Leandro Reyes (wentupinsmoke) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-09-03 23:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | day three, edan, edan and leandro, leandro |
a burning compulsion
Characters: Edan and Leandro
Setting: Courtyard, near the toolshed, lunch time, Day 3
Edan was still getting settled with the whole new living quarters things, rearranging the clothes they’d left her into some sense of order, filling out the questionnaire on the computer and then figuring out what kind of schedule she'd keep herself to here. It didn't seem to have one outside of the existing schedule that Carmel seemed to have with dinner, but that was enough for a start.
Showered in a real shower, by herself, dressed in a simple tank-top, jeans and a hoodie she'd pulled on over it, Edan looked over the map again before pulling her hair up and starting towards where on the map that the tool shed was noted. As for what to expect from this Leandro, she'd stopped making guesses. Everyone here was a criminal of some sort, and for some reason he thought they had something in common. That was interesting enough to get her out here, even if she kept one lip pulled between her teeth and her hands in the hood pockets as she crossed the courtyard.
If any location in this place could be called anyone's, Leandro planned on making the tool shed "his hangout". Its squat frame looming in the dark had intrigued him on the previous night when he was out sneaking around, and now he just had to know what was inside. In this bit of free time during his day, he went out there with a mission on his mind, dressed like he was ready for anything to go down in a sleeveless denim shirt with a patch on the chest, straight-legged jeans, and black work boots. They'd been nice enough to include a handkerchief, white paisley on black, since that outrageous hair did get kind of hot in the sun. He was happy to tie it onto his forehead, hang a cigarette out of the corner of his mouth, and prepare himself to pop open those doors of sweet, sweet promise.
"Come to Butt-Head," he told the doors, waggling his fingers at them. Then he grabbed the handles and did the deed. The interior gave him no less than a scavenger's thrill. Pruning shears, twine, a shovel, a lawn mower, and oh no. That wasn't what he thought it was, was it? Oh, yes it was. Gasoline. Apparently for the lawn mower but that was too simple.
His ears picked up the sound of footsteps coming across the lawn behind him, and he remembered he'd told the girl, Edan, to meet him out here. Leandro decided he didn't quite want her to see said gasoline yet; not before he'd gauged her interest level in fire. Turning around, he closed the doors again and grinned automatically, greeting her with a megawatt smile.
"Hey, girl! Glad you could make it. Nice day, eh? For wherever we are. How are you doing?"
Edan was still biting at her lip, hesitant to really jump into a conversation like she used to be. Before prison, before her brother died, she probably would have found her megawatt smile that looked like his, instead all she had was half a smirk and a roll of her shoulder that might have been a shrug. "Better than Gitmo I guess," she said since she'd meant that bit in her journal post about being sure she was being sent to some sort of secret military prison. "I'm alright. Still getting adjusted." Her stomach rumbled a little and she made another face. And she'd forgotten to eat. Again. She really was going to need a new routine here.
"Gitmo?" Leandro echoed, raising both eyebrows high. "Well, God only knows. I got here yesterday afternoon. I'm not entirely convinced I'm not dead. Who knows when the other shoe's going to drop if people are still arriving? But anyway, that's not really my point."
He fell silent for a moment, folding his arms over his chest. His dark eyes examined her critically, as if searching her form for something. "So Carmel tsked you the same way she tsked me. You feeling jittery? Tense? Or foggy? Are you compulsive?" He was cutting right to the chase, but he kept his voice low. Another positive of the tool shed was that it was sufficiently out of the way such that no one might be meandering nearby.
"Be one hell of an afterlife if we are dead," Edan said after a longer than necessary pause between his speaking her and speaking. She really needed to get better at this again. The part of her that remembered what it took to be well-liked was practically scolding herself. She waited out him watching her, only half meeting his eyes. When he asked, her thoughts drifted elsewhere, and Edan looked at her shoes instead of him. They'd given her sandals, the kind she used to wear, even if the weather here was a little too chilly for them.
"For setting things on fire?" she answered eventually, looking up towards him. "It's been a while, six months or so since I got arrested. Jittery might be right. Disconnected might be more accurate." Since that was what it was for her, something to ground her. Without thinking about it her hand went to the scars on her arm, even though they were covered with the hoodie she wore. "Why?"
A slow, devilish smile started on Leandro's face, coloring his previous expression dark. "Tell me about it," he agreed. "It is coed, so maybe it's Heaven. Then again, if nobody's interested in having a little fun, might be Hell after all. Anyway." Leandro, in contrast, never was used to being well-liked. He said what he felt like when he wanted to, whether he wanted to be quiet and private or outrageous. He was used to polarizing people. Naturally, he might have cared a little more and been a more thoughtful person to match his more introspective side, but experience had done a number on that.
At least what it had done was given him something from which to recognize it when he saw parts of himself in others. He knew the jitters and the disconnect, as if nothing else mattered except for that tension building up and threatening to pop. In his own odd way, he was trying to help, but not if it didn't serve him in one important way... "Because I have something nice that could help you if you want them, but I don't want to give you any unless I'm sure you're going to use them discreetly and not get them taken away for us both. Sorry, but I have to know what kind of pyro you are."
Edan was quiet again, looking around them as she shrugged. "I figure if anyone is locked up and then here the might be up for some fun eventually. Wasn't there a post up about flashlight tag?" That was fun of some sort, not that she'd played flashlight tag since she was a kid, but that seemed amusing at the very least. She glanced to her right, expecting to see her twin there, laughing about what she said, but as always he wasn't there. He was never there. And he never would be. For a long moment she wavered between reality and something else entirely but then managed to right herself back into the conversation she was having. "What kind of…the only reason they caught me is because I wanted them to know who burned that recruitment office to the ground. They needed to learn a lesson. Otherwise, Ember Edan was a mild mannered event planner at a local non-profit." And the office hadn't been her first, it just had been the only one she was determined to make a statement with.
Leandro just shook his head, some bits of his halfway-hair flopping over the kerchief to dance on his shoulder. "Not the kind of fun I'm used to." There might even have been a touch of scoff in there. He couldn't even begin to imagine his former cellmates sitting in a circle, giggling, and thinking up stuff like flashlight tag.
But as Edan continued with her explanation, Leandro narrowed his eyes a little further in thought. "Alright, then. So you don't get caught. But can you be satisfied on smalltime fixes? I'm talking... well, here's the deal." As he went to elaborate, he unfolded his hands and waved them lightly, one coming up to take his yet unlit cigarette. "You're still not telling me what I want to know. Are you compulsive? Do you feel the need to light up?"
Edan merely raised an eyebrow at his comment about fun, not quite ready to entertain whatever it was. People tended to think they were different and special, she remembered that much, and often it was best to stay well liked if you just smiled and nodded along with whatever they thought. Which was exactly what she did, giving him a slight smirk and a sage nod. "It's not a need. Enjoyment yes, interest and it takes the edge off of things, but I'm not going to try and break the rules just to get a fix." There were people here, and she didn't risk hurting people, that wasn't part of the deal. "So I suppose the answer you're looking for is yes, I usually do get by on smalltime fixes."
Usually Leandro thought he was pretty good at picking up things about people, but somehow he was having trouble following Edan. He felt like he wouldn't normally have had to ask so many questions to understand someone, nor would he have had to watch her face so closely. Still, he felt like he had something he meant to say here, so at last he ran his teeth over his lip and dipped into his breast pocket.
"Well... here. In the interest of what I've been told about "community", and in keeping a fellow firebug sane, take these. If we can manage to get along with the limited amount of these, I'll consider all cool." He had in his hand a small package of matches marked with the emblem "RRI", and offered them to Edan. "If you want a tip... they didn't chintz on building this place. You could clear all the burnables out of the bathroom and use the tub and a tin garbage can to contain your business. Works pretty good. Just don't let the smoke get out of hand." Here, he tried one last time to gauge her reaction. "Welcome to the neighborhood?"
What he said had that almost bubbly part of her trying to surface, the part that was super friendly, that people liked and wanted to like, but she bit it back down. Sure this wasn’t exactly prison but she wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. After a long moment she reached out to take the package, flipping it open, then closing it again to study it. “They just let you have these?” she asked, looking up at him, guessing that if he was so interested and so well versed, he’d been in for the same thing she was. In prison they hadn’t been to keen on her having things that burned, even if she didn’t plan on setting the building on fire, not when she couldn’t get out of it.
"Heh," Leandro laughed, squinting one eye nearly shut in play and folding his arms over his chest. "Kind of. But I figured that if I could find them and take them so could anyone else. I meant what I said. I don't want us to end up in a situation where they don't show up down the magic elevator shaft again. I haven't seen a match in months." By proxy then, he admitted that he was indeed in for the same thing and no, they hadn't let him have any in the last place he was at either. "So... what do you think?"
Something close to a smile graced Edan’s features when Leandro laughed, not quite there, but getting there and it changed a large aspect of her looks. She was the type of person who was meant to be smiling and happy, not sullen and withdrawn and it showed. “I think I can work with it. Wasn’t ever much for burning things in use, and this place seems to be in use.” Though maybe she’d look at that request form again. She could ask for some candles or something, something to burn safely. Just having it there would work well enough.
That did seem... better? Yes, better. He'd done something right. Good. Now he could most certainly add another accomplishment to his list for the day. Leandro nodded surely, letting his stance relax content with the notion that the match stores were safe and he and Edan would get along alright. "Me neither, honestly. It's not about hurting people, at least not directly. It's just something that hits." He shrugged vaguely, unsure of where to go from there. He wasn't exactly the world's best sympathizer.
Edan watched him for a moment, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Hits?” she asked, not sure she understood. It had always just been something that made sense to her, something she enjoyed, but then she’d needed to make a statement. That had been the only time it wasn’t just to do it, to make sense of things again. Then it had been to prove something.
Leandro cocked his head at Edan when she didn't seem to understand the concept of "hits". He thought for a second, then ventured slowly, "Yeah. It hits. Like suddenly you just feel the tension of it, and it starts to overwhelm you until you have to do it. It feels better when you do, like it smooths something over in you that is all scuffed up and always getting messed up. I guess. That doesn't make sense?"
She was quiet again, looking at the book of matches in her hand before looking up at him and nodding. “It does. Though...I always thought of it as grounding. Like, it’s something that makes sense, when other things don’t. Sometimes it’s just needed to right things again.” Edan’s look was patient, one lip pulled between her teeth again, watching him, waiting for an answer. She didn’t talk about it much, not to anyone but her brother, and he hadn’t seemed to need much explanation, but that was part of being a twin she supposed. Things just made sense.
Leandro nodded in kind, his expressive face taking on a rare thoughtful quality. “Yeah, I get that,” he agreed. “It’s your moment of control. You can tame the... well, fire is just energy, right? You can’t touch it, it doesn’t have a weight or a presence, it just sort of is. It’s a lot like an idea, almost. There isn’t a lot to suggest it’s even real except that it burns.”
Now he felt he was waxing a bit too philosophical for himself, and stuck out his tongue. “Whatever. Well, enjoy the matches. Glad we could agree. If you find something cool next time don’t forget to share it with me.”
Edan nodded as well, feeling a bit as if maybe she saw fire differently but she didn’t want to fight him on it. It was just a slight difference in viewing something. She liked the last part, about how there wasn’t a lot to suggest it existed except that it burned things left behind. Nodding she found an almost smile, holding up the book. “Thanks. And yeah, I’ll keep an eye out.”
Well, that seemed satisfactory. Leandro nodded one more time, murmuring a quick "You're welcome," and then glanced at the sky. He didn't have a watch on him, and there were no phones in the place, so all he had to gauge the time by was the fact that the light was getting a little lower than before. The afternoon was wearing on, and that doctor said he was only going to be in the library until 7. It certainly wasn't anywhere near that time yet, but he thought he might as well get himself into gear and just get it done. Not everyone would end up cool, after all, even if those he'd met so far had. He needed to protect himself somehow. Plus, he wanted to make sure he changed and saved these clothes. They only had a few sets, so he wanted to save this one as purely "work only", or else he'd quickly end up trashing everything. The people around here were already nervous enough about his fashion sense.
"I should probably get going now. It was cool hanging out though. Drop by again some time, we'll roast marshmallows or something." He grinned at that, maybe a bit of a joke and maybe not.
That got a laugh out of her, not a huge one but a slight laugh, something that came with a real smile. “Okay. Sounds like a plan. Thanks again.” Edan moved out of his way, tucking the matches into her pocket and starting back across the courtyard.