apocalipped | Room 408, Wednesday Morning

Entry tags:

Room 408, Wednesday Morning

Jonothon was twitchy.

Not twitchy as in random muscle spasms or anything, of course. More twitchy in that way that meant that he couldn't actually sit still for more than a few moments at a time, and he kept double-checking things like the curtains to make certain that they were drawn shut tightly, and he kept locking and unlocking the door, just to be certain that that much wasn't busted. But then, if he locked the door, that might give the wrong impression, and...

He was overthinking this. He was good at overthinking things lately, wasn't he? Okay, Chamber, just sit on your bed, clasp your hands, and wait. Nothing was going to explode just because you happened to be sitting there. Truly.

Bollocks.

[Jono is waiting for somebody, yes, but that doesn't mean that other people can't pay a visit to the silent dorm room, too.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Mornings," Didi repeated again, and brushed her hair out of her eyes as she realized something.

"... we're just going to be stupid at each other until you show me, huh?"

//Yes, I imagine so.// That earned a bit of a smile, there, yes. Though it was an awkward one. The kind that existed mostly to cover up how bloody terrified he was.

... Not that Jonothon ever knew fear. Really. Truly. Or so he'd have you believe, if he could get away with it. Judging by the way he was running his fingers through his hair and trying not to make a bolt for the door, such was probably not the case in the least.

//Do yer know what a mutant is, luv?//

He was still stalling, yes.

"There are a couple of kinds of mutants, but it's one word for people with organic superpowers," Didi answered patiently. She was good at patient; she was pretty sure she could wait out the stalling. "Most people at home say metahuman, but same idea. You can do something somebody normal like me can't do."

Let's leave aside the weirdness of her calling herself normal for now.

//... Fair enough.//

Yes, he fully realized that he was asking Death if she knew what something was.

//I'll stop stalling now. Honest. It's just that... Some mutants are more obvious to look at than others, yer know? People who can't show their faces in the light of day,// or, in his case, even in the dark of night, //without bein' immediately recognizable for what they are. I'm not...//

He furrowed his eyebrows and reached for her hand. He liked her hand. It was small and gentle and Didi. He maybe needed that a little right now.

Didi squeezed his hand back. She'd taken a lot of hands in her time; it was unfair that she had the immediate thought she liked his best.

And his uncertainty was breaking her heart, especially since she'd already guessed as much. (He clearly didn't wear the bandages for fun.)

"I know," she said, and brought a finger of her spare hand up to brush down from his ear and toward his wrappings. "Can I -?"

He didn't have a jaw, didn't need to breathe, didn't have a throat, but he was still certain somehow that if he were to try to speak, he'd choke on it.

So he nodded. She could pull them down. It wouldn't burn her, after all.

She met his eyes as she carefully, almost tenderly, pulled the bandages to one side and watched a jet of blue flames come out, almost as if it had been waiting for her. The skin around the edges was torn, almost raw.

It was, somehow, both worse than she'd imagined and easier. Worse in that it looked painful; easier in that fire, at least, was familiar.

She let the bandage snap back into place. "That" -- she swallowed -- "That doesn't hurt you?"

//It did hurt, at first,// he replied, keeping her gaze for all of a moment before turning it somewhere toward his knees. //Now there's not much left to hurt.//

He lifted a shoulder. Small shrug. She was still here. They were still there. It was okay.

Okay.

//It'll slowly burn away at what's there. Has been, since it happened, so slow I didn't notice for awhile. But I don't feel much of anything.//

Edited 2009-09-30 14:41 (UTC)

She was here. Not. Going. Anywhere.

She squeezed the hand she'd kept hold of.

"It'll burn away until -?"

Was it going to kill him? It was one thing to know death wasn't an awful stranger. It was another to be looking at a boy she liked with a wound she couldn't heal.

//I don't know,// he finished, shaking his head and looking up at her again. //Until that's all I am, maybe. It's already taken...//

This was weird conversation, yes indeed.

//My heart, lungs. I can't eat or breathe, but I'm still here. Still about as alive as I've ever been.//

Didi shuddered a little at the mental image of the flames consuming him. Beings existed with worse, but -- beings were beings. Jono was Jono.

"How long ago did it happen?" she asked, trying to keep the catch out of her tone.

//Months,// Jono replied. //All at once. Was out one evening, clubbing. With--//

He tapered off. Shook his head. Gayle. All kinds of messy, that thing with Gayle. He'd run from her, left her behind to deal with it, never looked back. Hated himself for it. Wouldn't be surprised if she hated him, too.

//It was like a naffin' bomb went off. Destroyed the Coat Check area, did... a number on the one I was with.//

It was hard to say Didi went pale, since she was already so fair, but her lips lost their color. Not from fear; from sympathy.

She bit those lips. "What -- I'm sorry." That was the first thing to say. "So it just ... happened? That would be terrifying for you."

He nodded, one long, slow motion of his head that served more to let him divert his eyes back to his knees than as any sort of agreement.

//Within seconds,// he murmured. //It went from me and Gayle,// his voice sounded fairly thin at that name, //to me beggin' her t'get away, knowin' somethin' was wrong. She didn't. From there, all I remember is fire and begging anything in the universe that'd listen to make th'pain go away. When I woke up again, there wasn't anything left to feel.//

There was a long pause as Didi tried to put her feelings into words.

"And now you're here," she said, echoing his words from earlier. The tone and the look on her face was one of sympathy. "About as alive as you've ever been."

//Just about, yes.//

And she was still here, too. Sitting right there. Not leaving. Jono gave her hand a light squeeze, sort of a silent thank you for that much. For listening.

//Didi, luv. If yer can't... this. I mean.// Usually, he was better with words. Why was it that the moment anything felt as though it might mean something, he always managed to lose them entirely? //I'd understand.//

"Um."

She winced for the first time. "There's kind of a ... there are two reasons this is a stupid idea for you."

Which was not saying she didn't want to do it.

//I'm good at stupid ideas.// Which was to say, this was now a bit of a twitch in the back of his head, and there was something he wasn't quite grasping here, and maybe he'd been looking too far into something or other and now would be an excellent time for him to please just peel up and sail off in the wind, never to be seen or heard from again?

... No?

Fine.

//Enlighten me?//

"The first one is that Endless aren't supposed to ... be more-than-friends with mortals," Didi said, with a glance to him to make sure this was what he was talking about and she hadn't totally misconstrued everything, like maybe now there was totally platonic hand-holding in London.

"We -- we set the rule because my brother kept doing really stupid, screwed up things every time he got dumped, and my sister broke her engagement and ... it wasn't good."

Falling blossoms. Delight into Delirium. That kind of not good. She flopped onto his pillow. "I mentioned my family's weird, right?"

His gaze followed her, and then he shook his head.

//I'm used to weird families, luv.//

Okay. They were on the same page, then. Jono could resume breathing. Figuratively.

//So, this is all against th'rules, then?// A beat. //I never was much one for followin' rules.//

"Mmmm, pretty much." She smiled at him, a tiny curve of her mouth. "I don't mind rules, but I'm mortal right now, so it's bending, not ... breaking. Exactly. And, y'know, I'm not going to send you to hell for 10,000 years if you turn me down."

//If I had it in mind t'turn yer down, luv, we wouldn't be sittin' here, having this conversation right now.//

Although now he was vaguely curious if she could send him to Hell for 10,000 years. He'd always kind of figured that Hell was something a little more permanent.

... He was overthinking things again.

//Yer said there were two things?//

"... yeah," Didi said. "Uh, other one is ... I'm not going to be here forever. I don't know when, but ... sometime I'll have to go back to work."

//Yer sayin' this to a bloke who came to terms with the fact that he wasn't going to be here forever a long while ago,// Jono pointed out. //Yer don't know when it ends, I don't know when it ends. I believe that's what's commonly known as 'living.'//

He attempted a smile. One of those corners-of-the-eyes ones. It was, so far as Jonothon's smiles went, a full and sincere one.

//Yer get a day or a year or a lifetime, same as the rest of us.//

"A day or a year or a million years," Didi said. "It's all a lifetime, Jono."

She curved toward him slightly, not sure if she could trust that smile. "So you already know that once you're alive, there's only one way to ... stop being alive. Well, for a mortal, anyhow."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject