milliways_bar | (no subject)

It's not the first time she's heard that. But she hasn't gotten tired of it, either.

After a few seconds, she lets the sparks go out, and closes her hand again.

"No one does that, either?"

"Uh..."

He blinks, recollects himself.

"No. Unless you count static shock."

She shakes her head. Elle knows the difference.

"That's not what I do."

"I... uh, yeah. I figured."

Elle glances to his goggles again.

"Do you have a machine to make you do that?"

"No... not yet."

He glances at her hands, curiously. "How do you do that, anyway?"

"It's what I do."

That's still true, at least. "People like me do things like that."

"You mean, naturally? Genetically?"

He makes a face. "You're sort of like... superheroes?"

She doesn't make a face.

But her tone is awfully derisive when she answers, "If you want to call it that."

(Elle doesn't.)

"Not if I have other choices."

She shrugs one shoulder.

"They don't have a word for us."

"So... what... this is normal, in your world? Everyone does something different? Special is... not... special?"

"It's not normal."

She won't be touching 'special' right now.

"But most people don't know about it."

He ponders this.

"I think I'd notice if someone came down the street, you know..." He gestures to her hands. "Doing that.

"Just sayin."

"We don't usually do that."

Beat. "It's different here."

"Oh, okay."

He hesitates, then goes for it: "So, uh, why so secretive? I take it that in your world, they don't look too nicely on people who can do things they can't?"

"Or they want to know more about it."

Elle glances away when she answers, but her voice doesn't become flat or stiff.

He's not too good at the social cues, so he doesn't note that one.

"Well, I don't blame them."

A lot of people wouldn't. It's one of the reasons she has that bandage on her forehead.

Still, her answer is easy enough -

"Not everyone likes being a -"

Beat. Copying his word: "- guinea pig."

He looks at her, steadily.

"Well, obviously, you can't force people to be guinea pigs. That's why I'm my own most reliable subject."

He pauses, adds: "I'm surprised I'm still alive."

With a half-smile (entirely false, but there's nothing obvious about that), "I'm pretty sure you can."

Still, she starts to sound a little sarcastic when she adds, "But I don't know any evil scientists."

"Really?"

He blinks. "Well. I mean, we have a code, you know. As part of the League. It may be slightly twisted, but... I mean, that's somewhere in there, I'm pretty sure."

"Maybe you should look it up."

With another half-shrug, "See if you have to keep nearly-killing yourself."

"I... sometimes do. Part of the job."

He stares at her, sensing the crazy. (Evil scientists have an intuition for these things.)

"They... I mean... someone... did something to you?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

But she doesn't sound angry; her voice is musing more than anything else.

Edited 2009-10-27 02:14 (UTC)