Ashley couldn't hear a thing. His head moved up and down as he strode down Oxford Street. The music was his barrier to a world he didn't want to be a part of. Not at the moment anyway. His ability, his power had caused him countless pain and suffering. Though no one had found out about it yet, Ashley was living in constant fear that someone would soon.

His bad was slung over his shoulder in a manner that said that he didn't care about anything. Inside, a few precious items of his own. A collection of CD's that he carried woth hime everywhere, just in case he met a music executive who was interested in signing some new talent. Three Tennis balls, sealed in their plastic container and a notebook, containing a few of his own musings.

The tourists, the shoppers, they were all over the place, hearts beating in a irregular rythm as they went from shop to shop, looking for materialistic items that would give them only a short amount of pleasure. Ashley ignored them all, the Americans in their, shorts and baseball caps despite the fact that it was April, and raining. The Japanese tourists taking pictures of almost everything.

Maybe it was a bit stereotypical, but thats how Ashley saw them. Or at least, thats what they were when they passed him in a hazy blur, for he was not one to make eye conctact with anyone here. The locals were just as bad, at least they didn't every building looked 'cute'.

Ashley was heading for a newsagent. It's was a perfect place to get a chocolate bar and a drink, somewhere the tourists didn't even know existed. The music still plowed into his head, each beat pouding against his ear drums. He moved to the drinks cupboard and pulled out a Dr Pepper.

But when he turned around, he found that he had accidently knocked into someone.
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Nice and basic... open to anyone.

Oxford Street was always busy, cameras flashing, tourists checking things out, locals going from here to there. The automotive repair shop Isaia worked at was relatively close by, easy walking distance to get a burger and a soda, and subsequently he was used to it, and on a normal day, he might have listened for that unmistakable accent of what he considered his ‘hometown,’ and talked to a few New Yorkers, see if they were from anywhere near his old neighborhood. But not today, he wasn’t listening today, not when his mood matched that of the weather.

His hands were full. In one he had a cup of soda, Pepsi as he recalled, and the other held a burger from a fast food joint, a quarter of it gone, the missing portions already having been ingested and hidden away in Isaia’s stomach. The hand that held the burger was wrapped, and the food was a means of distraction from the aching sensation that made up the back, side, and palm of his hand. Some of the skin wasn’t fully covered by the quickly put together bandage, and the tissue was red and raw. And it was such that it was the subject of his foul mood. Not because he was particularly in pain, he had a pretty high tolerance for the sensation, but because of how he’d received it.

This latest incident had been a cereal box igniting under his fingertips, and when he jumped and pulled his hand away, he’d actually pulled the fire with it, and it had enveloped his hand and burned the skin. Necessity drove above the pain and purely on instinct, he’d willed it to go out, but the damage had been done. He was pretty positive one of these days he was going to be thinking about getting a flame-broiled hamburger and just go up in flames without a chance to react. Just ‘hey, I’m hungry,’ then BOOM!, agony, aaaand gone, turned into the equivalent of that old Kansas song and be dust on the wind.

So yea, he was in a bad mood. His powers were acting up again, they’d been what he would have called ‘under control’ for the last six months, but in the last few weeks, he’d been setting things ablaze without even thinking about it, and attempts to control the fires using his powers hadn’t really ended well, a glass full of water or a stream from the jet on the sink usually worked better.

A double-decker bus droned past him in blur of red, distracting him from his thoughts, and directing his grey gaze up from the sidewalk, he looked right, then left and trotted across the street to one of the shops he frequented on his breaks. He was a regular at the tucked-away little newsagent and just nodded his head to the person behind the counter, was about to order a pack of smokes but decided to go to the back and see if the latest edition of his favourite car magazine was in, or maybe just to browse the classifieds and see if there were any deals worth looking into. Unfortunately the way to the rack was rather crowded, and holding a cup of soda and a sandwich left him at something of a disadvantage for slipping stealthily between people, but he decided to risk it. There was a girl to the left and a lanky kid with wearing a set of earbuds to the right at the drink cupboard, apparently musing over what kind of soda to choose. Isaia decided to risk it and tried to move between the two, but of course as he tried to duck between them they both decided to move. “‘Scuse me,” he muttered, getting pressed between one stranger and another, disliking the suddenly closed-in space. The girl moved out of the way, but Mister Twiggy Earbuds didn’t hear him and when he turned around, he knocked into him with enough force to knock the sandwich out of his burned hand. “Shit—” he hissed and winced, clutching his hand to his chest, suddenly livid grey eyes shooting up to the kid who’d run into him. “‘Ey, c’mon, watch where the fuck you’re goin’, yea?” An odd conglomerate of accents poured out of his mouth, his voice sharp and heated. Day to day, he’d defaulted back to his native British, but when he got pissed off, like he was now, with his drink spilled down his arm and his half-finished sandwich on the ground, he reverted to the accent of his youth and started spewing out profanities and threats in the thuggish New York street punk dialect he’d been raised in.

With an aggravated growl he leaned over and picked up the sandwich, flinching and muttering as he picked it up and studied it. There was dirt in his ketchup. A sigh escaped him, frowned at the lanky kid in front of him. “You owe me ah fuggin’ san’wich.” He made a face and shook his head, crumpling the paper around the sullied burger. “Or a pack of smokes, I don’t really give a shit which it is..”

Typical Ashley. Typical Bloody Ashley. He always seemed to be in his own world. He never paid attention to anyone other than himself and even then he han't paid much attention to himself. He pulled out his headphones and raised his eyebrows as the unknown man began a rant about him paying for a new sandwhich.

'Ah... sorry man... I..uh,' his voice stumbled over words he couldn't choose. He had a sudden thought of flying out of the shop and away. The man would never see him again. But Ashley was too decent for that, not to mention afraid.

'Sorry, I'm... a bit of a klutz.' he muttered. His head was lowered and he would be suprised it the man heard him at all. 'Here, I'll pay for a new burger.'

Ashley reached into his pocket to pull out a leather wallet. For a student, it was quite full. It was the benefit of having a doting Grandmother which saw it full. A grandmother who would have a stroke if she found out what Ashley spent most of his money on.

Looking down into his wallet, Ashely discovered that the smallest amount he had in his wallet was a ten pound note. He wasn't about to give this stranger a tenner so he quickly paid for his drink and handed a five pound note to the man.

'Here, go get yourself another burger.'

The lanky blond apologized and admitted to being something of a klutz, and Isaia scoffed a bit. “Ch’yea, I’ll say,” he muttered under his breath, tossing both the ketchup, mustard, and dirt-covered hamburger and what was left of his cup of Pepsi in the bin at the end of the counter. It wasn’t even really about the burger, the burger had been a distraction from what was really bothering him, and now that that distraction was gone, the raw, singed tissue of his hand was whining back at him about how much it hurt, reminding him as well of how little control he had over this .. thing that was happening to him.

He didn’t really like being reminded that he was some kind of fucking circus freak who lit boxes of shit on fire just by thinking about it. Or without thinking about it, as was usually the case.

He took a deep sigh as the kid was paying for his drink, was about to drop it completely now that his initial temper was cooling down, about to resume his mission to the car magazines when the kid turned to him and shoved a note at him, telling him to go get himself another burger. Isaia chuckled slightly, joined him at the counter, shaking his head a bit as he pulled his own wallet out of his pocket. “Fuhget about it, Earbuds.. Jus’ a fuckin’ sandwich, right?” he pointed to a pack of Marlboros and the cashier began to ring him up. The five pound note the kid had been handing him wouldn’t have gotten him his fix anyway, in that he was no longer in the mood for a burger and the pack was robbing him of £5.50. Isaia knew he had a temper, knew he could go off on nothing at all, and knew it didn’t help that he had an injury that made all that hotheadedness even worse. In effect he was really punishing the kid for his own stupidity of essentially lighting himself on fire earlier that day, and he didn’t really mean to.

Expertly unwrapping the little cardboard carton, he tossed the plastic coating in a trash bin and went about getting his afternoon nicotine fix. Stepping past the kid, he paused at the door and turned away from the interior of the building, always lighting his cigarettes indoors and risking a fine because he didn't want the wind and rain to blow or snuff it out. This was the one thing his power was actually useful for. Lighting his goddamn cancer sticks. No sooner had he tapped a cylinder out of the box than pressed his index finger to the end and it was lit. Raising it to his lips he took a long, relaxing drag and let his shoulders slump a bit. He pressed his back against the door and opened it some as he exhaled his breath in a plume of smoke that matched the colour of his eyes, holding up the carton a bit, he tried to catch the kid's eyes and indicated it with his next words, “You smoke at all?” He looked old enough, and if he was a smoker, he’d know he was offering him one as a sign of peace, since anyone who spent £5.50 a pack would have to be mad to share for any other reason. “You sorta look like you need to relax,” he told him a bit teasingly, a smirk appearing on his face as he pushed the door all the way open and took a position just outside.

Ashely felt the man's gaze draw onto him and he quickly withdrew the five pound not and placed it carefully in his wallet. His nervous self seemed to be ticking through and the other man seemed to notice this. Ashley quickly opened up his Dr Pepper and took a quick swig, which allowed him to take some cover behind the narrow bottle whislt at the same time, clearing his throat.

'You smoke at all?'

The man was offering a ciggerette as a peace offering and Ashley couldn't help but laugh. He didn't smoke at all. Not that stuff anyway. He felt too, that he was in a good place to say this. An old woman was looking over a copy of The Telegraph but she would be the only who cared and if the stories Ashley had heard were true, then she too would have had her fair share of it as well.

'No... I don't sorry. Not that stuff anyway.' Subtlety. It didn't come often but when it did Ashley made sure to take full advantage of it. Like a lion making a rare kill.
He grinned when the man told him that he needed to relax. How else did he think he relaxed?

Isaia was much more comfortable once he started to get the nicotine into his system. Not only did it relax and unwind but it cooled, despite the heat of the smoke in his lungs. He didn’t know if it had anything to do with his powers, but he liked the smoke. Who knew, his abilities were getting more powerful (read, worse), maybe he was supposed to be some fire breathing circus freak who could turn into a dragon at will. Hey, Reign of Fire had been set in England. It was only a matter of time before mini-Christian Bale disturbed the hibernating bull dragon and Isaia went off to join his fellow firebreathers.

A plume of grey smoke billowed from his mouth and into the equally grey sky, lost among the clouds and the hovering rain.

Turning slightly towards the kid, he raised an eyebrow at him when he answered his question, with a suggested addendum, and Isaia just shrugged a shoulder. “Whatever works, I suppose,” he said with a rather amused laugh. Never could tell with some people, could you?

Again a dragon entered his mind. Only this time it was one by the name of Puff.

Motherfucker. He was going to have that song stuck in his head for the rest of the goddamn day now.

Not that Isaia could act all nose-in-the-air about it, he would certainly be a liar if he claimed not to have not indulged in a few high flying adventures over the course of his youth, and that they were some of his more fond memories for what he did remember. Some parts of New York the stuff was readily available on each street corner, and Isaia wasn’t immune to the suggestions of his peers. Now he just preferred legal shit because it was easier to obtain, even if it did rob you just as blind. “Gotta have something, or people’d fucking start eating each other out there,” he muttered, the brusque New York accent now completely disappeared into his more native British. He raised the cylinder to his lips, taking a long draught of smoke.