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[givingthegiftback]

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[fourthwalled]

Hi. It's Wade.
Question...
Did you like wake up missing something?
Like, something important?

[givingthegiftback]

[After wondering for a moment if this is some kind of dick joke lead-in...]

No? I mean, not as far as I know. Why?

[fourthwalled]

[He's definitely right to suspect with Wade, but not in this case. He's far too stressed out for dick jokes. That's how you know it's bad!]

Huh.
I'm only asking because when I woke up this morning I couldn't talk.
Mouth opened. Nothing came out.

[givingthegiftback]

Wow. That sounds like a lot for you to lose.

[No offense, but. Jamie has met you and all.]

I've definitely got my voice. And everything else I've tried to use today.

[the dick jokes, they beg]

[fourthwalled]

Everything, huh? And how many things might that be?
Has it been a busy morning?
/wink wink

[He's distracted. But not THAT distracted.]

[givingthegiftback]

I figured that was coming sooner rather than later.

And yes you can make a coming joke

I'll keep an eye out for if I seem to lose anything but in the meantime you can always come sign at me

[fourthwalled]

Well, you've ruined it now!

But absolutely I would love to come sign at you. Thought you'd never ask!

[At least this way he can be chatty with someone!]

Where you at? How're you settling in?

[givingthegiftback]

Maybe that was the plan.

I'm still in the place they put me, 31-A in the public Up housing. I'm...settling, I guess. Mostly trying to get my shit together magically before I think about anything else.

>action

[fourthwalled]

Okay. I'll be there in a minute. I'm on the first floor. When you say getting your shit together magically... are we talking with actual magic? I can never tell with this place.

[He's walking and typing, so it will take him about 2 minutes after the last sentence to step out of the elevators and get to the door giving it a tentative, although he's not sure if that will work? So also texts.]

Here.

[givingthegiftback]

Remember how I told you about the Sight and pain being the only thing that turns it off and all that? The Sight is magic.

Jamie would have heard if he'd had his hearing aids in, but he was in earplugs, so the buzz of the phone was better.

He went to get the door, giving Wade a casual little wave as he walked away again. "Drink?" he signed. "Water?" It was still fairly early in the day, after all.

[fourthwalled]

Have a wave back. Once inside, Wade signs back. 'Coffee? If you have it? Water if not is fine.'.

Wade takes a look around the apartment, then settles down on the couch, and whenever Jamie looks his way again, he'll keep up the conversation, 'So magic, huh? Guess, I thought it was like me. A mutation. Not magic.'

God, this is so much easier than scribbling everything down on a pad of paper.

[givingthegiftback]

'Can do.' Jamie went into the kitchen, glancing toward Wade as he opened the coffee drawer. He had the kind of coffee maker that just worked off little cups, requiring only a mug to be placed under the spout.

He made sure it was going, then walked back over to lean in the entrance to the kitchen. 'It's more of an ancestry thing. I'm a hybrid.' "Homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens affinis," he said aloud, because he did not want to spell all that shit. 'Two subspecies of human, like humans and Neanderthals. And the offspring are...glitchy, like a lot of hybrids. What do you mean by mutation?' he asked, curious about Wade's world.

[fourthwalled]

Wade does look very interested in that. Which isn't at all like him normally, but it sounds somewhat familiar. Just not with magic being involved.

'Humans who evolved to have the X-gene. The next stage in human evolution. A different subspecies too. I guess. I'm not a scientist. People with the gene have powers. Like me.'

His hands are going to get tired because now that he's got the ability to talk in some capacity, and so he's latching onto it for dear life!

'But my powers were dormant. Was tortured to bring them out. A lot of mutants just wake up one day and-' Wade snaps his fingers. 'All sorts of powers. Nearly anything you can think of. Like one girl can talk with squirrels. Or my one friend is lucky. Stupid superpower.'

[givingthegiftback]

'So we're not so different, actually,' Jamie said with a thoughtful expression. 'Probability manipulation is rare, but that's a Gift that Kin can get. May just be rare because people turn their brains to meatloaf the first time they use it as children.' Jamie mostly signed the capitalization by making those signs a little higher up than he would normally, or ending them with kind of an upward swoop. A quick way to signal something higher or more important.

'You know how some animals can be cross-bred, like horses and donkeys to create mules? But mules are usually sterile and have health problems? That's like humans and Good Neighbors to create Kin.' The metaphor wasn't perfect, what with donkeys and horses actually being entirely separate species, but it was close enough, and the way it was often taught in his world. 'A lot of direct Kin are sterile, too, but sometimes they're not, so they pass on the ancestry. It gets diluted and can pop up randomly in otherwise human families.' He indicated himself briefly, before going to grab the cup of coffee and bring it back to Wade.

'Anyway, humans can't handle fairy magic, our brains aren't structured for it. So using it is sort of equivalent to hitting your head. Sometimes it's mild and fine, sometimes it's serious.'

cw: cancer

[fourthwalled]

'Domino's brains seemed to be working just fine... and her-' Wade mimes cupping a pair of ample breasts. What? He'd noticed! 'Those were nice too.'

He takes the coffee once Jamie gets it for him, blowing on it a few times before giving it a test sip and setting it on the table so he could keep talking.

'Most mutants don't have problems like that. If they do they're rare. Of course, for some of us, it makes it harder to hide what we are.' He gestures to his own face, 'This is a combination of the torture, cancer, and my mutation all mixed together.'

[givingthegiftback]

'I did See something about a fire,' Jamie signed, a little hesitantly. 'I didn't want to pry by bringing it up or anything.'

He went to put on a cup for himself. "I've Seen some...bad shit," he said aloud as he was putting a mug in the slot. "My Eye in particular is turned toward moments of really powerful emotion. That can be the best moments of someone's life, or..."

He trailed off as he came to rest in the doorway again, letting Wade draw the conclusion.

[fourthwalled]

'I blew up the place that did this to me' Wade admits, watching Jamie with a frown as the talks.

He reaches for his own coffee again to idly sip, looking very unhappy as he does. Finally, he sets it down again. 'Most of my moments are terrible moments... there are a few good ones' Like Vanessa before she died, 'But mostly bad.'

[givingthegiftback]

Jamie nodded, looking at the floor for a moment. 'That's too common,' he said. 'I was a social worker for awhile, for child services. So I've Seen my share.'

[fourthwalled]

Wade stills anything he might have been about to say about that with his hands and lowers them to his coffee. His childhood is among his bad memories after all. That silence probably makes that clear enough. Usually, he'll make his trauma it some off-color joke, but he can't quite bring himself to do it right now.

[givingthegiftback]

Jamie cleared his throat. "I work in movies now," he said, going to retrieve his own cup and then sit on the chair across from the couch. "Art department stuff for sci-fi and horror. Usually the director has some idea of what they want some monster to look like, art department are the guys who actually fill out the details and draw it, from concept up to the finished CGI."

Bit of a lighter topic of conversation, hopefully.

[fourthwalled]

Wade's demeanor instantly changes, a grin starting to overtake his face, 'Me too! Sort of. I'm from a movie.'

You know a completely normal thing a person would say.

'Not sci-fi or horror--' Technically. But a lot of his life had been pretty horrific, 'Comic book movie. Lots of CGI! I got ripped in half!'

[givingthegiftback]

Jamie was just gonna assume he meant his life had been fictionalized, that there was a biopic about him. 'I bet that was fun to see,' he signed with a smile.

[fourthwalled]

He's free to misunderstand, Wade's not going to correct him!

'It was! And it did really great at the box office for a Rated R movie! Both the first and the second! I'm a hot commodity! Except-' He gestures to himself, 'Not hot hot.'

[givingthegiftback]

'That's pretty impressive. Most of what I work on is R, but sometimes you have to take on a PG-13 for the sake of your paycheck.' PG-13, after all, was where the real money was, those were the projects that got the big bucks most of the time.

[fourthwalled]

'I mean sure, we might have made bank going PG-13, but sometimes you have to stick to your fucking principles!' Wade notes, returning to his coffee. 'Or... make a recut and release on Christmas to impress Disney. That might have happened too. So, maybe I only have a little bit of principles...'

'What was the last movie you worked on?'

[givingthegiftback]

'Major studio horror,' he signed. 'One of the few you'll see in a given year. It was a Lovecraft adaptation with a bunch of weird plants, so I did creature design on those, alongside another guy. He was mostly doing the monster at the end, but we needed them to harmonize, you know? Details to make them seem like they came from the same place, make you wonder if the plants were just an extension of it in some way.'

Jamie talked about it with passion -- this had obviously not been a just-a-paycheck movie for him.

[fourthwalled]

[Wade leans in, clearly fascinated.]

'I love horror movies! What was the kill count?'

[givingthegiftback]

'Whole family dies,' he signed, unable to help smiling. 'Five people. They all die on their isolated farm and we pan out for the final shot, showing the alien plants spreading over the farm's boundary.'

[fourthwalled]

'Nice!' It's probably weird to be this happy about a murdered family, right? Oh well. 'I love a horror movie where the bad guy wins. I wish more would do that.'

un: m

[fightcoded]

I found my missed connection
names Lucien
apparently he has a purple cock
very exciting stuff

can I bring him over?

[givingthegiftback]

Oh, I know him

Yeah just fuck him in your own room. No sex in the common areas unless it's with people who live here, common courtesy

Theoretically you live here even though functionally you just drop by a couple times a week

[fightcoded]

you know him

[ Interesting. ]

biblically?

[givingthegiftback]

Yeah

I'd have recognized the description of his dick if I hadn't been distracted by the rest of it

[fightcoded]

I am pretty distracting its true

apparently it wasn't poetic enough by the guy's standards

[givingthegiftback]

Sounds like the kind of trolling he enjoys. I'm sure you two will have fun together

[fightcoded]

sure you dont want to watch?
or better yet
does he know how to make you hurt right?

[givingthegiftback]

I don't fuck anyone who doesn't. And yeah, I'm sure. I'm good in here

dont u sus me young man

[fightcoded]

understood
the door is always open

not the guest room
not literally
the metaphorical one in this context
its open to you

[ Okay, Midnighter is going to shut up now, because managing an active sexual lifestyle alongside his contract partner is clearly not his forte. ]

ur not my real dad

[givingthegiftback]

[oh no he's cute]

I appreciate the invitation, but you two should get to know each other on your own (euphemism kind of intended). If that goes well, I'm not against the three of us hanging out, but these things work better when everyone knows each other already.

[fightcoded]

he knows my ass already
and lbr thats the best part of my personality

[ He isn't trying to coax Jamie, simply stating unasked for facts. ]

[givingthegiftback]

Fucking you once through a glory hole is not enough to know what you're like sexually

[fightcoded]

I have to respectfully disagree
I feel like that sums me up pretty well haha

[ He's crazy, remember Jamie? Remember dad's voice in your head? ]

[givingthegiftback]

No, because the actual dynamic between you is different without the hole

[Yeah, and now it's his mom's, telling him there's such a thing as "too patient for your own good."]

Anyway we can still talk about a threesome later, none of us is going anywhere

I'm not 100% sure I can handle the two of you together anyway

[is that a dare? maybe. for later.]