ark pilot pluto—♇ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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entranceway2017-02-06 07:17 pm
arks) wrote in entranceway2017-02-06 07:17 pm
entry #1 ( video - post flooding )
( it's jay's first day in wonderland, and of course he would end up here when some weird shit is going down in the place. he isn't sure why the hallways are flooded, but he doesn't step foot outside of his room. instead, he goes through previous posts and videos, too used to using videos for information, and he doesn't particularly like what he sees. no one seems happy here, and all it's doing is throwing him back into how he was back home.
it's an uncomfortable reminder. )
Do things like that happen a lot?
( an obvious question to ask perhaps, but it's one he desperately needs answered. if he's gone from one hell to another, he doesn't know if he'll stay sane long enough to see any kind of escape from this place. he's nervous, obvious through the way his eyes shift from one wall to another as if he's searching for something - but whatever it is, isn't there. that's one comfort, at least.
maybe he's wrong, and the flooding was just an accident, but that seems too good to be true. even thinking that just feels as though jay is trying to fool himself into thinking that death was the end, that maybe this would be a better place. of course it isn't. why would jay end up anywhere good?
at least he doesn't have to be on the constant run here, if he even could be. )
Sorry. Why are we here?
it's an uncomfortable reminder. )
Do things like that happen a lot?
( an obvious question to ask perhaps, but it's one he desperately needs answered. if he's gone from one hell to another, he doesn't know if he'll stay sane long enough to see any kind of escape from this place. he's nervous, obvious through the way his eyes shift from one wall to another as if he's searching for something - but whatever it is, isn't there. that's one comfort, at least.
maybe he's wrong, and the flooding was just an accident, but that seems too good to be true. even thinking that just feels as though jay is trying to fool himself into thinking that death was the end, that maybe this would be a better place. of course it isn't. why would jay end up anywhere good?
at least he doesn't have to be on the constant run here, if he even could be. )
Sorry. Why are we here?
video
It isn't fucking real. It can't be, because he knows he was hallucinating wildly, what little rationality he still had to him dissipating in a steady, anoxic purge. He's only ever seen the things he knows shouldn't be there and this - this, right now, should not be here.
Jay's gone.
He's been gone.
If this is real, if this isn't all in his head - and there's no guarantee of that, really, considering Tim's track record with this sort of thing - then he needs to confirm it. He needs to confirm it, if not for his own sake than for the sake of his goddamn blood pressure, the dryness in his mouth, the way one hand drew up into a fist with the nails sunk into his palms.
He switches on the video, and his words are short, terse, and undeniably desperate - ]
Where are you?
video.
which-- why is tim here? surely he had managed to escape. alex couldn't have taken them both down. that wouldn't be fair. the good guys were supposed to come out on top, not the bad ones.
maybe he isn't dead, and this is just a weird delusion. )
The room I woke up in. The eight floor, I think?
( he didn't take much time to look around, really. )
Where are we? What are you doing here?
video.
He never got that voice message from him.
Is he still...him? Is he - he can't be real. Not here. Another fragment of Tim's overactive mind, spun out of control and granted sentience. Only - fuck, Wonderland can resurrect the dead. Why not back home as well as here?]
Stay there. Stay right there. Don't move.
[Familiar flashes of irritation, the lurking undercurrent of don't do anything stupid and god, this is why they never counted as friends anywhere but in Tim's stupid mind, isn't it.
He has to confirm this. Is it real - or is
HE'S OUT THERE.
Or is he gone.]
What room?
video.
( what follows is the noises of someone pushing themselves up from sitting on a bed and shuffling across a room, opening the door to check what number. he hadn't bothered to check the last time he had opened the door, since he had been sort of focused on the fact that the hallways were flooded, even if it had receded now. )
Fifty.
( he wonders how the rooms are given to them, if they were separated from people they knew or just thrown together randomly without much thought. )
I'll stay here, don't worry.
video --> action
His heart pounds sickeningly in his throat. He's here. He's here and other people see him which means - he's real.]
On my way.
[He doesn't shut the video off, though his side of the feed swings wildly as his phone drops to his side.
It takes a few moments, but eventually the door bangs roughly open.
There's a whole goddamn list of things he should say, but not a single one of them leaps to his throat.]
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but at least he isn't alone here. that makes it somewhat better, even if he feels bad for thinking it.
the door opens on his guilty expression, and his head shoots up towards it. )
Tim. ( despite having spoken to him through the communicator already, he still seems shocked as he stands up and moves towards the other. )
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Alive.
Tim, says Jay, startled, and that's the impetus that propels him forward, rearing back and -
and just
swiping at his head with a closed fist, aiming to slam knuckles into his jaw in a furious, desperate, relieved swing, as if needing to justify Jay's solidity to himself, and doing so in the only method readily available to him.]
You stupid son of a bitch.
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so the punch hits, and he stumbles back, falls. his hand raises to his jaw, and for a moment he wants to grasp for his camera, to shove it up in tim's face - but it isn't here with him. he can't.
instead he sits there, breathing heavily before he's pushing himself up, brows furrowed and a deep frown marring his usually relaxed (or worried) expression. )
What the fuck? What was that for!?
( jay can think of a myriad of reasons for it, after all. it would be nice to have specifics. )
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What was that for.
Tim's jaw locks. Don't - don't let it all boil out. There's a heat threatening to press at the corners of his eyes.]
You go in blind, charging in with nothing but a fucking camera? What did you think was gonna happen?
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( jay used to pride himself on being pretty level-headed, especially compared to someone like alex, who you almost had to tread carefully around. but in the past few years, few months, he's lost that - it's not a trait he can rely on anymore. level-headedness doesn't exist when you're being hunted, not even underneath all the paranoia and the fear and aggression.
it certainly isn't here now, as he spits his words again, fists clenching but making no move. if he knows anything, it's that he could never beat tim in a fight. )
Sit around and wait for - for what? For that thing to find me? Or the masked guy? You left me tied up with nothing. I wasn't just going to wait there like a sitting duck!
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You were out of control. Nothing was getting through to you! You think -
[And then Brian, and then that thing that was Brian - tossed him a knife. Tossed him the shiv, and of course Jay would find a way to fall upon it, because that's what he does. Heaps swords together to fall on them, all in the name of finding answers.]
You think I wanted to?
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he's stuck in a weird place when the last thing he had known was being shot by alex, and tim's here even when he should be at home, and he doesn't know if this means they're both dead or if he isn't dead despite feeling it, or why they're here or how he got here—
it's a lot to process, a lot swirling around in his head, and he stares at tim because right now, in the state of mind he's in, yes, he does think that tim wanted to. he can't think of anything else. everyone's the enemy. so he says nothing in reply.
his silence is his agreement. )
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You think he wanted to. None of this, not a moment of it, was anything Tim would call ideal by any stretch of the imagination, even an optimistic one. It confirms one thing, one thing above all else:
He remembers.
He must remember.
Tim sags there for a second, then half-turns on one heel, shifting a step back with a hand raking through his hair, his knuckles still red and smarting from the damn stupid impulse that had him decking Jay in the face within minutes of finding him here. Here and - alive.
The words are quiet, muttered, when they come:]
I never got your message.
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this isn't exactly how he was expecting any sort of "reunion" with tim to go. but then again, considering how they had parted, even if it wasn't meant to be the end, he shouldn't be surprised.
after a moment, where he works his mouth open and closed against the tenderness of his jaw, he replies. )
What?
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He's a death wish. A walking, talking death wish, and he spreads to anybody who comes into contact.
His hand drops to the back of his neck, tightening around so the fingernails dig into the skin; an unintentional, automatic, reflexive impulse.]
Your message. You called me, back in Rosswood. After we...
[Fought. Separated. Whatever the hell you wanna call it. After Jay watched the tape, and somehow, despite every warning sign pointing at Tim with HE IS A LIAR blazing over his head in neon letters, still came away surprised.
Maybe he just trusts too easily.]
I never got it.
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( right, he remembers that. everything had gone the wrong way round, and the message had sort of become long-winded. and jay had been sure he would make it out of there, make it to tim's, would see him again. that didn't really work out well.
he didn't know tim hadn't heard it. )
I didn't... ( realise. maybe things would have been different if he had heard it, though there are things working against them here that make him think of course. he isn't surprised. ) I didn't know.
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[The annoyance creeps back into his tone before he can bite it back, because it's easier, better, than letting everything he is break and crumble entirely, because of course he didn't know. He was dead, bleeding out on the floor. How could he know?
He jams his hands into his pockets, already regretting - fuck, already regretting everything. Up to and including his most recent decision to deck one of the only remaining people in his life in the face.]
I know it wasn't you. After that...call.
[That thing found him. Wiped him clean.
Turned him into another Alex.]
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jay hasn't had to deal with this for as long as tim has. he doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't know what's a good idea or bad idea. maybe he should have listened when tim told him to get help. )
I'm sorry. ( he sounds miserable when he says it. despite the first greeting, tim has been good so far, and it's just making jay realise more and more that he didn't deserve anything that happened, especially at the end. )
I don't know— I shouldn't have gone off at you like that. It wasn't fair. ( it was dangerous, and he doesn't even know if he had any intention of actually hurting tim or not. he wouldn't put it past himself at this point, and the thought makes him wilt even further. ) I shouldn't have, even if it "wasn't me". It was. I was there. I shouldn't've... ( he sighs, then. ) You didn't deserve that.
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It swells up in his throat again, taut and bitter and furious, but he bites back the vituperation before it comes, swallows it down.
It detonates regardless.]
I didn't deserve that?
[His brow furrows in apparent disbelief.]
You're the one who got shot. I could take a guy coming at me with a knife. If I'd made you - if I'd figured something better, I'd -
[Maybe he wouldn't have to live with all this fucking guilt - except he would, wouldn't he? Even if Jay's just the latest in a long line of victims, of people who're dead because Tim refuses to give in and finish himself off for the sake of everyone's sanity, there's still everyone else who suffered for that. Brian, skull cracking as he landed at an odd angle. Alex, a glint of metal slammed into his throat. Sarah, Seth, Amy -
Everyone.]
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( it's easy to point out, despite the fact that he'd just said - or hadn't, really - that he thought tim had wanted to leave him there, tied up and by himself. but an acceptance is settling over him as they talk, a realisation. he pushes himself up, lips thinning.
it's easy for each of them to carry the blame, but in the end, jay's the one that started all of this up again. it's like tim said, back in the parking lot - he was doing fine, until jay thought it was a good idea to track him down and drag him back into it all, even if he didn't know exactly what it was he would be dragging him into. if he'd just left the tapes alone, hadn't bothered with alex, maybe everyone would be okay.
he should have let alex burn the tapes. he wanted to get rid of them for a reason - jay shouldn't have been so stubborn.
but it's easier to linger on what if's than it is to place blame, though jay likes to linger on them too much. )
I got shot because I was being an idiot and didn't wait for you. ( if he had waited, maybe it would have been tim— and more what ifs. ) I didn't let you talk, I just waved a knife at you like a maniac. That hooded guy gave me a knife to escape, and I didn't stop to think. I just went to find Alex. That's my fault. You didn't deserve it - any of this. Not me dragging you back in, or how it all ended — none of it.
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Jay just goes and turns on himself, because that's what he does; backs himself into corners and then rips himself to shreds trying to work his way out of them. Hypocrite and liar and - and a countless number of things Tim himself is, and maybe that's why he'd hated him, or told himself he'd hated him, from the get-go.
Too much like looking into the mirror.]
Yeah, well.
[He grimaces, his mouth twisting as though having tasted something unpleasant.]
You wouldn't've been up to your knees in this if you'd never met me.
[They all know who's fault it is, don't they? HE IS A LIAR. He always has been, always will be. Because Jessica got lucky, she got lucky, and for her sake -
For her sake, he can't ever risk bringing her up again.]