CATCH-ALL FOR NOVEMBER [ Jaime Reyes, Magnus Burnsides, Captain Rex ]

[khajidont]

WHO: JAIME REYES, MAGNUS BURNSIDES or CAPTAIN REX... and YOU!
WHERE: Throughout the imPort cities.
WHEN: Throughout November
WHAT: A catch-all for my three characters as I start to get caught back up with the game! If you'd like a thread, feel free to just drop a starter here or contact me via PM/plurk @ wisdombitch and I'd be delighted to whip one up for you! I'd love to get back into the swing of things, so don't hesitate if you're interested. c: As a note, my tiny prompts of where they are don't factor in November events, but I'm more than open to playing with them if you have something in mind!
WARNINGS: Probable swearing/canon-typical violence.



JAIME REYES can be found at the Justice League, traveling around imPort cities, walking his dogs, attending classes at Heropa's college, at the gym, at various coffee shops, or at the Ted Kord Memorial Centre. He can also be spotted flying around, if you just want a random sighting! He's out and on the town!

MAGNUS BURNSIDES can be found walking around in the forest, picking up carpentry equipment, carving outdoors, walking his dogs, volunteering at the animal shelter, doing his job as a pro wrestler, doing inadvisable underground illegal fighting (in a mask, but that honestly doesn't hide that much), or at any manner of pubs and bars.

REX can be found doing his job as a police officer, at the gym, running errands, at the shooting range, refueling on coffee, jogging, and otherwise doing Dad And Cop Things.

Comments

jaime @ hoj

[the_caped_crusader]

[ guess who's just chillin' at the computer like it ain't a thang. ]

Re: jaime @ hoj

[khajidont]

[ Jaime hasn't seen Batman - Bruce - for a long time. He'd tried to reach out when he first came back, but when that hadn't turned out to be much of anything, he had been content to allow Bruce to have his time while he managed his own personal business.

The man probably could have reached out before just showing up, but it's not what Jaime ever expects. He just watches Batman for a moment, thumb hooked in the handle of his coffee cup. ]

Hey.

for Magnus at home

[continuousgroaning]

Tina's continued sneaking out several times a week to clean up Team Skull's messes- because, of course, the grunts had even less to do now that their base was in the process of being redone and she'd had limited success trying to distract them with other things. So she takes her bucket of cleaning supplies, bundles up and ties on a nondescript bandana to hide her face, and goes out to do what she can.

This night, though... this night she hesitates. Ever since the message had come through on the network about how this world was basically toast unless they could figure out how to summon Atropos' two sisters, Tina has been walking around with a knot of anxiety in her stomach. Because why bother? She certainly has no idea how to even begin to summon ANYTHING, much less what she surmised were godlike beings, and she's not sure anyone else in this world knows how to, either.

It's obvious that she's been having trouble sleeping and eating over the past few days, and now, she can't even bring herself to go out and do good, and so she instead drifts to the couch in the dark living room, staring off into space, her head occasionally dropping to her chest, dozing, only to jerk awake. She doesn't even groan or show any of her usual signs of distress, she's just... there. Because the foremost thought on her mind is- If something happens to me here, if this world just stops existing, what will happen to me back home?

[burlyboy]

Magnus gets home late.

He usually does, trusting Tina to take care of herself, knowing that his job usually keeps him out late. He's around to see her off in the morning, to greet her after school, but he usually has to head out in the evenings to do his shows and come back on the bus, numbed in a way that only performing in front of a yelling crowd can do. He's in that fuzzy state between wakefulness and sleep when he finally trudges through the front door, determined as he ever is to keep going even when some things - some things aren't going quite right. No time to think about it. He's got things to do.

It's audible, him coming home, his footsteps heavy, the rumbling sigh that curls its way out of him, the heavy thump of him hanging up his weighty fur coat, the rasp of his fingers against his stubble, smearing makeup around his face and a little bit of blood from when he was slammed into the mat a little too hard. Nothing out of the ordinary for Magnus, and he knows his kids are well used to it by now.

And then as he enters the living room, expecting to grab a little more grub and maybe a smoke before he hits the hay, he sees Tina, sitting there.

"Hey there, kiddo," he says, voice a little raspy after yelling all night. "You're up late."

FOR JOSH

[khajidont]

[ Jaime knows a thing or two about Josh already. He thinks he has a finger on the pulse of how he thinks, what he's been through, the sort of things that he needs (and isn't getting). It's all big, lofty things, things that Jaime wants to help with, things that Jaime wants to stop. All of their interactions thus far have circled the drain about exactly that, about what it is to be their age and grow up the way that they have. Jaime was blessed with people who looked out for him. Josh wasn't.

Which is to say, when Josh finally reached out for help, Jaime wasn't expecting something as normal and commonplace as driving lessons. (Since when was he the one giving out driving lessons to everyone? Ugh, he's getting old, isn't he? He remembers he was a kid when he came here! All of these whippersnappers need to get off of his lawn!)

When he rolls up to Josh's place, he doesn't knock. Instead, he just honks a cheery little tune and when Josh looks out, he'll see Jaime waving out the window of a... little blue volkswagon. A blue beetle, if you will.

Of course. ]

[goldtoxicity]

[ It all feels a little like deja-vu. The world is about to end at the hands of some morons who thought they could harnass power they didn't understand, and now a fucked up death goddess is going to destroy life as they know it. It's like every X-Force mission he'd ever been on decided to fuse together into a giant nightmare.

Work is kind of not happening due to how hard he's pushed himself over the past month - his limits were met, exceeded, and now he's dead tired. All he can do is rest up. So instead of worrying about what he can't fix, he shoves everything down and decides to do the things he said he was going to do.

Namely: buy a goddamn house and learn to drive.

The first one is relatively easy so long as he has a realtor doing all the heavy lifting and David to make sure he's not buying a crapshack. The second involves reaching out to someone who can drive and hoping they don't think he's too much of a mess to do it. Thankfully, Jaime seems to be the guy. ]

Hey! [ He eyes the car, it takes a second or two to get the joke, then he's popping open the passenger seat with a grin and sliding inside. ] Nice car.

FOR FUU

[khajidont]

[ Hikaru's gone.

Jaime doesn't have her tracked, per se, but he'd noticed when she went missing during his regular cursory scan of the network. She'll be okay at home, Jaime hopes. Those girls have been through a lot, but they still have their families, their wits, and each other.

Except for one of the girls, who has now been deprived of two of the above. As well-adjusted as Fuu can be, there's a limit to one person's endurance, and it's with that in mind that Jaime knocks at her door around dinner time, a large plastic bag holding something that smells awfully good held aloft. Of places to start, food is rarely a bad one. ]

Knock knock. [ And once the door opens: ] Hi. I hope this isn't a bad time. [ He holds the bag a little higher. ] I brought food.

Re: FOR FUU

[monster_san]

[Hikaru's gone.

And Fuu is... trying to be okay with that. Lachesis pulled her from the absolute worst moment possible. It's good that she'll be able to move beyond that now, to heal alongside Umi and Fuu and Cephiro itself. She won't be trapped in that day forever, horrified, guiltstricken, grieving.

But she isn't okay. She'd waited for so long to be reunited with the girls who had become her sisters, and it had only happened long after she'd accepted it wouldn't. Now that Hikaru has been here for months and then sent back, the longing doesn't seem to be fading back to its long-accustomed quiescence. She is still doing all the things she needs to do every day, and trying to cope with the OTO's disastrous misdeeds, but she can't do it without thinking of the tiny determined girl who used to be at her side for everything.

She's reading when the knock at the door comes. When she opens it, she finds herself smiling--it's small, but warm.]

You're perfectly prepared for the time. [She stands aside to let him in. She's brought him bento or tea or both enough to know exactly what this is about, and she's grateful for it.] I'll get the dishes.

FOR LUCI

[khajidont]

[ It comes as no surprise that Lucina wants to help pick up the rubble in Maurtia Falls as much as Jaime does and, considering her superstrength and flight, they make a solid team, working tirelessly to try and at least make it so that some of the major roads can re-open. After some time, Jaime pauses, planting his hands on his back and stretching out with a quiet groan. ]

Ugh, [ he says, an elder at twenty years of age. ] That's it, Lucina, I'm officially over the hill. I never thought that getting superstrength would mean cleaning up so many rocks.

[ Every other month, this is what he does. It gets old! ]

[fauxmarth]

[it's neither easy nor comfortable work, even with plate, but Lucina takes to it in earnest, desperate for the fatigue such an arduous task will bring her. she needs sleep, and enough exercise will give it to her. it has in the past, it has to now.

having someone like Jaime around is a boon...sort of. it means things get picked up faster than expected, which is a problem, but...she has missed her friend and old mentor.

...not that old -- not the way he's complaining.

there's still fondness in her expression, even if her tone is clipped, the mismatch lost on her:] Is my understanding wrong? I assumed it was Khaji Da doing most of the lifting with you.

FOR YUSUKE

[khajidont]

[ Things won't go back to normal, per se. Too much time has passed and Jaime feels too different for it to go back to normal, and besides, Yusuke living anywhere but with Jaime - where, Jaime selfishly believes, is probably where he belongs - is still a little surreal. But it's as normal as it's going to get, so Jaime doesn't feel particularly at-odds by deciding to ambush Yusuke as he leaves work, a massive canvas hoisted in his arms. Ruka may like them, but there's only so much room for death-worm art in their home, and Jaime doesn't particularly like them.

As Yusuke leaves, he'll see the canvas before he does Jaime, a massive thing covered in splattered bursts of places where the canvas has degraded in speckled patterns with a massive burn crawling from the corner into the centre. It could look like modern art, of a kind.

From behind the canvas, Jaime peers out. ]

Yusuke! What do you think? Is this Art?

[ You can practically hear the capitalization. ]

[lempereur]

[ Yusuke hasn't felt normal since he got back. De Chima is dreary (far away from Jaime, and even further from ported-out Shinji), his boyfriend is gone (that first heartbreak is a killer, isn't it?), the world has moved on without him (hard to be bothered that it's ending, if he doesn't recognize it).

He probably does belong with Jaime. Having a roommate he was close to gave him a reason to exit the wheel of frantic painting and moping that he so often found himself in, but a surprise visit is the next best thing. ]

Jaime? [ His head tilts, like a puppy, examining what he's shown but not sure if he has an answer. ] Did you do this?

FOR BART

[khajidont]

[ Bart and Jaime have exchanged necessary intel between the two of them by now, but they haven't really talked. And while Jaime feels - unjustly - that he knows Bart, Bart doesn't know him. It's about time they change that. So Jaime texted Bart, asking if he wanted to hang out over dinner, and there they had it.

He invited Bart to a popular ramen bar (one that Jaime had called beforehand, just in case; he knows how speedsters can get) and snagged a table at the back. He waves at Bart as he enters. ]

Hey! Over here!

[ He taps on a sign on the menu with a knowing quirk of his lip. ]

They do refills. Just F-Y-I.

[kid_flash_found]

[Bart grinned as he saw the wave, and the grin got even wider at the half-joke about refills.]

I'll try not to overdo it.

[Contrary to popular belief, his metabolism could slow down almost as much as the rest of him. At least when he wasn't relying on speed. He really only burned through billions of calories when he was working, and the Speed Force helped with that to some extent.]

How you been? Anything too exciting?

two parents and a BAD GREMLIN

[darkov]

[it wasn't like Martin was going to go out of his way to hide what had happened, but his silence well after he had crept back into the house, stripping and tossing his bloodied, torn clothes into the trash and climbing into bed as though nothing had happened.

he'd bring it up eventually, he figured. just not right away.

unfortunately, his clothes reeked, and so the next time Rex went to pull the garbage, well...]


It...was a dog. I think.

[red-faced with shame, Martin's standing on the other side of the kitchen table, having been called to make an account for the poor, shredded flannel. his eyes are glued on the table, his hand picking at his elbow.]

It looked like one, anyway.

Re: two parents and a BAD GREMLIN

[ct_7567]

A dog, [ Rex repeats incredulously.

Not that anything gives it away to Martin. Rex's bearing when he's on edge has always been intimidating - though perhaps less so to Martin, who's used to it by now - his expression unreadable save for the mild furrow of his brow and tightness of his lips, standing over Martin, motionless save for when he sets the flannel on the kitchen table. Truth is, he's buying himself some time.

Martin got attacked by a dog? When? How? Had he and Andy not been paying enough attention? Is this how the kid is acting out? Does he not trust them enough to go to them when he's in trouble? No, it can't be. Not after all they've been through.

The most important question is the one he says out loud. ]

And why is this the first that we're hearing of it?

DATE NIGHT DATE NIGHT

[flightforfreedom]

It had been... a hectic month, to put it mildly. Poe was worn down to his core, and he found himself spending more and more time at Rex's house because it was one of the few places he could actually unwind. He couldn't completely unwind, though, fidgety as all hell when he wasn't working. He slept soundly enough, mostly because of exhaustion, but when he was awake his mind was racing constantly, trying to find solutions for problems he couldn't solve.

He knew it wasn't doing him much good, though. So he needed some kind of distraction.

And. Well. He had made a promise.

So it's a friday night, just after Rex and Andy got back from their shift with the Police force, when Poe suddenly bursts into the room. He's wearing a surprisingly nice, well-fitted three-piece pinstripe suit with an orange tie, and he's carrying a dark blue suit in one hand, and in the other? A black dress, and a black suit. He couldn't make up his mind. He tossed them all down on the bed.

"Alright. Date night. We're going out."

[ct_7567]

For Rex's part, he's grown used to having Poe over. There will always be a spare room available regardless of government assignments - Andy lives here officially, but she'll never sleep in her own bed if Rex has anything to do with it - and he's slipped into their lives as comfortably as a well worn pair of boots. Rex makes sure that the coffee pot is full enough for everyone in the morning and, of course, that Poe's bed is made again by the time he comes back, not questioning when he comes or when he goes. It's almost more familiar that way. He's used to other soldiers drifting in and out of his life.

Which is why it's not much of a surprise to see Poe when they come home from work, as tired and exasperated as they usually are. In fact, Rex is already unbuttoning the top couple of buttons from his shirt (apparently the electricity scars ringed around his neck make citizens uncomfortable and therefore he ought to keep it buttoned all the way up to his neck) to get a little more comfortable.

What is a surprise is what he's wearing. And what he's holding. He looks at Poe as though he's spontaneously grown another head.

"...what?"

FOR BOYF

[dragony]

[ It doesn't take a detective, or an empath, or a super-genius's level of insight to notice that Ruka seems off lately. It's probably not much of a surprise, either, with the mood of the Network at large, but it's a heavier fog when it's someone you live with. It crops up in a dozen little ways: a slowness to relax replaced by a tension that never eases; a poor appetite that vanishes completely some days; a pervasive, anxious quiet when she's home; a scarcity of calm in rest.

Like the stars that seem to hang so close to it, the brighter the moon gets in the sky, the more she seems to diminish. Shorter days. An ever-increasing darkness, lapping at the edge of daylight like a rising tide.

At dinner, with food pushed idly to grow cold, Ruka had excused herself — to go clear her head, or something along those lines. She'd taken her bike; there'd still been daylight, then. It's long, long past dark, now, and she isn't back yet. Even midnight mental chess with Khaji Da gets bailed from with a novel surrender, a tipping of the queen and a silence thereafter. The night approaches daybreak, and she's still not back.

Hmm. Nobody likes that. ]

[khajidont]

[ People need their space. Even people as clingy as Jaime and Ruka. Jaime's stepped out for that sort of thing before, needing some fresh air, a fly around, to do something useful to keep himself from crawling out of his own skin. So, like a good partner, he waits. He's not going to sleep or anything, but he can't just smother her, not when she's dealing with so much, the echoes of her past back to haunt her. She needs time, he tells Khaji as Khaji fusses at him and the worry tearing at his chest, the way he scrubs his hands together and picks at the skin around his nails before moving onto his lips, little, fretful habits that never completely go away and return in full force when he's got nothing better to do. She needs time. And he has things he needs to do too, research, people to coordinate, things to plan.

He doesn't do a lot of it. He just waits until he can no longer. That's when he sets out to find her. He'll just see where she is. And then... he'll decide whether or not he'll text her or go see her himself once he figures that part out. ]

trash book burnsides

[adamantlyardent]

Um...

[this really isn't her business, but sometimes, a girl can't help herself. this giant man with the bushy face she's fairly sure she's met and spoken to before is rummaging through what may as well be actual trash in the bargain book section of this little shop, with each illustrated cover more...egregious than the next.

what do her helf eyes see?

smut.]

Didn't...take you for a...an avid reader...

[burlyboy]

I'm not.

[ Magnus sets one of the books down with a heavy sigh - and from the thunk of the book falling into the cart, he put down the book just as heavily as he sighed. ]

I don't know squat about this stuff. But a couple'a the kids I've been taking care of like to read, so here I am. What, are these bad?

meanwhile, (also) at the hall of justice...

[fridgeflower]

[ It's evening, and Laurie's dressed like she's ready for a patrol, uniform on and hair pulled up. She's not presenting a very ready-for-action scene, though, parked at a table in the common area with notes spread out before her. It's the riddle, in its original pieces (useless, off to the side) and put together, compiled information on the Fates, on the OTO's otherworldly involvements, jottings of others' ideas and interpretations of what they're meant to do, actual proposed plans and possibilities...

If she just rakes over it one more time, maybe she'll be a little closer to an answer. But she's tired and she looks it, and she's pretty sure nothing short of a straight answer from the approaching goddesses themselves will really reassure her.

She looks up when she hears him enter the room, and it suddenly feels like it's been forever since she's seen him, like she's just managed to swim to shore after years at sea. It's part relief and part mild surprise, somehow, and all she can really manage is: ]

Oh. Hey.

[khajidont]

[ Jaime approaches Laurie, setting a firm hand on her shoulder and squeezing it, taking as much comfort in it as he hopes he's providing for her. It feels like a lot of responsibility, all of a sudden. Fighting OTO? He can do that. Wrangling cryptids? Easy. Training a bunch of novice superheroes and hoping they don't get them killed? Less easy, but doable. They do good work.

The apocalypse, dealing with something as myopic as fate, as gods... that's something else entirely. At least with the Reach, there was a foe he could face. Here, they're left with more questions than anything else, and no real enemy to confront head-on to make sure none of the younger ones have to. ]

Hey. You look like you could use some coffee.

Jaime @ home, after Clark's talk with Bats but before shit pops off.

[mildmanneredwriter]

[Clark figures it's time to come clean with Jaime. Past time, really—he 'fessed up to Apollo some time ago, Batman (he's still not over Batman being real and as good a detective as he supposedly is in the comics) had figured things out. And Jaime's been a friend to him all along.

A friend Clark's lied to for almost a year.]

Hey, Jaime? You got a minute?

[khajidont]

Fewer, these days.

[ Jaime looks tired - tired from worry, from trying to research all this, from the fact that the people around him seem to be falling apart at the seams just trying to handle all this. But he musters a small smile in Clark's direction, setting down the pad that he was working on to look over at him. ]

Kidding. Sort of. What's up?