The Outsider (Lance and Kevin)

This heat is crazy. Lance wrinkled his nose and paused for a moment in his slow, laboured walking to squint and glance at the cloudy, slightly grey sky above him. Contrary to what Amber was hoping, Lance had his fingers firmly crossed that it would rain. It was so hot and sticky outside, but it was worse inside - he was finding his new dorm room to be rather stuffy, and the pool had been far too crowded for his liking. So here he was, stood in the middle of Hammel's grounds on a hot day, running one of his usual fevers and decked out in his hoodie like it was winter or something. Excellent.

Slipping his hands into the pocket on the front of his hoodie and peering at the pond from where he was standing, Lance was almost dismayed to see the two students sitting there. They seemed pretty harmless, just idly chatting away, but after the madness in the pool earlier he'd been hoping for a more tranquil setting. Ideally just the fish, the water, and him.

Never mind - he couldn't always have it his own way. He'd live. If I leave them alone, they will leave me alone, Lance reasoned to himself in his head, shuffling round to the other side so he didn't have to sit next to them. It wasn't that he was annoyed - far from it. He was just shy. He always had been.

Please don't talk to me, Lance thought, crouching down at the water's edge and dipping the tip one finger into the cool water, watching amusedly as a koi swam over to investigate. Hello. He tickled the koi's nose and gave a small breath of laughter as it tried to eat his finger. Nice try, little one. Now shoo. He gave the fish a small prod and watched as it darted away. It was nice just sitting here, pretending it was just him and the fish and the water. Much nicer than sitting in a stuffy dorm with a raging fever and a banging headache, at any rate.



_{[[ooc; my apologies for being slow, I'm unwell atm. also let me know if I'm Doing It Wrong. not done this before]]}

“Well I can talk to them, and they talk back... They just haven’t seen much of the world,” he added for the fish’s benefit. He liked them, naturally, but that didn’t make them especially exciting.

If Lance wanted to be alone at Hammel, he’d have to stay in his room. That, or go out when everyone else was in classes.

Kevin was focused on the fish as Amber scooted away. His eyes narrowed at the other guy across the pond. Nope, he hadn’t met this guy either. Pretty well everyone was new to him, but if Amber thought he was new, then he probably was. She’d been here way longer than he had.

“Hi!” He said loudly and smiling broadly. He laughed, trying not to make the other guy feel like a spectacle. “This one says you shouldn’t tease him. He thought you were feeding him!”

Amber didn't hesitate to take Lance's hand, although he immediately informed the other boy, "You're hand is wet."

And then, after a pause, he added, "but I guess that isn't a surprise, since you were trying to pet the fish. I don't know if I would want to pet a fish, though, they're all scaly and stuff."

He grimaced at that thought; although fish scales were pretty to look at he didn't think he would enjoy touching them. They looked so cold and foreign.

"Lance, huh? Just Lance? Or is that short for, like, Lancelot or something? I hope it's short for Lancelot, that would be so cool." He enthused, before realizing that he still had hold of Lance's hand and was bouncing it up and down in excitement.

"Oh. Uhh, I don't know how they talk! Kev, do you know how? Or do you just sort of know what they mean? Sometimes this meta thing is really confusing, I don't even know how it works."

Then again, perhaps if he paid more attention during class he would have a better idea....

"So do you do anything cool, Lance?"

Oh, God. So many questions. "My name is Lanzo," he stuttered, still idly shaking Amber's hand, "but I prefer Lance."

When Amber asked what he could do, Lance paused for thought. He didn't know the English for 'pyrokinesis' or 'pyrokinetic' and he wasn't sure his skills extended to explaining what his abilities were so he let Amber's hand drop and gave a quick flick of one wrist. "Fire," he said simply, letting a small ball of flame hover just above his palm and figuring it would serve as far better of an explanation than his poor language skills ever could.

He gave Kevin a small smile. "No jellybeans," he said. "Sorry."