Victor & Johnny (backdated to August 10th)

[x-ricochet.livejournal.com]

The boys talk about their night at Jean-Paul's. Victor learns a little about being a roommate and Johnny learns to watch out for falling lizards.



This was a mutant school, right? Full of mutant kids and their mutant powers. So it made sense to Victor that he should be trying to practice, in case they had Mutant Field Day or something. Currently, that meant dangling upside down above his bed from his ten toes and three of his fingers, carefully peeling one of them away from the surface of the ceiling. So far, he'd only been able to hang from twelve digits for a couple of minutes, tops. It was a record he was aiming to improve.

It hadn't even occurred to Vic that his new roommate hadn't yet seen him crawling on the walls yet. Or the ceiling. So when Johnny walked into their room, it didn't occur to Vic that maybe he wouldn't expect him to be hanging out on the ceiling. "Hey," he said, looking up. ...Down. ...Whatever. "What's up?"

Danger sense or not, Johnny was not expecting a voice from some unknown origin above his head or for his bright eyes, upon being jerked toward the ceiling, to be greeted with a form dangling haphazardly from the plaster by spread toes and fingers. He yelped and sprang thoughtlessly away in an acrobatic feat that left him kneeling on the wooden spragging board of his bed and gawking upward. His latest volume had slipped from his hands and hit the floor with a thud in time with his landing.

Johnny's startled reaction startled Victor, and he held up a hand to try to calm his roommate. Unfortunately, it was enough sudden movement to cause him to lose his grip on the ceiling. "Hey--augh!" he cried as he flailed, trying and failing to catch himself before he plummeted towards his bed.

Recognition of his roommate came mere seconds after his initial shock, but that didn't help Victor to keep his place on the ceiling. Johnny's features lit with fresh surprise, "Vic!" Quick reflexes and a tendency to leap before thinking found him hurdling the distance between their two beds in an attempt to catch the tumbling mutant. Which he did, only to be knocked back by momentum and the weight of the taller boy and to land hard on the bed with the other on top and the wind knocked completely out of him.

Another round of flailing ensued, this time as Vic tried to scramble off of the smaller boy beneath him. It didn't help that he was busy gasping for air himself, fear and adrenaline and the act of landing on Johnny conspiring to make it difficult for him to breathe. He managed to untangle himself from Johnny and rolled to his knees on the bed next to his roommate. "Are you--are you okay?"

The answer didn't come immediately, though the fact that his roommate was smiling and caught between subdued laughter and a fit of coughs as he tried to catch his breath was not an altogether discouraging sign. "...Ow," Johnny declared at last, head reeling from the still-pulsing danger sense that sparked into existence just before contact. He shook his head and grinned, adding playfully, "...Yeah. 'Crushed by lizard' would be a lame way to go, anyway."

Vic snorted, then flopped on his back next to Johnny as he dissolved into a full-blown case of the giggles. "It came from the sky," he said dramatically once he could speak again. "Death! By! Lizard!" He was snickering by the time he finished, barely able to get the last word out.

The roommates rested shoulder to shoulder and Johnny wore a wide, amused smile at this fictitious narration. He looked over at Victor with feigned seriousness, about to comment on the fact that there likely was an old movie with such a premise and that it was their solemn duty to find it, until he noticed the peculiar lightness in his companion's scaled flesh. The grin waned. "...Are you okay, Vic?"

"Huh?" Vic lifted his head to look at Johnny, not sure where the concerned tone of voice had come from. "Yeah, I think the bed took the worst of it. It's not the first time I've fallen," he said with a sheepish smile. "I'm working on it."

"That's not...I mean..." Johnny wasn't sure what he meant. Rather than trying to piece his uncertain words together, the white-haired teen moved to grip one of Victor's arms, guiding it to rest before his roommate's bright eyes. The flesh was closer to its original hue than it had been, but it was still pale and barely a color that could really be called green.

Victor blinked at his arm. "Weird. I must've scared myself worse than I thought." His voice held an uncertain note, however, even as the color returned to his skin. He shrugged awkwardly. "Guess I shouldn't fall from the ceiling anymore."

Johnny noticed the small wavering in his companion's voice, but opted to trust his conclusion and bobbed his head in hesitant agreement. He released Victor and slumped back against the thoroughly disheveled bed. "Maybe you're a chameleon," he suggested playfully before hooking his arm behind his head and affixing his gaze to the pale ceiling. At least it was better at staying up there than Vic was.

That earned him another snort. "Maybe. But you'd think I'd be better at hiding when my mom wanted me to clean my room," he joked back. They lapsed into a long moment's silence as Vic chewed his lip, trying to figure out what to say next. "Hey, about last night--" he started.

"...Vic, I--" Johnny began in the same moment, pushed to the same memories of the previous evening's events as the silence rolled on between them. Their words met in a jumble and the white-haired teen glanced over at his roommate again, looking sheepish and faintly uncertain and smiling thinly because he wasn't sure what else to do. "...I don't suppose attempting to keep you from falling on your butt gets me off the hook for worrying you like that, huh?"

"What? No, it was no big deal. I just--I might've overreacted a little," Vic admitted, looking sheepish before he frowned; there was one thing he wanted to clarify. "Hey, for the record, I wasn't trying to get you in trouble or anything by going to Mr. Beaubier. I just wasn't really sure where else to go."

"Don't worry about it. With the note I left," Johnny conceded, "I'd probably have done the same thing too." He exhaled quietly, the breath seeming to drain much of the remaining lightness from his tone. "I was in a hurry and it was stupid and I'm sorry....even if things didn't work out all that bad."

Vic nudged him gently with one skinny elbow. "No worries. I just wasn't sure if I'd done something to make you upset, or if I was a lousy roommate or something. I've never shared a room with anyone before," he admitted. He fidgeted for a second, then glanced at Johnny. "Um. There's something I should tell you, since we're going to be sharing a room and all."

His look became extremely serious...or would've, if he could have kept the corners of his mouth from pulling up. "I've been known to climb on the ceiling from time to time."

"You didn't and you're not," Johnny reassured him, forcing a little smile, "It's not so bad...And it's usually not a game of hide and seek either." His lips thinned and he looked over at Victor as the boy's tone shifted, seemingly thrown by that expression even with its blatant tells. When the 'confession' finally came, he laughed instantly and feigned a gasp, "You don't say? What about falling off of it?"

Vic laughed. "That happens less often. Usually if I'm in danger of falling off of the ceiling, I at least make sure there's a bed--or a roommate--underneath me. After all, that's what roommates are for, right?"