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Locke moved into a crouching position. He'd told Eaan about Chris before, and he even made it clear that the guy wasn't the hugging type. Eaan, it seemed, felt the best way to handle any poor self image that Chris might have was to ignore it. When Chris started flailing about any sense of entertainment that Locke had flew out the window. Time to do some damage control. "Down boy!"he said, grabbing onto his insane friend's arms and pulling to try and free Chris. "Step out of the personal bubble!"

"Awww," Eaan complained, but did what he was told. He also bent over and grabbed Locke's fallen bag. Turning around he studied Chris with a critical eye. "So this is the guy that's trying to bump me out of the best friend status?"

"Eaan," Locke warned, grabbing his backpack and riffling through it to make sure that nothing had been broken.

Again all Locke could offer Chris was a small smile to ask for forgiveness. Best to not bring up the fact that there was going to be yet another three day train ride in order for them to get back to the school until after the sore muscles had time to recover. He knew that the train had been uncomfortable in more than one way for his friend. Locke sometimes wished that he himself could be invisible, and Chris had given him the impression that he wanted that too at times. "At least you don't have to worry about going through metal detectors for trains. I set those things off all the time."

"It's hard to tell with Eaan sometimes what kind of crazy he is," Locke confessed, "Remember this is the guy who knows what a parabola is, but he's dyed half his head because he was bored, and on Valentines Day he wears a Cupid costume. So either he's brilliant or just nuts."

It wasn't freezing in San Francisco, the weather a nice fifty degrees as opposed to the nineteen that they had left behind, but to Locke it was still nearly arctic conditions. Instead of snow there was plenty of fog to decrease visibility. He was amazed by it for a minute. How quickly you forget the details of your life in a place when you've been away. Just seconds ago he had told Chris about the fog, but he didn't remember it quite like this. It was also odd to try and think of where Chris might want to go. Both the places he had mentioned never struck Locke as tourist attractions, even though he had seen crowds there and he knew it was what people wanted to see. They were just part of his hometown. Now he was thinking about things the way that Chris might, and trying to see the sights through his eyes. "Pier Thirty-Nine?" he asked. Most people seemed to like it there, if not for the sea lions then for the shopping or the aquarium. Would it offend Chris to mention the pier? Honestly it was one of the first places he could think of, and not just because he'd had to take pictures of strangers there before. Or maybe he was talking about Disney. Now that was something that he could easily see as a tourist attraction. He himself had never been there.

Lost in thought of Disney and what other things Chris might possibly want to see, Locke was unaware of the rapidly approaching human cannonball that was his high school friend until Eaan had successfully done what is known as a "glomp". The teen was just slightly taller then Locke, and in the blur of movement all Locke had spotted was the streak of electric blue hair among black.

"Rock man! And Chris!" Eaan exclaimed, pulling himself up off the ground where he had pinned Locke and turning to make the same flying hug at Chris. That is the best, and maybe the worst, thing about Eaan, [/i]Locke thought, propping himself up on his elbows to watch what was going to be an odd introduction, He doesn't care who you are, or how long it's been since you saw each other. You're going to be treated like the prodigal son returning.

As unbelievable as walking trees were, Locke found it harder to accept the man from the tree. Maybe it was because he lived surrounded by other mutants who did things out of the ordinary everyday. Having someone walk out of a fallen Christmas tree, which, seeing as there was nobody else around, they had made tumble down on their own was not something he was willing to go along with. "You could have said timber," he shot back, not really sure how to argue with Martin's logic. He didn't want anyone to get hurt from the trees either. His intentions were different though. "A falling tree is more dangerous than one that's rooted."

"And that's what I was trying to do, replant these suckers," Locke gestured in the direction of some of his overturned dirt. If asked he wouldn't be able to describe just how he could tell what bit of the disturbed earth was his own doing. The Californian rubbed his uninjured arm's hand against his cheek, leaving a dark streak of dirt. "Instead I get swatted at like a fly." It wasn't like Locke expected the tree's to bend over and pat him gently on the head for his actions, but it would be nice not to be smacked. "And you?" he asked over his shoulder, trying to catch up to his tree before someone else got to it.

"Or a three day ride on a train," Locke muttered. He had been numb when he rode into New York City, not just physically, but mentally as well. Most of the ride Locke had viewed the passing scenery with little connection. His brain had just been the screen that a movie was projected onto. California was indeed very, very far away. "Skype's the best. It's how I make sure that everyone's ok back home." The topic was making him homesick, and as he always did when Locke was faced with an emotion he didn't want to deal with, he shoved it way down inside himself. Time to talk about something else.

His shoes were apparently a good enough topic to talk about. Once again Elise had Locke questioning his feet. There was nothing wrong with his shoes in his opinion. The soles were thin, but did not have holes in them. On rainy days they didn't have the same level of water resistance that leather sneakers might, but he liked the way that the hightops fit him. He liked having that much closer a connection to the ground. "What's wrong with them? They're still in one piece and fit me. Next you'll say I need to go shopping for new jeans." Of course he was wearing one of his older pairs of jeans, one that Kendra had tried to convince him to replace. As long as the seams were holding things together, Locke's battered clothes were good enough for him.. In reality he could use a shopping trip for clothes. He'd grown a little, and now the hems of his long sleeves left a bare inch. An inch might not be much, but it was plenty for a guy who hated the smallest chill.

He returned to the dancing position, wiping his hands off on his jeans before taking Elise's. Locke did a few odd wiggles, trying to find that proper posture position. It still felt wrong to stand up so straight. And yet he also had to be relaxed. Obviously the oxymoron never occurred to the creator of the cha-cha. "Alright, no complaints," Locke said, a small chuckle accompanying the promise. This dancing thing wasn't the disaster that he thought that it was going to be. Although he still hadn't gotten the hang of looking at Elise while they danced. Locke continued the same dance steps as before, nodding his head without looking down at his feet, or even at Elise's head. So far he hadn't tried doing a turn for one simple reason. Elise might have told him how he was suppose to do the turn, and how to let her know when a turn was about to happen, but she left out one critical step. "When do we turn?"

The problem with trying to replant walking trees, Locke decided, was that they had far too many roots. It would have been no problem for a gardener Fluffy to handle say, his failed lima bean experiment from elementary school. Locke had no doubts that he could pull the roots into the ground, but the problem was that the bigger ones that kept up the momentum of the tree were hard to grab. He already had discovered that while the little roots could be pulled down by the handful, the tree just ignored them until Locke snapped them. At that point he was going to have to move his butt out of the way. His latest attempt at planting a tree had gotten him branch smacked.

Locke stood up and followed the tree that had hurt him, cradling his left arm. It felt like it had changed from a perfectly normal arm into a meat sack. It hurt, but not nearly as much as his right arm had when been broken. He was going to get even with that tree. It didn’t care that Locke had been trying to help it. People were chopping down trees, setting them on fire, all sorts of mayhem, and Locke just wanted to get them back into the ground. As much damage as the trees were doing on their own, it seemed to be much more worse when they toppled over from the efforts of the citizens of New York.

He heard the woosh of air before he sensed a tree falling. Getting hit by a branch was painful enough. To be squashed flat by one was going to be deadly. Locke scuttled out of the way of the tree, wondering why it was toppling over. In trying to plant his own tree Locke had disturbed some of the dirt, but not enough to knock a tree over. A man stepped out of the branches and Locke had to stare at him. “What were you thinking?”

((OOC:Hope that’s ok Martin))

A year can be an extremely long time when you are looking forward to something. Birthdays never come fast enough when you are a child, and five seconds after unwrapping the presents you want Christmas to come again. How much longer can a year be than when you are separated from your family? To Locke who had spent five years of his life taking care of his brother and sister, it felt like a life time since he was home. An entire year after last tucking them in, Locke was going to see his half sibs.

The train ride was as painful as it had been the year before, even if he was going in the opposite direction. Three days of being in an overheated train car, and sitting on what was suppose to be a cushioned seat made him feel hot, cramped, and sore. At least this time he wasn't alone. Locke invited his friend Chris to come out west for a couple of days for New Years. He didn't know if Chris had ever been to San Fransisco, but Locke was feeling an itch to travel, and his friend back home wanted to meet the east coast people.

Locke stretched his arms and legs out before hitching the good strap of his backpack further up on his shoulder. "Ugh, I think my butt fell asleep," he complained, but there was a slight joking nature to it. A quick glance at his watch told him that they were on time, which meant that their ride was late. "Welcome to San Fransisco, home of the Mythbusters, the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, and fog."