ax_main | Tommy and Cal

Tommy checks in a couple days after the rescue.

Cal was sitting on the floor, his back to the side of one of the two beds in the room. He'd grabbed some food in the cafeteria, and come back here to eat it, away from people. He was trying to acclimate to the room, but it still didn't feel... doable. He could just walk out of it whenever he wanted, and that made him want to, just in case someone changed their mind and he couldn't anymore.

That was why he was leaving the door a tiny bit ajar. Not enough to draw attention, hopefully. Not enough to be taken for an invitation. Just enough that the door wouldn't be closed. That he would notice if someone wanted to lock it, because they would have to close it, first.

There was some food he hadn't eaten on the floor beside him. He'd grabbed a bunch of things, but the banana and the muffin had been too much. He stood up, and put them on one of the desks, wondering whether to try climbing out the window. There were mutations buzzing all around him, but he wouldn't know which one might help, which one to mimic, without doing some digging inside people's minds, and he'd told the old man he wouldn't so he would let him keep his mutation. He really didn't want to let go of it.

So he opened his door to walk out, only to find a kid there. A kid who looked like one of the ones from the rescue, but the hair was different. "Hey," Cal said, warily, shifting his balance slightly, discreetly. Instinct.

Tommy'd been a strung-out fucked-up mess for what felt like forever after he'd escaped, and he had no reason to expect the other kids would be in any better shape. Especially not since it sounded like they'd all been in the Right's clutches for a lot longer, and gotten a lot worse treatment, than he had. It was stupid to feel like he owed them because of it, but when had he ever been the smart one?

Either way, they deserved to have a better welcome wagon than he had, so if spite against Scott-dumbass-Summers was the thing inspiring him to be a decent person, he'd roll with spite. The last of the guys Billy had rescued was supposedly in 117, so Tommy'd swung by there with the vague idea of checking on him. he hadn't expected either the open door or to almost literally bump into the dude.

"Hey," he replied, all casual-like, hands in his jeans pockets, his faded t-shirt revealing the pink and fading scars on his forearms and inner elbows. "Cal, right? I was hoping to catch up with you."

Catch up. Cal just looked at the kid for a beat, and then moved out of the way, so he could get into the still incredibly bare room. Instinctively, he reached for his mutation, because having the electricity ready sounded like a smart plan, never mind the rest of it.

Skittish -- yeah, that figured. Tommy stayed outside, not crowding the doorway. "If you were going somewhere I can tag along. Or come back later, whatever. Unless Alex or Fatale have been by already. We're pretty much half-assing the 'welcome to the ex-prisoner club' round-ups between us."

Cal frowned slightly; he didn't sound like the kid with the electricity. Twins, or clones? Especially if he had been held by the Right, too. Who the fuck knew what else they were up to. When he tried making sparks dance from one of his fists, a test, nothing happened, but the entire world seemed to slow down, for a moment. Cal looked around, then back at the kid, and let it go, time snapping back into place. A speedster, and now he remembered that flash of silver hair he'd tried to fight in training.

"I'm fine talking here," he answered, after a couple of seconds, and tilted his head in invitation.

"Cool." Tommy nodded and accepted, crossing the threshold into Cal's room. The space looked pretty much exactly like Tommy's, although Tommy'd accumulated a tiny bit of clutter in the last few months. The guitar, the school laptop, the little wooden ornament Laura had carved for him for Christmas. "Tommy," he said by way of introduction. "You've met Billy - he was on the rescue team that sprung you. I'm the much cooler twin. How're you holding up?"

Twins, then, or that was the official line, anyway. "All right," he answered, because that was the only thing to answer to a question like this. The freedom is disorienting, I keep expecting the simulation to end, or Sandra to round a corner, this room is too big, they weren't things he could say, even to another former captive. To Clint, maybe. Not much of anybody else. "They used to have you, too?"

Tommy nodded again. "Last year, for a while. I busted out when they fucked up on the sedation and Xavier brought me in here to detox. Ended up sticking around longer than I thought I would."

"You were in the sims," Cal said, because he ought to know. He still had scars from some of those sims, from - after they'd moved him. After Clint. "A hologram."

Tommy knew about the sims, of course, but he'd never been in them. The Right's plans for him had been different. More ballistic. "Was I awesome?" He asked flippantly. "I didn't know they took scans of me for that shit, but I shouldn't be surprised. Assholes got around. You're the power-copier, right?"

"Yeah," Cal confirmed, with a small nod. But you couldn't mimic a hologram. Which was why... "You were a challenge."

"Yeah, I hear that a lot." Tommy flashed a sharp smile. "The Beaubiers are pretty slick for speedsters - they've got flying along with the high speed chase. You'd have a good time with that one if you liked mine."

"I never tried yours before," Cal replied, and he hadn't been in a position to like it. Get banged around by a hologram because of it, sure. Feel like he was failing (failing Sandra) because of it, absolutely. But like it? No.

"If you ever wanna take it for a spin," Tommy shrugged. " Go for it. Just be careful with the footwear. Friction's a bitch sometimes."

"How do you get around it?" Cal asked, looking down at Tommy's shoes.

The runners he had on were already looking pretty run-down on the heels, so typical. "Buy new ones, mostly. Xavier throws us homeless types a bone - debit cards with a monthly allowance. It's not retirement money, but it beats the hell out of having to steal shit."

"Yeah, he said," Cal confirmed. His card was on one of the desks, untouched. It was nice of the old guy. But it felt like a hook.

"What else'd he tell you?" Tommy asked, curious. He slouched against the wall, hands against it behind his back.

They hadn't talked a lot, technically, but that was more than Cal wanted to share. "He explained, about X-Force. What's your take on it?"

Tommy considered what he was going to say, a thoughtful pause that was barely a blink in real-time. "Xavier's motivations - eh. Dunno. He's way too cagey about some of this shit for my tastes. But so far it's only been rescue ops and I'd be doing that with or without him. Have done, frankly. The run where we got the addresses of your lab and the other one X-Force hit this week -- that wasn't an Xavier-approved op.

"But I may as well take advantage of the body armor and comm systems, not to mention the three-hots-and-a-cot. He's got resources to devote to this shit I couldn't get a hold of on my own."

Cal took all of that in, sorted his way through it, and came out with, "Thank you."

That could have been for any one of a number of things, so he may as well take it. "No sweat," Tommy said breezily, then got more serious. For him, anyway. "No-one came looking for me when I was in; I'm doing what I have to, to make sure we come for everyone else."

Cal nodded; part of why he'd thanked him. But he was still too unsure about this place, about everything here, to reiterate the sentiment. "Thanks for stopping by," he added. It hadn't been long enough to hang on his mutation, but Cal didn't really care, right then.

"Talk time's over?" Tommy replied, semi-dryly. It hadn't been smooth, but it wasn't a punch to the jaw, either. "Gotcha. If you need anything, or even if you don't, I'm in 102. I've got a food stash, if you don't feel up to the kitchen or caf at some point. And a cat," he added belatedly, already moving toward the door. "So if you're allergic, I'll catch you in the lounge instead."

"Not allergic," Cal replied, watching Tommy step towards the door without moving himself.

"Cool. Then you know where to find me if you ever want to play with breaking the sound barrier." Tommy grinned again, this time with more warmth.

"Are you rooming with your brother?" Cal asked, as it occurred to him that most kids had roommates.

Tommy stopped before he made it out the door. "Me? Nah. Billy's in 107 with big, dumb and green. I've got Inu-Yasha. Japanese kid, fangs and claws, likes to tell people he's a dog demon. You can just ignore him when he growls."

"I'll try to keep that in mind," Cal assured him. The description didn't really make him want to stop by.

"Bark and bite, you know how it goes." Tommy fired off a sketchy salute and turned for the door again.

Cal didn't, actually, being recently used to bite being equal to, if not greater than, bark. But he could remember people who had been like that, a little. He let Tommy go, waited in slowed down time until the mutation faded from his system, then headed out with his shoulders hunched, just wanting out of this building.