Not harassing Nathan [Joule, Phoenix]

Nathan was worried about Joule and his lack of sleep, but he recognized that the other wouldn't ever admit out loud to having a problem. Confronting him also wasn't an option, Nathan had decided, because it was Joule and that probably wouldn't go over well. So, he had finished his orange juice and skipped off to go do things out on the town because he needed more yarn for his latest project.

Getting away from the mansion was a blessed relief, and it had been easy enough to lose the cameras that had been designated to trail him. They weren't as agile as him, and crowds worked well to confuse the devices.

He was gone until some time afternoon, feeling rather happy to have found the needed colour of yarn without any issue. Which meant that after he grabbed a late lunch, he could knit afterwards and just relax for the rest of the day.

Joule and sleep did not get on particularly well, especially not during the following week. There was a night in which Nathan treated them all to Chinese, and then they were engaged in the most delightful game, and it was going greatly until Joule's body decided it'd had enough, and he fell asleep with Nathan'a dick in his mouth. That was not a proud moment for Joule. Eventually they had fallen asleep together, along with Kade and Cat, and he slept better than he'd had for weeks. Sometime in the middle of the night he got up, half asleep, and made his way to his own bed for some more comfortable sleep.

He cringed a little when he saw Nathan the next morning in the kitchen. He had fallen asleep while sucking him off. He had fallen asleep. He secretly wondered whether he could use his powers to make a hold open up in the earth to swallow him up.

"Uh. Morning." He found it hard to meet his gaze.

Nathan had an irrational fear of having his dick bitten. It was a legitimate worry of his that sometime, whenever he was getting sucked off, someone was going to bite it. That wasn't something Nathan wanted to happen. And then Joule had fallen asleep while sucking him off, among other things, and god dammit, now he was going to have an irrational fear of people choking on it and dying. Because they fell asleep. Thank god it had been Joule, as strange as that sounded, because Nathan knew how Joule and sleep went. So that meant the other hadn't gotten so bored he fell asleep. He had just been tired.

Speaking of which, Nathan looked up from his toast when he heard Joule's voice, looking over and feeling rather satisfied when the other appeared to have at least gotten a good night's sleep for once. Even if he had left their little sleeping pile in the middle of the night.

"Good morning!" Nathan said brightly. Everything he did was brightly. It was supposed to be bright. "Did you sleep well?"

"I- uh. Yeah. Yes I did actually. Um. You?"

Nathan sounded oddly happy for someone who'd had someone else fall asleep while sucking him off. Nat was both confused and relieved. He kept himself busy making a cup of tea.

"Hey, tea?"

"As well as I ever do," Nathan responded, biting into his toast with a soft hum. If anyone ever actually payed attention, they probably would have realized that Nathan often left questions like that with open answers. He was rather impressed with how oblivious on whole the entire team was.

Nathan shook his head. He didn't understand how anyone could drink tea. Or coffee for that matter. They both tasted terrible unless you loaded them with sugar.

"Okay, help yourself~" Joule found himself humming happily, some part of his subconscious picking up on his friend's habit. Of course if it were brought to his attention, he would simply claim that he was in a good mood and nothing more, and that he didn't have any friends.

"Hey actually I had a few physics questions if you've got time at any point today. I wanna try and make something cool."

Nathan looked up at Joule when he started humming, pursing his lips slightly. He wasn't sure why, but it unnerved him, even though he was fully aware that the other probably didn't have a voice in his head. Nathan sighed, taking a drink from his orange juice to busy himself. He was just being paranoid. He blinked when he heard what Joule said next.

"Yeah? Well, ask away whenever you want," he said, curious as to what Joule would possibly want to make.

"I wanted to know about wormholes." He stopped humming as soon as he became conscious he was doing it. "In specific, travel between different points in space, not time."

He took a seat, looking up at the other man expectantly.

"Well, where do you want me to begin?" Nathan asked, swirling his orange juice in his cup. It didn't taste as good as it normally did. That was kind of strange. But it wasn't like someone was drinking out of the carton. Were they? Nathan hummed softly at the thought. No one was that dumb.

"Well I wanna know how to create one sooo... What do you think I'd need to know to do it? I know there are different kinds of them but they are usually unstable and too dangerous to cross so it would have to be a kind that can be stable enough for people to go through?"

He tried to remember everything he bad read on the subject but the pieces of information were already slipping from his mind.

"Well... It's a mathematical equation that proves they're possible. I mean," Nathan began, thinking over all he knew about wormholes, "we've never actually see one, so while it's mathematically possible, it may not be physically possible, if that makes sense. But, in order to make them stable, well, god, no one really knows how to do that. It's just a bunch of theories."

Why would Joule want to make one? Actually, Nathan didn't want to know. It wasn't any of his business. But the idea that Joule could actually create a wormhole-- prove them actually possible... God, that would be amazing!

"Right. Okay. I see. It's the one from Einstein's theories isn't it? I... I want to learn it. To understand it. I am so making a wormhole. Let's put those theories to the test!!" A massive grin spread across his face. He was absolutely serious about this. Of course he didn't care about proving theories and all that. But. Portal guns.

"Einstein's theory of general relativity, yeah," Nathan said, finishing off his glass of orange juice, making a face. There was something amiss, and he really couldn't place it. "But, to make a wormhole stable... You'd need exotic matter with negative energy density. I mean, if you could somehow do that..." Nathan trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Well, let's start off with saying that the theory is the most accepted one, but by no means the right one. There are other theories out there that are plausible, this one just has more proof. But it's the geometric theory of gravitation, and one of it's most notable things is that it explains black holes, which are, essentially, one sided wormholes. And we have proof of black holes, obviously."

"Right. Right okay..." He scribbled down on his notebook, carfully soaking in any word Nathan spoke, for once looking serious. "Negative energy density? Is that like antimatter or is it different? I mean theoretically speaking I could probably create something like that; take some regular matter, mess around with it, reverse some laws of physics, voila, but how would such matter even react to our normal matter around here? They wouldn't, like, cancel each other out or explode or something, would they?"

He reached for his pocket, pulling out his reading glasses - modeled after Clark Kent's of course - and pushing them up his nose.

"Also, I do believe I have read something about wormholes that might not beed that exotic stuff? Like super rotating ring-like ones?"

"It's... It's matter which would have say a -2kg mass," Nathan said, running a hand along the side of his neck as he tried to think of the best way to describe to Joule just what it was. "It's only theoretical, really. You would have to try and create it, but there is no guarantee that it would actually be possible-- I don't think you would need to worry about any explosions. But negative mass would have negative gravity, and considering that a wormhole is trying to close itself due to a large amount of gravity doing that, negative matter if like the perfect solution!"

Were those Clark Kent glasses? Joule wore glasses? It was a strange thing to discover, and it was really nerdy of Joule to pick glasses that looked like they could belong to Clark. Nerd.

"Are you maybe talking about Kerr-Newman ring warps? Where the wormhole would actually have to be a black hole that meets a lot of the necessary characteristics, but it would need a massive electrical charge and a high spin rate."

"Negative mass? Is that even possible? Haha then again I really shouldn't be asking about what is possible and what isn't."

He pushed his glasses further up his nose and scribbled down some more. He loved his glasses. They weren't nerdy. They were cool. Almost no one wore glasses any more due to the eye surgery being so cheap and simple. They were cool.

"Oh yeah that name rings a bell. Something about Kerr singularities. How high? I bet I could use electromagnetism to do it, it shouldn't be too difficlult. And I mean how hard is it to make something spin right? I dunno might be more simple than exotic matter. Or not. What do you think would take more effort to do?" Joule scratched his chin.

They were so nerdy.

Nathan shrugged his shoulders, drumming his fingertips idly against the counter top. "Well, it could be possible, who knows? I mean, all of this stuff is theoretical, and so I really can't say what is or isn't possible." That was the problem. He really did want to help Joule figure out a way to create wormholes, but he wasn't sure if it was possible. Joule could alter physics, but there must be some laws that even he must follow. Nathan didn't know. It was too early in the morning for this.

"Well, the thing with Kerr-Newman ring warps is that they themselves can't actually rotate. But, shit, give me a sec to remember," Nathan said, rubbing his temple as he tried to recall everything he could on ring warps. "The angular momentum oblates the singularity--"flattens" it out pretty much--into a ring. So like, it has no physical dimensions. But to do this... Fuck, you'd need extremely advanced and powerful gravity manipulation. And negative mass would still be needed to help keep the mouth open."

But which would be easier? That was the problem. Nathan didn't understand what Joule's powers were like, the effects they had on his health, asides from the time manipulation. How was he supposed to be able to judge which would be easiest?

Nathan leaned back, brow furrowed in thought. "Thing is, this is all theory at best. The only way would be to run tests and for you to try to create a wormhole, but the wormhole would be extremely unstable, and if anything brushes against the side of it's tunnel-- poof! Gone! And then there would need to be size configuration, because if something with too much mass passes through too small a wormhole, it would cause the wormhole to collapse. I really do mean it when I say you need some advanced and power gravity manipulation to pull this off."

The more he talked about it, the more dangerous Nathan realized it was. Just how far could Joule go stretch his powers before they crumbled? Was he essentially giving the other the information that would send him to an early grave? The thoughts made his stomach twist painfully, and he really wished he hadn't had orange juice before.

"This sounds awesome!!" Joule did not share Nathan's worries about this. He was confident, excited, full of energy and nerve to make this happen.

"Luckily gravity manipulation is my forte~ I mean I don't like to brag but I'm very good at it. I have been practicing it for years and I could totally do the thing you're describing! I mean I am pretty good at thermodynamics too and other things but gravity really is the thing. So yeah. We should totally do this! Like lets go get a safe place for experiments and lets do the thing!!"

Why wasn't Joule worried about this? Didn't he understand he would have to shift gravity more than he had ever done before? Joule may have had lots of experience, but Nathan knew that they were talking about a gravitational pull that made their sun's look weak. The small pit of worry in his stomach grew larger, and for once, Nathan allowed his own uncertainty show.

"Are you really sure that you would be able to pull it off? I mean, yeah, you may have lots of experience, but I highly doubt you would have ever manipulated gravity that much," he began, fiddling with his fingers for something to keep his hands busy. "We'd have no idea what to expect, and it'll be more than just the manipulation alone, but also keeping it open, influencing negative mass-- Are you sure?"

"Well what's the worse thing that could happen? Relaaaax it will be fiiiine. We can do like tests and stuff on a smaller scale before that. I told you I can totally do this!" Joule wasn't trying to bullshit the other man. He truly, genuinely believed he could pull this off. Then again, he had always been overconfident when it came to his abilities.

"And anyway, we don't wanna make a massive wormhole, just a person sized one. And the exit of it wouldn't be too far away either. So surely those things make it more simple, no?"

He was already itching to get started on this new project.

"I... If we're going to do that, we're going to start with non-living things," Nathan said. He was immortal pretty much. At least, he was sure he was, but even he felt kind of wary about ever going through a wormhole. Something that no human had ever seen before. So they were going to start as small as possible. Nathan kept from listing everything that could go wrong though. They'd be there all day if he did.

Sighing, Nathan got up and walked over to the sink to place his glass in it(maybe the glass hadn't been washed properly? What had been going on with that orange juice?). Once done, he turned to face Joule again, totally having switched into experimental physicist mode.

"Well, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it with the wormhole only going a few feet away, and it would probably be best to send something made of rubber through it at first, since rubber doesn't conduct electricity that well, which will hopefully eliminate any problems that adding a conductor might."

"Awesome!" Joule clapped his hands excitedly, as if they were about to go get ice-cream, not attempt something that could possibly put his life and someone else's in danger.

"Right so I'll phone up a couple of friends in CERN and they should be able to give us a like proper space to do this in and stuff. They'd probably want us to take measurements and stuff though so you'll have to be in charge of that because there's no way in hell I'm doing it."

"Yeah, I didn't really think you were too interested in the scientific portion of the experiment," Nathan said, chuckling softly. He wasn't going to complain though. He was trained to collect data from experiments. He was a lot more qualified for that part than Joule was. Also, since Joule was the one generating the wormholes, it left Nathan without really anything to do.

"But yeah, hopefully we won't accidentally destroy the universe as we know it, but if that does happen, it's all your fault. 'Kay?"

"It flatters me that you think I have the power to destroy the whole universe. I'll take this as a compliment~"

He didn't think anything would go wrong, he had it under control after all. If Nathan wanted to worry that was fine, but he wasn't going to let something like fear drag him down. He wanted to do this. Not only it would be useful in fights, but it would also be cool as hell.

"Shall I start making all the necessary phone calls and preparations then?"

"I'd think that would be a compliment, albeit a weird one," Nathan mused. Was it a compliment to insinuate that someone had enough power to destroy the whole universe? He wasn't sure how he would respond to just such a thing. Then again, he didn't love his powers like Joule did, and destroying the universe was a legitimate fear of his. That and ghosts. Both were terrible. To the point where Nathan had difficulties deciding which one was worse.

"Well, unless you want me to, but I don't think that would really get us anywhere," Nathan joked, a lopsided grin spreading across his lips. Yeah, he was lame. He was a cool lame. Or, technically, hot, as the voice so nicely reminded him. Nathan hummed softly.