Setting his headphones on the edge of his desk, Aiden glanced at his uninviting bed. He'd just beaten one of his older games as thoroughly as he had ever trounced it before, and the clock now revealed at the corner of his screen insisted that it was time to go to sleep, but he couldn't find any motivation to get changed and crawl into that bed.

With a restless, gurgling growl, his stomach offered him an alternative. Sure, it was understandably displeased with him playing video games for the past... seven hours? and not bothering to get up for dinner, but he wasn't going to look too deeply into it. The kitchen should be empty now, and thus have far better company than at a more usual dinner hour. And he could put off lying in bed with nothing but his thoughts and harsh dreams.

Returning his sunglasses to his face, he pulled an old jacket on out of habit rather than cold - for whatever reason, he was noticing that he just didn't feel cold anymore, not even in his hands after a long stint of gaming - and slipped out of the now-dark room into a similarly dark hallway.  Even a place with as varied a population as this place didn't have all that many people out and about at midnight, and Ai actually found himself feeling about as relaxed as he had been since he had arrived.

As hoped, the kitchen was devoid of life when Aiden entered, and he turned on only enough lights to be able to navigate without killing himself.  It wasn't as if he were going to risk taking his sunglasses off, after all; who knew who might wander in without warning?  Thinking nothing more of that possibility, he started rummaging around in the cupboards.  Sugar... cocoa powder... milk... corn starch... a bit of salt... Finally finding a pot, he tossed everything together on the stove and found himself a spot to sit while it heated.  Dinner be damned, he wanted chocolate pudding.

Cafas was hungry. He had to eat a lot to keep up with himself, so this was nothing unusual. He left his room, electing to use the door, even if he kind of felt like jumping out the window. That probably wouldn't end well.

Nearly silently Cafas padded down the hallway, socked feet on carpet, down the rail on the stairs, and set off towards the kitchen. He was almost there when he noticed the light, and the smell. It smelled Chocolaty.

Who the hell is up this late cooking?

Oh, you mean, aside from you?

Shut up.

Own internal smart assery set to one side Cafas forged on. Chocolate smelled good. He had come down to see if he could piece together something more savory, but he supposed chocolate would do. Cafas padded his way into the kitchen.

Frankly he had expected more than one person. That's normally how midnight kitchen parties worked. Instead he found just one black haired guy standing there. He seemed like the usual fare for the mansion. Late teens, sunglasses inside, up late, and cooking something that could not possibly be mistaken for healthy.

"G'day, bit too indoors for sunglasses don't you think?"

Cafas found his way over to the refrigerator, pulled out a few bits a pieces. He felt like having pasta.

Finding himself too restless to sit at the depressingly standard dining room table for more than a few moments, Ai soon found himself pacing back and forth across the kitchen, periodically stopping to stir the chocolate pudding. It was during one such pause that he heard a voice behind him. Fortunately, the spoon in his hand wasn't in the pot at the particular moment that he jerked around, else the lot of it probably would have gone flying, rather than just a few flecks of liquid pudding. How'd someone sneak up on him when everything was so quiet?

And why was his hair pink?

Hair colour aside, after his initial shock Aiden found it too awkward to look at the newcomer and uncomfortably turned back to his pot. Stirring it with perhaps a bit more force than was really necessary, he eventually muttered beneath his breath: "They aren't for light." Could the corn starch hurry up and solidify so he could get out of there? He kept glancing sidelong at the man, somewhat reminded of the girl who had given him his current sunglasses by the vivid, unnatural colours but finding a relative lack of tattoos to complete the picture. Maybe he was just here to grab a snack, and would head out again pretty soon?

Cafas ignored the fact he had clearly startled the kid. He hadn't meant to creep up on him, socks just din't make noise like shoes or bare feet. Cafas cleared a spot on the bench. He set about dicing tomatoes and onion, crushing garlic, chopping herbs. He set a saucepan on the heat with some olive oil in it. He dug around in the fridge and found some meatballs. Those would go nicely, so he grabbed those out.

Not for light? Wh...

Cafas had a bit of a flashback to when he had been known to wear sunglasses perpetually. "Ah, mine change colour with my mood. I'm feeling pretty calm right now, so they should be blue. You?"

Cafas set the onions and garlic frying, stirring occasionally. He turned to look at the kid. Not really a kid, not that much younger than Cafas really, maybe five or six years. Still, Cafas remembered what he was like at that sort of age, and he was certainly a kid then.

"Want some pasta? We can have yours for desert."

Cafas had a sneaking suspicion that this teenager was just as ashamed of his mutation as Cafas had been at that age.

Was this guy seriously cooking an actual meal from scratch in the middle of the night? It appeared so. Unfortunately, the garlic was clashing with the smell of his pudding and the onions were already making his eyes sting. He'd never been able to put up with onion fumes well, and apparently his messed-up eye was no more immune to the foul stuff than his normal one.

Blinking furiously and trying to hold back the burning so as to keep from hauling off his sunglasses long enough to run tap water over his eyes and flush the onion away, he didn't fully notice the pink-haired man moving until he was right beside him at the stove. He quickly edged away until there was a more comfortable (but still highly uncomfortable) space between them, and would have gone farther but he needed to stir the pudding if he wanted it to finish cooking so he could get out of there.

And he didn't want to be close enough to actually see if the guy's eyes changed colours. That would just be too much. He could hardly say so any more than he could idly chat about his own eye issues, though, so he just gave a noncommittal shrug with one shoulder. "They don't change," he said neutrally. And no, he did not want any pasta. Well, his stomach was less picky about what it got, but he wasn't going to accept food from this guy, even if he had been right there while it was prepared. Suppressing a growl from his stomach that might be loud enough for the man to hear, Ai tried to kill the idea of food-sharing. "I'm not that hungry." He clenched his abdominal muscles to try to stop a too-insistent growl. Chocolate pudding would be fine, and his stomach would figure that out once it was in there, so it should just shut up and be patient.

"Not that hungry my left foot. I heard that." Cafas smiled at the kid and went back to stirring. "Come on, you're at Xavier's mate, we're all mutants here." Cafas really felt for the kid at this point. He was being terribly defensive about his mutation. Not that Cafas couldn't understand that. He'd seen enough of the riots to know that mutants were still considered freaks.

Poor kid's probably been through more than his fair share of bullshit by now.

The onions looked sufficiently cooked, so he tipped the rest of the stuff in. He found some tomato paste and dropped some of that in too, stirring. He pulled out a flask of wine from his pocket (He knew what he was cooking before he came down) and tipped some in, stirring. He took a swig and looked at the kid. "You drink kid?"

Bit young, but never stopped me.

"Look, let's start with names then. I'm Cafas." He extended one hand, as was customary among males, with a smile to the kid. "And either your mutation affects your metabolism, or you missed dinner." God knows it wasn't maintaining his body mass.

Cafas grabbed a pot of water and set it on the heat and poured a three person serving of pasta in (One growing young man and one guy who spent about 4 hours a night sleeping had huge feeding requirements). Now it was just a waiting game for the pasta to cook.

Stupid stomach. Couldn't it possibly be discrete, just this once? Noooo.

All mutants? The pink-haired guy may not have noticed, but that was kind of the problem. Unfortunately, Aiden's diligent stirring was interrupted by the absolute necessity of shooting his unwanted companion a look of pure disapproval. Drink? He was seventeen.

His night just kept getting better and better, didn't it? The guy looked so honest and cheerful about the whole thing, though. After a (long) moment's hesitation, Aiden leaned the spoon against the side of the pot, though the pudding was just starting to thicken, and reluctantly shook the man's hand. "Aiden," he said quietly. "I was busy," he said by way of explanation. Trying to drown himself in video games and avoid being around people at the same time was a far more accurate description, but seeing as how the latter was currently failing abysmally, it really wouldn't be worth voicing. Besides, he really didn't want to admit that his stomach was starting to convince him that the pasta sauce was actually starting to look pretty good now that the onion fumes had faded and he could kind of see straight again, though he was still blinking far too often for comfort.

Aiden huh? Names were very useful to know. Cafas put the flask back in his pocket under the disapproving gaze of the kid."Just asking." Cafas stirred his sauce some more and pushed the meatballs in. He took a spoon and tasted the sauce. He ground a little bit of black pepper in.

"I don't know what you've been through man, but there's no point wearing the glasses here. No-one is going to hate you for what you are here. Unless you're an asshole." Cafas poked at the cooking pasta. It wasn't ready, and he knew that, but it made him feel better to poke it. Like he was doing something. The sauce was pretty much done though. that's why he liked that recipe. It cooked up pretty quickly, and tasted good.

Plus you can't screw it up.

Cafas went back to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of cola. He poured himself a glass, then looked up to Aiden. "How bout some cola, I promise you it's non-alcoholic." Having opened a fresh bottle, he hoped it was, but you could never quite be sure, some people in the mansion got up to far to much mischief.

Like hell he was going to just go around with a silver eye for everyone to see. Sure, people might look at him a bit oddly for wearing sunglasses indoors, but that was still better than having them stare at him for his eye. He couldn't handle that. It was hard enough catching glimpses of it in the mirror out of the corner of his eye, or even catching sight of the scar that trailed from his shoulder to his wrist. He didn't want any of it.

"I still don't want people looking at it," he muttered beneath his breath, and then abruptly decided that the pudding was cooked enough. He moved the pot to a back burner, shut off the one it had been on, and tried to remember which cupboard had bowls. He pulled open a few until he found a stack, and started slopping chocolate pudding into it. He left the extra in the pot for the time being, planning on coming back for it once there was space in his bowl. Or the Cafas guy could have it, if he really wanted.

He did like cola... Torn between finishing his pudding as soon as possible and actually accepting the cola as something he honestly liked, he hesitated before eventually shrugging in vague agreement. "Better a bottle than a can," he said, trying to sound conversational enough to be polite and keep the situation from getting too awkward but not so conversational that it would actually encourage Cafas to hang around longer than necessary.

"Suit yourself." Cafas drained the pasta. He served it out,a serve and a half each. The bowls he served it in were pretty big to start with, but even they were looking a little over full. He grabbed a couple of good crusty bread rolls and cutlery and put the bowls down on the table.

Cafas heard a phone ring somewhere in the mansion. At that time, it could really only be one phone, by the sound of it, it was the X-men's emergency line. He gave it two rings, went to stand,and it cut off. Clearly someone was up late.

Cafas chewed and swallowed a mouthful before continuing. "So, what's your story Aiden? How'd you end up here? Aside from your powers." Cafas took another mouthful and chewed contemplatively, watching the younger mutant. He looked pretty lean, but not unhealthy thin. Maybe in desperate need of a tan, but there were still muscles there.

Alone spoon sat on the floor. He picked it up and, without thinking, vapourised it. He didn't know why, he just did it, and immediately felt stupid for it. "Ah, man I gotta stop doing that, we'll run out of cutlery."

Seeing Cafas filling two bowls equally, Aiden snagged a second bowl while Cafas was over at the table and dumped the other half of the pudding into it. With a spoon stuck in each, he carried them over to the table and hesitantly set one down near Cafas before taking a seat across from him.

Ai lifted his head at the distant sound of a ringing phone, though he felt absolutely no obligation to go try to find it. What would he do if he did? Nothing helpful, certainly. Cafas, though, made to leave before the ringing cut off. So he was more than just someone who lived here? He looked to old to be a student, anyway, but he couldn't possibly be old enough to be a teacher. Not that he had time to ponder the mystery; Cafas' question immediately had him staring at the table, his unused fork unsure if it should be clenched or held slack and so lost somewhere in between.

He really didn't want to talk about that. Things were going poorly enough without letting his thoughts run down that dark and rotten path. He found himself holding his breath, and managed to focus enough on making himself breathe that enough of the near-panic at the almost-reminder subsided and he could actually breathe again. Fortunately, Cafas' next words were odd enough to free his attention. "What happened?" he asked, confused by having not seen the spoon or its disappearance.

"Ah, I just turned a spoon into steel gas. Stupid, should have thought about it." He'd just not mention it. They'd assume kids were losing them. Cafas put the bowl of pudding next to the pasta. He let a few mouthfuls pass in silence.

"Alright. I know it can be hard to talk about, so here, I'll tell you a story, it might help, it might not, but I'll tell you anyway. A few years ago, there was an Australian guy. He knew he was a mutant, had known since his early teens. This kid, he was about 17, had a family, had a friend who should have been his girlfriend, had good enough grades. One day, he's driving through an intersection when a truck runs the red. He swerves to avoid the truck, has a head on collision with another car. Killed the other driver instantly. He wakes up. There ‘re paramedics, but it's the guys in suits that worry him. See, mutants tend to disappear in Australia. So he pulls himself together and runs." Cafas had another mouthful, leant back in his chair as he chewed and swallowed.

"He makes it home, goes up to bed. He doesn't sleep though. He packs." Cafas left a pause; he thought it added tension. "They came for him that night. But it wasn't the guys in suits. It was his parents, his neighbours, people he'd known for years. He barely made it out. The scars would probably never fade."

Well when someone lights your pants on fire that does happen.

"See, he'd killed his friend. He knew it too. So he left, and never looked back. He lived on the streets of Sydney, surviving by doing odd jobs and on the kindness of strangers. He learned how to take care of himself, how to fight, how to find food and how to stay alive."

He knew the kid probably wasn't amazingly interested, everyone here had a story like it, but he figured it might help him open up a bit. "He was 19 when he made his way to New York. He'd heard of a place here, a place for people like him. He found it too. They took him in, gave him a home, a purpose, a family. He learned over time not to be ashamed of what he was. You could even say he was proud of it." Cafas smiled at the kid across the table from him; that kid with his sunglasses. "I used to wear sunglasses too, to hide my eyes. I'm not saying you need to take them off. Just remember what you are underneath them, and never be ashamed of it."

Nom nom nom meatballs and pasta.

Aiden blinked. Steel.... gas? Um... sure. Probably best to just go with that one and not think about it too much. He did his best to do just that and took a bite of Cafas' pasta. Hey, it was pretty good.

He was still chewing when Cafas went all backstory-monologue mode on him. Right off the bat, Aiden pulled out two major flaws with the story, if the purpose was to 'help' Aiden (like there was actually anything that could really help). One, nationality. Aiden was pretty sure that Australians were kind of crazy. Their ability to be online at insane hours, thanks to their geographical location, was particularly annoying. Two, knowing he was a mutant. Yeah no. Aiden had been quite happily normal, thank you very much.

Anyway, the story continued. At the mention of a car crash, though, his stomach churned violently and he set his fork down with mildly excessive force. This was entirely unrelated. Entirely and completely. He forced himself to scrutinize the texture of the pasta, but it didn't help; he reluctantly returned his attention to Cafas' words, willing to risk hearing worse things in order to keep the ultimate worst things from rolling through his brain. Run out of the house. Nearly killed by his family and friends. Probably the only thing that had saved Aiden from that - he bit down hard enough on the thought that he pinched the side of his tongue and tasted blood. Physical pain was okay. Even if it would go away soon enough, however his bloody life-saving power worked, for the moment it helped.

By the end of Cafas' story, though, despite the feel-good pep talk nature of his conclusion (which, honestly, Ai didn't really listen to all that closely, having far darker thoughts trying to claw their way into the light of his conscious mind and give themselves substance), the sting of his tongue had faded past useful distraction and he was resorting to digging the nails of his left hand into his thigh with all the force he could muster. Stupid story with its stupid reminders. He didn't want to think about car crashes, or specific car crashes, or people dying in car crashes, or people he knew dying in car crashes - stop. Just stop. He pushed his hand under his thigh to still it. He could hold the thoughts off. He'd managed it this long, even with stupid inadvertent reminders. He could.

Something clearly was bothering the kid. Quite a lot by the look of it. Cafas watched with interest while he finished his pasta, mopping up the remains with the bread roll. He wondered which part of the story in particular was bothering him. Lots of potential in there.

"You looks like you're struggling with something. I'd face that sooner rather than later if I were you. Life is much harder if you don't." He left out the bit about how he was kind of a mass murderer in his own right, and knew all about facing demons. He felt it was best if people didn't know about that.

No really? Why on earth would you not want people to know you're a murderer? How could that possibly ever go wrong.

Cafas began on the pudding. It was quite good. He was between mouthfuls when he came to the conclusion that he was, in fact, going to ask the obvious question. "So, why are you ashamed of being a mutant?" It seemed like a logical conclusion to draw from his experience with the kid so far.

He watched more closely. Even if the guy didn't want to talk about it, maybe he'd give something away with his reaction.

Struggling with something? Understatement worthy of publishing. And as for facing it.... Hell. No.

Bit by bit, Aiden refound his footing and pushed his darkness back down into its depths. That was where it belonged, out of sight and out of mind and not making him thing about dangerous, painful things. As Cafas moved on to the pudding, Ai even found himself able to take up his fork again and take another mechanical bite of the pasta. If he couldn't feel normal, at least he could try to act normal, and eventually the act would become reality.

At least the act was succeeding well enough that, when Cafas up and asked him straight-up, he just kind of sunk in on himself a little bit instead of falling prey to terror. Fear opened the door he had only just gotten mostly closed again, after all. "It's not just that," he found himself murmuring as he fiddled with the pasta. When he realized what he had said, the hope that it was too soft for Cafas to hear wasn't strong enough for him to risk leaving it at that. Move the conversation along, talk about something nasty but still not as nasty.

The sarcasm and bitterness he tried to inject into his tone sputtered and failed, leaving his voice more empty than anything. "Why wouldn't I?" he tried to retort. And why wouldn't he? Mutants were, after all, deformed monstrosities fouling a world already fouled enough. So his parents had felt, and so he felt. Never mind that only one of the mutants he had actually come across had actually fit the whole dangerous-to-humanity bill properly. One was enough to excuse the others that hadn't yet revealed their true colours... wasn't it?