LOG: see them talk and see them drown [open]

[cacophonish]

Who: Jeff & OPEN
When: Anytime in November
Where: Around town, Bonnie's, docks
Summary: In which Jeff goes back to his routine, tries to get his music career going, and gets further acquainted with the Spiral.
Warnings: Entity induced delusions and gaslighting in Prompt III.

I. GET INTO THE GROOVE, BOY

After all of the nightmares and trauma of the past month, Jeff's eager to return to what passes for life as usual in Gloucester. So, as soon as the random bouts of narcolepsy and sleepwalking stop? He stops showing up at his admin job with the ADI. It's probably for the best. Jeff's really not cut out for white collar work.

If you're at Bonnie's, you can sometimes find Jeff in the living room, practicing guitar. Or maybe he's helping Bonnie out with some odd jobs, like watering her many (many) plants, or making some attempt at organizing the kitchen. He might need an intervention before he arranges everything in some esoteric way that makes no sense to anybody but himself.

It's also not a totally uncommon sight to find Jeff in the communal bathroom, fully clothed and fast asleep in the shower. There's no supernatural excuse for it. You can be nice and wake him up, or just turn the shower on and let cold water rain down on him.

(He also has a habit of blasting music sometimes. This week, it's Red (Taylor's Version). Hey, he's gotta support artists taking the rights back to their music!)

Around town, you might run into Jeff busking on street corners, though he's unusually skittish if approached, startling easily and looking like a rabbit that's been cornered by a fox. Maybe some of the nightmares have had a longer lasting impact than he'd care to admit.

If you're out at night, you can find Jeff hanging out at any dive bar he can get into, trying to bum drinks off patrons. Buy him a drink? Chase off whichever poor, unfortunate soul he's hitting up? Start a bar fight? Drag his drunk ass home? The possibilities are endless in what passes for Gloucester's nightlife.

At some odd hours-- either late at night, or right around dawn-- Jeff can sometimes be found dumpster diving at local businesses. He's got it down to a science. Want to lend a hand? With a partner, he could loot an entire Thanksgiving feast.

II. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SALT & PEPPER GANG

The whole week, Jeff's buzzing with excitement, inviting anyone and everyone to come see him play at The Toad In The Hole, a bar near the docks. It doesn't matter if he knows you or not: if you're with the ADI, or he sees you at Bonnie's, he's shoving a scrap of paper at you with the time, date, and address scribbled on it. Could he just send a link to The Toad In The Hole's Facebook event page? Sure, probably. But he's still not totally on board with the whole social media thing.

Anyway. Things are looking up for Jeff! Sure, last month was a literal nightmare, but he's just going to pointedly ignore his trauma and move on with his life (even if he's still not entirely, 100% convinced that he's awake or alive, and that's fine). What matters is: he's going to be on stage, performing, for the first time since he was stolen from a promising career and dumped in this shitty little town, 25 years in the fucking future. Sure, he's just playing guitar and doing backup vocals for a cover band who needed to replace a member after he moved to Florida, but at least it's something. And locally, the Salt & Pepper Gang are a big deal. They're a beloved Gloucester institution!

From the frontman of a wild LA band on the rise, to playing second fiddle to a bunch of dorky white collar dudes in their 50s, it's... a pretty big fall, but honestly, Jeff just considers himself lucky he gets to perform at all. They almost didn't let him audition, taking one look at his baby face and figuring he wouldn't know any of the songs in their repertoire, all the greatest hits of the 70s and 80s. But he convinced them to let him play a Zappa solo, and that was enough to get them to give him a real shot. A couple weeks of rehearsals later, and here they are, ready to debut a setlist with their newest (weirdly young and totally out of place!) member.

Anyone who comes around to The Toad In The Hole the night of the show will be in for a disappointment: a last-minute cancellation by the Salt & Pepper Gang. Apparently, the wildly charismatic lead singer, Dr. Dan, got into a bad wreck as he was leaving his dental clinic, and while doctors are optimistic that he will regain consciousness, it's going to be a long time before he'll be performance-ready. Probably for the best, since Jimmy Magill the drummer just broke his wrist in a freak accident while taking his dog for a walk. As for the bassist, Big Bill? Nobody's been able to get in touch with him all day...

Weird.

You can find Jeff out front, though, sitting on the curb with his guitar case. Apparently, he's not allowed in the bar without the band, since he's still considered underage, thanks to the mistake on his state ID. He looks like he's trying not to cry as he hugs himself and tries to keep warm in the New England chill. God, he's fucking pathetic.

"It's all my fault," he sniffs.

III. HE WAS THE SUN BURNING BRIGHT AND BRITTLE

He finds the mushrooms out in Dogtown one day, in an odd clearing that he doesn't think existed the last time he was out this way. Yeah, it's not like Jeff's got the whole place mapped out, but his wanderings have taken him out here enough times that he's at least reasonably familiar with the area.

He's pretty sure the clearing wasn't here before.

Maybe.

Who knows.

The mushrooms are pretty fucking weird looking, with veiny, fractal patterns all over their caps, and smaller fungal offshoots growing off of each other. All together, they seem to be growing out, not in a fairy circle, but a spiral.

Jeff crouches down and really studies them, even though he doesn't know a fucking thing about mushrooms out in the wild. But there's something about the veiny lines and weird patterns spreading all over that he can't help but stare at. Are they moving? Changing? Growing before his eyes?

He doesn't know how long he's there before the thought comes to him. Eat me, he thinks, with a giggle. Jeff picks one of the mushrooms from the dirt, and it's like something else is moving him, puppeting his limbs, as he stuffs it into his mouth and starts to eat it.

The next thing he knows, he's back in town. How many hours have passed? How'd he even get here? Who fucking knows. He doesn't really care, to be honest. His head's just... it feels like someone shoved a bunch of cotton balls in his brain. His memories from life before Gloucester are... they don't make any sense. There's a disconnect. Like if he thinks about LA, and his friends, and his mom and dad and brothers and demons in his head and magic-- all that magic-- it feels like he's just watching movie clips. None of it feels real. It's not real. He may not be sure of much, but he knows that much now, with perfect clarity.

It's like waking up from a dream.

Yes, his name's Jeff Calhoun. No, he wasn't born in 1974, that's insane. He must've been born in 2002, like it says on his ID. Is he even from LA, or was he just... some fucking kid from nowhere, who ran away from home years ago, and only made it as far as Gloucester? His mom isn't a witch with paint and clay, and his dad can't spin words into magic. That's all just fairy tales, a fantasy life dreamed up by a lost, lonely boy.

He can't be the only one with a head full of lies. Does anyone else know?

Whether out on the streets, in a local shop or at Bonnie's, Jeff will stop anyone he finds-- recognizes-- from the ADI, grabbing their arm with a wide-eyed look of absolute conviction, laced with fear.

"You've gotta help me. I need-- I need to get out of here."

Gloucester, he means, and away from the ADI. He needs to find the truth of who he really is.

IV. WILDCARD
[ toss anything at me!! you can reach me at weeyotch or weeyotch#8200. ]

Comments

III :v

[lesbeau]

Beau knows a thing or two about eating random mushrooms and hoping they'll get you baked, and by 'a thing or two' she means she can reference multiple stories on command (even if she doesn't remember what happened after eating them a couple of times). Sometimes you get desperate and tired and poison yourself a little. It's fine.

That said, of all the people she recognizes at Bonnie's, Jeff seems the absolute most likely to be on drugs at any given point, meaning at first she doesn't clock something's up aside from that when he grabs her and starts muttering.

"Dude, are you having a bad trip or something? You look like you're about to vibrate right outta your skin and not even in a fun way." Yeah, she's trying to get a look at his pupils now even if she knows next to nothing about medical treatment. "If you got something good I'm gonna be so mad if you didn't bring any to share."

[cacophonish]

His pupils are definitely dilated, taking up way too much real estate in his eyes, which overall have a glassy sort of look to them. Not great. Jeff withdraws his hand, and he stares at Beau for a moment-- more than a moment, actually, like he's glitching or his brain's on standby mode or--

He blinks and seems to snap awake.

"I-- I found something good in Dogtown. It woke me up." Yeah, that should confirm it: he's definitely on shrooms. "Wanna see?"

Do not go to Dogtown with this mess.

[lesbeau]

Okay, but here's a thought, what if she went to Dogtown with this mess. Sure Jeff seems like a fuckin' weirdo but he looks very, very tripped out, and at the very least if he has some bad stuff she'd like to know what it looks like to avoid her own panic-induced screamfest. She raises an eyebrow at him like she's thinking about it, and then decides she can probably suplex him if he tries anything and shrugs.

"Alright, yeah. Show me what you found bro."

It's not like she goes anywhere without her staff regardless, so sure, let's go look at weird drugs.

[cacophonish]

Oh yeah, Jeff's totally easy to suplex, and even he will concede that. He can't fight, his reflexes are shroom-addled, and he basically weighs nothing-- well, for a six-foot-tall man.

"Okay." And-- off he goes. He's not running or anything, just sets to walking towards Dogtown without any preamble. "This is good. It'll be good. Everyone can wake up, and then we can-- we can find our families and-- and home, get the fuck out of this town and... everything's gonna make sense again. You'll see."

[lesbeau]

She's not too much shorter than him-- and has once flipped a yeti, so like, it'll be fine. Beau sticks close, not outpacing him but keeping track of exactly where they're going. "Uhhh yeah, sure man, whatever. So what was this, did you eat something or what?"

Just trying to get a handle on exactly how wild this might just get.