Post by Jon Lafayette on Mar 27, 2020 22:46:14 GMT
Plunking themselves atop the stool with a heavy thump, Jon dragged the back of their hand across their upper lip, smearing the drop of blood from their nose. They absently sniffed, ignoring the taste of pennies in the back of their mouth when they swallowed. The red tinted hand was carelessly wiped against their thigh, leaving a darker blur against the soft grey material. Their eyebrows furrowed hard enough to crease a line across forehead and there was no mistaking the drop of their lower lip in a full on pout as they silently stared at the tangle of twisted metal atop of the table. If looks could kill, Jon’s would have set the remains ablaze tenfold over before noon.
Beside them their phone sat propped up against a makeshift tower of more scrap metal, a live video call in process. An elder, dark skinned gentleman shifted across the screen sliding back into his own seat with a light hop. He clucked his tongue, giving an amused shake of his head, causing the salt and pepper dreadlocks that Jon’s own faded green ones mirrored, to sway heavily. An overworked hair tie had previously held them back, but some time during the call, it’d tragically vanished. The careworn lines around his mouth and eyes crinkled in the carefree smile of encouragement and he waved a hand, giving a soft cough to gently interrupt Jon’s brooding. With a sigh, the teen twisted back toward their phone, staring glumly at their father.
Emmanuel set his cup down and brought his hands up into frame, weathered and scarred fingers moving deftly as he signed, ‘Again?’
“Yeah,” Jon groused in French and signed back. Their mother was listening in somewhere in the background, the tell tale sign of her working in the faint hum of a song they’d heard a hundred times in their youth. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, papa. Everything comes out like hot garbage.”
Their father nodded slowly and gave his child an empathetic smile. ‘It is trashcan, not trash cannot.’ And caught the struggle to not smile back at him. ‘You will get it, in time. Have patience.’
Jon snorted. “Patience is so not my virtue.”
‘Show me again, walk me through your process step by step.’
“Why? I did like a hundred billion times now, it keeps,” Jon jerkily waved their hands over the twisted metal and made a sharp, obscene gaseous noise with their mouth. “turning to shit,” they finished in English.
“I heard that.”
Jon signed a quick ‘ma’ and their father turned in his seat to sign back and got a curt reply in Persian before Emmanuel chuckled at what the teen assumed was a flurry of signing from their mother. When he turned back, he watched as the teenager poked the tasteful heap of garbage with a finger and glare at it again.
‘Tell me it again, green bean. I’m all eyes.’ Their father folded his hands and leaned forward, ever eager to watch. It’d been a surprising treat to get a call from his youngest and with the time difference; he surmised they were still in class. Free period, Jon called it and he let it be. At least they were still on the school premise, having been given a quick tour around the empty workroom that still left him a little dizzy as the phone whipped around at his offspring’s breakneck speed.
Jon sighed deeply again and groaned with a great dissatisfaction. “Fiiine.” they relented, leaning forward and curled the toe of their green sneaker around one of the stool’s legs as if to cement themselves. “So, normally I use scrap metal, whatever doesn’t get used around the school, to make my orbs. Nothing fancy, I don’t need anything top of the line, I can make an attack with a handful of dirty washers just the same as, I dunno, a bar of titanium.”
‘Sounds like your mother.’ Emmanuel interjected.
“Right, ma can make any tool she needs regardless. I figured I’m carrying my excess gear on top of my uniform and armor and sometimes that shi... stuff gets heavy and I run the risk of running out.” They made a childish face of annoyance, eliciting an amused huff from their father. “I don’t want to be stuck in a tight corner and all, hey guys, can we pause for like five minutes while I make some more ammo to fight?”
Jon took a deep breath, plunging back into their spiel, easily keeping up their fast signing. “So, what if I used memory metal?” They cut themselves off at the questioning sign. “Memory metal, like, uh, it’s a special alloy that retains its shape after use. Like rebar that can be bent and it’ll spring back to its original form, keeping its tensile strength and hardness. I think. Yeah. Something like that? I kinda nodded off in class and I may have missed an important detail or two,” they trailed off.
‘Jonny.’
Never had their name been so disappointedly finger spelled at them but they retaliated with a sheepish grin that dimpled their freckled cheeks. “I know, I know. Sleep more, play later. But, it was one of these quick power naps that I had a big brain moment. Like total genius.” Jon made an over exaggerated explosion sound, flicking fingers outward from their head. “thought. You’d totally be proud. And, oh! Wait! Wait, wait, wait!!” They ducked down, grabbing for something and absently muttering to themselves. “I got it somewhere.” They stretched a hand up to sloppily sign in a vague attempt to keep their father informed and missed the shake of his head.
Digging through the pile of papers they had stacked next to them, the third year riffled through the bunch. They just set it down a moment ago, where was it? Surely the damn thing hadn’t sprouted legs and walked away. Then again, they were sitting in the open workspace where Isaac and Isamu tinkered, so who knew what was lurking about. “Got it!” Jon pulled the crumpled piece of paper and brandished it toward their phone, peering around it to see their father sign. “Tada!”
‘A lunch menu?’
“What? Uh...” Jon flipped it around to the blank side, stained with a variety of colors from a meal or two and revealed several scrawled drawings done in green ink.
Emmanuel leaned forward to study the sketchy lines, noting the flurry of notes that’d been jotted in shorthand French, a trait both his children picked up from him. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like gibberish even if one could read their ghastly writing. He’d had quite a few years under his belt to pick apart the lopping text and reflexively smiled at the meager measurements and numbers.
“Can you guess what it is? Huh? Can ya? It’s my new armor I want to get made.”
‘Not so fast, Jonny, you know I can’t understand when you sign so excitedly.’
“Sorry. It’s like a police bulletproof vest, but me size. I pulled a general schematic from online and did some research about the structure and layout.” Jon propped the paper against them, freeing their hands. “Um, okay, like, think old English medieval armor. See, it’s platted like chainmail in sections here.” Fingers traced along the sketches, jabbing excitedly at certain sections for emphases along the front before it flopped over in their haste to talk. “But way bigger, roughly the circumstance of a hand grab, my hand to be precise. In theory, I could grab the metal I needed for my orbs, program them and then... they’d um... do stuff.” The excitement petered out at the end, hand movements becoming stiff and precise, so unlike the easy languid flow that his child seemed to be made of.
“I mean, the idea is they would maintain their shape, so I could replace these sections with my orbs, nullifying the need for my quiver. Wait, reverse that former part. Also my quiver? Such a stupid flaw design, ugh, I can’t believe I actually came up with it. Must have been channeling some serious foxy Robin Hood vibes from childhood. I lose my quiver, that’s its, game over man.” Jon paused and stared at their silent father. “Did you get all that, or do I gotta do a rewind?”
Emmanuel held up a finger as he digested the whirlwind of vague information and half sentences. He truly missed these moments with his youngest, their exuberance hardly dulling in the three years they’d been away from home. Jon kept him young and his mind sharp. ‘But?’
Jon sagged on the stool and frowned. “But, the problem is trying to make the memory metal work for me. It... I can’t get it do what I want. I can liquefy it like any metal and I guess program it, but when it snaps back to its original shape, it doesn’t activate like my orbs do. It’s just.” Jon gestured back to the twisted rubble of metal in front of them again. “does that. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” Pillowing their face against their palms, Jon leaned on their elbows and stared at the little sparks of light behind closed eyes.
It’d been a struggle since first conception, their Quirk arriving in all of its sudden, destructive glory. They’d been temporally banished from their garage haven, a place they’d spent their toddler years underfoot two of the most brilliant minds in Europe. It’d been devastating; for a child, Jon only allowed in after compromising to wear gloves until they could garner better control over it. It was the first feeling of isolation; too young to really understand why they were treated differently, and it was something that helped shape their idyllic need to seek out companionship.
Emmanuel cleared his throat and waited until his youngest peeked over their fingers, and asked, ‘What is it telling you?’
There was that curious frown so similar to their mother, it was uncanny how they were a mirror of them both. He could see the gears spinning, mind already bustling to seek an answer. Jon pulled their hands from their face. “What is what telling me?”
‘The metal.’
Jon gave their father a deadpan look. “What?”
Beside them their phone sat propped up against a makeshift tower of more scrap metal, a live video call in process. An elder, dark skinned gentleman shifted across the screen sliding back into his own seat with a light hop. He clucked his tongue, giving an amused shake of his head, causing the salt and pepper dreadlocks that Jon’s own faded green ones mirrored, to sway heavily. An overworked hair tie had previously held them back, but some time during the call, it’d tragically vanished. The careworn lines around his mouth and eyes crinkled in the carefree smile of encouragement and he waved a hand, giving a soft cough to gently interrupt Jon’s brooding. With a sigh, the teen twisted back toward their phone, staring glumly at their father.
Emmanuel set his cup down and brought his hands up into frame, weathered and scarred fingers moving deftly as he signed, ‘Again?’
“Yeah,” Jon groused in French and signed back. Their mother was listening in somewhere in the background, the tell tale sign of her working in the faint hum of a song they’d heard a hundred times in their youth. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, papa. Everything comes out like hot garbage.”
Their father nodded slowly and gave his child an empathetic smile. ‘It is trashcan, not trash cannot.’ And caught the struggle to not smile back at him. ‘You will get it, in time. Have patience.’
Jon snorted. “Patience is so not my virtue.”
‘Show me again, walk me through your process step by step.’
“Why? I did like a hundred billion times now, it keeps,” Jon jerkily waved their hands over the twisted metal and made a sharp, obscene gaseous noise with their mouth. “turning to shit,” they finished in English.
“I heard that.”
Jon signed a quick ‘ma’ and their father turned in his seat to sign back and got a curt reply in Persian before Emmanuel chuckled at what the teen assumed was a flurry of signing from their mother. When he turned back, he watched as the teenager poked the tasteful heap of garbage with a finger and glare at it again.
‘Tell me it again, green bean. I’m all eyes.’ Their father folded his hands and leaned forward, ever eager to watch. It’d been a surprising treat to get a call from his youngest and with the time difference; he surmised they were still in class. Free period, Jon called it and he let it be. At least they were still on the school premise, having been given a quick tour around the empty workroom that still left him a little dizzy as the phone whipped around at his offspring’s breakneck speed.
Jon sighed deeply again and groaned with a great dissatisfaction. “Fiiine.” they relented, leaning forward and curled the toe of their green sneaker around one of the stool’s legs as if to cement themselves. “So, normally I use scrap metal, whatever doesn’t get used around the school, to make my orbs. Nothing fancy, I don’t need anything top of the line, I can make an attack with a handful of dirty washers just the same as, I dunno, a bar of titanium.”
‘Sounds like your mother.’ Emmanuel interjected.
“Right, ma can make any tool she needs regardless. I figured I’m carrying my excess gear on top of my uniform and armor and sometimes that shi... stuff gets heavy and I run the risk of running out.” They made a childish face of annoyance, eliciting an amused huff from their father. “I don’t want to be stuck in a tight corner and all, hey guys, can we pause for like five minutes while I make some more ammo to fight?”
Jon took a deep breath, plunging back into their spiel, easily keeping up their fast signing. “So, what if I used memory metal?” They cut themselves off at the questioning sign. “Memory metal, like, uh, it’s a special alloy that retains its shape after use. Like rebar that can be bent and it’ll spring back to its original form, keeping its tensile strength and hardness. I think. Yeah. Something like that? I kinda nodded off in class and I may have missed an important detail or two,” they trailed off.
‘Jonny.’
Never had their name been so disappointedly finger spelled at them but they retaliated with a sheepish grin that dimpled their freckled cheeks. “I know, I know. Sleep more, play later. But, it was one of these quick power naps that I had a big brain moment. Like total genius.” Jon made an over exaggerated explosion sound, flicking fingers outward from their head. “thought. You’d totally be proud. And, oh! Wait! Wait, wait, wait!!” They ducked down, grabbing for something and absently muttering to themselves. “I got it somewhere.” They stretched a hand up to sloppily sign in a vague attempt to keep their father informed and missed the shake of his head.
Digging through the pile of papers they had stacked next to them, the third year riffled through the bunch. They just set it down a moment ago, where was it? Surely the damn thing hadn’t sprouted legs and walked away. Then again, they were sitting in the open workspace where Isaac and Isamu tinkered, so who knew what was lurking about. “Got it!” Jon pulled the crumpled piece of paper and brandished it toward their phone, peering around it to see their father sign. “Tada!”
‘A lunch menu?’
“What? Uh...” Jon flipped it around to the blank side, stained with a variety of colors from a meal or two and revealed several scrawled drawings done in green ink.
Emmanuel leaned forward to study the sketchy lines, noting the flurry of notes that’d been jotted in shorthand French, a trait both his children picked up from him. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like gibberish even if one could read their ghastly writing. He’d had quite a few years under his belt to pick apart the lopping text and reflexively smiled at the meager measurements and numbers.
“Can you guess what it is? Huh? Can ya? It’s my new armor I want to get made.”
‘Not so fast, Jonny, you know I can’t understand when you sign so excitedly.’
“Sorry. It’s like a police bulletproof vest, but me size. I pulled a general schematic from online and did some research about the structure and layout.” Jon propped the paper against them, freeing their hands. “Um, okay, like, think old English medieval armor. See, it’s platted like chainmail in sections here.” Fingers traced along the sketches, jabbing excitedly at certain sections for emphases along the front before it flopped over in their haste to talk. “But way bigger, roughly the circumstance of a hand grab, my hand to be precise. In theory, I could grab the metal I needed for my orbs, program them and then... they’d um... do stuff.” The excitement petered out at the end, hand movements becoming stiff and precise, so unlike the easy languid flow that his child seemed to be made of.
“I mean, the idea is they would maintain their shape, so I could replace these sections with my orbs, nullifying the need for my quiver. Wait, reverse that former part. Also my quiver? Such a stupid flaw design, ugh, I can’t believe I actually came up with it. Must have been channeling some serious foxy Robin Hood vibes from childhood. I lose my quiver, that’s its, game over man.” Jon paused and stared at their silent father. “Did you get all that, or do I gotta do a rewind?”
Emmanuel held up a finger as he digested the whirlwind of vague information and half sentences. He truly missed these moments with his youngest, their exuberance hardly dulling in the three years they’d been away from home. Jon kept him young and his mind sharp. ‘But?’
Jon sagged on the stool and frowned. “But, the problem is trying to make the memory metal work for me. It... I can’t get it do what I want. I can liquefy it like any metal and I guess program it, but when it snaps back to its original shape, it doesn’t activate like my orbs do. It’s just.” Jon gestured back to the twisted rubble of metal in front of them again. “does that. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” Pillowing their face against their palms, Jon leaned on their elbows and stared at the little sparks of light behind closed eyes.
It’d been a struggle since first conception, their Quirk arriving in all of its sudden, destructive glory. They’d been temporally banished from their garage haven, a place they’d spent their toddler years underfoot two of the most brilliant minds in Europe. It’d been devastating; for a child, Jon only allowed in after compromising to wear gloves until they could garner better control over it. It was the first feeling of isolation; too young to really understand why they were treated differently, and it was something that helped shape their idyllic need to seek out companionship.
Emmanuel cleared his throat and waited until his youngest peeked over their fingers, and asked, ‘What is it telling you?’
There was that curious frown so similar to their mother, it was uncanny how they were a mirror of them both. He could see the gears spinning, mind already bustling to seek an answer. Jon pulled their hands from their face. “What is what telling me?”
‘The metal.’
Jon gave their father a deadpan look. “What?”