more_than_tools | Comes a creeper creeping

Entry tags:

glass,
jack

Comes a creeper creeping

Who: Glass and Jack?
When: Some time past a midnight!
What: It's best not to go out alone!

She slipped around the edge of the curtains Khemrys had hung to give them all their spaces and knelt by the cot. Tsk. He'd kicked his blankets off again, chilly little weirdo that he was. She could never get that, blankets were amazing, but then again she was something of an addict when it came to soft things.

Regardless she was going to poke his shoulder, yes, with a finger freshly out of a cast even! "Lazybones," she whispered, "come on or I'm leaving without you. This was your idea!" Or rather he asked where she snuck off to at nights because he was a snoop like that and it was probably easier to just show him than tell him!

And hell, she had some money to make tonight. Khemrys had done well at the local co-op vegetable stand but food money never lasted, that was something she knew all to well. She'd feel better if she could get a nice cushion into the elder kid's hands, and the sooner the better. Some of the kids were looking peaky, which meant they needed better meals, right?

Right.

She was just glad she didn't have to worry about what those better meals were and all that. That many details would probably drive her nuts. "Count of three." And that was three taps, not spoken three, she was pushing it with whispers she'd already given him!

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Yes, well, he was a showoff, they knew that! "Khem would be disappointed if he lost one of us, and you know what that does to people!" she pointed out easily, slipping through chainlink fence in back after sticking her tongue out at him. "Kind of weird I admit but at least we fade away someone will remember our names." That was a thing for her?

Kind of.

Weird she'd mostly been alone with her dad and now had people but anyway.

"This is the back door, we don't go in the front, ever okay? They'd like your look." He was interesting, and that drew attention...and offers of different jobs than what they were here for.

Jack went quiet at that. Memories had always been a bit of a sore spot for him, and the idea that someday he might even get forgotten wasn't a happy thought for him. The idea that Khem and Kernan might be left alone to remember them, though, wasn't much better.

He ducked through the fence behind her, tugging at his hood again to make sure it was still up. He had to swallow hard to keep from gagging at the thought of anyone who would come to a place like this 'liking' anything about him. "No thanks. Back door it is."

Because if anyone did try to 'like' him, he wouldn't be keeping his promise not to freeze anyone.

"It's a bad place," she admitted with a shrug. She almost even pulled off casual if you didn't know here! It was just a touch too practiced though, if her dad was alive, well...he'd have set the place on fire rather than let her pick up cash there.

She salved her conscience as she could though.

The back door was propped open a crack and she led him in a dash past the kitchens to the a door that led into...a giant closet. Of doom. "Okay, receiving window up that way, we take a coat, we brush it down if it's dirty, etc, hang it up. Rinse, repeat. When there's a ticket call we find the number and get it to the window as soon as possible. The girl up front taking coats and pinning numbers is Tanya, she's a jaded little witch but she's fair okay?"

"Take the coats, don't mess up, and let you handle the witch up front." He grinned, good mood back now that he'd had a moment to not think about what else she'd mentioned. "Sounds pretty easy."

"Yeah, it is, when everything goes right," she admitted. "Quick cash, no paper trail, and that makes it our kind of gig for now. You get a little taller and you can help with pool players down the road too!" she teased easily, dumping her coat in a corner and heading straight for the coats waiting on the intake table.

He left his hoodie on. Better a few curious glances at it than the instant attention his hair tended to bring. He waited until they'd each grabbed a first load of coats and headed for the back again before saying anything else. "So what if everything doesn't go right?"

"Don't get caught by the cops," she shrugged. "I figure they'll raid any day now, what with me sending along the business cards of the lovely people here..." she mused cheerfully enough. Why not after all? There was no one here to hear but the coats, and who missed a single business card from a pocket full of them?

"And don't raid the coats on the way out, raid the cars. Means we can come back later when they set up someplace new."

"Definitely can do that." Probably one of his best talents, not getting caught by just about anyone. He set about hanging and brushing coats, occasionally slipping one on just to snicker over the way they looked. "Think there's gonna be time to get the cars if the police are everywhere?"

"Yeah, you scamper good," she laughed, posing in a feather boa that was along the collar of one coat before going to fetch hangers. "And depends on the raid, but if they're focused on keeping people instead of ringing the whole shebang, sure."

He snickered, sending a tiny gust of wind to ruffle the feathers. "And if they do see us, go for the poor, exploited kid angle?" Which would probably work better for her than him, considering he didn't pass for normal nearly so well. Then again, maybe it'd be one of those bleeding heart, save the mutants types. That'd be some luck.

"Look too scared to talk," she suggested instead as she laid hangars on the small brushing table. "Kids here should be terrified of grownups in general and cops specifically, they're expecting fear." Sad but true really.

"Though you could keep your hood up and pretend you won't come out from behind me or something, just don't laugh and give it away!" She could see him playing that game too!

"As if I'd give anything away that easy." Come on, really. He may not have been a 'street kid' before everything like some of them (or heck, maybe he was and he just didn't remember anything) but no one could out-prank Jack Frost, and at least half of a prank's success came from selling the performance. "That hurts, Glass."

"Hey, don't forget I've seen you trip over your own tongue with Khem!" she laughed easily. "Sure, she's hard mode and cops are probably medium but..." Aw, she was just teasing, really!

"And hey, better a teasing joke now then us not having any ideas later and falling back on snapping my arm so we can go to the hospital or something!" It'd be an easy way out, sure, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt! "Mainly though the mental image of you hiding behind anyone was hilarious. You're so very...you. Not confrontational but you don't hide really you know? I might not be able to keep a straight face if you were playing hide behind a person!"

"Khem doesn't count!" Khem never counted for that stuff, she was like... like... She just didn't count, okay? He went a little red, even if he was grinning. He could take the teasing, sure, but it was really accurate teasing.

Then he rolled his eyes. Yeah, he knew his own reputation, but it sounded weird when she put it like that. "I'll play it by ear, then, and save cowering for a last resort."

"Sure she does," Glass countered with a grin as she carefully slid a hanger into the sleeves of some silk...thing. It wasn't a wrap, but she couldn't call it a coat and yeah, thing worked. "How else would you be able to measure other people against her hard mode? She's a measuring stick!" Against which she was pretty sure even hardened criminals would be found wanting but hey!

"Okay, saying that? That gave me a shiver. You and playing it by ear. Why did I think this was a good idea again?" Not that she wasn't grinning still or anything.

"She's not a measuring stick, she's a walking lie detector." Not that he would ever call her that to her face, nope, but that didn't make it less true. The only one worse was Kernan, but at least he just knew everything and didn't call you on it like Khem. Just imagine if they were both that bad...

That made him laugh, although he bit it back after a second. Wouldn't do to make it sound like they were having too much fun back here or anything, right? "I'll have you know I am a master of improvisation, thank you very much."

"Nah, it's more you feel bad lying to her, I think that gives us away more often than not," she chuckled. "She'd probably make a great nun except that would break Kernan's heart you know? That and the whole Christian thing, but otherwise, yeah, nun!" WITH A RULER AND EVERYTHING!

There was an odd choking noise as she swallowed giggles then stuck her tongue out at him, "you're a master of vaguely directed chaos! Which is the scary part! I'm terrified!"

The idea of Khem as a nun just had him shaking his head. No. Nope. Not in a thousand years. He'd only met a handful of nuns, mostly in the hospital, and Khem was way awesomer than that.

"Eh, it's all the same thing." If his improvising usually led to chaos, well, all the better for him not to get caught, right? His chaos always ended perfectly. For him, anyway.

"No it's not! One of these days it'll turn around and bite you!" because that was what chaos did! Besides, chaos drew attention. Even if not to them exactly it would make the place harder to skip out of memory, which meant laying low and not earning money from said establishment!

That or she was just kind of assuming the people here would pay out contracts on everyone so no idiot kids could testify.

Okay, yeah, more the latter.

ANYWAY.

"We end up in a scenario where we have to deploy your levels of chaos I am going to tell everyone around me that I have no idea who that crazy kid is at all."

"That's stupid." He rolled his eyes possibly more dramatically than necessary. Possibly. "It can't do that if it's under control, and it's always under control. So there."

Duh.

But still, he shrugged. "Anyway, if it gets that bad, then yeah, it's probably better you pretend not to know me for a while." His powers were kind of obvious and even a little distinctive, so not getting tied to him, just in case, might help them both.

"Is it? Everyone thinks they have things under control, until they don't!" she laughed. "Even me sometimes." That was why she hadn't rated her walls against a lot of the heavier things the company had wanted to test. Hard to force a girl to make something invisible after all; she'd cheerfully lied through her teeth when they wanted to test against small explosions and the like.

Funny how much a failed wall and no wall at all looked alike in field tests.

Anyway. "Until then you're still one of my favorites." So there.

If only he'd ever figured out how to do that, but for all that Jack was the king of tricks and pranks, and no matter how much he ever tried to disagree, he couldn't lie to save his life.

He cooed, an exaggerated, sickly sweet sound. "I'm one of your favorites? Me?"

Two could play at that game! She turned back, lacing her fingers under her chin so could sigh and bat her lashes at him, "of course! How could I ever love another Jack? You make me feel all Shakespearian!" How she managed a coherent sentence between the breathy, swooning words was anyone's guess.

It took him a second to get a completely unmanly giggle under control, but then he bowed with an exaggerated flourish that no one outside of royalty had probably bothered with in three hundred years. "Then my work here is done."

"Ah I see, I was nothing but a fancy to you?" she sniffed, less teasing and more a sound of near teary heartbreak. It was a handy skill, that! "I am heartbroken young Jack that you'd play me so foul!" What? She'd grown up in public libraries and late night movies in hotel rooms when she and her dad could afford them!

"I'll not forgive this!" That said she grinned, amused, and tossed the arms of a coat about herself in a flounce that took her to the hangars again.

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