Dawn came too soon. Shin's sleep had been restless. Power Growths and Shock Collars did that to a man. They made him wonder where he stood in the world, and how he even stood at all. In the resulting buffet of buzzes from the collar, one thing had become clear about his status.

One. Exactly One.

Thing.

Whatever had happened to him was an active trait. It wasn't something he could turn off. That meant that every time he opened his eyes, he had to close them again, or face the shock collar's wrath. It certainly wasn't the most entertaining ability, mute darkness. It left no room for practicing, no room for number fun... though NUMBER FUN! Wait, no... just number. As in, more numb.

Toe kick dirt. This was no fun.

Shin rolled to a seated position in his bunk. He turned his head towards where he assumed Tarin's bunk was. He'd lost the use of his sight for the moment, but that was no excuse for being senseless. He'd paid close attention to the sounds of the camp before he'd drifted off to dreamless sleep the night before. That included listening for the mattress's squeak as Tarin had laid down.

The corners of Shin's mouth sagged in a parabola-frown. "You awake?" He asked the air. "I've been thinking..."

Tarin had definitely had trouble falling asleep that night. Something had changed in Shin, something with his powers. Now the young man could not see, at least not without activating the shock collar that was clamped around his neck. It was a definitely problem, a problem that was going to be difficult to solve unless one of them learned to speak Romanian, made friends with a guard, and convinced them to change the calibration of Shin’s collar. That was about as likely as Rupert getting laid.

Tarin had laughed at his mental quip, then felt bad about the internal laugh, this was no joking situation. Shin couldn’t even open his eyes, probably wouldn’t be able to for quite some time. It made the Medium angry, and impotent anger was something incredibly difficult to deal with. Tarin wasn’t the type to simply vent anger because it was there, but knowing that he couldn’t have even if he wanted to made him want to even more.

So, when Shin’s voice rang out in the night, Tarin’s eyes opened to darkness and the sounds of other people sleeping in the bunks. For a moment, the Medium considered not saying anything, sleep would do both of them good. Tarin let his eyes scan the darkness though, and sighed, raising his voice only as much as was necessary to carry it to Shin’s nearby bunk.

”Yeah Shin, I’m awake. What’s on your mind?”

"I'm worried..." Shin started slowly. His voice shook. "About Kasumi... about Lee... about, well, everyone." He bowed his head. "You think they're safe... I'd like to think... but..." He let out a disappointed sigh. "I don't even know what happened to Jaxon..."

He'd been weak. Too weak to protect her, and... "I couldn't even keep... her safe."

Tarin looked into the dark as Shin spoke and imagined that if he’d been able to see his own face it was grim. Some of the things Shin was saying were echoed in his own feelings and the older man didn’t really know what to do to make Shin feel better. The truth was that Shin was right, there was no way to know if Lee or Kasumi was in the camp somewhere. They easily could be. Tarin’s jaw clenched, that was not what Shin needed to hear.

”Look Shin, things like this take faith. Times like this take faith.”

The silence stretched out for a few moments and Tarin sighed, ”If they were here, we would have found them, right? I mean we found you after a half hour here.They’re out there, and they’re coming for us Shin. As to the other…”

Silence again as Tarin thought, he’d felt the same way before about Lee. When Lee had gotten taken to the camps. ”No matter how hard you try , no matter how good you are, bad things are going to happen sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up about it kid…you did good.”

>>”Look Shin, things like this take faith. Times like this take faith.”

Shin said nothing... faith... right.
...He didn't even think he could have faith in himself. He'd let everyone down. At parliament... in other bodies... even in a cage.

If only he'd done things differently, Shin wondered, would they have turned out a different way? Though why? He had to wonder why he'd done them the way he had on the first try.

Tarin said something further. Shin missed it. He was too busy being lost in his head.

Why had he...?

>>”No matter how hard you try , no matter how good you are, bad things are going to happen sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up about it kid…you did good.”

Tarin's words came to him. Shin uselessly shook his head. He hadn't. He really... Shin fought down the ball in his throat. He didn't like the thought he'd just had. Still, he had to ask the question. He needed answers, and...


No need to beat around the bush. ". . . Tarin." A pause. "Do you think. . . " Do you think? "It's wrong to date co-workers..." Wrong. Shin laid back down, and let thoughts form images in the back of his eyes. "Because I... I feel like, if I hadn't been dating her at the time... like, if I hadn't put myself out there to worry... hadn't let her worry enough to drag herself out to this godforsaken country... things would be different.

And I'd have been stronger... and..." He let the words hang out there.

Silly thought.

Shin was uncharacteristically quiet while Tarin spoke about faith and how sometimes things were just beyond outside control. Tarin knew it when someone wasn’t buying his lines, he’d conned people into thinking he was a con for years. Shin wasn’t buying a word he said and Tarin hated himself a little bit for not doing a better job of comforting his younger friend.

The triangle-mancer’s next question caught Tarin completely off guard and the Medium spent a few moments staring at the bottom of the bunk above him for a few long moments before he was able to answer. Dating co-workers? The rest of the explanation made everything make sense though. Obviously Shin had gotten involved with one of the other x’s. Now he was worried that involvement had caused all of this to happen.

”Shin, you probably don’t know about the second part of my powers. See…sometimes…I turn into something really nasty.” Tarin was quiet for a moment as he let that sink in, his merging powers weren’t really the point of the story. He’d answer questions later if Shin had them, but for now…. ”Lee got into the middle of it one time, long before we were married. We’d only been dating for a little while and…I hurt her badly. She had a concussion, some broken ribs, a broken collarbone.” Tarin stopped and swallowed, it was still hard to talk about, but he continued. Shin deserved more than contrived lines, and this was the best way the medium could think of to relate.

”I tried to leave her after I got her to her brother’s place. Made it all the way to Maine before she tracked me down.” Tarin shook his head in the dark, smiling up again, ”She’d come all the way there, arm in a sling, just to give me a piece of her mind. It was a glorious thing, Shin, she had me begging her not to leave by the end. I’m digressing though….” Tarin pulled his mind from the memories and back to the task at hand, ”The point is, I’d tried to protect her without taking what she wanted into consideration. Just because you care about someone doesn’t mean you can make all the right decisions for them. At some point you have to learn to let go and let them live their own lives with you. As for dating co-workers.” Tarin shrugged and grinned into the dark, ”You can’t control where you meet the person who sparkles your eyes any more than you can control who they’re going to be.”

" . . . When I first met Kasumi, she was innocent. She had the cutest smile, bright as fresh snow... we introduced ourselves, talked... then, I started teaching her to fight. I thought she had what it took. Her first punch..." For a moment, Shin's lips jarred upwards like the rise of a graph. He remembered the feeling. "She picked up what I was teaching fast... and before I knew it... she could box." Shin shook his head. "I didn't know at the time she liked me. Didn't know, until she flat-out told me... she seemed so uncertain, man. So young. Didn't know what to do... I kind of feel like a jerk, actually. I was her teacher. I should have kept things professional, and all that, but hey..."

It wasn't like he'd led her on. It wasn't like he'd done anything improper, just been charming, and worn that tuxedo well... Shin was silent for a moment, thinking. What Tarin had said... about how he'd hurt Lee when they'd just been starting out, and how she'd fought to keep him... it was deep, and difficult. That was a lot to go through.

Shin thought he got the moral Tarin was trying to share... but...

Shin rolled to his side, and tried to imagine how their stories compared.

"With Kasumi... it was never like that. Like I could do no wrong... but still, I did so many things I shouldn't have done... taught her to fight. That led to trouble... her very first battle was at King's Pharmaceuticals. She nearly lost her life. The next fight was..." A quick mental calculation brought a jarring shock collar reminder. Shin caught himself before he rolled from his bunk. "bad." The word came out staggered. "I... I tried telling Sam... telling him..." His thoughts were blurred from the pain, but he continued. "Telling him, that I couldn't work with her on my team. First fight, she nearly dies... second fight, she overextends..." Oh, but the second fight came after he'd told Sam, hadn't it? And after he'd been disowned... "It wasn't her, though... it was me. I was coddling her. ... Coddling her, and... being unfair... But I still feel that way, Tarin. Like I can't fight with her on my team. And if I fight, and I try to protect her, I make sloppy mistakes, and lose myself... and she doesn't even know..."

A grunt escaped him. Shin rolled to his back, and spoke into the bunk above him. He wore a pained look. "Did I even tell you why I'd been thrown into the camps in the first place... it's a... great story..."

Shin felt sick.

Tarin actually almost smiled as he listened to Shin talk about his little love. When it was dark and quiet like it was at that moment, it was easy to forget that they were in the middle of what amounted to a concentration camp. Shin spoke and Tarin listened, surprised at the responsibility Shin had taken on. From what he’d known of Shin, the kid had always been kind of carefree, not the type Tarin had pegged for a defense teacher. He’d seen the way Shin had worked at the Senate bombing, though, the kid was good with his powers. Why wouldn’t he be able to fight?

Only…the kid was beating himself up now. That hadn’t been what Tarin intended at all with his story. The medium frowned at the bunk above his again and listened to Shin try to put into words exactly what it was tearing him to pieces.

Shin brought up the fight at the Pharmaceutical building and Tarin winced again. Shin had been there. With everything that had happened afterwards, that fact had slipped his mind. Tarin tried to think back, tried to remember the girl Shin was talking about and came up blank. There had been so many near-deaths during that fight. The result had been so nuts too, with powers going crazy and the like. It really wasn’t a wonder Lee’d had difficulty dealing with it. Tarin counted his ability to deal with the fact that he’d spent his life seeing more gruesome things every time a spirit came within shouting distance.

Shin jerked in his bunk as he tried to talk and Tarin came half out of his before he realized it had only been a minor correction from the collar. If Shin could still talk…Tarin shuddered at the way his mind was starting to work. Shin worked it out and kept talking, the picture started to become more and more clear and Tarin sighed sadly. There wasn’t a cure for what Shin had.

The question was bitter, and Tarin hesitated before he nodded his head in the dark, ”You didn’t. I’m guessing you know how I got here. I wish you wouldn‘t be so hard on yourself though. I know it‘s easy for me to say…but there it is.”

>>"... I wish you wouldn‘t be so hard on yourself though. I know it‘s easy for me to say…but there it is.”

". . . How can I not?" Shin folded his hands behind his head, and kicked the bottom of the bunk. "I got tossed into the camps over something as trivial as seeing a minor acquaintance getting kidnapped, and trying to stop it... and the worst part is... that she used to be Kasumi's face."

Stupid... He was stupid. He'd been reckless, when the X-men were fighting for something bigger than one little rescue. He'd made the mistake... it couldn't be taken back now, either.

Was he beating himself up? Shin didn't really care. He should be stronger than he was, anyway. He'd been stronger before... back, when he fought in the rings. All alone... at the beck and call of one miss Megara Cerberus. He only trained as hard as he did because he was weak...

and if he wavered just an instant... well, he couldn't handle the uncertainty.

It had to go.

”You can not by reminding yourself about the good things you’ve done, Shin.” Tarin said, shaking his head and wincing slightly when the other man kicked the bunk above him. Nobody stirred, though, and Tarin breathed a little sigh of relief. Starting a fight with him collared and Shin unable to really see would be a bad thing.


The younger man told his story and Tarin did laugh, waving a hand towards the other bunk, even if the kid couldn’t see it. ”Shin…did you hear what just came out of your mouth? You got thrown in here in defense of another. That’s about the most noble reasoning a person can have for getting imprisoned.” Tarin cast a look towards Slate’s bunk, it was quiet over there.

”I got thrown in here because I couldn’t let Slate end up here by himself.” Tarin sighed, ”I wonder when Lee found out. I hadn’t seen her much….she was doing some work…and the way she was dressed. Though she was going to keep it for….our….” Tarin broke off with a slightly pained groan.

“Shin. Do you know what the date is?” Tarin sighed, then latched his mind onto something else for a moment, the last thing Shin had said.

”Did you guys get mixed up in that whole muffin fiasco too? Lee and I did….” Tarin cut off as a spirit made its way through the barracks, initiating the collar, the thing was just wandering though and as soon as it passed, the current stopped. ”Lee and I had our fair share of trouble for however long it was…but that’s besides the point…” Tarin shifted on the bed, looking toward where Shin would be laying in the dark, ”Number one, I doubt you’d have simply let them take her…even if you’d never seen her before in your life. Number two, when you associate something with the people you care about, you’re going to do whatever you can to protect it. That’s human nature.”

>>”You can not by reminding yourself about the good things you’ve done, Shin.”

Didn't change the message of his statements...

>>”Shin…did you hear what just came out of your mouth? You got thrown in here in defense of another. That’s about the most noble reasoning a person can have for getting imprisoned.”

Didn't change the problem underlying it all...

Didn't change the fact he was assuming control of what could end up a bigger problem. Didn't change the fact he wanted to be stronger for both him and Kasumi, but for the life of him, he was unable to. Didn't change anything... didn't change...

No. Shin was stuck in italics, on stubborn mode. And nothing Tarin had said changed the way he felt. He couldn't see any of Tarins points, anyhow.

He couldn't see...

Shin sighed.

>>“Shin. Do you know what the date is?”

"Some time after the 1st... I dunno... the 6th?" It was hard keeping track of the days in here. All one of them, and Shin was feeling grumpy now. Cue grumpy arms, crossed.

Then, Tarin was talking about muffins.

""Muffins?" Muffins. Muffins? "I don't know what you're talking abou-" His thoughts jerked to a halt. Wait, whoa. What? Tarin and Lee, body-swapped? Gender-swapped? Hit the brakes, people! "Oh. Yeah, maybe it is... but..."

His voice fell.

It wasn't that he was mad at her for making him weak. It wasn't that he was mad at Jaxon for wearing Kasumi's face... it wasn't that he was mad about anything. More, let-down. And uncertain. And stubborn. And unsure. And one other synonym for 'uncertain'.

Shin was torn. He wanted to do what was right for both of them, but...

ugh. He needed time to think about this. He was too tired to make sweeping generalizations now. So, instead.

"When I was in Abyss's body, he got me a tattoo..." He changed the subject.

Good job changing the subject, Shin.

>>"Some time after the 1st... I dunno... the 6th?"

Tarin groaned at the words, and rose his hands to his face in the dark, obscuring the view of the bunk above him. It was hard not to kick out at the bed, but Tarin knew who slept above him, and angering that particular mutant was a terrible idea. At least while that damn collar was still fixed around his neck. Truth be told, Tarin wanted to pick a fight. He was angry enough, he took a deep breath and counted down from ten, he made it to five before he let go a string of curse words that would have made a sailor blush. At least he felt better.

”Well. I’ve been married for a year.” Tarin said dejectedly, swallowing hard to fight down the lump of emotion in his throat. It was almost a joke between him and Lee, the fact that they didn’t get to have normal holidays like most couples. They’d still never had a normal Christmas, and it looked like anniversaries were going to follow the same trend. ”Most people eat year old wedding cake and recreate their wedding night. I’m laying in a freakin’ concentration camp, wearing a collar, and I don’t even know if I’m ever going to se….” Tarin closed his mouth with an audible click of the teeth. It was thoughts like these that turned people into the cloud girl trying to shock herself to death. Besides, Shin was talking.

Apparently, whoever he’d been swapped with had gotten him a little ink. Shin didn’t sound thrilled about the ink, and that made Tarin wonder if the kid remembered who he was talking to. One reason people left him alone in the camp was all the ink trailing up and down his arms and legs. Not that you could see it often with the coat and jeans…but word got around.

”That seems odd considering it wasn’t his body….” Tarin couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit, though…a chuckle that turned into an outright snort of laughter, ”Lee shaved Rupert’s whole body.”

The moment of mirth passed and Tarin looked towards Shin in the dark, ”I hope he at least got you something good.”

Make a Sailor blush? Hmm? How about a Sailor Moon character? Shin's face flushed as the string of profanity. It was quite profuse... and quite profane...

"Take it easy..." He trailed silently. The last thing they needed was to attract the guards attention.

>>”Well. I’ve been married for a year.”

Tarin responded dejectedly.

>>”Most people eat year old wedding cake and recreate their wedding night. I’m laying in a freakin’ concentration camp, wearing a collar, and I don’t even know if I’m ever going to se….”

Hopefully, everyone saw their friends and loved ones again. Shin would stop this. He'd fix whatever the people had done wrong, undo it, make it right... then, he could get whatever was wrong in his own life under control.

But first, let's talk about tattoos...

>>”That seems odd considering it wasn’t his body….” ”Lee shaved Rupert’s whole body.”

"I stole his motorbike..." Shin frowned. "And he did something more permanent. If I ever see him again, I'm gonna..." Shin clenched his fist. He sighed at Tarin. "I don't even know what I've got... Alex said it was 'some sort of anime girl'. Doesn't sound very hopeful... god. Hope it isn't Haruhi. That'd be total idiocy..." Who knew? Maybe he had a Churuya going 'Nyoro~n :3c' on his bum cheeks? He certainly wasn't going to walk around asking people to check for him.

Was he?

Shin said to take it easy, and Tarin wanted to snap at the younger man. Shin wasn’t married, he couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to have every single important date ruined by some sort of drama or another. Then again…maybe he could. Tarin sighed. Shin was going through the same things Tarin had gone through time and time again. ”Sorry.” he said sheepishly and sighed again, shifting on the thin, uncomfortable mattress.

The story was distracting. Tarin needed that and he threw himself wholeheartedly into listening to Shin’s voice as he repeated the events of his body-swap experience. It was a good plan. A small smile soon ghosted on Tarin’s face, a smile that grew exponentially as he listened. The medium didn’t know anything about anime…but he knew plenty about tattoos. It made sense that it would rankle Shin to have a permanent reminder of the experience. Tattoos were something sacred, something permanent. Having something on a part of your anatomy that you didn’t want, that didn’t have special meaning to you was…upsetting to say the least.

”You can’t see it?” Tarin said, eyebrows raising in the dark as his mind rolled through all the different possible locations. His nose wrinkled, poor Shin. Some of those places would be embarrassing for a man to have a tattoo. The younger man threatened violence and Tarin nodded his head at the same time he chuckled lowly, ”If he did that, he deserves a shot to the face, and more. A tattoo should be a message from your soul that you think the rest of the world should be able to see.”

He shook his head again, recalling the experience he’d had in Tyranny’s body, ”At least you got to keep all proper equipment. I’m a married man, Shin. I had to try to shower that whole time without looking at anything, or touching it. It was a miracle.”

>>”You can’t see it?”

Shin shook his head, then realized in the darkness of the bunk room, Tarin probably couldn't see it. "No," he stated emphatically. For the moment, he neglected to elaborate. Not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't want to... or, okay. Because he didn't want to, and Tarin was talking, so he didn't want to be rude. And making a lot of sense, too. "Totally agree," Shin replied. "Not that I would usually get one... but having something permanent on your back side should mean something, not be some busty cartoon girl with blue hair."

Wait, guess he came out and said it anyways. Ah, well.

Shin tried not to smirk at Tarin's revelation. "You're a decent man, Tarin. I'll bet a lot of guys put in a similar situation would do far worse..." Shin momentarily wondered what he'd do if he were a girl for a day. Well, he'd probably eat chocolate. That was the first thing. And for his second act... hmm... "I honestly don't know how I'd have reacted. I know I at least have some restraint..." He hadn't even kissed Kasumi until her 19th birthday party. "I've always wondered how one would walk in thirteen inch heels..."