ax_main | Gar and Trowa, Backdated to 10/22

Gar happens across Trowa out in the woods, and they do an experiment, and have some philosophical discussion.

Early mornings in Westchester were chilly, but Trowa had been through worse. Having the option to stay in bed and keep out of it was the weird part. Too much so to stay in bed. So he'd taken his flute and sheet music, and retired to the woods to practice in the fork of his favorite tree.

Learning to read music left him feeling more clumsy than picking out songs by rote ever had, but he hammered away at it. It was better to know what you were doing, that much he was sure of.

The treetops of the school grounds were so familiar to Gar that he felt like he could navigate them in his sleep. Still, it was fun to navigate them, if only for the practice and for the fun of it. This morning, he'd decided on being a chimpanzee, deftly negotiating the branches and limbs, when he heard ... flute music, of all things. And it wasn't coming from the school; a chimp's ears weren't that keen. So he followed the sound, taking no great pains to hide his approach.

Trowa heard the approach even over his own discordant attempts, and went quiet. This was new. Bigger than a raccoon, smaller than a deer, with a gait he'd never heard before. He sat very still, waiting, and only blinked curiously when the green chimp came into view. Well, that explained everything. Garfield Logan. His power was a difficult one to keep under wraps.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, tone utterly neutral..

Gar settled down on a branch below Trowa and a tree away, giving a monkey grin and making a tree-swinging pantomime. Sometimes, it was fun to just see if he could communicate without changing back to human form. He then held his hands like he was playing a flute, and tilted his head inquisitively at Trowa. He didn't know the boy played flute.

Trowa frowned and then settled back into his lesson. He disliked needless conversation as it was, and he didn't mean to be holding up one end all by himself.

Gar, in chimp form, settled down and started to listen, tilting his head curiously, before turning back into his human form, denim-clad legs dangling over the branch and kicking back and forth lazily.

Trowa heard the rustle of leaves as Gar's shifting redistributed his weight, but since the other boy didn't seem to be headed his way, he didn't look up until he'd picked his way through another line.

"What are you waiting on?"

"Nothing, really," Gar said, earnestly. "I was just kind of listening." And honestly, he was kind of surprised to find this kid, of all people, doing something artistic. Then again, he reminded himself, he shouldn't judge. He clearly wasn't great but he was learning, and that was more than Gar ever bothered to do with music.

"You could have found a better subject." Trowa frowned down at the wooden flute in his hands. "It's going to take me a long time to get decent with this. I'm not sure it's worth doing here. Any music I hear I can probably find again now."

"Practice makes perfect. That's what I was told, at least," Gar replied, shrugging. "I'm not good with music. I can't keep a beat to save my life," he chuckled. "Then again, it's not like I've really tried to learn much, I guess." He never really had the environment to do so, really. But he also lacked the desire.

"You're the one who can ... talk to animals, more or less, right?" he asked, figuring that the subject could stand to be changed.

Trowa nodded. "I don't usually talk to them, per se. But I can understand them. And make myself understood."

"Were you able to do it to me, just now?" he asked. "Or does it have to be like, through touch?" He was curious about it. Not being able to talk to people in animal form was a pain in the ass, sometimes.

"I don't think it would work," Trowa said. He folded his long legs under him. "I can't use it to communicate with people."

"Well, sure, but... I turn into animals," he said. "I mean, does it hurt to try? I'm asking seriously," he said. "I dunno if like, failing to do so actually hurts. Mutant powers can be weird sometimes."

"It doesn't hurt," Trowa explained. "But humans don't show up as a presence when I start seeking out animals."

"So I wouldn't show up in animal form, if it doesn't work," Gar said, filling in the small blanks for himself. "Wanna try?" he asked. "If you don't, that's fine."

The offer earned Gar a biddable shrug in return. It wouldn't hurt to know, and it could be potentially useful if Gar did somehow prove the exception to the admittedly incomplete collection of guidelines he'd developed for his powers.

"Go ahead."

Gar didn't know if Trowa had a preference for certain types of animals, but he decided since he was in the trees, a squirrel would work just fine. So his form melted down into that of a squirrel, seated upon the branch, looking at Trowa with what could only be defined as an 'expectant' look.

As accustomed as he was becoming to the oddities of life at Xavier's, Trowa did stare at the transformation for a moment before catching himself. He'd never seen Gar transform before, and it was something his mind didn't quite seem to want to believe in. He put his flute carefully aside and closed his eyes instead, reaching out with his odd sixth sense.

Instantly, a thousand other minds pushed into his awareness. Trowa frowned and tried to narrow his focus down to one set of impressions. There were squirrels around, but none of them had anything on their mind beyond what one might expect of squirrels - foraging, hunting, scouting, fighting. Fighting was especially prominent on the mind of one male.

Trowa opened his eyes. "Gar, change back!"

Gar tilted his squirrel-head, but the alarm in Trowa's voice got a more immediate reaction (and, he thought, doing some Danger Room sessions with Teddy helped, too), and he turned back just in time to see a squirrel rush up the tree at him, before it saw that he was a person now, and it darted off.

"Wow. I didn't even really hear him coming," Gar confessed. "Guess he was feeling a bit territorial."

"Hn." Trowa watched the squirrel claw its way lightly into the upper branches. "That was unusual. I hope it wasn't sick."

"Sh-should we try to catch him?" Gar asked, suddenly worried. "We could try to take him to a vet, see if he's okay."

"No." Trowa picked up his flute again. "If he's sick, he'll die soon enough without us stressing him."

"But if he's sick and we can help, we should," Gar insisted.

Trowa shrugged. "If you want to try, I won't stop you."

"But you won't help," Gar said, looking hurt. "Even though it's the right thing to do."

"By your estimation," Trowa pointed out. His tone remained neutral; the momentary alarm had faded back into near blankness. "There's more danger to that animal in us chasing it than it leaving it be. Just because it would make you feel better doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."

Gar chewed on that for a few moments, and he could feel his heart breaking just a little bit as he sort of saw what Trowa was talking about. "But..." He grunted, and put his hands on the side of his head. "How do you decide?" he asked. "How do you tell? Isn't... helping always good?"

"No. And in this case, you'd be interfering where we're not even sure there's a problem." He glanced briefly up at the path the squirrel had taken. "That squirrel acted oddly, but it was an odd circumstance. It was moving normally and it aborted the attack when you became human again. You didn't injure it changing back. If we chase it, it will be more stressed, and more stressed again if we catch it and take it to a strange place. Animals can die just from that level of shock."

"I... I know that!" Gar said, angry at himself and also, unreasonably, at Trowa. "I just... I'm worried, I guess. I don't know. Everything's been so weird."

"And you want to take some kind of action?" Trowa supplied.

"Yes! Except... maybe doing something is wrong?" He sighed. "And ... don't get me started on girls," he added. Shen was wonderful; he still really, really liked her. But she didn't want a boyfriend, and while he was fine with that, she hadn't... invited him to be anything closer than a friend. So that kind of stung a bit. And he had it on good authority that she'd made out with plenty of other guys. Just not him. And it was probably because -- no, Shen didn't care that he was green. Maybe he was too young? He'd been going over this in his head all day.

Hell, he'd almost gone and asked Remy, but something told him that was a bad idea.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't... unload all my troubles on someone I barely know. I... I get where you're coming from, with the squirrel. And... I guess you're right. I'm sorry I raised my voice."

Trowa nodded in acknowledgement and flipped to the next sheet in his music book. "In case you were wondering, I didn't sense your mind while you were a squirrel."

Right. The whole reason he'd even decided to stick around in the first place. Things had pretty much gone off the rails...

"Well, it's good to know, at least," Gar said, feeling a bit defeated all around. "I'll, uh. Let you practice in peace, then."

"You can stay. " Trowa looked up. "Or go. Whichever you like."

"I'll ... get out of your hair," Gar decided. He wanted to chew on his problems alone, where he wouldn't bother anyone. "I'll see you around," he said, glumly.