Wrestling with bruised hours

[lance]

Admin note Collaborative thread - Lance/Pyro. Not God-modding

Lance felt detached as he followed what seemed to be a long forgotten road. The overgrown trees dwarfed him and the overhead branches seemed to lock him in. Was this a premonition of what was to come? Was a place that was so dark to get into where he really wanted to be? As the trees thinned out and the house came into view he couldn't help being stunned into a frozen tableau.

The tall gothic architecture loomed over the surrounding area like the dark castles seen in horror stories. This was added to with the broken roof and rundown look of the windows and walls. Lance thought he saw shadows running across the windows and tried to convince himself that it was a trick of the light. As if in invitation the front doors creaked open slowly.

Feeling oddly like he was trespassing he slowly walked through them and into what seemed like a foyer. He couldn't hear anything and he really didn't know how he was going to announce his prescence. Dumping his rucksack down on the stone floor he casually leaned on the side wall, waiting for someone to notice him.

< Rise and shine>

Pyro was not, and never would be, a morning person. With a noise both pitiful and 'piss off', which sounded vaguelly like "Nyhergh", he retreated further into the bed. Unfortunately, it's hard to hide when the voices are in your head.

<Magneto's orders. He wants you to roll out the welcome wagon>

Growling various immaginative curses at the world in general, he scowled and emerged blearily from the knot of covers, making two mental notes. Firstly, picking up hitch-hiking telepaths wasn't the best idea. And secondly, maybe that dorky helmet had some use.

Why? You do it.

<No can do... Boss says it should be a familiar face>

*Scowl* Fine. Now get out of my head

Brilliant. The earth shaker from the bar, no dount.

The cursing continued as he retrieved his lighter, slipped on some trainers (no point changing out of pyjamas, since he was planning on returning to bed once this was dealt with) and trudged downstairs to the foyer.

[lance]

Lance tensed up slightly as he heard what seemed like thundering footsteps slowly tromping down stairs. Standing tall he blocked out what he would consider an emotional expression on his face and brought forward his blank mask. He rather hoped that this wasn't Magneto coming to initiate him into the fold. That cold exterior was somthing he didn't want to deal with this early in the morning.

He was actually quite shocked to see the moody man himself from the bar yesterday standing there with a frumpy expression on his face. Lance took in the rumpled pyjama look and arched one of his eyebrows.

"Going somewhere?"

He said this in a dismissing tone. While he didn't want to anger the guy he felt like an opportunity similar to this would be hard to come by and this type of guy probably needed this type of insult to fuel him into carrying on smoothly.

"Are you?" he shot back, meeting the arched brow with a nonchalant, dismissive glare, flicking the lighter open and shut as per usual. It was too damn early in the morning to deal with jerks. Especially tall ones. "Because if you turn around and keep walking then I can get back to important stuff."

The whole have way better things to be doing right now vibe might have been somewhat depleted, given his current appearence, but the combination of attitude and reputation should still have said Hardened Mutant Terrorist, which was one thing Lance couldn't compete with.

Hardly the welcome Magneto wanted him to give, perhaps. But whatever. Pyro had had it with arrogant newbies dismissing him out of hand, and there was already one too many smug jack asses in the new Brotherhood (by that meaning the 'charming' Cajun). It was just Lance's bad fortune that he had caught Pyro in a worse mood than usual, and decaffinated to boot. It wasn't going to be pretty.

[lance]

So he wanted to play. Lance didn't like to loose and knew he could properly win this round if he played it right.

"What, your pyjama party running long?"

There's nothing better than insulting a man in his p.j.'s. These made Lance feel at an advanage. His own worn, but comfortable, clothes suited his personality and made him look like more of a badboy. The other guy in his girly jammies looked like a cross between his mother and a dog. This wasn't helped by his height, he knew that if he brought himself to his full height, the other guy would have trouble meeting his chin.

Honestly, he looked like such a joke.

Ouch.... was that meant to be an insult? Wow, now he was really scared. Mutant prison camps no problem, but witty quips like that?

Asshole.

"Well, i'd hate to keep my friends waiting, Mr Fuck and Mr Off. I should introduce you."

Bloody tall mutant country bumpkin, thinking he could come in here and shoot his mouth off. Pyro was losing what little patience he had, tiring of this game before it had really begun. Lance's witticisms weren't much of a challenge, and so rather than holding his interest they were just really annoying.

"Is there a reason you're here shouting your mouth off? Because if not, you picked the wrong house to stage stand-up... Spill, or bugger off. Your choice"

[lance]

Lance shook his head, almost in denial of the fact that the other guy was talking. His attempts at insults were grainy at best and Lance couldn't seem to pull out any humour at all from the situation. Did he really want to be here? Was this bullshit some sort of test he had to go through to get in? Lance really couldn't figure it out.

"Didn't your daddy tell you I was coming? Obviously not, after all I can't really see you as the trustworthy guy of the group."

Lance slung his backpack back onto his shoulder and stepped forward, looking as if he hadn't already been standing there doing nothing but scanning for inconsistenties. Standing straight he looked back into the other guys eyes, straight on.

"Who are you anyway... The resident butler or something?"

His impatience was showing as the sound of grinding teeth came through. Lance's fingers moved almost musically as he sensed the earth beneath his feet, it would be more than easy to make the ground move for this git but he definately wasn't worth it.

[Sherridan Kaine]

It is early morning. One of Sherridan's favorite times of the day, accompanied with the period from dusk to dawn. For some odd reason, Sherridan needed only about four hours of sleep per day, and he usually got this in his cat-naps. Still, he got little sleep in this new surrounding. It was still slightly odd for him to have met Magneto in a bar like that, and then being almost immediately accepted in the brotherhood.

So at this point he is sitting on his bed, looking at the wall, and thinking, wallowing in his own need for vengeance. It has driven him to a path completely opposite of what his parents wanted him to take. And for one quick single moment, Sherridan sees his life in retrospective, and thinks about what would have happened if he had chosen the other path.

It was always like this when he turned a new chapter in his life. And then he stands up and gets dressed in his usual clothes- dark jeans with a hole for his long tail, and a black tank top. He is bare-footed and there is a black chain around his neck. Twenty sharp claws extract from his fingers and a bit unusual toes, and Ferus gets out of the room while climbing a vertical wall. His favorite ways of travel have always been vertical and upside-down wall-crawling.

Soon enough, the 6'5" tall (or in his current position, long) 23-year old gets to the place where two other mutants seem to be arguing somewhat. Using the fact that he is upside-down, on the ceiling directly above them, Sherridan decides to drop in, in a way. He lets go with his hands, and in a couple of seconds is literally hanging with his head pointing downwards, and somewhere in the same line Pyro's head is, and giving the two mutants a slight smile- one that doesn't mean anything, it is just a product of years and years of being brought up to be a gentleman.

"Hello." he says simply, his arms crossed on his chest and his long tail hanging loosely somewhere around the height of Pyro's stomach. Sherridan has decided to go with black panther fur this time. And he finally got that perfect shave done. The one he had been planning for a week now.

[Pyro]

[Yay Ferus! (S’okay Lance, I asked him to join us) And yay for present tense, which I shall now be switching to. Lance, feel free to continue as per normal). Boo for crappy posting, which I am sorry to inflict on you.]

Daddy, as Lance so gallingly puts it, has been neglecting to mention more than a few things recently, and Pyro doesn’t like feeling he’s outside the loop. He likes even less being reminded of that fact, especially by someone he can’t help but plot numerous ways of killing. Everything Lance is doing, in fact, is like a red flag to a bull... and Pyro’s always had a low spark point, so when the Earthshaker starts flexing his muscles the only surprising thing about his own response is how long it’s taken for him to reach that point. Because now this guy is on his turf, and is continuing to piss him off, the click-click-fwoosh of a fireball forming is inevitable and only right and proper.

”Second in command, farmboy. Shame your Daddy’s back in Hicksville where you can’t hide behind him, because...”

Before things can get any more interesting, or indeed messy (because there’s only one way that would end, and it’s not going to be pretty), they’re somewhat fortuitously interrupted. By a 6 foot cat, as if things weren’t surreal enough.

It takes a couple of seconds for the firestarter to realise he’s not still dreaming, because no matter how long he’s in this game Cat People are still going to belong in books and B-movies and not hanging from the ceiling in what is now his home, and a few more before the part which knows they’re ‘normal’ in his world clicks in – too late to stop his deadpan ”Okay... when Magneto said he’s brought home a stray I was thinking something less literal...”

[Sherridan Kaine]

The short mutant is lucky that it is morning. If he had said that at any other time of the day, ten claws would already be doing their systematic plastic chirurgy on his face. But Sherridan was exceptionally well today, so he decides to just play nicely. Or as nice as possible at least.

The smile on his face remains there, and no emotions come in or out of that part of his face. And only ice comes out of his light blue eyes. "Now, I wouldn't say that those exact words are the most warm of welcomes, are they? And I'm not exactly stray, since I have an apartment and a job, even though they're not top-notch." he replies, not saying a single thing about the fact that his money could probably help redecorate this whole place into something marveled by millions of people all across the globe. Or at least get it close- the house seems to be in very bad shape.

"You could at least have tried to get our names before lashing out... To shorten your troubles, mine is Ferus." Sherridan adds, his voice still the diplomatic, slightly-friendly tone every single rich person used when either conversing with strangers, or with enemies.

Although his voice shows no trace of hostility, no hand is produced to be shaken, and his tail is strangely stiff in its almost linear position. Finally falling silent, Sherridan looks up and down (or down and up, whichever way you like to think of it) the two mutants. During this examination, the only part of his body that moves are his eyes, and even they move around so quickly that the movement itself can barely be seen.

They stop for a few moments on the angry mutant's pajamas, and then once more on the equipment of the other one. Talk about lack of morning people. I would probably find friends faster if I went to mausoleum than here. he thinks as his eyes stop at the eyes of the mutant he has been speaking with. So far, the other one was of no interest whatsoever.

After a while, Ferus starts getting a slight headache due to the blood running down in his brain thanks to the upside-down position, so he decides to drop. Naturally, he lands on his feet and is not out of balance at all. Even during the fall, his body showed immense grace in its every movement. Still in a slightly hunched position, Ferus feels the floor he is standing on, and then straightens to his full height, which is all but negligible.

And probably one of the more strange things about Sherridan is that he is "so goddamn tall", in the words of his late grandmother, and yet still expresses so much flexibility in every move, that it seems like his whole body is in some strange, fourth dimension, where space doesn't mean much.

And indeed, there was not a single gymnastics exercise Sherridan couldn't do better than anyone else in his old high school. But that is now all the far gone past. Not in the general sense of time, but in the sense of the course of events that had happened through that short time. A careless high-schooler's life seems more far away now than it ever was.

NO! Stop! Don't go there! That is a dead end and you know it! Stop going back in time, you are supposed to live today, not yesterday or tomorrow! his inner voice shouts and Sherridan's mind snaps quickly out of the sea of memories that surrounds all the shores of his mind. Perhaps, if he could make himself forget about everything up until joining the brotherhood, his life could get a bit more orderly?

[lance]

Lance just looked at the new addition to their oh so welcoming welcome and nodded. Another one of them that looks like they need their personalities clensed. Lance nodded politely (if that is what you would call it) at Ferus and deciided that he at least needed to tell them his name and he didn't want to go around calling the short one unknown names, it was annoying.

"I'm Avalanche."

He had a feeling that it would be a huge mistake if he went around calling himself Lance. It gave too much of himself away and honestly made himself look like an idiot in front of the others - Magneto, Ferus - they didn't sound like the typical names a mother gave to their bouncy baby boys'. Better to join in with the crowd. It had been his uncle who had christened him Avalanche after he had created a small one near their farm, caused quite a stir, after all it's not often earthquakes happened around their town. Added bonus of scaring the shit out his parents.

Lance looked at ferus with something like admiration. He was obviously upsetting the git in front of them and that earned some brownie points. However Lance wasn't the type to start conversations so just stood there looking between the two others hoping something fun would kick off. Some might say that he had a boring personality but he wouldn't pass up the chance to see something new - fire/fur - which would win?

Lance smiled ferally at the two of them, like he knew something they didn't or that he was one step away from sending their souls to hell. He liked being slightly scary ever so often, it pulled him away from his mightily boring life. Things were starting to get interesting.

[Pyro]

The first thing that strikes him about this ‘Ferus’ – before even the words sink in – is how goddam tall he is (brilliant… would it kill Magneto to bring a midget home once in a while? Pyro could do with the ego-boost, because being the shortest doesn’t exactly do much to dispel the feeling of being stuck as the resident ‘kid’). He might be a little quick on the trigger, but that doesn’t mean Pyro has no idea how to pick his fights, and truth be told he’s fairly attached to this face and doesn’t fancy finding out whether Ferus has claws to go with the tail and all.

Still, it’s not in him to just sit back and let anyone mark him down… especially not a newcomer, regardless of how they tower over him, or how likely they are to kick his ass. Ferus height also has at least one advantage; it makes ‘Avalanche’, or whatever his name is, look short, which makes it easier to disregard him, meeting his introduction with a dismissive yeah, whatever sneer before turning back to Ferus. From what he can remember of what little Magneto told him, the guy is a real fanboy, which should give him something of an advantage… maybe.

The words - ”Pyro. You might have heard of me…” – don’t exactly trip off the tongue, sounding annoyingly pretentious and self-loving, but the postscript at least comes naturally. ”I’d say it’s a pleasure, but that’d be a lie. If you’re expecting a warm welcome” – he tosses the fireball, the pun potential not passing him by – ”this isn’t the place. We’re the Brotherhood of Mutants, not a finishing school”

[Sherridan Kaine]

Ferus's eyes narrow a little as he tries to recollect the files on a certain Pyro. Ah, yes, the X-moron traitor. Wow, Ferus had definitely imagined him as a bit taller. "You're the X-moron traitor, eh? Funny, I imagined you a bit...well, more, you know. I mean, shouldn't bodies expand when faced with heat?" he replies but then waves his last comment with a dissmissive smirk.

"But enough charades, I know about you. I have pretty much everything the government and several individual fan-groups have gathered memorized. You did some impressive work." he continues with a knowing tone coloring his voice.

"And I wasn't looking for a warm welcome, merely not a I-just-woke-up-don't-touch me one. And I know that this here is the Brotherhood. Although you do resemble more of a cousin than a brother." one more comment is shot Pyro's way.

Ferus is like that- he makes fun of pretty much everyone until he gains respect for them. And Pyro's half way there, he just needs to try a bit harder and all the comments will disappear. Maybe.

"You were among the first members of the Brotherhood, right? You joined during the Alkali lake incident. Good fight at Alcatraz, I've heard. You were facing your opposite, right? I must say that the last few details were merely rumors overheard in bars, so I have to verify." and with that, a silence falls in the hall. He is done talking. Throughout the whole speech, the steady, knowing, and overall calm tone was dominant.

[lance]

Lance sighed to himself. His thoughts tumbled around, ranging from why the hell am I here? and these people really are freaks. He honestly wasn't impressed by these guys, they seemed to be trying to mark territory and it didn't take a genius to realise that they needed to get along if they ever wanted to get somewhere. Listening to them seemed better than putting himself forward in the conversation.

"You were among the first members of the Brotherhood, right? You joined during the Alkali lake incident. Good fight at Alcatraz, I've heard. You were facing your opposite, right? I must say that the last few details were merely rumors overheard in bars, so I have to verify."

Interesting... Lance wasn't the most knowledgable of people. He tried to keep up with all of the information but bits and pieces always seemed to be hidden away from him. Learning more about the people around this place was one of his top objectives, he didn't want to be made a fool of.

Honestly he didn't seem to take to the two men next to him seriously. They seemed to be full of childish insults aimed at scoring points off each other and it just didn't impress him.

[Pyro]

”Any more midget jibes y’want to get out of your system?” His tone, at least, is light, though the scowl which accompanies it is the sort which, if killing by sight was his power, would have Ferus 6 foot under. Really his degree of control is admirable, because the cat-dude really is asking for a healthy dose of flaming death and Pyro would be more than happy to hand it to him… though for the moment the voice reminding that barbecued Brothers are not much use to Magneto holds sway. Just.

The rest of his speech, Pyro is unsure how to take. Parts are flattering – far more so than he’d ever admit, because that sort of fanboyism is just pathetic, and he’s far too mature and, well, cool to let it go to his head (erm… yes) – parts piss him off (because the jibes keep coming thick and fast, bloody comedian) and parts are… embarrassing. Because Alctatraz is still somewhere he doesn’t want to have to revisit, even if the word on the street seems to be in his favour.

”Did?” He decides to concentrate on Ferus’ appraisal of his work. That way he can turn this back to a don’t mess with me vibe, an area he’s more comfortable in. ”Tip of the iceberg, Whiskers. Best is yet to come. Stick around and you might get your fanboy rocks off first hand rather than collecting scraps.”

Okay.. maybe that last bit isn’t the best idea, because it sounds dangerously like an invitation, which sort of contradicts how piss the hell off his whole demeanour has been thus far. But whatever. He’ll blame it on the caffeine withdrawal, should an excuse be needed. Speaking of which… breakfast wouldn’t be a bad idea just now, would it?

[Magneto]

Magneto had heard a good part of the conversation between all three boys as she neared the foyer and his reaction to such testosterone driven meetings was less than favorable. Pyro's anger problem was annoying enough but his jealousy was almost unbearable in situations such as these. You would think with the way Magneto treated him, taking him in and teaching him the tricks of the trade and all, that the boy would know better. With a heavy sigh, Magneto rounded the corner and entered the room, putting his hands behind his back as he did so. He wore gray dress slacks and a high collared shirt, his hair slicked back as always and his blue eyes as chilling as ever. He stopped and looked to each person within the room in turn, starting and stopping with Pyro. "If your all done with your sandbox argument," he said letting the disapproval show through in his voice and tone.

Magneto expected Pyro to take charge in situations such as these, but the way he chose to handle this situation was less than desirable. The boy would need a few lessons in tact if he was to be any real success in his position. One name popped in Magneto's head when he thought about who could teach the boy the fine arts of manipulation and that was his most trusted....Mystique.

[Sherridan Kaine]

"Look, I'm not here to fight, and don't flatter yourself with the fan-boy comment. First off..." he is cut off by the appearance of Magneto. He falls silent, but only for a few seconds.

"Not quite the most welcoming welcome wagon you sent here." he comments, but then goes back into his prior position hanging upside down from the roof. His claws are in the same place as earlier. Sherridan has always been careful to preserve walls as much as possible, so that they last longer.

Rough walls were easy, but not fun to climb. His arms are once more crossed over his chest as he watches with interest to see how the situation develops further. Of course, he will say what he has to say. Even if he does respect Magneto, he is not going to let him influence the words that come out of his mouth.

[lance]

The introduction of the influential Magneto into the 'welcoming meeting' added an extra fizz to the atmosphere of the group. Lance just puffed out an annoyed breath and lent against the wall again for support. He sent a warning glance to the other new guy and wondered what the hell he was playing at. Being cautious in nature he would never be so forthright as to be sarcastic to one of the most powerful mutants on the earth and by the tone of the guy's voice he wasn't in the best mood.

Avalanche was worried that he had made the right choice. No one here seemed that decisive enough to be doing anything important. These were the guys that hoped to bring about mutant rights. At the moment it seemed just like a big joke. Sure Magneto had the personality and drive to even attempt to pull it off but add the firecracker and catman and a recipe is made for damn destruction. God only knows who else they have hidden in this place, maybe mutant blobs or something. At the moment it was feeling like a huge waste of time.