Time is all around, except inside my clock
Ruvin has had several very startling realizations. The first, she's almost seventeen. In just under a week, she will be. She'd all but forgotten about birthdays.
The second--she's been in Chicago for a year, as of today. She's paused where she is, in the middle of crossing a street to look up at the sky in surprise.
Winny is standing in front of ( Read more... )
The second--she's been in Chicago for a year, as of today. She's paused where she is, in the middle of crossing a street to look up at the sky in surprise.
Winny is standing in front of ( Read more... )
Adrian has never just felt bad for things that happen around him.
You don't want to hurt this man.
The thought hits him on the heels of Piper's influence, and before he can even register that it's not his own feelings, it's not his own--
It is.
His mother, the starving of the refugee camp, Michel and his men, the victims of Dachau and the soldier who spoke to him, Mag and Natalia--Natalia, Natalia, who he loved and couldn't save. The dozens of dead he's left in his wake. Rachel. What Mag did to her. What that torturer did to her.
He should have been there. He should have been there, it should have been him.
He breaks.
Adrian takes a step away from the hapless thug. More of a stumble. The man stares at him for one long, frozen moment and runs before Adrian can try to recover.
The demon backs up against the opposite wall and lets himself slide down, headless of the track the wall leaves on his clean shirt.
He thought he was free of feeling this way. He thought--
There's no freedom from it. Each time he's struck, he'll shatter the same way. The pieces have been stuck back together so many times.
He could wither here. He could let himself go. Unless somebody found him, identified him, knew who to call, Rachel could think he just faded away into Chicago's nightmare backdrop. Adrian closes his eyes.
"I'm sorry. I'm so..."
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She's never broken anyone before, and she can feel it, and all she can think is I did that, and I'm just like those demons in the books. The kind that twist and break for their own amusement. Tears well up in her eyes and she runs to the man, flailing at the other man to run away, run far away, and she'll deal with this.
Once he's gone, she kneels in front of the man she just broke, not caring that the packed snow is soaking into the knees of her pants, crying slightly.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I didn't mean to do it- I can fix it. Please let me fix it."
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"Nothing to fix." He doesn't even know what she's asking, not really. The words take effort. More than they should. He just wants her to leave him alone.
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Which is to say his emotions are. Broken people cut deeper into an empath's defenses and it hurts her. She reaches out tentatively, pulling her hand back a couple of times before she finally lays a hand on his cheek.
She doesn't even know that she's projecting a certain air of trust me over him until she's already done it. It was just involuntary. She was just begging him in her head to let her help and the emotions sprang back. She pulls her hand back and nibbles a nail.
"Please?" she asks, once more.
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He trusts her. Simply and completely. He's got no defenses, no will to recognize or fight what she's doing. He's a puppet on Piper's strings.
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...Reconfiguring someone's entire emotional well-being?
Yeah. She's never done that before. She's tried with Tay a few times. Enough that she worried Tay might have gotten dependent on it, had she not recovered, for the most part.
She swallows and focuses. She just needs to smooth over the rough patches is all, remove the guilt, replace it with something more constructive, give him hope instead of despair. There's a chance it might not last long, that one good break will put him right back where he was like she never did anything. She's not an engineer. She's a teenage girl fumbling with clay and pretending that she knows how to make a vase when all she's really going to make is a flimsy ashtray.
Still. It'll make him feel better... For a little while anyway. Maybe.
....She hopes. She kinda thought the guilt was going to be a good idea until she broke him.
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By then it's too good to feel good for him to make her stop. He closes his eyes, practically limp against the wall. "Please," he says. He sits up a little bit.
Something small and ashamed briefly twists to life in his chest, wiped away moments later by the little demon. "Do--more. A little bit. Please."
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She can do almost anything, but she only just barely knows where to start smoothing over the broken bits. She doesn't know what to give him and that would be what she wants to give him, anyway. She'd rather, if she has to, give him the ones he wants.
...He's asking. It's okay when they ask. Despite the fact that it means they might become dependent on it.
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Not even human. Just good. He fixes Piper with a hungry, cold look that Mag would find familiar. "As much as you can give me."
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Right. She needs confidence. She sits up a little straighter and takes a breath. She builds up as much good emotion as she can until it eases into the cracks and trickles down, blunting sharp edges. It has the appearance of someone covering up a broken window with silly putty, but it'll hold for the moment. It'll feel good.
And, for the moment, it's the best she can do.
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