applesaucedream | We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

Current Music: September 29th/30th, 2013

We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

photo zombie dream party_zpsbb0hfksu.jpg

The city has been abandoned.

Its infrastructure has been slowly deteriorating for quite some time, now. Traffic has long since ground to a permanent halt, taxis and trucks rusting by the curbs or abandoned mid-intersection. Most of the ground-floor windows have been shattered. Electricity is spotty, if it can be found at all. The eerie silence is broken only by the wind, the calls of crows, or the gentle collapse of some structure or other. And, of course, the occasional screams.

The city has been abandoned, but it is not empty.

What caused the various outbreaks hardly matters. Viral infection, fungal infection, some new or ancient bacterium suddenly released into the general populace - who knows? What does matter is that the city has become home to thousands if zombies, some slow, some fast, some mindless, some retaining a savage kind of intelligence. And they are all so, so hungry.

There are weapons to be found or improvised, and places to hide if you're lucky enough to come across someplace well-fortified and otherwise empty. Others have clearly had the same idea, leaving hastily constructed barricades in some places. You might even take those as a blessing, if the conspicuous absence of the original builders doesn't bother you. ~~They're probably living on a nice farm somewhere.~~

One thing is certain: if you don't want to succumb to whatever plagues have ravaged this place, you will have to fight for your survival.

[OOC: usual dream party rules apply; all are welcome to participate, and characters can remember or forget at the players' discretion. Also, usual zombie rules apply: if you get bitten, you'll be turned into the sort of zombie that bit you. Whether your characters deal with comically dim shamblers or the terrifying sprinty variety is up to you.

Finally, let's just go ahead and say tw: violence and gore for the post as a whole, because it's gonna get messy, folks.]

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"Um..." What, is that a secret? "You... told me? Well, actually some other fucker told me. But I wasn't sure I could trust him until you... showed up. In my kitchen."

Daniel really doesn't remember any of this.

Did the Rift just give him a pre-death Daniel to play with? How very fucking nice of it.

"Sorry," he blurts awkwardly, rubbing a hand against his temple, trying to stave off the brimming headache. "I know this is fucking weird."

"I mean - " He gestures vaguely at the dead - hopefully dead, please let it be dead, fully and truly and completely dead and unaware - thing outside. "How did you know that was - that it wasn't - "

For a linguist, he's having an unusually difficult time verbalizing.

Edited 2015-08-03 04:03 (UTC)

"Oh." Oh right, that. Daniel didn't miss how he just turned without - right.

"Uh." Johnny looks down, feeling a numb prickle of dread spread over him. He's hesitated too long now, he can't make something up, and he doesn't want to lie to Daniel anyway.

He also doesn't want Daniel to think he's a monster.

But he is, isn't he? Maybe it's time people saw him for that.

"I didn't," he says.

Oh.

Okay.

It's not so unspeakable. Jack would've done the same thing, probably. Sam. Teal'c. Any of them.

Probably.

"Uh-huh," he says, looking at the ground, ignoring the percolation of restive apprehension throughout his system. "I guess, ah - good guess."

He can't fault him for that. He can't fault him for having a working instinct for self-preservation, even if Daniel would rather risk potential death himself than shoot something that might be aware, that might not be an enemy, that might be capable of understanding him.

He can't fault him for that.

In retrospect, the objective for most of these things is pretty obvious. They're hungry. They want to eat, and they want to kill. And neither he nor Johnny wants to end up on the menu.

That's perfectly reasonable.

"It's a dream, okay?" says Johnny, his tone taking on a defensive, ruthless edge, because even when he knows he's a monster he can't stop fighting against that impression, pretending he's totally fucking justified in every fucked up thing he does because mommy left or whatever. "None of this matters. They aren't real things, and if it was a dreamer, well, I would have given them a quick exit."

Yeah. That makes it okay.

It absolutely doesn't say anything about you. Where your fucking priorities really lie.

Cause it's not like a normal dream where you can just hide behind 'my subconscious did it'.

This is you, Johnny.

"Yeah." Daniel's hands skim his own elbows, as if trying to reaffirm the reality of his own clothing and skin. "Yeah, no. I know that. Rationally, I know that."

Does he? He looks at Johnny and hates the prickle of unease that shivers over him. It's Johnny. He knows Johnny. He acted in self-defense. It was justified.

Wasn't this how they met, anyhow?

It's all getting increasingly difficult to temporally sequence.

"This place, um." He shuts his eyes and tries to think along the lines of tactics, would this be a typical mission. Cut off from the 'gate, probably. Jaffa? Almost definitely. That's all those things outside are. Just - regular enemies. "It's not really that defensible. You know? You think maybe we should get to higher ground?"

He can't tell if the note in his voice is pleading or inquiring.

"This is about as high as I could get," mutters Johnny. "This building is pretty fuckin hollowed out. We'd have to get to another one. There's more of them out there." He glances toward a broken window, not wanting to get too close to it. "There's a fire escape out there. When I run out of bullets, that's where I'm going."

It's stupid but it's the plan he's got.

This will all come down on his head sooner or later, one way or another. No matter where he's sitting. He's not gonna walk into it faster. Maybe Daniel doesn't like that but that's where he is.

Not if. When. Daniel tries and fails to suppress a mild chill. There is sort of a grim inevitability to this, to the city overtaken by people made mindless by a horrific, monstrous hunger beyond their control.

"I mean it - might be a bad idea," he begins tentatively, hating that he's suggesting this, hating that he even has to ask this, hating that this is what he's come down to. "But couldn't you - warp the building? Close it up, or - ?" He makes a helpless, circular gesture whose purpose he isn't really certain of.

"Or - that would be bad." The question resolves like a pronouncement of fact, pitched low and definitive. Johnny never seems to want to use the power he's demonstrated he possesses, and for good reason, even if most of the evidence is anecdotal from Daniel's perspective.

His shoulders tense with self-directed distaste as he immediately wishes he hadn't said anything.

Johnny's constant, fidgeting motions come to an abrupt halt when Daniel starts on that line of thinking, and though part of it certainly is the reaction Daniel seems to be expecting, another part is bewilderment that he hadn't even considered that.

He actually fucking forgot.

For a second he felt normal, or at least as normal as he used to be, and he's dreaming himself in the midst of a goddamn zombie apocalypse.

He's about to say something about how that might only be more dangerous, but you know what, fuck it.

"You're right," he says simply, drops the gun, presses his hand to the wall, and changes everything.

He expected at least some kind of token protest, maybe the reminder that Johnny's power has, as confirmed by multiple parties, nearly killed someone and is probably capable of much worse.

He doesn't expect Johnny to go along with it; even less does he expect the shifting of the walls and floor and ceiling, seamless and disturbingly natural compared to the last time he witnessed something like this.

He has to close his eyes against the changes to the architecture that defy convention, that defy physics, and hates that he actively encouraged the use of something Johnny so clearly hates.

Hated?

Does he still?

"How, um," he says, fighting to keep his voice level in the face of something he doesn't want to see. "How long before something - happens?"

Johnny almost laughs. He wants to, and it's an unkind impulse. He's not sure where all this bitter, cruel nihilism is coming from, and it's not something he's going to explore right now. Instead he just shrugs, looking dully at the wall.

"Hell if I know," he says. "It doesn't work on a system. There's no rules it follows. I'm not its fucking keeper."

~~It keeps me.~~

"Might be nothing happens," he says drolly. "Have a little faith."

"That's not what you said before," he mutters, eyeing the smooth evenness of the walls warily.

Maybe he shouldn't have suggested it at all.

That probably would have been wiser.

Less liable to get them both killed.

Only - that isn't a problem for Daniel so much these days, is it? Has it ever been? What kind of right does he have to dredge up whatever issues Johnny might have with his power after the fact?

He brushes fingertips against the walls, the seamless close that rippled shut, sealing them from their exposed position relative to the elements and the mindless, hungering things prowling the city. It feels wrong. Something not so much in the building or the walls themselves but - deeper?

Daniel shivers and withdraws his hand.

"Always kind of a gamble," he hazards. "I guess that would make sense."

"Why, what'd I say before?" he asks, and it's a genuine question though he voices it like a taunt. He feels irrationally annoyed by Daniel's insistence on remaining good-natured, even in the face of utter disaster, even when he obviously has an issue with every decision Johnny's made so far, as well he fucking should. See, this is what happens when you put your faith in Johnny Truant as a person. Are you happy with that choice, Daniel?

He stretches his legs out, pretending nonchalance.

"Oh yeah," he says coldly, frowning at the floor. "It's a real fun game."

"That it nearly killed someone," he says, stretching the words out cautiously. How does one make a pronouncement of concern sound like anything but the criticism he doesn't want it to be? "That it's part of, uh, a nightmare? Your nightmare?"

His voice falters. It's clear he's trespassing on something deeply personal, and Johnny's attitude of frosty neutrality isn't doing much to put him at ease.

Maybe he shouldn't be here.

That's practically his talent. Opening doors he shouldn't. Entering places he doesn't belong.

It's different when it's a person.

"I shouldn't have - " His voice falters. "I shouldn't have asked this of you. I'm sorry."

The idea that something like that could fix anything is, as always, bleakly absurd. Empty apologies. Self-contradictory and self-flagellating and utterly, utterly pointless.

"Not someone," he says viciously. "Seth. I gave it to Seth because I was selfish and I wanted to get rid of it and it almost killed him, because it's mine and no one else can shoulder it."

He breaks himself off and looks at the wall, staring hard and with such intensity as if he were physically forcing himself not to look at Daniel.

"Don't apologize," he mutters. "I didn't have to do it." He pulls his knees up to his chest and folds his arms over them for a place to rest his head. "It was a smart move. Even if it does kill us, it'll probably be quicker than getting eaten."

It's so easy to just say shit like that now.

Daniel flinches, short and involuntary, as if trying and failing to shrink away from the words and their hard, flinted bite.

He couldn't feel this before, the last time he watched Johnny implement his power to save his life. The pervading sense of wrongness, the anxiety rolling off the other man in waves. Or - the anxiety was always there. Now it's just edged with something Daniel can't define.

Or doesn't want to define.

"Yeah," he says at last, looking back at the walls, expecting them to undulate and lock around them, hermetically sealing them within in some obscene parody of a cenotaph, devoid of light, devoid of air, devoid of anything but their terror and their claustrophobia. "I guess it doesn't matter."

Seeing as he's already dead.

Yeah, that's the spirit.

Johnny feels like a total shit for acting this way, especially with Daniel, who is just the nicest guy, goddammit, why does he push everyone away like this? But he can't quite get a fix on himself here, he's so locked into this stay-alive/get-the-fuck-outta-my-way attitude, it's ugly but it's him, isn't it?

At least he's actually trying to stay alive.

He unfolds himself, wanting to look less vulnerable, and just as his shoes scrape over the ashy floor he hears something else, something scratching at the walls he's made, just beyond them - with no clear opening to shoot at them, they've started crawling on up, probably encroaching on his weird little architectural shell.

Well, one hopes it's them. And not ~~something else~~.

He looks dully toward the sound for several moments before lifting a hand in a lazy, almost theatrical flourish.

The wall's outward shift cannot be seen from in here, but it can be felt in the low vibration of the floor, and heard in the grinding creak of wood against stone, and the wet crunch of half-putrefied bodies.

He drops his head and looks away, his physicality dramatically changed, from curled up to practically lounging, like a fucking Roman emperor.

He hears them at the same moment Johnny's posture shifts, the rising pitch of claws rasping over the exterior of this tomb - of this safehouse, Daniel has to correct himself automatically, fearfully, this safehouse that he suggested Johnny make in the first place.

And then he doesn't hear them at all. Just the grating of things moving beneath their feet and over their heads, and he doesn't need to listen for the whisper of rotting flesh and the inevitable liquid sound of that flesh being unceremoniously crushed to know what happened to them - what Johnny just did.

Daniel looks at him, his tone smooth, settling somewhere between recriminating and plaintive at the man who's adopted an uncharacteristic lordly sprawl.

"You didn't have to do that."

He feels the skin on his arms prickle with gooseflesh, his shoulders taut.

"They couldn't have gotten to us."

The protest curdles beneath his tongue, feeble and pointless. Don't confront the sleeping dragon, Daniel. He knows, god but he knows what happens next.

Except this isn't some nameless threat. It's Johnny.

Isn't it?

Johnny looks at him, at once gutted and startled and angry, the motion sharp but his expression landing nowhere, just blank and staring.

"I know I didn't," he says after what feels like a slightly overlong pause. "I didn't do it because I had to. I did it because I could."

Is that what you wanted to hear, Daniel? Did you need that little confirmation that Johnny is capable of purposeful cruelty? Cause you got it, baby.

"This isn't a shield," he says, making an erratic gesture at their surroundings. "This isn't protection. It's a fucking weapon. I don't want it, but it's mine, so I'm gonna fucking use it like it's meant to be. I am sick of getting torn to pieces and waking up before sunrise, okay? I'm done. You remember the fucking kitten, right, saying we were toys? It gave me this because it wants me to raise hell. If the rift wants to throw this shit at me I'm throwing back. So you can just - get off your high fucking horse about what's necessary."

His voice has risen over the course of this, and when he stops the silence rings in his ears. He's leaned forward, arched and vehement, and now he slumps back against the wall, like a sulking child. Like Daniel's not playing by the rules of his fucking tree fort.

"Don't fucking judge me," he finishes, cold and quiet.

He doesn't quite flinch. His stance stiffens, the muscles in his jaw tightening imperceptibly. Johnny's like something coiled and caged, his justifications a thin drape over something seething and volatile and painful to witness, like a magnesium flare. Something Daniel doesn't want to look at. Something he willingly chooses to look at regardless. This isn't him. This isn't Johnny. He's - he's relatively sure of that.

"I'm not," he says finally, the words aching like a lie.

There's no reason Johnny should believe him.

He plows on, resolute.

"I'm just - I'm just saying." A thin trickle of self-reproach runs down his spine, twitching his shoulders. "You don't have to comply with anything the Rift tells you to do, implicit or otherwise. You - you're better than that."

Immediately, he regrets his choice in lexicon.

Edited 2015-08-05 18:52 (UTC)

"Oh yeah?!" he snarls, and it's so easy to just give over to the rage this time. "Am I, Daniel? How the fuck would you know, huh?"

Sabotage this. Just break it apart. All the things you want Gabriel to know but you can't say to him.

"Compliance means letting myself die." He can't stay sitting, so he gets up, pacing around the tight little space he built for them. Rabid dog in a small cage. "Compliance is giving up over and over and over again. I'm fighting. And it's - it's ugly and it makes people uncomfortable, makes me some kind of fucking monster, and that's what I am. So fuck you, man. You don't know shit about me."

He doesn't have a choice anymore; for all his fixed certainty, Daniel takes a step back. And another. And another. And Johnny continues to pace, feral and unhinged, and Daniel raises both hands, palms out, as if that will be enough to erect a barrier between them.

He suggested this. He instigated this. He set things in motion.

"You're not a monster," he says, hoping to god his voice is smooth and steady. "I suggested this, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. I should've known better."

His voice doesn't crack under the strain of the plea he's left unspoken. But it comes close.

"I know you," he says, the words gentle. "I know you. I know you enough. Please."

"Shut up!" Johnny explodes, and he pivots and drives his fist into the wall, letting out a furious yell. He wants to feel his knuckles break against it but instead the wall shifts to allow him, to swallow his arm up to the shoulder.

He goes abruptly still, other hand braced against the wall.

Right. This. This is what he deserves.

The wall seems fitted around his arm, solid and deep and leaving nowhere for him to go. Alien architectural shapes grow slowly out of the wood and cling to him, claws wrapping around his legs and his waist. It's so much like the setup Zagreus used on him that first dream so many months ago he wants to laugh. He does laugh, high and hysterical.

"Gotta go," he says, turning his head against the wood to look at Daniel with wide, bright eyes. "I'm wanted elsewhere."

The wall's fingers tighten, creaking, pulling him in.

Some formless protest tears out of his throat as soon as Johnny swings around to slam hands into the wall, and it ripples up to meet him. Daniel feels something in his chest wrench. The building comes alive, its architecture unfurling to swarm over Johnny like a fly encased in amber.

One hand snaps out before Daniel can rethink the action, fingers tightening around Johnny's exposed shoulder.

"No. No." The plea fractures, his desperation rooted and wild. "Johnny. Please."

He's not sure if he's addressing Johnny or the building that seems intent on devouring him whole.

Even worse, he's not sure he should be mentally separating the two.

Daniel's stomach clenches.

"Don't," he whispers, the word nearly silent but for the hiss and cut of the 't'.

Johnny rests his forehead against the wall, and the pull slows and stops, just allows him to hover in limbo, Daniel's hand clamped on his shoulder, blades of wood and rust wrapped around him, just cradling him for a moment.

He looks up at Daniel, and the sharpness has left his eyes, the tension in his face has diminished; he blinks up at him with a dull, defeated expression. The house tangles more pieces of itself up around his back: support beams, he thinks with grim amusement.

"I'm sorry, Daniel," he says quietly, and the moment's up, tension snapped; it drags him in, slow, almost gentle, but inexorable, you're safe here, Johnny, safe and always, always welcome.

The wall closes up behind him, leaving Daniel alone in a cold, sealed room.

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We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

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pretty gross sounds/imagery toward the end here

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self loathing forever

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self-harm followed by intense claustrophobia and horror

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DRR DRR DRR DRR