maskormenacelogs | [OPEN] {They put poison in my mouth

Diego hates everything about this job, from the slap in the face joke that it is, that it was his assignment at all, all the way to the uniform and the bratty, thieving punks he has to deal with. Sure, it isn't like he actually has to do much most days. Mostly, he wanders idly until-or-unless he gets a call on his radio for something suspicious. The whole process of it is mind-numbing, if he's honest, and he always hates the hurry-up-and-wait game. Even in the city patrols he did back home, there was an element of that, and it was always his least favorite thing.

He weaves his way through several individual stores-- a shoe store, a book-movies-and-music store, various department stores-- and hopes something of note might happen, just so he has something to do today.

At some point, he'll make his way to the food court to get something to eat. He tries his damndest to sit alone and be as invisible as possible-- but he realizes that the uniform makes him stand out. Hopefully, he'll just not be bothered and be able to eat his lunch in peace.

Jeopardy is the worst city in the world and she should've just never come out here. She should've had the manager at this chain of Houdini's come to her in De Chima, but noooooo, she just had to be accommodating and polite!

Gods. No good deed goes unpunished, truly. Because right now? Right now, this is true punishment, encircled by a gaggle of young teens who are ogling the oddity of elf ears. Gods, they're not even full elf-ears, these racist cretins! They're so noisy, and, and smelly -- any attempt she makes to step out of this circle of hell has her smacked in the face with nasty chip-and-taco breath that has her reeling, her head already buzzing from the intense auditory pollution around her.

"Will you just-just--!" She holds up her clipboard with the intention to smack someone upside the head. "BUZZ OFF! Buzz! OFF!"

The insufferable sound of a gaggle of giggling girls is kind of unmistakable, as is the note of twisted up agitation in another voice. He heaves a sigh, because there is little he hates about this job more than dealing with a bunch of high school girls, but fine. He lets his features school into something cool and neutral despite his already existing annoyance.

For the record, Universe, mean girls moments? Not what he wanted the monotony of his day to be broken up by. Thanks.

He approaches the group of girls with careful, deliberate steps and surveys a cursory glance to each one of them in turn, "What's going on, here, ladies?"

"Omigod," one of the girls cries. "Do you see this crazy girl? She's, like, trying to beat us up?"

"Excuse me?!" Cecelia's nostrils flare, incensed. "I just want to go do my JOB, thank you?! Get your dreadful phones out of my face!"

"She's the one dating Riptide," another girl declares. "So they say. We wanted facts."

"She looks like she's surrounded by a group of people that won't leave her alone. In my book, that's self-defense." Spoiler alert: Diego's book is not the one the rest of the world follows. But he'll stand by what he said anyway. Especially because it seems a lot like an imPort being swamped by native groupies from where he's standing and he is really not a fan of that behavior.

He perks a brow at the second girl that pipes up suddenly. "And you think it's your business who she may or may not be dating for... what reasons, exactly?"

"Omigods who cares!" Cecelia cuts in, desperate to be free. "Tell them to go away so I can--! AH!!"

In her stress, her hands had begun to heat up and, clutching that clipboard and papers too tightly, caused smoke to start. At her squeaking realization, one of the pages catches flame and goes up quickly -- startling her and the mob of girls, who make their escape -- not without a few snaps on their phone, of course.

"Nope, no! Nope! Uh!" She has to make a few grabs, but she actually snatches the tongue of fire and freshly-burnt paper in-hand and squeezes it until it fizzles out, immediately freezing in place and gawking at the security officer.

"...S...Sorry...?"

He watches the antics of the girl he was trying to step in to help, ready to diffuse her just as much as anyone else involved, when suddenly the papers she was holding incinerate. "Oh, shit." he mutters under his breath.

The other girls snap a few pictures before disappearing on their way and the only girl remaining stammers out an apology in Diego's direction. "Uh.... you're okay, right?" He seems... calm enough, if mostly confused about whatever he just watched transpire.

"I..."

This is...bad? This is bad. This is, at the very least, embarrassing, which is bad. She continues to stare back at the poor, confused security guard, her eyelid twitching for a beat before she comes back to life.

She clears her throat.

"I am not a crazy arsonist," she starts, and immediately looks nauseous upon hearing herself. "Like. Obviously. Sorry. I just...panicked? I'm panicking. It's fine. I just want to. Do my job. And go away really fast? Is that okay? I am not going to set anyone on fire. Or the mall."

Omigods. She actually wouldn't mind herself being set on fire, actually.

"I really didn't think you were." Crazy, at least. Arsonist might be subjective. But still.... "So you panicked and then fire-- imPort power?" he asks about as gently as he can-- which for Diego is about the difference between a dagger and a paring knife. "What is your job, exactly? Why were those girls harassing you?" He doesn't care about the gossip, but if there's some kind of Real Situation, he's got to call it in. He hopes there isn't one, because he hates having no real authority in these situations.

Her mouth curls into an uncomfortable grimace. No, not imPort powers, but...but she doesn't get a chance to correct that. Maybe it's better to let him assume; it's hard to explain somewhere in my bloodline someone inherited dragon blood DO NOT ASK ME HOW and now sometimes my body temperature rises or gets scaly in places DO NOT ASK ME WHERE and maybe sometimes things are lit aflame on contact very succinctly and in a way that wouldn't open her to more scrutiny or humiliation.

So.

Sure.

ImPort stuff. Whatever.

"Lo-look--" she clears her throat. "I part-time at this...stupid magic-shop thing. And they made me come out to the one shop they have here for stuff! Okay?" She holds up her clipboard. "That's actually all I want. I hate this town on core concept so I wouldn't be here otherwise."

Diego is certain this girl needs to find a way to calm down before she manages to pass out from the high blood pressure she must be causing herself to have by being so worked up. But whatever. At least it seems like maybe it was just a dumb teenage girls being awful at each other moment and nothing beyond that.

"All right. We can do that. If you're sure there's nothing else--" he pauses and glances over his shoulder in the direction the other girls had disappeared in for a second before focusing his attention back on her. "you don't think they'll be back to cause more problems, do you?"

"Ugh," she scoffs, shooting a sour look over her shoulder, scanning around for sign of the harpies. "I would hope there's someone around here more worth the trouble? Right? This city has to be brimming with weirdos."

Whether or not present company is included in that judgment is unclear and remains as such when she looks back at him. She exhales, straightening up.

"Anyway. Houdini's Magic Supplies? Can you direct me there?"

"That we can agree on, at least." This city is weird, and that's an understatement. He isn't really a fan of it at all, so he doesn't blame her for that at all.

"Yeah," he sighs and turns to direct her, "you're gonna go down this way and take a right, it'll be about halfway down on the left." Really, it's embarrassing how much of his job really is just giving people directions to stores.

Her ear twitches at the weight of his sigh. Gods, was she that much of a burden on his life for the whole, what, two minutes she popped into it? Who suffered more here!

She doesn't have it in her to make this a proper, fussy fight, however, and just sighs in turn...with more weight behind it. She then clears her throat, straightens up, and puts her nose in the air.

"Very good. My thanks and good day."

And there she goes, walking like she has an audience around and a foul smell to keep abreast of, as many raised by high elves do.

Diego doesn't have many hobbies, but one that he picked up as a teenager sneaking into bars long before he was allowed to be in them was darts. He had an unnatural talent for it, with his trajectory power, and he'd made a damn decent hustle because of it. But he also learned to just love the game.

Thanks to his brother's fondness for the place, Diego finds himself at Pour Decisions every now and then. Sometimes, he's just having a drink by himself at the bar, and other nights he's at the dart board. He doesn't hit the bullseye every time-- though that isn't to say he doesn't hit his mark every time, still-- because that would be too obvious, and he's stuck in a shitty job he hates, and it wouldn't be the worst idea to have a little side-hustle to have some extra cash for the bills at the house. A seven-bedroom house takes a hell of a lot more to keep up with than a boiler room made into an apartment, and every little bit would help.

When he notices someone that might seem like they're interested, he smirks a little and tilts his head toward the board, "You wanna play?" A beat passes before he adds, "We could make it interesting..." He completely intends to make some money on this tonight.

Working at Pour Decisions was time consuming and reward. That was all Eli would say on the matter while he stacked glasses and served drinks, always using his ability to make his job easier and strike up conversations with regulars. Given his ability, he was usually behind the bar, but he does sometimes leave someone else in charge while he goes greet a familiar face.

Or in this case, a familiar face with a growing bad habit by the dart board. Eli was not interested in playing but neither does he want to make a scene.

"Interesting how?"

Diego turns to the guy that answered him, shrugging a little. "However you want. Loser buys a round of drinks? Or cash, I'm easy." He wouldn't exactly hate a free drink, okay? But he's definitely leaning more toward the second option.

He's stopped in a handful of times, but Diego isn't in De Chima or at Pour Decisions often enough to know who Eli is, or even that he works here, not really.

Eli lifted an eyebrow, there was no way he was going to bet money when Diego had been winning most of these bets. "Drinks sounds fair to me," he stepped closer, lowered his voice "-but you should stop trying to hustle my customers." Listen once or twice was fine but this was the sort of thing that could become a bad habit and a problem.

Sorry, Diego.

Diego goes dangerous-still with the instinct of something trained deeper than the marrow of his bones when the guy moves closer to make his point. The words only put him at the smallest, barest fraction of ease, which isn't noticeable at all in the way every muscle in his body is still tense, and his fingers twitch almost imperceptibly around the darts still held in his hand.

"Your customers," he echoes, taking the moment to lean back away from him, take a half-step away to still push the point of distance. He gives an amused huff of a laugh, "What's wrong with a little friendly bet or two, huh?" He glances around the definitely and decidedly not empty bar. "Doesn't look like it's hurting your business any."

Arguing with who seems to be the owner, Diego, classy. Please don't get arrested, dumbass.

Eli snorted, amused by the cheek of this guy to argue back. "I'm only coming over here because it has been more than one or two." There was no harm in a friendly bet or two but more than that and it got suspicious. Someone who had lost money to Diego had been at the bar complaining earlier.

"I don't want any trouble, yeah?" Were they on the same page? Hopefully. If not... well.

Oh, there's a lot more cheek where that came from, buddy. "It's not my fault your average customers are no good at darts, man." He smirks. It isn't that he doesn't hear the guy, or even that he won't relent in the end, mostly because he likes this place and doesn't particularly want to be banned from it or anything, but... he's just That Guy. He so rarely gives in, and never on the first, gentle press of suggestion.

Without meaning to he gave a snort, clearly amused. Eli couldn't help it; he found kinship in those who stood apart from the rules (even as he did his best most of his military career not to break rules), and this guy seemed like trouble but not malicious. Unfortunately, Eli cannot let him rip off other patrons, at least for the rest of the evening.

"How about you leave others to the game and have a drink at the bar? On me."

He considers the guy for a moment before smirking a little and rolling one shoulder in a shrug, "All right, I'll take it." Who was he to say to free beer? He'd learned ages ago to never look a gift horse in the mouth-- when someone makes an offer, take it.

"So, are you going to regulate my dart time now or what?" He smirks a little and slides onto a stool at the bar.

Crisis was averted for the moment. Besides, to Eli, a free drink is not a big deal. He did it for all those he was friendly with - thank you porter for the handy superpower. "Do I have to regulate your dart time?"

Eli pulled a glass from below the bar and set it in front of Diego. "I'm not psychic but I am very, very good at picking up patterns." That was how he got clued in to the potential rigged game happening here. "But I promised you a free drink, what would you like?"

Diego doesn't give a real answer, beyond a facial shrug and a roll of one shoulder. Take it as he might, Diego doesn't care. There's surely another bar in one of these damn cities he could use for the same purpose.

"Unnaturally so, I take it." Just a guess, given the tendency for imPorts to have such varied, different abilities attached to themselves. He considers it for a short moment and decides, "Let me have a Corona."

Eli shakes his head, "Surprisingly, no. I was still this good back home." He preened a little because, well, he considered himself someone lacking in skills but spotting patterns? That was something that came naturally as breathing to him, and the one thing he felt certain enough to state with pride.

"The porter gave me a different power and it comes very handy for this." And with that he tapped Diego's empty glass. The effect was like magic, and the glass was filled with a light colored, foamy drink. Yes, it was beer, Corona brand.

"I would have thought you'd go for hard liquor."

"You count cards with those skills?" It's mostly a joke. Mostly. As shown by the seemingly ever-present smirk on his face.

He tilts his head, curious at what he was getting at until he sees the power in action. He chuckles a little, "Pretty handy power for a bartender, I guess." he says, amused. "Which came first- the power or the bartending?"

He shrugs a little, "Usually tequila, if I'm completely honest, but I'm not married to it."

Time after time, attempt after attempt, every training session Diego has done with Luther on this empathy thing to date has been a failure. Diego doesn't deal with failing well, and he needs take some aggression out. He finds a gym to suit that very specific need. He doesn't waste any time in choosing a heavy bag to unleash his annoyance at. He falls into a pretty deep and mostly distracted zone, nothing much outside of the immediate vision of that bag is even registered as existing unless someone decides to make the questionable decision of approaching him.

[Optional power-play~]
Anyone within an immediate vicinity might feel a sudden rush of red-hot anger crash over them like a wave. The feeling doesn't last long, it's a blip in anyone's radar unless they venture any closer to him; in that case, the feeling rises and feels like it's digging deeper into the center of them. Diego doesn't notice it happening, but anyone who might be psychic themselves, or in some way familiar with empathic powers might figure out what's happening-- or they might just ride the feeling out. Maybe they take their aggression out in their own way, or maybe a fight is about to break out between them and Diego-- dealer's choice.

One of the first things Jean did was to take a survey of the cities, without the use of the Porter. Oh, she looked into it. The Porter, both object-person teleportation-transference and The Being. She's been looking into every part of the infrastructure here, but there's nothing that can truly keep her from the sky, or looking into these places, thinking about the magnanimity of some of her recent conversations here.

She's in Nonah today simple because today it was Nonah. No real other reasons. To listen to its people, and the city, on both sides of the divide. Different, but so similar from home, too. Which is where she is when the rush of anger runs red-hot finer tips up her arm and makes her look off into the direction it came from as her shields easily raised between herself and it, like her own fingers reached up to gently brush away an ant that had accidentally crawled there.

Pausing on the sidewalk, she stared at the front of the building it was coming from. The rage itself didn't much interest her, as did the fact it was being broadcasted. Shoddy shreds that didn't even pretend to attempt control and sudden bursts that as she closed her eyes interspersed themselves with the punch of a fist in a bag, growing only angrier with the self and not less with each land. It's only the briefest brush, blank and empty, less weight or presence than butterflies wing.

But she heads toward the door, and this Diego, all the same.

Diego is completely oblivious to anything or anyone around him, or the fact that anyone out in the wider world might recognize something in him he barely has the edge of understanding in himself at all yet.

Diego's never had a power that he couldn't grasp, nor one as invasive and debilitating as this. Throwing knives was easy. Learning to control the trajectory more precisely was simple. But he can't control what other people feel--or, at least, not yet, and he's not sure he wants to, ever--anymore than he can control what surfaces in him, either. He's never been much of one for over-complicated emotions.

Or, at least, not in what he shows to the world. To the world, what you see is what you get, and only the rarest of rare people in the smallest of small circles ever knew or saw evidence of anything deeper. All of that was so often buried deep behind too many layers and doors and vaults for most to bother. Though, that's hardly the case anymore, when he keeps accidentally projecting everything to the world around him. There's no hiding how he feels when he unwittingly pushes it into someone else.

But this? This is different. This is hard to get a handle on. He can't even wrap his fingers around it to get a grip on it, and it's aggravating. Beyond that, it's hitting buttons he hasn't had touched in years, didn't realize could still even be effected. All the slips and false starts and falters... it's standing in front of a mirror and not even being able to get a couple of words out of his mouth without tripping on them. The awkward missteps, the shame and embarrassment, the frustrations at himself-- it all feels so much the same, reverberating back to some of the biggest points of self-loathing he'd ever lived.

The punches just come faster and harder with every stray thought that dances through his mind--

Stupid.
Get a grip.

Pathetic.
Useless.

Failure.
"Failure is unacceptable, Number Two."

The last thought has a different tone to it, it isn't a personal one, so much as an expectation someone else placed on him once.

Edited 2019-07-26 02:22 (UTC)

The door chimes, with a small bell the door strikes as it opens, and Jean only looks up for second before it's to a girl at a counter nearby. She'd got a firm ponytail, a firmer turn to her mouth, and a workout tank with the same name of the gym from the sign on the building outside, but it's easy enough for Jean to say she was hoping for a moment to look around. It's not a lie. She had shifted to that so long ago with far less problem than she thought she might.

The Phoenix speaks only truth.

Being told it was fine, as she was agitatedly shuffling her papers, and to come back if she had any question, Jean turned toward the gym, itself, at large. It wasn't hard to pinpoint where the blackness of the rage, and it's deeper runnel of disgust, was coming from. She was certain before she walked in, but it's even easier once he'd insight that he isn't meaning it. That she's mostly sure, he hasn't yet realized. It flows around her, like a rock in a river, untouched as she walks closer.

Edited 2019-07-29 16:08 (UTC)

Diego had long-since learned how to push himself beyond anything like fatigue, to keep going even when every muscle in his body screamed at him to stop. It became a sort of game after a point. Just to see how far beyond the limit he could push himself. Kind of a self-motivating self-improvement benchmark, if you will. Even if it was maybe not the best way to do it, whatever. When had training as a Hargreeves ever been normal or the best or the safest? At least his own experiments didn't include electrodes.

But there's always a point of stopping.
And he's been here pretty much since the doors opened.

A few more quick jabs at the bag and he was done. At least for a moment or two. He heaves a sigh and pulls the gloves off of his hands, shoving one of them through his sweat-soaked hair. He mutters something incomprehensible to himself under his breath and goes to grab a bottle of water.

That's when he notices her.
Bottle half-way toward his lips and she's just really hard not to notice, all shock of red hair and a certainty that she carries herself with that would be impossible to miss.

But that's all it is. He notices her. And he moves on, drinking nearly half the water in the bottle at once.

Jean makes a circuit, but she doesn't make any show nor any cover of the fact her focus is on a singular point. The gym is nice enough, but she could have known that by wandering straight through the vision of anyone in the room before she'd walked in here. Even without slipping into their thoughts about it, people looked around themselves often enough on instinct, even more so when watching everyone and everything in the room was their job.

She ends up stopping not far from him, and there's a directness that bares more on focus and forthrightness, filling in for the fact that her tone has no sharpness to it at all.

"Are you feeling better?" The question is a given, as is the answer,
but she has to start somewhere and at least he isn't a child.

Edited 2019-07-30 00:25 (UTC)

Diego had zoned out a little, lost in his own head a way that was less direct thought, more just not really paying attention to the world around him. Bad move. He knows better.

He doesn't startle the way someone else might, though, at the sudden shock of a voice so close to him when seconds ago, no one had been near enough to even be mistakenly assumed to be talking to him. His only real reaction is the tilt of his eyes in the direction of the voice, followed a second or two later with his head, an eyebrow arched at the odd question she had for him. "What?" The word falls out of his mouth dumbly.

"Do you feel better?"

The repeat is easy, and instant, and without any extra emphasis placed on any of the words for the necessity of it.

She's not surprised he needs it, and there's no annoyance in that. The obliviousness of his situation is written all over him, in levels and layers, both ones he can see and ones he cannot, and she's been around this situation for far too many years to take anything like direct issues with it.

There's an instant sense of raised hackles across every inch of him. Why was she asking? Who was she to care? How'd she know there was anything like a problem crawling through his veins, anyway?

"I'm fine," a lie spoken as easy as breathing, with that clipped edge to his voice he always has. Especially with strangers. "Why do you care?"

Jean doesn't raise to the bait, or the bark, or the patent lie. Not a shoulder, nor an eyebrow. But instead, she exchanges his answer and his question for another of her own. At least this time, it is a different one:

"And do you think they are?"

For this her gaze moves from Diego Hargreeves across the gym floor. Where a man is working a circuit weight so hard and so fast the weights make a loud, aggressive thump into each other rapidly, his face reddened and his gaze unfocused. The girl at the desk, too, over there, to one side, agitatedly shuffling papers, hard and fast, as well, like she can't find something and might be considering tearing them or burning them instead. (Which she is.) Them, not the only ones.

There's even some in the back rooms. One in a shower so angry he's thinking about punching the tile. (Which he won't.

Not any more than the girl will. Jean wouldn't allow this to progress as far as actually hurting anyone.)

The confusion curls around his features, from his eyes to his mouth, painted in picture-perfect clarity even without any additional, preternatural puzzle pieces. "Who?"

But he follows her gaze, away from him, across the gym to the faces of individual people. Twisted up in agitation that... really doesn't make sense at all. What were they all so mad about? Eventually, his eyes find the woman again, that puzzled expression still there. He really isn't following the point, here, lady.

She doesn't answer his first question but lets him look. Follow her gaze and the raise of her fingers, as he spots the symptom but doesn't understand the genesis. Even as he stumbles immediately on asking why it's happening to all of them, what they are so filled with the same emotion, and form what, and with a quieter turn to her voice, something softly approving, she nods. "Now that is a question worth asking."

Jean let her hands fold together briefly. "If you asked them all right now, they could give you the longest explanations, each of them. Different, but just as deep as the last. In a few hours, though? They won't remember it. Why they were angry at all."

They are calm words, pebbles dropped in a pond, waiting to see if he can pull it together himself.
It's not a game, but he's not slow, and he's had some kind of training. That much is obvious.

"What question?" the words tumble out before he has a chance to think it through, so much of Diego is just act first, think later. If he even gets around to that second part, sometimes he really doesn't even do that, even at any arbitrary 'later' point.

The slight squint of confusion at the edges of his eyes is still there, deepens the slightest bit for her words. He gets it. She's trying to let him find the answer himself. Lead a horse to water, whatever. But... "Why won't they remem--"

The rattle of the weights in the corner snaps him back to the guy over there and something about it, and his half-asked question clicks just so in his head. His attention whips immediately back to the redhead in front of him. "You're saying it's my fault."

And that is his exact wording. The only one that he could choose, because that realization comes with a bucket of things all at once. Most obvious is this knee-jerk guilt response because, really, he wasn't doing anything. At least, he definitely wasn't trying to. And he hadn't ever done that in any of his training with Luther. He felt like it was something to save for later, when he knew better how to handle the other parts of this power. The kind of advanced level thing reserved for someone who knew what they were doing. Especially because he wasn't sure how much he liked the idea of that part of it at all anyway. Forcing something on someone that way. Nobody deserved that, did they? When and how could that kind of outright manipulation of people ever be right or okay to use?

It's all a bit of a spiral from that point, though it never really loses it's center from that point. Guilt at its core, but also shame for being so clueless, a little panic as he realizes he has no clue how to stop it. The shame is bigger, more familiar and deep-rooted from things long past; the panic is smaller, more contained, because he's always been able to box that up and set it aside, push through it into something more recklessly brave (or stupid, or both).

But it's not any piece said, not aloud or with words, at least.

"Fault is a very subjective word," Jean says, quietly.

The way she says it has as little judgment as does the face that turns to look at him.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable claiming that you meant to do any of this, and certainly not like this." Her last words are far more pressed upon than any of the others before it. Not so much as a descriptor for the 'this' that was before them, but for the 'this' everything became as Jean looked away from the man and raised her hand.

Delicate pale skin and a simple movement. There's a flicker like firelight at her fingertips, and then it is around the two of them together just for only a second like a bubble. All its color and shape like that of flickering flames, except transparent and translucent, fading just as quickly into the empty, clear air as it'd come, except for the faintest flickers one could see mostly out of the corner of an eye.

"Watch." A soft, still guidepost, as her hand shifts toward the man at the weights, and it's not the shield but her own mind, clearing out the fog that had rolled over the room from Diego. The man sat back suddenly as the weight bar was released entirely, the weight a loud clang as they fell back and he caught himself on the seat he sat on, gulping air, blinking and looking around in a daze like someone just awoken.

Her fingers shifted only briefly, wrist and palm turning slowly, and the man visibly calmed, taking in a slower breath, and rubbing at his forehead as the redness started to drain from his cheeks, too.

Diego doesn't see anything subjective about it. This was him, this was on him, it was his fault. He did this to them. He'd done it and he didn't even realize or know it at all.

He watches, almost dumbfounded, as she makes the simplest, vaguest motion with one hand and... something ripples out and snaps around them with the barest flame-flicker until it's only clear again. His eyes focus on the man with the weights as she tells him to watch, like this is some kind of party trick she's performing.

"I doh- I don't understand. You stopped it?" He hasn't really turned his eyes back to her, though, he's too busy watching as the anger drains out of the guy in the corner of the room. But it doesn't matter, not really. That she had managed to wash out what he'd done, however unintentional, because he's still wrestling with the tangled web of it in his head, too.

Her fingers spread apart as it became far less one man, and more like she made herself the center of a pond.

Calm radiated out in waves from her (from outside the bubble of them), gently. Not to clobber anyone with the soothing ripple that washed-up against them and drag them under another emotion that wasn't theirs, again, but a lull back toward themselves and free will and their own multifaceted emotions, always so much more complex than the simplicity of anger or calm alone.

The human heart and mind was rarely ever so simple.

"No," it's a simple statement. "You did. When you realized it. I simply gave them a softer place to land."

It wasn't going to be fun when he decided he needed to test how long someone might be left in the after-effects of his ministrations in the future. She hoped, for his sake, it was nowhere even in the closest universe of hers. Not that many people in existence came close to that, or required such a tight control to be maintained on it.

"But... I didn't do anything." He counters, finally looking at her again. "I didn't do anything in the first place, how can I do that and not know it?" So rarely has Diego been one to do much fretting or panicking of any kind, but it isn't like he's made of the steel he'd like to pretend he is to the rest of the world. Not really. He is so much softer behind that curtain. And he's been pushed into something completely unfamiliar and foreign; it's not much of a surprise that it's got him spinning and, maybe, reacting a little more in front of this stranger than he might have done another time.

I hate this.

It's loud, emphatic, and perfectly clear, as much as if he'd said it out loud.

He wants to say something, anything really, he can feel it like something threatening to rip straight through his chest just to have the chance to say something. Except he doesn't know what to say, so instead he slides both hands through his hair, fingers clasping behind his neck at the end.

Edited 2019-07-30 04:04 (UTC)

Jean allows him his hyperbole without comment.

One, because everyone in the school had thought that several times across learning how to become themselves and control their powers, and two, because being able to hear his every thought didn't actually entitle her to commentary on them, or with them. Especially when she was certain he hadn't realized she was hearing them, and was distracted enough by the size of his shock that he'd already well flown by the fact she'd answered one of his earlier ones.

She let her hand fall back to her and the shield around them with it. "It's easier for it to react to instinct and overwhelming emotion at the beginning sometimes. You'll have to learn how not to broadcast your own feelings simply because it is as easy as breathing to feel them most of all."

"How?" he stresses that one word with all the emphasis he can manage. He really is not a fan of this whole thing at all, and all his attempts training with Luther have been so barely-helpful in it all. Not for a lack of trying, but definitely with a huge lack of understanding attached. He's not sure how they're supposed to get a grip on things like this when they keep the explanations on the files so thin.

"How the hell am I supposed to get a grip on any of this? It's invasive and manipulative as fuck and I hate it already. I didn't ask for this, I don't want it, I was just fine with my trajectory power, I really didn't need anything else." It's almost like once he started, he just kept going and couldn't stop. Not a very Diego-like thing to do, but. Well. Everything is topsy-turvy right now. The kind of manipulation he'd just done, to a room full of people, without even trying is more than a little worrisome.

[If you have a different idea, hit me with it or get in touch with me at

loyalwolf or at loyalwolf#3540 on Discord if you wanna plot something!]

[OPEN] {They put poison in my mouth

{Every day, same jam, fixated on that minute hand » Mall [Jeopardy]

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end?

The End

{Life's like a dart game » Pour Decisions [De Chima]

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{When life is too much, put on your boxing gloves » A random gym [Nonah]

If any of this is too much, I will change it instantly for you, you know that!

it's beautiful and perfect and I love it so much!

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{Where this is all leading, we'll never know » Wildcard Option [Anywhere~]