weldedtomyspine | Entries tagged with el paso

Jaime had finished packing the U-haul in the afternoon, ahead of schedule, even. And he and Momoko had their last date in town before he moved to San Antonio. Which was why he was glad his mom was willing to hang out with Kuriko, and keep her entertained, while they were out. He felt kind of bad stealing Momoko from her sister, but not that bad.

"Thanks for this, mom," he said, sipping lemonade at the kitchen table. "Just remember, please, please, please don't let her spend any time with Milagro. I'm sure it'd be a disaster."

"Actually, honey," Bianca said with a shrug. "I just got paged. I'm going to have to go into work, and your father isn't home yet, so I'm afraid that Milagro's going to make sure that Kuriko stays entertained."

Jaime stared at his mother because he had to have misheard that. Right?

But she was grabbing her bag and heading toward the door...

Oh, crap. Maybe it wasn't too late to cancel his date? His last date in town with Momoko? At their favorite place?

Well... maybe it wouldn't end in disaster? Weirder things had happened, after all. Admittedly not much weirder, but it had happened!

And then Milagro bounced into the room smirking. "If you don't hurry up and get ready you're going to keep Momoko waiting when she gets here."

Definitely a disaster.

The Day of the Dead. Every year found Jaime ending his rounds in the same cemetery, at the same grave.

Nadia.

Just like every year, the first thing he did was look to see if anyone else had been by before to leave anything for her. And just like every year, there was nothing. So he knelt in front of the grave marker and lay the small bouquet of cempasúchitl against the granite.

He didn't say anything. Even years later he wasn't sure what to say. He just knelt in silence for a bit, remembering.

Momoko was due back sometime on Monday, but her lease was up today. Fortunately, Jaime had keys to her old place, and Mrs Wilson knew him at her new place, and Paco had let him borrow his pickup truck. Which, to be perfectly honest, was overkill considering how little stuff Momoko owned.

Jaime hadn't ever really thought about it before, until he'd started going through her apartment, but Momoko didn't really have that much stuff. A small table with a few chairs that sort of stood in for a real dining room table, her futon, a small bookshelf mostly taken up with her DVDs, the various posters hung on her walls, and some kitchen appliances... All of that had been easy to move. Even by himself, it had been pretty straightforward. The only awkward bits, in fact, had been the aquarium, with its crabs (at least it wasn't filled with fish and water), and Momoko's batsudan. Jaime almost hadn't moved that, not wanting to mess anything up, but thinking back over how Momoko had explained things to him, he'd figured it all out.

Somehow it felt... strange. Knowing that this was everything Momoko owned in this world. It had taken him barely an hour to get it all into the back of the truck. Her heart had always struck him as so big, her personality so rich, that it was strange to remember that she owned so little. His eyes swept across the room again, confirming that he hadn't left anything, and then he took a deep breath and prepared to do the hardest part.

He set the cat carrier on the floor and opened the door. "Come on, Moshi," he called, trying to sound calm and reasonable. "It's just a short ride. It's no big deal..."

Somehow he was sure that this was going to end up with him bleeding all over Momoko's apartment. And having to clean up again.

Jaime didn't go to Momoko's apartment to watch anything big, like World Cup games. Not because he didn't like Momoko's place, as tiny as it was, but because she didn't have a proper TV. Just a laptop. But for some things, the laptop was pretty much perfect. Like when Momoko had an Introduction to Film homework assignment to watch some movie from 1940, and he had a rare afternoon free... Well, they had to sit awfully close together, Momoko practically in his lap, to both see the little screen properly. Not something Jaime was going to complain about at all.

As the final scene faded out, Jaime glanced over at Momoko. Her attention was on the screen, and she had a relaxed smile on her face as she shifted slightly, snuggling closer against him. She looked content. And beautiful.

He leaned his head against hers, and murmured the cheesy line from the film. "Even ten minutes is a long time to be away from you."

Saturday morning cartoons started way too early. Milagro "wasn't into that kiddy stuff", but she was still up early enough to watch some shows from that time block. Which meant she was up before Jaime. Which meant that there was no way he could sneak out of the house without her noticing that something really weird had happened over night.

He knew because he'd tried.

Unfortunately, girl!him was shorter than boy!him. And had a different center of gravity. And that had been enough to cause him (her?) to misjudge how easy it would be to step over the pile Milagro's stuff had made on the floor when she tossed it there after school on Friday, and falling down was loud enough to hear even over the corny-joke-and-laughter that signaled the end of whatever episode Milagro was watching.

Once she'd finally stopped laughing, Jaime had managed to swear her to secrecy, but she'd managed to extract some pretty extravagant promises for it. It would be worth the price if she didn't mention this whole episode to anyone, though.

With Milagro's silence purchased, all that was left to do was to dash off a quick note to his (her?) mother that he (she?, ugh, this was confusing) was heading over to Momoko's for the weekend to deal with some weirdness that had arisen, possibly connected to Fandom.

Not too much later there was a knock on the door of Momoko's apartment, and the person doing the knocking wore baggy pants, a shirt that was clearly too large (neither of which managed to conceal that said person was female), and an expression that practically dared anyone to laugh. Or even smile in amusement.

[Available for calls or texts or whatever, if people like.]

Jaime finished the last bite of fish and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. "That was pretty good," he told his dinner companion with a smile. "I didn't know you could fry fish so well." Not to mention the salad. Which hadn't been anything special, but had been very nice.

He took a moment to just appreciate it, then looked across the table. "So... you want dessert now, or do you need to digest first?" He'd brought a cake. Too big for two people, honestly, but he rather suspected that, given Momoko, that wouldn't really be a problem. Either they'd eat it all tonight, or she'd have some for later.

"Fair warning," Jaime said, glancing over at Momoko, and grinning in spite of himself. "I haven't been to one of these before, so if it's totally lame, you can't blame me." He wasn't entirely sure what had possessed him to invite Momoko to come to the shindig that the Student Association had put together. He wasn't even entirely sure how he'd noticed it was coming up, considering how often the Student Association put together shindigs which he totally missed. But whatever the reason, he'd found out about it, and he'd suggested that Momoko and he could go out and try to have fun away from their usual haunts. A change of pace or something.

Of course, he hadn't been sure what one wore to a school-approved student party, so he'd gone with sort of dressy casual, giving up his jeans for a pair of khakis, and going with a button-down shirt. Looking around at the other students he saw, his shoulders relaxed a bit. It seemed like he hadn't guessed too wrong, after all.

So. Date night. Jaime took a deep breath, then reached out and knocked lightly on Momoko's door.

He wasn't dressed up, precisely. He was wearing khakis instead of jeans, but he did that sometimes, so it wasn't anything special. And, sure, he'd combed his hair on the way over, but... that wasn't a big deal. Sometimes he did that. And he wasn't nervous. After all, he and Momoko had hung out numerous times since she'd moved to El Paso. And even since they'd had their little talk... So, yeah, no reason to be nervous.

It suddenly occurred to Jaime that he'd been standing at Momoko's door for a while. And her place wasn't that big, so it's not like she had to walk far to let him in. Maybe she hadn't heard him?

He knocked louder, but there still wasn't any response.

Jaime definitely wasn't nervous now. No. He was worried.

He ordered Khaji'Da to do a full-spectrum sweep of the premises, just to see if she was somewhere nearby injured, and the result was... that she was in her apartment? No major new injuries? Sleeping?

On date night?

Given her enthusiasm when they'd planned this all out, that seemed odd. Jaime frowned, then decided to try one more time, knocking especially loud this time.

If she didn't wake up from that, he'd just... write the night off. She probably needed the sleep, after all.

Jaime hadn't taken Momoko to a regular hospital. He'd called his mother and told her that he was going to the small STAR Labs facility just outside of town. They'd be better equipped to deal with injuries to someone with Blossom's abilities.

He couldn't think of anything he'd done recently that was harder than relinquishing that broken, bleeding body into the hands of strangers, but they'd eventually managed to convince him to do so. After which he'd paced for hours, and sat in the waiting room for more hours, and eventually fallen into a fitful doze waiting for news. Any news.

When a doctor had eventually woken him up to tell him that Blossom was out of immediate danger, Khaji Da informed him that it had been over eight hours.

Jaime had thanked the doctor and immediately headed to Momoko's room. He'd pulled a chair over to be right next to her bed, and sat down. He couldn't keep himself from reaching up and brushing back her hair, not sure what he was supposed to do about the fitful murmurs and slight sounds of pain she made as she shifted in her sleep. He wanted to make them go away somehow, but... that was beyond him.

So he just sat there, hand lightly stroking her forehead, trying to make her better by sheer force of will.

The doorbell rang for the second time, and Jaime looked up from his desk with a scowl. "Milagro!" he yelled, knowing his voice would carry down the hallway, "get the door!"

"Get it yourself!" she yelled back.

"I'm busy!"

"So am I!"

"Don't be a brat!"

"You're the brat!"

( Ugh. Sisters... )

[Open for calls if anyone's interested, though I'll be out for a good chunk of the afternoon/evening, so expect SP.]

Jaime yawned and sat back at his desk, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

He didn't actually have any homework for tomorrow. It turned out that Dr. Townsend was quite a generous professor. Not something you tended to expect when signing up for Molecular Biology. But she had said that, given the romantic occasion, and it's extra importance for hormone-ruled college students, she wasn't going to bother assigning reading or a lab.

Still... you could never spend too much studying, right? That was totally why Jaime was in his room, a half-eaten sandwich he'd thrown together for dinner sat forgotten on the corner of his desk. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Amanda was working (Valentine's was a big day for celebrity-look-alike telegrams), or that Paco and Brenda weren't interested in a third wheel even if they would have let him tag along. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that the holiday held so many memories, many of them bright and beautiful made bittersweet. And it certainly didn't have anything to do with the way that he'd spent most of the day dwelling on those memories and needed a break from them.

Nope.

He just needed to study.

Jaime had eaten, stumbled upstairs, and fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Not from physical exhaustion so much as being completely emotionally wrung out.

He woke up slowly, his mind drifting back to a morning that wasn't so long ago for him. He frowned sleepily until he realized why... His pillow smelled like Momoko's shampoo. He shifted slightly, snuggling against it, telling himself that it was just that he was tired. Best not to think too much on how unlikely that sounded, even in his own head.

When he finally did get up, he actually felt... rested. Not relaxed. Not recovered. But rested. Which would do for the moment. He got dressed and walked slowly to the kitchen, letting out a little sigh of relief that it was unoccupied. Jaime was sure his parents had insisted that everyone stay the night, but he'd apparently missed breakfast. So... no crush of people today. At least not yet.

He put some bread in the toaster and poured himself a glass of milk.

People would notice he was up sooner or later, and he could hear voices coming from the back yard, so he knew he'd have to start talking sooner rather than later, but for a minute or two he was just going to enjoy the silence. And being home.

"Just a quick check and we're off to the beach, right?"

Right.

Blue Beetle hovered at a particular point in space, over nothing much to see.

"Just a quick dip into the bleed, and then we're done."

He blurred, and shimmered, and then disappeared.

And didn't reappear.

"Man, that was awesome, Mrs. Reyes," Paco said, pushing back slightly from the table and letting out a pleased sigh. "I totally want to make fun of Jaime for living with his parents, but then I get invited over for dinner and..." He shook his head. He'd live at home, too!

"It's okay," Milagro piped up. "You can totally make fun of him."

"Brat," Jaime accused, then winced when her toe connected with his shin under the table.

Bianca Reyes shot her daughter a hard look before turning a smile on Paco. "You know you're always welcome, Paco. We don't see enough of you these days." She shot her son an amused look, "And don't you think that I'll accept 'Jaime doesn't invite me enough' as an acceptable excuse."

"I didn't invite him this time!" Jaime objected, to which Paco just smirked.

Paco chuckled, ignoring Jaime's objection. "Yes, ma'am. I'll remember that." He looked around. "And now I think I can kidnap your son without being rude?" Bianca waved for him to go ahead, so Paco grabbed Jaime by the shoulder and dragged him toward the back yard.

"Aaaaah," Paco declared once the door closed behind them. "Smell that spring air. Man it's a beautiful day."

Jaime rolled his eyes. "Since when do you even pay attention to that kind of thing?"

"Since always!" Jaime didn't look convinced, but Paco didn't look like he cared.

"So why did you invite yourself over, anyway?" Jaime asked, sighing and giving up on getting Paco to make any sense on the subject.

"What? I can't just hang out with my best bud, and mooch of his mom's delicious empanadas?"

This time when Jaime leveled a look at Paco, the bigger guy grinned and shrugged. Then his expression sobered. "You've been avoiding me," he accused. "Since you got back."

"No I haven't!" Jaime's eyes darted to the side. "I've just been... busy."

Paco sighed. "Come on, man. I've known you way too long to fall for that. What's up? You went on vacation for a weekend and came back, like, a hundred times more stressed than when you left."

"I don't know what you're--" Jaime cut off with a wince when Paco punched him in the shoulder. "Momoko was there," he answered after a sort of awkward silence.

"I thought you liked her," Paco pointed out with a frown.

"Yeah," Jaime agreed.

Paco's eyes narrowed suddenly. "Wait a minute." He shot Jaime a glare. "Dang it, man! You're still in love with her, aren't you?"

The silence stretched out again before Jaime repeated himself, more softly. "Yeah."

More silence as Paco waited for Jaime to add something. But he didn't. "And?"

"And... what?" Jaime sighed, shaking his head.

"And what?" Paco repeated incredulously. "What kind of response is that?"

Jaime shrugged again. "The only one possible? I mean, I broke up with her for a reason, and the reason hasn't changed." Paco just stared at him for a bit. Long enough for Jaime to just stare vaguely out at the horizon and speak again. "Besides. I broke up with her. Kind of means I've given up any chance to change my mind."

More staring. Then Paco shook his head. "Dude. You know I love you, man. But sometimes? You're an idiot."

[Open for phone calls or whatever else people want to through Jaime's way.]

Jaime was really glad that Valentines was pretty much over. Not because he was alone this year, though the fact that the past two years he'd just been in the early stages of a relationship.

No, it was the pink. The unrelenting pink everywhere. That, more than the day, and what it represented, had served to really get him down. It had come as a sort of surprise, that he'd get so down over something so trivial, but...

He tried to bury himself in schoolwork, but Valentines was ubiquitous.

Everywhere he looked there was pink.

Everywhere he looked seemed to remind him of Momoko.

[Open for calls, texts, etc.]

The mission had been a success. It had been long, and busy, and incredibly demanding. He'd barely had time to sleep, worked himself into exhaustion every day, and managed not to think about anything but fighting alien invaders for a whole week.

Oh, and they'd actually beat off said alien invaders. That had been good too.

But mostly the distraction had been what Jaime had been going for. And while he felt a little bit guilty for his priorities, he was still grateful. And as his feet touched the ground in his back yard, he knew that tomorrow that distraction was gone, but that all that exhaustion from fighting would thankfully keep that from happening for at least another night.

And he'd be glad to see his family again.

Even Milagro.

So Jaime de-armored, sighed in relief at the breeze blowing across his skin, and headed for the back door.

After his mom had walked in on him crying last week, the cat had kind of gotten out of the bag. He'd told her everything he knew about what was going on. And then gotten Brenda, Paco, and his dad together so he only had to tell the story once more.

He'd thought about trying to keep it under wraps, but not for long. After all, he'd learned early on that they gave good advice, and just having someone to talk to could help a lot. So keeping secrets tended to be a bad idea. And, once again, it turned out to have been a good lesson to have learned.

Paco had taken him out to do some "manly things". Which had been pretty ridiculous, but had somehow been fun anyway. And Brenda had taken time to talk his ear off about classes and school and other distracting things. His mom had held him the first few nights while he cried himself to sleep, just being there, reminding him that he wasn't alone.

And his dad had sat him down for a long discussion of survivor's guilt. Which, really, Jaime had half-expected to be trite and formulaic. Except that dad had been in the war, and really, Alberto Reyes didn't really do trite or formulaic. And while, after a couple of hours of quiet back and forth, Jaime didn't exactly feel any better, he could kind of see how one day he might. Given time.

But a little over a week later wasn't really 'time'. Not enough, anyway. And he could feel himself getting sucked into memories as the holidays approached. Which, while his mom insisted was perfectly natural, made him feel awful. So... a distraction was needed. And not just one of Paco's "manly things" excursions. Something... bigger.

( So this morning he had brought it up over breakfast... )

And with that, he armored up and blasted off.

Jaime was bent over his desk putting the last screw back into his phone. He'd managed to repair it. What normally would be a really interesting exercise was just a chore that Jaime felt he had to do. Because he needed his phone. There were people to call.

He hadn't even gotten started until an hour before, either.

Lying to his mother, even something as small as telling her that he'd eaten already so that he could go hide in his room, had been hard, but he'd done it anyway. And been locked in since.

He hadn't really done a lot of thinking since last night. Hadn't been able to.

But now his phone was fixed. And that meant he didn't have any more excuses not to... do something. Which meant figuring out where to start.

That part, at least, was easy. Momoko was gone. He needed to call Dinah. But what would he tell her?

So... voicemail first. But there weren't any. So, no more putting it off. Dinah.

That familiar neutral voice explaining the number he'd dialed did not exist sent his newly-repaired phone flying across the room again. Fortunately (he supposed) it didn't break this time. There wasn't any energy in the throw.

It was going to be a lot harder to lie to his mom when she stuck her head in to check on him in an hour or so and found him crying silently at his desk.

[Open for calls, etc. if anyone's around to make them.]

Jaime finished his shake with a slurp and flopped back in the booth. Paco was eying him with a look he totally recognized.

"What?" he asked with a frown.

Paco eyed him for another minute, then sighed. "Then don't go."

Jaime blinked. "What? Don't go?"

"Well, the way you talk, it's going to just bring up regrets."

There was something in Paco's tone that drew a slight frown from Jaime. "You don't sound appropriately best-friend-sympathetic..."

"I don't? Huh. Maybe that's because even as much as I like you, it's hard even for me to sit here and listen to you lament how hard it'll be to see old friends, and girlfriends, when you broke up with a super hot, super nice, super funny girl."

Jaime was about to object when Paco cut in again. "Twice!"

Which, well, was true, so Jaime just shut his mouth. Which drew a knowing look from Pao, and then a sigh.

"Look, I know you had your reasons, and I'll be the first to admit that you're smarter than me, so maybe they were even good ones. But if that's the case, you can't keep moping about it. You don't get to just break up with people and then sigh over them all the time."

"I know, I know," Jaime sighed leaning down to bump his head against the table. "But it's just..."

"Yeah, yeah," Paco said. "I'm not totally without sympathy, but, dude, you made the call, so you don't get to be all pine-y."

Jaime's head came up. "First of all, I'm not all 'pine-y'. I'm just... thoughtful." Yeah! That was the ticket. "And, second, 'pine-y' isn't even a word!"

"You knew what I meant, so it's totally a word!"

"That's not how it works."

"Uh huh," Paco smirked, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. "You keep telling yourself that, smart guy."

[Open for calls, texts, etc.]

The Fourth of July wasn't an especially big holiday for the Reyes family, but it was a holiday, and holidays were about family and friends. The sun was shining, the grill was lit, and there was way too much food. Jaime was out back with his dad 'learning how to run a proper grill'. Which mostly meant wearing a bemused expression as his dad expounded upon marination and proper cooking temperatures and turning techniques and times.

Bianca Reyes stuck her head out the sliding glass door to call. "Jaime, Brenda and Paco are here. They're on their way back. And what time did you say Momoko was going to get here?"

"I don't know," Jaime called back. "She had something to take care of, but she said she'd head over right after."