ride out this electrical storm [closed]

[i_jones]

Ianto stares into his teacup and takes a sip of his tea, cold and bitter and blue. The Doctor fusses with the console, purposefully avoiding his eyes. Fitz watches him sadly. Ianto watches himself stare into his teacup. In a rush of realization, he thinks, this is a dream. I am dreaming.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zagreus says, "yes," slowly, obviously, affably acerbic. 

"Good," Ianto thinks, simultaneously enlightened and distracted, and takes a sip of his tea. Zagreus watches him irritably from the other side of the table.

"Good?" he queries. "Had I known you were a masochist, this would've gone differently."

"It means I can wake up," Ianto clarifies, and takes another sip of his tea, but there's nothing left to sip - the dregs have dried to the inside of the cup, cracked and clinging. There's something important he should be doing, but it's slipped away, nebulous and inconsequential. He knows he is alone, although he can't pinpoint how long it's been or how long it'll be. The sun streams through the glass, the wind makes patterns in the grass, quietly. He waits. He knows this is his kitchen in his house, but it isn't at all. It's closed off. It's too old-fashioned, too bright, too cold. It isn't his kitchen, but it is.

"If you had a headache, you only needed to say," Zagreus chides, pouring the bottle of paracetamol down the drain. The pills plink against the steel. He pats Ianto's head fondly. He needs to wash the taste away, but there's nothing left except mold, black and white and blue, and that isn't helpful at all. He stares into his teacup.

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[antitimelord]

It isn't often these days that Zagreus submits to sleep. It was never a need he felt particularly acutely, and he tended to balk at giving up so much control unless absolutely necessary, or absolutely despairingly bored. Being physically defenseless and at the mercy of one's own mind was for lesser creatures. But even monsters get sick of hitting the same brick wall over and over, and none of his frustrated energy of late has earned him anything but fatigue and a short fuse. There was never any place for him in reality, and now, no reprieve from it either.

His dreams are surprisingly mundane at times, and incomprehensibly alien at others. Currently, he vacillates between struggling to swim through a shimmering web of interconnected minds, and searching for a can opener. Except it isn't a vacillation at all, because somehow, these are the same quest, with the same underlying objective. It's absorbing enough he doesn't even notice being cast in the role of himself in someone else's dream; at least in tone it's indistinguishable from what had gone before. Riffling through the silverware drawer with increasing vexation, in a familiar kitchen, seems like the most natural thing in the world. He's only dimly aware of Ianto's presence, though he's already marked his mind for the next target of his search.

[i_jones]

"It's in a drawer," Ianto supplies without speaking, without looking up from his teacup, knowing in the way one does in dreams that something is being searched for. "In your bedroom."

That is where they found it, isn't it? Where Fitz found it. Maybe. He pauses, considering. He has the answer somewhere. It's just a matter of, well, finding it. "It's probably in the TARDIS."

[antitimelord]

Good of Ianto to provide a convenient target for his sudden ire at being unable to find...something. For a second he's afraid he's forgotten what it was, but the absurdity of Ianto's suggestion reminds him. He glares like Ianto has offended him down to his soul by being so unhelpful.

"Don't be stupid, there were never any can openers in the TARDIS. What nonsense." There's something else bothering him about this, something he can't work out quite yet, but it'll come to him any minute.

[i_jones]

No, wait, go back to being the Doctor. That part was better. He knows it's not true - there are plenty of can openers in the TARDIS, an overabundance of kitchen supplies, not always when you needed them.

His teacup is ceramic, now, not the far future equivalent. He can tell because of the hairline cracks, because it fractures when he throws it at the wall and watches the pieces crunch under his feet as he leaves, and cries, and stares down at his teacup.

[antitimelord]

No, there's definitely something not right about this, and it's still feeding into his vague irritation. A lack of linearity, an inability to be concerned with reality being messier and more fluid than is standard, these can only take one so far. It's the subtle but persistent suspicion that he's no longer the focal character of what should be his story. Quite a disquieting feeling, actually. His perceptions seem dimmed and fogged, hard to pin down and easy to doubt. Zagreus means to have none of it.

"Was that any way to treat innocent crockery?" He's aware of a teapot tempest of distress, and prods it accordingly.

[i_jones]

There is something not quite right about being questioned by your own imagination. It isn't the way things go in dreams - because this is a dream, right, yes, of course, what else could it be? Ianto presses the heels of the hands into his eyes, drags them down his face, feels his flesh give alarmingly under the pressure, like an overripe avocado. Oh god, does he have some sort of disease?

Things are supposed to be... smoother than this. Any moment now it's going to continue on, and there will be the shuffle of zombies at the door, the clank of Cybermen, except he's stuck, stuck in this recurring nightmare. Yes. This is a dream. "I want to wake up," he thinks, and the fire under his skin has charred his flesh, he can feel it flaking off his cheeks. "I want to wake up, I want to wake up, I want to wake up, I want to..."

[antitimelord]

Ianto is doing a very good impression of a person radiating hysteria, and that's rather baffling. This kind of disjointed fear isn't exactly something Zagreus is unused to encountering, but normally he has more of a hand in it. It makes him a bit cross, but also a bit curious.

"Well, I'm not stopping you. Is this really what passes for your nightmares these days?" Belatedly, he widens his eyes at his own revelation. He knows this atmosphere, though the quality of otherness to it is still out of place. This is off-kilter, even for his dreams.

[i_jones]

No, no, his nightmares are nothing like this, not for ages, don't flatter yourself. The tone of his dreams has shifted, actually, following the realization that he's stuck in this universe. Things he's left undone, things he's left behind. Like a woman with faded brown hair sitting in Ianto's chair and looking out the window, and you know that she has startlingly blue eyes even though you never see her face, no matter how you turn, shuffling across the floor like an ant through treacle to get one glimpse.

"My nightmares," Ianto echoes, standing behind her, hesitating to put his hands on her shoulders, except she's an impossible distance away, "are usually about nothing." Which he isn't afraid to admit, to a dream.

[antitimelord]

"What an unfortunate waste of potential. I had thought better of you." Thought better of, as in thought of more highly, or as in changed his mind? He can't remember what he meant, there's too much irrelevance, and he's suddenly virulently angry. Everything has been irrelevant for too long, that's the problem. And this dream is no different, incomprehensible as it is. From surroundings he wishes he could wipe away, to surroundings he doesn't recognise at all, and with a mental wrench he throws on the brakes. Except there was never a stopping point for him, was there, and it's just the console room, though never as Ianto had seen it. Gloomy, grieving or antagonistic by turns, and wrecked beyond belief.