LOG: i'll stop the world and melt with you [open]

[cacophonish]

Who: Jeff & OPEN
When: Any time in August
Where: Bonnie's, Dogtown, and various businesses around town
Summary: In which Jeff adjusts to life in Gloucester (and encounters problems with his drivers license).
Warnings: Drinking (prompt I), drugs/hallucinogens (prompt III), magical mind fucking/Spiral-related antics (prompt III)

I. TIME TRAVEL BLUES (various locations)

"So, you're..." Pause for mental math. "Forty... seven years old?" Totally deadpan. The liquor store clerk clearly isn't buying the validity of his driver's license.

Jeff flashes a grin, shrugs a shoulder, casual, like he gets that question all the time. "I look good for forty-seven, right? It's all about clean living." ​

Unimpressed, the woman clicks her tongue and pushes the ID back at Jeff. "Cute. Go home, kid."

Later, he tries his luck at a few bars, but it's pretty much the same thing. One look at his ID, and he's out on his ass. One bartender's at least nice enough to give him a soda for his troubles, with a side of advice: "Try harder next time. You can't just use your dad's ancient license from the 90s."

This is so fucking stupid. After years of getting into bars without anyone giving a shit about his age, now Jeff's getting turned away. And the dumbest part is: he's actually 21! He's totally legal! He's been legally allowed to drink for, like, two months!

But, apparently, when you look as young as he does, and your license lists your date of birth as June 6, 1974, and you're trapped in the year 2021, suddenly everyone thinks you're a dumb kid who got majorly ripped off on your fake ID.

Fellow off-worlders may find Jeff trying his luck at a few bars around Gloucester, either getting turned away at the door, or when he tries to order a drink, or-- once he's decided to try a more strategic approach-- flirting his way into getting others to buy him drinks. Maybe you're watching this happen, or maybe you're one of those, uh, "lucky" others.

II. THERE IS SUCH THING AS FREE LUNCH (various locations)

Oh, is your character enjoying a nice meal at a diner? Checking out a local restaurant (or a ubiquitous Denny's)? Hitting up a coffee shop? Suddenly, they've got a new best friend. Jeff flops down at their table like the two of them were always planning on meeting up here. He smiles, like a languid beam of summer sunshine.

"Oh, hey. I've seen you around. How's it going?" His affiliation with the ADI is loose, at best, but he's stopped by HQ a few times, enough that he can recognize some of his fellow off-worlders. Or maybe he knows them from Bonnie's. Whatever the case, he's just invited himself to hang out-- and maybe he'll order something for himself, while he's at it. Does he actually have the money to pay for his share of the food? Good question. The answer is: probably not.

Look, he doesn't get one of those fancy ADI stipends. But he's always been able to rely on the kindness of (relative) strangers before, so why should now be any different?

"Hey, um... can you spot me? I'll totally owe you one."

III. SCRATCHING THE ITCH (Dogtown & Bonnie's)
[ This one's long and mostly takes place in Jeff's headspace to lay the groundwork for why he's doing what he's doing, so here's the tldr summary for anyone who wants to jump in without reading my totally self indulgent narrative:

Jeff goes on a ghost hunting hike to Dogtown with some college grads, they all take a bunch of shrooms, and eventually he uses whatever magic he can grasp to fuck with their emotions and mess with their heads, feeding the Spiral their fear and powering his magic back up for the time being. He steals a bottle of booze from them in the aftermath and wanders back to town, and your character can encounter him along the way, on the trail, in town, or drinking in the common area at Bonnie's! ]

There's three of them, college grads on a haunted road trip across America. Jeff runs into them at a coffee shop, bright eyed and buzzing with excitement about the day's plans. They think he's another tourist, another amateur ghost hunter, because he's too sun-kissed and his accent's from the wrong coast to be from anywhere close to New England. And they're nice enough, and Jeff gets along with them easily, just happy to find some people his own age. Soon, they're chatting and laughing and fitting together like Jeff's always been part of the group, even though he's a high school dropout and they're all setting out for their next round of higher education. Of course they wind up inviting him on the day's outing: a hike around Dogtown, and the promise of magic mushrooms.

Of course Jeff says yes to drugs.

Nothing really happens on the hike, no spooky ghost sightings or anything like that. They laugh about the weird, motivational stones, take pictures with their phones-- they're even nice enough to put something called Spotify on his phone, even though it baffles and amuses them that a musician doesn't know about Spotify (or Soundcloud or anything else). They tell him everything he mentions-- every artist, every band, every movie-- is classic. Retro. Vintage. Obscure. It makes him seem more cool and detached from the mainstream, because it comes across as, like, authentic, like he really loves this stuff, lives and breathes it, instead of using it for hipster cred. For his part, Jeff has no idea what the fuck they're talking about half the time, though he rolls with it with nods and laughs and vague remarks. Fake it til you make it.

They make their way to a nice little secluded spot in front of a long-abandoned building, perfect for drugs and a picnic, settle in, and take the shrooms in responsible, respectable doses. Nothing too crazy, just enough to really vibe with the energy here. Jeff lays back on the blanket, looking up at the face of a future doctor as he waits for the shrooms to kick in, and he's beginning to realize they all think he's quaint, a weird and adorable fucking novelty who's never even heard of Instagram, whatever that is.

"I didn't grow up with computers," he says, which isn't a lie, really. Eventually, there was a computer in his house, for his dad, for work stuff. Jeff never gave enough of a shit to use it. "Or the web," he adds, and they make a weird face and then giggle because nobody calls it the web anymore.

"What, were your parents luddites or something?" a future lawyer asks him, and Jeff shakes his head and tells them with total sincerity that, "No, they're not religious." They laugh like he just told a joke, and for the first time, it feels like they're laughing at him, not with him.

Jeff joins them, bursting out in a vibrant laugh of his own. He wants to cry. He can't even pretend it's just the shrooms making him emotional. The truth is, he wants to cry most of the time, usually when he gets all tangled up in his thoughts. He reaches for a drink to coax himself out of his hole, and things get easy again. They pass the time talking about nothing, conversation drifting further away from whatever the topic was as a wonderful trip begins to bloom inside of them. At some point, he looks up at the future doctor again, and he realizes she's glowing with the sunset. She's so radiant, and pure, and she's looking down at him like he's another radiant and pure thing (which he isn't), and they retreat into their own space together, in the abandoned house. The walls breathe around them, shallowly wheezing with age, and Jeff dances with her-- she leads, he follows. It feels like magic, and in the moment, he thinks that maybe this can scratch the itch for magic magic.

It doesn't. There's still a hole where the Gift used to be, and as they lay together in the bones of a once-loved home, he feels it more achingly than ever. Eventually, they join the others again, and chill out around the illumination of a flashlight, babbling about the energy of the land, the ghosts of Dogtown, and just, like, the viiiiibes of this place. Jeff doesn't say much, he just fixates on that hole inside of him, retreating into his head, wishing he could climb right into that hole and get lost. Maybe he'd find himself back home. Maybe he'd end up in that Other place, the "aether," his grandparents' generation would call it. That space in reality where the magic lives and breathes in its purest form.

That's where Ziggy came from, before it fell down to earth and landed in his head. If he climbed inside that hole, would he land in Ziggy's head?

He wants to cry. Even now, he still wants to cry. Jeff giggles suddenly, and it sounds sharp and discordant to his ears. Nobody seems to notice, since they're all giggling, anyway, from whatever it is they're experiencing right now.

Make them feel what you feel, something says from inside that hole where the Gift used to be. For a second he thinks it might be Ziggy's voice, inasmuch as Ziggy had a voice at all, but he realizes it's just his own voice. He doesn't know if it's spite or loneliness fueling the impulse. He doesn't even know how long it lingers and rattles around in his head, because it's not like time's flowing normally anymore. All he knows is he continues to sink into his own trip, and he's laying on his side, eyes on the flashlight that's standing in for a campfire. Eventually, the future professor asks him to sing one of his songs. He's a musician, right? He's in a band? The future lawyer and future doctor chime in. They all want to hear a Nervous Tix hit.

Make them feel what you feel...

Jeff sits up, blinking like he's just woken up from a dream. He thinks for a moment, then hums softly, wandering through melodies until he lands on the right song. 'Lick The Pole.' It's a silly one, juvenile and irreverent, full of innuendo that's so thinly veiled it barely even qualifies as innuendo at all. Jeff always sings it with a smile, and tonight's not any different. And they don't know the song, so it's not like they can pick up on the tiniest changes in inflection, the way the pitch goes a little this way or that, just slightly, almost imperceptibly, weaving magic into the melody. The Gift isn't here; he can't feel it, hasn't felt it since his arrival, but he still sings as if he's harmonizing with it, and he could swear he feels something coiling around in the hole where the Gift used to be.

The chorus is easy enough to pick up on, and they're singing along soon enough.

Make them feel what you feel.

There's nothing bad about that. It's just... melting his emotions into theirs, bringing all of them together as one unified being of pure empathy. The ultimate bonding. It's not cruel to spread his feelings to them. People always loved it at Tix shows, the manic crush of pure revelry that would bring the show to the next level. Back home, people would say there was something else about a Nervous Tix show, that it was a fucking religious experience.

And here, in this intimate setting, it should be no different. But they don't know what he's doing. They don't understand why they begin to cry, partway through the song, but they know there's something wrong about it. It feels like an infection. They want to laugh and sing along-- or, at least, they know that's what they wanted to do before the wave of loneliness and alienation and grief crashed over their heads and drowned them, and now they can't stop wailing, and they feel like they're going fucking insane. They know what they're feeling is incorrect and unnatural, but they can't stop it, and it's like a nightmare they can't pull themselves out of. Jeff keeps on singing the song until completion, like Nemo or whoever the fuck it was, that Roman asshole with the fiddle.

When he's finished, he feels complete. There's still a hole where the Gift used to be, but now it's occupied. There's something there, and while it doesn't feel like the Gift, it's still magic of a kind, and it'll do. His companions are all curled up on the ground, choking on their own sobs, and he tries not to look at them. He just reaches into the future lawyer's backpack and takes a mostly-full bottle of tequila.

He wanders back in the direction of Gloucester, seemingly aimless as he drifts towards his destination, bottle in hand. It's early in the morning by the time he makes it back to Bonnie's, singing softly to himself.

"Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly, and The Spiders from Mars..."

Others can encounter him on the way, on the trail from Dogtown or in the sketchy parts of Gloucester-- or maybe they're likely to find him curled up and cozy on a comfy chair in Bonnie's flophouse, drinking his ill-gotten tequila as he tries not to think about what he did to those tourists. They could have been his friends.

IV. WILDCARD
[ Throw whatever your heart desires my way! If you want to plot something, hit me up at weeyotch or weeyotch#8200 on discord and we can hash something out. ]

Comments

[cacophonish]

There's nothing left for him here, thanks to the boy scout, so Jeff might as well match his pace and go... wherever. It's easy to keep up, since he's 90% legs anyway.

"Yeaaaaah, uh huh, lesson learned. I gotta get a fake ID to prove I'm legal. Fucking irony."

(Hey, there's a brand new song about irony...)

He gives Tim a confused look, which is pretty much par for the course. Is Jeff truly this clueless, or is he playing it up? The world may never know.

"Canteen?" A beat, then he makes a face, as it's now his turn to scrunch his nose. "Oh." The ADI. "I don't live there."

[ployboy]

Yeah, yeah, Tim's the short one. Shut up. And it's not like he hasn't been thinking about it himself (not about getting a fake ID, he's got a fake ID), so Tim easily asks, "Why not ask ADI for one anyway? They brought you here, the least they can do is make it suck a little less."

If Jeff's 21, then there's no reason the All-Knowing upper management wouldn't know, right? Seeing as the guy, like everyone, is tied to an Apocalypse, that means a basic profile on him has got to exist somewhere. Apparently.

As for where they're going: just popping by a corner store. Tim's got a To-Do list and he's got a stray in tow now, but it's not derailing anything. He glances at the guy and continues as he pushes open the door. "Then where are you staying?"

[cacophonish]

The face he makes in response demonstrates pretty clearly how little Jeff wants to ask the ADI for anything. "I'll get my own. No strings, no catch."

Yeah, he clearly doesn't trust their benefactors. He'll take the odd job with them for cash, but otherwise, rely on them as little as possible.

"Bonnie's," he shrugs. Honestly, it's probably nicer than the place he was renting with his friends, back home. It's certainly cleaner, if nothing else. "I like the viiiibe there, man."

By which he means he likes the freedom. Not just the lack of curfew, or the "quiet hours" or the stupid rules about drugs. Those are perks, sure, but even if the ADI hadn't laid out all those restrictions, he still would've said no to the offer. 'No supernatural abilities' was just a total dealbreaker.

Not that Tim needs to know that.

Jeff reaches for a snack pack of powdered donuts, then shoots the other boy a look, like he's actually studying the guy for the first time, really looking at him instead of letting his gaze drift all around. "So you're all in with the ADI, huh?"

[ployboy]

Fair enough.

The flophouse is somewhere Tim's heard of, as anyone staying at the ADI apartments has been privy to. He hasn't gotten around to any visits yet. There's a lot of the dorm rules that Tim can pin on the guy for not wanting to be a part of, but something about assuming holds him back. Vibin', Tim goes for a Monster drink, stalls, then yanks a purple Fanta instead because he's a heathen. He makes the-- universal? do you want anything nod to Jeff-and-his-donuts and then shrugs.

"I don't know what other choice I have," he says. All in sounds... wrong. Tim honestly isn't sure how else he'd put it, though. That deal with the selkies--

Anyway.

"I leave home, find myself with a job offer I couldn't imagine which feels way out of my depth,"

(corner store staff do not care about their chit-chat, which is amazing as Tim digs out his wallet to pay --stalls, and gestures to a mid-range scratch-off ticket and preemptively digs out and flashes that blessed little piece of plastic--)

"Can't go back home but they gave me a city bus pass, so the least I can do is stick around and maybe climb that ladder some day."

[cacophonish]

Purple Fanta is the best Fanta, so this might earn Tim a point in Jeff's book. And, for his part, he's sure as hell not going to turn down the other boy's offer. After an idle gaze at the soda selection, he reaches for a Sunkist, because there's something comforting in that. He can't imagine it's changed all that much, even in the past 25 years.

It reminds him of childhood.

Jeff hums thoughtfully, watching the little exchange as he listens to Tim's answer. Oh yeah, that flash of ID has him lifting his brows juuuust a touch, casting the kid a sidelong look. Looks like Tim's not quite the Boy Scout he seemed to be. The sneaky little punk!

Okay, so Jeff officially likes him now.

"I guess," he shrugs, sounding a little dubious about the explanation. It's not that he doesn't get it; he just can't see himself doing the same thing, even if his freedom with magic hadn't been on the line. "So what were you doing back home? Any big plans get derailed?"

[ployboy]

Mini donuts, two drinks, and lotto. Tim's down to a whopping seven bucks of cold hard cash after this affair, and he drowns the small bite of anxiety with keeping the contents of his wallet mostly hidden. One polite and chipper, Thanks! at the underpaid and overworked husk of a person manning the register, and Tim pockets his ticket

(maybe Meredith would like it?)

and uncaps his fizzy drink.

He wants to snap that duh, yes he had plans, who didn't have plans.

He didn't have plans.

His eyes widen. "Uh," he says. Pats himself on the back for that genius diversion, there. Yes, he attempted murder. He was never more disappointed than to learn he couldn't-- no, of course he's not going to, like, say that. "I got caught up in some things."

Sketchy.

Tim shoots Jeff a look of the shut up variety, and continues, "Like, with work. I do a lot of non-profit stuff, and I ticked off a guy who is going to majorly make my life hell. And now all of that's on hold. I guess. You? Doing some work-study back home?"

[cacophonish]

Damn, dude, even Jeff has plans.

It throws him a little, the way Tim stalls with that stellar uh. Here he'd gone, assuming the other guy was like his brothers; all Type A, with some big 10-year master plan already drafted and ready to go. He doesn't even know why he'd assumed that, really, just because, when presented with their very limited options, Tim went the ADI route.

"Thiiiiings..." he repeats, drawing that word out like he can find the hidden meaning there. In response to that look, he just grins. Bright and totally innocent!

But wow, that sucks. Tim's got, like, a nemesis back home? Guess non-profits are as fucking cutthroat as any other industry. But Jeff doesn't really have a chance to comment on that, because as soon as Tim asks him about work-study, he lets out a startled laugh.

Just. Give him a second.

"Fuck, dude, that's funny... No, uh. I bailed on school as soon as I could." He shoves the donuts in his pocket and gets to opening his soda. "I'm a musician. My band-- we're busy, you know? Things are moving. We put out an album and..." He makes a face, shrugging. "Doesn't matter." He waves a hand. "I'm here now. So much for fucking momentum."

[ployboy]

Things.

Tim finds himself matching the grin. It's nice. Y'know. It's been-- way too long, at this point, since a conversation wasn't derailed into disaster when he tried to be friendly or something. Jeff laughs, Tim snorts and rolls his eyes. "Oh god," he groans. "You're a guitarist."

Tell him he's wrong.

He doesn't want to keep quiet, the rock star's charm working its magic on the guy who now believes that second traffic cam on Main is a genuine risk for no reason other than the fact that it's there.

"Finally catch a break with college radio in L.A. and now you're surviving off-a gas station mini donuts." Tim takes a long, thoughtful, sophisticated drink of purple carbonated liquid sugar. So is that it for this guy? Sex, drugs, 'n rock-and-roll? "Yeah, guess I can see how that's frustrating."

It doesn't scream Apocalyptic to him. It seems Tim is no judge for what is and isn't apocalyptic, though.

"At least tell me your band's name, beach boy."

cw homophobic slurs and past violence/bullying

[cacophonish]

Is he that obvious? He's totally that obvious. Jeff grins, guilty as charged and proud of it, and takes a drink of soda. It tastes reliably like the same orange candy he remembers, which is comforting in a way.

"And a singer," he adds. Lead guitarist, lead singer, he must be insufferable when he's in his element.

And boy does Tim have him pegged. The Tix haven't gotten any big time radio play yet, and the low budget video they put out sure as shit hasn't been picked up by MTV, but they've got buzz, hype, in certain circles. College radio, the indie scene, their own little corner of the underground, carved out for people too queer or too Gifted to fit in anywhere else.

"Something like that..." he admits. Then, Jeff lifts his brows, smiling with a cheery optimism that might be at odds with the whole rock star thing. "Luckily I've got tons of experience surviving off the finest 7-Eleven has to offer."

Jeff walks ahead a few steps, just so he can turn on his heel to face Tim, hands spread theatrically, even while he's still gripping the Sunkist.

"The Nervous Tix." A beat, then he admits, "I wanted to call us the Satanic Faggots--" On account of that's what the few people who'd made some attempt at bullying him and Ally used to call them. It didn't really have the intended effect, since they were both quick to own the nickname. Jeff would wear it with the same careless defiance as he'd worn the bruises on his face, back in those days. "--but Ally vetoed that. She's, uh..." His best friend and the closest thing he's ever felt to a soulmate, in a platonic kind of way. She was the brains of the band. The drummer, the writer, the voice behind his voice. There's something almost like reverence in the way Jeff talks about her. "There's no Tix without Ally. So I'm gonna have to start something new here, I guess."

If Jeff's sad, he only lets it show for a moment, before forcibly brightening up. "Hey! You play anything?"

[ployboy]

And a singer, and Tim's first instinct is to eek out a "God, it keeps getting worse." that is nothing but the time-honored tradition of guys giving each other a hard time just because they can. His words come easy and they land lightly.

It's bizarre.

His gaze sharpens, all of him does, with the turn of events that is company hustling to get ahead. Again, it's instinctive, and Tim watches curiously, owlishly, until whatever demon gets put to rest with the great reveal. There's a suppressed cringe in there, go ahead and guess where, but it dissolves into a patiently impressed shake of his head a moment later. What the hell did he get into with this guy? "Gotta give props to Ally," Tim drawls. The fondness in Jeff's voice had washed, what, like jealousy, or something over him. He has friends. Red Robin has great friends. The freakin' best. Tim knows that. But when's the last time anyone mentioned his name without some-- edge to it? Uncertainty. For this, for that. Tim brings himself back with safe self-depreciation. "Nervous ticks are more relatable."

Cool name. Cool band. Cool dude. Cool is not a word Tim would ever use to describe himself (cold, Tam had hissed at him), and he barks out a disbelieving little laugh. Jesus. "I flunked out of kazoo school," he says. He has no idea where they're walking to. "No, I don't play anything."

[cacophonish]

In response to that, Jeff lifts his fist to his mouth, kisses the knuckle of his middle finger, and cheerfully flips Tim the bird.

"You don't even know the half of it."

Look, Jeff's missed this, the casual shit flinging of guys being dudes. It's an easy dynamic to slide into. Comfortable.

And if he picks up on anything a little off in Tim's tone at the mention of Ally, it's so slight and passes quickly enough that Jeff doesn't think anything of it. "Yeah," he nods. "Yeah, she's the best."

Does Jeff even know where they're going? Does he have a destination in mind? Nope. He just moves as if he's got some sense of purpose, even though there's no thought put into what lies beyond the next step. It might be the blind leading the blind here.

"Hey, butcher a kazoo on stage, and we'll just call it avant garde." He looks around, wrinkling his nose a little. "Guess there's not an audience for that here." But then a lightbulb flashes in his head, and suddenly Jeff's snapping his fingers. "Post-punk sea shanties! That's what we'll do."

Yeah, that's right, Tim. Kazoo or not, apparently Jeff's already drafted you into his imaginary band.

[ployboy]

Tim is a normal guy, for some sense of the word, and he stares, flicks his gaze to his soda, and back to the obnoxious airhead ahead of him.

Then he just takes a swig and keeps on trudging.

Gotta ignore these jerks some times, y'know. Keep their ego in check.

But Tim really doesn't know where he's going or following this guy to. He checks the intersection, notes the lack of bus stop anywhere nearby. He can hear Jeff buzzing and he wonders if treating him to a sugar high was wise but. Well. Too late now. The summer heat is heavy with humidity; it's gross out here. "We?" he asks, like that's the only questionable note on Jeff's grand plans. "Dude, you're serious about this?"

[cacophonish]

It's good, he needs someone to puncture his ego from time to time. Back home, Ally was all too happy to keep him in check. Without her? Geez, Tim might be the only one to stop him from turning into a total diva monster.

"I dunno." Jeff stops in his tracks and looks up at the sky, scrunching his nose in thought. Is he serious about this? After a beat, he looks over at Tim and shrugs a shoulder. "Sure, why not?" With a snort, he adds, "Stranded in a fucking alternate reality, monsters want to eat us, and everyone's scared of magic. Might as well have some fun."

[ployboy]

Jeff makes him miss San Francisco. It's that devil-may-care front, the sun-bleach of the hair. The theatrics. The inhuman powers. There's a war within Tim: either he can have his ah-ha moment triumphant and aloud or he can mourn the loss of soda as he tosses the empty bottle into the bin.

There's enough alarms ringing in his head that he has to actually take heed, now.

Tim stuffs his hands into his pockets, abandoning his last ties to quiet righteousness. He wishes he could say the crash hits him by surprise, but monsters under everyone's beds make it an equal threat to

"Magic, huh? What can you do?"

[cacophonish]

"Depends." Such a detailed answer. Jeff finishes off his drink with one last swig and follows suit... only to miss the trashcan because he's never exactly had an athletic bone in his body. It kind of lands... two feet to right of it.

"I guess in theory I could do pretty much anything I set my mind to. It's just a lot of work, you know, all the trial and error, composing the right Ritual..."

He says that word with a certain weight, but doesn't dwell on it. Without any other preamble, he sprints ahead to retrieve the fallen soda bottle and drop it in the bin.

"I'm a bard." Like that means anything. "Music and magic, it's all the same to me."

[ployboy]

"Wait--"

Are you just gonna litter like that, what's the theory behind the limits to these powers, you're just going to say you think trial and error is a burden when

"Bard?"

How's the tabletop scene back in sunny Los Angeles. Are you missing a paladin, a D.M.?

Tim's brows are furrowed and he's not even trying to hide that Jeff just dropped a lot on him. It's cool, it's great, it is quite literally what he asked for. Maybe that's what has thrown him for a loop. "What do you mean?" He asks, finally striding up to meet the lanky pace of... the guy. "We don't understand... magic that well back home. Some people are powered, like superpowers," he offers. "There's a meta gene to it."

Or several.

Genes are difficult to work around. Create. Duplicate. Tim feels like his mouth's about to run dry. Anyway.

"But magic is different."

[cacophonish]

It's weird, thinking about magic in terms of how to make it digestible to people who've never even heard of the Gift, or only know some fairy tale version of it, or the (supposed) horror show version of it here, or...

Well. Jeff doesn't know if he'll ever get used to it.

"Yeah, I guess it's, like, genetic where I'm from." Not that Jeff totally understands the whole science and biology aspect. It's nothing he really paid much attention to in school. "My parents are Gifted, so's all my grandparents, my aunts and uncles..." He waves a hand, then grins at Tim. "Nothing like superpowers, though, man, that's cool."

Superpowers imply something bigger and grander and far more intuitive. Effortless. Not that Jeff's ever particularly minded all the effort that goes into building one's relationship with the Gift, learning how to reach out and touch the little threads woven through every part of life. Along with music, it's the one thing in life he's taken seriously.

He turns a corner, still without any destination in mind. Honestly, Jeff's not even paying attention to where they're going. Are they heading towards the ADI, or Bonnie's, or waaaay off in another direction?

"Anyway, it's like... The Gift is magic all around us." He gestures around them and wiggles his fingers. OoooOOOOhhhh. "But we can't just wave a wand and say an incantation and boom: a spell happens. Everyone's-- everyone Gifted-- we've gotta... find our own way of working with it. Our Talent." He wrinkles his nose and looks at Tim. "If that makes sense? There's books on, uh, principles and theories and philosophy to guide us, but nothing that teaches us, you know? No books of spells or anything. That stuff's totally pointless, 'cause every Ritual is personal."

Hence all the trial and error.

"So for me it's music." He smiles dreamily. "That was the easy part, figuring that out."

[ployboy]

He heard that... present tense? Regarding those throwaway comments of family? Weird how it still makes his throat feel all constricted; it's been too long for that to still be the case. Aunts and uncles-- that's cool. Tim doesn't register that he's far away from the conversation at hand until Jeff does the jazz hands thing again.

He blinks himself back to the present.

He knows this street, finally. They're far enough away from ADI that Tim considers turning tail and heading back home.

--no, wait. Back to the housing complex. Not home. Never will be home.

Jeff's smiling and Tim nods. Thinks he's supposed to be awed and appreciative of all that information that he wanted to have, having been given to him. "That still doesn't make any sense," he admits. Apologetic. Like, actually apologetically. He shouldn't be wanting to dissect a stranger's life just because he can, just because he feels like it's some disservice if he doesn't. "I think it's a lot for us plebs to wrap our minds around. I still don't know how music ties into it. It's creative, an art, it's subjective."

The flophouse. They're near the flophouse.

"But it's tied to something very real to you and your world. I don't know. It's amazing. And I believe you. I'm just saying I bet I'd make a lousy magician."

[cacophonish]

"It's a skill. It's got techniques and building blocks, it's expressive, it's... a fucking living, breathing, beautiful thing, dude," Jeff says, with a sort of drifting reverence in his voice. "There's nothing more magical than that."

Spoken like a typical bard. Though, honestly, even by bard standards, Jeff's a totally flaky space case. He shoots Tim an amused sidelong glance as he fishes for the donuts in his pocket. Time to crack the snack bag open.

"Not everyone's like me. Everyone Gifted, I mean. It's not all arts and crafts. So who knows, you could be the next fucking Merlin."

And almost as an afterthought, he drops the carefree attitude for just a moment, glancing down as he murmurs a soft, gloomy, "I miss it." It's hard to say if he's talking to Tim or himself there. Jeff pops a donut in his mouth-- or, rather, holds it between his teeth as he grabs another and offers it out to Tim. Still walking, heading towards Bonnie's in total autopilot.

[ployboy]

That likely explains it, thinks Tim, eighteen and dead inside. Life doesn't make a habit of following him around.

"'Gifted' sounds way too much like what you call the kids who enroll in AP classes and then burn out before thirty."

The figurative rain cloud over Jeff's head grants Tim the ability to properly catch up to the guy (dude's got long strides) and he takes a comfortable place next to him. And now they're two assholes out in the middle of the day hogging up sidewalk space, not that anyone else is partaking in leisurely strolls through this route. Tim surprises himself and takes the offering; he bought it, after all.

It's cool and a gas-station-old kind of sticky.

"Hey Merlin, do you have any idea where you're going?"

[cacophonish]

Jeff hums in agreement as he chews on his donut. So many people back home want to call it anything but magic, and bury it under mundane euphemisms, like that'll stop it from being what it is.

"I never was that kind of 'gifted'." Far, far from it. He's pretty sure his teachers were relieved when he finally dropped out. Jeff points a powdered sugar-coated finger gun at Tim. "That might be your brand, dude."

Hey, it's kind of a compliment. Tim seems smart! Smarter than Jeff, at any rate.

He eats another donut as he considers the question, holding the package out for Tim in silent offering, in case he wants the rest.

"Ohhh, uh, I dunno." Jeff shrugs and looks around, squinting at the buildings as they stroll past. It's all kind of familiar... Oh! He does the super hygienic thing of sucking the sugar off his fingers and picks up his pace, a little more purpose in his (very long, sorry, Tim) stride. "C'mon, let's go to Bonnie's."

cw suicidal ideation

[ployboy]

Even Zach, the insufferable asshole, would contest magic being called anything but. Tim himself doesn't have it in him to want to call someone Gifted, or-- what was it? Talented? It hits different than the Meta back home. Even then, he calls a good number of them friends instead of just

his brain kinda stutters to a stop. Tim bites at his donut. He's sure he's a... picturesque sort of sullen, hair starting to stick to his forehead and the frown at odds with the fact that he's munching on a mini powdered donut. Burn out at thirty? Him? It's laughable. God... forbid that he ever make it that long. "Honestly, dude," he muses, "between you and me, I think my teachers were relieved when I finally dropped out."

It couldn't have been easy to keep making excuses for why Timothy Wayne hadn't failed out, when all he did was sleep. What had Ives said that once, joked about that one time? Goodbye four-point-oh GPA, house with a white picket fence, two-point-five kids. Tim hadn't known how true that'd been, back then. He'd still been kind of stupid back then, with his world burning down around him.

Live to thirty, to continue to burn in it? God forbid.

God, he misses sleep.

But Jeff had given the right answer, and Tim waves off the offer of more food as he... uh, dusts his hands off on the leg of his pants. He has to pick up the pace too, but quickly decides the awkward shuffle isn't worth it and he huffs a breath of exasperation. Runs a hand through his hair, messing it over.

Okay, but seriously:

"I don't even know your name."

It's not a no. He still wants to... chat. But. Seriously.

[cacophonish]

"Yeah?" If the admission throws Jeff, it's only for a moment, before he ducks his head a little and smiles faintly. "I think mine were, too. One less burnout lost cause, you know?"

He's pretty sure he won't make it to thirty, either. Whenever Jeff tries to picture it, picture life or himself past 25, there's nothing. Either he'll be tragically dead, forever young and talented, or he'll be some version of himself that's so warped and twisted he may as well be somebody else entirely. Of course, he'd made the dead-by-25 prediction when he still had Ziggy in his head, instead of a conspicuous lack and silence that he has to drown out with noise and people or else he'll go fucking crazy.

(Crazier, even. Most people would probably agree that it's pretty fucking crazy to pine for the magical parasite that was turning your life into an endless waking nightmare.)

Now he might actually have a future again. He might live past 25. Or the fucking apocalypse will come and it won't matter either way. And besides, right now there are more important things, like--

"Dude. You don't know my name?"

Like. This just occurred to Jeff. How does he not know Jeff's name? Jeff knows his name. It's...

...

Okay. Fuck. He doesn't know the guy's name.

He wipes his hand on his jeans, just for good measure, and offers it in a parody of a formal handshake.

"Jeff."

[ployboy]

There's a lot he could and should say but all Tim eeks out is, "As in Jeffrey or Jefferson?"

But he doesn't really hesitate to shake the hand, straightening himself up in a mockery of business must-do matters. Melancholy steps aside to let some cheek through. It's been a long time since Tim last spared a passing thought to the callouses of his hands. Today isn't the day for that either. "Tim."

And because he can have nothing come easy, Tim's eyes widen as soon as he hears his name. And busies himself with necessary, unnecessary clarification. "Unless... we're in, like, town. Where ADI doesn't matter. Then it's James."

Something, something, identity. It's all circular with Tim.

Jim.

"Call me Jay," he says, because he has never had good sense. Or taste. This could get complicated, but two guys just shook powdered-sugar dusted hands, so he opts for a lopsided little smile. "With introductions outta the way-- I've got to ask. Do you have a Facebook?"

[cacophonish]

"Jeffrey." A beat. "Jefferson would've been cooler. Like Jefferson Airplane. Go ask Aliiiice..." And that's enough of that. He lets the song drift off before it can even get going.

And, hey, one calloused hand meets another. Jeff's got those guitarist fingers going for him, so he's not going to think anything of it.

"Okay, Tim. Jim. Jay." A beat. "Your secret identity's safe with me." Well. Maybe. He won't deliberately call Tim the wrong name at the wrong time, but it's hard to say if Jeff will always, like, remember which name to use when.

Then he makes a face, clearly confused.

"What's a Facebook?"