Jonathan (vocalstrain) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-05-01 18:44:00 |
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Chloe wasn’t interested in going out and making friends, or she kept telling herself, but she was interacting with people on the journal system and honestly it was nice to have something to take her mind off current events. The meeting with Scott hadn’t been as disastrous as she thought it would have been and Kelly had been doing an admiral job of trying to make sure that Chloe wasn’t left alone for too long but she didn’t want to be a burden on the family she’d already ruined, so that afternoon she’d ducked out of her room and headed to the leisure area with the intention of finding something to fill the time. Unfortunately, most of the games that were there seemed to be two player and she was woefully alone. She ignored the stab in her stomach at that realisation and took a deep breath, wandering around the air hockey table and the foosball table, running her fingers along the edge before picking up the puck for air hockey and putting it on the surface that she could feel lightly pushing out air to help make the puck float. If she was going to have to play alone, she thought, at least she could get some power practise in. Lifting her hands, Chloe stretched her fingers out and felt a breeze around herself, pushing the air underneath the puck and causing it to skate across the table in a rather wobbly fashion. It hit the corner and bounced in a ricochet but when she tried to catch it, she put too much power into it and the puck was sent flying off the table, hitting the floor with a plink and rolling away. “Goddamn son of a biscuit,” Chloe swore, eyes focused on the rolling puck and seeing too late that it had come to a halt in front of someone’s beat up black and white converse. Jay was very rarely in his room, not when there was a whole new facility to explore, and he never did well with sitting still. Also? The tour from Dove had been exactly what he’d needed so now he was navigating Limbo like an old pro. Or mostly. As long as nobody mentioned the whole accidentally walking into the wrong changing rooms. Like ever. His wandering had led him to the leisure room where he was promptly greeted by some interesting choices of what he could only assume was ways in which to swear in the South without being told off by your family and then the tapping of an air hockey puck against his converse. “Think you lost this,” he replied with a quirky half smile as he leaned down, slowly mind as he was still sore from his training session, and picked it up. “Were you playing on your own?” Chloe had never gotten out of the creative way of swearing that had been drilled into her by Charlie - who had learned the hard way that swearing around their parents was a terrible idea. She looked up from where she’d been tracking the wobbling puck and sheepishly looked up at Jay as he grabbed the pick and brandished it in her direction. “Ain’t no one else here to play with,” she answered, her Southern twang distinctly stronger than Scott’s because she hadn’t really ever left Georgia and the only time she was ever really exposed to those who weren’t from her area was when Scott or Matt brought their military friends home. “So I figured I’d get some practise in.” She took the puck from him with a ‘thank you’ before she walked back to the table. “There’s one of these in the basement at my momma’s house,” she told him, “My brother, Lou-” Her smile disappeared briefly, a crushed expression crossing her face before she seemingly tried to push it away even though the tremor in her voice stayed for a few more words, like her throat was tight. “My brothers kick my butt at this game all the damn time. Figured I could try and get some practise in so if S-Scott ever wanted to play I’d stand a fightin’ chance.” Though she both sounded and looked doubtful that was a possibility. Jay frowned a little when Chloe’s previously bright expression vanished as she mentioned a brother, Lou something, and then she did that thing where you could tell she was trying her best to breathe past tears. He was trying his best not to pick up on her southern twang as he sometimes had an unconscious habit of mimicking accents and it didn’t always go over well. Some people really hated it. “I was never very good at it either,” he shared as he meandered in the direction of the table. “Too much hand eye coordination required. My dad has it in spades. Me? Ehhh not so much. It’s kinda embarrassing if I’m honest considering he was and still is a really good athlete, but thankfully he loves me and all my ineptitudes.” Rambling apparently was something that Jay did very well. “You can kick my butt if that’ll make you feel better?” Chloe put the puck down and waved her hand over the edge. It wobbled and rocketed to the other side of the table, ricocheting randomly with a loud pinging noise. “I ain’t so good myself,” she said, “without cheatin’.” She picked up one of the strikers and held it out to Jay. “I just wanna be doin’ somethin’, yanno? Keepin’ my head busy.” Stopped her thinking about everything. About how Scott had said everything was okay but she really, sorely doubted that it was. Ordinarily, she would have blabbered on about her family at length, gushing about them but she couldn’t right now. So she didn’t. It hurt her chest. “You feelin’ better?” she asked, “I mean, from the other day when we went lookin’ for ice?” “Cheating’s serious business,” Jay replied teasingly with a mock offended expression because honestly he wouldn’t blame anyone for trying to get ahead in a game that everybody else seemed to own. “But you know I won’t tell if you don’t.” He took a hold of the offered striker and rounded on the empty side of the table. “Less like my muscles are trying to leap off my bones and make a runner so that’s better, right?” “Only if you suck at it,” Chloe pointed out, tilting her head a little as she thought she heard a distinctly familiar twang creeping into his voice. She picked up the other striker and gently nudged the puck over to Jay’s side of the table, letting him have first hit. Louis always kicked her ass at this game; his hand eye coordination was insane. Watching him and Scott play table tennis had always been- She swallowed and focused back on Jay. “I- that’s a good thing, yeah,” she agreed. “Ain’t never fun when you’re achin’ for all the wrong reasons.” Jay watched the movement of the puck and to his credit he did actually hit it, which in itself was a surprise, and that much was evident in how delighted he looked. “Amen to that, amen to that,” he drawled without being able to help himself as he tended to just sort of adopt accents without really putting any conscious thought into it. “But I mean it could be worse, I think Holly went easy on me so I’m legit dreading the day she decides to take it up a notch.” He might actually die. Chloe couldn’t help the way her lips curled up into a soft smile at Jay’s delighted response to hitting the puck. She watched it bounce towards her and carefully, and gently, hit it back. Since he’d said he didn’t have hand-eye coordination she took it easy so that it didn’t just rocket back and forth on the table. Snorting, she said, “I met my handler over the network. He told me I’ll have a training schedule at some point and I gotta follow it. Ain’t happy with it, but I’d rather be here than in jail. At least I can work off my sentence doin’ somethin’ good.” She paused, adding after a moment, “‘sides, by the time she takes it up a notch… you oughta be ready, right?” She noticed his accent taking a distinct drawl and she glanced up, one eyebrow slightly raised. “You mockin’ me, cowboy?” she asked, head tilted to the side a little. “Wait, what?” Jay asked, looking genuinely taken aback and a little horrified because he’d really been trying his best not to mimic but apparently it was a lot like breathing in that he didn’t really think about it, it just sort of happened. “No, no, no,” he assured her hurriedly. “It’s part of my power set and I’ve been using them so long that nowadays it’s like a reflex so I don’t mean to do it but I can stop.” Oh boy, way to make friends and influence people, Jay. “Sorry,” he offered a sheepish moment later. Chloe’s raised eyebrow dropped when Jay hastily apologised for mimicking her accent and her face softened a little, her lips curling upwards again even if the smile didn’t reach her eyes properly. “Ain’t gonna judge you for your powers, Jay,” she told him after a moment, knocking the puck back and flicking the fingers of her free hand, rustling his hair with a soft breeze. “It’s okay, I just- sometimes people tease me for it so I just gotta make sure. Don’t feel you gotta stop.” She knocked the puck back when he returned it to her. “We never did get to talkin’ about powers when you gave me my tour.” “Alright, well that’s good,” Jay replied in what was obviously a wave of relief. “‘Cause I don’t mean to, just sorta happens and then some people get offended by it.” He felt the ruffling of his hair and smiled as he returned the puck. They weren’t really playing to win as neither of them were playing aggressively but winning wasn’t everything. Jay liked his powers, enjoyed what he could do with then, but he didn’t think they made him the best Agent. “I have a fairly useless but kind of fun power,” he shared with a smile. “Vocal manipulation, vocal mimicry and omnilingualism.” Winning definitely wasn’t everything; Chloe just liked having someone to spend time with. She was normally really good at making friends, but this situation was a little different and she was struggling to cope. Jay was easy going and nice and made her feel at ease, which was a good thing. “Nah,” she told him, “Ain’t gonna get offended.” The puck bounced off the corner near her and she hit it back at an angle, bouncing it off the opposite side of the table with a grin over at the other super. “Long as you ain’t mockin’ I don’t care.” She tilted her head at him as he told her what his powers were and she lifted her eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s useless. That’s such a cool power. And real easy to hide. How’d you get caught? If you don’t mind me askin’. Tell me if I’m bein’ nosey. My momma always said I asked too many questions.” “Definitely not mocking,” Jay assured her. He teased sure, liked to play around, pull pranks and all that kind of thing but he didn’t mock. He’d had that done to him enough that he wasn’t about to do it to anyone else. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ll take your word on that.” And it had been easy to hide up until the point he’d gotten way in over his head and well, cocky. “I got.. overconfident or cocky if you’d rather. I used it to skip school, get out of class, stupid teenage shit and it was going well up until the point I got caught using it in class.” Not the most exciting tale but his tale all the same. Chloe's eyebrow lifted, thinking briefly about how much she'd love to have the ability to have mimicked her momma's voice to get out of school, or to get out of trouble. But she'd still have had to hide it; her situation wouldn't have been different in that sense but... but if she'd been able to do that, she wouldn't have had a power that could have caused her brother to want- Her expression faltered again, that crushing guilt sweeping over her and a nearby machine flickered, her hair lifting with static electricity. She clenched her fist against the edge of the table and breathed in deeply, trying to push it aside. Her grasp on her powers was really woolly at the moment, she needed to get a better handle on it or they'd shut her off again. "You what, were talkin' like the teacher?" she asked, "Sucks though. What happened when they caught you?" Jay’s eyes darted over to the nearby machine as it flickered and an eyebrow made a very slow approach towards his hairline. Well, would you look at that. He was dying to ask but he could just hear his mother’s voice in his head telling him to not go snooping into things that weren’t his to snoop on. “Not the teacher,” he said with a shake of his head. “As the Principal, over the tannoy.” He shrugged. “I got home, they were men in suits there, I had to tell my family and then I was being taken away in cuffs. Me? Cuffs.” Chloe saw the eyebrow climb towards his hairline, wondered what it was that he was curious about. She’d never stopped to think if she should ask a question or not, mostly she just asked whatever she wanted to. It was why she got chastised for being nosey, but she was never meaning to be. She was just curious and knew you’d never get an answer if you didn’t ask. “That sucks,” she sympathised. “Ain’t no good, ‘specially as you weren’t hurting nobody.” She tapped her fingers on the table and pushed the puck lightly, sending it meandering across the mini pitch. “‘M sorry that happened to you.” “Eh,” Jay returned with a shrug as he returned the puck once it finally made its way over to his side of the table. “Shit happens, and I should have been more careful. Only myself to blame really. Not like anybody held a gun to my head and made me do it.” He blew out a breath and tipped his head. “You wanna go confuse people by me talking in different voices and languages?” Chloe tilted her head a little. “Sure,” she said, “Can we go get snacks first?” “There is always time for snacks,” Jay answered with a grin before he stepped away from the table and fell into step beside Chloe, already taking in random voices and accents as he had a feeling she could do with cheering up or distracting. Either or. He could do that. |