Locked in Time (Peregrine x Shizuochan)

[Peregrine]

Des nodded somewhat reluctantly at JP's suggestion, not quite managing to restrain her wince. "Y-yeah," she stuttered. "Best to keep experimentation to a minimum for now."

Ironically, though, JP's suggestion would ultimately turn out to be the exact thing she needed to get this strange power slightly more under her control. It would, however, take several hours of experimentation before Des would gain enough confidence and understanding of her power to learn that stopping it simply wasn't an option, and for her to simply give up on trying. Instead, she finally realized she would have to direct it back on itself.

As she'd already proven to herself multiple times, this power was very good at doing, and not so good at not doing. But, it turned out, it didn't much matter what the doing was. It reacted almost instinctively to her simple desires, twitching and acting at the smallest provocation. As her weariness, frustration, and level of discomfort grew, Des grew tired enough of the whole process to simply stop trying to contain this mass of energy.

And so she'd sit there, locked in space, watch something begin to move back through time, only for her to flick it back forward again. She'd be stuck in that moment, playing ping pong with this power, until something clicked and it would settle things back exactly as they were.

As far as achievements went, it was a very small one. However, right now, Des was willing to take any wins she could get. She still had tomorrow to try and practice further. Right now, she was far too mentally drained to struggle any more with this seemingly inexhaustible power.

At the very least, her weariness seemed to have the added benefit of making the power far less likely to react. Perhaps it simply had to do with the fact that she was far too tired to think much anymore, but Des safely drove home on autopilot, Jean Paul following along behind her in his car. She parked her car in its usual space, turned off the key, got out, locked the car door, slumped up to her apartment door, entered the building, and only just remembered that JP was following her before she would have slammed the door in his face.

Instead, she caught herself, and stepped aside while holding the door open. "Come on in," Des invited, before heading further into the living room.

Des job paid well, especially with all the overtime she worked, and it was reflected in her apartment. It wasn't a massive space, but it was in a nice part of town. The room was built into the corner of an almost wedge shaped building, and was blessed with windows on three sides. The main door opened into a nice kitchen with an island, before the angled wall led off into the living room. To the right was the bathroom and Des' bedroom.

She set down her keys and purse on the island counter, before retreating into the living room. Somehow it had gotten dark while she hadn't been paying attention, and the light on her patio had come on. While JP sat on the couch, she perched on the edge of the coffee table, almost as though ready to take flight at any moment. It took several seconds of slow breaths before she was able to respond to JP's teasing with a small shoulder shrug.

"Yeah," she agreed vaguely. "I'm sure we'll figure it out." While her response could have been an answer to both of JP's statements, it was obvious which one she was really thinking about.

"I think I'm going to turn in for the night. Do you... uhh... need anything first?"

 

[Aero Blue]

JP thought better of lying entirely prone, in all his indignity and stench and accumulated sweat of the day's labors, until Des had fully turned in for the night. Reclined against the back cushion of his house, he took the time to survey Des' apartment, and marveled at the fullness of it. Not full as in cluttered, claustrophobic, but full in the sense that it was complete - kitchen, couch, decor, lighting - and completely hers. There was something about that to the man with the same pay-grade who slept in the Room with the Stuff.

Even considering the crisis, he felt envy.

"Nah. I don't think so; thanks." Jean-Paul waved his hand to the side, stifling a yawn as he spoke, "I, ah, might end up ordering a late-late pizza though, if you hear doors opening and closing that's me embracing the steady rise of my appetite and the continued plummeting of my metabolism."

He leaned forward just to ram the back of his head into the coach again, to remind himself of its comfort. Just then, he remembered of all the things in the world that there were to deal with, and Des' newfound powers another bunch to add to the pile. A straw for the camel.

"I'm good, partner. Night, Des."

 

[Peregrine]

"Yeah. Night, Jean."

For Des, retreating to her room after everything that had happened that day was nothing short of a relief. She fell over chest first onto her bed, leaving her knees hanging over the edge, staring sideways into the pile of her blankets. A moment later, however, she groaned, remembering she was going to have to get up to take off her clothes before she could properly relegate herself to the comfort of her blankets.

Maybe I should just witchcraft them off.

And there it was, the familiar pressing feeling against her chest, as her body was locked in place, even as she felt the tendril in her chest reach out to tug at the hems of her clothes. If she could still breathe, Des would have exhaled in some combination of frustration and weariness. Just because she and JP had left the arcade didn't mean these strange new powers had gone on pause. But at least now she could stay calm and deal with it.

Eventually the hem of her clothes stopped fluttering about her waist, and the binding locks of frozen time released her body again. Des sighed for real this time, before kicking off her shoes and socks, shedding her pants, and then sitting up enough to pull off her shirt and bra. A moment later and she was in her nightgown, snuggled into the blankets. All she wanted to do was sleep through the night.

​

Des woke slowly, sun starting to leak through her curtain. If it wasn't for the pressure that rested in the middle of her chest, she might have almost imagined that everything that happened yesterday was just a dream. At least her sleep had been peaceful. She'd almost been fearing that the power would react as quickly to her dreams as it did her...

Des sat up suddenly, eyes wide in panic as she scanned her room for any signs of catastrophe. A second later and she reached for her phone, checking the time and date. It took her a few more moments of frantic searching to reassure herself that her walls hadn't turned to dust, her blankets back to thread, and the world hadn't crumbled around her.

She forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths, before putting on her fuzzy blue pajama bottoms and heading out into the living room to make breakfast. She glanced over at her sofa, meeting JP's eyes. The other man... didn't look like he'd slept great. Obviously there were just as many things going through his head as there were hers. At least he didn't have to worry about turning everything around him into dust if he let some strange power too far out of control.

Breakfast. Breakfast would make everything better, for both of them.

"I'm going to cook," Des said, almost forcefully. "You can come help if you want."

Not waiting for any sort of answer, reaction, or response from her partner, Des went into the kitchen and dug out a frying pan and a cutting board. From the top of her fridge she pulled down a bag of potatoes, and she got spinach, tomatoes, garlic, a bell pepper, and an onion. If JP came over to help she'd set him to peeling and grating the potatoes. Either way, in a few minutes, the potato shreds would end up in the frying pan with the diced veggies, olive oil, and a little bit of balsamic vinegar, rosemary, and chili powder.

"Did you sleep alright?"

 

[Aero Blue]

What a question that was. Not much of one in a vacuum, exactly. He watched, through crusty tired eyes, his irregularly shredded bits of potato dance with the much more proficiently handled veg, and found himself more or less fully occupied by it. Someone who had a more or less sleepless night customarily would follow up the answer "No," with a 'why?'. A 'yes' was quite obviously a lie, but the 'why' wasn't something he particularly wanted to discuss.

"Ah, no, but you could probably tell. I…"

He had checked his phone last night, for the first time since Des' call of distress, to a single text message from Maria: "Let's talk about this like adults." It wasn't until he read those words, with all that proper punctuation and capitalization he wasn't used to, that he realized how disappointed he was with her reaction. He had expected missed calls, perhaps, voice mails, a flurry of texts that painted a perfect portrait of someone descending from a veneer of stability and calm to outrage and desperation. He had kept himself awake with his mind bouncing from images of Des and her abilities, as well as imaginings of Maria in some sort of apologetic, frenzied state.

"Ronald McDonald didn't really agree with letting my stomach rest easy for the night."

I could've just said I was stirred up from yesterday at the arcade…

He found himself helping with the plates and setting up cutlery, before asking in turn an obvious question, "Guessing you didn't sleep that well either?"

 

[Peregrine]

The smell of fried veggies and potato quickly filled up Des' living room as she focused on frying the various ingredients. She and JP worked with a surprising familiarity in her kitchen, considering how rarely he stayed over or ate meals here. A large part of that, however, could be attributed to Des' familiarity with her own kitchen. When all of the vegetables had been added to the pan, she lowered the flame and partially covered it with a glass lid. They'd fry for a few minutes with the balsamic vinegar and maple syrup before she served them.

"I actually slept surprisingly well," Des replied, a faint smile crossing her lips as she set the dirty spatula down to the side of the stove. "I was worried when I fell asleep. That, you know... something might happen in the middle of the night. But in the end nothing happened. I'm glad it turned out okay, and it means I'll at least still be able to rest easy."