Log: Matt and Billy, Meetings

[x-asgardian.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Sept 1, moving weekend. Matt wakes up and finds his new suitemate.


Wandering out of his room with a yawn, Matt paused barely out of the doorway, as he realized something was off. "Who're you?" he asked the guy there. He didn't have a heartbeat that Matt recognized or anything else familiar. He was really not interested in dealing with anything before breakfast, but apparently he was going to have to. It made him cranky after a poor night’s sleep.

Billy sat at the table, reading--well, not exactly reading. More thumbing through his new history textbook, idly counting how many of the pages had pictures and how many were just reading. He looked up at the voice. "Oh, hey. I'm Billy. You must be Matt. Hope I didn't wake you up."

"No," Matt replied. His room was soundproofed. That was why this guy was a surprise. "You're my new suitemate?" he asked grabbing some orange juice from the fridge and drinking straight from the carton. It was his juice and why dirty a cup?

Why dirty a cup indeed. "Yeah, that'd be me," Billy answered, letting the book close. Not nearly enough pictures. "So how'd you know I was here?"

"I went looking for breakfast," Matt replied. "And I heard you," he couldn't hear Billy through the soundproofing in his room. "What? You think because I'm blind I don't have powers or something? Welcome to Mutant High. Where everyone has powers." He laughed, amused.

"Well, I guessed you did, but didn't know what," was Billy's response. "So superhearing, is that it? Guess there goes my plans for buying a drum set."

"Enhanced senses, minus the obvious. You?" Matt debated the merits of what was in the suite versus the kitchen. He usually ate in the kitchen and decided that that was a good idea still. "And my room is soundproofed."

"Good to know. I'll try to be quiet if the door's open. Me, hmm," Billy puzzled it over a moment. "I guess I do magic. Or have magic. Make magic. Am magic? Sorry, still getting used to the idea, and don't know how people call everything. But I can make stuff happen, and they say it's magic. Whatever that means. But that really cool tee-storm--that was all me."

"Magic, uh huh," Matt nodded vaguely. He believed in magic, he had been at Xavier's for too long not to, but that did not mean that he understood it at all. It might as well have been completely Greek. Or maybe even Swahili. "I don't doubt it, I just have no way to entirely understand it or verify it outside of taking your word. Part of it's being blind, most of it's because I'm not a magic user. There's a few people here that I turn upside down, power-wise. Like Sue," did he know Sue?

"Wouldn't blame you if you did think I was making it up," Billy said. "I mean, I barely believe it, even with the stuff I've seen. Still kinda seems like I'm imagining it. But I guess I'll figure it out soon enough. I haven't met Sue--what's she do?"

"Supposedly, she turns invisible," Matt replied, debating getting some clothes on for a real breakfast, "I can see her no matter she is. But that's what they tell me."

"Gotcha. So you can just listen and tell where someone is?"

"Ears work like a sonar, sorta. Echolocation, like a bat," Matt explained. "You'd be surprised all I can hear when I pay attention and try," it was overwhelming, but he didn't want to show weakness in front of another guy. That was never good, "So you're from the city? What part?"

"Oh, that's pretty cool. So you're kinda like the real Batman." Billy grinned, the idea striking him very funny. "Yeah, I'm from the city. My parents are on the Upper West Side. How about you?"

Upper West Side? Oh boy. "Hell's Kitchen," Matt replied evenly. Very different worlds despite being in the same city and island.

"Ah, gotcha," Billy replied, with the obliviousness one can only learn when one has moderately well-to-do parents. "I've been there a few times. Well, more like Columbus Circle, I guess. And we went and saw a show once. Wicked. It was awesome! But I feel like I still haven't seen much of the city at all. My parents only started letting me take the subway by myself like...two years ago. They're kind of ridiculous." Matt might not have been able to see Billy rolling his eyes, but the exasperation in his voice was pretty clear. "Anyways, that's cool you're from here. I thought I might be the only one."

"Seriously?" Matt couldn't believe that. He'd been taking the subways for as long as he could remember, practically! Well, he had to stop once he'd become blind and relearn how, but otherwise, yeah. "Dude. I've been taking the subways forever it's no more dangerous than the rest of the city. You can take the train from town into the city, too, which is awesome. Layla's also from the Kitchen."

"Yeeaaaah," Billy said. "Like I said, kind of ridiculous. My parents dropped me off and will probably insist on picking me up whenever I go back to see them. And I'll take the train the rest of the time. I still can't believe I convinced them to let me come here. And I hope they don't try to call me like every day to make sure I'm ok."

Matt had no idea what to do with parents like that. At all. "Yeah..." he trailed off, "well, your parents sound psycho," he headed into his room to pull on a t-shirt and jeans quickly, then get some shoes off. He wanted real breakfast in the big kitchen. "Just don't tell them anything. It's probably for the better."

Half the time, Billy had no idea what to do with parents like that either. "Just a bit," he laughed. "Though my mom would probably go into a long definition of 'psycho' and how it's inappropriate to use outside of a clinical setting. Or something like that." He watched Matt head back to the room and reached for his book again. "Yeah, it'll be a lot easier not to tell them stuff here, when I don't have to look them in the face every night. Good t'meet ya."

Coming back dressed a moment later, Matt resumed the conversation, "Well, that and this place can be crazy. Definitely stuff you don't want to tell your parents if they're over protective. Makes me glad I don't have to deal with all that."

"Yeah, I imagine it must be, with people turning invisible, reading minds, whatever," Billy agreed, thinking through the few things he'd heard of and run across. "So your parents are pretty cool?"

Matt shrugged, "Don't know my mom and my dad died a few years ago. I'm a foster kid," but he liked this placement out of all the others he'd had. Plus, he had been here the longest, too. "Makes it easy since I don't have to tell my social worker anything if I don't want to," not entirely true, but it wasn't like she was checking on him every day or anything like that. "No siblings either."

"Oh...gotcha..." Billy replied, a moment's awkward pause before he continued. "I got two little brothers. They're either incredibly sweet or absolute pests, and not usually anywhere in between. So....is this place everything they say it to be?"

"Pretty much," Matt agreed, "What are they saying specifically?"

"Well, that everyone is pretty cool, and it's..." Billy stopped, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. "Well, 'safe' sounds kinda boring, but more like, well, it's hard to think there's a place just for...us. To help learn, but also still cool. I dunno. It's still all kind of overwhelming, but well, my Mom always says that anything that seems to good to be true, usually is."

"Oh, yeah, your mom is right," Matt shrugged, unconcerned, "I mean, what do you expect when you put a bunch of hormonal teens with super powers in the same place? Kumbayah? Mostly, yeah, this place is safe. And it's almost impossible to get kicked out, too. Earlier this year a bunch of us were kidnapped and taken to Genosha. I guess it was on the news, about how the whole country was destabilized and has a new government and has all those human rights violations? They were making mutants into slaves. They tried to do it to us. And...got too close to succeeding for some of us."

"Yeah, that's one I'm definitely not going to tell my parents about." Billy's eyes widened, trying to imagine it. "That's...crazy. Slaves. I never heard that part. Not that I spend much time reading news or anything."

"Yeah, probably a good idea," Matt agreed. "I doubt that part made the news. I'm pretty sure that the school in general didn't, which is good," he ran a hand through his hair which was getting longish now. Better longish than shaved as a mutate. "Oh, don't leave your stuff where I might trip. Be nice to the blind guy and all that and he's nice to you."

"Yeah, let's hope it stays that way. I really don't want my parents to hear about that side of things." Billy glanced around, to make sure nothing was lying around at the moment. "Gotcha."

"Late, dude. I need food," his stomach punctuated the statement with a growl. "Unless you're so jazzed about unpacking you can't eat."

"Food would be amazing right about now," Billy replied, the mention of it sending a few hunger pangs of his own. "Packing can wait."