xp_logs | Paige, Jono, a duvet and some stars.

Weekend-ish.

jono: hey, I'm dying. paige: *panic!* PAUSE jono: so... paige: let's have useless conversation. jono: sounds like a plan.

It had been a week of chaos and uncertainty. So much, in fact, that Jono still felt vaguely disoriented from the sheer loudness of thoughts. The situation inside his head hadn't exactly improved after the return of the lost children, their frantic minds now overlaying the ones that had been left behind.

He hadn't really stuck to listening to all the explanations of what had happened. He had barely come to accept Amanda's particular magic, and felt completely out of place with the sort they had apparently faced. So his one true and tried way of coping was to withdraw, even more so as he felt horribly self-conscious of what the stress of the week had caused.

His body, the shell that contained the energy, had started breaking. Little cracks and fractures were shot through his skin, outward from the gap in his chest, glowing underneath the makeshift wrappings he'd chosen to wear instead of walking around as he was.

Still, it had been a week - three months, the other insisted - and Paige had been gone that time. He felt, after the first hasty meeting, that she might need time for herself, having visited a different world or dimension, or whatever it had been. Jono wasn't really sure. But then, patience wasn't what he was made for, so he shifted through the people in his head, looking for the familiar shape of her thought patterns, and followed them outside.

Paige supposed she should be sleeping. Supposed she should be resting at least, or even better yet, inside. She had a big, early day tomorrow, one that she didn't want to screw up. But, true to form, there was no way Paige would be sleeping tonight, for a multitude of reasons. One of which, although, not the most important, being that she missed being outside. Leaving Angelo to sleep in peace, she'd brought her duvet with her outside, her lovely, fluffy duvet which she hadn't been so thankful for in a really long time, and was now sitting in the grass with her knees tucked up, head tipped up to watch the night sky.

After a while - she probably didn't know how long she'd been there - something, or rather, someone touched her mind softly. Just to alert her to the presence of the tall boy who was still in the manor's shadow, as if avoiding even the light of stars.

There was immediate sort of release in Paige, a slumping of her shoulders, as she fought the urge to just bonelessly cease to exist for a moment. He was still here. "Hey," she said quietly, knowing he'd be able to hear her. If there were more words, they were swallowed hard.

That seemed to give Jono the permission he'd been waiting for and he strode across the lawn to join her in her lonely vigil. "Hey," he replied, folding down to sit next to her, unaffected by the changes in temperature as usual. He'd never thought he'd miss being cold or hot.

"I... how..." Paige tried, trying to say everything at once and realizing it all just sounded so trite and cold. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, part of her wondering if this wasn't all some giant cosmic joke, the other part wondering where those hairline fractures had come from. "What happened?"

Jono, for his part, was giving her much the same look. "Shouldn't I be asking that from you?" he countered, leaning his elbows on his knees, slumped forward.

Paige thought about that a moment, before letting herself fall back, sprawled out in the grass. "Probably. I just assumed you didn't care," she admitted after a time. "I missed you quite a bit. Living with Valkyries only solidified that fact that I am quite straight and in love with you. It wasn't very nice. But you're avoiding the question."

His first reaction was affront that she would assume he didn't care, but he said nothing of that, knowing how he behaved. "You were away for three months," he said, almost questioning. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around it, because in his experience, things like that just didn't happen. Even Illyana's disappearance and subsequent reappearance a good deal older had merely glanced off of him because he refused to think about it. "And still, only a week," he continued. "I don't even know if it was a week. I didn't sleep. It's blurry."

"You like to sleep," Paige remarked, questioning his lack of it. The rest of it was brushed away with a nod and kept that way by a slightly furrowed brow. "I assumed that's what you were doing, since you were obviously not with me."

Ah, right. "I thought you might want to have time to put your thoughts in order or something," Jono offered his excuse. He fingered his sleeve, tugging it down to hide the back of his hand, which was starting to resemble crumpled parchment with glowing edges.

"You thought wrong," Paige pointed out dully, noticing he was still very much avoiding the question. There was a long silence in which she waited for something else, prayed for a normal relationship, but nothing. "Jesus Christ, Jono. Am I bothering you? Did I interrupt your weeklong brood or something? Am I even allowed to touch you, or will you continue to brush me away?"

If Jono had had an easy solution to his tangle of emotions, Paige would have been the first to know. But as such, he only turned to look at her, sad and somewhat confused. "Valkyries, you say," he stated mildly, marvelling at the fact that they apparently existed. "You can touch me, if you want. But be careful, I might break." The words were laced with bitter amusement, because she didn't have any idea how close to the truth they actually were.

Paige drew her brows together, suddenly confusion overcoming the anger on her features. Her lips parted ever so slightly as if she were continuously on the verge of words but actions won out. Creeping her fingers up the back of his arm she let her hand rest on his shoulder, pulling him backwards, down to her with the weak kind of want he could easily resist. Shewanted him close enough to tell if he was lying. No, that wasn't entirely true. She also just wanted him close.

The way Jono fell back was, ironically enough, rather boneless. He let his arms stay on his sides, but tilted his head slightly to see Paige. He didn't offer any more words, just looked at her like he hadn't seen anything like her before.

Gently, oh-so-gently, as if he were to fall to pieces before her, Paige brushed back his hair with her fingertips. This is how they worked, she supposed. With Jono it was always timeless, about knowing every hair and then getting to relearn it over and over again. Part of her wondered if this was what reincarnation was like. That same part of her couldn't remember why she had been so furious with him only seconds before. She sat up just enough so that she might look down at him, and brushed her lips against his cheek.

He closed his eyes, a hand creeping up her arm, to linger somewhere just below her shoulder. It felt... peaceful. For a change. After the hurried and panicked atmosphere of the previous week. "I did miss you terribly, you know," he said then, almost off-handedly.

"Good of you to let me know," she answered, but not unkindly. More teasing, less hurt, most pleased and reassured. He felt different under her mouth and she kissed him again. Not hot but not like before either.

He didn't want to incite another moment of anger, but he was also curious. "What happened?" he asked slowly, enjoying her touches. "What did you do for those three months?

"Made out with helmeted women," Paige replied casually into his ear, a slow smile rising over her features. "Learned to better beat you up, mostly. Was propositioned by dead guys occasionally."

"Not so much different from home, then," Jono pointed out, a bit wry. "Except for the helmeted women." He thought it was obvious who he had in mind to fill in the role of the dead bloke.

Paige chuckled, resting her forehead against his. "Well. I had a flying horse at some point too. So unless we're extending flying horse as an euphemism for something else..."

"You need to look that up with Freud." Jono lifted his hands to her cheeks, framing her face for a second before letting them slip down to her shoulders. "He had a lot to say about horses. About everything, really."

"Freud was crazy, honey." Paige nuzzled against him, their version of a kiss, before freezing, eyes going wide. She'd just realized what the wrong feeling was. Very slowly, she turned her head back towards him, bringing up a hand to his wrappings and pulling them down, merely a finger. It was enough. "Oh, Jonothan."

There was a still moment, and Jono gave Paige a wide-eyed look before pushing her hand away. "Don't," he said, and sat up, pulling her along with him. "You don't want to see, and I don't want to show you."

Paige closed her eyes against the pain that was her heart suddenly stopping and nodded. When they were open again, she was looking away, hand balled into a tight fist in her duvet; so white it was difficult to tell her skin from the ivory of the sheet. Her legs had tucked up, knees at an angle and resting in his lap where she didn't have the energy to move them.

Jono hadn't wanted for her to find out, but how likely was that. He held her now, resting his cheek against her shoulder. "Emma's offered to take me to meet some prominent psionics around the world," he explained. "As soon as possible."

She merely nodded again, with more passion this time, jostling him. There was a long silence in which she knew she was supposed to say something, supposed to have the right words, but all she could do was cover her mouth with her hand, trying to beat down terrified sobs at the source.

There was really little to say, and Jono didn't blame her for not saying anything. He could sense the words whirling in her head, but couldn't latch onto them either. He wanted to tell her it would be all right, and maybe even convince himself of it, but he didn't know how.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Paige choked out finally, trying to brush away the fact that she couldn't stop shaking to the cold. It was cold, it made sense to shake- no, shiver. And the deep breaths were clearly just calming techniques, not a panic attack. Everything was fine. "Frost knows what she'sdoing. You'll be fine."

As if often seemed to be, Jono found his ability to cope from siphoning off of hers. "Fine. Right." Define 'fine', he wanted to say, but only clutched her tighter instead. "Practice kicking my arse even more while I'maway, that'll give you something to do."

Normally his grasp on her would hurt, but at the moment she really wanted him to break all the bones in her ribs to distract her anyway. Paige reached behind her to take his hand, trying to still them. "I can already kick your arse, heart. It's not fun anymore."

"That's a very good point," he admitted, just trying to distract her now. He hadn't wanted to upset her, hadn't wanted to tell her that there might be something wrong with him. "Maybe I need to practice more then."

"Brilliant of you to realize that now," Paige replied. So much for distraction. She wasn't angry but God was she scared; didn't think she'd ever been so scared except once. Not being able to stand it anymore she turned around, sitting between his thighs with her own legs around him, followed suitby her arms. While she was worried that he might break away in her arms it was a better alternative than just before her eyes. "They accepted me on the team."

"That's brilliant," he replied, with warmth even, curling himself around her as if trying to keep her from breaking. "You're such a perfectionist I'm sure Summers will just adore you." He refused to think any further on what was happening to him and what it might mean.

Paige pressed her cheek to his, staring out into the darkness and avoiding the little voice in the back of her head that was reminding her that now was a perfect time to panic. "Until I steal his Captain throne, anyway," she replied with much more humor than she felt. "I get fitted for my suit after the weekend."

Jono picked at the duvet idly, then molded it better around Paige. He had felt the shivering, and pretended it really was just the cold. "When youcan successfully plan and carry through that coup d'etát, you deserve it." Henodded into her shoulder. "Email me a picture, would you?"

"Like hell I will. When you get home you can have a private showing. Consider it incentive." There was a moment where she felt the urge to push him onto his back and memorize every inch of him with every sense but she kindly reminded herself that she already knew. Not to mention they happened to be in the middle of the yard, even if the yard was about the size of a small town. Her lips brushed his ear as she spoke, drawn closer to him. "Really good incentive."

"Duly noted." He could feel her breath and the resulting tingle, but it took no time at all for him to remember what exactly he looked like, so he just shook his head a little, hands playing along her spine. "When I get back." He didn't add 'if I get back', no matter how much his bitterness demanded it. It wasn't her fault, she didn't deserve to hear it.

Being jostled by his head shake didn't distract her enough to not hear the underlying words within his words. "When you get back," Paige repeated firmly, trying to feel braver than she actually was.

The moment was oppressive, and Jono, knowing he wouldn't succeed, tried to lighten it anyway. "Not even a sneak peek?" He drew his head back a little to see Paige's face, wanting to watch her expression.

"I don't photograph well," she replied, very seriously, her eyes lighting up the only indication of her jest.

"You don't have to look at the photos." Jono's eyebrows raised, one higher than the other, and he smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. "They'd be just for me."

Paige made a thoughtful expression, as if thinking hard. "Maybe. If you're very good. And keep me updated." She refrained from mentioning the 'so I don't go crazy and attempt to slaughter people' part.

"Don't worry." Jono stroked her cheek. "Even if you did go crazy and slaughter people, you're smart enough to get away with it. No one would believe you did it, anyway." He slipped his hand back under the duvet, against her side. "I'll keep in touch."

"You. Out of my head," she replied but with no real anger behind it. Her tone suggested grumpiness but even that was obviously not true as she tipped her head to his hand. His acceptance to her request pleased her. "Or at least my evil thoughts part of my head." Pausing, she thought better of it. "Never mind. I guess you can stay."

"Brilliant," he replied, more flippant than what he actually felt. "Means I don't have to pretend I'm doing what you've told me to."

"Never really been very good at it anyway," she was all too happy to point out, turning her head to kiss his palm. This all felt so natural, like this is the way it should always be. Minus the possible death, maybe.

"Not one of my most marketable skills, no," Jono agreed easily, then opted for silence again, leaning his forehead against her shoulder.