interstellar5555 | (open) do you know how far this has gone?

Entry tags:

(open) do you know how far this has gone?

Who:Terry and YOU
What: Someone regained the ability to sense fears and is furiously trying to ignore it
When:Feb 22nd
Where:Pride HQ/out and about
Warnings: None yet, will update as needed.

PRIDE HQ

[It's a lot to wake up to-- Terry can't decipher it at first, but it feels familiar and uncomfortable all the same. This deafening noise in his head it's a struggle to think through.]

[Eventually he drags himself to the café, thinking maybe he's just going stir crazy from staying in the penthouse all the time. He brings a notebook and his loudest headphones, sitting with his soup and the loudest music he has to hand. Maybe he can work through it. Maybe he just needs something to focus on.]

[Or maybe not.]

[It fucking hurts. Like something's screaming for his attention and he can't pick it out of the noise.]

[He kinda just ends up spending more time with his head in his hands then he does writing or eating.]

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

It's gotta be the building right. Enough weird shit goes on in there that it's not so out there he'd be hearing things. All he knows is he has to get away from it.

But it just follows.

Terry's walking aimlessly when he catches something he's absolutely not in the mood to deal with right now. ”Hey, isn't that the guy from Cosmic Indulgence?” “Yeah, Trauma. Hey! Trauma! We love your band!!!”

Why do these things happen to good people?

He's more than happy to entertain fans most days, but right now? His skull feels like it's splitting and he kinda hates everyone in the world right now. But he puts on his game face anyway.

It's somewhere in the sudden onslaught of selfies and autographs that there's this… Moment of clarity. One of them is being particularly obnoxious and it's like he zeroes in on them, totally blanks out until they're yelling about ‘how cool it is’ and asking how he knew. Apparently like an idiot he drew a bee with his autograph and a dumb comment about nightmares.

At least he didn't freak anyone out? But they're all clamouring for his attention and backing up with stuff about how he needs to go isn't doing much.

Someone help?

[Prose or brackets welcome! HMU over PM or @

FiremanSam if you have something else you'd like to do!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"He told you, he has to go," Luci repeats firmly, turning and angling Terry in front of her so their backs end up to the crowd. Apparently Luci was taking a turn around town too, but she's brought a car. She ushers Terry into the backseat, following after him to keep the press of fans away. One of them shrieks 'WE LOVE YOU TRAUMA!' before getting into the path of the door, and Luci puts a kiss on her before dipping into the car. That provides enough sputtering to cover their tracks.

"Well that was exciting for a moment."

A couple of them are pressing hands to the window, taking pictures of whatever they can catch a glimpse of, and Terry's sure he can hear some excited chatter from a couple of them about how she was kissed by the Lucifer!

Terry glances past Luci, looking to the window with a heavy sigh. He'd have liked to spend more time with them, talk to them. Listen to them. But it was just too overwhelming; the excitement and noise is always stressful, but worth it, he can handle that. But the way it mingled with their anxieties, their fears. And when he tried to focus on something else, the way it dug deeper, latched on to something... More.

"That's a way to describe it," he says, sounding every bit as tired and stressed as he feels.

"Hey--" Luci knocks on the glass between the driver and the backseat. "Unless you want them to jump on your hood, I'd move us out of here."

The driver obliges and slowly pulls away from the crowd and into normal traffic. Luci puts her knees on the seat and watches as the fans slip away, her chin on her folded arms. She turns to look at Terry.

"You usually love giving fans attention. Was that related to... what happened earlier this month?"

"No, it's..." Terry gives the driver an incredulous look, not wanting to talk where someone else might overhear. There isn't a single Pride employee he's willing to give even the benefit of the doubt to anymore. "Can we go somewhere private?"

Luci blinks, a little surprised-- she thought she'd heard something from Yuffie about Terry being kind of off-limits now, but--

Okay maybe he just wanted to talk away from prying ears. That's probably more likely than what she's got on her mind now-- but no reason not to play it off as such for the benefit of the driver's ignorance.

"Ooh, did you miss me that much, darling?" she croons, flopping back into the seat and draping herself on Terry's shoulder. Luci taps on the glass again. "Let's head for the Omni on 8th."

Terry laughs softly and rests his head against the window, pulling a foot up onto the seat because he has no respect. He feels so tired and his head is pounding, but he can trust Luci at least. That's something.

"Thanks," he says quietly, clearly not up to much of anything until it's just the two of them.

"Don't mention it," she returns, also in barely a whisper. Terry's looked after her before, and Luci won't forget it. Neither of the two times he's taken care of her. She'll take care of him this time.

Luci strokes Terry's hair gently as the car takes them to the hotel, and when they arrive Luci puts an arm around him as they walk through the lobby to many murmurs and much pointing. After putting her card down, she gets a key and they stroll to the elevator and go up to the room.

He bumps her gently with his shoulder as they walk, a little gesture of affection, and lets out a relieved sigh when they get to the room. The weight that comes off him almost has a visible effect, not having to worry about bosses or fans or any of that, and Terry goes to root around in the minibar.

"You want anything?" He asks. Terry's gonna have a can of lemonade and a candy bar. It seems sensible to avoid booze until he gets to the bottom of this.

"They have any Cadbury over there?" Doubtful, but for some reason she has a specific craving for decent chocolate. "Or maybe like a... tiny bottle of whiskey and some pretzels?"

She could have a snack, probably.

There's a little Dairy Milk bar in the fridge that he tosses her way, along with the pretzels and a little whiskey. It's not like they can't afford all the junk in the minibar, so. Small blessings.

He clambers onto the bed and makes himself comfortable against the headboard amongst a pile of pillows, and kicks his boots off. Gotta get comfy before you bare your soul, you know.

"Ooh, score!" Luci joyfully unwraps the bar as she flops on the bed with the rest of her stash of delight. "These are the best, forget everything else. Have you had one of these before?"

Gotta get comfy before you bare your soul.

Terry shakes his head, "never seen one." Truth be told, he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth anyway, so he hardly ever goes seeking out candy.

"Oh you can't miss this," she says, breaking off a square. "Here, eat this, experience a mouth orgasm."

He takes the piece and pops it in his mouth, taking his time to try the chocolate. He lets out a quietly pleased noise, though he imagines his reaction is a little underwhelming. But that's Terry in general.

"It's good."

It does seem like 'underwhelmed' is the Terry Reaction, so Luci is happy enough when he says it's good. "Right? Fuck everything else, this is the good shit."

She crawls up the bed to lay her head on Terry's shoulder and crack open the little whiskey. "So..."

Ah, yes. Talking about his problems. Terry goes quiet and shifts a little to put his shoulder in a more comfortable position for Luci to rest. He takes a deep breath and opens his drink, stalling a little while he tries to get his head on straight.

"I think I'm losing my mind."

If she had a dollar for every time somebody came to her and said they were losing their mind, Luci could bail Xanxus out of jail twice, and then take Pride out for a nice seafood dinner that wouldn't make them sick. At least she has experience though, Terry might have picked just the right person to talk to about him apparently losing his mind.

"Yeah? Why do you say that?" She caps the whiskey for the moment.

"I've been hearing things all day," he says softly, pulling a knee up to his chest. Closing himself up as much as he can physically in preparation for being told he's fucking crazy and getting kicked out of this bed or... Whatever. However this could possibly go wrong.

He sighs, "but it's not-- It doesn't feel wrong. It feels like a part of me that was missing."

No no no, Luci isn't letting him wince away from her like an abused puppy. She laces her arm between his leg and his chest, insisting on staying inside his area of comfort.

"Terry, I can light my hands on fire. How do you think I reconciled being able to do that with life as I'd known it up until then? Especially when it didn't feel wrong?" She puts her chin over his shoulder. "You're not the only one, Terry. I have nightmares about someone telling me I'm going to die in two years, but it doesn't feel wrong. My eyes turn red sometimes, and that doesn't feel like something I should go to a doctor for. If anything, it feels wrong when I'm so scared of Santiago."

Luci gently strokes his hair, trying to get him to open up a little again. "What do you hear?"

Terry chews his lip, holding on to it for as long as he possibly can. It makes sense of some things that've felt off over the last half a year, but it also fills him with this... This dread that he can't fully place. What he's hearing doesn't feel wrong, but he does. This deep feeling that there's something wrong about him-- something toxic deep in him that he needs to keep buried and away from everyone else.

It's hard for him to fight the urge to tell Luci not to worry about it, but he knows what a slap in the face to have someone not confide in you. Especially with someone he's reassured is trustworthy in the past.

"I can, uh..." His voice comes out with a tremor, and Terry pauses to take a shaky breath. He can do this. "I can hear what people are afraid of."

His eyes are screwed shut, head ducked like he's just waiting for it all to go to shit.

"...Oh darling."

Luci puts her nose against the back of Terry's neck and holds him there. Fuck, that's terrible. Hearing everything people were afraid of, constantly living inside of fears. No wonder Terry is a wreck right now. Not only does he think he's crazy, he's surrounded by the fear of other people.

"It's alright. If it feels right, go with it."

Well he's not entirely sure what he wanted to hear, and this is a hell of a lot better than what he expected, but it's not...

"Go with it?" Terry shakes his head. "There's no turning it off. I can tell you the couple next door are both freaking out about disappointing eachother. I don't want know that." His voice shakes a little more, getting a desperate edge, "I shouldn't know that!"

"Terry, Terry listen to me--" Luci holds him tighter, trying to calm him down and prevent him from spiraling by sheer force of will. "Are you sure there's no way to turn it off? Sometimes my eyes go red and they just turn blue again after a few minutes, once I calm down. Are you tired? Stressed? Anything that would make it harder to ignore this."

"No, there's--" How does he know that? He can't be sure, but he knows it. Once it's on, it's on. That's the rest of his life, knowing the deepest fears of everyone around him.

"I think, maybe I can learn to tune it out? But it's always gonna be there. Like fucking... White noise from Nightmare FM."

That does sound pretty grim, Luci isn't going to lie about that. But she's not going to say that to Terry, obviously. She wants to make him feel a little better about this, even though she has no fucking clue where to start.

"But it feels right, yeah? Even if you have to learn to tune it out, it feels right?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject