Jim gets as far as his bedroom door before one by one all his veils of satin unwind, the cogs slowly unwinding and spurning into motion, faster and faster in time and rhythm with his heartbeat.
'The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.' He bites down on his fist to hold back a bubble of hysterical laughter, the turning of the gears jumbling and spreading all of his thoughts like ocean breeze, his consciousness and subconsciousness blending for a moment in a moment of panic.
The bed is queen-sized, covered in a dark green duvet and normally, Jim would take in every single detail and commit it to memory, or conjure up his pre existing facts about the room, but as it is, he allows himself to collapse onto the mattress, eyes staring at the ceiling but unseeing, breathing far too rapidly and quickly for this to be normal.
Normal. Fuck. Of course this isn't normal. He's never lost control of his own head like this before. Ever. He's a master of his own mind, remember? If there's one thing that he can be depended on, it's keeping a level head.
He placed to many veils over his thoughts, then. He's losing control.
Jim squeezes his eyes shut, delving deep within his own… Fuck. What is it called? He's called it his Head Space for as long as he could remember, but maybe a new name would be better, more conclusive. He remembers reading about an article from the undergraduate chemistry major a couple years ago who delved into the practicalities and usages of a hypothetical, imagined sanctuary for thoughts and named his own Head Space a 'Mind Palace,' but that's too pretentious for even Jim.
Besides, it's not very constructive of a chemistry major to be delving into the physiological conditions of a human mind.
The thought it fleeting, no more than a second before it skates away, and Jim's breath hitches, a swell of panic overtaking his entire body. It's too bloody difficult to enter his own Head Space when he's in such a state, but he tries, tries, visualizes cogs and wheels and gears and metal bits, shining and crystalline, big long tapestries and thin sheets of veils, and…
All awareness of the physical world evaporates. Oh, sure, he's probably still hyperventilating on the green-sheeted bed, but he doesn't feel it, and that's what matter.
No. He opens his eyes and is pleased to see that he's in a small room, one side taken up by two desks of unsorted paperwork- recent memories, he whispers, but his voice doesn't come out of his mouth, it just… Is- overflowing at the sheer amount, the other side taken up by spare and broken cogs and gears, the metal tarnished or the springs broken.
He ignores the latter. The pile's always bigger every time he visualizes this place.
Frankly, he ignores the paperwork as well. He'll sort through it later, but then again, that's what he always says. If he's honest with himself, he hasn't actually sorted through his thoughts in much, much too long. Jim's on a hunt for something much different this time around. He really should put more security on his main thoughts, though. He squints at the small room, the entry-way, really, to his head, and all the paperwork vanishes, leaving behind what looks like a simple portable record player.
Jim steps forward and checks the drawers of the desks, and sure enough, there's several vinyl records sitting in there, marked carefully with little cogs and gears on the labels. Only several folders of paperwork remain, unsorted.
Curious.
He steps back to the door, noticing that the decor changed, too, going from a basic storage center to something more reminiscent of a library's quaint cosiness, with wood and brass parts, smelling old but well-lived in. Full of... Something.
The pile of broken parts didn't listen to his rearranging, sitting dull and lifeless in half the room.
The first time he'd come here, he was seven and his father had left the house. His mother and sisters said he would be back, but Jim knew better. He wasn't an idiot, actually, and it didn't take a genius to figure out he was gone for good. His mind had been such a torrent and torrent of emotions and a whirlwind of feral thoughts sliding and colliding, that he'd tried to imagine everything much more orderly.
His father had gifted him a small pocket watch two weeks earlier, after his birthday.
After that, it was simple.
Jim leaves the cupboard of a room, stepping out into the main floor of his mind, it seems, and there's been furniture and decor arrangements here, too. Perhaps he'd changed more than he thought. The last time he had been forced to retreat and sort through had been… Well, several months ago.
The vaguely stained carpet has disappeared for a well-used wood flooring, the warm cherry-toned wood gleaming and shining. That's new, and he likes it. There's several bohemian rugs, and Jim's pleased to find that it's a sitting room, mostly. There's several shelves of files and books, and… Several more record players with files of vinyl records.
He's curious, itching to figure out the difference between his book-thoughts, his file-thoughts and his vinyl-thoughts, but there's more pressing matters.
Like the fact that it feels like his skull is splitting open.
Jim gasps, trying to ignore the way he wants to fall away, out of his head, instead tracking the direction the chairs are facing and… Ah. Some of the pain lessens as one mystery is shown.
All the chairs- And there's several, face towards the back of a giant clock. His clocktower of a head. He idly wonders if there's more floors, tracing a long, pianist finger along the hem of one of the embroidered chairs, the entire room swelling in his vision.
The only sound is the ticking and clicking and whirs of the machinery moving, all the gears and cogs moving the exact way they need to, and Jim turns to stare at all the metal, enraptured by the smooth, clean gleaming metal, hundreds of thousands of parts that are him. Not his thoughts or his feelings, but him as a person, and Jim feels his breath fall away at the idea.
It's such a novel concept, and Jim spares a few moments just staring at the circular movement of time, each click and tock signifying the passage of his life, right in front of him, fingers clenching tighter on the upholstery.
There's a wayward screech and Jim flinches, snapping his head in the direction of the noise, noticing that one of the cogs has gotten unhinged, causing its partner to spin around and around with no rhythm. There's a reed silk sheet lying discarded on the ground beside the two cogs, and Jim picks it up on his way over, pressing a finger over the center of the gear, then an entire palm.
Immediately, his breath hitches and he begins to hyperventilate, nothing but panic, fear, danger running through him, the room throbbing and pulsing with the emotions, and one of the many record players in the room suddenly begins to play, a high-keening sound that's too fast for the type of record, scratching and reedy and god.
There's too much at once and Jim falls away backwards, away from the cog, practically stumbling over all the furniture to get to the record player, fiddling with the needle until it stops, stops damnit.
It's with the high-energy content of the room that Jim realizes that the vinyl records are pure emotions. There's no words, no sentences no letter, but pure sound, untranslatable into any human language, but understandable anyways. The high-pitched noises are panic, the emotions he garnered from letting Sebastian in his home.
Jim's not sure how Sebastian has managed to bite so deeply into his head already.
He turns the record player off quickly, the room's noise cutting in half and he wanders back over to the broken gear, willing his breathing to go back to normal. Picking up the cloth on the floor, he sticks it through just enough, one layer to connect the two cogs but stopping it, the gear shuddering to a stop.
No more noises, no more emotions, and the swelling of the room stops, goes back to normal. Distantly, Jim knows the room wasn't moving at all, but that it was him freaking the fuck out, but it's such a faraway concept at the moment that he doesn't press in on it, instead collapsing in one of the armchairs and staring at the back of the clock, breathing deeply.
Such pure, unadulterated panic and he turns into a mess. He twists his head around and notices that a good eighth of the cogs aren't even working, sheer or thick sheets thrown over them. A further look confirms that several of the bookshelves and files are also covered in veils veils to hide everything away.
In the corner of the room, there's a cupboard- he thinks- that's completely shapeless due to the amount of sheets and drapes covering it, and thick ropes tying everything off.
Jim shivers despite himself, turning away from the lonesome cupboard, giving one more glance around him.
He wants to explore, but he can't stay in his head too long, not when the very thing that caused his panic is peeling an orange in his kitchen. He needs, answers, yes, but the easiest would be to not lock himself away in his head when a creature is running a muck around his house, with very noticeable mood changes.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
"Jim?"
Starting, Jim looks around wildly, before there's an odd shake and-
There's a paw of a hand shaking him roughly, and Jim blinks as he sits up suddenly, eyes widening as he takes in Sebastian. Sebastian, who is currently on his hands and knees on Jim's bed, one hand bracing him and the other shaking the professor roughly.
Sebastian, who's auburn hair is shining and the great swaths of skin on his back are rippling of muscle and...
"Wh-Stop, you giant brute." Jim is carefully not staring at the feline way his counterpart is sitting on his bed, the green flash of his eyes in the half-light concerned and unsure, almost frightened.
Sebastian sits back on his feet, blinking at Jim cautiously, removing his hand to settle on his knee. "You were in a panic." He says quietly, voice soft in the sudden quiet that's enveloped. No more ticks or tocks, damn, damn.
"Yes, I… Thank you, Sebastian." Jim huffs out a breath, sitting back from Sebastian to mirror his position, settling heavily on the sheets.
"You weren't there." Sebastian cocks his head, narrowing his eyes curiously, and god but they are utterly, completely feral and Jim cannot just get over that, can't even think of why such eyes could possibly exist.
"Yes, I was, I've right here sin- Oh. You mean. Lucid, conscious, blah blah. No, no I was in my head. Trying to think through some things." He's rambling again. It seems to be his default setting around the man, and he wants to stop, but he knows if he did, he'd start blushing like an adolescent girl.
"You seemed scared."
"No I wasn't. That's rude, awfully assumptious of you, Seb, my dear." Jim forces out, quickly standing up off the bed and away from Sebastian, who's still sitting on his bed like he fucking owns it.
Sebastian growls, looking annoyed for a moment, eyes flashing darkly. "No. You were in a panic. I'm not wrong." He sits up straighter, tracking Jim with his eyes, fingers plucking at the fabric of the bed. He seems to do that a lot, the idle twitches.
"Okay, I was wrong. Sorry, whoops, I'm indebted to you, yada yada, but like I said. Bed timmeeee. So get out, wild man. Go curl up by the fire place or something… Hey what were you doing in my room, anyways?"
Slowly sliding to stand up, Jim suddenly notices that Sebastian has forgone the sheet. So he's naked. Completely naked and he was on his bed, and oh fucking Christ. This is worse than the snow. This is fucking hot. Jim simply cannot deal with a naked feral man right after he just shut down panicking about said person.
"I was trying to find the study you mentioned. Books. I wanted to read books."
Jim wants to say he didn't know that Seb could read- and really, how could he, living in the forest constantly- but all that pops out is, "Hold on. You need clothes." He stomps over to the wardrobe, collecting a pair of big sweatpants that might fit the other man- he's taller, by a lot, but the sweatpants have always been much, much too large- and a green-knit sweater, practically throwing them at Sebastian.
His counterpart catches it all deftly, blinking before shucking all of it on, and fuck but the green sweater wasn't a good idea, because his eyes are now literal pools of sea-green, and wow, that poetry is truly horrid. Jim needs to stop right now. "Okay, good. You have clothes. See you in the morning." He practically pushes the man out of the room, Sebastian not arguing so much as looking confused, shutting the door behind him.
Unlocked, by the way, just in case Seb needs something. He's putting a lot, and he means a lot of trust in the wild man who sometimes looks like he wants to murder Jim.
Or take him.
He thinks hysterically, for a moment, the old poems again. 'The fox condemns the trap, not himself.' But I'm not a fox, am I?
There's a huff on the other side of the door, but the blighter seems to get it, as there's the sound of footsteps receding in the direction of his study. Jim sighs in relief, scrubbing a hand down his face, ignoring the not-so calm tightness of his pants. Speaking of, he undresses and puts on night clothes quickly, another pair of sweats for himself, considering he apparently needs a little room.
And that is wrong on so many levels.
He'll give himself an hour to sort through his thoughts in the morning, but right now, with his emotions running high- except for the panic, I fixed that- it wouldn't make any logical sense and he'd only end up making strange, disgusting conclusions.
Jim sighs, rolls over in his bed and tries to sleep.
He dreams of magpies with green and purple feathers interlocking with the black, flying high and soaring over the forest, ever reaching for a magnificent metallic clock-tower in the distant. Below him runs a tiger of gold, green eyes gleaming in the darkness as he growls. Their minds intermingle with green-blue-black-purple, all coalescing into scarlet and silver, spinning closer and closer. A dangerous mixture of dancing and hunting, of haunting and wooing.
Author's Notes
Do you like Jim's Clocktower head? Maybe I'll get into Sebastian later, but hey. Just remember that Jim is an unreliable narrator, please. He may take some things in stride and take other things way too seriously, but... Well. We'll get into that later. He's a strange mind. All those, veils, hmm? Thank you for reading. Please take the time to review, so I know that at least someone is reading this.
Also, some good music for this chapter? Lose Your Soul by Dead Man's Bones. Also Lacrimosa. Maybe I'll link up my playlist to write to soon.
