Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle (
khajidont) wrote in
maskormenacelogs2019-11-01 06:55 pm
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Entry tags:
- andy | n/a,
- bart allen | kid flash,
- cecelia ardenbury | n/a,
- clark kent | superman,
- ct-7567 | captain rex,
- fuu hououji | zephyr,
- jaime reyes | blue beetle,
- josh foley | elixir,
- laurie collins | wallflower,
- lucina | n/a,
- magnus burnsides | the hammer,
- martin darkov | darkov,
- poe dameron | black leader,
- ruka | n/a,
- tina belcher | n/a,
- † bruce wayne | batman,
- † yusuke kitagawa | fox
CATCH-ALL FOR NOVEMBER [ Jaime Reyes, Magnus Burnsides, Captain Rex ]
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.
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.
FOR BOYF
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. ]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
It's not the same stretch of sand where they met again for the first time. But it is close.
Whether he ventures out to see for himself where she's gone, or if he simply keeps narrowing down her geo-position to something comprehensible first, it's an unusual little spot: a lighthouse, just a short skip from the tide line. There is no way it is open to the public at this time of night. So, when—because of course it's when, with how late it is, and how long it's been, and how quiet, and how worrisome—when Jaime inevitably makes his way there, Ruka at least is easy enough to find.
There, up on the gallery deck, the exterior walkway that circles the lantern room up at the very top of the lighthouse, Ruka leans heavy on the railing, chin balanced on her folded arms, more of her weight pressed there than on her feet. Strangely, she's not facing the water; her position in that circle faces her inland, looking over the city of the Cape, towards Heropa, and the rest of the world beyond it.
Not at all strangely, she's been crying. She has been for a long time. ]
no subject
He doesn't land next to her. He just hovers right in front of her. She's been crying, obviously. She has every reason to cry. What's happening now - it's terrifying, for anyone. And even moreso for someone like Ruka, who's lived it before. Who felt it before, who's probably petrified of feeling it again.
It still breaks his heart to see that she's been crying. ]
Hey.
[ He stays there for a moment, hovering, not reaching out quite yet. ]
...if you want me to leave, I can. [ Instead of reaching out to her, he grasps onto the bars separating them. ]
I got worried.
no subject
Isn't it past your bedtime?
[ It's too gently said to be a rebuke; it's no masked go away.
She looks down. ] I didn't want to keep you up.
no subject
[ He leans in a little, reaches out so that his armoured fingers cover hers on the railing, face hovering just in front of hers - closer than it usually is without the disparity in height between them. Even in the suit, his expression is soft, gentled by some combination of worry, lack of sleep, and something that the both of them feel but neither will say. ]
You don't have to worry about stuff like that. [ Not that he can sleep without her anyway. Not these days. That happened alarmingly quickly. He inclines his head, the side of his head gently bumping into hers. ] Hey.
no subject
It takes longer to do anything more than that. She lets her head rest against his for a moment, lets herself breathe. It's a terrible little conflict with her powers: she can draw comfort from Jaime's usually-steadier presence, but getting to the root of her own feelings is somehow an uphill climb. She needs company and solitude simultaneously. It's misery. ]
... It's stupid. I don't know what's wrong with me. [ She blinks a few times, to try to get the last of the wetness out of her lashes. Her voice is a little rough, hurt, but tone is a self-disparaging wryness — the kind that does more damage for the sake of trying to hide it. ] I'm just getting worked up over the dumbest things.
no subject
[ He doesn't move his hands or his head. He'll stay right here for as long as he can. It feels like all he can do, these days. There's nothing he can do to make this better that he hasn't already been doing, tirelessly poring over mythology that makes no sense to his admittedly scientific-geared mind, trying to prep the rest of the League for what's to come, trying to figure out how to save everyone. There's nothing he can say to make this better. There's nothing anyone can say.
He's settled for taking care of her in his own way. Trying to make sure she eats. That she sleeps, or at least lies down for a while. To hold her, to be close. It's all he knows how to do. He wonders if there's anything he's missing but, for once, he doesn't think there is. To think that there's anything he could do or say to make it better just insults the magnitude of what they're facing, the magnitude of what she's gone through.
He doesn't think other people realize what it means, when she tells them of her life. They're too busy thinking about what it means to them to think about what it must mean to her, falling over and over again for the idea that just because someone puts on a mask of placidity that it's at all true.
It makes him resent people. Just a little. He doesn't like it, but he does it anyway. ]
It's not stupid at all. You know how much worse literally anyone else in your position would be doing? I don't know how you find the strength to do all this. But you don't... you don't gotta do it around me.
no subject
[ She can feel his worry, and his care, and a little bit of his frustration—not at her, somehow, despite everything—and it is comfort. It is, in its own way, a stable footing. It's just up to her to accept it, and actually step forward.
Her hands move, finally, coming out from under his hands to rest atop them, fingers splaying across the armor. ]
It's... I mean. Yeah, I went through this before, but... everyone's getting involved. Everyone wants to help. That's a good thing, isn't it?
But... the... the more I hear other people talking about it, the... the less certain I feel. It doesn't make sense, right?
[ It's frightening to even say this much. ]
Everyone's so sure it'll work out. Everyone's certain.
[ She speaks quietly. The words are almost whispered, but it does nothing to hide the frustration. It doesn't do anything to mask the anger. ]
How can I trust anyone that's never failed?
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But there are some things he can understand. ]
It's always the people who are supposed to have things under control -- or the people who act like they do that let you down the most, right?
[ In her own life, the people who were supposed to take care of her, supposed to love her. But it goes broader than that too, deeper. It counts for everyone, doesn't it? In some way? ]
no subject
[ He's right. Or, well, maybe he's not right about a hundred percent of the cases — there are successes, there's competence, even if she can't see it right now — but he's right enough. It's always the people that try to take command with no idea what they're doing. The ones that let reputation precede thought, the ones that never listen to anyone they're not predisposed to trust.
And Ruka — for all her experience, for all her knowledge, for all her understanding and intelligence, for all that she knows and all that she can figure out — is never in that category. ]
And, if we lose, they're not gonna be the ones who have to deal with it. They'll leave. Replaced with more of the same.
I... [ She's tried so many times. To explain the scale. To demonstrate the scope. Stories, and essays, and pictures, paintings — anything to convey the scale, to convey the danger. Anything to make people understand how different this is from their hometown trials. But it never connects. Does it? No matter how plain she tries to be, the message misses the mark. ] ... I can't... do anything...
no subject
[ His hands tighten around hers. ]
You have. You are. You're doing everything you can do, and that's a lot - teaching people, giving them perspective, even if you only get through to one person --
[ He'd been one of those people, not so very long ago. We'll win because we must. And if he's in front of a group, people he needs to lend his spirit to, to bolster morale, he'll be that person again. Part of him even believes it. But Ruka is what he needs to hold onto, and people like her, who know what comes to pass when it happens, who knows that people need to go through with it and, somehow, keep m oving forward. ]
You've done more than you think. Even when it's been - hard. [ Not the hardest thing she's ever done. The hardest thing she's ever done is probably simply trying to survive. But putting herself out there for people who don't seem to understand, again and again, that doesn't come naturally to her, does it? Sharing these broken pieces of her, only to have them swept aside. ]
It will make a difference in the end. I believe that. I really do.
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It's hard to believe them from Jaime, too. Even though it's Jaime. He's never lied to her to spare her feelings; he doesn't try to gloss over ugly truths just to make her feel better. He's never denied her anything. He means everything he says. He's sincere, and honest, even when it's difficult and ugly. He wouldn't lie to her now. ]
I want to believe that. [ It's the closest she can get, and even that much gets caught in her throat. She's too cried out for fresh tears; her eye burns for the strain of it anyway. Her heart hurts. Her whole body aches for it. ] I don't want it to go the same way... I don't want to start over anymore.
I don't want anyone else to live with that. I just... I... I want to believe we have a chance, this time.
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[ Jaime says it with as much conviction as he can, because he truly believes that. He can't say that it's not dangerous, that it's going to work, that they're going to be the ones to crack it, but they still have hope. They still have an opportunity to have a life here. And Jaime's going to fight tooth and nail for it.
It's for the world. For the people he loves, imPorts and civilians alike, the people who showed him kindness, the people who didn't, the people who aren't here anymore but may have the chance to come back. But it's for them too. He's got a life worth saving now. He's not going to let it go. ]
And we're gonna do everything in our power to take that chance and make it happen. You and me. All of us.