Sin Draven (poweroftouch) wrote in reality_dome, @ 2014-04-05 22:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | jacob cooper, ~crimson moretti |
Characters: Sin and Jake
When: Sunday afternoon
Location: Cabin 11
Warnings/Rating: Language
Summary: Sin goes to ask Jake some advice about something new happening to her.
Status: Closed, Complete
This day had been an utter disaster so far. She’d woken up strangely soaked. Her clothing, her blankets, her sheets, but only from the waist up. Part of her had worried that whatever was in her syringe had somehow given her tumors in her sweat glands along with her new powers. But as she pulled the blanket off of the bed, she brought it to her face and sniffed at it a bit. It didn’t smell like sweat. And she didn’t feel sticky and gross, just wet and gross. She laid each bedding item out on the floor to try and dry a bit, and so she would have some sort of evidence to this fuckery if she needed it, and then headed off into the shower to get cleaned up. Even if the solution appeared to be only water, that didn’t make it so and she wanted to be safe. Besides, how in the fuck would that much water be able to be dumped on her without her waking up? And how would anyone get in her cabin to do so? Sin was fairly certain the people running this operation had better shit to do with their time than to sneak in and fuck with them while they slept in such an immature manner. But her questions were answered as she was drying off. She had only gotten halfway dry when she noticed her towel feeling heavy. She hadn’t washed her hair so it shouldn’t be holding as much water as it looked like. What in the hell was happening here? As she held the towel in front of her eyes the wet spots seemed to get bigger and they looked like they were spreading out from her hands. She let go with her right hand to get a better look, and sure enough there was water leaking out of it. She held it flat, watching as the water slowly dripped off of her palm to the floor. “Oh jesus fucking christ stop it! Off! Turn off! Stop! Dry up!” She started shouting commands at it but it didn’t seem to help. She shoved both of her hands back into the towel so she wouldn’t end up leaking all over the floor. It took some waiting, but eventually the leaking had stopped. She was able to get dressed and then she went back to the bathroom to do another check on her teeth. They were still very sore but the pain had moved itself into just her canines and the teeth next to them rather than the whole front of her mouth. You’d think that would help but really, the pain felt more severe than it had in days prior. She lifted her upper lip to take a better look. They were noticeably longer than the rest of her other teeth and they looked like they were trying to maybe form into points. Definitely not rat teeth. But most certainly they might be fangs by the time they were done. “So. Let me get this straight. I can fix myself. My teeth are getting pointy. And my hands are leaking the damn ocean.” Did anyone else have three things? Did they just decide that she was the clean-up of all the left over mutations they had in the lab? It didn’t matter. They weren’t going to go away and she needed to learn how to use them. The healing she had covered. The fangs…maybe they were for show. But the water, she had no experience there. Nothing actually had come out of her hands before, other than when she was healing someone else and even then it was only a feeling and not an actual thing. She was going to need some advice. That was how she ended up outside of Jake’s cabin door. If she knocked and he wasn’t in, she would go check the freezer. He made ice, he had plenty of experience, and he was someone Sin was more than comfortable enough going to for an explanation on how to work this. There was something else she had noticed on the way over. The sun felt a little extra bright today. She tried to write it off as maybe not getting enough sleep or just having dry eyes because maybe some of the water she ingested for the healing was what had leaked out of her or something but she knew there was probably more to it. It was never safe to assume inside of this damn Dome. She rapped on the door, hoping he was in and she wouldn’t have to turn around and make the trek to the Keep. She wasn’t in the mood to see a bunch of people today. _______ With his powers back, he was right back to having temperature sensitivities. It still wasn’t as bad as it had been, but it was noticeable. He’d touched base with April to catch up with her and he learned that she was now a fire producer, and not simply a fire manipulator. Which was interesting. Not surprising, given how some things had apparently been adjusted and rearranged. Still, it had been good to see her out and about. And alive. He hadn’t had to pry too much to hear how close it had been. When he heard the knock on his door, he wondered who it was. He was inclined to say he didn’t get a lot of visitors, but he kind of did lately. With all the discussion and ups and downs with the powers, Jaime had swung by a couple of times. So he thought it might be her again, until he pulled open the door to see Sin instead. “Hey,” he greeted her, brows lifting slightly before he gestured her inside. Given the slightly elevated temperatures outside, he wasn’t inclined to let the warm in. Even with the air on though, it wasn’t completely comfortable for him. So he was taking advantage of all the cold water the shower provided and wearing minimal clothing. Again. He was of the mind Sin was going to start thinking he didn’t wear clothes unless he was going outside. Which was more or less true. He had no one to be ‘decent’ for in his cabin, so why bother? He could always pull a shirt on if his visitor was offended by bare chests. “What’s up?” He added as he moved to settle on the couch, gesturing her to have a seat if she was inclined. _______ “Hi.” She replied, slipping inside when he moved out of the way. It wasn’t too hot out there, but she assumed it was probably enough to bother him and she didn’t want to let his air out. Sin really was beginning to assume that, that or he just had an aversion to shirts in general. But she had bigger matters to worry about than how dressed or not he was at the moment. And since this wasn’t the first time this sort of situation had happened, she wasn’t as…caught off guard as the first time. “Well,” She started, taking a seat on the couch opposite him, fingers digging for a bottle of water from her hoodie as she spoke. “I sprung a leak a leak this morning and I need your advice.” Which probably didn’t make very much sense without details. She plopped her water into her lap and held her hands out, palms up. “Okay, so when I woke up I was soaking wet. And I’ll spare you the details of how I figured this all out,” They weren’t important, “but my hands were dripping water. Not gushing or anything, but very noticeably water was coming from somewhere on them. I didn’t drink it or anything to test it for sure, but it was clear, it had no odor, and it was really fluid.” So if it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck… “It stopped on its own after I buried them in a towel for a bit to not make a mess, but I have no idea what in the hell I’m supposed to do with it. Or about it.” If there was any way to make it happen only when she wanted it to, that would be aces. “And that’s where you come in. I figured since you had the ice, you might be able to tell me how exactly you work yours. I mean, I don’t know if your hands ever just started freezing up and you were just running around with them frozen, but I’d really like this to not be my wake up call every morning. Whatever was in my syringe, this was part of it. I figured I’d better figure it out real quick.” And not solely because there would be large messes to clean up. For all she knew, she’d need to be able to actually do something with her water within the next few weeks and she needed some kind of tutorial on how to practice. “I’d show you but I don’t know how to get it to turn on. Umm. Leak. Water.” She shook her hands a bit. “Abracadabra!” Still nothing and now she just looked like a flappy idiot at a magic show. “See? This is why I need your assistance.” _______ Afternoon or not, Jake was of the mind it was too early to be trying to cope with something like this. He listened, piecing together a picture from what he was picking up from her explanations. He wasn’t sure he liked the apparently random mutation swap that was going on. Sure, he was fine, but Jaime had something new. Mike didn’t, Sin did. April’s was different. Oh. Maybe that had to do with it? “April’s changed,” he said, and it wasn’t as random as it probably seemed. “She doesn’t need a lighter to do the fire now. Maybe it’s … something new they’re trying. So now you … generate … water.” He said, his brow furrowing slightly. He could see how that could be useful. “Maybe you can be my stand in in a power-off with April,” he said with a faint smile. It wasn’t funny though, and he ran his hand lightly down his face, over his mouth. “I don’t know exactly how. I can try to walk you through things. Coach you the same way I coached April. But no … my hands didn’t freeze. The first thing I noticed, after the ice shower, was things I was holding would freeze. I can make my hands freeze now, if I wanted to.” Encasing himself completely in ice was something he was keen on trying someday. “I can’t honestly explain with words how to shoot it. I tried with April and I wound up having to startle her into it.” He shrugged, and he wasn’t above doing the same to Sin once she got that far. “As far as stopping it from … dripping,” he said, trying not to look amused because he could think of several jokes he could make. “I don’t know. Practice. It takes some mental focus, but after a while …” He lifted one hand, letting ice spiral from all of his fingertips, joining them into a hollow icicle. “It gets easy.” _______ “April’s different too?” How many of them were changing, gaining or losing? Sin shook her head. She didn’t want to take anyone’s place for anything and she wasn’t so sure she would want to join in on the perceived fun of power versus power battles. Maybe they were much more appealing when you actually knew what the hell you were doing with yourself and actually wanted to show off. “I have more than just the water that’s new.” She might as well go ahead and get this out of the way. “My teeth look like they’re trying to grow into fangs. The sun feels bright. But most importantly, I can’t heal anyone. Well, I can fix myself but I’m not really much use to the rest of you guys in that department.” The way she said it, it almost sounded shameful, like she had done something wrong. “That was pretty much my whole tie in to the group, what made me useful.” Now all she had were pointy teeth and leaky hands. “So unless you guys are thirsty or you need me to rip something open with my mouth, I guess I’m gonna be skirted to the fringes.” Which was good and bad. Now nothing would be on her to fix and she had no responsibility to anyone. But it also meant that no one had to keep any sort of prior connection made with her. “I haven’t officially announced it yet.” For the new people it was none of their business. The people she liked, however, needed to know and they could spread it the rest of the way amongst the core group. “I needed to tell you that before you did decide to give me actual lessons. I can’t exactly repay you for them and you don’t really have a reason to feel obligated now, if you would have before.” Sin was pretty convinced that if she wasn’t useful the rest of the group was just going to drift away from her, probably slowly at first, until she was just left by herself playing in puddles she made on the ground. “Showoff.” Though she had to admit it was really interesting to watch. “So if I concentrate on it, work with it enough, I should be able to stop from leaking all over the place?” Because Sin had a feeling that this morning’s events would not be the last time this happened. Next time she’d concentrate on making her hands dry or something. And if Jake didn’t want to hang out with her anymore she was going to steal at least that quick tip before she left. _______ Jake nodded in confirmation to her statement. He couldn’t really explain it, but it had to be something different. The way Jaime was different. The way Sin was different. Some sort of twist on things. He couldn’t honestly say he was impressed to hear she couldn’t heal. He recalled too well the incident with the bear, and he ran his hand over his mouth again before he exhaled. But if powers were swapping around, changing … “Do you know if anyone else can? Should we …” He shook his head. “Ask around? See if they removed it completely, or if they just slid it into someone else?” Was it him? He hadn’t thought to look out for anything else, but he doubted it. His needle had been blue, which seemed to be the situation normal needle. Who had colored needles? Jaime would know. She’d had one, but she also had that whole tough skin thing going on, so that was probably out. “You could always water the grass,” he teased her before he reached out to pick up one of her hands, as if he could somehow see the source of the leaks. He couldn’t, no more than he could see where exactly the ice came out of him. “Can you …” He hesitated as he tried to think of how to phrase it, then guessed she probably wouldn’t know yet anyway. “Was going to ask if you could do anything to existing water.” That had been his current project before the strip -- seeing what exactly he could do to ice he hadn’t created. He could do an awful lot -- except take it into himself the way he reabsorbed his own. So it stood to reason, right? “I’ll make a list of things to try, give you some ideas on how to do them. Once you work out one, it’s easier to use the same principle to cross over to the others,” he continued. “Once you kind of feel it, it’s easier and easier to find that feeling again until it’s just like breathing.” He didn’t know what to make of the rest of it. It sounded like she was turning into a vampire, but wasn’t that ridiculous? He almost snorted to his thoughts -- he knew better than that. Why not? Why not turn her into a vampire? Or vampire-esque? “Yeah,” he said as he drew the ice back into his hand. “Like I said, once you get a feel for it, it’ll be easy enough. We can work on it. And if it gets out of hand, I can just freeze it,” he teased her. _______ There was a slight shrug. “I have no idea. That’s one of Jaime’s theories, that things are being bounced around. I’m not sure though. There seems to be more new. Unless the ones that are new are really just powers of those that left before they could be activated and aren’t really new at all.” But, surely, if someone had fangs before her they would have mentioned it right? Jaime would have probably said something if it encompassed anyone who was here before Sin arrived herself. “Unless someone is hurt, they probably wouldn’t know. Unless they were thirsty, but I know different things affect people differently. A lot of you guys eat like horses. I’ve never had that here.” So unless they could spark it by healing someone, they would never know they had it. “Unless someone cuts themselves, after we give the new people time to develop, and everyone takes turns touching that person, I don’t think there’s a way to tell.” Which meant that the next few weeks could be dangerous or the entire rest of the time in the Dome if it hadn’t been bounced. She should have never wished for freedom. Well, he wasn’t saying he wanted to cut ties with her and was cracking jokes, so there was that. She could be happy about that one thing. Sin tensed slightly as Jake snagged her hand. She hadn’t been expecting it and it took her a second but she forced herself to relax. It was even harder because she was fully aware of his fingers on her skin. This liking thing was ridiculous. “If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.” She couldn’t blame him for jumping the gun. His power was fully workable so it made sense that his mind would leap around to all the things he could do to see if hers matched. “That would be great. I’d rather get a jump start on it than stand around dripping on everyone and everything. Make it be useful, if it can be, instead of annoying.” She listened closely. So she needed to figure out exactly how it felt when she could manage to trigger it to replicate that over and over again. Sin’s thoughts had also drifted to her turning into a vampire-like being as she’d watched her teeth changing over the past few days. Everything in her, with as many movies as she had watched, pointed in that direction but she was hoping not. It would be neat but it could also cause a lot of damage. She already had the makings of a killer in her, she didn’t need something fueling that fire to the point she couldn’t control herself and started slaughtering people in here and calling them dinner. The new ones would be the first to go. Probably Alexandra, the one with the attitude issue. Sin couldn’t imagine she would taste very good but probably at that point anything that bled would be fine. Her eyes drifted up from Jake’s hand back to his face. What if she hurt him on accident, couldn’t control herself? And how fast would this change happen? She sighed and tried to push the thoughts out of her mind. For all she knew, they were just teeth. Maybe nothing beyond sunlight sensitivity and fangs would happen and she was going way too far into movie land and drifting from the actual bounds of reality. Then again, this whole place was pretty fucking surreal. “I owe you for this one, teaching me how to do this.” Jake made it incredibly hard to not like him. And if they were going to be working closely together for a while, until Sin figured out her new power, then she should probably clear the air of how she felt. There was a chance it could make all of this weird, but he had expressed interest before so it should be okay to say she had some of her own. “There’s uh, one more thing too.” And hopefully he somewhat understood her version of the words. “If there was ever, you know, a reason to I would kill someone for you.” And then she smiled, an actual one and not the usual smirk that crossed her lips. _______ His lips pursed, but he nodded anyway. They couldn’t know, until someone was hurt and someone healed them. It wasn’t exactly like the syringes had any indication on them of the powers they’d held. Which made him wonder what would have happened if people had swapped needles. They would’ve presumably swapped powers, right? But would someone else have grown wings overnight? It was a moot point, but he was still curious. “Well, we might have to do that,” he said quietly. Was it possible they’d taken it out completely? That they wanted people to die? That they’d been pissed Sin had saved Dahlia? The timing of it all rankled him. There was no way of knowing, but it still didn’t feel right to him. Drawing himself back to the here and now and away from speculation, he nodded slightly. “I’ll type it up and shoot it over to you later,” he offered. “Once we figure out what you can do with it, we can work on finding uses for it.” Outside of a drought though … he wasn’t sure what they were looking at. Blasts of water, maybe. That could deter some things. If she could make water in a desert, it would help out his ice. He grinned a little. “If nothing else, you can hang out with me and supply water for me to freeze,” he teased her. He shook his head as she insisted she owed him. She didn’t; it was all for the good of the group, for her comfort and safety. “Hope you’re not planning on killing anyone here,” he said, his brows arching slightly. He thought he got where she was going with that, and he really wasn’t sure what to make of it. Whatever she did or didn’t, might or might not mean, his statement still stood -- he liked everyone in here well enough and so far had no reason to want any of them dead. _______ “I’d volunteer for that because I can fix myself now if no one else could, but I’m not sure I could handle all the touching.” That was a lot of people who would have to take turns placing hands on her and Sin didn’t think she could sit through that without lashing out. “I’m sure there are plenty of others who wouldn’t mind doing it as long as the wound was superficial.” It was for the greater good of the Dome that they figure this out so that would probably prompt people’s willingness some. “I can be idiot control. Every time someone says something stupid, I can hit them in the face with water.” She joked. It wouldn’t hurt them, as far as she knew, but it would get the message across. Sin supposed it might have more uses once she actually got it under some kind of control and did more than just drip. “Be your sidekick? What, so they could call us Iceman and the fucking Sprinkler?” She snorted. “But if you ever needed it, yeah, just say the word and I’ll come make things wet for you.” His response made her smile fall. She knew he was just being practical about it, but this was a big thing. “As of right now, I’m not.” She replied honestly. There had been enough death and near-death in the Dome this far. She couldn’t speak for the new people but none of the ones who had been here a while deserved it. Most likely she wouldn’t ever get there either because no one had really proven themselves to be a royal asshole in general. Sure, Mike didn’t like her, but that attitude didn’t extend beyond their spat as far as she knew. And as long as Aiden was respectful to Dahlia, there would be no issue there. And no one at all had even seemed to have a problem with Jake to begin with, but she was still keeping the offer there just in case. It meant something. He meant something. She was trying to convey that. “It’s more…” Sin sighed and shook her head. She didn’t know how to explain it. It probably didn’t matter in the long run either. _______ He shook his head slightly when she offered to volunteer. “No way to prove it wasn’t you doing it. That your body just decided it was going to heal itself, and it just happened to coincide with someone touching it,” he pointed out pragmatically. “No sense in putting yourself through that when … some people might doubt, anyway. Or … we might think someone has it when they really don’t.” Which was the darker side of it. If they thought they had a healer, and they didn’t, time might be wasted trying to get someone to the scene who couldn’t do any more good than the rest of them. Jake grinned a little, shrugged. “Better than an icicle to the face,” he returned playfully. “We can come up with something better than Sprinkler,” he retorted, nudging her arm lightly with a loose fist. “ I don’t know what, but something.” He had to work to keep back the grin at her last comment, mostly because there wasn’t a good way to turn that into a joke. Not the way he wanted to, anyway. “I know what it is,” he said softly. “I think I do, anyway. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Where we want to go with it.” He lifted a hand, brushing some of her hair back before he lightly cupped her cheek -- but briefly. He knew his hands were cold, but he couldn’t ever judge how cold they were. Chilly? Uncomfortably cold? It didn’t bother him, but he knew better these days than to touch April; she said it was so cold it hurt. Granted, April was on the other end of the spectrum, and wasn’t anyone to really judge by. But he guessed if Sin had issues with his cold, she wouldn’t be shy about bringing them up. _______ That was actually a very good point. “I can control it though. Or I think I can. When Dahlia stayed at my cabin the other night, I got a scrape and it didn’t just fix on its own until I wanted it to. Until I actually tried to. But if I was concentrating on them trying to fix it to see if there were changes, yeah it probably would just close on its own. We’d find out if I started getting dizzy and tired.” She glossed over what had really happened with Dahlia but it had been an accident. Everyone would find out about her claws soon enough, when she felt like telling them. “Maybe we really are just fucked and They thought we were scraping by too easily.” Sin laughed and nodded. “Probably. One’s inconvenient and the other could just take someone’s eye out.” Which would be secretly amusing as hell but also extremely bad at the same time. People needed to be able to see to make it in here. “I hope so. With Chrissie being all about nicknames, I need something decent if people expect me to answer to it. If I even would.” Probably not, but there was a small chance. “We don’t have to go anywhere with it. No expectations, remember?” It was a lot easier to repeat his own words back to him than it was to say she had absolutely no idea either. “I just wanted to let you know, before it got too late to.” Because who knew what was going to happen tomorrow in here, or the day after that? He could die. She could die. Things could get so bad that he decided it wasn’t worth it and resigned and Sin was pretty sure if that was ever the case he probably wouldn’t want to hear from people in the Dome after their respective years were up reminding of the fact he gave up. She wouldn’t want to be in any case so if for some reason she ever did bond with someone who left, well, there would never be an actual goodbye or a follow up. As his hand touched her cheek she noticed how much lower his body temperature was compared to hers. Not shockingly cold like the ice he made but not barely noticeable either. Why she hadn’t caught it sooner, when he’d grabbed her hand, she had no idea. Probably because she had been holding her bottle of water just before. But as soon as he touched her, he stopped. “No. It’s okay. I don’t mind if you touch me.” Just touching in general because she usually had such an aversion to it or from the cold. “It’s…kind of nice.” _______ Jake frowned slightly. Had he known Dahlia was staying at Sin’s? Moreover, why? Neither exactly struck him as the slumber party type. “Is she doing all right?” He asked, his brow furrowing. He hadn’t really gone to check on her this week, but she hadn’t seemed to be doing fantastic on Wednesday. Maybe he should have stopped in. Either way, it wasn’t the relevant point to the statement. “It fits,” he said finally. “Make you do all that shit, reveal it, and then take it out of play,” he murmured. His lips twisted in an expression of displeasure, but what could they do about it, really? Beg for it back? Unlikely. He chuckled faintly as she went on about nicknames. “If anyone brings it up again, I’ll push for a good one for you,” he promised. “You’re not planning on abandoning us, are you?” He asked, brows elevating again as he regarded her. A lopsided smile pulled at his lips, but he imagined her thoughts were darker than that. Not so much someone leaving, but someone dying. Why not? If they didn’t have a healer and the producers unleashed some tigers on them or flooded the place with scorpions or something like that … it was likely. Beyond likely. Because no matter how careful they were, shit could still happen. Would still happen. “I can’t tell,” he admitted. “And I haven’t really gotten a lot of feedback.” He mostly tried not to touch people on their bare skin because of it, and sometimes it was hard to tell even through just a shirt how cold his hand was. “But I’ll keep that in mind,” he added with a slight grin. _______ Son of a bitch. She was getting comfortable around him and now she wasn’t paying as close enough attention to her words as she should be. She’d just have to talk herself out of this one. “She’s fine.” Fine enough that Sin didn’t think anyone else needed to be alarmed. “I just needed to get some things off my chest and since she seems to understand where I’m coming from…” Which wasn’t technically a lie. Sin did tell her exactly how she felt about her current situation. “Made me feel a little bit better.” She just made it sound as if Dahlia were there for her and not the other way around and in the long run it would be alright as long as Dahlia could pull herself out of it. “It does. Here, jump through hoops, now show the world you might have something underneath that devil may care attitude and fix your friend, okay good dog now give us our shit back because you’re not entertaining anymore.” That was a bit of how it felt. Dance, puppet, dance. Sin shrugged. “I have decided that since you’re all turning into people I somewhat give a damn about it was time to tell you to all to go to hell and walk away. I’m getting too damn invested.” She tried to look somewhat defiant but couldn’t manage it through her teasing smile. “No. I’m here for the long haul. I leave now and it’s my one way ticket back to a life behind bars. Besides, someone around here has to give a change from the normal let’s hold hands and be friends thing you guys have going on. Might as well be me.” Was a good excuse as any to stay here. “It’s different. I mean, you’re not so cold that it’s bothersome but you’re not the normal kind of warm either.” Hopefully that was a good description. “Is the rest of you the same temperature? And I mean normally, not after you’ve taken a nap in the freezer.” She questioned. It was better to ask than to just reach out and start putting her hands on him randomly to check for herself. Was she going to start doing that? If April was hot and Jake was cold, when she touched people was she going to leave tiny traces of water droplets along their skin? _______ Jake regarded her evenly for a moment, and while he nodded to indicate he accepted her story, he wasn’t completely sure he bought it. Not that he suspected it was an outright lie, but he suspected there were some bent and possibly hidden truths to it. But it was their business. If she thought Dahlia was fine, he’d take that and just chat up Dahlia the next time he saw her. For all he knew, next week might have them all too busy to think again. He did smirk at her summary of it, but he didn’t disagree with it. “It’s bullshit,” Jake said softly, his expression grim. If they hadn’t passed healing off to someone else, then what? Then what? They dealt. They endured. They were careful. And when an accident happened, they were fucked. It was bullshit. Complete bullshit. Her response did surprise a laugh out of him, and he grinned as he shook his head. “Figured that was the way of it,” he teased her. “Though it is considerate of you to bite that bullet. I wouldn’t want to have to be that guy who brings the party down.” On some level it amused Jake endlessly that his closest friends in here were all the non-auditioning sort, and that two of them had actually been in jail at the time of recruitment. What, he wondered, did that say about him, keeping company like that? “A normal kind of warm,” he echoed with a grin. “Yeah. Rest of me’s the same. It’s why Jaime was using me as a couch when we were having a desert outside. She said it was like leaning up against a cool fridge.” He shrugged his bare shoulders, but he wouldn’t know. To himself, he felt normal, but normal for him was no longer standard human normal, and wasn’t that something to think about? _______ “Isn’t it all?” She pointed out. Between the rougher terrains, the killer animals, the hallucinations, everything here was bullshit. “We’ll figure it out, somehow. Everyone seemed to do fine before they were aware I could fix them to begin with.” Well, other than Cole. But Sin had a feeling that even if everyone had been aware that she could heal back then it wouldn’t have saved him any. He was dead whenever the first person found him and she couldn’t reverse that. “Gotta be helpful in some way, right? That’s how the group thing seems to work.” And it was still very awkward and strange to be a part of one, but she was getting used to it in some ways. Others she wasn’t sure she ever would be, but there were still months to go before she could make that call. For now she was just dealing with the fact that there were certain people in here she would fight tooth and nail for and others she would just prefer to not see any further bad happen to. “Well, I never have been interested in normal guys.” She pointed out. So the fact he was a little bit different in some way still made the rule apply. “I would have went with cuddling a corpse, but her description probably fits just as well.” He didn’t seem too upset about it to not make the joke. “Can I take advantage of that with the next heat wave we get?” She questioned. Though, if today was any indication of things were going to proceed, she might end up not being out much during the daytime unless she had to be so she’d miss the hottest parts being locked away in her cabin. At least she’d still have someone to talk to at night; Dahlia had a more nocturnal schedule. And Jake didn’t seem the type to go to bed early. Jaime, however, might be harder to speak to other than on the network. She imagined nighttime was probably private time for her and Mike and in an effort to keep the peace she wouldn’t want to intrude there. _______ Jake shrugged, but didn’t disagree. It was bullshit, and he suspected it was bound to get worse as things went on. “Things weren’t so bad before,” he pointed out. Not to be a dick, but to elaborate how things were evolving. “If things keep progressing as our powers grow, they’re going to get worse. Harder to deal with.” He couldn’t believe they’d take healing out of the game entirely, but … on the other hand, it kind of fit their style, didn’t it? Amp things up, but handicap them at the same time. “Maybe they’ll pitch it back in later,” he murmured. “We all have a part to play,” he teased back lightly, shaking his head a little. It did seem to be the case though. That eventually, in the course of the show, everyone was going to have a chance to be a star. “Colder than a corpse,” he retorted with a soft laugh. “They’re at least room temperature.” He, wasn’t. Unless that room happened to be uncomfortably cool. “And do I count as a normal guy?” He asked, brows elevating slightly. “I don’t think most normal guys can do what I do.” He laughed softly to her question. “I dunno. You might have to fight Jaime for it,” he teased. “But if she doesn’t call dibs, I guess I can surrender that spot to you,” he oh so graciously conceded. And really, with Jaime so completely involved in Mike now, he didn’t think Jaime would be abusing the cold privilege. _______ Probably. The people running the Dome seemed to get their kicks trying to see exactly how much they could all be put through. “So then we rise to the challenge. We deal and we don’t let them break us.” Even if that meant the challenges would just keep getting harder and harder and worse and worse; they couldn’t just give up and roll over and pretend it would get better. “And we be careful while we do it. Maybe not me and Jaime as much, I mean she can probably handle a lot now and I can fix myself, but as a whole we just go at things with a more cautious attitude.” Was better than sitting around and moping about it all. “If They bring it back, then we figure out who has it and I can teach them how it operates.” As long as whoever ended up with it wasn’t a complete moron, things would go smoothly. “Not if they’ve been in the morgue for a little while.” She countered. Always the smartass. Sin shook her head. “No. That’s what I was getting at. You somehow managed to still fit the mold. But you’re the most normal abnormal if that makes you feel any better.” Then again, he was interested in her after knowing what she’d done. So maybe he wasn’t normal even without the addition of the ice. “Unless you want to just be labeled as strange and different and I can sort of grandfather you into the classification.” After all, they were her rules. She could bend them as she saw fit. “Though, to be honest, part of me thinks it doesn’t matter. That maybe Dom was wrong with some of his you and me against the world speeches. You people, you’re not…” One of her hands tried to motion in frustration as she tried to find the words to accurately describe her thoughts. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Well, other than what the Dome has done to you but your personalities was what I meant. So maybe normal isn’t as bad as what I was made to believe.” That was tough to admit, even tougher to believe, because Dom was everything to her but he was human so couldn’t he be just as wrong as everyone else? “Something tells me I wouldn’t have to argue very hard.” She had Mike to do that sort of thing with now and if he was that defensive over her in general, and not just with Sin, he probably would have something to say there. “Pretty sure the boyfriend,” Oh my god she got the word out without making a face, “Negates all of that shit from happening.” Which only led to another question. “You and Mike, you’re friends, yes?” Was this going to be an issue? Would he say things to Jake’s face he said to Jaime’s? “If you and I did ever…uh…if we were to…” God damnit. This was an important thing and she couldn’t manage to get it out. He was smart, he’d probably pick up on what she was saying. “Would that hinder anything in that department, for you two?” _______ “Things like that are easier said than done,” he murmured. They could say all they wanted that this place wouldn’t break them, but everyone had a breaking point, some trigger they couldn’t hide from or turn off. Given enough time, he was sure they’d stumble across everyone’s trigger, sooner or later. Jake was sure he had some, though he couldn’t really come up with any off the top of his head. “You think it’ll work the same? They might have a different version. April went from needing external fire to just being able to create it. Maybe they … juggled a similar but different power into someone and it won’t work the same.” Though he’d rather have a similar but different power in here than not at all. Jake listened as Sin elaborated, though he grinned a little at her morgue comment. “People are people,” he said finally. “It takes all kinds to make a world. I don’t know what he told you about … the rest of us,” Jake said with a grin. “But there are all kinds out there. Normal, abnormal, completely batshit fucking crazy, and … everything in between. Some you’ll fit in with and some you’ll want to erase off the face of the planet. But I’m glad … we’re not all intolerable in here.” A soft laugh crossed his lips, and he shook his head. He wasn’t sure he could really articulate the sort of relationship the three of them had, but Mike knew he was harmless on the Jaime front. That anything he did or said was all in fun, and neither he nor Jaime had designs on each other. “He … wouldn’t mind as long as it was just me,” Jake said finally. “We’re friends,” he said. “I don’t know the details of the situation,” he added so she was clear on that front. “So I don’t know for sure what he’s got to say about it.” He did understand that Mike was not in the Sin fan-club, but as far as the whys and how it came abouts went, he was fuzzy. “I’ll assume he’d have something to say about it if we hooked up, but …” Jake shrugged. “I’ll deal with it if it comes up.” _______ Why was it every time she actually offered to help, wanted to help, someone threw a curve ball into the damn mix? “Well, if it’s different then I guess all I can do is tell them what it was like for me and they’re just going to have to figure shit out on their own.” If it was similar, some things might still fit. Or whoever had it took forever to figure it out and people died in the process. Neither situation was ideal but those were really about the only options she was seeing presently. “Honestly, I hope it made its way somewhere that’s not in a new person.” The ones who had been here a while at least knew to fuck with whatever they had because they were going to need the powers functioning and operational. There’d be a better chance for everyone else to survive an injury. “It doesn’t matter.” Sin shook her head. He probably didn’t want to know what Dom had taught her and it would be hard to fit years’ worth of speeches and rants into a few sentences without destroying the content of the messages. “That’s just it though. Before here, I wanted to erase ninety-nine percent of people.” Or watch them die slow, agonizing deaths, same thing. “But now, now I really want all of you to make it through.” She wanted people to stop resigning, stop dying, stop all of it. But what she wanted and what was going to happen probably didn’t exactly mesh. Sin didn’t exactly understand how that was okay but she wasn’t going to question it. He knew what he was talking about so she just gave a nod of acknowledgement. Part of her wanted to explain why Mike didn’t like her just so he would be on the same page but she didn’t want to dredge it all back up. “We just don’t communicate on the same level.” There. That was a simplified version of it all and made it sound like less of a deal than it was. “Okay. If you say so.” That was a good enough answer for her. Really, any would have been because she was just curious. _______ “It might help,” Jake said with a faint sigh. But there was an equally likely chance it wouldn’t. That if it existed here in someone else, it was different. “You think they’re doing this to see … if the same compounds react differently in different bodies? Or they’re tweaking the … whatever it is they’re injecting in us. Formula. Composition. Whatever the right science word is to see how it changes, evolves?” He wondered then if he was overthinking it, and he decided to just let it go. They couldn’t change what happened. “Our luck, they stuck in someone who’s going to bail in a week.” Jake grinned over to her. “All of us, huh? Even any more Janes that come through?” He teased. He guessed in fairness he hoped everyone made it through, but more than that he hoped everyone who came in was helpful. Even if their ability wasn’t useful that they themselves at least tried to pitch in where they could -- or stay the fuck out of the way if they couldn’t. He was curious, and maybe he thought he’d hit up Mike -- or more likely, Jaime -- to see what the actual story was. It wasn’t that important though. He knew Mike distrusted and disliked Sin, and he knew Sin and Jaime were friends, so he imagined there was all kinds of tension around that. “I say so,” he assured her, dropping a hand to briefly pat her thigh. _______ “I have no idea what in the hell They’re doing anymore. Maybe. It would make sense with all the new shit showing up, seeing what mixes and what doesn’t and how much one body could handle. Because, if we’re keeping count, I have now had four things injected into me.” Because none of her new things fit together to be counted as one thing. “Unless they were hoping that they could overload one or two of us to test those kinds of reactions.” Something was telling her this wasn’t exactly the television show they had signed up for anymore. Wouldn’t it be some shit if when they sedated them all, instead of taking them and dropping them off somewhere, if they were all lying in a lab hooked up to machines and this was all some kind of mutual virtual reality coma? No, that just sounded even more ridiculous than this just being a tv show. She was going to stop with the harebrained theories before they started tumbling out of her mouth. “No. We can just feed those to the next big creatures we have outside.” Sin rolled her eyes. If they got anymore of those types of people, she’d probably end up drowning them shooting water at their faces with the rate of stupidity that would leak out of their mouth. “I meant more the core group. The new people I could care less about.” So far anyway. If they managed to make their way into the group itself and stuck around for a while, then they probably deserved to live to. It was a wait and see game. “But I guarantee that was the last time I try to help a new person out.” Unless they were the new healer and then she would just have to make them listen. The rest could all figure shit out on their own and if they got themselves into a bad situation, well that was their fault. “You know, I thought I was the batshit one in the Dome. But since you wanna fuck the murderer, I’m starting to question your sanity too.” She teased. Sin ran a hand through her hair, jerking it back as she felt something trickle down to the side of her face. “God damnit.” Her hands were dripping water again and she hadn’t noticed it kick itself on. “Okay. Let me just borrow your sink here.” She mumbled, jumping up and heading for the kitchen. “I’ll clean up the mess when I’m done,” She called out, meaning the small trail of water droplets from his couch to his sink, “and then get out of your hair before I flood your whole cabin.” _______ Jake smirked, shaking his head. They’d see. Time would tell. So on, and so forth. He did grin to her statement about feeding the Janes to the animals, but he had a feeling the Janes that wound up here would find their own way into animal-related danger. “Good thing you clarified,” he teased her. He reasoned he had a good idea of who the core group was. The inner core, the outer core, but collectively the people who’d toughed out some of the worse things here and still remained. He watched her, and tried not to grin. His own early days of the power learning curve weren’t that far behind him and he knew how it was to have unexpected manifestations. He rose and moved to get a towel from the bathroom, dropping it to the floor at the start of the trail and pushing it along with his foot while she dripped in the sink. “You should probably try to get a handle on that,” he teased her, well aware that it wasn’t something that was going to happen overnight. But he’d help out where he could, try to coach her through what did and didn’t work for him, though it could just as easily be completely different from his and his advice could be worthless. Still, he’d try. Because that was how things worked around here. _______ |