the courtship of mr. lyon

[TXT:] no i just fixed your old ac

Fergus lifted his head up on the bed he currently lay upon, a wobbly grin across his lips. “Can ah no’ be both?” He turned his head, still smiling like a goon. “Drunk an’ honest.” A gruff laugh escaped him, and as his eyes again met hers, he patted the spot beside him, turning onto his side immediately afterwards. “Squidge ya bahookie next to me, we can ‘ave a little bosie.” He meant bum and he meant cuddle. Apparently he grew unbearably Scottish when he was intoxicated, which made little sense considering he was brought up in the ass end of Russia. “Am not a–” He hiccuped, and covered his mouth with the back of a tattooed hand when he burped. When he continued his sentence, he’d switched to Russian, “–volk v ovech'yey shkurye.” Fergus’ eyes began to wander, so he groaned and squeezed them shut. “Yer’ too bonnie to look at.”

Fergus leaned his head away from her hand, slightly grimacing. The heat his body was experiencing was uncomfortable at best, and his forehead was slick with sweat, but the bite on his hand was actually looking better, like it was healing. “How many days did it take th’others to turn? Three? It’s been five fer’ me and I’m no’ experiencin’ th’same symptoms.” As his eyes met hers, the thought that maybe he was beating the disease passed through his mind; and his mouth formed a straight line. For a while, Fergus just kept Alix’s stare, but eventually dropped his eyes back to the bite. Its edges had hardened, and new skin had begun to curl over the mark. His brows almost pulled together. “’Ere, have you ever seen a bite mark do this before?” Shifting to the edge of his seat, he held out his hand for her to take a closer look. As he did so, he glanced around them to see if any of the others were listening in, or watching, and when he was certain that they were alone in their conversation, he turned back to her, and lowered his voice. “What’s this mean, do you think? They’ll cut me up if they think I carry a cure.”

In the relatively short time Alix had been at the academy, she hadn’t tended to spend a lot of time in the cafeteria. The kitchen in her own small apartment had been able to take care of all her needs for food and drink, except last night she’d managed to set it on fire, and the only thing still working was one toaster slot out of four. She’d hoped to have woken up in the morning and find the whole thing magically fixed (it wasn’t so far-fetched, really, in a school full of mutants) but everything was just as charred and vaguely smokey as it had been the night before. So for breakfast she’d taken herself off to the cafeteria, still half asleep, and managed not to accidentally walk into anyone the whole time she was getting her food. Most of the properly cooked breakfast foods didn’t look all that appetizing, but there was toast and it was hard to mess that up, so that was what she got along with a cup of tea to balance on a tray. In hindsight, she thought, it would have just been easier to carry the plate and cup in both hands rather than attempt a balancing act. 

By the time Alix’s brain registered that she was falling the whole thing was almost over; the floor was steadily approaching her face and for some reason she was still holding onto the tray, despite the fact that both the plate of toast and cup of tea had slid off and crashed to the floor. And then something hit into her and stopped falling, though it took her a few seconds of tired, confused blinking to realize that it was another person. “Oh, wow.” Alix mumbled to herself, looking down at the growing puddle of tea and soggy toast in the middle of it before she stood herself upright. “Just clumsy, I think. Thanks, by the – oh. It’s you. Hello.” She’d turned and saw that it was Fergus sat there, and managed to drag a smile onto her face. A man with a wheeled cart full of cleaning supplies had shown up at that point, and Alix side-stepped out of his way, apologizing a couple of times as she slowly sat in the seat opposite Fergus. “I just shouldn’t be allowed to leave my apartment until I wake up. Stuff like this always happens.” She wasn’t a very clumsy person in general, but half-asleep or in the early morning she might as well have had two left feet. “Sorry, are you waiting for someone? I didn’t mean to, um, intrude.”

“Yep, it’s... me.” Fergus let out a breath that was half a laugh, brows twitching as if in small questioning: he couldn’t tell if she was pleased to see him or not. Looking at Alix’s face, it took him a moment to realise he was still holding onto her arm, of which he promptly released upon said realisation. Clearing his throat, Fergus shifted back onto his seat better, and said nothing whilst a cleaner appeared with cleaning supplies. The floor was a mess of soggy toast and tea, and whilst he listened to his companion’s repeated apologies, he turned to his own plate of toast, still warm and untouched. Alix sat beside him before he could decide what to do with it,  and he looked over at her. “Maybe tha’ would be a good thing, then.” He smiled a bit. “Stayin’ put until ye’ fully awake. Try jumpin’ jacks, or a cold shower.” Fergus couldn’t relate to the feeling of drowsiness, nor clumsiness. You had to be comfortable for that, and relaxed; he was neither. Setting down his coffee cup, he rubbed at his eyes and face before saying much else. He was only going to ask how she was, at which point she spoke up, and he turned his head. “No no, yer’ fine. Don’t know anyone here enough t’be waitin’ on em fer... a coffee date, or sometin'. No intrudin’ been’ done here.” Gently slicing the air with his hand to emphasise his words, he offered a small smile. “Um.” He swallowed, and looked to his toast. “‘Ere.” Sliding the plate over to her, he spoke. “Get tha’ down you. I got it but then I realised I’m no’ hungry.” Fergus pat his belly once. “Never am when I ain’t yet slept."

Marshall listened incredulously to the man’s explanation. In his logic, some things were alright to do without checking if it’s allowed first, but carrying a gun around a school? That definitely wasn’t on the list. That was, however, his logic. He could understand how experience shapes common sense, but it did cause a bit of curiosity as to what kinds of experiences a man must have in order for carrying a gun with you everywhere to become common sense. “Really? Why would you need anything bigger than that?” It did occur to him that he’d just defended Weston of all people for being strange when in all reality, he was probably the strangest person Marshall had ever met. Not that he was going to take it back now. “A little bit, yeah. But the other humans I’ve seen around don’t exactly carry a gun on campus.”

Fergus couldn’t remember ever deciding to carry a gun with him at all times. There were pictures of him at four, five, holding larger guns than the one currently in its holster. He’d never questioned it. Rather he accepted the weapon as another limb, nothing more; and these days he clung onto that belief tighter, perhaps because his paranoia had gotten worse. He wasn’t sure. Briefly he looked around them, eyes only returning to the boy when he spoke. “I like bigger guns.” Fergus simply said, as if that was an obvious answer. “An’ they come in handy. Bu’ no worries -- only trigger ‘appy when I’m bored.” His last words were accompanied with a squint of his eyes, like he was serious, but then he laughed, and that seriousness disappeared. “The other humans haven’t got the job I’ve got. They volunteered. Your uh, headmistress contacted me. An’ y’think I’m the only one carryin’ a weapon around?”

There was a small sense of relief that Alix felt at seeing Fergus. As little as they both knew about each other, she still would have considered him something close to a friend and it was nice to have friends in new, unfamiliar places. She was good at moving around; she’d done it enough as a kid, and when she’d moved away from home she’d spent a good few weeks in dozens of different towns before she’d settled in NYC. But this academy was a little more than just a new surrounding. It was a whole new species of humans that could shoot fire and read minds and change their appearance at will, and as much as that fascinated Alix, it scared her too. The possibilities of mutants and their powers were almost endless but that meant both good and bad possibilities. The good was great – the chance to end world hunger and eradicate a multitude of diseases was always a positive. But the bad had much sinister implications, most of which ended in death.

She nodded at his short explanation, not expecting him to say more. He’d never been that much of a talker. “Me too. I mean, I don’t really know how I’m supposed to help because I don’t think arranging flowers is going to do much for them. But maybe there’s something.” Alix had listed several of her interests and subjects she had extensive knowledge about on her forms, in case any of them happened to be crucial, but more than likely she supposed they might use her as a substitute teacher. For a moment then her words caught in the back of her throat, suddenly feeling embarrassed of the question she’d asked. “Oh, no, I don’t have a – a power. That’s not… I’m just human. Sorry. About asking if you have a mutation, I mean, not for me not having one. It’d be weird if I apologised for that. Is mutation the right word? I don’t think… I probably shouldn’t use that. Or maybe it’s okay?”

Alix’s words had gotten away from her again, and by the time the receptionist re-appeared she was more or less talking to herself. She stopped once the woman coughed, reaching out to collect a set of keys and two leaflets before saying thank you and stepping out of the way. The number on the keys read 44, and she looked back towards Fergus as she held them out for him to see. “Are you anywhere near here? Maybe we can go look for where the rooms are together. Unless you already know. Then maybe you could just… show me where they are instead.”

Fergus actually laughed, but it was stunted, and ended up sounding more like an approving grunt. The noise actually embarrassed him a bit, and his eyes lifted elsewhere as he ran a hand through his hair, or lack thereof. He’d shaved it all off the night before leaving for the academy, and now sported a buzzcut, except for the part of his head that remained hairless because of a scar. One of his brothers had hit him with a blunt hatchet once, not on purpose, and fortunately not with much strength either, else the weapon would have decapitated half of Fergus’ face. That was the day he was relieved to have such a thick skull. Damn lucky, too. “Yeah, seems almost mad, don’t it? Askin’ humans to help protect --  whatever they called.” He paused a moment, clearly thinking about something before blinking himself back into the present. At which point, he turned to look at her again. “Maybe they’ll use you fer’ teachin’. No’ me though. I’m no good with kids, they don’t like me. Especially the little ‘uns.” He wasn’t sure why children didn’t like him. Perhaps they were scared. He didn’t exactly look approachable. “How did you uh, find out about this place? Or I mean, decide te’-- help...”

Alix started talking, and Fergus listened to her with a straight face until she started rambling. Then his brows twitched, as if to pull together, and he wondered if he should interrupt her, like she might actually need help stopping. He shifted a fraction, ready to step in, when the receptionist cleared her throat, having been standing there for a good minute already. Fergus turned his head in her direction. She looked wholly unimpressed, if also slightly distrustful of the two humans. Fergus absent-mindedly ran his tongue over his bottom lip. He could understand her suspicion; even relate to it. Fergus was constantly paranoid of those around him. In fact, for a while, he’d even been suspicious of Alix. That is until he did a background check on her which,  in his world, was keeping close tabs on a person for at least a month. Hell, he even knew where she lived in NYC. It wasn’t because he was interested in knowing all of these things about her. It was just to keep himself safe. “Uh, no worries about askin’ about the, er, mutation thing. Everythin’s a wee bit weird right now.” He almost gave her a small smile before growing too awkward and scrapping the idea altogether. “--You know if we the only, um, humans ‘ere?” 

His eyes went to her keys when she held them out to him, and briefly, before she spoke, he wondered why she was offering them to him, and squinted. His expression smoothed out at her words, and nodding his head he took out his own set of keys to show her his room number: 48. Stuffing them back into his pocket, he rotated slightly to gesture in the direction of a corridor. “I actually already, uh, dropped off me bags, but yeah, I can show you to your uh, place.” He noted her bags with a tilt of his head, and hesitated. “I can carry some of those fer’ you if you want. I mean, I got two ‘ands so might as well make myself useful Ey?”

Marshall gave response to the man’s muffled laughing with a raised brow. He wasn’t exactly sure what part of what he said was anywhere near funny. His gaze rakes over the man, eyes locking on his fingers, tapping- either absentmindedly or threateningly, he’s not sure- against his gun. “Are you allowed to have that in here?” he asked curiously as his eyes traveled back up to his companion’s face. The grumpy one was automatically translated in his head as Weston- who, yeah, was a fairly ill-tempered, but Marshall wasn’t sure he deserved the reputation he had. He just wanted to help. Everything Weston did- every action, every decision- was to help. Which only furthered Marshall’s guilt at turning everyone away. But he wasn’t Weston and what he was doing wasn’t help; it was debt. “Don’t be so quick to judge him, you’re pretty odd yourself.”

It took him a moment to realise what the boy was talking about, so used to carrying a gun around with him at all times. He’d almost forgotten that it wasn’t a normal accessory for most, and felt naked without it. A light grunt escaped him as he slid the weapon off of the table and into its holster, movement so fluid it was obvious he’d handled the gun a lot. “Not tha’ sure to be honest with you. We uh, get books, little ones.” He pinched his fingers together to emphasise how tiny they were. “Supposed to read it first day I got here bu’, din’t get no time. I uh, downgraded though. Normally carry around somethin’ bigger.” He wasn’t sure why he was telling the boy all of this. Words just seemed to be falling out of his mouth as half of his focused was trained on the television. When called odd, he blinked, and looked back at his conversational partner. “Is tha’ so? How’s that then? Cos’ I’m human?”

At the man’s words, Marshall finally let his line of sight flick up from his computer screen. Leaning an elbow against the table in front of him, he studied the man and the gun resting on the table before him. He’d heard bout it- the humans being brought in for reasons unknown. He’d even attempted to hack the school’s system and uncover a particular reason, but it seemed Morgana was much smarter than to leave her systems unguarded. It was nearly impossible to get in there, even utilizing his ability. Marshall probably knew a bit more than the average student, only bits and pieces of it, but he knew enough to recognize this man as one of them.

“I haven’t particularly been in the business of… helping lately…” was his only explanation. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the girl stepped out of the door. He probably should have stopped her, apologized for being so rude, set up a time to talk about her technology problems, but he didn’t. He refused to, actually, because there was an actual technology help center on campus, yet people seemed to think they could pay him with their friendship to get the job done nine times faster. Needless to say, he was sick of it. 

Fergus paused a moment before snorting, though it was muffled, and sounded more like a grunt. He could understand wanting to be left alone, he preferred his own company to others most days too, but things were different right now, up in the air; everyone needed to help everyone. Or at least that’s how he saw it. “Each to they own.” He mumbled, giving a short laugh as his hands settled over his gun where it lay on the table. One of his thick, inked fingers tapped repetitively against its top, eyes going from the boy’s face to his computer’s screen. “Too busy helpin’ tha’ other man, the grumpy one? Run out of helpin’ juice fer anyone else, huh?” Fergus was fairly certain the man he was talking about was called Weston. Fergus was mostly silent but he observed his surroundings well. In the past couple weeks he’d frequently seen this particular boy with this -- Weston. Fergus briefly observed the kid’s face before turning away, to look at the television screen. “Curious guy, tha’ one.”

After years of residing at Morgana, Lia had finally found that Saturday nights were by far the best days to wash laundry. On weekdays, most people managed to find their way to hog every single washer; on Friday’s the productive tried to get it of the way and on Sunday nights procrastinators rushed to the laundromat… While simultaneously working on their English paper that was due in six hours. On Saturday nights however, most people will out partying and Lia? Lia was doing her laundry – to be fair, it was an all day process have you seen her closet?.

Either way, today she’d lucked out: it was no one but her and the soft hum of the laundry machine, so, naturally, she took the opportunity to blast One Direction while watching her whites swirl around the machine. “Waaaking uuuppp beside you I’m a loaded gun I can’t contain this anymore!” Lia sung and danced around the laundromat, only pausing when Zayn’s solo was interrupted by the door creaking open mid-song.

Fergus stood in the doorway to the laundrette with squinty eyes. He’d never planned on becoming a security guard for super humans yet here he was, standing in the threshold to a room filled with washing machines, wearing his new uniform that read SECURITY on the back in white capitals, wondering exactly why he’d agreed to take on the role when this was the sort of thing he came across. For all the things he thought he could have been out of his depth with, babysitting teenage mutants wasn’t one of them. Shoot up an entire room of armed men? Sure, easy, no problem. Won’t even blink. But expose himself to terrible songs and singing teen girls? Fergus cringed. "Thought someone was callin’ fer help...” He explained, still squinting at the girl. “My fault. Hearin’s a wee bit funny in me ears.” As he spoke, he stuck a knuckle in his ear and wiggled it, like that would help get his hearing back. “Guns...”

Marshall typed away at his laptop, legs pulled up under him as he sat at one of the bar-height tables in the back of the common room. Usually, the common room was far too crowded and boisterous for him to concentrate, but ever since all of the news stations began to report on anti-mutant matters, students tended to stay away. Netflix in the dorms was, after all, much less emotionally draining. The news still played in the background, however, one or two students curled up on the couch, paying close attention. A few others were scattered around the room, pretending to study or draw, but Marshall knew that, just as his were, their ears were still focused on the television.

The typing was really just for show- to create an appearance of close focus, though his mind was off elsewhere. His focused hearing was abruptly pulled away from the television as footsteps approached his table. Although his fingers quit typing, the characters kept appearing on the screen, possibly even more rapidly than when he’d been physically typing. Without lifting his gaze, he murmured, “If you’re looking for IT, now’s really not the time.”

Fergus was cleaning one of his guns when the boy to his right spoke. He paused in his routine to look up, eyes darting between the speaker and the person he addressed. Fergus knew neither the blonde kid nor the disappointed looking girl standing at his side. He was fairly recent to this sort of life, but he’d taken it on the chin. He wasn’t surprised by much, either because he’d done enough crazy things himself, or he just didn’t care. If he’d known the last man he’d killed would land him a job as some jumped up guard dog for a school full of mutants,  he -- still would have carried out the hit, actually. He wasn’t sure where he’d been going with that. At the end of the day, the man he’d killed had been dirty. He hated filth. 

The girl who was dismissed didn’t try to argue with her dismisser, only turned back around with some disappointed look across her face. Fergus actually set down his gun and considered stopping her, to ask if he could help in some way, but was reminded fairly quickly of the time he’d offered to fix Alix’s air conditioner, only to break it further and buying her an entirely new one. So instead he stuck the tip of his tongue to his cheek, eyes darting to his side at the boy. “Ye couldn’t ‘ave spared five minutes to help tha’ girl?” He asked, resting his large hands to the tops of his thighs. “You’ve been here fer ages, an’ it looked to me like you weren’t real fussed with tha’ work of yours until she came along.”

Before Alix could get an answer from the stranger, the receptionist had returned to the desk, making her question moot. She’d been about to apologize and turn away but the name that was called out made her pause; she recognized it, and when the man looked over his shoulder, she realized who it was. Of all the people Alix might have guessed she’d run into, Fergus had never been particularly high on the list. She hadn’t know him that well when they both lived in NYC – they only really talked when he went into the shop to buy flowers, and those couple of times when they’d ended up sat together in the bar, and she’d been fairly certain about not seeing him again after leaving town. Her mouth hung open for a second or two, making her look like a fish out of water, and it wasn’t until he stepped back to allow her to approach the desk that she managed to close it and swallow. A smile flickered across her face as she stepped forward and handed over the file, being told then that she had to wait a few minutes for it all to be processed and a place found for her to stay. 

As the woman disappeared once again into the office behind the desk Alix nodded, slowly turning back to Fergus as she fidgeted with the strap of her bag. “Yeah, definitely. I mean, what are the odds we both end up here, right?” She let out an awkward laugh, the tip of her shoe scuffing against the floor as she cleared her throat. “So, uh, what are you doing here?” It occurred to Alix then that, with the little information she knew about Fergus, she had no idea if he was a mutant or human, though she doubted he’d want to tell everyone he met if he did have some kind of power. She certainly wouldn’t have. “Are you…” Alix hesitated, unsure of whether it was a rude question or not. “Do you have an… ability?”

Fergus felt his heart beat quicker, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing, and shoved the keys to his new apartment into his coat’s pocket. Whilst he’d had no obligation to stay in touch with her, or to tell her that he was leaving, he fell awkward in her presence anyhow. In the past several months, he’d grown accustomed to seeing her every Sunday morning, where he would buy his flowers and be off again; they’d even begun to sit at the same table together those nights they visited the same bar, though conversation had always been sparse. Fergus wasn’t one for talking. He never had been; he had the smallest of stutters, hidden well by how thick his accent was, but still there. His brothers had used to make fun of his impediment, however tiny it was, when they were younger; and he was so rarely in need of talking during hits that -- in the end -- he grew comfortable with silence. Alix looked as shocked as he felt, but he didn’t stare for too long, and took another discreet step back when she moved in front of the desk. 

Fergus cleared his throat. “You can say tha’ again.” He murmured, and idly rubbed tattooed fingers over an itch on the side of his face. He looked a mixture of impatience and nervousness: was Alix one of them? His eyes snapped back to her face at her second question, and his expression fell flat. He couldn’t tell her that he was here to kill people, however bad these men and women were. “Helpin’... these people.” He opted with saying, and flexed a finger in the direction of a few who passed by them. Briefly his eyes followed them, squinting at the way in which they dressed: one was covered from head to toe in tattoos, and the other with strikingly colourful hair. Alix’s final question was what made Fergus pause, and eventually he stared at her for a long  time, her question not entirely registering with him until after he’d had a moment to process it. Then he actually smiled a bit, as if he found her words amusing, and shook his head. “Do you?”

Morgana Academy was bigger than Alix had imagined it. The main building looked a little daunting as she approached, and her fingers gripped a little tighter on the file full of papers she’d been asked to fill out for arrival. For the second time since pulling into the car park, Alix began to wonder if she was really doing the right thing; helping mutants was a good cause, after all, and a little better than just being a florist. She wanted to be there but was it right for her? Could she really offer them anything? Her feet had continued forward as she worried, and before she knew it the door was in front of her, and her thoughts strayed elsewhere as she pushed it open. There wasn’t much room for turning back anymore – especially when there was nothing left to turn back. She’d given up her job and the lease on her apartment to travel hundreds of miles, and Morgana Academy was the only place she had left to go. 

The front desk was empty and there was no sign to tell when anybody would be back. She carried on to the left, where voices could be heard, hoping to find someone that might know where she should turn in her papers. “Oh, uh,” Alix raised a hand, trying to grab the attention of the nearest person passing by, “sorry. Do you know where I have to give these files in? I just got here but there’s nobody at the front desk.”

Fergus wasn’t one hundred percent sure how he’d gotten tangled up in all of this. He’d stalked a man that had needed punishing, and then -- THIS. If he’d known that the job would force him to stumble upon the world of mutants then perhaps he wouldn’t have taken it at all; been more wary of those he decided were deserving of execution. As it happened, the man he’d been tailing for weeks had led him straight to a facility, of sorts, and now this man was dead. Thanks to Fergus. A woman named Morgana had shown up not long after Fergus had blown the man’s brains out, asking if he would come to New Hampshire to help kill more men like that one; and Fergus had obliged. But now that he was here, he was nervous; suspicious. He watched those around him with steady eyes. A small grimace had carved into his features as he waited for the receptionist to get back, fingers curling around the papers he’d spent a couple hours filling out. 

Fergus recognised the florists voice even before he turned to look at her, and immediately tensed. She appeared not to recognise the back of him ( why would she? ), and briefly he considered just walking away so that she didn’t have the chance to consider where she might have seen him before. He was fairly certain that she’d be able to identify him if only he turned around to face her. She wasn’t blind, nor, he doubted, stupid. But then the receptionist reappeared, and announced his name “Mr Fergus Lyon” before asking for his papers. Clearing his throat, he turned a little to look over his shoulder at the blonde woman, so that she might recognise him better, albeit awkwardly, before returning his attention back to the receptionist, and handing over his papers. After he was done, he shifted to the side, and glanced back at the florist from NYC, gesturing for her to step forward. “...You  can give it in here...” He cleared his throat, and fidgeted a small amount. “...Small world...”