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 Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:52 pm
It was Minnie Mouse who heard the truck pull up. Barnaby was too engrossed in his music, grooving to the beat of a song that would have set off the neighbours had his room not partially been underground. Several feet of earth and concrete tended to muffle the noise level just enough to keep the neighbours off his back. It was one of the reasons he had chosen to live down in the basement rather than up in the spare bedroom. Sound carried between houses much better when you were on the second floor.
He'd been in the middle of an air guitar solo when his mastiff bounded off her bed and started barking, nearly barreling him over as she made for the little row of windows along the top of the basement wall. Though she couldn't reach them, she rested her front paws on the wall to get a better look, barking until the redhead came over to see what the matter was.
"Easy girl, what is there, a squirrel or—" Barnaby stopped dead when he caught sight of a pair of very memorable pink eyes. Jude Lawson was tossing stones against his basement window. Or, even better, Jude Lawson was looking in his basement window. The redhead had to blink to make sure he wasn't seeing things, before he grinned and waved to his friend. "I'll be right up," he mouthed, before grabbing the nearest clean sweatshirt and trotting up the stairs.
The redhead called "Going out with a friend!" to his mother as he passed the kitchen, earning a "Okay sweetie!" by the time he made it to the door. His shoes took no time at all – thank god for Velcro – and after stuffing his house key into his pocket he headed down his postage stamp of a front lawn to meet Jude.
"Hey, what's up?" Barnaby made sure to offer his fist for an obligatory fist bump.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:10 pm
With every fist bump Jude knew he'd picked the right guy. It was like when he kissed Hero, only not gay. Not that he was saying kissing Hero felt gay.
...Wait. What?
Moving on!
"Hey, man. I like your dog." His dog with a stupid name that had been brought up alongside his basement bedroom during one of the few (and brief) conversations they'd had recently that didn't somehow turn around and go back down Talking About Hero Dr. "I got a truck." Plus a home.
The cheap plastic cover sat atop the various boxes nestled in the flatbed. Who knew what that horrible fate that couch would succumb too since it was too large to be shoved on board with everything else. That landlord wasn't about to let any Lawson rent from him in this life time.
All in all, using a shredded leather seat as your go-to for meeting up with the Sandman wasn't too bad. The differences between that and his prior residence could be measured in space alone. It was still boring, still cold and would still be lonely if he were a girl. Or a girly boy. Which he was not.
"Let's go."
Soon enough, they were cruising down the road to nowhere. Better than going to Talking About Hero Dr, right? "So, we need to talk about yesterday."
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:23 pm
Barnaby grinned wider. "Thanks. You'll have to stay longer one day so you can meet her." And his mother, but the redhead didn't say that. Inviting someone in to meet your parental units was almost the same as saying that you were interested in perusing something a little more serious. And really, he was content with being "just friends."
He let out a low whistle when he caught sight of the truck. To be completely honest, it looked like a piece of junk, but it was Jude's so that automatically made it cool. Maybe between shifts they could work on getting it a new paint job. "Nice wheels. Where'd you pick her up?" All machinery was female by default, and Barnaby saw no reason to refer to Jude's new baby as gender neutral.
The invitation was all he needed to hop in the passenger seat and close the door, content to go wherever his friend was going. He had nothing to do and no curfew tonight, as long as he was quiet, so why not join Jude? Besides, two men (because that's definitely what they were) riding in a truck down unbeaten roads had an element of those old Western films where men could be men without worrying about what other people thought. It was a nice feeling.
Of course, all nice feelings had to end, and Barnaby's got a little trod upon when Jude brought up yesterday. He didn't like the way his friend brought it up, and thus his first reaction was to deny it. It was tempting to just say 'what about it?' as if nothing happened, but he had a feeling that it was probably the wrong answer to the question. As much as his first instinct was avoidance, bros always came first, and he was willing to slug this out if the bluenette wanted to talk about it. But only because it was Jude.
"It's cool," the redhead said finally, eyes darting over to Jude and then back out again to the scenery. "I don't get it, whatever happened, but it's cool."
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:30 pm
Well, duh, Barny. Of course the truck was a girl. She only started up when she wanted, worked when she wanted, and risked a sudden explosion at any given moment. Truck PMS = Girl truck.
True facts.
"Craigslist." Surprisingly, Jude was not determined to be overly-manly about his vehicles. He didn't wax and wash them (obviously), name them or consider them anything more than something to get him from one place to another. (Oh, right, and to temporarily live in.) Any flaunting he'd commit himself to was based around the price rather than the truck itself. "Two-hundred bucks." About all he'd had left in his savings stuffed in a bag in the back of a storage unit. Now it was in his pocket. Every bit of cash he had fit in a single pair of jeans.
Good thing payday was coming up.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't want to explain it in front of Graves. Anyway, I'll just be honest with you. I'm a Senshi, and I'd like for you to be the Robin-gone-Nightwing to my Batman, basically."
Yeah, that didn't sound gay at all.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:39 pm
"For this? No kidding!" Boy was he ever glad he'd managed to get his old neighbour's bike off of him. He hadn't paid nearly as much for the Scarlet Bandit, and with any luck she'd last a lot longer than the box on wheels that Jude had bought. But he seemed to like it well enough, and so long as it didn't jostle him around too much, Barnaby was content to ride in it like it was the best truck ever. Which it kind of was, since Jude was there (and he meant that in a totally platonic way, they were just bros).
Barnaby gave a one-shouldered shrug in answer to the apology – it was the manly way to deal with things like that – and gave Jude another two and a half second look when he said he would be completely honest. The redhead couldn't have said what he was expecting, since he didn't exactly get confessions like this on a regular basis, but the words "I want you to be the Robin to my Batman" weren't exactly high on his 'things I know are coming' list.
Naturally, the only intelligent thing he could say was, "Huh." Idly, Barnaby remembered Jude bringing up Senshi when they first met, though he hadn't thought to make any kind connection. He had just thought it was Jude's way of keeping the conversation rolling. But, now that he thought about it, it was relevant.
"So you're a Senshi. And you want me as like… your back-up slash replacement?" It was always good to make sure you understood what was being said to you. "You know I don't have a secret Batcave or anything, right? No cool gear and all that?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:53 pm
Another turn down another road and still no goal in sight. Stupid of him to waste his gas when he was nearing being bankrupt, but if they stopped somewhere it would feel like some make-out scene in a teen movie. They'd be awkward and distracted and people would think things.
Horrible things.
"I'd refer to it more as an heir, only not related by blood. But yeah, pretty much." This was going well. Best not to risk a stop when things were working in his favor. The response had been about he'd reacted being given his pen. Truly, this was a perfect match and an ideal replacement. "You don't need a Batcave or any gear. You'll just need a henshin pen and the jungle."
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:58 pm
The sudden lack of moving scenery would have been disappointing in another circumstance, but Jude had Barnaby's complete and undivided attention (even if he was still following the Three Second Rule). It was like something out of a comic book, or maybe even a cheesy animated cartoon. Super Hero needs a sidekick. Super Hero recruits his friend and declares him the "heir". Super Hero and friend, now Sidekick, have totally awesome adventures together.
All in all, it sounded pretty cool.
Not even the lack of a Batcave seemed to dampen the redhead's spirits. He was more interested in learning the lingo of the trade, so to speak. "What's a henshin pen? And the jungle… do you like, I dunno, summon it or something? Is it real?" Barnaby had been in way too much shock the last time he'd seen it to consider touching the trees or anything like that.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:08 pm
At all times, Jude drove with one hand on the wheel and the other at his side. Reaching for the henshin pen didn't disrupt his ability to keep going in a straight line; turning to give it to Barny did. The car wavered and righted itself once he'd finished reaching over and tossed the magical and incredibly girly object. "It's this. It's what turns you into a Senshi once it's bound to you or whatever."
Another left turn. Another right turn.
Barny asked about the jungle and Jude broke the Three Second Rule to the point you'd think it was never invented. But it was okay this once, because it was a look of father-to-son appreciation and Not Gay eyes he was making at him.
Asking about the jungle already? What a proud moment. (You'd think Jude was trying to set him up with the damn thing.)
"She's real when you call Her," he answered. Barny would catch on to the genderization (he'd ask Hero if that was a real word later) of his (platonic) beloved. "But yes, you summon it. Every Senshi has some ability only they can do. Calling Her is mine. When She's dismissed, there's no evidence She was there, though. Damn good thing to or I'd be paying out the a** in damages."
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:16 pm
He opened his hands automatically when Jude tossed the henshin pen at him, though he hadn't expected it to be quite so small. Still, catching baseballs did have its advantages, one of which being he didn't drop things that were casually tossed at him. Turning the pen over in his hands, Barnaby made another, "Huh" sound, tracing the strange symbols on it. "You can't use it like a real pen, can you," he asked after he realized there was no little pen-clicky-thing at the top. Bummer. How were you supposed to disguise your super awesome transformer thingy if you couldn't even use it like a real pen? He bet Batman never had these kinds of problems.
When Jude broke the Three Second Rule, the redhead was almost convinced that he'd violated some sort of hero-to-sidekick secret rule until he realized that the bluenette was looking at him out of pride. In that case, perhaps he had done something right. This may also have been the reason why he hadn't brought this up in front of Grayson. He might just get the wrong idea.
The designation of the jungle as "she" came as a bit of a surprise, but it didn't bother Barnaby in the slightest (perhaps because he was used to referring to inanimate objects by a gender). "So you use this pen to uh… acquire a spiffy wardrobe, and then you can call upon your jungle? What exactly does she do, besides get people out of freezers?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:36 pm
Had Jude looked like he felt, he'd be blinding them both in a way that put Sailor Leo to shame. Instead, only his mood was bright as it could be. You could hear the transformation from someone discussing a serious issue to a man that had been given the world or something better. "No, you can't write with it."
I tried hung in the air, unspoken.
They were epic losers. Epic.
Not to disappoint on that accusation, Jude turned to look at him again. Eye to eye. Dead serious. (And not watching the road.) "If you take girls there they will have crazy awesome sex with you." He burst out laughing not half a second afterward. "No, but seriously. They will."
Batman and Robin; partners and friends.
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Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 5:36 pm
"You can't? Damn." Barnaby wrinkled his nose, but seemed to acknowledge the unspoken words between them nonetheless. Why call it a pen if you couldn't even write with it? It was beyond lame. Might as well just call it a henshin stick.
The redhead tried to return the dead serious look as best he could while simultaneously shooting glances at the road. If Jude wasn't going to watch the road then somebody had to make sure they weren't going to careen wildly off the road. But his friend didn't have to know he was looking. He'd just casually bump the steering wheel if they got too close to the side.
Even so, it was hard to focus on the road when Jude was talking about jungle sex. There were some things that even he couldn't ignore. "What? No way. Dude that's… kind of hot." He admitted, with a kind of crooked grin. "So uh, what exactly do I have to do? To be your…" What had he called it? Oh, right. "Heir?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 5:50 pm
"Part of why I use the word 'heir' is because I don't know a better word to call it." Honest as ever. Hero would know a more fitting term, but this wasn't a subject she was all that willing to discuss with him. "The other part is because it's sort of like a king-prince kind of deal. For the prince to become king, the king before him has to die." A harsh bump in the road jolted the truck violently. This thing shouldn't be driving on the road anymore than Jude should be behind the wheel.
"I've lived a long time, I'm sure. Aries knows we've been around before this, and I'm willing to bet the other Zodiac have noticed, too." One right turn, one left. Jude's voice dropped, trying to sound steady, but not frustrated. "Far as this life goes, nearly all of us died. We came back, I don't know how or why yet. But there was a school around here for a little while, Barren Pines. You won't remember it; no one but us remembers it I think. It was there, though, and it was all some plot for the Negaverse."
For what, he didn't know. No one had told him anything and he hadn't really decided who to ask. "I was dead for a lot of it--again--but I was revived near the end to break down some barrier holding us all captive. Sounds hard to believe, I know, but every word is the truth."
Jude let one arm dangle out the window and took a deep breath. "You're already my heir. The question you should be asking is: how do you become a senshi? That, like I said, will happen when I die. There has to be a Sagittarius or there can't be a Zodiac, and there has to be a Zodiac. You'll get to be immortal by some definition of the word, get your own jungle, a lot of other stuff. When you get bored of it, just pass the henshin onto someone else."
He made it sound so easy when it wasn't. Not at all.
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Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 6:00 pm
Wait, Jude had to die? That wasn't part of the whole Batman-Robin equation, was it? Barnaby opened his mouth to comment but decided against it when Jude continued on. The bluenette's voice was far too serious to allow for interruption. Instead, he tried to listen as best he could to the story of these mysterious "Zodiac" Senshi and the school in which they died.
"It is, hard to believe I mean, but," the redhead gave an almost helpless shrug. "I'm cool with that." Perhaps he would have been a little more sceptical, had he not seen what Jude had done to the freezer. Perhaps he would have thought a little harder about what he was getting himself into if he knew what being a Zodiac Senshi entitled. But Barnaby had never really been that smart, nor was he the type to sit and ponder things that were beyond his control. He, like others in cartoons and comic books, had been offered a chance to take up the mantle of justice, so to speak. And as far as he remembered, anyone who tried to avoid something like this always ended up being forced to take it in the end.
There was a pause as he drummed his fingers on the windowsill, in some sort of quiet contemplation. "There's no way for you to like… I dunno, just retire or anything?" Barnaby shot Jude a sidelong glance as he stretched his arms above his head and then rested them behind the headrest. "And what do we do until then?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 6:16 pm
Jude shook his head and stopped the truck a few seconds later. They'd reached their mutual starting and ending point. "No, no retirement. It just doesn't work like that for us. Until then, I train you so you're ready. Starting tomorrow. So, go eat your veggies and rest up. You've got a lot of work ahead of you, but Lady Fate is a demanding woman."
Before Barny closed the door from the outside, Jude added: "And so is Captain Aries, so start preparing for that."
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Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 6:37 pm
Barnaby snorted softly as he got out of the car, shutting the door behind him. "Jude, I never eat my veggies." Not even for Batman. Okay maybe he would eat them for Batman but that was only because he respected the man. Jude, however, had a long way to go before he could convince the redhead to start nomming on greenery.
"I'll do my best, man." He could hear Minnie's excited barks even from the driveway and gave his friend a mock salute as he headed for his front door. "Catch you later."
Wait, Captain Aries was a woman?
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