Jay Merrick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
deadeyedchild) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
applesaucedream2015-06-29 02:12 am
deadeyedchild) wrote in applesaucedream2015-06-29 02:12 am
Ark Awaits [open to multiple]
He is awake.
He doesn't have a body, and he remembers dying - again - he remembers slipping out, Tim unable to keep him there in spite of his hardened insistence that he wasn't going to let it happen, he remembers all of that, but he can't account for himself now. All he knows is he's awake.
Jay clings to that awareness as hard as he can. He doesn't know where he is, if it's a where at all, if he's alive or if this is just the suspension of afterlife, but he's still conscious, he's still him. Formless and adrift in the void. No arms to reach, no hands to grasp, but he tries, tries to stretch out fingers and hold onto something, even if it's just the continued knowledge of self, of me, Jay, I am Jay Merrick, and no one is going to miss me.
Even as an abstraction he can't escape his bent toward bleak self-deprecation.
There's something pulling at him - or maybe he's the one pulling, hauling himself into a defined space, someone else's space, still abstract, but not formless. He knows this sensation. A dream. He's dreaming. Or someone else is dreaming. He's just a stowaway.
Easier to hold a shape in a dream, though, and it doesn't take long before the memory of a body fills in the gaps, and there he is again, eyes that see, senses more or less intact - looking down at his arms, his hands, his legs and feet. Hand over his face and through his hair. All here. One piece.
He looks up, focus drawn naturally to the dreamer.
[Jay is free-falling through the dreaming, and if you want, he can get scooped up into your dream! The 21st is the current IG date at the time of post, but feel free to date your entry later as that changes. Will add a closing date at some point, when I have that figured out.]
He doesn't have a body, and he remembers dying - again - he remembers slipping out, Tim unable to keep him there in spite of his hardened insistence that he wasn't going to let it happen, he remembers all of that, but he can't account for himself now. All he knows is he's awake.
Jay clings to that awareness as hard as he can. He doesn't know where he is, if it's a where at all, if he's alive or if this is just the suspension of afterlife, but he's still conscious, he's still him. Formless and adrift in the void. No arms to reach, no hands to grasp, but he tries, tries to stretch out fingers and hold onto something, even if it's just the continued knowledge of self, of me, Jay, I am Jay Merrick, and no one is going to miss me.
Even as an abstraction he can't escape his bent toward bleak self-deprecation.
There's something pulling at him - or maybe he's the one pulling, hauling himself into a defined space, someone else's space, still abstract, but not formless. He knows this sensation. A dream. He's dreaming. Or someone else is dreaming. He's just a stowaway.
Easier to hold a shape in a dream, though, and it doesn't take long before the memory of a body fills in the gaps, and there he is again, eyes that see, senses more or less intact - looking down at his arms, his hands, his legs and feet. Hand over his face and through his hair. All here. One piece.
He looks up, focus drawn naturally to the dreamer.
[Jay is free-falling through the dreaming, and if you want, he can get scooped up into your dream! The 21st is the current IG date at the time of post, but feel free to date your entry later as that changes. Will add a closing date at some point, when I have that figured out.]
no subject
He still staggers back, pivoting around to turn his back on Daniel, but there's nowhere to go, so he just ends up with his forehead pressed against a wall, staring numbly at his feet.
"So this is it," he murmurs. "We're just... dead."
For good. Finally. But before he was just - out. Gone. Plunged into the icy blackness of wherever It took him. Now, here - he remembers his life, regrets his decisions, misses his friends. Well. Misses Tim. He didn't really have friends.
Hilarious, he thinks with a jagged little grin and a disconcerting bubble of laughter rising in his chest and throat.
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He stops awkwardly, eyebrows compressing down. "To - get to where I am now." Working up to the 'Ascension' business might be more conducive to being more directly helpful than indirectly unhelpful, which is rather what he's felt like he's been ever since catching the guy in his metaphysical net in the shape of a room that, if he's a little more honest and aware with himself, is more than a little disconcerting in its total blankness and dry warmth.
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He turns around fully. "Are we dead or not?" he demands. He has had just about all he can take of uncertainty.
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"I died," he says softly, unable the shake the specter of wistful finality pinned beneath the pronouncement. "And then I Ascended. I reached the next plane of existence - however you choose to call it."
He meets the other man's eyes with absolute sincerity. "It's not death. Not in the conventional sense. I'm energy now. But you, ah - " A frown ripples over his features, obscuring that mournful sentiment. "I can't really tell with you, honestly. You're not dead in the conventional sense either - I don't think?"
It occurs to him that this may not be the heartening comfort he'd initially set off for it to be.
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"I dreamed about dying almost every night, but then this last time I woke up with the pain of it, you know, like the memory, like it was real. No blood or anything but it was real. My body shut down, I died, again. It's just this time I didn't - go. I'm still..." He makes a vague gesture. "I guess that's what you mean, huh."
Not dead in the conventional sense.
Well that's fucking great. Now what.
"What, am I a ghost or something?" he asks dully.
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While he doesn't want spontaneous, poorly-defined death to be the Rift's upsetting new trend, it bodes well in terms of the absence of any true permanence.
"I'm still not quite sure how to descend from being like this," Daniel admits, mouth twisting down again. "I've figured out how to manifest, even communicate but, ah, I'm not sure that for you, it's quite the same thing."
tw: suicide ideation, sort of
"I don't want to descend," he groans. "I just want it to be over."
Does he really?
Is he that tired?
It's hard to tell these days.
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"It might feel like it's not worth it," he murmurs, "but you're still here because some part of you wouldn't believe that."
It might be that's a lie. He has no proof of it, short of the ideology of Ascension, which may or may not be applicable in this situation at all.
It might be it's not a lie if he believes it.
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But then, why would the rift want to keep him around? What good is he to anyone?
"I have nothing left to offer," he grunts. "The one friend I had - I was just dragging him down with me, and he didn't even-"
Well. It's not necessarily fair to say Tim didn't like him, or at least didn't care, not when he was trying so hard to deny what was happening. Maybe it was just guilt that moved him to that, or maybe that's unfair too.
"He'll be better off with me gone," he mutters.
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Ascension's complexities had taught him that, if anything. The universe, regardless of iteration or genesis or variation, was constructed to be indifferent to the subtle oscillations of comparatively insignificant things like them, despite the Rift's magnified interest.
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"My failures got people killed," he says bitterly. "And they still could."
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The word sticks in this throat.
Worth is utterly subjective, even in the eyes of the universe.
To be deserving of Ascension is to have that clarity of sight and mind and soul, ontology of the concept be damned.
"And that doesn't mean you're not deserving of a second chance," he adds gently.
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He nods slightly.
"What am I supposed to do now?" he murmurs.
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"Figure a way back," he says easily, as if the interconversion of energy to matter postmortem is a skillset readily accessible to the masses. "I don't think you've Ascended - you don't have the same energy." He watches the other man thoughtfully, inclining his head. "But I don't think you're beyond return, either."
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"I can't," he says softly. "I can't do that to Tim."
Die, come back, die, come back. It's not a pattern he wants to establish, for Tim's sake if no one else's (and when has he ever done anything for Tim's sake? maybe it's not too late to start).
no subject
At least Daniel, being Ascended, can access some of the world and communicate, even if it's on something of a reduced level compared to what he's accustomed to. But Jay is simply drifting, unmoored, and it's a depressingly unattached existence that he seems to think would be better for all parties involved.
"I can find him," he offers dubiously, "if you want. I can - locate people, talk to them. In Manhattan."
no subject
No one does. No one understands what they've been through. He was all Tim had, and he left him behind, once, twice, finally and permanently, except not.
"I don't know," he moans, covering his face back up. "I don't know what to do. It's too much of a mess."
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"You can't stay here," he says, his tone reasonable. "From any standpoint, that's just not sustainable. There's a solution out of this mess - out of any mess."
tw more lateral suicide ideation
He needs something to say, something that isn't about him and his problems. He glances up at Daniel, trying to assess how readily he'll talk about himself. He seems weirdly neutral on all things, so maybe it won't matter.
"How'd you die?" he asks.
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"The Rift," he says easily, the what else? readily implied. "I'm getting it was a day when pretty much everything went haywire - the Rift, uh," he gestures loosely at his chest region, "hit me."
no subject
At least his death had some kind of intent behind it. And it was long overdue.
The implied randomness of Daniel's death makes his heart sink a little. What if this wasn't on purpose, what if it was just a weird accident? What if the rift is killing people off now? What if Tim isn't nearly as better off as he's hoping?
Why can't anything ever just be okay?
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"It likes - experimenting with us." His mouth twists with distaste. "Putting us in dire situations to see what we do. I don't think - well, if it wanted to really kill you, it - "
He makes an abortive gesture with one hand in the absence of wanting to verbally complete that sentence. It's not exactly moving in a comforting direction.
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He huffs out a breath and goes quiet. He feels like he's ranting now, just babbling to fill the space. He doesn't want to talk to this guy anymore, he's so goddamn nice and reasonable and wise, it makes him feel small and stupid. He is small and stupid. He's not interesting. There's nothing here to see, just bones to play with.
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He wishes he could offer more information, or at least something comforting in the way of finding a solution to their very present joint problem.
"I can help you, maybe," says Daniel, tone low and apologetic. "Once I figure out how to descend, it's possible I can - do the same for you."
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No sense arguing. Won't get him anywhere. He doubts, if it came down to it, that Daniel would force him to 'descend'.
He looks around the room, hugging himself a little, starting to feel antsy. "I feel like it's gonna pull me out again," he says softly. "I don't think I can... stay anywhere, I think it'll just... shuffle me around for a while."
Eyes back on Daniel. He feels unsteady. Should he say something before it takes him out? "I'll - I'll see you around, maybe," he murmurs.
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