strangetrip | GP: April Fools!

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GP: April Fools!

It didn't take any sort of precognitive abilities to predict some kind of shenanigans on the first of April. Many of the people stuck in the bubble world of the Madonna Inn were from times and places where April Fools' Day pranks were normal, expected... (in many cases) minor annoyances. And then there were the residents who remembered the strange egg hunt from a year ago, and the sometimes confusing explanations of the two holidays falling on the same day and how that related.

Also, life at the inn could be interminable. After a while, people started hoping for some kind of strangeness to happen, just to break up the monotony of being trapped in a kitschy no-snow globe.

So, no. You didn't have to be a mutant fortune teller to expect some kind of joke being pulled. But Emma was, and even she had no idea what was coming, other than it was going to be frustrating and topsy-turny, and the visions she'd been getting from the tarot – and way more reversals than was usual or healthy in her experience – were even less clear than usual.

She definitely didn't foresee waking up without the powers that were as much a part of her as her heart. Or just as suddenly having powers she had no idea how to control. But she did, and she had*, and she was far from the only one. The same thing was happening to people all around the inn.

(*Not to worry. The singe marks should be gone in a day or so. Right?)

[Powers swap GP! Tag in. Tag around. It's a time for out and about at the inn coping (or not) with powers gained (or lost).]

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He rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm asking about," Quill said and then shook his head. "Are you at least going to explore other human things? Like a hot tub without having to feel like you're water logged?"

Rocket pointed. "I'm reachin' high shelves without climbing, man. That's the best fuckin' thing. Besides, the water in the pools an' things is chemical enough even a broken humie nose can smell it."

"Nah, I drink a lot anyway." Rocket shrugged. "I like bein' able to reach the shelves, though. Gonna miss that shit when I go back ta bein' me."

Mia's brow furrowed, not realizing that it had. "They should put some shelves down low so that you can reach them and put the alcohol that you prefer there as well."

Even through her distress, Corbie recognized the immediate strangeness of Mildmay offering his arm rather than his hand. But she trusted him, and she needed him too much to question it.

Tentatively, Corbie reached out and touched him, reminding herself that someone at least was solid and--

"Mildmay? You feel cold."

"Not the only one," he agreed, voice gruff, but working as usual to make his words clear enough to understand. He hadn't really talked with her before, and between his accent and his scar, people could have trouble until they got used to him.

"Guessing you're not getting stuck as a animal, huh."

"Yeah." Wasn't no sense trying to deny it. "Lotta weird shit going around. I keep freezing things without meaning to. But I'm getting better controlling it. I think." He hoped. "Just... hold onta my sleeve, but if it gets too cold, leggo and tell me."

Corbie hesitated a moment, not because she didn't want to touch him but because she was thinking about taking his hand anyway. But if Mildmay was worried he might hurt her, she'd take that seriously. She looped her hand into his elbow and let him help her up.

Quill looked at his friend like Rocket had just told him that he didn't like chocolate.

"Rocket, you're a human now," He said. "You should take advantage of that. Like... eat a lot. We have big stomachs."

Storm had to struggle to understand what he was saying, but it wasn't as hard as it could have been before her time with other mutants. It didn't help that English was her third language, but after picking up every second or third word, she was able to piece together what he said.

"I am not turning into an animal." She agreed with a hint of amusement, "but I have sprouted butterfly like wings."

Mildmay was something of a worrier. But better safe than sorry, and he wasn't gonna risk hurting Corbie if he could help it.

He helped her up and started without more explanation toward the temple, hopefully without the ghosts or anybody else seeing her like this. He wasn't sure whether it'd keep the ghosts out or not, but even if it didn't, being close to her Lady might help somehow. Least he hoped so. It made sense to him anyways. Catching sight of something outta the corner of his eye, Mildmay looked back over his shoulder and saw – what the fucking fuck? – Corbie still huddled in her corner, even though he could feel her there at his side, hand curled around his arm.

"Corbie?" he asked, the low whisper even the youngest kept-thieves learned that wouldn't carry further than the one they were talking to.

Taking the cue, Corbie didn't respond aloud, looking back as well without a sound.

When she saw herself there--was that what she looked liked?--she went pale. It was hard enough meeting her other self at Christmas when she seemed so calm and self-assured. This...

"Let's go," she whispered back. She was going to lose her shit if that other self looked up and met her eyes.

Jackson stayed in the infirmary. He didn't need to sleep, and he had no real use for his room. He brought all of his medical texts over, and he read through them in between being called on to help, like with Coby's friend (lover) who could not handle his new state of being (feeling). Jackson knew, intellectually, how overwhelming feelings could be. He had memories. But he felt so far removed from them. All he could do was treat the young man.

After finding a good dosage for the meds Miss River Tam helpfully brought over, on April 2, Jackson released him, and was once again alone in the infirmary. He went back to reading. Some time during the third day, he finished the last of his books. Some time during that third night, he decided to risk leaving the infirmary and go seek companionship in the bar. An interesting conversation, hopefully, with a night owl, given that it was closing on two am. He didn't understand the need to do something itching at him, so the best thing to do was to remedy the situation, and his processes would go back to normal.

He wondered how Corbie was doing, his LED light flashing briefly to yellow on his temple.

He ignored that, too.

It was like a fire Jag hadn't been able to control. Raging through him, coursing through his veins, raking through his heart and mind. Flames of too much eating up everything that had been him.

With the pills, the fire was a little more under control.

Jag wasn't used to being burned. Now every moment felt like he might get singed on someone. But the panic was gone, at least. People were calmer by the time he started to feel like maybe he could exist again. By the time he took a few tentative steps out of the infirmary on that second day.

Later, he curled up in the hayloft in the stables, after spending some time tending to the horses. They were easier by far than people. Quieter, steadier. The fire felt manageable here. He wasn't used to feeling chilly, so he made himself a nest out of hay. He spent the night up in the loft.

Come morning, he snuck into the suite he shared with Em for a quick shower and a change of clothes. He took his pills. He waited until the world felt manageable again.

Then he ventured outside, and tried the café for breakfast. He stood poised in the doorway, reeling a little from the people inside, the licks of their thoughtemotions against the core of who he was. This had been a bad idea, and he turned around to go. To flee. To run.

He'd always been a better runner than fighter, when it mattered.

He found himself outside Coby's empty room, curled up with his back to his door, waiting for him to show up.

He avoided public places, after that. Snuck in and out when he needed something from the kitchen, the boutique, anywhere. Snuck into the temple, too, stayed with la Kali a long while, paid his respects to Fortuna and the Raven Queen. Spent more time with the horses than not. At least he could function, after a fashion. The fire was manageable, as long as he took his meds. He would cling to that.

"I'm sure it's only a passing problem," Vex assured him, and herself, if she was being honest. "Most strangeness here only last a day or two. Three at most.

"At least Elaina doesn't seem to have been effected." Vex rubbed a hand over the curve of the baby's back, where she nestled in the cloth wrap. She wouldn't be handling things nearly as well if anything had happened to her baby. It was bad enough Percy couldn't be sure of holding her.

"Did you know, there are spells and magic items in my world that can make people stronger or faster?" Her thoughts turned to Vax's boots, and she pulled them away to focus on the boy and his new abilities. "It can be quite an adjustment."

There were people here with wings, Mildmay knew. But mostly big, obvious, raven kinda wings.

"What's it like? Flying?" Could she even fly? Butterflies were pretty delicate. He wasn't sure they'd be able to support a person. But the thought of being able to fly...

"Yeah." To the temple. Don't pay too much mind to how he could feel something in the back of his head connecting him to that other Corbie they left behind. Mildmay was doing a lot of ignoring of weird shit today. But he didn't know what else to do about it.

The connection seemed to fade the further they got from it, although Mildmay couldn't say when exactly he stopped feeling it. Way before they got to the temple anyway. Once they were inside the cool, quiet space, he felt like maybe he could breathe a little easier.

Emma was waiting for the inn to fix her bedroom. The rest of the suite was fine, but frustration over not having her powers, trying to control the magic she'd gained, plus worry about Jag – she'd heard a little about what was wrong, but knowing a little about what it could be like for empaths and barely having a handle on her own emotions right now, she wasn't going to subject Jag to that if she could help it – and the low and slow, everpresent anger she mostly ignored at being stuck in this cage of an inn... it had felt really, really good fireballing her bedroom. After she made sure Zoe was in another part of the suite.

So she was waiting. In the bar, because who couldn't use a drink with all this going on? She poured a glass of wine from the bottle Kitty had brought her before leaving her to her thoughts. The hand not holding the bottle rested elbow on the bar, a ball of flame hovering just above her open palm. As she focused on the flames, she made it smaller, drawing it in to the size of a grape, and then, as she breathed out, expanding again to grapefruit size. It wasn't the meditation forms she was used to, but it was calming and comforting in its own way.

Seeing, out of the corner of her eye, someone walk up, she closed her hand into a fist, the fireball winking out of existence. "Sorry," she said, as she turned and realized it was Captain Jackson.

Mildmay wasn't freezing stuff on accident any more. That was something. The other weird hocus shit he mostly tried to ignore. He sure wasn't gonna try to see what else he could do. Besides, now the freezing shit was under control, he could help out in the kitchens again. Which was good. Mostly. Although right then he was glad for something to do that got him out of the kitchen.

Emma had snapped at Kenny-Kahni-whatever earlier, and the apologized to him and Mildmay both for being outta sorts, and explained it wasn't their fault. She'd got some kinda hocus shit too, and from what Mildmay'd seen, her anger sparked as easy as the fire she kept having to tamp down. And she was worried about Jag. Which was how Mildmay found himself going out to the stables with a basket of food she'd made and packaged up to stay warm.

When he got there, he gave the horses a moment to adjust to somebody being there before he called softly, "Jag?" No sense spooking anybody or anything that didn't need spooking.

Edited 2019-04-17 20:42 (UTC)

Jackson looked a little too neat for himself, especially at this hour. His shirt was buttoned up nicely, both it and its vest wrinkle-free, and he held himself more stiffly than usually. He looked briefly puzzled at her words, but took a seat beside her, his movements more direct, economic, almost. And, of course, there was the pattern of blue light on his right temple. "What are you apologizing for?" he asked, his accent oddly difficult to place now, almost generic.

Jag felt him coming, a bright fox headed for the stables. But the horses didn't mind him, and neither did Jag. He leaned against Sevara, a hand sliding along her spine, and let Mildmay's memories of Emma wash through him. He could see her in the other man's mind, and his heart clenched. Jag opened his eyes when Mildmay called out his name, and pressed a kiss to Sevara's shoulder before pushing away from her, and pushing up onto the stall wall to straddle it. "I'm here."

He made no move to get down on the other side of the wall, though. It felt safer from Mildmay's feelings up here, even though that was a lie.

Emma shrugged. What was she apologizing for, really? She wasn't sure she knew, and the parts she did, weren't things that could be explained so easily.

"I'm not actually planning to blow anything up?" she offered.

Mildmay nodded a greeting. "Food," he explained, lifting the basket a little. "Emma sent it." That was probably as obvious as the basket. "Said you might be out here, and not wanna go back inside." Mildmay wasn't exactly sure why, but the way Jag was watching him... it felt a little like the way Felix could get when he 'wasn't himself'.

"I didn't think you were," Jackson assured her. When the bartender came his way with a bottle of bourbon, he shook his head with a small, polite smile. There was no use wasting liquor on him. "You look like you're in control," he added, turning back to Emma. That small ball of fire hadn't seemed unstable.

"She's struggling," Jag said, ignoring Mildmay's unvoiced questions. For now. Questions were fine. They didn't burn, for now, but the thought of Emma warmed, and gave Jag something to feel for himself. Concern. Love.

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Page 4 of 8

GP: April Fools!

Re: rocket and quill

Re: rocket and quill

Re: Rocket & Mia

Re: Rocket & Mia

Re: Mildmay & Corbie

Re: Mildmay & Storm

Re: Mildmay & Corbie

Re: Mildmay & Corbie

Re: rocket and quill

Re: Mildmay & Storm

Re: Mildmay & Corbie

Re: Mildmay & Corbie

Jackson - Day 1-4 - OTA

Jag - Day 2-4 - OTA

Re: Miguel and Vex

Re: Mildmay & Storm

Re: Mildmay & Corbie

Emma & Jackson

Jag & Mildmay

Re: Emma & Jackson

Re: Jag & Mildmay

Re: Emma & Jackson

Re: Jag & Mildmay

Re: Emma & Jackson

Re: Jag & Mildmay