5038/There's No Cat On This Roof. There's No Roof Either.

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There's No Cat On This Roof. There's No Roof Either.
Date of Scene: 05 February 2021
Location: Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis: Terry and Gar engage in more misunderstandings, while Billy is the actual useful one and starts fixing the roof of the tower. Today, in Days of Our lives!
Cast of Characters: Terry O'Neil, Billy Kaplan, Gar Logan




Terry O'Neil has posed:
Let it not be said that life as a Titan is boring. One moment you were fighting an alien invasion, the next one you were doing charity work... and then the Fire Nation- or your Doppelganger- attacks.

The common room, the focal point of the group's social gatherings, isn't looking too hot. It might just be the shattered windows that make the area somewhat chilly despite the tower's best heating systems... or the large hole on the ceiling that passes through ceveral levels and clear through the roof caused by a certain edgy teenager.

The mess has, at least, been picked up, but there are still sizable chunks of rubble that are awaiting removal, and there are several holes in the women's dormitories that also need attention.

Terry O'Neil sighs as he does one final pass with the broom, gathering the dust. Because of the open windows, it's like treading water in the ocean, but it at least makes him feel like he is doing /something/. He doesn't look good, either, as he appears very pale and washed out. His usually bright red hair has faded to a dusty brown with only a few flecks of copper here and there, and his eyes have gone from gray to green so much that they're almost colorles. In a way, he looks like a faded photograph of himself.

There's music playing on the sound system, one of the few things that wasn't damaged, but he seems to be more keen on sweeping than dancing.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Billy heard a certain T shaped tower needs a good roofer.
Now, Billy knows nothing about DIY, if given a hammer the first thing he would do is make it shoot lightning, but he has an urge to help, a can do attitude and *Magic*
He steps out of the lift into the main room, seeing a dude with a broom.
"Hey, don't the people that live here have superpowers? Why do they need a janitor with a brrom to clean all /this/", He motions to the mess of a room, unaware of who he is talking to.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry looks up from his sweeping, and pauses. Wiccan's demeanor puzzles him for a second until he realizes- the sorcerer had never seen him without the fur! It wasn't as if Terry hid his secret identity, but it was easier to remember the fuzzy cat than yet another redhead in a sea of them in the superhero world.

There really were a /lot/ of gingers in the profession, come to think of it.

The human sets the broom aside and smiles a little at Billy, "Heh... Wiccan! It's me... you know, Vorpal. This is what I look like in my other shape." His expression wilts a little, "My only shape, right now. A lot has happened since we last met. I'm sort of... missing a good chunk of my soul."

He rubs at his arm. His sleeve slides up a little, revealing a series of claw marks that clearly drew blood, but have started to heal.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Billy stops for a tick. Like a cog that just slipped a single tooth. He was ready for some light hearted construction work.

But he was nothing if but a supportive friend, so he processed what had been said and changed gear. The lapse was momentary, barley noticable, but he was now in helpful, supportive, good friend mode.

"Damn those cuts look nasty", Billy says, flicking his wrist to set the broom back to work on its own then walked over to take Vorp's arm.
"Here lemme fix them cuts", he holds Vorp's arm in his hands while reciting "SoftHealingSoftHealingSoftHealing" in his head. He wasn't super practised at healing people and if the cuts were part of the soul stealing, making them a magical wound, he wanted to go slowly and gently to make sure he didn't cause any side effects as he was sometimes prone to doing.

"What happened?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry spares the self-animated room a glance, and then he chuckles, looking back at Wiccan. "I saw that in a movie once. As long as the tower doesn't get flooded..."

And then Billy takes his arms and starts chanting over it. His eyes widen as the skin begins to heal, leaving it without a mark, eventually. "Hey... thanks, that's very sweet of you," he says, reaching over to ruffle Wiccan's hair. It's an automatic gesture of the O'Neils, and he always forgets how much he doesn't like it when April does it to him.

Not that it matters much. Terry's hair has that perpetually windblown look to it, so one can't really know when it's messy by accident or when it's been styled intentionally. "This... oh, this was just part of the curse," he says, pointing to his arm, "But I guess I should go back to the beginning."

He gestures for Billy to sit down... the stools are all wrecked, and the only place that is mostly intact is the couch. So he sits down and pats the available space next to him. The other side of the semi-circular couch is sporting a large piece of ceiling across it. But it's really rather fetching in that 'house and garden and wreckage' way.

"My Doppelganger showed up, and I tried to distract him and get the upper hand on him by..." and he reddens a bit, "Okay, don't judge me. One of the X-Men was here a few days prior to that and gave me the idea. I sort of made out with myself." He holds up a hand- "I thought it would be a great way to get close enough to subdue him, and take any weapons away. But before I knew it there was a gun pointed at my stomach."

He rolls his eyes. "SO... to transform, I need to be able to see my own eyes, so I use a little portable mirror..." he flips his rainbow bracelet to show the mirror underneath. "I couldn't do that, so I thought 'hey, his eyes are exactly like mine! I can look into them and say the magic words!'"

There is a long silence before he adds, "From speaking to another magician, apparently that line of reasoning is what in The Business is called 'Mistake Number One."

Billy Kaplan has posed:
"Hmmmmm"
Billy was by no means educated in magic, so here goes the can do attitude.

"Okay, correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds to me like when you say the magic word the powers of the cat manifest in whose ever eyes you're looking into, assuming the eyes belong to a cheshire cat.", Billy thought aloud.
"so when you looked into the other cats eyes and said the words you channeled the power into him. But... his eyes would't be the only eyes you saw"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Something like that. As far as I've been able to surmise, there can only be /one/ Cheshire cat in the entire universe. Only one soul. As the son of the original Cheshire cat, his soul passed on to me. But apparently the cosmic loophole is that at that particular moment, there was only one soul, but /two/ of me... when I said the words and looked into his eyes, I sort of... split up the soul. He ended with half of my soul. Then I tried to confront him later to get my soul back... and I almost had him. But he clamped his hand over /my/ face and said the words... and got the remainder of it." He deflates visibly.

"Everybody's very angry about it. Donna's furious at me, and I feel like a colossal screw-up..."

He exhales, "So... I tried to look for mystical advise... that's where the curse comes in."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan creeps down in search of food, because those delivery services don't bring anything directly to his room. With the attack on the place by Cassie's own double, which he was not present for, the safety and wisdom of being here right now may be questionable but it's clear he's grown tired of being anywhere else. Better to be here with those who matter to him instead of in hiding somewhere else.

Still, all Gars must feed sooner and later - yes, and - so he's on his way to the kitchen to ransack the fridge when he pauses. "Did someone say the word 'curse?'" Attention sliiiiides over toward the pair at the sofa, hands finding his hips. "What did you do now, Terry?"

Billy Kaplan has posed:
"Hey, I'm Billy/Wiccan, currently magical advisor to a not quite a cat, based on the green I assume your BeastBoy?", Billy made his introduction quick, not wanting to distract from the current therapy session.
"You make it sound like he does this kind of thing often? And you sound like you're used to dealing with it haha"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Trying to deflect from the "What Did You Dooooo?" question, Terry gestures, "Right, proper introductions. This gorgeous guy over here is Garfield Mark Logan, Beast Boy as you accurately identified him- star of stage and screen and crime fightin'. Gar, this is Wiccan, our new magical prospect and a very helpful all around guy!"

Wait. That doesn't deflect, because he just pointed back to the fact that he needed help. Ugh. You'd think he was better at this. "Okay. So my friend Amanda took me to see a wizard who goes by the name of Lucifer. I told him my problem as part of the consultation and he said there was a ritual I could use that would help me. Then he gave me this book to copy the ritual out of, but he told me I needed to bring it back ASAP because it was cursed, and the longer I held on to it, the worse it would get..."

He pauses, and then looks from Gar to Billy, and sighs.

And then he takes off his shirt. Aside from having a great physique, if rather pale, Terry also has... well, claw marks. All over his chest and back, like the ones Billy healed on his arm. "He wasn't kidding. I went to April's to copy the ritual down since her place was near, but something happened and the book caused... shenanigans that delayed me for a few hours. Would've been worse if Harley hadn't helped, but in any case, I finally wrote the stuff down and returned the book. But in the meantime that curse was... yeah. But I now have a magic mirror and a ritual..."

He raises a finger at Gar, "Ah ah ah- I know what you're going to say, and trust me, I don't intend to use it until Raven and Wiccan have had a look at the ritual and declared it safe to use and not, you know, accidentally sucking my soul into a hell dimension. I've learned my lesson, I'm doing teamwork not going off on my own with crazy plans."

Gar Logan has posed:
"Hey, what's up?" Gar greets Billy with a brief wave. "Yeah, that's me. And..well, it wouldn't be the first time."

However, the depths of this one go beyond anything he expected to hear, or see once the shirt is lifted to expose the marks. This leaves him standing there, staring, before he closes his eyes and pointedly rubs at them with the hand that was once missing, but is now back. "A ritual," he begins. "And a cursed book you took with you instead of copying down...whatever...right there."

He exhales. "And you got your body clawed up by..what? Some kind of invisible demon? A wizard who calls himself Lucifer. Yeah, that's not suspect at all. Of course the book delayed you, because that's what cursed books do, dude."

Both hands come to rest against the countertop, since he's still over by the kitchen. "I thought we already had a plan to get you the Cheshire side back. We already have Raven, who can just scare anyone into listening to her. What gave you the idea that you should go get a cursed book for a..a /ritual/ that obviously /isn't/ going to be safe? What did I just say about going off and doing crazy things back at the embassy?"

He's..flustered. This is probably not good right now. His expression is clouded with worry, however, more than anger. "You mean you learned your lesson about teamwork until the next time, right?"

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Billy purses his lips, feeling like he is now intruding on an intimate discussion.
"I think you've overestimated my technical knowledge of magical stuff. What I do is instinctual, I wouldn't even know where to start reading an evil ritual. I suppose I could just cast an 'IsItEvil' spell but thats kind of my limit",Billy says apologetically.

"But I can help with those", Billy gestures at the scars, then lays his hands on them and starts a new healing spell.

After a few seconds of holding his glowing blue hands on Vorp Billy now realises its SUPER awkward to just have your hands on a half naked dude infront of what he was now assuming was his boyfriend. However he needed to touch him to heal him so he continued, very awkwardly...

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry gives Billy a smile and pats his hand, "Thanks, I really was worrying that pool season was coming and I'd have to wear T-shirts..." he doesn't object to being touched, but he does keep perfectly still as Gar speaks so as not to screw up the spell. Slowly, the wounds mend until there's nothing but pale, smooth skin where the gouges and wounds were.

Wen the healing is done, Terry looks hurt by Gar's last words, and he grimaces. "That's... that's not fair."

He closes his eyes and speaks quietly, "I couldn't copy it there because we pretty much were ushered out. And Raven... look. I can't count on her being available because Wonder Woman is in a coma and Donna is /not/ doing well because of it. Do you remember what she did to Kian when he went to see her while we were all missing in that pocket universe?"

He turns on the couch to face Gar, "I didn't go out to look for a book and a ritual, I went for a magical consultation. And when the ritual was offered to me, I thought I should write it down /just in case/ everything else was out of our grasp when my Doppel attacked. But it turns out writing that stuff down is /hard/, especially since the words look like they keep changing when you don't pay close attention. I had to write it down six times before it was accurate." Because magic books, not books of magic but actual magic books, don't like their secretes being copied.

Suddenly, he rubs at his eyes, which have started to glisten a bit. "Look, I'm trying here. Everybody is now basically treating me like I'm nothing more than a fuck-up who can't do anything right. And that I'm supposed to do absolutely nothing because I can't be trusted. Meanwhile /that bitch/ punches through the ceiling and wrecks /my/ home and all I can do is beat at her stupid animated corpses with /frying pans/ because I have no powers and I am the most useless asset this team has had." A sniffle "If I'm now relegated to being just the mascot, if I can't be trusted to be a Titan and have /some/ agency in my own problems, then maybe I shouldn't be a Titan."

Gar Logan has posed:
Laying healing hands on Terry's wounds doesn't seem to trouble Gar in any way. It's healing, and it's making the claw marks go bye bye, and it's nothing more than that. He gives Billy a smile but it's forced right now. "Sorry, this is probably not the best time for a first meeting, because.."

The first thing he says is, "Not fair, maybe. But that's the way I feel right now after what we talked about before." Yeah, out with the explanations from Terry. Out with a lot of things, and some of them carry a weight and impact to them that reminds him of when he was new to the group, feeling second-guessed, not trusted to think for himself, and many other things - whether they were ever true or not.

Details about the book, the ritual, Raven's current situation, and all that are left to the background in light of the deeper reactions from Terry. Billy can probably feel it in Terry's shoulders, if he's going rigid or shaking or anything like that. "Man, I've never really got magic, but I know cursed things aren't gonna make it easy to get anything useful out of them without making you pay a price. I'm worried about that," he starts, trying to keep his voice calm and controlled, hiding the turbulent emotions that are rising up inside. He, too, is tense.

"I know you're trying, and I know you feel..helpless right now, and you want to be whole again, and you think everybody sees you as the guy who can't do anything right. I felt the same way when I was new around here. I always felt like I was gonna say or do the wrong thing, but people accepted me and my dumbassness and let me grow a little." Of course Doomsday interrupted the whole team thing prematurely, but hey.

He leaves the kitchen area to approach, picking up the pace in the event Terry is thinking of rabbiting. "But every time you go off and do something without letting me know, especially now, it makes me afraid something's gonna happen and I won't see you again because you won't make it back home. I know you went out with someone to do this, but I.."

Gar runs both hands through his hair, gripping it for a few seconds. Then he stops in front of Terry and rests one of those hands against his cheek, eyes passing toward Billy and back again. "Tell me about what the ritual's supposed to do. Maybe I can still help with it somehow. But I need to know what you're doing, or if something weird is going on I need you to tell me even if I can't come over right away. I'm supposed to be the mascot here, not you."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry exhales, and nods, looking at Gar. "I get it. I know you don't want me to be hurt. We can work this out together. And Billy..." the redhead reaches out and puts a hand on the young mage's shoulders, "That is a brilliant idea. The stuff is back at the Embassy, so why don't you come over to the Themysciran embassy tonight and we can do your spell there? If you're intersted, I can even give you a tour of the place and you'll get to meet some Amazons!" Terry actually smiles now, "And hey... I really appreciate your concern and your willingness to be there to help someone. That's one of the things that makes a Titan. Let's do the Embassy later and I can take us all out for dinner afterwards to discuss and plan..." he pauses, "Provided you can do illusion magic so you can disguise Gar's appearance. We're trying to keep his survival secret. I am really interested in learning more about how you do your magic thing because... as you can tell, I'm mostly clueless about the /hows./"

Turning his attention to Gar, his eyes not glistening anymore. "It's.... a weird ritual, and I need to read it again to make sure I understood it. But the concept is that I can basically locate my doppelganger with the mirror and a blood offering- you know, cut my finger, bleed on it, whatever- which we can already do with Nadia's scanner. But the added benefit is that I can see what he's doing through it, like scrying, so we can know if the /other/ Gar is with him, or if he's alone. That's important. Using some components, I am supposed to be able to bind him temporarily- so I guess that means he can't teleport when we drop on him. The problem is that it's all written in old-timey English and it calls for things like 'hyssop' which, according to my research, could either mean the Biblical hyssop which is one type of plant, or the plant that has been named hyssop in in Greek antiquity which is an entirely /different/ type... so I'm going to need to do more research."

He glances at Billy "But your Detect Evil Spell will be crucial to this, since we shoudn't even consider doing it if it's evil."

Then the redhead looks thoughtful. "Of course, the thing about magic is that even if something isn't /evil/, it doesn't mean it's risk-free. Right?"

Billy Kaplan has posed:
"Oh, is that it? I can do scrying spells, but if you want to use the cursed mirror thats cool too haha",Billy chuckles.

"I dunno about the binding stuff, I could try but it'd be hit or miss, and I have no idea on how to steal souls. But anyways, using my incredible empathic abilities i'm sensing that you two need to have a conversation / make up cuddles, so imma make a start on the roof", with a flourish Billy summons a hard hat and a high vis jacket then, with an awkward finger gun, he ascends up into the gaping hole in the ceiling tailed by chunks of rubble.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan gives some space for Billy to make his departure, leading to him looking up as well for a few seconds before turning his attention back to Terry. "That was kind of a neat trick, but I don't need to go out anywhere until we've finished with our copies. I can keep myself busy, and we have more important things to stay focused on right now than a dinner. If anyone recognizes you guys, someone's probably gonna figure something out and the point of keeping me being alive secret is..keeping it secret. I wasn't even gonna be out here longer than it took to get some food. But..yeah, we have to work together on these things."

Did Terry go see Lucifer with someone else because he knew Gar would object to the idea? What if?

He at least listens to the plan long enough to let it settle in, and an admission is reluctant in coming, but it does. "That..just might work, but you, uh, know blood offerings are never /not/ evil in some way. You'd better come back whole when this is all done. I still don't like it."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry frowns and reaches his hand out to offer it to Gar, standing up once Billy has gone to become Bob The Magical Builder. "Hey... I understand. Look... I'm not going ahead to /do/ anything except research. Kian was there for my meeting with Amanda. I'm not going to do this ritual if you are wary about it, so there's that. I can just destroy the mirror and the notes and we can take our chances with each other."

Taking a moment, he reaches into his jeans pocket and takes something out. "And if you fear I might forget or haven't learned anything... maybe I can offer this as a token of my commitment."

He places something in Gar's hand. It's a small ring of jade with a very unusual shape- the diadem of Sun Wukong.

Terry smiles a little. "Sometimes I might be as chaotic as a monkey on a sugar high... but I'm never /not/ going to listen to you. Do you understand me?"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan's expression tightens. It's clear this whole thing still has him troubled, but he's trying to get through this without losing any more sanity over it. "Let's just..take it one step at a time. Maybe it'll all be fine. We'll figure it out." He has his doubts, with it involving what it does, but these are not normal times.

"But I mean it about being careful. If I'm telling you to be careful, that should say something." Partly, that he's growing up a little. But not too much. Also, that he cares enough to be that worried.

There's a brief 'Hmm?' at the mention of an offering of commitment, and when he sees what it is he just stares and rubs the back of his neck. Awwwwkwaaaarrrd! "I'll catch up with you later. I..have some social media to keep ignoring. You don't know how hard that is for me." Walking off, he looks down at the Sun Wukong ring and mumbles under his breath, "Is this what I think it is...?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry looks puzzled as Gar walks away, frowning a little. He is, once again, left alone in the trashed room, but now minus a purpose since Billy enchanted the room to keep sweepin' away.

He walks over to the fridge, which had remained thankfully intact, and opens it to get some orange juice.

"I thought it was a cute ring," he mutters to himself as he fills the glass. He is obviously puzzled by his reaction. "Maybe he doesn't like jade. I should've asked him."