Call of the Wild: Doomcloud Cheer

[x-wolfcub.livejournal.com]

Nick is brought some comfort food by someone who knows a little about being in a funk himself.



Nicholas Gleason could do little more than stare at his ceiling from his hospital bed. It wasn't that his injuries were that bad, the docs had done a great job patching him up, it was more a matter of pride than anything else. A hospital bed was much safer than walking outside in a school where over the past few months you had almost eaten one student, and nearly clawed off the behind of another. As he closed his eyes, sinking deeper into his thoughts, it was apparent that the doom cloud had official returned for the boy.

Kevin didn't know much about what happened to Nick. He knew enough of the guy's past from a previous conversation to know that if he wolfed out, clawed up Julian and took off that his head probably wasn't a happy place. Kevin didn't really usually do the reaching out thing with people, but he sympathized with the guy. In a lot of ways Nick viewed his own mutation in much the same way Kevin viewed his. At least Nick hadn't been the one directly responsible for killing his parents, even if they'd died nonetheless. So he knocked on Nick's door in the medlab, balancing a plate piled high with fried chicken and mashed potatoes covered in gravy in the other hand. Hey, he was Southern; food was the universal answer for everything.

Nick furrowed his eyebrows together in confusion. It was nearly beyond his comprehension why anyone would want to come see him in the med lab. After all, what if he went all feral again. He shuttered at the thought for a second, and briefly thought about turning the visitor away. But his instincts took over as he caught a whiff of the chicken wafting in from underneath the door. "Come in!"

A hooded head poked through the door first, blue eyes glancing about to see if anyone else was in the room. Kevin didn't dislike anyone in the mansion, exactly, but there were people he trusted around his mutation more and people he trusted less. There appeared to only be a Nick in the room, though, so he edged in through the door and closed it behind himself. The smile Kevin gave Nick was polite and oddly sheepish. "Ah figured you might want some real food. All the other ferals have huge appetites and medlab doesn't really focus on food that doesn't suck all the time."

Nick squinted for a few seconds before it really sank in that it was Kevin at the door. "I should have known it was you as soon as I smelled the chicken." The boy gave a small smile back, remembering the first day he meet Kevin, helping him marinade meats back in the kitchen. It was on that day that he was first able to talk about his family, feeling a kindred spirit in Kevin. He still felt that unspoken bond, allowing for him to relax a little bit for the first time since being back at the mansion. "Yeah, there's only so much Jell-O that I can force down, ya know?"

"Mm, Jell-O, food of the geriatric and dentally impaired." Kevin grinned and brought the plate over to the bed-bound wolfboy. The plate was set down on the table next to the bed and then Kevin fished both utensils and napkins out of a pocket to join them. The straight-backed chair by the wall was pulled over, turned around backward and soon had one Kevin Ford on it, arms crossed over the top of the back. "You been in here for kinda a while, haven't ya? You that hurt?" Anything over a day Kevin now qualified as a while in the medlabs. It probably had something to do with all the people who had healing factors and faster than normal metabolisms around the mansion. Those people never had to hang out down here long. God knows if Kevin did anything to land himself here he'd probably be stuck in a bed for weeks. He was gifted that way.

Even before the utensils were laid down, Nick had one of the legs in his hand and headed to his mouth. "If I ever get married Kevin, I'm paying you to be the chef at my wedding." The boy was nearly euphoric with the chicken. Maybe it was that, or the fact that he seemed to always have slippage of the tongue around Kevin that he felt safe talking about what happened. "I guess I should start off from the beginning. Did you here that Keller was in here a few days ago too?"

"You gettin' married in the South, then?" Kevin couldn't help the small grin. He didn't think Nick would get away with fried chicken, biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy anywhere else for a wedding. Then again, you gave people fried chicken for everything. He'd seen a picture of the reception after his mother's funeral once that had every bowl in the house filled with fried chicken. It looked like they'd even run out of bowls to put it in.

The Southerner's expression sobered, however, when Nick brought up Julian being brought into the medlabs. Kevin nodded slowly. "Yeah, heard he was in here. Something 'bout his...butt?" He'd seen Julian in the halls, too. The guy was walking funny. Sort of the way Kevin had thought he might be walking if Jay had ever gotten his way with him while Kevin's mutation had been knocked out by meds that one summer.

"Yeah, turns out that was due to some claw marks..." Nick hung his head a little at this. Despite his unspoken connection, he still didn't know what Kevin would think of him if he knew about the training incident from earlier in the week. But it was already too late to back out now. "He kept pushing me during Professor Sefton's training exercise, and the wolf brain took over. I was on him before I knew it." He took a few more nibbles at the chicken to regain some courage. "That's one of the reasons I'm milking my stay here. I'm a little embarrassed to confront everyone after that."

"Why?" Kevin got it, he really did. But he'd also come far enough to understand it wouldn't do any good. The hiding thing was awesome for a while, but eventually even King Introvert got sick of it. He was pretty sure Prince Introvert over here would, too. "You've got some control issues with your mutation. It's kind of why you're here. People get that people lose it sometimes."

Frowning a little, Kevin went silent for several moments. "Look, Ah nearly disintegrated my ex's face off 'cause he wouldn't leave me alone and Ah got this weird addiction thing with my mutation. Ah'd never used 'em much 'til then and Ah was tryin' to train with 'em but it got...weird. Anyway, point is Ah flipped out. Ah snap and Ah do somethin' and yeah no one else has ever been hurt by me and it's kinda always the same person who makes me snap and he's got a healin' factor, but you never killed anyone either. Ah think you got a lot less to worry 'bout. Plenty of other people flipped out with their powers or done bad things with 'em. My old roommate Julio? They're still tryin' to put San Diego back together 'cause of him. Takin' a chunk outta Keller ain't that bad on the scale of bad 'round here." But it was all subjective and Kevin got that. A big deal to Nick didn't need to be a big deal to everyone else. It only needed to be to Nick to matter.

"Thanks." The boy paused. "But that's not even the worst part..." Nick closed his eyes for a second. He wasn't sure that he was going to share the next part with anyone, but after listening to Kevin's words, he knew that if he hid it inside, it would probably only get worse. "After I... well nearly maimed Keller... I tried to run back home. But something stopped me. I had this smell that became familiar, and I followed it. I ended up with this group of crazy cultist trying to sacrifice a mutant. When everybody got there with me, they helped me save him. But I almost didn't make it." The boy paused for a second. "The smell was coming from.. the person I least expected. My sister." He looked up to Kevin for approval, hoping that he could get through the rest of the story.

The reaction was small; Kevin's eyebrows raised a fraction. Sisters. Why did siblings seem to get people in trouble? Maybe it was an Xavier's thing. It made Kevin sort of glad to be an only child. "Your sister was lookin' to sacrifice a human?"

"To be honest I'm still playing catch up on the whole thing." He furrowed his eyebrows together as he tried to run through the whole situation. "I remember going to save the mutant, and then seeing her and freezing. The next thing I remember was a bunch of stars and Catseye pulling me away." He paused, placing the chicken down for a second. The cross wires in his brain were beginning to take away his appetite. "They said she was the one that did it, but it's just hard to comprehend. I mean, she's my little sister..." His words caught in his throat, as the boy was unable to get them out all the way.

If he were a more emotive or touchy feely sort Kevin might have reached out to the younger mutant. He wasn't though, even with the considerations of his mutation and paranoia thereof off the table; so his hands stayed right where they were. "Stuff changes people. The stuff with your parents? It can change how someone looks at stuff. Even people they loved. Or put 'em in a spot to be convinced by someone else how things are." He shrugged a little, but tried not to let the gesture come off as too nonchalant. "You don't know what happened to make her like that."

"No I don't." Even though he was agreeing it was hard for Nick to say. "But I'm going to find out, and when I do-." He let his eyes raise to Kevin's once again. "I don't think anything will let me regain my control..."

"Then make sure you got Catseye watchin' your back and pullin' you out before you do somethin' you'll regret." Regret only came after the fact. It was hard to see it coming ahead of time. Kevin had learned that when he'd come back to New York from Scotland.


Nick smiled, trying to make light of the situation. "Well as long as you keep the chicken coming, then I'll have reason to stick around." The boy chomped down on a wing, but his stomach still felt knotted, not sure he would be able to get that knot out until he figured out the full mystery of his sister.