Participants:
| Scene Title | Learning By Doing |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The clairvoyant finds that Jack and MaryJane are not pleasant together when Amadeus comes bearing gifts. Smedley drops by, unhappy with the little party but there to once more take care of the damsel in distress. |
| Date | September 11, 2010 |
Upper East Side Peyton's apartment
It's later in the afternoon when Amadeus finally arrives after their phone call. He brings two grocery bags. One full of booze, and the other full of everything else he'd need for a meeting with Peyton Fuckin' Whitney. "Yo, Peyton, it's me!" He looks around, up and down the hall, looking very impressed. "I'd even sleep in your fuckin' halls. This place is nice."
He's in his usual AC/DC shirt, which thank god he regularly gets cleaned, wearing blue jeans and a random pair of beat up sneakers.
Last night's clairvoyance has given Peyton a little bit of a headache, and she slept late, only recently finally rousing and showering and the like. Her hair is still damp on the edges of the ponytail, and she's not dressed for heading out, since they agreed to just watch a movie and hang out inside tonight. Part of her reasoning being that she might need to look in on the scumbags for Jericho again, and it'll be easier if she's at home.
So it's in jeans and a snug black t-shirt, her feet bare, that Peyton answers the door. "Shh, my neighbors don't need to hear you hollering," she tells him with a laugh, opening the door for him to come in. Von, the half-grown mutt, comes to inspect the newcomer, the fox-eared pup sniffing at Amadeus beat-up sneakers, before putting both paws on the man's leg to meet him halfway for a petting. "Come on in."
"Uh…" Amadeus looks down at the puppy a bit nervously, taking a few deep breathes, then reaches down to give it a few half-hearted pets as if it were going to rip his entire arm off. After that bit of business is done, he tries to carefully walk away from the canine and over to a couch. "Nice, uh, dog there. Hey, Peyton. Fuck, you're even fine in a t-shirt."
"That's Von, short for Ludwig Van. He isn't going to bite you. He's a good puppy," Peyton explains, closing the door behind Amadeus and following him to the living room. She leaves out the fact that the puppy's parents were the feral dogs who ran rampant across Staten, maiming and killing people during the snowstorm. The sins of the fathers should not fall on the children! "Can I get you something to drink?" The coffee table has a closed laptop and some files, along with a cup of coffee that's half-full that she had been sipping from.
"The only things I meet named after old music guys, are me, and dogs." Amadeus shakes his head, not wanting to reveal his fear of dogs as he sits the bags on the floor. He makes a little space on the table, but is careful not to make a mess of things, then starts pulling stuff from the bag. "Six pack of bud-lite," then he reaches into the bag again. "A forty, I wasn't sure which you liked, so I got both." Reaching in again, he pulls out two bottles of Jack Daniels, sitting them next to the rest of the booze. "I figured you weren't into whiskey, so these are for me, but if you want some I share."
He's digging into the bags a little more, this time pulling out a baggy stuffed with joints, which seems to be all for that bag. "In case you want some." He finally gets started on the second bag, though this one is a little less intoxicating. Two small Italian subs are pulled out and sat next to all the booze, then he pulls out a big box of condoms and sits those next to the subs. "Just in case."
"Actually, I'm more into the whiskey than the beer, but thanks. I also have stuff in the liquor cabinet, so help yourself to anything in there." Like most rich people, her cabinet is well stocked, with things that she herself may never actually drink, just in case someone comes by and needs a cocktail. Not that many people do that these days, but old habits die hard.
Peyton arches a brow at the pot and the condoms. "I haven't smoked up in a long time, due to my ability. It makes it harder to control, when I'm high or drunk," she explains, as she sits and curls on the couch. Von settles nearby, sighing woefully as he rests his muzzle on his paws, puppy dog eyes watching them from beneath quirked brows.
"Relax, have a toke, it ain't gonna kill you. I mean, what, your tits shoot fire? If it ain't that bad then chill out." Amadeus stands and heads to her alcohol cabinet, digging through bottles. "Man, your wine's like, from the fuckin' President Lincoln years and shit, with castles and stuff. And my beer's shit, I just thought you might be into that, toss it or keep or or whatever. You can take a bottle of whiskey for yourself."
He pulls out a black bottle with a red wrapping, squinting as he tries to read it. "What the fuck's Chit-tew… mount… ton… rothchild… phallic?" He shrugs his shoulders, then uncorks the bottle and starts chugging it from the bottle as he walks back to sit next to her. "Man, this shit's from 1986, I think you should toss it. has to be fuckin' bad by now."
"No, it's not that bad, just that I tend to get stuff that I would rather not get, when my power goes out of wack," Peyton says, petting Von with one bare, pedicured foot as she raises a brow at the uncorking of wine that's older than she is. She did say help yourself, though, so it's be bad hostessly of her to complain.
"There's glasses in the cupboard next to that," she says, pointing with some amusement, but then she gets up to go help, pulling down the proper wine glass for the bottle he's chosen, and then grabbing a tumbler for herself, heading to the refrigerator to gather some ice.
"Given the people I have in my head right now, I'm not sure I want to lose control of the power, but at the same time, it might work for a good training exercise. I practiced control on it being drunk, so it's not much of a problem, but not with drugs."
Rationalizing.
"Get high and drunk and it's a real fuckin' problem. Man, whiskey and pot at the same time just fucks me right the hell up." Amadeus holds the bottle up, then sits it on the table and swishes what's in his mouth around, then swallows. "Man, 1986, that's when I was born. This is the probably the kinda shit Judas Priest poured on hookers, fuckin' classy."
He removes one of the many joints from the bag, sticking it into his mouth while pulling a zippo with a black cat paw on it from his pocket. "Your ass is fine in those jeans." he notes before lighting up.
She brings the tumbler full of ice back to the couch and pours some of the JD into it, apparently not really worried about what he's worried about — she's done much, much worse than pot and whiskey, though not since she's manifested. Might as well "practice" in a worse case scenario. Of course, even she doesn't believe her rationalization. What's the point of practicing her ability if she's dead in a few weeks? Her real reason is of course that she just wants to have that carefree feeling of numbness and wonder, the pothead's paradox.
As he lights up, she waits for him to take a drag before she reaches for the joint. "All right."
Amadeus passes it over, then pours his own glass and starts to take long sips, staring down into it. "Whiskey out of a fuckin' glass, and we're not even in a bar. This really is high fuckin' society." He lays back, relaxing against the couch with his eyes half-lidded. "Smokin' up with Peyton Whitney," This, being the first time he's ever neglected to add 'fuckin' in the middle of her name. "I'm livin' the fuckin' dream."
She takes a deep drag, then hands it back, chuckling a little. "It's not high society to drink whiskey out of a glass. Normal people do it, Amadeus," she tells him, lifting her glass and taking a swallow. It might be a little risky to mix the two, but if she loses control over her power, she can always just keep drinking til she passes out — that's one way to fix the problem.
"So you want to watch a movie or anything? You can pick out something." She gives a nod to the entertainment center, where several shelves contain a vast variety of DVDs, everything from Disney movies to musicals to Quentin Tarantino flicks.
"Yeah, you close the shades, I'll put the movie on. Don't want the sun fuckin' up my buzz." Amadeus stands after sitting his glass down, then opens the bag of joints and tosses it over to the couch. "I grow this shit myself, just take your own. Let's be high fuckin' society stoners and smoke the whole bag." He goes through the entertainment center, pulling out From Dusk Till Dawn, Robert Rodriguez. He slips it into the player and backs up before flopping back down on the couch, inhaling and exhaling smoke. "You know I'm just lowering your judgement so I'll have a higher chance of sleepin' with you, right? Just thought I'd tell you."
Peyton reaches for the wand and pulls the curtains closed on the sliding glass door behind the couch, the living room growing darker though the lights from the other rooms and the television keep it from going too dark.
"I'm not smoking the whole bag. I'm a lightweight these days — haven't had any thing like this in a year." The last was Refrain, back with Wendy and Aaron, a long, long time ago.
She picks up the baggy and finds her own joint, then holds her hand out for the lighter so she can light up. Taking another deep drag, the first starting to hit her system, Peyton giggles just a little. "Don't worry, I know. But it won't work, so you can save the condoms for someone else, buddy." It's not said meanly, however, and she laughs again.
"You ain't gonna be sorry if it does work." Amadeus assures, slipping the zippo back into his pocket. He goes inbetween pulling his joint out and sipping his whiskey, doing both pretty gracefully at the same time. "Fuck, man. I feel great. Between gettin' a lesbian roommate, my crazy ex dropping a debt of ten Gs on me, and decidin' to get a legit job, I've had a good fuckin' week." There's a pause, staring down into his glass, and suddenly a spark of inspiration rushes through his brain. "Is makin' out acceptable? Or maybe you wanna play a drinkin' game? Take a shot every time there's a titty shot or someone says titty."
Ignoring the making out comment and the request for playing a drinking game, something she hasn't done since she was 15, Peyton just laughs a little, shaking her head. "No, no, I need to have one guy friend that I don't sleep with because I don't want to, and tag, you're it," she declares, reaching to touch his shoulder with her free hand, the other bringing the joint to her lips to take another pull.
"What job did you get? That's great. I've got a real job for the first time ever, too. I actually like it, it's kinda bizarre," she chatters.
"It's 'cause I'm a fanboy, I bet. The one time I fanboy about somethin' and I totally miss out on a bucket of pussy 'cause of it." But Amadeus is easily distracted with talks of jobs, reaching for the bottle of Jack while the joint's resting inbetween his lips, refilling his glass. "Y'know that lesbian chick I just mentioned? She works in a record store. I chatted her boss up and talked him into lettin' me get a job. Gonna surprise the shit outta her."
"Ah, very cool. Congrats. And you know, for the record, no pun intended, but you probably should just call her your roommate or by her name, rather than referring to her as 'that lesbian chick.' It's kind of … you know, rude? to label people by the one thing that makes then not statistically normal," Peyton points out. "I know I hate it when people do it to me."
Statistically normal? The phrase suddenly seems amusing to Peyton, and she snorts, then begins to giggle. "Who the fuck am I? A year ago, I wouldn't have said anything that fucking pretentious sounding. Statistically normal? Who talks like that?"
"I don't know, preppy chicks? The fuck would I call you anyway? Sweet tits, apple bottom, nutcracker? Y'know, 'cause you've got great thighs and all." Amadeus leans in to get a good look at her eyes, grinning as the tip of his joint touches her's. "Kitten eyes?" this one's said in more of a whisper.
There's a jiggling of the lock that is barely audible due to the volume of the movie, but Von, for all his canine intuitiveness sharpened by his own physical limitations, jumps from where he's been resting and makes a bee-line for the door. It's open an a moment later, but whatever greeting Wes Smedley had prepared is stolen from his throat when the smell of pot hits him.
He closes the door as quietly as he can, and with brows furrowed in confusion and concern, makes his way toward the living room and the noise of the television. Along the way, he sheds his jacket and exposes the tooled holster bearing the twin revolvers that enjoys a nearly constant presence around his hips. The jacket is unceremoniously tossed to the kitchen counter. This leaves him in a dark t-shirt, abused jeans, and boots.
Von, his mouth agape in a smile, trots along behind him, looking up expectantly.
Peyton's brows arch and she laughs again, leaning back. "Apple bottom, I will beat the shit out of you if you call me that. Kitten eyes is kind of cute, but really, we're not at all in the sort of relationship that you need to have a term of endearment for me, right? Just call me Peyton, Amadeus. It's my name. I'm kind of attached to —" but Von is suddenly up, apparently sending the reverberations through the floor boards of that door opening down the hall. "Hold on."
She's up on her feet, not thinking to leave the joint behind, as she pads on bare feet toward the front door. A little glassy-eyed, she tilts her head at Smedley's presence. "Wes! Hey!" She doesn't look at all upset to find him here, and instead moves toward him to offer a kiss and a one-armed hug, the joint held away so as not to burn him. She still has some presence of mind, apparently.
"Yeah whatever, kitten butt." Amadeus teases, but being the curious cat that he is, stands and follows shortly after she does. He tilts his head as he eyes Smedley, joint in his mouth with the glass of whiskey in his hand. "Sup? This your uncle or somethin'?" he asks, eyes drifting from Smedley to the noticably lower trajectory of Peyton's ass.
While Wes wraps an arm around Peyton, he angles his head so that her kiss meet the air rather than any part of him. His face wrinkles with disgust as he looks from her to the joint in her other hand.
And then he sees Amadeus. That arm around Peyton pulls her closer and holds her tighter as his gray-blue eyes burn holes into the boy. When he looks from him to Peyton again, his expression hasn't softened much. "Sorry, kitten butt. I should'uh called. Didn't know you had comp'ny."
When that look of disgust crosses Wes' face, Peyton's own face screws up, brows knitting together, into a look of petulance that probably reminds the cowboy just how young she is. There is a mix of hurt and anger, with a little self-loathing thrown in, as she follows his glance to the joint. But that concoction is followed by a little self righteousness. He smuggles, and he's going to judge her for toking up?
"You don't have to call," she says, though what should be a warm sentiment is spoken rather flatly, and she turns to look at Amadeus behind her. "No, he's not my uncle. This is Wes, Wes, this is Amadeus Deckard." She leaves off Wes' last name, knowing he might not want it thrown about, but Amadeus throws his about like confetti, so no such caution is taken for the younger of the two men.
"You bangin' Peyton? I ain't so lucky, Mister. Hope you're as creative as half the shit I mapped out in my head to do if the opportunity ever, ah, rises." Amadeus just grins defiantly at the older man, downing his whiskey before returning the joint to his mouth, turning back into the living room. "I'm gonna drink more of that 1986 shit. Is it against the whole friendship boundary thing to do a shot out of your belly button?"
(New BB message (19/8) posted to 'Endgame' by Elisabeth: Puzzle Pieces)
Wes's arm around Peyton relaxes and finally falls back to his side as he stares at Amadeus in utter bafflement. "…Nice boy," he finally says once he's gone back into the living room. For all the hurt and angry in Peyton's face, his own is awash of frustrated rage that's hard to derive an origin for. "I'll let you get back to it," he says with a sideways nod of his head, turning back toward the kitchen to retrieve his jacket.
"Amadeus." Peyton's voice is sharp, despite the dullness that permeates her mind and body from the combination of whiskey and marijuana. "Jesus. Yes, that's against the whole friendship boundary. You really should not have to ask," she snaps at his retreating back, before turning back to Wes, her cheeks flushed now with embarrassment.
"Don't go. We're just watching a movie, and he brought the shit, and I don't know, it's been a really long time since I did any drugs, I thought it might be good to practice if I lost control, that I could learn to focus again, like I did with alcohol. I had to learn to focus through the buzz, right? What if someone ever drugged me to use my power against me? If I can learn to turn it on or off at will even if high, then it's safer." It sounds rational, or at least it does to her hazy mind.
"They said tity, take a shot." Amadeus calls out from the living room, pouring a mixture of whiskey and the 1986 wine into the same glass, then chugs the entire thing down. He doesn't walk back out, he lets them talk through whatever they're doing on their own.
Of course, Peyton's line of logic doesn't match up well with Wes's assumptions. "So you ask your bro out there t'bring you a dime bag so you can experiment? Doesn't sound very safe to me." Especially with Amadeus's outright admission of wanting to get into Peyton's pants.
Grabbing his coat and slipping it back on, Wes sighs. "Look, Pey. I don't hold any notion that I got any say in what you do with your life. Or who you hang with. Or hell, even who you decide to fuck. You don't have to pretend for my sake. S'my own fault for not callin'."
Rolling her eyes at Amadeus, Peyton otherwise ignores him, and reaches to touch Wes' arm, stepping closer to him. A moment of lucidity catches her, and she glances down at the offending joint, and she heads into the kitchen to drop it into the sink, before returning to Wes. "He's not … he's an idiot, okay, but he's had a fucked up life, and he's not a rapist or anything. He actually is fairly normal when he's not trying to show off and like, out-penis-size someone. You're pretty intimidating, so he's trying to be all manly or what he thinks is manly, and believe me, I'm not going to fuck him, okay?"
She lifts her chin, and some of her anger returns. "We're watching a movie. He brought food and alcohol, and yeah, drugs, it wasn't planned, and maybe it's dumb of me, but what the hell, you know, it's not like anything else either of us have been involved in is safe or legal. Really, this is, like, the least of my sins."
"I totally did that foot thing with my crazy ex that Quentin's doin' to Salma right there." Amadeus is otherwise oblivious, pretty buzzed at the moment, especially considering he didn't even notice Smedley's guns. "Fuckin', shit!" he exclaims, sitting the bottle of wine on the table as he looks down at his shirt he's just spilled it on. "I got that expired wine shit on my AC/DC shirt!"
There isn't really any sort of good response Wes can give Peyton, so in a way, Amadeus's outburst from the other room is a welcome one. With a tight-lipped frown, Wes adjusts his jacket so that it adequately hides the pistols at his sides. "May be," he muses, his eyes directed down the hall to the living room beyond. The cards may be stacked in his favor, but that doesn't do much to ease his own anxiety.
With an inner decision punctuated by a grunt, Wes takes off in a long-legged stride toward the living room.
This can't be good. Peyton is torn between telling Wes to go ahead and go, but part of her fears that if she does that, he won't return, so she just follows into the living room, shaking her head at Amadeus. "Well, the '80s will be reunited, then," she quips, a sad attempt at humor. Von follows her, perhaps sensing the tension between at least two of the three involved in the party, and he scrapes a paw on Smedley's pant leg, peering up with huge dark eyes much like his mistress'.
"Sup?" Amadeus asks once Smedley enters the living room, having lit up a new joint at some point. He's lounging back, arms spread across the back of the couch, trying to look like he belongs there. "You can have the six pack, I just brought that shitty beer 'cause I didn't know if she was into whiskey. Can't hate a girl who's into whiskey."
Unlike Peyton's eyes, Wes has no problem looking at Von when the dog is wearing such a petulant expression. He reaches down and hefts the dog into his arms on his way to one of the armchairs. Von twists his head around to lick the man's face, but Wes only grimaces in response.
At least someone is allowed to kiss the cowboy.
When he's sitting, Wes holds the dog in his lap and goes about giving him a vigorous regiment of pets and scratches. "Not in the habit'uh drinkin' horse piss," is all he says in response to Amadeus. "Not since college." Because, you know, when you're in college, it's all you drink.
Von is not going to be a large dog but at about 40 pounds at half a year old, he's not small either. He's definitely a wriggly, wiggly lapful of happy puppy, however, and Peyton can't help but smile.
"I'd offer you something else, but I'm going to assume you're not in the mood for anything alcoholic," the socialite tells the cowboy, watching him through her glassy eyes, and she nods toward the kitchen. "I can get you some coffee or something, if you like."
She leans against the other armchair, not quite sitting, waiting for confirmation or denial on the coffee.
"Y'know, they say bangin' a girl's all about experience. I agree, but they always think it takes a long time to get experience." Amadeus says as a large billow of smoke escapes from his nostrils, and he sighs in his drug-induced relaxation. "See, it's all about what you do with the time you've got. How much you learn with that bit of experience. So a guy with, like, twenty years on a guy like me, might not be all that better, if at all."
When Wes pauses in petting Von, the dog bounces out of his lap and trots over to the chair where Peyton is perched in order to jump up onto the cushion and rest his head on the other arm. Wes just stares at Amadeus for a moment before he shoots a strained look at Peyton. I'm trying, the look attempts to say. But I can't try much harder.
It's then that he finally notices the rather ambitious box of Trojan Magnums. His eyes narrow, sliding from the box to Peyton before they end up on Amadeus again.
"I'm gonna give you this one chance to haul your sorry ass off that couch and outta this apartment, Mister Deckard."
Amadeus' random comment about experience and sex, obviously a jab at Wes' years in comparison to his own youth, makes Peyton roll her eyes. And then Wes is throwing her guest out of the apartment. It's too much. She is about to jump to her feet, and is about to yell at them both to get out of the apartment, before everything collides — visions and sounds, ethanol and tetrahydrocannabinol, Jack and Mary Jane.
It's probably not at all noticeable to the men, in their testosterone battle — Peyton's eyes are dilated and glassy as it is, so the further dilation of her eyes as her ability takes control of her rather than the other way around is barely discernible. She is lost in the dizzyingly shifting perspectives of everyone she's seen in the past 48 hours: the doorman, Delaware, John Logan, Jericho, a Starbucks barista, her neighbors, everyone she passed on the way from her apartment to the coffee shop and everyone encountered in a walk through Central Park — stranger's lives, snippets unfolding before her eyes, dialogue that makes no sense in her ears. It's like someone's flipping a channel through 200 channels with only a couple of seconds given to any one station.
"This is Peyton's apartment." Amadeus suddenly stands, cracking his knuckles as he fully accepts the threat, not realizing Peyton's current situation. He's very busy being a tough guy, with the smoke rising from his joint and uneven blinking of his eyes due to intoxication. "This gonna be a thing? 'Cause we can step outside."
"I don't hear her speakin' out against the notion." Or doing anything for that matter. But Smedley's attentions are also solely focused on the young intruder. He stands slowly, and rather than make any such posturing moves such as cracking his knuckles, or even rolling his shoulders or neck, the older man simply moves toward the couch with a few well measured steps.
He reaches out to grab Amadeus by his shirt as he sidesteps the couch to head toward the hallway to the kitchen and front door, dragging the only slightly shorter and less built Amaedus along with him, only to shove him up against the wall.
"Look, kid," he snarls in a low whisper, "I don't know who you are, and I don't care. But I am on to you, and there ain't no way in hell I am gonna stand by and watch you try 'n weasel your slimy way int'Pey's bed. She's worth more'n a hundred a'you, and I won't lose any sleep over throwin' you in a hole so deep ain't not even you'll be able to find your ass usin' both hands. We clear?"
The clairvoyant is blind and deaf to the situation in her own living room — the little deaf dog, however, is aggravated, running down the hall after the two men, then scampering back toward Peyton, and back again, whimpering.
Peyton, now left behind, makes a whimpering sound as she slumps into the chair, reaching her hands to her face and covering her eyes — but it doesn't stop the sounds, the voices and cars and subways and noise in her head that she can't see.
Suddenly, she is in Amadeus' head, hearing Wes talk to him, and her eyes open, to see Wes' angry face as he protects her honor — as if from Amadeus' point of view, rather than turning and seeing them down the hallway toward the door.
Tears slide out onto her cheeks and she stumbles blindly from her chair, trying to make her way to stop the two men from fighting, but instead she trips on the coffee table, sprawling on the hard wood floor. She tries to cry for help, but instead, it is just a sob. Wes was right — it was stupid.
"My dad's fuckin' homeland, buddy. Flint Deckard, he'd kick your ass and throw you in a hole." Amadeus doesn't make any moves to get out of Smedley's grip, and instead moves his neck forward to get even more into the older man's face. "Peyton knows I wanna get in her pants, I fuckin' tell her all the goddamned time. I'll weasel, skunk, and fuckin' doggie my way into her bed and fuck the letter 'O' out of her brains, and ain't shit you gonna do about it."
But then he hears her stumble, and suddenly turns his head toward the living room. "Somethin's wrong, get the fuck off." he says as he tries to push Smedley off of him so he can head into the living room.
Smedley has reconnected.
But Wes isn't budging. He leans his full weight against the arm that pins Amadeus to the wall and glowers at him. "Flint Deckard? You're that ass's kid?" He snorts out a laugh that has no quality of mirth in it. "Bastard's only government now 'cause they got his lyin', stealin' nuts in a vice." It's hard to be in the illegal arms business in this area and not know the name Flint Deckard.
As angry as he is, Wes is aware of the troubling noises from the other room. He gives Amadeus a sharp shove against the wall before he turns to investigate the sounds. But seeing Peyton on the floor flips a different switch in his brain.
In the space of three seconds, Wes is kneeling beside Peyton and trying to lift her as carefully as possible, his arms folding about her. "You're okay," he murmurs, a vestigial terseness lingering in what is otherwise a compassionate tone.
Those eyes, squeezed shut, open when she feels Wesley's arms around her, but then clamp down again when instead she sees the man next door apparently taking a leak in a public restroom somewhere. She can't hear Wes' voice, and can only assume it's him by his scent and the familiar feel and shape of his arms around her. Tears stream out of those closed eyes and she shakes her head, not knowing she's answering the question she couldn't hear. No, she isn't.
"I can't turn it off, I can't turn it off… I can't… I can't hear you, I can't hear me, it's just person after person and I can't turn it off," she gasps, fingers curling around Wes' shirt. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, Amadeus, go home, it's not your fault, okay, but I can't…" Deal.
Amadeus doesn't comment on his father or the vice his nuts may be in, but it's certainly more pieces to the puzzle that is Flint Deckard, pieces he can think about later. "What the fuck, man, it was just pot, I'd never fuckin' slip anything in it and get her hurt or somethin'." His bravado is completely shot to hell when something seems to be wrong. He stops at the side of the table opposite of them, staring down at her. "This her ability? What the fuck do I do? I ain't just gonna leave her here. Do I call 911 or what?"
"Like they'd be able to do a fucking outside of'uh tranq," Wes grumbles to Amadeus as he settles back on his heels and holds Peyton tighter, one hand rubbing her back in an effort to ground her. He shuts his eyes and presses his mouth against her hair then, doing his best to breath steadily. If he can get her to breathe with him, it might be enough to calm her down to the point where she can pull herself out of it.
Peyton's palms grind into her eyes, as if to keep her from seeing anything she doesn't want to see. She can feel the inhalation and exhalation of Wes against her form and into her hair. Her own breath is too fast, stuttering as she tries to match it to his, but sobs rack her body.
She tries to remember what it was she did when she was drunk, back in the winter, with Mack at the library — she focused on herself. She takes a deep breath and tries to do that, but instead gets the sound of a treadmill, feet pounding on it as some one — without using her vision, she's not sure who — apparently hits the gym. "I'm trying… I … can't… Oh, shit, and Doctor Brennan's mad at me," she suddenly wails, realizing that her go-to person for her power problems is likely to turn her away thanks to her turning him out of her vehicle the week before. The tears start anew.
"Wait, uh, she's out of her body?" Amadeus asks, assuming, since his ability is the only ability he has any real experience with. "When I used to go out of my body, I uh… fuck… I liked to be sat up. I mean, I couldn't fuckin' talk or anything, but it made it easier to come back." He walks around the table so he can crouch down beside her, trying to think. "Get 'er calm, it's easier to come back to your body when you're calm. That's what's wrong, right? She's like, inside of a cat or a dog or somethin'? No wait, she said she was psychic… fuck I don't know!"
"Why don't you go get her a glass of water, hmm?"
The question is really more of a command, as Wes delivers it with blazing eyes and a growl. Peyton is sitting up, or as much as she can as she's slumped in Wes's arms. He hasn't ever dealt with Peyton's ability in action, but he isn't about to mention that to Amadeus. Instead, he relaxes his grip and slides a hand to her face, dragging one of her arms away and slipping his hand to frame her jaw. With this new and somewhat gentle grip, he lifts her face at the same time he lowers his own to kiss her.
And as chaste as it may be, there is a pressure to it. A pressure that, Wes is hoping, may jar Peyton out of whatever disconnected mindset she has when she's using her ability.
Amadeus immediately gets up to rush to the kitchen, stumbling a little along the way in his partially drunken state. "Just be careful, if she's like, out of her body, she could fuckin' choke on stuff." He stays in the kitchen for a while, opening cabinets as he tries to find things. But all the rushing has the alcohol moving through his blood even faster, and he has to stop a few times to hold his head. "Alright, fuckin' calm down, water… Peyton needs water!" he focuses, grabs a glass, then fills the glass halfway and starts rushing back out. "I'm coming with the water!"
That Wes is kissing her at least helps in that Peyton knows he doesn't hate her, that he's not sitting there feeling she has what was coming to her, that this is payback for being stoned and having sex addicts in her apartment. But the tears and sobs continue; she doesn't pull away, but instead just curls her fingers around his shirt, clinging to the reality she can touch since what she can see and hear are not her own.
Finally she manages to bring her audio in to herself, focusing on just that part, one small step, and her ears fill with the wet sounds of her own sob-ridden breathing, her pounding heartbeat, and Wes', and Amadeus crying out that he's valiantly found a glass of water for her from the hallway.
She opens one eye to see if her vision is her own, but finds it is not and closes that eye again. She breaks from the kiss to murmur, "Almost… I can hear again… vision's not mine yet, but … almost." She sounds weary and apologetic. She leans her head against Wes' neck, a blind hand reaching for the glass when she hears Amadeus approaching. "Thank you," is added in a small, humiliated voice.
Wes leans away just enough to make Peyton's drinking of the water a little easier, but his hands on her shoulders don't relinquish their grip. He looks up at Amadeus for a moment, and while his brow is still angrily furrowed and his lips are still held in a tight line, there is a measure of thankfulness in his eyes. But Peyton, of course, takes priority over the boy.
"What can I do?" he asks, his voice low and his eyes searching as he returns his attention to Peyton. His thumbs stroke away from his other fingers, brushing firmly against the girl's skin beneath them.
ORDER: Amadeus Peyton Smedley
"What animal are you inside of? If it's a cat, find somewhere to hide so no one hurts you until you can control it better." Amadeus is trying to help, at least, still not quite sure what's going on. But then it registers, she can hear, so he can say what he wanted to tell her earlier. "When I used to leave my body, I just calmed down. Don't think so hard, don't try to get normal, just, like, fuckin' let it go, and imagine there's a rope pullin' you back into your body, real slow. Don't force it."
The advice Amadeus gives is actually not bad, if one ignores the cat part of it, and Peyton nods slowly. She concentrates again, first bringing that vision to Wes this time — for some reason, it's easier to shift focus to another "host" than to herself. Seeing her own pale face, mascara blots and trails making her look like a raccoon or worse, she winces slightly. Finally, those pupils constrict back to nearly normal, still too wide thanks to the drugs in her system.
"I'm back," she whispers, staring up at Wes with a forlorn sort of look, tears welling up again in her eyes, before she turns to nod to Amadeus. "Thank you both. I'm so sorry." She tries to pull free of Wes to retreat into herself, to find some of her dignity on her own two feet.
"It's my fuckin' fault, I'm sorry, Peyton." Amadeus looks serious for possibly the first time she's ever seen him, and he walks around the table to take the pot, the unopened bottle of Jack Daniels, and the box of condoms, stuffing them into a bag. He leaves the two subs, then stands up with the bag so he can start heading out of the living room. "I ain't gonna bug you again, a chick like you's too classy to hang around a guy who can't stop thinkin' with his dick around 'er."
Wes gives Peyton's shoulders a squeeze before he shifts his weight off his heels and then shifts the position of one leg in order to stand. He doesn't let go of her, but rather helps her to her feet along with him.
But when Amadeus makes his dramatic departure, his hands slip from Peyton to hang at his side. One eyebrow quirks a bit higher than the other as he watches the boy. But he doesn't say a word.
Peyton stumbles just a little, not from the drugs or the drink, but because she's exhausted from her chaotic clairvoyance, and she shakes her head, rubbing her eyes. "It's not your fault, Amadeus. I'm a grown up. I make my own choices, and that was not one I'd call classy. It's my fault, not yours," she says, her voice weary. "We can hang out again, but no drugs, no alcohol, all right? Movie theatre, popcorn, soda is probably wiser."
She doesn't try to make him stay, and she gives another tearful apologetic look to Wes before moving to collapse onto the couch, laying her head on its arm. "You can go, too. Thank you for making sure I was all right," Peyton murmurs. In more ways than one, she means, knowing he stayed to protect her from the perceived thread of Amadeus. "But if you're horrified and disgusted with me, well." She shrugs one shoulder, curling up into a forlorn ball. "I understand."
"Fuck… I'm your biggest fuckin' fan, so, I guess I might show up again." Amadeus says it half-heartedly, still very much beating himself up, but not wanting to accidentally make her feel bad about it. "Later, I'm only lettin' this cockblocking succeed 'cause I'm punishin' myself. So fuck 'er brains out, dude." Then, out he goes, slamming the door behind him.
Wes winces a bit with the slamming of the door, and while his expression in Amadeus's wake is a strained one, he doesn't say anything. He has nothing good to say, and, for once, his mother's admonitions stay his tongue.
When he looks at Peyton, that expression shifts to a different brand of the same. But rather than follow after Amadeus, Wes pulls off his jacket with a sigh and tosses it onto the chair. He unbuckles the holster next, laying the leather and steel on the coffee table on his way to join Peyton on the couch.
"Budge over," he grumbles as he lies down next to her, encircling her in his arms.
He isn't going anywhere.