cold, bored and flamey

Who: Thom and Kaysen (guest appearance by ashbelle)
Where: The treehouse in Thom's back yard
When: Early afternoon

The morning had been chaotic. The shadows hadn't reached Thom's house straight away. That made sense once they realised they were coming from the mirrors - Thom's house, thanks to his utter paranoia - had no mirrors anymore. It didn't matter too much though since the moment that he'd realised what was happening, he wasn't at his house anymore either - he was next door, where lived his best friend and his protected.

That had been this morning, when there'd been three of them, before they'd made a break for outside, before they'd ended up in the treehouse, up off the ground, safer, though cold. Isaac had left now - gone to ensure Peyton was safe - and that left Thom and Kaysen. He was tired, and hurt - those shadows had developed wicked-sharp claws and he'd been at the forefront of the fight, of course. It hadn't always gone perfectly for him, but he'd patched himself up in one of the semi-regular lulls. he'd also gone for supplies, so now they were slightly more comfortable, with blankets and food and a thermos of hot stuffs.

Kaysen was sitting indian style, a thick, fat three wick candle in a glass holder in front of her. She had a blanket draped over her shoulders, clutched tight where she held it. She was a bit on the injured side as well. Getting woken up by being clawed at? Totally not a fun thing. At all. Having crazy shadow guys keep showing up to claw you and your brother and...neighbor? That wasn't cool either. None of this shit was cool in her book. So, now, she sat there drawing from the flames, because she'd need them again in a minute. She was fine tuning, cycling the energy from the fire when they weren't right there, and torching the fuckers when they showed. She hadn't said much in a while, mind sort of a weird blank. She couldn't tell if it was because she was getting used to this shit, or because she was having a mental breakdown.

At least it was a quiet breakdown, if that was the case.

Thom was sat at the edge of the platform, feeling useless and rather twitchy. Yes, he'd got them to a safe place, yes Kaysen was handling this one, but still - he'd prefer to be doing something. Even if the treehouse had been his idea when she'd not liked the suggestion of his basement because she couldn't burn things there. And yes, if anything happened he knew he could make the jump to the ground and so, okay, he was sitting there, his mother's knife in hand. He still felt he should be taking a more active role in this than just providing blankets and food. Since when had he become the woman here?

Kaysen was playing with the three flames. She was making them jump from one to the next, sort of leapfrogging them around. She'd definitely gotten a lot better. Tons, even. She saw movement down below them and she looked down to see a shadow. So, without saying a word, she grabbed a leaf from the pile she had with her, caught it on fire, and dropped it down. Once it was in range of the shadow, that was trying to climb up, or looking like it was, she pushed, hard with her mind, to make the flames eat at the shadow. She couldn't actually set it on fire. It didn't have a body, as far as they could tell. Not really. But if she made the flames flare up to camp fire proportions on or in it, it died fairly quickly. Already, there was that inky black smokey shadow stuff rising up from it. "...it's creepy they don't make any sound." she said, watching it go up.

Thom looked round, pulling his blanket further round his shoulders. "Would you prefer it if they screamed like the vampires did?" he asked her, then immediately wished that he hadn't - neither of them needed any reminder of that. He looked back out over the garden, wondering if his mom would be pissed at the smoking black holes in her lawn. Then again, she'd been okay about the smoking black holes out the front of the house, so maybe not.

Kaysen flinched. "No, I just--you know what? Never fucking mind." she snapped, staring hard at the shadow just as it poofed, expired from too much fire damage. The flames died to nothing, and she jumped the flames to light the wick she'd taken from from the other two again, so she had three little glowing wicks again.

He looked round again. "Sorry - I didn't mean... Sorry," he apologised, meaning it as well. Just because he was feeling like a spare limb right now was no justification for taking it out on her.

She looked over but still looked unhappy. She was cold. And she could heat up the air around them, she tried now and then, but it wasn't like that air just hung out. It blew away. So really it was kinda a moot point. Though, just for giggles, she tried it again, knowing full well it wouldn't do any good. "Is this what it's always gonna be like?" she asked.

Thom felt a warm breeze hit his face for a moment and then disappear and he looked at her, oddly. "Did you just do that?" he asked her. Not that it mattered. "And is what what it's going to always be like? Things trying to kill us, or me sitting here while you fry them?" he asked her. It was possible he was feeling a little useless right now and wasn't taking it too well.

Kaysen shrugged. "Yeah. Doesn't work though. We'd need like...I dunno. More shelter." she said. She went back to playing with the flames for a second, before she noticed another shadow or two. This time when she lit the leaf and let it drop down, she flared up the flames bigger, and latched them onto the ground to get both of them. When she did that, she stopped talking to Thom altogether, because it took concentration to pull it off. It also took longer when there were two of them, and she concentrated on not say, setting their tree on fire. Then they went up, dead or whatever. She reached up to rub at one of her eyes, and relit her wicks again. "I dunno. Either, I guess." she said. Right now it kind of felt like it'd be them up there forever. Only she was going to need to sleep sometime. And hey, hopefully she wouldn't completely KO herself to do that.

Thom shook his head. "This is ridiculous - there's got to be some way to stop them." Except he didn't even know what they were, apart from the fact that they came from mirrors. And, obviously, it didn't matter where the mirrors were, since they'd followed him to his house and there weren't any there. Which, if you extrapolated it out, meant that even if they got rid of all the mirrors at kaysen's, they'd probably just come from one of the other houses in the street, or the area, or the town - how far could these things travel, anyhow? if they left town, would they be safe then? If he could guarantee it, he knew he'd have Kaysen in the back of a car, any car, in three second flat and they'd just be gone. "How long can you keep that up for before you get too tired? How are you holding up anyhow?" he asked, trying to shift some of his twitches about his uselessness.

"Making them evaporate seems to work well." Kaysen pointed out. Then she shrugged. "I dunno. I feel...weird. I'm okay, I guess. I mean, I'm not burning myself out? Cuz like I could maintain when we were wandering around that place, I can do that now too, and it's not even a constant pull. I've been doing this all day though, and I didn't sleep really well last night and I'm gonna wanna sleep sometime y'know?" she said. Mentally was another story. Mentally she didn't have any idea how she was doing, actually.

"That's not the kind of stop them I meant - I meant long term. You evaporate them, but there's always more. They always come back. There's got to be more to... There has to be something else, some other way," he said, frustrated, especially since a little voice popped up in the back of his head to ask why there had to be another way, why there had to be something they were missing. This wasn't a movie where bad things happened but the good guys would win out in the end. This was real life, where things happened and why wouldn't the attacks keep coming until they couldn't hold out any longer and they all died. There was no reason for that not to happen, it was just a matter of time and the bad guys weren't standing around stroking white cats and cackling over their evil master plan. They were just steadily coming, always coming. "We're going to have to go back inside before it gets dark anyhow - it's cold out here already, it's going to be colder tonight," Thom pointed out.

Kaysen would have answered, but there was another three. So she took care of them, using the same sort of method that she had on the two, only it took even longer. Long enough that she felt nervous, and she flared the fire up too high, sending a blast of heat up towards them. "Sorry--sorry..." she said, noting she'd caught some of the rungs nailed to the tree on fire, and she couldn't die them down til the shadows were done. She got there, but yeah. There was some charrage going on. "...inside I can't set anything on fire." she said unnecessarily.

"You'll need sleep anyhow, you can't set things on fire when you're sleeping either. I can deal with things, mom can deal with things - your parents are safe. You can stay over here, that way there'll be even less risk to them." He looked over at her, frowning a little. "You don't have to do everything, you know."

She nodded. She didn't know if she believed that, but she nodded anyways. "...think Isaac'll be back soon?" she asked. She worried about him. But he'd run off to go check on his stupid girlfriend. Which she got, but still. "So does that mean like...you and your mom're gonna stay up all night?" she asked. "...and since when's your mom like...a shadow fighter woman?"

"I don't know when he's going to be back. If he's not back soon I'll give him a call, make sure he's okay," he promised, taking that off her because he'd be a buffer if everything wasn't okay. "And yeah, I'm gonna stay up all night. And mom'll - mom'll do whatever she thinks is fit." Which meant that she might not be around at all. Thom still didn't know, would probably never know, if she had a protected or not. And if she did and they were affected, well then nothing would keep her here and he wouldn't expect anything to keep her here. "And there's a lot more to my mom than you think," he said, holding up the wickedly sharp and curved knife. "This was hers, most of my spell books were hers, most of my stuff was hers."

Kaysen blinked, and had to lean over. "Dude, seriously? That was hers? That's probably like...illegal in at least six states." she decided. "And really? Like, passed down weirdness? That's weird. And maybe kinda cool. I um. Never would've pictured that from your mom. She kinda seems more the type who'd be like, hardcore christian values or something, not a knife wielding spellcaster type. Crazy. And she's a judge." She paused. "My life's never going back to normal, huh."

"Your life is never going back to normal," Thom confirmed with a sigh, looking out over the lawn for more shadows. He glanced back across. "So, if you couldn't picture my mom doing that, what about me? I mean, it's appearances, right?" he challenged, though he sounded more interested in the answer than annoyed in the slightest. "Cos yeah, she's a judge. But that doesn't mean she can't... She's actually pretty good at that kind of thing. She looks at everything from angles. She doesn't let things get in the way of her opinions." He paused. "Most of the time anyway," he amended.

She paused and thought about it, stretching her back and cracking it. Sitting indian style for hours on end kinda sucked, and she didn't have much to lean her back against. Or, well, she could, but then she'd be over closer to Thom and that just seemed too weird. So she stuck where she was instead. "I didn't figure you for anything like this." she admitted. "And it's still kinda weird, but I'm getting used to it. Kinda like I'm getting used to being able to like...set things on fire. And make it dance around and shit. Cuz that's still hella weird, but still."

"That's appearances for you - they're deceptive. Half the time they're meant to be, people pretending to be something they're not. I don't advertise what I am, you don't advertise what you are." He paused to look back out over the grass. "I talked to Chance," he told her.

She went still and suddenly it felt like her heart had turned to a lump of ice in her chest. "...and?" she asked, deceptively lightly, though there was a tension in her entire being that she projected like hell. She had known he was going to and everything, but still. That didn't stop her from feeling like she was about ready to drop dead of an aneurysm.

"And he denied knowing anything about how a fade was made," Thom told her, honestly. He figured, though, that that sounded better than 'he lied to my face'.

She sagged a little bit, letting out a huge rush of air, since she'd been holding her breath and hadn't actually caught that. "Oh." she said. "...yeah, I guess he wouldn't. I mean...your mom's a judge. Prolly not the wisest move in the world to go 'oh hey yeah they totally are made by bunches of murder'."

"Yeah, probably not - sorry I couldn't be more help. If it had been less blatant, I'd offer to try again, but I think it'd just get his back up." Especially given that it was Chance, especially given the rumour that he'd only just got back from a suspension for fighting. "So, is it true? Was he suspended, or is that just another rumour?" he asked her, figuring he may as well clear that one up.

"He was suspended." Kaysen confirmed. She knew that much. She shrugged. "He kinda gets twitchy sometimes." To say the least. But he'd never been violent with her or anything. And actually she'd never seen him be violent at all. She saw the bruise on his face from the guy that hit him and stuff, but that was kinda it.

"But not to you, right?" Thom asked, checking that. He didn't think so - the way Chance had talked, Thom had come away with the feeling that he didn't need to be worried about Kaysen there. But it didn't hurt to double check.

Kaysen looked over. "Not like that." she insisted immediately. "Never like...no. He's never like, mean or anything." Well okay sometimes he's mean but that's verbal, and I'm way verbally meaner to him than he is to me. "Why? Don't like, get all weird on me okay?" she asked. "Things are weird enough. He's fine to me. He's never done anything but piss me off and I don't think there's anyone in the world who at some point hasn't. It's fine. He's fine. It's his mom that's fucked up." Okay she was defensive. It was her boyfriend.

Thom held up his hands - which probably would have been a more peaceful gesture had he not been holding a bloody great knife, but the thought was there. "Hey, not gonna get weird, just checking. No need to go all defensive on me."

She sighed, and nodded, looking back down at the ground. "...he's fine." she said one more time for good measure. "...still don't know what to do about his mom, that's all." Cuz she still thought it was a one-or-the-other deal. She just still had massive, massive moral dilemmas with that, and she couldn't shake them. "So when we go inside, you and your mom are gonna like...fight them? With knives n shit?"

Thom didn't know what else to do about Chance's mother either. He wondered how he'd feel if it was his mother who'd killed people - and he realised as he thought that that there was at least a slim chance that she had. But that was different - she had a duty. Like he had a duty. Which was why he was sitting here with a knife, why they were discussing killing shadow things, why he'd killed vampires and demon cats and why he'd keep doing it. And if it meant killing humans? He knew that if that's what it took to protect her, then that was what it took. Yet, that was different, surely that was different. That wasn't him deciding that it was so vitally important that nothing happened to Kaysesn that he was going to go out and murder people to ensure that she was some kind of immortal. That was something else entirely. And he realised he hadn't answered Kaysen's question. "If that's what it takes, yeah, knives and shit," he agreed, giving her a wry smile.

She wrinkled her nose. "Well...don't get hurt." she said. Then paused. "...more hurt." she amended. Since they were all kinda hurt a little. She kinda wondered how his old lady was going to do battling weird shadow creatures, but also thought that if she never actually had to see that? It'd be cool with her. Cuz yeah. Weird.

"I don't intend to get hurt." He paused. "...more hurt," he amended. He was getting better at this kind of thing anyway - he was getting a lot of practice in lately, or so it seemed. And with his mother having been giving him lessons on how best to properly use the weapons he had, he felt much less like he was just making everything up as he went along. That really, really helped. "Incoming," he told her as the movement of black swept across his side vision and he looked to see another shadow approaching.

Kaysen let out a heavy, annoyed sigh, and that annoyance helped fuel the latest fire onslaught, that made the shadow go up pretty damn quickly this time. Of course, it really did help if she had some strong emotion backing her. If she was kinda cold miserable and boredish it was harder. But that was enough to make it go up fastlike. "When're we going inside?" she asked. She tried to heat the air again, but wheee that was a lost cause.

"When would you like to go inside?" he asked, a little wide eyed as the shadow went up like a torch. "Or should I just sit here and irritate you because, yeah... that was..."

That actually got a little smirk out of her. "...kinda works better when I'm pissy." she admitted, shifting her gaze over to him for a second, before she looked back down. "Not so much when I'm just like, cold and bored." she added. "But I dunno. Something about fire, and emotions, all that junk. Or that's what it said in the book anyways. Guess that was right on the money." She shrugged. "I'm really freezing. And the snacks are nice and stuff but I'm kinda hungry for real food too." she added.

"Yeah - you can use your abilities better when your emotions are running high. Remember I offered to practice with you, since apparently nobody can annoy you like I can annoy you?" he teased. He'd had years of practice at that, after all. He knew all the right buttons to press and just because he refrained from doing that now, it didn't mean to say that he didn't remember how to wind her up. He was just playing nice these days. "But, okay, come on - we'll go inside where there are no mirrors, we'll get food and then we'll head down to the basement. You can rest and I can deal with them if and when they try and get through that door," he promised.

"Oh yeah..." she said, remembering the conversation. "So why haven't you been bugging the shit out of me all day then?" she asked. Then she kind of made a face. "You really think like...I should just lay down and rest n stuff while you grapple with crazy shadow creatures with wicked sharp claws?" she asked doubtfully. Not that she had a better plan, but still.

"Well, mostly because we had shadows to fight earlier and up here... You seemed to be coping," he told her, feeling that spike of 'I've been being useless' again. But, that was about to change. See, she did need a protector - the girl had to rest sometime. That didn't really make him feel better. "Yes, I think you should just lie down and rest and let me handle it," he confirmed, standing and starting to fold up the blankets and gather everything together to take back to the house.

Kaysen didn't quite move, not wanting to douse the flames yet just in case. "You sure you can?" she asked doubtfully. "I mean...like...that's close, and...you sure?" As much as Thom weirded her out sometimes and confused her, she never wanted to see him hurt. Plus they'd been getting along better lately n stuff. But yeah. She didn't like the idea of this. It kinda...sucked a bunch.

"You need rest, Kaysen, yes I'm sure." He wished he had a better plan, but he didn't. Of all the plans that his mom had had him set out ahead of time 'what to do if you get attacked by weird silent shadow things' was not actually amongst them. Maybe that was short-sighted, but there you go. The best he could do was the basement and ensuring that they could only come at him one at a time. Maybe he could find some better way of keeping them at bay, stringing them out.

"...kay." she said. She still didn't sound quite like she thought it was a good plan, but she wasn't going to say no either. She was going to get really ass tired here not too long from now. "Um. Can we keep a candle lit? Just in case?" she asked. It was his house, she didn't want to do it without his ok, considering the possible outcome there.

"I have a stock down there," Thom told her as he stuffed everything into the large bag he'd brought up and threw it down to the bottom of the tree so that they could climb down more easily. "There's a box to the right of the couch, in it there's candles, matches and lighters. And a few other bits." He'd had some of them already - always good to keep an emergency stash in case of blackouts, but he'd improved the selection once he knew what Kaysen was. You never knew, after all.

Kaysen waited for him to climb down, then finally blew her candle out. she tucked it under her arm, before she started to carefully climb back down. Hopefully, Thom was wicked good with knife fighting or something. Which...god, had she actually had that thought? That was the weirdest thing ever. Ever ever. Yeah.

Thom picked up the bag as he reached the bottom of the tree and hoisted it over his shoulder, holding it with his left hand. The plan was to get them both back to the house without encountering any more shadows and to shut them in and hope that they couldn't walk through walls. That would, in fact, solve the problem, since they had pretty good security and there were no mirrors inside. But, first, they had to get back to the house.

Kaysen followed along, wondering how she'd got there. She was actually planning on going over to Thom's to sleep in his basement. Like...again. She was kind of looking all around, trying to see if there were more or whatever, and she dug Kurt's lighter out of her pocket so she could flick it just in case. Covert ops over the fucking lawn to go next door. It was like a demented game of pretend, only so very not.

They were almost at the door when the shadow came across towards them, coming from a neighbour's house. Thom dropped the bag, moving in front of Kaysen, the knife drawn as he tried to draw its attention away from the girl. It wasn't hard - apparently the shadow was coming straight at him anyway, not the least bit interested in Kaysen, silently moving, claws outstretched. Thom ducked out of the way as the thing struck, claws narrowly missing his shoulder as he thrust round and up with the knife, black shadows drifting up from the cut across the things chest and right arm.

Kaysen squeaked and hopped back away from them both, flicking the lighter to life--but Thom was way too close to do anything with it. He was not fireproof like she was. So there was not going to be flamage. She clapped a hand over her mouth to kind of stop herself from doing anything more, and fretted as she watched the fight.

Thom stepped sidewards and ducked under the arm of the shadow creature, turning and elbowing the thing, a move that was caused by natural follow through than any thought that it was really do any damage. Could these things even be pushed off blance? He had no idea. the creature turned to face him again as Thom took a step back, out of the way of the claws, dropping down to bring the knife up into the belly of the shadow, raking the knife upwards with surprising ease, facing nowhere near the resistance he'd expected. The shadow dropped, dissolving into the ground and Thom turned. "Inside," he told her, striding across to the abandoned bag. "Before there's any more of them."

Kaysen was blinking, wide eyed as she saw that. Because...okay he was all wicked good knife fighter, apparently. Jesus. That was the single craziest thing she'd ever seen. Cuz it was Thom. Thom who totally like...fucking lived next door and was her brother's best friend and he was--okay she needed to go lay down now. She followed, starting to rush towards his house, mind pretty blown.

Thom basically herded her into the house, making sure that nothing was going to get to her, convinced that another one of those things was coming up right behind them at any moment. He'd been like this when they'd first gone out, before she'd got settled and sorted, he was like it again now. Getting up close and personal with those claws had his paranoia running full speed and as they hit the kitchen, he locked the door behind them.

Kaysen stumbled in and caught herself on the wall. This was all so...crazy insaneo. Jesus. And oh holy shit. That was a sword. ...and that was...Thom's mom.

Ashbelle was standing just inside, and she did in fact have a sword. A kitana, specifically. It was held down low by her side, but it was a big long blade, it was difficult to miss. "Are you alright, Thomas?" she asked. She looked over at Kaysen as well, assessing. "And you, Kaysen?"

"...I'm fine-youhaveasword." Kaysen said all in one breath.

"We're fine - Isaac's gone to see to his girlfriend, so Kaysen's staying with us for a while. Her parents aren't affected, so it's best that they keep out of the line of fire," Thom said, giving his mother a perfectly rational explanation for Kaysen's presence, though he doubted she'd send the girl away. They didn't have that kind of house. "Sorry about the lawn, mom," he added, cringing a little.

"The lawn will be fine." Ashbelle answered, and she nodded at the explanation. "Will Isaac be joining us as well?" she asked. "If he is, tell him to come around to the back--I've reinforced a lot of the downstairs, and the front door's properly barricaded." Just in case. Ashbelle liked to be prepared. Such as the storm shutters on her house? Were not the fake kind that were just decoration screwed into the siding. They were proper storm shutters.

"A sword." Kaysen put in from where she was still standing there, staring at the old lady really quizzically.

"Yes, it's a kitana. You should head downstairs." Ashbelle told the girl.

"Come on, Kaysen, let's get you down to the basement," Thom told her, giving her a push, thankful that his mom wasn't going to have a fit about the lawn. Or, at least, not yet. She might just be saving it for later. "We'll get you settled and then I'll get you some food," he promised, figuring with the single way down to the basement and Ashbelle home and armed, he could take the time to fix something quick for her.

"What, was it just lying around?" Kaysen asked, heading downstairs as Thom herded her. "...food'd be good." she added. Yep. Moving on from the judge with a sword. Like she was moving on from Thom being all weirdly badass for no good reason. She'd had her quota for like, the next century all filled up right now.

"Who knows - I haven't actually seen it before," Thom admitted. But that seemed to be the way with his mother, he was learning - weaponry materialised to suit every scenario, it seemed, and until then it just... must be lying around somewhere. He dumped the bag at the bottom of the stairs. "You okay?" he checked.

She nodded. "Yeah. I'm good." she said. Weirded out to no end, but okay. She went to go flop onto the couch. "I'll...be here." she decided. She set the three wick candle down again, and lit it back up, instantly feeling better for having her ready ammunition back, just in case.

"Good," he said, starting toward the stairs to go get them food. He paused, his foot on the first tred, and looked back at her. "You burn any of my instruments and you're in trouble," he told her, his voice serious, though there was a touch of humour behind his eyes. In truth, he meant it. Kind of. If she was anyone else, he would have been deadly serious. Shadows or no shadows.

Kaysen rolled her eyes. "So make sure there's nothing I have to set on fire down here." she said back. "But I'll try really really hard not to get any burny fire on your precious instruments." she promised, sounding huffier than she felt, but it was possible she had the faintest trace of a smile when she said it. "I'll just be down here. Playing with fire." But not matches. And her playing with fire was much more literal than arsonists would have anyone believe.

Thom actually paused at that and looked back towards his guitars. He took another couple of steps upstairs and then quickly headed back down, taking one in each hand and jogging up the stairs. He'd leave them in the breakfast nook. Surely they'd be safe and out of the way there. Right. Yeah. Then food. And she could rest and he and his mother could defend her against whatever came at them. That worked.