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st_rummerIt's not the first time Coby's woken up on the first of April to a big surprise, but this time he's not the only one thrown for a loop.
Even a king sized bed was cozy with three people and a large set of wings, but the bed could have been twice as large, and Coby, Curnen, and Jag would have wound up curled around and with each other. And there were a hell of a lot of worse ways to wake up than tangled with two people you loved. Coby wasn't sure what it was at first that pulled him that first bit into awake, but he wasn't going to help it out when they could have a lazy, easy morning instead. He shifted, pulling Curnen and Jag closer and tried to let sleep pull him under again.
Only there was a hint of a chill. And he might not have the best memory – let's be real, his memory was shit, for a whole bunch of reasons – but he remembered, when they'd gone to sleep the night before, his wings had been out. And yeah, there were times the wings let themselves out as he slept, but it didn't work the other way around. But that was...
Fuck. It was April Fools' Day, his sleepy, sluggish mind reminded him. Three years since he woke up feeling like he'd been hit by a truck, only to discover it wasn't just a hangover, but the huge ass wings that had sprouted out of his back. With that, Coby's eyes flew open, and... no wings. He thought about them appearing, unfolding from his back, and nothing.
"Fuck."
Confusion. Loss. Indignation. The comfort of tangled limbs, the unexpected sensation of cool morning air where she had expected the softness and warmth of black feathers. All of this washed over Curnen in waves, and the confusion settled and deepened inside her. Why should she feel most of these things? She wasn't even fully awake yet, and the only thing she expected not to be able to find right away was her pants. That wasn't worth the kind of reaction flowing through her now. But when she opened her eyes and saw Coby's distress, at least one thing became clearer. Something had happened to his wings. His ache and her own jumbled up inside her and tears welled up and spilled out of her eyes. It hurt. It hurt so much more than she was prepared for, and she couldn't keep herself from crying.
"Fuck."
Jag wasn't sure when his dreams ended and wakefulness started. Confusion and loss rushed through him, overwhelming all else, and he whimpered as he burrowed into the body beside his, instinctively trying to curl up, make himself as small as he could. Thoughts and feelings were washing over him, wave after wave of them, in a cacophony that wouldn't let up, but the confusion and the loss stayed, anchored and growing, magnified.
Fuck, on a loop in his mind, and was it him or them or both or "everyone," and what was "anything, everything," who was he, semblances of answers slipping away from him, carried away by the waves.
Things were getting worse, louder, battering him from all sides, and he rushed to extricate himself from the bed, wanting "out," wanting "off," wanting away, wanting silence and peace and "what is this," whispered to himself, tone broken, as he fell off the side of the bed, scrambling away, away, away until his back hit a wall.
The sense of loss, confusion, and worry about his wings died in an instant, washed away under the greater swell of loss, confusion, and worry for Jag when he scrambled away from Coby and Curnen and out of the bed entirely. Coby glanced at Curnen, and then back at Jag. "Jag?" Some kind of bad trip? Weird inn shit? He didn't know, but it could stop any damn time now.
Jag's distress and everything flowing through him set off an echoing if less pronounced response in Curnen, and she clutched her head as if trying to right herself with the pressure of it, taking herself as far away from Jag as she could get physically. It was an instinct, blind instinct, but it was not enough. There were other people on the other side of the wall, and she could feel them, too.
The feeling of it all was not entirely new. Tufa were... if not empathetic, then sensitive. Even completely mad, she'd smelled out the identical wound in Rob's heart. But this was like that trickle widening into the whole goddamn Mississippi.
But whatever the hell was happening, she knew if she didn't act as translator, no one would. Jag was too deep in the flow and going out to sea.
"He can hear everything," she ground out between gritted teeth. "He can feel everything."
Everything was cold, and loud, and Jag buried his head between his legs, arms folded on top of it, as if he could curl himself out of existence if he tried hard enough. "Everyone," he whispered to himself, "everyone is. Everyone. Please, please, please."
"Okay," Coby murmured, and then again. It really wasn't okay. Nothing was right then. "It's all... it's going to be okay." Except for the part where Jag was going fetal, Curnen wasn't much better, and Coby didn't have a fucking clue how to help, other than being pretty sure the urge to wrap around them and hold them close would probably be a terrible idea. So if not touch – or any of the things that could go with touch – and not drugs or booze. Music, maybe. But if there's a song that could help, in some tiny fucking way, because seriously this was too much, and he wasn't the one feeling all of it.
"Just gotta take it easy. Breathe." Maybe Coby was talking to them. Mostly he was talking to himself. He grabbed his cigarettes off the bedside table, but paused halfway to lighting one, even though part of him said it couldn't hurt and maybe would help. Instead, he got out of bed, running his free hand through his hair. "What do I do? How can I help?"
"Isolate him," was all that Curnen managed to snarl before she broke and scrambled for the balcony, going over the railing and down to the ground and fuck who or whatever saw her right now, but she had to get out before either she shattered Jag or Jag shattered her or they just both shattered right there in front of Coby leaving him to pick up all those shards.
She picked a direction away from the inn and just started to run. And kept running.
Running, running, and the feedback loop faded, but everything else was still there, and so much. People were waking up, and Jag could feel them all, how wrong they felt, their confusion, their panic. His hands fisted into his hair and he pulled, trying to give himself something to focus on that wasn't the maelstrom of emotions slamming into him relentlessly.
Curnen fled, and Coby was torn between wanting to go after her and needing to take care of Jag. Isolate him. How was he supposed to do that, when he couldn't even get close, and whatever Jag was feeling or hearing or whatever, walls didn't seem to be stopping it? Long habit more than thought had him raise the lighter to the cigarette he'd already put between his lips. Jolt of nicotine for him, spark of fire for Jag, and maybe it wouldn't do anything, but maybe it would help, another part of his brain suggested. Only the lighter and cigarette both dropped to the floor, falling through his hand on the way.
Jag laughed, and it turned into a sob. "Integrity's overrated," he muttered, broken.
Whether Jag meant it as a joke or not, it surprised a laugh out of Coby. Well, half a laugh. The first part was silent, but the laugh or the surprise or the brief hint of relief that Jag could do something other than shatter, shocked Coby back into a solid form that could laugh. A breathless kind of laugh, that ended with a gasp for air.
Pro-tip: Lungs don't work when they might as well be air themselves. Good to know.
Coby took a moment just to breathe. "We should, I don't know, get somebody who can help."
The amusement and the relief tingled inside Jag, but they were such a small part of everything that he couldn't latch on to them, try as he might. Even trying was exhausting, and sent him crashing through another shockwave of feelings he could not get a handle on. "I wanna stop feeling," he pleaded quietly.
Not worrying wasn't going to happen with Jag shattering the way he was, but Coby focused on loving Jag – it helped with Anael? – and the hope that Jackson would be able to help as he dialed. No answer at Jackson's room, so he tried the clinic next. He had no idea what prescription type drugs the inn provided, but pot wasn't going to help with this, and the inn was supposed to give them everything they needed, right? "Come on, pick up," he muttered to himself as the phone rang in the clinic.
The phone was picked up, and a clear, crisp, even, "Jackson," was said on the other side. The voice was right, but the drawl was all but gone.
The change in Jackson's voice didn't even register to Coby right then. He had more important things on his mind. "Hey. It's Coby. Can you come up to my room? Bring whatever mood stabilizers or sedatives or whatever you've got down there? Jag's here and he's... It'll be easier for you to see for yourself." He hoped. "I'm not going to get him down to the clinic the way he is now."
"I'll be right over," Jackson confirmed, and the line went dead.
Jag was still curled up against the wall, arms curled up over his head, but he was looking at Coby through his hair. Maybe if he focused enough on him, the rest would drop away? It wasn't working, but Jag would keep trying. Sedatives, Coby'd said. Oblivion. Just a little longer.
"Doc's coming." As easily as Coby stuck nicknames to people, he hadn't used one with Jackson that he remembered, but right then it felt right. The more serious things got, the less he could let himself take them seriously, or something like that. "And I'm here." He found a small smile for Jag. He wasn't planning on going anywhere. "Assuming I don't go all ghosty again. It'll... You're going to be okay. Just... a little longer, yeah?"
"Time isn't right," Jag told him in a rough whisper. Time made no sense, the way it stretched right now, an eternity in every second, voices packed so loud into each moment.
Coby wasn't feeling anything like Jag, and the wait for Jackson to get there still felt like it was taking forever, even though it'd only been a moment since he hung up the phone. "I know. Try to... try to focus on me maybe. Just me." He wanted to wrap arms – and wings – around Jag and keep him safe, cocooned away from everything he was feeling, but with the way Jag had needed to pull away, to curl in on himself, it seemed like too big a risk, when Coby didn't want to make things worse. Besides, he'd have to open the door for Jackson when he got there.
Jag gave it his all, reaching for that protectiveness and the feelings that fueled it. But other emotions kept rushing him from every direction, and Coby's warmth kept slipping away from him, Jag's focus split and torn. He whimpered, a plaintive sound, not entirely unlike a wounded animal. "There's so much," he muttered, his voice breaking on the last word.
How could Coby not respond when Jag was hurting like that? It didn't matter what he'd just decided, he was moving toward Jag before he could think to do it (or not), needing to give what comfort he could. And comfort, for Jag, meant touch.
Jag didn't bother looking up, moving towards Coby as Coby moved towards him and folding himself against him on the floor. Maybe if he could focus on Coby, Jag could stop existing, and things wouldn't feel like so much anymore.
Coby couldn't say if it made Jag feel any better – it must help some, though, with how he moved to curl up close – but it sure helped him. He carded his fingers through Jag's hair, slow and steady, as much for himself as for Jag. Coby told himself things were going to work out okay. Jackson would be there soon, hopefully with drugs to at last take the edge off everything for Jag. And in the meantime, he was there.
Drugs. Drugs would be good. Coby would do, in the meantime, and Jag focused on the way it felt to Coby, that slide of his fingers through Jag's hair. It unknotted things in Coby, and that made things a little better for Jag. Not much; everything was too loud, too much. But a little. It soothed over some of the more ragged edges of the world's emotions.
And then a man with no emotions came, bearing drugs.
Even a king sized bed was cozy with three people and a large set of wings, but the bed could have been twice as large, and Coby, Curnen, and Jag would have wound up curled around and with each other. And there were a hell of a lot of worse ways to wake up than tangled with two people you loved. Coby wasn't sure what it was at first that pulled him that first bit into awake, but he wasn't going to help it out when they could have a lazy, easy morning instead. He shifted, pulling Curnen and Jag closer and tried to let sleep pull him under again.
Only there was a hint of a chill. And he might not have the best memory – let's be real, his memory was shit, for a whole bunch of reasons – but he remembered, when they'd gone to sleep the night before, his wings had been out. And yeah, there were times the wings let themselves out as he slept, but it didn't work the other way around. But that was...
Fuck. It was April Fools' Day, his sleepy, sluggish mind reminded him. Three years since he woke up feeling like he'd been hit by a truck, only to discover it wasn't just a hangover, but the huge ass wings that had sprouted out of his back. With that, Coby's eyes flew open, and... no wings. He thought about them appearing, unfolding from his back, and nothing.
"Fuck."
Confusion. Loss. Indignation. The comfort of tangled limbs, the unexpected sensation of cool morning air where she had expected the softness and warmth of black feathers. All of this washed over Curnen in waves, and the confusion settled and deepened inside her. Why should she feel most of these things? She wasn't even fully awake yet, and the only thing she expected not to be able to find right away was her pants. That wasn't worth the kind of reaction flowing through her now. But when she opened her eyes and saw Coby's distress, at least one thing became clearer. Something had happened to his wings. His ache and her own jumbled up inside her and tears welled up and spilled out of her eyes. It hurt. It hurt so much more than she was prepared for, and she couldn't keep herself from crying.
"Fuck."
Jag wasn't sure when his dreams ended and wakefulness started. Confusion and loss rushed through him, overwhelming all else, and he whimpered as he burrowed into the body beside his, instinctively trying to curl up, make himself as small as he could. Thoughts and feelings were washing over him, wave after wave of them, in a cacophony that wouldn't let up, but the confusion and the loss stayed, anchored and growing, magnified.
Fuck, on a loop in his mind, and was it him or them or both or "everyone," and what was "anything, everything," who was he, semblances of answers slipping away from him, carried away by the waves.
Things were getting worse, louder, battering him from all sides, and he rushed to extricate himself from the bed, wanting "out," wanting "off," wanting away, wanting silence and peace and "what is this," whispered to himself, tone broken, as he fell off the side of the bed, scrambling away, away, away until his back hit a wall.
The sense of loss, confusion, and worry about his wings died in an instant, washed away under the greater swell of loss, confusion, and worry for Jag when he scrambled away from Coby and Curnen and out of the bed entirely. Coby glanced at Curnen, and then back at Jag. "Jag?" Some kind of bad trip? Weird inn shit? He didn't know, but it could stop any damn time now.
Jag's distress and everything flowing through him set off an echoing if less pronounced response in Curnen, and she clutched her head as if trying to right herself with the pressure of it, taking herself as far away from Jag as she could get physically. It was an instinct, blind instinct, but it was not enough. There were other people on the other side of the wall, and she could feel them, too.
The feeling of it all was not entirely new. Tufa were... if not empathetic, then sensitive. Even completely mad, she'd smelled out the identical wound in Rob's heart. But this was like that trickle widening into the whole goddamn Mississippi.
But whatever the hell was happening, she knew if she didn't act as translator, no one would. Jag was too deep in the flow and going out to sea.
"He can hear everything," she ground out between gritted teeth. "He can feel everything."
Everything was cold, and loud, and Jag buried his head between his legs, arms folded on top of it, as if he could curl himself out of existence if he tried hard enough. "Everyone," he whispered to himself, "everyone is. Everyone. Please, please, please."
"Okay," Coby murmured, and then again. It really wasn't okay. Nothing was right then. "It's all... it's going to be okay." Except for the part where Jag was going fetal, Curnen wasn't much better, and Coby didn't have a fucking clue how to help, other than being pretty sure the urge to wrap around them and hold them close would probably be a terrible idea. So if not touch – or any of the things that could go with touch – and not drugs or booze. Music, maybe. But if there's a song that could help, in some tiny fucking way, because seriously this was too much, and he wasn't the one feeling all of it.
"Just gotta take it easy. Breathe." Maybe Coby was talking to them. Mostly he was talking to himself. He grabbed his cigarettes off the bedside table, but paused halfway to lighting one, even though part of him said it couldn't hurt and maybe would help. Instead, he got out of bed, running his free hand through his hair. "What do I do? How can I help?"
"Isolate him," was all that Curnen managed to snarl before she broke and scrambled for the balcony, going over the railing and down to the ground and fuck who or whatever saw her right now, but she had to get out before either she shattered Jag or Jag shattered her or they just both shattered right there in front of Coby leaving him to pick up all those shards.
She picked a direction away from the inn and just started to run. And kept running.
Running, running, and the feedback loop faded, but everything else was still there, and so much. People were waking up, and Jag could feel them all, how wrong they felt, their confusion, their panic. His hands fisted into his hair and he pulled, trying to give himself something to focus on that wasn't the maelstrom of emotions slamming into him relentlessly.
Curnen fled, and Coby was torn between wanting to go after her and needing to take care of Jag. Isolate him. How was he supposed to do that, when he couldn't even get close, and whatever Jag was feeling or hearing or whatever, walls didn't seem to be stopping it? Long habit more than thought had him raise the lighter to the cigarette he'd already put between his lips. Jolt of nicotine for him, spark of fire for Jag, and maybe it wouldn't do anything, but maybe it would help, another part of his brain suggested. Only the lighter and cigarette both dropped to the floor, falling through his hand on the way.
Jag laughed, and it turned into a sob. "Integrity's overrated," he muttered, broken.
Whether Jag meant it as a joke or not, it surprised a laugh out of Coby. Well, half a laugh. The first part was silent, but the laugh or the surprise or the brief hint of relief that Jag could do something other than shatter, shocked Coby back into a solid form that could laugh. A breathless kind of laugh, that ended with a gasp for air.
Pro-tip: Lungs don't work when they might as well be air themselves. Good to know.
Coby took a moment just to breathe. "We should, I don't know, get somebody who can help."
The amusement and the relief tingled inside Jag, but they were such a small part of everything that he couldn't latch on to them, try as he might. Even trying was exhausting, and sent him crashing through another shockwave of feelings he could not get a handle on. "I wanna stop feeling," he pleaded quietly.
Not worrying wasn't going to happen with Jag shattering the way he was, but Coby focused on loving Jag – it helped with Anael? – and the hope that Jackson would be able to help as he dialed. No answer at Jackson's room, so he tried the clinic next. He had no idea what prescription type drugs the inn provided, but pot wasn't going to help with this, and the inn was supposed to give them everything they needed, right? "Come on, pick up," he muttered to himself as the phone rang in the clinic.
The phone was picked up, and a clear, crisp, even, "Jackson," was said on the other side. The voice was right, but the drawl was all but gone.
The change in Jackson's voice didn't even register to Coby right then. He had more important things on his mind. "Hey. It's Coby. Can you come up to my room? Bring whatever mood stabilizers or sedatives or whatever you've got down there? Jag's here and he's... It'll be easier for you to see for yourself." He hoped. "I'm not going to get him down to the clinic the way he is now."
"I'll be right over," Jackson confirmed, and the line went dead.
Jag was still curled up against the wall, arms curled up over his head, but he was looking at Coby through his hair. Maybe if he focused enough on him, the rest would drop away? It wasn't working, but Jag would keep trying. Sedatives, Coby'd said. Oblivion. Just a little longer.
"Doc's coming." As easily as Coby stuck nicknames to people, he hadn't used one with Jackson that he remembered, but right then it felt right. The more serious things got, the less he could let himself take them seriously, or something like that. "And I'm here." He found a small smile for Jag. He wasn't planning on going anywhere. "Assuming I don't go all ghosty again. It'll... You're going to be okay. Just... a little longer, yeah?"
"Time isn't right," Jag told him in a rough whisper. Time made no sense, the way it stretched right now, an eternity in every second, voices packed so loud into each moment.
Coby wasn't feeling anything like Jag, and the wait for Jackson to get there still felt like it was taking forever, even though it'd only been a moment since he hung up the phone. "I know. Try to... try to focus on me maybe. Just me." He wanted to wrap arms – and wings – around Jag and keep him safe, cocooned away from everything he was feeling, but with the way Jag had needed to pull away, to curl in on himself, it seemed like too big a risk, when Coby didn't want to make things worse. Besides, he'd have to open the door for Jackson when he got there.
Jag gave it his all, reaching for that protectiveness and the feelings that fueled it. But other emotions kept rushing him from every direction, and Coby's warmth kept slipping away from him, Jag's focus split and torn. He whimpered, a plaintive sound, not entirely unlike a wounded animal. "There's so much," he muttered, his voice breaking on the last word.
How could Coby not respond when Jag was hurting like that? It didn't matter what he'd just decided, he was moving toward Jag before he could think to do it (or not), needing to give what comfort he could. And comfort, for Jag, meant touch.
Jag didn't bother looking up, moving towards Coby as Coby moved towards him and folding himself against him on the floor. Maybe if he could focus on Coby, Jag could stop existing, and things wouldn't feel like so much anymore.
Coby couldn't say if it made Jag feel any better – it must help some, though, with how he moved to curl up close – but it sure helped him. He carded his fingers through Jag's hair, slow and steady, as much for himself as for Jag. Coby told himself things were going to work out okay. Jackson would be there soon, hopefully with drugs to at last take the edge off everything for Jag. And in the meantime, he was there.
Drugs. Drugs would be good. Coby would do, in the meantime, and Jag focused on the way it felt to Coby, that slide of his fingers through Jag's hair. It unknotted things in Coby, and that made things a little better for Jag. Not much; everything was too loud, too much. But a little. It soothed over some of the more ragged edges of the world's emotions.
And then a man with no emotions came, bearing drugs.
