SUE: Irony (Connor and Oriel)

[Event !]

This is one of the last places to be stuck in the dark after a massive electrical surge.

[Deleted]

Heh…

Oriel had his goggles on. He had his lab coat on. He had his hair tied back. With pen in hand, Oriel was going to own this make-up lab!!

….how many more weeks until school was over? He could cry at the thought. It was easy to not care back when he was barely trying, but now that he was…it just made everything seem a lot more tedious. Never before had he wanted to complain so much about his schoolwork.

Ah, well…what could you do? Had to get it done somehow. Luckily, this was a make-up lab, meaning he’d already done it before(and screwed up). It was always easier doing things the second time.

But seriously? Who’s bright idea was it to leave students alone with a bunch of acids and bases? Wasn’t there supposed to be, like, a rule against that or something?

Whatever, wasn’t his business(though the teacher may have said something about not starting until she got back or something but Oriel wasn’t really paying attention). Oriel wanted to get this shit done as soon as possible so he could get out of there and do other, more important things(like Phoenix).

Oriel didn’t notice nor care if there was anyone else in the room. He opened his lab notebook and slowly looked over the instructions. Then he went to go retrieve the first chemical he needed. It was when he was walking back with the beaker of clear fluid in hand that the world suddenly seemed to turn off. It was dark. Rather dark. What the hell?

He stood there, wondering if the lights would come back on if he just waited a few minutes.

[Connor Anderson]

Connor couldn't believe that he'd left both his notebook and textbook in the biology lab. He'd gone to pull out his homework in his dorm and boom, no note book. No textbook. Not anywhere in his dorm, or in his bag. He'd looked everywhere, even under the bed, but nothing. After retracing his steps, he'd determined the last place he'd seen them had been, in fact, the lab.

Cue a flustered fifteen year old running down the halls back to the lab. Curtis kept saying that his brother would forget his head if it wasn't attached to his neck. Connor hadn't believed him for a long time, but now he could sort of see the logic behind the comment now.

That was why Curtis wasn't going to know about this.

He swung into the room and spied a small pile of books to the side of the biology lab benches that looked rather familiar. While he might have recognized that there was another student there, he wasn't paying much attention. He was on the one track mindset of finding the books, and going back to his room to work on the assignments he'd been given as homework.

What he hadn't counted on was the lights suddenly flickering and going off as he headed to leave. Much as he didn't like to admit it, he still didn't like the dark. A nightlight was subtly plugged into the wall under his desk, though he wouldn't really confess to having it. Especially to the older students.

The sudden dark made him jump. Books hit the floor, and he felt his shoulder jar against something (or rather, someone). This made him jump again before trying to clutch onto the other person. "What happened to the lights?"

[Deleted]

Oriel didn’t notice the other boy who’d come into the room looking somewhat frantic. He was more concentrated on actually getting this assignment done. Which was obviously never going to get done at this rate! Wonder if freak blackout was a good excuse to reschedule? Or maybe the teacher would just suck it up and give him a C. No way was Oriel going to try and worm his way into an A he probably didn’t deserve. Besides, it only took a C to pass, and that was just fine by him.

Then again, there was always some dweeb around wanting to get in the way of his progress. There must be something against him for him to have something like this floating over him now.

Oriel didn’t have time to respond to Ninny’s question because no sooner had the lights gone out did the kid unnecessarily freak out about it by literally jumping into the arms of a person holding very corrosive chemicals.

The sudden movement startled the would-be-scientist, and he jerked in the direction of the clinging pussy…only to bump his arm into him and cause the whatever-it-was that he was holding in the beaker to violently splash around between the two boys. A few drops splashed onto Oriel’s hand causing him to drop the glass container and pull back his now stinging hand. The beaker, and it’s contents, fell to the ground with a loud crash. “Fuck!!” he exclaimed, cradling his hand. It didn’t occur to him that the other boy might have gotten hit with the chemicals too.

[Connor Anderson]

While cuddly by nature, Connor didn’t really make a habit of clinging to people. Especially strangers. But the dark seemed to spark something in him, and he needed to cling to someone safe.

That someone was the other kid in the room.

Sadly, said kid wasn’t exactly safe at the moment. Connor hadn’t paid him much attention when he’d come in, so he’d had absolutely no idea that he was carrying potentially dangerous things in glass beakers.

The younger boy hadn’t done much in the way of chemistry classes, still just covering the very basics. While he knew that some chemicals were heavily corrosive and easily able to burn skin, they wouldn’t be touching them until either later in the semester, or next year.

Well, he was getting a jump start.

The other boy’s yell startled him, but not as much as the sudden burning/stinging sensation he was now feeling all down his arm and, after a moment, down his leg as well. He stumbled backwards, away from whatever-the-heck-was-burning-him, and ended up flat on his butt, back against one of the lab benches. He didn’t often swear, but he was close to it. Instead he hissed out a breath, flinching and trying to inspect his skin in the dark. Whatever had splashed him burned like heck, but he wasn’t too worried about it. Eventually his cell regeneration would kick in, and it would be fine.

Didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt in the meantime. “What was that stuff?” He had no idea where the other boy was now, but the noises coming from the other side of the room indicated he wasn’t alone. “’Cause it stings.” Gingerly, he rubbed at his arm, not able to contain the strained almost-whimper that escaped. This wasn’t going to be fun.

Too bad his trainer wasn’t here to see it. He could finally prove his power worked just fine without having to inflict himself with harm just to activate it.

[Deleted]

Oriel enjoyed cuddles as much as the next person. He was an extremely tactile person, it was how he primarily expressed his affections. But those affections were also reserved for those he was closest to.

Random people in the chemistry room whom he never met before did not fit this profile.

If they didn’t fit the profile, Oriel didn’t want them touching him. It was one of the primary reasons why he avoided the crowded areas of the lunch room and the mall.

That was why he jumped, startled by the sudden contact of someone uninvited. And consequently, why his hand was now stinging and he was pausing to check if there were any other parts of him that were burning.

Nothing else on him. His hand would be fine just needed to run it under some water. It wasn’t until the other boy was hissing and talking that Oriel realized..oh, shit! Right other people, this kid, he must’ve gotten hit too!

“Fuck!” he said again. “You alright, where’d it get you?” Never mind! “Get up, move it, ‘fore it gets worse, moron!” If it wasn’t so dark, Oriel would just pick the kid up by his collar and drag him to the safety shower but…shit! Whose fucking bright idea was it to leave the lab unsupervised during a fucking blackout!?

[Connor Anderson]

Apparently learning about chemical burns and actually being able to use that knowledge when he needed it were two very different things. It didn’t help that the healer could really only think about that facts that a) it was dark, and b) his skin was still stinging. It was a little difficult to think about much else.

Especially when the other boys started swearing again. Connor huddled closer to the lab bench, drawing his arm across his body and cradling it gingerly. “Arm and leg,” he called back, a note of uncertainty in his voice. “I think it made holes in my jeans.” After feeling around for a moment, he could confirm that yes, it had burned through and made some nice holes. Great. Now he’d have to throw them out.

Score one point for his mother. She’d been harping on him to do just that for weeks now.

The instructions being barked at him made him blink. He didn’t know the specifics about chemical burns and his power, but he figured it would work like anything else, right? ... Maybe he had to get the chemical out before it got healed into the skin? That didn’t sound like a good idea.

Where was a teacher when he needed one?

“What’re you supposed to do with it? Use water?” No, he couldn’t remember what he’d gone over in chemistry class. And he was going to ignore the moron comment. The other boy was clearly not comfortable, and being uncomfortable let to being short with people, right?

[Deleted]

Fucking great, just god-muther-fucking great! Why’d the light’s have to go out now when they actually needed them to fix a problem that was…well, shit, the problem was caused by the light’s going out, so if they hadn’t then nobody wouldn’t have gotten hurt in the first place. Oriel knew what he was supposed to do, this was the second time he’d taken the class, he had the ancient safety video practically memorized, so…if only they had light to Oriel could know where the hell he was going!

“Alright, uh…fuck!” Oriel wanted to just shove this guy to the shower but… “How bad you think it is?” he asked, which was a pretty stupid question, honestly.

Oriel took a breath, starting to panic a little as he tried to think and not panic. “No, I mean, yes, but first…” What first? It got on his pants, right? How much? Oh, well! “Take off your pants! And yeah, water, there’s a shower or something on the other side of the room but…fuck, there’s glass everywhere.” Oriel didn’t want the kid to step on it, or on the liquid that was still covering the floor and likely corroding the bottom of his shoes.

[Connor Anderson]

Good grief the older boy swore a lot. Connor didn't think he'd ever heard someone curse so much in such a short amount of time. His mother would have had his hide if he'd done half as much cursing at home. Yes, it stung, but there were other ways to let off those feelings, right? Was he the only one in that boat?

Apparently, yes.

"Uhhh..." It was hard to tell in the dark, so Connor pulled out his cell phone and unlocked it, shining the light first at his arm, then his leg. "Uhh... it's all red and blister-y." He didn't want to touch it, mostly so it didn't spread. How was his healing supposed to work with this stuff? Did he have to wash it out first? Would it just heal over? ... Then he'd have chemical in his skin. Ew. That couldn't be good.

And what did the other kid just say? Take off his pants? Connor flushed slightly before frowning in the dark. "No way!" He didn't quiiite understand the logic behind the order, and until he did, he wasn't going to do it. As for the shower... he thought he knew where it was. Maybe. Perhaps his cell phone would have to double as a flashlight. "... How bad did it get you?" It was entirely selfish to worry about himself, especially as he would eventually heal. Other people weren't so lucky. "If I use my phone like a flashlight, we can both find the shower?"

[Deleted]

In Oriel’s opinion, this wasn’t any time to be concerned with his language tendencies, albeit he had a darned good argument against anyone who might claim to be offended over such a thing. Either way, no! This wasn’t the time for it anyway! What was most important was making sure this dweeb who came out of nowhere wasn’t going to lose an arm or a leg over his own stupid inability to deal with a sudden loss of lights!

Right! Cell phones made light, why didn’t Oriel think of that!? He pulled his own out from his back pocket and flipped it open, shining the screen down on the other boy. “Shit…” he muttered under his breath once he saw the reddened injury himself. That looked…really bad.

Oriel was more than well versed in the subject of first aid, at least for his particularly “unconventional” lifestyle, but that was restricted to his private life mostly. When applied to life outside his bedroom, Oriel was….quite honestly(though he’d never admit to it later) a little bit more than panicked. And that was making it difficult to explain himself more clearly to a boy who didn’t seem to want to cooperate. “I’m fine, just a couple of spots on my hand,” maybe on his arm too. “But…shit, I’m not trying to rape you or nothing! That’s that the fucking protocol, if you get chemicals on your clothes, you gotta strip!!” But why? “So that…it don’t continue to burn you or something? I don’t know! Just quit arguing! I know what the fuck I’m doing!” He did…kinda. It’d just work a lot better if the dork wasn’t so resistant to letting Oriel take care of him.

He flashed his phone in the direction he thought the shower was then down again at the ground, where the glass was clearly shattered about in a hazardous way. “Yeah, it’s over there,” he said, pointing. Oriel’s heart was thrumming, he was…totally not nervous, nope!

[Connor Anderson]

At least the cursing provided a distraction, however small that distraction might have been. Connor just didn’t know what to do with it. At least he wasn’t as worried as he might have been if he didn’t have cell regeneration. Without it, he probably would have been cursing right alongside the older boy, consequences be damned.

The continued swearing once his injury was assessed from afar didn’t make him feel better. “What was that stuff?” Maybe if he knew what it was, he could look it up on his phone. ... Okay, the information probably wouldn’t tell him how to handle it as a self-healing meta, but it would be something, right? Maybe?

Then again, maybe not.

The idea that he could be a potential victim of a sexual assault hadn’t crossed Connor’s mind, though now thanks to the older boy, it was now a possibility. He remembered something about chemicals on clothes, but he hadn’t paid it much attention. Now he was slightly regretting that. At first all he could do was squeak in a mix of confusion and frustration. “That’s... not what I was thinking!” Because that was important. He’d agree to pull off his jeans, fine, but that was it. He was probably right in that it would stop soaking his skin and making it worse. Still... it was nothing but awkward as he pushed himself backwards onto the floor and started wriggling his way out of them without a) losing his boxers, and b) touching any more chemical.

“Whaaaaat if you’re a cell regenerator?” It was probably still a good idea to get the chemicals off, but what would happen to the healing process? The other kid was older. That meant he might know, right? Right.

[Deleted]

What was that stuff?? Why did it matter? It wasn’t exactly water, and if it wasn’t water and you were in a chemistry lab or something, then it probably shouldn’t be on you! Really, why did Oriel even have to explain it? While Peabody here was wasting time arguing with Oriel and trying to figure out what that stuff was, that burn was probably only getting worse and would until they doused it with water for a good 15 minutes, or at least that what the damn safety video said they had to do in case of a chemical spill. Unless he was remembering it wrong…?

“Uh….” he drawled out as he tried to roll the correct sounds over his tongue to the right name of the compound. “Nai….nitrous acid or something….” Was that it? “Doesn’t matter it has the name “acid” in it, so must be fucking dangerous, right?” Because Acid. Not the drug, but the stuff that popped out of that one alien and burned through their spaceship because they were all a bunch of idiotic geeks who let a goddamn alien on the ship!

“Oh, right. And I’m supposed to believe——you know, what, just quit arguing already and do what I say!” Because it was all this pointless bickering that was going to result in the kid being a lot worse than he should have been….and those two little drops on Oriel’s arm, while small, were starting to sting more themselves. Whatever! The kid was more important, he got the brunt of the spill!

Luckily, the kid seemed to get it and started shimmying off his trousers. “Huh? You’re a….?” That was just like Dawn…and she was crazy! Had she ever told Oriel how that shit worked? Of course not, that would’ve been too convenient. “I don’t know! What do I look like? A fucking meta-specialist or something?” The longer this went on without actual progress being made, the more likely it was that Oriel was going to devolve into a useless ball of panic. Why did this kid have to make this so much more difficult than it had to be??

He knelt down, shining the light of his phone between them. The burns definitely didn’t look like they were getting anything more than worse. “You…you need help walking, to get over there or something?” A cell regenerator probably had less danger to him than a normal person, but Oriel didn’t really want to take that chance.

[Connor Anderson]

Acid? For some reason that of all things seemed to kick Connor into gear. Because acid sounded bad and oh hell he had acid on his skin and screw cell regeneration, now he was actually kind of scared. A little. Not that he really wanted to let that on to the older boy, but still. “Ohhh sh... um... hell.” No, he wasn’t going to swear. ... Not badly, anyway.

At least he was actually inclined to listen to the other kid now. “I don’t know! Don’t you learn about powers when you’re older?” Yes? Maybe? ... Okay, fine. The other boy didn’t know and that just worried Connor more. He didn’t want his skin to heal over the acid and possibly just recreate the chemical burn over and over again. That sounded... oh... about seventy shades of not good.

“No!” It was more of a hissed ‘I can do this myself’ no than anything else. Mostly because the older boy had said something about rape and it was kind of creeptacular and he could stay on the other side of the lab, thank you very much.

After taking a minute to steady himself for the coming pain, Connor pushed himself to his feet. Yeah, okay, moving made them feel worse. A hand was thrown out to the lab bench to keep himself balanced, and he slowly made his way over to the safety shower. This was so dumb, and kind of embarrassing. Why did he have to come back and get his books again?

Once he reached the shower, he shined his phone at the device before taking a chance and pulling the handle. What he didn’t expect was the sheer cold of the damn water, nor how fast it flowed. He yelped, both at the surprise and at the flare of pain on his arm and leg, and dropped his phone to the ground, away from the shower.

Worst. Day. Ever.

[Deleted]

Yeah, that’s right acid! Oriel didn’t know too much about acid, he had a vague memory of some being a lot worse than others and maybe something about the shit being the juice that sloshed around in their stomachs, but…for some reason the word “acid” just made it all the more terrifying. Because in the movies and TV shows, that was the stuff that burned through metal and bathtubs, right? Why would you even want that stuff on you, much less in you!?

Though Oriel was glad that that little bit of information finally seemed to kick the kid in gear, because seriously. “Acid”. That was some scary shit, right?

“I don’t know! I only learn about my own shit and maybe the shit from my friends and you know it doesn’t goddamn matter! When in doubt, do what makes sense and sitting here arguing about it don’t make a whole lot of fucking sense!” Of course, now Oriel was the one freaking out…no, he’d been freaking out from the beginning and that was making his brain dissolve into a ball of mush.

The kid refused Oriel’s help, which Oriel honestly thought was a stupid idea but at least he was moving finally. And Oriel was going to stay no more or less than two steps behind the kid, just in case he did end up needing a pick-me-up to get to the shower.

Oriel watched the kid, shining his phone about to make sure there was nothing left he needed to do, then stepped over to one of the many sinks and turned it on, hanging his own arm under it, the two itty-bitty spots on it feeling like someone had snubbed a couple of cigarette on them. “How, uh….how you doing, Little John?” he called out to the kid. He didn’t know what his name was…and didn’t really care. Oriel wondered if the land-line phones were working. Should probably call the Doc or something and force her into a house call.

And where was the fucking teacher already!? Did he get lost in the void of the blackout?? Oriel growled in frustration.

[Connor Anderson]

Yes, acid was scary, and yes, it was necessary to say the word to actually get Connor to worry. Chemicals were only so scary. Acid? Scary.

At least the arguing was left behind once the water was turned on. It was miserably cold, and definitely wet. Connor was just grateful that he stayed in the dorms, rather than having to deal with going to classes for the rest of the day soaking wet before going home. ... Probably after a visit to the infirmary to make sure his skin was actually going to heal properly. He really didn’t want to be stuck with acid-y skin.

Maybe he should have listened earlier.

Connor shivered slightly in the cold water, wishing that it would be over soon. How long did he have to flush the skin? Why hadn’t he paid more attention in class?

“Uhhh...” He assumed the older boy was talking to him. “It’s reeeaaalllly cold. But it kind of feels good. And, uh... my name’s Connor.” There. No more weird names. Now the older boy had something to call him. “How’re yours?” He hadn’t seen how bad the older boy had gotten it.