legionworld | 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

"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.

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