15736/Positive Thoughts

Positive Thoughts
Date of Scene:	09 September 2023
Location:	Elevator - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Two anti-social personalities trapped in an elevator. It's not a Noel Coward play, it's just another day at the Tower
Cast of Characters:	Larry Trainor, Colette O'Connail

---

Larry Trainor has posed:
One of the problems with depression is that it tends to leave you with a lot of things on your back burner. The emotional drain of energy, the dwindling reserves, it makes for a pretty full 'to do' list and a very slim 'have done' checklist. Because there is also an element of avoidance, one often reads a lot.

Including self-help books, because they always, somehow, find their way into your possession. You don't remember buying them, and The Doc surely did not have the audacity to place them in his bookcase, they just appear there... probably drawn in by the gravitational pull of the rest of that other literature.

But, in any case, self-growth. There's a lot Larry can say about that- especially about how one might try to avoid the topic. But, as he leafed through the chapter (because he refuses to get one of those e-reader things because *books should feel comforting*) he came across the header of family connectons. Of re-connecting with enstranged family. Mending bridges, that sort of thing.

So, of course, the straightforward path would have been for Larry to look up whether his son was still alive (unlikely), or whether he had had children (likely) and meet /them/.

Which is why he is in the lobby of the Titans' Tower, waiting for the elevator to go up so he can come see Garfield. Because, well... he was still family, of sorts. They hadn't spoken in forever. And he already knew everything that needed to be known, hence no need to address the bandages. And The Entity, and-

Small steps, okay? You take small steps. That's what the book says, and that's what he's going to do. He presses the elevator call button and steps back, clearing his throat.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    While Larry's waiting for the elevator, another arrival shows up at the Tower. Though not someone Larry recognizes, that's hardly a surprise. The Titans seem to have been expanding like crazy in the last few years, and while he knows all the older Titans somewhat from old joint missions, it's hard to miss the fact that there are a lot of new ones these days.

    Not that this newcomer looks anything like a superhero, though. Nothing by way of a costume, the young blonde woman is dressed smartly if informally in black jeans, black shoes with a short heel, and a T-shirt. Nothing you'd wear to an office, but with the look of someone who spends real money on their casual wear. She had let herself into the tower, but that doesn't necessarily mean much; Larry has a guest pass too, after all. Maybe she's not one of the new Titans. She might be some kind of administrative staff, who knows.

    The woman glances at Larry, and doesn't even do a double-take at his appearance. This is Titans Tower though, so perhaps one of the few places Larry can be in public without attracting too much by way of the stairs.

    There is no greeting. Instead she presses the call button, despite the fact that it's illuminated because Larry has already pressed it, and waits in silence.

    It's only a few moments before the elevator arrives and the door opens. The woman steps inside and presses the button for the floor she's going to, without even waiting to check that Larry has got in first.

Larry Trainor has posed:
Admittedly, Larry doesn't exactly dress up- but the aviator look always has a certain charm to it- it's an original... in the sense that almost everything he is wearing could be considered 'vintage' now, although it's not vintage if you've been wearing it all the time. The young woman's rudeness doesn't phaze Larry too much- after all, he's used to people rushing past him under the incorrect assumption that his bandages means there's somethng seriously wrong and potentally contagious wth him.

It's not contagious.

A quick one-two of aviator boots and he is inside, also reaching for his floor button. He doesn't exactly antagonize the young woman's space, but he also doesn't exactly get out of the way, either, occupying a sort of negative space.

Heh. He really should write some of this stuff down. Cliff could pretend it's funny.

No he wouldn't

Then he steps back and does what every person in an elevator, with a stranger, does. He holds his hand at the wrist, and stares straight ahead at the door and pretends to not acknowledge the existence of the other person in that small box.

What? He's been to New York, okay?

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Ignoring the other passenger in the list seems to be the order of the day, because the young woman is ignoring Larry right back. Is it even New York rudeness? At least she's not acting like he /is/ contagious. Or radioactive. She seems entirely unconcerned about sharing a lift with someone who, let's face it, looks like a particularly scruffy Boris Karloff.

    The blonde woman, Colette, does not even bother to check with Larry if he needs a different floor. Obviously she's just being sensitive to his disabilities and not offering unnecessary aid in a patronizing fashion. He has fingers, he can press his own button if he needs to. The doors shut, and the elevator waits a moment while the tower systems scan the occupants, determine that both are acceptable, and starts ascending.

    Then it stops. The lights dim and flicker a moment, then cut out. They are immediately replaced with dimmer lighting as a strip of LEDs around the elevator light up. The display changes from showing a series of floor numbers to the words 'Emergency stop. Stand by'.

    "Fuck," Colette comments, finally breaking her silence. She glances briefly at Larry, then leans against a wall and puffing out her cheeks. "Don't suppose you've got super elevator repairing as a power?" she asks.

Larry Trainor has posed:
"F-"

The woman is way ahead of him in that respect. So, then, what should he do? He was certain that this must be because of him. Or The Entity- yes, he's The Entity when he is feeling particularly cross with them, and getting him stuck in an elevator is one of those little moments. Furthermore, there's the cheek of the dam-young woman, who turns to snark at him without having even acknowledging him before. He was particularly incensed at that.

Because that's what /he/ would do. He wanted to file a complaint.

He wanted to turn to her and say, 'I don't now, do YOU have a power that makes you a little less annoying than ten year old Gar after he discovered where Rita hid all of the sugar-heavy cereal in the mansion and spent two hours being a car alarm? Well, DO YOU?'

"No," he says, instead, and takes a breath.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette shifts her shoulders, making herself comfortable against the wall she has opted as her preferred leaning spot. "Fine," she adds with barely a glance to Larry, and falls silent. This lasts about four seconds before she straightens up and steps over to the panel, finding the emergency button and jabbing it. "Hello?" she says into the small holes that cover the microphone in the panel. "Anybody there? The elevator has stopped. There are people in it." The control panel responds by making a siren sound. "Rude," Colette comments.

    The siren is accompanied a moment later by a the voice of Wendy, one of the Tower System personas. "Alert! Alert! Tower entering emergency lockdown. All Titans report for action. Visitors, please remain calm and stay where you are. You will be safe."

    Colette jabs the button again. "I don't want to stay here. What's going on?" She demands of the console.

    "Emergency lockdown. Please remain calm," Wendy replies."

    "The only thing I'm not calm about is you!" Colette replies, jabbing random buttons in the hope that one of them, or perhaps all of them, may trigger the elevator to start moving again.

    "Please remain calm," Wendy repeats. "As soon as it is safe again, the elevator will return to normal operation."

    "Great, just Great," Colette says, leaning back against the wall. After a few more seconds of glaring at the console, she turns to look at Larry again. She takes a moment, and when she speaks to him her voice is a little more calm and collected than it had been talking to Wendy. "Any ideas? Maybe you've got some less specific superpower than fixing elevators that could be useful here? You look kind of like you've got super powers. Unless you're one of Gar's acting friends and couldn't afford the makeup time to change before you came here. If that's the case, then whatever movie you're in that has you made up like that, sack your agent."

Larry Trainor has posed:
Larry takes one breath. Then another. Then another one. There's barely any betrayal of irritation except, perhaps, the vise-like grip of one hand suddenly clamping on a wrist. The cracking of the neck as he angles his head this way, or that. The expanding of the ribcage with another breath.

"I have a very specific super power." He slowly turns his head to look at Colette- or, rather, give her a view of the special goggles he wears. "Patience."

His head swivels back to the first position and he gently, very gently, leans back against the wall, lifting the toes of his boots just a little.

Then, after several seconds, he turns to her and says, "Kitkat bar?"

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette gives a short ironic laugh. "Patience," she repeats. "Sure. I can do that too. " This is not something she has so far given any evidence of. The truth of the matter is that Colette is not a patient person. However Colette is the sum of some complicated parts, and one of them has experience in patience. What's a few minutes or hours stuck in an elevator when you've been stuck drifting in space for billions of years?

    On the other hand, she was on her own then. It's possible an hour or two in an elevator with this man could feel like billions of years. There's not a whole lot of shadows in here, but there are some. She can feel shadows outside. She could always just leave.

    Colette isn't really keen to show that fact to a stranger though. She's dubious enough about the fact that she's revealed some of what she is to a couple of her friends.

    There is a dull distant thud, and the elevator shakes slightly. A fine rain of dust drops from the ceiling.

    "Are you offering or asking?" she replies to Larry. "Either way, no." There's a brief beat. "But in the first case, add thanks to that." Apparently politeness is not an entirely unfamiliar concept to her.

Larry Trainor has posed:
"Figured you might have some," Larry says, defusing whatever polite overture Colette had made.

Larry Trainor believes in distributive justice. He is annoyed, therefore other people need to be annoyed. Ideally, perhaps, even more annoyed than he is. Perhaps it is because Colette was rude. Perhaps it is because he is thinking about the Titans fighting whatever threat is out there by themselves...

And, he'll be damned to his shriveled little heart, he does wonder if The Kid is doing alright in there. The Kid. The Kid's old enough to drink- yes, he's been keeping tabs - The Kid is... like him.

The Kid has two boyfriends, apparently, and he has many questions about /that/. But, primarily, well... he's The Kid. And Larry may have played the role of the cantankerous gay uncle... okay, he IS the cantankerous gay uncle. But he does care.

But he's not going to let this suicide blonde who dyed by her own hand know that.

Instead, he starts... humming quietly to himself.

It's Lily Marleen. And it's so off-key it might as well be an attempted transposition into Phrygian mode.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette sighs. "You're leaking random noises," she says. "You may have a puncture or something. For a moment I thought you were just humming, but then I realized there was no tune to it so clearly not something intentional."

    There's another elevator-shaking thud, and the sound of distant voices shouting. The siren starts up again, but thankfully it's not inside the elevator, just noise travelling down the elevator shaft from elsewhere. "Sooooo. Do you have a T-Com?" Colette asks. "It might be useful to let someone know that we're here. Or find out what the hell is going on out there. It would be convenient to be assured that the entire tower isn't about to be launched into space or something. /Are/ you a Titan? I'm not. Just to be clear on that. I'm like... a civilian contractor or whatever. Don't expect me to rescue you, that's not my thing."

    Colette pulls out her phone rather than waiting for Larry to reply. While unlike a T-Com it can't reach any Titan, it can reach some Titans.

    Or rather it can't, because it rapidly becomes obvious that her phone is struggling. The screen keeps flickering, and it seems to be ignoring her attempts to get it to respond. There must be some kind of electromagnetic interference, and while the Tower systems are electronically hardened, Colette's phone is not.

    She sighs and puts the phone away. Moments later the emergency lighting in the elevator goes out, plunging the interior into darkness. Colette doesn't comment on this, which may be a small mercy.

Larry Trainor has posed:
It is entirely tempting. Sit down in the dark and send Keeg out there to check on things. Check on things and come back. Or Check on things, /intervene/ if needed, and come back.

Unfortunately it's not as easy as that. There is a visible energy release, and the radiaton Keeg emits is visible enough. Blondie would notice.

"Nope. Not a Titan. Not sure why they'd want to launch the Tower into space, though, seems like a waste of the real space. I'm sure... it's fine."

Surely they were. Doomsday couldn't keep them down, so what could? Yes... he should have reached out to The Kid then. It's part of why he's here. Regrets. He's got many of those. He needs to start taking care of them.

"... so what do you do exactly, with your contract?"

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "I'm not actually a contractor," Colette clarifies. "I was just saying that because it seemed like a simple enough explanation." Which, though it's unspoken, Larry has /ruined/ by asking for more information. Colette fumes slightly for a moment or two, before finally admitting "I'm an English teacher. They've got an alien guy called Kian. I teach him English. Which is rapidly becoming unnecessary because his English is now pretty fucking good." There's some pride audible in her words.

    "Not easy teaching someone a language when there's no linguistic commonality at all. Nobody knew the weird alien language he speaks. Before you say it, yes I am aware that every parent teaches their kids how to speak without any shared language prior to that, but that's not the same. Infant minds are more plastic. An adult alien thinks in alien, and that makes it a whole lot harder."

    There's another siren outside, and the voice of the Tower systems -- this time Marvin, not Wendy, can be heard announcing <<Tower defense turrets activating. All personnel vacate the roof area immediately.>>

    Colette turns to Larry, arching an eyebrow, though in the darkness the gesture is entirely lost. "How about you, Boris? What's your connection with this lot?"

Larry Trainor has posed:
Larry would also arch his eyebrows, but it would be futile because - for starters - he no longer has eyebrows, and the gesture would be lost in the darkness. And, of course, the bandages. The mention of Kian attracts his attention, but he remains as he is in the darkness. "Kian, you said. Is that the little guy with wings? It's hard to keep track of all of the new ones they seem to be adding all of the time. Do they still have the broody one?"

Very specific, Larry.

"The one with the hood."

Well, that narrows it down to two, at least. Three, on the days Jinx decides to wear a hoodie.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Things seem to be getting quiet outside, finally. "Robin?" Colette asks. "Or Raven?" As far as Colette knows, Jinx isn't a member of the team. She's a supervillain who for some reason the Titans allow to go off drinking. "If it's one of those you mean, then yes. If it's not, then I dunno. Maybe. There's too many of them for me to bother paying attention."

    There's the sound of snapping fingers. "Wait, I got it. Not Boris. I was thinking Boris Karloff. You know, the old actor guy. Acted in the original Mummy movie. Because, you know. Bandages. But the whole goggles thing you got going on, it's Claude Rains, right? The Invisible Man. Are you invisible under that?"

    Colette very quietly leans forwards and waves her hand in Larry's face to see if he'll react. After a moment's waving, she adds in the question. "More to the point, can you see in the dark?" Double-checking to make sure. "It's gone quiet outside. Might be worth trying the emergency button again, if you can see where it is.

Larry Trainor has posed:
"I always saw myself as more of a Christopher Lee." 1959, The Mummy. "... how does a teenager like you know who Boris Karloff and Claudre Rains are, anyways? What are they teaching you in school instead of boozing it up and smoking in the bathrooms?"

No reaction, no movement. Seeing in the dark is not a thing he does- well, not in this form. Keeg has a different way of perceving things. But she doesn't need to know.

Or does she? Perhaps he is being a little too cantankerous, after all. She is teaching the Alien, which means-

"How is the little guy doing?" A pause, and a reluctant clarification. "The little *green* guy."

"And no, I can't see in the dark, but I can try to push any button. I don't think they'd include any 'launch into space' buttons in here."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    It would not be accurate to say that Colette can see in the dark either. When people talk about seeing in the dark, they mean having a particularly high sensitivity to light that allows them to see details illuminated by far fewer photons than is normally required. In this respect, Colette is baseline human. Her eyes work very much the way that human eyes work, because they're a copy of human eyes. However she can see darkness.

    Which is to say that when she's in a place filled with darkness, she can make out the shape of it. The spaces where no photons fall. This means that Colette can see the buttons just fine, though she can't read what's printed on them. She can figure out which is the help button all on her own though.

    "Teenager? Fuck off, I'm in my mid twenties," Colette replies. "I did just explain I'm a teacher. You think they employ teenagers as teachers these days? I like old movies is all. Seriously, pay attention. I don't look anything like a teenager. Hell, I didn't much when I was, I haven't been carded since I was nineteen." Funnily enough Colette looked old enough she wasn't often asked for ID from about the time she got into the habit of wanting to visit bars, but hasn't visibly aged much since. When aging is something somewhat under your own control, this makes perfect sense.

    There's no immediate response to the question about the 'little green guy'. It may seem that this is because Colette has become offended at being accused of being a teenager, and is now sulking with Larry and refusing to talk. That might come as a relief. However the truth of it is that she doesn't immediately reply because she is no longer inside the elevator. Having determined that Larry can't see what's going on, Colette let herself sink into the darkness and stepped out into the corridor beyond to find out what's happening outside.

Larry Trainor has posed:
Larry can feel the silence cutting like a knife after Colette sinks into the sulk. He did, admittedly, aim at her age to get her angry. He's aways been good at needling people. He's also always been terrible at knowing when to stop. Like now.

She was an adult, but he technically was much older. It doesn't matter how old she was, he pretty much would guess (erroneously as it would turn out) that he was the eldest. So he had to act it.

"... look, I'm sorry, kid. I'm not used to- going out and about. Talking to people. Much. These days. I really should try to be- look."

A slow breath. "Name's Trainor. Larry Trainor and I'm a friend of the little green one. He was part of our team, practically grew up with us and I wanted to check in on him because... well. Because if you wait too long, then you find out nobody wants you to come around anymore. I already let that happen once and I'm trying to get better at that. So... that's it."

A pause. Heavens, is she still sulking? He sighs. "I see with my little eye, something that starts with 'd'..."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Darkness. That begins with a D. Do you actually /see/ darkness though? Seeing normally refers to the process of interpreting the photons that land on your retina, and darkness is by definition a shortage of photons. Colette does see the dark, so it would be a sensible answer for her, but she does not answer. Larry's attempt to pass the time is as lost to the silence of the elevator as the baring of his soul.

    Nor does Colette respond to being called 'Kid', which she might have done even if not the attempts at games or personal revelations, because she's about three billion years older than he is. How old's the negative spirit though? Good question. However the silence remains unbroken, because Colette is not there. Until she is again.

    "Gar you mean?" The little green guy, not my little eye. Colette shrugs, though Larry will not see the gesture. "He's fine I guess. I mean... he /wasn't/, but things have got a lot better for him. He needed the Titans back together. Whatever kind of animal he is, it's not the solitary kind.

    There's a short pause before she resumes, her voice a little distant and detached. "He doesn't like me much these days, I guess," she admits. "I was kind of tough on him when he needed it."

Larry Trainor has posed:
And he wasn't here when the little guy was going throgh a tough time. Did he even know Gar was going throgh a hard time? He lowers his head a little.

"Yeah, that's Gar, alright. Headstrong little guy. He's mostly goat. You've got to know how to be tough and soft with him at the same time. I never managed. Rita, on the other hand..."

He clears his throat, realizing he just said a lot of things he wasn't intending to. The darkness is dangerous. It's like visible silence- or invisible silence. It invites you to fill it. He's fine with actual silence, but darkness has that psychological trick it likes to play, where you want to hear another voice to make sure you're actually somewhere and not just floating in a void. Of course, Keeg has no issues with that - if he could release Keeg, he could figure out what's going on.

But not with the kid in the elevator.

"Seems to have calmed down-"

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Yeah, whatever was happening outside seems to have stopped," Colette responds. She seems less surly now, for whatever reason. "I'm sure we'll get the power back in no time. I pressed all the buttons I could find, one of them must be the emergency button."

    Maybe that's why she was quiet for so long. Carefully pressing unseen buttons in a slow, painstaking, and notably /silent/ manner while he spilled his heart to the darkness.

    "Rita's his adopted mom?" Colette adds after a short time. "He doesn't talk about her much, though when he does it's positive. That Dayton fuck on the other hand..." Either Gar has less than kind things to say about his adoptive father, or Colette has reasons of her own to dislike him. Either would seem entirely possible to someone who knows Steve Dayton. There was a time when he had a fair bit of public popularity, but once he'd been in the public eye for a while that began to change. Musk before Musk. It's very possible the reason he went into superheroing had as much to do with an attempt to improve his public image as it did to do with his feelings for Rita Farr.

    "I guess you're part of his old team then? Legion of Doom right? Not that I care, just passing the time here." Having gone out of the elevator and found a wall comm to report that she's stuck in the elevator, she's confident there's not a whole lot of time left to pass, at least.

Larry Trainor has posed:
Intake of breath.

"Steve."

Silence. There's an effort to articlate, perhaps. Of putting words around concepts or, perhaps, emotions. There's a lot of emotions. Dayton's homophobic bend took some time to come out (no pun intended) into public consciosness, but he was one of the first who felt the edge of it. Not directly- but in the negative spaces of how the man addressed him. You could always tell there was a distinct sense of superiority, even if there wasn't something you could pin down.

"Yeah. Steve's..."

Silence. Tapping of gloved finger on his arm. "Yeah. He is."


And then, finally, he says, "Doom Patrol. We're the Doom Patrol."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Doom Patrol," Colette repeats. "That's a pretty awful name. The obvious take-away here is that you guys going on patrol is liable to be the cause of doom. Makes it sound like you have very little faith in your own abilities. I bet nobody ever thinks 'Hey, we're in trouble. Someone call the Doom Patrol, what we really need right now is a bit more doom.".

    There's a hint of motion, some gesture being made. Maybe some light is starting to filter down the elevator shaft from elsewhere as power is switched back on through the tower. "If you were bad guys though... then it would be a good name. Like, 'Oh no, the Doom Patrol is here. They're sure to bring more doom with them, we're doomed!' Maybe you guys should give up being superheroes and become supervillains instead. I bet the pay's better. "

    "Of course Gar would never forgive you, so there is that. Very strong sense of morals, that boy has. Not necessarily sensible morals, but strong ones nonetheless. I guess you're stuck then. Wouldn't want Gar sulking with you for the rest of eternity."

Larry Trainor has posed:
In the growing light of the elevator, it is incredible how a completely inexpressive object- such as, say, a face that is so wrapped up in bandages that no expression can be *seen*- can convey a mood or an emotion simply by a slight change in position.

Larry's head indicates either awe or disbielief as Colette goes into a rather formidable spiel. The likes of which are... disturbingly familiar.

Once she has spoken, and the silence settles, Larry can only say one thing.

"Just to be clear here... you've met Cliff Steele, haven't you?"

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette leans back against the wall. There's definitely movement -- enough for Larry to make out that's what is happening. It's more than just adjusting to the dark, there's definitely some light filtering through the window panels in the door. "Cliff Steele? No. What kind of a stupid name is that? That's even worse than being called Cliff Rock."

    This time the brief silence is one of those that is somehow not empty. It's one that seems to almost buzz with anticipation. Perhaps this is one of those things where you pick up on subconscious tells, a subtle indrawn breath, a certain tension, that implies the topic has not ended.

    "Wait. The fucking robot guy? He's one of you lot? Okay, I take it all back. /Great/ name for your team. Truth in advertizing. That guys is a fucking disaster area. Never, ever get involved in insane dream-related crap with him. God that was so fucking annoying. And he never did explain why we couldn't just smash the fucking brazier."

    Another brief pause - this time interrupted slightly by a clanging further up the elevator shaft somewhere. It sounds like perhaps someone's working to fix things at last!

    "Also, he swears a lot."

Larry Trainor has posed:
He hadn't expected that to pan out. But there was something about the kid that reminded him of Cliff.

Not that he'd tell her that, considering.

"Wow."

Larry stares at Colette with some genuine admiration. As someone who served in combat in the Korean war, Larry is innured to swearing. Even then, meeting Cliff Steele was an entirely different level altogether- an evening around Cliff could make boot camp sound like a nursery. And yet there was something abot this kid that seems to hint she may have been born to enconter Cliff and face him in a Highlander face-off for the foulest mouth in the western hemisphere. He wishes he could have seen that enconter. No wonder Cliff didn't want to talk about where he went when he suddenly went missing.

"Really, now? So... what exactly happened?"

It sounds like there were some embarrassing details that might get disclosed.

Good. Cliff still owes him fifty dollars. He needs ammo.