ax_main | Tommy and Pam | Backdated 3/31

Pam and Tommy get high in the hedge maze after she and Alex move into the school. It could have gone better.

This whole thing sucked even more than Pam had expected.

Okay, fine, it had been her idea, pretty much. Alex needed out of the base for a while so he could pull his head out of his ass over the mess in Montana, they knew people here, at least some of whom didn't suck. It had made sense.

Right up until she'd had to sit there with Alex and explain to Lance and Wanda why they were leaving the team that had taken them in when they'd literally had nowhere to go. And then sit there and listen to Baldy give his spiel on co-existence and rules and the importance of wearing actual clothing to class and not just looking like you were, and how stabbing other students was just not okay.

Yeah. Not one of her better ideas after all. Which was why she'd gotten herself good and lost in the hedge maze instead of playing Meet and Greet with her new roommate. And why she was now sitting in the gazebo in the middle, rolling up some of the weed she'd "borrowed" from Pietro on her way out.

She just wished she'd borrowed some of Wanda's alcohol, too. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

Tommy hadn't known where to find her, exactly, but the grounds weren't that big - at least not for him - and he could cover a lot of ground. He hadn't figured on the maze; the roof was his own preferred thinking spot. That was the only reason it took as long as it did.

And he really didn't know what he was going to say, without Alex or the cat or even Inu Yasha around for a distraction. Still, he zipped over and flopped down beside her, eyeing the joint with interest. "That bad, hunh?"

"Well, I'm still visible, and I'm not bleeding, so it could be worse," Pam conceded. She looked up at Tommy with a frustrated, pained look, though it would take some serious looking to pick up on the fear in her eyes. "But hey. There's hours left until midnight. Still time."

Tommy met her look with a wry smile. "You're really drawing on the power of positive thinking." But yeah -- he was tired too, and for once he wasn't the one who'd been uprooted from his current home base. Running-from felt a whole lot different than running-to. "If you do go see-through, I'll stick Pita on a leash and tell her to go find you."

"Yeeaah, she'd love that." Pam smiled faintly, and fished in her pocket for the lighter she'd thought to bring with her. "Want some? Before someone does a search to see if I've got any illegal substances in my room?"

A chance to take the edge off? Hell yeah, for the few seconds it would last. "Sure. As long as you don't mind wasting it on my metabolism." Tommy slouched back, propping himself up on his elbows on the gazebo's upper step. "Anything in particular driving you to drugs, or is it the general everything?"

"General everything." Pam found the lighter and lit the joint, took a slow hit off it before passing it over to Tommy. "Besides, I swiped it off Pietro before we left." She smirked, a little. "I deserve a going away present, right?"

He raised an eyebrow and took the joint when she passed it over. "You deserve all kinds of presents. And if this works for him, this might actually get interesting." Tommy put it to his lips, tasting the smoke, pulling it down into his lungs. "How long are you guys planning on sticking around?" He asked the important question.

"As long as Alex needs to." Pam sighed and leaned back against the wall, letting her eyes drift shut. "He's having a bitch of a time dealing with what happened in Montana. Hopefully a break'll help. Fuck if I know what to do if it doesn't."

"Montana was a clusterfuck; I'm not surprised he's freaking out. Billy and I weren't even there and we're rattled as hell - it's gotta be that much worse for you." Arizona had been satisfying as fuck; bystanders getting turned to paste? A different story. "But he'll be alright. As alright as he can be," Tommy amended. It wasn't like Alex was in superb shape to start with. "And I can't say as I mind having you around."

Pam smiled, a little, without opening her eyes. "Yeah, that's the one bonus." She shrugged, though, as she reopened her eyes and reached for the joint. "And I'm cool with Montana. You know me - a few dead assholes isn't going to make me lose any sleep. They tried to take out Eileen and Pyro; they got theirs instead. End of story."

He handed it over, turning his attention inward to see if he felt anything yet. "Collateral damage is a bad look," he finally decided on. "But what the hell do I know about strategy."

"More than I do." Pam smiled and took another hit off the joint, closing her eyes to enjoy the fuzzy, lightheaded feeling that followed. "You're rattled, though? How come?"

Tommy swiped the joint back from her and took a deeper hit, and this time the welcome quiet started to dull down the jagged edges of his brain. "Pietro got shot," he reminded her. "Wanda's stressed as hell. I don't exactly have a lot of people lining up to call themselves my family. I'm not in a rush to lose any." And that... was probably the closest he'd ever come to admitting anything like that out loud to anyone. Except maybe Billy, in a moment of weakness.

"Yeah. I get that." Pam's smile faded, and she shifted closer to tilt her head in against Tommy's shoulder. "I didn't want to lose them either."

It was reflex to tuck his arm around her when she leaned in, the idea that someone was turning to him for comfort still so strange as to be laughable. "The whole thing's a fucking mess," he grumbled. "Are they pissed at you, back at M? If anyone should understand uprooting to follow family, it should be Wanda."

"Lance and Wanda were cool," she assured him, grateful for the arm around her back as she shifted just a little closer. "Cooler than I expected - though I was Lance's newbie as much as I was Eileen's, he's always been cool with me." She smiled faintly, remembering how he'd found her, still holding a knife and with her scrubs liberally splattered with blood, and had ignored all of that to wrap a blanket around her and walk her out of the facility, already promising something to eat once they got back to the base. Yeah. Not a huge surprise Lance had been okay.

Her smile faded a moment later, and she shrugged. "Pyro...Pyro's really fucking pissed." She held her hand out for the joint. "He badmouthed Alex. I pulled a knife on him."

"Ahhh, shit." Tommy took another puff before he handed the joint back and let out the smoke slowly. "That guy doesn't know when to quit. Did you actually do damage, or just make him wet himself a little?"

"He maybe wet himself." Pam's lips quirked up a fraction as she took the joint and raised it to them. "Gotta admit, I didn't check." She inhaled slowly, held it a few long seconds, then exhaled. "He'll get over it. Not like he gave a damn about me once he met Mage, anyway." Which wasn't fair, maybe, seeing as it wasn't like they'd ever had any kind of relationship (or that she'd wanted one), but still. She wasn't dumb; she'd noticed.

"Yeah, that's familiar," Tommy snorted again, the world getting sunnier and fuzzier around the edges. "Make way for the love match of the millennium. Whatever." He cocked an eyebrow at Pam, though, a half-beat behind his normal processing speed. "You and Pyro had a thing?" So much for Tommy being special.

"Nah. Just sex a couple of times. No big." She waved that aside as the rest of what he said floated around in her head a little, until she realized belatedly she was already frowning. "You and Magik?"

Tommy shook his head, paused, considered it, and shrugged. "Not even. We broke into Disneyland once, kissed once. Then she jumped ship. But she's apparently been calling that 'dating' and I don't feel like picking a fight. Not that one, anyway."

"Not worth it," Pam agreed, relaxing in against him, cat-like. "Labels are...whatever. People call Alex my boyfriend all the time. It's not worth arguing."

Now she had him confused. Tommy's brow furrowed as he tried to parse that one. "What would you call him, then?"

Pam's forehead furrowed. "I dunno. We never figured that out. Never really bothered. We were friends, as much as we could be, and then..." she shrugged, trying to figure out how to explain. If there was a way to explain. She took another hit off the joint, and passed it back to Tommy before continuing. "They threw him in with me. To try to get me to admit I wasn't dead. What do you call someone who talks non-stop until you have to admit you're still alive? Because fuck if I know."

He thought about it, but all he could come up with was "a lifeline? But that's what he was. It's what they made you guys into. That's not what you are now."

"No. Now we're each other's lifelines." Pam's eyes drifted to the wedge of sky she could see between the gazebo's roof and the top edge of the hedge, noting absently that the sun was setting, the sky a smudge of pale orange and yellow. Pretty.

That was heavy, way too heavy for the momentary floaty feeling Tommy was having. Not to mention the skin-crawl sensation at that thought of being that... tangled up in another person. He sure as hell wasn't cut out to be anyone's lifeline. (That was the kind of thing that trapped you into not-leaving when things got bad, that led to long sleeves to cover bruises.) "That sounds more like you're married," he snorted.

"Ugggh." Pam pulled her attention away from the sky, made a face, and elbowed him. "I'm trying to be serious here. Because, y'know, I just dropped everything and came with him -" she broke off and facepalmed. "Fuck, it does, doesn't it? Shoot me now, please?" Because yeah, married? No thanks. She'd seen just where that had gotten her mom. Repeatedly.

He was in the middle of exhaling when her elbow hit him and he laughed through the smoke, miming a gunshot at her with his free hand. "If the shoe fits." Tommy shrugged easily, offering the joint back. "At that point what's the big deal if someone calls him your boyfriend? Everyone knows you come as a set."

"I dunno. I'd maybe like to go on a date sometime?" She dropped her hand from her face and took the joint. "Anyway, that's what I said. It's not a big deal."

"Want me to talk to him?" Tommy turned to lie flat along the step, looking up at the sky. "Makes sense that he wouldn't know a whole lot about boyfriending, considering. But that doesn't mean he can't learn."

Pam looked down at Tommy, very obviously confused, then rolled her eyes as she realized just how he'd interpreted what she'd said. "No. I don't want you to talk to him. Idiot." She took a long drag off the joint, then handed it to him and started to get up.

Tommy frowned up at her from the ground, one hand behind his head for a cushion. "What'd I say?" he asked, a frown creasing his forehead.

She stared at him for a few long moments. "Y'know, if I wanted to go on a date with Alex, it really wouldn't be all that hard to just ask him myself. It's a lot harder to ask someone else who apparently thinks I'm fucking married."

"You want me to ask you on a date?" Tommy propped himself up on his elbows again, still frowning as he tried to figure out what was happening. Now was not the time for his brain to be going slow, thank you very much. Telling it to move faster wasn't helping. Fucking Pietro. "And you kind of are? Not legally, duh, but you're like... a set. You're never going to not be together."

Yeah. More staring, because...she knew that. She guessed. Maybe. But...never? Her vision was getting blurry, and she swiped her hand over her eyes to clear them, bumping herself with her cast in the process. Oww. "Yeah. Probably not, huh?" Like always, the idea was reassuring. And panic inducing. And frustrating. And...fuck, she wasn't even sure what, but she didn't like thinking about it much, because the idea of being without Alex was just slightly more frightening than the idea that she was with him because that was exactly where the Right had wanted her to be. She finished standing up, and shook her head. "I've gotta go," she said. "You can have the rest. Enjoy."

"Pam! Hang on." Tommy pushed himself to his feet, his everything feeling sluggish. "Is this one of those girl-things? Like you say you're leaving - but I'm supposed to realize that you're mad at me for something and chase you down instead and beg you to talk?" he clarified. "And then you go sleep with Pyro if I don't?"

"Huh?" Pam blinked, then frowned and shook her head. "No. It's more like I really don't want to talk how I'm apparently attached to Alex for life. Because I love him, but it fucking sucks sometimes, because I really didn't get any fucking choice in the matter. And no one gets that. But that's not your fault." Her frown deepened. "Also, I haven't slept with Pyro since he started dating demon girl."

"No, that was a reference to- never mind," Tommy waved it off. "As long as this isn't another trap like that, I'm good. We don't have to talk about it." They were getting into 'feelings' territory now, which he'd admittedly pushed her into talking about, but which also left him fighting the urge to run.

"Talking about it sucks." Granted, she'd kind of started it, maybe - or had Tommy? Fuck, she wasn't even sure. She debated a moment or two longer, decided she really didn't have anywhere to go where she wanted to be, and sat back down, thinking over the rest of what Tommy'd said. "She really fucked you over with that, didn't she?" she said finally.

"Ehhhhh," Tommy let out the vaguely annoyed noise on the exhale. "Trust me, it's for the best. Yana's messy - not like, clothes on the floor and stuff, but how she twists conversations around until everything is someone else's fault. I like shit simple. Someone tells me what they want, I'm going to take their word for it. If someone wants to hang out with me, they will. You know, simple.

"I'm not gonna spend any more of my life trying to interpret every face twitch and tone of voice trying to figure out where the trap is. It gets boring real fast." At least with Yana it had just meant a big fight, not dodging punches. But everything to do with his parents was way, way in the past now. Not worth thinking about, ever.

"Yeah, fuck that shit." Pam stretched out her legs and closed her eyes, then grinned a little. "If it makes you feel any better, though, your brother got her good the other day." Granted, he'd also made the rest of the Brotherhood sound like low life scum in the process, but whatever. She was used to that from the school kids. One more reason why she wasn't thrilled she was now one of them.

"Oh yeah?" His eyebrows went up, but he settled back down on the steps beside her. "I know they had a blow-out when she left, but he didn't go into too many specifics."

"Yeah, there was shouting. And some 'you don't care about anyone but yourself"-ing. Mort and I were listening." Unconsciously, she shifted in against him and grinned. "I'm gonna miss that, in a weird, fucked up way. The walls at the base were crap. You always knew what everyone else was up."

Tommy started to snicker, then processed what that probably meant about people being able to hear things the other way as well, and his face flushed hot. "Jesus Christ," he groaned, his hand over his face. "I didn't need to think about Mort overhearing ... things. That's just not right."

Pam frowned, trying to figure out what he meant, then started laughing. "Pretty sure we would've had to have been louder than we were," she assured him. "If Mort had heard, he'd have said."

"That's worse," Tommy complained, but her laughter was contagious and he snickered as well. "It's not so bad, though, being here? I know you didn't want to move, and the school's got its own brand of stupid to deal with, but on the whole?"

"It's okay," Pam admitted grudgingly. "No one's been a total shit so far. It's just...it's not home." She made a face. "I never actually thought I'd miss Pietro whining about having been shot."

"Oooh," Tommy's laugh followed that. "You are hard up if that's what you're feeling nostalgic for. Billy can sulk with the best of them if that's what you're after."

Pam directed her very best, "are you a moron?" look at Tommy. Or what would have been, if her lips hadn't started twitching at the absurdity of it all. "Pass. Billy's a whole different kind of annoying."

Tommy took a deep drag on the joint still smoldering away between his fingers and passed it back, holding the smoke in for a beat or two before letting it out again. "He grows on you after a while."

That earned him a laugh as Pam took the joint from him carefully. "Like some kind of fungus?" she guessed. "They probably have something at CVS for that." She grinned as she took another hit, then snuggled in against his side and rested her head on his shoulder. "I've got the better twin," she added decisively.

If he wasn't high, the 'I've got' would have hit him a lot harder than it did. Tommy recognized that somewhere in the back of his mind even as his back stiffened. The warning klaxon sounding somewhere wasn't loud enough to break up the pleasant haze, not right now, the restless edges dulled. "Billy's naive as fuck, but that's a lot better than having to get tough early like we did," Tommy said instead. "What's the deal there, anyway? You're not still mad about the pop can thing. That was a million years ago."

"Hey, I'll get over the pop can thing when he stops looking at me like I'm going to stab him. I mean, seriously." She rolled her eyes and took a hit off the joint, too mellow to even bother pretending to still be upset about the soda. The rest...yeah, she was maybe still upset about that. But honestly, he should be over that by now.

Restless again despite the mellow, Tommy frowned at her. "Try not glaring at him like you're going to, and it'll probably go faster."

Almost despite herself, it was Fatale who turned to look at Tommy, eyes narrowing. "Yeah, take his side. I get it. He's your brother," just like Alex had Scott, so it was just a matter of time before he was doing the same thing, "and so anything that happens is my fault, right? Fuck that. I've never done shit to him."

"That's one hell of a leap," Tommy snorted. Because yeah, here they went again. It was a girl thing, and she was taking it way out of proportion. "All I said was that he'd probably relax around you easier if you didn't go out of your way to freak him out. He relaxes, you relax because he stops being a spaz at you, everyone wins. If you wanna turn that into an accusation, that's a you problem."

"It's not a me problem," she countered automatically, but looked away. Because - okay, fine, maybe she did try and freak him out. It wasn't like it took much, and it kept him from doing random-ass shit around her. She could deal with that from Wanda - not so much from someone she didn't know. But she wasn't admitting that, and if Tommy couldn't figure it out, so be it. She took another hit, then offered the tiny bit that was left to Tommy without really looking at him. Peace offering. Whatever.

He started to reach out, but dropped his hand instead and got to his feet, his head still cottony and his balance just off enough to make him crazy. "Nah, you go ahead. I've got some shit to do. Thanks for sharing. Peace out." And he held up his fingers in a peace-sign V, the gesture and context making him snicker.

Pam felt a brief surge of panic, then squashed it. She didn't need Tommy. Or Alex, wherever he was. Or Eileen, or Lance, or the rest of her team, or...

"Yeah. Peace." She'd thought they'd maybe...but she'd thought a lot of things today, and all she'd proved was that she should leave thinking to the people who were better at it. Ignoring Tommy, she took the last hit off the joint, then snubbed it out on the ground.