Entry tags:
maybe I'll sleep when I am dead
Who: Jesse Finch and PEOPLE
Where: Dreamland
When: Day 83-88
What: you can dream if you wanna
Warnings: Across the board warning for triggery content. References to child abuse, drugs, alcohol, death, lots of awful things. Good things too! But probably more bad, knowing me.
[ ooc: I'm going to write up a bunch of dreams for specific people under sub-threads in this post! So please don't tag the post, but tag the sub-thread for your character - I have planned things but I would ALWAYS be up for more. If you want me to write up a dream or plot up something for Jesse and your character, lemme know @tahdis on plurk, I'd be happy to come up with something with you I SERIOUSLY WANT ALL THE THINGS.
Still looking for possible dream fights with strangers, too! ]
Where: Dreamland
When: Day 83-88
What: you can dream if you wanna
Warnings: Across the board warning for triggery content. References to child abuse, drugs, alcohol, death, lots of awful things. Good things too! But probably more bad, knowing me.
[ ooc: I'm going to write up a bunch of dreams for specific people under sub-threads in this post! So please don't tag the post, but tag the sub-thread for your character - I have planned things but I would ALWAYS be up for more. If you want me to write up a dream or plot up something for Jesse and your character, lemme know @tahdis on plurk, I'd be happy to come up with something with you I SERIOUSLY WANT ALL THE THINGS.
Still looking for possible dream fights with strangers, too! ]
no subject
"Uh, class? Going to class. English." A beat. "What, so you're a teacher and you ain't even got an idea of where you're teaching?" It's like Finch doesn't even register the twisting hallway - they're upside down and right side up and then they keep walking and it straightens out, like a fucking funhouse mirror, but Jesse doesn't make any comment about it. The only noise except for them talking is the low hum in the walls as they walk.
"It's St. John's, y'know? Catholic boarding school. You drunk or something?"
no subject
It doesn't help that he's here and he's high, he's very high. He keeps digging a finger into his ear like he's imagining that sound underneath everything.
"I'm a new teacher, alright? Shut your fuckin' mouth, kid, keep walkin'," he adds instead with a vague gesture at the hall in front of them, glances up at the ceiling and then back down to Finch. "This is you, huh? Boarding school? 'O captain, my captain', that you?"
no subject
Finch comes to a stop in front of the classroom and opens the door. Immediately, the world fizzles in and out like a bad picture. This isn't right, there's something that shouldn't be here. There's no teacher, not usually, and Jesse frowns deeply, hand on the doorknob. And it's that humming noise picks up - starts to resemble the way a hive of angry bees sound, and - Finch doesn't think, he just slams open the door with his elbow, grabs Pinkman by the arm and hurries inside, because that noise doesn't sound good, whatever it is.
And then they're somewhere new.
"But..." Jesse starts, looking around. The kitchen they've ended up in is huge, sterile white. Stainless steel. Spotless - except for the thousands of beer bottles and half empty bottles of whiskey that litter the counters. "But this isn't..."
no subject
He doesn't get to finish the thought - in fact, he almost slams smack dab into Finch where he's stopped in his tracks, keeps himself from bowling the guy over by touching a hand onto his shoulder and glancing around the hallway again. It's more paranoid this time when he does, his eyebrows furrowing agitatedly as he calls out over the buzz, "What the hell is that sound?"
And swears loudly when Finch drags him away and inside the classroom. Only it's not a classroom, it's a kitchen - it's a kitchen and it's just like the door Jesse walked into in the first place, doors leading to somewhere they oughtn't be leading, and, Jesus, someone had a party. Several someones. It's too many bottles to be anything actual and feasible and Jesse shakes his head a little to try and clear it. "Finch," he asks absently, takes a few steps into the kitchen and claps Finch a few times on the shoulder. "Finch, uh, what's goin' on?"
no subject
It's a lot of bottles, and Jesse's almost too distracted by them, by the awful feeling in his stomach, to realize that this dude knows his name. But it doesn't escape his notice and he's going to say something about it, only there's this sound from outside the room. Sounds like a car door slamming. It's harmless, but Finch nearly jumps out of his skin, stumbling back into one of the counters. It's just enough to knock a good portion of bottles and glasses off the counter, and they shatter into a million pieces.
A normal person would probably curse and then calmly pick it up, but not Jesse. No, he panics, freaks out. Drops down, ignoring Pinkman for now, trying to scoop up the pieces with his bare hands. Have to clean the mess. Fuck, he screwed up, he's so fucked.
no subject
He means, yeah, it's a mess, it's bad, but Finch is seriously panicking here, like maybe he really does have a gun on him. "Ay, Finchy," he tries to deter him at first, haltingly. He sounds unsure, but it bleeds at once into something that's almost irritation, gestures at the glass. "Wouldja stop, you're gonna cut yourself, Jesus." Where the hell's a damn broom here anyway?
no subject
The door out in the other room opens. There's footsteps, and then there's a man, walking in, looking around. He's tall, broad, in a tailored, fitted suit that looks expensive, hair slicked back and face sort of - unremarkable, nondescript, except for bright green eyes. Like if you looked away, all you'd be able to remember was those eyes.
He spots Finch, and the mess. He's quiet. "What have you done?" The man asks, calmly, and his voice is deep - it carries. Finch shrinks down, digging his hands into the piles of glass.
no subject
Who the hell-
There's an immediate discomfort in the air, so much so that Jesse's not even sure he should be saying anything straight away. He slowly turns on his spot to face the door, glancing uncertainly between the guy and Finch and back, and it's quiet for a few beats as Jesse watches Finch's hands sink further down onto broken fucking glass. "Was an accident," he says carefully, eyes flickering back up again, towards the suit.
no subject
"And who are you?" He asks, moving further into the room, shutting the door behind him. From the floor, Finch whimpers almost inaudibly. The man crosses the room, stands in front of Pinkman, imposing and dark. "I thought I told you your trashy friends aren't allowed in this house, Jesse."
Finch looks down at the glass, but Samuel doesn't take his eyes off of Pinkman. A beat - it's quiet, and then, in his same low voice, Samuel speaks again, looking down to Finch. "Were you planning on leaving the glass there for people to step on? Quit whimpering, boy, clean it up."
And Jesse immediately does what he's told, keeping his eyes down, trying to collect the glass in his hands, flinching whenever it nicks at his skin.
no subject
Because just like that it clicks. This isn't just some guy in an expensive suit crashing their party for no discernible reason. This is Finch's dad. And that changes everything about this situation awfully quickly.
He doesn't give Samuel his name. In fact, there's a few long beats before Jesse even actually speaks, just the quiet sound of glass clinking against itself, and for the whole time he doesn't dare take his eyes off the man in front of him. "How about you lay off the kid," he finally suggests, and it's in a voice that's calm and collect, if with an edge to it that's just really looking out for what's in Samuel's best interests here. "I said it was an accident."
no subject
Samuel looks back to Pinkman, eyebrows lifting. "I don't care if it was an accident," Samuel says, brushing his suit off. "The fact remains that he broke glass and needs to be responsible for picking it up. Are you telling me how to raise my child?"
Because it sure sounds like that's what you're doing. Finch comes back, and for a moment, he does look between the two of them. Clenching his fists a little, Jesse fidgets. "Just - just drop it, alright?" He tells Pinkman, with a shaky little inhale. "S'not a big deal, just --"
And Samuel interrupts him curtly: "Don't make excuses. Finish picking up the glass - I swear, it's a wonder you haven't failed out of your classes, Jesse, you can hardly even follow simple orders."
Finch's mouth snaps shut, and he looks warily at Samuel - for a second too long. His hesitation earns him a quick and sharp backhanded slap across the face.
"Do what you're told. Now."
no subject
He keeps watching Finch when Samuel speaks up again, opens and shuts his mouth like he's trying to drum up something useful to say to him. He's also still watching Finch when he gets a slap in the face.
And that certainly gets Samuel his attention back. "Whoa, hey!" Jesse's expression plummets, he's livid, and he brandishes a hand sharply out to the side, takes a step in towards Samuel to clear what gap there is left between them. "The fuck you think you're doin', he's just a kid!"
no subject
He can feel the anger in the air, can nearly taste it, and he makes his heart thud like crazy in his chest.
Samuel's expression is flat, but the undertone of his irritation is clear, anyway. "He's no 'kid'," He says. "He is nearly eighteen years old. I would expect for him to at least know how to perform simple tasks at this age. I don't need to explain myself to you, either. You need to leave."
And from Finch, there's a sharp bite of fear. Oh god, please don't leave him alone with him.
"Jesse. The glass," Samuel barks, and Finch startles, dropping back down to finish picking up the glass, his hands bleeding. He makes the mistake of sniffing, trying to hide it - and Samuel ignores Pinkman for the moment to sigh, and head to the fridge, making a point to step on the glass and grind it down with the heel of his shoe as he passes.
"Useless," He mutters, loudly enough for Jesse to hear, and Jesse's shoulders go up around his ears.
no subject
It makes his jaw carefully square, and it sets angrily as he gradually turns on a heel, his hands patting once at his sides onto his jeans. He watches Samuel at the fridge, eyes flicker briefly to Finch and then back up again.
"But he is still just- a kid," he finally speaks up, his voice slow and deliberate. "He's your kid. No less." There's this whole other side to this that he's only mildly aware of, drumming up his own experiences and setting him that much more on edge, makes him that much more defensive about all of this, maybe. "He breaks a glass, that makes him useless?"
There's one thing made palpably clear in how he plants his feet on the ground then, even leans in a little towards Samuel to emphasize his point: He's most certainly fucking not leaving this kid alone in a room with him.
no subject
Simple as that. He reaches into the fridge and pulls out an ice tray, clinking a few cubes into a small glass. Silent for a moment, Samuel looks for a bottle of whiskey that isn't empty, and once he's found one, he pours it. On the ground, Finch brushes the crushed glass into his palm and speaks up, quietly. "S'not - just the glass," Jesse says, not looking up as he moves to put more glass in the trash. "S'a long running thing."
Samuel sniffs in amusement from where he's standing, taking a sip from his glass. "You're a stranger in my home," He tells Pinkman. "You have no idea as to how this household is run, nor about how I choose to discipline my children. You take his 'side', but you haven't seen his vast background of fuck-ups."
Across the room, Jesse looks down at his feet. His eyes burn, and he rubs at his nose, and Samuel sighs heavily, taking another sip.
"You had better not start crying again," He says, and Jesse is trying his very hardest, but with how scared he is, how difficult it is to hear the disappointment, and how he can feel that edge in his chest - he can't help it much. Samuel stares over at him, irritated, now. "Who is it that cries again, Jesse?"
Jesse pauses, gaze flickering to Pinkman briefly, and then he mumbles the answer. Samuel barks sharply, "Speak up," and Jesse repeats, louder, rubbing at his face, smearing a bit of blood on his cheek: "Girls and f-- faggots, sir."
"And we don't want to be like them, do we?"
"... No sir."
no subject
He doesn't know what Finch was like as a kid, doesn't know his shortcomings and whatever it is that Samuel's been seeing in him, fine. But he thinks, pretty confidently, that he knows Finch. He knows what the guy's like and he, yeah, sometimes, he sees an awful lot of similarities that lay there between the two of them. Which adds a whole new defensive edge, sure, but that's not all.
There's this protective thing there, he thinks. And maybe it's under the conditions that they met in the first place, that night in the lighthouse, and maybe it's their friendship or maybe it's just the fact that Finch is standing before him as a teenager right now, a kid, just a kid and he's being knocked around by this guy twice his size, his own fucking father. Jesse watches Samuel pour himself a drink and he watches Finch smudge blood on his face and his expression falls into something uncharacteristically calmed, more mild than it was before.
Actually, he laughs a little. He looks to the side and he cracks into a grin and nods his head along to what's being said and wanders a step or two towards Samuel, glass crunching under his sneakers. "Girls and faggots," he repeats with a smirk like it's the best joke he's heard on a long time, and he looks at Finch when he says it, pointedly.
Of course, that's just before he draws back his fist and punches Samuel right in the face.
( here lies a warning for GROSS THINGS )
Pinkman strikes first, which means that from now on, it's self defense. Samuel's head knocks back from the force of the punch, and as he slowly looks back, there's a sort of tick-tick-tick sound, like an old rotary phone being turned. Nobody has stood up for Jesse this way before. This is uncharted territory, and Jesse's head - doesn't know how to handle it except to make it worse.
Samuel's eyes grow a little sharper, radioactive green, and Jesse darts forward, because everything is wrong. It's wrong, this isn't how it usually goes, it's a dream, and everything in Jesse's head protests. When he grabs Pinkman's wrist, it's him, the modern adult Finch that Pinkman's used to, and he looks and feels terrified. He doesn't say anything except for, "We gotta move," because already, Samuel's mouth is opening far wider than it should.
Finch yanks Pinkman back and towards the door, he won't look, he will not because he's had this dream before, not in this order, but - he knows that if he turns around and looks he'll see the long, bristle-haired limb pushing up out of Samuel's mouth, followed by another and another and fangs, too many eyes, pushing and pressing at the skin like it's a suit rather than flesh. The door is open, somehow, thank god, and Jesse drags Pinkman through it, down the twisted, distorted hallway as that buzzing sound builds again, roars through the hall and spills out through the walls in the form of shadows, nasty, swirling black mist. The discordant buzzing mixes with the sound of a snarling dog, right up close and in their ears, despite there not being anything there.
But like it always is in dreams, they just can't run fast enough.
no subject
What the- hell-
There's no time to marvel over it, because there's a hand around his wrist and Jesse barely even has time to register the change in age before he's reflexively running after Finch, stumbling a few steps while his sight's still locked onto Samuel and whatever the shit is happening to the guy right now. "What the fuck," he calls over his shoulder, incredulously, he grabs onto the door for a second to stop their running in time to see whatever that is coming out of his mouth, but he's pulled again, in the opposite direction.
It's not a hallucination, it can't be a hallucination. What the fuck would he be on to make something look like that? Certainly not fucking crystal, and he knows what goes into his shit, he knows it's not laced with anything else to make something do that. "What the fuck?" he repeats, louder this time, horrified, this is something out of a goddamn Del Toro movie and he's never seen anything like it, not outside of dreams and Hollywood - it makes the hair on his neck stand up and makes him run after Finch in earnest.
Getting high was a bad idea, getting high was a very very bad idea. The paranoia's settling in hard and it's mixing with Finch's own terror in a very particularly ugly fashion right now.
no subject
But the shadows are closer and closer, nipping at their heels, and he knows what happens when you piss a nightmare off. He's going to end up dead, it's going to destroy him from the inside out and he has no way of knowing if Pinkman is real or not, if Pinkman's not going to turn into something awful and drag him down under the earth.
Whether it's his own head or the nightmare, it doesn't matter. They can't run fast enough and the thudthudthud of eight legs slamming against the floor in pursuit makes Jesse's skin crawl. There's a door, though, at the end, and if he didn't know he was in a dream he wouldn't be able to reach it, but he does. He's had practice in lucid dreaming, which means he pulls it to them - and Jesse drags the two of them through it, slams it behind them and makes a small, terrified noise when it rattles with the force that the thing that was his father slams into the door. And then it's silent. Nothing. Completely, utterly devoid of sound, like listening to the world at high elevation.
Finch looks at Pinkman, leaning heavily against the door, shaking so hard Pinkman can probably feel it in his grip. A beat, and then, upset but not angry: "Wh-what... what the fuck are you doing in here?"
no subject
Jesse's chest hurts as he runs, lungs aching as he sucks in fast breaths and books it right along with Finch. Throwing a few looks back over his shoulder at what's chasing him does not help in the slightest; Samuel's mutated into some kind of grotesque spider something and it feels like an awful amount of real even though, yeah, okay, it's occurring to him quickly and violently that this can't be real, but he doesn't quite get it yet.
But he's dreaming, right? He's gotta be dreaming, but that doesn't make sense either, because he's never met Finch's dad, he's never fucking seen Finch's dad, how the hell could he ever know what Finch's dad even looks like? He's never seen that guy from back there in his damn life and yet that's in his head right now, or it was, before it all changed, one punch and it changed everything and none of this makes a damn lick of sense.
He lets out an almighty gasp once they're inside the room, breath rattling as he sucks in panicked breaths, it's all that fills up the room they're in for a moment and he's painfully aware of it. He looks up at Finch with incredulity once he speaks, and belatedly yanks his hand free of Finch's grasp so that he can stagger a step back and lean forward onto his knees. "That's what-" Jesse lets out a choked stutter of a laugh, pants hard and gestures wildly to the door.
"Yo, your dad transforms into goddamn Eight-Legged Freaks and that's what you ask? What the fuck am I doing in- How about what the fuck is going on?"
no subject
Christ. He's losing his fucking mind.
He wraps his arms around himself and presses his face into his knees, trying to catch his breath. Dreaming. You're dreaming, and you need to wake up. Repeats it out loud, for Pinkman to hear. "Dreaming. We're dreaming, that was my dream, I've - had it before." Mix and matched, of course, but those were all elements of his dreams. "I gotta - I gotta wake up afore..."
Because this has to be the nightmare's doing, right? There's no other explanation. Any second now, it's going to be here, and Finch needs to wake up so the both of them are safe. And that's what he's trying to do - long enough that, with his head down like it is, he doesn't notice the smoke curling into the room, slowly forming itself into the shape of a dog across the room.
no subject
Dreaming. So they are dreaming. But that doesn't make sense either, because who the fuck dreams together? These are Finch's dreams - like he said, he's had them before - and yet Jesse feels very absolutely fucking present in said dream, belonging in places he really oughtn't be belonging in. "I, uh, you wanna clue me into how the hell's that even possible over there, because I'm really-"
Jesse, unlike Finch, does see what's transpiring on the other side of the room, slowly turns his head and watches the smoke twist and form. His eyebrows furrow and he slowly starts to push himself up, watching carefully and, "Finch," he says at first, carefully, like he doesn't want to spook the smoke, which is fucking ridiculous, but there you have it. And then more urgently, "Jesse, what the fuck is goin' on-"
no subject
But it's a nightmare, of course it did.
Jesse scrambles up, pressing himself against the wall (door's gone, he realizes, the door has vanished) and watching as the smoke forms solidly into a dog made of snakes, its eyes glowing an unnatural yellow. That's another sharp pang of fear from Jesse, the immediate urge to curl up and fucking hide, because that's it, that's the dog, it's like the first night the two of them had met all over again. Except this time, Pinkman can see it. This isn't a hallucination.
"I -- I gotta, we gotta get out, f-fuck --" Jesse panics, and he's already trying to grab for Pinkman again, but it's too late. The dog pauses, looks up at them - and lunges.
And in House 20, Jesse Finch wakes up with a wheezing, terrified gasp.
no subject
He sits like that for a good long while, his eyes wide, his head propped up on his hand where he leans heavily against the arm of the couch.
And then, at once, he's kicking his sneakers on and making his way across the town to House 20.
A large, very insistent part of him is figuring that he has to stop drinking before he drifts off or something, because his dreams are getting hastily out of control. Nightmares on his own time, and now they're leeching into a whole other territory with which he hasn't even dealt before. But there's this seed of doubt there that can't ignore the specificity of that dream, the details that don't make sense to him even if they make sense to Finch, and that doubt's seen a lot happen in this town, an awful fucking lot that he can't begin to explain but that doesn't stop it from continuing on existing.
It's why he's standing on House 20's porch at three in the morning, feeling like a fucking idiot in these flannel pants and a t-shirt that's a few sizes too big - none of them fit, in that house, none of the clothes fit him right. He's taking a big goddamn leap by knocking on Finch's door like this, but it's gonna eat at him until he says something. He'll get his feelers out on the situation, and if he's just going crazy, then he's going crazy, and he can make up some stupid excuse for why he's banging their door down at this time of day.
By the time the door opens, Jesse's fingers are scratching spasmodically at the back of his head, and he very quickly resembles a deer in the headlights. "I, um."
no subject
He'd crawled out of bed to - go recover, somehow. Galen had asked him if he was okay and Jesse had managed to make him believe that yeah, yes, he was. Galen's still asleep and Jesse's practically rocking back and forth, terrified that it's going to be like before. He's going to start seeing the fucking dog again, it's going to wander the streets, and Jesse can't help but think what if - what if he's next? What if Galen passed the nightmare to him?
Finch answers the door, but he's pale as a sheet and breathing a little unsteadily. Jesus Christ. It wasn't just a nightmare, that was - it was different. It was fucked around with, because Jesse's dreams don't usually change. He's either drowning in spiders or in abuse and there's always a steady sort of - plot. Never has he had someone come in and save him. And fuck. He had to have someone save him from his own goddamn father, he's such a child --
He looks at Pinkman, but he can't think of what to say, so he opens his mouth, closes it, and then wraps his arms around himself. You're not the only one, it's written all over his face.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)