applesaucedream | Hello Darkness My Old Friend [Open to Multiple]

Current Music: January 27, 2013 (backdated)

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Hello Darkness My Old Friend [Open to Multiple]

The world is dark and there's a war in heaven. The blackness of the scene is deep, lit only by the graceful, inhuman figures of his brothers and sisters. They dance viciously, hands clasped around long silver blades, slashing as they turn and evade. They bleed light and die like a star going supernova. Gabriel stands trembling, watching. If it wasn't so horrible, it might be beautiful.

He's wearing the same vessel he has been wearing for so long now-

Briefly, the scene shifts. He's kneeling before this vessel, a hand cupping the slightly stubbled chin. He'll shave properly, when he takes it. The man smiles, nods. It looks so sincere.

Gabriel smiles back, in awe of him.

-except he can feel the weight of his wings, the power contained there, his own potential for destruction. Behind him, they sweep up at least twenty times his height, closed in and tight against each other, a gigantic extension of his own horrified posture. Next to any of the rest, he would look so small like he is now. Inconsequential. Still, they'll want him to join in, soon. Michael will come looking, or Lucifer. Enough will have died that he will be needed on one side or the other.

He wonders if this slaughter is really what God wanted, then chastises himself for thinking it. He should fight for heaven, for God. Another supernova lights up the black canvas. A triumphant shout echoes back to him along with a ghost of bright piercing pain. How can they deny the feeling that quakes through them with each death? Is he the only one?

He can't bring himself to take a single step forward. Instead, he drops to his knees and prays. The sounds of his prayers rend the air around him, harsh, beautiful, and useless. No one turns to him, and God isn't listening.

He searches for something, any feeling in the darkness that isn't this, isn't here. When he feels something, he pulls on it like a lifeline.

[[ooc: Gabriel has passed out following events that will be happening in this thread. He doesn't have control over his dreaming, and chances are he won't know he's dreaming most of the time, so expect horror, and expect him to take over the dream.]]

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Isn't her staying with him through all this and trying to steer him towards less unpleasant scenarios reason enough to believe she might care? But of course he isn't able to appreciate that, and if some outside influence is really affecting his mind like she believes, it's understandable for his subconscious to be so wary and defensive.

So she does her best to provide a kernel of calm and companionship amidst the continued turmoil of emotions in the atmosphere. "I understand that it makes little sense to you now," she admits patiently, though regretfully. "And I'm not certain 'friend' is the appropriate word. We only met once, four days ago, but I... do not often have the opportunity to converse with agreeable beings who are not so different from myself anymore, and I valued it." She doesn't usually feel alone or is bothered by her lack of communication with others like her, since all she's ever needed was the Doctor's company. But with those memories of the War stirred so forcefully, her words and bearing are strangely heavy, carrying the weight of a loneliness reserved for the last of a kind.

"You seemed to enjoy our conversation as well," she adds after a moment, trying to quell her own troubled emotions. Instead, she focuses on him and tilts her head. "What would convince you?"

He's looking in her direction, wondering what she could do when his face contorts in pain and he falls to his knees, curling in on himself. He moans, and light starts to seep out of his pores - his Grace, seeping out from underneath his skin. And then, everything disappears. Gabriel, the hallway, the city. He's woken up, leaving her behind in his dream scape.

It's just a few minutes later that Gabriel returns. For a few moments, they're standing in the hallway of the Rebel base, surrounded by scattered feathers. Then, they're in destroyed hotel room. Then, they're back outside, Sodom burning in the distance. He turns to her, his teeth gritting in pain. "You might be right."

Edited 2013-05-02 07:17 (UTC)

The unexpected surge of pure pain takes her by surprise, and for a moment she feels like she's breaking apart right with him. But then she's left reeling in an empty dreamscape, pain turning into panic as all his emotions are pulled out from under her like a rug, and she does the mental equivalent of spinning around searching for him.

Before she can decide to leave the Dreaming herself and try to locate him in the real world, his mind flows back into place around her. She watches with something vaguely like motion sickness as they rapidly switch through a few sceneries, unable to make out any details. Once they've settled back into the previous view, she sinks to her knees beside him, an expression of both shock and concern on her face. "Did you wake up? What did you see?" She starts focusing her energy on easing his pain, but it's everywhere, along with a gruelling strain, and she's having a hard enough time just preventing it all from seeping into her own mind.

"A room. White." He shakes his head, pained and frustrated. "There was something about it...holding me back. Or the opposite. I don't know." He sighs and a shudder works its way through his body. His mind is still confused. He can remember talking with the TARDIS before he'd briefly woken, but remembering their previous meetings is too much of a strain to recall.

He can feel the pressure of that room even now, how it's pulling at him to lose control. In the distance, the burning city disappears and the two figures, Michael and Gabriel, stand motionless on an endless plain of sand, the moon shining down on two sets of enormous wings. With an effort, he sits down and wraps his arms around his knees, physically trying to contain himself while his mind fights a larger battle.

That confirms her suspicions about something purposefully suppressing him, but it doesn't give her any information she could use to locate him. And the worse he's getting in front of her, the more her focus is consumed by the need to help him right here.

She can tell his mind's grip on the dream is weakening as all of it is concentrated on resisting... being pulled away? apart? She doesn't understand the feeling at all, but that doesn't matter at the moment. What she does understand is the despair with which he is fighting it, and what's important is to help him stop it, or at least slow it down until a solution could be found. Placing a hand on his arm, she offers, "Hold onto me," and expands her influence into the pain and exhaustion, forming an anchor of untempered power.

He's beyond the point where he would have shrugged off her help out of pride or suspicion. He doesn't really believe that she's causing this any longer, not after he woke and felt what that room was doing to him.

He lays his own hand atop hers and accepts her influence fully, practically clutching onto the force of it. This is something that he can use. It hasn't fixed things, not yet, but it's enough of a mitigating power that he unclenches his teeth and heaves out a sigh. "What are you doing?"

The intensified contact soon makes her shudder with him as more of his misery and strain bleed into her, and her grip on his arm tightens. She's uncomfortably reminded of the pressure she felt just before her systems overloaded and she was torn apart, taking most of the universe with her. But she knew what she was doing when she decided to support him like this, and she tamps down on the memory quickly.

"Helping," she replies tersely, while sharing yet more of her strength. She's starting to feel like she's propping them both up against whatever is holding him, or draining him, or pulling at him; the sensations are all merging together. "What are you trying to...," She frowns, casting about for a word that conveys what she's sensing. "... contain?"

He replies quickly and tightly, his eyes closing in concentration. "Myself." His shoulders hunch forward and behind him a few long pinion feathers fall from his wings, their ends covered in blood. The structure of his wings seems to be more and more realistic as time moves on, more bird-like.

He takes a few deep breaths and keeps his hand on hers as he tries to use her help. Any hint about her own distress is lost in the sea of his own strain. He's afraid that he may be starting to panic. "The vessel is human. My Grace is usually...usually I can keep it locked up inside. If I burn out, people will be hurt." That, and he'll probably die himself, given that he's stuck in a parallel dimension with no way back to Heaven. For a moment, he focuses on the possibility that he could lose everything and hurt people in the process.

A deep pang of grief overtakes him for a moment and Michael laughs in the distance, still not moving. He clenches his eyes tightly together and takes another deep breath, focusing on his containment once more.

For a moment she blinks in confusion at his answer. She'd simply assumed he had constructed his human form, like she had, but apparently he'd... what, possessed it? The bloodied feathers falling to the ground quickly remind her that there's no time to worry about that now, though.

She's also not sure what Grace is, but it's clear it must be something like the raw force of his being, and that does give her a better idea of what they're trying to achieve. She knows how to contain things, she contains an infinity herself, and she shares that knowledge as wordless reassurance.

Her idea of offering her own mind as at least partial containment for his power is interrupted by the force of his momentary grief, and his fear makes her tremble as well, nearly pushing him away with the sudden terror of what would happen to her if they failed at containing him. Against a flash of panic she tells herself he isn't antitime, isn't inside her actual structures, and isn't going to erupt. Then, with a deep breath, she extends herself as far as she can while being sure she'll be able to maintain this for some time, and enforces his containment like a secondary wall.

As she extends her influence around him, he gasps in relief, his hands falling down to clench in the sand. He knows that he doesn't dare give over the entire burden to the TARDIS. He's still clinging desperately to his Grace, forcing containment, but this helps. This helps immensely.

He shudders out a breath and laughs, sharp and tense. His heart is still beating fast in his chest, the panic taking hold of him. He has to reassure himself that this is helping, that he's not going to hurt the TARDIS by keeping her here. "I could kiss you," he finally manages to say. "Thank you."

Once she's put herself in place around him, she hunches over a little under the weight of his power. There's a lot of him, and the outside force pulling at him is relentless, but she knows she can do this. After all, she once contained an exploding time station without bursting, this is manageable in comparison.

At his relief washing through them she looks up, a shaky smile spreading on her face. "Perhaps later," she replies with a weak attempt at humor, mostly because it occurs to her he can use the assurance that there's going to be a later. Taking another breath, she continues more seriously, "Do you think you can wake up? We can try to maintain the connection." She's not at all sure if that would work without the telepathic current linking them, but they are very closely entwined right now and neither of them can keep this up forever just waiting for the attack to stop on its own. "If it fails, you could come back."

"No, there's..." He stops as if waiting for an invisible person to finish speaking. "Someone is coming to let me out." Hopefully. He doesn't add that he doesn't entirely trust Topher to get him out of this.

There's one more problem. He doesn't know how to let go of the TARDIS and...there's someone else. He concentrates a moment, searching for the name. Daine. When he wakes, the TARDIS might be able to get out of his mind, but chances are that Daine will still be trapped in this dream space until he manages to get out of the room.

"I can't wake up. Not now. There are others here." He lifts a hand to tap the side of his head. He doesn't want to leave Daine or the TARDIS or even Topher shipwrecked inside his mind. What horrible torture would that be? His stomach clenches on the inevitable knot of guilt. He's so scared that he might do more damage than he can heal, that he might not get out of this alive himself. As his thoughts race over the possibilities, he forgets to mention what he's thinking aloud. By the time he finally speaks again, he's already taken several steps from that last thing he said. "She'll be lost if I go now."

It surprises her to hear there's someone else involved in helping Gabriel, but she trusts him to have an idea of what's going on wherever he is in the waking world, and she is so relieved to know they won't have to worry about that particular facet of this ordeal that she completely misses the doubt behind his words.

His next admission is somewhat less surprising, but a lot more disconcerting. She'd gotten an inkling of other dreamscapes when they quickly switched through them before, but then she became too engrossed in his pain to completely formulate that realization. Now she understands that it must be almost impossible for him to let go of these other minds while he is straining so hard to hold onto himself, and... she can't really think of a way to help with that as well.

As soon as it occurs to her that she might not be able to escape either, his utter fear for himself and others shudders through her, again threatening to make her panic and bolt. But she refuses to allow his emotions to get a hold of her, and reminds herself that she has absolutely no intention of leaving him. They've reached a fairly stable combination of their efforts to contain his power, at least for the moment, and it will hold until he is released.

If he manages not to panic, that is. Somewhat wearily she shuffles over to his side and lets herself lean against him lightly, companionably providing something to lean on in return. Mindful of his wings, she places a hand atop his in the dirt. Obviously the important part of her use to him is her telepathic support, but a little physical comfort has never gone amiss, at least to those more entrenched in physicality than her, which Gabriel seems to be. "Then we shall wait," she assures him patiently, doing her best to mask her increasing exhaustion. Really, this wouldn't be so hard if this universe wasn't keeping her in a permanent state of tiredness to begin with. And if she was a few hundred years younger. But no matter. "And I will do what I can to pull the others out, if necessary."

Gabriel doesn't resist when she shuffles in closer. He's a little surprised by the gesture, but even so, he lifts his hand and clasps her hand to his.

"It shouldn't be long," he reassures her, though the worry still racing through him betrays his easy reassurance. He waits with her like this for a while, his body taut and waiting, holding back the tidal wave of his Grace. Meanwhile, he babbles, because it's too hard to focus on anything meaningful and too much to sit in silence.

He speaks low and with just enough precision to be comprehensible, "When I'm out, I'm going to bring you so much candy you're going to drown in it, you just wait. Or booze, or cake, or whatever it is that sentient time ships like to shove into their semi-corporeal mouths. Or...whatever it is you have. Ah-" His voice trails off for a moment, losing steam under the stain. He takes a deep breath, swallows, then continues. "Definitely any part of my anatomy. Part time loan on those. Though I have a feeling you'd...rather have the candy." He huffs out a pained gasp and his eyes close in concentration. Everything hurts, but especially his wings. It's so intense that it's as if they're being torn from his back.

The very idea of losing his wings makes him shudder and his stomach roil. Could that be a result of this? He hadn't even thought of that before now, but it's entirely possible that, if no one comes, the only way out of this alive might be to rip out his Grace and become human. He feels a surge of panic, deep seated and raw, before he remembers to contain it. As an exercise in concentration, he stretches out his wings, feeling the presence of each painful joint, the brush of feather against feather. They're painful, but they're still there. "They have..." He only brings his wings half of the way back from their stretch, forming an instinctive protective barrier around himself and the TARDIS. "Candy with booze too. And liquor that tastes like candy. Cake soaked in rum. It's delicious."

His talk of candy brings a bemused smile to her tired face, though she soon realizes it's his way of expressing gratitude. And how did he know how much she likes sweet things? She certainly wasn't thinking about it. A lucky guess, perhaps, but now that he's going on about it she warms to the idea too. Besides, she's quite familiar with certain people's need to babble in the face of danger, so she listens gladly.

To be honest, the distraction is somewhat helpful to her too as the pain she's feeling through him gets worse. His shudder makes her tremble with exhaustion, a reaction she can't seem to stop entirely for some time. And the next surge of panic, more powerful than the ones before, force a small gasp from her throat as she struggles to resist the almost overwhelming urge to run. Curse her deeply rooted instinct for flight, as though she were a spooked beast of burden. In a physical expression of her own forced self-control, she draws her legs in close and entwines her fingers with his tightly, mirroring his taut bearing.

When she feels something large and soft brush against her shoulder, she lifts her head to watch his wings move behind them. She has no concept of beauty to apply to them, but she gets the clear impression that they're not just a part of his body, they're who he is, and through him she feels a profound sense of importance and attachment for them. Then his stream of words runs out, perhaps too weak to continue, and she turns back to look at him and pick up the conversation.

"I have been meaning to try every kind of sweets available, so your contribution will be greatly appreciated," she assures him with as much enthusiasm as she can muster through somewhat labored breaths. "When you bring them, you must come inside and let me show you my interior. I have..." She stops to lick dried lips and think on which rooms the Doctor likes to impress his companions with. "A swimming pool, and several libraries containing most of the literature ever written in my universe. There is a zeppelin hangar and a menagerie, with animals extinct on their own planets. A mountain range, a squash court..." She trails off, frowning vaguely as her concentration is dimmed by the weight of her tiredness. "No, no, I lost that one. Or will lose it? And where did I put the steeple chase? Entropy must have gotten to it..." While she speaks, she sinks against Gabriel's side more heavily, but her efforts to contain him are unfaltering. "Oh, you should see the hat wardrobe. My Doctor adores it. Spends hours trying them on. Amelia disapproves, of course."

Edited 2013-05-06 04:03 (UTC)

"Never met a girl with a zoo inside her before." He hums a sound in the back of his throat that in any other situation might have developed into a laugh. Now, though, he just waits, gripping onto her hand. He nods after a moment, finally letting his eyes shift open. He doesn't look up, but he knows that by now everything about the setting around them, save the ground stretching out into the distance, has disappeared. "That'd be good."

He's aware, now, of just how much this is taxing both of them, can feel her trembling against him in the effort. It seems like forever that they stay, holding in his Grace together. He slumps against her, and is just about to reassure her again that it won't be long, when he realizes that someone is trying to wake him up.

He doesn't move from his hunched position, but he does widen his eyes, a flare of hope lit amongst the pain and tension. "He's here. I...if you could hold on. Just a little longer. I'm not safe for him." He takes a deep breath, trying his best to ignore the pull of the room and the hand shaking him awake. "I'll let you go, then." He doesn't have time or the ability to explain in any more detail. He's thrumming with the desire to get out and get out now.

In the blink of an eye, he's gone, and a blank whiteness fills the empty dream space as the tension and pain builds to a crescendo.

A minute later, Gabriel releases his hold on her and all that she can sense of his emotions and pain vanish with it.

Edited 2013-05-06 08:25 (UTC)

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Hello Darkness My Old Friend [Open to Multiple]

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