Effy and Cal
Oct. 17th, 2014 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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om_mainEffy's cute, and Cal doesn't know what her mutation is. Two awesome reasons to go strike up a conversation.
Cal and Paul had just been flying about and generally having fun up in the air, but Paul had just headed back in, and Cal wasn't ready to do that just yet. Might as well make the most of his mutation while it still hung around - although it took a wonderfully longer and longer time, these days. He'd still noted the time of his former roommate's departure, to make sure he touched back down before he risked losing his mutation.
It was still a way off when he spotted the lone figure by the lake. One of the more recent arrivals, one he hadn't tracked down yet. She was cute, and he didn't know what her mutation was, two reasons to head back down before he absolutely had to.
He didn't want to startle her either, so he made sure he was in her line of sight as he headed back for the ground, easily touching down. "Hey there, we still haven't met. I'm Cal," he introduced himself easily.
Not that Effy was easy to startle. She had known he was there since she first arrived by the lake. His mind was quite...racing. It wasn't unpleasant, as far as thoughts went. She smirked as she squinted up at him, "Effy."
"Mind some company, Effy?" he asked with one of his usual, charming half-smiles. It wasn't intended to look that way, it just was.
He wanted her to want some company. Interesting. Instead of answering him with words, Effy pulled a lollipop from God only knows where and held it out as an offer to him. Usually, she'd be offering a 'cigarette' (as everyone here seemed to call fags), but since she hadn't found a new supply yet...lollipops it was.
Cal's eyebrows raised slightly in surprise, before he smiled again and just took the lollipop. "Thanks," he told her, and sat beside her on the ground, looking out towards the lake. "So what's your mutation?" He was definitely hoping for something new, and safe to mimic.
"Not very new...nor fun to mimic, I'd imagine," she told him ruefully, hoping that was explanation enough.
Cal was surprised again, for a second, and paused in unwrapping the lollipop, looking at her beside him. "So... telepath?"
"So they tell me," she responded with a nod. "Is that your mutation then? Mimicry?"
"Yep," Cal confirmed, and reached for her mutation. The more psi practice he could get in, the better. He'd gotten enough training with Xavier and Betsy that he wasn't too worried about getting overwhelmed, either, even if they hadn't been alone out here. It's pretty sweet, he broadcasted at her with a smirk, finishing unwrapping the candy and popping it into his mouth.
Effy was a little surprised that he wasn't concerned about taking on her power. Hell, she didn't usually like taking on her power. The voices were often overwhelming. "Interesting," she commented with a quirked brow.
"That all you got for me?" Cal protested playfully. "Usually it's more - 'Oh, Cal, your mutation's so fucking awesome.'"
"Do you want me to think it's fucking awesome?" She couldn't help but ask him with a smirk.
Cal paused, then shrugged, pulling the lollipop out of his mouth again to answer. "I'm pretty happy with me thinking it's awesome. Now if you did, it'd just prove you've got excellent taste in mutations," he finished with a smirk.
"Well, I'd never be accused of poor taste," Effy replied with an emphasis to assure him that she did think it was, at the very least, an interesting mutation.
Cal chuckled. "Good to know, Ef. So, you training with X?"
Effy blinked in slight surprise at being called Ef. Huh. Other than Tony, no one'd ever called her that before. "Yes. He's actually the one who recruited me." And Xavier told her he was very hopeful she could develop a...filter of sorts, so there would be less voices.
That last thought caught Cal by surprise; he'd thought she had walls up in place. It turned out, as he prodded a little, that she did, but just not perfect ones. "Shields can work both ways," he confirmed. "Keep you in, keep others out. Do you also have sessions with Betsy? They've really helped."
"Not yet...but I am definitely interested in meeting her," Effy conceded with a nod. After all, once she got the voices under control, she could figure out just how crazy she really was.
"Yeah, go see her, she's awesome," Cal stated with a nod. "I mean, the Professor's great, too, but she spins it a different way." In the end, the way you built your shields was always personal, and it had taken him the sessions with Betsy to stop trying and doing it like the old man, and find his own way. Yeah, he'd been a little obtuse there for a while.
"So how long have you been here?" Effy asked, tilting her head to the side. It was a little odd, talking to him now that he was mimicking her mutation. She knew she probably would some day be able to know that without asking, but at the moment she wasn't quite that skilled at digging. Just stream of consciousness.
"I got here in February," Cal replied, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck, his other hand holding the lollipop as he spoke. "I couldn't control who I mimicked, back then, it was pretty messy. And, you know, dangerous."
"I'd imagine so," Effy responded seriously. She knew the feeling of messy. Now, dangerous was something else altogether...
"Yeah," Cal confirmed, and shrugged. "But now it's all good, and I'm making the most of it. How're you liking it here so far?"
"It's...interesting," Effy said truthfully with a shrug. "My roommate has no mental filter."
"Who is she?" Cal asked with a curious frown.
"Becky," Effy replied, again with a shrug. After all, she was slowly beginning to live with the incessant incestuous gay relationship her roommate thought about.
"Oh, wow," Cal laughed, and shook his head. "I mean, she's sweet." But also really weird.
"Those are two very accurate descriptors," Effy agreed with a smirk. "I take it you've met her then."
"Oh yeah, she showed up at the Doctor Who marathon thing," Cal confirmed, and tilted his head. "Just asocial, or not as into Doctor Who as the rest of the Brits?" Because, seriously. Even Curtis had just been delayed in his appreciation of the show, and Cal had started wondering if it was something coded into their DNA.
"Little from column A, little from column B," she answered easily. It wasn't that she disliked Doctor Who, it was moreso that she didn't watch that much television.
"I'm not gonna lie, I don't really get that show," Cal admitted. Well, he got it, he just wasn't into it.
"What do you like then?" Effy asked, feeling curious for once.
"On TV? Um, Game of Thrones, I guess," Cal offered. "And yeah, I know, me and the rest of the world." He'd never claimed he was very original.
Effy chuckled then. This one had a sense of humor, she'd give him that. "I'm afraid I wouldn't know...I don't watch much telly."
"Yeah, I'm more of a movies kinda guy," Cal said with a shrug, although maybe she wasn't into movies herself.
"Understandable...one complete story in two hours versus programs that seem to go on for ages..." Effy trailed off and kept one eye on Cal whilst moving the rest of her attention back to the lake.
"Yeah. I keep my commitment for stuff that isn't fiction, I guess?" Cal really wasn't that into self-analysis, though. "But anyway, what's your story? Preferably in less than two hours," he added with a half-smile.
"Not that exciting I'm afraid...I'm from Bristol, and my parents were more than happy to send me here when given the option," Effy explained with a shrug.
Ah, asshole parents. Cal made a brief, sympathetic grimace. "Miss it?"
"Not particularly," Effy commented. "And your tale?"
"Takes place in sunny Cali," Cal answered with a small, quick smile. "My dad died, I was gunning for emancipated minor status when the Professor showed up and wow, hello telepathy."
"Yes...it is rather interesting when everything's explained, isn't it?" Effy replied with a wry smirk.
Cal was glad that she wasn't asking for elaboration, or offering sympathy, for the whole paternal death thing - a thought he kept well behind his shields, thank you. "Did it come over you gradually? The telepathy, I mean. I can't imagine getting something like that all at once, without the control that came with mimicking him." Of course, he'd never mimicked another telepath that was quite as powerful, but still.
Effy thought about that for a couple of minutes. She really wasn't quite sure if she slowly descended into madness or if it was sudden. Eventually she shrugged and answered, "Either way the result was the same."
Cal wasn't sure if he'd said something wrong, when the silence stretched for that long, but he wasn't getting any hostile thoughts from her, so he hoped not. He wasn't sure what to make of her answer, either, when she finally gave it. "How's that?"
"The voices," Effy responded, gesturing vaguely with her hands.
"Is that how you think of it?" Cal asked before he could help it. Voices in her head - it sounded very schizophrenic, or something.
"You've got my power now...you tell me," Effy replied, quirking her eyebrow at him in slight amusement.
Cal took that as an invitation to go digging, and gave her a smirk. "Sure." Her shields were easy enough to get through, for someone who'd been working with the Professor and Betsy. He remembered more than he retained, and he had retained quite a few things by now.
He didn't expect to find Effy's uncertainty about her mental stability on the other side, though, and he frowned immediately, and backed the hell out, searching her eyes. "You're not crazy."
"Oh? And what makes you so sure?" Effy asked, tilting her head curiously.
"You mean, apart from how I could feel it right now if you were?" Cal checked, because that one seemed pretty obvious.
Effy considered for a moment what he was saying. She knew, somehow, that he hadn't gone very deep before getting the hell out. She wasn't convinced he really would be able to tell. "The mind is a funny thing."
"There's a girl here," Cal told her, frowning. "People messed with her brain. Now she's not all there. You are."
"There's a difference between being brain damaged and being mad," Effy pointed out. After all, Tony had been brain damaged, but he wasn't crazy.
"And she's brain damaged and schizophrenic," Cal replied evenly. He didn't like talking about this, although he wasn't sure why, and his discomfort was probably obvious even without being a telepath.
Effy pondered that, silently observing Cal. She now had an urge to track down this girl, but she it resisted it if only because there was a shred of self preservation left in her. "If a telepath is schizophrenic, how can you tell the real voices apart from the false ones?"
"Yeah, that's one of the issues," Cal confirmed, assuming that they were still talking about River. "And she's an empath, too." To make things worse. He fucking hated what had happened to her, and he ran his free hand back through his hair, tugging at it. "She's doing better, anyway. Meds."
Nodding, Effy decided that Cal had just kind of confirmed what she was thinking earlier--he would be unable to tell if she was loony. That being said, Effy wasn't much for prescribed drug use...more recreational. "Sounds like an unfortunate combination of powers and events."
"Seriously," Cal confirmed with a nod, dropping his hand again. "But anyway. It's pretty obvious when a teep's actually crazy, was all I meant."
"Interesting," was the only way Effy could think to respond.
Cal shot her a slightly confused look; it was a weird thing to answer. "For one thing, the Professor would know."
"And the Professor shares everything, does he? Just how much of a mental examination does he give students?"
"I don't know - even when I mimic him, I'm not exactly gonna go up against him," Cal pointed out a little wryly. "But he wouldn't let you carry on without help if you needed it." And obviously, crazy people needed help.
Effy was still skeptical but decided to let it go. They had spent far to long thinking about her mental status. "So you mimic everyone then?"
"Well, I can pick and choose, now," Cal replied, thankful for the change of topic. "I stay away from the dangerous mutations."
"Dangerous...for others or yourself?"
"Both?" Cal offered. "I mean, lots of mutations are dangerous, but if they can control it, not so much."
"Got any favorites?" Effy couldn't help but ask. After all, the limits were endless with that one, weren't they?
"Paul's, definitely," Cal nodded. "That's how I was flying, earlier. Illyana's - teleportation. Eileen's is pretty sweet - electromagnetic manipulation. You can do the craziest things with that. Kon's tactile TK is also awesome - and Pietro's superspeed, obviously, but I don't know how he can live like that 24/7. We're all so fucking slow, it's insane."
Effy chuckled. "This school must be like a buffet for you."
"You have no idea," Cal confirmed with a half smile. "It's pretty damn amazing."
"Sounds like it," Effy agreed.
"Anyway," Cal smiled at her again, teasing. "I should let you get back to that whole silent lake-watching thing you've got going on," he stated, pushing up to his feet. "Unless you wanna come in and have dinner?" He tended to feel hungry after Paul's mutation left him, and that was bound to happen some time soon.
Effy thought about it for a moment before giving a big shrug. "I could eat." She stood in one fluid moment and stretched before turning towards Cal. "Lead the way."
Cal and Paul had just been flying about and generally having fun up in the air, but Paul had just headed back in, and Cal wasn't ready to do that just yet. Might as well make the most of his mutation while it still hung around - although it took a wonderfully longer and longer time, these days. He'd still noted the time of his former roommate's departure, to make sure he touched back down before he risked losing his mutation.
It was still a way off when he spotted the lone figure by the lake. One of the more recent arrivals, one he hadn't tracked down yet. She was cute, and he didn't know what her mutation was, two reasons to head back down before he absolutely had to.
He didn't want to startle her either, so he made sure he was in her line of sight as he headed back for the ground, easily touching down. "Hey there, we still haven't met. I'm Cal," he introduced himself easily.
Not that Effy was easy to startle. She had known he was there since she first arrived by the lake. His mind was quite...racing. It wasn't unpleasant, as far as thoughts went. She smirked as she squinted up at him, "Effy."
"Mind some company, Effy?" he asked with one of his usual, charming half-smiles. It wasn't intended to look that way, it just was.
He wanted her to want some company. Interesting. Instead of answering him with words, Effy pulled a lollipop from God only knows where and held it out as an offer to him. Usually, she'd be offering a 'cigarette' (as everyone here seemed to call fags), but since she hadn't found a new supply yet...lollipops it was.
Cal's eyebrows raised slightly in surprise, before he smiled again and just took the lollipop. "Thanks," he told her, and sat beside her on the ground, looking out towards the lake. "So what's your mutation?" He was definitely hoping for something new, and safe to mimic.
"Not very new...nor fun to mimic, I'd imagine," she told him ruefully, hoping that was explanation enough.
Cal was surprised again, for a second, and paused in unwrapping the lollipop, looking at her beside him. "So... telepath?"
"So they tell me," she responded with a nod. "Is that your mutation then? Mimicry?"
"Yep," Cal confirmed, and reached for her mutation. The more psi practice he could get in, the better. He'd gotten enough training with Xavier and Betsy that he wasn't too worried about getting overwhelmed, either, even if they hadn't been alone out here. It's pretty sweet, he broadcasted at her with a smirk, finishing unwrapping the candy and popping it into his mouth.
Effy was a little surprised that he wasn't concerned about taking on her power. Hell, she didn't usually like taking on her power. The voices were often overwhelming. "Interesting," she commented with a quirked brow.
"That all you got for me?" Cal protested playfully. "Usually it's more - 'Oh, Cal, your mutation's so fucking awesome.'"
"Do you want me to think it's fucking awesome?" She couldn't help but ask him with a smirk.
Cal paused, then shrugged, pulling the lollipop out of his mouth again to answer. "I'm pretty happy with me thinking it's awesome. Now if you did, it'd just prove you've got excellent taste in mutations," he finished with a smirk.
"Well, I'd never be accused of poor taste," Effy replied with an emphasis to assure him that she did think it was, at the very least, an interesting mutation.
Cal chuckled. "Good to know, Ef. So, you training with X?"
Effy blinked in slight surprise at being called Ef. Huh. Other than Tony, no one'd ever called her that before. "Yes. He's actually the one who recruited me." And Xavier told her he was very hopeful she could develop a...filter of sorts, so there would be less voices.
That last thought caught Cal by surprise; he'd thought she had walls up in place. It turned out, as he prodded a little, that she did, but just not perfect ones. "Shields can work both ways," he confirmed. "Keep you in, keep others out. Do you also have sessions with Betsy? They've really helped."
"Not yet...but I am definitely interested in meeting her," Effy conceded with a nod. After all, once she got the voices under control, she could figure out just how crazy she really was.
"Yeah, go see her, she's awesome," Cal stated with a nod. "I mean, the Professor's great, too, but she spins it a different way." In the end, the way you built your shields was always personal, and it had taken him the sessions with Betsy to stop trying and doing it like the old man, and find his own way. Yeah, he'd been a little obtuse there for a while.
"So how long have you been here?" Effy asked, tilting her head to the side. It was a little odd, talking to him now that he was mimicking her mutation. She knew she probably would some day be able to know that without asking, but at the moment she wasn't quite that skilled at digging. Just stream of consciousness.
"I got here in February," Cal replied, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck, his other hand holding the lollipop as he spoke. "I couldn't control who I mimicked, back then, it was pretty messy. And, you know, dangerous."
"I'd imagine so," Effy responded seriously. She knew the feeling of messy. Now, dangerous was something else altogether...
"Yeah," Cal confirmed, and shrugged. "But now it's all good, and I'm making the most of it. How're you liking it here so far?"
"It's...interesting," Effy said truthfully with a shrug. "My roommate has no mental filter."
"Who is she?" Cal asked with a curious frown.
"Becky," Effy replied, again with a shrug. After all, she was slowly beginning to live with the incessant incestuous gay relationship her roommate thought about.
"Oh, wow," Cal laughed, and shook his head. "I mean, she's sweet." But also really weird.
"Those are two very accurate descriptors," Effy agreed with a smirk. "I take it you've met her then."
"Oh yeah, she showed up at the Doctor Who marathon thing," Cal confirmed, and tilted his head. "Just asocial, or not as into Doctor Who as the rest of the Brits?" Because, seriously. Even Curtis had just been delayed in his appreciation of the show, and Cal had started wondering if it was something coded into their DNA.
"Little from column A, little from column B," she answered easily. It wasn't that she disliked Doctor Who, it was moreso that she didn't watch that much television.
"I'm not gonna lie, I don't really get that show," Cal admitted. Well, he got it, he just wasn't into it.
"What do you like then?" Effy asked, feeling curious for once.
"On TV? Um, Game of Thrones, I guess," Cal offered. "And yeah, I know, me and the rest of the world." He'd never claimed he was very original.
Effy chuckled then. This one had a sense of humor, she'd give him that. "I'm afraid I wouldn't know...I don't watch much telly."
"Yeah, I'm more of a movies kinda guy," Cal said with a shrug, although maybe she wasn't into movies herself.
"Understandable...one complete story in two hours versus programs that seem to go on for ages..." Effy trailed off and kept one eye on Cal whilst moving the rest of her attention back to the lake.
"Yeah. I keep my commitment for stuff that isn't fiction, I guess?" Cal really wasn't that into self-analysis, though. "But anyway, what's your story? Preferably in less than two hours," he added with a half-smile.
"Not that exciting I'm afraid...I'm from Bristol, and my parents were more than happy to send me here when given the option," Effy explained with a shrug.
Ah, asshole parents. Cal made a brief, sympathetic grimace. "Miss it?"
"Not particularly," Effy commented. "And your tale?"
"Takes place in sunny Cali," Cal answered with a small, quick smile. "My dad died, I was gunning for emancipated minor status when the Professor showed up and wow, hello telepathy."
"Yes...it is rather interesting when everything's explained, isn't it?" Effy replied with a wry smirk.
Cal was glad that she wasn't asking for elaboration, or offering sympathy, for the whole paternal death thing - a thought he kept well behind his shields, thank you. "Did it come over you gradually? The telepathy, I mean. I can't imagine getting something like that all at once, without the control that came with mimicking him." Of course, he'd never mimicked another telepath that was quite as powerful, but still.
Effy thought about that for a couple of minutes. She really wasn't quite sure if she slowly descended into madness or if it was sudden. Eventually she shrugged and answered, "Either way the result was the same."
Cal wasn't sure if he'd said something wrong, when the silence stretched for that long, but he wasn't getting any hostile thoughts from her, so he hoped not. He wasn't sure what to make of her answer, either, when she finally gave it. "How's that?"
"The voices," Effy responded, gesturing vaguely with her hands.
"Is that how you think of it?" Cal asked before he could help it. Voices in her head - it sounded very schizophrenic, or something.
"You've got my power now...you tell me," Effy replied, quirking her eyebrow at him in slight amusement.
Cal took that as an invitation to go digging, and gave her a smirk. "Sure." Her shields were easy enough to get through, for someone who'd been working with the Professor and Betsy. He remembered more than he retained, and he had retained quite a few things by now.
He didn't expect to find Effy's uncertainty about her mental stability on the other side, though, and he frowned immediately, and backed the hell out, searching her eyes. "You're not crazy."
"Oh? And what makes you so sure?" Effy asked, tilting her head curiously.
"You mean, apart from how I could feel it right now if you were?" Cal checked, because that one seemed pretty obvious.
Effy considered for a moment what he was saying. She knew, somehow, that he hadn't gone very deep before getting the hell out. She wasn't convinced he really would be able to tell. "The mind is a funny thing."
"There's a girl here," Cal told her, frowning. "People messed with her brain. Now she's not all there. You are."
"There's a difference between being brain damaged and being mad," Effy pointed out. After all, Tony had been brain damaged, but he wasn't crazy.
"And she's brain damaged and schizophrenic," Cal replied evenly. He didn't like talking about this, although he wasn't sure why, and his discomfort was probably obvious even without being a telepath.
Effy pondered that, silently observing Cal. She now had an urge to track down this girl, but she it resisted it if only because there was a shred of self preservation left in her. "If a telepath is schizophrenic, how can you tell the real voices apart from the false ones?"
"Yeah, that's one of the issues," Cal confirmed, assuming that they were still talking about River. "And she's an empath, too." To make things worse. He fucking hated what had happened to her, and he ran his free hand back through his hair, tugging at it. "She's doing better, anyway. Meds."
Nodding, Effy decided that Cal had just kind of confirmed what she was thinking earlier--he would be unable to tell if she was loony. That being said, Effy wasn't much for prescribed drug use...more recreational. "Sounds like an unfortunate combination of powers and events."
"Seriously," Cal confirmed with a nod, dropping his hand again. "But anyway. It's pretty obvious when a teep's actually crazy, was all I meant."
"Interesting," was the only way Effy could think to respond.
Cal shot her a slightly confused look; it was a weird thing to answer. "For one thing, the Professor would know."
"And the Professor shares everything, does he? Just how much of a mental examination does he give students?"
"I don't know - even when I mimic him, I'm not exactly gonna go up against him," Cal pointed out a little wryly. "But he wouldn't let you carry on without help if you needed it." And obviously, crazy people needed help.
Effy was still skeptical but decided to let it go. They had spent far to long thinking about her mental status. "So you mimic everyone then?"
"Well, I can pick and choose, now," Cal replied, thankful for the change of topic. "I stay away from the dangerous mutations."
"Dangerous...for others or yourself?"
"Both?" Cal offered. "I mean, lots of mutations are dangerous, but if they can control it, not so much."
"Got any favorites?" Effy couldn't help but ask. After all, the limits were endless with that one, weren't they?
"Paul's, definitely," Cal nodded. "That's how I was flying, earlier. Illyana's - teleportation. Eileen's is pretty sweet - electromagnetic manipulation. You can do the craziest things with that. Kon's tactile TK is also awesome - and Pietro's superspeed, obviously, but I don't know how he can live like that 24/7. We're all so fucking slow, it's insane."
Effy chuckled. "This school must be like a buffet for you."
"You have no idea," Cal confirmed with a half smile. "It's pretty damn amazing."
"Sounds like it," Effy agreed.
"Anyway," Cal smiled at her again, teasing. "I should let you get back to that whole silent lake-watching thing you've got going on," he stated, pushing up to his feet. "Unless you wanna come in and have dinner?" He tended to feel hungry after Paul's mutation left him, and that was bound to happen some time soon.
Effy thought about it for a moment before giving a big shrug. "I could eat." She stood in one fluid moment and stretched before turning towards Cal. "Lead the way."
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Date: 2014-10-17 10:56 pm (UTC)...Becky'll take it.
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Date: 2014-10-20 12:53 pm (UTC)