capeandcowllogs | Underneath your skies

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Underneath your skies

WHO: John Wayne Cleaver and anyone who might notice large open flames or slightly manic laughter out of an alley
WHERE: A back alley somewhere near the MAC apartments
WHEN: Today, early evening
WARNINGS: Fire, sociopathic/homicidal thoughts
SUMMARY: John is having a hard time adjusting, but figures out at least one of his new abilities.
FORMAT: Prose

John has needs.

John's always had needs, and he's always denied the worst of them. The ones that made him want to hurt animals, the ones that made him want to hurt people. He thinks of the pretty girl that he met over the phone device and he has to close his eyes and will the images that flash through his mind away because she had sunny golden hair like Brooke did and a cute giggle and he knows that if he was a normal teenage boy, he'd be thinking of kissing her. The problem is, he isn't a normal teenage boy. The problem is that he's thinking of her silent and still and cold on the mortuary slab back home, his hand brushing those bright blond strands all he likes, his fingers running over the skin of her arm, the scalpel dipping in and--

Yes, definitely a week. Even if it was over the phone.

Because John also has rules. One of those rules says that if he's imagining killing someone because they're making him angry, he has to smile and compliment them. Another of those rules says that if his thoughts turn inappropriate concerning someone, if he starts thinking of how their hair might smell or how soft their skin might be or how good it would feel to wrap his fingers around that pretty throat, that he has to avoid them for a week. Break the focus. Normally, he isn't this bad. Normally a single phone conversation wouldn't be enough to make him think like this because he doesn't like thinking like this and he doesn't crave these kinds of things this strongly normally.

But right now, nothing is normal. Right now, he's who-knows-how-far away from his home and his car and the peace of the mortuary downstairs. Right now, he can't send himself flying down to Freak Lake by bike, or show up at Max's house to listen to him grouse for two hours while playing video games. He can't use Foreman's phone or work on his plans to kill demons. Everything, all of it, all of his hard-won and tenuous connections are gone and he craves something, anything, to fill the void. But he can't, won't, so there's really one other option.

He knows it's probably illegal, almost definitely illegal, but it's not bad, not really. It won't hurt anyone; he'll make sure of that. After all, if there's anyone who knows how to watch and care for a fire it's him; fire is his drug and his truest friend and his only ally in so many ways. Fire would distract him, entrance him, soothe the burning ache of a dozen severed stubs in the broken but still-functioning muscle behind his ribs. If he has nothing else, and he really doesn't, then he has fire.

The matches had been in his back pocket, as per usual, and he doesn't even pause between stroking it alight and tossing it in. It all happens so fast that it's only when the debris starts burning within the metal drum that he feels it.

The fire. The fire is in his senses, in his mind. He can feel it like another limb, like a part of him, like it's not the paper and the trash that's fueling it, but him. Eyes slipping closed, he stretches the fingers of this new hand and he feels the flames reach up, stretching with him, almost licking the top of the drum. It's warm, so warm, and he opens his eyes to see that the flames have actually reached the hand still holding the metal.

It doesn't burn.

He is fuel for the fire, heart and mind and soul, but it will not devour him, will not leave him ashes and dust. It feeds on him but he feeds on the fire and his heart sings like the feel of a fist meeting flesh, the crack of a bone, the wild rage of control and fear and power his, all his. He can't help it, can't stop himself as he sends the flames higher. Logically he knows that the fire won't last as long if he builds it up like that, the fuel will be all used up. But nothing makes sense anymore and gloriously, fire doesn't have to either. It is it's own logic, it's own law, it's own world, burning and burning on the anger and the pain and the frustration inside of him.

He doesn't even know what he's doing as he pulls it into his hands, warm and enveloping but without pain. It just feels good, and feeling good is usually so rare he almost doesn't recognize it each time it happens. Better yet, it comes with no guilt; he hasn't done anything wrong and maybe he never has to again, who knew? Who knew anything at all because he can have fire without destroying anything or harming anyone, fire to fill up his soul and make it warm where no one else seemed to without fear. He'd know later that that wasn't true, that he was high on his drug of choice, but for right now it's such a good thought he can't let it go. He won't let the fire go either.

Sitting in an alley, in a world entirely different from his own, away from everyone and everything he's ever known, John is happier than he's ever been since he was a toddler. The shame and the reason and the anxiety might come later, but right now he's happy. Happy and laughing and holding onto the flames like he never wants to let go.

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The apartments were a far, far cry from the type of structure that Azula deemed acceptable for a long-term residence. Quaint enough for a temporary abode, certainly, that she could concede. She had spent the better part of a year running around after her useless, and far too inconsiderate, idiot of an elder brother, after all. She had stayed in worse. It was simply the knowledge that there was no palace to return to here that chaffed. Certainly, something would need to be done about it. In time.

For now, she spent as little time within the building as possible. There was an entire society to catch up on still, a world to understand if she wished to influence it in any meaningful way. Still, it had to be returned to from time to time...unless, like tonight, a distraction chose to present itself. Azula, dressed in her now typical pants suit, stood in the mouth of the alley for a short time, observing the laughing boy. Had it been any element save fire, she likely would have walked on. As it was, however, the sight brought a smirk to her face. How lovely.

She began to walk towards the flame.

"My, you seem to be enjoying yourself."

The laughing stops immediately because he's an intensely private person, not that he isn't still grinning like a madman, and the fire is carefully lowered until it looks almost normal. But it's still there, still in his head and fingers and toes, in his blood, and it's odd that he's smiling, genuinely smiling, as he looks at her. Because he wasn't doing anything wrong, so why be ashamed? Why be scared? This place made him like this. And really, a little scorching around a metal drum is practically a love letter to him right now.

"I'm not bothering you, am I?"

And it doesn't come off angry or frustrated and especially not ashamed. He's still high off of it; he's practically giddy.

"If you were, you wouldn't need to ask. You'd know."

She tilts her head as the fire goes down, making a small hum of consideration when she finally reached the barrel and stopped walking. Azula looks from the flame back up to his face, the smile slowly growing. He didn't sound particularly contrite, and that suited her fine given the situation. It was always so terribly dull when someone was embarrassed regarding their own power.

"Now. Can you do it again?"

He stares at her a little too long, a little too intently for someone who understands social graces even if he obviously follows them, before nodding his head. Then his eyes are on the flames and there's really nothing else. There is a pretty girl standing beside him, but you couldn't tell from him.

He's not trying to impress her. He's just diving in again, pulling the fire up and into his hands, his arms, coaxing it like the beautiful, feral beast it is. He isn't using his power; he's living with it, his features more animated, his eyes finally alive for anyone who'd actually look past the polite facade.

Edited 2011-08-26 17:42 (UTC)

"Lovely."

And it was. She wouldn't admit to something as trite as homesickness. She was a Princess and, more than that, the right and proper heir to the throne. Missing daddy was an inexcusably weak thought, one deserving of her brother. But she did miss the fire. When one grew up surrounded by those who controlled it as easily as breathing, entering this place, where even the lights were provided by electricity rather than proper flame, left a bit of a hollow spot behind. She'd do anything for even a proper Agni Kai.

She shifted her gaze down from the fire licking up his arms back to his face. Well now. Wasn't that interesting?

"Hm. Do you know how to use it?"

He looks up now, almost as if he's seeing her for the first time again.

"I don't need to use it. It does what it wants. It is. Until it's not. It's perfect."

The small, sane corner of his mind that is very much not driving kicks the back of the seat and his features settle into something a little less reverent, a little more aware. The flames stay where they are, though, the giddiness in his chest hiccuping up and down as his fingers play through the flickering edge.

"I know what fire can do." He knows all about it. "But that isn't what you mean. What do you mean?"

Azula only smiles and takes a step back at the second question. Unlike certain members of her family, she had been raised with manners. When it suited her, at least. So she gave a small imitation of a bow before she held her hands forward, palms up, and a globe of dancing flame appeared in each.

"But it can do more. It can do what you want, now can't it?"

Edited 2011-08-26 18:11 (UTC)

He watches the flames in her hands, feels them in some sense he can't name. He won't touch them; that fire is hers and he has plenty of his own.

It takes a moment, but soon enough he's taken the fire from the barrel and from his arms and shrunk it down to two balls in his hands as well. He's grinning, not that he realizes that.

He offers a short bow to her, since she'd offered a nod to him.

"Seems so."

She lets out a short, sharp laugh, her eyes, to run with the theme, nearly glowing in approval. Better than Zuko. Not saying much, granted, small children managed that. But it was a start. It was obviously a different kind of power than real, proper fire bending, she observed. But given the excess of mental and earth benders in this wretched city, she wasn't about to complain.

With a flick of her wrist Azula set one of the ball flying through the air to crash into the brick side of the alley wall, then pivoted on her heel and pointed the fingers of the same hand to send a thin pillar after it to hit the same mark, the flames smoldering momentarily before fading into nothing but a black scorch. The other globe was then lightly tossed from the one hand into her other, now free hand, as she grinned at him.

"Let's see how much, hm?"

He watches what she does, trying to think of how to ask the fire to do that. That isn't fire's natural form, not how fire works, and he's not sure if he can ask it to be something so different from what it should.

Tossing the ball into the brick is easy enough, leaving a dark black smudge on the brick. His own hand raised, flames pour out from nowhere at all, now that he knows how to flex the muscle, make it act, and he hits the spot as well. His flames lick and flicker and come out in more of a cone than a pillar, but he hits the mark.

He doesn't toss the globe, curious at his own abilities instead. He concentrates on it and it floats up, away from his hand in front of him.

"Have you always been able to do this?"

"Of course," she replies breezily. "It's who I am. Let me guess, the City gave it to you, right?"

The City was making knock-off fire benders. Now that was encouraging. How many more could be out there? It was a question for another time, of course, for now her focus was on the one she did have. A most promising one a that. She kept track of the floating fire out of the corner of her eye, focusing her attention instead on his face. Well. He certainly didn't seem afraid of it.

He nods but his attention is on the little ball of flame. He floats it back into his hands, slipping his fingers in again to feel the heat.

"I couldn't do that at home. I used to have to make my fires the normal way."

"Then we'll have to see how much more you can do. Won't we."

Despite the cheerful tone and smiling face, it's simple to pick up Azula isn't really asking a question. The boy interested her, whether that would prove ill or beneficial to either of them would have to to be seen. Or, more importantly to her thinking, whether it would prove ill or beneficial to her would be seen. How it affected him wasn't much of her concern.

"But where are my manners. My name is Azula. And you?"

He meets her eyes now and something in him recognizes something in her tone and her smile and everything else. It's the fact that she has an objective, that she wants something. It doesn't make him uncomfortable, or even bother him.

That's usually how he talked to people too, when he wasn't careful.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude either. My name is John. I just arrived a day or so ago."

Edited 2011-08-26 20:05 (UTC)

"How difficult for you."

Azula's smile at him grew slightly as she steps forward, going around the barrel now to simply approach him. Some people stepped back in the face of that expression, closer to a pleased bearing teeth than anything resembling the joy expressed in polite society, but she was wasn't sure with this one. Even her mother had thought she was a monster because of little signs like this, had tried to change her for the greater good. But her mother should have realized the world was filled with monsters.

"I haven't been here too long, myself. I imagine it might be easier with friends, hm?"

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