Amanda, Jubilee - Saturday morning
Sep. 3rd, 2005 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsAs arranged in these emails Amanda and Jubilee fix breakfast for the medlab. And have a class on the ins and outs of addiction whilst they're at it. Yay, multitasking!
Jubilee pulled another bottle of juice out of the fridge and stacked it carefully in the cardboard box next to the empty glasses she'd placed in there. She also pushed in a box of cereal and some bowls. She would do toast, but it'd probably get cold by the time it got down there. Pondering for a second, she grabbed a loaf of bread and placed it in the box, along with some butter knives and several jars of spread. She thought she remembered them having a toaster down there somewhere, and if not they could just do the cereal. She decided on a bottle of milk as well. There, that should be enough for the first run, she'd do another box in a few minutes for the rest of the people down there.
She smiled as she saw Amanda walk in. "Hey, this is about ready for you to take."
"Thanks," Amanda said, raising her eyebrow a little at the smile, but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. Considering the demanding tone of Jubilee's emails, she hadn't been looking forward to seeing the other girl face-to-face, but apparently priorities were being observed. Wonders would never cease. "Should do for the redhead docs, tho' we'll need more for McCoy. Man could eat a box load on his own," she added with a small, amused snort. "I'll bring the dirty dishes up with me from last night - there's not enough room down there for the amount of washing up needs doing."
"That's cool, just bring 'em up and I'll do them, and I'll have the next box ready to go by then too. Heh, Hank once out-ate me when it came to donuts, which was a feat in itself, considerin'. How's it goin' down there?" Jubilee asked, eyeing Amanda carefully. She looked a little different from the last time she'd seen her. Less like a strung out crack whore, that was for sure.
"Busy. The docs're runnin' 'emselves ragged tryin' t' cure this thing before Haroun croaks," Amanda said, sounding perhaps a bit more offhand than she was. It wasn't that she wanted haroun to be injured, she was just too tired, too detached, to really care. It had been that way for a few days now - since what had happened with Meggan. Amanda supposed she'd hit her drama limit - even when Manuel had appeared on her doorstep, she'd been more weary than upset. "They think they're gettin' somewhere, at least. An' Forge an' Paige are doin' the engineering thing, working on the cybernetics."
Jubilee nodded, already assembling the next box and pulling plates and cups out of the cupboards. "They'll make it. We've got some of the best doctors in the world, plus all the technical expertise engineering wise we could ask for. If we can pull miracles out of thin air for other things, don't see why we can't do it now as well. You doin' okay?"
She'd wanted to ask Amanda about that night with Meggan for days but there hadn't been time, and now this. She wasn't looking to make things more stressful then they already were but she still needed to know Amanda wasn't going to start going downhill on them without warning. One thing the doctors didn't need was another patient in the middle of all this.
"Better than I was." Amanda pulled the new amulet out from under her shirt by the leather cord. It was plain quartz, nothing fancy, looking exactly what it was - a rush job in extreme circumstances. "This is gettin' me back t' normal, like I said in me journal. Still don't feel like eatin' much, but I make meself." The witch was still too thin, scarecrow-like in the over-sized long sleeved shirt she was wearing over her jeans. "Lucky most of the stuff I can do involves me sittin' with that kid they brought in the other weekend - doesn't tire me out that much. Moira's watchin' me, just t' be sure, an' I ain't selfish enough t' pitch a fit an' give 'em more work."
Jubilee nodded, eyeing the amulet. "So, what happened to the other amulet you had?"
"Got broken." It wasn't Jubilee's business as to how, and Amanda wasn't going to have Bobby blamed for something that had been a complete accident. "A few weeks ago. Told the docs an' Rom straight away, but these things don't grow on trees. Rom needed time t' make a new one, so in the meantime, I was doin' it cold turkey."
Jubilee picked up another box of cereal and carefully placed it in the box. "You know that Meggan was a source?"
It was something that had been bugging at her. She didn't think Amanda would've deliberately hurt Meggan but then, for all intents and purposes she was a junkie, a recovering one to be sure, but still a junkie.
"No." There was a certain intensity in the flat denial. "'S her power - she went down an' got some tea for me out of me study, an' synched with the stuff down there. I didn't even know she could do it until that day. An' I haven't been alone with her since," she added, perhaps a bit defensively. If anyone could think she'd do that on purpose...
Jubilee nodded. "I didn't think you did, just had to make sure. Despite my 'time on the street', I didn't exactly make it a habit to hang around junkies. "
She placed a carton of milk in the box and then wrinkled her nose slightly as she recognised how that must sound. "That...sounded bad. Sorry. It's not that I think you would hurt Meggan, just that I had to be sure. So, is it always like that, without the amulet?"
"Yeah, well I didn't plan on becomin' one, either," Amanda retorted, ready to grab the box and go before Jubilee's apology. "Yeah, that's how it is. The amulet... takes the edge off. I always have the need, just this lets me push it into the background. Lets me have a normal life." She couldn't help snorting a little at that. "The thing is, with bein' hooked on somethin'? You can't just stop. Yer body craves somethin', an' it makes yer life hell if you don't let it have it." Amanda pulled up her sleeve so Jubilee could see the healing scratches on her forearms. "That was from the first few days. Felt like I had somethin' crawlin' under me skin."
She frowned, looking at the scratches. It was a puzzle. How did her power make her a junkie? Like Jubilee had said, from what she remembered of Amanda's memories as a kid, she hadn't been hooked on the magic then, so what changed? "But, I don't get it. I mean, you didn't seem addicted when you were a kid. What changed?"
"I came here." It came out a bit more bitterly than Amanda meant. "You know me mutant power, right? Well, I don't have an off switch - I'm learning with Moira now, but when I got here, I couldn't control how much mystic energy I took in. An' there was a... source here, a big one. I couldn't get away from it, couldn't stop takin' it in, an' the more power I got, the better it felt, 'til me system adapted to it an' wanted more, all the time." Amanda shrugged. "Takes more than one hit t' get hooked, but the one hit gives you the taste. I started lookin' for it, gettin' as close as I could for as long as I could manage. You probably won't remember, but I was makin' some pretty stoned posts on the journals back then."
"The glitter." Jubilee mused, suddenly remembering the incident. "You were pretty wacked out that day, if I remember."
Amanda nodded. "That was the first time. The rush... it was fuckin' incredible. Took me hours t' come down enough t' even know me own name, let alone what was goin' on." A brief, nostalgic smile crossed her face, before she sobered." An' then there was all the shite happenin', with Manuel an' Kwannon an' the rest, an' I was fuckin' up, hurtin' people, so it was just... easier t' make it go away. 'Specially after the potion. Only then the source got cut off an' that's when I realised I was hooked. Couldn't cope without."
"Why'd you need it, though? The good feelin', I mean. The potion was bad, yeah. And the other stuff. But, why'd you choose to make it go away rather then dealin' with it? You said you sought it out, tried to get closer to it. Could you have stayed away?" Jubilee asked.
She wanted to make sure she understood this, it was the first time Amanda had really talked like this with her, and she wasn't about to not take advantage of it.
"At first, maybe. If I'd left the school. But after a while, I couldn't not want it. It's like..." Amanda frowned in thought, trying to come up with an appropriate metaphor. "Your power uses sugar, right? An' when you eat it, you get all happy an' hyper an' tingly, yeah?"
"Yeah." Jubilee replied, reaching for some plates and stacking them into the box.
"That's what it was like for me, with this source. Only more so." Amanda fiddled with the edges of the box, before realising she was shredding the cardboard and made herself stop. "Now, imagine you got a whole stack of sugary stuff, and lived off nothin' else for days. Days of havin' the happy feelin', an' feelin' sort of tired an' sick when you didn't have it. That's what it was like for me - I got used t' havin' the good feelin's, an' not havin' 'em made me feel like shite. I didn't like feelin' like shite, so I went after the happy again, until it got t' the stage where my mutation thought that was normal, an' got used to it. Then when it went away permanent, I crashed, bigtime."
"I think I understand." she replied, a stab of compassion flashing through her as she realised that for Amanda, maybe there had been no real choice. "But I have to ask, if you didn't have the amulet, if Meggan was there again like she was, would you do it again? Take the power from her?"
"Fuck, no!" The reply was vehement. "You know better 'n most, Lee, 'bout what it was like for me as a kid, what Rack used t' do. You think I'd do that t' Meg? On purpose?" Amanda shook her head sharply. "I didn't know - she was cuddlin' up t' me an' me power kicked in by itself. I didn't even fuckin' realise at first, an' then when I did, I over-reacted an' pushed her away. Hell, I've made me boyfriend hate me 'cause I was tryin' t' do this clean, you really think I'd use Meg instead?" Her voice cracked on the last, and Amanda clenched her teeth to hold back the angry tears. "You'd be fuckin' cracked. The addiction's a weakness, yeah, but I'm not gunna let it make a monster out of me. I'd rather take a header off the roof like I nearly did last year."
Jubilee nodded, and handed her the second box. "Okay. That should be enough for everyone now. Look, I'm not sayin' these things to be cruel, or hurtful. But we're all meant to look out for each other, right? That means knowing what's needed and what's not."
"I'm workin' on it," Amanda repeated, as steadily as she could. "I know with my track record you might not believe me, but I want t' beat this thing. It was why I wouldn't let Manuel use his powers on me t' take the shite away. This thing with Meg... well, it's made it all the more important that I get this thing under control. I'm a danger to her, an' I'd rather die than do anythin' t' hurt her." She looked Jubilee straight in the face. "I'll do anythin' it takes t' beat this."
It chilled her suddenly, that last. She couldn't put her finger on it but as much as she might want to, she couldn't get past the feeling that Amanda wasn't out of the woods yet, and whatever she might say when it came right down to it, she wasn't in control of her own power.
Time would tell though, and Jubilee wasn't about to start giving up on people without a hell of a lot of chances first. She's wait and see. "Good. Now, you better get this stuff down there before they start chewing each other's legs off. A hungry Madelyn is a scary Madelyn."
"An' then some," Amanda agreed, stacking the second box on top of the first and picking them up. "Get the door for me?"
"Sure." Jubilee replied, walking over and holding the door open for her. "Can you e-mail me with people's lunch orders when you get a chance too. Gonna go out on a run to the store later on, and I think Dani will probably be able to cook up some hot stuff as well if people are inclined that way."
"I'll be back on duty, but I'll let Clarice know - she'll be on break then," Amanda replied, sounding a little strained under the weight of the boxes. "Ta, Lee. Appreciate this, if not the other." She flashed a brief, wry grin at Jubilee over her shoulder as she passed the other girl, and headed for the medlab.
Jubilee pulled another bottle of juice out of the fridge and stacked it carefully in the cardboard box next to the empty glasses she'd placed in there. She also pushed in a box of cereal and some bowls. She would do toast, but it'd probably get cold by the time it got down there. Pondering for a second, she grabbed a loaf of bread and placed it in the box, along with some butter knives and several jars of spread. She thought she remembered them having a toaster down there somewhere, and if not they could just do the cereal. She decided on a bottle of milk as well. There, that should be enough for the first run, she'd do another box in a few minutes for the rest of the people down there.
She smiled as she saw Amanda walk in. "Hey, this is about ready for you to take."
"Thanks," Amanda said, raising her eyebrow a little at the smile, but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. Considering the demanding tone of Jubilee's emails, she hadn't been looking forward to seeing the other girl face-to-face, but apparently priorities were being observed. Wonders would never cease. "Should do for the redhead docs, tho' we'll need more for McCoy. Man could eat a box load on his own," she added with a small, amused snort. "I'll bring the dirty dishes up with me from last night - there's not enough room down there for the amount of washing up needs doing."
"That's cool, just bring 'em up and I'll do them, and I'll have the next box ready to go by then too. Heh, Hank once out-ate me when it came to donuts, which was a feat in itself, considerin'. How's it goin' down there?" Jubilee asked, eyeing Amanda carefully. She looked a little different from the last time she'd seen her. Less like a strung out crack whore, that was for sure.
"Busy. The docs're runnin' 'emselves ragged tryin' t' cure this thing before Haroun croaks," Amanda said, sounding perhaps a bit more offhand than she was. It wasn't that she wanted haroun to be injured, she was just too tired, too detached, to really care. It had been that way for a few days now - since what had happened with Meggan. Amanda supposed she'd hit her drama limit - even when Manuel had appeared on her doorstep, she'd been more weary than upset. "They think they're gettin' somewhere, at least. An' Forge an' Paige are doin' the engineering thing, working on the cybernetics."
Jubilee nodded, already assembling the next box and pulling plates and cups out of the cupboards. "They'll make it. We've got some of the best doctors in the world, plus all the technical expertise engineering wise we could ask for. If we can pull miracles out of thin air for other things, don't see why we can't do it now as well. You doin' okay?"
She'd wanted to ask Amanda about that night with Meggan for days but there hadn't been time, and now this. She wasn't looking to make things more stressful then they already were but she still needed to know Amanda wasn't going to start going downhill on them without warning. One thing the doctors didn't need was another patient in the middle of all this.
"Better than I was." Amanda pulled the new amulet out from under her shirt by the leather cord. It was plain quartz, nothing fancy, looking exactly what it was - a rush job in extreme circumstances. "This is gettin' me back t' normal, like I said in me journal. Still don't feel like eatin' much, but I make meself." The witch was still too thin, scarecrow-like in the over-sized long sleeved shirt she was wearing over her jeans. "Lucky most of the stuff I can do involves me sittin' with that kid they brought in the other weekend - doesn't tire me out that much. Moira's watchin' me, just t' be sure, an' I ain't selfish enough t' pitch a fit an' give 'em more work."
Jubilee nodded, eyeing the amulet. "So, what happened to the other amulet you had?"
"Got broken." It wasn't Jubilee's business as to how, and Amanda wasn't going to have Bobby blamed for something that had been a complete accident. "A few weeks ago. Told the docs an' Rom straight away, but these things don't grow on trees. Rom needed time t' make a new one, so in the meantime, I was doin' it cold turkey."
Jubilee picked up another box of cereal and carefully placed it in the box. "You know that Meggan was a source?"
It was something that had been bugging at her. She didn't think Amanda would've deliberately hurt Meggan but then, for all intents and purposes she was a junkie, a recovering one to be sure, but still a junkie.
"No." There was a certain intensity in the flat denial. "'S her power - she went down an' got some tea for me out of me study, an' synched with the stuff down there. I didn't even know she could do it until that day. An' I haven't been alone with her since," she added, perhaps a bit defensively. If anyone could think she'd do that on purpose...
Jubilee nodded. "I didn't think you did, just had to make sure. Despite my 'time on the street', I didn't exactly make it a habit to hang around junkies. "
She placed a carton of milk in the box and then wrinkled her nose slightly as she recognised how that must sound. "That...sounded bad. Sorry. It's not that I think you would hurt Meggan, just that I had to be sure. So, is it always like that, without the amulet?"
"Yeah, well I didn't plan on becomin' one, either," Amanda retorted, ready to grab the box and go before Jubilee's apology. "Yeah, that's how it is. The amulet... takes the edge off. I always have the need, just this lets me push it into the background. Lets me have a normal life." She couldn't help snorting a little at that. "The thing is, with bein' hooked on somethin'? You can't just stop. Yer body craves somethin', an' it makes yer life hell if you don't let it have it." Amanda pulled up her sleeve so Jubilee could see the healing scratches on her forearms. "That was from the first few days. Felt like I had somethin' crawlin' under me skin."
She frowned, looking at the scratches. It was a puzzle. How did her power make her a junkie? Like Jubilee had said, from what she remembered of Amanda's memories as a kid, she hadn't been hooked on the magic then, so what changed? "But, I don't get it. I mean, you didn't seem addicted when you were a kid. What changed?"
"I came here." It came out a bit more bitterly than Amanda meant. "You know me mutant power, right? Well, I don't have an off switch - I'm learning with Moira now, but when I got here, I couldn't control how much mystic energy I took in. An' there was a... source here, a big one. I couldn't get away from it, couldn't stop takin' it in, an' the more power I got, the better it felt, 'til me system adapted to it an' wanted more, all the time." Amanda shrugged. "Takes more than one hit t' get hooked, but the one hit gives you the taste. I started lookin' for it, gettin' as close as I could for as long as I could manage. You probably won't remember, but I was makin' some pretty stoned posts on the journals back then."
"The glitter." Jubilee mused, suddenly remembering the incident. "You were pretty wacked out that day, if I remember."
Amanda nodded. "That was the first time. The rush... it was fuckin' incredible. Took me hours t' come down enough t' even know me own name, let alone what was goin' on." A brief, nostalgic smile crossed her face, before she sobered." An' then there was all the shite happenin', with Manuel an' Kwannon an' the rest, an' I was fuckin' up, hurtin' people, so it was just... easier t' make it go away. 'Specially after the potion. Only then the source got cut off an' that's when I realised I was hooked. Couldn't cope without."
"Why'd you need it, though? The good feelin', I mean. The potion was bad, yeah. And the other stuff. But, why'd you choose to make it go away rather then dealin' with it? You said you sought it out, tried to get closer to it. Could you have stayed away?" Jubilee asked.
She wanted to make sure she understood this, it was the first time Amanda had really talked like this with her, and she wasn't about to not take advantage of it.
"At first, maybe. If I'd left the school. But after a while, I couldn't not want it. It's like..." Amanda frowned in thought, trying to come up with an appropriate metaphor. "Your power uses sugar, right? An' when you eat it, you get all happy an' hyper an' tingly, yeah?"
"Yeah." Jubilee replied, reaching for some plates and stacking them into the box.
"That's what it was like for me, with this source. Only more so." Amanda fiddled with the edges of the box, before realising she was shredding the cardboard and made herself stop. "Now, imagine you got a whole stack of sugary stuff, and lived off nothin' else for days. Days of havin' the happy feelin', an' feelin' sort of tired an' sick when you didn't have it. That's what it was like for me - I got used t' havin' the good feelin's, an' not havin' 'em made me feel like shite. I didn't like feelin' like shite, so I went after the happy again, until it got t' the stage where my mutation thought that was normal, an' got used to it. Then when it went away permanent, I crashed, bigtime."
"I think I understand." she replied, a stab of compassion flashing through her as she realised that for Amanda, maybe there had been no real choice. "But I have to ask, if you didn't have the amulet, if Meggan was there again like she was, would you do it again? Take the power from her?"
"Fuck, no!" The reply was vehement. "You know better 'n most, Lee, 'bout what it was like for me as a kid, what Rack used t' do. You think I'd do that t' Meg? On purpose?" Amanda shook her head sharply. "I didn't know - she was cuddlin' up t' me an' me power kicked in by itself. I didn't even fuckin' realise at first, an' then when I did, I over-reacted an' pushed her away. Hell, I've made me boyfriend hate me 'cause I was tryin' t' do this clean, you really think I'd use Meg instead?" Her voice cracked on the last, and Amanda clenched her teeth to hold back the angry tears. "You'd be fuckin' cracked. The addiction's a weakness, yeah, but I'm not gunna let it make a monster out of me. I'd rather take a header off the roof like I nearly did last year."
Jubilee nodded, and handed her the second box. "Okay. That should be enough for everyone now. Look, I'm not sayin' these things to be cruel, or hurtful. But we're all meant to look out for each other, right? That means knowing what's needed and what's not."
"I'm workin' on it," Amanda repeated, as steadily as she could. "I know with my track record you might not believe me, but I want t' beat this thing. It was why I wouldn't let Manuel use his powers on me t' take the shite away. This thing with Meg... well, it's made it all the more important that I get this thing under control. I'm a danger to her, an' I'd rather die than do anythin' t' hurt her." She looked Jubilee straight in the face. "I'll do anythin' it takes t' beat this."
It chilled her suddenly, that last. She couldn't put her finger on it but as much as she might want to, she couldn't get past the feeling that Amanda wasn't out of the woods yet, and whatever she might say when it came right down to it, she wasn't in control of her own power.
Time would tell though, and Jubilee wasn't about to start giving up on people without a hell of a lot of chances first. She's wait and see. "Good. Now, you better get this stuff down there before they start chewing each other's legs off. A hungry Madelyn is a scary Madelyn."
"An' then some," Amanda agreed, stacking the second box on top of the first and picking them up. "Get the door for me?"
"Sure." Jubilee replied, walking over and holding the door open for her. "Can you e-mail me with people's lunch orders when you get a chance too. Gonna go out on a run to the store later on, and I think Dani will probably be able to cook up some hot stuff as well if people are inclined that way."
"I'll be back on duty, but I'll let Clarice know - she'll be on break then," Amanda replied, sounding a little strained under the weight of the boxes. "Ta, Lee. Appreciate this, if not the other." She flashed a brief, wry grin at Jubilee over her shoulder as she passed the other girl, and headed for the medlab.
