"If I wanted to torture someone with my problems, I wouldn't pick on you. Seems you have enough problems," started Sara. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of a smirking Pietro leaning against the wall adjacent to the kitchen entrance.
"Heya, Essel. Stayin' for dinner?" He caught sight of Essels' scales and loose skin. "EWWW! Did ya come down here to make me sick?"
"Go stare in the mirror s'more. You ain't happy enough yet," Todd snapped and escorted Sara past into the kitchen. He glanced up at her. She was doing 'it' again... the empty look in her eyes gave it away.
"Hey, Sara, you want grilled cheese with your soup?" Fred asked. All they had left were twenty-cent cans of soup, wonderbread, and Velveeta cheese.
"What on earth?" Sara prodded the loaf of Velveeta with one finger. "I wasn't aware plastic cheese existed."
Pietro was on her in milliseconds. "If you don't like it, don't eat it! Who invited you for dinner anyway?"
As usual, Sara returned rudeness with civil manners. "I never said I didn't like it. Just that it was odd."
"An' if you must know, I invited her," Todd piped in.
"And so did I," thundered Freddy, brandishing his spatula in a threatening manner.
"The bread's burning," Pietro retorted, taking a step backwards nevertheless. Freddy turned back to the stove, grumbling. Pietro decided he would rather claim the remote before Tabby did and sped to the living room.
"Sorry about him, sweetheart. He's territorial."
"I figured."
Freddy fixed both of them plates of grilled cheese and tomato soup to take upstairs. Todd carried the sandwhiches while Sara amazed Todd by carrying both bowls of soup up the stairs without making the surface so much as ripple. "Lady Favisham's was all about daintiness and good form. No wonder I dropped out. Figuring out silverware placements and not spilling the soup were about the only things I didn't perform miserably."
Sara's eye twitched ever so slightly as she placed the bowls on the table inside of the spare room. Todd put the sandwiches down close by and shut the door. "Yo, it's all cool," he said gently. "That must've been a very boring school. At least it's behind you."
"Only because I was expelled."
"Oh." Todd blinked, not quite knowing what to say. Sara didn't seem the type to get expelled.
Sara sat down and picked up a sandwich. "No big surprise. Mom always did have high expectations of me. It's money she'll never get back and she doesn't hesitate to remind me whenever I ask for something. That's when I learned to earn my own allowance."
"Shit, yo. That ain't fair."
"Maybe not," admitted Sara, "But it does make sense. I cost her money that she can't get back, so I shouldn't really ask for any more."
"No, no, she's the one who forced you to do something you didn't want."
"Didn't want? If I was any good at it, maybe I would have enjoyed it. I flunked. I didn't try hard enough." Sara bit into the sandwich. She blinked. "Plastic cheese tastes good when melted. THIS is the stuff!" she exclaimed, waving the sandwhich at Todd with sudden enlightenment.
Utterly confused at the sudden change in subject, and unsure whether he should bring it back - the boy tilted his head to the side.
"Ray made it for me once over some pasta I hated and had to eat. Company was present. Mom wanted me to clean my plate. The pasta she wanted served had the ickiest sauce ever. It was the color of cheese, but tasted like apricots and mayonaisse. Ray fixed me a cheese sauce and brought some out for me. I think I found out what he melted down." Todd was looking lost and somewhat bewildered. Oh dear.
"Sorry. I tend to go off like that a lot."
Todd smiled and gave a little shrug. "Hey, always glad to hear of a happy memory. Go off as much as you want." Rant, rave, babble. I don't care, yo. If it helps you to talk, then talk. I'm always here.
Sara went crimson. It was, as she tended to joke, her default response. "I'm afraid I might have to reorganise your lounge room and kitchen at the very least, tomorrow," she said. "Even if I'm half-crippled, I have to be able to see the floor in there. And the benchtops, for that matter." She shuddered as a mass of cramps came over her. Ugh. After all this, she should find childbirth a snap.
Todd kind-of cringed. "We kind of got behind everything. It was always someone else's job an'... y'know... Ya don't gotta."
Sara giggled. "You've yet to understand the soul of an obsessive tidier, dear. I'm - compelled, almost, to pick up a snow shovel and start bailing."
"Uh. Some of our stuff's in there y'know."
"All the more reason to help me out," Sara grinned around her pains. "The last time I had to hazmat a place, I taped garbage bags to the windows and just shovelled things-- unh..."
"Yo, you better eat up, hon," Todd encouraged. "Li'l nutrition... lotta sleep. Do yo' good."
They weren't just sharp, now. They burned. Sara could see the wisdom of sleeping through it. "Yes, dear," she muttered. "My plans to take over your living zone can await elementary treatment."
Todd took her sandwich-holding hand and waved it under her nose. "Eat first."
Sara took an obedient bite. "I'm sorry if I'm interfering, but I feel I have to do something to repay for my visit. Sooner or later, I'll be a burden. It happens."
"Sweetie?" Todd begged. "Quit lettin' yo' Mom do the talkin', okay? It ain't good fo' yo'."
Sara made herself eat some more. "Give me a while," she said. "I've been thrown out of more places than I care to count. I believe my record was -uh- two months."
"I still don't think yo' the type to get expelled, sweetums."
"You want the litany?"
"Sho'. Enlighten me."
Sara took a breath. "I started at Lady Favisham's at age four. I was expelled at the tender age of eight... I believe the charge was 'conducting Pagan rituals'. It involved woad and flowers. My next school was Mistress Tildworth's, where I lasted precisely four months. I had too much fun with Latin for everyone's own good. After that, I spent a spell at Ms Elizabeth Kranchick's School for Young Ladies. A three month spell. Next on the list was The Reverend Jacob's Strength Through Righteousness School for Young Ladies - my famous two-month record. The Head Girl took more than a fair shine to me. I blacked her eye and ruined her orthadonty."
Todd's mouth was hanging open.
"Did I mention that I was wasn't yet nine years old at the time?"
"Someone made a move on yo'?" he yawped.
"Yo, frog-breath," came Tabby's distant shout. "We don't wanna know about Essel gettin' lucky!"
"Her name's Sara Adrien, yo! Not Adrian Essel!"
"Fuck you anyway!"
Todd sighed. "Sorry about her. You said sumpin' about Ben Gay in her shorts?"
"Becoming more and more of a temptation as time passes, dear," said Sara. She munched on more of her sandwich. "Do you want to hear about the rest of them?"
"There's more?"
"Oh yes," she chirped, feeling slightly punchdrunk. "I said it was a litany." She hissed at another rash of scales. "After that was Professor Martinson's School for unpaid white-collar labor - oops... I mean - School for Technological Learning. I lasted a little bit over the two months' record, there. Then there was Grafingle's Academy for special learning - my scholastic records, you know... They sort of doomed me. I lasted six months there before being shoved bodily into Filis' Institute for Academic Correction. I broke their counsellor at the end of that year... Then there was Babel Towers, where I lasted two years before I nearly blew up the chem lab."
"DAYumn..." coughed Todd.
"Montague Acres, one year," Sara began ticking them off on her fingers, in-between bites of her dinner. "Saquenaya private school, two years... and after a whole bunch of counselling - here at dear old Bayville. The two-year anniversary of my admission is coming up, so you may want to be wary of fireworks."
Todd was shaking his head. "Yo, that is whack... I mean - yo' so nice. How'd you get thrown outta so many places?"
Twitch. "Mother asks me exactly the same thing."
"Sorry, sugarlips," he said, "but I'm dyin' o' curiosity over here."
Sara shoved the last of her sandwich in her mouth, chewing as daintily as one could under the circumstances. "I think," she announced, "that the key ingredient was boredom. My mind wanders when I'm bored, you see... and I think up these experiments."
"Like?" he prompted.
"What would happen if I got the school computers to all act like HAL from 2001?"
Todd cracked up.
"Or mayhap, 'Is it true about ordinary household chemicals?' or 'This hallway is always wet, so perhaps I should draw it to more obvious attention'... That one resulted in indoor ice capades on a lovely July afternoon."
Todd thumped their table in his paroxysms of laughter. Then he stopped cold. "Whoa. Wait, wait, wait. July?"
"I always said the air conditioning in that place was something else. I just happened to prove it."

Todd winced with her, the very next time she moved to protect an area of pain around her ribs. He literally leaped over to her bag and produced the medkit. "I know this has got whatever yo' need, babycakes. Take it, yo."
"Thank you dear, but I need to get changed, first. When I said they knock me out, they knock me out."
"Oh." Todd went beet red for a change. "I'll just - uh..." he gestured at the hall. "I'll just -er- I'll just guard th' door."
She kissed him. Slow, sweet and gentle. "Thank you, darling. You're the sweetest gentleman I've ever met."
Todd's feet didn't touch the floor until he hit Pietro and Tabby in the hallway.
Both had their arms folded across their chests. Though in Tabby's case, it was done so as to accentuate her bosom.
"You're the sweetest gentleman I've ever met," mocked Pietro. "Jesus..."
"Hey, I thought yo' were Jewish."
"Lapsed years ago," he said. "And that's beside the point, swamp-shorts."
"What the hell is up with you and Essel?" said Tabby. "You have a real woman right here, you know."
"Yeah, if I like soakin' my thing in Lysol," Todd muttered. "Her name's Sara, yo."
"This is pretty much fucked up, right here," said Tabby. "You and a transie?"
"She's a GIRL, dumbass," Todd was trying desperately to keep his voice down, to give Sara the illusion of privacy. "Born female, is female, goddamn it. Just shut up!"
"Yeah yeah yeah," said Pietro. "He's a female on the inside. What. Ever. What I don't get is why he has such a thing for you." He preened. "I'm obviously the one everybody desires."
"Wait. You want a transie lustin' after yo'?" Todd wondered. "How fucked up is that?"
"So he is a transie!" Tabby crowed.
"I never said that!" Pietro went pink. "It's just that I'm obviously superior and you're obviously not."
"SARA IS NOT A TRANSIE, GODDAMN IT!" Todd screamed. Then he realized what he'd done and clapped his hands over his mouth. "...ohfuck..."
"It's all right, dear," said Sara, behind him. She'd opened the door to watch the fight. "I'm quite used to rampant and erroneous speculation from my..." her glare raked over Tabby as if looking right through her, "contemporaries."
Tabby gave her the finger.
"Ah yes," Sara grinned. "Always the automatic response from the slow of mind." Both her hands were occupied in holding an oversized shirt down at the hem. It was pink and several years out of style, and bore the face of Hello Kitty. "Todd, dearest, I'm going to need about a swallow's worth of water. Any more and there's going to be a bit of a mess."
"Washing your falsies?" sniped Pietro. "Don't bother covering up. Nobody wants to look at you."
"I can name at least three people. How about you?" Sara challenged.
"Shaddup and fuck off," said Todd. "Both of ya." He ushered Sara back into her temporary room. "Just ignore 'em, hon. I'll be back wit' some water soon."
"...mi mi mi mi mi mimi mi..." echoed Pietro as Todd hopped past.
That does it. I'm sliming his hair gel. He found a clean glass and half filled it from the tap. What in hell was a 'swallow' of water, anyway? He shook his head and gave the finger to Pie-pie and Tabby on his way back.
"Hey, if he's with a transie, does that mean he's 'dick-whipped'?"
"Maybe it's 'future-pussy-whipped'?" speculated Pietro.
Todd fumed internally but said nothing.
Sara had arranged herself on the mattress, the duckie sheet covering her legs and hips. A small pill rested in one hand. "Ah. Thank you."
Pill into mouth. One swallow. Two. She very carefully attempted to put the glass down--
And went out like a candle.
Fft.
Just like that, she lapsed from consciousness into an apparent coma. The glass of water spilled on the floor as she fell into the mattress.
"Damn," he said. "You weren't kiddin'." He pulled the sheet up to cover most of her, then straightened her hair and kissed her forehead. "Goodnight, sweetie." He did his best to mop up most of the spill with his over-vest. He could deal with being a little chilly for one evening. Then he had to face a decision.
Guard her all night, or risk having her ransacked and who knew what else by Pie-pie?
As it turned out, Freddy was in the hall, instead of Pietro and Tabby.
"It's okay," said the giant boy. "You need sleep, too."
So she had two grotty guardian angels on her side, at least. Lance didn't really want to care, and preferred to leave it alone and as for the other two...
Meh. They could go fuck 'emselves.
Only when in the privacy of his own room, digging Kermie out of his hiding place, did Todd realize how rotten he actually felt.
How about that?

"So like I said, if he's a she, I'd be getting quite a bit more attention than Tolensky," Pietro concluded for about the fifth time that night. Lance was already irritated and trying to work on a new song. Pietro's rant about Essel was just throwing off his groove.
First of all, he didn't want to think about Essel. Second, he definitely didn't want to think about Todd and Essel together. And thirdly, Pietro complaining that Essel should go after him instead of Todd was just plain WRONG and it was bringing the previous two subjects up again.
"Why don't you go whine to someone who cares?" Lance asked, idly strumming a chord. "Todd's business isn't yours."
"Maybe not, but don't you at least agree? There is no frikkin' way Essel can be a girl! I would have noticed!"
"Just wondering. You remember that guy at the Gut Bomb walking past you? He bumped into you and said 'Pardon me, ma'am?' You nearly had a heart attack."
Pietro glared. "WHAT does that have to do with anything?"
"Everything. Just because a girl is a girl doesn't mean she's gotta wear short skirts and wonder bras. If you could pass as a flat-chested broad at Gut Bomb, Essel could pass as a boy in a public high school. And maybe he has tried to correct everyone, maybe he or she just doesn't give a damn. Makes sense to me."
Pietro was sputtering. "Are you saying you believe Toad?! Look at Essel... there is no way with THAT hair and THAT . . ." Pietro almost said 'flat chest' and decided for argument's sake, to skip over it. "Utter lack of feminine accessories, clothes, or whatever, that Essel could be a girl!"
"So now you're saying females are only identifyable by hair, knockers and accessories? I wonder how many drag queens you've gone out with lately."
"Shut up!!!" Pietro ranted, face turning pink. "Essel's not a girl, end of discussion."
"Good. That means you'll leave me alone now?"
"Rrrrrrr! Fine!" Lance felt a sudden breeze and the door slammed upstairs. Fred could be heard shouting for Pietro to keep it down. Lance sighed and set down his guitar.
"Fred?" he asked upon reaching the top of the stairs. "Aren't you going to sleep?"
"Someone's gotta make sure nobody bothers her. Toad didn't look so well."
Lance grimaced. "That time of month?"
"Think so. I told him to go to bed."
"Good. What about you? We've got school tomorrow. Can't stay up all night."
"I can least stay up 'til everyone else's asleep," argued Freddy. "Pietro sleeps like the dead."
And Tabby, once snoring, wouldn't be woken before six if the Bayville marching band paraded through her room. Toad usually was up before then, especially when shedding. Lance couldn't count the number of times he'd woken to the sound of retching in the bathroom before five.
He glanced at his watch. It was half past ten. "At least try for midnight."
Lance walked downstairs to find his guitar in Tabby's lap. She broke into caterwaul as soon as Lance stepped back in the living room.
"Am I not pretty enoooough? Is my heart too broookeeeen? Do I cry too muuuuuch? Am I too outspooookeeen - HEY!" Tabby cried as Lance yanked away the instrument.
"There's plenty of feral cats in heat around the boarding house if I want to listen to their yowling," Lance snapped.
"Fuck you!" Tabby threw a bomb which bounced off Lance's guitar into the wastebasket. Acting on pure instinct, Lance kicked the basket and it rolled toward Tabby's retreating legs.
BANG!
"AAAGHCHRISTFUCKITTOHELL!" Tabby screamed, jumping three feet in the air from pain and surprise. "Twice in one fuckin' night!"
She flipped Lance off over her shoulder and stalked into the downstairs bathroom to inspect her wounds.

Todd moaned and curled around Kermie, holding the stuffed frog against his stomach as if it could relieve his pain. It felt like his stomach was chewing on his nerve endings. He hoped it didn't try to send back the meal he'd last eaten. Cautiously, he touched a sweaty palm to his upper arm. Everything was dry and flaky with sharp pieces that hurt if he brushed against them the wrong way. The itch wasn't unbearable yet, but it was building up for a doozy. What he needed in his room was a freakin' tree to rub against.
And how the hell did a person manage to be hot and cold at the same time? Soon as he kicked off the covers making him sweaty, his feet would start freezing and the cold feeling would move up to his legs and shoulders. He'd burrow back under, convinced being too warm was better than being too cold. He was never gonna get any sleep this way.
Todd closed his eyes and tried to distract himself. While it was hard to sleep now, it would be impossible later. He had to take what he could get. Besides, if he passed out from exhaustion, who'd protect Sara? Freddy wouldn't be around tomorrow, and Pietro could cut school for ten minute breaks of harassment whenever he felt like it.
Todd forced himself to close his eyes and not move. Beads of sweat tickled unmercifully down his face and back, irritating the parting skin. He groaned softly, but didn't move. At last he felt the curtain of heavy sleep come across him, separating him from his tormented senses. He dove into it gratefully, imagined himself sinking into a deep pond of cool soothing water.
His body wasn't very happy being left behind with no-one to make suffer, so it set about preparing the mother of all cramps with which to wake up him in the morning.
But until then, Todd could dream about Sara all he wanted.

Sara moaned, rolled over, and awoke, just as dawn was beginning to colour the sky. One thing to say about no-brand, non-drowsy antihistamines - they certainly did not live up to their labelling.
Her dreams had been vague and slightly musical. A piece from Avril Levine had sneaked into her head somehow, and she hummed it under her breath as she sought a place for her sunbathing.
The backyard, fenced in and secluded by neighbouring shrubbery, would do.
Sara skinned out of her ill-fitting shirt and slipped out of her undies. Her loose skin flapped around her like strange, beige pennants, and pulled uncomfortably at her skin.
The sun was a perfect balm.

Someone was singing. It wasn't too bad. Clear voice. Held a tune.
The choice of song could have been better, though.
The only thing wrong was that the singing was happening at bumblefuck in the morning.
Pietro, despite boasts to the contrary, was a slow mover when woken up from his usual near-coma. "...nnrrrrrrggh..." he muttered, stumbling to his feet. "I'm'a fin'na bast'rd whose singin' an' rip out their fuckin' windpipe..."
He could distinguish words, now. He was getting close.
"...gloop glooby, nibby nabba nooby lalala low low... Sabba sibby saba..."
There was Essel's Hello Kitty nightshirt. There was Essel's underpants. Little pink daisy pattern.
OmiGod... Essel wears girlie underpants.
And there was Essel. Naked as the day he was born, facing the sun and dancing to the music inside his head.
Shocked into full wakefulness, Pietro took a quick tour.
All right.
Okay.
Nobody could tuck and stand like that without some kind of glue.
Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit fuckketty shitty shit shit DAMN!
He was next aware of watching Essel - no, Adrien. Sara Adrien was her name. Her name. HER name.
Adrien was taping a gigantic garbage bag to the kitchen window and furling it so that it hung outside. Next was the repetative movements of scraping various things out into the bag.
She was clearing out the sink.
Someone had paid the bills to such an extent that they had heat and water, so Sara filled the sink with hot, soapy water. Still humming under her breath.
Pietro's brain supplied the words.
Am I not pretty enough... Is my heart too broken... Do I cry too much... Am I too outspoken...
Somewhere, he was certain, there was a mutant who just heard his cerebellum fuse.