InsaneJournal

Who: Pierce and his baby boy!! Harrison, aka Billy.
What: Bonding over weird shit. Completed log.
Where: Billy's apartment.
When: Backdated to the day when we all started seeing stuff.
Warnings: Language, angst, and emo.



Today did not start off well. Upon starting off the morning by seeing the reflection of someone who very clearly was not him, Pierce considered sealing off his bathroom with concrete blocks. But when it became apparent that it was every surface - including his toaster, what the hell - it was either come to terms with the fact that he was going insane or put a wrecking ball through the tower. He decided on the first option.

But then Billy’s text arrived and their conversation worried him. A talk was in order, some father-son bonding over the weirdness of the day, so Pierce locked up and went downstairs to his son’s apartment. He let himself in, since the door was unlocked, but quickly made his presence known so Billy wouldn’t think someone came to rob him.

“Harrison?” Pierce called, stepping further in and shutting the door behind him. “It’s just me.”

Billy (who still thought of himself as such, regardless of what was on his birth certificate) was in bed. This was not a good sign. Ever since he had enough nerves working to make his feet move, Billy had not spent more time in bed than he absolutely had to. Even if it was the wheelchair, hey, at least he was mobile.

Not so today. Billy had a similar reaction to the ethereal figure in his bathroom mirror, judging from the towel on the floor in the bathroom and the cupboards standing ajar in the kitchen. His assumption that it was the meds was a logical one; in what seemed like an equally logical decision, he hadn’t taken the pain killers he usually took to help his spine deal with all the input from the strained muscles and poorly fused joints. No meds, no movement, lots of pain.

Settled half upright so being awake didn’t strain his neck, Billy lay back against his pillows watching The Clash of the Titans on his laptop screen. The image, despite the new gentle curve of the bed chosen because it was so unlike the sensible rectangle of medical furniture, was strongly reminiscent of all those months in the hospital. Billy was not in the best of moods. “Hey, dad.”

Pierce winced inwardly at the sight of his son laid up in bed, though he did his best to keep calm on the exterior. He could be overbearing and extremely overprotective, but he was well aware of that - and the last thing he wanted to do right now was give Billy a hard time. At least the boy was taking it easy and wasn’t trying to be everywhere at once despite obviously having experienced a bit of a shock and a great deal of pain. Maybe if he could convince Billy that, oh, by the way, I’m seeing odd shit in the mirror too, then he would take his meds like he was supposed to. The fact that they were both seeing odd shit and what exactly that meant could be addressed in due time.

He pulled up a chair next to the bed - as he had done countless times when Billy was in the hospital, sitting there for hours upon hours in case there was any change. Pierce had dropped everything, literally, to sit beside Billy and that was at least one thing in the world that would remain constant. “How is it so far?” he asked, nodding toward the movie playing on the laptop. “I heard it sucked.”

Billy recognized the echoes too, and he didn’t like it one bit. He looked away as his father drew up a chair, not wanting to see the backslide that put him there again. “It’s overkill. In a fun way.” A slight smile. Billy very rarely spoke in negative absolutes; nothing ever just “sucked” even if it did. He had something positive to say about everyone and everything. On the screen, one of the Roman soldiers in a skirt was hacking at a huge scorpion like a particularly absurd rodeo clown.

Billy turned his cellphone, which was in his lap, over in his fingers. “I didn’t mean to freak you out,” he said, lifting it and giving it a little wave with his wrist. He was trying not to move anything else, and it showed because he aborted a movement to turn the laptop volume down. A Roman screamed. “Dave,” (the nurse) “said he’d come early tomorrow to figure out the med thing.” Billy gave a very very slight shrug that was just the side of his head tipping down.

“It’s alright,” Pierce replied, referring to the freaking out. It hadn’t just been the kid that had freaked him out. He obliged and reached over to turn the laptop volume down the way Billy had meant to. “What exactly did you see?” he asked carefully, watching his son’s facial expressions. Pierce considered himself a well-balanced person. He liked to think he had a good grip on his sanity, but of course could always consider the notion that not everything had to be defined by a textbook - for example, he had been communicating with the dead for years, something that many people would scoff at if they heard the details. But Pierce knew that some things just couldn’t be explained by science and rationale. This was no doubt some strange phenomena just now rearing its ugly head. How far would it go?

“It was when you looked in the mirror, wasn’t it?”

From the expression on his face, Billy had not been planning on telling his father exactly what he was seeing nor exactly how he’d been seeing it. “How do you know?” It didn’t occur to him that Pierce might be saying whatever he thought Billy wanted to hear, yet it was hard for him to believe in that aforementioned strange phenomena--his reaction to Aura’s ability made that clear. It was just too out there. He was too grounded, too stuck on the surface of the world to believe that things could just magically happen in pixie dust.

Billy was, at the very heart of him, a poet. That poetry was based in reality, a view, an observation. He liked the world and he liked sharing how he saw it, whether it was good or bad. He expressed that through music, and people who knew and understood his music knew that though Billy didn’t talk about the things that dragged him down, he certainly had them. Before, it was anger at society and sometimes just the general injustice of the world. Nobody had any idea what it would sound like if he started writing again--but there was no question he had enough pain to go around. It didn’t make sense that things--inexplicable things--could just happen.

What was in the mirror scared the hell out of him, and not just because it was strange. It was because he looked that way sometimes in Aura’s dreams. The ones he didn’t want to have.

Pierce sighed, running his hands over his face before dropping them back into his lap. He wasn’t crazy and neither was Billy - the situation was just rather bizarre and he wasn’t sure what to make of all of it quite yet. But he would tell the truth. He never outright lied to Billy, but sure, he kept things from him - just like Pierce was sure Billy kept things from him too. Probably more so, but that was to be expected. Parents usually found out anyway (that was a sixth sense that every parent possessed) but only on Full House would a kid come up to their parents and admit to the fact that he or she had done something unpleasant.

“Because I saw strange things in the mirror too,” he said, face contorting like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Apparently, I grew a long beard and lost an eye somewhere along the way. And I’m not just saying that to get you to take your meds,” he added quickly. “Even though I don’t think what you saw was the result of them, and I don’t want you to needlessly be in pain. But if I wanted you to take them I would insist on it until you did and I wouldn’t make shit up. You know that.”

Billy knew that. He stared into his father’s eyes for a moment, a deep line between his brows, then he said, “...Lost an eye?” That didn’t make any sense to Billy, who had never dreamed about any such man, nor did he remember seeing one in any of the long string of dreams in which Aura had comforted him when he couldn’t move. He had assumed the problems with Aura and the fact she existed in the real world had somehow gotten into the opiates and run havoc sometime when he wasn’t paying attention.

This implied something else. Billy and Pierce had their differences, but there was a fundamental trust that Billy still had in his father that was entirely unshakable. He believed him. “I’m... glowing. In the mirror. I’ve had dreams about it before, so I thought...” His eyes slid quickly sideways toward the side table that hid all the prescriptions. The dangerous ones were brought in single doses by the nurse, but there were others as well, anti-inflammatory drugs and less aggressive pain killers for aches and pains.

Glowing in a mirror? Pierce quirked an eyebrow at this news. And the dreams, well, they were just an added bonus. “You’ve had dreams about you glowing? What else happens in the dreams?” he asked carefully. What a strange turn of events, to put it mildly. “This has to be happening to everyone. It’s not the drugs, unless the entire building is on them but I highly doubt that.”

He sighed, looking around for a mirror, and found one atop the dresser. The moment of truth - and he would get to see his viking beard again in full effect. “Alright, show me the glowing you’re referring to. Are you Jesus Christ or something, son?”

“The dreams that Aura’s been in,” he replied without thinking. He’d told Merc about it and he’d told Simon about it, but whether or not he had told Pierce was lost in a haze of pain that distracted him from the niceties of conversation. “The dark ones. I freaked out at her about it and now we’re not speaking.” Billy frowned. “I can’t remember if I told you about her... she lives here.” Billy lifted a hand and gestured vaguely upward, indicating the higher floors in Pax Letale.

Billy stared at Pierce, but took the mirror anyway. He turned it toward himself and looked down, pulling his head back as if he was looking into Dorian Gray’s portrait. “No idea. I just... glow.” He turned the mirror slightly. Billy’s image, though it was definitely him, was distorted by waves of light that bore a substantial similarity to that glow of deep sea fish, if their phosphorescence was a gentle gold instead of blue. He was also unmistakably blond, which he seemed to find objectionable, judging from the face he made.

Getting back to the comment about Aura was definitely on the agenda, but first Pierce leaned over to look at Billy in the mirror. He did a double take at what he saw - and Pierce had seen a lot of strange things in his day. Nothing compared to this, however. Nothing also compared to his own reflection which was extremely not him. The highlight of the old and weathered (but rather intimidating) face was the lack of one eye and the ridiculous gray viking beard that seemed to go on forever.

Pierce shuddered and pulled the mirror away, practically tossing it back onto the dresser. “Interesting,” he remarked. “I never thought I’d want a drink this early in the morning. Don’t let me become an alcoholic over this.”

He first cleared his throat, shifting slightly in his chair. “You didn’t tell me about Aura, but I’ve met her. Didn’t know you were having dreams about her though.” That was completely bizarre. “Actually, I should tell you something. About...about Aura.” A pause. “Billy...” Pierce usually didn’t refer to his son as Billy; something was amiss. He was uncomfortable, most likely. “What I’m about to tell you, well, there were reasons that I never told you before. Hopefully you will understand. If not today, then maybe someday.”

Billy thought that Pierce had too much self-control to become an alcoholic, but he remembered how much of a temptation it offered him, and decided not to make a comment on it. He was still silent in stunned surprise that he too could see what Pierce saw that he didn’t really catch what he was saying until halfway through he hit his name. The name everybody else called him.

Billy blinked. “You know Aura?” He put his hands down behind his hips and pulled himself a little more upright on the pillows, ignoring all the pain as much as possible and favoring his father with a dark furrowing of brow. He knew that look. Pierce was about to tell Billy something that Billy really wouldn’t like hearing. He saw it coming. “What about her?”

“I do, but her name’s Olivia,” Pierce began and fuck, this was not going to go well. But he had no choice. They were all in the same building now. He couldn’t just let this go on any longer on Billy’s end - he had to know the truth. “She was born when you were four years old. Her and her twin brother, Casper. He goes by Simon now.”

He paused, letting that sink in before going on. Well, sink in as much as it could. There was still more to the story, unfortunately. “Her and her brother are my brother’s children. David was only twenty when the twins were born and obviously, he was not fit for parenthood. He took off and left me with the newborn babies. We had a fight about it beforehand, of course but it...” Pierce winced, rubbing his forehead as he usually did when he was frustrated. “It didn’t end well and David was cut off from the family. He doesn’t want anything to do with the children.”

This was just getting worse and worse. No wonder he hadn’t told Billy before. “Anyway, I couldn’t raise them. Not with everything I had going on, so Nate found families for them - separate families. But now everyone is here, including David, and he doesn’t know that his children are here too. They don’t know about me, or about you - in the family capacity, anyway. I’m trying my best to keep it all separated but it’s difficult. I never told you before because David is a deadbeat and the children were put into good homes and so it just...I didn’t want to complicate things any further.”

The forehead rubbing continued until he dropped his hands and looked at Billy, square in the eye. “He wouldn’t want his children to know that he’s their father. So I’m trusting you with this. Eventually they will have to be told but not right now. But since we’re all here, I couldn’t keep it from you any longer.”

Billy had known about the other names, distantly. He’d known about the long-lost sibling thing, and he’d known how hard it had been on Simon to deal with all the emotional ins and outs of not being related to those that cared for him. Aura’s difficulties were not as obvious, but he knew that she too had a sense of alienation from her family, Merc’s family. The connection to Pierce’s brother, however, he hadn’t known. The black sheep of the family was something that was almost never discussed, and the only reason Billy knew of him at all was because of a few off-hand comments and a pointed reference or two from his mother before the divorce.

This knew revelation stunned him silent for a good minute before he finally sputtered into speech. “You--you aren’t going to tell them? He’s here? And did you just say that he doesn’t know they’re here?” The unbelievable arrogance that would keep all these things from the people involved made Billy’s eyes go flat and dangerous in a rare show of temper.

Pierce pinched the bridge of his nose as if staving off a headache. “Yes, Billy! I will tell them but not right now. Do you honestly think that David would welcome those children with open arms? He would run off again and they’re grown now, they’re adults, but how would knowing what an asshole their father is help anything? And Casper...” He stopped talking for a moment, trying to think of a way to describe Casper. “He’s angry. They both are, but he would really hurt David. And you’d have to bail your cousin out of jail.”

He just didn’t see how revealing everything right now would be beneficial. “I will tell David that his children are here, I’ve been trying to get him to talk to me but he won’t. We haven’t spoken regularly in so long and David changed his last name, he distanced himself from the family...” Saying it all out loud didn’t make Pierce feel any better about the situation either. “And I really like Olivia. Which reminds me, you two need to work out whatever it is that you’re fighting about.”

“Don’t start preaching at me, dad,” Billy warned, pressing his mouth together the way he did when he was disgusted with something. “It’s hypocritical. You can’t go around deciding people’s choices for them all the time. Simon’s pissed, yeah, but mostly at himself. The longer you wait the worse it’s going to be when they find out.” Billy looked away and frowned at the wall. He wasn’t entirely sure that Simon would handle the information with grace, especially given his apparent weakness for self-recrimination. Billy thought (reluctantly) that maybe Pierce was right about that. “I don’t see why you can’t just break down David’s door like you would mine and just shove the information in his face.”

Pierce’s lips were pressed together in a flat line as well in a mirror image of his son’s frustrated gesture. “I’m not deciding any choices for you! But she’s upset about the fight you had and so are you. You aren’t the type to hold a grudge, Billy. I am, however.” Pierce smiled charmingly. “I don’t have your mother around to remind me how to be forgiving and pious. And I’m not breaking down David’s door. His girlfriend is there too and if their relationship is wrecked because of this then he really would come after me. You have to understand something about David.” He was a fucking scumbucket, but no, perhaps those were the wrong words to use. “...we’re extremely different. But sometimes we’re too alike, and if you can imagine how well I would take someone breaking down my door, well, it would probably be worse with him. You don’t want him to club your old man upside the head with a tire iron, do you?”

Billy didn’t want to talk about Aura or the dreams. He wasn’t keen on mentioning the kind of things he and Aura had talked about over the last however-long (it couldn’t have been years? it felt like months). It would give Pierce even more cause to worry, since in the months where it seemed as if he wouldn’t ever get out of that bed, the conversations had not been very bright. Billy’s positive personality only went so far. He didn’t like thinking he’d said those things to someone who really existed, and he didn’t want to face her again knowing she’d seen him at his worst. His jaw clamped down on that particular argument. Yes, they were both upset about it. He didn’t want her in his dreams if she was there to offer him the out he might very well have taken. Days like this, where he couldn’t get up, just scared him more.

Recovering a little from this dark train of thought, Billy snorted. “You don’t really think he’d do that.” The hazel eyes turned to Pierce’s and squinted with sudden concern. “Do you?” Admittedly Billy didn’t have a lot of concern for David’s unnamed girlfriend, nor David, either. He thought Aura and Simon had a right to know.

“Of course he would do that,” Pierce scoffed. “He’s violent.” And he wasn’t going to go into David’s professional career as a swindler either. Half of the gray hair Pierce had could probably be attributed to worrying if his brother would get shot in the face while walking down the street, simply because he had decided to cheat the wrong person. “I will tell him in a calm setting, not accusing him of anything, but there’s still a very good chance he will run off and leave me with the kids again. They’re adults now, but...” He shrugged; he wouldn’t mind being a father figure for Olivia, but Casper was a different story.

He shifted in his chair, probably about to go into something that would touch on ‘feelings’ and thus make him uncomfortable. “Anyway. Harrison...” He looked over at Billy, meeting his eyes. “I love you, more than anything. I’m sorry if I upset you. This is not the way I wanted things to turn out, but we’ll do the best we can.”

This was the first time that Billy had heard David was violent, and he frowned over the information. If David would have been an abusive father, Pierce’s actions made a little more sense, and his hope that he would keep everything under wraps did too. Billy didn’t like lying or keeping secrets, and in fact he was pretty terrible at either, but if it would hurt Simon and Aura more to know that their father was the kind of guy better off in prison than with a family... “I guess it’s for the best,” Billy said, lifting one hand and rubbing one hip absently, still troubled with all these secrets he was supposed to keep.

“It is,” Pierce assured his son. “David’s not fatherly material. It would hurt both of those kids so much more if they knew that he didn’t want them, and never will.” It wasn’t like everyone was just going to come together for a group hug while heartwarming music swelled in the background. “I think that it will all smooth over in time but there are going to be bumps in the road like always.” Bumps in the form of hallucinatory reflections in the mirror, but that was just an added bonus - and the least of Pierce’s concerns right now. “So take your meds, please?” He looked at Billy, quirking an eyebrow. “You know I had to get that in there too.”

Billy gave his father one last sideways look that was reminiscent of his days in high school, and then reached over to the bedside table for an overlarge pillbox marked with the days of the week. Today and tomorrow were full, but the days following only had one or two pills, as the nurse brought the dangerous ones with him. “What is it if it’s not the meds?” Billy asked, doing his best to hide his discomfort with the illusions in the mirror. He took several pills from the box with some water from the bottle lying next to him and then sat back, abruptly abandoning his attempt to hide his fatigue and pain. He half-closed his eyes. It was going to get worse before it got better, because he didn’t take them when he was supposed to and the effect would be delayed a great deal. He probably wouldn’t get up for another day or two.

Pierce reached over and smoothed his son’s hair, a tender gesture, even though he was used to all of those “Dad, you suck!” expressions that had started when Billy was about fourteen and continued up until...now. “It’s not the meds,” Pierce promised. “It can’t be. I’m not taking any and I see things too. We all are. Sometimes strange things happen, son. Things even an all-knowing codger like me can’t explain.”

Billy wasn’t much satisfied with that explanation, but he didn’t have the energy to argue about it just then. He only frowned a little and shook his head, as if the mystery had to had some explanation and he couldn’t go around jumping out of his skin every time he looked into a mirror. “Guess so.” He shut his eyes entirely and sighed that beleaguered sigh. This was not helping his quest for independence. He decided he would worry about it when he woke up.

Ah, the sigh. Pierce was all too familiar with that sound as well. He chuckled fondly, and patted Billy’s cheek as he closed his eyes. He would sit here with him a bit longer, then most likely leave before Billy woke up. But in the meantime, he would finish watching Clash of the Titans. Between Gods and men, the clash begins.