Moonlight Sonata l Jammy
“Exactly, uh—Jimmy, you said your name was?” The ghost of a long dead smile lights her lips. She’s pleased at his conclusion. This boy understands that it’s madness, sitting around in a forgotten house and refusing to mourn their loved ones. They’re all in denial. But she, forever the same clever, brilliant Amelia Gordon who understood the world before her classmates did, is not. She is not, nor will she ever be, made a fool. “It’s sad, really. We’re all here, dancing our beheading dance, and nobody else seems to understand that it’s useless.” Her clenched fingernails make dents in the leather bound copy of Wuthering Heights. It’s worth more than her life, no doubt. “It’s all useless.”
She releases a stale breath and turns to him. She looks lost, surrounded by books that, try as she might, will never replace her mother. He looks like a deer in the headlights, then, and she’s sorry he’s been caught up in her sorry excuse for a life. Sorry for all of them. “Of course not! You can’t be stupid enough to buy into—” she pauses and realizes what she’s just said. “Not stupid, I mean. Confused. But, James, people die every day. People are dying right now, and there’s nothing I or anyone else can do about it, hard as we might try. But what’s done is done.” she takes a step toward him, but doesn’t move forward past that. But he’s looking at her intently, sadly, and God why can’t these people just understand that she’s right?
“All that we can do now,” she murmurs, fiddling with the edges of her shirt nervously, “is move on. Live, you know?” Amelia takes another step forward—they’re quite close now, and she can see every contour of his face. There’s a need deep within her—he needs to understand. Somebody needs to understand. And if it’s not Jeffrey, then goddammit, she’ll settle for a vaguely handsome boy who wears leather jackets (of all things!). “And this isn’t. This is stagnation. And it’s disgusting.”
“What’s done is done,” Jimmy repeats slowly, nodding almost to himself as he tries to piece together her words. They send a chill through his mind, there’s something so familiar about the words themselves but the thoughts that they evoke are so foreign that he can’t completely grasp them before they slip away from him. ”and it’s useless. We’re just walking in the same circles made up of the same bad, negative emotions. All the words that end up meaning the same thing when strung together; I’m giving up because it’s not worth it anymore to try.“
He falls silent for a moment, chews at his lower lip, and then continues, “And you say that all there is now is to move on and yet you’re still here. What keeps you here?”
Completely enveloped in his own thoughts, Jimmy barely notices Amelia move until she’s barely a foot away and he thinks that maybe that’s dangerous because she really is one of the prettier girls he’s met. Her eyes are big and there’s something in them that he doesn’t quite understand - an emotion that spurs him into sudden action.
Before he could stop himself he closes the small distance between them and lightly brushes his lips against hers. The kiss barely lasts a second before his brain kicks in and screams that what he is doing is wrong; that she’s an emotionally fragile teenage girl, that he barely knows her and that’s really not what he should be doing. But he didn’t step back, didn’t make any move to back away or leave, and he hoped to god that he hasn’t made a huge mistake.
Moonlight Sonata l Jammy
Amelia releases her white knuckled grip on the biography with a small sigh. Oh, it’s that British boy from earlier. “No. No, don’t worry about it… I’m not usually in the library at four in the morning. Well, actually…” she forces a laugh and gets up, peeking around the rows and rows of books. He’s nothing short of adorable, now, with his bedraggled hair and apologetic expression. She can’t bring herself to smile at him, but the worried-slash-angry scowl that has permeated her face all night has disappeared into a neutral frown. Her eyes, already tinged with red from her earlier tears, have dark bags under them that reveal her lack of sleep.
“Was there something specific you were looking for?” she asks, before realizing how stupid her question is. Nobody but her, the worrying, bibliophilic soul whose mind will switch from anger to morbid fascination with this house that has taken everything, would go searching for answers in its murkiest room at this hour of the night. But book are all she knows, and the fool’s errand for remedies found only in drugs, alcohol, and other unspeakable acts was doomed from the beginning. But it still takes her a great deal of strength to put the book down on a nearby table.
Her hands shake as she does it, and Amelia clenches and unclenches her fist in a misguided attempt to warm them. She is not cold. “Nevermind. I don’t understand. What are you doing up?” Jimmy was not sick, and he was not abandoned by his brother. Or perhaps she abandoned him. Guilt seems to fall differently every time she rewinds their conversation. And perhaps this boy has misplaced a family member or two; he’s lost enough for it.
She’s exhausted and giddy, and her hands won’t stay still, so she grabs a stack of books and begin to alphabetize them on the unruly shelves. “Did you know that former French aristocrats who had lost family members to the guillotine would gather for parties? In the Catacombs, with their dead parents and children. The bales des victimes—victims’ balls. they would act out executions, and wore bright red ribbons on their necks. Like blood. Isn’t that funny? In a morbid way. Revolution-era France is so fascinating.” she’s talking so quickly and shakily, it would be a miracle if he can understand her. But she continues. What else can she do? “Doesn’t this remind you of that? Lost souls, gathering together because they can’t face it. They can’t see what I can see—everyone here is dead, or in denial about it.” She sounds just a little insane, like it wouldn’t take too much to push her off the deep end. Facts and parallels and stories—they hammer on the inside of her skull, trying to push their way out to no avail. “Except me. Maybe.”
He looks around the room before answering, smiling half-heartedly at the frown on her face and he thinks that maybe he should just leave himself because she really doesn’t seem to want company and Jimmy was really never good company anyway. “Can’t sleep,” he admits after a moment, giving her a small shrug like it was obvious, “I’m used to working a night shift and sleeping all day and my body’s not used to the fact that it’s not exactly normal to do that and—”
He falls silent as she starts to speak again and Jimmy finds himself nodding along as she speaks, more just listening than actually agreeing although he’s not exactly surprised by what she’s saying because in a way it all makes sense. “The parties became unhealthy because the families weren’t allowing themselves to move on. Maybe they thought that if they relived their grief that maybe things would get better, their feelings of loss and helplessness would lessen, but… they didn’t have the strength to move on and face the obvious; their families were gone and they had lives to lead, they couldn’t live in the past forever…”
Jimmy cuts off suddenly and looks up at her, watches her carefully out of narrowed eyes for a bit longer than he probably should have, noticing for the first time how tired and worn-down she looked, how devastated. He can tell she’s been crying, eyes bloodshot and wide and he’s suddenly wary, like he knows she’s going to shatter at any moment and he won’t be able to pick up the pieces. And that observation comes with a realization that makes him cringe because in a way it all makes sense, ”You don’t think you’re going to find your parents, do you? You don’t think there’s anything to find.”
Moonlight Sonata l Jammy
The windows reveal to her that it’s the night sky is a starless curtain of ink, inviting her to it’s murky depths with murmurs of good intentions and mentions of losses that were only half her fault. God only knows what unholy time of the night it is, and every shadow is a well meaning ghost, come to offer her solace and, eventually, an end. But Amelia isn’t frightened; she’s faced things much worse than spirits in her few years, and she can tell in her mind’s eye that they’re harmless. But the more primal part of her holds the yellowing pages of the old biography closer to her chest as a shield against the world. And isn’t that what knowledge is to her—she will spew her words of bravado and courage and meaning, but, in the end, words are a weapon. And they have been used against her to many times for her not to know how to wield them with deadly accuracy.
It’s ominously titled “The Composer,” but it’s less about Beethoven’s music and more about his inspiration. He never married, though he eventually adopted his nephew, who committed suicide due to his uncle’s chronic unhappiness. The author supposes this was the inspiration to his famous “Ode to Joy.” Hardly, Amelia thinks. “Joy” is not about death, or life, for that matter. It’s say it in the title—it’s about the indescribable feeling of happiness you get when everything fits. It’s an emotion she hasn’t felt in a while, and it’s obvious to her that Beethoven wasn’t too familiar with it either. It would be impossible to capture that split second in music or literature or art—but his effort is valiant, and she appreciates it.
The biography is horrendous, of course. It’s overly sentimental, heavy, and betrays the author’s love for the composer a bit too much for her tastes. But she didn’t expect an aging scientist to have a quality taste in novels, either, so perhaps she’s lucky that it wasn’t hiding a porn magazine or something.
Even though her life is as bad as it’s ever been, even though she’s lost the last person she trusted, even though she’s completely alone… she feels calm. Free, in a way, though she hates herself for it. Jeffrey was not the thing that was weighing her down, he was what was lifting her up. But with the sun turning the sky auburn and her crying in a library filled with books that haven’t been read since before the Cold War, sinking is far preferable to the choking stagnation that fills this place like a cancer. She can feel it in her bones; you could stay in this place for decades before the thought of leaving ever crossed your mind. But running has become so deeply ingrained in her neural pathways that even the idea of it makes her gag.
There’s a crashing noise from across the room, and Amelia hides behind her hardcover. Perhaps these ghosts aren’t so friendly. “Hello?” she chokes out, wiping at her red eyes furiously. “Is anyone… are you…?”
It’s past midnight when Jimmy finally realizes that he’s not going to get any more sleep that night. He carefully slips out of his room, heading anywhere that will allow him preoccupy himself until it’s past dawn and he’s tired enough to sleep again. The energy that seemed to be tangible the last few hours has finally died down and the house is mercifully silent as he creeps down the grand staircase, wincing every time the stairs creaked although he was sure no one was up to hear them.
He really doesn’t know what brings him to the library in the first place, especially not at half-passed the time hell froze over, so late at night it had to be almost morning, but he really couldn’t complain. A library was always a good place to be even if Jimmy didn’t much care for books, there was a sort of calm that resided in libraries that was unlike anything else.
He notices dimly that someone must have left a light on earlier in the night in the library because as he gets closer he can see it shining faintly and goes towards it. The rest of the room is still fairly dark and he doesn’t notice the edge of the side table until he runs into it with his hip, sending the bookend and a few of the books on the table crashing to the ground before he can make an attempt to catch them. ”… fuck.”
It’s also as he scrambles to pick up the owl-shaped bookend that he realizes that he’s not as alone as he thought he was and Jimmy looks up at the figure curled up in the corner. He stands slowly, placing the bookend back on the table and stacking the books again into some sort of pile. He notices the voice easily enough, which is a good thing because he can’t exactly see their face, and smiles crookedly, apologetically. ”Oh, uh, sorry, wow. I didn’t know anyone else was up this late— early. Did I disturb you?”
ooc
I’m probably going be really really inactive until late May or June. I can get on during the weekends but the weekdays are too busy for me to even try. Los ciento ;_____________;
Late Night Council
Greg stood by the door waiting. He was glad that he had managed to round up everybody in the dining room, of course, with the help of Rebecca. Despite their new found information about who had messed around with their food, the duo had spent little time conversing with one another. There still hung an air of uneasiness that swam in between the two everytime that they were together. Collins attributed it as a good thing, knowing that it would only mean less distractions. Still, he did appreciate the fact that she helped out. Shaking his head out of thoughts of the woman he formerly worked with, he eyed each of the other guests suspiciously. He didn’t even try to hide his judging glances. He knew that in the entire room, there was at least one person who couldn’t be trusted.
Michael raised his eyebrows and glanced towards Rita, fishing around in his pockets to figure out what exactly he had in his pockets. He watched Greg for a few moments, wondering if the man had any suspicions already. Mike was sure he’d been marked off as innocent- why the heck would he poison all these people he barely knew?
However, Mike kept his face solid as he felt his stomach churn again. Jesus Christ, who was the asshole who thought this was funny? He felt the cold press of his keys against his palm and the silent list of the items he held ran through his head.
Keys, wallet (Legal ID, fake ID tucked into an inconspicuous pocket, forty bucks cash, two quarters), lighter (but no cigarette, he’d quit, but there was always the chance to hand someone a ligh- this wasn’t the time.) There was nothing out of the ordinary- certainly nothing that would incriminate him.
He tried to meet Greg’s eyes, his eyebrow raised in question to what the man was doing. Mike could figure out that it wasn’t Rita- what woman would put herself throw the food poisoning if she could avoid it?- but beyond that, he had no clue.
(OOC) Attn: Claire & Michael — you are being addressed directly!
Holy shit, you guys.
Jesus Chri— hey! Wait for me!
Holy shit, are you guys seeing this? I can’t beli-
Wait, where’d you go? Oh you guys are not leaving me here alone! Wait up!
Let’s never speak of this again.
Never.
I think I peed myself.
Holy shit, you guys.
If you guys leave me here and the ghost talks to me, I will send him after you and then you’ll see- Oh, wait, it’s not moving anymore. The shadow’s staying still. That’s boring-
Holy shit, Jace, behind you!
Jesus Chri— hey! Wait for me!
Holy shit, you guys.
I heard it!
No, we can’t leave! What if it’s a nice ghost? We should try to talk to him! What if he needs us to help ease his passage onto the next plane of life?
Okay, I definitely heard that. Yes, but what if it’s not a nice ghost. What if it’s a mean ghost who wants revenge and thinks we’re the people who killed him? Actually you know what, how about Jimmy and I leave and you can have an ugly tea party with the ghost, the dominatrix mannequin— who is looking at us — and the giant portrait of Dara.
When is a ghost ever nice? Is it fucking Casper or something?
Yeah, yeah, you know what, that sounds like a plan to me. Come one, Jace! I’m getting fuck outta here.
"Hey there! Don't think I've seen you around. Take a seat, have a drink, it's on me, we should get acquainted seeing as we might be here for a while. Oh. Who'm I? Well, I'm James Gates, erm, call me Jimmy, though. Or y'can call me Jim, 'm not very picky. I'm originally from London's East End but I moved to Manhattan a few months back. I'm at Regan Manor looking for clues that could help me find a missing colleague of mine."
this is a roleplay account
