sharp_as_knives | Hannibal's house, Wednesday

Hannibal rolled down his sleeves and nodded at the table. Everything looked to be in order for his little dinner. He'd made a slight variation on steak and kidney pie, with Yorkshire puddings, horseradish potatoes, and roast winter vegetables. And, since Jono would likely be far too busy to visit on Christmas day (Winsol no doubt meant a security nightmare above what it already was), Christmas pudding, one week early. It had been sitting for around a month, which should have been long enough, anyway.

Hopefully it would be a welcome break from the excessive work Jono was no doubt putting himself through, and they would have a chance to talk and share music again.

He had no doubts of Jono showing up - he'd sent a beautifully calligraphed invitation.

[OOC: For the one mentioned, though I suppose if anyone wants to drop by beforehand, why not?]

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: 22 Phoenix Place

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

furnaceface

//It's always cold.//

If not physically, then mentally, emotionally. There had always, always been something cold. Odd, for a man on fire. But there it was.

//My name stays the same. The joke of a family I left behind doesn't change. The pain... there's a constant, I suppose. The guilt... surprisingly, the guilt isn't a constant. Sometimes I'm too angry to loathe myself. Sometimes I'm too numb.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

Well, that wasn't much to hold to, was it?

"And what of things unique to this version of you? Things that are true for no other Jonothon Starsmore?"

From:

furnaceface

//... The people, I suppose. At least, the ones I met because of Fandom. There was no Fandom in Weapon X, no happy high school years during the end of the world as I knew it.//

He glanced toward his jacket, slung surprisingly neatly, for Jono, over the back of a nearby chair.

//There's a letter in one pocket... No other me has had that. S'a touchstone, of sorts. I don't have many of those.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

"The green one?" Hannibal asked, combing his fingers through Jono's hair. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

From:

furnaceface

Jono shifted his weight around a little more, leaning his head right up against Hannibal. He wasn't going to talk about that without some sort of physical grounding in the here and now. Didi might have been part of his history, but she was still a few lifetimes ago, now.

//She was my second girlfriend,// he shared, quietly. //Second girl I ever really loved. First who loved me, in spite of what I was. God, she was... I call a lot of people 'Sunshine,' fine, but she was... more. She owned it. If other people were sunshine, she was the day. And... we knew, going in, that it wasn't meant to be.//

It was, after all, not given to mortals to love the Endless.

//Didn't care. Didn't matter. Decided that it was worth the pain that was coming. And she's one of the few things in my life that I don't regret.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

"She sounds lovely. And as if she were very good for you," Hannibal observed. "What was her name?"

From:

furnaceface

//Didi,// Jono replied, opening his eyes and staring up at the ceiling. //When I knew her, when we were together, she was Didi. And...//

There was a twist of something in his chest, fire tying itself in knots. Something. A sudden realization that he couldn't breathe.

Maybe a desperate longing to be able to properly cry.

He had no idea, anymore.

//... And then one day, she wasn't Didi anymore. She was Death, and she went her way, and I stayed behind.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

"You don't mean that metaphorically, do you?"

Hannibal couldn't tell the specifics, maybe, but that distress was real, and he placed one hand on Jono's wrappings over where his heart would have been, keeping the other in his hair.

From:

furnaceface

//Wouldn't metaphor make it all so much simpler?//

He shook his head a bit, lifting a hand to lightly rest over the one on his chest. Not that he was afraid that Hannibal was going to pull it away, but... it was nice. Still nice. The man wasn't afraid of him.

It meant... it meant more than words.

//Didi and Death are one in the same, but separate, different, distinct. Didi was... she was an interlude, the sort of interlude that she gets every hundred years, to remind her what the worth of life really is. She wasn't meant to love, she wasn't meant to be loved. I never was terribly good with rules, I suppose. Her brother hated it.//

Suck it, Dream.

From:

sharp_as_knives

And here Hannibal had thought your love affair with death was metaphorical, Jono. "And so you knew from the start that she couldn't stay, but you took what good you could while you had it. Despite its predetermined end, despite your differences, despite her brother. Sleep?" he guessed; at least in the mythologies he knew, that was how it went.

From:

furnaceface

//Dream,// Jono corrected, shrugging his shoulders a little. //They had D-names, th'lot of them. Delirium and I got on alright. Dream, not so much.//

Shocking, wasn't it, that he got on so well with the broken, insane one?

From:

sharp_as_knives

"And does your antipathy for sleeping stem from before or after this?" Hannibal asked. Please tell him you weren't averse to sleep because you didn't like its personification.

From:

furnaceface

//Ah...//

Huh. There was a question he'd never really thought about, much.

//Well, I never slept well... The nightmares got worse after, but... probably because so did everything else.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

So yes, possibly a bit of unexplored hostility towards sleep and dreaming. Ah, Jono.

"What happened?" Hannibal asked. "Was it because of her leaving, or coincidence?"

From:

furnaceface

Jono shrugged his shoulders a little.

//I met him on one of those parents weekend things. For a family of immortal personifications of intangible concepts, they have moments where they're almost startlingly mundane.//

Dream, for example, was very protective of his big sister.

//I don't think I'd go so far as to blame him for my difficulty sleeping. I don't imagine his sister would be terribly thrilled with him if she were to find that he was keeping me from sleeping on purpose. And the places I've been... the ones that haunt me... they're the sort of things that would give anybody nightmares.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

Hannibal nodded. He'd reserve opinion on that, but at least what he'd heard of the rest seemed true.

"But no other version of you has her. Or Karla, or Raven, or me. Rinoa and Squall. Joni...?" he trailed off expectantly, letting Jono fill in as many more names as he could think of.

From:

furnaceface

//Dinah. Momoko. Almost everyone,// Jono allowed, nodding a little. //With the exception of people from worlds similar to mine. We've got a Kitty Pryde, where I'm from. And an Emma. Worthington, as well... It's the ones from home I get mixed up about.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

"But still, that's quite a few to go on," Hannibal noted. "When you wake up confused, or you need a touchstone, head for the nearest one of us. You are always welcome here. If that isn't a possibility, check the contacts in your phone. Even if you can't call one of us, let the names help ground you."

From:

furnaceface

Jono nodded a little bit at that.

//I lose th'lot of you, sometimes. For moments, usually. Just enough for me to wonder what I'm missing. But my phone wouldn't have that same problem. And... I call my voicemail, and I can hear her voice.//

He'd lost that voicemail for a while, after his whole Weapon X mess. He'd recorded over it while he was a part of the program, and then had recorded over that to wipe away the voice of a him who wasn't really him. But Legion's pissing around with the very fabric of reality had given it back to him somehow, and even though he was able to, there was no way in hell he was going to record over it again.

... He'd made recordings of it, to be sure.

From:

sharp_as_knives

"I had wondered whose voice that was. She does sound rather...ebullient." Perky.

From:

furnaceface

//She was actually one of the more level-headed people I've ever known,// Jono replied with a shrug of his shoulders. //Compassionate, smart, warm. Lord, she was so warm, Hannibal...//

He shrugged his shoulders.

//And she knew when to tell me to stop being a moron. I need that, you know.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

"I had noticed." Hannibal chuckled. "I think I would have liked her." For many reasons. "Listen to her voice, then, if it helps. Call and listen to mine, or Momoko's, or Karla's. Pick up Joni."

He paused.

"I hesitate to suggest it, knowing your feelings about control, but if you are willing to consider it... Hypnotism is often used to recover buried memories. It could also be used to bury them. Or at least, in your case, to dull the sharpness of the ones inconsistent with your current reality. To make it plainer which are real."

From:

furnaceface

Jono gave his shoulders... another small shrug.

//I... might consider that,// he replied, though he didn't sound terribly convinced. //I specifically turned down an offer to bury some of them, before. The Fortress X ones. For as much as they mess me up, as much as they bugger with my head, they're... context, of a sort, as well. It's difficult to explain this,// he gestured to his chest, //after a couple of years being big and blue.//

From:

sharp_as_knives

"Our memories make us who we are. Even false ones, apparently." Hannibal shrugged in turn. "I wouldn't want to eliminate them completely, but if we could soften them, give them the quality of a vivid dream while allowing you to remember them?"

He tugged lightly at Jono's hair. "I don't need an answer now; it's just something to consider."

From:

furnaceface

//I don't think I could give you a good answer right now if I wanted to,// Jono admitted, leaning his face up a bit to better look up at Hannibal. //I'm going to have to think on it, of course. But softening them a little... that might help. I think I miss me.//

He thought. He wasn't entirely certain. It was hard to miss somebody you barely remembered.