candle shopping [VINNY] ●

[Gavin Montgomery]

Fingers were threaded absently through carefully styled red hair as the man worked his way through the mall. A hand was placed surreptitiously on the wall as he walked along, his power activated. The mall was much too large for him to use his power on the building as a whole, however, he found that he liked to feel how electricity flowed through it. It was an altogether interesting and new sensation, not to mention he could at least get a feel for where all the cameras were. Routing the electricity to them was a whole other matter, however. There was simply too much going everywhere for him to accurately do it. He had tried before and his energy had been drained at an almost terrifying rate. Despite that, though, he had found that he could easily route the energy in the smaller stores – which was exactly his feet turned to enter a small candle shop.

Now, Gavin didn’t need a candle or anything. If he needed one, he actually would have bought it, but his compulsions to steal things were hard to ignore and this shop was tiny and currently being ran by a teenager who couldn’t quite get her nose out of her phone. It was perfect, really. She likely wouldn’t even notice anything was missing, so routing the electricity in the room away from the camera wasn’t even necessary. Too many people were coming and going, it would be impossible to say who stole the candle if it was even noticed as missing. He moved through the rows of candles, his posture calm, relaxed, normal. He stopped to sniff them, he gave no indication that he was anything other than a regular customer. However, if anyone happened to be watching him too closely – much more closely than a normal person would be – they might notice that one of the smaller candles he picked up didn’t exactly get put back down… though where it was on his person would be anyone’s guess.

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Vincent Lombardi

[Vincent Lombardi]

Vincent had been stressed- at least that was his excuse for burning through 9 candles in a few weeks. No one said anything since he made sure to pick smells that all the people in the house would like. That being said- he was sure that his job was one of the most annoying he had been on in a while. He was mailman- it wasn’t that hard to make sure your pets were up and your address was correct. He had been almost mauled by the same dog several times and he was pretty sure he was going to spray pepper spray on the owner next time he decided he had enough. Right now, it was just bitter spray at the dog which made him particularly avoidant.

If his boss had anything to say, he could easily show the nice bite mark he got when he went in there. He had made a compromise by throwing the letters over the fence without much care if the dog got to him. The owner met him one day, furious that his dog had torn up his mail. After listening to the man’s long rant, he told him if he put up the dog and put a mailbox outside the fence, there wouldn’t be this problem. It wasn’t his job to keep the dog from attacking the mail. It was a long week and a half, but it was over- and now he was trying to get settled in on his route. People were particularly unpleasant in a few areas- but so far it wasn’t….ridiculously bad.

So when he had armed himself up to the teeth and went to the mall to get more things to burn- he returned to the same store. Vincent liked the prices and Melody and his ‘family’ continued to enjoy the smell of them- so they were an obvious choice. He already had two large jars- three smaller ones, and several sample sizes of other smells for brief stints. He already had his large sandalwood candle still going- so he hoped that this was going to help him find something that he could burn and light things on fire with the pleasant smell and the less than savory girly scents that they seemed to enjoy.

No one caught his eye in the store for long. The girl was chatting on her cellphone who was running the register- there was an old woman that he was sure was actually a wax figure from a president a hundred years ago- and a red haired man where he found himself next to. To be honest, Vincent wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary until he realized that there was one candle less than there was when he first looked at the box. The only reason he noticed that, was the way the candles were laid out.

As he briefly looked over pretending to mostly mind his own business. Red hair, green eyes, a fox in the henhouse. “You know, you don’t look like you need to steal anything. Especially candles.” He murmured- as if he was talking to himself- but he was really talking to the stranger next to him. “If you’re going to steal something, you should go to a place where they have higher priced items.” He reached down briefly to put a small candle in his basket as if he was going through the motions normally.

Stealing candles. This guy must be desperate. There was no point to. Yeah, they were above average priced here and there- but there were plenty of higher items to go after in the mall. He was old enough to work- so he obviously could afford something like a candle. It made him almost sigh- this guy had to be two suits short of a full deck.

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Tag:@Gavin Montgomery