Dimitri (basecompound) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-05-07 20:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | avery jones, p: mena, theodor lupei |
Who: Theo Lupei & Avery Jones
What: Sometimes all you need is a bit of downtime after having had Finesse beat you up
When: Sometime after this
Where: Avery’s room
Rating: Low
Avery had nipped out. That was it. She’d nipped out to grab some snacks and some drinks for whenever Theo decided to make his appearance and had only been gone for maybe fifteen minutes at most but by the time she got back to her room, Theo was there - as promised - face down on her bed with his jacket half-off like he’d sort of given up undressing before collapsing - faceplanting - onto the sheets. Avery’s room was rife with personalisation; coloured throws and band posters were on her walls, she had books and silly stickers everywhere and a neon lightbox with letters she could add to or change when she wanted. Currently it said ‘Mood: FU. She placed the carrier bag down on the table beside the bed after having closed her door and frowned. She’d been doing that a lot lately, she was gonna get wrinkles. “Timing, bro,” she told him, patting the back of his calf as she slipped his boots off of him and let them drop to the floor with a thunk. She didn’t like shoes on her bed, thankfully Theo normally respected that and honestly they were mostly in his room anyway. She didn’t tend to let anyone into what she considered her inner sanctum. Hell, even Hector she tended to go to him more than he came to her. “I literally just stepped out.” She started talking because even though Theo was never silent around her - not the same way he was others - she could already tell that whatever was bothering him was serious. Serious enough that he hadn’t greeted her or said anything about the blue strip of hair she’d dyed that morning. Not that he’d looked up yet but he always seemed to just know when she’d done something different. He was creepy observant like that. She tugged his jacket off and draped it over the chair before she settled on the bed, tapping his head lightly to indicate that he should wriggle up a little, rest it in her lap. “This was not the state I was expecting to see you in.” Indigo had been true to her word. Not that he’d ever doubted she would be. She had in fact sparred with him until he could no longer take it, but it was good. Exactly what he’d needed. That thing with Clara had shaken him more than he had realised and just working it out on the mats with Indigo had been a blessing in disguise. And Theo being Theo was also true to his word so when it was all over and done and he’d taken a shower he had made his way to Avery’s room where in her absence he had just face-planted into her bed. The attempt at his jacket had definitely been abandoned midway through especially as his entire body was aching and trying to get it off had just reminded him of how much he was hurting. A good hurt but a hurt all the same. He huffed out a breath at Avery’s arrival and at the tapping of his head he finally lifted it to squint a little because a face full of mattress definitely screwed with your vision. “Sparred with Indigo,” he explained as he shifted his weight until sure enough his head came to rest in Avery’s lap. “Pretty much until I couldn’t any longer.” Avery’s fingers pushed into Theo’s hair as he settled his head in her lap. She felt the beginnings of tingling but it wasn’t bad enough that her powers activated without her consent. She knew Theo well enough; he would quite seriously rebel against her using her powers on him, especially when she thought he probably needed this. Whatever that meant. Sometimes she didn’t understand boys; they punished themselves by causing pain? She didn’t get it. It made no sense to her but then one of her many phobias was being in pain, so she avoided it as much as possible because of how often she ended up healing the hurts of others. She drew in a breath, “Why would you do that?” she asked softly, looking down at him with a wrinkle to her nose, fingers gently pushing and massaging against his scalp. “Masochist.” “It’s good for taking your mind off things,” Theo shared as he exhaled a breath when Avery’s fingers worked through his hair and over his scalp. “And I just needed to get out of my head, nothing does that better than going a few rounds with somebody like Indigo.” And pain, well, pain was good for bringing focus and centering the mind. “Bull,” Avery protested, pushing her fingers into his hair and gently massaging his head. She breathed in through her nose, touch alternating between massage and just generally playing with his hair. “Pain’s good for nothing other than being painful. There’s no such thing as good pain.” She breathed out, eyes dropping to look at Theo’s face. “So you wanna tell me what’s thrown you off so much that you had to go get beaten up to deal with it?” Theo begged to differ but he had enough sense not to say anything and keep his mouth shut as some things were better kept secret. “Just something I saw,” he said with a frown. “Or rather what I walked in on.” “You know Clara?” He asked, looking up for confirmation. “Walked in on her, blind, surrounded by cards and with blood on her fingers because she’d ripped the hair out of her head completely panicked and out of it. Never seen anything like it, Avery.” And the way she had reacted to him was… well, a little startling, especially as Theo wasn’t exactly the type to hurt somebody without cause. Plus those kinds of cards had power and he knew better than to go messing with that. Avery nodded, a frown crossing her face as Theo talked, her fingers stilling in his hair briefly until she resumed what she hoped was soothing strokes through the short lengths of his hair. She loved Theo’s hair, she loved even more that she was one of the only people (that she knew of) that he let do this to him. “Fuck,” she breathed softly, feeling a concern for her fellow team-mate. “Like… playing cards? You have any idea what happened?” “No,” Theo said with a shake of his head. “Tarot cards.” And those cards, in the culture that his parents were raised and by extension that he was raised in, had power. Too much power if you asked Theo. He’d always been uncomfortable with the idea of somebody being able to read his past, present and future through a spread of cards. And he had a powerful belief in not messing with that sort of thing if it could be avoided. He didn’t know enough about Clara or her powers to truly appreciate what exactly she’d been doing in that room but he did know that she had been afraid and confused, not just by whatever it was she was doing but by him as well. “Not sure,” he admitted. “I think I interrupted her because she was… Well, she was really confused and didn’t seem to know what was going on.” “Eeh,” Avery responded. Tarot cards gave her the heebie-jeebies. She wasn’t sure she believed in all that stuff, magic and voodoo and things but she hadn’t experienced enough of the world to be sure and she knew it. So she erred on the side of caution. Besides, a lot of her opinions of the outside world were learned from people like Theo who had been out there in it for longer than she had. If the cards freaked him out, then there was a good reason for it. Though, the art on some of them was pretty, she had to admit. “Think she was doing, I dunno, weird stuff with them? Or do you think it’s power related?” She blew out a breath, “Sorry you had to deal with that, man,” she added, both hands now raking through his hair, absently touching his ears and down the side of his neck too, light brushes with short nails. “I swear, the people here are getting weirder and weirder.” “Hopefully power related,” Theo admitted. “I’d take that over somebody who used the cards as a hobby.” He exhaled a slow even breath as Avery’s hands wandered and he could feel some of the tension melting right off him though sore muscles were still sore but that was to be expected and honestly he was happy with that. He snorted a second later. “You can say that again, seems to be getting weirder with every new intake of people.” Avery sighed heavily, “I guess,” she said, “This is our life now. Just promise me you aren’t gonna go mad on me and we’ll be fine.” Theo snorted quietly and glanced up to make sure he caught Avery’s gaze. “No going mad or crazy, promise.” |