Snowed Out (Open)

[Tarak Rana]

Tarak did not enjoy the mall. In fact, the mall was perhaps the very last place he wanted to be, given that it was only a few days after Christmas. Sales were in effect, and there were people returning items that didn't work or had been unwanted.

And him.

However, Yizel had only given birth that August, and he didn't want the baby out in the Vermont winter. Thus it was up to him to do errands.

At least it was Sunday, which meant that he didn't have to wait until after work to make the trip. That was always difficult, trying to run errands after work and still make it home in time to take over and allow his wife to sleep.

Babies did not keep very convenient sleep schedules.

With packages in hand he returned to his car, kicking up snow as he went. Hands went into his pockets, unlocking the car doors from a distance with a satisfying beep.

He placed one package atop the car, ignoring the fact that this meant it was sitting in snow and thus getting somewhat soggy.

It would survive.

And then....

his car door wouldn't budge.

It was frozen shut.

"You've got to be kidding me...!" He grumbled, pressing insistently upon his unlock button, as if that would magically fix the situation. It didn't. Instead his finger slipped and he pressed the panic button, causing him to jump and fumble in an attempt to turn it off.

Which then caused him to drop his keys in the snow.

Grumbling some more he placed his remaining packages on the top of his car, getting down on his knees and patting the snow in an attempt to feel the keys that had sunk down.

[Damien Tremblay]

Damien didn’t mind the mall. Thanks largely to his power, he was usually able to slip around the crowds of people with little attention paid to him. He was okay with that, because he didn’t particularly enjoy attention.

As expected, the mall was a little busier today than it might normally have been. He really was okay with that. It made it easy to remain relatively out of sight as he made his way through the halls. All he really needed was a few things, mostly clothes for work. His sister had sent him a little painting she’d done, so he also needed a frame for that.

Apart from the returns at customer service, the places he needed to be were relatively quiet. He made his way through the stores and to the till with little fanfare, securing what he’d needed. He still had to get home and walk Gypsy, so he hadn’t wanted to be out too long.

He was just heading out into the parking lot when he a car alarm got his attention. It wasn’t from the direction his car was in, so he wasn’t too worried. It had sounded close, and he heard the quiet muttering. Something about keys?

... He didn’t usually go out of his way to deal with strangers. It had been a miracle he’d even talked to Josef for as long as he had the other day. Gypsy had helped immensely with that. He didn’t have Gypsy with him now, but... hell.

He trudged through the snow over to the car he was pretty sure had been making all the noise. What he didn’t expect was to know the person in the snow. “... Tarak?” He remembered him largely from powers training, being that they’d had the same power and thus had been together much of the time in group training. Well. This was better than a stranger. He hadn’t seen the other man in forever. “Do you need a hand? What are you looking for?”

[Tarak Rana]

Tarak jumped at the sound of a voice looming above him. He hadn't actually expected anyone to even notice that he was rummaging around in the snow; invisibility tended to make even the most conspicuous of actions unnoticed by most.

But then recognition lit up his face as he glanced up and saw the person who had spoken. It was unsurprising someone with the same power would pay closer attention than those without.

"Damien!" He stayed where he was, pawing at the snow continuously. "I had no idea you were still in Pilot Ridge!" He exclaimed, then, face drooping, he added, "I dropped my keys into the snow. You wouldn't think it would be so hard to find them....I guess my powers have extended to my belongings, now."

[Damien Tremblay]

Damien couldn’t keep the guilty look off of his face when Tarak jumped. He hadn’t meant to scare his former classmate. “Sorry,” he automatically apologized. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

At least Tarak seemed to recognize him. Half his former classmates probably couldn’t do that for... well, either of them, really. “I moved here a few years ago. I couldn’t take Vancouver anymore. What are you doing back?” He’d been pretty sure they’d both gone back home after graduating from Hammel.

“Oh? Here, let me help.” Damien crouched down to prod at the snow as well. “Don’t say that, you’ll make me paranoid.” Keys shouldn’t be so difficult to find. Unless... “You don’t think they went under the car, do you?”

[Tarak Rana]

"Sorry," Tarak chuckled, unable to help himself; the situation was absurd, really. They both knew that was not a side-effect of invisibility. It was a common enough power that someone would have discovered this long before either of them became students, and they could have prepared for this.

"Vancouver got that bad? I thought you had family there..." He commented, squinting at the snow as if it might suddenly reveal his missing keys. "Or did they get to you? Being too close can be a real pain..."

But then again, with the birth of a new baby, sometimes the meddling was tolerated in exchange for some help.

"I came back for work. I'm with Operation Patriot, we're a government program to help meta humans find employment in the government and with government contractors."

He didn't even bother asking if Damien had heard about them, deciding that it was better to simply state their mission without allowing time for the other man to postulate anything utterly false and without merit about military conscription.

"Oh! Under the car, I haven't checked there." He stretched out one arm, reaching under the car, fingers searching until they hit upon something solid and plastic. His fingers curled around it, pulling it out and then triumphantly holding aloft his keys. "I would've been looking ages before I looked under the car," He sighed, a bit ashamed to admit that. "Evidently my brains are going as well as my belongings."

[Damien Tremblay]

“It’s okay,” Damien assured the other man. He was fairly certain that the side effects of invisibility were bad enough without adding ‘disappearance of possessions’ to the list.

Unless there was some student going around preying on middle aged men and making things disappear. He wasn’t sure what sort of power could manage that, but he was sure one existed, just like he was sure teenagers would find ways to exploit it. Didn’t they all find ways to exploit their powers as kids?

“Close to Vancouver, yeah.” Damien shrugged as he trailed his fingers through the snow, wishing for one of the few times in his life that he had a different power in order to help his friend. “Long story short, there was a bad break up years back, and Vancouver got that bad.” Mostly because he’d been mopey over the whole thing. Hey, that was what happened when you wrapped yourself up so completely in a person before actually discussing things like futures. Well, such was life. He’d learned his lesson.

Damien hadn’t heard much about Operation Patriot, beyond Josh’s occasional rant. But he’d learned to largely ignore those, as they usually left as quickly as they came on, and didn’t often amount to much. He’d prefer to stay out of them. “It sounds like it does good work. Is the working situation for metas still as iffy as it was when we graduated?” He’d been lucky to work for a firm in Vancouver that was rather meta friendly, not to mention Josh and Janice both having family and friends that were meta as well. But he knew that wasn’t the case everywhere. Things were improving, but they could always be better. Regardless of what Josh had had to say on the subject, it sounded like they were a good program.

He grinned when Tarak pulled out the keys. One small problem solved. “I doubt your brains are going anywhere. You were always smart.” Fingers now a little cool from the snow, Damien shoved them in his pockets. “So, what else is new, besides work?” A busy parking lot was a perfectly natural place to catch up, wasn’t it?

[Tarak Rana]

"Ohhh." Tarak let out a sigh of sympathy over Damien's plight. Although he hadn't officially dated Yizel until they had both graduated, they could easily have been considered high school sweethearts; he had never dated anyone else, and there had been no dangers of breaking up. No fights, no differences in child rearing opinions or finances or other ideals that could have threatened their relationship stability.

He was fortunate.

But he had seen others go through breakups, and he could imagine how it felt; just the thought of Yizel leaving made him tense and almost ill.

"Glad to see you back. Maybe we should pay Ms. Knowles a visit, what do you think? Wonder if she would be surprised to see us both back..."

Probably she wouldn't be surprised to see him, anyway; his nephew, Tanvir, had begun attending Hammel shortly before he had moved back, and it wasn't unlikely the little punk had told everyone. And that was assuming she hadn't heard his name in connection with his line of work. They seemed to be infamous around town.

"Yeah, unfortunately, it is preeeeeetty bad. If you can prove that's why someone was let go, you know, that can get an employer in hot shit, but it's hard to prove. And sometimes the jury is more on their side, you know?"

Even when the law was supposed to be fair.

"It's okay if your power isn't that noticeable, unless you can detonate things or something and people find out. Nobody's much comfortable with that. It's hard. And with the economy the way it is, it's doubly a problem. So we try and find a place for people to fit in society, make a living and help out their country at the same time. And no, I don't just mean the military."

His laughter hid the disappointment he felt that this was the first thing everyone thought of when they heard that he helped place people in the government; better people not think it got to him. It was ridiculous, anyway! Sure, some people were suited for the military, and he wouldn't hesitate to suggest it. But there were so many other options.

"News? Oh, actually, Yizel just had another baby in August. It's been such a blur even for me, and I don't have to wake up every couple of hours to feed her."

[Damien Tremblay]

Yes, break ups sucked. Though he’d dated a few times both before and after, that one had hit him hardest. Likely because he’d been so smitten and wrapped up in the relationship as it was, and for a while he’d forgotten about the future, and life after university. In his mind, they were just going to be together forever, and it would come naturally. Instead, he’d been slapped in the face by reality, and it had led to a solid few months of moping. Vancouver had become rather dismal after that.

At least Tarak changed the subject. “Ms. Knowles? Is she still around?” He grinned at the thought of that. His trainer was one of the few teachers he’d really connected with while at Hamel. She’d always been patient with them, and he’d appreciated that. Of course, he’d also appreciated other things. “It seems weird to admit this now, but I have to admit I had the biggest crush on her.” Come on, they were adults. He was allowed to admit to teenage crushes, wasn’t he?

“... Yeah, I know that much. I actually went to law school.” Of course, that didn’t make him a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination. He just worked for them. “Wrongful dismissal sucks, and it’s a bitch to prove.” Especially with bigger corporations, though they were usually the ones more likely to settle out of court, rather than have their name dragged through the mud in what would likely become a rather public ordeal.

It was times like this that he was glad his power was so subtle. He often felt a little bad for the metas with powers like winged flight, or something equally as obvious. He was usually honest about his status as a meta, but as long as he didn’t disappear on people (that weren’t expecting it, anyway), they generally seemed okay with it. He’d worked with good people so far. “It sounds like we need that kind of thing more than ever, then. I’m glad you’re helping with that.” Fortunately, his mind hadn’t jumped right to military positions. The Russians might have been keen on placing metas in the military upon graduation, but America hadn’t followed suit. Much to his relief. He didn’t think he could cut it in the military. As much as he tried to shake the ideals of most of his family back home, that was one he’d never been able to disagree with. He was no big fan of war.

“Another baby?” He grinned and reached out to pat Tarak on the shoulder. “Congratulations.” Lucky guy. Damien would have loved to have kids by this point in his life. Oh well. That was how things were. “How many kids do you have, then?” Hey, he hadn’t seen him in a long time. He was nowhere near up to date.

[Tarak Rana]

Tarak grinned and shook his head in disbelief as Damien admitted to having a crush on their former trainer. "No kidding? Me, too! I'll bet half her students did...."

At least, anyone who was even remotely interested in women surely had. She was hot, as far as his memory from his teen years recalled. Those were, of course, the important things to remember about middle and high school.

But then the topic reverted to work, and he grimaced. "It does. And it's difficult as hell to prove, unless the employer is just plain stupid." Which did happen, on occasion. Someone slipped up, let it be known exactly what they thought about meta humans and their equality.

But most business owners were savvier than that, whether they were pro- or anti- meta.

"Two kids. Michael is ten, now. I guess we waited a long time between them, but Yizel wasn't ready to step back from her business, you know? One kid is hard enough."

Not that he had any serious complaints; he doted on his son.

[Damien Tremblay]

Damien flashed a guilty smile, though the guilt didn’t last long. “I’m sure it was more than half.” He’d heard the talk in the halls, not to mention the usual whining that came from other students who hadn’t been as lucky in their trainers.

Admittedly, their former trainer was much more interesting a topic than work. At least Damien was able to follow the conversation about laws revolving around employers. “It’s better when they’re stupid. Makes our job easy.” It wasn’t difficult to assist in writing arguments when the person had already dug themselves a hole regarding their stances on meta humans.

He cocked his head slightly and grinned. He’d figured Tarak would have no problems with having a family. “Wow. Congratulations, then.” He was the tiniest bit jealous, if only because if things had panned out for him back home, he would have been in the same boat by now. Wife, kids. Apparently life had another direction for him to go.

The wind kicked up, sending a snowy, chilly blast across the parking lot. Damien pulled his coat a little tighter to himself and tried not to shiver. “I should probably let you get back to your baby, then. But it was good seeing you.” He thought about tacking on that if Tarak wanted to go for coffee sometimes, he would be up for it, but he didn’t know if that was appropriate or not. Besides, with a new baby he was probably busy.