[Flare]

It had been a week since the fire. At least, Zita was pretty sure it had been a week. It was a night she'd much rather forget, but try as she might, it still hung around in her mind. But enough time had passed, and she needed to see what, if anything survived. The door was barely on its hinges now, so she carefully pushed it aside. The sight that she saw was worse than she had remembered. Her grip on the duffel bag she carried tightened.

The room was entirely black. Once white carpet was charred and melted almost all the way through. Curtains were now rags, curtain rod halfway off its original positioning. Stepping inside, she continued to look around, careful not to step on anything. There was broken glass, after all. Most from the television, some from lamps in her room. She mourned the loss of her television. Nothing could be salvaged from it. The stand and the couch weren't much better off. Both would have to be sent to the dump.

Rubbing the back of her head, she let out a small sigh. She hadn't meant to lose control like that. It was terrifying. She almost set the entire mansion on fire just because of a broken heart. Moving into her bedroom, she inspected the wardrobe. Despite it being fireproofed, it held its fair share of damage. It probably could be saved, but it would need quite a bit of elbow grease. Pulling open the doors, she was disappointed. Seemed some of the flames found its way into the wardrobe and burned a significant portion of her clothes. Most of it her fancy clothes that she didn't wear much, but still. The stuff tucked in the drawers seemed to have been spared.

Setting the bag down, she began the task of placing the salvageable clothing in it. All of it reeked of smoke, but that was something easily remedied. There wasn't much left in the wardrobe, so she moved on to her dresser. More of her clothing, more importantly her underwear, was spared the inferno. Zita sighed a little in relief. Underwear, at least the nice stuff, was expensive. She'd hate to replace all of it. Then again, she was going to have to get new stuff for more upscale outings. Sure, she didn't attend too many, but it was always good to be prepared.

Moving to her bed, it was clear to her that it couldn't be saved. But she kept some stuff nearby, so she went about rooting around. Lowering herself down, she poked her head under her bed. She wanted to see if any clothes were hiding under there that didn't make it to her dresser.

[Spook]

Everything smelt... burnt. Like you were at a bonfire (or in Eli's experience, a "let's see how this burns" fire), but everywhere. To tell the truth, that's how a bonfire felt, though, so it wasn't a big deal. Except this was indoors, and generally when things smelled burned indoors, something was wrong. He'd been wandering around the Institute, trying to find something to do that wasn't labelled "get Eli in trouble", and he'd found himself on the third floor. That was special in any way, since Eli generally used el segundo piso for a secondary kitchen or to find Jean. It was labelled the "bound to keep Eli out of trouble" floor due to the presence of nine or ten X-Men, but knowing the Spook, trouble found him without any help at all.

In this particular case, though, it was Eli who had sought out the smell of burning burnt stuff and found himself in the room of the girl that didn't like the snake he'd found. Hrm. First impression wasn't so awesome (not that Eli even realized this, which he did, but in a very basic sense), but, hey, there was always time for a second chance, right? He poked his head around the bedroom doorway, watching Flare for a moment before speaking up. "Hrm." Eli blinked at the burned mess of a bedroom before settling his eyes back on Flare. "This looks fun. Like that movie, with what's his face in it. Uh, Perlman. That guy." He blinked again, wrapping his fingers around the frame of the door as he literally stood with his head poked around the corner. No, Eli didn't have the sense to stand like a normal person.

"What happened here?" Eli asked, thinking of someone else for a change. It wasn't that he didn't care, but Eli tended to consider only what he was seeing. You know, the burnt room distracting his attention. The actions and the person and the feelings that caused the burning were usually things reserved for other people to care about. But Eli could be intelligent sometimes. "Er, do you need any help?" Help with scavenging stuff. Boy, Eli was on a roll.

[Flare]

At the sound of someone speaking behind her, Zita straightened up. Looking to see who it was, she frowned slightly. It was that weirdo with a snake. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed her bag and set it on top of what remained of her bed. "Oh yeah, oodles of fun…" She said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She really did not want to deal with him right now. But she knew better. No point, really. The guy was so oblivious, it was amazing.

She almost laughed when she realized he was only poking his head into her room. Heaven forbid he stand in the doorway like a normal person. Then again, were any of them really normal? They all were mutants after all, the antithesis of normal. She rubbed the back of her head when he asked about what had happened. She couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes. "I set my room on fire. I thought that much would have been obvious…" It seemed weird to her, that he was actually behaving like he cared. As far as she was concerned, he was as thick as a brick when it came to picking up on the mood of a room or individual.

The offer of help caught her off guard. Pursing her lips, she looked around her room. She was fairly certain she had gotten everything that was salvageable. Then again, she had yet to search through the bathroom. Picking up her bag once again, she headed to it. As she did, she stopped beside the man. "Uh, well, I guess you could check the furniture in here…" She gestured to the knocked over couch and entertainment stand. "I don't think there's anything important in there…" She shrugged before adding, "I thought I had a Swiss Army knife around here somewhere, but I can't remember where I left it…So, if you could find it, that'd be…helpful…"

She headed over to her bathroom. She was still surprised that her fire had failed to damage this room at all. She never did figure out why, but was glad nevertheless that she could salvage almost all her toiletries. Shoving everything into her duffel bag, she decided to shove some of the towels in there as well. May as well, they were hers after all.

[Spook]

In truth, Eli had never caught on to the 'eye roll' gesture that indicated sarcasm or annoyance. He had trouble really thinking of it as anything off of the top of his head, since Eli was totally incapable of rolling his eyes in a way that gave off the same implications. There were times that he remembered that an eye roll meant something other than a rather interesting sounding piece of sushi, but those were few and far between. Now, for instance, was not one of those times. So, Eli took the "oodles of fun" comment with satisfaction.

He hated to see people upset about anything. It really did not even matter what it was, but Eli disliked unhappiness. It was catching, unfortunately, so when Eli did see someone depressed, he did his best to cheer them up. And, as he was not the normal motherly-type that could successfully pull off the cheering up, these interactions did not always work out as he'd planned. He tried, though, and that was what was important.

At the girl's next words, Eli showed a bit of understanding. "Yeah, I can see you setting your room on fire. If I was a..." Eli paused, straining to come up with the appropriate word for 'a person who manipulated fire' and falling not-so-gracefully back on cartoons for the answer. "Flamebender. I don't think I could avoid setting things on fire." Of course, Eli knew he was impulsive and a bit dim in some quiet back corner of his mind, so this knowledge leaked it's way up to his consciousness to tell the mutant that "flamebending + Spook = bad idea".

Nodding, Eli proceeded to do as suggested, ambling over to the couch and forcing his weight against it until it tipped upwards and the feet thudded against the floor. Upright, the couch looked a little worse for wear than the girl probably would want, but- Wait. It occurred to Eli that he didn't actually know the girl's name. How rude of him.

Disappearing in a puff of smokeish stuff, Eli teleported himself over to the bathroom to reappear in the doorway and lean against it. "Oh, I don't remember if I ever introduced myself. I'm Eli." He held out his hand toward girl in an attempt at friendliness. Hopefully, the girl would accept his offer, and they could go back to salvaging.

[Flare]

She raised a brow at the choice of words from the man. Flamebender? Fascinating. She had no idea what that could be from, but it sounded like it might be a compliment, so she took it as such. Besides, he seemed to concur with how hard it was to not set things on fire when your ability was doing just that. It was frustrating, but lately, it had been getting easier to deal with.

Being that she was in the bathroom, the dull thud of the couch being flipped upright didn't surprise her. What did surprise her was the large puff of smoke manifesting beside her, shortly followed by the appearance of the man. She, in shock, fell over. Thankfully she didn't have far to go as she was kneeling at the time. That didn't mean she avoided injury. She smacked her elbows hard on the bathroom floor. "Yowch!" She cried out. "Dude, warn me before you do that!" She yelled at him before checking her elbows for blood. Clear of blood, but fairly tender, she winced slightly as she straightened herself up. Looking pointedly at him, she told him, "You're lucky I'm not bleeding."

Rolling her eyes again, she returned to her packing. She briefly looked at him when he introduced himself as Eli. Finally, a name to the freaky face. Well, not that freaky, he was sort of cute. But he didn't get her motor running, so she didn't give him much thought. Over her shoulder, she responded. "Zita. Some call me Flare, some don't. Up to you really…" Trailing off, she realized she had gathered everything she needed from this room. Turning to face the man she now knew to be Eli, she asked him, "So, find anything interesting in the couch?"

[Spook]

"My bad." With that halfway apology spoken, Eli grinned at surprising the girl, because that's simply what he did. There were perks to being a teleporter, like not really needing to use doors or stairwells and it certainly made commercial breaks seems a lot longer. The perk of constantly surprising people was easily Eli's favorite, since, you know, he did spend nine years working for a haunted house where surprising people was technically their business. He turned back to the situation at hand, attempting to bring back Mr. Nice Guy rather than Mr. Unlucky or other entertaining things Eli's personality could produce.

"Zita. I like that. What's it from?" Eli waited for a reply before even considering leaving the room, but it seemed Zita had other things on her mind and was currently facing him and asking about the couch. Back to business. Well, as much 'business' as Eli can manage. "It's torched. The structure seems to be okay, but the outside is completely burned and where it isn't actually burned, it's a bit singed and melted and it will probably smell like humo," Eli caught himself this time, remembering that Zita didn't know any Spanish or anything useful, really. "Smoke."

He might not know much about things, but Eli was generally good at assessing the integrity of materials. Helping FF construct new sets was always fun, and a lot of the texturing and stuff they did to the parts and pieces often changed the soundness of things. It'd only taken a few cracking noises before Eli had realized this, and he'd been extra careful ever since. Like I said before, being a teleporter had it's perks.

[Flare]

She sighed as he halfheartedly apologized. She assumed that was as good an apology as she was going to get from Eli and moved on. She checked her elbows again, just to be sure, then moved to exit the bathroom. Zita raised a brow and shrugged as he asked what her name was from. "Um…Italian, I think? It means 'Little Girl' or something…" Again, she shrugged. She didn't give the meaning or origin of her name much thought. It was her name, that's all that mattered. To her, anyway.

At the description on the state of her couch, she wasn't really surprised. The use of Spanish threw her a little bit, but Eli had corrected himself before she could comment on it. Coming into the living room, she could see what he described as being accurate. "Yeah, probably just gonna toss it…" Moving over to it, she rested one knee on the cushions as she reached in between them, checking to see if anything of value slid behind them. She clicked her tongue when she didn't find anything, standing up straight again. Looking to what remained of her television stand, she hadn't much hope there was anything salvageable in there.

Nevertheless, she crouched down and forced open the door of the stand. It was stuck, so it took a little effort to get it open. With a little elbow grease, she managed to get it open with minimal additional effort. Poking through it, she could see all her DVDs and even the player were melted through. Rolling her eyes to herself, she continued poking around. Had to be something in here, she was sure of it.

[Spook]

"Italian, huh?" Eli knew nothing about Italian anything, honestly, except for food style stuff that was the questionable concept that Americans received from "Italian" restaurants. Even then, Eli had never really been to a sit down restaurant and ended up staying for very long. He was much more a take-out or take-home kind of guy if he got food outside of the refrigerator at the Institute. It wasn't that he couldn't go to a sit-down restaurant - it was that he had no one to do it with and going by himself was not only boring and sad but it was a bit scary. Eli didn't like being alone. He would prefer to be with complete strangers, hopefully friendly ones, than to be by himself.

All of this had nothing to do with Zita's name. "Little girl isn't a bad name. It's fitting." Eli grinned down at Zita, totally amused at himself and not really thinking about how insulting he might be. "Especially from my perspective." Everyone was short from his perspective, though, so this wasn't anything new.

He followed the girl into the other room, eyeing the couch as she fiddled with it. Of course he was right. Eli may not be very intelligent, but he had his moments and he had his topics that he was positive about. "What were you looking for? A knife?" It was something with a blade, which bothered Eli a little bit, but he would still help Zita find it. He just didn't like anything weapon-like. He didn't like fighting either, but Eli was helpful and would do his best to find the thing.

[Flare]

Zita simply rolled her eyes at the 'little girl' comment. He did have a point though. He was a freaking giant compared to her. They probably had skyscrapers shorter than this one. But she continued about her business. Taking out DVDs one by one, she inspected them. If they were visibly melted, she tossed them over her shoulder at the couch. They would have to be tossed. Pity, there were some real classics in here.

When he asked what exactly she was looking for, she straightened up, looking to Eli. "Hm? Oh, no. Not a knife. Well, not just a knife…Swiss Army Knife. Thought I had one. But now that I think about it, I think I lost it a long time ago…" She trailed off rubbing the back of her head. "I mean, it's not really that big of a deal…If it turns up, it turns up. I'm not gonna get all bent out of shape looking for it…" She shrugged, then returned to her previous task of sorting through her DVDs.

Grabbing the next set of DVDs, she was briefly surprised to realize it was a box set. She forgot she even had those. Then she looked at what was left of the title. It was at that point she was compelled to scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!", in a very dramatic form. Hanging her head in shame, she whimpered. "Not Indiana Jones…Not Indy…" The box set she held in her hands was once the complete set of all four Indiana Jones movies. She was positively devastated.

[Spook]

Eli busied himself with looking for the knife and sorting through various piles of things in an attempt to find it. It was very unlikely that it would be found, especially since Zita already said that she lost it a long time ago, but there was always hope. A couple of years back, Eli lost a cd and then he found it months later, warped and melted, behind the oven. How in the world it got behind the oven, he would never know. Hopefully this knife was made of sterner stuff and could hold up to Zita's flamey nonsense.

Speaking of... "How did this happen, anyway, chica?" Eli questioned, as he picked up discarded carcasses of former dvds and tried to read the covers. "I mean, entiendo que you set it on fire and all that, but how?" Eli didn't have a mutation that needed regulation. It was pretty much a switch on and off, and he couldn't even turn the switch all the way on without being ejected in a puff of smoke. So, it was hard for him to understand that Flare could have just lost control of her mutation. She would explain it, hopefully.

"Awwww, not Indy." Eli said sadly, eyeing the burnt shell of the case as he leaned over Zita. "Eso es una vergüenza." Shaking his head, he patted Zita on the shoulder. It was a shame, since Indiana Jones was a good series, an excellent movie series. They had great effects too, like the face melting off in that one. Yeah, that was great.

[Flare]

Zita paused what she was doing at his question. She knew why she did it, and was really rather mortified that she did it for the reasons she did. Given that she wasn't keen on sharing anything in the first place about herself, the fact that she barely knew Eli, she was even less inclined to share. "Um, if it's all the same to you Eli…I'd rather not to get into it. Kinda personal, you know?" She shrugged half-heartedly before returning to the rather devastating matter at hand. The loss of her Indiana Jones box set.

The pat on the shoulder was unexpected, as was the sudden motion she made to move away from him. "Sorry…" She muttered, quickly sorting through the rest of her DVDs. There weren't many to begin with, and all of them were severely damaged. Fantastic. Getting up, her legs felt oddly weak. Moving over to the couch, she sunk into its damaged frame. Holding her head in her heads, she could feel herself slowly losing it. "Eli, don't tell anybody, but…I'm absolutely miserable here…I'm seriously considering leaving…" She paused, sighing. "It's just…It's hard trying to keep myself sane here…I'm just an angry person surrounded by people who piss me off…" So much for keeping things to herself.

[Spook]

At Zita’s seeming unwillingness to discuss what happened, Eli simply blinked, black eyes staring momentarily before he shrugged and went back to trying to help her. ”Todo lo mismo.” Her jump away from him unsettled Eli ever so slightly, but it was fleeting, just a passing flicker of sadness at yet another person trying to get away from him. Aha, that was stupid, and Eli knew it, but it was instinctual and instincts did not have to run on intelligence. They ran on experience, and it was Eli’s experiences that were depressing, not anything else. Eli was a happy person, so he dismissed it and went back to trying to be helpful and failing.

But then Zita dropped another bomb on him, and this time it was not going to be easy to ignore it. Words and actions, Zita just looked miserable, and Eli was entirely unused to essential strangers unloading on him. It.. it hurt, because Eli was an empathetic soul, as stupid as he may be. There was a moment of awkward silence as Eli’s mind tried to catch up, but then he got up and plopped himself down on the couch next to Zita, leaning over so that his elbows were on his knees and his face was close enough to Zita’s eye level as he could muster without being uncomfortable or breaking that weird personal space thing.

He tapped a few fingers on his face before coming up with a suitable answer, because Eli was capable of thinking before he spoke sometimes. Intelligence was not guaranteed though. ”You think you can be sane out there? Here you have mutants who at least try to accept you. Out there’s angry humans who want you dead. Want us dead.” It was a neutral expression on Eli’s face as he talked, but there was a quiet sort of desperate sadness in the corners of his eyes that he couldn’t force to go away. ”You can be angry and safe in here, or you can be angry and in fear out there, chica. You’ve, well, you’ve got the spiky end of the mutant stick. You can defend yourself, but that’ll just make humans angrier.” Eli got the hard to hold onto end of the mutant stick, since he could just teleport his way out of trouble, but it didn’t make anything easier. ”I don’t know what the solution is, but fighting isn’t it and running’s the only thing we’ve got, and this is the best haven so far.” It may be flawed and oddly disturbing at times, but there was no where else Eli trusted any more than Xavier’s. It was a bad place that was better than all the other bad places.

[Flare]

Zita sighed. He had a point. Out there people would want someone like her dead. Yeah, she could just torch them, but that would just make things worse as opposed to better. Plus, the idea went against everything she was being taught here. Even if it was tempting. But as much as she knew she should stay here, she also knew it was getting harder to find a reason to stay. There was one primary reason, but other smaller reasons were beginning to wear at her. It was increasingly frustrating dealing with all of it.

Rubbing the back of her head, she sighed once more. “Maybe you’re right…I just…I don’t know…Maybe I need a vacation or something…” Leaning back into the remains of her couch, she mused, “Maybe Fiji…or Tahiti…or-“, she was promptly cut off when the back of her couch gave way and she was flung backward onto the floor. She didn’t get very far, but she did land on her back.

She lay there for a minute, staring stunned at the ceiling. “Did…did that just happen?” She asked, both the ceiling and Eli. While she was fairly certain nothing on her was broken, she couldn’t say the same for the couch. Simply craning her neck, she could see bits of the frame had burst through the fabric. Had she been a few inches to the left, it might have pierced her leg. She grimaced, though she was grateful that wasn’t the case. Holding out her arm, she asked Eli, "Um, help me up?"

[Spook]

Eli was a lucky one, since throughout this entire conversation, he’d been leaning forward with all his weight balanced on his elbows and his knees. That meant that when the back of the couch gave out, all Eli did was watch idly with a brief flash of surprise as Flare tumbled backward. His brain caught up eventually, and half of a grin passed across Eli’s face. ”I dunno about a vacation, but I think you need a new couch, chica.” Spook delighted in stating the obvious, but he was kind enough to turn a bit before he grabbed onto Zita’s hand and helped pull her up. The sad moments were forgotten in this newfound humor, as Eli could always find something to be happy about. That was a good thing, especially since it seemed like this girl could use some cheering up.

”You can still go on a vacation and come back, if you want to. I mean,” Eli pulled a slightly concerned face as he thought to himself before speaking aloud. ”We’re not trapped here or anything, claro? Free to come and go.” He gestured to the room, intending his motion to indicate the space around them, not the burned bits of leftover life. ”I left and came back, and they didn’t do anything to me, and that angry dude did the same, pienso, so why not you?” He shrugged, this time standing up to start moving about and actually doing work and avoiding the problem of feelings once again.

Eli was good at that. ”Tahiti? Fiji? You wanting to go on a tropical vacation, chica?” He grinned, picking at some bit of charred something on the floor that might have been something important pre-burning. ”Makes sense, though. You can probably take the heat better than most people.” Not like vampire Spook, who had the capability of not being a vampire kind of, but he liked the darkness, okay? It helped with his poofing and all that jazz.

[Flare]

Zita couldn't help it, she just started laughing. Then crying. Then both simultaneously. She couldn't decide what she was feeling; it felt more she just took a sharp turn into a loop-de-loop in a roller coaster. As Eli helped pulled her to her feet, she was still laughing. Or crying. It was hard to tell the difference, even for herself. Eventually, she managed to pull herself together enough to listen to Eli.

"Angry dude?" She paused, trying to figure out who he was referring. Oh, wait. "Oh, Logan. Right." She rolled her eyes at the name. But still, maybe he had a point. Then again, why should she be taking his advice? She barely knew him and vice versa, he had no idea what it was like for her in here. She had no way of knowing that if and when she did leave, that she would be welcomed back. Zita highly doubted it. She half suspected some of the folks here were looking for a reason to kick her out.

She did smile though when Eli mentioned her desire for a tropical vacation. "Yeah, I could probably go to Egypt and be happy as a clam." She laughed a little, moving away from the couch to move her bag closer to the door. She had looked through everything and all she had left was in that bag. Fantastic. Looking back to Eli, she added, "But yeah, something tropical would be fun. You know, cut loose, lounge by the beach with one of those fruity drinks."