xp_logs | Angelo and Nathan (Reply)

Backdated, because I forgot. Oops. Angelo helps Nathan experiment with his telekinesis - walking on water and treetop tag.

Oh, this was just entirely too much fun at times. Nathan grinned and lept to the next treetop, landing lightly on one of the upper branches, letting his TK bear all but a fraction of his weight so that the tree only swayed a little. All he needed was Dom here to accuse him of trying to reenact scenes from 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'.

He leapt to the next tree, and grinned even more widely as he looked along the lakeshore and spotted Angelo sitting down on the end of the dock having a smoke, Joyita curled up beside him. Snickering, Nathan launched himself off the tree and through the air, skipping across the water like a stone and into Angelo's line of sight, waving.

Angelo looked up, startled, as did the puppy. Seeing Nathan on the water, he raised an eyebrow with a grin, waving back. "New trick?"

"Very old trick, actually," Nathan said with a laugh, drifting to a stop. And now he was walking on water. "You should see how I walk up walls. And the Matrix movies gave me all kinds of fun ideas." Joyita bounced to her feet, wagging her tail.

Angelo chuckled, watching Joyita plunge into the water and swim splashily over to Nathan. "So you're practisin' the fun stuff now? Wish I could do that."

Nathan waved a hand and Joyita yipped excitedly as she floated up to the surface of the water. "Well," Nathan said, getting an idea as he watched the puppy run around, trying to figure out why she was suddenly walking on water too, "you know... you could always practice with me." He looked up at Angelo, grinning.

Angelo's face lit up and he got to his feet, putting his cigarette out on the dock's stone support. "For real?"

Nathan's grin only grew. "Of course for real. Why do you all think I'm such a tease?" He looked around thoughtfully. "Cain would hiss at me if he caught us actually running on the roof, but there are lots of trees and so forth on the other side of the lake..." Nathan waved a hand, depositing Joyita back on the deck. "You stay," he told her firmly, still smiling, and then looked at Angelo. "If you're really going to help me practice, the thing to do would be to chase me and trust that I'll make sure you can jump when you want to jump."

Angelo grinned, pleased, then shot the puppy a dubious look. "I'm not sure she'll stay there by herself... should probably take her back to my room or to Paige or Clarice, first. An' I can do that, sure."

"I can wait," Nathan said with a grin. "For a little while. The treetops call, you know."

Angelo laughed, scooping up the puppy. "I'll be back as soon as this one's somewhere safe, then."

Nathan nodded and waited, mentally running through what he'd have to do to make this feasible. Definitely a light link with Angelo, to be able to anticipate his next move and provide the necessary telekinetic assist. It really would be a good exercise, actually.

Angelo returned about ten minutes later, puppyless and grinning. "Right then. To the trees?"

"Catch me if you can," Nathan said with a grin and turned, moving across the water in ever-increasing leaps.

Angelo hesitated just for a moment before stepping off the dock, then took the leap of faith and tried to run after Nathan.

Nathan grinned as he sensed Angelo's surprise at being able to run across the water as if it were solid ground. "Come on!" he called back over his shoulder at the height of another leap. "Let your imagination run wild - you don't have to be bound by gravity here, you know!"

Angelo grinned and jumped as Nathan was doing, feeling himself being telekinetically lifted to match Nathan's leaps. "This is really cool."

"Glad you're enjoying it," Nathan said as he reached the far show. He shifted position, then launched himself upwards to the top of the closest tree. "Now it gets really interesting!"

Angelo took a breath, then bounced back on his heels and followed, still not used to the feel of Nathan "lifting" him. "What're we gonna do up here?"

"Same basic thing," Nathan said. "A little trickier, because we don't have a single surface." He grinned and jumped to the next tree. "Come on, Angelo... let's see how much you do trust me."

Angelo forced himself not to hesitate this time before jumping, but he was starting to sympathize with Sarah's fear of heights. He won't let you fall. He very deliberately didn't look at his feet or the branches beneath them.

Nathan shook his head as he had to pull Angelo across the gap and onto the branch. "That's not going to work," he said kindly. "You need to have a very clear image in your mind of where you want to land. Otherwise I can't help you do it."

Angelo nodded, looking nervous. "Okay. I'll do that next time."

"You do know I'm not going to let you fall," Nathan said, leaping to the next tree.

Another nod. "Yeah, I know. Just... not so used to not havin' solid ground under my feet." He purposely focused on the tree, rather than the gaps between them, and aimed for a particular spot.

Nathan made sure he landed right on that specific branch and smiled as Angelo caught his balance. "That's better."

Angelo grinned. "You should do this with Amanda, sometime - she has a thing about flyin'."

"I've taken her flying once before. Which is actually simpler than this, believe it or not." Nathan jumped again, but dove downwards this time, kicking off a couple of tree trunks, before he soared upwards again, tossing in a backflip just for fun as he landed on another tree branch.

After a very brief pause, Angelo jumped off his branch to follow. "How so?"

"When you fly," Nathan said, making sure Angelo landed okay again, "you just ignore gravity. When you do this, you have to work with it."

Angelo didn't quite understand. "So you don't hit anythin' you don't want to, you mean?"

"You use surfaces, rather than create your own," Nathan said and jumped straight up to demonstrate. "See?" he asked, taking a few steps around in a circle. "This way, I'm just pretending there's ground beneath my feet." He lowered himself back to the tree branch. "But I'm actually standing on the branch here, and what I have to do is compensate for my weight."

Angelo nodded, getting it now. "So how do you do that?"

Nathan stopped, trying to think about it. "Umm... you know, I'm not really sure? That's kind of embarassing to admit, but I just sort of... do."

Angelo shrugged. "Well, I guess you don't need to know the technical details of it, as long as it works."

"I'm sure Moira could give you an explanation. I just sort of... hold on in a specific way. It's not exactly levitation..." Nathan shook his head and jumped across to another tree. "This is why I'm not a scientist," he laughed, looking back at Angelo. "The why of things like this don't really interest me."

Angelo followed with a grin. "That's what the doc's here for", he answered lightly.

He was definitely getting more confident, Nathan decided. "Weren't we playing tag?" he called back, and picked up the pace, carefully 'watching' Angelo's thoughts. This really was good practice.

Angelo laughed. "Yeah, we were." He also sped things up, matching the pace set by Nathan.

"What do you want if you catch me?" Nathan asked, tossing in another flip, just for fun.

Angelo, confident enough now to try and outrun Nathan, considered the options. "Gonna have to think about that one."

"So long as it's not a sparring session, at least for a couple of days," Nathan said with a laugh. "Sarah wore me right out."

Angelo raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? She mentioned you were gonna spar with her. What happened?"

"I'm just kidding - it went fairly well, I think." His leg was aching today, still, but it was a good reminder not to get too fancy in situations like that. A simple shield would have taken care of those bone shards - although, really, trying to catch them had been better practice and Sarah shouldn't be the only one getting something out of their sessions, should she?

Angelo grinned. "Sounds cool - the scratches from the last time we sparred took days to heal." He was actually gaining on Nathan now.

"She is emphatic, isn't she?" Nathan laughed.