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ax_mainInu-yasha bumps into Teddy at the party (literally) and they chat. It’s all very confusing.
Just a bit of homophobia fears come up, but nothing serious.
Inu-yasha was having a really confusing night. He was at a party, of all things - and he'd been... talking to people. Girls had talked to him even...
All because Yana had given him this drink that made things... warm, and nice, but also... confusing.
He didn't even remember where he'd been going - nowhere important, probably - when suddenly his foot caught something and he was falling--
A lot more relaxed than he'd been at the beginning of the evening, Teddy was still nowhere near as relaxed as some people. A point brought home when he passed what must have been too close to a guy he vaguely recognized from the dorm. He must have tripped, or Teddy had gotten too close, because a moment later the guy was falling towards him.
"Hey!" Teddy reached out and caught him, his arm across the guy's shoulders making sure he didn't hit the ground. "Are you okay?"
"Kuso," Inu-yasha swore softly, righting himself carefully, one hand on the stranger's shoulder. His cheeks were bright red, and it took his eyes an extra second to focus on the new face. "Huh? M'fine."
"You don't look so fine," Teddy argued gently. He'd definitely seen the guy around before, and -- yeah, he'd been jokingly warned about the crabby Japanese kid. But honestly, this guy looked more confused and hapless than anything dangerous or irritating, and definitely like he'd hit his limit a couple of drinks ago. There were a couple of abandoned chairs behind them, and he nudged the guy gently in that direction. "Sit down for a minute, at least until you feel steadier."
Inu-yasha frowned and instinctively pulled away from the touch, but still let Teddy guide him to a chair. "M'fine," he insisted again, "just had a drink..."
Fighting a drunk was not at the top of the list of things Teddy wanted to do, so he smiled instead, and dropped down to sit in the chair next to his. "I'm still working on mine, d'you mind if I join you? I'm Teddy." And he held his hand out for the introduction.
Inu-yasha blinked at the offered hand, confusion all over his face. After a couple seconds, he haltingly mirrored the gesture, putting his hand in Teddy's. "Inu-yasha," he mumbled back, still watching their hands like it might be a trap.
Teddy shook his hand, noting the claws with a faint amount of surprise -- he hadn't really looked closely at the guy's hand in the dim light. It wasn't like they could hurt him, at least not on purpose, but it was something to remember. The ears were kind of cool too, even if he seemed less in control of them right now than he probably was otherwise. "Hi. I'm pretty sure I've seen you around, but we haven't met before. Have you been here long?" If he could keep him talking for a while, then hopefully the guy wouldn't try to get up until he was a little steadier on his feet.
"All summer," Inu-yasha replied, taking his hand back quickly. "But you're new."
"That's me," Teddy nodded. "I got here just before classes started. It hasn't taken too long to get settled in, though. I think it helps that everyone's new, to one degree or another. We get to get used to everything together."
Inu-yasha shook his head (and immediately wished he hadn't). "M'never gonna get used to all this," he said, looking around them, a little wide-eyed.
Teddy watched him watching everything else. The school was weird, sure, but that seemed a bit of an overreaction. Unless, of course, like Nick, he'd been homeschooled or something like that. "It can be kind of overwhelming," he agreed. "Were you at another school before?"
"Dropped out ages ago," Inu-yasha replied dismissively. "Didn't need that crap..."
Hunh. Teddy's eyebrows went up. "The Professor's pitch must have been a good one to convince you to come back."
Inuyasha' brow furrowed. "Free food and a safe bed every night," he mumbled. Wasn't that why Teddy was here too? "An' he said I could get stronger..."
Was he inching closer to passing out? Teddy couldn't tell, other than the way Inu-yasha was mumbling, but he also didn't have a whole lot of baseline to measure that against. "That's about what he promises all of us, I think," Teddy said easily. He glanced back at the coolers, and yeah, it looked like there were still bottles of water sitting in the safe one. He didn't go quite yet, but he parked the information in the back of his brain anyway. "And it's hard to argue with free food."
"Better'n scrounging through trash and shit," Inu-yasha agreed thoughtlessly.
"There is that." Was that the kind of past Inu-yasha had come from before Xavier's? No wonder some of the other guys described him as 'touchy.' Who wouldn't be? "Wait here," Teddy instructed him, reasonably sure that he wasn't going to be moving too quickly any time soon. He headed for the cooler and grabbed a bottle of water, twisting off the cap as he turned to head back.
Inu-yasha's head tilted curiously to one side as he watched Teddy, wondering what he was supposed to be waiting for.
Back again, Teddy offered the water to Inu-yasha. "Here, if you want it. Drinking doesn't effect me, but I've seen enough hangovers to know that they suck."
Inu-yasha frowned as he took the bottle from the other boy. "Hangover? Only had one drink..."
"Oh geez," Teddy grinned. "My mistake. Save it for later, then." Followup questions on how Inu-yasha had ended up at Xavier's seemed like they'd be intrusive. What was a safer subject? "So who are you rooming with here?" If the Professor had put him with Nick Teddy was going to start being really suspicious of the faculty's motivations, not to mention senses of humor.
"Speedy," Inu-yasha replied, pointing in Tommy's direction. Then, apparently having forgotten his protestation, took a drink of the water. Maybe it would help him cool down.
Teddy followed Inu-yasha's gesture, and spotted Tommy. And Billy, for that matter, who appeared to be either trying to climb him, or become a cape. Tommy and this guy? And then Teddy remembered Tommy's midnight body slam on Teddy's first night at the school, and Billy asking about Tommy's roommate, and the pieces clicked together. "Tommy? That must be... interesting," Teddy finished somewhat flatly. He still really wasn't sure what to make of the guy. "I'm in 107, with his brother."
"The magic kid?" Inu-yasha knew him, kinda. He frowned slightly. "He tried to make me be nice."
And Teddy thought he could picture how that might have gone. "He does that," Teddy replied, a fond smile spreading across his face. "I don't think I've seen anyone more determined to have a good time here."
Inu-yasha shook his head, uncomprehending. "S'weird."
"What is?" Teddy asked. "That Billy's enjoying himself, or that he's determined to drag everyone else along with him?"
"That," Inu-yasha said, meaning the second thing. "I don' get him..."
Teddy looked over again just in time to see Billy lose his lunch (and dinner), but it looked like Tommy was taking care of him, so that was okay. He didn't need to rescue just yet. "He's just excited to be here, I think. You have to admit, it is pretty cool being somewhere where we don't have to hide our powers." He glanced at Inu-Yasha's ears without exactly meaning to.
Inu-yasha's face scrunched as the smell reached his sensitive nose, and glared at Teddy a little when he looked at his ears. "They don't make me weak," he insisted preemptively, growling just a little. "Or gay. Or... whatever."
Teddy's blood ran cold. It was bound to happen sooner or later, he knew, but why tonight, just when he'd been starting to let his guard down? "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"My ears," Inu-yasha said, looking defensive (but in a childish way). "They're not gay."
Yeah, okay, Teddy had heard him right the first time. he didn't bail out, though he was really, really tempted, his heart thumping hard. "What has one thing got to do with the other? And why would it even matter?"
Inu-yasha was still glaring, but confusion clouded his face as he looked at the other boy. "I dunno, was something your roommate said..." He shook his head, taking a moment to refocus his eyes before adding, "Just... don't try'n bully me or whatever," he pointed a clawed finger at Teddy, "cuz of my ears, or anything!"
Teddy could only blink in confusion and try to parse out exactly what had just happened there. Billy had called Inu-yasha gay, as an insult? That seemed incredibly, deeply unlikely. Teddy would be more willing to accept the concept of Tommy becoming a gentle and compassionate human being.
Other than the crawling, unsettling discovery that something Teddy was, was offensive enough to Inu-yasha that he'd lash out about it -- yeah, he had no idea where to go from here. "I'm just about the last person on the planet who would bully anyone," Teddy said firmly. Now, anyway.
His heart pounded in his chest with what he was about to say, but- he hadn't stuck up for himself, or for anyone back at Gracechurch. It had been too risky to do anything more than try and fix things gently, or behind the scenes. But here - he had a chance to start fresh, didn't he? And part of that was making his old sins right. "And people I care about are gay, so I'd seriously rethink saying that word like it's a curse, or something. 'Cause I don't want to hear it."
"Huh?" Inu-yasha blinked heavily, first at Teddy's chest (his heart was so loud!) then at his face again. "Oh... whatever. I don' care who people..." He flushed even deeper red as he thought about people doing... things, gaze snapping anywhere else. "But lotsa other people do." He frowned almost sadly, ears drooping as he seemed to study the grass. "S'not safe, bein' diff'rent."
"That's for sure." Teddy really couldn't make heads or tails of this guy. He'd been so sure for a moment that everything was about to go downhill fast, but now Inu-yasha seemed more ... wilted, than anything else. "At least not in a lot of places. But we're all different here, one way or another."
Inu-yasha drank more of the water, frowning as he thought about that. What difference did it make? People were all the same. But people kept talking to him tonight, and saying things like that...
"It's always the same, though," he said, biting at his lower lip to try and ground himself, one fang showing. "S'the same everywhere."
"That's what I thought too, for a while," Teddy confessed. The long days of being so sure his life was never, ever going to get better weighed in on him, and he thought maybe that he understood a little more. "But so far... I'm thinking these guys might be worth a little benefit of the doubt."
Inu-yasha couldn't help looking at Teddy doubtfully. The hell did he know about any of it? He raised an eyebrow at the other boy, not quite able to find words for his doubts.
"Yeah, I know. A guy looks like me, he can't possibly have any problems, right?" Teddy grimaced. "If only it actually worked that way."
Brow furrowing, Inu-yasha nodded. Teddy didn't smell like the streets, or look like he'd ever been hungry. "Woulda robbed you back home," he said without thinking.
"You might have tried," Teddy replied easily. Physical fights - those didn't scare him nearly as much as words.
Inu-yasha glanced at him warily, more on guard now. It hadn't been the whole truth anyway, and Inu-yasha was still feeling warm and booze-addled, so he wasn't as riled by that response as he would've been sober. Honestly? He wouldn't have robbed Teddy - he smelled funny, not all human. Mutant, or whatever.
"Doesn't matter," he managed. "The hell kinda problems did you have?"
"My own," Teddy said firmly. He hadn't told anyone about what had been going on with him, and he wasn't about to start now. "And I'd be willing to bet that most people here have some kind of story, or they wouldn't be here."
That pulled a quiet growl from Inu-yasha, who wasn't sure why he was glaring, but was pretty sure it was justified. He dropped the bottle of water, pushing to his feet. "Why'm I talkin' to you anyway?"
Teddy watched him go, his brow furrowing. "To be honest," he said (entirely to himself now), "I'm not entirely sure."
Just a bit of homophobia fears come up, but nothing serious.
Inu-yasha was having a really confusing night. He was at a party, of all things - and he'd been... talking to people. Girls had talked to him even...
All because Yana had given him this drink that made things... warm, and nice, but also... confusing.
He didn't even remember where he'd been going - nowhere important, probably - when suddenly his foot caught something and he was falling--
A lot more relaxed than he'd been at the beginning of the evening, Teddy was still nowhere near as relaxed as some people. A point brought home when he passed what must have been too close to a guy he vaguely recognized from the dorm. He must have tripped, or Teddy had gotten too close, because a moment later the guy was falling towards him.
"Hey!" Teddy reached out and caught him, his arm across the guy's shoulders making sure he didn't hit the ground. "Are you okay?"
"Kuso," Inu-yasha swore softly, righting himself carefully, one hand on the stranger's shoulder. His cheeks were bright red, and it took his eyes an extra second to focus on the new face. "Huh? M'fine."
"You don't look so fine," Teddy argued gently. He'd definitely seen the guy around before, and -- yeah, he'd been jokingly warned about the crabby Japanese kid. But honestly, this guy looked more confused and hapless than anything dangerous or irritating, and definitely like he'd hit his limit a couple of drinks ago. There were a couple of abandoned chairs behind them, and he nudged the guy gently in that direction. "Sit down for a minute, at least until you feel steadier."
Inu-yasha frowned and instinctively pulled away from the touch, but still let Teddy guide him to a chair. "M'fine," he insisted again, "just had a drink..."
Fighting a drunk was not at the top of the list of things Teddy wanted to do, so he smiled instead, and dropped down to sit in the chair next to his. "I'm still working on mine, d'you mind if I join you? I'm Teddy." And he held his hand out for the introduction.
Inu-yasha blinked at the offered hand, confusion all over his face. After a couple seconds, he haltingly mirrored the gesture, putting his hand in Teddy's. "Inu-yasha," he mumbled back, still watching their hands like it might be a trap.
Teddy shook his hand, noting the claws with a faint amount of surprise -- he hadn't really looked closely at the guy's hand in the dim light. It wasn't like they could hurt him, at least not on purpose, but it was something to remember. The ears were kind of cool too, even if he seemed less in control of them right now than he probably was otherwise. "Hi. I'm pretty sure I've seen you around, but we haven't met before. Have you been here long?" If he could keep him talking for a while, then hopefully the guy wouldn't try to get up until he was a little steadier on his feet.
"All summer," Inu-yasha replied, taking his hand back quickly. "But you're new."
"That's me," Teddy nodded. "I got here just before classes started. It hasn't taken too long to get settled in, though. I think it helps that everyone's new, to one degree or another. We get to get used to everything together."
Inu-yasha shook his head (and immediately wished he hadn't). "M'never gonna get used to all this," he said, looking around them, a little wide-eyed.
Teddy watched him watching everything else. The school was weird, sure, but that seemed a bit of an overreaction. Unless, of course, like Nick, he'd been homeschooled or something like that. "It can be kind of overwhelming," he agreed. "Were you at another school before?"
"Dropped out ages ago," Inu-yasha replied dismissively. "Didn't need that crap..."
Hunh. Teddy's eyebrows went up. "The Professor's pitch must have been a good one to convince you to come back."
Inuyasha' brow furrowed. "Free food and a safe bed every night," he mumbled. Wasn't that why Teddy was here too? "An' he said I could get stronger..."
Was he inching closer to passing out? Teddy couldn't tell, other than the way Inu-yasha was mumbling, but he also didn't have a whole lot of baseline to measure that against. "That's about what he promises all of us, I think," Teddy said easily. He glanced back at the coolers, and yeah, it looked like there were still bottles of water sitting in the safe one. He didn't go quite yet, but he parked the information in the back of his brain anyway. "And it's hard to argue with free food."
"Better'n scrounging through trash and shit," Inu-yasha agreed thoughtlessly.
"There is that." Was that the kind of past Inu-yasha had come from before Xavier's? No wonder some of the other guys described him as 'touchy.' Who wouldn't be? "Wait here," Teddy instructed him, reasonably sure that he wasn't going to be moving too quickly any time soon. He headed for the cooler and grabbed a bottle of water, twisting off the cap as he turned to head back.
Inu-yasha's head tilted curiously to one side as he watched Teddy, wondering what he was supposed to be waiting for.
Back again, Teddy offered the water to Inu-yasha. "Here, if you want it. Drinking doesn't effect me, but I've seen enough hangovers to know that they suck."
Inu-yasha frowned as he took the bottle from the other boy. "Hangover? Only had one drink..."
"Oh geez," Teddy grinned. "My mistake. Save it for later, then." Followup questions on how Inu-yasha had ended up at Xavier's seemed like they'd be intrusive. What was a safer subject? "So who are you rooming with here?" If the Professor had put him with Nick Teddy was going to start being really suspicious of the faculty's motivations, not to mention senses of humor.
"Speedy," Inu-yasha replied, pointing in Tommy's direction. Then, apparently having forgotten his protestation, took a drink of the water. Maybe it would help him cool down.
Teddy followed Inu-yasha's gesture, and spotted Tommy. And Billy, for that matter, who appeared to be either trying to climb him, or become a cape. Tommy and this guy? And then Teddy remembered Tommy's midnight body slam on Teddy's first night at the school, and Billy asking about Tommy's roommate, and the pieces clicked together. "Tommy? That must be... interesting," Teddy finished somewhat flatly. He still really wasn't sure what to make of the guy. "I'm in 107, with his brother."
"The magic kid?" Inu-yasha knew him, kinda. He frowned slightly. "He tried to make me be nice."
And Teddy thought he could picture how that might have gone. "He does that," Teddy replied, a fond smile spreading across his face. "I don't think I've seen anyone more determined to have a good time here."
Inu-yasha shook his head, uncomprehending. "S'weird."
"What is?" Teddy asked. "That Billy's enjoying himself, or that he's determined to drag everyone else along with him?"
"That," Inu-yasha said, meaning the second thing. "I don' get him..."
Teddy looked over again just in time to see Billy lose his lunch (and dinner), but it looked like Tommy was taking care of him, so that was okay. He didn't need to rescue just yet. "He's just excited to be here, I think. You have to admit, it is pretty cool being somewhere where we don't have to hide our powers." He glanced at Inu-Yasha's ears without exactly meaning to.
Inu-yasha's face scrunched as the smell reached his sensitive nose, and glared at Teddy a little when he looked at his ears. "They don't make me weak," he insisted preemptively, growling just a little. "Or gay. Or... whatever."
Teddy's blood ran cold. It was bound to happen sooner or later, he knew, but why tonight, just when he'd been starting to let his guard down? "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"My ears," Inu-yasha said, looking defensive (but in a childish way). "They're not gay."
Yeah, okay, Teddy had heard him right the first time. he didn't bail out, though he was really, really tempted, his heart thumping hard. "What has one thing got to do with the other? And why would it even matter?"
Inu-yasha was still glaring, but confusion clouded his face as he looked at the other boy. "I dunno, was something your roommate said..." He shook his head, taking a moment to refocus his eyes before adding, "Just... don't try'n bully me or whatever," he pointed a clawed finger at Teddy, "cuz of my ears, or anything!"
Teddy could only blink in confusion and try to parse out exactly what had just happened there. Billy had called Inu-yasha gay, as an insult? That seemed incredibly, deeply unlikely. Teddy would be more willing to accept the concept of Tommy becoming a gentle and compassionate human being.
Other than the crawling, unsettling discovery that something Teddy was, was offensive enough to Inu-yasha that he'd lash out about it -- yeah, he had no idea where to go from here. "I'm just about the last person on the planet who would bully anyone," Teddy said firmly. Now, anyway.
His heart pounded in his chest with what he was about to say, but- he hadn't stuck up for himself, or for anyone back at Gracechurch. It had been too risky to do anything more than try and fix things gently, or behind the scenes. But here - he had a chance to start fresh, didn't he? And part of that was making his old sins right. "And people I care about are gay, so I'd seriously rethink saying that word like it's a curse, or something. 'Cause I don't want to hear it."
"Huh?" Inu-yasha blinked heavily, first at Teddy's chest (his heart was so loud!) then at his face again. "Oh... whatever. I don' care who people..." He flushed even deeper red as he thought about people doing... things, gaze snapping anywhere else. "But lotsa other people do." He frowned almost sadly, ears drooping as he seemed to study the grass. "S'not safe, bein' diff'rent."
"That's for sure." Teddy really couldn't make heads or tails of this guy. He'd been so sure for a moment that everything was about to go downhill fast, but now Inu-yasha seemed more ... wilted, than anything else. "At least not in a lot of places. But we're all different here, one way or another."
Inu-yasha drank more of the water, frowning as he thought about that. What difference did it make? People were all the same. But people kept talking to him tonight, and saying things like that...
"It's always the same, though," he said, biting at his lower lip to try and ground himself, one fang showing. "S'the same everywhere."
"That's what I thought too, for a while," Teddy confessed. The long days of being so sure his life was never, ever going to get better weighed in on him, and he thought maybe that he understood a little more. "But so far... I'm thinking these guys might be worth a little benefit of the doubt."
Inu-yasha couldn't help looking at Teddy doubtfully. The hell did he know about any of it? He raised an eyebrow at the other boy, not quite able to find words for his doubts.
"Yeah, I know. A guy looks like me, he can't possibly have any problems, right?" Teddy grimaced. "If only it actually worked that way."
Brow furrowing, Inu-yasha nodded. Teddy didn't smell like the streets, or look like he'd ever been hungry. "Woulda robbed you back home," he said without thinking.
"You might have tried," Teddy replied easily. Physical fights - those didn't scare him nearly as much as words.
Inu-yasha glanced at him warily, more on guard now. It hadn't been the whole truth anyway, and Inu-yasha was still feeling warm and booze-addled, so he wasn't as riled by that response as he would've been sober. Honestly? He wouldn't have robbed Teddy - he smelled funny, not all human. Mutant, or whatever.
"Doesn't matter," he managed. "The hell kinda problems did you have?"
"My own," Teddy said firmly. He hadn't told anyone about what had been going on with him, and he wasn't about to start now. "And I'd be willing to bet that most people here have some kind of story, or they wouldn't be here."
That pulled a quiet growl from Inu-yasha, who wasn't sure why he was glaring, but was pretty sure it was justified. He dropped the bottle of water, pushing to his feet. "Why'm I talkin' to you anyway?"
Teddy watched him go, his brow furrowing. "To be honest," he said (entirely to himself now), "I'm not entirely sure."
