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Post by skybright on Sept 29, 2006 23:24:19 GMT -5
Daws nodded. "He's tough, all right." She said with complete seriousness. Then she grinned and added "Or maybe resilient is the right word. He's certainly got a knack for bouncing back."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 29, 2006 23:43:01 GMT -5
"That reminds me of one of the things I meant to ask," Proteus noted. "Since he works for Nocturne, I gathered that Joey is one of us, but I don't know what his particular talent is. Sometimes I can copy another mutant's power--to a very small degree--if it's something my cells can mimic. But not often."
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Post by skybright on Sept 29, 2006 23:52:58 GMT -5
Daws nodded. "He . . . well, bounces, basically. I dunno precisely how he does it -- I think he shifts himself into a kind of rubber-state. You'd haveta ask him."
She shrugged and gestured in the direction of the storage closet. "Which'll be easier if I don't let him get crushed by a stack of falling file boxes, I suppose." She added, heading over to help her apprentice.
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 1, 2006 19:23:45 GMT -5
"Oof. Thanks." Joey grinned and squirmed out from his position half-under the stack of three boxes he was trying to move. He pulled off the topmost box, set it down on the floor and sat crosslegged in front of it, to begin burrowing into its contents.
Proteus watched with a faint smile, resting his chin on his hand.
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Post by skybright on Oct 1, 2006 22:01:44 GMT -5
Daws set the other two boxes down and rolled her sleeves up as she sat. "Now then . . ."
She grabbed one of the other boxes and shrugged. "I guess just do what we've been doin' with the rest of the office -- try and sort stuff out into the right cases and then put 'em chronologically."
Daws tugged the lid off of her box and sneezed at the small cloud of dust that doing so generated. "I really need to learn to work on my neatness skills." She muttered, and began examining the contents of the box.
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 1, 2006 23:08:15 GMT -5
Joey pulled out two folders from his box, looking back and forth between them. "What case have you got there? So I'll know if I find anything from it here."
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Post by skybright on Oct 1, 2006 23:13:08 GMT -5
"Uhm . . ." Daws rifled through a few loose papers and finally fished out a manila folder, which she flipped open.
"Hancock, Jordan." She said. "Looks like a blackmail case. 1995's the year." She shrugged. "That's one of 'em, anyhow. This box is a mess."
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 1, 2006 23:34:47 GMT -5
"I got... Billy Cavanaugh," Joey remarked, leafing through his own pile. "Wow. Looks like a kid who went missing, and his parents thought he might've run away after showing up a mutation, 'cause it ran in the family."
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Post by skybright on Oct 1, 2006 23:50:06 GMT -5
"Oh, I think I remember that." Daws looked up with a somewhat faraway look, searching her memory. "Yeah, I do. His uncle and his older sister were both mutants. Apparently his uncle'd run off when he manifested at the kid's age -- so his dad assumed the same thing had happened. Poor guy was all overwrought."
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 2, 2006 20:58:14 GMT -5
"So is that what happened?" Proteus asked. "Was the boy a mutant?"
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Post by skybright on Oct 3, 2006 16:30:18 GMT -5
Daws shrugged. "No. He'd been running with the wrong crowd at school -- older kids. They got mixed up in some nasty stuff and pulled Billy along. He hadn't done anything himself, but he was scared of what his folks would think -- so he split."
She shook her head. "Found him holed up with some of his friends in a youth hostel in the Bronx. He was convinced his dad and mom wouldn't want him to come home. Took a lot of talking on my part to convince him otherwise."
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 3, 2006 22:47:04 GMT -5
Proteus smiled grimly, with the faintest touch of bitterness. "I'm sure they were glad he wasn't a mutie."
Joey frowned and pushed the folder toward Daws with a slightly unhappy look, then pulled another folder out of the box. "Newman. Case of a guy who got mugged by some mutaphobes."
"Something wrong?" Proteus asked Joey, raising an eyebrow.
The teenager shrugged. "Just... reminded me of why my dad left. Because of me. Because of what I am."
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Post by skybright on Oct 3, 2006 23:15:00 GMT -5
Daws scowled faintly and flexed her claws, thinking of particularly unpleasant conversations she'd like to have with her apprentice's errant father.
"Now you listen, Joey." She said quietly, "Maybe that was the reason he gave for leaving. But whatever it was that made him leave you -- it was his problem, not yours. You never did a thing to deserve that." Daws lashed her tail. "You're a good man, Joey, and anybody in his right mind oughtta be proud to have you for a son."
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 3, 2006 23:36:14 GMT -5
Joey dropped his gaze with a somewhat flustered blush. "I know. I know I didn't do anything. It just... doesn't mean I don't still miss him."
Proteus met Daws' gaze, then reached out and put his hand on Joey's shoulder.
"Our kind are lucky in a way, Joey," he said quietly. "The way people treat us shows 'em up for who they really are. The ones who turn away from us aren't worth knowing in the first place. But the ones who choose to stand by us, in spite of what others may think... well, we can be sure we've got a friend in them."
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Post by skybright on Oct 3, 2006 23:42:58 GMT -5
Daws nodded. "That's about the truest thing I ever heard."
She sighed faintly. "And . . . I know what you mean, about missing him. Family . . ." She shrugged, thinking of her sister. "No matter how they treat you, or how much time goes by . . . some part of ya always does miss them."
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 4, 2006 23:29:36 GMT -5
Proteus rested his chin in his hands. "It's been a long, long time since I had any family. I kept track of my sister's kids for a little while, but..." He shrugged. "There's no sense being the ghost in the family tree."
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Post by skybright on Oct 4, 2006 23:40:07 GMT -5
Daws gave a brief, startled laugh. "No kidding. As crazy as some people are about genealogy, well . . ." she shook her head with a wry grin. "Something tells me that it'd still be a bit of a shock to have your however-many-great-granduncle actually show up."
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 5, 2006 20:42:03 GMT -5
Joey looked sympathetically at Proteus. "You must be lonely."
"Oh... not really." The shapeshifter gave him a thin smile. "I have the Spooks, and I have my animals. They keep me busy."
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Post by skybright on Oct 5, 2006 21:24:24 GMT -5
Daws smiled faintly. "Our kind of folks kind of have to build our own families -- or else just get used to being lonely."
Her smile widened into a grin. "I worked on that second one for a long time. But I've discovered I like the first option a lot better."
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Post by Jordanna on Oct 5, 2006 22:17:31 GMT -5
Joey shrugged, slowly picking through the box of files in front of him. "Before Daws took me to Our Lady, I wasn't even doing so well at that. I was always just the errand boy at Tiernan's--nobody notices me there much."
"The better for me," Proteus mused.
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