2015.09.27 - Poker Face

*Apparently neither boy is phased by anything or both have excellent poker faces.*

San Francisco, Rowanwood House - Kitchen

Seated in the kitchen, Darius is waiting for Nessa to be available for a conversation. While he waits, he is playing a game of solitaire on the kitchen table. The red-backed cards making light 'flip-flop' noises as he flips each card and plays what he has been given. Quiet otherwise, he chews on his lips a little and glances up every time he hears a noise.

"I cast you out! So leave me the hell alone!", Lockie stomps into the kitchen, an atheme in one hand and the other bleeding from a cut across the palm. Slamming the atheme down on the side he freezes when he spots Darius, "Didn't know you were here, waiting on Nessa?", he walks over to a cuboard to grab a bandage and a small bag of powdered something.

         "We feeling a little schizo?" Darius replies, but doesn't look all that disturbed. He has been around enough problem sorts, enough warriors with a screw loose, he doesn't mind. It's just another day. "I am, I figured I'd come a bit earlier, but she was occupied earlier, so I said I'd wait here, and waiting I am," he replies with a smile and flips another few cards up in front of himself. "Yahtzee." He looks up then and asks, "How long have you been living here?"

                           "I'm not schizo, I'm a sociopath", Lockie sprinkles some of the powdered stuff on his cut wincing as it makes contact before setting it alight and bandaging it up, he nods excepting Darius' explanation, "Couple of days short of a week now, why?", he looks over at Darius' game fairly sure it ain't yahtzee.

         "Well, I didn't say you were schizo, but most people who argue with themselves are schizo, just sayin'," Darius replies bemusedly and continues to flip cards and looks a bit annoyed at the latest few cards. The big blonde teenager doesn't look up, even when the sound of the burning can be heard. He has that sort of, 'I've seen everything,' attitude. Even though he probably hasn't. "The lady seems really nice, and I'd ask if you thought she was genuine, but I can't imagine a sociopath will get the best read, right?" he questions, glancing up.

"I wasn't arguing with myself I was... nevermind", Lockie grabs an apple and sits down, "You're thinking psychopath, I'm actually quite good at reading people, more now that I've started empathizing and connecting with people", he thinks for a moment, "She seems genuine, she hasn't turned me in or tried to kill me which is a plus, she's a bloody good cook too".

         "I am? I'll have to Google-fu that later, I thought Dexter was a sociopath," Darius says and begins cleaning up the card game. Putting the cards neatly into a stack, he shuffles them swiftly. "She is though? I'm impressed. Genuine people are rare, though I don't suppose you bother hiding it when you've lived that long," he decides. Shuffling, sliding the cards over each other, he lets his fingers dance with cunning dexterity. Flipping a card, and then another across the table. "The game is poker. No powers, no tricks, just cards."

                  "I don't know how long lived she is, I only met her the day I moved in here", though obviously Lockie has heard rumors from the magic circles that sent him in her direction, "Tricks? Powers? What would those be?", he's curious, he's not actively used magic in front of the other teen so it's interesting to see how he knows, "Still in the interest of fairness and trust", he pulls off his shirt and puts it on the table, "No sleeves for me to pull tricks out off".

         A smirk. "Just so long as we understand each other," Darius confirms with a growing smile, and sets the deck aside. Taking up his two cards, he lifts them up and looks at them. "Oh yeah! We need chips, let me find something in the kitchen," he realizes he is short a part here, and goes over into the kitchen part of the kitchen. Looking through a few cupboards, he comes back with a 'row' of crackers in a sleeve, and counts out fifteen for Lockie and fifteen for himself. "There we go."

                  Lockie Mitchell flips his cards over and takes a look as Darius goes to get the 'chips', when he gets his he arranges them in the piles of five, "Haven't played this for a couple of years, my brothers always used to beat me, could never tell if they were playing fair or not though".

         "I don't know how long its been, a few months, probably, back before I left Minnesota, a month or two, maybe? I played at a party," Darius shares as he looks at his cards and puts out his ante. He waits for a follow-up ante, and he starts things off by dealing out three cards out onto the table and flips each over. "How many brothers do you have?" he asks.

Lockie Mitchell matches and raises before answering Darius' question, "Brothers? I had four, do you have any?", he eyes the three cards against his own. nodding seeming satisfied, gesturing for Darius' turn.

         "Not that I know of, and no cousins that I know of either, but my father's side of the family is distant, my mom was an only child," Darius replies casually and eyes his cards for a long moment before shaking his head and folding. Tossing his cards into a pile, he starts to sweep things up and pushes his ante'd crackers over to Lockie for his side of things. "Are they all over in London, still?" he asks, assuming that they are from the same place and still live there, based on what he'd heard yesterday.

                  Lockie Mitchell smiles as he wins and drops his cards onto the pile, "No, they're dead", he adds the 'chips' to his neat piles, "So am I right in assuming either divorce or deadbeat dad?", he would suggest one night stand but that is probably something Nessa would call rude, "So did your mother move you down this way then?"

         "Neither, never married, but he was around during the summers. Sorry about your brothers," Darius replies and starts shuffling again. His own 'chips' are not nearly so neatly stacked, and seem more like they're just there to keep his hand company between games. "Yeah, my mom is an orthodontist, she heard from a friend that the old ortho-dude in Beacon Hills went AWOL, and so there was a um.. 'gap' that a good orthodontist could fix, without braces, no less," he makes with the puns even as he deals out the next hand and sets the deck of cards aside. This time, he seems to like what he sees, and immediately raises a small amount over the ante. "It's warmer than Minnesota, other than that, people are people."

"You'e supposed to say sorry when you hear someones died aren't you?", Lockie never understood when people said that to him, he wasn't why should they be, but lately he's felt so much remorse for it he can't even sleep at night, he looks at his cards, nods matches the ante and raises, "Been to Beacon Hills, all seemed obsessed with whos meeting who to make out".

         "That's the rule. I am too, if only because it's more interesting to hear about people's adventures than their passing," Darius responds with a slight smirk and matches the raise, then deals out the flop. Turning over three consecutive cards, he looks at them and doesn't look disgusted. That's a good thing. "They're your average teenagers, to me," he replies. "But I'm going to school there, so I suppose I've met a more diverse group than you probably have," he points out.

Lockie Mitchell looks at the cards smiles, matches and raises, "I suppose, I only met three guys my age, Liam, Shane and Timothy I think, so yeah maybe I just found the hormone epicenter when I was there, whats the school like? I've never been", home schooling was the plan for this witch.

         "It's high school, or uh.. whatever you call that over there, the one for kids around fifteen to eighteen years old or so," Darius explains and shrugs. It can't be that alien of a concept. "I mean, there are a few people who trip on that whole archetypal conceit, like, the jock or the nerd or whatever, but I think most people are just people, trying to have fun and finish school so that they can either go to college or move out of their parent's place, or both," he admits on the last one. "Three teenage guys? Hormonal? What are we, on Mars?" he jokes, and meets the raise, but doesn't raise himself. He lets the raise ride, so that if there is a bluff, he doesn't push it away. Turning up another card, he nods to himself and glances at his cards again, which would say something to a card expert, but his tells are otherwise not that predictable. "Who else lives here, then? Just you and the Lady?"

"High school, do you recommend it?", Lockie has been considering enrolling in school, he's supposed to be learning to connect with people without killing them after-all, could be a useful experience, he looks at the cards again and nods adding to the ante, "Me, Nessa, the kids Aidan and Miss Snow is here sometimes too, though there's usually someone visiting too".

         "Do I recommend learning, or the place, or the people? Yes, depends on which one, and always," Darius replies and raises again, not wanting it to go all the way. "So, she's helping you with your socio-tendencies, then? I didn't realize she was a therapist. That's sort of incurable, isn't it?"

                           To be continued...