applesaucedream | Hijacked dream party

Hijacked dream party

Tonight's dream party is, unconventionally enough, not organised by the rift, but by Topher!

Thing is, he was sort of supposed to only pull in a few very specific, targeted people, and all of a sudden, this whole lot comes pouring in. See, he's working with someone with the power of ability amplification, making Topher's dream abilities obscenely powerful for tonight, and he's not quite used to it.

The dreamers will find themselves in an old mansion at nighttime. Lots and lots of rooms; several bedrooms and bathrooms of various sizes, studies, library, sitting rooms, kitchen, dining rooms, games/billiards room, even secret passageways... There's a fire roaring in every grate, everything is warmly lit, with lots of dark corners to sneak off to, comfortable couches, plenty of drinks tables. There's also a pervasive feeling that you're safe, that you can relax. That whispered secrets in the dark will be kept. And everyone will feel much less compelled to judge or mock upon hearing those secrets. A night for confessions. All of a sudden, it's hard to resist opening up...

Of course, the dreamers don't know there's someone listening in, seeing everything that goes on, sometimes even manipulating things to go the way he wants. Certain people with psychic/telepathic/dream abilities may eventually cotton on, though. But it'll take a while. But the secrets you tell in the meantime may not remain secrets for that long. Especially if those secrets are useful to certain other important players in the city, quite apart from the two factions our rifties have become familiar with.

[Mod note: Usual dream party rules apply. All players and characters are welcome, current members or no. Characters will remember or forget all dream events at players' discretion. Bear in mind that any events or information shared in this dream will be available to Topher, and, by extension, probably his bosses, such as Beatrice.]

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He visually crumples in on himself at her accusation, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped. He dips his head, staring at the floor for a moment instead of confronting that expression of hers.

"I didn't mean to hurt you." He pauses a moment, trying to gather himself together. When he looks back up at her, he makes a conscious effort to straighten his posture. He doesn't want her to think that he's lying just because his emotions are shielded.

"You're right. It is what I do. But not to you."

She almost crumples with him at the sight of his contrition, and she resents him for that, too. It would be more bearable if he was being stubborn and prideful, easier to cling to the anger that's holding her together if he was showing his disgusting self-righteousness.

He didn't mean to hurt her, and she didn't want to lose him, but those are the consequences of his actions. And now, she knows she shouldn't trust his word, knows she can't, but that doesn't stop her from desperately wanting to. The implication that she's still special to him is too much, and her closed off expression falls into one of dismay.

"Then why to anyone else?" she demands in a rising voice, too overwrought to care that bringing up the old argument isn't going change anything. "Why do you have to be... this?" It's a testament to her distress that she even asks such an irrational question with no good answer.

He doesn't know the answer to those particular questions anymore than she does, but having his entire identity put down with such obvious disdain is a painful blow. Maybe he should have expected as much.

"Why else was I brought here? Is it really for nothing?" He has a hard time believing that a portal just opened up into a parallel dimensions and pulled him through for no reason. At one point, he thought that maybe it was so he might meet her, but considering how terribly that's going it might be as logical of an explanation as him needing to be here to act as an archangel.

"I'm..." What, doing what he was made to do? Righting wrongs? Punishing people for being cruel? He'd acted out of revenge and felt good about it. Half of the people he'd killed at ROMAC were generally decent people, apart from being complicit in his capture and imprisonment. He's done worse before. So what is it about the TARDIS that suddenly makes him feel bad about it?

He frowns, his lips compressing into a tight line, and he snaps out, "What else would I be?"

She doesn't even have to stop to consider her answer. It's a thought she's had many times since their fight. "Better than that! The way I thought you were." Before she realized how wrong she'd been about him. But even that apparently can't stop her from still pleading with him to change, somehow.

Eyes shining wet in the warm light of the room, she continues a little more softly, though just as pained. "Not... cruel . Beings like you and I can help without hurting, don't you see?" But even as she says this she realizes how futile it is and she shakes her head at herself, expression returning to one of bitterness.

"But I'm being foolish. You enjoy hurting others." That above all else is what disgusts and horrifies her so; the brutality with which he invaded Topher's mind, his expression as he tortured the boy, how pleased he was with himself even while he was pretending to comfort her. She practically spits the words at him.

Edited 2014-02-03 12:54 (UTC)

"What did you think I was?" She definitely hadn't taken into account any of the stories of angels, or even what she had seen of him in his dreams. He'd thought that she had known what it meant to be an angel, and he had thought she had accepted him for it, right up until he knew she hadn't.

He frowns at her, feeling absolutely useless in the face of her distress, and upset himself. Why did he think that he could talk to her without both of them walking away upset?

"Do you blame me for enjoying it? Isn't there part of you that would enjoy that? If they had captured you and you knew you weren't the only one? Topher let people rot because they were inconvenient. There are still people there, somewhere." If anything, he should go back and find where they are being kept.

She's still trying to wrap her head around his questions, struggling with just how fundamentally at odds their entire world view and motivations apparently are, when what he says last strikes her and she stares at him in disbelief. "So you took your revenge without even rescuing the other victims? How can you still convince yourself that it was done for any reason but your own pleasure? And you expect me not to blame you?"

The extent of his cruelty just keeps getting more distressing, and it sickens her that he's acting as though she should be able to sympathize. "I have been ripped out of my true form and trapped in a human body until I very nearly consumed myself. I was forced to create and maintain a paradox so massive and agonizing that it tore through half the universe. I was the center of an explosion that collapsed the entire universe as I was burning. And I have inflicted pain on those that caused my suffering, but never did I enjoy it! It was done only to save myself and others, and whenever the Doctor decided not to pursue them, I left them behind." Now it's her turn to feel righteous, and she presses her lips together in determination and disdain. "Revenge isn't as natural as you tell yourself it is."

Even as she says this, a part of her knows she isn't being entirely truthful. There's no mention of Zagreus, as she very deliberately refuses to consider him in this context. What he has done to her, along with his nature, has long since placed him outside any sense of right and wrong in her mind. Rather than considering that, she takes a shaky breath to refocus and answer his first question. "I thought you were kind. I thought you did things for the right reasons, even though I found your methods difficult to understand. But I was mistaken."

Her absolute naive morality of her is almost blindsiding for him. And how could she really think so little of him?

"The others aren't in the ROMAC building." He growls out, "I was only there because of the power that room required." Required, past tense, because it's gone now. Gone, and impossible to rebuild, thanks to him. "I could mount a rescue mission, but I'd need exact locations. Maybe you can pick out who I should rip the information from this time? I'd have to go back to ROMAC for that." Really, that's the only thing that's stopped him from trying so far. He should go back, but he's afraid they'll be more ready for him a second time around.

He takes a step away, as if to leave, but then he remembers what Zagreus had said to him about her keeping him prisoner, about trying to throw him in a black hole so that he might never crawl back up into her universe again. He turns back and takes another step towards her. What is the deal with Zageus, anyway? and why in the hell would Zagreus think he might be jealous of him? "What about Zagreus? Did you feel bad about wanting him dead?"

His explanation doesn't really make a difference, not anymore. Before their fight, she would have gladly helped him obtain the information he needs to help others trapped by ROMAC in whatever way she could, but not like this, not the way he wants to do it.

She's too upset to feel relief when it seems he's had enough of this conversation, and then she's shocked still by him bringing up Zagreus. Instantly the roil of her emotions is replaced by pure hatred, enveloping her like a shield of ice. "You have no idea what he has done, what he is," she says, voice low and threatening. This is very dangerous territory. "He is an abomination, and he deserves all that is done to him in defense and retribution." All that she's done in particular, but she keeps conspicuously quiet about that.

Although it's a blow that Gabriel dares question her on this, it's not a surprise. "I know you spoke to him," she adds with a glare, "because the moment you told him about us, he used it to hurt me, after he'd left me alone for weeks. Don't believe everything he told you. He is a far more insidious liar than you are."

"He hurt you?" Gabriel stumbles forward a step, shocked at the revelation. "How? When we talked..." What had happened? He pauses for a moment, going over the confrontation in his mind. He'd texted the TARDIS and had been moping about her non-response. And Zagreus- he certainly seemed like he had plenty of reason to think poorly of the TARDIS, but he'd been close-lipped about the details. If anything, he'd seemed more like a jilted ex than something that might be outwardly dangerous. At least for the moment. What can a dream lord do in the waking world, after all?

Perhaps he'd been wrong not to take more notice. "He wanted me to ask you about him. I figured he was jealous...or wanted me to poke at an old wound for him. He wouldn't explain why." He sags against the counter top, his hands propped on the edge. "He can't talk without lying. I wouldn't trust him for an inch."

"If he hurt you..." Well, if Zagreus had really harmed her, she wouldn't be here, would she? And that's not exactly what she's said. She'd said Zagreus had used knowledge of them to hurt her. It's a striking revelation when he realizes what that means. She still loves him. If she didn't still care, that kind of attack would have no effect on her. A smile flickers onto his face for a moment before disappearing again. Her loving him doesn't mean that she can't hate him too.

He sighs and pushes himself away from the counter to stand at his full height. "You're right about me, you know. I'm a petty trickster, and I went back to ROMAC for revenge. Just thinking about that room made want to upchuck, so I destroyed it and killed everyone responsible. It felt amazing. It really, really did." He looks over his shoulder, checking that they're still alone in the dining room. "I don't know if there's a hell here, but if there is, those people deserve their time there. If there isn't... He falters and ducks his head for a moment, losing steam for his argument. If there is no system beyond earth of reward and punishment, just what is he sending people into? "Maybe people can change, but if they can't, if they're so shitty, why keep them here?"

Where that leaves him, he's not sure. He's been making arbitrary decisions about right and wrong for so long that creating a new system seems entirely foreign to him. How does he decide now who's worthy of a second chance? "I could start with Zagreus. You're so sure he deserves to die. I trust you. You don't trust me, but do you need to?"

Gabriel's obvious concern for the fact that Zagreus hurt her is too little, too late. Earlier, she might have found it touching to realize he still cares, might have been moved to sympathy by it, but merely talking about Zagreus and Gabriel's association with him has made her too angry and bitter to have any patience for it.

Nor does she have any desire to listen to him admit what she already knows about him, disgust evident on her face when he goes on about his revenge and rehashes his old arguments about hell and stupid little humans deserving to die, and he isn't even sure, but that hasn't stopped him from murdering people, and she's just so sick of this, of him, of caring.

Still, she's taken aback by him offering to kill Zagreus and declaring that he suddenly trusts her judgment. She doesn't know what to do with this, how to feel about it, so after a moment's hesitation she instead focuses on familiar ground, releasing a harsh frustrated sigh. "He deserves to die, but you mustn't kill him. He contains a critical mass of antitime, a horrible, corruptive force that would most likely infect and rend Time itself if it were released." She doesn't exactly know how it would behave in this universe, but that is never a risk she's willing to take, and there's a note of fear in her voice just talking about it. "I would have done it myself a long time ago if it was possible to safely dispose of him, believe me. Do what you wish to him, but you must keep him alive."

Okay. He can't kill Zagreus. That would explain the part where Zagreus said she'd almost thrown him into a black hole. If she couldn't do that, he's not going to go and risk her safety and the safety of this universe by killing the guy now.

"Oh." He furrows his brow, slightly confused by her reasoning. What he's getting hung up on here is the idea that she would be okay with him torturing Zagreus, when she'd so openly despised him for doing the same to others. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I could keep him occupied forever, but do you really want me to do that?"

This is getting more and more indecipherable and confusing, and she hates it, being forced to navigate a growing mess of conflicting emotions. What is he trying to do, is offering to hurt Zagreus supposed to appease her? It would be revolting if she didn't like the idea at least in part; surely Gabriel is less likely to be susceptible to Zagreus' corruptive influence than her, and it would be such a relief to finally have an ally against Zagreus, especially one so powerful.

But that still doesn't change anything, it doesn't change how wrong she'd been about Gabriel, how much he's hurt Topher and others, and with such glee. "You would do everyone a favor keeping him from causing further pain," she replies without giving up an inch of her implacable anger. "But why are you suddenly asking my approval? It meant nothing to you before, as long as you could believe yourself to be right."

"That's not true. I didn't ask, but I've wanted your approval since we met. This isn't some new revelation. It's just different." It's different because she's found something to hate about him, and it's difficult to see a way to anything that would gain her approval. He narrows the distance between them once more, until they're just two or three feet apart. If they were on better terms he might put a hand on her shoulder. Instead, he shoves his hands into his pockets.

He continues, his voice lowered, feeling hyper aware of the anger being directed towards him. In their argument, she'd brought up doubts he's had since he arrived, about his role here and how much he really knows. The answer is that he knows even less here than he did back home, and he's not sure if he really does have any right to do the sort of thing he's been doing. Even if she was only working as a second opinion in those sort of situations, he would feel more confident about his life and death choices. "If I was meant to meet you-" He stops himself before continuing on that particular line of thought. She's not likely to be swayed by any of his thoughts about God's intentions.

"I've spent a really, really long time deciding for myself what's right, and that's got me here. I'm willing to try it your way. For a little while."

She takes a shaky breath at his words and his approach, as though she's shocked to hear how much her opinion mattered to him, how much it still does. And that only gets worse as he goes on, acting like he's had a complete change of heart, admitting that he might not be right, when before he couldn't stop telling her how righteous his judgement and actions are.

Part of her desperately wants to believe him, wants to believe that he could learn a better way of doing things, that she could teach him, that he could come to regret what he's done. For a long moment she just stares at him, hope wrestling with bitterness, refusing to be blinded by naivety again. But she's too agitated and defensive, too determined not to be hurt again, and finally she presses her lips together, raising her chin and crossing her arms against his closeness.

"My way means making the effort to find a better solution than murder. It means not taking pleasure in the suffering of others." Even if he stopped killing defenseless humans - and how is she supposed to trust that he would? he'd just lie to hide his actions - she doesn't see how he could ever truly change his cruelty. Shaking her head against tears welling up in her eyes, she presses out, "You aren't capable of that. You can't see that your cruelty is just as contemptible as that of the humans you want to punish, and that wishing for a reason behind being hurt by a vengeful, neglectful god is no excuse to do the same to weaker creatures. I can't forgive that."

"Weaker creatures. I'm sure their victims would agree." He spits out the words like bile before he realizes that it's nothing more that an instinctive attack.

"Don't- How fucking dare you. You don't know." His sneer melts into a frown and for a moment the door he'd shut firmly against his emotions opens, showing her the full force of his sadness and anger. The fact that she's lost faith in him hurts. It hurts, that she thinks he's no better than his own neglectful father, that she would tell him so, as a barb that seems custom formed to goad him into lashing out. And no matter what she's said, he doesn't want her hurt -especially by himself.

"Please, don't cry." He takes a deep breath and forcibly straightens his own posture. When he's done, the door holding back his emotions is once again firmly shut.

"You know, a while back...I tried to convince my brother that humans are worth the world. Worth more than us, when they try." His hands tighten into fists in his jacket pockets then relax, on a loop. "It was a stall, then." He chuckles, a bit manic, "He was a hard sell on that one...but maybe it's time I start following my own advice." He thought he was following his own advice, but a few thousand years can really skew your perspective on things. Now, he's not so sure. He still loves humanity, despite their flaws, and that feeling is as ingrained in him here as much as it was in his old universe.

"I thought you might be something." What, someone meant to help him be what he's supposed to be? That idea feels kind of ridiculous now that she's called him unforgivable. If he's so unforgivable to her, she wouldn't be teaching him. She would be policing him. His tentative smile collapses as his hands tighten into fists again. "I want you. That. But it's okay. It's okay." He can figure it out himself. Maybe. "Maybe you're right about me." He shrugs and scans her face, taking her in. He really does miss her, and who knows when he'll next see her. "We'll see."

He wakes himself up before she can respond.

Edited 2014-02-11 09:43 (UTC)

What she said about his god wasn't designed to goad him, she said it because she meant it. But she is perfectly aware how aggressively he reacts to that sort of criticism and steels herself for an attack, straightening up to her full height. So it comes as a shock when he instead exposes his emotions, and they're so similar to hers that all her resolve falters in the face of his distress. For a moment, despite everything, she yearns to reconnect with his mind, the loss of which she's felt bitterly in the past few weeks.

But just as quickly his emotions are shut off once more, and he becomes so difficult to understand again. Is he saying that he really will try to do better, even though she'd told him she doesn't think him capable of it? She frowns uncomprehendingly, wondering how he could care about humanity the way she thought she had seen in him, in his purpose and his fondness for Earth, yet enjoy their suffering. It makes no sense to her and nothing he's saying makes it any clearer or restores her faith in him. It only worsens her despair, giving her faint hope she can't bring herself to believe in.

And what is it that he sees in her? All his talk of being meant to be here, to meet her, and now this, it's like he thinks she is some kind of gift to him from his god. Something deep within her bristles at that; she isn't given to anyone, much less by some capricious god both meddlesome and neglectful. And while she can understand Gabriel's desire to believe that he still has a purpose, that his creator still cares, right now it seems naive and pathetic to her that he would cling to this so desperately without a single piece of evidence for it. No one better than her to know how much it hurts to be discarded, but there's also no one better to know it's possible to find a new purpose for oneself.

So when Gabriel disappears without giving her the chance to voice any of this, he leaves her reeling, frustrated and hurt. She doesn't bother to wipe away the tears before retreating from the dream herself.

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Hijacked dream party

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