The News - May 21st

[Admin]

Marie had been doing dishes in the kitchen when the phone rang. It hadn't been her turn to do dishes, granted, but she'd been doing them anyways, mostly as a way to feel useful while thinking about what Lee had told her last night about Lar's cure.

But the phone ruined the bliss that was thinking, unperterbed, and Marie wipped her hands quickly on a dishtowel and grabbed the phone up. "This is Marie," she said in her accustomed way, and Lee broke in before she was even finished. "Turn on the news Rogue, Baltimore is going down and it looks really bad."

Before Lee could finish her own statement, Marie had hung up the phone on her and ran to the living room, grabbing the remote from the table and switching the channel to the news station as quickly as she could to loud protests from the MTV generation. They were quiet though, as Hugh Jackmand explained what was going on and that the Brotherhood and X-men were doing the majority of the fighting.

But as bad as it looked and sounded, there were no casualties yet. It put Marie's mind a little at ease as she watched the news switch back to the story they had been talking about before that. Some Hollywood actor got drunk and pissed someone off again, whatever. "Give us more about Baltimore!" Marie whinned at the television, and started flipping through channels to find it.

And find it she did; she gasped as Bobby came on the screen, obviously badly hurt. Marie moved forward, leaving the couch and crowding the screen as the other kids watched her silently. "No," she whispered, "no please. God not Bobby, please." As Angel swooped down and picked him up, Marie realized she had to call someone. Call someone and find out it he was ok, if he was going to be ok. But who could she call? They were all out fighting each other, and she swore that if Bobby was hurt by John's doing she would hunt the little bastard down and rip his eyeballs out with her own fingernails!

As the screen switched back she threw the remote at it and stood up in a huff, tearing out of the room and slamming the back door behind her. She had to get out and breath, and think. She needed to call someone... who? She needed to talk to someone, to know that everything was going to be alright. She was going to KILL John if she ever saw him again.

"Do you hear me John! Do you hear me Pyro!" She screamed into the marsh, "I'm going to KILL you if you've hurt him!"

[danielle]

The suitcase dragged along behind her with a crunching sound. The wheels had long since stopped being useful, and Dani thought again that a backpack would have been a better idea. It had been the woman at the shop who had convinced her that wheeled bags were the latest trend, and that it would be better for her tiny frame. Not on gravel, you silly old hag. There was that mouth - lack of social interaction meant that learning not to call people 'silly old hags' didn't happen as it should have, though she was learning with time. She'd lost a few friends over the blunt words that just came out without any malicious intent on her part. No-one seemed to be able to believe that she actually didn't know that saying that a dress did make your ass look like an elephant's was a bad thing. ... It had been true.

Finally the house came into view, the house that she'd heard rumours about. Or, well, she hoped that it was the right house. There was quite a bit of noise coming from the place - mainly from a young woman, who was yelling something about killing a pyro if he'd hurt him. Lifting the suitcase up and ignoring the long trail left behind from dragging it, Dani approached the source of the noise.

"Who's hurt? And is this the house for cured mutants?" She realised as she said it that it may not have been the best idea. There was that mouth going again - running away before her brain could catch up. If it was the wrong house, she could have exposed herself to anti-mutant feelings, and if it was the right house... Well, she supposed that some of them might not have liked to think of themselves in quite that way. Shrugging, and not attempting to talk her way out of the hole lest she make it bigger, and prone to cave-ins, Dani looked at the girl and waited for some sort of acknowledgement of her presence.

[Simon Burkett]

Simon ambled down the stairs, a glass of soda in his hand, just in time to hear the clatter of a remote ricocheting off the floor and hurricane Marie go storming past.

"Er, good ... " he started to say, and then the door slammed shut.

"... morning?" He finished.

We wandered up to the back door and peered through the window. Marie was yelling her lungs out at the bayou. Simon wondered for a moment if one of the kids had got lost or something.

"Do you hear me John! Do you hear me Pyro!" She screamed into the marsh, "I'm going to KILL you if you've hurt him!"

"Wow," he muttered to himself, "sucks to be John."

He decided against confronting the raging young woman, discretion being the better part of valour. Besides, he had heard things about these southern girls and their tempers. He wanted to keep his anatomy intact.

He wandered into the living room and picked up the discarded remote. He passed it to one of the kids who were still sat quietly after Marie's outburst, wondering who would be the first to break the awkward silence.

" ... and Johnny Depp will also be reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean two, the Dead Mans Chest, something I will be looking forward to." The female newscaster droned on with the her artificial smile.

Simon glanced back down the hall to the door that Marie had so recently slammed and then back at the television again.

"Girls got issues," he muttered and wandered back out of the room.

[Admin]

"Who's hurt? And is this the house for cured mutants?"

Marie whipped around, half expecting John to be standing behind her, and starred for an incomprehending moment at the girl who stood there instead. She was still breathing heavily from screaming, and it took her a moment to register what the other had said, but a red blush crept up her neck as she realized she'd just made a rather large fool of herself.

"This is," she nodded to the girl, "you need a place to stay then?" She ignored the first half of the question, wanting instead to move past that little show of emotion and into her duties as housemistress. It would be easier to keep her mind off of Bobby if she had something to do, and Thank the Lord He'd chosen this particular moment to send her someone to take care of. By the time she finished showing this girl the ropes the X-men should be back to the mansion and she could call Storm to check on Bobby (and everyone else).

"I'm Marie," she held out her hand. "I run the Place."

[danielle]

Shaking Marie's hand, and a little confused at the blush that had formed, Dani tried to ignore the niggling feeling that she'd said something wrong - and yet it didn't seem to be the comment about cured mutants.

She hadn't been expecting to run into the person who ran the place - or for her to be quite so young, but that didn't phase Dani. Being young didn't mean that you weren't perfectly capable. Being a grown adult didn't make you automatically qualify as capable - it wasn't something simple like getting your pen license in third grade. There was no stage where you were good enough, neat enough, could do it all well enough for someone to license you for adulthood.

Hoisting her bag, Dani pulled herself back into the moment. "So, are there many here?"

[Admin]

The girl didn't give her a name immediately, but that wasn't uncommon at the Place. Many people didn't feel immediately comfortable here, and Marie wasn't going to push. If nothing else, the kids would think up a nickname for her before the day was out, and she could confide her real name when she grew more accustomed to the group, although from the looks of things she'd come prepared to stay, at least for a while.

"There's a couple dozen that live here, yes." The girl must not have been socialized properly, ignoring Marie's questions and looking out into space every so often, but again, many mutants were shunned so badly as children that when they grew up they couldn't quite act normal, even if they'd been cured.

"Would you like something to eat?" Marie asked, as per usual. "Or a drink? Let's go inside and get you set up proper like."

[Admin]

They were both pretty silent as Lars drove Lee home, and she asked him if he wanted to come inside, but only half-heartedly. He must have known, because he cried off coming in and gave her back the keys. Lee gave a half-hearted wave as he started back down the long, unpaved drive, and then turned to the door, wondering what she was coming home to.

The door opened, and she immediately noticed the quiet in the house. Normally there were screaming kids everywhere - hanging off the couch, running through the kitchen, making rude noises at the tv when an unliked actor came on. But it was pretty much silent except for the tv spluttering something about the Middle East.

"Hey, ya'll," Lee said as she passed by the television room. "Where's Marie?"

"She threw the remote at the tv and ran outside to scream at someone named John," Robert, a kid Lee had rode with on the bus to Caldecott County, replied with a shrug. "She's stopped yelling now."

"Thanks," Lee walked over to the back door and opened it, expecting to see Marie crying on her knees or some other such thing that people did when they were upset. Instead, she was talking to a girl with a suitcase and offering her food. Good ol' Southern Hospitality.

[danielle]

Still looking around curiously, and wondering how many of the cured mutants here were like her - the kind who couldn't hold a conversation with someone without scaring the living daylights out of them by accident - Dani realised that she'd forgotten to answer. And forgotten to introduce herself. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

"I'd love something to drink, if that's ok. And my name is Dani. Uh, Danielle. Moonstar." Mirage. That had been what some of them had called her, and while it hadn't always been said nicely, she'd kinda liked the name. Just didn't like what it meant. Projecting illusions wouldn't have been so bad if she could have projected nice things - puppies and kittens and happy scenes. But noooo, hers weren't that kind of mirage, not the kind in the desert that made you run to them - hers were the kind of mirages that you ran from. And she couldn't control when they happened - pranking someone with ghosts or something could have been fun, but spiders emerging from someone's chest over the dinner table, well... She was glad that she'd gotten the cure.

Another girl, a pretty blonde girl, had emerged out onto the verandah. It might seem to Marie that Dani was trying to make up for being rude before, by being overly cheerful, if she thought about it. "I'm Dani. Danielle Moonstar." She gave the other girl a bright smile, before realising that she hadn't exactly arrived into the most cheery of scenes. Her smile fell, and she just ended up looking kind of uncomfortable in her inability to decide what expression she was supposed to be wearing.

[Admin]

Marie pitied this girl, who seemed so uncomfortable and unsocialized. Not that it was the girl's fault.

"I'm Dani. Danielle Moonstar."

For the second time Dani repeated her name, and Marie smiled knowingly. "Pleasure to meet you Dani. Comon in, we'll get you something to drink. Would you like milk, water, or soda? Or sweet tea maybe?" She didn't have a southern accent by any means, but some yanks like sweet tea.

As they reached the porch, Marie said hello to a rather confused Lee. "You're home from work early."

"Yeah," Lee replied, looking back and forth between Marie and Dani, "Lar's brought me home. Seems you don't get a break, huh?"

"No rest for the wicked," Marie replied with a stressed smile. "Have you heard from anyone?"

Lee shook her head. "I figured I'd give them all an hour or two to get home." She trailed off, hoping that indeed everyone was on the way back to the mansion, and not to hospitals or morgues.

"Well, come in and get some tea with us. This is Dani, by the way." Marie turned to introduce them. "Dani, this is Oralee Beacon, everyone calls her Lee."

[danielle]

"Hi Lee." Danielle smiled brightly. "Sweet tea sounds good, but I don't think I've had it before." They all started to walk inside, Dani looking around curiously at her surroundings. Neither Lee nor Marie looked particularly old, but she didn't think to comment on it, distracted as she was by trying to spot some other people, and wondering what exactly happened earlier, with the yelling.

A few stones fell out of the wheels of her suitcase, clacking onto the floor. Looking embarrassed, Dani bent down and scooped them up, sticking them into the pocket of her shorts. At least the wheels might start working again. As they walked into the kitchen, Dani peered around, noting a few of the more familiar things in her mind.

There was a bit of a silence, probably because both of the other girls were worried, and Dani rushed to fill it. "So the other ones that live here, were they ALL mutants?"

[Admin]

"Pretty much," Marie said as she opened the fridge to find the sweet tea. Lee opened a cupboard and got out three glasses, and it didn't take long for them each to have a cold glass of sweet tea in their hands.

"Not everyone likes to talk about it though," Lee said after her first sip. "Some of the kids had it really bad as mutants and don't want to be reminded." She herself hadn't really had it that bad, except for the whole killing her mother part, but aside from that one little fact that she never told anyone everything else she was fairly opened about.

Marie nodded, "and you wont want to refer to them as 'cured'. The kids have taken to calling themselves 'restored' humans. Cured just sounds like... I don't know, like there was something wrong with them before." She shrugged and took a long sip, relishing the feel of the cool tea soaking down the back of her sore throat. That felt much better. The worries from the news broadcast were starting to slowly loose their edge as she focused her mind on other priorities.

Marie finished off her glass before smiling at Dani. "If you ever need anyone to talk to, about anything, Lee and I are always here to listen."

"Except when I'm at work," Lee said with a brief smile. She was really itching to call someone, and it showed in her demeanor. But they wouldn't be home yet, so she tried her best to relax and remember the fact that she had other things to do than worry about something that may not have been.

[danielle]

"Oh." Dani's face fell as the two girls spoke - they may have been giving her friendly advice but she took it as a sign that she'd already started on the road toward being pushed out and forced to keep moving. Maybe it would just be best if she went back home, found her grandfather and hoped for the best.

"I'll try to remember that." Restored human, restored human... How is that any better than saying previous mutant? It still sounds like there was something that needed to be fixed about them, being 'restored'... Restored human. Dani repeated the words in her head, trying to remember them, so that she wouldn't make things worse than she had already made them, with her big mouth running ahead of her brain. But it wasn't always that - sometimes she just didn't know that she shouldn't say something, and she was trying to learn but people didn't always help her. It just wasn't the sort of thing that most people understood - they'd never been shunned because of something that they couldn't control.

As she drained her sweet tea, not entirely sure where she stood on the beverage but willing to try it until she could make her mind up, Dani looked more than a little uncomfortable. Lee mentioned having a job - Dani wondered whether there were many in the area.

"I used to have a job. But I didn't... uhm, I didn't really fit in. Are there many jobs around here? I'm running out of money and I want to be able to pay my way." What she didn't tell them was that working with customers had proven... a bad idea, for someone who didn't have the normal social skills expected of a girl her age.

[Simon Burkett]

Simon sat at the bottom of the stairs listening to the three girls talking and sipping his soda. From the music crossed with loony tunes coming from the living room the normal morning viewing had now resumed and the kids were returning to their usual routine, even if they might be worrying about X-Men.

He'd heard Lee come in and had immediately hared his way back up the stairs and out of sight. He was still unsure of his ability to show himself after the incident yesterday. He could feel the heat start to creep into his face again just thinking about it.

Well how was he supposed to have known Lee was a girl?

Once she'd blustered her way out back he'd carefully returned to the stairs to listen in on what was being said.

Damn but the new girl could talk.

Every question seemed to chase the heels of three more. She sounded pretty young and Simon guessed that yet another teenage-prom-queen-cheerleader-pure-white-ultra-bright-smile girl had just joined the little community.

He mentally slapped himself; that was unkind. Marie certainly didn't fit the description. Well, maybe the smile bit but not the rest.

He craned his neck in an attempt to get a glimpse without giving away his position.

No good, the angle, combined with the door frame effectively blocked his view into the kitchen. Maybe if he stretched a little further.

With an effort Simon rose from his stair and strained his neck in an effort to peep around the annoying door frame. Still no good.

An uncomfortable, cold wetness suddenly soaked its way into the area of his groin and he glanced down to see that in his effort to see into the kitchen he had tipped his soda over his pants. Over the GROIN of his pants.

"Shit!" He hissed to himself and brushed frantically at the offending wet patch.

[lee]

(God multiple accounts suck. How do I know who to post with?)

"Weeeeeelll," Lee stretched the word out as she thought. "The grocery store is always hiring. And the fast food places too." She almost asked if Dani'd brought a car, but seeing as how Lee had seen no cars when Lar's drove her up, she decided probably not. Besides, for some odd reason everyone showed up on foot. Probably because cured kids weren't exactally wealthy, point being her and Marie.

"If you get a job, you can always carpool with me. I work regular nine to five hours, but I could wait in town for you if you needed me to." She'd noticed that Lars usually stayed late, and figured she could just hang out and chat with him, or work late as well, or go get coffee or something while she waited. In fact, she really aught to offer that to some of the other kids too - maybe it would make them find some jobs and help pay their own way around here. Not that Lee could say anything, as she'd been jobless for months now, and she knew Marie wouldn't kick any of them out, no matter how poor.

She heard a random "shit!" from somewhere in the hallway and shot a glance in that dirrection. There was no one in sight, but she thought it sounded somewhat like the voice of the new kid she'd met last night. Weirdo, she wrote him off instantly.

Glancing at her watch, she wondered if it had been enough time yet to call the Mansion?

[danielle]

"I'll go down to town with you sometime and get some applications." She wondered if the fast food place had something out the back, or if the grocery store needed people to pack their shelves - working on registers wasn't really the best position for Danielle, but she couldn't exactly say that. I say the wrong thing and offend the customers. Yeah, that was likely to get her a job.

She forgot all about what she was doing, about the normal way that people behaved, when she heard the quiet, "Shit!" from somewhere outside. She stood, walking toward the sound, and found herself looking curiously at a boy who was sitting on the stair with wet pants, brushing at the patch as though he could brush away the moisture. She covered her mouth to try to hide the smile that formed unintentionally.

"Are you alright? I'm Dani." She sounded overly cheerful still, but when she realised that she'd left the kitchen, and the two girls, her eyes widened and the hand over her mouth was covering an embarrassed chewing of her bottom lip. She dashed back in, taking her seat again, and speaking in a loud whisper. "There's a boy out there." Oh, god, why do I do these things to myself? Definately on the way to being kicked out.

[Admin]

"Sure, just let me know when you'd like to tag along," Lee said with a smile at Dani's proposal. The girl was a little weird, but nice enough, and Lee thought that perhaps going into town with her might help calm her down a little. She was probably just nervous of new poeple and new situations. Most of the kids who came here were.

But then the girl ran out of the room and Lee shot a glance to Marie that spoke plenty. Marie shrugged, also a motion that spoke plenty, and regained her blank face as Dani came back into the room and sat down. The two could have had a whole silent conversation in her wake, and did pass one more message to each other over the girl's head as she whispered about a boy. Lee's side of the message went something like "she's crazy" while Marie's was a bit more to the effect of "what can you do?".

"That's probably the new kid, Simon," Marie said with a kind smile down at Dani. "It's ok, he lives here too. He's just a bit shy yet." Perhaps it would do the girl good to know there were others here with her same lack of communication skills.

[Simon Burkett]

Simon had flapped ineffectually at the soggy patch for a few moments when the new girl came hurrying out of the kitchen. He froze, one hand pulling the material of his pants tight, the other poised over the obvious wetness. He could see she was smiling at him behind her hand. Great.

He had been right about one thing; she WAS pretty.

Why did he keep finding himself in these compromising positions in front of pretty girls?

God hated him, he was sure. Or was at least using him as an object lesson for wayward souls; Behave or I'll reincarnate you as THIS guy!

"Are you alright? I'm Dani."

He could feel the colour rising in his cheeks.

"Uh ... " he started awkwardly. Then her eyes widened and she hurried back into the kitchen. Simon sighed a long suffering sigh; as if Marie and Lee didn't think he was lame enough already, now the new girl was going to share his latest humiliation with them.

Picking up his rebellious soda he trudged wearily back upstairs to change.

[Admin]

Marie heard the footsteps on the stairs just before the knock at the door. Poor Simon. Since he'd arrived it had been nothing but surprise this, surprise that. She was surprised the kid hadn't decided "screw it" already and left for someplace else. Then again, he had given her half of his money... he may just decide to leave once he felt he owed her rent again.

Nodding to Lee with another silent message to keep an eye on the new girl and help her feel welcome, Marie made her way to the front door, pausing to look up the stairs first to see if she could catch sight of the shy boy.

(Marie continued in the Returning thread)

[danielle]

Chewing on her little fingernail, Dani nodded vaguely at Marie's words. She was sure that she was missing something, but couldn't quite place it, so instead of concentrating on it and giving herself a headache, she asked for some more sweet tea.

She was taking a sip when Marie disappeared, to answer a knock on the door, and she looked over the glass with interest with Lee.

"You're very pretty. I like your hair." Dani had never been one of those girls who wished to change her appearance, because there were far better things for her to worry about changing, but she did admire light coloured hair, especially when it shone in the sunlight. "Did something happen this morning? When I arrived, Marie was... shouting. At someone who wasn't there." And they thought she was odd.

[Simon Burkett]

Simon returned to the room that had been assigned as 'his' even though it was shared by two other youngsters. Fortunately neither of them was there, something Simon gave silent thanks for. He was grateful for small blessings.

He set the drink down on the side and stripped out of his wet pants. The liquid hadn't soaked all the way into shorts, something else he was grateful for. He balled up the wet jeans and threw them into the clothes pile that was due for washing.

THEN he remembered he only had one pair of pants.

"Shit!" he cursed for the second time in five minutes.

He stood there for a minute wondering what the hell to do next.

He could do a quick investigation of the other rooms and borrow some pants but he didn't much fancy his chances in the girls rooms and besides, the idea of going through their drawers brought another flush of colour to his face. Who knew WHAT you might find in there.

The other options were equally unattractive.

He could put the wet pants back on and go down to the store to buy himself some replacements. They'd probably dry soon enough, but that would mean walking through a room full of kids, or girls, with an obvious wet patch over his groin.

Or, he could take the pants downstairs in his shorts and throw them straight in the wash. But that would mean walking about the house in his underwear.

Simon whimpered. Life never used to be this complicated.