James and Leon had been led up to the Bedrooms by one of the Mansions staff through the maze of corridors. James hadn't really understood how big the place really was from the outside, until him and Leon had been given a tour.

They were put together as roommates, considering they had already met and arrived at the same time. Naturally James was glad about this decision. He had met quite a few people and was reaching the end of his tether. One more stranger or awkward silence and he might have shamelessly ran away. His nerves had been stretched to breaking point more times today then they had in last couple of months.

James had told himself that he would try to deal with his social anxiety, after all it would start to become a problem here, there are new people left, right and center and avoiding them just wouldn't work. Either way atleast he didnt have to go through the process of meeting a new roommate.

So there they were, standing outside the door to the place that would be theirs for however long they were staying here. James turned to Leon and said jokingly "Care to do the honors?". Gesturing towards the door.

The maze of corridors and rooms had confused him at first, but he was confident that with time he would be able to work it out quite easily. He was used to living in dorm so the change of a house for a dorm room would not be that great on him, neither would be the roommate who as it turned out was James. Leon wasn't really bothered that James had been chosen for his roommate after all they had arrived together so it made sense for them to be put in the same room. If anything he was more worried about what James would think of him smoking in the room.

Once they reached the door to what he assumed would be their room, James jokingly asked if he would like the honors of opening the door. He decided it would be best to humor him as it was too late and too stressful for another argument. "Don't mind if I do" He said putting on a smile, as he opened the door he wondered if James had ever lived in dorms before, it was quite different from a house as you had to share the room quite allot of the time and be conscious that you don't own the room. Other than that it is pretty much the same.

Once the door was open he walked in the, the room was nice enough and had a bed, always a good start if they have a bed. "I call this one." He said playfully plonking himself down on the bed closest to the window, thinking that if he woke up and needed to have a smoke then being near the window would be very helpful. Happy with his choice of bed he looked around the room to take in his new home, it was nice and reminded him of Eton but it would do. 

"so what do you think?" He asked with a small smile.

James followed his fellow Brit into the dorm. The room was pretty big and there was plenty of space for the two of them.  It was bigger than his bedroom at home, well. Bigger than his OLD bedroom in his OLD house.There were two beds, Leon quickly claimed the one next to the window. "Sure, i don't mind either way" He said slipping off his bag and throwing it onto the bed that was left, rubbing his shoulders where the bag straps had been he followed his belongings and flopped unceremoniously onto the pillows.

>>"so what do you think?"

James sat up shrugged. What did he think? Well, he wasn't about to admit to having actually enjoyed coming here so easily, even if he had. "Its alright, Better than my bedroom back at my Mums anyway" He replied with a smile. Looking at the window it came to James that Leon had probably chosen the bed next to it so he could smoke. "By the way, I'm not all that bothered about smoking myself. As long as you don't blow it in my face, but i would be careful if i were you. Other people here might not be so...well you know"

Leon nodded at the comment about smoking, It was good to know that James wouldn't mind and he wouldn't blow the smoke in his face...much. The comment about his old room was a bit surprising, it seemed odd to Leon that this room would be batter than James old bedroom. But he had never been that familiar with bedrooms having spent most of his time in different dorm rooms, so the idea of a roommate was one that he was entirely familiar with and  felt more comfortable with.

"Yeah I already thought about the smoking problem. Not that I have one, its just I'm going to have to hide some of my packs around the room." He said with a small laugh, to emphasize his point he turned his bag upside down and watched roughly 10 packs of twenty cigarettes spill out onto the bed. "Right lets get down to business, I was thinking one in my pillow, and under my bed, would you mind keeping some around your parts of the room?" He asked James with the smile that sort of said not that you have much choice, With that sorted he picked up a few packs and started to hide them in the places he told James. He also hid a pack in some draws, in the wardrobe and one wrapped in a plastic bag inside the tower of the toilet. Just in case he ever got locked in the bathroom and needed to calm down. 

After this spree of hiding he was left with 5 packs to hide, he looked at James and said "Help a friend out and find places to put these would you?" Motioning to the remaining packs of cigarettes.

James watched Leon scurry around the room hiding cigarettes in various places of varying comedic value with an amused smile on his face. He got the impression that this wasn't the young smokers first time hiding cigarettes. James wouldn't have thought of half the places that the cigarette packets now resided.

>>"Help a friend out and find places to put these would you?"

James smiled slightly and raised an eyebrow. "You know you just turned this room into one big illegal den? In like on minute" He nodded in an impressed manner. "Not bad, I'm guessing you have done this before". Deciding he might as well help, if only to be a good roommate. Shrugging James got up and grasped the last five packets and opened his pillow case, in which he stuffed two packets.

Where could i put these ones? He thought to himself tapping the packets on the side of his head. Looking around the room his eyes came to rest on his bag. What have i got in there?. He walked over to his bag and opened it, he then pulled out a box which had his phone charger, iPod charger and various other bits and bobs. He nodded to himself...why not?  James put another packet in there and turned to Leon. "You don't have any tape do you? You could stick packets to the back of the drawers and nobody would realize...probably"

Leon watched James move around the room placing cigarettes in places, personally he wouldn't have picked some of the places as they where closely linked to the other stashes. Like he would not have picked the other pillow case seeing as if they find them in one pillow then they will look in the other pillows, but maybe that was just him. when asked if he had done this before he replied "Yeah I used to have to do this quite regularly back in Eton, so I know quite a few places." He said this with the same amused smile. 

The next comment caught him a bit off guard, he hadn't considered the fact that in England this was legal but over here it was a different story. And in the eyes of the law this room was now an illegal stash. It was weird knowing he broke the law but right now he was having to much fun to care and he doubted that he would ever care, after all its just a few packs of cigarettes its not like they are going to go to prison over it.

Watching James put the packs away was filling him with a rush, one reason he asked James to put half of them away was so that he could not easily get to all of them and they would last longer. but another reason that wasn't as large as the first but still there. And that was to get James to lighten up a bit and break down some of the awkwardness between them, which undeniably there was some level of awkwardness which he thought would just be from the kind of guys they are.

Then he got asked if he had any tape...who carry's tape  with them? That's like carrying some glue in your pocket you just don't do it, at least anyone who Leon had met didn't do it. "Um no sorry I don't normally carry tape on me, although the idea is good. You could try leaving them in your bag, I doubt anyone's going to go looking in there." He said keeping up the smile and slightly amused tone of voice. Hiding all of these was kind of fun though in its own weird way.

James felt a bit stupid after asking if Leon carried tape...why had he asked that? "Right...that was kind of a stupid question wasn't it?" He asked in a self-mocking voice. Taking Leons advice James chucked the last two in his bag and cracked his neck, mulling over the problem of packs being in similar places.

"Following what i said earlier, if you get the chance you should buy some tape to stick them in strange places like the back of your drawers". It hit James then, as he glanced around the room that there was no T.V. No T.V meant no games...good job he had left his consoles at his Mums. The prospect of living for a while without gaming was one which James disliked greatly. At least he still had his books. He could kind of survive without his games but it wouldn't be easy.

"Damn" he said to himself. "That really sucks...oh well, it kind of could be worse"

Now that they had finished hiding all of his cigarettes he slumped back onto his bed, thinking on it James may not be to bad after all, he had helped Leon hide his cigarettes and some people would have just chucked them out and given him the whole speech on how it was bad for you. Almost right on Que he had one of his coughing fits, like most of his fits it only lasted for a few seconds but he was left shaking and breathless.

After taking a few seconds to let himself recover he fell back against his pillow, "Sorry I should warn you about those, they happen every so often." He said with a weak laugh, he shouldn't have tried to laugh so soon after one of his fits, as the laugh sent new waves of pain through his chest. He had thought about going to the doctors about it but he knew what they would say, it would be the whole stop smoking talk then they would freak out at the pile of ash in his lungs. 

"hmm yeah I'll think about picking some up one day." He said when James recommended that he get some tape. He was fairly confident that he would not need to get some as they hid the packs quite well, but he would keep it in mind as tape can come in handy at any time. Well not any time but a few times.

Looking around the room it was quite bare in terms of entertainment, there was no T.V which meant that they could not watch T.V, but he didn't mind that much as he would have to get out of the room a fair amount anyway, this also provided an opportunity for him and James to get to know each other better, seeing as they would be roommates it only seemed logical to become friends. As they would be staying in the same room allot of the time and see each other around the school the rest.

"Um whats up?" He asked James when it was apparent that something was wrong and bothering him.

"Its just there's no T.V. Oh well, i guess we arent really going to be in here all that often" James wasn't sure whether he should tell Leon about his gaming habit, from experience he knew that not everyone was so...accepting of such a hobby and he didn't want have Leon avoid him. This was, after all, the first time James had been in a conversation with someone while managing to keep it normal rather than awkward.

Shrugging off that train of thought James went back to the bed and flopped down. Looking at his watch he realized it was only half past eight, the day had felt a lot longer than that. He could just close his eyes and fall asleep right now if he wanted, regardless of his erratic and fragmented mental state.

James thought it was probably a good idea to get to know Leon better. They would be sharing a living space and it would be weird if they didn't really know much about each other. Considering what they both were, asking how he had discovered his mutation sounded like a good place to start. "So, Leon. How did you discover your power? did you like, accidentally make a cigarette float out of your mouth or something?"

First use? Well that'll take some remembering. He thought, from his memories he had been using his power for two years give or take and it was hard to remember just when the first use was. "Well um lets think...OH I remember now. It was a good two years ago outside the walls of Eton, these thugs and gangs had been messing with some of my dorm mates. So I decided to try and take them on, yeah I know look at me it could of only gone well, and it did I got my butt handed to me. But they where smoking so I made the ash on the floor and in there cigarettes rush around me. That scared em off, and I have been practicing ever since." He let out a sigh as he finished his story, thinking back to those times really made him think how different a person he had become since discovering his powers.

Before he had his powers he had been angry sure but never been able to do anything about it. But once he had gotten his powers he had been able to take out the people that made him angry, he could fight back and he loved it the power that he could feel inside, it was great to him and he was grateful to have it. Although he had done things accidentally in the past that he wasn't happy about with his powers, the brief moments when he lacked the control to stop using the power, to stop the clouds choking the men, to stop his flames burning down someones house. Those times where largely behind him now but they had changed him and in some ways numbed him to the outside sources of misery.

He decided to push those thoughts out of his head after all he was here now and so was James, who by the sounds of it was trying to make some general conversation and break some of the barriers down. "So when did you first use your powers? I really hope it wasn't like being hit by a car or something because that would suck." He said adding a laugh to the joke about a car, hoping that the humor would help to make them closer as people.

James grinned and laughed a little at the car joke. "Nah, luckily it wasn't anything that serious." The truth was he didn't have to even think about it, the memory was well imprinted in the front of his mind.

"Well, its not a very interesting story, to be honest. Basically about five months ago I got up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. The light bulb had blown and I couldn't see where I was going. The next thing I knew I was about to fall down the stairs, I only just managed to grab the metal bannister but I lost my grip and fell. Turns out the mix of possibly hurting myself and contact with metal turned my entire body into steel...didn't feel a damn thing when I fell down the stairs" He laughed a little at the memory, it was kind of funny if you looked at it the right way.

"Anyway, when I got to the bottom my skin was made of metal. The whole thing scared the hell out of me and i feinted." James winced a little at the memory of that particularly embarrassing moment. "I must have made one hell of a noise because I came to in the living room, still made of metal with the police there. My Mum flipped and she wouldn't talk to me for months. to make things worse it took me about four days to find out how to turn back to normal skin and i had to go through about three school days like that. Everyone avoided me like the plague." Again James' face split into a smile and he began to laugh at his own misfortune.

Honestly as much as he had said otherwise, James had loved those days at school. The way that the usual bullies left him alone. Especially considering they couldn't hurt him when his forehead was made from steel. Shrugging at Leon he apologized for the laughter. "Sorry, its just I find you have to laugh at these things to make them seem like a joke. Things can only go up from here I guess"

James story wasn't as boring as he had made out, he found it interesting to hear about how other mutants learn't of their powers and this was no exception. But the one part that really stood out for Leon was the fact that Jame's had only been using his power for five months. That was a small amount of time compared to his two years of use, he had expected Jame's to be fairly new to his mutation possibly a year or year and a half but five months, that genuinely surprised him. 

He sat up slightly on his bed starting to pay more attention. "Really? Only five months ago, I started using my powers roughly two years ago. Sure it took me by surprise that you where not as in control of it, but really five months." He said not trying to hide the surprise in his voice. "So you say that it took four days to turn back to normal, Personally only a few things like that has happened to me and well lets just say it didn't turn out very well..." He said letting his voice trail off suddenly regretting that he had let his own surprise reveal so much about the part of his mutation he was unhappy about.

"Anyway other than that one time have you let your mutation get like,out of control?" He asked hoping to steer the conversation away from control, which he was OK at now but the first year had been tough. Once he had said it he realized that asking if James had ever lost control, probably wasn't the best way to move on the conversation away from control. 

James hadn't had a particular moment where his mutation had been out of control. Considering that it had never really been under his control. He shrugged "Well, for the first week I had no idea how it worked, so it kept turning on by itself. I realized about two weeks after discovering it that my watch was what allowed it to work by itself all the time. To be honest, it hasn't ever really been under my control...I can kind of...tell it to turn on. But it happens by itself when I'm scared. Normally."

James didn't really want to admit that it happened when he was angry, but he didn't want to really hold stuff back either. I might aswell say, Surely Leon looses control a little when hes angry too?

"My arms turn to steel when I'm angry, luckily I haven't had to punch someone with a metal arm but I can imagine it wouldn't be pretty." He wanted to ask Leon what had gone wrong during his control lapses but it was obviously something he was trying to avoid.

James was just glad to be here, for multiple reasons. Mainly that he wouldn't be out of place because of his ability and the fact that he could possibly learn to control his mutation properly. "Either way, we can learn to control our powers here if they get a bit out of our hands I guess."

So he has lost control, and if he said it happens when angry then I may as well tell him, or you could say warn him. He thought as James told him about the times that he had not been able to control it, and how he never has complete control over how it happens. Now it made a bit more sense why he would want to take off his watch when he was getting in any sort of emotional situation.

"Well as long as we are sharing." He begun before clearing his throat so that he could speak properly. "It was one of the first times I had used my power in the sight of other, it was fair to say that they didn't take the news well. Thankfully I chose to use an abandoned house that was ironically burnt down a few weeks before, so the place was covered in burnt wood and coats of ashes." He said before taking a short pause to prepare himself for what he was about to tell him. "Anyway after they knew they got rowdy and shouted freak and names, All I wanted was for them to stop and they did. But not by choice, without meaning to I started to see the ash around their feet rise around them, the burnt logs around them got the ash inside and out of them pulled into the clouds. It sorta looked like the building was fighting them. well lets just say they didn't make it..." He finished with a sigh.

"Oh well at least they stopped making me angry, and like you said we can practice control at some point." He said not unkindly but not with any sort of warmth. He hoped that that last statement served as enough of a warning and not a threat.

Thinking back to that day filled him with feelings of indecision. He saw that as weird as before he would be sad and horrified at what he had done, but since getting thrown out by his parents all of the negative feelings, both about him and others, seemed to have less and less effect on him. And it was reaching the point where pretty soon he was worried that he could kill someone out of annoyance. It wasn't that he didn't want to reach that point as he would gladly take the pain away but, he was more worried that if he reached that point he wouldn't know how to go back from it. 

However the real question that plagued his mind once he thought about it was, Will I want to go back from it?

James listened to Leons story attentively without butting in or even making a sound. He didn't know what he expected, maybe something like "Oh yeah, I lost control and made a fireplace explode". Not something like "Oh yeah, I lost control and put a bunch of guys in the hospital after beating them up with a building, no biggie".

As the story progressed James began to feel that his story about his own lapse of control was becoming less and less interesting compared to Mr.I-Beat-Up-A-Bunch-Of-Guys-With-A-Building Chase's. He also began to feel increasingly sorry for the older lad in front of him. Is all that had happened to James was that he had to walk around made of metal for half a week. It didn't hurt anyone, quite the opposite actually. It had made James feel powerful and interesting for once. But here was Leon, having lost control of a power which had the ability to really hurt people.

James had been feeling like a mutated, biological time-bomb. Ready to go off for the past five months and was starting to realize he had nothing to worry about. This came with a feeling of relief, which was quickly washed away by sympathy for Leon.

"Riiiiggghhhtttt" James nodded slowly. "I...I don't even" Shaking his head now disbelievingly. "I thought being made of metal sucked, Now that really sucks"

James could imagine why something like that would make you have to move away, to somewhere you could try and master your power. Something as dangerous as that needed to be contained and this was the perfect place for it.

"I suppose that explains why you had to come all the way over here, couldn't really hang about somewhere that you had beaten up a bunch of guys with charcoal" He considered giving Leon the typical "I'm Sorry to hear about that man, sounds like it was hard " But he got the impression that he wasn't the kind of guy who liked to be talked to like that so he left it out and patted him on the shoulder in what he hoped was a brotherly fashion.