concoursec | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Character(s): Tobias, Espio, and Marco.
Location: A105.
Rating: G for GRAHAM CRACKERS.
Open/Closed/Finished: Closed.
Summary: A little bit of a surprise.

Espio may not have been in the same dorm as him very long at all, but Tobias had already become comfortable with the chameleon's presence nearby. It was nice, actually being around someone who seemed to care for him, especially considering he couldn't stay near Marco or Grell.

So Tobias did what he tended to do to show appreciation: draw. He took careful time to draw a picture of Espio himself, then placed it carefully on the lizard's bed before retreating back to his own room, door open.

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"Anyone can be a killer." Marco let blue flames coast down his arms. "Anyone can have unknown powers, or be a sorceress in disguise, or learn some secret strength others can't instantly use. You don't know something I don't, you just think that it makes it allowable. I'm not going to pretend to understand how your world works either, but in mine, it's pretty common to treat people like monsters just for their size, or parents, or something as inane as a devil fruit. But if people were really so scared, then they should back off, not back the so-called monsters into a corner. It's not deserved. Even if he was capable of destroying the world like people supposed feared, it doesn't give them the right to treat him less than human. He's still just a kid. Having any amount of infinite power doesn't mean jack unless you use it."

He shook his head, angry eyes softening to a blue flamed simmer as they usually did when he started talking about his family. "My Pops was capable of destroying the world on a whim. He could have held any island he wanted to hostage. He could, but never did. It's called control, eh. He had to learn a lot of physics about the ocean, sky, currents, everything. He had to know politics, almost all the pirates who'd want to kill him to be stronger, but he did it, eh. The more Toby insists he deserves whatever punishment they give him, the more likely he is to get scared himself and snap and kill someone, starting all over again. How very healthy. It's not about what you can do. It's about what you do with it anyway."

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing was that Marco appeared to have almost the exact same viewpoint as he did, and the chameleon knew it. The problem was... Espio could never resist an argument. "No. I do know something you don't," Espio said, not in the slightest bit intimidated by the flames. "Which is why I can say I understand. You only know what you've guessed, not what you saw firs-" and there, he cut himself off, scales suddenly brightening and him wavering, quickly averting his view. No, that information was off-limits! Temper was no reason to spill what he'd promised not to!

"A-at any rate!" he quickly corrected himself, trying to make it clear that was something he didn't want to speak of. "Jumping to conclusions gets you nowhere. You didn't even ask the kind of 'justice' I was talking about! Didn't I say it was a different kind to what I usually do?"

"No," Marco's eyes narrowed, "I do know what he's capable of, he showed me when he first got here. And I, for one, am not scared of him. Just for him."

Marco shrugged and turned his back, as though following his mental timer to catch up with Toby. "Whatever. Justice isn't something I care too much about. Do whatever you feel you should. And if it crosses my lines," he glanced back, every bit as menacing a pirate as he could be, "You know what will happen."

Espio bit back a remark of 'coward', feeling that Marco had given up. Still... "whoever said you were scared?" he wondered, clinging on to the argument like a terrier or something. "I don't care if you're not. I'm not. But that doesn't mean the fears of hundreds or thousands of others are invalid!"

He huffed, figuring that he wasn't going to get much else out of the guy and shoving a handful of textbooks into the shelf. "At least I know it won't cross your 'lines'," he added. "Given that your take on how to handle it is exactly the same as mine." And, he added mentally, I still know more about this than you do. The only reason he didn't reiterate was the fear of breaking his promise.

"They are invalid," Marco didn't even turn around, "They're fears based on something unknown that they don't understand. Is there a single person in the whole universe who really understands everything about it? And do you think that knowledge would really make them less scared?" He waved a hand and continued ambling along, leaving Espio to think or grumble about it unless he chose to come along to keep the argument going. So far as Marco was concerned, the smartest people were scared often, just more of the things they could see happening and couldn't stop, rather than a vague threat of what could be. Maybe it involved trusting people, and maybe Marco still trusted people too much, but he'd be disappointing his Pops if he just stopped trusting anyone over something like Blackbeard's betrayal. Pops hadn't stopped, neither would Marco.

Espio frankly felt that Marco had missed the point. It wasn't about showing them to understand. It was to give Tobias the confidence and self-control he desperately needed to avoid panicking and doing damage he clearly never wanted to cause... as well as give the lonely kid the friends he needed just as much.

And besides, Marco's attempt at a 'last word' only reinforced Espio's impression that Marco didn't know that Tobias had killed, or the damage he had caused on that island - it wasn't a "threat," but a real occurence. People had seen it! Of course they were going to be scared! Hell, people were scared of Chaotix, and Espio wouldn't even accuse their fears of being invalid. People were people, and just because they had different feelings to him didn't mean they were worthless: it just meant he had something to argue with.

Still, he was able to resist the urge to follow and continue arguing for one reason alone: "This does not get a public airing, Marco! I'm not bringing it into the corridor!" Not that he expected Marco to turn back. He had to meet with Tobias, after all.

Worked for him, he didn't often know what would set Toby off or not, and he had a promise to keep. He whistled the Chicken Song as he ambled quickly along and finally caught up with the kid. Given the high ceilings on campus (even if they weren't nearly as high as on the Moby Dick since no one was as tall as Marco's Pops around here) Marco grinned impishly and after tousling Toby's hair asked, "Wanna ride on my shoulders?" It'd been ages since he'd offered it to anyone without switching immediately into phoenix mode.

Tobias had been surprised as Marco came up behind him, and seemed mildly panicked before smiling brightly at seeing who it was.

"Marco! Okay!"

Marco laughed in return and bent down for Toby to climb on. "Just make sure you duck for the doorways, eh."

"I will!" Tobias quickly scrambled onto the pirate, trying to keep a decent grip on him as not to fall -- a rather amusing sight on its own.

Still grinning and occasionally chuckling cheerfully, Marco carried the kid to the nurse's office, asking them to check out the mess of half-healed welts on his back and see if there was anything they could do for him. "Oh and his head. Kid's accident prone besides, knocked something over on it," he added.

"What's that mean?" Tobias asked curiously as one of the nurse's started to examine his back, the boy giving her a nervous look before returning his attention to Marco.

"What does what mean?" Marco asked, standing out of the way, but close enough nearby to pet Toby's hair or offer a hand to squeeze as needed.

The hair petting calmed him immensely, Tobias paying no attention to the others as he looked back up at Marco.

"Accident prone."

"Means you have a tendency to trip over things or not completely notice your surroundings so you bang parts of yourself on it, eh," Marco explained sagely.

"Oh." Well, that was certainly true enough, though to be fair, most of his bangs and bumps tended to come from other people. He started rubbing at his eye after a moment of silence, as if there was something around it that was irritating him.

Marco couldn't tell if he was rubbing the eye to fight back tears, had something in it, or some other unknown reason entirely. Not wishing to disrupt the pride, if that's what it was, Marco took the hand to look at it. "Want to squeeze my hand, kid?"

He blinked a little as the taller male grabbed his wrist. His hand was completely fine, Marco getting an odd look as Tobias used his other hand to continue the rubbing after a moment.

Well it didn't look like tears. "Something wrong with your eye?"

"It still feels weird around it."

"From when? When something fell on it?" Marco tilted his head looking bird-like as one of the nurses bent down to inspect it.

Tobias blinked a little at the nurse, before looking back over at Marco. "No. I had a dream I got burned really badly there."

"Well, dreams shouldn't leave it hurting," Marco blinked and stared. "Just don't touch it for now, eh?"

"But it feels weird," the boy argued lightly, giving the nurse another look as she examined him. "And it doesn't hurt or anything."

"Weird how?" Marco arched an eyebrow.