Vance and Fatale | Backdated to 11/24
Nov. 24th, 2017 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainFatale and Vance decide that while knife holes make interesting conversation pieces, paint livens up a room more.
Thwunk.
Fatale barely looked to confirm that her knife had, in fact, landed in the center of the target she'd drawn on her wall. She was kicking back on her bed, flipping through a magazine with her left hand while more or less negligently tossing knives at the wall, for no particular reason other than that she couldn't think of anything else to do.
Thwunk.
Huh. New Star Wars movie coming out. She'd have to see if Alex wanted to go see it. Star Wars was okay. If nothing else, the lightsabers were cool.
Thwunk.
Impractical, maybe. But still cool. It sucked that they didn't really make working ones, just those stupid ones in the toys department. She could do some serious damage with a lightsaber.
Thw-crash!
That got Fatale's attention, and she looked at the wall to find that continual knife abuse apparently resulted in the dry-wall giving way at the center of her target. Oops.
"Sorry!" she yelled, then frowned as she counted the still visible knives. Short one. Fuck. "Any chance you can give that back?" she added.
Vance sat on his bed in shock, staring down at the pile of crumpled drywall and...yup, that was definitely a knife. "Wh-what?" He asked, belated realizing that his neighbor had asked him something.
Fatale sighed. "Nevermind, I'll come get it!" she yelled, then got up and went to do just that. A few seconds later, there was a knock at the door of Vance's room.
He opened it, still looking mildly stunned. "Hey. Uh...." He got out of her way, and gestured to where the pile of drywall was. His room was bare, notably so, with no personal effects in the least. Of course getting any of his personal effects would involve going home, and that was a definite no.
"Wow. Your room is even more boring than mine," Fatale observed as she went over and retrieved her knife, smirking a little at the stunned expression on the newbie's face. "You need some posters or something."
Vance blinked, and then looked around and noticed the accuracy of her statement. "Yeah, I guess it's....kind of...white."
"Yeah, kinda." Fatale turned to look at him. "I think there's paint left from the party. If you want to neon it some."
"Neon it? What kind of party was it?" Vance asked curiously.
"A neon one." Fatale shrugged. "Pietro did decorations. Anyway, there was this wall you could write on in neon paint, and there's probably some left." She smirked. "It'd be the anti-white."
Vance's eyebrows rose. "Wouldn't I get in trouble if I started writing on my walls in neon paint?" He could only imagine what his father would do to him if he'd written in neon paint at home.
"I just put a hole from my room into yours," Fatale pointed out, "because I was throwing knives at a giant target I painted on my wall. Pretty sure no one's gonna care about paint."
Vance guessed that was a good point. "Why'd you paint a target on the wall?"
"Because just throwing knives at the wall is boring." Fatale said it as if it were perfectly obvious - which it was - but then smirked.
He couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Got it. So since you were throwing knives at the wall anyway," for some unknown reason, but he guessed there were weirder hobbies, "why not put a target up there."
"Pretty much. It's good practice, too." Fatale made a face. "I'm going to have to paint a new one now on a different wall. Unless you're cool with me throwing knives through the hole?" she asked hopefully. Because really, that would be great practice.
Knives coming through his wall by surprise seemed like the kind of thing Vance would probably only survive the one time. "Um, yeah, probably not the best idea. I mean, sure, I've got the TK, but I'm not exactlythat good with it," he admitted.
"You need practice, Newbie," Fatale observed, then grinned, her eyes lighting up. "Okay, brilliant idea. You help me paint a new target, and I'll not only help you neon your room, but I'll teach you how to throw knives with your TK."
Vance looked surprised, but then really curious. "That could be really cool. You really think I could do that?"
"Why not? You said you wrap things around what you're lifting, right?" Fatale shrugged. "You wrap your hand around a knife. Gotta be pretty much the same." She grinned. "Besides, it's something to do, and I'm bored."
"Good point." He grinned back. "Worth a try, right?"
"Right." Fatale smirked and waved for him to follow her. "Come on, let's go get the paint. And some duct tape to paste over the wall, unless you're cool with it being there."
Vance nodded. "Yeah, duct tape first, I think? And then paint. Let's do it."
Fatale led the way out of Vance's room and down the hall to the room used or miscellaneous storage. "So, how goes so far? Settling in?"
"I guess," Vance mused as they walked. It was still a little weird to him, all these other kids, minimal supervision, and no real classes or anything. He was starting to get used to it though, he supposed. All things considered. "How long have you been here?"
Fatale's forehead furrowed as she thought about it. "Since January, so fuck. Almost a year now?" She opened the door to the storage room and started picking her way between the boxes to where she'd last seen the duct tape. "Doesn't seem like it could be that long."
Vance nodded thoughtfully. "So you like it here, then?" Why else would she have stayed so long? "It's okay."
Fatale shrugged. "Most of the people are cool, and besides, Alex is here. Not like I'm going to take off and leave him, y'know?"
"Right." He'd seen the two of them together or lot. They seemed really close. So yeah, that made sense. Why leave behind your...significant other? Best friend? Both? Either? Family? Vance couldn't really tell, but it also was none of his business. "You guys seem really tight. Not just Alex, I mean, y'know, all you guys."
"Hey, we're the only family most of us have," Fatale pointed out. "Or the only one most of us want to remember, anyway." She shrugged. "At least, I'm guessing as much; I don't know the details of everyone's story. But fuck, we're all here. It pretty much says it all." She climbed over a large box to get to the one behind it, then smirked. "Found it!" she announced, tossing him the duct tape. "Pretty sure the leftover paint's in here, too."
He caught the tape easily, "Sweet. Thanks!"
Fatale smirked. "Catch these, too?" she suggested, and started tossing cans of paint towards him in easy arcs. The guy had TK, right? Might as well start practicing now. Vance's brow furrowed as he focused, reaching with his brain and attempting to wrap tendrils of thought around each of the cans of paint. He got....almost all of them. One clattered to the floor, and in surprise he dropped the others. "Oh no! I'm sorry," he apologize immediately, dropping to his knees to gather them up.
"For what? That was fucking awesome." Fatale climbed back over to help gather up the paint cans.
"For...dropping them?" He said slowly, unsure why he was explaining why she should be mad at him.
Fatale rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Not like they spilled or anything. And if they had, we'd clean it up. Or get Pyro to cause a freak fire, right there," she joked. Paint was flammable, wasn't it?
Vance chuckled. "Right. Good point."
Fatale eyed the newbie with interest, and decided that yes. He definitely needed to lighten up - and coming from her, that said a lot. "Come on. Let's go do your room first."
"Sure." He picked up the cans of paint and followed her.
"What do you want to paint on it?" Fatale asked.
Vance...hadn't actually thought about it. Huh. Well, that was kind of embarrassing, huh? He felt himself flush pink. "I don't really know."
"Well, that'll make it easy." Fatale smirked. "If you don't know what you want, anything we paint could be it."
"True, I guess," Vance said, nodding slowly. "I'm not exactly artistic. Do you like painting?"
"Don't know." Fatale considered it. "Other than the target on my wall, I'm not sure I've ever really done it. I even forgot to sign the wall at the party." She shrugged. "Sounds like it wouldn't suck, though. You?"
Vance thought about it. "I've never really done it either," he concluded, on reflection. "But hey, first time for everything, right?" He set down the cans of paint, and began working one of them open. It looked like a neon blue from the marks on the outside, which Vance figured would be a decent place to start.
Blue wasn't exactly Fatale's favorite color for obvious reasons, so she grabbed a yellow can and pried it open. "So, what do you think of the dump so far?" she asked.
Vance smiled. "Hey, I was sleeping in alley ways before. This place seems basically like a palace at this point."
"It's not bad." Pam grinned. "I mean, there are cracks in the walls from Lance, and Wanda's always fucking up the appliances, and you never want to take a shower after Mort, but whatever. It's home, right?" She dunked her paintbrush into the paint, carried both over to the nearest wall, and started painting large swishes.
Vance dipped a brush in too, and began painting random shapes. "Sounds like a good call, on the shower thing." He grinned, "but yeah, it's nice. And everyone has been really nice so far."
"Most of them are morons," Fatale pointed out, though she said it fondly and grinned. "But whatever, right? There are worse things." She dragged one of her swishes to the edge of one of Vance's shapes and then picked it up on the other side as if it were going through.
"Nice. Looks good," Vance said. He started doing spirals. "Morons how?"
"Just general morons. I mean, Mort eats bugs. Says it all, right?" She eyed his spiral, and started zig-zagging her swish through the curves. "Where were you before here? Anywhere cool?"
Mort had to have a stronger stomach than Vance, then, that was for sure. "Is that part of his mutation, or does he just like it?" He wondered. Mort was toad-y, definitely, but was he that naturally toad-y? Or was he just embracing toadiness? "And nowhere interesting. Ran away from home, so mostly just...streets and home, I guess."
"Fuck if I know," Fatale admitted. "He seems to like them okay, but it could be he just likes to fuck with everyone's heads catching them with his tongue." She made a face at the rest. "You're lucky you didn't get picked up. Not sure if the Right facility here was getting their test dummies from whatever runaways the cops pick up, but they were back home."
"The Right?" Vance asked. He did a little flourish off of one of his shapes.
"Fucked up bastard scientists who get their kicks off experimenting on mutant kids, trying to create super soldiers," she explained. Right. Just tell it, as if it were no big thing. Just in case, though, she turned to paint some smaller swirls off her larger ones. "The Brotherhood took out one of their shitholes early this year, and found another one abandoned."
Vance's eyes went wide. "Holy cow, really?"
"No, I'm lying to you." Fatale rolled her eyes, then sighed and pushed up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, revealing the myriad of scars she'd picked up during her tenure. "Or, y'know, not."
Vance felt like a jerk as he took in the scars marking Fatale's arm. She'd been there. He'd really messed up, and so he hastily apologized, "Sorry, I...I didn't mean to imply....I just, I didn't realize...gosh, I'm sorry."
Fatale shook her head and pushed her sleeve back down. "It's okay. I just figured you'd have heard, is all." She turned back to the wall and began painting a spiral of her own. "Alex was there, too. They got us out back in January."
"Oh wow." It was really lucky that the Brotherhood had found them and gotten them out. "No, I hadn't heard, sorry." He redunked his paint brush, and started tracing lazy loops across his wall. "So, uh, how long has everyone else been here?"
"Not sure," Pam admitted, her forehead furrowing. She stopped painting for a bit to consider. "Eileen was the last before us, I know that, and Pyro was right before her. Lance was first after the twins, who, duh, were already here so they don't count." She shrugged. "Fred and Mort were somewhere in the middle. But I'm really not sure how long ago." She smirked. "And you've been here two weeks. Just in case you forgot."
Vance laughed. "Right. So I'm the newest by what, like, a year? I'm sure I'll have a lot of stuff to catch up on," he mused.
"Almost a year. But yeah, don't sweat it. You'll figure it all out." She carried her paint can back over to the others, replaced the lid, and grabbed up a can of purple instead.
Vance followed her lead, heading back over and this time picking up some bright green. "I hope so. You guys all seem to know what you're doing."
"We do a lot of training." Fatale smirked. "And fuck around a lot with our powers. Speaking of - how much can you lift?" He looked thoughtful as he panted a cube on tot he wall. "I don't know," he admitted. "I haven't really tested it out."
"Well, test it now. Boost me up, huh? I want to paint higher." She dipped her brush into the paint, grinned expectantly, and waited.
Vance's eyes went a little wide at the suggestion. "Are you sure? I mean, what if I drop you? I don't want you to get hurt or anything," he said, sounding more than a little nervous.
"I'm good at landing," Fatale pointed out. "Besides, the ceilings aren't all that high. Not like it's a ten foot drop or anything."
He still looked unconvinced, but Fatale was right, there was only so high she could go without banging her head. It would...probably be okay? "Alright," he said. Vance set down his paint and brush so that he could concentrate. "Alright. Ready?"
"Just waiting for you." Fatale smirked.
Vance took a deep breath, swallowed, and then reached with his mind. Light pink tendrils seemed to stretch from him as he reached forward with a hand, as though showing the tendrils what he wanted them to do. Slowly, they began to wrap around Fatale's body. He could feel her, the pulse of her heartbeat, her lungs inhaling and exhaling. "Whoa," he murmured. He took a second to refocus himself and then, as carefully as he knew how, lifted her.
Fatale laughed outright as the pink energy wrapped around her and lifted her up into the air. "Awesome. Just hold me right there, huh?" she requested as she began painting "Brotherhood" in large letters along the top of the wall. "A little to the right?"
He managed it, though it probably wasn't the smoothest ride Fatale had ever been on, even as he felt a touch of pressure building in his head. "I...I'm not hurting you or anything, am I?"
She snorted. "No. If you were hurting me, I'd be throwing my paint can at your head." Instead, she dipped her brush in it again and hastily finished the word. "There, what do you think?"
The split second of time it took to read the word was too much of a lapse in focus, it would seem, and he almost lost his grip. Vance pushed more energy into the tendrils, which kept Fatale from hitting the floor, but he felt the tell-tale tickle of a nosebleed. "Looks, uh, good," he managed as he began lowering her to the ground.
If Fatale was disturbed by the wobble in her ride, it wasn't obvious, but she blinked at the sight of blood trickling down the new kid's face and frowned as she landed on the floor. "Fuck, why didn't you tell me that could happen? Hang on." She opened a portal and stepped through, but was back in seconds with a wad of toilet paper, which she held out to him. "Here. Need anything else for that?" she asked, concerned.
Vance shook his head 'no' as he gratefully accepted the toilet paper. "It's fine," he promised as he stuffed the paper up into his nose to staunch the bleeding. "Happens sometimes."
"That sucks." She grimaced and watched him. "If you tilt your head back, it'll stop faster," she pointed out.
He took her advice, leaning his head back a little to let gravity help him out. "Anyway, the wall looks great," he said to change the subject.
"Yeah, I think we did a damn good job," she agreed, turning around to look it over. She grinned. "If the whole mutant freedom fighter thing doesn't work out, we could go into business."
He grinned back. "Awesome. And hey, it's not blank white anymore. Looks almost like someone lives in here."
"Guess that means you're staying?" Fatale's eyebrows rose in inquiry.
"Guess so," Vance agreed. He had no where else to go, anyway. Besides, "it'd be rude to paint a wall and then just leave."
"Definitely the important thing." She grinned impishly. "Y'know...Pietro's room could use some paint, I think - and he's the one who loves the neon shit. You up for it?"
Vance chuckled. "I think maybe I should get at least a month under my belt before I start pranking people that are fast enough to catch me," he said.
"Teleporter here, remember? Besides, Pietro can take a joke," Fatale assured him. Or at least, he'd take it if someone other than just her was involved, anyway.
"Yeeeeeah, I mean, he seems cool," Vance admitted. "But I think I wanna wait until I'm not....new...before I start getting up to hijinks."
Fatale rolled her eyes, then tilted her head and grinned. "What about getting up to other stuff?"
Vance pulled the paper from his nose, and tossed it into his trash can. "Like what?" He asked curiously.
Fatale grinned and stepped in closer, reaching up to rest a hand on Vance's shoulder. "Guessing we could think of something."
Oh. Oooooooh. Vance blushed bright red. "I, uh, I didn't mean.....wow, that's, uh...." he stammered.
Huh. Or not. "I'm not your type?" Fatale guessed.
"Nothing like that," Vance was quick to reassure her. Wait, did he have a type? He really didn't know. "Just, uh....I mean....we're not even dating?"
That caused a laugh, and Fatale's hand drifted higher to urge his head down. "That's okay," she assured him semi-seriously, then brushed her lips over his. "I'm not 'dating' anyone else, either."
Vance was at a complete loss, not the least because wow was she hot and she was definitely touching him, and he was human and alive. He was also at a complete loss because....she barely knew him? And he barely knew her. And he really wasn't sure this was how this should work, but he was having a hard time stopping himself, and this, too.
"I mean, we don't really know each other, y'know?"
"Pretty sure we'd know each other better, after," Pam pointed out with a teasing grin.
"I...didn't mean like that?" He was pretty sure he didn't, anyway.
Pam laughed and shook her head, then leaned in and kissed him lightly before pulling back. "Relax, newbie. Anyway, the offer stands. In case you change your mind." She dropped her hand from his neck, shrugged, and went over to put the lid back on her paint can.
Vance smiled with both gratitude and, to be entirely honest, a measure of complete confusion still. But hey, he was at least back on mostly solid ground? "Uh, okay?" He swallowed, and went over to survey his paint options.
Yeaaah. The newbie wasn't going to be worth much as a distraction, Pam decided as she straightened back up and slid the roll of duct tape over her wrist like a bracelet. Which was a shame, since he was pretty cute, but it wasn't worth getting bent out of shape over. "Anyway, you can take it from here. I'm gonna go tape up the hole from my side."
"Oh! Right." Had he upset her? Well, shoot. He hadn't meant to do that. He liked Fatale, he just....had had no idea what to do. Still, though. "Thanks so much for....for everything. I really appreciate it."
Pam smiled, genuinely. "Any time. Gonna paint the new target on a different wall." She grinned a little. "But I don't promise to not aim at the duct tape to see if it'll cut. Don't be surprised."
Thwunk.
Fatale barely looked to confirm that her knife had, in fact, landed in the center of the target she'd drawn on her wall. She was kicking back on her bed, flipping through a magazine with her left hand while more or less negligently tossing knives at the wall, for no particular reason other than that she couldn't think of anything else to do.
Thwunk.
Huh. New Star Wars movie coming out. She'd have to see if Alex wanted to go see it. Star Wars was okay. If nothing else, the lightsabers were cool.
Thwunk.
Impractical, maybe. But still cool. It sucked that they didn't really make working ones, just those stupid ones in the toys department. She could do some serious damage with a lightsaber.
Thw-crash!
That got Fatale's attention, and she looked at the wall to find that continual knife abuse apparently resulted in the dry-wall giving way at the center of her target. Oops.
"Sorry!" she yelled, then frowned as she counted the still visible knives. Short one. Fuck. "Any chance you can give that back?" she added.
Vance sat on his bed in shock, staring down at the pile of crumpled drywall and...yup, that was definitely a knife. "Wh-what?" He asked, belated realizing that his neighbor had asked him something.
Fatale sighed. "Nevermind, I'll come get it!" she yelled, then got up and went to do just that. A few seconds later, there was a knock at the door of Vance's room.
He opened it, still looking mildly stunned. "Hey. Uh...." He got out of her way, and gestured to where the pile of drywall was. His room was bare, notably so, with no personal effects in the least. Of course getting any of his personal effects would involve going home, and that was a definite no.
"Wow. Your room is even more boring than mine," Fatale observed as she went over and retrieved her knife, smirking a little at the stunned expression on the newbie's face. "You need some posters or something."
Vance blinked, and then looked around and noticed the accuracy of her statement. "Yeah, I guess it's....kind of...white."
"Yeah, kinda." Fatale turned to look at him. "I think there's paint left from the party. If you want to neon it some."
"Neon it? What kind of party was it?" Vance asked curiously.
"A neon one." Fatale shrugged. "Pietro did decorations. Anyway, there was this wall you could write on in neon paint, and there's probably some left." She smirked. "It'd be the anti-white."
Vance's eyebrows rose. "Wouldn't I get in trouble if I started writing on my walls in neon paint?" He could only imagine what his father would do to him if he'd written in neon paint at home.
"I just put a hole from my room into yours," Fatale pointed out, "because I was throwing knives at a giant target I painted on my wall. Pretty sure no one's gonna care about paint."
Vance guessed that was a good point. "Why'd you paint a target on the wall?"
"Because just throwing knives at the wall is boring." Fatale said it as if it were perfectly obvious - which it was - but then smirked.
He couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Got it. So since you were throwing knives at the wall anyway," for some unknown reason, but he guessed there were weirder hobbies, "why not put a target up there."
"Pretty much. It's good practice, too." Fatale made a face. "I'm going to have to paint a new one now on a different wall. Unless you're cool with me throwing knives through the hole?" she asked hopefully. Because really, that would be great practice.
Knives coming through his wall by surprise seemed like the kind of thing Vance would probably only survive the one time. "Um, yeah, probably not the best idea. I mean, sure, I've got the TK, but I'm not exactlythat good with it," he admitted.
"You need practice, Newbie," Fatale observed, then grinned, her eyes lighting up. "Okay, brilliant idea. You help me paint a new target, and I'll not only help you neon your room, but I'll teach you how to throw knives with your TK."
Vance looked surprised, but then really curious. "That could be really cool. You really think I could do that?"
"Why not? You said you wrap things around what you're lifting, right?" Fatale shrugged. "You wrap your hand around a knife. Gotta be pretty much the same." She grinned. "Besides, it's something to do, and I'm bored."
"Good point." He grinned back. "Worth a try, right?"
"Right." Fatale smirked and waved for him to follow her. "Come on, let's go get the paint. And some duct tape to paste over the wall, unless you're cool with it being there."
Vance nodded. "Yeah, duct tape first, I think? And then paint. Let's do it."
Fatale led the way out of Vance's room and down the hall to the room used or miscellaneous storage. "So, how goes so far? Settling in?"
"I guess," Vance mused as they walked. It was still a little weird to him, all these other kids, minimal supervision, and no real classes or anything. He was starting to get used to it though, he supposed. All things considered. "How long have you been here?"
Fatale's forehead furrowed as she thought about it. "Since January, so fuck. Almost a year now?" She opened the door to the storage room and started picking her way between the boxes to where she'd last seen the duct tape. "Doesn't seem like it could be that long."
Vance nodded thoughtfully. "So you like it here, then?" Why else would she have stayed so long? "It's okay."
Fatale shrugged. "Most of the people are cool, and besides, Alex is here. Not like I'm going to take off and leave him, y'know?"
"Right." He'd seen the two of them together or lot. They seemed really close. So yeah, that made sense. Why leave behind your...significant other? Best friend? Both? Either? Family? Vance couldn't really tell, but it also was none of his business. "You guys seem really tight. Not just Alex, I mean, y'know, all you guys."
"Hey, we're the only family most of us have," Fatale pointed out. "Or the only one most of us want to remember, anyway." She shrugged. "At least, I'm guessing as much; I don't know the details of everyone's story. But fuck, we're all here. It pretty much says it all." She climbed over a large box to get to the one behind it, then smirked. "Found it!" she announced, tossing him the duct tape. "Pretty sure the leftover paint's in here, too."
He caught the tape easily, "Sweet. Thanks!"
Fatale smirked. "Catch these, too?" she suggested, and started tossing cans of paint towards him in easy arcs. The guy had TK, right? Might as well start practicing now. Vance's brow furrowed as he focused, reaching with his brain and attempting to wrap tendrils of thought around each of the cans of paint. He got....almost all of them. One clattered to the floor, and in surprise he dropped the others. "Oh no! I'm sorry," he apologize immediately, dropping to his knees to gather them up.
"For what? That was fucking awesome." Fatale climbed back over to help gather up the paint cans.
"For...dropping them?" He said slowly, unsure why he was explaining why she should be mad at him.
Fatale rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Not like they spilled or anything. And if they had, we'd clean it up. Or get Pyro to cause a freak fire, right there," she joked. Paint was flammable, wasn't it?
Vance chuckled. "Right. Good point."
Fatale eyed the newbie with interest, and decided that yes. He definitely needed to lighten up - and coming from her, that said a lot. "Come on. Let's go do your room first."
"Sure." He picked up the cans of paint and followed her.
"What do you want to paint on it?" Fatale asked.
Vance...hadn't actually thought about it. Huh. Well, that was kind of embarrassing, huh? He felt himself flush pink. "I don't really know."
"Well, that'll make it easy." Fatale smirked. "If you don't know what you want, anything we paint could be it."
"True, I guess," Vance said, nodding slowly. "I'm not exactly artistic. Do you like painting?"
"Don't know." Fatale considered it. "Other than the target on my wall, I'm not sure I've ever really done it. I even forgot to sign the wall at the party." She shrugged. "Sounds like it wouldn't suck, though. You?"
Vance thought about it. "I've never really done it either," he concluded, on reflection. "But hey, first time for everything, right?" He set down the cans of paint, and began working one of them open. It looked like a neon blue from the marks on the outside, which Vance figured would be a decent place to start.
Blue wasn't exactly Fatale's favorite color for obvious reasons, so she grabbed a yellow can and pried it open. "So, what do you think of the dump so far?" she asked.
Vance smiled. "Hey, I was sleeping in alley ways before. This place seems basically like a palace at this point."
"It's not bad." Pam grinned. "I mean, there are cracks in the walls from Lance, and Wanda's always fucking up the appliances, and you never want to take a shower after Mort, but whatever. It's home, right?" She dunked her paintbrush into the paint, carried both over to the nearest wall, and started painting large swishes.
Vance dipped a brush in too, and began painting random shapes. "Sounds like a good call, on the shower thing." He grinned, "but yeah, it's nice. And everyone has been really nice so far."
"Most of them are morons," Fatale pointed out, though she said it fondly and grinned. "But whatever, right? There are worse things." She dragged one of her swishes to the edge of one of Vance's shapes and then picked it up on the other side as if it were going through.
"Nice. Looks good," Vance said. He started doing spirals. "Morons how?"
"Just general morons. I mean, Mort eats bugs. Says it all, right?" She eyed his spiral, and started zig-zagging her swish through the curves. "Where were you before here? Anywhere cool?"
Mort had to have a stronger stomach than Vance, then, that was for sure. "Is that part of his mutation, or does he just like it?" He wondered. Mort was toad-y, definitely, but was he that naturally toad-y? Or was he just embracing toadiness? "And nowhere interesting. Ran away from home, so mostly just...streets and home, I guess."
"Fuck if I know," Fatale admitted. "He seems to like them okay, but it could be he just likes to fuck with everyone's heads catching them with his tongue." She made a face at the rest. "You're lucky you didn't get picked up. Not sure if the Right facility here was getting their test dummies from whatever runaways the cops pick up, but they were back home."
"The Right?" Vance asked. He did a little flourish off of one of his shapes.
"Fucked up bastard scientists who get their kicks off experimenting on mutant kids, trying to create super soldiers," she explained. Right. Just tell it, as if it were no big thing. Just in case, though, she turned to paint some smaller swirls off her larger ones. "The Brotherhood took out one of their shitholes early this year, and found another one abandoned."
Vance's eyes went wide. "Holy cow, really?"
"No, I'm lying to you." Fatale rolled her eyes, then sighed and pushed up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, revealing the myriad of scars she'd picked up during her tenure. "Or, y'know, not."
Vance felt like a jerk as he took in the scars marking Fatale's arm. She'd been there. He'd really messed up, and so he hastily apologized, "Sorry, I...I didn't mean to imply....I just, I didn't realize...gosh, I'm sorry."
Fatale shook her head and pushed her sleeve back down. "It's okay. I just figured you'd have heard, is all." She turned back to the wall and began painting a spiral of her own. "Alex was there, too. They got us out back in January."
"Oh wow." It was really lucky that the Brotherhood had found them and gotten them out. "No, I hadn't heard, sorry." He redunked his paint brush, and started tracing lazy loops across his wall. "So, uh, how long has everyone else been here?"
"Not sure," Pam admitted, her forehead furrowing. She stopped painting for a bit to consider. "Eileen was the last before us, I know that, and Pyro was right before her. Lance was first after the twins, who, duh, were already here so they don't count." She shrugged. "Fred and Mort were somewhere in the middle. But I'm really not sure how long ago." She smirked. "And you've been here two weeks. Just in case you forgot."
Vance laughed. "Right. So I'm the newest by what, like, a year? I'm sure I'll have a lot of stuff to catch up on," he mused.
"Almost a year. But yeah, don't sweat it. You'll figure it all out." She carried her paint can back over to the others, replaced the lid, and grabbed up a can of purple instead.
Vance followed her lead, heading back over and this time picking up some bright green. "I hope so. You guys all seem to know what you're doing."
"We do a lot of training." Fatale smirked. "And fuck around a lot with our powers. Speaking of - how much can you lift?" He looked thoughtful as he panted a cube on tot he wall. "I don't know," he admitted. "I haven't really tested it out."
"Well, test it now. Boost me up, huh? I want to paint higher." She dipped her brush into the paint, grinned expectantly, and waited.
Vance's eyes went a little wide at the suggestion. "Are you sure? I mean, what if I drop you? I don't want you to get hurt or anything," he said, sounding more than a little nervous.
"I'm good at landing," Fatale pointed out. "Besides, the ceilings aren't all that high. Not like it's a ten foot drop or anything."
He still looked unconvinced, but Fatale was right, there was only so high she could go without banging her head. It would...probably be okay? "Alright," he said. Vance set down his paint and brush so that he could concentrate. "Alright. Ready?"
"Just waiting for you." Fatale smirked.
Vance took a deep breath, swallowed, and then reached with his mind. Light pink tendrils seemed to stretch from him as he reached forward with a hand, as though showing the tendrils what he wanted them to do. Slowly, they began to wrap around Fatale's body. He could feel her, the pulse of her heartbeat, her lungs inhaling and exhaling. "Whoa," he murmured. He took a second to refocus himself and then, as carefully as he knew how, lifted her.
Fatale laughed outright as the pink energy wrapped around her and lifted her up into the air. "Awesome. Just hold me right there, huh?" she requested as she began painting "Brotherhood" in large letters along the top of the wall. "A little to the right?"
He managed it, though it probably wasn't the smoothest ride Fatale had ever been on, even as he felt a touch of pressure building in his head. "I...I'm not hurting you or anything, am I?"
She snorted. "No. If you were hurting me, I'd be throwing my paint can at your head." Instead, she dipped her brush in it again and hastily finished the word. "There, what do you think?"
The split second of time it took to read the word was too much of a lapse in focus, it would seem, and he almost lost his grip. Vance pushed more energy into the tendrils, which kept Fatale from hitting the floor, but he felt the tell-tale tickle of a nosebleed. "Looks, uh, good," he managed as he began lowering her to the ground.
If Fatale was disturbed by the wobble in her ride, it wasn't obvious, but she blinked at the sight of blood trickling down the new kid's face and frowned as she landed on the floor. "Fuck, why didn't you tell me that could happen? Hang on." She opened a portal and stepped through, but was back in seconds with a wad of toilet paper, which she held out to him. "Here. Need anything else for that?" she asked, concerned.
Vance shook his head 'no' as he gratefully accepted the toilet paper. "It's fine," he promised as he stuffed the paper up into his nose to staunch the bleeding. "Happens sometimes."
"That sucks." She grimaced and watched him. "If you tilt your head back, it'll stop faster," she pointed out.
He took her advice, leaning his head back a little to let gravity help him out. "Anyway, the wall looks great," he said to change the subject.
"Yeah, I think we did a damn good job," she agreed, turning around to look it over. She grinned. "If the whole mutant freedom fighter thing doesn't work out, we could go into business."
He grinned back. "Awesome. And hey, it's not blank white anymore. Looks almost like someone lives in here."
"Guess that means you're staying?" Fatale's eyebrows rose in inquiry.
"Guess so," Vance agreed. He had no where else to go, anyway. Besides, "it'd be rude to paint a wall and then just leave."
"Definitely the important thing." She grinned impishly. "Y'know...Pietro's room could use some paint, I think - and he's the one who loves the neon shit. You up for it?"
Vance chuckled. "I think maybe I should get at least a month under my belt before I start pranking people that are fast enough to catch me," he said.
"Teleporter here, remember? Besides, Pietro can take a joke," Fatale assured him. Or at least, he'd take it if someone other than just her was involved, anyway.
"Yeeeeeah, I mean, he seems cool," Vance admitted. "But I think I wanna wait until I'm not....new...before I start getting up to hijinks."
Fatale rolled her eyes, then tilted her head and grinned. "What about getting up to other stuff?"
Vance pulled the paper from his nose, and tossed it into his trash can. "Like what?" He asked curiously.
Fatale grinned and stepped in closer, reaching up to rest a hand on Vance's shoulder. "Guessing we could think of something."
Oh. Oooooooh. Vance blushed bright red. "I, uh, I didn't mean.....wow, that's, uh...." he stammered.
Huh. Or not. "I'm not your type?" Fatale guessed.
"Nothing like that," Vance was quick to reassure her. Wait, did he have a type? He really didn't know. "Just, uh....I mean....we're not even dating?"
That caused a laugh, and Fatale's hand drifted higher to urge his head down. "That's okay," she assured him semi-seriously, then brushed her lips over his. "I'm not 'dating' anyone else, either."
Vance was at a complete loss, not the least because wow was she hot and she was definitely touching him, and he was human and alive. He was also at a complete loss because....she barely knew him? And he barely knew her. And he really wasn't sure this was how this should work, but he was having a hard time stopping himself, and this, too.
"I mean, we don't really know each other, y'know?"
"Pretty sure we'd know each other better, after," Pam pointed out with a teasing grin.
"I...didn't mean like that?" He was pretty sure he didn't, anyway.
Pam laughed and shook her head, then leaned in and kissed him lightly before pulling back. "Relax, newbie. Anyway, the offer stands. In case you change your mind." She dropped her hand from his neck, shrugged, and went over to put the lid back on her paint can.
Vance smiled with both gratitude and, to be entirely honest, a measure of complete confusion still. But hey, he was at least back on mostly solid ground? "Uh, okay?" He swallowed, and went over to survey his paint options.
Yeaaah. The newbie wasn't going to be worth much as a distraction, Pam decided as she straightened back up and slid the roll of duct tape over her wrist like a bracelet. Which was a shame, since he was pretty cute, but it wasn't worth getting bent out of shape over. "Anyway, you can take it from here. I'm gonna go tape up the hole from my side."
"Oh! Right." Had he upset her? Well, shoot. He hadn't meant to do that. He liked Fatale, he just....had had no idea what to do. Still, though. "Thanks so much for....for everything. I really appreciate it."
Pam smiled, genuinely. "Any time. Gonna paint the new target on a different wall." She grinned a little. "But I don't promise to not aim at the duct tape to see if it'll cut. Don't be surprised."
