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The Perk, Monday Afternoon

Okay, so Kathy's first class hadn't been what people would consider a raging success. How were you supposed to handle multiple students--including the class TA--telling you to run away while you still could? She'd think it was one more way of hazing the newbies, but everything else she'd dismissed as a hoax was turning out to be true.

Also, it was hot and sticky as balls out here. Well, metaphorical balls. She presumed. Maybe hot and sticky as the underside of boobs? You know, this metaphor wasn't going anywhere good. Probably a sign of incipient heatstroke. Kathy wasn't sure what she'd been thinking, walking into town like this. She probably should have just gone back to her dorm and started looking up airfare prices home. Nice, safe, boring, overprotective home.

She ordered an iced coffee, then sprawled out on a table, looking at her life. Looking at her choices. Wondering if everything she'd seen so far was actually an advanced case of heatstroke.

[Open! Come bother the newbie, please!]

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Theo wasn't thinking of running away but he was worn out after having to teach a class on a moment's notice. Teaching was not going to be a career for him. Nope. Not ever.

The Perk seemed like a good place to get some caffeine and get into the air conditioning. The heat was making Ange and Dev cranky.

As he passed by Kathy and her sprawl, he half smiled and nodded in greeting as he headed to the counter. He placed a quick order and then leaned against the counter to wait.

Kathy had missed the nod and smile in her attempt to be one with the table, but when the barista yelled, "Iced Coffee up!" she sat up and noticed the other boy.

She gave him a smile and a little wave on her way to the counter to grab her coffee. "Hey."

"Hey," Theo returned when she got closer to the counter. "That must be your order. Good choice especially on a day like this. I think the lower half of my body has melted."

"I think I've lost everything from my ribs down," Kathy said, giving him a tentative kind of smile. "Our teacher made us have class outside today."

Which, you know, made a good case for the possibility of heatstroke. Maybe she could cling to that idea a little longer.

Theo made a face at that. He couldn't imagine sitting outside in this for long periods of time. She had his sympathies.

"I had to teach a class today," he said, laughing a little. "Pretty sure I was sweating the entire time and not because of the temperature. Because I was nervous. And then I walked into town. I must be stupid."

Kathy saluted him with her iced coffee. "To the irretrievably stupid, then." Hey, she was here, too. Also feeling stupid.

"You taught a class? Are you a senior or something?" Oh, right. She didn't know anything about this guy and vice versa. "Hi. I'm Kathy. Just arrived this weekend."

Which probably explained the hint of panic in her eyes.

"Theo," he returned with another little nod. "And no, not a senior. Just a guy whose teacher didn't show up and made him teacher's assistant about an hour before class started. I have no urge to ever teach again."

"What teacher?" Kathy asked, mostly so she could know who to avoid. Kathy was pretty serious about schoolwork. A doctor-to-be couldn't afford to be anything but. "So far, all the teachers I've met seem to be really young. Like, just graduated from the school within the past few years young."

Well, the two she'd met so far anyway. And the other teacher she'd seen was a pony. A pink pony. With a blatant disregard for physics.

"Well, according to my class schedule, his name is The Spirit," Theo said and couldn't help sounding dubious. "And that's it. Just The Spirit. It sounds very...comic book."

"I like comics and all, but not to the point where I'd want to be taught by one," Kathy said slowly. "Or, rather, by someone who thinks he stepped out of one."

Of course, everything on this island sounded like it stepped out of a comic or a bad show on SyFy.

"On the other hand, my L.A. has superheroes, so I'm probably not one to talk."

"I'm not new or anything so I know this place can bring some interesting people together but his is probably the most interesting name I've run into."

"Even Ember Silva?" Ange asked, almost sounding teasing.

Theo resisted the urge to groan. That'd just look silly since it wasn't like Kathy knew what he'd be groaning at. "And then I get a little sad because my name's so normal."

"Right now, I'm happy to run into a little normal," Kathy said, giving him a smile. "And, like I said, I'm from an L.A. with superheroes in it, so it's not my weird threshold is all the low."

But she wasn't sure there was anything that could prepare a person for a school like this.

"Hey, you're practically my neighbor," Theo said, grinning. He pointed to himself and said, "Santa Monica. No superheroes, though. Just regular ole Santa Monica."

Sort of.

That got a real grin out of Kathy. She'd never been much for California pride or whatever, but being on the opposite coast and in a land of crazy brought it out for her.

She held up her hand for a high-five. "West Coast is the best coast!"

Oh lord, he was going to think she was SUCH a loser.

She was talking to Mr. Awkward so she didn't have any need to worry. He reached up and slapped her hand because why not?

"And it's a coast I've missed every single day since I've been here," he said with a laugh. "You never know how much you like something till you're not there."

Mr. Awkward and Loser-Girl! Best friends forever!

Though, to be fair, Kathy thought Theo was pretty cool so far. "I know, right? I was never one of those kids who thought that I was special just for living in L.A. I mean, I live in Koreatown; I have to wander over to Hollywood and Vine just like everyone else to see a celebrity. But now I'm here and practically missing the smog and the traffic and the tourists!"

"And the heat that was hot but didn't feel like a swamp," he said, chuckling a little. "Beach here isn't too bad though if you wanna feel a little closer to home. It's not exactly the same but it's close."

There was water and a boardwalk and sand and he did like that even if he was a pale, pale boy.

"So, there's that but there's not much else. I miss a lot about California right now."

California had awesome food, for one.

Yeah, Victor had warned her about the so-called Mexican food on this coast. And Kathy wasn't going to trust any Korean barbecue that didn't come from the heart of Koreatown.

"But a beach might be nice. If I'm going to drown, I'd rather actually be in the water."

Snickering, Theo nodded his agreement with that entire statement. "I haven't tried swimming yet. I tend to go and skateboard, mostly. There's not usually a lot of people so if I fall, no one sees it."

"Skateboarding!" Kathy grins. "Never tried, but it always looked like fun. But maybe I should check out the beach. I've gone swimming, but only in public pools and the like."

Unless you wanted to consider walking through the chewy air swimming. From the way her hair was sticking to her neck, she was inclined to think so.

"If you ever see me out with my board, you should come over," Theo said, pleased to find someone enthusiastic about skateboarding. "I'll let you give it a try. As long as you've got decent balance and not mind falling a time or two, you'll do fine. I'll let you use my board."

"I'm a gymnast," Kathy said, dimpling. "Balance and falling are things I'm really good at."

Hopefully more balance than falling, but she was good at both.

"Well, then maybe you could teach me how to do it," he joked because, well, he fell a lot. "It'd be nice to not fall on my face every so often."

He didn't fall that often but it always seemed to hurt really bad when he did.

"The trick is to fall well," Kathy explained with a laugh. "You can fall as often as you want, so long as you know how to do it right. My first few weeks of gymnastics training was all about falling properly."

"So, I shouldn't fall on my face?" Theo asked, wide eyed and amused. "I wish I'd known that a long time ago because that's where I keep falling. Good thing I have a hard head."

Edited 2013-07-09 03:00 (UTC)

"See, there's your problem," Kathy told him, nodding. "Glad I could clear that up for you."

Some days, sitting in his room and reading quietly to himself just wasn't enough for Evan. Some days, a kid craved socialization, human interaction, the presence of other life!

And some days, you just wanted some coffee while flipping through a book about kids with telepathic talents who had been forced to hide who and what they were in a post-apocalyptic world that feared deviation from a very strict norm. Not exactly light reading for a mutant kid, no, but sometimes Evan wanted to break his own heart a little bit.

It was the girl spread out on the table like a place setting in despair that had him actually blinking up from his own iced coffee and contemplating real interaction.

"Um... Hey, you wouldn't happen to be new, would you?"

Call it a hunch.

"Does it count as being new if you're not sure if you're planning on staying?" Kathy mumbled into the wood of the table. "Otherwise, yes."

"I think it counts double as being new, if you're... maybe finding the island a little intimidating," Evan offered, taking a seat a table away from the girl's. "And that's totally fair. This place can be a bit much to take in. Especially if you've just arrived and people keep telling you horror stories."

They liked telling the horror stories to the new kids.

"My own teacher suggested I run away," Kathy mumbled, slowly picking her head up and turning to look at him. "Talk about disheart--"

She got a good look at Evan and blinked. Then blinked again. "Are you okay?" she asked. "You're looking a little...pale."

"I'm looking..." Evan blinked, looking down at his hands. Milk-white, almost blue under certain lighting. No kidding, he looked pale. He bit his lip and glanced back up at her, looking almost sheepish. "Nah, I'm fine. I... take it you're not from a reality that has mutants in it? This is how I've always looked, I swear. I'm sorry if my appearance was startling, though. I don't want to worry anybody."

"Mutants? Like in Y-People?" Kathy wrinkled her forehead. "Maybe? That might explain some of our heroes?"

But...yeah, not so much. Certainly nobody who looked quite like this boy did. Which she'd just pointed out to him. Ouch.

Wincing, she added, "Err...sorry. Didn't mean to offend."

Aw, new girl. Evan was giving her a soft, if wry, smile.

"I'm not offended, don't worry," he replied. "I know how I look, I've seen this face in the mirror every day, and there aren't very many like it out there. The Y-People is a comic book, right? I keep meaning to pick it up, since I've overheard classmates at my last school talking about how accurate some of it is."

Kathy appreciated that Evan was being so forgiving, but she still felt like an ass. She tried not to be an insensitive jerk much, but that time she'd failed pretty hard.

"They're pretty good," she offered, grabbing hold of the topic change. "Ignore the movies, though. The first one's okay, the rest are pretty lame. Of course, the trouble with the comics is that there are about a million titles and they all have a ton of history behind them."

"That's even better," Evan decided, smiling a little more genuinely. "I like reading, and I have a lot of time on my hands to do it in."

A lot of it. His responsibilities generally involved walking his dog and working one day of the week in the library. Besides classes, he really didn't have much else demanding his attention.

Sholeh would be probably be thrilled to hear that.

"You might be able to torrent a bunch online," Kathy advised. "Trying to buy them all would be expensive as all get out. Maybe find someone who's a collector and see if they'll lend you theirs? Some really cool libraries have a comics section, too. That's how I read comics, growing up."

Sholeh didn't demand his attention. She asked for it nicely and he was all too happy to give it to her. She wasn't a responsibility, either. Responsibilities were too much like chores.

"Libraries!" Evan perked up a little at that. "I didn't even think to see if the school library has copies of it! Ours has all sorts of different things, a little bit of almost everything, so I bet we would!"

"Everything?" Kathy perked up, too. "It does? I haven't seen it yet. So it's a decent size, yeah?"

She wasn't expecting it to be the size of, say, the L.A. Central library, but maybe about equal to one of the smaller branches?

Oh, she had no idea.

"Everything," Evan replied, nodding excitedly. "I work there on Thursdays, you should stop by to visit sometime! It's a really, really neat library. Sometimes it even behaves itself."

...

"You'd like it, I think."

Not gonna ask.

Not gonna ask.

Nope. Not even gonna ask.

"I am a big fan of libraries."

...

...

"Behaves itself?"

Evan decided then and there that he wasn't going to mention the occasional musical number or game of leapfrog that the books were prone to partaking in. That seemed... less than helpful, somehow.

"I'm one of the library's aides," he explained. "Some days, things get pretty hectic in there. Moments when you turn your head for a second, and then next thing you know the whole returns cart is full of books that need to be checked back in and put away..."

See him behave himself? See?

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The Perk, Monday Afternoon

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