Let's Be Friends! (Chase)

Gemma made a habit of taking her son to the park on a fairly regular basis. Sure, there were kids at the Mansion, but there weren’t a lot of kids Chase’s age. Chase had about… oh, six to ten friends, and that encompassed all of the pre-teen inhabitants at Xavier’s thus far. You simply got bored of seeing the same people—that is, if you were an extrovert. Chase was not. Chase hung upside-down on the monkey bars, occasionally dangling by his legs, but reaching up to grab the bars with his hands, when too much blood began to rush to his head and the world began to warble and darken in the corners of his eyes. Chase was playing a game with himself, a game where you couldn’t touch any of the ground planes—either on the play structure, or on the actual ground. He’d just fallen on the little bridge, so he had to restart. Thus far, he’d made it to the monkey bars.

Chase closed his eyes, his tiny hands catching the bar in front of him. Maybe he should wriggle his way onto the top of the bars, so that he didn’t pass out from all his blood going to his head.

“BEEP BEEP!” another boy shouted loudly, stirring Chase from his thoughts, “Outta the way, blondie.”

Chase huffed quietly, pulling himself up with his arms and slowly uncoiling his legs from the bar behind him. Because he was so thin, he managed to slither his way onto the top of the bars with ease. He sat for a moment as he contemplated how to maneuver out of the way.

“Move!” the other boy yelled impatiently.

“I’m working on it!” Chase huffed in annoyance. The blond child maneuvered onto his stomach. His legs were too short to step aside, and his balance wasn’t nearly good enough to balance on one of the side beams. So Chase opted to instead slide off of the edge. His hands caught the side, and he dangled there for a moment, before dropping to the ground. He looked around for a slightly less-crowded area to climb. Now he’d have to start all over again. He spied a girl, but quickly looked away from her. Girls were weird. Big League said you could catch cooties just by looking at them.

“About time,” the other boy grunted.

“Your momma needs to teach you manners!” Chase snapped curtly, “You’re nothing but a rude doodoo-head!”

Oh yeah, Chase had dared to go there, in a moment of righteous indignation. The older boy just laughed and said something about that insult being a stupid insult.

“You’re stupid,” Chase retorted under his breath. He adjusted his shirt and shuffled towards the swings. No one was really over there, so maybe he could try climbing those in peace.

Chase made his way towards the swings, stepping onto the seat of the swing and steadying himself by grabbing the chain that connected it to the cross beam. He’d climb in a little while, for now, he’d just swing and look around.

He swung with his back to the playground, using his arms (as well as the rest of his body) to swing back-and-forth. He didn’t get very high, or swing for very long, until growing bored with that. The little nine-year-old took a seat on the swing, instead, still facing the same direction. Tiny hands once again anchored to the chain, and the child began to test his limits. Chase leaned back, as far as he could go, turning the world upside-down from his perspective.

Only to spy the girl standing right there, looking at him. The girl stood there, bunny in-arm and tie-die shirt glaringly bright in the New York heat. The swing dipped suddenly, threatening to tip over, and Chase sat up again quickly to avoid getting a face full of woodchips.

>> “Hi!”[/i]

-- the girl greeted chipperly. Chase could feel his stomach knotting. It wouldn’t be polite to ignore her, but she was a girl. Girls were weird and different from boys. But seriously, what boys were playing with him today, anyways? Chase shyly stood and reoriented himself on the swing so that he was facing the girl. His eyes lingered on his shoes, before hazarding a glance towards the girl.

“Hi,” Chase echoed, the returned greeting hanging awkwardly in the air, for a moment. He had to say something else, but nothing else came to mind. So, he uttered an observation, “Your shirt’s really colorful.”

Maybe it was supposed to be a compliment. Chase didn’t know, he was too busy staring at his shoes.

The girl laughed at him, which only made Chases’ cheeks adopt a slightly deeper tint of pink. But at least he had managed to say something before his nerves had gotten the better of him. His observation was taken as a compliment, and earned a chipper word of thanks. Good. Things went momentarily quiet again, and the nine-year-old lifted his head. She was still standing there. Staring.

Chase looked at himself in mild confusion. What? Did he have something on his shirt? Was one patch of skin the wrong color. Anxious orange eyes ran over his pale skin, before the child realized that there wasn’t anything wrong with him at all. The girl was just staring.

“Um…” Chase mumbled absently. He couldn’t make another observation about the girl’s outfit, so now he was left floundering for something else to say.

Rather than departing, the girl strode over to the swingset and plopped down on the swing beside Chase.

>> “Why were you yelling?”

“Yelling?” Chase echoed, trying to jog his brain into working properly, “Oh, you mean… on the playground?” He kicked his legs absently and pulled at the swing, which responded with a casual swing, “The bigger boy wasn’t being very nice. He was telling me to get out of the way. And he was very impatient.”

The outburst didn’t seem wholly justified, in retrospect, but Chase couldn’t let the older boy totally push him around. He had to talk back at least once in a while. He watched as the girl rummaged through her backpack.

“I’m Chase,” the nine-year-old announced uncertainly. Names were always a good way to go, when you didn’t really know what else to say.

The little girl wrinkled her nose at Chase's explanation, and agreed with the sentiment that persisted throughout Chase's story-- the other boy was stupid. Chase smiled back at the girl shyly, ducking his head as he introduced himself. The girl answered back-- her name was Penelope.

"Penelope," Chase echoed, "M-maybe Penny for short?"

Penny rummaged into her backpack and pulled something forth, holding it out to Chase's face. The boy recoiled momentarily as the girl announced that they weren't strangers. Oh, she was going to give him something?

"I guess not," he said in agreement to the "now they weren't strangers" sentiment, holding out his hand. He then realized that a question had followed the offer, and it almost sounded like he didn't want candy. Chase fumbled to revise this, "Um, I mean, yes please."

Chase smiled lightly, and gave a more assured, "I mean, if you don't mind. Yes please."

It was impossible to talk to girls. And the fact that Penny was so good at talking made it even harder for Chase. Yet, it was also easier. That meant Chase had to talk less, which was probably for the better. His mouth couldn't seem to catch-up with his brain, which made it very difficult to speak coherently. Penny broke the chocolate in two, taking half for herself, and offering the wrapped half to the boy beside her.

>> “Here you go!”

"Thank you," Chase said mildly, managing a smile. At least he could say "thank you" without getting all flustered for no apparent reason. Chase broke off a small square of chocolate and munched on it. It was a little hot and melt-y from the New York heat, but it wasn't totally liquefied... just the right amount of melt-y.

>> “Maybe you should tell your parents. They could talk to that boys’ and get him grounded.”

"My parents?" Chase echoed, breaking off a second square of chocolate. He paused, and then matter-of-factly replied, "I dunno. I mean, wouldn't telling my mom be tattle-taling?"

If there was one thing the nine-year-old didn't want to be, it was a tattletale. And Chase seriously doubted that the kid would get grounded just for being rude. Chase ate the second square of chocolate pensively, munching on it and swallowing before stating, "It's nothing. At my old school, I dealt with kids like him all the time."

Chase swung normatively for a while, going up only a little bit high, before catching himself with the tiptoes of his right foot, the momentum propelling him into a spin. Chase beamed, catching himself by hooking his foot onto the beams, and peering at Penny as if what Chase was doing was completely normal-- for boys, it was. Chase was incapable of swinging properly for extended periods of time. Eventually, he'd get bored with just swinging and start doing more abnormal things, like twisting the chains so that he could spin like a top.

Chase's gaze meandered towards her, and their gazes locked. Chase let his eyes wander off shyly, shortly prior to Penny's observation and casual compliment.

>> “Bullies are stupid.”

"Super-stupid!" Chase agreed, laughing along as he proclaimed such a profane statement, and rose another square of chocolate as if to raise a toast, before popping it into his mouth.

>> “You’re nice.”

Chase grinned, his eyes rapidly transitioning from the mildly annoyed teal-flecked-orange to a flattered, delighted royal-blue.

"Thanks, Penny," Chase said, "You're really nice, too. For a girl." Wait, that wasn't right, "-I mean, you're nicer than most or all boys, but girls aren't usually nice. They're weird. But you're kind-of.... not. You're nice." Goldenrod swirls of embarrassment started to seep in once again.

Chase smiled at Penny’s proposal. As they had shared chocolate and exchanged names, that made them friends, right? Shouldn’t they be friends? Chase nodded his head. Wow, after all of his awkward fumbling with and tripping over his words, Penny still wanted to be his friend.

“Yeah!” Chase agreed openly, smiling, “We could be friends.”

Chase swung a bit more normatively after nearly swinging into lane that Penny was swinging in.

“I haven’t been friends with a girl before,” Chase confessed. Obviously, since he couldn’t hold conversations with them, it’d be impossible to befriend them. He fastened a scrutinizing glance upon Penny, his brows furrowed, “What do girls do for fun? I don’t have to play with dolls, do I?”

Chase wasn’t the sort of boy to fly into a blind-rage and behead any Barbie within a ten-foot-radius when the word “dress-up” was uttered, but either notion was a taboo concept in his mind. He would not dress-up nor would he play dolls, for such things were degrading to a boy.