Meanwhile, still reeling with the shocks of the past twenty-four hours, John's traumatized subconscious had been frantically trying to make some sense of the fragmented mess the fiend had left behind.
The events in Belfast were hopelessly jumbled up with random bits of imagery from the two weeks or so prior, but the damage didn't stop there; sizeable chunks of the past several months were incomplete or missing, with further injury to random bits and pieces going back years.
The upshot of all this, as John's sleeping mind tried futilely to stitch what remained into some sort of coherent whole, was a bizarre, surreal dreamscape in which people who had never met held conversations that could never have taken place, events were relocated to the unlikeliest of venues, and cause/effect and continuity ceased to have meaning. Crowley's unexpected intrusion mingled inextricably with the painful events of the fight and everything that had come before, creating a hopeless quagmire of confusion and conflicting emotion.
But the residual horror of Nephrithraxus' presence hung heavily over everything, eclipsing all other concerns with the enormous question mark that hovered maddeningly at the end. It was this that finally drove him past the effects of Raphael's drugs and his body's exhaustion and pain, needing an answer more than he needed rest or escape.
It was a gradual process, but outwardly it must have appeared rather abrupt. One moment John was sleeping--restlessly, muttering unintelligibly under his breath now and then, his face etched with a deep frown that aged it at least ten years; but sleeping--and the next he had lurched upright, blankly panicked as he registered that he wasn't where he had been, and wasn't sure where that had been, only that the thing had still been there when he shut his eyes.
Hindered by the assortment of tubes and sensors he was connected to, he yanked at them without comprehension, his entire body protesting sharply with the sudden, violent movement. "Kill it, forfuck'ssake KILL IT--"
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-04-29 12:19 am (UTC)The events in Belfast were hopelessly jumbled up with random bits of imagery from the two weeks or so prior, but the damage didn't stop there; sizeable chunks of the past several months were incomplete or missing, with further injury to random bits and pieces going back years.
The upshot of all this, as John's sleeping mind tried futilely to stitch what remained into some sort of coherent whole, was a bizarre, surreal dreamscape in which people who had never met held conversations that could never have taken place, events were relocated to the unlikeliest of venues, and cause/effect and continuity ceased to have meaning. Crowley's unexpected intrusion mingled inextricably with the painful events of the fight and everything that had come before, creating a hopeless quagmire of confusion and conflicting emotion.
But the residual horror of Nephrithraxus' presence hung heavily over everything, eclipsing all other concerns with the enormous question mark that hovered maddeningly at the end. It was this that finally drove him past the effects of Raphael's drugs and his body's exhaustion and pain, needing an answer more than he needed rest or escape.
It was a gradual process, but outwardly it must have appeared rather abrupt. One moment John was sleeping--restlessly, muttering unintelligibly under his breath now and then, his face etched with a deep frown that aged it at least ten years; but sleeping--and the next he had lurched upright, blankly panicked as he registered that he wasn't where he had been, and wasn't sure where that had been, only that the thing had still been there when he shut his eyes.
Hindered by the assortment of tubes and sensors he was connected to, he yanked at them without comprehension, his entire body protesting sharply with the sudden, violent movement. "Kill it, forfuck'ssake KILL IT--"