[Locked to Paco and Jaime, and Later to Kon]

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

((Directly after this, before the Yeerk Trial.))

It took awhile to find him, just because the ship was so big, but eventually Paco found Jaime messing around in Special Weapons, tinkering with something.

"Dude," he said, knocking on the edge of the door. "I'm calling in best friend rights."

Comments

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

What he's working on? He immediately drops. Yes, it has to do with the vital task of getting them off the ship. The tools get haphazardly tossed in a pile in a way that will probably piss off both Brainiacs, but it doesn't matter.

Best friend rights.

"Sensoriums?" Jaime says, walking out with Paco.

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"Oh hell yeah," Paco said, sticking his hands in his plantsuit pockets as they made their way to the Hub. "I'm thinking the Beetlemobile, a couple of cokes, and that one hill you can see the whole town from."

At least he didn't have any "I've just been dumped" traditions that Jaime could use to figure out what had just happened. Paco really didn't want to talk about it.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Neither of them have many "tells." Oh sure, the "Something sucks and it's bugging me" vibe is crazy obvious and when one's beaming the depression rays, the other, wordlessly, always picks up on it. But the only way one figures out what's causing it is if the other says so.

That doesn't alway happen. It doesn't always need to.

Sometimes they talk, and what they say might not even reach Brenda's ears--a fact that she's well aware of and okay with, because there's things she tells either of them that might not hit the other. For a group of friends that hardly keeps any secrets, it's no secret that sometimes one of them needs just one of the others for a bit and not both.

A lot of times, all they need is the company.

Before long, they're in the Sensoriums, kicking back on the hood of Paco's car, on that little half-hill, half-mesa that overlooks a good part of the city. It's always been a bitch getting the car up there, to the point where ever since Jaime'd gotten the suit, half the time he'd just CARRY the car up when they'd wanted to hang out there, but the Sensoriums are great for shortcuts.

Jaime tosses Paco an imaginary soda, pops the top of his own, and after taking a sip, lays back with one hand tucked under his head, resting the soda on his chest, looking up at those painfully familiar stars coming out as the sun sets with it's characteristic red-orange desert glow.

There's silence first. And silence might be the only thing there is. Depends on what Paco needs. If he decides he wants to talk, he will, if not, Jaime's just there.

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Paco caught the soda and took a swig from it, but remained in a cross-legged sitting position with his chin propped up on his hand. He doesn't say anything for awhile, just sitting and absorbing the atmosphere. He wasn't much for meditation or anything, but it was nice to just...let his mind sort of go blank and forget that they were on an alien tentacle ship for a few minutes.

But that only worked for so long before his brain started going again; and so he finally broke the white-noise silence, if only so he didn't have to think about how much Kate dumping him sucked.

"So, I'm starting up my own team to go with your Team GTFO."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Yeah?"

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"Yup. Team Have Some Freakin' Fun Already. I've already recruited Brenda, you won't be able to escape."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Jaime grins.

"I dunno, I'm pretty sneaky when I need to be. Although I'd love to see you guys try to take on, Leon, the Chief, or the Brainies."

A pause.

"Actually, you need to grab Billy, too. Ever since the away mission, he's been kinda overworking himself."

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"You fear Brenda's wrath too much to hide from her and you know it," Paco said, taking another pull from his soda bottle. "And Leon actually recruited me to make Chief chillax." He chuckled. "You know, the food sucks and the clothes are creepy and the non-crew living things are made of fail, but the crew is pretty freaking awesome."

He did make a mental note about Billy, though.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"No, see, I fear her wrath, and that's why I'd hide," Jaime points out.

"And I'm kind of surprised. I mean, people from all these different places and times, and you'd expect them to be gouging each other's faces off and finding reasons to fight constantly, but everything people've argued over's typically just everyone having different ideas on what's best for the crew. They drive me nuts with it, and the egos are bad, but the why it happens isn't."

He can respect people that disagree on the right way to do things, because he knows he might be wrong. He doesn't believe he is, but it's always a possibility.

"The hard part is working everybody past it and getting them all at least in the same book, even if we can't manage the same page."

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"No, because you know she'd find you, and she'd have had that much more time to plot her revenge."

Paco sighed again and picked at the label on his soda bottle. "I figure it's either Stacy picking and choosing people who can work together, or else everyone figured that it's better to work with everyone else than wind up facing down the roaches and brainslugs on your own."

Especially after what happened to Hudson.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Let me dream my idealistic hero dreams of voluntary cooperation for the greater good, Paco," Jaime jokes with a laugh. "Let me dream."

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Paco laughed too, and toasted with his soda.

"That would be the magical third option that comes with a free pony," he said.

He was already feeling a bit better. He really needed to remember to keep grabbing Jaime and/or Brenda and just veg out for a bit.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Or a pony-rocket," Jaime says, craning his neck to take another sip of his own coke, without choking.

"Hmm. So, what kinda hanging out do you need this to be?" he asks. "We can do vegging, but I'm making you the one-time offer with a lack of expiration date we always make each other of talking about whatever."

They both only took up the offer about 1/2 the time.

Some time later...

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

After more talking and some straight up vegging and talking about cars and girls, Jaime had left Paco to his own devices. Sometimes people needed people and sometimes they needed the space, and Paco had needed some time to think and just...deal, and Jaime'd respected that.

But someone's been...looking for him. The door opens to desert scrub and Kon walks up the shifting rocks (not enough energy to waste on flying), grabs a soder from the car and hops onto the hood of the car with Paco, all without so much as a "How'd you do?"

"'Sup?"

Re: Some time later...

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Paco had been letting the quiet noises lull him into a half-sleep, so Kon gets a double-take. One, because of what the sub-visser had done and said, and two...

Well, he was freaking Superboy.

Still, all kinds of awkward there.

"Uh...Stuff. Ish."

Re: Some time later...

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

It's okay, Paco, he's used to it. Women love him, men want to be him, and so on.

"So, we've gotta talk," says Kon lounging back himself. "I've kinda noticed after the Yeerk stuff, you've been kinda quiet and not around, and I just wanted to make sure we were cool, and everything was all copacetic."

Re: Some time later...

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"And so on" must cover other super heroes' loyal sidekicks wanting hang out and talk cars and girls with him. But Paco rallied pretty well, if he did say so himself.

"You want to make sure we were cool?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm the one who was sitting on important information." He took a swig of his soda. "I'm just hanging out and recovering right now. Keeping it cool."

Re: Some time later...

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

"I mean... I don't know. It was all kinda nuts, and you had to deal with Bad Thing--which I...I get. The mind control thing."

His throwdown with the Titans had made the news after all, even if he avoided any major trouble since the Justice League and all that had vouched for his actions not being his fault and S.T.A.R. Labs had cleaned him out.

"So I left it alone for a while, buuuut... you were bringer of bad news, not what created it, and I just wanted to let you know that I get why you and Beetle were sitting on it. You didn't need to 'cause even if there's no way to stop me from croaking, I'm still going back to that fight when all this is over and doing what I have to, but I still get it. I guess I just want to make sure you knew there are no hard feelings. You seem like a cool guy."

For the record, he'd been brainwashed, hid from the world, got beaten half to death, went back into the fight to save the world, got pulled away, nearly got killed by the Yeerks, found out he was going to die and that Paco and Jaime were keeping it from him, and is planning to go die anyway if that's the absolute last resort and the world needs him to...

And he's checking out to make sure Paco's okay and knows that he's not upset with him or whatever.

That's just how he rolls, bebbeh.

Re: Some time later...

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Paco stared at Kon for a moment.

"Okay, dude. How the hell did it take you dying for people to realize that you're awesome?"

Seriously. What.

Re: Some time later...

[supertshirt.livejournal.com]

"Aw, don't tell it's not until after I croak that people drop the 'Hey, you're not Superman!' kinda stuff," Kon says abruptly sitting up.

He sounds annoyed, but not upset.

"...Seriously, though, do they? Like, I know I get the statue and everything, but do people really think I'm awesome after I bite it?"

Re: Some time later...

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

He probably shouldn't say anything, but any damage had probably been done at this point. It couldn't hurt to tell him.

"They do. Really. It was practically all anyone could talk about for the next year. There was..." Okay, no, he probably didn't want to hear about the cult. Cults were creepy, and Paco recalled the whole thing as being something of a mess. He didn't know too much about it anyway, since he'd been more worried about what had happened to Jaime. "...Millions of mourners. I think there might still be people leaving notes and stuff at the base of your statue in Metropolis."

Re: Some time later...

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

"...Millions?"

Yeah, he hadn't...

He hadn't expected...

"Did they do one of those TV specials, even?"

What? It's not often you can find out about your own funeral and all that.

Re: Some time later...

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"Millions," Paco repeated. "And yeah, a TV special, an internet memorial broadcast, the works. You saved the world, dude."

He doesn't quite get why Kon sounds so...surprised by all of it. He's freaking Superboy; he came, he saw, he pummeled evil in the face.

"You saved the freaking world. Why are you looking so shocked?"

Re: Some time later...

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

Kon wipes a hand over his face and it pauses over his mouth, as he just...tries to take it all in.

Then that hand drops and he turns to Paco, and answers:

"Because I used to have my head on a pez dispenser."

Re: Some time later...

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Paco wasn't quite able to keep himself from laughing. "You are so lucky I didn't have anything in my mouth. You'd have been sprayed with coke."

The Superboy pez dispensers? Ridiculously expensive on eBuy now. Then. From when Stacy had grabbed Paco.