you land badly, but you crash standing [closed]

[eliotwaugh]

[[ooc: tw in this one for trauma and dissociation, various anxiety attack symptoms, also vomiting. Yeah it's real fun.]]

He doesn't know how long it goes on, only that the sound of his phone's chime cuts through him like a knife and he feels like falling, jerking awake in bed. Sleep paralysis, he thinks. Funny how part of his brain can put a name to the sensation when the rest of him is just shaking and can only barely register that he's awake, and alive, somehow.

Eliot kicks his way out of the sheets, clinging and cold and damp with sweat. It's dark, too dark, he needs to turn a light on but he feels fragile and too weak to reach the lamp. His hands are shaking too much to start an illumination spell and all he manages is a faint glow about his fingertips. He tries to get out of bed and slides slowly to the floor, boneless and shuddering.

Phone. The phone woke him. He fumbles on the bedside table and it takes him a moment to parse words and try to get his hands to work enough to reply to Johnny. He wants to explain, to apologize but how can he? How can he even begin to make sense of that, how can Johnny be okay when Eliot saw, the Beast made him watch--

The roiling wave of nausea hits him as soon as he thinks about it, the afterimage burned in his mind, and he scrambles to the bathroom. Afterwards he turns the faucet on the sink all the way and leaves it running. It's a nice sound, a normal sound, safe white noise to drown the memory of the dream. Eliot curls up on the floor, resting his head on mercifully cold tile, and tries to breathe.

His pulse is still fluttering and he feels very distant from himself as he finds the phone again, tries to apologize but it's insufficient. Eliot does manage to turn the light on before he pulls the comforter off the bed and huddles on the floor with the weight of it wrapped around him like armor.

This is the future and you are alive [Closed]

[whofrownedthisface]

Time flies when you're fussing purposelessly making minor TARDIS repairs and doing the occasional broody doze. Enough so, that the Doctor is surprised when the TARDIS alerts him to the fact that his guest is awake. Enough so, that it's been hours since he bugged her to give him an update (which had boiled down to, 'The child is asleep.' every time). He does an exceptional job not displaying any of the relief he feels at the news, bright sunrise relief as old as dark and uncertainty, and probably not half of what Callie herself feels, under whatever dawn her windows are choosing to display. The TARDIS will direct her here whenever she straggles out of her room undoubtedly in need of food and direction. Neither of which he really has in spades, come to think of it. Maybe some errand running and exploring outside the TARDIS will take care of both of those.

buying the flowers yourself [closed]

[interndana]

Dana sighs in relief when she enters the shop in the morning. The summer heat is nothing like what she's used to, all sticky with humidity and the particular city smell that gets everywhere. It gets a bit monotonous, between that outside smell and the sterile recycled air of the office. So the flower shop is a welcome change, the air full of the smell of potting soil and growing things instead of asphalt and garbage.

She first discovered the store on a meandering quest for bloodstones, and to be honest she didn't expect to find any in the city. But it would be nice if she could have a little reminder of home, and the searching kept her mind busy when all she was doing at the Romac offices was filing and faxing and getting food. It's not that she was ungrateful for the way the faction set her up with a place to live and work to do, but Dana felt like she could be doing more. She needed a way to ground herself, to remember where she came from, even if she would be staying here in this world for, possibly, quite a while. Hence the bloodstones.

The rock shop she eventually found tucked away in the midtown flower district was much better than some of the strange 'new age' stores that claimed all their crystals had special healing properties. Dana was never terribly religious, but she could tell at a glance that the selection at more metaphysical stores was not going to be what she needed. 'Rock Star Crystals' however, is much more down to earth as far as these things go. The fist-sized chunk of raw bloodstone that immediately caught her eye on the chalcedony shelf is far out of her price range, but the staff were friendly and willing to hold it for her for a while.

On her second visit (settling for some beads to make a bracelet, if she can't have the large piece just yet), Dana noticed a sign on the door of the adjoining suite advertising the need for an assistant. It would be nice to have a little extra money, she thought, and a change of scenery, a reason to frequent the place in the city she felt most relaxed. So she went to the little flower shop and asked about the job and smiled. People seemed to respond well to her smile.

Two weeks later she's started to settle into the rhythm of the floral business, the contrast between the quiet thoughtfulness of being surrounded by plants and the rush of processing and sending out orders. Dana's sitting at the workbench pruning an arrangement that'll go out for delivery tomorrow, when she hears the bell ring on the front door.

"Come on in!" she calls brightly. "I'll just be a moment."