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OOM: Part I

In blood and death 'neath a screaming sky

And the arms and legs of other men
Were scattered all around

The door flies open to admit a new patron who doesn't know he's old, and wouldn't care if you told him anyway. The only currently pertinent thing about him is the knife in his hand.

(His head hurts. He didn't plan that. And now he didn't plan this, and-)

Jim Moriarty - or maybe James, or maybe Tommy, or perhaps even Jimmy - stares about him like something wild suddenly trapped inside, and in a cage that shouldn't be possible. When he wipes a blood-soaked wrist across his mouth, the taste makes him moan and his hand is visibly shaking. And then his eyes light on the Window, and he stares and stares and stares, and then grasps his head like it might actually explode, the way the noise says it surely must.

(-he doesn't know what to do.)

[OOC: Plotlocked, say thankya!

Second link contains blood, explosions and murder.]

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X appears silently just to his left.

With towels.

(None of this is an accident.)

"You are safer. Here. Than you were."

Hello, Jim. You are smaller than you were. If X were someone else, maybe she would be more surprised.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He spins to his left and then stumbles backwards, because his hearing is screwed and people appearing out of nowhere is not a good thing. His eyes flit from this person, to ...towels, to that window, to the sure and certain knowledge that something has gone badly wrong somewhere.

Things don't normally go wrong. He is not equipped for this. He'd grip the knife tighter if it were possible.

'Don't.'

"You are not very inconspicuous," X offers, after a moment of study.

"Like this."

Beat.

"It will be problematic."

Edited 2016-07-08 18:14 (UTC)

She's looking at him. Studying him. He is very aware of all the blood, but more aware of the way he can't think. Everything's too loud.

'Get out of the way.'

He can't see a way out. His head jerks to the side, his neck pops, and he makes a sound like he's trapping in a yell.

"No."

Her response is short and to the point.

"You are not safe. Like this. For other people."

Obviously.

There is another momentary pause.

"Or for you."

Fuck this. She's in the way. What's one more today?

He wipes his wrist across his mouth again, the hand still shaking, his gaze flitting over her shoulder for a door that doesn't seem to exist.

Then he just lunges for her. He doesn't care if she catches the blade or not, as long as he can get out. The view out of that window, it isn't...it isn't good just now, and he can't stand it. The fun part is over, and now he just wants to be gone.

X did not even need superhuman reflexes to see that one coming.

She shifts with Jim's motion, moving inside his grip, grabbing his outstretched arm at the wrist and twisting them both around, then taking him down with a strong nudge at the back of his knee.

Her grip is uncompromising.

"Stop."

'Get off.'

Yeah, no, that's not good either. He fights, and fights, and even though he's always been small, and slippery, and quick, there just doesn't seem to be any give at all. He doesn't let go of the knife, but he's not good with being held down. He's left slamming his head into the floor in frustration and what he might call panic, if he knew what panic felt like. It doesn't make him hear any better, and it doesn't take the taste of blood away, but at least it gives him something to focus on.

X sighs.

Loudly.

Then she cuts off the bloodflow to Jim's brain with her fingers, waiting for him to pass out.

It shouldn't take long.

It does not take long. And darkness, as is so often the case, actually comes as something of a relief.

(In a jail cell in London, a man sits up on his bunk, blinks at a newly-minted memory and says, 'oh, fuck.'

And then starts to laugh, quite a lot.)

Silently, X hefts teenaged and bloody Jim up over her shoulder, hauling him outside, across the lake, and out to the Caribbean inlet.

Then, unceremoniously, she keeps walking into the water a bit before dumping the unconscious Jim in.

It should get the blood off, at least.

Almost absentmindedly, she also rids him of the knife somewhere in there.

Annnnnnd, he wakes up in water. In warm water, on a fucking beach, somewhere far hotter than Northern Ireland in June ever gets.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

He stares around wide-eyed, chest heaving, spitting salt water out of his mouth. At least it gets rid of the dust and the blood, but....seriously, what the actual fuck.

Today was going so well. The bombs were fun. He does not understand what happened.

('For God's sake, kid. Calm down. You're embarrassing me.'

'Jim? Who're you-?'

'Shut up, Ginger.'

Good God, he's going to have to buy X another drink for this.)

"You are in Milliways," X offers, once some of the salt water-spitting has stopped.

"It is not where you were. But it will be okay."

Probably. Mostly.

"Panic is unnecessary."

'Shit, my-'

He fights his way up on to his knees and drags his passport and a few soft tenners out of his pocket. The passport is...wet. That's going to be an issue.

'What the hell is wrong with you!?'

Panic may actually be necessary. But it's not helpful, and he chokes back the need to let such a thing overtake him. Easier to fall back on fury. It probably gives him an expression X has seen hints of in his older self.

"Nothing," X says, equably.

"I am the Head of Security. Here. And you tried to stab me."

Beat.

"This seemed more effective than cells. This time."

'I didn't.'

Okay, he did.

He stands up, and shoves the passport back in his pocket. The noise in his head is quietening, probably from the distance caused by unconsciousness. It aches more than anything, but he can still hear his own laughter echoing around the recesses.

'You wouldn't let me out. What's Milliways? I don't...understand.'

He hates admitting that. He never usually has to. It never happens.

"It is an interdimensional bar. You will have been here before. When you are older."

Surely this makes everything clear.

X shifts position, arms hanging relaxed at her side.

"You are in trouble? Back in your world."

Beat.

"I know what explosives smell like. And other people's blood."

Oh yes, absolutely crystal.

Jim may be gaping a bit.

'...where's my knife?'

Which isn't really an answer, but it wasn't intended to be. He's not in trouble yet, but he's sure as hell going to be. Her question makes him focus all of a sudden, his eyes narrowing in on a thought in his head. He might have to kill...nah. No. Probably not.

Maybe.

(Shit.)

'What do you mean, I will have been here when I'm older? An older me?'

(The older him is rolling his eyes at all of this, and trying to use his T-Minus without his cellmate seeing. Damage control is in order.)

"I will give it back when you leave. Here."

A pause, and X studies him again.

"It will be clean."

She will probably get back to his questions about older him vs other him vs -- everything.

Eventually.

Edited 2016-07-08 19:54 (UTC)

Yeah, no, not letting that go.

'An older me?'

The noise is starting to ramp up again. But it's not as bad this time, and at least a little bit curious.

Except this is impossible as anything but a hypothesis. Supported by the maths, but not real. So...has he gone crazy? Is he imagining something from one of his textbooks? He looks around again. It's still a beach. It's still too hot. And they were definitely in some kind of pub before they were here. There was a...window. Into space.

Once again, what the actual fuck.

"Yes."

Beat.

"I do not know how much older."

She considers this for a moment, head tilting very slightly. Eventually, she blinks.

"I do not think it is relevant."

'If that's true, tell me what my name is.'

It can't be true.

And it bloody is relevant to him.

"Jim Moriarty."

It's an easy answer.

"I am X."

Jim Moriarty. Not James, or Jimmy.

He stares at her, mouth slightly open.

It was the most useful thing she could have said, but he still doesn't know how to respond to it.

X looks back at him, expression composed.

She is very good at waiting.