He looked from the questions to Jiri and back again. It was clear he was starting to regret this decision but there was no turning back when there were more people than he had ever faced asking him questions. He was going to have to ask Jiri some questions about the internet after this. He had only ever used it for research.

Taking a breath he went about reading and answering the question.

"Okay you guys, really like ColdSteel. Personally I've never met the guy, so I wouldn't know. Plus there are other factors like, is the adapted trained in fighting or not and what kind of sharks are we talking. As for how the cops treated me. Well they did roll up when I had just killed a man so they were understandably freaked out. I'm just grateful they called an ambulance and didn't just stuff me in the back seat of one of their cars. That said I did wake up cuffed to the bed and collared."

He corked a brow at the stitches question, "I dunno if you wanna see the stitches, they're kinda gross..." He glanced up at Jiri, thinking about it. He wasn't exactly shy when it came to his body. He had after all spent the majority of his life outside, so some nudity was bound to happen. "But if you really wanna see..." He hiked up his shirt enough to reveal the bandage pad and slowly peeled that back to show where the knife had pierced him.

"You guys see that? There's some salve there to speed up the healing process but it hurts like a bitch to move around too much." Stripping for the internet, this was probably something Jiri hadn't planned for. "But it's not the first time I've been injured like this, so I know how to deal."

Jiri set the pillow in his lap and his phone on top of it, then gave his roommate two thumbs up. It was almost hilarious, how nervous he seemed. Alex had seen the other teen facing off against three thugs who wanted him dead, and he couldn't say whether Alex had looked more nervous than or now. Public speaking: possibly a fate worse than death. 

He seemed to hit a grove though, soon enough. The congenial stupidity behind some of the questions probably helped. Really? Cold Steel v. Sharknado? Sharknado, no question. It was a tornado of sharks. 

The stitches. Of course they wanted to see the stitches.

the grosser the better, InvasionOfTheBS typed into the chat. Jiri didn't have to look at his phone to type; he grinned at Alex over the top of the computer. Seriously: this was the internet. You told someone tht something was gross, they'd demand a link. Did Alex know how well he was working this crowd?

For himself: Jiri lost some of his grin when the bandage came off. That was... yeah. That didn't look too hot. It had probably looked even worse, a few days ago. 

when else did you get hurt? Some insensitive S.O.B. asked the question Jiri had running through his own head. The next wave of questions was rolling in:

how can I "activate" my inner x-gene?

Do you blame anyone for what happened to you?

do you only fate other mutants?

*date

If you could go back to being human, would you?

who's there with you? the boxerbriefs guy?

He shrugged at the first question, not really phased by it for it's like specificity. "Oh well, I've been hurt a bunch of times. Sometimes on accident, sometimes not. I'm not gonna get into it but let's just say I'm pretty familiar with how the body heals." He pulled his shirt back down and rolled his eyes at the next question.

"You can't just activate it, as far as I know, and if any alternative activations do exist, it would probably be more trouble than it's worth. Just don't do it. With how random mutations are you don't know what you'll get, it could be really dangerous." He sounded a bit concerned, a lot of mutations ruined lives or made it extremely difficult to live normally. He glanced over at Jiri, knowing that sleep would never be the same for him.

"I blame nobody but the assholes who attacked me. They made their choice..."he sighed, corking his brow at the next question. "Do I only date other mutants? Honestly, I've never actually been on a date. It's not really something that I think about." He ran a hand through his hair, looking a bit nervous and wondering what kind of reaction that would garner from these romance addicted people.

"I don't know. It's hard to imagine my life without it. I kind of got my powers early on in life, so for as long as I can remember it's been apart of me. I'm sure other mutants feel different, since we're all affected by our mutations differently." It was hard to imagine himself without a connection to his constructs.

He chuckled at the last one, grinning at Jiri but he didn't turn the camera around. Jiri wanted to hide from the love and that was fine by him. "My roommate, slash bodyguard, he's got a cooler power than me to be honest. But he doesn't want people to see his face. Likes his privacy." He winked at Jiri, laughing at his own joke and whatever face Jiri pulled.

There was a cavalier attitude with which Alex shrugged off the question about his past injuries. Jiri stared down at his own phone, watching the questions roll in. Sometimes on accident, sometimes not. He said it like it wasn't a big deal; like it was unavoidable. Jiri's thumbs tapped lightly over his phone. 

Is it normal for mutants to be attacked like that? InvasionOfTheBS asked. One among the many questions popping up on the chat screen. After a moment, he added, How can humans tell we're mutant if we don't even look it?

He noticed Alex looking at him, and glanced back up, tuning back in. Random mutations, dangerous, yeah. These people seemed really focused on how to get powers of their own. Jiri couldn't blame them, honestly--it seemed cool on paper. Get a super power. Fly or grow pretty flowers or light things on fire with your brain. But even with his scant experience as a mutant, he was with Alex on this one. People only heard about the cool mutations on the news, or the dangerous ones--the mutants who made it into the spotlight, for good or ill. No one ran specials on the people whose powers just sucked. And this wasn't like going off to see the wizard: your genetics didn't take special requests. 

...Alex blamed no one but his attackers. Jiri shifted uncomfortably at that answer; guilty. 

Also, Alex had apparently never been on a date before.

"Wait, what? Seriously?" He blurted out, belatedly clapping a hand over his mouth.  But the chat had heard him.

Who was that?

Boxerbriefs speaks!

dude take your roomie clubbing or something, be a bro 

yeah be a bro, hook him up with a hot mansion chick

Of course, Alex was only making it worse with that hand-through-hair action. The comments not directed at Jiri were clearly a flurry of fangirls swooning. Jiri raised an eyebrow at Alex, then dramatically repeated the finger combing gesture, with possibly a bit more drama than his roommate had preformed it with. Maybe a bit more shaking of his luxuriant locks at the end, too. He smirked, and mouthed, Showoff. 

Jiri preemptively half-hid himself behind his pillow at that last question, but Alex only winked at him. He made a face back at the mention of his own power being cooler. In what ways was sleeping walking into a homicide cool?

Also, body guard? He shook his head, and threw the pillow at his roommate. 

New questions were coming in. It was rapidly becoming clear that if they ever did something like this again, someone would need to moderate out the idiot questions.


One of my great-great-grandmothers was a mutant princess, you think we could be related?

Is there such a thing as a half mutant? Like, half human?

can I become a mutant by a transfusion of mutant blood?

Do mutants with physical mutations ever have trouble "getting it on"?


Then again, some of the questions were stupidly legit.


what's the best way to calm down a murderous mutant?

Alot of people fear mutants and they have caused alot of damage and deaths what do you have to say on the matter

Do you think you are more evolved than humans?

He glanced at his roommate, knowing the first question came from him. He knew the concern there. Jiri didn't want to end up being a target like a large majority of the population. But lucky for Jiri, his mutation put him relatively out of the line of fire. Practically an unknown.

"It depends on where you are and how the population feels towards mutants. New York has probably the most clashes between mutants and non-mutants. But I think that has more to do with a generally more crowded population. I've been to a couple small towns in Ohio and they treated me alright."

"How to tell if your a mutant? I honestly don't know. For me it was an instinct, kind of a pull in the right direction. Like someone took my hand and told me what to do, without actually doing any of that. For others, it might happen by sensation or emotion. You just don't know until it happens."

He chuckled when Jiri blurted out his surprise but was equally surprised by the massive amounts of people who seemed to care about this factoid. He frowned, nervousness made apparent even as Jiri teased him. "Ah, um, well first off, yes that was my roommate and secondly, why does it matter if I've dated or not? It hasn't been exactly a priority."

His priority had been survival up to this point and he wasn't sure if he should tell them that. Homelessness wouldn't exactly be sexy. But then again, he didn't want to be sexy to these people. He was more interested in getting the facts straight. Still his former home status was not something he wanted to flaunt.

Apparently his roommate didn't like the bodyguard comment either and he tossed the pillow back with a chuckle.

"Great-great-great grandmother huh? I suppose it'd be a possibility. I mean technically every human being is related because humans came from a relatively small group. So humanity, mutants included, is just one big pile of distant relatives having babies."

"I suppose it's possible but it doesn't look like the mutant gene does anything in halves. So either you are or you aren't. You can't get mutation through blood transfusion, again it's not a virus or bacteria, it's a gene. So just like blood type your body would more than likely reject it as useless and toss it out. By "getting it on" I assume you mean sex and I would assume it's no more difficult for physical mutants than everyday people."

The last couple of questions truly made his eye twitch, "Murderous mutants, as you put it, are calmed just the same as any body. A man with a gun or a knife are talked down and so too would mutants. The damage done by mutants is honestly no greater than those who have killed for centuries. Need I remind you that humans have being on a destructive path for a really long time. The only reason the world isn't a nuclear creator is because of mutually assure destruction."

"And no I don't think mutants are superior or more evolved. From what research I can find on the matter, mutants are a subset of a base human. There's a great potential to branch off. But due to the randomness of the gene, it's more akin to the canine "slippery gene". In which one or few genes are responsible for a large amount of change. Honestly dogs are a great example of massive variation within a species. A chihuahua and a great dane may look vastly different but they're still both dogs. They both still belong to canis familiaris which comes from the same branch of wolves, canis lupus. In the same vein, both mutants and non-mutants belong to homo sapien sapien, who branched off from homo antecessor and-I'm rambling aren't I?"

He gave a nervous chuckle, covering his face with an embarrassed sigh before looking at Jiri first, then screen, "Sorry, genetics is probably one of my favorite topics."

Jiri's eyebrows slowly ascended his forehead as Alex's dissertation on genetics began. And continued. And continued. And...

OK seriously how do you even know all that? Going for your doctorate in applied genetics? InvasionOfTheBS asked. Also did you just call humans chihuahuas? You are a bad man and I am going to quote you on that 

It was weird, listening to some of Alex's answers. They weren't the same ones Jiri would have given. Like the murderous mutant one. 'Talk down' a murderous mutant? He tried to visualize that, against any of the horror stories he'd grown up seeing on the news. The girl who could manipulate her bones? Your bones, if you let her get her hands on you? He could picture his agonized death scream a lot more clearly than he could picture what he'd say to her. How about the guy who giant-sized himself and went on drunken frat boy rampages every now and again? The guy wasn't even angry at the world, he just liked to knocked buildings over and punt cars when he was tipsy. Would the guy even hear him if he tried 'talking him down'? He was, like, two stories taller than Jiri. 

Maybe that would work against someone like Alex or him, someone who was still human when you got right down to it. But some of these other mutants--

Oh my god, Jiri realized. I'm a total racist.

Except that racism felt a hell of a lot like basic self-preservation instincts. He had a sudden insight into the mind of homo sapiens zealotous.

More questions, coming a little more slowly now.


How have you been discriminated against for being a mutant

How did you come out to your parents?

Did you always know you were a mutant or did you experiment?

have you tried turning it off and on again?

lol factory reset

XD

What was your take on the Mutant Registration Act

He smirked at Jiri's questions, glancing at him over the computer screen. "Well, InvasionoftheBS, I know it because I did research, lots and lots of research. Kind of for the hell of it really. Also I never specified which part of humanity was which kind of dog. For all you know maybe chihuahuas are the mutants." Well more like he came across the information as he was studying animal anatomy. Wikipedia was probably his favorite website whenever he had his hands on a computer.

"Sometimes I have, usually you can get a good sense when someone doesn't want you around. So I just leave. And you know there's a video of me taking a beating because some assholes don't like my genetic set, so..."he shrugged, tried to play it off like it was no big deal but more often than not it hurt when someone was actively disgusted by his very existence.

He grabbed one of the extra pillows, hugging it to his chest to rest his chin on.

The next question made him pause, glancing over at Jiri, wondering if it was even appropriate to answer it truthfully. "I...actually ran away before anybody found out...I found out when I was ten-ish, thought I was possessed by a demon for a little while before actually paying attention to the news and what my body was telling me, and by the time I was thirteen, I decided it would be best to just leave. Probably caused myself more pain than I would have if I just fessed up and hoped for the best."

He smiled a little at the idea of a factory reset and shook his head. "Yeah, if only it were that easy. One factory reset please and could I get an instruction manual, cause this system is dumb."

The mutant registration act...the idea made him shudder.

"It terrifies me, while also making a horrible sense. For population data, I get it, people need to know how many of which kind of people so they can appropriately address issues and protect minorities. I understand having it on a drivers license or id's because again important data to factor into your needs as a citizen." Those were the appropriate ways to use population data anyway. But who said the government always did the appropriate thing.

"However, the way that it was used, to round up innocent people. Children even. To deny any rights or freedoms, beat and abuse them. It was terrifying to hear some of the stories older mutants had of the place. The camps were my nightmare fuel as a kid. I was lucky that my mutation showed up just after those places were closed down. If I had been born a few years earlier...I shudder to think what would have happened."

Yeah, ten year old him might have become a killer much quicker if exposed to the camps. Or he might have died himself. There was really no telling what would have happened.

He said my name! *swoon* InvasionOfTheBS glibly typed, while Jiri met his roommates eyes with a shameless grin. He had to press his face into the pillow to muffle his laughter as the fangirls joined in on that bandwagon:

sooooo jealous!

omg your childern: NotYourBoyfriend + InvasionOfTheBS = NotYourBS!

or InvasionOfYourBoyfriend 

yessssss XD

we will buy a chihuahua for our first pet, InvasionOfTheBS helpfully contributed. it will be our practice baby

The internet. It was a beautiful, horrible place.

It was also a place that let out a collective squeeeee as Alex hugged a pillow. Vulnerable-but-tough, honest with his feelings, still rocking the tousled sleeps-on-buses hair... If Jiri wasn't sitting right next to the teen, he'd be half-convinced that Alex was doing this on purpose. 

Apparently he wasn't the only one. No pillow could contain his laughter from the next question to pop up:

is your hair real?

He managed to swallow his laughter when Alex glanced over at him. It wasn't a happy, laughing look. The backstory. He'd heard a little of it, but there were new details here. Like the whole possessed by demons thing. What kind of podunk town had Alex been raised in? That was... that was not even cool, that a kid could honestly think that about himself, live with that, with no one to really talk to.

Does your mutation affect your religious beliefs? Someone asked. A tangent from the thought of demons, probably.

How does a 13 yr old even survive? InvasionOfTheBS typed. I mean, before you found other people. 

Because seriously. Jiri thought of himself at thirteen, and he couldn't picture it. Hell, he thought of himself now at sixteen, and he still couldn't picture it. He wasn't made for life without hot showers, outlets, and wifi. 

Have you ever contacted your parents and let them know you were OK?

Do you know if either of your parents were mutants?

He blinked at the sudden amount of fangirling from the chat room. It seemed like no matter what he did they found it exciting. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. Most people didn't even give him a second glance. At least up until now. His confusion about the whole pairing thing was clear. "Are...are you guys pairing us?" He glanced up at Jiri, then back at the screen, "Why?" The internet was a scary place that he didn't quite understand yet.

At the hair question he tugged on a random strand, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is. Why would I have fake hair?" Weird questions, probably was only going to get weirder.

"My religious views? Yeah, it did. But probably more by circumstance than by the mutation itself. I mean, I used to be fairly religious as a kid. Mostly because everyone around me was, it seemed like the right thing to be. Now though... I can't say heads or tails if I believe anymore. I've been given the 'everything happens for a reason/god has a plan' speech but I don't know if I buy it." He shrugged, finding himself not caring not so much about his own religious stance.

"As for survival, it's the same reason I know so much about genetics. Research, plan, prepare. After that it was a shit ton of luck. Trust me the first month was hell in a hand-basket."

His grip on the pillow tightened on the last two question, "I don't actually know my parents, so I don't know if if either of them were mutants or if they even care about me." It was something he hadn't thought about in a long time. Though perhaps he's been seeking subconsciously for a while.

Shipping, honey. InvasionOfTheBS supplied. It's called shipping, not pairing. Don't worry, I'll teach you allll about teh interwebs...

Because seriously, someone had to. He'd kind of grasped before, when he was getting this chat session set up, that Alex wasn't very tech savvy. But Jiri was starting to feel like he'd dropped a toddler into the deep end. Had his roommate really had any idea what he'd be getting into, when he'd agreed to this? The results were arguably hilarious, and if the people on the other end of the chat were anything like he was, they really were getting a better idea of how human mutants could be, so no harm done. But if Alex wasn't... Alex, then this could have been an utter disaster. 

For himself, Jiri hadn't really paused to reconcile his religion with his mutation. It was still... really new. But the Quran was really specific: "For God says, I created man and jinn for no other purpose than to worship Me only." He'd just always assumed he fell under the "man" heading, but all the same scriptures still applied to jinn, he was pretty sure.

...It might be a good time to find a new mosque, actually. He'd need to figure out if there was one anywhere in this neighborhood.

Huh. Did Christians have jinn?

did you know there's mutants in the Quran? they don't call them mutants but they're totally in there. are there any in the bible or is your church in denial about all that? InvasionOfTheBS asked. He cast a curious look over the computer at the teen. Knowing his new roommate wasn't practicing was good, actually: super religious Christians could get a little uptight when they spotted a prayer rug in their space. Praying at school had always been a weird tango of finding teachers who were cool with kids using their office at lunch time, and avoiding everyone who might be a dick about it. 

He tuned back in to what Alex was saying, and got struck by the mental image of a pre-teen preparing to survive on his own. That... sucked. 

As did the question about his parents, and the way Alex looked when he was answering it.

He opened up a notepad on his phone, and typed a question before holding it up. You want to stop? These guys will probably just get more and more invasive. You don't need to answer the personal stuff if you don't want. Also they'll probably go all day if you let them.

Because the internet had more collective free time than any mere mortal.

Also, they were totally finding out who Alex's parents were. That was just a thing that had to happen, now. Jiri had seen the look on his face; those weren't the eyes of someone who was at peace not knowing.

He was about to answer the question about the Quran and mutant when his roommate asked if he wanted to stop. Part of him felt guilty for cutting this off, a lot of people were liking this and there were more and more questions piling up. But the other part, did want a break, at least take a nap, try to cleanse himself of the negative vibe that has been creeping up on him.

They had hit on a lot of sensitive subjects that he felt compelled to answer. He's never been much of a liar and some part of him was still stuck at thirteen wanting to have someone to talk to. Someone to notice him. Even if that meant sacrificing some of his own comfort for it. Jiri was right though it didn't seem like this was going to end unless he chose to.

"Yeah, you're probably right." He glanced back down at the webcam and smiled a little, "Roommate's enforcing a break time. I probably won't come back any time soon, so I hope you guys liked this weird weird conversation." He looked back up at Jiri, "Uhhh, how do I end the chat thing?"

"You press the red button thing. The one that says 'end call' if you hover your mouse?"

nuuuu don't leave us

thanks for talking this has been pretty cool

good luck man if you need fake witnesses at your trial i'll toots lie for you

get well soon

we totally need more mutants doing this, it's been awesome


The internet continued to say its goodbyes as Jiri wrapped a hand over the webcam, then leaned over to help Alex find the right button.

"Seriously though," he asked, "Does the bible have mutants? That would explain a lot about why people are freaking out in this country, if Christians didn't grow up with this stuff."

He'd been to the middle east a few times with his dad, meeting relatives, getting fawned over by aunts he didn't know. Granted he'd never lived there, but he'd picked up a different vibe towards mutants. More like... cautious respect? Most of the middle east had jinn in their traditions, and a lot of places had still believed in them, really believed. And what were jinn but freaky people with powers that God hadn't granted to man? When mutants became public knowledge, he got the sense that a lot of older Muslims had looked at the west and said the Farsi equivalent of, 'well duh.'

Conversation ended, Alex leaned back and let out a sigh of relief. It had been interesting but he didn't know if it'd be worth it. Thinking on it now, it might have harmed the results of the trial. He didn't know if people had recorded the conversation. What that even possible? Recording a live chat? He shook the worry from his head. It had been a good distraction at the very least.

"I don't really think so? I think there were special prophets and what not imbued with god's power. Like Moses or Samson, but if you weren't part of the religion or didn't do it "for the glory of god" then you were possessed by the devil or just plain evil or a trickster." Hence his initial fear that his mutation had been the devils work and not something inherent to his being.

"Does the Quran really have mutants in it?" Because if so then maybe he should do a little research. Maybe find out how countries with Muslim majorities were handling their mutant populations. If they were handling it better than America, it would say something about the culture at the very least. After all the majority here seemed to think Christianity was the right way to go.

Alex looked a lot more relaxed with the camera off. Jiri didn't begrudge him the continued use of his other pillow. His closed the laptop (because otherwise, he would start browsing somewhere stupid, just out of habit), and sat crossed legged with his own pillow in his lap.

"Yeah, it totally does. They're not called 'mutants,' but I think that's just because we have an older word for it." He scratched at his curls. "Ever hear of the jinn? We've got a lot of traditions about people that have crazy powers. Your bible just says that God created man, right? The Quran says he created man and jinn. They get mentioned a lot, in the same breath. They're not angels or devils or anything, they've got the same freewill we do. They're just... badass. Humans were made of clay, jinn were made of fire. You respect jinn like you respect fire."

He fluffed his pillow a little, then set his elbows on it. "I mean, I haven't talked it over with my imam or anything, but I feel like maybe Muslims have known about mutants for a lot longer than the West. And my dad was pretty chill when we found out about my power. Like, 'Ahhh, that explains it. Want to watch this game with me?' cool. My mom had to yell at him to get him to sit down with us and talk about it. I think she thought he was repressing some deep emotion, but he seemed confused by how worked up she was."

He listened intently, finding the concept of jinn being a think some how comforting. Like he wasn't just a freak of nature, just something that's occurred for thousands of years along side humans. It must have been nice to face his parents, reassured with the idea that he just came from a different source. He wondered if he'd ever get to meet Jiri's parents. Would they freak out if they knew what he did? Did they already see the video? That was a worrying thought.

"So jinn are just people? Not specially chosen or anything. But just people who happen to have powers?" He smiled at the thought, "It must be nice..." If he had grown up in a Muslim house hold, would he have come forward with his powers sooner? Would he feel unafraid of what he was?

"So they were fine with it? No exorcisms or talks with a priest or confinement to your room or anything?" These were all things he had feared, punishment, scare tactics, keeping him away from the other children, abandonment into a system that might not care for him. There had been no love for mutants in that small town, he was isolated from anyone who might understand.

He couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. Jiri had what he's always wanted, family, safety, love. He wondered if Jiri knew just how good he had it, how lucky he was to have a family that understood and cared and wanted the best for him. And then he immediately felt guilty for those thoughts. The other teen had no control over his situation, they were both raised up by circumstances brought on by other people.