Woke a dog from a running dream, and that's bad luck.

[awfulcer]

Who: Jason Dixon and Kal-El
What: Chance encounter over music.
Where: Singing statues at the temple.
When: Pre-talking birds.
Warnings/Notes: typical Dixon warnings, nothing out of the ordinary

[Given his paltry contributions to the team so far - probably the best thing he's done has been mostly keeping his distance after getting in fights with a solid three-quarters of the people he's met here - Dixon probably should be working on getting back in everyone's good graces with stocking up the food store, doing laundry, taking watch, doing literally anything that would help out others and cement his status as part of the team. He's not doing those things. He's almost emphatically, spitefully not doing those things. Being a slacker is an art form perfected over years, and a habit that takes a similar length of time to shed.

Instead, he's wandering around the singing statues, occasionally poking at them and mostly trying to make sense of the strange music. He's harmonizing with them where possible, vaguely annoyed that whatever timing they doesn't line up with most of the songs he knows. He doesn't know if it's a beat thing or a time signature thing or what - his qualifications to talk about music can be summed up as "really big fan of The Bangles" - but what he does know is that everything sounds a little off from everything he's ever heard before.

Which doesn't mean he isn't trying to shove Western melodies on top of the bed of eerie hymns. In a way, he's been intermittently kind of relieved to have something to occupy him away from everyone else. He's been a combination of edgy from the nicotine withdrawal and embarrassed at how messy he looks, with his face scarred all over one side, a botched shavejob with a pocketknife, and plenty of new bangs and bruises from tangling with people.

But any kind of peace of mind is transient, as soon enough, the pendulum swings back to loneliness. Back and forth. Dixon doesn't seem able to settle on what he wants. So he's a bit relieved when he turns around one group of statues in the grove and runs into someone else.

He makes the immediate assumption that this guy's Kon's dad. It's second-nature to draw these inferences from likenesses. Ebbing's small enough that if you run into two strangers who look significantly alike, there's a better chance they're family than not.]

Hey, you figured out that you can sing 'Wayfaring Stranger' over these? [He raises a finger as if he's literally trying to balance a note on it.] I'm going there to see my mother, she said she'd meet me when I come.

[He's managed to alter the cadence of the phrasing just enough that it works.]

Comments

[awfulcer]

No, he's, um... [not even a writer for the same company good job Jason you moron]

You know what, it's nothing. So, um, this music stuff, you a big fan of Metallica?

[If Dixon could poof into thin air and never have to think about how badly he's mangling this conversation again that'd be cool.]

[andaway]

Justice for all is my favorite album.

[He answers easily. He was half-joking saying he’d been singing Metallica to the statues (he’d sang like one song, okay, he had to try) but he is an unashamed fan of them so he doesn’t mind changing the subject. ...For now. Jason is probably not going to be surprised that the reporter instinct run deep in this one, but he knows how to reign it in.

He motions at the notes he’s been writing on the sand.]

But in times like this I wish I’d tried harder to learn how to read or write music, not just listen to it… I only know the basics. Maybe whatever they are singing is unimportant but I don’t know- I have to start somewhere, right?

[He glances back at Jason.] Do you come from a world of superheroes?

[awfulcer]

Ain't heard it yet. I should give it a try. [Using, you know, the technology that they don't have here. Dixon feels his whole neck go red as a tomato in his fluster-panic.

But Kal's giving him an out, and damnit, Superman's even nice and tactful and giving an rope out of the awkward muck. Of course Superman's generous that way.]

Not really. I've just heard of superheroes. [Or rather, read them, but he doesn't correct that fine point.] Just like I heard of music classes but never got to take one, which is why this is gibberish to me.

[He gestures at the notes.]

You think the music might be religious?

[andaway]

[Kal nods, and he has no way of guessing what he means by ‘heard of’- he figures the green just either somehow grabbed a civilian from a world of heroes, or someone who’s protecting his secret identity. Either way, not the track of questioning he wants to pursue.]

Or magical. Everything here seems to be. [He tries very hard to hide the distaste in his tone but he’s pretty aware he doesn’t quite succeed.]

I arrived not that long ago so I haven’t had time to see much. What about you? I may need a tour guide.

[awfulcer]

[Dixon snorts at the distaste over magic. He's of two minds about it; on the one hand, fantasy is not a genre that ever interested him, and magic seems unpredictable, unreliable and full of weird consequences. On the other hand, one of those weird consequences is that he can get magically drunk now, and the explanation of "it's magic!" puts a quick stop to a lot of boring theorizing on how all the shenanigans here could be possible.

He tilts a little "yay magic" more than "boo magic", but not by such a wide margin that he can't understand why Kal's not a fan.]

Happy to. [Thrilled to. The idea of being a tour guide to Superman is up there on Dixon's bucket list, which he only just started putting together.] What've you had time to see? I can take you back up the path and you can see some of the monsters that jumped us, if you want, but we might get teleported back here before we make it there.

[andaway]

[Kal was going to tell him that he hasn’t seen much outside of the temple and the few things Kon has shown him, but that last part does get his attention.]

Back up there- monsters? Can you describe them to me? [He shouldn’t. He absolutely shouldn’t- he has no powers, no way of protecting himself. And yet.]

Could you show me?

[awfulcer]

I can describe them, but they're so weird it might be better to show you. They weren't werewolves or goblins or anything like that. They were like people with kitchen things for hands and Halloween masks. [Dixon points in the right direction and starts to lead Kal that way.]

People here got real ticked off when I killed one. It's like they didn't get that they were coming at the kids with knives and all. [And really, protecting the youngsters in the group had been Dixon's intent. He just didn't realize that a shoot-first-hide-the-body-later approach wasn't going to fly with all these superhero millennials.]

Oh, and if you ain't met everyone yet, we got like ten teenagers in tow. Whoever picked this group out has a sick sense of humor and no morals.

[andaway]

[Kal raises an eyebrow, but that’s the only sign that he’s mildly surprised at the idea of monsters with kitchenware in their extremities. He’s seen a lot so it’s going to take a little more than that for him to be actually surprised.]

Were they… sentient?

[He asks, because if they were he’s kind of going to side with the people who were against killing them. Not that he’s going to throw a fit or judge Dixon about it. He of all people knows that it’s… a hard decision to make sometimes, that not everything is black and white.

But he wants to know where things stand in this place. He stars following Dixon, wondering if he should have purchased a shield of some sort of protection first..]

I did notice there were a lot of young people, but I thought that just been a coincidence.

[awfulcer]

What's that mean?

[Dixon sounds a little defensive, and even looks a little bit hurt at even the slightest implication that maybe he had been in the wrong in that particular circumstance, that split-second decision to behead one of the things attacking them. It's all just compounded by the fact that he's unfamiliar with the word Kal just used, but gets the sense that he probably should know it.]

It's got me uneasy, actually. People their age should be worrying about prom or...whatever it is kids do these days, not camping up in the middle of nowhere waiting for monsters to come down on them. There's too many of them for me to babysit them all.

[Dixon really does believe that he's somehow responsible for the younger people here, and the fact that he knows he's not doing an even remotely passable job at taking care of them is yet another whip to beat himself up with. They get up out of the temple and start heading into the woods, not so much down a path as in the general direction of the Emerald City.]

[andaway]

[Kal nods. He can tell this is a touchy subject and while he’s not going to pretend killing should be taking lightly, he also doesn’t want to come across like he’s judging or scolding him. He… has a bit of a tendency to be condescending even when he doesn’t mean to.]

I know what you mean… it’s going to be hard enough to survive and find a way home in this place when we don’t know what’s going on. But if it helps, some of the kids I saw are highly competent- Kon included. I’m sure they’ll do their best to handle themselves.

As for sentient, I mean if they were capable of thought or simply attacked mindlessly.

[awfulcer]

Sure, but they shouldn't have to. [When Dixon was a teenager and a young adult he was busy scoping out which bars would let him get hammered without an ID and bootlegging cartoons.]

Oh. No, they were attacking pretty mindlessly, as far as I could tell. Didn't really get much time to think things through.

[Not that he's great at thinking things through generally! Usually he ends up at the same bad decisions!

He doesn't take the hike quickly. It's a little faster than a stroll, but not much. He's not accustomed to nearly as much activity as has been happening the last week, and his body hurts almost as much from plain old blisters and muscle soreness as much as the punches he's basically thrown himself into lately.]

And I don't trust all the other adults here, either. I figure just from the, you know... [he pantomimes the symbol on Kal's chest] you're probably pretty trustworthy, but everyone but the kids seem to be strangers to each other.

[andaway]

[Kal nods. He doesn’t look too happy about it, but he understands that sometimes there really isn’t another choice left. Especially if they were attacked and he had no choice but to attack back, and that seems to be what happened from what he’s gathering. And he gets the feeling it’s going to get harder and harder to defend themselves without harming others if they are to survive in this place. But he’s always going to give people the benefit of the doubt.

He keeps on walking along with him, letting himself be led to the so called monsters.]

I’m flattered, and will do my best so I don't disappoint you. [He says with a smile, glad that having ended up here wearing his uniform seems to have at least one benefit even if his powers have been stripped away from him.]

But is there a particular reason you don’t trust the other adults?

[awfulcer]

You're probably not going to be the one doing the disappointing around here. [Dixon self-consciously runs his fingers over the burn scars on his face, as he has been for the last few days since they got healed. The thought occurs to him that he has plenty of time, now, to find new and exciting ways to disappoint Superman, and that's exactly what he didn't need to be considering. It'd be disappointing Santa Claus.]

Some of them are fighty. [He gestures up to some of the bruising on his face, as if he hasn't been the instigator of all those fights. Literally all of them.] Might just be biased because we didn't get off on the right foot.

[He showed up wasted to the first group meeting and picked up a fight with a teenager.]

[andaway]

[Kal snorts, but decides not to go down that road. He knows very well how easy it is to be disappointed in your heroes, there’s a reason people are always saying it’s better not to meet them. But with a little luck Dixon has only heard of Kal so he won’t be disappointed when he is less than perfect.

Especially now that he’s lacking his powers. It should be that important, most people go through life without them- and he has, in the past. But it’s the fact that they were stripped away from him that leaves a bad taste in his mouth.]

Well, I bet tensions are high. Everyone must be really frustrated, we didn’t get exactly an option to say no to this.

I’m sure we’ll all work together when push comes to shove. Particularly if there are monsters involved.

[awfulcer]

[He considers that for a second, wondering if he's been too hard on the others. Probably. Being friendly isn't his best suit.]

Plus we don't got creature comforts. That'll put anyone on edge. [It's just the nature of camping unprepared. Their single sets of clothing are all starting to get frayed and nasty, everyone's got sore backs and neck from sleeping on the ground, no one's brushed their teeth. Basic physical discomfort does dampen a mood some.]

You could always boss them around if they don't. I bet they'd listen to you. They sure don't me. [Although, if he's being honest, Dixon doesn't want any of the responsibility that comes with being in charge even if he were a viable leader. He'd much prefer to follow orders. Hierarchy and structure is comfortable; it makes all your decisions for you, leaves you less room to mess everything up. He tries to pick up the pace.]