Emily didn't want to make a fuss over it, she really didn't. She was surpised she didn't pick up on the hostility yet come to think of it. She tried to say something about it but as Bailey's eyes tracked over to the cashier made her shut her mouth, she thought he might say something and though she wasn't sure what to say to avoid the pain of dealing with a person who didn't like them. "Really it's fi-"

Emily wasn't the type to have her feelings hurt by random people, in fact she disliked most people on the principle that most people were crappy, but she also didn't want to have to deal with irritating conversations for no reason. She opened her mouth once or twice to say something to try and defuse the boy, but he stepped forwards to speak to the cashier, and she was suddenly struck with the thought that she couldn't pick up on his emotions...

As he stepped just further into the store and Emily stayed rooted to the spot a little freaked out, but as he stepped forwards she felt like someone had suddenly dropped a ton of bricks on her mind, she instinctively clutched her head, and stumbled a little against the door frame to the shop, suddenly struggling with a massive uptake of emotions around her. This hadn't ever happened to her before, and she had no idea how to deal with it.

The clerk narrowed her eyes and looked between them, but said nothing. The sour look remained on her face, but apparently she had realized that it might not be a good idea to be directly rude to her potential customers. 

He watched the clerk's face for another second, surprised as it suddenly shifted. The clerk seemed to be focused on something behind him, something clearly not good.

Bailey turned around to see Emily clutch her head and stumble into the door. That didn't look good. She had been fine a second ago, so what had happened? Bailey stepped toward her instinctively with his arms outstretched toward her.

"Are you okay? Did something happen? Do you not feel good?" Bailey asked with a concerned look on his face. "It's the perfume, isn't it? It's strong. We should leave and get out of the smell." That had to be it. The smell was horrible, and nothing else could have happened to her in the few seconds when he wasn't looking. 

The clerk appeared beside them, flashing a look at Bailey for his comment about the smell. All the sympathy on her face had been replaced by contempt. "If you're going to come in here drunk and cause a scene, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Emily would probably be getting fluttery feelings in her chest from the way that Bailey had reacted to her general discomfort. But she was a little busy freaking the heck out at her powers acting weirdly. She'd never had this kind of a reaction with them and it was quite concerning, on top of that she now had a killer headache, and no painkillers on herself.

As soon as Bailey approached her again, Emily suddenly felt a weight lifting off of her, metaphorically speaking. And once again, the buzzing of her power in her head went silent. Now she was really really freaking out. Did Bailey have some kind of negating effect on empaths? She'd never heard of a power like that. Mind you, Emily didn't really look into mutants much prior to finding out she was one herself. It was still extremely disconcerting though.

Her sudden state of confusion was temporarily calmed by the appearance of the clerk being rude to them. Her eyes flashed with anger. "Do I look or sound drunk to you? Am I slurring my speech in the slightest? No. In fact, I speak the language a lot better than you do apparently, we were clearly already leaving because you don't exactly convey a welcoming influence to your store." She didn't see a managers badge on the clerk, it must have been a part timer. "What's the name of your manager?" She asked, her tone dripping with venom. 

Bailey blinked at Emily.

He'd found her pretty before. Very pretty, actually, but the way she'd just stood up to the rude clerk had been... woah.

The teen shook himself. That was not the time to be fawning over the pretty girl that his dad of all people had set him up with. He needed to focus on... what were they doing? Oh right! She'd passed out! He needed to focus on that.

So far, she seemed to be fine, all things considered. It was strange. She'd just up and fallen over. She clearly wasn't drunk, so it had to be something else. He scrunched his nose up at a couple of possibilities that came to mind, preferring not to consider them. If they were the case, then he would be at a total loss as to what to do. Having four brothers and an absent mother didn't exactly prepare one for that kind of thing.

Hopefully it was just the smell of all the perfume.

"I'm the manager," the clerk spoke over Bailey's thoughts. She didn't appear to be backing down. Either she really hated teenagers, or she was just absurdly stubborn. Either way, Bailey didn't care for her.

"We should go," Bailey suggest to his shopping partner as he stepped closer to the exit. He really wanted to be out of that store and away from the smell. "You should probably sit down, and this isn't worth it, you know? The store's probably going to close soon anyway. Sorrythatwasrude but it's true," he had rushed the first part of that sentence. "You're not very good at customer service." 

The manager/clerk glanced around with a slightly nervous expression at the crowd that had begun to gather in her store. It was clear that the majority of their opinions fell with Bailey, judging from the nasty looks she was receiving. 

Emily might not have looked like someone who was particularly silver tongued, she might not have even given the impression of someone with a bad attitude towards other people, but when you annoyed her she was pretty damn good at giving you a verbal lashing. While Emily's dad was always pretty easy going with things, her mother had always been strict and very good at arguing with people (Part of the reason she split with her dad, probably) and that was a trait that the British Brunette had inherited, in spades. 

Emily's eyes narrowed at the woman's comment. She found a hard time believing that she was a manager, and her powers weren't turned on so she couldn't tell if she was lying either. She barely even heard what Bailey said. She was barely even aware of the crowd that was starting to gather around them. "Are you really?" She cocked an eyebrow and left a tone of challenge in the air before pressing on with the passive aggressive hag. 

"So then. You're the manger hmm? So this is the example you set for your employees, and at Christmas time too?" she let off a little whistle. "So, okay it's okay for people who work for your company to try to refuse service to someone because you dislike them based on what, appearance?" The woman opened her mouth to respond but Emily ploughed right over her. "And right, someone nearly collapses in front of your store for god knows what reason, and you use this as an excuse to try and get them kicked out for being drunk? Right, because I'M the one coming across as having impaired judgement." There were a few snickers behind her. 

Her venomous glare intensified for a second longer. "Yeah, I think will be taking my business elsewhere. Good luck getting any business with your attitude, you pent up shrew." She turned on her heel feeling woozey and strolled through the small crowd of awed or affronted looking people who promptly parted for her. She grabbed Bailey's hand without thinking about it and dragged him away from the store with her, walking for a minute in a different direction. 

The two teens had left the store manager with a very sheepish expression and a group of people that did not look all that impressed. Bailey felt a little bad for a second, but it faded away when he realized that she totally deserved what had just happened. Plus, Emily was totally cool.

He let out a breath of air as he was pulled away from the store by his hand, blushing profusely as he realized who had just grabbed it. That was how it was going to be, it seemed, and he did not mind at all.

"Where are we going?" He asked they walked through the mall away from the perfume store. "Are you sure you're okay?"

They walked for a couple of minute while Emily cooled off. She had felt quite a lot of angry heat around herself. She sometimes felt like that when she got worked up over something, just the need to walk somewhere or do something physical and then the emotion just left her and she relaxed back into her normal state.

It took her a moment or two to register what he'd said, her head was pounding. "Yes- No." She hastily took her hand back. And sat on a bench for a few moments. She wasn't blushing or anything, Emily wasn't quite that girly. She glanced around and didn't feel any emotions from around her. It was freaking her out a little but she tried to keep her breathing normal and didn't freak out too much.

She closed her eyes for a second, trying to order her thoughts and remain calm. She opened them again to answer his questions. "I don't know, away from that vile b****. And maybe to a different store." she paused for a moment and glanced at Bailey. She still wasn't sure about this whole mutant thing. And telling someone she'd just met. That was definitely a no-go. "I'll be fine. I just need a drink then we can carry on shopping, maybe go to the video game store or something, my dad would like that."

“Uh- okay,” Bailey nodded, rubbing his newly freed hand with his other one. “She was kinda awful. Maybe someone spat in her cereal this morning or something?”

He took a seat next to her on the bench, a few inches away just to be safe. She didn’t look as alright as she claimed, he noted. “Are you sure, though? You don’t look all that great. I mean- you look great, it’s just that…” Bailey blushed bright red and looked at his hands again. That had not sounded the way he had intended it to.

“I mean… you just look… I dunno. Tired? Are you sure something didn’t happen?” He glanced around awkwardly. He still wasn’t sure what exactly was going on with her, and he didn’t know exactly how much to ask in case it was… what he feared.

His eyes shifted down the hallway over to a little coffee shop. It looked quiet, slightly secluded, and close. She had said that she wanted a drink, after all. “That might be a good place to go,” he suggested.

Even though Emily was in a slightly bitter mood over that annoying store clerk, a smile still tugged at her lips when Bailey commented on her, it was kind of cute in a naive sort of way. She wasn't quite sure how to respond until he tried to show concern in his own adorably awkward kind of way. A grin tugged at her smile good and proper. "Well that's very sweet of you Bailey."

She smiled at him again, he showed genuine concern, but without her power active how could she really be sure that he was actually showing her how he actually felt... She couldn't really. This was how most people must have felt when others were displaying feelings to each other. Nervous and uncertain. Had it really been that long since she'd felt this way? She hadn't even had her power ultimately that long, it just felt like it had been. 

"Wow Bailey what a rude thing to say to a woman~" She teased. It was more dodging the question than anything, Emily didn't really want to get into her power with a person she'd just met, ESPECIALLY when her power wasn't working and she couldn't gauge his reaction. 

She shook her head. "Nah, I'll just grab a bottle of water or something. Then we can carry on and do our shopping." 

“Sorry,” Bailey muttered sheepishly and looked down at his hands. His face felt like it was on fire, he was blushing so hard. How on earth would he know what he could and couldn’t say to a girl? It wasn’t like he’d had much experience with them or anything. There was Moose, of course, but that’d only been, like, one day, and he hadn’t heard from her since then. He’d never even had a proper girlfriend before.

“I’ll go get one for you,” he piped up suddenly. He stood straight up from the bench and practically sprinted to the kiosk just a few metres ahead. Getting a water bottle was something that he knew how to do.

He paid quickly and eagerly for the thing and then sped back to where Emily was sitting and handed it to her. “Here you go. I didn’t get it flavoured or anything, sorry. I know that there're a whole bunch of kinds and that some people like those better, and they even had the different kinds at the kiosk, but I just grabbed this one quickly. Hope that’s okay.”

He just wanted her to feel alright again.

Emily's comments had been half teasing, half dodging around topics she didn't want to get brought up. She wasn't exactly silver tongued herself, but she certainly knew her way around conversations. And she'd spoken to her mother enough now that she also knew how to veer away from certain topics. Most of the time, at least. Her mother could be quite tenacious on some things.

She hadn't meant to make Bailey feel bad, just discourage the topic they'd been on. She smiled and started to open her mouth to tell him he didn't have to go and get her a drink she was perfectly capable, but he dashed off in a flash. Oddly enough, as soon as he left again her power flared back on and she suddenly felt very woozy from everything around her. Okay, so it wasn't her acting up, it was something to do with him...

Just thinking about it made her head hurt more. As he came back she had turned a little more pale and stepping into her vicinity seemed to flick an off switch again. Emily blinked and took the water, she barely registered his comments. Reaching into her coat pocket she pulled out a few painkillers and popped them with the water, draining half the bottle in one go.

After she'd finished and the colour had returned to her face she stared at Bailey, blinking.

Something definitely wasn’t right. Bailey hadn’t really noticed it while he was rambling about flavoured water, but all the colour had gone from Emily’s face again, and she looked as though she might pass out.

He watched as she took out some pain medication and popped it in her mouth with the water. Slowly, the colour began to flood back, but she still did not look okay.

He was, like, 99.9% certain that she was suffering from period cramps. That terrified him. What did he do with that? He didn't know. All he could think of was making sure she got to lie down or something. 

“I don’t think you’re alright,” he said worriedly and crouched in front of her. His brow creased as he looked at her and continued, “want me to take you home? I don’t have a car, but I can call a cab or something?”

Okay, this wasn't really the way that Emily had planned on spending her afternoon. It was not a great feeling the slightest being near someone who could turn off her power. And on any other day, she thought she could have actually liked Bailey quite a lot. It was just all conflicting and confusing. For one thing, he was having this weird effect on her, and for another she couldn't tell how he was really feeling.

She growled in frustration as he'd rushed back to her. "No Bailey, I am NOT alright, you're having some kind of effect on me." She said flatly, not sure how to expand on that sentence.

How did you go about telling someone what the situation she was in, how did you explain that without getting into the fact that she was also a mutant? Most folks weren't exactly receptive to that... Or at least that was the impression she got from them. Worse still, she couldn't gleam his real intentions from his emotions because being around him was breaking her stupid power. Grrrr.

Bailey blinked at Emily. He really hadn't expected her to react like that, especially when he was being about as nice and understanding as he knew how to be. What could he say next?

Apparently, he was having some sort of effect on her. What could that be? That only happened every once and a while, and that was only when people were...

Oh.

Mutants.

Bailey shifted forward awkwardly and picked at his nails while trying to find words for what he was going to say. There weren't many times when Bailey was without words, but Emily seemed to be making him act strangely. 

"Are... are you a mutant?" Bailey asked after a minute. He didn't really know how to sugar coat it, so he simply didn't. 

Emily wasn't really sure what level of freak out was appropriate when she was dealing with situations like this one. She wasn't really... in any more pain than her power could normally cause, it was just quite unusual to suddenly lose it. And the fact that Bailey was a dark spot metaphorically speaking around her just made everything a little more... Uncertain.

She stared into Bailey's expression as he took a moment to react to what she'd just said. It took him a moment, and he answered with a simple question.

Well... The cat was outta the bag now, so to speak. She took a few moments of her own to respond, keeping her voice a fairly low murmur, but she was close enough to his face at this point that it wasn't difficult for him to hear her. "Yes."