Stopping Traffic {Open}

[josephcarter]

New York City, known for Ellis Island, Times Square, and the many rude people who walked the streets daily, Joseph (or Seph as many of his friends called him) thought as a man dressed in a business suit nearly sent him toppling into the side walk. Seph never claimed to be the most coordinated person, in fact most of the time he felt like the exact opposite, once having run into a wall (by accident of course). But, for some reason, walking the streets in New York made him worse, being unable to successfully dodge every person that made no attempt to get out of his way.

He desperately wanted to just snap his fingers and then weave his way through the people. But Seph knew that he couldn't, this place may be used to seeing some strange things, but for one person to just disappear wouldn't be wise and he couldn't risk it if someone he knew saw him. He let out another grunt as someone bumped his shoulder. Just a few more blocks, he thought as he joined a few people who were waiting to cross the street. He waited for the signal to turn green, he could see a long line of fast moving traffic approaching the cross walk, a large tour bus in the front.

He didn't pay attention to anything else, until he heard the women scream. He hadn't noticed her before, or the child for that matter. He did now, especially as the young child walked into the line of car chasing after what seemed to be a piece of paper unaware of the bus that was only a few precious feet away from the child, too late for any one to make a move in time. Seph acted out of pure instinct, he focused on the bus willing it to stop it it's tracks, and the cars that followed it to ensure nothing else could go wrong. The sound a rubber shrieking against pavement echoed out.

Seph didn't notice, he knew better than to control anything of that extreme. His head pounded, now even the slightest movement made him wince. He was dimly aware of the scarlet blood that came from his nose but made no motion to wipe it away. Joseph stumbled backwards clutching his head all while, his feet tripping over something unseen. His head made a small thudding noise as it connected with the building behind him. Seph knew he had to get up, get away from the staring eyes, but he just couldn't, his head felt aflame.

[yehrmawm]

Noise. So much noise. She hated this place, but somehow she had found it calling for her. If only for the school, at which had taken her in when no one else would. They'd considered her a freak, somehow after realizing she wasn't cheating. After realizing she wasn't just brilliant, she was much more than that. After having already lost any kind of stability she was out, and a finger pointed that had considered her a freak. Maybe she was. Maybe she was a freak, but she was no different than those people in the school. They had more powers. Ones that were actually dangerous. Not ones that allowed her to learn more, faster. She was more intelligent than anyone at that school, at least as far as she had known. She had the ability to be so much more than them but with limited capability she would be left on her own.

Walking as she did now with a book in her hand. No one took notice of the girl flipping the pages in a book. Finishing the book in only seconds she'd do the same action again. Little did they know that not only had she read the book but she knew every single line and could probably read it out without a single slip. Given that it was her favorite book, there was no doubt about that. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She moved forward, giving anyone that might bump into her a glare. She noticed a rather clumsy looking boy that had caught her eye. There was nothing special about him, but he seemed to be bumping into everything!

She moved forward, stopping only when she heard the scream of a woman. Her glance moved towards the woman and a child, and a grin went upon her face. Maybe she'd see death today. Wouldn't that be grand? The mother would lie beneath the bus and the child would be thrown across the street, maybe alive and crying. Maybe not.

But it seemed within moments there came something... something? The vehicles seemed to be forced to move and as she looked the crowd of people alarmed and confused were looking towards a boy that might just have been the answer. She saw the blood trickling down. She moved towards him, not looking at the others before grabbing his arm.

“Boy.”

Her voice was low, “I don't think you should be here. Staring. It's—they'll assume bad things.”

[josephcarter]

He hated this, honestly, Seph should have learned his lesson from the last incident. At least time he managed to not pass out, he really did not like hospitals anymore. Besides, his family became suspicious after that. Seph managed to untangle his hand that was gripping his hair painfully. He wiped the blood away, not that it mattered as more replaced it. What had the doctors told him? A brain aneurysm that was undetectable by the MRI. It took all of Seph will power to not laugh in the doctors face.

As another wave of pain caused Seph to grip his head once more he began to think maybe the hospital wasn't such a bad place. At least there they gave him something that dulled the pain, now he would have to suffer for who knew how long. He barely noticed as someone grabbed his arm, unable to tell if it was a friend or someone who connected the dots, thereby, a foe.

"Boy"

That single word brought Seph back to his sense, at least just barely. He opened his eyes, not even aware when he actually closed them. He made out the blurry outline of a girl, she looked to be his age, and she called him a boy? He tried to muster a glare only to close his eyes again as another wave of agony washed over him. This was starting to get annoying.

"Well, if you have a better idea," he managed to grumble out. He knew she was right, he pushed himself up right, looking out through slitted eyes. People from the city were so snoopy sometimes, he thought facing the staring crowd.

[yehrmawm]

And there it was, the boy seemed in bad condition which was hardly any of her problem. She didn't move her grip until he was getting up. She could feel their eyes on her back as she stood there. They would make assumptions. Just as all fleeting idiots that came together did. They would suspect them both now, but she knew exactly how she'd stop that. She knew exactly how she could make those stopping vehicles to simply be just that, stopping vehicles. Maybe their brakes had just locked up? Maybe. But she wasn't friendly with being stared at and now that she was next to him, they suspected her too. She just knew it.

And that wasn't acceptable.

And then there came a slap across his face as soon as he had gotten up. Her eyes on his she hoped that he got where she was coming from as she took her place in front of him. For once in her life there was an expression on her face, a fake of anger.

“How dare you cheat one me like that! You deserved that punch in the nose. I'm sorry I had to do it, but how could you?”

What was she doing? Saving their asses. That's what. And though she knew forcing out tears just wouldn't happen she placed her hands over her face and pretended as if she was crying and turned her back to him.

[josephcarter]

Seph felt a twinge of guilt, he may have more than likely brought this girl into an uncomfortable situation. If these people did suspect him to be a, well, one of them, he didn't want to bring someone else into if he could help. Problem was, his mind was working too slow to come up with an excuse. He was usually pretty good at them too, his quick thinking tended to get him out of quite a few sticky situations and if that didn't work, he had other ways. Except his quick thinking decided to abandon him and the other option was unthinkable.

Luckily for him, Seph didn't have to worry about making something up. However as small fireworks exploded in his cranium, Seph began to rethink how lucky he was. What was playing in his favor was that he managed to catch onto what she was trying to do, almost ruining the whole thing.

"I'm sorry," Seph began, "But don't go pointing the finger at me, if anyone's to blame here, it's you, not me!"

[yehrmawm]

Gwen's body shook in feign sadness as she had her back to her “boyfriend”. She wasn't sure where this was going to go, but she wanted it to be something enough to get their minds on something else. So they wouldn't suspect anyone. So they could walk away and leave her alone. She was tired of pointing fingers. She was tired of idiots that abused their powers and made them look like the bad guy. It was lucky for her, that her powers were subtle. Yet somehow they had still gotten her into trouble.

His were more obvious and though she didn't have to help him, she had. She turned ever so slowly as he spoke and looked up at him in feigned shock.

“How dare you say such a thing! You slept with her, I didn't!”

The people were still looking, and though she saw some confusion in their faces she believed they were starting to think otherwise on those brakes being forced by some mutant freak. Not that she knew exactly what he had done, but, well, who gave a fuck as long as they believed the brakes caught at just the right time?

[josephcarter]

Everything began to come back into focus, less blurry then it was. About time, Joseph thought, wiping at his face once more. He had to look like a mess now well, with luck people would believe this cover up and think he just got punched. Sure, by a girl which added humiliation, but if people bought it he didn't really care. He looked over to the street seeing that the line of traffic was continuing its path down the street, life had to go on here.

"And now you acknowledge that I exist!" he retorted, "I don't hear from you in weeks and all of the sudden you decide to come back into my life, I didn't know you would even care,"

He felt foolish, he was arguing with a girl he didn't even know over a subject that didn't even exist. He was thankful at the same, perhaps when they stopped shouting he could give his gratitude. The question remained though, why was she helping him in the first place. Seph already figured that she knew what he was.

[yehrmawm]

There was a snarkie sensation in the back of her mind. She wanted to make this worse for him before she walked off in hopes that the people had already forgotten that his nose had been bleeding and obviously something had been instead. Dreams of brakes and such going on in their heads she would leave them with a story to tell their families when they got home. They seemed to already be walking by, but she wasn't going to let it end there. She was going to punish him for making her have to do this. She was going to make sure he knew that she wasn't happy about this one bit.

“How...”

She felt the sadness in her own voice as she looked up at him with a pitiful glance.

“I'm pregnant!”

She finally said, raising her voice. Something she seldomly did, it was almost alien to her as she turned around, covering her eyes as if she was crying. She made her way quickly down the sidewalk as if running off from him. She turned the corner and lean against the building in wait for him. The smile on her face was broad.

[josephcarter]

Seph raised one eyebrow at the girl. There was something in her face or her eyes that made him a little uneasy. She was up to something and he knew it. People were milling away, the signal turned green just a moment ago, turning red again in the next. Seph managed not to groan, he was supposed to be over there. When this was over, he was going to cheat, but he was going to be more discreet.

He turned his gaze back to the girl, his confusion grew. Why was she looking at him like that, like a puppy he just kicked? What was she doing? The answer made his mouth become unhinged.

"You're pregnant," he repeated. Then watched as she ran off, two could play at this game. "Then who's the father? God knows I haven't even touched you in months!" he shouted after her before giving chase.

His headache was now only a dull throb as he turned the corner, stopping once he spotted the girl. "Oh yeah, you're funny, really funny,"

[yehrmawm]

Gwen liked the reaction even better than she thought. It was funny, in it's own way. He'd gotten back at her just as she'd gotten at him. He had the wit enough to be quick enough to retort before she had disappeared. There were many that weren't even smart enough for that. She could give him his props for that at least. She waited until he made his way around the wall and kept that smile on her face, but looked forward, playing with her nails rather nonchalantly. It was all for his view of course. To make sure he knew that she didn't care what he had said and that she had won, he had not.

She turned her head ever so slightly.

“Really? I thought I was pretty funny. Maybe your sense of humor flew away when you let yourself get seen like that.”

She shrugged, her eyes now on him, “Tell me, after all that has just gone on do you think they would have been friendly? I don't think so. So, why risk it for some stupid woman and her child?”

It was stupid, in her opinion. She didn't have to worry about saving a woman with her power, and she wouldn't have saved the woman, that much was obvious. But, why get yourself noticed like that? If she hadn't been there he would have been in the same situation she was in when her foster parents and her teachers had realized something just wasn't right. That in her case, a girl couldn't take a stack of books and know them within fifteen minutes. She couldn't be able to tell you the plot, the main characters and the main points. No matter how intelligent, it just didn't work. In his case, brakes didn't work like that. In his case, he was the idiot.

[josephcarter]

If she had been a guy he would have tried to wipe that smile off of her face, but as the circumstance were, Seph couldn't, or at least he wouldn't. He narrowed his eyes as she seemed more interested with her nails than him, but the message got across all the same. If there was a next time, he would win that round, Seph thought to himself. Just to repair the small blow made to his ego if anything.

"Maybe it did, but it felt like it was pounded out of me more than flew," he began, "And it's not like I meant to be noticed you know, I just got a little over my head."

As she continued Seph couldn't believe what she was saying. Did she think that Seph should have let the mother and child die while he knew he could prevent it? "No, I didn't think that,"
he paused, "Just because you would have been willing to let them die doesn't mean that I am, I couldn't have done nothing,"

Though thinking back on hindsight, he probably should have just pulled the two back to safety instead, Seph thought twitching his nose. Ugh he hated the feeling of dried blood. He looked around spotting a hotdog stand, he glanced at the girl for a moment then snapped his fingers. Just like that everything froze around him, quickly Seph closed the distance between him and the stand. He snatched one of the bottle of water on the cart and a few napkins, feeling guilty for stealing but he had no money on him (take that muggers). He walked back to the girl, cleaning his face off, he stopped a few feet away from where he was previously, before snapping his fingers again, resuming the flow of time.

"So I'm guessing, if you were me, you would have done absolutely nothing right?"

[yehrmawm]

Gwen wasn't sure what to think of this boy. Honestly. If he couldn't control himself long enough to think before doing something why did he even still exist? After all that had gone on there was so much talk about mutants. You just didn't want to get noticed now-a-days... or any day, really. People when combined together were pack animals, and in that turn, idiots and they panicked quite easily. She watched him silently, not making much of a difference in expression in her face. Though her smile had sense then faded to her normal look of disinterest. Why was she still here? Maybe she could toy with him a bit longer. Maybe she wanted the company somewhere deep down.

She had no one here, and having someone to talk to was good enough, wasn't it?

No. Not really.

She shrugged.

“Maybe I would have let them die, but it would have been someone else's fault, not mine. I can't control what happens.”

She couldn't. And she wouldn't. And just then she noticed him with a bottle of water. When had he gotten that? She eyed him warily. She didn't have it on her so it wasn't like he stole it from her. But there was something odd about this boy. She mentally shrugged it off and kept her pose leaning against the wall.

“If I were you I'd be a hormonal boy with no sense, so I'm not really sure what I would do.”

On her face, nothing. She might have pushed out a smirk if she really had been caring enough at that point but instead she lean where she was until she leaned in grabbing for the napkin.

“Let me clean you up, I can see it better.”

[josephcarter]

Seph studied the girls face, she was no longer smiling, she actually looked bored. That couldn't have been his fault, he hadn't done anything to get that type of reaction, at least not that he knew of. As she commented on his own reply, Seph couldn't stop from giving one of his own smiles.

"That's right, you can't control what happens, me on the otherhand, I can control it, at least a little bit. It may sound corny but if you have the ability to take action, don't you think that you should? That's why I did it, I had the ability to change the situation,"

Seph's grin grew a degree bigger, he caught the confusion as she spotted the water bottle he now held. He always got some entertainment from that, when he suddenly had an item he didn't only a mere second before, but no one ever questioned him about, at least not to his face.

"Yeah, hormonal boy with no sense, that sounds like me," he mumbled with only a small amount of sarcasm laced in his words.

Seph allowed the girl to take the napkin from his hand. "I guess I should thank-you though, for coming to my rescue and all," he said with a smirk.