and on this casket's back sits a little lonely ghost [open to multiple]

[deadeyedchild]

He can feel Tim leaving him, waking up, and he tries to follow. He doesn't know how. This is all new territory, following someone from one plane of existence to another. He tries to visualize himself holding onto Tim's hand. It's embarrassing but it works.

He thinks it works.

He feels different.

The world feels familiar - not the empty void he'd been inhabiting, but the world, solid and real, tangible. He's here. He's back.

He still feels like he's looking at it through glass, though. He looks down at his hands, which are - sort of there, at least, he knows they're there. He can almost see them. Except not quite.

"Oh come on," he mutters, and no sound comes out. He knows he's spoken but he can't quite hear it. He tries to lay a hand on his own arm and he feels a buzz of static as his fingers pass through himself. Oh, god.

He's a fucking ghost.

This is not quite what he had in mind. He knows it's not what Tim had in mind.

It's better than nothing.

He takes a moment to try and figure out where he is. He finds that he can move, not exactly by walking, but sort of drifting along the ground. He accidentally passes through someone, who shivers violently and looks thoroughly spooked for a few seconds. He is unable to get anyone's attention, or interact with anything.

He has to get to Tim somehow, but he can't really take a train, can he? He's not even sure what part of the city he's in.

So he rambles. After a while he finds it's easier to just move through walls than to try to go about things the normal way. Shortly after that revelation he starts picking up the very bizarre skill of moving up through a building, in and out of offices and apartments.

Travel is easy, but communication is nearly impossible.

He searches, having nothing else he can do, for someone he knows.


[[Jay is wandering all over kingdom come today so if you want your character to have a weird ghost encounter, pick a location and we'll see what happens. It's going to be super hard to notice him if you don't have any kind of telepathic/other helpful powers, but that's okay, we can do short shenanigan threads if you're into that. A quick little ghost encounter! Hey, maybe Jay can overhear some awkward dialogue or embarrassing secrets. Maybe he'll accidentally figure out how to knock something off a counter and then go nuts trying to do it again. The sky is the limit. Have fun!]]

UPDATE: as often happens with this kind of thing we have Jay on a pretty tight schedule now. The Balladeer meets him around lunchtime, and then the line of Rush/Iman - Daniel - Greta gets set into motion sometime after. Greta will be taking Jay back to his building in the late afternoon. If you want to meet him when he's out and about it'll now have to be prior to lunch or snuck in between lunch and his adventure through the former ROMAC apartments. There is still plenty of room in there for nonsense, it just won't be able to lead to Jay actually getting home. SHENANIGANS!

Comments

[postictal]

This is turning into kind of a mess. Messes are dealable, usually, unless they're the kind where a sort-of not-friend dies and then turns into a ghost, and Tim might have hired some kind of alien to track down said not-friend, and now - yeah. This is going great.

How'd they even find him, if he really is a ghost? Does he even wanna know?

"Uh," says Tim, fist still hovering mid-air in preparation to knock again. He only sees two people, and neither of them look dead, or like ghosts, or like Jay.

"Wh - uh, Greta?" He performs a double-take as the other woman's name and appearance fully registers. "Do, uh, don't I know you?"

Oh, right. That was the dream where they couldn't stop knocking shit over, like a pair of preternaturally clumsy, petulant cats. Great.

[andhiswife]

"Oh!" Oh, she knows him. "Yes, I--I remember." That dream had been rather a mess, and Tim had been worrisomely ill for at least part of it, but he seems to be doing well enough, now. And she takes it nothing in Bee's apartment is going to fall apart the moment one of them touches it. "It's good to see you again," she says, rather than touch on the ridiculous circumstances of their first meeting. This can be something of a fresh start.

Though it doesn't really help that there's still a bizarre problem that needs solving, and with none of them necessarily equipped to handle it.

Well, at least she can offer something. "I was telling Bee--I sort of stumbled upon a way to see Jay, at least a little. I could show you." She digs out her flour bundle, which is already leaking just a little. The cloth she used to wrap it isn't that finely woven, and it must have endured a fair amount of jostling in her pocket. "Jay, if you wouldn't mind standing just here," she gestures to her own right side, "and giving me a tap when you're there...?"

A beat or two, and then a familiar freezing sensation drifts through her shoulder. It's not as sharp a sensation as it was to begin with, probably because she's used to it, but she makes a mental note to check later and make sure all these icy touches haven't done her any actual damage. "Right," she murmurs, lifting the improvised bag over where Jay's head should be and giving it a few gentle bats with her hand.

A little flour showers down, drifting to the floor by way of Jay's outline, his head and shoulders temporarily but unmistakably visible. "He surprised me while I was baking," Greta confides with a grin. "Scared me half to death, though I'm sure he didn't mean to."

[deadeyedchild]

Oh good, everyone knows everyone, sort of. He watches Tim and Greta somewhat nervously. This is weird, reuniting with Tim in front of these cheerful people. It would be weird even without that, but... he has no idea how this is supposed to go, what they're going to do. How Tim is going to handle this once there aren't people to play normal for.

When Greta calls him over, he obeys and waits for the embarrassing and yet helpful handful of flour to the face. He tries to keep his eyes open, to watch for Tim's reaction.

"Oh my gosh!" squeaks Bee, clapping her hands over her mouth. "That's so clever, Greta!"

Yeah, it is. Good luck getting Tim to try it, Jay thinks wryly.

[postictal]

Oh. Okay then. Everyone seems really fucking pleased about this whole development, but it's not until the puff of flour collects along the ridges of the skinny dumbass's outline that Tim can accept any of the words being thrown at him.

"Jay?" he says cautiously, experimentally, stretching a hand into the fading dust of flour. His fingertips brush something absolutely glacial, a chill shuddering up the joints of his knuckles, and he jerks back far too sharply.

"Wh - uh," he gulps inarticulately. His eyes dart nervously between Bee and Greta and the faint outline that's presumably Jay, unsure of whether he should be as thrilled as they seem to be. He raises a hand inanely and waves. "Uh. Hi. I guess."

So much for that warm fucking welcome.

[andhiswife]

Greta flaps a hand in good-natured dismissal. It was a complete accident, honestly; no cleverness required on her part. Tim's reaction is a bit more muted, and she sobers. This can't be easy for him. It wasn't easy for her, and she only knows Jay a little. Tim must be quite close with him.

"It's... not ideal," she admits, referring to both the flour trick - it's mostly settled onto Bee's otherwise clean floor - and Jay's general state. "But he's out of the Dreaming, at least."

[deadeyedchild]

He hovers there awkwardly while Tim reaches into his shoulder and snaps his hand back. Yeah, welcome to the party. He'd wave but there's no more flour.

He wishes he could agree with Greta, too, visibly - a nod, anything - because this is better. There's no way he can tell Tim that. This sucks and it's stupid and complicated, but it's better, anything is better, than being trapped and taunted by godlike cat fuckers forever.

"We'll figure this out too," says Bee helpfully. "It is progress." She looks at Tim. "I have a bag of flour you can take with you," she says, "if you two want to go back downstairs."

Is she kicking them out? No, weirdly enough, it seems more like she's just... offering Tim an exit. Like she knows that's what he wants. Who is this girl, and how did Tim let her get so close?

[postictal]

"Yeah, um." Tim rakes a hand through his hair and nods. "Okay. Sure. Sounds great."

He sounds way too eager to get the hell out, but he's less antsy about it now that he knows what Bee knows he knows. Or...something. She gets it. That's really all that matters.

"Thanks," he mumbles in Greta's direction. "Um, for finding him. And stuff."

He looks at the empty space uncertainly. "Should - uh. Just follow me, I guess."

[andhiswife]

"Here." Greta steps forward to offer Tim the flour bundle. "You can take this. And it was no trouble at all." She gives him a concerned, searching look, then adopts a slightly sterner tone as she adds, "And you'll tell me if there's anything else you need." She doesn't honestly expect that he will, but now she reserves the right to be exasperated if she finds out he didn't.

It all seems too quick; Bee hands Tim a larger bag of flour, and then they're both gone, Jay brushing an icy hand through her arm as he goes. Greta rubs the spot absently, then turns back to Bee... and to the little dusting of flour they've left behind. "Well, it's been an odd day," she says with a tiny sigh. "Sorry about your floor."

[apidae]

"It's no trouble!" says Bee, picking up a brush and dustpan, gesturing at her little kitchen table for Greta to sit down. "I'm just so glad you were able to help him. He's glad too."

This is an admittedly odd thing to say, but it's worth mentioning. "Tim's very shy, and he's had a hard time of things since Jay, um, disappeared, so... I thought I would give him the excuse to go. I might go and check on them later."

Minor mess cleaned, she straightens up. "Can I get you some tea?" she offers pleasantly.

[andhiswife]

That is an odd thing to say. For a moment, Greta isn't sure if she's talking about Jay or Tim, but then again, she hardly needs the reassurance about Jay. He didn't have to be perfectly visible for her to see the relief in his posture when she'd recognized him, let alone offered to walk him here.

"I see." She nods as she sits down, dredging up memories from the dream. "He did seem a bit..." she trails off, not sure how best to explain it. He hadn't struck her as being quite as jumpy as Johnny, but he seemed more cagey than Jay. 'Shy' might be the best term for it - or the most forgiving - and she concludes, "... a bit shy, yes." Then, "That was kind of you."

And speaking of - the offer of tea makes her smile. A woman after her own heart. "Please," she says, propping her chin on her hand. "That would be lovely."