8713/A Broken Heart: Picking Up Pieces

A Broken Heart: Picking Up Pieces
Date of Scene:	17 November 2021
Location:	Apartment 3A (Phoebe's Apartment)
Synopsis:	Phoebe and Jubilee take a couple of minutes to try and catch their breath the morning after Phoebe meets Constantine -- the real Constantine -- for the first time. Phoebe tests the amulet made for Jubilee and Noriko after hiding its existence from 'the responsible adults', and finds it to be fine, does what it says on the tin. Phoebe begins to wonder how you can mourn for something you wanted so badly, but might not have been what you thought, and misses on her Dad.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Jubilation Lee

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Apartment 3A was usually quiet, usually with pop music or some new-age stuff or binural beats for studying playing in the background while its occupant worked around the apartment, either cleaning, meditating, or... well. Studying.

    There was a box set up to the side. Personal effects were stacked inside neatly in a couple of binders, some picture frames set on top. It looks like someone was interrupted while trying to move.

    And the occupant was in the kitchen, wearing loose-legged yoga pants and a worn T-shirt with the Pepsi Cola symbol on it, holding a cup of black coffee to her lips as she stares across the livingroom area to that box with mixed feelings. The shades have all been drawn, blocking out any natural light, and the whole apartment was bathed in a sort of amber light from the overhead.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    People have been acting /weird/ the last few days, Jubilee is sure of it. She got the text to come to the Laughing Magician -- an legitimate, actual TEXT -- but by the time she arrived whatever meeting had occurred was over. After spending the night in her Curio lodging, Jubilation's curiosity tugged at her to go down one floor in search of answers.

    Knock, knock, knock, knockknockknock, knock.

    "Phoebe? Are you in?" Jubilation presses her cheek against the door. "It's Jubilee." Knockknockknock.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Speak Friend, and enter." Phoebe calls out of habbit -- because the password was from that book -- but she sets her coffee to the side as she hops up on the counter to sit, and then leans over to unlock the door and twist the knob.

    "Come in, Jubes. I was just--" she looks to the coffee, and then frowns a moment.

    "... thinking about what I should have for breakfast."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Come in, Jubes. That's enough for her to cross over the threshold without issue. Jubiblation grins at the other girl, happy to be on the receiving end of that kindness. It can be awkward standing out in the hall until the other person realizes she has to be invited in, but Phoebe just took care of that immediately.

    "Thanks!" she chirps, walking right past Phoebe and into the apartment like she owns the place! Her eyes drift around, taking in the decor. Her eyes linger first on that shelf of supplies -- the one that looks like it could've been lifted right out of Nettie's shop -- and then the guitar. "Oh, nice, do you play?" she asks, pointing her finger at the instrument with a grin. "I play the ukulele, the guitar's smaller, but mightier, cousin!" Of course she does.

    "Well, like, don't let me interrupt your breakfast," Jubilation insists. Is it rude to eat food in front of a vampire? Probably! Does Jubes care? Not even a little. "But, like, I need to talk to someone and you seem to be the only one around here who doesn't lie to me." It's a little bit of an overstatement, but Jon and John both have. "Everyone's acting so /weird/... Chas sent me a /text/... Can you believe that?" She pulls her phone out of one of the pockets of her daisy duke shorts and waggles it loosely in the air for effect.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    At least the apartment smells like roses and black pepper and not like pathouli and dragon's blood -- or a Hot Topic.

    "I play, a little. I learned at church and from Chuck Beacon. I got back into it recently." she explains, and she cracks a grin. "My friend Nacho plays ukuele too. Mostly hard-rock with happy twists. His Enter Sandman is unbearably cheery." she jokes, and she frowns a moment. She hops off the counter, and she makes her way into the livingroom, and she motions to the couch.

    "Lying's not my style." she states, "And I told you I'd always try to tell you the truth. What're friends for?" she gives a sad smile, and she sits on the couch, tucked into a corner, and she draws her legs up into an easy lotus position.

    "Yeah. Chas, Zatanna, a fae named Meggan -- the 'Responsible Adults' -- found out our John's been a meatpuppet made of bits from a graveyard that John Constantine animated, and was taken over by a demon who likes to make his life miserable." she explains. She's trying so hard to keep her poker face going, but her lips are shaking. Her hands are quivering. She gives a small shrug, and brings her mug down to her lap. She's not going to be able to drink anything at this moment. "So... ah... all of the amulets are suspect."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Yeah, the uke' is a happy little thing, isn't it?" she replies with an enthusiastic nod. Jubilation does a little twirl, spinning around a full circle before flopping onto the couch in a dramatic fashion, even kicking one leg up into the air. She grins a little. Such fun.

    The rest of Phoebe's explanation pulls at Jubilee's attention. Each word causes fades her smile just a little more until it's gone and she's left staring down at her lap. Meatpuppet. Demon. One of the nice things about being exposed to this kind of stuff, seemingly on the regular, is that Jubilation is prepared to brush off these distracting details and focus on the core of the problem.

    "...For how long?" comes as a whisper. Her hand slowly reaches up for the amulet that hangs from her neck -- the one with Noriko Ashida's face. The next question would be about the amulets but she doesn't dare ask. Not yet.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe gives a little bit of a smile at Jubilation's jubilant twirl and sinking down. She appreciates it, that levity in what was going to be a very difficult conversation.

    "Long enough that I met John Constantine for the first time last night." Phoebe admits quietly, looking down into her coffee, and there, she cracks. Her voice was thick as she permitted tears to slide down her cheeks, one stubbornly clinging to her chin and the other disrupting her reflection in the mug. "He didn't know who I was."

    The mug comes up, and she drains the coffee then, putting the mug on the floor.

    "I didn't tell them about the amulets made for you and Noriko. That was one I helped with. There's a good chance that because of the *intent* behind them, they're completely safe, but..."

     She reaches behind a pillow, and she pulls out some thin, folded-up paper. She ruffles it a little bit as she spreads it out on the coffee table. It's a magic circle, with a load of what look like Egyptian Heiroglyphs and symbols on it, and she smooths it over the coffee table in front of her.

    "I can do this for you two. You don't deserve to get pulled into this mess. You're my friend."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Oh..." Jubilee blinks her eyes a couple of times, still staring at her lap. "So... He..." When Phoebe confirms that John didn't know who she was, Jubilee nods her head a couple of times and lets out a quiet sigh. It's a carefully rehearsed series of events -- opening of the mouth, inflating the lungs, collapsing them. It's been a few months since she has taken a breath but that doesn't mean she can't fake it for a friend.

    Phobe's point about keeping the amulets a secret draws out a secret shame from within the vampiress. She tucks it back into her shirt. How could she think about that at a time like this? Jubilation frowns for a second or two and then waves her hand in the air at Phoebe's offer. "Yeah, yeah, we'll do that, but..." She forces herself to perk up.

    "Right, so, where's that demon now?" she asks. "We gotta find him, right? He's your dad." She says it with such earnesty, as though the thought of having a demon as an adopted father isn't even a cause for concern.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Don't -- it's fine. It's fine. I'm going to continue to live here and learn under Constantine and Zatanna. The latter's checking over wards with me to make sure there's nothing that will come up and bite us later." she states as she smooths out the thin paper with the blue inks.

    "No one really knows at the moment. THey picked Constantine up in the UK and brought him back here. I'm pretty sure they should be able to trace back magic through some of the items that were created, but most of it just doesn't make sense. If he wanted to cause harm, really the only ones who are getting the worst of it... well. Meggan was his fiancee once upon a time. I'm the adopted kid and student. Pretty sure at some point he would have adopted pretty much everyone. Problem solver he is. Was." she frowns, and she looks at her leather-bound left wrist.

    "The amulet, for you and Noriko. I'd like to check it to see what kind of magics it has before I mention anything to them. I want to make sure you and Noriko are safe."

    She stretches her hands a little bit, drawing her dark gaze to Jubes.

    "I don't have a dad." she states, with an air of acceptance. "Everything, from the agreement to help. Every smile and wink and whisper that he was proud of me, everything. It was a lie, according to them. A demon who continues to have a hurt-on for John Constantine." Phoebe states, and with difficulty she is keeping her voice even, but there are little cracks. Stress fractures. To say the teen was Broken Hearted would be an understatement, but she was bottling it all up the best she could. "So, I don't know. I shouldn't be involved; maybe when he bound my aura it was for his own protection, maybe it affected him, made him better. Maybe made him a little more human, but in the end..."

    Phoebe frowns.

    "It's better this way. I've got a bunch of books now from my biological family. I can read them and study them. I'm not going to let myself get hurt like this again."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation's nose wrinkles again as she frowns. "I don't get it..." she mutters, staring into her lap again. She's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, especially with academics, but there's something about this situation that doesn't seem right to her. "...So, this demon, like, took over John's life and, what, formed a team of monster hunters? Started training a kid in magic? /Protected/ this building against, like, evil or whatever?" She shakes her head and rakes one hand's worth of fingers through her hair.

    "So, like, I don't get it," she repeats.

    Jubilation looks up at Phoebe and crosses one leg over the other. No immediate movement is made for the amulet, as though she's ignoring the possibility that it's cursed. Head in the sand. "This demon took over John Constantine's life and, what, improved it?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I know. The demon in question... kinda.. worked against himself in some ways. I mean, there was a time when someone said his name in the Laughing Magician and it called down his Seal, and kinda destroyed a quarter of the block and reduced one of the neighbors down to his shin bone and a pair of sneakers." Phoebe recounts quietly, and she lets the amulet go for the minute. Not like she's keen on giving up what's on the silver chain around her neck and buried in her own shirt, kept close to her heart.

    "*Hypothetically* speaking," the young mage states as she draws her eyes up. She looks exhausted, like she's been pushing Sissyphus's boulder for him, "Surrounded a wizard with a tendency to get his friends killed with a whole bunch of new friends." she considers, and she pulls her legs up, setting her chin on her knees. "Saddles him with a kid who has to depend on him, old lovers back into his circle, a bunch of young people who've never encountered magic or Constantine. Suddenly there's more allies when he comes back, everyone knows him but he doesn't know anyone. And the demon now knows how to hurt us the worst ways. He would know about Noriko, had access to Chas's daughter Geraldine. Everything about m--" she cuts herself off a moment, and takes a deep breath through her nose.

    "'Better' is all a matter of how you're seeing things. Now there's just more people between him and the real John. Like a bunch of frickin' /chess pieces/."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation's face flattens at the image of a pair of sneakers with shin bones sticking out of them. "Gross," she mutters, just in case it wasn't obvious. It's obvious. It's plenty obvious. As Phoebe continues, Jubilation's fingers idly strum against the arm of the couch, feeling the material with the tips of her fingers.

    "Okay, so, things /aren't/ great..." Jubilation agrees with a shrug. "But, what can we even do about it? I say we keep slaying monsters and keep looking too-cool-for-school. I mean, it's not like we have any choice." Jubilation flashes Phoebe a big grin, though it has to be obvious that she's pulling it out of thin air. These are bad times.

    "So, what's with that?" Jubilee asks abruptly, pointing her finger at the cardboard box.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Oh, not a doubt. I'm continuing my studies, we're going to be taking some time and getting a better grasp of my abilities and everything to see where the holes need to be filled in. Zatanna's helping. A lot." Phoebe purses her lips, and she gives a small smile to Jubilee. "The Night Brigade? Still a thing, even if we don't have matching jewelery and have to text each other. I think Chas is going to manage it for a bit, then who knows? There was talk about getting support with the Justice League before all of this went down. Which was kind of a shame, Diana's super nice." Phoebe seems relieved to talk on other topics for a hot minute as she stretches her arms behind her head.

    And then she looks to the box, and her shoulders sag.

    "... that's..." she trails off.

    "Pictures. Selfies, snapshots, workbooks for Latin and cuneform Sumerian, my mandala work. Basically, that one box is four months of intense occult training. Journal entries and notes."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee nods her head at the plan that has come together. Magical training will continue. Monster slaying won't stop. The Night Brigade lives on even though it has that awful name. "I didn't like that thing anyway," Jubilee answers with a shrug. "Made my neck all crowded." She grins at the mage just briefly before reeling it back.

    Jubilation stares at the box and frowns. Is it a box of memories destined for the trash? "Want me to hang onto it for a while for you?" she asks, eyebrows hiked up as she tilts her head to watch for Phoebe's answer.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "...no, I was..." Phoebe pauses a moment, and then she leans back a little into the arm of the couch.

    "I was getting ready to move out, if that's what it came to. I've got a couple of places I can go. Move in with Tim full time again." she jokes, and then she looks over to Jubilee.

    "... I'm not going to lie. It hurts. It hurts /so/ much, but all the looks of sympathy and sadness I was getting last night didn't compare to seeing just... nothing in Constantine's eyes. A flicker maybe because he's met my biological mom, but not... me. I could have died right then. Asked the Earth to open up and swallow me because now I've lost... I've lost so many people. My mother, the Beacons, my John, Chas has died *twice* on my account." she frowns a moment, then looks over to Jubilee.

    "I didn't know if I'd still be wanted. Now... it's going to go into storage with my books." she breathes out, and tears threaten at her eyes again, and she looks down, her voice shuddering before she whispers out:

    "I thought I had someone, finally, who fully understood me. All of me. Not just parts that people can see, but but the parts I had to hide, because sometimes you do lose people. Sometimes there isn't a happy ending, sometimes it's just pain, and awful, but you pick yourself up and keep walking because what other choice is there?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Ah, yeah..." Moving out. She tilts her head a little and smirks at her own lack of thought. Here she is with a rent-free room in a building owned by a total stranger. The key was given to her by a demon. The smirk fades as quickly as it comes, long enough to nod along with Phoebe. Finally, she purses her lips and curls half of her mouth upward into a gentle smile.

    "Yeah, I know it hurts, Phoebe. I mean, how could it not? But, like, things are going to get better. They always get better," she insists.

    The last part strikes close to home. Jubilation's head nods a little. Her fingers come back up to gently feel for the amulet that hangs from her neck. "Yeah..." she replies softly, the sound coming slow. "I know what you mean..." The face of the person who gets to see the parts of Jubilation others don't get to see hangs loosely from her neck.

    Suddenly, Jubilation springs up from the couch and marches towards the door. Before reaching it, she spins around energetically and points her finger at Phoebe, arm locked. "I'll tell you what we're gonna do. You finish packing up this stuff, you know, however long it takes, and then you do the secret knock on your ceiling -- we'll come up with one -- and I'll hear it. It's the signal for 'come down and get me and bring me to fun!' I'll think of something. I always think of something."

    Jubilee grips the doorknob and twists it. "Always!" she insists with a grin before moving to slip back out into the hallway, apparently on a quest to make a quick exit for some reason. Sus. Very sus.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Jubilee -- /the amulet/. I want to check it before they catch wind of it!" Phoebe's prompted, and she motions to the magical circle on the coffee table!

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation cringes a little and stops right there. Darn it. Almost made it. Jubilee sighs and turns to face Phoebe again. She pulls the necklace and holds it out for the other girl to take. "Phoebe..." she whines a little. "...Can't we just... Not tell them? You don't know how much that thing means to us. Means to me." Still... Jubilee knows Phoebe is right. She offers up the necklace for inspection.

    "Fine. Do the secret knock when you're done. Make sure it's good and somber if you're gonna give me bad news."

    Jubilation sighs and heads back out, neck empty.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "So dramatic." Phoebe states with an eyeroll, and she hops off the couch and accepts it.

    "Give me a half hour. If it's Bad, I will tell you in person. It's probably fine, because if it's not, I'll... do something and make it fine. I promise. For *you*." Phoebe states to Jubilee, and she goes back to the couch, and that magic circle, and sets the amulet with Noriko's face on it in the center.

     -- and about twenty minutes later, there's a knock on Jube's door, and the necklace is hanging on the knob with a bright pink sticky note:

    "All Good."