A log from last Wednesday.

[x-sparky.livejournal.com]

Paige and Jono meet over apples and newspaper.


There were about five instances during the time it took to walk down to the kitchen when Jono almost decided to go back. But in the end he didn't and soon found himself lurking by the kitchen door for a moment before slinking in.

Paige is chewing thoughtfully on a summer apple, newspaper spread out before her. She engrossed in her reading, eyes moving at a rapid pace across the pages, her mouth pulled into a frown, and wouldn't have even noticed the silent Jono had he not cast a shadow over the news.

"Jono."

"Hey," he says. "What did you want."

"You. I... I mean, to talk to you." She runs her tongue over her teeth, clearing the sweetness off and trying not to blush.

He frowns at her, a little bit unsure, then looks around the kitchen. He hasn't had much reason to visit it ever since he had come to the mansion. "What about."

Paige smiles a little, if not a little nervously. "I need to have a reason? Why was I not informed?"

He stops looking around and turns to stare at her, but "hmm" is all he says.

She nods her head at an empty chair. "Come sit. Unless you're busy?" She manages to give him an escape if he'd prefer not to be here, concentrating on her apple as she does so.

There's a moment of silence and then he pulls out the chair she had nodded at, the legs scraping against the floor, and sits down.

"What have you been up to?" she asks politely, peeling away the skin off her apple with her short nails.

"Walking around," he answers truthfully and pauses before going on. "What about you."

Shrugging, she points to the stack of textbooks she's taken to carrying around. "Studying. Surprise surprise, huh?"

"Not really," Jono's hand creeps on the table and steals a section of the newspaper. "Everyone keeps studying here."

"Everyone else has classes," Paige points out, watching Jono's spider impersonation out of the corner of her eye. "Are you taking many next term?"

"Don't know yet," he says. "Miss Braddock's Creative Writing is at the same time as Mr. Summers' Automotive Maintenance."

"Ah. And this is posing a major problem for you?"

"I could've gone to both, suppose I'm only going to Creative Writing now," he says laconically, looking over the newspaper pages he has.

Paige drills her fingers on the table, bringing his attention back to her. "Why can you not go to both now, while you could before?"

"Before," he looks up at her. "I've hardly been here a month. I meant that they're both probably interesting classes."

Paige decides to not comment on that, moving to a safer response. "I'll be taking the auto class, myself. I like working with machinery, escpecially cars. Would love to learn how to work a bike though."

He nods, turning back to the paper. "You can tell me what you do in that class, then."

"I'm sure Scott would let me teach you what I've learned if you'd like. I mean..." she stumbles, before catching herself. "Unless you just want to take a private class with Scott. He'd probably do it, he's nice."

He doesn't say anything for a long while, then, finally, after turning a page, "It'd be the first time I was taught about engines by a pretty girl."

Turning her face into her shoulder shyly, Paige laughs and tries to hide her blush with a hand. "Well then. First time I'd get to teach someone like you too, Sparky."

"I have a name, Sunshine," he replies flatly, but not really unkindly.

"As do I, Jono," she returns, equally deadpan. Her eyes give her away though, dancing in merriment.

"Yes, I'm aware of that, Paige," he glances at her when he turns the page again.

"Oh, so you do know it." She tilts her head to one side, regarding him lopsidedly. "I don't think I've ever heard you say it before. My name I mean."

"Probably because I've never said it before," Jono leans back in his chair, looking back at her for a moment, then shifting his eyes a little and staring over her shoulder.

She shrugs and smiles pleasantly. "I think I prefer Sunshine anyway." She resists looking over her shoulder to see what he's staring at, and instead keeps her focus on him. "Which do you prefer, then? Jono or Sparky?"

"Jono," he replies instantly.

"Hm. That's too bad. I think Sparky suits you." She idley spins the stem on what remains of her apple, counting under her breath and looks at it very perplexly when it comes off in her hands.

"If I was a dog," he flicks the words into her mind sharply. "Someone calling me Sparky gives me an instant desire to play dead."

Paige winces, moving the hand that had been covering her face to her temple. "No Sparky then. Anything you'd prefer?" she says quietly.

"Yeah. Jono, which is my name," his gaze comes to rest on her face again.

"Oh." Paige tries not to look hurt, moving her gaze to the remaining sections of the paper, not really seeing it. "Okay."

He blinks, looking nonplussed for a second. "Sorry," he says then, softer.

Paige tries to smile, pushing the paper back and forth across the table with her finger. "No reason to be."

He shrugs, still studying her face. "What makes you a mutant."

Paige looks up, surprised at the question. "Well, I have the ability to husk, as I call it. The submolecular structure of my body underneath my skin alters, then allows me to shed my outer epidermis to reveal a new form with greater abilities. That's what my file says, anyway." She pauses, a strange sort of smile pulling her mouth. "I'd give you a demonstration, but it's rather messy first of all, and secondly, I haven't figured out how to keep my clothes when I... unhusk."

A moment passed in silence, Jono keeping his eyes squarely on Paige. "Ah," he says finally, eyes flitting downwards and then moving over to stare at the tabletop.

Paige moves to obstruct his view, peering up at him. "Why, Jono, are you blushing?" She saves him the humiliation of having to answer that by changing the subject. "Has anyone done any research on your mutation since I last asked?"

"No," he starts to fold the newspaper into one again. "Suppose they're all busy."

Paige's eyes narrow and flash angrily. "That's just atrocious." She shakes her head, sending the loose pieces of hair into her face where she brushes them back. "These people are supposed to be helping, and neither one of us have been touched. I am fine, but I suspect yours is a more pressing matter."

"A bit annoying, yeah," Jono keeps on folding the paper, concentrating on it instead of Paige or the obvious proof of his freakiness.

"You are remarkably calm about this," Paige says, instantly sobering into a mirror of her collected companion if only in embarassment at her passion.

"I have my moments of frustration," he says levelly. "You saw one of them."

"Ah. Perhaps it's a good thing you don't have my temper then. Scott would be going out to the nursery every weekend." She has the grace to look somewhat ashamed, but her smile manages to stay.

"That's true," he looks up, eyes narrowed strangely, and she realizes he's trying to smile.

Contentment spreads across her features, from the smooth lines in her face to her relaxed shoulders, one arm draped over her chair. "You should smile more often, Jono."

"But there's no real point when I don't have a mouth, is there," a little frown replaces the tentative smile.

"I like the way your eyes crinkle slightly when you smile," she says, answering the question and yet not at all. "You have pretty eyes, but they're beautiful when you smile."

"No," he shakes his head and stands up a bit jerkily, the chair making a faint screech as it's pushed backwards. "You don't have to act like I wasn't a monster."

Leaping to her feet, Paige stands in front of him, suddenly looking heartbroken and he has to wonder how she can switch between so many different emotions so quickly. "No, Jono, please don't."

"Please don't what," he snaps, trying to back away.

"Do this. Push away. Every time..." She resists wincing at the crackling in her mind, clenching her hand at her side instead, and shortening her words, worried that they'll shake if she keeps them any longer.

"Every time what," Jono stumbles a little in his hurry to reach the door. "Every time you're two seconds from realizing who you're talking to."

Paige grabs his shoulder in a tight grip, fingertips digging in hard enough to bruise. "Every time I get close." Her voice is low when she speaks now, and he has to listen hard to hear her. "I always know who I'm talking to Jono and I sought you out. Remember that. I wanted to be with you. So if you don't want to be with me then just say so. Just tell me. So can stop repeatedly making a fool out of myself like this."

He yanks himself from her grasp. "I don't need your pity," he snarls as if he hadn't heard her at all.

Paige cries out at the anger directed at her, the pressure astounding, and holds her head. "When will you realize that what I feel for you isn't pity, Jono?" she manages, closing her eyes and trying to rid the pain in her untrained mind.

"What else could it be," Jono scoffs, then closes his eyes and raises a hand to his forehead, his anger receding somewhere into him. "Really," he sighs, "I know what I look like. Don't try to tell me otherwise."

Paige slumps forward, the pressure turned to little more than a quiet pulse. She circles him slowly and ends up toe to toe with the taller boy. Her previously violent fingertips turn gentle as she reaches up and they grace against his hair line, so light as to almost be a memory. "Perhaps I don't care."

He catches her hand and gently lowers it, looking down at her rather sadly. "But perhaps I do."

"Then perhaps I was wrong," she says quietly, running her thumb over his knuckles as she keeps his gaze. "Perhaps I do pity you. But not for the reasons you want me to."

He draws his hand away, breaking eyecontact, and pushes past her to the door. "It doesn't matter," his anger is all but gone, disappeared somewhere into the depression.

Paige tries to step forward but finds her legs leaden, much like her heart. "Jono?"

But he is already gone, the kitchen door swinging shut behind him.