Carry on my wayward son

[godjr]

WHO: Jack Kline and OTA
WHAT: Jack is grieving the loss of his father Sam
WHERE: Everywhere
WHEN: February
WARNINGS: General sadness and depression





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General Panorama sads

[godjr]

Jack walks around the city in a bit of a gloom. He's not his bright and friendly self anymore. At work, he stacks the shelves at the grocery store, and cleans the bowling alley, but with noticeable quiet. Jack has no ability to hide his emotions, so any questions asked of him will be answered, but in a dull tone, with sad blue eyes that always seem on the verge of watering.

And tear up they do, frequently, when he has moments of quiet. Jack ends up flying up to different perches on rooftops, his legs slung over the side, staring down at the city. He can be found there all hours of the day. He doesn't sleep so people can find him sitting by himself on benches, unaffected by the cold. He's often forgotten to wear his jacket now that Sam isn't there to remind him. He cries openly, wiping the tears away.

Jack does sometimes have the dog Oso with him. He was Sam's dog, and while Laura was the original owner so got him back, she's graciously allowed him to see Oso sometimes. Oso seems to understand his sadness, and often puts his head on Jack's knee when he's sitting. He is enthusiastic though and will be friendly going up to other people, sniffing them. "Sorry," Jack says, tugging gently on Oso's leash. "He's very friendly."

[argumentiste]

It's pure happenstance that Alisaie stumbles upon Jack on her way home from work one evening. There's a weariness in her shoulders and her feet ache after a double shift at both the bakery and then the convenience store but her coin purse is at least heavier than it had been this morning.

As much as she's prone to running on a full tank of aether-powered energy, even the hustle of her day-to-day life can wear on her. Her head is filled with the thought of a hot shower and falling into bed beside her brother but then she spots a familiar figure hunched over on a bench without a coat. Even if he had been unfamiliar, Alisaie would have offered them one of her own pieces of winter clothing but since she is very familiar with this person she hustles over.

"Jack?" she asks approaching him with concern which only seems to grow the moment she looks at him seeing what are tears in his eyes. "Did something happen? Why are you out here in the cold?" Already she's begun to unravel her bright red scarf from around her neck to wrap it around him. "And why aren't you wearing a coat?"

[godjr]

Jack typically wears winter clothes because Sam and Rowena insist. He thinks it's comes from a parental instinct that perseveres despite knowing it won't matter to him. So he indulges them, and it makes him feel good too. But Sam's gone now. He'll never tell Jack to put on gloves again, not if he's stuck forever. He can't help but be lost in those thoughts. The idea of staying here was something he was starting to like, and now it means being without all of his parents. It feels more real now.

He is lost in his grief so he misses her saying his name, and her first words feel a little like he's in a bubble, and the words come slowly to him. He hears them, but in slow motion. "I'm okay. I don't feel it." Maybe he does, a little. Cold in a different way. Down to his core. Jack tells himself to shake out of it. Alisaie needs his attention. "I'm an archangel, we don't feel like other people do."

And maybe that is what he should hold onto now. Maybe he should stop feeling. The idea has merit, but it is what his biological family believed in, and since they're all evil, it's definitely a bad idea. "My father's gone. Sam is gone. And Castiel is gone, and people I cared about, and I can't do anything about it." He's lost a few friends, and each time he grieved, but this is harder. It's deeper.

[argumentiste]

Alisaie is familiar with grief. She's seen too much of it on those who had brought their loved ones to the Inn at Journey's Head and then across the rest of the First. The effects of the light had spread much in the same way it acted - spreading as vast and as far as it could onto all the things that it touched. Nor is she a strange to it as well. Her own young heart has been cut up by the loss of her grandfather that she still feels keenly some days and then the grief from other sources that she still refuses to acknowledge.

So she knows it when she sees it. It weighs heavy on Jack's shoulders. "It doesn't matter that you can't feel it. What if something happens where you can?" she gently chides. As soon as the scarf is securely tied around his neck (in a silly little bow no less), she sits down beside him to pull him close. It goes without saying she had never met any of the people from Jack's world, but that doesn't make her heart ache any less for her friend. It is very likely she would feel their absence acutely should any of her companions - particularly her brother - left.

Jack's words of despair hang in the air and she allows the grief room to breathe. "I'm sorry, Jack," she starts, her own voice heavy, "They could return. You can't give up hope that that might be the case."

[godjr]

Grief is not something new to him. It festers. He still agonizes over the loss of Mary and his part in it. And Alisaie knows now that he's experienced the extermination of life on his planet. That is the sort of pain Jack still hasn't come to terms with, because how can he? It's on a level beyond a sane person's understanding. But that makes individual loss harsher. He can be numb to the big picture, and not the small one.

He lets her tie the scarf around him without argument. It's true that on the train he felt the cold. It wasn't going to kill him, but he still felt it. Yet really the reason he lets her is because he is desperate for little gestures of someone caring about him. And then she pulls him close, and he goes with it, putting an arm around her waist, leaning in. It's strange to have someone who is not family showing him affection, but he likes it.

"I don't think I should. Sam is safer here than there, but he was without his brother, and it hurt him. And Dean wouldn't want to be here. He is focused on our mission. I should be too." Jack feels an enormous sense of guilt over giving up on a plan to go back. It's selfish. He is literally the linchpin of their plan, without him it's impossible. And he's here enjoying holidays and ice skating and being happy.

"I knew eventually I would have to live without him. I am eternal. He is human. But I was looking forward to sixty years or so first." Sam isn't dead, but it feels like he might as well be, if he never returns.

[argumentiste]

It's easier to get lost in the picture of grief. Even easier to allow oneself to wallow in guilt that may come hand in hand with it. As much as she grieved the loss of the lives she had been unable to save at Journey's Head, the guilt gnawed at her and plagues her still to this day. And though suffocating, both those things drive her to ensure that something to that extent will not happen again.

The gravity of that doesn't apply here for no one has died. Not really. But she understands how someone being wrenched away unexpectedly can leave a hole in their absence that feels too much like a wound that might never heal. She will never be able to replace those that Jack holds dear but she can at least provide comfort and support in these times.

"I felt the same with my grandfather," she utters, shifting her hold on him a little. They must look a site - this small diminutive thing holding onto someone taller and larger than her. But she doesn't seem to care. "Not that he was eternal. We elezen live longer lives than some races but I didn't expect him to be gone so abruptly. Inexplicably, I believed it had been my fault in some way. But in the same breath I was also furious with him for leaving because I didn't understand his reasoning at the time."

This is veering somewhat in a direction she hadn't intended but she continues. "I suppose what I am trying to say is that, regardless of the circumstances, we have to cherish the time we did have with them. And that they wouldn't want us to continue on like this grieving them when we have life to live and others to help."

[crimebaby]

[ livio spots jack from a distance, sitting on a bench. he's not dressed for the weather, which is the first thing livio notices, but beyond that, he's hunched over, and... crying? ]

[ livio has been very depressed himself since wolfwood's disappearance, but he can't ignore jack in this state. he approaches. ]

Jack, what's wrong?

[ he'll sit on the bench with him ]

Cube & Bulletin

[godjr]

Jack goes out to the Fringes as a distraction, but he spots the cube, and frowns at it, feeling like it's still an enemy of some kind. The train happened right before it appeared, and it's unknowable, which he doesn't like. "I'm going up," he'll say to someone if nearby, he's driven his motorcycle out until he's right underneath it. Then Jack disappears, and he can be spotted high above, probably as small now that he's there, reaching out.

If someone is there watching though, they might begin to worry, because he seems stuck out there for over an hour, nearing two hours, unaware since he's caught in a time dilation. It's only a matter of minutes for him as he touches the cube, and gets overwhelmed by visions. They flood him, and he loses consciousness, crashing down to the ground. He slams down with a powerful shake of the earth nearby, causing a crater from the force of dropping. Do not try to catch him unless you have super strength!

It takes him a few seconds to wake up, and he pops up, startled. He shakes his head to clear it, confused, and does something he's never done before in his life: he swears. "What the fuck was that?" If he's a stranger who just crashed to the ground, you wouldn't know, but someone who has met the polite and innocent Jack would know that's strange of him.

Jack has been exploring the Fringes, partly to get away from the depression of Sam being gone, and he comes upon the wedding party. Really he's there for the food, having smelled it far away, and Oso the dog has come with him because he has kept Sam's car. The plate he's made is huge, towering with the many options for food, and he watches the ghosts walk around.

"I don't think these are normal spirits." Jack frowns and rubs his chin, keeping an eye on them. "It's not cold, and I don't think we can banish them." He doesn't see any objects keeping them there. The first time the fight began and the groom was stabbed, Jack tried to heal him to no avail, but it keeps repeating so the second or third time he just helplessly watches. He explores the wedding area though, looking for objects that may be tying all these ghosts to one place, like a proper hunter.

Because Jack takes literally any job available, he will be delivering candy grams to people. But if you were expecting someone smiling to hand over such a nice gift, he looks truly depressed as he does. "Here, have a nice day," he says as if it's the saddest thing he's ever imagined.