By S. Mark Gunther
"...Sitting here, guess I didn't make bail,
Got time and a story to tell,
Started when I was nine years old,
Woke up and daddy was gone,
I started hustling, they couldn't tell me nothing,
Fronting in the hood, trying to be somebody,
My soul was on empty,
I was searching for something,
Tried to be good,
Tried to keep from trouble,
Living too fast,
Trying to make good on a hustle...
Sometimes it gets rough,
Comin' from where I'm from, I'm from...
Times got hard,
Comin' from where I'm from, I'm from...
Sometimes you gotta walk to work,
Comin' from where I'm from, I'm from...
Sometimes you gotta do a little dirt,
Comin' from where I'm from, I'm from..."
-- from 'Anthony Hamilton - Comin' From Where I'm From'
***Todd Tolensky was tired.
The youngest, smallest, fundamentally weakest and downright wimpiest member of the brotherhood sat in his room and thought about this fact. He was tired. He was very tired. So tired, in fact, that he didn't even know what he was tired of. He knew that he hated being the weakling on the team, the one that Magneto always picked on, he was tired of being the scapegoat for everyone's plans gone awry, he was tired of being picked on by Duncan Matthews and the mongoloid idiot jocks and he hated being ignored by someone who he wanted to love but couldn't even get to say a single word to.
Todd Tolensky looked down at his hands and sighed. He was tired. He shook his head and looked around the room, noticing a book that had caused these thoughts inside of him. It was a book unlike any other except that it had once belonged to the X-Men. Professor Charles Xavier, to be exact. Todd looked at the book for a long time and didn't say anything. The words of Mystique still rang in his ears...
***"You stupid imbecile! How could you get the shopping list wrong?!" Mystique screamed, her voice awakening small dogs several houses away. "And why is all the food covered in your slime?!"
"Yo, like I said! The X-Geeks attacked me while I was trying to make my getaway from the store," Todd replied, "Robbing places in the night isn't what I'm the best at doing. And besides, I don't know why you're angry. You weren't there while one eye decided to make me his personal bull's eye! You could have at least sent someone to help me!"
"Youknowyoucouldhaveatleastsavedsomeofmybeansproutsforme, Todd," Pietro said as he speeded around the room.
"I tried! I tried my best, yo!"
"And you're pitiful best just isn't good enough!" Mystique screamed her voice now breaking glasses in the kitchen. She looked down at the frog boy for a moment, then just shook her head and sighed. "Just go to your room, Todd. Go. And don't come down until you think you can actually do something right for a change. You're a failure and you'll never be nothing more then a loser unless you decide to shape up. Leave."
Todd tried to reply but was shut up by the fiery look in Mystique's eyes. Her silent face communicated more to him then her words ever did and with a sigh, he turned and hopped slowly up the stairs to his room. As he got to the door, he heard someone throw a dish against a wall, the shattering shocking him out of his momentary melancholy. A moment later, he heard Mystique saying to herself a touch too loudly:
"Stupid boy. I wish I'd never brought him in with us in the first place..."
***Todd kept looking at the book, his feelings now muddied and obscured. For as he heard Mystique's voice in his head, he kept hearing other voices saying the same types of things. Magneto berating him in front of the rest of the team. Professor Xavier telling him he was nothing. His foster parents screaming at him to shape up. As he saw those visions in front of his eyes, he began to tear up. Big drops fell from his eyes as he walked over to the window.
His mind kept focusing in on one person in particular who shunned him before. The man who tried to bring him in but did it the exact wrong way. He looked out into the darkness of the night and made a decision. The window opened as he pulled it upwards and into the inky blackness Todd left the Brotherhood house.
***Many times the control room in the X-Mansion was manned by one or more of the students there, an objective of the institute to make the students be responsible for their own space. Ownership of the mansion they all inhabited was something that Charles Xavier was very big on. But due to several different circumstances, only Ororo Munroe, the wind rider named Storm, was there in the main part of the mansion. The youth had gone out for the evening and most of the other adults were gone as well. So she was alone. She had a book in her hands that she was reading but she, from time to time, looked up to make sure all the monitors and sensors were working properly. Light classical music was playing over the speakers beside her console. All in all, it was a cozy place for an adult to chill and make sure things were alright.
So it was more then a bit of a surprise to her when she heard the main sensor go off at the front door of the mansion. Then, surprising her even more, the doorbell rang 7-8 times. She looked down at the camera display and saw something she rarely expected to see standing outside. Todd Tolensky was standing outside, looking rather pensive as he rang the doorbell. He looked around from time to time, as if trying to make sure nothing happened. Storm waited a moment, and then pushed a button on the control panel.
"Who is it?" Storm spoke out into the evening darkness. "What do you want here?"
"Um...I was just...just trying to see if I could speak to the Professor, yo," Todd said slowly while looking around outside, trying to find where the voice was coming from. "I really need to talk to him tonight, yo."
"He's not here right now, young man. You could come back another time..." Storm said, her voice calm a level despite her feeling that something was amiss. "Is there a specific reason you need to talk to him?"
"...I need to talk to him because he owes me an explanation as to why he didn't give me a fair shot, yo. And since he seems like the only one who's rejected me who's enough of a man to speak, I need to talk to him. He owes me, knaaamean?" Todd said, finally looking into the camera that was watching him. He didn't like this but it was enough that he was getting things out.
Storm let that statement sink in before sighing and looking around. She, in fact, did know where Professor Xavier was and knew he was probably monitoring the entire situation while he read. But she didn't want to wake him, knowing full well that the evening that was happening was most likely a fluke and wasn't going to ever happen again. Silence was at a premium at that house, and Storm knew the Professor just needed time for himself, by himself. But still...he would help a mutant in need. And she had pledged to do the same for all mutants.
"One moment, child." Storm said.
***Todd stood outside and shivered slightly as he waited. Suddenly, the door opened and in front of the entrance stood Storm, in her house wear but still imposing looking. Her face was impassive and slightly authoritative but something in her expression to him made Todd want to run to her and hug her round the ankles, like a little child. Only his massive walls of ego and psyche kept him from doing so.
"Ummm...hi," Todd said slowly, showing off the incredible wit he was known for. "Can...Can I see baldy, yo?"
"Come in first while I explain some things to you, young man." Storm stepped back and watched as Todd hopped in, looking more the worse for wear then she normally saw him as. Considering she had only had a few glances at Todd in the times when the Brotherhood and the X-Men had teamed up, she wasn't ready to see how sallow and sunken Todd's features were. The frog boy's normally pale features were paler and more emaciated then usual and he seemed sadder then was his norm. She didn't like what she saw.
Todd looked around and marveled at how quiet it was in the house. "Where is everyone, yo? I thought you X-Geeks would be having a big sing-along in your big comfy mansion..." Todd said idly as he hopped from one foot to the next.
"The rest of the house is gone and I'm here because I chose to be here, young man. Now why are you here?" Storm said her normally huge reserves of patience beginning to fray just slightly at Todd's conduct towards her house. Todd, being far more observant then people gave him credit for, picked up on this and stopped hopping. He looked straight at Storm's eyes and tried to project as much pain as he could while trying, simultaneously, to tell her to go and fuck off.
"I thought you had something you wanted to explain to me, wind lady..."
"My name is Ororo Munroe. My name here is Storm and I'll explain what I have to say to you once you tell me why you're here." Storm tried to keep her voice light but the tone of her words came through. Storm was so sure she was going to scare him off that she was more then a little surprised when he suddenly leaped forward and hugged her around the legs, clinging to her as a little child would. She could feel him shuddering and begin to cry and in that moment, she realized that she had misread the entire encounter from the beginning. Todd wasn't here for a fight; he was finally here because he needed someone more then the Brotherhood could offer. Todd was here to find something more. And Storm was in a position to give it. But she didn't have to tell Charles Xavier about it right then. She could help him just on her own.
With a tug on his shirt, she pulled him up to a standing position. Once again, she marveled as to just how light he, in fact, really was. "Come child...I'll make you some tea and then you can talk to me." Todd nodded and continued to sniffle and cry as Storm guided him into the mansion's kitchen. The lights on the sides of the walls flickered back and forth, giving the entire scene a surreal look. The tall graceful African woman leading the small pale white child to tea.
***A/N: Normally, I do not do updates or rewrites...but I found the awesome song "Comin' From Where I'm From" by Anthony Hamilton and I figured it fit the song better then "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park. Plus, I wanted a title that spoke more about the future turns the story is going to take. So here it is.