Lucky Thirteen

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The smell of pizza never really left the carpets, the walls, or the air that danced throughout the apartment shared between Calvin and Reid, it was almost as if the ghosts of every pizza the two of them had eaten within the home were haunting them, and refused to leave. Normally, Calvin did not have a particular problem with the smell; he did very much enjoy a good mushroom and pineapple pizza- however, as he stirred a bowl filled to the brim with pancake mix and tipped the goo over into a hot pain, the smells combined and made an awful scent that should have never been created. Calvin coughed, bringing his arm to his face so that he could hide his nose within the bend in his arm, "Icky," he stated, holding his spatula loosely in his other hand, preparing for the moment when he would have to flip the tasty little cake.

Calvin's eyes wandered about the kitchen slowly as he waited for time to pass, his brown eyes bouncing off of different items as he took in every color and shape; it was relatively early in the morning, and Calvin had only just woken from his slumber, but he nearly as tired as most people would have been at such an hour; he still had that hyper, childlike energy sizzling within him, like a fuse burning down until the flame came in contact with the bomb it was attached to- a bomb of wild, sugar and coffee induced energy.

The large, fuzz-covered slippers upon Calvin's feet became the focus of his attention as he stood before the stove, and with a gentle sweeping motion of one of his feet, Calvin pushed himself sideways and skated forward, one leg bent in the air so that he was balancing upon his right leg as he zoomed forward. Laughter began to leap from Calvin's lips and join him during his dance. He twirled, holding his orange spatula above his head so that he could keep his balance as he did so. The hardwood floors beneath his slippers skates became ice before his very eyes, and the surrounding counters and kitchen appliances disappeared, and were replaced by other skaters, who twirled graciously along with Calvin, who resembled a giraffe who's hooves had been strapped to skates.

It was during his ice-skating routine when things had gone wrong; he had turned away from his frying pancake, and the flame that the pan sat upon had continued to heat the pan until the pancake had begun to burn- but Calvin did not notice, he was too busy dancing about the kitchen, twirling and jumping as if he honestly believed he were wearing skates. He wore a smile, but it would soon fall from his face when he learned that his breakfast had caught fire within the pan.

There was a distinct smell that came along with burning food; a smell that overpowered the smell of pizza, and it was this very smell that caught Calvin’s attention, that and the bright red-orange flame that he had spotted out of the corner of his eyes. “Ah!” he yelped, but he did not rush towards the pan and put out the fire, on no, instead, he ran to Reid’s bedroom on the far side of the apartment, shouting as he ran, “Reid! Reid! I caught it on fire!” and without slowing he tugging open the door to his roommate’s bedroom, causing himself to trip over his own feet and fall forward on the carpeted floor.

Reid expected to sleep after nights like last night. He knew he should not, but he usually thought he could count on Calvin sleeping in even later, or at least confining himself to the main room to watch cartoons where he could not get hurt. It left Reid to catch up on the sleep he lost for sitting cross legged in front of a flashing television, madly punching away the buttons on a controller, pausing only to wipe his eyes or tap the console fruitlessly when he was not doing as well as he knew he could be. The seizure-worthy lights and the late night gaming and the energy drinks to hold him over all rolled into one large energy crash and usually meant he would be sleeping at least until ten.

However, he had learned that he could not expect much in this house anymore, aside for injuries and pizza. Though that had just become part of life, it was not as though he could imagine a life absent of those two particular things. And as he started to drift into consciousness, rolling over helplessly as though turning away from the window, where light streamed through the slats of the blinds, would be enough to lull him back to sleep.

He heard, far away, someone screaming his name. He rolled over and called, “Calvin! I don't care what score you got on Dig Dug! I'm telling you, it will never be enough to beat my-” THUD. Calvin was here. Reid sighed and sat up, rubbing his eyes and musing his hair, grabbing the glasses on his bedside that were totally unnecessary but rather fitting and yawning. As his facial features stretched wide though, a scent wafter towards him. Not something totally unfamiliar, but not usual. He dropped his hands and stared at Calvin, seeing the panic on his face.

“AGAIN!?”

He threw the covers off of himself, revealing the shirt he had worn the night before, though he had managed to pull on some comic strip pajama bottoms. He pushed himself out of bed, jumped over Calvin and ran into the hallway, his momentum carrying him as he skidded across and his shoulder rammed into the wall. He scampered into the kitchen and saw the pot on fire. He plunged his hand into his pocket and pointed it at the fire. “Aguamenti.”

There was a mighty sizzling but soon the fire was out. He turned off the stove and grabbed the pan's handle, pulling it into the sink and sighing as he noticed the brown goo was still bubbling as it mixed with the water, spilling over the pan and caking itself onto the sink. That would be fun to clean later. He ran a hand through his hair. Not the most unusual way to wake up in this apartment, but not the most welcome nor the most pleasant. Though, he did not have the dilemma of waking up now. There was always that.

Reid sighed and trekked back to his room to look at his hopeless friend. “Really, Calvin? Again? Were you dancing this time or-” He saw the slippers on Calvin's feet and sighed. “Oh, skating. Right. At least it was just pancakes this time and not the eggs like last time.” No matter what spells either cast, the smell had taken a week or so to leave. It had been torture.

For a moment, Calvin had stayed where he was, lying flat on his stomach on the bedroom floor; no matter how many times Calvin created a dangerous situation for both himself and his friend Reid, it did not make him feel any less shaken up, or any less ashamed. So like a child being scolded for misbehaving, Calvin slowly climbed from the floor, pushing himself upward with his knees and the palms of his hands, his eyes never leaving the dartboard hanging from one of the walls on the farther side of the room. The smell of burnt pancakes had begun to smell more like burning plastic for whatever reason as it lingered in the air, and Reid asked what it had been that had distracted Calvin from the pancake-making process.

There was momentary silence as Calvin shifted his gaze from the dartboard to the slippers upon his feet, and he began to wiggle his toes once more, causing the head that the toe of each slipper were shaped as to rock back and forth, as if Yoshi the dinosaur were head banging to inaudible music. “I got a 999,998 on Super Mario last night,” Calvin mentioned absentmindedly, continually playing with his green slippers. “I’m only one point away from reaching the highest score,” he added, as if Reid wouldn’t have known what he had meant the first time around, which was a rather amusing assumption; chances were, Calvin was bringing up his score to make up for the fact that he had woken Reid up. Calvin knew that Reid enjoyed sleeping in, despite how many times Calvin had tried to convince him that there was more time in the day to spend if he were to wake up earlier.

Then, suddenly, as if nothing at all had happened- or, at least, Calvin had forgotten completely of the event- the young man spun on his slippers, and stopped when he had turned to face the living room, which he skipped towards, swinging his arms at his sides. He was humming a tune that carried throughout the small apartment, echoing off of the hardwood floors and the living room walls, but it was not a recognizable song, and therefore, could be assumed that the tune was just another of the many that seemed to filled Calvin’s head when he was in the mood to hum. He would have whistled, but he had yet to figure out if he were to put his tongue on the bottom or the top of his mouth when he attempted to.

It seemed Calvin had made up his mind that pancakes were dangerous now, and did not even glance in the stove’s direction to see if the fire had done any damage to the wall behind it. Instead, he stopped in front of the sofa in the center of the room, raised his arms in a stretching motion, and plopped down on the worn, stained cushions, which had withstood all of the abuse they had been put through for as long as Reid and Calvin had lived in apartment number thirteen.

“G’morning, Reid!” Calvin called, looking over his shoulder for a moment to grin in his direction before focusing solely on the television in front of him. It had been turned to channel nine when Calvin had turned it on, but rather than immediately changing it to the channel that Calvin knew was scheduled to air an episode of Batman, he set the remote control down beside him and listened to the words of the reporters displayed on the screen, “that’s right, and there was a report just last night of a women who swore she’d witnessed a murder; a murder that none of our police, and no other reports have touched on. The chances are she was just another citizen hoping to have the spotlight turned her way, but with more and more talk going around of unrecognized murders, it is hard for us to turn a blind eye toward it.”

Calvin pulled his legs towards him, hugging them close to his chest, and resting his chin upon his knees as he continued to stare at the vibrant TV screen, “and one thing these reports all have in common, is the mention of a flash of mysterious green light seconds before each murder took place.” One of the reporters looked towards the other, an expression of confusion on his face, “Has anyone considered that maybe we might be facing a whole new type of weaponry?”

Calvin inhaled slowly and reached for the remote beside him; he really needed his cartoons. The thought of muggles having there memories erased by the Ministry due to these reports they’d filed- these recollections of the terrible things that they had witness- it made him feel like he was not Calvin; as if he were not the happy-go-lucky young man he so very much enjoyed being. Calvin just hoped he would be assigned at least one of those muggle citizens, and would have the chance to come up with some sort of explanation as to what they saw.

The bright colors of Calvin’s favorite Marvel cartoon flashed upon the screen, but half of his mind was still occupied by thoughts of unfortunate murder witnesses.

((I want those slippers))

Reid sighed, staring at his friend as he crossed his arms and clicked his tongue a few times, feeling like a very maternal old hen as he did. The thought immediately made him stop the noise and loosen skinny arms around his sides, watching as Calvin wiggled his toes, the Yoshis nodding as though to inform Reid that his suspicions about the skating and dancing had been correct and he nodded to himself. How was it that he always seemed to know. Oh, right. It could be the fact that he had known Calvin for over a decade. That might have a little something to do with it.

Calvin said that he had gotten a 999,998 on Super Mario and Reid's arms snapped to his sides, his mouth tipping open as he stared at Calvin. Super Mario had always been Calvin's game, it was true- Reid had almost gotten over the fact that Calvin had surpassed Reid's score a few years before, and only occasionally attempted to regain the title. But the fact that he was so close- so close- and that Reid may soon be the best friend of a guy who had gotten the record... It excused the pancakes.

"No flippin' way!" Of course, he did believe Calvin, because if Calvin were lying his voice would be three frequencies higher and he would be stifling a giggle as he vigorously rubbed some part of his face to distract from his tells. Still, in this sort of situation, it would be stupid to assume it was fine, that the number was indeed, right. It could have been late, Calvin's glasses could have been smudged, he could have dreamt it up. "999,998?!" Reid whistled.

Calvin hopped up and hurried off, and Reid glanced at the clock. One of Calvin's favorite cartoons would be coming on. Reid took advantage of that and gathered some fresh clothes- black skinny jeans and a graphic tee-shirt bearing the motto "Don't annoy me. I'm close to leveling up and look like XP." He changed and then went into the bathroom, staring at his hair before declaring it a lost cause. He turned on his heal and walked back into the main room.

He worked his way into the kitchen, listening to the news report as he took out a bowl of Marshmallow Mateys- one of his favorite knock-off brands- and poured the milk, dropping spoons into each bowl. He walked into the living room, listening to the report with an aye closed and his head cocked, as though to improve his hearing. He set one of the bowls in front of Calvin and whistled as he sat in the recliner chair next to the sofa, cradling his own bowl as he pulled his feet up into the chair, crossing his legs.

"You hafta deal with that?" He pointed his spoon at the news report and glanced at his friend, who changed it to cartoons. Typical. Avoid the scary stuff, and watch a superhero tackle the scary stuff. Reid sometimes wondered who was Batman and who was Robin, and then he realized, while Calvin may not be as brave as Batman, Reid was obviously Robin. Where would Batman be without Robin driving helicopters, pulling out Shark-Repellant, and calling out "No Batman!" Then again, Reid could also see himself as Alfred... Huh.

((Hey, I don't remember approving this... that's right, I didn't.
Red, you're an admin, I expect better from you, if our admins can't follow the rules, why should the members.
Go look at the personal houses topic, and remember until you get the go-ahead, you don't make the house.
Jack, I don't think you knew you were breaking the rules, 'cause Red has handled this, made the topic, applied etc. so I'll let you off.))