entrancelogs | knocked the wind out of my soul [open]

A small, incremental nod. That wash of relief is too abrupt for him to dismiss it, ignore it, call it something it isn't; it's acute, and it pierces too intently. This is an event, right? He remembers. He remembers Wonderland, and this isn't just Tim, losing his mind. Losing everything he has, even that tenuous grasp of reality skittering out from beneath his fingertips like water droplets over hot oil.

He could've been oblivious to something like this his entire life. So out of touch with reality that maybe he'd never know it. Wouldn't be a shocker, would it?

No. Not really.

He sinks down into a sitting position beside him, knees drawn up to his chest in a gesture both helpless and protective.

"Has to be. One of those...rift things, I think." He murmurs it, low, barely audible. "Don't mention anything about it here. They'll...they'll think you've lost it."

They'll think you're like me.

'They'll think you've lost it.'

Jay shoots Tim a brief, withering look. Like somebody else I can name.

He shifts his focus, trying to look at something that isn't Tim. Doesn't want to make it too obvious they're talking. Eventually, he settles on a painting hung on the far wall. Some pastoral scene, probably hung in there because they think it'll calm the patients down.

"What do they want us to say?"

He doesn't look at him, when Jay gives him that. They'll think he's like Tim, and Jay - Jay would never admit to something like that, would he? Won't even venture to put himself on the same level. Especially now.

A conversation they stopped having once Jay tried to tackle him to the ground in his own house - pinned down and hogtied and left behind in a final exchange that would spiral him downward, that would lead him to his own demise, that would have him breathing a message raggedly behind an old disused shack as he shook the spots out of his vision and tried to sort out what was real and what wasn't.

A pity he can never remember it now, huh?

"You tell them what they wanna hear," says Tim shortly. "You say that you're feeling okay. You take whatever they give you, and try to spit it out when they don't see."

You lie.

He is a liar.

He always has been.

"Great."

At least he's got a better chance here than when he was 'out of it', with Tim force-feeding him his meds. At least he's got the option to spit the pills out.

There's a prickling at the back of his neck, and Jay looks up. That same doctor's staring at him again, more intently this time.

Jay breaks eye contact, but it's too late. He's already walking over.

(As soon as Jay looks away, he can't remember what the doctor's face looks like.)

He keeps his mouth shut and his gaze fixed firmly on the back of the nearest couch, but it's not enough.

"Jay? Who're you talking to?"

He wasn't looking at Tim when he talked, so of course--Dammit. There's no good answer here.

"N--nothing. I mean, I wasn't...I wasn't talking."

Shit.

Jay's never been a fantastic liar. Even when he was shuttling away the denial as to his mental state, he had to shovel it beneath layers of prickling barbs and underhanded jabs in Tim's direction. That won't work on doctors. Not even fabricated ones.

"He was talking to me," says Tim, a little desperately. Pull the shroud of the blame onto himself. He can take it - he knows he can. Whatever Wonderland has drummed up in this hellhole of an environment - it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. He's lived through worse.

He knows he has.

The doctor cocks his head toward Tim, like some kind of six-foot praying mantis.

"And why would he be talking to you, I wonder?"

Jay flattens his back against the wall, putting as much space between himself and the doctor as possible. Finally, he speaks up, in the hopes that he'll be able to drag the doctor's attention away from Tim.

"We were talking about a--" Wait, when is this? Is there TV now? Are there movies? Jay decides not to risk it. "A book we both...we both read. 'S a good book."

If the doctor weren't regarding them so intently, Tim might've kicked out at that. What books? There's nothing fucking here. And god help him, if Jay so much as mentions Alice in Wonderland, Tim really will kick him. He's not exactly being subtle here, shrinking back as though the doctor will spread everything through touch.

It'd be eyeroll-worthy, if his heart wasn't thumping in his chest on Jay's behalf.
If he didn't know that he's just as repulsive by default.
"It was my fault," he says swiftly. "I...I'm the one who brought it up."

"Were you really?" The doctor doesn't sound convinced. If anything, he sounds amused. "Do you two make a habit of it? Talking about...books?"

Jay's eyes dart over to Tim, looking for a prompt. He doesn't look long enough to get one, though, before he opens his mouth.

"No."

He says it like it's obvious. Rather, he says it like he's trying to make it sound like it's obvious, but not quite succeeding.

There's a very fine line between selling something and overselling something, and it's not like Tim ever prided himself on being some kind of actor. He auditioned for Alex's film on Brian's behest, and Brian might've seemed genuinely interested in bringing Alex's bland script to life, but Tim sure as hell wasn't.

Not to mention the fact that Jay is either chronically unable to read into the muted, pointed glares Tim is shooting in his direction, or he can't discern their deeper meaning.

"I just figured...it'd be nice to make friends. Like my doctor's always telling me."

That one's a gamble, he knows for certain. There's no knowing if he's got a history of being in the isolation wards in this place.

Knowing his history, it's likely.

"Very interesting." What's 'very interesting' about it, he doesn't immediately let on.

Jay feels like he's nearly vibrating out of his skin.

"Strange coincidence that you'd try making friends with this one. Do you know why that might be, Timothy?"

How much does he know?

"Because we have...similar problems."

He's guessing. He's vaulting into the ether, predicting based off what he knows and what he thinks they might know, and he's hoping to god it isn't obvious - that it won't get Jay hurt or worse. They can pin Tim down, put him through every mental hospital cliché there is; they can do whatever they want, as far as he's concerned. It won't be worse than anything else he's endured.

Just don't catch Jay in that crossfire.

Please.

"Tim, we don't--" Jay catches himself too late. Seriously though, what's Tim thinking? Wonderland hands them an event that supports his skewed as hell view of the situation, and suddenly he's taking advantage?

The doctor's attention twitches back toward Jay. "Funny, because my notes here say you both came to us with very similar stories, down to the very detail. Folie à deux, you could call it." And he does, affecting a grating French accent that somehow manages to be worse than Alex trying to say mise-en-scène. "If we just let you two interact like this, you could undo all the work we've done. You want to get better, don't you?"

Jay's shaking, though whether it's from anger or fear he's not sure. Either way, there's nothing to do but keep his mouth shut and pray Tim doesn't make this worse.

Goddamn it, Jay.

The look Jay receives in turn is nothing short of furious, just for a split second. Is he just - incapable of swallowing his pride and stowing things away for discussion later, even in the face of the risk of whatever kind of consequences they might face for daring to put one toe out of line.

"Fine," he says, biting the word out desperately. "We'll - we won't talk to each other anymore. Okay?"

Is it that simple? Just avoid Tim until this blows over?

The doctor rests a hand on Jay's shoulder.

Jay stiffens. Of course not.

"Excuse me if I'm not inclined to trust your word." The doctor's eyes are on Tim, though his grip tightens on Jay's shoulder. "I'll be escorting this one back to his room."

Clearly furious as Tim is, Jay still tries to catch his eye, silently asking, Should I play along?

Shit.

Separation. Escorting him back to his room - the spaces aren't co-ed, but that won't be a problem. Is he in solitary? He doesn't fucking know. Has Jay raised enough trouble to be pinned in solitary, with all the trappings that entails? Jay's look is plainly searching, and Tim doesn't have an answer.

He'll have to find him - later. He'll have to try and follow. Make sure he can find him again, so they can both get out.

For now?

For now, he has to grit his teeth and bow his head, borrowing that trembling, reluctant obedience that was, for years, instinct knotted deep into his heart and soul.

"Yes, sir."

The words sound so deeply wrong in Tim's voice. The words, the way he dips his head like he's just giving up, every part of this is wrong.

But he's just playing along. 'You tell them what they wanna hear,' he said. Another lie, but this time Jay's finally on the right side of it.

He shoots Tim one last look as he lets the doctor lead him away, trying for you'd better have a plan but probably landing closer to the vicinity of please god don't let this end the way I think it will.

Strapped down to a table, electricity arcing through his head until he forgets, again. Maybe it's already happened.
What happened to his camera?

He keeps his head down, just like Tim showed him. Doesn't push the hand away. Does as he's told, and--

The light changes. There's a weight in his hand, and none on his shoulder.

Fifteen feet.

He looks back. No Tim, not visibly.

...He's gonna have to turn around, isn't he?

He tries to follow. Really, he does. But the doctor keeps looking over his shoulder, and Tim has to keep making sure he's not in the scope of his vision whenever he does. He loses sight of him, inevitably, cursing quietly under his breath when he turns a corner and Jay isn't there. Did he leave? Can't have. The doctor had such a tight grip on him. How would he have gotten out?

He starts prowling the perimeter of the common areas, trying to time it so he can slip into the halls for the individual rooms when someone isn't looking. But after the third failure, all he gets is confinement to his room.

His room. Alone. The bolt locking firmly into place behind him, a familiar, sick feeling curling up tight in his throat.

With no doctor, and no Jay.

There's probably about fifty minutes left in the event, at most. Still, a lot can happen in fifty minutes, and the last thing he wants is for Tim or anyone to come out of this with a lobotomy because Jay wasn't fast enough.

Jay steps back into the radius of the event.

He's barefoot again, wearing what amounts to white pajamas again, and he's at the end of the hallway. Quickly, he ducks behind a storage cabinet a few feet away from the edge of the event until he's convinced the way is clear.

Once the sound of footsteps finally clears, he peeks through the nearest doorway, peering into the common area. Nobody he recognizes.

A nurse rounds the corner, and Jay scrambles back behind the cabinet.

The way clears again, and Jay has a terrible idea. The closet's unlocked. There are bottles, some labeled by hand and some by machine, but what's on the upper shelves are what's important. Jay sneaks a clean, white coat off the top of the stack.

The legs of his scrubs are still visible--the coat's far from floor-length--but maybe it won't be quite as obvious he's not supposed to be here. He should be good unless somebody either recognizes his face or looks closely enough to spot the scrubs underneath. Both of which aren't exactly unlikely. Great.

Still, while the hallway's clear, Jay peers into each room. There's a window in every door, though many are covered by a sliding hatch with a hole for a padlock. Thankfully, nobody's locked any of them shut.

Nobody Jay knows, nobody, nobody, a few people but none he knows, another stranger, somebody who doesn't even look like he's breathing, nobody, Tim.

It looks like the window's one-way, so it's not going to do him any good. He raps on the door several times in quick succession, sounding like an impatient woodpecker. "Hey. Hey, Tim," he whispers, watching the end of the hallway out of the corner of his eye.

Edited 2017-09-27 15:34 (UTC)

There's nowhere else to go. No window. No means to climbing, clawing his way out. With no guarantee that he can, he can't risk trying to make a break for it, raising a ruckus. He'll end up fucking - straitjacketed and sealed in some solitary confinement, for the safety of himself and others, so he isn't a danger to anyone. Violent episodes, right?

Right.

He curls in the corner. It's an easy instinct to resurrect. Where else is he going to go? Where else could he go? Head ducking, burying his face into the peaks of his knees drawn up to his chest. Just wait it out. Wait it out. It'll be over. It can't last forever. It can't last forever.

He doesn't have his prescription in here. How long is it going to last.

When there's the quiet tin-rattle of knuckles tapping against the door, the breathy whisper of someone calling his name, a spurt of adrenaline bolts into his system. Shit. He's already started hearing things, hasn't he? Already started bending beneath the weight of this kind of environment, needling away at his brain, peeling away what remains of his sanity. Jay can't have gotten out of the clutches of that doctor - not with how determined the latter was to get him away from Tim. There's no other possibility. Even if he did escape -

If he did escape, what would he be doing here?

He clamps both hands over his head and squeezes his eyes shut.

It isn't real. Don't let it be real.

There's no answer. He looks in through the window; Tim's still curled on the ground, knees pulled up near his head.

Either Tim doesn't hear Jay, or he's ignoring him.

Eyes darting back to the ends of the hallway (nobody yet), Jay grits his teeth and knocks directly on the window.

"Tim."

Another tap on the window, knuckles to glass. This time it's persistent enough for him to look up. A pale face peering through the glaze of the glass, unmistakable. He has to give his head a shake, blink hard, try to dispel the shroud of unreality - but he's still there.

He's supposed to have left. He's supposed to have left. That's what he does. Isn't it?

Tim scrambles upright. The worst that happens is the disappointment at having been proven right - and disappointment he's well used to. The breath hitches in his lungs a heartbeat before he can say it aloud -

"Jay?"

Jay nods--Who else would it be? The doctors would have just opened the door, right?--and checks back over his shoulder.

He draws closer to the window, still trying to keep his voice low. "Look, the door's padlocked from the outside." He grabs the lock, knocking it against the door for emphasis. "I'm gonna try and get it--wait."

He hears footsteps. After a moment, they fade into the distance.

"I'm gonna try and get the door open." He grimaces. "And if I screw up, this thing should be over in...forty minutes, about."

"Get out of here," Tim hisses. The longer Jay talks, the more it sounds like his kind of ill-advised stupidity - and the less Tim wants to indulge that. "What the hell're you doing?"

What part of Tim needs saving - and since when did Jay start giving a damn?

Why should he?

Tim tells him to get out, save himself first, and for a split second, he's tempted.

A lot can happen in forty minutes, though. Sure, Wonderland brings you back if you die, but things seem fuzzier when it comes to, y'know, permanent neurological damage. This place is happy enough to fix a gunshot wound in the side, but what about a hole in the head?

~~And he's not abandoning Tim a second time.~~

So, what's he doing?

"Finding the key and getting you out," Jay hisses back. "This whole thing cuts out ten feet down the hall, so we just need to get down there, and--"

Footsteps again, closer this time.

Jay ducks away from the window, snapping the latch shut before sprinting back toward his old hiding spot behind the storage cabinet. The echoing footfalls from earlier solidify into the click-tap of high-heeled shoes, and there's a squeaking, clattering sound that might be a rolling cart.

From his hiding spot, Jay can hear a woman's voice. It's not one he recognizes. "Dinner, Timothy."

Jay's pulse speeds up. Is that all she brought him?

And what's his plan, huh? Steal a key off a doctor? Yeah, 'cause that should go over real well. The most he can do is comply and hope that Jay doesn't do something stupid - like ambush the nurse who's brought him food and, presumably, medication that is the exact opposite of what he should be taking given his current prescription. If he'd had to guess - some horrendous cocktail of antipsychotics, antidepressants, psychoactive drugs. The same sort of combination that did little for him in his old room, besides make his fingertips go jittery and his teeth chatter and his vision go spotty.

Withdrawal from his own prescription combined with an introduction of something as foreign as that into his system is bound to go over well for just about everyone. He could try spitting them out, but that might not work - not if they've wised up to him being a little troublemaker, huh?

He's not Timothy, not just some scared little boy huddled in the corner of the room anymore.

Running right up to the door would be the sort of thing that might be frowned upon. Maybe get him a look of disapproval, and - five minutes, while the nurse makes rounds to other rooms, while she leaves him alone so he can have a think about what he's done.

It has to be enough. He just needs her gone.

Tim bolts forward, knuckles slamming into the metal of the latch. Is it common for their patients (victims) to act this way, when it's time for dinner?

He has no idea. But it's a risk he's willing to take if it gets Jay out.

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