There were times and situations that, regardless of any paranormal involvement, genuinely scared him. He knew there were a million and one terms for it - post-traumatic stress, psychic shell shock, hallucinating, dissociating, having premonitions, flat-out exiting the mortal plane. Even though he was brutally and clinically aware of the conditions and even how they affected brain chemistry, now that they applied to his personal life Stephen was exceptionally resistant to use them. He felt like he didn’t deserve for them to apply, didn’t deserve to associate with those who had suffered more than even he had.
But every once in a while he had spells. Not the ones that he cast or the ones that he created, but ones that took over every fiber of his being and reminded him of how adamantly he neglected his own mental health. Because as much as he resisted terming himself anything he might not live up to, he also knew that he was woefully under-equipped to handle all that he’d experienced alone. Especially because he’d maintained a relatively staunch personal allergy to dealing with any and all of his own baggage.
That precise inability to deal with his shit let to these terrifying moments, when memory and instinct and the ebb and flow of magic in his body overtook any personal agency he might have had. And ended up across continents, dimensions, times. Wandering lost down a quiet glen until he reached a wrought iron fence and felt his cold hands gripping the pimpled metal and finally pulling himself up the tether rope and back to reality.
As his senses settled back in around him, he realized that he wasn’t so far from where he’d left himself. North America, practically a sneeze away from the Sanctum if he thought hard enough. But the time was wrong, even if the exact place itself trickled in, familiar to him. His brain was still slithering back together in fragments, but even he wasn’t so blind to his surroundings as not to notice he was accompanied by a very abrupt and speedy visitor.
“Given you didn’t get here by highway patrol car or teleporter, I’m guessing that you’re not exactly here to slap me in irons,” he said, pushing himself up from where he was leaning against the as yet anonymous fence and turning to face his visitor, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and trying to fight off the sensations of cold and shock that were making this introduction all the more difficult to verbalize, let alone handle. “Or are you just an advanced tactical squad, and my luck approximately shit?”
( @hesjustfast )
