Yum... Brains. [Pre-Halloween, Manslaughter]

[Pyro]

Childish, John? Hardly. Sentimental? Never. The sort to get all weird over a holiday? P-lease.

But Halloween? Well, that was different, wasn’t it? Special. The sort of holiday worth celebrating, because it wasn’t about family and nostalgia and stuff like that. Okay, so it could have been improved with, say, a few more fireworks and a few less cutesy kids demanding candy, but on the whole the *kitsch and spooky* thing was oddly appealing. Which was how come the acknowledged cynic, scrooge and otherwise general holiday wrecker was currently engaged, with almost religious reverence, in hollowing out the mother of all pumpkins, as testified by the weird cloying fleshy stench throughout the ground floor and the splatters of orange goop currently decorating the kitchen counters, walls, ceiling...

Because it was something that had to be done, obviously, one tradition halfway worth marking. This was after all the last Halloween when he could sort-of get away with it, given that next year he’d be *shudder* 20, and therefore *shiver* sort of an adult. Besides, given the heavy shit going down with the naval battles, his newfound responsibility and… erm, all the other stuff (because most of that stuff was definitely not to be thought about) this sort of random immaturity was… necessary, almost, an important part of staying something like sane.

[Manslaughter]

He shouldn't be down here. No no no. It was bad. Very bad. But Roger was oh-so curious, and besides.. would Magneto be opposed to just a little freedom from the attic? Most likely. But it was never too hard for him to slink past the others without being noticed.

To the majority of souls around him, his feet would not make a sound on the floor. He had even passed someone in the hallway, but they did not so much as glance up, considering that he waited until he was well out of direct viewing range to continue on. As usual, he is buried within the folds of his old sweatshirt, the sleeves falling well past the pale tips of his fingers and making him seem smaller. Roger's eyes dart about tentatively, casually taking note of any psyches lingering near. Slipping his hands into his pockets, the redhead pauses as he hears a slight commotion coming from the kitchen. Even from where he is standing he can smell the almost sickly odor of.. something coming from the room.

Roger.. Roger be careful with the knife, honey. Here. Use a spoon. So mom gives him a spoon. It is a nice spoon.. And he starts to dig out the inside of the pumpkin with it. It looks like a brain...

Peeking into the area, Roger seems unphased by the sight of pumpkin goo that is literally clinging to almost every square foot of the kitchen. His blue-grey eyes curiously lock upon John with mild interest. "...what are you doing?" he asks, as though it is not obvious, despite the rather monstrous pumpkin.

[Pyro]

John glances up to the doorway at the voice. Shock one – that someone’s managed to sneak up on him (which shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given how absorbed he’s been in the pumpkin carving, but still) – is knocked clean out of the water by shock two.

Okay, maybe it shouldn’t be at all headspinning that there’s a Brotherhood member he doesn’t know lurking around the place – he’s been busy, after all, and Magneto’s gone into overdrive on the recruitment, and it’s not like Buckethead runs everything past him… Besides, he’s never been especially social, so not running into someone’s nothing of special note. But still. It’s odd. And this kid is… kind of freaky, really. Different. Magneto doesn’t usually go in for recruiting anyone so… childlike. Which means there’s got to be something special about him, which is disconcerting, because special in Magneto’s world usually means something like human nuclear power plant or can kill with a thought. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Still, he can’t afford to get nervous. He’s sort of second-in-command, isn’t he (not that he looks like much at the moment, tearing into the mushy orange goop with childish maniacal glee and then doing the whole *rabbit in the headlights* routine)? So getting freaked out by any mutie would be wrong on a great many levels, while shrugging and flicking a few unruly strands of fringe back with the back of his wrist (because his hands are all… icky) before grinning – ”Redecorating” - and launching back into the hollowing is only right and proper.

"You're new, right?"

[Manslaughter]

Roger's eyes seem to bore right into every minor detail about John, looking over him shyly just as a young child would when meeting someone for the first time. He can almost feel the start he gave the brunette, the microscopic flutter of a heart like a butterfly wing, but he pays no mind to it, as he is used to that sort of response. Redecorating.. The boy raises his eyebrows slightly, as if truely believing that the other male was setting about to lavish the entire room with the pungent, orange glop. It wouldn't be pretty at all.

You're new, right?

A pause of silence is all John gets in reply for a moment, and Roger by now has slowly entered the room, trailing his thin fingers across a tabletop. Shrugging his narrow shoulders, Roger seems to think. He draws his lower lip beneath his teeth for a moment, and then releases it. "....I guess so.." He touches a hunk of pumpkin that has landed near him, picking it up between his fingers and turning it over to examine it. In another lapse silence, he presses his fingers together and flattens the pumpkin piece between them, ultimately squishing it until a thin trail of juice starts to run towards his wrist. And then he puts it back on the table without a word.

[Pyro]

... Times like these, John finds himself wishing he was better at so-called *casual* conversation (so-called? Yeah. Because his is never casual, always forced)... or more at ease with uncomfortable silences. The ones the young redhead indulges in are especially uncomfortable, it seems, though whether that’s because he’s so clearly a little... odd, which gives them the air of the pause before a snake strikes or something, or because someone so childlike should be babbling away madly because the silence makes them seem like the villain-child-ghost-thing in a Japanese horror flick is both up for debate and not worth thinking about because analysis makes it harder to pretend he’s not freaked. So John does what John does and… doesn’t think about it, just does the equivalent of closing his eyes and thinking *If I can’t see it it’s not real and can’t see me*.

The oddness of his reply (guess? Either y’are or you aren’t…) hardly helps - ”Right…”.

Yep... damn awkward silences. Stupid things begging to be filled with words.

”So…” – he’s up to his elbow in pumpkin, and not looking at Roger (and no, not pointedly not looking, because that’s stupid, right? He’s just… absorbed in something else. Because obviously the pumpkin is fascinating) – ”I guess the spam-bot ate my ‘New Brother’ memo. Where did Er-Magneto scrape you from, then?”

He's got to have a story, right? The new ones inevitably do - usually an angst-athon of epic proportions they're only too willing to share. And normally John doesn't give a damn and refuses to listen. Now he still doesn't exactly care, of course... it's just that any sort of words would be welcome.

[Manslaughter]

Right...

Roger blinks at the word, but says nothing. He starts to trace some imaginary nothings on the table top, casually raking in little bits of pumpkin and appearing to make something out of them. Every now and then he glances up to watch John for a moment, but then equally becomes absorbed in his own task--whatever that task may be. I guess the spam-bot ate my 'New Brother' memo. He pauses and blinks, tilting his head to one side as he wonders what a spam-bot was, wondering if it was indeed a robot that was made of spam, or a robot that liked spam.. Where did Er-Magneto scrape you from, then? It doesn't make sense to Roger, and he finds himself almost saying that Magneto did not scrape him from anywhere.. just found him, but something in the back of his mind is chanting for him to say something else. ...should he tell him?

Pain. Pain. Hurt. Scream. They wouldn't take him back. They would never take him back to the white building. Roger just watches as the policeman curses and writhes.

"...a bad place..," Roger murmurs softly, carefully. "But it's okay now.. I'm not going back..," the corners of his mouth curl into a thoughtful smile, and he continues to pick up little pieces of pumpkin and arrange them into an artful display of sorts.

[Pyro]

... okay. Obviously there’s a whole other story there. Something, judging from the silence (because, as he knows well enough, if it’s actually something bad then you don’t want to wax lyrical about it to any and everyone), genuinely fucked up... which would make John feel sorry for bringing it up if he was the sort to do anything more than nod to that kind of thing. As it is, it just presents him with another dead space, sigh (and prompts his more cynical side to note that it’s not a bad strategy when it comes to finding the blindly loyal… because if you rescue them from hell then they’re bound to worship you, right?).

On the plus side (erm.. sorta) it seems that his work’s born some sort of fruit; an oddly serious sidelong glance of appraisal and… yeah, the hollowed out pumpkin seems to meet with his approval, or so the half-nod and slight smile would indicate. In any case he’s leaving it for the moment, heading over to the sink and sluicing the goop off his hands.

”Well, if you’re hanging around here…” – sigh. Might as well make this official. – ”Hi” John looks back over towards Roger, giving him the same sort of assessing-glance that was trained on the pumpkin, although he’s unsure what he’s looking for or how to react to whatever he ends up finding. ”I’m Pyro.”

[Manslaughter]

Roger likewise, seems to have finished poking and prodding what looks like just a pile of pumpkin shreds and seeds. He has done so carefully, only using a single finger to push each piece to his liking, and he just wipes it off on the hem of his sweatshirt, not really caring what it did to the fabric. Well, if you're hanging around here... hi. Tilting his head back at the greeting, he turns his head over the sharp juncture of his shoulder, watching John as he proceeds to clean his hands. I'm Pyro.

Pyro. Fire. That sounded.. almost dangerous. But Roger was oblivious to any line of threat that maybe he shouldn't cross.

"I'm....," he trails for a moment, his voice cutting off suddenly. Roger 'mmm's in the back of his throat. Who was he? Was he Roger anymore? He didn't remember. But he had no other name.. He needed one. Perhaps he would ask Magneto for a name.. "...I'm Roger...," he finally says, looking away and then stepping back from his creation on the table. He doesn't even so much as look at the pile of slop on the table.

[Pyro]

”Roger?” John cocks his head to look at Roger sidelong, one eyebrow raised. Roger’s not a proper name, is it? It’s a flatliner thing, a ‘slave name’, and it doesn’t give him any sort of hint as to what the kid can do… (not that he’s worrying about that, of course. Nope)

But whatever. If Magneto’s not got around to christening his latest pet it’s no concern of his, is it? It might have been once – far more recently than the weird sense of almost twisted nostalgia surrounding those days suggests – but now… it’s like master and pupil are drifting apart, Magneto gravitating towards his cause and John towards… erm, let’s leave that train of thought. Suffice to say John’s not going to waste time giving more than the prerequisite damn about anything Buckethead’s up to, the same way he hasn’t been paying too close attention (thank God) to his protégé’s recent exploits.

… still, might as well ask. Maybe it’s just that ‘Roger’ hasn’t figured out how things work, and somewhere under everything else there’s enough of Australia left to feel the need to make sure the latest arrival at the dumping gr.. erm, Brotherhood understands the lay. ”You’ve got a real name though, right?”

[Manslaughter]

Roger? He blinks and tilts his head, as though expecting a question, and almost mirroring the male's movement at the same time. The boy fiddles with the sleeves of his sweatshirt for a few moments, tugging on the frayed ends and even pulling out a string that unraveled beneath his administrations. You've got a real name though, right? Roger blinks slowly, and a faint line creases the wan expanse of his brow as he thinks upon this question. A real name? What name did he want? He knew that 'Roger Michael Loomis' was the name on his birth certificate, and the one his mother would always print out on medical forms... But if 'Roger' wasn't his real name... then what was?

He didn't know.

The redhead hitches and then lowers his eyebrows, the faint furrow in his brow suddenly relaxing. "No...," he says quietly, shaking his head. "...isn't... Roger... my real name?" The boy then asks softly and tilts his head back to the other side, regarding John with a curious interest as to what he was talking about.

[Pyro]

Evidently not a dyed-in-the-wool mutant supremacist then… at least, not yet, the cynical voice which thinks it understands Magneto’s plans far better than anyone else – and hell, probably does – pipes up, because Roger’s such a blank canvas you couldn’t ask for a much better disciple, could you? And there’s something perverse and twisted in that, something uncomfortably like corrupting innocents or something, but as a tactic he can’t help but admire it. If he still gave a damn he’d say Roger was a serious threat… as it is, he’s clearly a neat replacement, and he should probably care more but whatever. If it takes the heat off, then it’s all good.

So it can’t hurt to help him fit in, really, even if it’s beyond weird for John to roll out a genuine welcome wagon and not one packed with nitroglycerine.

The pumpkin is not quite forgotten, however, and it’s on to the interesting part as he fills Roger in, retrieving a knife from one of the numerous blocks (why so many knives? Who knows. Magneto liked to be surrounded by sharp metal things… which was disconcerting but what could you do? You got used to it… eventually. Used enough that you could pretend to ignore it and sort of convince yourself it was the same as not being bothered at least).

”Not any more, no. It’s what you were called when you were one of them. Now you’re with us you get a new name. Kinda like” – something Wanda said comes back, and makes perfect sense now he can see the whole Brotherhood situation a little more clearly – ”an initiation. Like the new name gives you power, makes you special… or something” John shrugs. Okay, it doesn’t make much sense. Possibly because he’s consciously simplifying it, probably because he doesn’t understand the Pyro/John dynamic himself save to say that it’s complicated.

[Manslaughter]

The boy's eyes follow the knife as John picks it up, letting his gaze rove carefully over the sharp edge before he is snapped back to the present by the pyrokinetic speaking. Not any more, no. It’s what you were called when you were one of them. Now you’re with us you get a new name. Kinda like an initiation. Like the new name gives you power, makes you special… or something. Them... that's who the doctors and nurses most be. ...and his mother... father.. sister. They were.. them. For a moment it seems to make sense to him. Roger is his old name, like his old life--how everything used to be. It was time to abandon it and move on.. take a new name with a new life. Roger hums softly in the back of his throat, and he faintly wonders what Pyro's old name must be.

"...I see...," he says quietly, suddenly, dragging a single fingertip across the counter with a seemingly absent-minded air. "Where does the old name go..?" Roger then asks. And though it is clearly what he means to say, the question sounded off, as though he thought one's name was an item you simply carried around with you and just put it down somewhere when you got a new one. And would it still be there if you wanted to get it back..? He doesn't even give John the time to answer before he softly answers his own question. "..it just waits.." He could leave his old name behind, pick it up when he wanted, but it wouldn't be the same one. It would still be his.. but forsaken.. unused.. and he would slowly forget how to use it, until he wondered why he thought it sounded right before. Roger rocks a little on his heels at this realization and he blinks.

"...what was your old name..?" he asks suddenly, overtaken with curiosity of what it must be.

[Pyro]

Roger’s question gives him pause, as does the answer which follows far more quickly and eloquently than he could have pulled it off (and he resists the urge to add anything as trite as out of the mouths of babes, but there it is). The idea of the old name waiting around is… sweet, sorta, in a strangely sad way. Mildly optimistic, suggesting that there’s some sort of end where you put away the terrorist and pick up the *normal* name and it’s all neat and simple. Which of course it can’t ever be – the mere idea that this might someday come to an end is… well, no, it’s not. It makes sense. Because what’s he doing other than picking up *John* and trying it back on for size? It’s not such a stretch of the imagination for him to think of names as objects, after all, to be discarded and accumulated… no, better still, as compartments. The idea of going back to an old compartment is a new twist, but by no means an unimaginable one, leastways not now.

… and enough of that. Back to matters at hand. Seeing the knife is like a mental poke, directing him back to whatever the hell he was doing – oh, pumpkin. Right. – and he’s set to continue with that before Roger pulls out a third stop sign as far as just rolling through the conversation goes.

Roger’s new, of course, so he can almost be forgiven for breaking the golden rule – you never ask about life before. Old names, old lives, none of it comes in with you, and if you’re not bursting to talk about it the way the new angsty kids are then it doesn’t get mentioned. Asking someone what their *other* name is is practically a mortal sin, because obviously the only name that matters is your *real* name. But Roger doesn’t know any of that.

He pauses for a second before replying, and his voice is tentative, almost unsure at first - ”… John.” – though he clears his throat and re-sounds. ”Before… I was called John. Now I’m Pyro.” He shrugs as if it really is that simple and goes back to carving, trying not to think about it… because there’s nothing to think about, right?

[Manslaughter]

John. Roger rolls one of his shoulders back, seeming to actually listen with rapt focus. Before... I was called John. Now I'm Pyro. He starts to drum his fingers a little on the table, slowly at first, then picking up speed gradually before he pulls back a little from the counter and taking his hand with him. Something inside his head was clicking, and two ends were finally meeting. Roger nods to himself and turns his back for a moment to prod at his pumpkin shredding and glop creation one more time. His brows furrow and relax at random intervals, and Roger stands back again, staring up at the ceiling in thought. "...and now you're Pryo..," the boy finally repeats after a long heavy pause.

Without another word, the redhead suddenly turns and disappears out the doorway just as quickly as he had come, making no sound on the floor, and melting well into the ends of John's peripheral vision. And then he's gone.

..the pumpkin shreddings look like a skull.

[Exeunt Roger ...cha, cha, cha.]