MoM IC Contact

[khajidont]

Jaime's cell phone is more or less plugged riiiight into his brain, so he tends to pick up like 99% of the time! If not, however...

"Hey, Jaime here! Leave a message, and I'll get back to you ASAP."

Comments

[khajidont]

[Jaime picks it up and turns it over in his hands. A game. He bought Wally a game. Man, these things are expensive! Did Tadashi use his birthday money for this, or is Tony Stark that great of an employer? Maybe the Hamadas and the speedsters are just raking in some serious dough.]

You'd better be careful, giving me his presents. I might keep it for myself. I still owe him some payback anyway.

[He puts it back on the coffee table. Yeah, yeah, he'll pass the thing on.]

[tadeadshi]

[He makes a good bit of money and that whole vacation he took? He found out after the fact was a paid vacation. There are worse things he could be doing with that money.]

If you do that, I'm gonna have to take Shinjiro's copy back so I can finally play it.

[khajidont]

No way. I'm claiming two for myself. You can take Viva Pinata.

[Tadashi may not get the joke -- which is that Jaime gave Shinji Katamari, and Shinji gave him Viva Pinata. Their games always seem to end up at each other's homes... which he's mostly to blame for. Whoops.]

[tadeadshi]

[He doesn't get the specific joke but he snorts that he gets offered the game with the title "Live". Irony, thy name is Jaime Reyes.]

Still not giving him his souvenirs until all my tools are out of jello and cleaned up.

[Yeppppp.

Casually sips that coffee.]

[khajidont]

[Jaime looks at Tadashi over his juice, no trace of surprise on his face, only sheer exasperation in his half-lidded eyes.]

The month leading up to my birthday? He pranked me. Every. Day. Snuck some chemical in my coke so I pissed blue for a day.

[He knows exactly how Wally works.]

[tadeadshi]

[He has to set his coffee down quick because Tadashi almost spills it laugh-choking on it. Oh god. Oh god he feels bad for Jaime but that's a really great prank.]

That's -- Oh my god, I'm sorry, but that's amazing. [Laugh!] And dedication.

[He laughs another minute before he finally can get his breath.]

[khajidont]

Don't you laugh at my pain! [Jaime says, a note of mock outrage entering his voice.] I was traumatized. Screamed so loud that my roomie came running, all Jaime! Jaime, are you okay? Did you fall?

[That did, in fact, happen. Which is embarrassing, but whatever, it's got Tadashi laughing.]

[tadeadshi]

To be fair, you are friends with Wally, so -- [BREATHE okay breathing.] You accepted the risks from the start.

[khajidont]

Well, you are too, now. That means that you don't get to complain the next time you go into work and your entire work station's been, like, set up in reverse or something.

[A talented prankster, Jaime ain't. He frowns.]

No, that's a terrible prank.

[tadeadshi]

[Oh. Oh no hold on, he's got something for this. He gets his phone out and scrolls through his pictures. He snapped one quick shot before he started cleaning it up; he passe the phone over to Jaime to show off the beautiful scene he found his lab station in.]

I think he's accepted me, I dunno.

[khajidont]

Oh my god. Oh my god, he actually bought a... [Jaime covers his hand with his mouth, eyes wide, torn between amusement and alarm with what Wally sees fit to do with his spare time. Did he order it online? Did he wander into a sex store? Does Jaime really want to know?]

He spent serious cash on you, dude! You've been accepted into the West Circle of Torment! Send me a copy, I wanna keep that forever.

[tadeadshi]

[No one truly wants to know the answer to that question. But! Tadashi takes the phone back, shaking his head.]

No way. I'm keeping this as evidence when he complains about whatever I do. Besides, I told him he's not getting his souvenirs until he cleans it all up.

[Plus he has a serious idea to do to Jaime in a few months and he's not giving him physical ammunition.]

[khajidont]

With one exception, I guess.

[Jaime nods over at Wally's brand new copy of Katamari. He's lucky his friends are so forgiving.

Jaime's already given Wally his souvenirs anyway... and now that he thinks about it, he's getting souvenirs from three of them. Go figure.]

[tadeadshi]

That -- [He thinks it's safe to pick up his coffee again and sip at it] -- is so he can give you back your copy, which is actually Shinjiro's copy, so I can play it at our place.

[....Okay so sometimes his kindness secondary motives.]

[khajidont]

Sooooo why don't you just keep this one for yourself while Shinji's copy keeps getting passed around?

[Poor Shinji. Nobody thinks about his feelings!] It's like you're rewarding him for not giving things back.

[Okay, so Jaime steals Shinji's copy too, but he always gives it back! He's innocent in this!]

[tadeadshi]

Because somehow I can already foresee this one getting passed around too if I do that.

Maybe I'm just bribing him to leave my lab tools alone.

[khajidont]

Ahhh, and the truth comes out.

[Will bribery ever work against Wally wreaking havoc over other people's stuff? Never.

But whatever, Jaime will just steal Wally's copy now.]

[tadeadshi]

I've gotta have something on him in the future, right?

[It may not, but he's going to try anyway. Besides, once that game is in Wally's hands, he doesn't much care what happens to it.

...So he'll probably care a little. But it'll be Wally's copy so.

It's nice not talking about heavy stuff for once, he notes with another sip.]

If he went through all that for your birthday, I'd hate to see the effort he takes for holidays.

[khajidont]

Oh, I'm sure you'll find out.

[He's happy to lapse into a companionable silence, just for a little while longer, looking back at the TV as the documentary starts to talk about its inevitable conclusion, going over everything they'd been talking about the whole time.

It's almost finished.]

[tadeadshi]

[He hums to himself listening to the closing discussion of the show, the beginning of the credits. The coffee's only gotten lukewarm now and he still intends to sip at it, take his time.

This is nice. This is why he asked to come over to Jaime's. He's fine with quiet between them, which is what he needed.]

[khajidont]

[It's too bad that he has to break this, this quiet, but he needs to say something. He's worried. of course he is.]

Look, Tadashi... I can tell something's happened. [He holds one hand up.] You don't hafta tell me about it if you don't want to, but is everyone okay?

[Maybe they just had a spat. Maybe Hiro threw some of their research out. As long as it's something salvageable, Jaime doesn't have to know, not really. But he has to check.]

[tadeadshi]

[Because naturally Jaime feels the need to ask. He's too nice a guy to not. Tadashi draws in a slow inhale and keeps his eyes forward, on the rolling credits on the tv.]

...No one died.

[It's a start. And probably the best thing about the whole situation.]

[khajidont]

[Well that's ominous as hell. Jaime looks almost taken aback by how poor that answer was. Yes, nobody dying - yet - is a good thing, all things considered, but that means something really bad went down.]

Someone was hurt?

[tadeadshi]

Yeah.

[He rubs at his cheek, trying to decide how much he should say.

Jaime's his friend. Hiro's friend too and knows about what they're working on. So only fair he gets the full story before he hears it from anyone else.]

Few nights ago. Hiro tricked Callaghan out to where we keep our extra 'work'. He-- [He hasn't simply said it out loud yet, the words.] He tried to kill Callaghan. Set the whole place on fire. While they were both still inside.

[He holds his breath, not wanting to have to explain the implication further, what Hiro actually almost succeeded in doing.]

[khajidont]

[What had Jaime been expecting, exactly? Hiro had exploded over the network, confided in Jaime that he didn't think the Porter was going to work, so Jaime... well, he figured that Hiro would eventually tell Tadashi he was giving up, get talked out of his funk, and get back to work. Hiro's a resilient kid. Jaime trusted that surrounded with friends from home as he was, he'd bounce back.

He's starting to expect himself to be wrong, albeit not so wrong as to hear that Hiro essentially attempted to commit a murder-suicide in the same way that Tadashi died, and --

Jesus. His intake of breath is a sharp one, and his laced fingers tighten. Why does this seem so familiar...?]

How hurt are they? [He pauses, focusing on the technicalities, for now.] He won't press charges, will he?

[There's no jail time for imPorts anymore, but Hiro's confirmed that his brain's his superpower. Putting that nullifier on him would be like stripping him of his voice.]