Run, run, lost boy

“Like you need me to find trouble. I think you’ve been doing it pretty well without me.” Granted, Billy wasn’t as good as finding fun. There was a big difference. Well, there was a difference to Tommy. Not everyone tended to agree with his definitions. He hesitated, feeling a little more awkward about it than he’d thought he would. “Yeah, I mean...if you actually need me. I can get here in pretty much no time, right? Besides, you’ve got grandpa around.” Not that either of them saw him very often, but he was still there. For emergencies. Like...big ones. “Not like I’m gonna be out of touch or anything.”  

“We, Thierry and me. Or did you forget his name again?” He walked over and flopped down on the couch with an audible sigh.”I think we’ll be gone for awhile this time.” Awhile might mean permanently, but he wasn’t ready to commit to that yet. All he knew was that he wanted out for the time being. Both of them did. 

It meant saying goodbye to his brother, but was that even what it was? Billy could teleport. Tommy could run around the world. All it meant was not living the same place again. Still, he didn’t want to bail without a word. He showed up at the house the night before he and Thierry were set to leave. “Hey man, I just thought I’d pop in for a second. We’re taking off in the morning.”

“Uh, because you don’t have to shapeshift into whatever. I don’t have a magic don’t be fast button. I just exist like this. If you hadn’t noticed.” And most of the time it was fucking awesome, except when he had to deal with practically any other person in the entire world while the moved like a snail with narcolepsy. Tommy pulled out a shirt he liked the look of and tossed it over his shoulder. “That’s a dirty lie, Theodore.” 

“Please, I don’t need your pity time.” He wasn’t going to complain about the chocolate, though, so he took a giant, appreciative bite of that. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll come up with some way for you to make it up to me. You can count on that. And it’s not fruit baskets full of nasty pears, either.” 

Pretty much the instant Chris said “water” a glass of it was in his hand and Tommy was back in the kitchen again. He returned a moment later with a sandwich that would have made Shaggy and Scooby-Doo proud. He wasn’t entirely sure how he planned to get his mouth around it, but that was a good problem to have. He plopped down cross-legged in the floor in front of the TV (one of the things they did have already). The food was enough to finally capture Cricket’s attention and he left Chris alone to go sniffing around for scraps. “You wouldn’t know if you ate a person? You get like, werewolf amnesia? That sucks. Also, scary. Don’t hang around here when it’s a fool moon, please and thank you. I might be able to take you but beating up Thierry’s cousin probably isn’t a good look.” 

“Man, I always think the world can’t get any weirder then I meet a fucking werewolf. Whatever,” Tommy shrugged, walking into the kitchen. The house was barely moved in, but the one thing they did have was food, because he was an intolerable bastard without that. “Bering I guess. I just go, no map consult included.” He opened the fridge and stared into it. “You want something? Drink? Uh...rare...steak? You eat people food right? Not people?” He was mostly joking. Mostly. 

“Two totally different things.” Tommy went back to rummaging in the closet, just in case he saw something else that he wanted. No sense in making two trips if he thought about it later. “Why? Because I’m right? I know I’m right. You don’t have to admit it. Billy’s feelings will be hurt wherever he’s at right now and he won’t even know why.” 

“What the hell is a semi-private detective? Did you just make that up?” He was pretty sure she’d just made it up. Tommy sat back up and rested his chin on the top of his fist, looking at her for a second. “You could join up with the team I work with. I mean, if you’re not so busy with the semi private detective thing. No money though. Well, if there’s money nobody is giving me any. I should probably ask about that.” He stood up as quickly as he’d sat down and wandered over to one of her windows to mess around with the blinds. “Like old times. Kinda. Like I said, they’re no Young Avengers.” 

“See, I think the thing that you’re missing is that it’s not that I don’t feel guilty...” he took another loud bite and gestured at Billy with his spoon, “it’s that I don’t do anything wrong. You on the other hand. You’re wrong all the time. You should feel guilty. Guess that does make us a pair.” So many his moral compass didn’t always point him the same way Billy’s did. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t right. He just handled things a little more...messily. 

“That’s cheating, though.” Not that Tommy even really had a type. Everyone he’d been interested in was pretty wildly different from each other (physically, anyway). He zipped up the front of the jacket and turned around, admiring himself in Billy’s mirror. “Looks better on me,” he confirmed, as if anyone had asked. 

“Yeah maybe they were universal like fifty years ago. You really make me question this whole twin thing.” Like it wasn’t weird enough already to be identical twins who simultaneously weren’t related at all. He’d had years to wrap his head around it and it was still ridiculous. Tommy wandered into the kitchen, rifling first through the cabinets and then the fridge until he had a bowl of cereal. He took a very noisy bite. “Go tell Teddy not to walk out here naked. You have a guest and I don’t wanna see that again.” 

“Because a fruit basket popped up on my bed last night while I was sleeping in it and I know that was you, because I don’t even like pears and there was like fifteen pears in it.” Maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but only barely. “Nobody even likes fruit baskets! Are you like a hundred years old? Did Grandpa tell you to send fruit baskets?” Not that he probably did that either, unless it was full of murder fruit. Was that a thing? It was probably a thing for Magneto. “At least poof over candy or video games or something I want.” 

“Wait...like an actual, howl at the moon werewolf? That’s a real thing?” He didn’t know why that was surprising. He’d seen skrulls running around wearing his friends’ faces. He’d almost been eaten by a dinosaur one time. The X-Men chick who shot fireworks out of her fingers or whatever had been a vampire for awhile. Of course fucking werewolves were real, too. “Here to Paris in uhhh...” he glanced at the clock on his phone, “about thirteen minutes and seven seconds. Give or take.”