Jester, Nott and Caleb - Let's Go to the Mall - Backdated

[ax_goblin]

Shortly after Nott's arrival at the school, Jester makes good on her promise of going to the mall. Caleb becomes an awkward impromptu addition, but they end up learning a lot about one another along the way. Complete with convenient lies, accidental truths, fake identities, bad accents, a prostitute, mean girls, piercings and other teen shenanigans.

Jester wasn't sure how she felt about Caleb joining her and Nott on their trip to the mall. She had clearly let that show when Nott had brought it up, because her roommate's ears had drooped and the light in her eyes had dimmed and Jester had had to assure her it would be awesome! The more the merrier!

But she was nervous, and he was a boy, and this was supposed to be a girls' trip to the mall! And she didn't know him, what if he didn't like her? What if the entire trip was terrible?

Her fingers drifted to the archway pendant she had Drawn for herself, and she wrapped them around it as she sent a prayer to the Traveler. Please make it so Caleb isn't a jerk, Traveler. I'm sure he's really cool, if he's Nott's friend, but, you know... just in case. Thank youuu!

That done, she made sure the image inducer was loaded with the right image - as close as she had managed to get to what she thought she would look like if she weren't, well, herself, turned it off again to save the battery until they were leaving the grounds, and stopped by the kitchen to shove some sweets and pastries into her bag. Sure, there was a food court at the mall, but just in case!

Then she hurried off to meet Nott and Caleb in the foyer, smile firmly in place. With the Traveler on her side, things had to go well. "Heeeeey! I didn't keep you waiting, did I?”

It hadn't occurred to Nott until she saw Jester's reluctance that it wouldn't be okay to have Caleb come along with them on their trip to the mall. She'd been SO EXCITED to tell him about their shopping adventure, and of course Nott thought to invite him because maybe he hadn't been either and would like to go? But if she was honest with herself, it was less about thinking Caleb really wanted to go to the mall with two squealing teenage girls, and more that Nott wasn't sure how comfortable she felt about going out into the world without him just yet. And she didn't want him to worry while she was gone.

She felt a teeny bit bad about having brought it up, but even as she was saying maybe Caleb didn't have to go if it would be weird, Jester was emphatically insisting that it would be awesome! The more the merrier!

So there with Caleb as his usual, scruffy self... Was a very different Nott. After a lot of internal debate, she still looked small, like a kid, because she thought it'd be a lot less awkward-looking and suspicious when she picked stuff up or interacting with things if her arms moved weird or if something went over her actual head. But standing there next to a skinny redheaded boy in glasses was a girl wearing Nott's slitted hoodie, fiddling idly with the inducer worn on her wrist like a watch, and who else could it be?

"Hi Jester," the familiar voice warble-rasped warmly from the human-looking girl. "This is me," she turned around in place. Her eyes were bright, not that they looked any different really than the human eyes that the holographic overlay had been programmed to project, but the overlay did map the shape of her pleased little smile closely. "For today, I mean," she added with a hint of disappointment. She looked up at her companion. "And this is Caleb.”

The list of things that made Caleb anxious was a long one, but somewhere near the top of it was meeting new people. When Nott had first asked him to go to the mall with her and her roommate (Jester of the message board posts filled with eggplant emojis), his initial, internal reaction had been ‘no!’ in the biggest, boldest letters possible. But, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say that to Nott. She had been so excited about her new friend and a trip to the mall and he hadn’t wanted to ruin that for her. So, he had ended up here.

If Nott had described Caleb to Jester at all, what she saw in front of her probably came as a disappointment. A tall, scrawny boy with plastic frame glasses and a disheveled mop of hair, he wore clothes that were a little too big and a brown trench coat that was a little too frayed. Most notably, his face was a quilt of bruises in various shades of healing. Overall, he was less charismatic, all-powerful sorcerer, and more unwashed teen who’d just discovered Indie music and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Hi, Jester,” Caleb greeted.

"Hello, Caleb!" Jester greeted him enthusiastically. She wasn't surprised by his looks; she'd made sure to figure out who he was before now. Nott had been singing his praise, after all. Even if they were only really good friends, and not boyfriend and girlfriend. "It's really nice to meet you," she went on, her smile baring her fangs a little. "Nott said very nice things about you." She winked at him, then checked the time on her watch. "The bus should be there in ten minutes. We should hurry if we want to catch it!"

"See? She's very friendly," Nott pointed out with a reassuring look to Caleb, then leaned over Jester's (ahh-dorable) watch to see the time. "Oh! Yes! Let's get going," she took one hand from each of them and pulled them all toward the doors. She didn't actually know where the bus station was, but it had to be outside, and one of the two would know where they were going, right? "What's the first thing we have to look for at the mall?”

Caleb nearly tripped over his own feet as he found himself suddenly being tugged along by Nott. “Whatever you want. Just—Wait. I need—” He pulled his hand free from Nott’s and stopped walking long enough to cast a disguise spell on himself. It was still possible Trent was in the area, and he wasn’t going to take any risks.

The boy who retook Nott’s hand still wore Caleb’s plastic frame glasses, but otherwise looked nothing like him. Green eyes peered out from behind the glasses, and, instead of a mop of red hair, it was a short and messy blonde. He had the broad shoulders and a muscular frame of someone who spent more time outdoors than they did behind a book, and his clothes were noticeably nicer, more fashionable even. “There. We can go now.”

"Why do you need to disguise yourself, Caleb?" Jester asked curiously, looking at the new Caleb with a bit of a pout. How was he going to shop for clothes if his build was all different? It made her worry, again, about what their girls' outing to the mall would turn into, but she resolutely pushed that to the side. She was still horned and blue, herself; no need to turn the inducer on until they neared the edge of the grounds. She liked the way she looked.

Caleb had anticipated that question, but he still felt a jolt of panic that made him snap, “Why does anyone wear a disguise? I don’t want to be recognized.” He felt like a dick for it afterwards for what little it was worth, and he, more gently, repeated, “I do not want to be recognized.”

Nott squeezed the place where her hand held Caleb's beneath the illusion, considering his disguise for a moment. She didn't like it as much as his real face either, but there was good sense in it. "He's right. We do need to be careful."

She looked over at Jester, giving her hand a little squish, too. "They never caught the man who was responsible for taking me to get to Caleb," she explained, lowering her voice to say so. "Caleb's just trying to keep us safe. ...And you get to make sure we have fun," Nott flashed her an excited grin, showing rows of charming white, flat teeth instead of her usual nightmarish fangs. "Which is also very important.”

Jester really wasn't sure Caleb was all Nott had promised, but she didn't let that show, after a brief flash of hurt at the way he talked to her. Rude people were not good people, in her experience. But she wasn't going to let him ruin the mall trip! Nothing would ruin the mall trip. And then Nott explained, giving Jester more information than before about what had happened, and she softened a bit towards Caleb. It was still no excuse to be rude, but things were clearly more complicated than him simply going to rescue Nott from that man, whoever he was.

Jester was going to pray to the Traveler he end up in jail (or worse) every night, from now on.

"It is the most important," she agreed with a bright smile, which she turned on both of them, as if nothing was the matter. "We need to try on all the clothes, and browse some music, and eat fast food!" She made it sound like the best activities ever, because they were.

Caleb looked at Nott in surprise. She’d told Jester? He frowned at the bubbly, smiling Jester like a mystery he was trying to puzzle out. Nott had to trust her if she’d told her all that... Nott was smart. She wouldn’t say anything unless she was completely sure.

“What’s our story?” Caleb asked as he opened the front door for Nott and Jester. “In case people ask.”

"Our story, our story, okay..." Nott understood the question, because if you were trying to pass yourself off as someone different than who you were, you had to have something to say if somebody called you on it. (Like her and Beau and the whole 'Little Old Lady Pam' thing.) And also- "Oh. Right. If our imagers fail for some reason, or if there's any trouble, not that there will be - we can't say we're from Xavier's." Because if someone saw they were mutants and knew where they went to school, they might call the cops to go investigate. "So! Caleb is clearly my hunky-but-broody older brother that all the girls like but he doesn't get it, I am the adorable troublemaking kid sister, and we're killing time by blowing some of our parents' money at the mall with the sunny, funny girl next door - Jessie."

Jester skipped down the stairs to the path leading out towards Xavier's distant front gate, then looked up at the other two. "Jessie! I like it. It's very American.”

Caleb found himself smiling at Jester’s sunshiny enthusiasm. “Jessie it is. And what are our names?” he said to Nott.

"Our names? I could be... Kylie," she said for no real reason but because it popped into her head. She must've heard it once and thought it sounded like a cute girl's name. "You could be... Caleb, Caaaaayleb...Cay-Cay...Cal - no, not that one... Casey?"

"I'm sticking with Cay-Cay," Jester informed them sunnily, encouraged by Caleb's small smile. She must be doing something right! "So Jessie lives - I live - next door to the two of you, and I'm into... horseback riding, and I'm dating this very cute boy from school. He's a friend of yours, Cay-Cay, obviously. You play football together!" Caleb looked like he would be on the football team, right now.

“Yes, we score the touchdowns, bro,” Caleb said in a horrible attempt at an American accent that he immediately grimaced at. Yeah, he didn’t know what he’d expected. He wouldn’t do that again. He’d just try not to talk too much around people.

Caleb tried to imagine what Casey was like. Confident. And popular. Good at sports. Everyone probably liked him. “My friend’s name is…Phillip.” It probably wouldn’t come up, but it was good to have just in case.

Nott winced slightly at Caleb's idea of an American accent. "...Wow. Ooooh boy. You could try sounding - more like me? Or - an American accent can be really hard, maybe that's too much for right now," she added hastily. "But we have disguises, we have fake names, we have backstory, so nobody should be able to pick us out of a crowd in a public place," she encouraged.

"Now. Tell me all about Casey's friend Phillip," not-Nott looked from not-Caleb to not-Jester with a very human-looking, girlishly sly smile. "What's he like? Is he handsome?"

"He's the most handsome!" Jester confirmed with a bright, fanged grin. She switched the inducer on as they walked, without pausing between one sentence and the next. But suddenly, she was a very normal-looking, plump, cute girl with brown hair and bangs. Very all-American, apart from her unchanging accent. "No offense, Cay-Cay. He's very tall, and very strong! And he's very kind, and he can be a little shy sometimes, but it's okay." She walked a little closer to Caleb, still with a skip in her step. "I thought your accent was really good," she confided in him in a stage whisper.

Caleb knew Jester was just humoring him, but he appreciated the gesture. He smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“He was almost too shy to ask Jessie out,” Caleb supplied as he opened the front gate. He waited for Nott and Jester to pass through before following and closing it behind them. “But, he found the courage to kiss her at a New Year’s Eve party and they’ve been together ever since.” Apart from a distant feeling if familiarity, he wasn’t sure where the idea came from, and could only assume he’d read it somewhere. Making up the perfect boyfriend was surprisingly easy after all the romance novels he’d read.

"That's so romantic," Nott sighed dreamily as they made it out onto the sidewalk. She looked all around them after they'd come out of the Xavier's gate, in case of - well, she didn't know what exactly, but just in case. It seemed safe though. "But don't get too attached to 'Phillip.' There might be some cute boys at the mall," she teased lightly.

"Phillip and I are forever," Jester chided Nott, before giving her an impish grin. "But I can still talk to cute boys!" Right? Of course she could. There was nothing to it, she bet. "It was a really good kiss," she added, thinking of that fictional New Year's kiss. She wondered what a kiss actually felt like. The thought of it made her toes curl a little. "It made me swoon!"

"Even if you're dating, you're not blind," Nott suggested as they continued along towards the bus stop. "And I don't think anyone actually swoons when they kiss. It's a cute idea, but that's movie stuff. It just feels nice."

Jester pouted as her perfect romantic kiss bubble was burst by Nott's practicality. She'd swoon if she wanted to! But then Jester realized what Nott's last words hinted at, and her eyes widened before her lips stretched into a wide, bright grin. "Who have you kissed, Nott?"

The dark eyes of Nott's holographic image rounded, too, as she looked away, and she was really glad she didn't think it would shade her pale faux skintone with her flush. "Oh, I... I don't - I don't know," she stammered softly, her small hands groping in vain around the hem of her hoodie for where she used to hide a bottle of something when she'd had it. "It was just - a dare. We were just kids. I don't know. Just someone. I don't remember too much. What - what about you? Have you kissed lots of boys?"

Jester snorted-chuckled. "Plenty!" Obviously. "You know. Like you do!" Invisible behind the hologram, her tail had curled closer to her.

"Phillip must really be something else then," Nott added with similar, compensating mirth. Yyyyyyyyep. Just a couple of completely average high school girls who knew a lot of things about boys and kissing them right here. So it wasn't a big deal. And they were super cool about it and not weird at all.

"He really is," Jester confirmed, happy to switch back to imaginary things. Well, officially imaginary things. She turned her brown eyes on Caleb. "What about you, Cay-Cay? Do you have a girlfriend?"

Caleb had been internally cringing at all the talk about kissing boys, waiting for the moment when the spotlight turned on him. The closest he’d ever come to kissing had been a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t want to talk about that, and he definitely didn’t want to talk about the people he’d thought about kissing since.

When that moment, as expected, did, of course, happen, Caleb immediately flushed and shook his head. “Ah. No,” he answered, hoping that the very disappointing answer would make them lose interest in him.

Caleb didn't like to talk about himself much, Nott knew, and he'd never mentioned liking someone that way, not even years ago. She was a little curious, because it had to do with him, but it was none of her business really. "Or he could have a boyfriend, if he wanted," she chimed in, more because she wanted him to know that would be okay by her than because she thought he'd say much more on the subject. "Two boyfriends, even, if that was what they all wanted. His roommates are both good-looking, and they do spend all of that time together in one room, the three of them..."

Nott trailed off as it brought to mind another question she'd forgotten that she wanted to ask, and she turned to look up into Caleb's face as they walked. "Why are the three of you in a room together? Isn't it always two roommates, and singles get their own place?" Sure, the Three Cs were friends. But if all of the friends at the school lived together, it would just be a mess.

Jester hadn't been sure where to take the conversation from there, at first. Of course it could be a boyfriend! Or even several. As many as he wanted, really. Boyfriends and girlfriends, even. But then it sounded like Nott was talking about Caleb rather than Cay-Cay, and Jester bit down on any answer she was going to make, because it had led to a real question, and now she was curious. A ménage à trois would be kind of cool!

Watching Nott make her way to that question was like watching a train wreck in slow-motion. You could see it coming, but there was nothing you could do about it except wait, stomach heavy with dread. Caleb wasn’t sure why he was so bothered by it. …Okay, so he had entertained some thoughts, but that didn’t mean anything. That didn’t make it true, or even possible of ever becoming true.

On the plus side, seeing it coming meant Caleb could prepare for it and, when Nott asked what she did, he only got a little flustered. “What? I—No. We’re rooming together because Cal and Clint are best friends, and I’m their friend.” That much was at least true, even if it wasn’t the reason they’d asked to share a room.

Nott was quiet for a beat, just watching Caleb's discomfort. She was his friend, too, and maybe they could've had a room together? But she didn't end up saying that out loud, because she didn't want Caleb to think she expected him to change things from how he felt comfortable just for her (she really didn't), and she didn't want Jester to take it the wrong way and think she didn't like the room they shared either (because she really did). She was just trying to figure out what the deal was between the Three C's, and she still felt like she hadn't really gotten there yet.

"Alright," is what Nott said instead, not at all hiding the skeptical note in it as she returned her attention to the walk. "If that's what works for you, that's all that matters. And if Casey doesn't have any boyfriends or girlfriends," she supposedly turned the talk back around to their characters, "then maybe there will even be some cuties at the mall for him to talk to."

There was more there than Caleb wanted to say, Jester decided there and then. Maybe he wasn't telling Nott because she was there? Or maybe there was something between him and Nott, despite Nott's protests. So many maybes! She would have to observe, and figure it out. It would take time, but she could be patient when it came to important things. All the best detectives knew to be patient.

And in the meantime, she could help everyone swing back into lighter topics. "If we're not too busy with all the shopping," she went on cheerfully. "I intend to do a lot of it. My mother put so much money on my account!”

Frustrated, Caleb walked in silence. He’d told the truth! There was nothing going on between them. If he was dating anyone, Nott would be the first to know. But, he wasn’t and he probably wouldn’t ever be, and he didn’t understand why this was such a big deal. Why couldn’t three guys share a room together and just be friends? No one assumed Kurt, Bobby, and Tommy were dating…

Caleb had gone quiet again, but Nott didn't think too much of it - it went back to the whole not talking about himself much thing. If he wanted to keep to himself for a few minutes (and Jester was sweet but she could talk A LOT), she wasn't going to hold it against him.

"How did your mother even get super rich, Jester? You never did tell me before.”

"Didn't I?" Jester asked with a bright smile, full of her love for her mother. "She has people coming from all over and paying to spend time with her. She's so beautiful and she is the best singer, and they all love her."

"She's a famous singer then," Nott said brightly. 'Paying to spend time with her' was a strange way to phrase buying tickets to a show or recording deals or whatever it was, but that was Jester for you.

Caleb’s guess had been actress, but singer made sense. He imagined a woman in a incredible dress standing center stage in some ritzy club, crooning to a packed audience. “She must be very talented,” he said.

"She really is," Jester confirmed. "They call her the Ruby of the Sea! Everybody comes to listen to her, but then she chooses who gets to come up with her. People love giving her things, too!"

People loved giving stuff to celebrities they admired, Nott supposed? But she was starting to get a nagging feeling that they were talking about different things. "Who gets to come up with her? Does that mean like private parties or something?”

"Hmm, not very often," Jester replied after a second's thought. As they reached the bus stop, she wrapped her hand around the sign pole and leaned away from it, in a great mood from talking about her mother. "She doesn't really like crowds. She does her best work one on one! And she's the one who chooses her clients. She says she's very lucky, that she can choose so much because she's really popular. Not every prostitute can!”

The more Caleb heard, the less sure he was that Jester’s mom was a singer and the more confused he became. “What does—” He froze in the middle of sitting down on the bus bench, then lowered himself the rest of the way. “That…is very lucky.”

"Your mother is a-" Nott, who had quickly sprung up onto the bench beside Caleb, similarly plunked herself down and stopped herself from using the first word that came to mind. "...Lady of the evening?”

Jester giggled, and spun around the pole once. "Well, sometimes she works during the day, too.”

The corner of Caleb’s mouth turned up at the joke. “That’s funny.”

It was funny, but Nott was still surprised to imagine Jester's mom as a high-paid... Lady of the sometimes-days-too. She wouldn't have imagined a charmed life for the daughter of a prostitute, not that it seemed to bother Jester at all. "And that was okay for you, growing up?" Jester clearly loved her mother very much, but Nott had to wonder if being in that environment, Jester hadn't - y'know - "Did you ever see anything scandalous?"

Jester beamed at Caleb when he approved of the joke, then redirected her gaze on Nott. "All the time!" she confirmed cheerfully. "It's how I know dicks are funny." She smiled helplessly at Caleb. "No offense.”

“None taken. They are funny,” Caleb confirmed, though he was watching Jester with carefully veiled concern now. He had no doubt Jester’s mother had loved and taken care of her—That much was obvious. But, wasn’t she kind of young to have seen dicks ‘all the time’?

Wincing at the phrasing even as he said it, Caleb asked, “Your mom let you, ah, watch?”

"Caleb! You're talking about her mother," Nott blurted back at him in reproach.

Jester shot Nott a perplexed look, tail shifting invisibly; he hadn't insulted her, or anything! "Not... really?" she answered his question with raised eyebrows. "It's not like I told her I was watching things! She didn't really like me doing that, and I can be veeery sneaky." She smiled proudly at that; the Traveler had taught her all her best tricks. "What do your parents do, Caleb?”

That was the first time someone had asked Caleb that since he’d killed his parents, and it made him feel like someone had upended a freezing cold bucket of water on Caleb. “Nothing really.”

Nott couldn't have said if she actually saw or heard the abrupt change in Caleb, or if she was just sensitive to the subject herself because he'd told her the whole, well, awfulness of what had happened to his parents. But she turned her reproach on a dime when she heard the question to try and protect his feelings. "At this school, a-aren't we, you know, learning who we are, without our parents? We're growing up into our own adults, becoming our own people-"

She dropped off the bench and literally jumped up and down with relief happiness to see their bus approaching, waving to the driver. "OH LOOK IT'S OUR BUS YOU TWO, let's get ready to board!"

It was pretty obvious that that hadn't been a question Jester should be asking, and given Caleb's expression, she was really sorry that she had. But she didn't want to highlight that by apologising in front of Nott, so she simply smiled at her friend's very normal, natural enthusiasm, as she fished her wallet from her purse. "I can get the tickets. My mom put a lot of money on my account! She makes a lot from all of her clients," she rambled on, to give Caleb time to recover, compose himself, whatever he wanted to do. "Did I tell you what they called her?" Jester paused for effect, than spread her hands dramatically as she announced her title. "The Ruby of the Sea! Isn't that the best, you guys?"

As the bus came to a stop in front of them, Jester climbed on and very cheerfully greeted the driver before proceeding to pay for their fare.

Though he was silently kicking himself for not lying better, Caleb gave Nott a small, grateful smile and patted her head in thanks. He stood and walked over to the bus, waiting for Nott to get on first before getting on himself. Aware of any eyes that watched as they passed by, he followed both girls down the aisle to the back of the bus where they’d have more privacy, and sat down across from Jester.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said after a moment, giving Jester an apologetic smile. “I lied. I was embarrassed. My mother is a maid at a motel, and my father is a school janitor.” His skin-crawled with self-loathing at the lie. His parents had worked hard for what they had, and he’d always been proud of them. He hated pretending that was anything to be ashamed of.

Nott leaned forward in her seat beside Caleb to study his face (or the green-eyed, blonde boy's face he was hiding under, anyway) as he said so, biting her tongue softly before she could blurt WERE they? Instead she asked: "...Really? I didn't know what your parents did, come to think of it. But I don't think that's embarrassing."

Jester watched him curiously as he spoke. That didn't sound very embarrassing at all, which begged the question of whether it was real, or he was just weird about that. Either way, Jester was going along with it, and she nodded emphatically after Nott's words. "It's not embarrassing at all! Maids and janitors are super important. Things would be all dirty and out of whack without them. You should be proud of your parents!”

A small smile pulled at the corners of Caleb’s mouth at Nott and Jester’s reassurances. “You’re right. I am proud,” he said, and he gave Nott’s hand a pat, his eyes meeting hers as he added, “Thank you.”

***

Jester ran back to the other two teenagers at the table they had claimed in the food court, carrying a huge cardboard box. "Look what I got, look what I got!" She placed the box in the center of the table and reverently opened it, revealing an impressive number of donuts. Certainly more than a normal person might expect them to eat. But what was normal to them? The donuts were all colors of the rainbow, and some more besides, and with different toppings to boot. "I got one of each!"

"That's a LOT of donuts," Nott smiled even as she stated the obvious. "Are you planning on taking all of those back to school with you to share?"

Not that she was criticizing at all. Her own tray of mall court food was full of delicious junk, though it was slightly less gluttonous than what she'd suggested she would get when she'd mentioned it to the Three C's. Giant pretzel, extra cheese sauce, check. Two fish filet sandwiches, check. And she'd waited with Caleb in his Orange Julius line to see what the orange drink was all about. Nott had meant to point Jester towards the frozen yogurt place where you did the candy toppings, but that was before she saw All the Donuts.

Caleb, whose mouth was full of a bite of melted cheese and hot dog, just leaned over to look at the technicolor assortment of donuts. Their sweet, deep-fried and doughy smell immediately hit him full in the face. He swallowed his food, washing it down with a quick sip of soda, and then agreed, “That is so many donuts.” He’d never seen so many sprinkles in one place. “Which one are you going to eat first?”

"One with sprinkles, of course," Jester replied, reaching in for one with pink icing and rainbow sprinkles. With her other hand, she gestured at the box. "It's for all of us! You can have as many as you like!"

"Oh, I don't know if I..." Nott looked at her full tray, then back at the donuts, shining with fresh glaze and sweet in the air. "Maybe just one to start with," she reached in for a chocolate-frosted donut. "Thank you, Jessie. Not just for the donut, thanks for everything today." Even if Xavier's had given her some money for clothes, Nott never would have come all the way out here to the mall by herself. Not sober. "Our little backpack purses are pretty cute," she said with whisper-quiet glee as she nudged the several shopping bags on the floor with a foot.

Caleb watched Nott with a smile. “They’re very nice purses,” he agreed. He hadn’t bought anything yet today, content to follow the girls around as they shopped their hearts out. It was good to see Nott so happy and having so much fun.

"They are," Jester confirmed with a bright smile, although she wasn't sure any purse would ever take the place of her trusted pink backpack, no matter how cute the purse might be. Still, she hadn't been able to resist the backpack purse that had been pink and sparkly. "So cute! The cutest! But what about you, Cay-Cay, don't you want anything?”

Caleb had taken another bite of hot dog and had to swallow before he could answer with, “Maybe later. I, ah, haven’t seen anything I want yet.”

There was nothing dainty or delicate in the way Nott savaged the chocolate donut as she crammed it into her face, a merciless chewing machine that only knew one speed: shred. If she had stopped to think about it, she should have chosen something that would make less of a mess, so her pristinely projected hologram would seem less conspicuous. But she hadn't, and the icing was stuck to her actual skin, so she just hurried to lick the mess away where she could get at it with her tongue and hastily napkin-off the rest.

"I guess we have gone to a lot of girly stores so far," Nott admitted, eyes flicking to the bags and back at Jester before she turned back to Caleb. "But I bet there's a bookstore in this mall! Do you think so?"

"Oh yes, I know where it is!" Jester confirmed with an enthusiastic nod, after swallowing a bite of her amazing donut. "Books and music and DVDs and stuff. Would that be fun for you, Cay-Cay?”

Caleb knew allll about the bookstore. He’d seen it on the mall’s directory (second floor, next door to a store called Lush), but hadn’t wanted to say anything. It was Nott and Jester’s day out. “If we have time that would be nice.” He finished the last of his hot dog, then hesitantly eyed the box of donuts before choosing one with bright pink frosting and purple sprinkles. “Thank you, Jessie.”

"We'll make time, it's as easy as that. We can go there after lunch." Far from seeming put-out, Nott's cute-girl hologram smiled sweetly at Caleb without a whole mess of jagged-razor fangs to get in her way. She wanted very much to make sure he got something for himself out of all of this.

Nott rubbed her small hands together and then leaned over her tray, putting one of her fish sandwiches between her unseen claws and stuffing two big bites into her face before pausing to gulp it all down. Her eyes flicked to something over Caleb's shoulder, then she lowered her voice conspiratorially to Jester and Caleb. "Don't look now, but that gaggle of teen girls at the big table by the pizza place keep sneaking doe-eyed peeks at Casey."

Jester finished her donut, then stretched super casually, chancing a glance their way. She turned back to the others with a giggle. "You're right!" To Nott, and then, turning to Caleb with a wide smile, "They're totally into you! I mean, you look very good.”

Caleb didn’t risk a look, but he remembered seeing the aforementioned table and the group of pretty girls gathered around it when he’d first sat down to eat his hot dog. “It’s not really me they’re looking at.” He took a big bite into his donut and the delicious taste of fake-strawberry filled his mouth.

"THEY don't know that." Nott shifted to stare over Caleb's shoulder at the girls, accidentally making eye contact with one of them that had resumed checking 'Casey' out. Nott quickly turned back to their own table. "Maybe she has a thing for guys in glasses. Oh - OH. One of them's left the table! She's coming over here!"

The leggy brunette in a chain-adorned red plaid miniskirt and dramatic eye makeup softly swish-clinked over to the empty chair at their table, putting her hand on the back and leaning in for a better look at the apparent football-nerd. "Hey," she said to him, more or less ignoring the girls he was sitting with. "My friends and I are wondering if you're babysitting all day or what?"

'Babysitting!' Jester mouthed the word with incredulity, brain switching from good for Caleb! to definitely not good enough for Caleb. "We're his friends, okay?" she cut in immediately, glaring at the other girl. The very, very pretty girl in a miniskirt and make-up good enough to feature in a YouTube tutorial.

No pretty anyone had ever shown any interest in Caleb and, at first, he didn’t know what to say as she stared so intensely at him with her darkly shadowed eyes and her red lips smirking like she had a secret. He glanced to Jester when she suddenly, and loudly, interjected, then confirmed with a nod of his own, “Yeah, we’re friends. Best friends, actually.”

Nott glanced between Jester and Caleb, biting her lip because she didn't know what she was even supposed to do, or if she was supposed to do anything. It was nice that someone was paying some attention to Caleb, okay, but it was for all the wrong reasons and probably a bad idea with the illusion he was wearing and everything. If Caleb was even interested?

The could-be Hot Topic model looked critically at the fat girl and the child, shrugging with disinterest before turning back to the hot blond guy. "Oh, so you're just friends. That's so cute." She reached across Caleb to casually tear off a bite of his strawberry-filled donut as if she'd been invited. "We're going to see that new slasher movie at the theatre. And it's always more fun to watch horror movies with boys." She smiled, popping the bit of pastry into her mouth - and then sucked the residual red jelly suggestively off of her thumb and forefinger. "Wanna come?”

Caleb looked down at his mangled donut, mouth twisting in distaste, then back up at the girl. He offered the donut out to Nott. Even if she hadn’t been mean, he wouldn’t want it now. “No.”

Nott snatched the remainder of the donut out of Caleb's hand as he offered it over, cramming it all into her face at once and gobbling it right up. She glared at the girl and made a low snarl as she did, now that Caleb clearly didn't want her around.

The pretty girl scoffed at the immature boy who really wasn't even that good-looking, on second thought, her whole face bunching up with attitude. "Tch. It's so your loss, nerd. We could've had some real fun." She spun on her boot heels and started heading back to the table with her friends, clinking with every step.

Picking up some napkins as if she was cleaning up a donut type of mess from her face, Nott obscured her mouth as she watched the haughty girl go and muttered something quietly. Meanwhile, the fingers of her other hand shifted, making strange shapes under the table. Somehow the elaborate buttons and zipper holding that red plaid skirt together shifted as the girl walked, nudging loose as if an invisible hand was doing the work. Just before the skirt-girl got back to her table, her skirt dropped right down her legs, revealing neon pink string bikini underwear wedged up her ass (amongst other things). Skirt-girl shrieked, and her friends cackled with laughter.

Jester had stood up as the girl walked away, and she called after her, "YEAH, YOU WALK AWAY, YOU... You..." Her voice faltered as she watched the fastenings undo themselves. Then the skirt dropped, and Jester found her stride again. "YOU WARDROBE-MALFUNCTIONING, BASIC DWEEB!”

Caleb had no idea anything had even happened until the girl’s table of friends burst into loud laughter. He turned to look in time to see the girl hastily pulling her skirt up, her face bright pink and the start of tears forming in her eyes. What the hell had just happened? He looked over to Jester and Nott, about to ask when he noticed the overly innocent look on Nott’s face.

“So. That happened.”

"Must've been karma or something," Nott muttered, already back at her remaining fish sandwich.

Jester sat down with her friends again, tail still swishing irritatedly through the air behind her. "Karma has very good timing," she remarked lightly. Not talking about anyone at this table, no, why do you ask. Except she immediately dropped the act, and her voice, to ask, "Did you do that, Nott?"

"Gravity did that," Nott answered, savoring the sandwich by chewing and then swallowing it in individual mouthfuls. "...But maybe it did have a little help," she admitted slyly between bites.

Behind him, Caleb could hear the girl’s table erupting into chaos. The girl was yelling at her friends for laughing at her, and they were shouting back she just needed to chill the fuck out already. More arguing followed, and the sounds of chairs behind shoved violently in as the girls all stormed off.

“You’ve been practicing,” Caleb said to Nott, giving her a smile. It had been a mean trick, but it had taken a lot of skill.

"She totally deserved that," Jester stated with a decisive nod. "Well done!" Her roommate was the best. But then Jester looked back at Caleb. "I'm sorry she wasn't very cool, Cal- Cay-cay. You can do waaaay better."

Nott was really growing to like Jester, but Jester was definitely Trouble. Just because Nott happened to be in some kind of trouble herself more often than not on impulse didn't mean she wouldn't rather have avoided it altogether if she could've been a little more careful.

Caleb was the careful one. The smart one, the talented one, with so much potential - or he was better at her than most things, anyway. (...He just also happened to be very frail and fragile, which was why he needed her to take care of him.) Nott had a lot of things she might hope to learn from him, and she tried, for what that was worth. Him noticing something SHE had done and giving it praise, giving her that smile... Well. That was special. It made her feel as bright as if she'd caught a firefly in her chest.

"A little," Nott grinned at him and swung her legs a bit under the table, looking more cutely impish than freakishly threatening under the guise of her hologram. "I think my control's getting better. I'm starting to be able to do more delicate work."

The scene the girl and her friends had made had gotten some looks sent in their direction, which was more attention than Caleb liked even on a good day. Caleb pretended to not notice, gathering trash onto his tray. “It was very good,” he told Nott, then to Jester, he reassured, “It’s fine, Jessie. I wouldn’t have gone out with her no matter how cool she was.” She hadn’t liked him; she’d liked whoever she thought Casey was. If he had been sitting here without the illusion, she wouldn’t have looked twice at him.

Jester looked a little saddened at that; she didn't know Caleb well at all, but he seemed so lonely, despite all of his friends. Still, Jester could see the silver lining in this moment, too, and she perked up. "Well then, I guess it's better that she was horrible?" she ventured, closing up the box of donuts after grabbing another one for herself. "And maybe the three of us can go to the movies some day!" she went on, warming to the topic. Caleb needed to hang out with people and do teenager things with them, Jester decided then and there, and look at that! she wanted so much to hang out with people and do teenager things with them.

***

Arms full of bags, bellies full of junk food, the three Xavier's kids found themselves slowing down and losing some of their momentum for the mall. (Mall-mentum?) But Jester and Nott were absolutely certain that there was at least one more thing they HAD to do and they'd even bothered to plan this part. They tugged Caleb along in their wake towards the jewelry and accessories store that expressly advertised: Free Piercing With Jewelry Purchase.

"We're gonna look SO COOL," Nott babbled happily once the shop was in sight. "Way cooler than what's-her-face and her bitchy friends back there. What're you gonna get, Jessie?!"

"The lobes, obviously," Jester answered immediately. She'd been thinking about this, ever since the idea had first popped into their minds to get piercings! She'd had to, really, so she could forge them both the appropriate consent forms. You didn't need them for lobes, but pretty much for everything else! Now they only needed to convince someone that it was fine that their parents weren't there to sign them in person. And that the mutant thing was no problemo. "But a helix too! It's gonna look so cool. But yours will be so badass! I really like it. Do you know what she's getting?" she asked Caleb, all enthusiasm and delight.

“Wait. What?” Free piercing with jewelry purchase. Lobes. Caleb stopped dead in his tracks. Nott and Jester were talking about getting piercings. He hurried to catch up with the two girls, the bag with the books he’d been convinced to buy thumping against his thigh. “You—you can’t!” Then, in a quiet hiss, “Your image inducers.” Two mutants with the same advanced tech would get noticed! People would ask questions! They’d get suspicious!

"We'll find somebody mutant-friendly!" Jester replied without missing a beat. "Don't worry, Cay-cay. We'll sound them out before we drop the images. We've thought it all through!"

Nott felt a pang of guilt at Caleb's alarm, her glee fading into concern. She'd been so excited about the idea of getting pierced (by a professional even, instead of a relative with a needle!) with Jester that she hadn't really thought through how Caleb would react. But she should have.

"It's okay! It's okay," Nott dropped her bags to make a two-handed calm down gesture as she turned to reassure Caleb. "We checked out their website, and the owner is totally cool with, like, all kinds," she pointed to another sign on their door. All Are Welcome Here, it stated in multiple languages, over a rainbow background. "Somebody like that isn't going to beat up on a couple of - on kids like us. And if we get a bad feeling inside, we'll call it off before they know anything."

Keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t attract any attention, Caleb said, “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about that.” He pointed to the image inducer around Nott’s wrist. “Two kids wearing the same high-tech watch is weird. It’s not like the Apple store sells them next to the iPods. They’ll want to know where you got them. What if they mention it to someone and word gets round? It won’t be unsafe just for you. It’ll be unsafe for anyone who wears one of those.”

"They're just watches, Cay-cay," Jester replied lightly. "We're obviously hiding our true appearance thanks to our super powers. You worry too much." She said the latter while patting him comfortingly on the arm. "It'll be fine! You can stay out here if you like."

"We can wait until they're distracted or something to turn the doohickeys off," Nott added. "So they won't know how we did it! And we can keep them under our sleeves - they won't even realize we had watches on at all."

Nott frowned softly, hearing herself go to all this trouble to convince Caleb... Maybe she was trying to convince herself, too. It had all seemed so simple when it was her and Jester wanting to go do a fun thing like normal girls. But they weren't normal, no matter how great it had been to play pretend today. She couldn't fault him for reminding them of that before they potentially went and did something stupid. And wanting to do something special for herself wasn't worth putting Caleb into a panic.

She looked up at Caleb, letting him see her hesitation. "If you think it's too dangerous, and you really don't want me to go through with it, then I won't," she promised him earnestly, searching for his eyes with her own through the illusions put between them. "I can't speak for Jester, but for me, it's that simple."

Caleb sighed quietly, his shoulders drooping. Nott had looked so happy and excited about getting a piercing, but now she just looked sad. No, worse, disappointed. He’d done that to her. It was his fault. Maybe he was over-worrying—Being paranoid. Nott was smart; She would be careful. “No.” He gave her a smile. “Go ahead. I will wait out here.”

"We have a great plan and it will go without a hitch!" Jester promised him, her expression shifting from crestfallen to ecstatic. They needed to go now, before he changed his mind, or Nott did. Jester turned to her roommate, her extremely hopeful smile looking remarkably like hers, despite the hologram. "Let's go, Nott? It will take a while to do us both! And I want three different ones!"

"We'll be fine," Nott reached out to squeeze Caleb's hand, her own renewed smile delighted but a bit anxious. (She would've liked a swallow from her flask for courage, but that was about the last thing she needed to be caught doing right now.) "It's fine! You just wait and read one of your books or something, and we'll come right out when we're done."

Before she could waffle any more than that, she turned to run off with Jester for the open storefront.

Jester walked into the shop eagerly, tail swinging invisibly behind her. There was a woman behind the counter, looking fairly conservative, but Jester zeroed in on the boy in his early twenties currently rearranging a display of jewelry. There was a strand of electric blue in his dark hair, and he was wearing matching nail polish, not to mention the few piercings he sported. He was clearly who they needed!

So she walked right up to him. "HI! I'm Jes-sy, and this is my friend Kylie. We want to get pierced!"

"Um, hi," the boy replied, clearly taken aback by the level of enthusiasm.

Kylie? Who the hel- OH RIGHT. Right.

"Hi," the smaller girl smiled wide as she practically danced in place beside the first. "We want our ears done and I want a ring for my nose too! Do you do the piercings? Can we get ours done NOW?! Oh, yeah - we've got the consent forms filled out by our parents. Show him the forms, Jessie!"

Jester had already set down her shopping bags to rifle through her pink backpack. "We know they should be here to sign it, but they're really busy, and my mom's all the way in New Zealand. But we can FaceTime her if that would make you feel better!" She shoved the two consent forms at him. "What's your name?"

"Uh, Jeff."

"Like our folks could be bothered to take us to the mall," Nott rolled her hologram's totally normal, human-looking eyes as if to say adults, AMIRITE? She reached into her pocket, grabbing the wad of twenties for clothes and stuff she hadn't spent any of yet since Jester's mom had been paying for their trip so far. "But we've got the forms and we've got the cash, and that's what matters, right Jeff? Hey, do you do the piercing here yourself? I like yours!"

"Uh," Jeff answered with mumble-mouthed brevity, clearly at a loss when it came to two seriously talkative girls.

He looked slightly confused as he took the forms from the older girl and scanned them for the signatures at the bottom. They looked like how an adult would sign. He thought. None of the words or names seemed super fake, and as long as they had the papers, he didn't think anyone could get in trouble. She'd even said the thing about calling her mom. "We don't have to call New Zealand. You just... Pick from the starter jewelry here, and it only takes a minute." He looked back up at Jessie, wavering, and glanced at the lady behind the counter. "I should probably ask the assistant manager."

"Is she nice?" Jester asked worriedly. "I mean, this matters so much to us, Jeff. I mean, we're..." She leaned in close, dropped her voice. "We're mutants. And we can't walk around being ourselves, because that's not safe, so the piercings are our way to rebel against society, you know?"

From the look on Jeff's face, he didn't really know, no, but there was some sympathy there.

"Right, Kylie?" Jester prodded her friend, tail invisibly prodding Nott in the back.

Nott wobbled from the tail-prod, more surprised than shoved, but regained her balance straightaway. "Y-yes! That's right!" She had a flash of anxious doubt about this whole thing suddenly, now that Jester had gone and said the thing out loud. Is this guy gonna narc us off? Maybe Caleb was right?! Oh crap. But it was too late, and she wasn't gonna bail on Jester after all of this... "This does matter a lot, and you don't want to - to send us back home to do it ourselves, do you? We could screw it up, we could get hurt, we could spend the rest of our endangered lives looking like pincushions, and, and get infected!"

Jeff sighed as he looked back at the assistant manager as if to say she's kind of a hardass actually. But he did think it was totally messed up that mutants got treated so differently from other people, even if they hadn't done anything wrong. A couple of kids couldn't be dangerous, could they, and he didn't want to be a part of the problem. When he thought about it later, he didn't want to regret being a dick to somebody that didn't deserve it. He didn't want to be a fucking establishment tool.

"I'm not a bigot. But I don't want any trouble. So just - be cool about it," he told them quietly. "So there's no trouble. Can you girls do that?"

Nott was the best! The risk of infection was clearly the best way to play this! Jester had nodded fervently at her words, trying to look sufficiently serious so Jeff would take Nott's words to heart. As he thought things over, Jester sent a quick prayer to the Traveler... and sure enough, Jeff agreed!

"Don't worry, Jeff," Jester told him with a bright, bright smile. "We're the coolest."

***

Twenty minutes later, the girls emerged from the shop studded with their new piercings. Not that they looked like they had new piercings, because they'd put their holograms back on and hadn't stopped to take the time to re-scan themselves and edit the projections to reflect the changes. Jeff had gone an unhealthy shade of pale when he saw what Jester and Nott really looked like under there after he'd had to turn and pull out his supplies, and then again when he'd turned around from cleaning up the piercing room to see them looking exactly as they had before. They said something about 'mutant powers' and he hadn't asked any follow-up questions. But he got the job done right and then snuck out the staff door to take his break and avoid the assistant manager. If she asked, he'd lie and say they'd bought the jewelry and then chickened out. (She wouldn't ask.)

Nott especially was doing that thing where she was trying to move quickly but trying not to look like that was exactly what she was doing, walking briskly and a bit stiffly as she returned to where Caleb waited outside. "Ca~sey," she sing-songed brightly once she reached him. Her projection hadn't changed to show her new jewelry, but she did smile wide, positively gleeful. "We did it! We'll have to show you later, but we look really cool," her voice went high.

Caleb had spent the thirty-two minutes Nott and Jester were gone failing to read the first page of his new book and trying not to glance nervously at the jewelry store. He’d been mostly left alone while he waited except for a mother with her toddler who’d stopped to share his bench and then immediately booked it when she’d noticed he was reading a book on witchcraft.

At the sound of Nott’s voice, Caleb looked up and over, obvious relief passing across his face at the sight of both Nott and Jester beaming and in once piece. “I can’t wait to see,” he told Nott, smiling fondly.

"Really cool," Jester confirmed in an echo of Nott, her voice dropping by comparison. "I mean, I'm sure you'll wish you'd gotten something done. But Jeff would probably do you if we stop by again. He was pretty cool, right?" she asked, turning to Nott for her opinion of the piercer.

"I don't think he'll rat us out, because he'd end up looking even worse than us for going along with it," Nott said as agreement. "His tools were clean, he had a steady hand, and he was professional. He didn't make a single crack about our looks. I tipped him a hundred dollars," she added, because that didn't hurt either. It was a small fortune by her standards, but it was only money.

It felt like the air had left the room. Caleb must have misheard. “A hun—a hundred dollars?” he asked, his voice strained.

"He deserved a tip!" Jester stated enthusiastically. "And it makes him more likely to help out the next mutants in need. Everybody wins!"

"Do you think it's too much? Should I have done $50?" Now that Nott had food and lodging and all of this other stuff just provided for her all the time, it didn't seem like such a big deal to blow some of her school-provided funds on whatever else she felt like. She almost never actually paid for anything, and she had her ways to scrounge up a few dollars here or there when she had to. "I looked at it as an investment. We needed better than $20 loyalty for sure, but I probably could've done with fifty. I was treating Jessie anyway, for being so great about this trip." She smiled at the blue girl. "But it doesn't matter now, it's fine. We should probably go, unless there's other stuff we want to do."

Caleb stood, his head still spinning with I tipped him a hundred dollars. That was so many books. He could see Nott’s point, though, in buying his silence. It was safer for everyone. “We can go. I’m ready.”

Jester beamed right back at Nott. "I think you did great, Nott," she told her friend, and wound her arms through Caleb's and Nott's to start heading back out to the bus stop, shopping bags bumping against their linked arms as they walked. "It was a great mall trip, wasn't it? We all found really cool things to buy, and we got pierced! It hurt less than I thought it would," she admitted, looking to Nott to see if her friend had felt the same way about hers. Maybe the nose hurt a lot more than the ear?

Oh sure, getting pierced hurt. Sort of. Her ear cartilage and the nose one - the 'septum' was the word Jeff had used - that had really stung like a motherfucker, but only for a couple of seconds until the deed was done and her endorphins kicked in with a tingly rush. She'd had a lot worse. (She'd been with the Right, and that was enough said about that.) But more importantly, Nott felt cool and crazy and like she'd done something bad in the GOOD way, and that was totally worth getting jabbed with needles or her face being sore while the three new holes in her head healed. For the first time in a long time, she got to make a choice about how she was going to look that made her feel tougher and prettier, and that... That was no small thing.

"It wasn't so bad," Nott agreed, privately proud of herself. And proud of Caleb and Jester, too, in a funny way. She wasn't sure if they would get along at all, and there were times they seemed really uncomfortable, Caleb's uneasy quiet butting up against Jester's manic delight. But even though they were very different people... She liked both kinds. "We did really good today, you guys. Best mall trip ever, and we've got the scars to prove it."