The Stronger

Summary: Mutants are almost universally hated and feared. But sometimes love is stronger than fear
Fandom: X-Men
Pairings: Assorted OC/OC pairings
Warnings: Slash, bad language, violence
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it ain't mine. If you don't recognise it, on the other hand, it's all mine and I'll kill you if you try to steal it
Author's Note: "Mmm…you smell nice". That's exactly the sort of random thing I come out with when I'm half asleep and using someone as a pillow. It can be very embarrassing.

Chapter 3 – The Change

On reflection, I'm not sure why I was so worried about my dad arriving early. It was almost one o'clock when he finally arrived.

My dad is tall and heavily built – he used to box, and he still hasn't lost all that muscle despite the increasing size of his beer-belly. Jen is almost a foot and a half shorter than him, slim and bird-boned, much like David. But somehow she still managed to look intimidating as she greeted him with a smile as genuine as a ten-dollar Rolex. I wonder if he has any idea how much she hates him.

"I hope he wasn't too much trouble," my dad said stiffly. He almost never refers to me by my name.
"Oh, it was no trouble at all," Jen replied in a falsely cheery voice; "It was nice to have the extra hour." Indirectly, that's a jibe about his lateness. Way to go Jen. He started to walk away, then stopped as he realised I wasn't following. I gave Jen a wave, and then hugged David goodbye because I knew it'd annoy my dad. I mean I would have done it anyway, but that makes it even funnier.

"Call me!" David yelled after us; "We'll go out or something later." I grinned in acknowledgement and waved goodbye once more as I ambled down the stairs.

My dad looked around suspiciously as if he expected us to be mugged or shot at any moment. My dad never felt comfortable in that neighbourhood – he's convinced it's populated by junkies and alcoholics. And yeah, there are quite a few. But it's not like our street, where people nod formally when they pass each other and bitch about their neighbours behind their backs. Here, everyone knows everyone else by name, and even strangers will start a random conversation with you. Maybe the kids playing in the street are dirty and wear second-hand clothes; maybe they're playing with rusty cans and loose bricks from the crumbling tenements instead of brand-new sports equipment; but they'll still include you in their games whether they know you or not. When I first moved to the street I live in now, no-one would even talk to me. Hell, they still don't. This may be the ghetto, but people stick together here… just make sure you always carry mace, and never go out after dark.

I flopped unceremoniously into the passenger seat of my dad's neurotically clean company car. He slams the door emphatically as if to create a barrier between him and the riff-raff.

"I don't know why you talk to that boy," he sniffed as he started the car. I scowled at the dashboard. My dad always hated David, even when we were little kids. I tuned out as my dad started ranting, picking up the occasional word about 'ghetto trash' or 'beneath you'. What the hell does he know? I'll take 'ghetto trash' over stuck-up prudes with delusions of grandeur any day.

The rest of the day was uneventful. David called me around four, and we spent a few hours at the beach with the others before going back to his place for dinner. Jen is a brilliant cook, but it's not the food that makes me feel so content when we're lounging around on their battered couch, eating some sort of Indian food – which was, incidentally, extremely spicy. It's the easy banter and comfortable laughter creating a friendly atmosphere that seems not to exist in my own house.

Then suddenly it's eight o'clock and David and me are sprawled on his bed playing video games. Jen's on the late shift at her work, so it's just the two of us and it's really nice. I've had some of the best times of my life like this; tossing potato chips at each other as I whoop David's ass at Soul Calibur II. Hours passed like minutes this way, and we ended up watching Aliens. That movie scared the hell out of me the first time I saw it, but now it's just another part of life.

Anyway, I wasn't actually paying much attention to the movie. Because a still slightly hung-over David was half asleep with his head in my lap as I toyed absently with a strand of his wavy blonde hair. He smiled faintly: "Mmm…you smell nice," he mumbled. He looked positively angelic, soft blonde hair falling across his face as his bright blue eyes gazed sleepily at nothing. I suddenly felt like crying, because he was so beautiful and I knew he'd never want me. Love is a bitch.

I'm not sure when I fell asleep. I have a vague memory of waking a little when Jen came into the room around 2am. She turned the TV off and left again, smiling faintly, and I drifted back off to sleep.

I winced a little at the bright sunlight streaming in through the window as I woke up around noon the next day…well, technically it was the same day, but you know what I mean. I blushed a little as I thought of David – I was lying in his bed, remember? He looked almost unbearably cute, blonde hair tousled adorably. At some point during the night he'd wrapped his arms around my waist, and was still clinging to me as if I was an oversized teddy-bear. I'm not sure why, but David tends to latch onto the nearest person when he falls asleep and refuse to let go. Usually me.

And there he is, with his arms wrapped around me and his head resting on my chest. Goddamnit, I have dreamed about waking up like this. Okay, so there's usually less clothing involved. And we generally aren't surrounded by pointy shards of partially-crushed potato chips. But I'm sure you get the point.

Gods - I'm starting to sound like the heroine of a sappy romance novel. Embarrassing, yes?

This is starting to get a little awkward. I mean, I'm lying in bed with someone extremely hot. Some sort of…reaction…is inevitable - you understand what I'm getting at here? I managed to wriggle free, but I woke David up in the process. He sat up, rubbing his eyes wearily.

"S'goin' on?" he asked, stifling a yawn.
"I'm going home," I replied.
'Oh," he cocked his head, looking at me quizzically; "Your eyes look weird."
"What?"
"The thingies…black bits…pupils, that's it – they're massive. You look like you're high or something." Brilliant. I look high – that's all I need. I'm going to take a gamble and hope my parents don't know what a high person looks like.
"See you at school tomorrow," I said on my way out.
"Ooh…don't remind me," David moaned. I grinned.

It's funny how much longer the walk to my house seems when I'm making it alone. Across the bridge over the train line, through the park, then there's the maze of cul-de-sacs and crescents – it was months before I could reliably find my way to my own house when we first moved there. My street is the standard suburban street you get in towns all across the country: very nice, very neat, very boring. My house is identical to all the others, where mass produced uniformity is the key. Yes, variety is indeed the spice of life.

I slipped in the back door, hoping to avoid my parents. But you know what? I'm not that lucky. My mom was standing at the sleek, shiny counter, chopping some sort of salad-looking thing. She gives me a half-disapproving, half-confused look…probably wondering why my t-shirt has 'Mother Russia' scrawled across the front of it. Iron Maiden, bitch – know the name and fear it.

All that my mom really wanted was nice, normal children. In other words; she wanted me to wear Abercrombie and play quarterback on the school football team, she wanted Karen to adore pink and listen to Britney Spears. And what has she got? I wear black, love manga, and listen to more rock music than can possibly be good for my mental health. Karen plays soccer, is vaguely uninterested in romance, and is more likely to be wearing boys' clothes than I am (What? Girls' jeans are comfortable – deal with it). Neither of us are normal by any stretch of the imagination. We're both rebelling against middle-class conformity in out own strange way.

"Your room needs tidied," my mom said.
"Good morning to you too," I replied sarcastically. She shot me a very unfriendly look and then proceeded to ignore me. Yep, we're all one big happy family here.

I slouch up the stairs to my bedroom – which in all fairness does bear a distinct resemblance to a bombsite – and turn on my laptop. A few moments later, Public Enema Number One is blaring from the speakers. I've put all my favourite music onto the hard-drive of my laptop, and some of the best songs ever written are in there. Irrationally, I feel great. Like some weight has been lifted from my shoulders, one I didn't even notice until it was gone. I couldn't say why…but it can only be a good thing, right? I lifted my guitar – my baby, I love her – from her stand. I suck pretty bad at riffs (I'm just not fast enough) but I'm good at bass. My guitar is a black and white electric/acoustic, and I nicknamed her 'Darth Betty' years ago. I'm still not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Let's see…I'm sure I've got a plectrum around here somewhere…

There wasn't any warning. One moment I'm playing the bass line from Phantom of the Opera, the next I'm on the floor, clutching my head and screaming in agony. The tiny part of my brain still capable of coherent thought is on the verge of total panic, and two questions are chasing each other fruitlessly around the back of my head: what the hell is going on? What's happening to me?

The dim light filtering through the closed curtains was blinding, the music assaulted my ears like a battering ram, and I could actually feel my hair and nails growing. I felt like my skull was splitting in two, like my brain was trying to force its way out of my ears. I tasted the sharp metallic tang of blood in my mouth, felt it trickling from my nose. I felt like I was going to die, and part of me hoped that I would, because then the pain would be over. No matter how depressed I've been, I have never, ever wanted to die as much as I did in that endless moment of pure white-hot agony.

And then it stopped

What the fuck?

I got shakily to my feet. Maybe the effects hadn't quite worn off yet, but everything seemed brighter, sharper – like my senses had been magnified. And I could see…lines in the air, seething like quicksilver over everything, flowing downwards into the ground. The searing pain inside my head had disappeared like it was never there. I shook my head, but the liquid silver hanging in the air didn't disappear. I could still see fine, it was just like I was seeing two different views of the world at once, one superimposed on the other. Every time I moved, I created the tiniest changes in the flow of silver, and it moved a little towards me as well as flowing into the ground. That gave me an idea – could I make it change more? Would something actually happen if I did?

I reached out with my hands, and very carefully formed a shape in my mind. I wanted the silver to flow around, so there was a space with no silver. I concentrated the void around a basketball perched for no apparent reason on my desk (Wait a minute…I own a basketball? When did that happen?), and then I closed my eyes and let the silver flow into that shape. The effort hit me like a punch in the gut, and suddenly I was gasping for breath. But I held the shape, and I jumped in shock when I opened my eyes – the basketball was floating in midair! I was so badly shaken that I lost all concentration, and the basketball dropped like a stone. It bounced when it hit the desk and flew off into a corner. I was trembling with exhaustion and fear – what was happening to me?

I just made something levitate…
Doesn't that sound sort of…mutant-like?
Shit

My head was spinning with the implications of all this. And maybe it was exhaustion or shock or both, but the room started spinning too. The floor swung up sideways and my knees buckled, and everything went black…

…Andrew…
…Andrew…
…Andrew…
"Andrew!"

My eyes snapped open. My hopes that everything had been merely a nightmare were instantly dashed – that same sepia silver still flowed through the air. Did this mean I was a mutant? God, I hoped not. What would everyone say? My parents…Karen…the school…David. Oh gods, David…

"Andrew! Get down here now!"

Damn, that sounded like my mom. I staggered to my feet and out of my room. It was dark outside – holy shit, how long was I out for? My head hurt, a testament to how much that little effort had drained me. I managed to make it down the stairs, cautious since I still felt dizzy. I walked into the living room. My dad was there, reading a newspaper, Karen was watching TV and my mom was looking at some official-looking letter.

"Andrew," she said, eyes fixed on the letter; "We need to talk to you." She looked up at me, and all of the colour drained from her face as her eyes widened in shock and fear.

She opened her mouth and screamed.

Note: In the commentary for X2, it was said that the original idea was that the dark cerebro would make mutants lose control of their powers. The idea here is that it would force Andrew's powers to manifest before they would normally have done, accelerating the change.