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]

//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.//

[sharp_as_knives]

She meant people were recovering from bad writing.

"This was when you went from the way you looked when we met, back to this." Hannibal rubbed his fingers over the bandages. "That must have been very difficult." He remembered what it had been like when Jono had lost his head.

[furnaceface]

//I did throw my hands in the air and walk away from the Boards because I couldn't cope,// Jono noted, quietly watching Hannibal's fingers at play. //It was a mixed blessing. I had finally started getting back into the swing of living an almost normal life. Karla's war was over, and while I had scarred lungs full of poison smoke, at least I still had lungs. But... I was completely headblind, and there was something else in there, chewing at the inside of my skull. This, at least, is the devil I know.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"How long after the change did you return here?" Hannibal asked. Since he wasn't even sure which world Jono had been in for most of that time.

[furnaceface]

//After I turned back to this?// Jono shrugged his shoulders a little. //Not long. Karla, Raven, and Momoko went to Utopia to get me th'day after we got out of that reality. Stayed in Glacia 'bout a week. You actually ran into me my first day back on the island again, remember? At th'Boards.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal nodded. "I didn't know how long it had been. So, you have the memories the Weapon X telepath gave you, and you have the memories this Legion gave you, as well as your own."

Here, Jono; have a bit more beer.

[furnaceface]

Lord, did he ever need more beer. Hannibal had an excellent sense for this sort of thing, didn't he?

//Three lifetimes,// he confirmed. //Three bloody lifetimes all crammed up there. Gets a little busy sometimes.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal had made a lot of money off his sense for this sort of thing.

"The versions of you that you were last Spring - do those stay with you as well?"

[furnaceface]

//Not quite like this, no,// Jono replied with a shrug. //No more than they stay with everybody else, I imagine. I only had the one, the me with no head, and I remember what I did as him, and the thoughts I had, but those missing years, the what-if between when I broke free from the Program and whatever hell he was walking through? I don't have that. All I've got are speculations based on what he said and did. Why, did you keep any of yours?//

Was there a mobster heart beating in that chest, Hannibal?

[sharp_as_knives]

No, that was in his basement.

Hannibal thought about it for a moment. "Some of it. I made a conscious effort when we first returned to ourselves to file away anything that might be useful or interesting."

Some of Hanna's memories of a female perspective would be useful the next time the island switched him, and the next time he had to help or hunt a woman. And she'd used different hunting techniques, too. The artist Hannibal gave him a few precious, foggy memories of his grown sister. The mobster gave him very little, as it happened; it served more to make him appreciate his uncle.

"I remember being those others, and how it felt. But I don't feel like them anymore."

[furnaceface]

//Then it's the same for you as it is for me, what happened in the spring,// Jono mused. //That's... not much like this at all. But it's difficult to really explain what it's like to have three distinct sets of memories running concurrently. I think I said before, I have moments where I'm any one, or any combination of all of the above. Some moments I'm more me than others, whatever that means. But those other times, those things that the island has done, those are different. Those histories fade when the persona takes its leave.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"And these have not." Hannibal rested his hand on Jono's hip, stroking thoughtfully. "But you feel that dimming them would give you less access to the useful parts of them?"

Hannibal...rather thought there might be other things at work there.

[furnaceface]

//I feel...// Jono reached up to run a hand through his hair, brows furrowed while he tried to piece together more words. The right words. Those seemed harder and harder to find, some days. //I feel..//

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

//I feel that I'd be dimming me. Those things have been so thoroughly a part of me too, Hannibal... Neither of them are real, but here in my head, they're all as much me as that first life was. Blew Gayle halfway to hell three times in my head, came to America three times after that. Twice by air for the chance at a better life. Once on a ship as a prisoner. I loathed myself and I was proud of myself and I was a bloody survivor because I had no other choice. How do I pick? I only lived one of those lives, but that boy who hid in corners and resented everything he was isn't the only me. I'm the sum of all of those parts, now.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not certain that's true to the extent you think it is. But then, I can't quite conceive of it, either." He'd have to think about it a bit more.

"May I ask you some questions? They may or may not be easy ones," he cautioned.

[furnaceface]

//If I was expecting easy questions, I wouldn't have told you any of this,// Jono pointed out, tilting his head a little in consideration. //I imagine you've got a few, after all that. Can't promise I'll be able to answer them all, but... there's no harm in asking.//

There probably wasn't harm in asking.