JJ HART
Human
Posts: 53
Played by:
Ange
Last seen May 15, 2024 20:32:44 GMT
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Post by JJ HART on Sept 10, 2021 19:37:53 GMT
The smile was all choir boy. Innocence that barely lasted its way through Sunday services, barely concealed in blue eyes that hadn’t been guileless since he was about eight. That was the last time he’d sat through one of those services too. His mum had continued to go but the Hart men had been conspicuously absent each time. Straddling the seat of his bike, J.J. had watched from the outside, arms propped on the handlebars of his bike, waiting for the other kids on base to emerge. That not so innocent grin aimed at the chaplain as he’d walked out, glad handing the parishioners while shooting him the stink eye.
It hadn’t been that instant suspicion on Destiny’s face when he’d caught her unawares, although, surely with time his boss lady would learn that it was the only way you could be with him. Give him an inch and he’d take a mile without an ounce of shame. Always better to ask for forgiveness than permission and all that, especially when there was a chance your editor would be the one bailing you out. Hadn’t been his editor he’d seen on the bars the last time though. Clinging to the bars like some kid with his nose up against a shop window J.J. had seen his brother swan in instead.
No shock on his face though, not the way it was on Destiny’s. No smile either. Just that deep etched concern that still left him squirming slightly. Later, when the team had all vanished it’d looked like it was some sort of payback for it.
He didn’t wanna think what the boss’ payback for him leaping straight off that path was gonna be. Shoving the thought back, J.J. shot her a sloppy salute, definitely not parade ground perfect. She was shuffling in, brows creeping up as she glanced down at his feet. Oops. He didn’t move them though, just shifted the keyboard on his lap a little as he dragged himself a couple of inches closer again with a tensing of his legs. Unsure if she had to scoot out, J.J. reached out a hand, patted the corner of his desk like he was inviting her to pull up a pew. ”Pfft.” The sound buzzed out of his lips. ”I’d say pretty’s probably overrated but in this business it ain’t. Trust me, you ain’t put out anything that’d have Mystic Falls’ fancy folks turning their noses up at your spread.” Not that they’d know a pretty layout if it curled up and smacked them on the nose.
J.J. hissed out a breath as Destiny propped herself against his desk. Like the grin, the question was friendly enough, but not without that hidden bite of steel that had him thinking maybe there was a decent editor hiding in that curvy little form after all. The chair gave another groan as he leaned further back into it, fingers lacing as he propped them behind his head. ”Is that an ‘I saw you rolling in the door as everyone was leaving, what you been up to’?” Fair point he guessed, but his schedule had never been as etched in stone as everybody else’s. 9-5 was a prison sentence for the minions who didn’t know better than to break free of it. One blue eye winked at her, guile there for all to see now. ”Look at you, knowing exactly where I was. You hear anything about that body dropped out in the woods a couple of days back?” By now it had to be all over town. People here were worse than on the army bases, gossip seeming to be a local hobby.
Without that tendency to whisper he never would’ve caught on to the rumours that were spreading about it. The weird wounds, the professor’s name not mentioned but enough details tossed in that he knew people were trying to connect the dots, even if there hadn’t been some shrieking this time. That he was still trying to work his head around. Frowning about it, he shifted, nearly knocked the pizza box off the table with one boot. ”Where’s me manners,” he muttered. J.J.’s lips pursed as he squirmed upright in his chair, dragging himself close enough to drop his feet off the desk and nudge the box in Destiny’s direction. ”Help yourself. I take it you didn’t get yourself anything. Chained to the big desk and all that.” She had visitors from time to time though, that glossy bloke from the hotel showing up, slipping into the office. Shutters coming down, some sort of meeting going on behind closed blinds.
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JJ HART
Human
Posts: 53
Played by:
Ange
Last seen May 15, 2024 20:32:44 GMT
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Post by JJ HART on Sept 7, 2021 18:03:48 GMT
The blonde didn’t even look up from her computer. Fingers rattled lightly over the keyboard, her dark eyes fixed on the screen. His own raked her face, slightly narrowed. He’d leaned in on the edge of the glossy counter when he’d walked in and, miraculously, he now realised, had gotten a smile out of her before he’d asked after her boss. For a little chat. Appointment? Nah. It was just off the cuff, y’know. A few minutes for a profile in the Daily. Bigging up the local business owners.
Not a single blink. God this one was hard work.
”Mr. Maddox is unavailable I’m afraid. For the rest of the day at least the very least. You’re welcome to email him.”
J.J. sucked his lower lip between his teeth, chewed meditatively before he shook his head. He’d cut his teeth on men and women who liked to play far harder to get and they had the official military secrets act on their side. ”Unavailable as in he ain’t seeing anyone right now or…” He pursed his lips, gesturing with a finger, swirling it in the air like he’d have Grey Maddox popping up genie style from some back room.
Her eyes came up to meet his then, the corners of her mouth dimpling with a satisfied little smile. ”Or he’s not available today. Email. Now, if you’re not here to book a room…” Her gaze cut to the doors as she pushed a plush little card across the desk to him. ‘Grey Haven Hotel’ and the email address the only things on it.
Standing, eyeing her, J.J. was tempted to book a room just for the hell of it. What was she gonna do then? Kick him out of the lobby for sitting there, lurking til he came strolling out. The man of mystery himself. ”I might y’know … bet you got some nice ones here. Suites.” He stepped back, the card disappearing into the pocket of his jeans. His tongue wormed into the pocket of his cheek as he rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling contemplatively. ”Guess I’ll be seein’ you tomorrow then.” She was already tilting her head at him when he backed out the door chuckling.
Or maybe before. He wasn’t above waiting on a story after all.
It’d been an hour since he’d walked out of the building. Fifteen minutes to walk over to the Coffee Bean and back again. A cup set down next to him as he’d sat on the steps of the building opposite. Some place all spiffed up with marble columns and stone stairs that hadn’t warmed enough in the sun to make sitting on them that long a pleasant experience. Half an hour in to the wait he’d tugged his phone out of his pocket. His brother was still in town but after all that had happened before he’d scattered he’d liked to keep him on a tether of sorts. Daily phone calls, that greasy feeling in the pit of his stomach if he didn’t pick up the phone when he called.
This time it had been three rings. The low voice at the other end. They’d shot the breeze for half an hour, the sort of mindless back and forth you indulged in when neither one of you really had anything but time on your hands. J.J. crooked a knee and shifted against the column he was leaning back on. ”Naw, still no sign of him. You’d think this Grey Maddox was Hugh Heffner with the way his guard dog went on. No photos online, no history I can track down anywhere. Shame you’re not enlisted anymore, I coulda done with a deeper dive into this bloke.” Or someone who was willing to talk.
At the shift of a shadow across his field of vision, J.J. looked up, squinting up at the woman silhouetted between the late afternoon sun and him. One sandy brow lifted, his lips curving as he tucked the phone against his neck for a moment. He could hear the buzz of his brother’s voice on the other end still but his focus was on her. ”Can I help you, love?” The Lieutenant-General would’ve grumbled at that. Proper diction, decorum, don’t make it look as though you’ve been raised by wolves instead of an officer in her Majesty’s army – a distant relative of hers too.
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JJ HART
Human
Posts: 53
Played by:
Ange
Last seen May 15, 2024 20:32:44 GMT
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Post by JJ HART on Aug 29, 2021 18:54:15 GMT
Tongue worming into the pocket of his cheek, absentmindedly chasing the crumb of pepperoni that’d wedged itself somewhere while he’d eaten his way through the rush of everybody else to get out the office door when 5 o’clock rolled around, J.J. kicked back in his seat. He could still taste of the spice of it blooming on the side of his tongue, a vague distraction his mind kept drifting to instead of focusing on the blinking cursor on the screen.
Scuffed boots moved restlessly under the desk he’d informed was his when he’d had his little welcome to the newsroom tour of the place a handful of months back. It’d been a different big boss then, but like everywhere else in the world the owner’s desk was a personal little empire that would always fall in time. People like that had a tendency to move on, either clawing themselves up from places like this or retiring with hair long retreated to somewhere around the nape of their neck or stomachs eaten out by ulcers. Smart ass journalists under them driving them to a retirement still filled with antacids. The last seemed to have been glad to go out the door – not thanks to him for once, he hadn’t been here long enough for that yet. The jury was still out on the latest one though.
J.J. inched back in his chair, cheap rollers catching on cheaper carpet tiles. Those boots propped on the corner of his desk as he swivelled, the chair protesting under him as he kicked back further. A squirm, another dig of his tongue and that tiny bit of meat was free just as he settled in.
Breakfast at his desk at close to four, the pizza box tucked under his arm as he’d made his way in. A nod and a wink at the receptionist, chin lifted at the other coworkers he’d passed, a beaming smile for the woman herself. A tiny porcelain doll of a thing who didn’t look much like she’d hold her own against a bunch of reporters used to bulling their way into things but he suspected there was a core of steel to her. You didn’t climb the ladder that far without it. He hadn’t dug into her past yet though. That in his book, J.J. woulda argued, was a sign of respect. Until he felt like he had to he wasn’t about to pry into why someone who hadn’t yet hit 30 was sitting in the hot seat. Long as Destiny was on that side of the desk and not riding his arse about the fact that he hadn’t yet turned in a piece that week there weren’t any need to go sticking his nose in. There was plenty of hornet’s nests in this town he’d aimed to stick his nose into first.
Starting with the body dump that had happened in the woods earlier that week.
Humming lightly, J.J. dragged the keyboard up into his lap, propping it against his stomach as he finally began to type. Slowly at first, picking out that first line that could either make or break a piece. No identification on the body yet, not much released by the sheriff’s department but word had already started to spread in town. Crumbs less spicy than the semi-decent pepperoni getting stuck in his teeth as he’d waited for his order at the pizzeria that afternoon, hands in the pockets of his worn jeans, listening in idly, like he wasn’t taking in a damn thing about it but he had.
Like the professor. The one who’d supposedly got stabbed and killed but then was somehow on leave for months, popping up earlier that summer like the rumours of his death on campus and his brother’s finding of him were nothing more than smoke. Twisting in the air until it all just faded away.
Bollocks of course, there was always more of a story than that, but bollocks just weren’t publishable. Even in Mystic Falls.
He was rattling through the second paragraph, laying out the details of what he’d come across in what had come out of the sheriff’s station more thickly when he heard the door snick shut further out in their floor of the building. Not on his own then. Narrowed blue eyes fixed on the aisle that led down one side of the bullpen style desks as he planted the soles of his boots on the edge of his desk and pushed back further. The boss lady herself. His lips pursed, curled. ”Wotcha, boss.” The LG would’ve shuddered at the word, the Queen’s English drummed into him when every accent he’d been exposed to had tried to worm its way into his speak. ”Thought you would’ve been outta here already. No plans or just all hard work and no fun?” Or she’d been determined to be the last one out of the office. There was nothing to show you meant business like being the first one there and the last one gone, a notion he’d never prescribed to with his own random hours dragging him in and out like an errant tom cat.
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JJ HART
Human
Posts: 53
Played by:
Ange
Last seen May 15, 2024 20:32:44 GMT
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Post by JJ HART on Aug 24, 2021 13:59:45 GMT
________ HART species: Optional | age: 40 | face claim: Jai Courtney | relationship: half-brotherTwo years before J.J. arrived his brother was born. His father Lieutenant-General Garrett Hart married a young American woman and within a couple of years she had given birth to a son. Things were rocky, the spats grew, and in the end the two of them divorced. J.J.’s brother was just two and a half at the time and before he turned 5 Garrett Hart had already remarried and become the father to J.J. After the divorce the other contact Garrett would have with his older son was through birthday and Christmas cards and the stipends paid for his son’s welfare each other. The mother got nothing thanks to the pre-nup Garrett had her sign. What happened to J.J.’s brother between the divorce and him running into J.J. in a migrant camp in Uganda, where he was serving as an officer with the US military, is up to the player. J.J’s brother was fully aware of J.J. and harboured some animosity towards his father – although the blame doesn’t seem to have coloured his opinion of J.J. After the brothers bonded over bottles of beer in the camp J.J. went on to embed with his brother’s team in various parts of the middle East and Africa for the next five and a half years, until, while J.J. was in London for a few days, his brother and his team disappeared from their base in Afghanistan. For the next four months J.J. had no word from his brother, then two months ago he turned up in Mystic Falls and called his brother there. What happened to him and his team to have them vanishing and leaving the military is also up to the player. J.J. has been with his brother in Mystic Falls now for 2 months. More detail can be found in J.J.’s app. Much of his brother’s personality is open but immutable fact is that the brothers have become close since the two of them found one another.
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JJ HART
Human
Posts: 53
Played by:
Ange
Last seen May 15, 2024 20:32:44 GMT
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Post by JJ HART on Aug 23, 2021 18:51:34 GMT
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JJ HART
Human
Posts: 53
Played by:
Ange
Last seen May 15, 2024 20:32:44 GMT
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Post by JJ HART on Aug 23, 2021 18:20:33 GMT
til now. Being Lieutenant-General Hart's kid meant moving from base to base for first 18 years of J.J.'s life. Oman, Bermuda, Cyprus, Germany, it was only when his dad was dragged into the field that they didn't accompany him. The expectations were there that J.J. would follow in his dad's footsteps and enlist but from the age of 14 onwards, J.J. knew there was no chance of him doing it. He wanted to report on the troops, show the story of the displaced people they were fighting to protect. At 18, with a little help from his dad he ended up embedded with troops in Afghanistan. For the next decade and a half J.J. would be in the field on and off, those times when he was forced back to London to sit on his hands not working out for him. At 29 he would finally meet the older half-brother his dad had always swept under the carpet in a refugee camp in Africa. From them until just a couple of months ago J.J. went wherever his brother did ... until his brother disappeared. For four words there was no sign of him but two months ago there was a call from Mystic Falls and J.J. travelled to the States to find out what had happened to his brother and to start digging into just what Mystic Falls is hiding.
friends. Always the friendly sort, J.J. never had any trouble finding buddies anywhere. Admittedly he was usually the ring leader getting the rest in trouble, but oh well. These days his half-brother is as much friend as family but if you've got ears and you're willing to listen J.J. will usually talk you around to being something more than an acquaintance.
enemies. J.J. would say he doesn't have any but sticking his nose in like he does he's likely to earn a few in Mystic Falls. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.
family. The product of his blue-blooded soldier father's second marriage, J.J. was always aware he had a half brother out there but up until a handful of years ago he'd never met him. The expectation was there that he'd take after his dad, but in the end it was his brother that did that, even without his dad in his life.
lovers. Lovers are exactly what they've been for J.J., nothing too serious, especially since the next time he headed out they'd just be left behind anyway. Give him an inch and he'll take a mile with it but the minute you start to get too close J.J. is likely to but out, leaving a promise it was nothing personal behind.
connections. ♦ Lieutenant-General Garrett Hart - Father ♦ Emmeline Hart - Mother ♦ ________ Hart - Half-brother
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