IC Time: June 5.
Location: Nature Center— Forks
Synopsis: Kyler creates a potientially bad situation with Regina. Jasper comes to save the day.
Submitted by: Regina
An evening lecture on the local flora and fauna has finished and the few people who came to watch are moving back to their cars. It may be a surprise to some that Regina Quinn is among the attendees. After all, it's doubtful that she will be doing long forays into the wilderness. But attend she did, taking notes on a specialized laptop with Braille inscribed on the keys. An intelligent and educated young woman, she asked some interesting questions and made some observations about smells, texture and sounds… details that people who are more dependant on their sight tend to miss. With most the people leaving, Regina lingers a bit longer, tapping on her laptop.
Her bodyguard, Geoff, waits nearby, discreet, yet intimidating.
Kyler has been trapped here for what seems like an age, while the lessons go on. He had snuck in to play another prank on the caretakers, only to get caught and stuck listening to a stupid lecture about plants and animals. There were a couple of times that he actually made knowledgable comments, though. Odd sorts of comments, such as correcting the lecturer about the mating habits of the local ducks, and that sort of thing. It's with some relief that he watches all the humans start to file out, until finally only the strange girl and her bodyguard are left behind. He waits, impatiently, sitting at his little desk, until finally he gives a little huff. "What are you doing, anyhow?" he asks, bluntly. He tilts in his seat a little, trying to see if he can make sense of what's on the screen, but the liklihood he'd see anything he could read, even if she /wasn't/ typing on a special laptop, is fairly remote, so he gets bored with that fairly quickly.
Regina inclines her head, recognizing the voice from among the students in the class. But she doesn't quite place it from the brief encounter in the park. "Making some notes," she replies. "Before I forget." Indeed, that's what she's doing, getting down some observations, focusing on tactile and olefactory information about the surroundings.
Kyler tends to sound a bit different when he's teasing than when he's trying to behave, so it's very likely she wouldn't place him. "I see," he says, with the blank expression of a person who really doesn't understand at all. He is silent for awhile, his chair creaking as he entertains himself by leaning back on the chair and balancing there. "Well, are you going to be done soon?" he asks, finally, impatiently.
"Are you waiting for me to leave, so you can lock up?" Regina asks, tilting her head slightly. Her fingers still move on the keys, however, since she doesn't need to look at what she is typing.
The bodyguard shifts position deliberately, in a manner that might be considering menacing, at least to a human.
Kyler frowns a little. "Lock up? Lock up what?" He glances around, blinks, and then brightens a little. "Oh! Yeah. That. That's what I'm waiting to do." He isn't concerned about the bodyguard because…well. Kyler's never been concerned about a silly human, no matter how menacing they think they are.
"Oh." The answer isn't quite as… assurred as she would have expected. "Just a second." She saves her progress and closes the laptop. "Okay, sorry." She feels for her computer bag. "My name is Regina." A smile.
Kyler tilts his head a little as she gives her name, peering at her curiously. "Hi Regina. I'm Kyler." He leans forward and the chair returns to its four legs with a thunk. He hops to his feet with nervous energy, and wanders over toward her without another word. Having already dismissed the bodyguard, he stands across the table from Regina, staring at her. After a moment, he waves a hand in front of her face, just to see if she'll react. This requires more investigation, after all.
Regina doesn't react to it, but the bodyguard does. He moves closer to Kyler, scowling. "That's enough of that." He reaches for Kyler's arm, as if to pull him away.
"Wha..?" Regina tilts her head toward her bodyguard. When Geoff has to intervene it's usually for a good reason. If she's not in danger, she's afraid she's being mocked. Her fair features tighten, assuming the latter.
Kyler turns a glaring gaze on the bodyguard, and suddenly he has a new opinion of him. He looks up…and up…from his meager height, and allows his arm to be pulled only slightly. His lip turns up in a snarl and he actually /hisses/. For a moment, the stand off remains before he finally snarls, biting off each word, "Get. Your. Hand. Off. Me." Not a happy Kyler. Nope.
Geoff's eyes widen at the hiss. He doesn't expect mean-spirited little brats that pick on /his/ charge to actually hiss like an animal. But he is a trained professional, certified to be the protection of high government officials and it takes more than a hiss to frighten him. "Step back, sir." He does release the hand but protectively puts his body between Kyler and Regina.
For her part, Regina startles at the sound as well. Far more attuned to her other senses, she is shocked to hear this noise coming from a human throat. "Geoff, it's all right." She begins soothingly, but there is a note of concern in her voice, all the same.
Kyler narrows his eyes, and looks Geoff up and down, hungrily. "Hm. You look like a bully to me," he says, quietly. Then he twitches, and glances to the side, glaring into an empty corner of the room with another hiss. That taken care of, he glares at the body-guard. "You /are/ aren't you? Just a great big /bad/ bully," and when the word 'bad' leaves his lips, he grins slowly, looking a bit like a lion cub who'd just noticed a rabbit with a broken leg.
Geoff glowers back at Kyler, but doesn't say anything to him.
"Geoff is my bodyguard. He looks after me and protects me. He must have thought you were going to harm me or were making fun of me. He's not a bad person. And he's not a bully." Regina speaks, but doesn't move from her spot. She can practically /feel/ the tension rolling off of the big man. Geoff is quite certain there is something very much wrong with Kyler.
Kyler is not at all convinced about this. Mostly because he's been filling up on tofu instead of good red meat. You know, so to speak. It really is not fair. It's like being presented with a giant cheeseburger after eating nothing but salad for a month. And he's making it so /easy/… It's only Regina's words that hold him rooted to the spot, his feet glued to the floor though he's practically licking his chops as he stares at Geoff. Without taking his eyes off the guard, he asks, "Are you /quite/ sure about that. I think he might be lying to you, because I wasn't doing anything wrong. And that's even worse, right? Only /bad/ people lie…"
Regina has a very different opinion of Kyler than her bodyguard. The childlike questions, the black-and-white opinions… obviously Kyler is 'touched' and that makes him more sympathetic in her view. While Geoff might agree with the assessment, he would take it a bit further, quite convinced Kyler is 'touched' /and/ dangerous. The bodyguard doesn't move, but doesn't stop glaring at Kyler.
"I'm quite certain." Regina says smoothly. "He has looked after me for several years and has kept me safe from harm. He takes that very seriously."
Kyler frowns faintly at Geoff, and then sighs with disappointment. Oh, but he's /so/ hungry… He gives Geoff another narrow-eyed look, and then grins. Oh, but there's a better way to get back at bullies, isn't there? After all, humans who witness vampires don't get to live very long around here. So without so much as an eyeblink to warn the bodyguard, Kyler moves around to the other side of the table, to peer down at Regina. From the human's perspective, he must seem like a silent blur, first here, now there, with very little in between. Without worrying about any possible confusion the bodyguard might be experiencing, he grins down at Regina. "Now /you're/ nice," he decides, cheerfully. "Not a bully at all. What happened to your eyes?" he wonders, without any concern about offending her.
The movement startles both humans. Geoff has good reflexes. He's fast, strong and capable. But he's never seen /anyone/ move that fast. Ever.
Regina cannot see the motion, but she had picked out where Kyler was, in proximity to her, by the sound of his voice. And he's suddenly very close, very fast.
As she startles, moving backward, the bodyguard, Geoff, is pushing Regina behind him with one arm, reaching for his gun with the other. "What the fu..!" He exclaims.
Jasper has arrived.
Jasper comes silently, effortlessly, melting through the forest undergrowth. He can sense Kyler's distressed emotions and with the scent of humans nearby, knows that this isn't going to be the best of situations when he arrives. And what a scene Jasper arrives to. Regina, falling slowly behind a large man who seems to be reaching swiftly for his piece, with Kyler in front of him, readying to spring for what looks to be a devastating blow. One that the man might not get up from. If Jasper could grow any more pale he would. Instead, he gathers up a deep breath of air and shouts, putting behind it a forceful surge of calm emotions, trying to diffuse the tense situation. "Kyler! Stop and remember what I taught you!"
Kyler is startled slightly when suddenly his new friend is not being so friendly. His face falls, in the childish disappointment of a happy child suddenly denied his toy. His eyes dart back to the guard, narrowing dangerously. The guard is partly correct. Kyler is quite dangerous, but not to Regina. "Get out of the way!" he demands, once again like a child working themselves up to a tantrum. "I'm talking to /Regina/, not you!" And once again, he moves with super-human speed, to stand behind the guard, where he can get a better look at the curiosity. And if Regina is falling, he'll be quite happy to catch her and make sure she isn't hurt, because she's good, even if the big bully man is bad. It never occurs to him that she can probably tell he's moving too fast because she can /hear/ him. He just can't think that far ahead. And while Jasper's words don't stop him fast enough to keep him from reaching Regina (because the pose was already done and I don't want to rewrite), he does give pause, his shoulder twitching up in a strange little tic. "Tom?" Poor Kyler is so confused. It's the stress. In an instant, he goes from moving at super speed to frozen solid, whether he managed to catch Regina or not, wide-eyed and…well, terrified. Jasper's calming emotions might as well be a calm breeze compared to the hurricane of Kyler's terror at the thought of being caught by 'Tom' in such a suspicious situation.
One instant, Regina is being pushed away from danger by her bodyguard and falling… the next, she's been snatched up by Kyler, as easily as if she were a newborn infant. To call her terrified would be an understatement. From the proximity of his voice, she /knows/ Kyler has moved faster than anything she's ever witnessed. And now, she's been grabbed. She stifles a scream, making it a smaller cry of distress instead.
Geoff reacts like a trained professional, even when this situation is far beyond his experience. Years of training and experience have taught him to react to a threat and worry about the particulars later. But Kyler moves so fast that he has Regina in his arms before Geoff can bring his weapon to bear. "Put her down! Now!" The human barks, in an authoritarian voice that would probably send other humans cowering.
Jasper growls, reaching over to where Kyler has Regina wrapped up in his arms. Then his dark amber eyes flick over towards the body guard. "Sir," he murmurs, putting behind as much soothingness as he can into every word and assuming a non-threatening position, "Kyler is just a little excitable at times. There's no need for force. Just let me speak with him for a few moments before you resort to a weapon." Then he turns his back over toward Kyler, not worried about the man behind him, and gives him a cold stare. It hurts, seeing that all the time they've spent together seems to not have taken effect. All the conversation and time spent idly in that tree. What else can he assume from the sight before him? "Kyler. Let her go."
Kyler can't let the poor girl go. He can't move. He doesn't breathe. He doesn't even blink. If he could sweat, he probably would, but for all that anyone might tell, he's a life-size statue shaped in Kyler's image. Regina would probably even be close enough to realize that those normal bodily functions (such as breathing), have stopped entirely. Much longer than he should be able to, as Jasper growls at him and orders him to let the girl go. Slowly, his eyes sweep side to side, and eventually fall to the frightened face of the girl in his arms. He was just trying to keep her from getting hurt. Slowly, like moving through syrup, his eyes lift to the bodyguard. Stupid bully… But then he turns, slowly getting back to a normal speed, to look at Jasper, and that's the sight that really does it. With a little whimper, he follows the directions exactly, letting the girl go. Of course, that probably means that she'll fall, but she can blame Jasper for that. And in the next moment, in a blur of motion that Jasper might be able to follow, even if the secret service agent didn't, Kyler streaks for the door, trying to make his exit before Jasper can catch him to do…whatever he believes Jasper is going to do. It would be very evident to Jasper, at least, that most of his fear is centered squarely on him.
Geoff doesn't lower his weapon, but the fact that he lets Jasper try to talk down Kyler is a testament to the effectiveness of Jasper's gift. He'll give the boy a chance to try to reason with the… other one. Geoff knows what he saw, files it away for later contemplation, once the danger is passed.
Regina goes still as well, feeling Jasper's influence. The spell is somewhat broken when she is dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Unprepared for it, she lands hard. Ow… that'll leave a bruise in the morning.
Jasper is slightly confused by the fear centered upon him but doesn't let it slow him down. He darts over and slams the door shut before latching ahold of Kyler. "Stay. Don't go anywhere." Who knows if his words break through Kyler's emotions but he's hoping his gift will aide in that fact. It's a bad situation gone critical. From the looks of things, the bodyguard has already caught on to their supernatural abilities. And even though the girl is blind, he doesn't know how long Kyler has been around and how much he's said. It's a shame…but it looks like Carlisle will have to be the one to make this call. Or it's the Volturi on their heads. Then again…if the humans can be persuaded to actually /keep/ this secret, then perhaps the repercussions won't be quite so grave. Jasper turns slowly, looking over towards Regina and Geoff with an apologetic half-smile. "I'm sorry. My friend here seems to be on a rather bad binge. Recovering addict. I hope you'll understand and not cause any trouble for us, yes?"
Kyler encounters a slammed door in his face, and is startled into slowing down just long enough to get caught by Jasper. He tries to squirm free for a moment, but then eventually stops, back to a frozen, glassy-eyed state. He certainly doesn't look like he's all there. It /must/ be drugs, surely? He doesn't fight Jasper anymore, and the calming abilities do their work. But nothing can quite touch the core of that fear. It just pushes it back enough for indecision and grief to fester and stop him from fighting Jasper's grip.
Geoff steps immediately over to Regina, helping her to her feet. There's an affection between them that's more than a professional relationship, but neither is it a romantic one. It's the familiarity that comes with working in such close proximity for so long. For her part, Regina is a bit sore from the sudden drop to the floor. She favors one ankle, but fortunately, there was no open abrasions as a result.
After a brief commiseration between the two, Geoff making certain Regina is none the worse for wear and Regina confirming that she's all right, both of them turn to look at Jasper.
"Drugs?!" Regina asks in disbelief. "He had no heart…" Geoff's protective arm squeezes her just a bit and Regina gets the hint quickly.
"Drugs." Geoff says, as if confirming… though he doesn't believe it for a second. He knows what someone strung out on drugs looks like. "Yeah. PCP, crank.. it does stuff like that." The big human moves the woman somewhat behind him, still keeping a protective posture, and reaches for her dropped laptop bag. "Let's get you out of here, miss." He eyes Kyler, warily.
Jasper smiles faintly, though beneath the polite surface he's seething. Well…as much as Jasper can seethe, anyways. Where did their lessons go wrong? He thought he'd made their stance against eating actual humans very clear the last time Kyler had brought home a 'weasel' to feed a certain newborn. But, it looked like there was still quite a bit of progress to be made before Jasper would feel comfortable knowing his younger friend was out running alone. Sometimes he would swear that Kyler was a magnet for trouble. But he didn't really mind. So long as it wasn't serious like this. The Volturi could still get involved if they ever got wind of it. For his family, Kyler, and these two humans, Jasper sincerely hoped not. "The human heart does odd things when under the influence of such powerful substances." Dark amber eyes flit up to meet Geoff's own before falling down to rest upon Regina's gaze. It finally looks like they've gotten the hint. "I'm glad we've come to an understanding then. I'm sorry for the trouble that's been caused here tonight." His hand still rests firmly upon Kyler's shoulder in an iron-clad grip, though it wouldn't appear so to the untrained eye. "I hope you can still salvage your evening together, Miss." Jasper sincerely means it as well. His fingers tighten against his friend's shoulder as he murmurs only so Kyler can hear, "You'll be coming home with me tonight. Don't try to run off."
Kyler stays put, more because of the hand on his shoulder than anything else. If it weren't for Jasper's hand on his shoulder, he'd probably blast straight through the nearest window, just to get away. As it is, he sits in glazed-eye, frozen, bunny-in-the-headlights panic, trying to think of way around all of this. He didn't want to hurt Regina. He wanted to hurt the /bodyguard/, maybe, but he wouldn't have ever done anything more than startle him. Really….maybe. But the important part is that he wouldn't hurt /Regina/. Because she was good. But for all that the bodyguard eyes Ky warily, there's really nothing to see. He just appears to be staring at a point on the floor some space away from his feet, not even blinking. Although the cause would be unknown to the humans, when Jasper mutters to him, Kyler starts to shiver, just slightly.
Geoff nods evenly to Jasper. Yes, they've reached an understanding. But Geoff is not so foolish to think this is over. His job just got a lot harder. "She's shook up, but she'll be fine." He seems to have no qualms answering for Regina, in this case.
The young woman just nods also, in a more absent fashion. She doesn't say anything, her expression somber.
Jasper gets the feeling that the Cullen's will be seeing more of Regina and her body guard in the future. "Again, I apologize for everything that's happened tonight. Here." Jasper reaches into his jacket with his free hand and withdraws a small rectangular piece of cardstock. Dark numbers in bold print are dashed across the front along with the name 'Jasper W. Cullen' embossed over them. He passes it calmly off towards Geoff with a very slow controlled movement. "If you have any further inquiries, you can reach me at this number at any time. And if you need anything, don't hesitate to inquire of me." The shivering from the young vampire at his side causes a faint frown to tug at Jasper's polite smile. The boy is getting a good hug after this, along with a talking to about why humans don't make the best dietary supplements. Especially ones that are packing heat. Definitely not those ones.
Geoff takes the card and pockets it, after finally holstering his weapon. "Right." He says simply and begins nudging Regina toward the door. They give the two young men a very wide berth, the bodyguard keeping his protective position between them. He doesn't offer a return name or contact number. Probably intentionally.
Regina likewise says nothing. She's been with Geoff for a few years and has /never/ known him to be this tense. But she trusts him and is bright enough to know that silence is the better part of wisdom.
Kyler waits, not so calmly, as Jasper gives over his card, and the two humans leave. He very carefully doesn't not breath as they pass. He is still and silent, shivering slightly, until Regina and Geoff make their escape. He waits….and the moment that he hears the click of the door, he bursts into action, desperately trying to rip free of Jasper's arm so that he can dash under the nearest table. Why? Because…it seems like the thing to do, that's why. And if he gets away, good luck convincing him to come out from under there.
