Bastien (pasttheveil) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-03-03 01:16:00 |
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Julian was by his very nature curious and always interested in learning as much as he could about people, you could say his folks were responsible for that. They’d always encourage him to keep an open mind and never stop wanting to know as much as he could about the world and the people in it. Plus in Limbo it was really the people who made it bearable so Julian was snapping up every single opportunity to interact and take his mind off the fact he hadn’t seen his family in a long time. Limbo was definitely better than jail so Julian wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when his view of the world wasn’t marred by bars.
Speaking to the person on his journal had definitely piqued his interest and he’d followed through on his end of the bargain by securing two slices of cake. One chocolate and the other vanilla sponge with some sort of fruit compote or something in the middle with two forks and now with both plates balanced he headed in the direction of the meetup spot.
On approach he saw a pretty blonde and with a disarming smile he presented both plates. “Cake as requested.” It was a long shot as she might not be the person he’d been speaking to but hey even if it was he’d be able to smooth it over. And besides who didn’t like being greeted with cake?
Sandy turned her head a little when she heard someone approaching. He had cake in his hand, forks, dreadlocks and a killer smile that made her lips curl up in response. She had appreciated that he’d agreed to meet her somewhere that wasn’t the cafeteria; that place was often filled with people and she was still adjusting. She reached out a little with her mind, just locating Calvin, Cassidy, Alejandro and Toledo, a brush of her mind against theirs to reassure herself more than anything else that they were still around before she let her attention drift to the guy in front of her.
He was handsome, and Sandy bit the inside of her lower lip as he approached. She rocked up onto her toes, eyed the cake selection and it didn’t take much for her to take the chocolate cake. She could hear undercurrents from what he was broadcasting that he’d grabbed that one for her predominantly and that he wasn’t fussed which piece was retained for him.
“Thanks very much, Julian,” she said, sitting down on the bench. It was chilly, but she’d had much worse in much less warm clothes so this wasn’t too terrible for her. She glanced at him, meeting his eyes with hers. “How busy was it in there? It sounds pretty loud- I mean busy. Lots of people.”
Waaaait, how had she clocked his name?
Julian smirked a little, figuring there was definitely a lot more to the blonde that met the eye. “I feel like you have me at a distinct disadvantage,” Cajun accent rolling off his tongue and making every word sound a little more… interesting “‘Cause you know my name but I don’t know yours.”
“Pretty busy,” he said with a nod of his head. “Lots of conversations happening.”
“Glad I didn’t join you then,” Sandy said, sticking the fork against the edge of the cake and lifting a piece to her mouth. As she did, the sound she made was borderline obscene. This was literally the only good thing about this place - other than the fact that her people were here - the food was incredible. She’d never had fresh cake like this, only what they’d managed to find in the trash or stolen. Food so readily available was still novel to her.
Licking the fork clean before going in for another bite, Sandy’s eyes flicked to Julian again. “Sandy,” she offered a moment later. “My friends call me Hotshot and my governmental overlords call me Overload.” Her lips twitched up into a smirk, “I tend to have most people at a disadvantage.”
Julian’s eyebrows lifted at the noise which escaped her after the mouthful of cake but then he supposed chocolate could have that effect on people, he’d known a couple girls who had gone crazy for it on the outside world.
“Nice to meet you, Sandy,” Julian returned with a further smile. “You’ve got my curiosity piqued.” And that wasn’t lie, he didn’t tend to do that, not when he said what he thought for better or for worse. Julian didn’t sugarcoat or bullshit, that’s what just how he was.
He tipped his head to suggest they find some place to talk so they could delve a bit more into the enigma that was Sandy.
Sandy arched her eyebrow, “It’s not the chocolate,” she told him, “it’s the cake. Not used to having so much nice, fresh food on tap. The novelty still hasn’t worn off, yanno?”
She got up, balancing the cake carefully in her hands, she led the way to a quieter spot where there were a few benches with tables. It gave a decent view of the open grounds of the compound and was within the boundaries so they didn’t have to worry about being told off for trying to escape.
“Besides, the cake tastes good.”
She settled and tucked one leg underneath herself, resisting the urge to just smash her face into the cake and lick it off.
“What’s an enigma?”
“Okay what is that?” Julian queried, levelling his hazel eyes on Sandy. “You seem to picking shit out of my head.” Which wasn’t exactly appreciated especially when he valued his privacy but he wasn’t about to go postal until he fully understood. He’d gone postal before and it had landed him in jail so he was trying to temper his fiery personality, difficult as it might be.
He dug in and took a bite of cake as he waited for an answer.
Sandy’s eyes went wide and she had an image of being behind bars, hands wrapped around the metal and the sound of the voice in front of her shouting and cursing in another language - she guessed it was the one that they spoke wherever he came from. She nearly dropped the fork.
“Sorry,” she apologised, pulling herself back. She forgot sometimes that not everyone appreciated her walking in and out of their heads but with Julian he just thought loudly and because they’d gone somewhere else it was quieter and therefore his thoughts stood out more prominently than they might have done if they’d stayed closer to the compound.
She put the fork down and laid her hands flat on the table. “I’m a telepath,” she said, squirming a little. “I can’t- I can’t turn it off. But I’m not in your head. I try not to go into people’s heads without permission or anything, Cal said that people wouldn’t appreciate it.” She wrinkled her nose, “It’s more- um, there’s a few different types of thoughts. Some of them are like… really loud so I can hear them even without being in your head?”
“Okay good ‘cause otherwise we might have a problem,” Julian assured her as he was quite serious about his thoughts remaining exactly that: his. “But now it makes sense as to why you’d have folks at a disadvantage.”
He reached over with a smirk and stole a piece of a cake, a wink following it to show that they were cool.
“So, you got me all interested on the journals.”
“Wouldn’t walk into your head without your permission,” Sandy promised, scowling at him as he stole a piece of her cake. She pulled the plate a little closer to herself in response before using her own fork to steal a piece of his one in revenge, though she had a feeling he wouldn’t really care and would be just as happy having both slices in the middle of the table so that they could both share.
She tipped her head to the side, “With what?” she asked, “Oh- the shower thing?”
She was right about the whole food thing, Julian had no issues with sharing food, especially when in his family there was no such thing as no sharing what you had.
“Oui,” he affirmed with a nod of his head. “The shower thing.”
Sandy took a bite of her cake and then wrinkled her nose a little, shrugging a shoulder. Her eyes fell from Julian to the cake, watching it crumble a little as she stuck for fork into it again, probably a little harder than she needed to in order to spear a piece of chocolate-y goodness.
“Gotta shower wherever you can when you don’t have a roof over your head,” she told him, “And the ones at the stations are harder to sneak into and don’t always have hairdryers. Nothing worse than wet hair in winter in New York.”
She didn’t use the word “homeless” but it was inferred in everything she said and Julian’s brow knitted together, especially as he couldn’t imagine not having a home. Not when his home and his family meant everything to him, he wouldn’t be able to live without them.
“Je suis vraiment désolé,” he offered knowing that whilst she might not be able to understand the statement his mind would offer the translation of I’m very truly sorry as he hadn’t realised the circumstances around her statement on the journal system.
Not exactly easy to talk about.
Sandy looked confused when his apology filtered into her mind. She took another bite of her cake and didn’t immediately look up, but when she did she just offered him a small, sad smile.
“It’s okay, it happens.” She shrugged and wet her lower lip, stabbing at the cake again before she just put the fork down. She’d heard that he’d never been homeless, that he had a family, and she felt a stab of envy at that, but didn’t let it on. She just drew in a breath and flicked her eyes back up to look at the other Super. “My dad dropped me off in Manhattan when I was eleven and drove away.”
“So, he left you?” Julian queried, eyebrow lifting as he tried to fathom and wrap his head around that fact. Family was everything, you lived and died for them, that was how the Cains were.
He ate a further piece of cake as he waited on her answer.
“He said he’d come back for me,” Sandy said, “and he meant it. He was gonna I just- I don’t know what happened to him. And when he didn’t come back…” she bit her lower lip and ate some cake to draw together her thoughts. “Men in suits were coming for me and he thought if he went one way and I disappeared they wouldn’t find me.”
Her shoulder hitched up again.
“I- Yeah, it worked.”
Julian was grateful for the fact he had a mouthful of cake as Sandy revealed that particular truth as he honestly did not know what to say. He really couldn’t relate and he felt bad about the fact he’d dragged this particular conversation and painful memory up. This wasn’t at all awkward.
Nope.
Not at all.
Well, fuck.
“You got good people in your life now?”
“They stopped me from going insane,” Sandy said, “So I guess so?” She rested her elbow on the table and then put her chin in her hand, looking at Julian. He didn’t need to feel bad, sometimes things just happened. It wasn’t his fault, she didn’t understand why he felt awkward or bad about bringing it up.
Honestly, though, she was glad to have cake and a nice person to sit and talk with. Even if they’d gotten off to a rocky start.
“Being homeless sucks, but if you’ve got people who help keep you warm and stop your powers from driving you mad it’s not as bad as it could be. I mean, save that winter we nearly froze to death.”
She looked at Julian for a moment, head cocked to the side, “Where are you from? You have an accent.”
“Not a big fan of the cold,” Julian shared as he ate another piece of his cake. “And me? New Orleans. Accent tends to stick with you when you’re born and raised there.” He smiled, clearly proud of his roots. “Miss it a lot.”
And he really did, not being with his family was like missing an arm.
“Where’s New Orleans?” Sandy asked, because her schooling had stopped pretty young and her grasp of geography had always been a little sketchy anyway. Her father had been a loving man but neither he nor her mother had been blessed with all that much intelligence. Therefore she came into the world with a little bit of an intellectual disadvantage even before her schooling was abruptly stopped.
“It’s in the south,” Julian returned quickly enough after having eaten another piece of cake. “Louisiana to be exact.” He might have rolled his tongue around Louisiana but he couldn’t really help himself. “But for a better point of reference it’s close to Texas.”
He stuck his fork into his mouth and held it for a moment before he dug it back into his cake.
“Maybe I’ll show it one day if you’re interested.”
“Never left New York state,” Sandy said, “Well, until we all got caught in January, that is.” She put her chin in her hand and twirled the fork between her fingers, trying to think about the USA and where all the states were located. “Didn’t get to see much of the other facility though,” she continued.
Texas was in the south, right? In the middle in the south. She needed to see a map.
“Pretty sure you aren’t missing much,” Julian shared with a smirk. “Seems like each of them are a nightmare in their own right.” He was nearly finished with his cake which was definitely a shame, but one thing this place had was a really good supply of baked goodies.
“I hear some of them are underground.”
It didn’t bear thinking about, it really didn’t. He’d been locked up long enough to know he wouldn’t survive being underground.
“The one I was in was underground,” she told him, taking another piece of cake. “But I was alone there, and I’m not alone here, so I can’t really complain too much.”
She tilted her head and looked at him for a long moment before she just smiled a little. “You gonna go home when the SEA happens?”
“That’s a good point,” Julian murmured with a smile as he ate his last and final piece of cake, really savouring it. “And mmhm that’s the plan but that’s only if my family are still where I left them.” Wasn’t like he’d left New Orleans on good terms after all and he wouldn’t have blamed his family if they’d decided to move.
Not that he could see it happening, they were stubborn after all.
Sandy wrinkled her nose and then said, “If you can’t find them, you can come and join us,” she offered, the former bravado disappearing and showing a young woman who was barely an adult offering something she wasn’t sure would be well received. “I mean, we’re not a family by blood but we all came together because no one else wanted us. And when we’re all free to leave you can come live with us. I mean, if you can’t find your family.”
Julian glanced up at Sandy’s unexpected offer and he gave a distinct and very genuine smile. “Thanks, I appreciate that.” And he did, especially as family was really all that mattered.
He did honestly believe that and he’d die for it as well.