— 𝐜 𝐨 𝐧 𝐭 𝐚 𝐜 𝐭

[possessum]

action / text / video / etc.
NOTE: I am forever backtag friendly and absolutely open to doing things from past events that won't really have an effect on things at any given time. For example, if you'd like to do something with Peter aged down or when he was his spider dream guide, etc.

Comments

[nakedsingularity]

What are you talking about?

[She really, really doesn't like this, and she has half a hope that if she keeps mounting an incredulous defense, Peter will be his usual passive, non-confrontational self and lose the steam to try and get around it.

No such luck. Now that he's started purging what's been itching at him, he seems possessed of a different need--a commitment to see it through to the end.]

What? Possess me? [Then she's genuinely incredulous, her scoff built of sixteen years' worth of being able to shelve cartoonish ideas in the realm of fiction where they belong. Resolved, as if it's a matter of making up her mind:] I'm not getting possessed by your demon, Peter.

[She's done her time having no control of her body, at the mercy of male entities. Fuck that. And fuck it. And maybe that's where Peter's hidden resiliency outstrips her own, because she'd take it and herself down before suffering a minute more of it.

But damn Peter a bit, too, for that attention-stealing choice of words. A cord of tension tightens in her and she scrutinizes, uncertain if he's merely speaking in figuratives or finally ripping the curtain down on the wizard. They've never talked about her quickness. Not her and Peter, at any rate.]

Okay, maybe asking the obvious question here-- [She cuts in, grasping at this new piece of information tossed at her, frowning all the harder.] If you have an exorcist on speed dial, why haven't you gotten one already?

[If her elephant in the room is big, his is even bigger, and that does seem like the most obvious missing link here.]

[possessum]

[ Henry's fortitude is something Peter's been leaning on since the moment he met her. Where he often has no mettle, she has heaps: both of them on some opposite end of a spectrum, but perhaps at the root of it, they're the same. It's a form of resilience the way they individually need it to be: she's like a wielded knife daring anyone to get close and he's hiding away under bandages covering his face from the world, but both of them are doing the same thing. Protecting wounds. Where he often relies on that abrasive, assured edge to his housemate, in the here and now it.... frightens him. He doesn't need Henry to be stubborn and sure of herself and deflecting the scary things. He needs her to be worried and careful. She says she's not getting possessed like it's a thing she's just decided isn't going to happen, and Peter turns to her, mouth opening and eyes fretful, a desperation that's not as controlled as he'd like it to be.

But she's throwing a question back at him instead, and it's a valid one, one he can still use to try and convince her she should be really worried about this. ]

The people I've talked to, they don't.... they don't know exactly how to handle this thing. It's not really like demons most people deal with, they don't want to fuck me up. [ .....Give the demon the final push needed to overtake him, maybe. Because what he and Paimon currently have, courtesy of Deerington, is co-existence, perpetually trapped in the Purgatory of this town together, but it's not natural. One or the other should be here, but not both. And whatever rules this town follows, even the professionals he's spoken to have agreed it has to be handled with a delicate hand. Maybe he gets turned into some lifeless vegetable in the process. Maybe removing Paimon from him after all this time they've been trapped in one another makes him worse. ]

That's just it. They don't know what could happen. I mean, say I die and it gets into you. John might be able to pull it out since it just happened. I don't know that for sure, but. You need to have like a plan of action, just in case.

[ He's breached rambling territory here, his words coming out a bit too quick, a bit too fretful. Theoretically, he should have had this talk with Henry long before these tense final moments before Hell Month hits, but when has Peter ever been good with healthy timing? He only acts after he's pushed up against the wall, desperate. Even now, he's throwing this at her, someone he cares about so much that it hurts to think about her suffering at all because of him, in an unfair way. Sorry he sucks, Henry. ]

Please. Just in case.

[nakedsingularity]

[The problem is, Henry doesn't want to be worried and careful. She's tired of it; she doesn't want to add another worst case scenario to the pile when she already carries worry and caution everywhere with her, whether sleeping or waking, like two cement shoes around her ankles. And in their time together she's felt both for him--but she's worked hard not to line him up in the crosshairs as something to worry and be cautious about.

She doesn't want that.

And she's not alone in not quite knowing how to relieve Peter of his burden once and for all, despite a town full of occult experts. The familiar sound of Peter expounding on maybes and what ifs seems to deflate her, and she releases a breath through her nose, lips pressed into a tight line. Nikolai had taught her that no matter the harm her abilities had caused, they were ultimately controllable. Knowable. Not so for Peter. If anything, he's struggling to keep himself in check more now than he was when he first crash landed on her lawn.

In spite of the evil, unnatural, unknowable nature of his demon and how far from control he must be feeling to talk about his own death in terms of contingencies, here he is, being worried and careful for her instead of himself.

She hates it. Hates that he has to dangle over this precipice with a rage he never seems to show for himself.]

Fine. [Conceded low and soft because she doesn't have the heart add an argument to his pile.] I'll remember.

[The exorcist's name, anyway. She'll do that much, but that's all she'll give sway to. They're not going into this preparing for him to crack like an egg and hatch a demon king.

Without warning, Henry walks around to his side of the coffee table.]

Stand up.

[possessum]

[ He's equal parts stunned and relieved when Henry utters that fine, soft and reluctant though it may be. A breath he wasn't aware he was holding is exhaled quietly, the boy.... not relaxing, not exactly, but at least she isn't fighting him on this. Not that he doesn't know perfectly well Henry will do what she wants when (...if; it's an if, not a when) the time comes, regardless.

But it still means something that he... voiced his concern, and she voiced some kind of assurance in return. Maybe he just needed to hear her say it. Maybe through all of the various convoluted ways he's lost his autonomy and is hanging onto some sense of control by a thread, this one little thing means something there, too.

But then she's moving over towards him, and Peter blinks, weirdly surprised by the action. Maybe by the fact that after what they just talked about, what he just brought up, she's willingly getting close to him like this. But he does what she says, getting to his feet, awkwardly looking down at her with all the mannerism of a big nervous dog staring down at a much smaller, and much more intimidating cat. ]

What, uh.... what're you doing?