Owner	Pose
Garfield Logan	It had been a whirlwind of activity. Getting the suits for the ball, going to the ball itself, being spotted by an opportunistic photographer who 'exposed' the relationship Gar was in, and his social media blowing up afterward, both good and bad. Mostly good, but there's always a jerk out there looking for attention. Gar did the only thing he could: the next day he owned it, releasing a statement through his own accounts to confirm it and explain how it came to be. In short, it was real and it wasn't just going away. All he could do now is wait to see how it was taken. Of course, he let Terry see it first, or Vorpal, or whoever he decided to be at the moment, but when he posted it he was alone in his room at the Tower.
Terry O'Neil	That was then, and this was now. It was not unrealistic to expect that such an announcement would be followed by media attention, and Terry had decided to give that an arrow to the knee by putting them out of the reach of the press- at least for part of the day. Having dropped off his copy about the Embassy party at the Planet, he was intending to celebrate the state of things by going somewhere and spending some time together. And there he was, picnic basket next to him on the pier, the Cheshire cat sits there with his legs dangling into the water in a white tank-top and a blue square-cut swimsuit. There was only one person missing- Gar. He grabs his phone and smirks as he types. <<Got a swimsuit? Grab one and I'll open a Rabbit Hole for you when you say when. Grab one from my room if you don't have one.>> He sent the message just like that- no explanation or anything else. After thinking for a second, he sends a selfie of himself, angled so that Gar can see the water. <<Hurry!>>
Garfield Logan	Ping after ping on the phone. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Gar didn't have the most followers by any stretch of the imagination, but he was probably in the top third as far as the Titans went. He was also very active and responsive, which tended to cultivate more and more of the interactions. So, it took a few minutes just for Gar to notice the text. He tapped out a response. <<Sorry, dude. My phone is blowing up right now. What do you mean, a swimsuit? I have some shorts.>> Then comes the photo, and a brow shoots up. <<Um, give me a few minutes to find something.>> Cat by the lake, in that? Meow.
Terry O'Neil	<<Don't take too long, or the food might eat itself.>> The Cheshire reaches into the basket and pops a roll of prosciutto and mozarella into his mouth. <<And by that I mean that I'll be the one doing the eating.>> A pause. <<Also, set your phone to silent except for emergency contacts.>> He grins, imagining the deluge Gar was getting. His own social media accounts were on silent for the day so as not to get notifications. Only April, his mom, and the other titans were set as exceptions to the 'Do Not Disturb' rule along with Lois. When Gar gives the signal, he snaps his fingers and opens a Rabbit Hole onto the pier, taking care to adopt a looking-over-the-shoulder pose with a smile to greet Gar. It was obvious he was in a very good mood.
Garfield Logan	<<What food? You have food? Why didn't you tell me you had food?>> No picture of food means this could just be a lie, but it's a chance Gar is willing to take. He digs up a pair of black swim trunks, more baggy than not, making them a sharp contrast to Vorpal's choice. Also, a black tank top of his own. He adjusts the settings so the rest of the world won't bother him for a while, finally sending back a new message. <<Ready.>> Then, the portal opens up. Time to step through. He grabs a pair of sunglasses just because it's bright over there, and slides them on before crossing over. "Hey, cat."
Terry O'Neil	"Well, look who decided to join me," Vorpal says with a grin. He pats the space next to him on the pier and says "Come over and get fed. But, yaknow, we need to do something about your wardrobe," he wiggles his eyebrows, "I thought movie stars hit the beach in all sorts of fashionable swimwear? I thought I was dressed for the occasion." As soon as Gar sits down, he leans over to steal a kiss, and to place the basket onto Gar's lap. "Got antipasto salad and bites, and there's a meatball sub in there for you. So- apparently according to Donna, we're sooooooo cute together," he teases Gar, "I have still not determined which one of us is the cute one.":
Garfield Logan	"I had to get away," Gar says, stealing and adapting a popular airline jingle for himself, almost dutifully taking up the spot indicated. "Where are we? I haven't seen this place before," he adds. Then, his brows slide upward. "I don't know what you're talking about. This is a popular look on the beaches in SoCal, and I don't need to show off like you." He points and taps at Vorpal's nose before the kiss is snuck and returned before the contents of the basket are considered. "Sounds yummy. And I saw." He lets that sit there for a few seconds longer before looking down his nose at the feline. "Obviously I'm the cute one. You're the bad influence. Just look at what happened with the ball."
Terry O'Neil	"Au contraire, I think you need to show off. Here I am, providing eye candy for you and absolutely no reciprocity. An absolute tragedy." He splashes his foot in the water and says "Sweet Water Lake, in Westchester. I figued this place would have fewer people than the beach, and it looks like I was right." He slowly leans back, propping himself on his hands as he glances across the lake. "I'm happy with being the misfit, it suits me, and you are the cute one everybody adores. Together, they fight crime!" Splash, splash, splash. "So... I imagine with the announcement and all, your dad must know by now?"
Garfield Logan	Gar Logan retorts, "What if I'm like an onion? You have to peel off some of the layers to get to what's left." Might not be the best comparison ever, but it's too late to take it back. "Besides, you know what I look like. I don't need to impress you." He grins, taking note of the place and the overall lack of people around. "How'd you find it?" He starts to rummage around in the basket, coming up with some cheese and other things to nibble on, doing so before Vorpal can make good on his threat to eat it all himself. "There's nothing ambiguous about us now, is there? Except for the Terry thing, and you already had someone trying to get into your pants that way at the ball." It made Gar jealous! It did! Watching Vorpal shift some of the water around, he mulls over the topic of his father and the news. "Uh..well, I didn't exactly run it by them first. But what is he really going to do? Say no?" He looks to the side, then back. "He's my dad now, but he's not my /real/ dad. Nobody else can ever be that."
Terry O'Neil	Vorpal gives Gar a playful nudge, "Don't make me go into jokes about peeling off your layers, here. You're bad..." he gives a sidelong glance and raises an eyebrow. "That thing with Nick was a misunderstanding. You seriously can't think that I'd just go off and sleep with random people because I have a secret identity... although... if Booster Gold asked..." he is obviously teasing, he emphasizes this by putting a hand on Gar's leg and squeezing playfuly. "Found this place by looking at google maps. I wanted a place where we'd be alone, and this won't get hopping with people until the mid afternoon, so we've got the morning to ourselves..." he takes off his tank-top and hmms, "Did you bring your sunblock. Wait. Can you even get sunburnt? I know nothing of green skin. Except that I love how it looks on you." Sensing that Dayton might be a touchy subject, he says "I know how that goes. Even if mom married again... I'd still never have known my dad."
Garfield Logan	"I don't actually have any layers right now, anyway," Gar admits, looking down at himself and the shorts. "So there wouldn't be much to peel off before..yeah." This isn't a nude beach. "And if I'm bad, you're far worse." The topic of Nick is approached and he says, "You should probably reach out to him soon, just so he doesn't have any wrong ideas." Eyes narrow sharply at the Booster Gold comment, but aside from a snorting sniff the squeeze seems to appease. "As far as that goes though, my identity isn't a secret. I hope we can get to a point where yours doesn't matter and I can be seen with Terry or Vorpal." He says of the place, "It's kind of nice. Quiet so far, and..I dunno. I don't think sunburns are really a thing for me when I'm always turning into other stuff whenever I feel like it. And I'm not usually topless, either." Still isn't, yet, even after Vorpal's taken his tank top off. "I'm kinda partial to green, too." The Dayton thing..Gar can only shrug. "I don't really know what they're going to say. And it sucks that you couldn't get to know your dad, but I know why. That just makes it more complicated. I dunno how your mom's held up."
Terry O'Neil	"She doesn't know," the cat says, slipping a hand under Gar's tank-top and rubbing his back with his fingertips, "She only knows dad left. She has no /idea/ about the full of it, and I don't know how to tell her. I mean, she doesn't even know about the whole me yet..." He smiles a little, "But it would be nice to get to a point where I don't need to keep up the ruse. Unless you get tired of me, I don't plan on goin' anywhere." A cloud passes briefly over, casting the area in slight shadow for a few instants. "You know, you're gonna be nineteen in a month," he says. Of course the fanboy knows his birthday, "Have you thought about what you're going to do in the future? I mean... I'm not seeing myself quitting the helping people thing, but- are you thinking about college? You know, the stuff everybody seems to expect us to be thinking about..."
Garfield Logan	Gar Logan asks, "Are you going to tell her sometime? Do you think she can handle it if she finds out what your dad really was?" This has him curious by a large amount, because it's one of those things that just makes a person wonder. Those fingertips may or may not include claws, but he shrugs his way out of the tank top by tugging it off, allowing easier access there. "Hnf. I thought you were gonna get tired of waiting for me to figure things out in my head. I don't think I'd have been able to blame you." His back feels tight, but a few of the muscles start to loosen from the attention. "I should have brought a brush for you. You don't have to deal with fleas, do you?" The birthday talk sees him turn thoughtful, speculative. "Honestly..I don't think there's much for me to get out of college at this point."
Terry O'Neil	"Probably not at this moment for you. And me? Well, I can't really afford it." He leans in on Gar and huhs. "Your back feels like granite. Did this whole thing stress you out this much?" he says quietly, nuzzling into the green teen's neck. "And no, I don't get fleas, smartass." He smirks and yanks the picnic basket out of Gar's lap and sets it aside. "Lay down on your stomach and let me work on that back. We can go for a swim after and then maybe you can eat some more," he grins.
Garfield Logan	"I could do some online courses, but what am I gonna study? Animals? I already know everything I need to about them. I don't do science," Gar explains, adding, "And let's be honest. If I went to study in a real classroom, it'd be a distraction and it could even be dangerous." He confesses, "Some of this has been stressing me out, yeah." So it's not much coaxing needed to get him repositioned, especially after that attention to the neck. "Mmm. And you're lucky. Neither do I, but fleas would suuuuuck." Because they do. That's what they're all about.
Terry O'Neil	"Yeah, that's one of the downsides of having a public identity." Vorpal leans in once Gar has settled down and begins to apply a surprisingly exeperienced touch to the teen's lower back, starting to work on the lower quadrant with his knuckles. "I'm sorry this was such a stressor... but from now on things should be a little better. I mean, now everybody knows, everything's out in the open and we just have to... you know, enjoy each other's company." He lays his right palm flat on the small of Gar's back, and rubs the area gently before continuing with the massage. "I'm glad you decided to stick with me instead of deciding it was too inconvenient. I'll make it up to you." He grins, "Ever had a place in the world you wanted to visit but never managed to?"
Garfield Logan	"Where did you..mmnf..learn how to do that?" Gar asks before something crosses his mind. "Wait..are you kneading my back?" Because it's totally in a cat to knead. Some of the tension just feels like it's melting away as he murmurs, "Well, almost everything is..ahh..out in the open. Someday I want to be able to go out and people can see me with Terry or Vorpal and not think I'm some kind of green gigolo." He pauses, adding after a beat, "But a lot of that depends on you being comfortable with your identity." The promise is heard, but he appears uncertain of what to say. "Lots of places, I guess. Maybe I should work on a list."
Terry O'Neil	"Mom dated a massage therapist for a while. She got stressed a lot. At one point he taught me some things- I guess he thought it would endear him to mom. He was wrong, though." Vorpal chuckles, "But for a while I was the official defuser of mom and April's neck pains." He starts going a little deeper into the tissue now, "Kneading is used for tight muscles. He also claimed that it helped with anxiety, but I don't know about that... heh. Trust me, I would love to not hide the fact that I'm dating you when I'm in my human form. RIght now, it would mean having to give up being at the Planet, though..." A little purr escapes him and he playfully swats the green Titan's butt, "Green gigolo, really. You know /some/ Hollywood types love cultivating that controversy, a love triangle in the public to boost their professional profile." He rolls his eyes, "Thank goodness you're not the type. Then again, I have never had any doubts about my impeccable taste."
Garfield Logan	"He must have taught you enough," Gar remarks, "because you seem to know all the spots." In fact, the deeper rub results in his his back arching momentarily, a held breath let out afterward. He thinks aloud, "Maybe it's better the public sees Beast Boy and Vorpal, if it lets Terry work without a bunch of distractions. Besides, we have our little secret there." That moment of consideration is interrupted suddenly by the purr and smack, causing him to turn enough to stare over a shoulder. "That's a freebie! Another one and I'll have to charge you! And maybe one time I'd have liked the attention from a love triangle. Right now..I don't think so."
Terry O'Neil	"I guess. You know, maybe someday I'll be able to chuck the pretense of a secret identity. You never know what the future holds... Oh? Charge me, will you? And what's the price? Maybe I will have to start a tab," the Cheshire grins mischievously, moving up along Garfield's back, working at the tension. At one point he leans over and places a kiss on the back of Garfield's neck, purely to tease him, before returning to work on his upper back. "We've got the Titans back together and thriving. I have a wonderful boyfriend and I'm working at the Planet. Life is good... and still... there's something. I keep thinking about something Colette said at one point..."
Garfield Logan	Gar Logan vows, "I won't 'out' you like that, but sometimes you might have to remind me to be careful." Vorpal ought to get the meaning behind that, but Vorpal is also much more mischievous than Terry, from what Gar's learned so far. He's still not completely worked out the personality differences, but they do have a few things that distinguish them, set them apart, beyond just the fur and tail and all. "And you'll just have to see what happens, won't you?" He can be playful too, but it's taken a bit more to coax it out of him than it has from Vorpal, or Terry for that matter. Just as he's feeling himself sinking again, the lips are at his neck and his eyes blink a few times. "Yeah, things are pretty good now. What did she say?" His fingers and toes have taken to curling off and on.
Terry O'Neil	Vorpal chuckle, "Are you telling me to keep a tight leash on you? I'd need to get you a rhinestone collar for that. You'd look adorable." Both hands are now working on Gar's shoulders, so at least he won't be able to thwap Vorpal just yet. He is sneaky like that. "Oh... I remember that Colette said stuff about the Titans meaning something. About how they needed to be back together. And I thought... well, what is it about the Titans? You've got all of those super-hero groups doing their thing. And that's when I thought that there are things we could be doing outside of just fighting crime and keeping people safe. Unlike the other teams, we're kind of sort of like a family, aren't we? A family of sorts."
Garfield Logan	Gar Logan can be felt trying to push himself up at the teasing, but the pressure is kept on his shoulders and it feels too damn good to fight it just to get back at Vorpal right away. He will bide his time. Oh yes, he will. "Beast Boy will remember that," he says, imitating the frequent notification from a certain style of video games. He's felt to give up at the continued focus on the shoulders, going a bit flat again on the deck, arms at his sides with his head turned to one cheek against the surface. It leaves his words slightly mumbled. "Yeah, that's us. One big, crazy, sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes scary, but always looking out for each other family. And now you're stuck with me, and us. You were never there for the gaming battles Cyborg and I used to have."
Terry O'Neil	"Oh, trust me, no matter how dysfunctional, you'll never be more dysfunctional than Grandma O'Neil's thanksgivings. She disowned my mother but still insisted on seeing the grandchildren, so April and I would see each other frequently. It's how we got so close. There was... mom didn't like her brother- April's dad- a lot because she felt he didn't stick up for her to Grams... so... /happy/ family." he chuckles. His fingers linger as they work on Gar's neck, now, his thumbs occasionally lingering in an affectionate touch here and there as he speaks, "But I was thinking... maybe our calling is to bring that to others. Maybe there are things we can do in the social and civil sphere to foster... I don't know if I can express it right. I mean, people already like us because of what we've done. What if we could be a force for positivity, instead of just being reactive- you know, we can ride in to save the day when bad guys strike... but we could be doing so much..."
Garfield Logan	Gar Logan pfffts. "I'm not even gonna try to compete with that," he says, and it's hard for him to shake his head in this position. A little comical, too. "There's not a whole lot I can say about my actual family, from when I was a kid. I never got to spend time with any of them before.." He leaves it there. Vorpal knows enough of his history. The thumbs and fingers just keep him in a happy enough state, given the unlocking of tension, of tightness, of some discomfort, and his eyes drift shut. "What do you mean? Something you're thinking of us doing as a team?" This also has the side effect of him not thinking very deeply at the moment.
Terry O'Neil	"Something like that. When you did that Make A Wish thing... you know, you're the heart of the team. We should get together with Donna and Kori and brainstorm about things, because I think the Titans could be a positive force in society. We could do outreach... there's a story I want to pursue, reports of meta teens from troubled homes often being in danger of falling into delinquency. Maybe there's something we can do on that front- if we could provide the kind of environment... am I... is it a stupid idea?" The Cheshire leans back and smiles, "Your back is done. Feels better?" he asks.
Garfield Logan	"Much better, thanks," is the first thing Gar says, beginning to sit back up slowly before saying anything to the outreach idea, the thought of doing something that could help people in need. It's a matter he can identify with from his own past, which might be a way to look at it. "You might be on to something," he admits. Then his eyes flash playfully. "By the way, I told you I was gonna charge you for what you did." Suddenly he turns into a bull, giving Vorpal a 'nudge' with his head with the intent being to send him into the lake. It's as safe a 'charge' as can be. "Let's see how you look all wet!" Then the bull...jumps into the water as well. Time for a big splash, then a change to something more aquatic: a catfish! "Gotcha!" If Vorpal plays along, knowing his talent with the rabbit holes.
Terry O'Neil	Vorpal smiles at Gar's reaction, "Let's see if we can get the team to weigh in on ideas..." he is about to say more, but then Gar gets that look in his eyes, and he knows that always means mischief is afoot. As he is 'charged' with aggravated ass-ault by Gar, the Cheshire protests, "Your honor, I am innocent! I am-" And then there is a mighty splash, and then he is all wet. At first, he dips, and when he comes up for air he sputters, and spits out a squirt of water. "Garfield Logan! I should've known you'd do something fishy!"