power over me

He watches him, and this is where the threat begins. 

Parker’s animated, all of him. His hands close then open, fist up then pan out. His eyes grow then scowl, focus then relax onto something else in their distance. He talks with his words, but they are a fraction of the language of him; his body holds most of the conversation, as it changes in between his syllables. 

And in his thoughts, Parker draws the scenes out for him: introduces him to his mother, showcases the bank emptied and a mess, and even paints him a detailed replica of his cousin’s face trying to get himself off the floor after his fall. In Parker’s mind, amidst these memories, Xavier stands always a foot behind, just watching — but always watching Parker, and the way he responds to the world around him.

The intent of his gaze was obvious, and he needed to stop before it became of anything more. 

“Of course.” 

He listens with attention, and never cuts him off. He waits another second to allow him every period to his sentences, and another second in case there is the start of another. Only when Parker looks for his eyes, is when he responds. 

“Are you sure that control is all you’re missing to be able to do good?” This was the lesson Blythe had left him with; a notion he was still struggling to understand even in his absence. There was the question of intent again, and where it was placed, along with how much of it. He had always known too great of intent would burn things down — what he didn’t mean was to turn Blythe into a forest fire. 

“Does it not scare you?” 

The question is asked with pure curiosity. It is a query to himself, because there is so much of Xavier’s youth in Parker. It’s in his eyes, and the ambition that lies there — and Xavier knows far too well how this goes. “The power. The possibilities of it.” If Parker pays close attention, he’d see the slightest of tremble in Xavier’s hands, and the wavering of his gaze. 

“I know of not much, Parker. As much as I would love to know it all.” There is a smile that lifts onto his face, but it’s out of place. “But if there is one thing I can be sure of at least in this — in our universe, Parker, it’s that…” 

“Nothing is ever obvious.” 

He’s starting to feel a little self conscious and nervous again with the way Xavier can say so little and yet so much at the same time. Xavier speaks and his words are concise— he doesn’t talk in jumbled up rambling like Parker does and for a minute he worries he probably thinks he’s too childish for this life.    

“Oh, trust me. I’m always scared but being scared usually means you care, right?” Parker lets out a breath of air that’s a cross between a huff and an humorless laugh. “I’d rather do it afraid then be cocky and lose what little bit that makes me human.” There’s an irony in those words that he’s just spoken. Human. Something he’ll come to question if he can even call himself that in the future but for now he is blissfully unaware and shrugs. “I used to be picked on and bullied so I’m no stranger to fear but the thing is you kinda learn to live with it? I don’t know, I’ve learned how to coexist with it. The fear, I mean.” 

Parker doesn’t notice the tremble in Xavier’s hands because he’s too busy holding Xavier’s gaze before he finally looks off. 

A thoughtful silence falls between them before he finally confesses. “I didn’t ask for this— any of this.” Park lifts his open palms up, turns them over, then closes them. Lifelessly, he lets them drop into his lap. Now he’s slightly less animated but he continues to sit up straight and his eyes go a little sad. “I’ve learned the hard way that not using your powers can sometimes be as harmful, if not worse than using them at all.” He’s thinking about his uncle at this point and he shakes his head because he can’t let himself go fall into that pit. “When bad things happen and I don’t stop them then.... it’s my fault isn’t it?”

“I suppose the other missing factor if not control then.... love?” Parker speaks the word hesitantly but it’s the only answer he can come up to the riddle Xavier has presented him with. “And compassion?” 

He avoid his eyes. It’s a strange thing to do for a soul searcher such as himself, but he just isn’t able to bring himself to meet him here, in plain sight. To Parker, this is their only and their first encounter – and the only and last mistake Xavier could make would be to wear his heart on his sleeve.

Everything is familiar and not all at the same time. He feels somewhere in between a sober and a complete drunkard, watching Parker exist in front of him in the image of someone completely etched in him from the inside, yet speak in the manners of a stranger kept a distance on the outside. It is all new and still old, and he isn’t sure which part of it is the reason he keeps his hands in a fist in hiding of his own wishes.

The next time he moves, it’s to take a seat at the dining table resting in between them. His hand reaches out towards the other side, fingers gently tapping at the surface once.

“To… get a few things in order, so that you can feel more at ease.” He hums. “I’m rarely reading your mind. But sometimes, lying is acceptable, depending on the situation at hand.” His posture opens up a bit, crossed hands now falling to his side. “And contrary to belief, what a person speaks into the world is seldom verbatim to their thoughts… meaning, that I want to hear you talk, as long as you feel comfortable enough, Parker.” His name never quite leaves his tongue fully. 

As if to pull it right back, he takes a step forward, then two steps back. “And why do you wish to be better?” 

These are questions he had gotten no chance to ask Blythe. “Is it because of the desire for power and strength? Or because you want to help the people around you, who you hold very dearly, in ways you maybe wouldn’t have thought to be able?” Questions he had thought to hear the answers to when he felt the time was right – and yet, he had never found the right space in the end. Now unanswered and unmet; ends begging to be cut loose or folded onto itself in an attempt to find the closure the universe would decide on.

“If you can answer that for me, I’ll help you.”

“You know in movies mind readers always have hoop earrings and move their arms all funny and spooky and have scary warnings. I saw it in an episode of Scooby Doo once.” Parker comments, picking at the skin on his thumb. He doesn’t notice that Xavier won’t look him in the eye but he does take in how he carries himself. It’s like Helen, like they’ve spent too many hours slumped over and their back is paying the price. The idea makes him feel more at home because... to put it bluntly, Xavier isn’t too unlike what he pictured him to be. On the outside he’s just a man. He’s got two hands, two eyes, a mouth, a body. 

If going by appearances only he’d say Xavier looks nice and like a teacher he wouldn’t be afraid to approach after class and ask questions. He’s pretty handsome too, younger than he’d thought he’d be and oh right— he reads minds. Parker sits back and mentally reminds himself to dial it back a little. Save the personal observations for later when his mind isn’t the equivalent of a broadcast radio. He wonders how far can Xavier can read a persons mind if it is like radio, can he tune in and out? Could he read his mind even if he’s 50 feet away? It’s all so curious. 

The tap on the table brings Parker out of his numerous thoughts and questions and he refocuses. First on Xavier’s fingers, then his gaze travels up the span of his arm to the corner of his mouth then to his face. And he listens to what he has to say next with eager ears and he interrupts without thinking. “You’re not reading my mind? Then that means— so you can turn it on and off! The mind reading thing. Wow!” Parker leans forward, sitting on the edge of his seat and stares at Xavier with newfound interest but then he blinks at the next set of questions. 

It’s quiet this morning in a way that awkwardness still hangs in the air between them. There’s a whole table that separates them— and he chats idly, insistent and curious. Most of the time he starts with the word ‘so’. So let’s talk about the sun, so let’s talk about your work. Questions one after the other that only skim the surface, testing the waters before he dares to dip low then it’s so let’s talk about everything in between us, so let’s talk about the box in your office that you won’t let me look through or the scattered memorabilia in your bedroom that consist ash covered cigarette butts even though you don’t smoke and the things Wade hints at but never actually says aloud. Everyone speaks through gestures here, through nervous glances, and sentences that are started but are never finished as the words get caught in their throat suddenly as if they remembered they’re talking to the wrong person. 

So, let’s talk about the dirt covered motorbike in the garage that has been worn by the elements. 

And most importantly, do you miss him?

I want you to tell me about him, Blythe, I mean. Parker specifies in his phone but doesn’t have the nerve to say aloud one day when Xavier is sitting idle on the footsteps of a church Blythe’s family used to attend— he hasn’t met them yet. Blythe’s family. It goes without saying that technically, they’re his family too. They’re not ready to meet him yet, maybe they’ll never be and he can understand given who he is or rather, what he is. I want you to tell me about them. Parker types again as after Xavier cleans dust off the memorial plague that has Blythe’s name engraved and also his picture. Parker studies it and sympathizes with Xavier knowing there’s no body or ashes. He knows this much because Helen told him that much. That the government confiscated the body, complications about proper disposal and displacing the leftover energy in a safe environment. That even in death his body was a ticking time bomb and he supposes he should count it as a blessing that it was a forced mutation and not a naturally occurring one. Instead he wonders if he’s the only one. 

The only other misplaced copy. 

It’s easy to get it all mixed up in his head all the labels of things— what biologically, is his. Helen isn’t. And yet, there’s no other person that feels like he belongs to and he could never leave her. Even though things she told him in the past are all empty now. 

No, he doesn’t need to meet what once belonged to Blythe to know of their fear of replacement, guilt, shame, and rejection. He doesn’t need to meet them to understand them but I would like to know about them. If he even has that right. And he figures once he’s able to function well enough on his own then Xavier too will withdrawal from him more and he’ll have some semblance of the life he had before Wade passed on the address. Parker has learned that all this uncertainty comes with the complications of being a clone, of not being the original but a failed attempt at a second chance. It’s not within his interest to replace Blythe, he couldn’t even if he tried. 

The table gets set with grilled cheese and tomato soup, and it is Xavier that asks of Parker to stay for dinner. The ask is harmless and intentional all at once, distraught and chaotic in nature much like the scape of Xavier’s mind.

Even without reading it, he knows the questions that linger in Parker’s head: everything from the choice of grilled cheese as dinner to the history held in his single gaze when staring at him. Parker never dares to ask the questions that matter, and Xavier is only thankful to plainly leave them in the unknown for now. Even without scouring his head, he’s sure Parker knows the answers, or will soon come to know much more than he ever can ask of and for.

“Did you want another bowl?”

There’s hesitation with each bit of conversation, and with even the smallest of acts, the most minuscule of movements. He is afraid, mainly because Parker’s existence here, seated across from him from his very dinner table seems to be a haunting on it’s own, a ghost of something he has yet the courage nor will to let go of just yet.

“No, no thank you. But… thanks.” Parker’s thumb brushes over the spoon he’s barely used. There are so many thoughts hovering at his shoulders, but none ever leave. Instead, he takes a stand, pushing the chair to do so. “Well, I should get going.” Parker turns towards the door, then back to him. There’s the same hesitation with him too at the soles of his feet, in how they seem to know where they should be heading and yet do not make the steps in the said direction.

He makes the mistake in the request, for the second time.

“Would you mind staying tonight?” It slips between his teeth, unkept from his sealed lips.

He turns to look away, as if ashamed at his inability to control himself. He’s already showing Parker sides to him that took himself years to come to terms with: the subtle, vulnerable, and quiet humaneness in and of him. A hand swipes down his face, before he picks his head up.

“I apologize. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

@cepid “You know, I’d love to but I can’t. I, uh, uh…..” 

Parker starts, then he remembers again that excuses are a waste of time. Beating around the bush isn’t exactly a plausible solution when faced with someone that can read his every thought.  Unconsciously, he’s already backed up enough to hit the door frame of the dining room as his fingers tighten their grip on the straps of his back pack. “Helen is expecting me, to be home. Early, you know how moms are. Well, she’s not really my mom– I mean, she’s my aunt and technically my mom. Which you already know, since you know her and I’m just going to shut up now.” 

And yet he doesn’t move an inch. It’s like he’s waiting for Xavier to object and make the situation a little bit more awkward than it already is. He’s waiting for a reason to call this whole idea  stupid and head home and just figure out what to do about his new powers by himself but instead he gets an apology that he doesn’t know how to respond to so he says nothing for a time. Thinking, and then reaches for his phone and sends a message to Helen saying that he’s going to spend the night at Lucas’s place. It feels wrong to lie to her – and he hates that’s it’s become the norm but ever since he was bit by that spider... well it’s better for her to think that he’s stayed late at school again and doesn’t even know that he’s spending the night at some random guys house that he hadn’t met before 3 o’clock this afternoon. 

Again, his excuse is that he can defend himself (and then the rational part of his brain reminds him that if Xavier can read his mind then he can probably control it but again Xavier hasn’t shown any signs that he has powers that Wade claimed he did. And again the fact he listened to Wade, the overly friendly neighborhood nut job.... God, it just seems like he’s going to keep making questionable decisions all evening it seems. 

“It’s alright. Uh, don’t be embarrassed... I say weird things all the time too —  NOT that you’re weird.” of course there’s other things he can’t put into words that are weird though. like, why does he feel like he’s been here, in this apartment, in some distant dream he can’t remember and sometimes when he looks at Xavier his heart beats a little faster almost if he already knows him and... he knows he’ll like him despite what flaws he may have. “I’m just going to stop talking. Now. Right now.”  

Parker sits idle on the bed with his hands in his lap. He picks at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt, head down deep in thought — Xavier sits across from him in a chair and observes him the same way that other scientists at the lab tend to whenever he visits Helen to ask for a little extra change. Pensive, but not quite fascinated. Interested, but not curious about him as a person. It’s the look that one might give a frog before he cuts it open and takes it apart to understand it’s internal structure and learn the way it works. 

Parker knows that look well — except Xavier is different. 

Xavier looks at him in a way that is both similar yet unlike other scientist. He already knows his internal structure, how it works, and all science that make up something Parker does not and most likely would never comprehend fully. He’s not interested in dissection, there’s something else that piques his interest. Yet, when every time he meets Xavier’s eye, the older never does flinch but something in him does like he’s experiencing a painful memory.

They sit across from one another. And Parker watches the steady continuous raise and fall of Xavier’s foot after he crosses his legs. 

He’s biding time by not answering Parker’s question. Parker lets him by not asking it again, curious with other things, wondering if he’ll ever he the answers to the questions he asked upon arrival-- though he is starting to feel a little ridiculous, perhaps he asked too many questions and he just ask more, unable to really keep his mouth shut when he knows so little. 

“It’s just, that I heard about you from someone. And they told me you can read minds, is that true? Are you reading mine right now?” 

“Give it here.” Xavier speaks for the first time, leaning forward to hold out his hand. And Parker hands over the slip of crumpled paper with Xavier’s name, and address without hesitation. 

“Did you — did you just mind control me?” Parker asks, eyes wide as he sat back. 

“No, you’re just overly obedient.” Xavier says, reading the slip before he tucks it away into his pocket. He doesn’t press for more information on who gave him the address, though Parker suspects he already knows, though he hasn’t gotten the answer to another question that would answer why he won’t quite look at him.

[SMS: parker🐙] mi casa!!!! [SMS] meaning tu casa  [SMS] I was let in  

       “who the fuck says you have to?”

     it was one of the rare times that the sharper edges of yutae’s demeanor showed through. he reached out to grip the front of blythe’s shirt. his clenched fist strained the fabric curled between his fingers. skin stretched across busted knuckles. yutae was covered in dirt, soot and grime. his clothes were stained in red. every muscle screamed in protest. his bones were heavy with exhaustion. just barely did the two scrape by with their lives from the last scrimmage. but there was still fight in him. he was willing to fight even blythe if that’s what it took to get him to stay. whatever sense of normalcy they had was stolen overnight. the echoes of gunfire and explosions still rang in yutae’s ear. all he wanted was to go home, and hear jaewon’s voice again. but yutae knew that wasn’t possible. neither of them could contact loved ones right now, or else they’d be endanger too. sometimes in order to protect the people you loved, you had to stay away from them.

     there were highly dangerous, highly ambitious people hunting down not your average human beings. yutae didn’t know how these people even found him. he was just a kid who survived a suicide attempt, then woke up with abilities he didn’t understand. nobody knew what happened to those who were captured. yutae doubted they met a quick death. were they being tortured? experimented upon? there was no way of knowing unless you were taken. but like hell was yutae going to let that happen to blythe and himself.

      “show me who says you can’t ask for help. or that you have to do this alone. show them to me, so i can prove them fucking wrong.” he roughly shook blythe in his grip. despite how fragile yutae came off as, he had strength in those taunt limbs. he just rarely used it. only when desperation kicked in did the boy show fangs. and sometimes even bite. “or is it your own mind that says that? because i’ll prove you wrong too.” his voice cracked. he wasn’t ready to say goodbye. he wasn’t ready to lose yet another person. “i’ve never given up on you before. i’m not going to give up on you now.” 

Blythe is quiet as he studies Yutae who’s eyes burn bright― still high from the adrenaline rush of only just escaping what nearly was a travesty of what could have left them as another technicality the government finally can scratch off their rogue mutants list. 

The other looks so young like this, far too young in a way that’s both inspiring and terrifying at the same time. It makes the blood pooling in Blythe’s mouth taste even more bitter than it should, turning his stomach as uninvited vivid images of what might happen to Yutae in the future come up in his mind that is impossible to erase. 

He shouldn’t be here, is all Blythe can think, he shouldn’t have to live like this. 

“I’m tired of all this fighting.”

Blythe allows his own fingers to curl around the ones gripping his shirt to pry them off. He can’t meet Yutae’s eyes so he looks towards the wreckage instead― jerking his head in the general direction of the flames that lick up the sides of another building as another part of the bonelike structure collapses to the ground in a heap of smoke and dust. “This,” Blythe starts, fighting to breathe now that the smoke is thicker. He has to stop speaking and wait for his ugly cough to subside. 

“This isn’t the life I originally was meant for.” 

The fresh blood on his fingers is already starting to dry and as his hands grip Yutae’s arms he can’t help but to wonder was this exactly the life his own father had envisioned for his eldest son? When Xavier and his father made him into what he is today― a time bomb of unharnessed powerful build up kinetic energy ― did his father, mad as he was, ever once stopped to think of the repercussions this genetic force would do to his son’s life in order for it to become this?

“I’ll only kill those around me eventually, don’t you see?” At this Blythe squeezes the other’s arms harshly as a desperate plead for Yutae to understand and allow him to swallow his emotions. 

seth catches blythe’s gaze, jaw moving slightly, but a sudden shrill pulls him away from the storm’s eye. he pulls a blank face. then he clenches his jaw again and turns back. “so i guess you don’t want to hear the punchline, the end game, the cliffhanger.”

he strolls past the movie poster and chews on his second tic-tac, hiding behind husky laughter and stardust eyes, a 24-karat bangle shimmering prettily on his toothpick wrist as he points somewhere further inside the cityscape on a whim. seth contemplates continuing down the sidewalk and leaving blythe to his own [insert interchangeable adjective here] self, because as much as he siphons off of his company, the inevitability remains that he needed to tell about an ending; one he wasn’t even close to.

“blythe,” harsh with piercing undertones, his eyes are sweltering dark with something deeper than any rage, “if you’re done showing me around, i have a fitting in less than two hours.” picking at a stray hair when he looks back, he wears that smile everyone likes. “catch a cab with me or go home alone. your choice.” 

Blythe takes his time answering, his cold hands shove themselves into the pocket of his jeans. He shrugs, not wanting to give the male beside him any reason to continue harassing him with the ever life ruining, mood spoiling idea of telling him yet ANOTHER spoiler to another movie he wanted to see eventually. 

“Listen. I get your excitement, but have you ever thought about... what’s the word I’m looking for ?” Blythe taps his lip, faking a thoughtful pose. “Oh, I know! How about NOT spoiling shit for everyone else? I mean, not all of us get to binge watch an entire series in one night. Some of us like to pace ourselves.” Aside from the fact he’s already been given the gruesome details of yet another episode of Game of Thrones he can’t find it within himself to remain too irritated—— admittedly, he jumps a little, got off guard by the sudden change in tone but a smile curls onto his lips to hide his initial state of surprise. 

If there has always been too much growl overnight into morning, morning has a kind of calm that he fears. The ghosts are only quiet for so long, and that is always the inevitable.

Trying to relearn the silence after hours of noise makes the quiet just as haunting.

He knows that, and it’s why he slides in next to Blythe, fingers grasping at his chin to direct his head up. “If I’m going to be more honest about this, you look like shit more than half the time, but you look even shittier than usual right now.” He tugs on the other’s head left and right, observing the shadows tucked in in all the places it shouldn’t be.

And this is all he can do against them: “So I woke you up.”

His fingers let go and lets Blythe’s face drop. Soon he’s standing a few meters away from him, arms stretching out before his legs, muscles pulled then relieved. His body’s ready to run, and he thinks Blythe’s heart might need the same. “Let’s go running. Before the sun’s up, before it gets too warm.” He leans in and knocks his head against Blythe’s chest, with a grin. “You need to clear your head, and your heart needs some reason to pump some extra blood into your systems. Then maybe your powers might want to show up.”

“Come running with me, come on.” He pulls on a shirt, then throws Blythe one – he’s not giving him a choice in the matter.

Blythe takes a deep breath in, pulling the air in through clenched teeth he remains seated– fingers grasping and then repeatedly letting go of the sheets, working them into more a mess than they already are he bites back a ghost of a smile that threatens to over spill if he isn’t careful. Then ever the one-track mind that he is when Juwon nudges him it’s enough to make him forget the pensive dejected spirit that he normally allows to overtake his mornings, he shoves Juwon by the shoulder. And for a moment there’s an air of silence before he breaks it by laughing; The first real smile he’s had in weeks.

“I can’t believe you of all ––” flinching, he ends up catching the shirt on accident rather than intentionally. Blythe forgets his initial line of thought as he unfolds the shirt, and hold it up. His expression turns to one of slight distress with his pale lips turning a straight line as he eyes the graphic ugliness excuse of clothing that he’s been given. “And to think this kid has the audacity to claim that I look like shit more than half the time ––” he mumbles just low enough so Juwon doesn’t catch what he’s saying. Still, clean clothes were clean clothes.

After they fight over who gets first dibs in the bathroom which results in Blythe losing as per usual, and they scarf down a wimpy breakfast of some generic brand cereal that inspires Blythe to officially take on the responsibility of grocery shopping –– they’re ready to leave. Outside, kneeling on the pavement as Juwon stretches he fixes the loose laces on his snickers, swallowing thickly as the feelings from his dreams tries to return.

( sms: blythe ) cut me some slack, would you? ( sms: blythe ) that text wasn’t supposed to be for you

jaewon squints at he male standing next to him while furiously tapping away on his phone’s screen, that it’s a miracle he doesn’t end up with a couple of unwanted images being sent to random people by accident.

“ i would have every right to send you a text if i wanted to. i could be trying to discuss some serious matters with you, you know. things that shouldn’t be heard by just anyone… ”

[SMS: Jae] Who was the text originally 4!!! [SMS] Is it someone special? [SMS] ???

After he’s finished typing out a couple more messages Blythe slips his phone into his back pocket. His eyes find Jaewon’s and looks at him with sudden interest, biting back a small smile of amusement.

[SMS: Ueda Blythe] I will say it again: please do not make assumptions about anything in the far future based on no real structurally sound proof in the now. [SMS] It is almost one in the morning. I cannot open the door for the fear of breaking dormitory rules. We will be loud and disturb the whole hall. [SMS] You will be loud and disturb the whole hall.