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After the ringing of the school bell finishes echoing through the halls, Donnie steps out of the building among the throng of exiting students intent on their own endeavors.

He hears a voice call out, "Hey." He turns to see Alicia, perched on the back of a bench with her legs tucked in.

Without her shades to hide her eyes, her mood is simple to discern, and it's easy to see no challenge or hostility in them. She's just sitting there, her chin resting on her knees, looking at him expectantly.

Donnie turns at her call and eyes her warily as other students pass him by. As the crowd thins out, he takes a few steps towards Alicia's perch.

"Yes?"

Now that he has his attention, Alicia seems unsure what to say.

"Wanna talk?" she finally offers lamely.

Donnie relaxes, and with her preternatural senses Alicia realizes he was ready for a fight, whether physical or verbal.

He takes a seat near her and drops his bag on the open space next to him.

Donnie sighs. "We've been off-kilter ever since we met. It's maddening."

"If by that you mean, we've been hissing at each other like two toms fighting over a scrap of fish, s**t yeah," Alicia agrees, companionably.

"I'll be damned if I know why."

She chuckles. "Well, I do have some idea."

Donnie takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes tiredly, massaging the bridge of his nose.

"I think it's a number of things, really. You obviously have a real problem with telepaths. I imagine something terrible in your past has made you despise them, so when you found out Sylvia was one and had been subtly influencing you and damn near everyone else in the cafeteria, you flipped. I took that rather poorly, even though no one but Sammy got cut that day. I dunno, I think that's old news, but it has made me wary of you ever since. Sammy seems to trust you, lately it feels like only you."

He says this meditatively, staring out at the stragglers rushing to catch their busses home.

"Part of me is jealous that you seem to have become her boon companion, and whenever she and I joke with each other anymore, throwing insults around, you are always there, seconding everything she says and heaping exta comments on me. We used to shrug them off, but I can't seem to do that anymore. It makes things tense, and I get defensive and and angry."

Alicia unlimbers from her crouch, sliding down to sit next to Donnie.

"I've entered your territory and marked my place. You're threatened by it. I've tried to attack your mate so you feel you must protect her."

She chuckles, a bit darkly. "Jack once said the reason we're at odds is because we're too alike."

She turns to look at Donnie, her eyes displaying some inscrutable emotion. "I think he's right."

She coils up on the seat so that she ends up kneeling, her face close enough to Donnie's that he can feel her breath on his cheek.

"There's a beast inside you. I can sense it. It comes out when you're struck with an emotion. Anger, fear, joy... lust. You don't feel it. You become it. It engulfs you, compels you to surrender to it and let it loose."

Her eyes are inches from his. Whorls swirl in her golden eyes, her fully-open pupils like bottomless pools.

She says, softly enough to make it a whisper. "I know. I have one, too."

Donnie's heartbeat speeds up at her close proximity. While the golden whorls of her eyes are entrancing in their beauty, Donnie's reactions are more visible, as the green of his draconic side swirls into the grey-blue, as if a dollop of green is dropped into a bowl of cerulean. Alicia can suddenly feel heat radiating off of him, as if he were a sun-baked stone.

He stands and steps away. He breathes for a moment, and when he turns back, the green has faded.

"All you say is true, plus you are very obviously female. It... complicates things. You're a bully. You throw around your sexuality like a club, and damn near every teenage boy near you is affected by it. Plus you're dangerous. People like that bit of fear mixed in with the desire. Physically, I find you attractive. Who wouldn't? But mentally, I can't stand bullies. I have been picked on most of my life. Fat, pale, overweight, more interested in books than sports. I am prime bully material."

He shrugs and holds out his hand, clawing his fingers as Alicia does when she's trying to cut an opponent. For a moment, something like mist appears around his clawed hand, as if there were some kind of gauntlet forming, but he opens his hand and it's gone.

"Now, there is not a chance in hell someone would try to push me around without facing consequences. The first half of the year, I joined up with an underground, multi-school Fight Club. Y'know, like the movie. I won more than I lost, but I quit after the queen bitch Torrence Shipman did a tango in my head and I beat the shit out of Elrod one night because he supposedly deserved it for dissing Sammy. I had become used to the violence of fist on flesh, and that animalistic desire to devastate my foes was easily twisted to the bitch's desires. The fight club was shut down after someone got put in the hospital because they didn't stop it soon enough but I had already quit it though.

The whole reason I started to learn to fight was so I could defend myself and others. I always seem to be in the wrong place whenever someone I love is threatened or in danger though. Learning to fight hasn't improved my luck much. John or Sammy or Sarah always seem to be there when I'm not, always saving others."

Alicia's eyes grow wide and her breath catches in fascination.


Donnie's abrupt motion breaks the spell. Alicia blinks a couple of times, and releases her pent-up breath with a slight grunt.


As Donnie speaks, Alice leans back to drape herself on the bench. It's not a conscious action; she can't help but move smoothly and gracefully.


Donnie has Alicia's undivided attention.


Alicia's face is thoughtful. It's obvious she's taken what Donnie has said and is trying to process it. As he speaks, she slowly moves to sit forward, elbows resting on her knees. Her whole body acts like a mood ring, displaying where her mind is by her attitude.

There is no heat in her voice, but an earnestness to be understood underscores it. "I'm not sure how much of this you know, but I guess not much from what you're saying. A mind-f**ker went into my head and made me believe I was someone... who wasn't a very nice person. He did it to keep me from revealing what I had actually done for him. Colin helped me break through the crap sitting in my head, but..."

She grimaces. "For a while, things were all right, but I think whatever the pendejo did is coming back."

She rises smoothly from her seat, and the look directed at Donnie is cool and appraising. "You beat up Sammy's boyfriend because you thought you had a reason, then found out it wasn't true. I've been walking around feeling like that all the time. I think something and I'm not sure if it really came from me. I can't tell what's real."

She looks away, breaking eye contact. "There's nothing wrong with learning to fight. Life doesn't give anything for free. You either have to take it or pay the price for it." The words seem to come from a time and place she's not at all happy to be visiting again.

"At least I have the knowledge that Torrence's power has been severed. She's going to spend the rest of herr life without her powers, unless somehow she heals the gap. Until then, she's in a mental institution, where she belongs. You don't have that peace of mind, which makes things clearer for me why you sometimes act the way you do. Tell you something though, when Colin fixes someone, they stay fixed unless the cause of the problem comes back again. His ability is like a hot knife through butter when he uses it, and he cal peel away layers of self doubt and heal even the minor brain damage like what Torrence did to me. She actually severed connections in my head. Reality and her placed fantasy were two different and complete things in my head. I felt no remorse until after Colin healed me."

Donnie stretches, reaching his arms behind his back and popping his shoulders. He sits back down and reaches for his sneakered feet, limbering up.

"Like you, I think, I find physical activity to help clear the mental cobwebs. Did Sylvia give out assignments? I haven't texted her yet, because I know she's probably annoyed at me. She has a low tolerance for drama and attitudes.

A thought occurs to him and he smiles. "Hey, ever want to go hunting with me and Pip? I think you are the only person I know that would not be unnerved to see him hunt, except Rob. Probably Dave too."

"I know. I probably need to have Colin go in there again and find out if he missed something, but it's not something I'm looking forward to," she says unhappily.


Alicia shrugs. "I think she wanted you to help her out with talking to one of Strange's patients. It's funny to hear you say that, considering the baggage she carries around."


Alicia tilts her head, and her resemblance to a cat sharpens for a second. "Hunting? For what?"

"Healing wounds shouldn't be too easy. Each scar is a lesson, right?"



Donnie pretends innocence. "Sylvia? She has no baggage. She's pure as the driven snow. Just ask Logan." The last bit comes out a bit more bitter than he'd like, but he shrugs it off with a half smile.


"We started with mice, and he began teaching me to hunt. Mostly I was the blundering oaf, flushing out his game, but now I am learning his tricks. We're up to squirrels and rabbits. We once tackled a racoon. Damn things are nasty."

Alicia raises an eyebrow at Donnie's sally. "Damn straight. Like I said, anything you want in life has to be earned."


Alicia gets another eyebrow. "Take it or pay the price for it," she repeats again, softly.


Donnie succeeds in flooring Alicia. She looks at him, momentarily speechless. "You are so s**tting me."

Her laugh is honest and without malice, but then she sobers up. "Do you, ah, eat what you catch?"

Donnie smiles broadly. "Not me. Pip has a tremendous appetite though. I do know how to dress a kill however. My mom would be mortified, I think, which is half the fun of knowing it."  

He finishes his stretching and plops back down on the bench. "Pip's bite is poisonous. I have been slowly building up a resistance to it with the constant nips and bites I get when we play, but I don't think I could eat anything that he has given a full dosage to without getting sick."

"Hunting has gotten a lot easier since I mastered the flight spell. I'm to big and heavy in comparison to the creatures we hunt. I snap twigs, roll pebbles too much for his taste. But now when I float, I just need to keep upwind of our prey and learn how to maintain the spell and use my senses to hunt."


"What do you mean?"

"Oh, okay. Got it," Alicia replies, oddly uncomfortable with the topic. "S'not like I'd be eating anything like that..." Her dusky skin doesn't quite hide the blush creeping up her cheeks.

[Cut to a scene: "Alicia!" cries out Consuelo. The golden-eyed five year-old, crouching in a corner of the kitchen floor, looks up startled at her mother's cry, a long hairless tail sticking out of her mouth.]

After a few uncomfortable seconds of silence, she asks quickly, "So, am I guessing you're inviting me along to one of your hunts?"


Alicia grins. "Sounds to me like cheating."


Alicia turns serious and sighs. Her voice is soft as she sympathizes, "Donnie, I've been telling you, nothing in life comes free. Including..." she struggles to find the right word, and finally finishes lamely, "love."

She asks hastily, "Do you love Sylvia? Then earn her love."

Alicia's sitting slightly hunched, looking down, ankles crossed, a toe scratching on the ground. She's obviously not comfortable in the role of romantic advisor.

Donnie pretends not to notice the flush. A world class blusher himself, he recognizes the signs. "Sure. Pip would love to have someone as equally talented to hunt with as opposed to my fumbling. Flying is not cheating. Sneaking up on squrrels is frickin hard. They're so paranoid.."

"Love? What is love? I don't exactly come from a loving stable home life. My mom is a bitter alcoholic, though she's getting better. My dad is a cheating workaholic, which is likely why my mom is a bitter, lonely woman who rarely has anything nice to say. Hell, Sylvia's non-traditional homelife is more stable and happy than mine has ever been."

He shrugs.

"I do the best I can, but I worry constantly about it. I've gotten better, but I have to fight the jealous urges to defend my claim.

Alicia's grins. "That's what makes it so much fun to chase them."


Alicia nods sympathetically. "Tell me about it. Mom's been a single parent since the day I was born. I just found out about my dad a couple of weeks ago, and let's just say I'm not shopping for any Father's Day cards any time soon."


"Just don't fight them too much," advises Alicia. "It might help to show Sylvia how important she is to you."

Donnie pulls on his backback and snaps various buckles into place. He stands and offers Alicia a hand, which is the first time he's actually ever touched her (or offered to).

"Thanks for initiating the peace process. I'll try not to be so bitchy to you anymore. We usually go hunting Saturday morning. Call my cellphone when you roll out of bed and see if we haven't gone yet. Now I have a nice jog home since all the busses have left. I need the exercise anyway."

Alicia eyes the proferred hand, then stands up and solemnly takes it with a firm grip.

"I can't promise we won't butt heads again, or that I'll be any better after this, but at least we can try to see past each other's beast to the person beyond."

She grins as she throws off a jaunty salute, her golden eyes flashing with mischief. "See ya around, Lagartijo." A backflip over the bench, and she's off.

"Bye, kitty kat."

Donnie adjusts his pack and takes off for home at a slow jog.

OOC: Aaaand... cut!