Billy Kaplan is (notawarlock) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-05-06 02:38:00 |
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Part of the reason that Billy didn’t take the elevator up to their apartment was the fact that he didn’t like the sounds it made. Not that the building was particularly old, or noisy. Most of the time it was just like any other relatively-new apartment building in New York: the muted creak of a steel cable somewhere above his head, the ‘dings’ that rang out as each floor was passed, and the occasional echo of disembodied voices floating through the elevator shafts from the floors above or below. Pretty standard stuff, for any kid who had grown up in Manhattan. No, the problem this time was that there were no sounds to be heard when he approached the bank of elevators in the building’s lobby, with the soles of his Vans squeaking over the tiled floor. Even though the residents had been officially permitted to start returning to their units since the early morning, Billy was met with a disconcerting sort of silence when he entered and crossed to a row of metal double-doors that lined the wall. Logically, he couldn’t blame the other people who lived in their building for their hesitance to return - even if it’d been declared structurally sound. Hell, even Gwen was still staying at Harry’s place. A quiet voice sounded up from the back of Billy’s mind and wondered if she’d be coming home at all, but Billy silenced it with a ferocious sort of denial as he slipped back out of the building’s front door and walked around the side of the building. She would come back. Both of them. And there. The absence of sound was gone now that he was outside, replaced with the rush of wind in his ears as he lifted off the ground and flew up, up - passing windows and the dark metal of the fire escape, reaching out with one hand to brush his fingertips over the bricks of the building’s exterior. Too soon he found the right window and pushed it open, climbing into Laura’s bedroom. It looked the same, and different. Lonely, like she was already gone. Billy crossed to the bed and sat down. Waited. Elevators were where she'd been surrounded by men with coiled earpieces disappearing into their collars. They were manilla envelopes of pictures, and a watch with a timer counting down from 23. They were traps made of wood and metal and grates on top and like Billy, she avoided the one in the building entirely. It was always the stairs (like today) or the fire escape (like the night she left), her sneakers making a soft whuft as she went up hands at her side. She wasn't even breathing hard by the time that she reached their floor and hauled the door open, the smell of fire and smoke still clinging to the building though it had been pronounced fit. She pulled the little brass key from her pocket and went through the locks, one by one until the door opened. It was habit that had her locking them again after she entered before she crossed through the living room and the hallway that held their rooms. Before she got to her door, she could smell him, hear his heartbeat in the silence of the apartment. "Billy," a quiet affectionate murmur as she stepped through her door. He’d heard the familiar sound of her key in the locks, flipping them open one by one before she swung the door open and entered the apartment, but kept his gaze on the scuffed toes of his sneakers. He listened as she made her way down the hallway, passing his room on her way. Still he didn’t look up, because he didn’t want to see the expression on her face that would confirm what she’d told him over the journals: that she was leaving them to ‘go west’, going to do God-knows-what with the Cajun and leaving him and Gwen behind. So no, he didn’t want to look up, but the sound of his name on her lips was making it real hard to keep his chin pressed to his chest. A few seconds passed and it became impossible. “Hi,” he said lamely, reaching up to push the brim of his Red Sox snapback up a little higher on his brow, just because it was something to do with his hand. The other one was pressed flat against the comforter that covered her bed, smoothing it out like he hadn’t just been fidgeting with the light gray material while he waited for her to show up. His eyes were visibly bloodshot as they met hers, but the dark circles hinted at exhaustion rather than tears. “Smells like our stuff managed to avoid the worst of the smoke.” "You can't smell it," she stated. He didn't have her senses, couldn't smell it lingering it in the air, on their clothes, on the walls, but it was there. She crossed slowly to the bed and sat beside him, one hand slowly creeping over, her fingers curling around his knuckles. He was hurt by her leaving, but she needed to, like she had when she left the school. And he needed comfort, she could tell in the hang of his head, in the deep shadows beneath his eyes, but she did not know how to give it. Laura could not promise that she would come back no more than she could promise that she would not. The future was uncharted and she would go where she felt she needed to. Her fingertips worked over the valleys of his knuckles as if committing them to memory. "You have not yet gained enough weight. You are still too skinny," she offered with the vaguest of smiles. "Tell your mother to feed you more." “No,” he agreed, shooting her a glance that was more half-hearted frown than anything else. “Gotta admit that I’m lacking in the super-senses department. But it’s not like my favorite jeans are unwearable, right? Because I’m told that designer brands are a hassle to replace, and my inadequate nose can’t smell too much of a difference.” He was rambling now, and her hand on his felt like a vice, even as the pads of her fingers found their tender way into the notches between his knuckles, in the lightest touch he’d ever felt from her. Billy turned his hand around, lacing their fingers together. He swallowed thickly, and his teeth tugged against his lower lip. He didn’t want to think about whatever expression was on his face right then, because it might mean that he would have to look away. “Do you know what you’re doing, Laura?” "No. You can place them with cedar chips to get the scent out. Or charcoal, but that might make you smell like a barbeque." Probably not what he was aiming for. "I like cedar chips," Laura added quietly. She watched him out of the corner of her eye and didn't fight when he turned his hand with a shift and rasp of knuckles and skin. He looked like she did, when she had first arrived at the school, or maybe that time when they were having a party at school and she'd eaten so much food that her stomach threatened to evacuate some of it. It was not a good look at him and she turned more, her body twisting on the bed, rucking up the soft gray comforter they were on so she was facing him. "No." A quiet admission, but a true one. “Cedar chips,” he repeated the words on a mumbled breath, turning his eyes down to look at the tops of his shoes once more. It was like a security blanket to which he could cling: more than desperate, a lifeline that was another notch on the chalkboard tally of things that he knew about this girl. That she liked cedar chips and wax museums and cheeseburgers. That she thought he was too skinny. That his own mother was practically chomping at the bit to legally adopt her into their family, even though she’d only been told about Laura over the phone. “Right. I’ll remember that.” He didn’t care how he looked right now. He knew that his eyes were wet and shiny and that the fingers of his free hand picking at the frayed knee of his jeans were telling signs to the girl who saw and understood too much. Most of all, he knew that she would have no problem taking care of herself as she traveled in the company of a mutant thief - that she would almost certainly be the one keeping that guy in line. Calling the shots. And Billy knew that he didn’t want to cry, but that reaching up to brush the sudden streak of wetness from his cheekbone would require him to pull away from the grasp of their hands, so he didn’t do it. “But you’ll be careful. You have to promise me that, and you can’t lie.” She could hear the alteration in his breathing, the whine of air into his sinuses that came from crying. His tears she could not hear, they made no sound except for in his voice when he demanded a promise from her, but she did not know how to help. It was beyond the desire to help and messing it up, she didn't know where to begin, so she simply held tighter to his hand and whispered words that cost her nothing. "I promise." Careful was relevant. When you could heal from even death, what was the fear of death? She'd had her neck broken, she'd been burned, she'd taken a nuclear blast that left her more skeleton than girl and each time she came back. Careful meant saving others. "If you are ever in trouble, you will call me." That she'd come remained unsaid. But how to help him now? She nudged his shoulder, and then climbed up on her knees, all her clothes still on and laid down. Gambit could wait one more night. They did this sometimes at the school, usually when people were dating, but they weren't. It didn't stop her from feeling something in the center of her chest, in the same place where she felt things for Remy and Logan. It wasn't like it had been with Julian, where the feeling had been coupled with heat and urges that had nothing to do with killing. Maybe it was love. She didn't know, but she tugged on him all the same and waited until his back was on the bed before laying her head on his shoulder, arm thrown over his belly. "It is not goodbye-forever. It is goodbye-until-later. Stay here tonight." I promise. Even as he realized that it was foolish, Billy made the decision that he would believe her. His hand hurt because she was squeezing it too tight, because she was too strong. But it was the pain that sealed the promise like the bitter-tasting glue of an envelope, closed tight against the elements, and he returned the sentiment in kind. Each squeeze of his long, slender fingers was like a beat of morse code and he was silently begging her to stay. “If I’m ever in trouble it’ll just mean that it’s any other Tuesday. But if it’s real trouble, I’ll call.” He pasted a forced smile onto his lips as she nudged against his shoulder, even while she rearranged herself on the bed and Billy felt his brow furrowing in confusion. This was supposed to be the part where they said goodbye, right? And he would cry hot tears that burned and made him feel pathetic, and she would maybe find some way to make fun of him, and then she’d be gone with no one else left in her place to understand the things that he felt. There was Gwen, except that she mostly didn’t get what it was to be different. No, this part didn’t make sense. But there was Laura’s hand reaching up to close over his shoulder and tugging, and he was hardly going to fight her. First of all, she was a hell of a lot stronger than him. To stretch out on his back on her bed was to be obedient, and all of a sudden it meant that the heavy warmth of Laura’s head was resting on his shoulder, and he hadn’t expected that much. He drew a breath, reaching out to cup the slope of her shoulder in his hand because he needed to be sure that she was really there. Really close, really alive, really still here. And she was. “Not forever,” he echoed, his voice little more than a hoarse murmur. “Promise me that. Can’t lie.” "I am not a very good liar," she huffed against his shoulder. Except she was, when it mattered, but not in this. It wasn't the goodbye that she had with Megan and Debbie where she was sending them off to be safe because she would never be safe, this was goodbye because she came here to find something, to see if her place could be with SHIELD and the Avengers. It couldn't. Which meant it was time to go. It didn't mean that she wouldn't come back if they needed her, or that she'd never see them again. It only meant that her claws needed room the stretch and her legs to run. "I promise." She twisted slightly, rolling more onto her back, her head still held up by his bony clavicle and shoulder. "My mother used to read me Pinocchio. The real one, where he killed the Cricket." She paused as she looked up at the ceiling. "It is my favorite. And if you do not gain weight, you are going to poke Teddy to death on your bones when he comes." “Yeah, I’m sort of counting on that,” he muttered, turning his chin slightly so that his lips were pressed against her temple, with brunette hairs tickling his chin. Even if he knew that it wasn’t the whole truth, because he’d seen Laura tell lies as good as anyone else when it really mattered. Even if it was something that he needed to believe for his own selfish reasons. And most of all, Billy was counting on it because he was the furthest thing from sure that he belonged with the Avengers and SHIELD, where the heroes were a mess and he was treated like more of a nuisance than an asset. And really, it said more than he liked about himself that he wanted to stay where he was. Stubbornly, steadfast, sticking to his convictions and trying to save the world even without all of his best friends on his side. Because he was alone, like it or not. “My mom used to read me the real stories, too. The dark ones, yeah? Where Pinocchio killed and Snow White was poisoned by the witch’s combs and ribbons.” Billy raised one arm and spread his fingers out wide, holding them up towards the ceiling so that he could help form the vague impressions of constellations against an imagined sky. “And I figured it out then, Laura. That happy endings don’t really happen. And if I wasn’t so sure, Gwen helped made it pretty goddamn clear. Teddy’s not coming, not ever. Neither is Eli, or Kate, or Cass, or Iron Lad. And Tommy? Shit, I’m lucky that I even remember my own brother’s name.” Then he dropped his hand down so that it was like a blindfold, rubbing over his eyes and serving mostly to block out the light that he would do better to deny. Because it hurt. Because it wouldn’t ever be enough. And he shifted more of his weight onto his side, leaning into the quiet warmth of Laura’s form. Giving up. She didn't know about happy endings. Pinocchio became a real boy, but some mutants lost their powers, some died when they were younger than she was because of extremists that thought they were better off dead. In various myths, heroes did not fare well either. She did not know how her own story ended, or if it would. If her cells did not age like Logan's, her ending might be a long time coming. She didn't know. "I do not know where my story will end. If it will have a happy ending or a sad one, but my days are mine until then." What she did know about was today. "Fill today with the things you do want. Fill every day with them." There were probably nicer ways to say, prettier ways, but they weren't hers. "They made me to be a killer. I decided I did not want to be." She paused and tilted her face towards him, gave a messy smear of mouth to his forehead. "Who you are is your decision. If anyone tells you otherwise, I will correct them." It was her utmost certainty that hurt him in the most personal sort of way, because they had both come to understand that knowledge was only fleeting in the moment. Her lips pressed against the pale skin of his forehead and then he was wincing, with the tips of his calloused fingers digging into her shoulder. And her fingers, on his flesh - that was equivalent to each ragged piece of him: warmth for just an instant, betraying as it ruptured and spread and dug into skin, cutting as hard as canines that bit down without mercy. Billy forced his eyes shut and turned his face into the cotton material of her shirt, leaving the evidence of tracked tears and a determined wetness that shone underneath his blue eyes. “I’m not so sure. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. And you're right - the Avengers, they aren’t ready for us. Hell, I’m not ready for us.” A deep breath, and it was his own chest that heaved against the sharp angles of his arms, crossing over the front of his shirt. Like he was doing something more than just giving up. A deeper breath. An introduction to an end. "Not forever. Can't lie." |