apocalypsehowcomm | LOG: and if you go chasing rabbits... [open]

Entry tags:

LOG: and if you go chasing rabbits... [open]

Who: Jeff & OPEN
When: September 1 - 24
Where: Around town, notably the (former) circus grounds.
Summary: Jeff has a lot of feelings about things in mirrors and has a bit of a prolonged meltdown.
Warnings: Hallucinations, warped perceptions, past demonic possession, brief mentions of drugs (no active drug use)

0. WHEN LOGIC AND PROPORTION HAVE FALLEN SLOPPY DEAD (prelude)

(click here for backstory tl;dr)

Jeff's used to mirrors lying to him.

It started out subtle, just a little something living in the corner of his eye. A flash, gone in a blink. Trick of the light. His mind playing games. He used to take it as a sign that he needed to sleep, like, really properly sleep, and maybe lay off the coke for a bit.

One day, that little something became a figure, standing just behind him, reaching for him. He could never figure out its face, though he knew it had one. Maybe he forgot what it looked like as soon as he looked away. Or maybe its features just defied every single descriptor he could think of. Didn't matter, really, because any time he tried to focus on the figure, he couldn't. And if he turned around, and looked over his shoulder, it wouldn't be there, anyway.

Sometimes, the figures would multiply. Sometimes, he'd see them in other people, if that makes any sense? Like if he stared too long into a barback mirror, the world inside the reflection would just slooooow down and come to a stop. There would be life and noise all around him, but not in the mirror. In the mirror, they would all stop, their eyes on him, their hands reaching out. Jeff Calhoun, the center of some imaginary fucking universe.

Every day, it felt like the disconnect between this world and that would just get bigger, and bigger. Eventually, his own reflection started to come loose. Usually it tried to behave like it should, though sometimes it would be a touch too slow, or too fast, or move the wrong finger, blink while his eyes were still open, shit like that. On really bad days, it was Peter Pan's shadow, doing its own fucking thing.

By then, his head was already so fucked, well beyond the mirrors. It was normal for Jeff to see things, hear things, lose sight of what was real and what was a dream, because the boundaries were going all fuzzy anyway. He'd long since learned that it was all Ziggy's doing, once he learned what Ziggy was and that Ziggy was even a part of him in the first place. Cut him some slack; he never had any experience with possession before. Come to think of it, neither had Ziggy.

The point is...

The point is his life had become a kaleidoscope of nonsense, fractal nightmares, impossible music, you get the drift. It was terrifying-- of course it was-- and every day he wished for life to go back to normal and then one day it did. One day, he woke up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and the year was 2021. Everything snapped back into focus, and reality was unified and consistent again. His head was quiet (empty, lonely), and Ziggy was gone. Jeff was alone.

And that's when he realized he'd grown used to having a demon in his head, and nothing-- nothing-- prepared him for the day when it would be gone.

I. AND THE WHITE KNIGHT IS TALKING BACKWARDS (various locations)

When the mirrors in Gloucester start lying, Jeff feels a sick sort of anticipation bloom inside of him. It's a familiar horror, and the dread that jumps up in his throat when he sees something standing behind him feels kind of like home. Jeff doesn't cover any mirrors, no matter how many memos the ADI sends out. Instead, he watches them, so fixated on the delusions reflected back that he won't even realize it's been an hour or two and his head's spinning and his thoughts are fuzzy, and he needs to step outside.

He always comes back to the reflections, though. He starts to seek the madness out, chase it wherever he can. That's when others might notice Jeff acting off-- well, he's always a little off, sure, but there's an obsessive, occasionally explosive quality to it now, and it definitely doesn't come naturally to him.

Maybe you find him standing at a shop window (or at a sink at Bonnie's, or, really, anywhere with mirrors or glass), looking at the distortions in the glass with some kind of longing. He reaches out to his own reflection (he's the figure now, the one from his old delusions, reaching out to touch a world on the other side) and he's singing softly, some nonsense tune to a song that doesn't exist, trying to discern something. Those who are magically inclined might notice he isn't just singing, he's casting some kind of spell. It's nothing harmful. He just wants to make contact with... whatever it is.

II. AND THE RED QUEEN'S OFF WITH HER HEAD (various locations)

Later in the month, when he realizes it's just an echo, a fucking shade, an afterthought, ripples from something long gone, he only doubles down on his obsession. Like maybe, if he chases the distortions to their source, he can find whatever it is he's searching for. He thinks he makes some progress when he starts losing his fucking mind, seeing things well after looking away from the mirrors. He likes to imagine the distortions from the mirror are stepping out from the other side, following him, and maybe, maybe one of them will be something wild and obsessive and lyrical and they'll find each other and he won't be so fucking alone anymore.

That's when people might catch Jeff out on the streets of Gloucester, all bubbly, giddy hysteria, laughing at some joke nobody else is privy to. When he isn't laughing, he's having an argument with nobody, screaming hoarsely, "Fucking come out already, you fuck!" Sometimes he pounds his fists on shop windows, trying to goad something to come out. Most people think he's just a tweaker, some crazy street kid on some cocktail of drugs, and they give him a wide berth. Don't make eye contact, and he won't drag them into his scene. But of course, there's always a chance that cops may come at him for disturbing the peace.

Or maybe he's making a scene at the worst possible place, and he's attracted the attention of some of the gang kids from the docks, who might be looking to mug him for cash or drugs or maybe they just want to kick the shit out of him for fun. For as feral as Jeff's coming across, he's still dead useless in a fight, so it would probably be in his best interest to get whisked away from the scene before it escalates.

(One upside to acting like a lunatic in public? People are feeling cagey enough in his presence that it feeds that twisting thing in him, the one that isn't the Gift, because the Gift is gone.)

III. REMEMBER WHAT THE DORMOUSE SAID (circus grounds)

Finally, he traces the echo back to its source: the quiet, empty fields west of town, where the Fenix Down Extravaganza had been performing just... days (weeks?) ago. He's not really sure. Time's doing that fucked up thing again, where the days are kind of bleeding together, the same way reality and fantasy are starting to fuse once again. Maybe he's been staring at mirrors too long. But that's okay, because he's here now, in the place where it all started. Ground zero for the contamination seeping through the town's mirrors.

He doesn't really have a plan here. He doesn't know what he's doing, besides chasing something unattainable, a memory of a nightmare from which he wasn't ready to wake up. He's so tired of being the only one in his head. He's tired of being alone, and of missing home, and fuck, if those hauntings in the mirrors are the closest things to home, then he'll press his face against the glass until it cracks.

Jeff tosses his backpack down onto the grass, then sits down and starts rifling through it, looking for the cheap hand mirror he lifted from one of the shops in town. It's a stupid thing, heart shaped, and he feels like some evil queen in a fairy tale as he stares into it all who's the fairest of them all?

If anyone happens to come to the field, they may find Jeff there, crying as he's desperately begging someone (something?) to come back. Or maybe huddled in on himself, covering his ears and closing his eyes as if dealing with a really bad trip that he doesn't want to face. The fear coming off of him is obvious in the way he tries to make himself small to the monsters in his head.

Eventually, he passes out, and somebody may come across him asleep in the grass, still holding on to the mirror. He seems dead to the world, but don't worry: he's still alive.

IV. WILDCARD

Look, Jeff can't spend all his time going bonkers over mirrors. He leads a very rich, busy life otherwise! So, while he'll spend most of the month seeming tense and unstable, he still has some semblance of a routine at times-- particularly in the first half of the month. You can find him busking with his guitar around town, dumpster diving for day-old baked goods and imperfect (but perfectly edible!) produce, hanging out at Bonnie's, and-- unusually, for Jeff-- at the ADI library. He's doing research! Sometimes, he takes that research to various cafes or diners, jotting a bunch of notes down in a composition notebook.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I know it's easy to feel that way," Malcolm tells him. "But it's probably not you."

"Then why does this keep happening? I'm seeing things again, but it can't be--" Ziggy. He swallows back the name. "It can't be for the same reason as before. So it's, like, I'm the--"

What's it called. Common something.

"I'm the common link."

Edited 2021-09-21 08:45 (UTC)

"Or this place is messing with you," Malcolm suggests. As an option. "It tends to do that, I'm finding."

"Maybe. I guess. Yeah." He doesn't sound totally convinced. Sure, there's spooky shit, and the ADI has them investigate, and sometimes the spooky shit bites back and people freak out and get good and traumatized, but...

The hallucinations and the disorientation, they don't hit the same way the kelpies did, or watching Pyre burn alive did.

"Do you think..." He hums for a moment, trying to find the words. "Do you think they're all bad? The Entities."

Malcolm recalls Kate torturing the mime.

“Has any of them made anyone do anything good?”

He thinks for a moment.

"If... If I could have cast that spell, when we first met... If I could've saved Gil for you, it would've only happened 'cause of my connection with-- you know."

“What do you mean?” Malcolm asks. “You had magic before you came here.”

"It's different here. You don't feel--" He exhales, running a hand through his hair, muttering, "No, of course you wouldn't."

Malcolm isn't Gifted, or magical, or super powered, far as he knows. Of course the guy wouldn't feel the way this world affects these things.

"I can't do much of anything with magic here, not unless I, um. Offer a... tribute."

“Someone else I talked to here said she felt a pull to use her powers to harm people. That doing so increased their strength. Is this the same thing?” he asks.

He wrinkles his nose, definitely not on board when it's framed like that. "I guess that's how she sees it. For me it's like... Everything feels muted and grey, and magic doesn't feel right unless I play a little trick on people. That's all."

He doesn't hurt people. He might scare them, sure, but he doesn't hurt them. It's just a prank, a little incident, and they don't even know it's happening half the time. Sure, they know something's wrong, and it might freak them out and sometimes they cry, but it's over before they can really pinpoint what the fuck's going on. They can chalk it up to moodiness or imagination and move on.

"It's not about being strong. It's not even about powers. Magic's... it's a part of me, you know?"

Malcolm considers that.

“What kind of tricks?” he asks.

"Pranks," he answers a little too quickly. "It's harmless."

Will he say just what those pranks are? Probably not.

"I don't hurt people," he reiterates, as if he's trying to convince himself more than Malcolm.

“Do they think they’ll be hurt? Do you frighten them?” he asks gently.

"Not hurt," he says, shaking his head. "Just, um. Just a little freaked out. Like a scary movie or a rollercoaster, you know?"

“People choose whether to watch a scary movie or get on a roller coaster,” Malcolm points out softly.

He winces when Malcolm points that out. As long as Jeff doesn't think about what he's doing, really think about it in all its implications, he can keep at it without much guilt.

It feels good, and it feels right, as long as he keeps on running from reality.

"Yeah," he concedes, his voice smaller, reluctant, but he doesn't have anything else to add to that.

“I think we can all agree at this point that consent is important,” Malcolm reminds him. “So maybe… it would be better to keep your… practice to acts that don’t affect other people.”

If he stops what he's doing, the magic will die. The Gift will fucking wither within him, he's convinced of it. He can't do that, he can't, and it's fucking unfair--

Jeff rubs his eyes.

"Like what?"

“Can you not practice your magic on inanimate objects?” he asks.

He shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that."

Could he cast on objects? Sure, easily, to a point. But eventually, it'll fade, and get harder, and weaker, and... He can't go running on empty, not where the Gift-- or its cousin in this world-- is concerned.

"And I won't do it to animals," he adds, adamantly, as if that was even where Malcolm was planning to go next.

At ‘animals’, Malcolm makes a face. “No; I wouldn’t have suggested that,” he assures. “So… how does it work? Why do you have to do things to people?”

He frowns a little, glancing down to avoid looking Malcolm in the eyes when he explains, "People react. That's what keeps the magic alive."

“…You need them to be scared?” Reading between the lines here.

He doesn't answer with any words, just nods. When put so directly, by somebody who's never known what it's like, being Gifted, Jeff feels cornered by his own guilt. He can't really turn a willfully blind eye to his actions, and he can't really rationalize it in any way that would fly. Malcolm wouldn't get it, no matter how understanding he might be.

None of them can ever really get it. Only others like him, like Aelwyn or Wanda...

“I don’t suppose doing something that would make them feel joy or elation would really cut it, then,” Malcolm observes.

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