Cammie and Jake - Antifreeze and Donuts

[x-courier.livejournal.com]

Jake takes Cammie out for a snack. He proceeds to demonstrate why he made a terrible guidance counselor, but he still manages to get Cammie to have an honest, if slightly self-loathing, conversation with him.



Jake frowned as he knelt in front of Cammie's door; it had been a while since he'd had to pick a lock, and his lack of practice showed. Just as Jean-Paul had warned him, Cammie wasn't answering her door, and he didn't have the option of going through her window. He'd thought Xavier's door locks would be easier than this, but it was possible she'd tampered with it in some way; he certainly wouldn't be surprised if that were true. He shook his head and kept trying, doing his best to make as much noise as possible--this would be much easier if she just opened the damn door before someone caught him trying to break in. Even if it did result in him getting punched.

Cammie was braiding her wet hair and on the way back to her room when she saw Jake. She raised an eyebrow, "Aren't you a little too old to be on a panty raid?" she asked, tying off the end on a dark green braid.

"You're supposed to be hiding in your room and not talking to anyone," he said, standing and taking a step away from the door. "And quite possibly listening to emo or something equally mopey. Not country, I hope," he said, wrinkling his nose. "How was I to know that you weren't answering the door because you weren't there?"

"Even I have to shower sometime," Cammie returned. "I don't listen to emo, I'm a punk girl through and through. Country can bite me and then lie down and die," she said coolly. "Can't pick the lock, can you?" that was smugness on her voice.

"I don't know that I can't, but it's certainly not as easy as I remembered the locks around here being. Although I seem to remember agitating for them to up the security here anyway--it's possible they did while I was gone. Regardless, I'm willing to admit defeat at this point." He grinned at her. "So can I come in?"

"Depends. Are you fast enough to get in the door between when I open it and slam it shut?" Cammie said, pulling out a lock pick of her own and jamming it in the door. Two easy motions of her wrist and it clicked open. "I mean, if you are I can't stop you. Though I do feel obligated to warn you that I'm not in a very nice mood."

He looked hurt, although it was clearly insincere. "How am I supposed to offer to take you out for donuts and antifreeze if you slam the door in my face?"

"Antifreeze, you say?" Cammie returned, as she opened the door to her room, given she hadn't washed the sheets - or anything else - in days the smell that wafted out was interesting to say the least. She'd have to do laundry tonight, and not drink all the bleach.

"Speak more of this mystic drink."

"A long time ago, in a faraway land, a group of travellers were wandering through the desert when lo, an oasis sprang forth in front of their eyes. It was the only greenery for miles, and in its center was a spring flowing with a sweet green liquid." He followed her through the door as if she'd invited him, wrinkling his nose at the smell. "And the weary travellers drank the sweet green liquid...and then died horrible deaths because it was antifreeze. But luckily for you, someone was smart enough to not drink it, but instead import it in plastic bottles for use in cars everywhere." He smirked. "And I'm willing to bet it would spice up your average donut."

"Well, it's that or wasabi. I suppose I could be convinced," she said, pulling a fresh - relatively speaking - roll of bandages out of her top drawer. She started to take off the binding on her left arm; this one was going to have to be taken to be incinerated later. "I do like antifreeze. And I used to like doughnuts, once upon a time."

Another smirk. "If you ask nice, you could probably talk me into picking up some wasabi on the way."

***

They took their donuts to a nearby park, the better to quietly doctor them with Cammie's preferred poison. Jake sprawled on a park bench, happily ignoring the powdered sugar that was drifting down onto his tie with every bite. "How's it going?" he asked casually. He'd promised Jean-Paul that he'd try to get Cammie out of her room, which he considered an unqualified success; beyond that, he didn't really feel the need to delve into her life. However, they had to talk about something, and he was incurably curious.

"It goes," she said, spiked doughnut in her mouth, "I mean, it's the same as every other day in a way. At least I'm not getting any more body parts in the mail." They were an odd couple, he had a suit and tie, and she was every inch a punk, though the hair was an accident of nature.

"Trust me--no one is happier about that than me," he said with a shudder. "So you're hiding out in your room and not talking to anyone? Sounds boring."

"I've talked to a couple of people," Cammie said, "We're talking and this isn't my room. But when you take everything into consideration, me around people likely isn't the best thing in the world."

He shrugged at that, fishing another donut out of the box. He'd picked a handful of filled donuts for himself; this one looked to be a lemon custard. "Why? I thought you did your whole venting of gasses thing fairly regularly."

"It's normally not gasses, the toxic cloud is 'venom' having nowhere else to go so mixing with the air or something something something. The evil doctor described it to me, I wasn't paying much attention. It doesn't mean there aren't still accidents. I don't keep my arm bandaged to make a fashion statement, it makes it easier to hold it in," Cammie returned.

Jake kept his tone nonchalant. "So other than me, how many people have you accidently tried to kill?" He slurped at his donut; some of the filling was trying to make a run for it. "Recently, I mean. Since you showed up at Xavier's."

"Your boyfriend, for one," Cammie said. She wasn't totally deaf to the rumor mill, "I also socked Kurt right before I stole Angelo's car. I am not a good girl."

"He's not my boyfriend," Jake protested mildly. "But I said accidentally. My understanding is that there was a fair amount of intent in both of those shots, right?" He'd heard abbreviated accounts of both incidents from the speedster. "Jean-Paul seems to think it was just as much his fault that you hit him, that he was pushing you too hard. Even discounting his amazing capacity to take the blame for things without you realizing that's what he's doing, it didn't sound like an accident."

"Well, the hitting him wasn't. The him almost dying, that was the accident part," Cammie returned. "Seriously. I am not meant to be around people. You think you'd be able to learn that lesson in this many years, but hey."

He licked powdered sugar from his fingers. "So what, you're going to sit in your room at Xavier's and hope no one dies? Booooooring. As much as you like hitting people, I figured you'd be trying to sign up with the hero squad."

Cammie laughed, "I couldn't hero anything if my life depended on it. Seriously. I'm not the goody-two shoes type. I like to fight, yeah. But I don't think I could do the good guy thing. I mean, do I look like the hero type?"

"Nope. Not the type that lives in the mansion and wears leather, at least, although I've been surprised by some of their number before," he replied, thinking of Cable. "But there are plenty of things out there that involve hitting the right people." He gave her a sidelong glance. "And not all of them involve your crazy mother's dream of using you to wipe out humanity."

"Yeah? Like what? Is there a ninja academy somewhere out there that I can join?" Cammie returned, "I'm lucky to have the two jobs I do, and I'm thinking about dropping both of them. I mean, I've always known exactly what I was. This was just an unexpected layer, I guess."

He rolled his eyes at that. "Wah-wah. Mommy's little monster. The more you believe that crap, the more you'll make it true." He gestured with the new donut in his hand. "Go out there and do something. Go to school. Fight crime. Get a job--there are plenty of companies out there that hire mutants; the good places even put a premium on them." Like Infonet, although he wasn't going to send her anywhere near that direction.

"If you want to stick with the Xavier's save-the-world schtick, put on leather or talk to Remy about Snow Valley. The point is, you can either sit here and be an emo muppet and hope no one remembers the monster living in the cave, or you can do something that you like and that accomplishes...something." He paused, donut still held out in front of him in the middle of some ridiculously grand gesture, and blinked at her. "Or you could always be the guidance counselor at Xavier's. I mean, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but I think you might actually survive it without developing PTSD like the rest of us."

"Gee, you're friendly today," Cammie said, her mouth full of doughnut. She may be a monster but she sure as hell wasn't Mommy's Little Monster. She wasn't out to 'cleanse' anything. "School is an okay theory, but I don't even have my GED. Education took a back seat when I decided to run away from home. I also won't guide anyone. My solution to most of life's problems involves punching it until it stops moving. That's not a good thing to teach impressionable kids, you know? The point is, I have no idea what I want to do. I'm nineteen, most kids my age have a year of school or post high school pot smoking under their belts. I'm from a town that eats talent and promise alive and spits out farm hands and cowherds. I have a birth mother who thinks it's a great test to send someone fingers in the mail and I have an arm that can kill people just with a simple touch skin to skin. I don't have to hit people. It's generally just more fun that way. Until I managed to poison half of Houston, I made my money jacking bikes and car stereos." Cammie said, deadpan.

"I have mentioned that I sucked out loud at being a guidance counselor, right?" He shook his head, laughing. "Whatever. If you want to continue to be the tough girl who hides in her room, go right ahead. I just figured someone who wasn't a raving mad scientist--and I mean really, who does that?--should mention to you that there are things you can do that take advantage of that," he nodded towards her arm. "Like eat nuclear waste--ooh, there we go. You could be a national hero. The hippies would love you, the nuclear lobby would love you...Have you ever considered being the one-woman answer to the US's energy crisis?"

"Nah, the US can crisis themselves into happy oblivion. I'm sorry, but you know the Government fucked it up and I'm not going to give them an easy out," Cammie said with a grin, "After all, that's not fair to all the doomsayers. I'd hate to steal their thunder. And apparently, there are people out there who do raving mad scientist. We spent a day being jerked around by two of them, remember? If I ever do get a job, it will be beating up scientists."

"There you go!" Jake exclaimed happily. "Direction! See, maybe I don't suck at this nearly as bad as we both thought." He stuffed the rest of his donut into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "I think the UN might be hiring scientist beaters."

"Scientist Beaters are just cricket bats. You can hire anyone to swing them," Cammie said. "Seriously though. My future? Not your problem. Though I'm sorry someone I share half my DNA with sent me your fingers in the mail."

"Eh," he waved a hand dismissively. "As creepy and weird and incredibly painful as it was, I got them back, and I was able to destroy them. And it worked," he waggled the powdered sugar-covered ring and index fingers of his left hand at her. "These two fingers don't disappear on me anymore."

"Ew," Cammie said, "So what, they just stick out of an arm stub or something? That's just wrong," Cammie said, "That's almost worse than before," she said shaking her head. "And you have to be the messiest doughnut eater ever."

"Look, given the choice, I'd prefer having my whole arm, but I'll take what I can get." He brushed absently at the powdered sugar dusting his front, only succeeding in spreading it further. "It's a good sign, though, if I do get my arm out of your mom's clutches. I might not have to be the incredible one-armed man forever."

"Yeah, that would be a good thing. Must suck, to be handless every morning," Cammie returned, "Look, thanks for the doughnuts and sorry for the emo, but honestly? That was a pretty bad day and it's still going through the emotional blender, if you get my drift. I'm sure you can, because the day you lost your arm couldn't have been a cake walk."

"Worst Day Ever," he agreed. He licked his fingers clean, trying not to think about it too closely. "Hey, guess what?"

"What?" Cammie asked.

Jake grinned. "You haven't hit me since we were in Vermont."

"So, you aching to get smacked?" Cammie returned, an eyebrow arched, "There's a difference between today and a bad day. But if you're aching for it I suppose I could let you taste my left hook."

He held his hands up in front of him defensively. "Believe me, I'd rather you not hit me. I got enough of that in Vermont. I just thought I'd point it out."

"Yeah. Generally if you're not in a Mosh Pit or a cheap bar you're safe from the wrath of my fists," Cammie said.

"I find that hard to believe," Jake protested. "I hardly ever hang out in mosh pits or cheap bars, and you still tried to beat the crap out of me."

"I thought my parents were going to be killed," Cammie returned, "And you were being an idiot."

"I was not!" he retorted, although he was laughing. "I was trying to keep us from getting kidnapped or killed, or worse. And it worked, didn't it?"

"Initial inspection says yes. But the Matrix still has you," Cammie said.

"Damn," he sighed. "At least it has tasty donuts."

"Yeah. Something has to be good about this place. Might as well be the fried dough nuts of some unsuspecting pastry," Cammie returned.

"And the charming company," he said graciously, and then ruined the effect by grinning goofily at her.