Emma's Flat, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. [Feb 2nd, Afternoon, Marvel Time//Friday Afternoon, Fandom Time.]

[icecoldfrost]

Emma had...drunk. A lot. And had only her mutant metabolism to thank for not having alcohol poisoning. Hallelujah, genetic awesomeness. The only thing saving her from an epic hangover was using up the vast majority of the hot water in the building, more coffee than God, and eating an entire box of frozen waffles. Candy had already departed for her own apartment, to shower and finish sleeping off last night's revels, leaving Emma and Jono alone to talk shop.

"So, are you going to tell me why your brain feels like swiss cheese - more than usual - or do I get to guess?" Emma crammed the last bite of waffle in her mouth in a manner that should not be physically possible before pointing her fork at Jono. << You promised. >>

[OOC: For that dude!]

Comments

[icecoldfrost]

"If you could handle it -- physically, psychically, or emotionally -- you wouldn't be confessing to me right now," Emma retorted. "--and if I'm noticing without peeking, you are too going to sprain your brain, because you're doing it wrong."

Emma got up to pad into her tiny kitchen area and pour herself a glass of water. "Since you're a damned idiot and not going stop whatever I say - Atlas - you're going to start doing it right. Starting with me patching whatever you've broken in the last few months."

Emma was going to kill Morton. Slowly.

[furnaceface]

Atlas. Fitting enough. Weight of the world on his shoulders, and there was no putting it down, was there?

//... That...// Normally, that would be a hard 'nope.' Jono was either tired enough, or had put himself together enough, that he wasn't about to argue. //... That would be good. Thank you. I should've asked earlier, I know, but everything just kept getting away on me.//

He shrugged his shoulders a little.

//I'm looking forward to this being over. I might take more time to myself on the island when it is. Not that I think for a second that Karla is capable of making responsible grown-up decisions that won't get her killed, these days. But at least she'll have the Ebon-sodding-Grey back and can throw up a shield when need be.//

[icecoldfrost]

"Yes, well, Karla is supposedly a damn adult, and if her decisions get her killed, that's her problem. I'll just go on a rampage until I feel better," Emma replied, although both she and Jono knew that wasn't completely true.

She leaned back against the counter, sipping her water. "Don't worry, you're going to be with me every step of the way, and I'll make sure you know exactly what I'm doing and how it works. No unrequested alterations; cross my heart and hope to lie."

[furnaceface]

At least that got a bit of a Jono sort of laugh out of him, a glimmer of tangible amusement, however brief, as he bowed his head a little.

//I appreciate that, Emma,// he replied. //Not that I don't think you want what's good for me, of course. I don't trust anybody in there.//

Karla got to take a peek, just once. She wrote on the walls, even temporarily, and then he didn't invite her in again, either.

//But I'm no good to anybody, least of all myself, if I keep going like this. I get that.//

[icecoldfrost]

"Ugh, you're making it sound like I said that out of consideration for your feelings or something," she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "It's totally self-interest. If you see what I do and how I do it, next time you can do it yourself instead of making me play nursemaid."

She loves you too, Jono.

[furnaceface]

//There's that, too,// Jono agreed, not bothering to conceal his mild amusement at her protest. //... Actually starting to get to... to a point where maybe I'd be up for learning a bit more about what I'm capable of. Not just for everybody else's sake, for once.//

For as twisted up and broken inside that he was, he was finally, finally getting to a point where maybe he wanted to try to better himself for his own damn sake, too.

[icecoldfrost]

"Oh my God, he might actually live up to his potential," Emma deadpanned. "Will wonders never cease?"

[furnaceface]

//Don't get too excited now, or I might realize what I'm doing,// Jono replied, equally deadpan. //I'm just... tired of being afraid of myself. I figure everybody else is already doing an excellent job of that for me, they don't need my help.//

[icecoldfrost]

"Thank you!" Emma yelled, throwing up her hands in VICTORY. "I didn't even have to roofie you this time! It's a miracle!"

"Wait, are you real-Jon or pod-person-Jon? Just checking."

[furnaceface]

//I doubt I'd admit it if I happened to be a pod person,// Jono pointed out. //But it's more likely that I've just had my fill of bullshit I can't fix while I'm at odds with my own bloody body. My mind, I'm working on. Probably will be forever, fine, I've made my peace with that one. But...//

He shrugged his shoulders.

//I just came to terms recently with the fact that one of my biggest fears is myself. And I'm dangerous, fine, but in those rare and very refreshing moments when nobody else is in control of my powers, I was thinking maybe it would be nice if perhaps I was.//

[icecoldfrost]

"Of course you're dangerous. Humans are dangerous. You and I are spectacularly dangerous creatures, and it's part of what makes us fabulous." Ego, thy name, as always, is Frost.

"Now then, let's take a look at that brilliant little brain of yours, hrm?" she continued, coming back over and taking a seat on the floor. "How much work have you put into creating your shields? Do you have a preferred visualization?"

[furnaceface]

//Walls,// he replied, making himself comfortable across from her. //They're... simple. Straightforward. I can pull a wall up in seconds if I need to. And for the most part, they work. Shite against stronger telepaths, though, at least when I'm not at my best.//

Karla crumbling them to dust while he was a broken and bleeding mess on his bathroom floor came to mind. But then, that had been while he was powerless and headblind. It had been a wonder he'd been able to pull up walls at all, back then.

[icecoldfrost]

"We can work with walls. The nice part is, they're easy to patch. And while they are fairly simplistic to break... there's ways around that," she said. "...I assume you are familiar with the works of Escher?"

He had broken her out of the Labyrinth, after all. But Emma preferred not to talk about that. It still hurt, for many reasons.

[furnaceface]

And if she wasn't going to mention it, he certainly wasn't about to. Instead, he just nodded a little.

//Intimately enough, yes. You're saying I ought to make it so that it's difficult for anybody to tell which way is up, in my head?//

[icecoldfrost]

"You're in charge. Wherever you are becomes the center of the maze. Spin it 15 degrees and walk ten paces. Move the walls. Maybe a gap turns into a pit of spiders. Hell, flip the maze upside-down for shits and giggles. You shape your reality when it comes to your own mind," Emma replied. "Have you ever seen the interior of mine?"

[furnaceface]

//If I did, it was lifetimes ago,// Jono replied, shrugging his shoulders a little. //I once found myself stuck quite by accident in the head of a telepath who rather enjoyed cat-and-mouse games, so I have some idea of what you're saying...//

He tamped down thoughts of the last place he'd shown somebody in his head. Nobody deserved a walking tour of Neverland. Not even people he didn't want to have in there.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma was a lady - and, actually, trying to help for once - so she outwardly ignored anything Jono was projecting.

"Here," she offered instead, holding out her hand. "Take a look, if you like. Besides, it may help you feel more in control if you look in my brain first, to see that I don't have any ulterior motives beyond giving you control of yourself."

[furnaceface]

Jono tilted his head a little, and then nodded, reaching for Emma's hand.

//It might,// he agreed. //And I'll admit I'm curious to see what the inside of the head of somebody who's not a member of the Blood actively plotting to murder Karla looks like.//

He'd seen a lot of those, lately.

[icecoldfrost]

What Jono would find was, instantly, a featureless white space. No floor visible, only fog rolling around up to his ankles. No landmarks, no sun, no sky. Just white.

"Can you find me?" The voice was everywhere and nowhere at once, before a thousand-million shadow-Emmas clad in different clothes faded in-and-out of view. Ghosts in streets that didn't exist. "Why put up walls when you can be an open book?"

Emma, it should be stated for the record, was kinda a bitch.

[furnaceface]

All-white eyes glanced around the white space, looking at the ghosts as they came and went. He was different in this shared headspace, just as much fire as flesh, melting between all of the faces he knew to be his own, like glowing embers shifting across burned wood.

He was still discovering who he was all over again. Even he wasn't certain which face was his, and so he was keeping them all until he could be sure.

"How...?" He turned on his heel, reached for the Emma nearest to him with a hand that had fire shifting over it as though his skin was made of burning oil. "Are they echoes, or reflections, or...?"

[icecoldfrost]

"Will-bes, might-have-beens, and wishful thinking," replied a voice beside him, and there was Emma, solid, clad in white and with hair so impossibly blonde it looked almost silver. "Whatever I want them to be, actually. Oh, the ones that are echos have more autonomy than the rest, but they're all still me and I am them, and I have the control."

All of them stopped, suddenly, to turn and look at them before vanishing completely with a wave of Emma's hand. "They make lovely camouflage, if one doesn't mind occasionally being reminded of poor fashion choices."

[furnaceface]

Emma-in-white. Now there was a familiar sight, and Jono had to take a moment to register that it was this Emma standing in front of him.

"Fashion choices are the least of my worries," he decided, pursing lips that were pink, no, blue, no, just flame, before shrugging his shoulders a little. "With the exception of one rather unfortunate costume back in my New Warriors days. And some of the hair I wore in the 90s..."

He would never admit to that mullet, and you couldn't make him.

"Hell, I might have more echoes than most to choose from. And wishful thinking is something that I rather excel at."

[icecoldfrost]

"Don't we all," she sighed, shaking her head. "Most of us have far too many regrets and wishes that will never be filled - might as well make use of them."

"But this? This is what an interloper finds. A step further in and further up?" Emma offered her hand again, this time with a grin. "Don't worry, you can't burn me."

[furnaceface]

Jonothon simply nodded and reached for Emma's hand with his own. Grey skin with black-tinted nails, covered in oil-slick fire. Thin, deft, pale fingers. A musician's hands.

He was smiling a little, his expression wry on a face that was only half-there, a wonder his lips were visible at all with the way he'd been utterly hollowed out, and then little more than a skeleton on fire for a second or two before that was swallowed up in flesh again as well.

"I have to admit, now you've got me curious," he replied, nodding. "I have to give props to anybody who manages to get beyond this as it is."

[icecoldfrost]

"A few," she said simply, "--only the ones I've invited."

--and they dropped through the ground to land in...stars. Above, below, all around. Encompassed by the night sky.

"The way I see the world," Emma informed him, reaching out to pull a star close to her, cupping it in her hands. "People's minds, every one. Oh, I can turn it into a room or a car or put whatever physical projection on it I want to make it more defined, but this is my throne room, as it were. The center of the maze."