GP: April Fools!

[st_ackeddeck]

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).]

Comments

Jackson - Day 1-4 - OTA

[st_illfleshandblood]

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.

Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

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.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

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.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

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.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

"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.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

"Control isn't a fixed state," Emma said, feeling an urge to shrug but distracted from it by finally getting a better look at Jackson. Who wasn't drinking. And who looked... off, even if you ignored the blue LED, which she hadn't.

"I'm more used to contained powers I let loose, than wild ones I have to contain, but I'm adjusting. What about you?"

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

Control isn't a fixed state. Something about that spoke to Jackson, but he didn't examine it closely. There would be time for that later, once the social interaction was done.

"I don't need to adjust," Jackson replied, simple and to the point. He surmised she would have more questions, along the same vein as everyone else had had so far, and so he added, "I am currently an android."

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

An android. That would explain the uncanny valley going on. And the LED. And how un-Jacksony he was. Emma tried not to let it remind her of when Remy crossed the bokor, but there was something eerily similar.

"So your adjustment will come after this is over." Maybe she couldn't see the future right now, but it was too engrained in Emma for her not to still think that way. And she had to hold to the hope this, like all the other weird things at the inn, would go back to 'normal' soon.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

"If there is an after," Jackson agreed. It seemed likely, as most things that were not routine here seemed to be temporary. But it was not a given.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

He had a point, but it wasn't a future Emma was ready to accept yet.

"True, but... if there isn't, I'm probably going to wind up throwing a lot of fireballs at the inn before I accept it."

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

"Past evidence suggests it can withstand that," Jackson remarked. "As long as you avoid people, that shouldn't be a problem."

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

Assuming the inn held to pattern they could trust in past evidence, which was only as much a given as that this would end in a few days.

"At home, we have a powers range for practicing or letting off steam with the more... explosive abilities. Then again, if I was at home, I wouldn't be the one with the fire and other magic."

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

"That is a good idea," Jackson agreed. "Perhaps the same skills that went towards building the temple could help?"

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

She hadn't thought about it before, probably because she didn't normally need a blast range. But it was a good idea.

"Building something like that would give people something else to do. And Kitty probably has some idea of what would be needed for containment." Both for the people already stuck here, and for a variety of mutants and other powered people who might show up in the future.

"Hopefully by the time something like that could be finished, I won't need it any more."

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

"Hopefully," Jackson echoed, although he meant it for the others. He was fine as he was; in fact, he was better this way. More efficient, and more capable of dealing with being stuck here. No, his hopefully was all about the other residents, those who were faring less well.

(And, perhaps, about Corbie, but he set the thought aside before it might clog up his logic.)

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

Hope was a dangerous thing.

"How are other people dealing with you being an android?" He might not need to adjust, yet, but Emma couldn't imagine everyone accepting it so matter-of-factly. And asking meant not having to think about how she and her friends were dealing with the changes to themselves.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_illfleshandblood]

"Fine, for the most part," Jackson answered. Corbie was a different story, of course.

Re: Emma & Jackson

[st_ackeddeck]

For the most part. That sounded like not everyone was, and with what Emma knew of Jackson – not as much as some people around the inn, but in such a small community, everyone saw more than expected – the most likely person having trouble with it was Corbie. Emma should check in with her, see how she was doing.

Which of course reminded her of someone else she wanted to check up on, not that she'd been able to forget entirely since Coby stopped by the kitchen that first morning to let her know what had happened to Jag.

"How's Jag? Not about you being an android, just... with everything." If anything, Jackson being an android probably helped Jag.

Jackson & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

She came to him with fire in her hands, or else she probably might never have done it at all.

Well, not literally, not right now, but after Snow had gotten over her initial fear at her sudden magic and realized the potential and destruction she knew at least one of the things she had to do with it. It'd been bugging her for a long time now, but she'd never quite been able to make herself to the right thing. Regina had offered to go with her, but she didn't want to do this holding onto her mama's hand like a child.

She appeared at the door to the infirmary and, even with a gun at her hip and magic (that she couldn't control well) in her body, she absurdly shrank against the door frame like a shy little girl. Maybe that was just the way to be around Pinkertons. Hell if she knew.

Fuck she didn't want to look this weak right now. Not in front of him. But something was different about him, too. And that was what allowed her to stammer out, "I-I'm s-s-sor-ry."

At least holding onto the door frame, her body couldn't shake.

Re: Jackson & Snow

[st_illfleshandblood]

Jackson looked up from the book he had been reading (a chapter on the disorders of eyes and lids) as she stepped into the doorframe. Gun hip holster, but what registered was the tension in her frame. She clung to that doorframe like a lifeline, and Jackson rose slowly, but made no move towards her. He accessed memories of previous interactions. She might be apologizing for their last run-in. His expression remained oddly calm and steady, not quite right.

"Are you all right?" he asked, as this was his primary concern (programed directive), and she did not seem to be.

Re: Jackson & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

"No," she said. Because she could not make herself say yes. Snow's options were no and staring silence, and she'd become self aware enough to know that people found that creepy.

Re: Jackson & Snow

[st_illfleshandblood]

"Would you like to sit down?" Jackson asked, a logical next step.

Re: Jackson & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow hesitated. It was a simple question on the surface, but one that she found deeply complex to answer. Did she probably need to sit? Yes. Did she want to? Yes. Did she really want to get any closer to him? No. Even as she said, "No," her head nodded very slightly. She didn't notice.

Re: Jackson & Snow

[st_illfleshandblood]

Jackson eyed her in silence for a beat, the tension in her muscles, her grip on the doorframe. She would be shaking if she wasn't holding on so tight. His psychology module could only help so far; the signs of trauma were easy to spot, but the correct course of action was more nebulous. He had triggered her before, was triggering her now. Yet his basic programing made him want to take care of her. Contradictory impulses, and as he struggled, the LED light on his temple flickered to yellow for a few seconds.

When it righted itself into blue, Jackson had made his decision. "Apology accepted," he told her, evenly. Letting someone go could count as taking care of them, in certain circumstances.

Re: Jackson & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Now she knew there was something wrong with him, if he wasn't going to take a perfect opening to be a jackass. But it was enough.

Snow nodded. "Okay."

And then on unsteady legs, she turned and fled.