Angst Bingo - Telepathy
Sep. 7th, 2011 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theroadhouseTitle: Knowing Too Much
Author:telaryn
Word Count: 2506
Fandom: Leverage/BTVS
Characters: Team + Faith
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: No ownership implied, no profit obtained.
Summary: Nate and the team discover that the after-effects of a vampire attack can be far reaching.
Author's Note: Written forangst_bingo, for the prompt "telepathy". The vampire attack refers to events in "The End of Days Job", where Nate was captured and mind-raped by the vampire Drusilla.
They'd been in the bar when it started, gathered around a table, enjoying a few post-job celebratory drinks while the noise of the regulars swirled around them. Looking back, Nate could see that what he'd thought at the time was a low-level headache had probably been the start of the whole mess.
He'd brushed it off at first, as any sane person would have. He'd had a couple of sleepless nights, and he'd been hitting the whiskey pretty hard. A headache in his current state was pretty much to be expected.
Then he'd found himself explaining one of his job-related decisions to Hardison – realizing too late that the Hacker had never asked him the question he was trying to answer.
Too much whiskey.
He needs to stop – it's getting bad again.
Doughnuts.
Nate stared at the thief, struggling to process the fact that Parker was randomly thinking about hitting a doughnut shop later in the evening.
What an idiot. Does he really think any of those cheap pick-up lines work?
I know she's cheating on me. If I tell her...
I hate him.
“Nate?” He realized somewhat belatedly that Faith was gripping his arm. Eyes wide, he stared at his daughter, as the voices in his head steadily grew in volume and number.
“Nate, are you all right?” Sophie suddenly had his other arm. “Do we need to call a doctor?”
“He's drunk too much.” That was Parker.
“No,” Eliot said – his voice careful. “This is different.”
It was too much. Too many words inside his head and out. “Pop, look at me!” Faith demanded – her voice sharper now.
With a cry of pain, Nate pulled free of both Faith and Sophie, covering his head and trying to will everything to be quiet again.
I'm gonna have to take her keys...
Just one more beer...
I hate my boss...
He was coming apart. After a few agonizing moments, the thread that tied him to himself finally slipped through his mental fingers. Pain... Voices were crashing over him, through him, dragging him down until he was buried under the weight of people he'd never met – names he'd never know.
His last clear moment was of Faith hauling him to his feet, and her voice cutting through the din.
“We've got to get him upstairs. Now.”
******
It had taken every bit of Faith's self-control not to snarl at Eliot when he moved in to support Nate's other side. He's just doing his job. The hitter knew something was wrong – knew it wasn't the sort of alcohol-induced illness the others assumed – and was backing Faith up accordingly.
It wasn't his fault he hadn't figured everything out as soon as she had. Who in their right minds would have assumed telepathy in a situation like this?
Faith did finally stop when they reached the foot of the spiral staircase. “I need to get him settled by myself,” she said, addressing the rest of the team, but looking at Eliot. “You guys wait for me down here – I promise I'll explain what we're up against after I make sure he's okay.”
She could tell immediately Eliot didn't agree with what she was asking, but the hitter shifted the balance of Nate's weight over to her without protest. Sophie was – again – characteristically more vocal. “Faith, are you sure?”
Smiling sadly, Faith looked at the grifter. “Trust me,” she said. “Hospitals can't help what he's going through right now – they'll just lock him up in a rubber room and forget about him.”
Before any of the others could weigh in, Faith started the laborious process of getting Nate up the stairs and into his bedroom. He was still walking under his own power, but she couldn't tell how aware he was of his surroundings anymore; aside from the occasional sound of pain, he gave no sign that he even knew she was at his side.
It was only when she was easing him onto his bed that she realized his eyes were open and focused on her. “Hey,” she said gently.
“You know what's going on?” he asked, his voice broken and strained. Pain was etched in every line of his handsome face.
She sighed, brushing a few curls of hair back from his forehead. “I've got some ideas. Is it better up here?”
Nate thought for a second, then nodded. “Not as loud as it was.”
“Okay,” Faith said. “I'm going to get something from my room then – if I'm right, it'll shut everything off, give you time to catch your breath.”
Before he could ask her anything else, she got up and went to the door.
*****
Nate knew he could count on one hand the number of times in his life he'd felt this helpless. Whatever was going on had come on him completely unexpectedly – and the pain had been worse than any headache or hangover he'd ever known.
I should be up there.
I wish she'd be more open with us when stuff like this happens.
We should have taken him to a damn hospital.
Nate whimpered, curling into a fetal position on his bed; his arms over his head in a futile attempt to block out the voices. Voices. He was hearing voices; one of the surest signs of mental illness there was. I'm losing my mind.
Nate. Look at me.
His first realization that he must have drifted off was when Faith's voice was suddenly the only thing he could hear. Fighting down a surge of joy and relief, Nate opened his eyes. Faith was sitting on the edge of his bed, her hand resting lightly on his arm.
There was no answering sign of hope or relief in her own dark gaze. “I can't...” he began, wanting to let her know that the unearthly clamor was gone, but his voice died in his throat when she shook her head.
You didn't imagine it. And it's not gone – I only blocked it.
It took a half-second for Nate to realize that her mouth had never moved. “Faith...” he breathed, his eyes widening in horror. His chest tightened, and his pulse sped up as his body was gripped with panic.
“You're safe,” Faith said, her audible voice low and reassuring – just as it had been when he'd heard it in his mind. Her hand squeezed his arm, anchoring him to reality. “I've got a pretty good idea what's happened, and we can get you through this.”
*******
Faith really didn't want to be doing this, but once again there was nobody else to step in. Nate was clearly terrified; whatever had done this to him had hit him so hard and so fast that he hadn't been able to work through it.
You know what did this to him. Shivering involuntarily, she pushed the thought away for another precious few seconds. It was going to be hard enough dealing with the here and now – telling Nate that what was happening was more fallout from the vampire attack he'd survived so recently was going to break her heart.
Across from her, Nate drew a deep, shuddering breath. “You know what's happening to me, don't you?”
Chewing on her lower lip, Faith nodded.
“Why am I suddenly hearing voices?”
He thinks he's losing his mind – Jesus. Forcing herself to verbalize the truth still trapped in her own head, she said, “You're not hearing voices, Pop, you're hearing thoughts. There's a big difference.”
His answering laughter wasn’t unexpected, even if it was slightly more hysterical than she could have hoped. “Thoughts? You’re saying I’m suddenly telepathic?” He pushed himself up to more of a sitting position, and Faith didn’t discourage him. The one thing that was most important to him in the world was the one thing he had very little of right now. Under the circumstances, Faith wasn’t going to deny him even the illusion of control.
***********
Telepathy? It was better than the idea that he was losing his mind, but not by much. And once again, Faith had known exactly what was going on, and precisely what to do. Nate cocked his head slightly, studying his daughter more intently. “You know some way to control your thoughts, right? That's why I'm only hearing you when you want me to?”
Faith smiled ruefully. “Buffy actually went through pretty much exactly what you're going through now, when I was in Sunnydale.” She shrugged, suddenly looking more self-conscious than he'd seen her in a while. “At the time she was about the last person I wanted being able to see inside my skull, so May...” She broke off suddenly, then collected herself and went on, “the man I was working for arranged for me to learn how to shield my thoughts.”
It was only a split second, but Nate suddenly regretted not being able to know what she was thinking. There was something going on here – some new damage that she'd never told him about – and his need to know was stronger than he was comfortable admitting.
“From there,” Faith continued, as if nothing had happened, “it's only a small step to being able to project my thoughts when I want to.”
Nate sighed heavily. “Okay, then. I guess I’m left with two questions – how did this happen, and can we stop it?”
“You want to stop it?” Faith asked. There was something calculated in her expression – Nate realized she was testing him.
Reaching out, Nate took her hand in his. “Faith, I believe you when you say I can control this. And if I have to, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I need you to believe that I don’t ever want to be able to hear the kinds of things I heard downstairs.” He smiled sadly, ducking his head. “I’m a controlling bastard under the best of circumstances. Do you think I could work with any of those people downstairs if I was forced to hear what they really thought of me?”
He was grateful that she didn’t try to soft-pedal things and claim that he was overreacting. After a moment, when he could trust himself again, he looked up into her eyes. “So,” he said, reaching for optimistic and getting as close as he could. “How did this happen, and do we have a chance of stopping it?”
*************
Here we go. There was going to be no easy way to share her suspicions. “When we got you back from Wolfram & Hart,” she said carefully, “you were real insistent about not having been bit.”
She watched the horror bloom in his eyes as he made the same leap she had. “Faith, I’m not a vampire,” he said. “I can’t be.”
“You’re not,” she said, squeezing his hand before the rising panic could take hold of him. “But we already know Drusilla was in your head. I don’t know enough about her powers to be able to tell you if she could do this. But I do know that if she bit you, that gives her a certain measure of control.”
Nate shuddered. “Over me.”
Sick at heart, all Faith could do was nod. “I’ll check if you want me to,” she said, forcing herself to continue. “But I’m thinking we’d both do better if Eliot handled this part.”
“What part?” Nate asked, obviously confused.
Faith glanced pointedly at his thighs, before looking at him again. “It’s the only place nobody checked. Vampires typically have four points of attack when they feed.” She touched the sides of her neck in turn. “One…two…” She held out her arms, and touched each of her wrists, and the bends at each elbow. “Three, four, five, six.”
She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind; Faith knew he was trying yet again to put the pieces together and reconstruct what had happened to him while he was in thrall to the vampire. “Go get Eliot, please,” he said – his voice barely more than a whisper.
***********
Eliot had already figured out what was going on by the time they heard Faith’s boots on the stairs, but he kept his suspicions to himself. Sophie was practically vibrating with nervous energy. Hardison had the same worried expression he got every time the team had a brush with the supernatural. Only Parker was behaving normally; she’d retreated to the kitchen, and was tucking into a large bowl of cereal.
“How is he?” Sophie asked, going to the base of the stairs as Faith came into view. The dark-haired Slayer sat wearily on one of the steps about a third of the way from the bottom. Eliot moved in at Sophie’s side, catching Faith’s gaze.
“He’s hearing thoughts?” he asked quietly.
Faith nodded, even as Sophie and Hardison gaped at him. “Telepathy?” Sophie asked. “How? Why?”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Hardison exclaimed, throwing his hands up in disbelief.
Eliot watched Faith. “What’s the play?”
She sighed. “I need you to check him over. Really check him over, without aggravating the telepathy if you can.”
“I’ll do it,” Sophie said, before Eliot could ask Faith to elaborate. “Just tell me what I’m looking for.”
Faith shook her head. “You're always thinking, Soph. You're like Nate – you can't shut it off. I'm not kidding when I say he's probably able to read every thought in every head in about a one mile radius.” Her attention shifted back to Eliot.
“You've warded him in?” he asked, before she could say anything. Faith nodded.
“He wasn't happy about it,” she said, “but that small taste he got in the bar was enough to convince him to play ball.”
“My control's not perfect,” he admitted, “but Lindsey had me train with a couple of telepaths some years back.”
Faith smiled, but it was sad and worried – a shadow of her usual blazing confidence. “Just do the best you can.”
“What am I looking for?”
He saw a muscle twitch in her cheek, but she maintained eye contact. “Vampire bite. I'm betting you'll find it in his thigh, over the femoral artery.”
“Aw hell no,” Hardison moaned. Sophie made a small sound of distress – Eliot kept his focus entirely on Faith.
“Is there anything else we need to worry about?” He knew Nate hadn't been turned. Whatever was going on – the mastermind wasn't a vampire. If Faith was connecting his sudden telepathy to a vampire attack, however, Eliot was officially out of his league.
Faith shook her head. “Drusilla's not a normal vampire. I never saw this coming, Eliot.” Her dark eyes glittered suddenly – scowling, she dashed the back of one hand across each cheek.
Reaching up, Eliot gripped her leg. “Stop,” he said – keeping his voice gentle, but firm. “Deal with what's in front of you.”
She nodded, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Check him out for me. Then we'll figure out what to do next.”
Author:
telarynWord Count: 2506
Fandom: Leverage/BTVS
Characters: Team + Faith
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: No ownership implied, no profit obtained.
Summary: Nate and the team discover that the after-effects of a vampire attack can be far reaching.
Author's Note: Written for
angst_bingo, for the prompt "telepathy". The vampire attack refers to events in "The End of Days Job", where Nate was captured and mind-raped by the vampire Drusilla.They'd been in the bar when it started, gathered around a table, enjoying a few post-job celebratory drinks while the noise of the regulars swirled around them. Looking back, Nate could see that what he'd thought at the time was a low-level headache had probably been the start of the whole mess.
He'd brushed it off at first, as any sane person would have. He'd had a couple of sleepless nights, and he'd been hitting the whiskey pretty hard. A headache in his current state was pretty much to be expected.
Then he'd found himself explaining one of his job-related decisions to Hardison – realizing too late that the Hacker had never asked him the question he was trying to answer.
Too much whiskey.
He needs to stop – it's getting bad again.
Doughnuts.
Nate stared at the thief, struggling to process the fact that Parker was randomly thinking about hitting a doughnut shop later in the evening.
What an idiot. Does he really think any of those cheap pick-up lines work?
I know she's cheating on me. If I tell her...
I hate him.
“Nate?” He realized somewhat belatedly that Faith was gripping his arm. Eyes wide, he stared at his daughter, as the voices in his head steadily grew in volume and number.
“Nate, are you all right?” Sophie suddenly had his other arm. “Do we need to call a doctor?”
“He's drunk too much.” That was Parker.
“No,” Eliot said – his voice careful. “This is different.”
It was too much. Too many words inside his head and out. “Pop, look at me!” Faith demanded – her voice sharper now.
With a cry of pain, Nate pulled free of both Faith and Sophie, covering his head and trying to will everything to be quiet again.
I'm gonna have to take her keys...
Just one more beer...
I hate my boss...
He was coming apart. After a few agonizing moments, the thread that tied him to himself finally slipped through his mental fingers. Pain... Voices were crashing over him, through him, dragging him down until he was buried under the weight of people he'd never met – names he'd never know.
His last clear moment was of Faith hauling him to his feet, and her voice cutting through the din.
“We've got to get him upstairs. Now.”
******
It had taken every bit of Faith's self-control not to snarl at Eliot when he moved in to support Nate's other side. He's just doing his job. The hitter knew something was wrong – knew it wasn't the sort of alcohol-induced illness the others assumed – and was backing Faith up accordingly.
It wasn't his fault he hadn't figured everything out as soon as she had. Who in their right minds would have assumed telepathy in a situation like this?
Faith did finally stop when they reached the foot of the spiral staircase. “I need to get him settled by myself,” she said, addressing the rest of the team, but looking at Eliot. “You guys wait for me down here – I promise I'll explain what we're up against after I make sure he's okay.”
She could tell immediately Eliot didn't agree with what she was asking, but the hitter shifted the balance of Nate's weight over to her without protest. Sophie was – again – characteristically more vocal. “Faith, are you sure?”
Smiling sadly, Faith looked at the grifter. “Trust me,” she said. “Hospitals can't help what he's going through right now – they'll just lock him up in a rubber room and forget about him.”
Before any of the others could weigh in, Faith started the laborious process of getting Nate up the stairs and into his bedroom. He was still walking under his own power, but she couldn't tell how aware he was of his surroundings anymore; aside from the occasional sound of pain, he gave no sign that he even knew she was at his side.
It was only when she was easing him onto his bed that she realized his eyes were open and focused on her. “Hey,” she said gently.
“You know what's going on?” he asked, his voice broken and strained. Pain was etched in every line of his handsome face.
She sighed, brushing a few curls of hair back from his forehead. “I've got some ideas. Is it better up here?”
Nate thought for a second, then nodded. “Not as loud as it was.”
“Okay,” Faith said. “I'm going to get something from my room then – if I'm right, it'll shut everything off, give you time to catch your breath.”
Before he could ask her anything else, she got up and went to the door.
*****
Nate knew he could count on one hand the number of times in his life he'd felt this helpless. Whatever was going on had come on him completely unexpectedly – and the pain had been worse than any headache or hangover he'd ever known.
I should be up there.
I wish she'd be more open with us when stuff like this happens.
We should have taken him to a damn hospital.
Nate whimpered, curling into a fetal position on his bed; his arms over his head in a futile attempt to block out the voices. Voices. He was hearing voices; one of the surest signs of mental illness there was. I'm losing my mind.
Nate. Look at me.
His first realization that he must have drifted off was when Faith's voice was suddenly the only thing he could hear. Fighting down a surge of joy and relief, Nate opened his eyes. Faith was sitting on the edge of his bed, her hand resting lightly on his arm.
There was no answering sign of hope or relief in her own dark gaze. “I can't...” he began, wanting to let her know that the unearthly clamor was gone, but his voice died in his throat when she shook her head.
You didn't imagine it. And it's not gone – I only blocked it.
It took a half-second for Nate to realize that her mouth had never moved. “Faith...” he breathed, his eyes widening in horror. His chest tightened, and his pulse sped up as his body was gripped with panic.
“You're safe,” Faith said, her audible voice low and reassuring – just as it had been when he'd heard it in his mind. Her hand squeezed his arm, anchoring him to reality. “I've got a pretty good idea what's happened, and we can get you through this.”
*******
Faith really didn't want to be doing this, but once again there was nobody else to step in. Nate was clearly terrified; whatever had done this to him had hit him so hard and so fast that he hadn't been able to work through it.
You know what did this to him. Shivering involuntarily, she pushed the thought away for another precious few seconds. It was going to be hard enough dealing with the here and now – telling Nate that what was happening was more fallout from the vampire attack he'd survived so recently was going to break her heart.
Across from her, Nate drew a deep, shuddering breath. “You know what's happening to me, don't you?”
Chewing on her lower lip, Faith nodded.
“Why am I suddenly hearing voices?”
He thinks he's losing his mind – Jesus. Forcing herself to verbalize the truth still trapped in her own head, she said, “You're not hearing voices, Pop, you're hearing thoughts. There's a big difference.”
His answering laughter wasn’t unexpected, even if it was slightly more hysterical than she could have hoped. “Thoughts? You’re saying I’m suddenly telepathic?” He pushed himself up to more of a sitting position, and Faith didn’t discourage him. The one thing that was most important to him in the world was the one thing he had very little of right now. Under the circumstances, Faith wasn’t going to deny him even the illusion of control.
***********
Telepathy? It was better than the idea that he was losing his mind, but not by much. And once again, Faith had known exactly what was going on, and precisely what to do. Nate cocked his head slightly, studying his daughter more intently. “You know some way to control your thoughts, right? That's why I'm only hearing you when you want me to?”
Faith smiled ruefully. “Buffy actually went through pretty much exactly what you're going through now, when I was in Sunnydale.” She shrugged, suddenly looking more self-conscious than he'd seen her in a while. “At the time she was about the last person I wanted being able to see inside my skull, so May...” She broke off suddenly, then collected herself and went on, “the man I was working for arranged for me to learn how to shield my thoughts.”
It was only a split second, but Nate suddenly regretted not being able to know what she was thinking. There was something going on here – some new damage that she'd never told him about – and his need to know was stronger than he was comfortable admitting.
“From there,” Faith continued, as if nothing had happened, “it's only a small step to being able to project my thoughts when I want to.”
Nate sighed heavily. “Okay, then. I guess I’m left with two questions – how did this happen, and can we stop it?”
“You want to stop it?” Faith asked. There was something calculated in her expression – Nate realized she was testing him.
Reaching out, Nate took her hand in his. “Faith, I believe you when you say I can control this. And if I have to, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I need you to believe that I don’t ever want to be able to hear the kinds of things I heard downstairs.” He smiled sadly, ducking his head. “I’m a controlling bastard under the best of circumstances. Do you think I could work with any of those people downstairs if I was forced to hear what they really thought of me?”
He was grateful that she didn’t try to soft-pedal things and claim that he was overreacting. After a moment, when he could trust himself again, he looked up into her eyes. “So,” he said, reaching for optimistic and getting as close as he could. “How did this happen, and do we have a chance of stopping it?”
*************
Here we go. There was going to be no easy way to share her suspicions. “When we got you back from Wolfram & Hart,” she said carefully, “you were real insistent about not having been bit.”
She watched the horror bloom in his eyes as he made the same leap she had. “Faith, I’m not a vampire,” he said. “I can’t be.”
“You’re not,” she said, squeezing his hand before the rising panic could take hold of him. “But we already know Drusilla was in your head. I don’t know enough about her powers to be able to tell you if she could do this. But I do know that if she bit you, that gives her a certain measure of control.”
Nate shuddered. “Over me.”
Sick at heart, all Faith could do was nod. “I’ll check if you want me to,” she said, forcing herself to continue. “But I’m thinking we’d both do better if Eliot handled this part.”
“What part?” Nate asked, obviously confused.
Faith glanced pointedly at his thighs, before looking at him again. “It’s the only place nobody checked. Vampires typically have four points of attack when they feed.” She touched the sides of her neck in turn. “One…two…” She held out her arms, and touched each of her wrists, and the bends at each elbow. “Three, four, five, six.”
She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind; Faith knew he was trying yet again to put the pieces together and reconstruct what had happened to him while he was in thrall to the vampire. “Go get Eliot, please,” he said – his voice barely more than a whisper.
***********
Eliot had already figured out what was going on by the time they heard Faith’s boots on the stairs, but he kept his suspicions to himself. Sophie was practically vibrating with nervous energy. Hardison had the same worried expression he got every time the team had a brush with the supernatural. Only Parker was behaving normally; she’d retreated to the kitchen, and was tucking into a large bowl of cereal.
“How is he?” Sophie asked, going to the base of the stairs as Faith came into view. The dark-haired Slayer sat wearily on one of the steps about a third of the way from the bottom. Eliot moved in at Sophie’s side, catching Faith’s gaze.
“He’s hearing thoughts?” he asked quietly.
Faith nodded, even as Sophie and Hardison gaped at him. “Telepathy?” Sophie asked. “How? Why?”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Hardison exclaimed, throwing his hands up in disbelief.
Eliot watched Faith. “What’s the play?”
She sighed. “I need you to check him over. Really check him over, without aggravating the telepathy if you can.”
“I’ll do it,” Sophie said, before Eliot could ask Faith to elaborate. “Just tell me what I’m looking for.”
Faith shook her head. “You're always thinking, Soph. You're like Nate – you can't shut it off. I'm not kidding when I say he's probably able to read every thought in every head in about a one mile radius.” Her attention shifted back to Eliot.
“You've warded him in?” he asked, before she could say anything. Faith nodded.
“He wasn't happy about it,” she said, “but that small taste he got in the bar was enough to convince him to play ball.”
“My control's not perfect,” he admitted, “but Lindsey had me train with a couple of telepaths some years back.”
Faith smiled, but it was sad and worried – a shadow of her usual blazing confidence. “Just do the best you can.”
“What am I looking for?”
He saw a muscle twitch in her cheek, but she maintained eye contact. “Vampire bite. I'm betting you'll find it in his thigh, over the femoral artery.”
“Aw hell no,” Hardison moaned. Sophie made a small sound of distress – Eliot kept his focus entirely on Faith.
“Is there anything else we need to worry about?” He knew Nate hadn't been turned. Whatever was going on – the mastermind wasn't a vampire. If Faith was connecting his sudden telepathy to a vampire attack, however, Eliot was officially out of his league.
Faith shook her head. “Drusilla's not a normal vampire. I never saw this coming, Eliot.” Her dark eyes glittered suddenly – scowling, she dashed the back of one hand across each cheek.
Reaching up, Eliot gripped her leg. “Stop,” he said – keeping his voice gentle, but firm. “Deal with what's in front of you.”
She nodded, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Check him out for me. Then we'll figure out what to do next.”
no subject
Date: 2012-08-09 06:08 pm (UTC)