HELL WERE YOU THINKIN ;; Hunter

[marcikin]

It wasn’t every night that one walked sopping wet into the thunder dorms. Naima had to bring her hands to her face every once in a while to keep herself from chuckling, and once she even slipped in the fall and barely caught herself on all fours before she busted a tooth. It was past curfew, but not by much, so she’d been able to sweet talk a teacher that she’d simply lost track of time by the lake. That was close to the other side of the academy, right? Yeah, she was headed back to the dorms now. Straight there, no trouble. Got off with a warning. Nai knew she’d been lucky, though—that was a lenient teacher.

She wasn’t so annoyed at being wet this time, though it usually meant a graduate water had taught her a lesson for picking on one of the freshies. This time she’d….well yeah. That had happened. But not before she put the fear of god into the little twerp. It was unfortunate that she’d had a witness, but not so bad. The kid probably wouldn’t tell. He probably didn’t want to deal with being shocked again.

Naima Core sighed as she leaned against the inside of the common room door, slipping off her wet, oversized denim jacket and running a hand through her hair to slick it back a bit. She flinched when her hand passed over the ugly bruise near her temple, her entire demeanor changing as she dragged some of the dark, wet hair to hide it from view. There. That was better. The young woman smirked at her opaque black and white striped sweater, unable to stop herself from shivering violently as she slowly realized how cold she was. Dripping wet in the middle of winter in Canada. Hah.

It was only then that she took the time to look around the room. She’d expected it to be deserted, but lo and behold! There was her favorite person. One of her favorite persons. Nai dropped her jacket on the floor and took a few steps forward, smiling brightly, “Hello, Hunter.”

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[HUNTER DOUGLAS ULRICH]

It was cold. Hunter could see his breath as he felt the bar slip beneath his numbed fingers. And then he was in the water. He let out a gasp as he hit the water, air bubbles escaping his lips. He fought to the surface, breathing deeply as his head escaped the water. He panted as he swam to the shore. He let out a breathless grunt as he hefted himself out of the water. He lay on his side, shivering in his wet clothes. After Hunter caught his breath, he stood and examined the bar as it switched back to its normal place. He groaned as he sat on the ledge, closing his eyes wearily. When Hunter opened his eyes again, he thought he saw something move in the water. Something big. He watched the shadows for a while, not barely breathing as he stood slowly. He stood in the silence, backing up towards the lever from before. Deciding the shape to be nothing, he hefted the lever and walked a ways back. As he got ready to sprint to a rock, he heard a low sound, like a mumbled cry that was accompanied by a splash. He turned just as a large, shadowy mass exited the water, waving at him for a second before swinging down and knocking Hunter to his feet.

Hunter’s eyes snapped open from the bizarre dream he had been stuck in. What was that all about? In Hunter's sleepy state, he rolled over on his side, his hand falling off the edge of the sofa innocently. His feet swept across the width of couch as he slowly woke himself up. He let out a small groan as he realized he taken a nap in the common room for way longer than he expected. By the time he got home he’d never be able to sleep now after the impromptu nap. Not bothering to get up from his laying down position, he rummaged through his pockets to check if he still had his keys and wallet on him. The tower the common room was in let moonlight through its ceiling window panes, basking the scene in an iridescent glow when added to the decors many grays, whites, and yellows. It was spacious, and beautiful, but Hunter could admire none of this. He was more concerned, and rightly so, with the dripping wet person standing before him.

Dripping wet and smiling in all her glory was Naima Core. Why was she covered in water? ”What the hell happened to you?” he asked. Rather than greet his friend he went with the first thing that popped up in his mind. Knowing her she probably was starting something when she should have been keeping her head down. Hunter swung his legs of the side of the sofa and sat up. Leaning one hand across the back of the couch he arched a brow and nodded towards the girl. ”Who did you piss off now?” he smiled towards his friend as he awaited her answer. Naima always had a tendency for stirring the pot, and perhaps this time it blew up in her face.

[marcikin]

Aww, he’d been asleep! Naima couldn’t help but let loose a bit of a grin as Hunter swung his legs over the side of the couch, sitting up straight and looking at her. Sure, she looked a mess, but he had bedhead. It made her want to touch it, but she remembered how he’d reacted the last time she’d flirted, and decided she would allow him the power of coherent speech for at least a little longer. Nai tilted her head a bit and donned a perfectly innocent, unassuming expression, ”What? Nothing.” She raised her left hand to play with her hair absently, but then she remembered the quickly-hidden bruise and lowered her hand. ”Heh…”

”It’s not all bad,” she insisted, raising her arms to the side and turning around for him to look at, ”The water actually made my sweater shrink to the right size, see? It shows off my curves now.” Since she wasn’t all that wet anymore—after all, she’d trekked half the campus to get to the dorm—Nai had no qualms with plopping down on the couch next to her friend, still smiling vaguely about the look on the dumb freshie’s face.

When Hunter asked his second question, Naima shrugged. Then shivered, ”Huh?—oh, wow, I’m cold—oh it was j-just some water graduate.” She had to stop talking to hug herself and tremble for a bit. Why was it so cold in here? She let out an annoyed sigh and looked Hunter in the eye, smiling wryly, ”Didn’t have the decency to give his name before he tossed me in the drink. Heh. Assface.” She pulled her sleeves as far down as they would go and gripped the cuffs in her fists, ”What about you? Thought you went home at night.”

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[HUNTER DOUGLAS ULRICH]

Still stretching out some of his sleep he pulled a hand through his messy blonde hair. Ugh, definitely not up to his high standards. Hunter reached into his backpack and pulled out a well-worn black beanie. ”Nothing is what people say when they don’t want to get caught.” He stretched out the cap before slipping it onto the back of his head. ”What’s that?” There was a nasty looking black and blue on her forehead. If this girl could go one day without some sort of trouble it would shock and amaze the boy. What was she laughing about anyway? A nasty looking mark like that wasn’t really a joke in his mind.

The drenched sweater left little to imagine as Naima twirled around in front of him. He scratched the back of his neck as he pushed his thoughts elsewhere. ”You’re a Thunder aren’t you, shouldn’t you have had an upper hand? You could have gotten pneumonia in this weather.” As she plopped down next to him he turned to face her. ”You could have easily shocked their ass to high hell.” Fighting and provoking other elements wasn’t really his style, as it was for most Thunders, but Naima didn’t quite fit the bill in that area.

As Naima shivered, Hunter got up from his seat to go tend to the fireplace. It was usually left unlit even in the dead of the winter. The logic behind that was lost on him. He rummaged through his pocket once more and pulled out his lighter. As he tried to get some fire going he called out to Naima over his shoulder, ”Well jokes on you then. Messing with a graduate is a sure fire way to getting your ass handed to you.” There was a small fire going as he pushed around the logs a bit. The fire students probably never had a problem keeping check over their fireplace. Once it was able to support itself and began to burn the other logs Hunter made his way back to his seat. ”I was going to, but I ended up staying here way longer than I intended to. I didn’t think I would end up napping here. Doesn’t help that no one questioned why I was just snoozing here instead of back home.”

[marcikin]

”Huh?” Naima very convincingly lifted her hand up to the bruise as though she hadn’t realized it was there. A bit of a dark look passed over her face as she touched it, pulling her hand away quickly as the expected pain burst out. She pursed her lips, allowing a bit of the real upset she felt about it to color her lie, ”Assface must’ve hit me harder than I thought, I guess. Man, it hurts,” she grimaced a little, ”I know I bruise easily, but that must be bad.” In reality, she’d had most of the morning to study it, trying to do her hair is some way that would hide it completely. But no, it wasn’t possible, and most people either expected she’d gotten into a fight or been in an accident. She hadn’t tried to refute either of the theories.

Nai pouted when Hunter got up, having enjoyed his warmth even without any actual touching, but when she saw he was going to the fireplace she gave him a thankful smile. ”Well then you’ll be glad to hear I didn’t mess with a graduate.” Naima said haughtily, leaning her head back and looking at the ceiling, ”I messed with a freshman. The graduate just happened to see me doing it, is all. Man, you should have seen the little twerp’s face, too. Didn’t even shock him. Much.” The way she saw it, she had to teach them fear early or they’d get into trouble quickly. Especially the water students—they were the only ones that ever really fought back. She couldn’t wait until she was a few years older and could lord it over all the waters in the place.

”Still might get pneumonia, though,” came the mutter as she continued to shiver.

Hunter sat next to her again, and the incorrigible young woman couldn’t help it. She scooted a little closer to him, muttering something about him being warm as an excuse. It wasn’t that big of a deal, she thought, they weren’t really touching much, just shoulders. Although he might not appreciate that she was wet…. ”People were probably just too scared to wake you up,” she teased, grinning at him a reaching a hand up to tug on one of the messy ends of his hair, ”You look like a bit of a Frankenstein. Cute, actually, if we can get over the fact that you might eat us.”

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[HUNTER DOUGLAS ULRICH]

He couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes a bit at Naima. ”Well, that’s what happens when you start trouble.” Knowing his cohort, revenge was probably being planned for the near future. Messing with a bunch of Thunders was always a dangerous game to play since they seemed to get people back two fold. Hunter was the same. ”Was it a guy?” Piece of shit was going to get it if he wasn’t careful. Powers be damn, a man hitting a woman was not okay with Hunter. His birth mother back home had gone through a few boyfriends. All from different walks of life, but there were a few that liked to exercise his power against the blonde’s mother. When he was old enough to realize what was going on Hunter went out and scalped an old wooden baseball bat to keep under his bed. Didn’t stop his mom from falling in to the same pattern with men though.

The blonde shook his head solemnly as Naima explained the whole situation. They fact that she was picking on younger students concerned him. His own stepsister and stepbrother were both in younger years. Thankfully Grace was a Thunder, but would Shawn be safe from the teasing? He was usually safe being Wind student, but there were always a few students who didn’t care much for the neutral party. People would learn that fucking around with the younger Ulrich’s meant having to deal with Hunter. ”Two against one…doesn’t sound very fair.” Karma was the biggest bitch of them all. The last fight he had gotten into was during winter break. It had been a bad day to begin with, but the cheeky Water student- Craig or whatever his name was- seemed to enjoy making it worse. The boy drove Hunter to the breaking point and left with a bloody jaw because of it. ”You have to be careful around the graduates. Even the Waters. Some of them learn how to manipulate water into ice, and we don’t have a complete advantage over that.” The thought made him shiver a bit in hear. Next year he would be entering higher education at the Academy. Academically he wasn’t sure what he wanted to study but he was always much more interested in controlling his powers.

As Naima pushed closer to Hunter he squirmed a bit in his own seat. He avoided eye contact for a bit as he tried to think nothing of the distance. Not everything had to be some sort of advance. Naima was his friend and it would be rude to ignore her. He turned his attention back to her and tried his best to put on a simple smile. ”Scared of me? Why, just because I don’t like fraternizing, live off campus, and stay out of trouble makes me scary? I must be mysterious to them,” he replied dryly to her. He wasn’t paying attention as Naima’s hand came up to grab a stray lock of his hair. On instinct his hand wrapped around hers to pull it away. ”Not the hair girl, this is a work of art,” he joked. Hunter guided her hand away from his face before letting go again.

[marcikin]

”A guy?” she was actually surprised by the question, but she managed to mask it pretty well with a ‘duh’ expression, saying, ”Yeah, you think I’d let a girl hit me like that? I’d destroy her.” She had to focus to keep herself from squirming uncomfortably, which rarely happened. Why did Hunter have to keep asking questions about this? She wanted him to stop forcing her to weave this elaborate lie—she didn’t usually lie to her friends. Sure, it was true that a man had hit her, but if she knew Hunter, the next question was going to be for an identity. And she didn’t want to deal with coming up with a lie for that, even if it was a good way to get the waters in trouble with the thunders.

”Mmm,” Nai huffed a little, feeling like she was being lectured. But after a second she shrugged and smirked at him, ”I usually don’t go things alone, but what can I say? I’m an opportunist. That kid was just sitting there. Easy pickings.” Or so she’d thought. But considering, she’d got out of the scrape fine. Really, the only thing that had happened was a little bit of water. Let Hunter think the bruise came from it too, but Naima was hardly scarred by the ordeal. And it certainly wouldn’t keep her from doing it again should the opportunity arise.

It was probably because she was expecting it, but Naima noticed Hunter squirm a bit a look at little uncomfortable. She smiled to herself, angling her gaze down to make it seem like she wasn’t laughing at him. But it was really cute, how the boy was so uncomfortable with girls. And to think, all she’d wanted was a bit of his warmth. For a few seconds, the young thunder considered completely taking him out of his comfort zone, but she decided against it again. It would be funny, but he wouldn’t appreciate it.

”Right,” she scoffed, then raised her hand to run through her wet hair, ”So it this. I call it ‘just climbed out of a lake in the middle of winter.’ I—ouch!” She actually jumped a little when her hand caught a tangle and yanked on the hair, which was attached to part of the bruised portion of her scalp. ”Shit!” she said shamelessly, closing her eyes for a second and lowering her hand until the pain went away. After a second she opened them with a humorless smile and wrapped her arms around herself again, ”Damn, that hurt. Must really be bad.”

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[HUNTER DOUGLAS ULRICH]

A guy? Now that wasn’t good news to hear, not at all. ”So if it wasn’t a girl who was it?” he demanded. It was worth a shot to push her further to figure out what was really going on. There was nothing worse to him than a liar. Lying and people going on about bullshit were the ultimate pet peeves for him. Hunter went thirteen years being lied to about who is father really was. The twelfth year usually was pretty good at shifting through the crap and getting down to the bottom of things. If his friends were doing that to him he’d be rather pissed off.

He almost couldn’t help but laugh at Namia’s explanation of the whole ordeal. Hunter slouched down further into the couch since he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. ”Really? You’re going to dress it up as an opportunist?” he chuckled. The fact that the victim was just sitting there upset him. Now what was the point of going after someone who was minding their own business? Revenge was something he could get behind. Senseless harm for someone else’s amusement was pointless and mean spirited. ”Some would call that bullying.” Hunter would, if he wasn’t such friends with Naima. For now he’d turn a cheek to her little games. ”Wouldn’t it be just as easy to be the bigger man-uh woman- and just let them be. It would have been justified had he messed with you at first like the Waters usually do.” His stepmother was a total bitch and a Water. The perfect combination for the moody Thunder boy to deal with.

Hunter noticed her wince again in pain after touching her forehead. ”Let me see that,” he demanded. Brushing some of her hair aside, Hunter tried to gently see what sort of damage had been done. The bruise seemed much nastier than Naima had let on about. Dropping his hand, he gave her a disapproving look. ”Nai, this looks pretty bad. You should have went to the infirmary for this.” If she wasn’t going to stop causing trouble for herself she might as well take care of herself after getting pushed around. Karma clearly was a bitch in this case. ”One day all of this is going blow up in your face Naima and you won’t be able to handle it.” It was more of a warning rather than him scolding his reckless friend.

[marcikin]

”Uh, well, there’s only one other option, isn’t there? Unless I’ve been missing something.” She laughed a little, still trying to play it off as no big deal. ”Seriously, I already told you I didn’t get the dude’s name. Unless you want me to draw you a picture, I really don’t see how I can be more specific.” Hunter was being annoyingly persistent about this, but hopefully that would do it. Hopefully that would be enough to satiate his need for every detail of her life. She had to let out a bit of a fake laugh to keep her from letting loose a huff of annoyance.

Talking about her messing with the kid was a little better, but she still had that little inkling that Hunter was going to turn the conversation back toward her bruise. Only then he had to say it, that thing that touched her other bruise. Her ego. She crossed her arms and stood up, stepping closer to the fire and not facing him. A frown passed over her expression, ”Please. They messed with me first. There’s nothing I can do that’ll….” Shit. Man…she was slipping.

When she realized that she was gripping her wrist until her knuckles were white, Nai let out a sigh and let her arms swing down. She rolled her head back and moved back to the sofa. Then she sat and leaned against her friend absently. Didn’t even realize she was doing it.

Then he demanded to look at her injury. Nai restrained herself from biting his head off, nipping her own lip as he explored. She was about to shove his hand away when he dropped it and began to speak again. She shook her head with an indignant expression, ”I’m not a baby. I made sure I didn’t have a concussion and that was enough. I mean am I acting like I’m about to pass out?” Then he told her it was all going to blow up in her face and she lost it a little bit.

”You know what shut up!” She yelled, scooting away from him and pushing his arm away. Then she remembered that some people were asleep, and changed her voice a to hiss, ”Just shut up, ok? You don’t know what you’re talking about, ok? This isn’t—“ She stopped herself and swallowed quickly, ”I can take care of myself, and no amount of lecturing is going to change who I am, ok? So just stop trying.”

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[HUNTER DOUGLAS ULRICH]

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He barely said a word to Namia as she defended herself. Her leaning against him went unnoticed as his gaze went from caring to aloof. Since he apparently couldn’t say anything right to the girl he just let her go on and kept his opinions to himself. Hunter was accustomed to abrupt change, even when he did not know it is coming. He couldn’t have foreseen what did happen, not even a damn fortuneteller with all of their clairvoyant wisdom could predict the change in mood from these two. And it was caused by such a fragile and simple question, one that should have no power to change anyone's mood, let alone that of the frigid Thunder boy. And yet, this one conversation stepped into his brain and tipped the scales of his mood as though everything that had a speck of normality was lost. It all started when Naima began yelling at him.

Could he have hit a soft spot on her otherwise dense armor? Potentially, but he had been asking only because he had cared for her as a friend, something he didn’t extent out very much. He didn’t respond very well when people took that and threw it back in his face, no matter what their reason was behind it. There were parts of her story that didn’t make sense to him and his questions had only been meant for clarification purposes. Had she just told Hunter that she didn’t want to talk about it then he would have respected her wishes. Hell, Hunter wasn’t one for the whole share and share alike mentality when it came to his emotions. His jaw clicked as a result of him grinding his teeth as a means to stop him from speaking rashly.

He took a deep breathe before finally finding his voice. ”You done?” he asked a bit colder than he would normally speak towards Nai. Her yelling hadn’t really put him in a forthright mood. Hunter didn’t bother for an answer as he continued on, ”If you didn’t want me to ask so many fucking questions, then you should have just nipped it in the butt in the beginning and not even bothered to tell me the story.” He didn’t let his anger slip through as he went off on his friend. Instead he settle for as much calm as he could muster, well aware that yelling never did anything other than cloud his judgment and waste his energy. ”Instead you get let me in then get fucking pissed when I ask about all the gray areas you leave out. I don’t have to be here right now. I have a home to go back to where my friends don’t throw my concern right back in my face like it’s my fault for caring. How dare me, right?” he finished off sarcastically. He went to grab his backpack before turning back to Naima. ”If I was up for dealing with bullshit I would have just went home to my stepmother.”

[marcikin]

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