Prompt #203 - Intrigue
(ooc: The two OCs found here were sort of just off the top of my head and not based on anyone canon, as far as I know.)
It had to be after lunch time now, Jason thought. It was getting later in the day. His stomach was tying in knots and hunger pains cramped his insides. He was extremely hungry, especially since he hadn't even been able to eat breakfast, let alone lunch.
"Come on, April," he said to his younger sister, who was resting on a stack of old newspapers outside the back of a store. "We'll go find some food."
"I'm cold," April said, pushing her Hello Kitty sunglasses up on her nose as she stood up. She brushed back some of her blond hair, once beautiful blond ringlets but now it looked dirty and scraggly as it hung limply down her back.
"Okay," Jason said, grabbing the eleven year old girl's hand. He almost wasn't surprised that she didn't feel the hunger anymore - she'd been eating like a bird for weeks. His growing fourteen year old body wouldn't let him forget it needed food. But he ignored that, and focused on her instead. "Lets go find some heat first."
There weren't a lot of safe places for two young runaways to go, especially to try to get shelter or food. In this area, that had been destroyed, just a couple weeks ago. Stores and restaurants kicked them out right away, or forced them to leave by threatening to call the cops. The place down by the train yard was full of other homeless people and vagrants, but they weren't very receptive once they found out the siblings were mutants. And even before that, they made perverted comments about April, and one even made advances on her (and her defense was what outed them as mutants) and he would not put her in that situation again.
They found an empty lot, between two crumbling and vacant buildings. Jason dragged a garbage can from the street onto the lot. He dug into his backpack, in which all the possessions he had in the world were carried in, and found some matches. But it was a mid-November day in Chicago, the windy city, and lighting them proved to be harder than he thought.
"Let me try," April whined, bouncing up and down beside him.
"No," Jason replied, and tried to light his fifth match, "you aren't playing with fire."
"Hey," a third person said, and both the siblings jumped with surprise. Jason's automatic response was to push April behind him to guard her, and he looked over at the unwelcome guest.
He was an adult, obviously, though a younger one. And short. He wore a winter coat and a knitted cap, army type pants, and big black boots, and all his clothes looked clean and none of them were worn or torn. And, even though he had some facial hair, he certainly wasn't as scruffy and unkempt as some of the homeless people Jason had seen. This person was obviously not one of them.
"What do you want?" Jason asked defensively, trying to come off as intimidating as he could. The Guy didn't seem to buy into it, damn it.
The Guy shrugged. "Need help with those matches?"
"Yes!" April said from behind them.
"No," Jason said definitively. "We're fine."
"Look, I'm fucking-"
"-he just swore!" April whispered.
The Guy just kept talking. "-freezing here, so let's get that thing lit."
"Go away," Jason said.
"But I'm cold," April whined from behind him.
"April, shush," Jason said quietly. More loudly, and directed at The Guy, he said, "We don't need your help. Piss off."
"You swore!" April said. She put her hands on his hips and looked up angrily at her brother. "You know you're not supposed to do that. Mom said so!"
"Well, Mom isn't here right now, is she?" Jason snapped back, but immediately his face softened when he saw his sister's lip trembled. "I didn't mean to say that."
"That wasn't very nice," April said, her voice shaken. Jason mentally prepared himself for the big crocodile tears that were about to stream down her face, as they did whenever their home and family was mentioned, but was surprised when he saw her face transform into curiosity. "What's he doing?" April asked as she leaned to the side to look past her brother.
Jason turned around and saw that The Guy really had pissed off, but was now dragging a garbage can of his own onto the lot, though he kept a very good distance away from them. The siblings watched him, and Jason snorted under his breath. "It's too windy," he protested, "for any flame to work."
But then they watched in amazement The Guy raised a hand and seemed to shoot fire from his palm, and easily let the refuse in the can. It instantly caught, and the flame was much higher and brighter than they should be.
"Cool!" April called out, and started running toward The Guy and his fire.
"April, come back!" Jason yelled, rushing after her and easily catching up. But he just grabbed her hand and made her slow down, and they approached together. The fire in the can went down, as if there was an invisible dial turning it lower, but the heat was so intense that Jason could feel it strongly from several feet away. It felt good.
"How'd you do that?" April asked, excitedly. She was still hanging onto Jason's hand, but was bouncing up and down again. "Hi, I'm April! This is my brother, Jason."
"April," Jason hissed.
"Hi, April, I'm John," said the guy - John, supposedly, but Jason wondered if it was his real name. John continued on, as if everything was perfectly normal, "It's how I survived the winters when I was a kid on the streets. My mutation kept me from freezing to death more than once."
"You're a mutant too?" April asked, even more excitedly.
"April!" Jason scolded. She knew better than to reveal that they were mutants.
"What? He's like us! We can trust him."
"We can't trust anybody."
John nodded his head. "Don't disagree with you there, exactly. You just got to learn who to trust."
"Just because you shoot fire out of your hands doesn't mean we're going to trust you," Jason said.
Suddenly, the fire crackled and jumped up, and some of the flame took the shape of an eagle soring through the air. April laughed out loud in delight, and it had been a really long time since he heard that so even Jason couldn't keep in his smile. The eagle only lasted a few seconds before it suddenly disappeared, and there was that John guy, standing there with a smirk on his face. "It's more than that," he said. "And I don't shoot it out of my hand." He pushed back his jacket a little bit and held up his arm, and they saw some sort of glove thing on it, only plastic instead of cloth. "It's sort of like a lighter. Easier then always holding onto one."
"That's cool!" April exclaimed.
"It's alright," Jason said, a bit begrudgingly. But his curiosity was a bit peaked, "So you used to be a street kid?"
"Yeah, for a few years, before I went to this school for mutants."
"For mutants?" April asked, eyes wide. "For serious?"
"Yeah. You guys never heard of Xavier's?" John asked, eyebrow raised. They both shook their head. John just snorted. "Not fucking surprise. They're off their game right now, too messed up with their own shit to worry about the kids anymore."
"You sound like you didn't like it," Jason asked suspiciously.
John opened his mouth, but then snapped it shut. He looked at Jason, his expression blank, but then shrugged. "It was good at the time, gave me a roof over my head and three squares a day."
"And then?"
"And then I grew up and got a job. It happens."
April made a noise of surprise. "Mutants can have jobs?"
"Of course they can," John replied instantly. "I work with this group that's trying to make things better for mutants," John said. "Sort of fight for their rights and stuff like that."
Jason snorted. "Yeah fucking right. Like that could ever happen."
"Hey," John said sharply. "Don't fucking swear in front of your sister." April giggled, and Jason rolled his eyes. John continued, "Some of us are trying. We work hard at it."
"Then what are you doing here?" Jason asked. "Trying to 'save us'?" he said sarcastically.
John glanced around, and looked like he was thinking deeply. "Nah. I just sort of stumbled across you guys. I'm sort of on a personal break from work. Trying to work things out and stuff. After I ran away from home, this is where it all began."
"Are you trying to find yourself?" April asked.
John and Jason looked at her in surprise, and John chuckled. "Uhh, sure."
Jason asked, "Where'd you hear that, April?"
The girl shrugged. "I dunno. Mom used to say that."
"So, where are you guys staying?" John asked, smoothly veering away from the subject of parents, which Jason was thankful for. "There used to be a shelter that accepted mutant runaways, just a few blocks from here."
The siblings went quiet. "It's not there anymore," April answered, and Jason could hear the tears in her voice.
"Got burned down," he said shortly. "Couple of weeks ago. Just luck we weren't there at the time."
"We were street corner singing for McDonald's," April added sadly. "But some of our new friends were caught inside. I miss them."
Jason squeezed her hand, and addressed John. "Word on the street is some group called Friends of Humanity did it."
The fire in the can flared up suddenly, with a loud crack and an intense wave of heat, and the siblings jumped back in surprise. For a second, John's eyes looked wild and dangerous. But then it was gone.
"McDonald's is bad for you," he said. That was all he said.
"I like it," April sniffed.
John looked at her. "You hungry? We could eat. They've got salad."
April's face brightened. "Oh, I am! I like their cheeseburg-"
"-No," Jason cut in. "We aren't going anywhere with you."
"But, Jason! I'm hungry," April whined. "John invited me!"
"It's okay, April," John said suddenly. He nodded his head at Jason. "I get you. Guess I should be on my way."
Jason pulled his sister closer to him. "Guess you should."
"Look," John said, sighing, and suddenly looked tired. "I can give you this number of a guy who could find you a place to stay. Different city, maybe, or at the... Well, something, anyway."
"We're not-"
John held up his hand, "I know, I know. You don't trust anyone. And you probably shouldn't. I'll give you the number, and you don't have to call if you don't want. But, ask around first. People know who he is. He's trustworthy. Got a pen?"
"I do!" April said, shrugging her Barbie backpack off her back. She dug around in it, and pulled out a pink pen with a squished and dirty sparkly fluff ball at the end. Jason grabbed it from her, and he was the one that handed it to John, though he still kept a distance from him.
John glanced at the pen with a 'you gotta be kidding me' look, but accepted it. He pulled out his wallet and took a scrap of paper out of it. "Old receipt," he muttered, and wrote on it. He handed the pen back. "Peter will help you the best he can, I guarentee," John said to them. "This is his cell, so call it."
Out of curiosity, Jason had to ask, "How come not you?"
John shook his head. "He'd have a better idea of where you could go. My work is to fight for mutants, not babysit them."
"Fuck you."
"Jason!"
"Sorry, April."
John folded up the paper and handed it over to Jason. "Just call."
"Yeah. Whatever." Jason didn't really look at it, just clenched his hand around it.
"See you kids around," John said, nodding at each other them. "Stay safe." He backed away from them, slowly, almost as if he didn't trust them, and once he hit the street, it was like he disappeared.
"Who was that guy?" April asked.
"No clue," Jason said. And as he opened up the paper to give it a look, four twenty dollar bills fell to the ground. April quickly stooped over and picked them up, her eyes shining.
"He's got to be one of the good guys!"
Jason nodded slowly. "Yeah. Maybe."
ooc: Pyro's reaction to this conversation can be found here.
It had to be after lunch time now, Jason thought. It was getting later in the day. His stomach was tying in knots and hunger pains cramped his insides. He was extremely hungry, especially since he hadn't even been able to eat breakfast, let alone lunch.
"Come on, April," he said to his younger sister, who was resting on a stack of old newspapers outside the back of a store. "We'll go find some food."
"I'm cold," April said, pushing her Hello Kitty sunglasses up on her nose as she stood up. She brushed back some of her blond hair, once beautiful blond ringlets but now it looked dirty and scraggly as it hung limply down her back.
"Okay," Jason said, grabbing the eleven year old girl's hand. He almost wasn't surprised that she didn't feel the hunger anymore - she'd been eating like a bird for weeks. His growing fourteen year old body wouldn't let him forget it needed food. But he ignored that, and focused on her instead. "Lets go find some heat first."
There weren't a lot of safe places for two young runaways to go, especially to try to get shelter or food. In this area, that had been destroyed, just a couple weeks ago. Stores and restaurants kicked them out right away, or forced them to leave by threatening to call the cops. The place down by the train yard was full of other homeless people and vagrants, but they weren't very receptive once they found out the siblings were mutants. And even before that, they made perverted comments about April, and one even made advances on her (and her defense was what outed them as mutants) and he would not put her in that situation again.
They found an empty lot, between two crumbling and vacant buildings. Jason dragged a garbage can from the street onto the lot. He dug into his backpack, in which all the possessions he had in the world were carried in, and found some matches. But it was a mid-November day in Chicago, the windy city, and lighting them proved to be harder than he thought.
"Let me try," April whined, bouncing up and down beside him.
"No," Jason replied, and tried to light his fifth match, "you aren't playing with fire."
"Hey," a third person said, and both the siblings jumped with surprise. Jason's automatic response was to push April behind him to guard her, and he looked over at the unwelcome guest.
He was an adult, obviously, though a younger one. And short. He wore a winter coat and a knitted cap, army type pants, and big black boots, and all his clothes looked clean and none of them were worn or torn. And, even though he had some facial hair, he certainly wasn't as scruffy and unkempt as some of the homeless people Jason had seen. This person was obviously not one of them.
"What do you want?" Jason asked defensively, trying to come off as intimidating as he could. The Guy didn't seem to buy into it, damn it.
The Guy shrugged. "Need help with those matches?"
"Yes!" April said from behind them.
"No," Jason said definitively. "We're fine."
"Look, I'm fucking-"
"-he just swore!" April whispered.
The Guy just kept talking. "-freezing here, so let's get that thing lit."
"Go away," Jason said.
"But I'm cold," April whined from behind him.
"April, shush," Jason said quietly. More loudly, and directed at The Guy, he said, "We don't need your help. Piss off."
"You swore!" April said. She put her hands on his hips and looked up angrily at her brother. "You know you're not supposed to do that. Mom said so!"
"Well, Mom isn't here right now, is she?" Jason snapped back, but immediately his face softened when he saw his sister's lip trembled. "I didn't mean to say that."
"That wasn't very nice," April said, her voice shaken. Jason mentally prepared himself for the big crocodile tears that were about to stream down her face, as they did whenever their home and family was mentioned, but was surprised when he saw her face transform into curiosity. "What's he doing?" April asked as she leaned to the side to look past her brother.
Jason turned around and saw that The Guy really had pissed off, but was now dragging a garbage can of his own onto the lot, though he kept a very good distance away from them. The siblings watched him, and Jason snorted under his breath. "It's too windy," he protested, "for any flame to work."
But then they watched in amazement The Guy raised a hand and seemed to shoot fire from his palm, and easily let the refuse in the can. It instantly caught, and the flame was much higher and brighter than they should be.
"Cool!" April called out, and started running toward The Guy and his fire.
"April, come back!" Jason yelled, rushing after her and easily catching up. But he just grabbed her hand and made her slow down, and they approached together. The fire in the can went down, as if there was an invisible dial turning it lower, but the heat was so intense that Jason could feel it strongly from several feet away. It felt good.
"How'd you do that?" April asked, excitedly. She was still hanging onto Jason's hand, but was bouncing up and down again. "Hi, I'm April! This is my brother, Jason."
"April," Jason hissed.
"Hi, April, I'm John," said the guy - John, supposedly, but Jason wondered if it was his real name. John continued on, as if everything was perfectly normal, "It's how I survived the winters when I was a kid on the streets. My mutation kept me from freezing to death more than once."
"You're a mutant too?" April asked, even more excitedly.
"April!" Jason scolded. She knew better than to reveal that they were mutants.
"What? He's like us! We can trust him."
"We can't trust anybody."
John nodded his head. "Don't disagree with you there, exactly. You just got to learn who to trust."
"Just because you shoot fire out of your hands doesn't mean we're going to trust you," Jason said.
Suddenly, the fire crackled and jumped up, and some of the flame took the shape of an eagle soring through the air. April laughed out loud in delight, and it had been a really long time since he heard that so even Jason couldn't keep in his smile. The eagle only lasted a few seconds before it suddenly disappeared, and there was that John guy, standing there with a smirk on his face. "It's more than that," he said. "And I don't shoot it out of my hand." He pushed back his jacket a little bit and held up his arm, and they saw some sort of glove thing on it, only plastic instead of cloth. "It's sort of like a lighter. Easier then always holding onto one."
"That's cool!" April exclaimed.
"It's alright," Jason said, a bit begrudgingly. But his curiosity was a bit peaked, "So you used to be a street kid?"
"Yeah, for a few years, before I went to this school for mutants."
"For mutants?" April asked, eyes wide. "For serious?"
"Yeah. You guys never heard of Xavier's?" John asked, eyebrow raised. They both shook their head. John just snorted. "Not fucking surprise. They're off their game right now, too messed up with their own shit to worry about the kids anymore."
"You sound like you didn't like it," Jason asked suspiciously.
John opened his mouth, but then snapped it shut. He looked at Jason, his expression blank, but then shrugged. "It was good at the time, gave me a roof over my head and three squares a day."
"And then?"
"And then I grew up and got a job. It happens."
April made a noise of surprise. "Mutants can have jobs?"
"Of course they can," John replied instantly. "I work with this group that's trying to make things better for mutants," John said. "Sort of fight for their rights and stuff like that."
Jason snorted. "Yeah fucking right. Like that could ever happen."
"Hey," John said sharply. "Don't fucking swear in front of your sister." April giggled, and Jason rolled his eyes. John continued, "Some of us are trying. We work hard at it."
"Then what are you doing here?" Jason asked. "Trying to 'save us'?" he said sarcastically.
John glanced around, and looked like he was thinking deeply. "Nah. I just sort of stumbled across you guys. I'm sort of on a personal break from work. Trying to work things out and stuff. After I ran away from home, this is where it all began."
"Are you trying to find yourself?" April asked.
John and Jason looked at her in surprise, and John chuckled. "Uhh, sure."
Jason asked, "Where'd you hear that, April?"
The girl shrugged. "I dunno. Mom used to say that."
"So, where are you guys staying?" John asked, smoothly veering away from the subject of parents, which Jason was thankful for. "There used to be a shelter that accepted mutant runaways, just a few blocks from here."
The siblings went quiet. "It's not there anymore," April answered, and Jason could hear the tears in her voice.
"Got burned down," he said shortly. "Couple of weeks ago. Just luck we weren't there at the time."
"We were street corner singing for McDonald's," April added sadly. "But some of our new friends were caught inside. I miss them."
Jason squeezed her hand, and addressed John. "Word on the street is some group called Friends of Humanity did it."
The fire in the can flared up suddenly, with a loud crack and an intense wave of heat, and the siblings jumped back in surprise. For a second, John's eyes looked wild and dangerous. But then it was gone.
"McDonald's is bad for you," he said. That was all he said.
"I like it," April sniffed.
John looked at her. "You hungry? We could eat. They've got salad."
April's face brightened. "Oh, I am! I like their cheeseburg-"
"-No," Jason cut in. "We aren't going anywhere with you."
"But, Jason! I'm hungry," April whined. "John invited me!"
"It's okay, April," John said suddenly. He nodded his head at Jason. "I get you. Guess I should be on my way."
Jason pulled his sister closer to him. "Guess you should."
"Look," John said, sighing, and suddenly looked tired. "I can give you this number of a guy who could find you a place to stay. Different city, maybe, or at the... Well, something, anyway."
"We're not-"
John held up his hand, "I know, I know. You don't trust anyone. And you probably shouldn't. I'll give you the number, and you don't have to call if you don't want. But, ask around first. People know who he is. He's trustworthy. Got a pen?"
"I do!" April said, shrugging her Barbie backpack off her back. She dug around in it, and pulled out a pink pen with a squished and dirty sparkly fluff ball at the end. Jason grabbed it from her, and he was the one that handed it to John, though he still kept a distance from him.
John glanced at the pen with a 'you gotta be kidding me' look, but accepted it. He pulled out his wallet and took a scrap of paper out of it. "Old receipt," he muttered, and wrote on it. He handed the pen back. "Peter will help you the best he can, I guarentee," John said to them. "This is his cell, so call it."
Out of curiosity, Jason had to ask, "How come not you?"
John shook his head. "He'd have a better idea of where you could go. My work is to fight for mutants, not babysit them."
"Fuck you."
"Jason!"
"Sorry, April."
John folded up the paper and handed it over to Jason. "Just call."
"Yeah. Whatever." Jason didn't really look at it, just clenched his hand around it.
"See you kids around," John said, nodding at each other them. "Stay safe." He backed away from them, slowly, almost as if he didn't trust them, and once he hit the street, it was like he disappeared.
"Who was that guy?" April asked.
"No clue," Jason said. And as he opened up the paper to give it a look, four twenty dollar bills fell to the ground. April quickly stooped over and picked them up, her eyes shining.
"He's got to be one of the good guys!"
Jason nodded slowly. "Yeah. Maybe."
ooc: Pyro's reaction to this conversation can be found here.