ax_main | Scott and Billy backdated

Billy meets the first student of Xavier's school and finds out that he's a pretty neat dude.

Billy shifted his food tray in his hand and glanced around the cafeteria, it was mostly empty due to how late Billy had come down for dinner. He almost hadn't made it, being so engrossed in trying to find his phone. It had been under his pillow where he had sworn he had looked twice already.

He noticed one other student at a table that he hadn't seen yet. Billy raised an eyebrow at the dark red sunglasses the other wore as he made his way over. "Uh, hey. Can I sit here?"

There were about ten other empty tables and if he was told to get lost he at least had options.

Scott glanced up from the book he'd been reading - one of the newer new arrivals, Billy Something, he thought - and then shrugged. "Sure." It was, as they said, a free country, after all. Besides, promises to the Professor were promises he intended to keep.

Billy nodded and quickly moved to sit across from the other boy, doing his best not to stare at the deep red sunglasses the guy had perched on his nose. Billy poked at the food on his tray, moving a few of the macaroni noodles to one side of his plate and then back before looking up at the guy again. "What are you reading? My name is Billy, by the way."

"Scott." He greeted. After a moment of pause, he awkwardly offered Billy a hand to shake. At the same time, he used his other hand to shift the book, so the other teen could see the cover, a biography of Alexander the Great.

He shook the other's hand while at the same time tilting his head to read the title of the book. "Wow. Alexander the Great. You like conquering?"

That...sounded weird, but it was too late to take it back, so he just smiled best he could at Scott.

Scott blinked, though that was likely hard to tell through the opaque glasses. "Military history. Alexander the Great was one of the most effective commanders in history." A corner of his lips tipped up, just a bit, "I'll worry about the conquering after I master the basic history of it."

Billy let a cautious smile come to his lips and speared a bit of macaroni on his fork. "Well, just let me know when you plan to do that so I can get out of your way."

He took a bite and was surprised that it was good, most school food was awful. He waited a good ten seconds before asking what was on his mind. "Is it completely rude of me to ask about the sunglasses?"

"I'm an incognito movie star," Scott said dryly. "But I guess, for this place, it's not rude so much as question two or three."

"Wouldn't black be a little more incognitoy?" Billy asked, knowing he was being a smartass and immediately hoping that it didn't get him in Scott's bad books. "I mean, I guess you're right, but still. You can say no if you don't want to say."

"The red gives it a touch of class," Scott said, deadpan. It was all the funnier for the fact that Scott knew he did not have an ounce of class within him. Still, he had promised the Professor he would make an effort to, at the very least, not be outright hostile. "But they're related to my mutation. It's in my eyes."

Billy wanted to smack himself for his first thought to be an awful weird case of glaucoma and nodded as he tried not to look at Scott's glasses too much. "Are your eyes sensitive?"

"Not exactly." To some things, sure - like movement - but not in the way he suspected Billy meant. "My mutation is optic blasts. I shoot beams from my eyes." It wasn't a state secret, after all.

Billy had started to move a fork full of macaroni to his mouth when Scott specified what his mutation was exactly, and it dropped back to the plate with a gross sound as Billy tried not to gape. "That sounds...really cool. So, can you like melt metal by just looking at it?"

Scott shook his head 'no.' "Force. Not heat. What do you do?"

"Oh." Billy tried to picture a force beam, but quickly stopped because Scott was asking a question. "I zap people mostly. Electricity and all that jazz, also a little magic."

Okay that sounded lame.

Scott just blinked behind the lenses of his glasses. "Magic?" He repeated back, sounding mildly skeptical. "Like, actually magic, or something more defined than that that's called magic for ease of response?"

"Er, well, other people have called it magic and Yana called it magic." He winced when he realized Scott might not know who Yana was. "You know Yana, right?"

"I've heard the name," Scott said, nodding. He knew her by sight, too, but saying that he knew her would be an overstatement.

"Yeah." Billy nodded. "She called it magic and she can open up portals to another dimension, so I'm going to believe her when she calls it that, ya know?"

Scott shrugged. "I'm not an expert. I was just curious."

Billy looked at him and a small chuckle escaped. "Yeah, well I wish someone was because this whole not knowing how to work it sucks balls."

He took a swig of his milk.

"The Professor and the rest of them don't know how it works?" He asked. He hadn't realized how in-the-dark Billy was about his own mutation. Yeah, he imagined that would definitely suck balls.
Billy shrugged slightly. "I mean, the electricity and flying I think they have a pretty good idea on. It's the other stuff that's kinda..."

He waved his hands around for the lack of words, but then offered Scott another shrug.

"Everything about mutants is so new, I imagine that happens more often than people want to admit," Scott said.

"Yeah." Billy agreed, taking another bite of his food. He waited until he had swallowed before asking his next question. "How long have you been going here?"

"I got here about three months before the first wave of new students. So....that long, I guess," Scott said, shrugging as though he wasn't entirely aware of exactly how long he had been at Xavier's.

"First wave...so you were living here? By yourself?"

"Well, I mean, he Professor was here," he replied dryly. "But otherwise, yeah, basically. Trust me, the giant mansion has a much creeper vibe when it's almost empty of people."

"Um. Yeah." Billy replied with a small huff of laughter. "You and every thriller or horror movie out there think so. So, your saying you like a bunch of people here better than before?"

Had he asked Scott just before, or even just as, the other students had started to arrive, Scott would have unequivocally said no. Horror film set-up or not, he was used to being a solitary creature. Now, though, he wasn't as sure. It might actually be an improvement. "I'm not sure I'd go that far," he said dryly. "But it could be worse."

Billy smiled and nodded. "Well, I'm glad we aren't harshing your vibes too much."

Harshing his vibes. "Where are you from? Originally." He asked. Had to be California or something, right?

Billy blinked. "New York, why? Where are you from?"

"Nebraska." Not exactly true, but as good an answer as any. He'd lived there longest, he supposed, after all.

"Oh, cool. Home of the..." Billy tried to remember anything from his third-grade states of the United States of America play. Nebraska's animal was white tailed deer, but after that he had no clue. "Sorry, I got nothing."

"Cornhuskers," Scott offered dryly. "Or just corn. Either. Both."

"Cornhuskers." Billy repeated, frowning a little as he thought about what husking corn was. "Is that your sports team name?"

"That's the University of Nebraska's mascot," Scott said, nodding. "Though it could just be a description of anyone who is eating there, really. I think the state has more corn fields than people."

"Hey, corn is important. Without it we wouldn't have popcorn, so Nebraska is doing its American duty." Billy nodded at his own words and poked a little more at his now cold food. "How are you liking the east, then?"

Scott shrugged. "A place to live is a place to live, right? How far are we from where you're from? Are we talking walk-down-the-road-to-get-eggs-from-your-mom close, or might-as-well-be-in-a-different-state close?"

"Erm, well, two hours is the farthest I've ever lived from my family so I'm kind of feeling the later right now." Billy replied, doing his best not to feel homesick at that exact moment.

"Well, if you ever need a ride home, I like driving," Scott offered. He couldn't exactly relate, not having a real home to miss or a family waiting at it for him, but he had access to the school's cars and a driver's license. Besides, he really did like driving.

"Really? Wow, that's really nice." Billy smiled, liking Scott even if he was a little deadpanned most of the time, but there was nothing wrong with that. "Thanks."

"I promised the Professor I'd be 'welcoming,'" Scott said, smirking just a touch. Actually, what he'd promised was to 'not be openly hostile while trying to control all the people I come into contact with,' but po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

Billy grinned a little and raised an eyebrow. "Offering to drive a kid two hours each way is a little more than welcoming, but hey, you do you."

"It's more selfish than you realize. I get an excuse to take out one of the cars for a long drive," Scott pointed out.

"Ah, so you just like cars or are you a full-on grease-monkey?" Billy asked, never having any real experience with cars unless he counted his Bubbe's 2006 Buick.

Scott smirked, "Oh, full on grease-monkey."

Billy chuckled. "Well, then I'll remember to come to you whenever I have a question about my non-existent ride."

"I'm guessing that will limit how much advice you're actually seeking," Scott said, quirking an eyebrow. "I am not an expert on pretend ponies or anything."

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Billy looked down at his food and noticed it had gone completely cold, only having a few bites taken out of it. He gave a small sigh and shifted his butt back, so he could slide his leg out. "Alright. I've bugged you long enough. I gotta get back to the room and finish some stuff, but um- it was nice to meet you, Scott."

"Nice to meet you." Scott went back to shoveling food into his mouth, seemingly unaware or uncaring that his food had long since gone cold.