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[boilover]

I'm getting real tired of getting dumped in strange places against my will. I don't like it.

[There's a low, dangerous growl of disapproval and the expression on Mick's face is not a pretty one. It's somewhat reminiscent of an angry bull. This was the second time in God knows how many days that Mick Rory has found himself stranded somewhere new and different, unsure what the hell is happening. It's not a good feeling. It didn't inspire much good will.

Though this is a definite improvement over the last place. For one, there's food. For another, he gets a free smart phone to yell at people over and voice his anger. Not bad. Though he did kind of think they went a little overboard with the white. What was with all the decorations anyway? This better not be like some low rent Christmas Town cause honestly, that sounded a lot like hell.]

You got five minutes to convince me not to torch this place to the ground cause I ain't in the mood to play nice right now. Somebody start talking. [The words come out as an angry snarl, teeth barred. He's not a happy bunny.]

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[boilover]

Nah.

[He smirks, unable to help himself. This kid is amusing enough. Still, he just doesn't quite believe she means it.]

It's gotta be your bedtime, kid. Go to sleep.

[finewithhalf]

I'll be there in fifteen.

["Fifteen" is more like half an hour, but soon enough she'll go striding into the bar thoroughly dressed up in her most adult attire. The problem is that, given her background, Maya's idea of "bar-aged adults" involves short a short skirt, high heels, and piles of makeup. If nothing else, she's achieved the "drunken frat girl" aesthetic.

She picks a stool beside Mick and regards him with eyes grown heavy from the weight of extra lashes.]

So about that talk we were gonna have.

[boilover]

[Well. Isn't that just a hauntingly terrifying sight to behold? Especially since he knows this kid is 100% a kid and for some horrifying reason, she's turned up like this. In what universe was this a thing that was happening to him? He wanted to drink and now he was feeling the exact same thing he felt the first time he saw Lisa in a mini skirt. Why did stupid kids do this to him? Mick stares at her, his shot halfway to his mouth but clearly there are bigger issues here than his booze.]

Christ.

[He has the strongest urge to whip off his jacket and give it to her because no but in the end, he settles for barking out a laugh because what the hell else could he do?]

You wanna talk? Let's talk. About this. [He nods in her direction.] What look were you aiming for her?

[finewithhalf]

[ She crosses her legs, unphased by him running his eyes over her outfit. She'll punch him in the face of she has to. ]

I was aiming for getting into a bar without too much attention. And it looks like I did just that.

[ She smiles, thoroughly satisfied with herself. ]

[boilover]

Kid, lemme tell you now. If you don't wanna draw attention in future, don't dress like that.

[Because teenage boys are horny idiots and a girl like her in a skirt like that is gonna attract the worst sort of people. And he can't believe no one has told he not to dress like this before. Seriously, Len, step it up.

Mick knocks back his shot and sets the glass down.] Go back to your room.

[finewithhalf]

You gonna come with me?

[ She tilts her head expectantly, still seeking a return to that heart-to-heart from earlier. ]

[boilover]

[For the love of God, kid. Give it up already. Mick huffs and reaches for his last shot.]

Why would I come back with you? [God, that was a line he usually loved hearing in a bar. Right now, it came with tons of nightmare fuel.]

[finewithhalf]

Because you're Lenny's best friend, and that makes you someone I want to know more about. It doesn't matter where we do the talking.

[ That same Disney streak he mentioned earlier is exactly what's keeping her from realizing what he thinks she's offering. ]

So we start over. I'm Maya. And you're...?

[boilover]

[Mick growls. This is not the shit he needs right now. He has such a headache from all the drama today and now he has to deal with a kid.]

Okay, first off. Don't ever ask a boy to go back to your room with you. Are you an idiot or something? Especially not when you're dress like that. [Because that was chaos waiting to happen.] And I ain't Snart's best friend. I thought I made that clear.

[He just wants to walk her back to her room and lock her in there until a parent or responsible adult showed.] Doesn't matter who I am, you shouldn't be talking to me.

[finewithhalf]

[She snorts.]

I wasn't asking a boy to come back to my room with me. [It's enough of a clue about his meaning, though, and that sends her eyebrows raising up to her hairline.] And I sure hope you're not thinking about going all pervy old man on me.

And I do a lot of stuff I'm not supposed to. I can decide for myself if you're not a decent guy. So far? I still wanna know more. Like with a name. Unless you're from a world where there's some kinda Rumpelstiltskin thing going on.

[Given what she knows about Lenny's world, that's not out of the realm of possibility.]

[boilover]

You're like ten, I ain't into kids. It's creepy. [It's not really much of a turn on, seeing a kid dressed unsettling like a few of the dates he'd had before. Seriously, he is now reassessing how he likes women to dress. Thanks.]

Leonard told you to stay away from me. He wasn't wrong. I'm dangerous, you shouldn't be here.

[There. The standard disclaimer for hanging with an arsonist. With that out of the way...] I'm Mick. And I don't feel like having whatever kinda conversation you wanna have here cause I don't feel much in the mood to deal with feelings right now.

[finewithhalf]

One month away from fifteen. Fully post-pubescent, most likely not going to do any more growing, am not a kid. Still, it's good to know you're not a creeper.

You're dangerous... because what? You tried to start some fires? Oh, so scary. [She wiggles a few fingers in emphasis.] I set my school on fire once. These things happen sometimes.

[When presenting herself as Tough And Bad to the criminal community, Maya always leads with the vaguest possible description of the baddest thing she's ever done. It's the most cred she's got.]

And we don't have to do feelings if you don't wanna do them, Mick. I'll just grab a beer and drink with you.

[This is officially a game of chicken. She doesn't know that she'll have the nerve to follow through if he calls her alcohol bluff.]

[boilover]

Fifteen ain't much older than ten. Definitely a kid. You're a kid until you can get into a bar without having to sneak in and even then, you're still kinda a kid. [No one felt like a grown up until they hit thirty these days to Mick. He knew he was becoming one of those weird old guys who snarked at the 'younger generation' but they made it so easy. They all looked five, even when they were drinking age.]

You set fire to your school? [Interesting. He makes an amused noise and pulls out his newly stolen lighter. They were talking of fire, he felt like playing with it.] Not bad. How many people got hurt?

[He appreciates the pyromania but they're on a very different level here. Childhood pranks were one thing but Mick never used fire to play a prank. Mick didn't so much play with fire as find himself controlled by it.]

You wouldn't like a beer if you had a beer. Besides, I ain't drinking beer. [Not that he was going to let her have any of his shots either.] You can talk feelings. I'll just drink.

[finewithhalf]

[Maya's spent a lot of time keeping up appearances. But she's not prepared for someone to ask for an injury report after her arson revelation. She stalls, visibly.]

Got hurt? Why would you want to --

[It occurs to her, just faintly, that she might be a little over her head in this.]

[boilover]

[Mick turns and looks at her, raising an eyebrow. Why would anyone get hurt? Well, clearly that boast was a whole lot of nothing then or she'd have reacted a very different way. Mick doesn't point it out, he just grunts a little and looks back at his lighter.]

How old did you say you were? Almost fifteen? Hmm I lit my first proper fire when I was your age. I didn't like this kid at school, he tried to prank me on a field trip so I locked him in equipment closet back at school and lit it up. I had every intention for him to get hurt.

[Or worse. Mick flicks his lighter a few times until he produces a flame, sitting it on the bar and just watching it.] That's how I ended up meeting Snart. That and I also robbed off with little assholes car after I burnt him. [He laughs and looks at her as if she's also find it funny. What? He always thought it was.] Got sent to juvie when they pulled me over.

[finewithhalf]

[She swallows.]

But couldn't you have burned the building down without hurting anyone?

[School is the enemy, not other people.]

You could've punched the guy you wanted to hurt.

[Punching is really cool. Maya's morality is also hugely inconsistent.]

[boilover]

Sure but where would be the fun in that? Besides, it's fire. Do you really think you can play with fire and people won't get hurt?

[That's like fire 101. Did this kid never see a fire PSA before?]

I did punch him, how do you think I got him in the supply closet. I clobbered the bastard. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't going to mess with me again and it worked.

[He smirks a little as he watches the flame dance.] I never could help myself.

[finewithhalf]

If they get hurt, it's an accident. [She shifts in her seat, horribly uncomfortable.]

Do people get on your case a lot? When you go too far, I mean?

[boilover]

They still get hurt, don't they? No amount of sorry's or bad feelings makes them heal magically or come back to life, does it? When you fuck up like I've fucked up, you can't go back and make it right.

[Or at least that's how Mick feels these days when confronted with this whole legends bullshit.] Always. Everyone is always on my case, even when I'm just standing around. When you got a rep like mine, all you gotta do is cough funny.

[finewithhalf]

If they stopped, what kinda stuff would you do?

[It bothers her that it's difficult to make a reasonable call on how to treat him. A lot of his complaints are ones she makes. He doesn't like people trying to change him any more than she likes it. He just wants to express himself -- and isn't that what everything boils down to? But his expression hurts people.

Does hers?

This is hard.]

[boilover]

Dunno.

[Mick shrugs his shoulders and turns to her, raising an eyebrow. She was looking at him in a way he could barely describe and he felt the strangest tug of responsibility. Fuck. Why did this kid want to empathise with him? Why did she even care?

Not even his 'best friend' seemed to give much of a damn these days.]

Probably the same stuff. I'm too set in my ways now, kid. [He reaches out and puts his hand over the flame, close enough to burn his hand lightly.] I want the same thing now as I wanted when I was fifteen. I want to watch the world burn.

[finewithhalf]

[Someone should always give a darn. Always.]

I think that too, sometimes. ....Like. If everyone can't have something, then maybe nobody should have anything.

[This is really uncomfortable.]

[boilover]

Maybe that's cause you don't like the world being unfair. Which is pretty unfortunate, kid. The world is unfair. Bad people win, poor people suffer, good people die in vain. That's just the way of the world.

[It's not even his bad mood that leads him to give this depressing little 'pep talk', it's just what he's always thought. People who want better for the world are the ones that suffer cause they feel the injustices worse than anyone else. And he never did envy being in that kind of position.]

The world is a shit storm. It's never given me a reason to believe otherwise. [He pauses though, hesitating at the end as his words sort of trail of. Well... not quite.] I had a friend who made me think that there was something in this world for me. Like I could belong. Then he took that away and I realised that what I thought when I was your age? I was right all along. I just let myself get deluded.

[finewithhalf]

[Hope is for suckers. She's known that for most of her life. But it's been nice, when she'd try to believe in something and wasn't immediately shot down.

It's nice to hope, a little bit, but it always seems to return to this same crushing disappointment.]

Why do you keep going, then? If there's no point to it?

[boilover]

Cause no one wants to be the wuss that rage quits part way through the game. If someone else takes you out, that's fine, that's a clean loss but when you do it yourself, it muddies the water.

[Mick doesn't offer a reason beyond that because honestly, lately, that's pretty much it. He's aimless, directionless and he has no one. He doesn't even muster up emotion for what he's saying, he's mostly just focused on his lighter.]

I never expected much from life and I still got nothing I wanted out of it. Got teased with it a few times but I never quite got it.