OTA.

[demon_screaming]

Esme wasn't as stressed out as she looked. Honestly. she was perfectly one hundred percent cool. Ignore the irritably fluttering wings or the slight scowl on the girls face. Or the annoyed way at which she worked on restringing her guitar. Weapons maintenance. That's what this was. She was keeping her 'weapon' ready just in case. Tightening screws

Comments

[not_a_bruiser]

Brian was heading back to his room after heading out for food. He was hungry too often here, and never managed to be awake long enough to grab food. Laziness, mostly, since he didn't actually need sleep. He'd just left the mess hall when he heard a familiar noise: guitar tuning.

He scampered back to his room, grabbed his bass, and followed the noise, poking his head into the room. His curious expression split into an ear to ear grin when he saw a familiar face.

"Esme? No shit!" He moved into the room, setting his bass aside. She was going to hug him, whether she liked it or not.

[demon_screaming]

Paranoid as ever, Esme kept an eye on the vocal patterns floating in the air. She hadn't noticed any new ones, all of them were familiar. It didn't register with her exactly why there was an additional one but as stated, they were all familiar she didn't give it a second thought until she heard Brian speak.

She'd folded her wings against her back for a little bit, ready to just go unnoticed but the second she'd heard Brian, the wings were out as far as they'd go. A definite sign that she was surprised, for anyone that knew her.

And as for that hug? She knew better than to try and fight off a hug from the guy. She set her guitar down and hopped off the couch, grinning. Finally.

"Brian? Oh, my God!" Esme said excitedly as she hugged him. "Hi! Holy shit. When did you get here?

[not_a_bruiser]

"A few days ago. Russia blows nuts. How long you been here?" He knew Esme from his last year at the Massachusetts Academy, before he'd left to start Balls Out with his buddy. He hadn't seen her since. The two had jammed a few times.

"I see you've still got the axe." He picked up his bass and sat down next to where she'd been, grinning. "Good to see you're still playing."

[demon_screaming]

"A few d---" Esme's eyes widened, exasperated. "How the hell did I not notice you arriving? You've really been here a few days?!" She sighed, facepalming and shaking her head. It really had been a bad couple of weeks if she missed Brian wandering around.

"Russia sucks. Africa was better," she said with a small smirk. Africa had been warm and they'd been outside and she liked outside better than inside. It was probably why she spent most of her time sitting on the roof at the Academy. Glancing at her guitar, she grinned.

"Yup! I still got it!" She picked it up and looked at the thing This was only one of several she owned. She even still had her first one but that was back in Massachusetts. She hoped. Oh, if Shaw sold the thing she'd kill the asshole.

[not_a_bruiser]

"Nah, I've been laying low, sticking to my room. I'm in with one of the doc's, so he's not there much. Mostly been out and about at night, and that's just to shower and eat something. The MP's don't seem to like me." He grinned, settling the bass acoustic bass in his lap and catching his thumb on the edge of the strings, pulling down before bringing his hand back over to stop the string vibrating.

"So, beyond Russia sucking so hard, how've things been?" He plucked the next string, checking tune by ear.

[demon_screaming]

Esme listened to the notes coming from his bass, frowning in thought. He kept it well tuned, took good care of the thing. It was just her hearing picking up subtle differences and problems. Brian knew what he was doing however, sos eh kept her mouth shut.

When he asked how things have been, she smirked. "You're not gonna believe who is here," she stated, practically bouncing on the spot.

[not_a_bruiser]

He saw Esme's reaction to him strumming his bass, and smirked at her. Brian knew her mutation, and pulled the bass away from him by the neck, handing it over. "Tune it for me?"

Knowing Esme, the only two people that she'd care were around were Emma Frost or her boyfriend, who's name was escaping him. Not that he was specifically forgetting her boyfriend's name for his own interests; it was more that he didn't really talk to the kid like he had Esme. "I dunno; who?" He grinned at her, curious.

[demon_screaming]

Well, if he insisted. Esme took the instrument carefully, tilting an ear towards the strings as she worked. "Thank you," she stated with an embarrassed smile. At least he put up with her crap. that wasn't something she could easily say about many people.

"Emma, for starters. And John." Esme told Brian a little about John. Not a whole lot. She kept that guarded as well as she could. She did tell him about the riot that separated the pair.

"He's on the team, too. We reunited in Africa."

[not_a_bruiser]

"Emma's here? No shit." He hadn't gotten to know the telepath that well while he was at the school, but he did know of her. They had a head-nod relationship. To hear Esme talk about John (that was his name), Brian grinned. Happy endings were a good thing.

"That's awesome, kid! I'm glad to hear it! Sucks you had to go all the way to Africa to find each other, but that's pretty sweet!" He smiled at her, then reached for the bass as she finished tuning. He formed his fingers to the frets and played a quick scale, grinning. "Better than an autotuner, thank you."

He struck out a few resonant notes, frowning a little. It always sounded better through an amp, but he was feeling too lazy to go back to his room for it.

[demon_screaming]

"Course I'm better than an autotuner. I run on pop rocks and red bull," Esme said with a smirk, nose scrunching slightly. She wasn't as arrogant as she acted. Brian probably knew that. She just picked up interesting little quirks from Emma and sometimes it showed.

Noting the frown, Esme mentally reached out for the sound waves coming for the guitar. It took a minute to adjust them just right to make them louder.

"How's that?"