A Fish on the Hook ((Cinder))

[cinder]

Nicky is hers.

Thea can see it in his eyes, the precise moment he stops pretending to be a hoodlum and instead becomes one. There is something quintessentially different about a troublemaker. It is in the way that they talk, using any style of speech, and making it seem like dirty-slang. There is a hunched down, suspicious posture with a proud, full-height edge. Thea was accustomed to noticing these small differences between the normal, law-abider's and your average group of anarchists. She had never seen somebody completely switch sides in such a short period of time though. Thea idly wondered if she was being duped by a lying, cheating teen. Wouldn't be the first time a born and raised hooligan pretended to be a good citizen. Thats what Thea had been doing since she turned like ten or something.

Anyways, for now Thea would enjoy a job well done. She raised her eyebrow at the creative cursing Nicky had used. It sounded ridiculous, but as a teacher Thea was paying more attention to his tone, playing like a dog. Dogs notice tone for the most part. You could say your dogs name or a word that rhymes with it in the same exact tone and your dog will come running. Say his name in a completely different voice and Fido might just ignore you. Same with her type of people.

The Peacekeeper-Hating rant scared Thea a little bit. Hello, boy, I have neighbors! Thea rolled her eyes and grinned impishly at Nicky. "Oh, you did not mean that, Nicky! Peacekeepers are swell!" she mockingly told him, letting her eyes slide over to one of the walls of her apartment in a silent plea not to take things to far when that nice drunk man next door could be an informant, here to bust Thea and all her nasty friends for plotting against the District Four authorities. Yeah, it had happened a few times to other kids Thea knew. Its easy to bust someone when they're not being very careful about keeping quiet in an apartment building with thin walls.

People tend to hear things they really shouldn't. Thea knew this to be a fact, much to her chagrin. Anyways, now was not the time to throw up from the audio clips being replayed in her mind. Now was the time to celebrate a lesson learned! Thea cokced (misspell on purpose) her head to the side, trying to think of a suitable reward. She was still thinking about candy as a possibility, but instead decided on doing something that would no doubt annoy Nicky and please herself. "Okay, so lesson two is never say anything to anyone that could get you in trouble with the fuzz. Talk about me, talk about your cranky neighbors. Talk about your mom for all I care, but there are a few subjects us trouble-makers avoid. I like the way my face looks, no need to get it all bloody when the Peacekeepers beat the crap out of me for talking smack about them."

She eyed him, half-annoyed, but decided Nicky had no doubt learned his lesson. If the frigid glaring and upturned nose didn't do it, Thea had no idea what would. She glanced at him again, "Alright, so you can talk tough now. Pardon the cliche but ah, I think you need to be able to walk the walk now. Lets get out of here. The Peacekeepers are looking for a boy alone, nondescript. It's night now, we'll be ...safe... where we're going," she told him. Hey, at least Thea knew she would be offered protection by the locals. Nicky would have to fend for himself if some pick-pocketers came after him. More fun for her and another lesson learned. Actually might be good for the kid...

[-Z-]

I'd done well. Well enough for a splash of curious pride to wash over Zane's face, at least. Seeing such a reaction on my new mentors face made me grin at my on success. No, at this rate, I would not be kicked out of this house for any other reason than 'Zane' herself wanting to leave. That was until her face suddenly turned cold again. Her voice was still cheery, condoning my outburst about the Peacekeepers, but her glare made my blood run cold.

Okay. Attitude, check. Subject matter, big no. She confirmed my thought with a tirade on how she didn't want her face beaten in by some angry Peacekeepers. That made two of us. Message recieved. I nodded to make sure she knew I understood. "Alright, so you can talk tough now... I think you need to be able to walk the walk now. Lets get out of here. The Peacekeepers are looking for a boy alone... we'll be ...safe... where we're going."

Something told me safe wasn't quite the right word for where we were going. If I were with this girl, I would be 'safe', but the location would probably be anything but. No, don't think, just do. Instinct makes a rebel, thought makes everything inbalanced and dangerous. "Okay. I'm all for it." I stand up off the stool and walk next to her, ready to follow her lead.

[cinder]

Well hadn't Nicky made her feel like a dandy, do-gooder Chatty Cathy. Thea had put a lot of effort into her tongue-lashing lecture, and all she got was a solemn six word answer? Or actually five word answer, if her seventh grade math skills were not failing Thea. Anyways, juvenile delinquents like herself were not meant to be good at mathematics, Thea told herself with a defensive edge to her mental voice. Obviously, she had nothing to prove to anybody. Miss Quincy knew everything she needed to know in order to get by in life. Why fill up her pretty head with useless facts? Well I've heard the more you know, the bigger your head... your hair could use some induced volume.

Thea shook her head unconsciously, clearing thoughts of useless school subjects from her mind while also proving to herself that her shimmering, brown hair had enough volume, thank you very much. Alright, so half of it was frizz, but still, that counted, right--
I said enough with the stupid thoughts! To keep her mind from wandering in a day-dream-like circle, Thea snapped her head up to look Nicky in the eye. What she saw there didn't exactly sit with Thea's stomach. Something about this kid made her think of those awful labels they slapped on unsuspecting kids during their fragile teen years.

He looked like a patient of some psycho ward. Totally disturbed. The doctors had probably told his parents that there was a chemical imbalance in his head, which left him vulnerable, unstable and cruel. Pretty girls with fiendish tendencies triggered a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde change in him! Beware the chemically-heated mess, to put it in terms Thea preferred. What, you didn't get the joke? Nicky was a hot mess, down to the frumpy teenage boy look. That maniacal edge to his shifty eyes did suit the boy, even begrudging, reluctant Thea was willing to admit she couldn't have found a better pupil.

And to think, to imagine she had found him in the back-alley way like a present offered to her by the world. Obviously they approved of her course of action. Either that or the world had decided to tempt Thea to tell if she was truly bad or not. In that case, the joke was on her good, 'ol pal, Universe. Thea was not known for her self-control, she was impulsive and didn't take any BS. Obviously this was a greater power than even the Universe. It was Thea's very own willpower, drawing in the creme de la creme of this fresh crop of new hoodlums. She was the mentor to Nicky's apprentice, and boy oh boy, Thea was pretty sure they could take over the world together. Or at least establish themselves as the most impressive rule-breakers around.

Thea nodded to him silently and walked over to the bedroom corner of her tiny crash pad, snatching her leather jacket and carelessly tossing it back on. If Thea died, she wanted to be buried in that jacket, not once in three or four years had she left the house without it. No matter the season, the fashions of that year or the state of it. The jacket had seen some stuff go down, things little Nicky couldn't even imagine if she gave him a descriptive, visual essay. Thea stomped out of her house, beckoning Nicky with one hand and beginning to shut the door with the other hand. Thea tried to give the impression of being casually quiet. Best ways to draw suspicion to yourself are by being as silent as you possibly can, or purposefully talking boisterously in empty hallways. The first is behavior people tend to recall later, when the Peacekeepers show up at their doorstep, and the second just annoyed the heck out of every other tenant in her building.

A seasoned pro at sneaking out, Thea padded down the hall, expecting Nicky to follow her, she kept her eyes up and alert, checking every hallway and making mental notes of the apartments she knew to be occupied at that exact moment. Finally they arrived at a metal door, the kind with a deadbolt on the inside, 'specially acquired by the shadier of Thea's building-mates. She wrapped the material of her shirt around her hand, brought it up to the deadbolt and used the same 'gloved' hand to open the door. A gust of warm hair whooshed in from outside. A fire-escape, this one on the opposite side of her building, was just outside.

Finally she turned to her student, gestured with an 'ungloved' hand, and smiled feraly. "Ladies first," Thea nastily told him before snickering privately at her own joke. Yeah, when you have such a messed up sense of humor like Miss Quincy herself, you get used to having to laugh at your own jokes. A lot.

[-Z-]

I watched as Zane once more went to flouncing around the room, in preparations for their trip out of the Apartment building. She was quite a thing to watch, but every second I stared in thought felt like it was some forbidden act, like I was locked out of a building with no windows or doors to speak of but had found a chink in the wall to spy through and watch some ancient ritual of a super secret society. She did, after all, make the sense of a ritual very evident. First standing, moving with precision over to a jacket that was worn down with overuse, Zane must have worn it many times before.

Then she padded out of the room without a look back. I took this to mean that I needed to follow, and I quickly was on my feet moving as silently as I could behind her towards whatever destination she may be leading us to. We reached a door at the end of the hall, and she carefully turned it open with her shirt covering her hand, gesturing me forward with the other. Knowing this girl could stab me as soon as I had my back to her, I obediently went out the door into the warmer air.

I even gave a little laugh to her joke, thinking she might appreciate a reply to her oddball humor. "So where exactly are you fixin' to lead me?" I asked her, trying to sound like I'd retained the information she'd given me about speaking differently.

[cinder]

"To your death," Thea hissed to Nicky, she was struck by his sudden bouts of greatness and all those crash and burn moments. You would think that anybody, especially a future trouble maker would understand the danger of talking when it was dark outside and you were slipping down an alley. Oh well, nobody is perfect could be an excuse for his awful behavior at the moment. Thea could only hope he realized she had been half-kidding, mentioning that to your death bit. Most kids of District Four would understand the hidden meaning behind her words, even Thea of the Unlearned understood that ages-old story.

Sirens. Pretty girls who used singsong words to lead perfectly innocent fisherman to their drowning deaths. As long as she could remember, her 'moms' drunken threat had been to throw Thea to the sirens if she misbehaved. Oh God, you're so stupid! A thirteen year old Thea spat at the only mother she had ever known. The woman raised an eyebrow, pressed a hand to her warm, hungover head and started to slur a few insults. Thea slung a few back all on her own. You do realize sirens go after men, don't you? She stared down at her forming curves, the parts of her body that had recently been changing at an alarmingly fast rate. She barked a bitter little laugh. I'm part siren, didn't you know? Her care-giver had a moment of clarity when her words were strong and clear with biting words that she threw back at her impudent excuse for a daughter. Oh no, no, no. I wasn't threatening you with a watery death, m'child I was threatening to send you back to the heartless b*tches that gave you to me. God help me, or you'll be the one to lead me and many others to our deaths...

Mommy dearest had taken a swig out of an inconspicuous bottle filled with clear fluids, then stumbled out of their small house toward her small fishing boat. Thea shook her head, tears flew all over the place. The words hadn't been particularly loud and they had been cheesy, but still, cruelty was the base of her own mothers rant. It hurt Thea. She had touched a hand up to her face, swiped at the sea salt water drops leaking from her dark eyes and swore to herself that one day Thea would do as she pleased. Her hand tugged on Nicky, her foot splashed through a sea salt puddle and Thea 'Zane's' eyes narrowed with distaste as the memory swam before her very eyes.

Yes, she was living her own dreams now. Siren Thea, keeper of men's hearts and souls, true to her nature, whatever, blahblahblah. This was no time to contemplate the cheesy idea of the existence of Sea Maidens who were interested in breaking the hearts of young boys underwater. Thea was obviously above sea level at the moment, she was having too much fun messing with a guy on the ground to be thinking about underwater experiences. But then again, it did sound fun? Maybe I should just change my name to Sirena and call it a day.

And the crunching sound of home-made boots on a dry, dirty path alerted the two travelers to the presence of a third party.

ooc- you can choose whoever you want the third party to be. I was thinking that somebody Nicodemus knows already would be original/interesting but whatever you want to do, go ahead and do it.

[-Z-]

I knew all too well the story 'Zane' had referenced. Sirens. District Four's personal bogeyman story. I was just as familiar to the story as Zane must've been; it was a favorite of my father's. Whenever dad took me and Landon out fishing when we were young, there wasn't a single expedition that we went on where he hadn't told the story in one form or another. Beautiful women of the sea, who deviously pulled young sailors to their death. To your death. The words echoed in my ears as we eased down the fire escape. Did this make me as oblivious as those lost sailors? I had been swayed by this girl into sneaking out here, I'd elected her into power in my life. I allowed myself to follow her.

To your death. Who knew one simple, familiar phrase could pull shattered and forgotten fragments of memory to the forefront of your mind? Like the time I fell overboard while my father wasn't looking... By the time I was pulled onto the deck, soggy and dripping, my father had already shot out a reference to the sea women, calling me over the edge of the boat. Perhaps I was susceptible to these types...

I waited at the bottom of the stairs, watching Zane climb down as I got lost in thought. It was only when she froze that I was pulled back to attention. She had stopped, staring down the alleyway like a cat that heard a predator snap a twig within hunting distance. I turned to see who was standing there, to find none other than- "Landon." I say dumbly. What they hell was my brother doing in one of these alleys?

"'ey there, kiddo. Who's the statue?" He asks me, as if this were some sort of natural thing. As if I lived in an alley, and he were coming to visit. "Hello, nice to see your place again, you've killed some of the rats I see." "This is..." I pause for a moment, unsure how to introduce her. Zane wasn't even her name, but I felt giving up her fake name might of offended her in some way... And then it hit me... Since when did Landon talk like that? At home, with the parents, it was Hello, Nick. Who's your friend? and now its "'ey there kiddo"? As I turned to Zane, I was overcome with a feeling that I might not need to introduce the two at all.

[cinder]

The night fell over Thea, turning her bright eyes to a dark brown color, and all together changing her whole appearance. Street lights in this part of District Four were uncommon, even gas lamps were a rarity, for the thieves lurking about had devised clever ways to steal those too. Her face was cloaked by the darkness, Thea barely recognized Nicky and this newcomer looked vaguely familiar, the kind of person who ran with her crowd of people. His name was on the tip of her tongue, she even opened her mouth in order to let the inkling of a memory out into the world, feeling in her mind what his name was. "Landon" she said. Thea frowned, her voice sounded rather deep and boyish, didn't it? Landon slurred a few words before Thea--or well Nicky started to talk again. She grinned at her own idiocy. Oh yes Thea, your voice sure did change. Apparently you're also a ventriloquist, putting words into Nicky's mouth.

She squinted at the dark figure only just noticing the similarities between her pupil and her acquaintance. Physically speaking, they seemed to look like the brothers Thea had encountered and seduced over the past few years of trouble-making. She stepped forward, throwing a smile on her face like she would toss on her leather jacket, hurrying on the morning after a particularly hard night of partying. It had the same air to it, easy and breezy with the evil glint that went with anything Thea wore.

"Hey there Landon, it's me, ah," Thea struggled to recall whether or not she had given this stranger her real or fake name. Occasionally the girl liked to mix it up, call herself by a different name every few weeks. Chloe, Zane, and Quinn were her usual aliases, but the edge of danger that went with giving out a true name was too much for Thea to resist. That and some of her friends had known Thea since she was a toddling, wobbling creature with just as many curves as any other noodle-limbed little girl. She was pretty sure she had given Landon and company her original name... "Thea."

She winked at him, went on to explain how they had met, uttering something about Landon having been too drunk to remember even her stunning face. There was a slightly slurred protest bubbling from his mouth, but Thea put up an index finger, shutting him up. She grinned at him. "I knew I liked Nicky here, from the start, I knew it! He's obviously related to you, huh? The family resemblances are so clear in this lighting." She squinted her eyes again, held up her fingers to form a square shape and peered at each of the boys through the small finger-made border. Her head bobbed up and down a few times, as though she were a photographer who was eying the subjects of a new piece.

She turned her attention to Nicky for a second, allowing her eyes to slide over him. Oh crab, she thought, lapsing into usual District Four sea-sailing talk with her crab reference. This kid was connected to Landon. Thea didn't know much about the other guy, but if he ran with her kind of people, who knows what have went down if she had tattle-d on the boy. Especially having given out her name, Thea. Like I just did again, right now. Her face paled as she remembered the one and only time they had met. He had been too drunk, probably didn't even remember her name, much less her incredible face. It was a fools move, for even now Nicky might bear her some ill will, decide to turn her in for living a vagrants life. Addresses could be changed, Thea could have gone on a couch tour of District Four, but now she was stuck with these two whether she liked it or not. They knew her first name, they could find her last one easily.

And that, kiddies, concludes the fourth lesson of the night! Three cheers to Thea for making an example of herself. A perfect example of what not to do when you encounter the brother of a kid you were playing cat and mouse with. Glancing around, Thea couldn't help but feel her mind collapse into a hysterical panic. They were a ways down the alley. Nobody would care if her shrill screams pierced this night. The darkness, the danger, the notion of being a hero in general, it had been lost. Thea was utterly alone. Her words would have to be sharp, with biting fangs and claws to match. It was time to sell her soul to the devil and make the best of her ninth grade education in the ways of playing people.

[-Z-]

"Thea."

At the very least, that name sounded closer to a name I'd heard before. Definitely much more likely and common-sounding than 'Zane'. Surely, this would be her real name... I decided to ditch Zane in favor of Thea. This dilemma, of course, being something my brother clearly wasn't having. Landon seemed to have some vague recollection of this name as he racked his addled brain for some information hardly learned and hastily hidden away. If Landon was even half as confused by all this nonsense as I was, I felt bad for my brother.

"Landon... What are you doing here?" I ask him, unable to contain that very pressing question. Landon was supposed to be doing business for our mother, running a stall in the square for those in the District who didn't have the means or time to come down to our area of the city. I watched him leave this morning before heading out myself to the docks... But come to think of it, Landon did have a tendency to come home empty handed, with some excuse. "Sorry ma, there was an accident in the square." "Sorry mom, didn't look like anyone was interested." This was district four. Our mom sold fish. There was never a day when someone, somewhere in the district wasn't interested in getting seafood.

And then he had the nerve to just shrug at my question! "Can't say I'm doin' much, little bro. You're 'parently getting into some kind of deep shit f'your out with Thea." He'd turned it on me, which was annoying, but slightly comforting at the same time since at least it was a trait of his I recognized. No matter what, no matter why, Landon could always turn something back on me.

"I threw a bucket of fish guts in a Peacekeepers face." I shoot back bitterly. I never would've made a statement like that in any other company, confessing so blatantly to such rebellious acts. Landon was pissing me off though, and I thought maybe I could earn some respect from my deed... Or at least prove I wasn't in a messing-around mood. He gasped in a teasing way... But his eyes widened with the smallest touch of fear, proving at the very least I'd gotten the message through. I was in real danger of getting in real trouble and being really beaten. "Well then, be damn glad you found this one. She's a firecracker."

Right. Thea. In my pseudo-confrontation with a side of my brother I'd never seen, I'd forgotten all about the girl who made all this nonsense come to the surface. I turned to her, bug eyed and backed away. Jeez, she looked like a spazz in the thin lighting of the alley. "Hey. You alright?" Just like everything I said to her, I find myself wondering if it had been a good thing to say. "Hey. You alright?" could read as some sort of threat to her or something, 'specially now that she'd given up her real name.

[cinder]

"I don't scare easy, kid."

The statement embodied Thea, from the masterful dodging of a question to the swagger, to the offended, twisted tone and the cheerful edge she could not disguise. Thea was proud of her work, for she had answered Nicky's question without making herself out to be some damsel in distress. It almost, almost, almost made up for her lapse in appearances, the great root of this question-asking and answering business. Truthfully she was scared, scared out of her wits, but the statement she had uttered was equally true. Quickly, she rolled her eyes to complete the scornful act. It made her uncomfortable to think her features had aired her displeasure well enough that Nicky of all people would comment. Hadn't he grown used to her mood swings yet? He should have, by now...

...And if he hadn't learned to accept her annoying endearing trait, Thea narrowed her eyes in disgust and anger. "Landon over there just said so, I get myself into some heavy situations, I'm a god damned firecracker, Nicky. You should know this by now! I mean, either you know it or you should just walk away with this boy here," she told him, jerking her chin in the direction of 'this boy' to make her point clear. Golly! Thea had been thinking of what a prize Nicky was, how perceptive and great he would be as a side-kick student. Perhaps he hadn't realized the severity of her life yet. She would have to drill this into her pupils head, make him understand that if Thea wasn't hooking up with random guys, she was doing something worse, a la moral standards. It was important he knew that she seldom took fledglings under her wing. Nicky had to know he was special to her, a dangerous thing to be.
Still, her sense of self priority kicked in, shutting her up before she could start ranting about lessons. The less Landon knew, the better, her instincts said. Common sense--for once--agreed, it had a doubly lethal effect on her wise-cracking nature. Better to be safe than sorry when your pretty neck is on the line. By that logic, Thea found herself smoothing her features out into a casual example of Thea Quincy. Her eyes danced, her mouth was turned up at the corners and her nostrils flared. There. She was a perfect picture of casual malice, down to the haughty nose-ing.

Confident in her appearance, Thea placed her hands on her hips, eying the brothers with cool distaste. She was finished with taking risks for the night, just about to turn Nicky over to Landon and run like Hell home for the night when something prodded her mind. The devil in her forced Thea to stay and watch her fellow trouble-stirrers, fascinated by change in atmosphere. Now that her thoughts weren't so self-centered, Thea had begun to pick up on a sense of unease, a prickle of hurt coming forth from the two. Somebody had been keeping secrets. Heck, two somebodies. Thea wondered at the state she had found young Nicky in. He had called himself Nicodemus, very uppity and all. Could it be that the two lived with established, do-gooder parents who had no idea whatsoever that their precious sons were out at night? It would explain their rebellious acts all right, explain the fine state of the clothes on their backs and the flawless grammar Nicodemus had used.

Torn by the conflict in her heart between the self-preserver and the helpless moth drawn to a fiery fight, Thea stood rooted in her place. All that she knew was that things were going to get incredibly interesting in a very short amount of time.

ooc- I'm sorry, that post took me FOREVER and its terrible DDD:

[-Z-]

"Well... Okay." I reply to Thea. With my momentary check-in on my 'tutor' complete, I turned back to face my brother, standing there with a smirk across his glib face. I could feel my anger at him rising in my throat like some acidic bile... Here he was, ignoring his duties, lying to our parents, lying to me. He never lied to me, nor I to him. I would've told him all about Thea as soon as I returned home. But no, he just stands there smirking at me like I'm some idiotic child! I stormed up to him and gave him a hard shove back, causing him to stumble off balance backward, onto the ground.

"Why didn't you tell me what you've been doing! Huh?" Landon stared back up me blankly, apparently not believing I'd done what I just did. But I didn't back down. I stood over my fallen brother, glaring at him as he got back to his feet. "Why didn' I, eh? How long you been out with Thea?" Out of nowhere, Landon swung hard at my face, his fist contacting with my cheekbone with a fleshy noise. I stagger back, reeling to hard from the fact that Landon- my brother, my friend-had punched me to feel the pain that no doubt would result in a splotchy bruise.

At that moment, when I concluded my brother had hit me in the face, I was done dealing with his shit. With the lying. With the superiority complex he had that I was all to willing to play into, because he was my older brother. I wouldn't let him make me the villain here. Shouting, I run back at him, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling his chest down into a hard hit with my knee. "Don't you. Turn this. Shit on. Me Landon!" I chant, accenting each break in the sentence with another hit with a bony body part; fist, elbow, knee, foot. There might even have been a head-butt involved. He manages a swing that interrupts my beating on him by sending out a sickening crack, and I feel something like warm oil pouring down my face.

No, not oil. This is too metallic. I realize he's smashed my nose open, that's blood dripping down my face. I run at him one last time, and this time, I don't need to grab him to hit what I'm aiming for. With a sharp jerk, I knee him straight in the... We'll, let's just say he fell to the ground, hand between his legs."Don't touch me." I spit a mouthful of blood at my brother who, until now, I respected more than anyone in the world. "Screw you." I say as I wipe the blood off my face down my sleeve.

Then I turn back to Za- Thea, whatever, who's just been standing there watching. This, to her, was surely an example of what I could to, my own rebellious potential without instruction. The first time she would see me give in to rage and destroy something, fight for my own reputation, for my own respect, against something that I so violently hated. "So, how was that?" I grunt over my shoulder at her, knowing she was holding in some comment I would hear sooner or later.

[cinder]

So you're in jail.

I believe this calls for an end to thread

+ I'm very busy and I dun want to keep you waiting.