Guess who's back?

Maisie hardly went up there anymore. It was not to say that she never went up there at all, as it was the optimal place to get a smoke and think. But it reminded her of Jonathan, the buy who left mysteriously about a month ago, and whenever she thought about him, she got pissed off. Why did he leave? It was in the worst of her time there, after she got stabbed by a boy she never knew and hadn't seen since. It still hurt when she walked. She felt like it would never go away.

But she still felt that one day, when she walked up that narrow stairwell and out into the air, she'd see him. That's what brought her there that afternoon, standing steely against the frigid air, not even wearing a coat as her hot breath expelled into the atmosphere's freezing chamber. It was Wednesday; the trains always came in on Wednesday. Her checking paid off.

She held a knife.

She said nothing. The girl stared him in the eyes blankly, panting shallow breaths that pierced the air in wisps. She stepped forward, a little lopsided, still looking like she ran a marathon up the stairs. Another. And another. With each stumble, she seemed a little more disoriented, but the last one was less rigid. Her shoulder fell, and she pushed herself into his hand, dropping the knife as she stepped into a laughing fit. She keeled, her stomach hurting as she fought through tears. "Shoulda...seen the look on your face..." This only made her laugh more, loudly like thunderclaps into the gray air. "Fucking hell, Jonathan, you moron, you aren't worth murdering for!" She slapped her knee. She actually slapped her knee.

"I wanted to scare you with it." She leaned on the railing, backwards, her elbows resting on it. "It's nothing too big, see--" She ran her thumb over the smooth edge, and there was no trace of blood as a result, Maisie holding up the finger to show him. "It's a butter knife, jackass, I got it from the dormitory kitchen, it might as well be plastic."
It seemed her level of amusement had been gradually fading from the time she revealed the prank, and she was at a frown by then. Still holding the blunt weapon, she said, "Where have you been?"

Maisie didn't seem to react. She didn't think he'd expect her to. A look over the railing, she remembered someone else who almost died. "I got stabbed," she said nonchalantly, as if she told another boring fact, blowing hot breath into her bare hands. She should have worn gloves. They were cracked with the wrath of North Dakota, the wind whipping over the trees to meet them. "Right here." If she had the knife she would have made the presentation worthwhile, but it was kicked away, and she improvised with her thumb, pushing it into her abdomen with her other hand. From her mouth came a choke, a sound to indicate death.

"Some guy." She waved him off with eyes caught on the scene below, the nervous hustlings of people to the warm campus buildings. Maisie took one more breath before going: "Let's get inside. I'm freezing my ass off." It helped to wear a coat in the arctic, and Maisie didn't really take that advice. She'd rushed for reasons she didn't know. Besides; she needed something to take Jon's attention off her near-death. She still wanted to talk about it, though, at the same time. She really shouldn't have been standing there.

Coolio. Maisie cast a thin gaze at his hair, a smirk coming over her face. "Then maybe you should go first," she stated. He really hadn't fixed that, did he? It still looked ridiculous, even though it let her spot him in large crowds. She planted a boot to his ass, pushing him in the door and following, letting the heavy door seal up behind him. What house was he in again? She had no idea.

While Jonathan took crazy routes down, bouncing off the walls and railings like an autist on cocaine, Maisie kept to a standard approach, a slow and slouched walk down the stairs, watching him slide down with a roll of the eyes. It was in this slow approach that she got to his dorm slower, and thus when he opened the door, she walked up. She was promptly dragged, feeling like his mother as she shouted, "Get off me, Pinkhair!" It was a short-lived holler, ending with entrance into his room. It was empty and bleak, but his stripped bed still sat in the corner. She let herself fall, springing with the recoiling murmur of rusty metal, bouncing as she lay. "Do I look like a maid to you?" She asked him, looking up at the popcorn ceiling with umbrage on tired eyes. What a tacky shithole this school was. Everywhere was awful.

Maisie didn't oblige too much, only moving 2.54 centimeters with the nudge, staring lost in the white of the ceiling, wrist resting on her forehead, warming it red as her hand stretched to the snow above. When he inquired again about the stabbing, her eyes grew dark with annoyance, and the hand on her forehead snapped closed, like a flytrap. With a brief moment of no speaking, she gave the kind of reply she'd give her mother, as if he was accusing her of lying. "You want to see it?"

"I don't know. I don't give a shit," She said, propping herself up on her elbow to deliver this news, raising an eyebrow before dropping down once more. The second question was a little more ridiculous. "Of course I do. I'm not joining the convent because of one incident." She hid the fact that she spend many nights awake, afraid of death, afraid of the feeling of death creeping over her. She'd had two cigarettes since then, and one was an excuse to get off a ride with Jane. She was hesitant toward them, and it was only the itch that drove her to their grip.

"Oh fuck off." If it seemed like a joking shrug-off, but the shove she gave his arm was hard. "Put those away, I don't want one right now." There was a blankness as she settled, staring up and up. He had been gone for a while. A moment of silence, she whispered, almost uncharacteristically delicate, "What are you gonna do after this? After school?" It was almost innocent, but the fragility of her temper showed in the fire permanent in her greenblue eyes. She would hit him again if he went at her.

Negating powers. Something within Maisie felt like he'd told her that before, but she couldn't really remember. In fact, she couldn't remember a lot about Jonathan. There were a lot of things she didn't know. She didn't feel like asking, and frankly did not care enough to ask.

Power negation, power negation. She wondered if she had told him her power, if he could negate her power without knowing about it. Without saying anything, the girl began to hum a sweet tune, her melody clean as if she'd never smoked a cigarette in her life. She closed her eyes as she did so, the tune soft and sweet and sleepy like a lullaby. If his power was really great, he'd still be awake by the time she finished her little song.

And Maisie stopped with a hush, a scowl and a sigh. Dammit. That would have been hilarious, for him to drift off to sleep after talking about negating powers. She closed her eyes and grinned, imagining him immediately falling asleep as she drew dicks on his face. She didn't speak for a while. In fact, after a few minutes, her breathing became shallow and slow. The girl had fallen asleep on her own, much to her possible unconscious dismay. She seemed peaceful, lips slightly parted, chest on a sea of up-and-down, a calm Sunday roll of waves.