This may or may not be as angsty as it appears to be at the outset. I've had pieces of this jotted down forever and ever, and decided to just do it. It'll be a multi-part but a SHORT multi, like three (which, knowing me, means five or six).
As for "The Image of You I Create" - there's been a lot of forward momentum there and it should finally be just a couple of more days (maybe tomorrow but don't count on it) before the next update.
And in case you're wondering, despite appearances to the contrary, this will fit in with the sideways in canon. It's actually supposed to be a piece of how the sideways came to be. And now I've committed that cardinal sin of "telling not showing" like English teachers always warn against.
Did you see the closing window,
Did you hear the slamming door?
- "Dead Hearts," Stars
James it hurts it worked it hurts it worked it hurts it worked it hurts.
Juliet wakes up in their bed and nothing hurts.
Except the room looks like it did when this was Amelia's house in 2004, except now it's been trashed, except she can somehow hear whispering somewhere, and when she gets out of bed nothing hurts and there's no reflection in the mirror. She looks down at her body, the peasant shirt covered in blood, the legs of her jeans caked in mud, and she realizes she can't breathe, and then that she doesn't even need to.
"James!" A single syllable of pain, and she stumbles forward, gripping the edges of the dresser, leaning in close to the mirror.
Nothing is there. But she is here. Is she nothing now? No no NO NO NO she is taking steps from side to side like she doesn't know where to go, except she was calm before, she was always calm, back when there were things she could be, and...
And anyway nothing hurts, so it's OK.
It's OK, she'd told him as she dangled, so that's what it is. It's OK.
She blinks several times, trying to remember him, herself, anything, but she's in this room, and...
It had belonged to someone, once, wait, but who - she'd just known - and she feels those moments slipping from her fingers like they're falling down away from her.
Because something fell, somehow. A long ways down, and -
No, and there was someone she was worried about. The man she... She looks at the mirror again and there's still nothing and it keeps getting to be more nothing. Think, think and she would call herself by name except... except this room, it's a mess, curtains hanging in tatters, it's 2004 or no wait it was long long before that, wasn't it, and what... what year is it?
The man she...
Whispers, no, she hears them and what are the whispers supposed to mean? Something.
Or she is a whisper but no, she's not the one talking, and there's music playing now, she can hear it, she can hear it. She can hear it, she can hear the words! Imaginary air builds and builds in her imaginary lungs, she can hear the music, she can hear it, SHE IS SCREAMING TO IT, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?", music louder, music more than she can hear the whispering. A screamy song, guitars grinding, she never liked it but when had she even - Honey gotta help me please, somebody gotta save my soul, baby detonate for me -
Detonate. Hmm. That... no.
She feels like she's forgetting something, now, definitely, panting for imaginary air. Wait, and why was she screaming just now -
Someone is still talking in this room, or whispering, or - wait, but who was it that she -
She sits down on the loose floorboard and waits.