Even in a room filled with noise, Thalia wasn't one to be caught off guard. She had been born and raised to be too tightly wound for that. Despite the time that she had been there, her senses hadn't dulled much. In the end it all came down to a sickly combination of instinct and practice. When something changed, she could feel the twinge of it in her bones. She was too much of a Hunter for that to change.
Her head jerked up, posture going slightly rigid as she assessed the direction the noise had come from. Abandoning the laundry that is scattered out on the table, oblivious to the fact that she's wearing track shorts from the seventies and a KISS shirt rather than her usual set of armor-like clothes she turned towards the door to the closet. One careful step, then another before she pounced swinging the door open with a bit more force than necessary.
There was a guy inside, her eyes sliding from his unkempt form to the sawhorse on the floord. "Dude, you really have to be more careful."
I just about jump out of my skin when the door flies open. I scowl at the girl, fingers flexing into and out of fists. She can't be any older than Amber. She's got the attitude of the girls that age, except that where you know the interchangeable sluts at the mall parade up and down out of insecurity that reshapes itself into confidence, this one probably just doesn't give a fuck. She's not showing off for the hell of it, but her little warning still hasn't told me anything about what's going on and, with my heart demanding to be let out of my ribcage like that, even those bare legs of hers only manage to distract me for a few seconds.
I tense, chin tilting up, trying to look so damn startled. "Thanks for the tip," I tell her, then cave and step back to pick the sawhorse up, tipping it back into place. I should ask what's going on, but I don't want to look as clueless as I am. For a moment, I feel like a moron, being spooked by a teenage girl, but it's the situation, not her, and anyway, then I remember Misty. "I didn't know it was
Thalia took a step back, eyes still on him while she took in the scene. There was a wariness in her gaze, assessing what all of this said and what she might have to do to be prepared. She might be unarmed, but that didn't make her any less dangerous. If push came to shove, she'd be alright. No matter how calm and nice things are around here, it didn't lessen her preparedness for things to head south in a hurry.
Her brows knit together as she considered what he had said. "What do you mean? Didn't you see it when you went in there?" shed asked even though she didn't remember seeing him enter the room in the first place. It didn't hurt to check.
It's not a lie. I stumbled around in the dark in here for a little while there, even if I found the light by the time I knocked that thing over. I have no way of knowing how long she's been out there or if there's a reasonable answer to her question that isn't something like 'Sorry, but I just magically appeared in this closet, I promise I'm not a crazy person.'
It'd be an unreasonable thing to promise anyway. I can't promise that to anyone. I can't even promise it to myself.
Besides, I get the feeling she'd catch me out if I lied. She's got that thing in her eyes, that wild animal sharpness that makes me think her bite could be worse than her bark. My pulse throbs wildly in my palms. "And I wasn't looking where I was going. It's, uh... bigger than I expected in here. What are you, anyway, the cops?"
It's not been long since her last trip to the basement and they don't need washing, but Kate brings her clothes down anyway, so desperate is she for a distraction. Since yesterday, she hasn't been able to stop the constant flood of memories from the island. Most of her day was spent on the beach, reliving the crash in disturbingly accurate detail. She could practically feel the cold metal digging into her wrists, it felt so real. But down here, it's all that she can do to keep from remembering Claire and Aaron, and those days they shared a house, sat on the same porch in the mornings, did the laundry together. When the smallest distraction comes along, she jumps at it, curiously making her way over to the source of the sound.
She expected to find nothing more than a clash of random objects, or maybe a small animal that managed to sneak in from outside. What she didn't expect is a kid, and the gun at his side. She feels herself tense immediately. Meeting his eyes, she asks, "Should I be putting my hands up?"
I look back at her for the space of a few thudding heartbeats before I answer or even think to. When her question sinks in, I want to toss the gun across the room like it's burned me. I have to focus to tighten my grip on it instead, the movement making my palm ache from the stretch involved. It's a good pain, though, keeping me in the moment, drawing me back from the conflicting desire to get rid of the weapon and the question searing through my brain, asking what would happen if I said yes, or if I just lifted it and pulled the trigger instead
( ... )
This doesn't happen to Kate often. Put her in a room with a man and a gun and she's fine, she's in her element. She might not be in a position of control over the situation but she knows how to react, and if it comes down to that, how to survive. But asking her to explain the island to someone new and she finds herself at a loss, unsure where to start, or even how to frame the words. She's better at this when she's pretending to be someone else, someone unassuming, but Kate Austen is none of those things. Kate Austen doesn't stay and explain, she runs.
She could run now but she doesn't. Part of it is knowing that there's nowhere to run, nowhere far enough to make any difference, or she would have been on her way a damn long while ago. But it's also the desperate need for answers that she recognizes in him and a desire to help, wherever it's coming from. "You're in the Compound," she tells him. "The building, that's what it's called, and we're in the basement. And I'm sorry, this next part's never easy, but... you're gonna have to
( ... )
The Compound. My head fills with a brief flash of solid grey, more concrete like the room we're in now, like the stout ugly prison in its valley of sunflowers where my mom lives now. A jail. A trap. Here in the basement, somewhere underground, the thought leaves me claustrophobic. I nearly drop the gun to claw at my throat before I remember there's nothing there. There's nothing keeping me from breathing except what's in my head.
My hands are shaking again, made all the more noticeable when I set the gun down on a shelf beside me, metal rattling against wood. I shouldn't be armed in this state. I wouldn't do anything on purpose, but my hands feel out of my control, unsteady, unreliable.
"What, are there no doors or something?" I ask, even though I'm pretty sure already that she means something more than that.
Salvatore had spent the weekend and a good deal of time afterward refusing to leave the compound building. It had taken a bit of reassurance that Godzilla and the other giant monster had in fact been well and truly defeated for him to even dare his trips to work, but given what he remembers of those horrible B-movies, he wouldn't have been much safer inside anyway. But the strange powers seem to have died down. Admittedly, he hadn't even been aware of them until the middle of the day on Saturday when he'd finished the book he was reading and gone down to try and find something different
( ... )
I almost laugh, too, at the end of scaring him, but I don't know how to answer his questions. Am I alright? Have I been hurt? No and yes, I think, but that isn't what he's asking.
Aware I've gotta look like a spooked animal in the headlights, I set the gun down on the shelf nearby, just within reach though I doubt I could make myself pull the trigger even if I had to. He doesn't look dangerous - maybe twice my age and dressed nice enough, more like the guys who work down at the bank than anyone in my part of the woods. Looks don't always mean anything and I don't yet let down my guard, but I don't want to startle him any further either.
"I'm fine," I say, stuffing my scraped hands into the pockets of my dad's hunting jacket. "Just knocked that thing over. I didn't see it there. I just wanted to put something away." The trouble is, I wanted to put it away in my own shed.
There's something unusual - even for the island, and all it's quirks - in the answer and attitude of the man he's come across in the store room. It's only when wide and well-whited eyes turn toward a shelf that Salvatore realizes the man is carrying a gun. It doesn't unsettle him too badly - after all that was a threat he could understand much more clearly than super powers or giant rampaging nuclear lizards
( ... )
I don't know if that should make me feel less crazy or more. It's difficult to deny something's happened when my shed's completely changed in an instant, but hearing it from a stranger doesn't actually confirm anything. For all I know, he's just another product of my imagination, a mental pat on the back telling me I've got it right when it's just another way of lying to myself
( ... )
After coming up on four years here, Lucy thinks she's gotten pretty good at spotting new arrivals, mostly because they're people she hasn't seen before. In this case, though, it's the simple fact that it hasn't rained today that tips her off, because the boy in the hall definitely doesn't seem like he's just damp from a shower. He's a stranger, too, come to that, with a look about him that's vaguely familiar but not close enough for her to mistake him for anyone else she might have seen around. Pausing is almost instinctive, then, teeth pressing to her lip for a moment as she draws in a breath.
"Hey, are you alright?" she asks, not giving the question too much weight, but meaning it anyway. If nothing else, he looks like he's seen better days, and she wouldn't begin to guess why that might be, or why he'd have a gun on him. (That much doesn't faze her, though. Plenty of people here have them, for one, and having both held and been on the other end of them before in situations completely unlike this, there's no reason to be bothered
( ... )
I've had the whole deal explained to me and I still don't believe it. My senses all support it, but that doesn't mean anything these days. Everything about this place makes me wary, and though I've had both the showers and the clothes box pointed out, instinct tells me I should find somewhere to stay first, somewhere not doled out by a council I don't yet trust. I can come back for clothes and the showers when it's late and most of these people are in bed. I don't relish the idea of sharing things like that with strangers. It feels too much like being a government case. They have therapists here, too. I don't need to go to a new one with my story, though, now that it's not a legal requirement
( ... )
"Okay," Lucy says with a faint smile, reassuring. There's no reason not to take his word for it, after all, even if he definitely looks like he's been put through the ringer or something. If he really is as new as she thinks, though (and there's not a doubt in her mind about that), then it isn't surprising. She nearly took a guy out when she arrived, had a knife pulled on her when Bucky did, remembers Pete sitting in the sand with a shotgun and a glass of scotch (and how his being armed didn't alarm her, either. Sometimes she thinks Bucky might be on to something when he calls her crazy). The island just does that, brings people from times that aren't their best. She wouldn't hold that against him or anyone. "Do you need help finding anything? You haven't... been here long, have you?"
Yeah, I think, you got a way home? They'd laugh if I said anything, but the girls need me. Amber doesn't take care of anything, Misty doesn't have the money anymore. I brought the gun with me. They can't handle being alone yet. Who'd get Jody her umbrella every month? Amber never bothers.
"No, not long," I answer, and even that feels like giving away too much. It settles like an itch under my skin. No one here knows anything about me, nothing but that I'm armed and a mess, and I think, well, good, let them see that. No one will mess with me then. In the meanwhile, I want too much to keep being an unknown variable, instead of the kid up on Potshot everyone knows about, Bonnie Altmeyer's son. My father's son. "I-I'm fine, I don't - I was just looking for the kitchen."
My stomach's been nagging at me practically since I got here. There's a lot I don't trust, but I'll take a chance on the food. At least I'd die with a full belly if it turned out poisoned.
Hiccup always felt odd in the Compound, probably because that was one of the few places that Toothless chose not to follow him. More often than not, the dragon liked being in a position to leap up and down where he wished or look up and see the sky, not that Hiccup blamed him. If he were a dragon, he wouldn't rush to go indoors either.
Lost between that thought and pondering what might be for dinner tonight, Hiccup almost didn't notice the stranger until there was only a foot between them. His metal leg skidded slightly as he jumped back to keep from crashing.
I stumble back in turn, though after a moment I relax. The kid's harmless, just not looking where he's going, and we didn't actually knock into each other. "No harm done," I say. I've had worse than getting run down anyway, if it had come to that.
It's only the sound that draws my attention to his leg, and I just barely manage not to wince. All the more reason to cut the guy some slack. It can't be easy to get around here like that. I haven't actually been outside much yet, just for a glimpse, but there's supposed to be a beach.
I've never actually been to a beach before, not up on the ocean like this. Curiosity prompts me to go now to see, but I'm too wary of all this still to wander far from the Compound.
He caught the aborted wince and tried to smile it off, remember that this was an oddity, even on the island. This wasn't Berk, where a lost limb was normal, a badge of honor, a source of pride not pity. It meant being strong enough to survive pain.
"What? Me? Yeah, this is old. I'm o-"
It occurred to him, belatedly, that maybe he was just asking about bumping into him and that Hiccup had just made things a thousand times more awkward.
This time, if I wince, it's because of guilt. Both things probably look the same from the outside, though. I should know better than to draw attention to something like that and he's clearly already dealt with enough shit to get that, but I'm thrown enough by all this not to be as good at covering things up as I usually am.
Hope I am, at least.
"Good, good," I respond, though not much is now. Or has been for a while, if I'm honest, but you do what you can with what you've got. "That's... I should've been looking where I was going."
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Her head jerked up, posture going slightly rigid as she assessed the direction the noise had come from. Abandoning the laundry that is scattered out on the table, oblivious to the fact that she's wearing track shorts from the seventies and a KISS shirt rather than her usual set of armor-like clothes she turned towards the door to the closet. One careful step, then another before she pounced swinging the door open with a bit more force than necessary.
There was a guy inside, her eyes sliding from his unkempt form to the sawhorse on the floord. "Dude, you really have to be more careful."
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I tense, chin tilting up, trying to look so damn startled. "Thanks for the tip," I tell her, then cave and step back to pick the sawhorse up, tipping it back into place. I should ask what's going on, but I don't want to look as clueless as I am. For a moment, I feel like a moron, being spooked by a teenage girl, but it's the situation, not her, and anyway, then I remember Misty. "I didn't know it was
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Thalia took a step back, eyes still on him while she took in the scene. There was a wariness in her gaze, assessing what all of this said and what she might have to do to be prepared. She might be unarmed, but that didn't make her any less dangerous. If push came to shove, she'd be alright. No matter how calm and nice things are around here, it didn't lessen her preparedness for things to head south in a hurry.
Her brows knit together as she considered what he had said. "What do you mean? Didn't you see it when you went in there?" shed asked even though she didn't remember seeing him enter the room in the first place. It didn't hurt to check.
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It's not a lie. I stumbled around in the dark in here for a little while there, even if I found the light by the time I knocked that thing over. I have no way of knowing how long she's been out there or if there's a reasonable answer to her question that isn't something like 'Sorry, but I just magically appeared in this closet, I promise I'm not a crazy person.'
It'd be an unreasonable thing to promise anyway. I can't promise that to anyone. I can't even promise it to myself.
Besides, I get the feeling she'd catch me out if I lied. She's got that thing in her eyes, that wild animal sharpness that makes me think her bite could be worse than her bark. My pulse throbs wildly in my palms. "And I wasn't looking where I was going. It's, uh... bigger than I expected in here. What are you, anyway, the cops?"
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She expected to find nothing more than a clash of random objects, or maybe a small animal that managed to sneak in from outside. What she didn't expect is a kid, and the gun at his side. She feels herself tense immediately. Meeting his eyes, she asks, "Should I be putting my hands up?"
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She could run now but she doesn't. Part of it is knowing that there's nowhere to run, nowhere far enough to make any difference, or she would have been on her way a damn long while ago. But it's also the desperate need for answers that she recognizes in him and a desire to help, wherever it's coming from. "You're in the Compound," she tells him. "The building, that's what it's called, and we're in the basement. And I'm sorry, this next part's never easy, but... you're gonna have to ( ... )
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My hands are shaking again, made all the more noticeable when I set the gun down on a shelf beside me, metal rattling against wood. I shouldn't be armed in this state. I wouldn't do anything on purpose, but my hands feel out of my control, unsteady, unreliable.
"What, are there no doors or something?" I ask, even though I'm pretty sure already that she means something more than that.
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Aware I've gotta look like a spooked animal in the headlights, I set the gun down on the shelf nearby, just within reach though I doubt I could make myself pull the trigger even if I had to. He doesn't look dangerous - maybe twice my age and dressed nice enough, more like the guys who work down at the bank than anyone in my part of the woods. Looks don't always mean anything and I don't yet let down my guard, but I don't want to startle him any further either.
"I'm fine," I say, stuffing my scraped hands into the pockets of my dad's hunting jacket. "Just knocked that thing over. I didn't see it there. I just wanted to put something away." The trouble is, I wanted to put it away in my own shed.
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"Hey, are you alright?" she asks, not giving the question too much weight, but meaning it anyway. If nothing else, he looks like he's seen better days, and she wouldn't begin to guess why that might be, or why he'd have a gun on him. (That much doesn't faze her, though. Plenty of people here have them, for one, and having both held and been on the other end of them before in situations completely unlike this, there's no reason to be bothered ( ... )
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"No, not long," I answer, and even that feels like giving away too much. It settles like an itch under my skin. No one here knows anything about me, nothing but that I'm armed and a mess, and I think, well, good, let them see that. No one will mess with me then. In the meanwhile, I want too much to keep being an unknown variable, instead of the kid up on Potshot everyone knows about, Bonnie Altmeyer's son. My father's son. "I-I'm fine, I don't - I was just looking for the kitchen."
My stomach's been nagging at me practically since I got here. There's a lot I don't trust, but I'll take a chance on the food. At least I'd die with a full belly if it turned out poisoned.
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Lost between that thought and pondering what might be for dinner tonight, Hiccup almost didn't notice the stranger until there was only a foot between them. His metal leg skidded slightly as he jumped back to keep from crashing.
"Hey. Sorry about that!"
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It's only the sound that draws my attention to his leg, and I just barely manage not to wince. All the more reason to cut the guy some slack. It can't be easy to get around here like that. I haven't actually been outside much yet, just for a glimpse, but there's supposed to be a beach.
I've never actually been to a beach before, not up on the ocean like this. Curiosity prompts me to go now to see, but I'm too wary of all this still to wander far from the Compound.
"You okay?"
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"What? Me? Yeah, this is old. I'm o-"
It occurred to him, belatedly, that maybe he was just asking about bumping into him and that Hiccup had just made things a thousand times more awkward.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
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Hope I am, at least.
"Good, good," I respond, though not much is now. Or has been for a while, if I'm honest, but you do what you can with what you've got. "That's... I should've been looking where I was going."
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