Entry #2

[rosswood]

[This gets posted at around 4 A.M. and it's a video feed, which, if anyone's been contacted by Alex recently, is a little unusual. It's a clear visual on the inside of Alex's room - scandalous - which isn't terribly different from your typical college dorm room, with one notable exception.

It is liberally covered in weird, hastily-scribbled, ink-and-charcoal drawings. The long shot of one of the walls might give people enough time to read the most visible ones:

SEES ME

LEAVE ME ALONE

OPERATOR

Accompanied by several rough illustrations of pine trees and frequently punctuated with an odd symbol: a circle with an X slashed through it.

Ⓧ

Distortion abruptly ripples across the screen, and the angle changes. Now the network will be treated to a clear shot of the floor of Alex's room, which is similarly carpeted in page after scrawled page of cryptic warnings and oblique messages, along with what looks to be a laundry list of crossed-out names - names like BRIAN and SARAH, JAY and TIM and SETH, any of which might be visible to the eagle-eyed.

With a flutter of static and an unpleasant, high-pitched screeching sound, the picture shifts one last time. Now someone's hands are in view, streaked with ink as they carve out yet another circle-and-x symbol into another sheet of paper with single-minded resolve. Then the feed buzzes, frames flickering, and switches off.]

((ooc: Alex won't respond until next morning since he's not doing any of this consciously - he's currently asleep. Feel free to respond with an action post, though you might have to wake him up first.))

Comments

[mypartnerintime]

[Nerds will one day rule the world yo.]

Yuck. It's like 7am.

[Max can't stand the taste of alcohol!]

[rosswood]

kinda had a rough night ok

[He punches that one out one-handed while he hauls a trashbag packed full of the records of his previous night's activities outside and plunks it in the snow.]

are u judging

[mypartnerintime]

Hell no!

I just don't like to drink. I'll turn a blind eye.

[rosswood]

your loss
i'll be around soon

[The lighter ftts weakly in his hand a few times before he's able to set the whole mess of paper and plastic alight. He wrinkles his nose as he watches the foul-smelling smoke curl out from beneath. With any luck the snow will keep it from spreading.

He heads back inside. He's not eager to talk but it might dispel some worry if he's still visibly interacting with people like a normal human being.

He looks like shit when he gets to the dining hall, though. We're talking five o' clock shadow, deep shadows scoring his eyes, the whole nine yards.]

[mypartnerintime]

You don't look so good. [She says that after a few moments of looking at him. And it is an understatement.]

[In any case she's done with her waffle and has set the plate aside. In front of her is a small notebook which she closes as he enters. She hasn't gotten him his own waffle, but she has put out some steaming hot black coffee.] Since when have you been up?

[rosswood]

[Oh god yes coffee. The notion of food's taken a backseat at the moment, because even if he did sleep - and has video proof of that fact - it sure as shit doesn't feel like it. He needs to wake up. He needs to feel normal again, and coffee is just the way to do it. It's hot and it burns his throat as it goes down and he doesn't give a shit.]

Since - I dunno, six? My sleep schedule's fucked.

[He keeps chugging that glorious glorious caffeinated bliss. Besides it gives him an excuse to not talk about what went up on the network the night...morning? before.]

[mypartnerintime]

[She sips at her tea while warily watching him devour his coffee. She wants to admit that her sleep schedule is completely messed up too, but that'd just make her seem like a hypocrite.]

[Anyway, she wants to get right into asking him about what happened, but figures she should give it some time.]

At least you got a few hours of sleep. You'd probably feel worse after an all-nighter.

[rosswood]

Oh, I know I would.

[He has the good grace to look rueful about that one. He pulled plenty of those - admittedly a few times over some really stupid shit, but often over stuff that was damn important. Sleep stopped becoming a luxury for him after that.]

But, uh. This isn't normal. For me, I mean.

[It doesn't matter what "this" is referring to. It's a lie either way.]

[mypartnerintime]

[Max has had her fair share of all-nighters too. Practically every night for the past few weeks in fact. Most of her sleep gets done in the daytime now, when she can barely keep her eyes open anymore. And even then it's a restless, broken sleep.]

You mean looking like a zombie or freaking out on the network? [It's not a very subtle question, but the way she asks it is in a sympathetic tone.]

[rosswood]

[He doesn't say anything immediately, running fingertips around the rim of his mug as he contemplates how he can best spin this. Dipper had been pretty insistent and he was just a kid, so he can't imagine Max is gonna be any less curious about his deal, especially since it's been pasted all over the goddamn network.]

Yeah. I mean - neither are normal. I don't - this doesn't happen.

[Anymore.]

[mypartnerintime]

What did happen, Alex? [The last time one of Max' friends started drawing creepy stuff, she almost... Max doesn't want to think about it. What's important is that she's learned - she can handle it better this time, at least by listening more.]

[Although, Max also remembers the scribbles 'Rachel in the dark room,' which ended up with someone dying. So she'll also be listening for any signs that Alex might be dangerous.]

[Which would go well, if she wasn't so damn sleepy all the time.]

[rosswood]

I went through some...stuff. Back home.

[Honestly? She's wise thinking that he might be dangerous. The names he'd crossed out were names of the people whose deaths he willingly facilitated.

His intentions were good. His intentions were good. His intentions were good.]

And some of it's still stuck with me, I guess.

[As if to demonstrate, he wearily pulls his phone out of his pocket and turns its video camera on. It doesn't take long for the screen to start shuddering with bars of multi-colored distortion.

Then he pushes the phone several feet away from him, sliding it across the surface of the table, and the screen clears.]

[mypartnerintime]

[Max has her own experience with someone... 'mentally disturbed' might be the best description. 'Fucking asshole' is also up there, though. It did not end well. But she believes things can be better with Alex.]

[That thing with the phone is weird, and it makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She stares at the now-normal phone for a moment, trying to figure out what it might mean.] I think your phone doesn't like you. [She picks up out her own phone, switches it to video, and holds it close to him, waiting to see what it does.]

((OOC: If it does become static-y she'll give him a 'what the heck is going on' sort of look.))

it'll definitely become staticky he is like a static field

[rosswood]

It's not just my phone.

[He sounds remarkably calm, given that Max's phone is now going similarly haywire. Alex just sips at his coffee with a world-weary resignation that this...this is just his life. Sucks. Especially for a film major. How inconvenient would directing have to be now? He'll have to stand several feet away just to get a damn clear picture of whatever it is he's shooting.]

It's everything.

[mypartnerintime]

[She sets her phone down again, more weirded out than before. It does dawn on her that he's a film major, and that his 'condition' would suck a lot of joy out of that. She can't even imagine what it would be like to never take a good photo again.]

So you've got some... aura thing. Isn't that something that can be fixed? [Modern medicine and all.] I met this guy in the tavern that could do magic. I mean, have you seen some of the people here? [This is all said in a sort of 'so you're a walking antenna, but cheer up it's probably not permanent' tone.] We'll get it fixed in no time.

[She wants to lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but she's also still wary. So she keeps the same distance as before.]

[rosswood]

Far as I can tell, it's permanent.

[He scrubs the heel of one palm under an itching eye, glum but fully accepting that this is just his deal. He's That Guy, now, the one who never responds in video or audio form because his phone won't stop screaming at him every time he tries it.]

I don't even know what caused it, if it's anything I did, or what. If there's a magic that fixes it, I got no clue what it is.

[Another lie. It's getting easier to lie all the time, even to the people here he actually likes. He should feel guilty about it, regretful, something. He should.

Instead he always feels relieved when the lie serves as a decent explanation.]

[mypartnerintime]

[It does serve as that for now, but Max is also determined to find out as much as she can. Here's someone she can help, and she wants to prove that she can help, that she does.]

There must be something that caused it. Do you remember anything? [Although she has no idea what, exactly, would cause something like that. She does have a feeling that it might be supernatural. That reminds her that she has no idea what supernatural things gave her the rewind power, and the thought is discouraging.]

[rosswood]

[He remembers a lot of things, though he's not really sure what the ratio is, of things he remembers to those that he doesn't. He's not sure he wants to know. Nor is he sure of what he can say. He stalls by draining his coffee and setting the cup down with a hard click of aligning edges.]

I remember a really shitty film shoot.

[That's...all he can safely say without incriminating himself, or saying something worse.]

Was, um. August? 2009. Nothing weird I can remember.

[Liiiiiiiiiiies.]

[mypartnerintime]

And your camera just went fuzzy? [Wow, if that really is the whole truth, then there are literally zero things to look into. As far as 'supernatural origin stories' go, that was pretty lame.]

[But that's pretty suspicious too, because it's not nearly enough reason to go all crazy with drawings like Alex did.] How does that connect to your video last night?

[rosswood]

It just kinda started happening one day. So, you know, I stopped.

[That part is KIND OF true. Kiiiind of.

The next part is harder to bullshit. Uhhh what he can he say that sounds plausible.]

So. Sometimes I kind of, uh. [Wince.] Sleepwalk. Sleeping problems, you know. Started just after.

[mypartnerintime]

[So it's not just the camera thing, then. Hmm, hmm. It's hard to make something out of that new information, but it does also convince her that there's some psychological problem, too. All the more reason he should see a therapist.] Do you always end up drawing that stuff? Any idea what they mean?

[Then again, he's not the first sleepwalker she's met in Wonderland.]

[rosswood]

Sometimes.

[Maybe it is too early to go looking for something alcoholic to numb his nerves. But goddamnit he doesn't want to think about this shit. Not now. Not ever again. But his brain's just really damn interested in digging this up for him, isn't it?

He scowls. Another lie. And another.]

No idea. Maybe I just really hated phones in a past life.

[HA HA OPERATOR god he's getting bad at this.]

[mypartnerintime]

Ha ha. [She's not actually laughing, just dryly adding a 'ha ha' because that wasn't really funny at all.]

[Then again, there is literal resurrection in Wonderland, so maybe reincarnation isn't so far-fetched. She brushes he fingers across her cheek, thinking.]

Did you read them? There were some names that you wrote. And crossed out.

[rosswood]

Yeah, I read them.

[He hasn't...told anyone about the film shoot, not in any kind of detail. No one knows about the people he met and talked to and killed selectively led to be quietly taken care of. With the exclusion of Dr. Phil, of course. With any luck he'll be clever enough to keep his stupidly smart mouth shut.]

Think I went to school with a few of 'em, but I guess we kinda lost touch after a while. I don't remember.

[Close enough to the truth for him to remember, but not close enough to incriminate him. Hopefully.]

[mypartnerintime]

[It sounds like he has some subconscious obsession with them. More than that, it sounds like he's holding back information. She likes to think that he's just embarrassed or freaked out, but maybe there's more to it than that. She raises an eyebrow at him.]

I'd bet they have something to do with all of this. [She softens her voice, trying to be encouraging.] You can tell me, you know. And that therapist too. [She's pretty sure that she's unequipped to handle deep-seated issues like that.]

And... I'm glad you've opened up about your... supernatural side. [She smiles and tries to make that sound like a joke, to lighten up the mood.]