Peter Vincent thinks people see what they want to (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} smokingmagician) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} wariscoming,@ 2012-05-09 21:25:00 |
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What: Arriving in Lawrence and causing a traffic accident
Where: A fairly busy Lawrence street
When: Thursday morning
Warnings: Peter's foul mouth
Status: Incomplete/Open
Peter stepped onto the elevator and punched the button for the ground floor without looking. He was busy skimming through the contacts list on his phone, looking for someone who might be up for a night out. Perhaps that girl he’d met in the lobby of the Hard Rock after the show last weekend was still interested…
He passed Charley’s name on the list and grinned. The look on the kid’s face when Peter walked in on him and Amy upstairs had been priceless. He wasn’t sure why they’d been so startled by his appearance. They were, after all, hooking up in a makeshift bed on his living room floor. It was hardly private, even if he had said he was going out for the night. But in all seriousness, they were sweet kids. And good on Charley, finally getting his girl! Mister Big Hero deserved it.
Personally, Peter still had a hard time believing that they had made it out of Jerry’s den alive. Even now, nearly a month later, he still felt like he was running on adrenaline. Tonight, like last night (and all the other nights before, if he was being honest), Peter was aiming to celebrate, and he’d rather not do so alone. Charley and Amy were, of course, occupied, and in any case Peter was in the mood to get roaring drunk. Not that he wasn’t always in the mood to get roaring drunk, but Charley was a terrible drinking buddy, always refusing to even have a taste no matter how much Peter wheedled him.
The lift rumbled to a stop and the doors rolled open with a ding. Peter stepped out, still looking down at his phone.
He almost didn’t see the car before it was too late.
The car’s horn blared as it swerved around him, and Peter leaped backwards out of the way, yelping out a shocked curse. He could hear metal crunching, car horns blaring, tires screaming. Peter flinched, throwing up his arms to shield himself. His whole body tensed with expectation, and he tried to stagger sideways. Where was the sidewalk? Why would there be a sidewalk? Why was there even a fucking street here, when it should be the hotel lobby?
Peter stumbled a few more steps and tripped backwards over a curb, landing on his arse. The cement scraped his palms bloody, but he hardly noticed. His wide eyes were still locked on the cars piled up in the street where he had been standing, adrenaline shocking through him. Everything had gone still, relatively silent save for one last horn still blasting and the slamming of car doors. Tire smoke drifted by in clouds over the pavement, not quite enough to obscure the trashed cars now blocking the road.
“Fucking fuck,” Peter hissed. “Where the fuck did the hotel go?”
Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and stared down the street in a daze, ignoring the angry and frightened shouts from the drivers and passengers of the cars.
He was outside.
“That is fucking impossible…” he murmured, “…unless it’s tomorrow already and I was too fucking sloshed to remember last night…”
Except… he didn’t feel hung-over. Also, since when does someone wake up from a booze-coma standing in the middle of a fucking street? He rolled his shoulders under his thin blazer, trying to shake off the chills running down his spine and out to his toes and fingertips. Something was extremely wrong.