OPEN log; and forgive us our trespasses

[paterelohim]

Who: Chuck Shurley and YOU
When: anytime from May 23rd onward
Where: your character's dreams
Summary: Dream-creeping for absolution of guilt and plague relief.
Warnings: TBA

[Chuck knows there's only one way to really cure people of this disease. He starts creeping into dreams, starting very early Wednesday morning. It's as easy as going to sleep and slipping quietly into a dream, even if he doesn't recognize the dreamer, as naturally as if he were an extension of their own subconscious.

But he isn't nice about it.

They get nightmares: called up images of whatever festers at the dark center of their conscience. A vivid recollection of what's keeping them sick, so He might learn about it, make them confront it, and talk them through it like their own personal Yoda or Jiminy Cricket.

They might find themselves caught in it, only for a hand to reach out to them and yank them from the horror into a much calmer dream- Chuck's hand. They might have Chuck standing beside them, watching the horror, only for it to melt away. They might find themselves sitting on a couch with him, watching the memory on TV. There are a thousand possibilities.

No matter what, all the dreams will (hopefully) end the same: with Chuck slipping away, having given them (hopefully) some internal forgiveness and the kind of absolution that only comes from God.]


((OOC: so obviously, Chuck is wandering through giving out absolution with his God-powers. Every thread might NOT end in total forgiveness or absolution, depending on the severity of your character's guilt AND how cooperative with the conversation your character is- but everyone who comments WILL at least show improvement of symptoms. Unless we OOC-ly work out something else, I would really strongly prefer that your character NOT remember that Chuck specifically was in their dream.

If you comment, please put their name and the date/time in the subject line, and describe the source of their guilt in the comment. Chuck will show up in an already))

Comments

The Doctor; May 27

[universaljanitor]

[Time. Time and Space and the Medusa Cascade. A young boy standing and staring into the very depths of the universe, knowledge and wonder filling every inch of his mind. The vastness of everything laid out right in front of him. Some are inspired, some run, and some go mad. Standing at the edge of the cliff, toes curled over the edge, a neverending abyss of knowledge and pain and wonder and love. Anything and everything that ever was and might and will be laid out ahead like a bottomless, twisting road.

That's what it's like in the Doctor's head. Thoughts and memories piled on top of each other, laid over one another delicately, so close they seem to touch and mingle, to mix and blend and yet they're separate, the slightest breeze able to carry one away. It's a mess of knowledge, of what he's learned of space and time, of wars and cultures and the names of all the stars in the universe. On the control of gravity and all the five billion languages he speaks fluently. There's so much crammed into every nook and cranny it's surprising anything can be added. And yet, there's still room. In some, unexplained way, there's still room.

Room enough for a planet, of hills of waving red grass, of skies of burnt orange, trees covered in shining silver leaves. Every time the wind rustles through the forest, they catch the color of the sky, and it looks like a beautiful rush of fire sweeping across the land. In the distance, surrounded by a sparkling, pristine bubble, is a city of spires and towers, nestled between two snow-capped mountains. A diamond in the middle of an expanse of rubies.

And there the Doctor stands, brown hair wild, brown coat with it's blue lining flapping in the breeze, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, trainers denting into the grass, tongue being chewed between his teeth. The light of twins suns lights his skin, and as he shifts, just barely, it's as if there are others behind him, nine other faces, bodies, shifting as he shifts, each a fraction of a second behind. Afterimages, ghosts in the wind.

He doesn't dream often, because his dreams are full of fire, full of death and destruction, of faces he can never see again, of regrets and fears and all the pain spread in his wake.

The calm won't last. That much he knows. He always knows.]

[paterelohim]

[Chuck has to take some time with this one, sorting and searching and sifting the grain from the chaff just to find what he's looking for without overstepping and seeing too much. There's so much to see in there, and there's still room at the inn. Of course there's room- it doesn't surprise him in the least. Of course there's still room. Immortal minds are nothing like human ones. Human brains are only meant to go so long and hold so much: they strain, they filter, they start binning names and faces and high school geography to hold onto work details and grandchildren, and eventually they run out of room. A mind meant to go for millennia and longer is different. No filing cabinets here, no limited organ of neurons and straining axons struggling to process too much input, few limits. There are rooms and halls and gardens, there are worlds, lifetimes, ages. Sometimes, there are universes.

They're bigger on the inside. Chuck understands.

Soon enough he sees what he needs to in the tumble of memory, fire, smoke and diamond dust around the Doctor. Soon enough he's slipping out of the TARDIS itself, wonderful metaphor that she is, and running to catch up to him at the cliff-edge.]

Doctor! Hey- wow. [Stopping short next to him with a short-breathed gasp.] This is Gallifrey?

[universaljanitor]

[Sometimes, he finds himself wishing it wasn't so. That he wasn't one of those beings cursed to such a long life. That he hasn't had to sit by and watch time pass, to stare at the people he loved, the people he traveled with and see their lifetime ticking by, to stand watch as they seemed to wither and die right in front of him while he simply moved along, decades passing as seconds, centuries as minutes. Getting lost in the hurtle of time and coming back hundreds of years later, mindless and forgetting, for a moment, that this meant everyone he knew and loved was gone.

That he was alone.

Which is why it's strange, to him, to find someone so new to his life coming up to him right now. Someone he's had such a strange relationship with, in his months in the Port. Someone he's seemed to click with at some times, and rub the wrong way in others. So his head tilts towards Chuck as he approaches, brow pinching just barely in suppressed confusion.

But who is he to pretend to understand his subconscious? It's surprised him time and time again, brought up little threads of memory he'd glanced over at the time, woven them together to create brand new epiphanies, to help him make sense of the world and what he was sticking his nose into.]

Gallifrey. [He smiles, unguarded and open for just a moment, staring out at the citadel in all it's shimmering glory, the way a breeze shakes the trees, the glimmering red of the rising sun catching on their leaves, making the hillsides shine like a forest on fire.] The Shining World of the Seven Systems.

[He takes a step back from the edge of the hill, and there seems to be a house behind him, a little ranch where two children had been playing. But as he turns, it vanishes. As he turns the entire scenery seems to fold up into itself, an inky blackness creeping forward, rushing in from all sides towards that glistening city. But before even that is overtaken, the glass of the dome shatters, black smoke rises up, and on the ground around it, broken and abandon, lie warships and the hundreds of thousands of Daleks and Time Lords who lost their lives.]

It's gone now. [He stops at the doors of the TARDIS, fingers trailing over her wood, the seam of the door] I just finished telling you that, didn't I? [He pushes inward, and as he turned, held out his hand to pull Chuck in, he was all black leather, big ears, and a dopey grin. Piercing blue eyes too old and too young all at once.] C'mon.

[And then it was gone. Pinstripes, just sort'f brown, and a long streak 'o nothing instead.]

[paterelohim]

[The scenery is beautiful, the destruction more so. Chuck could spend an eternity in the Doctor's dreams, woven into the wondrous pattern, the metaphysical spun-sugar fibers of his mind that is so strange and endlessly breathtaking, if He had breath to take. Death and life in equal measures, truly, and so much sadness. A lonely god.

He watches the changes play over Ten's face, and takes the Time Lord's hand. Around them it changes- there are Time Lords, Gallifreyans, humans, aliens, Daleks, innocents and enemies, murderers and saints- casualties all. When did the TARDIS get so crowded?]

[universaljanitor]

[In his mind, the TARDIS is only ever as large as his mind can focus. The sicker he is, the dimmer her lights get. The smaller her walls seem to be. There's a sick noise coming from her console, a clunk and a whine, the shift and groan of gears and the sad clang of the Cloister Bell.

But the Doctor isn't paying any attention to that. He's gritting his teeth against the visage of old enemies piled on top of each other, voices echoing against the walls, a sea of chaos opening up at his feet, the roar of the Beast in his cage, straining midst fire and chains. A Satanic creature who, where all the other enemies simply made him freeze, makes him take a step back.

Makes him grab at Chuck again and haul him back out of the TARDIS, onto a dreary, plain old London street.]