Everything Is So Loud [Sean]

[Rory Lennox]

Everywhere she went it was so loud. It had never been so hard for her to concentrate in class or even her own room. Rory had tried moving everywhere to try to stifle the sound. The library was supposed to be the quietest spot on campus, but for a telepath, it was one of the loudest.

Everywhere she went, she heard them. Some places were louder than others. Rory had been in the library, trying to finish up a project in silence, but she underestimated the amount of people who were there. She’d heard their thoughts drifting from all corners of the large room, students who were frustrated over not understanding their assignments, students reading their novels over in their minds, students daydreaming instead of doing their work. Everything.

She’d lasted about fifteen minutes before sweeping up her things and storming out.

So now she was here, in the auditorium. It was empty right now. There was no dance, chorus, or theatre practice, nothing. It was quieter here, but it was not silent. No, the murmurs of other students who were walking by or in the vicinity carried over and through the large doors. Their thoughts were muffled because of the distance, but still audible.

Rory stared down at the notebook on her lap, covered in her loopy cursive. Just…concentrate. Relax. That was what her trainer had been telling her to do. But Rory had never been very good at relaxing. She’s always been wound tight and constantly on the go, barely having a free moment since she was five.

Concentrate…

It worked, slightly. The muffled voices dulled in their volume, but they still played on in the back of her mind. But now her head was hurting from mental exertion. She heard the drip drop of something wet hitting her notebook, and her eyes widened in alarm when she saw the red stains on the stark white paper. She touched her fingers to her face, frowning when the tips came back bloody.

The young teen whimpered, her focus gone and the voices came snapping back into the forefront of her mind. Tears of frustration threatened to spill out of her eyes and she covered her ears, her last vain attempt to drown out the sound.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

One of the benefits of his position as the Hammel psychiatrist and as a trusted member of the administration was that Sean received copies of student files from the recruiting office as soon as they were made, so that he could determine who would benefit from an introductory meeting. Since he wasn’t the Headmaster, he didn’t meet with every student who came to Hammel, even if they all crossed his path by their senior year, as part of his annual Sexual Education Seminar. However, some needed to see him, even if they might not seek him out of their own volition.

Students with a psychiatric history. Students who had suffered abuse. Students who had suffered from other personal tragedy, such as a loss of a parent or sibling. Students whose recruiter noted metaphobic parents. Students who were LGBT but came from conservative backgrounds. Telepaths.

The last was personal interest as well as professional interest; he more than most people knew what it was to be a newly-manifested telepath, to struggle with the constant onslaught of voices that prevented one from having even a moment of peace. To feel like one was losing one’s grip on reality.

He had come across Rory’s file when she had transferred after the winter recess, but between the aftershocks from the Holiday Bash and the general chaos of a new term, complete with a new slew of students, he had not yet managed to get her into his office yet for an introductory session. Still, he had her file set aside for when he could finally talk to her.

Those carefully-laid plans flew out the window, as they so often did at Hammel.

He had been sitting in his office, enjoying a cup of coffee and filling out his quarterly assessment paperwork when he felt it. The sheer unbridled chaos of another telepath drowning.

He didn’t possess any meta-human sensing capabilities, or any superhuman tracking abilities, but his telepathic range was long, his scope was deep, and any trained telepath worth their salt could recognize another in pain.

Empathy more than mere professional motivated him. He left his office and started down the corridors in search of that loud mental signal, projecting pain, projecting the familiar experience of drowning.

He found her in the auditorium, empty but for her, but that was always deceptive when telepaths were involved.

Sean raised his shields to their highest level, turning his mind into an impenetrable fortress, such that he wouldn’t contribute even a smidgen to the burden. Then he stepped carefully through the aisles, passing rows of seats until he came up behind her; the poor girl, huddled up and covering her ears as though that might dull the din.

How familiar.

“Rory?” He asked gently, attempting to get her attention over the voices she undoubtedly heard.

[Rory Lennox]

It wasn’t working, it never did. It was easy to cut off other people’s voices by covering your ears, but their thoughts still played on in Rory’s mind. She just wanted it to stop…just for a minute, just one minute of silence.

Rory never liked being by herself. She got lonely very quickly and she was always most comfortable surrounded by people, at the center of their attention. But now, here she was alone in the middle of an empty auditorium, pleading for some peace, some quiet. It was something she never thought she’d find herself asking for, until it was completely lost.

But she wasn’t alone. She didn’t hear him coming, too focused on trying to dim the voices that were floating through her mind. She didn’t feel him coming either. He’d snuck up on her, which was something that had become nearly impossible since her telepathy had manifested.

She whirled around, her wide eyes glassy with tears, and blood still dripping from her nose. She quickly wiped the latter off on the sleeve of her shirt, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. She blinked, pushing her tears back. Rory didn’t cry, at least not in front of people, strangers.

“H-how do you know my name?” Rory was sure she had never seen him before, but she’d only been here for a couple months. He could have been anyone. Maybe he was a teacher, here to tell her she wasn’t allowed to be in the auditorium alone.

He didn’t look like he was about to yell at her though. And he was so quiet. She could still here the murmur of other students as they walked by, but he was so close and she wasn’t getting anything at all. It was unnerving, and oddly relieving at the same time.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

If twelve-year-old Sean Neville had anything for which to be grateful during the first months and year of his telepathy, it had been that he hadn’t experienced nose bleeds as a side effect. The headaches and migraines, the fatigue, the anxiety attacks, the difficulty falling asleep and the strange dreams, the constant hunger, and the feeling that he was losing his grip on reality had been more than enough. As had the attendant social ostracism that he suffered through for most of his time as a student. At least he hadn’t had to worry about cleaning bloodstains from his shirts.

Tears, more than nosebleeds, had prompted him to grab a handful of tissues from the box on his desk before seeking her out. He handed those over to her so she could wipe her face. “Here,” he said, “take these.”

Even if she didn’t feel better after drying her eyes and wiping blood off her face, that would be one fewer thing she need worry about, when she was already so overwhelmed by the noise.

“I know everyone’s name,” he told her gently, and he moved then to crouch beside her, slowly shifting so that he sat comfortably. “I’m Doctor Neville, the school psychiatrist.” He was the subject of rumors often enough that he was sure she had heard his name, even if he had yet to make an appointment with her.

Then he cut to the heart of the matter. “We’re alike, you know. I’m a telepath, just like you.”

[Rory Lennox]

Rory’s nosebleeds, while messy, were probably the side effect that she minded the least. She’d gotten them every now and then before her telepathy manifested, and they were more a nuisance than anything else. They didn’t hurt, they didn’t keep her constantly on edge, and they didn’t keep her up at night.

However, when all of these things were happening at once, her nosebleeds were pretty inconvenient.

When he produced tissues for her, she eyed the suspiciously for a moment before reaching out to take them, and wiping the remnants of blood off her face. “Thank you,” She said, still hesitant about how he had found her here in the auditorium.

His next statement cleared that up though. She hadn’t met another telepath since she arrived. She assumed there were several around, but she hadn’t come across any yet. At least, not until now.

Now that he’d introduced himself, she did recognize his name. Rory had heard students talk about him, but she had yet to meet him in person since she was never called to his office, nor did she think she needed to see the school psychiatrist. Still, she was unsure why he was here.

“Is that why I can’t hear you?” She asked, referring to his mental silence. If it was, than she wished everyone could do that, turn off their thoughts on a whim. Or, more realistically, she wished she would be able to turn off her telepathy. She wondered if that was even possible…

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Telepaths were less common than people with some other well-known powers. Sean had always wanted to ask the Research Department about hard statistics, but he knew that mental powers were less common than kinetic and physical powers, which was a mixed blessing. Some psychic powers made integration into society difficult, both due to the powers themselves and the attendant side effects, and the psychiatrist wouldn’t wish that on other people. At the same time, society might change for the better if there were more telepaths and empaths running around. At the very least, they would be accommodated in more areas of life.

However, Sean wouldn’t burden Rory with all of that right now, not when she was new and struggling, just as he had been long ago. When he had first come to Hammel, the recruiter had ushered him in to meet his trainer right away, because his struggles had been readily apparent to anyone who spent even three minutes in his presence. He had benefited from meeting Robert right away, and, although Sean had been the only telepathic student for a while, at least he knew he wasn’t alone.

As a psychiatrist and not a trainer, he couldn’t teach Rory the same way Robert had taught him. However, he could sit here with her and offer solidarity.

He nodded in response to her question. “That’s why you can’t hear me. I thought you could use a bit of a respite.”

[Rory Lennox]

Rory wondered how many telepaths were wandering around Hammel. She’d met a lot of telekinetics so far, as well as several people with elemental-based powers. She would have thought that the school would have grouped all the students with the same abilities together and taught classes like that. But apparently, there the less common abilities had much smaller numbers, which made sense.

She didn’t mind one-on-one training either; she just thought it would be nice to learn from other students as well. That was how it worked in dance class, and regular classes too. She was constantly learning from the older dancers, and she always progressed faster when she was surrounded by students who were more advanced than her, since she had work much harder to keep up with them.

Although, Rory was an incredibly competitive individual, so that helped a bit with her motivation as well.

“Thanks…” She said, glancing down at her notebook again. The little droplets of blood had seeped through the pages, covering some of her handwriting. She was going to have to rewrite this page.

It was nice though…being in the same proximity as someone and not hearing every thought that was going through their mind. “Some people don’t realize how loud they’re actually being.” This made Rory wonder how loud her thoughts were to those who could hear them. Her personality was loud in general, so she could only assume her thoughts were as well. She inwardly grimaced at the thought of being the cause of someone else’s migraine or nosebleed.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Perhaps one day the yearbook committee would succeed in changing the yearbook format so that beneath the individual photos with the corresponding names, they also had a line about the particular student’s powers. Sean wouldn’t propose that, but he also had no sway over the yearbook committee.

He also knew that some of the trainers ran group training sessions, at least occasionally. However, he had no information about specifics, because, as the school psychiatrist, he played no role in training methods or schedules. He had benefitted from the one-on-one training, and, personally, he believed that, more generally, psychic powers lent themselves to one-on-one training more than physical powers like shapeshifting or super speed.

However, despite not being a trainer, he knew a thing or two about helping other psychics, particularly other telepaths, entirely due to his own personal experience.

With her remark, he nodded in agreement. “Most people have no conception,” he replied, and his expression remained sympathetic. “It’s because they can’t hear themselves, the same way that many hearing impaired people yell, because they have no way to modulate their voices.”

That did little to change the underlying situation, which was that other people’s thoughts were loud and intrusive. Even those of other telepaths, if they didn’t shield properly.

Fortunately, Sean could shield properly.

[Rory Lennox]

Rory didn’t advertise her telepathy. If anything, she preferred not to tell people unless they specifically asked what she was able to do. For the most part, not a lot of people were thrilled about it when they found out she was able to read their minds. Thoughts were supposed to be private, and the fact that Rory could hear them unnerved some people. A lot of people actually. And she didn’t like telling people what she was able to do because she was afraid they wouldn’t want to be around her after they found out.

And whether or not she wanted to be around people was an entirely different story. She used to love being around as many people as possible, and being the center of attention. She thrived off of it. It was different now though. The fact that she could hear people’s thoughts and secrets were unnerving to her as well. It gave her a headache and some things she certainly didn’t want to hear. She was hoping that with more practice, she’d be able to filter out and block what most people were saying. But right now, it definitely seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

“I get it…” Rory certainly didn’t expect people to reign in their thoughts just on her account. She wasn’t supposed to be able to hear them, so why should they? “It’s just hard because being around people makes my head hurt.” Which, in turn, was hard because Rory hated being alone.

“And it never stops…” Rory’s trainer said that it would eventually get easier, but right now it didn’t seem like it ever would.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had adopted a similar behavior pattern and attitude regarding his powers when he had been her age, and younger, since he had manifested at an earlier age than she had. As a student, he had tried to fly under the radar, although that had proven impossible. His public power meltdowns, his noticeable side effects, and the rumor mill had been enough to make sure that he couldn’t hide among his peers. Then, as he had become older and learned to control his abilities, in turn growing comfortable with them, his entire self-conception had shifted. He didn’t brag about his powers, but he was happy to let people know he was a telepath, because it constituted such a core part of his identity. It could sound trite, but he believed that she would grow into her powers, because he had and so had so many telepaths who came before her.

That had no bearing on anti-psychic bias, and he still faced that in his personal life and in his professional life. But he believed that they could only combat that by engagement. However, that was far too much to lay on her shoulders at the moment.

At the moment, he settled for sitting beside her and engaging her in sympathetic conversation coupled with solidarity.

The psychiatrist nodded in understanding. “I know,” he said gently. “That eventually gets easier, but it’s a long way off for now.”

He nodded again, this time closing his eyes briefly while he did so. “It’s the burden we have to life with as telepaths.”

[Rory Lennox]

Blending into the background had never been something Rory was good at. Not only did she enjoy when everyone’s attention was focused on her, it just sort of happened naturally because of her loud and outgoing personality. She didn’t really know how to turn that off, or even down. So, she thought that maybe just keeping her telepathy a secret would be the best option for now. Or at least until someone asked. Rory was pretty good at lying, but she didn’t think it’d be a good idea to lie about something as important as what abilities she possessed as a meta-human. No, that probably wouldn’t earn her any friends.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to get any easier.” Rory admitted, sinking down further in her seat. Even when she did learn to control her powers, she knew that telepaths weren’t always the most accepted meta-human powers. Though she hadn’t had any first-hand experiences with psychic, or even meta-human prejudices, aside from the wary looks she’d received when people found out she could hear their thoughts, she did have access to the Internet. She’d read articles, even before she came to Hammel, about what people thought about her kind. Most of them didn’t have a lot of nice things to say.

A burden? Rory didn’t want to think of her ability as a burden, but that was what it was beginning to seem like. She’d seen other the other students at Hammel who could do amazing things with fire or water, or change into all kinds of animals and…it just didn’t seem fair. They could do all these amazing things, and Rory could hear voices that just wouldn’t go away. 

“I just miss being able to be around people.” It’d gotten better since the first few weeks after her manifestation. At this point she was able to stand being around a couple people at once, but eventually she’d start to get a headache if she was there too long.

And then Rory realized she must sound like such a crybaby. Like she was the only telepath to ever have these problems. “Sorry, I usually don’t complain this much.” She said, sheepishly. At least not to strangers.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean considered that the difference between introversion and extroversion. He had discussed his years as a student at Hammel with his partner before, and Josh expressed complete disbelief that he had been able to survive. It had been lonely, and the psychiatrist wouldn’t wish that level of ostracism and stress on anyone else (which, in turn, led to the great amount of empathy he felt for other telepaths); at the same time, at least he’d had his trainer, and, more importantly, he was an introvert. He was an introvert who genuinely enjoyed the company of other people, but he didn’t need attention or crowds the way that Josh did, the way that extroverts did. As a result, the ostracism had hurt, and his powers suffocated him, but he didn’t feel cut off as though he might die.

If only certain personality types had particular powers; it would make adjustment easier.

Then again, after forty-six years as a telepath, he had yet to conceive of a way to make that adjustment period easier. Life changed in a hundred ways one could articulate and in a thousand that one couldn’t.

The psychiatrist nodded, his expression one of openness and identification. He had been where she was, although in another world, it had been so long ago. “It always feels that way at first,” he assured her. “Between the noise and the side effects, it seems impossible. I know it’s easier said than done, but it will get better.”

Experience taught him that firsthand.

He didn’t reach out to touch her, because he didn’t want to intrude on her space. However, he remained seated beside her, not shrinking away as other people might. “I know how that feels. With training, little by little it gets easier to be around non-telepaths. First one, then two, and then, eventually, you can handle a crowd.”

Eventually. He wouldn’t lie to her and say that she could master this by the end of the month. It took years of training, but it was possible.

Sean didn’t consider telepathy a burden in and of itself. However, there were aspects that were burdensome: learning to navigate what was safe to say and what one had to consider a secret, interacting with non-telepaths in a world created by and for non-psychics, side effects...still, he wouldn’t trade his powers for anything in this world. He had grown into them, and now he couldn’t imagine life without them.

He cracked a smile at her apology, gentle, reassuring. “If you can’t complain to a psychiatrist and a fellow telepath, then who can you complain to?”

[Rory Lennox]

Coming to Hammel, Rory had known that it wasn’t going to be easy adjusting to her new abilities. The recruiter had told her when they spoke in Phoenix, just days after her manifestation. Her trainer had also told during her first few days at the Institute. However, even if they hadn’t, Rory would have known. The migraines, the voices, the headaches…they didn’t seem like things that would go away after just a few days.

Still, the knowledge didn’t really make it any easier. She had to choose between being lonely on her own, or being miserable around other people. As a true extravert, down to her core, she found her headaches were more endurable than the loneliness. And after a while, she’d just gotten used to them; a bottle of Excedrin ready in her bag at all times.

Rory had made several friends during her months here, and it was easier than it had been. She was able to stand being around one or two people, but the crowds that lingered in the background always managed to spike her migraines as well. She couldn’t avoid that though; it was almost impossible. So she was just going to have to learn to deal with it.

She did believe Dr. Neville that things would eventually get better, but it was difficult because she wasn’t able to now. As a dancer, it would be difficult to perform. Did that mean she wouldn’t be able to for the next one or two or even five years? The thought made her want to cry. “That’s what everyone keeps saying.” She fiddled with her pen in her lap, biting her lip.

Rory had been finding that her telepathy was indeed, much more trouble than it was worth. She found herself hearing things she didn’t want to know, and she wasn’t very good at keeping secrets. Then again, how many fourteen year old girls were?

She gave him a small smile as well, though it was mostly to be polite. She answered his question with a shrug, “I usually don’t complain to anyone.” About anything. She didn’t really have a lot of problems before her telepathy manifested, and her dance teachers had a very strict mantra, telling their students to suck up their problems unless they were physically hurt.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Unfortunately, Sean didn’t have solutions to learning to cope, beyond the tips that he gave and the sympathy that he freely offered. By their very nature, training and recruitment had to be separate, and, depending on the personalities and powers of the people involved, some bonded more easily with one or the other. The psychiatrist had bonded emotionally with his trainer to an extent uncommon among the Hammel population, but James Campbell had become closer to his recruiter than to his trainer. He could only hope that Rory would have some level of connection with her trainer, since Robert had died a decade ago, and, even if he hadn’t, he would be close to 100 years old and no longer able to teach students.

“I know,” he said gently. He had been in this same situation, or one that bore a striking resemblance to it. Curled up into himself as though that might shield him from the noise, his temples throbbing, his entire body aching and fatigued, kicked out of class again because his powers had caused a disruption, or else because he had to take his exams in that tiny, windowless alternative testing space, and firmly convinced that he would never graduate because shielding seemed impossible. Back then, his trainer assured him each and every time that, as difficult it was now, he would learn to cope, because he was a telepath, and that was what telepaths did.

Robert had been correct, as he always was and always had been. Sean had learned to control his powers, his side effects had grown less severe over time, and, now, he couldn’t fathom life without his powers, because they were as much a part of him as his personality or his five normative senses.

However, he had also been a telepath for closer to five decades now than to four, and that could seem impossible when one was a young teenager. “It might not seem like the most helpful thing to hear in the moment, but I found it helpful to have something to hold onto in the most overwhelming moments.”

In the moments when he had felt hopeless, afraid, and overwhelmed.

Then, in response to her other admission, he replied, “Unfortunately, with the telepathy now, complaints have a way of getting out. You might as well confide in someone who knows how to keep a secret.”

[Rory Lennox]

Rory had yet to be kicked out of her classes for disrupting other students. As loud as the voices were sometimes and as hard as her head would throb, so far she’d done a fairly good job of keeping it on the inside. As a disciplined dancer, learning how to endure and never complain was something that came naturally to her, like second nature.

However, she’d been visibly upset and embarrassed the first time she’d been pulled out of class to take a test in a separate room. She understood why, and she would admit that it was easier to concentrate away from the buzzing thoughts of her classmates, but still… It didn’t feel great to be separated from your peers over something you couldn’t control.

And it was humiliating that they thought she would cheat. Well, maybe it was more that she couldn’t control what she could and couldn’t hear that prompted them, but to the rest of her classmates, her telepathy probably labeled her as a would-be cheater.

Rory supposed it did help that other people were assuring her that things would look up eventually. It was better than being told that it was going to be like this forever, no matter how hard she tried. Still, the fact that it wouldn’t get better for years didn’t do too much to lift her spirits right now. “It does help a little bit. That just seems really far away right now.” Which was not sure she wanted it to be.

She’d heard a lot of other students complaining about the side effects their powers caused, but Rory had remained relatively silent, other than a passing comment about a headache one someone inquired every now and then. Truthfully, Rory had a lot of things to complain about, and they didn’t only include her frequent migraines and the voices. Missing her friends, not being able to dance as much as she used to, readjusting to the public school system, having too much time on her hands, feeling like no one will want to be around her when they find out about her telepathy, the list went on. Unfortunately, she wasn’t so sure Dr. Neville would want to hear her drone on and on about her problems. There were students who had it worse than her, weren’t there?

She half smiled, letting out a humorless laugh. “Everything’s just been…hard. And different.” Definitely very different than what she was used to.