trickntreats: (when the world comes crashing down)
Gabriel ([personal profile] trickntreats) wrote in [community profile] caveofsapphires2012-06-02 09:03 pm

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.
brightblueeyeshadow: (chatting)

I feel that at this point I should make it clear that Re-l's taste and mine don't always coincide

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-19 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't think your metaphysical friends were the point of that quote," Re-l said, "fascinating though I'm sure they are."

Her mind was turning back even as she spoke, thinking of the long summer days of her childhood, when she'd read poetry to herself on the grass and laughed, before she'd realised what the world was really like.

"We had a lot of fragments," she said, half answering Gabriel's question and half thinking out loud. "About a third of The Wasteland, I think, though that's really nothing but a guess. I would have loved to read more of that poem. We had most of Bishop, she was good. Most of Plath, though I found her very tedious. A little of Kavanagh, he was awful. Some ee cummings, who was just unfathomable. I liked Byron, and Tennyson when he was writing about war. The Lady of Shalott, now that was dull. My favourite was always William Carlos Williams."
brightblueeyeshadow: (remembering vincent)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-20 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"Is that the opening? How fascinating. Our text begins at "I had not thought death had undone so many", and ends with "Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits". I wonder why he began it in another language."

Re-l drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them, turning it sideways to look at Gabriel. The memories of the poem brought something back to her quite fondly.

"When I was a little girl," she said, "I used to imagine that one day I would go out into the wastes and find a full copy of The Wasteland, and bring it back to the city. I thought if I could do that, I would understand everything there was to know about humanity."

And then it turned out that she wasn't allowed to leave, and that there was almost no one else in the whole world who even cared about TS Eliot. Just another delusion to be washed away by her later cynicism. She almost forgotten that she ever even cared.
brightblueeyeshadow: (beautiful)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-20 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Re-l wondered briefly if Gabriel's blindness had given his words their power, but it was an uncharitable thought, and she knew it. He simply had an incredible voice.

"I think I could listen to that all day," she said at last, and she lifted up his hand so he could feel her expression again, and tell that she she was being honest. "Maybe you could even make me like ee cummings."
brightblueeyeshadow: (unimpressed)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-21 12:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"Don't be stupid," Re-l said shortly. "It's annoying. And that joke, if it really was a joke, didn't even make any sense."

She didn't swat his hand away, though, because even if he was making stupid jokes, at least he seemed less miserable.
brightblueeyeshadow: (chatting)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-23 01:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"Of course it would be sex," Re-l said. "Everything seems to be, with you. And the slang in my world is fine."

She twitched her mouth down exaggeratedly, so he would know what she was thinking, and then let it return to normal.
brightblueeyeshadow: (Default)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-23 02:04 pm (UTC)(link)
"I would, but then we already established that my taste is infinitely superior to yours."

She thought for a moment before she answered. It was odd how fast the memories of Romdeau had dwindled, become then and not now.

"There was a lot of emphasis on correct speech in my class," Re-l said. "I mean, we used the common technical names - Auto-Reiv, Turing Application - but we were expected to otherwise abstain from the talk of the lower classes. That's what it means to be a fellow citizen, after all. But it does have the advantage that you always understand what other people are saying."
brightblueeyeshadow: (unimpressed)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-28 08:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"Did you really just call me boring?" Re-l's tone is dry like a good Riesling, a dryness that's much more amused than it is irritated.

"Of course language is more than that. It's truth. Which is why, in as much as it's possible, I believe in leaving it unmuddied by misdirection and inanities."
brightblueeyeshadow: (chatting)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-07-30 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
And now you're implying that you don't need to be locked in a padded room. The absurdities just follow one after the other."

It was about time for Bomb to be fed, and so Re-l pulled out a little packet of meat. She'd taken to carrying strips of meat around with her, because Bomb needed a lot more feeding than a human. Carefully she unhooked the cat from her shoulders and pulled her into her lap, then offered her a piece of chicken. Bomb chewed it up greedily, nudging at Re-l's hand for more.

"Wittgenstein believed that language defines the world around us. I don't necessarily agree with his logic, but I feel the force of his conclusion. If language really does affect how we see things, then I want it to be as clear as possible. I've spent too much time with lies."
brightblueeyeshadow: (cunning)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-08-03 02:30 pm (UTC)(link)
"What makes you think the truth is simple? It's tangled and complicated and painful, and it hurts like hell. I watched the truth destroy my home, my whole world, almost everyone I loved. There's nothing more difficult than truth."

She waited until Bomb had finished the chicken before she gave her more, watching the kitten carefully.
brightblueeyeshadow: (remembering vincent)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-08-08 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"Being circuitous never helped me, and I'm still not sure that it didn't do great harm." She has a lot of regrets about the things she didn't say, and more than that, about the things she didn't and still doesn't know how to say. Whatever is locked inside of her, she feels sure it could have changed something.

Bomb is purring like a little furnace now, fat and happy and wanting to be petted. Re-l indulges her for a minute, then picks her up by the scruff of the neck and drops her onto Gabriel's lap.

"Amuse her, will you? She's digging her claws into my legs."
brightblueeyeshadow: (unimpressed)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-08-10 04:02 pm (UTC)(link)
"You want a giant cat to pull your caravan, you go and catch one. Have fun falling off waterfalls and fracturing ribs. Or worse." She didn't believe for a second that Gabriel would get off as lightly as she had. Look at what he'd managed sitting in his caravan.

"And I won't let you play with her at all if you're going to spoil her."
brightblueeyeshadow: (dangerous)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-08-11 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Re-l looked at him with an expression that said clearly how ridiculous she thought his words were, realised he couldn't see her, and nudged him in the ribs instead. In a friendly but still quite hard kind of way.

"You don't have it in you to resist a cat. And you especially won't once you can see her. She's particularly skilled at looking plaintive." Re-l shrugged. "You clearly need adult supervision, is what I'm getting at."
brightblueeyeshadow: (chatting)

[personal profile] brightblueeyeshadow 2012-08-15 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, I see. Which is why our," she hesitates for a brief moment, but there's only one word she can think of, "friendship has consisted entirely of you pranking and resisting me. Yes, those are definitely the words I would use to describe our relationship."

It's heavy sarcasm, which Re-l usually deplores as too unsubtle, but if he's going to be ridiculous then she will be ridiculous back.

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