legionworld | Cool Your Heels

Entry tags:

Cool Your Heels

Who| Grif and Brainiac 5. After Brainy's thread, open.
What| Screwing around on the beach (and additional consequences for Grif being a dick on the comms)
Where| Grif's section of the habitat deck (it's a beach)
When| Around the start of Brightest Day Plot
Warnings/Notes| Grif being forced to deal with things

Running on water? Actually not terrible. It had extremely narrow applications, but Grif could do it. He'd been coming down here to his section of the habitat deck in his spare time to work on it, and was now used to navigating the artificial waves and keeping his balance. It wasn't training. Sure he may have been practicing, sure he may have been improving, but it wasn't training, it was just fun and therefore nobody could criticize him.

There was a satisfaction in doing the speed thing. (It would always be "doing the speed thing", because trying to name it would be embarrassing.) It was easier now, it took less out of him, and he could sustain it for longer these days. It was nice to step out of the normal bounds of being human for a few seconds at a time. Things just felt more manageable at speed. In a world where events always seemed to be moving too fast, Grif could be faster.

He still couldn't overdo it, not for long, and it was time to stop. Grif came back up off the water, panting, uniform wet with spray, and decelerated to a controlled sprawl on his back in the sand. (He was getting better at stopping too, come to think of it. He hadn't faceplanted himself in a while.)

Grif lie with his arms behind his head, breathing hard, and for a few minutes he wasn't an alleged superhero in a galaxy full of weird awfulness with confusing, frustrating people who didn't get him. He was just Grif, lying somewhere warm and comfortable. And that was very okay.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A green face appeared, hovering over him.

"Your control of your powers is much improved." He'd seen him from a distance as he'd flown in. "It seems you've learned to come to a stop using methods other than stopping with your face."

Just because he was nice to the rookies most of the time didn't mean Brainy wasn't, at heart, a dick.

Grif was used to dicks, he'd spent so much time surrounded by them that a certain level of assholishness was his baseline for normalcy.

That was probably why, despite himself, he'd found he kind of liked Brainy. Well, maybe "like" was a strong word, but he found Brainy's low level hostility to the world around him to be reassuringly familiar.

"Yeah, I know, I'm pretty great." Grif sat up, offering only a shrug of faux modesty, and brushed some of the sand off his uniform.

"There's no way you just came down here to admire my hard work," he said, because haha how hard he works laying on the beach right, "So. What's up?"

People don't come to him in person about things, generally. Not good things, anyway.

Brainy continued to hover there -- actually hover off the ground, as if he was afraid to get sand on his boots. His hands were folded behind his back.

"Kid Quantum wanted to have a word with you but due the urgency of the Lantern threat, she had to delegate. I offered to do it in her stead."

An unusual thing for him to do, given his general distaste for unnecessary socialization, but he had...a special interest here.

"It's mostly in regards to your antisocial behaviors and attempts to agitate others for your own amusment. The general gist of her intended communication was 'no. Stop.'"

Edited 2016-07-10 03:26 (UTC)

Grif squinted at him.

"Is this a serious problem? Or is everything just working as intended on my end?"

He was thinking of the incident with the animal people. He still had a couple of bruises from that.

"Semi-serious. As our dimension's Superboy used to say whenever the Legion leadership was upset during his stay in the 31st century: 'Jimmies have been rustled.' I believe that's a common colloquial term from earlier centuries."

Brainy finally took a seat in the sand next to Grif, delicately, as if he clearly disliked the sheer existence of sand. Ugh, why? Why did it exist?

"Most of your attempts at annoyance are merely irritating and even slightly amusing. However, you do occasionally cross lines, even if perhaps you don't actually mean it. Kid Q has been trying to understand without wholly condemning it."

Brainy shrugged.

"That's why I offered to speak to you in her stead. I understand what you're doing perfectly."

As Brainy began to explain, Grif groaned and flopped dramatically backward into the sand again. A serious conversation about serious shit, of course. Nobody came to see him because they were giving out free candy. He knew it.

He was preparing himself for a full defensive when Brainy surprised him a little.

"...You understand me?"

He rolled his head to the side Brainy was sitting on to look at him better, horribly curious.

"Tell me if this situation sounds familiar? An individual joins the team under circumstances of mild duress, finds themselves surrounded by individuals that are almost sickeningly sentimental, and dangerously prone to nearly getting themselves killed by selflessly throwing themselves head first into impossible odds. This individual helps them mostly out of pity because otherwise they're too stupid to live, and then uses sarcasm and occasionally hostile remarks not as a way to vindictively cause lasting emotional harm, but as a method to keep others at a comfortable distance to prevent them from making the mistaken assumption that they're friends."

He tilted his head.

"This is so the aforementioned teammates don't make the mistake of thinking they can comfortably rely on them for anything beyond their basic functions as an ally, largely because of knowing that if they seek more than that -- any sort of deeper bond or lasting connection -- that they are most likely not emotionally equipped to provide. Ergo, the sarcasm and mockery keeps the expectations of others in a comfortable realm of being the bare minimum possible, so that any proffered warmth or friendship only exceeds their expectations."

He twirled his finger in the air.

"Thus creating an endless cycle of helpfulness and occasional extreme offense of others that causes the Legion Leader to nearly a burst blood vessel."

Grif exhaled heavily, and looked back up at the sky. The false sky, anyway. It didn't matter that it was fake, it was cloudless and blue and beautiful and it was as good a place as any to stare while he thought.

The conversation with Nick, Judy, and Rocket had been uncomfortable. Sharing memories with people had been uncomfortable. But even with those experiences in recent memory, this was heavier and worse in some ways. Brainiac 5 was offering him something deeply personal here, and doing it voluntarily. Grif's first bristling instinct was to kick him for it, but he found he couldn't quite raise the boot. Not for real. Not after watching the shit the public already said about Brainy without his help. It seemed like half the UP thought the real Legion's disappearance was his fault and also intentional.

Maybe liking Brainy was an irrational decision based on being surrounded by assholes with no coping strategies for too long, but Grif was an asshole with no coping strategies too. That kinship meant he felt obligated to at least try here. For a little bit. Where nobody else could hear him fail.

"...Look, Brainy," he said. "I'm not a nice guy. It's pretty important to me that people understand that. Lazy fucker. Team asshole. You know."

Like it was nothing personal, just a flaw in his human programming.

He dug one hand into the sand, fidgeting with fingers clawed as he considered whether tearing off his own skin was a viable means to escape from this situation.

"I feel like... people are getting the wrong idea about who I am. And what I can do for them." God it was weird saying this shit. He was kind of repeating what Brainy had just told him, but he was sorting through it himself as he spoke.

"And sure, maybe I'm an asshole, but I don't actually want to hurt most of these guys. But if they start thinking I'm somebody I'm not, and expecting something out of me that I can't give them, that's what's gonna happen here."

"I'm not... supportive and all that shit. I've got my own problems."

Edited 2016-07-10 05:41 (UTC)

"I said nothing to the effect that you should be something you're not or that you should change who you are to something different. If you're not the kind of person that's supportive, it would be disingenuous to act otherwise."

He looked skyward, his expression sly.

"But this purely fictional individual I'm speaking of in this entirely allegorical tale didn't change themselves for others. They didn't hold hands with everyone and sing happy songs. They didn't pretend that they cared about listening to them talking about their feelings, and they didn't force themselves into any social situations they didn't want to be in."

He looked at Grif with an amused expression.

"The only thing they did at first was recognize that others sometimes had traumas or hangups they didn't always understand, so they stopped saying comments that might have been construed -- whether correctly or incorrectly -- as direct abuse. Beyond that, they remained as they were, as long as it was natural for them to be that way, and if any outside forces instigated an internal change, that was process was very organic and, above all else, slow."

His smirk grew larger.

"But interestingly enough, they didn't have to change. They stayed abrasive and calculating and asocial -- but uncompromisingly loyal and reliable -- and oddly enough, they found that they didn't need to be anything else to still find themselves in the good graces of their teammates. They were regarded with fondness anyway -- and there were still no expectations for them to change, to be anything other than what they were."

He hadn't needed to be anyone else and had still found himself loved.

"For a sentient that seemingly has a greater understanding of the emotional range of other sentients than myself, you're blind to the obvious: while they may sometimes misinterpret your...prodding to be more hostile than intended, everyone has a fairly accurate assessment of you. You're a lazy, often selfish, and frequently abrasive individual -- they simply don't care. That understanding of you and their fondness aren't necessarily mutually exclusive."

Grif sighed again. Goddammit. They had him. Stupid Legionnaires and their stupid decency and understanding and all that other garbage.

"Y'know, sometimes I think things were a lot simpler when people just took potshots at me with shotguns when they wanted me to shut up."

It was an admission of defeat, in a way. He couldn't argue. Grif hated that he cared about this team, it was terrifying to find himself adopting the rest of them. He couldn't protect them, he wasn't good at any of this, and it was just going to be awful when everything finally went to shit, because it had to at some point. That's how things worked for him. But he did care, and this intervention was about caring for the team and making sure it kept working better without miniature explosions that, say, involved dangling team members by their ankles and punching them.

Shit.

Shit.

"You know, much of the team was forcibly recruited in the beginning. The Legion started as a volunteer operation but upon seeing its success, various politicians wanted to use it as a political tool. There was a draft where many of us were forced into serving against our will, and declining our draft notices would've been considered a breach of treaty on the part of our worlds." They'd each been forced to join under the threat of political and economic catastrophe befalling their home planets. "It took us quite some time and the overthrow of a corrupt president to have the draft abolished."

He gave him the smallest smile.

"You are by no means the only individual ever to find their life infinitely more complicated by virtue of having joined the team. Working with others and having to truly cooperate can be...discomfiting. Unfamiliar."

He'd been shoved so far out of his comfort zone when he'd joined the team he might as well have been in a different postal code.

"Speaking as someone who had to learn how, save yourself the trouble and stop fighting it so hard. Keep whatever distance you need to, say whatever you need to say to the others, but if this is where you've chosen to stay and how you've chosen to adapt to the situation we've all been so callously thrown into by Chronoblivion and the Time Trapper, at least accept it internally. You're a superhero -- and you're a surprisingly serviceable one."

A pause.

"Ah! Speaking of which, I still have to give this to you."

He reached into one of the larger pouches in his belt, and took out something neatly wrapped in a tidy plastic and handed it to Grif. Once he unwrapped it, he'd see that it was a small embossed plaque, that said:

'The Legion Award For Laziness Excellence, Presented to Dexter Grif, In recognition of being the laziest sentient Brainiac 5 has ever met.'

Grif was upright again and preparing to try and firmly but gently get Brainy to stop talking, but then he was suddenly holding a little plaque. A shiny little plaque, with his name engraved on it and everything. What.

Then he read it, and couldn't stop himself from grinning. He remembered Brainy telling him he'd make a plaque, but he hadn't believed he'd actually do it. This was some serious joke follow through here.

"Really?" he asked, temporarily distracted. "I can't believe you actually did this!"

Grif was impressed.

"I am a sentient of my word," he said primly in response, finally standing up. He wiped sand off his legs and butt with disgust. When he was through, he pointed to the plaque and took to the air again, hovering to get away from the nasty sand. "I used a special engraving process so you may see something slightly different if you look at it when the light is at the right angle."

Something slightly different. Yes. That was all. Just...something.

"Oh, do keep in mind what I said in that highly, highly rhetorical story. No one should have to change all of their behavior but sometimes it's perhaps wise to steer clear of sentiments that could accidentally tread on extremely sensitive topics for others. The...extremes. As far as team dynamics go, sometimes such sentiments can accidentally act as a contaminant in the mechanics of the team. Much like...well, sand."

He brushed his hands together to try to get it all off of them and started to float off.

"So unhygienic. Why anyone enjoys lounging in mounds of microbe-infested particulates is a mystery to me."

"Alright, alright. I can't promise you anything if somebody deserves it, but I'll try, okay?"

Mission success. He paused, then added, "And if anyone asks, I had to be bribed."

Grif knew this wasn't a bribe, but he had to get started on putting the bullshit shield back up somehow. He almost left it at that, and then remembered something.

"Y'know, Brainy? Your hypothetical guy?" he said, trying to be perfectly casual. "He probably takes a lot of shit he doesn't deserve."

Grif couldn't have given him direct sympathy anymore than Brainy could've admitted this story was autobiographical. He could, however, communicate it on the same slant. One embarrassing good turn for another, between people who wouldn't talk.

That made Brainy turn back for just a moment, clearly surprised, and then his expression was furtive and slightly embarrassed.

"Mmm, perhaps."

That was the most he could say, the farthest he could take his acknowledgement. There was a whole heap of baggage there Brainy just wasn't equipped to unearth at the moment.

His tone was very dry when he spoke again.

"How very fortunate that he's purely fictional."

His expression went flat and implacable as it sometimes did when he was being serious or being mock serious, but there was the tiniest glint of amusement in his eyes as he turned away again to float off, hands clasped behind his back.

There, served Brainy right. Coming onto his beach making him have uncomfortable feelings. Two could play at that game!

Grif made a shooing motion at him to send him on his way, put the plaque down, and flopped back into the sand as if nothing had happened.

She'd kicked her boots off the second she'd wandered onto the sand of a beachy area in the Habitat Deck, and just left them behind for her to pick up later. So far she hadn't really met anyone yet. The Medbay people, sure, but they'd told her a lot of the Legionnaires were away on a mission.

That was fine with her. She spent an awful lot of time alone back home, when she was wandering the wastes. Getting used to the new place she was in was first priority, then getting used to new people was second.

So she walked along, looking around, marveling at the kind of technology it probably took to build this whole place. Even all the magic and splendor of Erthe paled in comparison to this space age WORLD OF TOMORROW shit. Then she finally spotted a person that wasn't wearing a staff uniform laying in the sand.

Leela walked over, dropped down into the sand next to him, and put her hands behind her head.

"'Sup," said the total stranger that looked like she'd just stepped out of a fantasy novel, relaxing in the sand as if this was her beach and not his.

Grif's gaze rolled sideways to look at the stranger, because lifting his head was just too much effort. It wasn't like there was anything threatening about somebody flopping down in the sand nearby. It was just a little weird. Maybe even kinda rude, but weird and kinda rude were pretty standard for Grif.

It was only when she addressed him that he bothered to turn, just a tiny bit, to face her more directly.

She looked like something out of some kind of nerd movie, the kind with wizards instead of robots. Not that he was a shining specimen of superherodom himself, but at least with Grif the costume had the right idea.

"You new around here?" he asked. It wasn't quite an accusation or a demand, just a lazily offered observation with the faintest note of excuse you? He didn't recognize her, and Grif at least liked to think he knew the faces of most of the Legion by now. And she was on his beach.

"Nah," she said breezily. "I've been here."

She pointed towards the water.

"I'm a mermaid. I've lived here as long as the beach has been here. In the water." She lifted up both her legs. "Check these out. Legs. Took me forever to grow them."

Why tell the truth when a ridiculous lie would do? For all she knew, here in the glorious space future, there possibly were mermaid aliens that possibly could grow legs.

"Uhuh," Grif replied in his least convincing I'm-totally-convinced tone. "And I'm the Flash. The actual Flash. Accept no substitutes."

He relaxed back to looking up at the sky, completely unconcerned.

"Nice try, though," he added.

It was nice when new people had a sense of humor. It was, in his experience, pretty important to newbie survival in this gig.

"Now you've done it," she said, suddenly spasming on the ground, holding her hands to her throat. "Don't you know that not believing in mermaids means they die?"

She let out gagging noises.

"You've just killed me." She rolled around slightly. "Now you have to clap your hands and say you believe in space mermaids. It's the only way I won't die."

That was how it was for space mermaids. Totally. Not fairies.

Grif snorted.

"You still really don't look like a space mermaid to me," he said. He held out his hands to frame her. "You're more of a Connie the Barbarian."

Which was now what he was going to call her until corrected, possibly by force.

"You can relax. I've tried faking my death enough times to know how it doesn't work."

Somehow, the rest of Red Team always saw right through him. Somehow.

She wanted to hit him for the Connie the barbarian thing but she was very committed to dying. So she flailed her arm in a way that lightly smacked him but looked mostly like death-flailing, and made more choking noises.

"I just wanted to be...where the people are..." she gasped out dramatically.

Funny thing, someone who looked like they were from a fantasy world, knowing the words to the Little Mermaid.

Then she closer her eyes, collapsed, and lay completely still. She was good at even hiding that she was still breathing.

Grif just laughed.

...Then it was quiet.

He sat up. It was still quiet.

He reached over and poked her shoulder.

"Okay, c'mon newbie, joke's over."

Shit, did he just actually kill a space mermaid? People would be so mad at him. Plus that would mean there was a corpse on the beach, and corpses are gross, and this was his beach dammit.

She lay still for just a moment longer, because it was actually possible she'd scared the guy into thinking he killed a space mermaid and that was kind of hilarious, albeit hilarious in a way she wasn't going to keep going since she didn't want someone to think they'd caused a mythical creature to die for that long.

Finally, she exploded back to "life" again.

"Up where they walk," she sang, opening her eyes and holding up her hands. "Up where they run. Up where they stay all day in the suuuuun..."

He'd thought he'd actually killed a mythical space creature for five whole seconds when she startled him.

"Jesus Christ!" he yelled, scrambling backward. It took a split second for Grif's suddenly wounded dignity to arrive on the scene and all he could manage afterward was: "Don't do that!"

It was going to take him even longer to catch up to the fact that was a freaking Disney song. He was too busy being upset about getting tricked into believing in something as stupid as space mermaids for all of five seconds.

Edited (tweaked a phrase) 2016-07-15 04:23 (UTC)

Beautiful. She'd actually convinced him he'd killed a space mermaid. That was magical.

"Don't do what? Make you actually believe you killed a space mermaid and sing Disney songs?" She shook her head. "Of course I won't. There's no way I could convince someone to buy that twice."

She sounded almost as if she was insulted by him assuming she'd try the same trick more than once.

"I'm surprised I got someone to buy that once."

Edited 2016-07-15 04:38 (UTC)

"Look, I'm not used to this future bullshit, okay?!" Grif groused. He was sitting with his legs folded and his elbows at his knees, hunched grumpily forward. All in all, it was some very defensive posture.

"I've seen some really stupid crap. I can't afford to rule things out."

He scowled at her like this joke was some incredibly low blow.

Leela gave him a big 'poor baby' pout.

"And I once almost got assassinated by the Stingray Mafia. The ridiculousness of there being a Stingray Mafia and them having a hit on me still didn't lead to me getting my sense of humor surgically removed."

It was just a joke, etc. etc. Come on, Grif, you've heard it all before. If you can't stand the heat...

"But I appreciate your serious concern for my mermaid people."

Grif sighed. Fine. She got him. Let her gloat about it. If he was lucky, then she'd leave it alone.

"So who are you really?" he asked, hoping to move past the part of the conversation where they talked about how dumb and gullible he was.

"And what can you do?"

Because even in embarrassing social interactions, Grif was still all up in everyone's business about whether or not their superpowers were cool.

"The Warrior of the Wastes of Belgrath, The All Seeing Scythe that Gleams At Your Severed Head in Darkness." She paused just to let that sink in. "That's not my actual name but if you had a title like that you'd introduce yourself by it instead of your real name, too."

She held out a hand, making a 'gimme' gesture.

"And I'll tell you what I can do if you give me a dollar." She elaborated, "Like a space dollar. I want to see what they use for money. It's the future, so I'm thinking crystals or shells or holograms or something."

Credit cubes? Laser beams? She was curious.

Edited 2016-07-16 04:52 (UTC)

"And you know about dollars in the Wastes of Ballsack?" Grif replied, skeptical. He wasn't even sure about that big, ominous-sounding title. She had just pretended to be a space mermaid and was not scoring high in honesty points.

"And even if I give you a space dollar," because he was just going to roll with calling them space dollars, "I'm gonna want it back then before I tell you anything about me."

He stopped himself with a wave of his hand. "Actually no, too late, now it's two space dollars."

He might as well turn a profit on that, right?

"Lots of places have dollars. Or holograms. Or giant stones that get rolled around like wheels."

She held out her hand in a gimme gesture again.

"Space dollar. If you want to find out stuff, anyway. Then I'll find a way to give two space dollars back."

Edited 2016-07-27 11:16 (UTC)

"You have holograms and you still hit things with a scythe?" Grif shook his head with clear disdain at the poor choices people made in Leela's world.

"They're not all that exciting," he added, back onto space dollars. "I mean, they could've had lasers for currency. That would've been cool. Instead it's just credit transfers and shit."

"I know about holograms and hit things with a scythe. Subtle but distinct difference. And if you don't have any space dollars to give I'm not handing any back."

She stuck out her tongue.

"Goddamn, that's boring. Credit transfers. It should come in cubes. Future stuff always seems more future-ey in cube form."

She mimed a little cube with her fingers and looked over at Grif with a sly expression.

"I'm surprised you haven't figured out my deal yet. It's pretty obvious." She finally caved and explained. "Just 'cause I come from a weird, little magical world doesn't mean I was born there. I was born on Earth -- an Earth, anyway. A perfectly normal, average Earth with normal non-hover cars and reality TV. Then I hopped on over to an alternate Earth, got me this --"

She tugged at her collar to show him the strange necklace melded to her neck.

"-- which gives me precognition. And I had adventures and whatnot. As one does in alternate Earths."

Edited 2016-08-20 15:26 (UTC)

Grif laughed. "See, this is how I know you're new. You have no idea how many weird deals people have going on here, it's just not even worth it for me to try to guess."

He began a list, counting them off on his fingers. "I mean, we got your superheroes. We got your people who learned to fly because everyone can do that. We got your kid with a dragon. We got your huge dude with power armor. We got your dude who dies and comes back. We got your talking animals in three flavors and then a bonus turtle guy."

"In the grand scheme of things, somebody who did the whole Neverending Story thing isn't all that weird?"

He shrugged.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cool Your Heels

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject