Players:
Summary: Kaji has a rather vivid dream that he wants to go over with Tony. The two talk things over, and enjoy a TV marathon.
Date: August 8, 2010
Log Title: Bandaid to the Bromance
Rating: PG
NYC- Stark Towers- Personal Residence
Since the wolf has gotten back from the dojo for the day, he's been rather silent. Staying in the guest apartment for most of the day as he muddles over something on his comm pad. A soft mutter coming from him before he shakes his head and opens up an IM screen, and shoots a text over towards Tony's phone. //Wanna chat? I'm in my room. // Then he flips back over towards his word document to read things over.
Somewhere in the depths of the master bedroom walk in closet is Stark, having woken up from a fitful sleep deciding against trying to force himself back to sleep. He had been running on pure adrenaline alone all of Saturday and had fallen over due to exhaustion earlier in the day Sunday. As he was searching for a shirt to wear the IM from Kaji came through, and he responded that he would be right over before turning off the internal messaging system for the company.
Emerging from the closet in a t-shirt and sweatpants Tony stopped to press a kiss to Al's cheek as she slumbered on before leaving the room. On the way over to Kaji's room he paused to grab a bottle of water, and then stood before the guest bedroom door rapping lightly on it with his knuckles.
The mutant's voice comes from the inside. "It's open." Upon entering, Tony'd probably already know just how much at home the wolf is. There's even a few inch thick cork board on the wall that has a few throwing knives embedded in it. Once the man enters, Kaji looks up at him and laughs a bit. "Well, before I start. I have to say. I understand a good few things now."
Tony leans up against the doorjamb with the bottle of water dangling from between two fingers. "You understand a few things? Such as what?" Pushing away from the door he steps into the room toeing the door shut as he heads over to the lone chair in the room.
Kaji smirks a bit as he spins the comm pad between two of his hands. "Well… to start things off. This is going to sound extremely odd." He shrugs a bit and then smirks, "Last night, I had a /very/ strange sequence of dreams. Ahab was in them." He licks his lips before clicking his tongue. "And I saw myself. Getting turned into a Hound. Killing mutants…" He goes quiet and shakes his head, putting fingers against the bridge of his nose before he says, "… Fighting you. Saying things that I'd never say…"
Tony has sat down in the lone chair balancing the bottle of water against a knee. Kaji being a Hound of Ahab was something that he all ready knew but this particular situation was on par with the bizarre things that had been occurring lately. "How lucid were these dreams? Did they seem like something you made up because of current /difficulties/ or do you think it is more than that?"
Kaji shakes his head, his hand still pressed against his forehead. "I felt that I was actually there. I could feel the inner struggle that I was having. I never wanted to do those things. I never wanted to say those things. And yet my body wasn't mine to control. I could feel all that…"
Tony pinches the bridge of his nose then lets the hand fall down to his lap. "Are you sure you want to be talking to me about this? I am clearly not the most qualified to puzzle out what is going on." Then he has an idea of why Kaji might want to bring this up with him, other than the fact that he was the wolfs friend, because he was one of the few that knew things from the future. "I know you are aware of what I have told the Avengers, and I'm certain you've wanted to know more but do you really want me to tell you what I know or would you rather put this off as some bizarre dream?" Tony unscrews the cap from the water bottle and takes a swig before setting the bottle back down on his knee. "There is no guarantee that what was told will actually come to be, Kaji."
Kaji smirks a bit, tapping at the comm pad a bit before he says, "I just wanted to tell you that I understand a few things. I know why you pushed to put me through Taskmaster's training. Well, part of it. Why you couldn't talk to me about it…" He smirks softly. "With Ahab in it, I've never seen him before personally. How do ya explain that?"
"How do you even know what Ahab looks like if you've never seen his image before? There's one way to make sure that you didn't just tack a name to a face," Tony begins as he slumps down in the chair a bit. As he does so Kaji's comm pad flickers and an image of Ahab is now taking up the majority of the screen. "As for /sending/ you to Taskmaster, I told you why. You need help with your combat training, and learning to work as a team, and he is the best that is available."
Kaji looks down at the pad, and tosses it onto the other side of the bed with a grunt of disgust. "I know it was him in my dreams. I /felt/ the loyalty stemming from me into him. Even if /I/ didn't want to be." He visibly shudders at the thought of it. "Do you honestly think that I'd be this shaken up over a dream? This wasn't a normal dream, Tony."
The pad went sailing thru the air, and Tony had his answer. Dream or not, this was clearly not Kaji going even more mental for one reason or another. "If you want to consider it a vision, it might make more sense to both of us. Would it help to know that Ahab was captured last night, and sent into some Alternate Future?"
Kaji blinks a bit, sitting up on his bed as he says, "That… might explain something." He rubs at his head, shaking his head slightly as he mutters, "The feelings that I felt. The scenes that I saw." He shudders once more, "I am never going to let that happen."
"I should hope not," Tony says before draining half the bottle of water. "Hmm, you understand the difficulty of speaking about things like time travel. It took Picard two episodes to explain why altering the past would change the future, and yet still leave you not understanding half of what was going on." There is a slight laugh from the half reclining man as his legs stretch out before him. "In my particular case I was given enough information to work with but nothing of a personal nature. Knowing where one ends up would alter how you act now; as you are witnessing from this vision."
Kaji lets out a laugh, letting out a soft mutter, "Never did get into Star Trek…" He looks back at Tony with a laugh. "I've had something already alter how I act now. And I'm still getting used to it." He shakes his head before he says softly, "If anything, this'll give me more… determination for everything." There's a glimmer of that in his eyes as he looks at Tony.
"Well, at least you know where you don't want to be. I wouldn't wish that sort of vision you had on anyone but maybe it is best that it happened." Tony finishes the bottle of water he had brought into the room, twists the cap back onto the bottle, then sets the bottle aside on the nearby desk. "So you saw how everything played out? I'm rather surprised I didn't have one of these visions that you experienced. I will have to poll the Avengers, and anyone else who feels like talking, to see if they had a similar experience."
Kaji nods softly. "I saw pieces of it. Not the entire thing. Just… parts. But that was enough." He shakes his head again, trying to get rid of Ahab's image from his mind. "I'd never want to be that." He looks back up at Tony and says, "If you'd want to, I'd probably ask."
There is a thread of curiosity that Tony feels the need to follow even if he knows better. With hands locking then resting over his stomach he regards Kaji with a serious expression. "I knew you were on the list of Hounds, after other things had been put into motion. I find that I'm rather glad that Ahab's meddling in the past has diverged the time line in such a way that certain things can be avoided. I do have to ask something to sate my own curiosity in regards to my whereabouts in the future. I know a little bit of information that AL dragged out of Volk. What did you see in your vision?"
Kaji gulps a bit, as he bites his lower lip. He looks away from Tony for a second as he says, "I saw the moment I was turned into a Hound. And, Ahab told me that…" He looked back at Tony and said just mouthed what he was going to say. He doesn't know if Tony should know…
Tony quirks an eyebrow, "He told you what?"
Kaji lets out a sigh. "He told me that you were shot at Washington D.C. when you went to see the President. That you were dead. I put up no fight after hearing that, I was in too much of a shock."
This is exactly why Tony should have known better than to be curious about the future. A hand crosses over his face as he seems to have completely checked out for a moment. "I shouldn't have asked that seeing as that future no longer is what will become of us." Somehow saying that didn't really change how he felt about this little piece of information that didn't exactly fit to the only other piece of information he had about himself in the future. "Well, if you learn anything from this it should be that you never EVER give up. I don't care if you've got nothing left in the tank, you don't ever let a person break you down."
Kaji lets out a soft laugh. "I've never had a friend die on me before. And the feeling I got then was like I lost a relative than a friend. It… well, yeah." He sighs a bit, gulping a bit afterwards before he looks own at the comm pad, tapping it as he deletes Ahab's picture.
"Not saying anything is wrong with feeling something," Tony says as he sits up straight in the chair instead of looking like he's about to slide onto the floor at any moment. "You can, however, see what I am trying to say. People like Ahab will exploit a person in any way they can in order to achieve their ends." Here he pauses as he doesn't think that going about this conversation in this manner is the best way to strike the point home. "I've had friends and lovers die over the years, so I understand what you must be feeling. There is no greater pain that watching someone you care for die in the midst of a battle or hearing about it as you are stuck doing what you are doing but we have to push past our feelings to be able to do what it is we must do. To quote Galaxy Quest, Never give up Never surrender, even when you feel like your hearts been ripped apart."
Kaji smirks softly. "I guess that's going to be one of my new mottos then, eh?" He moves to stand up off of the bed, he was only sitting on it really before he looks over at Tony. "But, it's going to take some getting used to. I mean, you really are a great friend." He walks over towards the man with a grin, "Even with the jokes about the flea collars."
Tony snorts, "Out of all the things I've said you pick that one?" Tony shakes his head from side to side as Kaji comes to stand before him. "Consider this one of the many lessons of what it is going to take to be an Avenger. The next part is the moving past it so you can enjoy what little time you have before the next disaster."
Kaji chuckles. "First one off of the top of my head." He taps his forehead for a moment before he offers a hand down to Tony. "How about we go to somewhere that we all can have fun. I vote Hawaii again. Just… without the fighting."
Tony reaches up to take Kaji's hand so that he is pulled up out of the chair. "I never need an excuse to spontaneously leave the city, but I think for appearances sake we should stick around this time. Find something in town that the three of us can do that isn't bowling. I think I've had my fill of bowling for awhile until I can figure out how to be less random."
Kaji pulls him up and says, "Surfing? Cliff diving? Tour the islands?" He chuckles a bit before he looks over at the window outside, "I think we can get something squared away by sunrise. You can tell Task that I'm going to be gone for another few days."
"Clearly you missed me saying that we should stick around the city this time," Tony says with a look at Kaji. "Dinner, movie, a club that we can all enjoy," He lists off before emphasizing, "in New York."
Kaji lets out an aww at that before he lets out a soft huff of air. "Dammit, here I was hoping for another break from Task." He shrugs a bit with a sigh before he says, "That could work. Some good movies coming out I think."
"I see how it is," Tony shakes his head disapprovingly. "To think that I brought you all the way to the Oregon Coast to relax, and you even got a PSP out of the deal, and all it was was an attempt to get away from Task." Reaching out to the desk Tony picks up the empty water bottle then heads out into the main part of the apartment towards the kitchen. "Though I probably do owe you something for nearly taking your head off the other day. Or are we even?"
Kaji chuckles a bit, shaking his head back at the man. "What it was was a great time with friends, and probably one of the most relaxing times I've had on the west coast. Task wasn't even on my mind." Even if he did double up the training in one day because of it… He quirks a brow out of it with a smile, "I'll think of something?"
"Fair enough," Tony offers a half smile accompanied by a dismissive wave as he disappears into the kitchen to dispose of the bottle into the recycle bin. "We got anything hiding in the cabinets snack food wise?" Before he starts opening every cabinet in the kitchen he opens the fridge to see if there is anything interesting that can be identified through a rubbermaid container.
Kaji hms a bit, shifting into his anthro form to use his wolf senses for the sake of foodage. "I smell cookies in the cabinet next to you." He sniffs once more, closing his eyes before he moves over towards the fridge and kneels down to look in the produce drawer. "Hmn, pears."
Tony turns away from the open fridge to fish out the cookies from the specified cabinet. With the bag in hand he makes his way into the living room to fall onto the couch just as the television comes to life. "Pre Season Football, Rambo films, and Top Shot appears to be on. You interested?"
Kaji stands up, kicking the door closed with a light tap of a foot before he grabs another bag of cookies and shifts back to human. He collapses himself into a chair, kicking his feet up as he says, "I vote for Rambo."
The channel is switched to the Rambo marathon on one of the guy-centric cable channels. So began the viewing of massive amounts of gunfire, blood splatter, and unrealistic explosions. Sometime during the third film Kaji started to snore in that uniquely wolfish way as Tony spent considerable time staring at him with a are you serious expression. Stark himself started to nod off during the fourth film that he hadn't seen. No doubt Kaji would wake up when he fell out of the chair and Tony would wake up at the sound to laugh at the wolfs expense then head off to bed.
