InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Happy Halloween!"

Peter Fleming (themiddlegame) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2011-02-19 15:22:00

Entry tags:

!@event, !closed, bo hess, peter fleming

WHO: Peter Fleming, Bo Hess, & an old friend
WHAT: Eventually, someone's going to lose.
WHEN: February 19th; Afternoon
WHERE: Peter's flat
RATING: PG-13
STATUS: In Progress

"She could be a valuable asset," Peter tensed at the voice in the back of his head where his own internal narrative should be. His eyes had been closed, fighting against the headache that was threatening to overtake him because of the situation, and now he dared not open them for fear of what he might see in front of him. "You know how pliable children can be, and she trusts you already. Funny, I would have thought you'd lost that touch."

"Go away," Peter muttered, pushing himself from the couch and pacing the room, smacking into an unexpected table forcing him to open his eyes and come face to face with his own alter ego. Peter turned his back quickly even though, logically, he knew that there was nothing there to turn away from. A manifestation of his subconscious or some other psychobabble that made absolutely no sense to him and just made him feel increasingly self-conscious. All Peter knew was that they were happening far more frequently than they used to, more so the harder that he tried to block it all out.

"You're passing up an ideal opportunity, Peter. Imagine what her abilities could do for us. She's no Tracey, certainly, but precognition is a decent substitute for probability. She'd be so easy to use."

The growl of frustration that rose in his throat would seem odd to anyone that might have come across him at that moment. "Shut up," Demanding your own mind by quiet to an empty room was something that he did frequently in the privacy of his own office where he had the assurance that no one would enter and oversee the apparent insanity that had crept into his life. But here, he had no such assurances even as such facts didn't at all cross his mind. "I'm not going to do that. One was enough."

"Oh, as if there was just one," Laughter in his own mind, laughter at himself by himself, only sparked his temper even more. "Stop trying to keep up this masquerade. Sooner or later, you're going to have to admit that without me, you'd be nothing."

Rage overwhelmed his senses, but as Peter turned to finally face his accuser he found himself alone, glaring at the empty air. Which only made sense. Of course he'd retreat before Peter could form a proper rebuttal. Coward.

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alreadyscared
2011-02-19 09:40 pm UTC (link)

Bo had heard Peter's low voice and had gone in search of him. The recent change had made her feel at least a little more vulnerable than normal and, well, even if she'd only known him a week, he was the only constant she had at the moment. So hearing him talking, she decided to seek him out.

Standing in the doorway, she silently watched as he paced the length of the floor before spinning, quite suddenly. She took a step back, out of his direct line of sight, and waited until the count of ten before reappearing where she could see him. Her hands clenched rhythmically into tiny fists at her sides, her toes curled inside the shoes she was wearing. She licked her lips nervously and, when she spoke, her voice was soft and inquisitive.

"Who're you talking to?"

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themiddlegame
2011-02-19 09:50 pm UTC (link)

"No one. It's nothing. Mind your own business," The words came out in a torrent of emotion, each word punctuated with a as harsh a tone as one could manage without raising their voice. While the majority of Peter's dominating presence came through soft, soothing words and reassurances, he was still equipped from years of disciplining incompetent workers to sound as though he was going to rip someone limb from limb when given the slightest provocation. And unfortunately, that was exactly the presence he was giving off right now whether he meant to or not.

And here Peter'd thought he had actually started to stave off the worst side of himself and the urges that came with it.

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alreadyscared
2011-02-19 10:04 pm UTC (link)

Bo drew back as though struck, the shock that flashed across her face quickly fading to a look of betrayal that was followed closely with sorrow. She felt her world tilt then promptly shatter, what lifeline she had evaporating in the face of something she didn't understand. Tears blurred her vision. She woefully blinked them away.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tiny features morphing into a tearful expression. "I wasn't trying to be nosey."

She sniffled quietly before exhaling sharply through pursed lips. She dropped her gaze and spun on her heel, her steps a soft thud as she retreated to the confines of the kitchen. A few seconds later, the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor to the kitchen counter filled the air, followed by running tap water as she fixed herself a glass of water and tried to figure out what she could do to be as quiet as possible.

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themiddlegame
2011-02-19 11:24 pm UTC (link)

It wasn't her or the situation or any external motivator that had prompted Peter to snap like that. It was something so simple and yet so impossibly complicated that had come over him in that moment, and the second that Bo retreated from the room, regret flooded into him. It wasn't the first time he'd yelled at someone who hadn't deserved it, and it likely wouldn't be the last. But this was different than berating someone on his staff for a situation that he knew they could do little about simply because he felt just as powerless. This was different than dressing down his developmental scientists because they'd missed something so goddamn obvious that a monkey would have been able to figure it out.

No, this was more like... Well, more like what he regretted most out of everything he'd ever done. And while he knew there was no chance of him driving Bo away (given that they'd hardly be around each other long enough for her to get to the point that she could be), he still knew that saying something would be better than just letting it lie and hoping that it would all go away again.

Quietly following her into the kitchen, taking a deep breath with every step until his temper had slowly calmed itself and he had managed to force the worse parts of his personality back under the surface, he offered her a tentative smile, "I didn't mean to upset you."

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alreadyscared
2011-02-20 01:17 pm UTC (link)

Bo was in the middle of drinking when Peter stepped into the kitchen. She hesitated at the sight of him, tiny fingers gripping the glass as she slowly pulled it from her lips and eyed the man approaching. It was hardly the first time she'd been fussed at by a grown-up who had then attempted to apologize. Her daddy had done it quite a few times since her mother had died and had always turned up afterward, doing his best to say he was sorry without actually saying the words.

Frankly, Bo didn't understand why a grown-up found it so hard just to say "I'm sorry". Instead they either avoided saying the words or built up to them. If they would just say them and be done with it, most kids would believe they really meant it and would probably be a lot more willing to stop staying upset afterward. Of course, grown-ups didn't realize this fact and Bo knew better than to try and explain it to them. Morgan had told her once that it wouldn't do any good, after all, and Morgan was always right about things like this.

"You yelled," she said finally, pulling herself from her thoughts and forcing her gaze to slide up from the glass she was holding to the man standing there. She wasn't frowning or pouting; she wasn't crying. She simply stood there, expression carefully neutral. "You didn't raise your voice but you still yelled."

In Bo's own way, she was pointing out that she hadn't been left with much other choice but to be upset, considering how he'd acted. However she didn't spell it out for him but instead set the water glass on the counter and climbed out of the chair, sliding it back to where it went before picking her glass back up again and sighing.

"I miss Parker."

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themiddlegame
2011-03-07 08:33 am UTC (link)

"I know," Peter said quietly, his understanding of the situation all too solid in his mind. It wasn't the first time he'd let his temper and frustrations get the better of him, allow them to play themselves out on someone who certainly didn't deserve to bear any of their burden. "And I shouldn't have. I really...really shouldn't have, and I'm sorry," He said, a vicious taunt rising in the back of his mind that it took all his willpower not to demand silence from as he knelt down to be more on Bo's level. Towering over her in this situation hardly seemed appropriate at all. "And I was just talking to myself," He said, being as honest as he really could be given the situation. "Sometimes I have...really bad ideas, and I have to try and talk myself out of them."

It wasn't a complete lie. It wasn't really a lie at all. He just wasn't telling her everything, and well, that was what most people did with kids anyway. He just hoped that was enough to explain away the situation however temporarily, and that she wouldn't question it too heavily. Talking to one's self wasn't extremely odd for normal people, was it?

At her declaration of missing Parker, Peter had to admit to himself that he did as well. It might have been odd, but their alternating shifts arrangement had worked, and it had provided Bo with two very different influences of two very different types of people, one of whom was thankfully female. If there was something that Peter knew painfully well, it was that sometimes little girls just needed another woman around. No matter how much one could try, a guy could never offer the same thing that another woman could, and while Leon definitely seemed friendly and competent, he was still a guy.

"So do I," Peter finally said after a moment. "But maybe we could manage a visit?"

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