bigapplesauce | [closed] After painting the ceiling red

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[closed] After painting the ceiling red

[Warning: Lots of focus on suicide, with a side of drug and alcohol use, plenty of traumatic subjects.]

Seth should start keeping a tally of number of times Daniel gets to watch him die in a dream. Only two so far, but that's in less than three weeks of knowing him, so who knows what it will be over time? He's long since given up on keeping track of when he dies in a dream in general, since that's not a terribly unusual occurrence, but it's rarer for it to happen in shared ones.

He had given up on sleep more or less immediately after waking up. The fear he had felt, the hopelessness, it was all a bit too real, too familiar, and easily stuck with him. So he had gone out to cope with it in the only way he felt capable of - getting blissfully high.

A few hours later, once morning had properly arrived, and the buzz was wearing off, he returned home. Not ready to deal with being sober however, he had replaced the morphine with alcohol, namely whiskey. The rest of the morning had passed in only somewhat comforting intoxication and anxiety, and then Daniel had texted him, and Seth didn't feel able to answer. It took two hours before he could actually face the idea of seeing him after that ordeal. Not just because of the things he had seen Daniel do, but the things Daniel had seen him do. There's no small amount of shame and self-loathing involved.

But at last he had answered, and now he's waiting for Daniel to get there, anxiously picking at his sleeves and staring at the wall. He's not as drunk as he would like, but he's definitely not sober. It's not going to be a fun conversation.

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Okay. That stings a little. Seth is - clearly not in a good place. Noted.

He doesn't quite mask his flinch at the slight jibe but he tries to pass it off as the rolling of one shoulder and hopes Seth is too tipsy to notice. He doesn't sit, just moves to the space opposite Seth and stands, hands loosely in pockets, head slightly cocked.

"How did you want to start?" he asks, quietly patient.

Seth does notice the flinch, being as focused on Daniel as he is, and immediately feels guilty. He doesn't really want to punish Daniel for what happened, what was completely out of his control. Part of him might be wanting to punish Daniel for killing those people, but that's not fair either. It's not his place, it won't do any good, and it probably isn't really deserved. It's just... difficult to be confronted with, when he was perfectly content to leave it to his imagination, or just not really consider it much at all preferably.

"I dunno, you were the one who suggested talkin'," he answers, though sounding a fair bit milder now, intentionally so. He can't hide how weary he feels though.

Daniel breathes out, long and slow, in what is less of a sigh and more of a statement of multifaceted exhaustion.

"Bottom line," he says finally, each word unstressed and even, his gaze unwavering, "I don't really know where to start with this one. I know it's, all of it, it's complicated."

Except it isn't, really, and that's the prime issue. Seth had gotten to see up close the shades of black and white that occasionally existed in Daniel's world, and then he'd been the victim of them. If there was any way to ease someone into the kind of work Daniel did, the Rift chose the poorest possible way to go about doing it.

Seth nods quietly, fiddling with his hands. The situation perhaps hadn't been that complicated, but his feelings surrounding it certainly are. In more ways than Daniel knows.

Unwilling to discuss what had happened, what Daniel had done, what Seth had finally done... Whether there were others who had more or less been in Seth's position and ended up the way he had feared...

Seth instead grasps for one subject that might not be all bad. "They friends of yours? Um, Reynolds and O'Neill?" Probably discussing Daniel's friends and/or co-workers will probably make Daniel feel homesick, but surely not any more than the dream's already done.

Hearing it elicits a familiar, sickening pang of frustrated distance. Sensing this conversation might go smoother at even eye level, Daniel moves over to drop onto the couch, one thumb rubbing at the other hand's palm.

"Reynolds often ran support for us," he answers with a tiny, clipped nod. "If, if we needed it. And Jack, um. Well. Jack's the closest thing I've had to a best friend."

Family, actually, if one decided to go against the traditional definition of the term. It had always been family, because Daniel was the one who no longer had any left to speak of. The others had their roots and their outside bonds, but Daniel only ever had the three most important people in his life. Had. He remembers his tenses this time.

It wrenches a little to say it, to have remembered it, even in the form of a dream manifestation. He can't help but wonder dully if the rest of the SGC has given up trying to find him by now, whether he's been tentatively declared MIA because they've long since stopped trying to declare him dead, and he wonders how long it will be before Jack's absolute conviction that he'll come walking back from this one dies out as well.

He misses him. He misses all of them, and it would be nice to be able to send some sort of signal that he's not dead, but Daniel doesn't think they believe he's dead anyway. Or maybe they do and are just impatiently waiting for it to be reversed, because when isn't it?

What little animosity he felt against Daniel after that dream seems to more or less melt away at not just this news, but the way he delivers it. O'Neill - Jack - was probably more grateful than he let on about having Daniel back in sort of one piece. He wonders how accurate a depiction it was of him, since it was really Daniel's idea of him rather than the actual man. Even from Seth's brief interaction with him, he'd seemed pretty decent. Perhaps because apart from Daniel, he was the most un-military person Seth interacted with in there, in that he actually seemed to have a personality.

Seth nods gloomily in acknowledgement, but he doesn't manage to say anything. He doesn't have the capacity to find something supportive or comforting to say. Everything kind of sucks. He resists leaning forward to pick up his drink again. Not just yet. Though there's always the hope he can get Daniel to drink some too, because he seems like he needs it, even if it's only noon.

The silence is unbearable; it leaves Daniel alone with his own toxic thought process, running and re-running through endless mental scenarios, anything to forestall the guilt and the crushing image of seeing the SGC ceiling spattered with Seth's cranial tissue.

The loop of the dream running in his mind's eye hits that point again. Daniel closes his eyes, twitching involuntarily when the nonexistent shot goes off so he doesn't have to see the body arcing backwards against the wall. He sees it anyway, naturally, because of course he does.

He opens his eyes again.

The silence persists. It's becoming unsustainable.

"I don't know what to tell you," he says finally, grinding out the internalized mess of frustration that's still winding its way through the mental replay that's just kicked off again. "You knew I worked with my universe's military. And you knew what that could entail."

Edited 2014-12-08 23:55 (UTC)

Seth shakes his head a little. "That's not... You don' need an explanation for that," he answers, running his hands over his face for a moment. He sighs, dropping his hands dejectedly.

"Look, I know you well enough to assume you did what, what you had to, and that you wouldn't, um... Stoop to what it is I hate about the military, or police, or whatever," he continues, finding himself staring at the table again. He's not sure he can word this properly, but that's more to do with the emotions wrapped up in it rather than the alcohol.

It did take him several hours to actually reach the point where he was sure he believed that. Of course, it doesn't stop the images of brutality, however necessary, from popping into his head far too often. It's going to take a little longer to replace the mental images of that with something less traumatising.

"Seth, you've known me three weeks." Daniel looks at the hands that don't know what they should be doing with themselves. "I worked there for eight years."

He doesn't want Seth to think him capable of the things he did, but it would be a lie to imply he isn't. He's done them. He's done worse. Allowing Seth to operate under the assumption that things are any different isn't acceptable.

"And what you saw might have been a, a twisted account, it might have deviated from actuality to a certain extent but the point is that it happened. Tegalus, the rebels, all of it - that was real for me. Different, maybe, but that doesn't change it. It happened."

Seth's frown deepens, and he rubs absently at his arm. He doesn't know how to explain it. It does change how he sees Daniel, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not something he can cope with and get over. And he doesn't want Daniel to think that Seth is casting moral judgement over him, when as far as he can tell, it was done for good reason. At least that's what he wants to believe. That's what he finds it easiest to believe. He doesn't want Daniel to think that Seth is better than him.

"You know, if I'd done wha' you asked me too, it wouldn' be the first time I'd killed someone," he says, swallowing and staring intensely at the table. "Hell, Kelly probably offed a dozen people at least. So if you think I'm in any position to judge..." He trails off, leaving that hanging there.

The twist of guilt is marred by the faint thrill of alarm. From the way Seth had reacted, Daniel wouldn't imagine he'd had to fire on someone before. But there'd been a lot of additional factors, he recalls - the shock, the confusion, the hail of explosions, the fact that Daniel had regressed to some past version of himself.

Some past version himself who was no less of a hypocrite, no less of a man he doesn't want to look at, than the person he is now.

"It's not judgement, it's -" He loses the thread he hadn't meant to pick up and his hands still as he inhales deeply, breathes out to regain some sensation of control. It doesn't work, but the illusion is nice for the two seconds it holds. "I don't know. It's - difficult to realize. That not having to do that at, at some point in your life - it's a luxury."

Daniel reacts less than Seth would've expected him to. But after that particular experience, they're probably both pretty drained.

"It's how Shannon died," he says, not sure why he's continuing to share. Evening the scores? Confession? Perhaps now Daniel is no longer as innocent as he seemed, Seth feels safer in letting him know about all his fucked-up baggage. Might as well get it out of the way, right? Make sure he knows what he's getting into.

Well. That might be the wrong way to put it. It's not like they're really getting into anything.

He looks up, expression crumpling somewhere between inquisition and sympathy.

He doesn't want to think about those implications.

But they're four-worded and blinding, and he can't not stare back at them in their ambiguity and compacted horror.

"How do you mean?" he asks slowly then, eyes flicking to the bottle and back again, he shakes his head. "Seth, you're not exactly - I mean, you're pretty, uh - I just think you might regret bringing this up now rather than, you know, later."

"Hmm," Seth answers with a smile, bitter and humourless. It's going to be painful either way. Drunken confessions are marginally easier. Maybe it's just because it's been a long time since he's felt as hopeless as he did this morning. It makes the difficult memories harder to ignore. Perhaps if he shares them, at least Daniel will have some insight. Not that he doesn't already have about a truck-load of insight.

"Well, it's a little complicated," he says, ignoring the warnings and focusing on the question. "But, um, drugs overdose. She ODed on gear I gave her. After which, well, I was a mess..." he begins explaining, reaching up to rub at his face again.

"Oh, god."

Thoughtlessly, he leans forward to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder before the dream and all its associations come splitting back to the forefront. He wavers, uncertain, then slowly lifts the hand to hook around the back of his neck.

"God, I'm sorry," he murmurs. "That can't have - god."

And he can see it, too, Daniel can envision in crisp, well-defined lines the kind of backwards decline Seth's entire everything must have taken after that, reduced to a victim of loss, left to crumble in the toxicity of his own frustration and guilt and self-blame.

"I'm so sorry," he says again, uselessly. The words sound hackneyed in comparison to the grief they're somehow meant to penetrate.

Seth nods a little, acknowledging the sympathy. Somehow it's easier to talk about this than the dream. At least it's something he's gotten a little distance from. Something he's actually had the time and support to work through and recover from, more or less.

"Well, um," he continues awkwardly. He hasn't gotten to the killing yet - not really. Sure, he'd blamed himself for her death, and he's still not convinced he wasn't at fault. But that time it hadn't been intentionally.

"Took me.. a very long time, but eventually I found someone with the power to bring people back from the dead. So. I brought her back."

He leans forward and picks up his half-full glass of whiskey, draining it as he lets that minor bombshell settle.

Oh.

Daniel takes off his glasses to scrub a hand over his eyes, shoulders hunching. Stories that embark from the point of resurrection so rarely end well unless they originate from the New Testament. This story already has a deeply, viscerally unfortunate ending, and he doesn't need to watch Seth chasing that reveal with whiskey to know it.

He waits, eyebrows drawn down in sympathy, for Seth to reach a point of relative stillness.

"What happened?" he asks quietly.

"Turns out, when you bring people back, they turn into zombies," he answers, in a light voice that does nothing to mask the guilt and grief behind it. He turns the glass over in his hands, staring down at it.

"Long story short, nine people ended up dead because of me, several of which I had to kill myself. And two pets, including my iguana," he continues evenly, morose but calm. He's mostly including the detail about the animals to get across the point of what a completely surreal situation it was. Ridiculous, and would've been funny if it weren't also so tragic. "And, well, let's not forget I single-handedly almost caused the zombie apocalypse."

He sighs heavily, looking up at the ceiling, pausing for a moment. "Got Shannon with a shovel." He reaches up to touch his cheekbone, indicating where he'd hit her, then falls silent.

He tenses, glances sharply sideways and back again. What was undoubtedly a tragic, emotionally draining experience also must have been a singularly horrifying one and, true to his nature, Seth's decided the entire thing must have been his fault. And he's really the last person who needs this kind of guilt weighing on his conscience.

For a moment Daniel wrestles with the correct response to something like that before realizing that there really isn't one. He either wishes Seth were sober or that he were more drunk; he can't decide which.

"That's not your fault," he says evenly. "You couldn't have known. Accidentally catalyzing a situation doesn't make you responsible for it."

He needs to make him understand it. Seth's lived with enough self-blame.

"No, I could've known," Seth answers immediately, not accepting any excuses Daniel decides to make for him. "I didn' even test it, I was so wrapped up in makin' things right, I didn' even try to make sure I knew wha' would 'appen."

His grip tightens around his empty glass in frustration, and he sets it down, the clink of glass on glass ringing sharply through the room. "And then all I did was cause her more pain. And Kelly, too."

Perhaps some things Daniel can help him forgive himself for, but the truth is he had acted rashly, out of nothing but self-involvement, and it had had catastrophic results. If it weren't for his friends willing to do the hard thing, it would've been even worse.

Edited 2014-12-09 03:42 (UTC)

"Seth," says Daniel firmly, focused, "raising people from the dead is not an exact science. There is no way you could have predicted that."

He concentrates on the dull ring of the glass striking the table, the fade of the pitch into the blended room tone. He needs some way to inject reason into this, detachment. "If you got that power from someone else, then they must've known they had it in the first place. And to know they even had it, they must have tried it and it must not have resulted in anything like that, or people would have noticed. You couldn't have known. You couldn't."

Seth seems to be spending a lot of time shaking his head today.

"Well, there's not really any way for me to know, because I never asked him, or gave 'im much of a chance to talk. One of... four times I've willingly taken someone's power by force. And given it 'appened both times we used the power, I'm going to assume it was the same for 'im," Seth argues.

As much as the support is appreciated, Seth won't accept undeserved excuses. He's not really in the mood to let his failings and mistakes slide, even if they're old ones.

"God, Seth, will you just -"

He pushes his glasses back on in a gesture that is entirely useless; he just stares at Seth over the tops of them anyway.

"You are not to blame for that. It was an accident. And I know, I know that saying that doesn't magically make you believe it, but that's how it is. I mean, you," He makes a frustrated, abortive hand gesture, words crystallizing into furious resolve. "You've been in my head, you've seen what I've done. You saw it first hand, and that was one planet out of dozens I've seen destroyed, one world out of the many I've had a hand in destroying. I don't forget those things, not ever, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't forgive myself for those mistakes."

Mildly alarmed at his own abrupt outburst of partially self-directed frustration, Daniel lets his weight sink him back into the couch. He hadn't meant for that to get quite so vehement. He needs a stabilizing breath. Or several.

Instead he continues. "They were mistakes. And that," he points at Seth, softening the edges to the unintentionally hardened tone, "was a mistake. You made a mistake and it happens. That doesn't mean you don't forgive yourself."

Seth falls quiet at Daniel's aggressively supportive rant, and he softens a little bit, leaning back in his chair. Some of it seems to make its way into his head. Though Daniel is very right in that it doesn't magically make him believe it, but it is a small step forward, at least.

"I'm sorry..." he says, suddenly a lot more quiet. Though he's not entirely sure what he's apologising for, it just feels like he should. Perhaps by making it seem like if he has trouble forgiving himself, he'd have trouble forgiving Daniel.

"Just... This morning, feeling so hopeless, it..." He fiddles with his sleeves, feeling awkward and uncomfortably vulnerable. "Guess it made me focus on, um, all the things that make me think things would be better if I just..." He trails off, starting to think maybe Daniel was right in that this was a bad time to discuss this.

And that brings them full circle. The gun goes off in Daniel's head again with its spattered red exclamation point, and Seth's body goes thudding against the floor.

The mental image won't clear itself from his head. He knows it'll inevitably join the ever-expanding gallery of things he can't shake and won't ever let himself shake. It may have been a dream but it had been Daniel's dream, in a trauma of his own make and a scenario of his own construction.

"Yeah, well," he says to the floor quietly. "That wasn't fair for you, having to get dragged through my head like that."

The tiny black lettering informing him of suicidal tendencies blazes out behind eyelids in the heartbeat his eyes blink shut. Daniel's head snaps up sharply.

"You'd tell me, wouldn't you? If, if you ever got the, you know, the...?" He raises one hand partway but doesn't complete the gesture, throat dry. "You'd tell me. If you, if you needed anything."

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