Thanks to everybody who reviewed!
-T-
Addie took Joseph gently by the wrist and led him to a chair in the corner of the living room, finally noticing the blood on his lip and dabbing it with a finger. He flinched slightly, but his attention was on his father who was leaned forward in his chair with his fingers entwined, staring expressionless at the back of Addie's head, until she turned around to face him.
"Well? Tell us, Slade," she said firmly. When he was silent, she said, "Do you really think that I ever fell for your story of 'being away on business'? You're an auto mechanic! What could you possibly be doing? How come you never want to tell me about your trips when you come home, claiming to be too tired? And what does Rose have to do with it?I'm sick of just wondering, and I want to know now."
Slade stood up from his chair and walked slowly to the window, his hands clasped behind his muscular back. He glanced over his shoulder at his wife and smiled slightly. "Addie, don't you remember the buisness we used to be so caught up in? One of the reasons we met, you know?" He paced in a circle around her, then said in his slow, deep, nearly hypnotizing voice, "Did you think that merely becoming a father was going to stop what I enjoyed to do? No, it wouldn't."
Addie lowered her voice as if she didn't want Joseph to hear, though he was sitting right next to her. "We had an agreement when we had kids, Slade. Whatever happened to just being a normal family? That's what I wanted."
"Don't make this difficult, Adelaine."
"You think I'm making this difficult? So what are you now, Slade, a mercenary? A bounty hunter? What?"
Slade stood beside Rose and put a hand on her shoulder, a tiny smile on his face. "Maybe I'm more than you think I am. Don't worry, Addie, it won't be any of your concern if you don't let it be."
But while he was talking, Addie's gaze fell on Rose, and her face suddenly went pale and her eyes widened. Joseph was alarmed at her expression, and he stood up and touched her arm in concern. She either ignored him or didn't feel him. Her eyes snapped up to her husband's face and she swallowed hard. "Slade," she said very slowly, "where's Grant?"
Joseph thought that was a strange question to be asked in this situation. Grant was away at college, did she just forget or was there something else? He was alarmed that his heart was pounding, and he realized something definitely ominous was going on here.
"Where? Where's my son?" Addie exclaimed frantically, nearly yelling now.
Slade pushed Rose to the side and let his hands fall on Addie's shoulders. She stared up at his face wildly, nearly in a panic. When he didn't answer, she beat his chest with her fists and screamed, "Tell me where my son is!"
Joseph blinked hard with every word she said. As quiet and gentle as he was, he wasn't used to this kind of yelling, and as frantic as his mother was, it nearly scared him. She was usually levelheaded and calm, but at this moment she was almost going crazy.
"Addie," Slade said as he grabbed her wrists, his expression not changing in the least, "stop this. Get a hold of yourself."
"Tell me," Addie said, close to tears. "Where's Grant?"
Slade looked down at her, then he glanced at Joseph briefly, who was staring at his father intently, clearly wanting to hear the answer to his mother's question as well. "Let's talk about this in the hall."
"No, we'll talk here. Now just tell me!"
"Addie," Slade said, his voice level and his expression hard, "Grant's dead."
She pulled away from him and stared at him in horror, shaking her head. "Liar. You're lying. My son is not dead."
"He is, Adelaine."
"What did you do to him?"
Slade didn't answer, and Joseph put a hand on the wall to steady himself. His brother, dead? But it was so impossible; Grant seemed nearly invincible, so skilled in self defense. How could he have just died? Joseph wanted to ask the question, but no one was looking at him to see him sign.
"I don't like it anymore than you do," Slade said. "But Rose and I-"
"Shut-up!" Addie yelled. "I don't care, I just don't care about you anymore! Wasn't it enough that you gambled with Joey's life years ago? And now Grant?" She broke down in hysterical crying, sobbing into her hands and not even bothering to hold back at all. Joseph was still in shock at the news, but he reached over and touched his mother's arm to comfort her. But she only cried harder.
Rose looked at Slade with a blank expression on her face, and the two of them almost seemed to be communicating telepathically, if that was possible. Rose shook her head slightly, then turned to Addie when the woman took a deep breath and spoke again.
"Slade, I want you to leave," she said, raising her tear-streaked face from her hands and glaring at him with hatred. "Get out of here. You're nothing but a gambling, murderous, fool. And I never want to see you again. So get your things and get out of here, and take your daughter with you."
The spat the word 'daughter' off her tongue as if it were venom in her mouth, and then she turned away on her heel and walked into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
After a few moments of silence, Slade reached over and grabbed Joseph's shoulder, turning him around to face him. "Joseph, I'm going to give you an opportunity that I suggest you do not pass up. Your mother is obviously enveloped in her grief, and she's not going to be in the mental shape to take care of you." He pointed at his son's green eyes. "You have a gift that makes you quite unique, you know. If I were you, I wouldn't just sit around wasting it. Now Rose and I are are leaving, at your mother's request, of course, but I want to ask you a question first."
Joseph shook his head and pulled back to where he had enough room to sign. "I just found out my brother died, why are you doing this?"
"I told you, it's a great opportunity."
Joseph shook his head harder, refusing to listen to what his father had to say next. Whatever he was wanting, it was more than likely for selfish and destructive reasons. Joseph tried to pull away, but Slade held tight to his arms, only to make him struggle more. The boy wasn't much of a physical fighter, but for some reason being held by his father like this made him frantic, and he thrashed with all his might to get away, but his father held him in place effortlessly until Joseph instinctively tried to kick him in the shins. Suddenly Slade's face contorted in anger, and he let go of his son's left arm and slapped him across each side of his face with one hand. Joseph stopped struggling and stared at his father in shock. His parents had never hit him before.
"Now, Joseph," Slade said, taking him by both arms again, but this time lifting him clear off the ground and pulling him closer to his face, "I'm only going to warn you so many times." After a few seconds of glaring, he shoved Joseph to the ground and looked down at him mercilessly. "I may be going now, but don't think I won't be back."
Without even getting any of his belongings, Slade took Rose by the shoulder and led her out of the apartment, not even bothering to look back once.
-T-
Joseph woke up the next morning to his alarm clock buzzing loudly on the nighttable beside him. For a moment, he couldn't remember what had gone on the day before, then he clouded over again, still numb from the facts that his brother was dead and his father was gone. He looked slowly around his room, reluctant to move but knowing he had to. The world didn't stop for him, and he knew it never would.
He got out of bed and slowly got ready for school, knocking lightly on his mother's bedroom door before walking to school. He heard her sobbing die down as if she was holding her breath, and he figured that meant she didn't want to talk. He grabbed his backpack and left the apartment, jogging all the way to school and this time not really noticing the weight of his pack and schoolbooks.
He arrived to class and slid into his desk just in time, glancing behind him at Lisa as he opened his books. She appeared almost sad and seemed to look right through him at the teacher. Joseph turned back to his book in a daze.
Today he didn't have a problem with sleeping in class, but merely paying attention. The teacher, knowing that Joseph was usually a straight-A student and very attentive in school, appeared not to know what to do at his sudden change in attitude. He appeared almost sick, so she considered sending him home early or at least to the nurse, but didn't think she could hold his attention long enough to tell him.
On break between classes, Joseph saw Lisa in the hall and decided that he might as well try to talk to her. If Jared saw, then so what, Joseph didn't care. Not today. He walked over to her and waved slightly, and though it was obvious that she saw him, she just looked away. Joseph grabbed her back strap, and she stopped, looking at him long enough to where he could communicate.
"Lisa, why are you avoiding me?"
She shook her head. "Joseph, I've got to go."
"You're letting him control you. I'm not afraid of him-"
"I don't now what you're talking about. Now I have to go." She walked away and left him standing there feeling crushed.
"Have you ever thought of the fact that she just doesn't want to talk to you?" Jared's voice said. Joseph turned around to face him and glared challengingly. He would normally just avoid the confrontation, but not this day. He ground his teeth together and was dying to say something, but Jared did not understand sign language. The older boy continued. "Just leave her alone, punk. She's my girl, remember?" He planted both fists in Joseph's shoulders and shoved him backwards.
If he had a knife today, Joseph was afraid he would stab this boy. He stepped forward and shoved him back just as hard, which seemed to surprise Jared, but he recovered quickly and cracked his knuckles. "All right, you wanna go at it that way, huh? Bring it on!"
Joseph stood there as Jared jumped foward, then threw up a fist to block the oncoming punch. His small frame at least served a good fighting purpose, and it allowed him to move and dodge quickly. He avoided the next few grabs and punches, then took a step backwards to give himself leverage and kicked Jared Thomas up under the chin so hard he smashed against the wall.
In complete shock, Jared quickly recovered and pulled himself up from the floor, making sure he was seeing correctly. This was Joseph Wilson he was fighting with, wasn't it? Yes. But right now he looked unusually, well, angry. Jared spit blood onto the floor and grinned at the large crowd that had gathered around them.
"Kill him, Jared!" a boy yelled, and then the whole slew of them started chanting, "Fight, fight, fight!"
Joseph wasn't used to this many eyes being on him at one time, and under normal circumstances would feel shy at all the attention, but right now most of them just wanted to see him get beat up, and he didn't care. He quickly evaded a few punches from Jared, then kicked the other boy in the face three times before he even knew what was happening. As Jared took a step back to take a breath, Joseph realized that watching Grant's martial arts training had come to serve him well now. He closed his eyes briefly in grief. Grant. It was so hard to believe that his brother was dead.
Closing his eyes was a mistake, for when he opened them he saw Jared's large fist, and he took the punch to his face and was knocked hard onto the tile floor. A lot of boys in the crowd whooped gleefully as Jared dove on the smaller boy, throwing punches crazily and actually finding his mark this time.
Joseph had never been punched so hard, and he was practically choking on his own blood. He growled silently and tried to move his arms up to protect his face, but Jared's knees were pinning his wrists to the floor. The crowd of kids were yelling indistinctly now, but Joey heard Lisa's voice in the crowd screaming, "Jared, stop!"
Joseph hadn't gotten into this fight just to be pulverized into the floor. He drove both feet into Jared's stomach and kicked him off with a force he didn't know he had. Once the other boy was off, he sat up, nearly in a rage, and suddenly knew how he could beat this guy.
He remembered his father's words. "You have a gift that makes you quite unique, you know. If I were you, I wouldn't just sit around wasting it." But Slade didn't understand that Joseph wanted to keep it a secret. Why, he didn't know, but how many other teenage kids had mutant superpowers? Well, the news of his brother's death and the stress at home had driven him to the end of his rope. He usually calmed himself down by playing the guitar or drawing, but neither of those wouldn't help his situation now. As far as he saw it, he was being forced to fight.
"I'm gonna kill you, kid," Jared growled as Joseph stood up from the ground. "You've been asking for it, and I'm gonna kill you."
Joey stood still and waited for Jared to come forward to make his move, which he did at a full run. Joseph stood his ground and waited for the boy to get a little closer, then stared intently into his brown eyes and hoped he wouldn't regret what he was about to do.
Joseph's eyes glowed green and black, and Jared suddenly stopped in his tracks, almost mesmerized. Then Joseph faded literally into Jared, and the older boy was now possessed, his eye color now a dull green.
A few girls in the crowd screamed, most of the people in disbelief at what they had just seen. Joseph knew it was only a matter of time before the teachers and principal came running to stop the fight, but he took a few moments to discover a little bit about Jared's mind. He had full control over this body now, the thoughts, the movements, and the voice. It'd be nice to be able to speak again, even if it wasn't his body, but Joseph knew he had to act fast if he wanted to get anything done, which he really didn't, but felt pressured to do so. As strange as it looked, Joseph drove Jared's fist into his own face, and proceeded to give this guy what he deserved.
A few teachers had heard the commotion and came running from the break room to stop the fight in the hall, but they froze in their tracks when they turned a corner and saw Jared Thomas literally punching himself!
"What is that kid doing?" one of the teachers exclaimed. "He's- he's hitting his own face! What in the world?"
They saw Jared knock himself back into the wall with another hard punch, and they knew they had better do something before this kid killed himself. They ran over and grabbed his arms. "Thomas, will you stop? You're going to really hurt yourself."
Jared looked up at them, his eyes appearing to suddenly be green, when he went limp in their arms and Joseph Wilson jumped out of his body and landed on the floor in a somersault.
"Holy crap!" a young substitute teacher exclaimed. "What the heck just happened here? Or am I seeing things?"
Another teacher shook her head at him, her mouth wide open. "No, you're not seeing things." The entire crowd around him stared at Joseph as he stood up from the floor and wiped the blood from his face with his hand.
"That kid's jinxed!" a boy in the crowd yelled. "He's a freak!"
"So?" Lisa yelled back. She walked up to Joseph and held onto his arm. "At least he's a nice freak."
Joseph decided to take that as a compliment.
"Hey, wait a minute," the substitute teacher said. "You're one of those people with the weird powers- like a superhero; or a villain."
"You read too many comics," another teacher said. "Get this kid outta here and find out what's going on with this 'power' thing. Call his parents. Oh yeah, and I want him suspended, superpowers or not."
-T-
Joseph went home later that day, the bruises on his face throbbing all the way there. He had never really used his powers in public before, especially not at his school, but now that the secret was out, he really just wanted to be somewhere where he could fit in. Everyone in the school thought he was freak, even Lisa, though at least she had said he was nice.
He got to his apartment around three o'clock and discovered that Addie hadn't even gone to work that morning. She was laying on the couch when he came in, but jumped up quickly and grabbed him in a fierce hug when he got inside. "Oh, Joseph." She leaned him back and looked at his face. "What happened to you? Did you get in a fight?"
He nodded slightly, and she took him to the bathroom and cleaned his wounds, talking as she did so.
"I feel a little, well, under the weather right now, and as much as I don't want to talk about this... I don't believe a word your father says about Grant." Her bottom lip quivered when she said her oldest son's name. "So I want you to go to his college and find out what happened. Can you do that for me?"
"By myself?" he signed.
"I'm really not up to going, honey, and I'd know you'd be okay. Woudn't you?"
"But it's all the way in the United States."
"You don't have to go if you don't want to," she said, but she looked disappointed.
Joseph flinched as she touched an antiseptic to his bleeding lip, but signed, "I'll go. For you." But he just wasn't sure what exactly he was going to find when got there. He figured probably more than his mother expected.