Thomas Jefferson Jr.

The woman gently closes the door behind him and heads back towards the living room. “Have you eaten yet?” She asks curiously, passing through the living room and into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. “I’ve made some blueberry muffins.” She starts putting said muffins into a baggy to take along for their trip, leaving three out. One for herself, one for Magnus, and one for T.J. if he wanted one. If not, she was sure Magnus would eat it. She’d quickly learned that growing teenage boys will eat just about anything if it has sugar or cheese in it. “You’re welcome to help yourself to anything in the fridge too.” The blonde woman offers, sealing the bag and moving back into the living room to tug it into her backpack before returning to the kitchen and grabbing her muffin and travel mug full of coffee.

“Magnus! Your muffin is getting cold!” She calls before remembering that she’d promised not to mom him. Oops. “Coming!” Magnus calls back before clambering down the stairs with his bag over his shoulder. He heads into the kitchen, grabbing a muffin. “Thanks, mom. Hey T.J.!”

#thesonofnatalie #|| p l e a s e

T.J. follows her into the kitchen, politely taking a muffin when offered. “No, I haven’t eaten yet; thank you, this’ll be fine.” He sits, trying to keep from bouncing off the walls with excitement and looking around the room as he eats breakfast. A smile finds its way onto his face at Ms. Chase calling up to Magnus; it was nice, familiar. He takes another bite of the muffin, enjoying the sweetness of it. Normally, his mom made more savory breakfasts of eggs and sausage for the two of them, so this was a welcomed change of pace.

When Magnus steps in the room, T.J. perks up a little more and waves, not wanting to spew half-chewed muffin crumbs across the room. “Hey Magnus, what’s up?” he asks after allowing a moment to finish his bite.

littlemusingthings

i’m known for r u n n i n g my mouth

#journal;#because its a queue!;#|| ...#|| this is canon teej tho

“Says the boy caring a rifle on his back.” Prue replies, cold eyes studying the teen for any signs of the mist covering something up. “What are you? Because you sure as Hades aren’t mortal.” She replies, mortals passing by them and probably seeing nothing but a girl holding her phone and carrying on a conversation with a ‘normal’ teenage boy. “You’ve only got a few seconds to start spouting out the truth before I start getting violent, and trust me, the odds are in my favor. If you knew who my father was, you would know my aim is pretty much perfect long range so I’ll have absolutely no problems carving a nice sized hole in your gut. Start talking.” She says, silently counting in her head. She’d give him five seconds and that’s only if he didn’t make a move first. If he made a move first… well, she was going for the kill. She hadn’t survive away from camp halfblood this long by being sweet and charming.

#thechildrenoflores #|| prue pL s #|| FUCK I MISSED IT BY 3 DAYS #|| SHIT #|| I WISH I DID SOMETHING FOR TJS DEATH DAY #|| FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK #|| also sorry it sucks im Dying™

Okay, so maybe she was more than just a scared mortal. But... she didn’t exactly seem like any of the Norse beings he had come into contact with either -- normally they would want to make a deal, an official deal. And she... did she just reference Hades? Wasn’t he from that Disney movie he watched a few years ago? Or had language in Boston changed so much as to encompass an allusion like that? “Alright, listen. Put the knife down, would you? I’ll talk, but I really would love to not be stabbed.” She was obviously no mortal, and really, there wasn’t any rule against not telling people about Valhalla, or the Nine Worlds in general, only that they weren’t really supposed to travel without strict permission to do so (not that that really stopped him, anyway). “You’re not going to believe me but look,” T.J. lowered his voice, but didn’t attempt to move any closer, not while he figured she was still an immediate threat. Even if she didn’t believe him, she might think he was crazy enough to just let him run off.

The einherji took a deep breath and just got it over with. “I’m dead. I have been for a while. I’m only here from the afterlife -- I come from Valhalla -- to see the 54th Massachusetts Regiment memorial. I come and go every year, and I'm not looking for trouble here. I already died once today a century and a half ago, so if you could just...” He trailed off, waiting for her to react to everything he just said.

“Not in the present, at least.” Prue replies, her adrenaline already starting to get going. There was definitely something really off about this kid and that ‘RUN’ feeling was just screaming at her again, though just like before, she ignores it. She wouldn’t be able to get her bow fast enough if he attacked her, but that’s okay, she didn’t need a long range weapon anyway. Her dagger was stashed on her side, hidden by her jacket. Stay calm, Prue. Except it’s not her own ‘voice’ which supposedly one hears as their conscious. It was Seth’s. It was always Seth’s. Most of the time it sounded like his voice when they’d train together. He’d always been a better fight. But sometimes… sometimes it was the softest whisper, the one that gives her chills and immediately brings her back to fourteen soaked by rain and huddled in a small cave with Seth and Brooke. Brooke is asleep but she and Seth are wide awake and shivering. He’d moved close to her and wrapped his arms around her and they’d help a completely whispered conversation, so intimate in the most innocent of ways. The opportunity to kiss had been there and neither had taken it. She hated herself everyday for it. Damn it, Prue! Focus! It was Seth’s voice again, but this time she doesn’t let it distract her. Instead, she does something absolutely stupid and she pulls out her dagger.

He knew coming to Midguard was a mistake -- it practically always was -- as soon as this girl pulled a knife on him. T.J. stepped back and brought his hands up a little, tempted to reach for the bayonet attached to the muzzle of his rifle, but decided against it for now. Assuming she knew how to use it (and she looked like she did), he could be in some serious trouble if he didn’t find a way to diffuse the situation or flee before it was too late, since he wasn’t exactly planning on wounding or killing anyone on this trip. “Oh, hey. Wow, um, okay.” This trip was getting more and more memorable by the second. “Listen, I’m not looking for trouble, okay? I’m just trying to get to 24 Beacon street, and I’d rather not die on the way there, if it’s all the same with you.” If she was just some easily-spooked civilian with a dagger, hopefully she’d listen to reason -- if she was something more threatening... well, T.J. was used to fighting for his life by this point.

#thechildrenoflores

Magnus doesn’t know how to explain the sudden shift within him, he really doesn’t think he can. The gentle motion of moving his hair out of his face and the T.J. was touching his cheek and it was like something snapped inside the boy’s chest. It gets incredibly harder to breath and it reminds him of the not really asthma attack he had when he arrived in Valhalla. Panic. Pure and utter desperate panic. Magnus Chase had died so many times, too many times to even count. But there was not a single time that he’d died and he’d been alone. His sixteenth birthday, there was a bridge full of people, his friends were there, he knew who he was dying for. Then in the numerous training battles in Valhalla, he’d always been surrounded by people, dying beside his hallmates most of time.

This was different. He was begging T.J. to leave alone and suddenly the idea of the other teen really leaving scared the Helheim out of him. He can’t just retract his words, tell him he’s changed his mind. He can’t just say ‘Please die trying to save me just so I don’t have to be alone! I don’t know what’s waiting for me!’ It’s so hard to breath and it hardly has anything to do with the multiple wounds the boy is dying from.

The blond chokes out his own sob, reaching up and moving his hand behind the other boy’s neck. He pulls the soldier down, pressing his forehead against his own and he squeezes his eyes shut as the tears start again.

He’d never feared death until this very moment.

#thesonofnatalie #|| this got kind of ramble-y sorry #|| also it took a forever and a half oops

He was scared. T.J. could sense it -- part of being a son of Tyr, he could tell when he needed to lend people his courage. But right now, the soldier was scared, too. He wasn’t particularly scared to lose his own life -- he had lived a long, eventful, and fulfilling life (and afterlife). In truth, he would just be disappointed he couldn’t serve in Ragnarok, but if it meant Magnus could; if it meant this boy, who was sure to play a bigger part in the apocalypse than he, could live a little longer, T.J. was willing to give up his eternity in Valhalla, was willing to suffer the uncertainty of the void or the vastness of Helheim to get him there. No, T.J. was just scared he would fail, or that all his efforts would be for naught and they all would die anyway.

His head thunked lightly against Magnus’s, but he couldn’t find the time to care. Their time was running out, and if T.J. didn’t act quickly... He closed his eyes as his forehead rested against the other boy’s and took a deep breath, deciding to risk it. The son of Tyr was bleeding -- probably from a stab would and some slashes and scrapes of varying degrees of severity littering his body -- but he didn’t let that stop him from worming his arms under and around Magnus until he was able to lift him, bridal-style. T.J. was trying his best not to jostle him around too much, but since they were roughly the same size, avoiding such was kind of difficult. He had made his decision, and even if it slowed him down, by all the gods, Thomas Jefferson Jr. was willing to try whatever he could to get Magnus back. He truthfully only had his einherji strength to thank for being able to carry him and run at all -- he had tried, back at Fort Wagner, to bring one of his brothers to safety, but could only drag him across the sand a few feet. This was no time for getting sidetracked in the past, T.J. He stumbled a few times, and mumbled apologies to Magnus.

Every fiber of his being burned, worse than when he had accidentally been caught in the crosshairs of a volley of flaming arrows, but he pushed through as best he could. This was no joke; there would be no do-overs if he failed now. T.J. could hear the commotion behind him, and made a promise to himself that he would stay as long as he could to help the others. Someone -- he couldn’t quite make out who -- was holding the portal open for them, something he’s sure he would be eternally grateful for, however long the rest of his eternity would last. Forty feet... thirty... twenty... Each step brought a new wave of pain, but it brought them one step closer to the World Tree, one step closer to Valhalla, and one step closer to another day.

“Stay with me, Magnus. Don’t you go anywhere.”

“Yeah, exactly. But I can’t let all those skills go to waste, might as well use my sweet talking on someone and I’m sure it wouldn’t work on Mallory.” He teases, nudging the other boy lightly with his shoulder. “She’d probably punch me.” It was probably true too. “’sides, I feel you appreciate it more.”

#thesonofnatalie #|| tj is being a sappy goof please stop him #because its a queue!;

He giggled a little. Magnus was good at cheering him up; how he managed to do that, T.J. wasn’t sure he’d be able to figure it out for another hundred years. “Yeah, I don’t think she would take kindly to it. Me, on the other hand...” T.J. trailed off. He did appreciate it, and everything else Magnus was doing for him. “Well, your skills won’t go to waste on me.”

Magnus pushes himself up off of the floor and stands, shoving his hands into his pockets as he follows after T.J.. The blond hadn’t even been to Valhalla’s library yet, hadn’t even really thought about it. He already had a shelf of books in his room and he’d been pretty busy which left him with little time to read anyway. “You have a favorite part of the library? That’s a little nerdy.” He teases lightly, trying to lighten the air between them and get himself out of his own funk.

#thesonofnatalie #|| please mango boy leave him a l o n e #because its a queue!;

T.J. didn’t take Magnus’s comment personally. He knew Valhalla was the hall for fallen warriors, not fallen bookworms -- though, he supposed he was after-living proof that the two weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. “I mean, we can do something else if you want. It was just the first thing that came to mind. Have you had the chance to explore yet? Would you rather do that?”

“That’s a bit of an odd thing to just be carrying around Boston, isn’t it?” She questions, eyeing the bayonet on the end of the gun. It looked sharped and not at all rusted like it should be if it was as old as she thought. The gun didn’t look very damaged either. Maybe it was refurbished or maybe the kid was just cosplaying and it wasn’t real at all. Ah, why the Hades did she care anyway? As long as he didn’t stab or shoot her with it, it wasn’t her problem. And yet…

“Nice jacket.”

#thechildrenoflores #|| im crying #|| lol yeah i figured that based on her observations but i didnt think tj would r i p

He turned to look at her head-on. T.J. hadn’t planned on giving her much thought, but she seemed... well, different from the mortals on Midguard. “I don’t know, is it?” he asked. He had never been very good at staying vague. It wasn’t until her last statement did he figure something was definitely off. He couldn’t quite figure out what, but she seemed to see that he didn’t exactly belong here anymore. “Thanks. It’s vintage.” Ordinarily, he wouldn’t mind striking up a longer and more meaningful conversation, but at the moment, he had other things on his mind; on top of that, he was trying to assess whether or not this stranger girl was less harmless mortal and more glamoured threat.

@takinghills

Blair didn’t know what to think when a teenage boy came rushing into the store. She raises an eyebrow from behind the counter, straightening in her seat. Please don’t let this be another runaway from the cops. “Hey, kid. You can’t hang around if you aren’t buying anything.”

#thechildrenoflores #|| 'please dont let this be another runaway from the cops'#|| tj: *is a runaway from the cops*#|| even tho his dad is like the norse ultra-cop #|| the norse god of cops

T.J. was on a mission in Midguard -- no leisurely stroll to the mortal world would be worth this danger right now -- when he may or may not have busted a fire hydrant a street or two away... in front of a couple of police officers on horses. He rushed into the nearest store to get away from them, but found himself faced with another issue: he didn’t have any mortal money, but he wasn’t eager to be thrown in prison again. Out of breath and trying to stay away from the window, he looked to the lady behind the counter. “I -- please,” T.J asked desperately. He wasn’t willing to try his luck and possibly get in more trouble, but he really needed some refuge and kindness from a stranger right now.

@takinghills

“Hey there, friend. You alright?” Seth asks, looming over the previously unconscious teen. He had absolutely no clue who this kid was, but he was inclined to help. “What’s your name?”

#thechildrenoflores #|| poor bab #|| lmao and seth is just bein a sweetie pie im sobbing

The einherji didn’t remember passing out, or why. Actually, he didn’t remember a whole lot when he came-to again besides the fact that he didn’t belong here. He insisted on standing up once he felt well enough, and, to his surprise, found a young man helping him out. He was a stranger, but T.J was willing to accept the help until he could further assess the risk in it. “I -- thanks.” It took a few seconds for his vision to clear up, and for the second question to register. T.J. brought a hand to his head. “I’m Thomas. Uh -- call me T.J. Thanks, uh...?”

@takinghills

Normally Prue would mind her business and just carry on with her life, ignoring everything else around her. But this… this was too strange to just overlook. “Are you… is that a rifle over your shoulder?” It wasn’t just any rifle either, it looked like a Civil war era rifle and on top of that, the boy’s coat seemed to match that era as well. Could be a convention or something going on, but something in her gut told her otherwise. It told her to run away, just like she ran from everything else. She told that feeling to shut it’s ugly trap and mind it’s own damn business.

#thechildrenoflores #|| i love #|| sorry tj is being a noob and is trying to play it off but he just doesnt know what to do rip

T.J. knew how dangerous it was to go to Midguard alone, but some things... some things he couldn’t get his friends involved in. He figured as long as he was back before anyone noticed he was gone, he would be fine. He hadn’t however, anticipated people stopping him on the street, asking about his weapon. Actually, he hadn’t anticipated anyone stopping him, period; not many had before. He turned to the girl and adjusted the strap on his shoulder. No one had seemed to notice before today, and if they did, they hadn’t said anything. “Uh... yeah?”

Magnus grins, deflecting another blow. “See? I knew you wouldn’t kill me.” He replies, playfully winking at the other teen just as he’s speared straight through his midsection. Ouch. The blond sputters before falling to the ground, Jack zooming over and dropping into Magnus’ left hand.

#thesonofnatalie #|| rip #because its a queue!;

The boy was inclined to roll his eyes, and noticed just a second too late that there was a spear headed straight for Magnus. Now he was alone, assuming Mallory and Halfborn died already -- even if they hadn’t, T.J. hadn’t seen them since the first few minutes of the battle, so them coming back again seemed a little unlikely -- though the crowd of warriors had seemed to thin out a little. He continued fighting, as an einherjar should, until the fatigue from dealing with the arrowhead still plunged into the back of his leg and intensely battling for his life for what had to have been rounding on an hour now caught up to him -- his defenses lowered and he caught an axe to the neck.