Dumat: The Dragon of Silence (nearestvessel) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-09-20 16:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, anya corazon (spider-girl), samandriel |
Who: Samandriel & Cora
What: Talking and finding both family and peace in the park.
When: 9/17 - early afternoon
Where: The park
Rating: Medium for mentions of trauma, but nothing explicit
Status: Complete
Outside was the best place possible for Samandriel to be. After everything, an indoors that didn’t have one of his brothers in it very quickly began to feel confining in all the worst ways. School had been an exercise in trying his patience and frequent texts to both Lucifer and Castiel (though mostly Lucifer because Castiel apparently much preferred actually working at work,) and assurances that he was okay and would make it through this. The general consensus was that there had been a death in the family and that necessitated Samandriel being out of school for much of the past week.
He hadn’t enjoyed the way people looked at him now. Whatever his double had done to “solve his bullying problem,” worked, but it might have only created more. At lunch, Samandriel’d sat on the roof and listened to the wind.
All that was over now, and Lucifer had allowed him to work a rare weeknight later just because he so desperately needed to play.
In the park, somehow all those school troubles melted away. He sat under a large, leafy tree, breeze ruffling his hair (and his feathers, but no one seemed to be able to see those.) His eyes were closed, but that didn’t stop him from being aware of his surroundings. Samandriel forced himself to focus on beautiful things like Creation or the act of painting a sunset. Every so often, bits of his experiences with the other him would flash into his mind, breaking up the piece with his own mental anguish. He had to get better at this. His family was relying on him to hold them together.
Cora was learning how to deal with her newly acquired telepathic abilities; to filter out outside thoughts enough that she could concentrate on schoolwork without resorting to wearing a tinfoil helmet. Now that her powers weren’t interfering with those of her friends and family, it was easier for them to help her, but at school, she was mostly on her own--and it got tiring after a while, to constantly have to keep her guard up. Between that, and her defensive reflexes (which still took the shape of a pretty blue exoskeleton), there was a lot to juggle.
Out in the park, people’s thoughts were more relaxed, and seemed to drift away on the autumn breeze. There was the occasional jolt of excitement as children played with pets, but what really set her head pounding was the sudden spike of anguish that she felt as she passed a large shade tree. She was instantly alert, turning toward the direction from which her tingling Spidey-sense told her the distress signal had come, and there, she saw him. The angel boy, with his invisible wings, and his powerful psychic presence.
She approached with caution, not wanting to upset him any more than he already was. “Samandriel?” she called, “Are you okay?”
Samandriel opened his eyes and managed a soft smile for her. It wasn’t completely honest, but the masks they wore helped everyone get through the day. “Well enough,” he responded. “Being outside helps my mood considerably.” She clearly noticed more than she let on and Samandriel saw no need to lie outright to anyone except, perhaps his brothers.
The girl sat down in front of him, cross-legged, and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees; studying his cherubic face. She glanced over her shoulders once, to make sure nobody was looking, and let her symbiotic, blue shell snick into place. Sometimes, it was a defensive gesture, but with Samandriel, it was a gesture of trust. He was one of few people she knew who had actually called it ‘beautiful.’
“My Spider-sense was tingling.”
Samandriel did truly smile at that, watching the shell catch the light just so. “Perhaps I should take a tip from the spiders,” he said softly. “When the rain destroys gorgeous, precise webs, they simply rebuild them again. Maybe we should all learn from them.”
“Maybe,” she said, “But I think it’s okay to be sad for a little while, when things change.” She held out her hands, all encased in blue. “As long as we don’t keep looking backwards for the rest of our lives.”
Samandriel took her hands, unafraid and truly thinking she was beautiful when he met her eyes. “I don’t think I’m sad,” he said finally. “I’m not sure what I am, but I don’t think sad is it.”
Cora could try and guess, based on the thoughts she had picked up so loudly, just a little while ago, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good for her to tell her friend how he felt. He’d have to work that out for himself. She knew something awful had happened, and she wished she could make it better. But all she could do was be his friend.
“I think...most people feel a lot of different things, all at the same time.”
Samandriel raised one hand to his lips to kiss the back of it affectionately. “If you’re this wise at eight, I imagine you’ll be unstoppable by the time you actually hit sixteen, my dear.” He let her hands go in case she wanted some of her personal space back, though people being in his rarely bothered him much at all.
“Are you doing alright?”
Cora smiled softly, and folded her hands in her lap. She still thought like an eight-year-old, insomuch as that when someone was upset, her first instinct was to crawl into their lap and hug them until it was all better. She knew, though, that sort of thing could get her into trouble when she was apparently sixteen, and most of her friends were apparently adults. And other teenagers only seemed to snuggle when they were romantically involved.
Her smile turned briefly into a grimace when Samandriel asked if she was okay. “I got new powers, besides my blue buddy here. Still getting used to them.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, brows knitting while he worried over her. “I’m very good at listening even if I don’t always have the answers. Sometimes that can be enough.”
She shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t want to upset him, but maybe he needed something to take his mind off his own problems. “The kryptonite I found gave me telepathic powers. I’m trying to learn how not to eavesdrop on people’s thoughts.”
“That’s...challenging,” Samandriel said softly, understanding more than most others would. “I find it’s easier if you focus on things that aren’t people. The sound of the wind or mentally tracing the paths of butterflies and bees helps.”
Cora nodded. Her friend, Nate, had taken her up to see the stars, and though there were very few people around to disrupt her quiet, it had helped her find a quiet place in her own mind. “I like it here, in the park.”
“It’s a good place. I had lunch on the roof at school today and that was peaceful as well.” For a given value of Samandriel eating these days, of course, which was an increasingly rare occurrence.
“It bet it’s easy for you to get up there, now,” Cora said, smiling. She could probably try something like that, with her spider-reflexes, but she hadn’t tried it. “I like laying in the hammock in my back yard, with Mouse and Mister. They’re our dog and cat.”
“I don’t have any pets,” Samandriel said quietly. “I have my brother, though. Well, my brother from the dreams. He’s a very quiet, calm sort of man.” Angel. “For a while it was easiest to be around him because he’s very good at being steady. He used to think in foreign languages for me so I’d learn how to tune prayer and the like out better. Not that I don’t want to help, of course. There’s just only so much I can do.” He was only one angel after all.
“You can’t do everything. Nobody can.” No one angel, no one superhero, even with all the technology or power they might have at their fingertips could be everywhere at once. “But you do what you can, and that means a lot.” She smiled. “Maybe we can help each other.”
“I hope so,” he smiled softly. “If you ever just need to get away from people for a while, you know how to get in touch with me. I can take you absolutely anywhere you’d like and hopefully it’ll help you find your center again.”
“Thank you,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. “And you can call me, too. I know I’m not as powerful, but I’d like to help, in any way I can.”
“It’s what family does, no matter whether there’s a blood connection or not.” He smiled at her, reaching out to cover her hand on his arm with his own. “Come then, we can watch the water for a while and we can practice being and appreciating quiet. I think it would do us both some good.”
Cora thought he might be right, but she didn’t answer with words. She just smiled back, and stayed to enjoy the stillness with him until it was time to go home.