Hannibal's house, Sunday

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal set the large glass of home-brewed dark ale on the end table, along with the tiny pork pies and pickle and the remote control for the music system.

And, because he could surf Google and iTunes as well as anyone, and it never paid to be too predictable, he was playing (not too loudly) Opeth.

He was even wearing a comfortable sweater and slacks instead of a suit. He was picking his battles today, and his battle was how greasy not to make fish and potatoes! Since they'd been so rudely interrupted by eels earlier.


[OOC: Waiting on one, but totally open!]

[OOC the second: Specifics of Jono's story NFB, please!]

Comments

[furnaceface]

//I would've done a lot of things differently, if I could go back and do it now,// Jono admitted, shaking his head a little. //I don't know that it would've turned out any better if I had. They found me, not long after we'd landed in Neverland. I'd gotten a good eyeful of what was going on by that point. I'd found what was left of people I knew there. Adults, children, didn't matter.//

He was practically burying his face in Hannibal's shoulder, now. He'd never talked it out like this before. Karla had seen it once, in his head, while he was sitting in a broken heap on his bathroom floor. But just sitting down and speaking about it?

Never.

//They grabbed me and wiped me clean. Easy job for one of the mutants they had recruited to give me a functional set of false memories to tide me over until the 'Paths could be used to make it more permanent. Set me to work clearing out the camp with the others before the X-Men could show up. We were gone by morning. Anyone who couldn't be harvested or put to any decent sort of use for the program was burned or buried.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal leaned his head on Jono's and stroked his hair. "Who did you think you were?"

[furnaceface]

//I thought I was theirs,// he murmured. //I never knew the X-Men, or Fandom. I grew up loathing everything that my family's vision of mutantkind represented. Wasn't much of a stretch, really. The Starsmores were one generation removed from an insane bloody mutant cult, and I'd been considered the family flatscan up until I manifested, almost eighteen years old. From there I figured I'd just do whatever suited me best. The Program offered me something better than life in the Morlock tunnels, and I took it. All I had to do was kill whoever they wanted me to kill, whenever they wanted me to kill them. Whether that happened to be children in a mutant death camp or John bloody Sublime, over and over and over again, so be it. I was good at it. I was proud of it.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"They gave you a place you belonged, and a reason to find yourself there," Hannibal murmured. "Your own mind would do the rest - faced with memories it perceived as positive, your subconscious would reinforce them on its own."

[furnaceface]

Jono nodded. He was clinging now, and barely even aware of that fact.

//And Logan was the only one who ever came looking,// he murmured. //I don't want to think that the rest gave me up for dead, but if it had been anybody else wearing an X, they would've torn reality apart to find them. Logan's the only one. Cornered me after I put Sublime down for the dozenth time. I dared him to put a set of claws through my skull, and then left him in a smouldering heap on the ground when he hesitated.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Another several questions that Hannibal would have to ask later. "How long was it before he found you?"

[furnaceface]

//Months, I think,// Jono replied. //It's hard to separate when I actually joined from when I thought I joined, by that point. He didn't see me again after that. I took off to do more of Jackson's dirty work, and then he staged a coup and took control over other parts of the Program, it turned into a bit of an all-out war between the different factions of us. That stopped quickly, at least. Most of the mutants on the planet lost their powers all at once, and there wasn't a hell of a lot of use for the Program, after that.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"Who was Jackson? What did he want?" Hannibal asked.

[furnaceface]

//Jackson's the one who recruited me,// Jono explained. //Talked me out of the prison cell and into the program. He wasn't the director at that point, though. That was one Malcom Colcord. Jackson wanted power, really. Seemed like a step up from Colcord, who wanted every mutant dead. I went with Jackson, when all hell broke loose. But then, that's probably because even if we were driven off, Jackson still had the loyalty of mutant who had wiped my mind in the first place. I would've followed him into the mouth of hell, by that point.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal nodded. "So, the program began breaking apart, fighting each other. And then?"

[furnaceface]

//Then millions of mutants worldwide were pared down to hundreds. Everyone lost their powers, was reduced to baseline human. Jackson's mind-wiper was one of them. I was another one. I remember... fighting. And then everything went quiet, both on the battlefield and in my head. My telepathy was gone. My flames were gone. And without it, the enhancements the program gave to me overloaded and blew my chest out all over again. I've got no bloody clue how I'm still alive. Woke up in a hospital bed in London, months later. It was... grisly. Grisly's a good word for it.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal slid his hand down Jono's chest, resting it there. "So you were back to where you'd started, but without your flames. You had your original memories again?"

[furnaceface]

Jonothon nodded, keeping his eyes closed. He was aware of Hannibal's hand resting over the fire, even if he couldn't feel anything.

It was nice, that fearlessness. Reassuring.

//All jumbled up with the other ones. I knew who I was, though. I could pick out one from the other. Easy to tell where the fiction became fact again. I only have one set of memories of everything from Neverland onward.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"And this hospital you were in - that was where the people found you that made you...blue?" Jono had mentioned that much of the story before. Unless there was more than one time he'd ended up depowered and in a London hospital.

Which, given his history, Hannibal probably shouldn't rule out.

[furnaceface]

//That's right,// Jono replied. //Kidnapped from my bed by a man claiming to be my psychiatrist. No doubt I needed one by that point. Would've been nice if he actually had been, I suppose.//

Ish. Jono hadn't been particularly cooperative, and it wasn't like you could do much bonding during therapy sessions when all you had was a button for yes and a button for no.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Better late than never?" Hannibal teased gently. "And I come with very good beer and pork pies, if you like."

They hadn't gotten to the other instance yet, but Hannibal had a suspicion Jono needed a break.

[furnaceface]

Hannibal was good at that. The second round wasn't half as traumatizing as the first, but beer and pork pies (and maybe continued cuddling) seemed like a far better option than delving into Fortress X so soon after discussing Weapon X.

//S'secretly what I've been in need of all this time,// Jono decided, glancing up at Hannibal again. //A doctor who's not afraid to ply me with beer.//

Also, see above Re: cuddling.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smirked a bit. "Beer and pies." He cut a small piece off one of the latter and ate it attentively. Not that he was deceived at all about the relative merits of his food and his cuddling at the moment.

[furnaceface]

Even so, it was one more pleasant thing for Jono to throw his focus into, and he sent Hannibal a faint trickle of appreciation in exchange for letting him share the taste of it.

//Ah, that's lovely,// he murmured, eyes closed. //Sausage 'n bacon...? S'good.//

Comfort food, as a matter of fact. Well-timed, that.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal was a big believer in comfort. And food.

"Thank you." He finished the pie slowly, interspersing his bites with sips of beer, before asking, "Would you like to tell me the rest?"

[furnaceface]

Jono didn't tend to get either on a regular basis, so this right here was pretty much heaven.

//The rest isn't quite as... that,// he replied. //Fortress X stuck with me in ways I'm going to have trouble letting go of, but at least when people say 'that wasn't you,' I can agree with them. It wasn't just that my head was muddled with, there. I was that person. He came with me when I got out of it again, even let me keep the body, I suppose. But there's not much I regret from that one. Not the same way I regret Weapon X. It follows me, but it doesn't haunt me.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"Like those different versions of ourselves last Spring?" Hannibal asked.

[furnaceface]

//It's... a bit like that,// Jono replied, //though I didn't inherit the entire history of that version of myself. He was something that might've happened if the decimation that took everyone's powers never happened, I think. Had to lose my head to get away instead. But I'm missing... decades between, in my memories, from that. This, this Fortress X thing, it was another reality, but... not quite the same way as Fandom managed it.//

Jonothon's brow furrowed a little. Figuring out how to put it was... trickier.

//There was another reality. Myself and a large number of other mutants were pulled into it, and re-written as we went. It wasn't an alternate possibility. It was... it was a new reality, made by twisting and re-creating bits of the one we came from, ourselves included. It was perfectly real, and completely fabricated.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal frowned, thinking of it. "So it was more like taking a portal to the wrong world, if the portal changed you to match your destination? And this new reality was created by someone?"

[furnaceface]

//A bit more that way, yes,// Jono confirmed, nodding. //It was the creation of one mutant's powers. One set of one mutant's powers. Every now and again, somebody manifests the capacity to break reality itself. This particular mutant happened to have a shattered mind to go with it. He wasn't even aware he'd done it, not consciously.//

Jono would almost pity David for his shattered mind, if he wasn't so irritated about the whole ordeal.