Jack Priest (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bitten_notshy) wrote2011-11-29 12:12 pm
bitten_notshy) wrote2011-11-29 12:12 pm
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33 Apocalypse Avenue, Tuesday Midday
Jack had gone to check the board listing off the missing early that morning, and wished he hadn't. Dinah was gone now too -- her and George and Nina and an unfathomable list of others. It seemed impossible that the person who had explained the situation to him had been swallowed by it mere days later.
It made him realize he had others to check on back at home.
Cautiously, he pulled out his phone and dialed his roommate back in London. (It was a sad state of affairs when he'd be happy to talk with Kevin about his latest workout routine or who said what on which chat show the night before, but there it was.) No response, not even a beep, just dead expectant air.
He tried his adviser at college then. His friend Alistair. The Detective Inspector's Office within the London Police. The pizza shop down the road from his flat. It didn't matter; none of those calls were getting anywhere, and (when he checked it) his emails from home had gone suspiciously silent.
And then he gave up, closed his eyes, and rested his head on Ronan's kitchen table. They'd get through this. He knew that. He was just running very low on hope, and he'd never expected to be the last of his world.
[OOC: Open for phone calls or those staying there!]
It made him realize he had others to check on back at home.
Cautiously, he pulled out his phone and dialed his roommate back in London. (It was a sad state of affairs when he'd be happy to talk with Kevin about his latest workout routine or who said what on which chat show the night before, but there it was.) No response, not even a beep, just dead expectant air.
He tried his adviser at college then. His friend Alistair. The Detective Inspector's Office within the London Police. The pizza shop down the road from his flat. It didn't matter; none of those calls were getting anywhere, and (when he checked it) his emails from home had gone suspiciously silent.
And then he gave up, closed his eyes, and rested his head on Ronan's kitchen table. They'd get through this. He knew that. He was just running very low on hope, and he'd never expected to be the last of his world.
[OOC: Open for phone calls or those staying there!]
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When she finally woke around midday, it was down to the kitchen to see about feeding her caffeine addiction, possibly with a side-helping of pie. Emma was rather sure she'd seen pie in the fridge at some point.
Jack got a mild mental nudge as she walked in, but Emma made a beeline for the coffee pot. Sorry, people, she's not quite verbal yet.
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He tried his hardest to smile at Emma as he said it -- he was legitimately glad to see she'd gotten in safely -- but the effort was beyond him.
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This time the brush was a bit lighter in touch and inquisitive in nature; and offer to talk about it - what ever it was - if he needed to, while she scrounged up breakfast. Lunch? Brunch-ish dinner.
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<<Phone's charging,>> she answered, casting him a concerned look as the coffee started to drip. Finally. <<Ran out of juice just before I got here, but I'll try once I get some liquid in me.>> Hopefully all the damage to it from Mexico was cosmetic and not mechanical.
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And for a moment it looked as though that was all Jack was going to say. Then, eventually:
<<It hurts so damn much. All of it. Did you hear about Dinah, too?>>
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....it wasn't hers to share that Alex's siblings were missing, but she was becoming more and more convinced that it was connected to everything else. <<We don't have buildings or countries just...gone. Not like everyone else.>>
Not yet, anyway.
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"Then you're just the bloody lucky one, aren't you? Take heart: Maybe it'll pick off the other Frosts first."
He didn't mean it. He knew he didn't mean it. He'd had a hot streak of anger running through him since Sebastien went, and Emma was the most convenient victim.
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"Shut. Up." She hissed, voice still a bit strained from all the arguing and negotiating she'd done over the last week just to get this far. "You do not get to speak to me like that, and you do not get to say such things about my family. Not even you."
"I have been dropped on the moon and back, shot at, and lost in Mexico. I am still trying to wrap my mind around everything that's been going on everywhere because it is just too fucking big to process on my own in a few hours. I can't even begin to comprehend it because I'm still in fucking shock from from seeing that board in the first place."
She didn't care if he meant it or not; Emma was not going to stand there and be an easy target for his rage. He was just lucky she hadn't poured the coffee yet.
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"That could have seriously hurt me, do you realize?" he asked angrily. "I may have deserved the rest of it, fine, but say it without trying to give me another concussion."
A beat. "Did the bullet hit you?"
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Assuming she stopped with one mug and didn't go for the second one.
"Not anything that made me go 'I just got shot,' but I stopped by the clinic on my way in so Ronan could check and make sure I didn't have any wounds that were worse than they looked."
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Why did he want to laugh at the sheer absurdity of having to say that?
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"Apparently handsome mariachi players are hazardous to your health, so I didn't bring him back with me."
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As if it wasn't his fault to start with.
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He paused in the doorway. "And thank you. For saying his name. Though I'm angry about the rest of it being gone, too."
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But it wasn't.
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Jack, better than almost anyone else, most likely knew how well Emma dealt with being helpless.
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"Do you have any idea how delicate, how complex the human mind is? Everything is interconnected; to try and remove all the memories of, say, Sebastien from people's minds without damaging other memories that person touches, to make it smooth with no gaps or holes or sense of loss, takes power. Takes detail and finesse, and whatever it is has managed to do this with billions of people and places simultaneously."
"I can do it to one person at a time, maybe even a half-dozen. But removing entire continents and history from the collective subconscious memory of a planet would take a god." Perhaps the collective power of those telepaths held captive that Jono had mentioned could manage it, but Emma refused to even consider such an option.
"We will do what we can, and more, because we are who we are and we do not let people just take what is ours without a fight. But make me no promises and tell me no lies."
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No promises, no lies: He respected it, but he wasn't sure what else he had to offer.
Better to do some housework.
At some length, he finally managed: "You're right, of course. I've been reading enough the last few days to know you're right about all of it. But saying we'll do what we can sounds like we've given up already."
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"We're going to figure out how to change the rules, and then game is ours."
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Maybe it was in some way he couldn't puzzle out just now.
He dumped the mug remnants into the dustbin.
"When you look like that, I'm not sure a God would stand a chance against you."
When all else failed, flattery was generally the safest route with Emma; besides, it was true.
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...not that she was opposed to that, mind you.
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It was a fake sunniness, but he was good at that.
"Does it really bother you?"
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