CLOSED POST ♞ THE BEGINNING OF THE NOKIA

[elliexir]

WHO: Ellie (elliexir) & Peter (made_up_names)
WHERE: Market Square - around the dumpsters :')
WHEN: ~sometime during the first week of school
WHAT: How do you get a new phone? Uh, by dumpster diving, of course?
WARNINGS: It's probably gross.......

[ ellie admits that she's not the easiest person to get along with. she's emotionally closed-off, temperamental, and can be distrusting of others to a certain point. as a result, she doesn't have a lot of friends and can say that she likes many people. so far, though, peter is pretty cool in her book. he's even cooler that he offered to help her get a new phone! which she desperately needs after her old one was taken away, but... this isn't exactly how she imagined it turning out... ]

Okay... this might be the grossest thing I've ever done.

[ standing right next to the dumpsters by the market square, ellie scrunches up her nose. she has done some pretty dumb things before but this miiiiiight take the cake. ]

Comments

[made_up_names]

[ Hey, no insult taken. If anything he grins more, pleased by the compliment. A girl called him wicked smart! That makes this a worthwhile expedition already. ]

This nerd is helping you, so don't knock it, man.

[ He starts sorting through garbage bags, looking for likely goodies. Tablet with a busted screen but intact guts ... yep, that's coming with him. ]

But yeah. I like to think I'm pretty smart? That was like my thing until my powers showed up.

[elliexir]

[ she goes through the bags as well, ripping them open but she doesn't really know what she's looking for (asides from a phone, duh) so she just kind of holds a bunch of things in her hands and stares at them. she will occasionally hold something out to him to see if he wants it. teach her the savaging ways, peter. ]

And now you're a super smart spider-dude.

[ it's a two-in-one package deal! ]

You can ace tests and you can be the one to shove people into lockers.

[made_up_names]

[ He's clearly got criteria for what he's after here? Though he goes slow enough that she can follow along with his operation. He checks for outside defects, then usually splits the device open with a penknife to see how the guts look. Anything obviously burnt out is discarded. And anything that looks complicated he usually takes, as long as it's not too screwed up. ]

Hey, I never shoved anyone into lockers. [ A. Pause. And a guilty look ]. I did accidentally break a guy's arm. Super strength is no joke.

[ There's a dent on the dumpster from where his hand was, in fact. Oops. ]

[elliexir]

[ she doesn't have a penknife but an actual knife (switchblade, more specifically) so she just uses that open things instead. she'll just follow his lead. lead this young grasshopper, spider-dude, though when he mentions he broke some dude's arm, she totally stops. ]

Whoa, seriously? [ she's totally going to notice the dent later and be very !!! ] What happened? Did you just touch his arm and bam, it was broken?

[ she has a really active imagination ]

[made_up_names]

[ Whoa, okay. Dial it back there edgelord. But it works, so maybe he doesn't actually care that much. He'll keep passing her things to crack open. ]

Uh - a little more than that? He'd always been a dick to me, pushing me around, saying I looked like a garbage bin. I got mad and shoved him away and - yeah. Way too hard.

[ Not his proudest moment. ]

[elliexir]

[ no, she's 14 and at the perfect age to be a super edgelord. watch her enter a hot topic and come out with all the things that we regretted wearing when we were that age. ]

[ ellie stays quiet for a second but then shrugs. ]

That guy sounds like he totally deserved it. He was being a huge dick.

[made_up_names]

I mean. He was. Don't get me wrong. Biggest dick of them all.

[ He sighs, though, leaning against the inside of the dumpster for a moment. ]

But hurting him - that's on me.

[elliexir]

[ ellie lowers the weird knickknacks she has in her hands and just watches peter. ]

... it doesn't really sound like your fault. I mean, he was kind of asking for it and you didn't know that you were super strong and all that, right?

[made_up_names]

Well - no. I mean, I did? But not that strong. But it doesn't matter. I still tried to hurt him, so it's my fault he got hurt.

[elliexir]

... you're really upset about that, huh...?

[made_up_names]

[ He bows his head. ]

Of course I am. I could've killed him.

[elliexir]

Well...

[ she wrings her fingers a bit, going a bit quiet. she wants to cheer him up because she genuinely kind of likes him but at the same time... she's not super sure what to say. she's a little awkward in the way she tries to approach this. ]

It's not like you're going to do it again. You've learned, right? And you're probably way more responsible about it now.

[made_up_names]

[ Sorry, Ellie. He appreciates it really. ]

Yeah, for sure. I'm really gentle with people.

[elliexir]

Yeah, and you warn them too.

[ she recalls back to their first meeting where he did tell her that he might accidentally hurt her. ]

So, I mean, it's totally on them if they don't listen or believe you after that.

[made_up_names]

[ He was exceedingly gentle all through that swing too. ]

... Here? Yeah, I guess so. I can tell someone I have super strength and they'll believe me.