Room 315, Wednesday Early Evening

[peace_n_war]

"Hey, dad. It's Warren again. I'm starting to wonder if you even have room on your answering machine anymore, but hey, at least if you've run out by now you won't have to listen through three or four lifetimes of me phoning you like this someday, huh? I'm sixteen still, but not for long. Seventeen tomorrow, dad! I've still got that job at the cafe, and I'm still hanging out with that girl I mentioned last time. She's been trying to get me to go swimming with her. Weird, huh? Me. Swimming. I don't even like the beach, except that I can throw fire around. Other than that, seventeen doesn't seem like it's going to be much different than sixteen was. I'm, uh, still not a villain. Not really a hero either, don't worry. I think I want to call Mom sometime, too, but I can actually talk to her. She'll want to know all that stuff I've been telling you, dad. Asking about girls and school and if I've followed in your footsteps and become a criminal mastermind, and if I have then I'm grounded for life. Thanks loads, Mom, right? ... Seventeen tomorrow."

...

"I miss you dad."

Warren hung up his phone, sighed, and reached for a book. Seventeen, sixteen, whatever. Wasn't like any of it made any difference either way.

[Open post is open! I probably won't be about tomorrow for a job interview, so Warren gets to birthday whine today.]

Comments

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"Hey, Warren," Lee said, wandering in from a walk into town. "What's happening?"

[at work and slooooooow!]

[peace_n_war]

Warren glanced up from his book, shrugging a little.

"Not much," he decided. "Today I turned in the stupidest newspaper article I've ever written. I have to put some more minutes on my phone, soon. I've been using them again."

Go figure.

"Same old. What's up with you?"

[Slow is fine!]

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"I wrote an article about being tiny again and how I kind of miss it because I didn't have to care about half the stuff I do now" he said, flopping down on his bed. "Went to a party last night, got some swimming in. I'm ready for the weekend though. Who you been calling? Hot date?"

[peace_n_war]

"Answering machines," Warren grunted, kind of noncommittally. "I think I'm going to just quit school, enrol in kindergarten again, and spend the rest of my life rolling snakes out of plasticine or something. Seven years old wasn't so bad, really."

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"And you'd be the tallest, most badass kid in the class," Lee decided. "If you're going to enroll at the size you are now. Total class leader."

[peace_n_war]

"All the better for being school bully," Warren decided, almost cracking a grin at that. "Making the little kids eat worms if they want to keep their lunch money is easy when you're twice as tall as they are."

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"You're not careful, you'll run into a kid that enjoys eating worms and then your jig will be up," Lee said, snickering. "Though, worms. Ew. I can't even imagine. Not even if I was drunk."

[peace_n_war]

"If they were cooperating, I might offer to cook them first," Warren mused, and then shrugged and shut his book, tossing it onto his bed. "So. The party you went to, was that any good?"

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"Wasn't bad," Lee said, shrugging. "It was down in the pool for Turtle, the girl that owns that shop in town. I got to swim and I think I made a girl blush a few times."

[peace_n_war]

"So, really, it was a good night for you." Okay, Warren was smiling now. A little. Not much. Smiling was terribly overrated, after all. "Not my kind of thing, but I guess I can see the appeal."

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"It got me out of the room and away from stuff that was making me think way too much," Lee said. "And Turtle on student council so I thought I should go. You should have come! I could have had fun trying to get you to swim again."

[peace_n_war]

"Oh yeah, between the water and the crowd of people, I'm sure I would have had a great time," Warren replied with a roll of his eyes and a faint smirk. "I guess I might have made an exception if I knew the food was going to be good or something."

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"Well, we could have gone around and pushed unsuspecting people into the pool?" Lee tried. "That'd been fun too!"

[heromaniac]

Momoko rapped somewhat cheerfully on the door to 315. She'd just read the paper and Warren's article about communication was a bit weird for him (not the 'I hate people' part, that was normal) and she was wondering if everything was okay.

[peace_n_war]

"It's not locked," Warren reported, glancing up from his book momentarily. "In or out."

If he was aware that it was Momoko on the other side of the door, he'd probably have just told her she could come in.

[Is suuuuper SP okay? I'm just skipping off to bed right now and I'll be out for large chunks of tomorrow.]

[heromaniac]

He was there! Yay!

"In! I choose 'in'! Do I win a prize?" Momoko opened the door and poked her head around with a grin. "I can go away if I'm interrupting something, but I probably won't, so hi!"


[Suuuuper SP is wonderful, and I'll be cheering for you all day tomorrow. Which will get awkward in meetings, but oh well!]

[peace_n_war]

"I can't think of a single thing you could possibly be interrupting," Warren replied, smiling a little when he saw who the visitor was. "I'm just reading. That's what bookmarks are for."

Well. Usually. If a book was particularly gripping, sometimes his bookmarks were known to vanish in a puff of smoke and ash.

"How have you been, Momoko?"

[Those might possibly be the best meetings ever! Okay, good night, and thank you!]

[heromaniac]

"You reading for fun or for class? One other than Heroing, I mean, since I don't think Captain Hammer would ever assign us reading and I wasn't actually asleep in today's class." Momoko stepped fully into the room with a happy bounce and leaned a bit to see if she could read the cover of his book. "Hmm. Well, my laptop crashed Sunday whichwastotallynotmyfault and I may end up having to ship it home for repair. Which will mean I'll probably go through withdrawal until I can get it back, but otherwise I'm good! What about you?"

[peace_n_war]

Warren stuck the bookmark into his book and set it aside. It was a book of Chinese mythology he'd been given by the staff of The Paper Lantern back home, so, naturally, it was written in Chinese.

"Just reading because there are words," Warren replied with a shrug. "Sorry to hear about your computer. If you need to check your e-mails or whatever, you can borrow mine until you get yours back." Because that would totally end well, yes. "I haven't been bad, I guess. Thoughtful, maybe."

[heromaniac]

"That book doesn't look like it's in English, which means you were reading for fun, admit it! And thank you for the offer!" She grinned and held up crossed fingers on both hands for a moment. "I'm hoping my computer will be fixed before I start twitching."

"So what are you being thoughtful about? If there's a problem, I can help!"

[peace_n_war]

Warren looked at her for a moment, and then shifted his weight uncomfortably on his bed and gave his head a shake.

"No, you can't."

It wasn't anything personal, really. It was just that busting his dad out of prison so that Warren could get a hug or something was probably a very bad idea.

[heromaniac]

"Can I at least try to help? Unless it involves technology, because I think we've already established that would be a problem! Unless unless the technology is piloting, because I am totally able to do that!" She linked her arms behind her back and smiled. "Or maybe I could help with just the thoughts part? Contrary to popular belief, I really can do that!"

[peace_n_war]

...

"What are your thoughts on supervillains, Momoko?"

[heromaniac]

Well, that question was out of left field. She stared at him for a minute.

"Which ones? Or do you mean in general? Because while supervillians are each as different as superheroes, they're still villains. In general. Just with super powers. Actually, though, each one is different and you have to know that to be a good hero."

She had examples, if she needed them. She'd been fighting hers for three years.

[peace_n_war]

"Okay." That made sense to Warren. Maybe he'd press on, then. "And what do you think about people who seriously consider breaking certain ones out of prison? I mean, not just your run of the mill radioactive-waste-man who started robbing banks or whatever. I'm talking about the kind of supervillain who used the word 'Battle' in his name proudly, because he could live up to it."