Julian & Nico: Friday Afternoon.

[x-staffofone.livejournal.com]

Nico finds Julian checking some X-Men archives, and an interesting conversation happens.



Julian clicked to the next page in the file, carefully reading the content of the screen. Learning about all the old X-Men missions was taking far, far too long- which was not to say it wasn't interesting, just tedious. The thought of perhaps programming old missions into the danger room passed through his head in a fleeting instant, but he pushed it away to concentrate. With renewed focus, the young, ex-scion, didn't notice that he had company.

Nico wasn't the best at being sneaky, but with Julian focused it wasn't hard to remain unseen. "You don't look focused even when you study." It had been a while since they had had a private conversation, and the goth felt oddly awkward. "Please, don't tell me you are
reading some disgusting stuff." Leaning on the wall in front of Julian, Nico tried to scoop the contents on the screen.

After jumping a little, Julian sighed and shook his head, "Depends on your definition of disgusting, I guess." The mission he was one he'd only heard about before and involved the X-Men at Liberty Island against the Brotherhood. "Old X-Men missions. I'm joining up."

"Woah, really?" Nico gave a step towards him, leaning to watch the screen. "Funny, I don't find it too weird for you to join up, but when I found out Catseye was a trainee it didn't seem right." Turning towards the boy, she fixed her eyes on him, carefully examining his reactions. "But why would you join anyway?"

Julian sighed and shut the machine down. "I want to help people. Is that really so hard to believe?"

Nico negated with her head slowly. "No, not anymore I guess; sorry." She sighed back, trying to find the way to make the conversation have a better end. "I didn't know...anything; I misjudged you all the way, probably, and I guess you reacted the only way anyone would do." Nico realized she was being a bit vague, perhaps, but she didn't like the idea of entering in details. "I owe you more than an apology."

Another sigh. "We weren't, you are right; but we were children, Julian." His name sounded weird on her lips. "And we let that stupid childish anger carry on. Sure none of us are going to regret it much that it's all done and gone, but it still bothers me when I consider things could have been a lot different." The girl shrugged, trying to smile a little. "I'm just talking nonsense here, so ignore me."

Did she blush a little?

Julian shook his head, "Don't worry about it. I wasn't really listening anyway." He gave her a wink then chuckled lightly. "Seriously though, Nico, we're in a small school- its hard to not get along with people, if you get me."

"Seriously, such a big place gives me the creeps sometimes with so little people." An eye roll came next, the wink not helping her at all. "Anyway...it's all, you know, alright between us? Call me overly worried, but with all the stuff going on lately, I guessed we should talk." She wasn't sure about what she wanted to talk anyway.

"Yeah, you weren't there during the mad time we had in Malibu, so I guess you don't know the full story. What did you want to know?" Julian did not look eager to share, again, his life of crime, but he would in order to keep the peace.

"Nothing really, besides the fact you were apparently making sweet business with drug dealers." Despite the joking tone, Nico seemed truly worried about that. "I mean, what the hell Keller; you could've ruined your life right there."

"In some respects I did. That's what led to me coming out as a mutant back in Beverly." He paused and shook his head absently, "Besides, I didn't know they were the bad guys when I started out."

Well, it made sense now, or at least some more sense than before; Julian seemed to be truly into the whole helping the needy stuff, so if he had the chance of join some sort of team that actually did some good stuff..."So you guys cleared the streets of drugs and then this McPhearson dude put his nice monopoly, right? I don't get why your friend Simon is still on his side then; maybe he knew about it all along?"

"Yeah, we'd soften them up and McPhearson would close the deal. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why Simon is still with him- last couple times I've seen him haven't been the best points to ask questions, if you get me." Julian smiled charmingly and nudged Nico.

The nudge had a quite obvious effect on Nico, who had to clear her throat and cough a couple of times, failing to cover the sudden blush that had sprouted on her face. "Well...you didn't get killed right? There will be another time to throw a building at him and talk quietly." Julian had gotten too close, or at least on her mind, but her legs seemed to have already dismissed the idea of running away. She needed to talk about something, anything, and she better be fast. "So, a trainee, huh? Who is also there? Yvette, apparently Cats...Angel?"

Wait, what was she doing?

"Amara is too I think, but yeah, Yvette and Angel definitely are on the roster. At least Angel and I are back to talking again, heck we even went to the Winter Ball together, so she can't be too mad at me." Julian shrugged and went on, "Of course she still has every right to be."

Nico suppressed the need to chew her lower lip; she never did it, and it wasn't the time to begin. They had indeed been together on the winter ball. "What did just happen between you two? I mean, you were...a couple? Didn't I ask this already and got an evasive?" It was weird, but she was sure her efforts to get into the matter had already been foiled in the past. Now she was way more determined to be informed though, although she wasn't sure of why.

Julian leveled a gaze at her and shook his head, "Not nice. Yeah, she and I were together for a while. I'm surprised you haven't heard about our first date- and no, if you haven't heard, ask her, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about it." A chuckle interrupted his concentration for a moment before the young man continued, "I went to prom last year with Esme, as a favor to Angelica. We had a good time until...well, Esme kissed me and Angel walked in on it."

An eyebrow raised. "She kissed you. Are well talking about one of the trio of tele-blondies? Wait a minute..." It took her a moment to convince herself Julian was being completely honest when he made clear he was the one that got kissed, and not the other way around. "But you didn't want to be kissed by her, right? So, in a way, you were forced to kiss her, am I following?" She certainly was following, and it made no sense. "And Angel broke up with you? Really? I'm sorry but that's...that's stupid; Esme is supposed to be a telepath right? And not the one with the strongest moral, from what I've heard." Of course, Angel had all the right to be mad at Julian, but it sounded as if he had gotten all the blame. "Have you two talked about this?"

A wince was his only response at first, she'd figured out the puzzle all-too-quickly. "Sore subject, we don't really talk about prom last year if we can help it. And yeah, Esme is one of the Cuckoo's, but she's a good person- unlike her sisters."

Nico would've usually smirk at how good she was about figuring stuff out, but this time she saved it. "Keller, you are the victim, dammit." Crossing her arms, she decided to refrain from beating the boy verbally, since it wouldn't do any good. "Say whatever you want, but I think that if someone that likes you can't see through something like that then...you deserve better." And there was the blush again.

"It's really not a big deal," he said emphatically, "like I said, Angel and I are still friends, now. And she and I are going to be trainees together, so it's not like she can really stay mad if we're watching each others backs."

A sigh, a cough; she wasn't too convinced. "Alright, fine, whatever. I think I better go now? I don't want to take more of your time."

Before he could blink she was on her feet and out of the room- he couldn't help but feel he'd done something to upset her. 'Great Keller,' he thought, 'add another one to the list.'