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 Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:04 pm
Most people think that the earth takes 24 hours to make one full rotation on its axis. Theyre actually wrong, but close. The earth actually only takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. This fact, though true, does not actually reflect how long the day is, as the tilt of the earth also lengthens or shortens the "day" depending on the season and your location on earth. In some places days will be longer then in others, especially in the extreme northern and southern hemisphere.
Eric had heard all of this somewhere before, dropped unceremoniously into one ear only to slosh discarded out the other. Now, however, it was nagging at the back of his mind, as he watched the sun rise out the bus window and it felt like the night had not quite been long enough. He tried to tell himself he’d fallen asleep but he knew he hadn't, he’d been watching his watch. The shorter or longer day for the season didn’t make sense, it was winter, the nights should be longer, and the time was not incorrect for the amount of illumination outside.
Still, he didn’t feel tired, or even bored for his lack of activity. He felt... incomplete. Something was missing. He didn't know what it was, be he felt like he was close to figuring it out.
His thoughts were interrupted as he saw someone he had honestly not expected to see step onto the bus. High forehead, blond hair, muscled arms and terrible, terrible sense of style. It was Jett all right.
He raised a hand to waive frantically, his previous thought long forgotten. Just his luck, the morning rush was in full swing and it looked like there was only one seat left.
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:58 pm
Jett didn’t consider himself ‘common folk’, like most of the other inhabitants that should be riding the bus at this hour. Jett had a car, that he’d meticulously saved up for. And he was in very good physical health, so walking wouldn’t have been an issue.
…If he hadn’t stayed out too late last night, patrolling, and slept in. Which was something that mortified him. Jett was meticulous—and always, always on time.
But the car needed gas. And he didn’t have time to stop at the gas station. He certainly wasn’t going to risk the chance of not having enough gas to drive to school and get stuck somewhere, looking like some sort of moron.
Instead, Jett was risking his dignity and hitching a ride on this mortifying system of public transit.
Wearing the school uniform, Jett was eagerly counting the days before he could switch out of HITS and get back into DCU—if he even could. There was something so ridiculous and childish about still having a uniform despite the fact that he was in college.
Though he’d woken up only about twenty minutes before catching the bus, it was next to impossible to tell he’d just rolled out of bed. His hair was neatly brushed, shirt tucked in, coat wrinkle-free—even his tie settled perfectly. But Jett did not look happy as he stepped onto the bus.
It wasn’t just the fact that it was early—or that he was riding on the bus—it was that it was early and he was riding the bus and someone had recognized him. Trying not to look absolutely horrified as he locked eyes with Eric, he slowly walked over, taking a seat near the male but still a slight distance away.
Jett should have just looked away and tried to ignore the male, or pretend like he hadn’t seen him—but was that really possible? Eric was very conspicuous waving like that…
And Jett doubted it would work, anyway. Eric didn’t seem the sort of person who could be avoided—especially not on a bus.
“Eric,” Jett greeted, voice laced with slight irritation, either from residual sleepiness or annoyance from the situation—or just general grumpiness. “…Fancy running into you, here. What are you doing on the bus so early?” he inquired; no sane person (was Eric even sane?) would ride the bus unless positively necessary, and judging by how Eric was dressed, he was neither going to school or work.
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 8:19 pm
Eric considered how best to respond. Was it normal to say that he’d been riding the bus since it left the transfer station? Or that he’d ridden another bus before that?
No. No it wasn't. Erick wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he did know that. Should he say something else instead? Lie? He wasn’t very good at that...
And he hadn't missed the irritated tone in Jetts voice. It was technically early, he might just be tired, or something could have happened. Eric wasn't sure if they were at the point in their friendship yet where he should ask something like that.
He was delaying too long and he knew it, so he gave Jett a smile.
"Oh, early's just a matter of perspective. I haven't actually gone to bed yet. As for being on the bus..."
He trailed off as the familiar image flashed into his mind. The tweed jacket, the brown traveling case. Eric lingered on the memory for a moment before returning to what he was saying. What had he been saying?
"Yeah. Are you all right? You sound a little disheveled. Wait, I don’t think that’s the right word. Disseven? You sound a little under the weather."
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:18 pm
Jett shrugged just slightly. “I’m fine,” he grumbled, surprised that Eric had even picked up on it. He didn’t much care for proper diction this early in the morning, and gave the redhead a slightly sour look for seeming so peppy. “You seem like a pretty tame guy, Eric. Most people who live the night life are a bit shadier than you.”
There were still two questions lingering quite prominently in his mind: One, why hadn’t he slept, and two, why was he on the bus?
Leaning back and trying to ignore the uncomfortable sensation of the plastic seat clinging to him, he rested his arm across the back of the empty seat next to him. “Is riding the bus early in the morning just some hobby for you or are you actually headed somewhere?”
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:47 pm
Eric didn’t like that question, nor did he like the level of complexity he would have to go into to accurately answer the question. Eric hated lying, and avoiding the question was easier. He frowned a little bit before shrugging.
"Both."
He thought for a moment on a method to change the subject.
"So... That’s a uh... nice getup?"
It was somewhat nicer then what hed seen Jett in last time, but everybody looked bloodstained in the surrounding.
"Is that what you normally, you know, wear? Cause its uh..."
Eric was bad at lying.
"Great?"
Really, really bad at lying.
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:20 pm
For a moment, Jett just stared at Eric, trying to figure out if he was trying to be polite or coming onto him. Those wrinkled close? That unkempt beard? He didn’t look like any homosexual Jett had ever met, but Jett wasn’t going to chance it.
“…I got kicked out of school,” he said, eyes narrowing just a bit as he assessed Eric, who clearly posed no real threat despite his somewhat off nature. But, he’d known Eric for a while, even if their meetings had only been brief. He’d been a bit worried—was that the right word?—that the male had died in space (actually, no, he hadn’t thought about Eric at all until he saw that familiar scruff of beard). “I used to go to Destiny City University, but apparently you get kicked out of college if you’re gone for six weeks because some ******** space dipshits decide to pluck you off of Earth and throw you in space,” he replied, obviously bitter.
“And we get to wear these ******** gorgeous school uniforms for some god damned reason. But I want to see if I can’t talk to the registrar about going back to DCU, because I was severely under the impression that anyone above the age of five should know how to dress themselves and not be told what to wear. But,” his voice was sour and his lip curled into a slight sneer. “That might just be me.”
Jett had answered the question out of courtesy, but that didn’t stop him from drifting back to the original question. “Where are you headed now, anywhere in particular or just riding for the hell of it?”
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:34 pm
Eric hadn’t considered that his questions might have sounded flirtatious. He still didn’t.
This time, when the question came back round to why he was riding the bus, he was better prepared. The phrasing was different to, it gave him an easier out. Weird as Eric knew what had said so far sounded like, his actual reason for being on the bus would have sounded downright... unhealthy. So he faked it, as best he could, as we all do when faced with an unpleasant answer.
He shrugged.
"Now that you mention it, I should probably be getting home. Staying up so late is probably going to catch up with me soon, and it’d be best if I was on a nice, warm couch by time that happened."
Even thinking about it made him a little sleepy. He’d already forgotten what he’d been thinking about earlier, for now.
"But that’s a damn shame about your school man... I bet if you explain... Well... I’m sure you’ll figure something out."
Explain what happened. That was what he was going to say. What a stupid suggestion.
"And you’ll be back to normal clothes before you know it."
Eric beamed at his own positivity, oblivious to whether or not Jett shared his enthusiasm.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:04 am
Jett nodded, considering this. He very much wanted to go back to DCU, back to the school he'd gone to since he got out of college--where he knew his professors and had friends and lived nearby. "We'll see. I'd like to say 'maybe I'll get used to this new place,' but the truth of the matter is, it's a nerd school. Seriously. There's no sports or anything. So. Not looking forward to it, unless the girls are pretty attractive."
...But they'd have to be really attractive if they were the only pros to HITS vs DCU.
He seemed a bit more awake--and a bit more open to the concept of conversation--even without his coffee.
He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about getting back into DCU and wondered if he should just settle for HITS, but either way--this was his life, now.
"So," again, his curiosity struck him. "That whole...space thing," he said; he distinctly remembered because he hadn't died, but was somewhat curious as to what Eric's fate had been. Clearly the male wasn't a Dark Mirror Senshi like Jett, but sans Raven and the other new recruits, he hadn't met anyone from the Surrounding and was relatively surprised to see that others might have made it back alive. "How did you--we," he corrected, as not to be suspicious, "How did we end up back here, do you know?"
He had hunched forward a bit now, speaking just a bit quieter; there weren't too many other people on the bus just yet, but that didn't mean Jett was going to speak loud enough for the lot that was aboard to think he was batshit crazy. He did have a reputation to uphold, after all.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:27 am
Was that what he had been wondering before? It felt right, but wrong at the same time. Eric shrugged off the feeling, it was the worst in the world, knowing you had been thinking about something important but you just... can’t remember what it was.
"Honestly, I don’t know what happened."
He said with a shake of his head.
"I seem to remember... dying.... but it all doesn’t fit together well for me. And I don’t remember ever figuring out what was actually going on, whether it was those people or what that had brought us there."
A curiosity dawned on Eric, and he elected to indulge it. Maybe, knowing what Jett had seen could re awaken some of his own dim memories.
"What did you see? Up there, I mean. Did you figure anything out?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:51 am
“What did I see?” Jett reiterated, using the few seconds of repeating the question to formulate a response. “…I saw a lot of people dying, and I saw a lot of people in weird costumes fighting some big thing. Lot of blood and fighting,” he shrugged. “One army against another. Apparently whatever civilians were in the way got, you know. Disposed of.”
He laced his fingers together, lips pursing just slightly in thought. “It was weird,” he mused. “Watching people die. I can’t imagine how it felt. Or what it must have felt to suddenly been alive again. Gives you a new perspective on life, though, doesn’t it?”
The question was rhetorical; he suspected that anyone that had made it back alive wasn’t going to be exactly the same. “What about you.” The question was somewhat flat. “What have you been doing since you got back, same old?”
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:10 am
Eric bit his lip.
"Honestly, yeah. It pretty much has been same old same old. I’ve been playing corners, making the odd dollar here or there."
He didn’t mention the strange feeling, the wanderlust. The want to know just what the hell had happened, to put that strange world into a bottle and keep it with him. He didn’t even know all that himself, just that things really did feel... different.
"Things aren't all that different."
He said with a sigh. He was doing a lot of lying, but what was the alternative? Tell Jett that he was having some weird... What would he even call it? Depression? He didn’t feel sad just... out of place. Culture shock, perhaps. Either way, he was pretty certain that he and Jett were not at THAT level of their friendship.
Yet.
"Did certainly put a few things in perspective though. I know I’m going to make it as a guitarist soon, but I am looking for a job in the meantime, so mayhap I can afford a van to haul all my stuff around."
"Would sure miss the bus though...."
He looked at the rectangular metal monstrosity with an odd affection.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:30 am
The one thing Jett hated more than anything was a liar. It made his skin crawl, made him seethe. It was different if you were conning someone, or screwing around with them, but he didn’t like to be outright lied to. Fortunately, he didn’t know Eric enough to make the call that he wasn’t’ telling the truth.
“Miss the bus?” Jett asked semi-incredulously. The bus was dingy, vile, and filled with verminous cretin. Germs and filth aplenty, how could the bus had ever been a thing to miss? He was repulsed that he had to ride on it.
For whatever reason, Eric was attached to the bus. He leaned back again and shrugged just slightly. “…I think you’ll be able to live without it. Your fondness of the bus doesn’t seem healthy, pal,” he said somewhat mockingly, glancing down at his watch for a quick time check.
There was still a fair amount of time before school started—and the bus, albeit still making stops, was entirely effective in making up for lost time.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:43 am
"Maybe..."
He nodded absently.
"You know I ran into one of those, you know, people a few days ago. I was playing on a corner about nightfall and she stumbled across me. It was weird, you know? Like meeting someone that didn’t exist, like a movie character or something."
He thought about the encounter with Alberio. It certainly had been strange, and hadn't helped with these feelings he'd been having since his return.
"She indicated we need to be careful out here. Or, more careful than normal. I got the feeling I wasn't hearing the whole story, but I'm beginning to wonder if we've seen the last of them and all that comes with them."
He didn't mention that he was also wondering if that would be an altogether bad thing, it might satiate his curiosity to run into those people again.
"Are you still in contact with anyone else we ran into up there?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 5:32 pm
“Ah…still in contact?” Jett mused aloud; reiterating whatever Eric said seemed to be his way of giving himself a few more seconds to fabricate a logical story. “Not…really,” he confessed after a moment—but he wasn’t about to just jump into telling Eric how he’d been drafted into the Dark Mirror Court and how several civilians had been given super awesome magical powers.
First of all, that just sounded stupid.
Second of all, on the off chance that Eric had been among those empowered during the events on the Surrounding, he wasn’t going to go and out himself.
“I expect that whoever you ran into, she didn’t tell you the whole story. Those people? The one in weird costumes? …Most likely anyone you saw up there in Space…don’t trust them,” he said, though felt a bit like he could use Eric to his advantage. “They’re up to trouble. I want to make sure they don’t do anything to hurt any civilians. Those senshi? …It’s there fault everyone got so screwed up. I watched people—innocent people—die. My friends,” he said after a moment. “…During that big battle. And none of it would have happened if it weren’t for those Senshi.”
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:54 pm
Senshi! So that’s how its freaking pronounced! He had been calling them sushi this whole time!
How was it that no one had bothered to correct him!? He'd said this to Jett, Alberio, That weird girl out on the rainbow road!!! Did no one realize he was using the wrong word!?
It occurred to Eric that he should probably respond to Jett, the sudden realization was not really an appropriate reaction to someone telling you their friends died. He did note that it was weird that Jett had said "Civilians". He’d said innocents later, and that made more sense. Military officials call civilians civilians, civilians called them folk, persons, people, gents or idiots. Still, not an appropriate response to being told your friends died.
"Aye, I had my suspicions from the start. It seemed more then coincidental that they seemed to be able to travel to and from... wherever that place is just by disappearing and reappearing, and we just happened to arrive that way. But what do you mean trouble? Or making sure they don’t hurt anybody?"
He leaned in close.
"Do you know something? Is something about to happen? An attack or,"
He looked around, making sure that no one was listening to him.
"Or more people going missing?"
For a moment, the restlessness was gone.
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