interstellar5555 | Locked in a Room

"Y'know, the crash. The crash. The one my parents kind of died in." It comes out more curtly than is probably warranted, and he's definitely not looking at Yosuke now. He doesn't like talking about it, doesn't like thinking about it, seems to get all staticky in the head if he does dwell on it too long.

"But it's weird, it - I felt like I was there, watching it, but...I wasn't around when they crashed, that was...over in Europa or something, I don't..." He trails off again, still breathing a little raggedly, but looking more confused now as well as upset.

Yosuke winces, instantly feeling bad he even asked. Especially now, that Jamie had a bad dream or something, about something so sensitive. But was it a dream? He asks himself, because he'd had his own experience not too long ago, another one- so he rubs the back of his head apologetically.

He hadn't really meant to make this worse, he at least hopes he didn't.

"That's some pretty intense stuff, dude. Sorry I brought it up...but maybe..." His voice trails off. He actually thought about what he was about to say for a change.

"Listen, I don't think you're the only one here, so...maybe you were there when it happened." He says it a little quietly, a little nervously. Almost like if that made sense, then everything else might start to make sense.

"...what?" Jamie gives him a squinting sidelong look, like he's just suggested something completely insane. "I just told you I wasn't there, I was on an entirely different continent, I couldn't've..."

But he doesn't finish the thought. He sits there very quietly, body still tense and rigid as he grapples with some half-formed idea that's sprung up in the wake of Yosuke's suggestion. He thinks back to B, the night of that awards ceremony, and all the incidents on the tour bus before that.

"What do you mean," he says, very quietly, "that you don't think I'm the only one?"

"I mean like," he starts, sounding annoyed. It was such a pain to try to find the words to express what he meant, because it would involve divulging some of his own experiences. But he weighs his options- Jamie was his friend, even if he was a little hot headed. Someone he'd spent more time than he'd care to remember with, and at the end of the day they were all buds. And it's not something horribly exposing of himself, so he continues.

"Like having these weird visions, or memories or something. Stuff that feels way too real but shouldn't be. Some of the other guys told me about theirs. I've had them too. ...That's what it was like, right?"

Jamie looks over at him with an intense, almost apprehensive expression, turning around Yosuke's words in his mind. Finally he looks away, rubbing a hand through his hair. He's still shaking a little.

"It happened to you too, huh." He lets his hand drop into his lap. "Seeing things. Feeling things. It's - " He pauses, like he's not sure about divulging this to Yosuke, but finally plunges ahead. "...it's the way they feel that gets me. The emotion. This felt so real, and - " He stops abruptly, because there's a waver in his voice that threatens to betray his vulnerability.

"-and it feels like there's something more to it than what we're getting." He finishes Jamie's sentence, whether or not that's what he meant to say or not. He looks upset now. It bothered him more than he was ever letting on to anyone, hiding it, even when he told Sora about it. He never even told B, despite the fact that B had shared his own experience with him.

"I didn't exactly want to believe that anything was going on at first, that maybe there was something in the food or we were just so exhausted from the tours. But it happened again, after the lockdown started." His voice is low, serious, thoughtful. Thinking, as if speaking was helping him organize everything in his head.

"I don't know what's going on, but if this is happening to everyone, the way I think it is...then we need to do something."

"Like what?" Jamie's brow furrows dubiously. "You think we should talk to Mr. Patil about it or something?" He doesn't sound as though he thinks that's a very good idea.

A thought occurs to him, and he frowns a little more deeply. "Do you think...it's more than just us? Like, maybe...it's happening to other people in the building too?"

"I talked with a few other people since the lockdown started," he says, slowly. "They've been really bothered, and there's this girl over in Virgo that says some of the same things are happening to them. If it wasn't more than just us, I'd just write it off as a coincidence or something."

His own visions, memories- they were too connected, felt too real, like they were a part of him. Something he can't ignore.

"It's definitely more than just us. I've been thinking about it, and we might have to wait and see what happens for now..." He trails off, not liking that, but he doesn't know what to do quite yet.

Jamie chews his lip worriedly, thinking. About his own experiences, what he knows of B's, the information Yosuke's just divulged to him. Finally he gives a tentative nod. "I guess...that's about all we can do at this point, until we have a better idea of what we're dealing with. 'Weird thoughts' isn't exactly a lot to go on."

He hesitates, looking down at his hands, a little steadier now and clasped tightly between his knees. "Who've you talked to, that this has been happening to?"

He takes a deep breath, to recollect the information he'd gotten so far. It wasn't a lot, but people have been obvious about things- and there hasn't been a second that he wasn't glad for his insightfulness.

"I talked a little with Nariko and Koumei. Koumei hasn't been sleeping, and Nariko looks like she's had a rough couple of days. They didn't exactly say it, but I know something's been bugging the hell out of them. And that girl in Virgo...her name's Rei. She said she's been having the visions and stuff too. Then there's all of us, except Maxxie. Did he say anything to you about this?"

"I don't think I'm exactly the guy Maxxie's gonna confide in if something's bugging him." Jamie's voice is quiet but frank, acknowledging his fault rather than accusing the subject of discussion.

"That's still not very many people to base an assumption on, though. Are you sure what's bugging those other two is..." He makes a twiddly-finger gesture beside his head. "Y'know, mind stuff?"

He pauses, and then a pale shadow of a teasing grin tugs at the corner of his mouth. "And how d'you know you didn't just pass on some kinda psycho-cooties to Rei when you guys were out together?"

Yosuke's opportunity to chide Jamie for once about the fight he had with Maxxie passes too quickly- instead, he's distracted by a much more pressing matter. He doesn't even have the opportunity to answer the first question either, since he's far too distracted now trying to defend himself. His face screws up in annoyance, arms folding over his chest now.

He'll get back to the matter at hand. But first thing's first.

"What the hell are psycho-cooties? That's not even a real thing! We just kissed, that's it!"

Jamie has to snort a laugh at that and feel somewhat gratified that even a half-assed effort of his can still get a rise out of Yosuke. He sobers quickly, though.

"Seriously. It's...weird that it's happening to Virgo, too. The visions and everything." He chews distractedly on his lower lip. "Did Rei mention if anyone else over there was going through stuff like that? Her bandmates or anything?"

"Yeah. All of them, and then some. That's really what got me thinking."

He seems to of calmed down, getting back on the subject of whatever strange happenings were effecting themselves, and just about everyone else that they knew.

"But the real question is, why's it happening in the first place? Seriously, this is the kind of freaky shit that only happens in the movies."

Jamie's eyes narrow thoughtfully. "That's the big question, huh," he says, half to himself.

He shoots Yosuke a look. "I wonder who else this is happening to, if this is more than just us and Virgo. Y'know, other people around town, around the country..." That would make the most sense, after all - if this is some kind of mass hysteria or weird illness or shift in the Earth's electromagnetic field, the effected population would be a lot bigger than just a handful of musicians. And Jamie can't really think of how this wouldn't be any of those things - unless they're drifting completely into, as Yosuke so delicately put it, freaky movie shit.

Yosuke grimaces. That had been a possibility, that maybe this was something more than maybe a handful of people. For so many different people to be effected, for all he knew it could be something bigger, something more widespread. But he's not sure. He throws an idea out there, just so maybe the very thought of a city full of people having strange visions didn't overwhelm him.

"You'd think if it were as big as the city or the country, we would of heard more about it," he says, "since you know people who go into hysterics about it. It would've been on the news..."

But he doesn't sound so sure about that.

That's a good point; the fact that there hasn't been any mention of this in the media seems to suggest that it's a more isolated occurrence than Jamie would have suspected. He frowns, finally easing back against the couch.

"What if we're just the first ones?" he ventures. "The - y'know, the origin of the pandemic. Patient Zero." He's being a little melodramatic, and sensing this, tries to tone it down. "Maybe whatever it is, it's starting with us and Virgo and will end up expanding from there.

"But that still doesn't explain why it would be happening to us first. Unless there's a different origin point that we picked it up from and we just don't know it..." He's sort of throwing ideas out there too, hashing things out. It feels satisfying in a way he can't quite pin down to look at facts like this and try to extrapolate some sort of explanation for them, to hunt down whatever thread of logic might be hiding there.

It's not so preposterous, what Jamie is suggesting. The entire situation is far too weird for Yosuke to even be able to begin to comprehend at the moment, but as it stands it's still happening and that means there's got to be a reason for it. He tries to think on it, taking Jamie's idea.

"Well, why don't we review what's happened so far. The first time I got hit with a weird vision, it was at the gala. Other people were affected there too, which means that might be a good starting point. That was the first time all of the newer bands had been together from Pride and Virgo. So it might be something from there."

That makes sense to him. He takes another breath.

"And then, we got a second one. But I heard that some people from Virgo got another vision during some kind of weird thing where they all got dragged into the basement of their HQ. It was around the same time that we got kidnapped by Predator."

He leaves it there, because he's not so sure what all that means.

Jamie nods along as Yosuke rattles off the facts thus far. He chews his lip uncertainly, trying to piece everything together into some semblance of sense.

"I had a vision at the gala, too," he confirms, and then after a little hesitation, "So did B." He figures it might not be too much of an intrusion to share that much, as long as he doesn't go into the details of what B's vision was about.

He frowns at the mention of the Virgo basement thing - that sounds like a hell of a story - but goes quiet for a moment or two, thinking back to the Predator incident. "I had another one, when we were at the theme park. I dunno about anyone else, but if it was like the gala than I might not have been the only one."

"Wait, you got three visions?! Not fair..."

He'd only gotten two thus far, but that was all the evidence he needed along with the testimonies of so many that also had the same thing happen to him. But still. Three? Why couldn't he have three?

Jamie bristles, half angry and half wounded. "Yeah, I had one when I thought I was going to die. If I'd known you wanted more notches in your belt, I would've traded places with you." He lapses into a sullen silence, trying not to glare at Yosuke.

"I didn't mean it like that! Sorry..."

He quiets, and quickly changes the subject back to what they were talking about. Jamie hadn't wanted to talk about it at all that night either, and now he understands why. He didn't know that Jamie thought he was going to die, and given what Predator pulled on them, it was probably even worse than he originally thought.

"Anyway...it sounds like these things come when something big happens. The gala, the kidnappings, this lockdown. Argh, this is hurting my head!"

Jamie latches onto the subject change willingly enough, though he's a little more subdued about it at first.

"And before that, all of that...haunting crap was happening on the bus while we were touring. Maybe it's just some kind of stress reaction or something? Or some kind of...energy, building up when we're all in close quarters like this, like some kind of, what is it, biofeedback." He looks extremely dissatisfied with these solutions, though, and throws up his hands in frustration. "I don't know. We need more information."

But how do they go about getting it?

When it's all laid down like that, Yosuke finds it to be more disturbing than he originally thought. It was easy to blow it all off before, like it was just all of them being paranoid or strange things happening by coincidence, but there's no way he can ignore it now.

"You know, if all this strange-ass crap wasn't happening, I mighta said you were nuts for suggesting something like biofeedback. You think that maybe our labels are cursed or something? Actual ghosts that are messing with us, or maybe trying to tell us something?"

He can't come up with any way to find the information. It's too supernatural, and he's definitely not calling the Ghostbusters on this one.

A month ago Jamie would have dismissed the idea of ghosts out of hand, but now his brow furrows as he gives it some actual thought.

"That's...not as farfetched as it sounds, I guess." He goes a little quiet, thinking about how much to share and how to phrase it. "Two of my hallucinations now have had something to do with...a plane crash. At least, that's what it looked like." He doesn't really want to bring up the next part. "So...you think maybe it has something to do with my parents?"

And then, like he can't quite bear to let the topic linger too long, he adds: "Did either of your visions have anything to do with...y'know, dead people?"

It sounds so morbid, when he puts it like that.

Locked in a Room

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