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Perfect Twyla smiled to herself as she navigated the familiar halls, Gawain in tow. “It would seem sir, that you are encouraging the dorkiness…just sayin’. We need to check the biography section—something’s been bothering me.” There was no elaboration , just cautions steps when the hallway they were walking down turned into a foyer. The girl relaxed and let her powers bridge across her hand to cover the two of them. “We need to go slow and all that.” Gawain probably knew the drill by now, but the female mutant always found herself repeating things like that when she used her powers on another person.

Unscathed, they made it to the biography section and Twyla had to drop his hand so she could search. “Here we go…” She flipped open a biography of Ingrid Bergman after holding it up so Gawain could see the cover. “I liked how she said it, but I can never remember the exact quote. There was just enough light streaming in the window across the room that she could read and see Gawain’s face and form clearly. To the blond, it felt like they were on their own planet—no light, no other people, and the never-ending city sounds were muffled. It was perfect.

Now if she could only find that stupid…

Standing, Twyla placed the biography carefully on a nearby table so that the cover was facedown—it didn’t need to watch them. Deliberately: “’A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.’” Without another word, the blond pressed herself against Gawain, bumping them into the table. She kissed him for a long moment and then pulled back for air. “There, that’s what I wanted to say…I always get it wrong.” A blush spread across her cheeks, darkening them with shadows . Dorky romance, he probably wouldn’t complain.

Maya sat up quickly, her apology turning into the noise you make when your foot falls asleep and you try to stand on it. The blond winced for her girlfriend, she hated that feeling. Through the wince, Twyla was smiling—she was really glad to be home, and it wasn’t like she could really be miffed about the whole airport thing, could she? People fell asleep, she fell asleep, and Maya was a people. She was sure that all across the city this same instance had occurred countless times that day.

No big thing.

She said as much. “No big thing.” Her brows crinkled in worry. “Not sleeping? That’s not good.” And then: “I missed you so much, it’s so good to be home.” Heedless of the fact that Maya’s side was probably still getting its circulation back, arms were thrown around the dark haired girl so that Twyla could initiate a I-haven’t-seen-you-in-forever-and-I-missed-you-hug.

She winced for Maya again when she realized that it probably wasn’t the most painless hug the other girl had ever received. Ooops.

“1! Happy New Year!” Make a wish. Twyla could barely hear what Gawain was saying underneath the screams and the noise makers and the hollering going on in the rest of the house. She did manage to catch what he yelled into the receiver, not that hearing the words helped with her comprehension of the situation at all. The partiers quieted down just enough for the rest of the conversation to be heard. He’d explain what was going on later, no worries…maybe? Gawain sounded strained but not like he was in heaps of deadly trouble (a nice change, Twyla decided).

"I... gotta go deal wit stuff. Happy New Year, Twy. Miss you too. Come home soon, okay?"

“Um, okay.” When she finally spoke again she sounded startled. “Good luck with…that?” A pause as she counted the days till she was set to depart back to New York. “I’ll beo n my way in nine more days. Wait for me, okay?” His receiver and her receiver went dead. With a sigh the blond turned her back on her reflection and she headed back out to her party.

Her wish was simple: I want to be in New York City next New Year’s. Who she’d be with was inferred—hopefully whoever granted New Year’s wishes understood that.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The family was sitting (all over the kitchen) for her birthday meal. Twyla pulled it out and answered as she stood up to try and get to the hallway for privacy. “Hello?” And then the other end made noise and she instantly recognized the voice. Her face must have betrayed something, because as soon as Maya started talking, her family (especially her brothers) started hooting and making kissing noises. Pink blush splashed across her face as she pushed through the mass of Ashby’s to get to the tiny hallway that led from the kitchen to the back door. It was chilly out there, but the sudden heat of her face kept her warm.

“It’s so good to hear from you!” She said too fast. Field trip? Mission… “Thank you, merry Christmas!” A pause as she thought about how weird it was to be apart for so long. And then a memory of her birthday presents last year. A smile found its way into her voice. “I miss you a lot too, seriously Maya. It’s weird not being where you are.” She could hear her family laughing and speculating about the phone call. “Come back from that field trip or I’ll kick your ass!” Too fast again.

December 1st: Gawain's Birthday

You only turned eighteen once. Twyla Ashby’s sometimes boyfriend sometimes girlfriend was turning eighteen and she wanted to make it something special and kind of cheesy…there was so much cheese.

That morning she woke Gawain up with a breakfast of doughnuts and fruit and a plan to skip classes for the day. Skipping class was partly a present for the blond as well—she had been running herself down all school year trying to get her grades and transcripts up and shiny for colleges. When asked where they were going that day, all Twyla had responded with was a mischievous smile and “That’s not how this works, birthday boy.” Once the pair was cleaned up and ready to ditch class out in the city, the girl grabbed the boy’s hand and a large paper bag that was tapped closed and they snuck out the gates camouflaged.

Twyla had realized that the Morris kid probably didn’t have an I.D.—like she didn’t, but that made her plans for the day even more fun. Seriously immature, but fun. Back home the tradition had been to either: buy a lottery ticket and cigarettes at a gas station or to mob an adult store with a group of older friends. The second option usually resulted in a lot of obnoxious laughing and discomfort for some of the more innocent members of the teenage mob. Twyla would have had to go through one or both of these rituals on her eighteenth birthday—had she been home. Oh well, it just meant she’d have to make sure and celebrate all of her younger friend’s birthdays this way.

It only took a short bus trip for Gawain and Twyla to arrive at their destination, an adult bookstore with a tribute to Fabio in the window display.

Silly? Yes, yes it was. Did Twyla care? Not really.

The blond was feeling a little tame; otherwise she’d have gone to a more risqué or hardcore place that carded people. It just seemed like things could get more awkward than fun going just the two of them. Maybe she was secretly a prude.

But first! “Happy birthday, babe.” Twyla leaned in to give Gawain a kiss on the cheek as she handed him the brown bag she’d been carrying. The blond was always one for giving practical gifts—so hopefully the dark gray backpack she’d found would be appreciated. It had been decided (between herself and her sister via a phone conversation) that a gray bag like the one she had picked out would be neutral enough to carry whatever items (like a change of clothes) her significant other needed in many different situations. Gift giving was not Twyla’s strong suit, and she shyly stared down at her hands through her lashes, her slight blush betraying her discomfort.

And after the gift giving there would be more sneaking…and then a real party back at the Mansion.

((OOC: Let me know if this works, I figure we can do 1 or 2 posts each for every moment. Feel free to take them inside or whatnot. ))

Okay, now that she was standing, the landscape of bodies was a lot smaller. There were maybe seven people in varying states of sleep and wakefulness. Less of a big deal. Right? Maybe? Twyla’s panic leveled out and dropped as soon as she found Gawain. He’d been sleeping and had apparently had the same confusing awakening as she’d had, based on the fact that she found him when he sat straight up and spoke.

This all had to have a legitimate cause. She just had to remember what she did…last night? Twyla kinda
felt like she was going to throw up, but she managed to walk over to her boyfriend on only slightly shaky legs. “Whatever you missed, I missed.” The blond tried to run a gloved hand through her hair. The material made her tangled hair static-y. For some reason the halo of mildly electrified air stuck her as funny—why hadn’t his situation been funny before?

“What did we do last night?” She giggled as she plopped down on the street next to Mirror. Maybe it was the dregs of whatever had gone on in the recent hours that made the girl so giddy. Under normal circumstances this would have been noted by Twyla, but at that point in time she didn’t notice anything strange with her sudden change in attitude.

In the back of her mind gears were working hard and fast to try and determine a realistic cause for why she had no clue as to what she’d done in the hours before falling asleep with a bunch of strangers.