paleontaxi

[paleontaxi]

“Maybe we can bond over that or something,” Jarod says, smiling a little.  He knows that the likelihood of running into Odin again is very slim, and even if he does, they are still unlikely to get along, unless some significant overnight change happens to both of their personalities.  Unless something drastic has happened to Odin, based on their few short prior interactions, Jarod can’t see himself getting along with the guy ever.  But he would at least act civil for Ava’s sake.

When she summons a dragonfly, he raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.  “No, no, I couldn’t take one of them from you.  They’re yours.”  He knows how precious the dragonflies are to Ava, a mixture of treasured pets and a piece of her real soul.  If anyone still doubts whether the soul exists, they should just talk to Ava.  She could show them easily.

“I appreciate the thought, and I’m sure it would feel like having you around again.”  It is easy to tell where the dragonflies come from, especially when they get excited and feisty.  “But I’m sure they would miss you, too, so there’s that.”

That means he has resolved to be on his own, and to his surprise, it doesn’t feel like a monumental task at all.  For the first time in a long time, he feels like he can carry on with his own two legs, one step at a time, without falling back on darker impulses.  His eyes mist up a bit, turning red, and he blinks rapidly to pretend that he just got something in them.

“Thank you, Ava,” he says quietly to keep his voice from breaking.  “I mean, for everything so far.”

"Odin says 'm pretty good at giving people disappointed looks," Ava looks extremely proud of herself, almost puffing her chest out as she stands a little straighter. "But I think 's 'cus he's usually the one at the receiving end of them." Jarod gets a small taste of one as soon as he asks if him getting really bad on purpose would get her to stay, though just as he is joking a little, so is Ava. "Don't you dare." Her lips twitch back up into a smile soon after, pretending to be far more exasperated with him than she is.

"...Havin' someone else point it out does help, 'nd 's what you do after that makes the difference." She is proud of the progress Jarod has made, even if she had been worried for a little while that if she left he would default back to how he had acted before. But Jarod had made progress, and Ava keeping herself at a sort of odd distance from him at times probably helped with that.

Not that she didn't mind him acting more fatherly every once in a while, and had figured that he needed it as well, but having another person smothering her might have made her explode. "Maybe I'll leave a little buddy to watch you and bite you if you fuck it up, though!" Ava wiggles her fingers at him, one of her dragonflies popping to life above her as she does so.

[paleontaxi]

▸   @rotcursed   ⟶   ❛  “That’s what I’m counting on. Push the button.“ //from cupid :3c blows u a kiss  ❜   ╱   (  doctor who , accepting .  )

Jarod trusts Cupid for the moment, if only because he has little other choice.  He knows all about netrunning that he has to in order to get by in this world, and he has a daemon loaded into his cyberdeck that will allow him to halt or accelerate other vehicles, but that’s the extent of his ability.  So, unfortunately, he has to rely on professional netrunners, which always costs him an arm and a leg.

Fortunately, in a city full of heinous crimes, they don’t judge him terribly.  They also have a vested interest in not turning him in, lest their other nefarious deeds get revealed.  Netrunners have as much to hid as they have to expose, and that stalemate works wonderfully in Jarod’s favor.

“All right, if you insist,” he says.  If the only thing he has to do is push a button, he thinks he can manage that.  So, no more standing around looking stupid.  He presses the button Cupid indicated, then steps closer to her screen, leaning over her shoulder to see what it does.  He follows small red lights around with his eyes.

“Now what?”

[paleontaxi]

“Colin,” Jarod echoes with a nod.  “Jarod.”  Maybe it’s stupid to use his real name.  He doesn’t always, like when he is calling into the news station to leave threatening messages to Sonya.  He’ll make up a name then, but he rarely bothers when navigating the world from day to day, even less so when interacting with a seemingly like-minded individual.

He blows out a puff of smoke, almost snow light against the dark navy sky.  “Nightlife’s fine if you know where to look.  It’s a big place.”  Petria is almost three thousand miles across at its widest point, from the south tip of the peninsula to the northern border, and Jarod has been over most of it.  He doesn’t only drive people around a single city, and if people are willing to pay the high fare, he’ll readily drive them hundreds of miles in a day.  This helps him track down Brigade activity as well.  He wants to make sure that there is nowhere in the entire country that they can hide from him.

“I’d be grateful… for the company.”  Not really, he feels that he operates much better on his own, but he can already tell that he would rather have Colin on his side than against him.  “It’s hard for stragglers here.  Less likely to get jumped if there’s two of us.”

He wonders if he should tell Colin that he has abandoned his car because he is trying to shake rapid fans of Sonya’s but decides it’s not important yet.  “I’m taking the scenic route back to my car.  You?”

"Colin," he says, stealing the name of his on-again-off-again partner in crime. He'll get shit for that later. Presently, he doesn't give a fuck. Actual Colin can deal with the fallout if it's tied back to him, which it won't be. "Walk with me, friend? Dangerous out here alone, like you said." This is an amusing diversion. He loves those. It's always nice to feel something that isn't revulsion, anger, or boredom. He's never been a smoker himself. He doesn't mind. Hard to when you're a military man- harder still as the corporate equivalent of an attack dog. Everyone around you is doing way heavier shit than that to keep a semblance of sanity in place at this tier.

He's content with the silence for a while, guard not turned off but instead down a bit. Predator knows predator. This ocean's more than big enough for two sharks.

"Lonely out," he comments, finally breaking several minutes of footsteps and quiet breaths. "Not much for nightlife in these parts?" In short, how's business?

[paleontaxi]

//spotty activity is absolutely nothing new for me and probably not even worth making a post about at this point, but last week i suffered a personal tragedy that i'm not gonna get too into on account of it might be triggering for some people, so i've been very depressed and struggling with the bare minimum. i've written things in my notebook, more than i expected to this week honestly, but my will to type it up is fleeting.

i also have other Life Events that are happening over the course of the next few months (thankfully all of them (hopefully) much less traumatic lol) so in other words... for the next few months at least, you can expect... [hand wave] ...this.

i may also be reworking my queue system to give myself more of a buffer between replies, but we will see.

i want to be here and write so bad, i have muse, i have ideas, i'm excited about my threads... And Yet... so ig i'm on permanent semi-hiatus, at least until winter... 😔

[paleontaxi]

     @burnlikeme  〢 cont from here .

It is pathetic, and Jarod had not expected Stu to cave so fast.  It’s not his first time dealing with a sniveling, miserable person, but a lot of them pretend to have more bravado than this.

Jarod saunters over and crouches next to the singer—this idol Tyrak has brought in to appeal to the youths, to his detractors, to the Brigades.  “Water… water…” he echoes in a mocking singsong.

He captures Stu’s chin between his thumb and forefinger.  “You’re a popular guy, aren’t you?”  He had been skulking about Gorillaz’ recent performance, mostly keeping an eye out for Sonya, who was doubtlessly going to be there with her press entourage behind.  But he had seen plenty else, lots of other characters that made him question the kind of group they were.

“Doesn’t it ever bother you… being liked by bad people?  Worshiped by them, even?”

[paleontaxi]

Jarod shrugged.  “Nothing in particular.  I’m not even really saying that I believe that,” he said.  “I’ve just been around long enough to know that’s how most other people think, a lot of really powerful people, and there’s fuck-all we can do about it.  Just try to get by a day at a time and look out for our own…”

@paleontaxi asked: "When pushing comes to shove, money conquers faith and love." (for wesker) ; unprompted asks!

    "There's more to life than money. And ascending beyond that sort of concept in life." A level of ego sat above his mind, and he held up to that standard in ideas. He was more than money. And faith and love.

    A brow raise toward the other. "And why do you think money could fit as a replacement or conqueror of faith and love? Unless there's something in your life that turned you to a blind eye?"

[paleontaxi]

     @niratias  〢  cont from here .

Jarod isn’t a very spiritual man and never has been.  Maybe a little belief would help him to not be so angry, but he cannot bear the thought of contentment.  To sit back and accept the injustice of Lola’s death because she’s ‘in a better place’… the thought of that makes him sick.  No, it’s easier for him to believe that when you die, nothing happens.  That at least allows for the illusion of fairness.  You took her out, and now I’m taking you out—eye for an eye.

But now, he is faced with the fact that there is more to reality than the obvious.  “I’ve never had any reason to think there was something else out there,” he says, glancing uneasily between Sivana and the cackling beast.  He could prove that it’s real very easily by simply touching it, but he’s not about to do that.  He needs his fingers.

“How can I be sure you’re not fucking with me?”  Despite his words, he takes a couple steps back, just in case the demon decides to pounce.  “I mean, there are some really good illusionists out there.  Or—or—let me guess—it’s a puppet, isn’t it?”  He cannot immediately see how Sivana is controlling it, but that makes the most sense to him.

“Really cute…”  He shakes his head.  “I bet you two are a real riot at Halloween parties.”  If supernatural stuff actually happened in Petria, he figured he would hear more about it in the news or at least rumors, but so far, sightings of anything have been very few and far between.

[paleontaxi]

▸   @starfaite   ⟶   ❛  Is that why you spend so much time with me? I.. remind you of the dinosaurs? That's- actually quite endearing. But I am not sure I'm quite what you are looking for.  ❜

Layla has every right to be put off by Jarod’s general weirdness.  Most people would even consider that smart, but he is relieved that she finds it endearing rather than creepy.  It’s possible that she is just trying to appease him, but he is so giddy about the prospect of her sincerity that he elects to ignore it.

His mouth twists into a sickish smile.  “It’s not just that,” he tells her, the sound of leather squeaking as his hands work over each other.  “Of course, I know you’re not really a dinosaur, but you’re… symbolic of… something like that.”  Telling someone they’re a symbol for anything might come off as rude and dehumanizing, but he doesn’t know what other word to use.

“You… there’s a lot of evolutionary and archaeological intrigue about you…  The Lost City of Atlantis, for example.”  That may not even be real, and there is so much debate on whether it’s just a big archaeological conspiracy theory.  It’s certainly fun to believe in, anyway.

“Or… or the Missing Link—how all humans originally came out of the ocean.  Stuff like that.”

[paleontaxi]

“All right,” Jarod says, and he climbs into the front seat of the taxi, turns the keys in the ignition.  He turns out of the parking lot, down the long, lonely stretch of desert road.  “The place is called Palavas.  The owner’s a little skittish.”  And that is entirely Jarod’s fault, but he conveniently leaves that bit out.  “So, don’t mind him if he comes out.”

He glances at Lance through the rearview mirror, the man situated between a smattering of plastic dinosaurs and succulents.  Most of the people he picks up have outgrown his dinosaur toys, but every once in a while, he’ll get one who finds them interesting.

“You like… jazz?” he asks, figuring it’s safe to play some music since the guy isn’t much of a talker.  “I find it… relaxes me… after a long day.”

"Back's fine." With an offer like this, he'd be stupid to not accept it. It beats stumbling around in the rain, and it's somewhat of a guarantee of getting back to his hotel in one piece. Or...a couch, or at least somewhere he won't wake up feeling as old as he really is. He hopes. He realizes now he actually has no guarantee of that, hesitates for just long enough it's visible, and then caves. "Yes. Okay. Let's go."

If Lance wonders why there's a VHS setup, he's not asking. He remembers plugging all kinds of nonsense into the cigarette lighter via converter. He does question why that over a portable DVD player, decides it must be a regional thing, and lets it go, drawing into the back seat quite easily and buckling in. (Always wear your seatbelt.)

"I'll take you up on some of those drink suggestions, I think." He has absolutely no proof getting shitfaced is going to prevent him from shifting tonight. Hell, it might make it worse. His logic tonight? It might make him remember even less of the anticipation and build-up. He'd take that if no other comfort is available.

[paleontaxi]

friend of my youth.

dialogue prompts from friend of my youth by alice munro.

how could i have forgotten this?

i'm sorry i haven't been to see you in such a long time.

oh, well. better late than never.

there must be something in the air.

you're a regular whirling dervish.

i don't approve or disapprove. i don't care what you do. that's you.

no need to be alarmed. just the consequences of drink.

i'm usually optimistic in the morning, but panic is a problem at dusk.

it was nothing like the movies.

however do you keep that all in your head?

you look so competent and unfrazzled.

do you think people don't know?

why would i trust a lawyer?

guilt is a sin and a seduction.

all plans can falter.

i intend on hanging around making your life miserable for years to come.

i've forgotten how to communicate in a non-professional way.

who would you pick, if you were choosing for me?

i've always used bad language. i like it.

i'm an awful person. you always knew that.

it's not as bad as it sounds.

i think i'd rather just stay here and rest.

i'm not sorry, but i think you have to remember what you've done.

i've tried to keep myself free of entanglements.

i think i could turn into a dog quite easily. i think my name would be _____.

where are you off to in such a hurry?

you can dance. i taught you myself.

go and put on a clean sweater.

you'll be glad you did this. you won't forget it.

are you so good you can give up practicing already?

if you can ever get away, will you let me know?

if people don't look out for themselves, what they lose is their own fault.

weren't we marked, all of us?

i've heard you're very clever. and weird.

you have the kind of looks everyone's mother is crazy about.

what does ____ think you do for fun?

how did ____ even know my name?

i'm content to be an ordinary sort of person with an ordinary, calm life.

i suppose i sound very square. i suppose i am.

perverts never prosper.

it's gone. torn down years ago.

we had a hard life, but we didn't know it.

i don't know. do you think it was love?

[paleontaxi]

If Jarod was worried about consequences, he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.  The working plan is already to exact revenge on his daughter’s killers and then off himself.  If there’s an afterlife, he’ll either get to see her again, or he’ll be in Hell with Sonya Sanchez and Bob Winters, and he can continue torturing them for all of eternity.  It’s a win-win situation.

He shakes his head and answers without hesitation: “No.”  Johnny doesn’t strike him as a man who’s too concerned with shit coming back to him, either.  It has become fairly easy for him to identify a kindred spirit.  Not that the absence of one has never stopped him from talking about what happened to Lola and strongly hinting what he plants to do about it.

“Maybe I would be more worried if I was what went around.”  He smiles, his teeth stained permanently yellow from his daily diet of primarily cigarettes and coffee.  Dark eyes sparkle with glee.  There is something he finds endlessly funny about this.  “But it just so happens that I’m what comes around.”

║▌║▌║ @paleontaxi 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚟𝚘𝚞𝚛 : " they say what goes around will come around one day . " ⎯⎯ unprompted ／  𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 .

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐒 𝟐𝟗:𝟏 , 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐒 𝟏𝟐:𝟏𝟗 , 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐁𝐒 𝟐𝟔:𝟐𝟕 , 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐒 𝟑:𝟐𝟓 ⎯⎯⎯⎯ if there was one universal truth , a promise that was guaranteed ; there was no such thing as an unpunished crime , no matter how many judges were paid off , how many cops were persuaded to look the other way ; the price paid only grew higher and higher . johnny knew this , yet turning back wasn't an option , he didn't want to . the life he lived was a life enjoyed , the power , the money ; it was what he was built for , the thrill of the chase , the rush of danger . all it took was a rival to have one good day and the punishment would begin , GOD WOULDN'T ALLOW A MAN TO TAINT HIS HEAVENS , johnny wouldn't expect him to . ❛ what they say is true ❜ johnny responds , his wrist turning , flicking to look down at the golden face to check the time before promptly dropping it . dark hues then narrow , trailing over jarod's face ❛ does that make you nervous ? ❜

[paleontaxi]

It is not often that Jarod’s threads backfire on him spectacularly.  The fact that Homer simply laughs off the possibility of getting blown up only proves that he’s an idiot, but it also leaves Jarod flustered, puts him on his back foot.  He is used to people immediately caving and running away when he says he intends to kill them.  He is not sure what to do with someone who doesn’t take him seriously.

He could take out his gun and threaten Homer with that, he supposes, to prove just how willing he is to kill, but the mention of family gives him pause.  It’s not a guarantee that he won’t kill someone—and indeed, plenty of people have begged him for their lives by telling him that they have families—but maybe it’s the fact that Homer’s care for them shines through.  Anyone can have a family, that doesn’t mean they have a good relationship with them, but wanting to protect them means a little more.

“I can’t send it to your job,” he grumbles, slumping defeated in his stool.  “Too risky.  Someone might open it before it gets to your desk.”  It may be illegal to open other people’s mail, but that has never stopped nosy individuals before.  Even if somebody doesn’t open it, they might trip on their way to his desk and blow themselves up.  He also doesn’t know how mail works in Homer’s particular office, so the whole thing is a big logistical nightmare.

He scoots away from Homer as well as the barstool will allow, perching himself on the very edge of it, and takes another sip of his beer.  Moe’s is no Palavas, of which he misses the familiarity, but it’s dingy and rundown enough to make a half-decent substitute.  The drinks are worse, though, but he is just bitter about not being able to order his usual, as he always is when faced with bars in different towns.

“You’re so stupid it takes the fun clean outta threatening you,” he says, forlorn.  “Not enough sense in your head to know when to stop fucking with someone.”  Of course, Jarod’s not actually going to do anything, not yet, anyway.  Though, if Homer keeps it up, he might not be able to help himself.  “You should feel lucky for all these witnesses around…”

* ᯓ 🍩.࿔ㅤ𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐉𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐃'𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑 , not wasting a moment as arm curled around neck as homer pulled him into a half hug , laughter ringing out as the golden brown liquid spilled over the side of the glass with the movement . moe's wasn't the cleanest place , or the most welcoming , it didn't even have the best beer . but for homer , it was a second home and the anti socials within were the only friends he had , to have a stranger not only roll into springfield , but to then take refuge within the establishment that most ran from ; homer couldn't help himself constantly approaching the man until he actually spoke .

❛ you're makin' me want to send it more - tell you what , i'll let you pick out the colour if you keep your end of the deal , but instead of blowing up my family , you blow up my place of work . ❜ not a good thing to say considering WHERE he works , but if there's one thing about moes ; ANYTHING GOES , fat tony and his crew saw to that given it was a mob hang on , on top of whatever shady things moe does on the side when nobody was looking ; probably some messed up shit , if what he was so blatant about was anything to go by . ❛ i do love a package of destruction . ❜

[paleontaxi]

verdant canadian tyrant

[paleontaxi]

She catches his attention when she mentions bones.  He highly doubts it will be a dinosaur or anything, but it would be cool if it was.  The slim possibility compels him to ask, “Can I see it?”

He doesn’t want to get her hopes up, though, because while he knows a bunch about dinosaurs, he doesn’t know enough about any other animal to identify it off of a single bone.  “I… probably won’t know what it is, to tell you the truth.  But I’d still like to see them… and where you found them.”

She wouldn't have minded even if he had told her that she was a little hard to look at, it wouldn't have bothered her all that much. Being able to control her glow was hard to do, but she does want to at least make it easier for people to be around her. "If it does get annoyin', just let me know, though." Whether it be from Ava trying to cover up a little more exposed skin, or simply her taking a moment to get herself to a slightly less energetic state, she'd do so.

"I'm just havin' a good day!" Ava says, grinning. "Well, that and I did find some pretty cool bones earlier. Animal bones, I might add." Given the number of bodies that she assumes Jarod has buried, the distinction is important. "I dunno what kind of animal it is, but it looks cool."

[paleontaxi]

▸   @rotcursed   ⟶   ❛  there's a limit to how much progress you can make without being honest with yourself. //FROM AGNEESSSSSSSS  ❜   ╱   (  the americans , accepting .  )

Jarod’s narrowed eyes slide over to the woman sitting next to him at the diner bar.  It’s a bad place to be having such a conversation, out in the relative open rather than tucked into a booth, and he dislikes how exposed it makes him feel.  He shifts in his stool, shifting away from her, and pushes his eggs around with his fork.

“And why would you think I’m not being honest with myself?” he asks.  From his perspective, he has never been dishonest with himself, always allowing himself to feel his emotions in their entirety.  That is the very thing driving him to do what he’s currently doing, seeking revenge.  He has always been honest with himself that that is what he wants, that that is how he intends to heal.

“You can’t read my mind.  How do you know what I’m tellin’ myself every day?”

[paleontaxi]

[paleontaxi]

▸   @burnlikeme   ⟶   ❛  that's not at all what you said.  ❜

Jarod chuckles, a low sound that reverberates off the concrete walls of his garage.  A dim yellow light overhead blackens the skin around his eyes, under his hat, leaving just the crooked smile and two small pinpricks of reflected light visible.  “No, that’s not what I said… is it?”

He had promised to let the singer go, but when it comes to these things, he can never truly promise anything.  He does it, anyway, just to shut them up, but more often than not, he’s lying to them.  If they get away from him, they end up buried somewhere in the desert—no witnesses.

His aluminum bat scrapes against the floor as he moves to prop it against his shoulder.  “You see… thing is… sometimes people can just say things… and those things don’t always have to be true.”  He takes a slow step closer to the singer.  “Or they can change their mind.  And the thing with letting you go is that… well, maybe I realized that it’s not exactly smart to do that.”  What gap remains between them he closes by pushing the tip of the bat into Stu’s sternum.  “After all, you’re big ‘n’ famous, aren’t you?  I send you out there looking like this, and the news’ll be all over you.  Worse than that—the cops.”