sixwordstories | (no subject)

{ The sensation in Lydia's hair was just enough to raise a pricking on the back of her neck, and her Polaroids go flying off of the park bench; she barely glances up from her black-bound journal before they're airborne. Her lips part in a wide "O" shape as she lifts to her feet to catch them -- not that she will be fast enough to grab them before they hit the concrete. }

Edited 2016-06-14 20:11 (UTC)

[Kids are funny. Sometimes they do the craziest shit when they think no one's watching them. Peter's run past one who had tugged a bucket up to the top of a playground ladder and was currently trying to make a water slide before. He's also seen them just with weird shit, like collections of hand-gathered dead bugs in empty milk cartons (why) or stolen left shoes hidden between bushes.

So when he saw Goth McDarkside sitting solo on the bench, he'd stepped off the path to inspect the photos in her hands. All Polaroids, all of landscapes and flower close-ups and an actual bat and clothing stores. All in black and white. He scatters them with a laugh that no one else will ever hear, takes another lap around the park, and then plucks one of them back out of the air.

By the time Lydia is crouched down to start collecting the others off the ground, he's finally stopped moving. Now abruptly visible, he's inspecting the photo of...what appears to be an abandoned building.]

Do your parents know you're breaking into horror movie sets to snap photos?

[ Not just Morgan's hair suffers from a sudden, unseen disruption: he was just in the middle of lighting his cigarette -- a task done so many times now it's more reflexive than conscious. The pull on the tobacco stick to help the contents take to the flame his lighter presents is all too familiar, done by muscle memory following years of practice.

So when he sucks in nothing but clear air -- though a red-and-white striped straw from out of nowhere -- he grunts and pulls his head back. In his hand is no zippo, but his cigarette broken in half.

Morgan's brows crinkle deep over his nose, and he pulls the straw out of his mouth and, after regarding it with confused disdain, he throws it onto the puddle-riddled asphalt. He looks around this side alley, hearing nothing more than the muffled music from the bar he just stepped out of. ]

The hell...?

{ It's an alarming moment, like stepping on a snake in tall grass, when Lydia realizes one of her photos is unaccounted for. She gets as far as the notion to turn around and look for it when a voice speaks to her from overhead.

It has her jumping up onto her feet, but she finds the source of the commentary quite easily. He has her photo. Wait, where did he come from?

Slightly confused, Lydia frowns at him. } I didn't break in. { She only climbed on top of a concrete wall, after scaling a very rusty looking truck that looked as though it had been sitting there for a very long time, to take that picture. }

And why do you care, anyway? { Caught off guard, Lydia's feeling therefore scrutinized, resulting in a pang of feistiness. She reaches out to quickly snatch her photo back. }

Edited 2016-06-14 20:39 (UTC)

[Come on. It's such an easy, obvious prank. Like when kids take out their parents' cigarettes and replace them with little rolled-up pieces of paper. Preferably with black lungs drawn on them. Or maybe the words 'don't you want to see me graduate'. Really nail in that message.

Point is, who can get mad at you when you're doing them a service?

Answer: everyone.

That straw had reminded Peter of something. Now returned from the nearby gas station, he comes to a stop directly behind the guy whose cigarette he just switched out. A bag of peppermints is in one hand. His other hand is noisily unwrapping one and cramming it into his mouth.

Around the candy:] You know those things cause cancer, right?

*Fritz paused in the middle of playing with his book of matches, looking royally peeved when the match he struck went out.*

Not.

Cool.

[Is there a certain level of awkwardness to the air? Peter doesn't seem to notice or mind. He even lets her take the photo back, smile revealing a few teeth. He moves his sunglasses back up off his face.]

Just making sure someone's watching after you. [His tone is a bit distracted. It's not the most convincing thing in the world.

He reaches out for a different photo this time, plucking them off the pile she's holding one by one until he finds one that's interesting enough. He replaces the stack once he's finished and then settles back in with the new photo.

By the time he's done, it looks like he must have just shaken this next one out of his sleeve.]

Who's the weird guy? Is that Dad? Just trying to be a good Samaritan here.

[ Pete better watch where you're stepping, Bobbi may have set up that hall ahead of her to get some of the other students with a slippery slide.]

Huh?

No. No no no no NO! [Tenny exclaims as the precious few actual dollars in her guitar case start blowing down the street. With a guitar almost as big as she is in hand, Tennyson tries to chase the money down.]

[ A crackling sound comes from behind Morgan, then a voice. Young, but barely younger than himself.

He turns and finds a pale figure holding a bag of candy. Morgan stares, still looking visibly disgruntled, for a silent couple of seconds. Clearly he's trying to make sense of what's just happened.

Is this guy some sort of mischief-sorcerer? Morgan just immediately assumes he had something to do with the sudden interruption in his cigarette break. He looks him over; he knows not to judge magic users by their aesthetics. Heck, look at Morgan himself: he definitely doesn't look like a fairytale oracle. ]

So I've heard. [ He doesn't seem very concerned about it, though. He tosses one half of his cigarette to the ground, saving the other half still attached to a filter. He nestles what's left of his cigarette between his lips and holds his hand out to the silver-haired wonder boy. ] I'll be havin' that lighter back. [ Did Peter expect Morgan to look way more alarmed at that just went on? Oh, he's curious, but he has also seen much stranger things in his life than materializing out of nowhere and replacing people's cigarettes with straws.

But he does have some questions. ]

[There's a lot to be said for inner satisfaction. A lot of the shit Peter gets away with, he doesn't take credit for, because he doesn't want to go to jail. But he knows he's gotten those twinkies from Stop & Shop, or that tv from Sears. (And then he gets to eat said twinkies, or fiddle with said tvs, which unquestionably is enough reward.)

But sometimes it's nice to be able to gloat a bit. Which was kinda what he was counting on here.

Cheek bulging with the candy he's momentarily forgotten to suck obnoxiously at, Peter blinks at this guy. He's being...he's being such a killjoy. A proudly-bored expression crossing his face, Peter stands up a bit straighter. More dignified. He pushes the goggles off his eyes and chews his peppermint with a series of wet crunches.]

What makes you think I've got your lighter, man? You lose it or something?

[His poker face has only gotten a little better in the years since breaking into the Pentagon, but it's pretty solid. He gnaws at a sharp corner on the mint.] Must be hard to keep track of all the mouth-cancer paraphernalia.

[ The narrow-eyed glare looks more tired than angry, like an aged dog knowing it doesn't need to waste its energy on being aggressive. But the bone-crunching sounds rumbling from the guy's mouth are proving to be exceptionally irritating, each burst of noise a pebble added to an ever growing pile that Morgan's patience won't sustain forever. ]

Not that it's your concern, but if it helps you sleep tonight, cigarettes aren't gonna be the thing to do me in. [ Morgan is patting down his jacket thoughtfully as he speaks; does he still have that matchbook from that bar back in El Paso? Or did he leave those in his car? ]

Anyway, the hell you want? Who sent you? [ Morgan appears to look the man over one more time. He doesn't owe any debts, so this person must be looking for a favor, or to hire for a job... ]

[Peter doesn't usually stick around after these sorts of things. Not past a quick laugh, at least, especially not ever since Eri-- Magneto showed up on TV, trying to kill the president in the name of all mutants. It hadn't been the best possible press.

But he frowns at the weirdly dark turn this conversation spikes down. His forehead just crinkles further at the questions.] What? [His mouth is full. He finishes chewing and swallows so he can continue with minimal peppermint-chip spraying.]

No one sent me, man. I'm not like, 'with' anybody. [Because that's a thing now, sometimes. Alliances, gangs. Peter's definitely not involved in any of that shit, but does this mean Tall Dark and Mysterious is?

He inches back a few small steps, jittering backwards like a video that won't load.]

Why, do you work for someone who's gonna come after me and my family for that lighter?

[A lighter that abruptly re-appears in that guy's hand. Peter blinks back in the same spot he'd been before, hands innocently away from his own pockets.]

I think someone needs to watch after you. { This guy looks old enough for adults to no longer worry about what he's up to, which is disconcerting, considering this indescriminate harassment. Lydia crams the photos into her journal and is burying it safely in her bag until she realizes, crap, he took another one? This completely perplexes the girl, looking between the pale-haired boy and her bag, trying to make sense of it. How...that's impossible, she just had all of them... }

Hey-- what? { She definitely doesn't have any photos of her dad in this group... But she did take a few candid photos while paying a visit to a peculiar friend of hers. Lydia practically bristles in embarrassment when she realizes who the photo is of, the idea of the incorrect implication, and tries to grab the photo back. } He's not my dad. Who are you?

What? [He looks more repulsed than offended, and even that's softened by amusement.] I'll have you know I'm old enough to go to the store on my own, now. My mom said so.

[He lets her take the photo back despite his shit-eating grin, at least. He's well aware of the sort of temper tantrums that can ensue when you don't let kids - even older kids like this one, sometimes - have back things that're theirs.]

Peter. [He doesn't usually give out his name, but he's sorta shoved his way into it at this point. Besides, her darkroom-tan features are clearly flushed, and he's not a sociopath. He feels a little bad that whoever this guy is, he's apparently worth getting embarrassed over.] Look, I was just curious what you'd taken photos of. I've never been big on 'em myself, I don't know what qualifies as, uh. Interesting subjects.

{ Lydia scoffs softly. Peter. She's half surprised that he gave a name and not another smart remark.

With all of her photos accounted for -- not without one quick and final recount -- she shuts her bag and clutches it with both of her hands. Lord help her if he somehow manages to sneak a look in her journal.

Oh yeah...wait, how was he doing all that...whatever it was, up until now? The curiosity shows on her face as she ponders it, trying to formulate it into coherent questions, but she can't manage to even halfway-confidently guess what he was doing. Is he like, some sort of magician, like the ones she has seen on television who procure people's wallets from their back pockets?

But then, Peter says something that seems bizarrely genuine, far from teasing or joking, which is a surprising contrast. She appears to soften into something a little self-conscious, even if the aggressive defense isn't completely dropped. Teenagers. }

Well, there aren't laws about this sort of thing. You just...take pictures of things you like. Or want to remember. { While gentler, her tone is a few degrees shy of warranting a 'you idiot' at the end of her sentence. However, the beam of hostility that has been her attention on Peter has calmed down, and it's apparent. } But I guess you wouldn't know your capacity as an artist if you've never tried.

{ Pretentious while being encouraging? Yes, Lydia just managed it. }

[ Morgan seems to completely freeze when the other guy starts to act...alarmed? Well, that wasn't the reaction he expected. It wouldn't be suspicious if this kid just up and admitted that he didn't know Morgan, that he was just a random and unfortunate bystander to his random pranks, but he is literally backpedalling and in such a way that Morgan's brows, the only things that seem to reanimate themselves on his face, crinkle together.

This kid asks about the lighter, and it's enough to bring Morgan back to life -- sending him down a small stream of amusement, and a chuckle trickles out of his lungs. Half of a word rides the bubbling current of his voice but dies when something completely distracts him. He clenches his fist around something that wasn't there seconds ago.

Things blinking in and out of existence, just as well as this guy. Morgan is intrigued. ]

I ain't 'comin' after you' for anything. [ Morgan huffs around a small laugh and the balanced cigarette between his lips, and bends into his hand to light the shortened paper tube. There is a firm pause as he inhales the smoke and exhales off the edge of his shoulder. ]

Look, I figured you were here t' see me for somethin' arcane-related, since you're clearly... [ Morgan waves a hand in the younger man's obvious direction, cigarette perched between his first two fingers. Alas, it's not quite clear at all. ] Some kinda warlock or something. Who are you, anyway?

[ 'Warlock' said in the most nonplussed way in the history of the human language. Morgan takes another unconcerned drag off his cigarette. ]

[Is it cool if he eats during this conversation? It's totally cool, right? Hope so, because he's digging into his jacket pocket for the devil creme he took along with him. It's unwrapped in less than the blink of an eye. Don't worry, though, the oversized bite he takes out of it happens in real time. Plenty of opportunity to watch him get crumbs all over his chin.]

You don't have to take photos of stuff in black and white to be an artist. And I've definitely never pretended I was one, anyway.

[But she sounds like she takes this seriously. And he is a bit curious under the veneer of older-teen snark.]

That means...all that stuff in those are important to you? Do you share them with other people? Or just like, take 'em out when you're alone on park benches to stare at them?

[Suspicious? Him? If Peter had a nickel for every time a cop or store manager has said that about him...well. It's possible he'd have enough money to not give them reasons to think he's suspicious.

At least this guy doesn't look, like, deadly. But that Logan guy had looked normal until bone-claw-knives just fucking grew out of his hands, so Peter's learned to be a bit suspicious of unknown mutants in his life.

That's what this guy must be, right? A mutant? Since he seems in on the joke.

...A what? Peter looks left and right for cameras. Seeing none, he zeroes back in on this dude's face. His eyebrows are high up enough that they're gonna disappear under his fringe at any second.] You just...ask me if I'm a warlock?

Dude. [He's starting to laugh, assuming his leg's being pulled.] I think you've been playing too much D&D or something.

[He scoffs dismissively, giving his most innocent shrug. It's not terribly innocent.] I'm nobody.

[ From a shithead like this guy, Morgan isn't surprised that he's inspired some sort of incredulous laughter as an answer to his question. In fact he blinks catlike and sucks a slow breath of air through his cigarette; even the glow on the immolated end seems to bear the same sluggish, judgmental patience.

But he ultimately says 'no'. That's a surprise, in fact moreso when he seems to disbelieve the idea of magic users all together. So not a warlock, huh? Or a sorcerer. Well, those aren't very common anyway.

Morgan is, however, confused at where this leaves them, then. He flicks the ashes off his cigarette. ] You might be nobody, but you're something. You've got powers, don't you? [ Morgan has the decency to lower the volume of his voice when he asks. ]

If you're not a magic user, then how're you pulling this off? [ He waves the lighter at the kid. ] That's not the sleight of hand you see on TV. [ Okay, fine if this guy didn't come looking for Morgan specifically, he understands the random crossing of fate lines. But come on, the man is supernatural, clearly. (Or, Morgan only thinks so, because it's the only thing that occurs to him...) ]

Edited 2016-06-21 14:39 (UTC)

{ The appearance of the small chocolate cake is so sudden that upon noticing it, Lydia blinks in confusion, as if she's just awoken from a daydream. Where did that come from? What is with this guy?

But she's frowning at his words, defensiveness coiling up once again like a disturbed snake. } That doesn't even-- ugh, you don't get it... { She could probably stand here for an hour and lecture Peter about the importance of medium and color composition and light and ugh but he wouldn't get it would he. } You shouldn't dismiss something when you admit you don't know anything about it. { Her voice is immediately cooler, or almost...vulnerable, as if Peter's flippant remarks managed to pierce through her thick underbrush and puncture something soft inside. She's glancing down at her bag, where the pictures hide.

But like a boomerang, another thought flies back into Lydia's head, and she smirks a little at Peter. } You've got cake like, all over your face. { She's reaching into her bag, but not for her photos. Instead, something square and black comes out, trimmed in soft crocheted lace.

She hands him her handkerchief. Are you sure you don't need someone looking after you too, Peter? Lydia can't help but smile a little, but not entirely at the pale-haired boy... She's thinking of him, holding the handkerchief, feeling useful and mature and fancy, just like he is, and it feels a little amusing. }

Hey...I dunno how to ask this, but...how are you doing those weird things?

[Wow, okay, street oracle, no need to get snippy. Peter can call himself a nobody, but that doesn't mean you get to agree with him. What, just because he's got enough free time during a Tuesday afternoon to harass random strangers, that makes you think he's some sort of deadbeat or something? Doesn't matter if you're right, that's just rude.

The crunching of his peppermints is a little ticked off and a lot confused. Confused, accusatory crunching. Lots of it. Peter would deny stress-eating, and he'd be a liar.

He's beyond just dismissing his powers with everyone, now that mutants are a known factor, but it still happens. But this guy's...pretty much said he has powers too, hasn't he? It's been kinda implied with how much he knows?

He's found another mutant? A bit of hope and curiosity spark in his chest. The wet-snap of peppermints grows a little less passive aggressive.]

Look, I don't know about this magic thing you're talking about, man. [And considering the bad press mutants have been getting, there's real hesitation still before he takes that plunge. But he wants to know. He visibly puffs up and then slouches, a constructed carelessness on his face.] But I might know something about powers.

[He moves at his speed, coming forward to pluck the cigarette from this guy's hand. The end burns at a dull glow, embers changing patterns so slowly it looks more like a lava lamp than a flame. Peter switches it to the man's other hand, delicately moving his fingers so the extra speed won't cause him to like, snap one in half or carry the momentum to smack himself in the face or something.

Peter stays about two feet to the guy's left, clearly moved.]

Tell me yours first. [On their own, they might sound like an ultimatum. In reality, Peter sounds a little off-balance. It's practically a question.] I'd really like to know that this doesn't end with be drugged and in the back of some government truck, you know, man?

[He frowns, cake mashing up against one side of his mouth and causing it to puff out. She's really sensitive, isn't she? Kinda like, uh, actually kinda like most people her age he's met. His sister's even younger than she is, but there's enough similarities than he just gets pouty instead of outright defensive.]

I'm not dismissive. Just saying that I could be like, a different kind of artist. You don't know if I've tried other things and just not taken photos of rocks. [Which, you know, still isn't the case, but what if it was? The extent of his artistry might be spraying graffiti on his own walls and listening to other peoples' music, but he's got other types of things he's good at.

But she looks a bit, uh, upset? Should he like apologize or--

--or just take the weird spider-web of goth fabric being shoved into his hands. He takes it instinctively, because that's what you do when people hold stuff out for you to grab, but he stares at it incredulously. He crams the final part of the little cake in his mouth so he can hold it with both hands and unfold it all the way. It's. Covered in lace at the edges. And heavy.]

Is this - did you just hand me a handkerchief? [He leans around the wide edge of it to stare at her.] Are you some sort of Hot Topic time traveler? Is this thing cursed? [He looks at it again, slower this time. He lets go with one hand so he can rub at his chin with bare fingers, dislodging some of the crumbs.] You really want me to get this dirty? It's got lace on it.

[At least her question is somewhat normal. But he's too concerned with this small square of tragic cleanliness to bother addressing it.] Lotta cardio. I'm pretty quick. No big deal.

Edited 2016-06-21 15:52 (UTC)

{ Has this guy never seen a handkerchief before? Surely he's watched movies, or seen Victorian-era women cry or swoon on television. It's not that weird! Lydia shrugs a shoulder, almost indignantly. } Yeah, I know, that's why I handed it to you. It's better than getting it all over your... { Her hand is motioning to Peter's jeans. His...distressed, splotchy, bleach stained jeans... } ...On second thought, I guess it won't do much after all.

{ Peter's answer has her scoffing. Come on, she's fifteen, she knows a weak lie when she hears one. She's had a few years of practicing listening to unsettled adults trying to shut her up as quickly as possible. } Please, you're doing something really crazy. I dunno what it is but...you appeared out of nowhere and started looking through all of my pictures, and I barely saw you do it. Are you some street magician?

{ Despite herself, Lydia's sunken eyes are a little pleading. There's an urgent feeling in her chest, like a startled rabbit caught in the brush around her lungs, as she thinks of how...strange it is. She's heard and seen things on television, heard her dad say very dismissive things about them, never getting answers that clear up what she thinks might be happening to her.

Mouth opening quietly, she hesitates to dislodge nervous words from her throat. } Or are...you...you know...? { Pitch black eyebrows lift up to her cropped fringe, trying to wordlessly suggest 'mutant'. }

Edited 2016-06-22 20:34 (UTC)

(no subject)

just bc I'm logged in as her but expect at least one more loser of mine

you better, punk

im doing that thing where you think you're crying but you're actually laugh-sobbing

don't tell me what to do :p

im doing that thing where you think you'd find tons of icons but NO ONE HAS MADE ANY APPARENTLY

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