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."

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[khajidont]

[For some reason, he's not surprised that Bart's up. In fact, he seems to remember having a particularly bad dream with him in it, which might mean... aw, heck. He probably has to contact him at some point.

Tomorrow.]

Yyyyyeah, Booster's not really in touch with the rest of the Leaguers here, or else I guess he'd know that we were taking care of ourselves. [A beat.] I mean, he has to know that I'm taking of myself.

[Did Booster take the see-no-evil approach? He doesn't think the guy would feel like he had to take care of him otherwise. Having Booster as some sort of guardian would be way, way too weird.]

...he wasn't really freaking out that bad though, was he? He must be used to this kind of crap happening all the time.

[runningstart]

This may come as a shock to you Reyes, but I think the guy may actually like you a veeerrry little bit. I know, [Wally holds up a hand] nobody is as surprised as me.

Anyway, from what some guy told me, friends tend to care about what happens to their friends, even if they're used to bad stuff happening. So yeah, he was a little freaked out.

[khajidont]

Okay, okay, dumb question, [Jaime says, flapping his hand dismissively in Wally's direction.] I'm just surprised he'd freak at you, is all.

[He figured that Booster would have been more likely to freak out at Ted, or maybe even Power Girl. He thinks of himself as being Booster's equal, certainly, but he's not unaware of the fact that Booster thinks of their little group as being a bunch of kids.]

It got to a bunch of us, though. You know Superman was in the same hospital room as me? He got whammied too.

[Seeing Superman unconscious? Not a fun thing. At all.]

[runningstart]

[To be fair, Wally was equally surprised that Booster called him, of all people. Maybe he's one of Jaime's few friends who already knew his secret ID.]

Dude, Superman? [At Jaime's nod Wally blows out a breath and slumps back into the couch cushions.] That's not good. Maybe it was some kind of psychic attack? Just plug a telepath into an amplifier and you can do pretty much anything...

[khajidont]

Right? It was so freaky seeing him laid out like that.

[Is Superman awake yet? Jaime hopes so. He wasn't going to stick around with Hal to make sure, though, and it's not like there's anything he could have done to help matters along. He's pretty sure he remembers the dream he'd had with Superman in it, and... oh, boy.

Maybe Clark wouldn't remember it. That would be for the best.]

Hey, do you remember how a while ago, there was that thing going around where we could see into each other's dreams?

[runningstart]

Uhh...maybe? -Wait, that was a thing?! I thought I was just having really weird vivid dreams!

[khajidont]

What, really? No, no, we were totally sharing them. Me and a friend talked about it afterwards, and there's no way I'd be dreaming about him --

[In a wedding dress, marrying immortal vampires and squawking for help.]

-- um, there's no way we both dreamed the same thing on the same day by chance. This felt like the same thing, but... three days of it, I guess.

[No wonder the nightmares seemed to last forever. When he'd woken up, he'd assumed that he'd only been out for a few hours, not a few days.]

I dunno, I'll have to talk to some other people about it first.

[The Reach dreams and Porter dreams could easily be his own, but getting stuffed into a locker moments before having to look for Hiro in a locker? That didn't feel like it was from his own mind. Not at all.]

[runningstart]

[And that's why Wally didn't know, 'cause he didn't talk with nobody about it. One was Annie in a bikini and she tended to flip him over her shoulder when he hit on her, and the other was Bart in some kind of horrorland, and- well, he's not going to bring that up.

But apparently those were shared dreams. Which means everything that happened in them wasn't in his own head. Huh.]

Want me to ask Bart about it?

[khajidont]

Eh... nah, I'll be talking to him soon enough, anyway.

[He doesn't really want to talk to Bart about the dreams, and he doesn't really intend to -- or at least not right away, but he doesn't particularly want Wally to talk to Bart about them either. He's not emotionally equipped to start talking to everyone he'd seen in his dreams yet, with the sole exception of Ken.

He can handle the whole killer green pepper things. Thank god for that kid's active imagination.]

I got a few people I think I can ask, anyway. It'd make sense. I mean, no clue why anyone would want us all in dreamland for a few days, but it'll be a start to a few answers.

[...he says, nestled happily in his spot on the couch stuffing food into his face. He'll find answers later, okay?]

[runningstart]

[Wally just grunts, watching Jaime with a curious expression on his face, brows furrowed. The next episode's already started without any input from them, running through the season and they've already plowed through a third of what he'd brought between them.

Wally's not really concerned about the dreams. He probably should be, since someone might've just forced a bunch of people into comas just to make them have them, but right now he's still riding high that Bart and everyone actually woke up.

But it's kind of bothering him. Jaime's so quick to get back to business after he was so insistent that Wally talk stuff out. What's up with that? And what was the deal with that look on his face when Wally told him Booster had freaked out? Don't they hang out all the time, why would that be weird?]

...do you seriously not get it?

[khajidont]

I'm not gonna get it if I don't know what it is, [Jaime says mildly. Then, a little quieter, he says,] Shush. I'm not even really watching it, I don't need to hear everything they're doing wrong. Tell me later.

[Khaji's still watching Mythbusters. Go figure. He turns to Wally properly once Khaji seems to have settled down a little.]

What's up?

[runningstart]

[For all that Wally's allergic to talking about how he feels about himself, he has absolutely laying it down flat for the people who matter. Robin occasionally talks about himself like he's just a man on a mission or someone above needing a friend and Wally knows exactly where it comes from. More recently Wally's been paying attention to how Artemis had talked about herself, and Bart as well and he's finding something depressingly common among all of his friends. Jaime included.]

Don't you get how important you are to other people? I mean, really get it.

[khajidont]

[Oh. Oh. Wally's back to being serious, and this time, Jaime's not following, not really. Whenever he's talking to anyone about this place, more often than not trying to reassure them, the first thing he mentions are his friends. He's lucky enough to have so many amazing friends in his life, and he knows that they'd drop anything to help him, and that he'd do the same in return.

So sure, he thinks to himself. Of course he knows how important he is to other people. How could he not?]

Yeah, of course, [he says, voice confident even if he's looking at Wally awfully quizzically.] Where's this coming from?

[runningstart]

[No, he seriously doesn't get it.

And Wally thought he got it before too; when he was here last, before he heard about him dying. He thought he got it. Of course his friends cared about him and he thought his parents would be sad if anything happened to him, but now he's a lot closer to knowing. He got closer when Bart told him about his death with that monotone voice, like there wasn't anything inside of him to react to relaying the news for what couldn't be the first time. He got closer when Bart's arms went around him so tight his ribs creaked, when he caught Robin sneaking into his room after he got back and curling up on the other bed to sleep. Back home, when he and Robin listened to a countdown and looked at a wall of fire rolling toward them and just ran right at it, grabbed hands and ran.

When Shade looked at him with that ages-old, lined and tired face and said quietly, "I'm sorry," when Wally told him he'd never live to see himself in Flash red.

Being closer means he's up until too late, dragging himself out of bed in the morning because he has to or else, and it means choking down words in a conversation when they get too close to the truth. It means keeping a secret from his best friend that he knows he'd want to know, just because Wally can't stand the idea of seeing just how much he matters to Robin by measuring the heartbreak in his eyes when he finds out.

And Jaime didn't get it, because he was surprised that Booster was worried at all.]

People care about you so much they'd die for you. [Wally's being morose and he knows it but it's something he's learning the hard way. He knows his value; at least, he's got a pretty good grasp of it. It's a kick to the gut to think Jaime doesn't know his own.] Booster probably would. I know Bart would, and I'd do it too.

That's not an exaggeration. If someone told Bart that the only way you'd live is if he gave you his lungs, he'd probably cut them out himself. And Bart's lost people left and right, so if there's anybody here used to their friends and family dying, it'd be him.

You don't become less valuable 'cause someone's already had friends die. I dunno what happened to that Booster guy, but if he was freaking out it's because the thought of you being dead was enough to make him panic. You don't get to become something vital to other people and then be surprised when they're scared at the idea of you being gone, all right?

[khajidont]

[For a second, he's not sure what to say. Should this make him happy? That Wally's sitting here and telling him that people would die for him, that people who are already on their second chance would walk out and into the belly of the beast for him? It doesn't. He's not so divorced from his own emotions that he wouldn't want people to care for him, doesn't relish every hug and laugh, like it when people go out of their ways to show him kindness, show up when he's sad, even if it's just to sit beside him. Of course he likes those things. He doesn't know what he'd do without them.

But hearing that people would die for him is the opposite of what he wants to hear. Even through the natural fogginess of dreams, he can remember every person he wandered through his own nightmares, and every person, every single one (even Bart, face to face with his oppressors, when running would have been so, so easy) decided to stay and stand beside him. There's a certain logic telling him that his dreams had ended badly because of whatever had caused the dreams in the first place. They weren't supposed to end well, he realizes now, and the way they had acted was twisted and warped, but that doesn't change how it had felt at the time... or how poorly it'd turned out once he woke up, but that's what happens when you shove Hal and Booster in the same room. It's not like he's one of those people who thinks everyone dies around them (the way Ellie thinks, he knows, something he can't even remotely relate to), but it's the same feeling he got when Ken tried to say that one of his reasons for living was to help protect him, someone who happily runs headfirst into danger every time it strikes.

God, he doesn't want to talk about this right now. What he'd wanted to do was to ooze onto his couch and turn his brain to mush for the next eight hours. Was it really so much to ask for to watch so much dumb TV that Netflix had to periodically check whether or not he was still alive?]

I didn't mean it like that, [he says quietly, a sharp little frown tugging at his mouth.] Besides, I wouldn't want any of you guys to...

[He lets out a grumble as he tugs one hand through his hair, trying to put his thoughts in order, because he'd sure as hell die for any of the people Wally had just listed.]

Look, I know, okay? You don't have to tell me twice.

[runningstart]

[Some mean little part in the back of Wally's head kind of finds it funny. He hadn't intended to come over and lecture Jaime about recognizing one's importance to other people, but it's sort of hilarious that Jaime had bust into his house to try and force unwanted realizations on him, and here he's doing the same.

On the other hand, he really thinks this is something Jaime should get. It's a realization much more easily reached on a team. Being in a firefight every other week with people who really actually would die for you has a way of reorganizing one's priorities. Knowing that someone else would take the bullet for you if you didn't get out of the way is great motivation to get better at protecting oneself. And it's not really a good thing to know, or not a happy thing anyway, but it's important. The gravity of it needs to settle in.

Jaime wouldn't be surprised to see him, to hear about Booster, if it had. Maybe that's what being in an invincible bugsuit does to a guy, or maybe it's the result of being lost in space for a year and then coming back to a family who couldn't quite move on.

Whether or not Jaime wants people who'd be willing to die for him, he's got them. Maybe he prefers the solo act, but he'll have to be a lot more lone wolf in personality if he wants to keep that up here. Making friends with people who really do understand what it means to sacrifice oneself for someone else is dangerous. That's something Wally definitely gets.

But Jaime doesn't want to hear it twice, and honestly Wally doesn't want to say it twice so he just pushes against his knees to stand and reaches over to shove Jaime's shoulder.]

'Kay.

[He gathers up his empty backpack and slides it over one shoulder.] I'm gonna head off. I've already seen this episode.

[khajidont]

Yeah, okay.

[Wally, unlike Jaime, at least knows when to back off. It's not like Jaime would be receptive to any more talk like that, or at least not right now, and it will take some time for it to sink in... but at least it's there now, this ugly little thought that will be gnawing at him for some time yet.

At least they're not fighting anymore. That makes him better off than he was a few days ago, he supposes, and it's not like he's going to stop being friends with people because he doesn't want them jumping in front of bullets for him. He hasn't got what it takes to keep up the whole I will hurt the people I love mentality for more than a few hours, at which point he'll get bored and wind up texting someone about fish facts or something equally as inane.]

Thanks for the food.

[runningstart]

[Yeah that's because Wally's best friend in the world is cagey as fuck. Robin needs to be approached gently during all emotional conversations, and then provided a morsel at a time to digest before moving on. Wally's gotten shockingly good at navigating conversations where other people's comfort levels are concerned. ...he just doesn't always employ that skill.]

Yeah.

[Maybe it's a small detail to Jaime, but that Wally's leaving all the food on the couch instead of grabbing some to take with him means a lot. He can count on one hand the number of people he'd share his own food with, and only a couple of them are here in this world. Jaime now makes three.

...okay he's going to take a pack of Twizzlers. But now he's going, thank you very much.] Maybe call Bart soon. He'll feel better after hearing from you. [And out the door he goes.]