a kiss could be deadly [troy]

[troy nathaniel johnston.]

"Tokyo?" Troy commented wistfully, seeing visions of the huge skyscrapers and crowded streets that he'd seen so many times on TV as though they were a potential paradise to him. "Man, you're so lucky... I wish I could go there. I've only ever really been in Dublin and here. Kinda sucks. I'd like to travel." His family just didn't have the money to travel all over the place. They'd practically been dirt poor, though you wouldn't be able to tell by all of the fancy new gadgets he and his mother had lying around the house now. They still didn't have much money; only what had been provided by her employers to get them on the right track. Once the 'we're sorry we pulled you away from everything you've ever known' benefits stopped, he hoped he and his mother would still be able to survive on whatever amount of money she then made, but there would certainly be no extra cash for vacations. Once he was a famous athlete he'd bring his mother to all of the places they used to watch on the Travel channel together. New York, Tokyo, Australia... yeah, that would be when the real fun in life would begin. Until then everything he did was working towards those precious moments.

"I've only been here for... uh... three weeks now, I think?" The semester had already started by the time they arrived at St. Michael's, which of course made fitting into the school even more difficult once Troy realized that he was being thrust back into the vicious world of high school. "So yeah, I've definitely not yet adjusted. It's pretty dull around here, isn't it?"

Why was she so insistent that he shouldn't worry, care about, or concern himself with her in any way? It made absolutely no sense. So say that she had a tough family situation, or had had back when she lived in Tokyo if she now lived at Power's Academy. Shouldn't she then want people to care for her? Unless she'd been so convinced by the rest of the world, be it her family or other influences, that she wasn't worth anything at all, basic psychology said that she should tend to be a complete attention whore and crave the comfort that came with another human being's care and attention. He wasn't really a big fan of psychology, but he'd picked up on a bit of it throughout his childhood. It was sometimes interesting seeing how people thought. Now, Lissa could easily just be out of the norm of her situation, or her 'situation' could be nothing like his instincts assumed it was, but it was still really weird that she didn't want him to care at all.

"Please, Lissa. Don't say that. It's like some sort of reverse psychology effect. When you say things like that, it just makes me care more." He was trying an attempt at humor, teasing her as it were, but wasn't sure how she'd take his easy going comments. Nothing she said was going to make him back off. Hell, he'd jumped into freezing cold water after her. Didn't that really show his commitment in the situation? "And if you're not used to it, you'd best get used to it. 'Cause until you get tired of me and order me to bring you back to Power's, there's no way in hell I'm going to leave you alone when I think there's something wrong."

He parked in the driveway in front of the garage door and turned the engine off, waiting for the purr to completely die away before he undid his seat belt and opened his door to get out. The cold air hit him like a blast. He hadn't realized how warm the interior of the vehicle had become throughout the quick drive. He hurried to the back door of his house after making sure that Lissa was following after him, and dug up the key from under a rock near the door. He unlocked the door and walked inside, noticing that the house was completely dark with all lights off. "Mum?" he hollered, kicking off his shoes in the small hallway that led from the back door to the kitchen as he walked. There was a note on the table, scribbled out in the once elegant handwriting of his mother than had become more like a ten year old's script in the last few months.

Troy,

I'm going out. I'll be late tonight. Just warm up some of the pizza in the freezer. Make sure you're asleep by eleven thirty. See you tomorrow.

Mom.

He tried not to let his disgust show on his face as he crumpled the paper and tossed it, basketball style, into the trash can, just like he tried not to let his discomfort from it show as he turned to face Lissa again. Of course she was going out. Where to, he didn't know. She was always out, and when she was in she was out in mind and spirit. She'd probably end up home at some ungodly hour in the morning. But he was the son. It wasn't his place to judge what his mother did, right? He had to focus on what was happening right now, which meant looking after Lissa.

"So, ready to get warmed up?"

[vasilisa ira mishima.]

Lissa tried to smile, but the effort cost her more than it should have. The depression had wound its way into her brain and now it was here to stay until it decided that it was done with her. Vasilisa had been battling the depression for three years and everytime she lost too it. She didn't know how to make it go away. She didn't want to take medicine for it. She had tried that in the first few months. They had put her on a Anti-Psychotic. It had made her power's go awol and that was when she had killed six people, at the same time. She remembered the night as if it was yesterday. She was a new student at power's. A young sophomore. No one really knew her and so they tried to get to know her and add her to their ranks. It was one late autumn night that the unthinkable had happened and she had been sent into the darkest pits of hell, or otherwise known as outcastism in high school. Six friends had been coming back for St. Michael's from having a good ole time and drinking. The last thing that they had suspected would have been to find Vasilisa sitting at the gates to Power's Academy happily reading a book.

The four oldest guys of the group started to make very crude comments to her, but all she did was roll her eyes at them and go back to reading her book. When Lissa didn't immediatly jump into one of the guys arms he reached out and grabbed Lissa and pulled her up causing her book to fall to the ground with a light thud. Lissa's eyes said that she wasn't in the mood to play these games with drunken juniors and seniors. All she wanted was to go back to reading her book. The two younger boys just stood by and watched, as if they where uncomfortable and really didn't want to be here, that they wanted to help her but didn't really want to get themselves in trouble. Lissa pitied them, she really did but all thoughts of pity left her when one of the guys grabbed ahold of her right breast and squeezed it roughly. Lissa let out a gasp and tried to get away from the pawing hands of the guys. When they wouldn't let her go, it was her fear that was their destruction. When the power started to radiate through her she couldn't stop it. The guy who held her let out a scream of pain and fell to the ground, and then the next. Until all of them where no longer standing and she was the only one left. The only one left still breathing.

Lissa remembered that day as if it where yesterday. She didn't want Troy to be one of those guys. She desperatly prayed that he was different and that he wasn't going to try to take advantage of her like those others had. Lissa looked at Troy and studied his face for a moment and tried to think if he was really the kind and caring man that he had shown himself to be. She wanted it to all be true. She wanted to know that she had found someone who would truly care for her and be her friend. She so badly wanted to have a friend but it scared her. Because she was so dangerous to be around she wanted to be more, she wanted to be an angel of life instead of death. She wanted to be a good person and not have to fear for the lives of the people she cared for. And it was true, she was starting to care for Troy. She had not had a friend in so very long and it was strange to say that she was starting to think of him as a protector. When in reality she wanted to protect him from herself. Everything was so utterly confusing to her, she knew she couldn't, or rather shouldn't, get close to people because of how much danger she posed to the very life of a person. Being around her could ultimatly mean death if she wasn't careful.

Something odd was going on Lissa realized. She knew she should have thought more about it before but she didn't want to jinx it. When she looked at Troy, the voices of the dead seemed to disappear, as if the dead could not touch him. Or maybe there was another reason. Perhaps death had touched him and now he was immune to her powers. It was all so confusing and she really didn't want to think about it at the moment. All she really wanted was to get fully warm and some dry clothes and then try to convince Troy that it wasn't necissary for him to drive her to the Power's Academy. She wanted nothing more than to just get away from the confusing man. Yet at the same time she wanted to be near him, he was everything she had ever dreamed of and more. She would never have guessed that when she had gotten out of bed this morning she would meet a new friend. Someone who would try to understand her, someone who would save her life, someone who would be kind to her, someone should would begin to love. Lissa blinked as she realized the way her thoughts had turned, she shook her head and then tried to make the thought go away. But as she continued to watch Troy she began to wonder. Was she really so jaded that she would fall in love with the first guy to show kindness to her? It would seem so she admited to herself. "Ara koishii, oira shua ato gimon.." She muttered in japanese. Oh dear, we sure have a problem..

She shook her head as she followed Troy inside and stayed quiet as he called out for his mother. She watched him take off his shoes and she did the same. She pulled off her socks as well in an attempt to keep the dripping water to a minimum. She stuffed her wet socks into her shoes and followed after Troy where she watched him reading a piece of paper which she assumed was a note from his mother. A sympathetic smile pulled at Lissa's lips as she moved foreward so she stood in front of Troy. She could see the disgust and discomfort on his face even though he tried to hide it, and had she not been so good at reading people's facial expressions she wouldn't have seen it. She tenatively reached up and touched Troy's cheek and caressed it lightly as she had done once before. "I'm sure everything will be alright Troy." She said in her sweet and melodic voice. Lissa then wrapped her arms about Troy's torso and laid her head against his chest as she hugged him. When he asked if she was ready to get warmed up she flushed deeply and pulled away embaressed about what she had done. It wasn't like her to just randomly hug some stranger, even though Troy looked like he had needed it. But then again, Troy wasn't a stranger anymore now was he?

[troy nathaniel johnston.]

Yeah, Troy was peeved off, and more than just a little bit irked, too. He still wouldn't confront his mom, and maybe he would be so upset if he hadn't been made to look like an idiot, or at least feel as though he had, in front of a girl he had only just met, but he was definitely peeved. Where did she get off disappearing for hours and hours at a time, and yet she'd be calling his cell phone every five minutes if he was gone without word for more than two hours? Where did she get off giving vague excuses to her disappearances and general absences, but he had to explain every action he participated in to her so that she 'didn't have to worry about him in a foreign country'? He was ten times more mature than her, lately. Couldn't she just open her eyes and realize that he was like the parent in this relationship, now? She was more like a toddler than he'd ever been, her moods and actions erratic, unrelated, and unexplainable since his dad's death. Something needed to be changed before she got herself into some real trouble.

He was pulled out of his thoughts and worries with a very unexpected feeling; Lissa's hand touching his face. He stood perfectly still, surprising himself by not recoiling from the surprising action. He didn't even move when she wrapped her arms around him, whispering in her quiet, already familiar voice that everything would be all right. Were his thoughts really so obvious? And she certainly couldn't know that everything was going to be okay. He'd heard and thoght of enough horror stories in this scenario. While he sat at home, wondering what his mother was up to, she could be drinking her sorrows away at a bar. Making stupid decisions. Waking up in the early hours of each morning with a different man to try and fill the hole in her heart, and then horrified with herself. She could turn to drugs to distract herself, drink herself into alcoholism, disappear completely... forever. There were so many different ways that things could turn out, and to be honest, Troy thought very few of them to be 'all right'.

He ran his hand through his hair as she pulled away, momentarily forgetting what he'd asked her a second before. "Yeah... everything will be fine," he muttered absentmindedly, basically only to show her that he hadn't been deaf to what she'd said. "Now, uh... If you want to have a shower or anything, or just wash up, there's a bathroom down the hall, second door to your left," he pointed in the direction of the narrow hallway that led to his room, the bathroom, his mom's room, the laundry room, and a random unused room which currently held nothing but a zillion un-unpacked boxes. "I can look through my mom's stuff and see if I can find you some dry clothes that don't look fresh out of the fifties." He looked her up and down once, not trying to be creepy, just trying to figure out what size he should be looking for. He figured she was probably about the same size as his mom, maybe a little bit smaller, but baggy clothes were better than skin tight small ones. He was of the personal opinion that the chicks who wore skin tight clothes for attention were nothing but whores.

"And then if you're still cold, I'm sure we have some uh... hot chocolate or something, around here. I mean, we gotta. My mum was practically and addict back in Ireland." He made a mental note to dig through the messy cupboards to find a package or can of Hot Chocolate Powder after he found her some clothes, not just for Lissa but for himself, too. It could help calm him down.

[vasilisa ira mishima.]

Vasilisa felt so small and vulnerable as she looked up at Troy. She so desperatly wanted him to feel better, seeing him upset pulled at her heart like she never would have guessed could happen. She really didn't want to admit it to herself but she knew she was falling in love with Troy. As soon as the thought popped into her head a deep and very attractive flush spred across her cheeks. The redness had crept up her neck and almost made her entire face red. She should have been embaressed for what she was doing and she knew she should probably turn the other way and run. What guy would be interested in her? She hadn't had a boyfriend in her entire life, she had never even kissed a guy and yet she found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss Troy. When he didn't pull away from her touch she gave a gentle smile that seemed to light up the room it was so brilliant and beautiful. Lissa seemed to have an inner light that said there was no one like her in the entire world and girls like her only came around once in a lifetime.

Lissa nibbled on her lower lip as she listened to him say that everything would be okay and agreed with her. Yet she knew that he still worried about his mother. Though she didn't know what the letter had said, she could only tell that it made Troy upset. She really did want to make him feel better but comforting people had never been her thing. She didn't really know what to say to people when they where upset, infact most of the time upset people made her nervous. But seeing Troy upset didn't make her nervous, instead it made her sad. She wanted him to smile at her like he had earlier. He had such a wonderful smile it was a crime to hide it from the world. Then again that was how Vasilisa saw him, Lissa didn't know how other people saw Troy so she could only make the assumption that everyone else thought the same way she did. Lissa wanted to think that everyone saw Troy as perfect, she needed this illusion more than anything, she needed to think that someone could actually care for someone like her.

When Troy offered her a shower she was pulled from her thoughts. She flushed even deeper and could only nod when he told her where the bathroom was. She looked over her shoulder and down the hall and noticed the door that he was talking about. For a moment she wondered which room was his but she thought that it would be rude to ask. She then looked back at Troy and was about to ask him if he would be okay if she went and took a shower to warm up, but then she thought about it. Troy had jumped into the pond to save her! He must be as cold as she was though, with Troy standing so close she had forgotten that her tiny body was still shivering lightly since she had went from the heat of the car to the house, the constant temperature change was what was causing her bodies ability to warm itself to slow down. She nibbled on her lower lip again and then tried to think of something she could do to help but she came up blank. She wasn't a Pyro, she couldn't control fire. Yet at this time she would have given anything to be a Pyro, just so she could warm Troy. Even though she was terrified of fire.

She then shook herself from her thoughts and knew that Troy would most likely change while she was in the shower. Lissa then slowly slipped out of her black leather jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. She reached into the jacket pocket and drew out the ruined pack of cigarettes and her cell phone. Her cell phone, was thankfully water proof, her cigarettes unfortunatly where not. She didn't smoke anymore, but it was a comfort to have them with her, they calmed her down. Lissa then walked over to the trash can which she spotted in the corner of the kitchen and tossed them in the trash. "Nasty habbit.." She muttered softly. When she walked back to stand in front of Troy she gave him a sad smile. "Thank you for everything Troy.." She said softly, the way she said it though it, it was as if she where saying goodbye. Lissa then turned on her heel and walked to the bathroom and opened the door and walked in. It was dark so she searched around for a light switch and then fumbled lightly before she finally found it. When the light was on she wasn't so surprised when she looked around. The bathroom was actually very clean except for a towel half-way hanging out of the hamper. She could help a cute giggle that passed her lips as she shut the door but forgot to lock it for she didn't know it had a lock.

She then walked over to the shower and turned on the hot water. She let the water warm up before she slipped out of her clothes and into the shower. At first the water burned her skin, but after a few moments it felt like heaven to be in the nice warm water. You'll kill him eventually... A voice seemed to whisper in her ear. Lissa winced and closed her eyes trying to tune them out. It seemed like she wasn't going to be able to have a peaceful moment, let alone a nice shower. Lissa hurried through washing her hair and body and in only ten minutes she was clean and wrapping herself in a towel. He should have let you die.. She recognized her brother's voice, and it brought tears to her eyes to hear him say that to her. She loved her brother with all her heart and she felt guilty for what she had done. She would never forgive herself for what she had done, just like she would never forgive herself if she ever killed Troy. It was one thing to kill someone who you didn't know, it was quite another to kill someone you loved. You hate us Vasilisa.. The voices said in unison, and she was about to agree with them when she thought about it. No. She didn't hate them, she pitied them. Forever stuck in her head, forever stuck with the person who had killed them.

Lissa took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She began to focus on Troy and ever so slowly the voices began to fade away. Lissa's eyes then popped open and she realized that she didn't have the dry clothes yet. She flushed deeply and then looked at the door. Was she supposed to just walk out in a towel? She dearly hoped not. What if his mom came home? Would his mother be mad that there was a practically nakid girl in her house alone with her son? Lissa was starting to become very nervous. She then took another breath and then decided that it didn't matter. She was covered and she knew that Troy wouldn't take advantage of her. She was almost one hundred percent positive that he wouldn't do anything to hurt her. Lissa reached out and took the door knob in her hand and then opened the door and there was Troy standing right in front of her as if he was about to knock on the door. Lissa flushed once more as she slowly raised her eyes to meet his. She was clutching the towel to her body, her bangs hanging slightly in her left eye. "I uhm..." She muttered, but she couldn't seem to look away. She had fallen, fallen deeply in love with Troy Nathaniel Johnston.