sooner or later we're gonna die ( open )

[darkart]

CHARACTERS: rainbow brite and the color kids
LOCATION: various
WARNINGS: sometimes people are jerks (tba)
SUMMARY: catch-all for stuff this month! shoot me a pm if you'd like to do something. or slam into this post with whatever.
NOTES: parts of this header might be a lie


There are times when Severus feels similar to when he did before the war hit full speed; in the years that lingered as twilight before the worst night fell on all of them. His talents were nurtured and he was rewarded not for unraveling the dreary methods to achieving good marks, but for challenging himself and rising above peers thought to be 'brilliant'. Scholastic drudgery became tasteless. He remembers Professor Slughorn pulling him aside one day in seventh year, wringing his clammy, clean hands, telling him that he was going to give him zero credit on an essay for doing parts on potions he shouldn't even know about the existence of.

(I can't have anyone think I'm exposing you to that sort of thing.)

It's not unlike those days. Here, in space. With no head of house to stare at him nervously, but also no dark wizard to touch his shoulders and whisper validation (pulling him in like gravity). It's just Severus, working on puzzling out how to get what he wants from a new set of circumstances and series of limitations. The Tranquility is the trade-off to escape politics, and what a bloody abysmal deal on both sides that is.

He swears a lot in private. At the ship, at the way magic slips from his fingers when it shouldn't. He spends his free hours in the dark of his quarters, deep inside the walls of Occlumency, finding small respite in the silence of his own mind. But mostly he works: Xenogen of course, still occasionally drifting through Medical - though they need fewer extra people now, thankfully, it means he's less likely to run into Lily - and tending to the portion of the gardens now set aside for proper herbology.

He moves to level 010. He sort of hates it. What else is new.

Comments

[darkart]

"And that's when you begin to absorb elements of other people?"

Severus draws on the table with his fingers, a large square, and the insides turn into black and red tiles - a checker board. He summons a jar full of dried lima beans and turns some of them into game pieces. "You'll have to do something with your hands and check the ball every minute or so," he says, shrugging one shoulder as he sets the pieces out. "Sitting perfectly still all the time isn't a realistic test."

... He couldn't think of anything else, okay. Better than writing lines like in detention, right?

[notmarieanymore]

"Yeah. I was sixteen. I don't think it's really elements so much as it is I absorb what makes them them... I pick up personality traits for a while, even." Which was always entertaining, to say the least. Well, for other people.

She watches with a small gasp as he works his literal magic. "Wow- I don't think I'll ever get used to that. That's amazing. I'd rather be a wizard than a mutant any day of the week." Life without persecution, powers that could do almost anything. It would be the life, that was for sure.

"D'you wanna be black or white? Just a heads up, I'm miserable at chess."

[darkart]

Severus offers a half-smile, something a little out of practice. He'd rather be a wizard than a mutant, too, but not for the same reasons-- he's still not really sure if mutants are muggles, but more and more he's leaning towards 'not really.' This specific kind of separation is something baseline humans can't understand.

('Life without persecution' would be a stretch for all of them.)

"Draughts are easier," just hopping one round thing over the other. "I never had time to learn chess, I doubt I can remember all the rules." It was one of those things he should have learned, a stuck-up stuffy tactical game popular with pretentious purebloods, but Severus had other, more pressing concerns. Like the war. He goes ahead and picks the white circle pieces, just to go against type.

"Do you feel peoples thoughts, or see their memories? Or is it just like you're borrowing their personality?"

[notmarieanymore]

"So there are differences in potions, then. Draughts, salves, gels." She purses her lips slightly. Crazy. And so incredibly cool.

"I knew a little bit. Anything else I learned I picked up from the Professor." But right now he was in no state to play chess with anyone.

Setting up her own pieces, Rogue is careful to avoid Severus' hands. "I do. I feel them, I see them all at once, and their voice, that little bit of life I stole from them... They wind up staying in my head. I can..." Whew, this was always hard to admit. "I can still hear them."

[darkart]

For a moment Severus is confused, because draughts is a UKism for checkers, but also for concoctions, so decides the phrasing works for him talking about potionmaking, too. He can turn plenty of smooth phrases and classroom lectures, spin a lot of manipulation, but when he's not trying: awkward and unsocial. It happens.

And besides, there are other things to focus on.

"Hear them? In your mind?" That's a little worrying, but also attaches itself to a vague notion Severus had already considered. "Constantly, or do you have to concentrate?"

[notmarieanymore]

"It comes and goes, but it's mostly constantly. They get louder when I sleep. But it's like how you hear your own voice in your mind. Only it's not just yours. It's others, too. It's awful. It means a whole lot of headaches and nightmares." And she'd rather the headaches, truth be told.

[darkart]

"Did Professor Xavier ever work with you to set up-- psychic shielding of any kind?"

His expression is vaguely apologetic about bringing him up, but hopefully she can just remember whatever man back home he is, instead of the mess he's made of himself here. Severus isn't totally sure how that sort of thing might work in mutants, but he's overheard chatter here and there aboard the TQ about muggles learning psychic techniques to defend themselves. Surely it's possible.

[notmarieanymore]

She nearly winces at the name. The man she admired so readily back home had turned into one she didn't even recognize. It was tragic. It was embarrassing.

"Sort of? Nothing really ever came from it. He said I had some sort of mental and physical block going on... We never discussed anything about the voices, though..." She looked over at the ball.

how well (or not) it works for her is up to you bb!

[darkart]

Severus nods at the ball. She should go ahead and pick it up every so often. When he tried it, about fifteen minutes of continuous movement went by before it really started to wear off. But his skin is not always hidden away beneath gloves, and her skin is not stained with years of potions ingredients, factors that may make a difference even outside her ability.

"I think that it's something worth looking into with seriousness," he tells her. "But obviously with someone else." Maybe a woman would be better. Severus isn't winning any sensitivity awards anytime soon, but he's conscious of the marked discomfort gender differences can bring in power and authority situations. "I read that you borrow the abilities of other mutants, if that's who you touch?"

[notmarieanymore]

"Doctor Grey is here... But she's not the same level of telepath as Xavier is. Was. The thing is, I've already got so much going on in my head, I hate to have anyone else in there, even voluntarily." But she'd take the idea into consideration, without question.

She picks up the ball, rolling it between her palms. "How am I supposed to tell if it's working?" She asks, looking at it curiously.

Looking up from the ball, Rogue keeps her eyes trained on the man in front of her. "I do. Only for a little while. About a minute for each second I touch them, I think is what we figured it was? The interesting thing is, if I touch someone, I get more control than they ever have. Kinda ironic, when you think about it." Bitter? Of course.

[darkart]

"It'll start turning red," Severus tell her. "I've not heard of Doctor Grey, do you have her number?" That sounds like someone he should be speaking with. Hm.

--And then. He looks honestly surprised, for all that he ever emotes. He has to consider that for a moment, and hops one checker piece over another while he does. Finally, looking back at her, "It is ironic, yes. But it also makes me think that should you learn how to truly use what you have, you will have access to an incredible talent. You're able to understand on an inherent level how other mutations work. I wonder if part of why you're unable to control it is that it's so vast."

[notmarieanymore]

Red. She cast a glance at the ball, which was taking on a slightly pinkish hue. She rolls it over her palms again before setting it aside, refusing to look at it again. No, better to keep her eyes trained on the chess-board and wrinkle her nose as she removes her piece from the board, before making her next move.

"I don't know," her voice is quieter now. "I wish I could tell you."

[darkart]

"You don't have to know yet." Severus flips another game piece over. "I'm not going to write you off if nothing works immediately. Not finding a solution overnight is not a failure."

He is, in practice, pretty bad at sounding reassuring, but what he lacks in emotionally supportive notes he makes up in crisp frankness. She shouldn't torture herself for not having an answer that she has no way of knowing. It's pointless.

"What's the most interesting power you've borrowed? In your opinion."

[notmarieanymore]

"I know," she says with a sigh, looking forlornly towards the ball. She moves a piece without much thought as to where it lands. "I'm used to things taking a while to actually work." As much as it sucked, to be fair. "I'm not even expecting this to ever work, to be honest."

And why should she? Nothing else seemed to work.

"Borrowed? I usually go with stole. Well, if I separate circumstances and the other side-effects? There was this boy I knew, back in New York. He could control fire. Not make it, but control it. It was... There was something so exhilarating about it. All that raw, tangible power..." As Rogue speaks, a gleam appears in her too-green eyes, a triumphant smirk on her lips that wasn't entirely hers.

sorry for abrupt slowness, rl's been crazy

[darkart]

If Severus gave a shit about the state of mind of other people, he might point out that her attitude probably isn't helping. Instead, if he notices at all, he recognizes it as a pragmatic defense mechanism, and doesn't mention anything. Someone more upbeat than him will have to try and tackle that issue.

"What did you do with it?" His voice remains even, but he notes the change in her demeanor. That's. Uh. Different.

I understand. I don't have internet at my house right now. SO.

[notmarieanymore]

It's the beauty of having a power that she can control. Even for a minute. It's the gentle touch of skin against skin. She can count every person she's touched since she got her powers. Every single one of them. And they're all up there, in her head, so she never forgets. It's also the rush her powers give her. Some terrible force that makes it so she doesn't want to let go. That entices the other person to not pull away.

"I controlled the fires he started," she said, though it was clear there were no happy memories involved with that. "Put them out."