[location: his apartment. time: backdated just after the candy plot]

[laughingmage]

After 60-odd years, John should be getting older. And as he looks at himself in the mirror, he starts to wonder for the first time why the opposite seems to be true.

The second thing he notices is that he has no desire for a smoke.

The third thing he notices is that he feels naked. I mean, he is naked, but he feels it in a different way. There's no magic.

John has never felt so isolated--he had finally started to adjust to how magic worked in this world, but now it seems to be gone. Just up and poof, like it was never there.

If this isn't a plot by the Lords of Hell, then he doesn't know what else it could be. And for the first time in what seems like forever, John feels fear. Not afraid--he's felt that a lot over the years, but blanket, all-consuming fear, that he won't make it out of this one.

Such fear that he doesn't even notice that the tablet is turned on and set to holo-broadcast. Helloooooooo nurse!

Comments

[genequeen]

Well, that was unexpected.

It takes Madelyne a little bit to actually say something. She clears her throat, transmitting on audio to John, "Ummm. Hi. It seems you're broadcasting to everyone. I thought you should know."

[laughingmage]

"What?" John looks around for the voice, forgetting again that his crazy watch talks. In the meantime, she should get a good view. John looks like he can't be more than 25 years old, with a body toned from years of running. For a sixty year old chain-smoking alcoholic, he looks damned good.

"Oh, bloody--of course it is. How do I turn this blasted thing off?" He fiddles for a few moments with the device, which just seems to move the camera down his body for now.

[genequeen]

Oh. Oh that's....

She's not looking. Really. She's not looking.

"There's a button... you can press it." Okay. She's looking but mostly she's looking at the tablet to try to figure out how to talk about how to turn it off.

[laughingmage]

He finally seems to manage it, but not before accidentally taking a picture and sending it to everyone. He is really, tremendously technologically challenged.

"Is that...better?"

[genequeen]

"Yes," she says. Probably better not to mention the photograph since, well, this is akward enough as it is, right? God, she misses being able to just reach out to people and not use these things.

"Are.. Are you okay?" When she was looking, his expression was distinct and somewhat worrying.

[laughingmage]

"Apparently, love." He's looking at himself in the mirror pretty closely--not in a vain way, but more in a confused way.

"I remember looking like this, and I remember looking totally different. Trick of the place, I assume?" He's hoping to hear some kind of confirmation, that others are having weird memory issues, but he's not so sure.

[genequeen]

"It isn't something that has happened to me but it wouldn't surprise me at all that is a side-effect. There are a number of similar things. I'm a bit scrambled just because that's the nature of me," Madelyne says. She's curled up again with a mug of tea. That's been pretty common recently.

[laughingmage]

Tea. That sounds nice. Oddly, it sounds nicer than a pint at this point, something he'll worry about later.

"There's a part of the chaos that's almost comforting, y'know? Everything else here so...perfect. The chaos makes it feel more real." He seems to know what she's experiencing, even if not the fine details.

[genequeen]

"Yeah, the flaw in the perfection that some how makes it more complete," she says before taking a sip from her mug.

"This might be a bit forward but if you want to talk, you can feel free to come over for dinner some time."

[laughingmage]

There's a murmured name on his lips, but it isn't audible even to himself, and without her powers there's not many ways Madelyne would have understood it. And truth be told, John understands it even less.

"That would be... nice. Heh, funny that as much as I've been through, it takes a place like this to really get to me." The world at John's fingertips is quiet, and his voice sounds mournful. It's like he's an amputee now, without the steady stream of magic flowing through him. It's almost like it hurts.

[genequeen]

"Good. Let me know when you're coming over. I'll make something more than what I'd usually make for just myself," Madelyne says as she wraps herself up more in her blanket and takes a sip of her tea.