|
|
Post by Toni Craft on May 13, 2007 23:34:38 GMT
Her brother had once told her that music often came to him without inspiration. She hadn't thought about it that much at the time, but now that she is making her way down the hall--barefoot no less--in the middle of the night, she can't help but acknowledge just how similar the arts and sciences really were.
Like Matty's music, Toni's sudden chemical inspiration had been completely random and unexpected. Odd that a dream about four-eyed, neon green, fuzzy squirrel penises would conjure up such an interesting experiment idea. And it was so interesting in fact, that Toni couldn't help herself, three in the morning or not.
Flipping the lab key in her hand as she descends the stairs as quickly and as quietly as possible, an out of tune rendition of the latest Backstreet Boys hit hummed its way out of her lips. She crosses the hall and slips the key into the lock, twists it and hears then solid click, then shoves the door open with her shoulder.
Toni makes a beeline for the cupboard and halls out a series of powder-filled canisters, placing each on the counter and replacing the ones she doesn't need. The liquids were next, followed by a propane burner.
Once the flame was lit and the blue light was filling the otherwise dark lab, Toni started sifting through her chemical powders, trying to figure out the first one to toss into the beaker for heating and mixing.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pyro on May 14, 2007 0:15:41 GMT
John wandering aimlessly at three in the morning isn’t exactly the rarest of occurrences now he’s supposedly back for good. Sleep had never really taken as anything more than an occasional casual flirtation, and given the insanity raging at the moment it wasn’t going to catch on any time soon. So this is a fairly average and unremarkable ramble, for an increasingly unremarkable reason of late; yet another fight with Rogue. They’d been happening with greater regularity and ferocity for, erm, obvious reasons, and while sometimes, when she’s dosed up on him, the fight can almost be a good thing (where love and destruction become one heartbeat and all that jazz, and it’s almost, almost like what they’re both missing and neither dare mention except totally different, curves where there ought to be angles, drawling where there should be sharpness)… this isn’t one of those nights. It’s…
… well, it’s positively boring. There’s usually *something* going on somewhere – for fuck’s sake, this is a freak show and an asylum, after all – but… not tonight. John notes idly that it’s been far too long since there was an invasion or anything; it’s like the calm before a particularly violent summer storm, where everything gets sickly, oppressive, draining hot, and all you can do is lie around semi-dead until the first crack of thunder breaks that stranglehold.
His nocturnal ramble has taken him to the first floor when he picks up on… something. A spark, somewhere, calling, begging for his attention, nudging at him from… the chem labs? He’s hesitant to go anywhere near them, really – studying hasn’t exactly been at the top of his list the last few weeks (not that it's ever anywhere near it... but he'd been making something nearer an effort before the shit with Bobby went down) and given his history with Toni admitting a fuck up to her is… a little more complicated, really, since she’s supposed to be the one making sure he grows out of that stage and all - great fucking job she’s done of this mentor thing – but… shit, he’s more than bored enough to chance it, and it’ll be good to talk to someone outside of the whole crazy tangled mess, so he clicks the door open and… winces at the choice of soundtrack. ”Fuck me, Red, I thought you had better taste than that”
|
|
|
|
Post by Toni Craft on May 14, 2007 23:41:30 GMT
”Fuck me, Red, I thought you had better taste than that” Is Toni surprised that John's wandered into her lab at god knows what time in the morning? Hardly. Especially not since there's an open flame in the vicinity. And flame always seems to draw the boy as if he were a half-witted mosquito. Fortuneately for John though, he's not a miniscule, blood-sucking, easy-to-squish/fry insect. How did she get on that train of thought again?
"Now how on this mutant riddled Earth were you able to recognize that when I'm as off tone as a fucking skewered-tongued Hector, hmm? Either you've somehow acquired Matty's uncanny ability to decifer my poor attempts at music, or you've been listening to a little BSB yourself. Have a secret boy band stash lying around that you'd like to show me, Johnny?" She'd shoot him one of her 'that's right, I know all and I can juggle behind my back while doing origami with my tongue' looks, but she's too busy pouring some water into a beaker. Chemistry comes first after all, the pyrokenetic can just pick a stool and wait. "You know you're never fully out of the closet until you admit you actually enjoy the Backstreet Boys." She adds boldly, knowing full well that only she could get away with such a remark without getting singed, frozen, teeked, or...flapped at.
"So, other than our common taste in music and men alike, what brings you to my humble, volatile realm of explosions, all things lethal and blue pee? Or did you just come to stare at my sumptuous bod hidden beneath my palatial personable pashmina pokemon pyjamas?" Though John rarely, if ever, falls for such things, Toni hopes that her pile of pungent P pronouncements prevents the pyro from noticing that she'd have rather not let him catch her in the hideous outfit.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pyro on May 16, 2007 18:05:48 GMT
With everything going to hell as spectacularly as it is, it’s good to know that Toni’s still her indomitable self. Then again, John reasons, they could be 24 hours from apocalypse and she’d still be cackling like a maniac and plotting some way to make her last 23 hours and 59 minutes amusing and/or cause huge amounts of pain and embarrassment to as many people as possible (though the two are, for her, pretty much the same thing). He grins – ”Bit hard on Hector there… and how is your scaly substitute cock these days?” – clicks the door shut behind him and pulls up a stool at the desk, lazily stretching out with one arm, palm wide, to siphon off some of the flame.
< Have a secret boy band stash lying around… ?
”Gotta know your enemy” he shrugs, tossing the flame from one hand to the other. The comment about being in the closet draws a darker scowl (though not for the reason she’ll probably go with… not that she’ll likely catch it, her attention focused as it is on the experiment); he’s out here so as not to have to think about that.
Her stream of p’s raises another grin, and a half-laugh, though – ”Holy alliteration, Iron-girl.” (oh great, Batman references… only one person gets away with those… and John is not thinking about that, dammit) – as do the pyjamas in question.
”Okay, my ferric friend.” – hah, he smirks, two can play at that game… and proof that he paid at least a little attention in chemistry has to earn him some brownie points, right? – ”I fear… fuck it. I’ll have to confess my nefarious scheme and have done with it; I couldn’t sleep, shock horror. Thought I’d seek out my favourite teacher and offer her some mindblowingly good sex in exchange for a good word so I might actually graduate before I turn 30.” And sure, talking about sex as a commodity and hell, given the current state of affair, sex at all, is oddly (understandably, but still odd in an uncomfortable sort of unfamiliar way) is somewhat raw, but this is Toni – innuendo isn’t something you can opt out of around her, and in any case he needs to carry on *as normal*, even if it’s clearly not *business as usual*, so she gets the hint and doesn’t ask awkward questions - and so he grins winningly, charmingly even, and continues, however much worse the next few words make the situation. ”Course, Rogue’ll leech you as soon as you’ve put said word out for touching her boyfriend, but what the fuck, it’ll be so worth it”
|
|
|
|
Post by Toni Craft on May 19, 2007 19:02:03 GMT
”Bit hard on Hector there… and how is your scaly substitute cock these days?”
"You know, dearest Johnny, you should probably have your eyesight checked because I don't see where Hector's resemblance to a rooster lies. Then again...why would I even want a rooster? They're not nearly as much fun as the chickens, 'cause you can collect the eggs and then hatch them, eat them, or better yet, drop them on Ororo's head when she walks under the balcony." While her mindless and chirpy rambling no doubt keeps John amused, Toni places the beaker of water on the burner, not even blinking when a stream of flame skitters off to the left.
”Gotta know your enemy”
"I concur. And that's exactly why I have a rather abundant amount of lesbian porn on my iPod." She leaves it at that, giving something to spark John's imagination with. Some tiny blue pellets are poured onto a small sheet of round paper atop an electronic scale.
"Thought I’d seek out my favourite teacher and offer her some mindblowingly good sex in exchange for a good word so I might actually graduate before I turn 30.”
"Naturally," Toni grins, dumping the blue pellets into the water and tossing a glass stir stick in John's direction. "But before I beat your meat, beat that until the blue stuff dissolves." Sly innuendoes be damned, the kid could handle the raw sex talk just as well as she could.
”Course, Rogue’ll leech you as soon as you’ve put said word out for touching her boyfriend, but what the fuck, it’ll be so worth it.” And up goes an intrigued and amused eyebrow along with the equally fasinated glance.
"Now I'm going to ignore the fact that you'd readily sacrifice me to the gothic life-sucking chick, but only if you explain to me why I just heard 'Rogue' and 'boyfriend' in the same sentence. The return of our precious Bob's supple arctic 'bod quite the deterrent for our resident hot-blooded pyro?" Fine, she was probing. There'd been some drama (understatement of the year) around the mansion lately, but leave it to Toni to completely deaf to the entire thing. "I know Matty's none to pleased with the whole occurrence either. Him and the Bobster are roomies now, ye'know. Poor kid got a cold last week and nearly nuked that lizard brat when he sneezed."
|
|
|
|
Post by Pyro on May 20, 2007 1:05:07 GMT
< you should probably get your eyesight tested…
John rolls his eyes, gives her a withering, though obviously amused, sidelong stare – yeah, right. Toni playing the innocent… how many million sorts of wrong is that? – which flickers as her babble about chickens continues, and finally shatters at the mention of dropping eggs on Ororo.
”Hell, I’m up for it” he laughs ”though that’s probably moot; what’s the bet the new teep she’s supposedly all over picks up on this oh so cunning plan?” Bringing up that new line of gossip’s a cheap shot, really, at changing the direction of Toni’s inquiries, especially given that it’s obvious he doesn’t give a flying fuck who Ororo’s shacked up with… but whatever. If that doesn’t work… well, she’s not yet got a monopoly on ridiculous-and-banal sidelines, right? ”Though seriously, maybe I should get glasses… complete the transformation into hardcore academic and disguise my civvie identity in one. Anything Clark Kent can do, now I’m batting for team super-powered boyscouts, right?”
< And that's exactly why I have a rather abundant amount of lesbian porn on my iPod
That gets a disbelieving, though highly amused, snort, and he leans forward, eyes widening, with a well, go on expression… and waits… and… ”Fuck’s sake, come on Toni. There’s got to be a story in that… since when were lesbians the enemy? Can’t yank my chain with that sort of titbit and leave it to my imagination. Although…” He grins wickedly.
< Before I beat your meat, beat that until the blue stuff dissolves
”You’re such a fucking cocktease” With the slick delivery and casual extinguishing of the fire as he snaps his fingers together, it almost comes off *cool*, aside from that he fumbles catching the glass-rod-thing… which prompts a short, pouty scowl, and another grin as he starts stirring the… whatever it is (he knows better than to ask, because Toni’ll explain and he won’t understand a word… whatever it is, it’ll probably go boom at some point, yay). Sure, this is weird. Not to mention more than likely several sorts of illegal and ethically dubious and… shit, probably enough to get Toni fired, chatting up students supposedly under her *protection*. But it’s the sort of weird which is reassuringly normal, not the sort that’s been melting his brain, and so it so very nearly feels *just like old times*… like really old times, even, like back before Rogue arrived, before he’d stopped trying to get Bobby to move out…
… like he said, so very nearly.
He keeps stirring, though he’s paying fuck all attention, just keeping the motion going as he responds, the circles decreasing in size until the stirrer is almost just wobbling back and forth. ”Right, well…” he clears his throat, rolls his shoulders with a quick ”Some faghag you are… gossip’s your domain” before shrugging with a half-sigh and trying to continue in the same bright snappy tone as the rest of the conversation. For the most part it’s a success, though obviously forced and brittle, the parody of amusement when life throws up something in blacker than black humour, grinning though it’s really unfunny. ”It’s more that said pyro told Robert to hurry up and fuckin’ die already, then shacked up with the untouchable walking neurosis because that meant he’d *moved on*, and somewhere in between the dying and the not-dying and the fucking everyone and everything over missed the part where his life turned into a bad soap opera.”
|
|
|
|
Post by Toni Craft on Jun 14, 2007 15:15:28 GMT
”Hell, I’m up for it, though that’s probably moot; what’s the bet the new teep she’s supposedly all over picks up on this oh so cunning plan?”
“Oh I wouldn’t worry about Jakey-poo. I can be quite the convincing beau when I’m offering up the sexing of an unusual type.” Toni grins an evil, keniving grin, then adds with a pensive expression, “Though ‘Ro maybe a little sensitive, and last I checked, iron doesn’t respond positively to lightning. It’s moreso one of those exploding metals, and that’s the last thing you want: picking pieces of little old me out of your hair.”
“Anything Clark Kent can do, now I’m batting for team super-powered boyscouts, right?”
“Ah Clark Kent...was there ever a more desirable fictional character? But really, invincibility, super-strength, heat vision, ice breath, x-ray vision....seriously? That’s not even remotely plausible.” Toni purposely chooses to ignore the little fact about her being living iron and her brother a human nuclear reactor.
Once the liquid and blue crystals had become simply a blue liquid, Toni dumps a small pile of white powder into the solution. Instantly, the mixture begins to thicken like jello. “Just keep stirrin’, Johnny.”
”You’re such a fucking cocktease.”
“Glad to be of service,” She says happily, wiping some spilt powder off the counter with a piece of damp paper towel. “But I promise, the teasing will all be worth it if this experimento works out.” Admittedly, she’s much more focused on the solution than she is on her pseudo-student (because she hasn’t yet determined whether or not John’s coming or going, staying or leaving).
”It’s more that said pyro told Robert to hurry up and fuckin’ die already, then shacked up with the untouchable walking neurosis because that meant he’d *moved on*, and somewhere in between the dying and the not-dying and the fucking everyone and everything over missed the part where his life turned into a bad soap opera.”
“I love the soaps! Especially the bad ones. The cheesier the better. And by the way, yours sounds like it takes the prima oliveria of cakes.” By that time, her experiement had pretty much become a gelatinous blob of blue goo. She hauls the beaker off the burner, but leaves the flame going, if only to amuse John. “So how is everyone’s favourite leech these days? Hasn’t sucked you dry yet I see.” No need to get entangled in the whole John/Robert mess, sounded like too much thinking and fuss over nothing. Before they’d know it, everything’d be back to normal and the two would be bed buddies again (and she’d be trying to rig up a camera to watch).
|
|
|
|
Post by Pyro on Jun 22, 2007 12:56:43 GMT
< I can be quite the convincing beau when I’m offering up the sexing of an unusual type
”Don’t I know it…” John grins, before reverting to mock-dispondancy with a semi-bitter ”Not that you ever deliver on said offer, but yes. Very convincing”
< Though ‘ro may be a bit more sensitive…
”No problem. You work on Jake, I’ll seduce her. Cue the mad sexing… which you of course take plenty of photos – no, fuck, video the whole thing. An’ then we threaten to release it to the press unless you get a pay rise and I get my ticket outta this hell hole while I’m still young enough to enjoy it” The smirk makes it plain he’s joking, though there’s something to be said for screwing them all over and riding out into the sunset… or would be, if he hadn’t sort of pulled that stunt before and still had a sunset to run to.
Given the turn the conversation’s taken, his attention’s not really on the beaker, though it’s hard to ignore the change in texture given that he’s still half-arsedly stirring at it… and… ooh, what the hell? Jelly?
< Just keep stirrin’, Johnny
He tosses a quick mock-salute her way, and goes back to stirring properly, or as near to properly as he can when it’s solidifying like that and getting harder to stir. It’s a welcome sort-of distraction, though failing to hold his attention quite as well as he’d like… still, just having something else to concentrate on kinda-helps, as does the fact she keeps the flame going once she removes the *experimento*.
< Yours sounds like it takes the prima olivera of cakes
”No idea *prime olive-whatever* means” – John leeches off some of the flame, goes back to idly tossing it around the way he had before she’d decided to enlist him as her lab partner – ”But hey, glad someone’s entertained by the clusterfuck. Makes it almost worthwhile.” Sarcastic? Never.
< Hasn’t sucked you dry yet
”Hasn’t sucked anything yet.” – crude, perhaps. More brutal than Rogue deserves, more than likely. But such comments feel normal, almost compulsory, around Toni and… fuck, it’s the truth, isn’t it?
|
|
