Teddy and Lil - November 21
Nov. 21st, 2017 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainLil needs to sort the fallout from the forum fiasco, and Teddy's there to listen with cookies and hot chocolate.
In her room, sitting at her desk having just closed the Shaw laptop because she couldn't manage to concentrate on fucking data entry, Lil let her fingers hover above the screen of her phone. Between Simon, the whole forum shit-fest, and now the mess with Warren, it had been a fucking horrible week and she really, really needed to talk to Nolan. Unfortunately, he hadn't so much as texted her since their talk about Simon. He'd said she could contact him, and she'd tried once, but the more days that went by without any contact from him, the less that offer seemed to count for anything. Oh well, he'd explain at some point. She scrolled through her contacts. Tam? Nope. They'd already tried and while it had ended well, that was more because they'd dropped things rather than work them out. Nick? Not for this. He was sweet and fun, but what kind of advice could he offer if she needed it? Teddy. Yes.
Lil:Hey. You free for a visit or talk or something?
Teddy had just gotten back to his room, his hair still wet from his post-training shower, when he heard the telltale ping of a text coming in. It wouldn't be Billy; he was supposed to be off somewhere working on a class project. Who, then? Teddy grabbed the phone off his desk and swiped it open. Hunh. He hadn't actually seen Lil around for the last couple of days, and he wasn't particularly surprised. He should have reached out to her once he'd seen the forum posts, that's what he should have done. At least he could make up for that lapse now.
Teddy: Yeah, absolutely. I just got out of a Danger Room session and I'm starving. Meet you in the kitchen?
Lil: Yes! See you in a few minutes.
Oh god, seeing that text felt good. Even if they didn't do much talking, even if she just shut up and let him talk about stuff, that would be better than stewing over this whole mess day-in and day-out. Lil pulled on her shoes and headed out for the kitchen.
Teddy changed quickly, but even so, she'd beat him downstairs. They were the only ones in the kitchen for the moment, which was probably for the best considering how personal their last Serious Chat (with capital letters) had gotten. "Hey, you." Teddy headed in, and greeted her with an encouraging smile.
"Hey." Lil smiled back. "Thanks. I needed to get out of my room for a bit, get some better company than the laptop and Merle Haggard."
"No worries. That sounds like a particularly deadly combination, especially on a dull fall afternoon." He headed for the fridge and stared inside for a couple of seconds, evaluating his options. "Leftover pizza, someone's takeout spring rolls, and dubious lettuce," he announced. "The last one's not a terrible band name, but not so great for actual food. Making something it is."
Lil wrinkled her nose. "What kind of making 'cause I'm sort of useless at that. Unless we're making boxed mac and cheese." This was already better, even if he did dare to slight Merle.
Teddy shrugged that off. "I'm no gourmet chef, but I can cook. Well enough to figure out something, anyway. What're you in the mood for?" He turned to look at her, resting his hands on the counter behind him. "Is this a salacious-gossip-over-nachos kind of conversation, or more of a 'weeping into our ice cream' day?"
"I dunno. What kinda food goes with a 'am I really the idiot everybody thinks I am for thinking this' talk?"
Teddy winced in recognition. "Time to bring out the big guns," he advised. "My mom's solution to existential crises is hot chocolate and cookies. I make a pretty mean brown sugar cookie, if you're into sweets."
"Geez, you bake too?" Lil walked over to the sink to wash her hands. Sugar cookies sounded like an excellent plan, but no way was she going to sit by and whine while Teddy did all the work.
"My mom sells houses, she's gone in the evenings a lot. For showings and open houses and stuff." Teddy started opening cabinets looking for things he'd seen in there before -- there was still a can of hot chocolate mix, which made life easier. Sugar, cinnamon, flour, back to the fridge for butter, eggs and milk for the cocoa... "And takeout's expensive. Once I was old enough to stay home on my own, it was learn to cook or survive on leftovers and pop tarts."
Lil started digging around for bowls, because they'd need at least one, right? Some measuring utensils too... She'd done some baking with her mom and knew that much. "See, I got leftovers, but they were from the pub Mom worked at. She cooked, but the owner thought that the piles of food I could eat was hilarious, so he made sure she always had stuff to take home."
"That would have rocked," Teddy nodded appreciatively. "All mom ever brings home from work are those fridge magnet giveaways and stat sheets for houses ten times the size of our apartment." The cupboard below the counter had pots, and he stuck one on the stove for the milk before grabbing a chance to wash at the sink himself.
"We were in an apartment too! We had a house when I was younger but, you know, stuff happens." She'd grabbed everything she thought they'd need, now it was just a matter of waiting for instructions. "Was it just you and your Mom?"
"Always has been," Teddy replied, no stress behind the pure statement of fact. "My dad died before I was born. Okay - grab the pot and pour in twice however much milk for the hot chocolate you think you want. It can start heating up while we do the cookies. And one commission job in New York's not going to get you much in terms of houses, so yeah. We've got a place in Brooklyn. The area that's not gentrifying yet, thank goodness."
Lil poured in enough for the both of them. She figured it was a safe assumption that Teddy would want some too. "Ah. We went the other way. Mom and Dad had a house when I was younger, but then Dad buggered off down south, so Mom sold and moved into the apartment."
"That sucks," Teddy commiserated, assuming from the way she'd phrased things that there'd been some drama there. "Do you see him at all?" He started to measure out the flour and stuff purely from memory. "There should be a mixer around here somewhere, if you can find it?"
"Naw. Once in a blue moon he calls or sends a card or something, but he's a drunk so... yeah. Plus he's way down in Calgary and he friggin' hates the North." Lil rummaged through the cupboards until she found a great big cherry-red contraption that looked something like a mixer. She hauled it out and set it on the counter. "This what you mean?"
"Yeah, that's the one. Whoever set up this kitchen bought the good stuff." He passed her the butter and sugar to go in once she had it plugged in. "It's hard to think of Calgary as being 'way down south,'" he admitted, with a grin at himself. "I'm not even entirely sure where it is. I'd imagined south, you know. Florida. Or Texas."
Lil laughed. "Everything below the Territories is south for me. If you get more than 5 or 6 hours of sunlight in the winter, or you don't need a block heater to start your car, you're in the south."
“Cars?” Teddy dared to tease her, reassured by her laugh. She’d sounded dire a few minutes ago, but things couldn’t be as bad as all that if she was relaxing now. “I thought you guys all went to school by dogsled.”
"Naw, we used a school bus like everyone else." She leaned up against the counter to watch Teddy work and to wait for directions. His company was making everything else seems a little distant. "Course, the bus was pulled by dogs."
The punchline caught him off-guard and he cracked up, laughing at the mental image she'd given him. "Ten points to Gryffindor," he added, grinning. "Here -- you want a stick and a half of the butter in there, and a cup and a quarter of the brown sugar, and start it mixing up. The goal is fluffy butter-sugar. I don't actually suggest eating spoonfuls of it, though it's gross-but-good."
Lil picked up the butter and turned it in her hands. "Cool. They always talked about sticks of butter on TV but I never knew what they meant." She unwrapped the butter and dumped it into the bowl. "I'm learning about all the mysteries of the US now." She measured out the sugar and grabbed a spoon to cream the mix. This she could do.
"The mixer's easier for that, unless you want to go for the arm workout," Teddy suggested, nodding towards the Big Red Beast. "It'll take a while by hand. How do you get butter in Canada if it's not in sticks? And if you tell me 'right from the cow,' please know that I'm not quite that gullible."
"Oh, yeah." Lil looked at the mixer. Right, of course. That was what he'd wanted it for, but she didn't have a clue how to use it. "Um, okay." She slipped the bowl into what looked like the right place and then ran a hand over the machine until she found what looked like the right switch. The mixer came to life. "We got them in blocks sort of like the sticks, but they're 450 grams. That's a pound, I think?"
Did he remember metric conversions? Not so much. "It's two pounds to the kilogram?" he guessed, from some vague memory of an elementary school math class long ago. "So yeah, something close to that." And just in case she hadn't noticed it, he tried to surreptitiously check the latch on the back of the mixer's hinge to make sure the top half wouldn't vibrate itself right out of the bowl. "Is it true that everything costs more in the north? Or is that just the super-high arctic?"
"Yeah, stuff is more expensive there, but not crazy expensive like farther north. We're lucky that way, I guess."
Teddy threw the cinnamon and ginger into the bowl and then there wasn't much to do except wait for the mixer to do its thing with the sugar. Oops - crap! And deal with the heated milk for the hot chocolate before it boiled and splattered itself all over the range. He dumped hot chocolate mix into a couple of mugs and deftly poured in milk without spilling it all over himself in the process. Score. "Here-" he handed her one of the mugs, and a spoon to go with it. "It's not quite as good as the fancy homemade kind with chocolate chips, but the cookies can make up for that part."
Lil took it gratefully, holding it by the mug rather than the handle, so she could feel a bit of the warmth. "We only ever had this stuff, except we just used hot water, not milk." She took a sip and smiled. "This is much better."
"You can do it with milk in the microwave too, but heat the milk before putting the powder in. If you do it the other way around most of the powder doesn't actually dissolve and it sits on top, forming this mucky chocolate powder seal in the mug. And when the milk heats up underneath it, there's nowhere for the steam to go..." he trailed off, making a little explosion-sign with his fingers and grinning at the memory. "Kaboom."
"I might have to try it the wrong way, just once." She set her drink down on the table. "Just 'cause that sounds awesome."
"Do it in someone else's microwave," he suggested with a grin. A glance over told him the mixer was still doing its thing, and she'd asked him to talk, so... Teddy stayed where he was in order to keep an eye on the mixer, cupping his mug in both hands. "So it sounded like you had a lot on your mind earlier," he prompted, now that the conversation seemed to have hit a natural lull.
"Yeah, I guess I do." Too much in fact, and it kept snowballing. One comment on a message board, or maybe before that, one stupid decision to go see Simon, and everything bad that had happened since just sort of followed. "Did you read that stupid post I made on the forum?"
Teddy hesitated for a second, then nodded. He didn't want to embarrass her by admitting it, but making her describe it as though he hadn't wasn't any better. "Yeah. I saw a bunch of threads devolve into slap fights and decided to stay out of it. Did something else happen?"
"What? That's not enough?" She smiled again but it was thin. "But yeah, there's more. Tamara thought it would be a good idea for me and Warren to talk about it and figure shit out. That was Sunday, and it didn't go so well."
"Internet fights are pretty par for the course," Teddy shrugged. "Especially with people like Tommy stirring up trouble 'for the lulz.' It's not worth getting wound up about them. But in person stuff is different. What happened with Warren?"
Lil dropped into her chair and sighed. Did she really want to go into it again? Yes, if there wasn't anyone to convince, if she could just explain it and figure out if she was really as off-base as everyone else seemed to think. "Well, it was supposed to be a talk to figure out what I wanted or what I was worried about, but it just turned into me making an ass out of myself again."
"This is about their big press conference." Teddy... yeah, he still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about it. Kudos to them for being willing to put their money where their mouths were, so to speak, and Magneto had been the one to draw first blood, but anything that put mutants in the news still made him feel a bit conspicuous.
"Yeah, sorry. I should have said that." There was her problem right there. She said stuff before had the thoughts put together, or left crap out because, who knows, maybe because she thought other people could read her mind. "I just think they should have done a lot better for the rest of us, should still do a lot better, but I guess Warren and Tamara just thought I was crazy."
Teddy wasn't following, and he wasn't sure exactly why - what was Warren supposed to have done? Thankfully the mixer was done with the butter and sugar and he could take a minute to stop it, scrape down the sides and throw in the egg and vanilla before he started it up again and then had to say something. Unfortunately he hadn't come up with much except for more questions. "By 'do better,' do you mean at the conference itself? It sounded pretty professionally put-together. Which I really shouldn't be surprised about, considering who's involved."
"See, this is why I shouldn't be trying to talk to people about serious stuff." Even calm and sitting at a table with hot chocolate in front of her, Lil couldn't get the words out right. "I mean the announcement to us could have been better, not the conference. Like, something face to face and... something that acknowledged that, um, we might have some concerns or worries or something that they needed to think of."
"Something other than an invitation to a forum slap-fight that can be easily ignored," Teddy summarized, hoping that he was getting it right. He supposed -- yeah, he might have had the interest in asking a question or two if it had been done in a different way, but the whole thing had gone to hell long before he'd logged in and he'd ended up writing it off as 'not my business, really.' Or at the very least 'not my circus.'
Lil looked up at Teddy with honest-to-God surprise because yes, that was exactly it. He got it. Lil hadn't managed to say that to Warren or Tamara, but yes, that was it. "Jesus Teddy, I love you. That exactly. Or something that some kids might never see because they don't do forums or the internet. Or where Simon didn't hide or JP wasn't there just to chase off idiots like me. God, I kept trying to say that to Warren and Tamara, but they didn't seem to get what I meant."
"The internet is a cesspit of instant miscommunication and hurt feelings," Teddy shrugged off the praise a little uncomfortably and started to tip the dry ingredients into the bowl of the mixer. "I hang out on reddit. I know whereof I speak." That and texting. He really needed to call a moratorium on important conversations over text. "What would you have suggested instead?" he asked, keeping his eye on the bowl in his hands. "I can't imagine a practice press conference with the student body working all that much better."
"Well, I never got much beyond saying they should have met with everybody 'cause Warren said something about, 'no way was he knocking on everyone's doors' and I got caught up in that... Just like I am now." Lil shook her head and leaned forward, tapping the top of the table to help sort her thoughts. "I think they should have gone around before the conference and just sat down with us and had a bunch of talks. Simon could have dropped by an activist club meeting, Warren could have hung out for a bit with us while you and Nick were playing games... Nothing big right? Just a day to touch base with us all and give us a heads-up. No big drama and those of us who didn't know them so well would have had a chance to build a little trust, right?"
He nodded along with her as she spoke. "In theory, I see where you're coming from. I know Warren -- not well, but enough to know that he's a decent guy, and he's not likely to be causing trouble just for fun. Simon and JP I don't know at all, except that Warren obviously trusts them. And I'm sure there are a number of people here who could barely identify any of the three of them in a lineup." He finished with the flour and let the machine slowly chug its way through blending the dough the rest of the way.
"Only can you imagine them actually being able to pull that off?" Teddy flashed Lil a grin. "These specific guys, I mean. Like, actually try and picture how those conversations would have gone. Simon would rather face a firing squad than talk to people in groups, as far as I can tell, and Jean-Paul would get frustrated with our collective inability to think speedster-fast and make things worse than when he started. Warren's the only diplomat they've got in the party, when what they really need is a high-level bard."
"So they get one." Lil shrugged. She got that there were issues, but hell, that didn't mean the three boyfriends were off the hook. "My idea is a starting point I guess. I mean, no way would I want JP coming to talk to me, and Simon, he can keep his distance for now too, but the point is, they should have started at the best case scenario and worked back from that." Lil remembered something Teddy had said and returned his grin. "We're worth that kind of work, right?"
Teddy flipped the mixer off and pulled out the bowl, then rummaged around to find the baking pans and cooking spray. "Of course," he replied easily to that question. But the rest -- "I think it depends on what their end goal actually is. If they were setting themselves up as student council or official spokespeople or something, I'd be right there with you. We need to be able to trust student leaders to have our best interests at heart, whether it's small things like new vending machines, or bigger stuff like mutant rights issues, or whatever."
He leaned against the counter for a moment, his frown settling in. "But that's not what they're doing, is it? They've just made it so they can't actually be involved with the school in any visible way. They have to stay off in their own little world now, other than for classes, and Simon doesn't even take class here. So maybe isolating themselves was a deliberate call." That idea sucked -- Warren had been fun, and nice, when Teddy'd really needed a kind face. But maybe they were happier just being on their own. Was Jean-Paul even talking to his sister anymore? Teddy couldn't remember the last time he'd seen them having lunch together.
Lil frowned and sat back to consider what Teddy said. That made sense, quite a bit of sense. "Could be. Warren never said anything about that, but I don't think he thought much of me anyway, so... " she shrugged. Warren's opinion of her didn't matter now when she was pretty sure he wouldn't want to talk to her again. "But they sort of did take responsibility - Warren had a folder full of stuff they said they were doing to keep us safe; plans and shit in case stuff goes wrong. Maybe they need to step back, but there's also got to be some way to make sure all the kids know and understand what's in that folder. And can get in touch with them if they've got some idea the three of them didn't think of."
Teddy turned over a couple of ideas in his head, but dismissed some out of hand. "Feel like giving me a hand with this part?" He waved a spoon at her. "Getting them on the sheets is the part that goes faster with more hands."
And as for the rest... "You're probably going to hate what I have to say, but hear me out," he instructed, pointing the spoon at her again. "Even given the kids here who don't live their lives online, the school network is still probably the best place to store all of that stuff and make it available. Kitty and Tessa have the network locked down so hard no-one can get in, but printing files out or even putting them on a usb drive leaves it open for someone with powers like mine - or an image inducer like Kurt - to just walk in and take it. Which defeats the purpose of security plans."
She was up and grabbing her own spoon before he'd finished, but she stayed quiet when he finished. The dough was thick, but it was easy to scoop up and dump on the sheet and the work helped her sort her thoughts. Halfway through her sheet, she stopped. "Okay, but at the bottom of what I'm trying to say is that those guys have some responsibility to help us understand that stuff. I don't care if it's in a folder or on a computer, but what they did didn't cut it. Like, I get I'm not that bright and my ideas are shitty, but I'm pretty sure the kids here deserve to feel safe, right? Jesus, if Warren and I could have started agreeing to that, just that, maybe we could have got somewhere."
"You're not dumb, so cut that out. You've just got a different frame of reference than Warren does, you got scared, and you reacted. Everyone does that. All that means is that under all of this-" he flicked his finger at her shoulder, knowing she'd barely feel the touch - "we're only human after all. Yeah?"
He finished his tray and watched her work for a second longer. "But help me out with something, because I think I'm missing a connection. We were talking about the forums being a bad place to try and to make an announcement and have a discussion that actually includes everybody at the school. I totally get that part. But what is it that you're worried about that would make people not feel safe? You've used the word a few times and I'm still not entirely sure what you mean. Is it that people who didn't see the forum post will have seen the press conference and not know that it was all planned?"
"I guess that the three of them coming out at the same time could get people poking around. That we just have to accept that three teenagers managed to think of everything they needed to keep us safe." Lil sighed, dropped her spoon into the bowl, and leaned against the counter. "Or maybe it's just me that's afraid 'cause I don't trust any of them."
That sounded more like he was getting closer to the real heart of things. Teddy opened the oven and slid the first trays in, and set the timer. "How would you have felt if it was Billy and I who posted the same thing?" he asked. "Not that we would, but as a thought experiment. Or-" he wracked his brain for another couple of people Lil would know and trust. "Tamara's already got her youtube channel going. I assume she's got some way to completely hide her location, but I've never actually asked."
"I still would've been pissed." Lil grinned. He wasn't going to win that easy. "But I wouldn't have come at you as hard as I did Warren."
Ah well. He'd tried. "That's a relief," Teddy grinned back. "I may look tough, but I've got a squishy marshmallow core."
"Yeah, Tamara says I'm the same. Sort of." Her grin faded. "I know I was a shithead on the forum, Teddy. I even apologized to Warren for that. I was messed up over something that happened with one of the others and... Warren got hit with that. When I'm trying to work out the problem I got with how they handled the forum thing, I'm not trying to excuse what I did."
He nodded. "I'm glad you apologized to Warren. It was the right thing to do. Is the 'something' that happened anything you want to talk about? Total amnesty if the answer's no," he added quickly, and utterly sincerely.
No probably would have been the right answer if she wanted to leave the past week properly buried, but it would be nice to have someone other than Nolan know and understand. If Nolan understood. She hadn't had more than a couple of texts from him since last Friday and even those had been just to tell her he couldn't talk. Yeah, screw it. Teddy, she could trust. "Yeah, I'll tell you. Just... don't say anything to anyone else? You saw how JP got on the forum, and if people hear anything about this I'm pretty fucking sure he'll spin it as me going after them or something."
"Yeah, of course." Now he was starting to get worried. This sounded like it was going to be bigger than what he'd originally assumed - that Lil had gotten worked up about her mom seeing something on the news, or worried about groups like the FoH gearing up to take shots at them. Which was big, obviously, but those were more abstract, more manageable sorts of worries than whatever it was that was actually eating at her. The kitchen filled with the incongruous smell of warm brown sugar and butter. "You know you can trust me." He certainly hadn't said anything to anyone after their last talk, not even Billy.
Lil nodded. "Ugh, okay. It's just... I went to see Simon, so he could figure out stuff about my power, 'cause that's his power, right? Except he does it by touching people, and it turns out that when he touches me, it shuts off my invulnerability, and since I've had that since I was a pretty much a baby, I'm not tuned right or something. He switched it off and... everything hurt. Like, not a little bit either." That was only part of it, but she wanted a pause to sort out the next bit.
"Holy crap." He probably could have gone for heavier language there, but it seemed unnecessary -- Teddy was sure his face was showing his sudden and powerful surprise and concern enough as it was. "That must have been one heck of a shock to your system. Are you feeling okay now? Did it wear off?" Was she in pain now and he hadn't realized? Surely she'd have said something -- or at the very least flinched when he'd flicked her. She had to be back to her regular self
"Oh god, yeah. As soon as I got away from him, I was fine. Him too, 'cause think he felt some of it." He'd certainly seemed as out of sorts as she was right after, even if she hadn't thought about that at the time. "But that wasn't really the thing. I was going to try it again 'cause, how else do I find out what happened or exactly what my power is? But then... God, this sounds stupid... I took off a few things, like my socks and sweater. Even where my shirt touched my skin had hurt, so I just wanted to try and avoid that, but I kept most of my clothes on. Then he says that his power means he sees people naked anyway." There weren't any tears threatening like there had been with Nolan, just the heat of embarrassment burning away under her cheeks. What a lot of fuss and pain over something so tiny. "I don't know, maybe he wanted me to think it wasn't a big deal if I needed to take more off, but I sort of... I didn't take that too well."
"His powers do what?" Jesus. Was that common knowledge? Teddy certainly hadn't known that, but then he'd never actually spoken to Simon at any length. He felt the anger rising in him at the thought of being so vulnerable, and not even knowing it. "And he didn't tell you until after he'd done it?"
Billy had gone to Simon to have his DNA checked when he and Tommy were trying to figure out their connection. That meant Simon had seen Billy naked. There was no way Billy would have consented to that without a whole lot of panic. Was there? Had Simon even bothered to tell him? It sure as hell sounded like he hadn't mentioned it to Lil early enough. "No wonder you're pissed," he said, his voice strained and heart half-breaking for her. "That's as bad as sticking a camera in the shower, for fuck's sake. Isn't he training to be a doctor? You'd think they'd include ethics and consent in there somewhere."
"Thank fuck." Lil closed her eyes and took a moment to appreciate a moment of someone agreeing with her, because it sure hadn't happened a lot lately. "I was sort of half-convinced I'd gotten upset over nothing. I mean, I got some baggage over guys thinkin' they could grab me so maybe I just made too much of it or something, but yeah, that's something people should know."
"Even if it is 'baggage,'" and hoo boy, did Teddy know about carrying baggage around, but this wasn't about him. "I'm one hundred percent certain you're not the only one here who's had bad experiences with other people thinking that they can do whatever they want with your body. Even just knowing about the kids who were pulled out of the Right facilities, never mind the more standard bull." He was pissed, and that was making it hard to think clearly.
Focus. Lil needed a sounding board, not for him to go off half-cocked and make the problem worse. "What did he say when you told him off? Tell me he apologized, at the very least." Maybe he hadn't understood, and would do better from now on. A lot of people didn't and wouldn't get it, unless they'd experienced that crawling shame themselves.
"Yeah, he did. And he said he'd be telling people about it. That's why he's wearing the gloves now too, that and the shit that went on when he took away my power. I think the whole thing shook him up quite a bit." And of the three, funny as it seemed, Simon was the one Lil felt she could go back to if she had to. And maybe she should, so she could clear the air between her and at least one of them. "So that was in my head when the forum mess happened. I was a mess, plus they were sort of asking us to trust them, right? Don't know how I was supposed to do that when I knew Simon hadn't even thought of basic shit like consent."
That was better than Teddy had hoped for, actually. At least Simon was trying to prevent the same thing happening again rather than doubling-down on the problem. Which didn't fix the fact that it had happened in the first place, but- "Yeah, I can see why you'd have trouble trusting his judgement calls. And obviously something happened with Jean-Paul, given the way he went at you in the comment thread. It all makes a lot more sense now that I know the backstory. Thank you," he added, quite seriously.
Lil shrugged away the thank you. "I sort of wish I could say something but... That wouldn't be fair to Simon and once JP heard... And yeah, JP and I got into it. He was actually pretty helpful for a bit and then he said something dumb, and I said something dumb and then, Fwoooom! " Lil lifted her hands up to mime an explosion. "But that bit was like, five minutes or something. I must have made a big impression for him to hold onto it so he could shut me up later."
"I'm sensing a theme here." The timer beeped and Teddy grabbed for oven mitts to haul the pans out and set them to cool. Ugh, they smelled good, almost worth the second it would hurt to just start eating them before they cooled. But the conversation wasn't over yet. "For someone built tough, you've got a real hair trigger when you see a threat coming in."
"Yup. I'm trying to sort that out, but I've always been that way. Well, maybe not always, but kids could still poke me a little when I was a kid and get fireworks." Lil eyed the cookies, but decided to wait until Teddy said it was okay to grab one. "And then if that's always happening, maybe you start to see it everywhere? I don't know. But I'm working on that."
"The first step is admitting you have a problem," Teddy said, keeping a straight face. He grabbed the spatula and poked at the edge of one of the cookies. It folded in on itself still and he let it be another minute. "Step two is junk food," he nodded at the trays,"which should be good to go momentarily. What's step three?"
Lil snorted. "This had better not be the part where you slip me a bill for therapy."
Teddy shook his head, laughing softly. "Nope. It's the part where you figure out what you're going to do about it. Last time I was in here baking stress-cookies, Tessa gave me a serious talking-to about not letting things fester. 'Unhappy stasis is most definitively not to your advantage.'" He quoted, not trying super hard to copy the cyberpath's very particular mode of inflection. "And right now you're at the unhappy part. So what's next?"
"Well, I think I'm gonna talk to Simon again for one. Everything started getting crazy for me after that, and I gotta get that sorted. Plus, I need to make sure he's doing what he said he would 'cause like you said, I'm not the only one that sort of thing could mess up." Lil gave the cookies a sad look. Maybe he'd let her have one what she'd finished her answer. "I'm not doing anything about JP or Warren right now. They don't think much of me. And anyway, the whole talk with him might have been a disaster, but Warren decided to do somethin' about helping kids get in touch with him and stuff, so I got that under my belt."
She was thinking things through calmly, so that was probably a good sign. And maybe if she could smooth things over with one part of the triad, the rest would sort itself out? That was probably too optimistic, but he wasn't going to give up hope just yet. Her glance at the pans reminded him to try again, and this time the cooling cookies lifted easily off the trays without smooshing. He scooped three onto the wide spatula and held them out to her with a grin and the sparkle of mischief in his eye. "It's a workable sort of plan that doesn't involve 'punch everyone.' Have a cookie."
Lil couldn't help laughing at that. "I do the thing, I get cookies as a reward?"
Teddy grinned back. "Noooo. I wouldn't have actually made cookies in front of you and not given you some. But if it works as motivation, I'll abuse that." He shoved one into his mouth. Yum. Once his mouth was clear again, he grabbed for another one. "We could try and make the next batch shaped like gold stars."
"And pipe little messages on them." Lil raised a thoughtful eyebrow. " 'Congratulations for not beating the shit out of them'."
"That's a lot for one cookie," Teddy replied, pretending to take her seriously. "Even the acronym's a little awkward. I'm not sure I've got the dexterity to get it all on there."
"You're a shapeshifter, right? You give yourself tiny little hands." Lil held up a now-tragically empty hand and wiggled her fingers. "Use a tiny little icing thing and you've got it made. I believe in you, Teddy."
"Oh yeah," he scoffed. "And then you take a picture and put it on facebook and me and my tiny hands go viral. Hard pass. I may be a guy who bakes, but I have to retain some dignity. You want it, you do it."
"Nope, I'm good with these." She reached out and nabbed another cookie. "But thanks again, eh? If you ever want me to return the favour and just need someone to listen, I can do that. I suck at advice, but I can listen."
"I appreciate that." Teddy grabbed another cookie and relaxed. He'd have to start loading up the next trays soon, but for the moment this was good. "I'm in a pretty good place right now, all things considered, but I'll definitely keep that in mind. Just in case."
In her room, sitting at her desk having just closed the Shaw laptop because she couldn't manage to concentrate on fucking data entry, Lil let her fingers hover above the screen of her phone. Between Simon, the whole forum shit-fest, and now the mess with Warren, it had been a fucking horrible week and she really, really needed to talk to Nolan. Unfortunately, he hadn't so much as texted her since their talk about Simon. He'd said she could contact him, and she'd tried once, but the more days that went by without any contact from him, the less that offer seemed to count for anything. Oh well, he'd explain at some point. She scrolled through her contacts. Tam? Nope. They'd already tried and while it had ended well, that was more because they'd dropped things rather than work them out. Nick? Not for this. He was sweet and fun, but what kind of advice could he offer if she needed it? Teddy. Yes.
Lil:Hey. You free for a visit or talk or something?
Teddy had just gotten back to his room, his hair still wet from his post-training shower, when he heard the telltale ping of a text coming in. It wouldn't be Billy; he was supposed to be off somewhere working on a class project. Who, then? Teddy grabbed the phone off his desk and swiped it open. Hunh. He hadn't actually seen Lil around for the last couple of days, and he wasn't particularly surprised. He should have reached out to her once he'd seen the forum posts, that's what he should have done. At least he could make up for that lapse now.
Teddy: Yeah, absolutely. I just got out of a Danger Room session and I'm starving. Meet you in the kitchen?
Lil: Yes! See you in a few minutes.
Oh god, seeing that text felt good. Even if they didn't do much talking, even if she just shut up and let him talk about stuff, that would be better than stewing over this whole mess day-in and day-out. Lil pulled on her shoes and headed out for the kitchen.
Teddy changed quickly, but even so, she'd beat him downstairs. They were the only ones in the kitchen for the moment, which was probably for the best considering how personal their last Serious Chat (with capital letters) had gotten. "Hey, you." Teddy headed in, and greeted her with an encouraging smile.
"Hey." Lil smiled back. "Thanks. I needed to get out of my room for a bit, get some better company than the laptop and Merle Haggard."
"No worries. That sounds like a particularly deadly combination, especially on a dull fall afternoon." He headed for the fridge and stared inside for a couple of seconds, evaluating his options. "Leftover pizza, someone's takeout spring rolls, and dubious lettuce," he announced. "The last one's not a terrible band name, but not so great for actual food. Making something it is."
Lil wrinkled her nose. "What kind of making 'cause I'm sort of useless at that. Unless we're making boxed mac and cheese." This was already better, even if he did dare to slight Merle.
Teddy shrugged that off. "I'm no gourmet chef, but I can cook. Well enough to figure out something, anyway. What're you in the mood for?" He turned to look at her, resting his hands on the counter behind him. "Is this a salacious-gossip-over-nachos kind of conversation, or more of a 'weeping into our ice cream' day?"
"I dunno. What kinda food goes with a 'am I really the idiot everybody thinks I am for thinking this' talk?"
Teddy winced in recognition. "Time to bring out the big guns," he advised. "My mom's solution to existential crises is hot chocolate and cookies. I make a pretty mean brown sugar cookie, if you're into sweets."
"Geez, you bake too?" Lil walked over to the sink to wash her hands. Sugar cookies sounded like an excellent plan, but no way was she going to sit by and whine while Teddy did all the work.
"My mom sells houses, she's gone in the evenings a lot. For showings and open houses and stuff." Teddy started opening cabinets looking for things he'd seen in there before -- there was still a can of hot chocolate mix, which made life easier. Sugar, cinnamon, flour, back to the fridge for butter, eggs and milk for the cocoa... "And takeout's expensive. Once I was old enough to stay home on my own, it was learn to cook or survive on leftovers and pop tarts."
Lil started digging around for bowls, because they'd need at least one, right? Some measuring utensils too... She'd done some baking with her mom and knew that much. "See, I got leftovers, but they were from the pub Mom worked at. She cooked, but the owner thought that the piles of food I could eat was hilarious, so he made sure she always had stuff to take home."
"That would have rocked," Teddy nodded appreciatively. "All mom ever brings home from work are those fridge magnet giveaways and stat sheets for houses ten times the size of our apartment." The cupboard below the counter had pots, and he stuck one on the stove for the milk before grabbing a chance to wash at the sink himself.
"We were in an apartment too! We had a house when I was younger but, you know, stuff happens." She'd grabbed everything she thought they'd need, now it was just a matter of waiting for instructions. "Was it just you and your Mom?"
"Always has been," Teddy replied, no stress behind the pure statement of fact. "My dad died before I was born. Okay - grab the pot and pour in twice however much milk for the hot chocolate you think you want. It can start heating up while we do the cookies. And one commission job in New York's not going to get you much in terms of houses, so yeah. We've got a place in Brooklyn. The area that's not gentrifying yet, thank goodness."
Lil poured in enough for the both of them. She figured it was a safe assumption that Teddy would want some too. "Ah. We went the other way. Mom and Dad had a house when I was younger, but then Dad buggered off down south, so Mom sold and moved into the apartment."
"That sucks," Teddy commiserated, assuming from the way she'd phrased things that there'd been some drama there. "Do you see him at all?" He started to measure out the flour and stuff purely from memory. "There should be a mixer around here somewhere, if you can find it?"
"Naw. Once in a blue moon he calls or sends a card or something, but he's a drunk so... yeah. Plus he's way down in Calgary and he friggin' hates the North." Lil rummaged through the cupboards until she found a great big cherry-red contraption that looked something like a mixer. She hauled it out and set it on the counter. "This what you mean?"
"Yeah, that's the one. Whoever set up this kitchen bought the good stuff." He passed her the butter and sugar to go in once she had it plugged in. "It's hard to think of Calgary as being 'way down south,'" he admitted, with a grin at himself. "I'm not even entirely sure where it is. I'd imagined south, you know. Florida. Or Texas."
Lil laughed. "Everything below the Territories is south for me. If you get more than 5 or 6 hours of sunlight in the winter, or you don't need a block heater to start your car, you're in the south."
“Cars?” Teddy dared to tease her, reassured by her laugh. She’d sounded dire a few minutes ago, but things couldn’t be as bad as all that if she was relaxing now. “I thought you guys all went to school by dogsled.”
"Naw, we used a school bus like everyone else." She leaned up against the counter to watch Teddy work and to wait for directions. His company was making everything else seems a little distant. "Course, the bus was pulled by dogs."
The punchline caught him off-guard and he cracked up, laughing at the mental image she'd given him. "Ten points to Gryffindor," he added, grinning. "Here -- you want a stick and a half of the butter in there, and a cup and a quarter of the brown sugar, and start it mixing up. The goal is fluffy butter-sugar. I don't actually suggest eating spoonfuls of it, though it's gross-but-good."
Lil picked up the butter and turned it in her hands. "Cool. They always talked about sticks of butter on TV but I never knew what they meant." She unwrapped the butter and dumped it into the bowl. "I'm learning about all the mysteries of the US now." She measured out the sugar and grabbed a spoon to cream the mix. This she could do.
"The mixer's easier for that, unless you want to go for the arm workout," Teddy suggested, nodding towards the Big Red Beast. "It'll take a while by hand. How do you get butter in Canada if it's not in sticks? And if you tell me 'right from the cow,' please know that I'm not quite that gullible."
"Oh, yeah." Lil looked at the mixer. Right, of course. That was what he'd wanted it for, but she didn't have a clue how to use it. "Um, okay." She slipped the bowl into what looked like the right place and then ran a hand over the machine until she found what looked like the right switch. The mixer came to life. "We got them in blocks sort of like the sticks, but they're 450 grams. That's a pound, I think?"
Did he remember metric conversions? Not so much. "It's two pounds to the kilogram?" he guessed, from some vague memory of an elementary school math class long ago. "So yeah, something close to that." And just in case she hadn't noticed it, he tried to surreptitiously check the latch on the back of the mixer's hinge to make sure the top half wouldn't vibrate itself right out of the bowl. "Is it true that everything costs more in the north? Or is that just the super-high arctic?"
"Yeah, stuff is more expensive there, but not crazy expensive like farther north. We're lucky that way, I guess."
Teddy threw the cinnamon and ginger into the bowl and then there wasn't much to do except wait for the mixer to do its thing with the sugar. Oops - crap! And deal with the heated milk for the hot chocolate before it boiled and splattered itself all over the range. He dumped hot chocolate mix into a couple of mugs and deftly poured in milk without spilling it all over himself in the process. Score. "Here-" he handed her one of the mugs, and a spoon to go with it. "It's not quite as good as the fancy homemade kind with chocolate chips, but the cookies can make up for that part."
Lil took it gratefully, holding it by the mug rather than the handle, so she could feel a bit of the warmth. "We only ever had this stuff, except we just used hot water, not milk." She took a sip and smiled. "This is much better."
"You can do it with milk in the microwave too, but heat the milk before putting the powder in. If you do it the other way around most of the powder doesn't actually dissolve and it sits on top, forming this mucky chocolate powder seal in the mug. And when the milk heats up underneath it, there's nowhere for the steam to go..." he trailed off, making a little explosion-sign with his fingers and grinning at the memory. "Kaboom."
"I might have to try it the wrong way, just once." She set her drink down on the table. "Just 'cause that sounds awesome."
"Do it in someone else's microwave," he suggested with a grin. A glance over told him the mixer was still doing its thing, and she'd asked him to talk, so... Teddy stayed where he was in order to keep an eye on the mixer, cupping his mug in both hands. "So it sounded like you had a lot on your mind earlier," he prompted, now that the conversation seemed to have hit a natural lull.
"Yeah, I guess I do." Too much in fact, and it kept snowballing. One comment on a message board, or maybe before that, one stupid decision to go see Simon, and everything bad that had happened since just sort of followed. "Did you read that stupid post I made on the forum?"
Teddy hesitated for a second, then nodded. He didn't want to embarrass her by admitting it, but making her describe it as though he hadn't wasn't any better. "Yeah. I saw a bunch of threads devolve into slap fights and decided to stay out of it. Did something else happen?"
"What? That's not enough?" She smiled again but it was thin. "But yeah, there's more. Tamara thought it would be a good idea for me and Warren to talk about it and figure shit out. That was Sunday, and it didn't go so well."
"Internet fights are pretty par for the course," Teddy shrugged. "Especially with people like Tommy stirring up trouble 'for the lulz.' It's not worth getting wound up about them. But in person stuff is different. What happened with Warren?"
Lil dropped into her chair and sighed. Did she really want to go into it again? Yes, if there wasn't anyone to convince, if she could just explain it and figure out if she was really as off-base as everyone else seemed to think. "Well, it was supposed to be a talk to figure out what I wanted or what I was worried about, but it just turned into me making an ass out of myself again."
"This is about their big press conference." Teddy... yeah, he still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about it. Kudos to them for being willing to put their money where their mouths were, so to speak, and Magneto had been the one to draw first blood, but anything that put mutants in the news still made him feel a bit conspicuous.
"Yeah, sorry. I should have said that." There was her problem right there. She said stuff before had the thoughts put together, or left crap out because, who knows, maybe because she thought other people could read her mind. "I just think they should have done a lot better for the rest of us, should still do a lot better, but I guess Warren and Tamara just thought I was crazy."
Teddy wasn't following, and he wasn't sure exactly why - what was Warren supposed to have done? Thankfully the mixer was done with the butter and sugar and he could take a minute to stop it, scrape down the sides and throw in the egg and vanilla before he started it up again and then had to say something. Unfortunately he hadn't come up with much except for more questions. "By 'do better,' do you mean at the conference itself? It sounded pretty professionally put-together. Which I really shouldn't be surprised about, considering who's involved."
"See, this is why I shouldn't be trying to talk to people about serious stuff." Even calm and sitting at a table with hot chocolate in front of her, Lil couldn't get the words out right. "I mean the announcement to us could have been better, not the conference. Like, something face to face and... something that acknowledged that, um, we might have some concerns or worries or something that they needed to think of."
"Something other than an invitation to a forum slap-fight that can be easily ignored," Teddy summarized, hoping that he was getting it right. He supposed -- yeah, he might have had the interest in asking a question or two if it had been done in a different way, but the whole thing had gone to hell long before he'd logged in and he'd ended up writing it off as 'not my business, really.' Or at the very least 'not my circus.'
Lil looked up at Teddy with honest-to-God surprise because yes, that was exactly it. He got it. Lil hadn't managed to say that to Warren or Tamara, but yes, that was it. "Jesus Teddy, I love you. That exactly. Or something that some kids might never see because they don't do forums or the internet. Or where Simon didn't hide or JP wasn't there just to chase off idiots like me. God, I kept trying to say that to Warren and Tamara, but they didn't seem to get what I meant."
"The internet is a cesspit of instant miscommunication and hurt feelings," Teddy shrugged off the praise a little uncomfortably and started to tip the dry ingredients into the bowl of the mixer. "I hang out on reddit. I know whereof I speak." That and texting. He really needed to call a moratorium on important conversations over text. "What would you have suggested instead?" he asked, keeping his eye on the bowl in his hands. "I can't imagine a practice press conference with the student body working all that much better."
"Well, I never got much beyond saying they should have met with everybody 'cause Warren said something about, 'no way was he knocking on everyone's doors' and I got caught up in that... Just like I am now." Lil shook her head and leaned forward, tapping the top of the table to help sort her thoughts. "I think they should have gone around before the conference and just sat down with us and had a bunch of talks. Simon could have dropped by an activist club meeting, Warren could have hung out for a bit with us while you and Nick were playing games... Nothing big right? Just a day to touch base with us all and give us a heads-up. No big drama and those of us who didn't know them so well would have had a chance to build a little trust, right?"
He nodded along with her as she spoke. "In theory, I see where you're coming from. I know Warren -- not well, but enough to know that he's a decent guy, and he's not likely to be causing trouble just for fun. Simon and JP I don't know at all, except that Warren obviously trusts them. And I'm sure there are a number of people here who could barely identify any of the three of them in a lineup." He finished with the flour and let the machine slowly chug its way through blending the dough the rest of the way.
"Only can you imagine them actually being able to pull that off?" Teddy flashed Lil a grin. "These specific guys, I mean. Like, actually try and picture how those conversations would have gone. Simon would rather face a firing squad than talk to people in groups, as far as I can tell, and Jean-Paul would get frustrated with our collective inability to think speedster-fast and make things worse than when he started. Warren's the only diplomat they've got in the party, when what they really need is a high-level bard."
"So they get one." Lil shrugged. She got that there were issues, but hell, that didn't mean the three boyfriends were off the hook. "My idea is a starting point I guess. I mean, no way would I want JP coming to talk to me, and Simon, he can keep his distance for now too, but the point is, they should have started at the best case scenario and worked back from that." Lil remembered something Teddy had said and returned his grin. "We're worth that kind of work, right?"
Teddy flipped the mixer off and pulled out the bowl, then rummaged around to find the baking pans and cooking spray. "Of course," he replied easily to that question. But the rest -- "I think it depends on what their end goal actually is. If they were setting themselves up as student council or official spokespeople or something, I'd be right there with you. We need to be able to trust student leaders to have our best interests at heart, whether it's small things like new vending machines, or bigger stuff like mutant rights issues, or whatever."
He leaned against the counter for a moment, his frown settling in. "But that's not what they're doing, is it? They've just made it so they can't actually be involved with the school in any visible way. They have to stay off in their own little world now, other than for classes, and Simon doesn't even take class here. So maybe isolating themselves was a deliberate call." That idea sucked -- Warren had been fun, and nice, when Teddy'd really needed a kind face. But maybe they were happier just being on their own. Was Jean-Paul even talking to his sister anymore? Teddy couldn't remember the last time he'd seen them having lunch together.
Lil frowned and sat back to consider what Teddy said. That made sense, quite a bit of sense. "Could be. Warren never said anything about that, but I don't think he thought much of me anyway, so... " she shrugged. Warren's opinion of her didn't matter now when she was pretty sure he wouldn't want to talk to her again. "But they sort of did take responsibility - Warren had a folder full of stuff they said they were doing to keep us safe; plans and shit in case stuff goes wrong. Maybe they need to step back, but there's also got to be some way to make sure all the kids know and understand what's in that folder. And can get in touch with them if they've got some idea the three of them didn't think of."
Teddy turned over a couple of ideas in his head, but dismissed some out of hand. "Feel like giving me a hand with this part?" He waved a spoon at her. "Getting them on the sheets is the part that goes faster with more hands."
And as for the rest... "You're probably going to hate what I have to say, but hear me out," he instructed, pointing the spoon at her again. "Even given the kids here who don't live their lives online, the school network is still probably the best place to store all of that stuff and make it available. Kitty and Tessa have the network locked down so hard no-one can get in, but printing files out or even putting them on a usb drive leaves it open for someone with powers like mine - or an image inducer like Kurt - to just walk in and take it. Which defeats the purpose of security plans."
She was up and grabbing her own spoon before he'd finished, but she stayed quiet when he finished. The dough was thick, but it was easy to scoop up and dump on the sheet and the work helped her sort her thoughts. Halfway through her sheet, she stopped. "Okay, but at the bottom of what I'm trying to say is that those guys have some responsibility to help us understand that stuff. I don't care if it's in a folder or on a computer, but what they did didn't cut it. Like, I get I'm not that bright and my ideas are shitty, but I'm pretty sure the kids here deserve to feel safe, right? Jesus, if Warren and I could have started agreeing to that, just that, maybe we could have got somewhere."
"You're not dumb, so cut that out. You've just got a different frame of reference than Warren does, you got scared, and you reacted. Everyone does that. All that means is that under all of this-" he flicked his finger at her shoulder, knowing she'd barely feel the touch - "we're only human after all. Yeah?"
He finished his tray and watched her work for a second longer. "But help me out with something, because I think I'm missing a connection. We were talking about the forums being a bad place to try and to make an announcement and have a discussion that actually includes everybody at the school. I totally get that part. But what is it that you're worried about that would make people not feel safe? You've used the word a few times and I'm still not entirely sure what you mean. Is it that people who didn't see the forum post will have seen the press conference and not know that it was all planned?"
"I guess that the three of them coming out at the same time could get people poking around. That we just have to accept that three teenagers managed to think of everything they needed to keep us safe." Lil sighed, dropped her spoon into the bowl, and leaned against the counter. "Or maybe it's just me that's afraid 'cause I don't trust any of them."
That sounded more like he was getting closer to the real heart of things. Teddy opened the oven and slid the first trays in, and set the timer. "How would you have felt if it was Billy and I who posted the same thing?" he asked. "Not that we would, but as a thought experiment. Or-" he wracked his brain for another couple of people Lil would know and trust. "Tamara's already got her youtube channel going. I assume she's got some way to completely hide her location, but I've never actually asked."
"I still would've been pissed." Lil grinned. He wasn't going to win that easy. "But I wouldn't have come at you as hard as I did Warren."
Ah well. He'd tried. "That's a relief," Teddy grinned back. "I may look tough, but I've got a squishy marshmallow core."
"Yeah, Tamara says I'm the same. Sort of." Her grin faded. "I know I was a shithead on the forum, Teddy. I even apologized to Warren for that. I was messed up over something that happened with one of the others and... Warren got hit with that. When I'm trying to work out the problem I got with how they handled the forum thing, I'm not trying to excuse what I did."
He nodded. "I'm glad you apologized to Warren. It was the right thing to do. Is the 'something' that happened anything you want to talk about? Total amnesty if the answer's no," he added quickly, and utterly sincerely.
No probably would have been the right answer if she wanted to leave the past week properly buried, but it would be nice to have someone other than Nolan know and understand. If Nolan understood. She hadn't had more than a couple of texts from him since last Friday and even those had been just to tell her he couldn't talk. Yeah, screw it. Teddy, she could trust. "Yeah, I'll tell you. Just... don't say anything to anyone else? You saw how JP got on the forum, and if people hear anything about this I'm pretty fucking sure he'll spin it as me going after them or something."
"Yeah, of course." Now he was starting to get worried. This sounded like it was going to be bigger than what he'd originally assumed - that Lil had gotten worked up about her mom seeing something on the news, or worried about groups like the FoH gearing up to take shots at them. Which was big, obviously, but those were more abstract, more manageable sorts of worries than whatever it was that was actually eating at her. The kitchen filled with the incongruous smell of warm brown sugar and butter. "You know you can trust me." He certainly hadn't said anything to anyone after their last talk, not even Billy.
Lil nodded. "Ugh, okay. It's just... I went to see Simon, so he could figure out stuff about my power, 'cause that's his power, right? Except he does it by touching people, and it turns out that when he touches me, it shuts off my invulnerability, and since I've had that since I was a pretty much a baby, I'm not tuned right or something. He switched it off and... everything hurt. Like, not a little bit either." That was only part of it, but she wanted a pause to sort out the next bit.
"Holy crap." He probably could have gone for heavier language there, but it seemed unnecessary -- Teddy was sure his face was showing his sudden and powerful surprise and concern enough as it was. "That must have been one heck of a shock to your system. Are you feeling okay now? Did it wear off?" Was she in pain now and he hadn't realized? Surely she'd have said something -- or at the very least flinched when he'd flicked her. She had to be back to her regular self
"Oh god, yeah. As soon as I got away from him, I was fine. Him too, 'cause think he felt some of it." He'd certainly seemed as out of sorts as she was right after, even if she hadn't thought about that at the time. "But that wasn't really the thing. I was going to try it again 'cause, how else do I find out what happened or exactly what my power is? But then... God, this sounds stupid... I took off a few things, like my socks and sweater. Even where my shirt touched my skin had hurt, so I just wanted to try and avoid that, but I kept most of my clothes on. Then he says that his power means he sees people naked anyway." There weren't any tears threatening like there had been with Nolan, just the heat of embarrassment burning away under her cheeks. What a lot of fuss and pain over something so tiny. "I don't know, maybe he wanted me to think it wasn't a big deal if I needed to take more off, but I sort of... I didn't take that too well."
"His powers do what?" Jesus. Was that common knowledge? Teddy certainly hadn't known that, but then he'd never actually spoken to Simon at any length. He felt the anger rising in him at the thought of being so vulnerable, and not even knowing it. "And he didn't tell you until after he'd done it?"
Billy had gone to Simon to have his DNA checked when he and Tommy were trying to figure out their connection. That meant Simon had seen Billy naked. There was no way Billy would have consented to that without a whole lot of panic. Was there? Had Simon even bothered to tell him? It sure as hell sounded like he hadn't mentioned it to Lil early enough. "No wonder you're pissed," he said, his voice strained and heart half-breaking for her. "That's as bad as sticking a camera in the shower, for fuck's sake. Isn't he training to be a doctor? You'd think they'd include ethics and consent in there somewhere."
"Thank fuck." Lil closed her eyes and took a moment to appreciate a moment of someone agreeing with her, because it sure hadn't happened a lot lately. "I was sort of half-convinced I'd gotten upset over nothing. I mean, I got some baggage over guys thinkin' they could grab me so maybe I just made too much of it or something, but yeah, that's something people should know."
"Even if it is 'baggage,'" and hoo boy, did Teddy know about carrying baggage around, but this wasn't about him. "I'm one hundred percent certain you're not the only one here who's had bad experiences with other people thinking that they can do whatever they want with your body. Even just knowing about the kids who were pulled out of the Right facilities, never mind the more standard bull." He was pissed, and that was making it hard to think clearly.
Focus. Lil needed a sounding board, not for him to go off half-cocked and make the problem worse. "What did he say when you told him off? Tell me he apologized, at the very least." Maybe he hadn't understood, and would do better from now on. A lot of people didn't and wouldn't get it, unless they'd experienced that crawling shame themselves.
"Yeah, he did. And he said he'd be telling people about it. That's why he's wearing the gloves now too, that and the shit that went on when he took away my power. I think the whole thing shook him up quite a bit." And of the three, funny as it seemed, Simon was the one Lil felt she could go back to if she had to. And maybe she should, so she could clear the air between her and at least one of them. "So that was in my head when the forum mess happened. I was a mess, plus they were sort of asking us to trust them, right? Don't know how I was supposed to do that when I knew Simon hadn't even thought of basic shit like consent."
That was better than Teddy had hoped for, actually. At least Simon was trying to prevent the same thing happening again rather than doubling-down on the problem. Which didn't fix the fact that it had happened in the first place, but- "Yeah, I can see why you'd have trouble trusting his judgement calls. And obviously something happened with Jean-Paul, given the way he went at you in the comment thread. It all makes a lot more sense now that I know the backstory. Thank you," he added, quite seriously.
Lil shrugged away the thank you. "I sort of wish I could say something but... That wouldn't be fair to Simon and once JP heard... And yeah, JP and I got into it. He was actually pretty helpful for a bit and then he said something dumb, and I said something dumb and then, Fwoooom! " Lil lifted her hands up to mime an explosion. "But that bit was like, five minutes or something. I must have made a big impression for him to hold onto it so he could shut me up later."
"I'm sensing a theme here." The timer beeped and Teddy grabbed for oven mitts to haul the pans out and set them to cool. Ugh, they smelled good, almost worth the second it would hurt to just start eating them before they cooled. But the conversation wasn't over yet. "For someone built tough, you've got a real hair trigger when you see a threat coming in."
"Yup. I'm trying to sort that out, but I've always been that way. Well, maybe not always, but kids could still poke me a little when I was a kid and get fireworks." Lil eyed the cookies, but decided to wait until Teddy said it was okay to grab one. "And then if that's always happening, maybe you start to see it everywhere? I don't know. But I'm working on that."
"The first step is admitting you have a problem," Teddy said, keeping a straight face. He grabbed the spatula and poked at the edge of one of the cookies. It folded in on itself still and he let it be another minute. "Step two is junk food," he nodded at the trays,"which should be good to go momentarily. What's step three?"
Lil snorted. "This had better not be the part where you slip me a bill for therapy."
Teddy shook his head, laughing softly. "Nope. It's the part where you figure out what you're going to do about it. Last time I was in here baking stress-cookies, Tessa gave me a serious talking-to about not letting things fester. 'Unhappy stasis is most definitively not to your advantage.'" He quoted, not trying super hard to copy the cyberpath's very particular mode of inflection. "And right now you're at the unhappy part. So what's next?"
"Well, I think I'm gonna talk to Simon again for one. Everything started getting crazy for me after that, and I gotta get that sorted. Plus, I need to make sure he's doing what he said he would 'cause like you said, I'm not the only one that sort of thing could mess up." Lil gave the cookies a sad look. Maybe he'd let her have one what she'd finished her answer. "I'm not doing anything about JP or Warren right now. They don't think much of me. And anyway, the whole talk with him might have been a disaster, but Warren decided to do somethin' about helping kids get in touch with him and stuff, so I got that under my belt."
She was thinking things through calmly, so that was probably a good sign. And maybe if she could smooth things over with one part of the triad, the rest would sort itself out? That was probably too optimistic, but he wasn't going to give up hope just yet. Her glance at the pans reminded him to try again, and this time the cooling cookies lifted easily off the trays without smooshing. He scooped three onto the wide spatula and held them out to her with a grin and the sparkle of mischief in his eye. "It's a workable sort of plan that doesn't involve 'punch everyone.' Have a cookie."
Lil couldn't help laughing at that. "I do the thing, I get cookies as a reward?"
Teddy grinned back. "Noooo. I wouldn't have actually made cookies in front of you and not given you some. But if it works as motivation, I'll abuse that." He shoved one into his mouth. Yum. Once his mouth was clear again, he grabbed for another one. "We could try and make the next batch shaped like gold stars."
"And pipe little messages on them." Lil raised a thoughtful eyebrow. " 'Congratulations for not beating the shit out of them'."
"That's a lot for one cookie," Teddy replied, pretending to take her seriously. "Even the acronym's a little awkward. I'm not sure I've got the dexterity to get it all on there."
"You're a shapeshifter, right? You give yourself tiny little hands." Lil held up a now-tragically empty hand and wiggled her fingers. "Use a tiny little icing thing and you've got it made. I believe in you, Teddy."
"Oh yeah," he scoffed. "And then you take a picture and put it on facebook and me and my tiny hands go viral. Hard pass. I may be a guy who bakes, but I have to retain some dignity. You want it, you do it."
"Nope, I'm good with these." She reached out and nabbed another cookie. "But thanks again, eh? If you ever want me to return the favour and just need someone to listen, I can do that. I suck at advice, but I can listen."
"I appreciate that." Teddy grabbed another cookie and relaxed. He'd have to start loading up the next trays soon, but for the moment this was good. "I'm in a pretty good place right now, all things considered, but I'll definitely keep that in mind. Just in case."
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