regards [open]

[postictal]

God, not this again.

Unclenching his jaw floods his mouth with a tacky, iron wash of blood, head pounding with that familiar dull ring. Drawing his senses into a hazy knot, Tim places himself.

Fluorescent lights. Mirror. Bathroom floor. Headache. Okay. So that’s. Not good. Headache means -

“God damn it,” Tim hisses. He is so done with this. It’s been months since last time. He rolls onto his stomach, palms pressed against the cool white tile, levering himself to his knees, that’s step one, then to his feet. One white-knuckled hand grips the sink’s cheap porcelain edge as he hauls himself upward. He can do this. He can think past the blinding agony of his knees right now.

He really doesn’t want to look into the mirror. It’ll confirm what he’s suspecting or deny it, and either option suffuses him with dread.

Well, whatever. He’ll get it over with. So yeah, this is so plainly the kind of thing Alex would film, something appropriately hipster-y and pretentious and beyond fucking cliché, Tim, I want you to look into the mirror and ~contemplate your life~, a million years and half a dozen inaccurate diagnoses ago, wow so that’s not a train of thought Tim needs. Big red neon sign there. But it distracts him from steeling himself to stare at the mirror because when he comes back to himself, he’s already staring at it.

“Mm, good for you,” his reflection says dully, the pale and trembling thing with sunken eyes and the thin dried dribble of scarlet running from nose to upper lip, blazing against the ashen of his skin. He groans and leans forward until both elbows are supporting his weight on the sink’s immutable edges, two fingers against each temple and both thumbs hooked under his jaw in a symmetrical downward tilt of silent agony. His forehead comes to rest against the mirror, eyes slipped shut. Focus on that sloppy pyramid of fixed points, good job. “Good job, buddy.”

Both eyes crack open dazedly for a second look at the same time everything changes. The abrupt lack of sink-related support sends Tim smacking face-first into the ground. Into the - grass? Wait. For the second time in what feels like as many minutes but probably isn’t, Tim forces himself upright into a disorienting sway. The brilliant contrast of the midday sun versus the clinical glare of cheap fluorescent bulbs sears his retinas for a minute, intensifying the scraping spike of double-edged pain behind his eyes. His vision fades into a cluster of photobleached splotches for a terrifying minute until everything clears.

So this is definitely a city? And he was definitely in his bathroom?

A hollow clap resounds in his chest as Tim sits on the patch of grass with a weary bump. So, again. Again. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to assess. How many weeks has it been, how many miles from home, what complete bullshit did he do this time, and oh, look at that, his nose is bleeding again. Makes sense. Why wouldn’t it be?

Not this again.

Comments

[postictal]

How is this getting no reaction? Maybe the guy is just equally weird, or distracted, or anything. Maybe he's having a shit day. Maybe people actually have problems that don't pertain to Tim's life. What a dream.

Whatever, Tim's not putting any more thought to this. There's a slow ooze of blood slipping down to the corner of one mouth and he hastily mashes the back of his wrist across it in a movement that gets the spectacular achievement of being stupid, conspicuous, and clumsy in one brilliant stroke.

Wait. 2013? And how is this guy not freaking out -

"What -" Tim begins, but the crippling pressure around his chest cuts off anything else in a storm of hoarse coughing. His lungs feel like they're actively trying to evacuate the premises. Typical. And still painful. Goddamnit.

"Sorry," he manages, eyes watering, "sorry. Just, uh. You mean 2014, right?" Right?

[johnny_truant]

Man. Lucky fucker, actually stepping back a bit. Speaking of, Johnny takes a slight step back at the sudden wave of insane, violent coughing, whoa, shit. He wonders if maybe he should put out his cigarette.

"I don't," he says after a moment, eyeing the smear of blood. Never seen that before. Did he have that when he came in? After a moment he goes on smoking. "2014's nothing. It was 1999 when I came through. I know people from like the fuckin' 18th century. And older." Older than time. Let's not get into that yet.

Johnny crouches down slowly, keeping a reasonable distance, a little more than arm's length. "There's no easy way to explain this," he says. "You came through a rift in spacetime. I know, I know. I'm not shitting you." He lifts a hand and pauses to smoke some more. "It happens a lot. Happened to me about three months ago. But I, uh, I saw you come through. Just now." He shrugs his shoulders. "M'sorry." Like that'll help.

[postictal]

That explanation earns him a long, plaintive, desperate look. Is this guy serious? No one would say something like that, completely without conviction or pleading, just dull acceptance like what a wacky sort of day we're having.

This is its fault, isn't it. That thing. Inventing new ways to break open his head. Like it hasn't done enough. Just because this isn't the turbid hell of a shadowscape it launched him into those few, gut-wrenching times doesn't mean it isn't going to suck just as much, if not more so.

Tim puts his head in his hands.

"Fuck," he says. Then, louder, "fuck."

The hands slide away. He looks at the red-brown smear across one wrist and grimaces.

"What, did you piss it off too?" It sounds almost wry as he says it. Tim already feels dried out, emptied, too goddamn tired to even put up a righteously indignant fight about it anymore. Whatever it wants from him, it'll get it, one way or the other.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny tilts his head slightly. He's not quite shocked, he's - disappointed? Frustrated. And then what kind of question is that?

"I don't know if the rift gets pissed off," he says. He sincerely doubts that's what the guy was asking, but what else is he gonna say? "No one knows much about it. Look, I know this is hard to take, but... wherever you were, whatever you were doing, that's over now. Now you're here. It's a different - everything."

This ordinarily would be an incredibly terrible thing to tell someone. But there's something different here. He feels a faint flicker of understanding. The way this guy drops his head into his hands and swears at the situation instead of looking panicked, pleading, arguing - that's familiar. And maybe it'll be a good thing, to know he's been cut off - like it did with Johnny.

After a minute he pulls his pack out his pocket and offers it. The cough was worrying, but Johnny's never been a caretaker. "You want one?" he says.

[postictal]

He doesn't know. Good, well that's, so that's...good. Whatever the hell is up with this place and this guy and whatever else, maybe Tim can still keep it contained.

Cause that worked so well last time.

He laughs hollowly, a short huff completely devoid of humor. There isn't an over for Tim. Clearly. He thought two months ago had been the perfect over but then the headaches, the coughing fits, the blackouts - still. Still. After everything.

"Yeah." He pulls one of the proffered cigarettes and digs his lighter out of his pocket. That's a normal, calming gesture. Hostile brain takeover, then zapped to a new world, and now it's time to unwind with a smoke. Well, it works. "Thanks."

He eyes the guy with mingled appreciation and wariness. "So you, uh," he waves at the expanse of green, the sprawling cityscape, "came though too, then? Just - completely out of the blue?"

[johnny_truant]

Good, he takes it, and he's got a lighter too, accurate guess. Johnny nods and settles back, sitting in the grass and folding his legs. "Yeah," he says. "Over, um - thataway." He gestures in a vague easterly direction. "People usually get dropped into the Park, I guess. I don't even remember what the fuck I was doing before I came. That seems like ages ago now." He smiles a little ruefully at the ground, rolling his cigarette back and forth between his fingers.

"This is Manhattan, by the way," he says. "And, uh. I'm Johnny." He offers a hand.

[postictal]

"Manhattan?" Tim's eyebrows creep up in disbelief. Even at his worst and most incomprehensible, he never actually left the state. Or, well, the world technically, since this is apparently a different one.

Maybe the entries don't exist here.

That thought brings with it a wave of relief, a biting optimism that Tim didn't even realize existed. Maybe the entries don't exist here. Maybe there's a way he can - maybe. But he can't let himself get lured into that mindset. He's gonna have to be patient with this. It's slipped back into his life before; why would something like this prevent it?

Tim inhales deeply, breathes. There's the shred of normalcy he's been looking for. It's a good anchor.

"I'm Tim." He takes the hand after a shade of hesitation, shakes it firmly, once, and lets it drop. No last names. Good. That makes a fade into anonymity that much simpler.

[johnny_truant]

"Welcome to New York, Tim," says Johnny, smiling faintly. "Sorry I'm not the best welcoming committee." He goes silent for a moment, trying to figure out the next step. If he were in a faction he'd be inviting Tim to whichever Base, he imagines, but fortunately for both of them, he's not.

"Couple things you should know," he says. "We can't leave the island. Just can't. That only goes for those of us who came through. 'Rifties' is the word people use." He holds out his hand, counting off fingers. "There's a lot of us. I mean a lot - I don't know how many. There's two organizations who deal with us. I mean like give us places to live, phones, money. That kind of thing. ROMAC and the Rebels. I don't trust either of them at all and I didn't join. It's easy enough to keep your head down. The main thing is not being homeless." He doesn't mention that he - or more correctly Gabe - might be able to help with that. He's not about to just offer some random bleeding coughing stranger Gabe's spare apartment. As much for himself and Gabriel as for Tim. Who knows what his actual needs are.

"And there's, uh - there's dreams." Nobody warned him about this. It's an easy enough thing to forget, he thinks. But it's worth mentioning. "We dream here, a lot. Not like normal dreams. Really vivid, coherent, realistic dreams. And you can get tagalongs. People that dream with you. Sometimes it's all of us dreaming together, and sometimes - I've had people come into my personal dreams, and I end up in theirs. Most of us don't have any control over it at all."

This is a lot to be telling someone he just met, but, in the grand general sense, fuck it. He waves his hand in a sort of airy gesture and says, lightly and with trace amounts of sarcasm, "That's it."

[postictal]

The not leaving bit shoots up the first red flag. He and Jay were living out of hotels for longer than Tim cares to recall. The need to up and go crossing state lines is somewhat reduced now that he's no longer being actively tailed by a sociopath with a gun and, well, it doesn't matter how far or fast he runs when it comes to escaping the thousand other things wrong with his life. They're just kind of a fixed part of him.

"Right." Tim says it a little dazedly, pulling at his roll of nicotine to give himself some distance between that slew of information and a more adequate reply. "Well, staying to myself has worked out pretty well in the past." Except for the times when it didn't. Tim's got a little money crammed in his wallet from the two months of the mind-numbingly boring job he'd miraculously managed to score post-Jay, post-Alex, post-everything. Getting involved in any sort of faction while he is the way he is would just be a repeat of horrible, too easily recalled recent events. Affiliations aren't conducive to inconspicuousness.

More worrisome are the dreams. Tim's had enough of extraneous shit being shoved into his head. "Is there, like, a way to keep people out? Of, uh, dreams?" he asks, in a voice that's just as nonchalant as it is ridiculous in its nonchalance. Living with this shit pretty much constantly - maybe it's desensitized him. Fancy that.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny glances at him as he exhales smoke. Man does he understand that question. Too, too well. And there are ways, he thinks - Gabe could probably do it, for instance, lock him down, or at least lock specific people out. But too many problems. Johnny wouldn't ask Gabe to do that. Tim might not want anyone to fiddle around in there just like Johnny doesn't. And the rift might not like it - and he's seen a few times how it can override Gabe and the TARDIS and everyone else powerful.

Safer just to give the simple answer.

"Sorry," he says. "I really fucking wish there was. Believe me." He curls in slightly, studying his feet. "But I guess it helps to know it happens to everyone. So... all things are pretty even. Small comfort I guess."

[postictal]

"Not really," Tim answers darkly. He's the source. He can't be allowed to spread that thing around. What can he do about it? Not sleep? Turn that little freak loose instead? As far as he can tell it doesn't sleep when it's - using him the way it does, but it's not like he has a frame of reference here. It's not like he can talk to it.

He ponders for a minute, breathing out a quiet hush of smoke.

"New York, huh?" He tips his head back and looks at the sky, the jagged blocky line of buildings. "Can't say I've ever been."

[johnny_truant]

"Me neither, as far as I know," says Johnny. He feels strangely at ease throwing around implications like that. "I'm from LA. Came out here a couple times, but further north." He glances over at Tim. "You?"

[postictal]

"Florida," he says, because it's the first place he can think of. Close enough to the truth so he won't forget it. "Never really left. Tough to scrape an out-of-state trip together on minimum wage." That's true enough. He couldn't afford to leave, though not for financial reasons. Tim's stare falls on the ground when that train of thought extends to its logical conclusion.

"What about, like." The half-formed sentence chops itself off and Tim has to start over. How can he not be specific about this? "'Cause I have this thing, like, I need to take my, just this prescription pretty regularly. They've got places where I can refill that, right?"

[johnny_truant]

Johnny dips his head down, rubbing thoughtfully at the back of his neck. "Mm..." he murmurs. "I have a friend who might be able to help you with that. He volunteers at this rifty-specific clinic, it's neutral territory as far as I know. No faction bullshit allowed. There's a few places like that. There's a rifty-neutral bar in the village." Nevermind that he doesn't really go there anymore, not since his two run-ins with Zagreus there.

"You'll need to get a phone," he says. "If you had one it won't work now. He reaches into his back pocket to check for his wallet. "I know a couple places you can get 'em for relatively cheap, and there's people who can connect you up to the rifty network. I could probably front you the money for it, if that's okay with you. You wouldn't owe me or anything. My, uh, situation - money's not really an issue." Best to just leave it there.

[postictal]

Cash is better than cards. Tim hates how he can automatically leap to this, calculating the best possible disengage into obscurity. He can be good at hiding, when no one's broadcasting every location shift to the Internet.

"If you're really okay with it, I guess." He shrugs, cautious and noncommittal. Contact to authorities might be helpful, maybe, but if he can help it he won't be connecting to anyone. Alone. Apart. That's where he's best at. "Got a little cash but, you know, think I'll save that for a hotel."

Cities, though. Tightly-packed, overpopulated, confined. Avoidance is going to be an issue unless Tim can wall himself up, make himself so thoroughly unlikeable...Tim can manage that, yeah. Managed it well enough in high school.

[johnny_truant]

"Sure." Johnny nods and gets to his feet. "Let's get the phone sorted, yeah? Then you can just... do what you gotta do."

Set him up, get his information, and cut him loose. That's basically what happened with him. He'd had Jodie, that had been nice, but - just the feeling he gets from Tim, something that projects loner.

He jerks his head to indicate follow me and starts walking.

[postictal]

A little warily, Tim gets himself upright. There's a faint rush as he adjusts to the buzz and pressure of standing again, but it's like his body is too tired to raise much of a fuss. It had still been on the mend, after all, when everything had changed. Or maybe it hadn't. Tim doesn't really trust his mental tracking of time anymore.

He brushes his knees off and follows. His life never changes, just the backdrop. He'll do what he's always done. He'll keep his head down. He'll be Completely Normal.

Everything will be fine.