So basically... Jiri was like an interim boarder in Alex's head, while the other teen waited for the joint to fill up with other renters. That was fair. In a really weird way that he never thought he'd be discussing.

For a moment, he wondered if the cabin question had been too much. But the teen had said anything. He'd even stressed the point: any questions. And I really do mean any. But the way Alex reacted--the change in posture, in tone, not meeting his eyes anymore. Maybe he'd said any, but he hadn't been thinking of that when he'd said it.

Jiri nodded quickly at the terms. "I promise. Even if I think I'm sleeping, I promise I won't say anything." That was about as strong a promise as he could give. General logic went out the window when he was sleeping, but as long as he remembered he'd made the promise, hopefully he wouldn't be stupid enough to ignore it.

"I promise. Even if I think I'm sleeping, I promise I won't say anything."

Sounded like a pretty solid promise, given how Jiri's powers worked. He hesitated a moment before speaking. "Alright, so, context. Before I lived here, I was...homeless and before that I lived in a foster home. I got my powers at age ten and then at thirteen I ran away because I didn't want to be found out. I traveled, ran with a couple of different groups before ending up going through the San Rafael Swell. It's a scrub desert out in Utah, practically no civilization to speak of. I would have died of dehydration if I hadn't found a stream in a canyon. I followed that until I ran into a guy, I won't say his name, but trust me when I say he was a pretty powerful mutant."

He glanced up at Jiri, gauging how he was taking the information before continuing. "He was ex-military, a, uh, guy they relied on in order to extract information from people. He had this power that makes a pressure in your head and it builds and builds, and had this strange side effect of sounding like cicadas if it was on you. He apparently did that for the government when they were rounding up mutants into camps in exchange for leniency. He was living out in the desert to kind of punish himself. At least as far as I could guess."

Alex took a breath to brace himself for this next bit, "I stayed with him for maybe a month or more, I can't remember. The desert didn't really feel like it had seasons and we only ever went into towns once in a while..." He's not looking at Jiri, trapped in the memory of that night. It doesn't feel like he has control over his words, the construct have grown silent in his head. "One night, he told me to stay in my room, lock the door, and not to come out no matter what. About twenty minuets later, I hear a car coming, I can see the high beams from the window. There's shouting but I don't really know what they're say and then there's gunfire and screaming and all I can do is duck down and wait."

"Then the world is quiet again, dead silent...and I hear footsteps, someone checking all the doors and they stop at mine...They shout, ask if anyone's inside they should come out, but I can't move or speak, I can only cower there and wait." He swallows, trying to push through the memory, "He shoots off the lock and I guess that makes me lucky cause when he saw me he was out of bullets...I froze, I didn't know what to do and before I know it he's on me. I struggled and tried to push him off, but he keeps...hitting me and he's so much bigger than me," He feel the air leave his chest, the bruises as if they were new, the weight of the stranger on top of him, his breathing harder now, "He gets on top of me and his hands are on my throat, he's going to kill me. I would have died if I hadn't realized there was...material inside him...and I use it, just like I did to that other guy..."

He grows silent, not telling Jiri about the sensations, the feeling, the scent, the taste. How when he stepped out of that room and found the corpses of his friend and multiple other strangers that he puked. Or what the stranger had said whilst chocking the life from him. There were some details he would take to the grave.

It was kind of the mutant stereotype, wasn't it? Whenever they were showing news clips of a mutie unloading into a crowd, killing people, being arrested, that was always what the reporters were saying.

Unstable home life. Kicked out or left home. Had no one to turn to except other fringe mutants. And that, viewers, is why they're so screwed up in the head, why they've got to be put away, put down, for public safety. 

Jiri hadn't appreciated how lucky he'd been. His mom had been a little... freaked, and his dad was praying for him like he'd prayed when grandma was sick, but they both still loved him. Wanted him. And his sister--she loved him better. The toddler thought it was the best game ever when he helped her draw things, using her own hands. If the courts hadn't made him come here, his family would have found a way to make things work at his normal school, when he went back in the fall. 

Alex didn't have any of that. He didn't have it even before his powers kicked in, and he didn't have it after. He'd been on his own since he was thirteen? In the back of Jiri's head, he'd known there were kids like that out there, making a living on the streets, staying off the grid. But... he couldn't picture it. The day-to-day. How did that work? 

When Alex glanced over, he'd find that Jiri wasn't taking the information well. He was trying to picture himself in Alex's shoes. He just... couldn't. Maybe he was too sheltered, but who could live like that? 

Alex kept talking. For the second time since he'd come to the Mansion, the shadow of the Registration Act passed over him. The camps. He'd seen in Ghost's head what they'd been like towards the end, a little. He... couldn't blame the guy for taking that deal, if it kept him out of the place. 

What worried him is that he might have taken a deal like that, too. If he'd been older then, had his powers. Jiri still felt like himself, even with all the craziness around him, but... body snatching showed up in horror movies for a reason. His wasn't a benign power. There really wasn't a nice use for it.

That... worried him, now that he thought about it. Once he got a handle on controlling it, once people stopped being nice to the new guy--then what? 

What was he supposed to do with this power?

He noticed the shift in tense as Alex continued speaking: from the safe distance of past, to the immediacy of present. 

He knew all too well what the other teen was talking about, when he said he'd used material. He'd been inside that thug, on the night Alex had to do it again. The night Jiri had made him.

"You did what you had to do," Jiri said quietly. "S***. I'm sorry about your friend. Did you... did you get a chance to bury him, at least? Or did you have to get out of there too quick? Do you even know who did it?"

"I am such a privileged asshole. Sorry for making you talk about it. Relive it. If I ever hit on something like that again, awake or asleep, feel free to tell me where I can shove it."

"You did what you had to do," Jiri said quietly. "S***. I'm sorry about your friend. Did you... did you get a chance to bury him, at least? Or did you have to get out of there too quick? Do you even know who did it?"

"I am such a privileged asshole. Sorry for making you talk about it. Relive it. If I ever hit on something like that again, awake or asleep, feel free to tell me where I can shove it."

He sniffled, glad that he had a good reign on his tears this time around. Though he could feel his eyes were moist, just on the edge of crying, and he didn't know if Jiri could tell. "No, the ground was too tough and we were in the middle of nowhere. In that moment I wanted to call the cops more than anything, let someone else deal with it for once. But there was no phone and it wasn't likely that anybody was coming. I...I had to take what I could, burn the place to the ground. Or at least most of it."

"And it's okay, Jiri...Really it is." He sniffled again, finding it harder to push down the tears, "Reliving it is actually a form of therapy. I did some research when I had started having flashbacks. Cognitive therapy, talking about it, putting it into context outside of myself, helps. Saying it out loud in an actual conversation is harder because it's usually between me and Ace. It's supposed to kind of numb you to the experience."

"So I'm okay, I am." His throat felt tight and he hurried brush away the tears, push down the pain. His voice might have quivered in that last bit, he was too proud to admit it.

At least Alex been able to get some kind of closure. Burning wasn't ideal, wasn't as respectful as giving the full rites, but compared to leaving the man to rot among his enemies? It was definitely better than nothing. He wondered if the teen had ever told the cops, or if the ruins were still waiting out there in the desert with no one the wiser. Thinking of that, and the peaceful star gazing he'd done with Ace in the teen's dream of that place... it definitely changed the feel of the memory. If it was him, he didn't think he could stand seeing that house again, over in over, when he closed his eyes.

Alex was starting to cry. It was in his voice, in the tone and the hicks and the stutters. There was only one appropriate response: Jiri totally ignored it.

He turned to his laptop, keeping his eyes off of Alex as the teen wiped his eyes. He flipped the lid open again, and wiggled his finger in useless circles on the trackpad until it woke back up. Then he clicked out of the video, and back to the site he'd found it linked on. Audubon X, a mutant spotters' forum.

"Did you know," he scrolled through the discussion thread until he found the place he wanted, "that you have fan girls?"

He cleared his throat with a dramatic ahem, and read. He made extra sure to enunciate clearly the mispellings and chat-speak. "GurlsJustWannaHaveMuties77 writes, and I quote: 'O-M-G, look @ that sweaty brow hair, does anyone have his number.' Of course, BikinisR4Skinnies retorts wittily: 'Nuuuuuuuuuuuuu i saw him 1st hends uff.' To which ArtemisSingle articulately replies: 'L-O-L, he can snake my intestines.' ...Please do not breed with any of these women, Darwin would cry. Oh, speaking of! DarwinsFavGirl writes..."

The horrible fan readings would continue until the crying ceased. Jiri would keep his eyes on the horrible fan readings until that time.

"Did you know...that you have fan girls?"

He blinked at the ridiculous notion, the sadness slowly evaporating with confusion. He could feel his constructs perk up too. They were all very curious about this. He leaned forward to see Jiri's computer screen, unable to believe the length of the message board thread dedicated to him.

"GurlsJustWannaHaveMuties77 writes, and I quote: 'O-M-G, look @ that sweaty brow hair, does anyone have his number.' Of course, BikinisR4Skinnies retorts wittily: 'Nuuuuuuuuuuuuu i saw him 1st hends uff.' To which ArtemisSingle articulately replies: 'L-O-L, he can snake my intestines.' ...Please do not breed with any of these women, Darwin would cry. Oh, speaking of! DarwinsFavGirl writes..."

He laughed, not only were they terrible writing, the way they were completely wrong about his powers, how they gushed over him without even knowing him. The very concept of being loved by strangers was so weird and out of left field, he hadn't thought it was possible. And yet, here they were talking about the video where he killed a man like he had sung a ballad instead. This couldn't be healthy.

Jiri's plan worked, the tears were gone and for the moment the painful past was forgotten. "Can I, can I correct them? They've got my powers all wrong. Also, I feel like they shouldn't be gushing over a video where I kill someone. If feel wrong that, that's the first introduction they have of me." If the trial went against him, he could at least enjoy the outside world before then.

...Correct them? It took Jiri a moment to process this concept. During that moment, his grin stretched to unhealthy lengths.

"Oh god yes. Seriously? Yes." He shifted on his bed to give Alex room to sit, if he wanted, and clicked on the Register link at the top of the board. "What do you want your account name to be? SexySweatBrows?" 

The registration was navigated, the video discussion was returned to, and Jiri gleefully handed over control of the laptop.

"We're going to need proof, you know. If you want them to listen to you." He went to his luggage, and rummaged through school supplies until he came up with a notebook and a black marker. In big, messy strokes, he wrote today's date. The sign was promptly shoved into Alex's chest, and Jiri grabbed his smart phone off the charger. "Hold that. Now smile. Or look charismatically moody, your choice." 

Photo proof. The start of any good I'm that guy who you're crushing on, but seriously it's creepy please stop it Ask Me Anything.

This was happening, so help him. No going back now.

He hopped back onto the bed, leaning over to stare at the laptop's screen. "What are you going to say to them?"

He got on the bed next to Jiri and registered to the site, preferring the screen-name NotYourBoyfriend. As for the picture, he ended up looking like a cross between bewildered and amused. So this was it, photo proof that he was indeed the real deal and all registered to the site. All he needed to do was reply to this mess and perhaps untangle it a bit. But Jiri had a very good question.

"What are you going to say to them?"

"I...have no idea. Where do I start? I guess I should introduce myself first." He began typing, hesitant at first but gaining confidence as he went. A quick introduction post to get the ball rolling should do it. Nothing negative or aggressive just keeping it simple for not.

[Photo]
Hi, I'm Alex, the mutant in the video. My friend showed me this site after getting out of the hospital and apparently I have "fangirls" This is too weird, can I ask you guys why? Not to step on any toes or anything, but this isn't exactly the most flattering of videos. I honestly kind of wish nobody saw it, it's one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

He glanced at Jiri, mouse hovering over the create post button. "That's a good start right?" He waited for a bit of confirmation before pressing the button. Now to sit back and see what happens. These people supposedly love mutants, so it shouldn't be too bad, right?

"Perfect," Jiri read the post over, nodding with approval. "Though maybe we should say you've got a girlfriend, or something, so they don't--"

Eh, too late. The post was on its way to the interwebs, and the fangirls would soon be massing. It was just as well: if they held onto hope he was single, maybe they'd be less snarky.

Heh, what was he saying? This was the internet. No way they were avoiding the snark. 

The first reply was simple enough:

is this 4 real? omg this is 4 real! ummm qyuestion question... so whts rly ur power everyone wants to know?!

A minute or two ticked by. Then someone must have tipped off the site's chatroom, because the new questions started coming in fast. (Un)helpfully, the site's users were replying to each other, as well.

how do i become a mutant??

that is a retarded question

hey no one said fanboys/girls r te smartest spoons in the drawr

Are you okay? vid shoes you taking a beating, was that blood on your side? you said you got out of HOSPITAL???

Can kissing a mutant give you the x-gene?

will you marry me?

will you marry me first?

will you become a mormon and marry all the things?

Is it offensive if a human gets an Xmen tattoo?

Why did you kill that guy? Not being aggressive or negative just want to know, couldn't you have used your powers to stall him? Police were like five seconds away. Dude was a dick but you didn't need to kill him.

"Ooo boy, that was fast..." He watched the replies pop in rapidly and it was kind of overwhelming to see this many people wanted to talk to him. He took a breath and decided to answer as many as he could in one go. That seemed like the most efficient way to go about it.

Alright so I'm gonna answer a bunch at a time, there are so many of you.

1. To put it simply my power is the ability to manipulate decaying organic matter and transform it into living constructs that I can control. It has nothing to do with just intestines and snakes.
2. You don't just become a mutant, it's a gene you inherent. A likely recessive gene at that. So you can't get it like an infection or from a kiss. It's a part of you, inherited from your parents and there parents and so on and so forth.
3. Yeah, I just got out of the hospital. They didn't want to but the hospital wasn't secure and the cops didn't want to risk someone coming into my room looking to finish the job while I was vulnerable. So they gave me an assortment of pills to keep the pain and possible infection away.
4. No, I will not be marrying anybody. No thank you.
5. An x-men tattoo? I guess? I wouldn't really know. I guess it's a matter of opinion. I'm sure someone would appreciate the support.
6. I was in a desperate situation man. The guy in the vid had caught me sleeping on the bus and stabbed me
before I could do anything. There were two other guys with him and they
had me pinned. I was bleeding pretty badly, I could feel myself dying.
At that point I didn't know if my stomach or any arteries or other organs had been punctured. There were three of them verses one of me when the bus driver kicked us off the bus. Nobody was going to get out of their cars to help. I had no material to work with and I warned them to stop several times. I even used my own blood to create some wasps to distract them. But it wasn't enough. He was on top of me, he was going to gut me like a fish, I just had to act first. It was seconds but the cops were going to arrive with one of us dead. On a side note, I actually did die for about 2 seconds by the time I arrived at the hospital. I hate that, that happened. To be honest I'm probably never going to be able to get sick feeling off of me. His face is probably going to haunt me for the rest of my life and this will make living normally even harder than before. Taking a life was the last thing that I wanted to happen.

He hit send and laid back with a sigh. "Ugh, that last one was hard. Now we wait for more replies." He scrubbed his face and yawned, "This ought to be fun."

"I think they like you," Jiri said. Fast was definitely an adjective for it. Internet fast was a further descriptor. "Probably not often they actually get to talk to a mutant. That's like, what, a girl going to a Magic tournament?"

Can you tell another mutant is a mutant because you're a mutant?

dude racist

no srsly because its like they have this mutant club how do they figure it out?

Are you at the Mansion? Your picture looks like one of the rooms there. Are those boxerbriefs peeking out from under that binder? You look like a boxerbrief kind of person

>> It has nothing to do with just intestines and snakes.
I call BS, there were clearly intestine snakes

Is there going to be a trial? I mean it was self defense but you killed a guy, how do they even handle that?

First off, you are awesome and I love you lol Are there any mutants in space?

area 51: the original registration act *

edit: oh wow first gold, thanks!

would you stop yawning in front of the narcoleptic? unless you want him saying hi to Mary

That last post was by InvasionOfTheBS. Jiri grinned cheekily, and slipped his phone back in his pocket.

He sat up again and watched the replies roll in, some of them serious, others not so much. "Yeah, no kidding. Looks like I'm become internet popular."he chuckled, stretching before he went about replying.

1. Well, no, most mutants can't tell if someone is a mutant unless it's physically obvious or if they tell one another. I've had plenty of occasion where I've run into people who looked like they weren't but were. I've always been fairly open about my x-gene, so I guess when I share they tend to share. It's, I guess, a mutual respect sort of thing. A need to look out for each other. It's weird, even some loners will help out a fellow mutant in need.
2. I can't say, security reasons. But I'm sitting on my friends bed in the picture, so I'm guessing those are his.

He smirked at Jiri and looked behind him. Indeed there was a pair of underwear under a folder. "Clean up after yourself." He laughed, tossing the boxer-briefs at Jiri.

3. Okay yes, there were. No denying that, but that's not my specific power.
4. I have no freaking clue. I'm under house arrest essentially until the trial. There was plenty of evidence for self-defense, including the bus driver and the camera on the bus. But there still might be a chance I could go to jail if the judge or the jury are against mutants. I don't even know where to get a lawyer. I'm gonna need to do some research. I really don't want to go to jail. They already collared me in the hospital and having my power restricted for so long is disorienting. I can't imagine what it'd be like for years.
5. Heh, thanks. I don't know, maybe some of the astronauts are mutants.
6. I'm sorry, the pills make me sleepy.

He pouted playfully at Jiri, "I'm sorry." He pressed the create post and watched the questions roll in. "I feel like if we could rig a live video that'd be more interesting and faster. Then again, probably also more hectic. What do you think?"

Reading the answers his roommate was typing was... actually, really informative. Like, things he kind of wanted to know, but thought it was too stupid to ask. Not the space mutants question, but things like figuring out who other mutants were.

A mutual respect thing, huh? He... could kind of see that. It was like how his tuition at this very ridiculously rich boarding school was costing his parents less than his sister's daycare, and how Alex was being weirdly cool about this whole possession thing. Even loners will help out a fellow in need, huh? So this was... sort of Alex passing on the favor, for how that guy in the desert helped him. Did the whole mutant community work that way? That would be kind of... well, neat.

Jiri caught the boxers, balled them up, and aimed for a basket in his open suitcase where it sat on top of the dresser. "My bed, my rules. If it's too messy, go back to your own."

He frowned over Alex's shoulder as he typed out the part about the trial, and the house arrest. "Is that true? That's BS." For the first time, he noticed the bulge on the other teen's ankle, and the edge of something dark and plastic hiding under it. A monitor? Like for a parolee? "Total BS," he reiterated. "Have you talked to the Mansion staff? They've got to know some lawyers that are decent with mutant cases. No way this is the first time one of their students has had to defend themselves."

It was easy to forget, in that flash of outrage, the role he'd played that night. But that was BS, too, in a way--those guys would have gotten on that bus with or without him riding side-saddle on their friend, and they'd picked the fight without any real help from him. He hadn't helped Alex, but he hadn't been the one to stab him, either. For the first time, it occurred to him that his clumsy possession might have helped the other teen--Jiri had no idea how to fight, but those guys certainly didn't seem new to the topic. Maybe the guy Alex killed, the one Jiri had been possessing at the time, maybe he would have been a little more competent without a crazy teenager riding his brain.

The thought didn't really help his overall guilt. But it helped.

...Wait, a live video?

"You want to Skype the internet?" Jiri's initial reaction was one of disbelief. But as he thought for a moment, a grin spread on his face. "...Dear god, why not. As long as we only accept text questions, it should stay manageable. Let me get my webcam turned on."

All too soon, the set up was ready to go. They put up a post directing people to the livestream, and a text chat to accept questions.

"Just keep that camera the hell away from me, okay? Some of us aren't ready to be celebrities. My underwear is famous enough as it is." Jiri sat himself directly behind the laptop's screen, with a pillow in hand, ready to block the screen if Alex tried anything funny.

"Have you talked to the Mansion staff? They've got to know some lawyers that are decent with mutant cases. No way this is the first time one of their students has had to defend themselves."

"Not yet but I might in the morning. Actually I probably should, not only because of what happened but I uh...left without really saying goodbye or giving them a reason." He coughed and tried to ignore the guilt in his gut, as well as the sensation of fear. They might be angry that he left and his returned was accented by a court trial for killing someone in self-defense.

At the question of live video, Jiri seemed surprised at first then all at once way too excited.

"You want to Skype the internet?...Dear god, why not. As long as we only accept text questions, it should stay manageable. Let me get my webcam turned on."

He watched the other boy set up the technical stuff, things he never really thought about or heard of. If he was going to live a normal life, when he have to get as knowledgeable about computers. Even this small thing felt way out of his range. Before he could even put any larger thought into it, Jiri had everything set up and was hiding behind the computer.

"Just keep that camera the hell away from me, okay? Some of us aren't ready to be celebrities. My underwear is famous enough as it is."

"Right, lets get started then." He hit the start button and watched video chat room come to life. There were already way more people than he felt comfortable with. "Um, hi, all of you people...wow there are a lot of you...So what are your guys questions?" He started reading the questions that were popping up in the chat room, it all felt like it would going by way too fast.

"You just... left?" Jiri raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Definitely talk to them. I mean, they probably cancelled the missing persons case when you showed up at the hospital, but I bet you freaked a lot of people out. Can I ask why you even left? I mean, this place seems pretty cool. Once you get over the..." Students, teachers, staff? He let that one trail off. "Umm. Yeah. It's pretty cool here."

Alex seemed hilariously out of his depth as Jiri rigged up the Skype session. He had the same look on his face that Jiri's five-year-old sister did when he made her a bowl of cereal with milk. That what is this magic you are working look, over something that really wasn't that hard.

But then, there probably hadn't been Comcast bills going to that cabin in the desert, and the teen didn't look like he was hiding a laptop in his one set of clothes. Jiri felt like a dick, for even thinking about it. He wisely refrained from commenting, and tried to subtly talk through what he was doing, in case Alex was trying to learn.

"Do you have a phone?" He asked. "If not, might want to ask the staff about one, when you talk to them. They probably have some dumb phones they could give you, at least for making emergency calls." Dumb phones. The opposite of smart phones. It belatedly occurred to him that Alex might have no idea what he meant, if he wasn't tech savvy. But if he explained the term and Alex already knew, it might come off like he looking down on the other teen. Jiri just... let that one stand.

From the safety of the backside of the laptop, behind his pillow shield, Jiri signed into the chat from his own phone, and joined the legion of question-askers from the safety of an avatar. He grinned at Alex's nervousness--apparently when he'd said Skype the internet, the enormity of the phrase was one of those things Alex's background hadn't prepped him for.

The questions started rolling in.


who would win? ColdSteel or an Adapted human?

no man ColdSteel v. Sharknado, who would win? adapteds are cheating

whats an adapted...?

dude there's a whole subforum howd you miss that

How did the cops treat you? The video cuts off when they show up. Did they treat you like victim or perp?

did you get stitches & can we see

yeeeeeeaah take off your shirt!!!!


Jiri was glad he'd swiped a pillow. It was helpful for smoothing his laughter.