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ax_mainTamara and Lil meet for the first time and bond over cookies
The MP3 player was a gift from last Christmas. Lil's mom, despite her dislike for computers, had somehow managed to load it up with all of their favourite music. The earbuds had been lost quickly and replaced by a cheap little speaker that had kept their apartment full of the voices of Charlie Pride, Dolly Parton, and others through the winter and now it was Merle Haggard singing as Lil finished a row on her knitting. Except for the lack of her mom's smokey off-key voice crooning along in the background, it seemed like home.
Tamara had been on her way back to her room from the bathroom, but had been derailed by the music coming from the open door of room 208.
Pushing the door open with a look of horror, Tamara asked the girl inside, "What the fuck is this?"
Lil frowned, stopped mid-stitch and looked up. The music, it had to be the music to drag someone in from the hall. "It's fucking Merle Haggard. You should be embarrassed that you don't know that."
"Are you kidding?" Tamara looked at her, aghast. "It's Lil, right?" she asked, perfect eyebrows arched in disbelief.
"Yeah, it is and no, I'm not kidding. He's a legend." Of course, Lil would've said the same about most of the the singers on her playlist. "And you're... Tamara?"
"Ohmygod, make it stop," Tamara replied, apparently stunned by the sheer country of it all. "Yeah, Tamara, the dragon girl with the Youtube video... Seriously, you listen to this voluntarily?"
"Look, did you come in here just to shit all over my music?" Lil tried to sound annoyed, but a smile snuck onto her face. Truth was, this was the most comfortable start to a conversation she'd had since she got here. No pussyfooting around polite questions - Tamara simply barged in and demanded her attention and Lil was happy to oblige.
"Yeah, pretty much," Tamara replied, but only because Lil was smiling, and now Tamara kind of was too. Because come on, it was kinda funny.
Lil carefully put her knitting on the table beside her bed, sat up and patted the bed. "Well then, you might as well make yourself comfortable. I've got hundred of songs you're going to hate."
Tamara gave her a confused, if amused, look, and joined her on the bed. Carefully, because wings, but she'd figured out how to perch on the edge of a bed so her wings had room. She winced all the same. "Seriously, where are you from that this is like, acceptable?"
She hadn't been here long enough for things like students with wings to become normal, but Lil could pretend. She'd had enough teasing over her height back home. No need to start making a fuss over some odd feature that someone else happened to have. She shrugged. "Probably not, but do I look like I'd give a fuck? Mom listened to it when I was growing up so... I listen to it now."
"This is awful," Tamara informed her, settling her wings behind her and trying not to notice how short she still felt, because whoa. "Please tell me it's not all you listen to."
"Oh my gawwwd," groaned Lil. "Is that all you're going to talk about? I listen to other stuff when I have a radio, but that's all I have on my MP3 player right now."
"I'm almost afraid to ask," Tamara shot back, now eyeing the knitting on the bed with a kind of (playful) dread. "We're mutants, we need to be cooler than this."
Lil snorted. "Okay, what would I have to listen to to be cool astound here?"
"I'm not even picky," Tamara replied, fidgeting her wings behind her. "Just lose the country."
"Yeah, that's not going to happen." Lil folded her arms across her chest. Insults she could take, orders? Not so much. "You ever talk about anything other than your bad taste in music?"
"Probably," Tamara replied, raising an eyebrow at the other girl and just barely containing an amused smirk. "Let's listen to something else and find out."
"Ugh! Fine! " Lil reached over and turned off the player. "Happy now?"
Grinning just a bit, Tamara pulled out her phone out of her pocket. "Here," she said, flipping open a playlist before handing the device to the other girl to plug into her speaker. "Try this."
Lil plugged in the jack, but passed the phone and speaker back to Tamara. "You choose."
Tamara just hit shuffle, smiling as 'We are the Others' came on. That'd do nicely. "That's better," she said with a playful smile. She stretched, wings stretching out behind her too. "So, where are you from?"
"Canada, but way up north - Yellowknife, Northwest Territories." She kept a skeptical eye on her speaker as the music played. "You?"
"Wow, seriously?" Tamara blinked at her, kind of impressed. "I'm just from middle-of-nowhere California."
Lil laughed. "Yeah? And where do you think Yellowknife is? Right in the middle of Fuck All. California sounds cool to me."
"Not where I'm from," Tamara assured her. "Couldn't wait to get outta there." Then, with a smirk, "Turned out I didn't have to."
Lil pulled open the top drawer of her bedside table and pulled out a couple of boxes of cookies. "They have a shitload of these in the kitchen" She offered one to Tamara. "So that was when you came here I guess."
"Hey, thanks," Tamara said, taking the cookies with a grin. "And yeah, like a day after my wings busted out my back, it was all kinda crazy. Did something happen with your mutation to get you here?"
"Sort of. Mom and I always knew there was something funny, but I was in a car accident that should have taken my head off and... " Lil shrugged. "Didn't get a scratch. My doctor, he knew too - never could give me a needle, thought it was time I find out more about it. I'm invulnerable, as far as I know anyway."
"Jesus," Tamara said, looking seriously impressed. "Wait, does that mean you're immune to fire and electricity too?"
"Fire for sure. Probably electricity? My doctor thought it was some kind of, uh, field-thing around me. But I don't know exactly; that's part of why Mom wanted me to come here."
"We should try the Danger Room together sometime," Tamara told her, kind of excited about it. "I always have to be careful not to zap anyone, so I can never really cut loose, but if you're invulnerable..."
Lil grinned. She hadn't been in the Danger Room yet, but she'd hear enough to understand what went on there. "Then you can just try and beat the shit out of me without worrying. I see where this is going."
"Oh, I was thinking us versus the room. Are you kidding? You'd destroy me in one-on-one!" Tamara's eyes were wide at the thought, and her wings tucked tight to her back. "Tasing people is my only defense - I don't have healing or strength with my mutation - I'm not even five feet tall!"
"Sorry! I didn't think... " Damn straight she didn't think. Of course Tamara hadn't meant she'd let loose on Lil. She sighed. "I don't know how this all works. This is really, really not like my old school and you are really, really, really not like anyone from there."
Tamara smiled back at her. "Relax, it's cool. You're not far off, you could definitely go one-on-one with some of the others. I'm just tiny and fragile," she said, rolling her eyes at herself. "But if I can't zap you or light you on fire, we could be a good team."
"Well, I'm certified non-flammable. I can't believe you can do that though. The wings are cool enough, and but then you can just roast things when you want?"
Making sure the electronics were clear, Tamara ramped up her electricity to light the air on fire around her hand. "Yup, pretty much," she replied with a grin, the light of the fire dancing in her dark eyes. "And I'm mostly fireproof too."
"Jesus." whispered Lil. The light was beautiful and for a moment, she was struck but how bizarre and magical her life had become.
Eyes still glittering, Tamara let the flames go out. "When my wings came in, the doctors wanted to chop them off to make me normal, so I blew up one of their machines. I think that's one of my proudest moments, actually."
Lil shook her head. "I can't believe they'd even think that was okay. So this is all pretty recent then? You didn't grow up with your powers?"
"Definitely not the wings," Tamara said, wincing a little as she glanced back at them. She loved her wings, but damn, it'd been rough since they came in. "I dunno when the electricity kicked in though? I know I figured it out like, almost two years ago."
"Yeah, it's the figuring out bit that's hard. I always knew I was tough, but it didn't really click how weird it was until that car accident. Maybe you always had the electricity thing." She grabbed a cookie from the box that had, until now, been forgotten.
"Maybe? I kinda hope not," Tamara decided with a thoughtful frown, taking a cookie too. "I don't like the idea that it took almost my entire life to figure out I was special, y'know?"
"I don't think it's such a bad thing. 'Special' isn't all that great sometimes, and it means you got to be a kid without worrying people might find out."
"Yeah... but I can think of at least a couple of my mom's boyfriends it would've been fun to zap," Tamara replied, smirking around her cookie.
Lil grinned. "Then I take it back. That would have been worth it."
"Totally," Tamara agreed. "Though my stepdad never did figure out why he had so much trouble with static electricity around the house, so that's something at least."
"Well, he must have deserved it. They usually do." Then, first cookie finished, Lil reached for another then held up her free hand. "Try me. Let's see if I'm invulnerable to that."
"Sure," Tamara said. She reached over to touch Lil's palm, face scrunching as she focused on only giving a small shock. "Just a small one to start..."
A little crack of blue electricity jumped between their hands.
There was nothing, not the smallest bit of feeling. It might as well have just been light. "Should I have felt that?"
Tamara smirked. "Okay, make sure you're not touching anything sensitive, I'm gonna crank it up."
The light show got more impressive but again, not a damn thing. It was almost disappointing. Lil shook her head. "Nothing. Would that have hurt someone else?"
Tamara was panting just a bit. "Um, yeah. Definitely." She'd never used that much power on anyone before. "Really, nothing?"
Lil shook her head and dropped her hand. She might have asked Tamara to try again, but this seemed like the sort of thing the Danger Room was built for, not the bedrooms. "Not a thing. Maybe a little heat, but that's it."
Cracking a grin, Tamara said, "Oh yeah, we can definitely have some Danger Room fun. You punch, I blast, it'll be great."
"Man, a whole room built just for people to smash things. That might be the best thing about this school, present company excepted." Lil grinned. "See how great Merle Haggard is? If I hadn't been playing him, you would've just walked right by."
"Ohmygod, that is the whitest name I've ever heard," Tamara replied shaking her head. But whatever, more importantly, "It might be free right now - you wanna go check it out?"
"Absolutely." said Lil as she packed up the cookies (she'd worked her way through half a box). "I've got nothing else to do."
Tamara had guessed as much, since Lil had been knitting. "Great, just let me get changed!" She rolled around to stand up, wings tucking out of the way. "Let me recommend wearing something you don't love," she cautioned Lil playfully (but definitely honestly), "you never know what'll happen in there."
The MP3 player was a gift from last Christmas. Lil's mom, despite her dislike for computers, had somehow managed to load it up with all of their favourite music. The earbuds had been lost quickly and replaced by a cheap little speaker that had kept their apartment full of the voices of Charlie Pride, Dolly Parton, and others through the winter and now it was Merle Haggard singing as Lil finished a row on her knitting. Except for the lack of her mom's smokey off-key voice crooning along in the background, it seemed like home.
Tamara had been on her way back to her room from the bathroom, but had been derailed by the music coming from the open door of room 208.
Pushing the door open with a look of horror, Tamara asked the girl inside, "What the fuck is this?"
Lil frowned, stopped mid-stitch and looked up. The music, it had to be the music to drag someone in from the hall. "It's fucking Merle Haggard. You should be embarrassed that you don't know that."
"Are you kidding?" Tamara looked at her, aghast. "It's Lil, right?" she asked, perfect eyebrows arched in disbelief.
"Yeah, it is and no, I'm not kidding. He's a legend." Of course, Lil would've said the same about most of the the singers on her playlist. "And you're... Tamara?"
"Ohmygod, make it stop," Tamara replied, apparently stunned by the sheer country of it all. "Yeah, Tamara, the dragon girl with the Youtube video... Seriously, you listen to this voluntarily?"
"Look, did you come in here just to shit all over my music?" Lil tried to sound annoyed, but a smile snuck onto her face. Truth was, this was the most comfortable start to a conversation she'd had since she got here. No pussyfooting around polite questions - Tamara simply barged in and demanded her attention and Lil was happy to oblige.
"Yeah, pretty much," Tamara replied, but only because Lil was smiling, and now Tamara kind of was too. Because come on, it was kinda funny.
Lil carefully put her knitting on the table beside her bed, sat up and patted the bed. "Well then, you might as well make yourself comfortable. I've got hundred of songs you're going to hate."
Tamara gave her a confused, if amused, look, and joined her on the bed. Carefully, because wings, but she'd figured out how to perch on the edge of a bed so her wings had room. She winced all the same. "Seriously, where are you from that this is like, acceptable?"
She hadn't been here long enough for things like students with wings to become normal, but Lil could pretend. She'd had enough teasing over her height back home. No need to start making a fuss over some odd feature that someone else happened to have. She shrugged. "Probably not, but do I look like I'd give a fuck? Mom listened to it when I was growing up so... I listen to it now."
"This is awful," Tamara informed her, settling her wings behind her and trying not to notice how short she still felt, because whoa. "Please tell me it's not all you listen to."
"Oh my gawwwd," groaned Lil. "Is that all you're going to talk about? I listen to other stuff when I have a radio, but that's all I have on my MP3 player right now."
"I'm almost afraid to ask," Tamara shot back, now eyeing the knitting on the bed with a kind of (playful) dread. "We're mutants, we need to be cooler than this."
Lil snorted. "Okay, what would I have to listen to to be cool astound here?"
"I'm not even picky," Tamara replied, fidgeting her wings behind her. "Just lose the country."
"Yeah, that's not going to happen." Lil folded her arms across her chest. Insults she could take, orders? Not so much. "You ever talk about anything other than your bad taste in music?"
"Probably," Tamara replied, raising an eyebrow at the other girl and just barely containing an amused smirk. "Let's listen to something else and find out."
"Ugh! Fine! " Lil reached over and turned off the player. "Happy now?"
Grinning just a bit, Tamara pulled out her phone out of her pocket. "Here," she said, flipping open a playlist before handing the device to the other girl to plug into her speaker. "Try this."
Lil plugged in the jack, but passed the phone and speaker back to Tamara. "You choose."
Tamara just hit shuffle, smiling as 'We are the Others' came on. That'd do nicely. "That's better," she said with a playful smile. She stretched, wings stretching out behind her too. "So, where are you from?"
"Canada, but way up north - Yellowknife, Northwest Territories." She kept a skeptical eye on her speaker as the music played. "You?"
"Wow, seriously?" Tamara blinked at her, kind of impressed. "I'm just from middle-of-nowhere California."
Lil laughed. "Yeah? And where do you think Yellowknife is? Right in the middle of Fuck All. California sounds cool to me."
"Not where I'm from," Tamara assured her. "Couldn't wait to get outta there." Then, with a smirk, "Turned out I didn't have to."
Lil pulled open the top drawer of her bedside table and pulled out a couple of boxes of cookies. "They have a shitload of these in the kitchen" She offered one to Tamara. "So that was when you came here I guess."
"Hey, thanks," Tamara said, taking the cookies with a grin. "And yeah, like a day after my wings busted out my back, it was all kinda crazy. Did something happen with your mutation to get you here?"
"Sort of. Mom and I always knew there was something funny, but I was in a car accident that should have taken my head off and... " Lil shrugged. "Didn't get a scratch. My doctor, he knew too - never could give me a needle, thought it was time I find out more about it. I'm invulnerable, as far as I know anyway."
"Jesus," Tamara said, looking seriously impressed. "Wait, does that mean you're immune to fire and electricity too?"
"Fire for sure. Probably electricity? My doctor thought it was some kind of, uh, field-thing around me. But I don't know exactly; that's part of why Mom wanted me to come here."
"We should try the Danger Room together sometime," Tamara told her, kind of excited about it. "I always have to be careful not to zap anyone, so I can never really cut loose, but if you're invulnerable..."
Lil grinned. She hadn't been in the Danger Room yet, but she'd hear enough to understand what went on there. "Then you can just try and beat the shit out of me without worrying. I see where this is going."
"Oh, I was thinking us versus the room. Are you kidding? You'd destroy me in one-on-one!" Tamara's eyes were wide at the thought, and her wings tucked tight to her back. "Tasing people is my only defense - I don't have healing or strength with my mutation - I'm not even five feet tall!"
"Sorry! I didn't think... " Damn straight she didn't think. Of course Tamara hadn't meant she'd let loose on Lil. She sighed. "I don't know how this all works. This is really, really not like my old school and you are really, really, really not like anyone from there."
Tamara smiled back at her. "Relax, it's cool. You're not far off, you could definitely go one-on-one with some of the others. I'm just tiny and fragile," she said, rolling her eyes at herself. "But if I can't zap you or light you on fire, we could be a good team."
"Well, I'm certified non-flammable. I can't believe you can do that though. The wings are cool enough, and but then you can just roast things when you want?"
Making sure the electronics were clear, Tamara ramped up her electricity to light the air on fire around her hand. "Yup, pretty much," she replied with a grin, the light of the fire dancing in her dark eyes. "And I'm mostly fireproof too."
"Jesus." whispered Lil. The light was beautiful and for a moment, she was struck but how bizarre and magical her life had become.
Eyes still glittering, Tamara let the flames go out. "When my wings came in, the doctors wanted to chop them off to make me normal, so I blew up one of their machines. I think that's one of my proudest moments, actually."
Lil shook her head. "I can't believe they'd even think that was okay. So this is all pretty recent then? You didn't grow up with your powers?"
"Definitely not the wings," Tamara said, wincing a little as she glanced back at them. She loved her wings, but damn, it'd been rough since they came in. "I dunno when the electricity kicked in though? I know I figured it out like, almost two years ago."
"Yeah, it's the figuring out bit that's hard. I always knew I was tough, but it didn't really click how weird it was until that car accident. Maybe you always had the electricity thing." She grabbed a cookie from the box that had, until now, been forgotten.
"Maybe? I kinda hope not," Tamara decided with a thoughtful frown, taking a cookie too. "I don't like the idea that it took almost my entire life to figure out I was special, y'know?"
"I don't think it's such a bad thing. 'Special' isn't all that great sometimes, and it means you got to be a kid without worrying people might find out."
"Yeah... but I can think of at least a couple of my mom's boyfriends it would've been fun to zap," Tamara replied, smirking around her cookie.
Lil grinned. "Then I take it back. That would have been worth it."
"Totally," Tamara agreed. "Though my stepdad never did figure out why he had so much trouble with static electricity around the house, so that's something at least."
"Well, he must have deserved it. They usually do." Then, first cookie finished, Lil reached for another then held up her free hand. "Try me. Let's see if I'm invulnerable to that."
"Sure," Tamara said. She reached over to touch Lil's palm, face scrunching as she focused on only giving a small shock. "Just a small one to start..."
A little crack of blue electricity jumped between their hands.
There was nothing, not the smallest bit of feeling. It might as well have just been light. "Should I have felt that?"
Tamara smirked. "Okay, make sure you're not touching anything sensitive, I'm gonna crank it up."
The light show got more impressive but again, not a damn thing. It was almost disappointing. Lil shook her head. "Nothing. Would that have hurt someone else?"
Tamara was panting just a bit. "Um, yeah. Definitely." She'd never used that much power on anyone before. "Really, nothing?"
Lil shook her head and dropped her hand. She might have asked Tamara to try again, but this seemed like the sort of thing the Danger Room was built for, not the bedrooms. "Not a thing. Maybe a little heat, but that's it."
Cracking a grin, Tamara said, "Oh yeah, we can definitely have some Danger Room fun. You punch, I blast, it'll be great."
"Man, a whole room built just for people to smash things. That might be the best thing about this school, present company excepted." Lil grinned. "See how great Merle Haggard is? If I hadn't been playing him, you would've just walked right by."
"Ohmygod, that is the whitest name I've ever heard," Tamara replied shaking her head. But whatever, more importantly, "It might be free right now - you wanna go check it out?"
"Absolutely." said Lil as she packed up the cookies (she'd worked her way through half a box). "I've got nothing else to do."
Tamara had guessed as much, since Lil had been knitting. "Great, just let me get changed!" She rolled around to stand up, wings tucking out of the way. "Let me recommend wearing something you don't love," she cautioned Lil playfully (but definitely honestly), "you never know what'll happen in there."
