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Alex, Tommy, and Pam | Waaaaay backdated to Halloween
Alex and Tommy decide not to talk, and it's determined that cheesesteaks are essential to weddings.
Early enough in the evening that the party was more happy-buzz than total-drunken-chaos, Tommy darted through the gathering crowd looking for someone. A couple of someones, honestly, but whatever - they pretty much counted as one. In the grand scheme of things. Sneaking up either of them wasn't a good idea, but they were used to speedsters by now so whatever. Tommy skidded to a halt next to Alex and flashed him a wide grin once he was moving slow enough for Alex to register it. "Looking good, for one of the walking dead."
Alex blinked, letting his brain catch up to the sudden materialization of Tommy beside him. He smiled when he recovered, however, and plucked self-consciously at the deliberately ratty clothing that made up the most convincing part of his costume. "I think I'm probably just a step up from a plastic smock and one of those masks with the elastic bands," he admitted ruefully. "But I'm not good at ... y'know, costumes. Halloween. That kinda thing. You liking the party? It seems pretty good, for a party, but I'm not really the best judge of those, either."
"It's not bad," Tommy replied easily, folding his arms and surveying the room. "Kind of low-key so far compared to others I've been to, but the night is young. And," he grinned as a very short skirt passed by, "you gotta enjoy the view."
"Definitely a lot tamer than something Pietro would put together," Alex agreed, though he didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing. Low-key was actually pretty welcome, all things considered. Then, missing Tommy's point entirely, he went on, "But, yeah, I do think Gilmore did an amazeballs job with the decorations and shit. Black and goth-y isn't really my speed, but it definitely works for a Halloween party."
"Super-depressing as a general lifestyle choice," Tommy nodded readily, "but it fits the vibe tonight. I give it half an hour before someone's costume gets impaled on someone else's, or catches on fire or some shit. Way too many random elements involved here, and the chaos will be glorious," he added with a grin.
"Mutant parties do seem to involve a lot of random chaos. And fires." Alex looked into his drink for a few moments, then met Tommy's gaze again with his head tilted to one side. "You okay? I mean, you seem pretty okay, but I'm terrible at reading that sort of thing. And you usually don't have a problem telling me to fuck off if you don't want to talk about it. I just wanted to ask."
"Of course I'm okay," Tommy deflected breezily, and a little too cheerfully. His brow furrowed when he looked at Alex. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Reasons," Alex said with a shrug. "I wasn't really all that with it, when they pulled me out. I can't remember if I asked how you were then, or even thought about it. So I just wanted to be sure, mostly?" He stared into his drink again. "Being back there was pretty rough for me--being back there alone was ... hard to process? Some days, I try to sort through it, and others, I just want to pack it up in a box and push it into the furthest corner of 'shit Alex has completely forgotten about'-land."
Tommy was stuck. Because Alex was, like, one of three, maybe four people he could actually talk to about any of this (depending on how much of a freak Billy was being at any given time). Except that at a party was really not the time he wanted to be thinking about the Right or the labs or any of that shit.
Not that he ever wanted to think about it, but a party was really not that.
“So leave it in the box,” Tommy said firmly. If Xavier was eavesdropping on his brain at that moment then Tommy was going to get some kind of psychic knock upside the head, but whatever. It was a technique that worked. “All that bullshit is over and behind us. The guys came for us this time, and we’re a hell of a lot stronger now than we were. Life’s too damn short to spend it thinking about the bad stuff.”
The younger teen appeared to turn that over in his mind for a few moments, and took a sip from his drink. "Huh," Alex announced at last. "I guess that's true. Thanks, Tommy. Sorry," he added sheepishly. "I know this is a party, so it's probably not the best time for all that downer stuff anyway."
"No time is a good time for downer stuff," Tommy raised his cup in salute. "Which is why I avoid it whenever possible. The way I see it, brooding over shit I can't change just adds more time to the tally of hours they stole from my life. So no thanks, I don't need anyone running that kind of bar tab in my brain."
He felt the urge to fling his arm over Alex's shoulders, to get closer for a minute - so what the hell. Fighting against impulses like that never worked anyway. Tommy leaned against him, making just enough of a joke out of sagging his weight on Alex's shoulder that it was more like harassment than affection. Being a major pest was what friends were for. "If you have time to think, you need more distractions."
"Distractions like getting crushed underneath a smartass speedster?" Alex asked him rhetorically, though his grin ruined the effort at irony. In fact, it was a pretty ridiculous proposition; though younger, Alex was very slightly taller and just a touch heavier than Tommy. For all of that, he deferred to the other teen naturally, and he wrapped an arm around Tommy's middle on the pretext of supporting his weight as he leaned in. "But fine, I get the point--no more dwelling. Or, you know, a normal, not-broody amount of dwelling."
“That’s the spirit,” Tommy cheered, reaching up to ruffle Alex’s hair from behind. “Speaking of broody dwelling, where’s your cuter half?”
"Pam?" he asked rhetorically; there was only one person Tommy could mean. "She's around here ... somewhere? She went to go find another drink. Might have got distracted by the dance floor. Or maybe somebody talked her into a teleporter errand?" Alex didn't seem all that concerned, at least not right at that moment. The school still felt like safety to him, and he was reasonably confident the staff and other students wouldn't let anything happen to her. Not here, inside the mansion itself.
"Or, y'know, maybe I stopped to talk to Laura," Pam inserted as she approached, rolling her eyes. She was dressed as Jasmine from Aladdin in a store-stolen costume, the sheer material making it clear to anyone who looked that a) she was very definitely blue everywhere, and b) she wasn't bothering to hide any of her scars. "Being social. Ish. It's a thing." She eyed them with amusement and raised her eyebrows. "So, how long has this been going on?" she asked, gesturing towards how they were standing, their arms around each other. "And does Wynonna know? Because no one bothered to tell me."
"Wrong twin for that," Tommy protested mildly. He did take his hand down off of Alex's head, but didn't pull away from Alex's casual affection. "And this is what's wrong with people," he sighed dramatically, as though picking up a thread of an earlier imagined conversation. "Guys can't even tough each other without getting accused of banging. It's enough to do serious harm to the fragile male psyche," he added solemnly, a twinkle in his eye.
That got him a look from Alex, and set blue eyes rolling, though the younger Summers didn't relinquish his near-hug right away. "Banging is Pam's go-to conclusion for any kind of expression of affection. Or hostility. Or mild interest. Pretty much every form of emotional expression, really." He grinned at her to sap any possible sting from the entirely disingenuous accusation.
"Being social-ish is definitely a thing," he agreed. "But it's not usually a Pam-thing. Those drinks must be really good. He tilted his blond head quizzically. "So how is Laura, then? Good?"
"Laura's fine," Pam assured Alex, after having narrowed her eyes mock-menacingly at his previous comment. It wasn't true, but if it were? She'd be right more often than not around here. It was actually hard to keep track of the rumors of who was banging who this week. Mostly, she didn't bother trying.
She turned her attention back to Tommy and smirked. "Also? You are never, ever going to get me to believe there's anything fragile about your ego. Give it up. Besides, you guys make a cute couple."
"Aww, thanks." Tommy fluttered his eyelashes outrageously and planted a wet, noisy kiss on Alex's closest cheek. "Where should we honeymoon? I hear Aruba's nice this time of year."
Alex's natural retort of "a couple of what?" was cut off by Tommy sloppily bussing his cheek. "Anyplace warm sounds nice, this time of year," he groused instead. "But who wants to spend the happiest two weeks of trying to keep the sand out of their ass-crack? Plus their are stingrays and jellyfish and tiger sharks and shit. We should just take a cruise."
"And get sea sick. Fuuuun," Pam shuddered. "You guys enjoy that. I expect an invite to the wedding, though."
"No way," Alex objected, with an adamant shake of his head. "Going into debt to throw a party for a bunch of freeloaders who want an excuse to eat cake and get drunk? Hard pass. Eloping is good enough for me. You can be one of our witnesses at the Justice of the Peace, though. We can go for pizza afterward."
"Throw in a cheesesteak and you're on," Tommy snorted at the whole snowballing ridiculousness, but he couldn't deny the grin that went along with the feeling. "We're a high-class group around here."
"Hey, as one of the freeloaders? I want cake. We need the pictures of you smashing it into each others' faces. But we can pick one up at Walmart on the way to the wherever you want to go for pizza," Pam conceded.
"I don't really need an occasion to mash cake into his face," Alex pointed out. "Not that I expect him to hold still long enough to get Walmart-cake-ed, either way." He grimaced. "Dammit. Now I want a cheesesteak. Thanks for that."
"Cheesesteak is one of the greatest culinary creations of the modern world, alongside those noodle bowls with all the extra stuff in them," Tommy delivered his pronouncement with the weight of expertise. "Plus it's like one of the only foods that sticks around longer than ten seconds after eating. There's no shame in wanting that."
Pam sighed. "So we're taking a trip to Cousin's subs?" she guessed. "I can open a portal."
"I mean," Alex said, turning his most endearing puppy-dog expression in Pam's direction, "if you don't think it'd be too much trouble." He was really craving a cheesesteak, right then.
"If Pam's being a killjoy I can run us there," Tommy offered Alex, though his challenge of a grin directed Pam's way. "Bring back some leftovers."
"Fuck that. Today's the one day I can actually go to Cousins' like this," she gestured at herself, costume, color, and all, "and no one will even blink. You guys have money?"
"I should have enough on me to finance a sandwich," Alex replied cheekily. "As long as I don't go crazy with the optional extras, I mean." It wasn't as if he usually had much more on him at any given time, which was probably why Pam had asked.
Tommy nodded. "I've got cash; I'm good to cover you guys if you don't."
"I can pay you back; I just don't have it on me." Pam smirked as she opened a portal. "Alley behind the store," she explained as she gestured for them to pass through. "And I don't want cheesesteak, but meatball doesn't sound bad.."
Early enough in the evening that the party was more happy-buzz than total-drunken-chaos, Tommy darted through the gathering crowd looking for someone. A couple of someones, honestly, but whatever - they pretty much counted as one. In the grand scheme of things. Sneaking up either of them wasn't a good idea, but they were used to speedsters by now so whatever. Tommy skidded to a halt next to Alex and flashed him a wide grin once he was moving slow enough for Alex to register it. "Looking good, for one of the walking dead."
Alex blinked, letting his brain catch up to the sudden materialization of Tommy beside him. He smiled when he recovered, however, and plucked self-consciously at the deliberately ratty clothing that made up the most convincing part of his costume. "I think I'm probably just a step up from a plastic smock and one of those masks with the elastic bands," he admitted ruefully. "But I'm not good at ... y'know, costumes. Halloween. That kinda thing. You liking the party? It seems pretty good, for a party, but I'm not really the best judge of those, either."
"It's not bad," Tommy replied easily, folding his arms and surveying the room. "Kind of low-key so far compared to others I've been to, but the night is young. And," he grinned as a very short skirt passed by, "you gotta enjoy the view."
"Definitely a lot tamer than something Pietro would put together," Alex agreed, though he didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing. Low-key was actually pretty welcome, all things considered. Then, missing Tommy's point entirely, he went on, "But, yeah, I do think Gilmore did an amazeballs job with the decorations and shit. Black and goth-y isn't really my speed, but it definitely works for a Halloween party."
"Super-depressing as a general lifestyle choice," Tommy nodded readily, "but it fits the vibe tonight. I give it half an hour before someone's costume gets impaled on someone else's, or catches on fire or some shit. Way too many random elements involved here, and the chaos will be glorious," he added with a grin.
"Mutant parties do seem to involve a lot of random chaos. And fires." Alex looked into his drink for a few moments, then met Tommy's gaze again with his head tilted to one side. "You okay? I mean, you seem pretty okay, but I'm terrible at reading that sort of thing. And you usually don't have a problem telling me to fuck off if you don't want to talk about it. I just wanted to ask."
"Of course I'm okay," Tommy deflected breezily, and a little too cheerfully. His brow furrowed when he looked at Alex. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Reasons," Alex said with a shrug. "I wasn't really all that with it, when they pulled me out. I can't remember if I asked how you were then, or even thought about it. So I just wanted to be sure, mostly?" He stared into his drink again. "Being back there was pretty rough for me--being back there alone was ... hard to process? Some days, I try to sort through it, and others, I just want to pack it up in a box and push it into the furthest corner of 'shit Alex has completely forgotten about'-land."
Tommy was stuck. Because Alex was, like, one of three, maybe four people he could actually talk to about any of this (depending on how much of a freak Billy was being at any given time). Except that at a party was really not the time he wanted to be thinking about the Right or the labs or any of that shit.
Not that he ever wanted to think about it, but a party was really not that.
“So leave it in the box,” Tommy said firmly. If Xavier was eavesdropping on his brain at that moment then Tommy was going to get some kind of psychic knock upside the head, but whatever. It was a technique that worked. “All that bullshit is over and behind us. The guys came for us this time, and we’re a hell of a lot stronger now than we were. Life’s too damn short to spend it thinking about the bad stuff.”
The younger teen appeared to turn that over in his mind for a few moments, and took a sip from his drink. "Huh," Alex announced at last. "I guess that's true. Thanks, Tommy. Sorry," he added sheepishly. "I know this is a party, so it's probably not the best time for all that downer stuff anyway."
"No time is a good time for downer stuff," Tommy raised his cup in salute. "Which is why I avoid it whenever possible. The way I see it, brooding over shit I can't change just adds more time to the tally of hours they stole from my life. So no thanks, I don't need anyone running that kind of bar tab in my brain."
He felt the urge to fling his arm over Alex's shoulders, to get closer for a minute - so what the hell. Fighting against impulses like that never worked anyway. Tommy leaned against him, making just enough of a joke out of sagging his weight on Alex's shoulder that it was more like harassment than affection. Being a major pest was what friends were for. "If you have time to think, you need more distractions."
"Distractions like getting crushed underneath a smartass speedster?" Alex asked him rhetorically, though his grin ruined the effort at irony. In fact, it was a pretty ridiculous proposition; though younger, Alex was very slightly taller and just a touch heavier than Tommy. For all of that, he deferred to the other teen naturally, and he wrapped an arm around Tommy's middle on the pretext of supporting his weight as he leaned in. "But fine, I get the point--no more dwelling. Or, you know, a normal, not-broody amount of dwelling."
“That’s the spirit,” Tommy cheered, reaching up to ruffle Alex’s hair from behind. “Speaking of broody dwelling, where’s your cuter half?”
"Pam?" he asked rhetorically; there was only one person Tommy could mean. "She's around here ... somewhere? She went to go find another drink. Might have got distracted by the dance floor. Or maybe somebody talked her into a teleporter errand?" Alex didn't seem all that concerned, at least not right at that moment. The school still felt like safety to him, and he was reasonably confident the staff and other students wouldn't let anything happen to her. Not here, inside the mansion itself.
"Or, y'know, maybe I stopped to talk to Laura," Pam inserted as she approached, rolling her eyes. She was dressed as Jasmine from Aladdin in a store-stolen costume, the sheer material making it clear to anyone who looked that a) she was very definitely blue everywhere, and b) she wasn't bothering to hide any of her scars. "Being social. Ish. It's a thing." She eyed them with amusement and raised her eyebrows. "So, how long has this been going on?" she asked, gesturing towards how they were standing, their arms around each other. "And does Wynonna know? Because no one bothered to tell me."
"Wrong twin for that," Tommy protested mildly. He did take his hand down off of Alex's head, but didn't pull away from Alex's casual affection. "And this is what's wrong with people," he sighed dramatically, as though picking up a thread of an earlier imagined conversation. "Guys can't even tough each other without getting accused of banging. It's enough to do serious harm to the fragile male psyche," he added solemnly, a twinkle in his eye.
That got him a look from Alex, and set blue eyes rolling, though the younger Summers didn't relinquish his near-hug right away. "Banging is Pam's go-to conclusion for any kind of expression of affection. Or hostility. Or mild interest. Pretty much every form of emotional expression, really." He grinned at her to sap any possible sting from the entirely disingenuous accusation.
"Being social-ish is definitely a thing," he agreed. "But it's not usually a Pam-thing. Those drinks must be really good. He tilted his blond head quizzically. "So how is Laura, then? Good?"
"Laura's fine," Pam assured Alex, after having narrowed her eyes mock-menacingly at his previous comment. It wasn't true, but if it were? She'd be right more often than not around here. It was actually hard to keep track of the rumors of who was banging who this week. Mostly, she didn't bother trying.
She turned her attention back to Tommy and smirked. "Also? You are never, ever going to get me to believe there's anything fragile about your ego. Give it up. Besides, you guys make a cute couple."
"Aww, thanks." Tommy fluttered his eyelashes outrageously and planted a wet, noisy kiss on Alex's closest cheek. "Where should we honeymoon? I hear Aruba's nice this time of year."
Alex's natural retort of "a couple of what?" was cut off by Tommy sloppily bussing his cheek. "Anyplace warm sounds nice, this time of year," he groused instead. "But who wants to spend the happiest two weeks of trying to keep the sand out of their ass-crack? Plus their are stingrays and jellyfish and tiger sharks and shit. We should just take a cruise."
"And get sea sick. Fuuuun," Pam shuddered. "You guys enjoy that. I expect an invite to the wedding, though."
"No way," Alex objected, with an adamant shake of his head. "Going into debt to throw a party for a bunch of freeloaders who want an excuse to eat cake and get drunk? Hard pass. Eloping is good enough for me. You can be one of our witnesses at the Justice of the Peace, though. We can go for pizza afterward."
"Throw in a cheesesteak and you're on," Tommy snorted at the whole snowballing ridiculousness, but he couldn't deny the grin that went along with the feeling. "We're a high-class group around here."
"Hey, as one of the freeloaders? I want cake. We need the pictures of you smashing it into each others' faces. But we can pick one up at Walmart on the way to the wherever you want to go for pizza," Pam conceded.
"I don't really need an occasion to mash cake into his face," Alex pointed out. "Not that I expect him to hold still long enough to get Walmart-cake-ed, either way." He grimaced. "Dammit. Now I want a cheesesteak. Thanks for that."
"Cheesesteak is one of the greatest culinary creations of the modern world, alongside those noodle bowls with all the extra stuff in them," Tommy delivered his pronouncement with the weight of expertise. "Plus it's like one of the only foods that sticks around longer than ten seconds after eating. There's no shame in wanting that."
Pam sighed. "So we're taking a trip to Cousin's subs?" she guessed. "I can open a portal."
"I mean," Alex said, turning his most endearing puppy-dog expression in Pam's direction, "if you don't think it'd be too much trouble." He was really craving a cheesesteak, right then.
"If Pam's being a killjoy I can run us there," Tommy offered Alex, though his challenge of a grin directed Pam's way. "Bring back some leftovers."
"Fuck that. Today's the one day I can actually go to Cousins' like this," she gestured at herself, costume, color, and all, "and no one will even blink. You guys have money?"
"I should have enough on me to finance a sandwich," Alex replied cheekily. "As long as I don't go crazy with the optional extras, I mean." It wasn't as if he usually had much more on him at any given time, which was probably why Pam had asked.
Tommy nodded. "I've got cash; I'm good to cover you guys if you don't."
"I can pay you back; I just don't have it on me." Pam smirked as she opened a portal. "Alley behind the store," she explained as she gestured for them to pass through. "And I don't want cheesesteak, but meatball doesn't sound bad.."