Entry #88

[postictal]

[The video feed clicks on to feature an unassuming shot of the crisp gray sky, accompanied by the restless crunching of footsteps drawing closer. Abruptly, someone picks up the thing and spins it around with a faint flare of static that's gone as quickly as it flickered up.

There is, briefly, a face visible on the screen, dark hair and dark eyes and brows knit together in an expression puzzlement and concern. Then the feed flips around again and starts panning around the area in a slow sweep, handled in the same way someone might a handheld camera. It's both too familiar and too surreal, and he fumbles at the last second, dropping the angle so the network instead gets a lovely view of scuffed sneakers crunching through a patina of fallen leaves.]

So seasonal change sure is a thing. Like, really a thing. Place doesn't mess around.

[His tone is dry, the words drawn out with a slow, weary indolence. He doesn't seem to realize he's actively broadcasting at the moment. He's just taking video in the same way - how Jay would, and even now the memory is painful and sends a pang of regret thrumming all the way to his bones. It's just such an easy, obvious reflex. Practically instinctive.

The crunching of his footsteps halts abruptly as something seems to occur to him.]

So I can post now instead of reply, is that it? Wait, why now? What makes this so -

[The feed snaps out, evidently by mistake.]

Comments

[mypartnerincrime]

[Chloe doesn't miss the fact that he didn't answer her question. And being the insufferable person that she is, she doesn't let it go.]

Well, now it's obviously hella cold out there. So why not come back in?

[postictal]

[He shoots her a quizzical look, again electing to ignore her question in favor of not.]

"Hella." Who unironically says "hella" anymore?

[mypartnerincrime]

I do.

[Chloe answers unabashedly.]

So does my best friend... whenever she hangs out too much with me.

[She raises an eyebrow.]

Problem...?

[She pauses then frowns a bit.]

Who are you anyway?

[postictal]

Nah, I just...haven't heard that in a while.

[It's a little bit bizarre, a little bit endearing, and mostly just a weird verbal tic he's gonna pretend doesn't tickle him. Most people in Alabama don't say that kind of thing, but most people in Alabama are also rifle-toting guys in pick-up trucks. Sometimes it turns out the stereotypes are true.]

Tim. [The only name he needs to give, as far as he's concerned.] Who're you?

[mypartnerincrime]

Chloe.

[She half-expected him-- Tim-- to sort of rise and get all upset and annoyed over being asked what his problem was. People in Wonderland tend to do that. But he didn't. So that's well, cool. Maybe he's not as crazy as the other folks here?]

So Tim, where'd you come from?

[postictal]

Alabama.

[There's more than a wisp of a sigh to his tone as he says it. Yeah, it doesn't take a lot of stretching of the imagination to find a place better than that state, that state whose lines he hadn't even crossed until like a week ago. And then, while he was at it, he went ahead and crossed world and dimension lines too, just to go the whole hog since you might as well not do these sorts of things halfway.]

Don't visit. Place kinda sucks.

[mypartnerincrime]

Wasn't planning to.

[Chloe gestures to her room.]

It's not like there's a door in this place with a huge EXIT sign. I don't even know how I fucking got here in the first place.

[She remembers the night she arrived, when there were stars falling from the sky and crashing into the mansion. For one mad second, she thought she had finally died and ended up where she deserved to be-- heaven, hell, wherever. She thought Max had finally gone back in time and let Nathan pull the trigger.

But then Chloe found out that she wasn't dead and that she was in the best possible place to be in. True, Wonderland is pretty messed up, with all its Mirrors and potentially life-ending events. But amidst all of that, she was reunited with Max.

For a while, Chloe is quiet. She wonders if Wonderland did have Exit door, would she take it? And if she did, where would she go? There's nothing really left for her in Arcadia Bay. The one person who truly mattered to her was already here in Wonderland with her anyway.]

[postictal]

So I hear.

[Honestly, thank god. It's not like home is a place he's gonna miss. It's just him inflicting himself on the people here instead, and their motley hodgepodge of...whatever the hell. Talking skeletons, ladies with blue hair. What will this wild place think of next?

He draws to a halt, the camera swinging away from his face again to pan clumsily at the surrounding area in a rapid arc that's more reflexive than anything else.]

Everyone just kinda wakes up here. Figures.

[The last word is quiet, a grumbled afterthought, apparently not meant to be audible.]

[mypartnerincrime]

Yep.

[Is all Chloe can think of saying.

A pause.

The she notices the movement in Tim's camera and realizes that he's still in the woods. She raises an eyebrow.]

Seriously dude, why the fuck are you still outside? Haven't you chosen a room yet?

[postictal]

Not really. I mean, guess I should. Just kinda...

[Okay, so it turns out there's no real easy way to complete that sentence without dredging up a mess of psychological trauma and a story so long and so potentially dangerous that the risks would not be, in any way, worth the rewards.]

Adjusting. That's all.

[mypartnerincrime]

[For a while, Chloe doesn't say anything. She simply looks at Tim, quite unsure how to go about this.]

Well... Don't you know anyone in this place? Like your old friends or something. Aren't they here?

[postictal]

[He almost laughs. He would, but that'd be straining the limits of what he's capable of. He's not sure he actually remembers how. Friends, boy, that's funny. It's hilarious. Friends.

What a concept.]

I think you're a little optimistic about how many people I knew back home.

[It's better than saying, "I killed my only friend and didn't even know it was him."]

[mypartnerincrime]

[She shrugs.]

Hey, I wasn't exactly the friendliest person back home either. But I always had my best friend.

[It doesn't matter who she's talking about-- Max or Rachel. Anyway, they both had been there for her when she needed them most.]

[postictal]

Sounds nice.

[Best friend, even. Boy, that's a qualifier he's never gotten to tack in front of anyone. Brian, maybe - but Brian was friends with anyone. It's just that he hadn't bothered to make Tim the exception.]

Living in the middle of nowhere didn't exactly do wonders for my social life.

[That's a lie. At the best, it's a subtle twist on the truth. But it doesn't matter, really. The end result is the same.]

Voice

[mypartnerintime]

[Was that... static?

No way.

Max's voice is light and joking.]

That was the wrong question.

Voice

[postictal]

Hey, you can reserve the right to say whatever you want. I'm just reserving the right to judge you for it.

[His tone's equally light as he says it, even if it doesn't sound much like he's smiling. Then again, he never really smiles. Smiling is difficult, for him.]

Voice

[mypartnerintime]

Trust me when I say, she's probably the one judging you. [That's Chloe for you.] But not in a bad way.

Voice

[postictal]

Figured as much.

[He doesn't sound terribly bothered about it. He mostly just sounds resigned.]

She your friend or something?

Voice

[mypartnerintime]

Friend. Yes.

[It's not like Max would ever hide having a girlfriend, but no one ever asks! In any case, she and Chloe have been friends for far, far longer than anything else, and it's the bedrock of their relationship.]

I wish there was someone here you know, too. It helps.

Voice

[postictal]

[He's silent for a moment, digesting that quietly. What does he say to that? Ha. I sure don't. Except maybe -

If he could just ask them, any of them, why they did what they did and why -

But it's a useless thought, isn't it? Never gonna happen. He doesn't pursue it.]

Yeah, well. Didn't really know a lotta people back home anyway.

Voice

[mypartnerintime]

[She listens to his silence carefully, and has no doubt that (like 99% of people in Wonderland) he's carrying his own problems, too. And like most people, he either doesn't want an answer, or doesn't know how to look for it. What he doesn't know is that it would require the mun to self-roleplay and that's always awkward.]

Introvert?

Voice

[postictal]

Pretty much, yeah. Kinda lived in the middle of nowhere.

[More words than necessary, maybe. But not one of them's a lie. Not really.]

If you ever find yourself wondering if you should pay Alabama a visit? Uh. Don't.

Voice

[mypartnerintime]

[Alabama. She takes a moment to respond.]

Funny, I knew someone from Alabama. He hated it, too.

[Then again he hated a lot of things, including people in general (or so it seemed, sometimes!).]

I get the impression it's not a great place to live.

Voice

[postictal]

[...probably a coincidence. Right? It has to be. God. It has to be.

He does an impressive job of keeping his tone level.]

Not surprised. Place is full of two things: kudzu, and drunk people with shotguns.

[Not to mention the people that would stop them on their way to or from those abandoned, burnt-out places, talking about you lookin' for where the ghosts live?

Yeah, fun place.]

Voice

[mypartnerintime]

[Yup. Total coincidence.]

What the frick is kudzu?

[Honestly the first impression she gets is it's some kind of liquor. Way to stereotype, Max.]