Building Neptune

Chapter 4: "Making Waves in the Murky Deep"

"D'you hear?"

John hung from the chin-up bar by his knees, doing crunches. "What was that?"

Toad walked into the training room, taking a seat on the bench press in front of his teammate. "Did y'hear wot happened?"

"Let me guess." He grunted slightly as he curled up again. "Oprah's given some new cars to homeless children and members of her studio audience."

"Yeh, y'so fuckin' clever. Remember tha' kid we checked out a few weeks ago?"

John sighed and flipped down off the bar. "The cute one?" He grabbed his towel and wiped at the sweat on his face and bare torso. His hair was soaked and he reeked like a used sock.

Toad snorted. "If y'say so. But, yeh, tha' one, th'battered housewife fairy." He leaned back on the bench and, with a cursory glance at the considerable weights, lifted and lowered it. "Spot me."

John rolled his eyes and wandered to the other side of the bench. "What about him?"

"Well, turns out 'bout a week ago he got into it with th'boyfriend again an' killed 'im. Triggered a secondary mutation an' all. I hear he ripped th'water right out of his body. Freaky shit, huh? Pretty cool, too, if y'ask me." His voice strained as he pushed the weight up.

"I guess you underestimated him. He grew a pair after all."

Toad barked a cruel laugh and lowered the weight back down. "Hardly. His mutation an' instincts had t'defend him in th'end, 'cause he wouldn't."

John shook his head. "I think you have to want it a little bit for something like that to happen."

"Wantin' it an' doin' it are two entirely diff'rent things, mate."

"Still, shouldn't we look into his case again?"

"You jus' wanna sign him on so you've someone t'fuck withou' leavin' th'Island," Toad teased.

John made a face at him. "Well it is pretty slim pickings around here."

"C'mon, admit it. Y'just lookin' for Blondie-Bear, take two."

"You shut the fuck up before I char broil you." John's face was suddenly very serious.

Toad actually shut up for a moment, looking elsewhere and hefting the weight silently. "Well, s'no use anyway. Looks like th'X-Fucks have 'im now. Dunno wot th'pretty pansies want with some flamin' bar fly, though. I didn' think they approved of tha' shit."

John leaned on the bench, looking down at Toad as he lowered the weight. "You do know that you just called them gay and claimed that they're homophobic all in the same sentence, right?"

"You would know, Johnny. How'd they feel abou' you chasin' dick wherever you could get it?"

"They didn't know about it," he answered, sneering, "because it was none of their business who I fucked. But they're all about that equality shit, just not the slutting around part. They'll probably try to reform him, make him some wholesome, button-up, no-sex-before-civil-union fag."

"I don' see tha' happenin' anytime soon. From wha' I heard, it sounded like th'ponce had more than slutted around. Th'boyfriend said somethin' abou' doin' it f'cash."

"Well either they've got the best conversion ever or he'll just have to keep his mouth shut about it. Trust me, once they know that stuff, they won't let it be."

"Really, no one picked up on you bein' a poofter?"

"Really. I'm not exactly flamboyant, you know."

Toad grinned at him cruelly. "C'mon, even with y'porkin' th'popsicle, no one knew?"

John glared at him for a moment. "You know, one of these days, you ought to learn how to speak proper fucking English. I can't understand a word you say." He turned and stalked toward the door. "Spot yourself, fuckhead."

"Is he all settled in, then?" Jean didn't look up from her grading as Scott walked in.

"Yeah. They seemed to get along alright at first impressions."

"I thought they might."

Scott leaned against her desk. "I'm worried about this one."

"I'm sure Bobby will take good care of him. He's been through a lot, but he'll work through it."

He sighed and paced toward the student desks. "No, it's not him I'm worried about. I'm worried about him being here. I don't see this ending well."

She looked up from her papers, frowning. "And why is that? He's a nice boy, Scott."

"I'm not saying he isn't." He leaned on a desk in the front row, staring at her desk. "The world as he's known it so far is morally ambiguous at best."

"The world is morally ambiguous. That's why we have rules here, to solidify those morals a bit."

"I'm just saying that he's never going to be like the rest of these kids."

"Is this about his sexual orientation?"

"No, it's about him being sexually oriented. He won't be able to remove that aspect from himself, Jean. On top of that, he's experienced a lot of wrongs that he hasn't been properly angry about yet, and it's going to come to the surface eventually."

Jean pursed her lips. "I don't like what you're getting at."

He walked over to her desk, his voice soft. "He's already killed someone. Even if it was an accident, it opens a gateway. It'll seem easy for him to do a lot of bad things because, in his mind, he's already done the worst."

"Scott, that's really not fair." Her expression went cold.

"You know I have a point!"

"No, I don't. I think you're overreacting."

"And I think you're setting us up for another John Allerdyce!"

They both went quiet for a long moment.

Jean looked back down at her grading. "That wasn't anyone's fault."

He scoffed and backed away from the desk. "Of course it was! That kid was trouble—I told you that from the beginning. He was detrimental to the school, to society, and to the students."

"We're done talking about this."

Scott almost laughed. He shook his head and turned toward the door. "Fine."

Once he'd moved in, Cal got the grand tour of the mansion from Bobby. He seemed like a nice enough guy, maybe too nice, he thought at first. He had about a million and one things to say about the kitchen, but had no clue about the important things, like who was responsible for those funky orange curtains or how much the school had forked over for the huge oriental rug outside the Professor's office.

"What about the Professor?"

"He left a few days before you got here. Jean said he was making arrangements for a new student. You, I guess."

"So what's he like?" Cal's eyes travelled along the ornate woodwork in the front hallway. "Professor Xavier, sounds like some stuffy old British man."

Bobby shrugged. "Well, he can be stuffy, but he's pretty cool. Really smart."

"He's loaded, right? I mean, obviously, from looking at this place."

"Yeah. I think he was in business before he started this. He's a telepath, you know. Reads people's minds. Only when it's necessary, though, or if you're broadcasting something."

Cal looked more than a little concerned. "Broadcasting?"

He smirked. "Well, if you're fantasizing about nailing a teacher or something, just try to think quietly. It's really not something to worry about." He nudged Cal's arm playfully.

"I'll try to refrain."

"What about you? How long have you had your powers?"

Cal shrugged. "A while now. Since I was thirteen."

"Yeah, I got mine around then. Are you any good with them?"

"What do you mean?"

Bobby sat down on a window seat at the end of the hall. "I mean, have you trained much? For control, endurance, things like that."

"Oh." Cal hesitated. He sat down. "Nope. I didn't know you really had to fine tune it like that. I mean, I just think about it, and the water does what I want. Why do I need more than that?"

"Well, I used to start making ice when I got nervous. It can be a little dangerous if you're..." He arched his eyebrows meaningfully. "…you know…"

"Boning," Cal supplied.

"Yeah. That." He blushed a bit. "Yeah, well, training helped with that. And then we've got a team here, the X-Men. The teachers are all on it. They go out and use their powers to help save mutants from bad humans and humans from bad mutants. That sort of thing. I'm a Junior X-Man now, so I'm training to be on the team. You have to be really good with your powers to work with them."

"What do you mean, 'bad mutants'?"

"Have you ever heard of the Brotherhood of Mutants?"

Cal frowned. "The mutant power group? The one with the crazy old queer with the weird hat."

Bobby laughed. "Yeah, that group. And I dunno if I'd go around calling Magneto a queer."

"No straight man wears a purple cape. Just saying."

He shook his head in amusement. "Anyway. They pull their crazy wipe-out-the-human-race stunts every once in a while and the X-Men have to step in to stop them."

"Why would they do that? I mean, we're mutants. We're on the mutant side."

"That's not how it works. It's not just humans against mutants. It's hate against acceptance."

"I guess so."

"And besides, training is a lot of fun."

"Now that's a good answer. Dr. Grey said you had good training rooms."

"Definitely. Younger students need teacher supervision, but you should be fine as long as you're with me. We could check it out if you want."

Cal grinned. "Yeah. That sounds good."