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om_mainIn London, a boy named Jamie meets his father for the first time. It goes less than well.
Meanwhile, in New York... In a world of super-powered mutant kids as a matter of course, Nathan's about to get a phone call even he couldn't have anticipated. Guest starring Noriko as the (ignored) Voice of Reason.
Jamie had been determined, when he'd boarded the plane. During the flight, determination had started to make way to nerves. By the time he cleared customs, eight hours later, nerves had become anxiety. He could always be counted on for impulse decisions, but this didn't feel like such an impulse anymore, not after so long spent on a plane.
Fuck it. He hadn't come to America for nothing.
He made it outside and lit up a cigarette, thinking of his next move, bag slung over his shoulder. Try and make it to the school, confront the guy in person? Or use the mobile number he'd got from their father. Option number one could always come in play if he ended up hung up on.
Right, that was decided.
He already had some change from buying a snack on his way out, and he spotted a payphone a little way off. The paper with Nathan's mobile number was crumped in his jeans pocket, but still readable. Cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips, he put a few coins in and dialed the number, not leaving himself any time to think about what he was going to say. Impulse decisions, right.
Significantly closer than they'd been eight hours ago, but not one wit more aware of why that even fucking mattered, another kid sat smoking a different brand of cigarettes. There was a rusty bucket on the back porch, where the skinny boy smoked on the dick-freezing days, when he couldn't be arsed to go further than he absolutely had to for a few chimney-like puffs against the cold air. He huffed the last of the welcome heat from of his lungs with a shiver, stubbing out the butt in the snowy bucket against the frozen mash of the others as his phone rang.
He didn't recognize the number that came up, but it was local. Hunh. Who'd he given his number to that wouldn't be in his mobile already?
"Nathan's giant penis palace. You'll have a shock at the rock of our cock, we've all the meat you can eat, all female customers satisfied - all sales final. What's yer pleasure?"
Jamie's eyes widened at the greeting, and for a second he wondered if he'd got the right number. But the voice sounded Irish enough, and what were the odds he'd misdialed and got another Irish Nathan in the States. "You're Nathan Young?" he still asked, for confirmation. Maybe once he'd got over the painful I'm-your-brother part, he'd be amused about the greeting.
On his end, Nathan screwed up his face at his bucket, thinking. Whoever he was didn't have an American accent... "Does he owe you money or something? Because if that's the case, no, and I've never heard of 'em."
"I'm his brother," Jamie replied steadily. Impulse; it really was his thing. And also why he'd realised too late that he should've changed that 'his' to a 'your', really. The guy's answer left no doubt.
Nathan snorted, just as readily. "No you're not. If you'd even met him for one minute, you'd know he hasn't got a brother. He's a classic example of an only child," he yanked open the door to stamp his way back inside, trying to knock the packed snow from the shallow treads of his Chucks.
Jamie finally got his pronouns right, as he replied, "We have the same father," turning the cigarette in his hand and taking a drag after that sentence. "Mike Young?" That he might have bashed in the head with a toaster before leaving. Detail.
There was a pause on the line, Nathan's face well and truly scrunched with thoughtful confusion where he just sort of stood, stopped in the open doorway and letting in all the cold on his heels. It sounded mad, but then, so did waking up with superpowers one day. And his father was a big enough cunt for something like that to be plausible. All his life, Mike had been gone who knew where whenever there was some actual fathering shite that needed done.
"...And you're sure about that?"
"Pretty sure, yeah," Jamie answered with the sort of wryness that came from having got confirmation from the father in question before knocking him unconscious, stealing a bunch of his money and crossing the Atlantic. "Wouldn'ta made the trip otherwise."
There was another long pause. This guy had come across the pond for this? Really?
"...Yeah. Yeah, alright. Sure, I always wanted a brother. But this is kind of a fucked conversation to be having over the phone. Where are you?"
Jamie looked around him as he answered, as if he needed visual confirmation. "I just landed at JFK. Where d'you want to meet?"
"I dunno, man. Are you staying in the city?" Nathan thought about inviting his brother to the school - then thought better of it. They probably didn't need the drama of Superpowered Mutant High School on top of the drama this was already, and he didn't know what the hell they were doing here yet, him and his... Brother?
"I've been here for five minutes," Jamie retorted defensively. He probably should've figured that shit out before boarding the plane. "Give me at least a couple hours before I find a decent squat." Because these two words were so often associated, but he'd settle for some place where nothing worse might happen than people trying to steal his shit.
"You just fell off the plane into New York and you're planning to squat it out? Jaysis, you've got a big brass pair," Nathan marveled with a measure of respect, finally groping to yank the door closed behind him and getting himself properly back inside. "Must be genetic. Hey, I've got a friend who might have an idea of where you should go. What's say I ask her about it, then meet you for a few hotdogs or whatever in the city?"
"Sure," Jamie agreed, not sure how he felt about the compliment. No, he liked it, he wasn't sure how he felt about liking it. "Just tell me where." He'd figure his way to wherever it might be.
"Your phone there's local, yeah?" Nathan had started yanking off his coat, but now he wasn't sure if he shouldn't just leave it on, if he was going to meet this fella. So he sort of ended up with one arm in the coat, one arm out, his empty third limb flailing along the corridor as he went. "Have you got a mobile I can text the place to?"
"I don't think mine works here," Jamie replied with a frown. He'd never thought he'd end up in the States; he hadn't even looked into how to make his mobile work internationally. But he wasn't too worried. He'd find a burner phone on the cheap. "I'll get one, text you from it."
"You know what, I've got an old spare," Nathan told him as he tromped for the dorms, thinking of the phone they'd given him when he joined Xavier's. "You can use it. That is, if you're going to be here for a while." Because did it matter if he had a regular phone, if he was just going to get right back on the plane after they met? If he was squatting, though... "Are you? Going to stick around a while?"
For the life of him, Nathan didn't know if it'd be good news or bad either way.
"Even if you turn out to be a dickwad," Jamie confirmed, nothing if not blunt about it. "It'd be a shame to've come all this way and just turn back around without a little sightseeing."
"Compared to our dear old Da', how can I even hope to compete in the Dicklympics?" Our. How weird was that to be saying? Nathan didn't really believe it, not yet. Couldn't, probably, until the other kid convinced him in person - or didn't. "You've met him, haven't you?"
"Yeah," Jamie answered, frowning tight. At least their dad had been around for Nathan. "Yeah, I've met him. That's how I got your number." And address.
It hadn't even occurred to Nathan to think about how... What's his face had gotten his information. That seemed a lot less fantastical than the fact he'd suddenly got a brother. "And? Did he throw you all the birthday parties and play all of the catch with you he never bothered doing for me?"
"Look, can we talk this shit out in person?" Jamie cut the conversation short, because a) he was freezing, and b) he didn't know what to think about anything right now. Had their father been an asshole to both of them, then? It had to have been better for Nathan. He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and toed it out under the sole of his Cat boot.
"Right," Nathan tried, just for this once, to rein himself in a little and take a breath as he pushed into his room to look for that old mobile. "Let me tell you where to go..."
* * *
Noriko's phone was set beside her on her bed and blaring a Discount song as she bent over her physics textbook, dutifully going through her homework. Hey, it was about electricity; she was all over it. When somebody knocked on her door, she answered "Come in!" without looking up, finishing writing down a formula.
Which was just as well, because after his minor assault on the front of the door with his urgent fists, Nathan's patience had been exhausted entirely and he's begun opening it before Noriko had even finished answering him. "If you were still a homeless in the city, where would you go?" It was as close as he was like to get by way of greeting, as the lanky boy barged in on her.
Noriko had looked up at Nathan by the time he was done asking, eyebrows raised incredulously, before the expression turned into a concerned frown. "What's going on?"
"Put that pout of yours away, it's not for me," Nathan told her expression, dropping to sit on the corner of her bed. "Not anymore, anyway. Or not yet. Look, you've got a brother, right?"
Now her frown was more about confusion than anything else. What did Keitaro have to do with NYC? "Yeah..."
"Well not me. Not ever, sister neither. I imagine my um took one look at me and said, 'can't possibly do better'n that'. You know what, most other kids wouldn't even play with me growing up, so intimidated by my natural majesty. But what if I did have one?" Nathan shook his head at the whole thing. It sounded crazier out loud than it had in his own mind, even. "Because apparently there's a kid out in the city who seems to think he's my half-brother, or at least says he is, and maybe he's completely and utterly full of shit, but he's still got to stay someplace!"
Noriko's frown was not going anywhere, as she tried to follow that. "So there's a kid in the city claiming he's your half-brother, and you want to put him up in a squat?" But, more importantly, "How did he find you?" How did Nathan know he wasn't Facility, really?
"He talked to my - our dad, apparently," Nathan explained. "I'm going to call him and chew him out in a minute here, yeah? So he'll have his chance to deny it. But if you knew what a lifelong arsehole he's been, you'd get it. It's not like he ever made an effort with me and my mum in the first place. It should surprise me more than it does, let's put it that way."
He sighed, flopping back onto Noriko's bed. Then stopped to dislodge a calculator from under him, flinging it aside. "What do I do if he's not really my brother? What do I do if he is?"
"What do you do if he's not?" Noriko retorted evenly. She got the emotional turmoil, sure. But pragmatism first. "What if he's a Facility kid, like Jack?"
"It's not as if he's asked for a free pass to the school. Powers didn't exactly slide into the conversation on the phone, either. And what's he going to do to me they couldn't?" Nathan rolled his head over to look at Noriko. "I'm the most shit student at this school anyway. Talk about a wasted effort."
"You can't die, Nathan," Noriko replied, then added a "Presumably." It wasn't as if they'd tested every way for him to die. "I don't think it's your academic results they'd be after. You should have Tessa check him out before you meet him."
"Exactly! I can't die, so what's to worry? And it's not like I can give my power away to other people," Nathan groaned, rolling back up into a sitting position and leaning himself off over the edge of the bed, as if ready to bolt. "Does that mean you're not going to give me any ideas about where to look for a decent squat? Not even a wee little inkling for your good friend Nathan? Not at all?"
"Of course I am," Noriko retorted, and started scribbling down a couple of addresses on a page of her notebook. "But seriously. Call Tessa." She tore off the page and handed it to him. "They were both still around a couple weeks back. If they've been closed down, call me and I'll see what I can find out."
"Seriously, she's not returned my calls since catching me doing some dirty with the toaster," he informed Noriko as he plucked the paper away from her. Actually, he suspected that Tessa didn't really know or care if he was at the school, and 'doing the dirty' in this case equated with programming in dirty rhymes to appear on various the breakfast breads of unassuming students, but whatever. Besides, that toaster was a slut. "Thank you," he started folding up the paper and stuffing it into his jacket pocket, heading for the door.
"Just so you know, I'm calling her," Noriko let him know. She was Tessa; she could figure it out by the time Nathan got to the city, she was pretty certain.
"Ask her if she's still hot for me, would you?" He lifted a hand to wave his thanks back at her, but he didn't stop at the door. They'd tell him if he was like to have a psycho-killer on his hands. Probably. And anyway, he had a natural resistance to being pycho-killed.
* * *
Gray's Papaya. Really odd name for a hot dog shop, if you asked Jamie, but nobody was asking him, and that was fine by him. Besides, any place that sported a sign saying "Let's be Frank, We want you to buy our Furters" was alright by him.
He was standing in a corner with a Recession Special, two hot dogs and a papaya drink which, he supposed, was what the name was all about? The jetlag was starting to get to him, and he rubbed at his eyes before yawning again, and getting starting on his second hot dog. He had to admit, New Yorkers really knew their hot dogs. He was also keeping an eye on the door for Nathan, and belatedly wishing he'd gone through their dad's place for a picture. Thinking ahead was really not his forte.
He wasn't the only one of those about. Nathan didn't have any picture to go by, either, though the bus trip it took to get him into the city gave him more time than he necessarily wanted to think about what his half-brother might be like. He sounded of a similar age, but other than that... Would he also be tall and thin? Probably not, seeing as Nathan was well taller than their father. That came from Mum's side. Would he have similar hair to both Nathan and their old man, though, all wild curls? Would they look much alike at all? Could you tell they were related, just by looking?
Jamie - his brother had told him before they'd ended the call that his name was Jamie Keeley. He didn't sound too posh or be-cardiganed, what with willing to squat in NYC of all places, so that was something.
Nathan found himself standing outside the classic New York hotdog shack with its neon lighted name and tacky signs plastered floor to ceiling, looking in on the diners and wondering which of them was, in a really fucked-up twist of fate he'd yelled and cursed at his father's voicemail over, his brother he'd never known about.
Too old. Too young. That's just a right fat woman, there. Black-ish Americanese. His hazel eyes finally caught sight of a kid about his age that had been mostly obscured by diners shuffling through the standing-room only establishment in a denim jacket, dark hair buzzed short, Irish pale, ear pierced, tattooed neck, even... Holy fuck, but they did look alike, a bit, though those features were a touch more blunt than his own, that body a bit shorter, a bit more muscled. They easily looked close enough to be brothers.
Nathan pulled back his bony shoulders and took a deep breath, pushing open the door and trying to act as casual as one could when they were deliberately making to meet their sibling for the first time.
The door swung open again, and Jamie looked over without much hope; it felt like the fiftieth time this was happening. If he was being stood up... Wait a second, the guy was the right age and... maybe there was something there, and Jamie swallowed the last bite of his dog, standing up a little straighter. Definitely something there, since the guy was making a beeline for him. He grabbed the napkin and wiped his mouth and hands clean. A leaden weight had suddenly dropped at the bottom of his stomach, and his heart was hammering in his chest, what a fuckin' pansy. Get a hold of yourself, Keeley.
He held the guy's gaze as he came over, absently noticing how tall he was, and the head of hair on him. He stood his ground, hands in his jacket's pockets, and waited until he was within earshot. "Nathan, yeah?"
"Well, you don't look like a total cunt," Nathan offered after a moment, mouth twisting up with an awkward but ready smile. He slid one of his own hands out of the pockets of his black jacket, giving the other boy a hearty smack on the shoulder and a chummy sort of a shake. "Want another frank? I'm as starved for spicy meat piled with sauerkraut as a gay German gigolo all of a sudden."
That... was surprisingly alright, and something in Jamie's posture relaxed slightly, as his lips curved up into a small smile. He nodded, hanging his head for a second before looking up at Nathan. "Sure, yeah. They're pretty small." And his last meal on the plane had been a little while back now.
"For these prices in this city, what did you think you were getting? Does his highness' goblet not overflow with fruity beverage?! Still a steal, man," Nathan insisted, getting them in line and ordering them up another couple of specials.
Instead of cramming them back into their corner once they had food in hand, however, he led them outside to lean against the storefront while they tucked in. A bit of fresh air, and the illusion of just a shade more intimacy than in the bustling box of diners under the paper-fruit-hung ceiling.
"So you've got to know you're fucking crazy, just flying out here unannounced like this," Nathan choked out from around his mouthful.
"It was a spur of the moment thing," Jamie replied with a shrug. Not like it cost him anything - well, not unless their dad pressed charges which, let's face it, was not out of the realm of possibilities, between the toaster and the money.
He'd come here to talk to this brother he hadn't known he had, but now that Nathan was here, he felt temporarily out of words, and just focused on eating his hot dog, as quickly as possible - he wanted a fag, badly.
"Spur of the moment is taking a mysterious class A from a girl you don't know because she's hot and you're trying to get in there! Spur of the moment is forgoing underpants because you want to give the boys a day to run free! Flying off to another country with no plan whatsoever to meet someone who didn't even know you existed before you got there is utterly mad!" It was half a yell from Nathan, and still somehow nearly a laugh, as he shook his head with incredulity. "Jaysis, the fuck were you thinking? All these years you never had a brother - why'd it suddenly matter today?"
"Fuck you," Jamie retorted angrily, having no patience for people taking the piss, especially not when they were half-brothers who'd had it all perfect all this time, two parents in their lives all along, posh fucking American school taking them in and all. "You don't know what it's like! You've had him all your life." He'd chosen them, rather than Jamie and his mother.
Nathan gawked at him from around a big gulp of papaya drink. "Wait, you - you're jealous because I got more 'quality time' with our father? You met him, yeah? World's largest twat capable of human speech, yeah? And I'm guessing that he didn't exactly embrace you in a big hug and promise that you was going to be pals from then on, that he'd start being a proper dad then?" He hoisted his thick eyebrows at the other one.
"He was there for you!" Jamie protested, and threw the rest of his hot dog away in anger. He wasn't going to eat on his brother's charity if he was going to be an asshole about everything. He didn't feel hungry anymore anyway. "He didn't even want to talk to me! I'm just a fuckin' mistake to him!" And here he was, like a right twat, crossing the ocean thinking his brother would be any different.
"Oh, you think so? Was that before or after he cheated on my mum with yours? He walked out on us when I was a kid, didn't do us any fucking favours when he was around, and he never looked back when he went!" His face twisted up with his own upset, and he impulsively pitched out the last of his own hotdog into the busy street ahead. It bounced and splattered off of a passing car with a honk from the driver before getting lost in the traffic.
"Maybe he didn't want to talk to you, but you know what? He didn't know you from anybody. He knew me, and then he decided I wasn't worth the fucking effort," Nathan blinked too hard for a minute, staring into the street to clear his eyes and swallow for before looking back at Jamie. "I swear to God, I wish - I wish I was you, and never had to know him."
...huh. Jamie's anger didn't evaporate, but he certainly took pause after that outpour. Maybe Nathan hadn't been better off after all. Jamie swallowed, and tried to redirect his anger at the right person - their father. He scratched his thumb along the side of his nose, looked to the side, took a battered pack of cigarettes out of his jacket breast pocket and lit up. It was only once the acrid smoke filled his lungs that he answered, "Well, I bashed him in the head with a toaster before stealing the cash he kept in the house."
So there was that.
"You... Are you serious?" Nathan whirled back around from where he'd pitched the last of his trash in more the usual rubbish bin fashion. "Youare. No wonder the old man didn't pick up after the twentieth call." He couldn't help but laugh. "Well now I don't know that I want to talk to you either," he shoved a hand over the other boy's short, bristly hair for a frisk. "My baby brother, the badass!"
A thought dawned on him only after. "...You didn't kill him, did you?"
Jamie batted the hand away mechanically, but with a distinct lack of hostility, and took another drag off his cigarette, a hint of a smile twitching up his lips at Nathan's reaction. Before a frown replaced that at his brother's question. "No! No, he was breathing. I was just - I was just so mad at him."
"That's great then, real nice one," Nathan grinned. "I knew there was an explanation for my sudden love affair with bread toasting appliances!"
Nathan reached into his jacket. "This calls for a celebration," he unscrewed the bottle of cheap whisky in the brown paper bag and knocked back a mouthful, before handing it over. "Hey, let me bum one of your smokes," he wheezed slightly from the alcohol burning down his throat. "The American brands taste like shit."
"Shit, do they?" Jamie asked after taking a drink, apparently not minding the burn of the whisky so much. He pulled his pack back out and opened it for Nathan to help himself to a ciggie. "I would've bought more over there if I'd known." Or probably not; again, not really thinking ahead most of the time.
"The cheap ones, at least," Nathan confirmed, tapping a cigarette out of his pack to trade for comparison. "So, I talked to my friend about potential squats," he figured he might as well mention sooner rather than later. "She gave me a couple of addresses to look in on. "You feelin' fortified enough to go look at the finest alternative real estate the city's got on offer?"
Jamie accepted the cigarette and stuck it on top of his ear for safekeeping while he finished the one he had lit. "Sure, yeah," he agreed with a half-grimace. And, because he could be halfway polite when he had a mind for it, "Thanks for lookin' it up."
"It's not like to be much, but it's from a reliable source," Nathan shook and snapped the wheel of his cheap plastic lighter a few times before it made him a sputtering flame. "I'd put you up at my school if I could," he explained around a first puff. "...That's the stuff there," he sighed an exhalation, looking at the cigarette between his fingers. "But they're pretty fucking serious with their students-and-staff-only policy. It's a real freakshow of humanity anyway, so I can't say as you're missing much."
Jamie frowned in thought as he replayed that part of the conversation with their father in his mind. "Are you really... gifted?" That was the word the old man had used, although he'd sounded distinctly sceptical.
Nathan pulled himself upright, gesturing at his lanky body with hands both be-cigaretted and not waving at his person, smoke snorting from his nostrils. "Just look at me! Am I not magnificent as fuck? Of course I'm a bloody genius! One might go so far as to say that I'm immortal in my greatness! And you, little brother," he vaulted up onto a bus bench, and brought a set of fingers around all slo-mo like, as if pointing at him with great drama. "You're made of the very same stuff! Or - well, half as much, really. But still! Dead sexy, clever as a frothing fox, probably going to live forever - half of that isn't at all shabby!"
It was difficult not to smile, and even laugh, at Nathan's antics. He was one of these people with charisma, right? Jamie didn't fight the urge, and he brought his cigarette to smiling lips to take a drag. "You make it sound sexier than your usual nerd, I'll give you that."
"None of that speccy, cardigan-wearing, straight edge bullshite with me, you understand?" Nathan dropped down from the bench, cigarette trail snaking along after. "Men of the world such as you and I, we know the point of youth is to screw up as brilliantly as possible, to experiment with drugs and drink and what to put our penises in and to have bad attitudes as we go about it, yeah?" He found himself smiling back at...his brother around his fag. Sure, he could do this. They could do this. "I'll make sure you have a good time of it in New York, all right?"
That really did sound brilliant, if you asked Jamie. Turned out his brother was a right sort, absolutely unlike their father. "All right," he agreed, sounding a lot more nonchalant than he looked, and was. But it wouldn't be very cool to show exactly how impressed he was. "Whereabout's that squat of yours, then?" Squats - they always had the best parties, right?
"I haven't the faintest," Nathan shrugged with an upward jerk of his shoulders. "But c'mon, we'll find it one way or the other."
Meanwhile, in New York... In a world of super-powered mutant kids as a matter of course, Nathan's about to get a phone call even he couldn't have anticipated. Guest starring Noriko as the (ignored) Voice of Reason.
Jamie had been determined, when he'd boarded the plane. During the flight, determination had started to make way to nerves. By the time he cleared customs, eight hours later, nerves had become anxiety. He could always be counted on for impulse decisions, but this didn't feel like such an impulse anymore, not after so long spent on a plane.
Fuck it. He hadn't come to America for nothing.
He made it outside and lit up a cigarette, thinking of his next move, bag slung over his shoulder. Try and make it to the school, confront the guy in person? Or use the mobile number he'd got from their father. Option number one could always come in play if he ended up hung up on.
Right, that was decided.
He already had some change from buying a snack on his way out, and he spotted a payphone a little way off. The paper with Nathan's mobile number was crumped in his jeans pocket, but still readable. Cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips, he put a few coins in and dialed the number, not leaving himself any time to think about what he was going to say. Impulse decisions, right.
Significantly closer than they'd been eight hours ago, but not one wit more aware of why that even fucking mattered, another kid sat smoking a different brand of cigarettes. There was a rusty bucket on the back porch, where the skinny boy smoked on the dick-freezing days, when he couldn't be arsed to go further than he absolutely had to for a few chimney-like puffs against the cold air. He huffed the last of the welcome heat from of his lungs with a shiver, stubbing out the butt in the snowy bucket against the frozen mash of the others as his phone rang.
He didn't recognize the number that came up, but it was local. Hunh. Who'd he given his number to that wouldn't be in his mobile already?
"Nathan's giant penis palace. You'll have a shock at the rock of our cock, we've all the meat you can eat, all female customers satisfied - all sales final. What's yer pleasure?"
Jamie's eyes widened at the greeting, and for a second he wondered if he'd got the right number. But the voice sounded Irish enough, and what were the odds he'd misdialed and got another Irish Nathan in the States. "You're Nathan Young?" he still asked, for confirmation. Maybe once he'd got over the painful I'm-your-brother part, he'd be amused about the greeting.
On his end, Nathan screwed up his face at his bucket, thinking. Whoever he was didn't have an American accent... "Does he owe you money or something? Because if that's the case, no, and I've never heard of 'em."
"I'm his brother," Jamie replied steadily. Impulse; it really was his thing. And also why he'd realised too late that he should've changed that 'his' to a 'your', really. The guy's answer left no doubt.
Nathan snorted, just as readily. "No you're not. If you'd even met him for one minute, you'd know he hasn't got a brother. He's a classic example of an only child," he yanked open the door to stamp his way back inside, trying to knock the packed snow from the shallow treads of his Chucks.
Jamie finally got his pronouns right, as he replied, "We have the same father," turning the cigarette in his hand and taking a drag after that sentence. "Mike Young?" That he might have bashed in the head with a toaster before leaving. Detail.
There was a pause on the line, Nathan's face well and truly scrunched with thoughtful confusion where he just sort of stood, stopped in the open doorway and letting in all the cold on his heels. It sounded mad, but then, so did waking up with superpowers one day. And his father was a big enough cunt for something like that to be plausible. All his life, Mike had been gone who knew where whenever there was some actual fathering shite that needed done.
"...And you're sure about that?"
"Pretty sure, yeah," Jamie answered with the sort of wryness that came from having got confirmation from the father in question before knocking him unconscious, stealing a bunch of his money and crossing the Atlantic. "Wouldn'ta made the trip otherwise."
There was another long pause. This guy had come across the pond for this? Really?
"...Yeah. Yeah, alright. Sure, I always wanted a brother. But this is kind of a fucked conversation to be having over the phone. Where are you?"
Jamie looked around him as he answered, as if he needed visual confirmation. "I just landed at JFK. Where d'you want to meet?"
"I dunno, man. Are you staying in the city?" Nathan thought about inviting his brother to the school - then thought better of it. They probably didn't need the drama of Superpowered Mutant High School on top of the drama this was already, and he didn't know what the hell they were doing here yet, him and his... Brother?
"I've been here for five minutes," Jamie retorted defensively. He probably should've figured that shit out before boarding the plane. "Give me at least a couple hours before I find a decent squat." Because these two words were so often associated, but he'd settle for some place where nothing worse might happen than people trying to steal his shit.
"You just fell off the plane into New York and you're planning to squat it out? Jaysis, you've got a big brass pair," Nathan marveled with a measure of respect, finally groping to yank the door closed behind him and getting himself properly back inside. "Must be genetic. Hey, I've got a friend who might have an idea of where you should go. What's say I ask her about it, then meet you for a few hotdogs or whatever in the city?"
"Sure," Jamie agreed, not sure how he felt about the compliment. No, he liked it, he wasn't sure how he felt about liking it. "Just tell me where." He'd figure his way to wherever it might be.
"Your phone there's local, yeah?" Nathan had started yanking off his coat, but now he wasn't sure if he shouldn't just leave it on, if he was going to meet this fella. So he sort of ended up with one arm in the coat, one arm out, his empty third limb flailing along the corridor as he went. "Have you got a mobile I can text the place to?"
"I don't think mine works here," Jamie replied with a frown. He'd never thought he'd end up in the States; he hadn't even looked into how to make his mobile work internationally. But he wasn't too worried. He'd find a burner phone on the cheap. "I'll get one, text you from it."
"You know what, I've got an old spare," Nathan told him as he tromped for the dorms, thinking of the phone they'd given him when he joined Xavier's. "You can use it. That is, if you're going to be here for a while." Because did it matter if he had a regular phone, if he was just going to get right back on the plane after they met? If he was squatting, though... "Are you? Going to stick around a while?"
For the life of him, Nathan didn't know if it'd be good news or bad either way.
"Even if you turn out to be a dickwad," Jamie confirmed, nothing if not blunt about it. "It'd be a shame to've come all this way and just turn back around without a little sightseeing."
"Compared to our dear old Da', how can I even hope to compete in the Dicklympics?" Our. How weird was that to be saying? Nathan didn't really believe it, not yet. Couldn't, probably, until the other kid convinced him in person - or didn't. "You've met him, haven't you?"
"Yeah," Jamie answered, frowning tight. At least their dad had been around for Nathan. "Yeah, I've met him. That's how I got your number." And address.
It hadn't even occurred to Nathan to think about how... What's his face had gotten his information. That seemed a lot less fantastical than the fact he'd suddenly got a brother. "And? Did he throw you all the birthday parties and play all of the catch with you he never bothered doing for me?"
"Look, can we talk this shit out in person?" Jamie cut the conversation short, because a) he was freezing, and b) he didn't know what to think about anything right now. Had their father been an asshole to both of them, then? It had to have been better for Nathan. He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and toed it out under the sole of his Cat boot.
"Right," Nathan tried, just for this once, to rein himself in a little and take a breath as he pushed into his room to look for that old mobile. "Let me tell you where to go..."
Noriko's phone was set beside her on her bed and blaring a Discount song as she bent over her physics textbook, dutifully going through her homework. Hey, it was about electricity; she was all over it. When somebody knocked on her door, she answered "Come in!" without looking up, finishing writing down a formula.
Which was just as well, because after his minor assault on the front of the door with his urgent fists, Nathan's patience had been exhausted entirely and he's begun opening it before Noriko had even finished answering him. "If you were still a homeless in the city, where would you go?" It was as close as he was like to get by way of greeting, as the lanky boy barged in on her.
Noriko had looked up at Nathan by the time he was done asking, eyebrows raised incredulously, before the expression turned into a concerned frown. "What's going on?"
"Put that pout of yours away, it's not for me," Nathan told her expression, dropping to sit on the corner of her bed. "Not anymore, anyway. Or not yet. Look, you've got a brother, right?"
Now her frown was more about confusion than anything else. What did Keitaro have to do with NYC? "Yeah..."
"Well not me. Not ever, sister neither. I imagine my um took one look at me and said, 'can't possibly do better'n that'. You know what, most other kids wouldn't even play with me growing up, so intimidated by my natural majesty. But what if I did have one?" Nathan shook his head at the whole thing. It sounded crazier out loud than it had in his own mind, even. "Because apparently there's a kid out in the city who seems to think he's my half-brother, or at least says he is, and maybe he's completely and utterly full of shit, but he's still got to stay someplace!"
Noriko's frown was not going anywhere, as she tried to follow that. "So there's a kid in the city claiming he's your half-brother, and you want to put him up in a squat?" But, more importantly, "How did he find you?" How did Nathan know he wasn't Facility, really?
"He talked to my - our dad, apparently," Nathan explained. "I'm going to call him and chew him out in a minute here, yeah? So he'll have his chance to deny it. But if you knew what a lifelong arsehole he's been, you'd get it. It's not like he ever made an effort with me and my mum in the first place. It should surprise me more than it does, let's put it that way."
He sighed, flopping back onto Noriko's bed. Then stopped to dislodge a calculator from under him, flinging it aside. "What do I do if he's not really my brother? What do I do if he is?"
"What do you do if he's not?" Noriko retorted evenly. She got the emotional turmoil, sure. But pragmatism first. "What if he's a Facility kid, like Jack?"
"It's not as if he's asked for a free pass to the school. Powers didn't exactly slide into the conversation on the phone, either. And what's he going to do to me they couldn't?" Nathan rolled his head over to look at Noriko. "I'm the most shit student at this school anyway. Talk about a wasted effort."
"You can't die, Nathan," Noriko replied, then added a "Presumably." It wasn't as if they'd tested every way for him to die. "I don't think it's your academic results they'd be after. You should have Tessa check him out before you meet him."
"Exactly! I can't die, so what's to worry? And it's not like I can give my power away to other people," Nathan groaned, rolling back up into a sitting position and leaning himself off over the edge of the bed, as if ready to bolt. "Does that mean you're not going to give me any ideas about where to look for a decent squat? Not even a wee little inkling for your good friend Nathan? Not at all?"
"Of course I am," Noriko retorted, and started scribbling down a couple of addresses on a page of her notebook. "But seriously. Call Tessa." She tore off the page and handed it to him. "They were both still around a couple weeks back. If they've been closed down, call me and I'll see what I can find out."
"Seriously, she's not returned my calls since catching me doing some dirty with the toaster," he informed Noriko as he plucked the paper away from her. Actually, he suspected that Tessa didn't really know or care if he was at the school, and 'doing the dirty' in this case equated with programming in dirty rhymes to appear on various the breakfast breads of unassuming students, but whatever. Besides, that toaster was a slut. "Thank you," he started folding up the paper and stuffing it into his jacket pocket, heading for the door.
"Just so you know, I'm calling her," Noriko let him know. She was Tessa; she could figure it out by the time Nathan got to the city, she was pretty certain.
"Ask her if she's still hot for me, would you?" He lifted a hand to wave his thanks back at her, but he didn't stop at the door. They'd tell him if he was like to have a psycho-killer on his hands. Probably. And anyway, he had a natural resistance to being pycho-killed.
Gray's Papaya. Really odd name for a hot dog shop, if you asked Jamie, but nobody was asking him, and that was fine by him. Besides, any place that sported a sign saying "Let's be Frank, We want you to buy our Furters" was alright by him.
He was standing in a corner with a Recession Special, two hot dogs and a papaya drink which, he supposed, was what the name was all about? The jetlag was starting to get to him, and he rubbed at his eyes before yawning again, and getting starting on his second hot dog. He had to admit, New Yorkers really knew their hot dogs. He was also keeping an eye on the door for Nathan, and belatedly wishing he'd gone through their dad's place for a picture. Thinking ahead was really not his forte.
He wasn't the only one of those about. Nathan didn't have any picture to go by, either, though the bus trip it took to get him into the city gave him more time than he necessarily wanted to think about what his half-brother might be like. He sounded of a similar age, but other than that... Would he also be tall and thin? Probably not, seeing as Nathan was well taller than their father. That came from Mum's side. Would he have similar hair to both Nathan and their old man, though, all wild curls? Would they look much alike at all? Could you tell they were related, just by looking?
Jamie - his brother had told him before they'd ended the call that his name was Jamie Keeley. He didn't sound too posh or be-cardiganed, what with willing to squat in NYC of all places, so that was something.
Nathan found himself standing outside the classic New York hotdog shack with its neon lighted name and tacky signs plastered floor to ceiling, looking in on the diners and wondering which of them was, in a really fucked-up twist of fate he'd yelled and cursed at his father's voicemail over, his brother he'd never known about.
Too old. Too young. That's just a right fat woman, there. Black-ish Americanese. His hazel eyes finally caught sight of a kid about his age that had been mostly obscured by diners shuffling through the standing-room only establishment in a denim jacket, dark hair buzzed short, Irish pale, ear pierced, tattooed neck, even... Holy fuck, but they did look alike, a bit, though those features were a touch more blunt than his own, that body a bit shorter, a bit more muscled. They easily looked close enough to be brothers.
Nathan pulled back his bony shoulders and took a deep breath, pushing open the door and trying to act as casual as one could when they were deliberately making to meet their sibling for the first time.
The door swung open again, and Jamie looked over without much hope; it felt like the fiftieth time this was happening. If he was being stood up... Wait a second, the guy was the right age and... maybe there was something there, and Jamie swallowed the last bite of his dog, standing up a little straighter. Definitely something there, since the guy was making a beeline for him. He grabbed the napkin and wiped his mouth and hands clean. A leaden weight had suddenly dropped at the bottom of his stomach, and his heart was hammering in his chest, what a fuckin' pansy. Get a hold of yourself, Keeley.
He held the guy's gaze as he came over, absently noticing how tall he was, and the head of hair on him. He stood his ground, hands in his jacket's pockets, and waited until he was within earshot. "Nathan, yeah?"
"Well, you don't look like a total cunt," Nathan offered after a moment, mouth twisting up with an awkward but ready smile. He slid one of his own hands out of the pockets of his black jacket, giving the other boy a hearty smack on the shoulder and a chummy sort of a shake. "Want another frank? I'm as starved for spicy meat piled with sauerkraut as a gay German gigolo all of a sudden."
That... was surprisingly alright, and something in Jamie's posture relaxed slightly, as his lips curved up into a small smile. He nodded, hanging his head for a second before looking up at Nathan. "Sure, yeah. They're pretty small." And his last meal on the plane had been a little while back now.
"For these prices in this city, what did you think you were getting? Does his highness' goblet not overflow with fruity beverage?! Still a steal, man," Nathan insisted, getting them in line and ordering them up another couple of specials.
Instead of cramming them back into their corner once they had food in hand, however, he led them outside to lean against the storefront while they tucked in. A bit of fresh air, and the illusion of just a shade more intimacy than in the bustling box of diners under the paper-fruit-hung ceiling.
"So you've got to know you're fucking crazy, just flying out here unannounced like this," Nathan choked out from around his mouthful.
"It was a spur of the moment thing," Jamie replied with a shrug. Not like it cost him anything - well, not unless their dad pressed charges which, let's face it, was not out of the realm of possibilities, between the toaster and the money.
He'd come here to talk to this brother he hadn't known he had, but now that Nathan was here, he felt temporarily out of words, and just focused on eating his hot dog, as quickly as possible - he wanted a fag, badly.
"Spur of the moment is taking a mysterious class A from a girl you don't know because she's hot and you're trying to get in there! Spur of the moment is forgoing underpants because you want to give the boys a day to run free! Flying off to another country with no plan whatsoever to meet someone who didn't even know you existed before you got there is utterly mad!" It was half a yell from Nathan, and still somehow nearly a laugh, as he shook his head with incredulity. "Jaysis, the fuck were you thinking? All these years you never had a brother - why'd it suddenly matter today?"
"Fuck you," Jamie retorted angrily, having no patience for people taking the piss, especially not when they were half-brothers who'd had it all perfect all this time, two parents in their lives all along, posh fucking American school taking them in and all. "You don't know what it's like! You've had him all your life." He'd chosen them, rather than Jamie and his mother.
Nathan gawked at him from around a big gulp of papaya drink. "Wait, you - you're jealous because I got more 'quality time' with our father? You met him, yeah? World's largest twat capable of human speech, yeah? And I'm guessing that he didn't exactly embrace you in a big hug and promise that you was going to be pals from then on, that he'd start being a proper dad then?" He hoisted his thick eyebrows at the other one.
"He was there for you!" Jamie protested, and threw the rest of his hot dog away in anger. He wasn't going to eat on his brother's charity if he was going to be an asshole about everything. He didn't feel hungry anymore anyway. "He didn't even want to talk to me! I'm just a fuckin' mistake to him!" And here he was, like a right twat, crossing the ocean thinking his brother would be any different.
"Oh, you think so? Was that before or after he cheated on my mum with yours? He walked out on us when I was a kid, didn't do us any fucking favours when he was around, and he never looked back when he went!" His face twisted up with his own upset, and he impulsively pitched out the last of his own hotdog into the busy street ahead. It bounced and splattered off of a passing car with a honk from the driver before getting lost in the traffic.
"Maybe he didn't want to talk to you, but you know what? He didn't know you from anybody. He knew me, and then he decided I wasn't worth the fucking effort," Nathan blinked too hard for a minute, staring into the street to clear his eyes and swallow for before looking back at Jamie. "I swear to God, I wish - I wish I was you, and never had to know him."
...huh. Jamie's anger didn't evaporate, but he certainly took pause after that outpour. Maybe Nathan hadn't been better off after all. Jamie swallowed, and tried to redirect his anger at the right person - their father. He scratched his thumb along the side of his nose, looked to the side, took a battered pack of cigarettes out of his jacket breast pocket and lit up. It was only once the acrid smoke filled his lungs that he answered, "Well, I bashed him in the head with a toaster before stealing the cash he kept in the house."
So there was that.
"You... Are you serious?" Nathan whirled back around from where he'd pitched the last of his trash in more the usual rubbish bin fashion. "Youare. No wonder the old man didn't pick up after the twentieth call." He couldn't help but laugh. "Well now I don't know that I want to talk to you either," he shoved a hand over the other boy's short, bristly hair for a frisk. "My baby brother, the badass!"
A thought dawned on him only after. "...You didn't kill him, did you?"
Jamie batted the hand away mechanically, but with a distinct lack of hostility, and took another drag off his cigarette, a hint of a smile twitching up his lips at Nathan's reaction. Before a frown replaced that at his brother's question. "No! No, he was breathing. I was just - I was just so mad at him."
"That's great then, real nice one," Nathan grinned. "I knew there was an explanation for my sudden love affair with bread toasting appliances!"
Nathan reached into his jacket. "This calls for a celebration," he unscrewed the bottle of cheap whisky in the brown paper bag and knocked back a mouthful, before handing it over. "Hey, let me bum one of your smokes," he wheezed slightly from the alcohol burning down his throat. "The American brands taste like shit."
"Shit, do they?" Jamie asked after taking a drink, apparently not minding the burn of the whisky so much. He pulled his pack back out and opened it for Nathan to help himself to a ciggie. "I would've bought more over there if I'd known." Or probably not; again, not really thinking ahead most of the time.
"The cheap ones, at least," Nathan confirmed, tapping a cigarette out of his pack to trade for comparison. "So, I talked to my friend about potential squats," he figured he might as well mention sooner rather than later. "She gave me a couple of addresses to look in on. "You feelin' fortified enough to go look at the finest alternative real estate the city's got on offer?"
Jamie accepted the cigarette and stuck it on top of his ear for safekeeping while he finished the one he had lit. "Sure, yeah," he agreed with a half-grimace. And, because he could be halfway polite when he had a mind for it, "Thanks for lookin' it up."
"It's not like to be much, but it's from a reliable source," Nathan shook and snapped the wheel of his cheap plastic lighter a few times before it made him a sputtering flame. "I'd put you up at my school if I could," he explained around a first puff. "...That's the stuff there," he sighed an exhalation, looking at the cigarette between his fingers. "But they're pretty fucking serious with their students-and-staff-only policy. It's a real freakshow of humanity anyway, so I can't say as you're missing much."
Jamie frowned in thought as he replayed that part of the conversation with their father in his mind. "Are you really... gifted?" That was the word the old man had used, although he'd sounded distinctly sceptical.
Nathan pulled himself upright, gesturing at his lanky body with hands both be-cigaretted and not waving at his person, smoke snorting from his nostrils. "Just look at me! Am I not magnificent as fuck? Of course I'm a bloody genius! One might go so far as to say that I'm immortal in my greatness! And you, little brother," he vaulted up onto a bus bench, and brought a set of fingers around all slo-mo like, as if pointing at him with great drama. "You're made of the very same stuff! Or - well, half as much, really. But still! Dead sexy, clever as a frothing fox, probably going to live forever - half of that isn't at all shabby!"
It was difficult not to smile, and even laugh, at Nathan's antics. He was one of these people with charisma, right? Jamie didn't fight the urge, and he brought his cigarette to smiling lips to take a drag. "You make it sound sexier than your usual nerd, I'll give you that."
"None of that speccy, cardigan-wearing, straight edge bullshite with me, you understand?" Nathan dropped down from the bench, cigarette trail snaking along after. "Men of the world such as you and I, we know the point of youth is to screw up as brilliantly as possible, to experiment with drugs and drink and what to put our penises in and to have bad attitudes as we go about it, yeah?" He found himself smiling back at...his brother around his fag. Sure, he could do this. They could do this. "I'll make sure you have a good time of it in New York, all right?"
That really did sound brilliant, if you asked Jamie. Turned out his brother was a right sort, absolutely unlike their father. "All right," he agreed, sounding a lot more nonchalant than he looked, and was. But it wouldn't be very cool to show exactly how impressed he was. "Whereabout's that squat of yours, then?" Squats - they always had the best parties, right?
"I haven't the faintest," Nathan shrugged with an upward jerk of his shoulders. "But c'mon, we'll find it one way or the other."
