Participants:
| Scene Title | Like Watchmen |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes Varlane finds himself face to face with a man who is almost exactly as awkward as how the world views him. It is sobering. |
| Date | April 12, 2010 |
It's not every day someone comes home to find their apartment was broken into. It's even more rare for the home intruder to still be there when the owners return.
"Dude, you totally just missed this chainsaw hackjob I did on this zombie!" It's even more unusual for someone to break into another person's apartment, take off their shoes, kick up their feet and play Left 4 Dead on their X-Box 360 while drinking an orange crush out of a drnted can. But that inexplicable situation is exactly what Magnes Varlane has found himself presented with the moment he opens his apartment door.
The home intruder? None other than investigative journalist Rose Westen of the New Village Voice newspaper. He's better known among terrorist circles as West Rosen, better known by Claire as "that asshole I dated once" and currently known by Magnes as "that guy who's drinking my orange soda and playing with mt 360."
Never let it be said that Magnes Varlane leads an ordinary life.
Having had a bit of a day with a Peter-esque moment of having to let a girl know he's not read for another relationship, because he's still quite hung up on said ex, Magnes is not in the best of moods to suddenly find a guy he doesn't remember seeing at the moment, sitting on his couch.
Even more unfortunately, when your last mentor was Kazimir and you've read a good portion of the Art of War, your solutions to most problems tend to be quite harsh. He's still in a long black wool trenchcoat, blue jeans under it with black snow boots, and his hand extends to the presumably younger of the two once the door slams shut, hand squeezing as if he has an invisible ball. Said invisible ball happens to be a large chunk of gravity starting to close in on the flyer, not enough to cause damage, but definitely enough to say, 'Things might start breaking in a few seconds. "You have five minutes to explain yourself, and something will break on each consecutive minute." He sounds somewhat calm, but very annoyed.
"Woah, woah, woah hey!" West whines as he hunches down, feeling down suddenly being somewhere around the pit of his stomach. "You'll— break your controller." West waggles the wireless 360 controller in one hand, grimacing awkwardly as he notices his can of orange soda crinkle and dent inward a little more. Though as much as that dark-haired lunatic wants to keep trying to play it cool on the couch it's starting to feel a bit like the inside of a squished grape at the moment.
"Rebel sent me, sheesh!" Despite having broken in to Magnes' apartment and made himself at home there's some very obvious sense of wrongful entitlement that West is giving off as he whines about being roughed up for breaking into someone's house. Somehow he imagined it would've gone differently, and somehow it's amazing he hasn't gotten himself killed yet
"Oh, alright then." Magnes sighs and lowers his hand, then proceeds to lock the doors and stand there with his hands in his pockets, staring. Is this what people feel when he enters a room? Surely it's something to think about. "So… what is it? Are there any leads, or are you supposed to be my quirky sidekick?" he asks with the same calm and slightly annoyed demeanor. He did just break in. "And you're lucky Sable isn't here, she'd have broken something and then asked questions."
"You have a roo— oh that explains the Cotex in the bathroom." There's a slanted look from West over towards the bathroom, then back to Magnes. "You're not nearly as weird as I thought then." Brushing off his sweater and checking to make sure his arms still work by flapping them at his side, West's system check seems to come all signals green, and he sets the controler down on the coffee table, glancing up at the paused game on the flat screen and then back over to Magnes.
"Nah, not a sidekick, but I wanted to talk to you about something." Vaulting over the back of the couch, West's sneakers clunk down ont he hardwood floor and he starts walking towards the coat rack by the door where an unfamiliar jacket — likely his — is hung up. "So you're doing this whole thing for Claire, and that's cool. Better people have done worst things for different ladies," there's a dig in there somewhere, and West is fishing around in his jacket pocket.
"So, I wanted to bring you this." When West's hand comes out of his jacket, it's with a long and freyed length of bright red cloth, looking to have been cut from a much larger bolt. It matches a scarf of the same fabric hung over the rack with West's coat. "You know how like, the X-Men all have those little black and red X's on their belt?" West offers out the red scarf, dark brows raised slowly.
"This is sort've like that, for our organization. All our members wear these red scarves somewhere on them. One scarf for each member, all cut from the same cloth, kind've like how all us Evolved are one people, and we're different but— you know, cut from the same cloth." There's a crack of a smile.
"There's a lot I'll do to make sure Claire's safe, and to support her." And with every word, Magnes is convincing himself even more that he needs to keep Sparrow at arm's length on the whole dating thing. He's performing espionage, for his ex, certainly a sign of having not quite moved on.
He takes the red cloth, nodding as he looks over to one of his closed doors. "I'm sure I can work it into my new jacket, it'd be a good color. So…" Crossing his arms, still holding the cloth in his hand, he's seemingly sizing West up. "What exactly do you do in whatever this organization is called? I'm still a bit hazy on the overall motives, right now I'm just focused on Liette, I'm not completely committed until I'm sure you're not trying to assassinate the President or something, though I'd hope Micah wouldn't go to that extreme."
"Who the heck's Liette?" West asks with a quirk of one brow, head canted to the side. "Well, if you got handed orders I didn't hear about it, which— isn't entirely surprising. That's pretty much what I came here to tell you about, man. I'm here to tell you what Messiah's all about, and make sure that this is something you wanna' do, because it might sound crazy on the outside but… well, the big boss man said I was probably the most likely to explain things to you in a way you can get without really needing to have a sociology degree!"
There's another flash of a smile from West as he heads back to the couch, picks up the dented can of orange soda and chugs it down before settling onto the arm of the sofa, grinning toothily. "You're a comics man," West places a hand at his chest, "like myself. So you've obviously read the Watchmen, right? Alan Moore?" Folding ihs hands in his lap, West's head tilts to the side to consider Magnes' response.
"More or less." Magnes lifts his legs, crossing them in the air so he floats there with his coat hanging down. He's still not entirely trusting to go and sit right next to West, but he's not rude enough to tell him to get up either. "Messiah's what you call it, huh? Presumably a referential name that brands the group itself as a savior. Also Liette's apparently need to know, so we'll pretend I didn't say that and you'll keep that to yourself." He nods politely, sounding less annoyed, but still not in the best of moods. "Continue."
"Alright so you know how like, Ozymandias had this huge plan to basically rebuild the world by causing some gigantic catastrophe and reuniting humanity against it right?" West lifts one finger into the air, tilting his head to the side. "Ozymandias is sort've Daniel Linderman and Nathan Petrelli all rolled up into one, right? They orchestrated this whole bomb thing to try and unify the world against people like us, because otherwise it was going to tear itself apart or some bullshit like that." West's brows furrow together and hands come to fold in his lap. "Basically we're like the Watchmen, we fucked up and let the bad guy get away with his plot. The giant space squid got out, brain-zapped a city and now everyone's afraid of aliens. Or— you know, Evolved."
Shifting awkwardly in his seat on the arm of the sofa, West crosses his ankles together and looks down at his lap. "Like I said, we're like the Watchmen. The government doesn't want us, and we know who the villain really is. Like, you know that part where Night Owl and Silk Specter go to break Rorshach out of prison? They kill a bunch of dudes doing that, but they're doing it to save a friend who was wrongfully imprisoned, right? Most people wouldn't look at what Silk Specter and Night Owl did as heroics, but to you— the reader— you're in the know, you know they're only doing what they have to do."
West breathes in slowly, then exhales a sigh. "We do things that people don't think is good, won't ever probably agree with, because there isn't anybody else who'll do it, and if we don't then the Ozymandias' of our world are going to keep squeezing their evil fingers around our throats."
"So, as I thought, you're basically terrorists." Magnes doesn't budge from his spot in the air, but he sounds dead serious when he says that, and continues to explain. "Every terrorist organization thinks it's doing what's good for the world, every terrorist organization justifies deaths and collateral damage. There's a very thin line between well-meaning vigilante and terrorist, Mister… I didn't get your name. I don't know what kind of crap you guys have stuffed into Claire's head, but the second you cross the line between vigilante and terrorist, I am going to do something about it."
He places both feet on the floor again, and slides his hands back into his coat pocket. "That said, I fully intend to continue helping, since as far as I know, I haven't seen anything that's crossed the line."
"Magnes you're a terrorist, you just had government backing." West tosses both of his hands into the air, "You blew up how much of Tokyo fighting that guy on the news? You destroyed an entire Antarctic research facility and I'm pretty sure you probably had something to do with those crushed transport trucks on the Queensboro bridge back before the storm hit. Everyone who's actions cause fear is a terrorist, heck the American military is, have you seen some of the things still going on in Iraq? A Reuters reporter got gunned down by an American helicopter in 2008 and the government's still denying that. The difference between terrorists and armies is," West lifts his index finger, "politics," and then another, "and money."
Slouching down in his seat, West's hands slap on his lap and he shakes his head. "So you've got a moral line, that's cool. Everyone should have stuff they're not willing to do, I sure do. But don't go throwing around labels like that. We're freedom fighters, no different than any other guerilla organization fighting against a despotic government."
Realizing he's breaking out of comic-book boundaries West grimace and lifts up both of his hands. "Alright, well— you didn't throw me out a window for the opening spiel, so I'll just say keep it as it is right now. You've got the scarf and you heard me out, that means you're one've us. Name's West by the way," he slides off of the arm of the sofa, offering out a hand towards Magnes, "West Rosen. I hear we have a blonde, regenerating ex in common."
"As long as we're all aware that I have a moral line, and that I'm fully prepared to put a bullet through anyone's head if I hear Claire is being used or mistreated, we should be fine." Magnes takes West's hand, but when he mentions having an ex in common, he'll suddenly find the grip around his palm very tight. "Ignoring the fact that Claire's taste in boyfriends apparently says a lot about me, for the sake of your health and my window, we better be talking distant ex."
Laughing awkwardly, West grimaces and looks down at the hand and cracks a nervous smile. "Man Claire and I haven't been an item since before anybody knew what the Vanguard even was. We split up when PARIAH and Phoenix did, and we haven't even said so much as a word to each other since. In fact, I pretty much make it a point not to see her unless absolutely necessary, and that's only been once." Sweeping his free hand through his hair, West glances back at the window and then back to Magnes. "But hey, maybe doing some work here with her might get you two closer together? I dunno, but it sound slike you've got a good thing going on here so— why ruin that you know?"
Slanting a look at Magnes, West glances down at his hand, then back up to the gravitokinetic again. "Can I have my hand back now? I use that one for personal things."
"I haven't had a girlfriend since Claire, me and my roommate aren't like that." Magnes quickly releases West's hand, sticking his tongue out in disgust and waving it around. "Gross, so gross. Are you sure Claire dated you?" He just can't believe it, and opens the window to step into it. "I'm gonna go fly, and wash my hand in half-frozen water, then maybe get something to eat. You take the elevator and don't steal anything, and don't go near my fridge again." He doesn't sound quite as annoyed as earlier, he's in fact a bit more relaxed, but damned if he's not gonna have a little facade of apprehension for Claire's other ex.
Grimacing, West raises his brows and cracks a smile. "Hey man, everybody does it and now that I told you that you won't ever shake hands with another dude without wearing gloves ever again!" Laughing amusedly, West takes a few steps backwards towards the coat rack, grabbing his scarf and winding is around his throat and then grabs his winter coat and throws it on over his shoulders. "Oh and hey— after this bad weather clears up?" West raises both of his brows, shifting weight from one foot to the other as he zips up his jacket and backpedals to the front door. "The big boss-man wants to meet you, he's really laid back, I think you'll like him."
Turning the doorknob, West leans to the side, eyeing Magnes thoughtfully. "You sure there wasn't anything else you needed before I take off?" He asks with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder to the hallway.
"There's just no way. Christ, no wonder you two never went all the way. And by the way, correcting me even in a joking manner will result in a completely shattered nose." Magnes jumps out of the window, grabbing the edges as he gets ready to close it. "Yes. Never enter my apartment without calling ever again, and learn to play the drums and I might actually like you a little." Then, the window's slammed shut, and he swooshes into the air.
Cracking a smile, West slants a look over to the window Magnes takes flight out of and nods his head once as he brings the door to the apartment shut while stepping out into the hall, idly commenting to himself, "You know West, you're a smooth son of a gun," before closing the door all the way.