don't say a word

Brooke couldn’t help but smile when thinking of her mom. “Well I guess you could say she’s a bit of a magic collector. My mom loves meeting new witches, the more creative and unique the better. That and she loves new spells. I sort of always thought she wanted to have the largest spell book to ever exist.” The last bit was more of a joke. If anything Brooke thought it more her mother was too much of a shrink not to want to get to know every witch under the sun and help them.

“She sounds great.” Andrew said with a smile. “I would love to meet her, I like learning new spells. My mom said she didn’t expect to have a kid who actually wanted to read through the family spell books.” His parents hadn’t understood why he wanted to learn everything about magic, but he loved it. It was a huge part of him, so he wanted to know about it.

“So, what’s there to do around here?” 

“You know, I’m actually not sure? I mean, I mostly just watch TV, practice, and study. It’s sad. I used to have a life.”

Brooke couldn’t help smiling at him. His excitement was infectious. “Neat. Color me impressed.” Her smile grew as a thought occurred to her. “My mother would love you.”

He smiled in return, glad she didn’t just tell him to shut up. He probably should have about five sentences ago, but hindsight was 20/20. “Oh? Why’s that?” He questioned, tilting his head.

“Yeah, I guess,” Noah said, “that’s how most of it starts anyway.” He shrugged, since it was true–most of the time, he didn’t entirely set out to ruin someone’s clothes or their life, it just happened that way. Almost like his magic had a mind of its own and acted without his express permission. Most people inspired that response, and when he met the rare one who didn’t, it was a breath of fresh air for him. Much like Andrew, come to think of it, but Noah stashed that thought away for later. He looked at Andrew quizzically, as he realized the other might have taken his comment to heart. “Yeah, well. Would you rather I ignore your lack of hearing entirely?” he asked, tone a bit sarcastic. “Ah, you’re a crammer. Hey, whatever works. At least there’s enough around here to keep you distracted. Personally, I think school is a waste of time.”

“And it has nothing to do with your temper. It’s all your magic.” Andrew teased. He’d already seen that Noah seemed to have a short fuse, or was at least easily annoyed. Magic didn’t tend to act without some sort of trigger, even if that was just a hot temper and a short fuse. He gave a shrug. “Nah, I’m mostly joking. I’ve heard worse.” A lot worse, actually, if he was perfectly honest. “More of a procrastinator. And school isn’t exactly a waste of time. I mean, I wouldn’t want a doctor who hadn’t been to school.”

Brooke hadn’t expected him to tell her so emphatically. In fact he’d given her more information about it than she expected all together. However, that didn’t mean she wasn’t pleased or interested in knowing. A part of her would always still hold a bit of envy for those who could practice magic. Especially since a strong part of her always wanted to learn it even though she could never actually do it. “That’s really cool. Even more so that you created your own spell for it. I take it it’s a permanent spell. Not like one you have to do over and over every so often?”

Andrew knew he tended to give too much information when talking about magic, especially about the things he had worked on himself, but it was just exciting. "Well, I kind of piggybacked off an alarm spell that someone else made. It’s permanent. I had to keep redoing the sigil for it, so I ended up just tattooing it on my wrist.” He explained, pulling up his sleeve to show her.

“You’re gonna look like Jason and I’m fucking here for it. Scare the shit out of everyone.” She reached for the bowl, quickly shoving a spoon full of cereal into her mouth, milk running down her chin that she made no effort to wipe off. “Ask me again and I’m going to feed you a frog. No French delicacy shit. One dirty ass frog.”

“I think I know what I’m wearing for Halloween now.” Andrew decided. He rolled his eyes at her eating habits, somehow unsurprised, but didn’t say anything. “Why a frog? Like, what made you think of that?”

“… Accidentally on purpose, then,” Noah amended. It might have been on purpose, since he had been thinking about it, and then it happened. Some of his questions had been answered about his magic by that incident–if he willed it to happen hard enough, it would–but it didn’t change the fact that he had to be in a high emotion for that to work. Under normal circumstances, nothing. Everything was so erratic and frankly, it was annoying. “Hey, at least it was accurate,” he shrugged. He wasn’t afraid of offending someone. “Do you ever do your homework? You’re always avoiding it.”

“There you go.” Andrew said with a grin. That seemed more likely, with how annoyed Noah tended to be by the world in general. Which made it strange that Noah was even talking to him. Andrew was pretty sure that he annoyed the other man, so it didn’t make much sense that he hadn’t just left the room. “I guess that’s something.” He said dryly, shaking his head. It wasn’t like he was really offended or anything, but it would be nice to see some sort of remorse. “I do it, just not until like, an hour before it’s due. It’s worked out well so far though, haven’t failed a class yet.”

“Ah.. I never knew you signed.” Mira spoke out. “That’s really neat.”

“Yeah, well, it was helpful before I really started doing well in speech therapy.” Andrew explained, lining up his next shot. “My parents wanted to make sure I could communicate no matter what.”

“I won’t make any promises that I won’t attack your cheeks when given the moment. You better prepare yourself,” she warned him with a little laugh. Although Leo would forget it soon enough, it usually only took a minute or two before her memory was wiped clean. She smiled when the bowl slid across the table for her to devour. “I don’t live by a clock, nothing’s ever too early or too late for me. But fine, I will conform this one time. One time. Just the one.” 

“I’ll have to get a hockey mask or something. Wear it at all times.” He joked with a grin. He leaned against the counter as he started eating. “Look at you, all special. But I appreciate you conforming for me. I promise I won’t ask you to do such a terrible thing again.”

“Such a cutie, come here so I can pinch those little cheeks of yours,” she teased back, grabby hands directed towards him. At this point she had forgotten the hunger and was enjoying the company more. “Reality is just a concept, a construct to make us feel less small in an endless universe. You and I might not even be real, we might not even live in the same time period. Or ‘reality.’ All you know is what you’ve been told. We don’t know anything, like, at all. So, Michael B. Jordan sitting behind you on the counter is very real.”

“Oh, god, now I’m getting flashbacks to my grandmother.” He groaned, pushing away from her. He’d always hated dinners with his extended family, they were always annoying, and treated him like he was made of glass. “Wow, way to get deep. It’s way too early for that though. Right now I’m only awake enough for the sugary cereal and mild conversation.” He told her, sliding the cereal bowl across from her after pouring milk in.

“See, I knew you were precious.” Her hands rose, making a heart with her fingers and looking through it with a laugh. “You, me and breakfast. What a fucking awesome combo. And that’s a total lie, I have a very vivid imagination and this room could easily be crowded with dicks if I wanted it to.” 

“Precious? Now I’m a little more offended.” He teased, but laughed at her gesture. “It’s a great combination. And sure, but I’d still be the best looking real guy. And the only one making you breakfast.” He grabbed another bowl for himself, as well as the cereal and poured them each a bowl.

“We can say a finger or a toe,” Mira replied. “Maybe, the extent of your trip depends on which limb you choose.”

“All right, well, probably a toe then. I kind of need my fingers.” Andrew pointed out, signing the last few words just to make his point.

Well that explained why he hadn’t said anything, but it didn’t explain how he knew she’d been talking to him at all. “You don’t need to apologize. Its not like you can help it. Though I am wondering how you even knew I was talking to you at all?”

Andrew perked up at her question; it wasn’t often that he actually had someone even moderately interested in how he’d worked on those things. “Oh, it’s actually really cool! See, I made this spell after watching one of the old Spider-Man movies that works kind of like a spider-sense. So if anyone is talking to me and I’m not looking or something, then it kind of vibrates? Or at least that’s the closest example I have. Then I know I need to start paying attention.” He had some others, mostly for improving his focus when it came to lip-reading, but he doubted she wanted to hear about all that.

“A little bit of both, I think. Probably offended, I shouldn’t do it. I’m gonna, but I shouldn’t.” Her head tilted to the side, wondering briefly about the grimace displayed on his face but the thought was quickly gone. “He was alright, could’ve been better but that’s usually my sentiment with dudes. Girls do it better, you know?” A happy groan escaped her when she saw him reach for a bowl. “If you keep it up, you might actually become the hottest dude in the room.”

“Lucky for you, I’m only mildly offended, so I’ll still make you breakfast.” Not that he was working all that hard on it, it was just cold cereal. But it was something. “I honestly wouldn’t know.” And wasn’t that a subject to be discussing over breakfast. He laughed as he set the bowl on the counter. “I’m the only dude in the room, so you don’t have many options.”

“I had to confirm it, people are assholes you know,” she replied with a shrug, “myself included. I’ve been ‘deaf’ on multiple occasions. It works perfect with annoying dudes although once a gross dude apparently had a deaf sister so he knew sign language and that messed everything up. We fucked, figured he’d be good with his fingers.” Leo rambled fast before her features shone at the mention of cereals. Anything worked. She wasn’t picky. “Hell yeah, gimme that sugar.”

“I’m not sure if I should be offended or impressed, honestly.” Andrew said, making a face. It was a little hard to understand her when she was talking so fast, but he could manage. “I think the most important question was whether or not he was good with his fingers?” He asked, then grinned when her face lit up. “You got it. One bowl of sugary deliciousness coming up.” He agreed, reaching up to pull down a bowl.

She leaned onto the pool cue, watching the other. “Okay… so if you had to choose between losing a limb but you would be able to get to go anywhere in the world. Would you do it and which limb?”

“Uh, does it have to be a full limb, or can be like...a finger or something?” Andrew questioned, leaning on the pool table. “Because I’m not sure if it’s worth a full limb.”

“The kind where I dumped a bunch of water on someone who was irritating,” he said, making himself comfortable in the chair next to Andrew’s. He made sure to face Andrew, though, so he could still read his lips. “I think it was mostly contained. You wouldn’t hear about it anyway.” He was sure the wolf who had been fishing still wasn’t happy with him, but that was a risk he took often. “What are you doing?” he asked, pointing at the sketchbook.

“That sounds more like it was on purpose.” Andrew pointed out with a grin. It sounded like something Noah would do, at least, and he’d only talked to the guy once. He turned a bit to face Noah though. “Wow, that’s both offensive and accurate. Good job.” Andrew nodded quickly, lips pressed together. He was quickly distracted by the sketchbook though. “Oh, it’s a side project I’m working on to avoid school. Nothing important.”