Jaeris Babbles

[butterflyslinky]

Title: Jaeris Babbles
Fandom: TGWTG
Characters: Jaeris, Linkara, OC wife
Rating: G
Warning(s): None
Summary: “The gunslinger cannot shut up about his wife. Just Jaeris gushing about her once he's friendlier with the rest of the Atop the Fourth Wall crew. Like, to an obnoxious, tear-your-hair out, you're-giving-me-diabetes-with-this-sweetness rambling. At first Linkara's happy Jaeris is out of rage mode, then he just. keeps. going. Bonus points if the only thing that distracts him is cybermats. Because they're cute. (Yes, I like villains being non-villainous.)”
A/N: The title of this story came from Miss of the Linkara's Fan Blog when she very kindly reposted this during her fan fiction week. Now available in Russian here.

At first it was gratifying, knowing that Jaeris wasn’t angry anymore. At any rate, he was sitting on the futon and not shouting or crying as he had been doing for the last several weeks. Not that Linkara blamed him—while he didn’t have a wife, he could imagine being taken away from everyone important and he knew that would suck. But the rage and sadness got to be a bit much after a while.

But tonight, Jaeris seemed happier, or at least calmer, asking about this new earth and comparing notes, seeing how it matched up to his own home. It was actually kind of fun, talking about artists and people and trying to determine if they existed in the other world. While Linkara didn’t expect too many things to match up, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that in Jaeris’s world, Rob Liefeld existed and was still a terrible artist, that “One More Day” had still destroyed the Spider-Man series, and that Warrior still made no sense.

“I’m actually surprised your world wasn’t involved in the hypertime-fueled cross-over of that,” Linkara commented when Warrior came up.

Jaeris shrugged. “It might have been—I just missed it.” He looked sad again. “My wife reads comic books. She’s not a reviewer, but she does read ‘em.”

Linkara hesitated, but decided it might do some good if Jaeris talked about her. “What’s she like?” Linkara asked.

Jaeris smiled slightly. “She… well, you know those girls who challenge you? My Ayla’s one of those.” He got a distant, dreamy look on his face. “The first time I saw her, I knew she was the one. We were young, and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I was walkin’ through the park and she was sittin’ on a bench, readin’ a comic book… I think it was Batgirl… and the first thing I noticed was her hair. It was the loveliest shade of red I’ve ever seen, like cherries, but brighter… and then I tripped like a fool and she looked up and her eyes were… they’re impossible to describe, like someone had taken the pond on a clear day and put it into her… and she came to help me up and her hands were so much harder than I expected from such a gentle face…”

*

Linkara sighed. It had been half and hour and Jaeris hadn’t run out of things to say about his wife, who, as far as Linkara could tell, was the most perfect person who ever existed. Which was fine, except that after thirty minutes of hearing about how wonderful and beautiful and sweet she was, Linkara had become quite bored of his guest’s constant prattle. He didn’t want to interrupt, though, since having Jaeris extolling on the virtues of his wife was better than having Jaeris extolling on the ways he wanted to beat Linkara to a pulp.

“…And her dress was the finest silk… like the moon had woven it out of the stars…”

It didn’t help that Jaeris liked to wax poetic about every detail. Linkara assumed that came from being a music critic, though he didn’t remember any of the musical people in his life talking this way. Of course, he’d never asked them about their significant others.

Just as Linkara was wondering what the politest way of telling Jaeris to shut up, there was a sudden whir and a Cybermat came into the room. Jaeris broke off, staring at the robot. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

“It’s a Cybermat,” Linkara said, relieved to have something to discuss other than the beauty of Ayla. “They work as security sentries for me. They’re quite useful.”

The Cybermat rolled over to Jaeris and nudged his foot. Jaeris looked at Linkara, unsure of what to do.

“You can pick it up, if you like,” Linkara said. “It won’t hurt you.”

Jaeris reached down and picked up the Cybermat. It made whirring sounds of approval and nuzzled into Jaeris’s chest. Linkara grinned. “It likes you.”

“It’s cute,” Jaeris said. “My daughter would like one of these.”

“You have a daughter?”

“Yeah. Kalina. She’s… well, she was just a baby when I left, but now…”

Linkara sighed and closed his eyes. It was going to be a long night.