The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 8, 2015 1:04:48 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
The door opened, and Maya's possibly-less-evil-twin stood behind it. He was a bit taller than his sister, but he had the same I'm so adult, you best listen up swagger that his sister had. Seriously. What did the two of them do, stand in front of their mirrors and practice? With how similar they looked, maybe they just stood in front of each other and had attitude-offs.
It was an amusing thought for the half-second it took him to enter the room. There was an African woman seated already--the real adult in the room. Miss Taylor, he presumed.
And Alex was there, too.
Looking worse than Jiri had seen him since he'd been literally dying.
He pushed past the Morris clone, and took a seat next to his roommate. "Whoa. Hey. Are you okay? There wasn't something in the fan mail, was there?"
There'd been a couple things in the mail yesterday, probably more today. Stupid fangirl things: cookies, pink letters with heart stickers, stuff like that. But it had occurred to Jiri, belatedly, that those guys who'd beat on Alex had family and friends. And it was a fair bet that said family and friends had internet access, too.
Alex definitely looked like he'd taken another beating.
Belatedly, the words that the guidance counselor were speaking started filtering in. Jiri blinked, and managed to divide his attention between his roommate and the woman's words. The chat? Well sure, of course this was fall out from the chat. But... not something vile in the mail? That was, like, a better-case-scenario, right?
He... didn't get what they were talking about here that had Alex so upset.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 8, 2015 0:19:58 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
Their bathroom was talking.
"Alex?" Jiri popped out an earbud, and turned his head. The bathroom door was a little ajar. He... hadn't heard Alex come back in. Hadn't heard anyone come back in.
...But then, this was a freaky mutant school. Right.
Jiri paused his game, and slid his laptop very carefully onto the bed before getting up. He slipped his head inside the bathroom door, looking in the room like he was on a B-rated horror set and the rest of the cast had just left him alone.
There was a man in his mirror. It really wasn't hard to piece the rest together.
"So. Relative of Maya? No offense, but the last time I got near a mirror with a Morris, bad things happened. I can walk."
He paused, and ducked back in the bathroom. "Is this about what happened with Ghost? 'Cause I don't want to get her in trouble, or anything. She seems like a really nice lady," that he never wanted to see again. "I just figured I could maybe use a counselor. After that."
That.
Oh god that.
Unaware of Ghosty's note, he'd tentatively signed up for a time to see Miss Taylor. It wasn't this time, but maybe she'd had an early opening?
Jiri walked his way to the counselor's office, and knocked on the door as polite as can be.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 8, 2015 0:06:17 GMT -6
Gamma Mutant
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
Jiri kept his grin as lizard mountain growled at him. It was a wide terrified grin, but it was still a grin, so it counted.
The kids were entirely missing what was passing between them. Except maybe the oldest--she might not look anything like the many-armed tangerine, but when she practiced her stink eye, the family resemblance was unmistakable. The fort building commenced after a responsible product-testing phase. And Jiri... Jiri stuck around. Because Majo had bonded to him with the impulsiveness some little kids had, and making Majo cry seemed really, really bad for his health.
He tried to have fun. He did have fun. But he'd have had more fun if the guy had made any move to accept his apology. And was less hulking. And standing behind him. And occasionally making growling demands. Was he doing the growling on purpose, or was that just Jiri's inner racist, making that assumption?
Case in point: watch the kids.
"Ah. Okay?" It was the only answer that would end in someone crying. Jiri was reasonably certain the someone wouldn't be twelve or under. He didn't ask why. Or what for. These were questions an angry orange might take offense to. But there was one very important, very responsible person watching your kids question that he had to know: "When should I expect you back?"
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 23:32:48 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
This would be his cue to leave. The big guy was giving him the stink eye, but it was a normal, my children are monsters and it is all your fault look.
So. Big guy distracted, kids' chaos contained and directed. Good time to slip out. Especially since he couldn't understand half of what they were saying.
Despite the protests of his hind brain, Jiri edged closer to the multi-armed dragon... thing. And closer. And now he was in arm's reach but it would probably be really obvious if he tried to back off so he got up his nerve and took another half-step into Normal Social Bubble range.
It boggled his mind that this guy could fit on a bus. Wouldn't it be easier for everyone if he just picked the bus up and carried it?
"Umm," he kept his voice pitched so that the playing kids wouldn't be bugged by him, unless they came close. "Sorry about the staring. Because I was. Totally staring. Which was obnoxious of me." He knew it, the guy knew it, all three of the kids knew it. Might as well 'fess up. "Also for siccing your kids on the crates. This is why I'm not allowed to pick my sister up from daycare anymore. I'll, ah, just see myself off--"
That plan lasted as long as it took for the youngest to grab his hand, and drag him towards the growing fort.
"Or not," he laughed, trying to project a don't smash me vibe to the lizard-thing while keeping his grin in place for the kid. Apparently his efforts were needed in making the fort taller. There was only so much height the kids could do on their own.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 22:55:50 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
It took him longer than it should have to process the three mini-humans in attendance on the beast. Not gonna lie: his first impression was of Mr. Bubbles and Little Sister. But once his heart stopped trying to tear its way out of his chest, and he got in a deep breath, he had a little less trouble thinking with his frontal cortex again. The guy was giving him the look. The same look the more obvious mutants at the Mansion gave him, when he was... well, staring. Like this.
It had become a pretty normal look in his daily life. And while "pretty normal" still wasn't what his brain was screaming at him when he looked at this... guy? Pretty sure it was male but he'd been wrong before? Yeah sure guy he'd just go with that for now. While his brain was still trying to flip out, Jiri did his best to take in steady breaths and act casual. Especially when it chuckled at something the girl said, and sounded a heck of a lot like an oncoming freight train.
Jiri turned around, and set his elbows on the railing behind him.
"I," the teen said, with the gravest of dignity and just a little bit of a I-dare-you-to-call-me-on-this eyebrow raise, "was staring at your friend. Here I'd been, standing around, working through an extremely difficult grown-up problem. 'Cause you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, ma'am, that those empty crates over there would make the best fort ever, but that a whimpy little shrimp like me couldn't possibly lift them. And besides, you can't make a fort by yourself. That's a rule. So I was just about to give up when..." He flared out both his palms, taking in the giant orange elephant in the room. "Voila. All my problems were solved."
He sighed, very dramatically, letting his hands go limp again. "But of course, you're way too old to make a fort. Five year olds can make forts. Eight year olds can make forts. But you're, what, thirteen? Heck, language like that, you're probably fourteen. No way you'd want to sit around while the rest of us played. So I guess I'm back to square one."
Jiri turned back to facing the water, with a visible sigh, and an overly obvious still-watching-from-the-corners-of-his-eyes look their way. His eyes were still sort of sliding away from looking directly at the big guy, but he had a grin for the kids.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 21:50:57 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
Jiri had lived in New York his whole life. New York City? Not so much. He'd come here a few times with friends, but his mom and dad both hated the place.
It's like Dublin, but without any character.
Jiri, my boy. If there is one thing New York City does not need, it is a man with an Iranian passport.
He'd been at Xavier's for about a month now, and it had finally hit him: school was starting soon. Orientation was at the end of the month. His free time was rapidly running out, and the city was right there. There was a bus stop right down the block from the Mansion that went downtown. He'd, ah, ridden it once, in a dream.
The seats weren't any less sticky in real life, but looking out the windows as the skyscrapers loomed was a lot more fun. Central Park was way more fun without people dragging him through it, shopping was more fun when he could wander into anything that looked even remotely interesting, people were fun when he had time to just sit on a bench and watch them go by. Everything was fun.
...Not so much the going to pay for his tea, and realizing his wallet was gone. Not so fun.
Umm.
It wasn't on the counter. Or the floor. Or the sidewalk, or anywhere as he back tracked and asked at every place he'd taken it out or thought he might have taken it out or--
It was a long time before he admitted to himself that he hadn't dropped it. By then, he was leaning on a railing overlooking the wharf, watching the boats come in.
He'd just been mugged. At least it had been a polite mugging. Very discrete, very not-to-spoil-your-day-but...
Jiri sighed dramatically, flopping his head on his arms. Ways to get a new ID while not tipping off his mother as to how he'd lost it were dancing in his mind when--
--whoa that was a lot of arms. Like a lot. Like if he saw that in a video game, there would be no question in his mind that he should be killing it.
Jiri starred. Jiri stared with his eyes wide, and a certain instinctual urge to run that was being counter-acted by an instinctual urge to not attract attention. It was no a very polite stare.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 21:06:32 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
The woman apologized. He wondered if she was one of those people who thought that apologizes made things better. She kind of seemed like she was.
I am just going to close my eyes now, Jiri decided. I am going to close my eyes and I am going to try to convince myself this is a dream because this is quite possibly the most horrible thing that has happened in my life. Thank you.
Worse than this? Worse than this was realizing that she could still see. That his eyes really hadn't been in the loop from the beginning. That he actually, really couldn't tell if he'd succeeded in closing his eyes, or if they'd just stayed closed all along.
He was pretty sure they were moving (she was moving him) but he was doing his best to squeeze everything shut. Eyes and ears and crazy sensory input and brain. Ghost would feel a great deal of control over their movements. Their jerky, inhuman, abomination-like movements. He was pretty sure they even made it to Susan's packet.
Can we go to my room now? You can just leave me on the bed. I think I can show myself around later.
Because so help him, even if he kept possessing her for hours after this, he was not going to really be there.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 20:19:54 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
"Thanksgiving is..." A pause. "Wow. Umm. November...? Like the third week, or something. The same as Black Friday. It's the Thursday right before that."
Yes, the holidays meant a great dear to Jiri O'Leary. Namely: they were a break on the school calendar, and teachers would tell him when they were coming up.
He grinned. "I, of course, am going to be stuffing myself on cheap chocolate, multiplayering in the stupid game-of-the-week, and getting my nails done by a five year old. You are welcome to participate in all these activities. The first to gain ten pounds before New Years wins!"
He flopped back on the bed, sandwiching his pillow under his head. "You know, as housing situations go, I don't think this is going to suck."
He'd been worried all day about who they'd stick him with, and how many arms and/or tentacles this mystery person would have. But really, the staff couldn't have picked a better roommate. He'd have to find some way to thank them for it.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 18:57:09 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
"Most important thing to realize about Allah?" Jiri said. "It's the same god Christians worship. Usually I'll just say 'God' when I'm out in public, so I don't ruffle feathers. Christians, Jews, Muslims--our holy books branched, but the roots of the tree go to the same place. Basically, if people would just chill out, they'd realize we've got more in common than we have differences. We've even got Jesus, he's just not the be-all-end-all." He scratched his head. "There's probably some clever parallel to the whole 'humans and mutants' debate in there, actually."
Historically, though, religious institutions were pretty crap at chilling out. Political institutions were kind of crap at it, too.
He leaned over, and wrapped a lazy arm around his new roommate's shoulders. "Of course, this could all be crazy terrorist propaganda to make you let down your guard. So yeah. Do your homework, think for yourself. I'm really not interested in converting you--really--but I'm here if you've got questions. And now I'm going to shut my mouth. Religion talks just get weird if they go on too long."
There was no way not to sound like you were trying to convince someone of your beliefs. He wasn't even that religious, by Muslim standards. There were plenty of days the snooze button was more appealing than his morning prayer, and he'd been sucking at getting to the mosque regularly even before the mutant thing had become an issue. He already knew how the next month would go: he'd find a new place to worship, promise himself he'd go every Friday, be super excited for a few weeks... and then start realizing how many cooler things there were to do on Fridays. Like play video games.
Yep. He was Muslim in the same way a lot of Christians were 'Christian.'
>> "I guess going to your house for the holidays won't be too bad. I just don't think I've celebrated in a long time."
He leaned back again, grinning, pretending he didn't see the nervous way Alex was picking at his blanket. "Bad? It's going to be terrible. I'm going to let everyone know you're coming. Mom will try to cook your favorite dish--have I mentioned she can't cook? Don't tell her, Irish women have killed for less--dad will carefully pick out Quran verses he thinks you might be interested in once I tell him about this and you'll feel terribly guilty not listening to all of them, and I'm telling my sister that your absolute favorite thing in the whole wide world is playing dress up, and that your favorite colors are pink and kiwi green. You're going to hate it. Just like a real family holiday."
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 12:49:13 GMT -6
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Jul 27, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -6
Jiri kept his whimpering to a manly minimum as Maya manhandled the clown.
"I could have just put my hands together if you had asked--"
And dragged him to his feet. "Do you not understand where you shot this guy?"
Having never been shot before, or had much worse than a sprained ankle, Jiri could say with a certain definitivity that oww this hurt. He had literally nothing worse to compare it to. Even when he'd been in Alex, the stab wound had been neatly distanced by blood loss. Forgiving, forgiving blood loss.
"Shouldn't you, like, wrap this guy's wound or something okay seriously stop laughing I'm allowed to be concerned." If he wasn't in himself he would punch himself because that laugh was the laugh of madness and it was echoing all throughout their head. On the bright side, insane clowns seemed to have the mental fortitude of drunk slugs, so he was pretty sure the guy wasn't an issue.
Even before his shoulders started sinking into the mirror.
It was like a scene from a horror movie, played in horrifyingly intimate detail. The glass was cold as their body sunk in. He didn't remember that detail, from when he'd stepped through the mirrors in Maya's body. Maybe it was a special effect reserved for her victims.
Suffice it to say that Jiri hopped ships like a drowning rat, crawling his way back into Maya's brain and shivering in a corner.
Give a guy a little warning before you do that, please. Your power is creepy.
He didn't seem to have as much control this time. For one thing, he wasn't talking out loud when he talked to her. He experimentally wiggled their fingers, just to see if he could. Was this a partial-control-thing, like he'd had going with Ghost? ...Whose name was also Maya, come to think of it. Huh. Apparently he was collecting the whole set.
Moral of the story: he had no idea what dictated how much control he had, when he hopped. But staying in a psychotic clown hotel probably hadn't helped.
So. Umm. He did the mental equivalent of twiddling his thumbs. ...Can this count for class credit?
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 12:05:42 GMT -6
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"Oww!" The clown shouted, a heck of a lot like a recovering seven-year-old-with-cake-on-his-hands. "Like seriously! Oww! Did you not give me more than thirty seconds to get into position because oww!"
The clown curled up around his leg. Was he supposed to take the arrow out? No that would just make the bleeding worse. So stop the bleeding? Oh god touching the arrow made that hurt a lot worse. But if he took it out the bleeding would be worse--
The catch-22 of the recently shot.
"Okay, when we get back to the Mansion? We are working on your teamwork skills." The clown's voice was high and nasal. He reached up, pulled off the big red rubber nose, and tossed it at her chest. He sure hoped Maya could put two and two together and figure out who was really talking here. "And you shut up, this is not funny."
The clown begged to differ. He was pretty sure their own mind was giving them a migraine, here.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 11:47:58 GMT -6
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Oh. Ohhhhhhhh. Dissing the name? Did she really go there? Did she not realize he was in her head hearing her every thought? She could hear his, too, but at least his weren't casually racist.
The name is Iranian, he enunciated carefully in her brain-space. My dad gave it to me. Because he is also Iranian. Thank you for asking. I am glad for this meaningful cultural exchange.
Yep. He was totally ready to get out of here. Close his eyes, he repeated back. Got it.
The evil sheen of colorful polyester reared its ominous red nose. Jiri took a breath, and stepped them out of the mirror. He was pretty sure, on a this-makes-sense-instinctively level, that his power wasn't going to work from inside of a crazy mirror pocket dimension.
He met the clown's glowing gaze. Okay. Come on, powers. Let's get this over with so--
--we can eat cake?
Jiri stopped shoving fistfuls of cake into his mouth with pudgy, sticky hands. He was under a table, he was seven, and he'd had enough presence of mind to get not only himself but an entire sheet cake evacuated to this completely safe location.
Aaaaahhhh! The kid was screaming in his(their) head. "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!" The sound was even louder, on the outside. Apparently he didn't have as much control over this one.
Aaaahhh yourself. Get out of the building or I'll make you get out. No no, bring the cake, that's legit. War trophy.
Okay, trying this again. Hopefully Mirror hadn't gotten lasered to death in the minute he'd been gone. Clown clown clown clown--
Clown? Clown!
Aww crap, fully charged clown.
The laser death beam went off. Totally not Jiri's fault. He preemptively dodged behind another mirror, just in case Maya retaliated. Because, yeah. Laser death beam. Happens to the best of us?
The wild cackling sharing his brain was not helping.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 11:12:43 GMT -6
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If Jiri had any idea he'd be getting his teacher in trouble, he might have supplied the helpful explanation that he was narcoleptic. And if he was remembering right, he'd pretty much fallen asleep in the middle of a debate on crowd mentality. Which was cool, scary stuff.
>> The clown is going to kill us.
Yes thank you, your sarcasm at this juncture is appreciated.
Seriously. And this woman was the adult, here? He let the Maid Marian/William Tell thing slide. A) Because one of them needed to keep focused on the clown trying to kill them, and B) so he didn't have to pretend he knew who William Tell was. Probably someone good with arrows, he guessed. And less girly than Marian. He wasn't getting real strong girly vibes here.
I think I can possess him. I mean, no promises, but I'll try? I've done it before, but I--wait no NO shooting! I do NOT know what would happen, and do you really think this is the time to find out? Please dear god tell me you're not the teacher of that power control class because I am going to drop it so hard.
He was signed up for that, in the Fall semester. He was already pretty sure it would be useless but he'd suddenly gotten a vision of how it could be worse than useless.
How about I try the possession thing and, just, stand there or something? And you can handcuff me? If there was a way to give a sidelong look inside someone's head, that's what Jiri did. Because anyone working with the police has legit handcuffs, right?
Yeeeep. For the record, if I'm here, it probably means I feel asleep during Sociology. I'll be out of your head once I wake back up.
He didn't mention just how long that might take. So far people had tried yelling, shaking, threatening him with imminent bodily harm, and tossing glasses of water into his unconscious face. If there was something external that could wake him up, he hadn't found it. Heck, he'd even crashed a car once, and got to watch himself sleeping through it. Best to give the nice bow-slinging X-girl hope that this ordeal would be over soon.
Her name was Maya. Maya Morris. Maya Morris Mirror.
The voice in Maya-Morris-Mirror's head went very still for a moment. The kind of stillness that could only mean he was trying very, very hard not to laugh.
Nice alliteration, Jiri finally settled on. He wasn't even going to touch the fact that the mirror-walkers codename was Mirror. Why couldn't all mutants have names like that? Then ColdSteel could be Ice McHitsOnChicks, and other-Maya could be Breezy O'BodyPossesion. It would really help determine who you had to be careful around, if you shook someone's hand and they said, hi, my name is X, but my friends call me Eats Small Children.
Mental hesitation. Totally noted.
'Work with the police.' He echoed, with an implicit 'uh-huh.' He might have added more, but apparently they'd die if a mirror broke.
Wait what? Okay seriously lady, we need to have a talk about priorities. Priority one: if it is something that is going to kill us that is the priority.
He started running. Navigating in this place was weird--he was pretty sure he ran off the edge of the building at one point, or something, from the views he could see. Street scenes instead of creepy clown death maze scenes. Against his better judgement, he turned back around.
Can we talk about the whole arrow thing? You might be the reincarnation of Maid Marian, continued alliteration with Maya-Morris-Mirror totally unintentional (okay maybe just a little), but I think we need to be realistic about my chances of hitting anything that isn't us. Maybe we could do something else? Like, our-powers-combined or something? ...I could try possessing him instead, maybe.
Hesitation-in-his-head: yeah. Mirror could probably hear his, too. Jiri knew he could hop heads. He'd done it before. But he'd never done it while he was particularly lucid.
Posted by Jiri O'Leary on Aug 7, 2015 8:33:39 GMT -6
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((ooc: Your psychoanalysis of Jiri's power is ridiculously spot-on. <3))
"Holy crap," Jiri drew the first word out, until each syllable was its own statement: Ho-ly craaaap. People still did exorcisms, and Alex had been in a place where they'd done one. He really, really didn't want to read too much into that break in thought there, the 'because the adults...' that didn't pick back up. But it was hard not to, if the people in that house had already been that messed up. "Did you ever, like, call child protective services on them? I mean, you were probably really young at the time and didn't think of it, but maybe drop an anonymous tip now? Crazy people tend to get more extreme over the years, not less. If they're still being allowed around kids..."
The phrase 'he shuddered to think' had never seemed more appropriate.
And then Alex picked up on his dropped comment. Jiri flushed an appropriate shade of red, and talked faster than strictly necessary.
"It was incredibly stupid. If I had gone to juvie over it, the other kids would have beaten me up and given me wedgies or something if they heard about it. It was lunch, and the guy was being really inappropriate and handsie with this freshman girl who was totally just trying to get away from him, and I didn't realize I was awake, so I just walked over and... stabbed him in the hand. It was one of those plastic school cafeteria knives that can't even cut chicken." Lamest crime ever. "I'm pretty sure he's still ticked at me, but his parents made him drop the charges when they realized I was legit crazy."
And then they were back to talking about Alex. Whoo. Much safer territory. Whatever else Alex's track record was, at least it wasn't cringe-worthy lame.
"It was self-defense." Jiri raised an eyebrow. His tone was about the same as he'd have used to describe that puppies were fluffy, or boiling water was hot. "I was there, remember? I'll vouch for you. They'll believe me." There was an unspoken confidence there: his parents trusted him, and he trusted them. It was the sort of family dynamic Jiri took utterly for granted.
"If you are in the middle of your trial, then that's the time you'll most want to have a break, right? Be around people who actually care about you, dodge the media by going to a podunk town?" Warwick wasn't really podunk, but it was an hour and a half from the city. No one was going to be looking for Alex there. "My family's really small. Just the four of us--all my relatives are out of the country. I think my mom misses big family events, so there's always this standing invitation to have my friends over. Don't be creeped out if she adopts you. She's, like, an amoeba. An Irish amoeba." Jiri made a sort of slllorp sound, and mimed one cell absorbing another.
His mouth shifted into a wry grin. "Plus, I've been dropping the A-bomb for like the past five minutes, and you haven't twitched once." The A-bomb: Allah Allah Allah Allah. He couldn't even think that in his head without it coming out in his best jihadi voice, thank-you-Western-media. Which is exactly why he didn't say it out loud. "Anyone who can have a legit discussion about religion without getting all weird-uncomfortable deserves to be treated with an open mind. Even if I didn't know the details, I'd like to think it's still be giving you the benefit of the doubt, here."
'Weird-uncomfortable' being its own adjective. Seriously. People could get crazy weird-uncomfortable when he said 'Allah.' It was why he usually went with 'God,' instead. God was God and God was Allah, but one of these words was socially acceptable, and one of them was just... weird-uncomfortable.
