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”I’m not the betting type, if I say I’m going to win, it’s because I am,” Locke said with a confidence that he usually lacked in other aspects of his life. It wasn’t often that Locke was able to, or even wanted to boast. There was a reason why the word humility was so similar to humiliation. It wasn’t always that Locke was humble, but often times that he was easily embarrassed. When the chance came about that Locke could boast, it was not only rare, but to be savored. ”See, I know how this sort of thing always ends up, and I’ve an ace up my sleeve.” An ace that was really just being too shy to do anything to get himself a lab partner.

Since Alma seemed to be so interested in reading the syllabus at this point Locke felt compelled to look at it himself. One of the last labs that they would be performing in the class would be a fetal pig dissection. He smiled before chuckling awkwardly. The last time he had discussed pigs with a girl, he had been defending his capability to eat bacon while watching a very specific scene in the third Saw movie. Gina couldn’t understand how to him the scene had held no terror or even a squick factor. Eaan had no problem scarfing down his breakfast that morning either, but the prospect of actually opening up the pig would have made him freak out. “How many students do you think are going to protest about the pig?” he asked Alma, wanting there to be some conversation going still. High school bio had been educational in that when a student is presented with the chance to cut into a dead animal, either they will hack away with gleeful abandon, or declare the entire thing unethical.

As for Locke, well, he didn't particularly enjoy dissection days. For one thing he failed to see why they had to look at a frog or pig's body composition to gain an understanding of the humans. Wouldn't it be easier to just use one of those plastic models you saw in magazines, where the body is a clear shell that little pieces rested inside? Fake skeletons were used for the bone system, why not a fake human? The smell was also an issue. The formaldehyde made him think a little too much of being in the hospital again.

I think Were might be the better choice, seeing as we never did finish that Locke/Pix thread before.

Well, I've done a thread with you with Aura before, so Melissa might be fun this time. Locke's still too young to be drinking in a bar, but I bet he could be in there as a designated driver of sorts. Only instead of driving he'd be making sure that the frat boys he lives with don't do anything stupid.

"The later it gets at night, the more you have to deal with crazy people on the subway,"Locke offered as an explanation. It was a reasonable one he thought, because there certainly were enough loonies on the sub at night that you questioned how safe it was to travel. Not only that, but Locke was pretty sure that the line he needed to take wasn't going to have a gate open close enough to the Institute to allow for him to get on the sub securely. Either way he'd be putting himself at risk.

Both of the teens had their attention on Gina's little project. Gina, because she didn't feel a need to look Locke in the face, Locke because he still wasn't sure that it looked right. A cowl didn't sound like the right term for the clothing piece that he was thinking about. In his mind he was picturing a shawl, but the word for it was not coming to him. Then again, this was the boy who thought that it was perfectly fine to have his plaid bathrobe and clashing checker pajama pants. "Doing alright I guess. Lot's of studying at college, little sleep."

The more he stared at the mess of yarn, the more Locke was convinced that it should not look that way. Weren't knitted things usually... flatter? It was so uneven that he had serious doubts that it was some sort of pattern that Gina had intended to use. "It's not looking that bad. Really. It's just a little, um, bumpy." For the first time Locke turned his head to face Gina. The last time the two had talked was when he had gone to her for advice on how to win the attention of his girlfriend. That had been awkward, to say the least, and now he was having to talk to her again. There was something odd not only about the scarf, but the girl as well. "You're looking good. Glad to be back?" There was something familiar about her behavior, the way that she was looking at him. The problem was that Locke hadn't seen what he was like before his mutation started filling in the world for him. He had been too busy hiding behind his hair to realize that he didn't look at people quite right.

"It's morning?" Locke asked, pressing the button on the side of his watch. A small electronic voice stated the time in military terms. He could look at it of course, seen the little PM next to the hour, but Locke had grown use to taking the easy way out. While other young adults his age may steal a peek at their iPhones to see what time it was. Locke just let his watch do the talking for him. ”No. Night. Too late to take the sub back...” He tried to keep the smile out of his face, as though the possibility of having to spend a night at the Institute was less desirable than heading back to his dorm. After all, he was no longer a teen who felt that they were so done with school. He was an adult now, doing something to further his education and make himself better suited or a successful life. Shouldn't he be loving the campus living arrangements? Having never discussed college with his dad, Locke's perspective was slightly skewed. He had been taught, through a combination of media and freshmen orientation seminars, that one of the most memorable aspects of college was campus life, including the companions he would make with his roommates, and dorm activities.

He hated it though. Hated that somehow he was still stuck with these people, hated that as a lowly freshman his chances to change his dorm location for next year was limited by whatever was left after everyone else had chosen, and that of the freshman class he would be in the later half of the alphabet to pick. All in all, it looked as though Locke would be spending next year in the unofficial frat house. Maybe he could spend the night at the Institute. Ms. T was pretty cool, and they had let him into the school when his step-mom was still treating his disappearance as a matter for the police to get involved with. And it wasn't as though he were a total stranger here.

”Knitting a scarf?” Locke asked, his mind after the nap clearly on par with Einstein. Knitting was a common enough activity with girls in different courses on campus, and it wasn't unusual to see someone break out wool and needles while debating the works of Descarte. Gina's attempts at knitting were, as far as Locke could see, lumpy and uneven. There was no reason for Locke to think there was anything odd about how Gina's scarf was turning out. He did not knit himself, and assumed that the girls who he saw in class were just more advanced or practiced at it. ”Guess it's a good thing it's not a whatcha call it... that thing girls wear on their shoulders? Too thin for that.”

Locke stretched, trying to get the tightness in his muscles out. The Institute had rather large, and rather comfortable couches, and falling asleep on one didn’t leave you feeling as cramped as say, curling up in the backseat of a car. However comfortable the couches were though, it’s hard to avoid getting a crick in the neck when you fall asleep on top of a three inch thick text book and a binder digging into the back of your knees. On a regular basis Locke still returned to the Institute, choosing to practice with his powers in the safety offered by the Danger Room, or now that the weather was turning warmer, out on one of the greenest patches of earth that he could find in New York City. It was really the only break he got from his dorm outside of his college courses. Keeping his laptop running at night wasn’t an issue anymore. Those he shared his dorm with kept the cramped apartment building noisy enough that Locke didn’t need his music to keep the silence away, but the light offered by his screen saver was a comfort to him. It also alerted him when someone was in his room because he woke up the second the light moved away from him. Such conditions made studying for any exam that much more difficult, and today, for the first time, Locke had brought some of his schoolwork with him to try to finish after his session. His biggest mistake was sitting down on that couch. His exhaustion kicked in and he had fallen asleep without even noticing.

Yawning silently, Locke had to blink a few times to clear the fuzziness in his good eye. It had been how many years now and he still had a moment of relief to see anything, even if it was blurry and only two dimensional? Some things are just harder to get past than others. One hand went behind his head to pull the textbook out, while the other grabbed onto the back of the couch. How long was I out? he wondered, swinging his feet down and sitting up. Locke always felt better when he had contact with the ground, and to have his powers not working made him ill at ease. He’d grown use to, no, dependent, upon that earth sense telling him where things were in the world. He also needed it to keep himself from being tossed over the fence of the apartment’s backyard again. It was easier to avoid being hassled by the frat boys was to keep out of their way. They could not bother what they couldn’t find, and Locke’s powers allowed him an advantage in keeping one step ahead of them.

It also let him know that he was not alone in the living room, prompting a rapid flood of embarrassment. Did he drool in his sleep or snore anything? It’s not as though one can tell what they do once they fall asleep. ”Hey,” he croaked, his face creasing into a frown briefly before breaking into another large yawn. Gina was the one in the room with him, and Locke was pretty sure that she hadn’t been there when he first sat down. In that still half awake stance Locke stared at Gina, trying to make sense of what she was doing with a ball of yarn. ”Whazzat?”

Locke gave Alma one of his rare smiles. "You've not been here long have you? The United States is ripe with a history full of discrimination, isolation, and teasing of anyone who is slightly different. Every country gets mocked, so there's no escape from racial jokes. On top of that red heads are said to have no souls, blondes are thought of as being stupid. Girls are viewed as weak, men as strong, and anyone who doesn’t meet those expectations they automatically become gay. I mean we freaking enslaved people because they were from another country and said that it was all cool because God said it was alright. If we were to talk about mutants in class things would just descend into name calling and a hot pot of fear and hate.”

What the hell was scampering around? With the rows of the lecture hall lined up as they were, each row being on a step, there wasn’t much of a gap between the underside of a chair and the floor. The more that whatever it was moved, the more that it irked him. Talking with Alma was already enough of a distraction for Locke, and to be honest he hadn’t listened to most of what the professor had been saying. When Alma commented on Locke’s bet he straightened up and bumped his head on the seat in front of him. Oh yeah, he was smooth.

”Sounds like we’ve got a bet. If someone asks him to be their partner, you win. If Mantovani sticks someone with him, then I win,” Locke said. It was a bet that he thought he would win. Locke had always been that student who hung back and waited until all other students had partnered up, then would go for the other person who had no partner. If nobody wanted to have to deal with the idiot, then it was safe to say that Locke would be the one the professor stuck him with. Five dollars was, for what the bet was, perhaps a bit high. It wasn’t like he had said fifty bucks, but having something so inconsequential as lab partners be determining who got money. Why not something simple like a soda?