🔥 | 𝕊ℂ𝕆ℝ𝕋ℂℍ𝔼𝔻 𝕄𝔸𝔾𝕀ℂ

Salma glanced at the antique clock on the wall, her shift thankfully coming to a end. The two of them stared at each other for a long beat. Her ice eyes taking in his heated appearance. The November air drifted in with every ding of the bell, nipping at her fingers. It was strange, the air seemed to sweep around Evan, avoid contact, only touching the edges. She felt a heat radiating off of him, subtle but warm like the last embers of a burning camp fire. 

“Alright. Two minutes.” She nodded toward the empty booth in the back corner and turned her back to him. She muttered that she was clocking out a few minutes early, hung up her apron and collected her things. She stopped at the counter, filling a To-Go cup to the bring with black coffee, only adding a dash of creamer. 

She slid into the booth across from Evan. Stretching her legs out, grazing his exposed ankle with her own. She gasped, a flash cutting through her vision. A young Evan sliding into this exact booth, a pile of books in his hands, a fresh cut on his brow and a flaming anger ignited in his chest. She pulled her legs away, her heels hitting the backboard. 

She could see the question forming in his raised brow but shook her head. “You’ve got ten minutes to impress me, Monroe.” 

The two of them had never been friends, the both drifted on the outskirts as bizarre but on opposite sides of the spectrum. Where he was hothead and loud, picking fights just for fun, Salma lingered in the shadows, quiet and weird. Her aunts moved about with their wild clothing and crystals, dancing above the air of Everwood. Rumors going back to the schoolyard about their witchy tendencies.

The few times Evan and Salma did cross paths, an unseen tension pressed between them. One he couldn’t explain but they both held in their eyes. Her light blue eyes stared at him unrelenting. “I’m not gonna bullshit you.” He started. He’d read about her family in the book tucked away under a loose floorboard in his room. The Denbrough’s --- like the Grimes family --- were a legacy family. One of the three founders of this sad little town.

what color does your love feel like?

Salma dragged the dampened cloth over the counter for the third time in the past hour, mindlessly scrubbing away coffee stains and stuck on maple syrup. The Tuesday morning dragged on with little patron’s, everything spending their days at work to rack up as much money as they could for the holiday season. She didn’t dare glance at the communal tip jar at the end of the counter, barely holding double digit dollars. She could use the money, not for presents – those were something she didn’t have to worry about — but for her own sanity.

She hoped to move from her house by the new year, forge her own place outside her aunt’s erratic decor and disappointed eyes. At twenty-eight, she hadn’t left the small town of Everwood since she graduated the local community college with an associated degree collecting dust in the basement. 

When the bell rang signifying a new patron, Salma’s swiping paused, leaving a smear of water over a stuck-on coffee ring. The air turned uncomfortably warm, her body buzzing with a subtle warning. She looked up to meet the man’s eyes, her breath caught in her throat. She knew the man standing in the doorway, snow salting his hair. His eyes stared at her hard and cold despite the hear he brings with him.

It was a rarity for Evan Monroe to come into the diner, but every time he did, Salma wanted to crawl into the back freezer and wait for him to leave. 

He strolled over, not breaking eye contact and slid into the stool in front of her. “Going to order more than coffee this time?” 

The only still running diner in town used to be a small save haven for Evan. A place he could spend a few hours tucked in a corner with his studies, able to get away from the cold or his grandmother’s house that always smelled like decaying flowers. As an adult, he rarely ventured into the small diner, only on occasion when he had a taste for their slightly burnt coffee. 

Evan half huffed at Salma’s comment suppressing an eye roll. She was part of the reason he avoided this place. Her energy shined bright enough to blind him. Her eyes stared into his soul, the shine around her emanating her dislike for him. He forced an amused, lopsided smirk. Evan wasn’t sure WHY he’d decided today to talk to her, but with the bitter late November winds and the near empty space, he couldn’t pass it up. 

“No, I’ll just take the coffee. But only if I can buy you one.” He settled his eyes on hers, waiting for her response, the amusement no longer forced or fabricated. The journal left by his father, a relic from generations, spoke of the Denbrough’s -- their magic light, different than the darkness that wrapped itself around the Grimes and other alike. He wondered, how much did she know? Was she as in the dark as he’d been, or had she had the privilege of growing up magic. 

One of the downsides to his new found powers was the near inability to become inebriated. The heat ins his veins burning the alcohol from his system before it can take any effect. Turned his frequent trips to the bar to occasional ones. Normally after a stressful day at the car shop, trying not to burn a whole in some bitchy customer’s chest. He settles onto the bar stool, ordering his normal scotch on the rocks. The bar harbors the normal after work crowed, a few coworkers still in their mechanic coveralls, and many in disheveled office attire. It’s  the woman seated beside him that draws his attention, a fresh face in Everwood rarely went unnoticed by anyone. 

Grabbing his drink from the bartender, Evan leans comfortably on the counter, body angled toward hers. ❝ Have any of these assholes used their cheese pick-up-lines on you yet? ❞ He motions with his glass around the room. And, despite what it might appear as, Evan wasn’t spilling a line, just making conversation. It was always nice to break up the mundane conversations of the town folk with someone new.  

STARTER CALL | @ghoststained​

“So obvious that the rest of the townspeople have been made aware of it’s existence?” she scoffs and shoots him a narrow-eyed glare, “I doubt it.” 

When the pretty waitress arrives, Morgan orders a hot coffee and nothing else. Midway through the man ordering himself enough food to make an elephant stuffed, she winces out of the blue, accidentally tuning into the waitress’s thoughts. The young girl thinks that the mysterious stranger is cute, despite being several years older than her. She likes how long and curly his hair is and can’t stop herself from fantasizing about what he looks like from behind. Naked. 

Morgan makes a noise of disgust massages her forehead, particularly, the soft spot between her eyebrows.  When the question concerning a magic trick is broached, she moves her hand out of the way of her eyes and gazes at the man, appearing rather unimpressed. “I didn’t exactly come here for the sake of company,” she retorts. 

At first, his strange gestures and pointing and the meaning behind it all goes right over Morgan’s head. It’s not until she hears the man outside the diner holler and fall onto his backside, that she finally realizes what exactly the magic trick is. Wide brown eyes watch the man across the street stumble down onto the curb while his cigarette spontaneously combusts. Her lips part in faint awe and whips her gaze back to the person sitting across from her, considerably paler than when they had first begun their conversation. 

“You’re pyrokinetic then, is that it?” Morgan whispers. Her skin erupts into goosebumps and the air around the two of them suddenly feels a lot thinner, like her very breath is being sucked from her lungs while time slows to a steady crawl. “I knew someone like you, once…” there’s a faraway look in her eyes when she says this, “Born or acquired?” 

Evan’s smirk returns in full force on his features, his gaze turning toward the man, now surrounded by a few confused townspeople. The man’s wide eyed expression remains as he picked up what is left of the cigarette. 

He settles back into the booth, bemusement smeared like butter across his features.  ❝  that seems to be the main one, but I don’t think I’ve reached my full potential. ❞ He’d dabbled in other forms, some from the book and some through what he’s seen through media. After three years of trial and error, fire was the most prominent -- the other elIments didn’t speak to him in such a way. 

Her expression draws in a curiousness, ❝ Just one? I take it we’re a rare breed? ❞ 

The waitress returns, putting his full plate in front of him and flashing a honey sweet smile at him, one in which he returns. His features softening into a rare kindness that morphs his features into a younger version. The only tell is the tension around his eyes, proof of the facade unnoticed by the woman. He mutters a thank you and she leaves.