ArchivedLogs:Two Wishes

Two Wishes
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Micah
In Absentia	26 January 2014 There may be even more to these potential abilities of Micah's... (Part of the Morpheus TP.)
Location <NYC> 303 {Lighthaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late myriad bright-coloured dragonflies swarm across the living room wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. The living room and kitchen both hold a rather inordinate number of lamps in addition to the ceiling lights; standing lamps, small lamps on each counter, large sunlights in the corner. More often than not, they're largely all turned on, too. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. Jackson has been home from church for a short while -- long enough that the house smells richly like baking, warm and chocolatey-rich. He's still largely-church-/dressed/, though, in dress shirt and sheeny-grey slacks, suit jacket draped over the back of the armchair and tie still knotted but loosened around his neck as he bustles about in a general Tidying clean-up that has slowed to a puzzled drifting stop. He has a teal Care Bear tucked under one arm and is folding a soft black throw blanket dotted with rainbow stars and hearts so that he can set it back on one of the beanbags but -- mostly he's kind of -- eying the Care Bear with a confused uncertainty, meandering back in the general direction of his bedroom. Micah has only just returned from a brief visit to Geekhaus after Illicit Omelette time with Dusk while Jax was at church. His winter gear is already collected and slung over one arm, his boots tied together by the laces and hanging from the fingers of one hand as he enters the apartment. He deposits the boots by the door, the coat with its stuffed pockets in the closet, and follows after Jax with a smile. “Hey, honey. How was churchin'?” He runs a hand through his rather spectacularly mussed hair, which matches his weekend-messy outfit of black Batsignal hoodie over black Reading Rainbow-dash T-shirt and rainbow patchy jeans. There are a few little bite-bruises on his neck now that weren't there earlier in the morning. “You still ain't had a chance t'change yet,” Micah observes as he looks over Jax's clothing. “Any of that I can do so's y'can get settled in?” "Hi, honey-honey." Even in his current state of perplexion Jax's train of thought is derailed by Micah's arrival, gravitating towards his husband like being pulled by a magnet. He curls his blanket-laden arm around Micah's waist, nuzzling in against bruised neck with a tiny purr of sound and pressing his own kisses there before stealing a proper one on the lips. "I don't -- oh I was jus'. You know me there was. /Things/. Out of /place/ I got. Distracted so I. Started tidyin', it weren't. Important. I think kissin' you is more important now." Which he promptly does, again. At least until his attempt to curl his other arm around Micah is hampered by Wish Bear in the crook of his arm. He shakes his head with a sheepish blush. "-- I swear I'm losin' my mind though. I swear I put her back with the others las' night an' tucked Spence in with Good Luck Bear but --" He turns aside to pick up his jacket off the couch and drape the blanket there instead so that he can continue on towards the bedroom with suit jacket and Care Bear in hand. “Mmm.” Micah's lips pull into a broad smile as Jax approaches, his arms reaching out to wrap around the other man and pull him close with a sudden-sharp tug, pressing the other man tight up against him a he leans into the kiss. “/Vitally/ important,” he agrees as he meets Jax's lips for the second kiss, letting it linger. “Well, maybe y'put 'er away an' Spence got 'er back out t'play with this mornin'? Y'know how he gets into things sometimes.” He lets Jax go off to complete his tasks, then moves into the living room to collect the discarded blanket and relocate it to the beanbag where it belongs. Jax's breath catches at that sudden-sharp tug, body shivering in against Micah's when he is pulled. "Probably, yeah," he agrees, "I just thought I saw --" He shakes his head quickly, dipping his chin to rub it against the top of Wish Bear's head as he pads into the bedroom. He hangs his suit jacket back in the closet. Turns to set Wish Bear on the bed, starting to pick up the rest of his Care Bears (and Cousins -- he has all ten originals and all the Cousins except for the pig) to arrange them against the pillows. And stops, freezing with a slow sink of teeth against his lip. "-- honey?" “Yeah, sugar?” Micah calls back, padding his rainbow tie-dye stockinged feet down the hall to enter the bedroom rather quickly after Jax calls. His eyebrows have slid in toward one another in concern at the other man's tone. “Somethin' wrong? Y'sound kinda--” His head shakes rather than settling on an adjective. "I don't know." Jackson sounds more confused, right now, than anything else, eying the stuffed toys on the bed with deeply furrowed brows. He stoops down to pick up the /second/ Wish Bear -- identical in basically every respect to the one he just brought in. With the same puzzled frown, he turns from the bed to hold both Care Bears out towards Micah. Micah moves in to curl an arm around Jax's shoulders reassuringly. It takes him a moment to process what is upsetting the other man. “Oh,” he declares thoughtfully. “Did...um. Were there two of those before? I don't remember /seein'/ more'n just the one here.” "No, we've only ever had one." Jax curls both his hands in towards his chest, hugging both bears close. The puzzled look doesn't fade. "I had a --" His teeth sink in against his lip again. "I had a --" His cheeks flush deeply. "... this is gonna sound crazy." “Huh,” Micah says with a quizzical look at the twin bears. “No, please. Things don't really sound all that crazy 'round here anymore. We got plenty enough strangeness goin' on.” He squeezes Jax (and the bears) closer against him. Jax leans in against Micah, shivering again as Micah's arm squeezes around him. He turns, slightly, settling down slowly on the bed. "Just. When I was in jail I had a --" The red in his cheek darkens. "I had this dream. Was a real -- nice dream. Wasn't really havin' many'a those so it kinda stood out. An' Spence was in it an' -- you. The pups. But we --" He shakes his head quickly. "Not really important I guess I just. Woke up snugglin' Wish Bear. An' when I first got t'jail Spence kept /jumpin'/ t'me y'know? I kept tellin' him to stop but I assumed he'd done it again an' brung me --" He nods down to the bears in his arms. "They took her from me. Put her with my stuff. I just thought -- but now I don't know." Micah's muscles tense when Jax describes the dream, his mouth falling open slightly. “Y'had a real vivid dream with me in it, then when y'woke up, Wish Bear was just...there?” He seeks confirmation before releasing Jax from his hold. “Just...just a second, I need t'get somethin'.” Scurrying out of the room, he is gone mere seconds before returning with a glass-and-metal dragonfly perched on his palm. “Did y'make this, Jax?” He extends his hand to make the sculpture easier to view, tone a little excited, a little nervous, a little /worried/. “Have y'ever seen it before?” "Really vivid. Really -- warm," Jackson says with a soft smile that displaces his confusion, briefly; briefly, too, there's a ripple of /green/ around them. A flicker-imagery of trees in soft fantasy animation that fades as Micah scurries off. Jax's eye opens huge and wide when Micah returns with the dragonfly; for the first time since returning home he really /looks/ at it. He releases the Care Bears to /take/ it, breath catching slightly. "I didn't -- no. I mean yeah. I /have/ -- it was there. I mean I /dreamed/ it. Underwater -- that makes no sense. I was in jail, Micah, a million years from here. This /looks/ like somethin' I'd make --" He holds his hand up against the dragonfly, comparing the colours in his ring to the colours in its wing -- watching the light glinting off both in strikingly similar shades. "I didn't -- I couldn't." He turns the dragonfly over and over in his hands, silent as his fingers trace against it. Staring. Brushing his thumb over the glass as his puzzled frown returns again, eventually declaring, now just /baffled/: "-- Nobody done made this, Micah." "I...had a dream while you were away. It started off like /most/ of m'dreams have been since...Malthus. The twins were gone an' Malthus was in Spence's room an'...I shot 'im again, but Spence...he didn't /die/ he just... An' you saw an' ran away an' the gun was stuck t'my hand an'..." Micah shakes his head, not /wanting/ that dream in his mind anymore. "But then it /changed/. The blood went away an' Spence was just sleepin' peaceful an' the gun was a /Wish Bear/. Then you were in the kitchen an' makin' spicy chocolate cookies an' there was a picnic. We went t'the forest where we got engaged an' there was chutney in the tree fruit an' pakora in the bushes an' metal dragonflies under the water. An' I got t'hold you an' kiss you an', Jax, I coulda sworn I actually /had/ you an' just...cried for it. I missed you so bad." His eyes mist over again as he gestures at the dragonfly. "When I woke up, that was just...sittin' against m'chest. It looked /so much/ like the dream an' didn't have no flaws or weld marks or... I checked with the boys an' they even said it had your /scent/. Boys don't get no smells wrong." Jackson's breath catches as Micah speaks, fingers tightening against the dragonfly's metal body. He swallows, hard. Then swallows again; around the room, light trembles, a slow shiver that does not settle back down. "No -- how." He looks down at the dragonfly, fingers stroking along its wings again. "Micah, that was the same -- I had the same dream. You held me in the kitchen and -- bit into a chutney-fruit an'. There was a lake in the forest we got engaged in an' we walked in to go have a picnic with the boys. An' these dragonflies was swimmin' --" His breath is shaky. "Happiest I'd been in weeks. I didn't never want to let you go." "Oh," Micah says, his eyes widening at the implication. "Oh...that's even more than... I thought it was just a dream, an' that the dragonfly was inspired by it an' appeared, maybe. I went t'talk t'Hive right after, 'cause he sees people's dreams. An'...I wanted t'know if maybe...he thought I made it happen. 'Cause I was the only one in the livin' room. Nobody'd been in there t'make it, or t'leave it there. It was...just me. An' they say...special abilities manifest in times of stress or emotional duress an'...killin' that man an' then you gettin' took's prob'ly the worst... Hive agreed that maybe. Maybe /I/ made that." His head nods at the dragonfly. "Boys thought I was goin' a little nuts, though. Assumed it was somethin' /you'd/ made an' it was all a strange coincidence that it ended up next t'me after that dream. But now. Now I'm even more sure. Honey, I think maybe...I reached out t'you in the dream. An' there was so much in the doin' of it that a piece of the dream came back out with both of us. The Wish Bear with you an' the dragonfly with me." His head shakes slowly, eyebrows knit together tight. "Is that crazy? I mean, I'm a little...old. For this. I /ain't/ never been tested formally, though. So it...could be. D'you think?" Jackson's cheeks puff out at this suggestion, and he lets out a heavy slow breath, one arm slowly curling around Micah's waist. He pulls the other man in towards himself, chin dropping to rest on Micah's shoulder. "Hoboy." His lips press to the edge of the other man's jaw, breathing slowing. His fingers curl tight at Micah's side. "I mean, wouldn't be /usual/ that's for sure, but t'ain't unheard of, neither," he answers, at length. Reluctantly. Very reluctantly. His hand strokes gently up against Micah's side. "An' you sure had more'n your share'a stresses t'deal with lately, love, you coulda -- oh, gosh. I'm tryin' t'even imagine what'd be needful t'reach out like that an' --" His lips press to Micah's jaw again. Micah leans heavily against Jax when the other man pulls him in, letting Jax have a significant portion of his weight to hold. "I'm scared, Jax. I just...if I did alla that. Weren't /any/ of it on purpose. Weren't /none/ of it under my control. What if I just start...walkin' into other people's dreams not meanin' to? Or...bringin' things /outta/ dreams that're dangerous? I really don't...I don't know how any of this is workin'." He shakes his head before resting his forehead against Jax's shoulder. "I just don't know. If it's even me. But if not, then.../what/? Hive /said/ weren't no one else /here/. An' /you/ were locked in solitary. Should...should I get tested? I'm afraid of havin' it on record with registration still comin'. Our family don't /got/ nobody else who can even /pass/ but me. Sometimes...sometimes we /need/ that." Jax curls his arm more firmly around Micah, sitting up a little straighter; the firm-strong musculature of his body makes a solid support of weight to lean against. His hand rubs slowly at Micah's side, head lifting to tuck Micah's beneath his own. "You get tested or not, s'up to you, honey-honey. Ain't been no legal requirements for that, yet, so there's some benefit still to deniability. An' with our contacts, 'least, there's -- folks as can help y'feel out what y'might be capable of anyhow. Um. Brain-wise." His brow furrows, faintly. "-- Like as not there's folks we know as could tell you surer even without no gene-testin'. Joshua --" His teeth drag against his lip slowly. "But whatever you do decide you got probably the biggest support network just about /ever/ of folks who can help you through it, y'know? You're gonna be in -- I mean. Hands that love you. But hands that love you an' got experience with this. S'like you was sayin' to Mel last night. This? S'scary, ain't gonna lie to you on that. But s'kinda what we /do/." "I mean...I don't mind it. An' I don't mind /knowin'/ for sure, if there's ways we can do it without...medical records happenin'. I just don't wanna hurt nobody by accident just 'cause I'm doin' things all...uncontrolled. Messy. Dangerous. Honestly, I don't even know if there /is/ a danger. I just got an overactive imagination." Micah wriggles more firmly into Jax's side, nestling there. "An' if that /is/ what's goin' on, I couldn't /be/ set up better t'handle it. Get people t'train me up right so I'm a safe-an'-sane sorta dream...manipulator. So I don't accidentally pull guns and boogeymen outta nightmares an' all." He pulls back enough to free his head to turn, looking up into Jax's eyes. "D'you think that's actually what this is? I just...got no better answers." "Y'can pull us out our perfect hippie-paradise-home." Jax's smile is warm. He holds Micah snug against himself. "-- Though I guess there'd, uh, be unfortunate side-effects if you just um manifested a /house/ on top our bed so maybe not -- that." His nose crinkles up, head tipping briefly towards the ceiling. He returns his gaze to Micah's, giving his own head a small apologetic shake. "I -- oh, gosh, honey-honey, I -- don't know," he admits, softly. "It might could be. We been swimmin' in so much chaos for so long maybe it triggered -- this. I don't got answers either 'cept for maybe we should find people who can -- look. An' see. Cuz I don't know nobody /else/ who can do -- nothin' like this so -- I don't -- know. 'Wait an' see' ain't a real reassurin' answer, I know, but it's -- pretty much the most common one we always give." "An' ruin all Hive's fun designin' an' makin' things? Don't think he'd ever forgive me," Micah retorts with a chuckle, though the laughter cuts off abruptly. "No...he...prob'ly would. S'already forgiven me far worse." His shoulders sink in a little, but he shakes off the thought quite /literally/ with a toss of his head and shiver of his shoulders. "Well, guess we'll just have t'ask the folks as know somethin' about these things t'test me out. Would say should get tested over the kids' school, since that /could/ be totally off the record, but...s'too expensive t'ask of 'em for free an' /definitely/ too expensive for us t'pay for. So. We check with the folks as can check an'...hope nothin' goes wrong meanwhile?" His expression is slightly skeptical, slightly sheepish with this. "At least, this is the only time somethin' like this has happened t'me. Ain't never before or /since/ that I can think of." "Can check with folks as can check things like that. Joshua. Luci-maybe?" Jax's teeth scrape against his lower lip, and he bumps his forehead lightly against Micah's. "An' meanwhile we can hope that you jus' keep manifestin' /gorgeous/ art an' snuggly toys. Maybe cookies? Can you make me maple candy?" He gives Micah big hopeful puppy-eye. “Yeah. D'you think they can check while I'm awake? Or...do I like, have t'be asleep for 'em t'check? If I've only got sleep powers?” Micah laughs out loud suddenly, a quick breathy burst of sound. “Oh/gosh/. Maybe we just ain't never noticed before 'cause I don't sleep enough for it t'come up. 'Specially if it was waitin' on the two of us bein' asleep at the /same time/. Ha!” He nuzzles the tip of his nose against the bridge of Jax's. “Maybe. We did get a nice dream an' nice /things/ out of it, so far. Oh, honey we can go /buy/ you cookies. An' candies. Right /now/ if y'want. An' later, maybe we can sleep /right next/ t'each other an' see what comes of it.” Though this last comes with the kind of crooked smirk that implies something other than sweets. "Yeah. D'you think they can check while I'm awake? Or...do I like, have t'be asleep for 'em t'check? If I've only got sleep powers?" Micah laughs out loud suddenly, a quick breathy burst of sound. "Oh/gosh/. Maybe we just ain't never noticed before 'cause I don't sleep enough for it t'come up. 'Specially if it was waitin' on the two of us bein' asleep at the /same time/. Ha!" He nuzzles the tip of his nose against the bridge of Jax's. "Maybe. We did get a nice dream an' nice /things/ out of it, so far. Oh, honey we can go /buy/ you cookies. An' candies. Right /now/ if y'want. An' later, maybe we can sleep /right next/ t'each other an' see what comes of it." Though this last comes with the kind of crooked smirk that implies something other than sweets. "Don't think Joshua need your powers t'be -- I mean, he needs y'to have manifested 'em, so if you /hadn't/ before -- like he can't tell that kids'll /be/ mutants some day. So that'd explain why he never knowed /before/, if you hadn't -- but I don't think he'd need you to be asleep, he can tell anyone's a mutant just by bein'. Around 'em. He knows. An' can absorb their -- whatever." Jax's nose wrinkles up as he admits, "Though that wouldn't be the /most/ helpful straight off on account'a it still takes /him/ forever t'get used t'new powers so he'd still be just as clueless as you with 'em." His nose rubs back against Micah's, the hard ridge of its bridge accentuated by the barbell that pierces it. He tips his head, mouth pressing to Micah's in a slow kiss. "-- Oh, sweetie," he murmurs, "we don't need magic-dreams for makin' /that/ happen, neither." "Well, good. Next time he's free, I can ask 'im t'...do whatever it is he does t'check, if he don't mind. Don't need 'im t'figure powers out for me s'much as I'd like...confirmation that they're even /there/, if I can get it, y'know? An' I can always see if Luci's willin' t'peek about m'noggin' if that's helpful, since I see 'im often enough either way." Micah's cheeks colour very faintly pink at this. "Oh," slips softly from his lips as Jax moves in for the kiss. He returns it, slow, soft, warm, his hands sliding up along the other man's back. "Just seemed like a good excuse t'get y'in bed with me, was all." Another little grin accompanies this admission. "He can be a hard guy to pin down," Jax admits of Joshua, with a wrinkle of his nose, eye tipping up towards the ceiling. "Moreso lately. Was a rough season on emergency workers. His schedule's been murder." His back shivers against Micah's hand, a quiet moan catching in his throat. "-- but he answers his emails pretty much. Instantly so. Oh. Oh." He presses his mouth to Micah's again, deeper, harder. "Right, cuz'a gettin' me into bed is such a /rarity/ for you." His back tenses, even as he presses it harder against Micah's hands, the fabric of his dress shirt crinkling. Micah nods at the assessment of Joshua's work of late. "Prob'ly I'll just fuss at Luci first. If he can confirm it, won't have t'trouble Joshua none." He pulls Jax closer against him with those arms wrapped around the other man's back, returning the kiss hungrily. "Don't gotta be a rare thing t'be a good thing. Amazin', wonderful thing," he murmurs before kissing Jax again, fingers moving to start unfastening buttons. "I was s'posed t'be givin' you a chance t'get outta these clothes, anyhow."