Room 322 [Monday afternoon]

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime grinned as he dialed the phone. He felt like he'd been a bad boyfriend, neglecting calling for so long. But better late than never, right?

"Hi," he smirked into the phone when it was answered, "I'm trying to reach a magus with brains and beauty. I can hold if you need some time to track one down."

"Well, of course I wouldn't say that to your face. I'm not stupid enough to tweak the awesomest magus I know without a phone between me and her to keep me safe. And, yes, I know that you could teleport over here and get your revenge, but... I'm way too cute for that, right?"

Whatever she said next had him laughing. "Ouch. That hurts."

"What? A guy can't just call to hear his girlfriend's sexy accent?"

"Well... yeah, you've got me there," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "And I should know better than to try to fake out someone with your deductive capabilities, huh? So... yeah, I kind of had an ulterior motive. See, this weekend students here can have visitors from out of town, friends, family, that sort of thing. And... I was wondering if you wanted to?"

There was a long pause during which Jaime's face lost a bit of its grinning expression. "That sounds... ominous." His hand flailed behind him until it hit the bed and he sat down. Just in case.

"See... other... people?" Loooooong pause. "Are you... breaking up with me?"

"No, no, no! I'm not upset, just... trying to make sure we're on the same page, you know?"

"Yeah. No, yeah. That makes sense. We're both busy, and... things have been weird. Yeah, with the Scarab. Uh huh. No, I see what you mean. Yeah, maybe that's the best idea."

He managed a wan smile, even if the other party wouldn't see it. "Oh, definitely. We can still be friends. And... yeah, maybe you're right. In a couple of years, maybe after school, if we're both still interested we can give it another go."

The smile became a bit more genuine. "Yeah. You too. And if you ever need anything... Yeah, you know the drill. Stay safe out there."

Jaime closed his phone and then flopped back on the bed.

Dumped via trans-continental cell phone call. Well... that certainly sucked.

[Door and post equally open.]

Comments

[living_endless]

Didi came home and went through her usual nighttime ritual of sprinkling fish food into the tank. Wandsworth was porking up; Fandom must have agreed with him.

Eventually, flopped on her own bed, she asked, "Anything exciting in the world of Jaime?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"Oh, you know, the usual thing. Ate breakfast, wandered around time, had lunch, called my girlfriend, got dumped."

"You?"

[living_endless]

"Walked down to the docks and watched the waves for a few hours," Didi answered, wincing. "fed the ducks in town. Didn't get dumped." She paused. "I'm sorry."

[weldedtomyspine]

"Hey," Jaime's laugh was only a little forced, "you shouldn't apologize for not getting dumped. I don't recommend it myself."

[living_endless]

Didi lazily tossed a pillow toward his side of the room, not really trying to hit him. "I meant I'm sorry you did."

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime dodged anyway. Which meant the pillow almost landed on him.

"Thanks," he grinned. "But... you know... it wasn't that bad." You know... compared to an amputation or something.

[living_endless]

"Like it was already over, you just had to say the words?" Didi asked. "That's still not any fun."

[weldedtomyspine]

"It wasn't exactly like that. Traci..." Jaime snorted. "She was always out of my league, and... I guess it was just time for us to... branch out? Something. Maybe after I graduate..."

He shrugged. It wasn't like he could argue with anything Traci had said.

[living_endless]

"Eh, your league is whatever you say it is," Didi pointed out, dismissively. "But ... so now you branch out? Well, at least school's like two-thirds girls."

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime took a moment to absorb that thought, then grinned. "I... guess it is." This apparently hadn't occurred to him yet.

"But... I think I might take a break, you know? Try to figure out what I want and all that stuff people do in bad movies with uplifting endings after they get dumped."

[living_endless]

"No, that's a good idea," Didi said. "Nobody wants to be the rebound chick, anyhow."

she turned to see him better. "How long had you guys been together?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"A year, I guess? We both had a lot going on, and she's from the UK, so we did the long-distance thing mostly."

He sighed. "I think that was probably a major contributor to..." The whole break-up thing.

[living_endless]

"You're closer now than you were in Texas," Didi said, not unkindly. There was still an ocean in there. "Still. If it's meant to work out with her, it will, right?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"Yeah," Jaime managed a chuckle. "Destiny and all that." He cocked his head, "I don't suppose you get to know anything about that, do you?" Even the Scarab couldn't get a full read on what being the incarnation of Death meant.

[living_endless]

"About Destiny? Well, he's blind?" Didi said, trying to look cute.

... look, she had to be enigmatic once in a while!

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime frowned. "I thought that was Justice."

Then he reached for her pillow and tossed it vaguely back in her direction.

[living_endless]

Didi snagged the pillow with a forearm, batting it to the ground. "Maybe. More than one thing can be blind."

Then, laughing: "... what was the pillow for?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"Thought you might have wanted it back," Jaime teased. "But if not... I could always use another one."

"Besides, I've got to have something to do when you're being all mysterious and stuff."

[living_endless]

Didi shook her head, hugging the pillow to her chest. "Nope. Sorry. Mine. I could ask you not to throw things in the room, but I did it first."

She seemed cheerful about that. "It's not being mysterious to say Destiny is blind. But no, I don't know the future. It's not one of my gifts."

[weldedtomyspine]

"Eh," Jaime shrugged, "that's probably a good thing. I imagine it would suck to know what was going to happen."

He glanced over and smirked. "That sounds sort of trite, though, doesn't it?"

[living_endless]

"Depends which part," Didi admitted. "I lost track. Sorry."

[weldedtomyspine]

"You know, that whole 'it would suck to know the future' thing. It's like... every movie ever about knowing the future is all about that."

[living_endless]

"Oh." Didi had to think about that one. "I think ... it's hard? But it might depend on the person, and if they wanted the gift. And if they could change anything. I wouldn't want it if I couldn't."

[weldedtomyspine]

"Yeah," Jaime admitted, "it might be cool if you could change things, but... Isn't a lot of the fun of life the surprise of things? I mean, yeah some surprises suck," like getting dumped, "but without them things would get boring."

Jaime grimaced in amusement at himself. "Wow. I sound like an after school special, don't I?"

[living_endless]

"You sound" -- about seventeeen, which he was, so he got a pass -- "like you're figuring things out."

She rested her chin on her palms. "If you'd known how things would end with what's-her-name, Traci, would you still have dated her?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"No question," Jaime's smile was a bit dopey. "She's amazing, and I'd have to have been a bigger idiot than I am to pass up the chance to get to know her better."

"Actually..." Jaime cut himself off and blushed. Telling his roommate that she sort of reminded him of his now-ex-girlfriend might give her the wrong impression.

[living_endless]

Didi had a theory about that blush, but it seemed like the kind of thing she was better not mentioning. "So ... you got some time with her. Now you get some time for you. I dunno. Maybe it's all for the best."

She added, "You don't sound like you need me to call her an evil wench. That's refreshing."

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime looked honestly surprised at that. "Why would I do that? I mean... it's not like she got less awesome hanging out with me. Or," he chuckled, "I hope not."

[living_endless]

"Oh, because you're a teenage boy and she dumped you over the phone," Didi said. "Some people would get their egos involved and be all pissy."

Hello there, Morpheus.

She smiled. "You're a good guy, Jaime Reyes."

[weldedtomyspine]

"Well, I won't deny that it hurts a bit, but... what else am I going to do?"

He grinned over at her. "And... thanks. It's kind of comforting to know that someone thinks so."

[heromaniac]

Momoko was on her way back to her room when she thought she heard a familiar voice. "Hello?" She poked her head in through the open door. "Jaime?! You're on this floor!"

[weldedtomyspine]

"Momoko!" Jaime's grin was a lot more convincing than it might have been. Because Momoko was fun.

"I should have known you were on the awesome floor, too."

[heromaniac]

"Of course! Any floor with me on it is automatically awesome!" Momoko struck a rather heroic pose. Captain Hammer would be so proud.

[weldedtomyspine]

"You want to sit down?" he shifted and waved at the newly cleared space on his bed. "I'd get up and be a better host, but I'm having a weird day..."

[heromaniac]

"Did you have your teacher try to proposition the entire class, too?" Momoko rolled her eyes and plopped herself into the space he'd cleared. "Talk about weird! Well, sort of weird, I mean, it was on topic for the class, but it was weird to have it happen. And I think he was kind of serious. Maybe it was an evil twin? He did call himself by a different name. Why was your day weird?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"Um... no. Mine was weird in a different way..." Jaime was a bit too busy staring at Momoko, perplexed, to remember to actually answer her question.

"Your teacher really hit on you?"

[heromaniac]

"Yep. It was totally creepy!" She nodded. "He was all, 'I will answer all your questions and I am also willing to give practical lessons and even group sessions' or something. Not really what I expected today."

[weldedtomyspine]

"Ew," Jaime made a face. "That's sort of gross."

[heromaniac]

"I know, right?" Momoko was in complete and utter agreement. But then she thought pretty much the whole class was sort of gross and embarrassing. "If he does it again next week, I'm going to report him. I'm sure the principal would want to know that one of the teachers is a pervert."

She clapped her hands. "But what happened to you? You said you had a weird day, too?"

[weldedtomyspine]

"Oh, uh... not weird in the same way?" Jaime reached back to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. "I sort of... broke up with my girlfriend today." It was totally mutual!

[heromaniac]

"What?!" Momoko jumped up to stand on the bed, arms akimbo, glaring at him. "Why? How could you just dump her?! What could be so bad that you couldn't just talk it out like civilized people?"

Momoko kind of only knew about one-way break-ups. Sorry.

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime sort of scooted back on the bed to get away from the enraged redhead.

"You've got it backwards," he held up his hands placatingly.

[heromaniac]

"What's backwards is you dump your girlfriend and all you can do is say, 'huh, I've had a weird day'. Do you know how hard it is to find a boyfriend and then to be dumped when you finally do?" Momoko sank back to sitting on the bed and folded her arms, but continued to glare. "Fine. Was she possessed? Was she evil? Was she secretly the leader of the enemy army you've been trained all your life to defeat?"

...If he said he dumped his girlfriend because she was too hyper or too crazy or too talkative, she was so totally going to punch him. And he'd seemed so nice, too.

[weldedtomyspine]

"No, no, no," Jaime backed up a little bit further. "You've got it backwards. She's the one who dumped me."

Pleasepleaseplease don't kill him!

[heromaniac]

"Oh." Well that took the wind out of her sails. He wasn't the bad guy, Jaime was the victim. She uncrossed her arms and frowned in sympathy. "Oh."

But...

"Why would someone dump you?" Maybe the girlfriend was possessed? "You're nice and really fun to be with! Does she go here? Tell me who she is and I can try to talk to her for you!"

[weldedtomyspine]

"No, no," Jaime waved placatingly. "It's fine, really."

He tried to calm Momoko down a bit with ineffectual gestures before explaining. "We've been doing the long distance thing for a while now, and it's been hard. We finally just decided it might be time to let go for a little bit. Then, maybe when I'm out of school and we're both a little more free to do what we want, maybe we'll try again. Or not."

He smiled. "We're still friends and everything. It's just... easier this way." He was still a little shocked, honestly, but... it wasn't the end of the world, and part of him really did agree with Traci.