Warnings: Mild Slash (Colt/Punk), AU setting, Profanity.

Waking up before Scott isn't something Phil's used to; he's far more familiar with being woken up by the slowly increasing volume of voices in his head. This morning, however, it's the sounds of Scott's mother bustling about the house that wakes him. He lies very still, hoping that the woman doesn't decide to come wake her youngest up. It feels incredibly normal being worried about her coming through the door and finding him lying in Scott's arms. How average people deal with these situations Phil isn't sure. He supposes he should wake Scott up, get him to take the block on his talent away, but he's comfortable, still cradled against Scott's chest, one arm about his waist the other resting on the back of his head. He's pretty sure he could easily go back to sleep lying like this. After living the majority of his life without a single good night's sleep, he's been enjoying the time he's spent sleeping in Scott's bed, perhaps a little too much.

'You're a noisy little punk, you know that Phil.' Scott sounds groggy over their link, groggy and tired. 'What time is it?' Phil tires to pull away from him to check the alarm clock, but Scott's arms hold him fast, the hand on his head running through his hair.

'If you wanna know the time, you're gonna have to you know, let me look.' There's nothing Phil could do about the amount of insufferably smug that infused his tone, he does feel smug, ridiculously smug and huge amounts of that syrupy, warm contentment.

'Don't care... Stay.' Scott squeezes him gently, his lips brushing the top of Phil's head. His mother's bustling is getting dangerously close to Scott's bedroom door though, and should she decide to open the door there's going to be a lot of incredibly awkward explaining to do.

'Drop the block, at least.' Phil mutters, and slowly the rest of humanity trickles back in, the rumbling of lazy Sunday mornings washing over him. Its strange how much more normal Phil feels with the rumble of the rest of the World in his mind, the silence Scott can give him, the anchoring he provides is wonderful, but honestly, Phil doesn't quite feel like himself surrounded by nothing but the hum of Scott's sleeping mind. Phil needs the noise to feel normal.

'I'm going back to sleep.' Scott murmurs, another soft kiss is pressed to the top of Phil's head, and Scott's mind drifts back to his dreams. Lying in someone's arms should be incredibly boring. It's basically lying around trapped with nowhere to go, but it's nice, and kind of terrifying. Last night is something they're going to have to talk about at some stage, but not too soon, maybe once Phil can think of Scott's hands on his body without a flush coming to his cheeks, and he can't feel the ghost of them on his skin, trailing little sparks of electricity in their wake. His first kiss and his first make-out session all in one night is something he needs to think about himself really. Heyman and Piper, they both made it very clear that Phil needs Scott, that as a telepath without a biopath to help him, he's more than a little screwed. It all seems very one-sided though. What Phil gets out of the deal is obvious, but what exactly does Scott get in return for making sure Phil doesn't go mad, other than eternal thanks? There has to be some deficiency in a biopath too, otherwise the whole thing is neither fair nor plausible, at least in Phil's opinion. The pleasant hum of Scott's dream takes an odd turn, but Phil hadn't been paying attention to it, until the arms around him tighten further, clutching him tighter to Scott.

"No." He mumbles in his sleep, managing to pull Phil in even closer, his breathing speeding up. "Nonononono." Phil frowns, taking a tiny little peek into Scott's dream is probably a violation of their trust, but he needs to breathe, and that's not exactly easy when someone is squeezing the air out of your lungs.

Darkness is all there is, nothing more. Just a vast empty blackness and an all-pervasive sense of misery. Scott's dream is strange, but why it's distressing him so much Phil isn't sure, it's not pleasant but the level of distressing pouring over the link is disproportionate.

'It's okay... I'm here.' He's interfered in other people's dreams before; if nothing else, it's far easier to slip ideas into the sleeping mind than it is with a waking one, so soothing Scott shouldn't be too hard.

'No... Took you away... Gone! I told you, don't leave me alone again.' Sleeping Scott sounds miserable, and older somehow.

'I'm right here, Scott.' Phil tries to sound reassuring, comforting, anything that might stop Scott from squeezing him even harder.

'No! They took you away!' He sounds adamant, and Phil isn't too sure what to do about this, breathing would be good, so waking Scott up would be a great idea, but he wants him to have had sweeter dreams than this bleak miserable desolate one.

'So? I'll come back, you know that, Colton. And if I don't go get me.' It's a different tactic but it seems to work somewhat, Scott's arms relax slightly.

'You'll come back? Course, you'll come back... I'll... I'll meet you half-way.' He doesn't sound happy, not by a long shot, but there's determination in his voice. Whatever the hell this dream was about it seems Scott's dealt, and or is dealing with it.

'Good.' Phil's not too sure what else to say to that, there's nothing really. Scott's arms relax, his fingers slowly scratch at Phil's scalp as he wakes up. "Morning."

"It's still morning?" Scott groans, groping for the alarm clock. "Morning..." His head flops back down against the pillow. "I had the most fucked up dream." He grumbles, letting Phil go, to scrub at his eyes.

"I know." Phil moves, sitting on the end of the bed, his legs crossed, resting his chin in one palm. "Can we not have that dream again?" He laughs softly, and Scott nods.

"Something took you from me, something broke our link." He sits up and stares at Phil, his eyes burningly intense. "It... It hurt." His hands rest on Phil's shoulders, squeezing lightly.

"Just a dream." Phil shrugs, but the intense gaze doesn't waver, doesn't soften any. 'I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere.' Phil's smiles awkwardly, patting Scott's arm, feeling painfully uncomfortable under than heavy stare.

'You're right, you're not going anywhere.' Scott pulls him close, tucking Phil's head under his chin, squeezing him painfully tight. 'Mine.' He's fairly sure that's one of those stray thoughts that Scott was trying to keep to himself, but sometimes these things escape, and the word makes something in Phil tingle, whilst something else panics and makes him pull away. "Where you going?" Phil glances up from tying his shoes.

"Breakfast." He shrugs. "I'm gonna grab something at that place down the road, and then your mom can meet your girlfriend and you can help me with math homework." Phil grins, and Scott sighs, flopping back against the bed.

"Oh, fuck homework." He groans, propping his head up to look at Phil, a soft, sweet smile on his face. "Forget all that shit, c'mere. Come back to bed, and sleep some more." As tempting as the offer is, and it's horribly tempting, he needs some space, needs some time to think. "Wait... Do you even have money to pay for food?" Scott stands, coming over to where Phil's opening the window, intending to sneak out unnoticed.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." Phil grins at him, and perches half in, half out of the window. 'It's not like I don't have ways to get free pancakes.' The amount of times Phil has convinced waiting staff he's already paid is criminal, well it's criminal in general but really, the amount of money he's avoided paying throughout his still comparatively short lifespan is impressive.

'Evil little punk.' Scott laughs, and catches his chin, laying a very soft kiss on his lips. 'Don't be gone too long, kay?' Phil manages a rather bewildered nod, and hops out of the window, hoping the grin on his face isn't a dorky as he thinks it might well be.

With his free breakfast secured, Phil sits staring at the other patrons in the little diner, several families all crammed in, a couple of grizzled old men who look like they've probably eaten here every day of their lives, and some high school kids, Amy amongst them. She glances over at him, and pales slightly. It takes her ten minutes of loudly debating with herself, before she sits on the chair opposite him.

"Hi." She smiles awkwardly, and Phil nods, waiting for her to get on with asking her questions, he can hear them buzzing in her brain, and he wants this over with. "Look, I'm... Yesterday... I'm sorry?" She fidgets, and Phil laughs at her.

"I've heard worse, don't worry bout it." He takes a bite of his food, and she blushes. 'Seriously, there's some impressively weird people in this city. The sweet fantasies of one pretty girl are nothing.' Her blush deepens, and she looks away.

"Still... Uff... This is so not what I wanted to be talking about with you." She laughs, and sips at the milkshake she was carrying. "What d'you think you're gonna do? You think this is on the level?" She asks, her eyes narrowed, lips set in a thin line.

"No." Phil grins at her, she's suspicious, and he's rather relieved that someone else from the group wasn't totally taken in by Heyman's smooth lies.

"No? You either, huh?" She looks relieved, and grins at him. "Well, I guess it'd be hard to pull the wool over your eyes." She laughs, and Phil shrugs. Her thoughts are taking a rather unexpected turn, and Piper's words about teenagers being preoccupied come back to him.

'Focus, lady!' He laughs in her mind, and she blushes again, rubbing the back of her neck, looking only slightly rebuked.

'What? You're cute, in a kind of scruffy bad boy way.' She smirks, her shoulders set confidently. 'I'm on the cusp of realising my full femininity! My mind is wont to run rampant.' She laughs, and Phil can feel a blush creeping up his neck.

'You're Tina Belcher.' He mutters, eating more food, and watching as Amy bursts out laughing.

"Oh, she is so my hero! I totally write erotic friend-fiction!" She sips at her milkshake again. "So, you're Scotty's boyfriend?" This girl is shameless, Phil thinks; she's not even bothering to hide the endless parade of x-rated thoughts in her head from him.

"Maybe, kind of... I dunno. I've more important things to think about right now." Phil rubs his temples, and tries to work out how he got into this situation in the first place. He'd come here for breakfast, not to have a heart to heart, about his maybe relationship with Scott, with some girl he doesn't know, who has a porno starring both he and Scott running through her mind.

"There is nothing more important than love, you scruffy punk." She snaps, kicking his ankle. "How can you not know? Has he asked you out? I mean he holds your hand... Has he kissed you yet?" Her thoughts actually take a pg turn, and Phil's remarkably grateful for that.

"Twice, well three times..." Phil smiles, and based on the thoughts in Amy's head he looks ridiculous, definitely not cute like her thoughts paint him. "Stop talking to me about this." He shakes his head, shoving the empty plate from him, frustration and annoyance slowly building at her continued insistence on harassing him. 'Look, you don't know me, I don't know you, so just-'

"Fine, fine, keep your romantic secrets." She sighs, and sips at her milkshake, watching Phil carefully, her mind quietly considering how to bring up Heyman.

"Leave it. You're not involved so stay out of it." Phil sighs, finishing his drink, and folding his arms over his chest.

"We're in the same boat, you punk!" She snaps, her expression hardening. "You might be the golden goose that that creepy Heyman guy wants, but we all got the offer, we all got promised this training, and it all seems too good to be true. So you, Mr Mind Reader, tell me why this is too good."

"Because..." Phil sighs and shakes his head. "Because it is. I... Look just trust me, and turn it down. Tell your friends to say no too." Phil stands, and Amy frowns at him.

"You know something." Her tone is dry and harsh, for someone he's met twice this girl has made herself very comfortable in his company. "Tell me." He shakes his head, the fewer people involved in this fiasco the better, he doesn't need to be factoring even more unknowns into his plans. "Scotty's my friend, well he's on the football team and so's my boyfriend, so I know him... He's... He's a good guy." Phil shrugs at her and leaves the diner, walking back to Scott's place, when she comes barrelling out after him. "He's changed lately, because of you." She snaps, grabbing Phil's shoulder, turning him round to face her. Phil sighs, not really sure why she seems to think this line of attack will work, he's telling her nothing, she's not getting involved.

"I've done nothing." Phil holds his hands up, her thoughts are strangely tinged, the emotions pouring off of her are a strange mix.

"It's not a bad thing..." She sighs, and folds her arms over her chest. "He's not an easy guy to get to know." She starts walking in the direction of Scott's house. "Sure, he's nice and he's friendly, but it's like... Like no one's really important to him, like he's been waiting for the one, you know?" She sounds distracted, her thoughts swirling, picking out instances where what she means is most obvious. She clearly has no idea how Phil's gift works, it's strange how much more work it is for her to send the images to him compared to easily things fall into place with Scott. Her memories show what she means, Scott's a nice guy, hard working, diligent, friendly, but there's something distant about him, something standoffish.

"Is your boyfriend a... Does your boyfriend have a talent?" Phil frowns, trying to equate the distant person in Amy's memories with the warm solid body he woke up on top of this morning, there's not much similar about them at all, nothing really matches, but the skin they're wearing. Scott's totally different when he's with Phil, more relaxed. Amy looks at him oddly, and Phil gets the terrible feeling he just spaced out wearing that stupid grin, again.

"Please!" She laughs, nudging Phil with her shoulder. "It's a talent that Matt can sign his own name half the time." She laughs again, and stops. "Look, I know you said you don't want my help, but if you need some heavy lifting done... I'm your girl, kay?" She smiles, and turns down a different street, her strides confident, and her mind filled with actually pretty good music.

Outside of Scott's house, he takes a deep breath, checking to see who's actually in the house. Scott's in his room, his mind a comforting little buzz over the link, quietly bitching about his homework, his mother's watching some soap in the living room, and his brother in his bedroom, drawing. So the most likely person to answer the door is Scott's mom. He knocks, and quickly tweaks her perceptions, hoping she doesn't object too much to Scott's girlfriend calling on a Sunday morning.

"Hello." She stares at Phil, her thoughts categorising him, well his female appearance, as being from the other side of town, and not quite good enough for her baby boy.

"Hi, Mrs Colton... Is Scott home? He said he'd help me with my math homework..." Phil wonders if this was really a good idea, it'd been a kind of amusing one at first, but now under this woman's cool gaze and blazing thoughts, he's beginning to regret his decision to not just sneak back in through Scott's window.

"He's home. Are you the young lady he was out with last night?" Phil can't say he's overly surprised at the thinly veiled hostility in the woman's voice but the running vitriol about young harlots leading her son astray is surprisingly harsh to hear.

"Yes, ma'am. We were working on English, I'm top of my class, and well..." Phil trails off nervously, the woman's thoughts are incredibly difficult to listen to, he can't help but wonder if all women think this way when they meet their son's girlfriend for the first time. 'Scott, get your ass down here and save me, your mom hates me.'

'Phil? What the hell...' Scott appears shortly behind his mother, a grin on his face. "Hey mom, I see you've met Philippa."

"Phil, please." 'Philippa? What the fuck?' Phil snarls over the link, and Scott really looks like he's going to collapse in a fit of laughter.

"Phil? Interesting name for a girl." The woman steps back from the door, and lets Phil in. Out of habit, he takes his shoes off, and at least that makes Scott's mother compliment his upbringing.

"She's an interesting girl, aren't you, Phil?" Scott steps closer to him, ruffling Phil's hair gently, and Phil's painfully embarrassed by the blush that starts creeping over his cheeks. Scott's mother's thoughts take a different track, reassessing her initial impressions of him, seeing him as a girl who tries to look tough, when she's really a shy little wallflower.

"Not that interesting." 'I hate you.' Phil keeps his eyes trained on the carpet, trying very hard not to punch Scott for the amusement that's flooding their link.

"Well, top of your English class is quite interesting." Scott's mother laughs, and smiles at Phil, her thoughts definitely warming to him, but based solely on how Scott's acting towards him, apparently his mother thinks it's precious how he seems to be standing guard over his little girlfriend. "You'll stay for lunch won't you, Phil?" The woman's smile doesn't waver, and her thoughts turn to how she thinks he could do with a bit more meat on his, well her, bones.

"Course, she will." Scott's arm wraps around Phil's shoulders, squeezing him slightly, and his mother's does a little happy dance in her mind, apparently she'd been waiting a long time for one of her boys to bring home a girl, and even if Philippa is too thin, too scruffy and from the wrong side of town, she is a girl. "Right, we'd better get to it." Scott ushers Phil along to his room, and collapses against to door laughing.

"It's not funny, she fucking hated me." Phil mutters grabbing his bag from the corner of the room where it'd been thrown on Friday.

"I dunno, by the look on her face, I'd say she was pretty happy with the situation." Scott straightens up, and flops back on the bed, his own homework scattered over it. "We really gonna do homework? We got much bigger problems than homework, Phil." He seems more interested in spinning a pen round and round than any of the books laid out around him.

"You wanna graduate, you do your homework." Phil sighs, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, his back resting against it. "Being bored and confused by math might help me think." He sighs, rubbing his temples.

'Your head hurting?' Scott's squirmed down the bed, his cheek resting on top of Phil's head.

'Scott, it always hurts.' Phil mutters, trying very hard to ignore how nice it feels to have Scott touching him, even in this small way, it feels safe.

'I know.' Scott kisses his temple, and the pain fades. 'You really top of your English class?' He asks, as his fingers start gently scratching at Phil's scalp.

"Hmm?" Phil shakes his head moving out of Scott's reach, the gentle scratches had been far too distracting, far too pleasant to ignore. "I am, it's not saying much, cause the class is shit, but I'm on top." He shrugs, staring down at the bewildering mixture of numbers and letters in his textbook. He hates algebra, for all Phil likes words and the letters that make them, he can never help but feel betrayed by them when they join forces with numbers.

"Do my English homework, and I'll do that for you." Scott grins at him, pointing at the math textbook in Phil's lap. 'Once that shit's done we need to talk Heyman, I wanna know what you saw last night.' Over the link, there's a burst of determined concern. It seems that no matter what, Scott is always just that little bit worried about Phil. It's flattering really, and completely bewildering.

"Deal." Phil throws the math textbook to the bed and gets some English homework thrown back to him.

"Scott!" It's several hours, and way too much homework later when Scott's mother shouts. Scott scrambles off the bed, going to her quickly and Phil can't quite keep from laughing. Scott's mind had been drifting along quite happily before his mother had shouted, his thoughts humming softly, his eyes fixated on Phil. It was almost a relief to have that gaze removed from him; it was beginning to make Phil a little self-conscious.

'My mom's going out, she wants you to stay for dinner instead.' Scott sounds relieved over the link, and wanders back into the room with a plate of sandwiches. "She made food anyways though."

"Hmm, dinner, really?" Phil glances up from the paper he's working on, and taking a sandwich from the plate Scott sets down by him.

"Yup, you want something to drink?" He shouts, leaving the room again, the door still open, and a face appears at it, staring wide-eyed at Phil.

"You're not exactly what I had pegged as Scott's type." The brother looks almost nothing like Scott, maybe something around the mouth, but there's nothing that would really make it obvious they were related.

"Oh?" Phil watches him carefully, the gender-swap trick is fully in place, but still he keeps looking at Phil strangely. A quick check of his mind shows he's not got a talent, he's just surprised to see Scott with a girl, he'd always assumed his little brother was gay. Phil almost laughs, well, at least Scott's brother knows him pretty well.

"Yeah... Mind if I swipe one?" He nods to the plate of sandwiches and Phil shrugs, closing his textbook, and setting it to one side.

"Help yourself." 'Your brother's here... Bring him liquid and what the hell is his name?' Over the link comes a burst of shock, and an embarrassed chuckle.

'I've never told you my brother's name? I'm a shit boyfriend aren't I?' Phil's brain all but shuts down at that statement, boyfriend was not what he was expecting Scott to say, and that's something else to add to his ever-growing list of things to dwell on. 'Gregg.'

"It's nice to meet you finally, Gregg." Phil holds his hand out, hoping he sounds less scattered and bewildered than he feels. "Scott's told me absolutely nothing about you." Gregg looks at Phil for a few seconds and bursts out laughing.

"Didn't even tell me he had a girlfriend." He takes Phil's hand, shaking it gently. Upon his return, Scott sits down by Phil, a bottle of soda and three glasses set down by the sandwiches. "So, the girlfriend got a name?" Gregg takes over on pouring out the soda and Scott nods, swallowing the bite of sandwich he just took.

"Gregg, Phil. Phil, Gregg." He takes another bite, and wraps an arm round Phil's shoulders, a curious spike of something rather like pride comes over the link, and Phil ducks his head, feeling a blush forming. He'd beginning to get sick of all of these nervous, flustered feelings Scott stirs up in him, not sick of feeling them, maybe, but very sick of blushing like the schoolgirl he's pretending to be at least.

"So, I gotta ask, cause you know mom is, what's a pretty, smart girl like you doing with a meathead like my brother?" Over the link comes a burst of mild indignation and Phil laughs, it's kind of gratifying to see a blush on Scott's cheeks for a change.

"So you wanna tell me what you saw in there then?" Scott nudges Phil's shoulder, drawing him from the homework he was doing. They'd returned to working once his brother had left, skulking back to his room to get on with his own homework, in theory, what he was actually doing wasn't something Phil was going to share with Scott.

"I'll show you, it's easier." Phil closes his eyes, and takes Scott's hand, showing him what he saw through Lesnar's eyes. Once the memories have been shared, Scott ends up with his forehead resting against Phil's shoulder, his arms wrapped around his waist tightly. "You okay?" Phil absently runs his fingers along Scott's arm, stroking his skin gently.

'For being such a mess, you're incredible, Phil.' It feels like a very strange comment to Phil, it doesn't answer Phil's question in the least, isn't even a little related to the question he'd asked. The link is brimming with that syrup sweet emotion, and Phil sits as still as he can in the loop of Scott's arms, feeling mildly bewildered.

'So... Uh... There are kids there, and we need to get them out, right?' Phil fidgets slightly, growing slightly uncomfortable with how still and entwined they are in that moment, which is stupid, because he likes being still and entwined with Scott, but in that moment, it's too much.

'We do...' Scott pulls away and moves to sit opposite Phil, his legs tucked up under himself. 'We got two weeks to get something together... Something good, something solid, something that doesn't get us killed.' He sighs, and Phil forces a smile to his face, forces something confident and reassuring over the link.

'We're smart... We'll think of something.' Scott looks at him doubtfully, and Phil kicks his leg. 'I'm smart at least.' That draws a laugh from Scott, his normal genial smile settling on his lips.

"If you're so smart how come we're still doing homework?"

After dinner, Phil wandered round the block before skulking in Scott's window, and flopping down on the bed. Eating with Scott's family had been hard work, but he'd survived, grateful that it had been dinner he'd ended up staying for and not lunch, somehow he gets the feeling he would have had to endure two meals if Scott's mother hadn't been called away. Really, he probably should go back to his parent's place, there might be no one who gives a shit about him there, but at this rate that'd be a blessing. Scott's mother might have warmed to Philippa but she seems to be on a mission to make Phil have to buy bigger pants.

'You back home?' Scott sounds lazily content, his thoughts soft and muggy. It's stupid, but hearing him referring to his home as Phil's makes him happy, far happier than it really should because it's not his home. His home is on the other side of town; he really should go there sometime soon.

'I'm tired. Your mother just tried to kill me with food.' Phil groans, and clutches a pillow to his face, that was dangerously close to whining, really he shouldn't sound so petulant over the hospitality he'd been shown. Scott's mom is a great cook, a consummate hostess, and her thoughts are hoping that having Scott's little girlfriend visit will become a regular thing. This woman is going to kill him with kindness; he's been worrying about the wrong people all this time forget Heyman, and Piper, its Mrs Colton he really needs to worry about.

'She won't stop talking about you.' Over the link comes something weirdly like pride, and Phil can feel a smile on his face. 'Keeps asking me stuff bout you... I've made up all kinds of shit.' Amusement overwhelms everything else over the link, and Phil checks Scott's mother's mind to see exactly what he's been saying about him. He has to stop reading her thoughts quickly. There's no way Scott really thinks of him like that, there's no way those soft sweet descriptions, and fond stories are of time he's spent with Phil, even if there's a lot of tales of them doing nothing but sitting in a park feeding birds, they have to have been romanticised for his mother's ears.

'Don't lie to your mom, it's rude.' Phil mutters, and stretches out, before curling around the pillow he's still clutching, his mind drifting through the suburbs. It's a strange habit, but Phil likes testing the limits of his range, seeing how far he hear from where he is. The first time he tried from Scott's house, he'd managed to hear the closest church, now he can hear into the city. His power is getting stronger at an alarming rate. He's beginning to wonder just how far he'll be able to hear once it's done growing. He can't help but wonder how he matches up against Heyman and Piper, are they stronger, or simply better trained. He skims over the minds at the edge of the city, nothing particularly interesting until he comes to a shielded mind. He can't tell if it's Heyman, Piper, or some other telepath. The nearest mind to the telepath is their biopath, he recognises the neatly compartmentalised way it's laid out, at least he's come to the conclusion that's how biopath's minds look, both Lesnar's and Scott's are as tidy and locked down as each other. This mind isn't Lesnar's though, so it's hopefully Piper's biopath's, or there's a fourth telepath kicking about, and really, Phil doesn't want to think about that, because he's decided that telepaths are basically assholes, which makes him an asshole too but he thinks he can live with that.

Piggybacking in someone else's mind isn't any less weird the second time round. This man seems to be in a very cheap looking motel, sitting staring at the TV, focussing on nothing in particular, the TV seeming to be on solely for noise to fill the shabby room.

"You think this kid is gonna side with Heyman or not then?" The biopath says, and there's a vague snort from beside him.

"Who knows, kid's a stubborn little punk." Piper's voice, well at least there only seems to be three telepaths in the city, that's something. "Smart, but fucking stubborn. Probably gonna do something no one's even thought of just for the hell of it." Piper's laugh is short and sudden. "What about his anchor?"

"Ah... Well... You know, ain't no biopath gonna go round upsetting their little mind reading lunatic, right?" The biopath laughs, and suddenly Piper's straddling him, a lazily contented smile on his face.

"Good to know the knight in shining armour knows which side his bread's buttered on." When Piper leans in for a kiss, Phil removes himself from the scene. He's pretty sure he doesn't really wanna know more about what's going on there. Old man sex is not something he wants to be part of, at least until he's an old man, and Scott's an old man, and Phil pull's himself from those thoughts, clearly his time with Amy has affected him.

"You off somewhere nice?" Scott's voice is incredibly close, his fingers running through Phil's hair gently, a warm little smile on his face.

"Being mentally scarred..." Phil rubs his temples, and Scott laughs kissing his forehead.

"My poor little punk." He lies down beside Phil, and pulls him closer. 'You tired? You look tired.'

'I stink...' It's an accurate enough assessment, Phil's sure it's been far too long since his last shower, but he's stalling for time, there's something residual left over from his time in Piper's biopath's brain, a rush of desire, of lust. Sex is something Phil's going to have to consider, actually really think about, because at this rate he's going to go leaping headfirst into something else without a proper plan, and Scott'll tear him limb from limb when he comes.

'Hmm, shower in the morning. I'm still beat from last night.' There's little point in arguing, especially when Scott's wrapping his arms around Phil, pulling him closer, and slowly tuning out the rest of the World. It's far too easy to fall asleep in Scott's warm embrace, far too easy to forget his stupidly long list of things he needs to think about and focus solely on the heartbeat beneath his ear, and the sweet hum in his mind.

The morning hadn't been exciting, showering, eating, and leaving, all with the thoughts of Scott's mother echoing in his head. Her thinking how cute it is that her baby boy's been getting up early all this time to go see his little girlfriend before school. There's a part of Phil that'd like to tell the woman that Scott's girlfriend has basically been living in her house for the last few weeks, and is a boy, but that's a cruel little part of him that he doesn't often listen to. The normal plans of meeting up on the bench after school were made as Scott dropped off at the normal subway station, though the goodbye peck was definitely not normal, and it forced a goofy smile to Phil's face that stayed the entire time he was travelling to school.

As he walked through the school that morning, he recognised a few students from the warehouse. The other talents wandering around, their minds fixated on going to Heyman, all of them fooled by his lies. One of them tried desperately hard to get Phil to acknowledge them without compromising their high school social standing, but it was easy to ignore, easy to brush past them. The morning went on as most spent in school do, quietly uninteresting, education, ninety percent of which he'll never use, being forced down his throat. Not one of these people have any idea what's in a warehouse so very close, not even the other talents, and Phil has no idea what to do with what he knows. He needs to free the kids, he needs Scott's help to do it, but that's a given. He needs Scott in general, and Scott seems more than happy to be needed, more than happy to kiss Phil, to hold him, to press him down against the bed and feel him up.

'What the fuck are you thinking about?' Scott's voice over the link comes as a surprise, and Phil finds himself blinking rapidly, drawn out his daydream and back to his miserably boring algebra lesson.

'Uh... Stuff? Why?' He really hopes his thoughts weren't bleeding over to Scott, because really they were more than a little embarrassing.

'You don't usually sound like that when you're just thinking... That's generally something I hear late at night...' Scott trails off, and laughs. Phil can feel a blush creeping over his face, he ducks behind his propped up textbook, swearing under his breath.

'Fuck you, Colton.' He kind of wishes there had been more bite to that retort, something that at least didn't just make Scot laugh at him some more.

'It's perfectly normal, Phil. Everyone has kinky sex dreams...' He chuckles again, and Phil has the incredible urge to try and work out how to shut their link off. The tie he has to Scott is nothing like anything he's ever had before, no other link he's formed has felt this permanent and constant. It's possibly the best thing he's ever had, but right now it's cripplingly embarrassing.

'How'd you know they're not your own kinky sex dreams?' It's a weak argument, he's not even sure if in context it makes all that much sense, but at least he sounded less freaked out and more ardent, which is something to be proud of at least.

'I know my kinky sex dreams, Phil.' Scott laughs again, amusement flooding the link. Phil finds himself scowling at the equations on the board, they make no sense but anything is better than listening to Scott laugh at him, laughing with him is one thing, but laughing at him is too much. The rest of the day he ignores Scott, actually tries to be a good student and do the work set in front of him for a change, it's boring, but he really doesn't want another round of teasing from Scott. There's a good chance he's being overly sensitive about this, but really, he's never been intimate with someone else, has seen far too many horrors relating to intimacy and himself in the minds of other people to be fully comfortable having even an almost relationship with someone. It's too new, too much, and too soon. They've much bigger concerns ahead of them. Heyman wants an answer in two weeks, less than two weeks now, there's this Piper guy, his biopath, and their agenda to deal with, and the kids. Those three children are a huge hurdle, are they as dangerous as Piper had said, and even if they are, does that mean Phil should let them be taken in by whoever it is Piper works for? There are far more important things to deal with than his thing with Scott, and his being horribly bad at handling it.

After school, he heads to the nearest church, and sits. The people in the building all quietly asking for their prayers to be answered, and Phil answers for them, offering reassurances and forgiveness, letting his talent drift over his flock, whilst he tries to plan for the next two weeks. Those kids are strong, they've survived however long they've been there without difficulty, they just need to hold out two weeks more, then he'll get them out, somehow. What he needs to do is get rid of Heyman, remove him long enough to get the kids away, but then where's away? He's not much more than a kid himself. There's no way he can look after a bunch of little children. There's absolutely no way he's taking them to his parents, or Scott's for than matter, not to his because them having any children was one too many, and not Scott's because they're just nice suburban people, they don't need a house full of talents causing them problems. He supposes he could trust this Piper guy, but his angle's too unknown, even more unknown than Heyman's. At this rate, getting them out might be the easy part of this plan.

'Where the hell are you?' Scott sounds horribly worried; the link is almost bursting with his concern. Phil glances at his watch, it's long past the time he should be sat on the park bench, feeding the birds, chatting with Scott, and planning this out with him.

'I'm going home.' He says shortly, not really wanting to dwell on the Scott situation, he needs time to think, time to plan, time to get over this infuriating crush, or learn to handle better at the very least, because it's taking up too much valuable headspace.

'Well, I'll meet you there then... The birds miss you though... They don't trust me.' A strange melancholy wistfulness drifts over the link, and Phil can almost see the expression that must be on Scott's face, something small, hurt, and slightly forlorn.

'Home, Scott.' Phil closes his eyes, something odd spikes over the link, some almost bitter emotion floods over it.

'Is this about earlier? Look, I was teasing, is all... I didn't mean to upset you.' More of that melancholy mixes with the sharp bitter feeling, and Phil finds himself rubbing at his chest, a spot just over his heart.

'No... It's my parents, I've not seen them in a long time...' It's a cheap bullshit lie of an excuse, but it's really all Phil has. He needs to focus on planning, and there's no chance in hell he's going to do that with Scott anywhere near him.

'I... Okay... I... I guess I'll see you some other time, right?' The link burns with something horridly bitter and sharp, before Scott's thoughts fade to a quiet, low buzz. Phil sighs, still rubbing his hand over his heart, and leaves the church, he doesn't much feel like playing God anymore.

Many thanks to the lovely Ladies and Gentlemen who reviewed:

littleone1389, shiki94, Rebellecherry, Brokenspell77:

I'm pretty sure it's fairly obvious that it's Hacksaw with Pipes... Right? C'mon I mean, they were the most adorable things in the World on Legend's House. :3 Awkward and clueless, does rather sum them up so far... Eventually, one day, they'll be less awkward... I hope anyway.

I'm flying to the UK next week, it's my hope to get this arc of the story finished before then... I don't think I'll post it all in one go, I might set it up so I can post chapters whilst I'm away, but we shall see. This will either be a very update heavy week, or nothing much will change... It's an exciting mystery really! LoL

As ever trepidation haunts me with this fic... as such: Please leave a review, even if it's just "Hey, that didn't suck", I'd be so far and beyond grateful. Heck even if you thought it did suck, tell me too, something is better than nothing after all. :D