Floating Skeletons (Mat.)

[Madison Bane]

Madison was in the zone. He had found his groove, his muse, and his hands were busy at work. Something about making a comic book just brought things to life, literally. It wasn’t anywhere near finished, and he wasn’t going to finish it without the help of his assistant. Mat would definitely want to see this once it was done. It was really a shame that Mads went ahead and forgot all about their project in favour of some online... research.

When he was finished doing that, he shut down his laptop and cracked the knuckles on his hands. Well, that had been fun. His dark eyes passed over his desk, landing on the comic book. Oh right! He was going to do something, with that, and Mat. Getting out his iPhone, Madison found he had a few unread messages from the only person who seemed to care about him at all at Hammel, and honestly, the only person Madison could stand.

Heading for the door with the rough draft in hand, Madison ditched the fake poser glasses and went straight for Mat’s dorm room. They were past the point of knocking and Mads probably wouldn’t have anyways.

“So I fleshed out Captain Obvious,” he was telling the younger boy, making himself comfortable in Mat’s room without permission. Passing the few sheets of paper he’d been working on, the rough sketch of a cartoon man with an overly large head was coming to life. Poor tiny drawing, he seemed to be having a hard time picking his head off the floor which didn’t exist yet. “I took Slender Man and pretty much just gave him a bigger head.”

[Matías Ré]

Mat was keeping up with Mary Ann's life (which were fancy words for "stalking his ex on Facebook"), when Mads entered through the door, immediately forcing the Argentinian to close his laptop in a totally non-suspicious swift movement. "Hey man!" he smiled at his friend and placed the laptop away.

The comic book he and Mads had been working on made up for pretty much the majority of what he and Mads talked about, and Mat never got tired of plotting ahead on where to take the story and which characters introduce or take away. "Oh, let me see!" he said excited at Mads' words. After all, the addition of Captain Obvious had been Mat's own idea. See, the current story arc's main villain was a time traveler from the future whose hair was made of fire and was adamant on conquering the past, it had been partially based on a certain roommate Mat had never felt quite comfortable around, and after seeing a particular blonde whom he always hanged with, and listening his peculiar nickname, Mat decided he'd make perfect sidekick for their villain.

"These are awesome!" Mat's eyes were almost shining as he shifted between sheets of paper, already imagining him all coloured and in the actual comic book. "Isn't he scarier than..." Mat's eyes drifted away as he tried to remember. "What was it we settled for the villain's name...? Time-pandemodiom?" he siad while shrugging lightly. "Should the side-kick be scarier than the main villain?" he raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe it turns out C.E. is the actual bigger baddie!" he said almost jumping out of his seat with the idea.

[Madison Bane]

“Yeah yeah yeah, hey,” he said, waving his hand, “would you take a look at this. I worked pretty hard on it.” No he didn’t, it was just a rough draft and far from what he was truly capable of. But he wasn’t about to be a show off, especially if that meant putting his skills and talents on the line to be judged. He hated being judged in any way, even if it was meant to build character. Ha, that should be left up to him anyways.

Madison, being the shut in that he was, didn’t know anything about the student population at Hammel. Sure he’d been here a while, but he remained detached and uninterested in those who attended. Besides, everyone seemed to find him annoying and he preferred the company of his many screens. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the ideas Mat brought to the table, even though he was a little too trusting. It was almost suspicious.

Scratching the back of his head, Madison shrugged. “What? No, I don’t know, I just wanted to have a visual of our telekinetic before the story goes anywhere.” Didn’t Mat know anything? “That name is way too long. And with a name like Captain Obvious, you know he’s going to have to be lame, and you know, comic relief for the comic book.” Madison smile at his own pun, proud of himself.

Mads had already stood to look over Mat’s shoulder. “I’ve also been working on... something else...” He said vaguely, a slippery smile on his face. “It may or may not have you in it.” Of course it did, but Mat was naive enough to believe that maybe it really didn’t.

[Matías Ré]

"You know," Mat said to Mads. "You're right," he nodded. It was indeed a good idea to have the general idea of how the characters were going to look before actually incorporating them into the story in full throttle, and that name was indeed too long, which only made Mat wonder what was the time traveller's name exactly. Did it have something to do with his hair then? "I really can't remember what his name was, then..." he pondered.

Mat kept appreciating the drawings, trying to figure out how he was making that jawline so he could do it himself later on, when Madison said something about a side-project. Instead of asking, though, Mat let his friend do the talking, and his reaction to what he said was his eyes opening wide and him putting the sheets of paper aside as he prepared to talk.

"Really?!" he asked with surprise. "That's awesome!" The idea itself excited him, he always wanted to be a superhero character, he just didn't think his meta-power was worthy of a superhero. "Oh what am I? Tell me! It's so exciting."

[Madison Bane]

Mads snickered a little, tempted to ruffle Mat’s hair but decided against doing so. “You don’t even know your own character’s name? What, did you draw him into life or something?” Madison shook his head, his already ruffled hair flopping all over the place. “What’s your power again?” He asked, making it seem like Mat wasn’t worth remembering.

Madison paced across the little room. How to put this so it sounded amazing. “You’re just you,” he said, using his hands to speak, “it’s kind of like an autobiography.” He said, since Mat had been trusting enough to tell Mads a lot of his secrets and history. “But better,” Mads was going on, “I took some of the stories and made them more, interesting.”

He was especially proud of himself. He spent most of his time writing, avoiding his drawings because he didn’t want to try and perfect them. What if he couldn’t? “It’s not very far along yet, but I’m going to get it published.” Just like the other thirty things he had started and never finished.

[Matías Ré]

Mat was terrible with names. It took him several weeks to learn Mads name, calling him everything from Moe to Mario until "Mads" eventually settled in. It was like that with most people he met, including the people he falls in love with at first sight (which are in fact a lot). A made-up name for a made-up character simply make it harder for the Argentinean to remember. "I don't know, I thought it was Time-Pandemodiom, ok?" he asked, even if in fact it was not a question per se.

Mads' following question made Matías roll his eyes. People were always asking about his power as it were difficult to understand or something. He usually liked to respond that it was similar to invisibility albeit very weak and leave it like that, as in fact, he himself wasn't very good at explaining it yet. "Ha-ha..." he mockingly laughed. If there was someone at Hammel who knew Mat's power it had to be Mads (the Argentinean explained it to him several, very several times in the past). "Is being untargetable a good superhero power, though?" he asked unsure. "I mean, I couldn't be hit by Pi-Rho's fireballs and Kim-kinetic's telekinesis because they can't focus their power on me, but besides being partially sort-of invisible, what can it bring to the story?" Matías never did think that the fact that people couldn't focus their eyes and/or power on him, made it amazing, only weird. "Well, the x-men did have Jubilee who only did fireworks, though..." he pondered for a few seconds.

In any case, the boy listened to Mat explain what his character was about, and he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "Is it an autobiography if you're the one who's doing it, though?" he said, not feeling like it was quite right like that. "Wait, what stories?" Mat almost jumped out of bed. "You can't put Mary Ann in it!" he wasn't going to be comfortable with his evil ex being part of their comic.

"Wait," Mat immediately interrupted Mads. "You are getting it published? We are getting it published! You're breaking up with me too?" he pouted. "Don't!" he whined.

[Madison Bane]

Madison hadn’t liked the nickname to start, mostly because he had never had a nickname before, but he just got used to it. Mads was better than Moe any fucking day. Madison snapped his fingers, an ‘ah-ha’ expression on his face. Mat would know what this meant by now. “I got it,” he said, pushing the Argentinean’s shoulders in play, “we’ll keep the name. But, T.P. for short.” Oh he just loved torturing his characters like this!

Mads brought the back of his hand to his mouth as he laughed. “I know what you’re power is, but thanks for the refresher.” Leave it to Mat to go along with the way Madison harassed him. He knew that Mat liked to have a lot of people in his life, so Madison trusted any new people Mat had met would eventually be spoken of. “You’re power’s like invincibility, except not as good because it’s selective.”

Being caught in his blunder, Mad’s blushed and averted his eyes. “Autobiography, biography, who gives? Just be honoured I’m writing anything about you at all.” And then he was smiling again and forgetting about how stupid he really was. “I’ll put whoever I want to in there,” he said stubbornly, “I’m not throwing away all those hours I spent working on it.”

“I’ve tried breaking up with you before, it didn’t really work out,” he said with a grin. He wasn’t at all upset with the arrangement. “Don’t worry so much Matty, it’s different from the comic book. Besides, who’s gonna know it’s you I’m writing about?”

[Matías Ré]

"Tee-Pee?" Matías raised an eyebrow. "That isn't any better, really." He wondered if he was the only one thinking of aunts and urine, but hey, at least the villain had a name now, even if a terrible one. The boy made a mental note of coming up with a better one as soon as possible, but at the moment he was more interested in his introduction as a comic book character.

"Like invincibility sounds fine," Mat nodded. "Hey, why aren't you a character? Oh, I know, you could be a reality manipulator with fourth-wall-breaking abilities." It seemed like a perfect idea, even if it made Madison an almost-godly character, it fit pretty good, since Mads was the main artist and creator of the whole comic book. "Mad-God!" Matías laughed. "It's perfect!" Or at least it was quite funny, as Matías knew it wasn't going to fit well to in the comic to have an almighty character. "Watchmen did the having a god-character thing in the story quite well, maybe we could pull it off too," he acknowledged nonetheless.

"Fine, fine," Mat pouted and looked down at the sketches again. "If you put her in, give her tiny boobs at least, ok?"

The Argentinea was surprised to hear Madison had tried breaking up with him before. For a moment there, he felt like maybe he was joking, though, but curiosity got the better of him and he decided to ask further anyway. "Wait, when was this?" he tried to think of it and try to remember a good reason for Mads to stop talking to Mat. "And why?" his expression changed from curious to annoyed as soon as he heard the word "Matty". Madison knew how much Mat hated the nickname. "I will know."

[Madison Bane]

“Yes it is,” Madison insisted, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “it’s hilarious.” He, was hilarious, Mat would just have to accept that Mads was the writing supremacist in this duo and that was that. “It’s the same name, but we wouldn’t have to write out such a long one every single time,” he said, feeling the need to explain his brilliance.

Madison looked down at the comic outline. “Since when is anyone we know in here?” He asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow at Mat. He smiled despite himself at how cute Mat could be. “I don’t really want to be a character in this story,” he said, because the almighty character would turn out to be the most boring, and he was definitely not boring.

“Tiny boobs, done,” Mads said, taking a seat right there on the floor and making a little note in the corner of their comic draft. Or more like an obscene doodle of a girl looking hopeful at the sight of her giant breasts, only to have them deflate on her and turn into nothing but nubs. Madison snickered.

“And you should be honoured,” Madison said, flipping the page as he had the muse for a new sketch. “Oh you know, when we first met,” he said cruelly, not really paying attention to Mat anymore.

His drawing turned into a full outline of a girl, so far exactly as Matías had once described her. “What do you think?” He asked, holding up the portrait, and glancing at it himself.

[Matías Ré]

Matías didn't quite think it was brilliance, it was simply convenience. Madison was right, so Mat simply shrugged and nodded. "Ok."

The Argentinean puted mildly at Madison. If Mat was going to be written in, without his consent, why Madison couldn't? Granted, Matías was most likely not going to add the other boy without having an ok from him, but it didn't mean he didn't think it was unfair. "It's unfair," he voiced out loud, but followed it quickly with a slow nod and agreeing words: "Fine," he said. At least Mads was taking in the request of Mary having tiny breast.

"You tried breaking up with me when we first met?!" Matías was shocked. Wasn't Mads supposed to be his best friend? Why was he saying that? "So you didn't like me at first?" he looked away. He could understand it, though, he knew he was a difficult person to put up with, anyway. "But you like me now, don't you?" he had to ask, or the curiosity would kill him.

Matías eyes widened slightly at the image of the drawn Mary Ann. It looked indeed exactly like her, which made him feel rather bad. "She's too pretty," he frowned. "Maybe she could be ugly. Or maybe she could be not in at all." He was still not comfortable with the idea, so he tried to change the topic. "So... erm... I still think you should meet Celena. You'd make a great couple," he said quite out of nowhere.

[Madison Bane]

Madison scoffed. "Don't sound so excited. I get you're mad because it wasn't your idea, but the characters were your idea to begin with, right?" He wanted sure if he was trying to be reassuring or condescending.

"What's unfair?" He asked, an annoyed look on his face. "I'm writing a story about you, separate from the comic we're writing together. A side project." Madison jutted his pencil out, pointing at Mat. "You should be honored."

Laughing, Madison found Mat's incessant questioning adorable. "You're like a puppy dog," he pointed out, wondering if that would work well in the story he was working on. Hmm, yes it would. "You come off a bit strong, but I think that's why we get along well," he said, since he was a strong character himself.

Madison frowned and lowered the portrait. "Well if you wanted a caricature of her you should've asked..." He said, turning the page to a new spot in his notebook. He was about to try again when Mat was talking about something else.

"Not interested," he said, "if she's so great, you go out with her. She could replace Ms. Small Tits over here."