Jeff "Joker" Moreau (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pluggedintheoverlord) wrote1990-01-21 04:03 pm
pluggedintheoverlord) wrote1990-01-21 04:03 pm
Entry tags:
IC Contact
"Hey, this is Joker. Leave a message and I might get back to you. Unless you're trying to sell me something or I really just don't feel like talking to you-- in that case, take a hint and quit calling me."
[ACTION]
And Dad would totally come back and kick your ass for saying I shouldn't keep one on you, too.
[She sucks in another shaky breath, finally mustering up enough courage to... stare at her brother's new, still growing beard. Okay. Well. Baby steps.]
We're a family, Jeff. [All that's left of it] That means we take care of each other. Kind of like being a pain in the ass team.
[ACTION]
[One of them was going to have to man up and look at the other, and it looked like that was going to be him. Any second now. Aaaaany second now.]
[Okay, there. See? Eye contact.]
I know we are, Gunny. Thing is, though, you're still a kid. And I'm glad you've got my back, but the division of responsibility here isn't equal. It's like, seventy-thirty. Maybe sixty-forty. Just want to make that clear.
[ACTION]
[But she's managing it! Just barely, but it's better than before]
...Make it sixty-forty and you've got yourself a deal.
[She knows Joker well enough that leaving him up to managing his illness doesn't bother her. It never did. After all, nobody knew his own body better than he did, and outside of an emergency, she'd just be an unnecessary nanny. Her brother's kind of like a cactus-- prickly (well, to anyone he wasn't really close with), and he only needed to go out into the sun once or twice a week. As long as that was taken care of, along with eating every once in a while (which she didn't mind prompting him to do) he was good to go.]
[She's also fine with the idea of him taking up a good chunk of the slack when it came to the division of guardianship between the two. As independent as she'd like to think she is, Gunny knows better than to think she could get by on her own. The Loki taught her otherwise. Besides, if nothing else, taking care of her provided a decent distraction from everything else going to shit]
[Which led to the root of the problem: their shared, excellent, personal traumas. Even before the Purists did... whatever they did to him (she didn't want to think about it), he just seemed haunted by something. At the very least, he definitely wasn't the same big brother she'd last seen a couple of years ago, although she didn't pry. All she could do was be there whenever he needed it. That was her forty. And it sucked that it couldn't be made up of more, especially since she'd pretty much agreed on the split (even if he hadn't yet).]
[ACTION]
[The last time Joker had seen his sister before their reunion on the Thor had been before he'd gone to war-- and not just any war, but a galaxy-wide struggle between every organic race and an incomprehensible threat. Second-hand, he'd seen things that would have given anyone nightmares; husks, colonists being melted into genetic slurry, the fall of Thessia. People died, sometimes right in front of him. Sometimes because of him.]
[The Purists hadn't had to do anything. The Reapers had already done more than enough.]
[He never let on that anything was wrong, though; he was the pilot. They needed him to be in top form at all times, no matter what, and he didn't disappoint. And if it meant having to bottle up his trauma until it was contents under high pressure, then that's what he would do.]
[ACTION]
[And Gunny reached between the chairs, leaning precariously over the edge of her own, for a good, old fashioned handshake]
[ACTION]
[He leaned over and took her hand in his, giving it a business-like shake.]
[ACTION]
Thanks, Jeff.