the m stands for mutant

he’s not sure what to say. technically, he could pretend it’s a backhanded compliment and get mad at that. but by just acknowledging it, aiden would be locked into a choice. few more steps down that line and he’ll find himself beaten again. the only winning move, something something.

so he disentangles by letting out a rough grunt. aiden very pointedly does not look up from the keyboard as he announces, frankly and honestly: “i am going to steal a police drone. and i am going to program it to tase you every time it spots you outside the safehouse.” he looks up now because it’s easier to lock eyes with ian when he’s threatening him with physical violence. “you ever been tased?”

   “Has anyone ever told you that you can be... I can’t even think of something. If I say ‘a dickhead’ the answer is obviously ‘yes’.”

Ian has never been tased, nor has he spent more than half a second thinking over his response to the threat of being tased. Because Aiden’s not going to tase him. He’s decided as much. And once he’s decided as much, what is there to worry about? Why overthink things?

He lays his hands in his lap and slouches more comfortably in his own desk chair, the one Aiden stopped using precisely because of the squeaky wheels Ian is now idly rolling on, back and forth, squee-squeek, back and forth, squee-squeek.

he’s about to ask a very surprised question before he realizes suzy is joking, as evidenced by her very loud laughter. david shakes his head but knows better than to show that he’s mad after she got him. he realizes that would be very lame.

“okay, well– that means your prom is still ahead of you. i’m sure you can make it a movie experience.” whatever that means. 

He’s so mad. He is though. People got annoyed at David when he first got to Summerland, because they didn’t get why he is the way he is, or why he does the things he does, but honestly, Suzy’s never been on side. Maybe that’s why she l*kes him - he’s got tells. He’s wired a pretty obvious way, if you’re open to people who aren’t wired like you. And, Suzy’s okay knowing she’s not wired like most people. So...

His facial expression changes a little, eyebrows pulling together again in thought, but his hands stay up where he held them, almost forgotten. He supposes he’s been lucky with his set. There’s certainly been times where he wishes he could’ve changed his face, but god knows man to bird to man is easier. Other options would take way too much time out of his day.

He supposes the subject of identity is probably not an easy one for any one of their kind, but hey, at least he never loses sight of land. He can certainly sympathize, though.

“I mean, I knew you were funny,” he finally remembers he has hands, and remembers to lower them again too, “always showin’ up lookin’ different. I kinda just figured that was your personal preference.” He shrugs a little, and finally stumps the butt of his cigarette down into the ground. 

“Hey, it’s okay, though. Age is just a little thing, right? Plenty of other stuff that makes you, you.”

They can feel the warm light of sympathy glow all over their skin. Not even sympathy - empathy through and through, probably, if not, Gale is very convincing. It does feel like he gets it, genuinely, and that Kennedy doesn’t have to ply him with sorry for oversharing or thank you for understanding.

They feel the spiritual equivalent of being full after a wonderful meal. And if they thank him it’s for that, not for putting up with them, but for the nice feeling in their belly. Kennedy limply slaps a palm against Gale’s hand as he puts it down, just to share something in touch, if not words.

     It’s funny–– Despite his own anxieties, Silas is a natural at bedside manner. He stands to fetch a bottle of water from a nearby cabinet and offers it with a smile. 

     “No need to worry. There’s nothing you could say that would be wrong.” Picking up on their cues, he mirrors them, setting aside the clipboard in an attempt to ease nerves. “This is all about you and your experience.”

Well shit - he’s nice. Shouldn’t that make things easier? Wouldn’t it for anyone else? They find their hand slowly opening and closing in their lap, nervously sinking nails into their thigh. It’s leaving little claw marks in the denim.

MAYBE THEY CAN SEE IT. the penchant for addiction, he means. romero saw it easily. maybe even fucking instantly. hanging out in the right crowds, not stuck behind a screen for his whole life waiting for something to happen to him. he just wants to sleep. that’s all. tried everything that is supposed to help, even some of the things krista told him to do. 

but that’s not the question. not romero’s vaguely accusatory tone. just a question that brings him up short. 

❝ not really, ❞ he admits after a moment. ❝ i don’t think that’ll be a problem. ❞

( my sleep schedule’s too fucked to dream, i think. i don’t really remember the last time i got a full night of sleep without inducing something. chemically, i mean. )

a pause. a vague memory, swimming up through the haze of sleeplessness and – well, when did he even last eat? ❝ i mean. when i do dream it’s…. vivid, i guess. but that’s not often. ❞

So by kind of no he means sort of yes. That’s not a good precedent.

Nemo rolls the pill in their palm under their thumb. Elliot’s not asking for it yet, he seems game to chat. It’s not so bad if they just talk a little longer, is it? They’ll give him the pills, of course they will, they just can’t help but wonder first.

It’s not being kicked out that’s the issue. It’s being the last one awake at a sleepover. It’s having no one to talk to. The unconscious make bad company.

“uh, yeah.” david agrees though he’s not exactly sure what a movie-like prom entails. he stares at suzy, trying to guess why she seems so underwhelmed. this isn’t a well-exercised memory for him, so he doesn’t know the right words for dressing it up. he probably should have tried harder to impress this teenager.

“are you… high school age?” wow, that sounded bad. bad enough that david feels like he should arrest himself on the spot. he rushes to explain himself: “i’m not asking in a, a creepy way, i just– you’re pre-prom age, yes?”

   “What? David, I’m twenty-two years old.”

Is he buying it? Oh my god. He actually kind of did. Just for a second. She laughs so hard it hurts her in the nose.

 it’s  been  a  long  time  since  vulko  trained  him  like  this                      it’s  been  a  long  time  since  he’d  been  so  young  and  excitable      ,      too      ,      before  the  wool  had  been  pulled  from  over  his  eyes      .      it’s  been  years  since  he  had  thought  about  that                      and  now  here’s  suzy      ,      reminding  him  of  exactly  that      .      what  had  vulko  done  when  they’d  first  started  training      ?      talking  and  teaching  and  nothing  even  remotely  close  to  handling  weapons      .      and  that  had  gone  on  for  months  before  he’d  even  gotten  his  hands  on  one  of  those  fancy  atlantean  weapons      .

 ❝          the  first  thing  you’re  gonna  want  to  do  is  slow  down     .      if  you  think  you’re  ever  gonna  learn  any  chi  blocking  techniques  when  you’re  jumping  around  like  a  firecracker  with  her  butt  lit      ,      think  again      .          ❞                                he’s  pumped      ,      but  compared  to  her      ,      it’s  like  he’s  not  excited  at  all      !      he  shakes  his  legs  and  wrists  out      ,      scans  his  little  stack  of  weapons      ,      and  pulls  up  the  lightest  and  skinniest  one  he  can  find      .      its  end  is  filled  from  years  of  use  :  a  prop  used  for  training      .      exactly  what  she  needs      .                              ❝          take  this  and  show  me  what  you  can  do      .          ❞

Doesn’t he wanna see how pumped she is for this? Suzy takes a deep breath and keeps her feet flat on the ground, but her heart is still jumping around in her chest. He can’t tell her to stop that. Can he? No one’s ever mentioned Aquaman being able to hear heartbeats, but she really didn’t study up on his Wikipedia before this. That better not bite her in the ass.

   “Oh. Love this.” Suzy takes the spear from his hand. She wiggles her wrist to see if it wobbles a little. It kind of does. To start, she puts her focus in the palm of her hand and transfers it to the spear. Her grip releases and it stays floating in the air, so when Suzy gives it a tip it floats horizontally. With a well practiced kick, she shoots it down the beach until it hits a tall piece of driftwood. The little yah! helps.

He’s willing to work with that comparison, he supposes, pulling his shoulders up into a shrug as he takes another drag. Churning his mind to try to humor them, find instances where he hasn’t found math, or the sciences for that matter, to be a total waste of brain space——but then stops in its tracks, “Wait, you really don’t know your own birthday?”

Looks to them, “There has to be a way to reverse-engineer that shit, right? Some formula or other? Add and subtract and divide on——something?” He scratches his chin with the thumb of his empty hand, lets his eyes wander again as if he’s looking for an answer in their surroundings, then is distracted with his own answer, “Ah, we’re. Pushing forty-two. But if anyone asks I’m twenty-five. Not my kneecaps though. I haven’t spoken to him in a while, I hope he’s out there doin’ good. Hey——” 

He sits up, cigarette dangling from lips, unable to let this missing age-thing go completely, “maybe someone can read your palms. I’ve heard our hands got——life lines or something.” He holds his hands up as if to show them, though he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. It’s a guesstimate; the whole hand. “Maybe that can tell ya.”

They’re thinking oh, shoot, shouldn’t have let that slip, but did they really let it out by accident or just kind of want to share? There are stranger things than this. They don’t even look so old. They’re like the physical embodiment of those stupid adverts for aging ‘gracefully’ and denying yourself the basic human right to grow old. But that’s the sticking point, isn’t it. The human part.

But what can a man who’s a bird hold against them? What human high ground does he have?

   “I... I change around a lot. Every day. I don’t know if my life lines are the same every time.” There’s a red blush creeping up their face. They can feel it coming on. “But I think I’m old. Older than you. And your brother. A lot older. But after a while you just forget stuff, like people and birthdays. It’s just been such a long time, you know?”

why did she just punch him. he’s getting mixed signals. david laughs politely either way.

“yeah. i’m trying.” oh, he knows he’s not the world’s best storyteller. most people have a direct link between their brains and their mouths. david thinks he has a very leaky water-slide instead of that. and not even a fun one.

when suzy asks about his prom he’s genuinely surprised by that question. or rather, by the innocence of it. he blows air out of his cheeks with a loud sound while straining his memory. “what was prom like… fun, i guess? the punch was spiked, i remember that. there was, uh… dancing… kissing. responsible kissing. more dancing. a lot of bad music. swaying from left to right when a slow song came on. stuff like that.”

She can’t decide if it’s worse that he just put ‘fun’ and ‘spiked punch’ in the same thought, or that he just said the words ‘responsible kissing’ with his mouth. Suzy tries not to grimace, but the effort shows.

he doesn’t need permission. he scrambles. it’s disgusting but he does. he doesn’t get up from his chair, he slides off of it. lands on his knees and drags himself with his elbows towards the ceramic frog. like a cartoon man crawling through the desert to where the sign is pointing but the joke is that the sign doesn’t say “water”, it says something else and it’s funny to people who think that survival matters to everybody.

david shouldn’t have listened. it’s always the same. he listens and then the voices say everything he doesn’t want to hear. he glances at the open doors as he fumbles with the little baggie. stupid. 

“why is it blue?” he asks because benny isn’t in the room. he watches three drops land in the little water pond inside a frog. he replies to himself because, again, benny isn’t here: “it’s always blue.” 

the smoke hits. something limp takes over david’s body and he welcomes at as he slowly collapses onto the dusty carpet. heavy limbs come with silence and he wants it so he doesn’t fight gravity at all. he looks up to make sure the ghost closed the doors behind her after leaving.

but she’s still here. 

“oh shit.” he coughs out, his back convulses against the floor.

Well, look at him go. How bad he wants her to not exist. That’s a special feeling. Everyone knows what it’s like to be wished dead, very few know what it’s like to be wished undone.

   “Oisín, actually.” 

All his words now sound familiar. They leave a print in the room from being spoken so much. Like a path trodden in the grass, flat and dead where you just keep walking on it over, and over, and over.

She has to assume he won’t die from this. He survived using a lot more in her regular timeline, he’ll make it through this hit. Jesus, this would be a job poorly done if he choked on his vomit now. David is high off his fucking face and for better or worse, probably the latter, that means they’re actually getting somewhere. 

In all seriousness, he waves, squinting towards the tiny light in the sky before lowering his hand back around Kennedy’s back. “I dunno, I’d be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s dark out and we’re very small.” But he’s excited; hasn’t seen one of these in ages. Even though they’re already shoulder to shoulder, he bumps them and nods his head upwards. “Hey, you gotta make a wish.” 

   “Oh, geez.” They glance up only to look down and screw their eyes shut. A wish takes all their concentration. Oh god. What do they want. Should they be wishing for what they want anyway? Maybe someone else needs a wish? Because Kennedy has no clue what they want and that’s not something that bears close examination right now. “Uhmmm-uhm-uhm.”