It wasn't graffiti. It was art. Oh, and it was chalk--who ever heard of someone vandalizing a building in chalk? Well, technically doing graffiti and vandalism were two different things: Not all vandalism is graffiti but all graffiti is vandalism. Like tartan and plaid--all tartan is plaid but not all plaid is tartan. Van had watched a show on it once, back when he was naive to the fact that there were Plaid Rules and different Kinds of Plaid. In his opinion, people had more time on their hands than they should if they sat around all day and put patterns into categories. As long as a fabric wasn't hideously ugly who cared what its proper name was?

But he was getting off track.

It was not graffiti, it was an art project. An art project that required a specific backdrop that just happened not to exist in Van's neighborhood. Not that there wasn't enough graffiti--there just wasn't enough graffiti that involved cats.

Yes, Van was chalking up a wall in the name of pretty little kitty cats. Meow. Meow. Meow.

For the first time that month the boy had decided to go to school. Well, he'd decided to go to art class. In that art class he found out about a contest that involved making some kind of display for a local humane society. First place got his/her graphic displayed on all the literature of the society. As he sat in the back of class the boy had his epiphany and as soon as the bell rang he was out the door (several doors, actually) and searching the nearest shops for sidewalk chalk. Luckily, New York City had a tendency of having EVERYTHING so eventually he found what he was looking for. Later that afternoon (after several sketches) the boy set himself to work, prettying up the side of his father's bar.

It was not vandalism if it was his building.

It was also not working. The walls in the back were covered with distorted kitty faces and signs of Van's frustration. All he needed was a decent backdrop for the photoshoot and then the rest would be easy--assuming he got a hold of a cat or two. The cats weren't the important thing at the moment, that spot was taken up by the fact that Van had no ability with chalk (even when he could use his powers to reach higher up the wall).

Van decided he failed as a vandal as he stared at his latest fiasco, orange chalk dangling from his right hand.

Click. Click. Click. Click click. That was the sound that Riley’s heels made on the sidewalk as she made her way down the street. Another day, another interview. Some of the photographers weren’t willing to hire her simply on word of mouth from others, some of them had to see her in person. They didn’t want to see her in hoodies and jeans either. So this day saw Riley Sommers walking down the street in an outfit that could have walked straight out of the 1950’s.

The pencil skirt really was very comfortable, despite the fact that it looked like it was molded to her hips. The flare at the bottom gave her room to move, and the fabric was stretchy as opposed to the wool that the skirt would have been made of if it had really been something out of the 50’s. The skirt was plaid, Black and white, and topped by a corset in flat black covered with a cardigan that buttoned under her well displayed feminine assets. Red lipstick topped the ensemble in stark contrast to the loose, black, curls that nestled on her shoulders. The interview had been a success. Her attempts to catch public transportation to take her home, not so much…and as comfortable as the outfit was…the shoes were staring to kill. That’s what 3 inch pumps did, though. They hurt.

Riley rounded a corner, making her way down the New York street and tried to take her mind of the aching of her feet by looking down the various streets and alleys that crossed her path. As always, there were people doing all sorts of things. Some that didn’t warrant further thought, some that warranted too much. Down one, was a teenager. A teenager attempting to graffiti the side of a building. With chalk. Riley couldn’t help herself, she clicked until she was next to him.

”Usually…spray paint works better.” she said, observing the attempts at vandalism. A dark eyebrow rose slowly, ”Cats….really?”

Van hummed a nonsense melody to himself as he stared at the latest orange kitty face. It looked pretty decent if the boy did say so himself--and he did, by the way. Now he just had to recreate the picture a dozen or so times. Click. Click. Click. Click. The strange noise broke through his melody. It took Van a moment to realize that the clicks were made by heels. It was a realization fueled by the young mutant's strong intuition and the fact that he turned and saw the woman making the clicking noise when she spoke.

Strong intuition indeed.

Any ego Van had acquired with his latest kitty face was quickly deflated by an eyebrow and two words: 'Cats...really?' Ouch. They stabbed him right in his creative parts with a pair of pumps. If Van had cared a lick about female shoes he would have probably appreciated the pumps better. He did appreciate the rest of the dark haired woman's outfit though, but only for a moment before he noted that it's not very polite to stare--no matter how stare worthy someone is. No, it took a little concentration but the teenaged boy kept his eyes on the face of the critic as he spoke to her. The face was nice too, just not as exciting as a tight skirt and--Focus freak, focus.

"The problem with spray paint is that it's permanent and my art is meant to be fleeting--enjoyed for a moment before it fades off into the background." Gray eyes pulled away from face and body to look off into the space above the woman's head. When they came back to earth they were serious and not shy or embarrassed. "Yes, cats." He crossed his arms and raised a brown eyebrow in return, challenging her darker, slimmer, prettier Older, she's a lot older than you. eyebrow to an eyebrow-off...if there was such a thing, if not his eyebrow would settle for a dance-off or a cook-off or some other competition involving eyebrows.

"How often have you seen cat graffiti?" The boy asked, maintaining his eye level as best he could. It was a challenge and the boy wished that his camera was around his neck instead of resting atop his balled up jacket next to the chalk and the brick wall. He didn't want to take her picture for creepy purposes--she had a great outfit on and Van believed some people needed to be documented and miss modern twist on the 50s needed to be documented--even if she didn't see the beauty in his cat art.

Riley’s lips pursed together slightly when the kid gave her an unpracticed once-over. She didn’t say anything though, men had to learn to be men somewhere. A back alley in front of a kitty cat mural seemed as good as anywhere. It was a mural because you simply couldn’t call something with kitty cats graffiti. Besides, it would all wash away with the first good rain.

The kid spoke, and Riley’s pursed lips stretched into a haughty smirk as he explained why he’d chosen sidewalk chalk instead of spray paint. He said it was an artistic choice, Riley figured it was a rookie choice. The boy looked away for a moment and when he looked back he was resolute in his insistence that cats were a great place to start. He even crossed his arms as he questioned her.

”Nope. Never seen cat graffiti before…probably because if the guys who made the graffiti I’ve seen had sprayed kitties on the wall…it would have been the last thing they ever tagged.” Riley shrugged, the kid had asked.

That said, the dark haired woman made her way a little further into the alleyway, looking the walls up and down , ”At least it looks like you aren’t trespassing on anyone else’s turf. “

Crossing on arm across her middle and propping her elbow on it, Riley tapped her lips with a finger as she looked more closely at the mural, then she noticed the camera on the jacket. Bending, Riley picked it up and studied the artwork through the viewfinder. ”You a photographer too?”

The thought of something bad happening to someone because they tagged a cat on a wall made Van think some not-so-happy things. He didn't really think that anyone except his father would care that he was drawing with chalk on his own building...but still. Images from a bunch of random film noir movies he'd found at his grandparent's house flashed in the boy's mind and he imagined himself getting gunned down in front of his kitty art. Note to self, when we become a director we are going to make gangster movies. Why are we plural now? Van actually paused as he came up with a good response to himself. The connotation of 'we' suits us at the moment. Another pause. [/i]Lame answer.[/i]

Van stopped conversing with himself and redirected his attention onto the woman (which was not very hard for the teenager to do, he really liked that skirt). She walked back farther behind the building, her blue eyes scanning the walls covered in his failings and frustration. It was his turf, but that seemed like a lame comeback--Van knew he wasn't any kind of tagger and posing as one seemed wrong. It smelled like lying and lying smelled terrible. That and it had the uncanny ability of coming back to slap you with its smelly hand right in your face, leaving a smelly hand print and messing up your life. So Van didn't lie, he didn't claim to know if he really had turf or not, and he just watched the dark haired woman mentally critique his kitty cats.

Maybe silence would make him seem like some kind of dark, brooding artist? He doubted it. Highly doubted it.

Van was momentarily distracted when miss pencil skirt bent over his jacket. That thing really was fitted. Oh God... His mind went spinning when the stretchy material was pulled tighter. And then any teenaged boy fantasies crashed into a lamp post and flew into a brick wall (fantasies rarely wear seat belts), killing them swiftly as the boy realized that the skirt was holding his Polaroid. His mother's camera.

Van Sanders-Adamson was many things--mutant, teenager, male, jerk, sloth--but he was a photographer first a foremost. A photographer with mommy issues that never let anyone else touch his Polaroid. She was looking through his freakin' camera and she didn't even have the neck strap on. A small keening sound escaped his throat before he could close his mouth and he was directly in front of the woman in a flash, his hands held out as if to catch the camera should it fall. He looked like some kind of crazy freak and he didn't care. That camera was all he had of hers--the only thing she'd ever given him before she died and it was worth looking like a freak in front of a beautiful older woman for.

"I'm a photographer only." His tone didn't match the hesitant way his shoulders hunched and his nervous hands reached out. It was strong and matter of fact. "And you're holding my only tool in your hands. I'd like it back." Again when he spoke his voice was sure but it wasn't rude--he knew that could end badly--just honest. Gray eyes were pleading, even though the boy slightly resented how easily this stranger had brought him to his proverbial knees. He needed that camera.

There were lots of things that Riley might have expected out of the kid, one of them being that he’d check her out when she bent to pick up the camera. She didn’t need to see him to know it, anyone who looked at her the way the kid had when she’d walked up would have looked. Riley didn’t mind though. It would give the teenager something to think about on long lonely nights. At any rate…the look was expected…his reaction to her picking up his camera was not.

The dark eyebrow rose again, nearly to Riley’s hairline as she studied the young man and his nearly panicked reaction to the fact that she held a Polaroid. It didn’t make sense, really. Why was the camera so important. Riley didn’t buy his line about this being his only tool for a second. There was something more to it. Riley shifted the camera to one hand and let it dangle at her side. People sometimes saw her pretty face and mistook her for a nice person. That wasn’t necessarily true, Riley was a nosey person though. Using her free hand, she reached into her purse and pulled out her pocket-sized Nikkon, holding it out to the kid.

”I like vintage things, and they don’t even make Polaroid’s anymore. What do you say to a trade? Digital pictures are the way of the world these days.” she lifted the old camera again, looking through the viewfinder and snapping a pic of the kid’s face, ”Is it hard to find film for this thing? They don’t make it anymore either.”

If Van hadn't been panicking before, he was now. The woman's eyebrow shot up again, but the boy's remained downcast as his brow furrowed in worry. His stomach lurched when it became apparent that his camera would remain hostage for the time being. It practically fell out of his butt when the dark haired woman repositioned it into one hand. Images of his mother's camera falling to the concrete and shattering into a million un-fixable pieces flashed across the boy's eyes but he resisted his initial urge--to lung at miss skirt and wildly grasp at the Polaroid. He didn't need to see the future to know that the odds of something beyond terrible happening were higher than high.

Her other hand, which he would have preferred to have been solidly cradling his camera made its way into her purse and pulled out some tiny, digital thing. Now there was nothing wrong with modern cameras--they just weren't his mother's camera. "I'm sure you could find one in better condition somewhere." Van's hands reached out as the woman pulled his camera up to her eye to snap a picture of him. Cue more images of shattered Polaroid littering the pavement and another keening noise, this one more audible as Van forgot about keeping his mouth shut and keeping any signs of weakness to a minimum.

"I get enough film." He replied to her question in a distracted way as his eyes locked onto the Polaroid as if that would help keep it in her grip and off of the pavement. The boy spoke the truth--besides his mother's mega stockpile (her hobbies were sporadic and she was fickle but when she started something she committed...for a while at least) Van had made a point of scrounging garage sales, junk shops, and eBay for the hard to find film. It was one of the few things he actually spent money on with fervor.

"I nee--I'd like my camera back now." A pause. "Please." Van Sanders-Adamson didn't like the word 'please'. He used it rarely and only in certain situations. It barely rolled off his tongue and thunked to the ground after it was uttered. A few different scenarios flashed in front of the boy's eyes--blocking out catastrophic images of damaged property. Normally Van wasn't a very violent person--but he was still resisting the urge to snatch his hands out and retrieve his Polaroid by any means necessary. Thankfully, he managed to quell his sticky, stretchy, fingers...for the time being.

Riley smiled at the kid, and it wasn’t a very nice smile. Maybe it was the fact that she’d just finished practically selling herself to the skeeze who’d held the job interview…but she was getting her rocks off a little on the fact that this kid was so panicked about the dumb Polaroid she held clutched in her hand. Why was it such a big deal? Riley decided to have fun for just a little longer, it was the keening whimper that did it.

Shrugging her shoulders at his refusal of her offer, Riley slipped the Nikkon back into her purse and pulled the undeveloped picture from the front of the Polaroid. Apparently the kid had a stockpile of film for a camera that had existed so long before he was alive that it was almost ridiculous. People simply hadn’t used Polaroid cameras in years. She dropped the camera to her side again and the desperation in the kid’s grey eyes deepened her smirk . The kid spoke again…he’d almost said he needed the camera. Riley wanted to smash it. Just to see the look on his face.

Nobody liked a bully…but they liked being bullied less. This sadism actually felt good to Riley. Then she realized what she was doing.

Disgust surged through Riley as she stood in the alleyway….bullying a kid who wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to have the camera she’d lifted to shoulder level. How was she any worse than the slime she'd just done the interview with. Just like him with his beady, all-too-knowing eyes and the way he'd licked his lips every time he'd finished looking her over. Riley took a deep breath and slowly lowered her arm, offering the camera to the young man she’d been lording it over.

”Take it, before I change my mind.” she said, the developing photo crumpling in a fist she’d clenched without even realizing it. Her eyes were frozen, and she stared at the cats. It was time to go, she turned and walked away, the feline vestiges haunting each clicking step she took.

”Why cats?” she said, hating herself for stopping, but still not turning around, ”And why are you going so apeshit over a Polaroid?”

Minutes passed by in agonizing moments of torturous eternity. In every single one the boy imagined his most prized possession falling to the pavement and exploding into its natural parts. Anger flared up inside the boy. Who was she to make him feel so pathetic and weak? The part of him that he'd been suppressing during the tense moments was breaking free of the shackles in his mind. That part of him wanted his camera and he wanted it now. His hand reached out and Van had the idea to stretch his arm out and snatch the Polaroid back--if he was lucky maybe he'd scare the woman too, there'd be satisfaction in that. Maybe he'd regret it later, but later wasn't the issue. So the boy focused on his arm and fingers and imagined the feeling of them stretching. It was usually easy, summoning his rubber powers--

only this time nothing happened. Nothing freakin' happened. What the [insert dirty word here]!?

This was it, all those late nights wishing he was normal and he'd finally gotten it--right when he wanted his powers the most.

Van steeled himself for the worst but then suddenly the game changed. Miss Skirted Siren's chest heaved after a deep breath and she held his mother's camera aloft in front of him. She didn't even get her words out before his non-stretchy hands pulled the camera from her, cradling the old bulky thing to their owner's chest. The woman hadn't even looked at him as she'd handed it back and her body had become weirdly tense. Van noted these things but didn't comment, he was too busy draping the home-made strap around his neck, solidifying his bond with the camera. The anger that had flared up so hotly before and the panic at not having his powers evaporated, replaced by a sweet sense of relief.

He watched her walk away, her heels making the familiar clicking noise with each step. Part of him felt like he should scream something at her, but that part was decidedly quieter than the part of his brain that was almost purring with excitement that his Polaroid was returned to him unharmed. Another part of his brain wanted to take a picture of the slowly retreating figure--and then that figure spoke again, right before his hand that he'd been trying so hard to stretch before shot out, extending about three feet above the norm before Van realized it and focused on pulling it in to a normal length. What the [insert dirty word here]!? indeed.

"It's for a competition put on by a humane society, so cats are appropriate." That question was easy to answer and this time he gave her the real one devoid of any froo-froo ideas about artistry or medium or the symbolism in kitties. The second question he didn't want to answer, Miss Skirt did not inspire him to tell a stranger about his mother. So instead he parried with a question of his own: "Why doesn't my mutation act up when I'm close to you?" Conspiracy theories flooded the boy's mind. She could be another mutant with some kind of power blocking power or she could have some device on her or she was an alien--

or maybe she was some kind of robot? That would explain a lot--like her perfect figure and her strange behavior earlier and the fact that it seemed like her emotions weren't wired right. The boy surreptitiously searched for any tell-tale robot signs. This time his eyes gained no excitement from traveling around woman's form. Those feelings had passed, replaced by weary confusion and vague interest.

A competition for a humane society? If possible, Riley felt even more like a piece of dirt, which made her body stiffen even more. Who did thiskid think he was with his kitty cat graffiti and his stupid Polaroid camera? Who was he to make her feel this way for simply wanting to feel like she was the one with the control for once? Why hadn’t she just smashed that stupid camera to bits, then ground the pieces into dirt with her shoe? There weren’t answers to those questions…Riley hadn’t expected there to be. She just nodded her head when he said it.

He deflected her question about the camera, though, and the way he did it made two conflicting urges rush through Riley. One urge was to run, to run from the alleyway as fast as her heeled feet would carry her. The other was the one she acted on though. Turning slowly, eyes even more cold and hard than when she’d been ready to smash the camera, she walked towards the kid. She walked towards him slowly. The kid needed a lesson. Not only was it rude to ask about such things, asking the wrong person could seriously get him in trouble.

“You should be careful what you ask for kid. Sometimes you get it.” the dark-haired woman said, voice as cold as her eyes.

She continued approaching, eyes narrowing with each step until she was eye to eye with him. Riley was grateful for the added height her shoes gave her, and despite the absolute terror twisting her stomach at the young man’s words, the finger that poked him in the chest was anything but shaky.

”Look. If you can’t work your freak powers just because a pretty girl comes within a few feet of you, that sounds like your personal problem, not mine.”

That’s exactly what it was, after all, the panic or the hormones, or something else had caused the malfunction in whatever it was the kid could do. The nagging thoughts in the back of Riley’s head about similar situations were squashed by her refusal to believe that she was anything other than completely normal. Anger flared anew at the realization that whatever the little spazz’s powers were, he’d tried to use them on her.

”Besides, where did you get off thinking it’s alright to assault someone with your mutant powers over a stupid camera.” Riley poked again, harder, ”You’re lucky I don’t go to the cops, or talk to the person who owns this building.” She wouldn’t do anything of the sort, but Riley needed leverage….and maybe, just maybe, the thrill of knowing she again held something over the kid’s head.

Mayday. Mayday. We're going down. Abandon ship and all hope. Or at least back up a few paces. When Miss Android started walking towards Van he realized he might have stepped over a few boundaries with his last question even before she pretty much told him that he did. We'll call that juvenile delinquent intuition--when you get in trouble a lot you have a tendency to see it coming. When it comes at you in heels you back up slowly and then decide to stand your ground, feeling like a little kid running away from the bully on the block. Van hated to admit it, but she was making him nervous.

Her first words echoed the boy's previous thoughts about wishing he wasn't a mutant but the look in her eyes shut up any thoughts brought on by the strange coincidence.

The boy blinked when he was jabbed in the chest. Did she really just poke me in the chest? Van had never seen something like this live, even if he was the actor, and it was vaguely interesting, this sort of confrontation with a stranger. Not to say that he hadn't pissed people off before--that happened a lot when you said most of what you were thinking--he'd just never pissed off someone so much older that was female. It was a weird little scene and Van resisted the urge to cock his head at the woman who was so obviously intensely upset with his (he agreed) rude question. Her response made him wonder is she right? Van's powers had never backfired this much before, could it be possible that...no, he didn't think so. She stopped being ridiculously hot after I thought she was going to drop my camera.

The boy backed up and held his hands out in surrender after he was poked harder and the cops were brought into the conversation. "Look," lady/android/alien/miss/ma'am(?) "who said anything about assaulting anyone? And this is my dad's building. I live upstairs." He motioned towards one of the windows in the upper story of the building. "I can chalk whatever I want as long as I have it gone before seven and wash tables tomorrow." Van got that he could have hurt the woman if he'd had a scarier power, but that hadn't been the plan anyway. This whole situation was rapidly unraveling around him and all the young mutant could do was try to be the calmer one in the situation.

He finally realized that he probably wasn't the only person with issues in their little confrontation.

"It's my mom's, okay? The camera. It was my mom's." Honest. Pathetic. But so honest.

The boy was off-blance and Riley fed off of it like it was some kind of ambrosia. Keeping people off guard was something that she excelled at, and something that had served her well…over and over again.

The kid was obviously a little on the nutso side, he’d been drawing cats on the side of a building in New York City. That was inviting an ass-kicking from so many different directions on its own…then strutting around with a Polaroid and acting like it was a lifeline to a distant universe. Then accusing a passerby of doing something to his freakie-deak mutant powers.

The fact that he’d tried to use whatever it was he could do on her made Riley nearly shudder. She’d seen mutants at work, and even if this was just a kid…they could be seriously dangerous. The kid was backpedaling though, and that’s exactly where Riley planned on keeping him.

He apologized and she raised an eyebrow, removing her finger from his chest and staring him down with hard, icy-blue eyes instead. ”You talked about assaulting someone the moment you pointed out you tried to use your powers on me. You’re lucky you screwed it up.”

So it was his building, that fact changed little. Any real tagger who saw kitties on the side of a building would go to great lengths to kick the ass of the poser who put it there. Riley didn’t voice the fact, just raised an eyebrow.

She might have been ready to turn around and leave…but then the kid had to go and point out that the camera had been his mother’s. Riley smirked slightly, a derisive eyebrow raised as she looked the boy up and down. Riley had left her mother back in Chicago…the best thing she could have done. Probably for both of them. Riley had known she was a mistake from an incredibly early age, and her mother had never let a child get in the way of living life. Was that confession supposed to illicit some sort of sympathetic response? Riley hoped not.

”And? I just offered you a $180 Nikkon for it.”

Lucky I screwed up? Hmmmm, maybe... Van's brain toyed with the idea as he blinked slowly at the woman with faraway eyes. He made a point not to look into her blue ones as he did so, they were kinda scary and had the ability to derail his thought train with so much angry iris. Well I suppose that may have ended badly or something. With his camera safely strapped around his neck the boy's fervor from moments ago was gone and replaced by a strangely detached feeling, like he was watching the scene play out from the safe plush seats of a theater. "I guess you could put it that way, yeah." His tone was as faraway as his eyes as he mulled everything over from his spot on a red velvet chair.

Just don't look into her eyes, that's how they get you. The image of Miss Skirt ripping her face off to reveal a terminator body flashed in his mind and Van decided it would be best not to laugh. It wasn't polite...and she probably wouldn't get the joke anyway. He did continue to make a point of looking anywhere on her face/in her hair but her eyes. They were too hard for comfort at the moment.

Add super pathetic to the list of adjectives and phrases describing the boy's stupid utterance. Van felt like he was eight again, crying at school because he wanted his mother to pick him up and take him home. He hadn't lived that day down until middle school--when hanging out with high school students with 'bad' reputations made you some kind of preteen idol with 'cool' habits like cutting class and smoking. Miss Skirt was making him feel like the scrawny home-schooled kid again while she played the lead role as all the other boys (and several girls) in his third grade class.

And then he was himself again and angry. Angry at himself for feeling so pathetic, angry at her for making him see the patheticness, and angry at everything else--for not being as pathetic as he was. He had two options: dwell in the anger and self pity or get over it.

Cue weirdo from the planet Freak, stage left.

If Van Sanders-Adamson was anything it was random. For a moment he wondered if there was a possibility that he had some kind of chemical imbalance before he responded to her up-down, eyebrow, question/response with an exaggerated eyebrow and an agreeing "That you did, that you did." There was a smirk on his face and the boy leaned back, hands half on his hips in a casual stance. Probably not the best thing to say seeing as he didn't think ol' sharp eyes would take kindly to what he assumed looked like someone poking fun at her but oh well--an inner shrug--he felt a little better after all. "Probably makes me stupid, but I don't really care." There, she could attack his stupidness and get her rocks off or whatever it was she was trying to prove to him.

There must be balance in everything, including confrontation. So says Someone, or maybe just Van. Amen. Curtains.

Riley shook her head and smiled, taking a step back and crossing her arms under her chest, ”You know, if you’re going to pull off haughty bravado like that….you really should do it before you play the whimpering little boy card.”

The kid pointed out that his refusal to take the more expensive camera probably made him stupid. Riley nodded her head, ”You can’t walk around wearing your weaknesses like a flashing neon sign. You get your ass kicked a lot, don’t you?”

Riley didn’t know why she’d suddenly decided that giving the kid a few key pieces of advice was a good idea, especially after he’d basically accused her of being some kind of freaky mutant. She had, though, and when Riley decided to do something, she did it all the way. The kid didn’t remind her o herself…she’d been far more self-sufficient by this age. There was something about him though, the undercurrent of anger that was impossible to miss. He reminded her of herself now…Riley was angry at the world too. She reached out and tapped the Polaroid that hung from the kid’s neck.

”If it’s that important…lock it up where nobody is going to be able to find it except you.” she said, ”When the people stronger than you find something that important they will exploit the hell out of it. They will exploit it until you start to hate it so much that you won’t remember why it meant anything in the first place.”

It was a tough lesson, a tough lesson that most people had to learn the hard way, if they ever had to learn it at all. Riley knew this kid because she’d seen him in her own mirror, he would learn the lesson. This was the better way, the safer way…even if a part of her knew she probably should have smashed that stupid camera when she had the chance. It would have been kinder in the long run.

Taking a step back and...was that a smile!? Well there you go--everyone can pull off weirdo from the planet Freak apparently. Not that Van minded being thrown off guard like this--this was a good kind of 'what just happened?' and not the bad kind that tended to freak him out for longer and have some more painful consequences. Not that, of course, this turn in the conversational confrontation couldn't end painfully--things were just looking a little bit higher than they were a moment ago.

"That is probably a better ordering of the deck..." Van admitted, his mind floating off to Mulling Land to mull and otherwise try to make sense of the last few minutes. The boy was fickle and his emotions were fleeting. Panic--gone. Anger--what anger? All his previously intense feelings were quickly being replaced by hesitant calm that was aided by the detachment he was also feeling full blast now from the situation.

The woman spoke again and this time it again wasn't an attack--well, not anything Van would consider an attack from her, based on what he'd seen. No, this seemed more like some snarky form of advice that rocked Mulling Land to its core. What. The. Heck?

His hand found its way to his nose without him thinking about it, searching for the septum pericing that was no more after he got his face half-kicked in by some steel toes at a concert turned rioting mob. "Actually, it doesn't happen all that often. If that's not too surprising." The tone was half surprised as van thought about it. It was the truth though. Last time he'd been majorly thrown down was because of his mutation--not his mouth. Any times before that were because he overestimated himself or underestimated (or both) whoever it was that ended up kicking his ass. In his score book, Van managed to scrape some sort of victory about half of the time--but that didn't mean that his ass wasn't first kicked beforehand.

The boy was proud of himself when he didn't flinch at the touching of his camera. His eyes did watch the tapping fingers with some nervousness but he didn't pull back or swat her hand away. It didn't seem like a good plan. The young man really preferred the smiling, advice-giving Miss Skirt to her much more scared-making second form.Or was the smiling version the second form? The boy really didn't know and wasn't totally sure if he wanted to put in the research to find out. The easy answer was that she was both, just like Van was both utterly pathetic and half-boiling over on the inside.

Her next bit made Van's faraway eyes come back to Earth in order to steal any extra meaning from her blue ones. She was totally right. The logic made sense, so much freakin' sense it was almost scary. So much sense that Van couldn't find the words to tell her that he understood what she was saying. Tangents were spiraling off of her words in giant arcs that threatened to overload his already adrenaline filled brain. What if that was how you stopped being pathetic? Keep the good stuff away from everything else--so far that you don't need it to function at all?

A nod to a million things and nothing and an intimidating woman dressed in 1950s throwback attire.