10105/Andrea's Next Morning

Andrea's Next Morning
Date of Scene:	19 November 2019
Location:	Andrea's Room (East Halls), Xavier's School
Synopsis:	The next morning, Andrea and Gwendolyn talk about Rage and what it means going forward.
Cast of Characters:	Dragonfly (Armenteros), Rage

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Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
The previous evening's events were finished.

Emma Frost's ability had seemingly locked the animalistic Rage away inside a cage made of parts of Andrea's mind. Once she was finished, the blonde woman went off to take care of some other things - more than likely involving a double martini or some ibuproufen - leaving Gwendolyn in Andrea's room with an out-cold Andrea.

Something about that didn't seem right, leaving Andrea alone after all that had happened. After getting a blanket from her room, Gwendolyn, the insect-eyed girl, went about making sure Andrea was comfortable, like one would a friend who was feeling under the weather. Strong but gentle hands moved the other girl from her fetal position into a more natural reclined one, pulling the soft blankets up to cover her bare legs, and making sure everything was okay. And then, instead of heading back to her room for bed, Gwendolyn stayed the night, sitting on the foot of Andrea's bed, by her feet, her blanket around her shoulders, making sure the pop singer slept for as long as she needed. Gwendolyn had the advantage of being able to sleep just about anywhere, too, out of necessity, so sleeping while sitting up wasn't totally out of left field.

Rage has posed:
Last night was a blur of anger, pain and misery, but Emma assured Gwen that Andrea would be fine. She just has to sleep it off. As sunlight filters through the windows to creep across the room to warm the face of the popstar, she lets out a small noise and rolls over in the bed to bury her face into her pillow. "Fff." She whines to herself, then pushes herself up as she gives a few blurry blinks.

At the sight of Gwen, she looks confused as her head cants to the side, squinting at her. "Hey." She says with a yawn. "Uh.. what's up?" Pulling her hair up behind her, she runs her fingers through it to try and work out any knots.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
With a dark blue comforter around her shoulders, Gwendolyn looks almost like she's in a cocoon, and thanks to the antenna and the eyes, it really gets bumped up to the next level. Her head is resting on her knee and lifts when she senses the other girl moving, focus moving to Andrea as she pushes herself up. "Just wanted to make sure you got through the night okay." She says simply. "It was a crazy night last night and I didn't feel right just leaving you to your own devices. Emma had to go do..." Gwendolyn waves a hand. "Whatever it is teachers do, and I thought I should just make sure you were okay."

Pulling the blanket closer around her, Gwendolyn rubs one of her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Hope you don't mind. I didn't go digging through your stuff to sell on eBay or anything."

Rage has posed:
There's a laugh from Andrea. "You totally should have. I have so much junk I wouldn't even miss it." She sits up in the bed and leans her head back against the headboard, blinking a few more times to let the light in proper. "So, what happened? I remember Emma pressing her forehead to mine, then it just went dark and then.. I am waking up. By myself." She squints her eyes and focuses for a few moments, then furrows her brows. "She's gone."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"She's not gone." Gwendolyn says softly. "There's not much I know, but I do know that much." Gwendolyn rocks a little, adjusting herself beneath the blanket, one arm coming out to rub over her face, the blanket falling down around her arms, giving you a view of her shoulders and pajama top. "Miss Emma put her forehead to yours and then..." Gwendolyn blows out a breath, shaking her head. "Then I was there too, in your head, I think. In a forest made up of...your memories, I think. Your experiences. Or a good approximation of them. We were in a clearing, with an iron cage, the door broken open. Where she was, I think. And I met her. She called herself Rage."

Rage has posed:
"Yes, she is Rage. It's my code name as well. It just sorta came out one day and it stuck." Andrea says with a furrow of her brow. "I can't hear her anymore. I can't feel her. I feel weird." She says as she rubs at her arm a bit roughly, raking her fingernails over her skin. "I wanted her gone, but now that she's gone, I feel weird." She bites on her lip hard, squeezing her eyes shut. "It feels like something is missing. Like.. I don't know.. I don't know how to explain this. I feel... normal. But not normal."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"It's a good name for her." Gwendolyn laces her fingers together and sits back, still swaddled in the blankets. "I can tell you what happened last night...if you think it would help. It's pretty fresh in my memory, after all."

Rage has posed:
"It's fine. I don't need the details. I guess I just need to adjust without another voice barking at me in the back of my head." Andrea slides out of bed and plods over to her dresser to find a pair of jeans and a sweater. She takes a few moments to find something, looking as if she was incredibly indecisive. She grabs some fresh undies and a bra and takes her clothes over to her bathroom. "I'm gonna shower real fast and throw these on. Give me a few and then we can snag breakfast. Are you doing okay? You're fine, right?"

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"I'm okay. Not a hair harmed on my head at all." Gwendolyn turns to watch Andrea get her things, heading towards the bathroom, slipping to the door to lean against the jamb when she hears the shower turn on. "Rage said some things, while we were there." she offers, letting Andrea dictate what she will share since it seems the events of the previous evening have been forgotten.

Rage has posed:
"Yeah? Was it along the lines of Rage smash and blah blah blah?" Andrea asks as she drops her clothing and turns the shower on, then steps inside to let the hot water hit her in the face. She soaks it up with a happy sigh, reaching for her body wash and shampoos of the strawberry flavored types.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"A little of that, yes." Gwendolyn admits from her spot next to the door as Andrea hops into the shower to wash off and reinvigorate herself. "I am Rage, I am the alpha, you are insects. Lots of very intimidating stuff. It was the stuff at the end, though, that I think matters most."

There's a sound as Gwen sits on the toilet, lid closed, so she can talk while Andrea showers. "At first, it was defensive. Trying to scare Emma and I out of the woods in your mind. Then it was dismissive. Not caring about what we thought of it. Then it bargained with us. Wanting to know what we wanted of it and what we were seeking. Rage said...'I only care for power, blood and victory.'" Her voice drops an octave or so when she says it, too.

Gwendolyn leans over, looking around the shower curtain to where Andrea stands beneath the stream of water from the showerhead. "The last three things she said....was probably the most important of it all. Rage said 'She is nothing without me,' then said 'I do not harm her. I make her strong. Without me, she would not be able to stand her ground. She is weak. This world has been cruel and I have been the only one to keep her standing.' And before she went silent, she just said 'I only want to survive.'"

Rage has posed:
When Gwen peeks in at her, Andrea is currently scrubbing herself with the strawberry sweet scented bodywash. "She's never hurt me. If it wasn't for her, I'd probably not be able to survive a number of combat situations. She is kinda driven by this feral instinct. I think like a human. So when I let her 'drive' the car so to speak, she goes nuts and things get torn apart and I survive it." She shifts her jaw a bit and stares down at her hands, curling her fingers in and out. "But she is not real. She is just a figment of my imagination. It's because I'm crazy. She isn't real." She repeats again, taking in a deep breath.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
It's not that she's peeking - it's more of Gwendolyn being more comfortable talking to someone, somewhat face to face, instead of through a shower curtain. Seeing the person she's talking to is important, in her view. "Andrea." Gwendolyn reaches into the shower to take one of her hands if she's allowed, giving it a squeeze. "You're not crazy." She says this, pausing for emphasis, making sure Andrea is looking at her when she says it again. "You're not crazy. Rage /isn't/ real. She's /not/. She's in your head."

Rage has posed:
"I think the definition of crazy is if you have multiple voices in your head telling you to kill people." Andrea says as she squeezes the hand back, then reaches for her shampoo. Everything is expensive and top of the line and smells amazing. She squirts it into her hand, then starts to rub it into her scalp. "It feels less itchy in my head though. Feels lonely too."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Gwendolyn leans back to watch Andrea wash her hair, one foot up on the edge of the tub, the other on the floor, arms crossed at the wrists and resting on that bent knee. "From what I could gather, she was a constant companion, so not hearing her in the background when you've heard her for so long...." She shrugs. "Probably like having a little brother or sister that goes on a camping trip. They're still around, somewhere, but you don't have that constant noise in the back of your head to distract you from things."

The question of whether or not Andrea is crazy? Gwendolyn doesn't comment on that directly, at least, not right away. "One of the things I do, Andrea, is see the past. You know that, right?" One of her powers, it's come up, from time to time. "When I see something, I tell the person I saw it. Not because I'm wanting to lord it over them, or wanting to get sympathy or an 'in,' but because I've seen some pretty intimate moments by accident. When I was in your head, Rage showed me some things." She takes a breath. "She showed glimpses of Mason and what happened. Of you defending the school and being attacked. The sniper." Gwendolyn pauses, quiet. "You did what you had to do to survive. And Crazy isn't having the voices, Andrea. Crazy is going along with the voices. You're not crazy because Rage helped you in the past. Helped you survive some pretty gnarly things, from what you said. Now she's more harm than help, and we need to figure out how to help you change the formula to get a different result."

Rage has posed:
"Maybe." Andrea says as she lets out a low sigh in her throat. "Mason was an accident. If you're talking about the rock thing. We got into a fight, he threw a rock and it curved and hit me in the head like a bullet. He controls rocks. He just wasn't in control back then. I was told when I woke up, I woke up as the wolf, trapped in my body. The Professor had to go into my head and switch me out. Put her in the cage and me out of it. It was just temporary. But then little by little, she'd creep back out, whispering to me. Then snarling, then howling." She turns around and tips her head back, washing the shampoo out. "But if she's gone, then I will be fine. At least I won't look at Bean's dog and think he's more than /cute/." She wrinkles her nose with a laugh.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Gwendolyn has said it once already, that she thinks that Rage is still there, only contained, but she can hope along with Andrea. "Yeah, I'm talking about the rock thing. It looked like it caused a lot of damage when it hit. Good thing you heal faster than most. I mean..." She gestures to Andrea's body. "Aside from the scars, I mean."

The cage - that Gwendolyn saw, broken as Rage drew power from somewhere. "They really should have gone back in and done a better job with her." Her fingers drum lightly on the shower curtain. "A temporary fix is supposed to get you down the road to where you can get something really taken care of. If we have a chance, we should probably have you talk to...someone. The professor again. Miss Frost. Someone that can help you deal with whatever it is that's bringing Rage out. I mean...she's there for a reason, and she broke out of the cage Professor X built somehow. Maybe...we can find those reasons and get her to work with you. Be a juxtapositon, where you use both?"

Rage has posed:
"Josh Foley healed me that day. I almost bled out in Mason's car when he drove me back to the school." Andrea says as she rubs the side of her head. "I wouldn't have been able to heal that. I wasn't even conscious. No way I'd be able to shift to save my life. I was really lucky. Josh saved me a few times. I think maybe three?" She says softly.

As far as Rage is concerned? "Maybe it's just who I am. Maybe I am just actually crazy and there is no cage, real or mystical that can contain her forever. People think she's apart of my powers but that's not true. The more and more bad shit that happened to me, the louder she would become. It started as a whisper, then became a full blown personality, complete with a backstory." She says with a laugh.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Gwendolyn laughs. "imagine the tell-all book she could write? I get a picture of Rage, in a suit, doing a stuffy interview with someone about the contextual meaning of certain terminology used in the French version of the text that /completely/ invalidated the true meaning of that particular verse." Something too high and mighty for something like Rage to do, but it's still funny for Gwendolyn to think about. It's something to strive for, though. Andrea, being able to coexist with the bestial part of her nature.

"If it is or isn't really doesn't matter to me. You're my friend and I'll be there for you, to work it out or throw the ball for you to chase, for better or worse."

Rage has posed:
Ha-Ha. You're so funny. At least throw a frisbee instead. Balls just get super dirty and muddy." Andrea says with a smirk, then shuts the water off. She peels the curtains back farther, then reaches for a towel to wrap it about her body, then another around her head. She steps out of the tub-shower and goes about drying herself off, followed by spritzing herself with some body spray, then goes about working a brush through her hair. She has a whole 'process' for getting ready in the morning. Moisturizers, face cream, etc. "So what's the plans today? We should visit Brad later and see how he's doing. Then maybe we can take him out for a haircut and lunch."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Gwendolyn passes towels over when the shower shuts off and hops out of the way of spritzes, sprays, deoderants, and other things while Andrea gets ready. "Speaking from experience, I take it?" she asks with a giggle, poking her friend playfully in the side, leaning out of the way of the expected smack that's almost certainly coming.

"I have no clue, really. It's like..." Gwendolyn leans back to look at the clock. "A little past ten, so the day's pretty much open. You've been called in sick to your classes for the day. Who'd think that they'd be forgiving with days off here at Mutant School?" She looks down at herself, still in pajamas. "I've got to get cleaned up myself, and I don't know if Brad would be up for it. How long he's visible and stuff. We'd need to talk to him. Get stuff figured out. Get him some sun, too! Kid looked like he was an extra in the Twilight movies.

Rage has posed:
"Go take a shower then. I shouldn't miss classes though. I feel fine. So I'll at least go to the rest of them today and then after we can all go out if Brad feels up to it. I hope he gets his sight back quickly. I just wish we would know why he went blind when he went invisible. It has to be linked." Andrea finishes drying, then goes about pulling her clothes on. Once done, she goes back to the mirror for finishing touches. Lipgloss, hair styling, a hint of eye shadow, blush, lashes. It's not too much, but enough to enhance. "And I've never chased a frisbee." She smirks. "Just cats."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"Tell, you what." Gwendolyn says, gathering her blankets up and heading to the door. "We get Brad a haircut, and then, when you're feeling up to it, I've got a frisbee with your name on it." Waving farewell, Gwendolyn slips out into the hallway to her room.