[ Panic looms dangerously close to the edge of Peter's will, a precarious thing. His breaths are almost too shallow, his chest almost too tight. He's been wrenched from one place into another, but it isn't only that; he's also been wrenched from one mind to another, and the disorient leaves him staggering, clinging. His frightened grasp on his cousin is pathetic and pitiable.
And yet it's what he needs. The hand that rests behind his own, the warmth of the older man's palm soothing Peter's ghost-flesh; he submits into it, his fretting ever-so-subtly less fretful, fingers no longer so painfully tight in their ensnare against the man's clothing. ]
Sleepwalking— [ He repeats the word, wet eyes wide and flitting from one of Will's to the other, searching them with a particular desperation that grounds him. 'That's— that happens. I've, uh. I've done that too.'
It does help, to hear that, it does form some sort of solidarity, something that takes away the... aloneness, makes Peter feel grouped into the same category as someone else. Sleepwalking. Like Will's done. He's remembering, remembering... what happens to him, though it's never been so extreme as this — he's woken up across his room, out on the floor or wandered into the hallway, but never out on the deck. Still, this isn't... without explanation. He knows that. He... knows, and he knows he needs to calm down like he always is, to numb himself over to displaying outward emotion, keep this dark thing a secret inside himself.
And yet...
'Whatever happened, Peter, it's fine. Okay?'
Assurance. Will surely can't know just what that does to him, the way it untwists what's been securely wound in his chest, loosens it right up. The ache of that feeling almost leaves Peter unable to breathe.
To hear a simple phrase — "it's fine" — is not a thing he's heard in... Well, since it happened. The accident. All of this. Some part of him knows how Will means it; he's trying to calm him down about this situation, but... for Peter, it runs more deeply, and it isn't quite gently that he, sitting up now, tilts into his cousin. Falls into him really, into the chest that's exposed for him, with force. It isn't anything he's displayed to him before this incident; Peter's been quietly, albeit politely detached towards his cousin, if anything. But now he's burrowing against him, as though he can't get close enough.
It isn't fine, nothing's fine, and he can't say that, doesn't know how to, but with those simple words, Will's opened the boy up to wrap himself up in that assurance, and so Peter does — literal attempts to, with the way he presses into the other man. Insists on being held, with an almost— unsettling fervour. ]
Nightmares, [ he fumbles with the words, as though his tongue's too thick to reason with it. ] I can't escape them. I wake and I'm trapped in another... Even this could be....
[ He hangs onto the anchor that Will's provided for him, afraid to let go, and in his weakness, voices honesties he normally might not. ]
HIT 'POST COMMENT' TOO EARLY LAST TIME, good job self.....
And yet it's what he needs. The hand that rests behind his own, the warmth of the older man's palm soothing Peter's ghost-flesh; he submits into it, his fretting ever-so-subtly less fretful, fingers no longer so painfully tight in their ensnare against the man's clothing. ]
Sleepwalking— [ He repeats the word, wet eyes wide and flitting from one of Will's to the other, searching them with a particular desperation that grounds him. 'That's— that happens. I've, uh. I've done that too.'
It does help, to hear that, it does form some sort of solidarity, something that takes away the... aloneness, makes Peter feel grouped into the same category as someone else. Sleepwalking. Like Will's done. He's remembering, remembering... what happens to him, though it's never been so extreme as this — he's woken up across his room, out on the floor or wandered into the hallway, but never out on the deck. Still, this isn't... without explanation. He knows that. He... knows, and he knows he needs to calm down like he always is, to numb himself over to displaying outward emotion, keep this dark thing a secret inside himself.
And yet...
'Whatever happened, Peter, it's fine. Okay?'
Assurance. Will surely can't know just what that does to him, the way it untwists what's been securely wound in his chest, loosens it right up. The ache of that feeling almost leaves Peter unable to breathe.
To hear a simple phrase — "it's fine" — is not a thing he's heard in... Well, since it happened. The accident. All of this. Some part of him knows how Will means it; he's trying to calm him down about this situation, but... for Peter, it runs more deeply, and it isn't quite gently that he, sitting up now, tilts into his cousin. Falls into him really, into the chest that's exposed for him, with force. It isn't anything he's displayed to him before this incident; Peter's been quietly, albeit politely detached towards his cousin, if anything. But now he's burrowing against him, as though he can't get close enough.
It isn't fine, nothing's fine, and he can't say that, doesn't know how to, but with those simple words, Will's opened the boy up to wrap himself up in that assurance, and so Peter does — literal attempts to, with the way he presses into the other man. Insists on being held, with an almost— unsettling fervour. ]
Nightmares, [ he fumbles with the words, as though his tongue's too thick to reason with it. ] I can't escape them. I wake and I'm trapped in another... Even this could be....
[ He hangs onto the anchor that Will's provided for him, afraid to let go, and in his weakness, voices honesties he normally might not. ]
You could be. I don't know what's real.