entrancelogs | + The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to You +

Entry tags:

+ The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to You +

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Saturday, May 19th - Wednesday, May 23rd.
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch-all for the Kyln / Sierra Madre event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, the entire mansion will be part space jail, part apocalyptic wasteland desert with an abandoned hotel/casino. On the third day an escape route not previously discovered in the Kyln appears and breakouts can be planned...

...Only for everyone to find themselves walking through a large glass prison toward the toxic gas filled wasteland of a desert, the Sierra Madre. Does the prison look better than the toxic cloud outside? If you're stuck in the prison after dark beyond day 3, you'll be forced into and locked in your cell for the night. But at least locked away, nothing from the outside can hurt you. If you try to brave the actual elements in the desert it might be a little hard to breathe. The air has pockets of toxic gas and even a few seconds of exposure could prove deadly. And watch out for the Ghost People.

Inside the abandoned hotel/casino you'll find shelter from the gas and ghosts, but beware the holograms that are 50/50 with their attitude. Prison beatings, a beating from the holograms, which one Would You Rather? And whatever you do, don't try on the collars lying around unless you like to explode. Literally.

[ This is a catch-all for all your prison/desert needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and either a cell number or just a location if you didn't feel like randomizing it or you're making a top level for a public place (like the dining hall or wandering the hotel/casino). Here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yep."

Jay stares at the ceiling, like maybe it'll collapse and give them both an excuse to stop talking. Tim definitely thought Archie was something else. Someone else. Whatever. Jay's not sure what, exactly, is going on here, but he knows it's embarrassing.

"He's got six toes on each foot, so, uh. That's cool."

He's not entirely sure why the number of toes is relevant, but by god he's not about to call attention to that now when their conversation has already taken a turn for the incredibly weird.

"...well, I wouldn't worry about him. Most pets turn out fine during events. Like, it doesn't seem to affect 'em or...whatever."

Doesn't seem to, because he's not one hundred percent on that one, but he's pretty sure they'd know if more people were losing pets to shit like gingerbread mansions or Reaper tech.

God, he could use a smoke right now. Too bad that wasn't considered necessary.

"That's what I'm hoping."

Hoping, sure, but convinced? Not in the slightest.

"I dunno, I just get the feeling this whole...war or whatever's gonna hit the Mansion. The 'real' Mansion, I mean, not...old-timey fantasy Mansion or gingerbread Mansion or Reaper Mansion or whatever else it decides to turn itself into."

He yanks at a loose thread hanging from the cuff of his jumpsuit.

"Not sure what'll happen to pets in that case."

The thread snaps.

"Especially if the Mirrors cross over."

"You're worried what your Mirror might do to your, uh...your cat?" Kind of a weird priority, he'd say, except this is Jay they're talking about, and Jay has about enough of an instinct for self-preservation to fill a thimble on a good day. This is the man who charges faceless specters when they're implicitly threatening people he's just met in hotel rooms, after all.

Still, a cat seems like a step further.

"And not, say...you?"

"Look."

Jay makes eye contact.

"Tim."

He holds up one hand, palm flat.

"He's the best cat in the world, but I swear to you he's dumber than I am."

"What d'you think they're gonna do, even?" Actually, he kinda regrets asking that, but there's no turning away from it now. "How dumb are we talking here? Jay, what're you...worried about, exactly?"

He's never interacted with cats in any personal, significant fashion, but - how dumb can cats get? He's always figured them to be largely pretty crafty animals, right? They can take care of themselves. Most of them can be outdoors-only pets without being too dependent on their owners, right?

Why has Jay adopted the world's dumbest cat, apparently?

"I mean, your Mirror tried to strangle me, so..."

He cracks a bitter smile, more a grimace than anything, and shrugs.

"I dunno, that, maybe?"

"And pets probably don't get a five deaths ru - " He stops dead when what Jay has just said catches up to him, and he stares with his brow creasing downward. Wishing it was a joke. Knowing, with a sick swell in his gut, that knowing his Mirror, it's anything but.

"He what? When? Jesus - when were you gonna say something?"

Oh, that's rich, coming from the guy who tried to burn me to death last event, something inside him snarls, but he grits his teeth, throttles it down. (Ha.) He feels like something might have slipped through, a wary flash of the eyes or a huff of breath, but they're in space prison, surrounded by armed guards, and this is absolutely not the time.

Besides. Can't really blame a guy for reacting like you're infected when your stupid plan got yourself infected.

It takes Jay longer than it really should to collect his thoughts.

"Now, I guess." He doesn't meet Tim's eyes. "And Christmas. Didn't like that I wasn't playing along with his bullshit, I guess. Reached out and, uh--"

He shrugs. You know.

"Didn't stick. I'm guessing it was the bracelet, but I can't really say for sure." He takes a second to clear his throat. "Couldn't talk for a few hours after, so that sucked."

It takes an impressive amount of self control for Tim to do what he does: notably, shut his eyes, breathe through his nose, and let his hands curl into fists without fucking decking Jay across the goddamn jaw right then and there. Not when brawling in the mess is likely to get them both thrown in iso. See, he thinks with vicious abandon, look at that - he can already plan further ahead than Jay has!

“My Mirror would’ve killed you if it weren’t for Wonderland,” he growls out, slow and precise and very fucking deliberate, “nearly six months ago. And you never thought that was worth mentioning?”

You never thought that was worth mentioning?

It was worth slamming the door to his gingerbread room, locking the peppermint padlocks, and pulling the cotton candy blankets over his head for several hours, but worth mentioning?

He left Tim's Mirror in an entire ballroom full of people, Tim and Clem and George and Shaun and Sans probably included, and he didn't say a word. Didn't warn anybody.

"There was a lot going on," he mutters. It's a token effort, not even enough to convince himself.

Then, even further under his breath, he mumbles, "Should've warned people."

"It was my fucking Mirror," Tim hisses in poisonous undertone. "Were you never gonna mention this to anybody? And you call me a liar, you - "

He stands with enough force to send his tray sliding across the table with the rasp of metal on metal, the movement abrupt enough to call the attention of one of the guards. They don't move toward him, not yet, but they pin him with a very deliberate look.

A muscle in his jaw jumps. Once. Twice.

Slowly, he forces himself to sit, breathe through his nose. Forces himself to speak steadily, even if the words tremble with the effort of it.

"Was there...anything else he did that's maybe worth mentioning? Did he burn down anyone's room? Steal anything important? You know, little things like that?"

Liar? Does Tim think--does he seriously think this is even remotely on the same level as what he's done? He strung Jay along for over a year, making him think they were looking for Jessica when all they were really doing was walking straight into Alex's crosshairs. Everything they did was just--just to satisfy Tim's fucked-up revenge fantasy. God knows what Tim still hasn't told him. God knows what stupid things Jay's done because he's still missing part of the story, and god knows how much of it's exactly the way Tim intended.

He scrambles to his feet, lunging for the collar of Tim's jumpsuit, and--

--and--

--grits his teeth, sliding back into his seat as Tim does the same. His nose stings from the dry prison air, his head stings, but he's sitting. He's quiet. He's staying in line.

"No," he snaps. "No, I don't know. I haven't seen him since...since Christmas."

His hands lock together on the table, fidgeting with nervous, furious energy.

"And what about my Mirror, huh? Haven't heard shit about him. What, does he just never show up?"

Edited 2018-05-24 03:16 (UTC)

Fingers knot into the sickly vomit-yellow of his prisonwear, yanking him forward by the collar, and he's inches from snapping fingers around his wrist and squeezing, like that might be enough to crush his ulna, wring his fucking neck like matchsticks, you always had violent episodes you fucking delusional fucking psychopath you -

Breathe. Breathe out through your goddamn nose and - and breathe.

"He doesn't try to kill people. Never tried to kill me. Tried playing himself off as you, not that it lasted. I was going to say he's a better liar than you."

But Jay's not a good liar. He's just good at not saying the full story.

A furious huff of air hisses through his teeth, and he can't quite prevent the last of it from forming into a deflated, "Fuck you, Tim."

Breathe.

What was it Shepard told him, all those months ago?

Five in, five out.

Five in.

When he finally speaks again, it's just as quiet, sinking back to the level of the mess hall chatter. "I wasn't leaving it out on purpose. And I'm telling you now, so."

So there. It's fine.

"So if they--when they try and cross over next month, are we gonna have to keep an eye on mine, or just yours?"

"Hey, Jay, wouldn't happen to be down a death or two, would you? I mean, I guess it's not that important if you haven't brought it up before now, right?" God, why is he like this? Can't he just shut up for five goddamn minutes and be the rational one, the levelheaded one, the guy who thinks things through? That's his job, isn't it? The counterweight to balance Jay's impulsive, fucking, bullshit.

Him. Rational. That's a fucking joke.

"Both, preferably. Unless you'd rather he try to kill you again, seeing as he apparently has no fucking problems with that, which, good to know, asshole."

Guess it's not that important. The sentence throws him off-balance. It's the way it's worded that gets him, layers of sarcasm over a sickening truth.

He died with no family no friends no fucking answers he died for nothing

He's staring at the table, eyes unfocused, fingers wound through a tangled clump of hair at the crown of his head.

"Rather he didn't," he mutters.

A pause.

"Asshole," he parrots back, an afterthought. "It'd ruin...ruin my record."

"What record," Tim growls, grinding one finger into the surface of the table, a pin stuck through the word launched right the fuck back across at him. "You don't have a record. You lost it in a fucking school because all you ever do is bring cameras to gun fights and expect that to be magically enough to save you."

There's a dizzying, heady rush of it all spilling out. Shit he flung at the first Jay to arrive, stumbling and blinking stupidly, but never got around to launching at this one without some initial provocation.

"I'll give it to your Mirror, at least - he didn't try to strangle me the first time we met. So I guess he has that going for him."

"Sounds real nice," Jay spits back, a half-formed thought ~~just like the one that sent him to Benedict Hall~~. "Think he's the 'good one?'"

The edge of his mouth curls into something like a smile, but it gets lost partway. Can't make jokes when it hits this close to home, when they're talking about his final minutes, when they're talking about find Alex, find the Ark, scrawled into his head like they're the only words that could ever make sense.

"Think he's the smart one?"

His voice catches.

"Not smart enough, apparently, since he thought he could bullshit a bullshitter. Guess he really is a Jay after all."

He slams the end of his fork into the greenish mess on his tray. Prison food is, apparently, gritty and swirled with revolting grayish chunks, with a handful of some kind of cheap jerky stick on the side. His stomach was in knots even without this shit in his system. Right now, the lump in his throat is making it hard enough to swallow, let alone anything else.

"I was kinda thinking you were doing almost okay. Hadn't died or anything! Turns out that you're not really okay, now, are you?" Tim snarls at his tray of revolting fucking prison grub. "Turns out you're just lucky."

Just lucky.
Just lucky when Shepard destroyed that rock monster.
Just lucky when Clem shoved an icepick through that zombie's skull.
Just lucky when Tim buried a knife into a thing that looked like That Thing and then Tim and then a college friend of mine.
Just lucky when Tim held a lighter up to the tangled loops of tape at the edge of his two-story doppelganger's mask.
Just lucky when the Red Queen offered him that bracelet.
Just lucky when Tim and Clem dragged him out of the static and told him that, for once, he wasn't alone.
Just lucky when Tim soaked the transmitters with gasoline, set the whole mansion alight, and quieted the screaming in his head.

Jay sits up straighter, brow furrowed. Thoughtful.

He looks at Tim, the surly asshole who makes up fifty percent of lucky. More, if he adjusts the math to account for the pills, for late-night panicked conversations and movie nights.

"Could call it that."

No harsh retort? No scathing comeback?

HIs blood's still running too hot and too thick, but the shift is enough to arrest him for half a second, freezing him solid, squaring his jaw, flicking his stare back up to meet Jay's without really meaning to.

"What would you call it?" It doesn't emerge as barbed as he'd like - or maybe too pointed, given the circumstances.

He knows what he'd call it. But that's an interior monologue kind of thing, not the kind of thing you just run around saying. Sounds weird out loud.

Fuck it.

"Help."

He forces the next bit out, despite the tension wiring his jaw shut. "Like, I had help."

Because when you're alone, you charge off into the unknown without any idea of what you're up against and expect it all to work out perfectly in your favor.

Because when you're alone, it's a wonder that you don't get killed more often.

Because someone who self-admittedly has no one can only ever crowdsource on Twitter and hope that someone out there is better at breaking codes than Jay himself ever was.

"Didn't have a hell of a lot of it back home."

Jay snorts.

"I mean, I had some, but..."

As soon as he was alone again--no one but the faceless, formless crowd on Twitter, like in the very beginning--he walked straight into Alex's gun. Funny how that worked out.

"Not...not like here." Head ducked, he mumbles it to the table.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject