Guy-Talk

Posted on Thu Sep 5th, 2024 @ 16:09 by Jonathan Monroe & Cameron Johnston

Chapter: Besieged
Location: Garage
Timeline: Monday 25th January
1762 words - 3.5 OF Standard Post Measure

It had been a while since Jon and Cameron had agreed some time to work on their various mechanical projects. The school term and everything around the winter celebrations had nixed whatever free time there was available, but the doom-and-gloom of the public discussion of registration had meant a desire for time doing something - anything - else.

"Pass us the socket." Jonathan motioned, using a rag to clean the worst of the oil from his fingers.

Perched on the bonnet of the half-disassembled wreck the senior class were currently in the progress of stripping down, Cameron looked up from the car radio he'd spent the last ten minutes trying to jimmy over and stretched a leg to push the biscuit tin currently holding the sum total of available sockets with his foot across the cement floor. In the most technical of ways, it counted as assistance.

"So how are things with Mhairi? I know she keeps finding reasons to come all this way...to a guy who could go visit her in a few seconds." He glanced up, taking the tool out of the other man's hand.

"Apparently we're still in the 'what Dad doesn't know can't get me shot in the arse" stage." He'd given up denying the romantic aspect of his relationship with Mhairi, mostly because, as Jon was pointing out, she had a tendency to make it bloody impossible.

"Eh. She's cute, she likes cars, and she is a lot funnier than you." Jon shot him a little grin. "Hell, if you're not interested, I'll gladly take her off your hands..."

"You say that," Cameron started, not even slightly threatened by his friend's capacity, let alone willingness, to play the Casanova, "But I just don't know how much of a fan of ice skating she is." Peering down the end of his nose over the top of the badly-fitting safety glasses he tended to wear just to look the part, Cam added, "Doesn't sound enough like your type."

"Oh so we're comparing, are we?" Jon chuckled. "Don't change the subject: we were talking about your dating life, and the resident baker-er-mechanic you've been messing around for what - months now?"

"Mechanic, yes. Baker? Not my area of expertise, you might need to check with Claire on that one." Deflection seemed perfectly permissible under the circumstances, though Cameron had accepted the futility of trying to keep his relationship with Mhairi a secret from his closest friends. He wasn't entirely sure why she was so intent on not broaching it directly with her father, who Cameron had a hard time believing was this blind, but he suspected part of it was just to allow him to stay away from town. If it minimised the impact on the garage, then he'd just accepted it would eventually lead to confirmed suspicions.

Jonathan cringed at his verbal slip. "You know what I mean." He wasn't sure why his mind had wandered to Claire's interaction with Gabriella. Perhaps he still felt a little guilty. "So, come on: it's been a decent amount of time now, right? Six months? What do you think?"

"Try three-and-a-bit." In the grand scheme of things, it was a detail that didn't really matter, and yet the accuracy had already played on Cam's mind. It didn't seem nearly long enough to warrant the kind of investment Mhairi was determined to maintain, which was simultaneously such a relief and such a constant source of stress that Cameron had no idea what to do with the resulting heartache. "Just before Halloween she told me we were dating." A tired huff of laughter was at his own expense, finally giving over that titbit to his friend for enjoyment's sake. "Seems to be an ongoing theme," he added, his expression slowly fading to a faint frown. "Can't reason with her, not when her mind's made up."

It was, admittedly, one of the things he found most attractive about the mechanic. There had never been a sense of Mhairi being swept up in an unrealistic romanticism in regards to dating a mutant, no real fear that he was somehow manipulating a vulnerable woman ignorant to the ugly side of his ongoing reality. He didn't have to hope that she'd be strong enough, or tough enough, or determined enough, because she'd come fully-equipped and, as she liked to keep reminding him, inclined to involve herself no matter how much Cameron himself wanted to remain in the picture. Her incredible stubbornness was more an obstacle to work around than an outright flaw but it had once again left him with very few choices. They'd reached the same impasse again and the argument had simmered back down without disappearing entirely. One thing was certain though;

He cared about her entirely too much to let her get in over her head.

"I think she's crazy," he finally answered Jon's question properly. "I think she could have anyone she wanted and not have to involve herself in any of this mess, but hell if I know how I managed to meet the one woman I can't seem to out-run or out-think."

"Sounds like you're perfect for one another then," Jonathan mused, eying up the workings of his bike's suspension for a few moments longer. The temptation to strip it again was almost too much. "Out of anyone, I suspect Mhairi can look after herself, if you're worried about reprisals or anything..."

"Against normal odds, sure." Cameron set aside the uncooperative radio and slid off the bonnet of the car to approach one of the nearby workbenches. "But you and I know how this is likely to go and then all bets will be off." Frustration flared for a moment before Cameron realised, of all the people who might need a reminder of the cost to non-mutant civilians caught in the mutant crossfire, Jon wasn't one of them.

"Is that bothering you?" Jonathan flicked a curious look over. The lessons from his own past were clear in his own mind, but Cameron was coming from somewhere different; his power-set was maybe a little less dangerous. At least by his own comparison, whether that was true or not. And out of all of those present at the Institute, Cameron was far and away the most capable of intervening before things got out of hand. "Just because I'm in self-imposed celibacy, doesn't mean you have to be as well. That's not how the bro-code works..."

"Would only work if you stuck to it anyway." The brief switch in focus lasted just long enough for Cameron to enjoy his smug smirk, and the wealth of glib assumption that sat behind it. Half the fun was only having half the story, after all. "But if you're asking if it bothers me that Mhairi would more likely run towards a flying bullet than away from it, then yeah, the thought has crossed my mind that these aren't likely to be the kind of battle odds she can beat." The speedster hunched a shoulder. "I'm fast but I'd rather not have to rely on that to keep her safe in the first place."

Jonathan chuckled a little at that. "Listen to us: talking about keeping people safe...we're hardly paragons of that at the moment, are we?" There was a faint irony that they'd both joined the Quantum Knights with that very goal. It didn't seem like they were doing much super-heroing. "You and I both know the women in our lives are more than capable of holding their own."

"And yet none of us are immortal." The wording of Jon's statement was too careful for Cameron to take the immediate bait, though he turned to lean against the workbench so that he could watch the other man work. "And now we're going back into fight with arguably less preparation than the last time." He didn't mention Reagan, or Otis for that matter, or the people who had been part of the Knight's earliest training efforts. It wasn't Cam's habit to begrudge people their chosen lifestyles but he lacked synergy with the current faculty, no longer had his ready burst of energy transferral to rely on and was less optimistic that tasering his own ass was going to cut it.

"We come armed with experience, and...uh..." Jonathan shrugged, failing in any sort of attempt to sound confident. Giving up very quickly on trying, he rolled his eyes. "Come on, bro. You're supposed to be the always-chipper, quick-talking speedster. That's the stereotype. Take it from me, the 'hot-headed' pyromaniac."

"It's easier to turn the frown upside down when it's just your ass being shot at."

If anything, there was no need for Cameron to put into words the way his relationship with the village mechanic was going. Jon had succinctly hit the nail on the head by mentioning the lack of bravado because the man only seemed to drop that when the stakes were exceedingly high. Nevertheless, Cam took the hint and, rather than dwell in melancholy, decided to follow the route of more practical concerns. Turning, he ran his eye over the workbench and stretched a little to snatch up a small device.

"Here's something that should cheer you up. Until we recruit another sparky, I'm stuck with kickstarting my own mojo. Been working on a few prototypes and there are a couple of viable solutions, both of which involve you. Firstly, and this would be more an emergency kickstart kind of thing..."

Stepping forward, Cameron then knelt before his friend and presented the device in his hand as if to propose.

"Jon darling, if push comes to shove, can I count on you to shove a taser to my balls and get me moving?"

"Great balls of fire..." Jonathan chuckled, taking the taser and tossing it in his hand for a moment. "Although...I do wonder if we could figure something out to that extent. Uh - not frying your..." He gestured with his hand a moment. "I mean, if your powers are triggered by electrical energy then maybe there's some scientific way of using heat instead? Or converting it."

"Weeelll..."

There was a familiar twinkle in Cameron's eyes, they type most typically worn when he'd been intentionally caught out scheming things. Secrets were not his forte, not small ones anyway. Little, insignificant ones that were mostly harmless and only added to his impatience when left waiting for a good moment for revelation to occur.

"Funny you should say that, I've been working on an idea..."