Closed RP Step Out Into the New Normal

[Yuyo]

Some time had passed since Belle’s last real low point. The kind that left him hollow and aching. Now, though, he felt steady enough, with far more energy than he was used to, but that also meant only one thing, he was hungry, hungrier than usual at the very least, but his body kept up as long as he fed it something, anything.

He wasn’t picky. Hunger didn’t allow for that. Stale or nearly molded bread, half‑smashed crackers, whatever he could get his hands on, it all counted those days where he couldn't. Calories were calories. But today was different. Today he had ten crisp dollars tucked in his pocket, earned from carrying a parcel across town. Ten dollars wasn’t much for said task, considering it took him the entirety of the morning, but it was enough to buy something that felt like more than survival. Enough for a small treat to lift his mood further.


With a slight bounce in his step, Belle pulled his hoodie tight, dimming his light, trying not to draw attention to the new fissures along his face. The shop’s bell gave a soft ring as he slipped inside. He wandered the aisles, scanning shelves with a careful look. Chips felt too expensive for what little they gave. Yogurt wasn’t his thing. Candy would vanish far too fast and he didn't care much for the artificial fruit flavors. But then his gaze landed on a large jar, its label a bright blue with a grinning peanut mascot waving him closer. Peanut butter, on discount.

He stopped to ponder for a few seconds, weighing his choice. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had peanut butter, but he tried to at least grasp at the sensations he could remember, the thick texture, the nutty taste, the way it filled him up better than most things back when he had toast with the butter thinly spread over it for breakfast whenever Lucian was short on money. The logical outcome was to buy bread and go back home, but in reality, he was growing tired of the taste of store-bought bread, even fresh, it felt like an ugly reminder of his situation, and he wasn't trying to get himself down, not today. So, he reached for a cheap pack of plastic spoons that sat nearby, and slowly walked to the register with his items, while he imagined eating the peanut butter straight from the jar. Who cared if it wasn't normal? It was his money after all; he could do whatever he thought was normal.

Normal, the thought brought him back to her, the meta who could make anything normal just by being near it. He didn’t know her name, hadn’t seen her since the cafe incident, but he remembered her clearly. She had stopped his attacker that day, and without her, he probably wouldn't have the chance to stand here, hungry but alive, choosing peanut butter over despair.

He paid for his things, putting the change in his pocket and heading out, looking for a quiet place to stay for a few hours, eventually finding a secluded spot in a park, under a tree that kept him hidden enough for him to let his hood fall away from his hair, tapping at the glow of the cut across his cheek and brow, as if that would somehow make the light go away, it didn't, obviously. So, he took a deep breath, and sat against the bark, staring at the afternoon sky.


Belle’s mouth tugged into an awkward smile as he held the jar, thumb brushing the label. He wondered how she was, wherever she ended up. Sure, he owed her for saving him that day, but another thought crossed his mind, the normal, his normal. It felt odd, but not terrible when they were close, at least not THAT close when he put himself in danger, no, he meant the limit, the space in which his skin stopped burning, when his fissures were nothing more than paint and his radiation didn't make his bones feel brittle. He wondered if it was all an excuse and he simply fancied her, but he shook the thought out of his head, he didn't even know her at all, and on a second thought, he wasn't sure he could even remember her face exactly among the dust and smoke- Not to mention Belle had horrible eyesight as it was.

"Maybe I can ask Sam to help me find her..." He muttered under his breath, struggling to open the jar for at least a minute before the cap finally twisted open with a slight pop.

Maybe.

 

[UmbraSight]

A day off was supposed to be relaxing, wasn’t it? Well, it’s not like today couldn’t be relaxing, just that after spending her morning staring at her physics textbook she kept finding herself wandering around her apartment in search of a mess to clean or a dust bunny to sweep which meant she needed to take a break. Now, her first attempt at taking a break didn’t work out, and the clock was threatening to hit ten by the time she stopped scrolling through shows having begun precisely zero of them. The sun at this point had infiltrated far enough into her living room to remind her that there was a whole city Eli could be spending the day in instead, and, the warmth on her neck tempted, it was a nice day out.

Eli really didn’t take much convincing, in all honesty.

She slid off the couch to go take a shower, traded her sleep clothes for a nice light blue dress over shorts (because she really wanted to have some pockets), before swinging it into her small kitchen. Ten had given over to eleven by the time Eli had what was realistically a little too much food packed into her shoulder bag and she was out of her apartment door. She had a bounce in her step as she descended the five flights of stairs down to the first floor, because her homework was behind her and she could happily forget she even had it until she returned to her apartment later.

Eli had gotten down the street to a corner store (and purchased a can of cola there because it was clearly an impulsive sort of day and it wasn’t like there was anyone to tell her not to) before realizing that she should probably choose a destination. She had a packed lunch, so a park then? That seemed like an appropriately backwards decision for the day. The park around the conservatory was her first thought, but she’d already been there a time or two, and even if she fancied climbing a tree so she could show Adelyn the photo later she wanted to go somewhere different.

So, destination not quite set, Eli turned down a street she hadn’t before and made her way down. She pushed on for a couple blocks before she pulled out a dogeared map from her pack and carefully unfolded it. A couple seconds to find where she had gotten to, and a couple more to identify the nearest park. She traced a route with the pad of her index finger before returning the map to its pocket and continuing her walk.

It was sometime near noon when she reached the park. She slowed her pace to an amble as she followed the path, looking out for a place she could sit and set out her lunch.

 

[Yuyo]

Belle stirred the peanut butter for a few seconds rather than going at it. He wasn’t sure it did anything in particular for the taste, but he’d seen Lucian do it before, maybe it was a habit, maybe it did something, maybe not, but he really didn’t even care.

That pause was enough to let his mind wander, to slow down and think about anything at all. And, as much as he tried not to think of, the chaos of that day still hung over him like smoke, the smell, the sight stuck to his eyes, it wasn't good... However, he didn't dwell in the horror, and rather his surprise at the events after.

He was pretty sure he’d seen one of the people he healed walking near his apartment complex, alive, moving, ordinary, without threatening to act against metas or to seek out the person who'd help her, she was just, living her life, without the nasty scar that Belle now owned across the left side of his face. His neighbors had been their usual brand of difficult, but at least they hadn’t thrown any more bricks through his already broken window the few days while he’d been gone.

Belvedere wondered if there was any way to hide his scars better. Makeup burnt away under his radiation and fabric wasn’t thick enough to smother the light. Maybe something reflective, aluminum? No, that would just bounce the sickness back into him, double the nausea that the christmas lights gave hi8m. His mind snagged on the image. Christmas lights?

He blinked, hard, trying to convince himself he wasn’t losing it. But there they were, wrapped around him. The faint glow from his sweater had shifted, sprouted into tiny bulbs, colorful, festive. Not normal, not for him, but maybe less strange than his actual nature.

And then it hit him.

He rose quickly, too quickly, and the absence of pain in his bones only confirmed what he suspected. That meta was here.

He didn’t bother covering the confusing meal, his bright green eyes, although now just, bright rather than glowing intensely, scanned the park, searching for the source of this sudden normality.


Once he finally found Eli, he moved forward despite his legs begging him to turn back, zero confidence, without any kind of practiced ease. He lingered at the end of the tree's shadow, shoulders hunched, eyes flickering between the floor and the strange lights crawling across the sweater, unsure which was safer to look at. His hands held tightly onto the container and the spoon, looking somehow more crazed than he already did.

He cleared his throat, awkward, like he was reminding himself he had one. His voice came out stuck between an apology and a greeting, almost scared to offend the stranger, even though he didn't say anything wrong, although he did kind of half yell at her in his attempt at sounding normal. "H-Hey! It's... It's you right? From the cafe?" He regretted the words the moment they left him.

With another step, the lights turned into tiny green studs imbedded in his clothes, looking far less striking than the weirdly matched lights, that wrapped around his arms and torso like some sort of ugly sweater from a holiday reunion.

 

[UmbraSight]

There was a rather large tree growing on the bank of a placid pond a little ways off the path which had branches she thought looked thick enough to hold her weight if she could figure out a way to reach them without breaking her neck. The roots were tall, like they looked as thick as her calves so maybe she could stand on one and hop to reach one of the lower branches? That seemed like something Adelyn would do, but Adelyn also had claws which were probably better for the whole tree climbing thing than her nails, so maybe this wasn’t the *best* plan. Could she put her pack on one of the roots then do her best hop? That was—

Eli stopped suddenly, her body shifting forward as her shoes scuffed on the sidewalk. For a teetering moment Eli was very unsure why she had just stopped, and her silver eyes flicked toward the shadow underneath a nearby tree. Oh, there was a person there. Had she disturbed them? Eli’s weight rocked back to her heels as she turned to face the person. They were familiar, weren’t they? A boy around her age wearing… was that an ugly Christmas sweater? That itched in the back of her mind, and Eli’s expression flickered from wary befuddlement to a flash of understanding before her lips pulled themselves into the sort of thin line lips like to take when they’re trying their very best to keep a giggle contained. Why of all things would a power become an ugly Christmas sweater?

The boy stepped forward, asking if she had been the one in the cafe. Eli’s posture straightened as almost laugh seemed to curl into a lump in her throat. Oh no, she had almost killed him the last time they met and now she was almost laughing at him? He had to be mad about that, right?

“Uhm,” she said, rather dumbly really, her gaze dropping down as the lights sunk down into his clothes. She cleared her throat, which only really seemed to clear the way for a bundle of nerves to take up residence where the lump had been. “Y-yeah, uh, you were the one who came in to help right? Uh, thanks for taking those people out the back, that really helped.” She said, quickly. This was when she noticed, of all things, the jar of peanut butter the boy was holding.

“Oh, uhm, sorry, did I interrupt your lunch?” She asked.

 

[Yuyo]

Belle’s eyes sparkled when she called him helpful, nearly getting knocked over by his own excitement. He wanted to be modest, not to completely butcher the already bad image he was dragging around further. He swayed lightly, like he wasn't sure where or how to stand, but he forced himself to stay put. "Yeah that… Was me, just doing what I had to do, y-you know? Uh… I forgot to thank you. For saving me and all-" The words came out far too clumsy. He hated how they sounded, how he sounded really, but he couldn't exactly turn back time to stop himself from saying them.

Then she asked about his 'lunch' and the embarrassment doubled. A soft pink spread across the cracks in his skin, those fractures now looking more like faint green streaks of face paint. "I-It’s just a snack really... I mean, I guess it’s my lunch, but it’s not exactly a meal if that makes… Sense."

He cut himself off before the rambling could spiral, clamping his lips shut like he was zipping them closed. Belvedere was awful at this. Talking wasn’t his biggest strength, not even close. Sure, he could fake it when buying something or running errands, but here? Every word felt wrong, like he was tripping over them before they even left his mouth. Suddenly he felt far too aware of his entire self, his clothes, his hair... He probably looked like he lived in a back alley of some shady corner of town, which wasn't all too far from reality, but he didn't love the idea of giving such a bad impression. Those boots, scuffed and very obviously repaired several times, Lucian's old sweater, clean but clearly too big for him, not to mention the half hazard stitches done all around to keep it together, in general, he looked as if he didn't live in very good conditions, which he often lied about to Sam, not wanting her to worry or offer new clothes for him.

That day at the cafe he was dressed nearly the same way, but at least he could excuse it all as the emergency not allowing him to look better, now he simply had to come to terms with the fact that he didn't really have any clothes that looked anywhere close to decent in this situation.

Trying to claw back some composure, he remembered he hadn’t even introduced himself. That was basic, finally there was something he could do. He shoved the plastic spoon into the peanut butter jar, extended his free hand, and forced the words out. "I’m Belvedere- But Belle is okay..."

The stupidity of it hit him instantly, and he yanked his hand back as fast as he could. "S-Sorry… I, uhm- Would you like, to have lunch, together I mean..."

There he went again. At least he wasn’t glowing this time, if his skin had lit up, she would’ve seen the shame burning across his face. He didn’t even realize that normal people blushed too, that he was already red as a tomato, his embarrassment painted loud and clear for her to see.

 

[UmbraSight]

Some of the tension that had been coiling its way up her back as it became increasingly clear that the boy — that Belle — wasn’t actually holding a grudge over the whole almost murder thing. She was so relieved that Eli almost took Belle’s offered hand out of pure reflex before she managed to shift the motion into awkwardly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as he quickly yanked his hand back. Right, best not to do that.

“It’s alright, I’m just happy to have helped” Eli said, her hand falling back to her side. She smiled a little sheepishly at the thanks, it felt to her like he had done more to help than she had anyway. “I’m glad the zombies didn’t bite you or anything.” She added, her own words drawing a faint chuckle out of her at just how weird they sounded. That was a weird thing to say wasn’t it? Eli’s gaze flicked away for a moment before she looked back. Well she already felt awkward so the only way through was to just keep going, wasn’t it? At least it looked like Belle was also feeling awkward given how flushed he was.

“Sorry for the late introduction, I’m Eliana or Eli if you’d prefer.” She said, “if you don’t mind the company, I can join you, I was uh, looking for somewhere to sit down actually.” She slipped open her pack and pulled out a cloth wrapped bundle.

“Where were you sitting?”