Office #2 at the school, Thursday mid-morning.

[biotic_psychotic]

[CW/TW: Jono's thread goes some dark places. Torture/etc.]

Jack had decided on office hours so once she hit the coffee shop for the largest to-go cup they had she went and camped out in her spartan school office. After about twenty minutes she became bored and out of coffee. Examining the lock on her door, she pulled a multi-tool from her pocket and began disassembling it. Once it was off the door she took pictures of the whole rig and reassembled it. It was tossed carelessly into the bottom desk drawer.

The door was propped open with the wastecan. From another pocket came a tennis ball. Leaning back in her desk chair, she began doing a slow bounce with it from floor to wall and back to her hand.

The teacher is in.

[Open office hours!]

Comments

[biotic_psychotic]

"It's rude, Jon," Jack pointed out with a small frown, "If you could shout 'stop' or 'back the fuck off asshole' at them with a voice, you would, right? How's it different if you have to use a voice in their head?"

[furnaceface]

Jono tilted his head at her slightly.

//I can make people's brains bleed by yelling.//

It made a bit of a difference. Generally.

[biotic_psychotic]

"Yeah? And you can't be loud without that?" she challenged, "Cuz I somehow think you could get the fucking point across without that, so what's with the dickery?"

[furnaceface]

There was a long pause, then. And then Jono ducked his head a bit, trying not to just outright project a sigh, then.

//Around here, it's mostly that I just... don't want to start burning bridges, I suppose. Here I get to be normal, once people adjust. Back home, I'm vermin. Back home, if I push back, it can come back in ways I can't control. I represent the school, there. I refuse to do anything there that'll endanger my kids.//

[biotic_psychotic]

"Dunno, Jon," Jack said slowly while trying to get her head around that, "I'd think maybe someone'd want to be stopped before doing something embarrassing and stupid like trying to put out the guy made of fucking fire. Here, anyway. I can't say much about your home other than 'that's bullshit how you're treated I hope they all drop dead'."

Opinions. She shared.

"But here? Nobody gets to act like that here. Even new people need to adjust their fuckin' attitude right quick. Better off for 'em."

[furnaceface]

//Last person who tried spent the next twenty minutes complaining that I had th'gall to break all known rules of biological science,// Jono replied with a shrug. //Person before that was having a legitimate traumatic response to flame. I suppose it depends on the situation.//

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack flailed her hands in the air for a second with a smothered screaming noise. "What. The. Fuck!? Because if you had a choice you'd walk around unzipped from nose to navel?" Another small screamy noise.

"People. Suck!"

She'd grant the trauma person their trauma. It was a rational fear.

[furnaceface]

//People suck.//

Jono seemed way, way too resigned to that fact.

//Can come up with a few ways I'd rather be than this, true enough.//

[biotic_psychotic]

"There's worse ways to be," Jack argued, "Lots of worse ways. I mean, you could be Republican."

[furnaceface]

Jono blinked.

And then, for all that he really couldn't, at least not physically, Jono laughed. It was more a buzz of clear amusement as opposed to a 'ha ha ha,' but there it was.

//True enough, luv. True enough.//

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack threw him a short-lived but genuine smile. The amusement was better than the dark had been. She knew that dark of old.

"There you go," she said. "Kaidan says he jogs with you sometimes. You ever do that when it's not some sort of fucking punishment hour?" Genuinely curious. Kaidan wanted her to run more. Something to take the edge off all her energy. She had better sense than to wake up at the hours he did.

[furnaceface]

//I save 'punishment hour' for those nights when I can't sleep,// Jono assured her.

The fact that those nights were relatively constant was irrelevant.

//Afternoons work just as well by me, though.//

[biotic_psychotic]

A hand scrubbed over her scalp. "Any day but Monday or Thursday," she said, "Class and office hours those days. You got a phone or should I just, y'know.." Jack tapped the side of her head with a finger.

[furnaceface]

//Either, actually,// Jono replied. //By some miracle I've got a phone that'll actually pick up my voice.//

That small miracle was named Barry Ween. Good kid. Little bit of a mouth on him. Long gone from the island, now.

//My own class is Wednesday, but it's the last class of the day, so I can do anything earlier if need be. And I'll sometimes be off-island, teaching back in New York. Or punching people who really need it. Even odds it's one of those. Sometimes both. Sundays I open the music shop, but I can always take a break and close up. I own th'place, I'm hardly going to get in trouble with my boss.//

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack perked up, "Hey, wait, punching people who need it sounds fun! Maybe you should be giving me a call!" Jack was only recently tacking on that 'people who need it' part to the punching.

She dug around in a pocket to unearth the antique lump of a phone that still annoyed her for not being a sensible comm link. "Digits?"

[furnaceface]

Jonothon rattled off his number even as he reached into his own pocket to pull out his phone in turn.

//And yours? In case anybody is in any particular need of a good punching. Which generally happens rather on the regular.//

He really hadn't been kidding about Wednesdays.

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack pulled up her contacts and added him. Typed a text with a little fist emoji and then a smiley face.

"I was warned it goes some time between that here," Jack said when she hit 'send'. "You mean back in New York? Either's good for me."

She didn't really care where. Punching was always fun. Even Kaidan couldn't bitch if she was punching people who deserved it.

Nah who was she kidding. Kaidan could always bitch.

[furnaceface]

//Typically back in New York,// Jono confirmed, opening that text and adding Jack to his contacts. And then texting a fist and a winking face right on back. //These days they've got the school parked in bloody Central Park like some sort of tourist attraction. Great place to put a bunch of children that the general populace tends to want dead.//

He was so, so salty about this.

//Always appreciate a good spar around here, though.//

[biotic_psychotic]

She smirked when the text came through. "Always good for a spar too," she agreed.

"Kids aren't human-average, huh?" She'd stolen the term from Kaidan. It sounded a whole helluva lot better than the inaccurate word 'normal'. There was no such thing as 'normal' when it came to any kids. They were all unique. "Like here?"

[furnaceface]

//Right,// Jono replied. //They're all mutants, like myself. Little blips in humanity's evolutionary process. They tend to put me in charge of classes like, 'coping with physical changes,' and group me up with those who've struggled th'most with not looking human-average themselves.//

[biotic_psychotic]

"Hey that makes three of us who are bona-fide mutants," Jack drawled, "We should form a club. Biotics are all mutants. DNA's all fucked up. Back home I teach kids how to not make shit explode unless they want it to."

She snorted. "Who'd have ever thought I'd be teaching that."

Not her, that's for damn sure.

"Sounds like a good class though. Wish shit like that mattered back home. Kaidan, me? We look human-average as fuck and it don't matter fuck-all."

[furnaceface]

See Jono. See Jono actually quietly hold a hand up for a fistbump.

A very sardonic fistbump, maybe. But a fistbump all the same.

//Nothing like genetic differences we didn't even choose to bring out only the finest bigotry among humankind.//

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack held up her hand and cracked his knuckles with hers. "You know what's awesome in our galaxy? Most of the other species have biotics and none of the shit human biotics are subjected to applies to them. No discrimination for them just the lucky few of fucking us."

[furnaceface]

//Yup.//

It was amazing how a man speaking telepathically without benefit of lips could still manage to get such a functional pop on that 'p.'

//Had a friend once who was trying to save lives during an attack on a ferry we'd been taking. Found a... father and his child, I think, was trying to help swim them to shore. Bigoted old bastard spat in his face and refused help from a dirty mutie. Ange made up some gobshite about having been bitten by a radioactive elephant. That was fine, then.//

He shook his head a little.

//If it wasn't for th'kid, I can't say I would've blamed him if he'd left that bastard to drown.//

[biotic_psychotic]

"I would've," Jack shrugged because she would have. "I'd have snatched the kid and just let that old fucker go."

A beat.

"A conscience is the other thing I don't really have." More of one than she used to, if it could be called that. More a knowledge of what her family would do, would have done and enough trust in their judgment to know it to be the right thing. Sometimes she tried. Not to shut the voices up. The voices never shut up. Not even necessarily to make these fuckers she couldn't help caring about proud of her. Usually just to see what it felt like. If it felt different to do the right thing than the thing she usually did. Sometimes it even did.