Title: Protest
Disclaimer: Supernatural and X-Men are not mine.
Summary: X-Men xover. Sam and Jessica protest the tagging of mutants.
"NO TAGS, NO TAGS, NO TAGS..."
Sam Winchester and Jessica Moore are jostled and pushed aside but they continue to push their way through, two tall drinks of water cutting the crowd. The street is filled with people carrying signs that read 'We Are People', 'All Men Are Equal', and 'No Tags'. They are a couple of random, original ones but those are the majority.
"NO TAGS, NO TAGS, NO TAGS..."
Jessica is stopped sometimes by hulking figures or huddled masses but she never loses Sam. He stops right beside her, takes her by the crook of her arm, and smoothly navigates them around. She's not quite sure how he does it. He pushes through and displaces people with a small smile and no harsh looks follow them. It's probably the expression on his face, the same one that netted her.
"The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal. It doesn't say 'all humans'. This country prides itself on being accepting. We take people of different races, religions, cultures, and beliefs. I don't see why biology should be excluded. Our strength comes from our diversity. This can only make us stronger." His eyes are bright and he gesticulates with his hands as he speaks.
"E pluribus unum," Jessica mutters.
Sam nods. "E pluribus unum; out of many, one. Exactly."
Jessica is sitting two rows back and to the left of him and isn't surprised he heard her. The place is quiet enough to hear the girl in the back popping her gum. Sam walked into a noisy classroom before the bell rang, sat on the first desk with his feet on the chair so he was facing everyone else, and talked. He talked and everyone else shut up. The bell rang and he still talked, the teacher not stopping him because she was behind her desk, as caught as everyone else.
A jock in the third row raises his hand like Sam is the the freaking teacher and Jessica has to hide the smile in her hand. "Aren't mutants dangerous?"
Sam laughs like that's actually a funny question. She'll wonder about that later. "A person behind the wheel of a car is dangerous. A person with a gun is dangerous. A black belt is dangerous. A scientist with no morals is dangerous. Even a computer geek can be dangerous if he chooses to hack into government files. Anybody can be a danger to the people around them if they choose to be."
"What makes you think they won't choose to be?" This is Jessica's question.
"What makes us think you won't choose to be?" Sam sends back. Suddenly, all eyes are on her and she just wants to shrink in her seat. Sam is looking straight at her as he continues, "It's called free will. We can choose to be a danger or a benefit to society. It's your individual choice, not the choice of your species as a whole."
"There are mutant terrorists out there," someone else says, but Jessica is too relieved to not have all those eyes on her anymore that she doesn't bother checking who.
"There are human terrorists out there but we're not being tagged and monitored for their actions, are we? Every mutant is an individual just as much as we are." He tossed the yellow stack of papers he was carrying onto the desk next to him. The person seated there took one and passed it on.
As if it was respectfully waiting for him to finish, the bell rings. Nobody leaves without a paper.
"NO TAGS, NO TAGS, NO TAGS..."
They finally make it to their point. Sam meets Signeye, who shouts directions into his ear that Jessica can't hear over the chanting. Sam leads her over to an open space in a line that's facing away from the protesters. She feels something slip into her hands. She looks down. It's a stun gun.
"You know, Sam, I think you do the work for at least five people," she hears as she turns the corner leading to her locker. Sam is standing there talking to a blond man holding another armful of the yellow paper. It's when he turns that she spots his eyes. They're white. There's no cornea and no pupil. There's just white and she stops dead.
When he sees her reaction, he looks down at the floor. Only a small part of his eyes could now be seen and it wasn't as striking. "Hello," he said, as if she didn't just act supremely rude.
'He's used to it,' Jessica thinks, suddenly. That steels her resolve and she walks forward and holds out a hand. "Hi, I'm Jessica. I prefer Jess."
He brings his eyes back up slowly and she looks straight at them, not dropping her hand. He took it. "I'm Alex. You can call me Signeye." He looked at the yellow paper rolled up and placed on the side of her backpack. "Are you thinking of coming?"
She was thinking before. Now, she was sure. "I'm definitely coming."
He smiled. "I look forward to seeing you there." The smile is hesitant, like he thinks she just might be yanking his chain.
"NO TAGS, NO TAGS, NO TAGS..."
There is a crowd building up in front of them now. These people aren't peacefully chanting. They're sneering and growling. There are men and woman and angry teenagers. There's even a couple of faces she recognizes. There are people she passes in halls and diners. There's one or two she's talked to or worked with. They're here. They're on the other side of that invisible line and she wonders when she started seeing people that way.
Sam caught up with her at lunch time. The stack of papers she saw Signeye hand him has dwindled down. "Can I sit here?" he asks.
The friends she has sitting to the left and across from her give her a significant look. It's the go-for-it look, like the guy has just asked her out on a date rather than just asking for a seat. "Yeah, sure."
Sam sits down across and to the right. He looks nervous, not like the confident and charismatic boy that demanded attention. "I just wanted to apologize for singling you out earlier, in class. I made you uncomfortable and I really didn't mean to.
The significant looks are now completely noticeable but he's only looking at her.
Jessica shrugs. "It's fine. You were only making your point and I think most of us got it." She waves her hand in the air. "Mutants, people, Constitution, terrorists..."
He laughs and says, with mock seriousness, "Very eloquent."
"Well, not all of us can - ."
"Muties," the friend to the left of her interrupts. Her voice is filled with disgust. "What do they have to do with anything?"
Sam's expression hardens. He looks more like that boy from class now. He picks up his papers and stands them up straight so she can read. The words announcing the protest are in bold letters. Her friend is now looking at him with disgust. "You're panning that crap out!"
Their ensuing argument draws a crowd and Sam's talking is much more convincing than the insults shouted by her friend. His yellow papers dwindle down to nothing.
The invisible line breaks and the other side surges forward. She's shaking and, looking around, she can see most others in the line shaking as well. The ones who aren't stand out; a women with red hair and a man with wraparound glasses who brought their students to help, a student with dark hair and a lighter, two of Jessica's classmates with mutant family members, Signeye, and Sam. They're solid for some reason and she wishes she knew their secret.
The solid ones step forward to meet the attackers. They give the others time to catch up and Jessica was always fast. She steps forward a few seconds behind Sam.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" asks Sam. They're walking away from Signeye, who gave Jessica a real smile this time. She signed up to defend the protesters. She was definitely going to be there.
Jessica gave Sam a good-natured shove. "I'm tougher than I look." Her tone took on a more serious color. "I want to do this. What about you?"
"I'm going to kick me some mutant-hater ass." His smile took on an edge. "I'm going to enjoy it, too."
Jessica was the second defense. She took down anyone who got past Sam. That meant she had time to think.
She thought she understood what Sam had said about anyone being dangerous. She didn't, not really. A part of her never expected to see a familiar face that way. The idea was there but it wasn't connected to her. It was someone else's friend behind the wheel of the car, some stranger with the gun. It wasn't someone she knew. It wasn't Sam...
...but it was. It was Sam with fists and feet flying. It was Sam making people drop like flies. It was Sam who could really hurt someone if he chose to. It was Sam who had the skill to be dangerous.
"Jess!"
Four men had come at him at the same time. He'd taken three but one had gotten shoved straight at her. She brought the stun gun up and it caught the guy right under the arm. He went down and she thinks she finally understands.
Sam grabs her hand and he's pulling her through another crowd. He's pushing and shoving and there's no small smile now. When he lets go, her back is to a wall and he's a few feet in front of her. The kid with the lighter is close to Sam. He's holding flames and he's throwing it and pulling it back like it's a yoyo. He's definitely enjoying it too, all cocky smirk and hair falling out of it's jelled position. She looks back at Sam. She holds her stun gun at the ready, watching his back even as if it's glaringly obvious he doesn't need it.
Her world is crazy at the moment. The peaceful protest is over. The defenders could only hold back the attackers for so long. The protesters are in the fight now. There's a women running around with a bat and a teenager's brass knuckles glint in whatever sunlight that shines through. The world is crazy but there seems to be a big bubble around her because Sam is taking the right and the front, the fireboy is on the left, and she's got that nice, safe wall behind her.
"NO TAGS, NO TAGS, NO TAGS..."
Jessica can't help but let out a hollow laugh, because who the hell is still trying to chant?
However, Sam starts up front of her in between grunts and available breaths. The fireboy starts up, quick and out of sync with Sam, but still there. More people shout the words and they're so out of tune that you can't tell what the words are anymore but they're still making noise, still protesting.
"No tags!" she says, trying it out. "NO tags! NO TAGS!"
"Chanting is like boosting morale," Sam had said."You're all chanting the same thing. It's showing that there's a whole bunch of people that want the same thing you do and they're going to be back you up for it."
"NO TAGS! NO TAGS! NO TAGS!"
The police come in from all sides. You can see gas coming up out of the masses. They have sticks and pepper spray. There's a big old firetruck cutting through and people better move if they don't want to get hit.
Policemen come around the building she's up against. They go for the fireboy. He takes a hit to the back before he can turn. He swings out blindly but another one catches him over the back of his hand. The lighter falls and skitters into the crowd. They're all on him now. It's a flurry of activity.
A cop gets pulled off him and kicked in the face. Another cop gets his face slammed into the wall. The third and forth cop get tossed somewhere into the mob and the not-completely-numb part of her brain is registering that Sam just incapacitated four cops. The fireboy is down but he's not out and Sam is helping him up.
Jessica's protection is gone but it doesn't matter because she's using that stun gun to get to Sam and the fireboy because, damn't, she wants her nice, safe bubble back!
It's when she's a few feet behind him that he seems to register that he left her. He turns and spots her and there's relief for a second. Then, there's let's-get-the-hell-out-of-trouble. He grabs her by the hand and he's holding the fireboy up by the arm. He drags the both of them to a corner where there's the nice wall and a dumpster. They huddle there and Jess buries her face in Sam's shoulder as the tear gas goes off. There's more fire trucks cutting through and the policemen are breaking it up with as much force as possible.
Sam digs some matches out of his pocket and hands it to the suddenly nervous fireboy. The kid strikes one. Jessica turns her head to watch as the flame plays across his fingers. The boy relaxes.
They're one of the last ones to be arrested and it's kind of anticlimactic when the two pot-bellied cops tell them to put there hands up. It's the first time Jessica has ever been arrested. The fireboy is bored. Sam is calm. She figures they've done this before.
She isn't sure what happens in the cells that night. Her parents live close enough to bail her out almost immediately. The news mentions a riot in the jail. There were eight deaths and fifteen hospitalizations. She bites her nails until lunch time when Sam shows up with a black and blue face, split up, and his right arm in a sling. He'll never tell her exactly what it was like but he did say that the fireboy is actually called Pyro. He can pull fire from a cigarette. Apparently, the two of them make a fair team.
"Who were you teaming up against?"
Every time she asks, his eyes will darken and he'll give her a sad smile. It's at this time that she'll wonder if that 'fair team' killed any of those eight people.
Signeye sticks around but she'll never go to him for answers. It's one thing about that night they can't hide from her. Some prejudiced idiot poked out one of those white eyes.
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