J is for Jiminy (Like the Cricket)

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Jumping down the last three steps of the staircase, Frank grabbed the post at the end of the banister and swung herself around it, sprinting for the back door. Sprinting might not be the most accurate word, as she got a few footsteps before spreading her arms wide and taking of into the air like a majestic pegasus. In fact, there was a pegasus that soon joined her. Macho Man Randy Savage was riding it too, shouting encouragement at Frank, telling her that she could so do it. She took a mighty soar, aiming upward, determined to fly ever higher...

And then she woke up, her arms still outstretched, her head still pointing toward the sky. It was daytime, even, unless someone had finally figured out a way to perfectly turn the sky blue and sunshiny during the daytime. Which wouldn't have surprised Frank, not really. She stared, watching as the various clouds started changing colors, which also struck her as being fairly new.

It should be mentioned at this point that Frank hadn't fallen asleep in... a while. She hadn't even drank one of her illegal energy drinks in the last few hours or so. She did reach into her pocket, knocking loose a few wrappers and assorted detritus onto the Laffonts' front lawn. Frank looked at it for a bit, then picked up an empty wrapper. She figured it was better than nothing and began chewing it.

Frank stood in the middle of the walk up to Franck's house, staring at it and trying to remember why exactly she was here. Frank had planned many... plans lately, and she'd done quite a few of them. sure, her last glitter bomb had technically gone off a little early, but that wasn't so bad. The people were well on the way to recovery, and Frank was sure that that one guy wouldn't even miss his eyebrow. Frank walked the rest of the way to the house, raised her hand to knock, lowered it, frowned, and turned around to think for a moment.

Which meant nodding off.
Which meant that soon Frank Cox was curled up on Franck Laffont's front door, looking like either the world's most sparkly bum or the worlds most human looking cat...

[François Laffont]

Franck was at home today. He was always at home. His father was afraid even to just let him put the trash in front of the house. He supposed he could not blame him. Everyone was pretty scared, wondering what that SPECTRE organization thing would do. Franck would never harm anyone, mutant, human or even otherworldly creatures. And his power was pretty harmless too. At most, it would make him a great scam artist as he’d play on people’s feelings. Not like it was something he would ever do but it sure was not like he would freeze someone to death, or suck their life force or make them blow up. He was able to tell you were not as happy as you pretend, oh my god, how terrible a power that was! But yeah, he knew his father was worried and since he didn’t want to make it harder on the man, he was trying to be as obedient as possible, hoping he would calm down at some point, seeing his son clearly was not the one most in danger here.

Anyway, it suited him to stay home. He had ordered some DVDs of French movies and he expected them to come anytime soon. He hated the whole ‘4 to 6 weeks’ thing. Why couldn’t it be something more specific like 23 to 25 days? Instead, after four weeks, you expect it to arrive and after the fifth, you’re just worried they forgot about it. He knew it might not arrive today. But just in case. He wanted to make sure it didn’t break like the last time he ordered something.

He had made a stop by the kitchen to pick a snack to eat when he saw a shadow by the door. He waited but there was no knock. So he did think it could be the postman with his delivery. Eating the cookie he still had in his hand, he walked to the door and opened it.

There was no package. Instead, there was a girl curled up right at his feet. “Frank?” he asked. Who else but her could do something like that, unless some shapeshifter that can turn into a cat decided to turn back into human form right here on his porch. “What are you doing here?”

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

The noise caused Frank to jerk awake, though awake might not be the best adjective to describe her condition. "Conscious" would probably be a better term, since she wasn't sleeping in the strictest sense. There were a few seconds where Frank mostly just sat there, blinking and staring off into the distance while her brain attempted to reboot from an unexpected shutdown. A question threaded into the reboot process, helping  give the brain at least something to process besides the obvious.

"I'm here to---" she said, raising a finger. She paused, her eyes narrowing for a moment. "I'm here to---" she tried again. This time she pushed herself upright, standing there. She dug about in her pocket for a moment, produced an actual bag of Skittles, and tore into them, chugging the entire packet in a way that most ten year olds could only dream of. Frank shook her head then and she turned, seeing Franck. She placed a hand on each shoulder, practically slapping her friend.

"I'm here to plan plans!" she said, smiling at him and meeting his eyes. "Plans that are super awesome and will help people feel better and stuff but totally involve at least two people in order to, like, do without hurting yourself and stuff and I don't wanna hurt myself again after the whole glitter bomb thing but really you couldn't blame me for that; it's not like I'm some kinda expert with explosives more of an amateur really but you see the last time I tried to do a totally awesome super special plan by myself I kinda ended up stuck atop the flagpole and stuff so I figured I should get some help and I was like 'you know who I haven't had help me in a while?' Franck. So I totally decided to come see you and---I'm here!" she nodded, pleased with having apparently reached something at least vaguely resembling a point.

[François Laffont]

Franck’s eyebrows arched high up as he waited for Frank to explain why she decided to fall asleep on his front porch. She too didn’t seem to quite remember but he knew it was not entirely strange for the girl. Still, there was something... not quite the same with her. Something that had the empath to frown instead of showing surprise for seeing his friend here. The worries were chased away as he startled slightly when she grabbed his shoulders, the surprise coming back, with a tad of amusement. He smiled to her as she smiled to him. Plans, alright. That didn’t sound so good, though obviously interesting.

He was into making people feel better but he wasn’t sure the two shared the same vision for what could make them feel better. She gave the best example of it as she mentioned her latest glitter bomb that backfired on her. He could barely follow her logic as she rambled on but he got the main lines. She wanted him to help. “And so you decided to curl up on my porch?” he let out. But he chased that thought away. She was there and he would definitely not kick her out of the property.

Franck stepped back and made room for her to enter the house. He supposed they would be better in there to talk devilish, amusing plans. “My father’s not here. You’d like something to drink or anything?” he asked, closing the door behind them. Somehow, movies were the last thing he could think of right now. He was curious what Frank might have in mind right now.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"Well, that wasn't really the plan," admitted Frank, shrugging. Then again, she never really thought things all the way through, something that Franck knew all too well. As said French student moved aside, Frank pretty much rolled her way into his house. She eventually got upright, more or less, and swung her arm around Franck. This had nothing to do with needing him to walk, of course, but was more because she wanted to give him a one armed hug.

"Oooo, dad's not home and you wanna get me a drink. Are you trying to seduce me, Francois?" Frank threw in as much "French" into that last word as she could, punctuating it with a giggle. Frank then snapped open her eyes and literally snapped her fingers, pointing into the distance. "I almost forgot: you're into dudes. I so need to set you up with someone... I keep forgetting that... do you got anything to eat? I'm kinda hungry," Frank was nearly always hungry. She was already moving forward, heading straight for Franck's kitchen, and more accurately, straight toward his fridge.

"But yeah, I've been doing all this super awesome stuff all over school. Like, I'm leaving these awesome care packages and stuff that are filled with awesome friendship stuff and putting them into people's rooms and stuff. I do have to sometimes break into a room, but it's totally worth it because have you got anything good to eat? Peanut butter! I could so use some peanut butter right now..." and Frank began rummaging around in Franck's kitchen, figuring that there had to be something around there somewhere that she could do the eating of.

[François Laffont]

Franck chuckled on Frank’s entrance. He supposed it was pure Frank. The fact she derailed from the plan did not surprise François one bit. She was good at doing so and often needed to be reminded about the task at hand. That task more than ever fell on Franck. He hugged her as they made their way in, laughing at her comment. Well, at least she got his name with the proper accent, even though it was slightly exaggerated. He was almost tempted for her to try out his second name, Guillaume, just for kicks. He knew she could speak French though so she might get it right.

“Yeah, you caught me. I only pretend to be gay so I can get all the prettiest girls from school to come to my place and try to sleep with them,” he said. They both knew about his orientation. She pointed it out as if it just struck her. Apparently, she liked forgetting. Or she just found it would be more amusing said that way. Who knows, with Frank. He wasn’t sure about the whole dating thing however. He was almost afraid she’d find him a male version of herself and the two would spend more time together than Franck would. He laughed again as she asked for food again. “You’re always hungry,” he pointed out, but he still let her have a look at what they had. Anyway, she could eat anything, right? So even if his fridge was to be empty, which it wasn’t, he could feed her.... well, pretty much anything else he supposed.

Breaking into people’s room to give them friendly gifts? He supposed if there was one person who could do it, it was Frank. “No one tried to burn your ass yet for doing that?” he asked as he handed her the peanut butter. He wondered just how exactly she wanted to eat it. Not just dip a spoon in to take a big chunk and eat it, right? “Are you alright? You seem even more distracted than usual?” he asked her.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"That is a brilliant plan! You must be some kinda supergenius! Dudes are totally hot though," said Frank, once more indicating all too well how her brain "functioned." She was already moving on to raid Franck's fridge and kitchen, seeking out anything that was even remotely edible. Given enough time, Frank would get hungry enough to eat stuff that wasn't generally considered food, which some people appreciated... some times. Frank wasn't quite at that point yet; this was just the normal rumbly in her tumbly that happened after she, say, took a catnip on someone's porch for longer than planned.

"nope, no burning!" said Frank. She lit up as Franck handed her the peanut butter, flinging her arms about him for a quick hug that somehow ended with her stealing away the peanut butter. She moved to just dip her fingers in, but seemed to remember that this wasn't, in fact, her peanut butter. So she instead whirled and somehow managed to find a spoon in record time. Soon, her mouth was filled with the tasty treat.

Franck asked questions while Frank moaned about the delicious treat. She heard them, sort of, but she really didn't listen to what he was saying. Oh no, Frank was far, far more into eating the delicious snack that lay before her. And while Frank might have been something of a genius when it came to eating with her mouth full, peanut butter failed even her great achievements, smothering her words and making them, uh, difficult:

"I bid gib icked oot of a borm bo; dey were mop appy," she said, which was supposed to be: "I did get kicked out of a dorm though; they were not happy,' but again, Peanut butter. She did a few little jumps, and then rocked from side to side. If you looked closely, you'd see that her eyes seemed a little... off. And if you happened to be an empath, you'd feel a giant wave of even more excitement than normal, levels of it that weren't what normal people experienced, abnormal even for Frank.

[François Laffont]

Franck chuckled at his friend. He preferred to think she was joking and not really thinking this was a plan. He wasn’t always certain what Frank thought after all. “Couldn’t agree more,” he replied however when she talked of boys. Should someone ask him why he didn’t love girls he wouldn’t be able to answer. He liked them, he could find them pretty and all. But he had never been physically attracted to any. Boys however... But that was not the point. He shoved that thought away and focused on giving Frank something to eat before she started nibbling on everything.

No one retaliated yet but Franck bet she had her share of detention time. He knew Frank never did pranks to hurt anyone or make fun of them. She thought it was funny but she wanted more to bring a smile on people’s face then annoy them. Of course, some might not see it like that. “I suppose it’s just a matter of time before you get someone who doesn’t have a taste for your pleasantries,” Franck said with a shrug. He hoped they wouldn’t go too far. He knew some people at school had a short fuse.

In the end, she just took a spoon and grabbed a big chunk of it. He decided to shrug it off. Besides, he was far too busy trying to understand what she just told him. “What?” he asked. He laughed at his friend and how she tried to eat and talk all at once. “I think you better swallow that first,” he added, still amused. Well, that was peanut butter. There was a reason why old movies used it to make you think animals were talking. Whatever it was, it seemed to have got her even more excited. Soon, Franck felt he’d be joining her at jumping around. Although acting like a fool in the safety of his house caused no problem to him, he’d rather not do it. “What don’t you calm down a little,” he suggested. He rarely saw her like that. Did she take those energy drinks again? Franck never liked those, not even when you were low on energy and needed a quick boost. And he knew his friend was chugging them down faster than the speed of light.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

People not have a taste for Frank? Why, that might involve people bodily removing her from their dorm rooms, or running away from her in near terror while she followed them with an entire marching band, or wondering if the giant shark she'd built was actually going to go attack the student body as a whole. And of course none of that had happened, nope, not in the slightest. That would be weird and totally impossible. No, in Frank world, everyone screamed with glee at her approach and there were musical numbers, rousing ones with full bands and stuff.

Besides, her mouth was still filled with peanut butter, which she attempted to talk around, with mixed results, obviously, seeing as Franck didn't seem to understand her. She attempted to swallow more and, deciding that talking was important right now, did the first thing she could think of: she bit off the end of the spoon and swallowed it, taking most of the peanut butter with it.

"What? no, I can't  calm down!" she said, waving the now chewed up spoon. "Can't stop. There's too much stuff to do, Franck. So much!" she shoved the spoon into the peanut butter, her eyes wide. "Like, I just finished this giant paper mache shark with an engine that I think explodes or---wait, was I planning that one or did I already do it? Time's getting weird..." she stuck the "spoon" into her mouth, slurping as she drew the peanut butter off the utensil, enjoying it perhaps a little too much. "But things are too gloomy for me to be calm!" she said, this time having gulped down a decent amount of the peanut buttery goodness. "We all have to be happy and excited!" And there was some more nodding, and probably more fetching of the peanut butter, along with some spoon eating, which vaguely resembled what it was like when someone used celery to eat peanut butter.

[François Laffont]

There was a reason why Franck wasn’t sure about giving Frank a spoon to dig in the peanut butter. It wasn’t even a question of hygiene with the whole double dipping. He was more concerned about seeing the spoon in one piece. It must be quite a problem, to make sure you eat only the food and not also whatever utensils you used. He opened his mouth to tell her to watch out but too late, he could just see the metal breaking as she bit it down. Couldn’t she feel it? Oh yeah, he forgot, it was Frank.

Was it just him or she was in a particularly hyper mode? He knew Frank was always on the move or something, but there was a limit, even for her. So much work, yes, surely. That didn’t mean you couldn’t sleep, right? He kept frowning as he couldn’t get the whole shark thing. It exploded? Even she didn’t seem to recall it. He placed a hand on her shoulder and directed her in the living room area. “I think you need to sit down. Have you been chugging down your energy drinks again?” he asked as he walked her to the couch. He never liked those energy drinks but she always seemed to have one close by.

She sounded almost crazy, going on about the gloom and happiness. She did make sense, in a way, and he could see Frank trying to make them all happy. It was more her excitement as she said it that made her sound crazy. “What do you suggest we do about this? We can’t just go back in time and prevent those accidents from happening and SPECTRE to be set in place,” he pointed out. He too wanted to help, perhaps more than anyone else. To feel depression everywhere he went made him even sadder. He felt the need to cheer people up, just so he could pick up positive emotions for a change. Although right now, he was more concerned about his friend. Just how many drinks did she have? It cannot be healthy.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Frank shrugged. "I've just had a few... dozen... I think," she said, giggling. "I actually have one strapped to my leg right now. Brilliant, right!?" she then reached down and tapped at her leg... which did nothing. Frank then realized that she'd totally strapped it to her other leg, but Franck had already started walking her toward a couch by then. She still tried, of course, pulling one leg up to tap at while hopping on the other. This time a tinny sound came out, but as Frank turned to grin up at Franck, she found herself sort of spinning and falling back onto the couch, the giggles again bursting out of her as if she were a balloon filled with them.

Frank sighed and moved to pull up her peanut butter spoon/stick, nibbling at it in a sort of absent fashion, clearly not paying much attention to the whole eating process. Thankfully, she was Frank, so she didn't really need to pay attention: she just needed to keep feeding something into herself at regular intervals. "That's brilliant!" she said after Franck's idea, hoping back up off the couch, practically dancing around. "WE CAN BUILD A TIME MACHINE!" she said, speaking about two volume notches louder than was strictly necessary. "We can so do it! We just need a flux capacitor and some Russians to steal from or maybe a bolt of lightning or something cool like that or maybe we need to find a blue phone booth to sneak into or maybe we could just find ooooh! I know this one girl who can like do time stuff! Maybe we could hook some wires to her brain, set her to go back a few years, and then do the thing!"

Frank was nodding, clearly absolutely thrilled at Franck's brilliant idea.

[François Laffont]

Oh my God, a dozen energy drinks?! Now Franck knew her metabolism worked differently than everyone else but there was a limit and if Frank had been the kind to notice whenever someone disapproved with her, she would have seen such a look in Franck’s face. He just couldn’t believe she’d have so many. Sure, he imagined she could handle more than most people but obviously not a dozen! He sighed, putting all of his disapproval in it as he walked her to his living room. But for one reason or another, Frank chose to get there hopping on one foot and as he turned to look just what she was doing exactly, she lost her foothold and landed on him who landed on the couch. This was almost comical. He bet if they had been in some tv show, there would be laughing right now to accompany it.

He didn’t want to push her or anything. He was not that annoyed about her, he was mostly concerned. All air escaped him though when she jumped out of the couch, forgetting about him. And what was the reason for her victory dance? He stared at her with disbelief when she mentioned the time machine. A time machine!? Even for Frank this was insane. And here she was, giving away every idea of how to make a time machine movies and tv shows used in the past. She even suggesting Doctor Who! He frowned as she talked of a girl who could tweak with time.

Clearly there was something wrong here. Setting out a glitter bomb in a teacher’s desk was crazy but at least it was something doable. This was just... insane. He tried not to worry too much, t say this was just Frank being Frank and coming out with some crazy, random shit. But then there was the dozen or so energy drinks. He stood up and grabbed her by the shoulders so she’d stand still. He didn’t want to use his power on her to read what made her like that exactly, what feeling she was burying deep down inside. But he was ready to do so if need be. “Come on Frank, I think those drinks are getting over your head. Soon you’ll be so excited, you’ll literally blow up,” he told her.

He knew it was sometimes, most of the time, pointless to reason with her. But someone had to. And Franck, as he told her earlier, was all alone here with her. He sat her back on the couch, properly this time, without falling over or jumping on him. “I mean, I wish a time machine was possible but it’s not that simple. I want to help everyone too but I’m afraid we’ll have to find something else,” he said. It was so weird, Franck almost felt like a parent trying to educate a kid.

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Hands on shoulders made even Frank stop. She quit gyrating and looked directly into Franck's eyes. Her hands went to his shoulder in a complete mimicry, her face going into "super serious" mode. He then mentioned something about the energy drinks getting to her, and Frank blew out her lips in a good imitation of a raspberry, rolling her eyes and waving her hand dismissively. "I've been on these for, like, ever. And they're totally safe. Okay, they're technically banned in the United States and England and junk and the Japanese label has this big red ONE on it for some reason, but I think that's just saying that it's the number one energy drink in Japan because it was obviously really affective and---"

And he was sitting her back on the couch, which caused Frank's flow to break for a moment. Then he started laying some logic on her, and Frank stared up at him. Well, she thought it was him. There was sort of three Francks floating around or something that was a little weird or something. Franck was talking about how he wanted to help but that it wasn't possible.

"Pfft," said Frank, waving off that excuse. "It's totally possible. We just need to like, plug something into Charlie's brain. She'll totally love it. Or we could give her something so she's asleep and won't even feel it. They do that on some medical shows and stuff. like that one really awesome one with the kinda sexy doctor with the limp..." Frank paused for a moment, tapping her lips before going: "Scrubs! Like that one! Wouldn't that be awesome? Could you imagine what it would be like if there was a television show about mutants? one like us though, not X-men."

She paused for a few minutes, then said: "I'd probably be played by Amanda Bynes, but before she went crazy," and nodded slowly.

[François Laffont]

Now that he was closer to her, he started to notice the bags under her eyes. Whatever she had to say in defense of her energy drinks or about her metabolism processing food in a different way, he knew something was off. Oh, he knew she had been downing them for a while now and surely it was safer for her than anyone else because of her power but it had an effect, they were not, as she put it, totally safe. “Yeah, when was the last time you had some sleep?” he pointed out to cut short on her little speech about how inoffensive something banned from most markets could be. Was he disappointed? Yes, a bit. He wished she was not so reckless all the time. And the worst part was that she couldn’t even see just how dangerous this all was. “This can’t be good for you,” he mumbled. Did she hear him? He wasn’t sure. Just like he wasn’t sure it would make her do anything about it.

Somehow, Franck highly doubted Charlie would like to be plugged to anything in order to use her power on a greater scale. “And who will build the machine?” he asked, trying to show her the flaws in her plan. He didn’t want to sound so much like a party spoiler but someone had to knock some sense in her. He didn’t feel the need to tell her the show was called House M.D., not Scrubs. Maybe Scrubs had a doctor like that too, he never watched it so he wouldn’t know. Was it even the name of a real show? He shrugged it off, this was not important here.

Of course, Frank jumped from one topic to the next in record time, finding some random way to link two entirely different things together. It was how she went from experimenting on a mutant student to go back in time to doctor tv shows to one about them. Alright, the connection was a bit more logical this time. But still, it made it hard to keep up a conversation. He had a tiny smile as she mentioned Amanda Bynes. “I think she could play you even after going crazy,” he said on a teasing tone. He sighed after a few seconds though. He better bring her back to the main issue here. “Seriously, when was the last time you slept?”

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"I 'unno, been a while. Lost track after the first week or so," said Frank, shrugging off Franck's question and concern. There were so many more important things to talk about and consider. Like building a time machine, though Franck was poking logic holes all over the place there. "We'd build it, duh. They show the things in, like, tons of movies, so it can't be that hard," Frank said, though she, of course, didn't stay on the topic for very long, having already launched into the thoughts of mutants and the soap opera she had planned in her head, one that totally involved all of them being played by super awesome people doing super awesome things. Super awesome ratings hit right there.

Play her after going crazy: "Maybe, but I don't think she's really into acting so much anymore. I think she decided to go into fashion school or something weird like that. Could you imagine me in fashion school? that would just be silly, wouldn't it? You should totally be in it too, since you're like totally awesome and stuff, everyone's best bud and confidente and what is with you and the sleep thing?"

Frank frowned and turned to Franck. Her eye had started to twitch slightly, but that might be because of her head tilting as well. "I totally don't need sleep! Got lots of stuff to do and energy drinks and candy and PEANUT BUTTER!" she'd clearly forgotten about that until just this moment. At which point she turned back, diving upon the peanut butter jar and attacking it with her already chewed spoon, nomming at the delicious goodness that lay within.