xp_logs | Meggan and Wade (Backdated)

Following a viewing of Star Wars and Return of the Jedi, Wade grills some chicken and asks Meggan what she can do. After the milkshake drama, he wants to make sure she isn’t uncomfortable around him, too. He serenades her with badly sung songs, before asking if she’d like him to teach her some extra self-defense moves.

The credits were rolling on The Empire Strikes Back and the sun was sinking outside the windows of the common room when Wade glanced over at Meggan and grinned. "We're saving Return of the Jedi for next weekend, alright?"

Meggan had known about Darth Vader being Luke’s father, but she hadn’t known he chopped off Luke’s hand. She stretched her legs, nodding, “That’s okay. That way there’s absolutely no chance of me accidentally falling asleep if it gets to be too late and missing something important.” She doubted she would, but you never knew.

"And," Wade said, waggling his eyebrows a bit, "We have time for food. What kind of Benevolent Overlord would I be if I didn't feed you after you so kindly sat through two of the Star Wars movies with me? What're you hungry for? I can put pretty much anything on a grill."

Meggan raised an eyebrow, before she asked, “So, anything grilled? Anything at all? Maybe some grilled chicken.” That shouldn’t be too hard to grill if it was a small portion of one, she assumed. “We could make a few sandwiches out of it,” she suggested.

"Excellent planning, Minion Number Two," Wade said, nodding. "Up, up, and away we go, off to the kitchen and our dinner's destiny!" He grabbed the bowl they'd had their popcorn in and let the kernels rattle around a little as they headed for the kitchen. "So tell me, Minion Number Two. What is it that you do?" They'd been hanging out on weekends since he got here, watching Golden Girls and various other things and he hadn't ever asked her what her actual mutation was.

Meggan followed him into the kitchen. She had never actually gotten around to telling him what she did, she realized. She should have done so sooner. “Well, Benevolent Overlord, I’m an empathic shapeshifter,” Meggan explained with a grin. “I don’t project, I just sense, so I’d never accidentally mess you up,” she was quick to assure him. “It just means I feel somebody and shift if I’m really, really distracted or they’re really intense. Depends on what the emotion is, what it does to me.” She paused, before adding, “And I do a couple other things like levitate and make gills so I can stay underwater for about an hour."

She would make an excellent stealth assassin. Except for how he wanted to kind of cuddle her and pinch her cheeks and make sure nobody messed with her. Wade grinned. "Cool, so if I'm like, really psyched about Bea Arthur or something, what'd happen?"

“It wouldn’t be anything bad,” Meggan laughed. “It’d feel nice, maybe I’d look a little better. There’s a slight chance I’d be surprised to discover I had her hair for a little while, too, if you were overwhelmingly desperate for it. It’s just rarer, so please don’t ever do that,” she jokingly pleaded. She liked Bea Arthur, but she didn't really want her hair. “And on the other end...if it’s bad stuff, I’ve gone a little furry before, and it's shifted color to whatever the nearest person's hair color was a couple times. I looked monkeyish when I was small. With some added stuff like bat ears, so it could do that.”

Wade tipped his head to the side as he opened the refrigerator to check and see if there was actually any chicken inside. "Can you control it? Like, if you wanted Bea Arthur's hair for a costume or something, could you make it happen? Or would I have to get really jazzed about her first?" He pulled the chicken out, then walked toward the door leading to the porch and started checking the grill to make sure it was ready. He found charcoal in a bin next to it and lighter fluid in the cabinet beneath it, so they were pretty much good to go.

Meggan nodded as she watched him work on the grill. “If I’m paying close attention to it, yes. For Halloween one year, I managed to keep my skin looking like a statue. I just had to stay outside near some concrete for a while to match it, and then remember that I was supposed to be that color the whole time.” In between sneaking up on Amanda as a joke, at the time. She gave Wade a suspicious look, but it was with more than a hint of amusement. “You want me to be Bea Arthur this year if I can do the hair, don’t you? Admit it,” she laughed.

Laughing, Wade glanced back at Meggan over his shoulder. "Only if you want to - I was actually just using her as an example. What other kinds of stuff can you do? And... can you show me the levitating thing? Cause that just sounds awesome."

“Maybe I’ll try later, see if I can get some of the coloring right,” Meggan conceded with a grin. “Yeah, sure.” She levitated a few feet off the ground for a demonstration, moving into what looked more like a seated position in the air. “See? Makes it easier to get into trees, when you can just float between the branches so they don’t snag you.”

A skill that was entirely too useful for someone used to doing a ridiculous amount of wetwork. Not that Meggan, his adorable Minion Number Two, needed to know anything about that, of course. "Man, that is awesome," Wade said, laughing a little. "I bet people who can do stuff like that throw the Buddhists into fits of envy or something, man."

Meggan grinned as she returned to the ground. “Or just really confuse them,” she guessed. “You’ve achieved Nirvana in the last five minutes? No, sorry. I was just bored and felt like being floaty today. They’d be horribly disappointed when they wandered away, then…maybe a little bit pouty.”

Laughing, Wade nodded. "Yeah, can't you just see all the monks pouting? It'd be kind of funny. But then they'd probably decide to take some kind of wisdom from the experience..." He stacked the coal in a little pyramid, then squirted on the lighter fluid and scrounged around until he found a match. Lighting it, he took a step back. "And now, we figure out what we're putting on the chicken to make it even more delicious than it is naturally..."

Wade headed back inside, "While you make sure I don't burn the porch down, can I ask you a question?"

“The ones taking a vow of silence might pout the most,” Meggan guessed. Because if you couldn’t communicate with the outside world through more than that, you’d go wild. “Maybe some paprika? Would that work for grilling it,” she wondered. “Sure, go ahead. Ask away, I’ll watch things.”

"Well, I wanted to make sure me and Minion Number One - Kevin, I mean, hadn't upset you or anything the other day. If we did, I know I'm sorry and I can guess Kevin's sorry, too, though I'm not speaking for him. And if I ever did anything that didn't sit well with you, you could tell me to back off or whatever. None of that's a question." Wade quirked a rueful smile. "I guess what I'm asking if did we make you uncomfortable." While he was talking, he went through the pieces of chicken, pulling out seasoning from a cupboard. He got the paprika down and considered it, then brought it over with him.

“Yeah. Kevin said he was sorry, too, but there’s nothing to be sorry about. You were both just being silly,” Meggan was quick to point out. “I may have thought the milkshake thing was referencing a movie instead of a song for a little while,” she admitted with an equally rueful grin. “But it’s okay. We’re all okay. It didn’t upset me, I could tell you were joking. If you ever accidentally do something to upset me, I promise that I’d tell you. Poke you or something. I wouldn’t leave you wondering.”

Tipping his head to the side, Wade paused in his chicken preparation and asked, "A movie? What movie has milkshakes going to a yard in it?" He grinned as he went back to sprinkling spices on the chicken - this was going to be interesting.

“Hey, all I knew was that someone screams ‘I drink your milkshake!’ at some point in it,” Meggan laughed. “I think it was a movie with Daniel Day-Lewis, but I haven’t seen it. For all I knew, he was throwing them into someone’s yard before saying they brought everyone.” Even if it probably wasn’t the sort of movie where that kind of thing happened. More drama than wacky hijinks.

"You've never heard the milkshake song?" Wade grinned despite himself, then straightened up and cleared his throat. "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and they're like, it's better than yours - damn right, it's better than yours. I could teach you, but I'd have to charge - my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard..." His singing was nothing to write home about, but Wade obviously enjoyed himself, at least. "We'll have to find you a copy to listen to or something."

“No, I think I would have remembered lyrics like that if I had,” Meggan giggled. While he may not have a great singing voice, it was extremely entertaining to her. “Maybe, yeah,” she agreed. “And maybe I just kept missing hearing about it because I stick with the quieter stuff most of the time.”

Wade grinned and did a bit of a shimmy while he finished up with the seasoning for the chicken. "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard... crap. That is totally going to be stuck in my head for forever now." He pointed a finger at Meggan and shook it at her in mock admonishment. "I hope you know the sacrifices I've made for you, Minion Number Two. For they are many and great."

“Yes, I know. I feel so sad for those sacrifices.” Meggan failed to keep a straight face saying that, despite her best efforts. “But better that it’s the milkshake song than a song from whoever the worst boy band in the world right now is,” she happily insisted.

Wade considered that for a moment, then held up one finger, cleared his throat, and sang, "Baby - oh... even in my heart I see - you're not being true to me. Deep within my soul, I feel - nothing's like it used to be. Sometimes I wish I could turn back time, impossible as it may seem, but I wish I could - baby. Quit playing games with my heart..." Then he grinned. "C'mon, Backstreet Boys... it's a classic."

“Oh, I thought you were about to sing a Justin Bieber song when you said that first word,” Meggan laughed, oddly relieved it wasn’t. Then again, Wade trying to sing that might well have been hysterical. “I think I’ve heard of the Backstreet Boys before. Never listened to a song from them, but…it’s not extremely bad to me, maybe just a teensy bit bad,” she decided. Out of curiosity, she asked, “Does that one get stuck on repeat in your head and drive you crazy like the milkshake song?”

Wade grinned and, rather than answering her directly, he sang, "Oh - you know you love me. I know you care. Just shout whenever and I'll be there. You want my love, you want my heart - and we will never ever ever be apart... are we an item, girl quit playing - we're just friends? What are you saying? Said there's another and looked right in my eyes - my first love broke my heart for the first time and I was like - baby, baby, baby, oooooh..."

Meggan pointed at him almost accusingly once her laughter eventually died down. “That was practically a dare, wasn’t it, you silly man? It was my own fault for saying that.” She hadn’t expected him to actually know the lyrics that well.

Practically beaming, Wade shrugged. "What? I listen to the radio. My favorite was definitely the commercial during the Super Bowl when Ozzy was like, 'What's a Bieber?" He put all the chicken back on a plate and carried it over to the door, then out onto the porch so he could put it all on the grill, singing all the while, "Baby, baby, baby..."

“Oh, I know what an Ozzy is, so I don’t have to ask the opposite question,” Meggan declared as she followed him back to the grill. “You’d probably be a hard man to sing against at a karaoke place, since you know those lyrics by heart,” she realized.

Shaking his head a little, Wade set the chicken to grilling and then said, "But half of karaoke is definitely the quality of your imitation singing and mine? Kinda sucks."

“Oh, Meggan said with realization. “With some of the stuff I’ve seen on tv, I just always assumed it was supposed to be really bad on purpose. That they were working to be that bad.”

Wade laughed. "Nah, they're trying to be good. That's part of the problem and why people think American Idol is so funny."

Meggan thought she knew the reason for that one. “Because people want to see what the not as fantastic singers will pick, if they haven’t been voted off yet. Or there’s nothing else on that night. One or the other.”

"Uh huh," Wade said with a nod, clicking the tongs together for a moment. "One or the other. Laughing at someone else or utter boredom." He considered that for a long moment as he waited for the chicken to cook partway on the first side so he could turn them over, then quirked his head to the side and asked, "Do you know how to like... punch somebody?" Because their decision about why people watched American Idol made him think about why people might go to a freak show and that made him think about Meggan being in a freak show and that... made him unhappy.

So, in Wade-logic, it followed that he should really make sure she never got stuck in another one. Her overbearing sister might also have something to say about that, and her brother with the prehensile tail, too. But the best offense was a good defense. He didn't even know if she had a defense.

“I…know the right way isn’t a closed fist like in the movies,” Meggan offered. The change of topic didn’t even make her blink, strangely enough. “My first instinct is usually to float out of range to safety before that, or kick them hard as I can and get them to let go, but I know it can’t always be done if the other person’s done something to make it impossible to get away.” Or if they’re shooting a cloud of rocks at you and are made of rock, she recalled with a tiny wince.

"Well, it's more like if you want to use the closed fist method like they do in the movies, you have to train your hand," Wade said, finally flipping the chicken. "Otherwise you'll break something and that'd suck. So you have to start out with like, hand exercises and then working with a bag with gloves on for protection so the rest of your body gets the idea and can follow-through properly. That's why some guys can punch walls without any problems - they've trained their hands. The wall never stood a chance. How fast can you float?"

“I’ve never had a radar gun used on it, but it’s pretty quick if I have to,” Meggan replied before zipping up quicker than she had in her previous demonstration. She stopped short of the branch on a nearby tree and grinned. “See?” Meggan then floated at a slower speed back to the ground. “Slow can be great if you have to sneak up on someone, and shouldn’t make a sound. Did it like that when I had to fling a power line at a bad guy.”

"You were flinging power lines at bad guys?" Wade's tone was more impressed than disapproving and he tipped his head to the side. "What if somebody jumps on you and you can't float away?"

Meggan realized she hadn’t mentioned that bit of her powers, and nodded. “Yeah. I used to eat the energy from outlets when I was smaller, so I thought—even if it’s a lot more power, why not see if I could grab a downed line and use that so a friend could get away from him? Made me feel like I’d tried too much of the most caffeinated thing ever, but it worked.” She pondered his question for a moment, before shaking her head and admitting, “If they did that, I’d probably be stuck unless I could squirm away or shove them off.”

Wade frowned at that a little and checked the chicken, flipping it over before pointing the tongs at Meggan. "No minion of mine is going to lack a basic escape tactic," he said, though he was obviously more serious now than he'd been. "They teach self-defense here, I know that much." Tipping his head to the side, he quirked a brow and offered, "Feel like learning some skills outside the basic self-defense curriculum?"

“Sure. If none of the basic stuff I know works on somebody, and I can’t just float away or climb a tree, then outside sounds like a really good idea,” Meggan confirmed with a little smile. It could all depend on what power the other person had, too, and what they were doing to her with it, but extra precautions from Wade could be invaluable. Unable to keep her curiosity at bay any longer, she tilted her head and asked, “So…which moves would you be teaching me first? And when would we be starting?” She hoped it would be a weekend.

"We can start any time you like, whenever's best for your schedule," Wade said. "And I'd probably be teaching you just... things other people might think of as being underhanded. But they're effective and, in the end, if it opens up a way for you to get yourself free of whoever's doing whatever, then I'd say they're more useful than not." He smiled a little at that. "Y'know, poking people in the eyes, kidney-shots, how to bite someone really effectively and where the best spots are to get them to release you. And blocking. That's not underhanded, though. I'd probably start you on the Kata, honestly. It's calming and you can use what I teach you there once it's muscle-memory for things like avoiding someone who's coming at you. That kind of stuff."

“Kata sounds perfect for me if it’s calming. I think I’d like that. Maybe a little during weekends, or times I have off for school breaks? Things like that,” Meggan suggested. Sprinkling in some of all that when she wouldn’t have homework would be for the best. “I won’t ever say a word to anyone about you teaching me anything that could be underhanded if it helps,” she promised with a mischievous grin. “Although, biting’s the absolute last resort for me,” Meggan laughed. “I am effectively an ex-biter. Unless it's the only way out of a life and death kind of thing.”

"The Kata's good for calming, yeah," Wade said, reaching over to ruffle Meggan's hair. He wasn't going to ask who she used to bite, of course. They'd probably deserved it. "It's all about centering yourself. And you can do it as many times as you need to, if you're working through stuff, y'know? I do it in the gym. Or the greenhouse. It'll take a bit of space, but it's not difficult once you get the forms down."

Meggan nodded in understanding. She liked this plan. “Or I could try outside, near the trees after you teach me in the gym? It’s usually quiet there.” That was a peaceful area to her. It likely wasn’t possible to do a kata while in the trees, unless she wanted to fall out. Meggan chose to ignore Wade ruffling her hair, aside from scrunching her nose playfully at him for a second. She would ruffle his later, when it wasn’t expected.

"Once you get the Kata down, you can practice anywhere that works for you," Wade said, smiling. Moving back to tend to the chicken, he said, "We can start in a couple weeks, once it's warm enough outside to make it worthwhile. Should give us some time to figure out our schedules and where they mesh up besides Saturdays and Sundays. Because I am most definitely keeping those reserved, at least partway, for Bea Arthur."

“That’s wonderful,” Meggan was swift to agree. “Because I wasn’t really ready to give up on the Bea Arthur viewings anytime soon. I like them.” They couldn’t truly be called Golden Girls viewings anymore, if they also included other things the woman was in, and Star Wars. It was relaxing, and fun for her, she knew that much. “That chicken smells like it’s getting close to done, too,” she said as the aroma grew stronger.

"You have to be careful with chicken, though," Wade said, flipping it again and then poking at it a bit to see how firm it was. "Cause chicken can be really bad for you if it's not cooked all the way through..."