Cold, cold, cold, effing cold (open)

[Lyn & Sansa Mendez]

At one point in her life, a teacher had told Lyn that people with disabilities learn better at cooler temperatures. Also, people with epilepsy were more likely to have seizures in heat. She didn't have seizures, epileptic or otherwise, and frankly didn't like how that teacher had kept the classroom so cold. She figured that it might have been helpful to some of her classmates, but she just didn't like the cold.

Sansa, on the other hand, did.

It was part of their training to work out the parts of their personalities that were synched, and the parts that were not. Their memories were already mostly shared, so now Sansa remembered that teacher's frigid classroom as well. And their senses, well, were still pretty mixed up. Sometimes, it was just Sansa's "normal" level of sensation. Sometimes it was just Lyn's hyper-sensitivity. Most of the time, they wavered between the two.

As the girls had gone out into the courtyard, Lyn had instinctively closed her eyes and covered her ears. She hated the sound of footsteps on snow; the squeaky crunch made her want to grit her teeth, and the snow was too bright to look at. With just Sansa's eyes and ears though, it was tolerable. Sansa guided her sister over to a bench, where Lyn brushed off some snow before lying down. With her eyes closed, and her ears muffled by mittens, she had to focus to try to see the world through Sansa's eyes.

Once Lyn was settled, Sansa set about making trouble. She started packing snowballs and stacked them in a pile at the end of Lyn's bench. She could feel her sister's presence in her mind, but she wanted to work on something else instead. One of their improved abilities was supposed to be accuracy. If this was true, then she planned on clearing all the icicles from the buildings. Her first few snowballs went wide or high, but then she started nailing them. One after another, she sent a shower of ice down from the gutters, with only the rare snowball hitting a window.

[Soph Walker]

Winter was the enemy, if only because the frequent snow and harsh cold made it almost impossible to spend time outside comfortably. That was why Sophia had joined the drama club a couple years ago. Acting, practicing lines, and singing songs had given her things to do on those particularly cold and snowy winter days, but those activities could only be done so many times in a day or week before they became monotonous. Soph needed something else to do for the time being.

Presently, she could be found in front of an open window in an otherwise empty room with various objects placed carefully on the window sill. A porcelain dog her sister gave her (and she never much cared for), a plastic cup stolen from the kitchen, and a small beaker she had lifted from a science classroom were among them. The game? How far could she push them over the edge of the sill before they fell off and hit the ground? She was gently nudging each object in turn, pressing her lips together in anticipation as things started to hang off the edge, when suddenly several large icicles were dislodged from the gutter above. The sudden appearance of the ice and the spattering of snow that accompanied it startled the girl, and as she moved away from the window, several of her toys tipped over the edge and landed with asynchronous plops in the drift below.

Soph, after discerning that the area was safe and no more icicles would be falling from above, returned to the window to peer at the ground and seek out her lost objects. There hadn't been the satisfying smashing sound that typically accompanied glass shattering, so she could only assume that the snow had soften the landing. All she could see when she looked, however, were deep burrows in the drift where her things had fallen. Thus, she grabbed her skateboard from the nearby chair it was leaning on and headed downstairs to investigate further.

As the teenager emerged from the building, she zipped her hoodie closed and pulled her beanie down to cover her ears. While standing in front of the open window had been frigid, it did not compare to the discomfort of actually being outside. The girl dropped her skateboard and boarded where the shoveled paths allowed, then kicked it back into her hand when she reached the particular drift she had been overlooking before. She examined the scene for a brief moment, then made a frustrated tsking noise when she realized she'd have to tramp through the snow in her sneakers to reach the fallen items. Lame.

"Man," she moaned, "What the heckie am I s'posed to do now?" Soph kicked at the edge of the path, then looked around helplessly for something she could use to retrieve her things. And that's when she turned to the twin girls with the snow balls.

It wasn't that she was completely oblivious to the cause of the icicles' decent, and she was fully aware that one of those girls' snowballs had caused them to fall. This, she figured, could work to her advantage, and so she called out to them. "'Ey. You. Did you see this?" Soph gestured vaguely towards the building. "That was my, uh, experiment you just interrupted." Close enough. In the words of the Mythbusters--the only difference between messing around and science is writing things down.

[Lyn & Sansa Mendez]

Sansa hadn't kept an eye out for open windows because why would she? It was cold and snowy and there was absolutely no rational reason for someone to have their window open. Naturally, the twins were surprised when something other than ice and snow came tumbling down from the third story.

"What?" Lyn sat up and actually opened her eyes, then the girls squinted at the deep impressions in the snow. Yeah, something had been on the windowsill, and it wasn't snow. Whoops.

"We're going to be in trouble." Lyn said, covering her eyes again. It was too bright, and now she was worried about whoever was crazy enough to keep the window open in the middle of winter.

Her sister's heart rate went up too, causing Sansa to glance at her. "It's okay. It's their fault, whoever it was. They had the window open."

A few moments later, another girl showed up with a skateboard. The twins could only hope she was the one who's things had fallen a minute ago. If not, it meant there were at least two people at Hammel who were completely unaware of the weather.

Though Lyn started to murmur an apology to her, Sansa decided to shout back. "Experiment? It's like three degrees out here? Why'd you have the window open?"

She was bundled up herself, so she stomped through the unbroken snow, over to the path where the girl stood. "I didn't mean anything by it. I couldn't even tell the window was open."

[Soph Walker]

With the softer twin's words drowned out by her sister, Soph's eyes fixed on the louder of the two. She flicked her hair behind her shoulders, and raised her eyebrows in a condescending stare as if this stranger was silly to be ignorant of her "work". "What exactly does temperature have to do with gravity?" she asked rhetorically, even though she herself had no understanding of physics beyond what Bill Nye the Science Guy had taught her in the fourth grade. For all she knew, there was a drastic effect. "I was trying to do a trial run here." She was blatantly dancing around actually answering the question. That always seemed to boost the chances of getting away with something, because then people couldn't use your own words against you.

She looked the younger girl up and down as she approached, and a smart little grin spread across the teen's face. If this stranger wasn't worried about walking through snow, Soph's problem was practically solved already. "Well, whether you meant to or not, you did screw it up, so the least you could do is help me get my tools back," she replied, looking over at the drift. "I don't have any boots on, and they're buried in the snow."

The high school Junior wrapped her arms tighter around herself and shivered. There was a point where it got to be so cold that one stopped noticing exactly how cold it was, but Soph was at a distinct disadvantage with her lack of a proper winter wardrobe. Hopefully this chick would help her out, so she could get back inside quickly. Without getting her pants wet.

The shivering punk looked up at the window to take an quick inventory of all the things that had fallen. "I'm missing a cup, a beaker, and couple of old nail polish bottles," she said, listing off her missing items. "You should be able to just reach in and grab them, right?" So what if the other girl hadn't actually agreed to help her yet? Soph assumed her cooperation was imminent.

[Lyn & Sansa Mendez]

Lyn was cringing and covering her ears so she wouldn't have to hear the sound of her sister's boots plowing through she snow. Sansa had to flinch too, but she kept going. Maybe if she stayed desensitized to it, they would both eventually be able to handle the awful sound.

The girl with the skateboard said something about gravity, and Sansa just gave her a look. Yeah, Hammel was a little nuts sometimes, what with the people with powers and how everybody seemed to be sleeping with everybody else. But there weren't experiments where people were dropping things out of windows. At least not in the middle of winter. "A trial run? That sounds kind of shi..."

Sansa stopped short and looked over her shoulder at her sister. The other girl was shaking her head and just projecting the thought. Cooperate. Just do it.

Lyn didn't like conflict. And her sister was wearing snow boots, unlike the skateboarder.

"Okay, fine. I'll get your 'equipment' for you. But you shouldn't have the window open." She trudged into the snow again towards the junk, then stopped and clamped her hands over her ears, just like what her sister was doing. Shit, Lyn, just....handle it. We can handle it. She wanted to get it over with, but suddenly the sound was just overwhelming. Sansa took a deep breath, then another step. At this rate, it would take ten minutes to get the things dug out.

[Soph Walker]

"Tft, please," the skater said in protest, "I ain't paying for the heat. I'll leave the window open if I want to." Indeed, she never bothered to close the window before she left the room, and it was still sitting wide open three stories above them. That wasn't her problem, though. She was just worried about getting her stuff back. These things weren't exactly sentimental to her (if that was the case, she wouldn't be dropping them out of windows), but it took some effort to collect them for this game and she really did want to see what would happen when they shattered. It could still happen, if she revised the game location.

She was willing to wait for the other girl to collect the things for her until the twin stopped short and covered her ears. "Dang, what's wrong with you?" The question was meant sincerely, as Soph was confused about what was happening. She initially assumed that this girl had sensitive hearing for power reasons, and that she was trying to block out some distant annoying noise that anyone with regular hearing couldn't detect. It didn't occur to the skater that it might be a gestalt thing until she looked back at the second girl and saw that both of the twins were acting the same.

As a Junior, Soph had been at Hammel for a while and had met several other gestalt pairs, so she was somewhat familiar with the concept of twin synchronization. However, she had also met twins that were not gestalt, and she couldn't be completely certain that these two were mimicking each other due to such a power or just trying to pull her leg. For the moment, the older girl simply shifted her weight and glanced between the two others.

Her patience was quickly waning. It didn't help that she couldn't feel her face or appendages anymore, and she was very tempted to just abandon the strangers and her lost items entirely to seek the warmth of the indoors. "'Ey, kid," she addressed the nearer of the twins, raising her voice so it could be heard through the hands covering her ears. "You a'ight or what? I need my tools back." This was beginning to look like some game devised by the other girls just to irritate her, and Soph wasn't having any of it.

"Hurry up," she groaned impatiently.

[Lyn & Sansa Mendez]

Really, Sansa didn't care much either about the school's heating bills. She just thought it would be unjust for the older girl to blame her for being dumb enough to have the window open in the first place. Having it open was basically asking trouble to happen.

This was Hammel, after all.

Sansa heard the girl speaking, but kept her hands clamped over her ears. The sound of the snow was overwhelming. Once again, it struck her that this is what Lyn felt like when she was having an episode. It took her another full minute to calm down enough to look over at her sister, who seemed just as distressed. It didn't help that the skater kept talking about her stupid tools. "I... just give us a minute. We need a minute."

She was so used to standing up for Lyn, but she wasn't sure how to handle it when it was she herself was the one struggling. Sansa took a deep breath and actually grit her teeth, then stomped over to where the "tools" were scattered in the snow. She'd said she'd get the stupid things, so she did. The nail polish bottles and quite a bit of snow ended up in the cup, but when she looked around she couldn't find the beaker. The broken icicles and her stomping broke up the snow enough to disturb where it had hit the ground. Oh well. Good enough.

The girl forced herself back to the path, and held out the cup of snow and nail polish. "I didn't see the other thing. Sorry."

Behind her, back at her bench, Lyn sat, rocking, trying to block out the overstimulation.

[Soph Walker]

Soph didn't understand at all what the two girls were feeling, and she never would. In fact, if she had known that it was the crunch of snow that was causing this delay, she would have thought it was stupid. It was for the best that she didn't know. "Well, if you hadn't noticed, I'm turning into a popsicle here," she protested, "So it'd be very much appreciated if you moved a little faster."

If it weren't for the pink lipstick she was wearing, her lips would be completely blue.

And then, finally, results. Sophia bounced on her toes as the other girl rooted through the snow and returned to her. "Ah, oh well," she said, taking the cup and nail polish and stuffing them in her hoodie pockets, snow and all. "Wasn't exactly mine anyway, so whatever." Obviously, she never intended to return the beaker to its proper place, and she wasn't about to lose sleep over leaving it in the snow. She was a little disappointed that nothing seemed to have broken.

With that, Soph was prepared to take her leave. "Welp, thanks for the help. It's been fresh." She gave the other student a quick salute. Feeling the sharp, warm stinging sensation that usually accompanied frozen limbs, she flexed all her fingers to keep circulation flowing. As she moved to go, however, she noticed the other twin rocking on the bench and looking super not okay.

As cold as she was, Soph couldn't just leave the younger girls like that without at least asking if they were alright. She was the younger sibling in a family of four and wasn't used to taking care of younger kids, and she had been a little short with the girls in the last few minutes, but the punk wasn't heartless.

"Um, is your sister over there okay?" she asked the closer of the two, glancing longingly at the nearest set of doors.

[Lyn & Sansa Mendez]

Sansa took the girl's admission that the flask was stolen as confirmation; the whole "experiment" thing was bullshit. The older girl had just been dicking around, exactly lie she'd been doing with the snowballs. Ugh, whatever. At least she was confident that there wasn't going to be a report made to the school about it.

She was ready to return to Lyn, try to help her calm down. It probably meant that they would have to go inside, warm up, and would end up listening to the CD Lyn's band instructor had given her when they'd left their old school. But when the older girl commented on her sister's rocking, Sansa had to say something. After all, it almost sounded like concern. It was polite.

"Yeah. Well, no. Sorta." Gee, San, that was helpful.

"She's just stimming. So she can focus on calming down. Like twirling your hair or bouncing your leg." Over the years, there had been teachers who had told Lyn to stop rocking, stop stimming. But the ones at Hammel were better; they compared it to when neuro-typical people did things like twirling pens. So what if it was a bit more noticeable? It was harmless.

But it was still weird, and so Sansa was still defensive. "It's because you made me walk in the snow. The sound was too much for her."

[Soph Walker]

Soph's eyes narrowed a the girl's uncertainty, and she didn't fully understand the explanation either. "Stimming, right." The punk had never heard such a word before, and thought it sounded about as strange as it looked. It wasn't as subtle as bouncing one's knee during a test, for example, which was the closest thing Soph could relate it to in her mind.

She didn't have much time to ask questions, however, as the stranger was quick to place the blame on her. The teen's mouth popped open as she let out an offended scoff, like it wasn't her fault at all that the girl had forced herself through the snow, setting off her sister. "Hey now," Soph went to her own defense, "I didn't make you do diddly." It wasn't like it took much persuasion to get the younger girl to help out.

"I only asked for your help because I needed it. You could have just as easily said no if you wanted to," she continued. The idea that crunchy snow could disturb someone was completely overlooked; Soph was far too concerned with defending herself. Her frozen limbs were also briefly forgotten, for that matter.

Honor was so much more important.

[Lyn & Sansa Mendez]

Both of the twins knew it was unlikely that the older girl would know the term "stimming", unless she knew someone with Autism. But that was the shorthand for Lyn's behavior.

Made her, told her, it was all the same to Sansa. She hadn't been asked, in any case. The older girl had put the blame on her for the snowball knocking the junk out of the window. When she'd struggled getting over to the junk--and yes, to Sansa it would always be junk--the older girl had pushed her to hurry up. "You didn't ask me! You just said that I ruined your "experiment" and I should go get the stuff you dropped out the window. And, okay, whatever, I hit you with a snowball. You had a window open!"

"Stop fighting. Say sorry" Originally, it had been a thought in Lyn's head, but Sansa said it in unison. It happened to them rarely. Some Gestalt pairs start the stereo voice right after they manifest, but it was delayed for her and Lyn. As soon as the words slipped out, Sansa clamped her hand over her mouth, as if that would push them back in. But she listened to what her sister wanted and shut up.

Their synching had been strange, as it was for all Gestalt pairs. Sansa spoke most frequently for the both of them, though they leaned towards Lyn's interests and preferences. Conflict made Lyn uncomfortable though, in a way that was different from Sansa's feelings. But if it would make her sister feel better, Sansa would stop arguing. She forced out , "Sorry. It's not your fault."

If it didn't sound exactly genuine, it was because it wasn't at all.

[Soph Walker]

"It was your fault. Those icicles knocked my tools over the edge," she started to argue back. Soph had already formed many other counter-arguments to use in her defense. Like that she hadn't been hit with a snowball at all, for instance, and that wasn't the issue. The issue was the icicles and that they had knocked her things over as a direct result of the stranger's actions. And it was perfectly reasonable to have the window open in the middle of a Vermont winter if the reason was "for science".

(She didn't really care if she didn't actually believe everything she said either.)

Of course, she never had the chance to use any of her alternate arguments. The other girl's short statements threw Soph off slightly, and she gave her a quizzical look before responding. Not knowing any better, the punk could only assume the words were directed at her, and while she appreciated the apology, she was equally reluctant to give one. There was no one else in her head, however, to force her to give it.

The teen shook her head. "I'm not going to apologize, but thanks, I guess."

Her body shuddered violently then, reminding her of how absolutely freezing it was outside. This whole thing had become more trouble than it was worth. "Look, I wanted those things to fall off the window, you just knocked them over prematurely. So don't sweat it," she admitted. That was the closest thing to an apology the other girls were going to get.

Sophia huffed and began to rub her crossed arms with her frozen hands in an attempt the generate some warmth. "I need to get back inside before I catch hypothermia, though."

[Lyn & Sansa Mendez]

If it makes Soph feel any better, Sansa's own apology was because her sister told her to, not because either of them felt any guilt whatsoever about the snowball or the ruined experiement.

By the point of the other girls pseudo-apology, Sansa was thoroughly distracted. She could feel Lyn's distress from the over-stimulation and the stress from the argument. But somehow her sister had been able to react enough and force Sansa to say something. That rarely happened if they were concentrating, and never happened at times like this. It was weird, but possibly a good thing.

Finally, the younger girl looked over at the older one. It was true, she was not at all dressed for the weather. "Yeah. Go ahead. Don't die out here."

She didn't want the older girl to die, even if she had just been kind of an asshole to her. But before she left, Sansa decided to say one more thing. "Uh, my sister's name is Lyn. I'm Sansa."

[Soph Walker]

Soph stepped on her board and rolled it under her foot a few times before turning it towards the double doors. As soon as the other girl dismissed her, she was ready to cruise back into the school. The skater had already kicked off when she heard the voice pick up again, and she had to sharply stop in order to turn her board around to face the twins once more. "Lyn, Sansa, got it," she repeated shortly with a nod.

"I'm Viper," she told them, seeing as they were apparently doing introductions now. "I guess I'll see you around." The older girl wasn't looking to make friends, although that wasn't the reason for her hasty dismissal. Frost bite was imminent.

So without another word, Soph stepped back on her skateboard, turned it back around and rolled to the doors.