𝐿𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 (open.)

[stations]

Who: Jack Townsend & Others.
When: Post-Event.
Where: Thorne, the Horizon, Nocwich.
What: a catch-all for open & closed starters that take place after the event wrap-up.
Warnings: bigly angst, such dramatic, depression, themes of grief and loss, mental illness, possibly some violence.

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑠𝑢𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑒𝑑
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑠𝑜 𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝
𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑐𝑘 𝑖𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑔𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒
𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑠𝑒?

Comments

𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑒.

[stations]

ᴡᴇᴇᴋ 1 — ᴅᴇɴɪᴀʟ & ᴅɪsᴀssᴏᴄɪᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

[stations]

( He'd been in something of a fugue state as the hallucination faded; dreamy, disassociated, detached and confused. It wasn't hard for Jerry to coax him from the singularity, or for Kyle to lead him away from the crater. Only by technical definition could he even be considered awake, vaguely responsive, largely quiet.

A few hours later, when the first bits of conscious thought began to trickle in and he began to wake up, the first thing he'd said was: )

Where's Sabine?

( Nobody could tell him. The guards hadn't seen her. His fellow summoned couldn't find her. The first true trickling of anxiety began to kick in sometime after joining the discussion unfolding across their shared network. The longer the conversation went on, the worse the anxiety became — to the point that he eventually shut it off entirely, pushing it out of his mind's eye and refusing to read anymore.

It's fine. It's still early. Sabine's timetable is always a little off-center from most people's; she's a creature not exactly bound by the linear constraints of the passage of time. She's just a little late, or something. It's fine, and the less he thinks about it, the better off he'll be.

So he doesn't follow up with Jerry's request to hang out, and he doesn't hunt down Kyle to help with the manufactured emergency he's almost sure Kyle isn't having. He doesn't go back to his room, where he's sure they'd look for him.

Instead, he goes to a secluded corner of the library with his journal and a pen, and he proceeds start writing. Uninterrupted, he will continue writing without stopping for hours, pausing only briefly to concede to biological demands like bathroom breaks or water intake, and then it's write back to furious, intent writing. Without intervention, he'll do this for the better part of a week nonstop until someone tells him to go take a fucking shower or something, and then he'll be right back to it. )

[diametrically]

[ Cassian tells himself he's handling whatever the fuck just happened to them well by addressing it as little as possible. But then again, how else was someone meant to deal with everything that had happened to them? Some of the Summoned, if any of the chatter was to believed, were fine with it. Eight hundred years of false memories were nothing more than a dream to them. But Cassian couldn't shake the discomfort that prickled across his skin and in his veins at the thought that so much of his life - and others lives - had been completely been erased. That he had forgotten everyone at home that had meant the world to him, that kept him fighting to see the next sunrise.

Anger has taken the place of the clawing hunger that no longer fills his belly. It stirs every time he returned to River's room with more books, food or tea to try and nurse her out of her stupor only to be met with morse silence. As he enters the library that day with a stack of books to be returned that he's grown complacent since arriving here. Quietly he resolves to himself that until there's a way home, he'll look after those that he's forged bonds with and do no more than that because anything else would be a distraction.

It was better to be focused. To remind himself that this place would not be his home. He needed to return to his galaxy, to fight for a cause that mattered to him that he'd had to put on hold. There couldn't be distractions. He couldn't waver. That's mostly why he doesn't stop when he passes by Jack, hunched over in his corner of the library writing and scribbling away. Whatever the Singularity did hadn't been real and he has to remind himself of that lest he fall back down that hole.

But then he sees Jack the next day. And the day after that. By the time the seventh sighting rolls around he finally approaches him making his otherwise soft footfalls louder on purpose to announce his arrival. ]

You haven't left this spot. The librarians are okay with that?

[stations]

( The louder footfalls do very little to alert Jack of Cassian's presence, consumed as he is with what he's writing. Frankly, even his voice might have gone unacknowledged if it weren't so familiar, if he didn't have eight hundred years of memories associating it to something he's supposed to pay attention to. He looks up, and it — takes him a second. To process. To connect that face to those memories, and let them settle in.

Oh. Shit.
Right.
Well, this is... weird. It had been awkward enough before everything, when their most significant encounter had been stealing a memory or playing pass the fish, but now he's got some very distinct lingering impressions involving this particular man being a crutch during times Jack had been at his most unmoored.

He certainly feels fucking unmoored right now, and it takes a little forceful checking of his impulses not to follow neural pathways that shouldn't exactly exist. )

Oh. Hey.

( He manages eventually, lowering his pen down and aiming for totally normal and casual, nothing to see here. As though he doesn't look like absolute shit, and he hasn't been sitting in the exact same spot for a week with very few breaks. )

I- um. I used to work here, so I think they're used to leaving me alone. ( Quick, remember how humans have normal polite conversation, you can do it Jack. ) How are you?

Jerry & Kyle caring for the homie

[mathmetism]

[ Coming out of the future, jerry was fine. Not worried about what he became, not worried about what he did, not fussed about leaving it all behind. All in all, it was pretty chill. He housed some homeless, partied hard, played dreamscape with his bro, did a metric fuckton of drugs, and boned a ton of people. Seems alright.

The anxiety and dread didn’t arrive until he saw Jack. Until he didn’t see Sabine.

Woof.

The first stage of Jerry’s panicked scrambling mode of crisis resolution begins. At first, he’d come barging into the communal bathroom, ready to alert Kyle to matters far more urgent than pooping. However, Kyle was not pooping. Kyle was emptying his guts via piehole on the other side of a stall.

Maybe he should give Jack a few minutes before slamming through the door like the Kool Aid man. Besides, Jack will need soup. He starts cooking and hangs around to see Kyle, do some network shit, before he goes on the hunt.

The hunt is manic, but short lived. When Jerry lockpicks his way into Jack’s room, there’s no sign of him. The guards haven’t seen Jack or Sabine, neither have any of the townspeople he harasses, and shook, and wailed at, though he does ask them to keep an eye out for “a red haired, befreckled, lightly eldritchy girl”. Time to assemble an emergency kit with anything Jack could possibly need. It’s hard to forget how losing Sabine the first (second?) devastated Jack. There’s been few times Jerry felt completely helpless in aiding his best friend, but that beat all the instances of being tied up or immobilized or fatally shot. He can’t save Jack from grief. Doesn’t stop him from trying in every way possible.

Jerry shows back up in Kyle’s room with a (stolen) wheelbarrow, enough blankets to cocoon someone into a fat and immobile human burrito, a jug of juice, a canister of soup, a (probably also stolen) teddy bear, a pile of books, some cookies and crackers, and rita’s fuzzy butt sat right in the middle of it all, depleting the cookie supply already.]

Jack’s in the wind, we gotta find him.

[ they split up, and after some hours, Jerry and his squeaky wheelbarrow find Jack in his solitude corner of the library. ]

Jesus H Pulitzer Prize-winning Christ, Jack, there you are.

[ he huffs out a relieved sigh and collapses into the chair next to him. But no sign of recognition from Jack. ] Buuudy?

[ No response, Jack’s gone full writing-only catatonic. Ok, that’s fine, it’s cool, at least Jerry found him and he’s not off trying to crash a truck into the singularity, this is manageable. Jerry starts unpacking the wheelbarrow. The juice and snacks he puts on one side of Jack, Rita he deposits on the other, the blankets he lays over the chair next to him, in case he gets chilly or needs a reassuring but concealing structure around him for sensory overstimulation. He explains what he’s brought while he goes, not really expecting a reply. ] Do you need something? Uh, a juice box, some snacks, a cuddly raccoon in a cute blanket burrito?

[ Once he finds him, Jerry doesn’t leave his side. The last time Jack had a meltdown like this, he got arrested, and Jerry hasn’t had time to craft a Going To Jail shirt with a secret lockpick pocket yet. Instead, he does a quick meditation to send Kyle a quick found him, we’re in the library, look for the raccoon.

In the interim, his fixation becomes stacking books into a castle fortress wall around the secluded alcove to block Jack off from further disturbances (aside from the fool making a fucking book castle around him). Also, friends of Jack’s, those are permitted entry. It includes small towers at each end and arrow slit windows in the wall, with Rita sat atop the wall with a paper crown Jerry origami’d for her. It’s magnificent, and when library goers pass by seeking entry, Jerry stands guard. ]

Halt, citizen. This area is closed off for… book herpes epidemic. Terrible stuff. [ he hooks a thumb back towards the crowned raccoon eating crackers in the fortress wall. ] Sorry, orders from the Duchess.

[ushiri]

We're going to have to move him eventually.

[ Kahlil knows Jerry already knows this, he just feels better saying it aloud.

Truthfully, they'll probably have to move Rita first. One of the newer librarians on staff does not seem to know what to do about a mutated raccoon just sitting there with her crown, technically able to roam free. They must have been hired while the Summoned were gone.

Kahlil leans on the wall, just outside of the book-fortress. ]

Any idea how long he's been like this?

[ He is. Worried. He's never seen Jack like this before. Disassociating and murderous, yes, but not like this.

From what Istredd told him the authorities are certain no one was left behind at the crater. ]

[ordinar]

[They have a dogged sense of denial, a prayer to whatever the hell god might be listening, and a half-baked plan. That's what brings Wilhelm and Jack together in one of the castle's classrooms on the evening of their return to find answers regarding the whereabouts of some very important missing persons.

Wilhelm comes prepared — which is to say that he has no clue what to expect, but he's brought a scrap of paper bearing the incantation he'd once used to find a missing bike, and a necklace he'd once spent hours picking out for Kelson. The former because, with his brain scrambled by eight centuries of fake memories, his spellwork is a little rusty. The latter because it just seems like a good idea to have on hand something belonging to the missing person.]

Here's the spell. [Without preamble, he waves the bit of paper for Jack to see.] You're supposed to concentrate on the thing you've lost, and it points you in the right direction. Except it won't work if you're more than, like, a mile away.

[He chews on the inside of his cheek. In the fervor of finding a scrap of hope, he'd forgotten about this drawback. But Jack had said—]

You have a way to make it more powerful?

[stations]

( The good news: Jack has taken a shower. The bad news: that's the only good news.

Having something resembling an active plan is enough to reignite him with some energy, at least. It's enough to power through the almost comatose fugue state of denial he'd lapsed into, and now he's had a mainline injection of pure ambition straight to the dome. This is going to work. This is absolutely going to work. It has to.

He nods. )

Yeah, so- listen. I shouldn't be telling you this, but- ( Kyle would say this is a bad idea. Istredd would probably say this is a bad idea. Jack knows this is a bad idea. He knows about the relationship between Wilhelm and Lucifer.

But... also... Fuck it, right? Lucifer already knows something's up with him, that's why he attacked Sabine in the first place. Maybe that cat's already out of the bag, in which case, he's got nothing to lose on that front. The only real concern is this leaking out to the other mages of the castle, or — God forbid — the Queen.

He scrubs a hand over his face, and then doubles down. ) I'm gonna tell you a secret, but first I need you to swear you won't tell anyone else. I need you to swear on- Kelson, or on your life, or on- whatever the fuck you take seriously enough not to break your word.

( He holds out his (last remaining, only) pinky. Pinky swears are fucking legit, they're basically magically binding in and of themselves. He's not kidding. )

ᴡᴇᴇᴋs 2-3 — ᴜɴᴘʀᴇᴅɪᴄᴛᴀʙʟᴇ ᴍᴀɢɪᴄ

[stations]

( After a full week of writing, Jack runs out of words rather abruptly. His sentence ends, and he's left staring down at more pages than he cares to count, full of his consistent sloppy scrawl, and he feels... bereft. Completely mentally empty of prose, and at a complete loss for what to do next.

Here, he begins to transition into a different state of denial. It's less that he's deluding himself into believing his girlfriend is coming back, and more that he's steadfastly refusing to think about it, because once the floodgates come down, they're going to come down hard. He knows it.

And so he finds other ways to swallow his time. He returns to classes with Istredd and Yennefer. He pushes them longer, and harder, and even when their class time is over he practices. Furiously, aggressively practices. Toward the end of the third week, that denial begins to look like something a lot better resembling anger.

Psychic shielding in the middle of the dining hall. Pulling memories from the people around him, immersing himself in them, and learning to control pulling himself out of them again. Transferring energy out of himself, funneling it into others and then reeling it back in again. It might make the magic people around him are practicing unpredictable, spell effects might be stronger than their practitioners are anticipating, psychics may feel his presence or the great void of his absence as his shields strengthen too hard.

When he's not intently practicing, he's disassociating more than usual. Slipping into that dreamlike fugue state where he's barely conscious is an escape, and it helps — but it also means he's not in full control over his tendency to manifest things into reality. Things may warp, or appear suddenly in his proximity. He may borrow glimpses from your character's memories, and hallucinate them into being. Familiar faces, or plants, or art, or small creatures may show up unexpectedly — particularly if they're something from a nightmare. )

[thedevilwhorose]

[He gets the confirmation from Istredd. The guards double-checked the crater.

Lucifer can put two and two together and know what the end result will eventually be, and he isn't going to wait for that trainwreck to come knocking, he'll head it off, whatever that may look like.

Lucifer doesn't want to be here. Doesn't want to be back. Doesn't want Thorne, this vessel, this cage within a cage. He's been practically crawling up the walls, a hissing cat that needs to be let out and he just hates everything.

But in the end he took a look at his brother, and made Istredd wake up from that reality with him.

In the end he chose this.

And he's got a lot he has to figure out from here, Michael being on the top of that list, bold letters, Sharpied underlining.

He finds Jack. For as aggressive, and sarcastic, and nasty to Jack as he has been in both realities, Lucifer is holding himself very loosely, arms at his sides, hands visible, his expression nearly passive, open. His voice almost soft, accepting.

He's expecting the worst.] Alright. Go ahead. You're going to blame me, right? Take it out on me? [Because she's gone. Sabine is gone. And once upon a time in a fake reality Lucifer went at her to effect Jack. So of course he must be the villain here, too.]

content warning: suicidal ideation

[stations]

( Ah, there he is, that motherfucker.

Lucifer finds him at the tail end of week three, when Jack's denial has begun to give way. When the reality of it has begun to set in, and the energy has begun to fill his bones. He's full of power, he knows this now. He's made of energy, of magic. Under his fingernails are splinters, the urge to do something about it. An aggressive, unrestful impulse he can't find an outlet for.

No amount of training satisfies it.
No amount of sitting in his empty room, concentrating until beads of sweat drip down between his shoulder blades as he tries to force her into existence amounts to anything at all.
And he keeps thinking... maybe he should just go straight to the source. Maybe he should make them bring her back. No matter how many times he dismisses the thought, it just keeps circling around in his head, and the fact that he hasn't yet leaves him feeling guilty, and his guilt makes him angry.

Every second she's gone, he feels angrier. It's fucking unfair, and once upon a time he might've put a gun in his mouth about it, but it's fucking infuriating because he knows now that he absolutely can't do that. He knows better this time.

The fact that he has to go through all of this again? Is complete, utter, fucking, absolute, god damn, motherfucking unfair bullshit, and he wants someone to blame other than himself.

It hasn't occurred to him yet that he'd already started associating that feeling to Lucifer.

But why not, right? Couldn't it be his fault? Maybe whatever Lucifer did to her made her — weaker. Maybe it made her more susceptible to the whims of the Singularity, maybe it made her want to leave. Maybe he weakened her tether, and it snapped when they all came back. Maybe it could be his fault. Just looking at him makes Jack's jaw set, makes his teeth clench until they hurt.

He wants, more than anything, in a sparkling flint of rage, to hurt Lucifer in the way that he has always been good at hurting people, but refused to let himself remember.

But those memories aren't repressed anymore, and neither is he.

So before things can get carried away, before he lets himself snap, he simply says: )

Get the fuck out.

ᴡᴇᴇᴋs 4-5 — ʀᴀɢᴇ ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ (closed)

[stations]

( After Jerry and Kyle disrupted Jack's infallible strategy of detaching from reality in the library for the rest of forever, it's like things began to shift internally. Like energy began to build from the moment he stepped foot back in reality, mounting in his chest, an anxious kind of pressure, ever-growing and expanding, expectant, waiting for him to act.

It's easier to be angry than sad. It's easier to think that he has any kind of control over this situation, and for a small voice in the back of his head to reprimand him for not doing something about it. Like maybe, if he just puts in enough work, enough effort, if he demands hard enough, if he uses magic, if he tries, he can get her back. His agitation grows with every passing day that he doesn't act on the impulse.

He isolates himself a little from his friends. Two or so weeks pass without him attending classes with either Yennefer or Istredd. He doesn't reach out to Kyle, or to Cassian, and only sees Jerry because Jerry insists on hovering.

When he overhears about a very important, urgent sudden meeting between Ambrose and a handful of other staff members just days before the summoning, it's like everything clicks suddenly into place. The universe has given him an opportunity, and he knows exactly what he needs to do.

But he needs help to do it.

And so, for the first time in weeks, Jack seeks Jerry out first. There's a new determination in his movements, a new sense of purpose in his eyes, and when Jerry offers him some soup Jack immediately swats it away. Except, he swats a little too hard, and it goes crashing to the ground. )

—shit, sorry, I didn't actually mean to do that, that was a total accident. Listen- this is more important than soup. I need a distraction. A big one. I need to get into a meeting room, and to do that I need you to keep the guards away for a few minutes. Think you can handle it?

[mathmetism]

[ jerry's in the kitchen, working on his chicken soup for healing your best bud's deep emotional wounds and unresolved trauma before he implodes. cool news: best friend has finally come to see him! less cool news: best friend just swatted the soup he was about to offer him like will smith hearing an unfunny joke. ]

Aw man, friendship soup.

[ jerry looks down at the soup puddle mournfully. hurtful. but it's fine, the more important thing is jack, whose only interactions with him recently have been telling him to go away, came to talk to him, all on his own. so, we're passed stage... whatever number dissociation and books and unhinged desperation is. Now onto stage: totally hinged plotting (with lingering notes of desperation, but calculated now, like desperation if it were pack of velocirapters).

we're scheming now, we're planning, we're taking the fight to the man, or woman, or the authority figure that does official shit like have meetings and guards. ]

Okie dokie. [ jerry doesn't need details. let's fuckin' go, boys. ] Can I handle it, uh, ch'yeah. Can a Peacock Mantis Shrimp’s punch create a sonic boom, boil water and break glass?

[ the answer is yes. don't throw hands with mantis shrimp. jerry eyes the cookware around him, taking inventory of distraction resources, and starts yanking down pots and pans and soup ladels and knives and— ]

Where's it going down, Capitan?

[stations]

In one of the chambers near where they do the summoning, in like-

( He looks down at his wrist. He doesn't have a watch. There is nothing capable of telling time on his arm, and yet he still says: )

Fifteen minutes.

( Can you replace friendship soup with friendship distraction in that amount of time?? )

aftermath; kyle.

[stations]

( All things considered, that could have been worse. It also could have been a fucking lot better, or not happened in the first place, but if it had to happen? Definitely could have ended worse. Jack could be in the dungeons right now, or... wherever they keep the prison. He could be a scorch mark on the castle floor, a victim to an errant fireball spell or some other such dungeons and dragons nonsense.

Instead, he's the fortunate victim of one timely intervention from Yennefer complete with a look that promises she's likely to rip him a new asshole, and a grounding to his room like he's a teenager — and then Kyle drags him away from the scene in a manner far less physical than he'd been drug out of the library.

He's a lot more compliant on their walk back to his room this time. There's no fighting it, no attitude, just the sullen, quiet walk of a man too defeated to even feel awkward in the silence that descends upon them. They haven't talked since the library thing. Give him enough time and he'll surely break that, he just... needs to spend a minute reflecting on how much he hates himself, and this castle, and life, and everything. )

[ushiri]

[ Kahlil is relieved that Jack simply follows him down the halls to the room this time. He's doing his best not to let show how alarmed he was to stumble into that situation-in-progress, annoyed with himself (and Jerry, to a lesser degree) for not stopping Jack before he made it to Ambrose's door.

The High Mage has been particularly forgiving, which he won't really question for now.

He hasn't spoken much to Jack since the library, leaving that to Jerry. He hasn't forgotten Jack's anger turned at him, and while he didn't defend himself then, he's not certain he would be so passive if they fought a second time.

Kahlil opens the door to the room to let Jack inside, still saying nothing, maybe waiting in vain for Jack to offer some explanation, like Kahlil doesn't already know why he'd attempt to steal the ritual. ]

aftermath; yennefer

[stations]

( The talk with Kyle calms him down a little. Or... a lot, actually. Gives him time to process what a monumentally bad decision the whole thing was, and to realize things he'd been... very adamantly refusing to realize, despite logically knowing better. Of course, even just seeing Yennefer try to make nice with Ambrose had done wonders to make Jack's logical thinking start to kick back into gear, and by the time he's more or less deescalated from all his ambitious notions, he knows there's a rough conversation he still needs to have.

And so, a few short hours after the whole explosion of bullshit wraps up, Jack goes looking for Yennefer. It's late in the evening, classes have let out, the hallways are quiet and largely empty. There's a gentle, contrite knock on Yennefer's door and, a moment later, it gently cracks open as he eases himself in. )

...Heeeyyyy.

( It's the weakest, pitchiest, most awkward greeting of all time. This is the sound of a man who knows he done fucked up. )

𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑤𝑖𝑐ℎ.

[stations]

ɴᴏᴄᴡɪᴄʜ ᴡᴇᴇᴋᴇɴᴅ → ᴠɪᴋᴛᴏʀ

[stations]

( Boy, it sure has been a series of weeks, hasn't it? From the return to normalcy after eight hundred years of whatever the fuck that was, to a little bit of grieving on Jack's part, to attempting to disrupt the entire system and almost getting himself thrown in prison for some very serious mistakes he'd been totally down to make — also on Jack's part — it's kind of a wonder any of them have recovered enough to actually go to Nocwich this weekend.

The change of scenery is nice, though. Getting a break from Thorne, which he maybe slightly kind of still wants to burn to the ground a little bit right now. Getting out of his room. Plus, he promised Viktor a book! And he's here to deliver.

It's the same place they'd met the first time around, about Jack's leg. Just easier to orient that way. Fortunately for them both, the slightly horny vampire from that first meeting is nowhere to be seen this time. Jack waits patiently with his own manifested mug of coffee, and with three books stacked on the table in front of him. )

[techmaturgy]

[Viktor hadn't exactly expected to stay the night in Nocwich--it's possible he forgot that there were plans to meet Jack, and the whole situation had involved some measure of waking up late, rushing out the door, and doing his very best to not look like he's had an impromptu sleepover.

But this isn't something he wants to miss. Kyle had mentioned the little kerfluffle at the castle, and Viktor has great sympathy for those left behind after a particularly significant disappearance. Besides, this will be a good opportunity to make sure the prosthetic leg is functioning correctly.

That's what he tells himself, anyway, as he enters the tavern. There's no case of mistaken identity this time, and Viktor invites himself to Jack's table, sliding into the chair and setting his crutch against the wall.]

Apologies. I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long.

𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑜𝑛.

[stations]

ᴜɴᴘʀᴇᴅɪᴄᴛᴀʙʟᴇ ᴍᴀɢɪᴄ & ʟɪᴍɪɴᴀʟ sᴘᴀᴄᴇ

[stations]

( For nearly two consecutive years, the Horizon has been home to a peculiar domain. This in and of itself is not saying much; many domains are peculiar, and many have been here as long or longer than the Gas Station. Other domains may be larger, or more impressive, or more surreal, but even still... anybody who sets foot on it can tell on some innate, instinctive level that there is something off about the place.

In reality, the Gas Station sits atop a dimensional rift in space and time. It's a crossroads, a trash can, a dumping ground. A nexus point for many universes intersecting, a place horrors of reality go when they need a quick place to rest, restock, and refuel. Maybe it's possible that because Jack carries so many thousand lifetimes of that void rift energy in his body, some of it has settled at the source of his domain just like its real life counterpart.

Or maybe it's just weird because all the snack food is off-brand and spelled just slightly wrong.

Despite all that, it's not entirely unpleasant here, usually. It's a nice touchstone for people from the right world and the right time period on earth to appreciate it for what it is, to go through those normal motions of filling up their gas tanks, of buying cheap alcohol, of eating artificial cheese.

In the weeks following the mass summoned godhood hallucination, though, something about the place seems... worse. It's perpetually nighttime. A new creature can be spotted occasionally by the dumpster, hiding just outside of the streetlamp view — a man in a blue raincoat, but with proportions ever so slightly off. His arms are too long, his hands too wide, his face obscured by a gas mask. When spotted, he slinks behind the metal bin and peers out from somewhere in the periphery. Inside, the interior too-bright halogen lights flicker periodically. The aisles feel a little too long, the shelves too crowded. The lawn gnomes stare too intently at anyone who ventures in.

It feels unwelcoming, and so does the presence behind the cash register. When Jack disassociates or slips into his dream states, sometimes they carry him to the Horizon. Sometimes he blinks, and realizes that he's sitting on his stool staring down at a book, and he cannot remember where he'd been out in the real world a minute prior.

Some of the same effects from out there carry over — the accidental manifesting of other people's memories into reality, pulling nightmares from unwitting passers-by and planting them in the room. Sometimes he funnels energy into others, causing their magics and their spells to react strangely. Sometimes he is a heavy psychic presence, and other times as he reinforces his shields he feels like a vacancy, a void.

Should you happen to swing by the restroom, the ghostly spectre of the bathroom cowboy sits perched atop a sink holding a violin, which weeps a gentle and haunting tune. All is not well in the Gas Station. )

what WHAT man come at me bro I do what I want

[infiniteban]

[Like clockwork.

Habits, back in order. Do the work around the Commune, take a dip into the Horizon, spin by the gas station, buy his things, shoot the shit, continue on, back to the Commune.

That should be how it goes--that should be what's expected.

Even Travis, Unbanned Travis, hesitates before entering the gas station. Truly waits outside feeling unwell in the face of whatever this is. He doesn't open the door with his hands. Not his normal hands, anyway. Instead a black sinew crawling out from his back, wrapped bone creaking bone, forms into an arm with a spidery hand that pushes the door open for him.

Travis squashes down the instant alarm on his face but this isn't the first time this has happened to him and he walks across the threshold into the gas station but he really fucking wants to walk back out without buying ("buying") anything and wow... wow. This is not...] The fuck's going on 'round here? Y'all miss your cleanup schedule or something?

[nomnoms]

NOM NOMS!

[ One day - in what probably isn't an unusual event at the Gas Station, though new in the sense that this is the first time this particular creature has ventured inside - a seven foot tall bipedal shark opens the door and starts eating everything off the shelves. Bags of candy, bags of chips, a garden gnome or two. ]

tw: vague mention of overdose (memory) [also this is old AF; please feel free to ignore!]

[tedandroses]

Teddy has been ...circumnavigating the Horizon, so to speak. Partly out of curiosity: Teddy's always been that kind of person. Drop her in a new environment and she'll start looking around, delighting in details she didn't expect, even if she can't be prepared for everything. Mapping in her head, creating her own particular landmarks.

And, yeah, partly to find people he misses. Or just want to talk to that he can't anymore now that they're not all gods and capable of completely transcending borders. That quiet lack of mooring underneath all the more solid things he's been doing.

Jack is someone Teddy keeps talking to, but hasn't really properly met (except in passing, in a future that's sort of a memory). They still feel like they know him almost vicariously, though, through and sort of around Jerry (and how fucked is it that that friendship, which feels much closer, has no more basis in this reality than Jack's; then again, Teddy has sort of quietly decided those memories are essentially real in the same way that most others seem to have decided they aren't).

Whatever the hell the nature of reality is or is not, when they step onto the grounds of the gas station, they're pretty sure they know exactly where they are, even though they've never quite been here before.

In some ways, it feels a lot like a number of independent gas stations that cling to the West Virginia - Kentucky border and other nearby highways, or other places Teddy's been in the course of driving to college, touring with a band. A little run-down, vaguely abandoned, the kind of place where you decide 30 seconds after telling your friends you're going to stay in the car that you're not out of an almost evolutionary instinct not to split up. But made up of parts refreshingly recognizable.

Or like they should be. Teddy thinks there are things about it that could almost feel nostalgic, only --

Only in other ways, it's nothing like that, in a way that isn't just weird but is nothing like the familiar weirdness particular to a gas station at all, which is how they know it's probably The gas station. (That and the fact that it'd be extremely odd for there to be that many people here who feel strongly enough about gas stations.)

On impulse, she looks around and heads purposefully for the fluorescence of the store. There's a slim, elongated shadow that -- isn't a shadow at all, it's a -- man-thing; it creeps behind the dumpster to peer when Teddy looks too long. "Okay, Slenderman, you stay on your turf and I'll stay on mine," she snarks at it pre-emptively, and swings the door open.

Inside, the gas station has a slightly acrid, chemical smell, and also the same kind of familiar-unfamiliar vibe. Teddy doesn't see anyone at first, but it feels weird to abandon ship immediately. That seems too close to admitting they want to talk to Jack and say what, even? Hey, sorry that your girlfriend got eaten by an alternate reality? I feel incredibly shitty that she didn't pop up in the wrong country?.

He turns down an aisle, looking vaguely at pickles that look like they could be from any local Southern small business and equally possibly like they were originally made on the off chance The Reds Press The Button. After a minute he decides to say yes to metaphysical snacks and grabs an off-brand kettle chips -- the, or an, actual version of "gator-taters" exists in West Virginia too; the increasingly voodoo-related spicy varieties don't (is it a good thing to evoke a god of death re: your spice level?) -- and heads to the drink section, not really looking especially closely as he opens the fridge.

It frames a hallway, a view into a low-ceilinged bedroom with wood panel and pale-yellow wallpaper where just beyond her tunnel-focused vision someone is convulsing on a bed, or -- is she? Is she, still? shit--

Someone's presence, close to Teddy, voice low and shaking. "What the fuck do you want to do, Teds. You gonna call the cops? In fucking Kentucky?"

Teddy slams the door shut before any more of this plays out. Annd that's my cue.

"Hey, your shitty memories freezer is out of date," she calls at -- nothing in particular, really; sort of more to stop her hands shaking than anything else. Then freezes, just a little, when she rounds the corner and someone (Jack, presumably) is sitting at the counter with a book.