Thread Roulette: Caution

[Event !]

Floor is slippery when wet.

[Leila Gold]

Leila was at the mall, shopping for a gift to send to her mother for mother's day. And if she happened to be doing a little extra shopping on the side, well, who could blame her? Everything was going well. She was doing well in the polls, she had a fantastic boyfriend, and it was a beautiful day. She deserved some rewards.

As she walked out of the Macy's, though, her phone started to buzz. She kept walking and shifted some of the bags in her hand so she could dig for her cell phone. She was busy checking through her purse and juggling all her bags while walking in three-inch heels, so a few things happened. First, she didn't see the "wet floor" sign or the puddle that had just been mopped up. Second, when she stepped on the wet patch her foot slipped. Third, because she was unbalanced she began to fall, and she had little hope of righting herself.

"Aaaahh!" she shouted flailing her arms about sporadically. The cell phone in her hand, which she had just managed to pull out of her purse, went flying across the way to heavens only knew where. She landed on the ground with a small "oof" and a rather large whoosh of air.

"Oh, not my tailbone again," she moaned, looking around her at the wreckage of her shopping purchases. Shoes there, a back massager for Blue here, a stack of cards all the way over there...

"Just great." She hauled herself to her feet and began cleaning up.

[Mason McQueen]

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Grocery shopping has never been high on Mason’s list of things he’d love to do in his spare time; the man claims that choosing which brand of fabric softener to buy or if paying an extra $0.49 per mL of shampoo infused with eucalyptus extracts could actually be considered a good deal is much more complicated than predicting the mechanism of an organic substitution reaction or choosing which bacterial gene sequence to manipulate to enhance the production of a particular protein. But as it was their month-long trip halfway across the globe left their pantry bare (technically it’s still full, but most of the items there already expired) and his beloved brother apparently had no time to spare because of the article deadlines he still had to meet.

In any case, after what seemed like an eternity of going back and forth through the labyrinth that is the supermarket, Mason finally got all of the things in his list. (He finally made a list this time, complete with the brands and the amount, so it would be a whole lot easier he says). He was walking through the mall hallway, two huge grocery bags in each hand, when he got distracted with the news that flashed in one of the TV screens (something about the author of Where the Wild Things Are) and didn’t see the blonde scrambling to stand in front of him, inevitably bumping into her and crashing.


“What the-“ was all the man could say before his butt touched the ground, arms flailing and accidentally throwing the bags on his hand out. He did realize what was happening and sent his hair out, forming baskets to cushion the bags’ fall. All bags were apparently caught, except for one.

“Oh no, not the eggs.”

[Leila Gold]

Leila turned and saw that her fall had created a further catastrophe as someone else had bumped into her--she'd missed it during her own fall--and splatted to the ground.

"I'm so sorry," she said, watching the final bag of his crash solidly to the ground with an unfortunate splattering noise. She winced. "I just...I wasn't paying attention."

It was at this point that she saw what his hair was doing. She blinked. "I'm sorry, but...that..." She looked up at the guy to see if she recognized him. But she couldn't remember anyone with weird hair off the top of her head. Not in her grade, at least. But he was probably a Hammel alumni...

She had automatically begun sweeping her things back toward her via a small breeze, but she stopped when she realized what that would do to the guy's rather long (and, strangely enough, luscious) locks. Instead she stood up, slowly so as not to hurt herself more, and began going around to pick up all of her things by herself.

"I'd offer to help but it looks like you have everything there, Mister, uh..." She squinted at him. His face...might be familiar?

"I'm Leila Gold. You might recognize me from some of the ads that you've probably seen around. Though I guess I shouldn't be advertising just now after that embarrassing fall." She managed to find her last tube of lip gloss and stuff it into her pocket. All she was missing now was her cell phone.

"Um, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a further bother, but can you call my phone? I seemed to have dropped it in all the commotion, and I just can't find it."

[Mason McQueen]

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Mason would say that he’s long overcome his self-consciousness about the relative weirdness of his meta-human ability (because yes, even though every meta’s power is weird in their own little way, there still exists an inherent hierarchy – fire manipulators and telekinetics are usually cool, while people with long tongues and extra-sticky spit would most certainly not be). He is, after all, already a full-grown adult and has lived with it for the greater half of his life. Despite popular media suggesting that his prehensile hair is rather feminine, embraced and accepted it he claims he has already.

And yet when he saw the stares he’s getting from the people around them, Mason felt like he was that awkward fifteen year-old in the streets of Manila again, seemingly shunned by everyone around him.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, flashing a quick (albeit a bit nervous) smile to the blonde as he retracted his hair and their shopping bags, “It’s partly my fault too. We all get off days at times.” He would’ve helped her get up, but since she seems rather fine on her own already, he just handed her the bags.

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen those around.” Not really, since he barely pays attention to those things, but what was he to say in such a situation. “Mason, Mason McQueen,” he added as he shook her hand. Normally he would stay and chat for a bit, but already the stares are getting into him. Oh why does wouldn’t his ability allow him to retract his hair anyway. “That seems like everything right? So sorry for bumping into you again.” He gave Leila a quick bow before dashing out as fast as he can (while trying to look as calm as he can of course), unknowingly missing her little question about her phone.

Within minutes he was by his car, cutting away his hair with the pair of scissors he kept just for times like these. He was in the process of cutting the last handful when he heard something drop on the ground. Another step back to check what it was and a loud crack was heard. “This just isn’t my day, isn’t it?” he groaned as he bent down and grabbed the obviously broken phone.

ooc:
PENNEH!
Apologies for leaving you hanging. T_T. But yeah, hopefully this works. ><.
-Jam