Let Her Hair Down

[Olivia Chance]

She laughed.

"I like Frozen too of course. I just couldn't help but point out the parallel. I mean, she manipulates ice." She could see how Zoe might relate to it though, if she thought about it. Elsa felt like she would hurt everyone she touched.

"I still think it's sad that at first she felt like she had to withdraw to protect everyone she loved. I mean...I understand that aspect. Sometimes you have to toughen up to protect your loved ones. But it's still sad." She'd done the same thing for her sisters. Then Zoe mentioned Ella Enchanted and Olivia grinned.

"A reimagined fairy tale where princess Cinderella doesn't feel the need to get a man to fulfill herself. Also, a girl who's forced to do things she doesn't want to. Plus she has a perfectly awful family. It kind of rings a chord with me. Also, the ending where she chains herself to a tree because the spell on her making her do everything people command is going to make her kill someone? She's hurting herself to protect someone else." She ducked her head. Her fangirling had probably shown Zoe some rather weird parts of her background.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

The parallel made more sense as Olivia pointed it out. Zoe supposed she should have considered as much: her friend was much more likely to see that particular connection than she. Zoe flushed, and was tempted to shrug it off. However, the next comment had her thinking. "It's a matter of finding out you have some sort of power that harms everyone around you, and how you desperately don't want to hurt someone else with it," she looked down at her now bared hands. She'd explained the gloves to Olivia, hadn't she? How Zoe had, for months, worn gloves to protect people from her power. How it had taken Alice, working on foundations built by Devyn and, well, just about everyone, to get Zoe to lower her guard.

They'd moved onto the other movie and Zoe nodded, remembering bits and pieces of that. "So we like princess movies,' she said, smiling and letting out a giggle. "That's quite girly of us," she rose up and moved toward the cleared DVD player, ready to start punching things.

At that time, a cloud of smoke began to waft out from where the popcorn had been left...

[Olivia Chance]

They did like the princess movies. But she wasn't done discussing Frozen. It was an interesting topic. She could see the whole gloves thing and all that. Which is why she was a little hesitant to pick apart Elsa in front of Zoe. But she couldn't help herself.

"I understand not wanting to hurt anyone. But I can't help remembering that when she left, Anna was left to fend for herself. She had to make big decisions. She had to make wrong decisions. And it almost got her killed. If Elsa had just stayed around inside of giving into her fear and running away, then Anna wouldn't have been in that mess in the first place. She's a wonderful character, but there are times when I can't help feeling she could've used more guts." She looked down at her hands and her next words were issued in a small hesitant whisper.

"I mean...I did a better job and I was only about eight years old."

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

The momentary glee over princess movies faded slightly as Olivia continued. Zoe turned to look back at her friend, blinking, not able to hide her surprise in those large expressive eyes of hers. Clearly Olivia blamed Elsa for the whole situation, insisting that the girl needed more bravery. "She wasn't sure what to do," Zoe pointed out, looking back at where they'd put the movies. "She just had this power and everyone was looking at her like she was some kind of monster..." Zoe trailed off, looking to her own hands, remembering what it had been like to keep them gloved for so long, what it had been like to know that just touching hurt other people, that she could damage them.

And wasn't she just like Elsa? Didn't she... didn't she have not guts either? Zoe could feel herself tearing up, swallowing hard, trying not to think about everything that she'd come through, gotten across. It was especially dumb considering it was a movie, and she was already bringing her hand up to try and subtly wipe away the tears.

It as her head shifted that Zoe saw the smoke rising from the popcorn. "The popcorn!" she yelped, dashing off that direction, nearly tripping in her rush to get to it before the smoke got even worse.

[Olivia Chance]

Shoot she'd made her friend cry. She felt really bad, but she'd just been stating her opinions about Elsa.

"I wasn't talking about yo-" And then she actually smelled it and jumped up at the same time as Zoe. Crap crap crap it was burning it was smoking and if they didn't stop it the sprinklers were going to go off. She looked around and saw a vase of water. She focused, channeling her energy into her hands and manipulating the water upwards. Then she manipulated the bubble near the popcorn and it hovered before she dropped it.

"That popcorn was already done for."

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Zoe might have more or less tripped over her own feet, but she still got the popcorn quick enough. Not enough to save it, but enough to pull it free of anything electronic. Then Zoe had to jump to get out of the way of the water Olivia brought over. She let out a slight yelp and felt just a bit of the liquid hitting her: not enough to really count or do anything, but at least enough to be noticed.

"Yes, yes it was," Zoe admitted. She walked forward, waving a hand to dispel some more of the smoke. Zoe leaned over to get a look at the popcorn and winced at the sight. "I don't suppose you like it soggy?" she asked, looking over at her friend and offering a slight smile.

[Olivia Chance]

"Soggy is actually fine with me. It's less crunchy that way. But I don't like it burned and soggy. That doesn't taste any good. Plus I have no idea what was in that vase." Olivia shrugged and laughed.

"Aren't we a fine pair? Busy talking about our issues through princess movies and then we burn the popcorn." She suddenly felt like crying. She didn't know why. It just...something broke deep inside her. The smile disappeared off her face in an instant and her eyes betrayed how broken she felt at that moment. How vulnerable. She never let herself be vulnerable. God even with therapy she was a wreck. She just stood there silently, her shoulders slumped slightly and shaking. A tear cascaded down one of her cheeks. She lifted her hand to touch it with a finger and then she just stood there staring at the wet sheen on her hand.

"W-why? Why am I...crying?"

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

"Good point," Zoe admitted, smiling a little. She reached up, dotting away the last few bits of tears in her eyes, laughing a few times. The popcorn just looked so utterly ridiculous, soaked as it was, burnt as it was. It just had to come out like that at just that moment, didn't it?

Olivia seemed to notice it too, based on what she was saying. "It is a little odd," Zoe admitted, smiling again, letting out another laugh. She looked over at her friend, noticing the slumped shoulders, recognizing all too easily the familiar position of someone who was about to break down in tears.

"Olivia, no!" Zoe said, moving to give her friend a hug around the shoulders, careful not to let any skin directly touch. "It's--I don't know why. Maybe the popcorn just made you really sad?" Zoe smiled at her friend before leaning over slightly, careful yet again to make sure that skin never touched skin. "But it's, um, okay to cry. If you want, that is. I ah, don't mind?" Zoe had to smile at that. As if Zoe was ever the one to mind crying, or to hint that she would even consider doing so.

[Olivia Chance]

"It's...senseless. But...I don't know. I...I..." She sighed as a few new tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn't understand why she was crying but that didn't stop them. Then Zoe was giving her a careful hug. Olivia didn't know what she'd do without her friend. She'd lived her whole life without friends, but now that she actually had one...well there was no going back to being happy friendless really.

"I...I just want to be in control of my own emotions...this is why I can hardly control my powers." In fact, maybe the controlled use of her power just then was why she was crying currently. She didn't really know after all.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Senseless? Zoe didn't know what to say about that, couldn't think of anything along the lines that would help. The hug would: she knew that, knew it and kept hugging, offering a slight squeeze to her friend for that. What were friends for if not for moments like this? To uplift and support and listen.

Yes, listen, and Zoe kept listening as Olivia continued, as she explained. "It is awful," Zoe agreed. She could feel her own eyes tearing up, likely because Olivia just kept crying. "All these feelings and emotions and just being here..." she trailed off, chewing her lip, rubbing Olivia slightly. "But.. but I don't think giving in to emotions every once in a while doesn't mean you're in control. I... I don't mind if you need to cry around me, really. So you should, um, maybe do that now? And then you can remember that you can always just, ah, do it around me? And then you can... stop later?"

Zoe wasn't sure how else to put it or say it, really, and she smiled awkwardly at her friend, even as her own eyes blurred with the incoming tears.

[Olivia Chance]

Olivia heard Zoe's words and they did comfort her to some extent. She was still crying. And she still hated herself for crying. But at least she knew she could trust Zoe. And that came with an implied realization. Olivia didn't trust others. She probably trusted Martin to some extent. She definitely trusted Zoe. And she did trust people who were strangers. But that was only at first. Once they made one wrong move, Olivia would lock up tight where they couldn't get to her. Why Martin and Zoe had broken through that she didn't know. Perhaps she never would.

"I hate myself. I hate myself for crying. I shouldn't be. Crying is weakness. Crying shows pain. I hate myself for showing that." It was partly her feelings and partly rote. Yet another thing her brother had made sure to drill into her very being. And yet Olivia still couldn't stop crying.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

The repetition made Zoe almost mad. She'd just said that there were times when you should be opening up, when crying was allowed, when feelings should surface. Zoe used them so often in her work, channeled them, felt them so strongly that she couldn't help but feel like they should be celebrated to some degree, even the awful ones like this.

"Well, um, I don't hate you?" she tried, figuring that was a start. She reached up to move back some hair, chewing on her cheek for a few moments to buy some time. "It's not... you don't want to not cry, at least, not all the time. That's what robots and dead people do," Zoe said. "you're a person, and this is just another way of showing that."

Zoe rubbed Olivia's back a little more, suppressing the urge to start cooing or something along those lines. The other girl wasn't a child, after all...