Something Snapped

~AN: This is about Snap. (See Six Feet Under...And Digging Up.) It's set before the other story.~

Kay dropped her head into her arms. On the best day, school was not fun for her. That was one of the main reasons she'd been looking forward to the vacation her family had just taken to Bald Head Island, a North Carolina island full of "snooty rich people and you," as one of her friends would put it. Where was Airen, anyway?

The seventeen-year-old sighed. Just as she was about to peek through the slight hole where her right arm crossed her left, she felt another presence flop down beside her.

"Yo, chika!" a not altogether unpleasant voice greeted her. The owner of the voice flipped back dirty blonde hair and grinned.

Kay knew that the person who had just set down would have one arm thrown back and probably have the other restlessly moving along the surface of her desk. With that in mind, Kay threw herself at the other person. " Airen!" she wailed softly, burying her head in Airen 's chest.

"Whoa, babe," Airen Sabcas said, surprised. Kay cried for a minute as Airen held her and stroked her dark hair. "Shhh." Airen kept stroking her best friend's hair as Kay grasped Airen 's shirt with her little hands. It took a good amount of time for Kay to accept Airen's advice.

"Airen," she said, breaking through her tears. "Something awful happened." Kay's voice was muffled by the fact that she still had her head buried in Airen's chest. Kay had to steel herself to look up into Airen's face, expecting to be pushed away.

Airen looked at her friend for a moment. "Y'know, chika, when most people go to the beach, they come back with a tan." The girl took her friend's chin in her hand and turned her face from side to side. "Spotty suits you."

Kay sniffled. "You don't think I'm contagious?"

The other female laughed. "I like the look on you." Airen looked over her friend again. Kay's smooth skin was dotted all over with spots in shades of blue and purple. The dots seemed to congregate on her cheekbones. Looking down at her friend's little hands—Kay was much smaller than Airen—Airen noticed that she had spots on the back of her hands too. "So...other than spots, what's new?"

Kay was feeling much better. Airen always made her feel good about herself. "I can make colors."

"Cool!" Airen replied. "Like how?" The female seemed very interested.

"I...I'd show you...but..." Kay looked ashamed.

Suddenly, Airen took her friend's shoulders and gripped them, hard. "Kay," she said, her voice low and intense. "There is no reason to be ashamed of yourself."

Kay looked frightened for a minute before Airen's face clamed down. "I can make colors appear." The spotted girl cupped her hands and concentrated. A little burst of blue appeared between her hands. "It's nothing really cool...I can change the colors of things too."

"You two freaks having fun cuddling over there?"

The brown eyes that rested in Airen's face flamed in fury. "Freaks?" she asked, her voice a dangerous purr.

"Yeah. Freaks." The way the boy emphasized the word was calculated. He knew it would make Airen mad; it always had.

"Bryan, you're either going to take that back or get hurt." Airen's voice was still low, but more serious. Kay was surprised at her friend. Airen had never shown that she was capable of the kind of anger she was giving voice to now. "I'm warning you."

Bryan rolled his eyes. "And you're going to do...what?" He was larger than either of the girls, being a football player.

That was when Airen got physical. She gently moved Kay, then stood to her full height of 5'6". She was not a large girl, but something about her presence made her seem larger than she was. Kay, who was much smaller, seemed to shrink in her friend's shadow. "I will hurt you."

The boy still didn't seem impressed. He advanced on them, looking cruel. Bryan had never been a friend to either Airen or Kay. Now, he was an enemy.

Kay shrunk even farther into the desk. She was frightened now. Bryan was so much bigger than Airen; there was no way that her dirty blonde haired friend could win whatever battle was going to ensue.

"Don't," Airen warned just before Bryan reached back and let his fist fly. Airen took the punch on her jaw, twisting with the force. There was a loud crack. Kay winced, seeing the funny bump in Airen's jaw. The spotted female did a double take. She hadn't realized that Airen wore contacts. Or that her friend had such oddly colored eyes; they were sea green with flecks of purple and rimmed in yellow.

Airen turned back to Bryan very, very slowly. She popped the brown contact out of her other eye and stared at him with the full force of her tri-colored orbs. Deliberately, she lifted her hand and rubbed the tips of her thumb and middle finger together. There was a double snap and Airen's jaw seemed to come back together as if it had never been broken.

Bryan began to back off.

"I warned you," Airen said softly. She looked more fearsome than anyone could ever remember seeing her. Something Bryan had done or said had set her off like nothing before. She held her hand out and snapped her fingers together. Bryan fell to the ground, grabbing at his leg.

"Wha...what did you do?" Kay gasped.

Airen had turned away from the fallen male, her head down. She put a trembling hand on the desk; Kay could see there was blood under her nails where she had tightened her fists so had that she pierced her skin. "I broke his leg," she informed her friend. Airen's hair, blonde with brown streaks, fell in front of her revealed eyes. "Let's get out of here."

Kay took Airen's hand and gripped it tight. "Airen...I'm scared."

"I know," Airen said, giving Kay's hand a squeeze. "We're going to go back to my apartment right now. Then..."

Kay didn't think there was nothing to end Airen's sentence. However, when the two arrived at Airen's apartment, she realized that either Airen had been thinking about leaving and going somewhere else, or an unusual amount of mutant-related literature had made its way to her apartment.

"Genosha? Xavier's School For Gifted Children? Wow. Airen, I didn't know there were so many places like this." Kay thumbed through the leaflets. "I like the logo on Xavier's school."

Airen shrugged and combed out her hair. It was wilder after she combed the gel out. "I don't know. There's so much potential for powers like...ours..."

Kay realized that was the first time her friend had ever admitted the mutation inside her body.

"...to be tapped and misused. I mean, if there was a mutant strong enough, couldn't she or he start doing things 'for the good' of the other humans...and end up hurting them? Because after a while, you'd have to make all the decisions for the others just to make sure they did everything right." Airen moved her hands as she talked, sending the ribbons tied to the hairbrush in various directions. "But then, right would be subjective to whatever the super-powerful mutant wanted."

Kay's eyes were wide. Airen had been thinking about this stuff. "Airen...what are we going to do?" She looked like she was going to start crying again.

Before she could, Airen wrapped her arms around her five-foot friend and hugged her. "I don't know. I don't think we're going to stay here. At least, I'm not."

"I want to go with you," Kay said, determination in her voice.

"I know."

There was silence between the two, except for the papers slipping through Airen's fingers. "If I had to pick," Airen murmured, "I'd go with..."

"...Xavier's School," Kay finished.

Airen didn't even have to confirm that her friend was right. Instead, she just smiled. "It'd take us a long time to get there."

"Why? Can't we just take a plane or something?"

The tri-color-eyed girl cocked her head to the side. "I guess we could. It'd be dangerous."

"Why?" Kay asked again.

In answer, Airen rubbed her thumb across the spots on Kay's face. The littler female blushed. "Oh."

"Right. So we've got to be careful. Real careful." Airen had moved back into the only bedroom in the apartment. When Kay followed her, she found the other female placing items in a small bag.

Airen's room had always intrigued Kay. It was small and barely furnished, with a simple double bed and a dresser. There was also a chair in the corner with a knapsack draped over it. Other than that, there was little to show that anyone lived in the place. "What are you packing?"

"Very little." Airen shook out a pair of jeans and set them in the bag on top of a white shirt. She fingered some of the other things in the open drawer before setting some of the things in her bag.

"What about me?"

Kay's question brought a grin to Airen's lips. "Don't you remember?" she asked, pointing to the closet. "You've left more things here than I have room for." Airen's grin grew. "Go. Pack."

It wasn't much later when each of the girls hoisted a backpack or grabbed a suitcase. Airen gave a final glance at the apartment before slipping a bag of M&Ms in her pack. "Kay...this is going to be hard. Really hard." Airen looked deep into Kay's face. "You sure you want to? You could stay here, you know."

There was a poignant honesty in Airen's face and voice. Kay took a long time to think about it. She had known Airen for a little less than a year, yet loved the girl more than anyone she'd ever known. But...give up everything she'd ever known? Just because she had a few spots on her face and could make little colors in the air? "Airen...I can't."

Airen nodded as if she'd expected the words all along. Still, Kay thought she saw a tear glistening in her friend's eye. "Ok. Make sure you've got all your things, because I won't be coming back here. Ever."

The word was wretchedly final on Kay's ears. "Never?"

Airen shook her head. "Never."

"Oh." Kay frowned, and shook her head. "I..."

"Don't say anything," Airen warned her. She wrapped her arms around the little girl. Airen was struck, not for the first time, how Kay's body was so much smaller than her own. They were the same age—seventeen. It had been a crisp and clean age to the both of them like a new dollar bill...but now...

"I'm not," Kay said.

Airen sighed, separating herself from the littler female. "I'm leaving now."

Kay didn't say anything else, but without the support of Airen's body, the girl collapsed to the floor. Airen heard the noise of the female falling, but didn't look back.

~*~*~*~*~

"In other news, a young mutant with spots on her face was found dead in the park. Her neck was snapped and broken. No other information is available at this time..."