Petey Greekname (argyropoulos) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-06-29 11:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, evelyn farron, petros argyropoulos |
WHO: Evelyn Farron/Fragment and Petros Argyropoulos/Azrael
WHAT: Oh, so you turn things into dust too?
WHEN: BACKDATED to 2009 (she's 13, he's 23)
WHERE: The Cafeteria
WARNINGS: Mild language
STATUS: Complete backstory!
The Lock looked bigger now. She had moved in as a child and grown into it, the space seeming a little smaller every day. What seemed like a vast space to begin with started to look more like the prison it really was. Nevertheless, after spending a month in the SHU, Evelyn felt she truly knew what small felt like now. Small, cramped and claustrophobic. The Lock was luxurious in comparison. And to avoid any possibility of being trapped in a space like that again-albeit a bigger one and a highly improbable possibility after all the interrogation-she chose for the entire week after leaving the unit to eat in the cafeteria. She deliberately chose a different time to eat than she knew would be typical for her sister, for the other dormitory kids. She kept her head down, her tray far away from her-elbows on the table and head propped on one hand-and stared at her food. Then hesitantly, she dragged the tip of one finger in a diagonal line just in front of her apple. At first, the apple split cleanly and she almost smiled-maybe she was actually getting this under control-before it crumbled in front of her. Evelyn sighed, then scowled. She glanced around the cafeteria before hiding the remnants of her dessert under a napkin. Maybe not. Petros had finished his meal-replacement smoothie and was about to leave the cafeteria when he saw Evelyn sitting alone. He'd heard about her, of course -- everyone at the Lock had -- but it surprised him how young she looked. When he was thirteen, his powers hadn't even manifested yet and wouldn't for years, but he empathized with her. He slid into the seat across from her at the cafeteria table. "Hey. Evelyn, right?" Startled, Evelyn’s eyes widened and without thinking she slapped her hand down on the napkin with maybe a little more aggression than was necessary, fingers tensing up as if to stop it from flying off and revealing what she’d done to her lunch. She didn’t speak for a few seconds, one arm still upright from where she had been resting her head. “That’s me.” She muttered finally, lowering the free arm down. This was an adult. No adult metahuman was going to make snide comments about a little girl who had made a mistake, right? She had to cling to some hope for humanity. They would stare, yes, and kids could definitely be awful about it, as she had already discovered, but not adults. Still, she was wary. “If you’ve come to ask me if I did it on purpose,” She glowered at the older man opposite. “Go ask somebody else.” Petros held himself back from laughing. This girl didn't know who he was, and she'd think that he was laughing at her and not at the idea that he could ever judge anyone for their dangerous superpowers accidents. Instead, he looked at her face carefully, trying to make eye contact. "I came to ask how you're doing," he said. "Figured you'd know that one best." Evelyn’s attempts not to make eye contact weren’t going well and after a few moments she looked him directly in the eye, willing him to back off. “Everyone yelled at me. They locked me in a room for a month. Now people keep staring.” I killed somebody. She didn’t have to say it, the sudden look on her face said it all before she regained her sullen teenage composure, folding her arms and averting her eyes again. “Apart from that I’m just peachy. Thanks.” "Fuck 'em," Petros said before remembering, with a start, that he probably shouldn't use words like that around minors. "I mean forget them," he amended quickly. "Learning something like that about your powers is hard enough without anybody giving you shit, and it's not like you killed someone who didn't have a backup." For one brief moment Evelyn looked surprised. Teenagers would curse around her but adults usually didn't and she stared again, not sure what to say even after he corrected himself. "Could've been somebody without a back-up." She countered, frowning again. "Could've done it in my sleep." She couldn't help but look up suspiciously at the man opposite. As she started to process what was going on, he just seemed all too willing to talk and it was a little unsettling, especially after all of the staring over the past week. "Why you going so hard with this supportive angle anyway, what's your name?" "Petros Argyropoulos -- Argo," Petros identified himself (it would probably be easier for her to remember the nickname than his full name). "Can't a guy just want to help a fellow metahuman out? You look like you need it," he added, even as he started peeling off one of his gloves. "But it's weird, right? You watch every movement you make, wondering if that's the moment when something will happen." Evelyn nodded slowly, glancing around her as if to see whether or not anybody was looking at them. "I just caught my hand on something," she muttered. "Like.... A hangnail or something. It was better when I could only do it to chairs. Or me." Immediately frustrated with her own moment of whining, she sat back in her chair at last, folding her arms. "How exactly are you meant to help with this?" She was small for a thirteen year old, and non-threatening, but she squared her shoulders and stared again, quirking an eyebrow. She would make up for it in snark. "Maybe I have an idea what you're dealing with." Petros shrugged and reached across the table, lifting the corner of Evelyn’s napkin with his bare fingers. The napkin was paper. Paper came from wood, wood came from trees, and trees were alive. The napkin fibers withered and crumbled into dust, falling onto another pile of debris on the tray. Petros decided he wouldn't ask, unless she offered the information. He could guess what had happened. Evelyn watched it happen, eyes locked on the napkin as it crumbled. Without verbally acknowledging anything, she looked back up at Petros, incredulous, eyebrow still quirked but her expression a combination of fearful and impressed. Typical teenager when finding a kindred spirit, or at the very least, a kindred power. "Somebody could've told me there was another one." She said quietly, before pressing one finger into the remainder of a half eaten sandwich. It crumbled from the contact point outwards. Her tray was rapidly containing more fragments and dust than actual food. "Neat trick." Petros slipped his hand back into his glove. "It's not quite the same," he admitted. No two powers were. His didn't work on himself, and that was probably for the best. "But if there's anything you want to know…" His voice trailed off. In his family, he was one of the youngest, and he didn't have a lot of experience with mentoring, or whatever it was he was offering to Evelyn (he wasn't sure himself). Beyond having a relevant power, was he even qualified? He had only just finished the Operative Training Program. The younger girl compared the two in her head. It would take her years to really understand the difference, but even looking down they seemed different. She pulled things apart. He seemed to decay them? Was that what it was? She remained quiet as she pondered all of this, studying her tray again. "You know more about it than anybody else around here." She said finally, quickly. Evelyn was concerned her mouth would move before she could accept help that she actually needed; that she would be mean without thinking. She didn't smile, but she attempted to relax a little. It should be noted that attempting and succeeding were two very different things to the youngest Farron sister. Her mouth got the better of her. "You've never-" she trailed off just before she outright asked him if he'd killed somebody himself. She may as well have just said it. He shook his head. "Not a human. Not yet." It was only a matter of time, Petros thought, but he didn't think it would help to tell the kid that. He'd only had his powers for seven years, and he'd gotten lucky when they first appeared. In the field as an Operative -- he didn't know yet what that would entail. "I kill bacteria constantly, insects all the time, rats --" He shrugged. "If you sign up for Operative training when you're eighteen, they might give you more of that. Or they might not." "I don't want any more of that," Evelyn almost cut him off with how quickly she spoke, eyes wide. "I want to avoid that. Period." Even bugs and rats. The idea of accidentally doing it again made her go very pale and quiet. "You really think you can help?" She asked, wary again. If he hadn't managed it yet, maybe this was the best shot she had at maintaining some semblance of normality. "I've got a lot of practice avoiding killing things," Petros supplied. He didn't want to be too pushy -- it might come across as suspect -- but he knew could have used a guide when he was a teenager, though he might not have accepted help readily either. "So it's like you said, if anyone in this place can, it's probably me." Evelyn snorted. "Adding that to the list of things you only ever hear in a DMS facility." She looked down, tracing her fingers across the tray. Even as she did it she thought she might break it and with a small sigh shoved her hands into her pockets. Thirteen year old girls shouldn't look so weary. She nodded at nothing in particular. "Okay, Argo." The corners of her mouth tilted up in what would probably look like a smile if she didn't look so defeated at the moment. "You think you can help? Then you help. Better than what anybody else has managed so far." "Sometimes they don't know what to do with metas like us." Petros knew some of the Agents and even some of the other metahumans gave him more space or looked at him differently than the others, and he didn't blame them. Evelyn had just gotten her first taste of that, in her first days out of the SHU, and she no doubt would see more of it. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her face, too tired for such a young kid. "Why don't you start by telling me how it happened?" he suggested. "You said it was like your fingernail caught on something." Evelyn gave Argo a look. ‘Metas like us’. It was an uncomfortable thought, that she was now ‘different’. Dangerous. “It’s like-” She started, stopped and closed her mouth again, thinking. “The world is made up of tiny little parts, right? And they move past each other and make other things, and you don’t feel it or see it because everything is so small. But I do. And I can pull the tiny little things apart so whatever it is, it breaks.. So-” She glanced around the room. “Everything in here that’s made of plastic, whatever, I can just… pull it to pieces. Not even trying. And I thought maybe I could grab hold of pieces too, I thought that’s what it was, that I’d just pull him forwards or something.” For a second, Evelyn just sounded like a normal little girl trying to explain how she’d broken a glass, but she grew quieter. “I didn’t grab hold of him, I just pulled. I didn’t know I could do it to people.” "I'm sorry." Argo's voice sounded more solemn and serious than it had only moments before. "But at least now you know, and that means you know what to avoid in the future." He tugged at the edge of his sleeve, wondering if he should take off his glove again and resume the power demonstration. He decided against it. "I was older than you when I found out I had a power," he said. "It all happened real fast when I got it, but other people knew how bad it was before I did. My clothes were decaying off my back, and I didn't know what was going on, but everyone stayed clear. Good thing they did too." He waved his hand at the cafeteria around them. "It sucks, always having to be careful or be in control, but it's better than the alternative." As Evelyn listened the pit in her stomach only grew. She would have to be in control for the rest of her life, knowing exactly what was going on. “But-” She frowned, before the frown turned into a true scowl. “I don’t want to be careful forever. I just want to go back to doing it to myself. Or chairs.” She shoved her hands into her pockets, suddenly very aware of them and everything she felt around them. “It’s not fair.” “Please tell me it gets easier to control.” She muttered, trying to resign herself to her fate without kicking up a fuss. If she had questions, she may as well get them out of the way now. "It's not fair, but you get used to it, like anything else you learn. Riding a bike is tough at first, you know?" Argo shrugged. He felt bad for the girl, and he wished he could tell her something more reassuring, but telling her she could just go back might defeat the point of helping her in the first place. "It's not the same for everyone," he added. "But it usually means figuring out what new rules you live by. I have a buddy who blows sh-- stuff up whenever he gets startled, so he avoids getting startled. When he can. Mine doesn't ever turn off, so for me it meant learning what I could and couldn't touch and sticking to it. Can't imagine life any other way now." Evelyn smirked at the older man trying to police his word choices in front of her, more confident now and raising an eyebrow. Like she hadn’t heard worse from her sister. It was just a shock to hear it from somebody she didn’t know. And it seemed that maybe she was going to learn more about Argo, if he was the only person who really got it in regards to her power. It was a different life now. She tried to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach that came whenever she considered what her powers meant to her now. “I guess if you guys can do it, I might be able to.” She looked up suddenly, glancing to the clock in the corner. “I think I gotta go. They’ve got me on daily training.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and grimace, the agents currently watching her like a hawk. Uneasy, she glanced warily at Argo again. “...Do you want to maybe eat lunch with me tomorrow? Or just, I dunno, talk about this again afterwards. Something.” He smiled and leaned back in his seat, feeling a little better about his attempt at empathizing, or advice, or whatever it was. At only 23, Argo didn't feel qualified to guide anyone, but he knew he would have taken whatever direction he could get only a few years ago. "Any time, kid. Don't let me keep you." |