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Persi hated bad paper. Well, technically, it wasn't bad, exactly; printer paper worked well, for what it was meant for. Printing from a computer. But it was terrible for drawing, especially when all he could find were basic school pencils; not different weights of pencil, much less charcoal or pastels or anything at all fun to draw with. He'd even take kids' crayons at this point, but there weren't any of those either.

So instead he'd found the library (who ever needed a three story library?) and found computers and printers in it, and grabbed paper from one of the printers when no one was around. (Who knew if someone would object; librarians were weirdly obsessive, and while computers and printers weren't books, Persi wouldn't be shocked if they obsessed about them, too.) And he'd found a pencil, too. (A mechanical pencil--if any of his art teachers could see, they'd kill him. Well, they would anyway, but the mechanical pencil would make it personal.) As obnoxious as both were, he couldn't not draw.

So that no one could object, he'd snuck out of the library and to the living room, and settled there to draw whatever he could see. Persi didn't quite feel like dealing with his roommate (or anyone, really), so he'd hidden in a corner, let his legs dangle over the side of a chair, and used a DVD case he'd found to draw on. Which required folding the paper in half, but really, at this point he wasn't capable of being more annoyed than he already was. It was just as well; his sketches of tables and shelves had fairly quickly developed tiny dragons, zombie fairies and leering imps perched on and crawling over them. He liked the concept, and having to keep the sketches small meant he could only get so frustrated by the ways the bad pencil and paper messed his drawings up. It was far too small a silver lining to keep him from scowling.

S*** s*** s*** f*** Persi was going to die. That was probably going to happen soon anyway, but he still really didn't want to. Also, dying of cold or hunger or falling out of a tree sounded a lot less painful than becoming the target of what Persi was pretty sure was the worst murderer in the country. Isabel was not known for clean corpses.

And she was talking. Persi was more than slightly distracted by the hand in his shirt. Which at least told him he wasn't actually as dirty as he felt, if she was willing to touch it. For all the good that would do; he kind of wished now that he was dirtier, since that might at least keep his face from looking so white. Though it wouldn't hide the freezing. Why did that even matter? He was going to be dead anyway; he doubted hell would leave him time to worry about whether he'd looked scared of the girl that murdered him. Also? Looking scared of Isabel was totally legitimate. Anyone who didn't had brain damage.

And she was talking. Persi was probably supposed to answer. That would be easier if he had enough non-panic brain left to hear it. Also, if he could get words past the way his throat had locked up. That took several tries. "What?"

Blake had no real idea what had happened, or in fact that anything had happened at all, until he had yelped and was stumbling back. "What the hell!" It took another instant to locate the source of the punch--a girl, damn it--and repeat his indignant confusion. "What the hell?"

Yes. Yes, thoroughly embarrassing for Blake, too; his face wasn't going to lose its blush any time soon, either. The disturbed expression was still lingering, too, though it wasn't as strong; it seemed more inclined to wonder (and fear) what conclusions this woman might jump to next than to run away immediately.

And she was still learning social cues. Blake was pretty sure there were classes for that that she could (should) have taken. Though he also knew some schools kicked mutants out entirely, so maybe she hadn't been able to. "I can tell."

"Yeah." Yes, Blake drew. And painted and sculpted, but he wasn't sure that mentioning those skills wouldn't cause another horrible misconclusion. Instead he eyed the snake; a bit larger than he'd noticed any of them were, but the disjointed jaw yawn was cool. Hopefully the snake would do that again; he didn't think he could draw it from one glimpse.

"I'm Blake." Nice was the standard comment, but she'd already used it... and Blake wasn't entirely sure that this wasn't going to end up too traumatizing to be nice, anyway. "You're... interesting."

Well. It was true.

Blake was both a someone and a someone's brother, and so had double someplace to be. Specifically, he'd promised to meet Irri at the mall, since art and music stores were stupid and didn't actually overlap, and, well, they were going to spend at least part of the time at an art store, so Blake wanted to be there. And on time, because any lost time would come out of the art store trip, not the music store. That would probably be Blake's excuse for brushing silently past everyone in his way, if he bothered to make one.

Blake rarely did that, though. He frowned as he brushed past another person--or pushed, more than brushed; that was definitely a hit, not a brush. Blake didn't feel and particular need to stop, though; just swayed to compensate for the shift in balance as he continued.

Blake wasn’t well liked in school. He knew that, and he didn’t really care; if anything, he was proud of it. He was disliked for being honest about his criticisms instead of webbing himself in with white lies of false praise, for not trying to look like a macho football guy, for not trying to hoard praise and adoration from the popular kids, for not fighting, and for generally not following or trying to follow the mainstream culture’s standards. He was proud of that, and didn’t much care if they criticized or mocked him for it; it didn’t matter.

Of course, then there were the people who hated him for what his religion believed. He was less proud of that, though he wasn’t ashamed; he couldn’t control what God said, after all. And there were the ones who didn’t feel the need to stop at criticism or mockery. They did matter; they were a problem. Especially when they found him out of school, and away from anyone’s parents. That was more of a problem.

Also, when they were bigger than him. Blake let himself frown, and tried to keep his shift from foot to foot subtle enough not to be noticed. Neither Alek nor Jason had touched him yet, but they were noticeably in Blake’s personal space. And he was carrying a sketchbook and a box of pastels; he couldn’t run, even though there was probably room to. It obviously wasn’t going to end well; Blake would honestly prefer he got hit anyway, since the only other likely alternative was them messing with his sketchbook or pastels somehow. And he certainly wasn’t backing down.

“My cousin’s boyfriend is a mutant, and she says he’s the best person she knows. You calling her a liar?” Alek was glaring. Probably; Blake wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Alek not look like he was glaring, but now his posture echoed it too.

“Everyone’s a sinner, not just mutants.” If anything, Blake thought mutants were lucky; their sin was obvious, and some would even help them do things to redeem themselves. Normal people could delude themselves into thinking they were sinless; that was a lot harder to do when someone was a mutant. That none of this logic was applied to Blake himself didn’t occur to him. “He can be better than most people and still be a sin.”

Blake jumped--which was an entirely different thing from flinching--when Jason grabbed his shirt. “Mutations aren’t sins! You’re just a bigoted little **** looking for something to look down on, since being human’s the only thing you’ve got to be proud of!”

Blake scowled until is eyes narrowed again, and tried to bat Jason’s hand away. “I never said I liked that mutations are sins.” And he’d never said anything truer than that in his life. “But I can’t change what God says, and God says that mutations are sins.”

“God doesn’t say anything like that!” Jason let go, and shoved Blake back so he stumbled into a wall. Blake didn’t move as both of them advanced. “Not even going to try defending yourself, huh? Wimp.”

…Miss Jackson was confusing. First she was making assumptions and scolding Blake, then imparting condescending “wisdom,” then… agreeing with him? Maybe? He couldn’t really tell. He didn’t seem to need to, though; she waved and left. Blake waved back, still a bit confused. “See you.”

Blake shifted for a second after she disappeared, then turned to head home himself, absently resorting pencils and charcoal and erasers into pockets as he went, pausing every few minutes to run his hands through his hair. Blake really didn’t like hats.