ax_main | Nott and Fatale - Lunchroom Politics

Two brightly colored ex-Facility girls coincidentally reunite in the cafeteria. Pam fills Nott in on a LOT of subjects: The Brotherhood, sleeping with boys, Yorktown, and the resulting drama between students.

Pam arrived at the cafeteria for lunch just as it had nearly emptied out, which was just how she preferred it on those days that her classes didn't match up with any of her friends' schedules. With a glance around to confirm that Cal was nowhere in evidence (he wasn't, so at least she was in luck there), she made her way to the serving table, helping herself to a tray en route. With any luck, she'd be able to grab her food, find an out of the way table, and eat before anyone decided to come and try starting a conversation.

Another brightly-hued girl that wasn't there to talk scuttled in quietly, feeling unsure of herself. It's just lunch, Nott reminded herself again. And again and again. And again. It's okay. You're allowed. It's safe. But it was the first time she'd been to the cafeteria ALONE, without anybody to vouch for her, and she knew it was really probably fine and nothing to worry about, but... Maybe, just maybe, this was when someone would point at her and tell her she wasn't supposed to be here at the school after all. Or maybe one of the lunch ladies was secretly working for the Right that hadn't been destroyed really, and this was their opportunity to nab her. Or...

Nott hunched a bit deeper into her gray hoodie, trying not to look at anybody or to let them look at her. She was very aware of her long green ears poking through the slits she'd made for them in her hood as she (with some amount of tip-toe-stretching) snagged herself a lunch tray.

Pam let out a sigh as she heard someone getting a tray. Wonderful. So much for having the place to herself once the last few people left. She glanced over, didn't immediately see anyone, and looked down just in case the someone was that short little shit with the big mouth (in which case she was 'porting right up to her room and bringing the tray back later).

And blinked, when instead of Scanlan she caught sight of a little kid wearing a gray hoodie. A little kid who'd cut holes for some seriously huge green ears.

Pam's head spun a little and she closed her eyes. Little kid, big green ears - she'd known someone like that, back at the Facility. A few images popped into her head - her slamming the kid against a wall and watching her fall, the kid passing through one of her portals, still wearing the Facility's scrubs, one of her sitting at a table with a kid with red hair...

Caleb. The ginger kid was Caleb, just younger. Which meant the kid with the green ears was..."Nott?" she guessed as she reopened her eyes, ready to be told it was a case of mistaken identity because honestly, she'd figured the girl was long dead.

The goblin of a girl jerked backward a step at the sound of her own name from an unfamiliar voice with an alarmed squawk, and her tray subsequently thwacked into her chest.

She realized only as she looked up at the source of the voice above that she did know it. It had just been a while. "PAM?!"

If the kid's response hadn't been enough to confirm her identity, thunking herself in the chest with her own tray would have. "Still a klutz, huh?" she joked, offering a crooked smile. "But yeah, I'm definitely me. When did you get here? And have you seen Caleb yet?"

"Only when I'm surprised," Nott said in self-defense, glancing at the tray flattened against her front a bit sheepishly. Good thing she hadn't loaded up with her food already, or she'd be wearing it. "It's just that I'm surprised a lot."

She looked back up at Pam. "Just a few days ago. I've seen Caleb. He was the one who brought me here." Him and several others, really, but she hadn't been awake to see that.

"Huh. Nice of him to tell people," Pam complained. Granted, Caleb had been avoiding her ever since he'd basically killed her in Fantasyland, but she would've thought he would have made an exception. "Where were you this whole time? Did the Right grab you again?"

"He's been busy," Nott mumbled in Caleb's defense. "And...yes? Well, no. Sort Of. I'm not sure, because it was some other guy, but he had the same collars and he knew where to find me in Chicago."

"Well, he didn't hear it from me." Pam grimaced. "Honestly, I forgot that was where you were. That whole day was kind of a blur by the time I woke up the next morning."

Nott mirrored Pam with a similar expression, but for different reasons. Because she knew by now that Caleb had never gone to Chicago, but she'd spent all that time hanging around that big awful city alone waiting for Caleb to come and find her. She'd barely budged from the spot where the portal had spat her out until a month had passed because she thought maybe he'd be right behind her. It felt worse to hear that it had never mattered anyway, if Pam had just forgotten.

But it wasn't Pam's fault it took them so long to be reunited either. And if she was here at the school... Like Beau... She probably wasn't here to hurt any of the other kids. Which meant Nott was safe? Maybe?

"...Oh. Did you teleport away from there, after you were done with all of your - uh -" Instead of saying murder, Nott made some empty-handed jabbing motions at the air, slitting her throat with a finger, and stabbing with a curled fist over her heart.

Pam rolled her eyes. "After I killed the bastards?" she supplied, then shook her head. "No. Alex and I went with the Brotherhood - the people who broke in and started everything happening. They burned the place down," she added, figuring Nott would probably want to know.

Nott squinted at her. "The Brotherwho? Who are they? Other than arsonists."

"Where the fuck have you been the last couple of years?" Pam asked incredulously. "Mutants on TV, taking down the Friends of Humanity? Disrupting anti-mutant protests? Fuck, we helped take down the Right once and for all. Any of that ring a bell?"

Nott's ears cocked slightly askew as she stared at Pam. "I've been living on the streets of Chicago, trying not to die? I haven't really been watching TV and following protests."

She should've checked on her, Pam knew. Should have remembered to check, and should have told someone - Alex, the Boss, someone. But Fatale had finished her mission, and Lance had been waiting with a blanket when Pam had reawakened with blood on her hands, her clothing, her face. And she'd let him wrap the blanket around her, warm and soft and so unlike anything she'd experienced in years that all she'd wanted to do was curl up in it and sob (though fortunately enough of Fatale had stayed with her that she hadn't), and she'd followed him back to the others, to where Alex had been waiting. She'd let the fragments of Nott-related memory fade away into that dim nothing where the Right had taught her to store all the things she couldn't bear to remember, until she hadn't been sure whether or not the kid was still alive, or if she'd died at the Right's hands. Or at her own.

She should have checked. But there wasn't a damn thing she could do about that now.

"You've got a lot to catch up on, then. Pretty sure you can find footage of us on YouTube, though." She smirked. "Last time I checked, there was an awesome shot of Alex blasting something. You should check it out."

"Wait, wait," Nott had more than one kind of catching up to do, it seemed, looking increasingly incredulous. "Are you saying that you are one of these Brother-people that set things on fire? And that they - you - are responsible for destroying that Facility?"

"Well, I'm not exactly Ms. Blow-Shit-Up, but other than that, yeah. Alex and I signed up. We're just kinda taking a break here for a while. His brother's a student here, they're doing the whole bonding thing." Granted, their break had been - fuck, over a year long at this point. But they were going back eventually. Or at least, she was pretty sure they were.

"So you're not a student. But it's cool that you hang out here anyway? With the same three hots and a cot?" Nott supposed that the Professor must be okay with busting up all of the violent anti-mutant guys, and that was fine by her. She was having a time figuring out how this place was supposed to work though. It was kind of a riddle: when is a school not a school? (When it's a group of fishes?)

"No, we're taking classes and everything, seeing as we're here." Pam made a face but shrugged. "They don't totally suck. I'm in remedial everything, but there are other lab rats who are, too. Could be worse."

"I'm in those," Nott admitted. Lab rats, huh? She didn't like the sound of that. "...Where are the other Brother-hoodlums, then, if not here? Are they all kids from the Right too?"

Pam bristled. "First off, we're not hoodlums. We're standing up for mutants and making sure no one gets to pull the kind of shit the Right did. But no, they're not all from the Right. Most of the lab rats are here at the school."

"Oh. Alright. Didn't mean to touch a sore spot, sorry." Pam had a way of giving answers that raised more questions than they answered. And of being angry when she gave them. Maybe she should meet Beau. "Wholesome after-school activity. Got it. And I am glad that place was destroyed, don't get me wrong."

"Kinda figured you wouldn't be in favor of leaving them standing." That much was obvious, right? No one who'd been there would be. "You're sticking around here, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah," Nott said simply as she fiddled with her empty tray, because it sounded cooler and less mopey than I don't have any place else to go, even if that was just honest. After being grabbed twice by people that wanted to imprison her for being a mutant, she was kind of over roaming free for a while. "Caleb likes it here, and it seems safe."

"Yeah, pretty much," Pam admitted. "No one's been abducted from the school. The town?" She shrugged. "You probably don't wanta go to Salem Center on your own. But people go there all the time. Did they give you a roommate?"

That made Nott squirm a bit. Was she saying... Did that mean...someone had been abducted from the town place? The, the, what was it called - Salem Center? Or was Pam just fucking with her?

"They gave me the best roommate," Nott drew out slowly, trying very hard not to think about abductions and focusing instead on the rest of what Pam was saying. "I'm sharing with Jester. Do you know her?"

"The blue girl who draws dicks on everything?" Pam rolled her eyes, but grinned. "Haven't met her, but I've seen her around."

"The blue girl with the horns," Nott confirmed, because there were actually a few of them running around? "Who puts dicks on everything, yes. I'm not actually sure what that's about. But she's been very welcoming and cheerful." Nott hadn't been at the school very long, but judging by some of the other students she'd met, they could use more people like Jester to make the mood lighter.

"Well, that's cool," Pam acknowledged. "You actually sleeping there, or in with Caleb?" Except that Caleb was living with Clint and Cal these days, she was pretty sure. Not that that would stop her, if it were her, but she was pretty sure that was just her.

She debated whether or not she should warn Nott about Cal, but decided the younger girl probably didn't have anything to worry about. Besides, Caleb would have her back. Or at least, Pam added with only a trace of bitterness, wouldn't kill her himself.

The question made Nott feel strangely self-conscious, and her eyes widened at Pam slightly before she looked hurriedly away. Why would Pam ask that? Had she somehow subconsciously put out I'm fucked up and paranoid and clingy and I need him vibes? ...Okay yes, but still, that seemed way too specific. Had Pam SEEN her?! "W-wh-whaaat do you mean? Why would I do that? Sleep with him? When I have my own room?"

Why? Pam blinked at the younger girl's reaction, then smirked. So, that was how it was, huh? Unexpected, maybe because Nott was still pretty much as short as she'd been when she'd seen her last so it was easy to think of her as an eight year old, but she had to be what, about fourteen now? Old enough, anyway. "Do I really need to explain that?" she teased, raising her eyebrows. Obviously not, if Nott was stammering that much, but fuck it, she couldn't resist. "I mean, I realize you got snagged up pretty young but still..."

Nott made a confused face for a moment, staring at Pam - then tipped her head back, mouth making a silent oooooooh of understanding. In a weird way, it actually made her feel better if that's what Pam was gonna say, because it was so wrong.

"You think maybe we're FUCKING, is that it?" Regardless of her size, Nott didn't seem to have any trouble with the blunt word. "I mean, we aren't. Because ewww. And nothing about this," she gestured to herself, small and green and ugly as sin, "is appealing to a healthy teenage boy."

"You ever take a survey on that?" Pam asked, her eyebrows rising. Granted, Nott wasn't much to look at, but that didn't necessarily mean much. "And it's not like Caleb's going to be asked to pose for a pin-up calendar either. I don't see the problem, if that's what you're looking for."

Nott gave Pam a disgusted look, shaking her head. It was a big problem, if you were the one that had to live with it, and a lot more complicated than Pam made it sound. "It doesn't matter. We aren't like that."

"Whatever." Pam shrugged. It wasn't like it was what she'd originally meant anyway, and she really didn't care whether or not they were fucking. "I sleep in Alex's room most of the time," she admitted. "Or the other way around. It's not like it's a big deal."

Nott's expression cleared up a bit. "It isn't? Are you two boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Kinda? I guess." Pam's face warmed a little and she shrugged. "We're together, anyway. But my point is, even if we weren't? I'd probably still be sleeping in there. Sleeping alone sucks ass."

The other girl didn't say anything to that right away, mulling it over for a moment. "...What about your roommate? Or his roommate?"

"He doesn't have one right now," Pam admitted. "And Laura's another lab rat - not from the Right, from somewhere else. She's cool with it. Sometimes she climbs in with us. To sleep, I mean."

Nott didn't want to share a bed with anybody else. A big part of it was about being sure that Caleb was alright. It kind of surprised her to hear that Scary Girl Pam was snuggling up with people though. "That sounds nice," she supposed genuinely.

"Yeah, it doesn't suck. But yeah. I'm guessing Caleb wouldn't give a damn if you climbed in with him. Y'know, if you wanted to. Unless he's sleeping with Clint or Cal - I really don't know." She shrugged. "I'm not on great terms with any of them."

"You think so?" It was kind of unusual that the three of them were in one room. Nott wondered again if her being here, if she wasn't... But Pam had just said she didn't know, so she changed her question. "How come? I mean - why aren't you on good terms?"

Pam grimaced. "Cal and I kinda had it out last year over him borrowing my powers, and it...snowballed. To the point where I kinda almost killed him. And Clint was involved in that, so..." She waved that off and moved on. "And Caleb's been avoiding me ever since he killed me during that whole fantasyland thing last year, so there's that."

Nott blinked up at her. "That's a lot to unpack, what you just said," she pointed out. And they hadn't even gotten their food yet. "Starting with... I don't know what 'fantasyland' is, if that's a game or something? But Caleb wouldn't just kill someone - like, murder them - for no reason."

"He didn't," Pam acknowledged. "He was - okay, the fantasyland thing wasn't a game. Somehow, everything in New York just...changed. It was like being in some fucked up fantasy movie or tv show or something, except we were living it. And I was made out of air and couldn't go solid, and some friends hired Caleb to help, and..." She flickered, then took a deep breath, dug her nails into her palms, and exhaled slowly. "I'm not sure what happened, exactly, just that something went wrong with the spell and I died. And when the world went back to normal, I un-died. Caleb hasn't talked to me since." She shrugged. "Not like we talked a whole lot before, anyway."

"...Nothing I say will ever sound crazy again," Nott decided after listening to all of that. "But I see how. Uh. That could make things awkward?"

"I'm not being awkward," Pam pointed out. "And I'm the one who died, not him."

Nott definitely didn't say that Pam was being awkward, because Caleb was awkward enough for multiple people, but okay. "Maybe Caleb feels bad about it?"

"It's not like he did it on purpose," Pam pointed out, then paused. "I mean, I'm assuming he didn't. Maybe he did?" Because that would explain a lot. She wasn't sure why he would have, though.

"He didn't," Nott hurried to his defense. "Or he wouldn't," she corrected because she didn't really know his side of the story. She knew he had done some violent things before. Some very bad things. But Caleb wasn't malicious for no reason. Never that. "Beyond that, I don't know."

"Well, whatever. It's not like it matters anyway." After all, it wasn't as if they were still in Fantasyland, and she was alive, here. So long as the world didn't decide to flip itself around again, she planned on staying that way, and if it did, it wasn't like there was a hell of a lot she could do about it.

It sounded like it did matter, if they all remembered it happening and Caleb was avoiding Pam and Pam had looked like it was hard for her to talk about, too. But she wasn't going to say so right in the middle of the cafeteria, before fishsticks and tater tots and chocolate milk or whatever it was today.

"Sure, alright," is what Nott ended up saying. "Well..." She sucked a breath, then exhaled. "At least you made it. You know?"

Pam took in a deep breath, ignoring rising memories of her hand disintegrating before her eyes, and nodded. "Yeah. I made it. Always do, right?" She forced a smirk at the younger girl. "And look at you, same thing. We're survivors or some shit."

"Yyyyyeah," Nott agreed softly, but there was hesitation in it. She was alive, but she definitely wasn't who she used to be, or who she had hoped she might have the chance to be as she grew up. With all the blue and the experiments and the superpowers and the dying and un-dying, Pam seemed like she must be pretty different from who she was supposed to be once, too.

"Uh, I'm gonna do the thing, get some lunch," Nott flapped her empty tray in her hands a bit, then paused, looking up at Pam uncertainly. "Are you still...? You wanna share a table?" Was it bad or wrong, if she had lunch with somebody she knew the Three C's didn't like? Maybe she shouldn't. But it would also be weird if she got her food and Pam got hers and then they sat at completely different places as if they'd never had this whole chat, right? And it wasn't like she had anybody else to eat with right now.

Pam paused for a moment or two, considering. It wasn't like she and Nott had ever been friends; other than Alex, she'd never had friends at the facility. Never wanted them. She still had a vague memory of bashing Nott's head against a wall that was eating at her, because she couldn't seem to drum up the context or even the timeframe. Still...she'd never disliked her, either. And they were both here, now.

"Yeah, why not?" she answered finally. "I'll go grab a table while you get your food." It wasn't like it'd happen again, probably - once Nott told Caleb and his friends about it, they'd probably tell her to stay away. But whatever. Might as well find out what the kid had been up to. It wasn't as if there were all that many girls who'd survived.

"Oh-kay," Nott warbled back, her gaze fixed on Pam's for a moment before she turned to go. It sounded like Pam had done some bad stuff, and it sort of involved Caleb and his friends even. Nott knew she'd killed people she didn't necessarily need to kill. She'd even drunk the Facility Kool-Aid at one point. So on the one hand, it was like - fuck Scary Pam.

But on the other hand...

Was she really so different than Nott and the Three C's and Beau? She'd tried to help, back then... Was she really more dangerous, even now?

Nott wasn't sure. But she was curious, and what all could happen over lunch?

She pointed her tray at the lunch counter as her heart knocked around in her chest, and made up her mind to ask for two of everything.