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!]

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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?"

That's a complicated question. It feels like him, but it's not the him Terry wants to be. It's the him he sees in those fucking bad dreams and shit, alone and angry and fucking fucked up.

Terry shakes his head and curls into himself more, pressing his forehead against his knee and hugging his legs to his chest.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have bugged you with this," he says weakly, "you can't help with this."

Edited 2016-03-15 22:12 (UTC)

"...what are you doing, aspiring gymnast hailing from Vista City?" Luci frowns and slides her other arm under Terry's back, then forcibly drags him on top of her. His back is crushing her boobs, but this is an emergency.

"Now uncurl, silly boy," she says, tone definitely condescending and coaxing like she's talking to a puppy. "Or I'll uncurl you myself."

What is-- What is happening right now.

Terry doesn't really have a choice but to uncurl, and he makes a noise that's equal parts confused and distressed, too startled to try and wriggle out of her grip.

He's here now and he doesn't like it. Pouting like hell.

"Good," she says, patting his stomach once he's laid out on top of her. Luci notes idly that this is probably the first time in her life where someone has been laying on top of her and it is not at all sexy. If anything, Terry feels a little bony, and that's either a wallet chain or his keyring that's about to make her wish she'd opted for something less drastic.

"I knew you couldn't do anything for me after I had my encounter with Lesedi. I didn't expect you to do anything. I don't think you expect me to be able to do anything either, but come off it-- I can at least say what you said to me."

She rolls him off her, arms still around his chest, now on the other side of the bed. "'I told you I'm here for you, and I meant it.'"

He almost laughs when Luci pushes him off, and lays there with a disbelieving almost-smile for a moment - a brief moment where it doesn't feel as though everything is horrible.

But it's only a moment, and Terry sighs. She's right, of course she is. "I just don't want this." Terry shakes his head and turns a little on his side to drape an arm across her, evidently he's now on board with this cuddling scenario, a little forced levity in his voice, "why couldn't I have a badass secret power like setting my hands on fire too?"

"You want to trade? Pyrotechnics for fear-ESP? I should warn you, mine comes with a side of Wondering If You're Satan," she smirks and shifts both of them to a closer and more comfortable cuddling position.

"I don't want mine either, if you want the truth. I want to make music and inspire people, I don't need to be able to light my own cigarettes and scorch profanity into bar counters when I'm pissed at their lack of service. But as much as I try not to think about it, it's happening.

"And it sucks, believe me, I understand how much this sucks and how nothing makes sense or seems even remotely possible. But the worst thing either of us can do is pretend it's not happening. Whatever it is, the fact that it has almost nothing to do with our careers makes it weird and important, probably."

It's important to think about, but right now isn't the time. Not for Terry. His head is pounding and he has yet to figure out how to drown out the noise. He can't even begin conceptualising how to move forward with this screaming sound blaring constantly. It hasn't even been an entire day and he's already losing his damn mind.

He lets out a small breath, tucking his head against Luci's neck and murmuring softly, "I can't believe you just threw me around like a ragdoll."

"Believe it," she says with a snort, putting her hand at the back of Terry's head to encourage him to stay right there. It's warm and tactile, she likes it. "And there's more where that come from, emo kid, if I hear you say 'sorry to bother you with this' and it's not a baby or a Tinder mistake."

He doesn't need the encouragement to stay put, but it's nice to have. It's comforting, all of this is comforting. Short of a cure for this shit, it's exactly what he needs. Something to reassure him he's not toxic or frightful or whatever other words come to mind more and more lately whenever he's alone.

"So... Now would be a bad time to mention the baby, huh?" His voice is kinda muffled on account of where his face is, and she probably can't see that tiny hint of a smirk for the same reason, but he's clearly joking nonetheless.

Luci makes a fist and gently pushes it right into Terry's stomach.

"If you think Auntie Lucifer is a good idea, you're crazier than I believed you were."

Terry laughs, "you'd be pretty good. It's all the fun of shaping young minds with none of the accountability for when they start fights at preschool."

"Yeah, that's what everyone says, but if I'm teaching the kid to not take shit when somebody takes their bucket, abandoning them in their hour of principal-scolding is just cold. What does that teach them? Not even that adults lie, but that saving your own hide is the most important thing. It might encourage them not to get caught next time, but let's be real, there's only so many places to hide on a playground."

"You'd be surprised." One gets pretty good at finding hiding places when one's an easy target. But still, that's... Quite the answer. Terry raises his head just enough that Luci can see his raised eyebrow, "you've given this some thought, huh?"

"Oh yeah, all the time. I think about kids all the time," Luci says, completely deadpan. Then she cracks a smile and shrugs.

"Kids are just miniature people. I wouldn't leave you high and dry, it's a shitty thing to do."

Terry laughs softly, a little tired, "I guess."

He lays his head back down, other things coming to mind as he gets comfortable again. "I know I got in a lot of shit for my brother," he says absently. It's probably why Billy trusted him, came to Terry instead of their parents when he had bad dreams and--

... So that's what that weird dream at the Gala was about.

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

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