Julian's not sure when his life became such a mess. He's nineteen, for the fuck's sake. But he supposes it began when he fifteen. The moment he first set eyes on Xavier's Institute and thought maybe –just maybe, this would work out.
Yeah. It started around then. M-Day was definitely a factor in the amount of utter shit he would have to endure in the next three years, but … there was something about the school. Yeah.
He can remember when he first started class and how he acted up and how he secretly loved Xavier's, Economics classes and all. It was home.
And then M-Day. And the Puritans. The bus. And that shit over little Miss Perfect. The savior. Hope. And him getting impaled on Deathstrike's claws.
And then Utopia.
And the accident. It wasn't an accident, of course. Just Bastion.
He supposes that he thought going back, going to school would make things okay again, somehow. Like it would comfort him to be in a school again. That was shit.
It isn't the same, of course not. Not even close.
The new students are so… he can't bear it. No. They hadn't seen… They didn't know… Do they have nightmares? Do any of them ever wake up in the middle of the night, drench in a cold sweat? Do they reach up to brush their hair out of their eyes or move to bite their knuckles in order to stifle a scream and forget –hell, do any of them forget to pick up their hands?
No.
And Julian hates it. Yeah, he knows most of the X-Men either have it the same or worse or… whatever.
"Feelin' sorry for yourself again?"
Julian snarls and makes an angry sound that says 'fuck off' plain as day.
Quentin cackles and then coos, "Aw, poor Hellion. Cries when he's all by himself, doesn't he? No friends around to pretend for, eh, Keller?"
Julian pins the telepath with a look he hopes properly expresses his disbelief that Quentin is actually still in his space.
"You're not the only one with problems," Quentin rolls his eyes and cards a hand through his offensively pink hair. "God, you 'New X-Men' are so angst-ridden." He wrinkles his nose, "Your minds stink of angst."
"Then keep your nose out of my head." Julian snaps, standing from where he'd been seated under one of the large trees in the back courtyard. He brushes grass off his pants, "What do you want? Come out here just to bitch at me?"
Quentin inspects his black-painted fingernails and leans against the tree trunk. "You're wanted in the hangar." He says. "I was calling you, but clearly you're missing some vital brain cells. So I had to come out here myself."
Julian scowls, but makes haste to the Blackbird. Thank God Quentin is still banned from missions. His face and stupid nasally voice aren't missed.
When they return to the mansion that evening and Julian flops into bed, covered in bruises and mostly-treated cuts, he takes a moment to reflect on his life to the sound of Santo's snores.
Julian Keller: Estranged son. Girlfriend-less (he tends not to let his thoughts dwell on Laura. They're… complicated). Hand-less. Mostly penniless (he has an account, like most disinherited or orphaned students in the X-Men). Homeless? No, no. He lives at Jean Grey Institute.
…So?
Julian squeezes his eyes shut and wills sleep to come.
It's watching (rather, not watching, but sitting in front of) the TV the next afternoon, sore from the previous day's mission that realization strikes.
He's sitting beside Santo, who's roaring at the television screen and so naturally, Julian's also squished against the couch armrest. He blinks and says softly, "I have to go."
"Huh?" Victor says on Santo's other side.
Megan peers over from where she's sitting on the loveseat.
"Nothing." Julian stands up. "Later."
"Where you going?" Santo protests.
He raises his eyebrows. "What, can't even go to bed without letting you all know?" he snorts.
"No, we just…" Megan starts.
He waves her words away. "I'm tired. So. Later." He does a peace-out gesture and gets the hell out of the room.
The sunset shoots a ray of light into the unlit room like one of Hawkeye's arrows. Julian sits down on his bedspread, takes deep breath, and looks around.
There's an empty duffel under his bed.
He leaves a note (Concise. No drama. No emotional blab.) on his pillow and slips out of the room to step into the hall. It's dark, but the stairway at the end is lit.
There are bamfs asleep, hanging upside down, on the banister as he descends, and he's sure to not wake them. He expects there to be someone to stop him, expects an X-Man to step out of the shadows and give him a speech to change his mind. He might've expected Logan or Xavier (if he weren't, you know, dead for good, and if Logan weren't, you know, on a mission as usual).
There's no one, not even Kitty, the newly appointed Headmistress. And Julian steps outside to a quiet night. He zips up his jacket, adjusts the strap of his bag, and takes off into the sky. The mansion disappears as he picks up speed.
He expects a call. Or a text.
His cell phone is fully charged. He has his X-Pager (the GPS chip has been thrown out, though he knows he could be found in other ways).
But the first day is silent. They've definitely seen the note. He wonders if they think he'll be back.
No way. Julian's not just on one of those journeys of self-discovery that Rogue and Logan seem so fond of. He's out. For good. He's free, dammit.
His feet take him west, and he wonders if it's because he's thinking about Utopia or –no, he's not going there. No way. He purposefully takes a turn south away from California, the place he's most definitely not going… yet ends up in, anyway.
Julian takes comfort in that at least he's quite a distance from San Francisco.
He's got a job waiting tables at some classless diner, has had one for several months now. The people who hired him don't care that he's a mutant, and the customer's don't care either –that or they don't notice; he wears long sleeves and keeps his hand tucked into the sleeves and looking like actual, attached prosthetics.
Point is, he's got a routine. Something normal. He hasn't gotten into any fights or broken any bones since his last mission as an X-Men. It's great.
When trouble comes, he almost doesn't notice.
Julian doesn't usually take the morning shift, but Mandy's out, and more work equals more money, equals …well, he doesn't have a plan beyond 'more money'.
But there he is, seven A.M, working tables for the early crowd. Between jobs, he's wiping down the counter. The radio's playing behind him and Carl's organizing the register.
"Isn't it bad, man?"
"What's bad?" Julian glances over.
Carl nods his head at the radio. "The kidnappings?"
Julian's got to admit he's out of the loop on that one. "What happened?"
"It's been going for a while," Carl says, carding a hand through his blond Surfer Dude locks and looking appropriately sympathetic, "A bunch of these muties –ya know, a bunch of them's been manifestin' or some shit lately? Well one of those radical extremist groups or just plain hate groups've been kidnapping all these teens. Bodies've been showin' up couple days later, all mutilated and shit. It's bad. This local girl was found yesterday night." he nods at the radio again, "S'what they were just talking about. Cops don't know who to go after."
Julian's always been strongly opined about these type of situations. "What? No X-Men or anyone's coming to investigate?"
"Nah, man. Doesn't look like it. Seems like they're pretty caught up with something intergalactic right now. Remember those alien parasites on the news last week?" Carl shudders.
Julian figures he needs to keep up with the times more. He turns back to the counter, but suddenly can't bring himself to just keep on cleaning. His stomach is in knots, his blood pounding through his veins and his face probably contorted in anger.
"Hey, can I get some more coffee?" someone calls across the room.
Julian grabs for the coffee pot and heads off. It's not until he gets to the table and is pouring the man coffee that he realizes what the weird looks people are throwing him mean. His hand is very clearly floating several inches away from him.
"That's a mighty strange prosthetic, son," the customer tells him.
Julian forces a smile and says something about new mechanics based off of alien tech and quickly retreats to the diner's backroom to escape everyone's stares.
Shit.
It takes all of two weeks for Julian to cave. His resistance to investigating the kidnappings was largely attributed to the lack of further news on the unknown kidnappers. He forced himself to get on with this his life. He left the diner, began again somewhere new.
This time around, it's harder. He wakes up and he doesn't feel the old content of being alone. Something inside of him itches, gnaws at him to take action. So when the news of a young girl's abduction under similar circumstances as previous cases in a town a couple miles away, Julian's sadly unsurprised to find himself taking up a routine of patrol in the nights.
He moves north and temporarily settles in a motel room.
Then, Julian goes out.
He doesn't wear dark clothes or a cape like he can recall Santo and Victor doing during a ridiculous vigilante escapade in San Francisco; he's smarter than that. He wears non-descript sweats and a dark sweater, which he keeps his gauntlets in the pockets of to keep anyone from giving him a second glance.
Julian finds nothing, though one night he does stop a mugging (and is promptly punched by the frantic, confused would-be victim). When the body shows up, Julian continues to stare at the television even after the broadcast is over. There's a sinking feeling in his chest.
And in part, it's because he knows that when the next person goes missing, it'll be from San Francisco, the mutant capital of the nation.
So he packs up, counts how much money he has left, and hitch-hikes north.
If there's one thing Julian learned from the X-Men, it's that if you can't find the target, you have to become the target. He figures it can't be too hard, as a mutant, to bait a group of mutant-haters into coming after him.
That's where Julian is wrong.
The thing about trying to be a mutant to be targeted in San Francisco is that twenty-seven percent of the world's mutant population lives in San Francisco.
Mutants may be manifesting again, but the numbers are still relatively low in comparison to the millions of mutants existing before M-Day.
Julian tries to be as outrageously mutant as possible, going to popular mutant clubs, using his powers in public –shit, he's starting to feel like Quentin Quire. Still, nobody comes after Julian; at most, some people mutter under their breaths or give him dirty looks. Tourists snap photos.
A body is found, two weeks after Julian arrives in the city. It's a boy, just fifteen years old. He's found in an alley with his tongue, wings and antennae cut off and his eye gauged out.
Julian runs to the nearest restroom and retches up all of his breakfast.
Life goes on, but Julian doesn't.
He knows he's getting obsessive, and he doesn't care. He calls X-Factor Investigations a couple of time, just to leave Maddrox's crew an anonymous tip-off, but nothing comes of it.
It makes Julian angry. It makes him furious.
Where the fuck are the X-Men now, when mutants are getting kidnapped and murdered on the streets?
Julian doesn't remember the Good Guys not caring so much, and he begins to wonder what else has been overlooked in the past years, what other crimes have been ignored in favor of running off to fight in space or against the same old foes who always lose.
When the dead boy is found, Julian figures it's time to get really committed to taking down the bastards who're killing the mutants –and that means getting into shady business.
Which also requires a lot of money.
Which Julian doesn't have.
So he has to push aside his impatience and get some money his pockets first, which means getting another job because he's not going to rob a bank, no way.
Besides, another thing about being a mutant in San Francisco is that if you go to the right place, you can get a job in a snap, because some people thirst for special mutant friends like they drool after sassy, gay BFFs.
And that is how, thirty hours of training later, Julian finds himself working a shift at a Starbucks on the corner of what's locally known as Mutant District. Julian mans the register and takes orders and the only benefit of the job is being able to listen in on snippets of conversation. There's always mention of news from within the mutant community –sightings of so-and-so, the latest escapades of various crime-fighters –and since Julian doesn't exactly have many people he's still in touch with, it's welcome information.
And fuck if working at Starbucks isn't one of the biggest hassles Julian has ever faced. If he hadn't once been training to be an X-Man, he figures he would probably have had a nervous breakdown by now.
When Julian gets his first paycheck (and he fucking deserves it for all his trouble), he begins looking into finding some old contacts. They're not his contacts per se, and he still can't afford them (he has barely over one hundred dollars in his pockets –or rather, in the places he hides his cash; he lives on the streets, has sold most of the clothes he had before so that he's only got one outfit to spare, and he waits in the Laundromat when he's washing his Starbucks uniform), but he thinks that if he waits any longer, he might go crazy.
Which is why, why he sees a flash of gold out of the corner of his eye one day, he doesn't believe it at first.
Elixir stands on the opposite side of the counter, white eyes widened in surprise to see Julian, waiting to take his coffee order.
Julian grits his teeth and forces a smile. "What can I get for you?" he says.
Elixir blinks. Then: "Grande caramel Frappuccino," he says, still gaping. His eyes are blank but somehow Julian can tell that their gaze is dropping to his nametag, trying to confirm that yes, his barista actually is Julian fucking Keller.
"Four seventy-eight," Julian says flatly. He gives no sign of acknowledgment because isn't this just peachy. Last he checked, he and Foley weren't on as bad of terms as they once were, but they're not going to be holding hands and braiding one another's hair anytime soon, either.
Elixir hands over a five and Julian makes his change and holds out his hand expectantly to drop it into Elixir's…
Who is still staring, the moron.
"Your change," Julian says through his teeth, "Will be twenty-two cents." His arm is getting tired and he just wants Foley to get out of his way. Christ, he better not blab. Julian's going to get a different job if a bunch of other X-Men start parading through the doors.
Elixir takes the coins and doesn't move.
Julian scowls as he takes one of the grande size cups from the stack beside him. "You're holding up the line. Which is long, by the way."
"Aren't you going to ask me for my name?" Elixir says, and Julian can't decide if it sounds mocking or not.
"I've got it covered," Julian sneers, then forces another grin. His gauntlets fly over to the work counter to hand off Elixir's cup to another barista and return before Elixir has made any move to leave.
Annoyed, Julian leans forward a little, "Keep moving, Foley. I've got work to do."
"What time does your shift end?" he demands.
Julian narrows his eyes, "Why?"
"Because I want to ask you on a fucking date, obviously," Elixir spits, appearing, at least, to have recovered from his surprise enough to be sarcastic.
Julian weighs his options. His co-workers are still hurrying around the floor behind him and there's a line of customers waiting and dealing with Elixir is not worth the effort. "My shift ends at one," he says and just like that, Elixir moves on to the pick-up counter to wait for his drink.
At one o'clock, Julian leaves the supply closet of the staff room with his apron and cap in the backpack that is basically his snail shell. The staff on the floor is still working hectically, and the room beyond the counter is crowded.
Julian doesn't see any sign of golden skin and is relieved for it –until he walks outside and finds Elixir lounging against the wall.
"Loitering is forbidden," he says, brushing past.
"So this is where you've been? San Francisco?" Elixir says, falling into step next to Julian.
"Among other places," he mutters, moving through the crowd of people with practiced ease. Unfortunately, Elixir appears to possess the same ease, and he effortlessly trails after Julian, still there when the crowd begins to thin around them.
"Holy shit, Foley," Julian says, "What do you want from me?" He double checks to make sure Elixir's not wearing one of his costumes or anything that looks like one, because that would mean the chance that he's here to drag Julian on one of the X-Men's missions (in the moment, Julian forgets Elixir's initial surprise, lost in senses of roused suspicion). Elixir's wearing dark jeans and a black hoodie over a button down black shirt. It's all a stark contrast to his former White Queen impression, Julian will give him that.
"It's been what, a year?" Elixir says.
Julian stops walking and rounds on Elixir, arms crossed. "Almost," he says.
"I wasn't there –well, obviously. Cessily texted me."
"Incredible," Julian says tartly. Elixir speaks without a point that Julian can discern. "I mean, it's incredible that you think I would give enough shits about even half the things you say." He turns away abruptly to continue walking.
"I left, too, you know." Elixir calls after him.
Julian turns again, this time with a bark of laughter. "Sure,"
Elixir scowled, "You don't believe me?"
"They'd actually let an Omega-level mutant like you leave?" Julian says incredulously. "Wouldn't Summers rather chain you to a rock than let you walk away?"
"Oh, I'm sure they've still got an eye on me somehow," Elixir says, waving a hand dismissively, "I mean, Cerebro's still a thing. Either of us are easy to find, if any telepath worth their salt is looking,"
"And you followed me just for that? Just to let me know that you also have a membership to the 'Former X-Men' club?" Julian scoffs. "Well, congratulations."
They exchange glares and Elixir crosses his arms and hunches his shoulders, appearing to try and fold in on himself. "Some people miss you, you know. Cessily, Santo –hell, even Noriko, probably. You could text once in a while."
"Don't patronize me," Julian says in disgust. He moves to walk away, and this time no response calls him back and he doesn't look back.
Julian's got an appointment with Big Eye Pete, a mutant gangster who's got enough connections to help Julian out, but not enough to be out of his reach.
He walks through the streets in the evening and it's pleasantly warm out and the night crowd is just beginning to come out. A mutant girl's was found dead the morning after Elixir found Julian. Her arms were cut off, all six of them, and that makes her the thirty-fifth mutant dead in the past nine months, the sixth this month alone. Whoever's killing the mutants are picking up speed.
Julian knows the name of all thirty-five mutants and the way they were all found and he's bringing these statistics to Big Eye Pete.
Big Eye Pete, as it turns out, has one very large eye and, frankly, is more deserving of the name 'Cyclops' than Scott Summers himself.
He considers all that Julian's said, leaning back in a great big black leather chair and scratching at his goatee.
They're sitting in the office of a popular mutant nightclub Pete operates from (because isn't that always the way?) and Pete's got men three men standing in the room, one of whom has a scaled arm that puts Anole's to shame.
"So what you're sayin' is," Pete says after a moment, "Is that you, a former X-Man, want my manpower to hunt down an anti-vigilante group and bring 'em in ta whatever higher powers that may be an' in return for my generosity and resources, you're willin' ta pay me what I make five times over in a month?"
"Not even your manpower," Julian says, "I want the word out. I want people on the lookout for this murderer. These kids are dying left and right. They're gonna keep dying because some guys think being a mutant means there's something wrong with you."
Pete looks unimpressed.
"They're going after mutants that are physically different from homo sapiens," Julian says. He stares Pete in the eye until he's sure he's got his point across.
"I'll send you coordinates to the location you're to drop off my money. I expect my man to have it by nine A.M tomorrow. You'll get a call: a name and a location," Pete says. "You'll have to go from there,"
Julian opens his mouth to protest.
"That's the deal, kid," Pete says, "I get this vigilante business –really, I do. But I run a business, Mr. Keller. I look at profits, and givin' you men for a couple of bucks outta the goodness of my heart… I ain't exactly seein' the profit turnin' here. So you'll get a name and a location, and that's it."
Julian's waiting at a pier –one of them, the one with the good hot dog stand next to the tourist map stand –and he's got a lunch box full of an amount of cash a good number of people would kill him for.
He's sitting on a bench at the end of the pier and maybe something about the way he's glaring at everyone is keeping anyone from sitting down next to him.
Then somebody does.
"Oh God," Julian says, "Please tell me you're not Pete's guy,"
Elixir raises his white eyebrows. "I don't remember sleeping with anyone named "Pete recently," he says.
"What?"
"What?"
They stare at each other and it occurs to Julian that Elixir is here for other reasons. He sighs and is about to verbally attack Elixir with a huge guy with grey skin sits down next to him and says, "You're Julian Keller," he says. "I'm Henry. The contact."
Julian stares at the contact. "Of course you are," he says after a moment, "Here's Pete's lunch," He hands off the lunchbox of money to Henry who nods at him.
"You'll have your name and place," Henry says, and stands up to leave.
"Please tell me you're not buying drugs," Elixir says. "Because I know the biological effects all drugs have on the body, and if you're doing drugs, I might have to kill you for it."
"What the hell are you doing here, Elixir?" Julian sighs.
"I can help you," Elixir says, "With whatever it is you're doing."
"Why?"
He doesn't blink, "I don't have a place."
"Christ," Julian scrubs a hand over his face, "Don't you have any money?"
"Sure," Elixir says, "Just not enough to pay rent for any place around here,"
"What makes you think I have money?"
"You always have money, for one," He says, "And you just handed off a whole bunch of it to some guy named Henry, who must be Pete's guy."
Julian scrutinizes Elixir for a moment, "You don't look homeless." he says finally. "And if you're homeless, why the hell are you buying caramel frappucinos?"
To this, he received a sigh and what he was sure was an eye roll (he couldn't quite tell; Elixir's pupils and irises were both a very light gray), as if the answer was obvious, "I've been sleeping at different places each night," he says, "And possibly stealing clothes in the morning,"
"Stealing…" Julian's eyes drop down to Elixir's hoodie and jeans. "So what you're trying to say here is that you've been whoring yourself out for food and shelter and that now you want to get in my business in return for food and shelter,"
Elixir waves a hand dismissively, "I can get the food on my own, but yeah. That's what I'm saying."
Julian weighs his options. "You don't even know what it is I'm doing, and you want to help?"
Elixir shrugs, "Sure,"
"What happens if I say 'fuck off'?" Julian says.
Another shrug. "Then I'll fuck off and you'll have one person to rely on, and if you get in a fight and die or something, good luck with that. You could've had someone at your back. Someone who could heal you."
"You're seriously underestimating me here," Julian mutters.
Elixir only responds with an infuriatingly innocent smile, all perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth, like he knows he's about to get what he wants. "But you can see my point, can't you, Keller?"
There's silence. Julian cannot believe he's about to—
"You have to get a job," he says finally, "To help pay rent." He tells himself that the way Elixir's grin widens into something genuine doesn't make him feel like this is a good decision. He tells himself it's a godawful decision, and that's he's only making it for tactical reasons and not -definitely not -because he's lonely.