paige (doff) wrote in academy_x, @ 2010-03-24 10:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | chamber, gambit, husk, plot!tabula rasa |
Who: Paige, Jono and Remy
When: Wednesday after classes
Where: Jono and Remy's Room
What: It's a good thing that they're about to pass out and lose their memories, or else there would be another explosion in the dorms.
Note: After this incredibly long log, the thread's open to anyone else in the hall. :)
Paige knew she hadn't been fair to Jono lately. She'd been avoiding him a bit, being distant. Truth was, she felt she didn't deserve him anymore. Not after what happened in New York City. She hadn't pushed Remy off of her when he started flirting. She hadn't smacked him and made him leave her alone when he held her close. She hadn't kissed him back, not really, but she hadn't not kissed him back, either. And now she was convinced that she was no good for Jono. She felt like... like damaged goods, or like an apple with a bad spot.
She hadn't slept in thirty-something hours, and felt horrible physically as well as emotionally. But it was time to go see Jono. Maybe just being near him would make her feel better. She headed to Jono and Remy's dorm room, and knocked on the door. Hopefully Remy wouldn't be in. Hopefully.
Unfortunately for Paige, Remy was in fact in the room along with Jono (much to his displeasure) when she came knocking on the door. Of course Jono was still oblivious to what had taken place in New York City, though it had become obvious that something was bothering Paige. He assumed that she was upset about being in trouble, as she was the model student type. Or that he had screwed up somewhere and she was upset that he hadn't gone with her on the trip. If he'd known what Remy had been planning he would have tagged along of course. Or tried harder to prevent Paige from going with. But what was done was done.
Jono stood up from his desk chair and crossed over to the door to let Paige in. "Hey Sunshine," he said, pulling the door open. He noticed instantly that she didn't look well, there were dark circles under her eyes and she looked exhausted and stressed. "What's wrong, love? Are you sick?" he asked with concern as he pulled her into his arms gently. He wasn't going to take "nothing" or "I'm fine" for an answer.
Remy sat on his bed. It was actually something of a rarity, the two of them in the same room. The roommates had been getting along even less well than usual, a very difficult feat. But Remy had been sitting scouring the internet for something (planning a summer trip to show Julian so the two could work on making a trip to end all trips in Vegas), and hadn't felt like moving when Jono came in, so he just sat silently, doing his best to ignore Jono.
He couldn't keep the smirk off his face when he heard Paige come into the room. He glanced up, pushing the laptop off his lap and beside him on the bed. He was still a little annoyed that Terry had interrupted him, and that Paige hadn't seemed to like it much. It hadn't done much for the confidence this was supposed to build back up, if Regan's plans went accordingly. He leaned back a bit, smug expression not leaving his face.
"Hey, petite!" he called, charm dripping off his accent. "How ya holdin' up? Recovered from your first real night of fun yet?"
Paige's face brightened a little when she saw Jono. She was head over heels in love with him, it was so obvious. But the darkness that had been on her features wasn't completely extinguished. She felt guilty and horrible, and it was obvious. Even though she smiled very slightly as she stepped up to him and into his arms. "I'm fine," she responded, even though she wasn't really.
Then Remy's voice made her go cold. Her body tensed and she turned to look over Jono's arm at his roommate--the reason for the horrible feelings coursing through her. "Uh... I'm fine." She repeated, doing her best not to glare. "Just took a good night's sleep. Glad to be home, even though I'm grounded."
Jono pulled away from Paige a bit so he could look her in the eye. "Yer really a shite liar, Sunshine," he said to her softly. He too glanced back at Remy after his comment, giving his roommate one of his patented death glares as he felt Paige physically tense in his arms. Her awkward answer only made Jono feel more nervous. Something was definitely going on and he was out of the loop apparently.
He turned his attention back to Paige. "What's going on?" he asked, a little more firmly this time. "Tell me. We can go somewhere else if ya like." He had a very bad feeling about all of this.
Remy was enjoying this. He really didn't believe that she might blab, tell Jono anything about what happened. Jono had a short temper, especially when it came to Remy, so it wouldn't have a good outcome. And Paige was the smart one, right? He leaned forward, ignoring his roommate's glare. He was too used to it.
He gave a laugh. "Ya ever wanna try 'gain, petite, juss lemme know, non?" He picked the laptop back up, settling back in his bed again. "We make de next time better den de first." He left it definitely open to interpretation whether he was referencing getting drunk or getting kissed.
Okay, so, Paige was definitely a shitty liar. This was not news to her. She would have responded to Jono, but then Remy piped in again. Before she had a chance to say they should go somewhere--anywhere else, Remy was mentioning doing things 'again' and making the second time better. Her face flushed, and she shook her head a little. A petrified expression crossed her features as she glared over at Remy. "No. Not ever. No, thank you." She was trying her best to make it sound definitive without sounding insulting or... anything.
The last thing in the world that she wanted was for Jono to find out what happened between herself and Remy. How would she ever be able to explain it?
Jono's arms slid away from Paige and hung at his sides as he waited for her to explain. But once Remy started chattering again in that arrogant selfish way he had, she didn't have to. The things his roommate was saying coupled with Paige's reaction...it was written all over her face. She couldn't have...With him? Jono's stomach dropped (metaphorically speaking of course) and he took a step backward away from her. Of course he was expecting far worse than just kissing, the two of them were making it seem like they had slept together or something. But either way, his trust had been betrayed. Two-fold.
He didn't turn around to face Remy just yet, but instead kept his eyes trained on Paige's face. "What the hell is goin' on?" he asked her again. He was not one for games and he wanted answers.
Remy couldn't ever hear a damn thing his roommate said, but he had become quite adept at reading Jono's body language because of it. He glanced back up from his laptop when Paige glared at him, denying him completely. He couldn't help smirking at her insistent response, merely giving a little shrug. But then he saw Jono twitch, stepping away from Paige. He didn't seem happy with the conversation. At all. Oops.
He rolled his eyes when Jono rounded on Paige. He could only assume what was going on in that British head of his. "Gotta ton more alcohol stash, ya ever wanna try somet'ing different," he called out, too loudly to be casual, trying to deflect the line of thinking it seemed Jono had stumbled upon. He definitely hadn't assumed alcohol, by the looks of it. Paige had to learn a better poker face.
Paige had absolutely no poker face. Except the one on her Lady Gaga Album. She shook her head a little, looking completely mortified and now starting to worry about what Jono was going to think. "He gave me Red Bull and vodka." She tried to explain. "I'd already had some drinks at the pub, and then we were in the hot tub and he gave me more, and then I was so drunk, and then I threw up." She was frowning, pleading, wishing that she didn't have to have this conversation with him right now. Not with Remy right there looking so fucking smug.
Jono listened to Paige's retelling of what had happened, Remy's comment of course not going unnoticed. "So...you were just drinking?" he asked her, brows furrowing. He was pissed that Remy had apparently gotten the poor girl drunk of course, especially with the fact that Paige was younger than the two of them and seriously inexperienced in these sort of things. But Jono had been a party-er in his own right before his powers had manifested, so he wasn't a prude about drinking. He didn't appreciate Paige being taken advantage of though.
He glanced back at Remy over his shoulder, giving him a look that clearly read "what the fuck man?" He too knew that his roommate had become accustomed to his body language given the fact that they couldn't communicate properly.
Remy nodded a little at her end of the story. That's all they had to let Jono know, right? He didn't have the same morals as the country girl (or as most of the students in the mansion, apparently), so he didn't have any sort of guilt gnawing at him. If he'd still been with Rogue, then maybe, as she had started to build a moral compass for him, but as it stood, he just didn't realize it should have been considered so wrong. So he just continued to sit there, eyes going between his laptop and the lovebirds, huge smirk still on his face.
"Oui. We gotta fix dat next time. Mebbe ya mixed drinks, crossed liquor and beer or whatever. We get ya drunk wid no t'rowing up next time, non?" He glanced down, typed a few things, then looked back up - catching Jono's angry look. He just gave a shrug at the expression, equal parts inquisitive and pissed. Okay. Maybe one-quarter inquisitive and three-quarters pissed. "Told ya t'come along, homme," he said with a cocky, casual ease. "Mebbe she woulda had some more fun den."
Paige paused when Jono asked her if that was all that they'd done. Drinking had been a big part of it, hadn't it? There was more, though. A lot more. And Paige wasn't sure how to admit that she'd let Remy kiss her. But she hadn't kissed him back! That counted for something, right? She shook her head a little in response to his question, then turned to throw a death glare at Remy. She really wished that he wasn't in the room. Though, at the same time, she probably would have never admitted to Jono what happened. She was so embarassed.
"No. There was more than just drinking." She said, turning her eyes to the floor. "Remy kissed me."
Jono's fists clenched at Remy's taunting though he remained facing Paige. "There won't be a bloody next time," he projected to only his roommate with as much force as he could. He knew Remy wouldn't be able to understand the words but he was hoping that the energy behind it would at least be painful for a second or two.
His expression faded from aggravated to hurt though when Paige finally confessed to kissing Remy. In the grand scheme of things a drunken kiss wasn't the end of the world. But given Jono's situation the action was made much more painful by the fact that he could never kiss Paige. And so she was getting it from other people. Not just other people, his roommate. Sure he and Remy weren't the best of friends at the moment, but Jono had still trusted him. Stupidly apparently.
WHAT? Remy's head snapped up from his gaze on the laptop when Paige blurted out what happened. Normally, Remy wouldn't care. He didn't see kissing as a big deal, and he had been trying to reassert his status as a lady's man since the breakup. But he hadn't wanted to bring up kissing Paige in front of his roommate, because he knew that temper. Very, very well. And while he (stupidly) wasn't afraid of it, he was afraid for Paige. Sure, he had shown no regard to her while kissing her, but he didn't want to see her hurt, and he didn't want his roommate doing something he'd regret to the girl who loved him.
That heart of gold was still buried somewhere deep inside the thief, and it shone through the best it could given the situation. He wasn't sure if Jono projected anything to Paige, but he stood up quickly all the same, making exaggerated movements in hopes of catching and locking Jono's attention. He kept the smirk wide on his face, even if he was worried. He'd wanted to kiss Paige for the points. He didn't want to wreck the relationship. "Oui, but de fille, she ain't a very good kisser when she don't wanna be kissed," he said with as much disdain as he could muster, all swagger and arrogance. Play it up, Remy, play it up. It's all your good for.
Paige's eyes went even more wide when Jono's expression changed. She shook her head a little, stepping forward toward him. How could she make this right? She couldn't blame it all on Remy, like a part of her really wanted to. That would be wrong. She knew she was in the wrong as much as he was. "I'm so sorry, Jono. Please. I didn't mean any of it. I shouldn't have been alone with him when I was so drunk. I shouldn't have kept drinking, and... I shouldn't have let him flirt with me, or put his arm around me. And I definitely shouldn't have followed him up to the room when I was so smashed."
She was just digging deeper and deeper, wasn't she?
Neither of them were making the situation any better the more they tried to placate him or bounce around the blame. Jono stepped back from Paige once more, raising his hands in front of him to prevent her from touching him again. He needed to walk away from the both of them right now. He was already trembling with anger and the effort of keeping his powers in check despite his emotions. This is what he got for trying to have a relationship with someone. He knew it would only end badly. He couldn't blame her for wanting to be with someone else when he couldn't give her what she needed. He had warned her about all of this...
He shoved past Paige and made for the door knowing things would only escalate if he stayed and he was close to snapping on Remy as it was.
Oh no. Remy wasn't letting it leave at that. He brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose for a moment as Paige kept talking. He wished he had some telepathy. Paige! STOP TALKIN' he would have sent loudly at her. But he couldn't. Couldn't keep her from making a bad situation so much worse. She kept that up, she wouldn't have a relationship to salvage. He sighed inwardly, making his way around the bed and grabbing Jono's shoulder.
"Ya gon leave yer fille at dat, mon ami?" he asked, venom in his voice. "She did not'ing wrong but try t'have a bit of fun, and yer gon leave her in a room, all alone wid de man who tried takin' advantage of her?" A part of him truly was pissed, that Jono wasn't fighting harder for his girl. He had a good thing going for him. At least his girl still loved him. "Ya gon grow up old and alone, ya treat all yer poor filles like dat."
Paige felt as if she was about to burst into tears. She turned when he pushed past her, not trying to stop him. She didn't want him to blow up--or worse, to yell at her. For being the idiot that she was. She caught Remy's eye and the STOP TALKIN' look that he was giving her, and she did just that. She stopped talking. Of course, her body language was still full of shame and anguish. She felt completely defeated as she watched Jono walk out of the room. She knew it was what she deserved. Her nose started to burn as Remy scolded Jono, and she was doing her best to fight back the tears she knew were coming.
As always, there was Remy ready with the last straw to make Jono lose his temper. Granted it wasn't difficult to anger him, but the Cajun was never able to let things lie or to walk away from a situation it seemed. And he knew exactly how to push Jono's buttons in a way that sent him from annoyed to enraged in a matter of seconds.
At the hand on his shoulder Jono immediately tensed and then turned on Remy, aiming a vicious punch for the Cajun's face before he could even think about what he was doing. The orange energy was flickering about his hands now and peeking up over the edge of his mask. "Paige. Leave," he seethed, glancing to her for a moment. He didn't want her caught in the middle of this. She'd already been on the receiving end of his unstable powers twice now and he didn't want it happening again.
Remy was expecting the blow. He had those heightened reflexes for a reason. But even his best dodging skills didn't get him completely out of the way of a frighteningly angry Jono. He dodged back, but Jono's fist still caught him on the chin. He stumbled back just a step or two, but didn't lose his smug smirk. He was hoping Paige would leave, too, casting a quick glance her way. He didn't want to be obvious about it, but he definitely wanted her the hell out of there while he trained some of his roommate's anger his way.
He gave his chin a rub, shaking his head. "Was only a kiss, mon ami. One she didn't enjoy. Ain't no reason for all de t'eatrics here," he insisted. Even as he did, his hand slid into his pocket. With any other opponent, it would have been a slight gesture, barely worth a second glance. But he knew Jono was well-acquainted with his tactics, that the movement wouldn't go unregistered at all. He gave a shrug and a brighter grin. "Really ain't somet'ing t'get so pissed over," he insisted, feeling more confident as his fingers slid over the familiar slickness of his cards. "Only part of a game. Didn't mean a t'ing."
Paige wasn't ready to leave the room. She was still hoping that this situation could be salvaged. It was a silly hope, she would come to find in retrospect. When Jono's hands and mask started to flicker orange, and Remy's hand slipped into his pocket in such a menacing way, there seemed to be no going back. They were past the point of no return now, weren't they?
"Please... Jono... Remy... don't do this." She said. There was fear in her voice she was unsuccessfully trying to hide.
Jono was watching Remy keenly as he reeled back from the blow and then turned back toward Jono again, his hand sliding down to his pocket. Jono of course knew what that meant and similarly reached up to his mask, hooking a finger on the edge and then pulling it down, allowing the psionic energy to spill out of his chest. "What does he mean 'game?'" Jono projected to Paige, angry that he couldn't confront Remy directly as there were a number of things he'd like to say to him at this point.
So his roommate was going to mess with his girl, insult him, and then fight him? Fine. It'd be his funeral. He wasn't afraid of Remy's cards. What could they possibly do to Jono with the body he had? Paige on the other hand...
"Stay outta dis, petite," Remy said in a low voice, black and red eyes glancing to her for a moment. Underlying those words were an order, to get the hell out of the blast zone. Why hadn't Paige just kept her big mouth shut?! He could have tried to redirect this in an entirely different way. He had to hold on to that cocky grin, though.
"Good old fashioned standoff, mon ami?" he asked with a churlish grin. His hand left his pocket in a swift, fluid motion, throwing a hand of charged cards at Jono's feet. At the same time, the thief jumped backwards, moving further into the room, and as well away from Paige as he could manage. "'Bout time ya showed a little backbone. Was wonderin' if dat got blasted away wid de rest of ya."
Paige took a step backward, and bumped into Jono's bed. She swaggered a little, and then flopped down onto it, watching the two guys staring each other down with trepidation on her face. It wasn't as if the boys were fighting over her. That would be ridiculous. They had other issues to work out between them, and poor Paige was just caught in the middle. At least, she hoped. She really, really didn't want all of this to be her fault. Now the fear that the room was going to explode was taking over the devastating urge to burst into tears.
Jono managed to disintegrate or deflect a few of the cards that had come towards him while the others exploded around his feet or on the floor and wall behind him, leaving black, smoking scorch marks. The adrenaline of the fight, the desire to protect Paige, and Remy's continued taunting however was causing Jono's power to surge within him and he knew he wouldn't be able to control it much longer without having to discharge the energy. He telekinetically shoved Remy backward. He didn't want to look at that cocky, smug, grin anymore.
The energy surrounding Jono was building up and his eyes started to glow orange. He was a moment away from blasting Remy to hell and back when all of the sudden he felt himself start to lose consciousness. Everything went black and he collapsed to the floor.
Paige, the bed is not getting out of the way. She could have at least gotten under the bed! Remy couldn't really give her much more of his attention, though, because now he actually had to focus on not getting killed. His hand dipped into his pocket again even as Jono nullified about half of the ones that Remy sent his way. It kept him occupied. He stumbled back with the telekinetic shove, however. He wasn't used to his body being manipulated like that, and so he hadn't expected to go stumbling like that. He frowned, finding his footing, and charged up his cards. In the first few moments while Jono was building up the blast, Remy flung a handful of cards at his roommate, but the energy building up around Jono just very simply disintegrated them.
He frowned, hand reaching into his pocket for another set of cards to throw. He had just withdrawn them and started to charge them, honestly afraid of his ability to dodge the growing blast, when he suddenly felt very dizzy. And then, just as suddenly, felt nothing at all and saw nothing at all. He followed suit in the same moments as Jono, falling to the floor. The cards exploded in his hand, singing his right glove badly.
With a gentle shake of her head, Paige turned on the bed as if to try and talk to Jono again. To try and tell him to stop. To try... anything. But with the charged cards whizzing around and the orange glow brightening, it was hard to keep her head on straight. And she was about to husk into something that wouldn't be damaged by Jono's energy, when she felt faint. Then everything went black, and she collapsed to the bed.
Soft. Warm. Cold. The blonde lifted her head and glanced around the room, fear welling within her. Where was she? Who were those people? She sat up suddenly, noticing the guy laying on the floor in the room. Was this his room? Was it her room? It looked like a boy's room, not a girl's room. And she was a girl, right? She glanced down at her chest. Yep, definitely a girl. What on Earth was this? She turned to look at the clock and read the time. The room felt familiar, but there wasn't anything... she didn't know who she was or where she was, or when she was. Her attention was caught by someone else starting to stir, and gasped when she saw another figure in the doorway. Was he on fire??
Jono's eyes fluttered open and as his eyes focused he found himself staring up at a plain white ceiling. Upon realizing he was lying on the floor he started to sit up gingerly. Where the hell was he? Had he passed out? And what was that bright light? Jono looked down and saw the swirl of orange energy pulsing from his chest. Or lack there of rather. Frightened, he scrambled backwards until his back hit the wall looking down at himself in shock. What was wrong with him!? What was he!? He tried to cry out for help but no sound came out...oh God he wasn't even breathing! How was he alive!?
Jono started to panic, glancing around the room frantically. It wasn't until then that he realized he wasn't alone. There was a distraught looking blonde girl he'd never seen before sitting on the bed and staring at him wide-eyed. And there was a guy in a trench coat with strange eyes sitting up across the room. Jono tried again to say something but he didn't even have a mouth anymore! With shaking hands he reached up to touch what was left of his face and fumbled with the strange black straps that were hanging around his shoulders. Was this meant to cover him up? He looked back to the two strangers in the room desperately, wondering who they were and if they could help him. Or at least tell him what was going on. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten this way. Or even where he'd come from or what his name was now that he thought about it.
Remy himself was pretty used to waking up and not remembering much. But Remy now woke up remembering nothing. Not even a name. He woke up to a million things tugging at him, trying to be familiar, but nothing clicked. He opened his eyes, rubbing an arm across them blearily. Oh man. His hand really hurt. And so did his chin. He glanced down at himself as he slowly stood. Okay. Male. In good shape. About six feet tall. Good information to start with.
He glanced up to survey the room. For a moment, he saw a girl on a bed, wondered what she was doing there - but something else entirely caught his eye. Another man in the room with... what the hell was wrong with him? Remy took a few steps back, eyes wide. He did look like he was on fire, but while panicked, he didn't seem to be in pain. But that meant... it was part of him? What the hell was that? "Merde!" he said, the best word to come to mind to sum up all the confusion. He reached back, trying to catch himself on the wall, but grabbing a floor lamp instead. His confusion continued - and without knoweldge of his powers, the constant reminder to keep it in check, energy started moving around in the lamp. It glowed purple for a moment, though Remy didn't notice - and then exploded, bits of light bulb flying everywhere and the lamp shattering. "Merde!" he shouted again, much louder. What the hell?!
That was a strange word, mare'd. Meard. Whatever it was. But Paige's true attention was on the boy on fire across the room. She'd moved a little to climb to her feet when the lamp exploded. Paige half-jumped/half-fell back onto the bed. Her instinct kicked in, and she thought about steel--something that wouldn't be injured by shattering lamp. Suddenly, everything felt rather heavy. The bed gave an awful creak, and Paige's skin started to itch like mad. She reached a hand up and tugged on her arm, then screamed when a huge chunk of her own skin came peeling off.
Jono flinched when the lamp exploding startled him, causing the aura of orange energy to flicker brighter for a second out of instinct. Before he could put two and two together and realize the man across from him had apparently caused it to happen there was suddenly screaming. He turned back toward the bed and found the blonde girl shrieking as a rather large shred of skin was hanging off of her arm, revealing a shiny, metallic interior. What. The fuck. Was going on. Jono brought his knees to his chest and put his head down, finding that the energy didn't burn him at all. He couldn't deal with all of this insanity. This had to be a bad dream or something, nothing made any sense.
Remy gave his hand a shake as he backed away quickly from the lamp. Or, what was left of the lamp. He'd done that, hadn't he? How had he- His line of thought trailed off instantly when he heard the scream and he turned to face the girl on the bed. His eyebrows raised when she yanked off a piece of her own skin, revealing something shiny underneath. Okay. Weird. Were they all in, like, the circus or something?
Okay, if the man with glowing energy was weird, and the girl with peel off skin was weird, then maybe weird was just normal there. He moved forward carefully, holding his hands out to the girl. "*Are you all right?*" he asked in a heavily-accented French. He still didn't realize his devil's eyes also marked him as strange, not just his ability to blow up furniture at a touch.
"It doesn't hurt..." Paige said, though she was completely terrified that her skin seemed to be shedding off. The rest of it felt itchy, saggy, almost. Like she wanted to tear it all off. It was a wonder she'd understood what he said in his heavy accent. she gave another tug and dropped the shedded skin on the bed. (Sorry, Jono.) "Wh--What am I?" She asked, finally turning to look up at him. She gave another little gasp at the sight of his eyes. Without the darkness in them, he was very, very handsome. "Wh-What are you?" She'd been momentarily distracted from the Boy-On-Fire across the room at her own skin falling off.
Remy felt like he was used to hearing English responses to French, so he didn't think to switch language when she answered in English. He'd probably switch back and forth just as easily. He gave a nod, taking her hand suddenly. "*Very interesting, dear,*" he said, turning her hand over. Definitely metal. He wondered how they were doing what they were doing, but he was coming to accept it pretty quickly. "I wish I had an answer for ya," he said, returning to English to speak, "but I got de same question." He pulled his hand back, looking down at it. With the initial shock ebbing away, he didn't feel a tingle in his hands.
He wasn't sure what had elicited the gasp. "I dunno my name, let alone... 'what' I might be. What we might be." He pointed over to Jono. "He's weird, too. T'ink we're all de same t'ing? My first t'ought was circus." He gave a little grin, trying to lighten the mood. He put his hands on his hips, feeling bulges in his pockets. "Hmm." He emptied the contents, finding a ton of cards (weird!) and a wallet. He quickly opened it to fish through. He found no less than ten IDs in it. Well, that wasn't helpful. They all had his pictures, but they had varying names. "Well, I could be, let's see... Etienne Benoit, Chace Fagan, Michel LeBlanc, Remy LeBeau, Olivier LeBeau, Olivier Fagan, oh, hey, dere's Remy LeBeau again, Remy Aucoin, John Smith -- really, I t'ought dat'd be a good idea? -- Jean-Luc Vincent, Henri Oubren - damn, dere's more. I t'ink I'm gon go wid Remy LeBeau for now, only one dat repeats." He looked up. "So. Remy LeBeau at your service." He flashed her a grin.
Paige didn't really watch Remy dig through his pockets for the cards and the wallet, she was more focused on trying not to peel all of the excess skin off of her new, metallic body. But it was a losing battle. She finally peeled it all off and sat on the bed in her steel form, feeling rather naked now. When he decided on a name, she finally looked back up at him. "...uh... nice to meet you, Remy." Wait, wallet! That was an idea! She turned to her puddle of skin and clothes to dig out whatever was in her pockets. Student ID!
"I'm Paige Guthrie. Wow, Paige. Like a page in a book? What a name." She paused, glancing over at the Boy-On-Fire. "...and... are you...?" She said, looking at the orange around him. "...are you all right?"
Jono hadn't moved from the corner in which he sat, still feeling rather shell-shocked. He also hadn't been watching the exchange between the two strangers in the room as his head was still down, but he had been listening. Both of them had accents, the girl was American and the guy was....who knew. He'd never heard an accent like that before. Come to think of it he didn't even know if he had an accent himself as he couldn't really say anything. When the guy introduced himself as Remy LeBeau and the girl as Paige Guthrie there was definitely a spark of familiarity there. But it was vague and Jono found that he couldn't quite place the names.
He hadn't realized at first that Paige was actually talking to him now but after a few moments of silence he glanced up and found her looking at him. Was he alright? He didn't even know! He wasn't in pain but he was obviously far from normal and had some kind of amnesia. He decided to follow suit and check his pockets for a wallet. Maybe he had an ID too? He patted his pants down however and found that the only thing in his pocket was a guitar pick. He looked back up at the two strangers helplessly giving a little shrug.
"Paige. Good name," Remy said with a solid nod. He was still going through his pockets. He wore cargo pants that day and had a number of them. As he kept searching (where were all these cards coming from?! Who needed this many?), he kept his eyes trained between the two. Okay, they all had amnesia, apparently. But they woke up in the same room. They had to know each other, right? He suddenly withdrew another wallet from a pocket, raising his eyebrows. Who needed two wallets -- oh. The other boy didn't have one.
Okay, so either they all knew each other, or he was definitely uninvited and looking for stuff. He coughed, tossing the wallet over. "Dat yours, ya t'ink, homme?" he asked.
Paige watched the guy pull a guitar pick from his pocket. It was... well, playing a guitar was a sexy thing to do, wasn't it? But with no face like that... she could only see his eyes. They were nice eyes, and nice hair, but he didn't have a face. No lips. It was a little difficult to look at him, too, as the bright orange glow was hard to look into. Then the French guy was talking to her again. At least, he sounded French. "Thank you," she said to him, then watched the wallet fly between the two. She turned to try and dig her clothes out from her pile of skin, so at least she could cover herself in her steel form.
Jono watched as Remy emptied the rest of his many pockets. What was with the playing cards? There was definitely more than one deck there. Was he a bloody magician or something? Jono reached for the black wallet that Remy had tossed over, opening it up. There was no ID inside, just a crumpled twenty dollar bill. Well that didn't help much. He wasn't even sure if this wallet was actually his or not, but he pocketed in nonetheless. Although, if it was in fact his, then why did the French guy have it? Jono took the opportunity then to finally get a look at his surroundings. They were in what looked like a dorm room. Maybe they were university students? Or members of freakshow... There were two beds and two desks. The far side of the room was messy with all sorts of clothes and eclectic belongings strewn about. The side of the room closest to where Jono was sitting was less cluttered. There were a few band posters on the wall (The Clash, The Sex Pistols) and a guitar on a stand near the closet. He'd had a guitar pick on him after all, maybe this was his room? He glanced over to Remy across from him. Were they roommates perhaps?
Magician, that was a good guess. His fingers did move hella fast on their own. He watched the boy rifle through the wallet. No ID, huh? Maybe they were all freaks. He had a ton of IDs, the other boy had none, and the girl would have been normal if she wasn't sitting there completely steel. "De rien," he said to Paige, still going through his pockets. No more wallets, but there was a necklace in the same pocket that had the other wallet. What was he doing with all that stuff on him? Well, weirder things were going on.
He gave the room a glance himself. A picture on the wall, on the half of the room he stood in, caught his eye. He walked over to stare at it. It felt amazingly familiar, and gave him a sudden pang of longing and nostalgia. "New Orleans at Sunset" was the caption. Was that where he was from? This had to be his side of the room. He just knew it. Man, he was messy! He moved to the desk, which was also messy, but didn't have much to indicate school work. He looked around - oh, there! A stack of school books, with perfect spines, sat under the desk. With a layer of dust. Apparently, he was a student, just not a very good one. He smirked a little. He continued to glance around. A gleam of white caught his eye, perched on the edge of the other desk, under some papers. "Hey!" he exclaimed, grabbing the whiteboard, not caring when papers fluttered to the ground. There was a marker attached to it. He tossed it to the boy. "Look, somet'ing t'write on!"
A white board! Perfect! Paige pulled her clothes back on over her steel form. It was a lot of work lugging around all that weight... really, she was getting very tired doing so. She sat back down on the bed, feeling a little better now all her parts were covered, and finally took a moment to look around the room. "This can't be my room." She said, "must be yours. Maybe I was here visiting you for some reason?" She turned to watch Jono with the white board.
Jono reached for the white board and unclipped the marker. It seemed an odd thing to be just lying around, was this how he normally communicated with people? That seemed horribly frustrating...what the hell had happened to his mouth? He hesitated for a moment, not sure what to write with the two of them looking at him expectantly. At this rate he knew less than they did, he didn't even know his own name yet. "Think this is my room," he scrawled, confirming what Paige already surmised in messy yet legible handwriting. He wanted to start asking them questions about where they were and how they knew each other and what was wrong with all of them, but it had become fairly obvious that they were just as in the dark as he was. How could they all have amnesia at the same time? "Why don't we know anything?" he wrote, knowing it was a rather futile question. At least the amnesia issue was momentarily distracting him from the fact that he had apparently been in some kind of horrible accident and was lacking some rather vital functions.
Remy gave a little shrug. "I t'ink so, too. At least, dat seems like it would be my stuff. I t'ink." He pointed to the painting. "I t'ink I'm from dere. N'Awlins. Feels right, non?" He definitely spoke as though that was where he came from. Not that he knew, for certain, one way or the other. Like he still wasn't sure if Remy LeBeau was his real name. He shrugged. He'd go with it. He continued to poke around the desk, not caring that it probably wasn't his stuff. As Jono wrote on the board, he knew it wasn't his stuff. The handwriting on the papers on the desk and that on the board was a perfect match. "Dis stuff is def'nitely yours, homme," he said matter-of-factly, picking up some papers. He scanned his eyes over it. "Looks like your..." Okay, he could pronounce "Johnathon," sure, but Jonothon? What was with that o? "Jean-" he used the French pronunciation, almost John but not quite, "Jean-oh-t'ing. Ton. Stars...mare? Stars. More." He handed to paper over. "Weird name." Like Remy LeBeau wasn't.
He gave another shrug at the question. "Mebbe we all got hit on de head real hard?" He felt the back of his head, but nothing ached. Well, his chin hurt, for some reason. "Amnesia gas? Milit'ry experiment gone wrong? Aliens?" He threw out increasingly unrealistic ideas, smirking. He found it kind of funny, really.
"Definitely Aliens." Paige said, staring over at Jonothon. Jono-Thon. The one with the orange, glowy face. She turned her eyes back to Remy, the one with the black and red eyes. Then she turned her eyes down to her own hands, made of steel. "We're not normal. We're definitely not human. Whatever this is, it ain't human." She shook her head a little, then stood up and turned around to clean up the scraps of skin she left behind when she shedded. So weird. She tossed it all into a trash can next to someone's desk.
"Definitely not," Jono wrote on the board in response to both of Paige's statements. This was fucked but there was no way it was aliens. Right? Military experiment seemed much more plausible in his mind. He took the paper from Remy and scanned over it. The handwriting certainly matched what he had written on the white board. And the name in the top right hand corner, Jonothon Starsmore, did feel a bit familiar. A bit long and formal though, but it fit. Maybe there would be more clues as to who/what he was on the page as well. Unfortunately as he brought the piece of notebook paper closer to his face (and thus the orange glowing energy) he accidentally singed it, causing the page to burn up in a matter of seconds. Wide-eyed he tossed what was left of the page on the floor, stamping the smoldering remains out with his boot. Then looked down once more at the black straps hanging around his shoulders. It looked like some kind of mask and it would probably be wise to figure it out before he caused more serious damage.
Everything seemed plausible enough in Remy's mind. The girl tore off her skin, the other guy was billowing over with orange energy AND didn't have much of a face, and he apparently blew things up just by touching them. Aliens made just as much sense as anything else. He gave a bit of a shrug when Jono denounced the theory, still hanging on to his grin, with no idea just how trademarked it was for him. He watched the paper burn up, eyebrows raising. Well, both he and his apparent roommate had some pretty explosive powers, non? Remy wondered how they managed to not blow up the whole room. Maybe something to do with whatever he was fiddling with around his face?
Remy started over, getting in close to Jono. Something felt familiar about that energy. Like he'd just faced it down. "Here, lemme hel-" Remy started to reached out, about to grab the straps, certain he could figure it out, when he stopped midway, looking down at his fingers. They tingled, like they had just before he'd touched the lamp. He took a step back, frowning. "On second t'ought, fille, mebbe ya oughta do it," he said, looking to Paige. He took another step back, glancing around, then reached into his pocket. He withdrew a card and it charged immediately. He held on to it, though, not wanting to send an explosion at anything. He gave a little wince when it exploded between his fingers.
Paige gave a little nod at Remy's suggestion, and stepped closer to Jonothon. "...may I?" She asked. Her accent was definitely shining through, though it wasn't as thick as Remy's. Not by a longshot. She lifted her steel hands to take hold of the straps, moving to help Jonothon get the mask back in place. Something about this felt... almost normal. Being here with Jonothon. Looking into what was left of his face. She felt warmth toward him for some unknown reason.
Jono didn't flinch away from Remy's touch, or Paige's. He was simply grateful for the help as the mask seemed a bit complicated and it'd probably take him a while on his own. He arched an eyebrow at Remy as he backed away and then proceeded to make one of the playing cards from his pocket explode. The action gave Jono a very vague sense of deja-vu but like everything else about him he was unable to place the hazy familiarity of it to an actual memory. How was Remy doing that? Right, probably the same way he wasn't dead and Paige was made of metal. At least she wouldn't get burned or catch on fire this way as she stepped in front of him and proceeded to wrap the mask around him like a bandage.
Once she had finished he gave a nod of thanks, reaching up to touch the mask experimentally. It was strange to say the least, but at least the orange energy was now contained and not pouring out around him. He felt a little more comfortable with the gaping hole covered, a little bit less like a freak of nature. He lifted up the bottom of his black t-shirt a bit and found that the black straps were covering him all the way down to his stomach. "Bloody hell," he thought to himself, bewildered and still unsure what to think of all this.
"Okay, so we got our names, and we got dat we're quite outta de ordinary. Next step is where we are, and if anyone else is around, non?" Remy had to give his hand a shake. How was he supposed to keep that tingly feeling away? "Someone gotta be 'round, and someone gotta know what happened," he said, with a complete air of certainty. "Dis seems like a school or apartment for students - I mean, dere's homework on your desk, Jun-a-den." He'd get the name right some time. "And we're 'bout dat age. So dere's gotta be ot'ers about, and it can't be dat everyone's lost deir minds!"
After Jonothon's mask was strapped into place, Paige stepped back again to admire the handiwork. Okay, so he was dark and mysterious, and his hair fell into his eyes in such a way that made him... And then she jumped. There was a British voice in her head. "Bloody what?" She asked, then turned to Remy as he started talking.
A sense of trepidation started to well within Paige at the idea of leaving the room. It was unfounded, really, she had no idea what was out there, so how could it be any worse than what was in here? She was probably just being silly. "All right. You go first." If there were others around that could blow things up, Paige didn't want to be the first one into the fray.