#storm colduck

Storm headshots. Incidentally the Storm/Todd ship name is now Duck Downs.

(Storm Colduck is a 16-year-old high-powered psychic at the Grace Lord Facility for Extranormal Research. Andy Temmelten is his psy teacher. His best friend and boyfriend is Todd Claydon Downs, who is host to an alien parasite colony which has recently been discovered to be a world-scale threat, should it ever get strong enough.    Storm wears a variety of adapted hats which serve as part of a psychic shield to stop the thoughts of the outside world giving him a nervous breakdown. He is a boy who really would go out in public in a Hello Kitty soul hood. As usual, this is another RP between BeyondSociety and me - Todd is her character.

Also you may have noticed I'm not doing these prompts every single day. I'm keeping them for when I'm waiting for a coffee, getting lunch, that kind of thing. Something to do at a loose end, which happens a lot.)

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Today's hat was a multicoloured monstrosity that would have looked much better on someone with a full head of dreadlocks, but Andy had seen worse. Storm had been trying to  make up for his lack of height with increasingly strange headgear ever since he'd arrived here, and now nobody would have batted an eyelid if he'd turned up wearing a full mascot head. At least he was punctual.

'Hi, Storm,' said Andy. 'How's things?'

'Oh, not bad,' said Storm airily. 'Kicked Todd's ass at TF2, *again*. Why he keeps trying to play Demos I'll never know, he's much better at Scouts.'

'I'm not even going to pretend I have even the faintest idea I know what you're talking about, but I'm glad you're having fun.' Andy gestured to the armchair opposite his, and Storm slouched into it and pulled off the hat. It was subtle - Andy had to look carefully - but the slight twitch as Storm's psychic abilities came back online was definitely there. 'You know, you should be prepared for that by now.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'You usually *are* prepared for it.'

'I *know*, I'll be ready next time, get off my back.'

Well. Don't have to be a psychic to see thunder. 'I'm your teacher. It's my job to be on your back about this. You're normally much more alert than this. What's on your mind?' Suspicion creased his brow. 'Have you been trying to talk to the Colony again? You know you're not allowed to do that unsupervised.'

'I said get off my *case*, alright?' snapped Storm. 'Of course I haven't, do I look like a complete numbass to you?'

'Of course not. I apologise.' Andy waited for the hackles to settle. 'Feel like telling me?'

'No.'

'Fair enough. Up to you, I suppose.' He cleared his throat and mentally shook himself. 'Right, first of all, I told you before, face me in class, please, you can lounge around like a grumpy housecat in your own time. Now where where we? Oh, yes-'

'Hey...'

Andy looked up from his notebook. Storm was looking smaller than ever, tiny and pale and scared, like the last lab mouse in the cage. 'What's up?'

'Well... first of all, I promise I haven't been trying to talk to the Colony. I wanna establish that, right? You can look in my head if you don't believe me.'

'I believe you.'

'Great. But...' Storm took a deep breath, addressing the hat in his lap. 'Listen, if anything *does* happen to me, like, I get assimilated or infected or whatever - will you tell my dad I'm sorry and... I guess let him know I love him and everything? And I guess mom too. Please?'

Andy let out the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. 'Storm, you're not going to be assimilated. Neither will Todd. They'll find a cure.'

'You don't fucking know that.'

'Language, Storm,' said Andy mildly. Storm ignored him.

'It's just - look, just promise, alright? It's important. It's not like I'm asking you to take out the f- the frikking alien parasite for me or anything, just this one little thing. Incidentally if you tell anyone else-'

'Relax, I'm not going to tell anyone else, your secrets are safe with me,' said Andy. 'Fine, I'll tell him. But I won't need to, will I?' Silence. 'Storm. I'm warning you, you know the Colony's been recategorised as an A4-level threat. If you give me reason to believe you're going to do something stupid, like get yourself infected, then I am going to have to let someone know.'

'Don't be a fucking moron,' said Storm, and this time Andy let it go. 'Fine, it won't happen. And yes, I've been doing my psy homework, before you ask, today's lesson was going to be dealing with psychic manipulation. Right?'