noah / sparrow. (levitations) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-07-07 23:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, alice liu, noah vausse |
WHO: Alice Liu [KRAKATOA] & Noah Vausse [SPARROW]
WHERE: Library
WHEN: Tuesday, July 7th; Afternoon
WHAT: Shelving & Talking
WARNINGS: Casual mentions of WWII, doesn't get deep
Having treated herself to a double iced latte at Brewed Awakening before her shift, Alice was wired as she pushed the book cart along the shelves. Between handing books off to Noah, she tapped her fingers on the handle, careful not to make too much noise. She liked shelving with Noah. He made for good company, and it always went quickly, since he could reach the top shelves without much effort. "Okay," she whispered, peering down at the cart. "That's the last of the biographies. Our next shelf is World War Two books." Alice couldn't help but giggle a little, despite the very grave subject matter of the next section of books. "There's a lot of them. Someone's dad must have made a big return." Noah sighed, he hated shelving, though if he had to choose someone to shelve with it would be Alice. He’d never been a frequent flyer at libraries before he ended up at the facility, but sometimes he wondered if being locked up made their library more popular than other libraries. After all, there was only so much you could do. He looked at the cart, there was an unusually large amount of World War Two books, “Hmmm, maybe they were on reserve for the classes? That’s a unit in school, right?” "Ooooh," Alice said, perhaps a bit more loudly than she should have, in a library. "Yeah, you're right, that could be it." She leaned over the cart and plucked out the nearest WWII book, a thick hardcover, turning it over in her hands. "I think I even read this one in high school. Oh my god, that was forever ago." Strictly speaking, that was not true, since she had only finished her senior year of high school at the Lock two summers ago. It felt like a long time, though. “Really, forever?” Noah couldn’t help but shake his head with a bemused smile, “Think about how long it’s been for me, I can’t even remember which books I used in school.” "Oh yeah, I forgot you were so old!" Alice teased, giggling again. She set the book carefully back in order on the cart. She seemed calmer, almost contemplative when she added, "And all of your classmates and teachers aren't around all the time, so I guess it's easier to forget, isn't it?" “If I had a lawn I’d be waving you off it by now,” Noah quieted at her next statement, unsure of what the right thing to say was. “Yeah, I guess that’s kind of the silver lining. But at least your classmates kind of got you, so that’s pretty cool. Probably.” "Got me?" Alice repeated. "You mean like, they know what it's like living here?" “Yeah, or what it’s like to be meta,” Noah tried not to wince, maybe that was insensitive. "I guess so," Alice agreed, though her own experience with what it was like to be a metahuman wasn't quite like anyone else's she knew: not the Deltas who felt as useless as she did, and not the other Alphas, who were as restricted as she was. "Wait..." she added, as the pieces of what Noah said clicked in her head. "Are you saying you knew when you were in high school?" “Yep,” Noah picked up a book and levitated to shelve it, “I think it started during my sophomore year. Why, is that uncommon?” "I -- I don't know," Alice admitted, feeling somewhat sheepish. "I think so? I thought people usually got turned in or found by the DMS pretty quickly." Or they stayed rogues forever. There was no way to be certain just how many metahumans lived in secret. "I only know based on the people that wind up in facilities, though. What was it like, hiding it?" “A little weird? But not too bad, all things considering,” He shrugged, floating back to ground level, “I just fly so it was easy to hide. Just had to make sure no one ever saw me using my powers.” Alice sighed wistfully. "If I had your powers, I'd just want to fly everywhere, though." “I did. Still do, but I guess didn’t really have anywhere to go,” He picked up the next book, “When did you know about yours?” "I always figured I'd be a metahuman someday because of my parents," Alice explained. She leaned on the cart's handle, her heels lifting from the ground. "I was thirteen and back at my old facility, and one day I woke up, and I just felt different, and that's how I knew. It took a DMS power detector to figure out just what it was, though." “Wow that…. sucks,” This is why the system was broken, Alice didn’t deserve to be locked up here, “I had no idea I was going to be a meta. It was kind of a shock but I know what you mean by just feeling different, I think I knew something had changed when I woke up that day.” "You just didn't know how much." Alice nodded solemnly. That was how it had been for her -- though she'd guessed she would become a metahuman, the chance that she would become an Alpha had seemed infinitesimally small. "I was already in the system, but if I'd been born outside, I think I might have tried what you did," she added. "It's really easy for me not to use my powers. Nobody would ever know." At least, that was the case in Chicago, where Alice figured she might as well be a Delta with the power of Heat Resistance. In Los Angeles, with access to the 15-mile wide magma chamber under the San Andreas Fault, maybe she'd be more like Tess or Tim, constantly worried about the danger she posed to others. “I guess that’s why some people never get sent to facilities till they’re adults,” Noah’s brows knit together, “It’s really just terrible. If we’re not doing any harm, what’s the point of locking us up? It’s worse if you can’t even hurt anyone.” "Exactly!" Alice exclaimed, a bit too loud for the library. She looked around, just to make sure no one had been disturbed, before dropping her voice to a whisper. "Exactly," she hissed. "I can't do anything dangerous here, but just because I'm an Alpha --" she rolled her eyes "-- I have all these stupid rules. And you weren't hurting anyone when you were living in secret in high school." She assumed. “I wasn’t,” He agreed, “But I guess it was different in my case. I didn’t get caught, I turned myself in.” She seemed honestly baffled. "Why?" “You know TJ?” Noah paused suddenly, toying with the book in his hands for a second. When he continued, he kept his tone intentionally light, “We grew up together, outside, but his power was hurting him. I thought they could help him here?” "Oh," Alice said. "No, he never talks about that." It felt like she had stumbled onto something much more private than their earlier discussion. Even though she could guess the answer, she couldn't help but ask, "So did it help, being here?" “No,” Noah answered, turning away to shelve a book. He still felt guilty about it, though he suspected that TJ didn’t blame him for getting them locked up here. "But now you're around other people who get it," Alice pointed out, in an attempt to be positive and helpful. Noah had said that was an upside, after all. "So there's that." Noah laughed dryly, “Did it make you feel better at all when I said that earlier?” Alice was quiet for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted. "I guess so." Besides her grandparents and the Agents, she hadn't talked to anyone who wasn't a metahuman since she was a child. How could she know if it was better for people to understand when she had no basis for comparison? "Maybe." “Hey,” His voice was soft and gently knocked his shoulder against hers, “At least we have it better than they did during World War Two?” Noah gave her a weak grin and waved another thick book in front of her. “Seriously, how many of these things are there?” "Yeah, nobody's getting bombed." Alice forced a laugh. "I told you, it has to be someone's dad." She couldn't help but notice the subtitle on Noah's book: A History of Japanese Internment in America. “There’s that positive attitude,” Noah’s voice dripped with sarcasm, “Come on, let’s finish up so we can sit at the front desk and do nothing until somebody comes by.” |