bigapplesauce | don't get lost in heaven, they got locks on the gate [open to multiple]

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don't get lost in heaven, they got locks on the gate [open to multiple]

Existence without form or breath or shape is disorienting, the spread of atoms over a plane he doesn't recognize, with the repeated dissolutions and reshapings of an indistinct self. At one point there was pain, and the unspooling of himself into light and purpose, and for a long while there is only amorphous drifting. He hits barriers, dissonant and frequent, where once he should have crossed from one plane to another, one reality to the next, in an effortless slide of energy across the universal boundaries. It is difficult to define emotional state outside of the human context - he only knows that he is not human - but it is a state of affairs that generates confused distress.

Temporal sequencing becomes a problem.

Awareness, too, is difficult to achieve. Gradually he is able to pull together the various components that comprise himself and reshape them into something capable of perception, but doing so strikes him with a revelation disconsolate, and that is that there are no Others here - no Ancients, nothing, simply an empty plane of shifting light and bottomless dark. And he is alone.

He knows he did this, and it was for a reason. But he finds he cannot remember anything, not immediately, and when the memories trickle back with his concentrated effort they are unfiltered and unstructured and unordered until finally he can impose the alien concept of linear time upon the thing, and fully interpret what he is in comparison to what he was.

Daniel Jackson.

The name is the linchpin that generates the outward ripples, spreading from that singular point of origin. It triggers the flood of remembrance, the 'gate, Manhattan, the locked-away knowledge that was once sealed in his head but now coalesces seamlessly into the whole of him now. He cannot delineate his form by shape or size or mass, not any longer, but now he remembers, he remembers what it is he can do and how it is he can do it.

He starts small because he must, drifting as a pair of hydrogen atoms while he glimpses the city on a reduced scale. Then he builds to it, the recollection of his shape. Spectrally manifesting was never truly allowed before, but if there are no Others then he is not bound by their laws. He assembles a body that resembles the one that was human and familiar, and projects it. It takes two tries to succeed, three to sustain it for longer than a meaningless collection of seconds, and no matter what he tries he cannot force his shape to manifest with glasses. Apparently his inner self, or however he chooses to define it, does not need them.

He loses track of how many attempts he makes before he can maintain his form visibly for any significant length of time. But finally, in a ragged burst of energy, the bewildered shape of Daniel Jackson reappears in Manhattan, and there he stays.

[ooc: Daniel Ascended back during the Rift Shitfit of September 4th, and he's only just figured out how to Do Things in his new state of being. Right now he's completely intangible and frequently phasing in and out of visible existence. I've added to his handy-dandy reference post as to what he can and can't do in this state. He can also show up LITERALLY ANYWHERE so if you want in on Ascended funtimes just pick a date and a location, or Daniel can pick one, or whatever.]

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The being does not advance on him, but Rashad does not relax. His muscles thrum with tension as he presses himself against grimy brick, staring at whatever has manifested itself in his latest inadequate hiding place. The form does not fool him, would not fool him even if he had not seen it appear before his very eyes. He cannot taste it or feel the scope of it in his current state, but he can sense very clearly what it is not.

"No," he whines, lacking reason to lie and unsure whether it is a relief to complain or if acknowledging the pain simply reopens the wound. "What are you? Why are you here?"

What are you. Daniel retreats, trying to give the man - the being - the person - his space. Whoever he is, whatever he is, he's plainly terrified, and Daniel's abrupt manifestation can't have helped.

What are you. It brings him up short. He doesn't know, not anymore. He doesn't have access to anything that could define himself for what he is. Ascended, but not Ancient. Not one of the Others. Something - else.

"I'm Daniel," he says simply. It's true, if not entirely forthcoming. "Sorry, uh - I'm kind of - adjusting."

That's ambiguous.

"I didn't mean to startle you, I'm sorry." He keeps his tone level, steady. If nothing else, maybe he can calm him down.

The answer is not an answer; all it tells Rashad is that this being with the face of a common man also claims the name of a common man. He continues to stare at the other being, instinctively trying to reach out and taste it, knowing that the scope of its emotions should tell him a great deal about what kind of a thing it is. He can taste nothing -- no, that is incorrect. He can taste everything, he can taste himself, his own emotions, and it is wrong and unhelpful. Somewhere in the tumult of emotion in the air, no doubt, is this being's own personal gestalt, but he cannot single it out.

"You are not an angel," he observes warily. It is good that this is not an angel. Were it, he likely would have fled already. The slightly increased distance eases the edge from his fear, and it is ludicrous that it should do so.

"No," says Daniel, pulling out the word curiously. The confusion's begun to make him feel more like the person he was before Ascending, before - all of that. The generalized 'all' he doesn't want to think about. It had been painful, he remembers that much, and he has no idea how he's supposed to locate Johnny to tell him, to explain to him what exactly had happened because he's sorry Johnny had to witness that, he really, truly is. He'd probably terrified the man, and now he has no idea how long it's been since it did happen.

Daniel sighs with the air of someone who'd be taking off his glasses if he still had them.

"I'm - " he begins, frowning, but abruptly deflates when he realizes he doesn't really have an explanation for it, "- complicated." The being opposite him is too, he can see that much, but he's completely without any kind of context to identify what he is and why he's seems to be - off, somehow. But the question itself turned out to be somewhat revealing, so Daniel reverses its direction with an innocent tilt of the head. "Why? Are you an angel?"

The innocent question cuts him to the quick. It is a simple, factual question with a somewhat less simple, factual answer he should nonetheless be able to express, but in the moment he cannot express it. Some autonomic response makes his lips tremble and robs him of his voice beyond a low whine that dies in his throat. Rashad shakes his head, a curt, jerking motion. "No," he chokes at last. "No more."

He wraps his arms around himself and fights back tears, unable even to name the mixture of grief, fear, and...something else....

"I have hurt no one!" he protests against some imagined accusation.

No more. What, so he was one but now - isn't? Daniel can't see anything he recognizes in the patterns of the waves and molecules, nothing that summons a familiarity with what he remembers glimpsing from Gabe or Lucifer. Then again, the guy is talking to someone who was human and now isn't, so maybe Daniel isn't in the position to be confused about this.

The second statement is what's more worrying at the moment, in addition to remarkably telling. Is he expecting people to ask him if he's hurt people? Has he? But the poor guy also looks like he's about to break down at any minute, so Daniel switches tactics.

"It's okay," he says, keeping his tone low and level and hopefully soothing. "I'm not accusing you of anything. Okay?" Very rational. Very reasonable. A very rational, reasonable apparition of a man who showed up out of nowhere.

The being -- this 'Daniel' -- has not attacked him, is not even accusing him. Denies accusing him. This scenario is painfully unfamiliar; he does not know what to expect from this being that appears like an angel but is clearly not an angel and he needs to know what he may expect. The unknown is no longer only an inconvenience, is now yet another source of anxiety.

He manages a little nod but does not relax from his useless self-cornering against the wall. "Why have you come?" he asks tremulously.

"Uhhh." That might make sense, actually, to assume he showed up for some kind of purpose. Typically that's what happens, isn't it? When people just poof into existence out of thin air, they do it for a reason, at least in Daniel's experience. But it doesn't seem to matter what he says, as it this person or former-angel or whichever is reacting pretty poorly regardless.

The apparition frowns, rueful and contrite. "Would you believe me if I said it was an accident?" He looks at his shape's hands, flexing fingers in mild bemusement. "I'm still kind of getting the hang of - everything."

Rashad's brow contracts almost painfully tight as he tries to make sense of the claim. An accident. Not a deliberate confrontation. He is unsure whether he does believe it, but he has no context within which to place the claim. "I do not know if I believe it," he admits.

Perhaps this Daniel also lacks such context. Perhaps -- perhaps indeed this encounter is not Daniel's doing at all, but that of the Rift. He must be brave. NO. He must be impassive, must take control of himself. "You do not know me," he says, attempting to ground himself with a truth that is more reassuring than it should be -- he should not be a despised thing, and yet he is. "Is this -- have you only now arrived here? Do you know where you are?"

Well, fair enough. Daniel's not sure he'd believe it either.

"No, I - " Hastily, he plunges into clarifications. "I've been here for a while. In Manhattan?" He grapples to retrieve a timeline, but no unit of time measurement immediately or conveniently presents itself, so he slides past specifics and heads right to his next point. "It's kind of a long story."

Understatement of the - whatever time constraint is most appropriate. Daniel's frankly not sure anymore. It's a little worrying.

"I'm not, ah," he says, holding up a hand as if for inspection, " - human at the moment, so I'm sorry, but uh, no, I, I don't recognize you."

"You are usually human?" This revelation is more confusing than anything else. Humans do not appear from thin air. Humans also do not seem strange and...more substantial in the way that Daniel does.

It is good that Daniel does not know him, and for a moment he does not understand the apology. He shakes his head again but does not clarify. "It is Manhattan," he confirms. "And I am -- I do not wish to be located."

"I used to be, yeah." Of course, he's not sure what he is anymore. "Like I said. Complicated."

And it looks like it's complications all around. He advances a cautious, insubstantial step, concern deepening the features of his projection, and the movement makes it waver, edges bleeding into obscurity before they sharpen again in the same instant. He redoubles his focus. He has to hold this shape, at least for the sake of -

"Look," he says evenly, "let's start this again, cause I'm not really clear on - any of it, really. You have a name?" Peering into the central mass of awareness of the thing was an ability he knows he once wielded, detection and identification of things beyond the human eye. But if maintaining a spectral shape has already begun to strain his concentration, Daniel doubts he wants to risk anything more.

Edited 2015-05-25 21:01 (UTC)

Rashad draws further upright at the movement, ready to -- he does not know, but ready -- only for increased tension to be supplanted by a rush of surprise and...intrigue. He already wanted to know what Daniel could be, but as he peers at the now stable shape of the other being Rashad is startled by the flash of realization that he wishes to know not only in order to assess a potential threat, but because he wants to know. Is Daniel insubstantial, or is the image before him an illusion laid over whatever true form he possesses?

No use. If Daniel is capable of explaining his existence, he has chosen not to do so.

"I am --" For a moment he feels the peculiar urge to be honest. He quashes it. "I am Rashad Durant." He of enduringly good sense. The selection seems less apt now than it once did. "This is not -- usual. I have lost much of late."

"Rashad." He repeats the name slowly, stretching the consonants experimentally. "I think I know you." The memories are disorientingly jostled, but the name rings as vaguely, distantly familiar, if only he could trace its origin.

He can't. Lost much can mean anything, and it doesn't help that Rashad's energy, his being, is comprised of something completely foreign to him. He can't begin to guess what Rashad is by composition - Ascension doesn't make him, or anyone, all-knowing. He has the capacity to understand, he's certain of it, but without any basis for comprehension he's useless.

"What have you lost?" he asks, tone falling somewhere between concern and curiosity, and then his form straightens with the realization. "Wait - the day we were cursed. You were - you kept getting things stuck you, right? The network - that was you?"

And there it is, the recognition he has feared. For a moment his breath catches (will this be it? None who know him and are still alive can be expected to treat him kindly), but then it whooshes back out of him in a brief, humorless laugh. Things stuck to him. Transformation into an inanimate object. His problems were so much more manageable back then.

"That was me," he agrees. "But I do not remember you."

At last he unpeels himself from the wall, his gaze still ever trained on Daniel, his body still poised for some undetermined but sudden action. His heart rate has slowed at last, and while he is not sure that he could be said to trust this new being, he is at least no longer convinced it must mean him deliberate harm. It might not be harmful to give this Daniel a direct answer. "I have lost my home and my employment," he admits. "And my...objectivity." This last thing is the most important, but he does not know how to convey the gravity of it.

"I was floating. Uh - my roommate was a cat?" If his construct were made of flesh and blood, it would have paled. Oh god. Seth. Has Johnny told him by now? How long has it been? Casting his awareness blindly like a net had yielded nothing - he doesn't remember how to detect the people he wants to detect, how to parse the flaring of varied and variegated energy signatures, how to separate one glow of being from the next.

But Rashad's moving away, no longer drawn into the corner like before, which Daniel is interpreting to be a good sign. Still anxious, he doesn't need to extend any wavering attempt at telepathic branching to understand that; the body language is fairly indicative in and of itself.

"Your objectivity?" The specter raises his eyebrows. That has a meaning he's pretty sure is lost on him, so he's going to focus on the two former. "So, what, you've just been living - here? On your own?" He expands his awareness around the alleyway and finds nothing that makes it seem particularly pleasant. It seems downright unpleasant once he evaluates it.

He recalls this. He recalls that it was not a person he knew, but that those were among the complaints he observed on the telephone network. He had assumed the man making those complaints was human, but perhaps his assumption was not incorrect at the time.

"I exist," says Rashad, because that seems more accurate to him than to claim that he lives "where I may. This place is largely undisturbed." Apart from when apparitions of former humans manifest in it, it would seem. "I no longer seem to require...contact."

"Contact?" The eyebrows climb at an alarming rate. "Like physical contact? Or, or communication? I don't understand what - "

He breaks off, focus sharpening. Whatever's going on with Rashad in the metaphysical sense isn't making any sense. He feels like there should be an order to it, but it's so beyond him that he can't be sure. Whatever it is, it's fragmented and chaotic, and difficult to discern.

"Look, I'm not - I'm just asking," he begins delicately. "But I can tell you're - you're not quite - human. Right?"

He does not understand. Why does Rashad continue to make erroneous assumptions about this being's comprehension? It seems somehow as though he should understand, but there is no rational reason to suppose such to be the case. It may be that his initial fear that Daniel might be an angel is still clouding his judgment.

"I have never been human," he says perhaps too sharply, insulted though it is clearly not meant as an insult. "This form is -- is flawed, but it is not human."

"Okay," he answers, pulling out the word and pulling back as well, having apparently struck a nerve. "I can see that."

Is Rashad having the same sort of inherent difficult in identifying Daniel as Daniel is with him? That's entirely possible, actually, especially if he's got sensory capabilities of his own. It might be he's lacking context, just like Daniel is.

"So, then." There's no polite way of saying it, though he tries to make it as tactfully as he can which is, currently, evidently not very tactful at all: "What are you?"

"Complicated." The non-answer is vindictive, and Rashad is immediately disgusted with himself for giving in to the petty impulse. His frown deepens and he looks ill for a moment. He is better than that.

Clearly he is not better than that.

"I am -- formerly -- an angel," he admits after a moment of uncomfortable silence. "Lately an eloim. Now...I do not know. The same thing, perhaps, but...injured."

"Injured?" Concern darkens his manifestation's features, even as he mentally unpacks the vocabulary. Eloim - related to elohim? 'God'? 'Power'? Or is it just synonymous with 'angel'? He's not like any angel Daniel's seen before, though, granted, he's only seen two - and originating from the same universe, to boot. That might explain how utterly alien this being's patterns and comprehensiveness and shape are to him.

"How'd it happen?" Daniel moves his form closer, hands up to indicate a peaceful disposition. He doesn't seem physically injured, just unkempt, like he hasn't been physically taking care of himself. But the disordered arrangement within him is what gives Daniel pause. Would the nature of the injury, then, lie in abstraction?

Rashad is not to know that the meaning of the term is far different in most worlds than in his own, or he might use one of the more general terms for a fallen archon rather than one specific to his type. It is still important, though, is it not? He was not a paynim deity, he was an angel. It matters.

He shifts his weight back but does not resume shoving his body into the corner. Is it wise to explain? Those humans who know of it have been unable to accept his nature and his needs, and this being has told him that he was lately a human.

No, he will not share the details. "It was an angel," he replies. "I do not fully understand what he has done to me, but I am not as I was. It is painful to me. I have suffered greatly."

Another angel? Daniel can't help but wonder, worriedly, if it's one that he knows. Lucifer, maybe. He could see the Devil exacting some kind of twisted revenge. He could see the Devil doing a lot of things.

"I can see that," he says carefully. "I mean - not just see but - sense, you know?" The wisdom of sharing what he is exactly is debatable, particularly since this is a person Daniel doesn't know very well at all. But Rashad's telegraphing his wary intent to keep back, so it's clear that an olive branch is going to need to be extended. The Rift is keeping him suppressed, shackled as Daniel is to Manhattan, but maybe the abilities of the Ascended are still at his disposal. Maybe he can help. Do something good with the energies he was once forced to resist using at any cost.

"Look, I might be able to help." He doesn't move any closer, not physically, but his awareness nudges forward, studying the molecular arrangement of the being before him a little deeper. "I don't know if I can exactly, but - I can try."

He does know what Daniel means, and that tells him something more about the being before him. He does not know what the being intends to do to help him when he ~~will not~~ cannot even explain what has been done to him or how or why.

But he is in pain.

He is aware that Daniel is doing something, but he cannot feel what, only senses that there is some shift in what might be deemed energy distribution around them. "What will you do?" he asks, desperate enough not to immediately refuse the offer.

bahh. did you check your spam filter? gmail gets filter-happy.

turns out that was the culprit but I thought I fixed it :P

and then it was my turn to lose notifs

damnit gmail

Re: damnit gmail

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