A-patrolling we will go [RP for allerdyce_john]

[whattingawhat]

Buffy took the subway mostly because walking would take too long. She had stakes tucked in her bag, she'd left a note for Danny (who was working a homicide case)and now she was walking through Central Park. She had her phone on vibrate because nothing ruined a sneak attack like a cell phone ringing. She was supposed to meet Pyro here and they were going to find some vampires to light up. It shouldn't be hard, they loved Central Park like Buffy loved shoes.

Comments

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

It was good of Buffy to have offered to tear him away from his boredom. Pyro was sick and tired of being sick and tired. He hadn't been able to get a decent night's sleep since he got out of that shit hole that was mutant government prison. If he hadn't read Buffy's 'I am (equally) bored to death' message online, he would've probably spent his night watching reruns of old cartoons again. The journal system was fast turning out to be a nifty thing.

"Hey." He snapped the lid of his lighter open and close, open and close as he approached Buffy from behind, assuming it was her. Pyro doubted there were that many petite blondes walking around in Central Park at this late hour. Asking for trouble, much?

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

Buffy was grateful Pyro had agreed meet her at the park. It was a chance to meet him in person and alleviate her boredom and his as well. She had to patrol anyway so he was just providing patrol company and some help in the form of fire.

When she heard the snapping of the lighter and then the hey, she was pretty sure it was Pyro. She smiled at him and impulsively hugged him. "Hey! It's nice to finally meet you in person."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

The hug took him by surprise and for a second or two, Pyro kind of just stood there, straight as a ramrod before he allowed himself to relax and he lifted his arm to give her a brief hug in return.

"Likewise," Pyro murmured as he stepped back, that signature smirk of his curling up at corner of his mouth. "For a minute there I kinda thought you were gonna fucking crush me." He knew it was a sore subject for Buffy; having to deal with being a super strong slayer and all, but he figured she'd get used to him teasing her soon enough.

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

She stepped back with a smirk. "That's what I was going for but you stepped back too soon," she told him. She could actually take a lot of teasing about things when she knew the whole slayer thing didn't really matter to the person teasing. Pyro hadn't ever even flinched when he'd heard.

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

He snorted out a laugh at hearing that. "Know what I have a weird craving for right now?" Pyro started walking down the dirt jogging track. He figured they might as well circle the lake. "A&W Root Beer Floats."

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"And that is now on the schedule for tonight. Slay first, root beer floats and fries afterwards. I'm always starving after slayage," Buffy said as she walked alongside him. There was the other H too but really, she was pretty sure he didn't want to hear about that.

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

Pyro flicked the lid of his Zippo lighter and whirred the thumb wheel for a spark. "Guess this would be a good time for me to show you what I can do." There weren't anyone else around and even if there were, Pyro wasn't about to give a shit. He was a mutant and he wasn't afraid of letting people see that.

He extracted a flame from the metallic device in his hand; his trusty sharky lighter. The flame settled in his palm and he turned it into a fireball. "Basically, I can manipulate its shape--" The fireball turned into the shape of a flat disc, useful for slicing and dicing. "Manipulate its solidity--" He sent it forward toward a tree branch, cutting it off. "And it's heat." It came back and he let it float in front of Buffy.

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

Buffy watched, mouth slightly agape at the demonstration. She reached out one hand, fingers going just close enough to to the disc of flame that her fingers singed. She didn't wince merely drew back. The slightly burned skin would heal by the time they were through with rootbeer floats.

"Holy Shit, Pyro...that's pretty amazing."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"Jesus fuck! Why'd you fucking do that?" He was staring at the burned skin on her fingers. "Are you alright?" He killed the flame, extinguishing it from sight. It must have hurt but she hadn't even flinched. "If I knew you were gonna fucking touch it, I would have decreased the heat."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"Actually it's more like a cheap wedding present thing." He smirked in wry amusement. "So do you always get death threats and freaks coming after you? If you do, then we've got something else in common." Pyro had a hell of a lot of enemies but he was used to dealing with them and chose to ignore the fact that there were people out there who'd like nothing more than to see him dead and buried.

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"Oh. My. God. All the time!" Buffy half laughed. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "They actually come looking for me and then warn me they're going to kill me. Coming to New York City especially to kill me apparently gives them extra super powers or something. Like out of all the vampires in the world who've come to do that, they're the very very best." She looked over at Pyro and grinned. "We're just racking up the things we have in common. So the freaks and death threats are because of what you do, or what you are or both?"

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"Both," Pyro answered with a chuckle. "They tell me to watch my back but I figure if I'm going to be paranoid about that shit I'm not gonna have much of a life." He fiddled with the lighter in his hand. "Besides, I've always liked a good fight. You ever get fidgety and restless when you haven't gone out to slay in a while?"

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"oh God. Yeah and first class bitchy. Trust me when I say you do not want a bitchy slayer on your hands. I feel like I'm going to come out of my skin if I don't slayer for like a week or so? I tried to take a vacation after all the mini-me's got made. It didn't work. At all." Buffy glanced over at Pyro. "I think you're right. About the paranoid. I mean...be careful and don't get stupid but I had this big cultist hitman organization after me for a while and everyone around me that knew the whole slayer gig was super wigged. I spent a few days with the paranoid and it was not my friend."

She tilted her head curiously at him. "So when you fight, do you have to use your power to get rid of the itchies or does just fighting do it for you?"

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"I constantly feel the urge to burn something. I'm very much a pyromania. I see fire and I just need to control it, so yeah, I guess I need to make use of my powers. I tend to use it when I fight. Basically at every opportunity I get, I'd try to incinerate something." He let out a crooked smile. "A friend of mine gave me a building to burn once. That was kind of fucking awesome of him." He chuckled. "And I can understand that whole getting bitchy thing cause I get cranky as hell when I'm doing nothing but paperwork in the office. I run this non-governmental organization. It's called IMRC. International Mutant Relief Center. I set it up to aid and assist mutants in third world countries. So when I'm not doing Brotherhood stuff, that's what I try to focus on."

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"Oh wow, that's cool. The whole IMRC thing. You're like a philanthropist," Buffy grinned at him. "That is a very good friend with the burning building thing."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"There's actually a whole motive involved in that whole IMRC thing. The Brotherhood's planning on an expansion so we're looking to recruit these mutants." He shrugged. "So you've got your own secret base and hideout for your slayers. How often do you go to Scotland to see them?"

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"Shame on you. I was thinking it was out of the goodness of your heart," Buffy smirked at him. "No, I get it. You have to recruit. We sort of do the same thing. Intervene and make sure we get the slayers started on the right path because an army of slayers in the wrong hands would be a very bad thing."

She shrugged at his question about Scotland. "I haven't really been back since I moved here. I'll probably have to go back in a few months. I do a lot of phone calls, emails...etc etc. I'm really kind of the...big guns and Willow, Giles and Xander handle it more on a daily basis. I'm who they pull out when the world is ending and the girls need a morale boost or a kick in the ass."

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"Okay so I can see how that would suck. Maybe you'll develop it eventually? I don't know how it works," Buffy said. "Obviously it's genetic, right? Have you always had it or is it something that activated one day?"

She tossed the stake in the air and caught it then shook her head. "Unless giant brains and an amazing capacity to drink copious amounts of tea are super powers, nope. We recruit them now. People who have been pulled into the whole thing and want to help or relatives of slayers, friends, things like that. Used to it was all very super secret and kind of generational. Giles' father and grandmother were watchers. He was kind of press ganged into it I think. By his dad and grandmother."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"My mutation? Well, generally for most it activates right after puberty." He sniggered. "Perfect fucking timing, right? Just when you're starting deal with a whole lot of shit, here comes this friggin' power. Then there's this thing called a secondary mutation. It's when your abilities get enhanced or you get a completely new ability even. But not everyone goes through that whole secondary mutation shit though."

He laughed at hearing the bit about giant brains. "Right. How did you get pulled into the slayer gig? Did he recruit you?"

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"Oh yeah...I was sixteen when I became a slayer, so a little later than puberty but still teenage shit plus power and destiny. Sucks big time." She tilted her head at Pyro. "So can you tell who's going to get a secondary mutation or is it pretty random?"

"I woke up one more, slammed my hand into the alarm clock and it shattered. A guy named Merrick met me after school before Mom picked me up and told me that I was a slayer. He gave me a crapload of a speech, sort of showed me the ropes." She bit her bottom lip. "He was my first watcher. He was killed. When I was 'recruited' I was the only one. A girl named India had died. She had been the current slayer and I was the new one."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"Basically you were destined to be a slayer? It's not like it's a genetic mutation thing, huh?" He nodded. "At first, I was kind of wondering if you were a mutant yourself but I guess you're not."

He snapped his lighter open and lit himself a new cigarette. "No one knows when or if they're gonna get a secondary mutation. It just kinda happens. Like, I was in a fight with this asshole and his power is ice and I'm fire, right? Halfway through the battle and I'm kicking his ass and I'm close to winning the fight when he gets his goddamn secondary mutation and turned into Mr. Block of Ice, and he basically slammed his head into mine and... I can't remember what happened afterwards."

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"Yeah it's a whole destiny gig. Most slayers their DNA and blood looks just like any normal human. If you really want to know what it is...I'm part demon. It's just a tiny, tiny part but the first slayer, the shamans used a spell and separated a part of a demon, stuffed it inside a girl and created the chain of slayers."

She winced at Pyro's story about the secondary mutation. "OUCH. That had to hurt."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"You being part demon is kind of cool except do you think there's a chance your children might look less than human? I know a lot of mutants who look like demons," he said. "There's this group of mutants living underground. They're called the Morlocks. They're ugly. Real fuckin' ugly. They don't look human, and with the obvious physical mutations they've got, they can't come up here because people are afraid of them, and that's what the Brotherhood's fighting for. We want for them to be able to live a decent live somewhere that isn't a goddamn sewer or some friggin' tunnel. It's just unfair."

[whattingawhat.livejournal.com]

"Oh God...I never even thought of that. There aren't a lot of recorded cases of slayers having kids so...who knows Yet one more reason I need to not have them." She half smiled at Pyro "That's a worthy cause, honorable even. They should be able to live in this world."

[allerdyce-john.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. They should," he murmured in agreement before raising his eyebrow at Buffy. "So you don't want to have kids?"