losthunter | Repairing the Broken ((group thread))

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Repairing the Broken ((group thread))

Hunter was still in the common ward at St. Mungos, despite the fact that he no longer felt like he needed to be there. Madame Pomfey had wanted to watch his first few days of re-growing the bone.

So while he was still in the hospital, a group of his friends had decided to descend upon his apartment, to repair the damage caused by Bellatrix. There were signs that a little cleaning had already been completed by Jim in the last few days. But there were signs of the magical battle all around the place.

His kitchen table was gone, the broken pieces already cleaned away. There was an empty space along the wall, where an entertainment center once belonged. The doors and the windows to the balcony still did not have any glass, but at least the broken glass was gone. The burned artwork was also removed. But there is now a large empty spot along the wall, where a large portrait once was displayed.

There was a lot of work ahead of them. But they had a good crowd of people to get it done.

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"Thanks Hermione."

Steve offers the witch a genuinely grateful smile before he turns back to his small jars of paint and continued to mix them. He can make a makeshift palette for the pair of them with all the different colors, as well as some plain white too. Though he probably should hold off on that until Jim and Adia are back and ready to work.

Steve doesn't have a problem moving to sketch out the skyline in the meantime. He's fine working by himself while the others relax as much as they need to. This is more relaxing for him than their meal had been, frankly.

"You are more than welcome. If there is anything else I can do, just ask." Hermione had finished with anchoring the most important magical ritual for Hunter's apartment.

The other part of protecting Hunter will come from Caspar's expertise in technology.

"When you guys are done, I can seal the mural, so it lasts a long time."

With only Adia left in the room, it's a little easier to give an answer that'll make sense, without opening himself up to too many questions from others. Questions that would pry deeper than he's willing to talk about. "It's fine," he says, rubbing at the back of his neck, not wanting her to blame herself for not knowing about his particular neuroses either. "I just have a... thing. About people having enough." And yeah, there's a bit of guilt that he might've played some part in Caspar making himself scarce the moment he was done again.

He busies himself with sealing up the leftovers and stashing them back in the fridge again, ready for the next meal. Or for people to grab some on their way out, once they're done here.

She treats his confession delicately, giving him a soft smile but not asking for more details or prying into his reasons. That's not her business, although she's glad that he shared the little that he did. "I know what it's like to go without," she says quietly. "And Caspar is... well. He doesn't need much."

Being reminded that eating is frequently a social activity probably didn't help, either.

Finally done, she clears up her dirty plate and anything else left on the table. Jim seems to have a handle on the leftovers, so Adia gets to work on washing the dishes. Whether there's a dishwasher or not, she'll just go ahead and do them by hand. There aren't many. "I knew him before the War," she tells Jim. "He didn't know he was a Cylon back then. We were reunited recently and I've been trying to get him used to the Nexus. I can't imagine being there without him."

Caspar, meanwhile, is heading back to the spare room to take stock of what electronics he needs to complete his alarm system. He does pause a moment to catch Hermione's eye. "I'm going to start installing what I can around the balcony. Are you done with your wards?"

Graphite drags along the walls and Steve gets lost in the lines, the shapes, the forms. The San Francisco skyline (edited for Jim's time) takes shape and Steve moves on to the form of the Golden Gate bridge, growing thicker and thicker with rose bushes until t's a bloom in the middle before it moves back over to the Brooklyn bridge. A form Steve can draw from memory alone. How many times did he draw it while he was stranded in the Nexus?

When he thought he'd never be able to go home again?

He's working on the New York side of the skyline outlines when Adia and Jim come back in. Whatever had bothered him before seems to be vanished now with how focused and relaxed Steve is while he works. It takes him a moment to realize they've come back in at all.

"Oh! Sorry about that. You guys feeling recharged and ready to keep going?" Art waits for no one, after all.

Crookshanks watches as everyone leaves the table. He settles into an empty chair. And just continues to watch the others from a safe distance.

"Yes I am, thank you for doing Caspar." Hermione hums for a second. "Install to the east and west of true north. To make a triad."

As absolutely dismayed as Jim is to hear that Adia hasn't been spared that kind of experience... it does help, a little, that she gets it. He doesn't ask either, instead listening as they finish cleaning up. So Caspar's new to the Nexus... might explain some of the awkwardness. "Is there anything else I should know about his people? I don't wanna tread on any toes." He's already put his foot in it once already, and that's a terrible first impression to make. Besides, he's about to go on a five-year mission and meet new civilizations, better to get back in the habit of not offending strangers if he can help it.

As they move back into the art room, it's good to see that whatever weird-ass tension drove Steve out of the kitchen has gone out the window in favor of penciling in the detailwork they're gonna have to paint. It reminds him of Hunter, a little, the way he's seemingly lost himself in the act of creation, sketching out shapes with an accuracy that Jim will probably never have. "Yeah, pretty much. I might have to slip out for a minute to get those parts for Caspar, but then I'll be good to go."

"You got it," Caspar replies to Hermione before retreating to the spare room. At least someone around here is acting normal...

It's kind of Jim to ask for more information in an effort to be diplomatic. She gives him a smile as she rinses the dishes clean. "They're biological robots," she explains. "They're stronger and have a higher endurance than humans. They don't need to eat or sleep as much as we do, and they can interface directly with some electronics." That might explain a few things about Caspar's skill set so far.

Placing the last dish in the dish rack, she wipes her hands dry. "It's been... awkward for him. Adjusting to his new life among humans. Please don't be offended if he comes across with an attitude. Some people haven't treated him very nicely." She sets aside the dish towel and pats Jim's arm. "Thank you for trying."

Mood significantly lighter, she heads into the art room and smiles brightly. "Steve, it looks so nice! I'm ready to help again, just show me what I need to do."

"I've mixed up these offwhite shades here to let you two do the stars now that the sky is dry." Thanks to Hermione's help, of course. He points to the small jars of paint he's mixed. Offers Adia and Jim a warm smile.

"I can get some paper plates for you two to use as palettes, and I've got some smaller brushes." He shoots a glance toward Jim and nods. "I'll leave how best to fill the sky up to your decision, Jim."

Hermione moves out of the living room, to give those who are painting a little more room. She is not the artistic type, and doesn't feel that would be the best place for her skill-set.

She does remember seeing a bookcase in Hunter's bedroom. A bookcase that would have to be moved. So she decides that she should go into his room, to start deicately packing up his books. So that the bookcase will be empty when it is time to move it.

After she is done with that, she will start to unpack his dressers. And folding his clothes.

Doing things the Muggle way. Because it is Hunter's personal belongings.

To Jim, it doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to be thanked for treating a person like a person. If other people are assholes to Caspar just because he's not human, then fuck 'em. It's not like it makes him any less worthy of basic respect. Whatever the case, it doesn't sound like he has much to worry about, so he nods and mentally files away that information for later as they return to the art room.

"I can handle that," Jim says with a grin, already looking at the wall and trying to picture where each constellation would sit. He's certainly spent enough time gazing up at the stars that he knows more or less how it should look without a reference, and with the help of one of Steve's pencils, he starts marking where the major stars of Earth's northern hemisphere's night sky need to be. "You ever do any stargazing?" he asks while he works, an open-ended question for either of them to answer.

It's an unfortunate reality on Atlantis, but Jim doesn't ask any more questions, so she's willing to let the matter rest. Hopefully Caspar is, too.

And it seems he has, because when he comes back out of the spare room with his list of the parts he still needs, that slight tension in his frame is gone. "I don't need much," he tells Jim, setting the folded paper near the painting supplies. "Take your time." He gives Adia a small smile, then heads into Hunter's bedroom to help Hermione with packing.

The constellations that Jim is mapping out are familiar and foreign to Adia all at once. She paints each of her stars delicately, wanting to mimic the pinpricks of ancient light. "Almost every night," she says with a small smile. "There's so little light pollution on Atlantis, you can see everything. I just wish I knew what I was looking at... our astronomers are naming the constellations, but obviously they aren't the same as the ones I'm used to."

"Shockingly, not really. Can't see anything good from the cities thanks to all the light pollution. I never knew what I was missing until we went out onto into the backwoods in Germany during The War. Wasn't a lot of time to do it there, either. But I learned what a proper night sky should look like then. Just gotta find the time to do it for real, now."

He turns to Adia and Jim then, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Is it different? Studying the night sky when you've been Up There? Out There? I got to see space once from Blaze's ship. I'll never forget it."

Once the outline of the skyline and Brooklyn bridge is done Steve steps back.

"Alright, I'll go get those palettes set up if you want to go grab those parts for Caspar, Jim."

Steve's question makes Jim pause a moment, trying to figure out how to answer that. Is it different? "Yeah, it kinda is. It's one thing to look up and just imagine what might be out there, but when I look at it now, some of it's not just my imagination anymore. It's like... getting a small taste of what's still out there, the things we haven't found yet." Definitely enough to make a man think.

The constellations are easy enough once he gets going, and it'll only take a few minutes for Jim to mark them all out, leaving a pattern for Adia to fill in. "All right. Shouldn't take long, gimme twenty minutes."

"It does feel more real," she says in support of Jim's answer, her gaze leaving her paint work briefly as she thinks about her own experience in space. "The stars kinda stay the same, but orbiting a planet is such a wonderful experience. I remember the first time I saw Earth from above..."

She trails off and bites her lip. The memory is too powerful for her to bring up without getting emotional. "Thanks," she says to Jim, in reference to the constellation outline. It makes her job a lot easier. "I love the view from space, but being able to star gaze on Earth is wonderful, too. We can see the... what's called? Milky Way? It's beautiful."

That's right.

For Adia, it's much the opposite, isn't it? Steve tries to think at what it must be like, living in space for so long. He can't imagine it no matter how hard he tries. He's certain there's all kinds of tech that would astonish him to make it possible. Both Jim and Adia have spent so much time out there.

"Finding out we'd been to the moon was a heck of a thing." He tells Adia softly, handing over the paper plate all prepared with the shades he'd mixed earlier and a small brush. "But it was tempered with remembering you all lived out there. I never thought my world would even come close and then we did while I was...while I was asleep."

He gives Adia a slightly emotional smile of his own.

"Do you think the space and the stars play an important role in Hermione's magic too? Is it a thing that's just universally powerful and vast?"

It's funny how the both of them spend their free time catching up on Earth knowledge. It's not something she'd expect from an Earth native, but she's glad she has that in common with Steve. "We haven't set foot on the moon," she replies. "We had a probe take a couple samples, but otherwise we're concentrating on our settlement."

Secretly, she's glad for it. The moon has taken on a completely new meaning for her since the Nightmare. She'd rather it be left in its pristine condition.

Taking the makeshift palette and brush, she thanks Steve softly and then begins work on the stars that Jim has outlined, hoping to have many of them done by the time he returns. "I'm sure they do," she says in answer to Steve's question. "Even in a mundane world, everything is connected. It must be the same for magic."

Maybe they'll ask Jim when he comes back. Or better yet, Hermione herself once they're all done. Steve and Adia fall into an easy silence while they work on their respective painting projects and when Jim gets back Steve sets them up to finish filling in the black outline of the skylines he's drawn up while he gets to work on the two bridges with the winding roses connecting them.

The next time Caspar and Hermione come to check on the group, Steve's adding the finishing touches of lights on in some of the buildings while Jim and Adia finish rinsing out the other brushes they'd used during the course of the afternoon.

The apartment is a far cry from the burned wreck it was early that morning, with the smell of fresh paint chasing out any remnants of smoke clinging to the air. Hunter may be missing a lot of his artwork that used to be here, but his new workplace has a mural stretching out all the way across his new workspace made by his friends and the person most important to him these days.

Steve grins back to the group.

"What do you think?"

Hermione and Caspar were able to complete most of the packing of stuff from Hunter's bedroom, so that the heavier stuff could be moved later.

She admires the mural. "Hunter will love it."

It's definitely a massive improvement, and far beyond what Jim could have ever hoped to accomplish on his own. No regrets asking for help, as he steps back to look at the finished walls. "Yeah, he will. Thanks a lot for helping out, everyone. This place looks great."

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Repairing the Broken ((group thread))

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Let me know if i need to edit this, figured now was good as time as any to wrap up

a great place to wrap up

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