He bids farewell with the promise that as soon as he's actually started producing art again, he'd let the man know. For now he wants to take advantage of the time to himself to really sit and absorb and work through what he is rapidly realizing is trauma.
Which he becomes acutely aware of when he finally checks in with the station-wide general comms channel, figuring he could get a general idea of who else was here. When the first thing he sees is a discussion on the nuances of cannibalism something trips in him, and he starts becoming acutely aware of his heart in his chest and the high whine in his ears that he knows precedes a panic attack. So he keeps his responses very simple and tries to ease himself back out of it, in the end going radio silent again and moving off to lock himself in the bathroom for a while. There's a ping on his display to let him know someone's at the door, but he doesn't trust himself to move just now.
[10:49 AM] Rose: A little time away and a few online conversations later and Jersey feels like a right cock-up. He didn't know all the details, of course, but the few statements he did have in the file suggested some pretty rancid stuff Larry had witnessed and he'd completely forgotten that the guy was never given a chance to - I dunno, seek fuckin' therapy? - and set on a recovery journey or whatever people with a wider emotional panel than himself did.
So he worked up a care package, a light but mood-worthy burger and fries meal with soda, and a small bag of cheap art supplies to get a start. Neither of them had any disposable income to speak of yet, but Jersey knew he could get his dick down far easier than Larry, so spending a little on the kid was probably fine.
"Hey kid," he called out, lightly thudding the toes of his boot on the door. "Open up, it's Jersey."
[5:28 PM] Lemonest: It takes a minute, but the door finally cracks open, showing a reddened eye looking back at Jersey, the dark circle under it puffy. It blinks slowly until finally Larry steps back to let him in. He's changed clothes to a clean, overlarge red sweater and black pajama pants, and his hair is twisted into a sloppy bun at the back of his neck, though some falls into his face. He looks ok, all things considered, but not great.
"What's up?" he says quietly, pretending that he doesn't notice the scratchiness of his voice.
[5:38 PM] Rose: "Dinner and a surprise," he answers, dropping the bag of food on the bed before turning and holding out the bag of art supplies, lips curved into his usual smirk. It dropped slowly after only a second, yellow eyes taking in Larry as a whole with a sigh.
"Just some small hand canvases and paints, some paper and charcoal. Admittedly, I have no idea what artists consider good gifts," he offers with a small shrug.
"Thought you might need someone to get you out of your head for a few minutes.."
[5:50 PM] Lemonest: Larry takes in the offerings and gives Nick a shaky little smile.
"Thanks, man. I appreciate it." He's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth and, besides that, he has a good idea of why the guy is doing this. A peek into the bag and he has an idea already.
The smell of food hits him though, and he carefully puts the art supplies aside. "So...what, am I on watch now?" He has to ask; it wouldn't be the first time someone was worried enough that they invited themselves over. Yes his friends would occasionally barge in for the hell of it, but Jersey had seen him having a bad moment. He knew more about Larry's history than anyone else here. Hell, he's almost certainly the only one that knows.
[6:13 PM] Rose: "Do you need to be?" he asks, tone a bit more serious and less jokey than usual as he arches a curved brow slowly, leather jacket creaking as he crosses his muscled arms in a disapproving posturing.
"I can stick around as long as you need or want, kid. I'm not exactly pressed for time."
[6:24 PM] Lemonest: Larry has to actually stop and think about that before he responds. Should he be on watch right now? Yeah he's not doing great, but he's not bad enough to feel like hurting himself.
"Nah, man. It was just a panic attack," he finally replies, sinking onto the edge of his bed. "I'll be ok. Just...gimme a couple hours."
[6:39 PM] Rose: "You got me as long as you need, like I said," he reiterated, nodding and moving across the room to pull his jacket off, tossing it across the back of the same chair he'd sat in before. After a moment of thought, he leans down and pulls his boots off as well, setting them politely by the door.
"Mind if I lay on the bed?" he asks, reaching into his back pocket and holding up a crumpled magazine with a motorcycle emblazoned on the front. "Not in the best shape, but I found it at a secondhand shop near the burger joint. Least I can pine for my own art," he chuckles, tapping the magazine against his chest with a fluttery sigh.
[6:53 PM] Lemonest: That...wasn't really what Larry meant, but he can't say he's not grateful for the company. He shrugs a shoulder and settles down into that chair, grabbing for the food and unwrapping the burger he'd been brought. Panic takes up a hell of a lot of energy and he's tired but mostly he's really hungry. So he wolfs it down without really paying Jersey much attention.
When he starts in on the fries he finally slows down, eating a couple at a time between sips of soda. He finds the bundle of napkins in the takeout bag and wipes his fingers after a few minutes so he can grab for the sketchpad and charcoals. If he hasn't fallen asleep yet, the other man will get to hear the steady scritch of pencil on paper.
[7:11 PM] Rose: He hardly sleeps, most days, which was part of why he worried about not having anything to read (or at least anything he was interested in reading). When Larry starts drawing, Jersey looks up briefly, smiles slightly, then goes back to flipping through the old magazine, leaned back against the headboard, legs crossed. He didn't feel the need to fill the silence with his own voice, content to just relax and occupy space, making himself available if the other man needed to talk.
Eventually he does look up again, curious about Larry's mood and condition and how having his preferred outlet helped or not.
"You should play some of your music if you want. It won't bother me any. Just fill the space with things that ground you, man. Let me know if there's anything I can do."
[7:26 PM] Lemonest: Larry is focused on the paper, and there's black on the tips of two of his fingers where he's been blending with them. He barely looks away from the paper when Jersey speaks up, but before long he's poking at his phone and starting an alt metal station that's much more lowkey than his usual heavy metal.
His head tips back against the back of the chair after a while, his eyes closed as he walks his pencil across the backs of his fingers. Outwardly he seems to be doing better at least.
[7:32 PM] Rose: Glancing up on occasion, Jersey smile and nods to himself, satisfied with a job reasonably well done. He might be a little out of his element, but that's no reason not to make an effort. Eventually he sets his magazine aside and just folds his hands behind his head, eyes closing as he listens to the music and reclines, grateful for a reprieve from trying to take everything and getting about as much out of their little hang out sesh as much as Larry probably was. Who would have thought he'd just end up chilling with the guy he was supposed to arrest?
[7:42 PM] Lemonest: Larry takes a long, deep breath and finally lifts his head back up, looking down at the sketchpad and the images on it, then taking up one of the softer charcoals to start putting darker details into it.
"How much do you know?" he asks after a while, glancing back at Jersey. "About what happened. In the apartments,"
[9:01 PM] Rose: "Not as much as I want to," he admits, shaking his head as he looks over again, blinking those almost glowing eyes. "I don't mean that in any creepy asshole way. Just as a detective, it's pretty goddamn frustrating when there's so little evidence remaining. We don't often have to deal with conspiracies on the level of what was going down at Nockfell and the surrounding area; there's usually more mess left behind that spells out the bigger picture. And more witnesses. And bodies. The whole case was a clusterfuck from day one."
[12:36 AM] Lemonest: Larry just nods slowly. That made a lot of sense, given what they'd all uncovered even in the days before the ritual. "Yeah...they were really fuckin' good at covering their own tracks. Before they lost the woman that knew how to do it, a lot of the bodies that you guys were probably searching for were being made into lunch meat." And it probably wouldn't take much of a logical leap to realize what came next from that mess, especially given why Jersey was here in the first place. "They started replacing people in the community with....I don't know what they were. Not strictly human, that's all we were sure of."
[6:41 AM] Rose: He sighed deeply, usually comfortably relaxed, pleasant - if a bit smug - expression sinking. He reached up, running a hand over his lower face with a grunt of disapproval as he considered the news. No wonder the boy was a wreck. Were Jersey something closer to human, his stomach might have churned dangerously at the revelation. As is was, he felt disgusted on a different level entirely.
"Probably some sort of possession gig. The evidence and stories make it sound demonic, sometimes, but it's a common misconception that demons just go for the total chaos, worse possible scenario deal. Real demons have a lot more refinement, actually. Rules and hierarchies. It's kind of...corporate, almost. What you guys dealt with was either some masquerading entity, or something not familiar and terrestrial at all, I'd say," he mused, stretching out with a few pops and cracks before sliding bonelessly down to sprawl comfortably in Larry's bed, a cat that acted like he owned the place.
"We knew there was probably a cannibalism angle in there, since we found a freezer with trace human DNA and so many people were missing, with no graves in the area. But feeding them to locals is a whole new level of sick most demons would find...tacky, I suppose. It's repulsive, to say the least," he sighed, gazing at the ceiling a moment before lifting his head enough to look at Larry.
"I'm sorry no one got there sooner, kid."
[8:49 AM] Lemonest: Jersey almost doesn't have to finish what he's saying before Larry speaks up again, and it's clear that it pains him, but that he also really seems to need to talk about this. Maybe it would be important down the line, if they went home. If he told the guy everything he remembered, maybe it would make sure they knew what to do if they ever ran into it again.
So he talks stumbling here and there, having to pause every so often to gather himself and keep his timeline straight. Sometimes he just has to sit and breathe to be able to even keep talking. He explains what they knew about the Endless One, the immensely old Eldritch creature that had set about assimilating the souls of everyone in town, living or dead. He explains that the four of them had been just investigating the ghosts themselves when they'd just stumbled on the cult. He explained that they were all just children when they learned just how deep it all went.
Then he explained that he'd disappeared because he'd killed himself to avoid assimilation, and had been alone in the apartments for so long he'd started to lose himself, until now. It had been... horribly easy, really, to do it after everything he'd been through, from the disappearance of his father to the spirit stalking him, to everything from middle school and beyond. His body had apparently been taken by the cult, though he couldn't be sure what for. Not when they had Todd as a vessel already.
He doesn't even realize that he's started to cry until he notices the soaked in spots on his paper, screwing up part of the drawing. He's just numb now, and so tired.
"Sorry," he mutters, wiping his sleeve across his face. "I think I needed to talk about it. And I trust you, man. I know I probably have no reason to, but I do."
[9:15 AM] Rose: The more Larry talked, the more Jersey sat up, alert and attentive, respectfully silent as the guy just poured his heart out and spilled all the beans. Yellow eyes roamed Larry's face, taking in tone and expression, picking things apart the way a detective just naturally did, searching for the truths and lies, the hesitations.
"What an ugly fuckin' scenario, kid. I'm so sorry," he sighs, scooting down the bed and closing the space between them to just crush Larry is a hug. Simple, platonic, nothing pushy or gross. Just the kind of crushing bro-hug one might get after slamming too many beers and crying about a recent break-up. And Jersey happened to give pretty good bro-hugs.
"Let it out, man. Nothing wrong with being really overwhelmed by all that and this. You haven't had any time to really process, your usual support structure is shambles...it's okay to feel a little crazy," he added, thumping a hand on Larry's back several times before giving a rough rub, then patting again.
"If you need someone to trust, I got you. Whatever you wanna know that'll help you feel better about it, just ask, alright?" he reassured the younger man, leaning to hold him at arm's length, staring into his face with a proper solid brothers-in-arms look. "We're in this together now, okay?"
[11:10 AM] Lemonest: Larry fell into the hug naturally, grateful for the physical reassurance. He'd missed being able to actually touch and maintain contact with other people and he needed this, so fucking much. He shuddered and let himself collapse into the embrace, his forehead briefly resting on Jersey's shoulder.
He was quiet as he cried, and it didn't even last all that long, but his grip was tight as he finally settled down, and he only pulled back when he felt like he was in a more stable place. For everything else wrong with him, he was at least good at letting his feelings run their course when he was in a position to do so. He slumped back into his seat with his feet pulled up onto the seat in front of him, sketchpad balanced on his thighs.
"Yeah. Yeah...we're both in it. If you need anything else I'll try to help."
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
Post-Cannibalism Discussion
Date: 2020-06-23 08:56 pm (UTC)Which he becomes acutely aware of when he finally checks in with the station-wide general comms channel, figuring he could get a general idea of who else was here. When the first thing he sees is a discussion on the nuances of cannibalism something trips in him, and he starts becoming acutely aware of his heart in his chest and the high whine in his ears that he knows precedes a panic attack. So he keeps his responses very simple and tries to ease himself back out of it, in the end going radio silent again and moving off to lock himself in the bathroom for a while. There's a ping on his display to let him know someone's at the door, but he doesn't trust himself to move just now.
[10:49 AM] Rose: A little time away and a few online conversations later and Jersey feels like a right cock-up. He didn't know all the details, of course, but the few statements he did have in the file suggested some pretty rancid stuff Larry had witnessed and he'd completely forgotten that the guy was never given a chance to - I dunno, seek fuckin' therapy? - and set on a recovery journey or whatever people with a wider emotional panel than himself did.
So he worked up a care package, a light but mood-worthy burger and fries meal with soda, and a small bag of cheap art supplies to get a start. Neither of them had any disposable income to speak of yet, but Jersey knew he could get his dick down far easier than Larry, so spending a little on the kid was probably fine.
"Hey kid," he called out, lightly thudding the toes of his boot on the door. "Open up, it's Jersey."
[5:28 PM] Lemonest: It takes a minute, but the door finally cracks open, showing a reddened eye looking back at Jersey, the dark circle under it puffy. It blinks slowly until finally Larry steps back to let him in. He's changed clothes to a clean, overlarge red sweater and black pajama pants, and his hair is twisted into a sloppy bun at the back of his neck, though some falls into his face. He looks ok, all things considered, but not great.
"What's up?" he says quietly, pretending that he doesn't notice the scratchiness of his voice.
[5:38 PM] Rose: "Dinner and a surprise," he answers, dropping the bag of food on the bed before turning and holding out the bag of art supplies, lips curved into his usual smirk. It dropped slowly after only a second, yellow eyes taking in Larry as a whole with a sigh.
"Just some small hand canvases and paints, some paper and charcoal. Admittedly, I have no idea what artists consider good gifts," he offers with a small shrug.
"Thought you might need someone to get you out of your head for a few minutes.."
[5:50 PM] Lemonest: Larry takes in the offerings and gives Nick a shaky little smile.
"Thanks, man. I appreciate it." He's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth and, besides that, he has a good idea of why the guy is doing this. A peek into the bag and he has an idea already.
The smell of food hits him though, and he carefully puts the art supplies aside. "So...what, am I on watch now?" He has to ask; it wouldn't be the first time someone was worried enough that they invited themselves over. Yes his friends would occasionally barge in for the hell of it, but Jersey had seen him having a bad moment. He knew more about Larry's history than anyone else here. Hell, he's almost certainly the only one that knows.
[6:13 PM] Rose: "Do you need to be?" he asks, tone a bit more serious and less jokey than usual as he arches a curved brow slowly, leather jacket creaking as he crosses his muscled arms in a disapproving posturing.
"I can stick around as long as you need or want, kid. I'm not exactly pressed for time."
[6:24 PM] Lemonest: Larry has to actually stop and think about that before he responds. Should he be on watch right now? Yeah he's not doing great, but he's not bad enough to feel like hurting himself.
"Nah, man. It was just a panic attack," he finally replies, sinking onto the edge of his bed. "I'll be ok. Just...gimme a couple hours."
[6:39 PM] Rose: "You got me as long as you need, like I said," he reiterated, nodding and moving across the room to pull his jacket off, tossing it across the back of the same chair he'd sat in before. After a moment of thought, he leans down and pulls his boots off as well, setting them politely by the door.
"Mind if I lay on the bed?" he asks, reaching into his back pocket and holding up a crumpled magazine with a motorcycle emblazoned on the front. "Not in the best shape, but I found it at a secondhand shop near the burger joint. Least I can pine for my own art," he chuckles, tapping the magazine against his chest with a fluttery sigh.
[6:53 PM] Lemonest: That...wasn't really what Larry meant, but he can't say he's not grateful for the company. He shrugs a shoulder and settles down into that chair, grabbing for the food and unwrapping the burger he'd been brought. Panic takes up a hell of a lot of energy and he's tired but mostly he's really hungry. So he wolfs it down without really paying Jersey much attention.
When he starts in on the fries he finally slows down, eating a couple at a time between sips of soda. He finds the bundle of napkins in the takeout bag and wipes his fingers after a few minutes so he can grab for the sketchpad and charcoals. If he hasn't fallen asleep yet, the other man will get to hear the steady scritch of pencil on paper.
[7:11 PM] Rose: He hardly sleeps, most days, which was part of why he worried about not having anything to read (or at least anything he was interested in reading). When Larry starts drawing, Jersey looks up briefly, smiles slightly, then goes back to flipping through the old magazine, leaned back against the headboard, legs crossed. He didn't feel the need to fill the silence with his own voice, content to just relax and occupy space, making himself available if the other man needed to talk.
Eventually he does look up again, curious about Larry's mood and condition and how having his preferred outlet helped or not.
"You should play some of your music if you want. It won't bother me any. Just fill the space with things that ground you, man. Let me know if there's anything I can do."
[7:26 PM] Lemonest: Larry is focused on the paper, and there's black on the tips of two of his fingers where he's been blending with them. He barely looks away from the paper when Jersey speaks up, but before long he's poking at his phone and starting an alt metal station that's much more lowkey than his usual heavy metal.
His head tips back against the back of the chair after a while, his eyes closed as he walks his pencil across the backs of his fingers. Outwardly he seems to be doing better at least.
[7:32 PM] Rose: Glancing up on occasion, Jersey smile and nods to himself, satisfied with a job reasonably well done. He might be a little out of his element, but that's no reason not to make an effort. Eventually he sets his magazine aside and just folds his hands behind his head, eyes closing as he listens to the music and reclines, grateful for a reprieve from trying to take everything and getting about as much out of their little hang out sesh as much as Larry probably was. Who would have thought he'd just end up chilling with the guy he was supposed to arrest?
[7:42 PM] Lemonest: Larry takes a long, deep breath and finally lifts his head back up, looking down at the sketchpad and the images on it, then taking up one of the softer charcoals to start putting darker details into it.
"How much do you know?" he asks after a while, glancing back at Jersey. "About what happened. In the apartments,"
[9:01 PM] Rose: "Not as much as I want to," he admits, shaking his head as he looks over again, blinking those almost glowing eyes. "I don't mean that in any creepy asshole way. Just as a detective, it's pretty goddamn frustrating when there's so little evidence remaining. We don't often have to deal with conspiracies on the level of what was going down at Nockfell and the surrounding area; there's usually more mess left behind that spells out the bigger picture. And more witnesses. And bodies. The whole case was a clusterfuck from day one."
[12:36 AM] Lemonest: Larry just nods slowly. That made a lot of sense, given what they'd all uncovered even in the days before the ritual. "Yeah...they were really fuckin' good at covering their own tracks. Before they lost the woman that knew how to do it, a lot of the bodies that you guys were probably searching for were being made into lunch meat." And it probably wouldn't take much of a logical leap to realize what came next from that mess, especially given why Jersey was here in the first place. "They started replacing people in the community with....I don't know what they were. Not strictly human, that's all we were sure of."
[6:41 AM] Rose: He sighed deeply, usually comfortably relaxed, pleasant - if a bit smug - expression sinking. He reached up, running a hand over his lower face with a grunt of disapproval as he considered the news. No wonder the boy was a wreck. Were Jersey something closer to human, his stomach might have churned dangerously at the revelation. As is was, he felt disgusted on a different level entirely.
"Probably some sort of possession gig. The evidence and stories make it sound demonic, sometimes, but it's a common misconception that demons just go for the total chaos, worse possible scenario deal. Real demons have a lot more refinement, actually. Rules and hierarchies. It's kind of...corporate, almost. What you guys dealt with was either some masquerading entity, or something not familiar and terrestrial at all, I'd say," he mused, stretching out with a few pops and cracks before sliding bonelessly down to sprawl comfortably in Larry's bed, a cat that acted like he owned the place.
"We knew there was probably a cannibalism angle in there, since we found a freezer with trace human DNA and so many people were missing, with no graves in the area. But feeding them to locals is a whole new level of sick most demons would find...tacky, I suppose. It's repulsive, to say the least," he sighed, gazing at the ceiling a moment before lifting his head enough to look at Larry.
"I'm sorry no one got there sooner, kid."
[8:49 AM] Lemonest: Jersey almost doesn't have to finish what he's saying before Larry speaks up again, and it's clear that it pains him, but that he also really seems to need to talk about this. Maybe it would be important down the line, if they went home. If he told the guy everything he remembered, maybe it would make sure they knew what to do if they ever ran into it again.
So he talks stumbling here and there, having to pause every so often to gather himself and keep his timeline straight. Sometimes he just has to sit and breathe to be able to even keep talking. He explains what they knew about the Endless One, the immensely old Eldritch creature that had set about assimilating the souls of everyone in town, living or dead. He explains that the four of them had been just investigating the ghosts themselves when they'd just stumbled on the cult. He explained that they were all just children when they learned just how deep it all went.
Then he explained that he'd disappeared because he'd killed himself to avoid assimilation, and had been alone in the apartments for so long he'd started to lose himself, until now. It had been... horribly easy, really, to do it after everything he'd been through, from the disappearance of his father to the spirit stalking him, to everything from middle school and beyond. His body had apparently been taken by the cult, though he couldn't be sure what for. Not when they had Todd as a vessel already.
He doesn't even realize that he's started to cry until he notices the soaked in spots on his paper, screwing up part of the drawing. He's just numb now, and so tired.
"Sorry," he mutters, wiping his sleeve across his face. "I think I needed to talk about it. And I trust you, man. I know I probably have no reason to, but I do."
[9:15 AM] Rose: The more Larry talked, the more Jersey sat up, alert and attentive, respectfully silent as the guy just poured his heart out and spilled all the beans. Yellow eyes roamed Larry's face, taking in tone and expression, picking things apart the way a detective just naturally did, searching for the truths and lies, the hesitations.
"What an ugly fuckin' scenario, kid. I'm so sorry," he sighs, scooting down the bed and closing the space between them to just crush Larry is a hug. Simple, platonic, nothing pushy or gross. Just the kind of crushing bro-hug one might get after slamming too many beers and crying about a recent break-up. And Jersey happened to give pretty good bro-hugs.
"Let it out, man. Nothing wrong with being really overwhelmed by all that and this. You haven't had any time to really process, your usual support structure is shambles...it's okay to feel a little crazy," he added, thumping a hand on Larry's back several times before giving a rough rub, then patting again.
"If you need someone to trust, I got you. Whatever you wanna know that'll help you feel better about it, just ask, alright?" he reassured the younger man, leaning to hold him at arm's length, staring into his face with a proper solid brothers-in-arms look. "We're in this together now, okay?"
[11:10 AM] Lemonest: Larry fell into the hug naturally, grateful for the physical reassurance. He'd missed being able to actually touch and maintain contact with other people and he needed this, so fucking much. He shuddered and let himself collapse into the embrace, his forehead briefly resting on Jersey's shoulder.
He was quiet as he cried, and it didn't even last all that long, but his grip was tight as he finally settled down, and he only pulled back when he felt like he was in a more stable place. For everything else wrong with him, he was at least good at letting his feelings run their course when he was in a position to do so. He slumped back into his seat with his feet pulled up onto the seat in front of him, sketchpad balanced on his thighs.
"Yeah. Yeah...we're both in it. If you need anything else I'll try to help."