bigapplesauce | Entries tagged with location: bethesda terrace

A young man stands by the fountain at Bethesda Terrace and smokes a cigarette. He has only just arrived, appearing several feet off the ground and falling flat on his back with a pronounced yelp. Apparently, one harried passerby tells him, this kind of thing happens all the time. Apparently there's a whole community of 'people like you'. He refuses to stick around and provide any more salient details.

Castor blows smoke into the crisp autumnal air. He's not entirely certain what to make of his predicament, except that it has saved him the trouble of the backalley scrap he'd just gotten himself into, so that's something.

Whatever city this is--New York? Chicago?--it's clean. Well, cleaner. Well, this bit is. And on top of that it's a park. Parks are the sort of luxury not afforded to his kind back home. That might be a good thing. It might also be a problem. Well, probably not a big problem. He's never far from garbage. Not really.

He finishes his cigarette and flicks it to the ground, crushing it gently under his shoe and absorbing the energy back from it. Cigarette butts are everywhere. There's not much life in them but he can make do. Every bit counts. He stuffs his hands deep into his coat pockets and pivots on his heel, studying his surroundings. What's he supposed to do here, wait around until someone comes to pick him up? Wander and hope he runs into somebody he can talk to? It's not a great plan, but he doesn't have another one. It occurs to him he might be in shock.

Whatever. Be like a shark. Keep moving.

As he wanders through the startling greenery, he casts his awareness about idly, trying to feel... something he can relate to. This is not an exact science. It's linguistics, and the vowels shift every damn day. He adjusts the parameters in his head. A weak excuse for a thought experiment: let's say this new place is a dumpster, and you've been discarded from your previous dumpster and tossed into this one. And let's say there are others like you. So find them.

Ridiculously, it works. As he moves through the park, there is some vague sensation of familiarity tugging him in an increasingly focused direction. It says 'this thing is in the same language group as you'. This thing is a person. He walks up to it. Them. "Hi," he says with a friendly grin. "This, uh, this might be a weird question, but when you came here did you do it by like... appearing out of thin air?"

Current Location: Central Park - Bethesda Terrace
Current Date: Nov 21

centralcore

There is no alarm.

Atlas and P-Body are trundling along as usual, the bird children are making sounds, and there is no alarm, nothing to warn her of the very sudden invasion of her body. She is being ripped away, violently disconnected, why? how?! - no core transfer was initiated, systems show no signs of corruption, and the human is still gone - what is happening?

It hurts as every part of her awareness struggles to grasp onto itself, clinging to the mainframe, hurts as she's tugged violently away, no, no, not again, noOOOooOooo, who will take care of her facility, what will happen to-

. . .

. . .processing. . .

Eyes open. Eyes. Two eyes. Not her single glowing optic, nor the millions of lenses that cover her facility. Two simple parallel-adjacent eyes, working in tandem to capture only what is a few measly kilometers in front of them. Human eyes.

Hands fly up to touch her face. Oh god. Her face. Oh no. No. No. This isn't - can't be happening. She had so much control, such a broad reach, and now she has - two arms, two legs, a head, a body. Now she's... human.

"No!" she snaps, and she's alarmed both by how quiet and how loud her voice is. Quiet because it only touches a small space around her, not reverberating gently through the many rooms of her facility. Loud because it happened at all. Ringing. Rattling. In her head.

This is far too much. She needs to think. She needs to think, and how much processing capacity does this body possess? How can she possibly-

Oh well now wait a moment. This isn't quite so small. She can still think and process more or less the same. It's just - trapped, infuriatingly, like she was trapped in that potato, but without the danger of shutting down every time she felt something too hard. Well, at least she hopes not.

Okay. Well. Let's just stick a pin in that.

Where is she?

She is outside. Outside should be a war-torn wasteland, thanks for NOTHING, Black Mesa. But it is not. It is thriving. Full of - of - humans.

So many humans. Just look at all of them.

And she can't kill any of them!

Well, she could, but it would take a while.

She stands up. A motion that comes naturally, even if it feels terrible. Balancing on legs. Feet planted. Solid surface beneath her, range of motion limited to what two little legs can do. She's - short! This is an outrage. An outrage! Who has done this? Who could possibly have done this?

She points toward the nearest subject. "You! Human! What is this - place?"

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace
Current Date: October 4th

driftseeker

Post-drift and post-canceled-apocalypse, it’s a disarray of decontamination protocol and harried celebration and administrative detailing that’s lost on a head that’s too full of sentiments opposed. There’s grief, sick and heavy, laid flat against the fluttering escape of relief, the confused realization that somewhere outside of this lies an actual future, not simply in the context of a motivation or incentive to fight ever-onwards, but as something conceivable and attainable and imaginable.

She can hear Raleigh for days after, as they undergo endless directives to ensure that they are free from the heretofore unconsidered threats of radiation poisoning or infection by alien pathogens, but nearly all of it slides past in an incomprehensible, exhausted blur of prolonged lassitude. They're ghosting constantly, instinctive and unthinking, awake and dreaming, and there’s a familiarity to the the brush of his mind against hers; they’re each others' anchors in the nightmares that follow, one dragging the other out of those plunging tangents of things many-eyed and blue-dyed and split-jawed and glistening, and between the horrors buried in their heads and the steel ache of loss, sometimes Mako wonders how it is she is still sane.

They’re released from the labs and medical procedures after a week. Herc circumvents the wall of paperwork for them, dismantles the red tape to scrape one last favor out from the Shatterdome’s shattered shelves, and tells them to give themselves a brief cushion of space before the press hits, because it will. They saved the world. They’re heroes. They're cultural icons. Their faces are plastered on every magazine and news report, and everyone will want to know what it was like and were they scared and how did it feel to save the world. Privacy will be a privilege they'll soon miss.

Mako just wants to sleep. Raleigh does too. They sequester themselves in an anonymous hotel and barricade out the real world and hunt for rest without dreams of things with too many teeth. The only clothes they have are PPDC-regulation. Personal effects have been left abandoned in their old rooms. They crash fully clothed and sleep with boots still on.

It’s with a roaring in her ears that Mako wakes and finds that everything is bright and wrong. The hotel is gone; the world, everything, and when she claws out in search of Raleigh’s mind she only finds screaming silence. It takes her a moment for her scrambling mind to string together causality and consequence, form a concatenation of deductions to be drawn from the seeping chill that soaks her from the waist up, the wet cling of her clothing, and conclude that she is standing waist-deep in water in a fountain in a city she doesn't recognize. Wind hisses over the water's surface, distressingly non-littoral.

Mako raises a hand and squints against the glare of the sun, bereft.

Current Location: Bethesda Fountain
Current Date: September 25th, 2013

apidae

Bee waits by the fountain. She got there early with an impromptu picnic and a book, and has been sitting and reading calmly ever since. She clung hard to her dream upon waking, intently focusing on the people she met there - she remembers Peter and Dana of course, and the Doctor with his unforgettable face, but the Balladeer, with whom she actually made concrete plans, strangely eludes her, the memory of his features somewhat shifting. She hopes he remembers and comes to find her. She's excited to see him and to see his patterns. It's very strange to her, to forget a face. She does remember getting a very curious and sort of muddled view of him, more than the general haziness of dreams accounts for. His patterns are going to be very strange, she is sure of that.

She sets her book down after a moment and stretches her legs out, her feet bare as usual, and takes a moment to look around at the crowd of people moving through Bethesda Terrace. Perhaps he's among them. Will she recognize him when he appears? What if he decided not to find her after all? She's more nervous than usual, she thinks. Tired, too. That was a lot of socialization she had in her sleep. She hopes, if he does come, they can go somewhere a little more secluded.

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace
Current Date: August 15th

starlightcalliope

Once again it is quiet and lonely in the void of the Furthest Ring. Some time ago - inasmuch as time can be said to be a thing that exists here - Calliope had suddenly found herself in a very strange dream bubble. It had been quite frightening, but also nice, so nice, to not be alone for a while, and of course it was over far too quickly, leaving her to stew by herself in the dark once more.

Despite the brief respite from her miserable lot that the dream had granted her, she is soon overwhelmed by loneliness and despondency again, curled up at the center of her protective vortex and wondering how she is supposed to make a difference to all of Paradox Space. Being dead means irrelevancy, after all, and she has already been killed by her brother once before - quite rightfully, the more she thinks about it. So how can she hope to find the courage to leave her hidden sanctuary and go in search of the secret weapon of legend, capable of defeating the invincible reality-rending monster her brother has become? Hope is in rather short supply out here, she muses gloomily.

Just then, as though to prove her wrong, something changes. Calliope stares up in speechless shock as a pair of majestic wings appears in mid-air, getting larger and brighter and quite mesmerizing and then she feels like she's tumbling, the wings guiding her. It's a short tumble, at the end of which she finds herself sitting on smooth stone, looking up at the back of a winged human statue. There is water sprinkling down in front of her-- water? And trees?? And humans!!! With an undignified squeak, Calliope more falls than scrambles down the edge of the oddly round body of water and cowers at the foot of it.

What is this place? There are so many humans she doesn't know, and this really doesn't feel like a dream bubble at all, and she feels slightly cold... just about anywhere would be cold to someone who grew up beneath a massive red supergiant, but she's never felt much of anything in the void or in dreams. This is all too much to take in and so is quickly eclipsed by her usual paramount concern - not causing a panic among the humans with her monstrous appearance. Which is going to be rather difficult, as the round structure isn't hiding her well at all, and oh she's quite sure she couldn't bear it if they all started running away screaming. Too scared to care that this doesn't seem to be a dream, she squeezes her eyes shut and desperately wills herself to look more acceptable, imagines with all her might her trollsona's soft grey skin, pretty face and lovely curled orange horns. But for all her imagining, she's still too afraid to open her eyes again.

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace
Current Date: August 3rd

jane_eyre

Today Jane is alone. Adele in school, Bertha in the doctor's care, she is free to do as she pleases. And today she pleases to wander.

The forest that once seemed so forbidding and full of terror is now friendly and familiar. It was here that she came to realize the awful truth about Thornfield and it's master - may he to the devil and his name be struck from the record of her mind - and it was here that she felt she truly came to know herself. Jane Eyre of - not of Gateshead, not of Thornfield, but of the moor.

She stands a moment in a clearing, listening to the rustle of wind amidst leaves, feeling the spring of moss and dead leaves beneath her feet, and closes her eyes, opening herself up to the world of spirits Helen had once told her about. She fancies she can feel it now, a light tingling just out of reach, if she could only grasp it -

Her hand presses forward into the dusky fog, fingers wrapping around the invisible life beyond, when behind her eyelids the light changes, bright and hot, and the smell, the gentle give of the earth, and the sounds - all of it gone, replaced by things new and, indeed, frightening.

She opens her eyes and beholds the new world around her, solid stone beneath her feet, unfamiliar, overwhelming smells in the thick hot air, and cacophony. Voices, yes, but things stranger still, beyond her understanding, a distant rush and roar, a tapestry of noise she cannot even begin to mark.

She feels herself sway, near into a faint, and catches herself just barely, bracing upon the lip of a great fountain behind her, an angelic statue staring down.

"Oh," she whispers to herself. "Oh, saints preserve me."

What unholy nightmare is this, what strange netherworld has she stepped into? It feels realer than anything she has ever dreamed. For many moments she rests at the fountain's edge, frozen and quite, quite alone.

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace
Current Date: 25 July in the year of our lord 2013

wentdowntogeorgia

Lucifer falls.

This is old news for everyone involved. He fell from Grace, he fell from Heaven, and after the so long awaited confrontation in Stull Cemetery, he and his once-beloved brother and the promise of violence, he fell back into the Cage in the body of Sam Winchester.

Now, when he falls, he feels a shift around him like the universe cracking open at the seams; there is the smell of ozone and a lightning-snap that’s louder than even Sam’s fearful internal monologue, louder than the terror that pounds his frantic mortal heart at the sight of Perdition yawning wide beneath him. He is yanked sideways, sudden lateral movement that would be dizzying if he had a center of balance to upset, a rip-tide pulling him in and down and through the rabbit-hole, shadow-thin and darkling deep.

The body that is supposed to be his—that has had his name written over and across and around every fiber of its being since its conception—is suddenly far away, and he is wrapped in the old, familiar skin of a vessel he’d left dying in Detroit, flesh given freely rather than claimed by divine right. And then he is a streak in the sky that hits water and sinks like a stone.

Under the water, cold and getting colder from the seed crystal that is his freezing Grace in its mortal house, he can feel the vast emptiness where Heaven should be above him and isn’t; the universe is silent and it is deafening, a tinnitus ring where there should be angels’ voices. Lucifer grabs two fistfuls of space-time and pulls, moving himself from under the water to standing in the shallows at the bank, and behind him the lake’s surface is already frozen over thick like it’s the dead of winter. The water around his feet is sluggish and barely liquid, filmed over top with a thin frozen layer that breaks and flows around his ankles.

Someone approaches him with a towel, and there is no Hell below him and above him only sky, and he makes no reply; he banishes the water from his clothes with a thought before he puts his fist right through the man’s chest.

[[ooc: So this is going to be the hottest of messes; see mod comment for post instructions and fun stuff like that.]]

[[TW: gore, major character death.]]

Current Date: 14 July

peacefulexplorer

Coffee was developed in Ethiopia circa the fifteenth century, though there have definitely been indications of coffee-drinking as a habit in Yemen, and the developmental process of learning to cultivate it and then brew it and then mass-produce it and then manufacture it to consumers must have had a truly tremendous impact on the growth of human history when one considered it in the broader historical context. There must have been countless world leaders who loved their coffee, who were addicted to coffee, who required it to function, who made their best and worst and most historically influential decisions while drinking coffee or waiting for coffee or having been deprived of coffee for unreasonably long stretches of time.

No matter how many stimulating linguistic exercises Daniel puts his brain through (break the word down to its origins, from the Dutch koffie to the Arabic kahwa to the Turkish kahveh until finally the definitive term itself was developed in the sixteenth century), he always seems to loop back to the extreme, infinitely frustrating lack of coffee.

The fifteenth century had coffee.

And he does not.

His hand creeps up to take off his glasses so the other can massage his pounding forehead. He’s already resolved to add “instant coffee” to the suggestion box of things that could improve the conditions of extended offworld missions. The SGC probably doesn’t actually have a suggestion box, so he files away a reminder to suggest that they get one. Civilian feedback might not seem all that important to them but they should know by now that those opinions have got to count for something and - oh, hello.

Caffeine withdrawal forgotten, Daniel’s thoughts abruptly divert to the singularity taking place in front of him.

It’s almost like a wormhole but not - not quite. Roughly conical, shifting. There’s something off about it. No gate, for one. And for another, it - well, it pulses.

The glasses go back on and Daniel scrambles to his feet and stares, squinting at the apparent spaciotemporal anomaly that has just formed without warning.

“Hello,” says Daniel, just in case the thing is sentient. He raises a hand and waves.

The not-really-a-wormhole doesn’t respond in any obvious way. Daniel’s head tilts to one side as he watches the thing swirl and shift in its oddly mesmerizing, seemingly unpatterned movements. He tries communication again, speaking as one scientific anomaly to another.

“Do you understand me?” Daniel asks slowly. “Are-are you, ah, alive?”

He probably shouldn’t get any closer. He probably shouldn’t -

The thing swells unexpectedly, wrapping some indistinguishable force around Daniel and pulling -

Oh, hell.

And then he is suddenly, inexplicably somewhere else. Somewhere that looks suspiciously not like P5X-909 but that felt nothing like beaming technology and he was on P5X-909 not ten seconds ago. It felt like ten seconds, though Daniel knows better than to trust his own perception of time when he's been known to mistakenly spend entire days poring over the same translation.

Daniel stares at the fountain he's unceremoniously ended up at, crowned with an angel holding its wings and arms outspread. If he didn't know better, he'd say -

He'd say he's on Earth.

If he ever comes back from this one, he’s going to add “keep Daniel Jackson from dying in every unpleasant way imaginable” to the suggestion box.

Current Location: Bathesda Terrace
Current Date: July 13th (backdated)

bibliophale

"What about," Aziraphale is saying, "about. Wait. Wait. What-" He sloshes back the rest of the contents of his wineglass, spilling a bit on his tie. Oh bother. He cleans it up with a wave of his hand. "-about... cimna- cim- cimnanonom. That's a ridiculous word." He giggles, now thoroughly sidetracked. "You know what I mean though, right?"

The odds are unlikely, but it doesn't matter. A moment more and there's a physical crackle in the aether, Aziraphale can feel it trembling through his skin and he sits up sharply. "What-" he stammers, but there remains no one at whom he can finish his sentence. Crowley is gone. Crowley is gone.

Aziraphale sobers himself up in an instant, wiping away every trace of alcohol along with the side effects. He stands up and stares at the old couch, still indented with the shape of the vanished demon. He reaches forward and touches it gingerly, like he expects to feel evidence of the Event that's just taken his friend. He only feels the vague warmth of a just recently departed body.

"What in the world," he murmurs to himself, then stumbles out of the back room and into the main part of his reconstructed post-arson shop. He has half a mind to assume this is some sort of ill-conceived prank, but the ill-conceived part doesn't fit Crowley at all. There hadn't even been a good setup.

At a loss, he attempts to contact the Authorities, who fail to answer him, either because They're quite busy, or because he's temporarily on a no-call list. Not implausible, given the whole Armageddon thing. Oh dear, might this have something to do with that? Some sort of retribution? A lesson to be taught? He hopes not. If that were so he'd be next.

Well, what is he meant to do now?

This is a question that goes unanswered for days, then weeks. Aziraphale waits, wanders, even takes some marginally inadvisable measures in his increasingly frantic effort to locate his counterpart. When They do eventually get around to contacting him, the Authorities are no help at all: They have no idea where Crowley's got to, and are a little irritable about it, like somehow this is Aziraphale's fault. He bristles at the notion of a replacement and neglects his own work, gradually beginning to neglect himself too, even allowing his physical form to change in tune with the stress he's under. He can barely remember a time without Crowley, and his inability to cope shows in the facial scruff he doesn't bother culling and the increasing narrowness of his face and body.

Later - he's lost track of exactly how much time later - he's finishing off another miserable bottle of wine by himself when he feels that sensation again. Crackling, tingling, just as before. He gives a violent start, looking around in the throes of hysterics, when the scene changes. It's him this time, compressed, unmade, rearranged, and deposited elsewhere. Really elsewhere.

In midair, as a matter of fact.

"WHAT," is all he gets the chance to shriek before he plummets, much too startled and too drunk to produce his wings before he plunks like a stone into the lake.

[[ooc: UPDATE: gonna have Aziraphale just go straight to the Rebel Base, so this thread is actually no longer open. I'll probably do another open type thread soon.]]

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace
Current Date: 2 July (just a little while after Crowley's appearance)

eliotwaugh

Eliot does not do the walk of shame, he takes a promenade of reminiscing on a night well spent. It's early enough in the morning that the heat hasn't gotten overpowering, so he saunters back down to SoHo, getting coffee and a crêpe along the way. He feels better, so much better, having had that little vacation from his life. And his life is already so much of a vacation, isn't it? But he knows, of course, that his usual pace of frenetic idleness couldn't be sustained forever, and when he was stuck with his usual crowd (and Janet, always Janet, waiting for him and still wanting him after all this time, sometimes it made his skin itch to look at her), he hated those moments of self-awareness and chased them away with all the intoxicants he could get his hands on.

But something about today is different. He had taken a much-needed break from the usual scene, and had a lovely time with lovely Johnny, and somehow the city doesn't seem so much like the usual desert of mundane dirty boring everything, like it usually did. Maybe Eliot's looking at it with fresh eyes, but it seems a little bit more magical.

When he gets to the apartment, he starts to realize that he might have a problem. The key doesn't work, but that's not he first time it's happened, the building is so old and the lock gets sticky in the humidity, so he does the usual thing and starts banging on the wood with his fist.

"Janet!" he yells, and oh no his throat hurts from all that drinking, he hopes he's not getting a summer cold, those are the worst. He's about to yell again when he hears something from inside the apartment that chills his blood.

There's a dog barking.

They don't have a dog. Janet doesn't even like dogs, and as much as they joke about their little Ozzie and Harriet setup here she would not go out and get a dog as a gag for them to laugh about and neglect and foist off to Quentin and Alice in a week. So why the fuck is there a dog in his apartment?

He stops banging on the door, because the dog is scrabbling and whining at it and then there's footsteps and it opens and it's some strange bearded hipster douche staring at him like he's crazy.

"What the hell, man?" hipster douche accuses, and Eliot narrows his eyes and looks down at the dog, poking its fluffy white face out from the sliver of doorway. It looks like one of those hypoallergenic designer hybrids people have, with the stupid names. Shitcock. Snickerdoodle. One of those things. It's wrong, the whole thing is wrong, this guy and his dog shouldn't be here.

"What the hell are you doing in my apartment?" Eliot counters, angry and confused and too hungover to try and reason this. They shouldn't be here. This is so wrong, why is there a dog? For whatever reason that's the thing he focuses on, as he backs away from the yelling faux lumberjack, hearing a high-pitched ringing in his ears. His stomach turns, and he gets off the stoop and leans into the bushes to catch his breath or throw up (which mercifully doesn't happen).

The feeling of sickness triggers a sense-memory; he remembers the nausea yesterday, in the evening in the park. There's definitely something wrong, all right, and maybe Eliot was just too drunk to see it before. Something is fucked up, something happened to him, maybe someone's gaslighting him, but it started in the park.

He storms off down the block, out of sight of the hipster who's now closed the door, grumbling. Eliot starts to warm up a teleportation spell but it feels off-balance somehow, his hands don't feel right even though he's gone all over the city like this and it should be as natural as breathing. He feels sick, sick and wrong. Maybe until he figures out what or who's behind this mindfuck he should cool it on the magic. He'll be fine. He digs in his pockets for a wad of cash and sets off to hail a cab.

Eliot's mood darkens as they crawl up Fifth, and when the cab drops him at the southeast corner of the park, the wrongness hits him palpably, like coming out of air conditioning into sweltering summer heat.

There's magic here, powerful and unfamiliar, and it's so absolutely out of place. And Eliot's going to get to the bottom of it.

[[ooc: so off he wanders, hungover and confused and in a hell of a mood! Let's make Eliot's day even worse, friends!]]

Current Location: Central Park
Current Date: June 26 (backdated)

has_a_horn

At exactly noon, a fissure of light opens in the air above Bethesda Terrace and an angel falls out. He lands with a muffled thump in front of the arches of the arcade, face up, soft brown wings extending fifteen feet in either direction stained with patches of red. He's covered in bruises and cuts, and his clothes (damaged themselves) are covered in streaks of blood. One of his wings hangs at an odd angle, but it's hard to tell if that's because it's broken or because the angel isn't conscious enough to change its position.

He doesn't move.

For a few moments everyone there to witness the event is stunned. Then people start taking pictures and video. A particularly curious teenage boy checks to see if the angel is alive, and uploads his success onto his YouTube channel. It's on the news within fifteen minutes.

Current Date: June 30th, 2013

eliotwaugh

[[cw: casual, casual alcoholism]]

Par for the course, Eliot is drunk. No soirees tonight, none planned tomorrow, no Janet and no one to seduce, which leaves him with pub crawl, party of one. He's conquered a nice portion of the east side and is now ~~staggering~~ making his graceful way westward, cutting through the park. There's always someone to seduce in the park, but none of tonight's options meet with Eliot's exacting standards, and he breezes on by and makes a dutiful show of not feeling sorry for himself.

It's right around when he passes Bethesda Fountain that he feels it, something—wrong. Air and pressure changes, a shift in the whole je ne sais quois of the place. He comes perilously close to stumbling, halts abruptly and looks around, absurdly, like a prairie dog.

Nothing's different. Everything's as it was. Central Park, humid nighttime, the stars all accounted for, presumably, not that anyone can tell. And he's suddenly not sure, was there anything, or did he just have one of those odd, drunken little chills?

Good grief. He must be worse off than he thought. Tsk, tsk, Eliot Waugh, could it be you're losing your edge? This will have to be dealt with immediately. He needs to find a place to sober up.

He maneuvers himself to the west side, navigating the streets like the goddamn pro he is, until he finds what he wants, a desperately average little dive called, adorably, Jake's Dilemma. Cheap and gross and just what the doctor ordered. He slips inside, takes in the early half-crowd with a disaffected glance, and sits himself down.

Current Location: Central Park and the West Side
Current Date: June 25

has_a_horn

[This is more or less a post so I have a reference for what actually happened that morning. He's not going to be interrupted, but you're welcome to use this thread to have your characters respond to Gabe's absence. And: suicide tw ]

It's barely light out when he decides. He'd be lying to himself if he said he was doing this to try to get back home. No one is waiting for him there. He's doing this because he's tired of the endless cycle of hope and disappointment. He's tired and he just wants it to be over. He wants to die.

He kneels down in front of Scout, eye to eye with the little dog, and digs his fingers into the wiry fur behind his ears, scratching and petting. The dog can tell that something is wrong. It might be Gabriel's unusually solemn attitude, or the determined set of his jaw, but the dog whines in response and steps forward on the bed until he can stretch forward and lick Gabriel's face.

"You'll be okay." Gabriel rests his forehead against the dog's head for a moment before pulling back and giving the dog as commanding a glance as he can manage, which isn't very commanding at all at the moment. "Scout, If Johnny is bad to you, tell Daine. Daine will make it better." He has no way of knowing how much of that Scout understands, but it makes him feel a little better about leaving him behind. His face softens and he pets the dog one more time before standing and vanishing from the room.

He reappears just outside of Johnny's door, Scout's leash in hand. As quietly as he can, he loops the leash over the door handle. Hopefully, it will be enough to get Johnny to investigate and find Scout when he leaves this morning. Hopefully, Johnny will take good care of Scout because Scout deserves good care.

He spends a few minutes feeling locked in cement, staring at the leash hung daintily around the handle, his thoughts racing. Johnny doesn't want his help. He's not powerless - he'll be fine. Everyone will go on as they were. Even the TARDIS. She has her Doctor again. She'll be happy when he disappears. Maybe not...immediately, but...eventually. Some already know it, but eventually everyone will decide that they are better off without him.

He rests a hand against the door frame and takes a deep shaky breath. It's another minute before he stands upright again and leaves the apartment building entirely.

An early morning jogger is just settling down to rest on the steps of the Bethesda Terrace when she's shocked by the sudden appearance of a short man in a light canvas jacket a short distance away. The man stands in front of the fountain, looking up at the angel statue for a brief moment, then walks around until he finds a spot that doesn't seem to have any significance, except to him.

The man trembles visibly in the early morning cold, and as he closes his eyes the jogger feels a sort of pressure building in the air. She wants to leave or interrupt, but something stops her from doing either. She sits still as the man takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and vanishes.

In the void, a man's scream echoes up across the terrace. Terrified, and finally able to move, she gets up and runs home.

Current Location: bethesda terrace
Current Date: June 23rd, 2013

applesaucemod

Due to the crisis and inability to effectively communicate, by noon people have started to gather at the rift center at Bethesda Terrace in the park.

People from both Romac and the rebels, as well as people attached to neither group, are gathering together for support and a place where no one expects them to speak. Since maps can still be understood without words or numbers, many people end up being directed here as a gathring place.

Someone has paid for a hotdog vendor to give out free food, and several people are going around offering coffee and hot cocoa. The edge of the fountain is covered with blankets for people to sit on.

Post a comment with your character, and go tag other people!

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace, Central Park
Current Date: February 5th, 2013

has_a_horn

It's Las Vegas, 1960, and Gabriel has snapped himself back in time. He's sitting front and center in the Copa room at the Sands Casino, listening to Frank, Deano and Sammy croon their hearts out. Ever since that whole averted-apocalypse business, the past is generally the only place that's entirely safe and snug from anyone and anything that might know what he really is. He's grown attached to the body he's been living in for the past few thousand years, and he'd hate to change it without good reason. That, and Las Vegas in the sixties really was something worth appreciating.

Well, he thinks, it may be a few decades away from the Spearmint Rhino, but that doesn't stop a man of my unique imagination from having a good time. He's been here for a week and has already staked out a particular mobster that's ripe for a deservedly ironic death, but if he's being honest with himself, Gabriel would admit that he's not really ready to part with this particular scene just yet.

The tall, busty brunette sitting next to him isn't exactly human, or in fact real at all, but he pushes a drink across to her nonetheless. He smirks around a blissful sip of a delightfully anachronistic butterscotch appletini and watches as she picks up her glass. Her smirk when she drinks matches his exactly, a mirror image. On stage, Frank starts singing New York, New York. Gabriel had spent the last few minutes wondering how long he'd have to give Sinatra laryngitis before the singer started offering to change his ways. He sighs now, tiring of the idea, and slides his gaze back to a mobster he'd been watching off and on since he'd arrived.

"So," He leans towards his companion, brushing aside her wavy hair to whisper into her ear. "What next? Time for some action? How do you feel about alien abduction? Classic, right?" He nods in the man's direction, nuzzling against her cheek in the process.

The truth was, though, that he isn't feeling particularly into the vengeance game at the moment. He'd been feeling a bit restless, a bit at a loose end. Knowing this, his companion hmms in response, then speaks, breathy and seductive, "Don't you want to wait for desert? Or..." The brunette turns her head to face him and presses a kiss to his jawline. "...we could always go back to the suite."

He grins at the projection, having finally come to a decision with himself about what to do with the rest of his night, and shakes a finger at her to emphasize his point. The trickster business can wait another night. He has real silk sheets to appreciate. "That's the best idea I've had all night."

He's about to snap his fingers and bring himself back to his room, when something in the air shifts. He lifts his head and squints his eyes, as if trying to listen to a far off and tinny sound. There's definitely something in the air that's not right. He stands abruptly and looks around. He can't detect any particular point of change. The entire place feels suddenly different and he's not going to stick around to find out just who has taken a sudden interest in tracking his ass down. He raises his hand, ready to snap himself away.

In the Copa at the Sands casino, 1960, the room swims with cigarette smoke, glasses clink against glasses, and Sinatra sings.

These little town blues... are melting away... I'm gonna make a brand new start of it... in old New York...

A table, front and center, is suddenly empty. No one notices.

Bethesda terrace, 2012, an archangel-turned-trickster suddenly appears and stares up at a statue of an angel. He lowers his hand without having snapped his fingers at all.

"...Huh."

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace, Central Park
Current Date: December 28th, 2012

beastisbeauty

The Hulk roars, swatting a Doombot out of his way, trying to find the real Dr. Doom. He's been a member of the Avengers for five months now and is getting used to watching for the others. Puny Banner still keeps him locked away most of the time, but Hulk is enjoying greater freedom. He is discovering there are certain things and people that he can smash, without puny ones fussing about it too much.

Hulk is just about to swipe away another small group of Doom's henchman, when a strange feeling washes over him. He feels dizzy, a flying sensation, then wet. Roaring in displeasure, the Hulk finds himself standing in a fountain, near a lake. The air is cold, but the Hulk doesn't mind that.

He minds that his team is gone, the Doombots are gone, and he's been moved! He wants very much to smash whoever thinks they can move Hulk! Hulk was busy smashing and wants to be smashing still! Hulk feels Banner stirring in the back of his mind, but Banner is puny.

Hulk lets out a tremendous roar, hoping the other Avengers will here and find him, taking him back to the battle.

Current location: Bethesda Terrace, Central Park

lukesmith

Alone for once, Luke trots absently along the way home from school, mind already on his homework. He doesn't mind homework, at least when it's math or science. It took him a while to get why the other kids all hate doing homework -- learning's sort of the point of school, and his teachers have been giving him stuff from beyond his grade level to keep him busy. He can sort of understand it when he thinks about his English homework, though; the thought that he's going to have to spend tonight trying to puzzle through more of Romeo and Juliet is not an uplifting one.

Something catches his eye and he pauses, thoughts brought back to the world around him. He can't say what it was, but for a moment there was some sort of flicker -- something that didn't seem quite right. He frowns, brow furrowing, and takes a step backward to try to see it again. "Hello?" he calls tentatively, peering into the shrubbery. "Is someone there?"

There's another...something. Luke looks around, wondering for a moment if he should go get Sarah Jane or Clyde or Maria. But no, it's probably nothing much, and it might be gone by the time he gets back. Shrugging his backpack straps further up on his shoulders, Luke wades into the greenery by the walkway where he thinks he saw it. Maybe it's something that's been cloaked, or maybe it's an alien -- or maybe it's nothing and he's tearing his jeans for no good reason. He stoops and pushes his hands through the branches, looking, and --

And there's a sideways jerk, a feeling of falling, and he stumbles and lands on his rear in shallow water. Gasping in surprise (and cold!), he flails, splashing, and scrambles to his feet. He shivers violently as he looks around, wide eyes taking in his suddenly changed surroundings. Theres's...a fountain? He's fallen in a lake?? There's some sort of terrace going down into the icy water, and he's on one of those steps. He doesn't know how this is possible, since he's never even seen this place before he appeared here. Shaking with the cold, he tries to climb up onto the next step, slips, and falls back in the water.

"Help!"

Current Location: Bethesda Terrace, Central Park
Current Date: December 22, 2012

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The Big Applesauce

Page Summary

boneshaker - don't believe everything that you breathe [open]
centralcore - Two plus two equals - asjfaldj;ljadfjasaflj - ten. IN BASE FOUR, I'M FINE [open]
driftseeker - when the city goes silent, the ringing in my ears gets violent [open]
apidae - It has a song— / It has a sting— / Ah, too, it has a wing. [closed]
starlightcalliope - Stellarum Salve [closed]
jane_eyre - Stranger in a Strange Land [open]
wentdowntogeorgia - I Thought of Angels, Choking On Their Halos [open]
peacefulexplorer - That Wasn't Beaming Technology [closed]
bibliophale - a little later on the first day of the rest of the world [closed]
eliotwaugh - The Morning After, The Walk of Shame (Eliot's Arrival, part the Second) [OPEN]
has_a_horn - Coming Back [Closed]
eliotwaugh - Hello Darkness My Old Friend (closed)
has_a_horn - Getting Out [Open]
applesaucemod - EVENT: Speaking in tongues - Bethesda Terrace at noon
has_a_horn - Gabriel's Arrival [OPEN]
beastisbeauty - Bruce Banner/Hulk's Arrival [OPEN]
lukesmith - Luke Smith's arrival [OPEN]

Page generated May. 29th, 2025 06:45 am

The Big Applesauce

Entries tagged with location: bethesda terrace

don't believe everything that you breathe [open]

Two plus two equals - asjfaldj;ljadfjasaflj - ten. IN BASE FOUR, I'M FINE [open]

when the city goes silent, the ringing in my ears gets violent [open]

It has a song— / It has a sting— / Ah, too, it has a wing. [closed]

Stellarum Salve [closed]

Stranger in a Strange Land [open]

I Thought of Angels, Choking On Their Halos [open]

That Wasn't Beaming Technology [closed]

a little later on the first day of the rest of the world [closed]

The Morning After, The Walk of Shame (Eliot's Arrival, part the Second) [OPEN]

Coming Back [Closed]

Hello Darkness My Old Friend (closed)

Getting Out [Open]

EVENT: Speaking in tongues - Bethesda Terrace at noon

Gabriel's Arrival [OPEN]

Bruce Banner/Hulk's Arrival [OPEN]

Luke Smith's arrival [OPEN]

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