Strangers Like Me(Wicked, Open)

[sarashadow]

As soon as she commented on his smile, it vanished from his face and back into the flat line again. Crux didn't know why he never smiled. He didn't trust himself enough to be that happy, he supposed. He'd let himself be happy before, a few times, in his past, and every time he'd ended up killing someone. Ever since he hasn't been able to let himself be happy again.

He'd been told many times he had a great smile, but he never thought he did. Actually, he'd gotten a million compliments on just about every part of him, from his hair to his eyes to his muscular arms, but he never thought much of them. He hated attention in any form. But, if he'd been raised the way Ace had been, on stage at age 5, maybe he wouldn't mind attention so much.

"I can't picture you doing anything stupid," he admitted, no sign that his smile was returning.

[ace]

When his smile vanished, she recoiled as if she had just been struck across the face. She bit her bottom lip and looked down, feeling as if she had done something wrong. She swallowed a lump in her throat and wrung her hands behind her back unsure of what to say.

Ace pursed her lips together to keep back a roar of laughter, but it errupted dispite her efforts. She doubled over, clutching her sides, nearly losing her balance again, but she countered it by leaning back on the wall.

"Oh, if some of my friends from the theater heard you say that they all would have peed on themselves. Before my...powers came, I had just gotten my first big role. Like big big role. They congratulated me by complying a collection of me doing imbecilic things since beginning my show business career. It's always good to watch if I'm in a bad mood. I'm one of those weird people that laughs when they do something stupid or painful."

[sarashadow]

Crux hated it when he saw the awkward look on her face. But then she was laughing hysterically. And even though he had no idea why, it was still better than that awkward silence. As she explained, he was still just surprised at how talented she must be. Getting a big role in New York at such a young age was really impressive.

As he thought about it, he used to laugh at his own mistakes and clumsiness, a really long time ago. He never really thought about those memories before until now. He'd made a few slip-ups himself. That was 20 years ago now. But he added anyway, "I used to laugh at myself, too."

[ace]

Ace merely smiled sweetly at him.

"You know, laughing at yourself is really the best thing that you can possibly do. Granted, you learn from your mistakes, but there's no crime in finding humor in them. I accidentally broke my brother's arm while we were convinced we were super heroes so we tried to jump off the roof. He followed through, but I chickened out. I used to tease him for his stupidity for that day and he could constantly call me gutless because of it. It became a good memory, somehow."

Acelyyn felt a tickle in her nose and released a massive sneeze doubling over and furling her hair over her face. "God bless me." she stated under her breath.

[sarashadow]

Crux listened to her story about her brother's broken arm. It sounded similar to the stuff he used to do when he was younger. But they were never happy memories for him, but only because all the other people who were part of those memories were dead.

And then he could help but smile a little when she sneezed and huge sneeze. He was going to say bless you but she beat him to it. He barely managed to hold back a laugh. "Do you always sneeze like that?" he asked, his smile finally returning.

[ace]

She shrugged at his question, her mane of red hair still hanging over her face.

"Sometimes it's worse. Once I sneezed and I ended up falling off the stage and into a tuba. It was bad...and a bit painful, to be frank."

Ace pulled her hair away and saw him smile, her own grin pulling across her face.

"You're smiling! You're not a robot!"

[sarashadow]

Crux's smile grew a tiny bit when he pictured her falling into a tuba. Then she pulled her bright red hair out of her face. He managed to looked down before meeting her eyes. His eyes were very fast, thanks to many many years of practice to avoid eye contact.

"You're not the first person to call me a robot," he admitted. That's what his little sisters used to call him when he was grumpy. His smile faded a little bit at remembering them, but it was still there.

[ace]

“I never called you a robot, I just had a bit of a hunch that you were one, or at least slowly turning into one. I’ll be you have a beating heart with blood and everything!”

Now, it was clear she was teasing him. Being her own playful self. That was what she had grown to love about being with The Runaways. She still had to be especially careful, yes, but she could still be herself without having to worry about it.

“I think I might actually have the tuba sneeze recorded if you’d like to see it. The story really doesn’t do the event justice.”

[sarashadow]

Crux just shook his head with a smirk as she teased him. It was rare that someone even really talked to him, and never in a friendly way like Ace. He knew that her attitude toward him could easily change when she learned about the rest of his abilities. That always changes everyone's judgement of him. But he was used to it after all these years. He wouldn't be surprised if his powers murdered any kind of friendship she had with him.

When she mentioned the tuba again, he barely managed to hold back his chuckle. "Sure." He knew a normal person who say more than just one word, but he was one of the most unsocial people you'll ever see.

[ace]

Acelyyn was far from judgmental, especially here. She was fully aware of the fact that many of the other runaways could easily kill her, but she could do the same to them so she didn’t judge based on someone’s powers. Any actions were normally unintentional and she had come to see that accidents happen and someone didn’t deserve to be outcasted because of it.

“I’ll take that as a ‘I want to see you fall into a tuba.’” she laughed. “I’ll be right back.”

She vanished into her room and returned with her computer hoisted onto her hand as she searched for the video, sitting down on the ground with her legs crossed as she placed the computer on the ground and pressing play on the video. She was plain to see amid the crowd of tango dancers. The company she was studying with her rehearsing the Tango Maureen from Rent. Everything seemed to be going fine until her partner dropped her, causing her to stumble forward and dive off the stage to land face first in a tuba. Ace fought back a laugh and winced as she watched herself in her bright red ballroom outfit, kicking violently to be freed from the gaping jaws of the instrument, her screams muffled.

“I would say good times, but that was just painful.” she laughed.

[sarashadow]

Crux waited patienty as she took off and brought back her laptop. He sat down beside her, not too close, of course, and watched the video. He couldn't help but smile at her muffled screams and her violent kicks. He'd made plenty of foolish and clumsy mishaps when he was younger, and even some after his powers were discovered. He could definitely say the childhood and teenager ones were p"good times" but he rather say nothing at all about the more recent ones.

"It looks painful," he admitted, nodding slightly. "I hope no one gave you a hard time about it, though." He knew that his clumsiness got a bunch of stares and laughter thrown in his face, sometimes for weeks before they finally let him be. But he hoped for her sake that her mistakes weren't as brutal as his.

[ace]

She laughed lightly at this suggestion. She was constantly teased about her mishaps, and she had no problem with it because she teased herself right with her other 'attackers'.

"No, I was known as Tuba Tumbler for the rest of the production. They even moved the tuba placer far away from the front of the stage to ensure that it wouldn't happen again. It was funny. "

She closed her computer and drummed her nails on its plastic surface, unsure of what else to say.

[sarashadow]

Crux liked it when she laughed. It showed that not every mutant around here were depressed all the time like he seemed to be. When she explained about the tuba being moved, and her nickname, he just smiled. That sounded a lot funnier than the things the happened after his midhaps.

Come to think of it, he didn't have many memories that he could look back and laugh on. It wasn't that funny things didn't happen to him when he was a kid, it was just that they all involved his family. Any rememberence of his family, even if it was a happy memory, he could never seem to smile about.

He watched her fingers as they tapped quickly against the laptop cover. That probably meant she didn't like the awkward silence. but he didn't know what else to say, either. And so far, she'd done all the talking. But Crux wasn't that worried about it. He was sure that she could find something else to say.

[ace]

“So…do you like Broadway?”

She asked cautiously, glancing over at him. One could say she was obsessed with the stage. It wasn’t surprising though. It was all that she knew since she was a kid. It was difficult to not be a bit obsessed.

[sarashadow]

Crux hesitated then. "Well, I probably would," he admitted, "only I've never seen any kind of play on stage before..."

He knew that sounded terrible, especially to Ace, who grew up on stage. He waited to hear a gasp or something from her shock. Not that he'd ever really wanted to see a play when he was younger. Even if he had, his health issues would've gotten in the way. Of course, those issues vanished when his mutant powers appeared. Although now, if he thought he could get in and out without hurting someone, he wouldn't argue to go see a broadway play.