Chris
Owen was always wired the night after a show. Exhausted though he was, his eyes were still cracked wide open, his fingertips still stinging with electricity. The cedar-haired boy was thus the loudest thing in the kitchen at that hour, locked quite a spirited silent argument with himself over how many sandwiches in the middle of the night was too many, tossing an apple up and down in a freckled hand.

He blended in well with the low, warm light coming from above the stove, clad in his worn pyjama pants and a faded band shirt with the sleeves hacked off, only just revealing the dark scar tissue stretching over his shoulder. 

With his headphones slipped over his ears, he might as well have been the only one on the floor at all, humming some tune or other in between mumbling to himself...
Roger
It figured that Scout would have trouble sleeping his first night in this place. It was too quiet here. Ever since he was born he'd fallen asleep to the unceasing muffled din of shouts, doors slamming, horns honking, brakes screeching - to his ears, sounds of life. Now, away from the city for the first time in his life, the stillness of night was a palpable, oppressive weight.

Besides that, he was thrumming with pent-up, restless jitters. For two whole weeks he'd been stuck inside, like a rat in a cage of linoleum and fluorescent lights. And after that, he'd spent what felt like half a lifetime on the airplane. Sleep was out of the question: Scout needed to move.

His feet carried him to the kitchen he'd spotted earlier. Would it actually be stocked with food, he wondered, or did students need to bring their own? If there was food, that led to an even more crucial question: would anyone notice if a little bit disappeared overnight?

His musings and his feet came to a simultaneous halt as he realized with a start that someone was already in the kitchen - a tall boy, understandably dressed in pajamas. Scout, still in his day clothes, lingered in the doorway with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. "Hey," He said, and noted privately that the boy's long hair was real pretty.
Chris
It took a moment for Owen to register that someone was talking to him—a long one, in which he earnestly attempted to squint through the noise in his headphones—before turning to face the newcomer. He even jumped a little when he turned around (perhaps the company he kept *Was* Rubbing off on him), but the lopsided grin that inched over his face was easy and warm. Tiny threads of gold glinted in his droopy brown eyes. 

"E-evening!" He shook his headphones off, swiping his long hair out from under them. "Wha-what's uh, *Bleh*. Peckish as well, mate?"

Sleep dragged on his words, winding up his stutter, but his accent curled around his vowels, adding a little music to his inquiry. The electric buzz of the stove light tickled his ears as he regarded the kid—shorter than him (*?!*), shirt mangled the same way as his own, hovering. New? Owen remembered being new. Maybe the kid would like a sandwich. His gaze flicked toward his cleared spot of stovetop (somebody around here had a serious problem with dishes) and back, a question.
Roger
Scout's mildly curious expression shifted to an utterly baffled frown. What the hell was this about a package? "Uhhh... Nah, I was just lookin' for somethin' to eat," He answered, his own broad New York accent a sharp contrast to the other kid's - British? Maybe. Scout wasn't entirely certain.

He ventured further into the room, his eyes roving around to take in all the details. "So," He started, hoisting himself up to sit on top of the island countertop, "How's this place work?" He embellished the question with a wave of his hand that encompassed the kitchen. "I mean, do the kids gotta bring the food or what?" Personally, he was hoping for 'what' - free food was always a good thing in his book.
Chris
"Y-yeah, yeah, that's the deal with the kitchen," Owen shrugged, punctuating with an awkward little laugh and pulling a knife out of a drawer. His mother had joked about her wife's accent being strange at first, but it had seemed too normal for him to believe—the New Yorker accent was certainly odd to him, so sure of itself. He kind of wanted to see this kid and Ares talk, just to see.

"They keep it stocked," He replied, ears still pink. "I-I'm p-pick-picky as hell though, so, I actually g-gr-g-*Garden* When I want fresh st-stuff. Greenhouse 'n decent soil out back." Owen shook his head out, as if to rattle out the speech impediment. 

"S-snack hoard in your room is a tidy plan, though. Hah, I've seen worse hollow legs than *Mine* And I, ah, I've got a furnace in here eating me up!"

The redhead knocked on his chest for emphasis, but notably avoided eye contact, preferring to scowl at his apple slices, which were proving to be less uniform than he'd like.

"How, ah, how new are you?"
Roger
Scout frowned at the ceiling, considering this information. So, it sounded like there was plenty to go around - enough that one more person dipping in would likely go unnoticed. He *Had* Been thinking about smuggling some food up to his room, admittedly - just in case he ever needed it. He could do that later, though, once he didn't have any eyes on him. "Huh. Okay, cool." 

He hopped down from his perch and sauntered over to get a better look at Rapunzel. Pretty eyes matched pretty hair, he thought as he leaned back against the counter beside the other boy. Not to mention the flush coloring the tips of his ears - there was something adorable about that. 

"Oh, I'm brand new, today-new," Scout answered. "Ain't had a chance to do nothin' 'cept unpack my shit." He tilted his head slightly, hoping to catch that steady gaze on its way to the cutting board. "I'm Scout, by the way," He said, and coupled the introduction with his sweetest smile.
Chris
"Aye? You're doing b-better than I did—took me months to, ah, trust that all my stuff wouldn't, um, burn up, and..." Owen trailed off. Now that he had said it out loud, perhaps that detail was a little dark for a first encounter. It all felt so far off...

Scout (*Scout!*) relieved him of overthinking it any further, thankfully. The air around Owen seemed to warm tangibly with his mood, the flecks of gold in his eyes flickering like sparks. Owen liked this kid, he decided. His gut had never let him down when it came to making friends in the kitchen at this hour, and he did trust in patterns. 

"Owen!"

 That crooked smile spread again, glinting this time with mischief, if his appearing to be making a grilled cheese layered with apple slices wasn't enough of a giveaway. 

"Scout," He tested, his accent tuning it like a question, "In keeping with our delightfully strange hospitality, t-two questions." The corners of his mouth quirked as he tried not to giggle. 

"One—sandwich? An-and two—want to see something neat..?"
Roger
Scout wasn't sure at first what was meant by the mention of burning - *Oh, wait, duh:* They were in a kitchen. Maybe he'd never cooked before he came to this place, or something. That made sense. 

Owen gave his own name in turn, and Scout's grin widened. "Owen," He repeated, slowly, as if he was savoring the sweetness of it on his tongue. "Y'know, you're the first person I met here." That was excluding the folks in charge he'd spoken to, but it was close enough to the truth. "Lucky me, yeah?"

At the offer of a sandwich, he nodded - and then at the second question he straightened up, his eyes wide and bright. "Yeah, for sure!" He said with enthusiasm. There was a glint to Owen's expression like he had something up his sleeve, and Scout was suddenly consumed with curiosity.
Chris
The way Scout drew out Owen's name was an odd thing for him to behold; he had grown accustomed to the feeling of eyes trained on him, but there was something *Syrupy* About his tone... ...Nah. He was hallucinating. Perhaps it was a little cruel to internally giggle at the hell of a nap this kid might be having if he wasn't, but he bit his cheek. Sweat pricked at his palms, but at least that would make the next part easy as slipping on butter. Still, he bounced happily on the pads of his sore feet and straightened his back, ever the showman even without his bass' weight on his hip. 

A man less desensitized to the plights of human flesh against cast iron would have used something sensible, say, a spatula, to flip a grilled cheese. Maybe one such personality would even turn the heat on, in the best interests of his dinner cooking in the first place. Owen, evidently, had ceased to be that person. From his elbow to the tips of his fingers, veins lit a deep, vital red from beneath his skin, sharpening into a fiery orange that rushed through his flesh and solidified just overtop, the seams between the glassy panes twisting like arteries. 

He pressed his masterpiece into the tamed flames in his palms without a moment's hesitation and watched the butter sizzle with a surprisingly serene expression, like he had just whistled out a jaunty tune on a blade of grass rather than perfectly toasted a sandwich with more or less his bare hands. Doubtlessly—*Incredibly*—, though, the end result was perfect—golden brown on the outside, melted on the inside, the layer of apples adding a sweetness and a tasteful crunch. If one minded not the handprints.
_ _

"It's, ah—" Owen cackled incredulously as he daintily grabbed a plate and handed it over, the sound crackling and popping like sparks off a burning branch. "It's safe, um, I can make you a normal one if you d- if you don't t-ttrust it, um," He sped, hurriedly shaking the heat from his hands. "I outright murdered a ton of bagels perfecting my t-tec-technique, but I haven't made anyone sick!"
Roger
Scout watched with fascination as Owen picked up the fully assembled sandwich and... "Holy fuckin' shit!" He hollered, delighted. The fact that this fancier juvie was also a secret school for super freaks had been imparted onto him, but it had faded to the back of his mind and he'd momentarily forgotten. Retroactively, he realized what Owen had meant about burning. "That's sick as hell, man, you got panini hands!"

The phrase struck him as funny, so he repeated it, a mischievous edge sharpening his smile. "Panini Hands Owen," A flash of inspiration, and he put on a terrible fake cowboy accent, "The fastest griller in the West." He laughed uproariously at his own joke and eagerly took the offered plate.

Without a moment's hesitation, Scout dug in. "Damn," He said with his mouth full, "That's fuckin' good." It really was: the apples made an ordinary sandwich into something special. He liked Owen's creative style.
Chris
Owen's laughter bubbled up again at the nickname; yeah, he liked this guy for sure. Little swirls of gold flushed joyfully under his cheeks as he nearly launched into a coughing fit when Scout busted out the accent—he needed a good laugh from the gut, and the sound of it filling the kitchen was a sweet thing. Scout reminded him of a couple of people he hadn't seen in a long time—people he ought to call, for the love of it. Time was a bittersweet thing for anyone at the Cradle.

"Grill from the hip, no fear," He added between wheezes. Owen's cowboy accent was even worse than Scout's, what with how Welsh his voice insisted on being, even with the stutter seeming to recede. He could hardly blow the smoke off his finger-pistols without collapsing a lung, but he proudly puffed out his chest. "The whole shield's a gas, but my best party trick's this."

"Lush, it is, right?? What else should a winter night taste like."

The uproar seemed to have given him a little too much juice—his hands left considerably more black on his own dinner than Scout's, an angry sizzling shaking him from his preening and eliciting a comically small kicked-puppy whine.

"*Coc y gath*, you can't win 'em all, can you..." Oh, well. Tasted alright. Owen hopped up onto the counter this time to give his feet a rest, happily swinging his legs. "I-if I may ask, what've you got up your sleeves? Er, *Hahah*, what's become of them?"
Roger
Scout's mirthful smile grew more delighted as Owen played along with the joke. If there was one thing he appreciated, it was people who could laugh at themselves. "Aw, damn," He said, still cheerful, as Owen scorched the second sandwich. "Wanna trade?" He offered after a moment's consideration. "I eat burnt stuff all the time, I don't care."

He blinked a few times, and then realized what Owen was asking. "Huh? Oh, my powers. Yeah, I can change how good I can see an' hear an' all that, and I'm good at hidin' in the dark. Oh, and I can jump real high and shit like that, parkour shit." A hint of bitterness entered his voice as he continued, "I *Thought* I was just good at that from practicin' so much. But apparently it's been magic bullshit the whole time."
Chris
"*Ffyc!*" Owen swore in sympathy. "That's a right kick in the ass, isn't it." He didn't tend to meet Scout's eyes very often, preferring to dart from detail to detail around his hands and his hair, but his tone was earnest.

"I'd be pissed too if I found out the guitar fairy granted me all my calluses in the cradle," He mused, rubbing his indeed well-toughened fingertips together for emphasis. "That's-uh, that's tidy, though, your, your powers. Real underrated. You're that shadow bloke you always see out the car window, jumping between rooftops and swinging on streetlights 'n such." Owen snorted a little to himself, rocking slightly on his countertop. *This is going* Well, *You cretin. Quit worrying.*
Roger
Owen seemed to really understand, and that eased Scout's bitter feelings significantly. "Yeah," He agreed, smile resurfacing. "An' hey, least I don't got no harmonica power. That's all skill." Now that he thought about it, he had plenty of talents that couldn't be credited to the powers. The realization cheered him, and he bit into his sandwich with gusto.

 Scout frowned, squinting in confusion. "The fuckin' shadow *What*?" He did jump between rooftops, that was accurate, but aside from that - what the fuck was Owen talking about? "Is that a thing, for real? Some shadow shit when you look out cars?" He wouldn't know: he could count on one hand the number of times he'd ridden in a car.
Chris
Owen's face sizzled again with nerves, the familiar restless feeling of whatever he just said making absolutely no sense buzzing through his ears, his stomach, his more rapidly-swinging feet. He permitted himself one deranged-ly satisfying daydream of screaming and turning into a fireball before breathing, like a sensible person might, and laughing—more genuinely than he had feared. Scout had a good air about him; Owen was getting better at noticing things like that.

"*Ffyc*, what's this language di-diff-*Barrier*," He managed, his shoulders shaking with amusement. "If you run into Ares, tell him he hasn't yet given me enough hell for b-for being Welsh, even if the bastard's absorbing it, he is."

The boy's words came out in a rushed sort of a trickle, like a pick hitting every string on the way down the fretboard between notes. Anxious to explain himself, anxious to do so quickly.

"A-anyway, I thought everyone did the, um, the thing, when they're bored on long car rides, or, like, trains? Little *Fff*-figure guy, b-bouncing off cars in traff-in traffic. Um. Wait, *Harmonica?*"

He took a shushing-himself-sized bite of his sandwich and blinked (a little wide-eyed) at Scout.
Roger
Scout laughed along when Owen started laughing, even though he was still a little confused about where the miscommunication had taken place. "Yeah, for sure," He agreed. He hadn't met an Ares yet, but clearly they were someone Owen knew well. 

He squinted slightly as Owen explained, trying to picture what he was talking about. "Huh, weird. I ain't never done that before, but I ain't hardly ever rode in cars before," He admitted. "Been on the el train a coupla times, but mostly I take the subway. Not a helluva lot to see down there, y'know?"

Scout grinned and pulled his harmonica out of his back pocket. "Yeah, check it!" It was incredibly battered - it'd already been in rough shape when he'd found it on the sidewalk two years ago - but he showed it off with pride. The element of surprise was one of his favorite parts of his instrument of choice. No one was ever expecting a guy to bust out a harmonica.
Chris
S OON AGH I'm home from vacation in a couple days I'm so sorry for leaving this hanging

"*Whoa*, i-interesting. Town I'm from is, it's a lot smaller—take the train to get down to the one big enough for bands to stop in when they pass through, hah..."

Owen decided to let his confusion hang before his face lit up with glee at the sight of the well-loved woodwind. His legs kicked faster as the last of his sandwich vanished, a last trace of butter wiped off on his shorts.

"I knew a guy who could throw *Down* On one of those, but it's been so long."

The slivers of gold in his eyes danced as he tilted forward, overgrown strands of spun cedar falling over his pointed nose.

"What can you do with this beauty?"