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]

//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.

[sharp_as_knives]

"An unbelievable amount of power," Hannibal said. "Unsurprising he wasn't stable. What caused him to do it?"

[furnaceface]

//After years of slipping in and out of catatonia and battling with splintered fragments of his own mind, some part of him wanted to give him the chance to be the hero,// Jono replied. //So it created a world where mutants were all but hunted to extinction, and put him in a position of honour, one of the heroes who kept what was left of the rest of us safe. Every day he'd reinforce the walls that kept the preaks... the humans... from barging in and exterminating the last of us. We didn't know that the entire world ended just beyond those walls. Neither did most of him.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"That is the most extreme example of the hero complex I've ever heard of," Hannibal said. Honestly, Jono, your world! "And who were you in this scenario?"

[furnaceface]

//One of many mutants who was loaded onto a ship as part of a mass expulsion from the UK,// Jono explained, easily enough. //They were going to leave us on some island somewhere. Of course, Irish separatists bombed one of the ships. The Mutant Liberation Front took control of the one I was on and dropped us off in Canada. Made my way south from there. Helped save a handful of mutants during the rioting in Camp Georgia, joined the mutant resistance.//

The odd full-circle that this took him to didn't elude him, though it hardly absolved him of the horrors of Neverland. Camp Georgia hadn't been real, after all. The lives he'd saved when he blew the Ghost Rider to kingdom come would've been restored when they were all sent home, anyway.

[sharp_as_knives]

"So the trauma there was in your situation, moreso than in your actions," Hannibal suggested.

[furnaceface]

//There was a bit of that, yes,// Jono agreed with a nod. //It wasn't exactly the first time I was a member of an endangered species, but living in the fortress wasn't exactly a relaxing experience. Watched a lot of good friends die over the time we were in there. Got them all back in the end, but to that part of my mind that's still him, it's still hard to shake. They died literally in one sense, and then everyone that part of me knew died again, once reality was put to rights again.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal nodded in understanding. "What did set it to rights?"

[furnaceface]

//What was actually going on became apparent to everyone involved. I wasn't there to personally witness what put it all back together again... I heard later it had something to do with Legion - the mutant who created that reality - getting his hands on a box that contained... actual reality? And then bringing everyone home and... more or less returning things to normal. We all retained our memories, at first. Most people were physically returned to normal as well. I'm not certain why some weren't. Rachel, another person who physically remained the same as she was in the fortress, said something about us being pieces that didn't fit.//

He shrugged.

//I have no bloody clue what she meant by that. I can't imagine I'll ever really know.//