[open, THNMY] Live seconds as a lifetime//Time it does not matter

[trappedbyhate]

[Open to anyone and everyone foreveeeeer. For more info, see this post in the ooc community.]

Mio Hongo is in a bar. Or perhaps a restaurant. Or a mall, or a theatre, or--anywhere really, but the point is that she is not in her office for once. She's taking the night (or afternoon, or morning) off and doing something that would be construed as

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[trappedbyhate]

"Oh trust me, it is," Mio says. She already knows she can work well together with Phoebe. With someone else, it'd be a lot more of an unknown, and Mio really doesn't like that sort of uncertainty when it comes to people she's going to have to have a close relationship with for (possibly) the rest of her life.

"My mind...is not a very nice place," Mio answers carefully. "I've seen a lot of bad things in my life, and they've left their mark. I suppose that was also true with Jack, but--knowing him, he tried to shut you out of that as much as possible, right? My powers might make it so that's not as much of an option.

"It'll also make it a lot easier for me to accidentally 'eavesdrop' on your emotions, as it were. I don't like doing it, because I like to respect people's privacy unless I have a good reason not to. But the guardian bond bypasses most of the shielding that keeps the psychic noise out, so it's a lot easier for me to hear things from you. That can be as much of a benefit as a drawback though, because we can use also that ease of linkage as a highly secure channel of communication that's almost impossible to intercept."

Mio pauses a bit before going into her last point. She doesn't particularly want to tell Phoebe about this, but it'd be massively unfair of her not to.

"But, probably the most severe drawback is that when I overextend my powers," (and thats a when, not an if, says the narration) "you're almost certainly going to be able to feel the rebound headache through the guardian bond. They can be pretty nasty, and they're resistant to most painkillers. And, unlike Jack, I have to get better the old-fashioned way." Mio grimaces.

[thehighestwing]

Phoebe observes her as the careful answer comes. They spoke a bit about the things Mio has seen in her life, but Phoebe doesn't presume herself so arrogant to believe that gives her complete understanding. It was mostly a glimpse and the rest belongs to Mio. "He was good at blocking it out some of the time," Phoebe admits, but she did feel some of it, and it was... well, it was terrifying and overwhelming, of course. Jack and Thane and Jack and things that blurred together.

"The blocking sometimes had the opposite effect on me, though. I mean, because of my Calling, it felt wrong almost physically," she says.

Phoebe smiles in reassurance and shakes her head. "That's nothing you have to worry about. I kind of suck at hiding my emotions most of the time, and I wouldn't mind if you did know. It'd be useful when we're working together or one of us needs the back up."

She may be the guardian, but she once again doesn't presume that she won't need help. She has often needed it, and would need it from someone like Mio.

Phoebe reaches out and slips her hand over Mio's. "I'll deal with whatever I have to, okay? This is not a bad thing for me. At all. If anything good for you can come of this, then it's all going to be worth it, okay?"

[trappedbyhate]

Mio smiles wanly. "I think I know a bit of how that felt. He and I...my powers were always this huge looming elephant in the room that we would circle around but never actually talk about. I always felt like I had to keep myself locked down completely around him, and I don't think he ever understood why it felt so suffocatingly claustrophobic to me."

Even just talking about it brings remembered frustration to Mio's mind, but there is also a deep undercurrent of loyalty, devotion, and even love for him. But that was Jack for you. Most of the time you wanted to strangle him, but at the same time he was the kind of person who inspired people to follow him into the fires of hell.

"I really must have been working with Jack for too long, to have gotten so paranoid about the possibility of accidentally violating people's private mental spaces." Mio smiles and shakes her head. "Well, at any rate, welcome to my brainspace, I suppose. It's not always nice or pretty, but it's what I've got."

She takes Phoebe's hand gratefully. "Thank you," she says quietly. "Just...watch out for the Dark Legion, all right? It's been mostly dormant for almost a year now, but...I don't think it will sleep forever. My guardian or no, I don't want you to have to deal with them."

Well now, that's a cheerful turn to the conversation, isn't it?

[thehighestwing]

"Do you ever regret it?" Phoebe asks curiously, a hand curving over her nape as she watches Mio. "Not talking about it. ... Not that Jack was ever really receptive to talking about things that touched too close to home or anything but... I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if I should've pushed more, as his guardian. I felt like I should've done more."

It might not have worked. She wasn't the right person to protect him, and she doesn't know why she was chosen for it. Phoebe simply wasn't equipped for that position, but she wanted desperately to help him. The love and devotion of her own toward Jack often eclipsed anything else.

And she misses him. She misses him something terrible.

"Hey, it's okay." She squeezes Mio's hand both in reassurance and affection. "I understand why you'd be paranoid or worry about it. But the good thing is we have been working together and have known each other for a good while now. We can work toward finding a way to deal with it."

Tilting her head curiosuly, she asks almost tentatively, "Dark Legion?"

That does not sound like something good.