:: C :: Fiction is my Friend

[Regan and Cole Robins]

Sometimes Cole felt like there wasn't a damn thing in the entire world he hadn't read already.

He felt very at home in this place. A Novel Idea. It was a godawful pun, to be sure, but Cole thought it was cute. Suited the place. It was a self-described 'hole-in-the-wall' book store that reminded Cole of their first home in Buckeye - and not in a bad, I'm-gonna-go-cry-now kind of way (much more common) but in a kind of... this-is-my-kingdom kind of way. It was the kind of feeling that left Cole satisfied that here, at least, he could spit in the face of the wild and scary. Like other teenagers.

Except he'd never spit in someone's face. God, that would be rude. He shuddered.

He wasn't sure where he wanted to wander today. It was a small store, yet every time he was here he found something new and exciting. He was in the middle of the sci-fi section now, heading over toward the historical fiction. Maybe he'd take a left turn into teenage angst. Jesus, like he needed any more of that.

He ended up stopping in historical fiction. Rickety shelf, that one - how appropriate. There was a title that intrigued him - one he'd seen before. River Thieves. He hadn't even looked at the back cover yet and had no idea what it was about, but the title pulled him in. He decided to stop walking past it and actually take a look this time.

He reached out to pull it off the shelf.

It took him a few seconds to notice that the stupid, rickety shelf was starting to tip over. It took him, in fact, until the first one or two books fell off.

"No -- No! No, no! AH!" Cole tried to stop the shelf from falling over onto him but it was heavy. Books kept falling off. Disaster. Disaster. Safe, warm feelings gone. Shit. Fuck. "Help? Help!!"

---

OOC Notes: Hope this'll do. Also hope Cassidy likes books.

[Cassidy Laramie]

Cassidy hummed to himself as he strolled through the store. His face, partially obscured by a pair of Ray Bans, was buried in an X-Men comic. He held it open with one hand, the other precariously balancing a stack of said comics as he wandered towards the general direction of the counter to pay for all of them. He was so absorbed in the comic and its awful inaccuracies towards mutants, that he barely paid any attention to the indirect route he was taking as he navigated through the historical fiction section.

Cassidy was about to continue on through when a shout from in front of him caught his attention. He looked up in time to spot a boy struggling against a leaning bookcase before the whole scene was engulfed in black. Without hesitation, Cassidy sped towards the struggling boy, abandoning his comic books. His vision was cut off entirely by the boy's fearful aura, but Cassidy was becoming terrifyingly skilled at navigating by sound. He suppressed a shudder, trying not to think of the semi-recent fire; he'd been through enough fearful auras to last several lifetimes.

Following the sound of falling books, he quickly reached the boy. Cassidy still didn't have a plan of what to do, so he ended up just trying to push on the shelf so it didn't fall over. Getting someone that worked there probably would have been a better idea, but by the time they got there they would have been too late. "Jeez, since when were books... so... heavy!" he hissed through the effort. Still, he hoped with the two of them together they could manage to stop the shelf from falling.

[Regan and Cole Robins]

Cole thanked whatever lucky stars he had when his saviour came to his rescue. He felt some of the weight of the shelf go away, and he pushed with all the strength he had to get it back to its original upright position. There were books scattered all over the floor now, but that didn't matter. Not getting crushed by furniture. That was what mattered.

Slowly but surely the thing came to rest back in its proper place against the wall. Cole was standing in a sea of books as he looked around himself. He couldn't even spot the one he'd originally wanted. Fuck. And some of them were probably damaged, too, so he'd have to somehow pay for those... not that he minded adding to his already giant collection of reading material, but it was still inconvenient.

"Thank you," he said before he looked up. "I don't know what I would have done if y--"

He broke off for a second as got a look at the boy who'd come to save him. Naturally, this right here, this was the moment his stupid brain decided to remember he was speaking to another human, and that maybe he should revert to being his shy little introverted self, stupid. He quickly looked away, already starting to turn red, and scratched his neck. "Um. Yeah. I probably would have... um... I'd have been, like... a book pancake..." He shrugged.

Didn't help that the boy was cute. And looked a little like--Dammit, coming back to Bellefonte kept bringing back old memories. Cole tried not to think about it, stooping to start picking things up and just hoping the awkward would go away so he could go back to being content.

---

OOC Notes:

[Cassidy Laramie]

Cassidy breathed a sigh of relief as they managed to return the bookshelf to the proper spot without getting flattened, his vision clearing up as the boy relaxed and the fear dissipated. He was able to get a proper look around at the sea of books and the boy he helped, less interested in the damaged books and more on whether or not the boy was okay. 

Cassidy tilted his head slightly at the sudden change in demeanor, and he couldn't help but try to read deeper into his aura. He mostly just ended up frustrated at the stupid sunglasses he had to wear so no regular human saw his mutated eyes; they messed with the colors, throwing off his power. There had been an odd color in there, but by the time he stealthily adjusted the sunglasses and got a brief look at the aura without the tinted lenses, it was already covered up by embarrassment.

Mentally chiding himself over his snooping, Cassidy busied himself by starting to work on straightening out the fallen books. A handful were damaged pretty bad, the pages torn, making him frown. He had been looking for other stuff to waste his money on, but this was not exactly what he had in mind. He couldn't help but burst out into laughter at the "book pancake" comment. It took him several moments and accidentally tripping over some books before he could even talk. "Oh my god... I don't even know why that's so funny! Just... the mental image is priceless!" he exclaimed, running out of breath from laughing so hard. He resumed picking up books, but every once in awhile he had to suppress a snort or a giggle.

[Regan and Cole Robins]

Cole could probably have laughed, too. It was kind of a funny image, wasn't it? Book pancake. Yeah, it was funny. It was funny. He decided it was funny. And that he would laugh too, like this obviously normal person.

He got half a giggle out before he fell back into his blush and kept picking up books.

Regan would probably tell him that he should say something. There were a lot of books. It was going to take them a while to pick them up, and really, it wasn't even the stranger's fault at all that they had fallen; that was all him. So... he didn't really need to be helping Cole at all. But he was, which meant he was a reasonably nice person, which meant Cole should be nice to him and say something. He wished he had as easy a time with these things as his brother did.

He felt a few pinches on his arm. That had been a lot of physical exertion, holding up the bookshelf, and he felt sore, which meant Regan would also be feeling sore. Cole stopped picking up books for a second and pinched his arm a few times, sending his brother the 'all's well' signal, before getting back to the task at hand and remembering what he'd been thinking about before. He really should say something.

"Lots of books," he said.

Wonderful, Cole. Fucking poetry.

---

OOC Notes:

[Cassidy Laramie]

Cassidy's smile grew slightly when the boy laughed at his own joke. People were no fun when they were so serious and quiet all the time. He continued sorting books into little piles, diving the floor space into two sides, one for damaged, and one for undamaged books. It seemed few of the books had evaded damage; most had small tears at the least, and bent pages. The worst ones had cracked spines and completely torn pages.

Cassidy picked up another book and quickly flipped through it checking for damage. It still looked new, to his relief, and he sorted it accordingly. As he reached for another fallen book, he noticed the boy acting strangely out of the corner of his eye. Was he hurt? Cassidy figured he would have shown some indication of that, but maybe he was just embarrassed about it? Concern warred with a desire not to make him any more uncomfortable, so he resumed sorting books, occasionally glancing over at the boy, convinced that he wouldn't catch the glances behind the sunglasses over Cassidy's eyes.

When the boy spoke though, Cassidy didn't quite manage to suppress a guilty start. Looking around, he noticed not for the first time that there were, in fact, a lot of books. "Mmhm," he half-responded, not sure what the boy expected him to say. Maybe it was just his awkward way of trying to start a conversation? Well, if he wasn't going to be direct, then Cassidy would have to be. Cassidy looked over at the boy, turning his head towards him more so it was clearer that he was actually looking at him. "You okay?" he asked in concern, a hint of a gentle frown on his face. He may not know this guy at all, but he still had his empath-ly duties to the emotional health of others to consider, even if his powers were a bit on the fritz with the dumb disguise.

[Regan and Cole Robins]

Cole was grateful that between the two of them, they'd worked out a decent way to go about sorting to books. Damaged, undamaged. It seemed logical. But Cole was very worried about what the cost would be for all these books that had sustained damage in some way - and this mess was his fault, there was no getting around that.

Cassidy's neutral answer to his embarrassing attempt at a conversation starter only made him blush harder, feeling that little bit more awkward. And dammit, Cole couldn't even look at him without going even redder. The guy was... very, very pretty. But that was probably just Cole being an idiot. He'd be thinking about this encounter all day, and the stranger would walk away and forget about it within minutes, probably. Best not to think about it.

Dammit, he was still thinking about it.

Which might have been why the kid asked him if he was okay. Cole hoped not. He panicked for half a second at being spoken to, and then went with the best cop-out he could think of. "Y-yeah... it was just.. heavy. That's... that's all. Um... hurt. A little." Sheepish grin, no eye contact, scratching arm, getting more books.

There was something obvious missing here. Cole couldn't put his finger on it.

He picked up another book.

Then he figured it out and cleared his throat. "Um. Th-thank you... for helping me..." Cough. "I'm C-Cole..."

---

OOC Notes:

[Cassidy Laramie]

Cassidy continued looking him over, convinced there was something wrong. He was acting oddly, and he looked flushed. Without his power to help him though, Cassidy was pretty much at a loss if it was anything beyond being physically sick or something. The boy's answer only made him more concerned, his eyebrows furrowing slightly over his sunglasses. "You're hurt? You sure you're gonna be okay?" he asked, his hands fidgeting slightly in nervous concern. He seemed relatively okay, so Cassidy followed suit and went back to sorting books.

Cassidy brightened up a bit as the boy spoke up again, this time introducing himself and offering shy thanks. "Heh, no problem. Just happy to help!" he said cheerfully, mostly just glad that the boy was actually talking and seemed alright. "Oh! Right, introductions. I'm Cassidy. Nice to meet you," he rambled quickly. He always seemed to skip the whole introduction step; things seemed to happen too fast for that around here. He stood up with a smile, gathering up some of the undamaged books and putting them back on the shelf. This was totally fixable, given time and some money for all the damage. Luckily he seemed to have plenty of both at the moment.