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

[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?"

[ployboy]

There's only one thing ever on Jeffrey's mind, Tim has figured out a little too late. He gives a small scoff as the guy trails off his tune, and kind of wishes he had some kind of, you know, hobby. But Jeff's love for music and all things bard seem to extend past simple hobbies. This guy's passionate. It's as disarming as it is unnerving.

He scoffs again at the mention of a secret identity, trained panic rising just to the tip of his tongue. "Middle names, dude," which is fair enough. James. Jackson. But god, Tim hadn't been brave enough to ever go by Jackson. "The secret identities are for people like the Flash, or one of the Lanterns. I just don't want ADI all up in my business. So... they don't have to know."

Bonnie's flophouse.

It's everything that brownstone his father had moved them into after bankruptcy... wasn't. Tim strongly doubts the presence of a bellhop. He can't see any obvious cameras to disguise as poor security.

His key is to glance at Jeff in a sidelong sort of way. And shrug. "I'll show you when we get inside. You can download it to your phone. It'll help you get the word out about your new band, you can tailor the audience and reach and everything about anything you would wanna promote, or you can even check out the marketplace for good, cheap equipment."

[cacophonish]

Who the hell is the Flash? What's a Lantern? Jeff knows what a lantern is, sure, but not in the context Tim is talking about here. But ultimately, it doesn't really matter, because he gets the gist of it. Keep the ADI out of his business. Makes sense. Jeff doesn't them snooping around on his life, either.

He nods as they head up to the flophouse, practically bouncing up the front steps.

"Oh. So it's another app." He doesn't sound too thrilled about that. Tailoring audiences and reach sounds like... the kind of stuff his bandmates usually handled, not him. They did the strategizing, and they just pointed Jeff at whoever he needed to talk to, schmooze, charm, whatever, do his thing at. "Wait, so I can buy gear on the phone?" But... "How do you know they'll send it?"