fandomtownies | Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

You know, normally it was other people stopping into this place to visit Jono on their lunch break. But Jono was learning early that just working through his break wasn't as easy as it used to be. So it was with a somewhat greasy bag of food from Mooby's that he stopped by the Groovy Tunes.

"Th' no-food-allowed rule doesn't apply if you intend to share," he announced as he stepped into the record shop. "Nice taste in music today, by th'way."

"It felt like an OLP day," George said, glancing up. So much for not acknowledging people. Jono didn't count. Ex-roommates were special cases.

She couldn't resist a smile when she spotted the bag. "You brought me lunch?"

"Important lesson I've learned since regaining my ability to eat? Apparently I don't actually enjoy eating alone."

He didn't like people seeing his face much, either. But George didn't know the significance of the weird lines or anything, and had gotten the initial freakout out of the way, so...

"Hope you like burgers, luv. They're actually inside my price range until my next payday"

"You're broke?" George asked. She was totally going to crash on the floor, on that one spot where the carpet was all fuzzy by the window. It kind of looked like it needed to have a cat lying in a sunbeam or something. Joni probably loved it.

"I mean, I have cash if you need some," she said. "Not much. I mean, I work here. I'm fine with burgers, but I would have thought that now that you've got a mouth you'd be -- I dunno. Getting super-fancy French cuisine all the time."

"I'm not broke, I'm on a budget," Jono clarified, because his pride demanded that he make a distinction. "I have some money set aside in th'Bank of Fandom, but good luck proving that I'm actually myself with a photo ID."

Really, now.

"I'll be fine until my next payday, luv. I just... had a lot of things to replace this past week. And eating apparently costs money. Something that wasn't really an issue for me for a while, there."

For seven years, there. He'd forgotten just how expensive staying alive tended to be.

George was fishing a hamburger out of the familiar purple-and-yellow bag. "Ramen's cheap," she offered. "You can get like four or five of those for a buck. It's insane."

Mooby's was horrible for you. Why did it smell so good? Especially the fries.

"Mason used to steal the change from parking meters," George added, hesitantly. "Reapers ... I guess technically don't have to eat, but we get hungry, and it's not like we get paid. So some of us just pickpocket the deceased. That seemed kind of ... gross, to me, so I got a shitty temp job."

It was ... kind of nice, being able to talk about things like that.

And considering some of the less than desirable things that Jono had been up to over the past year, he was hardly about to even consider judging her for it.

"I'm lucky, I suppose. Here on the island, people actually will hire me," he noted, shrugging a little. "I don't know that I'd be able to manage a 'shitty temp job' back in th'reality I came from, at this point."

He wasn't crawling back to the X-Men. Even if he didn't look like one of their worst enemies, he wouldn't. He'd sooner starve.

"I probably wouldn't have been above nicking from meters, mind. Not if I got hungry enough."

"Because of the blue thing?" George asked. Very tactful, George. "Because ... I mean ... you could put some foundation on, right? Not like you want to be wearing make-up all the time, but if you did, then you'd just need some purpley-red smudges so the darker lines look like scars or something. I mean, you'd still get looks but more of the 'wow, what happened to him' looks and then you could get a job just fine. Probably not customer service but ... a job. Couldn't you?"

Fixing Shit 101, with your host, Georgia Lass.

"I... probably," Jono allowed, blinking a little. George's resourcefulness sometimes stunned him, considering her general sense of apathy, the vast majority of the time. "I mean, it would require me to... get used to make-up, some, perhaps."

And to get a stomach for looking at himself in the mirror. That was the bigger challenge.

"When people back in my world used to stare at my scars," which weren't there anymore, and he almost missed them, "I used to just pass myself off as a burn victim. I mean, that would hardly even be entirely new to me, you know?"

Okay. He was actually unwrapping his burger, now. Honest.

Working a temp job and taking unscheduled breaks to reap souls made you resourceful. She just didn't often bother to use her brain for things unless she actually gave a damn. Jono happened to matter (shut up).

"You'd have to worry about the make-up rubbing off," she mused. "It'd have to be thick. You could talk to, like, some people who did special effects shit? But it's way easier to just come here and get a job without bothering, you're right."

She lifted her shoulders. "I told my supervisor I was in AA," she said. "So whenever I had to go reap a soul in the middle of a shift, I'd swear I was having a bad relapse and needed to hit a meeting ASAP or else I'd be drunk by lunch."

"Huh." See? Jono was impressed by your resourcefulness, George! "And... here works better for me, regardless. I don't think I want to be in my own world right now. Too much, still too raw. And without powers, not exactly safe for somebody who looks like me, make-up or no."

Lord, that burger was so horrible looking. And so delicious.

"Thank th'lord for Fandom. Safe haven for freaks of all shapes and sizes."

He was toasting you George.

With his Snapple.

Six million calories of cholesterol, fat, and grease should not taste like a little slice of heaven. It was a cruel joke that tofu tastes like ... like something that had the name "tofu."

"You lost your powers?" she said. "Is ... that why you don't have the fire any more?"

She bit into the hamburger, savoring all of that heart-stopping goodness. Well. It wasn't like she had to worry about her health.

"I hate being a freak," she added, softly. Sorry. She was spilling emo on the Mooby's.

"I want to tell you that you'll get used to it, but that'd be a rotten bloody lie," Jono sighed, looking down at his own burger. "Back with the X-Men, I was like th'freak among freaks. Even th'girl with slime-green tentacles coming out from under her skirt was afraid of me."

Jono had a lot of experience with being the freak.

"And yes," he added, a little softer, now. "I actually look a little better now than I did, after my powers disappeared, though."

Imagine Jono, as he'd been, on fire.

And then just take that fire away.

Not pretty.

"At least I don't look the part," George said. "But that gets messy, too. No one expects."

She was watching him, curious, now.

"So that was ... before?" she asked. "The fire, and then the blue stuff? I thought ... I thought if you didn't have the fire, you, uh."

Didn't he say that was all that was keeping him alive?

"I lay in a coma for months on end, with no chest, lower jaw, or functional internal organs, and wake up wondering who th'hell found me and how they managed to keep me alive before sticking me on obscene amounts of life-support and abandoning me in a hospital to waste away," Jono confirmed.

Gently.

George had to set her burger down for a minute, her appetite dimmed.

Som part of her wondered if Jono was a missed reap, that his soul hadn't been taken, and that was why his body had plugged along without his powers. Or maybe he had been right about being not-quite-alive, not-quite-dead before.

"But without powers ..." George shook her head. "Even medicine shouldn't be able to ..."

Keep someone alive who didn't have any fucking internal organs.

"I know, George."

It had been no relief at all to wake up with wires and tubes sticking out of him every which way. If ever there had been a point in his life where he'd been more disappointed to still be alive...

"I had plenty of time to contemplate that from th'flat of my back. Best I have is that Henry McCoy is a genius. Or a sadist. One of those."

"Living's better than not living," she said. "Even if you're not sure how alive you are. You said I count as alive, so -- so you do, too. So there."

This was as close as it got to a motivational speech, for George, so Jono should enjoy it. She didn't bust this out for just anybody.

"So that means he was doing a good thing and -- and I'd be sad if you were dead."

"Apparently a few people would be," Jono replied softly. "But it wasn't my time. She would have come to lead me off."

And he couldn't be sad about that.

"Either way, I'm here now. In one piece and eating th'nastiest food they sell on the island. Keeping company with th'gel that smashes Hannah CDs for fun. So life's not all that bad, really."

"I'm sorry you didn't get to see her," George said softly. "But ... I'm glad you didn't get to, too."

She thought, strangely, of Betty. Maybe when it was her time, she'd find out what had happened to her.

"Can you believe Hannah Fucking Montana showed up at a birthday party?" George grumbled. "Like, on the island, here. I had to sit through a set of the worst garbage ever mistakenly called music. Trashing those CDs was justice."

The corner of Jono's mouth twitched faintly.

"On this island, nothing surprises me, really," he noted, shaking his head a little. "I'd probably just take the opportunity to tell her to her face that she's not as impressive as she thinks she is."

Which he had!

"She didn't hang around afterwards," George grumbled. "I should have just taken off, instead of listening to that shit, but I ... wanted to see someone."

Go ahead and laugh, Jono. George sort of liked somebody. Even if it was all fucked up at the moment.

And that got a little bit of a bemused quirk at the corner of Jonothon's mouth.

"Someone by th'name of Jeremy, perhaps?"

Jono totally had an inside source. Whose music sucked.

George looked a great deal like someone who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"... Maybe," she said. "Who -- wait, you know Jeremy?!"

If so, what had Jeremy told him about her? Not that she cared. At all.

Edited 2011-11-09 03:52 (UTC)

"Never met him," Jono replied, waving a dismissive hand. "Miley mentioned earlier that th'two of you might be a bit of an item, is all."

Casual, casual slurp of the Snapple, there.

"So, you like him, then?"

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