open RP: El Mundo del Sombrero bites the dust! Hot Pockets for everyone!
The Sorting Hat had a new lease on life, thanks to the return of its abducted bride. In Virginia's absence, the Hat had fretted alone in the Hat House, leaving only grudgingly for the Sortings it must perform, and using the rest of its time for contemplation so emo as to be worthy of the most bespandexed Gryffindor. Had it a navel, it would have
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Technically Lola had no need for sleep. It was, however, a nice thing about humanity that she wasn't planning on giving up, so it did not stop her from grumping when she was awakened most rudely in the middle of the night by a bunch of House-elves dismantling a village. Sleepily rubbing her eyes, Lola exited the beet farm, blinking at the people around her. Then she managed to snap up the news that the Hat had dissolved everyone's marriage, and sleep suddenly became less important. She was a free woman? Cosmic!
Zooming back into the tent and grinning madly, Lola grabbed her white robe and wrapped it around herself - because trotting around in her pyjamas on school grounds wasn't really something she had planned on doing - before starting to pad back to Gryffindor. No longer would she live in a place that smelled of beets! She was released from tyranny! She would never be referred to as Mrs. Schrute again!
Of course, she didn't get far. She saw Jaime and was planning on waving in a sort of cheerful "guess what, I'm no longer married!" way as soon as he spotted her, but before that happened Jaime screamed and fell to the ground. At first Lola didn't know what he was playing at, but then she saw the food everywhere and gasped. Magic food things. Anything could happen with magic food things. They'd turn Mel human and seriously sick...
Within seconds, she was over there, kneeling beside him. Her hands had already started glowing in gold and shimmering emerald, just in case he'd need healing... She had no idea what was wrong. Was he sick? He'd sounded in pain...
"Jaime?" she asked carefully, reaching out to touch his forehead.
Wait.
Was he... taller?
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In other circumstances, Jaime might have been amused that he was now a couple inches taller since every single news reporter HAD to make a crack about the Blue Beetle's height. Later - much later - he'd look back on this and laugh.
The first thing that registered was the fact that his head was pounding. Jaime groaned, not moving or opening his eyes at first. He felt like he'd been thrown into a giant blender set to liquefy. "...owww..." Okay, he could at least talk now, although his voice sounded alien to his own ears. Then again, the drum solo in his skull probably had something to do with that.
Someone was saying his name. It took a second for his brain to connect the voice to a face, and that was enough for him to finally open his eyes and blink as the colored blurs solidified into a familiar face. "Lola?" he murmured, still more than a little woozy. "What happened?" He had no idea how long he'd been out, why the scarab had spazzed... and why the hell was it so fixated on scanning people's teeth?
(Lola had perfect teeth. Probably an angel thing.)
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He was looking older. And what was up with the white coat? And the tie? And... was that a sweater vest? Oh dear, oh dear...
Lola's hand automatically went to his temple, sending out a warm wave of healing vibes as her fingertips brushed against his hair. Glasses, too. And facial hair. What the heck was going on here? She was kind of wishing that she hadn't been wearing her PJ's and robe right now. She definitely found this kind of thing easier to deal with in a proper trouble-shooting outfit.
"You had some sort of seizure, I think," Lola said gently, keeping her voice lowered. "I'm guessing it was something you ate. That happens around here from time to time. How are you feeling?" Poor babe. He was looking pretty pale.
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Thanks to her vibes, the pounding in his head became a dull throb and then faded entirely. He smiled gratefully at her, still a bit unsteady. "Better now, thanks." He pulled himself up to sit on the bench, and his glasses nearly slipped off as he did so.
Wait. Glasses? Since when did he wear glasses? Now that the headache had subsided, he was becoming more and more aware of his surroundings, and froze when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the punch bowl. "What the?" He stared at himself, at the lab coat and tie and sweater vest and nametag, completely baffled as to what was going on. "And I'm really, really confused." He paused as the scarab pointed out the miserable state of Nebulon's teeth. "So is the scarab."
Then it clicked. The lab coat. The fixation with teeth. That one thing he'd admitted to Brenda sophomore year that made her laugh hysterically until he reminded her she'd wanted to be a trapeze artist before switching to lawyer. Groaning, he put a hand over his face. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. This isn't funny at all."
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She sat down next to him, pulling up her feet underneath the robe. "The effect doesn't last forever, or at least it didn't with Mel and Brice. So... Are you supposed to be a doctor or something?"
And it was kind of funny. You know, when you got past the thing with him collapsing to the floor in agony, then it was just a tiny bit amusing.
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"How long does this kind of thing last?" A day? A week? He hoped not.
Jaime pulled off the nametag, feeling a bit self-conscious already without his name on his coat for all to see. "Um. Not really." He toyed with the nametag in his hands for a second, embarrassed. "...IthinkI'msupposedtobeadentist."
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Lola paused, thinking. "It varies. A couple of days at the most, I guess. Brice was only five years old for a few hours..." She hadn't been around for that little adventure, but of course Mel had told her. Brice had apparently not been a very happy five-year old. Not surprisingly, perhaps, considering his childhood.
"A dentist?" Oh yeah. Big grin here, too. "Okay, I have to ask... Why, out of all the thousand different things enchanted food can turn you into, are you a dentist?"
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"Couple of days? ...wait, Brice was five?" Jaime actually had a good childhood, but at least now he wasn't concerned about being trampled by the stampede. Being short was never fun, and he'd been a very short five-year-old. It could have been worse. "I could deal with a few hours. I don't want to know how many cavities people have around me, 'cause that's all the scarab cares about now."
Jaime sighed, removing his glasses briefly to rub the bridge of his nose before putting them back on (a stalling tactic he'd picked up from his Mom, apparently). "I kinda wanted to be a dentist. Don't remember where I got the idea, but I know I had it sophomore year. That was before everything in my life got weird, though. Seems like a lifetime ago."
((And I'll be out for the night. Later!))
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She sighed. "Yeah, he had a piece of magic chocolate and sort of... shrank. Apparently he was adorable." Lola giggled a little. "Don't tell him I said that, though. He'll sulk." Angel boy totally worried about his bad boy image too much. "Mel had a magic chocolate once, too, and she turned human," Lola continued casually. "Then she got really sick, which was a new thing... She hasn't been sick in a while." It had been a bit scary, actually.
Heh. As far as super-powers went, knowing who had good teeth and who didn't wasn't really impressive. Original, though!
Lola smiled at the dentist story. "Well, they don't get enough credit these days, dentists," she said, inclining her head. It was interesting... Most people, if they didn't know the whole story, would probably say that Jaime had gotten a better deal. Superhero instead of a dentist? Way cooler. But Lola could guess. As cool as being an angel was, there was a part of her that would have liked to grow up as a human and not missed out on so much. "Lots of superheroes have jobs on the side, though," she pointed out. "Dentist by day, roaming the streets for vigilantes at night..."
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He nodded. "Gotcha. Not saying a word." Seriously, he wasn't gonna do that to Brice. "That sounds... like scary weird, actually," he mused, considering it.
More like an annoying super-power, really. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than analyzing threat levels and suggesting violent options.
"And it's better than an orthodontist," Jaime added, shuddering. "I don't think I could bring myself to do THAT." Drilling cavities was at least a one-time thing. Poking and prodding and tightening metal on teeth for months or years on one kid was torture.
He had to laugh at her description, because the first cape it brought to mind was Batman. Which was just so wrong. "I guess nobody'd expect that," he said finally, still grinning in spite of himself. "...never did the part where you look for crazies, though. They always tend to find me, and it's kinda against the rules my folks set anyway." Which was kind of surreal, but the fact that they let him use his powers to help people trumped any set of rules.
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"It was kind of scary," she nodded. "We got her well again, though. With the cunning use of cherry cough drops and a lot of ice cream." And an over-protective Brice. That had been kind of fun to watch. Even when Mel had clearly been well enough to manage on her own, Brice had continued fussing and fretting like a great big mother hen. Yep. Cute.
She laughed a little, mostly because he did. "Your folks set rules about hero things?" Cool.
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"Ice cream, huh? I told my Mom for years it was a cure-all, but she never believed me. Go figure." He made a face. "...yeah, I know there's a lot of sugar in ice cream, shut up."
Hey, the mental image of Batman as a dentist was the funniest thing ever. "Yeah. No fighting monsters unless they start it, and if it's a natural disaster and not school hours, I could just go." He grinned and shook his head. "Kind of surreal, I know. Think they were trying to make up for how they reacted when they found out. Even though I couldn't blame Mom for freaking."
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Lola knew, as every young woman does, that ice cream really was a cure-all remedy, both for physical and emotional maladies. As was chocolate, of course. "They never believe you when you say that," she sighed and shook her head sadly. "I used to try and convince my grandmother that her hot chocolate was the only medication I needed when I was a kid, but she insisted on the yukky spoonfuls of cough medicine." Lola wrinkled her nose, but there was a smile on her face anyway. She hadn't thought about that in a very long time.
She laughed again. "Sounds like good rules to me." Okay, so she kind of did get very amusing mental images of Jaime fighting monsters and then coming back to his parents and claiming that THEY HAD STARTED IT, and she had to bite her lip not to giggle, but... His parents sounded pretty cool about the hero thing. Good. "So do you have a curfew?" Lola asked curiously, smiling and hugging her legs.
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"Yeah. Mom never believed I had a second stomach for dessert either. Or when Milagro tried to say that cookies were a necessary food group." One of the few things he'd sided with the munchkin on. "She'd laugh and then make us eat broccoli anyway." Which would get stuck in their teeth, and - man, he hoped this ended soon.
They were trying. And the few times he had been forced to fight, Jaime hadn't started it. Unless you counted that one time when he rescued Brenda from that deathtrap planet, but that was a misunderstanding and his parents were NEVER going to hear about that one. Ever. "I don't go looking for a fight if I can help it, so... yeah, they are." He nodded. "Oh, yeah. And God forbid if I miss it." Jaime smiled in spite of himself. "Monsters have nothing on Mom when she's on the warpath."
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Lola had lost count on all the things her brothers had tried to make their Gran believe. Candy could be used as medicine. Broccoli and asparagus could be toxic when you ate too much of it. Surveys said that kids' teeth were actually strengthened by vast quantaties of sugar. Gran had not been easily fooled, though. Clever old woman.
"Sounds like my Gran," she grinned, picking at the nametag on the borrowed lab coat. "Guess she had to be strict, though... I've got five brothers. They could be a bit of a handfull, if my memory serves."
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"Really? That's great," Jaime said, genuinely pleased that there was something good in all the madness. "The marriage ending thing, not the middle-of-the-night thing." Maybe it was earlier than he'd thought. He was still adjusting to Scotland time. "Oh. Yeah, I guess not." It had taken him a while to notice the pajamas, and he personally thought she looked gorgeous anyway. But he didn't say that out loud, since he was becoming rapidly aware that he now looked twice her age. Twice his age. Whatever.
"Five brothers?" Jaime echoed, trying to wrap his brain around that one. "Man, if I had five sisters I'd go nuts. One of Milagro is enough." If he had to babysit five of her after school, the house probably wouldn't be left standing.
He shook off that frightening mental image and brought his brain back to the present. "Hey, if you need to go change, go ahead," he said. "I'm not going anywhere for now." Not like this, he wasn't.
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