Billy and Scott | backdated April 5
Apr. 5th, 2018 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ax_billyrocks posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ax_mainScott stops by to check on the new arrivals. And indulge in a little friendly interrogation.
Goodnight had fallen asleep reading to Billy.
Billy didn't mind. It was a lot easier to keep up with Goody's storytelling than the television show he kept putting on the screen. The fights looked weightless, and it was hard keeping track of who hated who and why. He'd mostly napped while Goody got caught up. Now it was Goody's turn for a rest, it seemed. The doctors here didn't seem to mind if they shared the bed for naps. Billy supposed someone would come nudge Goody back to his cot once it was actually night time.
That was a big difference here, knowing what time it was. Measuring the day by something more precise than when the guards delivered meals.
But anyway. Until someone had something to say, Billy was fine with helping himself to Goody's book. He was out of practice with reading, be it English or anything else.
Once they had gotten back, Scott had gone about the business of debriefing, and checking in at least briefly with his team and the others. That done, he'd let the others, and the rescuees, take some time without his obsessive prodding. His ability to hyper-focus on mission details was good, right up until people needed a human response. He was less good at that piece.
Still, it wasn't only debriefing that drove him downstairs to check on their latest rescuees a couple days later. They'd been through hell, after all. Getting a feel for the place couldn't hurt in making them more comfortable at the mansion.
In case he was interrupting a nap, he entered the room quietly.
Billy looked up, more curious than wary. The lean boy at the door was one of the people who'd rescued them, he was almost certain.
"Hi, Cyclops," he said, testing.
One of Scott's eyebrows rose, impressed at the kid's recall, especially given the rough shape he'd been in when they'd found him. "Hi," he greeted. "And you can call me Scott. What's your name?"
"Billy." Something that Goody had told him before bubbled to the surface of his mind. "Cyclops is your family name?"
"Nice to meet you, Billy," Scott said. "And Cyclops is my codename. For out there. My regular name is Scott Summers."
Billy glanced away, outwardly calm save for his tongue stealing out to moisten his lips. Codenames and designations. Maybe this place wasn't so different than where they'd come from. But they got to keep their names here, Billy reminded himself. And anyway, they were letting him eat and hadn't tried to hurt him or Goody yet. That meant they were better off than before.
"OK." He smiled, a quick flicker of good intention. "Scott. OK. Thanks for the rescue."
"I'm glad we got there in time." If he'd learned nothing else from what he'd seen, Scott had learned that was not a given. And if he wasn't trying to drag Billy back to bad memories, something about him told Scott that he could take at least acknowledging that there had been hardship. "Welcome to Xavier's."
Billy nodded. "I don't think they were going to kill me yet. Starving takes a while." He glanced over at Goody, but he was still firmly asleep. All the same, Billy lowered his voice. "If they wanted to get rid of me, they could have really shot me. It was another test: no food, strange room, no Goodnight. They wanted a reaction and I didn't give them much. So they were probably waiting to see how desperate I would get."
Scott took that in, filing it away. Any information on those fuckheads was information they needed. It was of note that what Billy was describing wasn't related to his mutation, and had no general applicability. It was specialized, personalized, to break and then mold Billy specifically. "They've shifted focus," he murmured, clearly in deep thought.
Billy tilted his head, curiousity refreshed. "Shifted to what? Were you there too? I don't think we've killed you before. I'd have remembered your eyes."
Well, that was a sick exercise, wasn't it? It was a wonder the kid wasn't climbing the walls. The questions didn't implicate information that was secret; the Right was fairly widely known in the school at this point. But it still implicated personal information that wasn't his to share, so he had to be thoughtful about what and how he answered.
"No, I wasn't." Essex House had been different. "But others were in other facilities they ran. It seems like the things done to them were...experimental. And broadly applicable. What happened to you sounds more specific, more specialized."
"Mm. Yeah." Billy looked thoughtful for a moment. "It was weird," he decided. "I'm usually just for training; 'bait-dog' one of the guards said. If I can fight, they don't care. If they're testing me like that, it's usually because they're trying to hurt Goody. But he thought I was dead." Billy frowned at that and cast another glance at his sleeping friend, this one definitely protective. "So I don't know." He shrugged "Weird."
Scott made a mental note about what were clear close ties between Billy and his friend, Goody. (Who the heck named their kid Goodnight?) "We'll keep investigating it, in any case." That Scott knew for sure.
"How're you holding up?"
Billy wrinkled his nose. "I get tired easy. The doctor says that's normal. I don't like it; I spent days in bed. But they took the needle out, and I can have more than juice. So. Doing better." He set the book carefully back on Goody's lap. "When do we start training?"
As someone who deeply hated IVs and the infirmary more generally, Scott felt for Billy. He didn't focus on that, though, instead turning to Billy's question. "Depends," he said thoughtfully. "If you just mean powers training in general, if you sign up for the class it'll be whenever you're ready to start classes.
"If you mean the team, like the op to rescue you, that's different. And none of its required." That last part seemed the most important to emphasize, given what Billy's experience had been so far.
Billy frowned again. "But this is a school."
"Yeah. And powers training has to be taken at least once , I think, for graduation. But you get to pick what semesters you take it. Unless the faculty think it's necessary immediately. I think." Scott said. He didn't really know; his education there had started before Xavier had thought that part through. "But the team? That's all volunteer. No requirement at all."
"That's different from my last school," Billy said by way of explanation. This place really was going to be something new, if what Scott was saying was the truth. And suddenly, being allowed out of bed was even more a priority than before. "But OK. We'll figure it out if we stay."
"Yeah, the faculty can explain it better. I...might be the worst person to ask about the graduation requirements," Scott admitted. But that wasn't what caught his attention. "You went to a mutant school? Before?"
Billy nodded. "I was there first, with a lot of other mutants. We had schoolwork, training with weapons and powers. All day, every day. Goody said it sounded more like a boot camp to him. Then I was moved to a hospital, then the prison where you found us."
Mutant military academy. That...was a whole new host of problems. "Where was the school?" He asked.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea." Billy recited the name, then paused. "I think," he amended. "The teachers all spoke Korean. So do I. And we learned a lot about the Republic in our lessons. But I'm not all sure."
Well, if some country was going to have a mutant military academy, Scott couldn't exactly say he was shocked it was North Korea. "Good to know," He said evenly. "Have you talked to the Professor yet at all? Bald guy. Telepathy."
Billy shook his head. "No. It's been almost all me and Goody." Which he had no complaints about. No one coming to put them in different cells was another change Billy approved of.
"If you feel comfortable, maybe mention that other school to him?" Scott suggested, because that was a troubling trend they needed to start tracking long ago, clearly.
"Yeah, OK." A sly little grin tugged at Billy's mouth. "I could go and tell him right now if the doctor would let me out of bed."
Scott smirked in response. "I'd think it'd be hard to hear your explanation over the doctors' lectures," he pointed out, sounding amused.
Billy laughed into his hand. "It was worth trying."
"You miss every shot you don't take," Scott agreed, chuckling softly.
Billy nodded in agreement, tucking the phrase away for later use. He had a feeling Goody would like it. "If I talk to the professor about my old school, will he send me back?"
That, Scott didn't even have to think about. "No," he said, shaking his head. "He won't send you back. I just think it's the kind of thing he will want to keep an eye on."
"OK." Billy considered. "It was better than the prison. Or the hospital. I don't think they'd want me back anyway. And I like being Billy."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Scott said, to preface what he knew was a very personal question. "What was the hospital like?"
"They cut me a lot." Billy shifted carefully so as not to wake Goodnight, and lifted the hem of his Xavier's School sweatshirt. Incision lines sliced pale, precise paths over the visible slip of the boy's belly and hip. He let his shirt fall back into place. "It was always either healing from what they did or just sick. I don't remember much other than that."
Which was why Scott had asked. Hospital could mean anything when it came to mutant kids. Experienced ranged from Jean's history to Frankenstein fever dreams. "So a lab," Scott said, tapping his chin with his thumb as he mulled that over. "Do you know where?"
Shit, this kid had been through the wringer. As surprised as Scott had been by how stable the kid had seemed earlier, the deeper he dug the more shocking it was. He was sure at least part of it was veneer, or so deeply buried as to require a specific trigger; he'd seen too much of Alex, Fatale, Tommy, and Laura's unique behaviors to assume anyone could get out unscathed. But Billy was the closest Scott had ever seen to being truly blasé about his experiences.
Because he knew nothing else? Because his coping mechanisms were that much better or helpful? Natural resiliency? Fuck if Scott could tell.
Billy shook his head. "They didn't speak Korean. Just English."
It didn't rule out North Korea, but did make it less likely, and Scott nodded as he mentally filed that information away. Clearly Billy had been very interesting to a lot of people, that much was obvious. "I'm glad you're here now. Those conditions sound...suboptimal." The Master of Understatement struck again.
This is why you can't have nice things, he told himself, annoyed with his own blasé response.
Billy nodded. "It was how things were, but they shouldn't have used me to hurt Goody. They won't now." Tearing through the guards had been more satisfying than any sim.
So he was used to it. Didn't see the shit done to him as it's own offense, just saw it as an offense to his friend. "You guys met on the inside?" Scott asked.
Billy nodded. "They had us in the same sim, with orders to kill every target we saw. Goody saw I was a person, not a hologram. He didn't take his shot. Not then, not later." Billy swallowed, looking affected by his own story for the first time. "I'm glad he's OK. I didn't know what they were going to do to him."
Shit. War games with children intermixed with holograms? That was beyond fucked up. And it was telling that cracks showed in Billy's veneer. "They punished him," Scott surmised.
"Sometimes. They'd inject him with something that would make him sick. Or they'd threaten to hurt me. Last time, when he wouldn't shoot me, they shot me in front of him. Or made him think they had. I'm still not sure..." Billy sighed, turning his gaze down to his hands in his lap. "My head hurts. And I'm tired."
Apparently Billy's devotion was reciprocated. Which made sense; they'd been through a lot together. "Hey, go ahead and rest," Scott told him. "I came to check on you, not wear you out."
"OK." Whether it was agreement with Scott's motives or Billy taking his words as an order wasn't clear, but the boy seemed just fine making himself comfortable at his friend's side and closing his eyes, even with an audience.
Scott pulled a piece of paper and pen out of his pocket, scribbling his name and phone number on it, and then left it by Billy's bedside. If you need anything the note read. He doubted the kid would use it, but he felt obligated to offer it anyway. Scott liked him; he seemed like a good person, despite the Right's best attempts to change that trajectory.
That done, he quietly began backing out of the room.
Goodnight had fallen asleep reading to Billy.
Billy didn't mind. It was a lot easier to keep up with Goody's storytelling than the television show he kept putting on the screen. The fights looked weightless, and it was hard keeping track of who hated who and why. He'd mostly napped while Goody got caught up. Now it was Goody's turn for a rest, it seemed. The doctors here didn't seem to mind if they shared the bed for naps. Billy supposed someone would come nudge Goody back to his cot once it was actually night time.
That was a big difference here, knowing what time it was. Measuring the day by something more precise than when the guards delivered meals.
But anyway. Until someone had something to say, Billy was fine with helping himself to Goody's book. He was out of practice with reading, be it English or anything else.
Once they had gotten back, Scott had gone about the business of debriefing, and checking in at least briefly with his team and the others. That done, he'd let the others, and the rescuees, take some time without his obsessive prodding. His ability to hyper-focus on mission details was good, right up until people needed a human response. He was less good at that piece.
Still, it wasn't only debriefing that drove him downstairs to check on their latest rescuees a couple days later. They'd been through hell, after all. Getting a feel for the place couldn't hurt in making them more comfortable at the mansion.
In case he was interrupting a nap, he entered the room quietly.
Billy looked up, more curious than wary. The lean boy at the door was one of the people who'd rescued them, he was almost certain.
"Hi, Cyclops," he said, testing.
One of Scott's eyebrows rose, impressed at the kid's recall, especially given the rough shape he'd been in when they'd found him. "Hi," he greeted. "And you can call me Scott. What's your name?"
"Billy." Something that Goody had told him before bubbled to the surface of his mind. "Cyclops is your family name?"
"Nice to meet you, Billy," Scott said. "And Cyclops is my codename. For out there. My regular name is Scott Summers."
Billy glanced away, outwardly calm save for his tongue stealing out to moisten his lips. Codenames and designations. Maybe this place wasn't so different than where they'd come from. But they got to keep their names here, Billy reminded himself. And anyway, they were letting him eat and hadn't tried to hurt him or Goody yet. That meant they were better off than before.
"OK." He smiled, a quick flicker of good intention. "Scott. OK. Thanks for the rescue."
"I'm glad we got there in time." If he'd learned nothing else from what he'd seen, Scott had learned that was not a given. And if he wasn't trying to drag Billy back to bad memories, something about him told Scott that he could take at least acknowledging that there had been hardship. "Welcome to Xavier's."
Billy nodded. "I don't think they were going to kill me yet. Starving takes a while." He glanced over at Goody, but he was still firmly asleep. All the same, Billy lowered his voice. "If they wanted to get rid of me, they could have really shot me. It was another test: no food, strange room, no Goodnight. They wanted a reaction and I didn't give them much. So they were probably waiting to see how desperate I would get."
Scott took that in, filing it away. Any information on those fuckheads was information they needed. It was of note that what Billy was describing wasn't related to his mutation, and had no general applicability. It was specialized, personalized, to break and then mold Billy specifically. "They've shifted focus," he murmured, clearly in deep thought.
Billy tilted his head, curiousity refreshed. "Shifted to what? Were you there too? I don't think we've killed you before. I'd have remembered your eyes."
Well, that was a sick exercise, wasn't it? It was a wonder the kid wasn't climbing the walls. The questions didn't implicate information that was secret; the Right was fairly widely known in the school at this point. But it still implicated personal information that wasn't his to share, so he had to be thoughtful about what and how he answered.
"No, I wasn't." Essex House had been different. "But others were in other facilities they ran. It seems like the things done to them were...experimental. And broadly applicable. What happened to you sounds more specific, more specialized."
"Mm. Yeah." Billy looked thoughtful for a moment. "It was weird," he decided. "I'm usually just for training; 'bait-dog' one of the guards said. If I can fight, they don't care. If they're testing me like that, it's usually because they're trying to hurt Goody. But he thought I was dead." Billy frowned at that and cast another glance at his sleeping friend, this one definitely protective. "So I don't know." He shrugged "Weird."
Scott made a mental note about what were clear close ties between Billy and his friend, Goody. (Who the heck named their kid Goodnight?) "We'll keep investigating it, in any case." That Scott knew for sure.
"How're you holding up?"
Billy wrinkled his nose. "I get tired easy. The doctor says that's normal. I don't like it; I spent days in bed. But they took the needle out, and I can have more than juice. So. Doing better." He set the book carefully back on Goody's lap. "When do we start training?"
As someone who deeply hated IVs and the infirmary more generally, Scott felt for Billy. He didn't focus on that, though, instead turning to Billy's question. "Depends," he said thoughtfully. "If you just mean powers training in general, if you sign up for the class it'll be whenever you're ready to start classes.
"If you mean the team, like the op to rescue you, that's different. And none of its required." That last part seemed the most important to emphasize, given what Billy's experience had been so far.
Billy frowned again. "But this is a school."
"Yeah. And powers training has to be taken at least once , I think, for graduation. But you get to pick what semesters you take it. Unless the faculty think it's necessary immediately. I think." Scott said. He didn't really know; his education there had started before Xavier had thought that part through. "But the team? That's all volunteer. No requirement at all."
"That's different from my last school," Billy said by way of explanation. This place really was going to be something new, if what Scott was saying was the truth. And suddenly, being allowed out of bed was even more a priority than before. "But OK. We'll figure it out if we stay."
"Yeah, the faculty can explain it better. I...might be the worst person to ask about the graduation requirements," Scott admitted. But that wasn't what caught his attention. "You went to a mutant school? Before?"
Billy nodded. "I was there first, with a lot of other mutants. We had schoolwork, training with weapons and powers. All day, every day. Goody said it sounded more like a boot camp to him. Then I was moved to a hospital, then the prison where you found us."
Mutant military academy. That...was a whole new host of problems. "Where was the school?" He asked.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea." Billy recited the name, then paused. "I think," he amended. "The teachers all spoke Korean. So do I. And we learned a lot about the Republic in our lessons. But I'm not all sure."
Well, if some country was going to have a mutant military academy, Scott couldn't exactly say he was shocked it was North Korea. "Good to know," He said evenly. "Have you talked to the Professor yet at all? Bald guy. Telepathy."
Billy shook his head. "No. It's been almost all me and Goody." Which he had no complaints about. No one coming to put them in different cells was another change Billy approved of.
"If you feel comfortable, maybe mention that other school to him?" Scott suggested, because that was a troubling trend they needed to start tracking long ago, clearly.
"Yeah, OK." A sly little grin tugged at Billy's mouth. "I could go and tell him right now if the doctor would let me out of bed."
Scott smirked in response. "I'd think it'd be hard to hear your explanation over the doctors' lectures," he pointed out, sounding amused.
Billy laughed into his hand. "It was worth trying."
"You miss every shot you don't take," Scott agreed, chuckling softly.
Billy nodded in agreement, tucking the phrase away for later use. He had a feeling Goody would like it. "If I talk to the professor about my old school, will he send me back?"
That, Scott didn't even have to think about. "No," he said, shaking his head. "He won't send you back. I just think it's the kind of thing he will want to keep an eye on."
"OK." Billy considered. "It was better than the prison. Or the hospital. I don't think they'd want me back anyway. And I like being Billy."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Scott said, to preface what he knew was a very personal question. "What was the hospital like?"
"They cut me a lot." Billy shifted carefully so as not to wake Goodnight, and lifted the hem of his Xavier's School sweatshirt. Incision lines sliced pale, precise paths over the visible slip of the boy's belly and hip. He let his shirt fall back into place. "It was always either healing from what they did or just sick. I don't remember much other than that."
Which was why Scott had asked. Hospital could mean anything when it came to mutant kids. Experienced ranged from Jean's history to Frankenstein fever dreams. "So a lab," Scott said, tapping his chin with his thumb as he mulled that over. "Do you know where?"
Shit, this kid had been through the wringer. As surprised as Scott had been by how stable the kid had seemed earlier, the deeper he dug the more shocking it was. He was sure at least part of it was veneer, or so deeply buried as to require a specific trigger; he'd seen too much of Alex, Fatale, Tommy, and Laura's unique behaviors to assume anyone could get out unscathed. But Billy was the closest Scott had ever seen to being truly blasé about his experiences.
Because he knew nothing else? Because his coping mechanisms were that much better or helpful? Natural resiliency? Fuck if Scott could tell.
Billy shook his head. "They didn't speak Korean. Just English."
It didn't rule out North Korea, but did make it less likely, and Scott nodded as he mentally filed that information away. Clearly Billy had been very interesting to a lot of people, that much was obvious. "I'm glad you're here now. Those conditions sound...suboptimal." The Master of Understatement struck again.
This is why you can't have nice things, he told himself, annoyed with his own blasé response.
Billy nodded. "It was how things were, but they shouldn't have used me to hurt Goody. They won't now." Tearing through the guards had been more satisfying than any sim.
So he was used to it. Didn't see the shit done to him as it's own offense, just saw it as an offense to his friend. "You guys met on the inside?" Scott asked.
Billy nodded. "They had us in the same sim, with orders to kill every target we saw. Goody saw I was a person, not a hologram. He didn't take his shot. Not then, not later." Billy swallowed, looking affected by his own story for the first time. "I'm glad he's OK. I didn't know what they were going to do to him."
Shit. War games with children intermixed with holograms? That was beyond fucked up. And it was telling that cracks showed in Billy's veneer. "They punished him," Scott surmised.
"Sometimes. They'd inject him with something that would make him sick. Or they'd threaten to hurt me. Last time, when he wouldn't shoot me, they shot me in front of him. Or made him think they had. I'm still not sure..." Billy sighed, turning his gaze down to his hands in his lap. "My head hurts. And I'm tired."
Apparently Billy's devotion was reciprocated. Which made sense; they'd been through a lot together. "Hey, go ahead and rest," Scott told him. "I came to check on you, not wear you out."
"OK." Whether it was agreement with Scott's motives or Billy taking his words as an order wasn't clear, but the boy seemed just fine making himself comfortable at his friend's side and closing his eyes, even with an audience.
Scott pulled a piece of paper and pen out of his pocket, scribbling his name and phone number on it, and then left it by Billy's bedside. If you need anything the note read. He doubted the kid would use it, but he felt obligated to offer it anyway. Scott liked him; he seemed like a good person, despite the Right's best attempts to change that trajectory.
That done, he quietly began backing out of the room.
