Last Night's Sleep
Sep. 22nd, 2012 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acts_of_gordStone underfoot, purple and orange streaked overhead, an eye-sucking void of nothing to be seen in between, and a chill dry wind that blows from nowhere to nowhere. He knows this place.
Something in the distance cries out, a screeling sound like the gulls dipping low over Puget Sound. There's nothing there when he turns, of course-
sssso... good of you to join... ussss, Doctor Freeman.
He's still. He's absolutely still.
how... long has it... been? And not one word... from you, in all that... time. one WONders what'sssss... on your mind, hm?
Blank, colorless empty from horizon to horizon; the void gives way to phantoms of Mongolia, to the great dead Worm slumped in Chapada dos Guimarães, to smoke and ash in White Forest-
(The Emperor's gone. The fleet remains.)
-to maggot-monsters, gas-masked, ghosting through shadow and through shafts of blue light untouched by Earthly dust.
sensible thought, Doctor Freeman. I musssst congRATulate you on your... persisssstence... of memory.
There's so many of them.
but one hopes you've done more... than reMEMber. afffffffter all...
They're swarming, like the dime-priced feeder fish in the ninety gallon tank, swirling furiously around each other and over and under and- no, there's an order to it, clumping here, separating there-
The Worm had been the size of buildings. The swarm is sweeping around a building the size of mountains. It glitters black and bright against the eyeless void, pulsing with energies with no human name. Slowly at first, and then faster.
...yoursssss is not the… only stake in this... matter.
The air tastes like ozone, like chewing on tinfoil, as the monstrous machine surges.
sssssomeone's knocking at your DOOR, Doctor Freeman. I assure you... they won't wait for YOU... to open it.
And the skies, what skies there are, are torn asunder-
There's a ceiling overhead. The sheets are stuck to his skin, cold with sweat. There's a pillow under his head. This is Milliways. He's awake.
He's just... going to watch the ceiling for a while, and try to ignore the rushing of his heartbeat in his ears.
Something in the distance cries out, a screeling sound like the gulls dipping low over Puget Sound. There's nothing there when he turns, of course-
sssso... good of you to join... ussss, Doctor Freeman.
He's still. He's absolutely still.
how... long has it... been? And not one word... from you, in all that... time. one WONders what'sssss... on your mind, hm?
Blank, colorless empty from horizon to horizon; the void gives way to phantoms of Mongolia, to the great dead Worm slumped in Chapada dos Guimarães, to smoke and ash in White Forest-
(The Emperor's gone. The fleet remains.)
-to maggot-monsters, gas-masked, ghosting through shadow and through shafts of blue light untouched by Earthly dust.
sensible thought, Doctor Freeman. I musssst congRATulate you on your... persisssstence... of memory.
There's so many of them.
but one hopes you've done more... than reMEMber. afffffffter all...
They're swarming, like the dime-priced feeder fish in the ninety gallon tank, swirling furiously around each other and over and under and- no, there's an order to it, clumping here, separating there-
The Worm had been the size of buildings. The swarm is sweeping around a building the size of mountains. It glitters black and bright against the eyeless void, pulsing with energies with no human name. Slowly at first, and then faster.
...yoursssss is not the… only stake in this... matter.
The air tastes like ozone, like chewing on tinfoil, as the monstrous machine surges.
sssssomeone's knocking at your DOOR, Doctor Freeman. I assure you... they won't wait for YOU... to open it.
And the skies, what skies there are, are torn asunder-
There's a ceiling overhead. The sheets are stuck to his skin, cold with sweat. There's a pillow under his head. This is Milliways. He's awake.
He's just... going to watch the ceiling for a while, and try to ignore the rushing of his heartbeat in his ears.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 02:11 am (UTC)"Gordon?"
Alyx sounds out of breath and more than a little alarmed.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 02:15 am (UTC)"I'm here. Come in."
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Date: 2012-09-23 02:18 am (UTC)She doesn't say a word, yet.
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Date: 2012-09-23 02:21 am (UTC)"You saw," he finally says. "The way I saw that one dream of yours."
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 02:26 am (UTC)(This was, Alyx thinks in a distant sort of way, the first time she's actually seen the gray-faced bastard and remembered it afterwards. Part of her wishes she could forget it.)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 02:29 am (UTC)Well. Things that both parties in a conversation know don't have to be restated out loud, right?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 02:43 am (UTC)But she knows, and it's not.
"We're out of time, aren't we."
It's not a question.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 02:47 am (UTC)He nods, squeezes her hand.
( and right now, Captain- )
"I hate this so much."
It's all the complaining he'll allow himself. It won't do any good anyway.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 03:26 am (UTC)She's blinking back tears.
"I...
...I wish I could go with you."
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 03:33 am (UTC)If I could bring you with me, I would. There isn't anybody in the world I would rather have fighting at my side. If there was some other way, somehow, if we didn't have Eli and Hope to think of, if...
"I wish you could too."
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 03:46 am (UTC)(One more time. One more time he has to walk away from her, into a place where she can't follow. One more time he has to risk his life while she can only watch. One more time he might not ever come back.
One way or another, this will be the last time.)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 03:53 am (UTC)"When this is all over..."
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:01 am (UTC)Not from tears. From silent, repressed laughter.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:03 am (UTC)(Of course he can tell the difference. At this range? Please.)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:07 am (UTC)Closes it again.
Opens his mouth and holds up one finger.
And makes a long, long snorting noise of the sort more normally associated with milk coming out the nose due to laughing too hard.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:10 am (UTC)Because yeah. He's earned it.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:17 am (UTC)(At this rate there's a good chance they'll both end up on the bed shortly.)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 04:22 am (UTC)This isn't what Alyx expected to happen when she woke up ten minutes ago, but she'll take it.