Felix & Cecil, last Tuesday afternoon
Apr. 15th, 2014 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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om_mainFelix catches Cecil in the hall, and they have a spirited getting-to-know you. Plus, invisible wildlife who leave festive incendiary devices, the existential nature of mountains, and future dreams.
Felix hitched his school bag up on his shoulder and wasted a few seconds adjusting it, letting the rest of his last class rush out of the room ahead of him. He did not relish the idea of getting caught close between several of his classmates eager to be done with school. A daily panic attack was not something he needed.
A few steps behind everyone else, Felix wandered out of his classroom, and right away caught sight of someone new in the hall. It would be hard to ignore those all-black eyes even if the fellow wasn't rather cute, and Felix smiled automatically. "Hi," he greeted breathlessly, walking up to the boy, growing ever more certain who he was with each step. "You're Cecil, aren't you? We talked on your journal?"
Cecil turned with a bit of surprise as someone appeared beside him, but his answering smile was entirely on reflex. "Hello," he said brightly enough. "I spoke to many people yesterday. Which of them are you?"
Belatedly, Felix remembered that he hadn't mentioned any of his (numerous) physical oddities during their online conversation, and he laughed lightly. He knew he was hard to mistake; even behind the black-rimmed glasses he still wore from class, his mis-matched eyes were startling in their color, and he was no longer trying to hide the designs on his hands while at school. He tended to style his hair thick and curly and to one side, dusting his fair forehead.
"It's Felix," he clarified. "I'm the one with the dream powers. Astral powers, the Professor says. Are you done with class now?"
"Oh! The dreamer, of course," Cecil said, somehow managing to perk up further. While he had no problem meeting anyone who chose to introduce themselves, it was a bit nice for it to possibly be someone who wouldn't just call him 'weird'. "How are your dual planes today? And yes," he added with a blink. "Why?"
Why? "So we can talk without having to rush," Felix answered the second question, first. Then he tipped his head down the hallway, toward more house-like and less school-like part of the manor, where the kitchen was. "Come on, let's go have a snack. I'm mostly on this plane today, and this plane has some pre-emptive Easter candy in the kitchen. Do you like Reese's eggs?"
"I do like chocolate," Cecil agreed, and agreeably turned in the direction Felix had indicated. From his travels, he did have a vague sense of where the kitchen was, but it was no hardship to let Felix lead. "I'm not particularly good at celebrating holidays, though."
"Neither am I," Felix said thoughtfully, strolling down the hallway. He was used to shortening his strides for Caius, but Cecil was as tall as he was, so there was no need. That was nice. "I hadn't thought about it, though. People here really like parties, so there's a great big one for Halloween, and things around Christmas. Easter is largely about the candy, though, isn't it? The bit about the invisible rabbit laying eggs around the yard always seemed rather suspect to me."
"The rabbit is invisible?" That was new to Cecil, but after considering it for a moment, his eyes widened a little. "Then how do you find the eggs? I hope no one has exploded them by accident, that would be terrible."
Felix considered. Perhaps 'invisible' was the wrong word. "No one ever sees the rabbit, or isn't supposed to see the rabbit. The eggs are visible for... some reason, but the rabbit isn't supposed to be seen. You're supposed to believe in it, but not look for it." There, he paused, turning to Cecil with some concern showing in his expression.
"Does that make any sense?"
"Oh, yes," Cecil said with a somewhat solemn nod. "Belief is important, of course, especially with that which must not be seen. And as long as the eggs are clearly marked with the appropriate warning signs, that all seems fine." It was good that some things stayed the same, no matter how much his surroundings had changed.
"They are traditionally brightly colored," Felix confirmed, his smile blossoming again instantly. "And many of them rattle alarmingly. Sometimes pleasantly, if there's money in them."
"Money?" Cecil blinked. "Wouldn't that be a bit dangerous when they explode? More dangerous than the exploding itself, at least. Coins can be rather painful at high velocities, from what I hear."
"I've never heard of the eggs exploding." Felix looked pensive, stepping into the kitchen once they'd reached it. "But I've never hunted them, either. Is it a common egg defensive tactic?"
"Well, not all of them. It's a holiday thing," Cecil said with a slight shrug. "As far as I know, at least."
Felix did not look very certain about that, but Cecil seemed convinced, so who was he to question? He plunked his school bag down on the counter, and chased away his solemn expression with a sparkling-sweet smile for the other boy. "I suppose that's why we don't practice celebrating it. Far too dangerous. These eggs, though, are perfectly safe."
From the fridge he produced a bright yellow package of six Reese's eggs, marked clearly with his name in black marker. He opened it up and handed one egg to Cecil. "I've already tested a few packages; not one has ever exploded."
"Very thorough," Cecil said approvingly, and accepted the egg with a bright, grateful smile. And promptly turned to tap it twice against the counter before absently beginning to unwrap it. "Thank you," he added, slightly muffled as he bit on a piece of the chocolate.
Oh, that was precious. Felix was immediately taken with Cecil's unusual, yet perfectly reasonable, behavior. Odd people were ever so much more interesting. Especially if they were odder than Felix himself. Giggling, he unwrapped his own chocolate. "You started classes already? Even though the semester's almost over?"
Cecil glanced up at him, head cocked almost curiously. "Well," he said, drawing the word out a bit. "What else would I do? Also, I've been informed that I have a great deal of catching up to do." He shook his head a little, not quite sure what to do with that information.
After a bite of peanut-buttery-chocolate consideration, Felix nodded. That was a good point; what else would he do? Between bites, he offered in what he hoped was a sympathetic tone, "You haven't gone to school in awhile, either?"
"Oh no, I have." The Sheriff's Secret Police's general retribution for truancy did not bear thinking about. Cecil made a slight face anyway. "I just gather that the Night Vale's school curriculum and the one here do not match up very well."
"They'll help," Felix said with confidence. "The teachers, the assistants, and the actual certified geniuses here, they'll help. I missed all kinds of school, but I caught up. They're good teachers."
"Why did you miss school?" Cecil gave him a look of easy curiosity as he finished off the egg. "Was someone in your family planning on voting incorrectly?"
Felix did his best not to look confused. There were a lot of things in the world (the real world) with which he had no experience; he was becoming practiced at pretending. Instead, he turned his furrowed forehead and small frown into an expression of careful contemplation. "I don't think I have any family, so I don't think that was it. I didn't live close enough to a school to attend regularly."
That was enough of the truth to pass muster, Felix decided. Besides, it wasn't a lie. There weren't a lot of schools in the middle of the Ozark mountains, even if he had been allowed to leave.
Cecil considered that for a moment or so before his eyes widened in understanding. "You said you lived on a mountain, right? That must be very strange." And if he was still a little unsure about the whole mountain thing in the first place, he was at least polite enough not to say so.
"Oh, darling, you have no idea." Those were Eames' words, in Felix's own voice, but he thought that he rather liked them once they were out. Quickly, he qualified, "Though it isn't a mountain like you normally think of one, all massive and purple with snow on top. They're just... far. Far away from everything."
He didn't mean for his voice to soften and trail off, but it did, and he quickly popped the end of his candy into his mouth to sweeten the taste.
There was a long moment where Cecil just let that sink in. Felix seemed very trustworthy, and as much as he didn't want to question him. Well..."And you're...completely sure they're real?"
That was a troubling question. Felix's patterned fingers twisted together, and he leaned back against the nearest counter, but not in a relaxed fashion. Not at all. How sure was he? Living with the Keevers, he'd been so small, the hills had seemed terribly large. Living with Lorenzo... nothing about that seemed real at all, and he'd almost never gone outside, anyway. "I don't know that I'm completely sure of anything," Felix said eventually. "But I know I stood on the rocks, and I saw the hills above me. I lived in a place that was real. That's as much as I know."
"Many things seem real, when we are in them," Cecil said, easy and conversational. "Perhaps nothing is truly real, except for a loose connection of moment by moment occurrences, entirely real at the time and then fading forever. But you're right, that was a bit rude of me to ask. I apologize."
Felix's eyes grew wider as Cecil spoke, caught and fascinated by the way he talked and the words he chose. It was like poetry, almost, or like a speech in a play. Felix very much wanted him to do it again. "Oh... n-not at all! That was... kind of amazing. Are you a philosopher?"
Cecil blinked, startled out of the track his mind had begun to wander into. "Well, not officially or anything. What's amazing?"
"The way you talk. You just came up with something so profound out of nowhere. And you're nice," Felix decided, his smile growing brighter to match his eyes. "You don't need to be official."
"Oh. Thank you," Cecil said with his own pleased little smile. "I had always wanted to go into radio, so I suppose that's a good first step."
Felix latched on to the idea right away. People's dreams for themselves often influenced what he saw for them, when his vision went odd and astral. He hadn't looked for Cecil, yet, but he didn't have perfect control and sometimes the visions slipped in without his calling on them. "What is it about radio that you like?"
Odd. No one had ever asked him that before. Even when they'd brought him in as an intern, it had just been an accepted thing. But Felix had asked, so Cecil took a moment or so to think about it. "You have to understand," he said finally, slowly, "that Night Vale is a rather small town, comparatively. And the radio station is...the heart of it, I suppose. The mouth. The center of everything and everyone. I like the idea of that, being involved and sharing it back."
Wasn't that the sweetest thing? Felix caught his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, before venturing, almost shyly, "Because you like your town and your home. That's kind of lovely."
"Thank you," Cecil said cheerfully. "Though it is also nice to travel a little. See the world and all that."
It was on the tip of Felix's tongue to offer to go with him somewhere, even just to Salem Center, until a tiny surge of panic reminded him how scary it was to leave Xavier's. "I... hope you get to see all of it, Cecil."
"Someday, maybe. And you?" Cecil fixed him with a smile, nothing but brightly curious. "What do you want to see?"
Oops. Felix had let the conversation get away and it had come back to him. Usually, he was quicker than that. Still, it didn't take him any time at all to answer. "Oh, Japan! Shinobi -- he's a student here -- says he's going to take me one day. It seems so exotic and fascinating, and Japanese fashion is just... inspired."
That was all news to Cecil, but he nodded along anyway as if it was perfectly understood. "That does sound nice."
Felix nodded enthusiastically. "Though Xavier's is pretty exotic, to start. Most schools don't have flying classmates."
Cecil paused, as if genuinely considering it. "Most," he agreed finally.
A giggle escaped Felix, and he clasped his hands before his chest as if he'd just decided something. "I'm going to introduce you to all of my friends. Caius, and Remus, and Benton, and River. Oh, and Fox! You must meet Fox, he'll be fascinated about your town. He is a boy," Felix added, confidentially, "not an actual fox."
"Alright," Cecil said with easy, unhesitating acceptance. "I do like meeting people. Whether they are foxes or not."
Felix hitched his school bag up on his shoulder and wasted a few seconds adjusting it, letting the rest of his last class rush out of the room ahead of him. He did not relish the idea of getting caught close between several of his classmates eager to be done with school. A daily panic attack was not something he needed.
A few steps behind everyone else, Felix wandered out of his classroom, and right away caught sight of someone new in the hall. It would be hard to ignore those all-black eyes even if the fellow wasn't rather cute, and Felix smiled automatically. "Hi," he greeted breathlessly, walking up to the boy, growing ever more certain who he was with each step. "You're Cecil, aren't you? We talked on your journal?"
Cecil turned with a bit of surprise as someone appeared beside him, but his answering smile was entirely on reflex. "Hello," he said brightly enough. "I spoke to many people yesterday. Which of them are you?"
Belatedly, Felix remembered that he hadn't mentioned any of his (numerous) physical oddities during their online conversation, and he laughed lightly. He knew he was hard to mistake; even behind the black-rimmed glasses he still wore from class, his mis-matched eyes were startling in their color, and he was no longer trying to hide the designs on his hands while at school. He tended to style his hair thick and curly and to one side, dusting his fair forehead.
"It's Felix," he clarified. "I'm the one with the dream powers. Astral powers, the Professor says. Are you done with class now?"
"Oh! The dreamer, of course," Cecil said, somehow managing to perk up further. While he had no problem meeting anyone who chose to introduce themselves, it was a bit nice for it to possibly be someone who wouldn't just call him 'weird'. "How are your dual planes today? And yes," he added with a blink. "Why?"
Why? "So we can talk without having to rush," Felix answered the second question, first. Then he tipped his head down the hallway, toward more house-like and less school-like part of the manor, where the kitchen was. "Come on, let's go have a snack. I'm mostly on this plane today, and this plane has some pre-emptive Easter candy in the kitchen. Do you like Reese's eggs?"
"I do like chocolate," Cecil agreed, and agreeably turned in the direction Felix had indicated. From his travels, he did have a vague sense of where the kitchen was, but it was no hardship to let Felix lead. "I'm not particularly good at celebrating holidays, though."
"Neither am I," Felix said thoughtfully, strolling down the hallway. He was used to shortening his strides for Caius, but Cecil was as tall as he was, so there was no need. That was nice. "I hadn't thought about it, though. People here really like parties, so there's a great big one for Halloween, and things around Christmas. Easter is largely about the candy, though, isn't it? The bit about the invisible rabbit laying eggs around the yard always seemed rather suspect to me."
"The rabbit is invisible?" That was new to Cecil, but after considering it for a moment, his eyes widened a little. "Then how do you find the eggs? I hope no one has exploded them by accident, that would be terrible."
Felix considered. Perhaps 'invisible' was the wrong word. "No one ever sees the rabbit, or isn't supposed to see the rabbit. The eggs are visible for... some reason, but the rabbit isn't supposed to be seen. You're supposed to believe in it, but not look for it." There, he paused, turning to Cecil with some concern showing in his expression.
"Does that make any sense?"
"Oh, yes," Cecil said with a somewhat solemn nod. "Belief is important, of course, especially with that which must not be seen. And as long as the eggs are clearly marked with the appropriate warning signs, that all seems fine." It was good that some things stayed the same, no matter how much his surroundings had changed.
"They are traditionally brightly colored," Felix confirmed, his smile blossoming again instantly. "And many of them rattle alarmingly. Sometimes pleasantly, if there's money in them."
"Money?" Cecil blinked. "Wouldn't that be a bit dangerous when they explode? More dangerous than the exploding itself, at least. Coins can be rather painful at high velocities, from what I hear."
"I've never heard of the eggs exploding." Felix looked pensive, stepping into the kitchen once they'd reached it. "But I've never hunted them, either. Is it a common egg defensive tactic?"
"Well, not all of them. It's a holiday thing," Cecil said with a slight shrug. "As far as I know, at least."
Felix did not look very certain about that, but Cecil seemed convinced, so who was he to question? He plunked his school bag down on the counter, and chased away his solemn expression with a sparkling-sweet smile for the other boy. "I suppose that's why we don't practice celebrating it. Far too dangerous. These eggs, though, are perfectly safe."
From the fridge he produced a bright yellow package of six Reese's eggs, marked clearly with his name in black marker. He opened it up and handed one egg to Cecil. "I've already tested a few packages; not one has ever exploded."
"Very thorough," Cecil said approvingly, and accepted the egg with a bright, grateful smile. And promptly turned to tap it twice against the counter before absently beginning to unwrap it. "Thank you," he added, slightly muffled as he bit on a piece of the chocolate.
Oh, that was precious. Felix was immediately taken with Cecil's unusual, yet perfectly reasonable, behavior. Odd people were ever so much more interesting. Especially if they were odder than Felix himself. Giggling, he unwrapped his own chocolate. "You started classes already? Even though the semester's almost over?"
Cecil glanced up at him, head cocked almost curiously. "Well," he said, drawing the word out a bit. "What else would I do? Also, I've been informed that I have a great deal of catching up to do." He shook his head a little, not quite sure what to do with that information.
After a bite of peanut-buttery-chocolate consideration, Felix nodded. That was a good point; what else would he do? Between bites, he offered in what he hoped was a sympathetic tone, "You haven't gone to school in awhile, either?"
"Oh no, I have." The Sheriff's Secret Police's general retribution for truancy did not bear thinking about. Cecil made a slight face anyway. "I just gather that the Night Vale's school curriculum and the one here do not match up very well."
"They'll help," Felix said with confidence. "The teachers, the assistants, and the actual certified geniuses here, they'll help. I missed all kinds of school, but I caught up. They're good teachers."
"Why did you miss school?" Cecil gave him a look of easy curiosity as he finished off the egg. "Was someone in your family planning on voting incorrectly?"
Felix did his best not to look confused. There were a lot of things in the world (the real world) with which he had no experience; he was becoming practiced at pretending. Instead, he turned his furrowed forehead and small frown into an expression of careful contemplation. "I don't think I have any family, so I don't think that was it. I didn't live close enough to a school to attend regularly."
That was enough of the truth to pass muster, Felix decided. Besides, it wasn't a lie. There weren't a lot of schools in the middle of the Ozark mountains, even if he had been allowed to leave.
Cecil considered that for a moment or so before his eyes widened in understanding. "You said you lived on a mountain, right? That must be very strange." And if he was still a little unsure about the whole mountain thing in the first place, he was at least polite enough not to say so.
"Oh, darling, you have no idea." Those were Eames' words, in Felix's own voice, but he thought that he rather liked them once they were out. Quickly, he qualified, "Though it isn't a mountain like you normally think of one, all massive and purple with snow on top. They're just... far. Far away from everything."
He didn't mean for his voice to soften and trail off, but it did, and he quickly popped the end of his candy into his mouth to sweeten the taste.
There was a long moment where Cecil just let that sink in. Felix seemed very trustworthy, and as much as he didn't want to question him. Well..."And you're...completely sure they're real?"
That was a troubling question. Felix's patterned fingers twisted together, and he leaned back against the nearest counter, but not in a relaxed fashion. Not at all. How sure was he? Living with the Keevers, he'd been so small, the hills had seemed terribly large. Living with Lorenzo... nothing about that seemed real at all, and he'd almost never gone outside, anyway. "I don't know that I'm completely sure of anything," Felix said eventually. "But I know I stood on the rocks, and I saw the hills above me. I lived in a place that was real. That's as much as I know."
"Many things seem real, when we are in them," Cecil said, easy and conversational. "Perhaps nothing is truly real, except for a loose connection of moment by moment occurrences, entirely real at the time and then fading forever. But you're right, that was a bit rude of me to ask. I apologize."
Felix's eyes grew wider as Cecil spoke, caught and fascinated by the way he talked and the words he chose. It was like poetry, almost, or like a speech in a play. Felix very much wanted him to do it again. "Oh... n-not at all! That was... kind of amazing. Are you a philosopher?"
Cecil blinked, startled out of the track his mind had begun to wander into. "Well, not officially or anything. What's amazing?"
"The way you talk. You just came up with something so profound out of nowhere. And you're nice," Felix decided, his smile growing brighter to match his eyes. "You don't need to be official."
"Oh. Thank you," Cecil said with his own pleased little smile. "I had always wanted to go into radio, so I suppose that's a good first step."
Felix latched on to the idea right away. People's dreams for themselves often influenced what he saw for them, when his vision went odd and astral. He hadn't looked for Cecil, yet, but he didn't have perfect control and sometimes the visions slipped in without his calling on them. "What is it about radio that you like?"
Odd. No one had ever asked him that before. Even when they'd brought him in as an intern, it had just been an accepted thing. But Felix had asked, so Cecil took a moment or so to think about it. "You have to understand," he said finally, slowly, "that Night Vale is a rather small town, comparatively. And the radio station is...the heart of it, I suppose. The mouth. The center of everything and everyone. I like the idea of that, being involved and sharing it back."
Wasn't that the sweetest thing? Felix caught his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, before venturing, almost shyly, "Because you like your town and your home. That's kind of lovely."
"Thank you," Cecil said cheerfully. "Though it is also nice to travel a little. See the world and all that."
It was on the tip of Felix's tongue to offer to go with him somewhere, even just to Salem Center, until a tiny surge of panic reminded him how scary it was to leave Xavier's. "I... hope you get to see all of it, Cecil."
"Someday, maybe. And you?" Cecil fixed him with a smile, nothing but brightly curious. "What do you want to see?"
Oops. Felix had let the conversation get away and it had come back to him. Usually, he was quicker than that. Still, it didn't take him any time at all to answer. "Oh, Japan! Shinobi -- he's a student here -- says he's going to take me one day. It seems so exotic and fascinating, and Japanese fashion is just... inspired."
That was all news to Cecil, but he nodded along anyway as if it was perfectly understood. "That does sound nice."
Felix nodded enthusiastically. "Though Xavier's is pretty exotic, to start. Most schools don't have flying classmates."
Cecil paused, as if genuinely considering it. "Most," he agreed finally.
A giggle escaped Felix, and he clasped his hands before his chest as if he'd just decided something. "I'm going to introduce you to all of my friends. Caius, and Remus, and Benton, and River. Oh, and Fox! You must meet Fox, he'll be fascinated about your town. He is a boy," Felix added, confidentially, "not an actual fox."
"Alright," Cecil said with easy, unhesitating acceptance. "I do like meeting people. Whether they are foxes or not."
