dualislogs | All Work and No Play

Entry tags:

All Work and No Play

Who: David Alleyne, OTA
What: Explorations, Investigations, and... Grocery Shopping?
Where: Television Station, Dorms Area, Local Grocery Store
When: Early to Mid July
Warnings: None, Will Update as Needed

Investigations

This wasn't what he'd expected to be doing, when he'd first woken up upon arrival. Of course he hadn't expected a lot of things other than his life being more complicated after the New Year's Eve party. However, he had agreed to help Hank, and that meant David was trying to follow the path to answers that Hank had outlined. With no real access to bomb details that meant the broadcast source, the television stations. It had taken a few days for him to pinpoint a starting location, especially since David kept getting inexplicably lost for someone with as much skill at finding paths as he had. Still, getting to a place didn't mean he immediately had a route in. Which meant David was looking at the building from a cafe across the street, casing it for how to get in.

Explorations

'Tattoos Inside! Get Ink and Fabulous Powers At the Same Time!'

It was an advertisement that David assumed had to do with the voucher he'd received on arrival, but that didn't mean he knew quite what to do with the claim. He had looked a few times at the scant number of examples on the poster, but all of it seemed so... impossible. A tattoo to allow you to fling fireballs? Who's ever heard of such a thing. Surely the infection you could get would be horrible too. And yet he's seen so many people here with things like this.

And part of him... part of David longs for what he sees. To be useful again, in a new way. Wasn't that what he'd wanted for years?

"Dammit," he curses under his breath.

Shopping

It's been the worst week, and frankly? David deserves a bit of an indulgence. His new job sucks almost as hard as his old one, he hasn't made nearly as much investigation progress as he would have wanted, and frankly? He's getting tired of the food in the dorms.

One of these he can solve. One of these he is solving, and doing it by a grocery trip. HE has all the skills and knowledge of an award willing chef. Like hell he isn't going to use them for some comfort. Which in this case means David going around a grocery store to get ingredients. A simple pasta primavera should be lovely, and that means carefully considering produce and cheese. And since he doesn't want to mess with it, a nice crusty bread for the side.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Explorations

It's convenient timing that, while Hank's been trolling around trying to find information, that he comes up alongside David. He has been thinking of something, but there's no guarantee he'll make it home again, or get to take these with them when they go. But if they do, it would be nice to-

Nah, that's stupid. It's a fucking idiot idea.

But he does know the kid, and he looks up at the tattoo place. Rather than asking for any progress reports, he asks a quiet, "You think we'd be allowed to take any of these mods home? Or if we get one would it be like fuckin' Persephone eating a seed and getting her ass bound to hell?"

David doesn't flinch. He's used to people just appearing next to him, whether he likes it or not. Granted that comes from knowing teleporters and speedsters and people who could fly. Hank, though, is reasonably sneaky for an old cop. Or perhaps because he's an old cop. Still, he smiles as he listens to Hank.

"You know, there are scholars that suggest that, given the presumed location of the Garden of Eden, the original fruit of knowledge was actually a pomegranate. In a way, humanity is like Persephone, caught in a trap of our own design. For who is to say that, fearing a return to the surface and the loss of what her husband offered, ate of the fruit willingly. Which would make your metaphor all the more troubling, wouldn't it?"

With a sigh he turns his back on the display.

"Something tells me they can't give me back what I lost. So I'll take the route that may not force half a year in exile, thanks."

"You know way more about the mythical connections and philosophy of pomegranates than I do. I don't know, I got people I gotta get back to." He rubs his palm with his thumb as he thinks of what he's been wanting, just fidgeting as he turns from the promises of magic tattoos.

"What did you lose?" A lot of people have lost stuff. Ripped away from fathers in danger, families that need them, lost magic (???), powers that he can't even begin to understand. And him, without the last person that gave him any sort of hope.

But he knows a lot of the people here also lost shit long before some self-righteous head yanked them out of fuckin' reality.

Long before is definitely more David's category. But he has lost his friends and his family by coming here. Those he still had anyway.

"My species."

A vague answer, but one that Hank might understand some given his former comic-book days. There wasn't much David could mean if he claimed he was associated with the X-Men once. And it would line up with the whole targeted minority thing.

"Sorry. That's frustratingly vague, isn't it? I was a mutant once. A genetic deviation from the human norm. With it came powers unlike that which a normal person can access. Some were inhumanly fast. Others had skin of diamond. Some had eye lasers. And humanity didn't really appreciate us."

Here this poor fucking kid is lamenting the loss of his entire identity and Hank's brain has to derail for a moment and go, Wait, no one told me you could un-X-men X-men!?. Honestly the whole thing that made him not even attempt to follow comics was that fuckers wouldn't stay dead and now this shit is a very real problem he has to come face to face with here.

He has to get his human empathy to settle in his hands with all the grace of a juggler manhandling an octopus mid-air.

Okay, okay. He thinks he has it back.

"How did they take that away from you? Like a whole fuckin' gene..."

“Magic, of a sort. There was a woman on my planet whose very words could shape reality to her will. She used three words. ‘No more mutants.’ No one knows how many mutants became human at those words. A lot. We were beyond decimated. And a lot of people died because of it. Especially the younger mutants.”

So many lives lay at the feet of the Scarlet Witch. And David has stopped holding her to blame. What was the point? Still, so much has been stripped from him. A magic bullet to get something back in return? He didn’t believe it.

“Must sound sort of fantastic, right? Unbelievable. But humans sort of hate differences. I’ve seen a genocide with minimal bloodshed, where the casualties came after the loss. I wasn’t kidding when I said I understood a bit of what your partner went through.”

"Yeah, that's not the sort of peaceful revolution anyone would want except the shithead masses. That's not acceptable, that's bowing to some over-compensating fuckface's sense of inferiority." This is not a plot that had ever been run by him. "It's a decision that one person shouldn't make for other people."

He clears his throat, though.

"And just because the androids were peaceful, it doesn't mean the humans were. There were 'recycling plants'. I think that just makes the mentality of, 'See, it's better that there are less of them.'"

But he stops bitching because he's sure that it's arguments or thoughts that David's heard before and Hank's some distant ass confused party who has some ideals based in a very human brain. He guesses at one point, before he knew they were people, he might have said something stupid like 'no more androids' if it plucked them out of reality like a magic trick. Or turned them human.

How fucking confusing would that shit have been?

"Look, you're allowed to better yourself. You're not gonna ever be the same, even if you got exactly what you had back. But you're earning the money. You're doing the work for it. If you wanna add some shit to yourself? Go ahead. Its your body and you're allowed to decide what the fuck to do with it. You should have been able to then. You get to now. Don't frown too hard on the urge, alright? Whether you follow it or not."

“Oh, I doubt anything other than grief was driving the Scarlet Witch when she said those words,” David shrugged off. An Avenger did that to them. To mutantkind. A woman who was a mutant, whose father was the most recognizable mutant there was. “Her father and twin lost their powers too. It didn’t affect her. And I don’t doubt she would take it back if she could.”

Still, he shakes his head at Hank’s suggestion. He doesn’t get it. He can’t. David had lost more than Hank can fathom. A whole other sense. And nothing here can give him that connection, that purpose, that sense of belonging.

He was alone here. What he’d give for even one person who got it like he did.

“You’re not curious as to what I lost? What I could do before? People tend to ask that.”

Hank is still even trying to wrap his head around people with diamond skin being real, that somewhere out there there's a guy that regularly jams claws from out of the spaces between his knuckles. That there's a bald-headed guy with telepathic powers fighting his ex-boyfriend. So he is curious, but got derailed by the more relatable subject of not feeling right in one's own skin.

That he can understand. But outside of Hank's unit, outside of being a father, he's never felt anything near like what David is thinking of in his life. His standoffishness would never allow it of him.

"Yeah, grief makes you do and think some stupid asshole shit. I know that." He says it in the tone that he's been there. And that he knows that it makes you mistakes that are hard to take back. At least his new partner forgave him from shoving him up against the wall.

"What did you do?"

He sticks his hands in his pockets.

Well, David wouldn't argue that Erik and Charles were ever involved, but that's him.

"I was telemimetic," David answers, walking away from the tattoo shop. "A light, passive telepathy. I absorbed skills and knowledge from people. Some of what I know and do is stuff I've researched. A lot of it is derived from others. I take that knowledge and fold it together in my head in my own ways."

Of course to know what all he knows, he'd have to get into the people he knew. Still, it's something. And he doesn't mind the questions that it may raise.

"Jesus, that'd be helpful." That would be a crap thing to lose, too. "Connor told me once he could file reports just while closing his eyes and that seemed a hundred times more fuckin' relaxing than the bland old human way. Was it like that?"

"But you got to keep what you had before? Losing your abilities didn't take that?"

Oh no, it's not like that. David chuckles, shaking his head. If only it was like that.

"It was there, regardless of what I wanted. It happened always, unless a stronger telepath was shutting me down or there was some other power blocking me," David explains. "And I didn't get to keep it. I could only have it when I was in their presence. It wasn't until later that I regained what my brain had already stored."

And not all of that had come through here. Which was for the best.

"Ah, well. Still a pretty fuckin' useful thing. Did it only work with humans with skills or did it work with mutants with them? Not their abilities, but skills. Or aliens. I guess you had aliens there, too, huh..."

He muses out loud, mind still working its way around this being fact and not fiction.

"All people who weren't mentally shielded from me," David assures him, shrugging at the question. "But you're right, I can't get abilities. I mean, I am a blackbelt in telepathic combat because of one telepath, but that doesn't mean I am a real telepath. Knew a mutant that was an olympic skiier. So I'm damn good at skiing. Logan was a combat master, so I've got that too."

So many other things, business management and magic and all the rest. A surprising bit of which he can barely remember. Which is upsetting in its own way.

The temptation to ask what kind of guy Logan actually is like is great. But he chooses not to. Seems like bad timing.

"So is it a sort of autopilot or if you had your abilities would you be able to sit here and name the years a bunch of fuckin' albums came out because I know them." Yes, because he's one of those kinds of dipshits.

Hardly all that interesting of a question. The more interesting one would be asking David's opinion of Cyclops. That one might have a rant attached.

"It's both. It happens without me choosing it. But it depends on how deeply you know it. If you know those things that deep, I'd have the knowledge."

"Was there anything that would help you retain that knowledge?" Hank feels bad that he has to use the word 'was'. 'Is' feels too heavy when someone's been stripped of something so fundamentally essential to their character.

Maybe the right person could give it back, though. If shit can rebuild people. Considering the struggle David just had with a tattoo he's not going to bring it up. Fuckin' hope is shit anyway. All that Hank can be sure of is that some people have the ability to push through.

"What is that place like when things are good?" he finally asks as well.

Yeah, the word 'was' happens to be one that David lives with way too much. "I couldn't when it started. It wasn't until after my powers were lost that some telepaths removed my mental blocks."

Hope is the worst thing, and David doesn't bother focusing on it. But the better question, and David smiles at the question. There were a bit of times where it was amazing.

"My drama teacher was blue, furry, and a teleporter. Seriously, best example of a dramatic entrance ever."

"I can only guess how they were on Halloween. I know what most people would do if they were teleporters."

Hank's never heard of Nightcrawler, his fandom doesn't run that deep. However, he can appreciate a teenager's wild (if true) stories for what they are. Nice reminiscing about weird fuckin' guys with blue hair. He'd probably have a lot of fun memories about the same thing.

"You get to do anything good in there personally?"

"Halloween is a bit less intimidating when the school is actually haunted. But Jeremy was a great classmate after he calmed down," David muses.

What? Their ghost goes to school with them. And the field trips could be good at times too. Not like he'd ever have gone to New York City otherwise.

"Rebuilt Cerebro. Built a replacement Danger Room. Was an instructor. Helped stop a Skrull invasion and stop the Hulk on rampage. Yeah, I did some good."

And now the Hulk just got name-dropped as a real person. Okay. Just uh... you know what? That's fine, too. Only a touch nightmarish there's a giant green living moodswing out there.

"Was the ghost stuff a mutant related thing or did he just decide not to fuck off after he died or-"

There's some complications here that he never thought he'd be asking. But he's in a fucking place full of weird ass aliens and magic and he really needs to learn this stuff. "...I take it Skrulls are aliens?"

Of course Bruce Banner is a person. Truth, Hank, is far stranger than fiction. And Xavier's academy had been attacked because Hulk held Charles responsible for the death of his wife. That's weird.

"He teleported as the school exploded. He became a ghost. But with the same powers still. So he kept going to school. And the Skrull are an alien empire, green creatures that are shape-shifters."

Hank could practically listen to David talk about his home with a mild look of bewilderment all day and be very interested, if not perpetually confused.

"Yeah I was thinking that or a term for some disease-carrying bug. You've done a lot, huh? What do you do for fun? Just like, normal stuff fun. I remember music and the strong opinions on pizza. What else? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Bad influence friend?"

There has to be more to this kid's life than getting bombed and fighting aliens and learning the proper ways to punch people.

Fun? David just looks at Hank. What was fun? He hadn't had anything like that in a very long time. Except, you know, the brief version of it that he had in those moments between the horrors.

"I guess Tommy was a bad influence friend. But we knew each other two days. But I was alone back then. I'll be alone here as well. The work will be enough to pass the time."

"No! No no no. You gotta at least go get a fuckin' book or somethin' while you're out. Not an instruction manual. A funny autobiography or a fictional thing. Or some craft supplies. I can come back to you when I have more info. This person isn't someone that's gonna get caught by leaving a hot trail. They know better. They're a person that's gonna get caught with common acquaintances familiar with the tools they use.

"I'll even pitch in my credits and help you get it. But you gotta actually do an enjoyable thing. If you don't, you start-"

He makes a motion around his head. Fucking words... Words are assholes and sometimes all that comes is a jumbled thought.

"-You need something. Or I can say, after doing this for a few decades, if you leave it alone it definitely gets to be a bit too much."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject