11678/It's not murder, it's sparkling relocation.

It's not murder, it's sparkling relocation.
Date of Scene:	20 June 2022
Location:	2D - Terry's Apartment
Synopsis:	The people closest to us are often the ones we rely upon to keep us from straying. Gar Logan will brook no stray cats.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Gar Logan

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Terry O'Neil has posed:


"Oh /god/ I am tired," Vorpal says as he Rabbit Holes directly into his apartment. There's sand still clinging to his fur. It is late at night- or early in the morning, depending on your perspective. Gar is probably asleep.

He ponders for a few seconds, and then depowers himself, transforming into his human guise by quietly speaking the words into his wrist mirror. Then, not wanting to risk waking up the green one, he doesn't go into the bedroom, but sets up the couch as a quick crash spot. He's done it a few times, when he's been up late working on a deadline for The Planet or for Starr.

The window is opened to get a good breeze, and then lights are switched off with the exception of the low-level LED night light strips that help people don't bump into things. He installed them after his nth stubbed toe. With a sigh, he flops onto the couch.

And stares at the ceiling, somehow not able to quite fall asleep yet, despite being exhausted.

Gar Logan has posed:
The thing about avoiding the bedroom is Terry doesn't know if Gar is asleep or not without checking. He isn't snoring, at least. Isn't making any noise in there, either. It could be he's not even there.

This, in fact, is the case. Were he paying attention, Terry would have noticed another window already cracked open in another area of the apartment, but with him sticking to the couch, all is silent.

Five minutes, then ten, then twenty, and finally approaching a full half hour like that before there's a little rustle of sound coming from another windowsill. Scrabble, scrabble (triple word score! ..no), and a small green bird hops in.

Terry O'Neil has posed:


The redhead blinks, upon hearing the rustling sound. He adjusts himself to see better- it couldn't be Kian, the wings sound too small. Way too small for an Akiar.

"Gar?" he calls out, sitting up on the couch. "Is that you over there?"

He tries to reach for a light switch, but accidentally upends the glass of water he had set for himself on the table beside the couch. Oops.

Gar Logan has posed:
"This place is for the birds!" comes a small voice from over that way, the sparrow-sized thing hopping its way along. Gar's voice, naturally.

Upon seeing the glass tipped over, he chides, "You know, you really should put that somewhere you won't knock it over." All the same, he advances until he's beneath the water that begins to trail over the edge of the table, fluttering his wings and giving himself a quick bath before taking to wing again and landing in Terry's mop of hair, plucking at it in an irritating way.

"Why you sleeping out here?" he wonders.

Terry O'Neil has posed:


"Eep, no pecking!" Terry says, reaching over to give the bird a ruffle. "I just got back from that mission with the Justice League Dark and I didn't want to wake you. I thought you were probably conked out in the bedroom." He had told Gar they might be out late on a mission, after all, "I figured I'd be too tired after the mission to give you the only kind of late-night wake-up that you actually appreciate," he says, with a mischievous grin.

He sighs, "I'm actually dead tired but I can't sleep. Just keep thinking about the mission and... stuff."

Gar Logan has posed:
The bird avoids the ruffling, a little tough to do with such a tiny thing but not impossible, and he flits out of range before returning to normal. /His/ normal, not the Cheshire. Terry had it for the mission, and there has been no taking it back yet. In truth, the practicing has been valuable, but he's been able to see why Terry needs Terry time instead of just being all Vorpal, all the time. It's a lot. The Cheshire Cat is a lot.

Gar's in casual clothing. "I just had to go get some fresh air. So what happened? Something's on your mind and you want to tell me, but you also don't want to tell me."

Terry O'Neil has posed:


"Yeah. It's... a lot." The redhead groans, and then he reclines back against the couch. "We went and tried to put the fear of god on some Cartel people so they would leave Cael alone. These are... you know, /cartel/ thugs, they are not nice people. The remotest thing you can find from a nice person. We came in and there was some posturing attempting to get them to back down without a fight."

And then there is a slight smile that comes to him. "I was able scare the living shit out of half of them, though. Half of them legit just booked it out of there."

The smile wilts a little and he brings his knees up to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees. "But then-"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan raises a brow along the way. Cartels, fear of God, that sort of thing. Scaring them in a major way. There are things he could imagine, but he can't know without all the details.

He's standing by, a hand at his hip with the other arm left to hang at his side, watching Terry and his body language. "Then?" he prompts, if gently.

Terry O'Neil has posed:


"Well... Jon, they channeled Ma'At, and she compelled testimony from the two dudes we were after. And..." Terry frowns and looks down. "It was... just horrible. They were killers. Bona fide killers. And they listed everything they did, talked about it matter-of-factly, and without any remorse. They were /monsters/, Gar!"

He takes a deep breath. "And I started feeling this ... fury growing in my chest. And the sentence of Ma'At was passed, the goddess sentenced them to death. But Jon didn't want to, so instead he asked one of us to take them away and put them somewhere dangerous, because they had had their chance once before and rejected it..."

He exhales, "I was angry. So angry. All those deaths..." the redhead shakes his head, "I got furious. I opened a Rabbit Hole under them and dumped them into the Gobi Desert..."

Gar Logan has posed:
Withdrawing his phone, Gar begins to look up information on Ma'at. He knows a lot about certain things, but he's not a font of knowledge about everything. Egyptian god of justice, truth and all that, essentially. "That's what they do. They aren't good people," he says of the cartel members.

But he grows quiet for a few more moments, then says, "Hold on. Who's Jon, and why is he passing off dealing with this to someone else?" He's gathered that Ma'at is tied to Jon, at least.

Eyes then narrow as the desert is mentioned, but he gives Terry a chance to finish. Now, his arms cross.

Terry O'Neil has posed:


"Jonathan Sims, they're one of the leading experts in the Justice League Dark. Avatar of Ma'At... and I guess Jonathan... couldn't really kill them. As in, emotionally."

He glances at his phone and sighs, rubbing his eyes. "It's been an hour since all of that mess happened. Those two men are still probably roaming the desert. Six hours is probably all they have before the heat takes them."

A sigh that is almost an exasperated rumble. "I want them to die. They were so cruel... they've killed /children/ without remorse because they were in the target zone. I-" He closes his eyes and rubs his eyelids. "... I'm getting in the same headspace I was when I thought your doppel had killed you. It's... not a good headspace."

Gar Logan has posed:
"So, what, you volunteered to do it for him?" Gar asks, and this is the moment his voice begins to raise, if only marginally so far. "Because they've killed people, and Ma'at or whoever said they should die, so you decided to be an accomplice to that?" The sigh is caught, the struggle Terry is going through. That much is good, but there is more to unpack first.

Gar exclaims, "That's not what we do! Oh, I'm sure some of us have before, but not /us!/ It doesn't matter how bad those guys are. We don't just kill them. And sending them off to the desert where they're just gonna die in a few hours, that isn't getting around it. There aren't any loopholes here, dude. The worst part is once you've done it, it gets a lot easier to do it again, and again."

The mention of being in that headspace triggers a memory he was told, or saw through surveillance footage, however it went. "I know Wonder Woman had to slap some sense into you. I'm not gonna do that, but you know what you have to do. You know where they belong, and you know why." There's another second or two that goes by.

"So fix this. Make it right before it's too late."

Terry O'Neil has posed:


Terry looks up at Gar, a miserable expression on his face. Then he looks down again and runs his hands through his hair. The reason why he couldn't sleep was very much evident now. He slides off the couch and walks towards the dining table where his laptop was left.

"Why am I such a goddamned screw up?" the laptop is flipped open and powered on. "Why do you even put up with me, I don't know..."

He doesn't seem to be doing what Gar told him to do. He hasn't transformed. But he is pulling up something on his computer, one of the files that he had been working on with Harley and Lois on and off. When it finally loads, it shows a rendering of Arkham Asylum's floorplan. Or, at least, the best guess for it because over the decades there have been many conflicting floorplans filed with the city, none of which seem to be the most up-to-date. That's where Harley's most recent expertise would come in. Some areas are labeled with names, such as 'Croc' and 'Chemo.' Since Harley hasn't been in there for over two years, most of them have a (?) next to them as things may have changed.

Terry glances at the floorplan, and then he looks up at Gar.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan answers, without hesitation. "Because you're human, and sometimes you need someone else to tell you when you're making the wrong decision so you can do the right thing, just like sometimes I need someone to tell me that. And that's what I'm doing right now, telling you that it's gonna eat at you one way or another if you leave them there."

He follows over toward the table and laptop, looking over Terry's shoulder with a hand rising up to squeeze there, a brief inkling of support and strength for someone in the churning waters of despair and confusion. An oar to grab hold of, to get back on the boat, return to shore. "Uh, if you're gonna take them there, I don't think the people in charge are gonna like you just appearing inside. Show up with them at the entrance. Let the guards know. Have they even had an actual trial, or is that a Ma'at decision too?" Right now, he isn't sounding too high on Jonathan Sims or Ma'at. There may need to be a /discussion/ very soon.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry leans into Gar's touch, the redhead looking emotionally fragile just now. "They're internationally wanted criminals. But there's a holding cell..." he points to a part of the floorplan, "Here that isn't used often. I was thinking of sending a message to Batman to expect a drop-in there so he can retrieve them and... do what he does. Considering he seemed pretty pissed at me figuring out his secret identity, this might just put me in the positive in his books. Or at zero."

And then, because the mind wants to cling to things as distraction when misery is on the plate, he asks "Wait. Did he ever come for /you/ when you figured out Damian's identity, or am I the only one who got the scary-as-shit ride with him?"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan stays there, but goes a little short on words while making sure Terry isn't just stalling. No, he's finding a good place to dump the pair. "Then that should be good enough. Let him know, give the Warden a heads-up too. You're probably gonna end up committed someday, but not today." Still a zinger, even in times like this.

He shrugs. "That was more Damian straight up showing me after we had a fight instead of me figuring anything out, but I haven't heard from tall, dark, and broody. Wait, you got a ride?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:


"I got a ride, and a threat," Terry says as he grabs his cell phone, looking for the Arkham listing. "Bruce picked me up while I was taking my lunch across from The Planet. Drove like a ... well, bat out of hell towards Gotham with me in a car that is more expensive than my entire /block/ growing up. And then he told me that if I ever thought about talking no-one would ever believe me. And I'm not entirely sure but he might have said he could buy The Planet... or maybe I just hallucinated it as part of my life flashing before my eyes because he's even scarier than my mom driving. All in all, it wasn't exactl- Yes, hello?"

Someone's picked up. It is a few minutes before Terry can verity that yes, it is really Vorpal from the Titans and yes, he is actually dropping someone in temporary so that the Dark Knight can pick them up. "I'll show up there after putting them in. Is detainment 4-C still vacant? ... well, yes, of /course/ I know where that is, I wouldn't be talking to... okay, then expect two to show up there in less than twenty minutes. Don't open the door. Just let them wait for Bats." A pause. "Actually, can you leave two large bottles of water in there? Oh. Because they've been traipsing through the Gobi Desert for about an hour no- no, ma'am, I am not kidding. Alright."

That done, he exhales, and then he looks at Gar, and reaches out to touch the green gold bracelet on Gar's wrist. "Thank you. I don't know if you will ever really know how much you mean to me. Or how much good you do for me."

He is fidgeting with his own bracelet, because it's morphing time.

No. He has never actually used that phrase, although he has been tempted to play the Power Rangers theme during his transformation. But he has always been wary of it lest Gar thwap him.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Oh, so you just got to ride in a fancy car, not the Batmobile? Lame." Gar takes the whole story and breaks it down in the simplest of terms from his perspective, assuming if Terry was in /the/ Batmobile, he would have damn well /said/ so. That would make a chewing out worth it.

He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his shorts while the logistics of dropping two hardened killers off are worked out, finding it surreal on some level. Best to follow as much procedure as possible for something that so often has no norms. "Tell them toilet water is okay," he offers, his contribution to the idea of not coddling the cartel members. See, they can drink it if they want to. It's an option, and it isn't just leaving them in the desert to cook.

After the bracelets are touched, he gives Terry a light shove against the cheek. "Yeah, yeah. I know. Now go deal with it. Later on, you're gonna help me get in touch with the guy who talked you into this. And don't let the Arkham boys fit you for a straitjacket."

Terry O'Neil has posed:


Once transformed, the Cheshire cat leans in for a kiss. "You got it, boss," he says, his chaotic persona making him a lot peppier and brighter, which is a contrast to how he was just a second ago. "And shut up. You're a prince and you know it. Now go, get some sleep. I'll join you after I deliver the package."

And with one Rabbit Hole, he's gone.