fandomtownies | Caritas- Saturday

Current Mood: repressing!

Entry tags:

Caritas- Saturday

Today was weird, if that even needed to be said. Going to graduation and remembering that she'd done that just last year except it was six years ago now was odd enough, and then there had been Vikings, which Jaina could identify due to that one night a couple months ago she'd Googled "Vikings" and ended up stuck in a Wikipedia loop for three hours.

Once she'd finished with all things graduation, she'd gone to Caritas a little late for her very last shift. That was somehow stranger than what had happened at the ceremony, and she was firmly not dealing with any sadness or any thinking about how she was gone in a few days. No, tonight she was repressing and making herself a drink because it was her last night and she could, and also advertising a special.

1/2 OFF FOR GRADUATES AND THEIR GUESTS
(Some people might really need it today)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No, I just study very hard and remember things because of that," Bruce said.

George took another sip of her Coke.

"Okay, you're right," she said. "The dead thing is way more interesting than that."

"Told you," Bruce said. "Have you still been working as a reaper while you've been going to school here?"

She fidgeted with her straw a minute. That sounded so much like saying she went off and killed people. She wasn't usually responsible for the deaths, themselves, but she felt like it, anyway.

"I kind of ... have to," she said, grudgingly. "I get these Post-It notes, with a name and a time and a place. I go to the mainland, pop the soul out and come back again. I just tell people I was running errands."

Edited 2011-05-01 23:06 (UTC)

"This may be an odd question, but is there a reason why you have to get the soul before the actual death?" Bruce asked. "Is the soul lost or trapped if you don't?"

"Before is ... it's a courtesy?" she explained, straightening up a little. "If you pop the soul out before it happens, then they don't feel it. You can take it after, if you have to. They're not going to be trapped unless you ... don't get the soul at all."

"Hmm. Makes sense, I suppose," Bruce said. "Thanks for letting me ask a few questions. It has to be a little odd to talk openly about it."

George chewed her lower lip for a second before shrugging.

"You know? It's ... not, really," she said. "It's kind of nice. The other reapers ... they think it's old hat, and I wasn't allowed to tell anybody else. So ... I mean, if you've got questions? Ask away."

"Since you asked for it, do you age?" Bruce asked, stroking his chin in an intrigued manner. "Or did that stop when you died?"

"Nope," George said. "I'm seventeen, and I'm going to be seventeen from now on. I can't die, either, since I'm already dead. I got impaled with a light fixture once and I coughed up a bolt a few hours later."

She played, idly, with her straw. "So sometimes I ... offer to go on those ... rescue mission things? Because I don't have powers or anything useful, but ... I make good cannon fodder."

"You're more than that," Bruce said. "If you're willing to go on those missions, then you're being useful in a way that goes above and beyond what most people can do. You're helping people. That doesn't make you canon fodder, that makes you a hero."

George shivered, a little uncomfortable with the praise. "I'm not," she said. "I'm ... really not. I tried throwing a shoe at that dragon-turtle ... whatever-the-fuck. I'm not any good at rescue things, I just ... I thought, at least if I get killed, I won't ... you know. Die."

"You don't need to believe me, but it doesn't change the truth. I always knew there was more to you than you were letting on. The reaper thing isn't it," Bruce said. "Your willingness to help people is. Even when you reap, doing it before they die to save them the pain? That's part of it."

George was going to stare at Bruce for a few seconds, not trusting herself to say anything.

Finally, she cleared her throat. "I can't ... tell if you're teasing me or not," she said. "I'm not ... good with people. I'm really not."

"I'm not usually much of a teaser, George," Bruce said. "And I'm good at reading people. You'll see eventually."

"Maybe you're right," she said, hesitantly. "I don't really ... think of myself like that?"

She tilted her head, taking him in for a long moment.

"So ... what's your story?" she asked. "There's more to you, too. You aren't half as ... I dunno. Smooth, or carefree, as you want people to think you are."

"Good eye. Well, since death's already on the table, my parents were murdered in front of me when I was eight," Bruce said. "Since then, I've spent a lot of time searching for myself. I haven't quite figured out what kind of person I am yet, so sometimes I try to play at being carefree and extremely social. See if it ever becomes second nature to me."

Most of that was true to at least some degree. Except that he knew what kind of person he wanted to be. It was more that he was looking for the kind of person he wanted others to see.

"I'm ... I'm really sorry," she said, hesitantly. "I can't even ... I can't imagine what that would be like."

She shivered, trying not to see that scene in her own mind; her mother and father, bleeding, dying, lying on the ground as their lives slipped away. At eight.

"Does it help?" she asked. "Acting all ... carefree. Does it ... I dunno. Hurt less?"

"Nothing has ever made it hurt less," Bruce said. "But I've become more comfortable with myself as I've tried different things. That's all I can really hope for."

"Death is ... a bitch," George said. "I've been dead a year and I don't ... I don't have anything to say. I takes souls, they tell me it's not fair, and ... and I agree. It's not."

"But it is important. It can provide direction," Bruce said. "My home, Gotham City, is the crime capital of my world. Obviously, I would trade my family's fortune to have them back. But I can't. So, I'll just use it to make Gotham the safest place possible once I'm able. And that moment is the turning point, even if people don't know it yet."

George frowned as she followed along.

"So you're ... gonna make sure it doesn't happen to someone else," she said. "I can get that. That's ... more of a hero thing than anything I've done."

"Maybe. But all of it counts," Bruce said. "Including what you've done."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Caritas- Saturday

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge

Re: Lounge