Originally posted May 6, 2010
((About this time, I had Chance join The Guardians, a large RP super group with a fairly good reputation. I was a bit dissatisfied with the RP I had found in The Forgotten, and Kori had just decided to separate herself further from the group. Like I had done with Siobhan back when I started playing CoH, I fictionalized the Guardians' "get to know you" questionnaire. Since it was taking me longer than I expected, this was actually posted in two parts on May 6 and 10. Between those two dates, I learned OOC of Kori's death. Going back to write the second half as a happy, in love, and positive Chance posed a number of challenges, but left me with a very in character closing line.))
He looked fit, Ryan had to admit. At 5'8", dressed in jeans and a t-shirt proclaiming "Romance is Boring," The Harrier seemed of more human than heroic proportions. Given how the wait staff stopped to chat with him as they walked by, the reporter could tell the young man held some certain charm. He walked over to the corner booth. "Chance?"
The blonde headed man looked up from his book, setting it face down on the table as he stood. "Ryan?" He extended a hand. "Thank you for meeting me here."
"It's no trouble at all," the reporter replied. "We try to make these interviews as informal as possible." He looked around at the eclectically decorated café. "This seems like a nice place."
"Thanks," Chance offered the bench opposite his." I play the open mics here pretty regularly when I'm in town." He sat as the reporter settled himself. "Can get you anything?"
"What are you drinking?"
"Smithwicks."
"Sounds perfect." Chance made a couple of gestures to the bar keep as Ryan pulled out a small manila folder and a steno pad. "Do you mind if I take notes?" Chance shook his head as the older man opened the folder and opened an old fashion fountain pen. "Let's see. Chance Wilbert Thomas. Goes by the code name Harrier and briefly Samurai Indigo." Chance rolled his eyes as he took a sip. "What do you like people to call you? Any nicknames?"
"Chance is fine." He smiled. "No nicknames."
"Only child of Agnes and Hunter Thomas. No siblings."
"That's not quite right. I have a sixteen year old half-sister, Yukiko, from one of my father's other relationships."
"Yukiko Thomas?" Ryan updated his notes as Chance nodded. A dreadlocked waitress set down their beers with a smile. Chance lifted his glass. "Cheers." The pints touched.
"Born in Appelscha, The Netherlands?"
"Yes. That is correct. My grandfather's grave has been designated a historical landmark. He was buried wearing his top hat, I understand." Chance grinned.
"What can you tell me about your childhood?"
Chance shrugged. "We moved around a lot with my dad's job at the US State Department. Started in Holland, then the UK, then India, then finally, Japan. I attended public school in a rural Japanese community up until we moved to the States halfway through high school. It's weird growing up as a foreigner in Japan. No matter how close you get, it always feel like you're on the outside."
"Do you remember any role models growing up?"
"Not really," Chance added with a shake of his head. "Maybe Arai-Sensei, my kendo instructor. He always seemed so balanced; talented; really, really good; but humble."
"Why did you settle in America?"
Chance shrugged as he took another sip. "My dad decided to leave the State Department and had some connections in Chicago. My folks didn't stay together too long after we moved. I lived with my mom after they separated."
"Why?"
The young man looked for an answer in the corners of the room. "It felt more natural? I'm not sure I could tell you. There had been some tension between them for a long time. I found out later that my dad had been having a long term affair while we were living in Japan. After some violence at my school, I went to live with my dad for a while until I went to university. When she got sick, I moved back in with my mom to take care of her. She passed last year."
Ryan sipped from his beer with one hand as he jotted notes with the other. "What do you do, now that you've settled in MC?"
"I'm a househusband." Chance chuckled as he took a drink from his pint. "My fiancée and I recently moved in together. Her job takes her out of the country so I stay at home and help parent my soon to be 13 year old stepdaughter." The young man raised his eye brows as he smiled. "I hope to start university again in the summer term and finish my degree."
The reporter nodded. "Major?"
"I'm not entirely sure yet. I studied pre-law and history at Northwestern." Chance tilted his head. "I'm thinking maybe education with a social studies focus." Ryan hid a grunt behind a pull from glass. He couldn't remember the last time he heard a superhero say they wanted to teach.
"Do you hold to any beliefs?"
Chance lips curled and his brow furrowed. "Beliefs? I believe justice is a full contact sport. I believe that 22 is way too young to have a teenaged daughter but that I'm doing pretty well so far. I believe that I have a weakness for people in need and that I am going to marry one of the most amazing women I've ever met, who for some reason, seems to believe I'm pretty amazing, too."
"I believe that "Scratch Your Back" is an interesting idea but that you've really got to be in the right mood to listen to the whole thing. Well," Chance's head bobbled back and forth, "The same could be said for nearly any Gabriel disc, especially when he was still with Genesis. I believe that pop rock and roll is safe in the hands of bands like Los Campinsinos and Franz Ferdinand, but that pop radio rarely plays anything worth listening to."
Ryan raised an eyebrow as he paused. "Religious beliefs?"
"Oh." The younger man slouched back into the booth, pulling up his legs along side him on the bench. He took a pull from his glass and waved at the server before answering. "I don't know. I go to temple on New Year's; ring the bells. I will confess that I have a few Darumas around the penthouse. But.... In this job you... see things." Chance took another long draw from his beer, finishing it. "I've fought things that call themselves demons. I researched for a woman who told me she was worshipped in ancient Egypt and I don't think she's kidding. Belief requires some bit of faith. But how much faith do you really need when so blatantly confronted by the supernatural?" He shrugged.
The reporter drained his glass and gestured with his hand, pen held between his fingers. "Do you believe anything worth dying for?"
Chance raised his own hands, then pulled them back to make way for a fresh round. "I believe that dying for things is usually a lot easier than living for something." His hands danced in the air above the table. "I will live for my family, for the idea of justice." He raised a weak smile. "If I die for something, I imagine it will be because it was due to the effort I exerted trying to live for something." He shook his head, hoping he made sense in there somewhere.
"Do you believe you will ever encounter circumstances in which you would kill?"
Chance nodded, lifting his beer into both hands and cradling the pint between his knees. "Death.… Death prevents any future options. Some of the best anti-gang people I've worked with grew up as bangers. A lot of kids would still be in the gangs if these people had been killed at an earlier age. Who am I to say when it's the right time for someone to lose their future." He took a drink. "There have been moments when I've had to make that decision, to kill or not. When faced with them again, I will make the best decision I can given the circumstances at the time. I can't really offer a preview, or describe a set of variables that would lead to a particular choice. I can let you know, that I try to keep my options open as much a possible."
Ryan looked down at his list of questions. Time to change to a lighter topic….
"Let's move to some human interest questions," the reporter suggested. "Do you have any hobbies? What do you do to relax?"
Chance smiled, lifting his book. "I read as much as I can. Jim Butcher, today. Brain candy." The young man gestured towards the stage. "I still busk and enjoy playing out. I don't think I could ever give music the time it needs to take it to another level. I also enjoy cooking."
"If you had a day, all to yourself and without any responsibilities, how would you spend it."
"I would host a dinner party," Chance answered without hesitation. "It's been such a long time since I've been able to hang out in a kitchen with friends."
"If you could spend the day with someone you admire, whom would you pick?"
"Living or dead?" Chance asked. The reporter nodded. The blond young man pondered a moment before answering. "There's a character in Russell's novel The Sparrow, Emilio Sandoz. He's a Jesuit Priest, a man of learning and languages, and yet unable to predict and strangely inflexible. Things turn out badly for him by the end of the book, his body and faith shattered. I'd like to spend a day with him."
"What would you talk about?"
"I'd like to ask him how he approaches a language and get his thoughts on history and learning about new cultures." Chance took a drink. "What I'd really like to do is get a measure of him; gain some understanding of how someone so intelligent could miss the clues that things were going to wrong." The young man shrugged. "I've missed some important clues in my life. I'd like to learn how to stop doing that."
"With your life in mind, what are your goals?"
"That's an excellent question, Ryan, one that I'm struggling with right now. I'd like to provide opportunities for young people, well all people, to turn their lives around if they so choose. It's not a question of throwing money at issues, I think. It's more one of setting expectations and holding people to them, all while making sure they have the means and tools to succeed." Chance grunted. "I guess I'd like to make the world a better place."
Ryan nodded, taking a sip from his drink while looking at his notes. He flipped back a few pages. "You mentioned you were engaged?" Chance nodded as he took another drink. "What's your idea of a good marriage? Do you think that'll happen in your life?"
"By the gods, I sure hope so." Chance chuckled. "I think a good marriage is a partnership of equals. A good marriage, any personal relationship for that matter, should propel you, drive you to be more, to be better than what you are now. Good communication is a key. At some point, you have to get out of bed and plan for a future together. What do you want for yourselves? Your kids? You don't need to assume in a good marriage. The expectations are clear because you've talked about them."
"How would you describe your ideal partner?"
"Pretty damn close to my fiancée, quite honestly. Smart, committed to helping others on a scoped that is, wow," Chance threw up his hands, "Way beyond me." The young man smiled as his eyes focused somewhere else for a moment. "Attractive, loving, tender, enjoys good food. Has high expectations of me."
"Besides your fiancée, whom have you loved?
"Romantically?" The reporter nodded before responding, "Sure."
"I would say I've had three really significant romantic relationships other than Kori. I loved two of them and was falling for the third before she called it off." Chance sipped from his glass. "So that would be my first love, my high school girlfriend, and a woman I met pretty soon after I arrived in MC. Even though things didn't work out there, I consider her a close, if not my best, friend. She's acting as the best man in my wedding."
"Tell me about her."
"She's also very smart, very caring. She's reliable, not the best communicator or really in touch with herself. Dani seems to have the super power of giving me a kick in the pants when I need it." Both the reporter and the young man shared a chuckle.
"What impression do you make on people when they first meet you?" Ryan asked. "How about after they've known you for a while?"
"I dunno," Chance said leaning forward across the table with a broad grin. "How am I doing?"
The reporter laughed as he drank from his glass. "Pretty well," he said. "But it could just be the beer."
Chance chuckled again. "People have told me that I am polite and inquisitive. I like to get to know people. After a while, they start to think I some kind of boy scout."
"Oh? What the worst thing you've ever done to someone? Why?"
The smile faded from Chance's face. He rubbed the back of his neck and took a sip before answering. "I missed so clues in a case I was working on. I didn't catch the bad guy in time. It led to 15 deaths. My biggest fear is that I miss hints like that again and people die."
"But that's not really doing anything, Chance."
"I didn't do what I was supposed to, Ryan. I didn't accept what the evidence was showing me. Sometime not doing is worse than doing. I can't think of a worse moment in my life than that micro-second when all the pieces clicked together in my mind and I realized I was too late."
"I,… I eventually stopped him," Chance continued after a long pull. "The papers and my friends said I was great hero. It remains a source of shame for me."
"Let's turn that around for a moment, Chance," Ryan said, gesturing with his pen. "What are you most proud of in your personal life?"
"I think the work I've done with my step-daughter to be, Akemi. Her behavior is still pretty extreme but she's a different person than she was six months ago." His blond hair bounced as he shook his head. "It's really the work that she's done. I've just been there to talk with her."
The reporter chuckled, fingering a question on his list. "Do you think you've turned out the way your parents expected?" Chance's laughter was loud and rich.
"Oh God no." He smiled and took a sip. "Well, I think my mom always hoped I would help people, but I'm pretty sure she was never happy that put on tights. My dad lives in fear that I will do something to derail his career. He can do that just fine on his own, I figure."
"Do you want another?" Chance asked. The reporter looked at half full glass. "Not yet, thanks."
"Nicole?" the younger man called out pleasantly to the server. "One more please." The dreadlocked girl nodded in his direction.
"I just have a few other questions here," Ryan assured. "It shouldn't take that much longer."
"Oh, no worries. I'm finding this interesting. I'm usually the one asking questions."
"What is your most prized possession?"
Chance shook his head as the remarkably pierced waitress dropped off a fresh glass. "I don't prize possessions. I treasure moments: a gentle touch as the morning light creeps through the shades, that first bite of a new food, feeling the bass in your heart at a concert." He smiled.
The reported nodded. "OK, then. What is the most important thing in your life? What do you value the most."
"My family, Kori, Akemi, my sister, Yukiko. I value what they add to my life; how they help make it more rich."
"You sound pretty positive about things right now. What, if anything, would you like to change."
"I'd like to spend more time with Kori, my fiancée, but her work and her travel are part of what makes her, her." He frowned. "Ack. That sounded terrible. I claim that English is not my native language."
Ryan chuckled. "I think I understand what you mean."
"Is there anything you've always wanted to do but haven't done? What would happen if you did it?"
"Nah," Chance shook his head. "Why wait?" He took a sip from the full glass. "Dani, my necromancer friend, tells me regret is the leading cause of undeath, so…" He lifted his hands and smiled, "Why have any?"
"Necromancer? Do you have any powers?"
"No. Not really. I heal a bit more quickly when I meditate. I don't need as much sleep as most." He grinned. "But I think Kori might be able to survive on less than even my 3 hours of meditation a night."
"You ever do drugs, Chance?"
The hair shook again. "I started high school in Japan. Drugs aren't as available there. By the time I moved to the States, it didn't seem right to feed into a system that fed so much violence in turn."
Ryan, pulled from his glass. "What do you like best about yourself?"
Chance chuckled and smiled. "I like that I don't give up, that I seem to get along with most."
"What do you like least about yourself?"
"The younger man inhaled sharply through his teeth. "I lack self confidence and tend to second guess myself."
"Really?" Ryan blinked. "Oh, absolutely," Chance assured him. "I almost lost Kori before we ever had a relationship. Remember Dani and her 'kick in the ass' super power?" They both chuckled.
"Where do you see yourself in the future, Chance?"
"Happily married. Maybe a child or two. Teaching." He smiled and took a long swallow. "An active retirement. Maybe train up some side kick or some such nonsense. Right now, I really just want to be as good of a father and husband as I can."
"What would you like it to say on your tombstone?"
"Tombstone?" Chance grinned. "Cremate me. Put me in a compost heap somewhere." That sparked a chuckle from the reporter. "No, seriously. If you were going to have a tombstone?" he asked again.
"Chance Thomas. He did the very best he could with what he had available at the time." The young man's teeth beamed through the lips of his smile. His eye's twinkled.
"Are you lying to yourself about something, Chance? What is it?"
The smile faded from his face and the twinkle faded as he looked down to the table. He raised his eyes to meet the reporter's. "Yes." Chance nodded slowly, once. "That somehow this will all work out to a happy ending."
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