Neil (piezoelectric) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-10-28 18:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | #april 2018, neil, neil x toby, toby |
Who: Toby and Neil
Where: The Library
When: Afternoon, Early April
Ever since Jane had stopped by, Toby couldn’t quit seeing signs of AIR in the area. For each missing person, he wondered if it was them, snatching people off the street. Whenever he felt someone watching him and he couldn’t identify who, he began to think they might have finally found him. It was a paranoia he hadn’t had since he was a child, one he’d overcome by telling himself that they were all dead. As guilty as he felt about his part in the fire, there had also been a comfort there. If they were dead, they couldn’t come looking for him. Jane hadn’t provided him with the proof that he wanted, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t at least partially right. If AIR was back, there was a high chance they were looking for the people they’d lost.
As the days passed, Toby kept expecting to hear from Jane, but no message came. He supposed he could have texted her to inquire, but it never felt like a good idea. He couldn’t tell if that was his powers trying to dissuade him or if he just didn’t want to talk to her in particular, so in the end he decided on something else completely. There was one other person in town that should know what was going on and so Toby decided to drop in on him. It was hypocritical of him, sure, but he told himself that stopping by the library was different than Jane showing up at the Raynor’s place. The library was a public building and the chances of Neil being busy with a customer seemed slim. When Toby walked in, he stopped and took a look around. Though he didn’t immediately see Neil, he let his feet guide him through the stacks, down one row and up another, until he found Neil re-shelving books. He stopped at the end of the row, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops as he waited for Neil to notice him. It shouldn’t take long.
Neil would have taken great offense at being told he was simply re-shelving books, his job was a great deal more complicated than that of a simple library assistant though admittedly he often did need to do their jobs too. Frustrating! Today he was sorting the books that a dimwitted temp had messed up rather badly, getting some structure to the chaos that was currently the biography section. He was a wary person by nature so it didn't take him long to realize he was being watched, getting his hackles up. He put another book in its place, then cautiously looked up, unsure what to expect. There was always a lingering fear that they had missed one of the fog infected people, that there was someone still out there wanting to get to them. Things had improved after the big event in January but one person would not make as much of a fuss as a group of dozen. Of course if it wasn't the fog, it was AIR. He recognized Toby easily and his shoulders slumped a little in relief. "Can I help you?" he asked though it was somewhat dismissive as he kept working.
"I hope so," Toby said, walking a few steps closer to Neil. The closer he was, the better he could read him, if it came to that. It was hard to keep his abilities at bay when he was so tempted to use them, but Toby was trying. "Jane came to see me. She had some lovely things to say about our friends at AIR. You have a few minutes to talk?" He was guessing the answer was yes, but he also had a good feeling that Neil wouldn't want to talk to him. Toby didn't blame him. He didn't really want to talk about AIR either, but if he was going to be pulled in, then he wanted answers before he got pulled into a group conversation and he refused to get them from Jane.
This was one of the many downsides to working in a public building and Neil wondered - not for the first time - if he shouldn't have become an archivist for some private company instead. He sighed and nodded anyway, the sigh of the long suffering. "Not here, it's too easy to eavesdrop," he muttered and pushed his cart up against the bookshelf, motioning to Toby to follow him. There was hardly ever anyone in the room with the microfilms and they could close the door there. Neil had of late become almost too tired for his paranoia, after everything that had happened AIR should have already swooped in and taken him back but he was still here, doing his job and leading a mostly mundane life. Save for Jane of course and her mad plans regarding AIR.
Toby was fine with moving the conversation to some place more private and he followed Neil to the microfilm room without complaint. He had the errant thought that it would probably be a good place to fool around if he ever met a sexy librarian, but he didn’t think Neil would appreciate him sharing, so he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t need to get on Neil’s bad side before they’d even gotten a chance to talk. Once the door was shut behind them, Toby found a table to lean against as turned his attention on Neil. “So, where to start? She said AIR is back in business and she’s gathered some others to take it down? Can you maybe provide me with a few additional details? ‘Cause our conversation was just a wee bit short.”
Neil had no idea where to start, so much had happened in the last few months and it was hard to tell just how much of it all was pertinent to their supposed war with AIR. "Well, they have rebuilt in the same place and Jane has found others like us who are itching for a fight. I've reluctantly agreed to help on some fronts. I don't know how much more detail I can give you at present. Is there anything in particular you wanted to know?" He leaned against a table opposite Toby as he spoke, not at ease with sitting down if Toby didn't.
“Are they kidnapping children? Are they torturing them? Or is there any chance that the organization that’s been rebuilt is the side that was actually studying social sciences? Because that was actually a thing. I think. It’s impossible to know, since we burnt it down,” Toby said, his agitation growing as he spoke. He stopped and took a second to compose himself, his fingers spreading wide as he took a deep breath. “I’m just—concerned. I don’t like the idea of more people dying. And I got the impression she wants to go in guns blazing, but none of us have guns except Shane and, fuck, have you ever seen a burn victim? They give me nightmares. I can’t treat ‘em, doesn’t matter who they are.”
Neil had not seen a burn victim, nor did he want to and he wrinkled his nose at the thought. "I'm not eager to participate either," he told Toby. "Although I sincerely doubt this is a harmless institution now. The man behind it is Wilkes's son. Naomi and Nicole went missing last winter, a little girl has already gone missing in town." He groaned quietly, realizing he was quite literally speaking for Jane now and not against her but really he was just stating the facts. "I honestly feel like it's just a matter of time before they come after the rest of us and I'm... I'm tired of being afraid. There are others out there, not just us, and I can't help but wonder where they came from. How big is this, you know?"
“People go missing around here all the time. Almost a dozen went missing a few months ago and I don’t think that had anything to do with AIR,” Toby said. He didn’t know what it was that had driven the whole town to some crazy exhaustion, but he doubted AIR had that kind of power. If they did, they’d have come for them by now. “Just because a little girl went missing doesn’t mean… I mean, it could be AIR, but…” Toby sighed and ran his fingers through the mess of curls on his head. “I don’t want to live in fear either, but it feels different this time.” Maybe it was because he wasn’t actually being tortured right now, though he didn’t want to find himself in a similar situation. He doubted they’d be able to escape twice. “Tell me about the others. What can they do?”
"I don't really know them," Neil admitted and thought of Vex. He could tell Toby about him but it'd be tricky to tell him he had gone missing without telling him how exactly; Toby might link that to AIR when it was in fact Neil and the others who were at fault. "There's some kind of mind-reader and of course there's Jane who can visit your dreams and turn them intensely unpleasant." He rolled his eyes a bit at that because oh boy was he aware of that particular gift. Toby probably was too. "Really if you want more information about the others you'll have to ask Jane." He considered telling him about his own gift, that recently discovered lightning madness but it felt strange to mention it and somehow entirely too vulnerable. "What about you? Did you ever... Is there something in particular you do?"
Toby didn't want to ask Jane. That's why he was asking Neil. It was frustrating that Neil didn't seem to know more, except for the little bit about a mind reader. That might be someone to steer clear of. "Oh yeah, I can fly," Toby grinned, then looked down at the floor as he sighed, his smile slipping away. It had become natural for him to lie about his abilities, but there were a few people who knew--some of the other kids they'd escaped with, the older ones, who'd trusted in his abilities without him fully explaining them. He didn't know what happened to them, but it didn't sound like they were part of the group if Neil didn't know. That most likely meant Jane didn't know either. "Actually, I'm clairvoyant, so... not super useful in a fight, but good for planning one."
Clairvoyant sounded more like some kind of future-reader than a mind reader so Neil didn't get too upset hearing that. "Well, according to Jane and Mal that is useful too," he said. "I'm getting blueprints of the new building and I'm cautiously hopeful we won't have to fight. Maybe we can expose them, shut them down in some other way." Truly, the mere idea of an all out war in their small town just seemed insane to him but given all the crazy things they'd already been through, not impossible. "I think Jane has fancy ideas of us operating somewhat like the resistance in France in World War Two," he added with another roll of his eyes. "I'm honestly not really sure what it is she is planning to do."
Clairvoyant was the closest Toby could come to explaining what he was, but rarely did the word capture exactly what he could do. He just knew things—sometimes the future, sometimes the past, sometimes what someone was thinking or what they might do. It all depended on his focus and what he wanted to know. And sometimes it didn’t work. If he’d known what Neil was thinking now, he’d have clarified, but instead he just read the vibe that Neil wasn’t concerned. “You’d be better in a fight than me,” he suggested, his mind ticking over to Neil’s unnamed abilities. That was something he just knew. “How’re you gonna get the blueprints? They on file here or something?” He doubted it was a public building, but it was all he could think of as an explanation.
"Some of those files are easily accessed," Neil replied. "Public domain. Building codes and so on. I'm sure that if Jane is right and they're up to no good the blueprints won't be accurate but it's a start. We can compare them to aerial photographs and Jane can no doubt take someone for a little dream walk to see the areas they have access to - the blueprints for the main building will come in useful there." Okay, he was a little excited about that part, it was about the only thing he was truly willing to do because he liked puzzles and documents. "I don't think I'd be any good in a fight," he added and thought briefly of the night in the woods. He'd done well there, he thought, but as soon as a gun appeared he'd wanted to disappear completely. AIR would no doubt have security, trained individuals who could do far more damage than the bewildered group of infected people in the woods could and he didn't want to be anywhere near that.
“That’s actually pretty smart,” Toby said, quietly impressed. “I guess I don’t really know everything Jane’s capable of these days.” They’d had a plan when they were kids, but not near as many tools at their disposal. Toby wondered if they couldn’t find out everything they needed to know without actually going anywhere near AIR. If that was the case, if they could somehow expose them anonymously, he would be much more into it. Even if it had been rebuilt from the ground up, even if not a single brick was the same, Toby still wasn’t sure he could go back there. If he did, he was sure he’d be a nervous wreck. “You sure about that?” He asked, raising a brow. “What exactly can you do now?” He had a good idea, but he’d rather Neil tell him than tell Neil what he’d read from him.
Neil pursed his lips in discomfort, quirking his brows as he considered his answer. He knew this question would come, it was only logical given the conversation, but that didn't mean he had to like it or feel prepared for it at all. "I suppose you could call it... manipulation of electricity," he said a bit stiffly. "But it's very new and I'm nowhere near mastering it. I almost burned my apartment down a few months ago." That had been because of the dream of course, Nic had lost control as well and he'd had years to hone his magic and the others... Well, they'd all lost control so without the dreams, Neil didn't feel too worried about it happening again. "In any case, it doesn't protect me in any way, it's at best a flashy distraction at the moment."
"If you're accidentally catching things on fire, that's an even better reason to practice," Toby said with a little smile. "Maybe just somewhere a little less flammable. Or, like, with a hose nearby. Or a fire extinguisher. Definitely not here or at home." It was curious to him that Neil was new to his talent when he'd known of the possibility for years. He wondered what had finally triggered it and thought of how AIR would've liked that information as well. It was stuff like that he wanted to keep from them and suspected Neil felt the same way. "I guess I'm gonna have to meet these people. I just... I feel like we've gone a long time under the radar. They might not even know we exist at this point. But if we fuck this up, they'll come for us for sure."
Neil related to everything Toby was saying and it was a little strange to hear those words come from someone else, to not be the only damn voice of reason against Jane and her mad companions. "I would very much like to keep living my life as I have for the last few years," he admitted. "But it feels like no matter how hard I try to focus on my work and my interests, something strange keeps happening. Something that cannot be explained, a nuisance of the highest order." He huffed with frustration, folding his arms tightly. "What if some of the very strange things that happened in the last year or so are because of AIR? Every time it gets the least bit foggy out I have a minor panic attack, that isn't normal." And it hadn't been that bad before, not that he knew of. People had always gone missing here but it was usually someone stupid enough to be out in the woods, out in the cemetery, out in the tunnel. Dangerous places. Now it seemed the danger kept seeping into the town itself.
"Well, you wouldn't be the only one," Toby said. Fog now seemed to be a sign of bad things to come and Toby definitely thought twice about stepping into it. Usually his abilities could tell him if it was safe or not, but sometimes when his own anxieties began to interfere it became harder to feel the truth. Was AIR involved? He'd tried more than once to find that answer, but it was clouded in its own layer of fog. "If it was them, if they do have that kind of power--to bring fog, to bring fuckin' monsters out--someone needs to stop 'em. I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder." He sighed heavily, running his fingers through the mess of curls on his head. "I just don't know that we have the manpower, even with Shane."
The thought of meeting Shane again made Neil a little nervous. His only memory of the man was that of a sooty boy with a near empty expression. He'd been Jane's friend on account of her being able to visit him in dreams but Neil had never really spoken to him. To this day he couldn't remember if Shane had even looked at him. For all he knew, Shane was a psychopath who wouldn't hesitate to burn the whole town down to get rid of that one building. Putting his trust in Jane's judgment didn't do anything to reassure him either. "They're moving on with or without us," he sighed. "I would prefer without me, if I'm perfectly honest, but at the same time it seems irresponsible to not know what they're planning."
"Yeah," Toby nodded. "Yeah, that's kind of where I am. I can't not know, but damn do I wish I could sit this one out." Unfortunately, that would make his paranoia worse. At least if he was involved he might know what he was up against. It would be worth it to meet the others, to see what had become of Shane and find out who the mind reader was, though Toby intended to do everything possible to keep him out of his mind. Maybe they could be allies, something Toby hadn't had in one hell of a long time. "Okay," he sighed. "I should probably let you get back to work. Sorry to just drop by. I just needed some answers, or maybe a sounding board, and Jane wasn't really an option."
Neil had never particularly liked Toby, nor had he disliked him. He was just there in the margins, being an oddball, sharing Neil's twisted history without the two of them actually even trying to bond over it. There had been the age difference back in school and the fact Neil was anti social at best but now Neil felt genuine worry for him suddenly. "Your clairvoyance," he started, straightening up a little. "Does it allow you to... To communicate telepathically?" He'd found solace in that himself, to have three people - two people now, he reminded himself regretfully - that he could reach out to with thoughts in case something happened to him. If Toby got whisked away like Naomi and Nicole likely had, he wasn't sure they would ever know what had happened to him.
Toby’s brows drew together and his lips turned down as he considered the question. “I’ve never really tried to use it like that,” he admitted. “Usually it’s me just knowing things, mostly things I shouldn’t. I think if you thought something really hard at me I’d probably get it, but it’s more like… like I’m picking up the signal, rather than reading your mind. I don’t know if I could send a message back.” Practicing something like that would’ve required someone else to know about his abilities and that was usually something Toby avoided. Truth be told, he hadn’t attempted to branch out any more than he’d figured out as a child. He usually focused more on turning off the signal, rather than leaving it on all the time. “Why? What’re you thinking?”
Neil was reluctant to say but he was the one who brought it up so he couldn't very well brush it off now. "I'm thinking that if we go too deep into this whole mess Jane wants us in, we'll need to come up with some sort of a security measure, something to keep us safe. In case..." He didn't really need to say it, did he? They all knew people went missing, that it might already be happening again. What would even happen to them if AIR took interest again? He had a worrying feeling that it meant certain death. "I guess I was hoping you could reach out if something happened to you."
“That would be really fuckin’ useful,” Toby agreed. He had no idea if it would work, but maybe it was something he should try. He’d always thought of himself as a receiver, but what if he tried projecting instead? His abilities had always been hard to pin down, the term clairvoyance really just the closest he could come to describing what he could do, and no one said he’d reached his limits. Branching out into new territory scared him, but that was the kind of thing that would be good to know, if it was possible. “I might work on it. If you don’t mind. You’d kind of be my guinea pig,” he said, lips turning up. “So if you ever think you’re getting a message from me, text me.” He briefly considered how easy it would be to mess with Neil if he could actually do it, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want to run Neil off.
Neil hated the idea and his expression said as much. He already had people dropping in unannounced in his mind, though Nic and Jules had kept their distance since the Incident, but the two of them along with Jane and her damned dreamwalking was enough traffic for his taste. He understood though and after frowning for a good few seconds he relented and sighed. "Could you keep it to... certain hours please. Perhaps between eight and ten PM so I'm not driving or talking to anyone." Scheduled telepathy seemed a little less awful than the chaotic kind he was getting far too used to dealing with.
Neil’s response was so unexpected that it earned a laugh from Toby, who hadn’t thought enough about it to even consider that the time of day might matter. He suddenly had the feeling that Neil had dealt with this kind of thing before and that if he wanted things to stay good between them that he probably shouldn’t abuse it. “Yeah, sure,” he smiled. “I don’t even know if I can do it. And even if I can, there’s no guarantee that I’d get anything back except this weird feeling that you heard me. I’ll try to be considerate.” He certainly didn’t want to be the cause of a car accident.
It wasn't a derisive laugh but it still got Neil's hackles up. It was hard to shake the feeling that he was being laughed at and not with and he bristled little at the thought, especially since he hadn't been joking at all. "I would appreciate that," he replied a bit stiffly. "I've had just about enough of being a test subject, as you probably understand." He would make an allowance for it once and only once because they were something like allies now and he would hate to be the cause of yet another disappearance, especially if he could do something to prevent it.
"I didn't mean it like that," Toby said, all signs of amusement disappearing from his expression. "It's more that--you're the only one who knows. Unless Jane does." There was something disconcerting about that possibility, since it would mean she'd been rifling around in his head while he'd been sleeping. Could she even do that without him knowing? Toby didn't always remember his dreams, but he felt like he would if Jane had made an appearance. He wondered if there was anyone else he could try it out on and the only person who came to mind was Adrian, which was just bizarre. They weren't close and he hadn't seen the man in a while, but at least he might have an inkling that something was different about him. "Don't worry about it," he said suddenly. "I'll figure something out. There's some patients in the psych ward that might enjoy another voice in their head."
"Now that's just cruel," Neil said with a frown, unable to suss out if Toby was joking or not. Was there even a psych ward in Point Pleasant? He sometimes found it terribly hard to figure out if people were joking when they did it this deadpan and he was feeling that inability acutely today. "I gave you my permission for one time, so go ahead. Between eight and ten. I could- you could give me your number and I'll text you if I get a stray thought I know for sure is not mine." He liked to think he could tell, at least given how the others sounded in his head, but there was always the terrifying thought that someone might be messing with his head and he would be completely oblivious to it.
"Oh, don't worry, they love making new friends," Toby said with flippant wave of his hand. In reality, he would never do anything to harm his patients, and there wasn't even a psych ward at Mercy, but that didn't matter. It diverted the conversation away from something Toby was uncomfortable with, which was all that mattered. "I would try to make it obvious," he said, this answer a bit more honest. "I just want to see if it's possible. I'm not out to mess with you." He could do that without attempting telepathy, if he really wanted to, but Neil had been helpful and he had the feeling it would ruin any trust they had between them.
Neil frowned again, his face pinched as he tried to suss out if Toby was indeed joking. He wasn't sure but he decided to believe that he was, at least for now because the alternative was awful and he wouldn't want to live with that knowledge. "I appreciate that," he muttered and really at this point, if Toby wanted to mess with him he didn't need his permission to broadcast things into his head. He could just traipse in uninvited like Jane did on the regular, but if this first encounter was to anything to go by, he wasn't as meddlesome and shameless as Jane was. Unless he wasn't joking about his patients Neil thought and quickly pushed that thought away. He was pretty sure that if he got one more person acting like Jane he might eventually snap. He pulled out his phone and created a new contact as he spoke, then looked at Toby expectantly.
Toby rattled off his number, then waited until Neil had him all set up in his phone. “Send me a text, if you don’t mind. If I can’t do it, I’d like to have some way of reaching you other than stopping by the library.” He thought Neil might appreciate that even if he could do it. Telepathy was something he could only see himself using in case of an emergency, not unless it was someone he was especially close to. Certainly not Neil. And it was still an unknown. Toby thought about trying it now, then thought better of it. He wanted to make sure it worked when they weren’t standing only a few feet away from each other. “Do you have any idea when Jane is planning this? Is she thinking, like, a couple weeks? Months?”
"She's cagey," Neil sighed as he sent Toby a text, just a simple 'it's Neil' so that he'd have his number. "I honestly don't even know if she has a plan beyond getting us all together. She and Mal want those blueprints but I couldn't tell you what exactly they want to do with them. If I was to make an educated guess I'd say right now they're just looking into it, trying to find out what AIR is up to this time around. So with that in mind we could estimate that it's all happening right now." He pocketed his phone again and clasped his hands in his lap, frowning as he considered telling Toby more. "Everyone who went missing in January - that might be AIR related. The fog that caused it - I'm certain now that was AIR's doing too."
“If that’s true, we’ve gotta stop ‘em,” Toby sighed, checking his phone, then sliding it into his pocket. As reluctant as he was to be involved, he knew this was something that needed to be done and not knowing what was happening would be far worse. If any of them were caught, he figured he’d be screwed, no matter if he helped or not. AIR had not been above torturing children, so he couldn’t imagine them holding back against adults. “Keep me in the loop, I guess. I don’t like AIR related surprises.” With his abilities engaged it was hard to catch him off guard, but he hated turning them on all the time. It made him feel crazy, unable to tell what he should know and what he shouldn’t.
"I suppose," Neil sighed though that felt like a job for someone other than him, some attention- and action seeking lunatic who knew how to talk themselves out of trouble and ... probably have superheroesque gadgets and the ability to pick locks and hack or something. He was decidedly none of those things, though yes, he did have the ability to talk to a select few people telepathically and shoot lightning from his hands so... Well shit. He supposed that meant that he fit the bill somewhat, no matter how much he didn't want it. This made him seriously wonder how hard it would be to learn to pick locks and such, because why not. "I don't like any surprises in general but I must agree, AIR related surprises are the worst of them."
There were times that Toby liked surprises, but that was for things like birthdays and nights out with friends. He completely agreed with Neil when it came to AIR. He’d rather them not be in his life at all, but if he was going to have to deal with them, he wanted it to be on his timeline, under his terms. That could only happen if he was involved. Which sucked, but he supposed he’d have to deal with it. “Well,” he said, pushing off the desk he’d been leaning against. “I’ll let you know if I try it and it doesn’t work. I guess we’ll talk soon.” Which felt weird. He’d gone years without talking to Neil, or even thinking of him, and now it sounded like they were old friends.
"I guess we will," Neil said and maybe he was getting used to all these people pestering him because he didn't feel as intensely annoyed by it as he usually did. It didn't make him happy, of course, but it seemed to be causing him a little less anxiety the more it happened. There was probably some lesson to be learned there, endurance through perseverance and experience but Neil honestly wished for nothing more than being left in peace again. Those days were very clearly over though and he wasn't sure they'd ever come back.