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

[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.

[furnaceface]

//Ange was always a better man than I was.// Jono shook his head a little. //A conscience is a lot to expect of a person who was never shown conscience in kind, I would say.//

[biotic_psychotic]

"I joke that mine lives inside other people." A pause. "It's not really a joke. Kaidan's got enough for any three people and Liara? Tali? Pffft. Garrus is pragmatic enough and so's Wrex." Shepard was dead. He didn't get a say anymore.

Jack tapped the side of her head, "They're all up in here even when they're not right here and they know." That she couldn't be trusted to have a conscience in the heat of it.

And that she heard them.

[furnaceface]

//I have one or two of those of my own,// Jonothon replied with a nod of his head. //The Jubilees and Dinahs and Momokos I've had in my life, who've pushed me to be better.//

... Sorry, Hannibal. You didn't get to be part of the conscience club.

//Good to have them haunting the darker corners, trying to keep things clear.// A pause. //Bloody annoying. But good.//

[biotic_psychotic]

"You haven't met annoying until you've had Liara giving you a lecture," Jack muttered, "when she's not even there and hasn't even ever given that lecture."

Threw the ball from hand to hand again. "It's what I got. Some days it's all I got. I can live with it. I've had worse voices in my head than theirs. At least they're good people, you know?"

[furnaceface]

//Oh, I know,// Jono replied with a nod. //Better them than what could be there otherwise.//

What usually was.

[biotic_psychotic]

She bobbed her head in a nod. "Better than what lived in there before I met 'em. I can deal."

[furnaceface]

//It's all forward progress, of a sort,// Jono replied, nodding a little. //Glad you've managed to find something to that effect, too. God knows people like that are rare.//

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack snorted. "Want some? I have a whole damn ship full. They are rare but they're also like goddamn magnets for one another."

[furnaceface]

//Maybe if you have one or two extra, I'll stop by and borrow them. Most of mine have moved along or never lived around here in the first place.//

He didn't even have much in the way of students to be a good example for, here.

It was bloody strange.

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack looked at him for a minute. "You can borrow them. I mean, Kaidan's right fucking here. The others you'd have to come home with me to meet but that can be arranged. And you can just outright have Vega. He's a good guy and got a good head on his shoulders but catch me letting that fucker tell me what to do, ever.."

[furnaceface]

//Bit of a personality, is he?//

Jono had a few of those in his life, yes.

[biotic_psychotic]

"He'd like to think he is," Jack drawled, "Most of it's for show. A lot of it is because he's still an insecure twat around the rest of us just because we got to be legends or what the fuck ever before he did. We try to slap that out of him whenever he needs it but the slaps don't stick."

[furnaceface]

//Ah,// Jono replied, giving a small, knowing nod. //Self-esteem thing, then.//

He was easily one of the X-Men's most formidable walking firebombs and he still found himself relegated largely to benchwarmer status. He could appreciate that.

//Sooner he realizes it isn't a contest, th'better it'll be for everyone.//

[biotic_psychotic]

"Yup," she smirked, "He was a fanboy before he was crew. Had a whole 'Normandy Forever' patch on his armor and everything. Came on during the war then after found himself Commander of the ship. He's still growing into it. Part of him keeps wondering when Kaidan's going to show back up and tell him he was just kidding and to give his ship back."

Kaidan would never do that. She understood why but it still stung a little. If Kaidan was Commander of the Normandy, they'd all be there. They'd all be home. She realized that was a pipe dream and not real. She wouldn't give up Grissom or her kids. Liara wouldn't give up being who she was. Garrus and Tali couldn't take off from their duties and Wrex sure as fuck couldn't walk away from Tuchanka to ride or die with them again.

Still.

Still.

[furnaceface]

//Doesn't sound like Kaidan's style,// Jono noted. //Still, suppose you can't blame a man for wondering.//

It was hard being on the B-list.

[biotic_psychotic]

"Kaidan," Jack said tightly, "will never take the Normandy. I get why he won't. Aside from everything on the ship reminding him the only damn man he ever loved is dead as fuck. If he took that commission on that ship, we'd all follow. The Normandy with that goddamn crew on her? The Council'd throw us at every damn stupid impossible fucking thing they could find and the thing is, now we don't gotta do the stupid until it gets one or more of us fucking killed. Reaper threat's fucking ended. Vega's the newest. He earned his rank in the war. He earned that ship; Kaidan fucking made sure of it. But he's new and he doesn't have the history with it the rest of us do. Makes him insecure, sure."

Her jaw tightened. "Also makes him fucking safe. Makes the onboard crew safe. Makes the ship and EDI inside her safe. Council doesn't yet know what Jimmy fucking Vega can do so they've stepped back and they send her at achievable goals instead of expecting another fucking miracle like it's standard goddamn protocol."

The ball was tossed from hand to hand with a stinging little slap on each end. "Vega calls, we'll be there. He needs us, we'll for fucking sure be there. But he tries to tell me what to do and I'm gonna slap him upside the back of his fat fucking head before I go do it because he's still the goddamn baby."

[furnaceface]

//Naturally,// Jono replied, lifting a shoulder slightly. //Got to keep the baby in his place. At least until he stops acting like the baby.//

Which was something they had to earn, wasn't it? Even put through their paces, the X-Men tended to love their hierarchy.

Even when the ones at the top didn't always deserve it.

[biotic_psychotic]

"Be nice if he did but I'm not sure he ever fucking will," Jack said easily, "Crew of the Normandy were his heroes. I dunno. Maybe it's a good thing that even after he's fucking worked and fought and bled alongside us, the little shit still sees us that way. We haven't let that little bastard down."

Not yet. She didn't expect it would be forever. Not with her. But so far, not yet.

[furnaceface]

//Hardest thing about being the hero,// Jono mused. //Is being the bloody hero, innit?//

It was one thing to do the right thing. It was the other thing to live up to the expectation of it.