abraxaslogs | Tʜᴇʏ sᴀʏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ ᴄᴏᴍᴇs ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ( ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ-ᴀʟʟ )

Entry tags:

Tʜᴇʏ sᴀʏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ ᴄᴏᴍᴇs ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ( ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ-ᴀʟʟ )

Who: Jack & Company
When: August
Where: Thorne, Horizon
What: Catch-all
Warnings: mental instability, violence, (self) gaslighting

𝐹𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝, 𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔
𝑆𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘 '𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒
𝑆ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠

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(content warning: suicidal ideation-ish, violence)

[ The one saving grace in all of this is that his memories seem intact this time around. When he closes his eyes he can clearly remember killing Nanvess, the hot spill of blood between his fingers just before jumping through the Gray Space and in front of Jath'ibaye. He remembers the yasi'halaun piercing his chest and retreating back into the Gray Space. He remembers the cold, sterile air and deciding right then and there to die in that place, taking the holy blade with him where no one else might find it again.

On his too-soft bed he sits cross-legged, touching the place on his abdomen where the blade had pierced. His shirt covers what should've been a lethal wound, another scar now.

There's no mark to show what the yasi'halaun should've done to his soul. It almost funny to think that even it would reject him, and yet here he is: alive, somehow, and having been thrown through the White Space into a world that shouldn't exist.

He pulls his forefinger and thumb apart, but the Gray Space doesn't open. He can feel it, fainter than a whisper across his bones. At first he found this comforting, to be severed from his abilities would've been the surest sign of damnation. But as this second day wears on he's finding himself more frustrated.

If he'd been able to jump into the Gray Space he would've been observing his roommate from there, and not just watching him from the other side of the room as he is right now. At first he'd thought Jack was only meditating, until he remembered what the stranger in the dining hall had told him.

So, he sits and waits. ]

( Jack, as a general rule, doesn't meditate. Not that he has anything against the concept like... morally or psychologically, it's just not really in his wheelhouse. What sometimes looks like meditating back home is actually just him zoning out, losing time, dreaming while awake, hallucinating. Here, it's a fifty-fifty gamble one whether he's doing that still, or he's visiting the Horizon — and if he had to be completely honest, he'd admit he doesn't actually know the difference sometimes. He dream-hallucinates himself back at the gas station. His domain is the gas station. The lines get blurry. He can't tell them apart most days, and he tries not to think about that.

As it so happens, this time he really was in the Horizon. Like, on purpose, intentionally, with memories of both choosing to go there, spending time there, and choosing to leave, so... all things considered, a pretty good day.

He's there for a while; having a good day does not mean he has any better a grasp on the passage of time. Could have been a few minutes, could have been a few hours, could be that the time spent in the Horizon is disproportionate to the time spent outside of it and it's only been seconds. Who knows. He's not a scientist, nobody's paying him to try and figure that math out.

In any case, when he blinks his eyes open again, it takes him a few seconds for his brain to process what he's looking at.

He's staring at Kyle. Which he'd a little embarrassed about, except he realizes a second later that Kyle is staring back, and so for a long moment there's just awkward silence and more staring.

Which at some point... starts to feel a little bit like a competition.

Jack is, from time to time and about the weirdest things, a little too competitive.

Congratulations, Kyle — whether you're in on this or not, this is now a staring contest. )

[ Jack finally opens his eyes, and at that flicker of embarrassment Kahlil begins to open his mouth to apologize— but it's gone so quickly from Jack's features that he only cants his head ever so slightly, raising an eyebrow at the intent behind Jack's unblinking stare. ]

I knocked. [ he says, with an apologetic one shouldered shrug. He knocked on the already open door, anyway, but it is his room too.

Maybe Jack will think he's strange, but not the same way that John would— ]

Were you visiting somewhere else?

[ His demeanor shifts slightly. This is a serious question, one with a follow up.

But also he's yet to blink. ]

( I knocked; Jack blinks.

Damn it.

A slight wrinkle of displeasure passes across his nose, but then he moves on by totally pretending like they were never having a staring contest in the first place, and he definitely didn't lose. )

Was I- ( He starts, only to realize a second later what exactly Kyle means. ) Oh, you mean, like... mentally. Yeah. Sometimes I go to the Horizon to read when the books around here don't really cut it. It's not exactly the same, but...

( He shrugs a shoulder. Rereading stuff he hasn't read in a few years scratches the itch at least a little where medieval double-fantasy can't. )

[ It's alright, Jack. He won't gloat.

It's not exactly the same gets raised eyebrows. But he leans forward slightly where he sits. ]

Would you be able to show me now?

[ Straight to the point. Maybe if he could access the Gray Space he would've held off a little longer. But that conversation in the dining hall only highlighted the danger of his own ignorance. He shouldn't wait. And Jack, well. He's kind, and he's harmless. That's about as close as he'll get to feeling comfortable with another person in such a short amount of time. ]

The Horizon?

( He's not sure why he's asking, there's literally nothing else Kyle could be talking about. )

Sure, I guess.

( Agreed easily enough. After a pause and a glance around, he shifts back on his bed to make room — legs (leg and a half, his prosthetic remains abandoned on the ground at the foot of the bed) crossed, and a hand palm-up on one thigh. )

Um, the first time I think we have to be touching to make it work? At least, that's how they did it with me.

[ He unwinds his legs, slipping off his own bed to step toward Jack's. Kahlil hovers for a second, standing at the edge with an almost invisible flicker of abashed uncertainty, as if entering someone's personal space when invited is somehow more of an imposition than asking to share a mind space.

His hesitation doesn't last more than a moment before he gracefully slides into a mirrored position. Jack doesn't seem self-conscious over the missing length of his leg, and Kahlil makes no comment on it or the prosthetic on the floor. His gaze fixes on Jack's upturned palm instead, frowning thoughtfully. ]

That's really all there is to it?

[ Meditation and holding hands.

He's never been good at meditating. But mostly it seems wrong that this would be so easy. ]

Basically.

( Which isn't... actually true, it's just that Jack is a terrible person to be shepherding anybody into the Horizon for their first trip. He doesn't put a ton of depth of thought into the different psychological implications, the traps, the pitfalls, the possibilities. He doesn't consider what could lie on the other side of the Horizon for a stranger, that it might not be a place as simple as his own. That not everybody might be as comfortable sharing that place as he is with his own — it's a gas station, random people go in and out of it all day every day, that's kind of the point. )

The first time you go in is a little weird, I think somebody mentioned forgetting things until they left again? But it's a temporary side-effect, it just happens once. Kind of like accidentally chugging too much cough syrup after your second Four Loko, but with way less hangover. Also... fewer ants.

( A beat. )

I mean, hopefully. Assuming your domain isn't on an ant farm or something. No offense if it is, I'm sure they'd be great ants, you just don't strike me as the type.

Edited 2022-08-07 07:26 (UTC)

Are you trying to convince me that this is an awful idea?

[ His brow furrows. ]

Because it's almost working.

[ He shakes his head, eyeing Jack one last time before he extends both hands forward, palms up.

It's hard to tell that he's holding his breath. Like that last second before jumping into waters you know to be frigid. He has no idea really what he's asked to be led into. But it's either this or sit idle and powerless. The choice is an obvious one, when he looks at it that way. ]

Sorry.

( He says, and though he sounds polite enough, he also doesn't sound that sorry. The whole concept is sketchy at first, he is well aware of this and is the exact wrong person to try and pitch it as anything but. If Kyle sticks around for any length of time, he'll learn something about Jack pretty quickly: Jack is an awful liar. Like, fucking terrible. He doesn't even bother trying, and when he does, the results are actually second-hand embarrassing.

Sugar-coating stuff is kind of like lying.

Anyway, he doesn't offer much else by way of reassurance once Kyle submits his hands. He just settles his own over them — surprisingly strong for such a skinny guy, palms calloused from manual labor, both of the 'working at a gas station' variety and of the 'spent too much time with a shovel digging huge holes' variety, complete with the unmistakable half-absence of a severed pinky finger. Sorry, Kyle. Hope none of that grosses you out. )

So, just... close your eyes, take deep breaths, and... think about wind chimes or something. It shouldn't take long.

( He takes his own advice — sort of. The closing his eyes part, anyway. He doesn't think about wind chimes, but rather allows himself to fall into the strange, instinctive feeling of gently tugging Kyle's mind along with him into a space that he's now well-versed in reaching himself.

It won't take long. Minutes at most, before they slip from their bodies and find themselves standing in Kyle's domain. )

Edited 2022-08-07 07:56 (UTC)

[ That's alright with him. He'll take a bad liar over the alternative— someone like himself, or worse. He hasn't known Jack long enough to say he trusts him, but Kahlil trusts that Jack means well.

Their palms meet, and the callouses are a little unexpected. And there's the severed finger, but like the missing half of his leg Kahlil doesn't seem bothered, only curious. Another reminder that he knows next to nothing about Jack except the vague understanding that he's been through something terrible and strange in his life.

He'll have to find a way to ask, this time. It helps that Jack is nothing like Alidas.

Kahlil's hands have their own callouses across his palms. His sleeves are pulled back enough from the movement to show his wrists, covered in thin white criss-crossed scars, most of them faded now by over a decade, but there are one or two that are newer. On Nayeshi he made a point to keep them covered, wearing long sleeves on even the hottest days. The Prayerscars on his eyelids were strange enough for most people. He was proud of them, so he didn't mind the odd looks he got whenever he had to walk in public. But when people caught sight of his arms— that bothered him sometimes. It didn't take him long to overhear in a whisper that people tended to think the scars were self-inflicted. They had no idea who he was, or what those old wounds signified.

Neither will Jack, though that's kind of the least of his worries right now.

After a second he closes his eyes, pulls in a breath through his nose and out his mouth. Repeats that again, then again. Their room is quiet, he doesn't have to work to block out much. There's no sounds of a house settling, no pipes rattling behind the walls...

He doesn't remember opening his eyes. There's an expanse of land in front of him, but it's hard to fix his attention on any single piece of architecture or greenery, all except for the towering figure in the center and the impression of a gas station in the near distance.

He recognizes nothing about the stranger next to him until his gaze settles on the Moon symbol. He presses his own hand on the Hanged Man motif etched into the leather of his duster. ]

It's so empty. [ he remarks— mostly to himself, walking a slow circle around Jack, his gaze fixed on the ground. He doesn't remember what he expected, or if he had any expectations at all. After he completes a circle he stops, crouching down and placing his palm on the ground. ]

( If it's any consolation, Jack doesn't so much as glance at those scars. He can be observant at times, but usually those times are reserved for when shit is hitting the fan and he has to step up to control unwinding chaos before somebody dies. Outside of peak insanity, his observational tendencies tend to do what the rest of his brain can't — they curl up in bed and take a nap. The truth is, even if he had noticed, that's exactly the kind of thing he would decide is absolutely none of his fucking business, and he wouldn't spend more than a couple of seconds thinking about it before pointedly and decisively moving on without judgment.

He's not really sure what he expected Kyle's domain to be. Not an ant farm, that much is sure, but he doesn't actually know the guy very well. Nothing about him screams beachside resort, baseball stadium, or bunny ranch, but all the same, practically vacant wouldn't have been on his list.

He doesn't remember creating his own. It was only ever going to be the gas station. Maybe he skipped the creation process altogether? )

Yeah, it is pretty... ( He searches around for a world that doesn't sound offensive, and ultimately settles on: ) Minimalist. You should think about getting a fountain or some posters or something sometime.

[ It should bother him that he can't remember anything of his history beyond his own name. He should probably feel more suspicious of the person he's speaking with right now, all things considered.

He glances over his shoulder at the other man, his fingers digging into the bone white sand.

The Moon, the dreamer.

That feels like fate. ]

I think you should either leave— [ he cocks an eyebrow ] or stand very, very still.

[ He doesn't want him to leave, but he offers the warning anyway.

He lets his hand slide further into the sand, and the ground beneath them begins to shift. Echoes of thoughts become shapes become solid forms, the first to appear is a tree, its dark iron trunk laced with veins of gold as branches surge up to almost the height of the marble walls that begin to solidify around them, a glass dome catching the light some seventy feet above their heads. From the iron branches sprout pale crystal leaves, and from their tiny buds form crystalline fruits: bright red, translucent apples that cast dancing ruby lights on the stone floor.

Lanterns burn on the walls, incense burns from holders that bloom around the tree like so many flowers, lazy smoke trails drifting up through the metal branches.

Whoever he is, he isn't an ascetic. There's nothing minimalist about the temple that's built into existence around him.

It's not finished, but it's a good start.

He reaches up to take one of the crystal apples, surprised and not surprised to find it doesn't feel like holding a stone: there's a fleshiness to it when he squeezes, and so he doesn't hesitate to take a bite. The inside is a pale yellow, just as translucent and alien as it appeared from the outside.

The taste is like—

It's only right then that remembers he might still have an audience. He turns around, looking to see if the dreamer remained or if he left. ]

Edited 2022-08-08 06:24 (UTC)

( The wonder of creation that unfolds around them is, in the most literal dictionary-definition sense of the word, awesome. Jack isn't a very expressive person by nature, but even still it's pretty visible on his face that awe was, in fact, inspired.

He sees a lot of crazy shit in his life. A lot of terrible shit, a lot of fucked up shit. Usually traumatizing, scary, violent, or abstract to the point of being nearly incomprehensible.

But he doesn't see a lot of beauty. )

Wow.

( Suffice it to say, the dreamer remained. )

...I guess that's a little bit better than a poster, yeah.

[ At this awe and approval he smiles, as wide and uninhabited as if he'd drank a gallon of fathi. ]

Come on, dreamer. [ He tosses the apple to Jack. If he catches it, he'll note that it feels no different than a regular apple. If he drops it, it'll crack on the stone floor, shattering in half from the place where a bite had been taken from it.

Whichever happens, he strides gracefully toward the open doorway of the temple, out to the garden that wreaths it. Apple trees grow out here too, but of the normal, wooden variety. Grapevines creep up the stone lattice built into the structure, their fruits ranging from green to pink to dark purple. A clear stream winds around the structure, a single path crossing from the doorway outward.

He walks backwards from here, staring up at the two stone figures flanking the temple, they stand just a bit taller than the glass dome. Both are men, their musculature detailed so realistically that you might have to look twice to be sure their chests hadn't just risen and fallen with living breath. They have their arms outstretched, beckoning. Their faces aren't entirely formed yet, but there are details that mark them as different from each other. One springs from a base carved of flowers and ivy that encircles him, something naturally inviting and warm in his pose. The other forms from a base carved of rushing waves and crumbling earth, his outstretched arms seem to welcome the destruction around him. ]

I can't remember what his faces are meant to look like. [ His grin fades at this realization, shifting into unease— but then his attention shifts almost suddenly, his gaze locking on the closest neighboring Domain with raised eyebrows. ]

Is that yours?

[ The gas station. ]

Edited 2022-08-08 06:47 (UTC)

( He does technically manage to catch it. It slips out of his hand once, goes bouncing up into the air, slips out of his other hand, and winds up cradled against his chest like a newborn baby before he manages to secure it, but he does catch it. Once physics stops fighting him, he takes it in hand and holds it up to get a proper look at it in the light.

Definitely not the kind of fruit they sell at the gas station.

Mostly because they don't sell any fruit at the gas station, but this thing is incredible.

He's not normally a huge advocate of eating after people he barely knows, but... come on, how often do you get the chance to bite a crystal apple? He has to admit, it's tempting.

In the end, he figures it's probably safer to gently set the thing down at the foot of the tree before he follows — just in case it's like a big, significant... religious... fruit... situation. He'd hate to be That Guy.

He catches up and falls into step right on time for the question, and follows Kyle's sight line onward toward his own domain. )

Yeah. ( Which sounds only faintly embarrassed. Probably not as much as he should if we're being realistic, but it's there a little all the same. Can you blame him? Comparatively speaking, he feels a little bit like he did as a kid, walking into class with a duct-taped backpack and Social Services donated clothes two sizes too big — just to sit down next to the rich kid.

Despite that, he still sounds light and easygoing when he speaks again. ) I think you just gentrified me.

[ There's no particular religious significance to the apples or the tree of iron beyond the obvious: all things come from Parfir. Only the statues signify any relationship to the Payshmura Church, and even they aren't copies of any that exist in Basawar.

( something he'll have to consider when he returns, with his memories )

Kahlil chuckles at the dreamer's remark, shaking his head before inclining his chin toward his Domain again. ]

I promise I'm not judging— but... why a gas station?

[ Kahlil puts emphasis on the question, genuinely curious. He could create anything, there must be more to it. He wouldn't have formed one if it didn't hold some meaning to him. ]

Edited 2022-08-08 17:30 (UTC)

( Jack blinks — like it never even occurred to him to question it himself. Like he never thought it would come up, like nobody would ever wonder let alone ask. )

That's where I work, back home. ( He answers simply, with a shrug. ) I guess I own it now, technically, but... yeah, I've spent most of my adult life there, more or less.

( And a lot of his non-adult life there too, in a way, considering Sabine had been his life from age seven onward. Considering her parents owned it, and everywhere he lived seemed to be within a certain proximity to the place.

It probably sseems stupid, making his domain his job, but... )

I don't really have anywhere else.

( Even his house isn't really his house. It's certainly not his home. It's just... where he goes when he's off the clock. It's the place he showers and stores his books. )

It's what you think of when you imagine home. [ He nods, frowning slightly. Then, matter-of-factly: ]

It's become a part of you.

[ There and here now.

It might be strange, but he's sure that there are people who would find this temple strange. It's all a matter of perspective.

He smiles at the dreamer again, then glances toward the gas station, eyes narrowing. ]

Do you have nachos and cheese?

[ It is a gas station. ]

Edited 2022-08-09 02:33 (UTC)

( Jack doesn't say anything about it, but he takes a minute to consider the concept — and ultimately decides home isn't quite right. It's a part of him, yes, but it doesn't feel like home. It feels more like... his responsibility. His obligation. As long as the gas station exists, someone needs to guard it, and there's nobody who knows it better. Nobody better capable of surviving it. At least, nobody that doesn't have terrible intentions.

The gas station is his duty.

Of course, explaining that to a stranger would sound absolutely batshit, so he just nods and carries on. )

It's a gas station. ( He answers, like it should be obvious. ) Of course we have nachos. Come on, they're on the house this time.

( And probably every time since money here is fake, but they'll cross that bridge when they come to it. )

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Tʜᴇʏ sᴀʏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ ᴄᴏᴍᴇs ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ( ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ-ᴀʟʟ )

roommates || first horizon attempt, slightly forward-dated

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