Laurie and Artie, Saturday evening.

[x-artie.livejournal.com]

Powers experimentation. Sometimes it's more fun for me than it is for you.

OOC: With the reposting because I accidentally put this in his journal, not x-logs


Artie was heading out of the rec room and down toward the kitchen when he spotted Laurie. She was already in the kitchen, visible from the  landing on the stairs and most probably hadn't spotted him. He grinned and ducked down before projecting a human-shaped figure behind and   just to her left, inching it forward and letting hints of shadow hit the edge of the bench.     

Laurie had just started mixing batter for biscuits when she saw the movement, and glanced behind only to see a human sized shadow. She did as anybody trained as an X-man would...she threw the bowl of batter at it and launched herself across the bench in order to put it between her and her unknown assailant.     

"Who the hell are you?" she yelled, crouching.

He let the end of the shadow show as it flickered through a door and into the pantry and settled back to wait.    

Laurie frowned and flipped open her cellphone, dialing the operations room, "Kurt?"

"Laurie?" Sensing something in her voice even on that one word, his next words were, "Is something wrong?"   

"I'm not sure," Laurie admitted, realising that there hadn't been a general alarm for an intruder on the premises, something that should have happened for a stranger. "We didn't get any new people recently, did we? Say, someone who can turn themselves into a shadow, or project their shadow or something?"  

"No one new who can do that", he confirmed.  "Where are you and what is happening?"  

"Main kitchen," Laurie noted, moving around the bench and heading cautiously toward the pantry. "There was some weird humanoid shaped shadow here, looks like it went into the pantry. Can you see anything on the screens?"  

"Nothing very clear", he said with a frown.  "But the pantry is quite dark, it might be blending in.  Do you need back-up?"

"Not yet," Laurie noted, opening the door slowly and peering in. "It didn't seem hostile, I'll signal if I need you here."

"I will be waiting", Kurt promised, then turned back to focus on the screens.

The pantry door was still open slightly and if he was careful... Artie bit his lip in concentration, letting flickers of shadow show just above Laurie's shoulders and concentrated on blacking in anything that that wasn't directly in the light. But only in the part of the kitchen in front of her. There was a dull, steady spike of a headache growing behind his eyes. 

Laurie released her control on her powers slightly, allowing them to turn into their default <b>on</b> state before she manipulated the pheromones to release calming/sleep hormones.  It was not only the least dangerous thing she could do in an unknown situation, it was also the easiest to use since she'd practiced so often with this particular configuration.

"Please come out of there and identify yourself," she said, keeping her tone as polite and non-threatening as possible.

There was a trick to the airflows in the building that meant that, if the rangehood over the stove wasn't on but the heating was, an air current was drawn out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Laurie's pheromones hit Artie and he lost all his projections, sitting down with a thud. Suddenly, he didn't want to move. All he wanted to do was sit right here and maybe stare into space a little, maybe have a nap. A nap sounded good.

Laurie heard the thump outside, and quickly moved across the kitchen to peer out the door, only to see Artie on the floor. "Artie Maddicks, just what do you think you're doing?"

She crossed her arms and gave him a look that would have had a priest looking sheepish, her foot even beginning to tap in her indignation of having been fooled into thinking there was danger afoot.

He struggled to his feet, yawning widely, indignation that Laurie would talk to him like he was a five year old banishing his earlier amusement. -I don't know. I was just mucking around. But, seriously, do you have to talk to me like I'm a five year old, with that whole 'Artie Maddicks' thing? I mean, dude- he said, signing quickly, without taking the usual care to make sure that she'd understand.

"If you act like a five year old, then I'm going to treat you as one," Laurie noted with a raised eyebrow. "What exactly about using your powers to play pranks on people is adult behaviour?"

She wasn't usually this tough on anyone, and she'd certainly had her own share of stuff ups growing up, most of them actual public knowledge on the journals if you went back far enough. But Artie had given her a bit of a fright, and she wasn't holding back the harshness now.

-That's a bit much from someone who used to call Kyle a dog all the time.- Artie shrugged, still sleepy and swallowed a yawn. -And you know, I'm just trying to figure out what they're actually useful for.-

"I also grew up, Artie. Have you seen  me call Kyle anything like that in the past couple of years?" Laurie noted, an eyeroll barely contained. "You could have simply asked me to help you train, rather then trying to scare the life out of me."

-I didn't think it would work, okay? I'll probably ask someone else for some training, now I know it's maybe something that could do something,- he replied. -And yeah, you grew up enough that you think you can give me some kind of fucking lecture, like you're some kind of know it all adult or something now. Like, whatever.-

Laurie's communicator chimed at that moment, flashing Kurt's name in the screen.

"It's alright, Kurt. It was just a false alarm, someone playing a prank," Laurie replied, pressing the button on her communicator as she raised an eyebrow at Artie. "I think someone needs to have a talk with the students about how not to use their powers again."

She wasn't going to nark on him, even if she did want to clip him upside the ear for both attitude and stupidity. She'd been his age once herself though, and she knew exactly how she would have reacted to such a thing.

Kurt considered this, then shrugged to himself.  "All right.  Can I leave it to you to handle this talk, or would you like to tell me who it was?" 

"I think I can handle it, and if the culprit doesn't learn their lesson, I can always have them helping Yvette with the mansion wood pile, a bit of hauling heavy objects around should be good for them."

Laurie flicked the button on her comms to turn it off, "How about you go do whatever it is teenage boys do, and we never speak of this again?" 

Artie rolled his eyes. -Whatever, Laurie. If and when someone that's actually in charge of me wants to have a talk with me, they can. But you're not, so, whatever. Pull the stick out of your ass and grow a sense of humour. It was funny.-

"Just get the hell out of my sight, okay?" Laurie replied, turning to walk back into the kitchen. Sometimes your best option is to simply walk away before you do something that would make you just as much a teenager as they are.

He gave her the finger as she walked away.