what about all those things we said

[boomvox]

Who: Jae, Sunny. Monsters.
What: This is as close to the apocalypse as these versions have ever been - Sunny has good timing, Jae sucks at being a warrior.
Where: Creekside.
When: Towards the end of week 1.
Notes: Making up for failing while on hiatus, HERE'S A MILLION WORDS?
Warnings: Violence, disturbing imagery, tw for claustrophobia + drowning.

Weeks ago, over cocktails, Jae had asserted that if Baedal was an apocalypse, or a militant society, that he'd be useless – he's not a combatant, he's a DJ, he's only got so much rope and it's not going to do a whole lot beyond trip (or hang) himself in a war zone. Well, okay, that's a really mangled metaphor, but the point is: when the world began to fall apart, Jae locked his door and shoved a sofa up against his balcony windows and informed his various gigs he was canceling until further notice. (Everyone was, thankfully, quite understanding – one group hasn't gotten back to him, or anyone; he tries not to think about it.)

Two days go by and it's not eventful – Creekside doesn't get hit very badly right away, but it's not a go-getter area, and businesses stay closed and people mostly stay inside. Hooded wraiths float through the streets and find little in the way of prey, their oppressive aura chasing people indoors with even more certainty. Well, some people. After nightfall crashes and the sound of heavy but not wholly sinister footfalls echo through the neighborhood, and Jae surmises from his the floor in between his bed and the back wall that it must be looters. Baedal isn't so different from other cities, even now.

Hours into nightfall four days after the sky split, the power goes out. Unearthly groans and creaks stream through the air, and the ground trembles with the reverberation of it. People begin to mill about in their homes, and a timid knock brings Jae to his apartment door. The building manager, holding a pale lantern, quietly informs everyone that they all have to go - something is coming up from the river.

A safehouse compound advertised on the PnumeraRed49 cohort courtesy of Jae's downstairs neighbor seems to be their best bet – it's the closest, it's super-enforced, and the populations of his building and the one across the street won't overwhelm their capacity. If they can get there. And, god, that's the kicker; Jae stares down at his CiD and considers calling someone, one of his 'peers', who are out being proactive and helpful (or silent, he wonders – what about – fuck, everything), but then puts it away. He rips the entire chapter of protective spells out of the book Martel made him check out (he'll wince in apology later) and staples the pages together, folds it, sticks it in his jacket pocket. He shows up in the lobby (whispers and coats all around) carrying a box, and teams up with the calmest mother he's ever seen to pass out glowsticks to the kids (and some of the adults). A woman from across the street recognizes him from club fliers and they devise a shaky strategy, being the only two mages in the group (he can't really be calling himself that, can he?). She squeezes his hand near to breaking as they walk, quietly in a clumpy line, the two of them towards the back.

It's slow and terrifying work. Jae and Aria – the other mage, a produce clerk and student – draw lines in the dirt and on the pavement every time they have to stop and take cover. Despite it, they're attacked twice, by hulking, reeking, many-limbed black creatures dripping water and ichor, and by dawn when Jae runs his hand over the asphalt street to make a run, half of it's in blood – not voluntarily. He shakes as he works, and his head feels like it's going to cave in on itself; he barely remembers what he's writing, and he's not good at channeling it like this – he thinks the runes are useless and what's kept the creatures away so far has been the fact that the magic he can't control is still screaming STAY AWAY out into the astral realm. One monster that leaps from the shadows at them curls back immediately, making an unholy shriek, and Jae knows that it's because what happened to it is what happened to the doctors at the facility.

He thinks he should feel something. Surprise, at least, that he doesn't.

The sun comes up, grey and tinted with that unnatural aurora, and it becomes apparent that they're trapped. They're being hunted, and the magic barriers aren't going to hold forever – Jae knows, with an instinct he's never had before, that they aren't going to hold for more than another hour. He doesn't have the energy for much more, and the both of them, Jae and Aria alike, can sense (since when can he sense anything?) something much worse on their heels. Jae feels it like something walking over his grave, dark and familiar. He feels like he might throw up as he tells her what to do, but she listens, and he wonders with a detached underwater sort of feeling if he sounds more sure than he feels.

As Jae walks back the way they came, he pushes the group from him in his mind, like a physical thing – shoving, desperately, forcefully, with everything he has left, motivation and bravery and hope.

The river comes into sight, and Jae just – stops. He's too exhausted, battered, bleeding. The great hulking thinking that's even now moving towards him like a living shadow, black-skinned, covered in eyes and mouths, is too awful to look at. He sits (stumbles) to the ground and draws a circle around himself with his fingers, trying to cast a spell. In his head there's nothing to hold onto – the thing that's been following him, some monster born of his home world fused with the reality-breaking energy of Baedal, creeping after familiar magic to consume, has no emotions to manipulate. Jae raises his hand to his face and bites down in between his thumb and index finger, ripping open skin and coaxing out blood. He holds it up, pointing, almost aimless in his attempt at offensive magic, and he makes a plea in his head, if Shada's listening. Take my blood, just make this thing fuck off--

(At least it's not after the others.)

Comments

[boomvox]

One of the things that Jae hates the most, that plays on the ever-present stress in his head with more viciousness than anything, is claustrophobia. Being trapped. He spent days huddled in his apartment, too terrified to move, and just made his mental state worse by feeding his own paranoia. He thinks even if he was still as exhausted as he was when Sunny found him that he wouldn't want to stay, because staying in a shelter means he's sitting quietly and not doing anything and just waiting and alone with all the static in his head and his nerves and-

No. He's leaving.

"I'm gonna go get my boss," he says, and hopes he sounds more sure than he feels. "There's a lot of texts going around asking what we should be doing and I think - like, apparently," he gestures with his CiD, "the girl who runs the shift before mine at SMB is stuck in her basement." Jae has a small moment of pride for not saying Or something.

[yeouiju]

"The station?" This non-question made possible by Sunny's amazing powers of deduction, looking remarkably small and ordinary where he sits in a casual slouch on his chair, fingers tucked and a tried streak of mud having managed to cling at some blind spot beneath his jaw despite his very best efforts.

Itches it now, though, flakes of dirt beneath his blunt nails. "Okay. Are you going alone?" Also blunt, that question, without particular leading implication with regard to whether Sunny thinks that's unwise or wise or if he's volunteering, even if he probably is.

[boomvox]

"I'm still formulating my plan," he admits, a bit lamely. (In fairness, he did just wake up.) If Sunny cares to intuit a translation, that was code for 'I have no idea, but I know going alone is stupid, so I hope I won't have to'.

Wetting the tips of his fingers in his water bottle, Jae reaches out and moms Sunny's jaw, almost absent, like he didn't think too hard about doing it. Quietly, "I saw in my room with the lights off for a week. Now I can feel things in my head and I never have before. Not even when I was actually studying as a kid. I can't stay l- you know, stuck here."

[yeouiju]

Sunny is patiently still as dirt is rubbed away, actually setting teeth against a portion of bottom lip to keep from smiling in a way he hopes looks thoughtful instead. Which you would think is a lot easier to prevent himself from aging, but apparently not. More helpful is that he can listen as he does so, concern twitching at the corner of his mouth.

He's considered it, what he saw today, how magic interacted with Jae and how it fed from his blood, but this mightn't be the time. There's stuff to do first before he can start dropping totally innocuous questions about that sort of thing, and always that internal debate about what is and is not his business.

"Okay," he says. "Well, I wasn't planning on staying either." He smiles brighter, then, in a way that is almost a question.

[boomvox]

Jae, in all his innocent ignorance of his own potential, doesn't think there's anything out of the ordinary about suddenly having a functional sixth sense. His uncle could do it, and berated him for being so psychically dull. He figures all his walls are just being beaten down in Baedal - and in a way, that's true. He's half frightened of it, as if suddenly feeling the metaphysical world around him will make him more a target, but he's also resigned about it. In a way.

When he pulls his hand back he hesitates, catching that not-smile (or thinking he did) and finding himself - surprised. He wrinkles his nose briefly, trying to hide whatever weird emotion starts to twist in his stomach, and then: "If you're - I mean. Going my way, I wouldn't hate not getting eaten again."

[yeouiju]

"I'd appreciate you to not be eaten, personally."

Like, you know, Sunny put in a bunch of work so that wouldn't happen, and it'd be unfortunate for it to go to waste. His smile flattens, wry, and he shrugs off whether or not he was going that way originally. He hadn't expect to shoot up the length of the Gross Tar when he'd been-- 'summoned' implies more deliberation than what that was, but either way.

"There's still some daylight, if you're planning on going today. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, actually, but sometimes cover of darkness is overrated when it's monsters."

[boomvox]

The memory of You heard me is still foggy, a near-lost snippet in time buried under blurry tiredness and stress. Maybe he'll remember later, that strange epiphany, and think more of it. Maybe he'll even ask.

For now, though - his expression turns sheepish. "I'm okay with waiting until the morning. I should probably eat something and - change." Suddenly stricken with the realization of how death-warmed-over he must look, Jae's shoulders slump. "I can't really see either." His glasses, man.

[yeouiju]

"Oh." Bummer.

Well, no rush in worrying. Sunny nods at assertion that moving around can wait for the morning, even if he is embarrassingly fit to keep going like a supernatural energiser bunny, but some sleep might be good for the soul all the same. "I'll be your seeing eye guide," he asserts, merrily, before he pushes himself up to stand, and points towards the folded clothing that's been donated, probably a little big to compensate for Jae's lanky size, but--

"If you want to get out of that stuff, there's that. And there's food upstairs. Sandwiches."

[boomvox]

Jae is rested but his nerves are still shot, and between that and his lack of a plan means that sitting tight and just fussing around until morning is probably the best bet. It doesn't occur to him that Sunny might not need to sleep more, too. (Because why would it.)

So he gets cleaned up and gets something to eat, and decides he can mull over things like magic and senses and why he feels both nervous and happy that Sunny is staying with him... later.

For now, though, he's got dirt under his nails, and about ten people to call and harass. He hopes, somewhere in the back of his head, that this doesn't blow up in his face.