jupiterhudson:
Hallucinations aren’t real. They’re figments of the imagination or, more typically, the creations of a mind that’s been pushed to the breaking point. If they’re people, they’re not the real person, not a ghost or a memory or the evidence of anything more than thoughts. And so the Jupiter Hudson that sits at the end of Blake Palmer’s bed isn’t real, not in any true sense of the word. She’s just the version of the girl that he holds in his head.
But she’s there when he needs her, or perhaps when he doesn’t. Either way, he’s looking for a solution, for comfort, for the girl he thinks that maybe he could have adored if he’d known her for longer before her death. She smiles at him, chest rising and falling like she’s breathing and the edge of the bed weighted down like she’s actually sitting there.
“ Of course not.”
Even as a hallucination, she’s still her and that means tactless and blunt, even if she never means to hurt people with her words. It’s just the way that she was raised and the way she learned how to be; hurt is something that can be avoided with thick skin and a deep enough belief in one’s own strength. But she knows that isn’t true. She was strong and she still died.
“ I’m here. Not real. There’s a difference. If I was real, I’d be petting Ezra. I like him. He’s gotten bigger since I met him.”
“Oh,” Blake says, and looks down at the mattress. His fingers pull a feather out of his down blanket; he never liked down blankets when he was healthy. He felt like duvets were unnecessarily cruel to animals. Why did birds have to suffer just so he could get a good night’s sleep? But now, it’s hard for him to fall asleep without the weight of a thick blanket dragging him down to meet Morpheus and Hypnos. He tosses the feather off the side of his bed, and it twirls down slowly to land right in the middle of Ezra’s back. Ezra doesn’t stir, sleeping peacefully. That confirms what Blake hadn’t wanted to believe; that the hallucination in front of him is nothing more than that.
He remembers his psychologist’s advice when it comes to hallucinations. There’s even a fun rhyme: go along with what they say up until they go away. Unless it doesn’t make sense, of course; but this makes perfect sense to him. He wants to cry, and scream, and shove this false fantasy away from him, but it makes sense. He’s just had one of the worst nights since Jupiter’s death; it makes sense that she would appear now.
Up until now he’s only seen her in flashes, in echoes. Sometimes he’ll catch a whiff of her shampoo on the wind, and he’ll close his eyes and let that emotion smother him. This Jupiter looks unfathomably real, and whole; her hair is braided back and she’s wearing a simple dress. Maybe that’s what she would have worn tonight, if she’d gotten the chance to go.
Why are you here, he wants to demand. Leave me alone. You’re dead.
What he does instead is reach out a hand, wiggling his fingers like a child. “Can I touch you?” he asks, helpless to restrain himself. He needs warmth; he needs some assurance that this hallucination isn’t going to try and kill him like some of the others do. “I mean, are you-- c-can I-- can I feel you?” He desperately wishes he’d never been diagnosed with schizophrenia, so that he could just live in this moment as someone who believes Jupiter has come back to life just to visit him.
“I had a really bad night,” he tells her quietly. Instantly, tears start to well up in his eyes; he’s not proud of it, but it’s nothing he can hide from his own psyche anyway.
