Power Swap: WHAT. [open]

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt probably shouldn’t have gotten out of bed this morning. Granted, it was amazing how long he’d slept in bed that night in the first place. But still. That actually should have been the first indication that he should have called Josh and cancelled their plans to go and get candy. And even that wasn’t so much a plan as Josh saying “Hey, I need to buy candy to give out for Halloween but I don't have a car and I don't think I can get enough to give out if I ride my bicycle and Sean is busy so you wanna go with me?" and Cobalt only hearing the word “candy” and agreeing. Leila was getting tired of him stealing hers at any rate.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that something felt… weird. From the moment he woke up that morning with the realization that he’d slept for a full eight hours, something that hadn’t happened in a long while. Like something had changed around while he was asleep and he couldn’t figure out what it was. But Josh needed a ride and he wanted candy and it was a nice day—grey and overcast. He would probably be able to avoid a headache, since the sun had blessedly decided to take a break. So he’d picked up Josh and they went to the nearest convenience store.

“I have to say,” Cobalt said, stretching his arms, “Getting a lot of sleep feels weird. I feel all stiff.” And it was true; sleep usually eluded him because all the natural shadow at night felt nice. It energized him, and he usually spent a large majority of the night reveling in the fact that his headaches were gone than actually sleeping. He pointed to the aisle to the left of them, decorated in purple and black streamers and fake spiderwebs, “That looks like our aisle. I’ll grab a basket.”

He limped over to the stack of baskets and grabbed the black plastic handle and—

A man, unfamiliar, grabbed the black plastic handle and hoisted the basked out of the stack. He coughed wetly into one hand and shifted his grip on the basket. A small, blonde child hung on his arm.

“Can we get Snickers, daddy? Can we pleeease?” She looked up at him with pleading brown eyes.

“Sure honey,” The man replied, his voice rattling around in his throat. He sneezed, pulling up the hand clutching the basked to cover his mouth. He missed. On his other side, his daughter giggled.

“Ewww.” She laughed, swinging on his other arm, “Daddy, you—

“AUGH!!” Cobalt dropped the basket and kicked it away from him. What the hell? He whirled around, but the man and the little girl weren’t there.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"I'm surrounded by insomniacs," Josh sighed, shaking his head in mock distress. Sean never got enough sleep, either. He wished he had some suggestion to help his friends, but the best he could offer was a, "But congratulations on getting a full nights sleep. Maybe this is the start of a new era..." One could only hope; he didn't know what it was like to be unable to sleep on a regular basis, but he was sure that he wouldn't function nearly so well as either Sean or Cobalt. When he failed to get sleep he became grouchy and his brain melted.

He nodded and headed to the Halloween aisle, scrutinizing the bags of candy. He wasn't sure how much would be enough because he didn't know how many children resided in his neighborhood, or if children from other parts of Pilot Ridge would come by. "Should we get some for the inmates at Hammel, too?" He asked; it wasn't their fault they were kidnapped and forced to attend school there. He didn't know if the school would allow them out for Trick or Treating, and if not then they should at least be given candy as recompense for being held against their will and being unable to dress up in costumes and beg from the locals.

Cobalt's startled shout caused Josh to jump, clutching at his chest. "What!" He demanded, annoyed to realize that his heart was now racing. "What's the matter?" There didn't appear to be anything wrong. Oh, no! What if the sociopath on the loose had gotten into Cobalt's mind, and that was merely a sign? Would someone know if they were being taken over? Ugh, no, what a ridiculous idea, why would he even think that? There was probably just a spider in the basket or something. Nothing serious. "What happened? Don't tell me you're afraid of the Halloween decorations." He laughed shakily.

"So," He asked after a moment, "What do you think? How many bags of candy are appropriate? Definitely more than one and not because I plan on eating some myself or anything."

An excuse to buy and eat candy was, of course, the one and only reason for remembering that Halloween existed as a holiday. That and Sean's reminder earlier in the month, though that had been a suggestion that he host a party. After the awkwardness that was the last group gathering he'd attended, however, he wasn't sure that another party so soon after was a good idea. People needed time before being forced to face one another again; he needed time before he could face most of the other party-goers, anyway, although some of them had no choice, having to work together and all. So no Halloween party -- just candy. Candy he was purchasing ostensibly for the children.

"Hmmm. Here, what about this one?" He asked, holding out the largest variety bag of chocolate he could find for Cobalt's approval.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt didn’t catch Josh’s ribbing about his sleep patterns, nor did he catch the question about bringing candy to the students at Hammel. He was a little busy having a completely unexpected vision about people he didn’t know in the middle of a grocery store. Once he came out of it, Josh was looking at him, annoyed and confused, clutching his chest. Cobalt would be apologetic, if he weren’t completely panicked. He didn’t know where that came from; it didn’t feel like an attack, but Cobalt didn’t have mental powers, so it didn’t make sense that he would be having visions of anything, let alone children and parents in a supermarket. He looked up at Josh, then back at the basket, then back at Josh. He pointed at the basket that lay innocuously on its side where he kicked it.

“No. No. It’s—I don’t. I…” He gestured at the basket, lost for words, “I saw stuff. About the basket. In the basket. I don’t know! I—rral.” He growled, running a hand through his hair.

Josh’s remark and subsequent appraisal of candy helped get Cobalt’s head back on straight. “No Josh, focus. I—look, this is going to sound crazy, but I just had a… hell, I don’t even know. Some kind of telepathic vision? I don’t know.” The panic was wearing off and he was quickly getting frustrated. “All I know is I touched the basket and saw some people who aren’t here now.” He frowned, trying to sort this out, “I—maybe I was looking into the past? But that doesn’t make any sense Josh.” Okay, so maybe the panic wasn’t gone. “I don’t have the ability to do time things. Or psychic things. Or vision things! I can do shadow things! I--”

He stopped, his eyes growing wide as a terrible thought came to mind. He looked down at his feet, where the fluorescent lights cast a weak shadow at his feet. It wouldn’t move. Cobalt stared down at the shadow, willing it to move, do anything.

“Josh, I can’t make shadows.” Cobalt looked up at his friend, “I can’t even move them. What the hell is going on? Why am I getting random visions instead of doing what I usually do?” He really didn’t have any idea why he was asking Josh these things, but if he was being honest with himself, he’d rather have company during his panic than not. He took a few deep breaths. He had wanted this to be a generally normal day, too… “Okay. Okay, lemme think about this. Is it… I wonder if it’s possible to just… switch powers. For no reason. I don’t think there is.” He rubbed his forehead. He didn’t want to think about not having his power, he liked his power. It was nice. He didn’t want another one. He was getting too old for this nonsense.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh eyed the basket suspiciously for a moment before walking over and picking it up, examining it inside and out. "It looks safe." He announced after a moment, finding no evidence of spiders or anything else worth shouting over.

He raised an eyebrow at the younger man. Focus?! He was focusing! They had a mission -- purchase candy. He was very focused. Cobalt was the one who was distracted. Still, he shoved his bag of candy into the basket and listened seriously to the talk of visions. "A vision...." He repeated. It wasn't that he didn't believe in visions; his time spent around meta-humans had lead him to the distinct realization that somewhere out there was a human being who could do almost anything at all. However, as his friend said, people did not just receive visions at random. They were gifted with that ability and that ability alone, so he had to agree that whatever happened didn't make sense. "Unless there's someone around here who causes other people to have visions..." He mused aloud, scanning the aisle for any sign that someone else might be about. He could see an employee restocking in the bakery section; maybe....?

Cobalt's realization that he couldn't control his own power, however, quickly dispelled that notion. He didn't think it would be possible for someone to both suppress powers and cause visions -- although he admitted he was no expert. He simply knew what Sean had relayed to him over the course of nearly thirty years. "I don't know!!" He shrugged helplessly. In all his years of knowing Sean he had never heard of anything remotely like this. He wished he could suggest a perfectly reasonable explanation, but he couldn't. So much for candy; he couldn't very well insist they continue shopping while Cobalt was having a panic attack over his sudden loss of shadow control.

"Ummmmm." He offered. "Sorry. I have no idea. That's really...that's really strange." He looked about the aisle again, as if this would give him any answers. "We ummm we could call the school..." Ugh, he hated to admit that they might know anything, but there it was. When it came to meta-human issues they really were the preeminent resource. "Or maybe just Clarisse, she's the side effects specialist, surely she would know something." In anyone would. Someone had to know!

"Or maybe it's just the store, we could go somewhere else," He continued, because he really had no idea what else to suggest. Was it possible for locations to impact meta-human powers? It wasn't anything he'd heard of before, but it would be much preferable to leave the store and realize that Cobalt could control his rightful powers once again than have to rely on the Institute for help.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt took several deep breaths to settle himself down. He shouldn’t be yelling at Josh, this wasn’t Josh’s fault, and he really shouldn’t expect Josh to know what was going on, Josh wasn’t even meta. He ran a hand through his hair. “Right. Sorry. It’s okay…” He took another deep breath. Maybe this was just a momentary attack. Maybe it wouldn’t happen again. Freaking out about it wasn’t going to help anyone at all…

He grimaced at the thought of going to Hammel about his problems. He’d had enough of their training when he was a child. “No.” He said decisively, “I’m okay. I’ll be fine. It’s probably… it’s probably nothing. I’m probably just getting sick or something.” He didn’t feel very hopeful about this, but deny and evade was usually his way of business, and he couldn’t see any reason to change that now. “Let’s just… let’s get some goddamn candy.” Now he was just cranky, and candy usually fixed everything, so. He eyed the basket. “…Maybe you should hold the basket, though. I don’t… I’m just not gonna.”

He gave the basket a suspicious glare and a wide berth. Back to business. Nothing was wrong. He just wanted to buy some candy. For children. Sure. That shouldn’t be so hard. Right.

There was a single large bag of York peppermint patties. He glanced at Josh, then his hand snaked out. “Dibs!” He called out, reaching to snatch the bag up—

”Mommy, mommy!” A little boy’s hand snaked out and grabbed a bag of York patties from the full shelf. “Can we get it? I want some pleeeeease!”

His little sister pulled the thumb out of her mouth and grabbed the bag out of his hands, her little hand smearing spit all over the bag. “Yeah, we want some!”

Their mother, a harried-looking woman with a baby in her arms, looked at them sternly, “No, we’ve got enough candy. Put it back.”

The children moaned, but put the bag back, burying it under the other bags, so it would be the only one left behind in—

Cobalt reared back and dropped the bag. There it went again! He stared at the bag, then glared at Josh’s basket in his hands. “Hey, gimme that.” Without waiting for Josh to respond, he pulled the basket out of his hands and—

And there they were, Cobalt looking a little more harried than he would like, looking across at Josh and smirking.

“Dibs!” And reaching for the—

He dropped the basket, looking triumphantly at Josh. “I figured it out! For some reason, whenever I touch things, I can see what happened last.” He considered the implications of his words. Then, he made a face, “Also, you can have that last bag of York’s if you want. I don’t want it anymore.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh nodded slowly at Cobalt's assurances that he was fine. He hadn't behaved as if he was fine; was suppression of meta-abilities a normal sign of illness? He'd never heard of anything like that before and honestly it sounded more than a bit worrisome.

He shifted the basket in his grip, glancing down at it in puzzlement. It seemed like a normal, harmless basket, not the sort of item that would be the cause of visions. He couldn't tell if his friend was upset because visions were normally not his power or because the vision itself was something disturbing.

"Have at," He replied, crouching down to see what other types of candy were available. There wasn't any particular type of candy he favored, so he wasn't going to get into arguments in the middle of the grocery store over the remaining bag. Really the variety bags seemed to be the best deal, as they meant he didn't have to make a decision about one candy over the other. And a variety was better for children. Right, children. That reminded him, he still hadn't gotten an answer about distributing candy at Hammel.

"So ummm. Are you on board with handing out candy to the students at Hammel? Or does the school do its own celebration?"

But once again his question was ignored as his companion dropped the bag of York's he was carrying. "Ummm...." He began again, mentally preparing himself for another freak out. But none came. Instead the basket was snatched away from him.

"...What are you....??" He demanded, stooping to pick up the basket once more, shaking his head. This was obviously distressing to Cobalt, and he really wanted to be patient and understanding, but it was difficult when his friend kept randomly flinging things across the aisle.

He wrinkled his brow at Cobalt's explanation. "You....what?? What do you mean you see what happened last??" He questioned, his gaze straying over to the bag of candy still lying on the floor. "....that's suspiciously generous of you. Are you feeling unwell? Or do you just not want them now that you dropped them on the floor? I am pretty sure the plastic bag is protection enough, the candy itself isn't going to have floor germs all over it."

[Cobalt Weaver]

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Cobalt gave him a ‘keep up’ look, “I mean what I mean. I mean… wait.” He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, “Now you’re confusing me. I mean that when I touch… I dunno. I guess anything. Then I see what happened last to it.” On a whim, he poked Josh in the shoulder. A little harder than he intended. Nothing happened. “Apparently, it doesn’t work on people. Okay.” He pushed his glasses up, “Okay. Well, maybe we—ow!” Pain spiked at his temples, sudden and fierce. He pressed his knuckles to his eyes, momentarily nauseated by the sudden headache. He breathed in sharply through his nose, waiting for it to pass. Once it became as manageable as his headaches usually were, he looked back up, eyes watering. “Okay. Also, it aggravates headaches.”

He looked back at the bag of candy and grimaced, “No, no. It’s just… you can have it.” He looked suspiciously down the aisle of candy and sighed. He didn’t really want to have to see every damn thing that happened to every damn bag of candy in this whole damned store. He thought back to when he was a kid, and he couldn’t make shadows do what he wanted. There were certain mental exercises he remembered that helped him focus when he was learning his powers. It probably wouldn’t hurt to try them now.

He sighed, rolling his eyes. “What a damned pain,” He mumbled, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. Think here, think now, visualize what you want, and make it go; an old lesson he remembered from his time at Hammel. And while his feelings toward Hammel were less than positive, he had to admit that this time, he would make a brief concession to its teachers—they always knew what they were talking about.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and stared down at his intended target: a variety bag of chocolate. He set his mouth in a determined line and grabbed it.

Nothing happened.

Triumphant, Cobalt threw the bag in Josh’s basket before he lost control and sighed in relief. “Hah.” He said, feeling a little smug. All things considered, he thought he was handling this rather well. But god damn, this was gonna be a lot of work.

“So.” He said, trying to trick his mind into thinking things were normal, “Do a lot of kids come by where you live? Because I’m gonna be honest with you, there are no children where I live. It’s a hole. No self-respecting parent is gonna raise children in that place. I’m mostly buying this stuff because if I steal any more of Leila’s candy, she’s gonna sic her dog on me. Her fluffy, chubby, short dog that I am sure is evil.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh was definitely not expecting to be prodded in so rude a manner, and despite the fact that Cobalt was shorter he ended up stumbling back a few paces in surprise. "What was that for?!" He griped, rubbing at his shoulder in irritation before the explanation sank in. Oh.

He eyed the York's bag in puzzlement. The younger man's sudden lack of interest in it coupled with his deduction of what power he now had made accepting the offer to keep the candy seem a questionable decision, at best. "Really. Let's just put it back, then." He decided, snatching the bag off the ground and shoving it back onto the shelves with little regard to placement

"I've seen a few," He responded, relieved that the conversation had taken a turn away from panic,"but I don't know if they trick or treat in my neighborhood or if there are places with a superior treats selection they gravitate toward. I'll find out on Halloween." Truthfully, he wouldn't be terribly upset if he spent the entire evening alone with a basket of candy. He didn't dislike children, exactly, but he never really knew how to interact with them and while handing out candy involved minimal contact there was a certain amount of oh, what a nice costume. what are you supposed to be? that was expected. That just wasn't something he was comfortable with, and, if he were completely honest, having most of his purchase to himself was an appealing prospect.

."I don't think dogs can be evil," He added, tossing a few extra bags of varying candy flavors into his basket for good measure, "Although I can't be sure, having never had one. I have a rabbit and I don't think she would get along with a dog, evil or not. Speaking of, what's Leila doing for Halloween?" He assumed that she would be out partying with the other young people rather than passing out candy to children. At least, it seemed a safe assumption that most of the younger adults would be attending parties. "If you don't think you'll have any children come by your place and Leila is busy, you can come hand out candy with me," He offered, "and we can split the remainder when we're done."

Having company was always preferable to being alone, even if said company was only there to eat bags of candy. He wondered if he should invite Sean to join them; he imagined that with a house as huge as his best friend's was he had no shortage of children stopping by. In fact, the older man had probably made a reputation for himself as the best place to get candy in the entire town. "Right. Does that look like enough candy to you?" He asked, holding out his basket for inspection, "You uhhh you don't have to touch any of it, just look and make a guess."

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt gave Josh a serious look, “I am certain most dogs are evil. They hide it behind happy faces and supposed loyalty. It’s all very clever.” Then, unable to keep it up, he grinned, “No, I just don’t like dogs. Also, I didn’t know Corgis existed until I hired Leila. And what kind of dog doesn’t have a tail?” He shook his head. He shrugged at the mention of his erstwhile intern, “Dunno. She probably has plans.”

He looked at Josh in utter surprise at his offer. He never really did anything for any holiday, as he’d always held a rather solitary existence. “Really?” He tried to keep his surprise out of his voice, “Uh. Yeah, I would really like that, actually. And hey, more candy for the grabs. Also, I’d really like to watch the kids come by. It’s cute to see what they come up with for costumes.” To say that Cobalt liked children would be an understatement. Cobalt adored children. “I lived in Chicago before we came to Pilot Ridge, and I lived in a place with more kids. It was nice. I’d do shadow tricks on the walls. They loved it.” He grinned a little at the memory.

He peeked in the basket, nodding in approval, “Well, I think we have enough candy to feed an army, so we should be good.” He rubbed his forehead, still aching from the headache that tapped lightly at his temples. “I hate headaches.” He sighed deeply, “Anyway. I think I’m gonna need to take a nap or do something relaxing after this. My head’s going to burst. And it may help my power… difficulties.” He hated being laid up, and would usually just ignore it in favor of pushing on and hoping it went away on its own, but this kind of concerned him, and he didn’t really want to mess with things concerning his power.

That and he kind of wanted to be better by Halloween. Just a little bit.