Chris stood outside of the dorms, looking at the door in front of him. He had arrived to the mansion earlier that morning and had been welcomed by the gardener, Martin Stein, and had (after getting treatment for his annoying skin rash and filling in some paperwork) been assigned a room. More specifically, he'd been assigned this room. Problem was, it was still kind of early in the morning (the sun had started to rise outside, at least) and he didn't want to piss off his would-be roommate by waking him up at 6.45 a Saturday morning.
He wondered if it was too late to go look for Martin and ask for a single room instead.
Then he glanced up and down the corridor - you newer knew, there could be some early birds who lived here. And if there were, he wouldn't want to explain why he just stood there. Anyway, he couldn't just stand there and idle forever. Doc Prof had fixed his rashes, but a slow itch in his skin told him that he needed a shower soon.

So he took a deep breath and knocked at the door.

Knock, knock, knock.

...

...

Thump, CRASH!
"SON OF A B-"
The door swung inward at frightening speed.
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT FREAKIN TIME IT I-..."
Saphirus stared for a moment at the poor kid standing in the hallway through the sleep in his eyes. He looked haggard; obviously having been roused from a deep sleep. He had barely managed to stumble home last night... ever since that business as the bank, thing had just been weird... Things had been moving funny in his eyes, and his sense of balance would suddenly make him feel like he was ten drinks in.

He blinked a few times after a moment of silent staring. "Hey, it's the fish kid... hows it go-" Suddenly Chris's head seemed to inflate, and then shrink into itself... Saph turned away from the sight to see the door frame twist toward him in an unnatural way. He closed his eyes, and then suddenly felt like he was laying down. He fell back like a dropped plank, and felt like he was standing... After a moment the feeling slowly dropped away, and his eyes opened. He reached up slowly to rub the sleep from his eyes before looking up at the door. "Eh... Sorry bout that...I, uh... Powers are messin with me, I think." The older mutant pulled himself to a sitting position.

"What're doin here, kid? You my new room mate?" He realized he prolly looked like he was off his rocker, which didn't help cause this kid seemed timid as hell in the first place. "C'mon in, It's cozy." He got up slowly and waved the kid in, stumbling on over to his half of the room to sit on his bed. His half was littered with his sheets, a broken alarm clock that looked like it had been thrown against the door just now, and some random scattered clothing. He had obviously been here for a while. He even had a nail in the wall with his crowbar hanging from it.

The only reason the angry screaming man didn't send Chris bolting down the stairs was that he was to shocked to move, so he did the only sensitive thing (like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a truck) and froze. But then the man seemed to calm down a bit; Chris held his backpack in front of him like some kind of shield if the guy should choose to attack or something.

>>"Hey, it's the fish kid... hows it go-"
Wait- he remembered that voice. And now that he squinted he remembered the face, too - it was that guy from the fair!
"Eh, Saphirus?" he said incredulously. Of all the mutants in the world, how likely was it that one he already knew would be his roommate? At least it made presentations unnecessary. Almost.
"Chris Berg," he corrected with a thin voice. He still wasn't too fond of the whole "fish kid" part. But the older mutant didn't seem to notice - he was wavering and suddenly fell and landed on his back. A brief thought entered Chris's mind - oh no he's on drugs - and he desperately glanced sideways, figuring that he could make it to the stairs in approximately three seconds. He took two slow steps back, but then Saphirus seemed to revive and sat up on the floor.
>>"Eh... Sorry bout that...I, uh... Powers are messin with me, I think."
...Powers? Chris realized that he never had figured out how Saphirus's powers worked, with all that's been going on at the fair.

>>"What're doin here, kid? You my new room mate?"
Chris shrugged.
"Uh, yeah. So it seems." The young mutant didn't seem to be very enthusiastic about it though. Saphirus stood up and went over to his half of the room. Chris followed, still very wary and with his backpack clasped between his hands in front of him. He looked around in the room, noticing the crowbar and the broken alarm clock, and then walked over to the empty bed which he assumed was his. He sat down on it and continued to look around the room silently.

Saphirus looked at the kid with a raised eyebrow as he cautiously approached, and took a seat on his rather plain bed. "Jees, kid, you really gotta loosen up. Ain't no good point to being shy in this world, kid. All it'll get you is regrets." He leaned down to grab his sheets and pull them up to him in the bed, placing them at his side. After he was done he scooted back to the wall, and leaned on it.

"So, what're you do- one sec." He paused in speech to yawn loudly, stretching his arms to their full extent, and then dropping them to the bed unceremoniously, "What're you doin here? You need help with your powers, or just a place to stay?" If the kid woulda told him he needed somewhere to go at the fair he would have offered... Thinking back, it was pretty obvious; a young boy at a fair alone without his parents. Saph mentally smacked himself. He then looked up, and paused. "Wait a sec before answering that." He hopped quickly from the bed, and bolted into the bathroom. A good sixty second later, after a flushing and the washing of hands, he was out again. "alright. Wait... It's before eight, right? Jesus! McDonald's is still serving breakfast!"

He grinned widely, and looked to the fish boy. "Wacha think, Chris my boy? You wanna get ready and walk up to Mickey D's? It's a rare opportunity, I tell ya... I always wake up just a little too late."

>>"Jees, kid, you really gotta loosen up. Ain't no good point to being shy in this world, kid. All it'll get you is regrets."
Chris just shrugged, again - this was his standard answer on questions which he didn't knew how to answer. Suffice to say, his shoulders had gotten a lot of training lately.
"I just..." he began, and then trailed off. "I mean... I try, okay?"
There, a perfectly good explanation. He lifted up his feet from the floor so that he sat cross-legged on the bed.

>>"What're you doin here? You need help with your powers, or just a place to stay?"
Since his mutation was entirely physical and he'd been born that way, he'd never needed help to control his powers. He hadn't really been thinking about it that way, but he guessed that other mutants had to learn to control their powers. It all looked so easy on TV, like that guy who could set things on fire just by concentrating... he'd appeared at some TV show in front of an awed audience and Chris had cursed his bad luck that had given him the power to kinda keep his breath longer than usual, smell like dead fish and get angry rashes when he stayed away from water too long. But now he realized that the fire guy might have been going through a lot of incidents on his way to mutant pyrotechnic performer - what if he started to think about setting his house on fire without meaning to? Or his girlfriend? Or his dog?
Chris had never had any problems with powers that backfired that way. His abilities came to him as easily as - well, breathing.
He thought about this while Saphirus was in the bath room. Then the older mutant asked if they should go to Mickey D.
"I..."
Chris was a bit hesitant. It had been a long morning with lots of things going on, and actually he felt like staying at the room and settle down a bit. Going to the city didn't feel entirely okay. But then he realized that he was more hungry than he was tired, and he still remembered that 'you gotta loosen up' remark.
"Uh... sure. I just need to take a shower first."
He brought his backpack to the bathroom and stayed in there for about five minutes. Then he came out again, dressed in his only clean change of clothes (he'd been saving them) and with the towel wrapped around his head.
"Like, do we have to take a bus or something?"

Saph had already changed into his day clothes by the time the kid was out. He looked to the kid with a grin as the boy left the bathroom. "Gotta get your skin wet every once in a while? Gander was like that, too... If he didn't, his skin would get all... Rashy."

He turned around and picked up some of his clothes off the floor, throwing it into a basket so he could wash them later, he then motioned for Chris to do that same if he wanted to. "I figure we can either take the bus, or walk... The bus would be a bit faster, but it ain't too far away from here." Saph smiled as he pulled his jacket on, and unshelfed his crowbar, placing it under his coat. "Word of advice, kid... It's a dangerous world for people like us... You always gotta have a way to defend your self in case things get ugly."

He grabbed his wallet from his night stand and tucked it into his back pocket, patting it a few times. "Well, we don't got forever, lets hurry and get there... I haven't had an egg mcmuffin in years!" And with that, he was out the door, figuring the kid would be close behind.

Chris frowned a bit. More talk about this Gander? He wondered why Saphirus was talking about that guy all the time, was he trying to hint at something? Chris father had been 100% human, he was sure of it. Almost. But then he decided that he was probably just overreacting, of course Saphirus would want to compare Chris to people he knew with similar mutations. So instead he answered the question.
"Yeah, at least three-four times a day. Otherwise it can get ugly. So I guess I'll be hogging the shower a lot, if that's okay."

He put his used clothes in the basket - since he only had had a few sets of clothes to change to the latest week they were quite smelly.
"Uh, I'd prefer to walk if you're okay with it." Chris didn't really approve of buses, something about being trapped in a moving vehicle without any escape route if he would need made the whole concept unappealing to him. The trip from Wisconsin to New York had been a living hell. When Saphirus took down the crowbar from the wall he looked at him with a quirked eyebrow (or at least with the general area where his eyebrow should have been if he'd had hair quirked).
>>"Word of advice, kid... It's a dangerous world for people like us... You always gotta have a way to defend your self in case things get ugly."
Chris nodded glumly.
"You can say that again," he mumbled.

Then he grabbed his wallet from his backpack, took his jacket and followed Saphirus out the door. He was beginning to relax a bit and wasn't as edgy as he'd been before.
"So, uh, why the crowbar? It's not a very conventional tool of self defense..." And then he added, a bit nervously: "Is it?"

"Oh that's fine. I only need it once a day, right? Maybe twice if I've been out fighting crime." Yes, he was bragging... He wasn't the kinda guy that was bashful about broadcasting that he had done a good thing... He figured if you did something you liked you might as well be proud about it, right?

He looked back to Chris as he asked about the crowbar, rounding the next corner as he answered. "You ever heard the saying the best defense is a good offense? It's kinda like that... I learned a long time ago that the best way to win an unwinnable fight is to show the other guy that it's not worth winning." Before long they were out the Mansion's front door and heading down the path toward the gate.

"The bus stop right across the street goes right to the Mickey's and then we can get ourselves some grub. It's on me, by the way... I just stopped a bank robbery, and got some good-" he had to pause and lean against the gate for a moment as a wave of dizziness washed over him, but he shook it off like a champ shrugs blows to the cranium. "Got some good hard cash for it... I guess this is as good a celebration as any, right?"

Chris followed, walking fast to keep up with Saphirus. Man, the guy must really have been itching for that McMuffin.
>>"You ever heard the saying the best defense is a good offense? It's kinda like that... I learned a long time ago that the best way to win an unwinnable fight is to show the other guy that it's not worth winning."
Chris wasn't sure he understood, but he nodded anyway.

Then suddenly Saphirus leaned against the mansion gate, but he quickly regained his posture and continued walking and talking. Chris remembered how the guy had fallen smack down on his back earlier (that was kinda hard to forget) and wondered if he really was okay, but what Saphirus said distracted him from the other's dizzyness.
"You stopped a bank robbery? With a crowbar?"
Chris's round eyes were wider than usual with surprise, and his disbelief showed clearly on his face.
"No way," he added without realizing that it probably was pretty rude.

As the kid spoke, Saph surveyed his energy reserves quickly.... Yeah, he had about enough to put on a show, after walking this far. He reached slowly into his coat as Chris exclaimed: "No Way,", and sighted a tree, maybe ten meters away.

It would work; he pulled out his crowbar, wound it back, and then made flung it toward the tree, putting all of his currently gathered force into it. the crowbar flew so fast there was no arch in its course. It spun end over end and then slammed into the tree's trunk with a loud 'thunk'. Saph gave Chris a little smile, and wandered over to the tree, bracing a leg against its trunk to wiggle and pull the metal instrument out of it... it took a moment, as he had managed to get it in pretty deep.

He placed his weapon of choice back into his jacket, and walked out the front gate without another word about it.

Saph looked both ways before crossing the street, and then made a jog for it, figuring Chris would be a step behind. After a quick gander at the bus stop time sheet, he looked back and proclaimed. "The bus'll be here in just a second."

When Saphirus threw his crowbar against a tree and it bored itself into the trunk with a loud 'THUNK' Chris took several steps backwards; his extra quick reflexes combined with his nervousness always made him react to sudden moves. He stared at the crowbar that was wedged deep into the tree and his eyes turned even wider than before.
Saphirus walked over to the tree without a word and pulled out the crowbar. Then he walked away to the bus stop outside the gates.

Chris followed, checking for cars multiple times before he crossed the street. He had grew up in the woods, after all, and hadn't had much experience with traffic. Saphirus announced that the bus would arrive shortly.
Chris wondered if he should ask the older mutant about his powers - most of the mutants he'd met had been willing to talk about their mutations, except the mansion gardener, Martin. But since Saphirus just had thrown a crowbar into a goddamn tree he probably wouldn't have any problems talking about it.
"So you have super strength? I don't think we discussed our mutations at the fair..."

The bus came. Saph paid the way for both of them, and took his seat as he spoke to the kid. "No... That would be nice, but it's not like that... Honestly, its hard to explain." He looked about for a moment, but the whole bus started to wiggled and warp in his eyes, causing him to close them. He had learned to ignore it when his eyes freaked out on him. It always passed. "I guess... Half of me." He lifted his right hand. "Doesn't get hurt when things hit it. When it does get hit, it gives me... I guess.. Energy? I use that energy out of this side," He lifted his left hand. "To break stuff."

"I suppose its kinda something that is easier to show by example. I'll have to show you some time, eh?" The hallucinations had passed, and he was pretty sure he had managed not to show that he was seeing things... He reached up and pulled the line above his window, making a 'bong' sound, which told the bus driver to stop at the next stop. "We're here."

He climbed out of his seat, and hurried to the front, smiling widely as he hopped out of the bus, and made his way to the nearby McDonalds.

Saph opened the door for both of them, hearing a clear voice prat about as he opened the door.

"YesYesYesYesYes! It'smyturnI'msohappy!Imusthavewaitedinlineatleastfiveminute!"

"what do you want sir?" The woman spoke flatly to a middle aged man in a brown suit with wide, energy filled eyes.

"I'llhavethestronggestcoffeeyou'vegot! Onsecondthoughthere'saTen! Icantakeitfromherethanksnicehairbytheway!" The man slapped a ten dollar bill down on the counter and reached his hand out in the direction of the coffee machine, opening his mouth wide. The coffee machine was still for a millisecond before it began shaking violently as its contents were ripped from it. The boiling brown substance floated through the air, and then right into the man's mouth. He gargled it down with gusto, and then let out that classic coca cola- 'Ahh'. He hopped on the balls of his feet a few times, and then looked down at his watch. "Ohmygoshlookatthetimeigottago! Thanksthatreallyhitthespot!"

Saph stepped out of the way for the man to rush past, but there was no need, the man turned and ran right into the wall. He made a loud splash as his body seemed to turn into java, and then bubbled into the wall. Saph watched with a wide smile as the guy's form disappeared into the wall slowly, leaving a small brown spot in its wake.

He walked on up to the counter, looking back to Chris. "I'll have what he had, and a McMuffin. Wachu want, kid? It's on me, remember."

The bus ride was short, as promised, and there wasn't much people on it, which was good. Chris listened to Saphirus explanation. He thought he understood, kind of.

It was the first time he'd ever been to a McDonalds, but he'd seen 'em on TV so he knew what to expect. When he entered the place he looked around, sniffing in the air. It smelled strongly of fried food and oil, a combination that made his stomach churn slightly. He hated fried food.
The coffee man positively freaked him out, with his hyperactive behavior, quick movements and sudden disappearance through the wall. Chris was staring at the brown smear the man had left on the wall when he suddenly realized that Saphirus had spoken to him.
"Uh, what? Uhh... I... I'll..."
He nervously fidgeted with his hands in front of him. Chris hadn't really thought about what he wanted, and he guessed it would be no use to ask for a bit raw fish or chicken. He desperately glanced at the wall behind the woman, searching for inspiration.
"I'll have a... uh... McFish! And a glass of water, p-please?"
The woman behind the counter answered with a forced smile, hinting at that it was a bit over 7 a clock and she'd already had her share of weirdos for the day.
"...Sure! It'll just be a moment."

While they waited for their order Chris changed his weight from foot to foot. There wasn't that much people who was eating breakfast at mickey's that day, but it felt like the whole town was in there and that everybody was staring at him. He didn't like standing in front of the counter, it felt like he was totally exposed. He didn't want to show how close he was to throwing a panic fit and just rush out of there and back to the mansion, so he tried to act naturally. Like he'd been going to McDonalds and had breakfast there every day in his whole life. The twitchy way he rubbed his hands in front of him and his voice that was pitched one octaves higher than usual betrayed him, though.
"Well, the, uh, furniture is nice. Don't know why they chose orange, though, it's quite ugly. I mean. Nothing wrong with orange, though, it's just... uh..."

"Well, the, uh, furniture is nice. Don't know why they chose orange, though, it's quite ugly. I mean. Nothing wrong with orange, though, it's just... uh..."

Saph looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "I'm really gonna have to teach you how to be comfortable in your own skin, kid." He looked about slowly, nodding and winking at a random gawker to make them look away. "C'mon, they're always slow in the morning, lets take a seat; have a good old chat."

He motioned toward the seats, and strolled on over to one of the little booths, taking a seat, and relaxing with his feet up on the booth next to him, his back against the wall. "You see, kid, its all orange and crap cause they're trying to identify with kids, you know? And they think bright colors will get them all jacked up for their happy meals. Truth is, though... They are all rich old white guys. Ain't no study out there what's gonna tell em what kids like, and to tell the truth, all the effort is kinda useless... You could paint this place gray and brown and a kid will still beg their mommies for a happy meal for hours on end.... why? It's got a toy in it, and what kid doesn't want a free toy?" He was ranting. He got like this when he didn't get his coffee. Too bad the Javamancer had taken all of the Joe, he could have used a cup.

He paused in his rant for a moment, looking at the kid very seriously for a moment. "You ever save a life, kid?" And immediately after, their order was called. He jumped up immediately, and was back in a flash, tray in hand. He set it on the little table in front of them, made a face at another gawker, and got to eating his hashed browns, staring at Chris as he ate; waiting patiently for an answer.

It felt better to sit in a booth, it didn't felt like everybody was staring at him in the same way that it had been when he'd been standing out in the open. Chris listened patiently to Saphirus ranting about why the furniture at McDonalds was orange, and when Saphirus went to get their food he looked down and the orange plastic table in front of him. It had coffee stains on it.
"Toys huh."

When Saphirus returned with the food Chris accepted his McFish. He looked down at the burger with slight disdain - it was just bread and lettuce and some kind of gooey dip and a sad piece of fish mush that had been fried so hard that it probably didn't count as fish anymore. But Saphirus had paid for it and it would be rude not to eat it, so he took three quick bites out of it and swallowed without chewing so he wouldn't have to feel the taste, but it was no use. He quickly took a big gulp of his water to wash the taste away.
>>"You ever save a life, kid?"
Chris looked up quickly and then looked down again. It...seemed like an honest inquiry, but he felt like the answer would have to be so obvious that the question wouldn't even have been worth questioning. So he shrugged.
"Depends. Does my own life count?"
He could still feel the taste of the fried fish mush so he took another gulp of his water.
"How about you?"