InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "the secret to my success."

Erik Lehnsherr (wealreadyare) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2011-09-24 19:45:00

Entry tags:

annie wheaton, erik lehnsherr

WHO: Erik Lehnsherr & Annie Wheaton
WHAT: An evening of working together turns into a morning of confusion.
WHEN: September 24th
WHERE: The X-Mansion Living Room
RATING: PG
STATUS: In Progress

This couch was incredibly comfy. That was the first thought to run through Erik's mind as his eyes pried themselves open, struggling between the desire to stay asleep and the sun shining through the windows, and it would have been nice had that been the thought that would have stayed in the front of his mind. But as his body shook itself slowly from the dregs of sleep, the realization that his mind, beyond the most immediate sensations that he was feeling, was distressingly blank shoved any contemplation about the quality of the couch out of his mind and replaced it with the more pressing concerns of where he was and who he was. And, if it was at all possible, exactly who the person was curled up on the couch next to him.

Young and female with a soothing doe-faced expression that he wasn't entirely sure was merely a product of everyone looking more serene when they were asleep. Confusion mounted in him at exactly what they pair of them were doing passed out on a couch in an unfamiliar living room of all places, but at the same time, he couldn't help but be relieved that he wasn't alone in this situation. This young woman was at the same time a baffling and yet reassuring presence. A companion in the sea of emptiness that his mind was currently composed of, he couldn't help but hope that she would have the answers that he was lacking.

Reaching out and settling a hand gently on her shoulder, Erik gave her a slight shake to wake her, "Excuse me. Miss? I don't mean to disturb you, but... Could you tell me where I am?"

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trappedinatower
2011-09-25 08:37 pm UTC (link)

Noise. That was the first thing that the girl known as Annie, even if she didn't know that was her name, thought when she slowly began to return to consciousness. There was so much noise. Some of it was soft - nothing more than whispers, barely-there words she couldn't really understand. Others, though, weren't so quiet. They were loud, as though screaming their fears and worries and anger and frustrations and all of it directly into her ear. They were too loud, part of her decided as her brow furrowed and her mind struggled with a way to cope with it all. She was ready to strike out, before her eyes had even fully opened in fact, when something else managed to divert her attention away from all of the racket. Something far more substantial that she could cling to, even if temporarily.

A hand on her shoulder and a voice that wasn't coming from inside her mind. Masculine and laced with confusion yet still doing its best to sound as polite as possible. It took a second for her to really comprehend what he was saying but her eyes fluttered open nonetheless, gaze sliding up his chest to his face as she struggled with some way to cling to the brief respite his spoken words had given her from the rest of the racket taking place around her.

"D-Don't know..."

Her frown deepened, now driven far more by frustration than confusion. Why had that been so difficult to say? She knew the words. She could hear them inside her mind without issue. So why, then, had they stumbled out of her mouth as though her tongue wouldn't form them? Slowly she sat up, brushing some of her hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear as she looked around. Where were they? And, better yet, who were they?

"L-Lost," she muttered, partially to herself. "Loud!" She could hear the voices in her mind returning, the whispers growing back to shouts, and she closed her eyes briefly and did her best to force them out. And, much to her surprise, it worked. Maybe not entirely, but somehow - and she certainly couldn't explain it - she had managed to toss up a hastily made wall to keep them all behind for the time being. Afraid that picking at it would cause it to come crumbling down, she re-opened her eyes and turned her attention outward, solely back to the man sitting beside her. The look on her face was a helpless one, fear and confusion warring for dominance in her eyes as the shelf behind them slowly began to shake in place.

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wealreadyare
2011-09-26 12:52 am UTC (link)

Erik wasn't sure what was going on. All he knew was that whatever was happening, it was effecting her a great deal more than him. Lost. Yes. He could definitely describe the sensation that he was feeling as one of being lost and confused, so he could only assume that whatever had happened to him had happened to her as well. While his gaze had been intently looked on her with a deep concern, when the shelf behind them began to rattle, his attention shifted to it before turning back to the young woman. "Hey, hey," Erik said, his other hand coming up to cradle her shoulders, "just breathe. Whatever this is, we'll figure it out," He said, trying to keep his attention on her but unable to completely stop himself from giving another apprehensive glance up at the shelf. It definitely wasn't an earthquake. They would have felt that in more ways than just one vibrating piece of furniture. But even though he could eliminate that as a possibility, he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what it was that could be causing it.

Dragging his gaze away from the shelf, Erik turning his attention back to the woman with him, giving her shoulder a very delicate squeeze as he tried his best to soothe her nerves despite the way that his own were increasing at the moment, "We're going to be all right. All right?" Because whatever it was that was shaking that shelf, it couldn't possibly do anything to hurt them.

Right?

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trappedinatower
2011-09-26 02:11 am UTC (link)

Annie's first instinct was to jerk away from the man when he touched her but she couldn't, not with the back of the couch behind her. Her second instinct was to lash out with her mind, to force him to release her, but something seemed to hold her back from doing that. Whether it was his tone of voice that all but screamed he meant her no harm or because she was worried she might hurt the only other person she felt any real connection with at the moment, she didn't know. In fact, Annie didn't know how to proper analyze a lot of things, it seemed. However, she did her best to try and finally managed to make herself breathe evenly, eyes sliding closed as she struggled with some way to express fully what she was feeling.

The rattling from the cabinet behind her stopped after a few seconds and she finally looked back to the other man, a bit more composed than a second earlier. "N-Not alone," she managed to say, the words still as difficult to manage as they had been before. She shook her head slightly, knowing that wasn't quite what she'd meant. "O-Others," she tacked on finally, turning her head enough to glance toward the doorway of the living room. "Here. L-Lost too."

It seemed to be getting easier for her to communicate the more she tried, so she kept pushing herself despite the clear frustration on her face that she couldn't get out more than a few barely coherent words before having to stop and realign her thoughts. "D-Don't know my 'ame. People too loud... can't th-th-think." She grunted in frustration, shoulders sagging a bit and a puff of air escaping her lips as she shot the man another helpless look.

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wealreadyare
2011-09-29 01:17 am UTC (link)

Whatever noise she was hearing, he wasn't privved to it. However she was sensing that they weren't alone, he wasn't sure, but he wasn't about to doubt that whatever was happening to her was most definitely not all in her head. She was clearly experiencing severe issues from whatever was impacting her and yet passing him by, and as helpless as Erik felt at the moment, searching his mind for anything that could have possibly helped her, he knew that he couldn't just leave her on her own. "Are they talking? Thinking?" Erik asked, the concern in his features echoing the frustration and distress in hers. "Can you drowned them out? Sing to yourself or...put up walls?" Erik asked, not really sure if anything he was saying was making it better or if he was unintentionally making it all worse.

Standing, taking a step or two away from the couch but not enough to put too much distance between himself and the young woman, Erik held out a hand to her, "Maybe if we leave this room, it'll get better," He said, fishing for another possible answer to try and calm whatever pains she was having to endure. "Maybe outside? I...don't know where we are or what it might be like out there, but it could be quieter." Maybe. Or it could be louder if they happened to be smack in the middle of a city center. "Whichever you want to do."

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