10096/If I were Invisible

If I were Invisible
Date of Scene:	19 November 2019
Location:	Jay and Brad's Room (West Halls), Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Jay talks Brad through the stress of being nullified.
Cast of Characters:	Haunt, Icarus

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Haunt has posed:
The dorm room is lit, the light is on. And there's a number of strange things. The cardboard boxes are still under the loft bed, but there is also a dog there. It's a black lab; she's wearing a full harness and guidebar for leading the blind. She lifted her head immediately when the door opened, but her tail didn't wag. She's laying on the floor near where the ladder is up to the loft, on her belly. She looks up at the loft and then back to the door.

Up on the loft is the shape of Brad, laying on his side and facing the wall. There's a weird whisper-wheeze of something mechanical. There's a bulky black backpack: one Jay may or may not be familiar with: it's put on a kid when a power suddenly surges out of control, an emergency nullification pack. Often used when a child is starting to set a room on fire, or something like that. Brad is wearing it, as well as a neon orange hoodie, sweatpants, socks. Light brown hair is also apparent if someone's really looking or comes over.

Icarus has posed:
Coming into the room with a load of books under his right arm, Jay steps in then kicks the door shut behind him. He heads for his bed then pauses in two steps into the room. First, there is a dog. He's not seen this one, though he's heard Bean has one now. He glances around but no sign of Bean. Then the dog looks up at Brad's bed then back toward the door where Jay was still near.

Second, the lights are on. Why are the lights on? He turned them off and Brad doesn't use them?

He glances up at the bunk bed then frowns a bit, trying to figure out what he is seeing. It's not something he has personally seen before. "Brad? This one of those new weird excercise things they sell on late night tv? If it is, I'm going to recommend you work on guitar instead of watching infomercials in the future."

Haunt has posed:
"Doctor McCoy gave me a backpack that makes me not a mutant," Brad answers, his voice bouncing off the wall a little bit. The dog on the floor wags her tail, hearing her boy talking. She behaves otherwise, though, staying put. She watches Jay, her ears forward, but she's mellow and obedient

Icarus has posed:
"Pretty sure that's not possible," Jay muses as he makes it to his bed finally, eyeballing the backpack curiously as he puts his books down. "Get down here so I can see that contraption. I'm guessing it blocks powers? Why did they put something that blocks powers on you?"

He doesn't sit. He also doesn't approach the dog. It's not acting like a pet. Putting two and two together, Jay has a guess. "Service dog?"

Haunt has posed:
"Yeah, no powers, no nothing," Brad answers. He doesn't quite sit up: he remembers the ceiling is there, but he does turn a little. It's hard because the backpack is massive and heavy. He rolls over though, navigating by obvious feel. His hands and face are visible, though he has some stylin' dark aviators on that Gwen gave him. All of his motions are very fumbling: he looks far more blind than he ever did before. The telekinesis is off. "Yeah, that's Holly. My dad brought her this morning." Still, he manages to get to the ladder and come down it by feel. The dog moves out of the way, to sit by the side of the ladder, watchful of what Brad is doing, so she isn't stepped on.

Brad's visible. He's a very light skinned youth: a little TOO pale, like he's lived underground for over a year, but he's sturdy, he has the build of a jock teen. His hair is long and unkempt, a soft wavy light brown around his ears, neck and brows, in a look that hasn't seen a barber in ages. He turns around, to let Jay look at the weird tech backpack. "Observe," Brad offers. It has some dials and switches on it, and a clear socket for charging by cable.

Icarus has posed:
This is painful to watch. Not that he could watch it before but the motions of the clothing Brad would be wearing were much smoother than what he is observing right now. It isn't all because of the backpack. It has to be something else. "So with your powers blocked, you're still blind? I thought you said it happened when you turned invisible?" Jay is obviously trying to figure this out and he looks at the back of the pack, eyeballing the various buttons and switches to see if he can figure out the on, off and various settings.

He doesn't touch any of them. Yet. "Why are you wearing it? Did you just want to be visible? Which, by the way, you didn't lie. You do look good but you need a haircut."

Haunt has posed:
"That's what Andrea said," Brad says, a dampened smirk on his face and in his voice. "So Doctor McCoy tried to make me some goggles to let me see. Those didn't work. No change. I kinda made a mess like I did in the alley, by accident. I was just .... disappointed. I wanted to be able to see, you know? So he gave me this backpack thing, that shuts everything off," Brad relates. His tone is a little lackluster, dull, withdrawn. The backpack is giving off a zone of nullification.

"I was hoping to see. Now things are super bright and blurry. I can't sense with my telekinesis. But I look normal, and things aren't flying around the room. So." Brad swallows but keeps going.

"So my eyes might just need time, they said. To adjust." Brad doesn't turn around: there's no point in it really. His expressions are very apparent: Brad wears his emotions on his face very clearly. He's used to people not being able to see him, so his worry is showing in his brows, the tension near his mouth, the worrying of lower lip interior with teeth.

"It's been a few hours. Everything's still bad," Brad says, his voice breaking a little. "But it's better this way. Everyone was so happy for me."

Icarus has posed:
Listening to the tale, Jay is frowning a little bit as he shakes his head. At least Brad can't see him doing that, with his back turned. Apparently he can't anyway. "Eyes aren't used to it I'm guessing so they figure they will get better in time, since they are having to work again. You say everyone was so happy for you but you don't sound happy at all. I'm going to touch your arm."

He gives the warning a moment before he does so, reaching out to put his hand on Brad's arm. "Come on and sit on the edge of my bed so we can talk about this cause I'm really trying to understand and where my mind is going is not positive at all right now. " If Brad allows it, he'll lead him over to the opposite side of the room so he can sit. Likely he could've just let Brad use his dog but it seemed natural to offer. "Talk to me. Tell me the truth about how you're feeling on this. And I don't care how other people were feeling for you. I want to know about you right now."

Haunt has posed:
Holly the service dog moves to her proper position at Brad's leg, leaning the grip-bar against his thigh to offer help, but Brad directs her back with a quick command and tells her to stay by the bed ladder. The dog does as requested, laying there. Brad does accept the lead, though his hand tightens as he rotates it to find Jay's elbow. He drops the hand to wave it down a little to find the bed by touch. It's probably hard to watch, given the previous competency and levitating socks.

Brad does confidently scoot onto the bed after he's found it, drawing his legs up to cross them, panning one hand out around him to check his space. All by touch. Then hands return to his lap.

Brad seems to need to think about it, frowning. He lifts one hand and rubs under the dark aviator glasses, into one eye, then the other. They hurt. "I'm disappointed," Brad says, a bit cautiously. "I'm not supposed to still be blind." He sniffs, but wipes his nose and mouth against his sleeve a little. "I'm a freak either way. And now I can't even fly. I'm going to call my dad, though. I think he'll like this. Things can be better again. I could go home." The emotional bleeding is heavy in his voice, all of the loss like a thick sock wedged in his throat. It's hard to talk.

Icarus has posed:
This is where things are tricky. Hearing that tightness in Brad's voice, the pain there. He isn't happy with this. And again, he is concerned about how someone else feels. "I don't think you are still blind. I think your eyes are just out of practice. I mean, they've not been used for how long now? It's just they have to get used to the input again, most likely. But."

Here is where he is about to burst some bubbles. "You are not a freak. Either way. Blind, not blind, visible, invisible. You're a mutant. Just different from humans but no more a freak than I am." Probably not a good example but Brad has never treated him as one, just himself.

"You can't live with a power nullifier on all the time either. To be honest? That isn't helping you out. Sure, you might be able to be seen now to be examined by the docs, but this isn't a long term solution. Learning how to control your powers is. Which you actually have pretty good control on the T-K." He uses the initials for it as he speaks. "Just when you get emotional, it gets a little out of whack but you get it back under control. That's nothing to need a nullifier for either."

Haunt has posed:
"If I could see, I'd wear four of these," Brad laughs, but there's no humor in it. It's just true, and not very funny. He's put so much importance on his vision that it's created other kinds of blindness.

"I don't know. They fix people, I guess. So they're working on fixing me," Brad continues. He lifts a hand and pulls the glasses off. He automatically rolls his eyes up in his head a little and then shuts his eyes, unable to keep them open. He gives it a few long blinks, really trying to weather it. "Urgh," Brad grumbles. His eyes are brown; he has pale masculine lashes that create a kind cast to his eyes. He isn't registering on any objects: he's staring through things blindly. "Like jackhammers to the eyeballs," Brad chuckles, and finally shuts his eyes again with a scrunch.

"Honestly it is really, REALLY weird to not have my telekinesis. It's like being deaf too now as well as blind. When I first lost my sight it was like this. That was a few years ago. I was invisible, though. I'm not now. That's better." Brad's just talking, self-soothing some with arms folding around his front. The glasses are in his lap. He also suddenly pulls off his hoodie and hurls it across towards the bed. He has a lightweight tank top under it. "Also that bullshit can stop," Brad says, with sudden anger. Stupid big bulky hoodies. Brad's musculature is apparent on his lean body, compact strength, particularly when tensed like he is now.

"It's all bullshit anyway." No objects fly around, despite the emotional outburst.

Icarus has posed:
"They don't fix people by blocking their powers and sending them back to the world. It's a school. We all come here to learn. For some, it is a lot about learning their powers. For others, it is more to be able to be someplace where they are surrounded by others like themselves. All mutants, just like them. So that no one feels like a freak because they have powers. We all just have different ones."

He considers the posture and reactions of Brad, frowning a little as he took off the glasses and was honestly causing himself more pain. "It's not better just because you are visible. Not if you are bothered by the lack of senses and the loss of abilities. I mean, I would be angry as hell if someone took my wings away from me. They are a part of me, an appendage, a power that is mine. Like your TK. It's a sense for you. A part of you. They shouldn't take it away just so you can be visible. You aren't even really happy being visible so really what is the point? To make others comfortable around you? Eff that. That isn't what this place is about."

Haunt has posed:
Brad draws his arms back into the straps of the backpack: he had to remove that to get the hoodie off, but it was still close to this back. He curls his hands around the straps, though he hasn't pulled it against his upper back again. It's just looped around his arms around elbow-level. "I'm unhappy both ways," Brad says simply. There's a chillingly low quality to the statement. Brad hears himself, too, and clears his throat quickly. "Blind both ways. But there's hope here. Getting my /life/ back. It was perfect before." Or at least, how he remembers it was perfect. "I mean, like, yeah someone can take my blindness away. I can give up flying. But this ?. What, a trade of being visible for being more blind, right now. I don't know. I don't /know/. It's all terrible."

Brad does get his eyes open some, to look loosely at Jay's zone. "You're very red." That's just about what Brad's getting. Lots of red.

Icarus has posed:
"Yeah, red seems to be a good descriptor," Jay agrees with a tight smile, spreading his wings a bit then drawing them around his body in a cloaking motion. They are the same shade as the red upon his head. But it also brushes the long feathers at the edge of his wings against Brad's leg, allowing him to feel them if he wants.

"You will never have that life back. I'm sorry. I know it isn't fair, but it's the truth. The only thing you can do is try to adjust to the cards you have been dealt. Remember the name you suggested for the band? Second Chances. That's what it is all about. A chance to find your place, work through things while here at the school, then someday find your new spot to exist in."

He shrugs a little though, even if Brad could see, it wasn't really visible with his wings to the front as they are. "I think you should just leave the backpack off. I don't even know why people were happy for you being visible, if you weren't. Unless they just thought you'd be happy."

Haunt has posed:
"They gave me an instruction booklet thing, that shows how to switch it off," Brad says. There's suddenly venom in the tone. "Not that I can /read/ it." Dripping sarcastic anger. It's at the world, it isn't at Jay or anyone, not really. The situation. Brad's just not having a good time, with his emotions so strung out. "It's... you know what, I have no idea where it is. I can't sense anything from here. Probably in the pocket of that hoodie that I threw, wherever that went." Rearing frustration has caused Brad to flush heavily: very obvious with his pale skin. He grips the straps of the backpack and starts to slide off Jay's bed.

At first it might look like Brad is going to hurl the backpack off, but he doesn't, he grips the straps and hangs his head a little. The sunglasses tumble to the floor, because Brad forgot they were in his lap. Brad stops exploding, and just seethes helplessly a little while.

Icarus has posed:
"They probably figured you would just get with me about turning it off," Jay tries to offer to get past what seemed a stupid choice. "Because you can't keep it on endlessly. You can't sleep that way. You'll be back heavy and fall off the top bunk." He's trying to make it sound light but fails completely.

When the glasses fall, his wings flick back behind him and he bends to pick them up, touching them to Brad's hand to allow him to take them or not. "Let me go find that book." He rises and heads for the hoodie. If Brad didn't take the glasses, he takes them along for the walk to the hoodie. There he starts to dig through pockets as he walks back to his bed, in search of the instruction manual.

"Do you want it on or off, Brad? What /you/ want, not what you think others want."

Haunt has posed:
"I just... I don't know. I don't know what I want," Brad says, similarly helplessly. He did take the glasses, gropes over them, and puts them back on his face. He stands there in the room near Jay's bed, tensed up, the backpack straps hooked over his arms, his expression tight, pained. Emotional pain, not so much from the eyes. His dog, Holly, looks up at him with big dark eyes.

"I should know, somehow. But I don't. I just don't," he says, finally. The manual is in the hoodie pocket, balled up, but can be smoothed out. "Turn it off for a little while I guess. ...does that make me weak? I'm not."

Icarus has posed:
"To want to not be cut off by something that is a part of you? That doesn't make you weak at all. It makes you strong to stand up for yourself and do what you want instead of following the lead of others telling you it's for the best to cut off your own nose to spite your face." Probably not the best phrasing but hopefully gets the point across.

He smooths out the manual and quickly flips through, just finding the spot about on/off. Then he moves to turn the thing off. "And while I get they were happy you weren't invisible, it didn't do what you wanted which was get your sight back. You can use it a little here and there, work your eyes up to things and see how that goes, but don't wear it all the time. "

Haunt has posed:
"Like an hour or two a day, or something. My eyes hurt a /lot/ right now," Brad says, frowning. "That's the weak part that I meant. And that... that I can't navigate." A pause. "or move anything." His voice went really small, there. He doesn't like saying there's something he likes about being a mutant, maybe. He stays put in the room, but does give Holly a command to come. She does, her body just touching Brad's shin. She sits there instead.

"I feel, I dunno, naked, too. Doesn't make sense." It makes a lot of sense, though: invisible person now seen. He lifts a hand to his hair, self-aware, curving his fingers through the unruly wavy sandy hair.

Icarus has posed:
"Well once I find the switch, I'll get you back to normal." Not freak. Not oddity. Normal. Just a different sort of normal. "Then you will be able to sense everything again. I don't get what they were thinking. I really don't." He is muttering more to himself than anything.

When he finds the switch, he gives a warning before he touches it. "Alright, about to shut it off. Be ready." Since he knows Brad's TK is attached to his emotional state a lot of times, he wants to make sure he has that moment to prep. Or not. He flips the nullifier off.

Haunt has posed:
Brad's whole upper torso disappears. Everything above the waist is gone. That makes for a very comical pair of pants standing there. Nothing in the room flies around, though the 'breeze' immediately passes through the room gently. Brad stumbles a little, but Holly immediately stands, and he steadies by grabbing her solid lead, the white and red bar strapped to her harness for the blind teen to hold.

"Ug. Okay. Okay." Brad pulls the glasses off his face and floats them to his desk, where they reappear, and Brad shrugs off the backpack, moving to put it in his desk chair. The pants suggests Brad is resting his hands on the back of the chair for a minute. He's very quiet.

Icarus has posed:
Jay waits. He doesn't press. As Brad disappears from view, he feels that wave of air which he is starting to recognize as something with Brad's power. His TK somehow allowing him to sense his surroundings.

As Brad stumbles, he starts to take a step but the service dog is there, doing what she is supposed to. He steps back then settles back on the edge of his bed to wait for Brad to have time.

When a minute or two have passed, he clears his throat slightly. "Better?"

Haunt has posed:
Brad's able to hide everything, now, so long as he's quiet. He's able to hide tears and stress. He lifts invisible hands to pass them over his face. There's sounds of quiet, suppressed anguish, but that's it. Brad doesn't want to bleed in front of others.

"Yeah," Brad says, and bends, picking up the hoodie. He sorts it out quickly, getting it back on. Some other things move around, as Brad settles back into his normal. "I'm going to take Holly out. I'll be back in a little while," Brad says, tone struggling to hold together. He pulls the hood up, and heads for the door. "Holly." Holly comes along eagerly.