Billy & Tommy - Backdated to August 25
Aug. 25th, 2017 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainTommy's life gets more complicated, and Billy's just gets weirder.
"For fuck's sake," Tommy growled, and he slammed out the door, following Billy. "Girls," he said pointedly, once they were alone in the hallway, "are not worth it." He took a moment, let out a breath fast enough that Billy probably wouldn't even notice the pause, and got himself centered. "Come on. We'll talk in your room."
Billy cleared his throat, not knowing what to say to that but he nodded and started to lead Tommy towards his own room. "Yeah, sure. And I don't have a roommate yet so there won't be any more crazy interruptions."
They went back to his room, opening the door and gesturing for Tommy to go in before heading in himself and closing the door behind them. He flushed a little, forgetting that he had already hung up all his posters and hoped Tommy would just ignore it.
The room was pretty much exactly the same as Tommy’s, except for one obviously-unused side and some more personal stuff scattered around the space. Tommy flung himself on the unclaimed bed as though it was his, and he stared at Billy with a frown. Now that he was out from under Inu-yasha’s stupid growling and Illyana’s snide comments, he wasn’t exactly sure where to begin.
“So what the fuck,” he asked, since it was something to say.
Billy moved to sit on his own bed when Tommy occupied the spare bed in the room, letting out a loud and tired sigh that seemed to make every muscle in his body sag. "Man, I don't know. I don't understand half of went on in there, and I really don't know how me and you look exactly alike. Apparently we even smell the same? Which is something I never thought would be a thing."
Billy moved back so he could lean his back against the wall, toeing his shoes off so he could cross his legs on the bed. "What did that girl mean by another one? Please don't tell me we have another kid around here that looks like us...a...a triplet or something."
Tommy snorted a bitter laugh. “It’s not that bad. I don’t think. There was a ... thing. Last week. A bunch of us ran into a bunch of other mutant kids. One of them had my powers, and looked like me. Not as much as you do, and he and his sister are a couple of years older than us, but he had the same hair and eye colour. People have been giving me shit about having an older brother ever since.
“I thought maybe the white hair was a speedster thing, but Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie have black hair so even that doesn’t pan out.” He paused, realized how some of that sounded, and shrugged mentally. “JP and JM are twins, they’re students here too. Speed powers, flying, light blasts. She’s hot, he’s gay. They’re cool.”
Billy blinked at all the information provided there and tried to connect all of them. One good thing out of that was at least he wouldn't be the only gay dude here. Thank fuck. "Okay. So this guy you met, you said he had a sister? What were her powers?"
Maybe Billy’s stupid wanting powers had done this? But he already had two brothers, why the hell would he ever want another one? This was so confusing.
“No idea,” Tommy admitted. “She didn’t use them while I was around, and we weren’t exactly having a quiet conversation over tea. It’s a long story,” he dismissed the topic; the facility was the last thing he wanted to go into again.
“But what I said in there was true. I’m an only child, so unless my parents had kids, then got rid of them and any evidence that my mother was pregnant before, then had me? I’m not saying it’s impossible, because my take on possible versus impossible has changed a whole lot in the past few months. But it’s pretty damn unlikely.”
Tommy narrowed his eyes at Billy. “When is your birthday, anyway? And where are you actually from?”
"Yeah. And my parents had two more after me, so it's highly unlikely they would have had twins and given one up or something." Billy played with the corner of his comforter, twisting it between his fingers and then smoothing it out.
"My birthday is June 21st. And I'm actually from New York." He did finger quotes around the word actually, because what else could he say? I'm from the moon? "What about you?"
“Jersey,” Tommy replied, the frown deepening. The other answer took a minute, like it was being pulled out of him. “And June 21st. I just turned fifteen.” Not that this year had been a party. He’d been unconscious in Xavier’s infirmary, detoxing from whatever the lab had shot him up with last. Some birthday.
The room was quiet as Billy let that information sink in. The fact that they had different parents, were born in hospitals that were far from each other didn't seem to match up with how everything else looked. "I just turned fifteen too."
He shifted his legs and blew out a slow breath. "So...we look the same, same age, same birthday and we're both mutants. I mean, God, we are twins, but obviously not. This makes my head hurt."
Billy grabbed his pillow and squeezed it, almost hoping it would give him the answers. Maybe he could try his other power? Ugh, but he hated the idea of willingly using it, not knowing what it could do or what it was capable of, but that thought made him glance at Tommy guiltily. "Umm...but I have to confess something. At least to you."
Tommy tensed, warning bells going off faintly in the back of his head. He’d literally met the guy five minutes ago. What could he possibly have to confess? Unless ... unless this was a plant, some trick by the Brotherhood kids to get him alone and with his guard down.
Shit. If Inu-yasha was right, Tommy was never going to fucking live this down. He kept his voice light, but his eye on the door. “If you’re a furry, I seriously don’t need to know.”
Billy blanched and actual brother instincts kicked in as he lobbed his pillow across the room at Tommy.
"God! Really?!" He rolled his eyes and tried to look annoyed, but couldn't help the slight twitch his lips made at a smile. "No. I'm not a furry, dear god. No, what I wanted to say was...that I might possibly know what magic those guys in the other room were talking about. If it even is magic."
He moved to sit on his knees as he tried his best to figure out how to explain it. "I have this thing, besides the electricity and the piss poor attempt at levitation, where sometimes if I want something bad enough...it kind of comes true? It doesn't happen often, it's only happened three times so far, but I think that might be what Inu-yasha smelled?"
Tommy bolted across the bed when Billy threw something, and the pillow passed harmlessly through the space where he wasn’t. He grabbed it out of the air, willed his racing heart to slow down, and dropped back to sit, pillow still in his hands.
He listened to Billy’s hesitating explanation with a faint and growing sense of disbelief, smacking his face with the palm of his hand and dragging it down to rub at his eyes. “That was some performance in there, Mr. ‘I don’t know anything about magic,’” Tommy replied, “unless ‘wishing on a star’ is a mutant power now. So what the hell did you ‘want’ in there? If it was for me to come close to getting my face punched in, you and I are going to have a little come-to-Jesus moment of our own in a minute.”
Billy had heard of speedsters, knew they were fast, but to see the power in action was pretty damn amazing.
"No!" He quickly got up and waved his arms as if to get rid of Tommy's accusation. "I swear I only just connected the dots like a few minutes ago before we left your room and honestly I really don't know what I wanted. I mean getting Inuyasha off me was a pretty big want, but I used my electric powers for that."
He sighed and flopped back down onto his bed. "I honestly don't know what I could have wanted, except maybe...wanting to figure out about you."
“And look at that, here we are,” Tommy drawled, his wariness not exactly easing after that revelation. Billy didn’t feel like a threat, not the way some people did, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
But what now? Tommy looked around the room, taking it in. Superheroes, posters from bad Syfy movies, clothes that looked like they’d been bought new, for Billy – it screamed ‘normal childhood’ so loud that his brain hurt. “Your family,” he prodded, changing the subject back again. “What are they like?”
"My family? Uhhh." How do you put the Kaplans into words?
"Well, I mean my dad's a cardiologist, he's super big on mythology and stuff. He's the good cop when me and my brothers get in trouble, ‘cause my mom can be scary as hell when she's mad. Mom is a psychologist and good at it unfortunately, so you get a lot of terms thrown at you when you have a feelings talk."
Billy leaned back and thought about his brothers. "Two little brothers. Annoying as hell. What about you?"
There had been a moment, just one, where Tommy had imagined they might have something other than their looks in common. But apparently ‘scary as hell’ just meant ‘makes mouth noises when angry,’ and that was hardly a problem. Not the kind of problem that actually meant anything, anyway.
“It’s like I said; it’s just me. My parents are – supposedly, I guess – Frank and Mary Shepherd. I grew up in Newark. I don’t suppose those names mean anything to you.”
Billy shook his head at the names, he'd never met a Frank and Mary Shepherd and he'd only been to Newark maybe twice in his whole life. "No, sorry. I've never heard of them."
Billy scratched at the back of his neck and glanced out the window, not really knowing what to say now. He bit at the inside of his cheek before looking back over at Tommy, ready to ask something he was probably going to get attitude for even bringing up, but he had to know. "Why did you protect me from him? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm super grateful, it's just you don't really know me."
Tommy’s stomach sank, his chest filling with something cold. He should lie, make something up, pass it all off as some fleeting whim, or blame it on a non-existent (but totally plausible) existing feud with his roommate. Maybe Billy had cast some kind of spell on him after all, or maybe the sheer weight of fucked up from the last couple of weeks was finally collapsing in on him, but... he didn’t want to.
Just once, he wanted someone to know. And then he’d know what would happen, after. (And who better than a new kid who no-one would believe anyway?)
So he looked Billy in the eye, the cold filling him up and protecting him the way the sparks and the speed did, a shell around himself to keep out the world. “Because when my dad pulled that shit, no-one helped me.”
Billy's eyes widened considerably and he scrambled mentally for anything to say to that. Oh shit, what did you say to a victim of abuse? His mom would know! He felt like this was a hug moment, but Tommy was probably the last person that would want a hug right now and they barely knew one another. Should he like give him a back pat?
No! Back pats were for like winning a sports ball game or something and holding hands was completely out of the question!
Instead he took a deep breath and nodded his head. "I'm sorry, that's really fucking awful. I-Is that partly why you’re here?"
There was something dark and perversely satisfying about seeing the shock on Billy’s face, almost like... recognition that Tommy had lived through shit that was actually bad, rather than just something everyone else had to deal with too. Like he wasn’t weak for feeling twisted up inside about it.
“Nah,” Tommy drawled casually, bouncing on the bed to pop up to his feet. He paced the room out, stopping by the window to look out at the campus below. He folded his arms in front of him, a sardonic smile growing on his face. “I’m here because they sold me to a test facility to be used as a lab rat, but I busted out.” He didn’t actually know whether money had changed hands or not, but Frank sure as hell wouldn’t have turned down an offer.
“And that part’s all over school already, thanks to last week’s super-exciting field trip. But don’t get full of yourself, or anything. I only actually care because we’re too good-looking to be seen around here with bruises.”
Billy jumped out of his skin when Tommy told him about being fucking sold to a testing facility?! What the ever living hell? Who did that to their own god damn child?
He gaped at Tommy's back when the other seemed to carry on like it was no big deal, like it was just kind of normal for your dad to hit you and sell you to a testing facility where they do god knows what.
Billy felt...so angry. Holy shit he was mad, and so much more so than he would have figured. He felt his fingers start to tingle and quickly took a few calming breaths, blowing up his room his first day was something that wasn't going to help anyone.
Parents like that shouldn't exist. Parents like that should- "They shouldn't get away with that."
And now Billy looked more familiar than he had before, the fire in his eyes something Tommy had seen in the mirror. He wavered back toward maybe believing this insanity, maybe accepting the idea that he had... what? Random siblings? A twin? Tommy had been a ‘miracle baby’ of sorts, an unexpected pregnancy when his parents had been trying for a long time, or at least that’s how the story had gone. Maybe there was a lot more to it than that.
Not like he could phone them up and ask. Their number had been disconnected when he’d tried, just that once. They probably didn’t even know he’d escaped.
“Welcome to the real world,” Tommy replied with a shrug a lot more casual than he felt at the moment. And a pang of something, because he didn’t know for sure that Billy’d had it easier – but it wasn’t Tommy’s job to try and guess. “Where random shit happens and the points don’t matter.” Except maybe some things weren’t all that random after all. “When did your powers show up?”
It took Billy a second to finally calm down from the anger the welled up in him when he thought about Tommy going through that, but he was able to push it aside for now. Getting angry wasn't going to help anyone.
"About three or four weeks ago." Billy pressed his lips together in a thin line and did his best not to think about that day. "So, still super new to all of it. What about you?"
Bobby had told him Tommy's had been awhile ago or something along those lines and that it had changed him. "Bobby told me about your hair and eyes, was it just suddenly white hair and green eyes or was it gradual?"
“I’ve had my powers for a couple of years,” Tommy smirked, his agitation settling down to something more familiar, the ‘so tell me about your powers’ conversation one he’d gotten used to since getting to Xavier’s. “Seventh grade was exciting, what can I say? But yeah; Bobby talks too much. It was overnight, literally. My powers showed up, I went to bed that night looking like you, I woke up looking like me. Maybe you’ll catch up to my level of awesome eventually,” he soothed generously.
"Uh huh." Billy rolled his eyes at that statement, the sarcasm in his voice heavy. "I can only cross my fingers and hope."
Billy watched his double for a moment before just asking. "How long did it take you to get used to your powers? I mean, I know running fast is different than shooting lightning, but maybe some kind of estimate would help? I'm tired of ruining things and people cause of control issues."
“I also blow shit up,” Tommy added helpfully. “It’s not just all breaking the sound barrier around here.” He was deeply tempted to show off on the pillow that Billy had whipped at him, but his control still wasn’t that refined. Shaking down the dorm room was probably a bad idea considering he was already walking on eggshells after the last couple of weeks.
“About a month of messing around before I figured out how to turn it on and off properly,” he guessed. “And I still don’t know if there’s an upper limit. To either power.” And then there had been the experiments, and the continuing question of whether anything they’d done to him had stuck, but that was a private thing. He didn’t share it.
“You’ll end up training in the danger room sooner or later. It’s this big-ass shielded gym where we get to practice with powers without actually breaking anything. Or anyone.”
"You can blow stuff up?" Billy asked shocked. He didn't know why he thought that was so cool, Billy himself could blow stuff up with a properly placed shock, but it was probably because Tommy knew how to purposely do it and not just by accident.
He listened and grew a little disheartened, having already had his powers for almost a month and he still had no idea how to really even summon them except for small sparks. He knew how to float, sort of, but other than that he was still completely out of control.
"The danger room? That sounds ominous, but I guess it's aptly named since it's the power training room. That's kind of nice though, I won't have to worry about frying anyone if the lightning gets out of control."
Billy sat there for a moment before smirking and looking up at Tommy. "Sooooo... how fast are you?"
“If I push it I can pass Mach one. Terry lost ten bucks betting that I couldn’t trigger a sonic boom.” Tommy grinned wide then eyed Billy, considering. “Your lightning – fuck you very much for that, by the way. How big can you go?”
"Holy shit. That's amazing." Billy's awe was short lived though, cause when Tommy asked about his powers Billy's face fell and he hunched his shoulders. "Ahhh, well. I guess the biggest I've ever gone was when they manifested. It was a very huge bolt."
Billy bit his bottom lip and decided to get it out there. He'd told Bobby so why not Tommy. "The guy I hit went into cardiac arrest, among other things. I've been too scared to try anything bigger."
Tommy paused partway through checking out a wrapped pepperoni stick he’d found in one of his pockets. The lightning strike had fused the plastic to the beef, but with a little work he’d still probably be able to peel it off... hang on. “You killed a guy?” he asked, eyebrows going up. “That’s hardcore.”
Billy shot off his bed faster than he had ever done anything else, moving over to Tommy shaking his head and arms frantically. "No! No! No! I did not kill him! I did not kill him. They were able to resuscitate him and he just woke up from his coma yesterday, so he's not dead."
He needed Tommy to understand this. He wasn't a killer, no matter how horrible Kessler had been to him, he would never want him to die.
"Whoa! Slow your roll there, space cadet." Not that Tommy was particularly concerned, but the change in Billy's attitude was super-dramatic. He was starting to think that having a pseudo-brother was going to be more entertaining than not. "I'm just saying, that kind of shit happens sometimes."
"Well, it didn't." Billy made sure to state one last time for good measure. He was about to sit back down on his bed when Tommy's words made him think, tilting his head and giving the other a curious look.
"Have you ever...done it?" He whispered it, as if someone was watching them and he needed to keep it a secret.
The temptation to mess with him was just too damn much. No jury would convict. Tommy made sure that he Looked Shocked. “First murder, now you’re asking me about my sex life? Even if we are brothers, that’s too much information, dude.” His lip twitched, the funny hard to hold back.
"W-wait, wha?" Billy's while face flushed scarlet and he quickly moved out to shove at Tommy's shoulder. "That was not what I was talking about, you ass! Geeze!"
He realized a little too late that he was making a huge deal out of a stupid joke like the virgin he was and quickly tried to calm down, rubbing at his cheeks to get rid of the red. "I mean...you know what I was asking."
Tommy snickered. “You’re too easy, you know that? I could get used to the sibling thing if it’s this entertaining all the time.” He finally got the weirdly melted wrapper off the end of the pepperoni, but it kept sticking further down.
Giving up, Tommy shrugged. “No,” he said. “The answer you wanted, right? I’ve never killed anyone. Buildings, yes. People, no.” Didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it, during the long dark nights in his cell, but he didn’t have that kind of blood on his hands.
"Building?" Billy muttered as he could feel his cheeks starting to cool down and he watched Tommy try to unwrap a snack stick. "What do you mean building?"
And yes, he was relieved to hear his weird kinda-twin brother hadn't killed anyone. It was actually a huge relief. He paused for a second before gaping at Tommy with a look of disbelief. "Did you blow up a building!?"
“Two, if you count a lab complex as one thing. But stop your stressing; it was abandoned already and they deserved it.” And that was about as much as he was willing to talk about that. “Look, everybody here’s got some story like yours or mine – or worse. If you bug out like that every time, it’s gonna make things weird. My advice? Chill out and learn to roll with the crazy.”
"Y-yeah. Okay, you're right." He agreed with a slow nod, figuring he wouldn't like people freaking out when he told them about Kessler. "Sorry. I didn't mean to make a big deal about it."
He looked down at his feet and was quiet for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders a little. "Still, blowing up a building is pretty bad ass."
“Yeah, it was. And I’ll make sure to call you as a character witness next time I end up in juvenile court,” Tommy replied, his grin only a little bit sardonic. “Look, the first day or two here is rough. And you didn’t exactly have the easiest introduction to some people. But by this time next week, fucked-up will be your new normal.” He meant it to sound reassuring. Mostly. “What don’t you know, yet?”
"Ah, well, everything?" He really didn't mean for that to sound as pathetic as it did, but he couldn't help it and he gave a helpless smile. "I know I'll pick things up as I go and being lost and confused is kinda the norm for being in a new place so I kinda have to suck it up."
Though, unlike middle school and his old high school, he was starting out with zero friends. Hell, he didn't even know anyone, except Tommy, Bobby and the weird guys back there. "Is there set times to eat and stuff? Like a regular school?"
"Yeah, pretty much. The cafeteria has hours, but we can use the kitchen whenever. The staff are pretty lax about everything, as long as we show up to class and don't leave the place a dump." Tommy shrugged. He actually hadn't cut class yet; a record for him. He should probably try it at least once before September to find out what would happen. (Probably nothing, considering his record of avoiding real consequences so far.)
"Did Bobby give you the grand tour already?"
"No. He came by to welcome me and gave me..." Billy went over to his chest of drawers and pulled out the black t-shirt Bobby had given him. "This. This place is huge though, I know there was a small map on the pamphlet Xavier gave me and my parents, but I didn't really look at it before."
Billy shoved the shirt back in the drawer, not bothering to fold it which his mom would have lectured him for, but she wasn't here right now. So it's all Billy now. "Did this really used to be his home? I may have googled him."
“So they say.” Tommy glanced out the window at the rolling grounds below, not that impressed. “It’s hard to imagine a family living in a place like this, though. Not unless they had something like a dozen kids and a bunch of servants. It’s huge – took me a couple of days to find all the interesting hideouts and back stairs.”
That was exactly his thoughts as well, but maybe crazy rich people thought that big was a must when it came to housing. He smiled over at Tommy as he shut the drawer and crossed his arms. "Hide outs? Do tell. Are we talking alcoves or legitimate hideouts?"
In an old mansion like this? Billy wouldn't be surprised if there was a secret door in the library or something mysterious. Maybe the maid killed someone in the library-with the candle stick. Ha ha ha. He was cracking himself up.
“Both,” Tommy grinned. Was it asking the universe for too much to hope that he’d found another partner in crime? (metaphorically speaking, anyway. If Billy had ever done so much as jaywalk on purpose, Tommy would be intensely surprised.) “There’s a whole set of stairs in the walls that I think must have been for the butler or some shit like that; the doors look like regular wall panels until you know they’re there.”
"Holy crap, that is so fucking cool." Billy couldn't help but grin back at Tommy, seeing his exact expression across from him without a mirror wasn't weirding him out as much anymore. "And they aren't closed off or anything? You'd think that when you decide to open a school for kids you would try to get rid of all that could cause an issue. Do you know where they lead?"
Tommy nodded. “Up and down, mostly. At least one looks like it heads off-campus; like a bolt-hole. That one looks new, not like the house was part of the underground railroad or anything. I figure Xavier still thinks they’re useful. Not for himself, right. Not with the wheelchair. But for something. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be down there, but the dude’s a telepath. If he can’t figure out what I was doing, he needs to step up his game.”
"Oh, that's right I forgot about his power." Billy chewed on a ragged hang nail for a moment as he thought. "I wonder what's at the end of it. If it leads off campus, what could be off campus that needs secret stairs?"
He finally bit the hang nail off, but into the quick and with a shrug wiped the blood on his zipup hoodie. "Want to find out?"
Tommy revised his opinion of Billy upward another tentative half-notch or so. “Sure, what the hell,” he agreed easily. “Follow me, and I’ll show you around.”
"Okay. Cool." Billy went and grabbed his phone, making sure it was at least semi charged before unplugging it and shoving it into his pocket.
He stopped for a second before opening the door and looking over at Tommy with concern pinching his brow. "Hey, are you going to be okay going back to your room with him...like that? You could-you know-stay in here tonight if you wanted. I don't have a roommate or anything. At least not yet."
Tommy shrugged it off immediately. “Ehh. Yasha’s bark is a lot worse than his bite.” And he grinned at the idea of just how badly his roommate would take that particular joke. “If he’d actually wanted to rip my throat out he’d have done it on day one.”
But he thought about it again, about going back to his room and dealing with Growly McBarkface and whatever the hell he and Illyana had cooked up. And he looked around at the half-empty room and the vaguely shell-shocked kid with his own face on. And he arched an eyebrow. “But if you’re scared he’s going to break in here and start busting heads or something, I can stick around. Play bodyguard.”
Billy gave him a disbelieving look before shaking his head with a quiet laugh. "Yeah sure. Stay here to protect me from the guy. Whatever you want."
Tommy flipped his fingers up in a ‘whatever’ sort of gesture. “Suit yourself. You’re the one who offered.”
"Uh huh. Now come on." Billy opened the door and checked the hallway to make sure they were in the clear and no one could try and stop them. "Show me the place."
"For fuck's sake," Tommy growled, and he slammed out the door, following Billy. "Girls," he said pointedly, once they were alone in the hallway, "are not worth it." He took a moment, let out a breath fast enough that Billy probably wouldn't even notice the pause, and got himself centered. "Come on. We'll talk in your room."
Billy cleared his throat, not knowing what to say to that but he nodded and started to lead Tommy towards his own room. "Yeah, sure. And I don't have a roommate yet so there won't be any more crazy interruptions."
They went back to his room, opening the door and gesturing for Tommy to go in before heading in himself and closing the door behind them. He flushed a little, forgetting that he had already hung up all his posters and hoped Tommy would just ignore it.
The room was pretty much exactly the same as Tommy’s, except for one obviously-unused side and some more personal stuff scattered around the space. Tommy flung himself on the unclaimed bed as though it was his, and he stared at Billy with a frown. Now that he was out from under Inu-yasha’s stupid growling and Illyana’s snide comments, he wasn’t exactly sure where to begin.
“So what the fuck,” he asked, since it was something to say.
Billy moved to sit on his own bed when Tommy occupied the spare bed in the room, letting out a loud and tired sigh that seemed to make every muscle in his body sag. "Man, I don't know. I don't understand half of went on in there, and I really don't know how me and you look exactly alike. Apparently we even smell the same? Which is something I never thought would be a thing."
Billy moved back so he could lean his back against the wall, toeing his shoes off so he could cross his legs on the bed. "What did that girl mean by another one? Please don't tell me we have another kid around here that looks like us...a...a triplet or something."
Tommy snorted a bitter laugh. “It’s not that bad. I don’t think. There was a ... thing. Last week. A bunch of us ran into a bunch of other mutant kids. One of them had my powers, and looked like me. Not as much as you do, and he and his sister are a couple of years older than us, but he had the same hair and eye colour. People have been giving me shit about having an older brother ever since.
“I thought maybe the white hair was a speedster thing, but Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie have black hair so even that doesn’t pan out.” He paused, realized how some of that sounded, and shrugged mentally. “JP and JM are twins, they’re students here too. Speed powers, flying, light blasts. She’s hot, he’s gay. They’re cool.”
Billy blinked at all the information provided there and tried to connect all of them. One good thing out of that was at least he wouldn't be the only gay dude here. Thank fuck. "Okay. So this guy you met, you said he had a sister? What were her powers?"
Maybe Billy’s stupid wanting powers had done this? But he already had two brothers, why the hell would he ever want another one? This was so confusing.
“No idea,” Tommy admitted. “She didn’t use them while I was around, and we weren’t exactly having a quiet conversation over tea. It’s a long story,” he dismissed the topic; the facility was the last thing he wanted to go into again.
“But what I said in there was true. I’m an only child, so unless my parents had kids, then got rid of them and any evidence that my mother was pregnant before, then had me? I’m not saying it’s impossible, because my take on possible versus impossible has changed a whole lot in the past few months. But it’s pretty damn unlikely.”
Tommy narrowed his eyes at Billy. “When is your birthday, anyway? And where are you actually from?”
"Yeah. And my parents had two more after me, so it's highly unlikely they would have had twins and given one up or something." Billy played with the corner of his comforter, twisting it between his fingers and then smoothing it out.
"My birthday is June 21st. And I'm actually from New York." He did finger quotes around the word actually, because what else could he say? I'm from the moon? "What about you?"
“Jersey,” Tommy replied, the frown deepening. The other answer took a minute, like it was being pulled out of him. “And June 21st. I just turned fifteen.” Not that this year had been a party. He’d been unconscious in Xavier’s infirmary, detoxing from whatever the lab had shot him up with last. Some birthday.
The room was quiet as Billy let that information sink in. The fact that they had different parents, were born in hospitals that were far from each other didn't seem to match up with how everything else looked. "I just turned fifteen too."
He shifted his legs and blew out a slow breath. "So...we look the same, same age, same birthday and we're both mutants. I mean, God, we are twins, but obviously not. This makes my head hurt."
Billy grabbed his pillow and squeezed it, almost hoping it would give him the answers. Maybe he could try his other power? Ugh, but he hated the idea of willingly using it, not knowing what it could do or what it was capable of, but that thought made him glance at Tommy guiltily. "Umm...but I have to confess something. At least to you."
Tommy tensed, warning bells going off faintly in the back of his head. He’d literally met the guy five minutes ago. What could he possibly have to confess? Unless ... unless this was a plant, some trick by the Brotherhood kids to get him alone and with his guard down.
Shit. If Inu-yasha was right, Tommy was never going to fucking live this down. He kept his voice light, but his eye on the door. “If you’re a furry, I seriously don’t need to know.”
Billy blanched and actual brother instincts kicked in as he lobbed his pillow across the room at Tommy.
"God! Really?!" He rolled his eyes and tried to look annoyed, but couldn't help the slight twitch his lips made at a smile. "No. I'm not a furry, dear god. No, what I wanted to say was...that I might possibly know what magic those guys in the other room were talking about. If it even is magic."
He moved to sit on his knees as he tried his best to figure out how to explain it. "I have this thing, besides the electricity and the piss poor attempt at levitation, where sometimes if I want something bad enough...it kind of comes true? It doesn't happen often, it's only happened three times so far, but I think that might be what Inu-yasha smelled?"
Tommy bolted across the bed when Billy threw something, and the pillow passed harmlessly through the space where he wasn’t. He grabbed it out of the air, willed his racing heart to slow down, and dropped back to sit, pillow still in his hands.
He listened to Billy’s hesitating explanation with a faint and growing sense of disbelief, smacking his face with the palm of his hand and dragging it down to rub at his eyes. “That was some performance in there, Mr. ‘I don’t know anything about magic,’” Tommy replied, “unless ‘wishing on a star’ is a mutant power now. So what the hell did you ‘want’ in there? If it was for me to come close to getting my face punched in, you and I are going to have a little come-to-Jesus moment of our own in a minute.”
Billy had heard of speedsters, knew they were fast, but to see the power in action was pretty damn amazing.
"No!" He quickly got up and waved his arms as if to get rid of Tommy's accusation. "I swear I only just connected the dots like a few minutes ago before we left your room and honestly I really don't know what I wanted. I mean getting Inuyasha off me was a pretty big want, but I used my electric powers for that."
He sighed and flopped back down onto his bed. "I honestly don't know what I could have wanted, except maybe...wanting to figure out about you."
“And look at that, here we are,” Tommy drawled, his wariness not exactly easing after that revelation. Billy didn’t feel like a threat, not the way some people did, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
But what now? Tommy looked around the room, taking it in. Superheroes, posters from bad Syfy movies, clothes that looked like they’d been bought new, for Billy – it screamed ‘normal childhood’ so loud that his brain hurt. “Your family,” he prodded, changing the subject back again. “What are they like?”
"My family? Uhhh." How do you put the Kaplans into words?
"Well, I mean my dad's a cardiologist, he's super big on mythology and stuff. He's the good cop when me and my brothers get in trouble, ‘cause my mom can be scary as hell when she's mad. Mom is a psychologist and good at it unfortunately, so you get a lot of terms thrown at you when you have a feelings talk."
Billy leaned back and thought about his brothers. "Two little brothers. Annoying as hell. What about you?"
There had been a moment, just one, where Tommy had imagined they might have something other than their looks in common. But apparently ‘scary as hell’ just meant ‘makes mouth noises when angry,’ and that was hardly a problem. Not the kind of problem that actually meant anything, anyway.
“It’s like I said; it’s just me. My parents are – supposedly, I guess – Frank and Mary Shepherd. I grew up in Newark. I don’t suppose those names mean anything to you.”
Billy shook his head at the names, he'd never met a Frank and Mary Shepherd and he'd only been to Newark maybe twice in his whole life. "No, sorry. I've never heard of them."
Billy scratched at the back of his neck and glanced out the window, not really knowing what to say now. He bit at the inside of his cheek before looking back over at Tommy, ready to ask something he was probably going to get attitude for even bringing up, but he had to know. "Why did you protect me from him? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm super grateful, it's just you don't really know me."
Tommy’s stomach sank, his chest filling with something cold. He should lie, make something up, pass it all off as some fleeting whim, or blame it on a non-existent (but totally plausible) existing feud with his roommate. Maybe Billy had cast some kind of spell on him after all, or maybe the sheer weight of fucked up from the last couple of weeks was finally collapsing in on him, but... he didn’t want to.
Just once, he wanted someone to know. And then he’d know what would happen, after. (And who better than a new kid who no-one would believe anyway?)
So he looked Billy in the eye, the cold filling him up and protecting him the way the sparks and the speed did, a shell around himself to keep out the world. “Because when my dad pulled that shit, no-one helped me.”
Billy's eyes widened considerably and he scrambled mentally for anything to say to that. Oh shit, what did you say to a victim of abuse? His mom would know! He felt like this was a hug moment, but Tommy was probably the last person that would want a hug right now and they barely knew one another. Should he like give him a back pat?
No! Back pats were for like winning a sports ball game or something and holding hands was completely out of the question!
Instead he took a deep breath and nodded his head. "I'm sorry, that's really fucking awful. I-Is that partly why you’re here?"
There was something dark and perversely satisfying about seeing the shock on Billy’s face, almost like... recognition that Tommy had lived through shit that was actually bad, rather than just something everyone else had to deal with too. Like he wasn’t weak for feeling twisted up inside about it.
“Nah,” Tommy drawled casually, bouncing on the bed to pop up to his feet. He paced the room out, stopping by the window to look out at the campus below. He folded his arms in front of him, a sardonic smile growing on his face. “I’m here because they sold me to a test facility to be used as a lab rat, but I busted out.” He didn’t actually know whether money had changed hands or not, but Frank sure as hell wouldn’t have turned down an offer.
“And that part’s all over school already, thanks to last week’s super-exciting field trip. But don’t get full of yourself, or anything. I only actually care because we’re too good-looking to be seen around here with bruises.”
Billy jumped out of his skin when Tommy told him about being fucking sold to a testing facility?! What the ever living hell? Who did that to their own god damn child?
He gaped at Tommy's back when the other seemed to carry on like it was no big deal, like it was just kind of normal for your dad to hit you and sell you to a testing facility where they do god knows what.
Billy felt...so angry. Holy shit he was mad, and so much more so than he would have figured. He felt his fingers start to tingle and quickly took a few calming breaths, blowing up his room his first day was something that wasn't going to help anyone.
Parents like that shouldn't exist. Parents like that should- "They shouldn't get away with that."
And now Billy looked more familiar than he had before, the fire in his eyes something Tommy had seen in the mirror. He wavered back toward maybe believing this insanity, maybe accepting the idea that he had... what? Random siblings? A twin? Tommy had been a ‘miracle baby’ of sorts, an unexpected pregnancy when his parents had been trying for a long time, or at least that’s how the story had gone. Maybe there was a lot more to it than that.
Not like he could phone them up and ask. Their number had been disconnected when he’d tried, just that once. They probably didn’t even know he’d escaped.
“Welcome to the real world,” Tommy replied with a shrug a lot more casual than he felt at the moment. And a pang of something, because he didn’t know for sure that Billy’d had it easier – but it wasn’t Tommy’s job to try and guess. “Where random shit happens and the points don’t matter.” Except maybe some things weren’t all that random after all. “When did your powers show up?”
It took Billy a second to finally calm down from the anger the welled up in him when he thought about Tommy going through that, but he was able to push it aside for now. Getting angry wasn't going to help anyone.
"About three or four weeks ago." Billy pressed his lips together in a thin line and did his best not to think about that day. "So, still super new to all of it. What about you?"
Bobby had told him Tommy's had been awhile ago or something along those lines and that it had changed him. "Bobby told me about your hair and eyes, was it just suddenly white hair and green eyes or was it gradual?"
“I’ve had my powers for a couple of years,” Tommy smirked, his agitation settling down to something more familiar, the ‘so tell me about your powers’ conversation one he’d gotten used to since getting to Xavier’s. “Seventh grade was exciting, what can I say? But yeah; Bobby talks too much. It was overnight, literally. My powers showed up, I went to bed that night looking like you, I woke up looking like me. Maybe you’ll catch up to my level of awesome eventually,” he soothed generously.
"Uh huh." Billy rolled his eyes at that statement, the sarcasm in his voice heavy. "I can only cross my fingers and hope."
Billy watched his double for a moment before just asking. "How long did it take you to get used to your powers? I mean, I know running fast is different than shooting lightning, but maybe some kind of estimate would help? I'm tired of ruining things and people cause of control issues."
“I also blow shit up,” Tommy added helpfully. “It’s not just all breaking the sound barrier around here.” He was deeply tempted to show off on the pillow that Billy had whipped at him, but his control still wasn’t that refined. Shaking down the dorm room was probably a bad idea considering he was already walking on eggshells after the last couple of weeks.
“About a month of messing around before I figured out how to turn it on and off properly,” he guessed. “And I still don’t know if there’s an upper limit. To either power.” And then there had been the experiments, and the continuing question of whether anything they’d done to him had stuck, but that was a private thing. He didn’t share it.
“You’ll end up training in the danger room sooner or later. It’s this big-ass shielded gym where we get to practice with powers without actually breaking anything. Or anyone.”
"You can blow stuff up?" Billy asked shocked. He didn't know why he thought that was so cool, Billy himself could blow stuff up with a properly placed shock, but it was probably because Tommy knew how to purposely do it and not just by accident.
He listened and grew a little disheartened, having already had his powers for almost a month and he still had no idea how to really even summon them except for small sparks. He knew how to float, sort of, but other than that he was still completely out of control.
"The danger room? That sounds ominous, but I guess it's aptly named since it's the power training room. That's kind of nice though, I won't have to worry about frying anyone if the lightning gets out of control."
Billy sat there for a moment before smirking and looking up at Tommy. "Sooooo... how fast are you?"
“If I push it I can pass Mach one. Terry lost ten bucks betting that I couldn’t trigger a sonic boom.” Tommy grinned wide then eyed Billy, considering. “Your lightning – fuck you very much for that, by the way. How big can you go?”
"Holy shit. That's amazing." Billy's awe was short lived though, cause when Tommy asked about his powers Billy's face fell and he hunched his shoulders. "Ahhh, well. I guess the biggest I've ever gone was when they manifested. It was a very huge bolt."
Billy bit his bottom lip and decided to get it out there. He'd told Bobby so why not Tommy. "The guy I hit went into cardiac arrest, among other things. I've been too scared to try anything bigger."
Tommy paused partway through checking out a wrapped pepperoni stick he’d found in one of his pockets. The lightning strike had fused the plastic to the beef, but with a little work he’d still probably be able to peel it off... hang on. “You killed a guy?” he asked, eyebrows going up. “That’s hardcore.”
Billy shot off his bed faster than he had ever done anything else, moving over to Tommy shaking his head and arms frantically. "No! No! No! I did not kill him! I did not kill him. They were able to resuscitate him and he just woke up from his coma yesterday, so he's not dead."
He needed Tommy to understand this. He wasn't a killer, no matter how horrible Kessler had been to him, he would never want him to die.
"Whoa! Slow your roll there, space cadet." Not that Tommy was particularly concerned, but the change in Billy's attitude was super-dramatic. He was starting to think that having a pseudo-brother was going to be more entertaining than not. "I'm just saying, that kind of shit happens sometimes."
"Well, it didn't." Billy made sure to state one last time for good measure. He was about to sit back down on his bed when Tommy's words made him think, tilting his head and giving the other a curious look.
"Have you ever...done it?" He whispered it, as if someone was watching them and he needed to keep it a secret.
The temptation to mess with him was just too damn much. No jury would convict. Tommy made sure that he Looked Shocked. “First murder, now you’re asking me about my sex life? Even if we are brothers, that’s too much information, dude.” His lip twitched, the funny hard to hold back.
"W-wait, wha?" Billy's while face flushed scarlet and he quickly moved out to shove at Tommy's shoulder. "That was not what I was talking about, you ass! Geeze!"
He realized a little too late that he was making a huge deal out of a stupid joke like the virgin he was and quickly tried to calm down, rubbing at his cheeks to get rid of the red. "I mean...you know what I was asking."
Tommy snickered. “You’re too easy, you know that? I could get used to the sibling thing if it’s this entertaining all the time.” He finally got the weirdly melted wrapper off the end of the pepperoni, but it kept sticking further down.
Giving up, Tommy shrugged. “No,” he said. “The answer you wanted, right? I’ve never killed anyone. Buildings, yes. People, no.” Didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it, during the long dark nights in his cell, but he didn’t have that kind of blood on his hands.
"Building?" Billy muttered as he could feel his cheeks starting to cool down and he watched Tommy try to unwrap a snack stick. "What do you mean building?"
And yes, he was relieved to hear his weird kinda-twin brother hadn't killed anyone. It was actually a huge relief. He paused for a second before gaping at Tommy with a look of disbelief. "Did you blow up a building!?"
“Two, if you count a lab complex as one thing. But stop your stressing; it was abandoned already and they deserved it.” And that was about as much as he was willing to talk about that. “Look, everybody here’s got some story like yours or mine – or worse. If you bug out like that every time, it’s gonna make things weird. My advice? Chill out and learn to roll with the crazy.”
"Y-yeah. Okay, you're right." He agreed with a slow nod, figuring he wouldn't like people freaking out when he told them about Kessler. "Sorry. I didn't mean to make a big deal about it."
He looked down at his feet and was quiet for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders a little. "Still, blowing up a building is pretty bad ass."
“Yeah, it was. And I’ll make sure to call you as a character witness next time I end up in juvenile court,” Tommy replied, his grin only a little bit sardonic. “Look, the first day or two here is rough. And you didn’t exactly have the easiest introduction to some people. But by this time next week, fucked-up will be your new normal.” He meant it to sound reassuring. Mostly. “What don’t you know, yet?”
"Ah, well, everything?" He really didn't mean for that to sound as pathetic as it did, but he couldn't help it and he gave a helpless smile. "I know I'll pick things up as I go and being lost and confused is kinda the norm for being in a new place so I kinda have to suck it up."
Though, unlike middle school and his old high school, he was starting out with zero friends. Hell, he didn't even know anyone, except Tommy, Bobby and the weird guys back there. "Is there set times to eat and stuff? Like a regular school?"
"Yeah, pretty much. The cafeteria has hours, but we can use the kitchen whenever. The staff are pretty lax about everything, as long as we show up to class and don't leave the place a dump." Tommy shrugged. He actually hadn't cut class yet; a record for him. He should probably try it at least once before September to find out what would happen. (Probably nothing, considering his record of avoiding real consequences so far.)
"Did Bobby give you the grand tour already?"
"No. He came by to welcome me and gave me..." Billy went over to his chest of drawers and pulled out the black t-shirt Bobby had given him. "This. This place is huge though, I know there was a small map on the pamphlet Xavier gave me and my parents, but I didn't really look at it before."
Billy shoved the shirt back in the drawer, not bothering to fold it which his mom would have lectured him for, but she wasn't here right now. So it's all Billy now. "Did this really used to be his home? I may have googled him."
“So they say.” Tommy glanced out the window at the rolling grounds below, not that impressed. “It’s hard to imagine a family living in a place like this, though. Not unless they had something like a dozen kids and a bunch of servants. It’s huge – took me a couple of days to find all the interesting hideouts and back stairs.”
That was exactly his thoughts as well, but maybe crazy rich people thought that big was a must when it came to housing. He smiled over at Tommy as he shut the drawer and crossed his arms. "Hide outs? Do tell. Are we talking alcoves or legitimate hideouts?"
In an old mansion like this? Billy wouldn't be surprised if there was a secret door in the library or something mysterious. Maybe the maid killed someone in the library-with the candle stick. Ha ha ha. He was cracking himself up.
“Both,” Tommy grinned. Was it asking the universe for too much to hope that he’d found another partner in crime? (metaphorically speaking, anyway. If Billy had ever done so much as jaywalk on purpose, Tommy would be intensely surprised.) “There’s a whole set of stairs in the walls that I think must have been for the butler or some shit like that; the doors look like regular wall panels until you know they’re there.”
"Holy crap, that is so fucking cool." Billy couldn't help but grin back at Tommy, seeing his exact expression across from him without a mirror wasn't weirding him out as much anymore. "And they aren't closed off or anything? You'd think that when you decide to open a school for kids you would try to get rid of all that could cause an issue. Do you know where they lead?"
Tommy nodded. “Up and down, mostly. At least one looks like it heads off-campus; like a bolt-hole. That one looks new, not like the house was part of the underground railroad or anything. I figure Xavier still thinks they’re useful. Not for himself, right. Not with the wheelchair. But for something. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be down there, but the dude’s a telepath. If he can’t figure out what I was doing, he needs to step up his game.”
"Oh, that's right I forgot about his power." Billy chewed on a ragged hang nail for a moment as he thought. "I wonder what's at the end of it. If it leads off campus, what could be off campus that needs secret stairs?"
He finally bit the hang nail off, but into the quick and with a shrug wiped the blood on his zipup hoodie. "Want to find out?"
Tommy revised his opinion of Billy upward another tentative half-notch or so. “Sure, what the hell,” he agreed easily. “Follow me, and I’ll show you around.”
"Okay. Cool." Billy went and grabbed his phone, making sure it was at least semi charged before unplugging it and shoving it into his pocket.
He stopped for a second before opening the door and looking over at Tommy with concern pinching his brow. "Hey, are you going to be okay going back to your room with him...like that? You could-you know-stay in here tonight if you wanted. I don't have a roommate or anything. At least not yet."
Tommy shrugged it off immediately. “Ehh. Yasha’s bark is a lot worse than his bite.” And he grinned at the idea of just how badly his roommate would take that particular joke. “If he’d actually wanted to rip my throat out he’d have done it on day one.”
But he thought about it again, about going back to his room and dealing with Growly McBarkface and whatever the hell he and Illyana had cooked up. And he looked around at the half-empty room and the vaguely shell-shocked kid with his own face on. And he arched an eyebrow. “But if you’re scared he’s going to break in here and start busting heads or something, I can stick around. Play bodyguard.”
Billy gave him a disbelieving look before shaking his head with a quiet laugh. "Yeah sure. Stay here to protect me from the guy. Whatever you want."
Tommy flipped his fingers up in a ‘whatever’ sort of gesture. “Suit yourself. You’re the one who offered.”
"Uh huh. Now come on." Billy opened the door and checked the hallway to make sure they were in the clear and no one could try and stop them. "Show me the place."
no subject
Date: 2017-09-01 09:35 pm (UTC)