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 Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2021 3:35 pm
They’d left Negaspace after receiving their medals from Axinite, and Bloodstone teleported himself and Carnallite directly to the outdoor patio of his apartment. There was no point in trudging through the city when they were not in the greatest shape, and he was more than capable of teleporting.
He was still bleeding a little from the cut on his head and had scrapes and bruises from the number of times he’d been knocked back. But most of his hair, unlike Carnallite, was no longer super frizzy.
Jonah was home, he knew. But since there were two floors to the condo, it would likely take a little while for him to realize they were even there.
“Let me get the kit from my bathroom,” he told Celeste after they’d both powered down. The patio door was unlocked because there was no point in locking it. “Grab a drink if you want,” he said, although he didn’t have to. She knew she was welcome to whatever she wanted in his apartment.
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Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2021 7:36 pm
Jonah was in the office going through August’s emails, because even though it was late and it was perfectly acceptable for him to be sleeping, he was a night owl and he felt pretty useless when he wasn’t doing work, anyway.
He still wasn’t sure if he should even consider it work, but August was paying him, so Jonah supposed it counted.
Only two weeks had passed since he’d accepted August’s offer to stay in his apartment and become what was essentially a personal assistant. He didn’t think August actually needed a personal assistant, but Jonah had plenty to do to keep him occupied, and it meant he could express his gratitude in the way he liked most: helping someone. He hadn’t been home once since starting, and he was a bit less stressed because of it. A few nights ago while drinking, he’d even been brave enough to block his grandfather when the old man continued to leave him rude voicemails wondering where he was.
The only person who knew about his improved circumstances was his younger sister, and she wasn’t about to tell their grandfather unless Jonah told her to.
He heard noises from upstairs — footsteps and the tinkling of glasses — and glanced at the time.
He hadn’t heard August arrive, but assumed he must have done so while Jonah had his headphones on earlier.
Stepping out of the office, Jonah climbed the stairs to find Celeste digging through August’s alcohol, looking a little worse for wear.
“Ummm…”--- Celeste dug through the alcohol August had available — which was a considerable amount, the rich b*****d. She poured herself a tumbler of whiskey and took a healthy sip just as Jonah climbed the stairs.
“Ah,” she said, completely unsurprised, “there’s the houseboy.”
She watched him flush and shuffle his feet, his wide, almost overly large eyes shifting from side to side as he looked for August.
He was a strange boy. Of course Celeste knew he wasn’t really a boy seeing as he was already in his late twenties (or so he insisted one evening last week, in what she’d come to know what a rare show of bravery), but the absurd level of his shyness made him seem youthful, like he was a bit stunted emotionally, stuck back in late adolescence while the rest of him hurtled toward his thirties.
It was pathetic, in Celeste’s opinion.
Then again, she was rather heartless.
“Be a good boy and order some food,” she demanded. “You know what August likes, don’t you?”
Jonah mumbled something inaudible but pulled out his phone to do as she said.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 1:39 pm
August had taken a moment or two to look at himself in the mirror, but there was nothing he could really do about his hair until he took a shower. Once Celeste was patched up and offered a shower, he would worry about his own.
Medkit in hand, August collected some towels and made his way back to the living room. But he made no comment to Jonah, who was apparently ordering food for them, and instead set the kit on the kitchen counter and helped himself to his own tumbler of whiskey.
He knew Celeste was probably giving Jonah a hard time behind his back, but Jonah had dealt with enough abuse to be able to handle it.
That probably wasn’t the best thought to have on what to do about abuse. Maybe he should reprimand Celeste more? August thought he at least did his part in offering Jonah somewhere to stay, and a job, to get him out of the horrible living situation he was in.
Sooner or later Jonah will realize that Celeste is just a bitter old spinster.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 3:00 pm
Jonah was about to ask Celeste what she wanted. Obviously she wasn’t really concerned about August eating, she was just using him as an excuse to make Jonah do what she wanted. Jonah knew this. He also went along with it anyway. At least until August walked out and Jonah noticed the blood.
He didn’t drop his phone, but it was a near thing. Jonah stopped what he was doing and stood there, eyes wide, and mouth open in shock.
“Ummm,” he said again, because words did not come quickly.
Or they came too quickly and he had trouble unraveling them enough to get them from his brain through his mouth.
This was not the first time he’d seen August bleeding. That didn’t make it any less disconcerting.
“You’re bleeding!” he said, but that much was obvious, so he followed up by asking, “W-What happened?”--- Celeste might be bitter, but it truly had nothing to do with Jonah. She certainly wasn’t old, despite how younger people tended to think about advancing beyond thirty years (older people, too, sometimes; apparently women should never age passed twenty-five).
Neither of those things had anything to do with how she chose to treat Jonah. Celeste liked to think of it as tough love, only she didn’t love him at all. Tough tolerance? Tough… something. She really just wanted to know what it would take for him to finally fight back.
Apparently, it took quite a lot.
“Never mind about that,” she said, and then, with a motion of her glass toward his phone, “Get to the food.”
She could see the struggle in his eyes, as his desire to do what he was told warred with his concern for August.
“B-But…”
“He hasn’t keeled over yet,” Celeste interrupted him, “so he’s fine. But we’re both starving. What are you ordering?”
“Ummm… Indian?” he said, glancing at August again like he was looking for approval.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 5:12 pm
Even as Jonah voiced his concern and was told by Celeste to focus on ordering food instead, August didn’t bother responding. Instead he took a drink of the whiskey and then poured some more for himself, and a glass of the fruiter liquors for Jonah, since August knew he didn’t really like the taste of alcohol.
“Indian is fine,” August agreed and went to sit down at the counter so he could open up the medkit. There was plenty of gauze and bandages. They were lucky to get away with not needing stitches.
Antiseptic was a little low, but he would just have Jonah order more at some point.
Just like at some point he probably needed to answer his questions.
“Monster,” he said, even if it was a little more involved than that. At least Jonah was aware of their existence and wouldn’t question it too much. However… he was pleased with how well Celeste handled her first mission… there was no reason for him to think other recruits wouldn’t do just as well.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:23 pm
Jonah nodded at August’s response and finished ordering. He didn’t bother to ask Celeste what she wanted since he knew what she’d ordered the last time they’d gotten Indian food.
Of all the things Jonah took care of for August, cooking was not one of them. He was not a good cook, and August didn’t have the time for it, so they had food delivered more often than not — from nicer places, so it was as good as a home cooked meal might be if Jonah was better in the kitchen, rather than the cheaper fast food places Jonah wouldn’t have passed up if he was on his own.
Once the order was placed, Jonah hesitantly approached August to check his injuries, accepting the glass of alcohol from him but not drinking it yet. He didn’t touch August, just looked as closely as he could without invading August’s personal space.
“One of the youma?” Jonah clarified.
Probably. He didn’t know of any other monsters, but he also figured if youma existed, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for other types of monsters to exist, too.--- Celeste lowered her drink mid-sip and looked from Jonah to August.
“He knows about youma?” she asked.
Jonah looked from August to her. “You know about youma?”
The incredulous tone was the bravest she’d heard him sound in the past week. By the rapid paling of his face and the skittish shifting of his feet, she assumed Jonah regretted it and was starting to quickly close in on himself.
Celeste frowned and looked between the two of them again, growing quiet. She’d thought the Negaverse was supposed to be a secret, that August hadn’t told anyone other than her. That seemed to be the implication when he recruited her, at least.
Although, she supposed it was perfectly reasonable for Jonah to know what youma were without knowing about the Negaverse.
With a roll of his eyes, Celeste lifted her glass again and drained it.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:35 pm
August just looked at the both of them with a strained expression. Jonah saying anything about youma didn’t make it nearly as telling as Celeste admitting she knew. Although, he supposed it was rather surprising for Jonah to even know what they were.
“He knew about them before I did,” August clarified to Celeste, although there was really no point to try and hide it now. They all knew what youma were, but it was true that he hadn’t told anyone but Celeste about the Negaverse. “Jonah found me after I was attacked late last year. Helped me get home,” he explained, going over his memories of that night.
“You said a boy in bright robes saved you from one, and you… disappeared and appeared suddenly in a different place with him…?” he asked Jonah, but cast a glance towards Celeste as he did so, wondering if she would suspect the same as he did.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:47 pm
Jonah continued to glance back and forth between August and Celeste, but shifted a step closer to August, because despiste August’s frequently scary facial expressions, Jonah felt more comfortable with him.
Somehow, Celeste was scarier.
“I… yeah, but…”
It’d probably been a stupid thing to say. There was no way anything like that had actually happened.
“I was drunk at the time,” he admitted, somewhat shamefully, lowering his gaze to the glass in his hand. “It probably didn’t really happen like that, but… I do remember the youma. And there have been others. Before… There was a concert, and… one year on New Year’s Eve… some stuff happened at a party.”--- Celeste sighed heavily and went back to August’s alcohol collection to pour herself another drink.
“You are not going to tell him,” she hissed at August.
Telling Jonah anything more about this topic would be too much of a liability, unless August planned to recruit Jonah, too, which would be just as much of a liability, in Celeste’s opinion, considering how meek Jonah was. He would be utterly useless in the sort of situation they’d found themselves in that evening, probably cowering in fear the entire time.
August could have his little pet run around taking care of his errands, but Celeste refused to put up with his glorified houseboy when it came to Negaverse missions.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:55 pm
Oh, but that is exactly what he was going to do. His first attempt at recruiting went so well, so why not have another loyal officer by his side for missions? It wasn’t as though Celeste needed to babysit. He was sure Jonah was quite capable when he put his mind to it.
“Tell me, Jonah,” August started as he picked up his drink to sip. “Did you wonder how Celeste and I got here without going through the front door?”
He just wanted to test what Jonah could come up with on his own. He wasn’t stupid. Maybe a bit naive and spooked easily, but a healthy dose of fear helped keep people alive, right? If that was the goal, at least. August, on the other hand, wasn’t afraid of dying so fear was not often experienced.
“Celeste seems to think you’re not smart enough to figure things out when it comes to monsters and magic. What if you weren’t as drunk as you thought that night?” Jonah was so close to putting everything together. He might just need a little push.
And August really didn’t give a s**t what Celeste thought when it came to Jonah.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:08 pm
”I… Ummm…”
Jonah hadn’t thought there was anything weird about how August and Celeste got back to the apartment. He didn’t even know where they’d gone. All he was told was that they’d be out for a while and he shouldn’t worry if they came back late.
It was a little late now, but not so much that Jonah would have been concerned yet.
“I just… I didn’t hear anything until you were already inside, so… I thought you came in while I had my headphones on.”
But August seemed to be implying something else entirely by claiming they hadn’t gone through the front door.
If Jonah hadn’t been living here for the past two weeks, he would have wondered if there was another entrance he didn’t know about.
“How could you… I mean, the only other access point is the patio, but… we’re so high up…”--- Celeste scoffed and rolled her eyes again.
“What do you expect him to be able to do?” she asked August.
Since August was clearly trying to lead Jonah toward the correct conclusion, she saw no further need to keep anything a secret.
“If you put him in front of the sort of youma we fought tonight, or any youma for that matter, he’d be dead in seconds,” she said. “There’s no way he can defend himself, much less help anyone else. Let me guess, you want someone to file your reports for you. Find someone else, August. The power would be wasted on him.”
“Ummm…” Jonah said again.
Celeste tipped her glass toward him like his hesitance made her point for her.
“Do you know how to fight, houseboy?” she asked him.
“No,” he said meekly.
“Ever taken a martial art or self defense classes?”
“No.”
“Do you have any experience with a weapon?”
“No!” he said, like the very idea of taking up arms shocked him.
Celeste turned to August and made a flourish with her hand toward Jonah like she’d successfully made another point.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:18 pm
Yes, August could understand where Celeste was coming from, but there was also potential yet to be broken into with Jonah. And she was right. He could have him file his paperwork for him.
“I could use him for fodder if I wanted,” August said thoughtfully. Whether he meant it or not, well… he wasn’t going to admit one way or another. “It’s not like there aren’t others the power was wasted on. Look at the mess we dealt with tonight.”
There had been plenty of untrained Negaverse officers and senshi down in the Rift. But he and Celeste knew how to fight, and it wouldn’t be too hard to convince Jonah to get into shape.
“He’d be useful for a distraction. Better than sending you when you could be doing something else. Unless you like your horses,” he said, knowing it would not make any sense to Jonah. He also knew it wasn’t really fair to talk about Jonah in front of him, so he turned to him then.
“What would you do if you had the power to jump instantaneously from one place to another? Or the ability to fight off those youma…? Or better yet, the ability to control them so they don’t attack at all?”
August knew Jonah had a sister he was fond of. Surely he would want to protect her.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:33 pm
August and Celeste were clearly having an entirely different conversation. Or they were trying to draw Jonah into… something. Or August was trying and Celeste wanted to convince him not to. Which was probably for the best, honestly, if whatever they were talking about was as dangerous as she made it seem.
Jonah glanced at August with wide eyes. He liked being useful. He liked being helpful. Jonah never wanted to be a burden or get in the way. If he could make things easier for other people, he could be convinced to do anything.
Well, almost anything.
“I… If I could… what?”
What was August talking about?
“I guess I would… avoid crowds of people?” he said, because it was the truth. Crowds made him nervous when he hadn’t adequately prepared himself to be around them. “And I would… stop the youma from hurting people.”--- Celeste made another noise of disapproval in the back of her throat.
August was right, though, about the power being wasted on others. She hadn’t paid much attention to their allies beyond making sure they didn’t get in her way, but what she did manage to see hadn’t been impressive. There seemed to be very little cohesion for a group that operated with a hierarchy. Few of them played off of one another’s strengths and weaknesses. It was little better than a ******** just because the power had been wasted on others didn’t mean August should waste more of it on Jonah.
Even if it would be nice to dump her reports on him, too.
“You’ve lost your mind,” Celeste said, taking another healthy swig of her drink.
She’d need a lot more than a glass or two to deal with August’s newest bullshit.
“August, he’s practically a baby,” she argued.
“I’m not a baby,” Jonah said. He mumbled it quietly, but Celeste still heard it. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, but… if you need me to do something, I… I can… I can try. I mean… you’ve already done… so much for me.”
“He doesn’t even need a personal assistant!”
“I know that!” Jonah flushed and stared at his feet. “But I… I’m grateful.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:47 pm
Wow, way to call him out, Celeste.
August frowned at Celeste’s decision to reveal that the job he’d given Jonah really wasn’t a job he’d been looking for someone to cover. Sure, he paid Jonah for the work he did, but Celeste was right in that he didn’t technically need someone to go through his emails.
It was nice to not have to deal with as much of it, though.
“See? He’s grateful. I’m sure he won’t mind being able to do a little more,” August pointed out, knowing he was probably infuriating Celeste. As much as anyone could infuriate her and her lack of emotions. In fact, he flashed a smirk in her direction, because she would know exactly what he intended to do.
“I think he’s got potential. He was just stuck in a s**t situation, and now that he’s out he can finally do something that makes him feel useful,” he suggested. “You can come with me or not, Celeste.”
He might be crazy, but it was his choice. Jonah said he wanted to be useful, so he was going to be made more useful.
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Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:43 pm
Jonah should probably care more about the things August said before — that he could be used as fodder or as a distraction, that him doing so would be better than sacrificing Celeste — but all he could focus on was August saying he had potential.
No one had said that about him in a long time.
His teachers used to, back when he was very young and passing all his classes in school with the highest marks. He was studious and hardworking and he lived to please. His parents and his grandfather noticed his work ethic and thought he had a bright future ahead of him. They heaped praises upon him, and rewarded him for every good grade, every compliment sent home from one of his teachers.
When did that change? Somewhere around high school, probably. When the expectations began to feel real and the bullying from his classmates became difficult to ignore. He withdrew into himself, became even quieter than he was already, timid and shy and prone to panic if anyone so much as looked at him the wrong way. By the time he got to college, there didn’t seem to be any hope for him. His parents stopped talking about his future, and his grandfather looked at him like he was the greatest disappointment of his life.
“I want to help,” Jonah said, voice barely more than a whisper, eyes a bit wet and throat tight with emotion.
August saw potential in him.
Maybe it wasn’t entirely good, but it was something.--- Celeste glared at August.
She was infuriated, and she had no qualms about showing it. She wasn’t an emotional person by nature, but anger tended to filter through her cold exterior whether she let it or not.
“I won’t be joining you,” she said. “Take him and do what you want with him, but I refuse to be responsible for him. He’s yours, Captain.”
Celeste spat out August’s rank, ignoring the curious glance Jonah flicked between the both of them.
“Did you finish ordering the food?” she snapped at him.
Jonah nodded his head vigorously.
“Good,” Celeste said, making her way back to the alcohol cabinet with a loud scoff. “I need another drink.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:08 am
The glare from Celeste did nothing to August. He knew she was likely going to take out her frustration on him during their next round of kick boxing at the gym, but right now he couldn’t help but feel a little smug when Jonah claimed how he wanted to help.
And he was so helpful already. He ordered food for them and took care of his emails and did whatever chores he could get his hands on, and in return August offered him sanctuary.
Personally, August thought it was an excellent idea to have Jonah at least know about his life as a Negaverse Captain, because then he would know how to best help him whenever he was injured. Like now. He wouldn’t have to explain why he had blood down the side of his face or caked into his hair.
“I wouldn’t trust you to be responsible with him anyway,” August said back, but there was no real heat in his words. He had full intention of taking responsibility for Jonah himself.
“Jonah, I need you to listen and understand that this is meant to be secret. There is a war with magic and monsters in this city, and I want you to help me. Are you okay with that?”
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