log: here they come again, whispers in my head [OPEN]

[cacophonish]

Who: Jeff and OPEN
When: All throughout February
Where: Bonnie's, ADI offices, around town, anywhere
Summary: Just a catch-all for Jeff's return to the game! Featuring dumpster diving, white collar incompetence, bumming free food and drinks, busking, generally being a nuisance... The 'zero' prompt is pretty much just a bunch of exposition, but it's there for TDM prompts/continuing TDM threads!
Warnings: Reference to past drug and alcohol use/intoxication, emotional manipulation, violence, death, hallucinations in the 'zero' prompt.

0. Same old sad refrain
cw: reference to past drug and alcohol use/intoxication, emotional manipulation, violence, death, hallucinations

Once upon a time, there was a boy who didn't belong in this story. He wasn't very smart, and he wasn't very heroic, and this story-- the story he didn't belong in, the story he couldn't escape from-- scared him.

He was always so scared. Aided by drugs and every intoxicant he could consume, he hid himself away in lies and fantasies, dreaming of worlds beyond flesh and blood and mundane drudgery. Worlds where magic was endless, and reality fractured into a beautiful kaleidoscope of limitless, nonsensical possibility. These were the worlds that existed in the reflection of a storefront window, or in a picture that didn't develop quite right, or beyond the corner of his eye, always close, but never accessible. He thought, maybe if he kept on singing, kept on playing, kept on plucking at people's hearts with his tainted magic (he could make them laugh, make them scream, make them cry, at all the wrong times, whether they wanted to or not, could just wrest that control away and fill them with wrongness, and god it felt good, it felt so good to wring and twist their emotions--), he could find a way into one of those worlds, and leave this one behind.

The boy kept trying, and trying, until one day, a monster ate him.

Okay, she didn't eat him. But she did kill him. She stabbed him, and left him bleeding out on an empty stage, in an empty club. The boy died, alone, with nothing but a lie to save him. See, he realized that he didn't have to accept his death. He didn't have to believe in it at all. All the blood he'd lost, that didn't need to stop him. He reached out and held onto that delusion, and pulled himself off that stage.

He would be fine.

And so he was fine, and he wasn't scared anymore. For the first time in a long time, he'd felt whole and complete and-- hungry. The boy was so hungry. And though he tried to show some restraint, it became difficult as those few people who unknowingly held pieces of his humanity vanished out of the story. One, after another, after another, after...

That's when he realized he could leave this story, too. So one day, that's exactly what he did. He packed his things, and he walked right off the page.

(Well. Metaphorically.)

That could've been it. It could've been the end of his part in this story. But instead, once upon a later time, six months down the road, the boy came back. Maybe the he got bored. Maybe he got lonely. Maybe something's nipping at his heels, or curiosity got the better of him, who knows, it's weird, sometimes his story changes, but he doesn't seem to be lying about it.

He just makes himself fit right back in, without missing a beat, as if he'd never left.

i. wished i'd never said what i said

It's probably some ungodly hour of the morning when Jeff stumbles back into Bonnie's, singing and humming to music in his head as he brings his contributions to the communal kitchen: food scavenged from Gloucester's bakeries, coffee shops, and grocery stores. Well, okay, not from the stores proper, more like... the dumpsters behind them. But it's fine, it's all good! He only goes for the stuff that's boxed, bagged or wrapped in plastic, so, like, no garbage has touched any of it (directly). And if it's expired, so what? Expiration dates are just a suggestion, anyway.

Come enjoy a day-old croissant with him! Or maybe you find him a little later in the morning, lurking by the Memorial Wall while he eats some expired yogurt. It's hard to say if he's actually reading the names on the wall, or if he's just staring into space. But he's there for an awfully long time, his expression vaguely dreamy and disconnected, as he just... seems to soak in the names of the lost.

At various times, you can also find him in his room, where he'll either be decorating, listening to music, or practicing his guitar. Loudly.

ii. take me to the top

Once he's back in the ADI's (er) good (uhhhh) graces, Jeff becomes a semi-regular presence at the ADI offices. Like before, he kind of sort of works in the Admin department, which is to say he's mostly a glorified errand boy. Need some paperwork to not get filed? Need a hundred copies of the wrong report made? Need your coffee order screwed up? Then Jeff's your guy!

Of course, if you tell him he screwed this up or got that wrong, or this isn't the thing you asked for, he'll tilt his head and look at you with wide, truly innocent, sincerely dumb and ditzy eyes, and say, "Huh? No, I'm pretty sure this is what you asked me for."

He seems to really believe it.

Intermittently, over the course of the month, he may also leave a vintage Lisa Frank Valentine at your desk, whether he knows you or not. Looks like he got his hands on some fun kitsch somewhere along the way, during his travels.

iii. and don't ever tell me when to stop

Of course, you can always find Jeff loitering around Gloucester. Like, even if you're not looking for him, really. Sometimes he's hanging out on a busy, bustling street, performing with his guitar. It seems like he's spent some time learning music from, like, after 1995. Wanna hear his guitar cover of Shake It Off? He'll take requests!

Sometimes, he's hanging out at a crowded bar or club, mingling, being a social butterfly. If he spots you, he'll sidle up with a bright, cheery smile, and a playful, "Buy me a drink?" (No. Really. Buy him a drink. He's always broke.)

Are you enjoying a meal at a diner or restaurant? Having a drink and pastry at a coffee shop? Well, hope you don't mind Jeff plopping himself down at your table, menu in hand. Was he supposed to meet you here? Well, he seems to be under that impression, whether or not you are. "So! What's good here?" He may even help himself to your food if you don't, like, swat him away. (Maybe people should start carrying spray bottles around to spritz him with.)

iv. wildcard

hit me with anything! you can shoot me a message at weeyotch or weeyotch#8200 to plot anything in particular, or just wing it, throw something at me, I'll roll with it.

Comments

cw reference to homophobia/bigotry

[cacophonish]

Jeff laughs-- well, it's more of a giggle, borderline giddy, and playful in an almost childish way. "Has Pam been talking shit about me?" Honestly, if she was, she'd be well within her rights. "You forget to put in the order for one office luncheon..."

An honest mistake!

But anyway, when they say the words another plane, Jeff looks... very interested, almost hungry.

"Whoa."

He's met people of other worlds before, yeah, but that's par for the course here. Planes of reality, now, those are of particular interest to him. The only other person (no, not person, something barely definable and so far removed from humanity it may as well have been an alien) he ever encountered from another plane had been Ziggy, an abstraction of pure magic, something he hated and feared and loved and misses in equal measure.

Are the Feywilds anything like the plane it came from?

"Oh, I'm from a world kinda like this one, I guess. Only it's, like, 25 years in the past, and there's no one breathing down your neck about magic-- well, except for the usual assholes who make it their business to try and destroy wipe out anything and anyone that's..." Here, his smile takes on a bitter edge. "Different." Like him, queer and Gifted in a time when either one of those things could mean slurs spit in his face, something getting thrown at him, or worse. There's a reason he always had a particularly strong objection to the ADI's stance on magic.

"Anyway, I'm from out west. California." He smiles another dreamy smile. "The goooolden state." In contrast to, like, the general bleh-ness he associates with New England.

[ruevealing]

"The past?"

Even Rue can't hide the immediate flash of surprise that flickers across their normally composed face, confusion pinching at their brow. For as much as they've heard of all of the others from ADI, they've never explicitly heard of any of their coworkers having come from a different place in the timeline. Different planes and realms - that's nothing new to the fey, but people drawn in from past or unknown futures? That is endlessly fascinating.

And is it any surprise that the very specific way he says the word different, as if he chews it around in his mouth first, hits the owlbear like a punch in the chest. How strange, to have only just met but to already feel so seen by a stranger. Some of the stiffness in their posture disappears, expression softening to something more akin to their usual gentle countenance.

"You don't need to say another word. I'm quite used to feeling, ah, different as well." Speaking from one queer to another. "A shame that any of us who do not fit into their specific ideal makes us the ones who should be ostracized. But I'm grateful you are among kinder, more accepting people now."

Their hand slips away from guarding their paperwork to curl around their cup of coffee instead.

"The golden state? How wondrous. What is such a place like?"

[cacophonish]

"Mm, yeah. I mean, I guess in time travel terms, 25 years isn't a lot of time, but..." He shrugs, and flashes a wry smile. "It's a head trip, you know? Everything's just slightly off, all the time, in a thousand little ways."

But hey, whatever, it's no big deal! Certainly hasn't totally fucked him up or anything.

"Yeah..." There's something a little softer in the way Jeff agrees with Rue, some of that chaotic raccoon energy fading as the boy he was comes a little closer to the surface. It's so rare to meet people who can really see, who get it. "I guess it's kind of a trade off here, you know? Freeing in some ways, fucking... smothering in others. You ever feel that here?"

He tears off another piece of his croissant with a smile, the boy fading into the background again.

"Oh man. It's huge, so there's like, everything there. LA-- Los Angeles, I mean, that's where I was living-- it's on the coast, so, you know... Beaches, sunshine... And the city, fuck, it's like this massive, sprawling thing, but like. It was wild, felt like the city had its own heart, like it's..." He sighs dreamily. "Alive. And in a place that big, you can always find your family, whoever they are. But all around the state, there's deserts and mountains, and forests. These fucking... huge redwood trees..."

Okay, okay, no more talking of home. Even the LA here didn't feel like it had the same beating heart as the one in his world. Jeff finishes off his bread, then props his chin in his hands.

"Tell me about your world? The name alone... It sounds like my kind of place."

[ruevealing]

"I imagine the number itself matters so little when you are caught in a differing timeline. Even the small differences must feel uneasy to witness. I hope that it isn't too difficult for you. This place provides us all with enough trials as is."

Rue can't help the way their attention draws to the changes in the young man's energy, the softness that peeks out when he describes his situation. A mix between freeing and smothering, hm? They can absolutely relate to that.

"Incredible! I should very much like to see such a beautiful city. I'm afraid that Gloucester is all I've really seen so far in this place, but what a delight to know there are far better cities outside of it. I hope to one day travel and see them." One day, when they no longer feel so tied down to ADI and its mission.

"Well, Faerie is nothing like this place. It is rich and vibrant and overflowing with magic." Well, at least in the courts that Rue has traveled to. "We have cities and towns, of course, but nature is so much more prevalent in our infrastructure. My former court, in particular, had a fondness for golden peonies planted all throughout our major city. It was quite obnoxious, if not beautiful, in its own way."