Participants:
| Scene Title | The Meaning of Life |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes's life is his work and his work is his life. Meanwhile Deckard is running late and has no idea that Felix is pooping in his sandbox. TIME MARCHES OOONNNN. |
| Date | April 3, 2019 |
Late at night, in the very dark not-so-bright future, Magnes is walking down a quiet warehouse street, carrying a small plastic bag with a bottle of alcohol and a late-night sub. He appears rather haggard at the moment, allowing his cigarette to just lay there, something from his rather recent smoking habit. He is not in a very good mood, but then, when is he?
Deckard is also walking and also carrying a plastic grocery bag, though its contents are somewhat more inane. A loaf of bread, a bag of chips. Five o'clock shadowed, grey-haired, and decently dressed in an ashy suit and blue shirt, he's in the process of eating the candy bar he bought at whatever 7-11 just turned him lose. Far from ignorant of the fact that he's not the only one walking home in the dark tonight, he slows his pace when he starts to get just a little too close up on Magnes's heels, brow level and eyes aglow. He knows those bones.
Magnes has know idea who's behind him, all he knows is that someone is there, and he's on a dark street. Too many enemies to simply brush it off, he suddenly wooshes into the air, then lands about five feet behind Deckard. "Isn't it a little late for old men to be walking the streets?" he asks in his raspy tone, cigarette still in his mouth. He doesn't have the luxury of x-ray vision, all he sees is grey hair.
"…" says Deckard, whose hanging back conspicuously has failed him yet again as an evasive maneuver. Magnes is very suddenly right there, and Milky Way in one hand, grocery bag in the other, he's left to narrow his eyes a little skeptically at his assailant. Verbal assailant, anyway.
"I'm fifty-two." The rough of his voice is familiar if the chilly blue glow of his eyes isn't, sooty hair disordered still further by the wind while he takes another slow bite of his candy bar. "Shouldn't someone be looking after you?"
"Shouldn't someone be changing your diaper?" Magnes shoots back, because Deckard is old. He keeps a very straight face, smoke idly trailing up from his cigarette as he looks the man over. "I'm about to eat dinner, then I have a suspect to look into. You break the law lately?"
Unruffled save by the breeze, Deckard grinds away at caramel and chocolate, chewing slowed by the curiosity that is Magnes's progression through the years. So far as he can tell, said progress mostly seems to involve a smoking habit and an aversion to shaving. He swallows and there's a muffled crinkle when his bag-wielding hand lifts to peel the candy wrapping back another inch or so. "No."
Magnes just stares for a while, allowing an awkward silence to set in as he tries to look for any signs of a concealed weapon. "You know, it'd be pretty funny if you didn't have a gun, since I have two." he casually throws out there, inhaling and allowing the smoke free from his nostrils. "Lucky for you, I'm not a dirty cop, but if I see you so much as near another criminal, I'm gonna shoot you in the ass. We clear?"
"Oh yeah?" Annoyingly, Deckard remains blandly unconcerned. The unholy light in his eyes goes dark, brilliant bioluminecense shuttering back into an altogether more human shade of blue so that he can look Magnes's face over in more personal detail while he chews. "You don't look so good. A little rough around the edges. A little down. Life as a superhero not going exactly like you'd hoped?" He's still chewing when he falls quiet again, knotted muscle working stark behind the narrow angle of his jaw.
"I'm not a superhero, I've gone to places that even Batman's ethics wouldn't allow." Magnes does seem rather haggard at the moment, removing his cigarette to flick it into the air. He releases his bag, which just sort of floats there, then reaches into his coat pocket to grab another cigarette, and the other pocket for a light. "Life isn't about what we want, it's not about what makes us happy, it's about justice and duty. If I die in the next ten years, then I just call that doing a good job." he explains as he lights his new cigarette, then puts the lighter away.
"Even Batman?" Wow. Deckard sounds impressed, in that cynical, assholish, entirely unimpressed kind of way. His brows reassume their previous hood, not quite contemptuous, but probably close enough to grate. A bob of his adam's apple later, another piece of candy bar has met its end. Rather than take another bite just yet, he watches Magnes set to lighting up another smoke and sinks more of his weight back on his heels. "People are better at their jobs when they're happy. They're more productive. More focused."
"Don't be an ass, forensics still can't do a thing with bodies that fall off the planet." Magnes warns, at Deckard's tone. He does not sound happy, or angry really, he just sounds rather anxious, for whatever reason. Fallen hat grudge? "I'm dedicated. I gave up my life a long time ago, the most I can hope for is to be satisfied when I finally clean up the world. If it weren't for Gabriel's ethical standards, I'd have probably cleaned the entire city by now. But I guess that's what happens when your partner is the one person who can stop you." Ego, much?
Deckard's eyes lift to the night sky, faded blue touched with clouds stained purple and brown by local light pollution. So do his brows. Falling off the planet really doesn't have a place in his schedule tonight. He's running late enough as things are.
"If it weren't for Gabriel's ethical standards," seems to be worth repeating for some reason, as…Deckard repeats it. He's careful to do so tonelessly enough that no mocking is directly evident, and his expression is kept cautiously neutral in time for his eyes to flick back down onto Varlane. "If you're looking to clean up the entire world, I wouldn't want to hold you up any more than I already have."
"Good, you're already a step closer to making me wanna shoot you slightly less than I did before." Magnes says without a real change in expression or tone, then reaches for his floating bag. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an entire bottle of alcohol to drink before Gabriel comes and heals my liver; he can be an ass sometimes."
A deep breath drawn in slow beneath the lift of his chest, Deckard hazards a wary, "…Great," to the news that he's been moved down a notch or two on Magnes's TO KILL list. He seems to have forgotten that he's holding a Milky Way bar. At least, he isn't eating it anymore. He isn't blinking very often either. Mostly he's just staring a little sideways at Magnes, brows knit as if he's wondering about something. Something he wisely opts not to dictate! "Sure. Go, drink. I'd say, 'be merry,' but," he gestures vaguely with his chocolate bar. Seems a little pointless. "Tell Gabe I said, 'Hey.'"
"Don't get hit by a bus or something." Magnes offers as his casual parting words, then suddenly wooshes into the air, cigarette and all. Screw this walking BS, Badass Future Magnes can fly.
"Sure. I'll remember to look both ways, officer." There's that tone again. He can't help it. But the guy is flying off anyhow, leaving Deckard to his candy and his groceries and his watch, which says he really needs to hurry the fuck up before the next police officers that approach him are the ones that Abigail called to look for his dead body. Ffffff.
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