Open RP: Back to Normal - or, What Passes for Normal Around Here

[bantersucks]

After sending out a quick owl, Jaime headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast. It was still early, so he got some breakfast and scarfed it down in peace

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[bantersucks]

Fortunately, she hadn't. "And they never figure it out, huh?" Jaime said, grinning. "Yeah, Dad gets customers like that too." Who would go for years without an oil change and wonder why their engine was so messed up.

He thought over the description, trying to match it to a face. "I don't think so. If I did, I don't remember - I was home for three months, but when I got back here my girlfriend said it was just three days." Jaime paused. He'd never referred to Lola as his girlfriend to anyone else before. It felt kinda good. He smiled down at the tabletop before getting back on topic. "Irrepressible, huh? Yeah, I got a friend like that too." His smile was a bit sad, thinking of Brenda, but the sadness was fleeting.

Jaime didn't reply to her observation about the school's population. The scarab had told him more than he needed to know already. "I'm pretty bad at it myself. Shoulda seen the mess I made just trying to screen conversations. I think I'm gonna need remedial classes." Of course, being bonded with something that thought disrupting magical energy patterns was helpful might have something to do with that.

[unbittenapple]

'They seem to underestimate the distance every time,' Bella says solemnly, brown eyes serious. But then a small smile appears on her face. 'Privately I think they get so bored not catching anything they use the boots as bait.'

Home for three months...where is home? Maybe it's wherever Edward is, but Bella's a little aware of how unhealthy that is. 'I've sent Owls--to my Mom, and Dad, and another friend back home...if I go home now, I think I'll just be grounded. But if time really does pass differently here...' Well, a month of Hogwarts-time doesn't bear thinking about. Bella reminds herself that Edward had been gone for exactly the same sort of time as he said he had been at Hogwarts, and then her head warns that following this thought will lead to a headache.

'I might just head to the library,' Bella suggests. 'You can obviously handle the theory.' Here she indicates his book, not sneakily checking out its title at all.

[bantersucks]

"Yeah, time here is weird. When I got dumped back home, I was only gone for five minutes," Jaime explained. He grinned, completely understanding about parental grounding. "Yeah, I was thinking Mom was gonna put me under house arrest til I was thirty. Think it's easier to not try to figure it out."

Jaime looked down at the book. "Huh? Oh, um, not really," he admitted. "I think I've read the same chapter in here five times now trying to figure some of it out. Got it from somebody who thought I could use some insight." His smile was sheepish. "Used to belong to someone a lot smarter 'n me, that's for sure."

[unbittenapple]

Bella leans in a little, not in the flirting way, but in an interested way. 'I have a friend who doesn't like the other guy I know here,' she hazards, wondering how on earth to detail the jealous werewolf vs. possessive vampire fight that's currently giving her problems. 'It's possible I could be sent home three seconds later? Oh...' On the plus side, Jacob and Charlie not mad. On the minus side, you were plunging off a cliff when you got here. 'Good, I guess.'

Her hand hovers over the book. She frowns at its title. 'Strategy? How come?#

[bantersucks]

If she had been flirting, Jaime might not have noticed anyway. "That sucks. They're not - you're not getting stuck in the middle of it, are you?" His two best friends were always fighting and he was always babysitting them, but they didn't hate each other. He had no idea what he would do if that was the case.

"I dunno. I don't think there's a pattern. I was heading home when I got picked up and then wound up in my backyard when I got sent back. You might not get sent home exactly where you left from," he offered, not sure if that was helpful at all. Or if being home three seconds later was a good thing for her.

He bit his lip, unsure how to answer that one. "I... got caught up in a lot of crazy stuff back home. Wrong time, wrong place, that kinda thing. Long story, but I realized I was in way over my head. A friend -" well, Guy did count as a friend - "gave me this. Figured it would help since the guy who gave it to him was a genius and could think his way out of any problem." He shrugged. "Better that than fighting out of it." His last comment was directed at more than just Bella, of course.

[unbittenapple]

Bella smiles wearily. 'It can seem that way.' So, in other words, great big yes. Bella doesn't like to think they're fighting over her, but if they are it's more 'don't turn my best friend/girlfriend into a vampire/expose her to your werewolfy ways' than 'omg I want her u cant hav her lol.'

'Maybe the magic decides,' Bella says rather less guiltily than she feels. 'I hope it's maybe an hour later. Maybe I'll be at home then.' She grins.

She absent-mindedly plucks an empty cup and pours herself some pumpkin juice. 'Good friend you've got there.' Is it really her place to say any more than that? Back when she didn't know vampires and werewolves existed, she would have been all over his problem. Now, she's a lot more careful.

[bantersucks]

"Oh." Jaime flinched, for once getting the unspoken meaning. "Sorry. Talking to 'em doesn't help?"

He returned the grin. "Home is good. It actually saved me a trip - I was gonna be late for dinner, but I wound up being early instead. You never know."

"I guess so. Hard to tell 'cause he defaults to being a jerk, but he believed me when nobody else did." And didn't treat him like an idiot, and apologized and actually went to check out the base and insulted the Reach negotiator to his face... given the circumstances, it did make up for almost killing him.

He nodded, grateful she wasn't going to press for details. Context aside, that entire day was beyond bizarre.

[unbittenapple]

'Talking to them just gives them more opportunities to call each other derogatory nicknames,' Bella replies darkly. 'Bloodsucker and dog. I can't even get them to stop for my sake.'

She tilts her head. 'What's there to disbelieve?'

[bantersucks]

"Ouch. Wish I could help, but... I got no idea what I'd do in that case." He didn't comment on the nicknames, and gave no indication if they seemed odd.

"Um. Again with the long story. But the short version: I found out this group of people who were supposed to be good guys were really up to something. 'Course, I had no proof, and who's gonna believe some kid from El Paso? I finally got some people to listen to me who could do something, but he was the first one to take me seriously. Which helped."

[unbittenapple]

Bella smiles a little hopelessly. 'I'd tell them to fight it out, but you're right; it doesn't fix anything.'

Wow, taking it seriously...Bella hasn't told anyone about Edward's leanings towards vampirism and Jacob's propensity to turn into a large wolf. She can't know about Jaime's story, but it helps to hear that normality is apparently relative. She sips her juice. 'So, he believed your secret?' She sounds almost wistful. 'Is it...well, I probably shouldn't guess, should I?' Still, she pauses, before blurting out: 'Supernatural. Is it anything to do with the paranormal?'

Please, God, let there be someone out there who understands what it's like to have to hide this sort of thing all the time...someone preferably born in the same timeframe as her.

[bantersucks]

"Yeah. Still sucks."

Jaime bit his lip at the question, unsure. He was about to simply say no, but then he caught the pleading look in her eyes. His secret wasn't supernatural in the least, despite what he'd initially believed. But he wasn't so sure it was about hiding the supernatural so much as it was having to hide a metric ton of weird behind a normal facade. That, he could identify with.

He picked up his wand - he'd brought it down with him just in case - and quickly warded the conversation, gratified to see the energy patterns settle around just the two of them, not one or the other. "Well, no, but I thought it was at first," he admitted. "Then it turned out it was, uh, extraterrestrial. I think I'd have preferred supernatural." Supernatural stuff wasn't as likely to try to take over the whole planet.

[unbittenapple]

Bella looks a little alarmed at the wards, but relaxes as they settle into place. She's read about them, after all. She understands that they work, and that's good enough for her.

'Trust me,' she says lowly, twisting her cup this way and that to see if it catches the light. 'It's probably not a case of the grass being greener; though I only know a few...okay, well, two types of supernatural powers, I don't know anything about...anything falling from space.' She makes a face. 'I'm sorry about the vague language.'

[bantersucks]

Fortunately, warding conversations was simple enough that Jaime managed to pick it up again pretty quickly - especially since the scarab realized that the warding didn't block anything it wanted to do and stopped interfering. His secret identity was probably the worst-kept secret identity ever, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

"Yeah, I know a couple people who deal with supernatural stuff back home. It doesn't sound like a party either way." He winced, smiling wryly. "Probably a good thing you don't have to worry about stuff falling from space on top of that." Or knew what it was like to be the stuff falling from space, for that matter.

"'S okay. Vague language comes with the territory. Or creative euphemisms when you can't screen conversations." He grinned, indicating the wand. "Really could've used this back home. You don't have to go into details. I get the idea, anyway."

[unbittenapple]

'Guess it must be difficult either way,' she says sincerely. With a small smile, 'Boring, I suppose, isn't all bad.' Wow, he has alien technology...that can't be good.

Bella smiles, taking an apple for later. 'It was nice to meet you, Jaime.'

[bantersucks]

"Normal is okay. And you're not boring," Jaime told her, canceling the warding spell. "Same to you," he said, but his smile faltered a bit; he couldn't shake the feeling he'd just scared her off. Probably shouldn't have said so much. He didn't need to lay any more weirdness on people who had to deal with it on their own. Maybe he'd know if he ran into her later on.

He sighed, shrugged and went back to his reading.