POWER SWAP: So That Explains It [Cee]

[Jack Maguire]

Jack was having... a weird day.

Nothing especially bizarre, but he had waved to about six people in the halls, staff and student, and none of them appeared to see him. Although that happened more often than he'd like to admit, frankly. He was just that kind of person, he supposed. He tried not to let it bother him anymore. He had about an hour and a half before his first class and he had almost been run over by another staff member who seemed to just look right through him and now he was starting to worry that he had somehow, overnight, offended everyone on staff at the Institute or something. Hunching his shoulders, Jack ate his breakfast (bagel and cream cheese and yogurt) at his desk in the English Department office instead.

He was halfway finished with his meal when the door burst open wide, with nobody on the other side. Which was odd, since that door had a sticky handle and it took some good amount of force to open it.

[Cee Cohen]

Cee was so incredibly excited. He was invisible. And not just like unnoticed invisible, which had never happened in Cee’s life due to his general exuberance and willingness to talk to everyone and yes, everything (like the lamp the one time he’d gotten drunk, but that was a very long story and not very interesting anyways). No, he was truly and actually invisible. He’d first noticed it when he’d walked into the staff room and people had started shouting when the refrigerator had opened. Then a math teacher who Cee found rather pretty had almost walked right into him. There was no other explanation for it. Clearly, no one could see him. Ad that was pretty fantastic. Mind, he kept ruining it by the fact he giggled while entering a room, but he couldn’t help it! It was exciting!

He had to tell Jack.

He’d run to Jack without bothering to turn it off—actually, he didn’t know how—but that was another story entirely—and burst open into the room only to see a bagel floating in the air.

“Jack!” he shouted happily, shutting the door behind him. “Look! You’re invisible too!”

[Jack Maguire]

Jack jumped about three feet in the air when Cee's voice rang excitedly through the room, dropping the remainder of his bagel on the floor. "Wh. Cee, what happened to you? What...?" He looked at the window to the left, where he expected to see his own reflection and was quite surprised to see that he saw...absolutely nothing.

"....Oh that's odd." Jack looked down at himself and then at the general empty space where Cee's voice was coming from. "Wait." He straightened, an idea coming to him. "Cee, this is sort of a weird question, but I am going to try to actually find you and then can I touch your face?"

Weird question, yes, but Jack had a theory, and he needed to test it somehow.

[Cee Cohen]

“I’m invisible!” Cee decided to proclaim the obvious, because it just happened to be Cee. “I don’t know how it happened, but it just did! And now you are too! Isn’t this riveting?” He moved closer to the table where Jack was—theoretically—standing, and then paused to look around. “So…you don’t know how to turn it off, then? Oh. I was hoping you might be capable of that…”

He stopped completely at Jack’s next words and blinked a couple of times, then said, “Okay! Uh. Does it have to be my face, though…?”

[Jack Maguire]

“I can see that,” Jack said mildly, allowing for the not-that-funny pun. He snorted a little bit at Cee’s enthusiasm and unconcern with the fact that they were both, in fact, inexplicably invisible. “No, I didn’t even really notice I was different until just now.” Jack admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I sorta just thought I was having an off day.”

At Cee’s question, Jack shook his head, forgetting that Cee couldn’t see it. “Ah, no, it’s fine. Your hand or whatever will do fine.” The face was, for Jack, the best place to feel for emotions. He didn’t really know why, but it was why he refrained from touching faces in general. “I just want to figure out if I’ve still got my powers, I suspect not.” And he hadn’t really…thought about what that meant. But Jack was nothing if not in control of himself, so he didn’t allow himself to feel anything until he was sure.

[Cee Cohen]

Of course Cee wasn’t concerned with the fact that they were inexplicably invisible. To him, there was a very simple reason for this. He was clearly being infiltrated by government DNA-changing waves of some nature—probably gamma, as those things could do very bizarre things, just look at the Hulk—and it was because he had forgotten to line the walls of his house with lead (tinfoil was for sissies). Lead was a dangerous compound, of course, but he really should have thought of this sooner.

“Oh, okay.” Cee brightened. “I thought for a moment you were going to go Edward-Cullen on me, and I don’t contemplate that’s really a positive plan at this time. Maybe later? But okay.” He held out his hands promptly. “Touch away. Wherever. Not wherever wherever, but you…catch my drift?” He smiled hopefully. To the air. Let no one say that Cee is always intelligent. “I’ll continue to remain still,” he added helpfully.

[Jack Maguire]

It was probably fortunate that Jack didn't know Cee's entire reasoning for why they were both invisible. Jack was very carefully not thinking about anything yet, because he needed to be The Responsible One, both for his more excitable friend and for his students. Because if this happened to them, it might have happened to some of his students, and they might need his help. Jack rubbed his hands together absently, a nervous tic he was working on getting rid of.

"...Edward Cullen?" Jack let himself get distracted for a moment by the reference. "Uh, I promise I'm not going to tamper with your vehicle or threaten to kill you all the time?" It was a weak joke, but yes, Jack had read the first Twilight novel. He always tried to keep abreast to what his students found popular, especially books. He didn't finish the series. The less said about those books, the better.

"Anyways. Yeah, hold on, I think I can find you. I'll try to avoid your face." Jack shuffled forward a few steps, slowly reaching out, not wanting to smack Cee in the face by reaching out too fast. "Good thing we're invisible, huh? Otherwise we'd look really stupid." Jack chuckled weakly, starting a little when his hand ran into something that felt like Cee's shoulder. "Okay, gotcha." He traveled down Cee's arm until he reached his friend's wrist.

Jack's fingers brushed Cee's skin and felt absolutely nothing.

"......Oh." He said faintly. "Uh." He let go of Cee's hand and took a deep, shaky breath. "Thank you. It appears I am no longer an empath." Stunned, Jack took a step back and rubbed his hands together, harder this time, until they were warm from the friction. "Uh, gimme a minute." He pressed both hands over his eyes and slowly counted backwards from ten. Control, control, you have responsibility, deal with it later. Once he finished, he inhaled deeply and managed a stiff smile Cee couldn't even see anyways.

"Okay, I'm fine. So what do we do?"

[Cee Cohen]

“Edward didn’t threaten to kill Bella,” Cee corrected almost absently, “he said that he probably would end up killing her. It was more of an oath sort of a principle than a threatening idea. Does that make any sense?” He laughed. “And I do not drive, so how could you tamper with my vehicle? And I could repair anything you did anyways.” It might take him a few pairs of glasses and a flashlight, but generally car parts (especially for older cars) were large enough that even he could manage the repairs. He’d worked in his father’s shop and as a mechanic all through school, after all. “Plus,” he added happily, “I began practicing karate.”

“My students informed us that we always look stupid.” Cee’s tone was oddly placid. He didn’t seem concerned by the idea of someone thinking of him as stupid. Or of THEM looking stupid. He always looked stupid. He was just happy he’d stopped wearing the tinfoil hat. Now that had been silly.

Cee blinked. He wasn’t particularly good at hearing tones, but he was able to pick up certain tendencies and he’d known Jack for a decently long time. Plus, he knew when his friend was stunned, and was aware of his abilities and the difficulties he had with them. So as he heard Jack inhale, he leaned forward and searched out Jack’s hands, then patted upward until he could be able to pat Jack’s cheek. And even though he couldn’t see, he smiled back.

“Hey. You okay?” he asked, completely seriously, for once in his life. “I know this probably feels weird, but…well. I don’t know. No empathy? At all? You can’t feel anything?”