take these broken wings and learn to fly [closed]

[postictal]

His head throbs, a single continuous pulse feathering into variations on the same painful theme.

Tim groans and feels his muscles clench as he tries to roll over. A familiar soreness suffuses his entire body, the kind of soreness that takes its sweet goddamn time fading out after -

After -

Well, shit.

All it takes is a cursory glance at his phone for Tim to groan again and slap the device down as he gets slowly, agonizingly, to his feet. He runs fingers over his clothes, through his hair. No twigs and leaves, no mat of mud and blood drying in stiff clumps. His skin remains unscuffed from the phantom tug of undergrowth, his clothing miraculously clean and whole.

And, most importantly - no mask.

Tim breathes out, long and slow, and tries to suppress the faint prickle of relief. Unless his less agreeable self has suddenly gotten way more meticulous about cleaning up after its habitual wrecking of shit, an eerie number-laden message on the network is all he's got to worry about. That'd be a first. He'd almost be grateful for the little bastard if it wasn't set on making his life fucking miserable every chance it got. Regardless, he'll count himself lucky when he can.

Everything still hurts by the time noon hits him square in the face with a bright burst of sunlight through the slats in the shades, and the hiss of crisp fall air. It's surreal that Tim has to remind himself that time is still a thing that exists; absurd as it is, the existence of anything outside his own problems always comes to him as a shock. Like, you know, the weather.

So Tim goes out and buys a Ouija board.

This is - so goddamn stupid, he doesn't think he has a word for it. It's stupidly optimistic. It's a stupid idea, period. But he's out of options, and he feels like an idiot buying something like this, some plastic board at the cheapest magical bullshit place he could find. It's this or ask Asmodia to play telephone every day, and he's about had it with dragging other people into his and Jay's collective shit. She's got better things to do - safer people to spend her time with, no doubt, who are less liable to catapult her life into a complete sanity-draining nightmare.

He enters the apartment, keys rattling over the door, and jiggles the wide, flat box with faux enthusiasm.

"Bought you something," he deadpans.

As usual, the apartment doesn't answer. He pauses in hopes for a gust of chill wind to stab at his shoulder, or for the roll of paper towels to dislodge themselves from the counter - anything that would confirm that he didn't just announce his stupid impulsive baseless purchase to an empty fucking apartment. Like a moron.

Comments

[deadeyedchild]

Jay looks up at him sadly, wishing he could - well, wishing he could say something without the awkward go-between of a child's game, and wishing, even if he could, that it would help. This was his fault this time, or the rift's, whatever - Tim missed work because of him, he was there to hear that phone call. And now he can't even help.

It's okay, he spells out after a moment, like that's going to help any. And I know how you feel.

Because he does. Did they ever talk about that? With all the shit they lived through together they didn't find much time or inclination to talk about the past. The closest they ever got to it was Jay mumbling about how he was glad he was doing something, he just wished it was something else. The day everything went straight to hell. Does Tim even know what his life was before all this?

He's looking at Tim again, waiting for a response, and not down at his hands; so he doesn't notice at all when he flickers into visibility and then out again, a few times, like a dying light bulb.

[postictal]

Does he?

Tim blinks at the board's stupid font with its overcomplicated loops and strokes, and has to admit that, yeah, maybe he does. He never knew Jay, never really knew anyone involved in Alex Kralie's dumb little movie project all that well aside from Brian. As far as Tim was concerned, Merrick was just some mousy kid who must've known Alex or Seth or Sarah or Brian, and that was the extent of their interaction. He never really knew him, never spent the time to. Even later, when it was just them sandwiched in a car on a hot road together for hours, they rarely if ever discussed anything heavier than where to stop for gas. Jay always knew more about Tim than he knew about Jay; that was just how it was.

For a while there he forgot that there was anything to know about Jay.

Tim hums faintly in acknowledgement, trying to suppress the pang of guilt for tearing into the man again and again and again and again, in parking lots and apartments and abandoned houses and in dreams, howling at him, heaping blame on those skinny little shoulders.

What gives Tim the goddamn right.

He's so mired in his own flare of self-reproach that it takes him a minute to process the shift in his surroundings, the flutter of Jay's slightly transparent shape directly across from him.

"You - " His eyes widen, one hand reaching forward, fingertips not quite brushing the general vicinity of Jay's chest. "Jay? Jay."

[deadeyedchild]

Whoa, what? Tim reaches toward him suddenly, where'd that come from, and he looks down at himself just in time to see himself flicker out.

"Oh, shit!" he blurts. He moves his arms around, trying to see if it'll happen again, but it doesn't. He slumps, sort of, letting out a frustrated groan. Come on.

Impatiently he moves his hands back to the planchette and spells out GDI.

[postictal]

Tim frowns, now squinting fiercely at the space where he's certain he saw Jay's face flutter in the corner of his vision, but there's nothing.

When the planchette finally shifts again, Tim can't suppress the loud snort that shakes his shoulders.

"It's something, right?" he says, and god but he hopes Jay comes back properly soon, because he's really not suited to the task of being the optimistic one. "It's an improvement. That's good."

[deadeyedchild]

Yeah. He supposes so. He can't help being a little impatient.

There isn't much conversation to be made after this, and the flickering doesn't happen again, so eventually they drift back into their routine of cohabitating. It's dull. Tim at least has a body to maintain. Jay never realized how much just that went to alleviating soul-crushing boredom. Having to get up to go to the bathroom once in a while. Getting thirsty, hungry. Wanting a smoke or a shower.

He can't do any of that, he can only float around and feel uncomfortable with how voyeuristic this is. Which is ironic, and he knows it. Hell, at least Tim knows he's here, or assumes it. Not like when Jay followed him through town, waited outside his doctor's office.

Ugh.

He doesn't want to sit here and he especially doesn't to sit drowning in bad memories. He floats out of the apartment. By now Tim probably knows to wait for touch confirmation before trying to converse, so - if he does want to say something, he'll probably just... figure out Jay went somewhere. It's not like Jay doesn't have his own apartment. Tim probably wants the privacy.

Halfway down the hall to his apartment he stills. He doesn't want to go in there. Nothing but boxes and lights he can't turn on as the sun sets. Lonely, aching silence.

He wants to visit someone else. He doesn't know Bee well enough, and he's not gonna go out on his own to see Greta. Is there even anyone else in this damn building he knows?

Wait - Daine. Daine. She lives here now, now that the Base is - holy shit, does she even know he's back?

And she has dogs, and dogs can see him, and she can talk to them.

What a dumb idiot.

He thinks he can remember which apartment is hers. He floats down a few floors - it's getting a little easier to make himself sink, he notes - and drifts into her apartment. Hopefully she's there, and in a state/mood to receive company. Hoping is just about all he can do right now.

[wildmage_daine]

When Jay drifts in, the first resident to notice is the cat. Both dogs are asleep on the floor, and Daine is sprawled on her bed with a book of mammalian anatomy spread before her and a half-dozen sparrows clustered on her back, most of them dozing, a few keeping a wary eye on the cat across the room. Shadow pauses in his idle investigation of the kitchen counter (because he's certainly not interested in the birds) and turns to look at the intruder. We have company, he observes dryly.

"What?" Daine lifts her head to look at the cat, then follows the animal's gaze to an apparently empty spot of air. Frowning, she asks, "Who is it? Daniel?" Not that Daniel's in the habit of lurking around invisibly, but it did seem like he didn't have the best handle on where he went, so maybe he finds being seen just as tricky.

At the sound of Daniel's name, both dogs open their eyes, and Molly lifts her head. They like Daniel, for all that he isn't solid enough to dole out scritches. After a moment's scrutiny, the terrier says, I think it's Jay.

"Jay?" Daine repeats incredulously. If not for the birds on her back, she'd be bolting upright. Sensing the urge, the sparrows chirp their farewells and head out the propped window, and Daine pushes herself into a sit, reshaping her eyes as she goes. "Horse lords," she breathes, staring at Jay with a cat's vision. "You're--what happened?"

[deadeyedchild]

That is... a lot of animals. Jay's aware of the dogs but the cat is unexpected and garners a little jump from him, half-expecting its eyes to be washed out white like those of his too-recent captors. Daine also has a gaggle of sparrows on her back, which is - well, less surprising than it should be.

As much as he's anticipating, hoping that the animals will alert her to his presence, when she actually starts speaking aloud he's quite startled for a moment. She's not talking to him. She wonders if he's Daniel, hah, that guy's a lot better at being visible than he is - and then, wonderfully without any fuss at all, she ascertains that it's him.

"I, um." Can the animals understand what he says? May as well test it. "I'm a ghost."

[wildmage_daine]

He's very quiet, Molly says, getting to her feet and ambling over to sniff at his legs. When her nose actually goes through him, she jerks back with a startled sneeze. And cold!

"Hang on a moment," Daine says, holding up a hand for silence. "You're too quiet for me to hear, and I can't see you that well even like this." She can make out his features well enough to recognize him, but he's awfully faint, and even if she was good at lip-reading she'd have a hard time of it with him so transparent. Instead, she brushes back her hair and lets her ears grow into the large, thin-skinned ears of a bat. If the dogs can just about hear him with their ears, she ought to be able to hear him clearly as a bat. Swiveling both ears in Jay's direction, she softly instructs, "Try again."

[deadeyedchild]

Whoa-kay then. Well. That's one way. Jay blinks at the suddenly sprouting ears, not sure what to make of them - incredibly weird, or weirdly cute? - before saying, "Uh, yeah. Can... can you hear me?"

He's not sure how this works. Is he actually producing any sound? How do bat ears work, anyway? He decides to assume she knows what she's doing. She usually does.