Threnody Harper (OC, Nix Gordon-verse), Barways

[facetsofbethan]

There is a very tall teenage girl - just over six foot tall when she stands up, with a very pretty and very pierced face and waist-length dreadlocks decorated with scraps of pink, blue and green cloth - in the bar. Specifically, she's sitting in a booth, working on something small and undoubtedly technological with a massive range of screwdrivers

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[solitarylight]

There's a very serious looking ten-year-old boy staring up at her through dark brown bangs just a little too long. He's wearing glasses, and the index is just enough to make his eyes look sort of blue-greyish.

"How much would getting an old watch fixed be?" he asks. He's clearly calculating in his head.

[facetsofbethan]

He happens to ask in the few seconds of silence between songs, and Threnody pulls down her big brass-and-leather headphones before she speaks to him.

"Depends 'ow complicated it is, luv," she says, smiling. (Her tongue is pierced with a little blue stone, and there's a ring through her lower lip.) "And 'ow much y've got, naturally. Watches normally ain't too much've a problem, though."

[solitarylight]

Jason's started smiling--people don't talk like that in Metropolis or Gotham, the two cities he knows best, and certainly not in Smallville where Grandma Kent lives.

And then his expression is thoughtful again. "Um. Could I maybe pay you a bit at a time if I have to? I'd really like it fixed, and I do get an allowance." There's something absolutely earnest about the look in his eyes.

(And hey, maybe he can talk his father into a temporary raise if he does more chores for a little while... it'd be worth it. And it's not like he has much else to do, being partially grounded and all.)

[facetsofbethan]

She can go posher, if she wants. Around her mother, she normally does - Challie Harper is the kind to demand that kind of thing from her offspring. But of the three siblings, only Toby talks that way naturally.

Threnody wrinkles her nose (also pierced: this time, a little pink stud) thoughtfully. "Lemme have a look at it?" she offers, carefully raising the goggles (her left eyebrow is studded too, and combining the little green stone with straps is a recipe for pain) up past her hairline. "We can settle a price then, maybe."

[solitarylight]

Jason's eyes take in the piercings for a moment and he wonders how on earth full humans--who can feel that sort of pain--actually justify piercings to themselves. It makes no sense to him. Then again, the last time he was seriously injured...

Well. No use thinking of that.

Jason bites his lip for a minute and then nods. "Just a sec, I'll go grab it." He leaves briefly. When he returns a few minutes later with a watch from at the latest the 1960s or so, the glass shattered and a few parts clearly busted. It looks like it took something of a pounding. On the underside is inscribed "To JK, with love, MK."

...Yeah, Jason's really hoping his father won't be horribly upset he had to get this fixed.

[facetsofbethan]

Some humans even kind of like it. For Threnody, collecting piercings is an addiction by now, helped along by a high pain threshold collected over nearly seventeen years of fiddling with, poking at, fixing and eventually creating metal things that spark, twist, fizz, tick, move, spin and click.

She turns it over in her hands a few times, poking gently at various parts with big but delicate fingertips as she hums under her breath. Selecting a small flat-headed screwdriver, she carefully levers the back open and uses its tip to pushes cautiously at various innards.

"...Awright," she says at last. "Well, I can fix it, no worries, and I should be able t'flatten out some of the dents, but it'll want parts from Bar t'do it with. Say about thirty quid?"

[solitarylight]

Jason smiles in relief at hearing it can be fixed. "Thank you," he says with real gratitude in his voice, his blue eyes brightening a little behind the glasses.

He turns to the Bar then. "Um. Can you put that in 21st century American money, please, Bar? --Er, 2011, if it matters." He's chewing a nail, a gesture distinctly reminiscent of his mother, mostly because he's a little worried about getting this done for his dad.

[facetsofbethan]

"2011, huh?" Threnody sounds interested. "2032, my end'a things. London, if you want specifics."

[solitarylight]

Jason smiles a bit. He'd like to see London some time--and it's not like visiting would be terribly hard to do.

"Cool. I'm from Metropolis." Some comics writer was in a really lazy mood when they named Superman's city. In the mean time, Jason is chewing his lip at the number he gets back. "Okay, I've got almost that much. I've still got some of my Christmas money, and my allowance would only be a couple weeks to finish it off. 'sthat okay?"

Thing is, if Jason just told his dad what happened, honestly, his parents would handle this. But... he feels responsible, so he's trying to do it himself.

[facetsofbethan]

"Metropolis? Don' you mean a Metropolis?"

He's certainly not getting to see her London, though. Threnody may share certain impulse-control problems with her older sister, but neither of them would even contemplate taking a ten-year-old into what they have come to consider at best a No Man's Land and at worst an active warzone.

"...Yeah, I'll risk it," she says, after a moment - Hey, he's only a kid - and grins. "I reckon you're probably a safe investment."