Curtis and Simon - backdated
May. 17th, 2014 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
om_chroma posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
om_mainCurtis and Simon catch up over beers. Topics include their plans for next year, their love lives, and how much they miss England.
Curtis headed straight over when he spotted Simon, they may never have been really tight before but he liked Simon and right now he was honestly the only connection to home that didn't have residual awkward regret (Leash) or fill him with annoyance akin to homicidal rage (Nathan). When he relaxed a little, Simon was a pretty great guy actually.
"Beers at mine?" He suggested as he came up behind Bellamy, they'd done it a few times recently and it had been pretty fun.
"Hi," Simon greeted him in surprise, and with a small smile - pleasant surprise. He was just done with dinner, so it was the perfect time for a drink. Well, he had his art project he wanted to finish before graduation, even if it wouldn't count for his grade, but... it could wait a day. "Why not," he agreed, falling in stride with Curtis as they headed for the boys' wing.
"Been up to much?" Curtis asked the shorter teen as the traced the familiar route.
"The usual," Simon answered with a small smile. Well, not quite, but it wouldn't feel right talking about Scott's offer out here in the hallways, so he would wait until they were in Curtis's room. "Finishing up my last art project. Getting ready for graduation," the last was said almost sheepishly; Simon still couldn't quite believe he was graduating in an American high school. His life had definitely taken a turn for the unexpected, but the smaller things like that still tripped him up at times.
Oh yeah, Curtis had been there. Nodding, he chuckled "Fucking surreal, ain't it? Us lot graduating a high school" High school was spoken with a perfect, albeit it very valley girl-ish, American accent.
"It's nothing, compared to..." He raised his hand and turned it invisible, then back to its natural state. "But it's still..." He pursed his lips, annoyed by his inability to find the right adjective for what he wanted to say. So he ended up echoing Curtis, with another sheepish smile, "Surreal."
"Your control's gotten really good." Curtis commented with a grin as they turned into the west wing.
"I've been working hard," Simon stated with a small smile of thanks. And, well, Eileen helped. She always pushed him to find new things to work on, new ways to make the most of his mutation.
"It's obvious." Curtis nodded and as they headed to his door, her couldn't resist showing off how much he'd been working too by shifting into one of his new bodies.
"You're becoming so good at the details," Simon stated, after recovering from his surprise. He eyed Curtis's new ink curiously. "What do they mean?"
"Tats don't have to mean something, sometimes they're just for aesthetic reasons." Curtis told him, sure that an arty boy like Simon could appreciate that as he let them inside. "Especially since I can get rid of them so easy. Hell, if I concentrate I can have moving tattoos. Pretty epic shit." Even if he did say so himself.
"The Illustrated Man," Simon smiled as he walked inside. He did love his science fiction.
"That's me, well not always the man bit. Pretty much gender fluid these days to be honest." And he was getting a lot more comfortable talking about it too.
Simon accepted that in silence, then told Curtis, "You've grown so much." He was not sure that Curtis would even have understood what gender fluidity was, back when they had met.
"And sometimes I even get smaller." Curtis grinned as he opened his fridge, ok so he knew what Simon actually meant and yeah he was a totally different person and that was both good and bad.
Simon smiled at the joke, and accepted the beer with a murmured, "Thanks." Being social, he could absolutely do that, as he opened his beer. "What about you? What have you been up to?" And he was only mildly awkward about it.
Turning back to original Curtis for the moment, he shrugged. "Last few things to finish up before college is done then it's just working at the shop basically fulltime for the summer." He'd told Simon that he'd been told he couldn't compete anymore when Simon had told him about film school. He figured maybe keeping shit to himself wasn't a great idea anymore if it lead to 4 day long breaks from mutant school resulting in worrying everyone he cared for most.
"I'm a very boring person nowadays."
"I don't think you could ever be boring," Simon pointed out with an awkward smile, and took a first sip.
"You'd be surprised." Curtis told him as he sat down, starting on his own.
"So I wouldn't be bored," Simon offered, trying for a joke.
"Touche." Curtis nodded back "Nah, all my life plans hit the dust a while back and I guess it's time to accept it. Fuck knows what I'm gonna do now. What do you wanna do post film school? Superheroing still high on the list?"
At least Curtis wasn't laughing at him about it the way he once would have, but Simon still blushed slightly. It was never easy, talking about it in such terms to anyone that wasn't Jensen or Shaun. "That was never going to be post film school," he admitted. "But - it might happen differently than I thought." He took another drink, clearly trying to find his words. "Scott Summers came to talk to me." It was still a little - well, surreal. "He's putting together a team. He asked me if I wanted to join."
"Summers is? Huh." Curtis hadn't know that and he and Scott got on pretty alright, at least he thought they did. Then again Scott knew more about Curtis's crap than most (though not as much as Pietro, Alice or Jack of course) so maybe he'd never mentioned it so he didn't have to tell Curtis why he wasn't suitable. None of that was Simon's fault though so he grinned and toasted his friend.
"Congrats man, hope it goes well for you."
"Thanks," Simon replied, a little uncertainly. It seemed like an odd thing to be congratulated about, and besides, nothing was even happening yet. He would wait and see how it went, first. Maybe the team would never even get off the ground, who knew. There were so many factors. "It's - I hope we can do some good. If it happens."
"Hope so too, and keep an eye on Summers yeah? That boy is gonna work himself into the ground if he's not careful." He cared about his friends even if said friends apparently had doubts about him.
"I don't think I'm going to be one to stop him," Simon said honestly. Scott and he weren't on those kinds of terms, after all. And given what Simon would have on his plate next year, he would be lucky enough if he did not work himself into the ground.
"Spose not, no." Curtis sipped his beer thoughtfully.
Simon was lost in his own thoughts for a few seconds, before he realised that silence had stretched for a little too long and smiled over at Curtis, deciding to perch himself on a chair. "It's so much like something out of a comic book."
Curtis smiled and nodded, thanks to Jensen he knew a lot more about comic books than he used to. "This whole place is, let's be real."
Simon smiled in agreement. That was true, and then some. "X-Factor can be the noir-ish spin-off." Its only two current members would be perfectly at home in a noir atmosphere - and he supposed that he could fit in as well, if Sage's offer had been anything real. Not that he knew whether he actually wanted to accept it.
"This is true, Damon's left noir and is more skeeze though, way I hear it." Curtis wouldn't trust him any further that he could throw him, and probably less than that.
"Noir was very - skeezy," Simon pointed out. To say the least.
"You know more about it than me," Curtis conceded with a head bob.
"Let's just say that I doubt that you would like the way they handled gender roles," Simon stated.
"I don't like how plenty of people handle gender roles." Curtis pointed out before shifting again, changing form to underline their next point. "But then, I do have a rather unique perspective."
Simon nodded with a brief smile. "Women tend to be damsels in distress or traitors that stab the lead in the back. Often the one, then the other. There are exceptions, but..." He shrugged a little.
"Sounds like half of the media out there then, really." She shrugged,sipping her beer. Curtis's clothes were kind of big but not uncomfortably or obscenely so.
"Not anywhere near that extent," Simon stated quietly, trying not to outright contradict Curtis - and not to let the fact that he looked like a very cute girl affect him, either. It was still Curtis.
It wasn't missed by her though, in fact it was the reason why she didn't usually tend to shift into female presenting bodies when one on one with Simon, since it made him so uncomfortable.
"Want me to shift back?"
Being called out on it while trying not to let it affect him reduced his efforts to nothing, and Simon started to blush that Curtis would have noticed. "N-no! Whatever you feel like."
She sighed, feeling bad for having made it worse "But it's making you uncomfortable and that's not right. You're, like, one of a small group of people that I'm comfortable with, doesn't feel right that the same's not true for you."
This was really not helping, making Simon all the more uncomfortable for being uncomfortable. "You don't have to change who you are. Who you want to be." He took a drink from his beer, hoping the chilled beverage would help his face cool down.
Curtis reverted back to original male form. "I'm always me, you know, whatever the body. Guess I should feel flattered though that you think I'm pretty though?"
Simon tried to smile, despite his blush. "You should maybe work on bodies that aren't as pretty. Not for me," he hastened to add, when he realised what that sounded like. "In case you need to not stand out." Every form he had ever seen Curtis in had been strikingly handsome, cute, or pretty. Simon understood that urge; why would anyone want to look anything less than their best? But from a strategical point of view...
"Alice has said that too. I don't try to be pretty you know, it just happens." He sighed heavily like it was the biggest hardship ever before grinning.
Simon smirked. "You're not evil, you're just drawn that way?"
"Something like that." Curtis winked back with a smirk
Simon wasn't sure if Curtis had taken his words seriously, since he had brushed it off with a joke, but he wasn't going to repeat himself, used as he was not to be listened to. "Are you still studying from here next year?" he asked curiously, changing the subject altogether.
Curtis hadn't ignored the comment, it was one that had been made before as he said and he wasn't ignoring it, more he wasn't exactly sure how to make someone 'plain' when it was really all down to personal opinion and preference, right? Everyone was stunning to someone.
"I...probably. I'm enrolled at college as Melissa, see, because I was running back then so the colleges made initial contact about that. I can't stay in one form all the time, the build up of suppressed power gets too much, so I guess I'm staying for now." Off campus was an option but one that he was pretty torn about.
"You could make sure you have a room to yourself, and switch to another form behind locked doors," Simon offered helpfully. There was a sense of security in the thought of staying here, at least to his mind, but it could not be all good either. He was personally looking forward to the film school experience.
"I could but, uh, there would still be a lot of risks and it is still committing myself to one body, one gender all of the time. Or at least a majority. The body I feel most vulnerable in too and I'm not sure I can do that." He didn't feel like he needed to go into why the body was vulnerable, they'd already had that awkward conversation. He just sipped his beer instead.
That much Simon could only nod to, sympathetically, for all that he had no idea what it was like. "Sorry. I shouldn't have pushed."
"You weren't and if certain things hadn't happened then you'd be absolutely right so don't apologise. We're cool. You're a friend trying to look out for me, don't have many of those." Curtis told him honestly with a shrug.
Simon frowned, both surprised and concerned. "Don't you?" Curtis seemed so popular to him, not unlike Pietro.
"Well, you know, got a few close friends and shit but a fair few of them have left. Before you and Nathan got here, Scott used to refer to me as the hermit. It got that bad but, you're right, I'm trying to reverse it. My trust list has always been short though." He drained his beer but was in no hurry to get the next one.
It was a surprise to find that Simon was apparently considered to be on that list, and he took that in in silence, unsure how to respond. If there was one thing he was hoping would not revert back to the way things had been, before, when he attended film school, it was the fact that he was not such an outcast here. He was nowhere near popular, but he had a few friends, and that was so much better than it used to be. "Thanks," he settled on, with an awkward smile.
"All down to you there really." Simon was a decent bloke behind the sky awkwardness, "You've not exactly been a hermit here either though."
"I've never really been a hermit," Simon pointed out quietly, even more awkwardly. It wasn't for lack of trying that he used not to have friends. People just never liked him.
It was Curtis's time then to sympathetically nod. "I know but, still, away from the shitty estate kids you'd definitely come out your shell. There's no denying that."
"We all have more opportunities here," Simon stated, trying to let the awkwardness catch on and grow. There was no reason to feel so awkward about what Curtis was saying.
"Don't knock yourself though, mate. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but you seem more confident to me. Happier too, can't just give credit to this place for it." Encouraging without patronising was a fine line at times but he was sincere so his words (hopefully) rang true.
"I'd rather give credit to the other people here," Simon said with a small, fond smile. Any place was only as good as the people in it, unless you really did want to live a hermit's life, far away from anyone else.
"Fair enough, there are some pretty decent people around, true." Curtis couldn't not agree there. "Still, been good to see you happier, if we can be all slushy like this after one beer."
"I'm afraid it won't be the same, out there," Simon confessed, encouraged by the way Curtis kept talking to him. "This is a very special environment."
"I worried about that too." Curtis admitted, refering of course to when he'd been considering leaving. "We won't be too far though if you do miss us. You could always come visit."
"I'll be here regularly anyway, hopefully," Simon stated with a small smile. "To train?"
"Of course." Curtis nodded again and reached for a second beer. "Forgot for a second there. Scott'll want you back, of course."
"I was going to be back to train regularly anyway," Simon admitted. Not with his squad, but with Shaun and Jensen. "I doubt my school has a Danger Room," he joked awkwardly.
"True, this place is fairly unique in that respect....and a bunch of others, let's face it."
"I feel like this should be an easy transition, after coming here," Simon stated quietly. His tone let on that he was actually afraid that it wouldn't be.
"I'm sure it will be." Curtis told him firmly, "It's natural to be nervous but you'll be fine, I'm sure." Simon had gotten through much, much worse after all.
"But when we got here... I wasn't alone." It wasn't an experience he could dissociate from Nathan. "And there was so much else going on... I was distracted from worrying about it." And he hadn't known anything else. He'd always been an outcast. Now that he had known this...
"If you're not happy then you come back and we figure out something else you want to do. OK? There's always a way out. I mean if it's anything like mine, college is way way harder than I expected but it's rewarding. I can't trade notes with classmates or anything though, I don't get that side of college and you will. Just see what you can make of it." He was doing his best but he wasn't sure if it was helping so added jokingly "Hey, if you wanna impress the other guys or whatever I could always come visit, pretend to be your hot out of town girlfriend?" At which point he shifted again.
Simon's faint blush deepened at the offer, and he shook his head. He would never use a girl - or a gender-fluid person - as a way to make himself look better, and he would certainly not ask anyone to pretend to be his girlfriend, even if Eileen might not do horrible things to his bodily functions for it. "Thanks, but... I'll stick it out. Whatever happens."
"I was only playing Simon." She told him, smiling as she sipped her beer. "It's ok to smile."
Simon smiled, if only to please... him, her? He was never sure how to refer to Curtis - or Melissa - in those moments. The clear divide between the genders made no sense to him, since he was constantly trying to remind himself that this was the same person, no matter what he looked like. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry," She insisted before shifting back to Curtis. "And, hey, you're right. Maybe you'll meet some great girl at college anyway and not even need me."
"I don't think you should be valued according to whether you're dating someone," Simon answered, and did his best to make a joke, complete with a smile. "Even someone really pretty." Meaning any of Curtis's female bodies... and even his male ones, as far as Simon had seen. "I'm sort of seeing someone already, anyway," he blurted out, as always unsure about how Eileen would feel about him talking about her this way. "I don't know if she wants to do the medium distance relationship, though..." It wasn't as if he could bring it up to her that way, after all.
"Ok, before I get sidetracked, no way was I meaning you should be valued by who you're dating. I just meant it like it'd boost your confidence or whatever." Curtis explained hastily before getting thoroughly sidetracked. "But sounds like you're doing great without my help. Had no idea! Who, how long? Whatever details I'm allowed?"
If that sort of thing boosted his ego, it sort of sounded as if Simon thought you should be valued that way, but he let it go anyway. Simon wasn't ever confrontational... outside of a few key topics. He certainly didn't feel confident enough about his relationship with Curtis to confront him about this of all things, so he focused on his friend's curiosity. "You can't tell anyone," he warned him first. "She wouldn't like that."
"Cross my heart." Curtis told him seriously.
Simon nodded, then only offered, "Eileen Harshaw? Since the Mardi Gras party." The one Alisha liked to say she had thrown for him.
"Ok, I don't think I know her. I hope things work out for you guys." Just because things had crashed and burned with him didn't mean he was bitter about other people connecting.
"She's... kind of difficult?" Simon offered. "I don't know if things are supposed to work out." He really liked her, or he wouldn't be with her, that wasn't the issue. But Eileen was Eileen. Simon expected her to suddenly realise she was worth better than him at any given time.
"My Nan always said 'If it's meant to be, it will be'," And beyond Nanna's pearls of wisdom, he hardly felt like a person who should be allowed to give relationship advice. "If it helps at all, you're doing better than me."
Simon wasn't certain that he agreed with Curtis's grandmother, although he liked the sentiment. It was a comforting one, but one that he wasn't sure he believed in, and one that he truly didn't feel applied to Eileen and him. But the shift of focus was a welcome one, and he focused on his curiosity rather than his unease at thinking that they might be 'meant to be'. "How are you doing?" he asked curiously, hoping that Curtis wouldn't mind. He had to wonder if it had to do with Pietro, since they had kissed that one time at the party, but Pietro was with Remy...
"Well," He saw no harm in telling Simon. Of all the community service lot, he's probably be the coolest about it. Didn't mean he wasn't still awkward as hell admitting it. He still felt stupid for it all. "I fell for someone and was, like, totally out of character and heart on my sleeve type bullshit with 'em and, well, got shot down. Badly. For someone else in fact so, yeah, not great you could say."
Simon winced in sympathy; rejection was a horrible thing to live through. "I'm sorry. Are you alright?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's been a while now. Not saying I'm doing backflips about seeing them together and shit but it'd be pretty childish to hold a grudge so..." He was determined to be the bigger man...even if part of him did kind of hate Steve in that jealous, irrational way.
"Still, it can't be easy," Simon sympathised.
"No," Curtis agree with a small nod "But beer and friends help."
Simon raised his nearly empty beer slightly at Curtis, smiling a little sadly (that help was needed at all), then drank to that.
After mirroring the gesture, Curtis asked "Good for a second?" Before curiosity drew him back to "So, Eileen. What's her powers?" He'd be fine if Simon declined to answer though, he'd noticed Simon hadn't asked who'd turned him down yet.
"Thanks," Simon agreed, and stood with a small smile. "I'll get it." No need for Curtis to have to move to get him a beer, and he answered his second question as he moved towards the mini-fridge, setting his empty beer on the desk. "Electromagnetism. She manipulates electromagnetic waves. That's how she flies." And how she made other people fly, too, he thought with a small smile.
"Very cool. See, flying and invisibility are like the top two super powers people always wish they had."
"She can do both," Simon told him, his smile a little wider now as he moved back to his seat, a new beer in hand. "Light waves."
"Even cooler." As was the way Simon's face lit up, talking about her. "She sounds like quite a girl."
"Don't let her hear you say that," Simon answered, and took a first drink from his beer. Eileen was a lot of things, but phrasing compliments the right way was something he had learned over the course of months.
"Got it." He noises and mimed zipping his lips before slowly volunteering "It was Jack." Which, since Simon knew him when he was identifying as male and straight, it felt like he was making another big statement about himself but he didn't mind so much really. Of the other three, Simon was the most respectful.
It took a couple of seconds for Simon to understand what Curtis meant, and then his smile disappeared. Heartbreak wasn't really smile-inducing. "Harkness?" He didn't think that there was another Jack around, but he didn't know all of the new arrivals.
"That's the one." He watched the other boy, suddenly realising he wasn't sure exactly of Simon's opinion on Jack being an ex-facility collaborator and all. Of course that was removing so much of the story but could be understandable since Curtis and Pietro were the only ones who knew some stuff...and probably Steve now, he supposed.
"I'm sorry it didn't work out like you wanted," Simon said sympathetically. It took guts to go for something like this; Simon wasn't sure he would ever have that kind of courage.
"Yeah, me too." He sipped his beer and shook his head "But shit happens, don't it?"
"That's what they say," Simon confirmed, turning the beer in his hands. "Are you - are you two friends?" He wasn't sure that they were to start with, or he would have asked 'going to stay friends'.
"He want's to be and, well, it's better to be the bigger man...like I said my trust list is very short..." And somehow even after all this mess and hurt and lies, Jack was still on that list.
Simon frowned a little; Curtis's words were very ambiguous, making it unclear whether Jack was still on that list or not. His lack of decisiveness suggested that... "But it's still a little early to tell?"
Curtis swallowed and nodded "I want to be but...you know?"
"You still feel too hurt," Simon nodded sympathetically.
Curtis nodded somewhat awkwardly. He still felt pretty stupid about it all really.
The silence let Simon know that he should say something else, so he went on, "That's normal, I think. You need time."
"Time heals all things, that's another of Nana's saying." The older boy nodded, taking a swig of his beer. "You ever miss England?"
"I miss my family," Simon answered immediately. "And I miss some things about England?" But he didn't miss his life there. His life here was so very, very much better.
"'S what I mean, I kinda wish I could go back for a week or two, you know? Have proper chocolate and see the fam, that kind of shit."
"Hear the right accent everywhere," Simon agreed, with a small smile, "and see people drive on the right side of the road." Which happened to be the left one, yes. He missed these things.
"Radio 1, saying shit like 'taps' not ' faucet', proper tasting coke, fish and chips. Oh fucking dib dabs, I miss dib dabs..." And this was just going on a fairly strange Brit tangent now as he thought wistfully of all the penny sweets from the newsagents.
"At least we're not alone," Simon concluded with a small nostalgic smile. It would have been much worse if they hadn't been together. He was still suspicious about four of them from the community center ending up here, but he was grateful for their presence.
With a nod and half smile, Curtis raised his bottle "I'll drink to that."
Curtis headed straight over when he spotted Simon, they may never have been really tight before but he liked Simon and right now he was honestly the only connection to home that didn't have residual awkward regret (Leash) or fill him with annoyance akin to homicidal rage (Nathan). When he relaxed a little, Simon was a pretty great guy actually.
"Beers at mine?" He suggested as he came up behind Bellamy, they'd done it a few times recently and it had been pretty fun.
"Hi," Simon greeted him in surprise, and with a small smile - pleasant surprise. He was just done with dinner, so it was the perfect time for a drink. Well, he had his art project he wanted to finish before graduation, even if it wouldn't count for his grade, but... it could wait a day. "Why not," he agreed, falling in stride with Curtis as they headed for the boys' wing.
"Been up to much?" Curtis asked the shorter teen as the traced the familiar route.
"The usual," Simon answered with a small smile. Well, not quite, but it wouldn't feel right talking about Scott's offer out here in the hallways, so he would wait until they were in Curtis's room. "Finishing up my last art project. Getting ready for graduation," the last was said almost sheepishly; Simon still couldn't quite believe he was graduating in an American high school. His life had definitely taken a turn for the unexpected, but the smaller things like that still tripped him up at times.
Oh yeah, Curtis had been there. Nodding, he chuckled "Fucking surreal, ain't it? Us lot graduating a high school" High school was spoken with a perfect, albeit it very valley girl-ish, American accent.
"It's nothing, compared to..." He raised his hand and turned it invisible, then back to its natural state. "But it's still..." He pursed his lips, annoyed by his inability to find the right adjective for what he wanted to say. So he ended up echoing Curtis, with another sheepish smile, "Surreal."
"Your control's gotten really good." Curtis commented with a grin as they turned into the west wing.
"I've been working hard," Simon stated with a small smile of thanks. And, well, Eileen helped. She always pushed him to find new things to work on, new ways to make the most of his mutation.
"It's obvious." Curtis nodded and as they headed to his door, her couldn't resist showing off how much he'd been working too by shifting into one of his new bodies.
"You're becoming so good at the details," Simon stated, after recovering from his surprise. He eyed Curtis's new ink curiously. "What do they mean?"
"Tats don't have to mean something, sometimes they're just for aesthetic reasons." Curtis told him, sure that an arty boy like Simon could appreciate that as he let them inside. "Especially since I can get rid of them so easy. Hell, if I concentrate I can have moving tattoos. Pretty epic shit." Even if he did say so himself.
"The Illustrated Man," Simon smiled as he walked inside. He did love his science fiction.
"That's me, well not always the man bit. Pretty much gender fluid these days to be honest." And he was getting a lot more comfortable talking about it too.
Simon accepted that in silence, then told Curtis, "You've grown so much." He was not sure that Curtis would even have understood what gender fluidity was, back when they had met.
"And sometimes I even get smaller." Curtis grinned as he opened his fridge, ok so he knew what Simon actually meant and yeah he was a totally different person and that was both good and bad.
Simon smiled at the joke, and accepted the beer with a murmured, "Thanks." Being social, he could absolutely do that, as he opened his beer. "What about you? What have you been up to?" And he was only mildly awkward about it.
Turning back to original Curtis for the moment, he shrugged. "Last few things to finish up before college is done then it's just working at the shop basically fulltime for the summer." He'd told Simon that he'd been told he couldn't compete anymore when Simon had told him about film school. He figured maybe keeping shit to himself wasn't a great idea anymore if it lead to 4 day long breaks from mutant school resulting in worrying everyone he cared for most.
"I'm a very boring person nowadays."
"I don't think you could ever be boring," Simon pointed out with an awkward smile, and took a first sip.
"You'd be surprised." Curtis told him as he sat down, starting on his own.
"So I wouldn't be bored," Simon offered, trying for a joke.
"Touche." Curtis nodded back "Nah, all my life plans hit the dust a while back and I guess it's time to accept it. Fuck knows what I'm gonna do now. What do you wanna do post film school? Superheroing still high on the list?"
At least Curtis wasn't laughing at him about it the way he once would have, but Simon still blushed slightly. It was never easy, talking about it in such terms to anyone that wasn't Jensen or Shaun. "That was never going to be post film school," he admitted. "But - it might happen differently than I thought." He took another drink, clearly trying to find his words. "Scott Summers came to talk to me." It was still a little - well, surreal. "He's putting together a team. He asked me if I wanted to join."
"Summers is? Huh." Curtis hadn't know that and he and Scott got on pretty alright, at least he thought they did. Then again Scott knew more about Curtis's crap than most (though not as much as Pietro, Alice or Jack of course) so maybe he'd never mentioned it so he didn't have to tell Curtis why he wasn't suitable. None of that was Simon's fault though so he grinned and toasted his friend.
"Congrats man, hope it goes well for you."
"Thanks," Simon replied, a little uncertainly. It seemed like an odd thing to be congratulated about, and besides, nothing was even happening yet. He would wait and see how it went, first. Maybe the team would never even get off the ground, who knew. There were so many factors. "It's - I hope we can do some good. If it happens."
"Hope so too, and keep an eye on Summers yeah? That boy is gonna work himself into the ground if he's not careful." He cared about his friends even if said friends apparently had doubts about him.
"I don't think I'm going to be one to stop him," Simon said honestly. Scott and he weren't on those kinds of terms, after all. And given what Simon would have on his plate next year, he would be lucky enough if he did not work himself into the ground.
"Spose not, no." Curtis sipped his beer thoughtfully.
Simon was lost in his own thoughts for a few seconds, before he realised that silence had stretched for a little too long and smiled over at Curtis, deciding to perch himself on a chair. "It's so much like something out of a comic book."
Curtis smiled and nodded, thanks to Jensen he knew a lot more about comic books than he used to. "This whole place is, let's be real."
Simon smiled in agreement. That was true, and then some. "X-Factor can be the noir-ish spin-off." Its only two current members would be perfectly at home in a noir atmosphere - and he supposed that he could fit in as well, if Sage's offer had been anything real. Not that he knew whether he actually wanted to accept it.
"This is true, Damon's left noir and is more skeeze though, way I hear it." Curtis wouldn't trust him any further that he could throw him, and probably less than that.
"Noir was very - skeezy," Simon pointed out. To say the least.
"You know more about it than me," Curtis conceded with a head bob.
"Let's just say that I doubt that you would like the way they handled gender roles," Simon stated.
"I don't like how plenty of people handle gender roles." Curtis pointed out before shifting again, changing form to underline their next point. "But then, I do have a rather unique perspective."
Simon nodded with a brief smile. "Women tend to be damsels in distress or traitors that stab the lead in the back. Often the one, then the other. There are exceptions, but..." He shrugged a little.
"Sounds like half of the media out there then, really." She shrugged,sipping her beer. Curtis's clothes were kind of big but not uncomfortably or obscenely so.
"Not anywhere near that extent," Simon stated quietly, trying not to outright contradict Curtis - and not to let the fact that he looked like a very cute girl affect him, either. It was still Curtis.
It wasn't missed by her though, in fact it was the reason why she didn't usually tend to shift into female presenting bodies when one on one with Simon, since it made him so uncomfortable.
"Want me to shift back?"
Being called out on it while trying not to let it affect him reduced his efforts to nothing, and Simon started to blush that Curtis would have noticed. "N-no! Whatever you feel like."
She sighed, feeling bad for having made it worse "But it's making you uncomfortable and that's not right. You're, like, one of a small group of people that I'm comfortable with, doesn't feel right that the same's not true for you."
This was really not helping, making Simon all the more uncomfortable for being uncomfortable. "You don't have to change who you are. Who you want to be." He took a drink from his beer, hoping the chilled beverage would help his face cool down.
Curtis reverted back to original male form. "I'm always me, you know, whatever the body. Guess I should feel flattered though that you think I'm pretty though?"
Simon tried to smile, despite his blush. "You should maybe work on bodies that aren't as pretty. Not for me," he hastened to add, when he realised what that sounded like. "In case you need to not stand out." Every form he had ever seen Curtis in had been strikingly handsome, cute, or pretty. Simon understood that urge; why would anyone want to look anything less than their best? But from a strategical point of view...
"Alice has said that too. I don't try to be pretty you know, it just happens." He sighed heavily like it was the biggest hardship ever before grinning.
Simon smirked. "You're not evil, you're just drawn that way?"
"Something like that." Curtis winked back with a smirk
Simon wasn't sure if Curtis had taken his words seriously, since he had brushed it off with a joke, but he wasn't going to repeat himself, used as he was not to be listened to. "Are you still studying from here next year?" he asked curiously, changing the subject altogether.
Curtis hadn't ignored the comment, it was one that had been made before as he said and he wasn't ignoring it, more he wasn't exactly sure how to make someone 'plain' when it was really all down to personal opinion and preference, right? Everyone was stunning to someone.
"I...probably. I'm enrolled at college as Melissa, see, because I was running back then so the colleges made initial contact about that. I can't stay in one form all the time, the build up of suppressed power gets too much, so I guess I'm staying for now." Off campus was an option but one that he was pretty torn about.
"You could make sure you have a room to yourself, and switch to another form behind locked doors," Simon offered helpfully. There was a sense of security in the thought of staying here, at least to his mind, but it could not be all good either. He was personally looking forward to the film school experience.
"I could but, uh, there would still be a lot of risks and it is still committing myself to one body, one gender all of the time. Or at least a majority. The body I feel most vulnerable in too and I'm not sure I can do that." He didn't feel like he needed to go into why the body was vulnerable, they'd already had that awkward conversation. He just sipped his beer instead.
That much Simon could only nod to, sympathetically, for all that he had no idea what it was like. "Sorry. I shouldn't have pushed."
"You weren't and if certain things hadn't happened then you'd be absolutely right so don't apologise. We're cool. You're a friend trying to look out for me, don't have many of those." Curtis told him honestly with a shrug.
Simon frowned, both surprised and concerned. "Don't you?" Curtis seemed so popular to him, not unlike Pietro.
"Well, you know, got a few close friends and shit but a fair few of them have left. Before you and Nathan got here, Scott used to refer to me as the hermit. It got that bad but, you're right, I'm trying to reverse it. My trust list has always been short though." He drained his beer but was in no hurry to get the next one.
It was a surprise to find that Simon was apparently considered to be on that list, and he took that in in silence, unsure how to respond. If there was one thing he was hoping would not revert back to the way things had been, before, when he attended film school, it was the fact that he was not such an outcast here. He was nowhere near popular, but he had a few friends, and that was so much better than it used to be. "Thanks," he settled on, with an awkward smile.
"All down to you there really." Simon was a decent bloke behind the sky awkwardness, "You've not exactly been a hermit here either though."
"I've never really been a hermit," Simon pointed out quietly, even more awkwardly. It wasn't for lack of trying that he used not to have friends. People just never liked him.
It was Curtis's time then to sympathetically nod. "I know but, still, away from the shitty estate kids you'd definitely come out your shell. There's no denying that."
"We all have more opportunities here," Simon stated, trying to let the awkwardness catch on and grow. There was no reason to feel so awkward about what Curtis was saying.
"Don't knock yourself though, mate. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but you seem more confident to me. Happier too, can't just give credit to this place for it." Encouraging without patronising was a fine line at times but he was sincere so his words (hopefully) rang true.
"I'd rather give credit to the other people here," Simon said with a small, fond smile. Any place was only as good as the people in it, unless you really did want to live a hermit's life, far away from anyone else.
"Fair enough, there are some pretty decent people around, true." Curtis couldn't not agree there. "Still, been good to see you happier, if we can be all slushy like this after one beer."
"I'm afraid it won't be the same, out there," Simon confessed, encouraged by the way Curtis kept talking to him. "This is a very special environment."
"I worried about that too." Curtis admitted, refering of course to when he'd been considering leaving. "We won't be too far though if you do miss us. You could always come visit."
"I'll be here regularly anyway, hopefully," Simon stated with a small smile. "To train?"
"Of course." Curtis nodded again and reached for a second beer. "Forgot for a second there. Scott'll want you back, of course."
"I was going to be back to train regularly anyway," Simon admitted. Not with his squad, but with Shaun and Jensen. "I doubt my school has a Danger Room," he joked awkwardly.
"True, this place is fairly unique in that respect....and a bunch of others, let's face it."
"I feel like this should be an easy transition, after coming here," Simon stated quietly. His tone let on that he was actually afraid that it wouldn't be.
"I'm sure it will be." Curtis told him firmly, "It's natural to be nervous but you'll be fine, I'm sure." Simon had gotten through much, much worse after all.
"But when we got here... I wasn't alone." It wasn't an experience he could dissociate from Nathan. "And there was so much else going on... I was distracted from worrying about it." And he hadn't known anything else. He'd always been an outcast. Now that he had known this...
"If you're not happy then you come back and we figure out something else you want to do. OK? There's always a way out. I mean if it's anything like mine, college is way way harder than I expected but it's rewarding. I can't trade notes with classmates or anything though, I don't get that side of college and you will. Just see what you can make of it." He was doing his best but he wasn't sure if it was helping so added jokingly "Hey, if you wanna impress the other guys or whatever I could always come visit, pretend to be your hot out of town girlfriend?" At which point he shifted again.
Simon's faint blush deepened at the offer, and he shook his head. He would never use a girl - or a gender-fluid person - as a way to make himself look better, and he would certainly not ask anyone to pretend to be his girlfriend, even if Eileen might not do horrible things to his bodily functions for it. "Thanks, but... I'll stick it out. Whatever happens."
"I was only playing Simon." She told him, smiling as she sipped her beer. "It's ok to smile."
Simon smiled, if only to please... him, her? He was never sure how to refer to Curtis - or Melissa - in those moments. The clear divide between the genders made no sense to him, since he was constantly trying to remind himself that this was the same person, no matter what he looked like. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry," She insisted before shifting back to Curtis. "And, hey, you're right. Maybe you'll meet some great girl at college anyway and not even need me."
"I don't think you should be valued according to whether you're dating someone," Simon answered, and did his best to make a joke, complete with a smile. "Even someone really pretty." Meaning any of Curtis's female bodies... and even his male ones, as far as Simon had seen. "I'm sort of seeing someone already, anyway," he blurted out, as always unsure about how Eileen would feel about him talking about her this way. "I don't know if she wants to do the medium distance relationship, though..." It wasn't as if he could bring it up to her that way, after all.
"Ok, before I get sidetracked, no way was I meaning you should be valued by who you're dating. I just meant it like it'd boost your confidence or whatever." Curtis explained hastily before getting thoroughly sidetracked. "But sounds like you're doing great without my help. Had no idea! Who, how long? Whatever details I'm allowed?"
If that sort of thing boosted his ego, it sort of sounded as if Simon thought you should be valued that way, but he let it go anyway. Simon wasn't ever confrontational... outside of a few key topics. He certainly didn't feel confident enough about his relationship with Curtis to confront him about this of all things, so he focused on his friend's curiosity. "You can't tell anyone," he warned him first. "She wouldn't like that."
"Cross my heart." Curtis told him seriously.
Simon nodded, then only offered, "Eileen Harshaw? Since the Mardi Gras party." The one Alisha liked to say she had thrown for him.
"Ok, I don't think I know her. I hope things work out for you guys." Just because things had crashed and burned with him didn't mean he was bitter about other people connecting.
"She's... kind of difficult?" Simon offered. "I don't know if things are supposed to work out." He really liked her, or he wouldn't be with her, that wasn't the issue. But Eileen was Eileen. Simon expected her to suddenly realise she was worth better than him at any given time.
"My Nan always said 'If it's meant to be, it will be'," And beyond Nanna's pearls of wisdom, he hardly felt like a person who should be allowed to give relationship advice. "If it helps at all, you're doing better than me."
Simon wasn't certain that he agreed with Curtis's grandmother, although he liked the sentiment. It was a comforting one, but one that he wasn't sure he believed in, and one that he truly didn't feel applied to Eileen and him. But the shift of focus was a welcome one, and he focused on his curiosity rather than his unease at thinking that they might be 'meant to be'. "How are you doing?" he asked curiously, hoping that Curtis wouldn't mind. He had to wonder if it had to do with Pietro, since they had kissed that one time at the party, but Pietro was with Remy...
"Well," He saw no harm in telling Simon. Of all the community service lot, he's probably be the coolest about it. Didn't mean he wasn't still awkward as hell admitting it. He still felt stupid for it all. "I fell for someone and was, like, totally out of character and heart on my sleeve type bullshit with 'em and, well, got shot down. Badly. For someone else in fact so, yeah, not great you could say."
Simon winced in sympathy; rejection was a horrible thing to live through. "I'm sorry. Are you alright?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's been a while now. Not saying I'm doing backflips about seeing them together and shit but it'd be pretty childish to hold a grudge so..." He was determined to be the bigger man...even if part of him did kind of hate Steve in that jealous, irrational way.
"Still, it can't be easy," Simon sympathised.
"No," Curtis agree with a small nod "But beer and friends help."
Simon raised his nearly empty beer slightly at Curtis, smiling a little sadly (that help was needed at all), then drank to that.
After mirroring the gesture, Curtis asked "Good for a second?" Before curiosity drew him back to "So, Eileen. What's her powers?" He'd be fine if Simon declined to answer though, he'd noticed Simon hadn't asked who'd turned him down yet.
"Thanks," Simon agreed, and stood with a small smile. "I'll get it." No need for Curtis to have to move to get him a beer, and he answered his second question as he moved towards the mini-fridge, setting his empty beer on the desk. "Electromagnetism. She manipulates electromagnetic waves. That's how she flies." And how she made other people fly, too, he thought with a small smile.
"Very cool. See, flying and invisibility are like the top two super powers people always wish they had."
"She can do both," Simon told him, his smile a little wider now as he moved back to his seat, a new beer in hand. "Light waves."
"Even cooler." As was the way Simon's face lit up, talking about her. "She sounds like quite a girl."
"Don't let her hear you say that," Simon answered, and took a first drink from his beer. Eileen was a lot of things, but phrasing compliments the right way was something he had learned over the course of months.
"Got it." He noises and mimed zipping his lips before slowly volunteering "It was Jack." Which, since Simon knew him when he was identifying as male and straight, it felt like he was making another big statement about himself but he didn't mind so much really. Of the other three, Simon was the most respectful.
It took a couple of seconds for Simon to understand what Curtis meant, and then his smile disappeared. Heartbreak wasn't really smile-inducing. "Harkness?" He didn't think that there was another Jack around, but he didn't know all of the new arrivals.
"That's the one." He watched the other boy, suddenly realising he wasn't sure exactly of Simon's opinion on Jack being an ex-facility collaborator and all. Of course that was removing so much of the story but could be understandable since Curtis and Pietro were the only ones who knew some stuff...and probably Steve now, he supposed.
"I'm sorry it didn't work out like you wanted," Simon said sympathetically. It took guts to go for something like this; Simon wasn't sure he would ever have that kind of courage.
"Yeah, me too." He sipped his beer and shook his head "But shit happens, don't it?"
"That's what they say," Simon confirmed, turning the beer in his hands. "Are you - are you two friends?" He wasn't sure that they were to start with, or he would have asked 'going to stay friends'.
"He want's to be and, well, it's better to be the bigger man...like I said my trust list is very short..." And somehow even after all this mess and hurt and lies, Jack was still on that list.
Simon frowned a little; Curtis's words were very ambiguous, making it unclear whether Jack was still on that list or not. His lack of decisiveness suggested that... "But it's still a little early to tell?"
Curtis swallowed and nodded "I want to be but...you know?"
"You still feel too hurt," Simon nodded sympathetically.
Curtis nodded somewhat awkwardly. He still felt pretty stupid about it all really.
The silence let Simon know that he should say something else, so he went on, "That's normal, I think. You need time."
"Time heals all things, that's another of Nana's saying." The older boy nodded, taking a swig of his beer. "You ever miss England?"
"I miss my family," Simon answered immediately. "And I miss some things about England?" But he didn't miss his life there. His life here was so very, very much better.
"'S what I mean, I kinda wish I could go back for a week or two, you know? Have proper chocolate and see the fam, that kind of shit."
"Hear the right accent everywhere," Simon agreed, with a small smile, "and see people drive on the right side of the road." Which happened to be the left one, yes. He missed these things.
"Radio 1, saying shit like 'taps' not ' faucet', proper tasting coke, fish and chips. Oh fucking dib dabs, I miss dib dabs..." And this was just going on a fairly strange Brit tangent now as he thought wistfully of all the penny sweets from the newsagents.
"At least we're not alone," Simon concluded with a small nostalgic smile. It would have been much worse if they hadn't been together. He was still suspicious about four of them from the community center ending up here, but he was grateful for their presence.
With a nod and half smile, Curtis raised his bottle "I'll drink to that."
