Spencer
Lucifer stared at the plant.

In its own way, the plant stared back.


It was an admittedly sad little thing, it had been when Luci had bought it from town (in an attempt to perhaps improve his green thumb), but now it was slowly turning yellow, its leaves dropped off the edge of the cheap plastic pot to drag on the counter below and its one white flower hung limp and brown on the soil. A seasoned botanist would tell you it was a peace lily, notoriously hardy and pretty resistant to - well, most things  though it had met its match with one Lucifer S. Otieno.


He was stood over the little plant in the sink, ancient laptop next to him on the counter with the screen black, and a cup of tea in a chipped red mug clasped in one hand. It was late already and normally he would've returned to bed already, so was sporting a pair of faded tartan trousers and a fluffy looking pink hoodie, the hood pulled up over his head and his glasses off his face, dangling from their chain around his neck.


"What do you think?" He inclined his head to Hydne, who was peering down from the kitchen cupboards . They responded with a small "Mmrrgh" Sound to which Lucifer grumbled back:

"Pendafad. What would you know about gardening anyways... Maybe it just needs more water-or is it less?"

He clicked at the play button on his laptop, moving his headphones to one ear and listening to the care advice, though none of it was particularly helpful, maybe it really was a lost cause.


He sighed once more, huffing out a few choice phrases, smartly not in English, and put down his mug, exchanging it for the plant and lifting it out of the sink before turning and heading to the bin across the room.
Evelyn
Joshua had spent his day taking care of a plant too. His lemon tree roommate, Jeffery, had started to outgrow the pot Joshua had put him in before arriving at the Cradle. It hadn't been a particularly hard task, at least not for someone who can do what he can, but boy is it a messy one.

Fresh out of the shower, he's sporting a grey sleeveless tank top and red basketball shorts, which does nothing to cover his lignification, spreading from about mid-pec to the fingertips on his left hand.

"I wish I could keep a pair of pants for more than three uses " He mutters to himself as he walks into the kitchen, having decided to see if there's any sugar so he can make lemonade. As soon as he sees what Lucifer is holding, and where he seems to be going, he asks, in a very hard and resounding bass, "What is going on here?"
Spencer
Should he ever be asked about it, Lucifer would deny that the sudden, high pitched squeal that echoed around the kitchen was from his mouth, he would argue his trainers slipped on the tiled floor, or that Hydne had caught a rat, or some other terrible excuse.
In real life, that sound *Did* Come from him when a sudden voice startled him from his glum thoughts, jolting him to the right wherein he crashed sideways into a chair, nearly toppling it.
He rights himself straight away, putting the plant on the table and using one hand to steady himself, the other grabbing at his shades and lifting them back to cover his eyes as he cleared his throat weakly

"You uh you really should announce yourself a little more" Luce said in a small voice, Hydne had vanished in his startlement and so he couldn't see the features of the man before him, but the vague silhouette before him spoke of a tall and rather muscular build, certainly a menacing sight when coupled with the previous, chilled sounding statement.

"I was just putting this plant in for compost, I'm really not much of a green thumb no matter how hard I try it seems, heh" He swallowed, fiddling with a strand of fluffy white hair until his hoodie
"Sorry, have we met?"
Evelyn
Joshua takes in the first impression this guy had to offer and realised that that didn't seem to be trying to hurt the plant.

"Sorry. I don't mean to sneak around. Old habits die hard, you know. I just got a little worried about the lily." He says, his voice dropping to a softer, but still striking, tone. Staying angry has never been his strong suit.

"Mind if I take a look? I might be able to coax some life back into your lily, as an apology for startling you."
Spencer
Luce blinked, pausing for a moment before stepping out the way and gesturing towards the plant in offering.
"Oh, sure, you certainly couldn't do worse than me... A lily huh, I didn't know what it was, I've never had a plant before"

He smiled, wiping the dirt from his hands against his trousers absent mindedly before offering a hand our in Joshua's vague direction
"I'm Lucifer, uh Otieno" The welshman introduced 
"I only arrived this week, I've only really come across a few people, everyone seems to be pretty secluded- you can keep the lily, I think I'll just stick to enjoying the gardens outside... Maybe get a little plastic cactus"
Evelyn
"My name is Joshua Hawthorne," He responds with a smile. He's never been around anyone without sight, so he's completely oblivious to the signs. He firmly shakes Lucifer's hand, then steps over to investigate the plant.

"Looks like it's just a bit over-watered." He starts, "Shouldn't be all that hard to get the little one healthy again. Lilies are pretty resilient, so if you'd like I could show you how to take care of it. Nothing like your first houseplant roommate," He laughs.
Spencer
Lucifer startled slightly at the feeling of a cool, coarse textured limb grasping his own hand, and for a moment he had to question if he'd been handed something, before he felt the squeeze of fingers as the hand shook his own. Even once he had been released he only half heard the name given to him, frowning as he tried to work out what that material was. Stone? Wood? Wood, definitely wood, the small fibres left on his palm were proof enough.
But it would be rude to ask surely, they all had different abilities, not all of them were so easy to hide, he knew that, so Luce simply smiled, turning his body to face Joshua as he approached the unfortunate plant.

"I wouldn't say no to some assistance, I've tried looking up help but it's hard when you can't use photos" He nodded towards the lightless laptop
"I only bought it for my dorm room, I've been told its lacking in character, I thought a plant would help with that"
As his new acquaintance studied the lily, he moved to sit on top of the table next to it, plucking at the cords of his jumper and swinging his feet absent-mindedly
"So you uh, you're a fan of plants- a 'plant-person'?"
Evelyn
*As if that wasn't obvious enough* He thinks to himself, still completely oblivious. 

"Yeah," He laughs "Plant-person is definitely the right term. I can form a connection with plants, and if the need is big enough, get them to do stuff for me."

While he answers, he touches the plant with his lignified hand, and tries to make it a little further from danger. A faint glow emanates from his palm, and the lily slowly shifts to a healthier colour, perking up as it does. He's careful not to overdo it, since the plant doesn't really need much.

"What about you? What brings you here?" He asks, once the glow fades.
Spencer
"That's an impressive power! I met another person here, uh Audrey? She had plant powers too, seems like a useful skill"
Lucifer nodded, quieting himself once more and giving Joshua time to, he assumed, assess the issue with the plant, before hopping down from the table with his now empty cup and making his way to the kitchen counters once more, running his hand along the cupboard until he found the catch and opening it, pulling out a container of teabags.

On his first day of arrival Luci had pulled out an old dusty braille stamper, he hadn't used it in some time but the idea of it was fairly simple, and had gone around putting the little white textured stickers on the items around his room and the main living areas, usually in discreet places, at the bottom of packages or the side of lids, it was either and safe than his other method of shaking and guessing.
The flicked the kettle on as Lucifer pulled out the sugar, putting a generous 4 teaspoons in with the little paper bag
"So what's your diagnosis Mr-plant-doctor?"
Evelyn
"I keep hearing about Audrey, and she seems like an interesting person. Maybe one of these days I'll run into her." He says, trying to hide his confusion about the plant diagnosis. Anyone who could see the plant could see it was doing better than before. Maybe joshua will eventually figure out that blind people exist.

"I think the little guys gonna pull through without trouble. The best way I could see to deal with it was to speed up its growth enough to make sure it could handle the water it already had. I got the impression it's only needing about half the water you're giving it."
Spencer
Luci hummed, taking on Joshua's words and making a mental note to, perhaps, stop watering it quite so often. Why was owning plants so difficult? Underwatering, Overwatering, Underfeeding, overfeeding... Next time he was going to stick to plastic plants.

"Tea?" He offered as he poured the water into his own cup, leaving a second with a bag on the side in case Joshua fancied one, before sliding back over to the table and reaching over to the pot, feeling his way up to the leaves, noting that they felt firmer between his fingers, less like soggy paper and more like leaves really should, they stood up higher too, that definitely was an improvement.

"Thanks for that" He smiled, turning to smile towards him
"It seems much better, or feels it at least, now I just have to keep Hydne away from it, they have a habit of burying things in the soil, I found a whole sock in there once"
Evelyn
"Tea sounds nice, thank you." Joshua answers. 

He watches Luci grope at the plant, listens to the other boys phrasing, and finally the pieces click together.

He argues himself trying to figure out whether he's right or not, and whether he should say something. Quite an interesting facial expression is made, thankfully Lucifer can't see it. He decides to go with a nice neutral path. 

"Who is Hydne?" He asks, trying to hide his confusion about how to act.
Spencer
Within a minute or so a second mug of tea was deposited on the table beside Lucifer's own, sugarless with a little milk, unlike Luci's black and sickly sweet cup.

"Hydne is-well they're my bird I guess, a causer of trouble for sure" He smiled into his mug as he took a sip
"Um. My powers, As long as I'm touching you-or something that's emotionally valuable- I can kind of *See* What you see"
He made a vague motion with his hand, clearly unused to keeping them still while he spoke, or ever really
"It's a little more complex than that, but I keep Hydne around for that reason, I think it's kind of rude to use other people without their permission, and Hydne doesn't mind so..."

A frown and a moment of silence from one beat to the next, Lucifer opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again like a fish in air, clearly debating his words
"If you don't mind my asking, what's going on with your hand? I don't mean any offence I just, it caught me off guard"
Evelyn
He accepts the tea before answering. Sipping from the steaming mug, he raises his hand and looks at it, answering quietly.

"Uh, yeah it's... It's turning to wood. The docs here gave me some fancy word for it: ligni-something. All I know is that it goes all the way through, and it's spreading slowly." He ponders his hand, adopting a lot more of a somber mood as his tone of voice drops. "From how they put it, I shouldn't even be able to use the arm. There's no muscle, no blood. Nothing but wood and bark anymore."
Spencer
"The perks of being parahuman I suppose, literally defying the laws of physics and biology... I'd love to see the look on my science tutors face if she ever found out about us lot" 
Luce smiled to himself, thinking back a few years to long winter nights spent pouring over textbooks he'd snuck from the library in town, a torch held between his teeth as he skimmed the pages in secret, occasionally reading passages to his brothers should they be interested.

"So, how did you end up here? Everyone seems to have their own weird way of arriving... Troubled family life?"
Evelyn
"Cops kept pestering me for living on the streets. Thought my spot selling plants was a drug front or something," He laughs a little, then sips his tea, "Eventually some guy showed up and handed me an envelope. That started the process to get me here."

He contemplates a question that's crossed his mind many time:. How did that guy know where to find him? After a moment he catches himself and gets back on topic. 
"What about you? You don't look like you came in off the streets."
Spencer
"Ah, yeah, that obvious huh?"
Lucifer chuckled, well- more giggled really.
"I like to think I blend in well here but, learned habits I suppose... I left home voluntarily I guess, my family wasn't exactly supportive of me. But same as you I got picked up by cops, just bad timing, wrong place wrong time and all that"

He shrugged, before gesturing vaguely around the room
"I'm still not entirely sure what this place is, it was all pretty hush hush, even after it was explained to me, everyone I've spoken to says it's like a school or an academy or something similar but-I don't know... I don't trust it yet I guess"
He picked at a loose string on his trousers, dropping his head down so his face was fully obscured by fluffy white hair
"I guess it feels to good to be true, I was expecting to go away to jail for a *Long* Time, and instead we are just here? No consequences, no prison, no weird experiments? You know what I mean?"
Evelyn
Joshua thinks about that a moment. Considering the weird things going on he's heard about in his stay, 'no consequences' definitely isn't the case. But it's definitely better care than he received in the last secretive facility. 

"I don't really know what I expected when I came here, but this wasn't it. I had a really bad experience with what I thought was a similar group. Then strange things started going on, so I spent a lot of time suspicious of the people here, avoiding most of them because of it." He pauses, figuring out how exactly he wants to word this, "But the weird stuff that I was hearing about? Most of that wasn't the school's fault. And it definitely wasn't the students either. I'm trying to look at this whole... Situation a little more openly. And honestly, I'm glad I am. There are some good people here."

While he monologues, he notices something growing on the bark of his arm, and starts messing with it, trying to figure out what it is.
Spencer
"Maybe you're right" Luce sighed, tucking one hand under his armpit and slouching down, folding in on himself like a piece of wet cardboard, the other hand continues to cradle his drink to his chest, as if trying to absorb as much as the warmth from it as he can, despite the humid weather.

"No one will tell me what's happening, its all smoke and mirrors, secrets and the like, and anyone I ask just shrugs it off"
Bitterness seeped into his words as he spoke, that controlled easiness that usually coated his voice slipping slightly before he straightened himself with a slightly strained smile
"You're right, of course you are, it's probably no big deal"
Evelyn
"I wouldn't just go off the word of a gardener," Joshua responds. "I've been here a good while, but I kept to myself and my plants the vast majority of that time. Hearing a conversation through the memories of a bean stalk definitely left details out."

Joshua considers a moment. Would any of that stuff he'd heard about have happened if not for the presence of the school?
"The hills may have eyes, but they don't really watch people much, if that makes some sense."