307/Things Unsaid

Things Unsaid
Date of Scene:	05 March 2020
Location:	Terry's apartment
Synopsis:	Sometimes you need to get things off your chest. And then, sometimes, you pretend it didn't happen.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Gar Logan

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Terry O'Neil has posed:
The drive back was uncomfortable. Terry didn't want to press, not when Gar was driving and getting him upset would be... akward.

Back at the apartment, though, he felt he had more leeway to say something. "I'd really like it if you could come in and we could... you know. Talk."

Having parked the car, he went towards the entrance to the apartment building, hoping Gar would follow. His apartment was on the second floor, and it was clear that the majority of the occupancy in the building were students and other young professionals who didn't quite have the means to move into somewhere more spacious.

Once inside, Terry stood by the door, inviting Gar in with a gesture.

Gar Logan has posed:
The drive didn't take very long, but there was a quiet sense of heaviness hanging over it. Gar's eyes remained sharply focused on the road and immediate surroundings, almost like a hawk.

Upon exiting, he rubbed a pointed ear and shifted the fingers around behind and to the back of his neck, as if there was a general tenseness, a tightness to him that wasn't letting up just yet. Stress can do wonders for one's sleep patterns and level of discomfort.

"Yeah, sure. We can talk," he agrees, giving a look around the place, pegging it for the type of dwelling it is. The first time around, he wasn't really paying close attention to that. Now it seems to be of more interest.

In they go, and he stops just inside the entryway, shutting the door behind him. "You first."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Awkward silence, at first. Terry takes a few steps ito the apartment and pulls a chair out from under the minuscule dining table, turns it around to face Gar, and sits down.

A couple of heartbeats go by before he can take a breath.

"I didn't think thing through. I let the thrill of getting the story right push me into going. I thouht I had covered my bases- and I didn't. My lack of forethought put my life at risk. And yeah, I would've died," he says quietly, his eyes on the floor, "If someone else hadn't been there."

Gar Logan has posed:
"Which story? The gangs and their drugs and their guns and stuff? From last week?" Gar wonders, raising a brow as he steps away from the door and speaks after a few seconds. "What's the story there? That kind of stuff goes on all the time. That's just the way it is. What are you going to expose or change about it if the cops won't even go in there?"

Seems there might be more he's got on his mind, but he's trying not to say it all in a breath or two. As he chews at his lip, some of that worry from the restaurant creeping back into his expression, the underbite shows again.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"It's... it's personal!" Terry's cheeks turn slightly red now. "And since when do you care bout whether the cops don't go there or not?" He looks up, green eyes flashing angrily, "Don't /you/ go where cops fear to go? Your friends and team-mates too? Am I supposed to only call attention to things people are comfortable dealing with? Because then the Planet would do nothing but print cookie recipes and dog contests."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan bristles. "Yeah, I do. Or..I did. But, me? The Titans? The Justice League? Wonder Woman? Superman? All those guys? We've all got powers. You don't, Terry. You're a normal guy, and you don't seem to realize how dangerous that is when gangs are involved. We deal with stuff like that and..sometimes we /still/ die!"

A hand cuts through the air, a gesture. "And we talked about you having backup if you were going to do something dangerous. That's the part I don't get. What's so personal that you'd go back into that area without someone there to look out for you? You're lucky I was there the first time, and even luckier someone else was there the second time. If you were a cat, you'd be down to seven lives."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry stands up, trying to not get angrier, and walks over to the window, arms crossed. "I'm just a normal person. Insignificant little me, isn't it?" He huffs, glaring out the window. He turns to look at Gar, "Do you know how long I've been waiting to even get a chance to try to make a difference? You can turn into every animal in the world. Me? All I have is a camera. You do what you do, I do what I can do."

He turns back to look out the window, "And what am I supposed to do when I hear of something at the last minute? Call you? Get you out of bed, or whatever, because squishy me may have to go into danger?"

He's clearly agitated, with all the changing of his focus. Now he turns back to Gar againn. "You have a fucking life, Garfield Logan, and I'm not a part of it in any major way, so how the hell do you think I should feel entitled to make demands upon your time like that? I already feel like shit that you have to drive me around because I got cllipped. And I feel like shit that you wanted to come to that meeting out of fear I'd get myself hurt again."

He turns away, shaking a little. "I didn't want you to think of me that way. And what could be so personal...?" He shakes his head and exhales, closing his eyes.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Insignificant? No, but that means you have to be more careful. I know that sounds crazy coming from me, but I'd do just about anything to see what it's like to be normal for a day or two," Gar reacts, hands spreading out to the sides. "Do you think my life is all just smiles and laughter all the time? That I don't take anything seriously? You're a fan! One of the few I actually have! You /know/ about my past!"

He takes to pacing back and forth. "Dude, we're the same age. You've got your whole life ahead of you and I've already lost my parents, and lost teammates, and I know you're trying to find your dad and I want to help you do that because I think you're cool and friendly and nice but...man, I don't know. I suck with advice. /I'm/ the guy who's usually flying or running off doing dumb things and getting chewed out afterward. How did this flip around?"

Running a hand through his hair, he looks around and down. "You need some backup plans if you're going to go digging for a story. You think Lois or your cousin April don't have people looking out for them when they're chasing after something dangerous? I know you set up a beacon but that's not good enough if you're dead before someone can even get there. I'm just glad that other guy showed up, whoever he was."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Don't say that." Terry turns around, his expression a tight one. "Don't say stupid stuff like that. One of the few you actually have? Why do you put yourseld down?" Terry walks over to Gar, frowning. "What the hell, Gar? Just because you don't have girls throwing themselves at you on social media doesn't mean people don't like you."

He huffs, exasperated, and crosses the room to get himself a soda. "And before you argue with me on that - you're driving me around and being nice to me even though I've been a major jackass and given you nothing but reason to worry. You're a genuinely nice guy. People love you. You just don't get the press because you're not checking in and out of rehab or having affairs with married women like the publicity hounds out there." He walks over to Gar and jabs the green teen's chest with his finger to make a point. Then, he opens his soda and takes a sip.

He starts cooling off, thouogh, as Gar's words sink in. Lost parents. Lost teammates.

"Geez, Gar..." his voice grows very quiet. "... I'm an idiot. I really am an idiot, do you know that? You are talking to an absolute and complete, grade-a, verified fresh idiot." He sighs and sits on the arm of his sofa, head hanging down a llittle.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan rolls his eyes. "Dude, I look at my social media accounts. You already know I don't have a publicist. I'm following more people than are following me back. Do you know how sad that is? I'm an actor and a wannabe hero and nobody cares about hashtag-like-an-animal."

He's foundering. Not floundering. There's a subtle difference. One is struggling. The other is failing completely.

He paces further as Terry goes over for the soda. "I just want to treat people the right way. I'd never do that kind of stuff, so if people want, I don't know, Edgy Gar, that's not happening." A moment later, the finger is pressing at the center of his chest, leading to his eyes crossing down at the spot, a half-step taken back, then his head tilts when Terry shifts course and gets all quiet as he seems to come to a realization. "Is..this the part where I'm supposed to tell you not to say things like that?" he asks, equally as quiet. "Because in a way, you /kind/ of are. But so am I, because you're probably trying to follow a story for a good reason. Is this about you trying to find your dad?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Partly," Terry says quietly. "Couple of months ago I got a picture. Old picture. Sent to me by someone I didn't know. Claimed it was a picture of my father, not too long before I was born. Here in metropolis with... some people. I asked questions, did some inquiries. Some people think the man in the picture with my dad may now be running one of those gangs..."

He sighs softly and shakes his head. "But that's not why I went the second time. Okay, in the general sense, it's that I'm following that lead. But..."

He looks up, "I wanted to get it right. I wanted to prove I could do it and that you didn't have to come save me." He looks down and runs his shoe across the carpet, anything not to look at Gar. "I thought I could maybe impress you by getting something right."

Gar Logan has posed:
"He might be in a gang? Aw, man.." Gar turns a half-circle away from Terry and the furniture, letting out a low breath. That explains a lot right there. "I'd probably do what you did too if I thought I might find my dad at the end of it," he admits.

It's the last part that takes him out of his thoughts, eyes darting back toward Terry. "What did you just say? You're trying to impress me? Why?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry stands up and walks across the room, his back to Gar as he stands at the window, quiet. He takes sips from the soda, giving the indication that he's about to start speaking a couple of times, only to swallow his words. Outside, the wind begins to pick up.

He turns around, finally, and doesn't answer the question, instead taking a very hard detour but yet, somehow, managing to stay within the boundaries of this conversation. "I'm so very sorry," he says, his voice quiet. "I have been a self-absorbed... I don't want to be the person bringing up all of those bad memories for you. I mean, you said it- I know your history. And yet. And yet I went and did that stupid shit."

He slowly starts walking, until he stops right in front of Gar, soda can still in his hands. "I hope you can forgive me."

Gar Logan has posed:
There's silence from the green teen, his hands coming together at the small of his back near the tailbone. Gar's biting at his lip again, looking at everything in the room except Terry. He's thinking. At least, trying to.

The lack of a specific answer to his question doesn't go unnoticed, so there's probably a reason. For now, he doesn't push it. He's trying to be smart, sensible. "They're memories, dude. I have a few pictures and videos, but not a whole lot else. And I'm not the only one with family problems."

Then, Terry's in front of him, stepping into his line of sight. Eyes shift back toward him, a little wider than usual. "Of course, man. I'm everybody's friend, even if they don't know it yet. Right?" He's trying to be funny, trying to smile naturally, but it's still a little forced.

"Why don't you let me help you another way? If you know the place this gang is at, I can sneak inside and tell you if your dad's there or not. I just need to know what he looks like," he offers.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I don't know where they are. Not yet. But when I find out..."

Terry looks at Gar, and frowns. He went behind the veil, and now it was Gar who was hiding. The forced smile looks like a mask, and he realizes that's what it might be.

"You say that." He doesn't say more, but the look in Terry's eyes hint at doubt that these are only 'memories.'

"Do you want to be everybody's friend?" he takes a final sip from his can and sets it down on the table next to him.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan finishes the sentence. "...you'll let someone like me know, because if they're at one place they're going to be there again and we can check it out more safely."

Is it really taking someone else acting impatiently to get Gar to see it?

Following this, there are a few moments where he avoids eye contact with Terry, only passing glances. It's a fidgety Gar, very close to a flighty Gar.

However, he sticks around. He lingers.

"I mean, it'd be better if everybody could be friends, but I know that's not how the real world works. Just let me have a little fantasy I can hold on to. It helps when things are really bad," he admits, opening up a little more. There's a sniff, a hand wiping around his face.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry is very quiet at this. What does he hold on to, when things are really bad?

His eyes flicker around the room briefly, catching the posters here and there. The knowledge that there are good people in the world, trying hard. Powers or no powers. If he didn't think that were true, he'd stop clinging.

When his eyes come back to Gar, he catches the crack, and his own eyes go wide for a moment.

He's known Gar for, what, a little over a week?
'Good job, Terry. You just have to question everything, don't you?' It's that voice. The voice he always has inside him, that sometimes gets very loud, though he often manges to quiet it down. 'I hope you're proud of asking so many questions, the big reporter. You just /have/ to poke at that scab to see if it'll bleed, don't you? You gonna write about this?'

"I didn't mean..." his voice is even quieter than it was, almost a whisper. The vulnerability catches him so much by surprise that he doesn't have time to think through his next set of actions- they happen almost out of instinct when he steps forward and hugs Gar.

Gar Logan has posed:
If Terry had seen Gar the other day outside the coffee shop, he'd have seen a hesitant hero. It was different than it was when he flew in to help as the two gang members were about to make Terry's life a living hell, and the guy /still/ got grazed in the shoulder. Most people go through life without ever being around gunfire. Even rarer, the people who actually get shot.

Gar..tries to be one of those good people, and he tries to see the best in everyone if he can. It's not always easy, but it's something to aspire to. Naive perhaps, idealistic for sure, but it's his nature.

Terry thought he knew Gar, but he only knew the public side, the side anyone could find out with a little internet research. Now he's seeing more of the way he really is, the way he tries to cope. Does it come ahead of Terry's own problem, his hangups, the things he's trying to find out and better himself through? No. There's room for both, but it'll need working through to get there.

"I know reporters dig into things sometimes, but I think you need to be careful not to get in over your head just to break something." Gar doesn't have mind-reading powers, so it's got to be something that was on his mind. "And I know you didn't," he adds to the last, the near-whisper.

The hug comes out of the blue, but after a moment it sees Gar slip into it, hands up around Terry's back, forehead touching a shoulder.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The private and the public. Those worlds are sometimes very far apart. Terry keeps his arms around Gar, keeps hugging him tight, even when his shoulder protests a little. He knows there's pain, and he wishes there weren't. But the tone in which Garfield uttered that, it hinted at loneliness and desolation. Desperation? Terry had carried on over the years with one image of Garfield Logan, the public one. He didn't know. He still didn't know- but he had just caught a glimpse.

"I say stupid things. I have a big mouth and I don't know when to quit," he says quietly. His hands resting on Gar's back keeps him closed. "Don't let me hurt you like that, okay? You..." he trails off.

Gar Logan has posed:
A jumble of thoughts and emotions exist within the green teen. Both of them, really. It's not casual chatter by any stretch of the imagination. They're touching on things that would be difficult at any age, and they're both only just reaching adulthood or the cusp of it, depending on one's perspective.

"I say stupid things all the time, dude," Gar points out, easing his head back toward a more upright position, his hands shifting around front toward Terry's shoulders, a little space created. "Try not to worry about it. We both learned a few things, didn't we?" Does he look like everything is great again? That he's back to his usual smiling, charming self? No, not quite, but it's a sight better than the meeting with Colette showed him.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry isn't someone who tends to be self-reflexive. He often doesn't reflect much on why he feels something- he usually just feels it. He doesn't know all of the reasons why he hugged Gar, except that there was something about how vulnerable Gar suddenly seemed that moved him to comfort him. He's not in denial- he knew he had a crush on Beast Boy ever since he turned fifteen, and he has been doing an admirable effort to hide the fanboying, consigned solely to his private journal. But this was different. He didn't know why, exactly, though.

"I guess... I just didn't like seeing you hurt." He keeps the distance Gar establishes, looking down for a second. "I hate thinking I had a hand in that."
5r

Gar Logan has posed:
"You'd have to be a mean person to want to see someone get hurt," Gar points out, and he remembers the injury to the shoulder along with the more visible ones. "But damn, man. I don't know you that well yet and I still don't like seeing you look like you got into the ring with Tyson Fury or something. You need to learn how to avoid a punch. I can run away like a cheetah, but you can't."

He's letting go of the shoulders now, mostly so he can fidget with his hands together. But, why? "Anyway, friend to friend, you gotta think more up here sometimes," He taps lightly at the side of Terry's head, "and less here." Now, the heart. "Take it from someone who knows and still forgets about that."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Alright. I will... but with one condition," Terry says quietly, with a quiet smile on his face. He clasps his hands together, almost as if mimicking Gar unconsciously. He tilts his head and smiles a little more. "This is the point where you ask me what that is."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan squints, now shifting to cross his arms before him. "All right, I'll bite. What that is?" Stop. Clear throat. "I mean, what is that?" That smile leads to suspicion, a further narrowing of the eyes.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"You are going to let me consult on your social media management. Really, Gar, there is no excuse for you to be doing your own social media. Or that you don't have any help. Let me help, c'mon?" He spreads his hands, "I'm not saying that your spontaneity isn't a huge draw, because it is, but you need the tricks people use to propagate brands. And as it so happens, I know a good chunk of that stuff. TikTok, the grams, that stuff. What do you say? Any amount of time we spend creating content for you is less time I have to get into trouble." He raises an eyebrow.

Gar Logan has posed:
Is that all? Gar, who tried to prepare himself for anything possible - for all he knew Terry might have been about to go down to a knee and pull out a ring, or tell him he was really some kind of alien in disguise - it's that?

He moves an arm around back, feigning discomfort. "Oh, no! No! You are twisting my arm nearly out of its socket!" The Titan (because one a...yeah, yeah) slides a brow up to match Terry's. "Seriously, is that all? What's your cut, then? What do you want out of it? Sure, if it keeps you a little safer that's a good thing, but you'd probably have to hang out around me more."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"That's my cut," Terry says with a smirk, hands on his hips, "I get to hang out with you. Consider it a favor to a fan, eh? And maybe you can give me some pointers on what to look out for on a dangerous situation. You know, how to identify when things are too hairy, etcetera?"

He takes a few steps back, "And I need to treat you to dinner tomorrow to make up for... well, tonight." Because he doesn't he feel Gar could have gotten much enjoyment from the food.

Gar Logan has posed:
The hand, no longer behind Gar's back, now extends so they can shake on it. "You have a deal. Now show me what's behind door number three."

He raises a finger, however. "You'll also have to be more specific. With me, there's no such thing as 'too hairy.' But I can tell you when it's time to fold 'em."

About that time, his stomach decides to rumble. They /did/ only just eat recently. "Oh man, I feel like I could eat a horse. Or I could /be/ a horse /and/ eat like one."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
And as if on cue, Terry reaches for his wallet. "There's an all night sushi place around the corner. What do you say if we go for a quick dash? I can tell you about some of my ideas for your strategy as you devour a small eco-system." The redhead smiles and starts heading for the door. "Sounds like a plan?"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan quickly wipes at his mouth. No, he wasn't just drooling on cue. "I don't even know where that is yet, and I'm ready to race you there. What are we waiting for?" asks the roadrunner now looking up at the other teen.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Fine, but if they kick us out because you've eaten them out of inventory..." He pauses, "That can be your first video post." He smirks and walks out, locking the door behind them as they leave.

Well, at least things were back to normal.

Right?