((OOC: Attn: Rupert, long title, wouldn't fit))

New Years resolutions. Foolish things really, made on the spur of the moment, and yet she always felt so guilty if she didn't go through with them. At least for the first few weeks. She stared at the little tag on the key for the umpteenth time and then at the apartment door before her. She could have just left it in the letter flap, she supposed, but what if this 'R. Kelly' had a child or a-

'Yip yip yip yiiiiiiiiiiiiip'

-small dog? Snuffles around the base of the door preceded a whine. Now she had to go through with it. The thought that a puppy, or something-owning-such-a-pathetic-bark-it-had-to-be-little, could choke to death just because she was chicken was Not Good.

Being Not Good meant that, no matter the glares or awkward conversations, no matter the mumbled apologies or frantic waving of hands trying to translate 'not a thief' into a foreign tongue, no matter how she had been treated for returning keys to owners in the last few day, she would knock and try to explain.

Her hand was firm, her grip on the jumble of keys loose, her forefinger and thumb holding the labeled key tightly. If this 'R. Kelly' was not home then she would move onto the next labeled key. "峠 back door" She was fairly sure she knew of a little Japanese place that had squiggles like that over the door. She had stolen food from their dumpster often enough. Good food it was too.

-Tap, tap, tappity tap-

The secret knock used between herself and James before she moved. A twinge of regret mixed with loneliness coloured her face. Her new friends were all well and good, but she did still miss James on occasion. What was three years without contact between friends? Lonely, that's what.

((OOC: Kanji= mountain pass according to Wikipedia))

Yip!

Tap tap tappity tap

Yip, yippy yip!

‘Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me
for me
for—’

Yip! Yipyipyip—!

CRASH

whine

The loud music cut off, to the sound of good-natured cursing and the little dog’s continued barks. A few moments later, a man dressed in clean black sweat pants and an arguably clean Ziggy Stardust tour shirt stumbled his way to the door. The little poodle mutt barked and whined, trying to wiggle her way through the bars of his legs to greet their visitor. The man leaned heavily on the door frame, blinking. There was a glass in his hand. Empty. He didn’t seem to remember he was holding it.

Behind him, back in the apartment, a coffee table was overturned: testament to what happens when an excited poodle interferes with a man’s balance. The whiskey bottle, capped, lay next to it. Half-full? Half-empty? Half-who-give’s-a-rat’s-ass? Yeah. That last one. He didn’t usually drink whiskey—he didn’t usually drink alone—but a certain brat had given him a Christmas present, and he’d be rude not to.. not to... to properly appreciate it. To the very last drop.

The man focused muddy hazel eyes and an unusually amiable smile on the young woman at his doorstep. Or dusty welcome mat: whichever.

“What can I help you with, Miss?” He asked with unusual politeness. Plus or minus a few slurred syllables.

The sudden quiet- noticeable now the music she had dismissed as background noise and therefore ignored was switched off- was punctuated fiercely by curses. Loud curses. Loud angry curses and crashes. She winced and prepared herself for profuse apologies when the door opened. Maybe she had interrupted something important, or significant, or, or, or, intoxicating?

Verdy was no expert when it came to alcohol- not to say she was a stranger, but there's only so many drinks one can get for batting ones eyelids before having to go further, besides hangovers in alleys or under park benches, alone, was no fun at all- but even her untrained nose could smell the alcohol on the man. More so when he opened his mouth.

~“What can I help you with, Miss?”

She blinked, once, twice, then her brain caught up and fingers started frantically winding the key around and around, trying to untangle it from the dizzy mess of keys and key ring to give it to the man. The dog bounced happily, amused it would seem by her sudden possession of multiple thumbs, all of them left handed. Thumbed. Whatever.

"I uh, I found this." Fingers (Thumbs) grasped the loose key tight with success and offered it to the man, little tag swinging its approval at being free of the masses. "I think it's yours, I uh, kinda resolved to return it." She remembered her manners and decided better late than never. "Also, Hi, and Happy New Year. Um, yeah."

Resolved to return it and the dozens of others, to be precise, not all of them on this keyring either. No, these were just the easy ones, with tags or labels or little stickers with names, addresses, words. Words were easier to work with than nothing. If she had have started returning them as soon as she found them then she would only have had to check the doors in that area. As it was she now had to try and figure out where, when and how to find and explain to residents the fact that she was in possession of their spare key, often kept somewhere safe and secret.

She looked down at the little dog and a nervous smile flickered across her face, her peripherals still trained on the man, ready to dodge anything he could throw at her, including the glass clutched firmly in his grasp. Surprisingly firm really, considering how he leaned against the door frame and the fact that 'what' and 'with' came out something along the lines of 'whud' and 'wid', but no matter. The dog acted like she, or he, had not seen another set of petting hands in a very long time. Verdy felt a little like a huge vacuum was dragging her forward. Damn the power of puppy eyes.

"Hello."

Nothing quite like a dose of direct attention to distract small and fluffy from making herself, or himself, as cute as possible.

>> "I uh, I found this. I think it's yours, I uh, kinda resolved to return it. Also, Hi, and Happy New Year. Um, yeah."

Rupert took the key back, hooking it with one finger so it clicked up against his empty cup. His other hand was still wrapped around the doorknob. That made it too busy to hold anything. “Oh hey, my key. I thought someone stole it. Happy New Year to you, too!” He flashed a smile, then straightened his lips out, and tried it again: smile. That felt weird. Like fighting against creases in leather. Which was silly. It wasn’t like he frowned that much.

She went for his poodle. He shuffled his legs, giving the poodle room to squeeze forward to meet her.

>> "Hello."

Yip whine jump!

Hand and face licking would follow, if the girl wasn’t careful. But what was he doing, standing here like a lump? He had a guest. His hand—the one with the key and the cup—went out to try hooking around her elbow. If he didn’t miss, she’d find herself getting dragged inside.

“Come in, come in. Let’s get you something to eat. I have muffins. You like muffins? Think I’ve got some cake, too. And candy.”

A drunk man with candy. This could only end well.

Small and fluffy leapt out from behind the man's legs as Verdy crouched down to look at her. The flying ball of fur leapt upon her and smothered her in frantic licking. Perhaps she tasted like bacon. Whatever the reason, she spluttered and coughed like any smart human, keeping dog slobber out of her mouth.

Her whole face crumpled up in a grimance, her eyes shut and she didn't see the hand grasping for her elbow. While she was still occuppied with the frantic pink tongue she felt a tugging on her elbow. Standing with a wobble, blinking the crazy blinks of one assaulted by a dog-tongue, she followed- well, was dragged by- the man into the apartment. What a nice man, offering her muffins, and cake.

~"And candy."

Twitch. Candy. The food offered by kidnappers everywhere. A pause, fluffy one clasped firmly in her arms, out of licking reach, but still soft and cuddly. Ah well, she was a big girl now. Besides, she always had an active X-gene to fall back on, right.

"Muffins, sound great."

She smiled a little at the man and stared around the apartment. A half full (/empty) bottle of questionable substance was laying on the floor. At least that explained the faint, well not so faint, smell of alcohol that lingered on the man. Hey, it was a new year. Who was she to judge.

"I'm Verdigris, by the way."

Yes. Because knowing the name of the teenager you just invited into your house was always a plus. Especially when she stole your spare key...

Riiight.

Rupert closed—and locked—the door behind them. This was New York City, after all. It wasn’t safe to trust any old stranger wandering in from the hallway. Strangers with keys to his apartment, on the other hand... The logic trailed off in his head, a little too complex for him to handle, right now.

“Sit, sit!” He suggested (read: insisted), dragging her over to his couch. It was a good couch. Dark blue. Overstuffed cushions. Women before her (and a bratty teenage lesbian crossdresser) had found it quite satisfactory, for a quick sit-down, a night’s sleep, or a night’s—well, you don’t say that in front of minors.

With cheerful stumbling, he managed to get the upended coffee table back on its feet, and the questionable substance’s bottle back on top of it. No, that wasn’t right. Back in his hand. He set his cup and his key down, and let that square bottle neck come home to his palm.

“Sit!” He repeated amiably, whether or not she was seated already, before teetering off to the kitchen. He returned with a new glass, and a plate of muffins. Blueberry, chocolate chip, raspberry, and lemon poppy seed. They had the small size and bright grocery store paper wrappers that marked them as home-made, but they’d taste quite professional. Bake sale professional, in any case. Rupert baked. For church.

He set the new cup next to his own, uncapped the whiskey bottle, and poured some questionable substances for a questionable legal girl. Once it was brimming, Rupert tried to force the cup into her hands.

“Drink up! More where that came from.”

He dropped his rear onto the other end of the couch, and scooped up his own cup. In a swallow, it was half-way gone again. Like magic, kids. He stared at the glass for a moment, then refocused on the girl.

“So. Verdegrass. I’m Rupert. That’s Flipsy.” He pointed a whiskey cup at the wiggling poodle, who would be equally interested in licking the girl as she’d be in stealing the girl’s muffins. His face visibly screwed up as he looked for a conversation topic.

As conversation topics go, there was always one at the top of Rupert’s mind.

His face relaxed into a smile again as he found it. Yeah, that was a good one. Good for humanly bonding. “So what’da you think about mutants? God, I hate them.” Oops. Blasphemy. He tipped his cup up to the ceiling. “Sorry, Lord.” And while it was up there... he tipped it back, and downed the rest. His hand went for the bottle.

Next.

The lock snapped shut with a click of finality, but Verdigris was far too occupied with the squirming ball of yippy dog to worry about all the things that could mean. Having a place to stay and regular meals had made her a little lazy. For shame. She put the dog down on the floor gently and endured both frantic knee-jumping and dragging before she was commanded to sit. She was good at taking orders.

She sat.

The man struggled the overturned coffee table in front of her back so that the feet were down and the top was up. The way it should be. He picked up the bottle- whiskey, she observed- and placed his glass and the key on top of the table. It was a little crooked and she leant forward, about to stand and move it so it was straight.

~”Sit!”

She dropped back fully onto the couch- the nice, squishy, comfy couch- and waited politely. The little dog, holding still enough for Verdigris to determine that it was some kind of lap-dog, paused, aimed, leapt her way onto her rightful place atop the visitors lap. Verdigris patted the dog and was rewarded by renewed licking with the added bonus of being thumped repeatedly with the tail as well.

Glancing up from her position of throne to the mutt she smiled as the man returned bearing muffins. Many, many muffins. Also a glass. Eyeing the glass she picked up a muffin from the plate and unwrapped it delicately. Mmm, chocolate chip. Small and fluffy whined and tried out that fail proof face all dogs seem to possess. Verdy ignored her. Chocolate was bad for dogs, and no matter the face, Verdy would not send the little one packing off to the vet, just because she pulled a longing face. A very longing face. A face that just screamed ‘I haven’t been fed in weeks.’

Thank goodness for distractions. A glass, brimming with whiskey was pressed into her hand and the temptation to give in to the little one was thwarted.

~ “Drink up! More where that came from.”

Verdigris glanced at the man and shrugged. There was no harm in having a little to drink surely, she had drank before, although not regularly enough to have any kind of stamina against it. Turning her attention to the little dog she looked into the deep sad eyes. She would not have the man decide suddenly she was far too young and boot her out.

With a wince she gulped a swallow of the fiery courage. Cough. Splutter. Compose. She picked up another muffin, tinged with pink and nibbled it to stall. Raspberry, delicious. Rupert started with ‘R’, so it would seem she had come to the right place. She gave a grin, small and fluffy had a name as well.

“Pleased to meet you.”

She didn’t bother to say anything about the way he pronounced her name, it was a tricky one, to be sure. Although nothing on the names some of her primary school classmates sported. She looked at the man on the end of the couch and tried to guess how old he might be. Thirty? Fourty? Probably somewhere in between, although the contrast in ages between his smiling face and his frowning face, the one he was wearing right now, was several years at least.

~“So what’da you think about mutants? God, I hate them… Sorry, Lord.”

Her fingers tightened around her glass and she gave a respectful nod heavenward before tipping another swallow of the burning drink into her mouth. An enthusiastic Flispy seized the moment, and the half eaten muffin, with a yip of approval and retired under the couch to gnaw triumphantly. Verdigris grimaced an apology. Now, how to handle a possibly awkward and very debated question.

“Truthfully, I feel a bit sorry for them. I mean one day you’re minding your own business, the next a pair of wings pop out of your back, or you turn into a fish or something. That’s tough stuff, then you have to explain to your parents and friends and everyone. You might have to drop out of school, or even run away.”

Pause, swig, cough, continue.

“I think that a lot of the time all of them are judged just because of the action of a few. I know some of them do bad things, hell-” pause, wince apologetically at the ceiling “-one killed my brother’s best friend, but everyone deserves a clean slate to start off with. Just because some people have a funky gene, doesn’t really make any difference to who they are.”

Rant over. She blinked at the man, for a while she had been justifying herself to her parents, to James, to the world. She was not a bad person, there was no reason for her to be treated as such. She swallowed again, the glass empty but for a trickle at the bottom. She glared at it, stupid drink, making her rant.

“Sorry, I swear I’m a redhead, give me a drink and I’ll get all fired up over nothing.”

Nothing, is that what she was? The trickle followed its friends down her throat and she set the glass down on the table and picked up another muffin. The flecks in it were much too small to be choc chips and it had a citrus-y kind of flavour. It was nice.

Wow. She had opinions. Had he been looking for opinions, when he’d said that? Not really. Simple agreement would have been nice. But they had a conversation going (or at least the first rounds of it), so who was he to complain?

Speaking of first rounds: he leaned forward, and topped both their cups off. Round two.

“Sure, they start out normal,” Rupert said, pacing himself with a mere sip. (It was hard for a man to keep talking, if he took a time-out to down a whole glass.) “It’s what they do after they get their powers that gets to me, though. It’s like... it’s like...”

He reached out a hand, and patted the thieving poodle on the back as she disappeared with her prize.

“It’s like the law just doesn’t apply to them, you know? Like that one that killed your brother’s friend—sorry to hear that—but did he ever go to jail for it? Even if it was an accident—did he even stop to talk to the police? Or did he just ditch the body and run?”

Anther swallow. Longer. “I’ve had mutants stab me, trash my car, stab me some more, kill my friends, my coworkers, tear up my city, brawl in my streets, break into my bathroom, forget to say ‘thank you’ when I cook them a damn good breakfast, and...” He’d gotten lost in that train of thought, somewhere. “The point is: mutants and humans are both piss-awful people. But humans do their time for it. Mutants seem damn offended at the thought that their precious power ‘mistakes’ are something... are something they should be held accountable for, you know? I mean, if I go out driving right now and run over a kid on accident, it’d be this—this fine whiskey talking, not me. But I’d still go to jail. ‘N’ that—that’d be the right thing, right? Some mutant burns the kid to death, or drops a building on their head? Damned if they’d take responsibility.”

“The way I look at it, mutants are just humans on a damn power trip.” He looked at the bottom of his cup. Huh. Didn’t remember finishing that, per se. Oh, well. He had to hand it to Gawain—the kid had good taste. Which was something they needed to have... have a talk about. Yeah. Punk that young, he—she—shouldn’t have good taste.

She watched as he tipped the bottle into her glass, would it be wise to drink in the apartment of a man who hated her kind? She silently hoped this drunk, stubborn man was not what her brother grew up to be. Minus the poodle, she could handle that. She listened in silence as he ranted, he didn’t seem angry, not really, more put out and a little hurt.

Sipping her drink quietly throughout his rant, and at some stage plucking another muffin from the pile and nibbling it, her slightly drink addled mind came to a conclusion. He deserved to know the truth. After all, this was her friend. Her drinking buddy. Her pal who made her muffins. She structured her reply thoughtfully as he spoke and spoke. Occasionally nodding throughout her rant.

“I think he spent time in Juvi… He was only in grade six when it happened, top of the class too.” Pause, inhale. “Since I’ve lived in this city I’ve been beaten up twice, kicked in my sleep many times, spat on and group chased, not once by a mutant.” She shrugged, fairs fair. “No one is born bad, some people are just that, bad people whether they shoot you with a gun or slash you with talons it’s the same thing. Just different ways.”

She pondered the best way to answer his final jab. In no way did she condone DUI, in fact the thought of it scared her, so finding a suitable explanation about the way it worked was tricky. The fact that she had skipped lunch and that the two glasses of whiskey were alone in her stomach except for the muffins didn’t help.

“If someone is driving and they have a medical condition, they have a fit while behind the wheel and hit someone. When they go to court there are special exceptions made for them because, genetically, they can’t help what happened. True, they still get in trouble, but the court takes pity on them. Until there is a way to determine what is ‘oops, I kinda burned you’ and ‘haha, you’re on fire now’ there’s no way for them to determine who goes to prison and who get bail. No wonder they’re scared.”

He had had a lot of bad experiences with mutants, and –maybe because of that, maybe not- he was stubborn in his hatred for them. High-ho drinking mateship, the spawner of truth.

“You’ve had mutants do a lot of bad things to you, it makes sense that you don’t like them, but we aren’t all bad. I’m living proof of that, here I am, active X-gene swine, resbonsibly returning your keys and telling you Mister Rupert *hic* Kelly. You make some Damn good muffins.”

Whadda ya say to that ol’ buddy ol’ pal?

He was not her buddy. Or her pal. He might have been a little fuzzy on that point when he first let her barge into his apartment, but he was as clear as a cup’s bottom by the end of her speech.

>> “Since I’ve lived in this city I’ve been beaten up twice, kicked in my sleep many times, spat on and group chased, not once by a mutant.”

“Remember, though,” he interjected, weaving slightly in his seat, “you can’t always tell a freak just by... just by looking.”

>> “If someone is driving and they have a medical condition, they have a fit while behind the wheel and hit someone. When they go to court there are special exceptions made for them because, genetically, they can’t help what happened. True, they still get in trouble, but the court takes pity on them. Until there is a way to determine what is ‘oops, I kinda burned you’ and ‘haha, you’re on fire now’ there’s no way for them to determine who goes to prison and who get bail. No wonder they’re scared.”

“Pfff,” he pffted. And, because that felt funny on his lips, he repeated it again: “Pfffff. So that’s a reason to... to not stand trial at all? That’s what I’m talking about, you see? That’s just the kind of thing one of them would say—‘the system doesn’t treat us fair, so the system doesn’t apply to us.’”

>> “You’ve had mutants do a lot of bad things to you, it makes sense that you don’t like them, but we aren’t all bad. I’m living proof of that, here I am, active X-gene swine, resbonsibly returning your keys and telling you Mister Rupert *hic* Kelly. You make some Damn good muffins.”

...

In a blizzard, Rupert’s frozen expression could have been mistaken for rapt attention. He stared at her for a moment. His cup was half way between his lap and the table; he’d been reaching for a refill.

His face cracked into a scowl. Cup still empty, he made another toast to the ceiling. “Bet you think that’s funny, huh.” He spoke upwards. “Bet you think my whole god**** life is just one long god**** joke.” He tipped the cup back to drink: when he found there was nothing in it, he slammed it down on the coffee table hard enough that the muffins jumped.

“You,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, “had better get out of my apartment. Right now.” He tried to get to his feet. Failed. He settled for leveling a finger to her face. “Because when I can walk again, I’m going to toss you out of here. Got it? You’ve got... you’ve got until... I can walk again. Yeah.”

He slumped back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “This,” he growled foggily, “is why I hate mutants. Just when you think you’re talking to a real person, for once... So what’s your god**** power? Setting puppies on fire with your brain?”

Rupert needed more friends. More living ones. More non-‘I’m a ****ing genetic anomaly!’ ones. Not that he had any of those to begin with.

Her buddy was Not Happy, her slightly addled brain told her this. It also told her that she had said something wrong, something that had made her buddy Not Happy. She pouted at the scowl- ridden swearing and the grind in her head clicked to a halt. She was a mutant, he was not. He also thought she was laughing at him. Nothing like a bit of false accusation to sober you up.

“No Sir.”

He slammed his glass down on the table so hard she felt the vibrations through the couch into her backbone. Suddenly half a couch didn’t nearly far enough away from the angry ex-drinking-pal. Hmm, on that note, she should probably get him some replacement drink for that which she had consumed. Two glasses? Three? She couldn’t remember, not that it really mattered, unless she took him out for a drink there was no real way to repay him drink-by-drink. A messy mental note was scrawled Next pay check, get this guy something to drink a bitter second thought and half a bottle of acceptance.

Until he could walk again. Depending on the man, that could be mere minutes as the alcohol swirled through his bloodstream and he got a second wind. Or it could be hours and hours, followed by a whole morning of crawling around with a hangover. It was a road she didn’t really want to follow to see where it led. Time to go. She wobbled to her feet- were apartments supposed to sway the way this one was?- and, finger pressed solidly on the back of the couch to stabilise herself she tried to remember if she had brought a bag, or anything that wasn’t shoved into her pockets. Ex-buddy was talking again, and she looked at him. A rhetorical question should never contain ‘you’, and she felt compelled to answer.

“No Sir, I have wormhole hands… Stuff comes out of one of them, little things, things that no one is looking at. Or touching. Coins and paperclips and”

She stared at him, she would not look hurt, she refused to look hurt. This was her resolution, and a stupid one at that. Hand back all the keys she had found over three years, one by one. Foolish girl.

“and keys. Your’s was one that had details attached, it wasn’t the first, Sir, and it isn’t the last I intend to give back either. Sorry for eating your muffins.”

She moved to walk towards the door when something else he had muttered sunk through the mess of brain-matter, screaming that she should have had something decent to eat before drinking. Real. He thought she wasn’t real.

Now. Verdigris in general was a happy drunk, a giggle here, a titter there and she was fine. Some things however, made her a very angry drunk, she could feel her whole insides bristling with rage at the drunk man on the couch who dared to say she wasn’t a real person.

“Do you think it’s easy Mister-one-species-forever? Do you think someone like me would like to suddenly discover there is a part of themselves they can’t control. Something no one, including themselves, understands or can manage? I met a girl the other day, her ‘non-real gene’ or whatever you want to call it hit on the street. In the Laundromat’s, actually. So here is a little girl, out with her mother, who suddenly her whole life, her whole world changes. She was ten, and she had a pair of pink dragonfly wings sprout from her back in public. Maybe some ten year olds would love to have fairy wings, but this child a child had to stand there, blood running down her back while her mother screamed at her for being a disgrace, before getting into her car and leaving that little girl stranded.”

She wobbled a little, put her hand firmly on the back of the couch to steady herself, before crossing her arms and glaring a little at the man.

“You might not like me Mr Kelly, but that is as stupid as me hating you for the colour of your eyes or the shape of your nose. I hope when you’re sober you’ll remember this one thing, I didn’t have to return your key, didn’t have to walk the whole way here, but I did Sir, I did and I hope when your hangover is gone and this is weeks in the past, that every time you unlock your door, you remember me. More than anything, remember this. Rupert Kelly, you’re a racist bastard, and I hope your kids are x-gene positive and give you hell.”

With a huff of exertion, man being an angry drunk really takes something outta you, she swayed a little more and glanced down at the yipping ball of fluff, face covered in crumbs, dancing around her feet. At least Flipsy didn’t hate her for what she could not control.

“Wormhole hands. Well la-de-da.” Rupert gave a little mock-Southern-Belle flick of his wrist. That much movement was fine. That much didn’t make the world start spinning. Was she still talking? Yes, she was. Didn’t she realize that made his head pound? Not hurt—pound. It was like he could feel the veins in his head. With their pulsing. And their... pounding. Couldn’t she just shut up already? It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard it all before.

>> “Do you think it’s easy Mister-one-species-forever?”

All right, that was a new one. From there, though, it was going to go right down the beaten path. One of them. There was the ‘I hate you to, freaking zealot, boo-hoo insert childhood trauma here’; there was the ‘I am soooo repressed by the genetic majority, waa waa insert childhood trauma here’, and a million more. Maybe not a million. Less than that. Three? All he knew, is what he knew: and he knew that he’d heard them all.

>> “Do you think someone like me would like to suddenly discover there is a part of themselves they can’t control. Something no one, including themselves, understands or can manage? I met a girl the other day, her ‘non-real gene’ or whatever you want to call it hit on the street. In the Laundromat’s, actually. So here is a little girl, out with her mother, who suddenly her whole life, her whole world changes. She was ten, and she had a pair of pink dragonfly wings sprout from her back in public. Maybe some ten year olds would love to have fairy wings, but this child a child had to stand there, blood running down her back while her mother screamed at her for being a disgrace, before getting into her car and leaving that little girl stranded.”

And there he had it: option three, ‘I am morally outraged, grr huff, insert childhood trauma here.’ He never said it had to be her own childhood trauma.

“Oh, well. Yeah. That’s terrible.” He said, with a nod. “I mean, leaving a kid there. A mutant kid. Those things are like weeds; you’ve got to finish the job, or they’ll grow up. Don’t you agree?” He rolled back his head, blearily grinning at her wobbly cross-armed stance. “I beat you got abandoned as a kid, too. Or kicked out. Or chased out of town. Wanna tell me your sob story, too? Have a little cry on Uncle Rupert’s shoulder?” He tipped back his glass: remembered, again, that it was empty. The bottle was... a little far away. He stared through its empty bottom, scowling. “Seems like everyone else does. I could write a book about how horribly mistreated you poor mutie freaklings are.” Heh. Freaklings. He’d have to remember that one, when he was sober. Maybe use it on Gawain. Or Maya. Now that was a little freakling, if ever he’d met one. And just where the hell did he/she come off, leaving liquor in his apartment? Damn brat. Damn self-invitation. Damn ‘my mommy is missing and I’m too pathetic to find regular meals’ sob story. Like he cared.

>> “You might not like me Mr Kelly, but that is as stupid as me hating you for the colour of your eyes or the shape of your nose. I hope when you’re sober you’ll remember this one thing, I didn’t have to return your key, didn’t have to walk the whole way here, but I did Sir, I did and I hope when your hangover is gone and this is weeks in the past, that every time you unlock your door, you remember me. More than anything, remember this. Rupert Kelly, you’re a racist bastard, and I hope your kids are x-gene positive and give you hell.”

“And I,” Rupert said, toasting the air with his empty glass, “hope you don’t live long enough to have kids.”

~~“And I hope you don’t live long enough to have kids.”

She gave a twisted smile, seeing as she wasn’t planning on having kids for a good long time like… never… that really didn’t seem like too much of a-

Threat? Insult?

Whatever... her head said it didn’t matter, that nothing more than a niiiiice long sleep and a glass of water mattered. Maybe a few doses of gravity as well. Stupid floating apartment. She quirked an eyebrow at the man, he seemed like he wouldn’t leap up and grab at her, the tiny flickers of pain when he moved were enough of an indication of that, and somehow the t-shirt and track-pants didn’t really lend themselves to a gun. Although, this was New York.

“I’m curious, do you hate everyone who is different to you? Or just those you subconsciously think are better?”

Whap, low blow to the ego. It would be amusing to watch his eyes bulge as he realised it, and her brain still had enough clarity she was sure she could duck away from a thrown glass, provided it followed normal rules of things thrown and didn’t sway to the warped rules the gravity had given in to.

Grin, wobble, grin

>> “I’m curious, do you hate everyone who is different to you? Or just those you subconsciously think are better?”

Rupert glared up at the girl for a moment more, as she grin-wobble-grinned above him. Then something curious began to happen with his mouth: it drew together in a flat, tight line. The edges twitched, as if something caged lurked behind them. Rupert threw back his head, and laughed.

By he got himself under control, he was clutching one side, and wheezing. He grinned at the little freak; an honest grin, though not a particularly pleasant sort.

“Subconscious? Sweetheart, if this is subconscious, then the world isn’t ready for me to actually feel inferior.”

Another little laughing fit shook through him, like the after shock of an earthquake. Subconscious inferiority. He wiped at the corner of his eyes, were tears of mirth were gathering. Oh, that was a good one. Rupert knew he was inferior: he knew mutants were the future. If they lived.

That’s why they had to die.

If looks could kill she was fairly sure she would be dead. In fact, she would probably have been torn into tiny little pieces which would be spread across a hundred thousand places, perhaps some even fed to the little Flipsy-dog. A little twinge of fear tickled at her backbone as his whole face drew in. Not like he had tasted something horrid, more like he had just realised the apple he had carelessly put in the pocket of his hundred dollar suit jacket had turned to stinking slush which he stuck his fingers into in the middle of an important, and undoubtedly long, meeting. Not a pleasant face at all. Her eyes flicked to his fingers to check for apple slime, or projectiles, before returning to his face. What she saw there startled her, this was not a happy man, in fact if she didn’t know better she would say this was in fact a very sad man. Probably lonely too.

~~“Subconscious? Sweetheart, if this is subconscious, then the world isn’t ready for me to actually feel inferior.”

She wasn’t entirely sure the world was ready for this; she was certainly confused by his ups and downs. Stepping cautiously forward she checked his fingers once more before taking a leap of faith- figuratively- and gently patting the air above his shoulder comfortingly, poor, poor sad human. How to comfortingly say that everything would be ok… She couldn’t think of any metaphors that really suited this kind of situation. Oh well, when in doubt make it up.

“Just because a shoe store gets in a new shipment doesn’t mean that they stop selling the older, functional brands. Mutants are like a marketing experiment, if anything humans are more likely to be around for longer, you’re tried and tested.”

Hmm, on second thoughts, it might have been, when in doubt keep your mouth shut. Whoops.