Recording #004 | The Voice

[the_archive]

WHO: Jonathan Sims et al
WHAT: DOOM
WHERE: The return from the Horizon, and the dungeons.
WHEN: From July 24th to August 12^th
WARNING: Body horror, eyes, execution talk, mention of self-harm.
NOTES: Always up to add something more specific for any asker. I'm in the group disco at all hours, or on plurk as TheHats.

 

1.

Jon wakes up outside the rim of the crater with a sense of gentle, falling disappointment, staring up at the sky. He simply lays there for a while in the long grass, hands folded on his stomach, unmoving. It's one of the guards accompanying the mages that first notices he's awake, and they're swift to pull him to his feet. The guard who grabs his wrist to recuff him makes a startled sound when one of the three broad scars across Jon's throat opens and blinks lazily at him, and when another eye winks from the back of his neck, the guard escorting him back to the group pushes harder than necessary, sending him to his knees.

It's there he goes still, frozen, his eyes – all of his eyes, in their dozens now, every scar opening to show a different shade of iris with pinprick pupils – go wide as the voice sounds inside his head, for him alone, a dead language hissing like static between his ears.
 

H̷̨̀͂É̴̩̩͋L̷̘͂͝L̴̳̹͐Ö̴̠͉́ ̴̱̽͝H̴̡̱̎͝E̸̥̻̍̄L̵͈̽͜L̷̙͛͒Ọ̶́̔
̶̬̾Ý̸͓̖͝O̷̦͐U̴͈̿̒ ̷̳̔̀C̴̳̰̚A̸̰̔N̸͎͕̈́ ̸̗̦̂U̶̼̖͌Ṋ̶̛́ͅD̸͌̕͜E̴͖̩̅̽Ȓ̴͔͚̔S̸̘̔T̷͎͔͊͐A̶̰͑̎Ň̴̬͝D̷̙̂̐ ̸̨̦͂̊M̴͖̾Ě̷͔ ̶̹̙͆Y̷̺̱͛E̸̟̓͗S̶͎̀̒ ̸̧̥̆F̵̝̯͗I̷̛̯̔N̶̡̪͠Â̶͙̩Ĺ̸̖̭͝L̵͎̩̇Ý̸̲͈ ̷̙́ͅB̴̻̙́̈́È̶̖͖Ę̴̩͒̄N̴̺̋̑ ̵̛̮͠W̴̻̃A̴̗̞̍̕Í̷̻͝T̷͚͒́Ì̷̙̃͜Ṅ̴͖͖̂G̶̺̩̃

He doesn't answer when he's ordered to his feet,
 

Ç̵̥͗͑Ą̷͖͂N̴̨͈͝'̵̥̇̂T̶͔͍̕ ̶̬́͌T̵̹̔͘Ą̸̲͊͝L̷̺̓̚K̵͖̚ ̴̼̿́M̷̟̉̓Ǘ̵̠͐C̴̖̔H̵̜́ ̸̤͛Ṋ̸̄͝O̸͉̣͒̔W̵̱͐ ̸̱̻̅̚V̸̥͝͠Ẽ̷͚R̸̎͊͜Y̴̠̋̕ ̶̗̎E̵̡͒X̴̟̀H̷̘̀̓Ả̷̪U̸̞̦͊S̸̘̜̍T̶̡͙̀Ȋ̵̘N̵͓̬͂Ğ̵̢
̷͓͈͆I̷̅͜ ̵̯͌̒W̴͓͜͠I̶͔̝̍L̸̨̯̀́L̴̢̟͆͑ ̸̱̿Ș̷͆Ẹ̷͖͝Ṉ̸̼͊̎D̵̦̃ ̷̯̗̇͝M̷̤͐Ẏ̷͎ ̷̬̑Ȩ̵͍̏̏N̸̤͋V̷͚̺̾̇O̴͔̮̍̃Y̷̦͝

or rise when they yank his arm.
 

Ť̵̞̈́R̵̛͉̀Y̴̳͠ ̷̡̹̃N̶̘͆̉O̸̡͕̅T̵̨͗́͜ ̶͉̏́Ṭ̵̋Ȍ̸̺͓̚ ̷̢̬̽L̵̼̱̚O̸͙̾̔O̴͚̠͗͠Ḱ̸̢̕ ̷͉͈̔H̸̙̜͑̾E̶̻͒̈́ ̷̱̭̇̔I̵̻̩͗̾S̷̤̊͂ ̴͓̥̊Ǹ̶͍͇̍Ȍ̶ͅT̵͙̈́̄ ̷͕̎̓M̷͚̗̀E̴̝͛A̸͈̅N̶͓̏T̵͓̒̈́ ̸̰͙͌͌T̶͍̗̑̏O̶̡͙̽̑ ̸̠͆B̷͔͔͠E̸̼̔ ̴͙̍̓ͅS̶͉̽̏Ė̶̠̘̑E̴̪̓́͜N̷̻͍͐͝ ̸̤̉͊Ẉ̵̓̒I̴͍͋T̸̡̾H̴̖͉̎ ̶̗̠̀E̴̞̋Ẏ̴͖E̸͇̔S̴̩̕͜ ̸̀͜Ḁ̶̺̂͑Ṡ̶̯̘ ̸̱̈́͆O̸̝̓̃P̸͍͉͝Ę̶̪̚N̴͓͐ ̴̭͑Ḁ̵̱̆͂S̶̜̭͌̋ ̵̟̽̎Y̷͚̽O̷͔̙̔͒Ü̸̘̎R̸̺̚S̶͔̬̈́̚
̶̪̬̏I̸̢̝̓̀T̴̓ͅ ̸̳̃͛Ẇ̵̫̱Ȋ̶̘͔̇L̷͍͗L̸̦͊́͜ ̷̫̆͠H̶̤͍̾͝Ų̵͂̀R̶̰̳̈́̋Ţ̸͇̓ ̶̢͚̾L̵̳̍͛ͅĪ̸͎̜͝Ķ̴̗̈́̽Ē̴̡ ̷̜̀̚Ś̶̨̮T̸̢̎͜A̶̹̗̾̊R̷̝̄I̵̳̼͐̚Ǹ̴͖̥G̷̼͆̓ ̷̤́͠I̴͎̍N̷̫̻̎T̸̡͆Ỏ̵͔̱ ̷̣̽T̵̮̠̓H̷̦͒̇Ẹ̵̤́̒ ̷̪̔̄Ş̷̑U̴̹̫͆̔N̴̗̱͗̋ ̷͔͚͋̌

He's frozen in horror, listening to something other than their gruff orders,
 

W̴̨͗̈͠Ȃ̴̝̦I̸͍͕͂̿͝T̷̹̫̮͑ ̸̱͇͛̒͒F̴̧͕̬̋̏Ö̵̹͚͒R̵͔̔̃ ̶͉̲̂̂͑H̸̯̪̊Ī̴̳͚̈́̒M̴̢̼͔͊̚
̵̏͜S̶̖͂͝È̸̳̰̥T̷̿͜ ̸̫̮́̅M̵̺̒E̷̦̍͝ ̴͓͙̽̈́F̴̦͊̐̄ͅR̸̯̕Ẽ̵̘̆E̸͎̻̓ͅ ̵̼̊̀͌

and when they finally get him up, he staggers where he's pushed, stands where he's left, numb, pale, and breathing fast.

2.

He's still just as unsettled when they're returned to the cells. He manages to retreat to his bed, although there's no sleep for him. The new eyes don't all shut, not when he wants them too, and he twitches at every voice. Twitches and relaxes again when he realizes they're safe, he's only hearing them with his ears.

It takes him until the next day to begin to breathe easily again, and even then, the equanimity he displayed before the Horizon is gone. Instead of sitting by the bars to see who's coming down the corridor, now he paces, jaw so tense his head aches. It's not the Eye. He knows that much. What it is, what it might be, he doesn't know. And he fears.

Comments

1

[not_caroline]

If Coraline had been an Autumn Courtier, that fear coming off of Jon would have been a fantastic source of Glamour for her. It's still good, as is, but more importantly it serves to alert her that Jon is pants-shittingly freaking out.

So when she comes up by his side, darting to stand between him and the guards without heed to put a hand on his arm, it's only a tiny bit to harvest that Glamour (Jon won't even feel anything). Mostly she's legitimately concerned, and she's letting that vulnerability show on her face when she gives his arm a soft squeeze.

[the_archive]

He takes a long moment to look at her, blinking (blinking wrong, another eye open just below his left, smaller and more hazel than his own brown).

"... Did you hear it?" he asks, voice a shadow of itself.

[not_caroline]

Her eyes flick immediately to the new eye, and her own widen in surprise: but she doesn't recoil or let go. Apart from the sharp look, she doesn’t even flinch.

(Her grip tightens minutely and she wonders if he's seeing wood or skin with his new eyes.)

"No. No one's really been talking much."

[the_archive]

He shakes his head slightly, not surprised. His hand covers hers on his arm for a moment, his fingers cold despite the sunny day, and he looks away again, still too wound up for words.

2.

[moremilkplz]

Everything was coming up Homelander these days. The dream, the visit, the Singularity as the mages called it - had been wonderful and much-needed. The feelings of home, of victory, had lingered for hours and it still hasn't fully dispatched as he makes his way down to the dungeons.

No, those feelings linger. Warm him, when boredom and the trivial struggles of this world gets to him. When he wakes up to the sounds of someone else in the room, when he eats the food that tastes nothing like Campbell's and when he smiles tightly at the other... heroes.

But that's not why he's here. In the dark. While most people top-side are welcoming, smiling and waving at him like they are supposed to. He's down here, because that one roommate had betrayed Thorne.

Homelander stops in front of the cell, hands clasped behind his back. "Jon?"

[the_archive]

Jon looks up from his bunk, where he's sitting with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. And frowns. Not someone he's thrilled to see.

"Homelander."

As he sits up straight, the large eye in his throat opens, brilliantly green as it focuses on the visitor. Big as it is, it really ought to impede Jon's ability to breathe, but it doesn't even alter his voice.

"Didn't expect a visit."

[moremilkplz]

"Didn't really plan on coming down here again."

He lies brightly, his own eyes as green as Jon's for the moment. Another reminder that the home in the Singularity had left its mark on him. Aside from his cheery disposition, that is. He leans against the bars, watching Jon's eyes blink. "Why did you do it, Jon? Why would you do something so-" Homelander takes a deep breath, mock-disappointment thick in his voice,"- stupid."

[the_archive]

"Depends which part you're calling stupid." Though he thinks he knows. "Arranging a command interview with Ambrose, or doing it without an exit plan?"

2.

[rehandle]

The delay between arriving back from the Horizon and making his way down into the dungeons is purely practical. The execution has a date. Stephen's no good to anyone marching down to the cells with a head three quarters full of concern for the multiverse, quarter of fury over circumstance. So, even with the calculation muddied by the unsteady twisting of his mood, he'd still come to the conclusion that taking a day to gather his thoughts and reorient himself to the situation as it stands was a necessity as much as it was an expense of limited time.

But a day or so later make his way down he does, feeling his mood sour away from the carefully reconstructed neutral he's set himself in as his ability to reach out for magic is dampened and snuffed out by the descent.

There are a few people he ought to be talking to down here - and will check in on later. None of them are quite as pressing as this one. Stephen makes his way to the cell he'd last seen Jon occupying and— stops. A stride or two off from dead centre, whatever he might have had ready to say to him dries up before it makes it out of his mouth as he's blinked at by an eye that isn't where it ought to be.

Given what he knows about Jon Sims, eyes where eyes shouldn't be isn't the most promising development fresh out of another dimension.

"That's new," he says by way of introduction, tone tight.

[the_archive]

He's having a bad eye day, today. There's one open just below his own left eye, so close that the two orbs shouldn't both be able to occupy that space. The large one one in his throat is squinting, watering. And his bad hand has three, wide and blinking in the creases made by the burn scars in his palm. He's holding that hand in his lap where he's hunched on his bunk, rubbing along the other scars, trying to persuade them not to open as well.

"Started in that space," he says, voice a little rough with fatigue. "They seem to have followed me back."

[rehandle]

"Lucky you."

Not just the one he'd seen. Many. Many where many shouldn't be, all acting independently. They're not his - though they are now. But it seems as though he's yet to learn how to use them. He remembers that feeling: struggling to operate a piece of yourself that should be under your own control, fingers shuddering through motions where they once were steady.

"They've not happened before?"

Is it linked, this and that, an entity from elsewhere and the place the Singularity sent them. Was it given strength there?

[the_archive]

He shakes his head.

"No, never. And I'm still detached - I can't feel the Eye, not since whatever Ambrose did after I questioned him. I don't think they're from it, despite being... thematically appropriate."

2

[towerjunkie]

[ It's been about a week since a bunch of fresh faces have shown up. Roland's been working his way through the prisoners, getting what information he can out of them like he's done with the freer "guests" upstairs.

One thing he keeps hearing is about this Simms fella-- a man who one person tried to tell him had made an attempt on Ambrose's life and was now condemned to death for it. He's heard other things, about what the man looks like. It hasn't prepared him for the sheer number of eyes. Two's the right number, though Roland's known some good men who had half that many.

More than two--

He represses a shudder, at feeling so seen. Keeps the mingled curiosity and horror from his face. He's a gunslinger, not a squeamish untrained boy. ]

Hile, Jonathan Simms.

[ The customary "long days and pleasant nights" doesn't seem a fair greeting for someone condemned to death. ]

[the_archive]

[He's given up, for the moment, on trying to persuade them to close all at once. They only seem willing to do so in daylight. So the one in his throat is open, and one visible on his ankle, tiny and blinking. There's a third on the edge of his deeply-burnt palm when he pushes his hair back, looking up at the visitor. A stranger, this time, and he frowns absently.

Hello. I don't recognize you

[He's blunt as he gets up from his bunk to meet him at the bars. Jon doesn't really have the mental bandwidth for courtesy right now.]

[towerjunkie]

[ His gaze doesn't stray from Jonathan's face, not for a moment. ]

I'm one of those newly fished out of Sai Ambrose's marble washbasin. Roland Deschain is my name, of Gilead that was.

[ An edge of contempt accompanies the mage's name, Roland not being a huge fan of his. ]

I would hold palaver with you, if it do you well. You've made quite a name for yourself in these parts.

[the_archive]

He nods, after a pause and a soft exhale, and leans forward into the bars to look down the corridor as best he can. He wants to make sure he can't see a particular certain other person he'd rather not overhear, if they're about to talk about what he thinks.

"I don't suppose you mean Gilead in Jordan?"

2

[extremethirst]

He doesn't really stop at the cell. The elf runs by the cell, letting his fingers slap against the metal bars. It is just as he is about to run completely by that he grabs onto one of the bars and literally pulls himself backwards to look in.

"Martin was holding out on me." Nero comments, at first, as he looks the man over. He notes the various eyes that are sprouted all through his skin. "Here I thought the two of us were getting close with one another."

He slides his hands up and down the bars, as he draws himself closer. His lips curl into a wide, pleased smile. "Hi, Jon. I'm Nero."

[the_archive]

Jon's already getting used to strangers recognizing him, but his expression takes on a sharper wariness when Martin's name is said. He gets up from his bunk, and comes to the bars, putting himself in the corner where the wall blocks him from being seen by any cell other than the one opposite. The eye just below his natural eye stares fixedly, blue instead of his own brown.

"Martin's mentioned you. He says you have plans."

[extremethirst]

"He's mentioned me?"

The elf presses his hand over his heart as he looks downright happy that he's being talked about by the human -- and he is. It's nice to have someone that he is so fond of share stories about the kind of person that he is. That also saves the trouble of easing people into the kind of person that he is.

"Plans are a bold word." Nero can't help but admit that he hates plans. He does better with orders than he does with having to figure out how to do the fucking thing himself. "They're a work in progress."

He tilts his head from side-to-side as he looks at the eye underneath Jon's natural one. "Blink, motherfucker!" But it seems like the eye won't. "Neat."

2.

[falcony]

The Horizon, on its own, had been a lot to handle all at once. Sam has been spending most of his time back from it checking in on all those he had met, but if he'd been honest, Jon was one that he's had on his mind since waking up. The conversation they had, yes, but also the knowledge of what Sam didn't know while they were in the Horizon that he did now.

That Jon was imprisoned for 'assaulting' Ambrose. That he was set to be executed in just a few days time. The urgency around the situation hangs heavy on Sam, especially now, which is what finally pushes him down to go check on Jon himself. And it's not Sam's first time down here, either, so there's a lot he comes to expect to find when he makes it to Jon Sims' cell.

Except that extra sets of eyes? Yeah, that's not it. Sam pauses outside the bars, brows raised - shocked isn't exactly the best way to put it, but unexpected fits pretty well.

"I'm guessing you didn't have those before."

[the_archive]

Jon's glance up is three-eyed, his own and a third just under his left eye, so close to it that the geometry really isn't possible. There's another one open near the peak of his hairline, and more in the folds of the bad burn scar on his right hand.

He could not look less like the little boy that made black tea in Sam's house and worried about the fate of fireflies, but his expression softens to see the other man all the same.

"No," he confirms, giving Sam a quick glance-over to see if he came back with anything new. "Unpleasant souvenir."

[falcony]

Sam’s eyes move across each one of the eyes, swallowing back how uncomfortable the sensation of seeing so many in places they’re not supposed to be. It’s true, he couldn’t be further from the curious child that Sam had spoken to on the porch. Who asked about fireflies, about safety. Sam shouldn’t be surprised by the change, maybe, but part of him feel so…sad isn’t the right word, but sympathetic.

He wonders what Jon has gone through to make it so the last time he felt safe had been so long ago? He guesses the eyes are a good clue to that, though.

Still, Sam feels his own tension ease when he sees Jon watching him. It’s a little crazy, how Sam can still feel attached, fond, connected to all the people just because of what the Horizon had created for him.

“You don’t sound all that freaked out.”

When Jon looks at Sam, he’s going to see someone almost exactly the same as the one he met in the Horizon. The only difference is rather than the easy happiness he’d exuded there, now Sam seems to have a low-grade uncertainty about him. Something more serious.

“You doing okay down here? Besides…” The obvious.

2

[iobject]

Phoenix isn't doing too hot after the Horizon himself. The whole experience has made it starkly clear to him that not only is he far from home, but there is no sign that he will ever go back, and his daughter has been left behind by another father.

But there's someone who needs his help.

Phoenix smells of cigarettes when he comes down to the dungeon--a habit he broke, but has been driven to pick up again from the stress--but he's brought food. Decadent, buttery pastries that range from full of jam or cheese to meat. A man on death row ought to eat well.

He's good at feigning a smile when he finds Jon. "Hey there. I'm glad to see--" He stops abruptly, his smile flickering. "What... are those eyes?"

Re: 2

[the_archive]

Jon's getting quite used to that response. It's fun*. He smiles hollowly, one tiny eye blinking from his cheek, among two week's stubble.

"Souvenir of our shared fever dream. Apparently something thought I needed a new perspective."




*It's not fun.

[iobject]

...Horrifying.

Phoenix schools his face again. He isn't an undefeated poker champion for nothing. "Well, I guess it's not any weirder than anything else we've dealt with so far."

Phoenix offers the basket of food he's brought down. "Are you hungry?"