Chapter Text
Ever since I was young, I saw visions. My parents thought of me as a Clairvoyant. I was struggling to find myself between the present and a probable future. The future is fickle, forever shifting into a sort of limbo state based on courses taken. A scary sense of being when faced with more serious threats. The more minor ones were confusing to hold the threads together. In between that, the was me. Reacting to what hasn’t happened yet. Trying my best to button it up and have a normal life. For a while, I was able to manage that without it being detected until college.
I was taking a course in web design alongside several other students on campus. Simple, easy. The coding was a bit tedious but I enjoyed the predictable puzzle pieces of perfection that came from a centered image or blog description. The teacher reminded me much of an English teacher and cracked jokes in between to provide tension tamers.
There was another guy in the class that tried to crack jokes too, some of them were better timed than others. Some of them were trying too hard to be the class clown, some of them were downright bad, and he’d simply be ignored for his disruption only for him to try again later. Hearing his voice behind me, put me in a state of distress. Not because I found him annoying like most of our class, but because involuntarily, I kept seeing him in various states of distress. Sometimes it was just fights, sometimes he’d be moments before an injury I couldn’t stop. Smooshed, smashed, stabbed, and attacked by something I couldn’t identify.
A week into the class, I felt it before I heard it. His voice triggered another onslaught of images that elicited a scream. Scenes that I could almost feel for myself rather than just see. The class stops as if I were in pain, they all seemed to like me very much in this class. A small one where there was little more in between projects of editing and creating blogs and websites than joking around and having fun. Our teacher, Mr. Nelson, didn’t seem to mind so long as we all got our work done. Occasionally that soft, grating voice would chirp up again behind me. Not every time, but there was a certain cue I couldn’t rightly place that would get the images to roll like scenes of a movie- an action movie at that, that was fairly rare. I thought I would be witnessing his death, but no. He was fine and every day after he would come back unscathed, some bruises that he said were from the makeup department when people asked, but the first time my scream broke out. Our class fell hushed.
I apologize and think of running out of the room in sheer embarrassment, but my blood had run cold. The images of him in various states of fighting were still coming, faster than I could process. The only other time this would happen was if I saw a neighbor’s dog wander into the street and I had the time to know the place and time it would be there to save it. I felt a similar level of protection over Quinn; the soft, cotton candy-toned blogger, the shortest in our class.
After another outburst I barely was able to cover my mouth to mask the horror that followed, my teacher looked at me in concern before noting it as something to carefully calculate and roll with. A joke directed at Q, specifically for his lackluster charm and comedy. It didn’t seem to help. I liked him and I didn’t want him either hurt physically or emotionally. After the second week of going into that class, it progressed even more poorly. It seemed that most of his jokes would trigger some kind of scream out of me and soon people would roll with that as additional moans and groans at Q’s poor taste in jokes. By the end of the class on a Wednesday, I did try to finally exit the classroom, as my heart rate accelerated and my breathing fell shallow. I was collapsed by the door, not quite close to making it. I mutter an apology for not feeling well and excuse myself to sit outside the door until I can contain myself. Tears streamed down my face uncontrollably as I retraced every moment that led up to now in a state of confusion, there were times now I was getting nightmares. I hadn’t had them since I was little. Not since when I first found out I could see brief future events, but these were incredibly specific. Triggered by one person that I felt may be hurt at any moment. I didn’t know him outside of the class and his poor jokes. The way he annoyed the other students and the occasional jabs the teacher took at his expense to pull the class back together to focus on their work rather than take turns at the expense of Q. I could admit, the whole thing was funny, but I wasn’t sure why none of this made any sense to me. Why I couldn’t react like I normally might, why Q was triggering all these visions to occur for me? Was I cursed until the end of the term?
Eventually, I gathered myself, inconclusive about the state of my present or my future and I went back to my laptop, muttering another apology. I couldn’t help but catch Q’s face painted with so much worry and regret that he was inflicting on me. Surely the class thought somehow he was intentionally trying to agitate me, though that was nowhere near the case. Neither of us understood what was going on, but I suppose they thought we knew each other. That’s the sense I got from the room, though we never shared a word. He did apologize at the end of the class despite Mr. Nelson one time breaking to make sure I was okay. I wanted to ignore the whole thing and nodded, trying to focus on my work before feeling the need to explain a bit. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m used to getting these intrusive thoughts that can often frighten me and put me in a state of distress…” This does put the class at more ease, putting me on the spot, and hoping that nobody asks questions further. Let this be enough. Of course, it was not, Mr. Nelson continued with the “if you need anything or if it starts to happen again, let me know” that I was familiar with as a child, reminding me of when I struggled and leaving me feeling like a child.
At the end of class, Q seemed to be slower to put his things away into his messenger laptop bag, straightening his hoodie. Was that a long sleeve under a short sleeve hoodie? The colors were cute but what the hell was that? With shorts? This guy was a walking nightmare… He apologizes, starting to flutter his wings. Wings?
Oh, he was an Esper. I couldn’t tell he was hovering or flying until now, right before my eyes. All I could recall was his pain. The look on his face still made my skin crawl and my stomach churn. “No, no. It’s alright. I,” I pause to gather myself and grasp for relevancy, “I didn’t realize you were an Esper. My brother collects your cards.” Though, I neglected to tell him that he groaned every time he got a Q when he was hoping for a higher-level Esper and there was always a surplus of Qs circulating around. I was too focused on his pain to see anything else. This makes his eyes light up.
“Oh, yeah! Thanks! I don’t always get recognized when I’m not out on the job, or on the job either.” Something tells me he’s not favored by onlookers either. Sure, he was a little annoying but he seemed like he had the best intentions. He was always determined and looked like he was fighting for something when he was, now I realized, in battle. There was an odd silence and his eyes looked up at me as if they were asking if they were forgiven. Ah, it was the bare minimum to do well in the end when he thought he was in the wrong that people didn’t like… Well, he hadn’t done me wrong so I tell him the truth. Mr. Nelson didn’t seem to be paying much attention, prepping for his next class, and bobbing his head to his headphones. Though still, he had his body turned our way. I relent a bit to give him more context.
“It’s not your fault,” I say, watching his shoulders relax and an exhale release, further proving to me my observation but it seems like he’s still listening. Almost waiting judging by my tone. “I’ve always been able to see these scenes play out, they’re of future events, and I kept getting this dread and I kept seeing you getting your ass kicked. I explain as minimally as I can muster. I did not like many people knowing of this, it usually turns into a parlor trick of “fortune-reading”. It didn’t work that way, at least, I didn’t want it to. His eyes light up once again and it makes my stomach drop. Here we go, I thought to myself.
“That’s incredible, you’re a seer? Like an oracle?” I furrow my brows together with clear confusion on my face. My lips parted to try and figure out what to say.
“I…wouldn’t say that. I just have clairvoyance. Random things trigger it. Touch, sound, sometimes a smell or a taste. It heavily depends on the situation and the target of the person how it’ll impact me and how their future could play out. It’s usually very short, like remembering a dream or recalling a particular scene from a movie and trying to describe it to someone. Especially with you…” He looks confused at this. “A lot of those intrusive thoughts were of you in harm’s way. It makes more sense to me now, why. You’re constantly in the line of fire.” Saying it out loud made it even more real, and made me worry and dread all the more. It made me sick to my stomach and my head a bit woozy, but I persist.
“Huh, that doesn’t entirely sound like I thought it would but that’s still really cool!” He studies me for a long time and I still feel his eyes bore into me as the air fills with an uncomfortable silence.
"All right, the two of you gotta get going. I have another class coming in and you, Q, need to get going on that webpage I told you needed rewriting.” Q rolls his eyes with a sigh.
“Fiiiine…” He says in an exaggerated manner, he’d been frustrated with it all week. Then Mr. Nelson’s eyes flutter to me.
“Maybe if you’re lucky, Billie over here will help you figure it out.” Mr. Nelson suggests with practiced patience that I admire. My eyes widen at the proposal of volunteering me.
“Uh, yeah, maybe.” Q grins at this, a sort of mischief I haven’t seen in him yet.
“Oh, come on, Billie! Can’t you see it in your future?” He nudges me playfully and I laugh only at how terrible the joke was. I heard it so many times before from kids when I told them I could see glimpses before the days I decided to keep it quiet.
“Sure, why not.” Surprising myself and Mr. Nelson turns away as Q flutters a few flips in the air happily.
“Yes! I have no idea how to get this site linked to my website without it looking all jumbled. Okay, sweet! You’re the best!” His excitement rushes me out the door, especially with his flying indoors so I redirect him outside and onto the campus courtyard.
“I’ll probably need your email, Q.” I remind him in all of his excitement.
“Oh, right! Let me give that to you. I’ll give you my number too! We can work it over some time. I can even let you into the Esper Union!”
“Are non-Espers allowed in?” He gives me a strange look, I deadpan and blink at him.
“...Yeah, I mean, you’d be a guest and it’s basically like a lounge. It’s not like they can tell me I can’t let a friend around.” Or a classmate with a class project lounge around. Well, I guess I could get a few pictures to show my brother proof of my story. He hands me back my phone that I handed to him as we spoke and walked, in his case flew. Was he allowed to do that everywhere? He didn’t seem to care, it wasn’t like Espers were common and widespread. There was a small population affected by the Miracle, but I suppose some people were affected by it in a lot of ways that could be imaginable and unpredictable.