fandomhigh | Coping With Change | Tuesday, Period One

"Hi, everybody!" Cecil said. "We've got all sorts of changes to talk about this week. Like, what happens if you lose all your memories? Or what happens when you get new ones? There's a whole thing about finding out you're not who you thought, and really, you don't have to get everything all dumped on you at once for that. Although I guess it helps, right?"

//That... really depends on the situation,// Jono replied, a bit more on the subdued side, today. //Dealing with memory loss can be stressful. Coming back from it isn't necessarily any easier. And the island will do more than simply take away your memories. We've had weekends where you'll have lived an entirely different life, and coming to grips with what you did as somebody else...//

He hiked his shoulders up a bit.

//Things that mess with memory and with identity can leave a person uncertain about the one person that they feel they should be able to trust more than anybody else. And if you can't trust who you are, what can you trust?//

"Well, really, who can you ever trust?" Cecil added breezily. "Apart from your scientist boyfriend."

//Mine's a psychiatrist. He lost his memory, too. Which isn't really the point,// Jono replied, his voice reflecting a sigh that he couldn't quite share, otherwise. //The fact remains, identity and things beyond our control that might cause us to question it are big, terrifying topics that we don't want to think about.//

"So we're going to talk about them instead!" Cecil said. "Talking's much better than thinking. Just ask...well, pretty much anyone!"

Jono despaired of you sometimes, Cecil. He really did.

//We're going to talk about it,// he agreed all the same, a little less exuberantly. //With a focus on your personal feelings about this weekend, and how you chose to cope both without your memories and once you got them back again. I... am not too proud to admit that I spent most of Monday in bed. And not entirely because of a second failed attempt at a wedding, either.//

"I drank," Cecil offered. "It's generally the best thing when you want to forget things you shouldn't know."

//... I don't think the school actually encourages us to say that to the students, Cecil.//

Cecil frowned. "Are you sure? Why?"

//Quite sure. Underage drinking and encouraging it as a coping mechanism and forming unhealthy habits...// He shrugged. //Not that I didn't do my fair share of drinking at around that age myself while I still could, but there are probably better ways of dealing with one's problems.//

Like staying in bed, Jonothon?

Cecil shook his head. "This place is weird."

Jono shook his head in turn.

//You won't get any argument from me there,// he agreed. //But that's what we're going to deal with today, because thinking about this isolated incident is easier than contemplating anything much more permanent or potentially disastrous. Talk about what worked. Talk about what didn't work. Don't talk at all. Don't listen at all. Hell, leave the room if you feel you have to. Do whatever you need to in order to deal with this one, and we'll get into less immediate traumas next week.//

Unless something happened this week too, but this soon after an amnesiac weekend? What were the chances?

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Yeah, Jono wasn't buying the 'fine' bit. He wasn't fine, for crying out loud. But he wasn't going to try to drag more out of Hyacinthe than that. Not on that topic, anyway.

//Was this the first time the island did something like this to you, mate?//

"There was also the weekend we were all older and had a head full of lives we haven't yet lived," Hyacinthe said airily. Because he didn't get enough of that with the dromonde, really. "And then I was a flower for a week. What's next, I wonder."

He wasn't really wondering.

//The excitement never ends,// Jono replied, tone dry to go with Hyacinthe's airiness. //Hopefully your sibling has given you at least a crash course in some of the nonsense to be prepared for. If not, when you're feeling up to facing it, feel free to come talk to me about it. I've bloody near seen it all.//

This place was still preferable to his own world. He put up with Fandom's shit because it still hadn't tried to murder him because of a quirk of DNA.

... That thing with Umbridge hadn't been far off, but details.

"I missed the welcome picnic," Hyacinthe said with a small shrug. "And met my sib but once over coffee. She explained that, yes, everything in this world was as sweet as the concoction they passed off to me."

Not that he'd gone looking for Rey and more explanations. He'd far preferred pretending everything was fine and burying his feelings under his Prince of Travellers guise. Because that was terribly healthy!

Well, look at the teacher making the offer. Master of healthy coping skills, right here.

God knew why the administration let him keep teaching this class. Maybe it was a 'do as I say, not as I do' sort of deal. Maybe he was supposed to be the 'worst case scenario' example.

//The trick is adding enough sugar to make it palatable, then?//

"The last thing it needed was more," Hya said with a fair bit of heat over something as innocuous as a cup of coffee. "But then, why should I have expected anything to be recognizable? 'Twas pure foolishness on my part anyway."

He waved his hand in the air, an angry slash rather than his usual languid theatrics. "Doesn't matter. 'Twas merely coffee."

Ah, so it was Hyacinthe who was bitter, not the coffee. He'd mistaken the 'sweet' comment as sarcasm.

Jono nodded a little, shoving his hands into his pockets.

//Maybe,// he said, gently. //But if it turns out that it isn't just the coffee, you still don't have to deal with it alone.//

He'd made the mistake of ordering a caramel macchiato with several more words appended to it. For someone from a world where refined sugar was mostly limited to the upper class, the resulting sludge had been nigh-undrinkable.

"I do when I don't remember my own name, never mine anyone else's," Hyacinthe retorted, because that response neatly obscured his real issue.

Jono, don't let the students get to you. Don't let the students get to you.

//Believe me, mate,// he said, evenly, //I have been there. Spent the better part of a year not knowing who I was. Did a lot of nasty things to innocent people that I can't take back.//

So much for not letting the students get to him.

//You have your memories now? Then let's chat, you and I. Right now or after class, if you prefer. If something is bothering you, and lord knows after the time you've had here so far, yes, it should be, I'd like to help.//

Hyacinthe glanced up at Jono, face betraying confusion shading to disbelief and finally into mistrust, all in a span of a few seconds before being lost back under a neutral mask of unconcern.

"I'm afraid I've places to be after class," he said, all slick glibness that he didn't bother to hide. Like having a mini-breakdown in the stables all by his lonesome. But, hey. He'd only known about the stables because Messire Starsmore had mentioned them last week. He listened! "Perhaps another time."

Sigh. Jono was definitely taking some time after class to beat his forehead into a wall before heading off to Westchester to teach his other class of mistrustful, frustrating students.

This was his life, now. Why was this his life, now?

//Another time,// he said, more patience in his voice than he was particularly feeling toward anybody today. //Never, if you'd rather. It's up to you, naturally.//

Hyacinthe had no plans to talk to even the few people on the island he knew, never mind a man he'd spoken all of ten minutes with.

"Indeed," Hyacinthe agreed, before going back to staring at the clock as if he could will it to move faster. "I shall keep that in mind."

He had to get out of there before he lost it in front of everybody. Before he lost it at all.

Jono eyed Hyacinthe for a moment, and then nodded toward the door. He knew what staring at the clock meant. He had been a teenager once himself, after all.

... Twice. A number of times.

//I did say,// he said a touch dryly, //leave if you need to. Honestly, Hyacinthe, don't let me keep you if you have better places to be.//

He handed attitude back where it was handed to him. Couldn't help it, that was the way he was made.

Hyacinthe's 'attitude' came from a desperate desire to not have a breakdown in front of the entire class, but if Messire Starsmore wanted to read it as some kind of personal affront, he'd hardly stop him. He'd rather be seen as recalcitrant than despairing any day.

"My thanks," Hyacinthe said with false cheer, grabbing for his belongings and making good his escape. He didn't run for the door, but it was a near thing.

He had to get out of there. Had to get away from people. Had to go.

Coping With Change | Tuesday, Period One

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