milliways_bar | (no subject)

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So first the gates of Hell open.

Then the Weekly World News shuts down.

Then it turns out the Winchester brothers, Señor Muttonhead and Muttonhead Junior, are the ones responsible for bullet point A up there?

Man, this is the worst fall ever.

Sulking, he scoops up a bite of waffle -- okay, more like a tiny island of cooked dough in an Atlantic-sized sea of maple syrup -- and eyes Milliways at large. Maybe he should tie a couple of metaphorical shoelaces together or something. Pranks always make him feel better.

(Hey, don't judge. He's a trickster. He's allowed!)

[OOC: as per usual, slowtimes are highly likely, but! Post is open until it scrolls.]

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A suspicious squint.

...Possibly a kind of pitying squint, too, just a teensy bit around the edges. Some people have no appreciation for the finer things in life. Sigh.

"And...what do you do for fun?"

Anything? Bueller?

Truthfully, she's a little disappointed in herself for not being to come up with an answer as quickly as she would have in the past.

"I practice."

"Practice what?"

For some reason, this time, Elle can't help the vague feeling of being asked to do a trick.

Still, it doesn't stop her from raising her right hand, and letting a small sphere of bright blue sparks light up over her palm.

"...Huh."

The look she's getting isn't really shocked (pun completely intended); it's more like I've seen this before, but I didn't expect it from you.

He's heard all about the kids who can do stuff like this; Elle isn't exactly pinging as one of them.

"You been at that long?"

Elle doesn't appear perturbed by the look. She lets the sparks fade out as she tries to decide on an answer.

For whatever reason, maybe for lack of anything else to say, she goes with the truth.

"Eighteen years."

So it might depend on what you consider 'long.'

"Yeah." Thoughtfully. "Yeah, that counts as long."

He props his chin in one hand and doesn't take his eyes off her.

"Is that why the no vacations? Can't imagine beaches are any fun when you're packing that kind of heat."

"No."

Well, okay. Even if she had been free to move as she wanted before the past month in her world, a beach was never going to be her destination of choice.

She's not quite sure what makes her answer the way she does next time, other than perhaps a dim desire to see how far she can push this.

"That's because I'm crazy."

After a beat she adds, nonchalant, "Or something."

Like an eagle majestically soaring away from a mountain -- or, likewise, something -- one eyebrow creeps up his forehead.

"Crazy people need to relax, too," he points out, very solemn and utterly unperturbed.

Elle tilts her head very slightly.

"Not on a beach," she answers, easily enough.

"Yeeeeaah, maybe not," he allows. "All that'd get you is angry tourists and even angrier seagulls." Musing: "Unless you just went ahead and fed the seagulls anyway, then they wouldn't care."

Those sky rats will eat anything. No discernment. It's very sad.

She takes in all of this with little reaction before she points out, "Or I could just kill them all."

It's not clear if she means tourists or seagulls. Or both.

He chooses to translate it as 'both.'

"The people running the beach might have something to say about that," he points out. Not in any kind of accusing way, just, you know. Statement of fact.

"Maybe that's why they didn't let me go."

Now, her voice has hit outright sarcastic.

"What about an uninhabited beach?" he counters, smooth like butter.

"They didn't let me do that, either."

She doesn't bother rationalizing this, feeling more and more like maybe this was once a metaphor, but she'd entirely lost whatever it had meant.

"Okay, how about this," he says, leaning forward. "If no one had to take you there, and you could go anywhere in the world and stay there for as long as you wanted, no need to practice or do a job or anything like that -- where would you go?"

There's only one place that pings in her mind at that, and it's not even in her own world.

"... why do you care about this so much?"

"I'm curious! Can't a guy be curious?"

It's not a crime, is it?

...Maybe it is in her world. Huh. He really ought to get used to thinking about these things.

"Maybe."

However, they've been at this conversation long enough, with enough equally blase attitudes toward super powers and insanity and death by electricity, that her tone carries an obvious note of, But I don't believe you.

"I just worry, is all," he says -- and whether that part's truth or not, it's hard to tell, but either way he's leaning back again and folding his arms. "I don't like it when people don't know how to have fun."

Or can't take a joke. Or can't laugh at themselves.

Not that Elle falls into either of those categories. Yeah, she's off, but...not totally in a bad way.

Her voice is cool -

"You don't have to worry about me."

"You can take care of yourself?"

It's not a question.

She does hesitate, but still answers, "That's the idea."

He notices the hesitation. Decides that maaaaybe it wouldn't be too smart a move to comment on it.

Punctuating it with only a slightly theatrical sigh, "Then I guess I'll have to leave you to it and enjoy an extra vacation on your behalf sometime."