[ Peter can't claim to know how this place works, what logic is behind the choices of the powers that be, but he understands one thing about it. It knows all of your personal ghosts, and it's only a matter of time before each of them are brought to your doorstep.
Such that, when the treehouse just appears overnight — out back, supported by four tall trees, exactly as it was back home — he's not surprised. Horrified, frightened, wounded, yes. But it's not a surprise. He wasn't expecting it, but seeing that last real remnant of Charlie doesn't bowl him over the way he thought it might. That ultimate thing was always meant to find its way to him, that place where his fate was always destined to finally reach its climax.
Of course, he doesn't know exactly what that treehouse will eventually hold for him, back home: how the second he returns there, he'll be led up the ladder and to a room full of people, to the beheaded remains of the women of his family. To be crowned king, only it won't be Peter anymore. He'll be hollowed out all the way, and something else will fill up the insides of him.
The appearance of the treehouse does, however, weight heavily on him. He's already tipping towards another depressive spell — turning eighteen feels.... weird, and he's melancholic through the early days of November. Not distancing from Henry or outright behaving any more gloomily than he already does, but it's there in the subtle things. How he spends more time in bed, how he stops shaving again, doesn't bother to trim locks of hair that have grown completely wild from October. How he spends a lot of time staring at nothing, lost in his thoughts — eyes too clear to be the usual demon zone out spells.
The treehouse is the unwelcomed final push, and Peter mostly ignores it, eyes purposefully avoiding looking that way. It's in view of his bedroom window, so he leaves the blinds and curtains drawn shut.
But he does go up into it. Just briefly, just to look around — and he draws his knees to his chest with his back against a wall and cries a little, and misses Charlie, and misses his family, and then he comes back down. It'll be some days before he goes back up into it again, and he can't say why he does. It's numbly, movements up the ladder robotic, stiff. He'll probably just sit up there in it again for awhile (and unknowingly, half of his compulsion is Paimon, the strange and jumbled Charlie-part of his memories that are drawn to the treehouse as their safe space).
But something tugs Peter out of his unfeeling state, replaces it with a startle instead: a poster that he definitely didn't hang up, and he doesn't quite hit him that it had to have been Henry just yet. Because what he sees when he turns around is slowburn shock, and he just stares, mouth tipping open, eyes wide.
It's.... Luna. He recognises the white doe right away — he'd seen her too, in that form. At first he hadn't known it was her, and the realisation had come later, but.... he'd remember her anywhere, now. An ethereal swirling of white, as though she was comprised of the essence of the moon itself. An impossibly sweet and yet so familiar softness, a.... safety.
He... doesn't understand, not at first, completely stunned: How is this here? But then it comes, the realisation slowburn and building. He lives in a household of artists: Paimon.... does things with art, draws and collects and creates. And there's Henry, and.... Peter recognises her handiwork even if this is different from anything he's ever seen from her.
Henry did this. Somehow, she... knows Luna in that form. Because it's absolutely Luna; there isn't anyone or anything else in this place that looks like the particular deer. Peter slowly moves to sit cross-legged in front of the artwork, just staring at it for an unknown period of time, transfixed. Forgetting, for a little while, his anxiety, his upset, his hurt.
When he finally comes down, he's still dazed, but quietly. He'll find Henry, wherever she is, and he doesn't quite know how to say 'thank you', because he can't quite put into words what he's thanking her for. It's... too much to simplify. How she'd known to paint Luna. How she'd known to paint her for him. The treehouse is the same, but... also different, now. Something different. Something that has pieces of Luna, and Henry, in it.
He doesn't know how to stay 'thank you', so he slips his arms around her for a shy hug (a rarity for them both, and he probably inflicts much more awkwardness than if he had simply said 'thank you'), and says "the treehouse looks good" (oh Peter.... you tried....)
...Henry's become something different for him, too, over the past months. Or maybe she always had been really, since the moment he appeared in this house and instantly became a resident. "Family" is what they were assigned to be, after all. But the word resides in a different place in him now. They're each other's family.
Following inevitable awkward laughs and/or generous eyebrow raises, he'll invite her up for a smoke after dinner, in the treehouse. It was never his; it was always Charlie's. And then it would be Paimon's.
A COMPLETELY UNNECESSARILY LONG REACTION bc this killed me.... (1/2)
Such that, when the treehouse just appears overnight — out back, supported by four tall trees, exactly as it was back home — he's not surprised. Horrified, frightened, wounded, yes. But it's not a surprise. He wasn't expecting it, but seeing that last real remnant of Charlie doesn't bowl him over the way he thought it might. That ultimate thing was always meant to find its way to him, that place where his fate was always destined to finally reach its climax.
Of course, he doesn't know exactly what that treehouse will eventually hold for him, back home: how the second he returns there, he'll be led up the ladder and to a room full of people, to the beheaded remains of the women of his family. To be crowned king, only it won't be Peter anymore. He'll be hollowed out all the way, and something else will fill up the insides of him.
The appearance of the treehouse does, however, weight heavily on him. He's already tipping towards another depressive spell — turning eighteen feels.... weird, and he's melancholic through the early days of November. Not distancing from Henry or outright behaving any more gloomily than he already does, but it's there in the subtle things. How he spends more time in bed, how he stops shaving again, doesn't bother to trim locks of hair that have grown completely wild from October. How he spends a lot of time staring at nothing, lost in his thoughts — eyes too clear to be the usual demon zone out spells.
The treehouse is the unwelcomed final push, and Peter mostly ignores it, eyes purposefully avoiding looking that way. It's in view of his bedroom window, so he leaves the blinds and curtains drawn shut.
But he does go up into it. Just briefly, just to look around — and he draws his knees to his chest with his back against a wall and cries a little, and misses Charlie, and misses his family, and then he comes back down. It'll be some days before he goes back up into it again, and he can't say why he does. It's numbly, movements up the ladder robotic, stiff. He'll probably just sit up there in it again for awhile (and unknowingly, half of his compulsion is Paimon, the strange and jumbled Charlie-part of his memories that are drawn to the treehouse as their safe space).
But something tugs Peter out of his unfeeling state, replaces it with a startle instead: a poster that he definitely didn't hang up, and he doesn't quite hit him that it had to have been Henry just yet. Because what he sees when he turns around is slowburn shock, and he just stares, mouth tipping open, eyes wide.
It's.... Luna. He recognises the white doe right away — he'd seen her too, in that form. At first he hadn't known it was her, and the realisation had come later, but.... he'd remember her anywhere, now. An ethereal swirling of white, as though she was comprised of the essence of the moon itself. An impossibly sweet and yet so familiar softness, a.... safety.
He... doesn't understand, not at first, completely stunned: How is this here? But then it comes, the realisation slowburn and building. He lives in a household of artists: Paimon.... does things with art, draws and collects and creates. And there's Henry, and.... Peter recognises her handiwork even if this is different from anything he's ever seen from her.
Henry did this. Somehow, she... knows Luna in that form. Because it's absolutely Luna; there isn't anyone or anything else in this place that looks like the particular deer. Peter slowly moves to sit cross-legged in front of the artwork, just staring at it for an unknown period of time, transfixed. Forgetting, for a little while, his anxiety, his upset, his hurt.
When he finally comes down, he's still dazed, but quietly. He'll find Henry, wherever she is, and he doesn't quite know how to say 'thank you', because he can't quite put into words what he's thanking her for. It's... too much to simplify. How she'd known to paint Luna. How she'd known to paint her for him. The treehouse is the same, but... also different, now. Something different. Something that has pieces of Luna, and Henry, in it.
He doesn't know how to stay 'thank you', so he slips his arms around her for a shy hug (a rarity for them both, and he probably inflicts much more awkwardness than if he had simply said 'thank you'), and says "the treehouse looks good" (oh Peter.... you tried....)
...Henry's become something different for him, too, over the past months. Or maybe she always had been really, since the moment he appeared in this house and instantly became a resident. "Family" is what they were assigned to be, after all. But the word resides in a different place in him now. They're each other's family.
Following inevitable awkward laughs and/or generous eyebrow raises, he'll invite her up for a smoke after dinner, in the treehouse. It was never his; it was always Charlie's. And then it would be Paimon's.
But here, maybe it's his and Henry's. ]