"And you're from Earth?" he demands dubiously. This guy is an anomaly on every level. Wouldn't this have attracted someone's attention? Shouldn't the SGC know? "And you can do this naturally? No that - that isn't a Tau'ri thing. That isn't an Earth thing, do you realize, do -"

A nearby line of buildings rumbles menacingly, their unstable frames shuddering, and Daniel flinches.

They don't have time for this right now.

"No, I'm," he breathes, shakes himself, stretches out a faintly trembling hand to help the guy to his feet, "I'm sorry. That isn't important, not now, just - just warn me. Before you. You know."

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tw: npc death, warfare, general unpleasantness for the whole thread cause i forgot to put warnings

tw: and more graphic description of that death

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tw: mild panic

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