caveofsapphires | hurt myself again today

Entry tags:

hurt myself again today

WHO: Gabriel (Sylvester Wilton), [OPEN]
WHAT: Power discovery goes very, very wrong.
WHERE: Syl's caravan, the Cave, anywhere else it's conceivable to him to be
WHEN: 2 June - 9 June 2012
WARNINGS: None yet
NOTES: Looking for nummy new CR, or call-backs to earlier CR he hasn't spoken to for a while, especially for the initial helping-hand thread, please. :3 Multiple threads with the same character throughout the week are welcome. Also, Gabe will not be able to see peoples' souls for the duration.

Actionspam also welcome if that's better for people!

It was the conversation with the Doctor which had planted the thought in Gabriel's head. Well, the conversation with the Doctor and that little hole Re-l had discovered in the back of the wardrobe. The fact was that his constructs were, technically, a reality-warp. They used the fabric of reality to create something out of nothing ... well, nothing that could be seen, anyway.

And if he could do that, then maybe he could take things a step further into doing something else. Like actual reality manipulation.

Which was why he was staring contemplatively at the wall of Syl's caravan, ratta-tapping the counter. A small pocket to start with, he decided. A little safe in the wall. He could cover it with a painting, or something. It wasn't like anyone would assume there would be anything behind it, given the tininess of the caravan.

In the past he'd found that as long as he kept a detailed image of an object in mind, he shouldn't think too hard about the creation in order for it to work. As long as he knew how it was built, that seemed to be all he needed. Well, he knew how these reality manipulations went. So once he had a structured image of the little hidey-hole in mind, he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.

The ensuing flash of light and shockwave which rattled the caravan was visible from blocks away. Gabriel pushed himself up onto his elbows, his head ringing and back aching as if he'd just been thrown against the far wall--which he had. He moved gingerly, pushing himself up against the wall that opened, breathing hard and blinking, and trying not to be sick. The nauseous feeling passed after a few minutes and the ringing in his head dulled to a slight throb.

His vision faded from the white turn of dizziness into steady blackness, and the archangel's stomach flipped over with dread. "Oh, no."

* * *

The next week was ... well, it was something close to Hell. Gabriel couldn't tell whether his screw-up had permenantly messed with his sight or not, and every time he opened his eyes and saw nothing it twisted his gut to such a degree that he felt sick.

Blind. Not just blind the way his brothers were still blind, but completely. He couldn't even move the caravan far, because he couldn't see the streets; there was an autopilot installed on the driver's booth, because Syl had referenced it in his notes, but the archangel couldn't see to program it in the first place. The archangel was forced to walk if he ever wanted to go anywhere, one hand planted firmly on a wall just so he could make sure he was going the right way.

And no angel radar meant he got lost. Frequently. There were few things as terrifying as having no wall, no concept as to where the wall was, and no idea if he was on the right street.

He managed to find his way to the train back to the Cave, once, on the 7th, with some intention of seeing the doctors there. Then some part of him had spoken up, told him he couldn't very well just give in like that, and he hadn't wound up going to see them at all. Instead he'd wandered, lost, through the Cave until he'd found his way back to the metro and returned to the City with his pride intact and his sanity shot.

The day he woke up to find his sight had returned, blurry at first, he was about ready to weep with relief.

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In his time, Aziraphale had met enough brilliant and powerful blind people that he'd thought the idea of blindness no longer bothered him. But the sight of Gabriel's eyes staring not at but through and beyond him made him shiver.

When Gabriel took a step back, he stepped forward, then managed to stop himself, fingers twitching. Everything about the archangel was telling him to go away, even Aziraphale couldn't ignore it, it was that obvious, and even though he couldn't leave, he could make space.

"I wasn't," he said, not realizing until he spoke that he was verging on angry - and where was that coming from. "What happ-- what have you done to yourself?"

"What I've done?" Gabriel started laughing, a horrible laugh ringing with such brittle and false brightness that it was still far too high-pitched to be anything but verging on hysteria. "What makes you think I did anything at all?"

No soul. No face. No expressions. All he had to go on was the sound of Aziraphale's voice, and even then the archangel's head pounded with such adrenaline that he didn't have a hope of divining the nuances no matter how capable he ought to have been at it, given his old skillset.

"Because it's you," Aziraphale said tightly, wishing he could make Gabriel calm down. He looked quite like Aziraphale imagined he himself had looked at his and Gabriel's first meeting: tightly wound, ready to jump at any potential danger. If Gabriel went into hysterics, he had no idea how he would even begin to control him.

Well, he did know in that he knew he wouldn't be able to, so there was that.

"You're wounding me, bro, really," Gabriel said, his voice still pitched too high to be genuine. At least he was calming down ... a little. If you called it 'calming down' when he still looked about ready to run--just not as likely to have a breakdown. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you thought I couldn't stay out of trouble!"

"Feel free to convince me I'm wrong by not getting in trouble for, oh, two days in a row." He was talking to be talking, really; it seemed to be helping, and if he could keep Gabriel from bolting, well, that would be just wonderful. It was an effort to keep his voice level when all he wanted to do was demand in a very, very loud voice what exactly had happened, when, and why.

That seemed like a terrible idea, though tempting, and so he flexed his fingers and took one more step back. "Are you coming or going, my dear?" he asked in as neutral a tone as he could manage. "I can walk with you, if you'd like."

"I've stayed out of trouble for two days in a row!" Gabriel protested. "You can tell, because you can't hear the screams. Or the cries of indignation. Or whatever." The archangel was relaxing, slowly, by degrees. The fact that Aziraphale didn't seem to be getting up in arms helped more than Gabriel intended to say.

"I was going. Somewhere. Away." Gabriel sidled a bit along the wall, still leaning on it, his head turned toward the direction of Aziraphale's voice, but even though he was moving he seemed less like he was trying to escape and more like he was just continuing his walk--if skittishly. He didn't say he wanted Aziraphale to walk with him.

He didn't object to it, either.

"Right, well." Aziraphale walked beside him, matching his pace. There was no way he was getting away that quickly, not until Aziraphale got the full story, one way or another. "I suppose you ought to set the counter back to zero, then, because . . . "

He trailed off. The rest was obvious, wasn't it? Gabriel had done something stupid (or had something stupid done to him, theoretically, but Aziraphale wouldn't count on that being the answer) and now couldn't see. The question was how permanent it was. The other question was why Aziraphale was feeling quite so furious about all of it, rather than worried. Or, well. A bit worried. Mostly irate.

Gabriel managed not to flinch, but it was a close one. He kept his head down, one hand half-out, the other on the wall, and taking odd sliding steps to make sure there was nothing on the ground in front of him. It took a while for him to answer.

"I was trying to build a reality-pocket safe," he said in a low voice without looking up. "Since--my constructs and all." It was just the next step along. One good thing about talking to Aziraphale about it--he wouldn't have to spend too much time in explanation.

That . . . was actually a fairly interesting idea. A good idea. Aziraphale might have tried it, too, if he were more sure of the limits of his abilities.

"Did it work?" he asked finally, frowning. "Before - whatever happened, happened. Was it functional?"

The archangel laughed, and the only good thing about the sound was that it wasn't edging close to hysterical anymore. The hollowness of defeat wasn't much better.

"It didn't get that far. The whole fucking thing backlashed in my face before I could even shape the damned walls." Just as soon as he'd summoned the power to do it. He'd thought it would be like his constructs, that he just needed to let things flow and happen without over-trying.

He'd been wrong. And now he didn't know how bad the price he was paying would be.

That was disappointing, but disappointment was easily eclipsed by worry. He'd never heard Gabriel like this, so - empty-sounding, and he had to wonder why this had to be his punishment. It was too cruel. He was doubly blind, and so soon after he'd regained his ability to truly see.

He absolutely refused to accept the fact that this might be permanent, however. Even this world was not cruel enough for such a thing to happen. There were people who would be able to cope with it, even thrive, and then there was Gabriel. Thousands of years of being able not only to see but to see deeply built up very firm habits.

"When?" he asked, voice tight, to assuage the other niggling worry that had been asking for attention. It could have been a week, or more than, and if Gabriel had kept this from him out of some absurd sense of pride, he would - they would have very strong words.

There was a pause in Gabriel's answer, a bracing breath as his foot kicked a crack in the pavement and he gingerly felt around it before stepping over, just to make sure. "Two days ago. Saturday."

Two days was two days too long. If not for the memory of Balthazar sitting, slumped and drunk and hollow-eyed, in Gabriel's own caravan, the archangel might have taken the same route. Might have stayed there and not come out.

Apathy. He'd already done it. So he was opting for panicked, aimless action instead.

Two days.

And Aziraphale's irritation and worry got together, had a quick word, and decided to become anger. Or, perhaps not anger. Wrath, one step down from proper angelic wrath but only marginally less terrifying. Behind him, a blue mailbox winked into and out of existence in less than a second; he grabbed Gabriel by the elbow without thinking in an attempt to stop him, nails digging into his sleeve.

"Two days," he said as evenly as he could, although his voice betrayed him slightly, hard and sharp at the edges. "Might I ask why you chose to sequester yourself instead of asking for help like an adult?"

This was absurd. It really was like dealing with a child. And Aziraphale's head was beginning to hurt.

The archangel flinched with surprise and instinctively reached out to grip Aziraphale's wrist. He missed it, fumbled, and finally found it a few moments later. On one hand, the other angel's grip was almost painful, unnerving because Gabriel hadn't seen it coming.

On the other, it was somehow grounding. Aziraphale was no longer just a drifting voice. He had presence.

Gabriel smiled falsely. "I'm out and about, bro. Does that look like sequestering to you?"

Aziraphale looked into Gabriel's blank eyes and let out a quick breath, almost in a hiss. "Semantics," he snapped. "Mentally. Did you ask anyone for help? You didn't, did you?"

It was a pointless question. Of course he hadn't. But Aziraphale felt obliged to ask it anyway before he flew entirely off the handle.

For a moment Gabriel was silent, because even though he couldn't see Aziraphale's soul he still thought he knew what the angel was asking. 'Why didn't you ask me?'

There were so many answers to that. The question still made the archangel feel a pang of uncertain guilt, enough that he answered honestly instead of trying to fob Aziraphale off. "The Doctor. Reed--Stark--saw the backlash and came to help, and I asked him to take me to the Doctor."

That Gabriel had gotten help from someone instead of sitting in the darkness behind his eyes and sulking was enough to mollify Aziraphale slightly. Slightly. He still didn't like being kept in the dark, but he'd take what he could get for the moment.

"And did he help? Did he know what happened?" Could he fix it, he didn't say, because obviously he couldn't. Yet.

It would wear off, though. It would. It had to.

There was another long pause in which Gabriel's chest clenched and he wished he hadn't said anything at all. "No," he said in a low voice. "We couldn't find him. His office at the Institute, his apartment--there was no one there. Hadn't been for days."

Just gone. Gabriel hadn't believed Malcolm's assertion at first; not until he started running into the furniture and felt how dusty, how grimy, it had been. No one there, not for a while, and he hadn't even known.

His chest clenched again. He hadn't even known the Doctor for long, and already he m--regretted the Time Lord's absence. He'd been smart. Interesting. Fun to talk to. Someone other than his brothers and a Kali-wannabe to rely on.

He didn't have anything to say for a very, very long moment. It was clear, despite Gabriel's attempt to conceal it, that he was upset at the loss of the Doctor. Even though it had become clear that people could simply disappear like that, Gabriel had clearly never expected it to happen to someone he was close to, as opposed to a potential threat.

Eventually, he squeezed Gabriel's arm in a poor attempt at comfort and let go. "Well, we'll simply have to find out for ourselves, then," he said as calmly as he could, trying to ignore the panic that was beginning to edge into his consciousness.

"Oh, really?" Gabriel blew a raspberry. "If you've got any ideas, bro, go ahead and stop holding out on me. Not to rush you or anything, but this could get old fast."

His words were, suddenly, far more caustic than was warranted, and even though the archangel didn't physically pull back it was obvious there was a mental shift. The reminder that people could just disappear hadn't been a welcome one. What if Aziraphale or Balthazar disappeared?

What if Gabriel became alone all over again?

It wasn't something he could even bear to consider, and yet he still began to pull back in preparation.

"Well."

Aziraphale pursed his lips and looked away from Gabriel. Not that it mattered. The archangel couldn't see him. But he felt the sudden need to retreat, both physically and verbally, into logic. He shrugged slightly, crossing his arms slightly over his chest.

"The evidence points to - to something similar to what happened during the pilgrimage. You attempted to create something that was too large for you then, as well. When you failed - " He cleared his throat. "You had physical symptoms. Different physical symptoms, but - the pattern is the same, so - it stands to reason the pattern will be the same here as well. Er."

He fidgeted, arms going slacked and falling to his side, then crossing behind his back at the wrist. The unspoken truth hung in the air between them. It was a theory. He didn't know. There was no way of knowing. Even the Doctor wouldn't have known, so this was all fruitless.

And they were helpless. Again.

"This was different," Gabriel said shortly, taking a step without checking first and banging his foot on a drainage pipe. He sucked in a breath in lieu of cursing or hissing, and then went straight on with his rebuttal, because at least trying to analyse this was something to do other than be trapped with the thoughts in his head.

"It's not that it was too big," he said. "It felt more like I just did it wrong. I had the power, it was there--it just ..." His hand motioned vaguely in the air, at himself, at his eyes. "It went wrong. Backlash. I think my process was off."

He wasn't sure he wanted to risk trying again.

"Perhaps it was - "

Aziraphale stopped short, realizing what he was about to say. It was a stupid and dangerous and frightening thing to say, but he couldn't not say it, now that the thought had risen to the forefront of his mind.

"Perhaps it was more power than they are willing to give you," he said quietly.

For another moment Gabriel didn't say anything at all, if only because he was turning that idea over in his head. It really was a scary thought, and the only reason he wasn't more scared by it was that he really didn't think they had that kind of power.

In the end he shook his head. "I don't think they're the ones responsible for me having it," he said firmly, and then laughed a bit, but humourlessly. "It's the only thing I'm sure of, around here. The things we do--it's bleedthrough. They've got our souls and are making up stories, but their only real power is in manipulation."

"Manipulation, yes, I suppose you could call it that." He couldn't help the bitterness in his tone. He really was tired of being messed about, and that's exactly what it was, and if they took one more memory from him -

Well, he'd do something drastic, probably.

hurt myself again today

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