Under the Covers

Posted on Thu Dec 29th, 2022 @ 11:01 by Cameron Johnston & Claire Cavendish

Chapter: Prologue: Dawn of Avalon
Location: Garage, Avalon Institute
Timeline: Saturday, September 19th, 1992
2326 words - 4.7 OF Standard Post Measure

"Hey Cam!" Claire's greeting echoed in the bare workshop. The metal and concrete didn't do anything to absorb the sounds. She stood in the middle of the room and motioned for him to get closer. "Didn't know you made it back from holiday. Why is everyone avoiding me?"

Fortunately, the plink-plink of the woman's boots was a sound Cameron was accustomed to, at least enough that he avoided smashing his face into the underside of the caretaker's golf cart that he was currently trying to fix the suspension on. For a guy whose visual perception could operate at astonishing speeds, he got ribbed an unfair amount about his perfectly normal aural processing. Was it his fault that people could sneak up on him? Mostly not. Usually.

The clatter of tiny wheels across cement echoed as he pushed himself out, flat-backed on his work creeper, and grinned up at Avalon's gloriously resplendent Head Mistress.

"Delayed gratification," he offered, sitting up and reaching for a rag to wipe his hands on before he clambered up and wandered over to encase the woman in a slightly-greasy bear hug. "You're a sight for sore eyes, after all."

Claire embraced the grease monkey and held him close for a good while. "Missed you here, things are starting to fall apart." She didn't immediately want to rattle off a list, but she had made sure that there was one available for him should he ask. She leaned back to be able to look at the man she'd come to rely on to keep the lights on around the institute.

She looked at the small golf cart, "That old thing giving you trouble again?" she slowly walked across the garage and gave one of the wheels a bit of a kick.

"Wouldn't be a normal day if she didn't try to jettison some vital component," Cam retorted affectionately, following to stand beside her. "Just some work on her suspension this time, might save her jostling loose something more complicated."

He draped an arm over Claire's shoulders, both regarding the cart as parents might a wayward child, and gave her a squeeze.

"Good break?"

Claire nodded, "Can't complain." She looked over her shoulder to make sure nobody was eavesdropping, "Found a capable team leader with a lot of experience in the field." She then looked to the side of the garage where a car shaped object stood in the corner, covered in a dark blue tarp. "Also had something else transported over. Thought it might be something you and the kids could work on."

"Bridge mentioned something about fresh blood. I'll have to look them up."

As was easily predictable, however, the intrigue of this new project was even more compelling than the identity of a new team leader. Cameron had noticed it, had stood with hands pressed to the back of his head to study its shape and attempt to guess at what was beneath, but he'd stopped short of peeking. The restraint hadn't been easy but ownership demanded respect and permission was important. He kept Lulu in her own corner, tucked away away from prying eyes, for just that reason.

Dropping his arm in order to move away, he approached with cautious reverence and ducked to the side as if it would be possible to peer under the covers if he just leaned far enough to the right. "Over from where?"

Claire didn't do many things just for herself. Over the past decade she had dedicated her life towards improving mutant standing in society, before that she had worked to stay in the good graces of her family. And so on all the way back to the first time she started to walk. What was underneath the covers was fully and completely hers, and even now she was offering it up to the machine shop teacher so that he and the kids could have something extra-curricular to work on and improve their skills.

"Detroit." A small smirk crept across her features, that very specific place of origin narrowed it down quite a lot. It was a reminder of her formative years over in the states, and it had cost her an arm and a leg to get the proper '73 version, even in the state that it was in.

Narrowed eyes considered her, the analysis of a non-telepathic mind scrambling to join the pieces together to arrive at any likelihood. Cameron sometimes existed at such a pace that it could seem like he wasn't paying attention but he was susceptible to nostalgia and succumbed to a kid-in-the-candy-store exuberance whenever there as an excuse to celebrate. He was the one solely responsible for festooning the campus in lights once the festive season approached, despite the fact that it meant dangling from precarious heights with the assistance of their levitationally-gifted proteges. He loved gift-giving, and he especially loved it when those around him, the people he loved, wore an expression exactly similar to the one Claire wore now. Anticipation, joy.

He eyeballed the mysterious hulk again.

Walking full circle around it gave him a better idea of its dimensions, and the peek of a tyre on the back corner warranted a closer inspection, crouched down to inspect. Detroit. His mind shifted through the catalogue of automotive highlights and tried to arrive at a point that intersected the woman he knew. Rising slowly, Cam's eyebrows knitted in gleeful suspicion.

"You didn't."

"I think I might have." Claire walked up to the tarp and grabbed one of the corners. "It's a bit of an old want and needs some TLC. Which is where you and the kids come in." She looked back, delaying the big reveal just a little more. "Do you think you would be up for that task?" She lowered the corner that she was holding again, to prevent him from taking a peek as she asked the inane question.

Having risen to full height again, Cameron leveled an accusatory finger at her. "You are a tease."

His gaze returned to the shrouded vehicle, fresh perspective lending expectation to the hints given away by the drape of the heavy plastic. Most new projects were met with enthusiasm because half the fun was figuring out how to work around seemingly insurmountable obstacles. This was different. If it was what he suspected then Claire, whose capacity to place the entire world ahead of her own needs had endeared her very swiftly to Cam's soft heart, had finally taken his advice and tended to her own heart.

His eyes flitted up to meet hers again. "I'm up for anything that puts a glint like that in your eye."

The smirk turned into the broadest smile as Claire ceremoniously pulled back the tarp and revealed a beaten up, dark green, Chevrolet Camaro Z28 from '73. "The chassis is completely original and still completely intact. No accidents in its history. Spent most of its life in California, Arizona, and Texas, so very little signs of rust." She was absolutely beaming as she looked at the American muscle car, that was nowhere near road worthy. "The rest of it needs some TLC." She added with a bit of a sigh before walking up towards the driver's seat door and traced her hand over the hood as she made her way over.

The grin that spread across Cam's face threatened to split it in two. Though he moved towards the trunk-end first, hand gently sliding across the unblemished paintwork, it was the bonnet that he made an eventual beeline for. "Always said you had an eye for perfection." Leaning his weight forward, both hands pressed to the front of the car, Cam gave a couple of experimental tests of the suspension and then gestured with his head for Claire to open the door she was patting. "Take a seat and pop the hood for me."

"Oh. Yeah. Of course." Claire pulled the door and with a creak the car opened up to her. She slid behind the wheel onto the cracked leather and sank into the comfortable driver's seat. "I think. This one." She pulled the handle underneath the dash and heard a familiar clunk of the hood release. "From what I understood that needs some work."

Needs work was music to Cam's ears. Whilst he loved a perfectly purring engine, and the steps required to keep it that way, there was nothing that appealed to the high-pace of his puzzle-loving mind than a vintage car in need of maintenance. With half his bulk disappearing into the engine-space, silence reigned for a long moment. It was, Claire knew by now, also the easiest way to shut him up for a while. When his mind whirled like this, there was no expectation for anyone else to try keep up.

Eventually, his head popped up.

"Turn her over for me."

Claire frowned a bit. "You realise I don't have super strength, don't you?" She leaned out the open door to communicate with him. The people that had brought the beautiful dormant beast here had also made comments in terms she couldn't begin to understand. Maybe this was one of those things. Either way she had no clue what he expected of her.

The face that popped up over the top of the open bonnet was far more delighted than it had any right to be. Cam gestured, demonstrating the turn of a key in the ignition. "Turn over. Get the crankshaft moving. Just trying to see if there's any life in these spark plugs." Someone, as far as Cameron could tell, had made a start of refurbishing the vehicle but either time or money, or both, had left the job half finished.

Claire leaned down and spotted the keys in the ignition, she grabbed on to it, made sure the car was in neutral, and just to be safe kept her foot pressed down on the brakes, before turning the key. What would normally make the beast beneath the bonnet roar to life was met with complete and utter silence. "It's not doing anything."

Rather than look too disappointed, Cameron simply stood up and nodded slowly. "Yeah, thought so. Well, she's had some work done on her but looks like they stopped short of getting her to start. Some of the fourth-years can help me disassemble things and we'll see what we're starting with." Tucking away the prop rod, he gently lowered the hood until dropping in the last few inches secured it. Then, folding his arms across his chest, Cameron lifted his attention to the woman behind the wheel and grinned. "She looks great on you though. You just wait 'til we're putting her through her paces."

After the turning of the key had yielded nothing she simply remained in the drivers seat and sat back, imagining what it would be like to drive this thing out on the road. The winding small roads around the institute, through the different parts of the highlands, were perfect for touring. Claire could see herself driving further north, taking in the flowing landscape. She had heard Cam talking to her about letting some more mature students work on it, she trusted that with his guidance it'd sort itself out. When he gave her, or the car, a compliment she smiled again. "Thank you for taking the time and effort to get it road worthy. If you need any parts, please let me know. It would have to come out of my personal budget, not the institute's."

"She'll need a bit, I'll know more once we've stripped her down." Which was, honestly, about all he'd let any of the students help with. It wasn't so much a matter of trust as it was greed, if Cameron could ever be accused of such things. He owed a lot to Claire, for talking him into this gig as a means of bringing him into the Knights but then giving him the encouragement to realise he actually loved the teaching aspect as much as the opportunity to certify for Concorde's finest. It wasn't the car that he coveted so much as the palpable opportunity to finally return some of the gratitude he felt.

"You want me to leave you two alone for a while?," he grinned. She certainly looked the part.

Claire pulled herself out of the driver's seat and dusted herself off, even though there wasn't really any dirt on her. "That's alright, I should get back to things." She pointed in the general direction of the main building. "Thank you for helping me with this, Cam, I really appreciate it." Before she walked away she quickly gave him another hug.

An arm around her shoulders provided a squeeze, though Cam spared her typically-immaculate presentation from his slight reek of oil and, for once, didn't pick her up and spin her. "Good to see you again, Claire," he murmured and then released her with a grin and a mock salute. "If I'm late to dinner, you'll know why. Save me some."

"You can't be late tonight, not tonight, open mic night, remember!" Claire had half turned during her walk away to call that back to him. She needed people like Cam to come and be their own extraverted selves up on the stage, to make sure some of the more shy people would feel encouraged to have a go as well. Although she realised that wasn't quite how it worked, and that it could be intimidating. It would still be good to have him there, do whatever he felt would be an appropriate talent to showcase. "I expect to be blown away." With that she turned and continued her walk aout of the garage.

Alone in his garage, with his thoughts and lack of preparation, Cameron turned with hands on his hips to stare at the Camaro.

"You any good at juggling?"