ax_main | Fatale and Billy

Billy and Fatale hit the pool.

"I hope you know how to do this better than I do," Pam grumbled as she peeled off the oversized Xavier's tee she'd thrown on over the white bikini she'd picked up at the store the week before. She could swim, yeah - if by swimming you meant staying above water rather than drowning.

Still, summer was coming, and she - well, was maybe hoping to spend some of it outside this year, seeing as she was stuck here and there was an outside worth spending time in. And there was a lake. She might as well get in some practice, seeing as the place had a pool, and Billy wasn't likely to give a fuck whether she had scars criss-crossing her arms, legs, and abdomen or not. It wasn't like he didn't have his own.

"Swimming? It's easy." Billy flashed her an eager smile. He'd followed her example with regard to modesty, and now he shucked his own tee-shirt over his head, revealing a Frankenstein's monster's collection of surgical incisions and battle scars trenching his lean torso. "Don't worry, you'll do great." He'd opted for black swim trunks (with the usual school logo on the hip, naturally). Goodnight had taken up station on one of the pool chairs with the promise to play lifeguard, even if he was a bit overdressed for the role.

"I'm not worried; I know how to stay above water." Pam flicked a look over at the lifeguard in question, then back at Billy, eyebrows raised. "So, which of us is he here to babysit, me or you?" she asked. Because seriously, it wasn't like either of them was likely to start throwing knives in a pool. Even if someone like Kitty-Cat girl did come in unexpectedly. She was past that.

"Me." Billy shrugged. "I like him nearby. He likes being near me." He turned his attenion back to the pool, got a running start, and threw himself out as far into the water as he could manage. He surfaced, shaking his hair out of his eyes and beaming. "Come on!"

Weird. Pam tossed another glance at Goody and considered pointing out that she'd asked Billy to go swimming, not him - then paused. She'd been damn near fucking inseparable from Alex for how long after getting out? And there'd been only a fraction of the number of people at Asteroid M compared to here. Maybe it was more weird that Billy had accepted than that he'd brought Goody along.

In any case, the "Come on" had clearly been meant as a challenge, and she wasn't about to ignore that, even if she wasn't quite prepared to follow his lead and jump in. She made a face at him, just on principle, and sat down on the edge of the pool, then slowly slid down into the water. "So, where'd you learn to swim anyway?"

Billy swam over to her, submerged until he popped up a couple of feet away. "At the first facility I was at. In Korea. It was more like a boot camp than the place X-Force rescued us from. Intense training - powers, schooling, and weapons - but not like the facility."

"Huh." Pam let that sink in, still holding onto the pool's wall with one hand, and went underwater to wet her hair, then came back up and pushed it back from her face. "Wonder what kind of agenda they had. How many of you were there?"

"I don't know. I wasn't always working with anyone my age, and they switched us up when we did." Billy shrugged. "I was called 'Twelve' there, so at least that many, I guess."

"Ugggh. I hated the numbers. I was Subject Number Six for a while," she admitted, making a face. "I forget who first started calling me Fatale, but it wasn't until a lot later."

Billy definitely agreed with that sentiment; he liked being Billy a lot more than he'd liked having a designation.

"Gross." He wrinkled his nose in empathy. "Goodnight helped me pick out 'Billy' the first time they put us in together. It's much better having a name."

"You didn't have one before that? For real?" That...well, that made her throat close up, a little. What the fuck was that about, anyway?

"Not one that I remember. But I like being Billy." He pushed off the wall lightly enough to keep from splashing Pam, and began treading water. "Did you want to swim?"

"I guess?" Pam grinned crookedly and pushed away from the wall, moving her arms and legs just enough to keep herself above water. "Billy's cool." She paused for a moment, then admitted, "I gave up on Pam, pretty much."

"Oh." Billy bobbed under for a moment, then resurfaced closer to her. "Would you rather be Fatale?"

"I don't know. Sometimes its easier. Fatale...I always know what to do when I'm her, y'know?" She shrugged, her eyes clouded, and sank a little before remembering to keep herself afloat.

After a moment, Billy nodded. There was so much familiar in what she was saying. He remembered how he hadn't felt anything as Yol-Tul. He hadn't even had the grounding of that designation once he'd been taken from the school. After the hospitals. He'd eaten, he'd slept, he'd trained, he'd obeyed. Pain happened, but it didn't matter, because if he died, that didn't matter either. There had been no need for doubt. No need to think. No use for anything like that, until Goodnight. Just the grey certainty of routine and orders.

But he was missing some vital experience contained in Pam's words, because he would do almost anything to keep from going back to being a forgotten number. And Fatale was different, even if she came from the facility. A shield for Pam? A shelter? Strength? He didn't understand well enough to know for sure. He just knew it wasn't the same as it had been for him, even if it felt like it was.

"Pam was my friend first," he said after another beat. "But Fatale's cool too."

"Pam's -" There were so many ways to continue that. A moron came to mind. Gullible. Scared. Clingy. Freaked out by what they'd done to her. Unable to cope. Dead.

But maybe not as dead as she had been, this time last year.

"Whatever. I'm your friend, whoever I am," she promised. That much, she knew.

"I didn't doubt you," Billy promised, then lightly nudged her shoulder with his. "Do you know how to do dolphin kicks? I'll show you."

"How would dolphins kick?" Pam asked in lieu of an affirmative answer, but she directed her attention to his legs, obviously expecting a demonstration. "They don't have feet."

"No. But people do." By way of demonstration, Billy ducked under the surface again and launched himself off the wall. He kept his momentum going with a nose-to-toes full body undulation that was strongly reminicent of a dolphin moving through the water. He popped above water for a quick breath, went into a brief butterfly stroke until he hit the far wall, then pushed himself off in a rather more clumsy launch, all the make his way back to Pam underwater again. He emerged breathing hard, but smiling.

"See? Easy."

Yeah. Right. Just like that. Pam rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Easy. Any chance we can go back to Lesson 2 - What To Do Now That You're Not Drowning? Because there's no way I can move like that."

"I've seen you in the Danger Room. You so can move like that." But Billy didn't push the matter, only shrugged. "OK, though. We can do something else. Maybe something we both don't know? We can work it out together?"

"No, just...show me again, ok?" Pam made a face and admitted, "This is about as much as I know how to swim, okay? I can stay up. Show me how to go somewhere?"