"What was that?" Jessica, surprisingly attentive for once, had escorted Chris back to his own apartment. Equally out of character for a selfish drunk, she helped him wash up and change his shirt while Chris did everything in his power to process what had just happened.
"I don't know," Chris shook his head slowly. "But I think I got shot..."
"Not 'think' — you got shot," Jessica corrected him without mercy. "You were bleeding like a stuck pig... and then you just..."
"I..." Chris carefully lifted his shirt, slowly feeling along his undamaged skin. "Healed? No... not healed... Something way cooler than that..."
"Decent power, I'll give you that," Jessica narrowed her eyes approvingly. "So you're a mutant?"
An unpleasant, barely audible ringing suddenly appeared at the edge of his consciousness. Chris could still hear Jessica's voice, but with every word she spoke the ringing grew louder and louder, bringing with it an intensifying migraine.
SYNCHRONIZATION: 2%
"A mut— " Chris urgently cleared his throat against an uncomfortable scratching sensation when he tried to speak. "...tant?"
"You know, those things," Jessica waved her hand dismissively, as if Chris should have figured it out himself. "Radioactive people..."
"First time I've heard of them," Chris frowned, caught between a deeply contradictory and strange feeling. On one hand, Jessica's certainty was grating, since she spoke about "mutants" as if they were an everyday occurrence, while Chris had no idea what she was talking about. On the other hand, with every mention of this unknown phenomenon, the migraine and discomfort in his body and mind grew worse. As though his very system was insisting he steer the conversation elsewhere.
"That can't be right," she said with a condescending smirk. "They made such a mess of things in the eighties that half the world was standing on its head. Nearly kicked off World War Three. And even now, every so often something about them pops up..."
"I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about," Chris muttered under Jessica's probing gaze. "Everything I remember about the eighties from history books is the sexual revolution leading to the spread of HIV, with heavy drugs thrown on top. I don't remember any mut— any radioactive people."
"So this is what old people feel like when they see kids who don't know what to do with a vinyl record..." Jessica muttered to herself. Though as a reasonably competent detective, she had a gut feeling something was wrong about all of this. "Alright, do you at least know who Steve Rogers is?"
"Of course," Chris answered immediately.
"Then why don't you know anything about mutants?" Jessica murmured in bewilderment. "Did something happen to your memory? Let's run a basic check. Snitches?"
"Get stitches," Chris answered on autopilot.
"Hip-hop?"
"Love it."
"New York Knicks?"
"Suck."
"Los Angeles?"
"Los Angeles can go to hell!"
"Right," Jessica nodded sagely. "Habits and values drilled in from birth, working like clockwork. Typical New Yorker. Let's try something harder... Pythagorean theorem?"
"Uh..."
"The number pi?"
"Uh-huh..."
"Good," Jessica nodded at her own thoughts. "Harlem upbringing intact. Steve Rogers?"
"Captain America."
"Tony Stark?"
"Lucky son of a bitch."
"I don't get it," Jessica muttered to herself. "How can you not know about mutants?"
ѕΥИΧΡΟΗΙΖΑΤΙΟΝ: 2$
The pain at his temples was becoming outright unbearable.
If Jessica hadn't been absorbed in her little investigation, she would have noticed the capillaries bursting in Chris's eyes.
"Well, maybe you know about, what's it called..." Jessica snapped her fingers a couple of times, trying to grab the word off the tip of her tongue. "The X-gene?"
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The moment Jessica finished saying the word that meant nothing to Chris's mind—
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
From his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, Chris—
"Now I'm covered in this crap!"
—sprayed jets of blood.
"What was THAT?!" A visibly furious Jessica scrubbed her face ferociously, trying to wipe Chris's blood off her own skin. "Why is it that every time I try to have a conversation with you, you— you spray me with your own blood?!"
"Sorry," Chris said absently, on autopilot, examining his face for any traces of damage. "I have absolutely no idea what just happened..."
Hand of God: Twelve Great Labors [10/12]
SYNCHRONIZATION: 2%
Good God...
He'd died.
Again.
And it hadn't even been an hour...
"You know," Jessica said, lips pressing together in displeasure, "I think I've just come up with the perfect superhero name for you — the one you'll use to protect the streets of our undeniably wonderful city! Fear him! Tremble before him! For standing guard over justice is... The Human Corpse!"
"Pff..." Chris couldn't hold back a laugh at the sheer absurdity of the whole situation.
"I'm a natural comedian, what can I say, born that way," she shot him a pointed look. "But doesn't it seem to you that dying twice in a row is a fairly alarming sign?"
"Was it definitely death?" Chris asked, not entirely sure.
Yes, his own sensations were unmistakable, but there was a difference between suspecting something and seriously claiming he'd died twice in a row and immediately come back to life.
"Your eyes burst, for crying out loud!" Jessica grabbed him by his shirt collar and yelled in his face. It was clear that an up-close encounter with what had basically been a head explosion hadn't done much for her mood. "They popped like light bulbs right in front of my face! Like someone had shoved a high-voltage cable deep up your backside and then really let you have it!"
"I don't know," Chris shook his head. "I just... don't understand what's happening. But that last death came from a conversation about what were they called... mm... Something starting with 'M'?"
"'M'?" Jessica raised her eyebrows in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"What do you mean?"
Chris stared at Jessica in bewilderment. She had literally been going on about some kind of radioactive people just a minute ago.
"We were thinking about where your powers might have come from..." she reminded him carefully.
"And what were the theories?" Chris asked, equally careful.
"Maybe a lab, maybe you're descended from some vampire or mummy," Jessica shrugged indifferently, wincing from a completely unexpected headache. "I have no idea where your abilities came from..."
"What the hell..." Chris murmured in shock. "What is going on here?"
He was absolutely certain they had been talking about... What had they been talking about?
Chris had never considered himself the most talented, the most athletic, or the most intelligent person.
But for some reason he was one hundred percent certain that if you put a far more talented person in his exact position, the result wouldn't change.
In reality, his "calm" — however heavily laced with bewilderment it was — was admirable.
Though perhaps the resurrection mechanic was somehow dampening his emotions.
Chris wasn't certain of anything at all.
A phone ringing pulled both Jessica and Chris out of their complicated thoughts.
Picking up his phone, Chris recognized with surprise the only contact saved in his phone book.
"Mr. Kramer is calling..." Chris pursed his lips nervously. "He probably heard the shot and came back. And when he got to the shop he found neither me, nor the shotgun, nor any money in the register... I need to get back there immediately and explain what happened."
"Alright, it's been a blast, great party, wonderful host, fun games, but..." Jessica tiredly picked up her battered clothes and headed for the door. "I think I'll head home."
"Home?" Chris was slightly caught off guard by Jessica's intention. "But I thought you'd..."
"Chris, you're a decent guy," Jessica sighed, turning to look at him. "But I don't need problems. Well, when I'm sober," she corrected herself under Chris's ironic gaze. "But today, heading out for one stupid bottle of beer, I ran into the Irish mob in freaking Harlem, watched you get shot, and then experienced firsthand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a 'facial' from the fever dreams of a Hannibal Lecter type maniac. I'm hardly the smartest or most educated person around, but even I can see that 'friendship' with you is a bundle of thoroughly bleak and bloody problems. So..." She shrugged awkwardly. "I'm sorry."
"I..." Chris took a deep breath, trying to quiet the disappointment in his chest. "I understand."
He himself had always tried to stay out of trouble and keep a low profile. Well, up until the moment he grabbed a shotgun and went after two gangsters.
Of course, Chris had hoped that from this point on, at least some kind of friendship might begin...
But circumstances had genuinely turned out about as badly as they could.
He had no right to drag Jessica into this. He was nobody to her.
"Bye," Jessica turned awkwardly and walked out of the apartment...
Or rather, she sort of started to.
Freezing on the threshold, Jessica glanced back a couple of times at his eyes — full of hope and naivety, like a baby deer. She mentally scolded herself for being too soft, and...
"Fine," Jessica sighed, ignoring the grin spreading on Chris's face all the way up to his ears. And it couldn't be forgotten that in the past half hour he'd been shot and had his head nearly explode. "Now I understand why you were stuck in a psychiatric ward..."
"Thank you, Jessica," said a moved Chris, the only words that came to mind.
In reply he received only a sigh full of exhaustion.
"So," Chris sat down across from his elderly boss and made an awkward confession. "I got shot."
Silence.
Mr. Kramer looked at him with an indescribable expression.
And Jessica...
"Id-i-ot..." she groaned through her palms.
"You..." Kramer began carefully. "Got shot?"
"Yep," Chris nodded like a bobblehead.
"Where?"
"Right here," Chris pointed to his completely intact stomach. "And I died."
"You died," Mr. Kramer said, in a tone that was somewhere between a question and a confirmation.
"Yep."
"Are you taking your medication?"
"I don't take any!" Chris said, offended.
"More's the pity..."
Silence settled once more over the small back room that served as the shop's office.
And it would have stayed that way, had Jessica not decided to take guardianship over the young and inexperienced superhuman.
"He's still in shock from everything, because..." Jessica bit her lip, trying to invent an excuse on the fly. "I slept with him!"
Silence was apparently going to become a tradition in their not-exactly-standard company...
"You slept with him," Mr. Kramer nodded again, unperturbed.
"Yes, yes," Chris went along with it under the fierce gaze of his new and only friend. "We really, really... you know. Had very intense sex!"
Jessica, cursing internally in the filthiest terms imaginable, decided to take matters into her own hands.
"When he went chasing after those gangsters, I just saw him in a whole new light!" Jessica continued with enthusiasm. "He couldn't find those lowlifes, but he caught up to his savior instead, and in gratitude I gave myself to him! And from there it's just the boring part, consisting of hot and unbridled sex!"
"I even finished on her face!"
And again that damned silence, broken only by Jessica, who looked as though she was about to grind her teeth to dust from sheer rage. Apparently Chris's last contribution hadn't gone over particularly well.
And Mr. Kramer commented on the whole thing with a single word.
"...Fine."