Chapter Text
2008, Detroit
As the minute hand on the clock face jumped closer to six, the fluorescent lights in the hallway flickered out one by one, leaving only the dim illumination of a distant emergency exit sign and the thin strip of light creeping from underneath the principal's office door. Muffled voices emerged from within, raising and falling in pitch as the conversation wore on, but Guy didn't need to strain to hear what they were saying. Their words cascaded through his mind in full technicolor, emotions and secret thoughts burying into his mind like dark grasping vines.
Without any distractions to drown them out, Guy was left to curl into the tiny plastic chair right outside the office, unable to forget for one moment what kind of 'gift' had been foisted upon him. His mom liked to call it that whenever he struggled to control it, but his mom wasn't here to reprimand him for his bleak outlook. She hadn't shown up to pick him up from school at three o'clock, and then missed the consecutive ten calls placed by the front office.
By the time the matter had been brought to the principal's attention, Guy hadn't needed to be told that the situation was highly concerning… and highly inconvenient, as the man's less kind thoughts betrayed. No one liked to put in overtime due to irresponsible parenting, much less over a known addict's kid who was only able to attend the school on a scholarship. Really, this should be someone else's job. Child protective services, maybe.
Having taken the hint to make himself as scarce as possible, Guy had dutifully parked himself on one of the plastic chairs and huddled underneath his overly large winter coat. It was lined with actual sheep's wool and unseasonably hot for the mild autumn weather but the price at Goodwill had been too good to pass up, and so Guy had worn it for the past six weeks.
Lately, his life had consisted of tying a lot of fraying ends together, especially as his mom was giving off all the signs of going on another bender. Just last weekend he'd caught her packing the trunk of her car with coolers full of a dark liquid that Guy hadn't been able to get a good look at before she'd ushered him back inside. Since they'd sold their freezer to pay off rent two years ago, he'd automatically assumed she had fallen back in with her old dealers, transporting illegal product between their house and a lab hidden somewhere on the outskirts of the town. Why hadn't he demanded to know where she was slinking off to? Why had he let the idea that being a drug mule was preferable to being an addict silence his nascent anger?
Thank God he hasn't started crying yet. Don't know what I'll do if he does.
Number is out of service. Probably failed to pay the bills again. She'll turn up when she's sober.
The influx of thoughts was broken by the squeak of wheels as a member of the janitorial staff rolled their cart around the corner and the lights flicked back on row by row. It was Mr. Philips, a man who'd been prematurely assigned the label 'old' by the children thanks to the grey in his whiskers, but Guy knew for a fact that he'd barely broken fifty and practised sports three times a week. He was a red-blooded adult male as illustrated by the unfortunately rather racy images that were beamed straight into Guy's skull whenever the man suffered a particularly boring shift. He hadn't needed to see Mrs. Philips in such… a state.
Blessedly, boredom hadn't struck quite yet tonight, and Guy was only treated to a wave of concern as the man paused to take stock of Guy's forlorn expression. Damn, these lights really wash some people out, don't they? Thought I was looking at a ghost.
'Hi, Mr. Philips,' Guy said, voice cracking from disuse and the tears he'd been holding back for the past three hours. He hadn't realised he looked quite that bad.
'Hello, Guy,' Mr. Philips parroted back while mentally cataloguing all the physical attributes that could indicate Guy was indeed addressing him from beyond the veil. The vivid bruises underneath his eyes, for example, or the pallor of his cheeks. Guy shrunk into himself, self-conscious.
At the motion, Mr. Philips' head started shaking in pity. 'Ain't got no ride home tonight?' Some people just shouldn't have kids if they don't know how to properly look after them.
He nodded. A normal kid would probably take offence to the judgemental undercurrent, but it was nothing Guy hadn't heard about a dozen times, and so he let Mr. Philips' thoughts swirl around him in the same lazy pattern as his mop across the floor tiles. Utterly harmless.
'Well—' That's depressing. '—a real shame. You can hitch a ride with me if nobody else is headed your way.' The offer was followed by the passing image of a police cruiser, Guy in the backseat, even more pale-faced than now. Before Guy could make any motion to accept, however, Mr. Philips was already backing away. 'But I better get serious about mopping if I want to be home before midnight, you know?' Don't want to appear overly close to the kids, even sad cases like him.
Guy swallowed with difficulty. 'You better get on it, then.' Mr. Philips tilted his invisible hat at him and then disappeared into a classroom further up the corridor. The door slammed shut behind him with an air of finality, and almost simultaneously the voices from the office flood back in.
Fuck, my stomach is rumbling so loudly. Gotta pick up something on the way home.
Missing my show over this, dammit.
The police is taking their time. I called them four times already.
At which point do you have cause to kick a scholarship kid out of school?
Is he even listening to me? Hell-ooooo? Anyone home?
What happens if his mom is dead in a ditch somewhere? Do I have to take him home?
Enough! Guy covered his ears with a sob. The static hum of the fluorescent lights disappeared immediately but no dullness of hearing would ever succeed at shutting out the thoughts. Once, when his mind had been completely overwhelmed, he'd shoved a pencil into his ear canal and punctured the drum. The white-hot agony of the injury had served as an excellent distraction in the moment, but he'd regretted it for months afterwards as it healed torturously slowly. Still, his hands itched to do something. Anything to make it stop.
The world gets quite loud sometimes, huh.
How strange to hear his own thoughts said back to him repackaged in an understatement by a woman's voice, tone too airy to pass as casual. And something in it, perhaps the way this voice didn't quite phrase it like a question, had Guy sit upright in the chair.
Blinking up against the light overhead, an unfamiliar face swam into view. Pointy chin, straight nose, small mouth curved into a careful smile. She was the textbook kind of pretty, Guy thought, intrigued by the pair of large tinted glasses that hid her eyes from view. She could have been a model or a secret agent if not for the sensible high ponytail and the ruler-straight cut of her bangs giving off a distinct air of reserve. Had the school hired a new librarian?
'Can I have a seat?' She asked, the quick motion of her hand towards the obviously empty chairs on his right betraying the same nervousness that Guy could sense arcing around the void where her thoughts should have been.
'How do you do that?' The question slipped free before he could think better of it, exhaustion suddenly swept from his mind and replaced with burning curiosity. 'Make yourself disappear?'
In one fluid motion, the fascinating stranger perched herself on the chair next to him, fastidiously rearranging her wool-lined corduroy jacket before fixing her attention back on him. One corner of her mouth twitched upwards. 'I'm a very special gal, just like you're a very special guy.'
Guy cringed at the familiar sentiment, repeated so often when his mom was at the end of her rope. When she was most desperately trying to hide her thoughts from him through relentless optimism. He scuffed the soles of his shoe against the floor. 'I'm not special,' he muttered into the high collar of his own coat. 'I'm weird. And that doesn't answer my question.'
'Sometimes they're one and the same,' she demurred softly, and Guy had the oddest impression that a part of her mind was reaching out to him, curling around him like a protective screen. And just like that, the thoughts from the office were reduced to indistinct white noise.
Spooked, he recoiled back into the chair, half-expecting his normal hearing to have given out as well, but the protesting creak of the plastic and his own harried breathing came through loud and clear. The only words that tumbled through his skull were his personal thoughts, and eventually even these calmed. Inch by inch, his shoulders lowered as he drank in the silence that had eluded him for as long as he'd been alive.
'There. Enjoy the silence,' the stranger smiled and the nervousness melted off of her with its warmth. Her front teeth were slightly crooked, but in the moment that was the least remarkable thing about her. 'You already look leagues better.'
Guy gazed at her in wonder. 'Can you teach me to do that?' A new kind of excitement began to brim under his skin, his feet kicked as he struggled to contain it. What if he could learn to shut the noise out forever?
The stranger's smile turned brittle around the edges. 'Gosh. Honestly, I wouldn't know where to begin.'
'Oh.' His shoulders slumped in disappointment. 'I mean, it's so cool you can do this stuff, but it also kind of sucks that you can't share it.' Dropping his gaze to examine the patch of linoleum between his sneakers, he hoped she couldn't hear how his voice thickened around the last few syllables.
From the corner of his eye, he watched her reach out and clasp his elbow, squeezing it gently. Guy was dissuaded from pulling back by the sincerity in her voice. 'Trust me, if I had any talent for teaching this stuff, I would make you my star pupil. You're a wonderfully talented and smart boy, Guy. Do not let the world ever make you think different.'
He blinked, processed the words, then raised his head to study her inquisitively. 'How do you know my name?'
As she leaned in, the volume of her voice lowered also, turning conspiratorial. 'Listen, Guy, I know your mind is bursting with questions but I only have a small window of time.' Her head turned slightly to indicate the office. 'I've come to check in on you on behalf of your mom. She's very sorry she couldn't say goodbye, especially since you won't get to see each other for a while, but she wants you to know she won't be gone forever.'
Guy sucked in air, held it captive inside his lungs until they burned as painfully as his eyes. He knew it was his turn to speak, to give some acknowledgement or come up with some courageous statement, but he couldn't do it… The betrayal sat like an ugly lump of coal in his throat, blocking any words that attempted to escape.
The stranger's brow furrowed, her mouth pursing like she was tasting something sour before she continued: 'It's sudden, I know, and it's going to be tough. A lot of people are going to try to take advantage of your talent, so you'll have to be smarter than them. Trust your instincts and don't go looking for danger.'
Guy shook his head angrily. This had to be a mistake. This could not be happening to him. His mom wouldn't just pack up and leave. Suddenly, he missed the constant deluge of voices, at least they would push out thoughts he himself didn't want to entertain. He ripped his arm free from the woman's hold, pressed his hands against his ears to shut out her voice.
Your mom is very brave, Guy, and more than a little reckless. Her words drifted through his brain like fog, covering the upheaval in his mind until the emotions felt as distant and muted as the thoughts of others. Only now it's come to bite her in the ass.
'I-is sh-she in tr-trouble?' He hated how his voice came out small and weak, the stutter making it all too obvious that the first tears had begun to glide down his cheeks in cold, desolate tracks. He couldn't even find the energy to flinch when the woman wiped one away with a pointed nail.
'Yes, she is.' Plain and damning. Guy hated her for the faint note of frustration that leaked through the cracks of her mind. Clearly she had better things to do then tell him his mom was abandoning him. 'She helped thwart some bad guys before you were even born. I'm sorry, I can't give you any more information than that for your own safety.'
Well, if that wasn't just convenient, Guy thought sourly. It was just like his mom to get in trouble with the law and try to paint it as some heroic struggle against injustice. More likely, she'd sold out one of her old dealers and he'd gotten wise to her double-crossing. He wished she'd just told him this, instead of sending this friend he'd never even met before to do the dirty work for her.
In a bid to get more information, he tried to extend his mind so it would brush up against the stranger's thoughts and snatch the details of his mom's location straight from her brain, but there was nothing to latch onto. Only a smooth, mirror-like exterior that his scrambling fingers slid right off of.
The stranger cocked her head at him. 'I'm really not your enemy here, Guy.'
In a huff, he sprung up from the chair and rubbed at his cheeks until they burned and all the last traces of tears were erased. He railed at her: 'Well, that's not fair to me! She can't just pack up and leave me!' Then, quieter as he found his anger deflating like a balloon under her impassive expression: 'I've got nowhere to go.'
The stranger rose on a sigh. 'No doubt something will be arranged for you post-haste. You won't be out in the cold.'
'I don't care about that!' Guy rushed forward and grabbed hold of her sleeve. 'Please, why can't I come along? I want my mom—' He startled as her hand covered his, still cold from the outside, and deftly drew his fingers away.
'Believe me or don't, but you're far safer here,' she said briskly. 'If you find yourself in need of help or questions…' she trailed off as her hand slid into the pocket of her coat and reemerged with a slip of thick paper. 'Go to the address on this card and ask for Emma.'
'Emma,' he tried out the name, liked how homely and utterly mundane it sounded. A small spark of hope to cling to in the dark. 'What's yours?'
There was a pause, pregnant with expectation, before she finally replied to his query: 'Fiona.' Guy could sense the lie in her hesitation. Such a pretty name to waste on one.
Taking a step back, Guy took her in one last time, determined to commit all of her features to memory so he could hopefully recognise her years down the line. Maybe when he was a man grown and capable of standing up to any adult, he could track her down and tell her how exactly she'd fucked up this meeting.
As if she could hear his plans forming, her cool exterior broke a little. 'Goodbye, Guy. Be good.' He didn't give her the satisfaction of a reply as she walked down the hallway and disappeared from view.
Hunkering back down on the chair, defeated and emotionally worn thin, he rubbed the pad of his thumb along the indented letters on the calling card.
Talamasca.
We Watch And We Are Always There.