ANGER IS AN ENERGY

The pain in his hand should be a sign to back down, take a hint, fuck off. Instead it triggers something feral in Jack, that part of himself always simmering just under the surface, ready to throw itself headfirst and spitting with claws out at the first hint of a threat. He pushes further towards the man, bending his own finger even further past the point of comfort, petulant and stubborn as ever. The sting just adds his anger, a cycle of spite. “Some dumb beefy fuck calling me a weeb, ooohh, I’m terrified. Not like I’ve ever heard that one before.” He gets up in the guy’s face. “Just try me, you prick. I can ruin your life.”

Jack pauses at the Artemis Fowl reference. He pulls back a step and glances up at the stranger’s face, brow furrowed, forgetting to be angry for a second. “Wait, what? Like… the guy with fairy powers who solves crime?” He narrows his eyes. “Are– is that supposed to be some kind of fucking gay joke? From the guy who smokes watermelon weed?”

Isaac, like Cain, is going to enjoy this place, even if it fucking kills him. However, he’s more likely to get killed as the waves continue to take him out at the knees and drag him into the salty shallows, or by someone like Cain, than he is from trying to have fun. Isaac can find fun in almost anything, picking at the layers of the mundane until he finds anything to spark his interest.

That something, for him, was pretending to imitate Baywatch as he and two other copies of himself tried their best to jog in slow motion along the beach, though he swiftly realized running was less fun when there wasn’t anything to run from and this wasn’t sexy at all. It was hot and sweaty and really not what he had hoped, but Isaac figured he would keep it up until he found something further down the beach to catch his attention. However, it would take less time than that for one of his clones to trip in the sand, face-planting before Cain and kicking up a storm of sand upon him as he did so.

Hana lifts her head at the complaint that leaves the male’s mouth, his words winding through the evening air to join the cloud of vape he’d just exhaled like some sort of obnoxiously-chemical-scented frat boy with a sweaty backwards snapback and greasy hair. Only he isn’t that – he’s tall, gruff, and reeks of danger like a full moon out in the swamps. She holds his gaze for a number of heartbeats, blinks, and responds with a curt “fuck you, Thomas the Tank Engine.” As much as she’d like to have the good sense to leave it at that, his apparent desire to comment on her actions hooks into her skin as a splinter would. She continues, words heated, scowling as he draws closer. “Families don’t mean shit. You can’t use them as a get-out-of-trouble card. So either you back off and go crying about it to your boss or you stop acting like a limp dick and help me.”  

Her assumptions make his question unsuspicious. Had she thought about it a little harder, she may have questioned why he’d called the unfortunate soul this guy rather than use his name. Instead, she continues down the rabbit hole of believing he’s been sent by her client to help her. “This and that. He kept his trap shut for some time before he finally started sharing. Said something about a new mutant gang rocking up. They paid a full year’s rent upfront in cash for the building he owns. Made him sign a non-disclosure over it but–” she smiles, pleased with herself “–who’s going to honour a piece of fucking paper during a good old fashioned interrogation, huh?” 

Leaning idly against the side of the car, she watches as he takes in the sight of her handiwork. She notes that he doesn’t answer her question, the money she’d been promised beginning to drift steadily out of sight. “Shit, I should at least get half, it’s not like I didn’t do the job.” Hana fights her case with a frown, expression shifting at his request. “Do I look like a fucking girl scout?” Her gaze travels over the car interior and then drops to her feet, contemplating her shoelaces. It’s a swiftly denied possibility, too fond of her sneakers to give up the laces. There’s a long pause before she moves, chirping an unloving “fine” at him as she reaches around her back to undo the clasp on her bralette, slipping her arms through the straps and yanking it out from under her shirt. “Here,” she says with a mocking grin, holding the hot pink lace out for him. “Will that do?”

“If you looked like a girl scout I’d already have cleared out your fucking thin mints. So no,” Cain snaps back, unable to help himself. The attitude on this kid! It’s starting to feel like it’s just a thing for interrogators to be snotty little shits. There must be something about the job that pulls the assholes right out of the woodwork. Cain’s opens his mouth to drop that hot take on her when he’s got to stop and shut the fuck up because something wildly horrible is happening and he is way too high to deal with it.

TASK: WORDBUILDING LOCATION 2: EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK

Known as the largest subtropical biome in the United States, the Everglades are home to countless species ranging from the manatee to the Florida panther. Millions visit the Everglades every year to boat, fish and marvel at the wildlife. As the wetland is home to a number of carnivorous species it’s the #1 place to go for body disposal.  It’s also served as a refuge for many mutants unable to live peacefully in a human society (re: mutants with visible physical mutations). Go deep enough into the marshes and islands and you may stumble upon the home of one of these glade mutants.

TASK: WORLDBUILDING LOCATION 1: THE MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Jack’s about to say what kind of asshole would feel loved while being mugged, but that is how he met his last ex, so. Maybe not so much ground to stand on there. He glares daggers in the stranger’s direction anyway and opens his mouth to throw out some other cutting remark, but whatever response he has dies on his lips as he catches a familiar… scent. A very particular combination of aromas. Watermelon and weed.

For a moment he goes scary-still, tense as a house cat sensing an approaching earthquake as everything slots into place in his mind. Then, without warning, he surges forward, grabbing the other man by the front of the shirt. “You,” he hisses. “Asshole.” 

Jack’s only ever seen the man’s back before, hunched away from him and oblivious to his burning stare, but now that he knows who he’s looking at the resemblance is obvious. Jack’s spent a good amount of his time in Miami with his forehead pressed up against the back window of his apartment, craning awkwardly for a view into his neighbor’s place. Looking for a face to assign his loathing, a glimpse of the man who’s relegated him to a life of stifling, sweaty apartment air. 

This man is the reason Jack’s been so hell-bent on fixing his A/C in the first place, the reason he’s out tonight trying to find some relief in the breeze-less, dead Miami night. With his windows closed Jack’s apartment might as well be an oven, set to the perfect temperature to bake one 6-foot tall, very irritable man to a very sweaty crisp. The humidity is the worst part, flattening his hair and pressing it to his forehead until he looks more like a teenager in need of a ProActiv subscription and a shower than a dangerous mutant gang member. It’s like drowning out of water, an impossible atmosphere for sleep or focus.

With his windows open however, comes that overwhelming, faintly-nauseating smell. Watermelon and weed, sickly sweet and deeply earthy and all too much, too distracting, coming from the apartment next door. It’s like the guy has a knack for knowing when Jack needs to focus the most just so he can throw him off at the crucial moment, pulling him back into the useless physical world at the worst times. It doesn’t matter if they’ve never actually met; to Jack the rivalry is real and personal.

Jack’s meager survival skills kick back in and he lets the man go a moment after grabbing him, but he doesn’t back up. So the guy’s half-mountain, fine. Doesn’t give him an excuse to be the shittiest neighbor ever. “You’re the guy in apartment 301, aren’t you?” It’s not a question. He jabs him in the chest with one accusatory finger. “The smoker who doesn’t give a fuck about basic fucking apartment etiquette. It’s you.” Jack doesn’t care how unhinged he sounds. He’s had a tiring, shitty day, and was all ready to take it all out on the first unlucky asshole to cross his path anyway. The fact it happens to be this particular asshole is just a special gift from the universe.

Acrylic decorated fingertips are already calling forth enough voltage to take a man of his height out as the stranger approaches. She keeps her wariness tucked away, hidden from sight. He’s taller than the body in the trunk, broader too – the thought is pushed aside quickly, trying to steer her panic away, electricity fading. Surprise is what quells it for good. She hasn’t tasted fear in some time, chemical-flavoured on her tongue, her pulse flickering like a jump-started car. 

“I don’t–” Her smile falters at his offer, dropping from her lips, unable to get the forced laugh in the back of her throat to catch. All she does instead is exhale, soundless and dry-mouthed. The certainty in his voice tells her that he knows the secret currently jammed into the back of the vehicle, that he isn’t just bluffing. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that he’s been sent here by her client. “Listen, I did the job, ok? I have the information I was asked to get. He just– he started crying and talking about his family and it pissed me off and I got carried away.” She kicks at a hubcap with the tip of her sneaker, residue frustration at the dead man remaining. Her voice drops to a low, miserable grumble. “Didn’t mean to fucking kill him, though.” 

Moving to the rear, she presses down and feels the trunk open, allowing mechanisms to lift the door and expose the pallid flesh within, lit by a faint electric light that casts gaunt shadows over the scene. “He’s heavier now that he’s dead and all stiffened up,” she points out, stepping aside to allow the man beside her take a look and do whatever he needs to do. “Do you know if I’m still going to get paid?”

Let’s go to the beach, beach! || Cain & Luca

Luca snorted. She wasn’t sure why she was always so attached to the cooler and more “stand-offish” people. Maybe because none of them seemed interested in her, which she found just well. And most of them were such fun to annoy, it was her favourite past time to annoy those dumb idiots. She loved it, which was why she smiled mischievous at Cain. “Well thank you for those geography classes, they are much appreciated. Do you know where the closest Starbucks is? ORRR we could go fight some alligators! We’re Florida men now, we should do some dumb shit!”

Tierney’s first act of business in Miami had been to find a place for his bikes. His second act of business had been to find a new bar. Nothing fancy, Tierney didn’t like having to dress up to go out drinking, but he wasn’t going to settle for a total hole in the wall sort of place either. It had taken him a while, but when he’d found it he’d been perfectly content to become a regular. What he hadn’t expected to find was a drinking buddy. He didn’t know jack about the guy, outside of what he liked to drink. Which is just fine by him.

It’s easy enough to smirk at him as he takes up a sport next to him at the bar. He waves the bartender over and orders the first thing that comes to mind, shoving it to Cain and taking a long drink. “You’re going to have to split the bill if you want anything stronger. Do I look like a top shelf liquor man to you?”

“Nah,” Cain says honestly, tossing back the drink in one long gulp. He looms over the seat nearest Tierney looking equal parts annoying and scary until the person there coughs and pays their tab and leaves.  “You look like the kinda guy who likes to get drunk on dogshit swill if it’ll save him a couple bucks,” Cain says honestly, folding himself into the seat and knocking at the bar until the bartender wanders back over. “I’ve got the second round,” Cain says, ordering something slightly less terrible tasting. Nights with T aren’t really the sloppy wasted kind of nights and if he’s going to be stuck sipping on something for most of the night it’s not going to be something that came in a plastic bottle.  “So, how the fuck are you doing?”

Derek had guessed he’d eventually die by drowning. It made the most sense; underwater was one of the only places he couldn’t use his powers, and it was unlikely anyone with dangerous intentions would be getting close enough to take him out otherwise. The bathtub part is a surprise, though.

He gives up after a moment, the familiar strength of Cain’s hand on his throat more than he knows he can fight against. He’d be wasting precious oxygen struggling, when he knows the only way to make it out of this is to wait for the guy to come to his senses, and remember that inter-gang homicide is generally frowned upon by their boss. When he eventually lets up, Derek comes up gasping, scrabbling against the tile with all the desperation he’d pent-up trying to stay calm. He heaves his body half up and over the edge of the tub, spitting up water onto the floor. When he’s done, he glowers up at Cain from his crouch.

Cain’s words hurt worse than any punch he could throw at Derek. He grits his teeth, feeling the first of his resolve start to waver, the sore spots on his body beginning to command attention. Of course he’d known he fucked up, but how it was going to be taken by the rest of the gang, well– he’d hoped they’d have understood. That he was doing it for them, and the rest had been a big mistake.

A million snappy retorts come to mind while Cain waits for his answer, clearly fuming, but what Derek says instead is, “I know I’m part of a family.” Feeling suddenly exhausted, he slides back into the tub like it’s a bath, pushing wet hair out of his eyes. For the first time since the fight started, he looks at Cain directly, ignoring his question– there’s something else he’s got to get clear first. “Do you really think he’d kick me out? Over–” he gestures vaguely ahead of him, then adds, almost too low to hear, “Over an accident?”

Cain feels it when the fight goes out of Park. The satisfaction he gets from it is honestly kind of threatening. It’s the same feeling he gets from watching those videos of women cutting up kinetic sand on the internet. It’s a weird calm interest that he knows he could and should probably exit away from pretty soon but just after one more video, one more dunk of Derek’s precious little head into the water. He’s got to force his fingers to uncurl from Park’s hair one by one and then he just lets the other man gasp and half flop over the side of the tub like a sad little fish. He doubts Park’s going to be much of a threat to him, powers or not. You don’t come back from basically being dead without it taking a lot out of you, even if it takes a good chunk out of Cain too.