Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gehenna often used the abandoned house to crash. It was complete, but only on the outside. Someone hadn't quite gotten around to finishing the inside and it had been that way for as long as Gehenna, or Kam, could remember. The exterior was intact, though the paint was chipped a bit on the corners. Inside, years and years of graffiti splashed the drywashed walls and bare wood floors. It was a colorful explosion of art styles from all the various visitors and regular drifters.

Gehenna had just plopped a couple of bean bags next to a low, makeshift table of paint cans and plywood. Someone had cared enough to set it up, once.

"Fine, fine." He took the menu back gladly and tossed her a small smirk. "I'll get you the hawaiian one." He picked up a cellphone and dialed a number by heart. A few breathes later and he was pouring out an order. "Yeah, I want your three for fifteen. One Luau from Lowtown , One All You Can Meat, and One Veghead with extra mushrooms." A pause. "Also, could you add some cinammon knots?" He continued to babble on about directions and prices, then set the cellphone down on the little make-shift table next to a laptop covered in band stickers.

"They'll be here in twenty minutes." He shrugged and let the menu fall unceremoniously to the top of the four-legged table. "And for some reason I think it's going to be quite the long night with people out waging war and all that." For his words, he tried to seem mostly unconcerned. In the back of his mind he wondered at Vulcan's safety, but also knew he couldn't just run to protect her all the time now.

"What do you want to do first?" He flexed his fingers a little, testing his ability to use his keyboard with the restrictive gauntlets. He could get to just about anything with the hotspot on his phone, a feature he'd ordered just for the night. He wasn't about to spend hours in a hostage situation without something to entertain himself.

It was her eagerness that he found charming and despite the fact that he would never have been caught dead playing with this game on his own, he couldn't deny her the fun. He seemed to have permanent big brother syndrome, caught somewhere between wanting to help and needing to maintain his badass persona.

"Pretty sure I've already met the devil anyway, and she's a b***h." He laughed under his breath, not at all sorry for the cursing. Gehenna wasn't as polite this time around. He reached out and took a swig from an open can of Dr. Pepper, setting it down on the ground in case some crazy spirit sent their table flying. His hands looked almost too big for the little triangular slider as he positioned his fingers on the indents. He was familiar with a world made for somewhat smaller people, he mostly seemed more amused than uncomfortable.

"Uh, me?" He paused, recalling all the people he'd lost. Could he bear the disappointment of his parents? The confirmation that Khetal might be dead? There were a lot of people that he could have contacted if he'd felt like he wouldn't break down from it. Sweet little hostage or not, he didn't want to be vulnerable on a night where a war raged around them. Instead, with a nervous grin that belied his true feelings, he just shook his head.

"Can I skip a turn? Unless you want to wingman some hot ghost chicks for me."

Gehenna chuckled softly at the fledgling's enthusiasm and, for a moment, had a small pang of regret that she was the enemy. Eventually he would face her again under much different circumstances, it was the inevitable outcome of this war. Would he remember the way she made him laugh, then?

"Not quite. She's pale and sickly to me, but the devil is different for everyone." Despite his very real advice, he was smiling through mischief now. "She could be red and fiery to you. Just don't get too close when she shows up, eh?" His fingers flexed in their cramped position as he spoke, trying to keep it as light hearted as he could. There was no reason to delve into who his devil was, or why she was the plague on his conscience. Especially not to the enemy - sweet heart or not, everyone could be broken and used as an information sponge. Astrophyllite would not be his Achilles heel, even with such an innocent face.

He fell to silence as she began dialing the 'operator', watching her through a skeptical gaze he didn't even bother to hide. That thing wasn't even going to slide unless he moved it anyway, his hands were way too heav-

hello.

Okay. So maybe it was sliding. A single brow rose as he stared at the response. He had never given much thought to spirits and ghosts and, given who his hostage was, he had to wonder if there was some dark magic at play here. Did he want to talk to whatever the negaverse could conjure up? It was probably way too late now, they were already here. It wouldn't be the first time he decided to tango with the dark forces anyway.

"Mysterious spirit," he addressed it with too much emphasis, "do you know the devil?" He flashed a grin at Astrophyllite, obviously not too perturbed by the idea of a demon showing up. He'd just punch it to death, that was his job.

"I don't think-"

Gehenna's words were quickly drowned out as Astrophyllite's words drew her mind down into a dark spiral of panic. His mouth opened and closed again and again, like a fish struggling to breath out of water, trying to find the words to stop her from jumping to so many conclusions.

"No, don't-"

Again he stopped as she blurted her questions out to the invisible spirit. Not just one, but many, tumbling over each other in a flurry. For a moment he had forgotten what it was like to be young and afraid of the unknown. Now he was mostly just afraid of the horrors he already knew. Those would come for her, in time. But that time was not here, not on his watch.

He fought to keep his fingers from twitching as he put just the right amount of force on the planchet, gliding it across the surface of the board slowly enough to make it believable. He squinted his eyes for effect, mouthing out the letters as he moved the weight of her hands with ease. "H," he breathed the first softly, barely loud enough to hear, "e", now he just felt silly. Yet he kept going, committed to what he thought was a ridiculous performance. When it was all said and done he furrowed his brows and let himself sit in a moment of consideration.

"He is fear?" He questioned aloud, sweeping his deep eyes up to the young teen as if he were't sure. He just wanted to see if she believed it, really. His fingers pulled back from the planchet, clearly satisfied with the answer their mysterious spirit had given them.

As if on cue, a series of rapid knocks sounded from the front door. Gehenna thanked the pizza gods and pushed himself up to his feet with a clattering of armor before he crossed the room to answer it.

"Hold that thought, pipsqueak."

"It's uh.." Gehenna paused as he tried to think of the word, temporarily distracted by the overwhelming smell of mouth watering pizza. "An expression. It's just an expression." He was pretty sure that was the word he wanted.

As he dropped the boxes on the table and flopped down opposite her in a metallic clatter, he couldn't help smiling at the eagerness she basically oozed from every pore. Khetal had been that easy to please, once. The thought didn't strike the usual guilt right to his core and he reached out to open the remaining two large boxes. He pulled one slice from each and smushed them together, face-to-face.

Perfect.

He took one large bite and mumbled a "you're welcome" around it, or that at least seemed to be what he said. It was a long time before he swallowed it down, reaching for his soda to help with the over sized mouthful. His eyes were always a bit bigger than his mouth, but it wasn't going to stop him from devouring it.

"Do you know what time they're supposed to be done taking over the world, or whatever it is they're out there doing right now?" He hadn't asked questions of Vulcan when she'd begged the favor of him, though he had to admit he found it a little odd that she was willing to work with the enemy at all. At least the girl wasn't some insufferable punk - for once he was just happy at not having to punch things to prove his point.

"Hm?" he half answered her over the sound of the pizza sloshing around in his own mouth, seemingly in a daze over his food. Then his brain put two and two together by the end of her sentence and he paused mid-chew to stare at her.

Damn it. Were all girls this sensitive?

He swallowed the gulp of food down and wrinkled his nose up, as if he had smelled something foul. "First of all, just call me Ghen, pipsqueak. Mister Gehenna Squire is way too formal for pizza buddies." He took another bite of his pizza and chewed it, as if thinking about her offer. "And I'm pretty sure I'd be the worst guard ever if I just let my hostage walk away."

Gehenna sat up and reached over for the smaller of the boxes that had been dropped off, opened the top, and slid it around so that she could see. "Besides, who is going to help me eat all of these cinnamon knots if I just let you go home?" He raised his eyebrows a few times in a comical waggle, popping one of the large knots into his mouth and attempting to eat it whole. The result made him look like a blowfish, but it did shut him up.

He leaned back with a grin on his face, munching pleasantly on his knot for a moment or two. Almost as an afterthought, he held up his signet ring to show her once he had managed to swallow enough food to speak again. "We can send some prank letters later too, whatdya say?"

The Squire laughed as she began cheering for cinnamon knots, pleased with himself and the way he had averted the sudden confidence crisis. He'd forgotten what it was like to be a teenager and she seemed a little more.. touchy. That was the word he was going with.

With a mouth still half-full of the sugary bread, he pulled a beaten up notebook and pen from where they had been stashed beneath their makeshift table. It had been left a long time ago and filled with random doodles and notes that squatters scribbled from time-to-time.

With a grin on his lips, he slid around to the side she was sitting on and opened it to a new page. Then he started the simple process of explaining how it worked (roughly) and decided to compile a list of all the best people to prank during the rest of their night.

Hanging out with a kid wasn't so bad.