Who: Jules and Carson When: Late afternoon, Tuesday, December 12 Where: Waterfront Fitness Status: Complete
The voices in her head had been getting worse over the past few days, and Jules had started to think that maybe she was bonafide insane or something. Crazy people heard voices, right? She didn’t feel crazy, but how many crazy people felt crazy? Did crazy people know they were crazy? These were questions she didn’t have answers to and she was too afraid to Google them and risk someone she knew suddenly seeing her search history on her phone or whatever.
The weird part was that the voices in her head sounded familiar, and that afternoon in English, she most definitely recognized one of the voices as Carson. Except it sounded like he was talking about muscle mass to someone else and for a brief moment in her seat, Jules wondered why on earth the voices in her head were talking about exercising and not like, prompting her to kill people like in the movies. In any case, it was enough for her to put off cheer practice after school and instead she left with everyone else and drove across town to the gym. She had no idea if Carson would actually be working, but considering he was a fitness trainer and she had heard him talking about it in her head, she was going to assume that maybe he was there. It was a weird logic to follow but it was also the only logic she had at the moment.
The gym itself wasn’t terribly busy and Jules walked by the front desk without stopping, immediately looking around for Carson. If she couldn’t find him she would ask someone, but she didn’t want other adults getting any creepy ideas as to why she was there and wanted to see Carson specifically. Eventually she saw him wiping down one of the weight machines and Jules headed across the room toward him, wondering if he would think she was nuts or if he would actually understand or know what was going on.
“Hey,” Jules greeted somewhat breathlessly. “Can we talk for a second?”
After Jared’s stop in on Sunday, Carson had felt numb and awful and terrified. He’d called out of work Monday and canceled all of his personal appointments for the next few days. He had to work, but he needed it to be mindless. He could clean all day on auto-pilot, and it had never felt more fucking necessary. He was a killer. He’d killed Sadie Gaines, in a horrible way that he didn’t even remember. Carson had felt pretty damn out of control of himself in the past few months, but this felt on a whole different level. He truly had been saddled with a monster, and it had already affected someone he knew and cared about. What if that had been Rylee? Carson couldn’t even think about it for more than a second.
He’d gone to work Tuesday morning, since sitting at home would just drive him mad, and outside of doling out some advice here and there, he hadn’t put much brain into anything. Carson’s thoughts were spinning out far away when a familiar person approached him and spoke. He looked at Jules blankly for a second or two before he blinked himself back to the present and focused. “Uh ... yeah, of course,” he said. Carson tossed a glance around -- there were too many people in the gym for him to feel good about taking a teenage girl in the back, but nobody was hanging around the free weights, so that was where he started to walk, side-nodding to her to follow.
Jules followed, not really sure how private talking out in the gym would be, but the space Carson led them to was more or less empty so she relaxed a little. He looked pretty pale and distracted and Jules wondered if it was the dreams and all that, or something else. It wasn't really her business to ask, but at the same time, it kind of was, because she was feeling the same way. Giving one more glance around to make sure no one was close enough to hear them, Jules turned back to Carson and shifted uneasily from one foot to another. "So... I've been hearing things? Like, muffled voices... for a while. Lately it's gotten more clear, I was thinking maybe like, the dreams or that thing broke my brain or whatever? But then I realized I recognized the voices. I heard Nic one day and then you, and... I don't know if this is happening for real? Or it's just in my head and I need to like, see a doctor." Jules exhaled sharply as she finished, not really sure what answer she really wanted to hear.
Carson’s brows lifted slightly as Jules started to talk, but that was as surprised as he could look. He felt some fresh guilt chew on his stomach -- he and Nic hadn’t told any of the others what they’d discovered. Granted, there had been other things on their mind, things he wasn’t sure he wanted to explain to Jules or Neil, but the neglect still made him feel bad. It was just a ripple on the ocean of guilt though, in the long run. “You don’t need to see a doctor,” he told the girl now, shaking his head a bit. “It’s happening to me too. All of us, I think. Nic and I ... we were in the same place this weekend and the uh, connection was really strong. I think we’re all getting like ... psychic with each other, I guess.”
"What?" Jules looked horrified. Mostly because she didn't want to be psychic and she didn't want to be psychic with three grown men. "Do you mean you can just... I'm confused. Because like, I heard you talking, but I don't know if it was you talking to someone or maybe it was just your thoughts? Could you guys communicate? Or just hear each other?" Because oh my god she so didn't need three dudes in her head. Sometimes she didn't even want to be in her head. What if they heard embarrassing stuff? What if she heard embarrassing stuff? Jules recognized on some level that she ought to be more worried about why this was happening and what it meant, but all those shallow worries were on the surface at the moment.
Jules looked about how Carson thought he should be feeling about all of this. How he felt before he’d learned that he was a killer. Shocked and worried about all of those thoughts that no one else needed to hear, the secrets he definitely didn’t want to share with three mostly-strangers. One of whom was a teenage girl. It didn’t seem to matter as much to him now, but he was dimly aware that could be lingering shock from the other, worse news. “It was probably thoughts ... I mean, you think what you say, right?” Jules wasn’t treating him like some kind of monster, so Carson had to assume what she’d heard had been innocuous enough. He hoped, anyway. “We could hear each other, so we tried to talk a bit directly and we could ... we didn’t have a lot of time or any privacy though, so we didn’t experiment much,” Carson said, a bit of apology in his tone. It was easier to condense the discovery between Nic and himself with the events of the weekend, since he didn’t want to explain to Jules why they hadn’t looked into it more. It probably wasn't a secret he could keep indefinitely, if they were all growing a psychic connection, but Carson was too tired and despondent to talk about it now. He pressed his lips together and tried to speak to her in his head. Can you hear this?
Oh, this was just really bad. Jules probably thought she ought to find it interesting or amazing or whatever, but she didn't like it. She didn't need or want anyone in her head. And she kind of wished they had told her about this earlier so she knew what was happening instead of wondering if she was some kind of crazy. But she was aware enough to know she was probably looking for something to be mad about so she could project her worries through anger or whatever. And Carson didn't look like he was happy about any of this either so she bit back on venting her frustrations. His voice in her head was as clear as it would have been if he had said those words out loud and Jules blinked in surprise before she sighed. Yes. She parted her lips to speak again and then shut her mouth quickly. Do you think the nosebleeds happened because of this? Like that thing did something to our brains?
A weird feeling chill ran down Carson’s spine when he heard Jules loud and clear in his head. He did his best to push everything unrelated away -- Sadie Gaines, being a werewolf, Rylee -- and cover it in shadows. But Carson hadn’t really practiced doing that yet, so he wasn’t sure how it was supposed to feel, or how successful he was being. If this was going to happen to all of them, they were going to have to get good at blocking one another out, or everything would just be more of a disaster than it already was. He tried to focus his thoughts on her questions instead, nodding a little. I guess so, he articulated in his mind. It wasn’t exactly a projecting feeling, more like Jules just had headphones plugged into his head or something. He could tell how unhappy she was about all this, and Carson honestly couldn’t blame her. It works better up close. So far anyway. The stuff I’ve been catching when I’m alone is getting clearer. Carson paused, then reluctantly added, We need to tell Neil.
Was this where Jules started thinking of embarrassing things in an effort not to? Like how she was on her period, or stuff about Jasper. Not that those things were embarrassing but she really didn't want it to be broadcast for Carson to hear. She barely knew the guy beyond what was happening to them. Jules didn't like that she couldn't control it, that she might be at home thinking about stuff and maybe Carson or Nic or Neil would hear it. This was so unfair! "I'm not telling him," Jules blurted out, finding the idea of telling Neil about the psychic stuff more horrifying than the psychic stuff itself. Neil was weird and always looked like he had a stick up his butt. "I mean, I'll, like, be there if you want me to be, but I don't think he'll appreciate it coming from me, or whatever. Maybe we can just group text about it, that way there are no real thoughts being shared in the same room?"
He wasn’t about to mention it, but Carson did catch the dismayed thought about Jules being on her period. That was a bit awkward, but it was easy enough for him to let go. She was still a kid, but he wasn’t. Her unhappy thoughts about Neil were much more relatable. Carson was quick to shake his head though -- he hadn’t meant that Jules needed to tell him. “I was thinking me and Nic,” he clarified. “To like ... demonstrate, I guess. But a group text might work just as well.” If Neil didn’t seem to believe them, they might be able to follow up with a demonstration from afar. Carson didn’t know. All of this seemed so petty and unimportant all of the sudden, and he was so tired. But he tried not to think about it, because Jules was still right there and could probably hear him, just like he’d heard about her period. Fuck. He honestly had to have the worst fucking luck in the world. It was like God or the universe or whatever was in control wanted him to be exposed. And maybe he deserved it. Carson felt that weight pressing against his chest again and he tried to think of something else. Puppies, rainbows, nice things.
Jules arched a brow, well aware of the shift in his thoughts from his luck to puppies. After a moment it made her feel more relaxed, because obviously she wasn't the only one worried about what was going on inside her brain. She didn't think it was unimportant though. Psychic stuff wasn't supposed to exist, like a lot of things, and it was happening to them. Jules felt a little awkward, but not enough to turn and run. "Are you okay?" she asked finally. "It's all kind of... muddled." She lifted both hands to her head briefly. "I'm not trying to listen, I promise." She doubted he was trying to listen to her. But maybe they could try to find a way to control it and turn it off. It worried her a little like maybe this happened for a reason and wasn't just a random side effect of dream monster, but Jules didn't know how to go about finding out. She was too worried about her exams next week and other stupid regular stuff.
Muddled was better than ‘oh hey, turns out you’re a monstrous killer,’ Carson supposed. He probably ought to be rushing her out the door to put some distance between them before she caught a murmur of the truth, but instead he found himself just staring at her and swallowing back the urge to word-vomit it all out. She was already partly in his head, after all ... but none of his shit was Jules’s problem, and she was scared enough. Carson tried to rally his protective side. “It’s okay, I know you’re not,” he told Jules with a wan smile. “I’m not really okay, but for stuff that has nothing to do with all this.” Carson waved his fingers around vaguely. “So ... nothing for you to worry about.” He tried to make it sound more reassuring than dismissive. He took a deep breath and slipped his hands into the pockets of his workout pants. “We’ll get in touch with Neil so he at least knows what’s going on, and ... I dunno, we’ll see what happens, I guess. I’m running low on ideas to fix any of this.”
"I don't scare easily," Jules said without really thinking. Maybe she did, on some level. But she felt like she had handled most of this well enough. She wasn't shrieking or crying or begging anyone to protect her. "But I get it. Things are in your head for a reason and if you wanted everyone to know about your problems, you'd just say so." Jules sighed, deliberately keeping her own mind on that, and on Neil and this situation. She wondered what Jasper was going to think about all of this. At least she couldn't read his mind. It would probably be super beneficial to her if she could, but also, not. Nobody wanted to date a psychic. Not a telepathic one, anyway. Jules realized her thoughts were running off with her and she blushed before giving Carson a small smile. "Just keep me in the loop, okay? Like, I haven't had any other dreams since that dreamwalker, and this is the only... weird thing that's happened since. I'm sorry I just showed up at your work without calling first. I didn't give it a lot of thought."
Carson picked up on Jules’s thoughts about her boyfriend and how nobody wanted to date a psychic, which was an aspect to this that he’d never even thought of. So far it seemed limited to the people with the shared dreams, but a month ago he hadn’t been telepathic at all, so what if it started to grow in scope? What if he started hearing Rylee’s thoughts? Carson tried to dismiss the possibility -- they four of them had been connected for some unfathomable reason, he just had to hope that was the limit. It felt foolish now to hope things didn’t get worse, so they would just all have to see. “Don’t worry about that,” he told Jules. “Show up anytime you need to. Or call me or text me, whatever. But I will. Keep you in the loop, I mean. I’m sorry me and Nic didn’t tell you about this sooner, there’s just ... a lot of other stuff going on.” Carson gave an apologetic little smile.
"It's fine." Jules waved her hand dismissively. It wasn't like she hadn't been distracted by other stuff. Probably stupid stuff compared to Carson, but distractions were distractions. "I should have texted you earlier when it started happening, but I wasn't sure what it was and it only recently got, like, clear enough that I could recognize your voice. None of that other stuff is about... this stuff, right?" She assumed if more was happening Carson would tell her, but Jules also knew how "adults" could be about scary stuff and she wouldn't put it past anyone to keep Jules in the dark if it was really bad, regardless of a promise to keep her updated on everything.
“It’s not,” Carson confirmed with a shake of his head. He was tempted to ask her if she’d heard anything crazy on the night of the full moon, but Jules hadn’t brought it up, so it was safer not to. He knew being linked to him and so close had been loud and terrible and physically painful for Nic, but at least it had been brief. Hopefully too brief for any of the others to hear him. Whether his curse would come into play in all this dream bullshit, Carson had no idea, but he thought it was probably best not to let the others know they were psychically linked to a monster. A different kind than the dreamwalker had seen, anyway. “It’s just personal stuff, and I think I got it ... handled.” Carson didn’t sound convincing, but he had no idea what else to say about it. “You said that this is the only weird shit happening to you, right?”
Jules gave that some thought, like maybe other weird shit was happening that she had forgotten about somewhere. There was Amelia, but that wasn't directly related to her, and then there was the stuff at school, with the weird word vomit, and Ms. Gaines getting killed by a dog or wolf or whatever it was. So maybe there was weird shit happening, but Jules couldn't say any of it was really happening to her and her alone. "I guess there's been some other things, but like... I don't think any of it has to do with our stuff. Why? Do you have weird shit happening to you?" And maybe even Nic, since Carson had mentioned the two of them talking.
Carson’s whole life had turned into weird shit, it seemed. Weird and dark and horrible. Just when he thought he’d gotten a handle on his werewolf problem, now he had so much guilt to carry. He’d tried to take precautions that first month, but they hadn’t worked and it had cost a woman her life, and nothing would ever change that. It just made him want to lie down on the floor for a while. But that wasn’t an option at the moment. “Nothing related, like I said,” he told Jules, managing to sound casual enough about it. “Just curious.” Carson cast a wary glance around, but nobody else in the gym seemed to be paying attention to them, which was probably good. He felt conspicuous standing around talking to a teenage girl. I don’t want to rush you off, but I don’t want to look like a creep either ... he said in his head, trying to make it clear for her to catch.
Jules arched a brow and glanced around as well, though it didn't seem like anyone noticed or cared that they were talking. She wondered if Carson wanted her to leave before he started thinking clearly about his personal problems, because he didn't want her to hear them. She couldn't really blame him for it, because she would probably be doing the same. But Jules was feeling nosy all of the sudden and wanted to try and pry into everything, but she resisted. It wouldn't help anything to piss him off. It's okay. This was so weird and she nearly laughed at this bizarre turn of events. I should go anyway. Homework and stuff. "I hope things get better," she told him. It wasn't like she had any advice to give him. Jules knew nothing about his life, and vice versa. But he was a nice guy.
Carson could tell that Jules more or less had his avoidance figured out; she was smart, he would give her that. It did feel strange to stand there and have an in-depth conversation with a teenager, but at least he had the gym to cover his ass if anybody got weird about it. Jules was a cheerleader, thus and athlete, and he was a personal trainer, so it made sense. His uncooperative brain reminded him that the school had lost their cheer coach too, but Carson shoved the thought away. “Thanks,” he murmured out loud. “Me too. I’ll let you know how it goes with Neil and everything. Take care of yourself, okay? I’ll try to work on being ... quiet.” Carson gave her a faint smile and gestured toward his head.
She knew she was only seventeen, but Jules was a senior and would be graduating soon and she felt like an adult. A young adult, at least. Maybe she didn't have as many life experiences as the other three, but this whole dream psychic monster mirror crap had kind of forced her to grow up a little. Sometimes she wished she could just go back to being shallow and bitchy, worrying about nothing more than school dances and boys. She wasn't thinking about anyone watching them or becoming suspicious. This was a gym, after all. Her mom came here at least five times a week. "Me too," she said, giving him a small smile of her own. Honestly, she had no idea if the others had heard snippets from her brain before or not. She hoped they hadn't. "Okay, well... bye." She turned to go and realized she would probably have to tell Jasper about this. Soon, at least. Once she made sure it was just Carson and Nic and Neil and not everyone else.