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]

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."

[furnaceface]

Jono loosed a low whistle then, turning slowly to take in the sight of the starfield around them.

Minds, all of them, so much neater than the mess of auras that he saw when he reached out, little glimmers of consciousness that writhed and twisted and bled into one another if he didn't pay enough attention. White noise. A dull roar.

"You've got this down to an art, haven't you?" He raised a hand just slightly, but didn't dare touch anything around him, not out of fear of damaging anything, but out of respect that he was being shown this at all.

You didn't touch anything when you were a guest inside a person's head unless you'd been invited to. It wasn't yours to touch.

"It's beautiful... Stars. I never would've thought of stars."

[icecoldfrost]

"Really? With your lastname, I'd think it would be an obvious choice," Emma quipped, blowing on her star to send it dancing back where it came from. "Anyone in particular you want to see?"

[furnaceface]

"Nobody it would be especially healthy for me to ask to see," Jono admitted, shaking his head a little. "A long list of the dead, better left alone. Hell, even I'd be..."

In London, for one. Possibly just coming to the realization that it was entirely possible that he could be the first Starsmore flatscan, a disappointment even to the family that had thrown a long line of genetic disappointments.

... Or maybe he was making out with Gayle somewhere. Perhaps he was even younger than that. Hell if he knew. He wasn't about to do the math.

"Whoever you see fit, luv. I leave it up to your better judgment."

[icecoldfrost]

"I can recall people from Fandom, too, you know," she pointed out. "It doesn't have to be someone here-and-now, although that helps."

She thought about it a moment before holding out her hand, palm-up, and a bright, steadily-pulsing light with a faint aura around it, began to coalesce, rotating slowly. "Your friend, Doctor Lecter. Remarkable mental discipline, for a human."

[furnaceface]

Jonothon nodded, watching the light appear with a sort of quiet fascination.

"I've never seen one of the normals with self-control quite the way he's got," he agreed, quirking a faint smile as he glanced up from the light toward Emma. "It's impressive. Makes sense, I suppose, considering his profession. I've only rarely seen him really rattled, before."

Which he wasn't going to recall the particulars of right now. You're welcome, Emma.

[icecoldfrost]

And she'd refrained from calling him a 'flatscan' out of consideration for Jono's delicate sensibilities! Everyone was welcome!

"Really? I find it suspicious. I generally get leakage from even the most intelligent people, regardless of profession. Then again, I make my living being paranoid," Emma replied with a shrug, setting the little light free with a flick of her fingers. "Everyone in New York is mentally noisy."

[furnaceface]

Most humans were classified as 'preaks' these days at least half the time, anyway. Jono was having difficulty with terminology after that whole Age of X snafu.

"New York is noisy," Jono mused, shrugging his shoulders a little. "In a completely different way from London. You'd think there'd be some bleed, people being people, doing what people do, but America does it in a very... American way."

Jono really had no idea quite how to describe it, beyond that. At least he meant it honestly, this time, instead of his usual almost mandatory British snark?

That said, wherever Emma was suspicious, Jono couldn't help but at least wonder. He thought, briefly, about the 'be careful' that Bob had said to him before the ghosts had left the island, and then he shook his head. Now wasn't the time, anyway.

"Is he comparable to other people on the island, at least?"

Where everybody was keeping secrets. Yes, that was a good frame of reference, Jon.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma glared at him. "There is no acceptable way for me to answer that question," she complained. "Either I admit to listening to the stuff people broadcast - which everyone bitches about, and acts as if I kill kittens - or I lie. Jerk."

[furnaceface]

Jono gave his shoulders a shrug and spread his hands a little.

"I'm in no position to judge anybody for that, these days," he pointed out. "I just meant, are other people as loud? I'm not as sensitive as you are, I've been tamping my senses down for years. And now that I'm not, I'm actively hurting myself."

Because of course he was.

"Somebody said something to me once, you just brought it to mind, is all. You don't have to answer if you'd rather not."

[icecoldfrost]

"On a scale of headblind-to-Jedi? He passed Empath-Actively-Ignoring-Me and is on the way to Jedi. Which? Is not natural for a human. It's weird," she answered, making a face. "I mean, it's not Ben-Hiding-Himself-in-the-Force-to-Fuck-With-Me levels of control, or anything. And it could just be him trying to be considerate of my powers. Manners seem to be a Thing for him."

Which, coming from Emma Grace Frost, American blue-blood who wielded manners like most Fandomites used weapons, was saying a lot.

[furnaceface]

... Ha. Jono could pretty much guess who Emma had based those comparisons off. Which just reminded him of Raven's request. Which had him pinching the bridge of his nose.

Ah, my.

"Well, most of the people he seems to spend time with these days are telepathic or empathic in one form or another," he noted. "It's entirely possible that he is just being considerate. Especially since he knows I have an unpredictable tendency to pick up on telepathic bleed."

[icecoldfrost]

"No, Raven is 'Empath-Trying-Desperately-to-Hide-from-Me,' which is barely above flatscan. Sookie being cranky but not really trying that hard is 'Empath-Actively-Ignoring.' Duh," she said absently. Because, well, telepathic bleed. "And no, I don't want to know whatever Raven wants, because it's likely to make me crabby and we're busy putting your brain back together."

Although, to be honest, Raven usually made Emma cranky. Empaths and feelings and ugh.

[furnaceface]

"Fair enough," Jono replied, blinking up at her. "Like you said... brain. Putting it back together."

Last thing they needed was a heated discussion about that. Hannibal had already given Jono his opinion on that one, at any rate, and the advice had been good enough, even if he didn't quite seem to agree with Jono's cause for distress.

"I don't think I've seen Sookie cranky before, come to think of it."

[icecoldfrost]

"Most of the time Sookie is made of sugarplums and southern hospitality, but if you get her fae side riled-up, watch out. She gets zap-happy." Emma, don't sound so pleased by that. "It's glorious."

[furnaceface]

Jono gave Emma a wry smile, at that. Blue lips, barely visible through orange flame, if only for a moment.

"I have seen her use the lightning," he noted. "She actually came to me after her first time, asked me to help her control it."

Yes, he was aware of the irony in that, considering his own issues with his powers.

[icecoldfrost]

"I need to learn how to do that," she said, frowning down at her hands. "I know I can, in theory, but it's not like I have anywhere to learn anymore."