Got inspiration for another X-Men Evolution one-shot but I promise that I am working on my other stories.
Writer's block really sucks.
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Todd sat on the couch with a large notepad propped up against his left knee while one hand held a magnifying glass and his right foot held the pencil he was running across the paper. Lance was leaning against the wall with his guitar, Pietro was somewhere, and Fred was sitting in the chair with some food. Wanda had disappeared sometime ago. It was pretty much a typical day in the life of the Brotherhood.
"Hey, what are you doing, Toad?" the Blob asked. Todd looked up from the notepad with a questioning look.
"What d'ya mean?" he asked, hoping Fred wasn't talking about what he thought he was.
"With your toes. How are you writing like that?"
"Well, uh, I ain't really writin' anythin'," he replied, looking back down, hoping Fred would drop it.
"You know, he's right, and what's with the magnifying glass, anyway?" Lance asked, pushing himself off the wall with his shoulders. Todd unconsciously moved his arms protectively around the notepad, which only increased the curiosity of the other two boys.
"It ain't for nothin', alright," he frowned.
"What's not for anything?" That annoyingly cocky voice signified that Pietro had just showed up.
"Toad doesn't want to tell us what he's up to with the paper," Lance informed. Pietro raised a brow.
"So little Toady has a bit of a secret, eh?" he grinned. Toad figured out what was probably gonna happen just as Quicksilver had grabbed the notepad and was safely on the other side of the room within a second. He flipped through some of the pages, his gaze becoming confused the more he saw. "No way," Pietro muttered.
Todd wanted to sink back into the couch as the speed mutant tossed the notepad over to Lance who swiftly caught it, letting his guitar hang by the strap and glanced through the pages. Much to Todd's embarrassment he started laughing.
"No way! You draw?" Todd hopped up and grabbed the papers away from him.
"Yeah, what of it!" Fred just looked surprised, Lance was still laughing his brains out, and Pietro, by this point, was starting to laugh as well. Todd, annoyed and a bit offended, hopped upstairs to his room. He tossed the notepad onto his bed, a few loose sheets falling out.
It was pretty much the only thing he was good at. Drawing, that it, and even some other kinds of art. Mostly he sketched the mutants, any of them. A few of the sheets lying on his bed consisted of the Brotherhood and some others even had members of the X-Men. Todd was good, not to seem conceited. He just knew how to do it, the shading, proportions, he could just draw whatever. His toad eyes helped him see clearer, especially with colors, if he chose to have any, but the magnifying glass helped him get a picture perfect down to the tiniest detail.
He thought it felt good, being good at something that not everyone else can do, but now that the rest of the Brotherhood knew he'd need to find somewhere else to do it. He listened and could still hear them laughing downstairs. Todd had tried for so long to make sure they never found out. The only reason he felt safe drawing on the couch was that they never ever bothered him. Most people preferred to just ignore him. He sighed. Well now what? He couldn't go back down there for awhile. He just wanted to get out of the place. Todd started ruffling through his stuff, putting his newer sketches on the bottom of one of his drawers, the only clean one, with the others before grabbing his notepad, several pencils and erasers, and his magnifying glass.
Todd jumped out the window and was halfway down the block before he thought about where to go. Somewhere not private, but not likely to be filled with people.
He headed for the park.
The sun was high up in the cloudless sky so he grabbed a spot underneath a large oak. With a breath, Todd let himself draw whatever came to him. His tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. It had been awhile since he drew one of the X-Men so his current project was the red head one, Jean Grey. So far he had a rough sketch of her sitting by a tree, inspired by his current environment, but he couldn't get any further. It was the face. He couldn't draw it. Not because it was hard to draw but rather because he only ever sees the X-Men in battles so he's really only seen them as mad, annoyed, bored, or with looks that said, 'They are so pathetic' so Todd wasn't sure how to draw Jean's face so that it was calm, or happy.
Toad placed the notepad on the ground and leaned his head back against the solid bark of the tree behind him. He could try to improvise but seeing as that still wouldn't be how her face was while it was happy than the drawing would still fail in his opinion, plus not a lot of people were exactly happy and smiling around him a lot of the time. He 'hmm-ed' as he thought when he heard something on the other side of the tree. In his shock he jumped 15 feet up, quite easily, to the branches of the large oak.
"What's this?" he heard someone say. A female someone with bright red hair who was kneeling beside his sketchpad. She picked it up and stood, flipping through some of the pages. Todd was torn. He considered using his tongue to grab the notepad away from her but decided against it since he didn't want to risk hurting any of the drawings he'd worked so hard on.
"Drop it, yo!" was his ever amazing comeback as he dropped to the ground after she looked up at him in the tree. He grew slightly embarrassed when he discovered it to be the same girl he had been attempting to draw. Jean Grey.
"Toad? So these are yours?" she asked, taking another look at the pictures instead of handing it back.
"Yeah, what of it?" he murmured turning his head, not feeling like being harassed about it for the second time today.
"They're very good," was all she said. Todd looked at her, his gold eyes locking with her green ones for an instant. Jean handed him the sketchpad. "But how come so few of them are happy?"
"Cause I don't know a lot of people willing to smile for me," he muttered unhappily. Great, why was he talking about this to one of the X-Geeks. She was probably gonna mock him for it like most people probably would. What she actually did, though, surprised him.
Jean took a seat on the ground and asked, "Want to talk about it?" Todd shrugged and crouched into a frog squat. After a moment he just started talking. He probably ended up talking about more things than he normally would, things like a day in the life of Todd Tolensky and ended with his morning with the Brotherhood today. He liked how she just listened and let him speak until the end when she commented angrily, "They are such jerks!" Jean fell into a rant about how the Brotherhood should stick together and the stupidity of men and frankly Todd zoned out of it near the beginning.
Todd definitely wasn't used to people being on his side.
"Well it shouldn't matter," she stated which drew Todd's attention back to her. "Toad, if drawing is something you enjoy doing than don't let what others say keep you from doing it." Todd took a look at the sketchpad in his hands and flipped through the pages to the picture he had been working on.
"Well, yeah, I guess so. I'm kinda stuck right now, anyway, yo."
"Why?" Todd felt heat begin to climb up his cheeks and he wordlessly showed her the unfinished sketch. Jean looked at it for a bit before she recognized the faint lines that traced the hair and clothes and, after a quit prod in his mind to make sure, realized exactly who it was he was drawing.
Todd kept his eyes low as Jean got up. Not a minute later he heard something in his mind, and no not like a crazy person. Is this alright? Todd, surprised, looked up and saw Jean sitting by a tree not 10 feet away, leaning back on it with her legs stretched out. Just like the rough design of his picture. Er, uh, yeah, he thought back, assuming that's what he was supposed to do. He saw her give him a smile as she relaxed.
Wasting no time, Todd got to work.
The sun was setting by the time he was finished to the point that he no longer required a muse. Later he would probably go back and add more detail but for now he wouldn't be surprised if the popular Jean Grey didn't want to spend any more time with a loser like him. Well, said girl caught the thought and walked over to him. Jean gave him a peck on the cheek and smiled.
"Don't sell yourself short, Todd. You're a nice guy with a great talent and it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks," she said before standing. She waved goodbye and added, "I'll see you later," as she walked back towards the Institute. Todd, however, stayed where he was. He clutched his sketchpad to his chest and leaned his head back against the large oak. A smile touched his lips.
She said my name.
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So? What did you think? I got this from the end up the episode where Gambit tells the Brotherhood that Magneto wants them to save Pietro. When he walks in in the end Toad is on the couch with the notepad, pencil, and what looks like a magnifying glass so I got to thinking. What is he doing?
And this came from that.
Review, please.