![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Pam and Nott - Spoops and Creeps - Backdated to Halloween
When Nott gets to Genosha with the others for their Halloween festivities, she's surprised to receive a warm reception from Scary Pam. They're both damaged goods so they've got that to talk about. ...Are they friends now?!
Nott had a whole lot of sugar in her and a whole lot of drink, which made her feel somehow both queasy and magnificent at the same time, though her magic mutant gut kept her from actually getting sick or anything. The costume helped the aura of booze-glamor, or maybe it was just like the rest of her because she'd made it? She was an Ace bandage mummy whose wrappings were getting grimy around their edges from the Xavier's party days ago and tonight's trick-or-treating and the rest. Her paper mache King Tut headdress and plastic jewels similarly looked both busted and resplendent in the spooo~ooky carnival glow of the Genosha Halloween night block party. Which actually was scary, a little, in that Nott didn't trust this place at all, and clearly neither did Caleb, and that was enough to creep her right the fuck out.
But they'd both agreed to come so they could keep an eye on the others, if for no other reason. And also? There was the piece of paper crammed in one of her pockets hidden under all of those bandages, too.
Hey kid. Big party in Genosha on Halloween. Free booze. Want to come? Bring your friends (if they're not looking to kill me). ~Fatale Pam
WEIRD, right?
So Nott was sort of looking for Pam in all the activity, she guessed? Not that she really knew what she was gonna do with her if she found her.
Taking a moment to hang back where she could see the kids from her school at a distance in the crowd (but probably not where they could see her), Nott thrust a hand back into her big orange jack-o-lantern pail, rustling around under the layers of candy on top for one of the single-serving bottles of liquor hiding underneath. She glanced around her to make sure nobody was looking right at her and then crammed the whole thing into her mouth plastic and all like a big fat Nik-L-Nip.
Pam had slipped away from Alex to visit one of the port-a-potties that had been set up on various corners, and emerged to catch sight of a group of people across the street who she'd pretty much hoped wouldn't be there. She waited until they'd passed, resisting the urge to pull her knife from her boot just in case Cal saw her, and instead wiped her hands off with one of the wet wipes provided for just that purpose. One of the group lingered behind, fiddling around with one of those trick-or-treat pumpkins. Given the height, it wasn't hard to guess just who it was, and she opened a portal that would bring her right behind the mummy in question.
"Hey kiddo," she said, grinning. "Nice costume. Glad you decided to come."
Nott's shoulders and ears twitched under their wrappings, but to the numbing credit of her hooch, she didn't startle the way she might've. It still took her a moment to finish crunching down the miniature bottle in her mouth after she'd turned to see Pam, huge yellow cat eyes giving the blue girl a once-over. "Ah. Hello, Pam," Nott tried once she'd managed.
She hoisted her smiling bucket at Pam. "Trick or treat?"
Pam's eyebrows rose, her own gold eyes flickering with amusement. "Sorry, all out of candy. Buy you a drink, though, if you want. Or something to eat." Though given the amount of candy Nott had in that bucket (and the fact she'd apparently been chowing on it when Pam had appeared) she wasn't sure the girl'd be hungry. Still, she'd invited her. Fair was fair.
Stomach squishing as if to remind her it needed something more than sugar and alcohol today, Nott glanced in the direction of the Xavier's group before nodding. "Maybe just something from one of the stalls out here? What's good in Mutantlandia?"
"Fuck, that's an even worse name for the place than the one it came with," Pam pointed out, but gestured for Nott to follow her to the nearest food stand. "And pretty much anything. The jerked chicken is good. So's the baked mac 'n cheese. Kinda weird," she admitted, "but a hell of a lot more portable. How're things going?"
"I'll eat those," Nott agreed quickly as she trailed behind. "I'll eat just about anything, but I'll definitely eat those." She took a moment longer to answer the other thing as they waited in line. "It's going fine, I guess? I'm working on a diploma I can't ever use. Some of us ended up brainwashed on crazy interdimensional TV shows. Jester and I solved a case. They changed the recipe for the pizza in the school cafeteria, so it's supposed to be healthier? It's not as good as before."
"It wasn't all that good in the first place," Pam pointed out, not unsympathetically. "Not sure who told them that pizza was supposed to be healthy in the first place. What do you mean you got brainwashed on interdimensional TV with Jester and solved a case? Was it some kind of fucked up hypnotist show?"
Nott blinked up at her through the bandages snug around her face. "Those are two different things," she explained, or started to. But maybe she shouldn't be talking to Pam about that sensitive stuff anyway? "Jester and I are detectives. Didn't you know? We're the best at the school. Maybe the world, but it's hard to say for sure."
"Oh yeah?" Pam's eyebrows rose and she grinned. "Think you guys can find out which of my teammates took off with my favorite knife sheath? I know one of them hid the damn thing to fuck with me, but I'm not sure which."
"We could," Nott started brightly before stopping herself. Then her excitement faded fast. "But all of your, uh, 'teammates' are here on Genosha, aren't they? Your whole Brotherhood clubhouse or whatever?"
"Hey, we made it to the big time," Pam corrected. "We're in the Prime Minister's house now." She grinned. "Really gotta put some holes in the walls so it feels more like home. Anyway, you guys can visit, right? Not like old baldy can stop you if you want to come."
"Yeah, I'd say you did," Nott muttered, decidedly not grinning back. "I guess we could, technically, but I sure can't teleport and neither can Jester."
"So? I'm in and out of there every couple of weeks," Pam pointed out, her grin fading. "Or I give you a portal plant and you grow your own portal. Whichever. Unless you've got a problem with Genosha?" In which case, why were she and her friends even there to begin with?
"So 'growing a portal plant' is a weird as hell thing to find yourself talking about, for one," Nott insisted. "And I'm not saying I 'have a problem' with Genosha, but uh... It's not exactly real stable here, is it?" She was trying not to shit where she was about to eat. But the truth of it was in her words: Genosha sort of scared her. "Not everybody has crazy combat superpowers to defend themselves with."
"Yeah, which is why Lance is heading up the Magistrates, to make sure any trouble isn't our trouble. But there hasn't been any major fighting in months," Pam pointed out. She grinned. "Just look around. It's cool."
Nott didn't know anything much about politics. Where she'd come from, you didn't care about the law unless they were in your own backyard. And if the law knew whose yard it was and they came in anyway, you were gonna make them sorry for it. But she knew that running a whole country - even a little baby island country - had to be a lot of politics and a lot of law in one big yard, and she didn't think it was so nice and easy as the Brotherhood made it out to be. The last time everybody thought Genosha was a safe haven for mutants, it sure hadn't been, and Magneto being all Emperor-for-Life about the place since then didn't give her a good feeling at all.
She shrugged as her eyes darted around them, not really wanting to get into it with Pam when the school was so very far away. "...I dunno. I keep hearing about how great the chicken and the mac and cheese are, but I sure haven't tasted any yet."
"That's because there was a line," Pam pointed out, but dropped it. The fact Nott was even here was pretty damn good, considering how long it had taken before she'd been willing to go anywhere. Pushing the issue wouldn't help. Instead, she stepped up to the front of the line, where a yellow-green skinned mutate (you could almost always tell by the hair, which was still growing out from the half inch the Genoshans had thought appropriate) was taking orders. "Two jerked chicken, two mac and cheese, and..." she turned to Nott. "You want something to drink?"
Pretty much constantly.
"Just water or something, thanks," Nott warbled back.
"You sure? Genosha doesn't really have a drinking age," Pam pointed out with a smirk. "Here's your chance if you want to get buzzed."
Nott gave her a funny look. And then it dawned on her that Pam probably didn't know about how much she drank. Oh, wooooooow.
"I can have alcohol, for the first time, and I won't get in trouble?!" She was shooting for sincere, though it was hard to tell if she was overacting it. Just because she didn't get this chance very often. "Really?"
Pam rolled her eyes and laughed. "Nice try. I've been to parties at the school, y'know. Not buying the first time thing. You want something or not?"
"I will drink anything I am handed right now, as long as it isn't coming out of someone's body," Nott swore. "Yeah, okay. Booze me up."
"Two hard lemonades," Pam said, turning back to the vendor, who nodded and went to collect their orders. She turned to lean against the side of the truck to wait. "So, who are you all here with? And are they going to start freaking that you were kidnapped or something?"
"Why? Are you planning to kidnap me?" It was a joke. Mostly. "Nah, I can still see 'em. So they can probably still see me if they turn around and look. It's, ah, them - those guys - from Xavier's?" Nott pointed with a claw through the crowd. She was short, but she could still spot some familiar blue horns and black frills between a gap in some shoulders. "The Lord of the Rings nerds and the goth chick and whatever else."
The Lord of the Rings nerds and the goth chick. Pam looked around until she caught sight of them again, and sure enough, there they were, not that far off. "Who's the goth chick?" she asked, perfectly able to put names to the others and hoping they wouldn't immediately recognize her. It was Halloween; it could happen. There were a lot more blue people around than usual. "And why would I kidnap you?" she added as an afterthought.
"That's Jester. She's my roommate," Nott explained. Those particular blue girls hadn't met, she guessed? "And I have no idea, really, but it's happened before," she reminded as to the kidnapping. Like a couple of times.
Pam gave her a skeptical look. "Pretty sure I've never kidnapped you before."
Nott thought the other girl was giving her a hard time for a moment, being cute about the wording or whatever. But if Pam's head was still messed up on some things, maybe she was actually serious? "Not by you," she insisted. "And if you're thinking about it, you gotta get in line, sister. I'm in high demand for creeps."
Nott wasn't, actually. By herself, she was kind of a dud. But she knew how special Caleb was, and so did a lot of other people, apparently.
Pam laughed and rolled her eyes at the younger girl. "So I'm a creep now? And here I bought you food." She smirked. "I'll get my name on the waiting list, though. Just in case I ever want to kidnap someone other than Simon."
Nott pulled a face. "So, what, you're kidnapping people now? Is that what you're saying?"
"Okay, now you're just fucking with me," Pam pointed out, making a face back at her, and turned to get their food
"...What?!" If kidnappers were creeps, and Pam wasn't a kidnapper, then she wasn't a creep. Right? Unless she was a kidnapper? And what was the thing about Simon even supposed to mean? Nott had no idea how they'd got the conversation tangled up like this, but real solid food instead of just alcohol and candy actually sounded like a good idea.
Pam paid the vendor, then handed Nott one of the plates and a bottle. "Here's your treat. You want a lift back to your friends?" Seeing as Nott was apparently afraid she was some kind of freaky kidnapper.
"I was gonna eat first," Nott shrugged as she stuck her arm through the loop of her candy bucket so she could handle the new items, still trying to figure out how they'd even got started on the whole kidnapping whatever-this-was. "Thank you. ...But I didn't actually call you a kidnapper or a creep," she hurried to add. "I got your invitation. That was nice. I wasn't expecting it, but it was nice."
"Hey, there's just the two of us girls who made it," Pam replied, shrugging awkwardly as she picked up a piece of her chicken and took a bite. "I know you've got Caleb and everything, but...if you need anything, call. Ok?" She grinned, a little. "And for the record? I may be crazy, but not that kind of crazy. The Simon thing's a joke. I keep showing up and begging him for emergency medical help. But I've never dragged him off without his ok.."
The two of us girls? But there were lots of girls here ton...
Oh. She meant from the Facility.
That's why Pam was being nice to Nott.
Nott's big yellow eyes stared at her for a long moment, thinking about that. Then they drifted to the savory chicken Pam was eating, and then the chicken on her own plate, which Nott similarly dug into while balancing her other stuff. "I don't think you're that kind of crazy," Nott muttered between bites, hopefully loud enough to be heard through the boisterous noise of the crowd around them.
Pam snerked. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. Anyway, how're things going back at the school?"
Other than Brainwashee TV and the usual teen drama, which Pam probably wouldn't care about because it all had to do with people she didn't know or didn't seem to get along with anyway, "it's fine. My grades are all over the place, but I'm squeaking through my classes. More or less."
While true, that wasn't what Nott was thinking about as she chewed more chicken and washed it down with the spiked lemonade. "What about you? You ever think about, like...graduation?"
"Nah." Pam shook her head. "I mean, I'm almost 18, and I had like, one year of high school. Which I sucked at. I'd be at it forever. Really not worth it to me, though I kinda wish Alex would stick with it. He's got the brains for it - I don't."
Nott crammed more jerk chicken into her chicken...jerk...hole? Was that anything? Ugh. That came out sounding gross. That definitely wasn't what she was going for. Let's just forget this ever happened.
Nott ate more jerk chicken like a normal person and sort of looked sideways at Pam while she did. "What do you think you're gonna do, then? For work, for where you're going to live. The adult stuff."
Pam smirked. "Actually, sort of adulting already. I'm teaching self-defense and hand to hand combat with Billy, and providing transport services for Lance's crew." She shrugged. "Might as well use what I've learned, right? Room and board comes free with being Brotherhood."
"But what about later? Like if you want to stop being a terro- UH, stop teaching fighting and being a chauffeur, and - I don't know - move to Paris? Or become an actress? Or buy a nice car? Or start a business, or - or start a family?" It felt weird as weird to Nott to ask adult questions (drunk and sugar-high and in a silly costume no less) as it probably was to hear her asking, but this had been rattling around in her head for a while. She didn't think Professor X had really answered that question for anybody yet, but maybe the Brotherhood had and she just didn't know it.
Pam's face paled, difficult though it would be to tell given the face paint and her regular coloration, and she swallowed, hard. Nott didn't know - fuck, no one knew except Simon. "A family...really isn't gonna happen," she admitted awkwardly. "All the shit the Right did...I can't." Which still...she was older, already, than her mother had been when she'd had her. And while she didn't want kids now, she would have liked to have had them. Someday. She shrugged and waved it off, and forced a crooked smile. "The rest? I can do any of that shit here. All kinds of mutants doing all kinds of shit, I can pick and choose. Or I can go get a job with the Magistrates, you don't need a diploma for that. It's not like Lance has one, and he's in charge."
"I'm sorry," Nott blurted, after having seen Pam look - not quite scared, but vulnerable? It was very un-Pam-like. "I didn't mean to, uh... I probably can't either! Not because of that. But just look at me," she babbled before finally stopping herself.
She wasn't gonna drop it, was she? Already regretting she'd said anything at all, though truthfully, she'd regretted it the minute it came out of her mouth, Pam sighed and looked at Nott. Really looked at her. Short - really fucking short. Green. Ears, teeth, claws... "You've got all the right parts, don't you?" Pam double checked. "Or is there shit you can't see, looking?"
Nott made a kind of stammery-croaky sound with her mouth open where words should be for a moment before they got any traction, gaping at Pam and scrunching in on herself slightly. Her face didn't go red, not with her coloration, but it did seem to go a shade darker. "I don't... I haven't... It doesn't matter, pleasestoplooking," she finally managed, suddenly busying herself with chugging her way doggedly through her lemonade using the straw.
"You said to," Pam pointed out, but obediently turned her attention back to her chicken. "Anyway, I don't get it, sorry."
"I know, I meant that more metaphorically, it was my mistake," Nott lamented, pausing afterward to take a big, deep breath. She silently willed the cheap vodka mixed in with the lemonade to do its job quickly.
"So, what's the problem? I mean, you could probably stand to wash your hair a little more often," Pam smirked, well aware she was being a shit, "but if I remember right, you have issues with that. So...?"
Nott (uncharacteristically) took a moment to think before speaking, remembering the incident with Pam in the Facility showers about a thousand years ago.
"I know I'm a mess," she idly rattled the ice in her sippy cup, watching it slide around. "That's all I was trying to say."
"So? Clean up some," Pam recommended, then smiled brightly as a thought occurred to her. "Or I can introduce you to my friend Mort. You guys would probably hit it off."
Nott was a bit leery at that expression on Pam's face, raising a wary eyebrow at her. Pam hadn't exactly been in a hurry to introduce any of the Brotherhood hotties to her before. "Why, is he really ugly? Or super gross? You think just because I look like this, I don't have my own standards?"
"Hey, he's a nice guy," Pam protested. "Maybe a little gross, but I can get him to clean up his act if he stands a chance."
"No thanks," Nott told her without needing to see a picture. Putting down her empty cup and making short work of the baked mac and cheese, she rolled up the paper plate it had been served on in her hands and proceeded to chew through one end how you'd do to a burrito. "Unless he looks like Idris Elba, I don't think he's my type."
Pam let out a snort of laughter. "Yeaaah, not even close. Seriously high standards there, girl."
"I'm not exactly looking? But if Idris Elba showed up and confessed he had a thing for tiny green girls, I'd be gone, you'd never see me again, in a heartbeat," Nott announced as she ripped through the last of her plate. "Even for an old guy, he's fucking HOT," she licked some of the chicken juices and spices off of her hand.
"Not going to argue that." Pam smirked as she watched Nott devour the rest of her plate, and handed hers over in case she wanted it, too. "Maybe he's got a thing for short blue girls, too. We could share."
"I would not share," Nott found herself chuckling, taking Pam's plate and folding it taco-style this time.
"Some friend you are," Pam shot back, then gave up and laughed. "Fine, keep him. Pretty sure Alex is starting to get jealous anyway."
Nott munched on the plate and considered that, yeah, she guessed Pam kind of was her friend. Or at least they were friendly. That was a strange thought to have about someone who'd been made to knock the snot out of you a few times. "Why's that? Aren't you two still a thing?"
"No, we're definitely still a thing." Pam smiled, more comfortable with the idea than she'd ever been. "Just...he never really cared before if I fucked anyone else. And I think he's kind of starting to." She grinned. "At any rate, he cares about people checking out my costume. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it, but it's kind of cool."
"Ohhh," Nott cooed conversationally. "I mean, that's - that sounds serious," she agreed, giving Pam's alien-rainbow-glitter-stripper outfit another look. It wasn't exactly subtle, no, and the wrongs kinds of guys might try to give a girl the wrong kind of attention in it.
In the distance, she saw peeks of the blue goth and the LOTR nerds on the move from where they'd been hanging out, chatting or getting a bite or something, Nott couldn't really tell from this distance and at this angle? But they looked like they were making ready to go, she realized, and she hefted her bucket back into her hands. "I should probably catch up. You know. All these kidnappers and creeps around," she revisited.
She offered the pumpkin candy bucket to Pam. "You're in a costume, too. Have a treat."
"You sure?" Without waiting for a reply, Pam reached into the bucket and pulled out a candy bar, then grinned. "You watch out for those creeps," she warned Nott mock-seriously, wagging a finger at the other girl. "And, y'know, if you get sick of all the guys? Give a yell sometime, we'll hang out."
Nott had a whole lot of sugar in her and a whole lot of drink, which made her feel somehow both queasy and magnificent at the same time, though her magic mutant gut kept her from actually getting sick or anything. The costume helped the aura of booze-glamor, or maybe it was just like the rest of her because she'd made it? She was an Ace bandage mummy whose wrappings were getting grimy around their edges from the Xavier's party days ago and tonight's trick-or-treating and the rest. Her paper mache King Tut headdress and plastic jewels similarly looked both busted and resplendent in the spooo~ooky carnival glow of the Genosha Halloween night block party. Which actually was scary, a little, in that Nott didn't trust this place at all, and clearly neither did Caleb, and that was enough to creep her right the fuck out.
But they'd both agreed to come so they could keep an eye on the others, if for no other reason. And also? There was the piece of paper crammed in one of her pockets hidden under all of those bandages, too.
Hey kid. Big party in Genosha on Halloween. Free booze. Want to come? Bring your friends (if they're not looking to kill me). ~
WEIRD, right?
So Nott was sort of looking for Pam in all the activity, she guessed? Not that she really knew what she was gonna do with her if she found her.
Taking a moment to hang back where she could see the kids from her school at a distance in the crowd (but probably not where they could see her), Nott thrust a hand back into her big orange jack-o-lantern pail, rustling around under the layers of candy on top for one of the single-serving bottles of liquor hiding underneath. She glanced around her to make sure nobody was looking right at her and then crammed the whole thing into her mouth plastic and all like a big fat Nik-L-Nip.
Pam had slipped away from Alex to visit one of the port-a-potties that had been set up on various corners, and emerged to catch sight of a group of people across the street who she'd pretty much hoped wouldn't be there. She waited until they'd passed, resisting the urge to pull her knife from her boot just in case Cal saw her, and instead wiped her hands off with one of the wet wipes provided for just that purpose. One of the group lingered behind, fiddling around with one of those trick-or-treat pumpkins. Given the height, it wasn't hard to guess just who it was, and she opened a portal that would bring her right behind the mummy in question.
"Hey kiddo," she said, grinning. "Nice costume. Glad you decided to come."
Nott's shoulders and ears twitched under their wrappings, but to the numbing credit of her hooch, she didn't startle the way she might've. It still took her a moment to finish crunching down the miniature bottle in her mouth after she'd turned to see Pam, huge yellow cat eyes giving the blue girl a once-over. "Ah. Hello, Pam," Nott tried once she'd managed.
She hoisted her smiling bucket at Pam. "Trick or treat?"
Pam's eyebrows rose, her own gold eyes flickering with amusement. "Sorry, all out of candy. Buy you a drink, though, if you want. Or something to eat." Though given the amount of candy Nott had in that bucket (and the fact she'd apparently been chowing on it when Pam had appeared) she wasn't sure the girl'd be hungry. Still, she'd invited her. Fair was fair.
Stomach squishing as if to remind her it needed something more than sugar and alcohol today, Nott glanced in the direction of the Xavier's group before nodding. "Maybe just something from one of the stalls out here? What's good in Mutantlandia?"
"Fuck, that's an even worse name for the place than the one it came with," Pam pointed out, but gestured for Nott to follow her to the nearest food stand. "And pretty much anything. The jerked chicken is good. So's the baked mac 'n cheese. Kinda weird," she admitted, "but a hell of a lot more portable. How're things going?"
"I'll eat those," Nott agreed quickly as she trailed behind. "I'll eat just about anything, but I'll definitely eat those." She took a moment longer to answer the other thing as they waited in line. "It's going fine, I guess? I'm working on a diploma I can't ever use. Some of us ended up brainwashed on crazy interdimensional TV shows. Jester and I solved a case. They changed the recipe for the pizza in the school cafeteria, so it's supposed to be healthier? It's not as good as before."
"It wasn't all that good in the first place," Pam pointed out, not unsympathetically. "Not sure who told them that pizza was supposed to be healthy in the first place. What do you mean you got brainwashed on interdimensional TV with Jester and solved a case? Was it some kind of fucked up hypnotist show?"
Nott blinked up at her through the bandages snug around her face. "Those are two different things," she explained, or started to. But maybe she shouldn't be talking to Pam about that sensitive stuff anyway? "Jester and I are detectives. Didn't you know? We're the best at the school. Maybe the world, but it's hard to say for sure."
"Oh yeah?" Pam's eyebrows rose and she grinned. "Think you guys can find out which of my teammates took off with my favorite knife sheath? I know one of them hid the damn thing to fuck with me, but I'm not sure which."
"We could," Nott started brightly before stopping herself. Then her excitement faded fast. "But all of your, uh, 'teammates' are here on Genosha, aren't they? Your whole Brotherhood clubhouse or whatever?"
"Hey, we made it to the big time," Pam corrected. "We're in the Prime Minister's house now." She grinned. "Really gotta put some holes in the walls so it feels more like home. Anyway, you guys can visit, right? Not like old baldy can stop you if you want to come."
"Yeah, I'd say you did," Nott muttered, decidedly not grinning back. "I guess we could, technically, but I sure can't teleport and neither can Jester."
"So? I'm in and out of there every couple of weeks," Pam pointed out, her grin fading. "Or I give you a portal plant and you grow your own portal. Whichever. Unless you've got a problem with Genosha?" In which case, why were she and her friends even there to begin with?
"So 'growing a portal plant' is a weird as hell thing to find yourself talking about, for one," Nott insisted. "And I'm not saying I 'have a problem' with Genosha, but uh... It's not exactly real stable here, is it?" She was trying not to shit where she was about to eat. But the truth of it was in her words: Genosha sort of scared her. "Not everybody has crazy combat superpowers to defend themselves with."
"Yeah, which is why Lance is heading up the Magistrates, to make sure any trouble isn't our trouble. But there hasn't been any major fighting in months," Pam pointed out. She grinned. "Just look around. It's cool."
Nott didn't know anything much about politics. Where she'd come from, you didn't care about the law unless they were in your own backyard. And if the law knew whose yard it was and they came in anyway, you were gonna make them sorry for it. But she knew that running a whole country - even a little baby island country - had to be a lot of politics and a lot of law in one big yard, and she didn't think it was so nice and easy as the Brotherhood made it out to be. The last time everybody thought Genosha was a safe haven for mutants, it sure hadn't been, and Magneto being all Emperor-for-Life about the place since then didn't give her a good feeling at all.
She shrugged as her eyes darted around them, not really wanting to get into it with Pam when the school was so very far away. "...I dunno. I keep hearing about how great the chicken and the mac and cheese are, but I sure haven't tasted any yet."
"That's because there was a line," Pam pointed out, but dropped it. The fact Nott was even here was pretty damn good, considering how long it had taken before she'd been willing to go anywhere. Pushing the issue wouldn't help. Instead, she stepped up to the front of the line, where a yellow-green skinned mutate (you could almost always tell by the hair, which was still growing out from the half inch the Genoshans had thought appropriate) was taking orders. "Two jerked chicken, two mac and cheese, and..." she turned to Nott. "You want something to drink?"
Pretty much constantly.
"Just water or something, thanks," Nott warbled back.
"You sure? Genosha doesn't really have a drinking age," Pam pointed out with a smirk. "Here's your chance if you want to get buzzed."
Nott gave her a funny look. And then it dawned on her that Pam probably didn't know about how much she drank. Oh, wooooooow.
"I can have alcohol, for the first time, and I won't get in trouble?!" She was shooting for sincere, though it was hard to tell if she was overacting it. Just because she didn't get this chance very often. "Really?"
Pam rolled her eyes and laughed. "Nice try. I've been to parties at the school, y'know. Not buying the first time thing. You want something or not?"
"I will drink anything I am handed right now, as long as it isn't coming out of someone's body," Nott swore. "Yeah, okay. Booze me up."
"Two hard lemonades," Pam said, turning back to the vendor, who nodded and went to collect their orders. She turned to lean against the side of the truck to wait. "So, who are you all here with? And are they going to start freaking that you were kidnapped or something?"
"Why? Are you planning to kidnap me?" It was a joke. Mostly. "Nah, I can still see 'em. So they can probably still see me if they turn around and look. It's, ah, them - those guys - from Xavier's?" Nott pointed with a claw through the crowd. She was short, but she could still spot some familiar blue horns and black frills between a gap in some shoulders. "The Lord of the Rings nerds and the goth chick and whatever else."
The Lord of the Rings nerds and the goth chick. Pam looked around until she caught sight of them again, and sure enough, there they were, not that far off. "Who's the goth chick?" she asked, perfectly able to put names to the others and hoping they wouldn't immediately recognize her. It was Halloween; it could happen. There were a lot more blue people around than usual. "And why would I kidnap you?" she added as an afterthought.
"That's Jester. She's my roommate," Nott explained. Those particular blue girls hadn't met, she guessed? "And I have no idea, really, but it's happened before," she reminded as to the kidnapping. Like a couple of times.
Pam gave her a skeptical look. "Pretty sure I've never kidnapped you before."
Nott thought the other girl was giving her a hard time for a moment, being cute about the wording or whatever. But if Pam's head was still messed up on some things, maybe she was actually serious? "Not by you," she insisted. "And if you're thinking about it, you gotta get in line, sister. I'm in high demand for creeps."
Nott wasn't, actually. By herself, she was kind of a dud. But she knew how special Caleb was, and so did a lot of other people, apparently.
Pam laughed and rolled her eyes at the younger girl. "So I'm a creep now? And here I bought you food." She smirked. "I'll get my name on the waiting list, though. Just in case I ever want to kidnap someone other than Simon."
Nott pulled a face. "So, what, you're kidnapping people now? Is that what you're saying?"
"Okay, now you're just fucking with me," Pam pointed out, making a face back at her, and turned to get their food
"...What?!" If kidnappers were creeps, and Pam wasn't a kidnapper, then she wasn't a creep. Right? Unless she was a kidnapper? And what was the thing about Simon even supposed to mean? Nott had no idea how they'd got the conversation tangled up like this, but real solid food instead of just alcohol and candy actually sounded like a good idea.
Pam paid the vendor, then handed Nott one of the plates and a bottle. "Here's your treat. You want a lift back to your friends?" Seeing as Nott was apparently afraid she was some kind of freaky kidnapper.
"I was gonna eat first," Nott shrugged as she stuck her arm through the loop of her candy bucket so she could handle the new items, still trying to figure out how they'd even got started on the whole kidnapping whatever-this-was. "Thank you. ...But I didn't actually call you a kidnapper or a creep," she hurried to add. "I got your invitation. That was nice. I wasn't expecting it, but it was nice."
"Hey, there's just the two of us girls who made it," Pam replied, shrugging awkwardly as she picked up a piece of her chicken and took a bite. "I know you've got Caleb and everything, but...if you need anything, call. Ok?" She grinned, a little. "And for the record? I may be crazy, but not that kind of crazy. The Simon thing's a joke. I keep showing up and begging him for emergency medical help. But I've never dragged him off without his ok.."
The two of us girls? But there were lots of girls here ton...
Oh. She meant from the Facility.
That's why Pam was being nice to Nott.
Nott's big yellow eyes stared at her for a long moment, thinking about that. Then they drifted to the savory chicken Pam was eating, and then the chicken on her own plate, which Nott similarly dug into while balancing her other stuff. "I don't think you're that kind of crazy," Nott muttered between bites, hopefully loud enough to be heard through the boisterous noise of the crowd around them.
Pam snerked. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. Anyway, how're things going back at the school?"
Other than Brainwashee TV and the usual teen drama, which Pam probably wouldn't care about because it all had to do with people she didn't know or didn't seem to get along with anyway, "it's fine. My grades are all over the place, but I'm squeaking through my classes. More or less."
While true, that wasn't what Nott was thinking about as she chewed more chicken and washed it down with the spiked lemonade. "What about you? You ever think about, like...graduation?"
"Nah." Pam shook her head. "I mean, I'm almost 18, and I had like, one year of high school. Which I sucked at. I'd be at it forever. Really not worth it to me, though I kinda wish Alex would stick with it. He's got the brains for it - I don't."
Nott crammed more jerk chicken into her chicken...jerk...hole? Was that anything? Ugh. That came out sounding gross. That definitely wasn't what she was going for. Let's just forget this ever happened.
Nott ate more jerk chicken like a normal person and sort of looked sideways at Pam while she did. "What do you think you're gonna do, then? For work, for where you're going to live. The adult stuff."
Pam smirked. "Actually, sort of adulting already. I'm teaching self-defense and hand to hand combat with Billy, and providing transport services for Lance's crew." She shrugged. "Might as well use what I've learned, right? Room and board comes free with being Brotherhood."
"But what about later? Like if you want to stop being a terro- UH, stop teaching fighting and being a chauffeur, and - I don't know - move to Paris? Or become an actress? Or buy a nice car? Or start a business, or - or start a family?" It felt weird as weird to Nott to ask adult questions (drunk and sugar-high and in a silly costume no less) as it probably was to hear her asking, but this had been rattling around in her head for a while. She didn't think Professor X had really answered that question for anybody yet, but maybe the Brotherhood had and she just didn't know it.
Pam's face paled, difficult though it would be to tell given the face paint and her regular coloration, and she swallowed, hard. Nott didn't know - fuck, no one knew except Simon. "A family...really isn't gonna happen," she admitted awkwardly. "All the shit the Right did...I can't." Which still...she was older, already, than her mother had been when she'd had her. And while she didn't want kids now, she would have liked to have had them. Someday. She shrugged and waved it off, and forced a crooked smile. "The rest? I can do any of that shit here. All kinds of mutants doing all kinds of shit, I can pick and choose. Or I can go get a job with the Magistrates, you don't need a diploma for that. It's not like Lance has one, and he's in charge."
"I'm sorry," Nott blurted, after having seen Pam look - not quite scared, but vulnerable? It was very un-Pam-like. "I didn't mean to, uh... I probably can't either! Not because of that. But just look at me," she babbled before finally stopping herself.
She wasn't gonna drop it, was she? Already regretting she'd said anything at all, though truthfully, she'd regretted it the minute it came out of her mouth, Pam sighed and looked at Nott. Really looked at her. Short - really fucking short. Green. Ears, teeth, claws... "You've got all the right parts, don't you?" Pam double checked. "Or is there shit you can't see, looking?"
Nott made a kind of stammery-croaky sound with her mouth open where words should be for a moment before they got any traction, gaping at Pam and scrunching in on herself slightly. Her face didn't go red, not with her coloration, but it did seem to go a shade darker. "I don't... I haven't... It doesn't matter, pleasestoplooking," she finally managed, suddenly busying herself with chugging her way doggedly through her lemonade using the straw.
"You said to," Pam pointed out, but obediently turned her attention back to her chicken. "Anyway, I don't get it, sorry."
"I know, I meant that more metaphorically, it was my mistake," Nott lamented, pausing afterward to take a big, deep breath. She silently willed the cheap vodka mixed in with the lemonade to do its job quickly.
"So, what's the problem? I mean, you could probably stand to wash your hair a little more often," Pam smirked, well aware she was being a shit, "but if I remember right, you have issues with that. So...?"
Nott (uncharacteristically) took a moment to think before speaking, remembering the incident with Pam in the Facility showers about a thousand years ago.
"I know I'm a mess," she idly rattled the ice in her sippy cup, watching it slide around. "That's all I was trying to say."
"So? Clean up some," Pam recommended, then smiled brightly as a thought occurred to her. "Or I can introduce you to my friend Mort. You guys would probably hit it off."
Nott was a bit leery at that expression on Pam's face, raising a wary eyebrow at her. Pam hadn't exactly been in a hurry to introduce any of the Brotherhood hotties to her before. "Why, is he really ugly? Or super gross? You think just because I look like this, I don't have my own standards?"
"Hey, he's a nice guy," Pam protested. "Maybe a little gross, but I can get him to clean up his act if he stands a chance."
"No thanks," Nott told her without needing to see a picture. Putting down her empty cup and making short work of the baked mac and cheese, she rolled up the paper plate it had been served on in her hands and proceeded to chew through one end how you'd do to a burrito. "Unless he looks like Idris Elba, I don't think he's my type."
Pam let out a snort of laughter. "Yeaaah, not even close. Seriously high standards there, girl."
"I'm not exactly looking? But if Idris Elba showed up and confessed he had a thing for tiny green girls, I'd be gone, you'd never see me again, in a heartbeat," Nott announced as she ripped through the last of her plate. "Even for an old guy, he's fucking HOT," she licked some of the chicken juices and spices off of her hand.
"Not going to argue that." Pam smirked as she watched Nott devour the rest of her plate, and handed hers over in case she wanted it, too. "Maybe he's got a thing for short blue girls, too. We could share."
"I would not share," Nott found herself chuckling, taking Pam's plate and folding it taco-style this time.
"Some friend you are," Pam shot back, then gave up and laughed. "Fine, keep him. Pretty sure Alex is starting to get jealous anyway."
Nott munched on the plate and considered that, yeah, she guessed Pam kind of was her friend. Or at least they were friendly. That was a strange thought to have about someone who'd been made to knock the snot out of you a few times. "Why's that? Aren't you two still a thing?"
"No, we're definitely still a thing." Pam smiled, more comfortable with the idea than she'd ever been. "Just...he never really cared before if I fucked anyone else. And I think he's kind of starting to." She grinned. "At any rate, he cares about people checking out my costume. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it, but it's kind of cool."
"Ohhh," Nott cooed conversationally. "I mean, that's - that sounds serious," she agreed, giving Pam's alien-rainbow-glitter-stripper outfit another look. It wasn't exactly subtle, no, and the wrongs kinds of guys might try to give a girl the wrong kind of attention in it.
In the distance, she saw peeks of the blue goth and the LOTR nerds on the move from where they'd been hanging out, chatting or getting a bite or something, Nott couldn't really tell from this distance and at this angle? But they looked like they were making ready to go, she realized, and she hefted her bucket back into her hands. "I should probably catch up. You know. All these kidnappers and creeps around," she revisited.
She offered the pumpkin candy bucket to Pam. "You're in a costume, too. Have a treat."
"You sure?" Without waiting for a reply, Pam reached into the bucket and pulled out a candy bar, then grinned. "You watch out for those creeps," she warned Nott mock-seriously, wagging a finger at the other girl. "And, y'know, if you get sick of all the guys? Give a yell sometime, we'll hang out."
no subject