[ Avoidance has been his go-to for as long as he can remember. "We don't talk about it" was, after all, a Graham family staple. Don't talk about the fact nobody in the room really wants to be here and we're all waiting until supper's done so we can part ways and avoid each other again; don't talk about how Peter's been depressed since he was eleven and Charlie draws to escape from the tension she's not in fact too stupid to pick up on; don't talk about how Mom fucking tried to set her children on fire in the middle of the night once.
Being here has fostered a new layer to Peter's avoidance techniques, because if he starts thinking about whatever the fuck's wrong with him, then he has to face whatever the fuck happened that night back home β the one right before he'd woken up in this place. It means he has to face that there's a 99% chance his parents are both dead, and he might be dead, and that there's nothing for him anymore. He has nothing. He is nothing. The literal demon's only the surface of his other ones.
But it's definitely the Big Bad here, the heaviest weight to share with a person, and he's really never willingly told anyone about it up front, without being pushed against some wall. He did tell Luna, but it was because.... keeping it from her was keeping her at a distance. Everyone else who knows only knows because the thing's refused to stay quiet; it's clawed its way into a disconcerting amount of fellow Sleepers' lives, a giant twitching spider falling into their laps. At some point, he's had to address it out of necessity, usually paired with horror and apology after finding out the demon's caused some awful kind of trouble for someone.
But outright saying it before? How do you tell someone there's a monster inside of you?
Her reply has the boy scrunching his shoulders up, tensing. She doesn't sound mad, or upset, and maybe he was expecting those reactions. It should be a relief that she isn't, butβ there's part of him that thinks that's what he deserves, and there's an odd tension to be met with something else instead. Something that's not a raised voice or a sharp tone, something that's not openly upset with him. It makes his nerves flutter more, makes him all shaky. Peter smooths his hands out over his knees, slowly, trying to steady himself. He feels like he should say sorry again. And again, and again. ]
Is thereβ is there anything you wanna know? Anything I can.... explain.
[ Why not open the floor to questions now that the Big Thing is out there. Now that its title has been voiced, given form, given identity β demon. ]
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Being here has fostered a new layer to Peter's avoidance techniques, because if he starts thinking about whatever the fuck's wrong with him, then he has to face whatever the fuck happened that night back home β the one right before he'd woken up in this place. It means he has to face that there's a 99% chance his parents are both dead, and he might be dead, and that there's nothing for him anymore. He has nothing. He is nothing. The literal demon's only the surface of his other ones.
But it's definitely the Big Bad here, the heaviest weight to share with a person, and he's really never willingly told anyone about it up front, without being pushed against some wall. He did tell Luna, but it was because.... keeping it from her was keeping her at a distance. Everyone else who knows only knows because the thing's refused to stay quiet; it's clawed its way into a disconcerting amount of fellow Sleepers' lives, a giant twitching spider falling into their laps. At some point, he's had to address it out of necessity, usually paired with horror and apology after finding out the demon's caused some awful kind of trouble for someone.
But outright saying it before? How do you tell someone there's a monster inside of you?
Her reply has the boy scrunching his shoulders up, tensing. She doesn't sound mad, or upset, and maybe he was expecting those reactions. It should be a relief that she isn't, butβ there's part of him that thinks that's what he deserves, and there's an odd tension to be met with something else instead. Something that's not a raised voice or a sharp tone, something that's not openly upset with him. It makes his nerves flutter more, makes him all shaky. Peter smooths his hands out over his knees, slowly, trying to steady himself. He feels like he should say sorry again. And again, and again. ]
Is thereβ is there anything you wanna know? Anything I can.... explain.
[ Why not open the floor to questions now that the Big Thing is out there. Now that its title has been voiced, given form, given identity β demon. ]