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Summary: Eddie and Jared try to help Jeremy, he's reluctant about trusting them
Date: November 18, 2009
Log TitleTrying to Help.
Rating: PG
NYC - Central Park
Central Park is a large public park in upper Manhattan, largest areas of green with people reading, having a picnic, or playing Frisbee. Walking paths can be found all around the park. In-between the large area's of grass, the park is shadier with many trees. A large road circles the park where joggers, bicyclists, and inline skaters are commonly found.
It's early evening, about seven o'clock at night and it's already getting dark out, which is why Jeremy choose this time to try to gather some funds. With a large backpack stuffed full over his shoulders, wearing ragged, dirty clothes and his gloves and shoes have holes in them. He looks around and spots some man walking down one of the paths. He walks towards him and does the whole bump into them, grab their wallet, apologize and keep on walking. Jeremy isn't proud of this lifestyle but it's what he does to survive.
It is late at night, and Jared Stone is outside the school walking in Central Park with his brother Eddie. At the moment he is virtually hidden in the hood of his grey 'hoodie' to hide the changes he has been undergoing since his fight with the Big Bad Wolf. With the rabbit ears hidden the only real sign he may not be entierly normal is the single lock of white hair that keeps escaping hte hood to hang in the open. Walking along with his brother Jared keeps his eyes out watching everything around him with a drop of paranoia that any sane teen in the park would have the teenager spots Jeremy, and his bump and grab. "Eddie, over there, did that look like a bit more than just an accident to you?" The teen asks softly while indicating Jeremy and his target with his chin.
Walking along with Jared, Eddie Parker-Mayfair is off in ponder-land. He's been trying to figure out why his brother's been going rabbit but each idea he comes up with stops making sense after a bit of thinking about it. Dressed in jeans and a Spider-Man t-shirt, he glances up when a new idea hits but says nothing as he dismisses it quickly. He spots the Jeremy-bump when Jared does, frowning. "I saw it," he replies, glancing at Jared. "What do you wanna do?"
Jeremy just keeps on walking, not quite checking out what he's gotten yet. He'll do that when he feels he's in a safe spot. Hopefully it's enough to buy him what he needs. He walks until he finds a bench to sit on and brings his backpack to his lap to dig through it. He eventually digs out a pack of cigarettes with a shaking hand, finding his matches is proving more difficult.
Jared hmms and has no idea what to do. Legally, he just witnessed a crime, but in a moral sense the guy obviously needs the money and getting arrested would be a bad thing for him. "Not sure, swinging in all in superhero mode would be a bad idea but…" Of course that is the point where he spots the guy lighting up a cigarette. That at least is something he can act on without caring the right way to handle it. Jared changes his direction to end up close enough to Jeremy that his powers will at least have some effect before saying, "Those things will do worse than kill you, you know that right?"
Eddie isn't really sure what to do either. He can empathize with the homeless situation quite well, having gone through two years of it himself even if he never resorted to pickpocketing. When Jared goes over, Eddie follows and offers a sheepish smile to Jeremy. No comments yet though.
Jeremy looks up at the two a they appear in front of him and he doesn't say anything at first. He looks around to see if he can run off as he has the look of a scared, trapped animal. "There are worse things that can kill you." He says the hand holding the cigarette shaking quite a bit. Jeremy looks like he hasn't bathed in weeks and he doesn't exactly smell that great either.
Jared just watches the other teen a moment, too see his reaction. Ok, it is a little holier than thou to start a conversation about the effects of cancer sticks, but given that Jared can litteraly feel what those do to people he tends not to care about that. At the shaking Jared frouns for jsut a second before closing his eyes and opening up his other powers, which cause his eyes to pop open in a momentary look of surprise he hides quick. Seeing the obvious fear Jared just moves to sit next to Jeremy. "Yeah, lots worse things. Knives, guns, busses….heroin." The last one of course being the one that Jared has not personally experainced just to see the reaction to see if his guesse was right or wrong.
Eddie recognizes that scared look, looking Jeremy over with a sad expression. He's wondering if this is how Dai felt when they first met. "Yeah, lots of worse things. Aliens, supervillains, crazed muggers with knives," he mutters that last part, looking off into the park for a few moments. He shakes it off when Jared reacts like he does, looking at his brother with a frown. "Bro?" he asks, glancing at Jeremy.
Jeremy doesn't say anything for a while, just stares straight ahead, wide eyed with fear. "I..I don't know what you're talking about, leave me alone, I have no clue who you guys are. I know nothing about that stuff." Says the Asian teen as he starts to slip one arm in the strap of his backpack as he looks around. He's considering running cause who knows what these two might do to him. They could be more deadly than smoking cigarettes for all Jeremy knows.
Jared gives Eddie a slight shake of the head when he gets the frown from him. Probably not the right point to just up and say exaqctly what he can feel, and what he is pretty sure it means, from Jeremy. Not that Eddie might not be able to guesse given what he already knows about his powers. "Dude, take a breath, we don't mean ya any harm." Entierly true, and if nothing else they could at least teach Jeremy how to lie better.
Sighing slightly, Eddie offers a smile to Jeremy and moves to sit. "YOu don't need to be afraid of us," he says. "I mean…look at me. I'm a scrawny little thing," he says. Sure he's been building muscle and definition but he's still not a big guy. "And my Bro won't hurt ya."
"I don't believe that." Jeremy says bluntly moving to the edge of the seat so he can jump up and sprint off at a moments notice. He might not be in as good of shape as he used to be but he can at least try to run, but then Eddie sits down too and he's not sure what to do. "Why are you bothering me and asking me these questions?" He's quite skinny himself but that's mainly from lack of food and from his drug addiction.
Jared gives an gruff half laugh att Eddie saying that he won't hurt Jeremy. At the moment he would not unless it was for self defense, and just beng near Jeremy is actually going to help heal him. "Believe what you want, we won't hurt you. Why we are bothering you though, thats cause come people have a hard time seeing people in pain without wanting to help, and some people have been where you are and don;t think anyone should have to go through that."
"Some people," Eddie echos, getting a sad look for a moment. Taking a deep breath, he offers another smile. "I'm Eddie," he offers. "And that's my brother Jared," he says, gesturing to the other teen. "Wanna get a hot dog or something? My treat."
"Jeremy." He answers nervously, it's not like anyone can find him again from just a name, after all he'll probably wander off to another park later. "Wait…you're offering to buy me food? What do you want from me?" He asks sounding suspicious as he has a hard time trusting people. He brings his shaking hand up again to take another drag off his cigarette. Does he want food, yes but he's not sure what Eddie is going to want from him.
Jared nods at Jeremy as his name is given. As Jeremy asks what they want for the food he looks at him again. "LIke I said, its a matter of not being able to walk away when you see someone in pain, and having been there before. Its not like you think, we don't want anything out of you other than to help." JAred waits to see if Jeremy is gonna bolt or take them up onthe offer of food before he does anything else.
Swinging his legs slightly, Eddie shrugs. "Like my Bro says, I don't want anything," he says. "I help people. It's what I do," he pauses. "And well…" a pause for a deep breath. "You a shelter hopper or did you find a place to stay?" he asks softly. "When I was…well, when I was homeless…I lived here in the park."
"I stayed at a shelter." Jeremy mumbles quitely looking at his cigarette. "If you're offering to buy me a hotdog, thank you, I appricate that." He says as he's not too proud to take up offers of food. "I'm fine." He answers to Jared about being in pain as he knows he can't hide that he's homeless and hungry but he can hide other things. "You used to be homeless too?" He says to Eddie sounding doubtful.
Jared takes a moment to think to himself, he could just up and call the guy on being a bad liar about the pain thing, but that would probably just push him away as he is starting to show signs of…well not trust but not outright distrust. "Yeah, Eddie was, but thats his story to tell. Come on, lets hit a dog vender, maybe one with pretzels cuse I am craving something too."
Eddie nods and hops to his feet. "Yep. Two years in Central Park," he says softly. "My parents threw me out on the streets so I was on my own," he says. "That sounds good, Bro. Lead the way?"
Standing up, Jeremy drops his cigarette on the ground and steps on it to put it out. He just nods to Eddie's story but doesn't add on his own. "Thanks again for the food." He says quitely, even though he's eaten many hot dogs to survive he'll always welcome another once since it's another meal towards survival. "Sometimes I stay in Central Park, it all depends on the cops." He says as he walks along, rubbing his arms a bit to keep warm.
Jared nod at Eddie and stands up, without even thiking about it he lifts his head a little and wrinkles his nose a little sniffing the air while facing away form Jeremy in a almost rabbit like way. "I think I remember one off this way that had a coffee and coco vender near by too." As he leads the way Jared is gonna let Eddie talk cause he is the one with the more experaince wth what Jeremy has been through and is going through. At the mention of cops he does make a noncommital noise and mutter something that sounds possibly like 'nosey' and possibly something about 'thinking with guns instead of brains'.
Eddie frowns slightly as the cops are mentioned. "Well they wouldn't hassle you so much if you didn't pick pocket people," he says. It turns quickly to a sigh. "I used to just collect the money out of the fountains and all the money people dropped," he shrugs, following Jared. "Like in the grass by the lake? People are always dropping cash there. And not just coins…bills too."
Jeremy follows behind the two brothers quitely until Eddie mentions pick pocketing and he's convinced that he's in trouble now. He just stops in his tracks and shakes his head. "Sorry, I uh…I gotta…" He can't really think of an excuse and takes a few steps back before turning around and starts to run off.
Jared can tell that Jeremy is gonna bolt before Jeremy does as soon as he realizes that Eddie is gonna mention the pickpocketting. With a surprising turn of speed Jared spins and sprints forwards to cut in front of Jeremy. Throwing his arms wide he trys to stop the other teen, "Woah, woah, dude your not in trouble. He is just saying, you don't need to do a runner."
Realizing his mistake about a minute to late, Eddie turns as Jared and Jeremy rush off. He starts to follow but catches his shoelace and…THUD. "Ow," he says, voice muffled by the ground.
Jeremy stops for a second as Jared steps in front of him but before he became homeless Jeremy was on the track team and before he can register wat Jared says to him, he turns 90 degress and runs off. He believes that they're going to turn him in and right now, in his mind, he needs this money so he tries to run off as quick as he can, away from the two brothers.
Jared says a word or two he probably should not know, or at least admit to knowing. Fast as he is, against someone on near terms with him that probably knows the park a whole lot better he knows he won't catch him without someone getting hurt, and despite wanting to help Jeremy he does not want that to happen. "Well, that coulda gone worse….at least he did not shank me to get past right?"
Eddie gets up slowly, rubbing his nose. "Ow…" he trails off, heading for Jared to let his brother's powers handle his scrapes and bruises. "Yeah…" he trails off sadly, watching the retreating Jeremy.
