Jamie and Illyana: massively backdated logs

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During the Asgard party, Jamie takes a break back at the mansion and goes to find Illyana; they chat about a variety of subjects.  Semi-fluffy bonding.



It was cool outside, but preferable to the music -- they were calling it music, weren't they? -- and chaos she'd encountered at the party. She swung her legs over the railing of the balcony, perching gracefully on it, and took a deep breath to clear her head.

This didn't bother her. Gratuitous violence bothered her. Demons bothered her. Amanda bloody Sefton bothered her. Parties did not bother her.

Even if they were celebrating what amounted to two months stuck in: The desert (hot), the desert (cold), the mountains (full of rabid furry creatures including one of their very own), and the mud everywhere). She exhaled irritably; not that she cared, but what on Earth had possessed these people to have a party dedicated to all that mostly-boring, very occasionally too-exciting time spent in Asgard? It seemed just slightly strange, that was all there was to it.

Jamie meandered down the hall, poking his head in empty doorways. Illyana had to be--aha!  She was.  Over there.  Perching.  He grinned and walked up next to her, intentionally keeping his footsteps audible. "Hey.  Somehow I didn't think you'd be in much of a party mood."  He proffered a glass. "Want juice?  I'm cleverly escaping having to listen to Manny's epic tale of living high on the hog with the guy who kidnapped us all by paying attention to my dupe here."

She heard him approach and turned, with a wry smile, to hear of Manuel's party exploits. "I'm not really much for parties," she explained, in what might have been the understatement of the week. She took the glass gratefully. "Thanks. I thought about having some mead, but then I realised how much I really hate mead, and thought better of it." She made a face. "I'm glad I'm not there. I think I'd have to hit Manuel, and they seem to frown on violence here."

Jamie snorted.  "I dunno, I'd cheer.  And yeah, I had enough booze while I was there to last me . . . a while.  Not in a hurry to repeat that experience."  He leaned against the balcony railing.  "And my parents left a week ago, and Kitty isn't back yet, and just about all the other people I'm wildly interested in telling the story to already know . . ."  He shrugged.  "The gig for the band is fun--as fun as it can be without our lead guitar, anyway--and we could use the chance to blow off steam, but eh, I'm just as glad you decided not to go.  Gives me a good excuse to take a break every now and then."

She turned and put her feet up on the railing, balancing delicately but in no way precariously. "I'm comfortable just forgetting the whole damn thing happened." She paused, sipping her juice thoughtfully. "Except for the parts where I was in any way impressive. Those I'll keep. But honestly, I am not at all interested in watching Manuel and Jubes attempt to meld into one person, and it's too nice and quiet here to waste my time doing something I have no inclination to."

Jamie made a face.  "Thanks, I'd just about managed to repress all memory of the dance floor.  Now I'm having flashbacks.  And not the fun kind of flashbacks, like about the time I died."  He shook his head. " . . . Keep the part where we rescued those dwarves.  That was pretty impressive.  Much with the doing of good."

"Yeah, yeah." She waved her hand dismissively; all she'd done was hold the sword. "Like I said, the impressive parts where I was attractive and intelligent can stay. The parts where I ended up wading through snow up to my knees and wondering why Hel's guard dog ate so damn much? They can go.  Besides, I can remember the impressive parts without subjecting myself to company that makes me feel violent." She smiled wryly. "No matter how much violence might make me and everyone else feel better."

Jamie grinned.  "So no getting dragged out of taverns by your ear, either?  I think Alison's definitely putting that one in the mental scrapbook."

She gave him a withering look. "No more of that, no, and I count myself bloody lucky that there were no cameras in Asgard. Honestly, just because being mute made her cranky was no reason to do any of the things she did to me. Especially throwing me in the lake. That was quite uncalled for." Her eyes gleamed in triumph "I'm glad I gave her all that styrofoam. It deserved a good home."

Jamie remained obstinately unwithered.  "That was a good one.  Although I could've warned you to dump it in the common room instead of Lorna's mini-lair."  He chuckled.  "Bad tactics, splash damage."  He paused to take a sip of his own juice.  "And hey, embarrassing as it was, Alison did save you some time.  I mean, you would've gotten sick of doing Hel's scutwork sooner or later."

Depends on the splash, she thought, shrugging. "I don't think sick of it describes my disposition to being under a goddess's control, but it'll do. She just -- overreacted," Illyana added airily. "People here tend to do that. Honestly, his fingers will have healed by now."

Jamie raised his eyebrows curiously.  "If everybody seems to be overreacting, a case could be made that you're underreacting and your perspective is screwy, y'know.  But yeah, most of the time, I'd call it overreacting too--s' a soap opera around here, a heck of a lot of the time.  When it isn't just opera, all sailing around emoting incomprehensibly at the top of your lungs."  Jamie grinned at the mental image.  "Not entirely what I meant, though.  You would've figured out a way to quit eventually.  Entertaining as fingerbreaking might've been, it's not you, when you get down to it."  He waved his juice decisively. "I mean, you left Limbo."

She swallowed a sharp, way-too-bitter response and thought for a moment instead, sipping at her juice and reminding herself that disagreeing with him about her true nature was not in her best interest. "Yeah," she said, looking down at the dark grounds that spanned out below. "I guess I did." Now that sounded stupid. "I mean, of course I did. It's not like I wanted to stay in Limbo." Although some days she wanted to just disappear back there and forget the whole school, normal people, broken family thing.

"No, but I get the feeling you could have, if you did want to."  Jamie took a turn peering out over the balcony.  "I think about going back to the farm, sometimes.  No brainwashing, no evil twins, no alternate dimensions, no collapsing walls or hate groups with silly names, no daily superpowered soap opera.  Loneliness almost starts looking pretty tame."

"Yeah," she said, with a slight smile. "Me and the demons. As a sitcom, it'd practically write itself." She shook her head, looking down at her hands.  Her voice was neutral when she spoke again; not flat, but unemotional, the voice of someone reading a textbook out loud. "I spent a year alone before I could come back. All of it in the dead of winter. Compared to the soap opera . . . it really was hell. Literally. I'd take this over that any day.  Even if some days the loneliness looks easier."

"When I was a kid, I had these three best friends.  Did just about everything together.  Then I manifested, and I couldn't control the duping at all at first.  Took me six months before I could go out in public again, and by that time, one of my friends had been in a car accident, both his parents died, he moved to Georgia to live with his aunt . . . all without a word from me, and I couldn't exactly explain what had happened.  So that was the end of that, and I didn't much leave the farm at all until I came here--small towns, you know, stories get around, so I wasn't much welcome."  Jamie shrugged.  "I wouldn't call it a year of winter in hell with demons, but . . . I'll take this too. Crazy and all."  He grinned.  "Hard to get bored, anyway, huh?"

She looked amused. "This is true. Really, though, I'd be hard-pressed to be bored even without the craziness -- just yesterday, I figured out how the blender worked." She paused. "Of course, I was trying to boil water, but that's neither here nor there."

"Ah, the blender."  Jamie nodded wisely.  "One of the trickiest, and definitely one of the funniest of the minor kitchen appliances.  But not, as I'm sure you found out, particularly good at boiling water."  He grinned.  "Great for blending stuff, though.  It blends stuff really well."

"I noticed that," Illyana said dryly. "I was just glad no one was around to catch the expression on my face when I ended up with cold, well-blended water. I'm sure it was pure comedy. And great blackmail material."

Jamie snorted.  "See, this is why I just don't worry about my dignity. I mean, hey, I do a lot of silly things, I might as well join people in laughing at them.  And it saves the stress of blackmail."

"Dignity is often overrated," she agreed, "although I don't think my attitude is as cavalier as yours. Mostly, I just want to avoid getting sent down to the guidance office for a complete run-down on kitchen appliances."

Jamie snickered.  "I dunno, I might pay to see Mr. Wisdom's face when he heard he was supposed to teach about them."

Illyana made a face. "I've had enough guidance to last me the rest of my life. Especially -- " she swallowed a suspicious, untrusting comment -- "since I can work most of the appliances nicely at least eighty percent of the time." She thought about it for a moment. "Well, seventy-five at the outside. I'm still not sure if that one thing is a can-opener or a strangely-designed weapon."

"What one thing?"  Jamie thought for a while.  "Oh, that thing? I think it might be an industrial paint stirrer, actually.  I'm sure there's a story behind what it's doing in the kitchen but I'm a little afraid to ask."

"That would make sense," Illyana said, with a slight smile. "In that it makes as much sense as anything here. Really, it fits right in."

Jamie grinned.  "Metaphor, maybe.  Mutants are the industrial paint stirrer in the kitchen of life?"

Illyana snorted. "Don't let anyone hear that, you'll have them whining about wanting to be the fridge or the coffee-maker instead, it's not fair that everyone's the paint stirrer, and then something about their personal liberties or creativity or something that will make me want to be violent again."

"This is a good point.  Violence would get you all sweaty and mussed, too, and then where would your image be?"  Jamie shook his glass.  "I'm empty--feel like going inside for some more?"

Illyana swung her legs over the railing. "Sure," she said. "So long as it's clear my image is fine with violent, mussed and sweaty -- there's a reason those action movie women get paid so much. It's all about context."

---

And the next day, following this comment thread regarding Jubilee's disappearance, Jamie finds out what's up with 'Yana's teleporting.  He takes it remarkably well, being a seasoned dimensional traveler with an extremely wide stubborn streak about the people he trusts.



Jamie took the stairs two at a time, cornering on the landing and hopping onto the bannister to skid down the last flight at what was almost certainly an unsafe speed.  He leaped back off shortly before the inconvenient bottom post, landing fairly easily near where Illyana was waiting.

"Hey," he said, panting slightly.  "I'm ready to go--what was that you said about a catch?"

A thousand excuses came to mind; the adults are looking, probably nothing will come of this, I don't think it's a very good idea . . . Illyana pushed them aside in her mind. Jubilee was missing; Jubilee was making less sense than usual; and it was entirely possible that Jubilee was hurt, all of which made calling the whole thing off a bad idea. Instead, she looked at him hard, as though she'd suddenly find a flaw she hadn't considered; there was none. "Right. What I am about to show you goes no further than you or I -- by which I mean I will tell Kitty, sooner rather than later, but you will not be telling Kitty or anyone else," she said, briskly professional, as though this wasn't a matter of what she considered life or death. "It's not actually very nice confidential information, so you can opt out right now or not, but you have to understand that I mean this very seriously. I trust that you can respect the -- privacy I try to maintain here, or I wouldn't even consider telling you, no matter how badly I thought Jubes needed our help." She took a breath, willing the air to calm her; she suddenly had the urge to fidget (or run away very quickly), which she repressed brutally, stilling herself as much as she was physically able. "I need your word before we go."

Both eyebrows went up as Jamie considered this, but barely a moment passed before he nodded.  "You've got it."

"Good," she said, trying not to sound short. Inner turmoil, she told herself firmly, was for losers. "Then we're off."

She chose her location carefully; it wouldn't do to land in the middle of the castle, which was sure to be crawling with demons, or the old gardens, which were -- private. There were very few places, actually, that wouldn't scare the life out of most people. She chose, and with a quick thought the portal opened -- depositing them none too gently in the middle of wasteland that extended to the horizon on one side and a range of sharp, dark mountains opposite. It was threatening to rain, heavy black clouds and sheet lightning reflecting her mood high overhead; she clamped down on her emotions and the clouds held steady. She glanced at Jamie, wondering if he was putting the pieces together or just confused.

Jamie was, in fact, much faster at math than he used to be, and was well past "2+2=Limbo" and into the mental algebra necessary to calculate exactly how much hay somebody like Amanda might make out of this.  It only took a few seconds to solve for "x='no wonder Illyana was so twitchy about keeping this private,'" and then he took a moment to absorb the scenery before turning around.

"Hell of a place to grow up."  Off her look, he grinned.  "What, would you rather I was freaking out?  If we were likely to run into something we couldn't handle, you wouldn't have brought me."  Raising his right hand in a solemn gesture that somehow managed to avoid looking particularly repentant, he added "But I promise I'll avoid the easy punchlines for the rest of the trip."

"See that you do," she said tartly, thankful for the opportunity to treat this as normally as possible. Trust her to bring the one person who wouldn't freak out. She was getting good at this people thing, wasn't she? Obviously. "Anyway, that's the catch. It goes through -- not point to point, although that's the official story. I can't go place to place on Earth."

"Huh."  Jamie tilted his head thoughtfully.  "Wonder if it's because you manifested here?  Dumb mutation doesn't know better, thinks this is home?"  He shook his head.  "Doesn't really matter anyway, I guess. Where do we start looking for Jubes?"

Dumb or not, the mutation was probably right; her stomach twisted, and thunder cracked in the distance. "That's what I thought," she agreed, breathing so she wouldn't start an early monsoon season by accident. "Anyway. I'm not sure where we should start -- I checked the mall and the main district, but she knows every inch of the shopping district, and I don't. I was thinking, those shops she likes by that cafe?" It took some effort not to conjure up an image of them; that was across the line, way too much magic that she wasn't technically supposed to have. "I haven't checked there, and I remember her mentioning them a few times."

"Sounds like a plan."  He grinned.  "And if I hadn't promised to avoid the easy punchlines, this is where I'd say 'Beam me up, Scotty.'"