answering machine post!

[victormakesart]

Hey, so, if you're hearing this, I'm elbow deep in paint or trouble. Leave your name (or alias) and number, and day that you called, and message, and I'll get back to you forthwith -- hey, hey, what is it? I'm in the middle of doing one of those phone messages. Oh, that? Just reverse the proton stream, and re-angle the dish -- ahem. Sorry about that.

Press one if it's a serious emergency.

Press two if you just want to leave a message.

Press three if the Nexus has done something odd and I've disappeared.

Pressing four doesn't do anything.

Comments

[victormakesart]

"Eh, I don't remember; I don't hold any debts," she says. And it's true. Money's something inconvenient. She needs it, for food, for gadgets, but she doesn't keep track of it, just saves every scrap that she can, and uses what she has to.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"Either you never had your money counted or this phone call didn't make it back through the time portal," he says, suppressing a sigh. "Can I retroactively apologize for the way I acted five years ago?"

[victormakesart]

She has to think back to two years prior, feeling like a traveler stepping through a murky swamp in tennis shoes. Her memory doesn't exactly go linearly. "It's not a problem. I had you forgiven before you even did anything at all."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"I know, but I still took your money. And robbed an ATM. I haven't done that in years." And who knows where the money comes from, in the Nexus?

"At least take some of it. Buy yourself an extra large coffee or something, as my apology." He PINs a smaller pile of the bills back to her, and it's at least cut in half from before.

[victormakesart]

"How about you'll pay when we next have coffee together," she says, sending the pile of money promptly back to him. Looks like they're going to have a contest of how stubborn they can both be. Again. They never learn.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"That might be a while. Things are getting a bit complicated, with Zod and the Kandorians. And... April." He doesn't sound very happy about that, with just a hint of guilt.

[victormakesart]

"What's going on with the lady love?" she asks, stretching her legs (the telltale pop, pop).

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"I sort of yelled at her. Said some stuff I shouldn't have, when I was on red kryptonite. Things I was planning to bring up later, maybe, with... any tact at all."

[victormakesart]

"Oof, that sucks. Is she okay? Are you okay?" She knows it's hard on him especially when he goes red, because he remembers.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"I'm not sure," he admits. "I haven't been home yet. Kind of afraid of my welcome."

[victormakesart]

"What was the fight about? If you don't mind me askin'."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"Well, you know me, I like to blow things out of proportion when I'm on red." He shifts a little settling into his seat while he tries to figure out how to concisely describe what happened. "Though this time it was mostly stuff I just... haven't been saying. Or allowing myself to think about. We haven't really been talking, just about normal stuff, and things have been pretty tense. So I yelled at her for not trusting me, mostly."

[victormakesart]

She winces, sucking air through her teeth. "Communication, my dear lad--" who talks like that "--it's fully essential. I understand where you're coming from, though. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with the less pleasant bits of social interaction. Easy to let a day of silence turn into a week then turn into a month."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"Yeah. We've been trying to meet for lunches but apparently it isn't enough. And I brought up Lois today, since she's been acting weird and I wanted April's opinion, and things got even weirder. I ended up accusing her of thinking I was cheating on her."

[victormakesart]

"That's an understandable fear to have. I mean, considering most of the other universes. It might be healthy to talk about that sort of thing. Just, not when you're on red." She starts to bite her nails and then stops herself. No. None of that.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"We have before, though. And I thought it was fine, that she knew I only have eyes for her. She still said that wasn't it, but... you know Kal."

[victormakesart]

"Kal takes any weak spot and sticks a lever in it and shoves. Which probably means that this is something that needs to be reaffirmed."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"Yeah. And on top of that, I accused her of not trusting me in general. She's been having a personal sort of problem that I can't help with, and I unfairly took that out on her."

[victormakesart]

"Yeah, that's just Kal findin' a wobbly spot and aiming a sledgehammer. If she doesn't already know he does that, I'd explain that to her forthwith. That sometimes what he says isn't based on anything but that it'll do the most damage."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"She knows that, but... this time at least most of it was based in real frustrations I've had," he admits, and he's ashamed of that.

[victormakesart]

"Oh, gosh, no, that's fine. Believe it or not, a lot of people do that. Cole's blown up at me for stuff before, and he doesn't have the red excuse. It's just what couples do sometimes. They repress because they love the person and they don't wanna hurt them and then kablammo!"

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"April and I have actually never fought before. Ever. I don't know if we were just better at communicating, or we just got lucky... or what."

[victormakesart]

"Never fought," she says, softly, in actual awe. "I... I don't know what to say."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"It's not like we haven't disagreed about things before, but this is the first time there's been yelling and hurt feelings," he clarifies. "Except once, when we both got hit with a bad LOL in the Nexus, but we decided it didn't count since it wasn't us."

[victormakesart]

"That's still pretty weird," Victor says. "I mean, it's good, but... I-I think -- sorry, I'm working through this as I'm talking -- I think fighting, really fighting, gettin' upset and hurt and all that mess, I think it's good, too. It's the ultimate way of being vulnerable. That's how you for sure know something's strong. So this could be a good thing."