A casual 10k? It really hadn’t looked all that casual the previous lap when he was trying to keep up with her.

”Sure he can, nothing against that,” Lee answered with a shrug. ”Just don’t normally see someone doing that at midnight, that’s all.”

The man continued more seriously. And very…carefully spoken in how he chose to explain himself. Insomnia, but only kinda, because of a ‘condition’ that exercise helped with. It all sounded rather familiar.

Now that she was actually able to see him, Lee noticed that the man she was jogging with was a fair bit younger than her. Back when she was around how old she guessed he was, Lee also had the frequent tendency to choose her words extremely carefully to explain things while not exposing her own ‘condition’.

Then again, the Mutant Registration Act had been in force at the time.

”How 'bout you?"

”Insomnia as well,” Lee admitted. Which was technically true. When she had this much energy, Lee could not sleep. Not unless she crashed, but thankfully that hadn’t happened in years. But Lee also just was not tired when she had energy like this.

”Running is the only reliable thing I’ve found to help with that,” she continued. ”So I either run or I give up the idea of sleeping that night.”

“And no, nothing like that,” Lee continued. ”Simply because of the insomnia. Probably similar to your ‘condition’.”

Will, admittedly, hadn't been affected by the Mutant Registration Act. Luckily, he'd been a country away and a fair bit too young for his powers to have yet manifested besides. One would think having avoided the dangers of an oppressive act like that, and knowing that something like that had been pushed back and ruled against would make someone a bit less guarded when it came to secrets of a particular nature.

But it's funny what your formative years can do. 

He'd moved to NYC, and only been there a few weeks before his powers activated in a way that made it blatantly clear to him who and what he was. It was also only a few months before a particular event caused relations between mutants and humans to rise. Police brutality against a mutant, blatant as can be, and the fans flamed all the worse when those officers were allowed to walk off scot-free. Even people who only vaguely followed the news were aware of how that ended, in what was now referred to as a week long riot.

So that had been Will's introduction to his new city, new country and new identity. Sitting in a school full of tense and scared teenagers, some trying to be edgy, others simply caught up in the drama of the event. He'd been unable to get away from the groups of students joking that people had been right in 2007, or from the words of those who'd said it less jokingly. He couldn't stop hearing the videos of the brutal attack as people shared them over and over, in the hallways and lunch rooms. He'd been unable to keep himself from overhearing the awful things people said aloud, and the worse things people said under their breath.

Will saw bullying for those who had been open about being mutants, or couldn't hide it, grow worse and worse. They banded together, or fought back, but eventually most of them stopped coming to school entirely, one after the other. 

Will learned from that year, very thoroughly, that being a mutant meant being a target.

And sure, once things blew over, things slowly went back to normal. But if he'd shared who he was, what he was... Who's to say how things could have gone? And who's to say another spark wouldn't set things off again?

”...Probably similar to your ‘condition’.”


Will met Lee's gaze as she repeated the word back. 'Condition'. No inquiry to what it was that afflicted him, just an acknowledgement and response that she was dealing with something similar. The man searched for words for a few moments before coming up empty and instead just gave Lee a nod of understanding, turning back to face the path ahead of them.

Will jogged with her in relative silence for a a long few seconds before he spoke up again, not turning to face Lee this time, keeping his head forward. "Well, s'nice to meet someone else who gets it..." He said simply, letting along long pause stretch out as their feet beat a rhythm against the path in tandem. 

"Does it get any easier?" Will asked, tentatively looking to Lee over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, a curious, hopeful expression cracking through the careful mask of indifference he'd been wearing. "'cause it's always felt like getting dealt a shit hand, y'know?"

It was probably an unfair question, but it wasn't one he'd really ever expected to get the opportunity to ask, and so he asked nonetheless, waiting for the answer with anticipation.

The man was quite silent after Lee said that she had a similar ‘condition’. That really just confirmed Lee’s suspicions.

Then he asked if things got better.

Lee took a deep breath as she thought about how to answer that question. It was difficult, because the answer really depended on how you looked at things.

Looking over at him, Lee saw a bit of a hopeful expression on his face. ”In a lot of ways, yes,” Lee confirmed. ”It does get easier. And over all, the world is getting better. But as my son recently found out, there’s always going to be bigots.”

Unfortunately, Lee didn’t think that part was ever going to go away. There were always going to be bigots. But things could be done to limit their power, limit how much they felt they could actually spew their hatred in public.

”It really is still a shit hand to be dealt in a lot of ways, but your frame of mind and what you decide to do with what you’ve been given can go a long way.”

Will needed a few seconds to think about Lee's answer. She didn't promise that things would be sunshine and rainbows, no reassurances that everything would be perfect. Just that things did get easier. That step by step, the world was getting better, more accepting. At least overall. But there were still bigots out there. Still senseless hatred. And that it'd ultimately be on Will if he was going to do anything to do with the metaphorical cards he'd been dealt, or just let things remain.

Choosing to do nothing, after all, was still a choice.

Will wasn't sure what he had expected to hear. Maybe nothing, which would have been easy. Maybe some saccharine sweet, idealistic spiel, which he could have scoffed at and ignored. But he hadn't expected something quite so... earnest? Real? Will wasn't quite sure the proper word, but it was clear what Lee was saying wasn't just to humor him or some shallow, thoughtless response.

Will watched Lee out of the corner of his eye as he mulled over the words she'd said. She'd spoken about her son and it was only with that, that he'd realized she probably had a few years on him. If that were the case, she'd probably been through some of the worst persecution mutants had had to face, with the Mutant Registration Law. That added a extra weight to her words. He knew about it of course, taught in social studies and law while he was in school, but the details were sanitized, the phrasing neutral and passive, as though it were just a thing that happened rather than a thing that had been done.

"Yeah." Will finally answered, agreeing with her assessment, turning to face Lee again. "Bad hand is still a hand, right? Doin' nothing with it's not the best choice I guess..." There was another pause before Will shook his head as he spoke up again. "Sorry. That was weird of me to ask." He apologized, hesitating briefly before continuing, pushing past the urge to stop talking about this part of himself, to bury his head in the sand. "What, uh... What gave it away?"

He was silent for quite a while after she gave her answer as they jogged. It made sense; if she had assumed correctly, her answer would give the man quite a bit to think about. If Lee was wrong, well what she had told him would probably be confusing.

The longer that it took for him to respond, the more likely it was Lee figured she was right. If he was confused by something she said, he would have asked about it by now, or told her to get lost, or any one of a number of things other than continuing to jog beside her in silence.

Finally, he broke the silence, and Lee shook her head as she looked over at him. ”No. Sometimes doing nothing is the only thing you can do,” Lee informed him. ”Sometimes you get thrown into a completely different game with that bad you’ve been dealt, and the only thing you can try and do is survive till the end.”

Lee looked forward again and gave a little shrug before continuing in a lighter voice. ”And then there are other times when you do have a choice. Times where you can again choose to do nothing, or you can choose to take the crappy hand you’ve been dealt and turn it into something good. Something that can make the world better.”

Again, Lee let the night descend into silence so that he could think about what she had said. Even if he didn’t think about it too deeply, there was still a lot to unpack there. So Lee gave him the time to do so.

"What, uh... What gave it away?"

Lee looked back over at him and laughed softly. ”Don’t worry, it wasn’t all so obvious that anyone and everyone would know,” she told him. ”I had suspicions with just how carefully you were picking your words when talking about your ‘condition’ because I used to do the same. But then, as I came around this time, I noticed that you were already looking back to me the moment I was able to see you. And I know that I am not loud enough for human senses to have heard me already.”

She sounded like she was speaking from experience. Will listened closely as Lee spoke, as she explained that sometimes nothing wasn't just a choice, but the only option, to do nothing and grit your teeth and try to survive. He listened as she went on to say that other times you do have choice though, to try and make something, rather than nothing from the situation you were in. Maybe make things better for yourself, or even for more than yourself. 

Will wasn't nearly familiar enough with Lee to pick up on any real nuances of the way she spoke. But none of what she said sounded condescending, nor did any of it strike him as hollow platitudes. It was earnest and direct. And he guess probably learned from personal experience. In any case, it was a lot to absorb, even if the words were simple. 

Will nodded as Lee replied to his question, seeming to understand that Lee had simply managed to pick up on what he had been implying with his choice of words, maybe because she'd been through a similar head space herself. However he grimaced in an expression of embarrassment when Lee mentioned he'd given himself away, at least somewhat, by reacting to her before he should have been able to if he were an ordinary human. Whoops. 

"Ah." Will said his voice going flat with realization, and he cast a look over his shoulder. He squinted into the dark, trying to mentally calculate about how far back Lee had been when he'd first heard her as she came along the path this time. Huh. Actually... Now that she'd pointed it out that was pretty far back, wasn't it? 

"Yeah... Good ears, y'know?" Will turned back to Lee, still looking embarrassed, though the grimace had been replaced with a conspiratorial smirk. "Hard to remember what I'm supposed to notice sometimes." 
The smirk on his slipped a bit, Will's expression going from mildly amused at his mistake, back to thoughtful as he spoke with Lee again. "It's Will, by the way." He said to her, introducing himself simply. "And, thanks. You didn't have to..." Will trailed off, gesturing vaguely about him, as though to indicate the night in general thus far. Running with him, speaking with him... they had, after all been, complete strangers until about an hour ago. 

The man was silent not only while Lee was talking, but for a while after she had finished speaking as they continued to jog along. And Lee didn’t know what his situation at the moment was. Maybe he was in survival mode and that was all he was capable of doing right now.

Lee knew that she was in no position to judge. She could only offer help when and where she could. But survival mode was nothing to judge harshly, anyway. Too many people were stuck in survival mode especially when it came to mutants in New York.

And she had been right that he had heard her before he should have been able to. At least that made sense.

Then he introduced himself and Lee gave him a friendly smile. ”I’m Lee. And I knew you were up ahead of me before I could see you, which is how I knew you were looking back before you should have heard me,” Lee explained. ”Well, not you specifically. But I knew that someone was up ahead of me.”

As he thanked her, saying that she didn’t have to do all this, Lee waved it off. ”Like I said, Will. It’s not every day someone tries to keep up with me while I’m out running like this. You piqued my curiosity, and I have the time tonight that I could figure it out.”

So Lee had known he was there before she could see him? At least that explained why he'd been caught out so easily. Will couldn't help but idly wonder exactly what the trick was, but even without knowing it it added to the unexpected kernel of kinship he found himself more and more aware of. Odd senses and insomnia and late night runs were a strange group of things to be able to bond about, but certainly there'd been stranger things had connected people. 

"Yeah, don't think I'll be tryin' that again..." Will gave a breathless laugh at the idea of trying to keep pace with Lee again, his tone good natured as he returned a smile. He shook his head in amusement as he pushed his increasingly heavy feeling legs and feet forward. "Glad I could make your run interestin' at least." 

Lee wasn't, of course, the first mutant Will had ever spoken with. Plenty of mutants in NYC who couldn't or wouldn't hide themselves. She was though, the first person he'd been so candid with in regards to his own status, even if he shrouded his words to give him an easy scapegoat. Why was that? Will could only guess at first, there'd been the safety of anonymity and after that, an unusual amount of similarities to share.

Will couldn't help but mull over the things she'd said, even as he made light about his attempts to match her run earlier. Was he hiding and doing nothing because he had to? Or had it just become habit? He shook himself mentally before he could fall into another quiet funk, instead changing the topic.

"So, your insomnia..?" Will spoke, a little hesitantly, sounding unsure if he was being tactless or not by asking Lee about it. "How's that work for you? Have to come on these runs often?" 

Lee laughed with Will when he commented that he wouldn’t be trying to keep up with her again. ”I do appreciate it. Running gets a little tedious after a couple of hours, even when I’ve got music to listen to,” she told Will.

It really did, that time that Lee ran between the 2 and 3 hour mark out in the park really did seem to drag. At that point, she just wanted to go back home, but she still had too much energy to be sure that she could fall asleep. And if she went home after running but was unable to sleep, really, it made the run completely pointless.

”So, your insomnia..?"

Lee sighed. That was a very complex answer. Because there were so many things that affected when she needed to run.

”Sometimes I need to run a lot,” Lee admitted as she glanced over at Will. ”Though I didn’t really need to run at all for most of the last 6 years.”

Lee paused as they ran, contemplating how much she was wanting to disclose. Though basics wouldn’t hurt, and he already knew that she could sense people she couldn’t see.

”When I’ve got excess energy, like tonight after being at the airport, I cannot sleep because I’ve got far too much energy to be tired. But when this is the case, it normally takes a lot of running to get rid of that amount of energy.”

Will gave Lee a look of mild surprise which quickly shifted into an 'ah-ha' expression of understanding as she explained her particular relationship with insomnia. She had too much energy to even feel tired. It certainly explained why Lee seemed so utterly indefatigable, even after fully lapping him in addition to whatever running she'd gotten in before. 

He felt a brief twinge of jealousy, the idea of just being able to not be tired, to just not worry about fatigue after a bad night's sleep or when trying to push through an extra long shift sounded incredibly appealing. But that just as quickly faded, realizing her situation wasn't all that different from his own. Eerily similar in some ways. No doubt that while there were people who'd want the ability to never feel tired, there would be plenty of people who'd love to have sharper eyes or superhuman hearing as well... provided you had some way to shut it either ability off at the end of the day. 

The idea of just not being able to sleep, of laying awake, eyes closed, no matter how hard you tried or how long you'd been awake was... unsettling. Will could at least, eventually, fall asleep. Going long enough without sleep, exhaustion would build and build, and it meant that regardless of how loud or bright the world was around him, he'd eventually pass out -- even if it took a couple days.

But it sounded like things had gotten better for Lee in the last few years. But apparently whatever it was wasn't quite perfect. Airports were an issue? It seemed an odd thing to trigger insomnia, and he struggled to draw the connections. 

"Hmm." Will mumbled a small sound of acknowledgement before responding further. "Lots of all-nighters before that, then." His words came out sounding as much like a statement than a question.

Will hesitated only a moment after that comment as he considered whether to hold his tongue or share his own struggles with insomnia but found himself speaking up before he could convince himself otherwise. After all, how likely was he going to run into someone who could really empathize with his situation?

"Senses." Will said simply, tapping his ear with a finger as though to emphasize his point. "Everything gets louder and brighter and..." He paused briefly, trying to find the proper words. "Too much. Like tryin' to sleep through a concert." 

”I’ve definitely had times over the years where I swear I spent more nights wide awake than sleeping,” Lee replied as she glanced over at Will. She could tell that he was thinking about the lack of tiredness even if he obviously didn’t understand the nuances to her sleeplessness since she hadn’t told him, the downsides to it. ”But then there are times, like the last 6 years, where I slept just about every single night because I had no reasons to have that excess energy.”

Just as there were times when she had physically crashed far more often than she should have. Or times, like now, when other than the odd time at the bar or going to the airport tonight, when she shouldn’t have to run or have all-nighters, but she didn’t always remember to turn her siphoning off when she should.

Lee was looking over at Will when she saw him tap his ear. Senses? So he had more than just an increased sense of hearing, and all of that is what kept him awake.

Lee nodded in understanding, a slight frown on her face. ”And there’s just so much,” she said after a few moments. ”There’s so much going on that it’s overwhelming and it’s hard to pay attention to anything else. You can’t ignore it, but at the same time it’s almost impossible to focus on just one part of it.

“That’s what the airport was like, with all the energy everywhere because of all of the people around.”

”There’s so much going on that it’s overwhelming and it’s hard to pay attention to anything else. You can’t ignore it, but at the same time it’s almost impossible to focus on just one part of it."

It was a bizarre sort of relief to hear someone put it so succinctly and so accurately. A little like finding someone who spoke your language, when you were sure you were the only one who did. Will wasn't sure if he would have been able to put it into words quite that well himself, even with it plaguing him for more than the last decade.

Looking over at Lee, Will held up a hand as he slowed from the easy jog to a walk and then to a stop. It would have been tricky enough trying to keep focused on the conversation and pay it the proper heed if they were sat down comfortably and talking, let alone jogging through Central Park in the middle of the night. Even without the additional strain of the conversation, Will wasn't able to keep up the pace for much longer anyway, his legs and lungs aching. 

Will nodded at Lee as he took a few deep gulps of air, hunched over slightly as he caught his breath. "Yeah." he said, speaking quietly enough it was almost masked by his breathing.

Straightening up, Will met Lee's gaze again, finding his voice again as he spoke up. "Yeah. That's it exactly." the man gave her a grateful smile for being able to explain, to put into words, to understand his situation. 

As Lee described the energy from the people in the airport, her emphasis on the word 'everywhere' made him wince in sympathy. While he couldn't guess exactly what Lee dealt with, it seemed like there were enough parallels between them that he could guess at the discomfort that would cause. The noise and movements and smells of hundreds of tired, rushed people would be a nightmare for him. It sounded like having that many people around was a bit of a hassle for her in a similar way. 

"Sounds like crowds aren't really your thing then..?" Will half asked, half joked, a small smirk on his face as he attempted a bit of humor. 

Will raised his hand, then slowed down to a walk before coming to a complete stop, and Lee followed suit, coming to a stop on the path as well. And as Lee watched Will catch his breath, she couldn’t help but think that he understood what she had said, that it had struck a chord.

It was always strange when someone understood something about your powers that was so different from most others’ experience, something you’d never really been able to explain properly before

It had been that way for Lee with Kealey with how it felt to step into an adapted’s field in the middle of a crowded bar. Even if Kealey had had very different thoughts and feelings about that than Lee did. It had also been that way with Tarin when he said he understood what she meant about turning off her siphoning in a crowd after she had never been able to adequately describe her siphoning to anyone else in her entire life.

Lee’s thought was finally confirmed once Will had caught his breath and said that what she had said was exactly what his enhanced senses were like when he was unable to sleep. Though Lee did wonder if it was actually all the time, but was just a lot harder to deal with when he was suffering from his form of insomnia.

”Actually, crowds have been an absolute necessity for most of my life,” Lee admitted. ”That’s what got me to head to Toronto when I first left home, and then came to New York. No shortage of people.”

”I need the energy that I get from people. But the airport is just excessive, especially since I’ve never actually found a point where I’ve hit a ‘maximum amount’ of energy.”

So Lee had lived in Toronto as well? This encounter seemed to be becoming stranger and stranger. Will idly wondered if the two of them had ever crossed paths, years ago, without ever knowing. It was probably impossible to say.

"That's funny." Will grinned at the fact that they'd both taken similar paths in where they'd lived previously, as well as their struggles with their powers. "Moved here from Toronto myself. Small world, huh?" 

Will considered what Lee said as she explained more about her own powers. She needed energy from people. But not too much. And she never seemed to cap out, that there never seemed to be an upper limit.

The first parts were interesting. It almost sounded like she was the literal embodiment of an extrovert in some twisted way. Literally getting energy from people -- but in some way that she couldn't control? Or was hard to control, at least. Will didn't entirely understand, but it was enough to give him a general sense. Too many, or too few people was bad for Lee. 

"Sounds complicated." Will said, idly wondering how she juggled that sort of thing, to be able to find the goldilocks zone. He could only guess that something happened 6 years ago to make things a lot easier for Lee. 

That last part she spoke about however, about having no point she seemed to max out at, he could relate to. 

"I get what you mean there, well... I think so anyway." Will commented on Lee's reference to her seeming to have no maximum. "Feel like a battery charged to 200% and still climbing some days. No matter what I do, can't seem to turn it off, can't turn myself down." He shook his head in a bit of frustrated disbelief. "It's like I got handed a set of controls for everyone but me."

Lee looked over at Will when he said that he had also moved to New York from Toronto. Not that coming to New York was unusual, especially not for mutants. But it did seem a little coincidental that they had both come from Toronto when they randomly ran into each other in the Park like they had.

Though, Toronto was a city of a few million people itself, adding another few million if you’re talking about the whole GTA. While most of Toronto felt nowhere near as big or crowded as New York, it was still a lot of people.

”When did you come to New York?” Lee ended up asking. If he was here during the Registration Act, that might explain why he was so hesitant to share the fact that he was a mutant. Though a lot of time had passed since then. Even she had gotten past all of that. Mostly.

But it had been years ago, and Lee wasn’t sure Will was even old enough to have had his powers back then.

”Sounds complicated."

Lee shrugged slightly. ”It can be,” Lee admitted. I’ve gotten fairly good at managing it. Well, most of the time. And while it's basically second nature now, I've recently been reminded repeatedly that it's a lot I need to constantly worry about.” [/font]

Will told her that he often felt like he was ‘overcharged’, and Lee frowned slightly. ”How do you get that energy?” Lee asked.