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ax_main Teddy likes Billy's eyeliner too much and Billy and Tommy try to come up with a game plan for this party.
Billy pushed open the door to his room, his eyes feeling a little weird from the eyeliner Yana had used on his eyes and tried not to repeatedly blink like an idiot. It wasn't his first time wearing it, but it was the first time that it wasn't for going out on stage and he had to remember that it mattered if he smudged it.
He barely looked over at Teddy on his way over to his bed to grab his wallet, but when he did said wallet fell to the floor with a quiet thud. "W-What are you wearing?"
There was so much bicep happening on Teddy's side of the room that Billy felt he was going to die from choking on his own spit. And what was with the pants that fit Teddy's ass so nicely?!
Teddy'd been messing with his hair in the mirror, brushing it forward, then back -- then trying it longer and shorter, just for kicks -- when he heard Billy come back into the room. A thud and a squawk later and he replied as he turned around. "Jeans and a shirt, why?" He looked down at the grey henley, the cut-off sleeves a whole lot more comfortable for the sweaty humidity of a club than anything long-sleeved would be. He looked down, plucking the ribbed cotton away from where it snugged against his chest. "Too casual?"
He looked up, actually looked at Billy, and was immediately sorry that he had. Or glad. Or both. Someone other than Teddy had been giving him clothing advice, obviously enough -- the ripped jeans he'd pulled on outlined every muscle in his (utterly ridiculous) legs, the wine-red shirt clinging to his shoulders.
And his dark eyes, already magnetic, had been outlined in black, turning his sharp features into something altogether older and a whole lot more sensual. Teddy's pulse hit about 100 mph while his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth for an agonizing second too long.
Say something.
"Are you wearing eyeliner?" Teddy managed to get out, relatively proud that his voice stayed steady.
"Am I-what?" Billy almost squawked, trying his best to not stare at the way that stupid awful wonderful shirt clung to Teddy's shoulders and chest. Jesus H Christ on a stick! This qualified as soft-core porn, Billy was sure of it and bent down to pick up his wallet with shaky hands. This was just so unfair.
He realized Teddy had asked a question and he felt his cheeks heat as he tried to act like him wearing eyeliner wasn't a big deal while he stood back up. "Ah-oh-yeah. I am. I thought I'd try something new-ish. Does it look bad?"
If Teddy told Billy exactly how he really felt about the whole eyeliner thing, there would be no hope whatsoever of keeping his secret. If he told him it didn't look good then Billy might never wear it again, and that would be awful. Middle ground? What middle ground?
"No!" Teddy exclaimed, the answer coming out more forcefully than he wanted it to. "No," he continued more sedately. Casual. Nonchalant. "The glam thing works for you." He shoved his phone in his pocket and followed it with his keys, heading for the door before he could say anything else stupid. "I, um. Should go - I'm meeting Kurt and JM to head over. You have a lift, right?"
"Glam thing? Uhh...yeah. Yeah, Tommy is going to take me." Billy was thrown by the sudden rush Teddy was in and pulled at his shirt suddenly self-conscious. He had to stop himself from rubbing at his eyes otherwise all of Yana's hard work would go to waste. “I guess I'll see you there?"
He sat down on his bed and absolutely did not watch Teddy's ass as the guy moved around in those jeans.
"You bet," Teddy promised, and he ducked out through the door before he ended up tripping over his own tongue or doing something else moronic and cover-blowing.
He almost ran over Tommy on the way out, Billy’s brother in his way in. And wouldn't that have been ironic?
Tommy frowned, watching Teddy bail out down the hallway. He let the door close behind him, raking a suspicious glance over Billy, who was standing there looking - what? kind of poleaxed. "What's with the meathead? You light his shoes on fire or something?"
Billy let out a gravely groaned and threw his arms in the air at Tommy's question. "I don't know! Things were fine and then suddenly he acted like being in the same room as me was the last thing he wanted."
For liking the guy so much, Billy really didn't understand Teddy a lot. He had a whole lot of these little triggers that make them having fun suddenly turn weird or awkward and Billy had no idea what they were.
"Whatever. It's not important. What is important is we figure out what we are doing tonight."
Tommy let the issue go, but he tucked the information away in the back of his head. Meathead was hiding something. Ah, hell. Half the student body was hiding something. The main thing was that it wasn't something likely to, say, blow up the boys' dorm wing.
"Play it cool, I guess," he shrugged and dropped to sit on the meathead's bed instead of Billy's. "The main thing is 'don't call her mom,' and keep a lid on 'spirit twins' until we've at least had a chance to figure out if they're likely to believe us."
"Yeah, like I was going to call her mom. I'm pretty sure nothing would freak a girl out more than a fifteen-year-old guy coming up and calling her that." Billy replied with a roll of his eyes, but nerves did crazy things so maybe there was a chance of it.
He frowned at the spirit twins thing, putting his hands on his hips and fixing Tommy with a weak glare. "You know, the more you gripe about me using it, the more I just want to say it, but fine. No spirit twin stuff. So, then what? How do we go about talking to them when they think we are clones or their dad's weird love children."
"I'm just saying that breaking out with retroactive reincarnation in the first thirty seconds of a conversation is more likely to get us flash-fried or thrown in a psych ward than believed," Tommy pointed out, a sardonic smile on his face. "Especially since we don't actually know that it's true, yet."
Billy pursed his lips, but had to agree with Tommy on that, even though he believed that what Simon had seen more than he probably should have. "Okay. Okay. So, we meet them, and things don't end up awful or us getting our asses handed to us with magic, then do we just casually bring it up? Should we suggest a DNA test or something?"
He pictured a (even more) messed up version of Maury and made a face about it.
"We have to assume that Alex and Fatale told them everything that they know." Tommy shrugged. "So, the 'are we your illegitimate siblings' conversation's as good as any other. And while I hate to say it, maybe a DNA test is the way to go. If they've got the Right's files, then they probably have whatever those assholes managed to record out of my genome already."
Billy hated that, hated that Tommy's DNA had been taken against his will and now belonged to some awful shit heads who thought that mutants were lower than other people.
"But files won't help when we need the real thing." He begrudgingly pointed out. "But if we need to do a DNA test, let's use mine. If we are identical twins, then it really won't make a difference."
He moved over to sit on the bed next to his twin, reaching out to tug at the sleeve of Tommy's t-shirt with a worried look. "Hey, if it turns out, which I think is highly unlikely, that we're aren't actually brothers...are things going to change between us?"
Tommy stared at him, held it for a beat. "Even if we're not related, I'm never kissing you."
"Ugggghhh!" Billy groaned and shoved roughly at Tommy's shoulder. "Why do I even bother with you?"
Tommy snickered, leaning into the hit. "Because life was ten times as boring without me. Now. Game plan. Do we look for them right away, or wait for them to come to us?"
"I think wait. Mainly cause we don't want to freak them out by suddenly being all on them about wanting to talk." Billy nodded and then laughed. "Play it cool, since I know that's my specialty."
Tommy snorted, a sharp grin flashing across his face. "Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts." But he stood up anyway, running his hands through his hair to tumble it back into place properly. "I have no idea who knows what over there. Did Yana say anything about how much she's told her little buddy?"
"Not really, no. I think all she told them is I have the same power as Wanda, which is true." Billy leaned back on his arms, secretly loving that he could smell Teddy from just sitting there. "So, after we debunk the clone theory and stuff, how do we go about telling them what we know? Or do we even want to yet?"
Tommy frowned down at Billy. "Do we really know that we're not some kind of screwed up set of clones? Lehnsherr might not have had simultaneous affairs, but test tube babies are still a thing."
"Are you talking about cloning and then sticking the-" Billy immediately stopped that train of thought. "I'm pretty sure my mom wouldn't have let some crazed doctors impregnate her with my little clone self."
Unless they hadn't asked and just did. Ugh.
Tommy shrugged. "But until we can rule it out, it's still a possibility. And I dunno about your parents, but I can't exactly call up Frank and Mary and ask them about it."
"But if we were clones wouldn't I be a lady type instead?" He tried to picture himself as a girl instead and the image was unsettling. "Also, wouldn't you look exactly like Pietro?"
"You're asking me?" Tommy arched an 'are you serious?' kind of eyebrow. "I don't know how any of this works. I just know that given the world we're living in, genetic experiments and cloning shit is slightly more probable than time-travelling reincarnations, and holy shit how did I get to the point in my life where that's a thing I can say with a straight face?"
"I know, right?" Billy sighed and shook his head. "Okay, so we'll talk about the cloning thing first and only if that doesn't seem plausible to them, then we'll bring up the reincarnation from the past crap. How's that work?"
He turned his head to look at his brother/clone buddy or whatever they were to each other and smiled. "Whatever happens, you're still invited to my house for Thanksgiving. My mom and dad really want to meet you."
Tommy got very, very still, and very quiet. Inside, a faint and desperate voice was screaming wordlessly. Danger. But because right now Billy was all he had, he just said, very carefully, "you told your parents about me."
"Umm...yeah?" Billy replied a hesitantly when he noticed how quickly Tommy's attitude had changed. "Was I not supposed to?"
God, he was an idiot. "In case you hadn't noticed," Tommy said dryly, his heartrate picking up fast, "parents and I don't exactly get along."
"Well, that's not fair seeing as your parents were the worst things in the world." It still burned him up to think that Tommy's own parents had given him up like that or had even laid a finger on him in a less than loving way. "That's not how family is supposed to work, Tommy."
"And what do you think your perfect parents are going to do once they see me?" Tommy pushed and time stopped, Billy sitting on the bed and staring at him, particles of dust hanging still and glinting in the air. Why was he panicking? This was ridiculous. So, what if some Kaplans knew he existed? What did it actually matter?
It didn't matter, that was what, and he was being a huge baby about it. Tommy scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes and let the flow of time begin again, barely having moved from where he'd stood. "I look like you, but I'm not like you, Billy. And they'll see that. Then it'll be 'bad influence' time and buh-bye mutant school."
Billy frowned at that, moving to sit up straight instead of leaning back like he was to show that this was serious. "They are far from perfect, so if that's what you're looking for than I'm sorry. Also, they care about what's important to me and that happens to be you."
Billy glanced down at his hands. "You're my brother, I don't care if we are clones or magic twins from the future, you're still my brother and I won't let anyone tell me I can't be with you."
It was all getting way too claustrophobic for Tommy's liking, and he snorted loudly, pulling his swagger back around himself. "Don't you fucking dare break into song. You've got real brothers. Save the drama for them."
At Tommy's almost rejection, Billy told himself not to feel hurt about it, that was just how Tommy was anytime something got too close and Billy stopped trying with a nod. "I'm just saying, Tommy."
He sat there quietly for a moment before standing up and going to get his phone. "Are you ready to go?"
"Been ready for ages now." Tommy smiled faintly. "Let's get this shitshow on the road."
"Yeah, yeah." Billy slid his phone into his jacket pocket and turned to Tommy. "So, how are we going to do this?"
Tommy stretched and crackled his knuckles. "We're the same height, so it's up to you. Hang on my back, fireman carry or in my arms like the eyeliner-wearing drama queen that you are."
Billy rolled his eyes and sent out a small shock, so it hit Tommy in the ass. "Please, you wish you could pull off the eyeliner look."
"Do that again and I'm dropping you in the Hudson."
Billy grinned and moved behind the other, looping his arms around Tommy's neck. "Here I come!" He then jumped up to swing his legs around his brother's waist.
Tommy grabbed his legs purely out of reflex and a lingering desire to not get kicked in the stomach. He slowed down time and started running. "Past me must have been such a dickhead to karmically wind up attached to you."
"Past you? Don't you mean you in every single place in time?" He yelled, wind whipping into his face, so he had to lay his head next to his arm on Tommy's shoulder. Okay, so going really really fast was pretty fucking sweet.
"Hudson," Tommy called back over his shoulder, and dammit, he really needed to find a pair of goggles that didn't make him look like a total moron. "Dropping."
"Yeah, yeah!" He muttered loudly into Tommy's ear. "I'll keep my mouth shut then!"
Billy pushed open the door to his room, his eyes feeling a little weird from the eyeliner Yana had used on his eyes and tried not to repeatedly blink like an idiot. It wasn't his first time wearing it, but it was the first time that it wasn't for going out on stage and he had to remember that it mattered if he smudged it.
He barely looked over at Teddy on his way over to his bed to grab his wallet, but when he did said wallet fell to the floor with a quiet thud. "W-What are you wearing?"
There was so much bicep happening on Teddy's side of the room that Billy felt he was going to die from choking on his own spit. And what was with the pants that fit Teddy's ass so nicely?!
Teddy'd been messing with his hair in the mirror, brushing it forward, then back -- then trying it longer and shorter, just for kicks -- when he heard Billy come back into the room. A thud and a squawk later and he replied as he turned around. "Jeans and a shirt, why?" He looked down at the grey henley, the cut-off sleeves a whole lot more comfortable for the sweaty humidity of a club than anything long-sleeved would be. He looked down, plucking the ribbed cotton away from where it snugged against his chest. "Too casual?"
He looked up, actually looked at Billy, and was immediately sorry that he had. Or glad. Or both. Someone other than Teddy had been giving him clothing advice, obviously enough -- the ripped jeans he'd pulled on outlined every muscle in his (utterly ridiculous) legs, the wine-red shirt clinging to his shoulders.
And his dark eyes, already magnetic, had been outlined in black, turning his sharp features into something altogether older and a whole lot more sensual. Teddy's pulse hit about 100 mph while his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth for an agonizing second too long.
Say something.
"Are you wearing eyeliner?" Teddy managed to get out, relatively proud that his voice stayed steady.
"Am I-what?" Billy almost squawked, trying his best to not stare at the way that stupid awful wonderful shirt clung to Teddy's shoulders and chest. Jesus H Christ on a stick! This qualified as soft-core porn, Billy was sure of it and bent down to pick up his wallet with shaky hands. This was just so unfair.
He realized Teddy had asked a question and he felt his cheeks heat as he tried to act like him wearing eyeliner wasn't a big deal while he stood back up. "Ah-oh-yeah. I am. I thought I'd try something new-ish. Does it look bad?"
If Teddy told Billy exactly how he really felt about the whole eyeliner thing, there would be no hope whatsoever of keeping his secret. If he told him it didn't look good then Billy might never wear it again, and that would be awful. Middle ground? What middle ground?
"No!" Teddy exclaimed, the answer coming out more forcefully than he wanted it to. "No," he continued more sedately. Casual. Nonchalant. "The glam thing works for you." He shoved his phone in his pocket and followed it with his keys, heading for the door before he could say anything else stupid. "I, um. Should go - I'm meeting Kurt and JM to head over. You have a lift, right?"
"Glam thing? Uhh...yeah. Yeah, Tommy is going to take me." Billy was thrown by the sudden rush Teddy was in and pulled at his shirt suddenly self-conscious. He had to stop himself from rubbing at his eyes otherwise all of Yana's hard work would go to waste. “I guess I'll see you there?"
He sat down on his bed and absolutely did not watch Teddy's ass as the guy moved around in those jeans.
"You bet," Teddy promised, and he ducked out through the door before he ended up tripping over his own tongue or doing something else moronic and cover-blowing.
He almost ran over Tommy on the way out, Billy’s brother in his way in. And wouldn't that have been ironic?
Tommy frowned, watching Teddy bail out down the hallway. He let the door close behind him, raking a suspicious glance over Billy, who was standing there looking - what? kind of poleaxed. "What's with the meathead? You light his shoes on fire or something?"
Billy let out a gravely groaned and threw his arms in the air at Tommy's question. "I don't know! Things were fine and then suddenly he acted like being in the same room as me was the last thing he wanted."
For liking the guy so much, Billy really didn't understand Teddy a lot. He had a whole lot of these little triggers that make them having fun suddenly turn weird or awkward and Billy had no idea what they were.
"Whatever. It's not important. What is important is we figure out what we are doing tonight."
Tommy let the issue go, but he tucked the information away in the back of his head. Meathead was hiding something. Ah, hell. Half the student body was hiding something. The main thing was that it wasn't something likely to, say, blow up the boys' dorm wing.
"Play it cool, I guess," he shrugged and dropped to sit on the meathead's bed instead of Billy's. "The main thing is 'don't call her mom,' and keep a lid on 'spirit twins' until we've at least had a chance to figure out if they're likely to believe us."
"Yeah, like I was going to call her mom. I'm pretty sure nothing would freak a girl out more than a fifteen-year-old guy coming up and calling her that." Billy replied with a roll of his eyes, but nerves did crazy things so maybe there was a chance of it.
He frowned at the spirit twins thing, putting his hands on his hips and fixing Tommy with a weak glare. "You know, the more you gripe about me using it, the more I just want to say it, but fine. No spirit twin stuff. So, then what? How do we go about talking to them when they think we are clones or their dad's weird love children."
"I'm just saying that breaking out with retroactive reincarnation in the first thirty seconds of a conversation is more likely to get us flash-fried or thrown in a psych ward than believed," Tommy pointed out, a sardonic smile on his face. "Especially since we don't actually know that it's true, yet."
Billy pursed his lips, but had to agree with Tommy on that, even though he believed that what Simon had seen more than he probably should have. "Okay. Okay. So, we meet them, and things don't end up awful or us getting our asses handed to us with magic, then do we just casually bring it up? Should we suggest a DNA test or something?"
He pictured a (even more) messed up version of Maury and made a face about it.
"We have to assume that Alex and Fatale told them everything that they know." Tommy shrugged. "So, the 'are we your illegitimate siblings' conversation's as good as any other. And while I hate to say it, maybe a DNA test is the way to go. If they've got the Right's files, then they probably have whatever those assholes managed to record out of my genome already."
Billy hated that, hated that Tommy's DNA had been taken against his will and now belonged to some awful shit heads who thought that mutants were lower than other people.
"But files won't help when we need the real thing." He begrudgingly pointed out. "But if we need to do a DNA test, let's use mine. If we are identical twins, then it really won't make a difference."
He moved over to sit on the bed next to his twin, reaching out to tug at the sleeve of Tommy's t-shirt with a worried look. "Hey, if it turns out, which I think is highly unlikely, that we're aren't actually brothers...are things going to change between us?"
Tommy stared at him, held it for a beat. "Even if we're not related, I'm never kissing you."
"Ugggghhh!" Billy groaned and shoved roughly at Tommy's shoulder. "Why do I even bother with you?"
Tommy snickered, leaning into the hit. "Because life was ten times as boring without me. Now. Game plan. Do we look for them right away, or wait for them to come to us?"
"I think wait. Mainly cause we don't want to freak them out by suddenly being all on them about wanting to talk." Billy nodded and then laughed. "Play it cool, since I know that's my specialty."
Tommy snorted, a sharp grin flashing across his face. "Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts." But he stood up anyway, running his hands through his hair to tumble it back into place properly. "I have no idea who knows what over there. Did Yana say anything about how much she's told her little buddy?"
"Not really, no. I think all she told them is I have the same power as Wanda, which is true." Billy leaned back on his arms, secretly loving that he could smell Teddy from just sitting there. "So, after we debunk the clone theory and stuff, how do we go about telling them what we know? Or do we even want to yet?"
Tommy frowned down at Billy. "Do we really know that we're not some kind of screwed up set of clones? Lehnsherr might not have had simultaneous affairs, but test tube babies are still a thing."
"Are you talking about cloning and then sticking the-" Billy immediately stopped that train of thought. "I'm pretty sure my mom wouldn't have let some crazed doctors impregnate her with my little clone self."
Unless they hadn't asked and just did. Ugh.
Tommy shrugged. "But until we can rule it out, it's still a possibility. And I dunno about your parents, but I can't exactly call up Frank and Mary and ask them about it."
"But if we were clones wouldn't I be a lady type instead?" He tried to picture himself as a girl instead and the image was unsettling. "Also, wouldn't you look exactly like Pietro?"
"You're asking me?" Tommy arched an 'are you serious?' kind of eyebrow. "I don't know how any of this works. I just know that given the world we're living in, genetic experiments and cloning shit is slightly more probable than time-travelling reincarnations, and holy shit how did I get to the point in my life where that's a thing I can say with a straight face?"
"I know, right?" Billy sighed and shook his head. "Okay, so we'll talk about the cloning thing first and only if that doesn't seem plausible to them, then we'll bring up the reincarnation from the past crap. How's that work?"
He turned his head to look at his brother/clone buddy or whatever they were to each other and smiled. "Whatever happens, you're still invited to my house for Thanksgiving. My mom and dad really want to meet you."
Tommy got very, very still, and very quiet. Inside, a faint and desperate voice was screaming wordlessly. Danger. But because right now Billy was all he had, he just said, very carefully, "you told your parents about me."
"Umm...yeah?" Billy replied a hesitantly when he noticed how quickly Tommy's attitude had changed. "Was I not supposed to?"
God, he was an idiot. "In case you hadn't noticed," Tommy said dryly, his heartrate picking up fast, "parents and I don't exactly get along."
"Well, that's not fair seeing as your parents were the worst things in the world." It still burned him up to think that Tommy's own parents had given him up like that or had even laid a finger on him in a less than loving way. "That's not how family is supposed to work, Tommy."
"And what do you think your perfect parents are going to do once they see me?" Tommy pushed and time stopped, Billy sitting on the bed and staring at him, particles of dust hanging still and glinting in the air. Why was he panicking? This was ridiculous. So, what if some Kaplans knew he existed? What did it actually matter?
It didn't matter, that was what, and he was being a huge baby about it. Tommy scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes and let the flow of time begin again, barely having moved from where he'd stood. "I look like you, but I'm not like you, Billy. And they'll see that. Then it'll be 'bad influence' time and buh-bye mutant school."
Billy frowned at that, moving to sit up straight instead of leaning back like he was to show that this was serious. "They are far from perfect, so if that's what you're looking for than I'm sorry. Also, they care about what's important to me and that happens to be you."
Billy glanced down at his hands. "You're my brother, I don't care if we are clones or magic twins from the future, you're still my brother and I won't let anyone tell me I can't be with you."
It was all getting way too claustrophobic for Tommy's liking, and he snorted loudly, pulling his swagger back around himself. "Don't you fucking dare break into song. You've got real brothers. Save the drama for them."
At Tommy's almost rejection, Billy told himself not to feel hurt about it, that was just how Tommy was anytime something got too close and Billy stopped trying with a nod. "I'm just saying, Tommy."
He sat there quietly for a moment before standing up and going to get his phone. "Are you ready to go?"
"Been ready for ages now." Tommy smiled faintly. "Let's get this shitshow on the road."
"Yeah, yeah." Billy slid his phone into his jacket pocket and turned to Tommy. "So, how are we going to do this?"
Tommy stretched and crackled his knuckles. "We're the same height, so it's up to you. Hang on my back, fireman carry or in my arms like the eyeliner-wearing drama queen that you are."
Billy rolled his eyes and sent out a small shock, so it hit Tommy in the ass. "Please, you wish you could pull off the eyeliner look."
"Do that again and I'm dropping you in the Hudson."
Billy grinned and moved behind the other, looping his arms around Tommy's neck. "Here I come!" He then jumped up to swing his legs around his brother's waist.
Tommy grabbed his legs purely out of reflex and a lingering desire to not get kicked in the stomach. He slowed down time and started running. "Past me must have been such a dickhead to karmically wind up attached to you."
"Past you? Don't you mean you in every single place in time?" He yelled, wind whipping into his face, so he had to lay his head next to his arm on Tommy's shoulder. Okay, so going really really fast was pretty fucking sweet.
"Hudson," Tommy called back over his shoulder, and dammit, he really needed to find a pair of goggles that didn't make him look like a total moron. "Dropping."
"Yeah, yeah!" He muttered loudly into Tommy's ear. "I'll keep my mouth shut then!"
