Gentle Waves {Tag:Zack}

Andy walked quietly along the beach, far enough down that the water would lap at his feet, but not to where he'd have to worry about getting wet. He was wearing normal clothes so he wasn't keen on getting too wet. It was around sunset so there wasn't really anyone he'd noticed swimming, but the view itself was very pleasant. A mix of colors spilled across the horizon.

Zack stretched. After his most recent flying bout, he was tired and his muscles were pleasantly sore. Now this was the sort of place he needed. His home town was nice but there just wasn't enough open space to fly - not like this. He enjoyed his new freedoms. He didn't seem to notice that someone else was on the beach with him.

Andy crouched down, running his fingertips through the water with a light smile.  Catching a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, he turned to look at what it was, eyebrows arching as he took in the guy with wings not too far away.  He hadn't seen many people with powers that were something you could see.

Zack yawned and stretched his wings wide. They were almost twice the length of his body, maybe a few feet short. They had to be in order to lift him up. They were thick and some people complained about their weight or their volume but they were his.

His gaze trailed along the full length of the guy's wingspan, trying to calculate in his head how big they were. It conjured up images he'd seen from the days when he'd still gone to church.

Zack stretched one last time before he turned. At the last second he stopped because his wings were going to hit some kid who had been standing too close to the side of him. He quickly pulled them in. "Uh, hey there!" Zack greeted. "And before you ask, no. I'm not an angel. Just a guy with some really awesome wings."

"Hi," Andy said uncertainly, realizing just how close he'd come to being knocked over by the guy's wings.  He chuckled softly at the angel comment.  "I don't believe in angels anyway.  Besides if you look at the few biblical descriptions of angels they tend to be noted as fearful.  And they rarely are described with only two wings; they either have none, four, or six."  He stopped, realizing he'd probably given too long a response for the offhand comment.

"Ah, smart guy, huh? You'd probably get along with my kid sister." Zack said. He smiled, glad that there was someone at the school just as brainy as his younger sister. He wanted to make sure she would have friends too. He didn't take it personally either. Some people - like Xion had to say what was on their mind otherwise they would all but implode in on themselves.

"I guess," he said. "Mostly I just stick to electronics." Andy smiled, running a hand through his hair. "What's she like then?" he asked, figuring that was a good direction to go with the conversation.

"Let's just say your computer memory has nothing on her." Zack said, proud to boast of his sister's stabilizes. He adored the girl. He just wished she had more self confidence. "She remembers everything."

Andy's eyebrows shot up at that. Part of him worried about how safe that actually was, but he hoped her brain was equipped to handle that much memory. "That sounds... interesting," he said, pausing to decide on the word he wanted. It wasn't a power he'd want, but interesting did fit.

"Nah, really, test her on it! She remembers stuff from when she and I were kids. Won't let me live down half the stuff I did." Zack chuckled. "So the tech stuff, huh? What's that like?"

Andy grins slightly, shaking his head in amusement. "It's.. kind of like knowing another language. I can make electronics do what I want, get into systems I shouldn't be able to access with only a little bit of fiddling."

Zack nodded. That sounded like a good comparison to him, it at least made sense. Xion couldn't quite explain her memory, despite the many books she read on them. "Sounds awesome. I mean all I can do is fly."

"Ya, but you've got to be careful what you hack into with it," he commented, grinning sheepishly. "And a lot of people want to fly," Andy countered with a shrug.

"You got to be careful with everything." Zack laughed. "Like how I almost knocked you over. You wouldn't have been so happy with me if you took a dip in the water now would you?"

"Not particularly no," he agreed, glancing back over the water. The sun was more below than over the horizon currently.

"See? Everyone has something to be careful about." Zack pointed out, grinning since he had figured something out faster than one of the more 'intelligent' students. But his simple logic was nothing to truly be astounded by.

"Ya, but there's a bit of a severity difference between getting knocked into water and getting caught hacking into classified databases," Andy pointed out.

"As long as you aren't stealing nuke codes or posting revenge pictures online I don't think anyone will really know you're the one behind it." Zack pointed out. "Everyone can see the guy with the wings."

"Fair point," Andy agreed. Neither of those were things he'd ever do given they were terrible ideas. "How long have you had them?" He asked. Potentially he could have always had them but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"My whole life." Zack said. "Born with them, probably die with them. Can't really assure that because sometimes loss of limbs are unpredictable." He had friends who lost limbs while serving in the military. Those didn't grow back or fix themselves.

Andy nodded, unsure exactly what to say to that. He'd never been good at how to respond to comments like that.

Zack cleared his throat since he obviously made Andy uncomfortable. "Er, so how long have you known you had your powers?" Zack asked. "Must have come to as quite a shock when you figured it out! I mean what would have made you try it in the first place?"

"Well, I actually kind of found out by mistake when I was only a toddler. I saw something on the TV that scared me and made it flip through a bunch of channels. I scrambled it in some way that it blew a fuse." He grinned slightly. He didn't actually remember it happening clearly, but he'd heard the story enough times.