late May 17th / library nest / @theninthcard
He hadn’t been able to come back to the house, other than that brief stint to shower off multiple oceans and grab fresh clothes without seeing anybody, since he’d managed to drop Aeron off in the midst of the chaos.The panic that had drummed through his chest had overwhelmed him and he could feel every stitch of his brain start to unravel, reality coming loose around him. He’d even started to trust what some of the others had said, in purpose and stability and the other nonsense that they all spouted.
After he’d managed to exert enough will to end up back at the Lair and get Aeron back to safety, the afternoon and night had continued, only getting worse. Then the gaps between shifts lengthened from twenty minutes to thirty to an hour, before he stumbled out of a club and noticed that several hours had passed. But he didn’t care, reverting back to his old method of staying awake as long as possible to stop the shifts from happening. So he transported himself a few timezones along and let the party continue.
(Each shift took more and more out of him, the energy required to visualise somewhere he’d never been before overwhelming, but he didn’t care, didn’t bother to notice it amongst the rest of his fatigue)
Then it caught up to him and he stumbled into a hostel and fell asleep on a solid bed, wishing for the one back in Washington. (Not home, never home) He woke slowly, groaning at the way his body protested and his legs ached, before pushing himself up and staring at the day ahead. But everytime he thought of Washington he rebelled, so he spent the day drifting between a cinema and a casino before his feet brought him back to the sky rises of DC as the sun set.
He shifted right into his room to shower and change again, blowdrying his hair as he emptied out his main backpack that he’d picked up before going out - how long ago? And then he was done and there was nothing to do and there was no-one he wanted to see.
Perhaps he should check up on Aeron, or see how the rest of the Lair had been doing, with their various fritzes, if they’d all had it. But his bones felt like lead and he couldn’t deal with the falsehoods, with their certain mindsets and critical view, their judgement and power and individual chaos. His mind danced through the various people, the various locations, before he remembered one he’d made a small while back with Lailani.
Something jumped inside his chest so he grabbed another blanket from the closet and transported himself between the shelves of the Library, his breath catching every time he closed his eyes and thought of movement. But he arrived okay and the breath released slowly and he stepped towards the alcove slowly.