Just you and me

Posted on Mon Oct 9th, 2023 @ 9:28 by Claire Cavendish & Cameron Johnston

Chapter: All Hallow's Eve
Location: Avalon Institute, Main Courtyard
Timeline: Morning, Tuesday, 3rd of November 1992
3190 words - 6.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Claire stood closer to the speedster than was probably appropriate for a head teacher and her staff. Then again she never really saw herself elevated like that above the people in Avalon. Which is exactly why the car driving off in the distance, across the bridge and around the bend, hurt so much. She had understood why. There was too much happening and the spotlight on Avalon had become too bright. She bit her lip and reached for Cameron, patting him on the back and softly squeezing his shoulder. "How are you holding up?"

It wasn't a feeling Cameron really felt he could quantify. Empathy made it altogether too easy to understand, which made it uncomfortable to reflect with any depth on his own sense of loss. Coupled with misplaced frustration that probably wasn't any of his business to feel in the first place and it was safe to say that he had already decided that he was better off keeping his opinions to himself. Hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans, Cam watched the car disappear before turning his head just enough to angle his gaze downwards to meet Claire's.

And offered her a wry smile.

"I put my Big Boy pants on this morning, just in time as it turns out."

"You'll have to contend with a lot more of me, and you better start appreciating movies." Claire had made a close friendship with most of the staff, some were more special than others. Cameron was certainly among those few extra special ones. It hurt that the fact that she could no longer hold their Institute out of the news drove some of the others away. "Did you see my dad's speech?" She simply kept standing there, staring off in the distance. It was easier to have this conversation not having to sit across from him, awkwardly making and avoiding eye contact at the right moments.

He'd been poised to argue that he appreciated plenty of movies, within a certain genre at least, and had seen an avenue for negotiating himself onto the squash team after being banned from the last few rounds but the mischief died on his lips and took only a second longer to fade from his eyes as her question knitted his brow together in a frown. "Aye." A response right out of Graeme's book and, like most colloquialisms, didn't sit quite right with Cameron's usual inflection. "Not sure I made quite the first impression I'd have liked." He studied her profile, as always reading far more between the lines than his choice of tone tended to suggest. Careful to move slowly, something that still felt like it needed focus to ensure, he nudged her gently. "What base is it when the girl's father chases you off with a shotgun?" He was humouring her, of course, aware of the voice missing from this deflective banter that had, at least in the past, become so vital to diffusing tension before it escalated.

Claire couldn't help but let out a stymied laugh at that. Had she been witty enough she'd have surely been able to come up with a comeback but as it stood her eyes were still glued on the highlands in the distance. "It wasn't your fault." She finally took a moment to look aside. "You know that right?" The whole ordeal had been eating away at her, and her father being the shrewd politician that he was had planned his speech so that it would be announced in the morning news and would be extensively featured in the evening. "My father is emblematic of a lot of things that's wrong with this country."

"It's not your fault either," Cam pointed out softly, ever the master of turning her logic back on her. "This is a complicated situation, though, we can't exactly argue that we weren't a threat this time." He'd been told often enough that he was too honest for his own good but Cameron had never found that to be a personality flaw and, even now, couldn't bring himself to apologise for it. They'd brought the man's entire house down around his head. At the very least, they couldn't expect to be thanked for any efforts in trying to make sure that hadn't ended with any fatalities, not when there was ample right to expect it not to happen in the first place.

"Don't you go applying sensible logic to me wanting to be pissed at my dad." Claire leaned in and gave a small nudge with her elbow. "Have you had breakfast yet? You must be starving." She wanted to get away from this spot in the courtyard and try and move things along. "I wonder how different I would've been had I not had purple skin." She mused as they started back in the direction of the main building.

Oddly enough, though he'd not taken the time to contemplate it too deeply, Cameron wasn't anywhere near as depleted as he would have expected. Exhaustion would set in eventually, and he was not the type to turn down breakfast even if he'd already had several, but if he'd been asked to predict his state following the events of the night, the speedster probably would have been forced to conclude he'd probably have passed out long ago. That he was still upright, and still mostly in control of his faculties, was unexpected.

A bit like Claire's last statement.

"You mean if you didn't look like a mutant?," he asked pointedly, as someone who lived with that apparent privilege. He'd often used it as a means to downplay his own struggles, reasoning that it was much worse for those who couldn't wander down a street and just play pretend for an hour. That didn't make it quite the escape route some people assumed it to be, even if Reagan was practically using it as such as they spoke. "Or were you wanting more variety, maybe? Nice peacock blue for special occasions."

Claire laughed a bit at that. She obviously meant the former, though the hidden mutant thing could also eat away at you. Perhaps she had meant not be a mutant at all. Knowing her parents, knowing her father's current political direction, she wondered if she'd be going in the opposite direction. "Sometimes I just wonder if I would've been like my dad. That the only reason I'm not is because I obviously cannot be." They made their way back inside and strolled through the halls as the conversation continued. "Maybe I would've been a lawyer or something, like my brother, trying to push for anti-mutant legislation."

Cameron wrinkled his nose at that, though it wasn't an unfair question to ponder. It was easy to declare that they'd be supportive no matter their own circumstance but then they'd never tried to live with the rest of humanity's impotency. Much like Claire, he suspected, Cameron had always understood why the issue wasn't as black and white as both sides tried to make it. "Don't they say that a lot of your perspective comes from your experience? Doesn't sound like rocket science, right? Wondering if we'd be different people if we were different people sounds like the philosophical mumbo-jumbo Jon likes to read." He winked at his friend. "I choose to believe you'd make your decisions empathetically and with compassion, at least."

"It's a relief at least to know that someone trusts me to do the right thing." Claire had reflected on her trajectory and wondered how much the development of her mutation had nudged her in a certain direction. She was sure she wouldn't have been a lawyer or lawmaker, since her plan had been the performing arts. At least such things were predicated on a certain degree of empathy and in that sense Cameron might be correct in saying she would've approached the subject from that perspective. They made their way in to the dining room as things were dying down from breakfast as the ringing bell had motivated people to get up and to their classes. "Find us a spot?"

Claire quickly dipped into the kitchen to ask Valjean to whip them both up something nice, something comforting. Knowing him it was going to be something elaborate and grilled. After a minute she came back out to join Cam at a table he had procured, "Food will be right out."

For all he spent a good deal of time in the cafeteria, or at least had prior to certain agreements that had kept his fingers out of the pantry, Cameron didn't very often stop to eat there. This didn't stem from embarrassment, so to speak, but more a sense of moderation and an unwillingness to cause too much astonishment amongst the student body about just how much food he could pack away. Good reason or not, Cameron took his position as role model fairly seriously. He'd chosen a table right at the back, as if a pair of adults, particularly when one of them was the head mistress, stood any chance of blending into the background.

"So what's next?," he asked, prompting his involvement in whatever Claire envisaged would be their next steps.

Claire sat right at the time he asked that question and let out a massive sigh as she did so. "What indeed." She wanted to keep upbeat and optimistic but it was more and more difficult to keep sight of her future vision of the world. "I feel like I need to step up to my father." She shook her head and couldn't help but laugh at herself. "What a cliché."

"Not sure I can recommend it." Cameron pushed back until his chair balanced on just its two back legs. "Just as likely to get a shotgun to the face." To be fair, given the situation the man had found himself in, Cam couldn't exactly blame him for not being particularly receptive to assistance from the same guys who'd made it necessary to begin with. "You know, he actually shot me." The speedster grinned. "A new record to add to my resume."

"Did you outrun the shot?" The head mistress didn't try to suppress the surprise in her response. She knew he was fast, but hadn't realised he'd be in that range of ability. She could teleport instantly but unless she could predict being shot she'd not have enough time to disappear on the spot. It also triggered the question of whether her father would've pulled the trigger if she had been in his crosshairs. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, especially knowing that it would solve a lot of awkward questions and political landmines for him if he did so. He was also quite sure that he'd be able to get away with it, either through the legal system or through more nefarious means.

"Either that or he's a lousy shot under duress." The look that passed between them was enough to cast doubt on that, just as Cameron had suspected. Slowly lowering the chair so that all four legs were on the ground, he leaned forward to balance his weight against his forearms, pressed against the edge of the table, and shrugged in perpetual indecision. "It's hard to remember, if I'm honest. For a huge chunk of that whole situation, it was like everything had just stopped."

"Whatever the Rangers did," For Claire was sure that it was no coincidence that Robert and his miscreants had showed up on their doorstep the moment everything started going to shit, "it messed us all up pretty good."

Valjean entered the room with two plates of food. "Madame." He put the plate down in front of Claire before putting down a double portion in front of Cameron. "Monsieur." It was obvious the offer to the speedster was done with a bit more reluctance.

"Thank you, Chef." Claire took in the deep smells from the eggy bread served to them. Although she was sure the chef would insist on calling it French toast the eggy bread reminded her of weekends at her grandmother's, though she was almost certain her chef had been Dutch and not French.

Cameron watched with interest as the chef retreated, knowing that the partial ceasefire was about the best he was going to get from the man for the time being. "You think the surge affected him?" So far, there didn't seem to be a mutant in the vicinity that hadn't noticed issues with their powers but several were less clear about the actual affect of the phenomenon. He'd had a rather prickly conversation that morning with the freshly-reverted secretary, only to notice later that day that Soren had reappeared to take Jhanvi's place. Cam hadn't been able to tell if that was just a sign of comfort now that both personas were public knowledge or some sort of residual control issue but he found himself wondering now if the chef had struggled at all. Duplicating oneself to excessive proportions sounded...exhausting.

"Yeah, it did." Claire took a couple of bites from the offered meal and properly emptied her mouth before continuing. "I think at some point there were two or three dozen of him." Another bite, her stomach growling in appreciation. Clearly she had been hungry. "I think he also mentioned being more aware of the memories and experiences of his clones. Something he's never really had much success with." That could definitely be both a blessing and a curse. "It really did a number on so many people inside these walls."

"They held their own when it mattered." Like the eternal big brother, Cam recounted the successes of those under siege with resounding pride. Tucking into his own food, he'd inhaled half a slice before continuing. "Probably a lack of forethought really, trying to take on a bunch of teenagers you just over-powered." He glanced across at his friend, having been vaguely supportive of her unwillingness to teach open combat whilst silently holding the opinion that it was probably inevitable. "Met more resistance than he expected, I bet."

"Perhaps." Claire wasn't so sure that he didn't get exactly what he was looking for. He was supercharged himself after all, there was no telling how many powers he'd soaked up, and how many of those he could access later. He had already been a formidable mutant before this whole ordeal, and it was clear he had them pinned as enemies. She was sure they hadn't seen the last of him. She ate through a couple more bites of the toast, "I heard someone was looking for you last night."

"Can't imagine who'd want to do that." Cameron's response was cagey, played a little closer to his chest than was his normal style. Whether he'd heard something similar or was simply astute enough to suspect a culprit, his final slice of toast suddenly earned the lion's share of his attention.

Claire smiled a bit at that, immediately picking up on the change of demeanour. "I'm sure." She wouldn't pry any further, she was sure that when the time came Cameron would elaborate further. "How's the Camaro coming along? Am I close to taking it for a ride around the highlands yet?"

Hold his hand up, Cameron wobbled it back and forth, teetering on the edge of confirmation. "She's coming together under the hood but the back suspension's going to need some work before I'd recommend trying to take her too far." Noticing his friend's disappointment, the mutant reached out to pat her arm. "Couple of weeks, then we'll take her for a test, see what else she wants to tell us."

With a solemn nod Claire accepted the reality of not being able to take the classic out before the winter came. She really didn't want to take it out and about on the winding roads of the highlands when snow and ice was covering it. Spring would come around fast enough for her to enjoy a ride in the American classic. "I'm sure you'll work as fast as you can. How are the kids doing with the toasters? Can we sell them at the winter crest festival?" She jested, knowing the state they were in when they had collected them from the local community.

That question earned her a chuckle. "We've got an inventive bunch of first years, I'll give them that. Young Leo's set the standard and the inspiration has run off with them." The young mutant, whose ability allowed him to directly interface with electrical systems, had all the hallmarks of someone destined for a career in R & D, if he could avoid the tendency to start a dozen projects at once and never finish any of them. "I'm not sure how much toast we'll actually end up with but the door's wide open on other applications. One group's determined to make theirs talk." This, so far, involved very poorly recorded basic sentences and a banged up Walkman. Cameron had a sneaking suspicions none of them would sleep easy once the thing started running low on battery.

"So long as they do not make my Camaro sing." Claire took another bite of her late breakfast. "Purr like a kitten, yes please. Sing like Cat Stevens, no thank you." She laughed a bit at her own joke, she wasn't usually this quick on the quip. "Perhaps you can think of something else for them to work on for Winter Crest. There's plenty of time, of course, but it would be nice for us to show off the fruits of our Design & Tech programme."

"Oh, we'll have plenty to show, don't you worry about that." A devilish wink was more on form, though experience would forgive Claire for wondering if he'd actually started the process with the kids yet. Organisation, especially when it came to official documentation, was a perpetual work-in-progress for Cameron, whose term planner barely resembled its initial draft after Jonathan had got to it. Leaning into each other's strengths was part of the team-spirit, he'd been told. It didn't make it less embarrassing when nobody could read his handwriting or make sense of his spelling at times.

"Really looking forward to it." Claire finished up her breakfast and dabbed the napkin against her mouth to wipe away any crumbs or other unseemly food stuffs before pushing her chair backwards. "For now, I must away." She declared much more ceremoniously than seemed appropriate. "I hope you don't mind, I have a full agenda contend with." There had been a great many enquiries following the events on Halloween and the subsequent government response.

Cameron jerked his head towards the door. "Get out of here, ma'am. Go remind 'em who's boss." He watched the woman turn to leave and, in a moment of introspection amongst the brevity, added, "Hey Claire." Waiting until she turned back, Cam smiled wanly and then heaved in resignation, permittance for once for another to bear witness to his sadness. "She'll be okay, and so will we. Come grab me if you ever need talk things out. I can bring the popcorn."