etraya | un: HELLION

[ Julian's throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Jay, who can tell it's meant to make him feel better somehow. Jay knows how it works. Vengeance. An eye for an eye. Stryker can't hurt them, or anyone like them, ever again. It's comforting, but it doesn't exactly make him feel great. A man died. That counts for something. But that man killed dozens of kids. Laurie. Sooraya. He doesn't even count himself in it. It's not for him to decide what it means.

Maybe he had a heart attack from all the rage. ]

I don't know what I know anymore. I don't think I know Krakoan. I was taking French with Mr. Beaubier for awhile...

[ There really is nowhere safe to talk, is there. Hard to think they were only at school for a few years. ]

But I know they were wrong. You can't have it both ways. You can't say God made everything beautiful and God hates mutants. You don't get to pick and choose what God made. Besides, Stryker admitted he shot that missile. He - he knew they were humans, but he thought - I don't remember what he said. He thought they'd teach people to understand we're all people.

[ Something that Jay had tried to stress with Gadriel, who maybe doesn't get it either. ]

I don't think most people want to hear that there are people who are plain better than than them. I can admit who's better than me. It'd be frustrating if they only thought it, but some idiot gives them missiles and robots - didn't they say that THEY had a missile? Should we be in the basement? It's reinforced, and I don't know how to turn on the security system.

( julian doesn't remember how to work the security system either. it hadn't been on his list of things to figure out when the school had been standing, and - well. it hasn't been, in a while. not that he's really all that concerned about it. )

Don't be such a wuss. ( his hand leaves jay's shoulder, and julian turns around, to head back towards the school building. ) I've leveled up since you kicked the bucket - I can protect this whole school by myself. No one's knocking it down without my say-so.

( granted, julian has to be awake to actually protect the school - and even more than that, he needs to be coherent enough to string together his thoughts, but, outside of that? he's not afraid of a stupid missile taking them down. not anymore. he's better than that. )

[ He'll have to forgive Jay for looking skeptical. There were how many X-Men living here and the school got attacked - and people hurt - more than once while Jay lived here.

But he follows him anyway. ]

Unless you've evolved past sleeping, I'm going to try to figure out where the on button is. I guess we should find our old dorm rooms. This is... going to be strange.

( see, that's why you sleep in shifts, jay. and in close quarters to one another, so if something does happen, it'd be easy to wake up the other. just like the early days after decimation.

but the number of times they've insisted never again only to have crap hit the fan again - well. jay's right. they need to get the security system up and running, because who the hell knows what's going to happen. )

We'll figure it out. Shouldn't be too hard to up the security here anyway.

The security system isn't on. A baseball bat under the mattress ups the security, at least where I'm concerned. Not you two. But I don't know if I want to go the Banshee route.

[ Jay will jog past Julian to the doors leading into the cafeteria and try them, intending to hold the door open. ]

( it's very polite of him, but julian is a cheater and instead of taking the invitation, rolls his eyes before he's unlocking the door using his telekinesis, and waves a hand to open the door and keep it open long enough for them both to pass through. )

What, you don't want to booby trap all the doorways to keep out everyone else? Boring.

[ Showoff. Jay shakes his head as he steps inside, but he doesn't comment much on the display. He feels like he's on eggshells, still, and almost wishes Julian would tear him a new one and get it over with. ]

Thanks.

[ He looks back again through the windows that exist only to taunt students with the basketball court, pool, open space and the promise of free time. Thinks about what Nimrod showed him - the concrete crumbling, anything that could catch fire burning. His friends broken. ]

Can we booby trap the doors? I've heard worse ideas.

It's our place, man. We can do whatever we want with it.

( julian doesn't see anyone else stepping up to claim it. finders keepers, and all that.

as soon as julian's through the door, it slams shut behind them and locks itself. just in case. )

Long as we make sure Laura can get through. ( she may be the size of a kindergartener, but she's still one of then. )

You thought I was going to lock her out? Or booby trap her out?

[ Jay hums to himself, thinking of smaller siblings and the trouble they can get into. ]

If anything, we might want to make it harder for her to get out at night so she can't get herself into trouble, but that'd probably make it harder for us because it's tough trying to keep an eye on a kid that hates you.

No. I just meant, as long as we make sure she can get through, we're fine.

( he gets the appeal of making it more difficult for laura to get out, but also knows she's stubborn and would just manage to find a way out regardless, even if it meant harming herself in the process. )

And you know she doesn't hate us, right? She seems to be okay with me.

Yeah, I know. That's why I said we probably shouldn't make it too hard?

[ Jay just laughs goodnaturedly and shakes his head. That's not what he meant, and he'll explain, but he's allowed to be amused. ]

Come on, Julian. I have nine brothers and sisters. I know Laura doesn't hate us, but trust me on this. If we're keeping an eye on her, and we kinda are here because it wouldn't sit right not to, she's going to say she hates us sooner or later. My money's on the first time one of us says "because I said so."

Besides, sneaking out's a rite of passage around here.

Have it your way, then.

( with a gesture of his hand out to his side, as julian makes his way through the cafeteria. it's a cafeteria, there should be some food around here somewhere. right? )

Since you're the expert on brats, I'll leave her to you.

You know I didn't use the word brat?

[ He may have implied it, a little, but he doesn't think that Laura or his little siblings are brats anymore than he was a brat. So - sometimes, they're bratty, but they aren't brats.

Whatever salad bar setup and lunch line they had has nothing but empty metal bins.
There hasn't been anyone to eat the food here for awhile. ]

I think if we want food, we're going to have go down to Dr. McCoy's office or Mr. Drake's.

We can load up at the convenience store.

( probably isn't a bad idea, either. which is why julian's turning himself around, and - heading back out of the cafeteria. time to go grocery shopping. )

Or the hospital. There's a stocked kitchen in it.

[ It's not a bad idea, which is why Jay follows him.

He thinks it's crazy, yes, but not because of Julian. ]

Why are our food shopping options a convenience store and raiding the hospital kitchen? Why is the kitchen in the empty hospital stocked with food? When is anything here going to make sense? We should go somewhere with clothes while we're out.

Dude, chill.

( easier said than done, julian knows, but he's saying it anyway as he exits the cafeteria and starts flying off towards the convenience store. )

Freaking out isn't going to make it make sense. It's the weird holographic chick in the hospital who fills out - whatever. It's probably her fault everything here doesn't add up.

[ "Chill"? Very helpful, Julian. A real rock in times of emotional turmoil, Jay thinks to himself, not realizing that his irritation and concern for Julian are the entire reason that he's here, chasing after Julian out the doors and into the air, instead of hiding in his bed. Why he can be annoyed about Julian not even pausing to see if Jay was following him, he just assumed that Jay'd come trotting after him like one of the Hellions.

Ugh, and he did. ]

I'm chill! [ He is not, but he's also not screeching and panicked. ] Sorry if I can't just flit my way through this.

[ Says the boy who is, in fact, literally flitting. ]

( there may be countless types of people in the universe, but juilian's relatively good at identifying the followers. jay, for one. josh for another, even if he isn't here. but he does expect jay to just - trail along with him, considering it's julian who knows where they're going.

he does turn around to keep an eye on jay, even while he keeps flying off in the direction of the store. )

You did miss the bit where all the teachers were just yelling at us to get over ourselves, so I'll give you a pass, for today. But - things are going to be fucked. That's just the way it is.

[ Which is not encouraging in the slightest. Coming back to Etraya has been a shock, finding out that everything's going to be fucked at home is depressing. If he wasn't actively in flight, his wings would droop. As he'd rather not break both legs, only his face does. ]

Yeah, they're ... not great when it comes to helping people get over the bad times.

[ The X-Men endorse sending kids who are already in pain to their boarding school and forcing them into teams that have to essentially subsume their friends groups if they're going to pass. The thought and care behind it is minimal. ]

... is that what they did after... ?

It wasn't intentionally like that.

( jay was gone, through all of it. and julian - doesn't really know a good way to summarize how fucked the world got after m-day. )

Miss Frost had all of us go into the Danger Room - and I mean all of us. That was before the - bus incident. Made a team of what was left of the Hellions, Laura, Josh, and Nori. Killing Stryker broke Foley. It was Danvers and Stark who found your body. Laura who had to listen in on their conversation and tell us, because no one was filling us in on anything. We figured out your message, but they wouldn't listen to us about Nimrod. We all almost died, countless times. Cess was kidnapped and they broke her apart. The school was destroyed a few times. It wasn't safe anymore. They moved us around a few times - left some of us behind. It'd take me forever to fill you in with all the crap that went down, and almost all of it was bad. Pretty sure for a while there, we were all just waiting for our turn to die.

[ Jay can't quite hover the way that Julian can, but he stops making forward progression and bobs up and down somewhere between Stryker and Stark. Listening and trying not to feel it all like he was there or like it was his fault. It wasn't. Part of it's not.

But every time Julian talks about anything he casually throws in more things that've gone bad. Jay doesn't know how the guy keeps breathing through all that. ]

I think it was intentionally like that.

[ Jay's looking down at the grounds beneath them. Don't need to be able to see the future or through walls to know what the school's always been for, and Jay's always gotten his feathers ruffled over it. ]

Sam and Paige both went to schools like this, back when they didn't have more'n 10 students. Students died. And they both wound up X-Men. There were hundreds of students here with us. I get splitting us into grades - that's the school part. But into teams? They didn't need to teach us teamwork and tactics unless they were specifically weeding out the ones not cut out for combat. Why do you think I hated it so much? Students died. I wasn't here a month before the first funeral. And the ones that live - they're the X-Men.

( okay. so jay has a point there - but that wasn't exactly what julian was getting at. he twists around mid-air, still heading in the direction of the convenience store but facing jay. )

Congrats, you've named both the problem and the solution they came up with. Students died, because the flatscans hate us. It didn't matter how hard we tried to keep to ourselves, they didn't give a damn. They just wanted all of us dead to try and cull the number of new mutants coming into the world. The teams? I agree, shitty concept, but at least we had a built-in buddy system.

They don't all hate us.

[ He well and truly believes that. Look at his mom. Julia. Humans don't all hate mutants, no matter what it sounds like on the news or feels like. Some of them are decent folks. ]

I know that being loud and angry sells, but I can't be the only person out there who wants everyone to coexist. It's not like it's hard to live and let...

[ Let live. But Stryker hadn't let their depowered classmates live, because they might've proved that mutants really were just like humans. They couldn't live if his narrative was to live. Jay feels nauseous, and it has nothing to do with the bobbing. ]

... let's just go to the store.

( jay survived through m-day, but didn't last all that long after.

he wasn't there for the utopia mess. wasn't there for the fight against the avengers. wasn't there when emma abandoned julian in a hotel room and told him the x-men were disbanded, good luck, and figured he'd find his own way. he wasn't even an adult yet, his parents had sold and abandoned their home, and even magneto rejected him. jay wasn't there, when julian helped lead the protests for their rights. wasn't there, when emma socked him in the face to arrest him.

julian flits a little closer, and reaches a hand out to grab onto jay's wrist. it's not a forceful hold, but more just to show that he's extending his tk shield out to jay. if he can't manage to keep himself up in the air, julian's got him. )

Was working on it already.

( getting to the store, that is. there's no need to push the subject when jay already knows the answer. coexisting would be the ideal, but mankind refuses to allow mutants to exist. )

[ That's - okay, that's weird. Not that Julian's holding onto him, but the sensation of the telekinesis mixing with his own flight is crazy. Even if Julian isn't trying to give him any additional lift, he's changing how much Jay's weight pulls against his wings. He pulls up a few inches higher without meaning to, and he has to focus to stay even with Julian.

Which has the handy side effect of grounding him more in the present, without realizing it's happened. Making him lighte in more ways that one. ]

Yeah. How hard can raiding the store be? It's not like trying to take you to a Piggly Wiggly with a straight face.

un: HELLION | video

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