Participants:
| Scene Title | She's Crazy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The discussion circles mostly around Remi after Graeme lets Devon back inside. |
| Date | August 15, 2011 |
Skinny Brickfront : Endgame Safehouse
Long minutes have passed since Remi disappeared inside the safehouse, locking the door behind her and leaving Devon standing out in the rain. Long minutes of the cold drizzle soaking into his clothes and chilling his damp form while he stared at the door in earnest attempt at understanding what exactly just happened. He's no idea where the telepath took herself, but he'd wager to guess that she's once more holed up in her room.
Scrubbing a hand through his hair in vain attempt to rub understanding through his skull, the teen sighs and starts for the door. Half way there he stops, wondering if going back in is even the right thing to do at this point. True, Devon knows he'll have to go in eventually, but for the moment? "Damn," he sighs out, turning from the door to sit on the stoop, allowing the rain to continue to wash over him.
The indecisiveness lingers as the boy rests his arms across his knees. Rain runs down from his hair and drips from his chin and nose onto his arms while he stares at a miniature river collected in the gutter. His posture leans toward the house, drawn like a moth to a flame, but a stubbornness keeps him planted. Minutes pass, seeming like hours, before Devon gives in to the chill damp, rising from the stoop to rap his knuckles against the barred door.
The teenager managed to knock as Graeme was passing the stairs to the roof, and so it is cautiously that Graeme walks up. The door's locked, but the door to the rooftop is never locked, and even though it's with at least some amount of speed that Graeme moves to open the door, there's also the gun held at his side.
At least, until he opens the door at sees the teenager, looking more like a drowned rat than a person. "Devon?" Eyebrows raised, the teacher's sidearm goes away as silently as if it had never been out in the first place as he all but drags the teenager back inside. "What the hell, it's wet outside," he mutters, fretting quietly and closing the door behind them. "You'll catch a cold or something."
There's no argument, nor even real surprise at the gun drawn to his knock though the boy does give a small shake of his head. Devon even allows himself to be pulled in out of the rain, making sure he's clear of the threshold before pushing the door closed behind him. If anything besides wet, he seems almost relieved that it wasn't Remi who answered the door. He leans back, pressing his shoulders to the door as he looks up at Graeme.
"Remi wants a hug," Devon states, matter of factly. It's a statement that's followed by a shrug. He doesn't understand the woman. "She was complaining about the memories she's gotten from us and how it's such a huge weight and that I don't understand any of it. Then she got pissed and came inside." A pause. "And locked the door behind her."
Graeme just pauses, looking up at the ceiling of the stairwell in trying to fathom the explanation, and then eventually shrugs. "I don't know," he offers. "Come on, let's get back and you need to put on dry clothing." The obvious answer to problems with Remi, who Graeme won't claim to understand either, is for Graeme to simply go into mother-hen mode. "Sorry, I guess? I don't know. I couldn't sleep, was getting up to get coffee and…" Heard the teenager knocking. "You need dry clothing and then we'll get you some too."
"She wants friends and…" Devon shakes his head before pushing off from the door to follow Graeme. "Seriously, I thought I was talking to her like a friend. I wasn't talking to her any different than I would have you or Liz or Jaiden. Told her to stop… making her problem pretty much. That it's not her memories and… that at least she's been able to…" He shrugs, to fill in the blank "…with other people. Before." The boy folds his arms over his chest, a shiver taking him briefly as the warmer interior of the house starts to sink in. "And that she needs to learn to control it, so she can get everything back instead of sulking."
"Oh dear," Graeme says, quietly, before once again shrugging. "Really, I don't know, though. Either she'll work through it or she won't, but yeah. I don't know what the hell to do with her either, she's touchy. She always has been, though," he adds, pushing the door to their room open when they get there with a firm glance at the teenager. "Dry clothing. And a blanket. Or three. You probably caught a cold up there or something."
"You would have gotten along with my aunt," Devon says wryly, following the teacher's instructions. He drags his soaked shirt off over his head even as he walks into the room, unceremoniously dropping it onto the floor. He'll collect it after retrieving some dry clothing. "She shouldn't be here," he continues as he walks to his pack and fishes for a dry shirt. "She'd be better off with Ferry, away from all the fighting. They'd be able to help her better than any of us can." A t-shirt is withdrawn from the pack and pulled on over his head. Another shiver hits him as he turns to face Graeme, arms again folding over his chest. "She wants to go back to France, and it's really better for her there than here."
Graeme nods, and there's a grin, though he's partially letting the subject drop. "But yeah, most of us, we can help each other, because that's how we are. Not someone like her. She doesn't deal the same way." Underneath his breath, something about if she does at all, but it's not aloud, and not a subject being brought up for comment. Graeme wanders over towards the pile of folded, clean blankets, picking up a dark blue fleece one, and throws it at Devon after balling it up slightly, aiming for the teenager's head with a grin. "Jacket too, or sweatshirt. Something."
The blanket is caught and set onto his bedroll. Then Devon turns to hunt down a hoodie, kicking his sleeping bag aside at the foot. "She doesn't. And… Why'd she get so mad? How's she want to be treated?" He moves to his pillow, actually making the effort to move it then reaching into the pillow case. From there his hoodie is pulled out and dragged on, hands cupping over his mouth as he blows on his fingers. "She wants to be treated like a friend, but when I do I'm wrong in how I do it."
There's another shrug from the teacher. "I dunno," he responds, once more. "For one, she hasn't even talked to me recently without being snappish, so. If I had any insight at any point? I don't anymore." Graeme watches Devon, more in the realm of making sure the stubborn teen follows directions than anything else, before moving towards the door. "Come on, let's go get some coffee or something."
Rubbing his hands over the tops of his thighs, jeans still damp but with nothing else to change into at the moment he'll have to suffer. Devon shakes his head. "She's crazy," he concludes on the matter. The blanket is recovered as he turns for the door, pulled around his shoulders as small tremors of chill set in and rattle his teeth. "Coffee sounds good," he agrees, pausing long enough to kick his wet shirt closer to his belongings.
Graeme nods. "Something like that," he agrees as he makes his way down the stairs and towards the kitchen area. Coffee is a simple task, and one that Graeme does automatically once they get there, eventually pouring out two cups and handing one over to Devon.
"I had one of those god damned dreams a night ago, a few nights ago?" he says, off-hand, if a little vague on the when of it all, and for good reason. "And for whatever stupid reason, it's like I'd rather just skip sleeping rather than …" the teacher trails off. Rather than have another dream. It doesn't need to be said to be implied.
The mug is accepted after Devon pulls up his hood, then carried to the tatty sofa that's been hauled in from who knows where. He sits down on one end while listening to Graeme, fingers wrapping around the liquid-heated porcelain. "Just a dream," he tells the older man, sipping at the hot black beverage without waiting for it to cool a moment or two longer. "Dreams aren't real, can't hurt you." It's sort of a mantra the boy has taken to for himself, whenever his own night time imaginings have become unbearable.
Graeme nods, accepting the teenager's words at face value. "One of those future ones, though. Yes, it's not real, but it sure as hell felt it," he counters, halfheartedly. "I'd almost rather take the regular nightmares, a bit. The feeling of things feeling so real even after I wake up … it unnerves me." And Devon is familiar both with how little Graeme will usually admit to something unnerving him, and that the teacher, like many in the safehouse, does not often sleep peacefully, even when he does sleep there, which is less often.
The boy is well aware of it. Surely Graeme's heard him on multiple occasions calling out in restless sleep. Still, Devon shrugs in a vague gesture. "So, one of those future dreams," he says uncertainly. His shoulders hunch slightly, still shivering, another sip of coffee taken. "Seems strange, these kids — not that any of them are really kids, they're all older than me — come back from the future and there's people having dreams about their life in this other timeline."
"Yeah," Graeme says, quiet. "And they're linked, or something, but," he shrugs again. "I dunno. It was years from now and won't even happen, because they came back," he says, with half a pause, paying more attention to his coffee cup than the discussion at hand. "And it wasn't as bad as it could have been, either, but still."
"That's good." Devon peers into his cup, then looks up at Graeme. "Melissa'd had some dreams like that." He'd never revealed knowledge of the future dreams before, not to any personal experience. Just as he's mostly kept secret whom he knows is one of those from the future. "About her son. And Kendall. Future I didn't exist in or something." He pauses, and humor becomes a dark thing. "Must've been dead in it, or something."
"Jaiden and Monica were in mine," Graeme admits, quietly, pensive for the moment. "We were rescued, from whatever prison that we were in, or really from being moved or something. By the Ferry, and I don't know too much after that, except that Ryans was in the dream too." Coffee cup empty, Graeme rises to his feet to refill it, peering at Devon. "Who knows. Things diverged in that future. But it's different for us knowing, anyway."
Devon is quiet for a moment, his shoulders shuddering at odd intervals, chilled from his time spent outside in the rain. "Maybe," he admits with a small shrug. He stands, one hand dragging the blanket back up around his shoulders. "Least those who came from the future helped change things. Just hope it's enough." He glances toward Graeme, then turns to shuffle back to their room with his coffee.
It'll be a while before Graeme joins the teenager, but there's a murmured assent before he leaves. "Me too." In the mean time, the teacher takes his coffee and goes down the stairs, to the basement, and when Graeme does get to sleep, it is only the normal sort of nightmares that bother him and startle him into wakefulness.