Noah (hellboundlife) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-05-22 20:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | calvin banner, p: mena, p: mj, waverley rowan |
Who: Calvin Banner & Waverley Rowan
What: Teammates first encounter
When: Not long after this
Where: The pool
Rating: Low
It was something, alright, this Limbo. The network had been friendly enough, equal parts sarcasm and genuine welcoming. She did wonder what the faces behind the names looked like, and earlier on at dinner she’d given some real thought to calling out random names and wondering who bit, but that was more effort that she’d been able to think about mustering. Instead, a few hours after dinner, she’d headed down to pool. Padding out in her bikini, she stretched her arms above her head and took in a deep breath. Despite the nature of her powers, they hadn’t locked her down. She supposed the shift in her eyes as she was about to hypnotise someone into doing her bidding was a bit of a giveaway for them to trigger her limiter. Still, it felt good to be near such a huge body of water. It wasn’t that she needed to submerge herself but she did feel better when she could knew she could just disappear for a swim whenever she felt like it. And boy, did she feel like it. She stood there for a moment longer before she dove gracefully into the water and let it surround her, greet her like an old friend. Her powers had it swirling around her as, gracefully, the lower half of her body shifted until she had a shimmering blue tail, her hair growing longer and gills splitting along the sides of her ribs, her fingers webbing slightly to allow for better movement through the water. This transformation was one she’d done so many times that it was no longer painful, but it was still always such a strange sensation, feeling everything about her shift and change. A few seconds later, she threw her not-needed-right-now bikini briefs out of the water where they landed on the side with a plop. As she broke the surface of the water, tossing her head back, she realised she wasn’t alone. And that she’d just effectively thrown her underwear in their direction. “...sorry about that,” she offered with a sheepish smile, head and shoulders above the water. Cal had found that swimming was a good way of working off excess energy and definitely helped him avoid landing in trouble by lashing out or directing his anger at all the wrong people in all the wrong directions. Given recent events he definitely needed to work some shit out of his system so he’d stripped down to his black swimming trunks and slung a towel over his shoulder before making his way to the pool. He’d planned it so the pool would be empty so Cal clad in nothing but shorts and a ton of bare skin wouldn’t encounter anybody else but as a pair of wet bikini briefs landed at his feet with an unceremonious *plop*. What in the hell? Cal arched an eyebrow while regarding the briefs before he became aware that actually they did belong to somebody and said somebody was in the pool. Presumably half naked from the waist down? This place just got weirder, it really did. “Don’t you need those?” He asked, not really advancing or backing away from the bikini briefs. Waverley’s first response at fully seeing who it was that she’d just thrown the lower half of her bikini at was to consider ducking under the water and never surfacing ever again. She was pretty sure she could get away with it. After all, she had gills. And this form was more comfortable for her than many others. As it was, she couldn’t do much but swish her tail so her head and shoulders were a little more firmly out of the water and offer him a wide smile. “Not right now,” she responded, tilting her head at him and pushing some of her hair off her shoulders. Her eyes did a lingering once over before she cleared her throat and leaned forward in the water, casually swimming closer and propping her arms up on the side so she could get a better look at him. “Kinda needs legs for briefs. Not a problem I have right now.” She chuckled, “But if you could refrain from running away with them, that’d be great? Because someone did that before and I nearly throttled him with his own towel. Pretty sure that streaking wouldn’t be a great way to introduce myself to a new place.” After a pause, she added with a mischievous smirk, “Though throwing my underwear at the welcome wagon probably isn’t a great way to introduce myself either.” Cal’s eyebrow showed no signs of coming back down from it attempting to climb into his hairline as the blonde confessed that she needed legs for briefs and that wasn’t something she had a problem with right now. It then became rather clear as to why she didn’t have that issue as it was apparent that from the waist down she was in effect a mermaid. “Not really in the habit of stealing people’s swimwear,” Cal replied as he removed the towel from his shoulder before stepping over the briefs to place the towel over a nearby chair. “So your briefs are safe.” It felt appropriate to say something dumb like “Scout’s honour” but Cal had never been a Scout so he didn’t. He scrubbed at his collarbone as he turned to look over at her. “Yeah, you might wanna work on your introduction as a piece of friendly advice.” Waverley laughed softly, a slight colour catching on her cheeks before she lifted one shoulder, opening her mouth to say something when the towel came off and for a moment she was utterly unable to function. She blinked once, then again, and swallowed. “I- uh- I-” She tucked her hair behind her ear and lowered herself a little further into the water before she pushed off from the side and drifted backwards lazily, half laying. “You’re better than some of the people at the Florida facility then,” she told him honestly. “I had my bikini stolen more than once. It’s kinda hard to… keep them on. I mean, I could not shift, but that’s no fun.” She lifted her head to look at him again and lifted her flipper out of the water, waving it at him. “I promise I’ll try better next time, if you wanna come in again? I’ll make a better first impression. Or… you gonna just get in here and join me?” Well he’d made the effort to come all the way down here and he was still feeling like he had a lot of energy to work off so Cal decided to hell with it, he’d join her in the pool. Thankfully for Waverley Cal hadn’t noticed the way she’d faltered so that in itself was a non starter. Cal wandered to the edge of the pool before jumping in, vanishing beneath the surface before sure enough he surfaced a few moments later, hands in his hair and pulling it back. He probably could have stayed under longer, the benefits of having both hydrokinesis and aerokinesis but he did have company. “I’m Cal by the way,” he offered, figuring names would be good. When Cal dove in, Waverley watched him for a moment, how his body broke the surface gracefully and she ducked her head under the water, hair fanning around her as she did, eyes tracking the smooth cuts of his arms and legs as he swam. She surfaced before he did, keeping her shoulders out of the water was easy when you had a pale blue tail keeping you afloat. “Nice to meet you, Cal,” she said, swimming closer and coming to a halt right in front of him. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but that seems a little weird in the water. We can save that for dry land, where I can try and make a better second first impression.” She was about to swim away before she realised that she hadn’t offered her name. Her lips curled up into a smile, the lipstick apparently having stayed perfectly in place despite the water. “Waverley.” “I really don’t know if you’ll be able to beat your first,” Cal admitted with a smirk. It was as she smiled that he realised just how red her lips were and he briefly wondered how that was possible, she’d been in the water long before he’d arrived after all. “Nice to meet you too, Waverley.” Yikes, that was a mouthful. “You a new arrival?” “Throwing my bikini top at you?” Waverley suggested, “Turning into something more interesting than a mermaid, even though I promised my handler I wouldn’t?” She laughed, “I’m pretty sure I’ll have to work out some way of beating that first impression and replacing it with a better one.” She nodded her head, “Is that obvious? But yeah, I arrived yesterday. Not one for immediately putting myself out there on the network. I’d rather get the lay of the land first.” She pushed her hair back from her face where it clung to her skin and bobbed a little, “Shame you weren’t part of the welcome wagon. I looked a lot better yesterday when I arrived. And definitely wasn’t throwing swimwear at anyone.” “Who’d you get?” Cal asked, curious because there were a lot of handlers and not all of them were good. Russell so far didn’t seem so bad, a hell of a lot better than Marshall that was for damn certain. That handler had been fucking crazy. He really had. “Contrary to what people believe I actually do pay attention and I would have remembered seeing you around.” Code for she was a really pretty girl and Cal had eyes even though he’d been preoccupied as of late. He moved a little in the water and better secured his footing against the bottom of the pool. “I dunno, I’m not normally this… chatty so your first impressions of this place probably wouldn’t have been that great.” “Someone called Russell Davies? Was talking to him over the network just before I decided to give up on technology and go for a swim.” Waverley responded, laying back in the water and lifting her fin, splashing a little bit before rolling gracefully and ducking under the water, resurfacing a little closer to Cal. She pushed hair back out of her face and laughed, teeth catching on her lower lip as she caught any loose strands and moved them over her shoulder. “Who’s saying you’re unobservant?” she asked, “I’ll have to recount the tale of Cal the Sharp-Eyed and his keen guarding of the bikini thrown to his care.” When he admitted to not being so chatty, her eyebrow lifted a little. She was bobbing a little, fin touching the bottom of the pool. Thankfully she wasn’t like a shark here; she didn’t need to keep moving, but she did need to keep her gills under the water. Right now, though, she was sort of wishing she had legs. “You’re not?” she asked, “Guess that makes me special then, huh? Or did I catch you on a good day?” Huh, she had the same handler as him. What were the chances of that? Slim to none, but so far she seemed alright so maybe he wouldn’t hate working with her. Keeping track of her was a little difficult but then she had a distinctly unfair advantage over him in that she was basically a mermaid right now. “Just a feeling I get,” he offered with a shrug. People didn’t seem to think he paid attention or noticed stuff but he did, he just didn’t need to make a big deal out of it. “You got me on a better day, not sure if there’s such a thing as a good day in this place.” Not with recent events. “Well, I still would have liked you on the welcoming committee.” Waverly’s brow creased slightly and she tilted her head to the side, staying where she was, moving only with the soft ripples of the water. “Not having a good run of it?” she asked, “Bad shit always seems to land at the same time, too, never giving anyone a chance to actually just breathe past it.” “Something like that,” was all that Cal offered as he wasn’t the most forthcoming with things especially with strangers regardless of how pretty they were. “How you liking Limbo so far?” He asked as he moved in the water, just wanting to keep moving as he had so much energy that was restless and had no real productive outlet. “That’s rough, sorry to hear that.” Waverley lay on her back and started lazily swimming up the length of the pool alongside Cal as he did. “Honestly? It’s alright? A lot better now,” she added. She could tell that he was restless so she tipped her head, sitting up in the water to get his attention and beckoned with one finger before she ducked under the surface and swam ahead, waiting for him to follow. At least, he could burn off some energy and then they could talk some more. Under the water, a little way ahead, she turned herself, hair fanned around her as she watched him. She didn’t push which he appreciated, he really hated people who didn’t know him trying to push, it was just a recipe for disaster. He got defensive, snapped, and then they got offended. He watched as she began to swim away though encouraged him to follow her with that inviting movement of her finger. Cal was sure he’d read something about beautiful women in water luring men and how not to fall for that but he figured fuck it. Cal dove under the surface and began after her, strong legs and arms making short work of the distance. If this was going to burn energy then he was all for it. |