video.

[youresovein]

[ your narrator: reclining in the black leather interior of his parked car, rain beating on the windows. it's the middle of the night, but he is wearing sunglasses, because he's very cool. #lestatuesque ]

Did you know it's one week until Valentine's Day? Of course you did, don't pretend you're too fascinating to remember important trivialities like that. Who has plans, who needs to get their life in order and make plans, and who expects they'll be spending the night at home eating their feelings? Go on, let it all out, I won't judge.

[ yes he will. ]

I'll even share my honest advice on all matters of or adjacent to the heart until morning. Or until I get tired of it. Whichever happens first.

Comments

audio;

[dragony]

Ugh.

[ that's it that's her contribution. ]

[youresovein]

Bold yet succinct.

[dragony]

I'm an empath. I have to deal with everyone else's hearts, whether they have a good time, or a bad one.

It's exhausting.

[youresovein]

[ well, that gets his interest. ]

Really? So am I, a little. I mean I'm not as [ vague handwave in the region of his temples ] psychically talented as some, but still — people can be so loud, can't they? But can't you modulate it at all?

[dragony]

People are so loud.

[ unexpected twist. her tone is significantly less blandly irritated when she answers — more sincere, more conversational. ]

It's not something I can turn off at all, but I can — uh, tune it out, a little? It sort of works like sound for me, so when it's... within my expectations, I suppose, I don't notice it as much. Like... listening to a recording of a song you've heard a million times, you don't focus on it, so you don't notice it after a while. But, of course, it's still there. A loud noise will still hurt your ears if you endure it for too long, even if you're not focused on it. The feelings around me still affect me, even if I'm focused on something else.

[youresovein]

Yes, precisely! That's more or less how it is for me, too. I'd never have thought to put it that way, like a recording of a song, but that's just it, you've nailed it. You can ignore it well enough and go about your business, but it's always going to be there, and sometimes you just aren't in the mood to hear it.

How long have you had it, this power?

[dragony]

Mmm... [ how to put it? ] The Porter's changed it, a couple times, but the root of it — I've had that my whole life. It's just the intensity that's changed, or the... the sensation of it.

I'm much more sensitive to it, these days.

[youresovein]

But you've always had it... What was it like, growing up with that?

[dragony]

Difficult. Being around people at all was exhausting, usually, so I was sick a lot as a kid. I stayed home most of the time. And, well, people with abilities like that, they're very rare, but most anyone else with abilities had a... poor reception, with regular people.

Even if mine was an ability that couldn't do anything, I was still that type, you know? So it wasn't anything I wanted anyone to know about, either.

[youresovein]

My sympathies. Ordinary people can be terrible when faced with someone who makes them confront their ordinariness.

[dragony]

Or their frailty.