Nathan, Fred, and Stepfords

[x-nothungry.livejournal.com]

Fred has a run-in with the Stepfords, which ends with Nathan breaking it up and talking with Fred about his issues...






Since the medical visits had started, since he'd started on the tests
and pills, Fred had only wanted answers. An answer to the pain, an
answer he'd never thought he'd have, an answer he'd learned to live
without. But now he'd had the answer:

He was slowly strangling himself with his own mutation. Go figure.

He'd started to talk to Doctors Grey and Voght about what to do now,
but knew he couldn't simply rely on others. He'd never let himself
before and he wasn't going to start now. He had to take at least part
of the matter into his own hands.

Fred sat in one of the media areas as he read up on meditation on the
internet. How one was to go about it, how it was sometimes suggested
to medical patients with chronic pain...

"What are you reading, new boy?"

The question came from the slender blonde girl in the doorway - or
maybe from one of the other two identical blondes flanking her. It was
hard to tell, since they were all gazing at him with the same look of
supercilious amusement.

'Aw, Hell.' Fred thought, as he closed the laptop 'The Blonde
Squadron...'. He shouldn't think that, Fred knew that; he actually
thought Phoebe was pretty cool by herself...or was it Celeste that was
cool? Whichever one it was, they were all kind of a pain when taken
together. "Uh, me? Nothing. Just some online articles..."

"Something you don't want us to know about, in other words. Isn't that
always the way? People evade the question-"

"-when they don't want to answer it. Typical human behavior. Tell us, was it-"

"-porn?" The middle blonde tilted her head, the gesture echoed
immediately by her sisters. "No. He's not red enough for it to have
been porn."

Fred sighed. They'd keep this up till they figured it out. He might as
well come clean. Fred didn't like having others in his personal
business, but figured it be like ripping off a bandaid to just tell
them the truth. Fred opened the laptop, and turned it so the Cuckoos
could see for themselves, "It's material about meditation. It's
supposed to help with chronic pain..."

"Meditation? The old bald man makes us meditate-"

"-on a regular basis. It's really quite boring, and doesn't do anything-"

"-at least, as far as we can tell." The third blonde shrugged.
"Anyway. Chronic pain? Why are you in pain?"

"Don't ask stupid questions, Phoebe," one of her sisters chided,
gazing very intently at Fred. "It's perfectly obvious, isn't it? He's
another one of those poor, poor maladaptive mutants."

"Oh?" The other smiled - meanly, was the only way to describe it. "Is
that it? Did you get the short end-"

"-of the genetic straw? Poor new boy. But I suppose you all-"

"-can't be us."

While Fred couldn't say 'maladaptive', he'd learned what it meant. He
also knew all to well the mean-spirited nature of the Cuckoos. He'd
felt it before, time and time again: over his weight, his slow uptake
on academia, his odder personal habits. Fred learned a long time ago
the best way to deal with it was to confront it for what it was:
childish insecurity.

"Yall're right. We can't all be four blonde girls who can't even
amount to one decent person tween'em. Let me ask you something..."
Fred stood up and moved towards the nearest Cuckoo, close enough to
her to invade her personal space.

"Have you...any of ya'll...ever been earnestly kissed?" His eyes and
words had a venom to them that was normally absent from Fred Dukes,
and his normal drawl was quickened and stutterless; mean blonde people
brought out the worst in him, "Have you ever enjoyed an earned sleep
after a hard day's work? Have you ever laughed so much it hurt in tha
best way ya ever felt? Any of you? I'm new, yeah, but not so green as
to not know what a bunch of fake little girls look like."

Fred sighed and moved back a little. That dull buzz, that told him his
medicine was wearing off, was creeping into his head, and he'd left
his pills in his room. He pulled a cigarette out of his coat and lit
it, rules be damned. After he inhaled deeply, he spoke again, "Yall're
right, I might not be the best at being a mutant...but I sure as hell
am better at being a person than any of ya."

"Well!" The blonde he'd advanced on was slightly flushed, and quite
obviously indignant. Her sisters were regarding her with narrowed
eyes. "As if being a person means anything. Might as well say,
'I'm an ant!' and expect-"

"-compliments," another said, picking up the thread of the
conversation with a faint smile. "You mindblind types are so very
self-important. As if individuality-"

"-is some kind of achievement." The third blonde had a very ominous
look on. "But no, keep patting yourself on the back for that, fat boy.
Go to bed at night, secure that you're so much better a person than we
are. Might as well, right? It's not as if you just insulted-"

"-anyone who could give you nightmares for the rest of your life," the
first blonde hissed. "We wonder how much you'd like a dream about
blowing up like a balloon, with one of us 'fake little girls' standing
by, ready with a-"

"Whoops," came a voice from the doorway, and the three Stepfords
jumped in unison, turning to regard the newcomer. Nathan eyed the
three of them, gray eyes very narrow. "I appear to have interrupted
three young telepaths about to make a very bad mistake. Imagine that."

Fred turned back to the girls and eyed them evenly and unwaveringly.
He didn't turn to Nathan as he spoke, "It's al'ight, Mr. Dayspring,
sir. The Stepfords were jus reminding me why it was I got so much
detention for beating up bullies back in school."

It was almost nice, to have something to focus on other than the pain
and confusion. He moved back to the Cuckoo in front, the one who'd
flushed previously. He got up close, his nose almost touching hers,
and his voice was quiet, and as even as his stare, "And don't come at
someone with nightmares who already gets them onna nightly basis. If
you're gonna threaten someone, do it to one of the kids that still
believe yall're a pack of blonde bogeymen, not someone who knows what
you really are."

"My goodness," Nathan murmured as Sophie gave way a step.
"Comprehensive fail at picking a target, girls. Let this be a lesson
to you. Bullying does not pay." Phoebe and Celeste were giving him
baleful looks, and he just raised an eyebrow. #Oh, try it. Do.#

All three of them paled. Nathan smiled tightly and stepped out of the
doorway, inclining his head at the hall. "The Professor's office."

"But-"

"Now." Nathan waited until they were gone, then smiled more naturally
at Fred. "See, if more people reacted the way you just did, they'd
have a lot less success at being evil little... well, pardon me, I was
about to be inappropriate."

Fred smiled back at Nathan, "Sokay, sir. Hard to be appropriate when
it comes to that gaggle," and he shrugged a little as he dragged off
his cigarette, "Uncle Charlie always used to say there was a reason
Kyotes howl so loud: cause there aint nothing to 'em but a howl..."

"To be fair, where they came from didn't really give them much chance
to be properly socialized," Nathan said. "Long story I can't really
get into, but it was substantially outside the norm." He shrugged.
"For other reasons I shouldn't bore you with, I can empathize without
being entirely tolerant. Suffice to say, you did handle them well. I'd
be surprised if they came back at you in any way, shape or form."

"Honestly, sir? I just, uh..." now that Fred had cooled a little, his
mind worked the way it normally did, "...I wasn't worried. More than
anything I feel bad for the lot of them. I don't know what they went
through or anything, so I guess I shouldn't be harsh..."

"How are they going to learn, otherwise?" Nathan asked, quite
reasonably. "You called them on their behavior. Much more temperately
than most people would have been able to manage, being threatened by a
group of pretty powerful telepaths. Don't kick yourself over it," he
said, moving further into the room and looking around for a moment
before he sat down.

Fred nodded, "I, uh...yes sir," and then sat down next to his laptop
and closed it once more. He looked around for an ashtray, or something
to put his cigarette out in, and finally settled for crushing the
cigarette in his hand and placing the dead butt in his coat.

"Someone is eventually going to get on your case about smoking in the
house," Nathan warned gently. It wasn't going to be him, but he
figured the younger man would probably appreciate the warning.
"Anyway. I heard them carping at you about meditation, from down the
hall...?"

"Uh, yessir, Mr. Dayspring. It's for my, uh...my mutation." Fred's
brow wrinkled. He still hadn't gotten any better at explaining his
predicament, "My, uh, tissue is...folded...weird. It's...something I'm
doing, but not meaning to...uh, it's complicated, I guess...anyway, I
read that some meditation may be able to help with the pain, and
Doctor Gray thinks it might even help me figured out how to, uh,
'fold' myself right."

Nathan's eyebrows went up thoughtfully. "She's right. At the very
least it will help with the pain - did the Stepfords interrupt
you?"

Fred chuckled, "I, uh, heh, " and held up his laptop helplessly, "I
was really just reading up on it. I don't really know the first thing
about what I'm, uh...actually supposed to be doing..."

"Ahhh." Nathan eyed him for a moment, then smiled again. "Well, I
happen to be something of an expert on the subject. Want some help?"

Fred's eyes widened for a moment, and he coughed a bit. He'd heard the
rumor mill about Mr. Dayspring, and the thought of the guy taking any
amount of time out of his schedule to help Fred was...daunting,
"Uhm...uh, yeah! Yeah, sure, if it's, uh, okay...."

Nathan waved a hand. "Not a big deal," he said. "I like meditating,
anyway." And from what he'd seen of Fred, he liked him, too. If he
might be able to help, then he was willing to give it a try.
"Although, just as a disclaimer, I learned my meditation style from a
ghost from the future..."

Fred nodded, until that last part, and balked a little, "I, uh...wait,
what? Wait, nevermind. Not my, uh...business, sir."

"Now there's a good sign," Nathan said with a vaguely shark-like grin.
"You didn't run. Anyhow - shall we?"