The Boards, All Day Saturday

[furnaceface]

Jono had a sore back.

Jono had a sore back, and a sore front. His top wasn't doing so well, either, and neither was his bottom. As a matter of fact, it was probably safe to say that all of Jono was actually feeling pretty bloody rotten.

Yes, he'd gone back to New York to do more training with the New Warriors.

Yes, he'd sparred against Jubilee, and no, she wasn't faring much better than he was at the moment. If you asked either of them, it had been a much-needed tussle. Neither one of them was the sort to get over their frustrations by sitting still, after all.

Still, Jono wasn't doing anything today but sit sprawled out in a chair in his office, feet up on the desk, reading. Turning the page to a Vonnegut novel was about the upper limit of his physical capacity at least until some of the bruises started to fade, damn it.

[Open, and OCD-Freeeee.]

Comments

[life_inshadow]

"L-looks like hard work," Tara said, peeping into his office. "Uh, hi. I just ... haven't seen you in forever, so I figured I'd ... say hi."

She shrugged a little as she spoke, glancing around the office.

[furnaceface]

"Hello, luv," Jono greeted, smiling up at her as he set his book open side down on the desk. "It has been some time, hasn't it? How've you been?"

She was in one piece! That counted as a win for Jono, at least.

"Come in, take a seat? I don't put my feet up on the chairs, I promise."

Just the desk!

[life_inshadow]

"I wouldn't care that much if you did, promise," Tara said earnestly, taking one of the indicated chairs. "And I'm ... actually, today I can say I'm really, really good. I'm all oriented at college, the summer's going okay" -- plus or minus a few demon dimensions -- "and everything's just kind of mellow. What about you?"

[furnaceface]

"Sore," Jono admitted, his smile going a touch wry. "Had a bit of a workout yesterday, and I'm taking it easy to make up for that."

Workout, beating. Same difference.

"College, hm? Getting all excited for that, are you?"

[life_inshadow]

"It's weird," Tara said. "It's one of those ... transitions. It's like -- you spend a whole day waiting for a train, and when you see the light of it pulling into the station you aren't sure if it's real or just what you want to see. But I guess I'm happy."

She eyed him skeptically, wondering if she wanted to know about the sore. "You took up jogging, huh?"

[furnaceface]

Jonothon knew all about transitions. For a myriad of reasons, really, and he nodded his head as she spoke. Waiting for a train, with no real idea of what the station on the other side was going to be like, with the exception of a brief glance you might have had before.

"College is a very different atmosphere," he offered, with all the experience that his week as a student of the ESU afforded him. "But one you'd be well suited for, I think. You'll be surrounded by people who are serious about where they want to end up in life, and some who aren't, but it... always seemed to me to be the sort of place that you ought to go in order to prove that you're on your way to being who you've always been meant to be."

A beat.

"And sparring, actually."

With an angry young woman in a technologically-enhanced power suit. Details.

[life_inshadow]

Or, you know. She'd be at UC-Sunnydale, which was ... not precisely Yale.

She nodded eagerly anyhow.

"Learn to duck," she advised, with a little wince. "I get why people have to spar, but I can't imagine doing it for fun."

[furnaceface]

"It seems to me that if I'm planning on staying around here for much longer, sparring is practically mandatory," Jono mused, shrugging.

... Oof, that had been a mistake.

"Even if things on the island really only go particularly pear-shaped a few times a year or so."

[life_inshadow]

"Don't say that, you'll remind it it's past due," Tara said. "Besides, some of us went to a demon dimension last month. That might be my ... going-pear-shaped for the whole summer."

[furnaceface]

Jono could think of a large number of things he'd rather do than spend time in a demon dimension. Root canal was up there on the list. So was exploding again.

"... Fair point. And what brought that about, might I ask?"

[life_inshadow]

"Kennedy." Tara looked bashful as she said it, as if maybe she was aware heading into a demon dimension for one's ex was not the healthiest thing. "She was visiting Wesley, and she got ... sucked in through a portal. Wesley called us in to help, and I had to go, you know?"

[furnaceface]

For what it was worth, Jonothon's 'stern older brother type' look didn't last long before it faded into a wry smile.

"I'd have done the same," he offered. "And have, in the past. I understand. Everyone came out in one piece, I hope?"

He'd reserve the right to get stern again if she told him that people had gotten hurt or worse.

[life_inshadow]

"Yeah," Tara said, sounding relieved. "We even brought back this girl who had been stuck that we didn't even know about, so ... we did a good thing. And, uh, it was .... pretty nice, for a demon dimension. There were trees."

[furnaceface]

"And did the trees try to eat anybody?"

Look, it was a demon dimension. These things needed to be asked. Jono had been led on a wild goose chase once by a giant anthropomorphic ferret in a leather coat. He'd caught a ride with a chain-smoking duck. He'd ridden on the back of a decapitated t-rex. So far as he was aware, trees were perfectly capable of eating people.

Especially demon trees.

[life_inshadow]

"No," Tara said, looking vaguely concerned for Jono's mental health. "Does that happen a lot where you're from?"

[furnaceface]

Jono blinked at the look she was giving him, and then shook his head and chuckled. His mental health wasn't doing so well as a general rule, but, honestly, the killer tree thing wasn't exactly an indication of it.

Yet. Probably.

"Not where I'm from," he admitted. "But I've seen a handful of different worlds already, and some of them are worse than others. It seemed like the thing to ask."

[life_inshadow]

Tara looked relieved for just a second, then laughed right back at Jono. "Sorry," she said apologetically. "I'm just -- trying to imagine carnivorous trees. It'd keep you out of the woods forever, right? But no, they were just, uh, regular trees. Pretty. But they did use humans for slave labor, so ... maybe not the best place."

[furnaceface]

"Definitely not the best place," Jono replied, frowning just a little at the thought. He'd learned of other realities where the only humans allowed to live were the ones that had any measure of worth as slaves.

He didn't much care for the thought. Especially not after time spent as an unwilling agent for Weapon X, himself.

"I'm doubly glad you all got out of there, then."

[life_inshadow]

"So am I," Tara nodded. "and then I visited Ben and Ender on Naboo, and then I had one whole normal week, and then college stuff, and now ... now I'm here bothering you, I guess."

[furnaceface]

"You're never a bother, Tara," Jono chided. "Really, it's good to see some of you before you head off to college. Autumn might seem like it's forever away now, but by the time you leave, we'll all be left wondering where the summer has run off to."

[life_inshadow]

"Probably," Tara agreed easily. "And then you get a bunch of new students and ... it all starts over."

[furnaceface]

"And over, ad infinitum. But the new group never really seems to compare to the ones I went to school with. Soon enough, I won't know any of the faces around here, and then what'll I do?"

See, everyone kept leaving him. It was very sad.

[life_inshadow]

"Probably keep running the theater and occasionally helping to save the world," Tara suggested, hoping it'd make him smile. "Do you ever think about .... you know. Moving on?"

[furnaceface]

"I think about it," Jonothon admitted, and he was smiling, just a little. "Even tried it once, you know. That's what Massachusetts was supposed to be. And then Westchester. And then it... didn't end so well."

He shrugged. Shrugging was still a mistake, ow.

"I'm well enough right here," he replied. "I head back to New York to visit nearly every week, and aside from there I really don't have anywhere else to be. Here'll do. For now, at least."