The Boards, Tuesday, All Day

[furnaceface]

As far as Tuesday office shifts went, Jono was taking advantage of this break between Sunday's auditions and tomorrow's rehearsals to just... sit for a while, mostly. He'd brought the box of things that Raven and Karla had retrieved for him, and he was sort of just staring at it.

He hadn't quite nerved himself up to opening it, yet. He was almost terrified that he'd do so just to find something missing, or that he'd pick up certain things and have to go hide for a while until he could be certain that he could hold it together in case somebody were to come in.

His guitar was sitting nearby, too. He was going to need to replace things like his amplifiers and patch cords and such, but having it back... That was nice. Maybe he'd even attempt to play it again sometime.

[Open, and OCD-Free! Freeeeeee!]

Comments

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

Sometime around lunch, Troy waltzed in with a take-out bag from Ching Tai in one hand.

"What, no music today?" he asked, leaning against the doorway to the office, a grin on his face.

[furnaceface]

Bloody hell, he hadn't been expecting that, and damn near jumped out of his seat as Troy's voice cut into the quiet.

"There's something to be said for silence now and then," Jono offered, blinking while he tried to relax again, taking a deep breath and letting it go slowly. "This place is going to be full of sound and fury starting tomorrow, I thought I'd get a moment's peace while I still could."

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

"Shit, sorry," Troy apologised. "Didn't mean to startle you."

He glanced behind himself, out into the theatre. "Think we'll do okay?" Troy asked. "We've got... well, they're a good group. Hank might do better on cowbell, though."

[furnaceface]

"I was thinking jingle bells, honestly," Jono replied, offering Troy a wry smile ad a shake of his head. It was his own fault he'd been surprised, after all. The office was sort of where you'd expect people to show up when you were working. "Slightly more festive. We could get him a triangle, though. It's only slightly more legitimate an instrument. Though if we can get him to settle down some," a lot, "I might be able to beat him into shape with something simpler, on that bass of his."

A Christmas bass solo.

... Right.

"But for the most part, we really did luck out. Considering how many of them were put on th'spot by their teachers, they generally seem to have a great deal of potential."

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

"Some more than potential," Troy agreed, laughing a bit as he set the take-out bag on the desk. "Petra's definitely gone way past potential and into, 'This girl can sing.'"

He started pulling food out of the bag. "You hungry? I got a bunch of stuff, figured we could share if you wanted. Beef and broccoli, sweet and sour chicken balls, spring rolls... I got steamed rice instead of fried, hope you don't mind. Oh, and they had bao, too! I got some BBQ pork ones."

[furnaceface]

"I'm certainly not about to nitpick, Troy. If you don't mind sharing, I wouldn't mind eating. I should probably do that at some point today, after all."

He was slowly working on getting that eating habit back into his daily schedule, yes. Some days more successfully than others.

"Petra's audition was rather impressive, I must say. And Mercy shows promise, if I work with her enough. Though I suspect we'll need to find some way to either tone Miley down some, or else find a number for her that actually suits her... And did you hear Rinoa play?"

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

Troy blinked. "Uh, yeah, generally speaking that's a 'couple times a day' thing," he agreed, setting an extra bao on Jono's side of the desk.

He thought back to the auditions. "... I did," he said, slowly. "I. Don't actually remember it. Good, though, wasn't it?"

[furnaceface]

Jono gave him a wry little smile, making note of the extra bun, but not raising any sort of fuss about it. He was fairly hungry, come to think of it.

"A little rusty," he allowed. "I took her aside and auditioned her somewhat privately, since she was a little iffy about trying out at all. She was trained in playing classical on something a little more sophisticated than the keyboard we dragged in. But if we could get a decent piano in, even if we just rent something for the next month, I have faith that she'd be in excellent practise in time for the Showcase."

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

"We should be able to figure something out," Troy said, nodding. "The biggest trick'll be transporting it from the Causeway to here. Want me to make some calls? We can probably get something here tomorrow."

Just like that, Jono.

[furnaceface]

Troy, you and your rich friend in New York spoiled the hell out of him.

Jono would take it.

"That would be excellent," he admitted. "And I wouldn't be adverse to throwing a bit of elbow grease into getting it here. The roads aren't too bad, and if we can get it unloaded onto some dollys or something..."

Wheels were an incredible invention, thank you.

"Worse comes to worse, we can bribe a few of the rickshaw runners to lend a hand. It isn't too far from here to Apocalypse, after all."

... He didn't much care for that street name, let it be known.

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

"Oh, and hey, maybe our new stage manager will help!"

Beat.

"Right! This kid Billy came by yesterday, asking about the stage manager position. Told him that I'd have to check with you before officially hiring him, but I think he'd be good!"

You know, what with all zero interview questions Troy actually asked.

"He'll be here for the rehearsal tomorrow, anyway."

[glacial_queen]

Well. Karla had been planning to come speak with Jono today anyway. But Dinah's text last night had sapped whatever pleasure she might have gotten from it. Getting to tell someone that they've lost a friend for the foreseeable future was very much not on Karla's list of 'brilliant ways to spend the afternoon.'

Not to mention the fact that she'd already gotten the wind knocked out of her both figuratively and literally today, this was shaping up to be a terrific little chat.

"Kiss kiss," she called, more out of habit than anything else. "Jono? You around?"

[furnaceface]

"Am I ever anywhere else?"

... Really, besides the Perk? Was he?

Jono threw some sheet music on top of his unopened keepsakes box and shoved it under his desk before getting up to greet Karla, at least managing to leave his coffee behind for the time being.

"What brings you by today, luv? Rehearsals aren't until tomorrow."

[glacial_queen]

"Yeah, well, there were some things I needed to talk to you about, remember?" Karla glanced around for a nearby chair and nearly collapsed into it. She'd had several long workouts with the sticks today and, dammit, she was tired.

"I figured now that Raven had had a chance to talk to you, we could get some things straightened out. There's a lot going on these days and you're going to need to know at least some of it."

[furnaceface]

"Lucky me?" Jono watched her fall into that chair, raising an eyebrow a little but shrugging his shoulders all the same and pulling up a seat of his own. "What sort of things, exactly?"

[glacial_queen]

"I guess the first place to start would be to ask just what Raven told you about our trip back to your world." If Karla weren't so tired, she'd crow about not getting into a single fight with anyone while she was there. But that seemed a little silly to get into now. "Did she mention the robot things? Or the picture?"

[furnaceface]

"She mentioned the Sentinels, yes," Jono replied, his lip curling back a little in distaste at the reminder of them. "But... no picture, no."

That kind of seemed like a... fairly random thing to mention, really.

"She mentioned the Sentinels were apparently there to protect the mutants camping out there from something called the Sapien League, and..." And then he'd rested his forehead against the tabletop in frustration and she'd told him to stop that, actually. He frowned a little, and then shook his head. "...I don't remember any mention of a picture."

[glacial_queen]

"Hoookay," Karla let out a heavy sigh. "So, there's something happening. In all the worlds. People, places, things--they just vanish. Without a trace. And worse yet, most people don't even notice that they're gone. Or had ever been."

She glanced down at her hands. "Ender's sister Valentine is gone. He was trying to arrange a portal for her and halfway through the conversation, the guy he was stopped having any clue who he was talking about. People in my world. Buildings and parks in Momoko's and Dinah's. Priestly's entire world is gone--he took a picture and sent it to Dinah before he--disappeared."

Jono would understand if Karla took a minute to swallow hard. Of everything so far, Priestly was hitting her the hardest. "When we were walking through the mansion, we saw a picture of the original X-Men. There was a male in a wheelchair, surrounded by Jean, Visor-Boy, and a male named Hank McCoy. No Warren. No Bo--no Ice Man. There never had been, according to Leech. And while we were talking, Leech forgot about Paige, too. Just like with Ender. He knew who she was one moment, but by the next, she was forgotten."

[furnaceface]

"Just... forgot?" Jonothon's new mouth was getting a lot of frowning practise in, these days. His brow was furrowed, and if the news of Sentinels hadn't been enough to make him want to pack up and go back to try to help... "I know th'picture you're talking about. It's been hanging on that wall since bloody near the dawn of time. It did have all five of Xavier's original students in it, I assure you."

Oh, god. He was fretting. He wasn't supposed to fret. He was powerless and angry, so help him, and he didn't have any reason to be worried about them. They sure as hell hadn't worried about him. And Paige was practically family. All of the surviving members of Generation X were. Only... Only this meant that she was... gone? Or...

"And you waited this long to tell me?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla glowered at him. "Don't even give me that attitude," she said, voice tight. "I sent you upstairs to talk to Raven who, I assumed, would tell you. And even so, what could you have done?"

And before Jono could even start to get all pissy and victimized over not having his powers anymore, she kept going.

"People are vanishing, Jono. From everywhere. No one knows what to do or how to fix it. Not me, not Ben, or Ender who lost his sister, not Dinah who lost her friends, not Raven or Momoko or Wesley or anyone else! There is no one to fight and no way to stop it. We don't even know what the Hell is going on right now! So forgive me if I didn't tell you two bleeding days ago, because I thought you might prefer to have a pleasant evening with your girlfriend who had just gone back and fetched every belonging you cared about. And then I have spent the last two days trying to collect more information findout out which of my friends have vanished, so forgive me if I didn't make playing messenger girl a priority, Jono!"

[furnaceface]

Deep breath. Right, then. Exhale.

"Clearly, Raven didn't tell me," Jono replied, his tone low and even, mostly so that he'd keep from raising his voice. Yelling back was hardly going to help, here. "The evening... wasn't all that pleasant, overall. Which was probably my own damn fault."

He sighed, raising a hand to rub at his eyes. He was too damn tired to argue, right now.

"Sorry. I didn't mean..." He frowned, and then pulled himself to his feet. This wasn't going well. "Thank you for coming to tell me now, at least."

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

"Hey!" Troy said cheerily. "Karla, right? That was awesome, what you did at your audition."

[glacial_queen]

Karla started when Troy called out, and, Mother Night help her, it took her a few seconds to place the other male's name.

Sorry, Troy. It really was her, not you. "Hi, yes, Karla, that's me," she said, then winced at how awkward that sounded. "And thank you." She pulled up a smile and extended her hand. "Troy, right? I'm so glad that you've opened up the Boards again."

There. Now she sounded as if she had at least a nodding acquaintance with social skills.

[oncourtandstage.livejournal.com]

"Me, too! I mean, it was a great opportunity to come back to Fandom, and I liked this place before I left."

Troy took her hand and gave it a shake. "Jono showing up was a big help, too. Especially with the renovations."

Social skills? What were those? Troy really only had a passing acquaintance with them.

[glacial_queen]

"Jono can be handy to have around sometimes," Karla agreed with a fond smile. "I try not to tell him that too often, because he has a tendency to let it go to his head, but it's true."

Well, the handy thing. Jono would have to have a self-esteem that could be measured with positive numbers before he let compliments go to his head.