xp_logs | For every action there's a consequence...

Since it's all about the logging today...

Pete was pacing his room, scowling and muttering to himself.
"Brought this on meself. Should have bloody well known better."

He wasn't freaked out in the same way Jake was likely to have been, and
yeah, this certainly qualified under "interesting", but god, couldn't he
have had a few days to adjust to having another kid in the mansion he felt
directly responsible for?

There was a knock at the door. He lit a cigarette, and took a long drag
before speaking.

"Get in here!"

Amanda sidled in, a rebellious pout on her face, but Pete could see something else in her expression, something that looked like fear. So Little Miss Magic had gotten a surprise as well.

"Let's be having it," she said, flopping into a chair. "Let's hear how dangerous magic is and how irresponsible I've been and all the rest of it."

Pete sighed. "You oughta know me well enough by now to know I don't go in for all that shite. If you don't know what you did was wrong then there's precious little I can do."

Amanda bit her lip, obviously wrestling with something. "All right," she said at last. "I'm sorry! I fucked up and I don't even know how I did it, except that Jake's a shapeshifter and they must be kind of prone to suggestion or something. That spell never works - it's not supposed to!"

"Doesn't matter whether it's supposed to work or not. You do something, it's about the intent, not the actual result. You got pissed off, lashed out at Jake, and now you got to deal with the consequences."

"And just what kind of consequences are we looking at here?" Amanda tried to sound uncaring, but Pete could see she was scared. "You going to send me back to Brighton?"

"Depends. You want to be sent back?"

"Fuck, no!" It slipped out a bit more vehemently than she meant it to. For a moment longer she tried to regain her 'don't give a shit' attitude, but it crumbled in the face of Pete's stare. "You know what it's like out there, Pete. I'm on a good thing here. I don't want to bollocks it up. Nice place to sleep, plenty of food…" She sighed. "And Rom's right, things is getting out of control. Out of my control. Magic makes everything so much easier, but now it's starting to make things harder too. I'm getting into some seriously fucked-up shit, and it scares the crap out of me."

"Good, because it scares the crap out of me, too. Don't worry, you're not going to be sent back to Brighton."

Amanda relaxed a little.

"Yet." Pete smiled thinly - he might have been joking, but then again, he might not. Amanda took it to be the latter and squirmed a little in her seat.

"Another stunt or two like that, and believe me, we'll be talking about it again. In the meantime, my little sorceror's apprentice, it looks like you're doing the dishes in the evenings for the next week. Everyone's dishes. And before you even think about it, there will be no Mickey Mouse antics - you're going to do it by hand, if I have to sit and watch you every night."

"Fucking hell! You can't make me do that!" She'd only been there a day or two, but Amanda already had some idea of how much washing up a house with this many people could generate.

"Oh, I think I can. Because it's either that, or I'll let Jake come up with some kind of punishment for you, and I'm willing to bet he'll come up with something you'll like even less. And you're going to sit down with Doc MacTaggart, too. Fuck knows if it'll do any good, but if there's anyone that can even partway explain how your powers work, it'll be her. Maybe she can give you a hand with your day-to day control..."

"An' here I was thinking you were on my side," muttered Amanda sulkily, but not too much - Jake's reaction to the whole thing had been rather extreme and she wasn't game to push her luck with Pete too far.

'Christ. What happened to my life that I've wound up giving a sixteen year old a bollocking for turning woman who should be a man into a frog?' His mouth quirked in a brief, wry smile.

"Look, in a lot of respects, you're getting off lightly, because, well, you're new around here. But that means that in future, you're going to have to work twice as hard at thinking about your actions before you do something - not least because if you do something really weird, there may not be anyone around here that can fix it."

"You call that fucking lightly? I already said I fucked up, and I'm sorry--"

"It ain't me you need to apologise to." Pete cut in sharply, before continuing in a much milder tone. "Look, Jake's a shapeshifter, right? Total control over his body? Except at the moment he hasn't got that, because of that mess back in May, and he's here to try and get his head sorted out, get his body image, his self control back. And it's hard work for him."

"So?"

"Then, you come along and take what control he has left away from him
again." Pete's voice was calm, almost soft as he looked at Amanda. He was pleased to see her wince slightly as the repercussions of what she'd done to Jake hit home. She was a smart kid, and, despite her street-punk image, one that cared about people. Rom had been right - there was hope for her yet. "And as annoying as the git can be sometimes, he doesn't deserve that kind of mind fuckery."

There was a long moment of quiet, broken at last by Amanda saying in an entirely softer tone. "D'you think there's anything I can do? To make it up to him?"

Pete shrugged. "Again, it's up to Jake. I'd give it a few days, though - he's royally pissed off with you, Glinda and make no mistake."

"Man's got a right to be, I s'pose." Amanda's fingers fretted at a loose thread on the jumper she was wearing over several t-shirts. At last she said: "I'll try."

"Try what?" Pete had guessed what she had decided but the girl needed to say it out loud.

"Cuttin' back on the magic. Usin' it for the big stuff, not just because it makes things easier. No more losin' me rag an' zappin' people when they shit me, no matter how tempting it is." A half-grin crept across her face as she added the last part and she was gratified to see the corner of Pete's own mouth twitch with amusement. "Can't guarantee anythin', but I'll try. I'll even go see this quack of yours. Fair enough?"

"Can't ask for much more than that, can I?" Pete agreed. "You're still doing those dishes, though."

Amanda pulled a face. "Fuck, thought I had you on that one. No chance of charmin' my way out of it?" She batted her eyelashes at him, half-joking.

Pete snorted. "Yeah, right, kid. Now get out of here."

Amanda pouted, but did as she was told, her immediate future filled with stacks of greasy dishes and a sense that this gig wasn't going to be quite as cushy as she'd thought.