Betsy and Jamie (8/27)
Aug. 27th, 2013 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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om_mainBetsy meets the new boys, and is surprised to discover that Jamie isn't quite a set of twins
Jamie Prime was retracing the steps of his whistle stop tour of the school (he hadn't been to the house for years after all and God had it changed!) to locate the kitchen. He'd left the task of unpacking to three (he thought) dupes whilst a fourth followed him about half a step behind.
He had intended on coming downstairs alone but the fourth dupe had been a fairly disruptive addition to the group and had been extremely insistent that he was 'hangry' and only a burger would appease him. Hangry apparently meaning that he was so hungry it was making him angry, Jamie Prime wasn't actually even sure where his dupe had picked up that particular phrase. Still, he wasn't being half as argumentative now that they were no longer in danger of doing any actual work and now the empathic link meant that Jamie was feeling the dupes hunger too so, yes, kitchen was the perfect destination for sure.
Betsy was heading for the kitchen herself and she stopped before the doorway when she spotted the two young men down the hall. She'd have to tell Wanda! It looked like they'd finally gotten a couple of identical twins. "Hello," Betsy said as they approached. "You're new, aren't you?"
"Just got here." Was replied in unison, a pretty common occurrence when he and the dupes weren't arguing (which was also a pretty common occurrence). Jamie Prime paused to flash a friendly smile at the purple haired girl as his dupe continued on into the kitchen. "Sorry, his stomach's doing his thinking right now. I'm Jamie, by the way."
"I'm Betsy." She smiled. "And I know how that is, my brother can be the same way if you drag him on a long trip."
"Apparently he's 'hangry'," Jamie rolled his eyes, talking about brothers was second nature to him. It was how he'd always naturally covered up the dupe thing and it didn't immediately occur to him that he didn't need to here. "Is your brother back in England?" And suddenly, god, he was hoping he'd judged the accent right or that'd be awkward.
"He's here now, but he did just get back," Betsy confirmed. "I take it you just got here? Where do you hail from?"
"New Mexico originally but most recently Kansas." He tacked on the originally largely to explain the distinct lack of Kansas accent which he now realised was maybe redundant because if he didn't know English accents individually then why would she know American? "And now here, I guess, and man has this placed changed."
"You're been here before?" she asked curiously.
"Years ago. Dad used to work with Charles." It felt unnatural to call him Xavier or headmaster even if he was too old to call him Uncle. "Best games of hide and seek in this place." Now in the kitchen too, Jamie Prime helped himself to a sandwich from the pile his dupe was making.
"I can imagine. It must be very different now that there are so many students here."
"And classrooms and dorms. Just all that stuff basically." The dupe added as Jamie Prime became distracted for a moment. Somewhere upstairs at least two of his dupes we getting into a pretty heated argument about something. He could suppress it quickly but living life in multiples often meant his attention could be pretty divided.
"Not that the differences are bad, of course." He added as he ate the ham and cheese sandwich.
Betsy blinked, momentarily distracted as the buzz of his thoughts... echoed... well, that was at least one way to put it. She hesitated on her way to the cabinets and then looked at the second Jamie, the one she'd assumed was his twin. "What..." She didn't want to invade their privacy, but even a quick skim confirmed that their thoughts weren't separate enough for them two be two different people. They shared too much. "Oh. I'm sorry, but, you're not twins, are you?"
"We look pretty identical to me." The dupe grinned back.
"Like book ends really." Jamie agreed.
"Two peas in a pod."
"Why do you ask?" Of course Jamie knew his mutation would soon be common knowledge but how had she known?
"You echo," she commented thoughtfully. She tapped her temple. "I'm a telepath. I'm not listening in to anything specific, but you both give off the same sort of pattern. You're not like the other twins in the school, despite sharing so much genetically, our minds are distinctly different."
"We're linked, telepathically and empathically. Maybe that's why we echo?" Dupe Jamie suggested between mouthfuls of sandwich, Prime Jamie was just surveying Betsy with even more interest. A telepath with a twin, maybe a sister or the brother previously mentioned. She was officially the second mutant (teenage mutant!) he'd ever met and more proof that he'd been right to finally accept Charles and Moira's invites. This was the place to be for mutated brats.
"Interesting," Betsy said thoughtfully. "It was difficult to ignore."
"We're always difficult to ignore." Was said in gleeful unison.
"But, hands up, we're not twins." Jamie Prime admitted with a grin. "I am him and he is me."
"And we are all together, goo-goo-kachoo." His dupe joked back, in a much better mood now that hunger wasn't the dominating factor.
Betsy snorted softly. "So we can expect terrible puns in stereo, hm?"
"It's one of the many services we offer." Jamie Prime winked back.
"How many of you are there?" Her expression went momentarily distant. "Is this place just full of you right now?"
"Uh, currently five of us. We think. In the house anyway. If you mean how many can we be, well, how many do you need?" So far Jamie hadn't found a limitation to numbers.
She hummed thoughtfully. "That's going to take some getting used to."
"Eh, you get used to it." At least Jamie assumed you did, he'd been born this way after all.
"I suppose I will have to. You're different, but that's not a bad thing. Well, I suppose welcome to all of you then."
"It's always nice to be tolerated." The dupe muttered, loud enough for Jamie to smack him on the arm, resulting in several more Jamie's appearing.
"Play nice."
Betsy raised a brow. "Is that how it works?"
"Dad and Charles say it's something about kinetic energy. Basically shove me and I multiply." Prime explained with a nod.
"Awesome, right?" A dupe added with a mouthful of food.
"That must make sports impossible."
"They made a suit to contain us." Somebody in the group explained.
"So as long as you wear the suit then rugby is possible, but if you're not wearing it and accidentally trip in the hallway, suddenly there's many of you?"
"Uh, that's the simple version, yeah." Jamie confirmed as he started reaching out, absorbing the dupes one by one until it was just him and Betsy left in the room.
"Fascinating." She smiled. "Well, sorry for grilling you, Jamie, but thank you for humoring me."
"I'm just glad you didn't take the bad cop role." He told her good naturedly before adding "I'm guessing all the new kids get it?"
"Only the interesting ones."
"Then I guess I'm flattered then." Jamie smiled back as he started clearing away the food that his dupes had left behind.
"Oh, you should be," Betsy teased with the flash of a smile before going to grab what she'd come for from the fridge.
"Cool, so how long have you been here?" He dipped around her to return the ham and cheese left over.
"It will be a year in November," she answered.
"Awesome. I'm guessing you like it then, yeah? I said no to this place for a long time but seeing those guys on TV, I had to see what it was all about." He grabbed a can before ducking back away.
He hadn't completely been invading her space or anything, at least he didn't think, but he didn't want to push his luck and make her uncomfortable either. For a long time his main friends had been himself and he knew that personal space with his dupes had a totally different set of parameters.
Betsy simply stood still for a moment and then went to grab a fork and then make herself comfortable on a stool once Jamie was out of her space. She wasn't going to make a big deal about it, even if she wasn't keen on close contact with half the student body. She opened the small container of Tupperware and began poking at the sliced up strawberries within. "Do you mean Brian and Warren? The media conference?"
"Only one there has been." Jamie pointed out. "But yeah, mom came running in to turn on the news and. They were the first mutants I ever saw that weren't myself or Charles. And suddenly I wanted in."
Betsy gave a small nod. "Brian's my brother--my twin."
"Well, you're still our favourite twin." Jamie told her, not even noticing that referring to himself in the plural was weird to other people.
"You haven't gotten to meet him yet. Maybe he's secretly the personable twin," Betsy pointed out, lips twisting with a smile due her own private amusement. Brian clearly wasn't the social half.
"Hey, I'll hold my judgements but the gut instinct's usually a good one." She was informed almost seriously before he added with a playful glint to his eyes. "I'm a people person, you see."
"A many people person?" She suggested wickedly.
"Now you're getting it!"
Betsy shook her head, smile still curving her lips. "Yes, I think I see."
Jamie snapped his fingers twice causing two duplicates to appear. In unison they all bowed "It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Betsy." They chorused happily.
"Nice meeting you, Jamie. Good luck settling in."
"It's our roomie who needs the luck, I reckon!"
"Hope you got a good one then."
"He sees alright, we already met him." Prime nodded. "Harkness?"
"Some of us are with him now." A dupe added with a snicker.
"Ahh, Jack," she said thoughtfully. "I haven't had the chance to get to know him well since he arrived, but I think that he'll get along just fine with a hoard of you"
The dupes were starting to get distracted and wonder off. Attention span wasn't something many of the dupes were known for. "So far he's coping. I think we like him, he seems pretty alright."
"Lucky for you most of our storm clouds have roommates."
"Anyone you want to warn me against?"
"I'll just warn you in general, be careful about personal space. We have a few people with dangerous powers, and they can be stand-offish for good reason. Better safe than sorry."
"We'll try." Which wasn't him being flip, he just forgot sometimes. He'd been homeschooled and mostly just hung out with himself back home. A lot cooler than it sounded. "Promise."
"Otherwise, beware of a few odd ducks, but I'll think you'll be fine."
"Odder than us?" Asked Jamie and the one remaining dupe that hadn't found somewhere else to be.
She smiled. "You'd be surprised."
"Looking forward to it."
Jamie Prime was retracing the steps of his whistle stop tour of the school (he hadn't been to the house for years after all and God had it changed!) to locate the kitchen. He'd left the task of unpacking to three (he thought) dupes whilst a fourth followed him about half a step behind.
He had intended on coming downstairs alone but the fourth dupe had been a fairly disruptive addition to the group and had been extremely insistent that he was 'hangry' and only a burger would appease him. Hangry apparently meaning that he was so hungry it was making him angry, Jamie Prime wasn't actually even sure where his dupe had picked up that particular phrase. Still, he wasn't being half as argumentative now that they were no longer in danger of doing any actual work and now the empathic link meant that Jamie was feeling the dupes hunger too so, yes, kitchen was the perfect destination for sure.
Betsy was heading for the kitchen herself and she stopped before the doorway when she spotted the two young men down the hall. She'd have to tell Wanda! It looked like they'd finally gotten a couple of identical twins. "Hello," Betsy said as they approached. "You're new, aren't you?"
"Just got here." Was replied in unison, a pretty common occurrence when he and the dupes weren't arguing (which was also a pretty common occurrence). Jamie Prime paused to flash a friendly smile at the purple haired girl as his dupe continued on into the kitchen. "Sorry, his stomach's doing his thinking right now. I'm Jamie, by the way."
"I'm Betsy." She smiled. "And I know how that is, my brother can be the same way if you drag him on a long trip."
"Apparently he's 'hangry'," Jamie rolled his eyes, talking about brothers was second nature to him. It was how he'd always naturally covered up the dupe thing and it didn't immediately occur to him that he didn't need to here. "Is your brother back in England?" And suddenly, god, he was hoping he'd judged the accent right or that'd be awkward.
"He's here now, but he did just get back," Betsy confirmed. "I take it you just got here? Where do you hail from?"
"New Mexico originally but most recently Kansas." He tacked on the originally largely to explain the distinct lack of Kansas accent which he now realised was maybe redundant because if he didn't know English accents individually then why would she know American? "And now here, I guess, and man has this placed changed."
"You're been here before?" she asked curiously.
"Years ago. Dad used to work with Charles." It felt unnatural to call him Xavier or headmaster even if he was too old to call him Uncle. "Best games of hide and seek in this place." Now in the kitchen too, Jamie Prime helped himself to a sandwich from the pile his dupe was making.
"I can imagine. It must be very different now that there are so many students here."
"And classrooms and dorms. Just all that stuff basically." The dupe added as Jamie Prime became distracted for a moment. Somewhere upstairs at least two of his dupes we getting into a pretty heated argument about something. He could suppress it quickly but living life in multiples often meant his attention could be pretty divided.
"Not that the differences are bad, of course." He added as he ate the ham and cheese sandwich.
Betsy blinked, momentarily distracted as the buzz of his thoughts... echoed... well, that was at least one way to put it. She hesitated on her way to the cabinets and then looked at the second Jamie, the one she'd assumed was his twin. "What..." She didn't want to invade their privacy, but even a quick skim confirmed that their thoughts weren't separate enough for them two be two different people. They shared too much. "Oh. I'm sorry, but, you're not twins, are you?"
"We look pretty identical to me." The dupe grinned back.
"Like book ends really." Jamie agreed.
"Two peas in a pod."
"Why do you ask?" Of course Jamie knew his mutation would soon be common knowledge but how had she known?
"You echo," she commented thoughtfully. She tapped her temple. "I'm a telepath. I'm not listening in to anything specific, but you both give off the same sort of pattern. You're not like the other twins in the school, despite sharing so much genetically, our minds are distinctly different."
"We're linked, telepathically and empathically. Maybe that's why we echo?" Dupe Jamie suggested between mouthfuls of sandwich, Prime Jamie was just surveying Betsy with even more interest. A telepath with a twin, maybe a sister or the brother previously mentioned. She was officially the second mutant (teenage mutant!) he'd ever met and more proof that he'd been right to finally accept Charles and Moira's invites. This was the place to be for mutated brats.
"Interesting," Betsy said thoughtfully. "It was difficult to ignore."
"We're always difficult to ignore." Was said in gleeful unison.
"But, hands up, we're not twins." Jamie Prime admitted with a grin. "I am him and he is me."
"And we are all together, goo-goo-kachoo." His dupe joked back, in a much better mood now that hunger wasn't the dominating factor.
Betsy snorted softly. "So we can expect terrible puns in stereo, hm?"
"It's one of the many services we offer." Jamie Prime winked back.
"How many of you are there?" Her expression went momentarily distant. "Is this place just full of you right now?"
"Uh, currently five of us. We think. In the house anyway. If you mean how many can we be, well, how many do you need?" So far Jamie hadn't found a limitation to numbers.
She hummed thoughtfully. "That's going to take some getting used to."
"Eh, you get used to it." At least Jamie assumed you did, he'd been born this way after all.
"I suppose I will have to. You're different, but that's not a bad thing. Well, I suppose welcome to all of you then."
"It's always nice to be tolerated." The dupe muttered, loud enough for Jamie to smack him on the arm, resulting in several more Jamie's appearing.
"Play nice."
Betsy raised a brow. "Is that how it works?"
"Dad and Charles say it's something about kinetic energy. Basically shove me and I multiply." Prime explained with a nod.
"Awesome, right?" A dupe added with a mouthful of food.
"That must make sports impossible."
"They made a suit to contain us." Somebody in the group explained.
"So as long as you wear the suit then rugby is possible, but if you're not wearing it and accidentally trip in the hallway, suddenly there's many of you?"
"Uh, that's the simple version, yeah." Jamie confirmed as he started reaching out, absorbing the dupes one by one until it was just him and Betsy left in the room.
"Fascinating." She smiled. "Well, sorry for grilling you, Jamie, but thank you for humoring me."
"I'm just glad you didn't take the bad cop role." He told her good naturedly before adding "I'm guessing all the new kids get it?"
"Only the interesting ones."
"Then I guess I'm flattered then." Jamie smiled back as he started clearing away the food that his dupes had left behind.
"Oh, you should be," Betsy teased with the flash of a smile before going to grab what she'd come for from the fridge.
"Cool, so how long have you been here?" He dipped around her to return the ham and cheese left over.
"It will be a year in November," she answered.
"Awesome. I'm guessing you like it then, yeah? I said no to this place for a long time but seeing those guys on TV, I had to see what it was all about." He grabbed a can before ducking back away.
He hadn't completely been invading her space or anything, at least he didn't think, but he didn't want to push his luck and make her uncomfortable either. For a long time his main friends had been himself and he knew that personal space with his dupes had a totally different set of parameters.
Betsy simply stood still for a moment and then went to grab a fork and then make herself comfortable on a stool once Jamie was out of her space. She wasn't going to make a big deal about it, even if she wasn't keen on close contact with half the student body. She opened the small container of Tupperware and began poking at the sliced up strawberries within. "Do you mean Brian and Warren? The media conference?"
"Only one there has been." Jamie pointed out. "But yeah, mom came running in to turn on the news and. They were the first mutants I ever saw that weren't myself or Charles. And suddenly I wanted in."
Betsy gave a small nod. "Brian's my brother--my twin."
"Well, you're still our favourite twin." Jamie told her, not even noticing that referring to himself in the plural was weird to other people.
"You haven't gotten to meet him yet. Maybe he's secretly the personable twin," Betsy pointed out, lips twisting with a smile due her own private amusement. Brian clearly wasn't the social half.
"Hey, I'll hold my judgements but the gut instinct's usually a good one." She was informed almost seriously before he added with a playful glint to his eyes. "I'm a people person, you see."
"A many people person?" She suggested wickedly.
"Now you're getting it!"
Betsy shook her head, smile still curving her lips. "Yes, I think I see."
Jamie snapped his fingers twice causing two duplicates to appear. In unison they all bowed "It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Betsy." They chorused happily.
"Nice meeting you, Jamie. Good luck settling in."
"It's our roomie who needs the luck, I reckon!"
"Hope you got a good one then."
"He sees alright, we already met him." Prime nodded. "Harkness?"
"Some of us are with him now." A dupe added with a snicker.
"Ahh, Jack," she said thoughtfully. "I haven't had the chance to get to know him well since he arrived, but I think that he'll get along just fine with a hoard of you"
The dupes were starting to get distracted and wonder off. Attention span wasn't something many of the dupes were known for. "So far he's coping. I think we like him, he seems pretty alright."
"Lucky for you most of our storm clouds have roommates."
"Anyone you want to warn me against?"
"I'll just warn you in general, be careful about personal space. We have a few people with dangerous powers, and they can be stand-offish for good reason. Better safe than sorry."
"We'll try." Which wasn't him being flip, he just forgot sometimes. He'd been homeschooled and mostly just hung out with himself back home. A lot cooler than it sounded. "Promise."
"Otherwise, beware of a few odd ducks, but I'll think you'll be fine."
"Odder than us?" Asked Jamie and the one remaining dupe that hadn't found somewhere else to be.
She smiled. "You'd be surprised."
"Looking forward to it."
