Re: Shane & Toby
“That’s the thing. It’s impossible to completely clear your mind. And if there’s something you’re trying not to think about, then it’s for sure going to come up. Easier to blast loud, obnoxious shit,” Toby grinned. It was something he’d learned over time, occasionally on the receiving end when he couldn’t keep his own abilities in check. “Eh, sometimes. It’s hard to tell if it’s my earworm or someone else’s. I like music though, so it’s not as bad as it sounds.” He wasn’t really a telepath—he couldn’t search through someone’s thoughts and find out what he wanted to know. It was only when something was at the front of their mind that he picked up on thoughts. The rest just felt random to him, pieces of information that fell into place when he mentally questioned it. He wished he could understand how it worked better. It felt like brain magic to him, unexplainable even to someone who’d been welding it for years.
"Man, I don't know how you do it," Shane sighed. "I have enough trouble keeping tabs on my own brain without other brains randomly chiming in." He vastly preferred what he could do with fire, certain he would have gone insane early on if he was psychic in that literal sense. "Don't you ever get a song stuck in your head but it's not the whole song? Just one line over and over? I'm just imagining walking through a room full of those and shit, I think I'd kill myself - or everyone else." He didn't mean that literally and he thought that was obvious, but not a lot of people liked being flippant about stuff like that.
“I used to drink a lot,” Toby said casually, as if it was nothing. “That helped. Except I was, like, fourteen. And while drunk teenagers are hilarious, I eventually figured out I couldn’t go through life being drunk or high all the time. I learned to rein it in. It’s like having a radio on, but it’s in the background most of the time.” He’d also had moments like the one Shane was proposing, where he felt like he could hear everyone and everything and his head was going to explode. He remembered being like that the day he’d found Adrian, bleeding on the side of the road. On those days the best he could do was shut himself away, maybe have a drink and try to sleep, but that wasn’t always possible. Some days his ability sucked. “You learn to live with it, right? Maybe it makes me a little crazy, but that’s part of my appeal,” he teased.
"You do carry yourself with undeniable grace, despite - or because - of your crazy," Shane said with a grin. "I probably wouldn't like you half as much if you were stone cold sober sane." He was intimately familiar with being too drunk and too high for too long, but these days he had it under control. Yes he still liked to party but he didn't need it and he stayed away from the strongest stuff now - the type more likely to land him in the hospital again.
“Oh, no one would,” Toby laughed. “I’d probably be boring as hell.” He didn’t know about that, but he suspected he’d be a completely different person. He was shaped by his life experiences and the abilities that AIR brought out in him were a big part of that, for better or worse. Some days he wished they’d just go away, but he also knew he’d miss them. At this point, it would feel like losing a limb. “Oh! By the way, my birthday’s next week and I was thinking of dragging some friends out for drinks. Maybe at Dragonfly. You and Reza in?”
"Hell yes," Shane said cheerfully because he was always up for a good party and Dragonfly was by far his favorite place. "Just name the time and we'll be there. Where else would you go if not Dragonfly? Karaoke?" Those were the two places that felt fun and friendly around here. The Porch had its charm but it was very straight-vibe and he didn't think many people in this particular group would enjoy Cherries. He would probably like it; strip clubs could be fun and pretty naked bodies were a joy to watch regardless of gender, but Cherries was also very heterosexual aligned and he didn't love those places, mostly because straight guys so often sucked.