Be my shelter from the storm | October Catch-all

[lasergrenades]

Characters: Pepper Potts, Devin Parker, and you!
Date: Throughout October
Location: Around Aifaran
Situation: Pepper is enjoying the festivities, while Devin is not
Warnings/Rating: Possible mention of murder, violence; will add in headers as needed.


A. [Pepper] Arts 2 | Open

Usually, Pepper is not a clumsy person, especially not with the level of physical training she's been doing since coming to this world. Her balance is better, her situational awareness is better - on every day but today, apparently. One moment, she's walking down the street taking in the decorations and wares of one of the pop-up fair. The next, she's stumbling to the ground as cake - and an ungodly amount of fondant - topples off its stand and onto her. The baker of said cake is now staring at her like she's an actual demon. At least one of the tiers survived?

"Sorry! Oh my god, I am so sorry," Pepper says in a rush, holding her hands up.

B. [Pepper] Sci-Tech 4 | Mid-late October | Open

Thanksgiving and Christmas may be some of Pepper's favorite holidays, but the whole city getting into a melting pot version of Halloween has her super excited, too. And she's gotten a ticket to a wicked cool haunted house that promises to be every bit as spooky (and hopefully not nearly as dangerous) as a Makluan temple. The free candy doesn't hurt either, so she's practically vibrating while she's waiting in line to go in, peering around every now and then to see if any of her friends are here, too.

C. [Devin] Academy Library | First week of October | Open

It was only a matter of time until Devin fell prey to the Dreaming sickness. He had been worried that it would be displays of one of his many hunting missions, or Bobby, or his family. He had been worried that all he would see was violence and not knowing the difference between dreams and reality, he would hurt someone. Privately, Devin had decided that the moment it started, he would go on a camping trip somewhere isolated and wait it out.

He turns down an aisle at the library and stops dead, nearly dropping the stack of books he's holding. Shock overtakes his features. Leaning against one of the shelves with a soft smile on his face is a young Asian man with shoulder-length hair pulled back into a tail. Devin barely manages a whisper: "...Sam?"

"And you said this wasn't a hobby," the dream needles.

D. [Devin] Commerce 4 | Open

Devin has a day job, but the owner of one of the bars he's taken a liking to is harried with preparations for the Night Parade. Since the whole idea of the Parade has him a little uneasy, Devin agrees to run an errand and retrieve a box of slow-burning red candles. Once he's made the purchase (and quite a few rhinn lighter, until the owner reimburses him), Devin considers them pensively. Red was meant to ward off the spirits, and he has a whole army of dead in his past that he would like not to meet again.

E. [Devin] Outside Aifaran | 2nd Week of October | Trahearne

This is an extraordinarily bad idea. Granted, it's a bad idea that could potentially resolve as many problems as it could create. Trahearne doesn't like him, and would probably continue to feel they have unfinished business until they got the chance to finish the fight they started. Or, Devin allows, until he has spent long enough proving he is not, in fact, like the undead Trahearne knows. It might take longer than either of them have here, or it might never happen. In any case, Devin has no intention of hurting the sylvari. The Fool is going to be angry with him enough just for sending the embossed invitation, much less getting into a real altercation.

Though he appears unarmed, Devin isn't stupid enough to leave all of his weapons at home and has daggers hidden on his person. He arrives at the field in the early morning. When Trahearne arrives, Devin is leaning against one of the sparse trees in the area, the picture of relaxation.

F. Wildcard!

Comments

For X

[annihilist]

From here

The vampire sighs as he turns to lean on the counter, now facing X's direction but with eyes on the floor. "Not exactly," he begins, folding his arm across his chest. "I can't pretend with myself I'm not feeling anything, but..."

Devin trails off for a moment, shoulders tense. "You know my life, X. You know that examples of healthy relationships have been practically nonexistent." And the level of violence he perpetrated, and the trauma he experienced, X knows about that too. He closes his eyes for a moment. "I don't know how to be what he wants me to be."

[psituational]

"You're scared," X says, summarising simply, but with no less weight than Devin himself gives the conversation. "And not in the way you're usually scared. You're no stranger to pain, or struggle. You don't mind letting yourself down. You're scared of letting someone else down."

X wonders, sometimes, if the fears he reads in others coalesce into fears in himself. He'd never been concerned about letting others down while his family was still alive. Now, he could understand where Devin came from even if he hadn't read all of Devin's mind.

"I think that's brave," he goes on softly. "The last time you tried, you..." Well. Literally had his heart ripped out. It doesn't bear repeating. "... and you still care more about what your potential paramour wants than about what you want."

[annihilist]

"He deserves better than a disaster." Devin keeps his gaze down. Most of his social skills had been learned out of a need to fit in, by observing people at a distance and faking it until it became natural. The result is that he is all too aware of how he should behave when he does the opposite, and the areas in which he is completely lacking. Being emotionally unavailable was part of how he survived.

"I can read every book on the subject, every bit of poetry and myth; I can observe other people and mimic," he continues, sounding frustrated. "But none of that will matter if there are some things I'm simply incapable of."

[psituational]

"You're not incapable," X replies, almost before he has a chance to think better of it. "You're not." And quite apart from the fact that X would know, he's also seen what being incapable looks like, and Devin is nowhere near.

... Actually, Devin might benefit from hearing that story.

"A muscle unworked isn't the same as the muscle not being there," he starts. "A disaster -- well, I won't argue that. But... my husband could turn off his ability to feel. He could make himself incapable of emotion, and love. I know what that looks like. It doesn't look like someone twisting themselves into knots to justify staying comfortable in misery under the guise of protecting their loved one."

He's gentle, despite the challenge. Always gentle.

[annihilist]

The story reaffirms that X has perspective Devin lacks, and more than he could have guessed on this particular subject. It helps, a little. Convincing Devin will take more than that, but it does help.

"You'd think it would've been beaten out of me by now," he mutters, mostly to himself. Devin still doesn't understand why he hasn't lost his humanity after everything he's seen and done. "I usually think it's better not to try. To just let it stay a 'what if'. Then I can't get an answer I don't want."

No one can steal that future from him, that potential, if he doesn't prove one way or another if he's still able to feel love. Though if he can, he'll also never find out. Perhaps that would count as stealing it from himself.

The kettle starts to whistle softly, and Devin turns to take it off the stove and pours the just-boiling into the mugs. "Besides, comfortable in misery is nothing new," he reminds X. It's not strictly a disagreement with X's assertion. He wouldn't self-describe as always being miserable, but Devin knows he prefers to be around people or he wouldn't need his rules about attachments.

[psituational]

Nothing, X knows, is ever beaten out of anyone. Not misbehaviour, not hope, and not love. It solves absolutely nothing.

He watches quietly while Devin makes the tea, noting absently how many different forms emotional difficulties can take. He's seen the refusal to acknowledge emotions. He's seen active conflict with every single emotion, both good and bad. He's seen emotional deadening, emotional over-excitement, and nearly everything in between. Somehow, Devin manages to encompass every single issue X has ever read, even the ones that should be incompatible. He's a strange mix of emotional maturity and flat denial.

"In the end," says X, "after all the agonising and weighing of options, all you really have is a choice. You can do nothing, or you can tell the Fool how you feel. If you were set on doing nothing, you wouldn't be asking for my help, which means you've already made your choice. The rest is just... cake frosting."

[annihilist]

The influence of the fragment of Abaddon that he carries plays a stronger role in his emotional state than Devin knows. It simultaneously protects him and weighs on him, and someday he will come to understand why.

Devin steps out of the kitchen and hands X a mug as he passes; it's a green tea with some kind of roasted grain in it. He sets his own mug on the low coffee table and settles on the edge of the couch like he's prepared to get up again quickly.

"He knows how I feel." Beat. "Or that I feel something, at least." Devin doesn't have words for it; only that it's there and frankly beyond his capacity for description. "I think he would wait a long time for me," Devin confesses softly, clasping his hands together. The Fool had said as much at the beach. "I have no desire to be a weight around his neck, so I can't do nothing. The choice is whether to push him away or-- to let him get closer." He rubs a thumb against his palm, frowning. "So far I've got plenty ideas for the former, and none for the latter. No surprise there."