What did you do when you had a man roaming the halls capable of controlling anyone's mind just from breathing in his natural musk? Short of wearing a fucking gas mask everywhere I went, I wasn't sure. And that still wouldn't do anything to solve the problem of the countless others that had at least gotten a whiff of Dr. Garrison's pheromones in passing.
There were around 200 mutant students at the school, and dozens of experienced, mutant staff – a lot that I wasn't familiar with, even if I knew of them. If even half of them were compromised and could be mobilized to do Dr. Garrison's bidding, I would be a smear on the wall within fifteen minutes of making a move.
The first thing I needed to do was find out who I could count on in a pinch. Laurie Collins, Wallflower, was obviously number one. She was immune to Dr. Garrison due to having the same powers, and had been the one to turn me on to what was happening. I figured if nothing else, she could at least counter or neutralize her old man's pheromones with her own. That wasn't a small thing.
I didn't fancy how useful she would be in a straight fight, though. No offense to her, but I was her team leader. I had seen her in action. She didn't really have a lot going for her if she couldn't overwhelm an enemy with her powers, which meant we needed some firepower. Thankfully, a being utterly immune to anything biological like pheromones took up space in my dorm room. One that had basically been designed to take out mutants. My best A.I. boy, Saberwolf.
Of course, pitching my little clandestine operation to the school's head of security was a risky endeavor. Saberwolf had a job to do, and if he wasn't onboard, he would probably end up telling someone... and if that someone was drinking the Kool Aid, I was probably screwed.
It was a good thing then, that when I stated my case to him, he was in almost immediately.
I couldn't believe it, "Really?" I winced at how squeaky my voice got at the end of the question, "I don't have to sell you on this or anything? You're in? Just like that?"
Saberwolf was characteristically logical in his explanation, "As head of security, it is not merely my job to react to threats as they occur. Prevention is as much a responsibility as anything else," He said, "...Also, enough incidents have transpired around you that it would be gross negligence to overlook a warning from you."
Fair enough. It wasn't like I was the boy who cried wolf. Quite the opposite, actually. With all of the drama that happened amongst student, staff, and senior X-Men it had to be notable just how much I tended to get up to, even compared to just about anyone else.
Regardless, that was two allies sorted out on my end. That seemed like progress well worth celebrating in my books.
XxX
Over the next few days, I kept my head down and instructed Laurie to do the same. It was business as usual until something happened to force our hand before we were ready to make our move. I made it a point to avoid sessions with Dr. Garrison from that point onward, but I'd been to enough already and was busy enough with my many responsibilities that it wasn't obvious that I was trying to stay as far away from the man as possible.
From the number of sessions he had with other students on a daily basis, he was swamped enough that as long as I didn't raise any suspicion I could easily fly under the radar. That meant going with the program – in this case, moving forward with Dr. Garrison's public requests for missions.
Within days of the announcement Cyclops had made to the team, we already had missions lined up; several of them. I had to start splitting the team and sending them on assignments simultaneously to see to our jobs in a timely manner. I'd load up my handpicked squads in the Blackbird, drop them off, then pick them up when they were finished and could get away from whatever mission I was on. It was a hell of an adjustment, and I felt like it would take some time to figure out how to make it all run smoothly.
One thing was for sure though. Being superhero middle management was for the birds. While all the paperwork I had to do still ranked as the single lamest aspect of my position, assigning my teammates jobs like characters in an RPG was a close number two.
The only good thing was that these 'missions' weren't dangerous. It was a lot of community outreach, appearances, things like that – more public relations than superhero work. Case in point: because the jet needed to be available at a moment's notice in case any emergencies occurred, my detachment was given the easiest, least time-consuming, easiest to bail on assignment. We were dispatched to do a short 15-minute interview segment on some nationally syndicated daytime talk show.
...I think by this point you're well enough acquainted with me to know that this was not the kind of assignment I would ever have enjoyed.
Eddie slapped me on the shoulder as we all disembarked from the Blackbird, back at school after an afternoon of Mr. Garrison's 'missions', "Dude, you spent the whole time mean mugging down the barrel of the camera. You've seriously got to stop scowling at everyone who asks us questions," He said, only for me to look over at him, "Like that! You're doing it right now!"
"This is my face," I replied. I wasn't making any kind of expression that I could feel.
Eddie paused and seemed to scrutinize me closely, "...Well, can you fix it?" He eventually said.
"Oh, leave him alone," Megan said, flittering past the party brightly, "I thought everything went great! I was worried, but it seemed like people seemed to really like us."
Leave it to Dr. Garrison to pick a layup of a host to get us onboard with. Say what you will about the man's use of his powers and seemingly duplicitous dealings. He knew his stuff when it came to navigating the murky waters of public opinion. His success wasn't solely due to manipulating people's emotions through his pheromones.
Eddie floated over to Laura, who was comfortable enough with his presence to barely react when he treated her as familiarly as he did, "Can you imagine how bad this would have gone if Laura had been with us too? Half the people booked for the interview refusing to speak. Great content."
I took offense to that, "Hey, I spoke," I actually felt like I'd acquitted myself pretty well, even if I probably seemed like I'd rather be chewing broken glass, "I said more than any of the rest of you did."
"You're supposed to," Eddie replied, "You're the one in charge."
At least we were done for the day. The locker rooms were full as everyone changed back into their regular clothes to get on with their evenings. As was the norm, this was prime time for back-and-forth chatter.
"Typical," Julian complained, busting my balls as per usual, "Marcher got to show off in front of TV cameras, while the rest of us were stuck shaking hands and kissing babies, or doing Habitat for Humanity."
"I actually would have preferred the last thing," I chimed in, doing little to blunt the point he was trying to make, "That sounds fun to me."
"It kind of was," Santo spoke up, his craggy voice sounding out from elsewhere in the locker room.
"Whatever," Julian scoffed, "The perks of leadership, I guess."
"Yeah, actually having at least one is nice," I shot back, "You're like the only other person on the team who still wants this fuck-ass job except me. You're telling me none of the bullshit that you've seen me deal with made you think twice?"
"Nope," Julian admitted, smirking shamelessly, "And I'm going to get it too. Mark my words, Marcher, I'll make Frost and Cyclops see the error of their ways sooner or later. Then, you'll be taking orders from me. You can believe that."
He was likely expecting me to react abrasively to the challenge. I just shrugged in return, "Well, you're a daisy if you do," I said, grabbing my bag before heading out, Eddie in tow.
My redhaired wingman waited until we were away from the locker rooms before saying anything, finally broaching the issue when we were back in the dorms, getting in a game of pool in one of the common areas, "I don't get it. If you know Julian wants your spot, why do you always keep him figured in so close to everything?"
True enough, I tended to treat Julian like a lieutenant. For as abrasive as the guy could be, he was strong and he was a good enough leader that if he had the spot, people would follow him. He managed to get the Hellions in line. To be fair though, he wasn't the only one I had moved up into that kind of position; he was just the loudest.
It had always been that way, but he had been chirping a lot more lately. Before, I had wondered what the catalyst had been, since we had been getting along and he had been mellowing out a lot more. Now, with everything that had been going on, I had a decent idea as to who may have planted the ideas to try and be more contentious. Julian, after all, had done plenty of therapy sessions with Dr. Garrison since the start of the new school year.
I smiled, focusing on lining up my shot as I answered Eddie's question, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
Eddie rolled his eyes, "Would you stop quoting movies already? Or at least not ones so cliche? I'm being serious."
"I am too," I replied. A sharp jab of my pool stick sent the cue ball rolling along. An easy shot put the '6' ball into a side pocket, "Knowing someone wants to overthrow me helps me keep my edge."
For better or worse, Julian's presence constantly kept me on the spot to be a good leader. If I was lazy or incompetent, even when things were peaceful and easy, he would jump all over it and I would lose my job, so I had to be on point. If at any time anyone else became the better option to run the team, they should run the team. I wasn't about to go on an ego trip when peoples' lives could possibly be at stake.
It wasn't just about keeping my leadership role either. Between Julian's boundless ambition and getting screwed over by people who were supposed to be on our side in the past, I had been brainstorming contingencies to deal with every last person on the team if need be.
Some were more straightforward than others. Some were easier than others. Some would require prep time and some ingenuity. Some I hadn't quite cracked at all. And it was a good thing I had been, because depending on how things went in the near future, there was a chance I would have to use some of that homework.
I missed my next shot, meaning it was Eddie's turn again. When I looked over at him, he didn't even seem to be focused on the game. Despite staring at the table, he seemed to be a million miles away, deep in thought over something wholly unrelated.
"You alright, man?" I asked him.
He took a moment to think before he responded, "That's actually what I wanted to ask you."
I was confused at having my own question turned around on me, but figured my friend had his reasons for doing so, "Does it seem like I'm not okay?" I asked honestly.
As self-aware as I liked to believe I was, the people around me tended to notice things that were off about me before I could even realize anything was wrong with me.
Eddie shrugged, leaning on his pool cue to try and look nonchalant and downplay his concerns, "I mean, you've been taking on way more crap this year than you had to last year. Back then it was just school and squad stuff with the Paladins, and you had me, Hisako, Ruth, and Laura for all of that. But now it's school, leading a whole X-Men team and running actual missions, basically being a part time guidance counselor for other kids, relationship stuff..."
And those were just the things he knew about. There were several things that he wasn't even aware of that made a lot of what he'd talked about look like small potatoes.
Eddie continued, "-I mean, I know you usually don't sleep, but it still doesn't seem like there's a lot of time in the day to relax."
I gestured to our surroundings. Right up until then, we had been chilling, playing a stupid game and shooting the breeze, "What do you call what we're doing now then?"
"Yeah, but when was the last time we got to just hang out before this? You're usually always working on something," Eddie asked, shaking his head, "Fuck, dude, you didn't even get your whole winter break. I don't know, Bel. It just seems like a lot. A lot that it seems like you're trying to do by yourself. I mean, that whole plan you set up to find Miss Pryde? How is it not fucking crazy to you that you pulled that off?"
Oh, no. I was not about to allow him to downplay everyone else's role in that accomplishment, "We pulled that off."
"Oh, come on. The only person you needed there was Magneto, which is another thing – how crazy it is that you knew Magneto well enough to get his help," Eddie paused and shook his head, "No, the rest of us were just there for the ride on that one. Nothing would have been different if we weren't there."
I was willing to concede his point halfway, given that he was so insistent about it. If he felt that strongly about it, disagreeing wouldn't do anything but start an argument that wouldn't accomplish anything, "Okay... that's one example though."
"And I've still got ten more I can pull out if you're going to play dumb," Eddie insisted, "You always put in more time than anyone else, and you always try to take the toughest part of whatever we're doing."
Because I was supposed to, wasn't I? That was what leaders were supposed to do, make things easier for the people who worked with them... lead by example... never ask anyone to do anything they weren't willing to do themselves. I just felt like I should always be doing more.
That wasn't wrong, was it?
"Are you telling me I'm going too hard?" I asked.
"I couldn't say. I'm not in on everything you're in on. I think you're going as hard as you think you need to," Eddie said, "Just remember, man, you don't need to solve every single issue that comes up. Definitely not on your own. Not even if they're your issues."
I let out a laugh, "I don't even know what that means."
"Your habit of trying not to make things about you anyone else's problem," Eddie said pointedly.
I wasn't obtuse enought to make him explain himself. I already knew about that aspect of myself, and if it was obvious enough to other people that my closest friend felt comfortable calling me out about it, there was no sense in acting like it wasn't a thing.
Whenever my friends or teammates had a problem, I tried to do what I could to lend a hand. Conversely, whenever I had a problem, I did everything in my power to pretend that I didn't around others, or to keep anyone from trying to return the favor and help me out. I figured it was the more thoughtful thing to do, but with the benefit of hindsight, I eventually saw how acting like that would have been incredibly annoying to people who cared about me.
"You're doing a lot of head shrinking tonight," I half joked, "Did Dr. Garrison put you on to thinking like that?"
Half-joking because there was definitely a chance he had, after all.
Thankfully, Eddie all but turned his nose up at the thought, "No way. I mean, I went to Dr. Garrison once, but that was just because everyone had to. I didn't like it," He said, appearing to be creeped out while thinking back on it, "It felt good at the time, but it felt way too much like he was telling me what I wanted to hear, or like he had all the answers."
"Isn't that a good thing?" I asked. Everyone else who interacted with Dr. Garrison seemed to think so, even the staff. But his form of therapy wasn't really within the spirit of the practice, "Well... I mean, I guess therapists are supposed to help us find our own answers, not tell us what they think we need to do."
Eddie nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face, "If it was that easy to fix whatever was wrong with us, therapy probably wouldn't cost so much in the first place," With a shrug, he regained his usual carefree demeanor, "Or something. I don't know. His approach just seems kind of snake-oily to me."
Okay. So, Eddie had been keeping his distance from Dr. Garrison and would be attempting to do so in the future. That presumably meant he wouldn't be one of the ones I would have to deal with if things went south. Good. That was my guy. The thought of him turning on me, even if it was against his will, didn't sit well with me.
"You're good people, Wing," I told him. It just felt like it needed to be said.
"We're boys, Sol. You've always had my back, and I feel like I've had yours too," Eddie said, "I may not have firepower like yours, but whenever the shit hits the fan, you'd better know I'll be there."
I'd thought I knew what having friends was like before I came to Xavier's. No, before, I'd had classmates. At best, acquaintances. You didn't make real friends, you earned them. The hardest friendship was forged, not out of circumstance, but out of experience. By this point, I was certain I had several people like that in my life. Still, were I honest, Eddie was a cut above. A friend like Eddie was the kind you did your absolute best to keep for life.
You couldn't put any kind of price on the sort of loyalty a guy like that gave you.
XxX
Ignorance was bliss. It's lame to say something that cliche, yes, I know. But in this case, it was true. God, was it true.
Until Wallflower did her thing and broke me out of my little stupor constant exposure to Dr. Garrison's pheromones put me under, it was one thing to walk the campus and halls of Xavier's. It was another thing entirely to do so after she had cleared my mind and realize just how many students would bring up Dr. Garrison apropos of nothing, and how many others just rolled with it.
"Can I copy your notes later? I have to miss second period. I have a session with Dr. Garrison today."
"Girl, if you keep sitting around, waiting for him to ask you out, you'll die of old age. It's like Dr. Garrison told me; you can either sit around and let things happen or go out and make things happen. So, go for it!"
"Aww, man! Dr. G. doesn't have any appointments open until next week! Maybe I can catch him outside his office and get a minute or two?"
It was like that all over, so casually.
How often did you hear teenagers openly talk about their latest session with their shrink as though it were the latest goings-on? How often did you hear them directly quote and credit their shrink? Or refer to advice he gave them or something he told them to do as though they were dependent on him?
This was not good. The fucker was fully ingratiated into school goings-on as a whole and then some.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was completely shaken. When I'd contemplated the worst-case scenario, it had been just that – worst-case. Logically speaking, I hadn't really planned to have to fight 85% of the goddamn student body if things went sideways, but now I legitimately had to start accounting for the possibility.
Whatever I wound up doing, I could not do it at school. If I did, I would be fucked, even if I managed to take Dr. Garrison out.
I spent the whole day in my own head, brainstorming and workshopping idea after idea, barely paying attention to anything else going on around me. For the duration of every class, I pretty much operated on autopilot. I didn't really snap out of it until the afternoon when I had to man the desk at the student outreach office.
"Bel-Bel."
I'd been zoned out for hours when I felt the soft impact of a binder on top of my head. I looked up to find my officemate for the day frowning down at me.
"Hey, Bel-Bel!" Megan said, her flickering wings doing little to hide her annoyance, "I've been trying to get your attention for the last minute! Are you okay?"
I waved the binder away and sat up straight in my chair, "Sorry, Pix. Just miles away, I guess. What were you saying?"
She pointed down to a textbook on the desk and a set of handwritten problems she had clearly been solving. She seemed to be halfway through them, "I was asking you if this looks right. I took some extra credit. I need to pull up my calc grade."
I laughed and leaned back in my seat, arms behind my head, "You're barking up the wrong tree if you're asking me about any kind of math."
Megan blinked, "But you had an 'A' in calculus last year. I remember that."
"Only two things got me a grade that good – Hisako and spite," I replied. I was in trigonometry for my senior year and found it much easier than calculus. Maybe I took those classes out of order? "Alright, let's see how much of that crap stuck. Come here. Let's take a look."
She beamed and wasted no time pulling up a chair next to me – close. I did my best to ignore her proximity, and how goddamn good she smelled.
Damn it, she was so fucking pretty!
I was not about to do anything other than play it cool, however. I turned my attention to the calculus problems that I couldn't have possibly cared any less about, instead of the girl at my side. Despite it being Megan's homework, she didn't seem to be particularly absorbed in it either. She seemed to be staring at me more than any formula I was trying to work through with her. Eventually, I couldn't ignore it any longer.
"What's up?" I asked, side-eyeing her bombastically, "Do I have something on my face?"
Megan shook her head and smiled softly at me, "No, it's just, I never seem to get any alone time with you anymore," She placed her hand on my forearm and began slowly moving it toward my wrist, then toward my hand, "You're always so busy, and there are always people around you. It's almost impossible to get you to myself."
That had kind of been the point.
It's hard to get over an ex. That goes for whether you loved them or hated them by the time the relationship ended. While I had my problems with the way things turned out, I was never really angry with Megan about it. I still liked her, a lot – to the extent where I'd had to make a conscious effort to unsee her as any kind of romantic interest. It was a lot easier to do when I wasn't left to my own devices to just pine over her. Being around her also wasn't so hard when there were other people around to be a buffer. Plus, once I hooked up with Laura, I had an active girlfriend to focus my energy on, along with the extra mental motivation to not be a two-timing assbag.
I wasn't an idiot either. I'd known since at least a week after homecoming that Megan still held some kind of flame for me. I had just been ignoring it to give her a chance to get past it and to generally keep the peace. Now it looked like I wasn't going to get the option any longer. It seemed I had kicked this particular can as far down the road as it would go.
Before Megan could move her hand to intertwine her fingers with mine, I clenched a fist, denying her access, "You know exactly why I can't be alone with you," I said, "It isn't exactly proper for me to be running around with my ex, especially when I have a girlfriend right now."
"We're just talking," Megan pouted, "We can talk. That's not a crime."
Short of getting up and walking out of the room, I didn't really have much of a choice. At least no choice that allowed me a grateful exit, "What do you want to talk about?"
Megan stopped touching me in exchange for wringing her hands on the table, struggling to come up with an articulate way to frame her thoughts, "Well, first, I have a question. Back when we broke up-."
"-When you dumped me," I corrected, allowing a little pettiness to leak into my attitude.
"Right," Megan begrudgingly agreed to the amendment, looking like she'd sucked a lemon at the reminder, "...When I dumped you, you just seemed to accept it and move on. Why did you never even try to get me back?"
I breathed out a laugh, "Pix, you wouldn't even talk to me face-to-face the day you cut me loose," I recalled it clearly. I went to talk and got rebuffed. Not even by her. Her friends did it for her. Did she expect me to sit outside her door afterwards and whine like a moody dog? "I did try. But I'm not about to beg anyone to keep me around, and I can't force you to be with me if you say you don't want to. I don't ever want to be the kind of guy who does either of those things."
Megan shook her head sadly, eyes cast downward, "I regretted it almost right after I did it, you know?" No, I didn't know that. She continued, "Like, days later I felt sick about it. If at any point, you had come up to me and talked it out, I would have taken it all back."
"Then why did you buy into it that much that you broke up with me in the first place?" I asked.
We never even got to try and to talk it out. One moment I was heading off to New York to help Laura with something. The next moment, everything got turned on its head before I could even give my side of things.
"I don't know!" Megan exclaimed, moisture welling up in her eyes, "It's like it hit me like a wave, or something! All of a sudden, I was worried that you were spending so much time with someone else that I knew liked you! I was angry that you went off with her on some adventure at the drop of a hat without saying anything! I was sad, because my mind jumped to what you could have been doing, alone with her at night, hours away from school where anyone could see you."
By this point, tears were rolling down her freckled cheeks. Megan didn't cry when she saw me with Laura in that hotel in Mutant Town. She didn't cry when she dumped me. She didn't cry when we had our little parting ways conversation at the homecoming dance. At least, she never let me see her cry any of those times. But now I was getting months of her pent-up sadness unloaded right then and there, and I couldn't help but feel like garbage about it.
In an effort to try and preserve Megan's modesty, I got up to close the door to the room before anyone could walk in and see her. I had to stop a student at the doorway and keep him from coming in, "Office hours are closed, chief," I said, leaving no room for argument.
"What? But it's not five yet-," I was certain that I glared absolute murder at the poor kid. That coupled with the girl visible behind me who was clearly crying was enough to scare him off, "Right, yeah, I'll try again tomorrow. Sorry."
I tried to offer a look of gratitude as I nodded at him. Being mad at a student wasn't fair. It wasn't his fault that he happened to come around at the worst possible time. Once I had sent him on his way, I shut the door to the office and put up the sign we had outside to let students know we were closed for the day. No one needed to be around to see Megan break down.
I retook my seat next to her. In the past, if I had ever seen her like this, I would have swept her into my arms without hesitation and held her until she calmed down and beyond. Here though, I held back for a moment before deciding that I didn't care. Anyone seeing it could draw their own conclusions and misinterpret what was going on all they wanted. The poor thing needed a body, and I was somebody.
I wrapped Megan up in a hug and let her get it out of her system. As ill-advised as it probably was, I let her slide over and sit in my lap as she squeezed me back. It felt desperate, as if she felt like I would vanish if she let go, "Back then, you said you weren't worried about Laura's crush on me," I said gently, trying to prompt her to explain more.
Megan nodded with a sniffle, "And I wasn't... until I was."
"What changed?"
The more she tried to think about it, to truly get to the root of the issue, the more confounded she seemed to make herself, "I don't know. Like I said, it felt like it just sort of hit me. Like, one day all these thoughts and feelings just jumped into my head, almost like they weren't even mine."
It had been so weird at the time. The whole situation hit so fast I didn't even have time to register what was happening until the damage was done. Things had been going well, or so I'd thought. The day everything changed, I didn't really have a chance to see Megan that day because of a detention I'd been serving. The admittedly suspicious overnight trip I'd taken with Laura looked bad, but nothing I shouldn't have been able to explain, especially when there was plenty of evidence that we hadn't been fooling around and had gone out for a legitimate reason.
Between the attack by the Purifiers, getting sent to Limbo, then the X-Men team I'd been thrown at the head of, there had been so much going on crammed so close together back then, I didn't have a real chance to sit down and analyze much, even when it came to my personal life. As much as it hurt at the time, my only choice was to keep things moving or else get caught lacking in a way that would trickle down and get someone around me killed. I had simply chalked losing Megan up to me fumbling the bag and deigned to never allow my own negligence to let something like that happen again.
Now, with a moment to actually focus on me, just me, for once, I could roll through all the ways that some things didn't add up. And I didn't like the direction my brain was pointing me in.
I found myself lost in thought again. Megan recognized this and almost slipped one by me. I missed her moving her face closer to mine, so much so that she almost managed to press her lips to mine before I managed to notice. I barely managed to get my index finger up to her lips to stop her. She looked at me confusedly, my finger serving as the only barrier between us, "What's wrong?"
I gently moved her back and lifted her off my lap, "You realize that if we did anything like that, I'd be guilty of exactly the thing you were afraid I'd do when you broke up me," Before she could offer a response, I offered an equally stinging follow up, "-And you'd be guilty of the exact thing everyone accused Laura of."
"But..." Megan tried to argue, doing her best to come up with anything to convince me to kiss her, "Just one? No one would know. I won't tell anyone. I promise," she whispered.
No, that didn't work. Even if whatever we did never left that room, I would still know, and I was the only one who needed to know for it to be a problem.
"You're better than that. You deserve better than that," I said, touching my forehead to Megan's. Outside of the hug from before, it was the closest I could physically get to her. I set her aside as gently as I could and got up from my seat to leave. The loss of warmth was jarring for me. I could only imagine how it felt for her. I noticed her wrap her arms around herself before I turned away, "...I'll see you later, Pix."
I couldn't spare a look back at her. I didn't want to see her disappointment, her sadness. It would have swirled up too many feelings in me. Just thinking about letting her down made me want to put my fist through a wall. She didn't deserve this, not if the train of thought I was being led by happened to be accurate.
I could feel the heat in the palms of my clenched hands as I stomped across campus in the dead of winter. I had forgotten my coat in the office and couldn't have cared less. Still, the walk felt like an eternity, and that was just all the more time to stew and get angrier.
Finding who I was looking for wasn't very difficult. After he had started creeping around campus again, all the students tended to give him a wide berth. That included knowing where he tended to hang around at any given point of the day.
Quentin Quire had basically been on double secret probation since his little stunt during winter break. Any other real mishaps until that blew over, and he'd be serving out the first half of second semester in the brig. He was strictly barred to campus and forced to serve daily detention under the supervision of telepathy-resistant staff.
He had taken to posting up in the study lounge on the second floor of the main mansion building. He could usually be caught there reading or studying tons of books in one sitting. Say what you will about Quire and his dogwater attitude; he still possessed a genius-level intellect.
It wasn't a problem catching him alone either. I'd heard that once upon a time, Quire used to have goonies who ran with him. The Omega Gang, they had been called. How original. That had been back before he'd tried to take over the school and start a riot. That had been well before my time there, and everyone that had once been involved didn't run with him anymore. Apparently, after things got real for a bit, they found they weren't like that, the consequences of their actions being a little too heavy for them. They mellowed back into the general student body.
Quire himself was the only one that kept that edgelord shit up. Getting tuned up once or twice hadn't been enough to knock it out of him. Well, I was almost of the mind to try and see if the third time was the charm.
He noticed me coming before I could even walk up on him, "Well-well-well, if it isn't the number one bootlicker. Just in time, Marcher. The lighting in this part of the room is a little... eh. Make yourself useful, would you?"
So nonchalant. So annoying. Admittedly, given what I was feeling, it was very difficult for me to match that energy, "I could do that. What I should do though, is cut your fucking skull open and laser out whatever part of your brain controls that goddamned telepathy!"
Quire's lip curled in a sneer. He set his book aside and glared up at me through his glasses, "You sure picked a hell of a time for your balls to drop. Aww... you still mad about me hijacking your widdle trip home to see your mommy and daddy?" He taunted as he stood to confront me.
As if. That had been a mild inconvenience, all things considered, "Nah. You're gonna have to dig a little further back. Try harder," I said, trying to lead him to the right conclusion, "Dropping your little poison thoughts in my head is one thing. You had a problem with me, whatever it was. Fine. I get it. Petty, but I get it. Going after someone else though? A girl who didn't have anything to do with whatever this beef is, just because she liked me?" I shook my head in disgust, "You really ain't worth, shit, are you?"
While Quire didn't back down in the slightest, he did seem confused. Did he still not realize what I was getting at, "Not that I don't love setting you off, Marcher. But I have no idea what you're bitching about."
"Pixie," I said through gritted teeth.
If anything, that seemed to confuse him more, "...What about Pixie?"
I was stunned. Was doing cruel things to people such an afterthought to him he couldn't even remember? No, he couldn't be that much of a scumbag, "You're seriously gonna stand here in front of me, ten toes down, look me dead in my face and say you didn't do anything to her?"
"Are you serious?" Quire replied, offended, "Why would I need to screw with her to screw with you? Have you ever been in your own head? You've got more insecurities than bones in your body! The day I need to go through anyone else just to push your stupid buttons is the day the earth stands still!"
-Which was entirely possible, given the sorts of things that we knew had happened to the earth, but I still understood his point.
Quire was a dickhead, but he was in-your-face about it. He didn't do things in the background. He wanted to be seen. He wanted the attention that was meant to come with whatever he was doing. He didn't go behind your back if he didn't like you. He went right at you. If he did something to you, he wanted you to know it was him. Even if he had screwed with Megan's wiring in secret, the second I confronted him about it he'd have been rubbing it in my face, even all these months later. Hell, if he had done it, he probably would have brought it up himself.
So, if it wasn't him, who was it?
I had those thoughts loudly enough that Quire easily picked up on them, "Looks like you've got more work to do, Kojak. Back to the drawing board."
What the hell? No other telepath would have done that. Ruthie, the Cuckoos, Miss Frost... I was on good terms with every other telepath that I interacted with. So was Megan. She was a sweetheart. Who else would have done anything to make her want to break up with me? And why? What would the point of that even have been?
"You're thinking too narrowly, dumbass," Quire said, retaking his seat so he could pick up where he'd left off in his book. He spoke to me through his mind, "Telepaths aren't the only ones who can influence thoughts. You already know two other people who can, and they have the same damn power. Or do pheromones not mean anything to you?"
Dr. Garrison.
I stood and stared at Quire. The day was just full of surprises, "...You know about him?" I thought back.
Quire scoffed derisively, "Are you kidding me? I knew about him while I was still a puddle. Just because I wasn't around didn't mean I wasn't around. I still saw everything."
First Saberwolf, now Quire. Did everyone know about Dr. Garrison being a mutant but me? At least Quire had the excuse of having literally no positive relations on campus when it came to why he didn't say anything. Why would he give a damn if the rest of the students and staff were getting brainwashed? It wasn't his problem. He didn't like any of us anyway.
"How do I know this isn't some wild goose chase?" I asked, "You could just be throwing accusations around."
"Because I'm not throwing any accusations around," Quire countered, "Also, I don't fucking care what you think or who you pin that Pixie thing on as long as it isn't me. I can make my own trouble. I don't need the blame for shit I didn't even have the pleasure of doing."
Fair enough. There was something to respect about that, I guess. You just had to dig through meters of muck to find whatever it was.
"...Fuck," I eventually muttered. I had almost started an incident in a common area over an inaccurate hunch. About a girl I wasn't even with anymore, "Quire... I-."
"-Save it," Quire cut me off, sparing me the ignominy of having to apologize, "Do me a favor and make sure that the next time you feel like throwing down, it's for something that's actually worth my time."
That was the closest thing to an amicable dismissal I could expect, or actually wanted, from Quire. It was fine. I had too many more things to consider. More questions than any possible answers, really.
It was entirely plausible Megan had seen Dr. Garrison that day, or at least near enough around that time for him to work her over. He'd been seeing pretty much all of the students in the X-Men training program back then. But even if he had access to her like that, why would he want to nudge her towards ending her relationship with me? Of all the things he could push her into feeling or doing. That was what I couldn't make sense of.
My emotions were churning, but as much as I wanted to put Dr. Garrison in a pack, I just couldn't. Not right then. Even with what Laurie and now Quire had to tell me, all I had was conjecture. That wasn't good enough. I needed more. I needed something hard, something concrete.
I wasn't a detective. But I had to make damn sure I knew what was up before I set this whole thing off, or I was going to be the one who paid for it.
XxX
Until I had a concrete plan, I maintained one simple mantra – stay away from Dr. Garrison. Not only did I want to avoid getting hit with another dose of pheromones at any and all costs, if I saw him, I would have had to fight the urge to jaw him.
I had to avoid the guy, which wasn't really that hard. I didn't have any mandatory sessions with him. No one did anymore. Dr. Garrison was popular enough with the student body that he was always booked tight with sessions whenever he was scheduled to be on campus. As long as I played ball and went along with business as usual when it came to whatever he had planned for my team, I could keep making my own moves and arrangements in silence.
Not too long ago, I had specifically promised Laura and others that I wouldn't jump the gun on things like this. Until there was a need to rush, I had to try and play the long game, just to make sure I had all my ducks in a row. That meant playing everything cool.
It was easier said than done, especially when I was around people trained to notice even the slightest differences in others. And the closer to them they were, the easier it was for them to pick up on anything out of the ordinary.
Laura wound up going on a walk that took us to the lake. There we found students ice skating. While it didn't show on her face, it was abundantly clear that it had caught her attention, which I dreaded. I could handle a skating rink with roller skates, even if I had never been the biggest fan of it. Ice was a different beast altogether though.
Still, what bae wants, bae gets. If she knew I was apprehensive, she would never ask, and I wasn't enough of a wuss to deny her an experience only so I could keep from busting my ass. As a wise man once told me, if your girl likes to , you take her to go _ with her. Why should she deny herself something she enjoys just because you're concerned with looking uncool?
A fifteen-minute trudge to the dorms and back to requisition two pairs of skates and we were off.
I wasn't as god awful at ice skating as I'd expected to be. Ice skating wasn't really that much different from inline skating, aside from the obvious. It wasn't like I was tearing up on the ice like some speed skater, but I got around just fine. Laura though...
The girl was a machine. At first, she seemed tentative to try, learning by mimicking what she saw others on the ice doing to get herself started. It didn't take half an hour for her to get comfortable. By the time we were done, she had literally started skating circles around me, complete with turns, spins, and jumps.
It was crazy how she seemed to be so good at everything. I really doubt the Facility went over the finer points of ice skating or the like in her training. Either way, it was a nice way to spend the afternoon.
I always loved to see her relax. She was always so tense, so tightly coiled. Even at school, surrounded by other students and senior staff, she always had her eyes and ears open, like she seemed to spend every moment assessing threats. If Eddie thought I needed to relax, what about Laura? Fortunately, I could find mundane ways like these to get her to chill. Those were moments to be cherished.
Eventually, Laura and I wound up idling about on the ice, just skating around with her in my arms. It was here that she finally took the chance to put me on the spot, "Something is bothering you."
"Hmm?" I said, caught off guard at first, "I mean, I'm never going to be a fan of all this snow and ice, but whatever. This is good with me, Buzzsaw."
"No, that isn't what I mean," Laura said, turning and grabbing my hands as she skated backwards, "You've been distracted all afternoon."
"Have I?" I asked, as if I didn't know what she was talking about. Damn it. Why did I choose to date someone who could literally smell my fear? And my anger? And my arousal? ...And any other thing I may happen to be feeling at any given moment? Well, there was no way to convince her nothing was wrong, so deflection via a half-truth was the move to make, "Well... Megan took her shot earlier."
It hadn't been untrue. And it had led directly to a lot of what was percolating in my head at the moment. Besides, I would have eventually had to tell Laura about it anyway.
At that, her face changed. It would have been almost imperceivable to anyone who didn't minor in studying Laura's expressions the way that I did. To me though, it came through loud and clear. She was... less than pleased, shall we say, "That is... annoying," She admitted. I kind of felt bad, "...But also not what is bothering you. You're hiding something."
Again, damn it. As if it would be that easy to distract Laura once she was on to something.
"Just... trying to come up with countermeasures," I said, doing my best not to outright lie to my girlfriend's face. I was trying to come up with ways to deal with someone I was preparing to take down... and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Laura was already extremely familiar with something very similar to the pheromone conundrum I was facing, "I was wondering if you ever thought of ways to deal with the trigger scent."
At that reminder of her past, of the Facility and all the terrible things associated with it, Laura stopped skating, going completely still. I could feel her body stiffen as we glided to a stop on the ice.
"Ever since the first time it was used on me," She admitted. The mournful look she graced me with just about broke my heart, "Are you afraid that I would hurt you?"
I remembered the first time I'd had a brush with her in that state, "No," I responded earnestly.
"Oh," She almost seemed surprised that I wasn't, and it was clear as to why, "...I am."
'I'm a piece of shit.'
I said that to myself over and over. I reminded myself why I was even using this approach in the first place, simultaneously swearing I would find some way to make it up to her later for ever bringing this up, even if she never knew why I had actually done it, "...Have you ever come up with a defense? Or a counter?"
"Nothing reliable," Laura said, "Nothing that I could ever count on in the moments it was happening. It isn't as if I'm warned before it occurs. And once I recognize the scent, it is already too late."
So, even if I could identify that I was smelling something different, if I was that far along, it was already too late. While Laura's sense of smell was infinitely better than mine, our lung capacity was the same. I'd be breathing in pheromones long before I ever knew what hit me.
"Theoretically... if you had a broken nose or something, would you still be affected by it?" I asked.
"Yes," Laura said, instantly shooting down my theory before it could begin to take shape, "I would still be breathing it in through my mouth, theoretically in larger amounts."
"Well, I guess I could walk around with an air filter in my sinuses or something," I tried to joke to lighten things up.
"I'm certain that kind of surgery exists," Laura replied, also trying to bring some levity to the conversation. I had made a mistake, however. After a moment of thought, her brow furrowed, "Bellamy... why did you say you could do that? Obviously, the trigger scent would not affect you, so there would be no point in coming up with a way to protect yourself from it."
I was terrible at lying, and I despised keeping things from people I cared about. Laura was onto me anyway. She had been all afternoon.
Well, I needed people in the know for what I was up to anyway. And no one had a poker face like Laura. She wouldn't give the game away without meaning to.
"Laura... none of this had anything to do with the trigger scent," I admitted, "I was trying to deflect."
She frowned, "So you were trying to keep something from me."
I didn't bother trying to reason that I wasn't. I looked around. We were far enough out on the lake that the only way any of the people anywhere around would be able to overhear us was if they had hearing like Laura's, "Have you ever had a therapy session with Dr. Garrison?"
Laura shook her head, "No. There are things I would rather only share with people I trust."
Good. She hadn't been microdosed with pheromones for the last few months, which meant she didn't have to be deprogrammed the way I had to. I proceeded to give her the cliffnotes version of what I knew about the current goings on involving Dr. Garrison. Everything that I had managed to put together so far that she needed to know, I gave her.
She heard me out all the way through and believed me, thank goodness. I didn't have any evidence to present to her, but she gave me the benefit of the doubt easily enough.
"Who else is aware?" Laura asked, her game face thoroughly on by this point.
I loved it when she got all operational, "Wallflower knows, because she was the one who smartened me up in the first place. Then I got Saberwolf onboard, because he's totally immune to pheromones."
"And now I know as well," Laura concluded, "Do you truly believe the school may be compromised?"
"Just go about your day like normal tomorrow," I told her, "Now that you know, you won't be able to unsee it."
"We will need hard evidence before we make any kind of direct move."
"I know."
"And a plan. A good plan. With powers like that, we can leave nothing to chance during a confrontation."
"Of course."
At that, she stopped and looked at me quizzically, "Why are you smiling?"
Was I? Sure enough, once she mentioned it, I could feel it, "I'm sorry. I should have just looped you in instead of trying to deflect."
Despite everything, she smiled too, "It's okay," She gave my hands a squeeze, "You don't know who to trust right now."
"I should always trust you," I told her. I gently moved her hands up and kissed the knuckles on each, right where her claws came through. I actually got her to fidget a bit by doing that. If ever you could catch Laura being bashful. She always appreciated when I did that. I think she may have liked it almost as much as a proper kiss.
"Would you like to go and plan our approach?" Laura offered.
I regarded the girl in my grasp for a moment, and the decision was clear, "No," Work could wait. I had endeavored to play the long game, after all. Besides, there was something more important right in front of me. I began guiding us back to the shore, "I would rather go and make things up to you right now for being an asshole."
Life moves pretty fast, after all. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
...
Damn it. Eddie was right. I needed to stop quoting movies so much. Or at least pick more obscure ones.
And that's the chapter.
No, I'm still not dead yet. I'm just old, children. Time will come for us all, you included, and every pastime you hold dear.
...