postictal: (rethink that move son | smoking)
Tim W█████ ([personal profile] postictal) wrote in [community profile] applesaucedream2015-07-27 09:32 am

let them be buried (buried alive) in their suits, in their ties [closed]

It's Rosswood. It's always Rosswood.

The trees yawn ever skyward, jagged, sharp-toothed things with branches unguiculate, reaching toward him, past him, into him. The irregular chiaroscuro of the stretching branches turns them into knobbed, spiny things, like the bones of a joint laid bare, stripped of flesh, muscle and viscera peeled away. He can see his breath, frosted puffs of it leaching the warmth from his bones every time he exhales. The trees blot out the sky. The forest is black. Everything is black, cast in cold grayscale, with trunks painted ashen and leaves soaked in pitch.

This is where he belongs.

He can always feel it pressing over the posterior parts of his skull, clawing to be let out like the caged thing it is. He grits his teeth, as if that will hold it in while it tries to wrench its way out of an opened maw, scuttling free on spidery legs.

Spider.

Hey, that's a thought.

He's in a web. That makes sense. His life has been nothing but webs, puppet strings tangling him, tying him to the spindled thing that lurks in his head, in him. And that thing, always like a spider the way it reeled them all in, well, it just makes sense, doesn't it. He strains against the threads of the sprawling filigree, not silvery and dew-crested but inky, gelatinous and ectoplasmic, clinging to him, miring him, tethering him, holding him down. He tugs against the constraints, but it's nothing more than a cursory struggle. He's too goddamn tired for anything else.

He let Jay die. Let him slip away. Of course Tim's trapped. It makes perfect sense.

But then, Jay looked at him. He looked at him, not full of wild despair but dull acceptance and that, that, that had been the worst thing.

Tim clenches his jaw and pulls again. He pulls.

The webbing holding him down snaps free with the rending sound of tearing elastic. He's falling. He falls forever, until he hits the ground in a tumbling skid and lies there, panting, sucking in greedy gulps of breath despite the chill in his lungs and in his bones and worming into his heart, heartless little beast, little creature, little thing you are, he has to pick himself up and run because that's what he does, that's all he ever does is fucking run and never face anything.

Little. Fucking. Monster.
deadeyedchild: we need to keep going (this is your last chance)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)
He's so fucking tired but he doesn't sleep anymore. No idea how long it's been. Drifting in and out, dropped into dreams and pulled out again, sometimes too fast to know where he is, sometimes only with faceless strangers. And at every in between he's floating, unmade, unraveled; and when he's not that, he's with the cats. Pawing and kneading at him and speaking sweetly into his head like this is all for his own good.

The familiarity of this dream is almost a relief. Almost.

He's suspended high off the ground in between two trees, inexplicable white birches like sharpened bones, not floating but caught, ensnared in something black and inky, tendrils wrapped around his arms, his legs, his chest, coiling up to his throat. When he tries to struggle it wraps tighter - it's not just a web, it's a living, or at least responsive, thing, clinging to him, punishing every movement with ever increasing tension. He lets out a strained gasp.

Whose dream is this? He doesn't dream himself, so who'd put him here?

Well, the answer is obvious.

"Tim," he whispers, and then he raises his voice, hoarse, cracked, desperate, projected into the darkness and the trees: "TIM!"
deadeyedchild: Leave. Now. (I am not a hero)

tw asphyxiation stuff

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
"Tim," he gasps again in something like relief when he sees him barreling out from the woods. He has no idea how much time has passed; he's been beginning to think he'd never see Tim again, that the Rift wouldn't let him, outside of that one disastrous weird fucking dream that had Tim grinning and bellowing like a totally different person.

But there he is. And he's climbing now. Like he thinks he can fix this.

"No," he protests, surprised and ragged. "No! Tim - don't-!" His words twist off into a strained, agonized hiss as the threads constrict around his chest, don't speak, little one, just let him come to you, to us. His breath comes in shallower but he can't surrender now.

"Tim, just listen to me!" he cries. "You're dreaming! Don't you remember?!"

He gasps and sucks in harsh, painful breaths as the webbing squeezes his throat.
deadeyedchild: did you know who it was (this wasn't supposed to happen)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 06:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't know if you can," Jay says between short breaths. "I'm - I'm still dead, just - the Rift is keeping me, I can't-" his inhales become even more strained as the tendrils continue to tug and tighten, like it can't decide whether to crush him or pull him apart, "-nnh - I can't choose where I go. I've been trying to reach you for-"

The web ripples beneath him, pulling taut at his arms and legs, forcing his back to arch, his head reeling back. He can't argue against Tim coming to get him, not when it hurts so much, not when he's sure it'll just rip him up if Tim doesn't reach him in time.

"Tim-" he whispers, the word slipping between dry lips, barely enough breath behind it to give it voice.

The web reacts again, nothing he can do will please it apparently; the threads stop pulling and instead wrap around him more completely, shifting his arms down to his sides, cocooning him in thick, oozing darkness, snaking up from his throat to circle around his eyes so he can't look to Tim for help, his mouth so he can't even scream.
deadeyedchild: I have no one (brave is just another word for stupid)

tw: drowning

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Jay gasps for air as the stuff is torn from his face, struggling anew with Tim here to help him, feeling the web's tautness slacken and break around him as it fails to adapt to both of them fighting it at once. He wriggles his shoulders free and finally gets an arm out, grabbing hold of Tim and using him for leverage. He grunts as he writhes inelegantly out, until he hears a satisfying snap - immediately the balance of weight shifts, there's no longer anything tethering him, and he tips forward into Tim, grabbing hold of him as if letting go would mean permanent separation, and they fall.

They land not on the forest floor but in seething water. Too startled to do anything but flail momentarily, Jay starts to sink, and as his hands reach up for Tim's he feels something wrap tight around his ankle and pull him down, drown him just below the surface. He panics and thrashes, trying to kick loose the unyielding hold. The dream, or the Rift - whatever - it must be trying to kill him here, trying to end the dream before he can tell Tim anything. His fingers breach the surface as he fights to move upward, but it's not enough.
Edited 2015-07-27 19:47 (UTC)
deadeyedchild: waiting on you (the fuck was that)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Jay hangs on hard to Tim's hand, still kicking and fighting wildly for freedom - if he doesn't get unhooked fast he's going to drag Tim down with him, and that'll be fucking that.

He doesn't know what triggers it, but suddenly the grip on his leg loosens and then lets go, the tension release launching him up through the water and allowing them both to float back to the surface.

He breaches coughing violently, and flounders toward the shore, reaching out to pull Tim along with him.

He drags himself out onto an incongruous shore, not the mossy wooded banks they were used to, but hard rock, like the ocean's edge. Doesn't matter where. It seems like there might be nothing here to latch onto him, at least for the moment, so he allows himself to just cough on his hands and knees, and then finally collapse into a shuddering pile of limbs.

"Fuck," he blurts.
deadeyedchild: keeping an eye on it from nearby (be alone)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah," he gasps, blinking up at Tim. "Yeah, I'm still here."

He pulls himself upright, trembling a little, wraps his arms around his waterlogged self. "I've been showing up in people's dreams, like, at random," he says, trying to get his voice to stop shaking. "I was looking for you. How - how long has it even been?"

He's embarrassed to even look at Tim, much less reach out to him, which is what he wants to do, inanely. He misses people - misses Tim, weirdly, or maybe not weirdly at all.
deadeyedchild: what did you do (regrets everything)

tw implied suicide ideation

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 11:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Jay makes a small noncommittal sound and finally gives Tim a tentative glance. "The Rift is keeping me here," he says. "I mean, not here, but like - not dead, not alive, bullshit. When I'm not in someone's dreams or floating in fucking oblivion I'm with those cats. There's a bunch of them." He shudders slightly and pulls his arms even closer around himself. "They just keep... prodding at me and asking me questions... I'm just a thing to them. I don't know what they want."

Well, he can take a guess. Probably more or less the same things they were after when they cornered the two of them before.

"I guess it's... probably something to do with, uh." He shrugs warily. "You know. Everything that's... in my head. I don't know."

He stares out at the water, grim, feeling more exhausted than ever. "I just want to be gone for good," he admits in a quiet voice.
Edited 2015-07-27 23:11 (UTC)
deadeyedchild: so is this where Alex... (you are distorted)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Jay looks at him again, more of a real look than a glance this time, almost studying him.

"Tim," he says slowly, "it's not your fault. None of it - I mean, not what happened to me. I didn't have to watch those tapes. I didn't. You were right about - I shouldn't have put them on the fucking internet, I shouldn't have gone looking. I should have just... fucking trusted you. I got myself killed, Tim, not you."

He has no idea how helpful any of that is but it's something that seems like it needs to get said. He's been half-existing in metaspace for long enough now that certain thoughts have solidified. Maybe that, and this unreal landscape, makes them easier to voice.

"This isn't something you have to fix," he says. "You can just live your life, okay? It's - it's not here, it didn't follow us. I'm pretty sure, just based on what the cats are... I mean, it... it isn't keeping you tied down anymore, and neither am I. You can just let me go. It's okay."

Well, it is and it isn't. He's terrified, still, dreading going back to being indefinitely pinned under various paws, but maybe they'll get bored with him eventually. And seeing Tim now, somehow it's just so fucking apparent how torn up he is over this, how torn up he always was. And he doesn't want that. He wants to stop hurting and being afraid, but if only one of them can get that, maybe Tim has a better chance.
Edited 2015-07-27 23:34 (UTC)
deadeyedchild: when you say "trouble", do you mean...? (excuse the fuck out of you)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-27 11:58 pm (UTC)(link)
"I know that's what you think," says Jay impatiently. Fuck this. He picks himself up to follow Tim, reaches out and grabs his shoulder. "It's too late for any of that, okay? You have to fucking let it go or it's gonna destroy you. Whether it was your fault, or mine, or Alex - or none of us, it doesn't matter anymore. This is all there is left. You and me, right here. And this? This has nothing to do with any of that shit. This is just some - totally different thing that decided it wanted to chew me up. I don't want that to happen to you. Fuck, you and Jessica made it, okay? That's - that's the best outcome we could have got. 'Cause you deserve better. You do."

He lets his hand slip down, looks away again, back at the water. Tired.

"You don't need me anymore," he says. "I'm just - I'm dead weight. I know it."
Edited 2015-07-28 00:03 (UTC)
deadeyedchild: in case something happens to me (stay home)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-28 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
Jay flinches subtly at the stab of Tim's finger, mostly a kneejerk reaction. He looks down at the ground, taking all of this in, knowing there's nothing he can say to combat it. It'll just be them arguing in circles over which of them is more worthless, and fuck that. He's had enough of it.

"Fine," he says. "Fine. Whatever you want." There's no bite to the words. He's simply out of energy to fight. He looks back up at Tim, hesitantly meeting his eyes. "How are you gonna do it?"
deadeyedchild: so is this where Alex... (you are distorted)

[personal profile] deadeyedchild 2015-07-28 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
Jay frowns, trying to come up with an argument against such a weird-sounding idea, but he finds he can't. Maybe that is enough. Maybe that's all it'll take. He's been floating around long enough that 'following' someone out of his dream seems... not as stupid as it would have, a while ago. However long it's been.

"Okay," he says slowly. "I'll try."

He stands there for a moment, still hugging himself against the dreamed up wind. "Hey, Tim, uh." He shifts his weight, looking at his feet. "Thanks."