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Library, Thursday

Evan really wasn't certain what to make of the library, today. He'd walked in, and, thinking that maybe he was going to actually get work done, had been met with a stack of cookbooks on the desk to be shelved. And so, naturally, he'd shelved them! Only to come back to his desk to find that there were more, all opened to pages about homemade candies. He did the requisite glance around to be certain there wasn't somebody looking for photocopies or something, and then looked down at the book, eyebrow raised, and set about shelving them all over again.

And again.

And again.

By around noon, he had given up and was looking through the recipes. There was one for salt water taffy that had caught his interest, mostly because it was the one candy in the book that he had a distinct, stretchy-limbed advantage with while making it.

[Open!]

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"Because answering pain with pain makes more sense than keeping your head down!" she scoffed, planting her hands on her hips. What else could 'they wouldn't realize how much trouble they'd be in' mean? "Because it’s okay to hurt people who hurt you because then they’ll learn! In my world people like you," and people like herself but as if she was going to admit that, "are either reviled or worshipped or both at the same time!"

She knew. Karina knew what it was like to be worshipped for her freakishness.

And she knew how hard it was to just… be normal so you weren’t reviled too.

“And you—this world has people in it from so many places! I bet some of them would be perfectly happy to hunt you down.”

Karina was saying it extremely badly but he’d upset and scared her deeply with his carelessness over his own safety. She couldn’t believe he’d just so casually used his powers for something that would have taken two seconds to kneel down and grab.

Evan just tilted his head at her, looking up at her from his crouch on the floor.

"I didn't say I was going to hurt them," he replied, not entirely getting why what he'd said was so troubling, now. "I said they'd find themselves in more trouble than it was worth, if they tried to hurt me, yeah. But I didn't do what I did in an attempt to make anyone angry or to weed out the bigots... There are people here from all over, sure, but this island... it's home to all of us. And it's supposed to be safe to be who and what we are, no matter who or what we are. Nobody around here has much tolerance for people who pick on people who are different."

He looked down, then, quietly straightening out the stack of newspapers. They were pretty fascinating, right then.

"Here's the only home I really have, you know. If I can't be me here, am I supposed to just pretend to be like everyone else and keep my head down for the rest of my life? I was raised to be a hero. That's not how it works."

As if heroes even mattered.

(She knew, she was one, and Karina was aware of how little she mattered.)

It was nothing but reality TV and product placement in her world and maybe it was different in other worlds but she had no experience with that. And no reason to believe it was different either.

(100 points per civilian life saved! 200 points per criminal apprehended! 25 points for getting to the crime scene first.)

She stared down at him, wondering how anyone could be so careless and naïve. “It’s a boarding school,” Karina said flatly. “Eventually, everyone leaves. And people don’t get to go back to their worlds still with the magical bubble of ‘everyone here is super nice to those who are different’ still around them. Eventually, you’ll be back where people hate you. Maybe you shouldn’t get out of practice with hiding it because you’ve got four years here, tops, to enjoy not being hated. Then it’s going to be back out in the cold, harsh world.”

Though his face made it more difficult. Even she could admit that. But using his powers carelessly would make it even worse.

Why invite trouble?

Edited 2013-01-17 16:37 (UTC)

His face made it more difficult in ways that she couldn't even imagine. There was no escaping for trouble. Powers or no, he looked like who he looked like and that was something that he couldn't change, no matter how good he was at changing the shape of his arms.

"I don't know if you've gotten a good look at me," Evan said, his voice still soft and he didn't dare look up, now, "but I'm not exactly the kind of mutant who can hide, unless I move down into the sewers or something. I'm not ashamed of what I am, Karina. I don't have any reason to be. I'm just not like you. That's all."

She was right about one thing, though. The world was cold. So, so much colder than anything he'd ever known back home in Kansas.

He wanted to go home.

"I’m not like you," Karina said, her voice brittle and cold at the same time. Like a thin layer of ice. That was the only hint of her powers and even that, only she knew it was a tell. She’d always had good control over her powers so her temper didn’t touch them much. That kept her safer. She had to get out of here. "At all."

She wasn’t a freak, she wasn’t. (Except she was.)

"I didn’t come here to start a fight," she said, still in that chilly voice. "But I think you’re making a mistake. A big one."

There was a difference between hiding from shame and hiding because it was dangerous. It was dangerous. Didn’t he get that?

Edited 2013-01-17 16:58 (UTC)

Evan got that. He understood it as that boy who had gone to school with people whose families had thrown them away for being different. He understood it was that kid whose classmates had bullied him until he couldn't take it anymore, until he had to run to a new school because he wasn't even like those people that he was supposed to be accepted among.

He was still refusing to look up. He watched her feet as she stepped back, hesitated, and then moved even farther from him still. And he listened as she spoke, eyes still glued on the floor, hands frozen in place on the newspapers.

"I'm just here to do my job," he said softly, his heart beating in his ears like thunder. "Do you want these papers, or would you rather come back another day?"

"I... I'd better come back some other time," she said quietly, a horrible, uncomfortable mish-mash of fear, anger and, yes, shame.

But she couldn't bring herself to say sorry.

Karina hesitated for a long moment, half-turned away before saying, "I don’t care if you do weird things around me. But it’s dangerous and that... don’t do that."

It was stupid to practically invite people to hurt him by using his powers. Karina could only think of what happened to many NEXTs back home who were that careless.

They usually paid for it.

People would hurt him.

How could she say sorry for telling him so? For warning him?

She couldn't. But it meant that she'd hurt him too and she'd have to live with that.

Edited 2013-01-17 18:17 (UTC)

"There's nothing I can do that isn't dangerous for someone like me, Karina." He was pulling himself to his feet again, finally, but he couldn't quite look up even then. "But I appreciate that you don't want anybody to get hurt. It's... a nice thought."

He nodded down at the newspapers.

"Any other day of the week should be okay for you to visit to check these out," he added, soldiering determinedly on. "I think I'm about as weird as the library staff gets at a glance, so you won't have any more troubles on days that aren't Thursday."

She hesitated and thought about pointing out that it wasn't his weirdness that was the problem but the lack of care that he acted with.

But that would just make things worse and, truthfully, Karina just wanted to get out of the library more than anything else.

"Fine," she said softly. "That's clear enough."

For both of them.

"Great," Evan muttered, taking a few steps back himself, and then starting off toward the desk. "I suppose it is."

He thought he'd been homesick over Christmas. Apparently that was nothing compared to being yelled at for being... well... comfortable with what he was.

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