strangetrip | [GP] Evening - Blinding you with science (and fireworks)

It had taken a good three weeks for Sora and Peter to gather enough materials and also enough nerve to put on the fireworks that Peter had felt were missing from New Year's. They'd filched, over time, a pile of steel wool pads and an embarrassing number of whisks. Why they needed those things, Sora didn't exactly know.

Once everything was gathered up, Sora and Peter met outside, a safe (probably!) distance from the Inn. Peter showed Sora how to stretch out a pad of steel wool and jam it inside a whisk, then he attached long ropes of webbing to the ends of the whisks and fastened them to the ground. While he did that, he cheerfully explained how the webbing worked and how he was sure it would stick to the ground right and everything would be fine. There was a lot of math and other things Sora did not understand at all, but he was absolutely confident that Peter was right.

Once everything was fastened properly, Peter gave the nod.

Sora called out the Keyblade, stood in the middle of the webby circle of stuffed whisks, and cast Aeroga. Swirling winds came out of nowhere to lift up the whisks and spin them in the air, held in control only by the webbing ropes. Next came Thunder - bolts of lightning to ignite the wool in the whisks as they spun. (Peter had been sure that Fire wouldn't work, it had to be Thunder. And he was so right!)

Then the boys settled, more or less, to watch their homemade fireworks spinning and throwing sparks.

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She looked a little apologetic. "I didn't mean for it to happen. I thought it was only because of, well, aliens."

Liz tried to figure out how to tell him. He did deserve to know. Her brow furrowed with a slightly scrunched up 'this is awkward, I'm sorry' expression. "I... kind of saw Liz saying goodbye to you."

She couldn't quite stop herself from continuing. She thought maybe if she kept talking it would sound less creepy. "She's, um. She's really pretty." And she was and she wondered if they would have gotten along, her and the other Liz. "But, I, well, I mostly felt what you felt." Her hand went up to her chest. "There was..." She had felt the mixed emotions and his face had pained her a little. "I'm sorry Peter."

"No," Peter says, shaking his head. "I-It's fine. It's fine. I mean, It's not like you really could help it." He didn't imagine Liz being one of those people deliberately poking into people's minds to see their secret anyway.

And when Peter grimaces, it's not the act that causes the sudden shift in expression. It's the specific memory.

"Yeah..." he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Not really my finest moment." That much was true. "But there's not really anything I can do about that, even if I was back at home. The only thing I can really do is try to do better."

He smiles. "I guess I should be glad it was just that one," he says, laughing a little. "Karen's captured footage of things I've done that are way more embarrassing than that."

The way Peter handled the news relaxed something in Liz's shoulders. That was probably the weirdest thing about her and now he knew it and he was okay with it.

His smile brings her own back slowly. "Karen can take video?" She tried to picture how that would work. She looked down at the ground at the mask for a second, then back to him. She kind of wanted to see them, but she settled for just smiling at him with slight laughter in her eyes.

"Yeah, through the eyes. Only when I have the mask on, though." He smiles. "So we don't really have to worry about her recording us now."

That much he's relieved for. Or maybe he is. He's not sure. Maybe sometime in the future, he'd like to have this moment saved, the way some people took photographs of basically everything. But right now, he's okay with Karen not being part of this moment.

"So," he says, "How exactly do your powers work? Is it just like, whenever you touch anyone there's a small chance of it happening? Or is it just when you --"

Peter dampens his lips.

"-- when you kiss someone."

She blushed, glancing down for a second before up and nodding as she answer. "Um.. yeah. Just by... kissing." At least that was how it seemed to work. She hadn't had any experience otherwise.

She shut her eyes, though her lips pressed into a wide smile. "I know it's really weird." She laughed, putting her hand on her forehead for a minute before opening her eyes back at him. "but only sometimes. I don't know how to control it or why it happens and it only started after I... was shot."

So it's gotta be related to the aliens. That much Peter's sure of. Especially since it didn't start happening until one of the aliens saved her life.

"Well, if you want to try and see if you can get some control over it," Peter says, "I wouldn't mind doing that again sometime." Peter swallows. "The kissing," he clarifies helpfully.

Another soft exhale of laughter emerged from Liz, smile wide like her cheeks might start hurting soon. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that." Her cheeks felt a little twinge to them as she couldn't quite get the smile to go away. She bit her bottom lip as she looked over at Peter. Had you told her she would ever kiss a boy while sitting on a hammock made of spider webbing, she wouldn't have believed you.

"We can try anytime you want."

Peter's hand finds itself intertwined with Liz's, and he realizes he likes holding her hand almost as much as she liked kissing her a minute ago.

Almost.

"One more time?" Peter suggests hopefully.

The moment he held her hand, something that felt almost like lighting shot through her arm to the middle of her heart and wrapped it with warmth. She couldn't deny that it felt kind of... right.

She nodded, squeezing his hand a little. "Yeah. One more time." And this time, Liz leaned in to kiss him this time.

[GP] Evening - Blinding you with science (and fireworks)

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