Extended time, Tag: Liam; others PM to join

[Jonas Lambert]

As JC hesitantly stepped onto the hall where Mr.O'Connor's office was, he was somewhat disappointed when he saw the office door was open. He'd been sort of hoping the office would be empty, which would give him an excuse to put off this meeting... it wasn't really the sort of meeting he wanted to have with a new teacher just a few days after he started in the guy's class. But it wasn't like it was going to get easier if he put it off. It wasn't even that big a deal, really, other kids asked for deadline extensions all the time, and with less reason than the craziness at the Lambert Gala... even if nobody seemed to quite agree as to what that craziness had been, exactly, everyone agreed that it had been a big deal. So he hoped that the undeniable weirdness of the last few weeks would get him an extension without too much trouble, and without having to give too many details. The last time he'd tried to explain anything related to what had happened that night -- actually, every time he'd tried to explain it to anyone but Dalton -- he'd just ended up sounding like a crazy person; heck, even with Dalton he'd probably sounded like a crazy person, it was just that his boyfriend was used to that, or at least willing to humor him... and also, admittedly, they shared the knowledge that there really was magic on campus, which tended to redefine "crazy" just a bit.

And he was just woolgathering in the hallway now, which was stupid. Taking a deep breath he stepped up to the open door and knocked tentatively on it. "Um... hi?" he said diffidently. "I'm JC Lambert... um, Jonas Lambert," he corrected himself, knowing that the teacher's official records would contain his first name, rather than the nickname he'd taken to using. He stepped into the office as he introduced himself, looking around nervously before finally forcing himself to look the man in the face, if not necessarily the eye. He didn't exactly know why he was so nervous; he didn't usually have this much trouble talking to people, not even teachers. He squared his shoulders and tried again. "I'm in your digital tech class, and I wanted to talk to you about my mid-term assignment? Um, Dr. --" he stopped short, suddenly unwilling to name the previous instructor out loud, though not for any reason that made any sense to him. "Your, um, the previous instructor had assigned us projects that were due at the end of this week... I guess you know that... and, well, anyway, I was wondering if it was possible to get an extension."

He was really hoping the man would not ask him why. The simple answer was that he just hadn't done any work on the project, or really given it any thought, since the night of the Gala... but he wasn't sure he'd be able to leave it at that, without compulsively babbling something about zombies and superpowers and magic and wizards and invisible boyfriends and hedgehogs in his brain, which he was fairly sure would get him shipped to a hospital for "observation." He still wasn't sure that wouldn't be the best thing for him, that he wasn't crazy. It sure as hell sounded crazy. But, again, the crazy had all started weeks before the Gala, and he wasn't the only one who remembered it. That simple fact kept him from swallowing the whole "drugged water" explanation, but only barely.

[Liam O'Connor]

There was one major difference between teaching at a University level and teaching Secondary, and that was marking. Though St Valentine's wasn't quite so bad as he imagined other schools might be with tests every five minutes and the expectation for every teacher to spend their Friday evenings with their red pen out, Liam was used to a far more fluid way of providing feedback. It wasn't as if he taught Maths or Science, where things were either right, or very wrong. Design was subjective, and far better judged in an open critique than on a sheet of examination paper. Still, he hadn't quite got there yet - the tests he was currently marking had been little more than pop quizzes to gauge his students level of understanding. There hadn't been much left for him when he'd arrived from the previous teacher - which was quite understandable considering he'd died quite suddenly. He likely wasn't prepared for the person who'd be taking his place at work just like he hadn't been prepared to die. It was a delicate situation and although the students hadn't said as much he was certain that a few of them, at least, were quite anti his being there. Part of him wanted to know what happened, in fact yearned for it so that he might gain a better understanding of the situation. He didn't know how much the students knew but judging by the looks on their faces, some knew more than others. It would have been nice to at least been on the same level as those in the know, simply so that he might be able to provide some form of support or understanding with the young men in his class. The staff had been unusually guarded about it, however, and so Liam had resigned himself to the fact that he would probably never find out. In the meantime he had been left on his own to flounder and figure out the best way to integrate himself into the class. It appeared that his reputation had preceded him with the staff and all assumed him to be some kind of star when he actually felt a bit more like slipping into the shadows. If it weren't for his sometimes irrational sense of responsibility for his students he might have given up. The position was providing him with far more challenges than simple academic ones, after all.

He clicked his pen, resisting the urge to do so three times faster than what might be considered normal. Liam was restless, and hungry - both common afflictions since he'd arrived on campus and ones that usually could only be remedied by traditional means, ie. going for a run or a ride, and devouring a plate of food that should rightly send him careening toward an arterial embolism. Of course his metabolism dealt with it and he was usually hungry again a few hours later. He'd taken to filling his cupboards with cans of baked beans, and always kept multiple loaves of bread in the freezer so that at any time of day he could at least make himself some beans on toast. It wasn't exactly haute cuisine but, it did the job and maintained his bachelor image. If anyone ever actually ventured into his apartment and saw the ridiculous amount of canned legumes in tomato sauce he had already worked out a reason. He'd won them in a competition. Never mind that somewhere in his rubbish bin was a receipt from Walmart showing that he'd spent nearly $200 on them shortly after his arrival. They weren't all he ate, of course, but they were good when he rushed home from class just about bent double with hunger. He really had no desire to spend twenty minutes cooking something real when he was feeling like that.

A quiet knock on his door drew Liam quickly away from his thoughts, his fingers opening instinctively as he dropped the pen onto his desk, his eyes briefly guilty as the teacher struggled to remember if he'd managed to contain his clicking speed or not. The student - though he couldn't remember his name immediately - didn't seem to have noticed anything out of the ordinary, in fact was standing there looking as if he thought he might get scalded at any moment. Liam nodded at his name, gesturing for Jonas to enter the room. He'd heard about him during one of the brief catch up sessions he'd been afforded with his HOD. Jonas was a good student, or at least had been built up to be one. But since he'd arrived, JC had shown himself to be twitchy and nervous and his efforts had not stood up to the expectations that Liam had formed of him. It seemed, for all appearances that the student wasn't lacking but was simply, and quite extremely distracted from his work.

"Ah, Jonas," His Irish accent was gentle. "Have a seat."

Liam listened as JC requested his extension, however spent more time judging the younger man's emotional state than actually hearing what he had said. He looked fidgety, and for whatever reason he hadn't yet managed to look Liam in the eye. The teacher frowned slightly before nodding his head. "Aye, sure you can, Jonas." He smiled. There wasn't much point in making enemies of the students now, especially when there was so obviously something going on behind the scenes that he wasn't aware of. "I'd actually thought to give an extra week to everyone, I've got a lot to do to settle in myself and not having to mark twenty three assignments would help." It was entirely true. He'd been chucked in the deep end and while he didn't want to just relieve the students of work entirely while he tried to sort himself out, an extra few days for their web design assignments wasn't going to hurt anyone and may just go some way toward elevating his impression on the class, too. "Would next Friday be long enough?"

Liam took up his pen again, spinning it between his fingers as he paused to regard the student. "I hope you don't mind me asking, mate," He knew he was potentially about to walk on extremely sensitive ground, but in his own mind, if he didn't make himself open to be talked to - about anything - then he wouldn't be doing his job. Maybe Jonas had been close with the previous teacher. Maybe there was bullying going on. Maybe he'd just had his first... experience. Lord knew there had been enough of them when Liam had been here - he could only imagine it was worse now, fifteen years later. There was a myriad of reasons and although Liam didn't actually want to intrude where he wasn't wanted, he did want to help. "Is there something goin' on, Jonas? Something you want to talk about? I'm happy to listen, if you want."

He breathed, watching the student with his best 'I'm friendly' face on. "You know, I used to g--" His words were cut short as his fingers fumbled, twisting on themselves and losing his grip on his pen entirely. He'd been spinning it without even paying attention, the red plastic barrel easily gliding over his fingers - a trick he'd perfected at University while sitting in countless boring lectures - but one that was prone to mistake now as his body surged with his newly rediscovered and as yet unpredictable powers. Cursing under his breath Liam immediately bent forward, instinctively reaching for the dropped instrument. His body moved faster than it should have, however, his fingers grasping the pen and saving it before it had even touched the ground, the air hanging in silence where a clatter should have sounded. He froze in that position as he realised what had just happened, closing his eyes briefly as he gritted his teeth together in frustration. Would he have noticed? Of course he would have. Maybe he didn't. Are you fucking retarded? He argued with himself as he slowly he sat back up, doing his best to keep his face pleasantly blank, or at least reminiscent of what it had been before. Normal, yes. Normal. He certainly wasn't looking forward to seeing the look he was about to get in return.

"Sorry about that, yeah. Your teacher's a spaz." Liam chuckled nervously, dropping the pen onto his desk and pushing it out of arms reach. Now it was his turn to not make eye contact. He looked at his books, he shuffled his papers. He crossed his legs, his hands moving to grip his ankle so that they couldn't fuck anything else up. He could feel it beginning to rise within him, his limbs feeling more than restless - tingling as they yearned to move. He wouldn't let them, not until this conversation was over. If Jonas hadn't noticed his little burst then they still had a chat to finish. If he had, then perhaps they had one to begin. "But uh, yes, um JC - do you mind if I call you that..?" He could feel his nerves and made a conscious effort to slow down, not entirely hearing the student if he had happened to interject, instead focused on himself and little more than getting through his sentence. "Okay, well, if you wanted to talk about anything, I'm.. I'd be happy to help." Finally turning back toward him, Liam paused as he waited, doing his best to act like nothing had happened, though his eyes gave away more than his smile managed to cover up.

[Jonas Lambert]

"Sure, next Friday's fine," JC agreed hastily, if not entirely convincingly or sincerely. He wasn't at all sure it would be, but it wasn't like some other amount of time would do better, and it wasn't like the guy was going to give him an indefinite extension just because he didn't seem to be able to focus on his schoolwork anymore. So, sure, he'd take the extra week. Maybe he'd get it together enough to actually finish his project by then. Who knows? he quoted silently, maybe the horse will learn to sing! It wasn't funny, though. "Thanks." He was going to get up and leave then, feeling about as awkward as he'd ever felt in his life, but Mr.O'Connor followed up with some more questions. "Um, no, nothing's wrong," he answered hastily, not even noticing that he hadn't quite answered the same question the man had asked. Not that it would have mattered if he had; JC was a lousy liar at the best of times. "Everything's fine," he stammered, "it's just... well, you know, with, with, y'know, with everything that's happened lately, I... it's just been, been, well, hectic. Y'know?" He felt stupider with every word coming out of his mouth, and resolved once again to stay quiet.

He watched distractedly as the teacher played with his pen, admiring the man's dexterity... at least at first. Then he dropped the pen, his fingers seeming to double in speed, moving faster than the pen itself, and then his entire body blurred as he bent down and caught it, moving way faster than a human being had any right to. "Oh, Jesus Christ on a shishkebob skewer," he blurted out, "not you too?!? Is everybody at this fucking school a, a," he sputtered, unsure what noun phrase he was even looking for, then stopped short when he realized he was giving away more than he'd intended to. Seeing the expression on O'Connor's face as he sat back up, he had no real doubt that they had understood one another, but they kept going through the motions anyway. JC found that oddly comforting.

"Nah, that's fine," he said numbly, "everybody calls me 'JC.' Well, not everybody, but my friends do. Well, Dalt calls me 'Jonas' sometimes, but that's just when we," he blushed furiously, "um. Well. Never mind. So, um... well, OK, yeah, OK, since you asked," he took a deep breath, wondering if he really wanted to know the honest answer to the question he was about to ask, and wondering whether O'Connor was going to give him one, "how in Hell did you do that?!?"

[Liam O'Connor]

God fucking damn it. JC had seen him reach for that pen faster than any human being should ever have been able to. What was he going to do now? He couldn't very well pretend that it didn't happen - the kid was seventeen, not retarded. Judging by the very shocked look on his face and the very obvious question as to how the fuck he actually did it, JC had seen it all. Liam swallowed, his blue eyes drifting away from JC and toward the floor. He didn't rate his lying ability, especially not to a kid that was already troubled when he'd arrived at his door. Trying to lie to him would probably end up worse off than he had been in his job interview and it was likely the kid would see through it all anyway. No, he'd have to tell him - but how? This wasn't your run of the mill explanation of why you chose to wear that tie today or even the more difficult, "Dad, I have a boyfriend" speech. This was trying to explain, in a calm and rational manner, that you were effectivelly the real life version of the Flash. To a seventeen year old kid that, for some reason or another seemed already disturbed by his own personal life.

"Well, ahh, JC..." Liam began, not quite sure where to start. He put his hands on his knees, drawing his fingers up into loose fists before he stood from his chair, moving over to the door. Sticking his head into the hallway Liam checked for anyone nearby, and seeing the coast clear for the moment he returned, closing the door shut behind him. "Okay, well," He sat down again, shuffling his chair to one side and leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I guess you saw that, huh?"

"Well, erm, it's not something I usually talk about, you know, for obvious reasons," He took a deep breath, finally lifting his eyes back to meet JC's. The student was staring back at him and he found himself mulling over the kid's earlier reaction again and again, hearing JC's words in his mind as he wondered how best to approach telling someone, for the first time in his life that he had some kind of super power. Would he believe a word of it or would this conversation end in a bout of laughter and rumors spread around campus that the newest teach on the block was an absolute fucking loony? Liam wasn't sure which end was the better one. "And I, well, I'm not very good at --" He raised his thumb to his mouth, his teeth worrying against his thumbnail. "Oh, Jesus Christ on a shishkebob skewer," There was no doubt that JC had gotten a fright by the sudden movement and Liam didn't blame him. "not you too?!? Is everybody at this fucking school a, a," Wait, what? He'd been so caught up in himself that he hadn't actually noticed the exclamation at the time. What had he meant by everybody? Were there others? Liam drew in a shaky breath, his head cocking to one side as the light bulb in his head slowly grew brighter.

"Wait..." He narrowed his eyes slightly, pulling on his upper lip before raising his eyebrows as he asked. His face was a curious mixture of concern and intrigue. "You said everybody? Is everybody at this school a what, JC? What else have you seen?"

[Jonas Lambert]

"Yeah, I saw that," JC replied dully. It seemed like he ought to be shocked by the man's demonstration, or astonished, or at least curious, but the truth was all of that stuff had apparently been burned out of him by the events of the previous weekend and the weeks leading up to it, at least for the moment. He wasn't even frightened, although fear seemed like an entirely sensible reaction to people manifesting mysterious superhuman abilities all around him.

At least, that's how it seemed to him. A sufficiently pedantic observer might say instead that JC was frightened, but his fear was so ubiquitous at that moment, so evenly distributed over everything in the world, that it might as well not exist at all. When a man is afraid of one thing, he can run away from that thing, or hide from it, or seek to destroy it. But when the underlying rules to his universe change, when literally anything can be a threat, then what is there to run from or destroy? Where is there to hide? O sinner man, the old song asks, where ya gonna run to, all on that day?

Regardless of the reasons, he wasn't especially frightened of Mr.O'Connor, even when he found himself alone in a closed office with someone who'd turned out to be yet another magical freak. In a town full of magical freaks, what difference did it really make? What he did feel was, well, annoyed. Put upon. As though the cascade of weird, insane, impossible, horrific supernatural events that had been going on around him lately was specifically targetted at him.

Of course, he knew that wasn't the case. He knew it wasn't even coincidental... almost everything that had happened to him that was novel had hinged on the thing before. If he hadn't had the experiences he'd had at the start of the year with Dalton and Aidan, he wouldn't have met Scott, and would have dismissed his memories of the Gala as a particularly bad trip caused by an acid spill, and would have dismissed what he'd just seen as his eyes playing tricks on him. He'd been living in Hart since he was eight years old, after all, and he was starting to believe that he'd seen a lot of impossible things in that time that his mind had just filtered out, just like most people were doing with what happened at the Gala.

The problem was, he was pretty sure he'd been better off back then.

"What have I seen?" he echoed back incredulously. There was only a touch of hysteria in his voice at first, but then he laughed, and it grew more noticable. "Oh, you know. Not much. Schoolteachers moving faster than humans are supposed to," he said with a wave in Mr.O'Connor's direction, his voice growing increasingly frantic as he spoke. "Men who turn into birds. Werewolves. A kid calling fire with a snap of his fingers; another firing energy-beams with his bare hands. Stormclouds and lightning indoors. A zombie apocalypse. Or maybe half a zombie apocalypse, or several... I mean, how does one count these things? What's the right unit? I saw a kid --" his voice caught in his throat at this point, and it finally occurred to him that he was babbling and was probably about to get himself locked in a loony bin, but he couldn't seem to stop, "saw a kid's arm ripped off like a chicken drumstick... there was blood everywhere, and his face was so pale... I saw a woman's stomach torn open like a bag of potato chips and a shrivelled old man with the stink of death on him slurping up her intestines like noodles. I saw two dead men try to kill my parents, and I tried to stop it, but they were too strong! I..." He stopped then, not because he'd run out of memories but because he was so stuffed with them they jammed in his mouth, and tried to get his breathing back under control.

[Liam O'Connor]

"Woah, woah, okay, slow down, JC... Christ almighty," Liam's brow creased even further as he listened to JC, watched him spew forth about zombies and werewolves and kids with laser beams. It was obvious the junior was getting overwhelmed by it all, his words having got faster as he spoke, his breathing inhibiting his ability to communicate. While it all sounded completely out of this world and like the overactive imaginings of a teenager Liam was, at least for the moment, obliged to believe him - and if not that he would offer a sympathetic ear in any case. If this was the reason why JC had been distracted in class, whether it was real or just nightmares then he didn't really blame him. Despite having his own gifts Liam surmised that if he'd seen what JC had just described, compounded by his own teacher suddenly belonging to the freak show that was quickly becoming his world then he'd need a few days off too. "Just breathe for a sec, mate."

He leaned back in his chair, watching JC, waiting patiently for the kid to catch his breath. Almost absently, Liam reached for his water bottle and a glass from the far corner of his desk, pouring JC a drink and placing it in front of him should he feel like it. His own heart was racing, it had been since he'd made that stupid slip up and it was all he could have done to stop his hands from shaking - or worse - as he poured the drink. A laundry list of things that he thought only existed in fiction being prattled off as true in front of him did nothing to calm his nerves, after all, alarm bells pealing out loud through his head that everything the kid had described could very well be true. After all, he had powers... He had once thought that impossible. Liam himself was a walking example of what society believed to be fiction manifesting in real life. What that implied, of course, was that all the other things - both fantastic and terrible - were potentially real, too. The big bad wolf. Dracula. Witches. The Grinch that stole Christmas. Anything. Everything he'd refused to acknowledge despite the potential being right there, present in himself for the last sixteen years. It was a rather hefty load to swallow.

"Well, I can assure you that I'm not a zombie." Liam tried a smile on but immediately felt a little awkward, his chuckle quite plainly apprehensive. "Zombies are slow. I'm... you know... fast." The smile turned into some kind of crooked expression of sympathy, his lips narrowed as he chewed on them for a second or two before speaking again. Perhaps JC would appreciate some kind of background about him. It was clear that they had a lot to go through with everything he'd just spilled, but Liam felt obliged to offer something in return. They didn't know each other at all and yet here they were, sat with a really huge, perhaps undead elephant in the room. Maybe talking about something he knew would be for his own benefit just as much as JC's, but it felt like the right option. A better option than panicking or telling the kid he was delusional, anyway. JC had seen what Liam had done, what he could do and he deserved an explanation. Maybe if he gave JC the truth, then JC would give him the truth in return. It was a halfway decent idea, and the only idea he had in this situation. Bundling JC up to send down to Andrew's office just wasn't going to happen - it had been his office that JC had visited and so he would do his best for the boy. Nobody could ever say that Liam O'Connor didn't take his job seriously. A teacher is never just a teacher, after all.

"I used to go to this school, you know. I don't think anybody would have told you that, but I was here for a few years. My da' moved here from Ireland and I came with him, then moved back again after graduation. Anyway, I got my, er, powers... I guess when I was about sixteen. Didn't know what they were then, scared the shit out of me, frankly." He lifted his eyebrows, understandingly, lifting his hands in the air. He felt strange talking about it, but forced himself. "I could suddenly do things that I couldn't do before, run faster, think faster, but I kept on cocking it up because I didn't know how to control it. It was like I had this entirely new body, that looked like my old body but sure as hell didn't feel like it anymore."

He searched JC's face for a reaction. "I decided never to tell anyone else, and I never have. I always covered it up. Even when I mastered them, my best friend didn't know. You're the first person who knows about me, JC." He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that.

Liam leaned forward again, returning to his previous position with his elbows rested on his knees. His voice was low, his accent soft. It had been since he'd closed the door. With everything that seemed to be being aired out in this office it only seemed appropriate. "It sounds like you've seen some really fucked up stuff, JC. I'll believe it. I can't pretend to explain it for ya, I wish I could. It's a heavy load." He took a deep breath, unapologetic for his language. If this kind of shit was really going on and wasn't a fabrication, then they were all fucked. It would do them both well to know about it as far in advance as possible. All he could do was hope that JC would tell him everything, so he could try and figure it out for himself.

"I can try to answer your questions. I can listen to ya. I won't judge you, you can be sure of that." The teacher could only hope that the student would believe him. He wasn't used to having to discuss things like this... things of such a heavy weight with his students. Granted, up until a month ago all of his students had been older - at least nineteen or twenty. They had a stronger grip on themselves than the teenagers here and as such didn't quite look up to their tutors in the same light as a boarding school boy might to his teacher. He needed to be there for this kid. The list that JC had prattled off had shaken him, though not nearly as much as it must have shaken JC to actually see it all first hand. He couldn't yet abandon the idea that it may not be true completely but still something compelled him to believe. It niggled at him like an overbearing parent - as much as he wanted to ignore the fact that such things existed, they now seemed closer than ever. "I mean, look at me, you know? Anyway, if you wanna talk, mate, just.. go for it. We'll keep it between ourselves, yeah?" Angling his body to the side slightly, his gaze pointed, Liam lifted his right hand and extended it towards JC in offer of a handshake. "Nothing leaves this room."

[Jonas Lambert]

"Woah, woah, okay, slow down, JC... Christ almighty,"

"Is He?" Compared to his near-breakdown of a moment earlier, the question was oddly calm, and perhaps all the more chilling for it. JC was not a particularly religious person, though he'd gone to church on Sundays with his parents when he was younger, and still did on Christmas and Easter. He'd never taken any of that stuff literally, and as far as he could tell neither had anyone else in his family. But all of those comfortable conventional beliefs had come down around his ears in the last couple of months, and skepticism no longer seemed a tenable position, so what did that say about the Bible? "I mean, sure, OK, miracles, raising from the dead, fine, apparently that's not hard. Loaves, fishes... that healing trick would've come in handy last weekend, but whatever." He was babbling, and he knew it. Actually, he was getting sort of comfortable with babbling. It was a little bit like coming home.

"Well, I can assure you that I'm not a zombie. Zombies are slow. I'm... you know... fast."

"They weren't that slow," he muttered. He wasn't sure whether the guy was humoring him, or believing him, or whether he'd had zombie experiences of his own. Right that moment, he didn't exactly care, either. As long as he wasn't actively being fitted for a straightjacket, what Mr. O'Connor thought of him didn't matter very much. But after a moment it seemed clear the guy was at least sympathetic, which was something. It was even clearer when he started telling his life story. "You never told anyone?" he blurted out incredulously, oddly touched that the man was choosing to tell him. Of course, he hadn't intended to reveal his abilities, but even so, he hadn't had to confess the truth so readily. Given that the whole world seemed choked with secrets lately, including secrets that he himself had agreed to keep, JC appreciated that kind of openness in a way he didn't entirely understand.

It sounded like a pretty cool power, too. "Superspeed, huh? Nifty. We could've used you at the gala... to get the injured folks out, I mean." Not for the first time, it struck JC as kind of odd that he could be so matter-of-fact about the practical stuff when everything around it was freaking him out so badly. Then again, in a way it was like what they taught him when he was getting his emergency first responder certification: he didn't need to understand the big picture in order to save lives. There was something oddly satisfying about narrowing the scope, at least when the big picture was so utterly bizarre.

Speaking of the big picture, though... it suddenly dawned on him that there was something about Mr.O'Connor's story that sounding awfully familiar. "Wait, wait, wait. Hold on half a sec. You were a student here when you suddenly developed strange, mysterious powers?" JC wasn't necessarily the brightest crayon in the box, but he'd have to be a lot stupider than he was not to make the obvious connection, and he blushed a bright shade of crimson before continuing. "Um... so, this is gonna sound completely crazy and inappropriate and just bear with me on this, but... before you got your, um, you know, your powers, did you... I mean, were you... was there..." This is ridiculous, he told himself sternly. You're talking about having superpowers and being attacked by zombies and you're gonna choke on this? Grow up. "What I mean to say is, had you recently lost your virginity? To, um... well, to another student here?"

[Liam O'Connor]

This whole situation was making Liam more than nervous. He bent forward in his chair, his hands clasped as his right leg began to jiggle, bouncing up and down as he watched JC manufacture his own brand of freak out on the other chair in front of him. It was a confusing conversation, on one hand there had been talk of zombies and magic at the gala, on the other it was his own powers that had emerged in front of the already disturbed student. It was unbelievable, and yet he found himself believing every word that came out of the stricken student's mouth. His own brow was creased, furrowed as he listened, his chest tightening as JC finally put two and two together. While Liam wasn't entirely sure that the nature of his own gifts were the pressing issue of the day, it was what JC was fixated on for now. He figured it was easier to let the kid's mind take its own path - once he'd come to terms with the fact that his computer teacher was really something akin to a real life superhero, without the hero part, then they'd be able to deal with what it was that JC had actually seen.

The question that came about next was confusing though, to say the least. JC himself seemed to have immense trouble just getting it out, his words stammering, seizing in his throat. Liam waited patiently, though once he heard JC question his sexual behaviour as a teenager he frowned. "JC..." He turned his head to the side. Of course he knew the truth - the answer was yes. He had lost it to Miles in the computer room, on the floor in the corner behind the teacher's desk. The desk that was now his own, the very same room he was now inhabiting as the digital technologies teacher. It was an ironic twist of fate that he would be given that place to call his own, just as his powers returned to him, the memories of life at St. V's suddenly not seeming that far gone, after all. But now Jonas Lambert wanted to know about it. Liam shook his head. "I'm not sure that's app--" His eyes returned to regarding JC, but as they made contact he stopped mid sentence. Seeing the expression on JC's face his own frown lifted, replaced with confusion, questioning the student who suddenly seemed so adamant that the teenage antics of his teacher had absolutely everything to do with their current topic of conversation.

"Well, yes, I suppose I did.." Liam straightened up again, fidgety. He didn't expect to be divulging this sort of thing to a student, let alone in the middle of what was most definitely the weirdest conversation of his life. He remembered the experience all too well and the sudden bursts of uncontrollable, frightening speed that followed, beginning only a few days later. At the time he hadn't put the two events as related in the slightest. Up until two minutes ago he still hadn't. Now, judging by the look on JC's face it would soon be a different story. "But I don't see what that's got to do with anything..." He paused, holding his breath with one quirked eyebrow. "JC? Care to enlighten me, mate?"

[Jonas Lambert]

"Well, I dunno about 'enlighten'," JC replied after a minute, feeling quite a bit calmer than he had when he'd first walked into the office, "I'm feeling decidedly unenlightened about this whole crazy situation myself. But I can tell you what Sc-- um, what a friend of mine who seems to have some idea what's going on told me. Apparently St.Valentine's is a kind of, I don't know, special magic place or whatever..." he blurted out quickly, as though trying to get through it without having to think about it very much, then went on with barely a pause to add "...which I know is ridiculous and everything but that's what he said and frankly given the freaky shit I've been seeing lately I guess it doesn't really matter whether it's magic or mutant powers or whatever, I mean, Clarke's third law and everything, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, right?"

He tried to laugh nervously and discovered he was unable to, because he was out of breath, for the excellent reason that he had forgotten to breathe, and took a few moments to get his breath back. "Right. Babbling. Sorry. Nervous habit. OK, so, anyway, he says there's some kind of spell on the St.Valentine's campus, has to do with a lady who died here, and her ghost apparently has a hard-on for queer couples, or maybe just dudes, I dunno... anyway, when one gets his cherry popped, BAM, they get, you know, super powers. Sometimes." His face was beet-red, whether because he was talking about teenage gay sex with a teacher he'd pretty much just met, or because he was talking about ghosts granting magic powers to people, he wasn't really sure. "And I don't know if that's true or not, but it's what he told me, and, well... I mean, you aren't the only one with, you know," he waved a hand in the air in the manner of someone hunting for a word, though in fact he knew exactly what word he wanted was, he just had to psych himself up to say it out loud: "magic powers. I know kids who can call fire, shoot energy-beams out of their hands, heal missing limbs... all of which is pretty damn cool, I have to say. Your superspeed thing, too. You're like the friggin' X-Men or the Justice League or something."

He took a deep breath, wondering whether he really wanted to reveal what he was about to reveal, but decided it was only fair, given what Mr.O'Connor had already told him. "Me, all I can do is talk to animals, sort of. Which, let me tell you, isn't worth much when hordes of zombies are about to eviscerate your parents." He met the teacher's eyes for the first time since the conversation had taken this left turn into crazy-town, as though to express without saying it that yes, he'd meant to say that. "Luckily, there were some more, um, combat-capable types around who pulled our asses out of the fire. Still... must be nice not to have to count on anybody else to bail you out when things got hairy, huh? So, like, you ever do anything, you know, comic-booky? Fight supervillains, save the world, that sort of thing? It seems like that'd be cool. Please tell me you don't wear tights, though."

[Liam O'Connor]

The kid was certainly experiencing verbal diarrhea, and Liam was struggling to keep up. There had been, and still was plenty of references to the horrific scene he'd described earlier, but now he seemed fixated on the fact of Liam's abilities more than what he had experienced. Perhaps that was a good thing - if it made him feel more comfortable then Liam would let him go, let him spew forth about whatever it was he felt like running his mouth about. He couldn't help but be concerned about what JC was implying, however. From what he was saying it wasn't a rare thing that Liam had attained superpowers while attending the school. From what he was saying, it was actually quite a common occurence and was somehow linked to having sex. The notion almost settled him on the point of laughter. If he had heard it a month ago, hell, even a week ago he would have found it completely ridiculous. But back then, he hadn't had his powers. They'd left him as he'd left Hart, and America proper. The fact that they had come back to him now that he was back teaching again was uncanny enough for the seeds of belief to take firm route.

Still, he remained silent through most of JC's rambling, his mind slowly ticking over and over the facts, recalling dates names, memories of that night with Miles. He'd kept everything so secret that it made sense that he had no idea of anyone else with a similar affliction. In fact, Liam struggled to think of anyone who may have been a little more.. enhanced than the usual, run of the mill kids. Of course nobody ever confronted him about his track times or how he juggled his social life with completing assignments with ease, how he managed to skive off just about every night but still be able to recall critical passages from text books and other set works throughout his senior years. It was just like, oh theres Liam, the smart kid who runs fast. The nerd thats cool enough not to throw into the lockers because he does my homework for me within a night. It really had been easy to pull the wool over everyone elses eyes, and it alarmed him that there might have been dozens of others who'd done the exact same thing to him.

"...Your superspeed thing, too. You're like the friggin' X-Men or the Justice League or something."

"The Flash." Liam corrected him with something of a resigned smirk. He supposed, in the grand scheme of things it was good that JC wasn't totally scared off by his admission. In a way, it had sort of thrown them together. They both knew secrets that needed to stay that way. It was only one thing in common but it would likely prove to be the cornerstone of their relationship from then on. Liam could only hope that JC was able to be trusted and wouldn't go around telling his fire breathing, eye-beaming, faith healing mates about the latest addition to their menagerie of superheroes. If there came a time for them all to band together then perhaps he'd be okay with it, but the thought of being the only adult among a group of hormonal, teenage kids that also happened to possess the ability to burn your face off wasn't the most appealing of extra curricular activities.

Hearing that JC had abilities of his own, even worthless ones as he seemed to view them, Liam relaxed a little bit. He wasn't sure why, since it wasn't exactly something that could be proven without the aid of a budgie or other animal companion - but he believed him even more, knowing that. It was an altogether strange situation and Liam didn't want to over analyse it too much. He had superpowers himself. At least he knew he wasn't completely nuts, now. Students had them as well, okay, no problem. Made sense that he wouldn't be the only one in the world. That they all got them by losing their virginity at a cursed school for boys? A little more far-fetched, but nothing you wouldn't read about in the mind of today's writers of fiction. And they did say that most rumors started with a grain of truth.

"Nope, don't fight any supervillains, unfortunately," Liam smiled, the first genuine one he thought he'd managed since JC arrived in the room, looking up to return his student's gaze. He didn't see lies or mockery reflected within, just genuine curiousity. He looked calmer than he had when he'd walked in, at least. Liam reached for the pencil that had started it all, and began to flick it around his fingers again. "Haven't met any to fight off, to be honest, though I can think of a few people who fit the bill."

He thought back to his University lecturers - there were a couple that he had been quite well convinced were born in Hades itself. Of course, every student thought that about some of their teachers during the course of their lives, it just so happened that Professor Duggan actually resembled the gargoyles on the exterior of the building. Having stuck around longer than most, Liam had actually learned that Duggan was nothing of the sort and enjoyed the odd game of Talisman on his weekends off, often having the other lecturers over to his place for a game. His wife had cooked and they even established a sort of trophy system that carried over from game to game, and it was nice. But, he digressed. He didn't even have his powers by that stage, so if Duggan had turned out to be the villain young Liam had suspected he wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing about it.

"Actually, JC, you might be interested to know that while I was away, back in Ireland, my powers.." Christ, it felt strange to talk about them like that. "Well, they disappeared. It's only been since I've come to work, and live at the school again that they've come back. It's why I right royally fudged up in front of ya, there, I've only had them back a week. I'm a right mess to be honest - I used to have a lot more control."

[Jonas Lambert]

"Yeah, the Flash," JC agreed with a look of surprise on his face. Like a lot of kids, he'd always more or less assumed that his generation had invented the stuff they were into; that an older guy, let alone a teacher, was conversant with comic-book superheroes came as a complete shock. Or at least it would have, if his mind had any room left in it for shock of a less-than-catastrophic sort, which it mostly didn't. So after a startled moment, he decided to (as it were) run with it. "Or that snotty white-haired guy, whatsisname? Green tracksuit, silly hair, very weird relationship with his sister." JC had never been a huge comic-book fan, but he'd read his fair share of them when he was younger. "Or, no, wait, the snotty white-haired speedster with the weird sister issues was the one there was all that hoo-hah about when he came out, right?" He was confused for a moment; there couldn't really be two different comic book characters with white hair, superspeed, bad attitudes and an insane sister, could there? That would be ridiculous. He shook it off, though; that really wasn't the important thing here. Focus, Lambert.

The news that Liam's powers had faded away while he was in Ireland also surprised him, and somewhat more relevantly. "Huh. They disappeared when you went to Ireland, and came back when you returned to Hart?" Scott had said something about powers fading with time spent away from campus, but JC hadn't quite realized it could be quite that extreme. The thought disturbed him... he had made his college plans quite a while ago, and had seen no reason to change his mind about them in the last year or so, but that was... huh. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. "Wait up. You could have fucking superspeed and you gave that up to go live in Ireland instead?" He shook his head in puzzlement. "Why? I mean, don't get me wrong, I hear Ireland is beautiful, and I get college and stuff, but: dude! Super. Speed. You like won the superpower lottery... and you walked away from it?!? That must have been one hell of a college."

[Liam O'Connor]

"Quicksilver." Liam nodded his head, then again as JC continued. "Northstar, yep." He was suprised at his own comic book knowledge, actually, but that was beside the point. The point was that he did have something akin to superhero powers, although he'd never really thought of it that way. To be a superhero was something out of a fantasy. Even if he could run as fast as all three of them, Liam had never fancied himself a wearer of spandex except when forced to for racing purposes. More importantly, he'd never fancied himself a hero. There was one quality that superheros were fraught with that he severely lacked and that was heroism, and bravery. While Liam was sure he'd be fine in a pinch and do the right thing, he wasn't the type to go looking for trouble, either. He didn't have the constitution to pick fights with baddies, he never had. He'd always been the nerdy one and even though by the end of school he'd at least been the cool nerdy one, he'd made his way there by cutting deals with the bullies or doing their homework for them so as to earn himself another night free of trying to extract himself from the top of the lockers. As he'd grown up with them his powers had sort of become little more than an extension onto his life, a means to an end, a way for him to cope with school. He knew it was cheating as nobody else could do the same, he knew he should have given it more of a fair go. But he was also of the mind that if one could fulfil one's potential better in any way, then it would have been stupid of him not to.

"Well, JC, for a start, I didn't know they'd go. They didn't just suddenly disappear once I graduated and stepped out of the grounds or anythin', ya know? It was... gradual. I probably didn't even notice until partway through first year." It was true, and although JC seemed completely puzzled by the fact that Liam could have given up his speed in order to go to university, to Liam it was the opposite. He would have been completely miffed by the idea of not finishing his education, powers or no powers. "And second, you know, havin' superspeed wasn't gonna get me anywhere, not where I wanted to go. I wanted to be educated and finish my degree, and I did, I did it without any help from my powers because, well, they were gone. I didn't expect them to come back again even when I returned here, I thought I might have, I dunno, grown out of 'em or something."

"And you know what, they're actually kind of a pain in the arse." He smiled, a little defeated. "At least at the moment, learning them all over again, I'm clumsy as anything. I have to eat all the bloody time, its ridiculous, you should see how many cans of beans I've got stashed in me kitchen upstairs." Liam's stomach was starting to feel empty again even as he said it, causing him to shake his head. "I don't know, JC, it's damn weird, I'll tell ya that.."

Trailing off, Liam lifted his eyes to look at JC once more. It felt good, even under the weird circumstances to talk about his gifts. He'd never been able to do that before and while he'd never thought that he would find confidence in a student, here they were and Liam was feeling better for it. The main concern though, of course, was JC. Liam was an adult and could take care of himself - the purpose of this visit hadn't been to laud or psychoanalyse his own powers and behaviour surrounding them but instead had seemed to be taking the turn of trying to provide the student with some sort of comfort from the horrors he'd seen. Perhaps finding out that one of his teachers wasn't so far unlike him would do that, but Liam was well aware that the conversation had taken a complete about face. He wanted to know if JC was going to be alright - as with all of his students, he wanted to help him but instead of turning it right back to the gruesome he instead began by asking JC a question of his own. "So, you ahh, talk to animals? How does that... work, exactly? I'm guessin' it's nothing like Dr. Doolittle, yeah?"

[Jonas Lambert]

"Yeah, that's right," JC agreed as Mr.O'Connor named the comic-book characters he was trying to remember. Apparently there really were two of them, unlikely as that seemed. Actually, now that he thought about it, there were a bunch of different Flashes, too, weren't there? Like, one was a grownup, and one was a teenager, and another one was a little kid... and wasn't there a different grownup, with a metal hat or something? Weird. He supposed the writers had run out of original ideas a few times. Or maybe they just had a fetish for speedsters. Which, on consideration, he couldn't blame them for; it was a freaking cool power.

Which made Mr.O'Connor's decision to give it up even more puzzling... though it became clearer when the man explained that he hadn't realized where the power had come from in the first place. He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." If it hadn't been for running into Scott when he did, JC supposed he'd be just as confused about the source of his abilities as he had been when they first emerged; if they just faded away when he went to college, it might never have occurred to him that where he was made a difference at all. He would probably have just decided that they went away as mysteriously as they came and moved on with his life... eventually, he probably would have convinced himself that he'd never really had them in the first place, they'd just been teenage suggestibility. That was a creepy thought, actually. JC wondered whether that was why his dad had never mentioned that towel-snatching trick he'd demonstrated at the Gala, and why he didn't seem to remember any of it afterwards. Had it just faded away when he left Hart? Did he think it was some kind of dream, caused by the so-called toxic waste spill? He shook his head, confused. Sometimes adults just didn't make any damned sense.

He had to admit, though, the rest of his teacher's explanation was sensible as well. Certainly, JC wouldn't give up getting his degree just to keep his ability... though if Mr.O'Connor's ability were on the table, or Scott's, or even Dalton's, he wasn't so sure. "Yeah, he agreed with a laugh, "it's definitely weird." It was surprising, and rather nice, to realize that his teacher had accepted his explanation without mockery. Of course, he supposed it was a lot easier to do so when you'd already accepted the hard part; given the existence of superpowers, the idea that they might be magic superpowers didn't seem quite so weird. "And it's not talking, exactly. Or, well, I do talk to animals, I kind of always have, and they do respond to being spoken to -- well, some of them do, anyway -- but it's not like they talk back or like we can discuss the weather or anything like that. It's more like... well..." he flailed his hand a little, trying to figure out how to talk about it. The thing it was most like was sex, actually, that feeling of being "in synch" with someone else and just responding to one another without the need for language or explicit signals, but he wasn't about to say that to Mr.O'Connor. "It's like I feel what they're feeling, and I think what they're thinking. And it seems to go the other way as well; they react to what I'm thinking. But, I mean, they're animals, not little people in fur suits; most of what goes on in their heads just doesn't make much sense to me at all, and that seems to go double in the other direction." He shrugged. "Course, I've only just started working with it."

[Liam O'Connor]

Liam listened as JC described his powers. Everything he said made sense, when you thought about it minus the slightly unbelievable quality of actually being able to communicate with animal life. Of course animals didn't think like we did, they had different physiology, a different language, different brains, different instincts. He could imagine that deciphering some of the things an animal presented you with would actually be quite difficult, quite stressful especially if it was accompanied with urgency or emotion or pain. Although a completely different aspect of a supernatural or magical gift to his own Liam was suitably impressed, and as he had done for almost all of their conversation so far he gave JC the benefit of the doubt. He understood it was basically impossible for the kid to prove that he had them - not without someone else who could do the same as he. For Liam and anyone else who happened to have such physical abilities, all they had to do was just show someone and it would be out there, in the open. Or completely cock up something as simple as picking up a dropped pen, like he had done here. JC, however, relied on the open mindedness of the person he was telling to define whether he'd be believed or not. Due to the nature of their conversation so far Liam wasn't inclined to suddenly stop doing that - it wouldn't be fair, or make any sense to do so.

"That's pretty cool, actually JC." He smiled, crossing one leg over the other. "When I was a kid I used to always wonder what our pets were thinking, you know? That's awesome that you can do that." Pausing, Liam wondered for a moment. The school didn't have any pets that he'd met yet, but then again he'd only been around a little while. "It doesn't, ah, interfere with your school work or anything though, right? I mean, you feel alright when there aren't any animals around, yeah?"

"Do you need some extra help with the assignment? You got all the notes from class alright? I don't mind going over them again with you if you need it, JC." Liam changed the subject, suddenly remembering back to why JC had knocked on his door in the first place. School work, not powers was why he'd come and though the conversation had evolved well beyond that Liam was still willing to address the initial issue. He steered the conversation back, though soon once again found himself wondering about what exactly had happened at the Gala. He worried for JC, not to mention anyone else that had been involved. Liam himself hadn't heard much about it other than some murmurings about a toxic waste spill that had messed with some of Hart's residents heads and a number of students had been affected. It smelled of a cover up, if JC's explanation rang true and wasn't just hallucination. But still Liam was inclined to give the entire situation an extremely wide berth - he was happy to act as sounding board for the kid but beyond that, it was more than a little out of the new teacher's depth. Briefly his thoughts flicked back to Andrew, and he wondered if JC had told anyone else in the faculty.

"If you want, JC, you can talk to me about the Gala, or your powers, whatever you want. No pressure, just if you need to get something out I'll listen to ya mate. I know I'm not the psychiatrist or anything but you know, the offers there if you want it." He pursed his lips. "Just ah, for my own information do any of the other staff know about you, or you know, what happened?"

[Jonas Lambert]

"It doesn't, ah, interfere with your school work or anything though, right?"

And there was the proverbial hundred thousand dollar question, the one JC had almost managed to forget had brought him into his teacher's office in the first place, distracted as he'd been by their pleasantly abstract conversation about superpowers and comic book characters. "Well, I..." he started to reply, wondering idly what he was going to say, since he wasn't really sure what the answer was himself. He trailed off, and after a little while it became clear that he wasn't going to say anything at all. He felt sick to his stomach all of a sudden, and leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.

Of course it was interfering with his schoolwork.
And with his work at the clinic.
And with his relationship with Dalton.
And with his relationship with his parents.
And, well, with everything.

How could it not? Even now, the room seemed to recede and he could barely hear Mr.O'Connor's words over his memories of the Gala, of running terrified through an impossible fog, being chased by impossible threats, trying completely ineffectually to rescue his parents. That was happening to him all the time, in class, in practice, at work, at home. It scared him half to death; anxiety had such a grip on him that he could barely draw a complete breath, and he was half-convinced the physical symptoms were some kind of magical attack. Which, of course, they weren't. Had JC chosen to read up on PTSD, the symptoms of which he was clearly displaying, he would have known these sorts of anxiety attacks were a common symptom... but he hadn't done so. Mostly, he was hoping that it would all just go back to normal somehow if he just gutted his way through it.

"Just ah, for my own information do any of the other staff know about you, or you know, what happened?"

He looked up at the question, appreciating how concrete it was. Concrete was good; simple questions he could wrap his brain around gave him something to focus on. It was the open-ended questions he had trouble with. "Um... well, Dr.Tomkins knows about my, um, my power." It still felt weird to just say that to people. "Nobody else... I mean, nobody on staff. I'd, um, I mean I'm mostly not telling people, y'know? The last thing my dad needs is a tabloid article about how his queer son has gone completely round the bend and is going around talking to his pet snake." He shrugged, backpedaled in his head away from the too-big question of his dad's re-election campaign and how all this crazy magic stuff interacted with it, especially the elephant in the room of his dad maybe having powers too, and what that implied about his dad's sex life, a question he did not want to think about even more than he didn't want to think about all the other questions.

"As for, you know, what happened... I mean, at the Gala and stuff... with the, with the, you know, the, the zombies and stuff," and clearly all of that was even harder to talk about than the powers thing, and JC wondered idly whether that was because it was becoming easier to talk about the powers, or whether because the horrifying memories of the Gala were so much worse, and decided it was probably both... "no, I haven't really told anyone official. I mean, my boyfriend knows. He picked me up from the parking lot covered in, you know, covered in, in blood and shit and whatever the fuck that awful-smelling black stuff zombies have in their veins is... it sure as hell isn't blood, that's for sure, all the blood came from the people they, they, from the people they killed and ate and... oh, jeez..." The nausea built up again, and he retched uncontrollably for a few minutes into a trash can.

"Sorry," he said weakly after he was done. "Thought I was done doing that."