Peter Vincent thinks people see what they want to (smokingmagician) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2012-12-05 00:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | andrew wells, peter vincent |
Who: Peter Vincent, Andrew Wells
What: Peter grieves and wanders, and Andrew makes his return.
Where: The streets, and then, Taco Bell. WHERE IT ALL BEGAN. :D
When: Monday after this until Tuesday at nearly midnight, December 4th 2012
Warnings: Foul language, blood, violence, mentions of character death, boys kissing, and ALL THE ANGST EVER
Status: Closed, In progress
It was so quiet in the city now. Peter could still smell it burning, smell the sulfur and the rot. But it was quiet now. So quiet that all he could hear was his own ragged breathing, still hitching a bit from the mixture of pain and occasional choked sobs.
Peter didn’t know how long he’d been out here; time had stopped mattering. It could have been only hours or days or weeks. His head was so scattered. He hadn’t been able to focus, couldn’t gather his thoughts long enough to make any sense of his surroundings. He just kept seeing Andrew. Not memories, not coherent thoughts or images, just... Andrew. The only thing he had a clear fix on was that Andrew was gone. Everything else was too much for him to deal with right now.
Peter was not exactly a skilled fighter. He didn’t know how he had made it past the monsters and demons that Lawrence was now crawling with. He just knew that whenever he had crossed paths with one, the level of anger and grief that took over had made him feel like a monster himself. At some point he had been too exhausted to keep moving anymore, and had staggered into a wrecked building to collapse for a few hours. He hadn’t slept, couldn’t. He had just lain slouched against a wall, staring out listlessly while his mind and heart preyed on each other until he’d felt so sick he could hardly breathe.
After a long while, he had felt the shock start to subside. Not by much... just enough for the fog to lift a little. He had pulled out his mobile, glanced through the texts from Ginger and Charley and Steph, feeling dull and detached. What did any of it matter? What did it matter where he was, if he was okay? Andrew was dead. Of course he wasn’t fucking okay. A few times he tried, really truly tried to tap out a response, if nothing else to make them just stop, but he couldn’t even finish the words. The pain was too raw, too overwhelming, and words were too limiting for the basic, primal emotions roiling through him, freezing him inside out.
Then he’d heard the sweetest sound.
Andrew’s voice. Shaky and frightened and alive, calling for him. Peter had scrambled to his feet without a thought, tearing outside and following Andrew’s voice to a delivery driveway... only to find another man there. Only it hadn’t been a man. Just a monster, one that laughed at him, mocked him using Andrew’s voice.
Peter had completely snapped, blindly tearing into the thing with his daggers. The thing had screamed as he killed it, screamed in Andrew’s voice, and it was the most terrifying, soul-shattering sound to ever fill Peter’s ears. It had felt worse than listening to his parents’ screams from the closet, worse than the shrieks of the vampires in Jerry’s lair, worse than listening to his own heartbeat pounding slowly to a stop while his skin smoked in the sun and Jerry taunted them. Because this was Andrew, and Peter was making him scream, only not him, because it was a monster, not Andrew, not Andrew and oh god Andrew couldn't have screamed like that, could he? He was stronger than Peter; he wouldn't scream. But Peter could hear it now regardless.
He had knelt in the street next to the monster's corpse for what felt like forever, just trying to breath without choking, to get that terrible sound to stop echoing in his ears. He had tried drowning it out with his own screaming and it wasn’t enough.
Then he had dragged himself to his feet and just moved, trying to run and simply not having the strength for more than a staggering walk. He couldn’t stay here, he had to go. He didn’t care where. Anywhere but Lawrence. Anywhere but near Andrew’s dead empty body, or near thing that stole his voice.
But Peter was burning out fast. He was falling apart at the seams, mentally, physically, emotionally. He just couldn’t keep going. It felt like fate when he looked up to see the fucking Taco Bell, the one where Andrew had first appeared in Lawrence, where Peter had gone to meet him. They’d sat in a booth for a few minutes and had tacos, and Andrew had orange soda, and they’d talked about the Apocalypse and how no, Peter really wasn’t David fucking Tennant. It was such a thoroughly ridiculous first meeting, nearly as ridiculous as him ending up here of all places. Peter was always a fan of the ridiculous, but then, as he stepped through the empty frame of the shattered glass doors, it just made him feel even more sick and exhausted.
The wound in his side had stopped bleeding at some point, but the pain only continued to grow, and heat was starting to radiate from the long claw marks. Touching the wound was agonizing at this point, so Peter had slumped sideways against the counter, his long legs curled up tight under him. And there he had remained, on the cold tile floor, not thinking, not sleeping, trying and failing not to feel. And listening as Lawrence slowly slipped into silence and the smell of smoke and sulfur.
And then his cell phone had buzzed.
Gripped tight in his hand now, the small screen the only light in the area, casting a pale moonglow on his bloody clothes and face. There were texts on the screen, listed as coming from Andrew. It read like Andrew. But Andrew was gone, and Peter was so lost.
Peter knew it couldn’t be him. He’d already been tricked once, so easily. Andrew was dead. He’d held his lover’s cold body in his arms, tried and failed to revive him. He knew he was gone. He begged for him - for it - to stop... and then a new text came in that broke all his resolve.
» I love you. I'm worried.
Peter wondered if this was what going mad felt like. He was so completely exhausted from pain and grief, that after that, he didn’t care if it was a demon. Andrew was his anchor, the man who made him stop hurting so much, and here he was, still saying he loved him. He couldn’t help breaking down completely then, tears making it difficult to see clearly enough to text back, telling Andrew how much he loved him and how sorry he was, and telling him where to find him.
Peter didn’t even know if Andrew was really Andrew or if he was just another voice-stealing thing like the one before. If it was, he was past caring. He missed Andrew so fucking much. He couldn’t bear the thought of keeping on like this. So he figured, let Andrew come. Or let the monster come. And if it was a monster, he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance, even if he could stomach the idea of listening to that terrible sound again. He was just too weak from exhaustion and grief.
Ginger hadn’t liked that, when he’d messaged her. He had just figured, whether he was really so lucky as to have Andrew returned to him, or he was going to die soon, he at least owed her an apology. He really hadn’t meant to worry her or Charley. But if this was what it was going to be like from now on without Andrew there, he didn’t want to keep going. Why would anyone want to live in that kind of agony? Maybe he would have healed, with time. People did all the time, picked up the pieces and put their lives back together and kept going. But with Peter’s already fragile sanity frayed raw by the past few days, he could not even think of that as a possibility. He was drowning in his own mind, grasping for some kind of lifeline, and Andrew, real or not, was the only thing keeping him tethered now.
And now all that was left to do was wait, still slumped against the front counter, clutching at his mobile and greedily reading Andrew’s messages over and over again, hoping, praying, begging for it to really be him, for him to be alive and okay.
And then he heard a sound from outside, and his heart leaped into his throat as he looked towards the broken windows. Painfully, he struggled to pull himself up, every muscle screaming until finally he was standing, leaning heavily on the counter as he waited and watched and hoped.