Topic: Fight For Your Beliefs

Frankie Dixon

Date: 2017-01-24 18:10 EST
(After live play, where Frankie tore up a 'No Non-Humans Welcome' sign on a shop window — of which Dah took a picture of that spectacular moment — and he met Daphne. He marched and chanted with the crowd for some time until his mother texted him to come home.)

1.23.17 Rhy"Din After the Protest

After the text sent to him that had him leaving the protest around 3 in the morning, he'd rushed home. Sure, he was a Mamma's boy, but he was protective of his mother. He was a bastard, taking the role of the male protector in her life very seriously. They had K's crew, but behind closed doors...It had always been them against the world. He trusted K, trusted the people his mother worked with. But, they weren't his family like she was. And maybe it was a complex that had him expecting them to leave himself and Leah in the dust eventually.

So as he climbed the stairs to the apartment complex two at a time and jogged to that third door on the left, he wasted no time in bursting through the door. He was still wearing that blue tie dye Standing Up For One Persons Rights Does NOT Mean Taking Them From Someone Else shirt someone had tossed to him at the rally beneath his leather jacket.

"Mom' You still up?" He called over his shoulder, shooting no more than a glance over his shoulder as he turned to close the door and lock it up.

"I'm still up, where you been?" Though she'd texted him to come home, her tone didn't seem accusatory or suspicious when she asked that. More or less curious.

"I, uh?" He turned then, raking fingers through his hair as he turned away from the door and started peeling off his jacket, dumping it over the back of a kitchen chair while he followed her voice toward the living room. "I've been?" Breaching the short walk to the room, starting to kick off his boots before he made it to the carpet.

Leah was curled up at one end of the couch, in comfortable pajamas and with a remote in her hand. Plaid pajama pants and an over-sized sweatshirt kept her nice and warm. Her head tilted when she saw him, eyes scanning the words on the front of his t-shirt. "Where'd you get the shirt?" Her brows lifted as her eyes lifted to meet Frankie's who seemed a little bit guilty.

"I...ran into a protest." He admitted quickly, nearly in one breath. Like a teenage boy already trying to make an excuse so he didn't get in trouble, he took a few more steps into the living room to stand between her and the television, holding up his hands. "I know you probably don't want me involved in that stuff, I mean...Grace's shop getting vandalized is why you're here. But...I dunno, I saw the people marching and it seemed pretty cool. It was a peaceful protest...No violence.." He was speaking quickly, as if waiting for her to cut him off. His hand was rubbing the back of his neck, a habit he'd picked up from a Hellion he'd spent far too much time with. His eyes were on the floor until Leah's silence had him looking up as his words trailed off. Brows furrowing, he tilted his head. "...What?"

Leah was smiling, broad and warm. There was amusement and affection mixed into her eyes and pooled lower to her smile. She looked down to her lap, laughing softly as she shook her head. Her legs lowered from their curled up position to the floor, stretching forward she dropped the remote on the coffee table and fell back into the cushions to look at him. That smile was still there. "Honey, did you think I'd be mad at you?"

He just stared at her, blinking before he shrugged his shoulders and lowered his gaze to the floor again. "I"unno. I thought you might be a little pissed about me putting myself in the middle of that stuff. Or putting your job and Grace's shop at risk.." His head was still tucked, looking through dark lashes and furrowed brows.

Shaking her head again, she let out another chime of a laugh before she pushed herself from the couch and closed the few feet of distance between them. Her hands moved to her hips as she looked up at her son who towered over her. "Do you believe in the cause" Believe what they're marching for?"

Her brows that were a few tones darker than her bright hair arched as she stared up at him. His glacier hues were on her, confused to her question. "What do you mean?" Brows furrowing deeper, threatening to escape into the sockets of his eyes. "How can I not believe in it' They're discriminating against non-humans and that ain't cool. We've been through enough shit having to hide from them finding out, now we gotta deal with the ones who know that call us all monsters" Yeah, I believe in the cause against that bull****." He wasn't quite catching what his mother was getting at.

She seemed to be watching him intently, and that smile was threatening to crack her face in two. Closing the distance more, she reached up and scooped his angular jaw into her hands to make sure he was looking at her. Her hands were gentle considering their race, her eyes as loving and warm as any mother looking at her son could possibly be. How can they think she's a monster" His thoughts echoed through his head as he eyed the woman that had given him life.

"Then how could I not be proud of you for standing up for what you believe in?" Finally getting her point across. "You marched for equality between humans and non-humans.." Her tone was warm like honey and vanilla, soft as a baby's blanket. Her jade colored eyes flickered between his glacier eyes and there was a soft pout on her bow-shaped lips. "....When'd you grow up on me so fast?"

It was hard not to smile when Leah talked to him like that, it was like that aw shucks, Ma. Stop it. kinda way. "Had to eventually, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so," she breathed, laughing softly as she pulled her hands away from his face. "Besides, it's good to see you going after something other than girls for once," she teased, crinkling her pointed nose at him with a soft tap to his chest before she broke out in a grin. Teenage boys, I swear. Plucking the front of his shirt with her small fingers, she nodded her head to the couch before returning to it. Dropping into the cushions heavily, she scooted down and propped her feet on the coffee table before patting her lap. "Come on, tell me how it went."

He got that lopsided smirk on his face when she called him out on...Well, being a teenage boy and he shrugged. "Don't get your hopes up, Ma." When she sat down and patted her lap, he moved around the coffee table and moved to the other end of the couch. Plopping into the far cushion, he twisted and sprawled until his head was in her lap and his long legs dangled over the other arm of the couch she wasn't leaned on.

When he was settled and comfortable, he dropped the illusion. Around his mother, he didn't have to pretend to be what he wasn't. He knew she felt guilty and ashamed of having passed what they were to him, even if they didn't have the extreme monstrous looks that a full-blood would have. But he had no shame of it. What had looked like a modern day greaser mixed with grunge in his early twenties was now what could only really be described as a 'demon-goblin".

Pale milky flesh of the illusion was now a pale grey that looked almost tinted with blue as if he'd drowned. Glacier blue irises now held a mixture of reds and oranges and yellows as if fire was trapped in the orbs, flickering and swirling like he'd dropped food coloring in water. Straight pearly white teeth was now -still pearly white- but horrifically jagged and sharp, canines too long poked his bottom lip that was a little bit darker than the rest of his flesh. Hair so dark a brown it was very nearly black was now a flaming fire-engine red, though was still in the same cut as his illusion portrayed. Humanoid ears were now long and pointed, narrow and faintly curled at the tops. The general shape of his frame was the same, minus claw-like hands that had longer fingers and the knobs of his knuckles were more prominent, nails sharp and hooked.

With his head on Leah's lap, her fingers raked through those bright red locks with a matronly touch, her other elbow propped on the armrest beside her, her hand loosely balled to rest her temple against her knuckles. She kept her illusion up, she always did except when she couldn't— during sleep. He was more comfortable with himself than she was, the fact made her smile as she swallowed down the guilt of passing on that burden to him.

Those swirling fire orbs lifted to his mother as that grotesquely jagged mouth curled into a drastic grin. "....Though there was a cute girl with dreadlocks there.." In a voice that wasn't as smooth, but deeper and more growling.

Leah pulled a scrunched face, swatting him on the forehead lightly. "Frankie!" She barked, rolling her eyes dramatically with a groan.

The sound of his crackling laughter spilled into the room at her reaction.

Boys will be boys.