Teddy and Lil - April 21
Apr. 21st, 2018 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainLil finds Teddy trying to deal with the aftermath of discovering he's heir to an alien empire and, in her way, manages to offer some comfort.
Lil had spent two days looking for Teddy and thinking about what she’d say to him when she finally found him. Teddy hadn’t made it easy. If she spotted him, he’d disappear around the next corner. If someone told her where he was, he’d be gone by the time she got there. She didn’t think he was hiding from her exactly, but he did seem to be making an effort to stay away from, well, everything.
She couldn’t blame him, not when he was sitting there on the bench, staring off into the distance and looking for all the world like he’d gotten lost in the hedge maze and given up trying to find his way out. Lost, lonely, and all the things that were painfully familiar to Lil. Not that she’d ever been a space alien, but some shit is universal, and she didn’t need to be related to martians to guess at what Teddy was feeling.
God, she needed to hug him.
“Hey!” She smiled as she walked up to him. “Found you. That’s the longest fucking game of hide and seek I ever played.”
Teddy hadn't intended to hide, it was just a lot easier than trying to figure out who knew and who was looking at him funny. It was like fall semester all over again, except this time there wasn't a Billy waiting for him at the other end of the dark.
On top of that... Everything felt different, looked different - even when he knew nothing but him had changed. It was unsteadying and left him shaky, using up all his energy just to get through meals and class without losing his marbles in the process.
So he found himself in the hedge maze again, but walking the paths didn't make him feel any more centered, this time. He'd been vaguely aware of footsteps, but didn't snap back in to focus until Lil's voice cut in to the mess of his thoughts.
"I'm sorry," he apologized reflexively. "I - what? No, I wasn't hiding. I was just-" Panicking again. "Thinking."
“Ugh.” Lil rolled her eyes and sat down beside him, making sure she was close enough to throw an arm over his shoulder if she needed too. “Thinking sucks. You should just follow my lead and never, ever do it.”
He bumped his shoulder against hers, already feeling... Not better, exactly, but a little less small-in-a-massive-universe. "I might give that a try. It can't be any less helpful than what I've been doing."
Teddy sighed, setting aside the sketchbook he hadn't even bothered to open. "I keep thinking that if I can just find the right approach - there'll be one thread I can pull on to unravel everything until it makes sense again."
"That's the wrong metaphor to use on knitter. All I can picture is you destroying a nice sweater or something." Lil wiggled a little closer, figuring that cuddling up a bit was okay if he was giving her the customary shoulder bump. "But I get it, I think. Shit must be seriously confusing right now."
"Beyond confusing," he admitted. But he didn't have to keep up a front to Lil; she'd been there when it all went down, and she didn't care if he freaked out. "I have to rethink everything. Because through every minute of my life, my mother and I have been aliens. So everything I thought I understood... is wrong."
"Like... I thought I didn't get shots because my mom was a bit of a California hippie, but it's actually because she didn't want doctors to realize I wasn't human.
"Or -- another one. She puts pickles on her pizza. Like, not cooked, she puts slices on top of the cheese afterwards. And when I used to tease her about she'd blame me, and say it was a holdover from before I was born. And I thought she meant pregnancy cravings, you know? But she was never pregnant."
He rested his elbows on his knees and stared at his running shoes. "It's all stupid stuff when I say it out loud, but they're the things that made up my life story."
Lil reached an arm across his back and put her head on his shoulder. "Yeah, not stupid at all. I think that's the most important stuff. I mean, everybody's had pizza so that part doesn't make it special or all about you, but the pickle thing does. I get that."
Her touch was comforting, and he hadn't even had to ask. Teddy reached up and squeezed her hand, letting himself sag a little more. "I have to look at all of my memories differently now. How much of anything was because she's this funny, quirky, kind Army widow- and how much is because she's an alien pretending to be that person?"
Even though he knew he was starting to ramble, he couldn't stop the flood of words once he'd started. "When she accepted my coming-out so easily, was it because she was actually fine with it? ... or maybe because she already knew nothing about Earth politics was going to matter. Or worse, she didn't care because I'm not her kid and she knew she wasn't going to have to deal with whatever happens later." His heart hurt, his throat closing, and if he wasn't careful he was going to start crying again.
"Oh my God. No, Teddy. She did all that 'cause she was your mom, and she loved you. You don't put in seventeen years with someone, and make them seventeen really good years if you don't love them." He needed more arms. He needed a blanket, piles of food, Billy... something more than her sad attempts at talking this out. Too bad she was the only one around right now.
"Maybe you got a lot of stuff you're gonna be wondering about, but don't doubt this. I've heard about your mom, and from what I've heard there's no fucking way she didn't love you."
That - yeah, that helped, even though the part of him that was so angry didn't want to listen. (Was he angry at her because it was her fault, or because it was safer than being angry at all the other Skrulls who had put him in this situation? He knew what the Professor would probably say.) "And three days ago I would have said there was no way, no way at all, that she wasn't human." His eyes were watering and he dashed the wetness away with the back of his hand. "She lied about so many things. How can I believe that anything she said was true?"
"I... I don't know." And she didn't. Teddy was asking a big question that Lil didn't have the answer for. "I'm not that smart, but I don't think you have to figure that out right now. She loved you - that's the important thing right now. It's like, so she lied to you about why she loved the pickles on pizza, but you know she loved the pickles, so maybe just hold on to that right now?" Fuck, that had sounded so much better in her head.
Maybe it was the thread he needed, maybe it wasn't, but it was something to hang on to. He wanted to believe Lil, wanted so badly to believe in something, even though part of him kept insisting that the anger and grief was safer. If he stayed angry, he wouldn't get hurt again if he was wrong. "Maybe," he gave as much as he could in the moment. "It's not just that -- the problem is that it's not just any one thing. I keep going in circles. The logistics. How did she pull it off? Get me in the school system, get me an ID? And then everything about my dad. If he's not my dad, then who's the guy in the photo? He looks like me. I always thought he did, anyway." Teddy gestured feebly, then sank down against Lil again. "It's just too much."
Lil pulled him as close as she could and let her hand rub slow circles onto his back. “It is, way too much.” Damn. If this were the other way around, Teddy would know what to say to her, but of all the kids in school, only Inu yasha was probably less equipped to talk a friend out of a hole like this. What she could manage was what she’d done for Nick, which was to sit with him, hold him, listen, pick up the slack on the things that he didn’t have to energy for; it didn’t feel like enough, but at least Teddy had Billy for all the wordy parts. Maybe, if knowing he hurt didn’t make her hurt too, she could figure this out, but that didn’t seem to be in the cards. “I’m not going anywhere though so maybe I can sorta help with that. Like, hugs and listening and shit.”
She was, and he was grateful. He was also reminded of how much junk he was dumping in her lap, when all she'd done was sit down within earshot. "Thanks," Teddy replied, giving her a wan smile, and he tried to reel everything back in. In the end this was all stuff he as going to have to figure out on his own, no matter how helpful other people wanted to be. "I appreciate it. You're going to get sick of hearing me spin in circles, though."
“Nope.” Lil shook her head and made her voice as firm as she possible for the next bit. “I got just a few people in the world who mean everything to me, and you’re one of them, so I’ll listen to you spin all day, every day.”
"I think that's officially called 'enabling,' but thank you." Teddy puffed out air and sat up straighter, elbows resting on his knees. "I don't want to leave," he said quietly, after a minute had passed. "If I had some fantastical secret origin on Earth, it would be a lot easier to adjust. I've seen the Princess Diaries," he joked wanly. "I know how that's supposed to go. But this -- it's not even just not-Earth, it's a whole space empire I don't know anything about. None of my Star Wars lore is going to save me on this one."
“Yeah.” Lil knit her brows together, trying to give that part of it some thought, but god, it was too big a problem. She could give him hugs over the mom thing, but this... “Jesus, you’d think that they’d like, send you a tutor or a few books or something. I mean, they’re pretty much gonna hand their whole empire over to a human kid.”
Not human. But Lil didn't need to be reminded of that, and he didn't really want to talk about that part again. "I've got the files from the General, so I'm not going to be completely hopeless. But it's still - over a million years, I think he said. A million years of galactic history to read up on, when I don't have any reference points. It's not like earth history where every kid out of grade one knows what the pyramids are, even if you don't know exactly when they were built."
The weight of what Teddy was facing began to settle. “Shit. A million years. Is this secret alien stuff or can anybody here help you with it?”
"I'm not going to sell it to the Enquirer, but you were there, so it's not like the existence of alien life is a secret." Teddy turned his head to look at her, frowning slightly. "Although I'm not sure what you mean by 'help.' I'll have to read it all eventually. I guess I know what I'm doing this summer," he sighed.
"I just mean that there are some super smart people around, like Tessa." Okay, maybe she was less around than she used to be now that she hopped over to the Brotherhood, but she was a decent example. "Maybe you can farm out some of the reading, and they can help you with a Coles Notes version while you're slogging through other stuff. I'm pretty fucking sure there's a shitload of geeks around here who'd love to read a bunch of alien history."
Teddy pressed his lips together, reluctance rising in him at the idea of farming stuff out. "I dunno," he shook his head. "Talking to you and Nick and Billy about it is one thing, but spreading it all around the school is something different. I know I can't keep the basics a secret forever, but ... I don't know," he sighed. "I'd just gotten used to being part of the group here, you know? Now I'm different again." That hurt to say, ripping off the bandaid like that, but it was true. "I'm not ready to have everyone looking at me like I'm a freak." Not again.
“I get that, totally.” In act, Lil felt that fear in her bones. She’d spent her childhood being different and the years before this school being the freak, and she trusted that Teddy knew enough about her now to understand that. “And I was just throwing that out there so no big deal if it’s not something you want to do, but Teddy, you’re not any more different than the rest of us. I mean, yeah, alien genes, but what about the mermaid prince that’s prancing around the school in his underwear? And that TJ chick isn’t even from the same universe. And fuck, every time poor Billy walks around a corner he’s got a magical new family member. Like, on the scale of weird this school is used to, you’re only just hitting 6 out of 10. You might get a few odd looks, but it’ll settle down in a week when it turns out that Warren’s mom was a pigeon or something.”
He'd been on the near edge of hysteria for a couple of days now, and that image tipped him right over the edge. Teddy snickered, snorted, tried to stop the laugh that bubbled up, then gave up and gave in. He laughed hard enough to make his sides hurt, tears coming to his eyes.
"I have to say, I'm a big fan of Namor's wardrobe choices," he admitted once he could breathe again, his hand pressed against his side to stop the cramp. "I thought Billy was about to get a spontaneous nosebleed the first time he walked by."
Oh god, hearing him laugh felt so much better. Laughing or crying, either one would have helped him, but Lil had to admit she was far better equipped to handle. She rolled her eyes when he mentioned Namor, but couldn’t keep the grin off her face.
“Jesus, you two... I can’t even look at him. I always have to pretend the floor got real interesting or something.”
"I promise that if I ever have a conversation with him I'll maintain eye contact," he said solemnly. "If he's going to put it out there," Teddy shrugged, letting go of the deadpan and grinning back at her. "And it is almost all out there... what's a guy supposed to do?"
Lil put her hands over her eyes. If there was ever a conversation she didn't want to have with Teddy... "Not look!! I can't believe this." But an idea occurred to her and she started to giggle. "But if you can't help it I can talk to him and maybe get him to glue a big pair of googly eyes on the front of his underwear? Then you can look him in the eyes and in the... At his..." But she couldn't go any further with words and the rest came out in more giggles.
"Penis?" Teddy supplied the word, his eyes wide and innocent, and he bit the inside of his cheek, hard, to stop himself from cracking up again. "You can say it. Peeeeenis." He stopped teasing her quite so badly after that, slouching back on the bench and resting his elbows behind him. "And I think I'll pass. Starting interplanetary war before I've even been crowned - or whatever it is they plan to do to me? It'd be a whole new level of diplomatic fail."
"Penis," Lil dared with a whisper. Funny how she could tease him about blow jobs when he pushed her a little but was still a prude when it came to simple terms. Ah well, he'd moved into a pose that practically invited her closer so she slumped down a little and let her head rest against his arm. "So you're saying I'm not Royal Advisor material? Geez, I thought the googly eyes were a winner. But seriously, if you ever need an invulnerable bodyguard, I'm there."
"That..." Teddy trailed off, considering it. "That would be amazing, honestly. I know I'm supposed to say things about not putting yourself in danger because of me, but there isn't any danger -- not to you. I should probably be worried about you decking the wrong ambassador for being a jerk, but I can't think of many people I'd rather have at my back in a crisis. You, Billy, Warren -- I know, I know, but he's been a good friend to me and I'm not getting in the middle of whatever that was."
Lil snorted. "It's mostly two assholes who don't know how to talk to each other, that's all. We almost need a fucking translator just to have a conversation, but we'll work it out. It's pretty obvious he cares for you so I got all the time in the world for people like that." Even Shen if she ever bothered to talk to Lil again, but Lil was beyond thinking that would happen. "And yeah, royal bodyguard. What am I going to do here when school's done? Bouncer in some club? Like, you've got some pretty fucking fantastic coat tails now, and I could ride them right into the stars. Whoosh!" She swept her hand across her face like a flying rocket ship and grinned.
"You're on," Teddy grinned back, and held out his fist for a bump. "What would your mom think of that one? She sends you off to boarding school to keep you out of trouble and you end up as an enforcer for interstellar royalty." He'd started talking about it like it was a joke, or a game with Kitty grinning at him across the table from behind her GM screen, but the weirdness hit again and his grin faded a little.
Lil's own grin faltered as she watched Teddy's expression change, because her mom and Christ, Nick. This commitment she was making was real and might take her away from the people she loved for a long time. The weight of that didn't stop the rocket ship from slowly transforming into a fist, or keep her from tapping Teddy's fist. Oh shit.
Still, there was no regret. She'd follow Teddy halfway across the universe if he needed her to and yeah, he'd super fucking need a friend when all the Prince shit started to happen. Lil shrugged. "She'll freak out, but hey, I'll slip in that I'm queer after that and then me liking girls will be the least of her worries, right?"
"That's one way to do it. I recommend telling her before she figures it out on her own, for the record." He grinned at her, this conversation so, so much easier to deal with than anything else in his life right now. "Did I tell you what m-" he stuttered to a halt, but what else was he supposed to call her? "what mom did when she caught me?"
"Nope, but you better now."
"So Billy came over during Christmas break, when mom wasn't home." He gestured vaguely in the air -- he didn't need to be specific about what had gone on, but yeah. She could fill in the blanks.
"Mom's met him before, it was no big deal, right? Anyway the next morning, I get up for breakfast and she's sitting at the table, with a handful of pamphlets on safe sex, a bag of condoms she must have gotten from the clinic near her office, and a book called 'the Joy of Gay Sex.' Hand to God,'" Teddy swore, right hand up and his left pressed to his chest. "I'm not even kidding. And she made me sit down and hold eye contact while she quizzed me on whether we were being safe, sane and consensual."
Teddy's ears went hot at the memory, one which had long since lost its sting and become one of those sublimely funny stories of life-with-his-mom...
God, he missed her already, even when he was still so angry.
Lil had started snickering as soon as Teddy mentioned the pamphlets. “She loved you. She soooo loved you. No way would she put herself through that if she wasn’t crazy about you.”
Something thawed a little inside, and Teddy ducked his head. "She's a troll," he grumbled without any heat to it. "And you're just as bad."
"Well, if I am, it's for the same reason as her." She said it softly and sighed. He'd know what she meant, even if she didn't say the words. Did friends say that to each other? Tell each other that they loved one another? Another mystery Lil had missed growing up and would have to stumble her way through.
Teddy'd been half-prepared for rejection, for everyone (except maybe Billy) to run the other way from all of the complications and drama that suddenly surrounded him. He should have known better. He rested his forehead against the top of her head for a second, a moment of easy closeness with no demands on either side. "You're good people, you know that?"
"Yeah, I think I do." Or she was starting to at least, in large part thanks to Teddy, but no way was she going to make it even more sappy by admitting that.
Lil had spent two days looking for Teddy and thinking about what she’d say to him when she finally found him. Teddy hadn’t made it easy. If she spotted him, he’d disappear around the next corner. If someone told her where he was, he’d be gone by the time she got there. She didn’t think he was hiding from her exactly, but he did seem to be making an effort to stay away from, well, everything.
She couldn’t blame him, not when he was sitting there on the bench, staring off into the distance and looking for all the world like he’d gotten lost in the hedge maze and given up trying to find his way out. Lost, lonely, and all the things that were painfully familiar to Lil. Not that she’d ever been a space alien, but some shit is universal, and she didn’t need to be related to martians to guess at what Teddy was feeling.
God, she needed to hug him.
“Hey!” She smiled as she walked up to him. “Found you. That’s the longest fucking game of hide and seek I ever played.”
Teddy hadn't intended to hide, it was just a lot easier than trying to figure out who knew and who was looking at him funny. It was like fall semester all over again, except this time there wasn't a Billy waiting for him at the other end of the dark.
On top of that... Everything felt different, looked different - even when he knew nothing but him had changed. It was unsteadying and left him shaky, using up all his energy just to get through meals and class without losing his marbles in the process.
So he found himself in the hedge maze again, but walking the paths didn't make him feel any more centered, this time. He'd been vaguely aware of footsteps, but didn't snap back in to focus until Lil's voice cut in to the mess of his thoughts.
"I'm sorry," he apologized reflexively. "I - what? No, I wasn't hiding. I was just-" Panicking again. "Thinking."
“Ugh.” Lil rolled her eyes and sat down beside him, making sure she was close enough to throw an arm over his shoulder if she needed too. “Thinking sucks. You should just follow my lead and never, ever do it.”
He bumped his shoulder against hers, already feeling... Not better, exactly, but a little less small-in-a-massive-universe. "I might give that a try. It can't be any less helpful than what I've been doing."
Teddy sighed, setting aside the sketchbook he hadn't even bothered to open. "I keep thinking that if I can just find the right approach - there'll be one thread I can pull on to unravel everything until it makes sense again."
"That's the wrong metaphor to use on knitter. All I can picture is you destroying a nice sweater or something." Lil wiggled a little closer, figuring that cuddling up a bit was okay if he was giving her the customary shoulder bump. "But I get it, I think. Shit must be seriously confusing right now."
"Beyond confusing," he admitted. But he didn't have to keep up a front to Lil; she'd been there when it all went down, and she didn't care if he freaked out. "I have to rethink everything. Because through every minute of my life, my mother and I have been aliens. So everything I thought I understood... is wrong."
"Like... I thought I didn't get shots because my mom was a bit of a California hippie, but it's actually because she didn't want doctors to realize I wasn't human.
"Or -- another one. She puts pickles on her pizza. Like, not cooked, she puts slices on top of the cheese afterwards. And when I used to tease her about she'd blame me, and say it was a holdover from before I was born. And I thought she meant pregnancy cravings, you know? But she was never pregnant."
He rested his elbows on his knees and stared at his running shoes. "It's all stupid stuff when I say it out loud, but they're the things that made up my life story."
Lil reached an arm across his back and put her head on his shoulder. "Yeah, not stupid at all. I think that's the most important stuff. I mean, everybody's had pizza so that part doesn't make it special or all about you, but the pickle thing does. I get that."
Her touch was comforting, and he hadn't even had to ask. Teddy reached up and squeezed her hand, letting himself sag a little more. "I have to look at all of my memories differently now. How much of anything was because she's this funny, quirky, kind Army widow- and how much is because she's an alien pretending to be that person?"
Even though he knew he was starting to ramble, he couldn't stop the flood of words once he'd started. "When she accepted my coming-out so easily, was it because she was actually fine with it? ... or maybe because she already knew nothing about Earth politics was going to matter. Or worse, she didn't care because I'm not her kid and she knew she wasn't going to have to deal with whatever happens later." His heart hurt, his throat closing, and if he wasn't careful he was going to start crying again.
"Oh my God. No, Teddy. She did all that 'cause she was your mom, and she loved you. You don't put in seventeen years with someone, and make them seventeen really good years if you don't love them." He needed more arms. He needed a blanket, piles of food, Billy... something more than her sad attempts at talking this out. Too bad she was the only one around right now.
"Maybe you got a lot of stuff you're gonna be wondering about, but don't doubt this. I've heard about your mom, and from what I've heard there's no fucking way she didn't love you."
That - yeah, that helped, even though the part of him that was so angry didn't want to listen. (Was he angry at her because it was her fault, or because it was safer than being angry at all the other Skrulls who had put him in this situation? He knew what the Professor would probably say.) "And three days ago I would have said there was no way, no way at all, that she wasn't human." His eyes were watering and he dashed the wetness away with the back of his hand. "She lied about so many things. How can I believe that anything she said was true?"
"I... I don't know." And she didn't. Teddy was asking a big question that Lil didn't have the answer for. "I'm not that smart, but I don't think you have to figure that out right now. She loved you - that's the important thing right now. It's like, so she lied to you about why she loved the pickles on pizza, but you know she loved the pickles, so maybe just hold on to that right now?" Fuck, that had sounded so much better in her head.
Maybe it was the thread he needed, maybe it wasn't, but it was something to hang on to. He wanted to believe Lil, wanted so badly to believe in something, even though part of him kept insisting that the anger and grief was safer. If he stayed angry, he wouldn't get hurt again if he was wrong. "Maybe," he gave as much as he could in the moment. "It's not just that -- the problem is that it's not just any one thing. I keep going in circles. The logistics. How did she pull it off? Get me in the school system, get me an ID? And then everything about my dad. If he's not my dad, then who's the guy in the photo? He looks like me. I always thought he did, anyway." Teddy gestured feebly, then sank down against Lil again. "It's just too much."
Lil pulled him as close as she could and let her hand rub slow circles onto his back. “It is, way too much.” Damn. If this were the other way around, Teddy would know what to say to her, but of all the kids in school, only Inu yasha was probably less equipped to talk a friend out of a hole like this. What she could manage was what she’d done for Nick, which was to sit with him, hold him, listen, pick up the slack on the things that he didn’t have to energy for; it didn’t feel like enough, but at least Teddy had Billy for all the wordy parts. Maybe, if knowing he hurt didn’t make her hurt too, she could figure this out, but that didn’t seem to be in the cards. “I’m not going anywhere though so maybe I can sorta help with that. Like, hugs and listening and shit.”
She was, and he was grateful. He was also reminded of how much junk he was dumping in her lap, when all she'd done was sit down within earshot. "Thanks," Teddy replied, giving her a wan smile, and he tried to reel everything back in. In the end this was all stuff he as going to have to figure out on his own, no matter how helpful other people wanted to be. "I appreciate it. You're going to get sick of hearing me spin in circles, though."
“Nope.” Lil shook her head and made her voice as firm as she possible for the next bit. “I got just a few people in the world who mean everything to me, and you’re one of them, so I’ll listen to you spin all day, every day.”
"I think that's officially called 'enabling,' but thank you." Teddy puffed out air and sat up straighter, elbows resting on his knees. "I don't want to leave," he said quietly, after a minute had passed. "If I had some fantastical secret origin on Earth, it would be a lot easier to adjust. I've seen the Princess Diaries," he joked wanly. "I know how that's supposed to go. But this -- it's not even just not-Earth, it's a whole space empire I don't know anything about. None of my Star Wars lore is going to save me on this one."
“Yeah.” Lil knit her brows together, trying to give that part of it some thought, but god, it was too big a problem. She could give him hugs over the mom thing, but this... “Jesus, you’d think that they’d like, send you a tutor or a few books or something. I mean, they’re pretty much gonna hand their whole empire over to a human kid.”
Not human. But Lil didn't need to be reminded of that, and he didn't really want to talk about that part again. "I've got the files from the General, so I'm not going to be completely hopeless. But it's still - over a million years, I think he said. A million years of galactic history to read up on, when I don't have any reference points. It's not like earth history where every kid out of grade one knows what the pyramids are, even if you don't know exactly when they were built."
The weight of what Teddy was facing began to settle. “Shit. A million years. Is this secret alien stuff or can anybody here help you with it?”
"I'm not going to sell it to the Enquirer, but you were there, so it's not like the existence of alien life is a secret." Teddy turned his head to look at her, frowning slightly. "Although I'm not sure what you mean by 'help.' I'll have to read it all eventually. I guess I know what I'm doing this summer," he sighed.
"I just mean that there are some super smart people around, like Tessa." Okay, maybe she was less around than she used to be now that she hopped over to the Brotherhood, but she was a decent example. "Maybe you can farm out some of the reading, and they can help you with a Coles Notes version while you're slogging through other stuff. I'm pretty fucking sure there's a shitload of geeks around here who'd love to read a bunch of alien history."
Teddy pressed his lips together, reluctance rising in him at the idea of farming stuff out. "I dunno," he shook his head. "Talking to you and Nick and Billy about it is one thing, but spreading it all around the school is something different. I know I can't keep the basics a secret forever, but ... I don't know," he sighed. "I'd just gotten used to being part of the group here, you know? Now I'm different again." That hurt to say, ripping off the bandaid like that, but it was true. "I'm not ready to have everyone looking at me like I'm a freak." Not again.
“I get that, totally.” In act, Lil felt that fear in her bones. She’d spent her childhood being different and the years before this school being the freak, and she trusted that Teddy knew enough about her now to understand that. “And I was just throwing that out there so no big deal if it’s not something you want to do, but Teddy, you’re not any more different than the rest of us. I mean, yeah, alien genes, but what about the mermaid prince that’s prancing around the school in his underwear? And that TJ chick isn’t even from the same universe. And fuck, every time poor Billy walks around a corner he’s got a magical new family member. Like, on the scale of weird this school is used to, you’re only just hitting 6 out of 10. You might get a few odd looks, but it’ll settle down in a week when it turns out that Warren’s mom was a pigeon or something.”
He'd been on the near edge of hysteria for a couple of days now, and that image tipped him right over the edge. Teddy snickered, snorted, tried to stop the laugh that bubbled up, then gave up and gave in. He laughed hard enough to make his sides hurt, tears coming to his eyes.
"I have to say, I'm a big fan of Namor's wardrobe choices," he admitted once he could breathe again, his hand pressed against his side to stop the cramp. "I thought Billy was about to get a spontaneous nosebleed the first time he walked by."
Oh god, hearing him laugh felt so much better. Laughing or crying, either one would have helped him, but Lil had to admit she was far better equipped to handle. She rolled her eyes when he mentioned Namor, but couldn’t keep the grin off her face.
“Jesus, you two... I can’t even look at him. I always have to pretend the floor got real interesting or something.”
"I promise that if I ever have a conversation with him I'll maintain eye contact," he said solemnly. "If he's going to put it out there," Teddy shrugged, letting go of the deadpan and grinning back at her. "And it is almost all out there... what's a guy supposed to do?"
Lil put her hands over her eyes. If there was ever a conversation she didn't want to have with Teddy... "Not look!! I can't believe this." But an idea occurred to her and she started to giggle. "But if you can't help it I can talk to him and maybe get him to glue a big pair of googly eyes on the front of his underwear? Then you can look him in the eyes and in the... At his..." But she couldn't go any further with words and the rest came out in more giggles.
"Penis?" Teddy supplied the word, his eyes wide and innocent, and he bit the inside of his cheek, hard, to stop himself from cracking up again. "You can say it. Peeeeenis." He stopped teasing her quite so badly after that, slouching back on the bench and resting his elbows behind him. "And I think I'll pass. Starting interplanetary war before I've even been crowned - or whatever it is they plan to do to me? It'd be a whole new level of diplomatic fail."
"Penis," Lil dared with a whisper. Funny how she could tease him about blow jobs when he pushed her a little but was still a prude when it came to simple terms. Ah well, he'd moved into a pose that practically invited her closer so she slumped down a little and let her head rest against his arm. "So you're saying I'm not Royal Advisor material? Geez, I thought the googly eyes were a winner. But seriously, if you ever need an invulnerable bodyguard, I'm there."
"That..." Teddy trailed off, considering it. "That would be amazing, honestly. I know I'm supposed to say things about not putting yourself in danger because of me, but there isn't any danger -- not to you. I should probably be worried about you decking the wrong ambassador for being a jerk, but I can't think of many people I'd rather have at my back in a crisis. You, Billy, Warren -- I know, I know, but he's been a good friend to me and I'm not getting in the middle of whatever that was."
Lil snorted. "It's mostly two assholes who don't know how to talk to each other, that's all. We almost need a fucking translator just to have a conversation, but we'll work it out. It's pretty obvious he cares for you so I got all the time in the world for people like that." Even Shen if she ever bothered to talk to Lil again, but Lil was beyond thinking that would happen. "And yeah, royal bodyguard. What am I going to do here when school's done? Bouncer in some club? Like, you've got some pretty fucking fantastic coat tails now, and I could ride them right into the stars. Whoosh!" She swept her hand across her face like a flying rocket ship and grinned.
"You're on," Teddy grinned back, and held out his fist for a bump. "What would your mom think of that one? She sends you off to boarding school to keep you out of trouble and you end up as an enforcer for interstellar royalty." He'd started talking about it like it was a joke, or a game with Kitty grinning at him across the table from behind her GM screen, but the weirdness hit again and his grin faded a little.
Lil's own grin faltered as she watched Teddy's expression change, because her mom and Christ, Nick. This commitment she was making was real and might take her away from the people she loved for a long time. The weight of that didn't stop the rocket ship from slowly transforming into a fist, or keep her from tapping Teddy's fist. Oh shit.
Still, there was no regret. She'd follow Teddy halfway across the universe if he needed her to and yeah, he'd super fucking need a friend when all the Prince shit started to happen. Lil shrugged. "She'll freak out, but hey, I'll slip in that I'm queer after that and then me liking girls will be the least of her worries, right?"
"That's one way to do it. I recommend telling her before she figures it out on her own, for the record." He grinned at her, this conversation so, so much easier to deal with than anything else in his life right now. "Did I tell you what m-" he stuttered to a halt, but what else was he supposed to call her? "what mom did when she caught me?"
"Nope, but you better now."
"So Billy came over during Christmas break, when mom wasn't home." He gestured vaguely in the air -- he didn't need to be specific about what had gone on, but yeah. She could fill in the blanks.
"Mom's met him before, it was no big deal, right? Anyway the next morning, I get up for breakfast and she's sitting at the table, with a handful of pamphlets on safe sex, a bag of condoms she must have gotten from the clinic near her office, and a book called 'the Joy of Gay Sex.' Hand to God,'" Teddy swore, right hand up and his left pressed to his chest. "I'm not even kidding. And she made me sit down and hold eye contact while she quizzed me on whether we were being safe, sane and consensual."
Teddy's ears went hot at the memory, one which had long since lost its sting and become one of those sublimely funny stories of life-with-his-mom...
God, he missed her already, even when he was still so angry.
Lil had started snickering as soon as Teddy mentioned the pamphlets. “She loved you. She soooo loved you. No way would she put herself through that if she wasn’t crazy about you.”
Something thawed a little inside, and Teddy ducked his head. "She's a troll," he grumbled without any heat to it. "And you're just as bad."
"Well, if I am, it's for the same reason as her." She said it softly and sighed. He'd know what she meant, even if she didn't say the words. Did friends say that to each other? Tell each other that they loved one another? Another mystery Lil had missed growing up and would have to stumble her way through.
Teddy'd been half-prepared for rejection, for everyone (except maybe Billy) to run the other way from all of the complications and drama that suddenly surrounded him. He should have known better. He rested his forehead against the top of her head for a second, a moment of easy closeness with no demands on either side. "You're good people, you know that?"
"Yeah, I think I do." Or she was starting to at least, in large part thanks to Teddy, but no way was she going to make it even more sappy by admitting that.
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Date: 2018-05-31 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-31 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-31 11:59 am (UTC)Loved the log though, guys! <3
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Date: 2018-05-31 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-31 02:12 pm (UTC)