There was just no question about it. Today was not going to be one of the cool ones. He'd get through it anyway, but it would help if the speedtalker shut up just for a minute to allow Todd's brain to zone out of reality. Instead, every second had that too sharp awareness - allowing everything in at once. His brain could shut nothing out - not the cold, nor background noise, or the acidic emptiness in his stomach.
"SothenItoldherIwouldbebetteroffwithaslutcomparedtowhatshewas, andshetotallybitchslappedme! ME!!! Iwaslike, 'ohnoyoudidn't' andIwouldaslappedherrightback, butCoachSandersonwasall--"
"So wait," Lance interrupted in untimely fashion, "Some common girl managed to slap you?"
Freddy's shoulders began shaking with laughter. Todd would've joined in if he was feeling half as less disoriented. He managed a smirk.
Pietro scowled at the older boy. "Yeah, she slapped me. No powers at school, duh, or I swear I woulda -"
"You'd never hit a lady," said Lance.
"That was so totally not a lady!"
"Ha." Todd rummaged in his backpack, hopefully. "I think Lance meant you'd never hit someone with an innie."
Todd's questing hand closed around the remains of a poptart. He pulled out the stale cherry frosted breakfast pastry and bit into it. Finally, something that didn't have legs attached.
His next bite closed on air. "Hey!" he cried out, noticing the sudden absence of the poptart. Pietro glanced at him quizzically.
"What?" the slender boy asked, licking crumbs from his fingers.
"That was my breakfast yo!"
"Eat a bug."
"I've been doing that all week. I'd like some real food for a change!"
"So would we. You get more nutrition than we do with those bugs, so stop whining," Pietro retorted.
"Like I'd ever not share insects with my bestest pals," Todd feigned an injured tone.
"Hakuna Matata," Fred joked. He patted Todd's back. "Don't worry about it. We'll do fine without them."
Todd rolled his eyes and walked toward the lockers.
"He really okay on just bugs?" Lance asked Pietro.
"Think of all that protein. How could he not be?"
"I'd rather not," Alvers muttered. "Okay. I'm off to skip geometry. Pietro, you have free period next. Why don't you steal us all something for lunch? And I mean all of us. You do owe him breakfast."
"Cheep, cheep, cheep, Mother hen."
Pietro expertly dodged Lance's swat. "Wiseass."

Todd grumbled all the way to his locker. He stood carefully to the side as he opened it so he didn't get sprayed in the face by his own booby trap in case he wasn't careful. He'd started putting traps in his locker - the type that sprayed shaving cream, slime, and Hawaiian Punch in random flavors of the week. It was just a kick to come back to find the locker swinging open with evidence of its exploded contents, even if he had to clean it up afterwards and take books spackled with several shades of tropical punch to class.
Even if he got the crap beaten out of him later for trying to one-up the bullies.
The trap was spent, from earlier that morning or last night. There were pieces of shaving cream all over his biology book. Could be worse. Todd took the book out and shut the locker. There would be no need to set it up again until the weekend. Best to allow for them to take retribution and think they'd taught him a lesson.
Tolensky ducked behind a showcase of sports trophies as he spotted Graydon, Duncan and Bruce walking down the hall. He wished he hadn't; they saw him anyway.
"Hey, Toady. What's up?" Duncan said, leaning against the wall beside him. Todd gulped.
"N-Nothin' Duncan. S'up wit you?" Best to answer. Silence was taken as form of rudeness.
"I'm fine. Had a nice score last night. She was pretty tight. Man did she scream."
Todd tried not to squirm. He knew what question they were going to ask next.
"How bout you?" Duncan asked, looking down at Todd. "You score lately?"
"N-No, Duncan. I haven't. And I don't think it's all that big a deal, really."
Graydon and Bruce burst into snickering. They were surrounding him in a circle. One beside him, one before him, the other and the glass showcase blocking his exit to the right.
"Why not?"
"I dunno. Guess I'm just a hopeless romantic?" Wrongthingtosay, wrongthingtosay. Todd closed his eyes as the laughter became raucous. He didn't know why he tried to be cool with them. He just knew that it was safer than running, and that the laughter hurt about as much as the beatings did.
"You're hopeless all right. Pick out a girl and screw her already. Unless of course you're not a dyke."
Ow. "I'm not." Todd's voice was small. "Just rumors, you know?"
"I wouldn't know," Bruce admitted. "But I ain't never seen you shower after gym."
Oh no... not that.
"What have you got to hide, man? That fact that you aren't one?" Duncan slapped hi-fives with Graydon. The trio departed with more laughter, leaving Todd to study the floor with undue fascination. Anything to avoid the eyes of others. Their conversation had been loud enough to carry down the entire hall.
Todd shifted his book and notepad and walked to the labs, trying to look careless. As if words like that would make him come apart, compared to everything else he dealt with. He could handle it, yo. Long as he kept telling himself...
"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Tolensky."
"So sorry to hold up the learning process, Mr. Priscen. Hope you weren't to terribly stumped without me here."
Whoa. Where the hell had that come from?
"Office it is, yo," Todd sighed, doing an about turn even before Mr. Priscen could even point toward the hall and sputter.

When Todd got to the office, the secretary was playing 'phone tag.
"Bayville High, please hold..." she intoned. "Bayville High, please hold... Bayville High, please hold..."
Todd took a ticket, then noticed the other guy who had. "Jesus H. frikkin' Christ on a crutch!"
"MISTER Tolensky!" The secretary barked. "Sorry, sir, I'm transferring your call, now." Momentarily free from the 'phones, she stood. "Do you really want to earn a detention this early in the day?"
"But this dude's bleeding to death, yo..." Todd pointed at the lanky guy sprawled into a cheap chair. "Lookit that blood."
She did. "Oh my goodness!" She escaped from the tangle of lines and cables and rushed over to the victim. "Mister Essel. Mister Essel, can you hear me?"
"Wnf? Oh. 'M sorry, I musta dozed off. C'n I have a hall pass?"
"A hall pass?" Todd blurted. "Yo' need a paramedic, foo'... Lookit all the blood..."
Essel did. "Whoah. I'd relax. It only looks that much 'cause it's all spread out. Can't be more'n a teacup. I just need a hall pass so I can see th' nurse..." His gaze drifted down to his hand. "Okay... that's new..."
Todd looked. The kid's hand was matching the chair he sat on. Todd moved quickly to cover it and fake helping him up. "Hey, yo. Why don'cha write us both th' hall pass an' I'll help him to the nurse? I know yo' busy, so I can jus' recite the whole 'education is a privilege' speech an' get on back to class, right?"
The secretary was only too glad to sign two slips and send them on their way.

"Okay," murmured Sara. Her elbow was currently on Mr Tolensky's shoulder, more for stability than support. Like anything of a liquid nature in her presence, the blood was getting around. Her samaritain was gaining transfer smears as much as she was. "I simply must be hallucinating... but usually a blow to the temple causes some small personality hiccoughs, not illusions... so why did it appear as if my hand was plastic?"
"It was, yo," said Mr Tolensky. "That was frikkin' close, dawg. Yo' can't let nobody know yo' a mutant."
Blink. "I'm a what, now?"
Tolensky glared at her. "You mean yo' don't know?"
"I don't know a great many things," she announced. "...'s why I'm in Remedial Ed. So tell me all about the sort of thing that I'm supposed to be, now."
"First, make yo' skin go normal, 'kay?"
Sara looked. One hand matched the heavy canvas of her backpack that she dragged with her, and the other matched Tolensky's vest. "Oh my..." She focussed for a moment on making it go back. "Will that do?" Once again, she was terrifyingly pale and her arms were covered with scars.
"Coo'. Keep it that way. Yo' still need t' get stitched up. Okay. Brief skinny. Mutants got this X-gene that does really weird stuff, y'know?"
"Ah," said Sara with much sarcasm. "Mother will be impressed."
"Whatever. So yo' got this gene an' it activated, makin yo' do that skin thing," he continued leading her towards the school infirmary. "Thing is, yo' can't let nobody know or yo' a smear."
"Fascinating," she said. "But I thought peasants with torches were banned by the Geneva Convention."
"When they angry an' got rocks, nobody cares about Geneva," Tolensky said. "Just play it coo', yo. I try t' talk to yo' 'bout it at lunch. Deal?"
"If I'm conscious by lunch. I feel so much like Alice..."
Another stare. "Whatever."

Essel wasn't all that heavy, but his weight was starting to drag a little. Todd looked over at 'him' to see eyelids drooping.
"Yo, you can't doze off foo'. Talk to me."
Sara's eyes opened at a sluggish pace. "If you don't mind babbling, sure. I don't think I can stay focused."
"Small talk. Tell me bout yourself. Go on and babble, I wanna know you're still alive."
"How d'you know about mutants?"
Todd paused as Sara's feet caught up to his. "I am one. I'll tell you later. I don't think you should focus on mutants now."
"But it's more interest'n th'n I am..." Sara mumbled.
"Try me, yo. Where'd you get the gash?"
"Um..."
Okay, that was going nowhere. "You got a hobby? Pet peeve? Pets? Anything." Todd knew damn well whom the blame would rest upon if Essel ended up requiring an ambulance ride. The person who'd given him the injury wasn't it.
The nurse's office door was closed. Todd knocked by means of kicking it.
"Excuse me!" the indignant response came from within. High heels clacked over to the door and yanked it open. "The proper way to knock, Mr. Tolensky, is not with - good God, Mr. Essel! Another fight?"
Todd snorted and with his free hand handed over the hall passes. "Yeah, sure, skinny just goes lookin' for trouble. In the meantime, nevermind the frikkin' 'ketchup' stains on Matthews' shoes."
The nurse glared. "Move him inside please. And have a seat." Todd half- dragged in the taller student and placed her on the sick bed in a sitting up position. Sara groaned as her head bumped against the wall.
"Sorry, yo. You're just so tall."

"Never mind," said Sara. "It's blunter than the locker." She stumbled into the bed, dumping her bag as she sat down. "I wouldn't mind so much if something of the ilk didn't happen every day..."
"You get in fights every day?" Tolensky boggled.
"With various inanimate objects, perhaps... The lockers are just the end of a rather long list. Walls, doors, Vlad..."
"Vlad?"
The nurse arrived with a standard waiver form. "Fill this out, please."
"The hell?" Tolensky stopped the nurse vanishing again. "Yo, the dude's bleeding..."
"And school policy prevents me from touching him without a completed waiver form. If he was unconscious, I'd have to call 911."
Sara started writing block letters onto the sheet. "It's a standard thing, these days. So many litigious parents waving claims of abuse. Quickest way to stop it is to prevent all staff from touching any student. Hmp. Seemed to have regurgitated a thesaurus of late..."
"It's nuts." He hovered on escaping, then leaned towards the clipboard. "Need any help, dawg?"
"A few tissues to prevent bloodstains," she said. "Otherwise, I can still focus and write on the lines... is hospital a bad word for -er- 'us'?"
"Itoleyashuddapaboutthat..." he hissed.
That would be a 'yes'. Hm. Reason for requiring physical contact... Sara wrote, "Bleeding all over the scenery."
Tolensky was craning his neck. "Who the fuck is Sara Louise Adrien? I thought yo' was some guy named Essel."
"You and most of the school," she muttered. Were her words slurring? No matter. As long as her skin was pink, she didn't need to fret. "My last name sounds like a first name, and with the two initials, I become Adrian Essel. My efforts to get people to remember the real me are... moot." She sighed. "Only two more years. I can survive two more years. Not including this one, of course."
The next line read, "Cause of mishap:"
"Yo, put down 'Duncan Matthews'..." suggested Tolensky. Then he did a classic double-take. "Yo' a GIRL?"
"Mister Tolensky..." warned the nurse.
Sara held a bloody finger in front of her lips. "Shhh... it's my secret identity. I'm sure if Matthews knew my true gender, he'd be trying to ruin me for all mankind, rather than shoving me into inanimate objects." She wrote, "Unknown force moved head to intersect locker corner," instead.
The nurse had had enough. "Mister Tolensky, if you aren't here for any valid reason, you can go back to your class."
"He's here to take dictation if my vision fails, Ms Ogg."
Ms Ogg didn't think much of that. "There's a sink in the next room. At least get all that blood off you before you go."
Sara mouthed, "Sorry," at him, then signed the waiver.
Ms Ogg took it without reading it and ungently removed the existing semi-crust of gore. "Can't close that with butterfly sutures. I'm going to have to give you some stitches. How are you with pain medication?"
"Horrendous. I'm the point zero one five percent that gets weird reactions to over-the-counter medication."
"Half a CVS(1) paracetamol it is," said Ms Ogg. She made Sara press her fingers to a medical pad while she vanished into the lockroom for the medication(2).
"Psst..." Tolensky poked his head around a corner. "Yo' gonna be okay?"
Sara managed a brave smile. "I'm quite used to pain. Don't fret."
He made a face as if not fretting was never an option. "The name's Todd. Todd Tolensky."
"Sara Louise Adrien," she supplied, in case he forgot. "Plain and tall."
"Ain't arguin' wit' th' tall," he grinned. "The plain... I dunno..."
"You're being nice," she said. "I saw you boggle when you found out my real self. I get mistaken for a boy. It happens."
"Mister Tolensky..."
"Whoop... argue later. Survive now." And then he was gone, sandshoes squeaking down the hall.
He was the first person to actually worry about her... who wasn't a teacher.

Todd, once around the first corner, dawdled so long in getting to his first class that he was actually early for his second.
And that period, he spent rewinding everything he'd ever done to his fellow students and looking for a tall, gangly figure in the middle of ground zero.
There were several food fights with Freddy in the middle, but Sara was on the edge. Fading out of view unless the Angry Straight Males happened to be offended by her breathing.
It shocked him to think of it as background noise, before. He'd thought that if it wasn't happening to him, then it wasn't his problem.
I'm quite used to pain, she'd said.
His vindictive play-by-play memory zoomed in on the scars up and down her forearms. Long, thin lines, criss-crossing and intersecting. New over old...
Defensive wounds.
He knew that jargon from watching domestics when he was still living in the tenements. People threw up their hands to protect their eyes or face, and got the scars on their arms, instead.
I'm quite used to pain...
There were some people, he knew, who deliberately inflicted their own wounds along their arm. Not suicidal, no. Just wanting to control the pain they felt by making themselves bleed.
But those people almost always made patterns in their flesh.
Sara's arms bore no reasonable design.
He doodled in the back of his book, tracing the lines on her arms as they'd appear if she were protecting herself.
Either she was facing an ambidexterous assailant with a thing for swapping grips, or something else had caused those marks.

"Just try to raise your head, I need to wrap you with some gauze."
"...nnngghh..." Zombie-like, Sara tried to obey. She could barely get her head to twitch. She felt too heavy. As if the table was all that was stopping her from sinking wholesale into the centre of the Earth.
Ms Ogg lifted her head up for her. "You weren't kidding about the reactions, were you?"
"...nnngghh..."
The nurse sighed. "I'm going to have to lay in a supply of infant's painkillers. That's going to look interesting."
"...y' keep sayin' 'at... b't ch' allus f'get..."
Ms Ogg wrote herself a post-it note. "There," she slapped it onto the board. "Now I have a memo."
Sara would have been heartened if the memo hadn't landed in amongst a flock of twenty identical ones.
"There. That's all I can do for you. Please consult your personal physician at your earliest convenience. And since you're still technically conscious, I have to send you to your next class."
Joy. Remedial Math with Mr Kawalski. She hated to disappoint him, so.
Ms Ogg helped her lift her backpack, and guided her to the door. From there, Sara was on her own.
It was a long, slow, dizzying walk to Remedial Math.
"What happened to your head?" demanded Janine in passing.
"Skin plus locker equals blood," Sara slurred. Damn medication. She felt floaty and heavy and dizzy all at the same time. "I think it was fourteen stitches..."
But Janine was gone.
When she slumped into her chair in the Remedial Ed. room, three different people including her study-buddy Freddy asked what happened to her.
"Did you hit your head?"
"Nah... I w's mugged by a locker," she managed.
Mr Kawalski took one look at her and announced, "Instant quiet-time. Don't do anything that makes you fall over."
"...nnngghh..." said Sara, and gently rested her head on her desktop.

(1) Out here in Australia, we have several 'brands' of generic items. These include 'No Name', 'No Brand' and 'Black Label'. Apparently, CVS is the NY equivalent.
(2) No matter the paucity of official medication on a school campus, the official policy is to lock it up as if every drug junkie in town is going to want to share some.