logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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Misery— [ peter starts, a hint of incredulity creeping into his voice, and he looks at the hand on his shoulder, eyebrows knitting together in a mixed expression of bemusement and distaste. it wasn't a gentle pat, despite the outward veneer of friendliness; he thinks, just for a second, of bennet — outwardly benevolent but terrible with names, inwardly anything but and remarkably good with names. to think he'd managed to make jonah look like a pleasant boss after everything—

he hears a PARKER! from a corner of the room and he involuntarily shudders; he'd joked once, that he didn't know how to work for a boss that didn't verbally abuse him at every turn, and whilst it wasn't true, there had always been something about their to-and-fro that peter had enjoyed. he guesses they're friends, and truthfully he's got more affection for the cantankerous old man than he'd ever be willing to verbally admit, but—

get this disease-ridden menace out of my building, robertson. I'm not going to have my employees claiming days off for sick leave—

(ugh, actually, scratch that thought.)

he sighs and eyes the strip of aspirin in his hand. if they're coated, they're fine and he's more than happy to take those without a drink to wash them down, but if they're not coated, if they're powdery — peter feels like he should be able to take them without water, but there's always that risk, that chance that one gets stuck halfway down his throat and he's going to be left with the vague taste of chalk for hours to come.

he ducks out of bruce's grip and down behind the bar, scanning the bottles for something non-alcoholic — even tonic water would do. ]

—I think someone just walked over my grave, [ he remarks, as a belated explanation for the shudder. it's punctuated by a breath of a pause, and: ] Thanks, by the way. [ aha, speaking of tonic water. peter stands back up, aspirin in one hand, water in the other. ] Jealousy. Neurotic's basically my middle name, you really think I'm able to let myself go?

[They aren't coated, they're chalk, because the supplies that arrive in Beacon make their lives easier but not that much easier. There's a moment where he's left partially on his own- as Peter visually backtracks through the space looking for something to take the tablets with. It leaves Bruce with the kind of space that his peers, especially Tommy and the others from private school, would grab hold of with both hands. More than enough time to grab a few choice bottles and bolt, to avoid the conversation and the lecture that's waiting in the wings.

What does it say about Bruce that he doesn't take the out while he can get it?
Then again, even when he'd been out with them at all hours, buying clubs and drinking his weight in champagne, waking up brutally hungover to police clearing out the manor- he'd never really fit in. He was always strange. They drank whatever he would buy and went wherever he did, but they weren't shy about reminding him either. (You're a real freak Wayne, you know that?)]

Well no offense, but it doesn't look like 'neurotic' worked out all that well for you.

[He takes another bottle off the shelf and adds it to his bag instead. Alcohol can kill bacteria but it can also damage exposed tissue; vodka he can use to disinfect equipment.]

I mean, you're here aren't you?

Yeah, yeah, I've heard that before. [ it's a dismissive reply, the verbal equivalent of a shrug — peter's not entirely sure if bruce is trying to wind him up, if he's testing where the edges to peter's patience lay. he's never been particularly good-tempered, particularly as a teenager — he'd been easy to antagonise, easy to make fun of, and he'd never really tried rectifying it until after ben, after high school. when he thinks about it — really thinks about it — there had been a reason he and flash had butted heads so many times, and it wasn't always undeserved.

it'd been an odd moment of self-reflection.

even now, he's not what he'd particularly describe as social — his group of friends is more or less the same group from college, with the odd new face from a workplace here and there — the bugle, front line, horizon labs, but he's more comfortable with all of it. more comfortable with himself.

but as for his temper? it's still there, but more often makes itself known in his humour, in sarcastic retorts less well-meaning than some might assume; he more often lets it out on patrol. it's only the really personal things that get to him; stress and worry, that make him lash out. ] But do you mean here or Beacon? Because— [ he opens the tonic water and the aspirin. two, right? that was what most people took. normally he takes more, but normally that's when he's alone, or with mj, when he doesn't have to make up an excuse for 'oh, those are just guidelines, yes I'm aware that overdosing on painkillers is ironically a very painful way to die, no, please don't worry, I'm not—'.

he pulls a face. (chalky. gross.) ] —wrong place, wrong time. Let's pretend I'm passing on sage wisdom about not spending too much nighttime alone time in Central Park. [ beat. ] And the Invincible provides food. I'm a terrible cook. [ another pause; a glance at bruce, eyebrows knitting. ] —Listen, I don't think neurotic works out well for anyone. Is there a larger point you're trying to make?

[It's hardly a lecture and that's for two reasons- the first that Bruce knows he has no business advising anyone on the subject of neurosis. He's been called paranoid more than once and knows that his habits and preferences certainly fall under that umbrella. But the second is that 'Bruce Wayne' isn't supposed to lecture at all. Bruce Wayne is supposed to be cavalier- he pokes fun at more serious personality types, he's flippant and doesn't think about the consequences of his actions. Bruce Wayne is supposed to be a spoiled, mildly annoying teenager that's more concerned with getting top shelf liquor than the big questions that determine their future.

This is precisely the reason that he makes a small performance of looking for a champagne flute, and smiles blithely when he hooks a stem through two fingers.]

A point? Not at all. I was just trying to make conversation.

But you know, maybe it's one of those signs from the universe I'm always hearing about. A little- [The flute waves carelessly in air.] change of pace. To keep things interesting.

[ just trying to make conversation, bruce says, and peter glances at him sharply. it's an odd definition of conversation, but then he is a kid. peter had hated conversation at his age, more or less. ]

The only sign from the universe I'm interested in is the one that points home. [ like monopoly? advance to go, collect $200, is the remainder of the thought, the part that he doesn't vocalise. he's not as funny out of the mask, less inclined to make a quip or irreverent remark. it all feels a little awkward as peter parker, like he's a little less equipped to pull it off. he's marginally more inclined in awkward situations, when he feels stressed or uneasy, simply because it helps to settle him. regardless, the corners of his lips twitch, like he's tempted to add the remark anyway, but doesn't quite manage it. instead— ]

A reminder not to be neurotically sanctimonious is a distant, distant second. [ beat. ] Or even third, behind 'closely scrutinised employment history', comma 'it's a long story, thanks'. [ a sidelong glance at bruce before looking away and leaning against the bar. he'd say he's never been so pleased with his spider-sense alerting him to for-real realsies threats before, but that'd be a lie: mysterio is one of his villains, after all, but it's definitely a blessing. his attention shifts to a distinctly disconcerting, disembodied hand and away again (ugh, ugh). ] And the only interesting thing is that I'm a little less interested in interesting than I was when I was your age.

[ a flicker of hesitation and peter cringes — it's an expression that says god, that was way too many variations on the word 'interest' for one sentence, and he turns the bottle of tonic water in his hand to read the ingredients. (yeesh.) ] Glad to hear some of us are having fun, though.

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

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