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

"Yeah?" Jay cocks his head, eyes flashing. "But with you and without Alex, they'd--we'd probably be still alive, too. I mean, it can't be that simple. Stuff doesn't work like that."

Like hell he's gonna let Tim ignore the details, just so he's got an easy target. The truth's messy. It's complicated, and the more you learn, the more complicated it gets. If it weren't, he wouldn't've spent nearly five years trying to piece it together and wound up dying before he could finish.

God, he's starting to sound like Georgia.

There are worse things.

"And I mean, think about Wonderland. That's just...you. No Alex, no..." His eyebrows lift. You know. "And I mean, is everybody here dead? You've been here, what, two years? Alex was going after people within months. With you, we got this."

He gestures wide, to the prison, to the residents. It's not pretty, but it's not home either.

"And without you, I'd probably, I'd probably be five deaths down and working for the Queen of Hearts by now."

His voice climbs louder. "But here's the thing, I don't know that. And neither do you."

Whatever they've got right now, that's it. That's what they have to work with, to learn about, to catalog and quantify and plan around. Deal with it, Tim Wright.

That's a satisfying thought.

The increase in volume has him darting furtive looks over his shoulder, trying to gauge whether they're drawing people's attention, particularly those with the authority to act on it. Fortunately, it seems that no one's going to regard them with any genuine concern unless it looks like they're about to start going at each other's throats.

"So you're saying that it's just - not as bad as it could be." Really, when he considers it at length, that's the best he could ask for. It could be worse. It could be ripping through his life now, and burning through everyone like gasoline. It took years, the first time, until Alex began to accelerate it.

Maybe it's already happened.

The thought that maybe it never will is too bitterly optimistic for him to entertain it, even in theory.

"Yeah...yeah, I guess."

Not as bad as it could be. That's something, even though it's not everything Jay's thinking.

"And, like, it's not like you haven't...helped." Is this a pep talk? Jay's lost track, but he's lousy enough at it that it might as well not be. "I mean, you--you got the Queen out. You kept an eye on Clem and Alice, looks like. You took out that chunk of the Mansion. You..." He coughs. "You saved my ass more than once."

He dips his head.

"So...so, yeah. Not as bad as it could be."

"It never is." It could always be worse, Tim. It could always be worse. You could be worse off. The nicotine withdrawal might be making him grouchy, as it always does. He hasn't managed to get it to stick for longer than a few days, a week at most, until he inevitably lapses back.

Quitting isn't going well, when an event kicks your stress levels back up to maximum every few weeks or so.

"Well, don't sell yourself short. You do a lot of stupid shit," he's certain to add, with a pointed look that's just barely short of a glower, "but you were part of the group that went Mirrorside too."

Jay has to take a moment to process this.

Don't sell yourself short, says Tim Wright.

(Is it really a surprise, at this point? Even after he helped drag Jay out of the static?)

("We have your back. We've had your back.")

("You've made friends, Jay.")

"Yeah, but..."

But he didn't really help. All he did was carry a camera.

But he was there. He helped Tim to his feet, lent a little support while Tim climbed back through the Mirror.

It's not much, but Jay guesses it's something.

"Okay."

"Hey, if nothing else, George doesn't deal with people who just waste her time." Clem is more competent than the two of them put together; her concern makes sense. Shepard just cares, outright, constantly and without restraint. People take pity on them, or see that they're people that should at least be scraped out from the bottom of one's shoe so that they don't muck up the place.

George, though. She doesn't exactly waste her time and effort on people she thinks aren't worth it. If he can't believe anything else, he can at least believe in that fucking rock of her personality.

So if he doesn't trust anything else, he can at least trust that.

George...may have shoved him over to be her brother's problem when he first showed up, but she still attempted to comfort him, way back in the movie theater. She's still talking to him.

She's a little less of a terrifying force of nature now, and it seems like that force of nature still puts up with him. Tim's got a point.

"Yeah, she..." He pushes a lump of grey around on his tray. "I mean, she didn't jump through the phone and kill me when I called her Ha--when I called her a secret--secret pop singer, so that's gotta mean something."

Yeah, maybe now's not the time to mention that his conversation with her during that event turned into a prolonged discussion regarding the finer points of Jay's failings as an investigator. The time he was caught in a lie about documentaries being filmed in hotels. The time he failed to account for the fact that his findings being put up on the internet would mean that literally anyone could access them. Both times, in fact, because once wasn't enough.

"She's not as scary as she lets on," says Tim, which is saying something considering Georgia has about as much dirt on him as Jay did, and could probably phrase it a far more inflammatory way. Granted, he can at least be grateful she hasn't thrown that up on a YouTube channel for the world to see, devoid of any moral commentary and leaving viewers up to substitute the narrative with their own where they saw fit.

But she also sat back while he teased her mercilessly about loving her friends.

So she's all right.

"Sure she'd be happy to hear you say that." Jay raises his eyebrows, the barest threads of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

George may not be as scary as she lets on--may--but she's damn good at hiding it. It's a good thing she seems to be on their side.

Well, she's on the truth's side, at least, and he can't argue with that.

"Seeing what her world's like...makes sense she'd be...y'know, like that." Jay watches, wary, as another camera dips over their heads. He doesn't speak again until it's out of range. "You know if she's worked out any plans to, uh..."

He tips his head meaningfully, hoping that's enough to indicate plans to get the hell out of here.

You know, she said the same thing to me once she met you.

That'd be an unwarranted snipe in a conversation that started in disaster and has ended up more in the realm of almost cautiously optimistic. Against all fucking odds. But then, they've both learned a thing or two about odds during this discussion. Luck.

"We're still figuring it out," he mutters, meaning they don't have anything of substance yet. "George thinks this might be something from Rocket's world, so he might have an idea."

"Wait, Rocket, the, uh--" He gestures. "Little raccoon guy?"

On the one hand, he's a raccoon. Raccoons don't belong in space.

On the other hand, he just hacked together that training simulation Jay's not planning to go anywhere near. Maybe space raccoon's not too far-fetched.

"I mean, I haven't exactly met him in person, but he seems like an, uh...Like, the prison part's less of a surprise than the space part, I guess."

"Yeah, don't call him that in person." Just as a warning. He doesn't know Rocket all that well, really - though he knows him entirely too well in some deeply uncomfortable respects, some horrifying parallels he honestly didn't need to know existed - but he has at least caught onto the fact that he is not exactly fond of being referred to as a raccoon.

George is on far better terms with him than Tim is, and for now, that serves Tim just fine. It's probably less awkward for all of them.

"But apparently he's broken out of a lot of them."

"Then...then, yeah." Jay's brow is still furrowed, but it's smoothing out. He's still mostly convinced. The raccoon-who-doesn't-want-to-be-called-a-raccoon probably knows the way out. Cool. Makes sense. "Especially if he knows, like, this prison."

He drums with the fork on the edge of his tray while he thinks, the fingers of his free hand tapping out a separate rhythm that doesn't quite line up.

"So we either talk to him somehow, without the, uh..." His voice gets quieter. It's not much of a change. "...Without the guards getting suspicious, or we just keep an eye on him and try to, uh. Raccoon see, ra--no, more like monkey see, raccoon...never mind."

Remind him to never try to talk like he's in a heist movie again.

"Assuming his plan doesn't, like, hinge on screwing the rest of us over."

He's not sure what kind of a guy Rocket is, but nice doesn't seem like it fits.

"I don't think so. He likes George." That...he thinks he likes George. She definitely likes him, and she's not someone who generally goes around admitting that she likes people, but Rocket got a mention in her song about the people she's come to view as close in some way or another, so that definitely counts for something.

He hasn't really talked to Rocket. Not since their, uh, forced honesty session on the roof.

He's pretty sure they both prefer it that way.

Sunburst's a pony, and Shepard's a deep space commander
To call Rocket a Raccoon counts as the deepest of slander...

Oh.

Good thing she's taking a stand with those Unflinching Journalist Morals on the whole raccoon thing. Granted, Wonderland's got, like, a hundred or so people, tops. When there aren't any events going on, you probably run out of real news pretty fast.

(Not that he'd know, right?)

"You think she'll be able to get anything out of him?"

He's still having trouble picturing how that conversation would go. He's still stuck back on how they get along in the first place.

"If anyone would, it'd probably be her. They seem...close?" He's guessing, and it probably shows, but there's no point in pretending otherwise. "I dunno. I won't pretend I like it here, but it's not really the worst event I can think of, personally."

Considering the way the last one went, the change is perfectly fucking reasonable, in his honest opinion. He'll take the claustrophobic, downright dangerous prison environment over a technological mind virus that crawls into people's collective subconsciousnesses and eviscerates them from the fucking inside out.

He'll take that any day.

Jay's forehead wrinkles at close. Like, how close is Tim talking, here?

Sounds like Tim's guess is as good as Jay's.

But, then, Tim eases it back. A breakout isn't guaranteed. Sure, they can try, or they can keep their heads down and ignore the way they can't keep still without a weight in their hand and keep going the way they've been going, and nothing's gonna happen. Unless something happens, then nothing's gonna happen. They'll just be marched back into their cells every night and marched back out to eat this slop every day for a weekend or so, and then it'll be over.

Nothing's actively trying to kill them. (Yet.)

Nothing's burrowing into their heads. (Yet.)

If this weren't a regular event, if an end weren't guaranteed, he'd be more inclined to fight Tim on it. But after the Reapers, it's a little easier to quell the instinct to keep moving. When keep moving nearly got his thoughts carved out of his head, it's a little easier to hit the brakes completely.

"Honestly...yeah." He snorts. It's not much of a joke. "Guess you and I know better."

If he sees an opportunity to get his camera back, though, he's taking it. Probably.

Now that his blood isn't boiling in his veins, now that he has the chance to look Jay in the eye and not quail beneath it, now that he's in his right mind - or as right as his mind gets, abstracted and fragmented and split apart along the seams as it always, constantly is - he can actually respond in some significant, genuine manner.

He glances away. Back again.

"...sorry, by the way." Sorry never sits right on his tongue. It feels like a cop-out, like a drape drawn over the hurt. It'll never be enough to actually smooth away the hurt he's done. The fact that he tried to set on fire the man he once bled and burned to protect.

The man he tried to murder his best friend over.

"For...trying to kill you. I know that doesn't make it easier, or better, but - I wish I hadn't done it, so."

Oh.

Jay's not used to this. It goes against what he's picked up, over the years; admitting you're wrong--like, fully, sincerely--just gives them a new place to drive the knife in. It gives the viewers--gives the internet a new way to mock you. If you can justify it, you're just as right as the next guy, so you're not stupid. If you apologize, you're just admitting it. You're giving up.

But they're not on camera--not in the old way. This conversation isn't getting broadcast to an audience of thousands.

(And didn't he apologize? That day he forgot, that day that Tim played back in his own voice. He was sorry. He understood.)

Tim's sorry. He wishes he didn't do it.

Honestly, the only thing Jay wanted to hear more than that was that he'd never do it again.

"Wish you hadn't either, so..." His field of view twitches away from Tim, toward the corner of the table.

No. It's wrong. Incomplete. He can't let Tim take full responsibility for this. He can't let Tim 'What if it's all my fault?' Wright take another thing wholly onto his shoulders, just because it's simpler.

"I--I mean, I shouldn't...I shouldn't've tried...shouldn't've gone in there. I'm the one--I got too close, and they got in, so it's--I mean, I get why you..."

Fuck.

"Sorry."

He should leave it there. He should stop.

But he keeps going.

"Feels like it's...like, when something happens, you have to do something. You have to keep--keep moving, keep making progress, or you're--or you're just dead, and you don't even know why. Like people are gonna say...you let it happen. But then this shit happens, and it's--like, just trying to do something almost got...it didn't accomplish anything. Just made things worse. Made you think you had to...y'know."

Jay apologized.

He remembers it, was able to issue said apology, word for word, because he'd replayed the footage enough for every sentence to be carved into his fucking soul from the sheer force and presence of it.

"Shepard told everyone to stay away," he says slowly, because if they're talking about accountability here, they may as well go the whole hog. Maybe Tim should've double-checked before setting shit on fire, and maybe he should've checked to ensure that Jay was actually losing it before trying to murder him, because if there was one thing he endeavored to be in his life, it was not being Alex Kralie.

But Jay should've never put himself in the crosshairs.

"Did you?"

"No."

It's forceful, edging toward petulant, and Jay hates how it sounds. No, he didn't follow instructions. No, he didn't make the smart fucking choice, Tim. He was curious. He thought he could get away with being curious, at least. He thought he was being careful enough to get by.

But near the end, there, when the Mansion was being devoured by twisted metal, when people started to turn against each other, when he had to stop carrying the camera--When did he stop carrying the camera?--Jay wasn't alone. It wasn't just him and the infected in the Mansion. Somebody else showed up with a book of matches, instead of hiding in the woods or in the tunnels or otherwise staying away.

"Did you?"

"Yes." It's said with an almost palpable incredulity - landing somewhere between what did you expect and I'm a paranoid freak with issues regarding being taken over by memetic mind viruses, of fucking course I did.

And yet, Jay didn't listen to a word of it. Or he listened too well, and took away the exact wrong lesson, which was, naturally, to go check out the crashed alien ship despite Shepard's threat of decapitation regarding anyone who approached it. Presumably he avoided being straight-up kneecapped.

Presumably.

"Yes, I - I ditched my phone and everything right after she covered all the basics."

"But you still went back to the Mansion," Jay insists, "just like I did."

The woods were safe. The tunnels were safe. Once they ditched their electronics, they could've gone into hiding and kept their heads down. They might've come out of it okay.

(But once the camera was gone, that awful itch set in, the conviction that anything he didn't record would be lost. If he stopped moving, things would only get worse. If he stopped moving, other people could get hurt, and it would be his fault.

Was that what sent Tim back there, too?)

"I went back to make sure that Shepard wasn't fighting those things all on her own. And I wasn't exactly unarmed."

Neither was Jay, to be fair, but he was acting - erratic. Skittish. Like he was talking to things that weren't there, like he was about to go springing at Tim over nothing. And then he did charge him over nothing, and Tim wasn't willing to take the risk that he was clean.

Paranoid to the point of self-destruction. That's him.

He turns away in his seat, trying to shrug away the memory as it slaps him like a gust of cold air: Shepard, screaming, dying, the stench of ozone mixing with smoke, how it was like seeing her burn -

"Not that it helped."

Jay's voice catches in his throat, caught between Tim, she's a goddamn space marine and I get it.

"I--I went back for the same--I mean, I was trying to help, same as you, sounds like, but the whole place was--"

His head's pulled in two different directions, caught between wanting to figure out what went wrong--what exactly meant he got a head full of Reapers and Tim just got a lousy day--and what happened to Tim and Shepard and the rest after he took that long walk into the woods.

The second wins out, for now.

"What happened, after I...left?"

Edited 2018-06-04 00:05 (UTC)

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i'm sorry tim

:|

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