[SE] or the highway

Hey, hi Zeph. Jack has had the fuck enough, k?

We'll skip over the events of the past season and his good friend's return (and pretend that many attempts to connect to Zeph have occurred and failed during that time) and just focus on this one instead.

All good? Ready? Excellent.

The captain picks his way across the blustery beaches towards the other man's house, armed with a post-Longnight hangover and breakfast from The Hanged Man, thumps up to the deck of a house that's both familiar to him and not these days, and kicks the door since his hands are full. (This, too, is familiar and not, based on the worn paint at the bottom of the door from a certain boot).

[say]"Oi!"[/say] he calls, voice still rough with the whiskey of the previous week. [say]"Open up or I'll break the fuck in."[/say]

Familiar yet not. What an apt way to put things.

No worries about brushing past the last few months - they're all the same to you. Ever since your miraculous rescue you've been nowhere. Well, no, that's not strictly true- literally speaking you've been here, between these walls, beneath this roof, upon this couch. Sometimes you get up to use the bathroom. Rarely, you even bathe. You eat when you're reminded to, and you sleep twelve hours a day.

You're alive, but only technically. And you're here, but only in the most literal sense.

Maybe you died that day in the ocean.

Maybe it was long before.

The door creaks open after a pause,  more out of obligation than invitation. You don't look up or greet your visitor, just turn and shuffle back inside. The house isn't even messy - that would require too much life. But gods if it isn't damned depressing, a once-beloved doll's house now occupied by ghosts. You're not far off from being one of em, all papery and thin with sunken eyes and sallow skin and stringy hair. What would El say, if she could see you now? What would Vai?

Good riddance, probably.

But they aren't here, are they? No, they're dead, dead as doornails, dead as dreams, dead as you really oughta be. They're dead and buried and so is Ray and all you have left are their ghosts and poisoned memories and too much rum and not enough soul and a whole lot of nightmares and ---

--- and ---

-- oh yeah. And Jack.

[say]"An' a good gods-damned mornin' to you, too,"[/say] Jack all but hisses at Zeph as he's kind enough to open the door and do nothing else. Elbowing his way in before the door can blow shut on him, Jack winces at the stale air and the deep sludge of his friend's thoughts. [say]"Fuck sake, Zeph,"[/say] he mutters, plonking himself on the couch and setting down the breakfast he's brought - loco moco, not that he thinks the other man will give a fuck.

[say]"You got more'n silence to give to me today?"[/say] he wants to know, uncorking a bottle of probably-not-wine and taking a swig. [say]"I ain't gonna keep doin' this forever, you sad sack of shit."[/say] Except he is and they both know it. [say]"Hope you were a more sociable hostage than you are a free man."[/say]