fandomhigh | Detention, Depths of the Castle, Tuesday

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detention

Detention, Depths of the Castle, Tuesday

Another bright, shining, and pink day had begun for the ~~prisoners~~ guests being held in detention, and while the morning started off the same as the day before, there was a strange sort of feeling in the air once people began waking up. A kind of... musical feeling, in fact.

Umbridge might have taken over the island, but the island still had a mind of her own, thank you very much.

[No, the barriers of detention cannot save you from Once More With Fandom Day! The OCD is up, so have at it!]

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Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, Jack sang at Jono sympathetically. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows that the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows.

He blanched at his own callousness. "Sorry," he apologized. "I know you know that already."

Edited 2012-07-24 14:18 (UTC)

Jono had shut his eyes, sometime during that song. Tried to ignore it. But it was impossible to ignore when the person who had done the singing was acknowledging it, really.

He cracked them open again, glowing orange-white, and looked at Jack tiredly.

//Not your fault,// he pointed out. //No more than it's anybody else's down here. Anyhow, you'll all be done singing by the end of th'day, at least.//

And he liked music. See? He'd just keep telling himself that.

"But we'll still be here," Jack said quietly. "You've been in longer than me. Do they ever let anyone out?"

//Only the ones too broken to be true to themselves anymore,// Jono replied, shaking his head. //The ones that crack and fall to their control spells. The ones willing to swear loyalty, unconditionally. It isn't worth their price, mate. Freedom at the cost of who you are?//

He'd stay down here for the rest of his life, which stood to be a very long time, before he ever gave in to that.

"I could do what I did back in school," Jack protested. "Double agent. And now I'd know how the prison works, so I could..."

He sighed. "They aren't letting a werewolf out any more than they're letting a boy on fire out, and I'd feel too guilty knowing what I knwo to leave you lot anyhow. Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free.."

Jonothon tolerated the singing with a slightly bowed head, listening to the words and, this time, holding on to them. They were true enough for the lot of them, he supposed.

//So... we wait. I've killed three years down here. Might as well kill a few more. And sooner or later, maybe we'll luck out. Maybe the resistance will take her out. It's only a matter of time before someone more powerful than she is gets to walk free long enough to strike a killing blow.//

He wished he could be there to see it happen.

"I hope I'm there so I can help tear her limb from limb," Jack said, without even the slightest shadow on his face to suggest he was joking, or exaggerating, or in any way speaking less than the truth. "I'll leave Raven for you."

So maybe he wasn't quite mentally well.

There was only so much a man could go through without giving way at least a little. Jonothon gave a small nod in thanks all the same.

If all he ever got to do if ever they found freedom was wrap his hands around her neck and scream into her brain so loudly that her eyes bled, he'd savour that.

//And then... lord knows what we'll do, I suppose. I have no interest in lingering around here.//

"London," Jack decided. "It's where I was happiest. And I'd go to college, and I'd get a job, and I'd never even give this place the dignity of a thought again."

//London,// Jonothon agreed, after a moment. //I don't have th'greatest memories there, but the worst I ever knew there is still better than th'best I've seen here.//

It would keep him away from this island, and away from Massachusetts. Hell, the farther from America he could get, the better.

//London. No idea what I'd do once I was there, but... it's a start.//

"Law school," Jack said dreamily. "That's what I was going to do, did I ever tell you? I'd work on supernatural rights, if I could find my footing in it. I'd write my application essays about this place and they'd have to let me in."

He had no intention of ever coming near America again.

//You'd make one hell of a lawyer, mate,// Jono offered, almost gently. //I think after this, you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody who understands injustice quite the way you do.//

"Maybe, unless you look to the right or the left in this room," Jack answered, but he was smiling. "What about you? Up there, there is so much room, where babies burp and flowers bloom. Everyone dreams, I can dream too.

Jonothon's shoulders lifted in a little bit of a shrug.

//There's not really much of a place up there for the likes of me,// he admitted. //I could wrap my face again, go back into hiding. That's... about as far as I've got it figured out.//

He'd come here from Emma Frost's school. After all of this, he'd be wary about so much as looking back at someone wearing an X.

"Don't hide," Jack advised. "They're making you do that here, don't ... make their job easy for them, after."

//I came from a world where my kind has a target painted on our heads right from th'get-go,// Jonothon pointed out, shrugging his shoulders. //I'll keep my eyes open, perhaps, for somewhere that I can hold my head up and be proud of who I am. But in th'meantime... that's what I have.//

Still, Jack had a point. He was sick of hiding, damn it.

//No. No more hiding. I'll figure something out, when th'time comes.//

"And if I can ever help, let me know how," Jack requested, and glanced over to the visitor area. "Funny. Talking about mutant issues always makes me wonder if Emma's going to show her face."

//She's got spectacular timing that way,// Jonothon noted, glancing that way as well. //Never know if I ought to hide when she comes around or not.//

Really, hiding wouldn't do any good, anyhow.

"And you didn't bloody sleep with her," Jack pointed out, sounding disgusted with himself. "... don't tell me if you did, I don't want to know. I just don't understand how she knows what she knows and still does what she does."

Or, rather, he understood it but didn't like it.

Edited 2012-07-25 02:44 (UTC)

//She's a survivor before all else,// Jono replied, looking about as sympathetic as he could manage. //Someday, she'll fancy herself a Queen. I hope some other version of me, whichever one ends up going to that school of hers, sees her for what she is and gets out before it's too late.//

Just so long as he didn't come here.

"Or just doesn't go to the school to start with," Jack suggested. "Cleanest all around."

He rested his chin on a fist. "She's always talked about that," he said. "Being queen, being ruler -- you'd think watching what the power does to Umbridge would break her of it."

//She thinks she's immune,// Jono theorized. //She's seen the inner workings of minds like that, she knows what makes them tick, and she's decided that there's no way she could possibly make those same slips, herself. Emma Frost can do no wrong.//

Jack snorted. "It's an act, but heaven forbid she admit that," he said. "It's like being on a tightrope -- you know, you fall when you look down. She stops being Emma Frost for long enough to doubt herself, and ... she's down here with us mongrels."

//We, the dregs of society, throwing our tantrums and refusing to see sense, see the world as it exists according to her.// Jonothon shook his head. //And we're all th'better for it. We're flawed, but so help us, we're still human.//

Werewolf, mutant, it didn't matter. In the end, they were what they'd always been. Jono couldn't say the same for people like Emma.

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Detention, Depths of the Castle, Tuesday

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