MORE FIC.
Cranking it out before I run to the store for crap I forgot to buy. Like, say . . . sunblock. :P
Rebel Diamonds, J2 fusion, 2 / ?
Rebel Diamonds, 2 / ?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In some ways, life for Jensen was easier in Redactor House.
Here, at least, he didn’t have to hide what he could do, like he did at home, but there were still too many limitations to his gift, and the more he discovered about what he couldn’t do, the less satisfied he became. Redaction was almost exclusively a women’s talent, but the top redactors in the Guild were mostly men, and combatants at that, prized by the military for their usefulness during interrogations. Jensen’s inability to use his gift aggressively inspired several of the Lords to question not only his ability, but also his gender.
There were too many patients who protested the services of a male healer, and Jensen had to leave them to the girls instead, even though he was the better redactor by far. He wasn’t telepathic, so he couldn’t enter a patient’s mind, and that meant he couldn’t work with psychological cases, only physical injuries. He wasn’t allowed near the few children in the House, for fear he would inadvertently warp their gifts and they would become the same kind of freaks as he was.
Jensen spent more and more time alone, or in the company of the animals, who were always pleased to see him and never made demands he couldn’t fulfill. There were those who sneered at the waste of his skills on dumb beasts, but Jensen much preferred repairing a bird’s wing or treating a squirrel’s mange to interacting with the kind of people who delighted in reminding him of his failure as a redactor and as a man.
The weather was different than in Texas, and Jensen discovered that he enjoyed the change of seasons. He didn’t even mind slogging his way through snowdrifts to get to his classes, not when he’d never seen a real winter before except in movies. Even spring was different here, a chaotic flip-flop between warmth and chill, instead of the slow gradual build of southern heat that used to start in late March and become intolerable by early May.
Sometimes it was enough to let him forget why he was here.
He had a room to himself, with his own bathroom and a small outer room that functioned as living room, office, and sleeping area. It even had a tiny refrigerator and a microwave oven, and once Jensen used the computer to order his own coffeemaker, he was happy that he never needed to set foot in the community dining hall again.
There were eyes on him wherever he went, from the teachers who shook their heads with varying degrees of pity or disgust, to the students who openly speculated about the rumors about him. The saying went that gossip among metas was the only thing that traveled faster than the flu, and because everyone except Jensen possessed at least some farsensing ability, the stories spread throughout the Five Guilds. The headblind staff saw only Jensen’s head-to-toe crimson uniform, different from any other House resident, and treated him like the pariah he already knew himself to be.
Jensen kept his head down and his mouth shut and learned as much as he could in his classes, but a dozen instructors in a row deemed him hopelessly latent in the offensive capabilities, and his strong empathic talent reacted poorly to high-stress, aggressive situations, triggering a complete shutdown of his redactive faculty. The emphasis for all metas on military applications of their powers meant that the armed forces needed redactors who could serve on the battlefield, at the very least as battalion medics, preferably as interrogators. Jensen, unable to function in either capacity, was finally dismissed from formal instruction.
He was briefly assigned to the K-9 unit because of his affinity with animals, but every dog he trained refused to work with any other handler without being coerced to the point of stupefaction. After losing six hideously expensive German Shepherds of impeccable lineage to what the area meta brass were starting to call “the Jensen factor”, the local Army base blocked Jensen from access.
In desperation, the Head of Redactor House threw her hands in the air and had a cottage built on House grounds for Jensen and the dogs that refused to leave his side.
“Because,” she’d said tartly when she called Jensen to her office, “you may be a freak of nature, but you are still a redactor of surpassing skill, and this House has a responsibility to you, just as you do to it.”
Jensen bowed his head and folded his hands, accepting the pronouncement with formal words of compliance. “As you wish, Lady Redactor,” he said tonelessly. “I am at the service of the Guild and remain loyal to my country in all things.”
Lady Ferris sighed and steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “If you would just *try*, Jensen,” she began helplessly. “If you could break through those barriers and at least farsense, you could be useful that way. We could send you to the Psy-Eye program. You wouldn’t have to be on the front lines if you could go excorporeal.”
But Jensen couldn’t farsense, not even short-range, not even with family members the way every child with even the most rudimentary telepathic powers could do. His empathy was strong enough to let him know what people were feeling, and he could guess the rest from body language and facial movement, but he’d never had the mind-to-mind communication that every other “head” ever born could manage.
It was part of what made him a freak.
Lady Ferris must have noticed the stubborn set to his jaw, because she sighed. “Yes, yes, I know-we’ve been over this ground before.” She frowned, one hand going to her temple as if something pained her. “Go, Jensen, go and get those wretched dogs settled before they howl down the entire House.”
Jensen bowed and left the office, heading for his old rooms as quickly as possible. He could feel the dogs now, pitifully whimpering in loneliness and confusion, and he sent reassurance through the empathic links he’d inadvertently developed with each of them. Jensen couldn’t converse telepathically with the dogs like most gifteds could with their bonded pets, but general emotions were easily transmitted.
In the dormitory hall near his old rooms, a group of girls wearing the red stripes of first-year redactors were whispering together. They scuttled away when they spotted Jensen, but not before he heard one of them say, deliberately out loud so that he had to hear it, “That’s the one everyone talks about. He’s not just headblind, he’s not even a real man!”
The girls burst into scandalized giggles, and Jensen turned his face away as he fumbled his key in the lock. A second voice said loudly, “It’s true, everyone knows it-he doesn’t even have a man’s parts.”
“I heard that they sent him to the best courtesans and he was refused,” another girl added.
Someone else said something that sounded dismissive, and the first voice added, “If he was a *real* man, he’d be at the front lines with the rest of his family. You know who his brother and sister are?”
Jensen finally got the door open and ducked inside, stone and metal shutting out the sneering voices. It was the same gossip he’d been hearing, and ignoring, for years. Some people even came right out and said it to his face. And everyone said the same things . . . they said he was no better than an eunuch, that his womanish powers had unmanned him. They said that he was useless, that he was a waste and a shame, a dark blot on the great name of Ackles.
The worst was that everything they said was true.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Also, the dog slashed open the screen in the open window on the second floor, and then she tried to jump out to chase a squirrel. Fool dog. I love her, but she's NUTS.
Rebel Diamonds, J2 fusion, 2 / ?
Rebel Diamonds, 2 / ?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In some ways, life for Jensen was easier in Redactor House.
Here, at least, he didn’t have to hide what he could do, like he did at home, but there were still too many limitations to his gift, and the more he discovered about what he couldn’t do, the less satisfied he became. Redaction was almost exclusively a women’s talent, but the top redactors in the Guild were mostly men, and combatants at that, prized by the military for their usefulness during interrogations. Jensen’s inability to use his gift aggressively inspired several of the Lords to question not only his ability, but also his gender.
There were too many patients who protested the services of a male healer, and Jensen had to leave them to the girls instead, even though he was the better redactor by far. He wasn’t telepathic, so he couldn’t enter a patient’s mind, and that meant he couldn’t work with psychological cases, only physical injuries. He wasn’t allowed near the few children in the House, for fear he would inadvertently warp their gifts and they would become the same kind of freaks as he was.
Jensen spent more and more time alone, or in the company of the animals, who were always pleased to see him and never made demands he couldn’t fulfill. There were those who sneered at the waste of his skills on dumb beasts, but Jensen much preferred repairing a bird’s wing or treating a squirrel’s mange to interacting with the kind of people who delighted in reminding him of his failure as a redactor and as a man.
The weather was different than in Texas, and Jensen discovered that he enjoyed the change of seasons. He didn’t even mind slogging his way through snowdrifts to get to his classes, not when he’d never seen a real winter before except in movies. Even spring was different here, a chaotic flip-flop between warmth and chill, instead of the slow gradual build of southern heat that used to start in late March and become intolerable by early May.
Sometimes it was enough to let him forget why he was here.
He had a room to himself, with his own bathroom and a small outer room that functioned as living room, office, and sleeping area. It even had a tiny refrigerator and a microwave oven, and once Jensen used the computer to order his own coffeemaker, he was happy that he never needed to set foot in the community dining hall again.
There were eyes on him wherever he went, from the teachers who shook their heads with varying degrees of pity or disgust, to the students who openly speculated about the rumors about him. The saying went that gossip among metas was the only thing that traveled faster than the flu, and because everyone except Jensen possessed at least some farsensing ability, the stories spread throughout the Five Guilds. The headblind staff saw only Jensen’s head-to-toe crimson uniform, different from any other House resident, and treated him like the pariah he already knew himself to be.
Jensen kept his head down and his mouth shut and learned as much as he could in his classes, but a dozen instructors in a row deemed him hopelessly latent in the offensive capabilities, and his strong empathic talent reacted poorly to high-stress, aggressive situations, triggering a complete shutdown of his redactive faculty. The emphasis for all metas on military applications of their powers meant that the armed forces needed redactors who could serve on the battlefield, at the very least as battalion medics, preferably as interrogators. Jensen, unable to function in either capacity, was finally dismissed from formal instruction.
He was briefly assigned to the K-9 unit because of his affinity with animals, but every dog he trained refused to work with any other handler without being coerced to the point of stupefaction. After losing six hideously expensive German Shepherds of impeccable lineage to what the area meta brass were starting to call “the Jensen factor”, the local Army base blocked Jensen from access.
In desperation, the Head of Redactor House threw her hands in the air and had a cottage built on House grounds for Jensen and the dogs that refused to leave his side.
“Because,” she’d said tartly when she called Jensen to her office, “you may be a freak of nature, but you are still a redactor of surpassing skill, and this House has a responsibility to you, just as you do to it.”
Jensen bowed his head and folded his hands, accepting the pronouncement with formal words of compliance. “As you wish, Lady Redactor,” he said tonelessly. “I am at the service of the Guild and remain loyal to my country in all things.”
Lady Ferris sighed and steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “If you would just *try*, Jensen,” she began helplessly. “If you could break through those barriers and at least farsense, you could be useful that way. We could send you to the Psy-Eye program. You wouldn’t have to be on the front lines if you could go excorporeal.”
But Jensen couldn’t farsense, not even short-range, not even with family members the way every child with even the most rudimentary telepathic powers could do. His empathy was strong enough to let him know what people were feeling, and he could guess the rest from body language and facial movement, but he’d never had the mind-to-mind communication that every other “head” ever born could manage.
It was part of what made him a freak.
Lady Ferris must have noticed the stubborn set to his jaw, because she sighed. “Yes, yes, I know-we’ve been over this ground before.” She frowned, one hand going to her temple as if something pained her. “Go, Jensen, go and get those wretched dogs settled before they howl down the entire House.”
Jensen bowed and left the office, heading for his old rooms as quickly as possible. He could feel the dogs now, pitifully whimpering in loneliness and confusion, and he sent reassurance through the empathic links he’d inadvertently developed with each of them. Jensen couldn’t converse telepathically with the dogs like most gifteds could with their bonded pets, but general emotions were easily transmitted.
In the dormitory hall near his old rooms, a group of girls wearing the red stripes of first-year redactors were whispering together. They scuttled away when they spotted Jensen, but not before he heard one of them say, deliberately out loud so that he had to hear it, “That’s the one everyone talks about. He’s not just headblind, he’s not even a real man!”
The girls burst into scandalized giggles, and Jensen turned his face away as he fumbled his key in the lock. A second voice said loudly, “It’s true, everyone knows it-he doesn’t even have a man’s parts.”
“I heard that they sent him to the best courtesans and he was refused,” another girl added.
Someone else said something that sounded dismissive, and the first voice added, “If he was a *real* man, he’d be at the front lines with the rest of his family. You know who his brother and sister are?”
Jensen finally got the door open and ducked inside, stone and metal shutting out the sneering voices. It was the same gossip he’d been hearing, and ignoring, for years. Some people even came right out and said it to his face. And everyone said the same things . . . they said he was no better than an eunuch, that his womanish powers had unmanned him. They said that he was useless, that he was a waste and a shame, a dark blot on the great name of Ackles.
The worst was that everything they said was true.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Also, the dog slashed open the screen in the open window on the second floor, and then she tried to jump out to chase a squirrel. Fool dog. I love her, but she's NUTS.