theweirdos | TLV: Inbox

Chase nods. "Yeah. But just because you want something, even want it really bad, doesn't mean you had any control over what happened. It's like what happened with your friend's boyfriend, right? You wanted him gone, and the magic took that to mean out the window. And I got to say, that is... a really bad way to practice magic. That happened to me once, too, there was one kid I killed just out of panic that he was going to ruin my plan. I didn't mean to, but it still happened. Running magic on emotion alone is just asking for somebody you like to get hurt, because you didn't have control over what your emotions right in the moment wanted the power to do." Like with Gale, he hopes he doesn't have to say.

He leans forward a little. "So I going to suggest that one of the first things we do is work out the exact limits of your power, and practice until you can't do magic on accident like that, without shaping it on purpose and directing it exactly how you want. Get you to get full control over it, so it doesn't control you."

"You mean the guy who tried to rape her, then went to a party like nothing happened?" Nancy snaps, anger sparking in her eyes. "Yeah, big fucking loss there, having one less asshole around to ruin women's lives."

Everything else is going to have to wait - she's fixed on that, on the painting of Chris as a victim. That might have been a misstep.

"Look, I'm not saying I think it was necessarily a bad idea-- if somebody did that to Yelena, I'd probably have done the same thing. I'm just saying--" He sighs a little. Fine. He's going to say it. "Your magic is like that gun you have, right now. If you're too jumpy or angry or whatever to control it, it's going to hurt people who don't deserve it, too, like what happened with Gale. You need to have control over your power. And right now, you don't. If you had actual control over your power, you could've, I don't know, made Chris impotent for life instead, which frankly would've been way more satisfying than just a one-time broken neck, in my book."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should ask her what she'd do," Nancy says. "Because it's all fucking academic to you."

Her hand tightens around her glass, knuckles briefly going white. "If I had my magic, I woulda knocked Gale on his ass. That's all. I'm not some fucking...psychotic out of control time bomb."

"I'm pretty sure Yelena would shank a guy for doing it, to begin with, because she's a badass." He shrugs. "But I'll agree, I've never had anyone try to do that to me. I also never had any friends before I came here, and I know what it's like to be protective of somebody now. It's a big thing."

He rubs a hand through his hair. "And you don't have to be psychotic to have your magic act outside your control, don't put words in my mouth. You just have to not be in control. Maybe your magic would've knocked him on his ass so hard he broke his back or got a crack in his skull. You don't know, because you don't have control over it." He looks back at her seriously and adds, "That doesn't make you a bad person, Nancy, it makes you a sixteen year old who's never had power before. Now you do. Now you got to learn how to use it without it doing things you aren't expecting."

She scowls at him, pale grey eyes narrowing. "So, what, you're gonna keep me on the Admiral's leash until you decide I can use my magic the way you think I should? 'Cause I can tell you the exact limits of what I have right now. What do you think I've been doing the last six months?"

"Of course not, how would that help you get control over the big, powerful stuff?" Chase shakes his head. "I'm going to get you the rest of your magic back, obviously. I just wanted to ask you a couple things first. Like if you want me to put any limits on it, like I did on the gun, or if you want it just like normal. Or if you want it all at once or, I don't know, in stages." He shrugs. "It's totally up to you."

Nancy doesn't respond immediately, just continues to regard him narrow-eyed, looking for the catch.

"Why would I want it back in pieces?" she asks, sounding faintly disgusted.

"Honestly no idea," Chase shrugs. "I was just trying to come up with other options for not-the-whole-thing in case it wasn't something you thought about. Like I said, this is up to you. I just want to you be comfortable, here. If you kill somebody on accident, I'll manage it with the other wardens, it's not like it hasn't been done before, but I don't want it to mess you up."

Her gaze flicks away, and her jaw clenches, pride warring with the visceral memory of recoil shuddering down her wrist and the sight of spreading blood.

"Fuck," she says, and tosses back a slug of her drink, only just able to keep herself from coughing at the burn in the back of her throat. "Yeah, okay. No lethal shit unless my life's in danger. Or someone else's is, I guess. I don't wanna be held back if that demon asshole goes all psycho killer again."

"Deal." He's not sure if that's a win or not, but she did take a safety, so maybe it's a win. He sets his own barely touched drink down to get out his phone to contact the Admiral. "I'm going to leave an exception to that in me, though. I don't think you'll learn control if I seriously piss you off and you're expecting the Admiral will protect me, but I'm okay with the risk." He flashes her a grin over his phone. "I'm going to bet you'll manage to keep from blowing me up or throwing me off the ship."

Nancy snorts at that, rolling her eyes. "Your funeral, rich boy," she says. She isn't going to blow him off the ship - probably - but if he really is getting her magic back, she can play along with the joke.

"You say that like I haven't died here before, too," Chase counters, putting his phone away again until it buzzes with his answer. "Though the guy who offed me was a complete moron about it and gave me plenty of time to see who he was and throw him into a wall about it."

"Why'd he kill you?" she asks after a moment, and there's a hint of genuine bafflement there. Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's not that much of an asshole.

"Or was it another murder everyone in sight psycho rampage?"

"No, it was personal." Chase grimaces. "Sort of. It was because his temp warden who he'd gotten attached to got switched to me. Which was the dumbest reason to kill someone, that warden didn't even like me, he barely spoke to me despite us actually having some stuff in common, and they got permanently paired like two months later anyway. He apologized about it a few weeks later, in public and everything, and then we never spoke again."

"Jesus," Nancy mutters. And then, at a more normal volume, "What a dick."

It isn't entirely clear whether she's referring to his killer, or to the absentee warden who was apparently worth killing over. Maybe both.

"He's gone now. They both are, actually." Chase shrugs. "But yeah, they kind of were."

His phone buzzes, and he picks it up to check. Awesome, nice and quick. "Okay. Request granted. You should be able to use all your magic now, or at least really soon. Sometimes it takes a minute."

"Guess I won't curse their asses, then," Nancy says, and while she's mostly joking, there's a slight twist to her tone that suggests at least some part of her would have genuinely considered it.

She hesitates a moment, staring down at her hands, then runs them up over her face and her hair. "Did it work?"

Whatever 'it' is, the answer's no. Apparently it will take a minute.

Ironically, one of them is coming back later. Chase will only be mildly disgusted to see Edwin again.

"If you were trying to do a magic thing, no, not yet. Give it a minute or two more. I noticed it pretty quick when Wen Ning got mine back, but my magic's got different qualities than yours that make it a lot more obvious, I think." Hers isn't stupidly addictive and going to kill her, after all.

"Like the whole demon eye thing," Nancy says, and then gives him a thoughtful look. "What colour are they supposed to be, anyways? I don't think I've ever seen you with normal eyes."

"Blue," Chase says. He smirks a bit and admits, "One of the other things about my magic is, it's addictive. I didn't know that until after I found my birth dad and he told me about it, and of course by then it was way too late. I feel nasty if I stop using it for a couple hours, so it's easier to just keep a spider or three around all the time."

"Seriously?" She stares at him for a moment, like she's halfway certain he's fucking with her, then, "That's fucked up. Musta been pretty shitty being here as an inmate."

Given the whole missing or heavily restricted powers thing.

"It really was," Chase agrees. "Though I can also admit I've probably gotten worse, since then. It wasn't so bad before Wen Ning gave my powers back, I could get by with a lot less back then."

Yeah, he's self-aware enough now to know he's definitely not done anything about his addiction, and has in fact exacerbated it. A lot. He's probably SOL unless he does use his deal on his own magic, or trying to live in a purely human world is going to be miserably.

"So is it like - you keep needing more, until you burn yourself out?" she asks, and while it's blunt as a truck, there's a thread of actual concern there, too.

"Pretty much. It's going to kill me eventually if I don't use a deal to fix it," he shrugs. "I pretty much expected to kill myself with it bringing my parents back. It's really not fair, having magic on my version of Earth be so crappy, whenever every other magic I've read up on or run into here is so much cooler."

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