microwavelength | (no subject)

(no subject)

Luke Campbell did not do friends. He did not do family. He did not do people. He'd learned some very hard lessons when he was seventeen and then nineteen years old that you couldn't trust anyone but yourself. He hated himself too but at least he had a good reason for that. And between bouts of loathing, he also had enough fun to ride him through depressions.

He'd met Axel not too long ago. It had been an accidental run in during a robbery gone south for each of them. Luke shut off the CCTV right before Axel finished with his whole I'm An Awesome And Scary Bomber guy and unfortunately for them both, that made the whole array go off.

Microwave manipulation wasn't perfect. That much was obvious when he found himself in the basement with part of s building covering him. He didn't know why he didn't just boil Axel's blood then and there.

Or why he started following him around. Or why he showed up at his next gig. Luke cleared his throat, slipping his cell phone into his back pocket. Having control of every security camera in the city had its perks and make stalking so much easier. His smile was not kind. "We have to stop meeting like this."

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"I'd probably eat Taco Bell for every meal," he confessed. He'd been looking for an excuse to get out of this shitty little town. A little road trip would have been nice.

Technically he didn't really need an excuse of course. He didn't need to do anything at all but pick up and go. He had no ties. No family. No friends. No job. But Axel was making all of this pretty hard on him and Luke found himself frowning at the thought of it.

Even after the food started coming out. He stuck with the stuffed mushrooms. He used his fingers and not a fork. "I've got money. I mean, doesn't matter if I spend it on a taco case or here on you. No skin off my dick."

"It's not bad here, I like it." Fancy but pretty good, he had no complaints. He wasn't a wine person but he was still drinking it. Booze was booze and this stuff was kinda swanky. "Can't we not talk about skin off dicks, that's a horrible mental image." Axel laughed and pulled a face, playfully kicking the other under the table. It was light but it was fond, affectionate even. "I don't have much money but next time I pull a job, I'll try to keep my cash set aside. It usually goes all on booze and rent."

And sometimes tech parts but that was easy to do at low cost. It was mostly about finding the right places to rob and raid.

"It's so ritzy in here, not my kind of crowd but definitely cool." He looked around, smiling a little as he eyed up all the nice, normal people. They so didn't fit well here. "For our next date, if this is a date and you're cool with calling it that, we should go to an arcade or something. Shoot some zombies in the face."

Like scratched at the back of his neck. "I don't think I've been to an arcade since high school." He had pretty much only been lying by omission all night, which was pretty major for him all right? He hadn't told the other guy where he got his money for this or anything like that. In fact, he was actually being remarkably good about the whole thing!

And wasn't that nice? This was going pretty good. There was only real information about himself out there and Axel looked a little less wary than usual. The kick under the table probably helped, though Luke still scowled.

Hopefully it didn't turn Axel back to being fearful. That wasn't what he wanted out of this. His victims? Sure. But not the guy he just told about his Taco Bell obsession.

"We can do anything you want on Saturdays," he reiterated. "Because yeah. I thought I... Yanno I don't know. I was raised Catholic. You're taught not to sleep around."

"I was raised a lot of different religions, they all seemed like bullshit. I'm a foster kid, I got bounced around, I basically just raised myself. And what I taught myself is that sex is good and as long as you use protection, you're mostly good. Always do what's good." Axel shrugged his shoulders, finishing up his food and knocking back what was left of the drink. "You know, some guys get dodgy or pull some dodgy stuff but yeah, no, mostly good."

Axel could sometimes be too trusting to the wrong kind of person, of course it backfired on him. Hell, this wasn't exactly outside of his pattern either. Unsettling psycho killed people because he's jealous and Axel didn't run like a sane person, clearly he wasn't the sort to do that. Scared or not.

He leaned back in his chair and smiled at Luke playfully, his foot tapping excitedly on the floor. "I would suggest you subscribe to my way of thinking but if you did what made you feel good, a lot of people would be dead. Maybe if you added a 'no murder' clause in there somewhere."

Luke didn't feel things the way most people did. He didn't really feel things at all. There was a joy in killing because power was power, but there wasn't a real happiness that came along with it.

At least the guy didn't call him out on the no killing thing being Catholic too. The one girl did. Quite a bit. Before the accident.

Luke drinks the water as he eats, eyes mostly cast down.

"Hey, dude. Dude, whatever. I don't-- whatever. So. Where do you fight these zombies at?"

"I don't know fully what the arcade is like here but the one in Central is awesome. I have all the high scores. It's where I spent most of my time until I got my title."

Axel set his plate aside and leaned his head on his hands, looking at Luke with an amused smile. He always got a little flustered when the subject of sex came up. Personally, he found it interesting. Luke was unique in many ways, that's why he was kind of fascinating to be with. He wasn't like anyone he knew.

"We can go do that any time if you want? We can find an arcade easy. Or anything really. I like having stuff to do, usually I'm just by myself and --" He shrugged, unsure what else to say. "Kinda sucks being alone."

Luke gave Axel a frown, sitting back with his shoulders squared off. He wasn't sure what to say to the other man for a minute before his forearms pressed against the table. "You gotta make up your mind. It went from Saturday's to whenevers. And that's cool but you have a lot of rules but you gotta make them consistent."

He had nothing to say about loneliness. Or maybe too much to say. Either way, he wasn't saying a damned thing right now. Not to Axel, not when this stuff always ended badly.

"Because it sounds to me like you have a whole lot of people you can spend your time with," he scoffed.

"I laid down one rule, dude. You said Saturdays, I just agreed." Axel pointed out. Whatever, he didn't mind either way, he was never one to follow rules anyway. He could never keep track and he could never really seem to care. "I guess hanging out depends on your mood and what you wanna do, not the days of the week. Like I like you, I wanna hang but not always, you know? Nothing personal. You can't always want to be with someone unless they're like insanely special."

And Axel hadn't really met anyone that special yet. He thought he had a few times but it always backfired. He was trying to be smart about it now.

"Me? I ... I guess." Axel shrugged his shoulders. Not overly. The rogues didn't like him and that was about as close to friends as he got. His one night stands weren't really company, just blowing off steam. "They're not really a massive time suck."

Axel was special. Luke decided it was better not to say that becsuse then he would have to explain himself. He thought Sylar and Sampson and Samuel were special too. He always wanted to be around them. Always. And they didn't feel the same. Axel, he could tell, didn't feel the same. And yeah okay, so he also happened to make that vocally clear too... So...

He cleared his throat. "Whatever. I mean. Yeah sure. Arcades are cool." He tried to shrug it all off as it it didn't matter at all and he was doing Axel a favor. That's what what of those dating videos said. Don't be too into everything the other person was doing or liked. But don't be distinerested either. He wanted to track down that guy and boil him alive on his channel.

Axel probably wouldn't like that.

"You have my number. So. Just uh text." He never really had anything to do. Just the normal day to day stuff.

Dinner was brought over a few minutes later and Luke dug in. He hadn't overly exerted himself today but he was always hungry.

"I'll text next time we wanna have a date."

And hopefully Luke wouldn't be tracking his every move, killing the people he stands near or anything like that again and this thing could maybe be a better thing that it was originally shaping up to be. Axel liked him, in his own odd way, he found Luke unsettling, terrifying and his love of gore was unsettling but he could deal.

He'd just have to live with the fact that his current 'boyfriend' was a mess of a guy who would probably consider The Thing as his ideal date movie.

"The food is actually pretty good here. Props of your picking, dude." He looked up at Luke and grinned a little, just taking him in. "You look good too."

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