When Paul had a landscaping job he always got to work as early as city ordinances would allow. Even though New York was to the far north of the United States it still got very hot in the summer and while Paul enjoyed some sweating there was no way he wanted to start his work at the hottest part of the day. Today's job was nothing to intense. A residential homeowner was looking for a raised flower bed next to the house with a stone wall framing it to prevent the soil from being washed away while still allowing adequate drainage so that the plants would grow nicely.

A rented work truck held about twenty bags of fertilizer and several rolls of landscape fabric along with two pallets worth of chief cliff dry stack retaining wall stone. After the wall was built and the flower bed was put together Paul would get the flowers and bushes to be planted but that was another days work. For today it was all about removing old vegetation, laying down the fabric, building the wall, and filling the area with soil.

"This might even be two days just for the wall." Paul muttered with a smile as he parked the truck in the driveway and then climbed out. Stretching lazily in the early morning air he walked over to the side of the house to take one more look at area before beginning. Thankfully the husband and his wife were both already at work so he could work in peace.

Once Paul had double checked that his plan for the day was a good one he grabbed a shovel out of the truck and went to work. The spade went into the ground with a satisfying 'shunk' or some such sound and immediately the scent of good soil filled the air. Oh yes... it was a good day.

***

For the next hour or so Paul worked steadily, tossing the waste vegetation onto a large plastic sheet to be mulched or disposed of later and then leveling the soil as he went so it would be ready for the landscape fabric just as soon as he was done. His gray t-shirt was already soaked with sweat and he didn't think his Dickie's work pants would be far behind but that wasn't a problem. Sweat was a good thing.

"Ouch... why you little," Paul began as he paused to flick an ant off of his arm. Suddenly Paul realized his mistake. There was never just one ant and even from the first bite he knew this was no ordinary ant. It was a fire ant and fire ants never bit one at a time. They always waited and sent out a chemical signal telling the others to bite as well. Already it was to late and Paul could feel bite after bite suddenly taking place on his arms and on his lower legs. Apparently his shoveling had disturbed a fire ant mound without his realizing it and the ants were making it very clear that they were not happy.

The shovel dropped to the soft ground with a quiet thump as Paul lept out of the freshly cleared area, slapping at his arms and legs before running toward the side of the house where he had seen a water hose. Kicking off his shoes as he ran he left them by the truck which began a trail of clothing leading toward his destination. "Shoot, shoot, shoot!" He ranted as he dropped his shirt next followed last but not least by his pants which dropped right next to the water hose. Thankfully he was wearing shorts under his pants but still, he couldn't begin to imagine what someone might be thinking if they had just watched this performance.

A sharp intake of breath could be heard the moment that the water hit his chest and began to sweep down his body. Apparently these people had a well or something because the water was ice cold. So there he was... covered with bites on his extremities, stripped down to his shorts, and now almost shaking from the cold water he had to use to save himself from even worse bites.

"What a crappy day..." Paul muttered through clenched teeth as a bird chose that moment to begin its morning song, "Utter crap."

There are two main ways to wake up; slow and fast. Slow means the body rejects the alarm’s scream, snuggling under blankets, nuzzling deeper into pillows until finally barely conscious it is dragged to a shower and shocked into life with extremes of hot or cold. Fast means that eyes spring open, and want to stay that way, the heart beats fresh oxygen around the body and there is the extreme feeling of motivation. This morning, unlike most other mornings, Verdy had awoken fast. Rather than this being a good thing, it was irking her. She had no assessments due, no work that day, Andrew was elsewhere and it would have been the perfect day to sleep in, then spend a lazy day wandering around in her pyjamas. Instead, her body clock had jerked her awake at some ungodly hour when the sun wasn’t even lighting her window. After an hour or so productively cleaning her room, down to the seriousness of vacuuming, she found herself with nothing to do. It seemed a nice day outside, so after a quick shower she donned jogging clothes and located Jack’s leash.

“C’mon boy! Let’s go for a run!”

The black and white pirate captain rolled an eye at her before re-closing it. Slow waking for him. For an instant she considered trying to convince him, but he was old, and she didn’t need him to go with her… Best to just let him sleep while it was still cool, it must be difficult to go through summer covered in fur. She made a mental note to get some clippers and trim some of his excess winter fluff, to relieve the heat and stop him shedding all over her carpet.

Once she was out and jogging, feet falling in time to the tune playing in her ears, the air as clean as could be for a summer’s morning in NYC, it was easy to loose herself in the rhythm and just let everything go. Waking up fast apparently motivated her to exercise.

~~~

After an undetermined length of time- but somewhat more than ten songs- later her face was flushed and there was that burning in the base of her lungs that demanded she ceased this foolishness and go back to being lazy, and as soon as possible too. Glancing around she slowed to a jog-walk, then to a walk-walk as she tried to spy a good place to stop and wait for her breath to return to her. No parks with convenient benches, a curb barely high enough to sit on, and driveways, always the driveways. Not just any driveways, the driveways of pretentious snots who hired workers to do their gardening for them. Workers that for no apparent reason threw their clothes off and flailed their way to hoses where they proceeded to spray themselves liberally in what seemed to be an effort to soak their undergarments. Perhaps there had been a news forecast of a sudden heatwave, and he was preparing?

She slowed to barely moving and glanced around. Except for the truck there didn’t seem to be a glut of vehicles, and as she did a slow sweep of the area, no people that seemed obvious either. Partially because she was concerned about this gardener, but mainly because she was curious borderline nosy she stopped and pulled the headphones from her ears. As far as she could tell he hadn’t noticed her yet, so she figured it would only be fair that she made herself known, instead of watching his undies-dance undetected.

“Morning.”

The call was cheery enough to have been called over a neat picket fence as each party walked to their mailboxes to pick up the paper. No awkwardness, no lack of clothing, just another day in the beautiful NYC.

Paul had quieted down to simply muttering and cursing under his breath as he finished washing the last of the evil biting insects off of his body. He was just about to pick up his pants and begin to rinse them out when he suddenly heard a voice.

"Morning."

For a moment Paul froze. The voice was pleasant enough with an interesting accent that he just couldn't place but it was also most definitely feminine. Wasn't this a great way to make a first impression. "Clean boxers... did I make sure to wear clean boxers? I think I did... didn't it?" It was amazing the questions that popped into a persons head in this sort of situation.

Now of course there was one more question to be answered. Should he pretend to be embarrassed to have been caught in his boxers or should he play it off as a completely normal situation with absolutely nothing strange about it. With the woman's tone of voice the latter was probably a good option.

"Morning." Paul replied as he slowly turned to face the woman that had somehow snuck up on him. She was attractive though she did seem to have a lot of piercings. Her black hair hung down with, was that green on the tips? "Great day for laundry." He continued casually as he picked up his pants and began to calmly hose out the awful creatures that had invaded his privacy. In fact... was that... yep, his hind quarters were beginning to itch. Apparently some lone insect had made the long march to fleshier regions.

"Can not scratch..." Paul lectured to himself as he continued rinsing out his pants while resisting the most natural of responses, "Not proper to scratch in front of a lady."

The man was… rinsing his pants. With a garden hose. On the front lawn. While he wasn’t wearing them.

Right.

He commented on the day’s suitability for laundry and she nodded slowly. It was going to be one of those hot days, better to get out for a run in the morning, or a rinse.

“Most people use a machine, but yes it is.”

She tilted her head and eyed him. He didn’t look like a crazy person, more like someone sprung doing something so absurd that explaining it would take longer than just pretending it was perfectly ordinary. He also gave off a vibe of pure discomfort and she felt almost sorry that she had disturbed him in his… situation.

He continued to spray the pants liberally as she drew closer to the driveway. As she moved the trail of clothes from what seemed to be a minor excavation became apparent. He had flung his clothes off mid-movement it would seem, how odd.

“Get the urge to wash suddenly, on the lawn?”

If he had bladder problems and had had an accident, that would have been rather rude and quite possibly hurtful. Of course that thought didn’t cross her mind until after she had said it. She rolled the lead from the earphones around her fingers as she stopped and inspected the situation, letting her body cool as she did so, with no places designed for resting standing was the best option until she got her breath back.

She would have to notice the lack of washing machine. What was with this girl? Couldn't she leave a man to his embarrassment in peace? Obviously standing on the lawn in just your boxers while rinsing your pants wasn't normal but most people would have just stared as they walked past. What were the odds of someone actually stopping to chat? One in a thousand? One in a million? And of course she would have to be that 'one'.

Finally satisfied that the pants were safe he dropped the hose and pulled on the saturated garment. Sure it was sopping wet and at the moment felt completely miserable against his bare skin but at least he was covered. And, come to think of it, the coolness of the fabric felt pretty good on his bites, especially that one on the posterior.

"Fire ants are known for causing that urge." Paul responded as he walked over to inspect where he had left his shoes. He would rather not have to rinse them out since that would take days, not just hours, to dry. Focusing on the footwear as he lifted it up for examination he went on with his explanation. "Customer wants a raised flower bed with stone wall framing. Somehow during my digging I missed a fire ant colony but they didn't miss me."

The footwear seemed to be clear and after running his hands over both the outside and inside he pulled the shoes back on and moved on to inspect his shirt.

"So are you just out for a morning jog?" He asked as he glanced up and gave the woman a grin, "Or do you regularly go out looking for men washing their clothes on the lawn?"

He donned the dripping garment and offered an explanation. Ants. Of the fire-biting-nasty-crawly-kind. All over him, inside his clothes and shoes, probably his hair once he pulled the shirt over his head. Ouch.

“Ouch.”

Good thing he wasn’t allergic, otherwise she would have been calling an ambulance and possibly escorting him to the hospital, rather than chatting cheerfully with him on the lawn. On the lawn of a house that apparently wasn’t even his.

He grinned at her, and questioned the purpose of her morning jog. She smiled back and slipped both her music player and the hand clutched around it into her pocket, and her other hand into the pocket on the other side. Sweat was trickling down her back and the temperature was steadily rising and here she was standing in the street talking to a total stranger who was dripping and only now wearing pants.

“Oh regularly, I have a strange compulsion to do so. You are the first who has catered to my whim however.”

She scraped the hair that had escaped back up into her ponytail and wiped her brow. Why did exercise always seem more difficult once it had been put on the shelf for a while?

“Day off, it’s a good way to avoid homework and housework.”

Not that she had really any of either, but it was a convenient excuse.

“I’m Verdy, by the way.”

Because the last older man she had bothered to stop and talk to while on a jog had turned out to be a policeman and a good friend.

The shirt still contained ants and so after gingerly picking it up he carried it toward the hose. The lady had a sense of humor and he felt his smile growing ever so slightly as she easily responded to his small jest.

"Well, I'll take pleasure in knowing that I'm the first to satisfy your desire for men laundering on the lawn." He responded with a chuckle as he grabbed the hose and began to thoroughly rinse out his last garment. The rental truck was going to get soaked on his drive home but that was no big deal. At worst he'd have to pay a little extra so they could have the vehicle cleaned. At best, it would be all dried out before he ever returned it.

"My name's Paul." He spoke over the noise of the hose as he looked back up at the woman with a smile, "And it's a pleasure to meet you, though I wish our first meeting had taken place with both of us fully clothed instead of only one of us. You have me at a slight disadvantage."

It was possible that she could take that statement the wrong way but really he didn't mean anything by it and wasn't suggesting anything. It was basically a statement of fact. "I do a lot of morning jogs when I don't have work to do." Paul changed the subject quickly just in case he had accidentally offended her, "Everything is pretty peaceful if you can just get out before most people have gotten up to head for work. Of course, in a neighborhood like this it's pretty peaceful after everyone has gone to work too."

“Lawn-dering even”

She gave a serious nod.

He rinsed out the remainder of the biting little critters out as he introduced himself and sighed over the nonexistent nicer meeting arrangement, one with more clothing and less embarrassment.

“Ah, but I mightn’t have stopped to talk to you then. Besides, your’s isn’t the strangest skin I’ve seen by a long shot.”

That would probably go to her green friend Andrea, who she hadn’t seen in some time, actually. He changed the subject back to jogging and she nodded. Work or no, it was good sometimes to just get out and exercise, get the endorphins flowing and all that.

“Yes, sometimes more peaceful after they leave.”

Because the frantic nagging of soccer moms, the hiss and whirr of household convenience appliances designed to make the morning routine easier, all combined to give an early morning vibe that was more stress than relaxation.


((OOC: Sorry it's so short! I wanted to post before I went to bed, but this is all my muse could come up with...))

"I supposed that's true." Paul replied with a smile, "I guess you can't stop to chat with every landscaper you happen to see working at someone's house. Something different has to happen to attract your attention."

She seemed pleasant enough and since he didn't really know a whole lot of people in New York yet it was good to add another name to his mental Rolodex. Perhaps they might even bump into each other again sometime. But wait, his mind was just catching up to a comment she had made. Not the strangest skin? He she made the acquaintance of another mutant with more of an outward display? It was an interesting question but somehow Paul didn't think now was the time or place to suddenly ask, "Hey, have you seen a mutant before?" besides, this was New York City... everyone had seen mutants before!

"Do you live in this neighborhood or just nearby?" Paul asked as he finished rinsing out his shirt and then pulled the saturated garment over his head. Suddenly it felt like every hair was standing on end as the cool wet fabric clung to his skin. No, that definitely wasn't an enjoyable feeling.

"I'm a little further into the city myself. Live in an apartment over a bakery." He offered, just so that she knew he wasn't trying to stalk her down to find her place of residence. No, he was just making conversation... just conversation.

‘Something different’ so very often seemed to be the start of her conversations these days. One of these days she would have to start up a conversation with a total stranger without random provacation, just to be different. She made her way closer still, until she was leaning on the fence, her body pleased that she had stopped that infernal running weakly reminded her of stranger-danger before turning its focus back to a twitching muscle in her calf. If anything happened, she always had her hands.

She cocked her head at his question, but he followed it up by offering information about himself, so instead of being a creepy older man, he seemed sweet, and borderline lonely, the type of person who talks about the weather, or what job field you’re in. The type of person who, sometimes without even realising, is yearning for a bit of social interaction.

She smiled at him and nodded at his comment.

“Over a bakery, that would make me hungry too often I think. But lovely smells all the same.”

Where she lived often smelt of socks, sometimes of the charred variety, and the general odours that come from living in a place chock-full of teenagers, that combined with all the different smells particular to all the assorted mutations, not to mention pets, made for an intriguing scent that it was best not to inhale too deeply. With all the cleaning staff, at least it was certain to be a relatively clean smell, even when unidentifiable.

“Nearby, of a sort. I’m living in Xaviours sister-school, the mansion sorta thatta-way”

She gestured in the general direction where she thought the school was located. Semi-embarrassed by her lack of knowledge she made a mental note to check if the school had a particular name, as well as a better description of its location than ‘thatta-way’.

She gave a wry smile. While to some she would seem to old to be living in a school, she was still finishing highschool, and the mansion provided a safe, reliable home while she was studying, not to mention food of all kinds and friends in abundance, provided she could find them in the range of facilities, both mutation-related and not.

"It can definitely make you hungry." Paul replied with a short laugh, "But there's nothing like bread or pastries fresh from the oven to start your morning out right."

There was no need to mention the fact that it also reminded him of his childhood and happier times. Besides, she probably wouldn't believe the fact that he was actually over ninety years old. After all, how many mutants did you normally bump into in your everyday life?

~ "Nearby, of a sort. I'm living in Xaviours sister-school, the mansion sorta thatt-way."

Then again, in a city like New York with its increasing mutant population, bumping into another mutant was very, very possible. Even though he had never had an opportunity to go investigate the school on his own, he had read plenty of articles about it. They seemed to promote peace, love, and other general good feelings. It reminded him of the 60's.

"I've heard of that place. That's a school for the gifted isn't it?" He carried on the conversation as casually as possible even though his interest was most definitely piqued. Maybe he could even get some sort of invite to check the place out.