PULSE (pulses) wrote in x_aftermath_x, @ 2008-07-13 19:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | levity, pulse |
Who: Levity, Pulse
When: Monday, July 28th, 2008 (evening)
Where: Xavier's; dorms
What: KILL IT, KILL IT!
Status: complete
Rating: PG
It was huge. Seriously. She'd been reading her book, minding her own business when it sneaked up on her. Big damn spider. Eddie screamed and bolted off the bed, ending up near the door. It was hell being an arachnophobe. She stood there for a moment, staring at it, contemplating what to do. Zap was with Ronan and if she went down there to get her, she knew the spider would move somewhere else and she wouldn't be able to find it and it would surprise her later. Screw that. The spider twitched, causing Eddie to back away further and open the door, putting herself halfway into the hall. If it wasn't taken care of then she would be spending the rest of the night sleeping in the library because she wasn't staying in there with that thing. It was dinnertime for many, so they weren't in their rooms. Hell. She wandered down the hall, probing the minds nearby. Gus! She stopped at his door. Eddie could feel that he was slightly frustrated about something. She hoped he wasn't too busy with what he was working on. She reached out and knocked on the door a few times and stood there, staring back at her door, like the spider would crawl out from under it any second. One of the (very few) items he had picked up during his most recent travels was sitting on Pulse's desk, and he stared at it with furrowed brow, only his tripod between he and the thing. It may have been the only thing keeping him from throwing it out the window. He had traded some of his last food to a female morlock for the piece. It was a gold colored goblet that had caught his eye and he decided he needed it straight away. What the hell he planned to do with it was anyone's guess. Of all the things and people he had to take pictures of, he was putting an awful strain on himself by attempting to photograph the thing; mostly to give it a purpose and to make him feel better about losing his last pack of granola bars. No matter what he did, however (back-lighting, laying it on its side, using a dramatic colored dropcloth...) helped him want to capture the thing. Stupid freakin' cup. The gargoyle on the base grimaced at him in mockery and he was about to shut the camera off and teach it a lesson when someone knocked on his door. "Come in..." he said, loudly enough, he supposed. He pulled the camera from the tripod and began fiddling with the lighting adjustments as he turned to face the door. Eddie heard Pulse's voice and snapped her head around to face his door as her hand turned the knob. She poked her head in, before she stepped inside and closed the door. Her eyes took in his room and what he was working on (pretty goblet) before she looked at him as he messed with his camera. She felt rather silly now. "Hi." she said quietly, giving him a small wave. Gus selected the setting he was after and finally looked up, just before Eddie greeted him. He didn't speak, but quirked an eyebrow and slowly raised the camera so that he could look through the lens, and in the same seamless motion, he snapped a photo of his visitor and lowered the camera again, hurrying to see the outcome. Wide-eyed, timid, a bit startled. Lovely. He smirked to himself and turned on his heel, crouched to one knee to be level with the top of his tripod and snapped a single shot of the ugly cup that had been haunting him. He stood again and shut the camera off. He knew he had it - he didn't need to check, and he had a guest who didn't deserve anymore of his rudeness. "Hey Ed," he told her as he settled the thing back into its home atop the tripod. "How many times have you done that? Too many..." he trailed off. She was half-muse, he knew. Her mother had to have been some forest-dwelling sprite woman. Or maybe her dad had been? Before she could turn away or cover her face, Gus had already taken a picture. There was no use asking him to get rid of it, because she knew he wouldn't. Crap. Instead, she watched him as he snapped a picture of the goblet. So that was what was giving him trouble. The question sounded like a rhetorical one, so she wasn't sure she should answer. She smiled, deciding to speak anyway. "Always happy to help." She glanced around and noticed a fly buzzing around the room and it brought her mind back to the reason she'd come there in the first place. She needed a spider-killer. "Hey, uh," she lifted her hands up to her chest to fiddle with the necklace that hung there (a nervous habit) and shifted her feet slightly. "Would you come and kill a spider for me?" She really hoped it hadn't moved since she'd last seen it. And she really hoped Gus wasn't afraid of spiders. She gave him a half-hearted smile as she awaited his answer. Ah. Gus nodded, knowingly. He'd done it before; he'd do it again. Spiders weren't usually a favorite of human beings, specifically of the female persuasion. He moved for the door after Edana and gestured for her to exit, "Don't expect any of that heroic stuff. I use my shoe," he informed her and chuckled. "Lead on; it's the least I can do." He smirked, but it was a sincere one. She looked a bit fidgety, and from what he recalled, the bookworm had major issues with web-spinners. "How big is it?" he was genuinely curious. "Doesn't matter to me as long as it dies." she said seriously, but gave him an appreciative smile before she moved through the door. When he asked how big it was, she lifted her hand and made a 'c' shape with her thumb and index finger about the size of a walnut. "Freaking huge." She shuddered. "It was right next to me." When they reached her door, she flung it open, and moved her eyes to the bed. The spider had moved down the bed some, but it was still there. Thank god for that. She didn't move any further into the room, not knowing what would take place. She raised her arm and pointed towards the bed, though she realized it was obvious where it was. "Thank you." she said, taking a step back, so she was in the hallway. Gus moved into the room around his hesitant friend and eyed the area she was pointing. It was in the middle of her bed, toward the wall. He stepped up close to the bed and crouched down. He didn't want to get it dirty with his foot and the thing was huge, so he decided to grab a sheet of computer paper from the desk (Zap's; it was a mess, and Eddie had an office). He kneeled onto the bed and adjusted his lounge pants so when he crawled toward it they wouldn't droop. His arm angled and he bent his wrist so he came between the spider and the wall. Nothing, however, was between he and the spider. He watched it carefully, then coaxed it onto the paper with his free hand. Once it twitched to life, it made for the top of the sheet and his hand, and he immediately crumpled the whole mess into a wad and kept crumpling until he was sure it was dead. "All clear," he called to the door where a pair of spooked eyes still lingered. He grinned. "You guys should've been charging him rent. Jesus." He moved from the bed and tossed the paper into the waste can that was closer to the door. "You okay?" he asked with a laugh in his voice. She watched him as he crawled on the bed and tried to coax the monster onto a piece of paper. Eddie let out a gasp when it charged his hand and took an involuntary step backwards. If that thing got on him, she wasn't taking the chance of him flicking it off near her. She couldn't help but laugh at his actions when he hastily scrunched the paper into a ball. "I know, right?" she agreed about the rent. Stupid spiders. "Yeah," she grinned as she moved into the room, stopping next to him. "Thanks again." She threw her arms around him in a hug. "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been around." "No problem," he told her and leaned his head against hers in return of the hug. He shifted to face Eddie then and gestured to the abandoned book on her bed that he'd nearly knee-danced on. "What're ya readin', Miss Muffet?" he pursed his lips to keep from smirking and crossed his arms at his chest while awaiting her answer. Eddie smiled at the name and glanced down at the book briefly, before looking back up at Gus. "Lord of the Rings. Fellowship." She'd been wanting to re-read them for a while now. She got tired of psychoanalyst stuff and textbooks (plus she had more free-time on her hands as of late). "You like Tolkien?" she asked as she reached down to pick up the book then held it at the level of her stomach in both hands. Gus nodded approvingly as the answer came. "I've only seen the movies," he admitted, but reached forward and thumped her book with a flick of his index finger. "You'll have to let me read them when you're done." Or he could track a copy of the first down in the library. "Sometimes," in the past few months, that is, "I felt like Sam. On the road and all that. It wasn't the most fun." But he'd had a purpose. Nothing as selfless, he supposed. "I'm a Gandalf fan, myself. Is he the same in the books as he is in the movies?" By this point, the brunette had found himself a seat via the desk chair and was looking up at Eddie. "Yeah, sure." Eddie said of the book borrowing. She was always glad when people were interested in reading books she was into. Then she could talk to them about them. Her mind shifted to Brian momentarily. He had been her reading buddy before... yeah. She forced the thought back and gave Gus a small smile when he sat in the chair. "Yeah, I can imagine." she said seriously, lowering herself down onto the edge of her bed to be more at his level. "He's awesome. And yeah, he's almost exactly like in the movies, only book Gandalf is sassier." She briefly explained how Sir Ian had put in his own opinions on how they should stick as close to the book as possible on certain things. "Ian McKellan rocks hardcore." |