Altered Tundra — Roleplayer Guild

 
Location: Verona Clinic — Jade's Room
Interacting With: Each other

It was getting dark and quickly when Jay decided that enough was enough and it was time to leave the park, though not without making mental notes of the teenagers who he ought to add to a group chat of some sort – those with powers, those who knew of the existence of powers and those who quite possibly were interested in solving the whole murder thing going on in Verona. He left quite early, comparatively speaking, but already exhausted given that he'd teleported thrice over and was only just recovering from it. He waited for just long enough to recharge so that he could make one last, impulsive jump before heading home, and to fill the empty time, he picked some of the colorful wildflowers with a lack of knowledge that would surely make Alice Malone cry.

He said his goodbyes, apologized to Sienna for not dropping her off at her home but he had things to do and reappeared at the front entrance to the town's small clinic. It was a place he had been to on occasion because skateboarding led to a fair few broken bones, but if Jay was being completely honest, he hated hospitals. He hated all sorts of cold, clean, clinical environments, and despite how hard the two nurses in town worked to keep it floral and 'warm', it would never soften the sharp edges of his unease.

But, needs must. He strode in like he had a purpose (and was allowed to be there), nodded and smiled at the lady working at the front desk and went down the hallway to find where Scout Presley was – at least before Doctor Okada's voice could be heard down the way and he had to duck into the nearest room which was quiet, dark and illuminated only by two or three lamps behind dark curtains.

Maybe this was Scout's room? He couldn't make out a face. "Uh, hello?" It was an urgent whisper, because for all he knew, he was at some elderly woman's deathbed. "Scooout?" He crept closer to the privacy curtain separating the bed and the door and opened it just a crack for a sneak peek. Oh shit.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's just me," Jade sluggishly said as she tried to adjust body in her bed. Of course, she winced. There was still a good amount of pain from her injuries she sustained. Despite that, the blonde was able to find herself slightly upright, her body in a slight obtuse angle. She looked at Jay, but not really any specific expression on her face. "I'm surprised your cop daddy let you out." Jade said.

As soon as he realised it was his volcano-toting ex-girlfriend his posture straightened and he rubbed at the back of his neck nervously, unable to meet her gaze. The flowers were still thankfully half-hidden behind his leg, even though he had pulled the curtain back.

"I snuck out," Jay said instinctively, a lame excuse at that considering that Harold Logan was his go-to scapegoat as Jade had likely figured out. At fourteen he hadn't been a good liar, and now at eighteen he wasn't feeling particularly witty, which was probably why he stumbled over his words. "I'm, uh, surprised you're still alive, then?"

"It was kind of touch and go there for a while. Apparently getting a bolt of electricity can do wonders for the confidence in whether someone is going to live or not." Jade laughed. If she couldn't joke about her own near-death experience, then who would?

"Shock horror, Jade Taylor not as immortal as everyone thinks. Shock horror." He smiled weakly at the girl's self-deprication and easy-going attitude over something that could quite easily have killed her, killed all of them, even if their jokes combined weren't exactly funny.

He rubbed at his cheek nervously, cold hand fighting away the embarrassed blush that threatened to bloom without warning. While there was the urge to run away like a scared puppy lingering in the back of his mind, now that he was here, he knew that he needed to be. He had a bone to pick with Jade Taylor for almost murdering Scout and making the killer's job so much easier, for putting them all at risk with her stupid meltdown, for showing them all that their powers could endanger their lives just as quickly as it could save them–

But he swallowed the lump in his throat made of tears and what he said was instead, "So you... said some things. When you went crazy. I don't know if you remember..?"

"Yeah, I remember.." Oh yeah, Jade remembered it alright. "That's the thing about being stuck here and having nothing to do but sleep: you end up having dream after dream after dream. It gets to the point that, after a while, you begin to recall everything. Plus, Alicia and Kata helped me get a head start." Jade said, her greenish-blue eyes falling to her blanket, hands increasing their grip. "So yeah, I remember exactly what came out of my mouth last night," Jade spoke but didn't look back at Jay.

It was lucky that she was looking away, because so was Jay, and we brought his arm up to wipe his nose (and sneakily, his eyes) on his sleeve. "Right," he said. Did he sound strangled? It felt like it. Jay pushed the curtain back all the way so he could see the bedside table, if only because he didn't trust his voice to do anything at that moment. There was a vase filled with fake flowers courtesy of the nurses – because real flowers were apparently a health hazard – and he grabbed it and dumped them unceremoniously on the floor to cram his mish-mash of wildflowers in instead.

Scout didn't need them; Jade did.

This was how people apologized to girls, wasn't it, when they fucked up massively? The guilt that had settled in the pit of his stomach was all he could focus on, all he had focused on for the last day since even before the cops caught them. Jade was right. Most of it was his fault. Many of her problems were his fault – up to and including the friends he had but she didn't.
"I - I owe you a sorry," he said a little clumsily. "I didn't realize that you felt that way... Like, I didn't mean to be... a dick."

Her mouth was open, but her voice betrayed her. It wouldn't make words, and deliver them to Jay's ears. She had it in her head too. She wanted to tell him that why was he apologizing? He wasn't the one who almost killed everyone. He wasn't the one who brought the fury to what was supposed to be a semi-harmless gathering of friends and peers. He wasn't the one who had it in their mind — or a lack thereof — to cause total carnage and destruction to everyone around him.

As she was struggling in the match of Jade versus Jade's Vocal Cords, she found her voice as she coughed.  "Jay, in all your time skateboarding, you must have had times where you bailed so hard that you had stay in bed for a day or so, right?"

"...Once or twice, yeah." Jay looked at her as if she'd grown a second head, or perhaps as if the one she had was brain damaged from the lightning. He couldn't find any connection from one thing to the other. "What does that have to do with..?" He closed his mouth forcibly. Maybe he should let her talk, the sensible part of his mind said. 

Jade adjusted herself to get into a right angle position. "When you bail that hard, you probably thought over what went wrong, specifically, when it turned to shit, and how you ended up bed-ridden." Jade said, seriously looking at Jay. "That's how it is for me and last night." Jade found herself laughing. "I kept going over it in my head: when exactly did it all go to shit? When did it come to the point that I had to nearly kill almost everyone I cared about? Why did I let it get to that point?" She said.

"Jade– it's... not your fault..? It didn't seem like you were in control. Like, you were out of it," Jay said nervously, rubbing at his jaw. "For real, it's, it's like it wasn't really you. You're not the type to try and murder Katalina and Alicia and stuff on a whim... I think?"

"Dumbass, I'm not talking about last night." Jade leaned forward, "I'm talking about how, for the past two years, I blamed you for breaking up with me. I was so clouded by my childishness that I put all of the blame on you. And look at where it got me? I alienated everyone from me. I went so far into my own shit that I barely recognized the girl I saw in the mirror. If anyone tried to throw an intervention or judge my life, I would blow up at them, and make THEM feel like they did something wrong. Fact is if I didn't keep on doing drugs, or sleep around with any guy that would give me the time of day, maybe I wouldn't have.."

"Wouldn't have what?"

"Maybe I wouldn't have lost every ounce of self-control, and tried to kill everyone who ever gave a damn about me. If I would have just confronted you right after you dumped me when I should have, then maybe Scout wouldn't be in the state she is, Kata and Alicia wouldn't be injured, and we wouldn't be in the shitty mess we are in now. But of course, in classic Jade Taylor style, I just kept it bottled up, and it literally exploded." Jade said, if just in a slightly elevated tone of voice. Her hands had tightened their grip even more on her blanket. She could feel the pain surging as the grip was tighter than it should have been.

"Nobody thinks any less of you for all of that–I mean, I don't," Jay said, rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly before crouching down, keeping his balance with one hand on the rail at the side of the bed so he wasn't looming over Jade. "Everyone makes mistakes. If anyone holds it against you I'll fight them."

As  Jade had looked down, Jay's words hit her like a light to the darkness.  As corny as that sounded, it was true. Jade looked up at Jay. For a  brief moment, their eyes met. For a that brief moment, Jade had completely forgot what she was even thinking.

And without thinking, he reached out to ruffle her hair.

And the moment was gone, killed, and buried six feet under with cement. "You just had to ruin that, didn't you?" Jade sighed, leaning back agianst her pillow. A laugh escaped from her mouth and a smile formed as her eyes fell on Jay's again, then time less of a feely-touchy variety and more calming.

Jay flushed red in embarrassment and, rather flustered, he quickly said, "Well, that's me all over, isn't it?" How on earth could he hurry past the awkward feeling of being laughed at by Jade, even if it wasn't in a mean way? He coughed before clumsily segueing into another topic. "Now. Are we gonna talk about your volcano powers or what? Because, like, damn."

"Yeah, I guess we should," Jade shifted awkwardly in her bed, scratching her right cheek with her right index finger, "I guess you'll have to change that chart of yours, huh?" Jade said.

"Chart-schmart – there's too many of us now to fit on the one I made. I'll need to make, like, a spreadsheet or something," Jay replied, rambling on for a few seconds before shaking his head and taking one of the little plastic seats from the other side of the curtain. He sat back-to-front on it, leaning on the back of the chair. To think that this was an accident, actually speaking to Jade(it allowed him to procrastinate more about visiting Scout, that was for sure.)

"Is it, like, magma? I think you're at the top for destruction–" He winced. "Sorry. But man, I'm sure the place up at the lodge is all torn up now. How does it work?"

"Well, it certainly wasn't a meadow of fresh, spring daisies," Jade said, "as for how it works, I guess I have to get angry like Bruce Banner--" Jade stopped herself mid-sentence, taking a moment to realize that, without even realizing it, she actually referenced herself to a comic book character. God, what has happened to her. "But anyways, I think that's how it works. I remember when it first happened, I was a bit agitated, and then the ground was shaking. I guess having lava spew from the ground was the only logical evolution of that." Jade  shrugged, not really sure what else to say. "Oh, and if you tell anyone that I know about comics, you're dead, got it?" Jade leaned as close she could to Jay.

"He's pretty mainstream anyway–but my lips are sealed, promise," Jay swore, a flash of a bright smile crossing his face before it disappeared into the schooled, serious expression of a scientist, or an interviewer. "So... anger-related. Interesting. You say you got mad, right? Well, that much is obvious – don't answer that... Uh..." He rubbed at his head and then twisted his beanie hat in his hands nervously. "Was it a normal sort of mad?"

"You mean last night?"

"Well, yeah, unless you've gone Hulk-Smash before..?"

"Ha. Ha." Jade shook her head, "hm, well let me think about it." Jade said, her face looking deep in thought. She tried to recall that feeling that she had right when her entire mind went completely red. "I can't say for certain, but I remember just seeing red. Yes, just like that Chevelle song. All I saw was red aside from a choice few: you, Alicia, Nina, and Kata. You each had your own individual color. And for some reason, I was solely focused on-on-on killing you four." Again, Jade gripped her sheets again. "I know this is going to sound completely outrageous and silly, but it felt like someone was making me feel these things, like a puppeteer or something." Jade laughed, realizing that was probably the last thing it was.

Jay scratched at his cheek, trying to disguise some of the confusion – and the tension – on his face. "So, like... do you think someone has mind control?" It seemed like a logical conclusion: people's thoughts and feelings were getting messed with, by the sound of it, and how else would someone do that other than through a weird, freaky supernatural power of their own–feelings. "King has that thing, doesn't he? Sympathy? Empathy?" Jay wasn't necessarily biased against his archenemy, but it was a little bit coincidental – enough to turn his statement into a question. "I wonder if it's like that."

When Jay brought up King having some kind of empathy power, Jade tried real hard to remember if that was on that list of powers that they all had. God why did she have to jolt out of there instead of just look at that board. She grunted and shrugged. "I-I don't think it was King. I mean, sure no proof, but even if he does have some kind of feeling-warping power, he's not like that. Granted, I don't know him as well as Malcolm, but he just doesn't strike me as the type." Jade said, somewhat thinking out loud.

"I don't disagree, I'm just saying–" Jay paused, trying to order the words correctly to make a coherent sentence. He didn't want to seem like his tinfoil hat was on too tightly just yet. "Well, the other group apparently, uh, were chased by someone in the dark, and they found King unconscious – or at least that's what Mal said at the park, so it's probably not him... but... Maybe... someone using his power..?"

That idea felt a bit like a violation – more so than the power itself being thrust upon them – and Jay wasn't quite sure why it gave him a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"You serious?" Jade's eyes were blinking at Jay. "Wow, I thought I was the only problem last night." Jade was a bit mind blown. "What is even going around here?"

Jay snorted weakly with laughter. "God knows. It's enough to make my nose itch, that's for sure – but I'm like, 90% sure someone'll die, and if I go snooping, it's gonna be me." He shook his head. "For real, though, that's like two murder attempts – one of which actually worked – in as many days. Verona, what the fuck: you're meant to be rural and peaceful."

"Well obviously there was something lost in translation." Jade sighed, a laugh escaping. "Either that or someone's definitely got something against our shitty small town." She sighed again, "next thing you know, it's going to get full of cliches and our major will get held hostage or something." Jade laughed..again.

"What is this, a TV show? Heroes?" Jay figured that it was the most apt comparison to their lives right now: a mess past the first season. Nowhere in Verona was safe at the moment what with lava erupting from the earth and forcefields and headaches and feelings. He loved it, the adventure and excitement of it all – far better than the idea of going to college – but at the same time...

Well, people were getting murdered.

"I think this is the only time I've ever agreed on there being a curfew," Jay mused. "When you get out... stay safe, right? Please?"

"You actually agreeing with that curfew? Shit must be really bad." Jade wanted to laugh, but the look on Jay's face really cemented it in her mind that that it wasn't fun and jokes anymore. "Fine, you win. When I get out of here — which could be tomorrow at the earliest — I'll take it easy." Jade smiled at Jay. She kept a look on him for half of a minute, not saying anything, but then she kind of coughed, slightly looking away. "The same goes for you too, Nightcrawler." Jade looked back at him sternly.

"I don't have a tail– wait. Whoa. You really are a comic book nerd," Jay said in shock, awe and amazement – in a slightly crude attempt to change the subject. Sadly, he would feel guilty not making a similar 'promise' and so, holding up his hand as if making a Boy Scout pledge, he continued, "I swear not to get into anything I can't teleport out of."

Jade simply ignored that comment about her being a comic book nerd. It was true, but she wouldn't openly admit it to him. "Sure you won't — just like you won't break curfew — but it's at least good to hear, even if you are just saying it for my sake." Jade said, half-smiling.

"Now... I think I have another house call to make– uh. I should probably visit Scout before I go. Gonna steal one of your flowers, actually." Jay picked a slightly drooping tulip that he'd stolen from the park and was now stealing from Jade's vase with a wink. He waited in interest for a response before he decided to teleport out.

"Yeah, go on and get, let me sleep in peace," Jade said, snuggling herself into her sheets, "but, uh, Jay—"Jade's eyes looked at him, "— thanks for visiting. Even if you didn't mean to, it was ..nice." Well there it was. Jade gave Jay a compliment of thanks.

"As Bob Ross would say, a 'happy little accident'. I'm glad I came." And with that, he was off, gone in a flash of displaced air.
Altered Tundra Member

amaze amaze amaze!

Status

Recent Statuses

Bio

Most Recent Posts
