Julian & Fred

[x-nothungry.livejournal.com]

Fred and Julian have a misunderstanding over Fred's chosen form of room entry, then get to conversatin'.




The big hand and its little brother were both nearing their peak with a quiet anticipation that matched the stillness of the night. Julian Keller puttered about his room, listening to the wind upon the windowpanes as he got things laid out for the next day. It had been an eventful weekend, his date with Angel had been perfect and he'd even managed to get what little homework he had done. In addition to that, tomorrow, he'd meet with Nathan to ask for flying lessons- because who needed to rent a plane when you can fly. Indeed, everything was coming up Julian- and in his own opinion, it was about time.

Satisfied with the clothes he'd picked out and that everything was ready for his morning workout, Julian carefully flicked off the lights with his TK and managed to not rip the switch off the wall. With a content sigh, he made his way over to his bed and crawled under the covers. Since the nightmares and poltergeists had stopped, he'd not been having trouble sleeping and quickly started to drift off to sleep.

Fred had spent the majority of the day wondering about the campus and the outlying area of the Institute, burning through cigarettes and cans of Red Bull as he went. He'd left his bag in his new room after Yvette had shown him around, and he hated to admit it to himself, but he'd forgotten which room had been his. It couldn't be blamed on him; Fred was used to crashing on couches and car seats, not mansions. Still, after some searching, he was fairly certain the door he was standing in front of now was the one that had been assigned to him. Both of his arms full of large crates he'd retrieved from his car, Fred resolved that the best way to get the door would be to just force it open with his foot. He felt as if he'd forgotten something as he reared back with his foot.

Oh yeah, he thought. It dawned on him as his foot with slamming loudly into the door, I have a roommate don't I? Crap. I hope he's a heavy sleeper...


'Intruder!' Julian's mind immediately snapped to action- apparently not as over his recent trip to Murderworld as he'd like to believe. His hand snapped forward and blasted telekinetic force towards the large, and rather imposing, back-lit figure in the doorway. 'Defenses,' were the next thing that came to mind as a wall of green light formed in front of him and he jumped out of bed wearing his pajama pants and a white tanktop.


Fred was bathed in telekinetic energy, and dropped his large crates. He'd been hit by a lot of stuff in his time: bats, cars, even bullets once, but the blast from his misinformed roommate was a sensation altogether new to him. While it still didn't hurt as much as he knew it was supposed to, it was definitely a new sensation: like a thousand people punching him all at once. After his Julian raised his shield, Fred dropped his boxes and held up one hand, stepping into the glow made by the green energy that emanated from the other teenager. He raised his voice, "Wait! I, uh, I come in peace?" God that sounded retarded , he thought.


The intruder hit Julian's shield like a ton of bricks, actually sending him stumbling back and dropping the shield. 'Aliens?! We're being attacked by Aliens now?!' He regained his footing and was about to send another push at the stranger when the lights came on. He had to re-aim to avoid hitting Fred and ended up blasting a small dent into the sheetrock wall behind him. Relief flooded Julian as his breathing slowly started to return, "Damnit, Fred, you scared the hell out of me." He paused, falling back onto his bed and swirling his tongue around his mouth which had the familiar tinge of iron and blood to it. "You alright?"


Fred winced, and scratched the back of his head, "Sorry about that...uh yea, I'm fine," and snorted, "Well, I'm always okay...so it's not really important...I guess." Fred, very embarrassed about the misunderstanding, busied himself and leaned over one of the boxes, and tore away the top of it. He quickly stacked several cases of Red Bull and Lucky Strikes at the foot of his bed. Finally there were two piles, one for caffeine and one for nicotine.


Finally having caught his breath, Julian turned his attention to what Fred was doing. The massive amount of Red Bull and cigarettes at the foot of his bed caught his eye. It had, in fact, been longer than a while since he'd popped the tab of a Red Bull and felt it burn all the way down his throat. "You've got good tastes in energy drink, nothing like the classic. My friends back home always preferred Amp or Rockstar- dumbasses." His glance turned sidelong at the dent he'd put into the wall. Under his breath, Julian muttered, "Kyle is going to kill me."

"Here. Help yourself" and tossed a 12 pack absently with one hand towards Julian. He hoped he hadn't thrown it to hard. Fred forgot his own strength more often than not. "Sorry about the entrance. I, ah...I'm not used to roommates..." and stood up, a fresh pack of cigarettes and an unopened Red Bull in hand. He cracked the drink open, and took a long swig off the small can.


Fortunately, Julian had enough adrenaline pumping through his still that he was able to catch the energy drink before it hit him. He floated the cans over to himself and pulled one off before sending them back the other way. "Thanks. That's something we have in common actually, I've never shared a room before." Even though he knew it would keep him up for the next hour or two, Julian decided to crack open the can, 'No reason to get off on a worse foot.' It burned just like he remembered. "Forgot that I had a roommate, honestly. I'm just so used to my nightly routine."


Fred shrugged a little. He was used to being forgettable. He took a moment to size Julian up, and, to be honest, kind of wanted to hate him. He was everything Fred was not: handsome, lithe, charismatic. Looking at him made him remember every negative look ever thrown Fred's way. Fred knew he couldn't blame Julian for this: it wasn't his fault he was the way he was. Fred opened his pack of cigarettes and withdrew one, "Hey, do you mind if I smoke if I open the window?"


Julian shrugged, "Go for it- I don't know what'll happen if you're caught though." As soon as the window was opened, he instantly regretted the choice; the chilled March air started to pour into the room. He took another drink of Red Bull and started to feel the sugar and caffeine speeding through him. "You mentioned some stuff at lunch about your powers, but I wasn't entirely clear on what you said. You didn't even budge a little though when I hit you with a teek push, I gotta say, I'm impressed." He took an appraising look over Fred- visible mutations generally had a harder time than he had and it always made Julian thank the stars that he wasn't born with a tail. His new roommate reminded him of the southern hick sterotype, which wasn't at all weakened by his twangy accent or his horde of cigarettes. "So how about your powers. Anything I should be aware of since we're sharing space?"


Fred rolled his shoulders at Julian as his lit his cigarette and took a long drag, "Well, I've yet to find anything that really hurts me," he exhaled a plume of smoke from his nostrils as he spoke, watching the cloud flit out the window. It was hard for him to open up, even about something as straightforward as his powers, but he was trying to get better at it, "Can't be shot, stabbed, hit, dropped, what have ya. I mean I still feel the stuff, like that weird mind thing ya just did, but it doesn't register like it's supposed to, you know? I feel it, but it doesn't hurt." Fred got the feeling he was rambling, and puffed on his cigarette some more. He took another sip off his drink before he continued, "That, and it's really hard to move me if I don't wanna be moved." It had to be late, because his accent was sticking out like a sore thumb, and he usually could keep it under check.


'Weird mind thing?' Julian didn't agree with that assessment, but did his best to listen to what his new roommate was saying. 'Guess I'm stuck with him then, if he can't be moved,' he nodded thoughtfully as Fred finished and continued to courteously blow smoke out the window. "Cool powers- it'll be neat to see that immovable thing in action. As you already saw and felt, I'm a teek. Something to be aware of, when I sleep..." how exactly did one go about saying he sometimes caused things to fly around in his sleep, "...I snore sometimes." No need to scare the new guy off right away. "What brings you to Xavier's?"


"I...", God, this sounded pathetic. In his head, at least, "I really wasn't doing anything else. And my power..." and he came to one of the other reasons he'd decided to come: what his power made him feel like. He kept that to himself, at least for now, "...my power makes me feel weird. Best to figure out what it's all about, right?" Fred looked around a bit, not sure if he liked being under a microscope like this, "What about you? What, uh, brought you here?"


Julian chuckled and took another slug from the can before he spoke, "It was either this or military school in the Nevada Dessert. Thankfully, Professor Xavier intervened and here I am. My parents wanted to get rid of me after I told everyone at school I was a mutant." The memory stung him deeper than he let on and he finished off the can in a quick gulp after. Still, it was impossible not to see a little irony in his exile- in being sent away, Julian was in a place where he'd never felt more accepted.


"You told everyone?" Wow. He had to admit, his estimation of his thinner roommate just skyrocketed. Fred hadn't figured out until only a few months ago that he was a mutant, and even then, he'd only told his very good friend Dennis Sunder, and the mutants that had helped him find the Institute. That Julian had taken it upon himself to let people know, the way it sounded like he did, was very impressive. Fred smiled a small, genuine grin, and held up his can in a small toast, "Mighty big of ya."


"You know how it goes, you tell one person and they text their friends and then before you know it, everyone knows." Maybe the Texan didn't know how it went, but that was situation normal for Julian. "Glad to be here though, rather than sweating it out in some death camp outside Reno." He stood up and walked the can over to the recycling bin where he left it. "What do you do for fun, Fred?" he asked as he plopped back down into bed.



After he threw away his can in the proper receptacle, Fred looked back to Julian, but did his best not the meet the other boys' gaze, "I don't know. Usual stuff I guess. Drive around, video games, movies, books..." Fred was fairly sure all of his hobbies were not exactly 'the usual', but they were commonplace to him. It was not a coincidence that most of Fred's hobbies were more often than not singular activities. He just hadn't been all the social the majority of his life. "How bout you?" he said, and took another drag from his cigarette, careful to keep it out the window.


Julian shrugged and drew his legs up onto his bed, "I swim, but it's too damn cold here to be doing that right now. I've been getting more into lifting since I got here and I try to make it down to our gym daily." It looked like Fred had never seen the inside of a gym before and he wondered if his new roommate would like to come with some morning. "I like to watch movies and we get into games in the common room sometimes. Artie and Leong are cool for kids- dunno if you met them yet or not."


"Hadn't yet, no," Fred said simply. He turned and blew more smoke out of the window, and sighed in vexation. He scratched the back of his head when he looked back over to Julian, "Sorry, uh, Julian. I'm really...I've never been to good at the whole meet and greet thing. I just...never know what to say, really,"


His roommate was obviously uncomfortable and with a full twenty ounces of Red Bull bouncing around inside of him, Julian was wide awake. "Don't worry about it, man- not like we need to be best friends overnight." He looked out into the common room and wondered if their suitemates were asleep. "Have you played Street Fighter Four yet?"


Fred shook his head, and held up his old, decrepit looking laptop, "I play older PC games, mostly," then looked towards the doorway of the room, and tried to see what Julian was looking towards. "Why, do you guys have it here?"


He nodded and gave his new roommate a smile. "Come on, you'll like it," he said as he pushed off the bed and started for the common room. "I'll even play as someone who I won't kick your ass with."


Fred stood, "Well, since I've never played the game..." and he smiled as he flicked the cigarette out the window, "It shouldn't be to hard to pick someone to play as." It was a weak attempt at a joke, but a honest attempt nonetheless, and that meant a lot, coming from Fred.