Penrose Shapiro (skinsample) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-07-20 20:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, evariste gardinier, pen shapiro |
Who: Evariste Gardinier [Strain] & Pen Shapiro [Hufflepuff]
Where: Atrium
When: July 21st | Daytime
What: Evariste and Pen start talking again. Just in time for them to take an unscheduled dip in the pond.
Warnings: None
Status: Complete
Evariste meant what he said: he wasn’t going to talk to Pen after she teased him about hugging TJ. It wasn’t the first time they had that sort of ending to a conversation. After all, he’d been in the facility for seven years, so they knew each other for a large portion of it, and they’d grown more accustomed to poking and bothering each other as time went on. It didn’t mean they were the closest of friends - Pen still didn’t know the first thing about his life before they got here and Evariste occasionally knowingly said something that upset her - but they were good. As good as young mister Gardinier willed it to be. But after every brief silence between the two, there was the inevitable reconnection. This time it took place in the Atrium, where Pen found the operative removed from the rest of activity, resting on a hammock by the secluded tree where she and Dylan hung pinwheels weeks before. She approached, having spotted him a distance back. Dressed in high-waisted shorts and a patterned tank-crop, she went without her staple cardigan, clothed far more appropriately for the beating sun which cast down into the gardens. “So…” She said as she came to lean against the tree, noting that he was awake, although staring off somewhere else. “I’m officially hugged-out. Twenty-four in the past three days. You really missed out on something special.” Evariste was bad at being around people. He was bad at dealing with people in general and he very rarely liked to be touched without his permission. He had a feeling that most people were that way, though. He’d avoided the Atrium for a while after the threat, which was easy when he had training and patrols to do. Not to mention he could remember when Pen would most likely be in the Atrium. So it was easy to avoid her. It wasn’t nearly as easy to avoid TJ, though he made as much of an effort as he could. When he chose to be in the Atrium, it was a very silent show that he would allow Pen to talk to him again.So it was not without surprise that he found her talking to him. He continued to look at nothing for a while before his gaze shifted toward Pen, arching an eyebrow. “I’ll leave all the unfortunate shows of affection to you. You can even have my share.” He hadn’t willingly had a hug since his parents had been alive. Now that they weren’t, he felt no reason to partake in them. “So have you been doing anything worth mentioning?” Pen knew what Evariste was doing. He thought himself sly, and of course in many ways he was, but other times he was amusingly predictable. She tried to bite down on the smile that betrayed that very thought. “Oh, I have had your share. And then some.” She lifted her arm. “Look, I’m getting definition.” It was followed by a breathy chuckle. “I’ve been doing plenty. I went to that concert with Gregory and it was nice. I didn’t fall on my face in front of hundreds of people, so that’s always a bonus. I pulled a muscle in yoga because my crane pose is terrible - but you can’t blame me, shifting weight is hard when you have more of one side of you than the other. And I got an I Love Pluto shirt.” All wonderfully dull. “What about you, Mr. Popular?” Rolling his eyes, he looked back at the flowers, silently recounting the meanings for the ones he could see. “Oh, yes. Those all sound terribly interesting.” He kept his voice deadpanned, but it wasn’t exactly difficult when all of it sounded so boring. Who cared about Pluto? Or Yoga or really any of that. “Gregory’s terribly boring. I should know. We’re on the same team. I have to see him all the time.” Which was true as far as he could tell. Greg, on the other hand, he was far more entertaining. He even made great jokes. It was such a shame. He supposed someone couldn’t really run around smashing things and making a mess of everything all the time. It was unfortunate. “Oh, the usual. Patrols, wondering how many agents are eyeing me to see if I’m possibly going to betray them, training…” And other things, but there was no need to talk about those currently. Or maybe there was. It would really only matter if it would get a reaction. “I definitely got out of dishes again. Being shirtless has helped so many things in my life.” “Wow, you’ve got me beat.” She responded, and though it was sarcastic, it was accompanied by a smirk. “I’m pathetic.” Pen shrugged. “But Gregory isn’t so bad! You guys aren’t that different, you know. Except he keeps his shirt on, you weirdo.” Her fingers tapped at the bark of the tree’s trunk. If there was something she missed in the Atrium, it was a breeze. The air was unbearably still and it was the only thing, she felt, that diminished the experience of pretending they were somewhere else. But she came to this spot often to curl up and write. “Really, what’s going to happen when you’re fifty and nobody wants to see that? But seriously. Not that different.” “You said it,” he replied, glancing over at her briefly before returning his focus to the flowers. He honestly preferred flora to people. They never talked, never tried to hug you, and were generally quite predictable. Predictability was only entertaining in humans if it meant they reacted a way he wanted them to things. Otherwise it was boring. Plants were not people, though, so he forgave them for their predictable nature and came to like it. He rolled his eyes again. “He’s boring. He’s only fun when he’s Greg. Otherwise, he’s disappointing and without humor.” Snorting lightly, he grinned. “Oh, but everyone enjoys it when I’m shirtless. I only ever get complaints from Noah, but no one asked him anyway. He’s boring, too.” Evariste shrugged slightly. “I’ll probably be dead by then, so I doubt I’ll have to worry about it. Or I’ll be one of those hot old people. Either way, it won’t be an issue.” It was Pen’s turn to snort, having never told a single soul that she nearly met Greg the night of the concert. “He’s not disappointing. Just like you’re not. But true, neither of you are very funny. And I never said anything about liking you shirtless. When’s the last time you got me to do anything because your pecs were in my face?” They were a couple of fun little jabs. Really, if Evariste dished it, she could hand it right back. Normally she wasn’t the type - Pen was kind to a fault - but with him it was different enough. But her half-smile fell at his comment about dying. Said so flippantly, so weightlessly. Especially in recent events and the APEX attacks, it drew grey to her eyes. “Well…don’t die. I’d rather you be the weird, hot old man than the dead one.” Her lip tried to perk back up. “Even if you’re not that hot.” “He is. And I am hilarious. Don’t lie about me to my face.” He smirked at her. “Oh, I’ll use my wiles and charm to get things from you eventually. One might say I have already without you even knowing about it.” He noted the shift in her expression and could guess what it was about, which was only solidified by the fact that she told him not to die. It wasn’t like it would be too distressing to anyone else and he wasn’t all that concerned about it himself. He wouldn’t put himself in a situation where he would die unless he wanted to be there, but he wouldn’t exactly be upset about dying...unless it was lame. He couldn’t die in a lame way. “But you still think I’m a little hot,” he teased, not bothering to give away the fact that he’d noticed any change at all. “And no one could blame you.” Pen had cracked jokes in the past about how Evariste thought so highly of himself and so little of others, like he spent all of his esteem on himself. He was so very good at proving her point. “Oh, what could someone with so much humor and charm want from me when I’m so boring and dull? Which have been your words in the past, don’t forget.” She flicked his ear, aware that he’d brushed past the death topic. As with most other things, Evariste only revealed so much and he wasn’t as clever about skipping over all of it as he thought. She picked up on enough. Give her some credit - she’d been his friend of sorts for seven years. There were times when they pushed each other too far and there were spats, but right now they seemed okay. “And everyone here is a little hot. I can take my shirt off too and get favors.” And then, a pointer finger in the air as if to physically stop him from going dirty places. “No, though.” It was entirely possible that that was the case, but he just didn’t care about most people. Indifference was the thing he felt most of all when it came to people. “I ask myself this daily,” he replied, sighing. It wasn’t a real sigh so much as a faked one. But it didn’t really matter. It was as close as he’d probably get to admitting that he liked being around her...for reasons he couldn’t exactly fathom. He tried not to think about it too much. It was easier that way. Instead of flicking her back, he quietly found the slight ache in her muscle and upped it a smidge to make it feel like she’d been flicked before letting it go back to the way it was before. “Not everyone. But I guess some people have lower standards.” There were a few people who were too annoying to be attractive or too old...or just generally too much themselves to be attractive. “Oh dear. My plan has been thwarted. How will I ever get you to disrobe now?” His voice sounded bored as he talked, but he probably wouldn’t have complained about it if she had decided to take her shirt off. There were a few other people on the list of ‘well, I wouldn’t complain’. It seemed silly to complain...unless they were hideously unattractive. Then there was reason to complain. Or if he wanted to annoy them. Pen felt the twitch of the flick he caused with his powers and, in not the most original rebuttal, flicked his ear again. “Oh my god, you are so lazy.” There was a window of time in which most everything Evariste said infuriated her because his apparently nonchalance was perceived as less than ‘it’s about as complimentary as I get’ and more ‘you’re not worth the kindness’. And while she still didn’t relish his responses, especially on those days when her own self-esteem was beaten down (taking her top off was one thing, but prosthetics weren’t sexy), she started to see them for what he really intended. “Aw, like you don’t have fifty other people who wouldn’t mind disrobing for you. The boring girl keeps her clothes on. But don’t worry, Ev. You know my lack of participation isn’t such a loss.” She smirked. “I know you came over here though because I could see you. You're really terrible at this.” He swatted at her hand, nose scrunching up. “Well, it was easier that way.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. He didn’t feel like going to the effort of doing it when he could use his power to handle things. “I don’t know if it’s exactly fifty,” he said after a moment. “But at least one practically does it without my even asking.” He didn’t think he really needed to explain. “And then I do see more than my fair share of people in uniforms. You cannot hide much with those.” A slight smirk formed, but it turned into a more neutral expression as she continued speaking. He tried to think of exactly how he would respond to what she’d said, before he turned to the thirteen year old boy side of his existence, the smirk forming again. “I suck what, now? Are you trying to ask me inappropriate questions, Penrose? Or are you hoping I’ll hook you up with TJ? I get the feeling he’s the sort interested in having his toes sucked.” She shook her head, eyebrows pinched with amusement. “See? All the action already. I’d just be a waste.” And then Penrose, which granted him an expression of deep displeasure and a hand on her hip. “You do realize the more you pick on TJ, the more I know you think well of him.” “Waste schmaste.” His smirk turned into a grin at the look on her face, but after calling him ‘Ev’, she really should have expected that he would retaliate. “I do not make fun of him because I like him. I make fun of him because he’s easy to make fun of. Like Gregory and Noah. Plus, he’s annoying and keeps trying to get in my personal space and I don’t like that.” Which was true. His personal bubble was particularly large and TJ constantly tried to invade it. Which was stupid and annoying. “Oh, really?” She bent at the waist, leaning over Evariste so that perhaps only a foot of space remained between their faces, her hair a curtain. “Am I annoying you right now?” She leaned in a few inches closer, voice softer. “How about now?” And then the hand not on her hip found the hem of the hammock and yanked the fabric up, effectively rolling him right out of it. “How about now?” Evariste could only wish that he was able to move further away, but he could not. He frowned at her briefly, opening his mouth to comment about how he was not going to kiss her if that was what she was trying to do before he ended up on the ground with a small noise. He pushed himself up off the ground, dusting himself off and giving Pen a look. “Belvedere,” he said simply. For a moment, he debated using his power along with knocking her over, but eventually he settled on grabbing a bit of dirt and rubbing it into her hair. Don’t worry, Ev, she wasn’t aiming for a kiss. But she was good for a laugh, which she did when he landed with a solid thud in the grass. It probably didn’t help his case that he looked so very unhappy when he got back up. And then the flower-verse declaration that he was against her and a handful of soil in her hair turned that grin into a giant O of surprise as she gasped, her shoulders up by her ears. “Yarrow!” She cried out, wasting no time grabbing a solid handful herself and plopping it right on his crown, rubbing it in. Silted dust and dirt waterfall’d off her head and she brushed it out with her fingers. “And tussilage, wow.” In normal situations, he was not the sort to fight like a small child with dirt, but this was a very abnormal situation and he didn’t think too many people were around...so he decided it was safe enough to engage in more childlike attacks. Her look of surprise was nearly reason enough for it. Only now he had dirt in his hair...which he would have to explain. Well, no. He wouldn’t have to explain, but TJ was bound to ask a lot of ridiculous and unneeded questions about it. He shrugged it off, deciding to worry about it later. Instead he moved to throw Pen over his shoulder and started to walk around. “It’s pond time for you, little miss.” Pen cried out when Evariste picked her up like she weighed next to nothing. Well, considering he worked out and her legs weighed so little, maybe it shouldn’t have been that surprising, but that wasn’t the point. The point was she was suddenly granted a view of his backside and the ground as his words clicked in her head. She started struggling, beating his backside with a very frantic, “Nononono! My legs, my legs!” but it was to no avail as he approached the edge of the water. “I’m just assuming you’re doing this because you’ve secretly always harbored a preference for my ass,” he said, not stopping. Perhaps it was bad manners, but if he really messed up her legs, he’d find a way to make sure she got new ones without it being linked back to him at all. He had the money for it and he was certain he could find a way out of having anyone figure it out. She did the only thing she could think of, which was hold onto him as tightly as she could, as Evariste prepared her for the dunking of a lifetime. A shriek echoed through the Atrium, followed by several large splashes. Two bodies tumbled into the pond. Pen had linked her fingers into his belt loops, and when she went forward, so did he - and nearly on top of her. When she emerged from the cold, murky water with a huge breath, hair in her face, she did the one thing she could think of, and that was splash the already drenched guy whose plan had backfired wonderfully. As he threw Pen into the water, he fell forward, swearing as he did. The splash to the face only made him react in kind before he reached out and shoved Pen’s head under water. Not for long enough to cause her any real issues, but that was mostly because he had no intention of actually killing her. The paperwork would be annoying and getting his job taken away would be annoying. If murdering someone didn’t turn out to be more annoying than it was worth, he’d probably murder more people just for annoying him, but...part of him was well aware that even then he probably wouldn’t kill Pen. He just decided to ignore that part and pretend it was because murdering someone would have annoying consequences. While Evariste was considering the annoyance of paperwork, Pen wasn’t appreciating being held down under water. Not a good move to pull on someone with PTSD, even if it was meant in - well, not good fun. He let her out from under the water, but not before the butt of her palm slammed into his ear. Emerging, she took several deep breaths. Soaked, she drew a smile, not even acknowledging the blow she landed, but something was dead in her eyes. The tumble into the water was thorough: they both looked like they’d gone swimming, his hair and clothes plastered to him. Her stumps felt the slosh of the prosthetics suctioned to them. “The angle you carried me, are you sure it wasn’t because you had a preference for my butt? I felt where your hand was.” A final ribbing comment to try to hide her very sudden terror. “You going to help me up?” Evariste felt the pain, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it would have been if he’d been anyone else with a lower pain threshold. His nose still wrinkled as he moved to touch his ear and make sure he wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t. He glanced over at her, taking in what little hints that he could. Instead of apologizing for something that probably deserved an apology, he just reached out and patted her shoulder. Yes. That was just as good. “I know a good ass when I see one,” he said with a shrug. He reached over, pulling her up once he was upright himself. “Come on, then. We’d probably better get back to our respective rooms before we get an audience.” After saying that, he picked her up again, walking out of the pond and setting her back on the ground. “There we are.” Carrying her out of the water was an unusually chivalrous move on Evariste’s part, and once she was out of the water, she felt her pulse slowing down and her mind calming. “Thank you.” She said with sincerity, appreciating his moment of thoughtfulness, twisting her hair while water poured out of every crevice in her prosthetics. They weren’t damaged, but taking them off was going to be a workout. But he was right, they should head back. “Think you can sneak past your roommates?” She asked as they started walking, her legs sloshing amusingly. Evariste laughed a little as he thought about it. “Who knows, but I’m sure I can try my best. I hope they’re all busy.” If TJ were there, he would never get by without a lot of questions and weirdness. He figured Tiger would ask the least questions, so if he was lucky, it would be Tiger. “Not that I’d really answer them if they asked about it.” “Naturally.” She chuckled. “But good luck.” The left a trail of water all the way up to the sixth floor, conversing and menacing each other until they stood at their suite doors, which were across from each other. As their doors closed, she hissed out at him. “Hey, Ev.” When he looked back at her, she grinned. “I won.” And closed her door. belvedere: i am against you yarrow: war tussilage: justice will be done to you |