Junk Food Solace

[Jubilee]

Jubilee sat on the couch in front of the TV, half sitting and half laying, with her head down on the pillow on the arm of the couch. In front of her, balanced on the edge of the couch, was a pack of Dunkeroos, the rest in their box on the floor. On the table beside her was the rest of the junk food she'd scrounged from the pantries; Go-Gurt, Nutter Butters and a glass of milk, and a box of Reeses Pieces cereal.

Some girls ate ice cream when they were down; Jubes ate any and all sorts of other junk she could find.
She didn't look down, though, as she stared at the TV screen, where Jeff was explaining 'The Giggle Loop' to the guys on Coupling. It was a funny show, and she was glad she'd left the first season with Bobby when she'd left (and glad that he left his room unlocked so she could sneak in and take it back). But today she wasn't feeling the funny so much.

Angelo walked through the door to the rec room and dropped his backpack near
the doorframe, glancing around. Okay, seriously nice digs they got
here, he thought, his eyes falling on the pool table and the large TV.
Which was playing something strange, it looked like.

Walking up behind the couch, he glanced down and saw Jubilee reclining,
surrounded by all manners of unhealthy food. Scratching his chin for a
moment, he contemplated not letting her know he was there, but she had been
snarky earlier... and snarky made for interesting conversation in his book.

"Ah, the girl who's all spice. Hola, chica."
Jubilee looked up and was amused to see the gray guy from earlier standing over her, talking like he'd just come from the Spanish edge of Brooklyn. "Yo," she said lazily, turning from her side to rest on her back in order to see him more properly.
"Come to get your last word in, Senor PC?" She said it in a joking tone, and it was clear she wasn't going to get any more sarcastic than that. She seemed worn out, drained.

Walking around the edge of the couch, Angelo sat down on the arm that she
wasn't using. "Nah," he said, glancing at the junkfood she had splayed out
before her. "I just followed my nose, and this is where it led me."

Leaning back against the couch, he glanced at the TV. He had absolutely no
idea what she was watching, and as such, he quickly lost interest. If he
couldn't see if from the beginning, chances are he'd missed a lot.

So instead he focused his brown eyes on Jubilee again. "So, you seem like
somethin' sucked you dry. What's up?"

Jubilee picked up her Dunkaroo pack and dipped a graham cracker stick in the frosting. As she stirred it around, she spoke. “C’mon now. If you’re half as street smart as you front, you smelled those polizia from a mile away,” she said, throwing his Spanish back on him and knowing he’d had to have seen the officers. “Those generic FEDs just took my friend for a ride in chains.”

It wasn’t half of what was getting her down right then, but it was the only part he was going to get. The only part anyone was going to get until she absolutely had to tell them. “So, let me guess. You have the amazing ability to…turn the entire world into a black-and-white flick?” She grinned at her joke, hoping he would take it in stride. Her idea about how people took the things she said was: if they got their undies in a bunch over it, they needed to loosen up. She rarely apologized for her smart remarks.

Angelo snorted, listening to her derisive comments. She had a tongue on
her, that was for sure. "Who knows, maybe my instincts are just a little
rusty? Or maybe i didn't expect to find the Men in Black invading a prep
school with a small army."

Both were sort of true. It wasn't that he was rusty, but he was entirely
out of his element here. He had no idea what this world was like, but he'd
heard, and he certainly wasn't expect to find the cops.

His eyes followed her hand as it swirled the graham stick around. "Yeah,
and I suppose God gave you the snarkiest mutant mouth on the planet."

Jubes snorted with laughter, waving her Dunkaroo stick around to emphasize her point. "No, there's no Cure for this tongue," she said proudly. She put the cookie in her mouth and finished talking with it hanging half out of her mouth. "And Uncle Sam's paid us a visit before. Took me on a ride last time."

Jubes popped the cookie in her mouth and chewed before speaking again. "They're real interested in us here. I've had so much crap from every kind of law enforcement there is, I could smell 'em with my nose plugged."

She looked Skin over like he was a relatively interesting animal at the zoo. "So, Slick--Where'r you from? What brings you here?"

[Jubilee]

Angelo ran a gray hand through his hair. "Scoot over," he said, starting to
slide off the arm of the couch. "So if your oh-so-clever wit isn't what you
got, then what's your dazzle?" His eyes flickered to the junk food. "Hey,
you gonna share or not?"

"So, this place isn't as quiet as I been led to believe? Well, can't be any
worse than back home." He scratched the stubble on his chin. "I'm from
East LA. Made my way all the way here any way I could."

Glancing around, he looked at all the flat surfaces in the room. "Hey, you
guys got an ashtray anywhere?"

Jubilee scooted up, tucking her legs more closely underneath her so he'd have a place to sit. She reached over and grabbed the box of Nutter Butters, and plopped it down between them along with the box of Dunkaroos, with the encouragement to 'mack out' in tribute to his earlier qualms with the word.

"Any way you could, huh? Same here. Made like the 'Box Car Children' and hopped trains. Borrowed a couple cars." She didn't mention that it had not only been LeBeau's idea, but that he had been the one to plan which train to hop and that he had been the one to actually jump the cars. Minor details.

Not to mention that it would hopefully do a good job of distracting him from his question about her powers.
When he asked for an ashtray, Jubes lifted one eyebrow steeply, fixing him with a look that yelled 'are you serious?' Was he trying to trumpet the fact that his lungs looked like shrivelled figs and his breath must half the time smell like stank? She blinked a few times, then tilted her head and did a flawless impression of a valley girl; flipping her hair and smacking her lips as she spoke. "Omigod, you smoke? Like, I am SOOOOO impressed!"

Sliding down, Angelo landed on the soft cushion where her feet had been and
selected a Nutter Butter, popping it into his mouth. He gave her a sidelong
glance as she spoke, knowing she was mocking him, but decided to let it
slide.

"So, you're a bad girl, eh? Hope you stole something good, otherwise the
arrest ain't gonna be worth the trouble." He swirled one of the Dunkaroos
in the frosting slowly before eating it.

Her glare brought a small smile to his lips. Was she angry that he smoked?
All right, Espinosa, no smoking in the mansion. His grin turned to a
sardonic smile as she immitated the girls he'd heard all too often walking
the streets of the better part of LA, and he turned to look at her. "I have
a small list of people I try to impress, chica. And surprise, surprise,
you're nowhere on it."

Jubilee smirked. “Neither is your doctor, ci?” She left no time for a retort, but continued on. “But anyway—so you just came here for lack of anyplace cooler to be?” She wondered if there was something he was trying to get away from, like she was. Xavier’s seemed to attract people who needed a safe haven from the world.

Angelo chuckled humorlessly, thinking that he might wind up smoking more
often than ever before if he hung around the girl continually. "Yeah,
Xavier's seemed a cool place to be..." Seemed is right. If they got the
military comin' around more than once, who knows how long I'll stay
safe. "... and I got no where else to go, so here I am."

[Jubilee]

“Amen to that…” Jubilee started to say his name before she realized she didn’t know it. “So am I gonna hafta call you ‘Slick’ forever, or d’you have a name?”

“I’m Jubes, by the way. Short for Jubilee. Which is short for Jubilation Lee. But just call me Jubes.”

Angelo stuck out his hand with a small grin. "Angelo Espinosa. 's good to
meet you, Jubilation Lee."

"So, what brings you to Mutant High? I figure the mutant god played a
little trick on everyone here."

Jubilee paused, her mind going a mile a minute though none of it registered on her face, her smirk never wavering. “Mutant god, huh? So that’s who I can blame?” She grabbed herself a Nutter Butter and pulled it apart. “Well, I used to be the slickest mall rat in No Cal. Slept there, ganked food from the food court there, the whole package. Then Ororo—she’s queen bee around here, you’ll probably see her ‘round soon—and Dr. Grey—you won’t be meeting her—picked me up when the cops were on my trail. I came here, an’ here I stayed.

“‘Till ‘bout six months ago, when out of the blue my long-lost aunt shows up. So I went to live with her. ‘Till ‘bout two weeks ago, when…She went postal and I bolted. Didn’t really have anywhere else to go.”

Angelo grabbed a couple more Nutter Butters and continued to eat, listening
to her story. "Yeah, the mutant god. The one who decided makin' a bunch of
us outcasts who are all lumped together even though we're nothin' alike was
a good idea." He pulled one of the Nutter Butters apart just as she had
done and licked the peanut butter from the cookie.

"So, a postal aunt, eh? I don't got one of those. I got a level-headed
mama, though."

Jubilee thought through his description of the mutant god before she countered him. Already, it seemed like they were going to spend the duration of their time at the school together on the opposite sides of any issue—just for the sake of trying to prove each other wrong. “Sounds like you’ve got the wrong scapegoat, buddy. God—whether he’s a mutie or not—might have made us this way, but it’s the homo saps that lump us all together under the ‘danger’ category.”

She chose not to comment on his comment about his mama, for that was one thing they did not have in common.

Angelo's eyebrow arched at her use of the slur that he'd heard used against
him so many times on the streets of LA, but he didn't comment on it.
Instead he ate his last Nutter Butter and leaned back against the arm of the
couch and looked at her with a smirk. "All I'm saying, chica, is that God
has a wicked sense of humor. In order to protect ourselves, we have to
gather together even though we're nothin' alike.

"An' who made the norms the way they are? God must have some reason for it,
but it's way beyond me."

Jubilee shrugged, agreeing to disagree as she licked the peanut butter off of her cookie. “Guess everybody’s gotta have somebody to blame. Me, I find it way easier to blame the FEDs—after all, I won’t need them after I croak.”

“An’ you’d be surprised how alike people are. Everyone’s got a sad song to sing, everybody’s life has sucked to some degree. Everybody’s been hated on for bein’ a freak.”

Jubilee looked overtop her cookie at Angelo with a ‘try and say I’m wrong’ expression. “Or are you too tough for all that?” she asked to enforce her point.

Angelo looked at her sharply, his brown eyes suddenly intense before the
expression quickly faded back to his normal amused apathy. "Needed
somewhere to go, chica. Was goin' to go to the Brotherhood, but then I saw
what they did on the news." He looked at her coolly. "'Course, if you'd
rather, I could go with them."

Leaning back against the couch, his head fell back to rest on the top of the
cushions, and he sighed. "No, I'm not here to be an X-Man unless I have to
be."

“Don’t get your briefs in a bunch,” Jubes advised him, saying without coming close to saying it that she hadn’t meant to come across as rude as apparently he thought she had. “’Sides, the last poser that went to the dark side got everyone here wanting his head on a platter.”

Jubilee looked him over as he said he wasn’t there to be an X-Man. She didn’t know whether it was a good or bad thing that they seemed to have so much in common. “Ditto,” she said as she shifted, crossing her legs Indian-style facing him. “I trained some, they said I should ‘for my own safety’, but never really got the burn to want to pick it up as a full-time thing. It’s good, though. What they’re doin’.”

Angelo nodded, listening to her. From what he could tell, the X-Men and
Brotherhood were like rival gangs fighting over the same turf, and he knew
that if someone crossed the gangline back home, they didn't survive for
long.

So apparently she wasn't here to be an X-Man either. Well, it seemed like
Little Miss Fire and he had more in common than he'd originally thought.

"Si, I'm just here to survive. I have no intention of throwing myself in
the way of gunfire if I don't have to. Or, fighting other mutants, in the
way of even worse."

[Jubilee]

"You really should check out the DR, though," Jubilee said as she broke apart another cookie. "The Danger Room," she explained when she realized he wouldn't understand, glancing over at him. "It's for training, but it's the coolest virtual game ever. I'm tellin' you, it's better than the dime arcade games in the mall." Clearly Jubilee thought highly of those games.

"Last time I was in it, Icee and me had a practice mission in the Bahamas. It was so fly."

[Skin]

Angelo looked at her with interest. Now video games he could get into. "Sounds like a killer system, but I think you're just a little confused, chica. Nothing will ever beat the pixelated glory of Galaga." His hands mimed moving the controls back and forth, clearly aware of what he was doing. "Ah, but to maintain those double ships..."

He glanced back at her, letting his gray hands drop. "So, this Danger Room can imitate anyplace?"

[Jubilee]

Jubilee's almond-shaped eyes sparkled when Angelo gushed over Galaga. "You play Galaga?" she asked, sounding skeptical. "I had you pegged as more of a 'Crime Life: Gang Wars' kind 'a buff."

"But either way, you've clearly never played Frogger. Even Pacman could beat the little shooter dude in Galaga." It was clear she was yanking his chain as she dissed his beloved game, and if he was perceptive at all, he'd be able to tell that she was just getting warmed up.

[Skin]

Looking at her with mock astonishment, Angelo let his jaw drop. "Are you mental? Pac-Man would stand no chance against the tiny pilot of that ship." He made a plane with one hand and a chomping mouth with the other. "See? Pac-Man ain't got the distance that the Galaga guns do. No chance."

He grinned slightly, letting his hands fall to his lap again. "See, the old games, they had style. You had to have skill. Games now are for babies."

[Jubilee]

"Thats what I keep tryin' to tell Drake - and all of the little chumps that sit up here droolin' on themselves playin' Halo for the fifth time in a row. Give me arcade games, man. That's where it's at."

Jubilee looked Angelo over for a second. "You know, you sure aren't your average tough-guy G from the streets. Musta been some Mad Swan Bloods you were runnin' back in L.A., Pee Wee." Her mention of the branch of the infamous Bloods gang and it's former leader showed that she hadn't lived her months in malls and back alleys with her eyes closed.

She was testing the waters. If he denied that he'd been in a gang, she'd believe him. She was just making a joke, not passing judgement.

[Skin]

"Si, what's so great about all this new crap? Arcade games, Nintendo... those are fun. Gotta remember your roots."

His face remained carefully neutral when she mentioned the gang. If only he'd been part of that group. At least they were trying to do something worthwhile since Pee Wee got arrested. "I just hung with my crew," he said, avoiding the fact that his crew was a gang. As far as he could see, one of the people at this school had just been arrested. He didn't know how they'd take to having an ex-gang member in their midst.

[Jubilee]

"Well, then you'll fit in here just fine," Jubilee said, sliding farther down on the couch and turning so that he head hung over the edge. She stretched her legs up the back of the couch and rested them over the back. "It's pretty much all we do, when we aren't in class or maybe training."

"Everyone just hangs...talking...playing games and watchin' the tube. Kind of like a nineties version of a mutated Brady Bunch, you dig?"

Jubilee paused; she realized that she maybe wasn't giving a glowing review of the place. She owed it more than that. "Not that it's not, like...Every teen's dream house. Have you seen the pool? And there's stables--I don't ride, that's for quiet, upper-end girls like Pryde--and basketball and just about anything else you could wish for. Pool table, huge TVs upstairs, library. It's a flashy place."

[Skin]

Thankful for the shift in the topic, Skin leaned back into the couch, watching Jubilee hang her head back. The mutated Brady Bunch? Sounded like a riotous good time. "Yeah, this place does seem pretty good, what with all the stuff. Sounds like you got lots of fun tech."

Stretching his fingers out to wrap around a Nutter Butter so that he didn't have to reach, he looked at her curiously. "So, this training... what's that like?" He took a bite of the cookie and spoke through the mouthful. "I mean, like, sounds like a holodeck deal like Star Trek. What do they make you do?"

[Jubilee]

"Pretty much, it's an uber lifelike simulation that runs you through potential disasters. Anything--you name it, the DR can prob'ly do it," Jubilee said, looking up at Skin from her upside-down position on the couch.

"Fighting, obviously. Disaster relief, logic stuff. Then there's ones spefically for you, to train your powers. Like Bobby; he's always complainin' about how hard his timed obstacle courses are. But Kitty usually gets more of a breaking-and-entering kinda sitch--"

Since Angelo had stretched his fingers out rather than reach for a cookie, Jubilee had been staring at his hands as she spoke. She went on as though nothing had happened, but as soon as she was doing with what she'd wanted to say, she cut herself off and asked, "And did you just make your fingers like a foot longer than they're supposed to be?" She looked him in the face with a bewildered face, as though skeptic that she'd seen what she thought she had.

[Skin]

Angelo listened with a nod. Sounded like a sweet piece of tech, way more advanced than anything he'd ever seen before, and he couldn't wait to see what it could do.

Actually, he really couldn't wait to get his hands on a computer period. Izzy had told him to let the one person who knew he was still alive know when he arrived somewhere.

Her question stopped him midchew. He hadn't really thought about it, it was just easier than reaching. Finishing the mouthful he had and swallowing, he looked at her with a wide grin. "I thought you said we were all freaks here, chica. Does it matter if I did?"

[Jubilee]

Jubilee gave him a patronizing look as he threw her words back at her, though she was couldn't help but grin as she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but 'freak's just a general term, compadre--you don't see everyone else sportin' your absence of color. Not that it's not completely retro, that is. I hear gray is the new black."

"All I'm sayin' is I've never met a guy who could stretch himself out like one of those rubber dudes where you can pull all their limbs all long and--Okay, redundant." Jubilee cut herself off with a wave of her hand. "I guess there's a first for everything, huh?"

"So...You can stretch anything? Is it just your skin that stretches or your bones and stuff?" She eyed his hands curiously.

[Skin]

Angelo arched an eyebrow at her. "I don't need to be the new black, chica... I'd be satisfied with bein' a brown just like the rest of my family."

He let his mind picture the toy she was talking about. He hadn't seen one of them in years, and it had been a while since he'd been compared to one - although that had been over the line at a callout his gang and another one had had once. "Si, there's a first time for everything," he chuckled, the memory making him less than nostalgic for home.

Holding his hand out, he let his fingers stretch slightly so she could see. "It's just the skin that stretches. The bones are all still there underneath, 'zactly where they're supposed to be."

[Jubilee]

Jubilee stared at his fingers for a moment, then lifted her hand and slowly reached for his. Her lips were pressed together as though she were either a bit hesitant or trying not to bust out laughing. From what he knew of her already, it was probably the latter.

She put a finger and her thumb on the tip of one of his fingers and, glancing up at him and laughing silently at herself, started to pull.

A thought occured to her then. "Hey, didja ever try that 'pull my finger' trick? That'd be a riot."

[Skin]

Angelo watched her curiously, one eyebrow remaining arched, but he didn't move when her fingers closed on the tip of his. He did wince slightly when she pulled, though, and compressed his skin, pulling his finger from her grip. "Oy, chica, you don't see me pullin' your body parts." He purposely kept his gaze above her shoulders respectfully.

He leaned back against the arm of the couch again. "Nah, never really occured to me. Maybe I will someday."

[Jubilee]

Jubilee gave him the kind of look she gave teachers when reprimanded; not rude, not quite defiant...But placid. She lifted her hands and waggled her fingers to emphasize her point.

"Yeabut...That's cause mine don't pull out of place, Stretch--Stretch Armstrong! Thats what those things were called!" She said, her eyes lighting up as she remember the name of the popular-in-the-seventies stretchable toy.

"So, gris, huh?" she said observantly, again examining the skin on his arms--not his face, though, staring him in the face would be muchos awkward. "That's a new one. Seems like everybody and their dog wants to be blue nowadays."

"But anyway. I'm dyin' to find out what's gonna happen with Bobby," Jubes said, sitting up and sliding her legs sideways so that she ended up perched on the arm of the couch. She stood, then hopped with uncharacteristic grace to the floor, sticking the landing as she'd been doing for the past fifteen years. "You wanna come? New faces are always welcome. Even ones as sour as yours." She added the teasing comment with a sweet smile that couldn't be argued.

[Skin]

Angelo watched her with a small grin. "Well, we can work on that. All you need is a little time, a little patience, an' six feet of extra skin. You'll be golden."

He thought about that as she spoke. "Well, si, I suppose you'd be gray too. And who would want to be blue? Well, at least I'll stick out around here."

He watched her hop to the floor and rose with her, walking to the doorway and grabbing his backpack without actually bending over. "See, it does have uses sometimes. You got a sore back? No bending over."

Stretching the skin on his face a little to emphasize a frown, Angelo compressed again and waved his arm, motioning for her to lead on.

[Jubilee]

Jubilee watched Angelo pick up his backpack as she stacked the snack boxes on the tables--as close to actually cleaning up as she'd probably get. She popped the DVD out of the player and put it in the box, unzipping her fanny pack and sticking the box in (it only went half in).

Skin's almost cartoonish frown merited a laugh from Jubilee as she walked to the door. The very way she walked reflected her personality; she made no effort to sway her hips or strut the way some girls did to impress. Her gait and demeanor were utterly casual.

"Just gotta find an X-Compadre and find out what's goin' on...Or a Junior Cheese, and have them beep someone who knows..." she said as she led him through the door and turned the corner, heading for the offices.

(ooc: I'll find someone who's X-Man character is free and start a thread somewhere else. I'll let you know where)