It was... cold. At least, if there was any name to give to the sensation that would be it: cold. A dry freezing where nothing moved nor lived because it was all, in fact... nothing. It was the first thing he became aware of, this absence of anything else including any true awareness of self. That came a few minutes (hours, days, years?) later when he did focus on the masculinity. It was a dim realization. Everything was in a fog for him, distant and intangible while still managing to obscure even his image of self. Self. Who was he?? A young man, scrawny in build with a thatch of unruly blond hair and ash blue eyes, and with a plain but honest face. Just another face, he had always thought, one that you'd never pick out from the crowd even if he'd had a crowd to stand in. He remembered loneliness, then. A long line of loneliness and self mutilation on his pipe cleaner biceps to give him some sense of control over his life; it was pain, but it had been his pain, not the pain received at the hands and belts and tongues of others. But then... there had been a moment... just a few oh-so-short days... where everything was different.

Someone was shouting something just then. No, not shouting but crying! It was name over and over again, name that stirred recollections: James. James Chandler. It was his name. Only why was this person crying it so, and for that matter why was she crying at all? He could hear her quite clearly now, so obviously he must be close by to her.

Her. It was about a girl. No, that wasn't quite right, it was a young woman. Shy, awkward, innocent, naive, frightened. Those were words that helped to form an image in his mind, clarifying it all the more he concentrated on them. Yes, those words applied, only there were so many others that drowned those first few out! Charming, pretty, honest, loving, kind, empathetic, understanding... the list went on from there. As that list went on, James discovered a form of warmth. It was like swimming against a current in darkness to reach a far, distant shore where someone waited for him, wanted him. 

Sara. It was Sara who was sobbing and yelling. He grabbed that thought like a lifeline to pull himself up and out of the nothingness and into-

It was a hotel room, nighttime. James was having a hard time reconciling how he had come to be there, his memories faint and indistinct. He was feeling indistinct himself, as though he was walking through some twisted dream where everything was real except for him. Even his thoughts had a peculiar echo to them. It was surprising to find himself dressed as he did normally: untucked flannel shirt, second hand jeans, tough black workbooks that never quite fit his large feet right... James oddly thought he should still be dressed in his rented tuxedo! Still? Had there been an occasion to wear a black tux?? Some dark memory, something he couldn't quite bring to the forefront of his consciousness hinted that there had been and he was better off not knowing about it.

The room was filled with flying bits of feather and foam, a cyclone of power that centered around the figure in the bed. There was more to it, though. He could see flashes of blue and green energies within that miniature maelstrom, and those flashes of power seemed far more solid and real to him than anything else. Oddly enough, he wasn't afraid. He wasn't really... anything. Curious, perhaps, but that was all. The lack of emotion also was curious, and the more he dwelt on that topic the more emotions slowly trudged forward reluctantly for him to call upon. 

Cocking his head (Head? He had a head? Why did seem so strange to have one?), he hovered near the bed as he watched her rant in bursts of raw emotion and power that he somehow envied. Had James looked down, that same curiosity as before would have arisen at the fact that his feet did not seem to quite touch the cheap carpeting. Right now Sara was far more important... for some reason.... and he focused instead on her.

"Sara?" 

Why did his voice come out as such a pitiful whisper? It was almost like a whimper, if anything else! James grew disgusted with himself, an emotional state that was incredibly familiar now that he had a grasp of it again. Summoning his all, he tried again.

"Sara?" A little better, but not much. He could only hope that she could hear him. "Where are we? And why is it so cold, Sara? Why is it so very, very cold?"