microwavelength | (no subject)

(no subject)

Luke hadn't fought his mother on the relocation. He lied about what happened with Sylar, he told her he had been used and left, nearly murdered but for his ability. It saved him, he lied. All he wanted was to be normal, he lied.

He wasn't sure if she bought it but she didn't fight him either and so he found himself starting in a new school across the country from New Jersey.

It didn't matter. These were all people lesser than he was. He just needed to be here for a little while until he could figure out what to do with his life.

That didn't mean he wasn't careless about it all. He ate kernels of corn that he popped in his bare hand in the quad., in front of everyone.

And they were all scared of him. His dead eyes. He liked that.

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Weird things had been happening a lot lately, not just with him but in life. First the weird glowing crater with potential aliens, then he could move objects with his mind like some kind of super hero and now this weird kid who seemed to be able to make popcorn with his bare hands.

It was so unreal. How did he even do that?

He watched from a safe distance... well, safe enough that he could avoid immediate attack but close enough that he could record what he was doing so he could watch it again later.

Maybe there were more people out there like him. Maybe this kid was one of the aliens. All he knew was that he wanted to keep watching just in case.

Flipping through a comic, Luke are a few more popped kernels and only just happened to look up to the camera trained on him. He stopped chewing, hand poised in front of him, and frowned right into the camera.

"Hey!"

This was why Sylar told him not to show off! You show off and people come to take you into black vans and stick sedatives up your nose. He couldn't let that happen, climbing off of the picnic table in the quad to run after Andrew.

Shit. Andrew lowered his camera and protectively held it close, it was too important to lose and way too expensive to get damaged, he wasn't about to relent or have it dropped from any kind of impact. Shielding it the best he could, he took off running in an attempt to ditch this weird kid.

If he could get himself back in the open, maybe he could just about get away with this.

After all, this footage wasn't something he wanted to give up either. That kind was like a microwave man or something, he was popping his own popcorn!

Andrew might be fast but Luke certainly wasn't slow. He raced after the other kid, hopping over a table, and since no one really knew him as anything other than that weird new kid, Andrew was still at the disadvantage with his classmates. A few were actively trying to trip him, maybe cheering Luke on or maybe just not liking Andrew enough to want to see him fall.

It was enough to let Luke gain on him enough to corner him, fuming, away from everyone else. He huffed a little, hand raised towards Andrew.

"You give me the tape or I'm melting that camera. And you." He wasn't joking. It had been awhile since he'd done anything fun.

It was kind of hard to outrun someone when being tripped by a bunch of assholes and not really being that good of an athlete. It was like trying to beat a platform game on hardmode, he was set up for failure before he'd even had time to try.

Coming to a halt, knowing he was beaten, he pulled his camera in close and tried to protect it from any potential damage. He couldn't give over his tape, it had all of his footage on it. The alien crash sight, his first power play around. He can't risk losing that. It was irreplaceable.

"I-I can't give you the tape, I can't-- I can edit you out, okay? Just ... Come on, not the camera."

Luke wasn't buying it. "No. No, I know what fucking happens dude. You say you'll do it but you'll show it to your friends and someone lets it leak and then I have the fucking government at my fucking door again. I want that god damned tape!"

He wasn't Sylar. Sylar would be all cool and menacing. He'd just stand there and growl like a wolf and pull the tape out of Andrew's hand with his mind.

But he couldn't do that. And he was too happy with the yelling anyway.

"Make another gay ass tape. I have hurt stronger people that you," he threatened.

"Trust me, I'm so not leaking this online." Still, he's not stupid, despite what he knows he'd do, Luke didn't know what he'd do so they were in a place where it was hard to progress without one of two things happening - his camera got melted or he got melted. And he wasn't in favour of either.

It wasn't harder to have hurt stronger people than him, he was aware of his own weaknesses but he didn't really like them being pointed out.

He tried to pull himself up, to look bigger, holding his hand up defensively. If he came at him, he'd attack. He could do that... maybe. Fuck. He needed better control of this thing.

"Don't mess with me. I won't let you get this tape." God help him, he didn't want to melt but he couldn't go down without a fight.

Luke had had good control of his ability for a long time now. For years. He'd gotten extremely capable with his ability but he was still just a teenager and control wasn't something he really craved in the slightest. It amused him that Andrew had raised his hand to mirror him, though, and so Luke took a step forward.

"What else do you have on that tape? Taking videos up girls' skirts? That's sick, dude." Luke boiled people. Alive. But of course violating a girl's privacy was so much worse, right? "This is hilarious though. You saw what I can do. To pop corn. What do you think I'll do to you?"

He didn't know why he wanted to have a sudden conversation with this looser but Sylar liked to make big speeches before he did something. It seemed the right thing to do.

"It's not perverted!" Why did people see a guy with a camera and assume he was only filming girls or filming naked chicks? Well, okay, not that unexpected but it was still annoying. He got it with the hopes of seeing amazing things and having a cool way to document it, having a fun way to experience something but instead he was constantly being accused, chased and attacked for it.

Sometimes it wasn't worth the hassle.

"Look, just, cool it. It's not even like anyone would buy it if I did leak it. It's the age of photo-shop and video editing. Not that I would but, well, it's just -- it's not something I can just erase." Oh man, he was so getting melted. "You could ... could watch me edit it? If you're that bothered by it."

Well shit. What were the options here? He was trying so hard to blend in right now, trying to keep the heat off of himself in case anyone was watching. They'd taken him down easily last time. He'd grown smarter but he wasn't like Sylar. If they came again, he was going down just as easy.

Luke tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt, slipping his hands into his pockets.

"Okay. We go now."

Technically, he'd won the battle here but he knew he hadn't won the war. How the hell did he edit thing thing without the kid seeing his other footage. He reluctantly nodded and then gave the kid a sideways look, unsure how best to proceed. Luke had a stare that set him on edge and he had no idea how to cope with that sort of feeling.

Not that he didn't have his fair share of intimidating people trying to knock him down but this? This was different.

"The computer labs should be open now but we need to have permission." Given it was usually closed this time of day, he wasn't sure how best to proceed.

"No way." Luke didn't want anyone else seeing what was going on here. "Your house. And don't tell me you don't have editing equipment because if you're so keen on being able to cut my shit out, I think you do." Luke had almost nothing where he was staying. He could probably figure out how to get it but that could take days and they didn't have days.

He wasn't going to get the Agents to track him out here. He wasn't going to get taken in and used for experiments... Or whatever it was that they planned to do.

"I've got a car. I'll drive us."

"We can't go to my house." Jesus, no, he wasn't allowed anyone over and he wasn't about to bring a psycho microwave guy in around his mom. He might make the cancer worse, he read a few times that microwaves could cause that shit. And besides all of that, his dad... no, he didn't even want to contemplate this idea. "No, that's not an option. Can't we go to your place? I can bring around the software or we could just edit it on a library one. I'm sure they might have something You can cut up videos on windows movie maker sometimes."

Yes, low quality and kind of a last resort but what else was his move here? Go home and hope his dad was out drinking instead of inside drinking.

He looked down and tried to consider better options, faster ways to do this and get rid of this freak kid. "Can't you just trust I'd delete it? I don't want to get nuked by you, I'm not going to be that stupid."

"Are we just going to go in fucking circles? Give me the tape. You come by tonight with whatever shit you need and I'll let you edit it and give it back." Luke smirked. "I'm not negotiating with people that fuck with my privacy man. You have five seconds to hand that damned thing over."

He wasn't bluffing. He could melt that camera in Andrew's hand without doing more than giving the kid some burns from molten plastic. He was not someone to mess with right now.

"Put it down in the grass in front of me. Five. Four... I will fuck you up dude. Two--"

"W-Wait. Wait!" The count down, the pressure, the way he raised his hand with a clear thread, it all caused the adrenaline in him to build up so much that when he finally released it, it was a lot messier than all the times he'd practised so far. With a cry that edged on the verge of panic, he let loose a large telekinetic blast that knocked down anything in it's path.

Hard enough to knock Luke off his feet.

"Get away from me! Don't you melt my fucking camera!" Why were people always pushing him around? Why did they have to make him act like this? He felt the overwhelming urge to hurt Luke build up in him and he had to fight to hold it back. He couldn't do this, he couldn't start shit. He wasn't that strong. "Just back off!"

One might expect a guy that could melt stuff and pop popcorn in his hand to be really pissed off at Andrew but not Luke. He groaned, laying in the grass, and that groan turned into the strangest laughter. "Holy...fucking...shit--!"

He was like Sylar. Or like him. Destructive. Powerful. He could have used that power at any time though, and that he didn't reminded him of himself. Luke used to taunt his classmates and let himself get beaten up, knowing he could have killed them all with a thought. And Andrew probably did the same.

He sat up, all ruffle haired and weird, muddy eyes. "Why didn't you just fucking say that?!"

Andrew just didn't find it as funny as Luke did, he felt like he'd betrayed his friends for outting himself having powers and given how small his friendship group kind of was, he couldn't really afford to piss them off. He shuffled awkwardly, unsure where to go from here. At least Luke didn't seem to be spoiling for a fight? That was something.

"It's not funny, it's -- it's just -- look, I don't want to talk about it. Do you just believe me now? That I'm not going to out you online."

Hopefully now Luke got why it would be so fucking dumb for him to do that. With great hesitation, he moved in closer to Luke and tentatively, with his camera pushed as much out of reach as he could, he held his hand out to him. "I promise I'm not going to screw us both over like an idiot."

Completely uninterested in the hand, Luke brushed the grass from his jeans and stared weirdly at Andrew's face. "What's your name?" He didn't need help. He wasn't going to shake. Touching... Nothing good ever came from touching. He was curious about Andrew though. He wanted to know everything about him. And that might be a problem for the kid if he was trying to keep his small group of friends happy.

Luke was too weird for them, maybe even weirder than Andrew was. At least he embraced how much of an outcast he was. He seemed to like the solitude, but that honestly wasn't true. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"And what else can you do?" He wanted to see it all.

Edited 2017-08-04 11:35 (UTC)

"Andrew." Andrew clearly didn't trust this tone shift and kept his guard up, keeping his camera close in case it was some kind of trap to lure him in and then melt his camera and probably him. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling awkward about discussing this so openly with a strange but ... well, he was just like him.

He was different.

"I looked it all up online. It's telekinesis. But I can fly a little too. Kind of. I can hover." It wasn't quite flying yet but it was something, right? He was still in the early stages, still discovering what he could do. Mostly he could float objects and move people. "I read online that it can build and get stronger - like a muscle."

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