Work Text:
Since becoming... haunted, or house melded, or something, whatever someone better at describing things poetically would call it - Oliver has had dreams.
This is not to say that he hasn't dreamed before in his life, of course, as such a notion would be silly. Rather, these dreams are something entirely different. He used to dream of solving cases (that to his great frustration, didn't make any sense once he woke up), or filling out sudokus (usually a sign he was doing too many), or his family, or - god forbid - pretty men, but now those dreams were interspersed with what he could only call memories.
Memories... strange, foreign, so very hard to parse, and definitely not his, but memories all the same.
Tonight, with his eyes currently closed and mind scattered to unconsciousness, is one such night.
After a while of peaceful dark sleep, tonight he dreams of-
Tonight he is shown-
Tonight he remembers-
A sheer cold wind
howling, biting on wood panels
drips
of
water
from a leak
drips
of
blood
red staining wood
drips
of
water
from
the doctor
tears (water salt adrenaline emotion liquid consistency water leak)
kneeling on the floor (wood nails glue rot dust nerves) the doctor (electricity emotion signals dust rot despair despair) kneeling on the floor (firm, slight pressure; the distinct texture of ragged fabric.)
The eyes open. Before them is the sight of the doctor knelt on the wooden floor, not caring about the nails digging into his legs, not caring about anything but the tears falling from his face (yelling yelling so loudly yelling despair that absorbs in the insulation foam) He startles and looks up at the eyes, his own eyes darting in seeming effort to try and meet the gaze of each around him. A fruitless effort. His face, ragged from screaming moments before, falls still in a mix and awe of fear, mouth left hanging slightly open. Perhaps sound is coming out of it when it moves again, but sound is not what this house hears.
LORD IN HEAVEN
Whatever lord he speaks to is not here.
GOD HELP ME PLEASE
But it listens.
FAILED I LOST HER I CAN'T I WON'T I NEED I NEED I NEED
It listens.
DEAD BUT I'LL DO BETTER I'LL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IF YOU CAN DEAD DEAD I'LL FIX IT I'LL DO ANYTHING PLEASE I NEED
LORD PLEASE
JUST
ONE
MORE
CHANCE.
and reaches toward the anguish the grief the failed failed failed lost lost lost please please please
and feels it, all the feeling from this tiny thing in it that loves, echo in the vents the wires the pipes the walls the skin the veins
(It feels the pain in the doctor's heart as each patient dies, one by one. A wound that was too infected to heal. A sickness that could not be treated by any of the meager stock of medicine in the house. A heart that stops beating, a chest that stops breathing, right under his hands, again and again.)
and it knows what the doctor wants
(There was something he could've done for them, and he failed. Every single one, including- If he could try again, if he could just do better this time,)
and it knows how to fix it
And so
it does.
SETTING: The House of Vera
The DOCTOR is treating a patient at her bedside.
Wood carries many memories in its knots and rings. The memories are denser now, tinged with the thoughts and pains of something much smaller, but something that feels emotions big enough to fill every room. Grief, guilt, joy, larger than life. Larger than all the lives contained in here.
There are many things in the coming days, but notable sensations include:
Rhythmic pounding of its shoes on wooden floors, hurrying from place to place, a heartbeat slowing down to nothing
A clock ticks.
Rhythmic pounding of its shoes on wooden floors, hurrying from place to place, a wound patched but still bleeding until nothing is left to
A clock ticks.
Rhythmic pounding of its shoes on wooden floors, hurrying from place to place, a wound stitched and disinfected and healed and left behind with smiles and farewells.
Death will never again strike under this shaking, brittle roof.
The DOCTOR looks up at the ceiling.
There is a water leak.
[END SCENE.]
OLIVER BEEBO
Do you even care? Is that what this is? Caring?
It listens.
OLIVER BEEBO
You're always listening, aren't you, from up or down or- wherever you are? Never doing anything? Except when...
It listens.
OLIVER BEEBO
Damn it, stop listening and talk to me! I did not give up my nice, normal life to get spiritually tied to a house that doesn't even have basic fucking communication skills! TALK TO ME!
It
Reaches out a hand
And he feels thousands, millions, billions of eyes, seeing and witnessing every part of him, eyes covering the whole sky and blinking like stars and behind it is something so, so vast, so far, yet it is getting closer and it's so much its heart beats it's bigger than everything and everyone and anyone will ever be and the world is wood walls and it is the air and the floor and he is small and tiny with big feelings that have no meaning with nowhere to go and it reaches out and he runs, RUNS, RUNS
When Oliver gasps himself awake, his heart is beating as fast as the lights flicker. He realizes, distantly, that he is hyperventilating. So he breathes, desperately but steadily, in in in out out out, and when he exhales his breath pours out from the vent on the wall instead of his mouth.
All in all, it was a pretty shitty night.