[open] these voices won't leave me alone

[seeingscarlet]

Who: Wanda Maximoff and you!
When: The latter half of the month (16th and on)
Where: Various corners of the Moira
What: This was a bad month to be a telepath. Wanda tries to cope.
Warnings: References to past blood and violence

Wanda's always had a talent for compartmentalizing and pushing through - it was a matter of survival, really - but now that they're all out of danger, the last two weeks have hit her all at once.

Steve almost dying. Athena actually dying and not coming back. The terrible things she saw in some of the Emirians' minds. The just as horrifying things she put there.

Being in her room is a painful reminder and sleep is difficult enough without the ambient psychic noise. Wanda isn't the only one who's had a bad time, after all. So she goes in search of other places to rest...

I. Supply Closet
Maybe you needed something, or maybe you just heard the familiar sounds of Bonsai or Red Thread coming from an odd place. Either way, Wanda's curled up amid boxes of something, clearly failing at that sleeping thing.

II. Library
It's pretty late, so Wanda can be forgiven for falling asleep in a corner of the library. There's a book balanced rather precariously between her knees and hands and that really can't be comfortable. Wake her up?

III. Mero Deck
Or maybe you've come across Wanda ducking out with blankets in tow.

Comments

Mero Deck

[takeitslow]

He's on his way back to his own room when he sees Wanda down the hall, and he reroutes to end up beside her in a flash, falling in with her pace. There's a smile on is face and he reaches out to loop an arm in hers, plucking idly at the blankets. "You having some kind of sleepover, sis? Kind of hoping it's just a friendly one. If it's really friendly it's none of my business, but. You know. "

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda laughs, but it's not entirely sincere. "Not quite like that." It would be easier if she could lie to him about this. Unfortunately for her, that's a line she's not willing to cross. "My room feels...wrong."

[takeitslow]

Peter's in front of her in half a second, hands hovering above her shoulders to stop her. He spends a moment scrutinizing her face, frowning the longer he looks. "Wrong?" Peter parrots, carefully settling one of his hands at her shoulder. "You want to tell me what you mean by that?"

[seeingscarlet]

She looks more tired than normal, even with her makeup. Wanda and sleep have never exactly been friends, but if she could use her powers to force her mind to shut up, she would.

"You know what happened to my first roommate, yes?" The one who didn't come back.

[takeitslow]

"Yeah. I heard," Peter says, tone apologetic. He sighs, hand squeezing at her shoulder. And he can imagine that's the problem. He's never lost anyone himself, but after what she's shown him of her own life, he knows it must be upsetting her. Honestly, he feels like an ass for not asking about it before. "I'm sorry. I didn't even think about this bothering you."

[seeingscarlet]

Part of her feels like she should be used to it, that it shouldn't bother her so much. But Wanda is learning that befriending people has a price now, and it's not really a thing she knows how to deal with. At least she'd had a change of scenery to help her after Pietro died, but here...

"She did not make a lot of friends. She was...not a soft person." Wanda sighs. "I knew she was going to get in trouble, I warned her, but..."

Little does Wanda know that her offhand statement about saving the violence for the real monsters is exactly what caused Athena's death.

[takeitslow]

"But you couldn't predict that would happen," Peter follows up. "And she had you as a friend, so soft or not, she had good taste." He cracks a little smile, hoping to lighten her mood, just a little and just for a moment. He might be out of his depth, but making his sisters smile had always been a good place to start when it came to comfort.

"You miss her. That's why you don't want to stay in your room? It's a reminder?"

[seeingscarlet]

"It is hard to sleep."

She's not going to tell him about the worst nightmares or exactly how she managed to get through the entire Emiri incident with barely a scratch on her when Steve almost died.

Everything has a price.

"If I am close to someone...imagine there are threads between us. If one of you was badly hurt, almost dead, I would know."

[takeitslow]

"You know? Like as in feel it?" Forget trying to make her smile, this was more pressing. Peter could feel a little pit of dread starting in his stomach. His hands are tight at her shoulders, tense and ready to pull her in. "You mean, like." He stopped, wet his lips and shook his head. "You mean like you felt it? What happened to her? You knew when it was going down?"

[seeingscarlet]

She nods. "I didn't know what had happened, but I knew that it had." Nothing will ever be as horrible as what Pietro's death felt like, but it's still jarring and extremely unpleasant. Maybe everyone else can go on as usual - they didn't know her very well and the murderer won't be able to do it again - but for Wanda it's always going to be worse.

[takeitslow]

He doesn't hesitate, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her in. "I'm sorry." He doesn't think that covers it, but he means it. He would have never wished that on anyone, let alone her. "You don't deserve that. To have that on you."