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Who: Jay Merrick and You
What: Jay fell unconscious in Rosswood Park and woke up on a magic island. He's not yet sure if this is a good thing.
When: January 29th, morning
Where: The Storyteller's Temple
Warnings: Language, Jay being an anxious wreck; will update as things come up!

This is wrong. Deeply, deeply wrong. He's either still dreaming, or he's still hallucinating, or he's dead, because the only remaining option doesn't just happen.

Sure, maybe the supernatural exists, but it doesn't talk to you in your dreams, and it doesn't spare you from getting your memories scraped out of your head by ~~that thing,~~ and it doesn't drop you off in...okay, maybe it does drop you off in an overgrown, abandoned building, but not one that looks like this.

He leans up against something that definitely isn't a mana pool, because mana pools don't exist. His phone is gone. His camera--shit, his camera's dripping, and the viewfinder screen won't light up, and it won't even turn on, it just keeps making this thin, whining noise before fizzling out again, and come on come on COME ON this can't happen

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Jay hears Tim set the cup down and reaches blindly for it, eyes still on the food. He grabs it, pulls it to his lips, tries to breathe for a second before taking a sip--

--and gags, throat burning. He clenches his jaw through it, tries to breathe through his nose. His face is hot. Distantly, he wonders whether it's the nausea or the fact that he's being watched.

Failed step one.

He has to keep this down, though. Given the way this place looks, given what Tim's told him so far, he can't afford to waste food. Beyond that, it'd make him a pretty shitty guest. He likes to think his ~~mom~~ taught him a thing or two about hospitality.

He pulls the cup up to his lips, wrenches his jaw open, and tries to take a sip. It stays down.

"You, uh...you good?"

He's pretty sure the answer to that is "no," but that Jay's personal answer is going to trend more toward "yes," because that's usually where iet always ends up. Not that Tim has much room to talk. He's the same way.

"Take your time. 'S no rush." Does his best to make his tone matter-of-fact rather than anything that could be construed as patronizing. 'Course, Jay might just read it that way anyway. It all depends on how charitable he's feeling in interpreting it.

Take your time, he says. No rush.

Just for that, Jay tips the cup of water back, gulping the rest of it down. His throat burns, raw from the acid. Stupid.

He doesn't cough. He just...wheezes slightly, suffocating the rest of it. It's one part pride, one part trying not to set off any alarms. Doesn't need Tim hovering any more than he's already doing.

~~Honestly, hovering's better than the alternative.~~

~~Not thinking about that.~~

Instead, he's thinking about the food, focusing on the now picked-over tray. (He knows Tim's eyes are boring into the back of his head. He knows.) There are a few pieces of dried meat and an egg left.

Tim always brought back packages of jerky and unsalted peanuts, sometimes trail mix. More satisfying than chips and coffee. Hell if he knows why. Maybe Tim's got experience; maybe he's had to live like this before.

"I'm not, like...eating all the food you've got stored up for winter, right?"

He may have been forced to read Little House on the Prairie once or twice in school. This and The Zombie Survival Guide might constitute the majority of his knowledge of roughing it longer than a week without access to fast food. Maybe.

'Course, Jay's not gonna listen to that. All right. Fine. Whatever. Tim resists the urge to roll his eyes at that, and instead answers patiently.

"We got plenty." He shrugs. "Lotta people drop stuff off here. We're like...a deserted island or community, or something. So we all help each other out."

That maybe sounds a bit more in charge than he wanted to sound. Sure, he's technically the guy in charge of Denny here, but that's where his expertise and authority ends. It's not something he's ever had to consider - bringing something like that up to the people who knew him.

He just kinda figured he'd never be seeing those people again.

"Or a commune, maybe." He's mostly joking, but not completely. Shared resources, isolated location, and all that. Jay's sure some perfectly fine communes existed out there somewhere, but he's mostly run into the word in two places: online articles about cults, and some relative whose face he can't remember complaining about hippie bullshit.

Tim doesn't really strike him as a cult type. Still, there was all that running around in the woods with a mask on and sending Jay all that pseudo-religious art installation stuff, though, so he can't exactly be sure.

Jay's eaten a whole platter of food and glass of water, and he's neither dead nor tripping off his ass, so he'll take that as a good sign.

He clears his throat, muffling the sound.

"You, uh, end up here a lot?" Sure, there's the fact that Tim knew exactly where to reach on the shelves, exactly which floorboards to step over without tripping. But Jay also remembers the smoking disaster that resulted when the two of them tried to throw together a decent meal out of remnants of a continental breakfast and a hotel microwave, and it doesn't exactly paint the most optimistic picture of either of their cooking abilities. Hanging around a restaurant with free food makes sense.

Then again, he's been there two years. Maybe he's learned a thing or two about food preparation. Or maybe Jay's projecting, Tim's been a decent cook all along, and the microwave incident was a fluke.

"More or less," he says. Not really an answer. What else is he supposed to say? Yeah, I built this place over a period of months. He had help, and he was building on the skeleton of an existing building, but it's still a hell of a thing to spring on somebody who knew him.

Besides, he doesn't do the cooking here. Never could.

"Not sure you could call it a 'commune' when half the population here hates the local god, but yeah."

Maybe "hates" is a strong word. Sure as hell don't trust them, though.

That's an evasion if Jay's ever heard one.

Then, somehow, Tim manages to say something interesting enough to rip Jay's attention away from whatever the hell he's not saying about Denny.

"People hate--?" He's not surprised, exactly, but it's been too much information, too quickly, to really get a chance to pick apart what they told him, to look for inconsistencies. And--no, the camera's still busted, so Jay can't even do it properly. He's got to remember. "You're talking about the, uh, the...dream...rabbit...thing, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, among others, but they're the one that we see...the most, basically." He resists the urge to make a face at that, but only shakes his head like there's more he should say. It's not like they haven't helped too. But his limited interactions with Ozuma soured him on the idea of higher powers helping people out before he even got here.

"They've been here the longest. Like to yell at us in our dreams sometimes, I guess."

He files that away. They've been here the longest. They're the one everybody sees the most. He woke up in their temple; maybe that's a factor.

"Great." So he's got more rabbit dream invasions to look forward to. And if people aren't fond of them, there's got to be a reason why. "Guess, uh, passing out in Rosswood counts as dreaming enough for them."

Passing out is an understatement, he knows. He knows. He's done enough research after watching Tim seize on the floor of his bedroom to know what people say it feels like from the inside. He knows what happened.

It wasn't supposed to happen to him.

~~He can't remember the other times, even though he's seen them on tape.~~

"Is it just the...the dream thing that pisses people off, or...like, is there more to it?"

"Well, they're kinda...bad-tempered, I guess? Like, they don't really tell us shit that we should maybe know. Say they don't know but I'm not sure how much I believe them."

That's maybe a little too familiar for comfort, huh? Not trusting someone because you're certain they're not telling you the whole truth. Yeah, how about we skate on past that?

Unfortunately, there's no way to really avoid it.

"We dunno how much they know, we dunno what brought us here, and everyone's pretty sure they're not telling us everything but we dunno what they're not telling us."

Jay's eyebrows slowly raise, eyes still half-lidded.

He looks at Tim.

Tim's not tearing up the corner of a notebook, not clicking the lid of his pill bottle open and shut, but there's something in the way he pauses that gets Jay's attention. Jay's got a feeling Tim's hearing the same thing he did. He's got a feeling he doesn't have to say anything, even if the desire to construct some kind of snide remark, to twist the knife just a little, just enough is itching under his skin. ~~(Oh, just enough?)~~

Instead, he takes a long, slow bite out of the last remaining hard-boiled egg. "Huh."

It's a useful tip, he'll grant. It's all been too much, too quickly, for Jay to be as diligent as he'd like to be. Not as easy to check for deviations from normal if he's got no idea what "normal" means here.

"Have they, like...slipped up, ever?" The sarcasm has dropped from his voice. He's not asking because he doubts what Tim's saying. He's asking because he wants to know what to look out for, maybe see if there's a way to get them to slip up again. Tim's been here two years. He knows his way around.

~~And Jay's sick of being two steps behind.~~

"I don't really talk to them. You'd be better off talking to...y'know, someone who does." Tim looks away, his expression twisting slightly as he scowls at the wall. Maybe he should've made more of an effort to bother to connect, but that was never his priority. Too many other things that needed him way, way more than some storytelling rabbit god with an anxiety problem.

Granted, he can at least point Jay in the direction of people who do chat with them. Kravitz, probably. He can offer a more impartial and all-around helpful viewpoint than, say, Ren, the only other person he knows who chats them up semi-regularly. Or did.

"Look, they do...keep us safe, I guess. They bring us back when we die," he says, rolling right on past that without really touching on it at length, "they trade us stuff if we tell them stories, shit like that. It's not all bad."

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

Jay nearly spits out a mouthful of hard-boiled egg, two different questions colliding in his head. He manages to swallow first.

He also manages to sort out which question is higher priority.

"Wait, what kind of stuff? Like--?" He lifts the broken camera.

Oh, boy. He should've figured. Tim grimaces slightly, but he knows better than to dodge the question at this point. He kneads at his brow and sighs.

"Yeah. I mean, they can...repair stuff and get it to work again. They get me my meds, too." He digs the bottle out of his pocket and sets it on the counter with a quiet rattle. "Refills automatically, so I don't have to worry about running out, or whatever."

Maybe you should try asking for those instead, Jay.

~~Maybe he will Not, Actually.~~

It takes a second to process, but when the relief hits, it hits hard.

He doesn't have to forget.

He can wind the tape back. He can check to make sure. He can go over what people said, take notes, compare the details against each other.

He doesn't have to depend on his own ~~unreliable~~ memory. He can't be tampered with. He'll have a copy of the truth on hand.

And Tim's got his meds, set up to infinitely refill. They don't have to depend on the insurance from Tim's job, the savings they've scrounged together between them. He won't have to watch Tim's movements carefully for the signs of an impending seizure.

He may have to watch for something else, though.

Tim said it wouldn't happen again.

Jay's learned how well he can trust Tim's word.

Still, they can get back to baseline. Camera, medicine, isolation from the rest of the world. Almost like home, if he squints.

Edited 2020-03-02 07:52 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not a good silence.

"You don't have to...repair it, you know." He nods at the camera and, sure, he knows that this isn't about to go over well, but he has to say something, all right? "I mean...look, no one really has a ton of tech here. There's not a lotta use in carrying around a thing like that."

Hell, he did the same thing to the camera he showed up with.

"I had a camera when I showed up here too. Didn't even last the first week."

Jay grips the camera a little tighter.

He doesn't clutch it in both hands, doesn't yank it away, doesn't freak out. He's just holding it. Just making sure he's got a hand on it.

"So...what, you just--?" He cuts himself off. Don't make stupid assumptions. Nothing here makes any sense. He can't just guess, or he'll risk being wrong. Tim's been talking. No reason why he'll stop here.

Jay just has to reword it.

"I mean, what do you do when...you know?" When you forget? When it makes you forget?

What's he say to that that'll calm Jay down? Hell if he knows. It doesn't matter. Yeah, like that'll go over well. I got used to it. Jay would never take that well. I've got people I trust to fill me in. As if that's not a sore point for Jay as it is.

I don't care anymore.

Like Jay would relate to that. This isn't a guy who cares about things by half measures. Not Marble Hornets, not finding Jessica, not unraveling a mystery, not Alex Kralie.

"I deal with it," he says. "I...live with it, I guess."

That's probably not a very satisfying answer.

Jay almost laughs. The sound he makes, a low hiss through his nose, a choked sound at the back of his throat, is almost a laugh.

Tim just deals with it. Tim's been dealing with it his whole life, dealing with it since he was a kid. He's used to this. This is normal for him, so of course he'd be able to keep going.

Tim shouldn't have to just deal with it. This shouldn't be normal, not for either of them.

Jay's free hand wraps across his chest, fingers digging into his other arm. When he speaks, it comes out low, bitter.

"I'm not sure I can really do that."

Edited 2020-03-07 08:00 (UTC)

"Maybe...not yet." How the fuck does he do this? He'd accepted that he'd never be seen any of these people again. Big fucking mistake that turned out to be - how was he supposed to handle the fact that Brian showed up, and then...

He's not here anymore. Does that really matter, at this point?

Tim feels his expression twist a little into something pained, something he doesn't mean to show.

"Maybe someday you will."

Tim looks awfully choked up about this. Memory loss is awful, yeah, but Tim's looking at him like somebody just died.

Jay looks at the floor instead.

"I'd rather hold off 'til I can be sure nothing's...y'know, giving me a reason to keep track of this stuff, if it's all the same to you."

"It's not here, Jay."

He hasn't dared say it. Not aloud.

He hasn't dared say it for fear that it might make It spring into being. He's seen It before, he knows he has. Felt It on Maati. Saw It on Monsun. But in both occasions, It dissipated as soon as he was off of those islands. It didn't persist. The only stalking It's done has been in the texture of his own thoughts, his own clouded anxieties.

He's never wanted to say it aloud, because what if he's wrong?

A light breath of something cups around his chest. Something he doesn't want to study too closely, because it mimics the familiar taste of panic a little too much.

It's not here.

He's been away from home for something like three years, now.

It hasn't followed him. It's sprang into other people's thoughts through no fault of his own, and It still hasn't shown up. How many years did it take for It to manifest the first time? It - it didn't take years. They all just forgot how quickly it happened before.

It's not here.

He's finally said it.

It's not here.

It's not here.

Jay's head jerks up, back ramrod straight. He can feel the blood rushing in his ears, feel the prickle of adrenaline across his skin.

"What?" He's looking right at Tim. He has to watch him--has to see. "How do you--how do you know?"

Tim's a good liar, Jay knows. But the look on his face--the look in his eyes--the fucking...almost-panic he can hear in his voice, it sounds real. Tim's a good liar, but his lies are quiet. They're lies of omission. They're 'I don't know,' they're 'Don't think about that.' They're redirections--and this, sure, fine, this could be a redirection. This could be Tim pulling the strings, could be Tim trying to keep the camera off, could be Tim trying to pull Jay down with him, to get him to forget again.

But it doesn't look like that.

It looks like the hospital, like Tim's insistence that there was something Jay still needed to see.

And, god, when he thinks about it, it makes sense. They're nowhere near Rosswood. Hell, they might not even be on Earth. They might not even be in the same dimension, and what was it that guy said?

"But if your concern is something from your home world... you are far from that now. Only individuals find their way here, so you needn't be concerned if you were worried about... well, something like that. It's very unlikely they're also here."

It's not here.

It's not here.

"Because I've been away from home for something like three years, and I've never seen It for real."

Not for real. In dreams, in memories, in hallucinations, in fears made manifest. There's a reckless, ruthless sort of giddiness that creeps up in his chest like flurrying snow when he says it. It's not here. It's not here. It's never been here.

It took being torn from his world and displaced into not one but two different worlds, but for the first time in his life, he's...

Free.

He's free.

Three years. Three years, and he hasn't seen the real thing once.

And Jay can't think of a single reason good enough for Tim to lie about something this big.

Tim has lied about...major things, kept secrets that could've changed the whole trajectory of the investigation, but there was always a reason. It was always about covering his own ass, keeping himself safe, trying to keep people--keep specific people--from turning on him.

~~I know why you kept that tape from me.~~

Nothing about this would keep Tim any safer. If that thing were here, Tim would be safer with somebody watching his back. As far as Jay can tell, that's the whole reason he lied in the first place--to keep people around.

So Tim might believe what he's saying.

Tim probably believes what he's saying.

But what if he just forgot, like the rest of them back in 2006? Alex tried to kill them, and as soon as that thing swept through, they just kept on going like nothing happened.

This isn't really the same, though. This time, they know. This time, they know what to look for.

"And nobody's--" Jay can hear his voice picking up speed. "Nobody's showing...showing symptoms, anything like that?"

Edited 2020-03-09 06:20 (UTC)

cw: emetophobia

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regrettably, tim, you know him too well.

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cw: mention of a suicide attempt

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