Yvette, Julian, and Fred

[x-nothungry.livejournal.com]

A little prodding gets Fred out of his long exile from the garage



It had taken the better part of a year to turn the beat up old truck
into the polished, nigh-perfect vehicle it was now. Weeks and weeks of
work and a pretty penny that had sapped nearly all the money he was
capable of earning.

Luckily, Frederick Jacobi Dukes had more than enough time on his
hands, and it wasn't as if he was spending his money on anything else.
After graduation, Fred had found work both near the Mansion and less
near. His friends were busy near the beginning, preparing themselves
for the rest of their lives. Fred got work in security, like he had so
many times before. As the question of his affairs and schedule became
more and more frequent, Fred had spent more and more time in the
garage. Now, with most of the rest of his friends busy with school and
training...

The letter he'd gotten from Susie and Mark, his oldest
friends, sat still open at the top of Fred's open toolbox as he
replaced his older tires with stout whitewalls he'd managed to find
online. He'd left his radio on, and an old country song played softly
from inside the shining, restored truck. Fred was ignorant to almost
everything else as he hummed along with Marty Robbins...

Julian and Yvette opened the door to the garage, and the young man
could instantly identify Fred's off pitch warbles over the racket of
his country station. They were on a mission and both strode
confidently over to their old friend and classmate with the intent to
confront him on his reclusive behavior.

An invisible hand clicked off the music as the two stood behind the
still rather large frame of Fred Dukes.

"Hello, Fred," Yvette said gently. "May we talk with you for a
moment?" Hopefully they looked less like they were wanting a fight and
more like concerned friends.

Fred knew Yvette's voice was coming an instant after the radio was
clicked off, and he repressed a sigh, taking a moment to light a
cigarette. He had hoped he could get on the road before anyone figured
out what he was doing, but looking back that seemed pretty stupid. He
turned to Julian and Yvette as he rose, doing his best to avoid eye
contact, "Jules, Vette...hey guys. What brings you down here...?"

"Rumors, Dukes. We've heard some rather disturbing things about your
coming plans and wanted to see if they were true. So what are you up
to?" Julian crossed his arms over his chest. After graduation last
year, Fred had withdrawn as much as he had, but while Julian had come
back- with great help from Nico- Fred hadn't.

Someone had told them. Fred flinched, and took a moment to drag off
his cigarette. "Me? Nuthin' special. Just...workin on mah baby..."
Fred put on a half hearted smile, patting the passenger door of his
truck...

Yvette sighed. Between Julian's aggressive approach and Fred's
hedging, this wasn't going to be so simple. "We know, Fred," she said,
still keeping her tone gentle and concerned. "I have access to the
staff communications and saw them talking about you leaving."

Fred raised a hand to protest, and after several long silent beats,
simply scratched the back of his head, looking down at the floor,
"...yeah. Talked to a few of them about it last week. Couple of
friends ah got are in Portland right now. Decent work, and apparently
they're pretty chill about mutants out their way, so I thought...why
not, you know?"

"So, you're just going to sneak out in the night without saying
goodbye?" Julian's eyes were slightly tinged with his green energy
aura, a sign of how upset he was.

"Julian..." Yvette laid a gloved hand on her teammate's arm, seeking
to calm him down - this wasn't supposed to be a fight. "What we mean
is, that we are worried about you, that you would want to leave
without letting your friends know," she amended. "It looks like you
might be wanting to get away from something and if that is so, we
would like to help."

Fred couldn't help but feel his body expand a little, growing a little
taller and his bulk straining against clothes now to small for him. It
wasn't simply Julian's aura; he had stopped trying to learn how to
control his mass months ago, and conversations like this always made
his form fluctuate. "Ah ain't sneaking.' He said, with maybe a
little more deep coolnes in his voice than he meant. But, like always,
Yvette managed to soothe down his rustled feathers, " Ah...ah ain't
tryin tah escape no one, Vette. Ah...ah just..." Fred pulled a huge
drag off his cigarette, looking around for something to help him
figure out what he was trying to say...

"Then why leave without saying goodbye?" Julian sighed, a frown still
on his face but a hint of sadness in his blue eyes with the green
gone.

Fred went to say something once. Then twice. And finally, his
shoulders slumped, "Look man, Ah haven't...it has been great here,
but...it ain't like Ah've been around a lot. Jules, you know what
that's like, brother. You did the same thing. Thing is...I really
don't belong here, you know? I passed high school, proally
cause the teachers were bein nice. Don't belong in college..."

Eyes glowing brighter, Yvette approached Fred, reaching for his hand
with her own. "I do not want you to be unhappy, Fred," she said
softly. "But you are wrong. You do belong here. And there is
much you can do, if you want to."

Fred smiled a little at Yvette, and gave a small shrug, "I just don't
know if Ah really can, Vette. Ah liked working with Red X, and...Ah
don't know. It just...there's stuff Ah know Ah'm good at, y'know?
Stuff that just comes naturally. Watchin doors and checkin IDs and
tossin drunks. But real stuff? Like what alotta tha teachers do? An Ah
can't really say Ah even really want tah go tah college...."

"You think you're going to find the answers out there?" Julian
scoffed, "Dude, I haven't enrolled yet either- no one is saying you
need to go to college. But if you leave, I think you'll regret it-
it'll be harder to come back here after you leave than it will be to
leave after you've given yourself a chance."

Fred looked at Julian, and after a few moments finally managed to say,
"Ah, uh, wasn't plannin on comin' back, Jules, tah be honest..." Fred
turned to Yvette, "I mean, look at you two, yah know? Yah guys got it
in spades. Figured out Ah mean, and me?...Ah dunno. Is there really
anythin Ah can accomplish stayin...?"

"There is more than you can accomplish by leaving, Fred," Yvette
replied earnestly. "If you go, will you really be happy? Being the
bouncer, spending your life being the cheap security? Here you have
the friends, the chance to be anything you are wanting to be. To make
the difference in the world."

"Not that bouncers don't make a difference or anything- you're
just...better than that, man." Julian put his hand on Fred's shoulder
after quickly closing the gap between them. "You're smart, you're
powerful- and fuck Callie if she doesn't want to be with you, dude.
No, I know she was your girl and all that, but, just no- you can do
better."

Fred's shoulder was almost unreachable as he shot up, the legs of his
pants ripping near the bottom as his mass increased at the mention of
Callie, "Watch it, Keller." Fred took a few moments, rubbing the his
eyes with one hand as his size slowly decreased. After another long
pause, his finally spoke up, sounding tired, "Look, Ah know you didn't
mean it like that or nuthin, and Ah think Ah get what your sayin..."

Yvette blinked, taking in the sudden reaction. "Is that really why you
want to leave, Fred?" she asked gently. "Because of Callie?"

Fred inhaled again...and again...and again...

Finally, he shrugged a little, "Ah guess...iffen Ah'm bein' honest...a
little, maybe, yeah..."

"Dude, you know what we don't have here?" He gave the larger boy's
shoulder a squeeze, "Callie." Julian stepped away and gestured toward
the open garage doors, "You know what is out there?" Julian
turned his blue eyes back to his friends, "Callie. Seems like a
pretty simple thing if you ask me."

Fred nodded a little absently, "It ain't just that, Jules.
It's...damn, Ah dunno..." Fred blinked, and took the large duffle bag
out of his front seat and moved it back over to the large cot he set
up in the corner of the garage months ago, "Yah guys are right, Ah
guess. Ah shouldn't just be...Ah'll stick around a bit, yeah? Iffen Ah
can figure it out, be more social, give it Ah shot...we'll see, yah
know?"

"That is all that we can ask, yes," Yvette said, her smile happy. "If
you like, you could be coming to the Red X meetings with me? We are
trying to get the students more interested again."

"Or you could always join the X-Men," Julian blurted out without so
much as a thought.

"Ah liked doin the Red X thing, Vette, an-" Julians' blurted
suggestion made Fred do a double take, "An...X-Man...?" Fred scratched
his head a little, blinking in shock...

Yvette grinned. "Perhaps sometime in the future. For now... the baby
steps, yes?"