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It's ROAD TRIP TIME!
Billy's in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, since its not quite cold anymore, and he's damned if he's going to keep being stuffy. He's settled into the back seat, as they pull into the general area of Westchester, "Man, you make this drive every day?" he asks of the pair of them. "Hey, anyone want a snack?" See, Billy provided snacks. A picnic basket full of Cool Ranch Doritos and pepsi's, of which only the latter is real and exists currently in this timeline.
"Yeah," Vic says as he pulls into a parking spot. "I get up at 5:30." He kills the engine then reaches into the picnic basket for some of those Cool Ranch Doritos. People in the future know how to live. He grabs a Pepsi, too. "I wouldn't mind cutting my travel time," he says. "Maybe sleep in a little." He grins at Billy. Big brother is here to fix everything.
"Not every day," Kellan says. "Sometimes I just leave one of me here and one of me in the city." He can do that, though, because he cheats. He takes one of the Pepsis as well, reaching back from the passenger seat and opening it up to take a swallow. He looks around outside the windows and says, "Oh.. I made it as far as California on my road trip. Then I went head and dissipated the copy. The souveniers should arrive in the post soon."
"Gosh." Billy looks at Kellan for a long moment, shaking his head, "I wish I could do that. I have _no_ time these days it seems like, there's so much to do, between work and school and Planner stuff." He pauses, and turns a curious look to Kellan. For his part, he grabs chips and a pepsi both, "You can just… dissipate them at will? And you retain all the stuff they know? Man, I can't imagine what its like to be you in your head. To see two things at once. Have two conversations at once." With that he flashes a grin over for Vic, "Sleeping in is a wonderful thing, little bro."
"That is so cool," Vic says, and he gives Kellan's knee a squeeze. No one can see in the car just now, so he takes his chances. To Billy, he says, "I still can't wrap my head around all of it. I've just been told I've got one boyfriend and not to worry about it." So he does, because that's Vic. "Oh man, sleeping is the best."
"Well they're not they, they're me. It's all my head at the same time, just my attention split, like if you're having a conversation and watching a movie at the same time, except I can do a lot more simultaneously, either in one physical body or mulitple. I know everything and experience, feel, and think everything at once. Dissipating a physical body doesn't erase the experiences from my mind," Kellan says. "But yeah, I can make them appear and disappear at will." He then grins a little over at Vic and says, "Yep. It's all just me." He gives Vic's hand a squeeze on his knee and drinks his Pepsi.
"Best not to worry, then." agrees Billy to Vic with a quick nod, glancing around the grounds. To Kellan he remarks, "I'm tempted to try a Duplica'me spell to try it out and see what its like, but since I think it might just cause a singularity and collapse the universe, I'm not going to." He flashes a dimpled grin, and moves to get out, looking around, "So… This is the school? It looks like a mansion. Is that Professor guy loaded?"
"That's got to be a tough row to hoe," Vic says. "Having the power to collapse the universe, so you've got to be extra careful. I vaguely remember having some kind of huge cosmic power, but I didn't want it. I wanted hot dogs." It's not that simple, but eh, good enough. He gets out of the car after polishing off his chips and Pepsi. "I think he's pretty well off," he tells Billy. "He's really nice, too."
When they arrive at the mansion, Kellan nods in answer to Billy's question but Vic answers it more directly. He finishes off the Pepsi and stows it in the car before hopping out and sliding his hands into his pockets. Strolling toward the mansion he says, "Yeah, this is the school. There's even kind of a lake. It's pretty nice. Just watch for people trying to jump off the roof while they learn to fly. This place can keep you on your toes sometimes." He smiles a little bit and then chuckles at Vic. "He really wanted hot dogs."
Vic falls into step with Kellan, side by side. "Hot dogs are nature's perfect food," Vic says. "And I'll take French toast over cosmic power any day." No buyer's remorse here. "There's a lot of cool stuff going on here," he says with a gesture to the mansion. "You meet all sorts of people. My powers are actually pretty mundane compared to some of the other students. Except for the dying part. I try not to tell people about that too much."
"Hey, Vic's got taste, hot dogs are the only thing I cook successfully. Doesn't hurt that they're easy TO cook. Sometimes I don't even have the bacon." Billy admits this last point in hushed tones to the pair of them. As for the school, he looks around, "What's the most interesting power you've seen? I can't imagine Vic being seen as mundane, or you, Kellan, being seen as ordinary either. You're both pretty amazeballs." He nods emphatically, "Do you have rooms here?"
"Yeah, I have a room here that I sometimes stay in from time to time. If I have a reflection here then I stay in the room," Kellan says as they stroll along and then he grins over at Vic and says, "French toast is pretty tasty." He considers what powers he's seen and says, "There was that one guy who turned everything he touched to ash.. it was pretty sad, actually. Like, he couldn't eat anything .. I mean he could, but as soon as he touched it with his mouth.. ash."
"I remember him," Vic says. "Poor guy. I saw a girl who can walk through walls, that was pretty cool. There was a guy who spontaneously caught fire, but he was still earning how to control his powers. This school's an important place." His brow furrows. Serious Vic is serious. "It helps a lot of people. My TK got honed here, that's why I can make a hot dog without touching it. Before, all I could do was throw stuff around."
"Wow, that's… not a good one. How did he not you know, starve to death?" wonders Billy aloud, even as he follows them towards the school itself, "BUt here's my thinking, tell me if anyone objects. I bought an extra wardrobe for Narnia; I'll enchant one of your rooms closet or whatever with the Narnia access portal. So when you need to come here, you go to Narnia from home, then exit here. I know that spell will work, its well-practiced now. I'll key it to each of your hands, same as the wardrobe at your apartment. You just can't use it if anyone is in the room— you have to promise to keep Narnia secret from everyone here. Well. I guess you can't keep a secret from a telepath. Hrm. Maybe I should go with my original plan and tie the door to some bathroom in a 24-hour drive-thru down the street from where you live." Pause, "I've always had good control on TK, but I first got it.. . like. I fell off a roof and missed the ground, you know? Its why I fly when I'm not paying attention to not flying."
"I dunno," Kellan admits. "I thought it'd be kinda rude to ask." He kicks a bit at a rock, punting it ahead of him. He listens to the ideas about the wardrobe and says, "I .. wouldn't go opening any doors to here without talking to the Professor first. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't take too kindly to unplanned secret doors that can let people in." He smiles a little lopsidedly. "Though having an entrance somewhere nearby wouldn't be too bad. I'm pretty sure that Kaleb and I could actually find a small apartment in the area and just pay for it."
"Maybe the diner's the better idea," Vic says. "Although he's very discreet about minds he reads. I just don't know that he'd like the possibility of a security breach, no matter how remote." He looks around thoughtfully. "French fries for breakfast is good for you, right? It's potatoes. And the diner isn't that far from the school." Then Kellan mentions the apartment and admits, "That's a much better idea."
"There's no security consideration. It doesn't let 'people' in— it lets you in. You're allowed to be in. For anyone else to use it would need to be a mage who could break my magic, at which point they could just teleport themselves, so why would they bother? This place…" Billy glances around for a long moment, "Isn't warded at all. Any mage of skill enough to break the doorways would come here with no defenses stopping them at all. Come to think of it, this place really should be warded. I'm crap at wards. I can't get my mind around how they work." But Billy shrugs, "Diner to diner works. There's no reason to spend money you don't need to spend, all I need is a pair of doors."
Kellan shrugs his shoulders and says, "It's not my money." But he doesn't argue any further, instead just saying, "Whatever you want to do is fine. I'm all good with reducing the travel time to come and go from here." He makes his way toward the doors that lead into the mansion and open them up, letting the other two wander in ahead of him before he picks up the rear. The talk of wards and such is largely alien to him save for in a very general sense. "Yeah, this place should have more security, probably."
"Yeah, I don't think it interacts much with magic on a social level," Vic says as he wanders the hallway. "But Professor Xavier's no slouch. There are some powerful mutants in residence that would make a wizard think twice about storming the castle. But I don't know, maybe he'd get it warded it if someone mentioned it."
Billy pauses in his walk, looking between the two of them, "Well look, this is a decision, not something I am in charge of. If you think it might be an issue, diner-to-diner is easy— there was one on the road to here, and that'd save you the commute time, you could just… walk to school. Ten minutes. But.." he glances at Vic, and shakes his head, "While I know some mutants are super powerful able to do amazing things, they still don't per-se have any actual defenses against magic. I got Dad to ward Narnia— and Teddy and my apartment because it got invaded once by an interdimensional demon— maybe he could ward these grounds. Its a lot bigger so it might be a bigger deal. But still. There's no defenses here against magic." He glances to Kellan, notes 'wards' doesn't seem to sink in, so adds, "Wards are magic spells that protect against disallowed magic spells."
Kellan nods when Billy explains, but he falls largely silent. This isn't something for him to decide or really have much say in. He just goes to school here. "I think maybe it should be discussed with the Professor." And that's sort of where he leaves that. There are some other students that come and go, making their way here and there, toward the kitchen for snacks. "Oh, the Professor also bakes some really good cookies." Who knew? He then asks, "So.. are you going to start going here now? I thought you were like, all powerful reality collapsing, knows how to do all the things… guy."
"I'm okay with diner to diner," Vic says. Of course he is. Diners are where french fries live. Sometimes pancakes. "We could ask Dad about it," he says to Billy. "I think he knows Professor X. I don't know if they're friends, but he thinks well enough of him to let me go to his school." His hand brushes Kellan's, just incidentally. He has to be good, but those incidental touches can be excused away easily enough. He glances to Kellan. Cookies? "He does? I never knew that."
"Oh, I'm not going here. I'm going to NYU, I'm a chemical engineering major. Heck, the number of things I don't know how to do are astronomical." Billy laughs, shaking his head in response to Kellan, "I barely understand how anything I do works, I'm still learning. Let's turn around. Diner to diner has the safety that it doesn't *need* the Professor's permission— or anyone's knowledge, and its close enough. It solves everyone's problem and then there's still like, you know, french fries." Pause, he nods to Vic, "Yeah, we should talk to Dad about the wards issue at least. Let's keep the doorways to ourselves. Its not a secret so much as just… this is Planner helping Planner, y'know?"
"Yep, that time Kaleb got his ears totally screwed up and he was here in medical, the professor made cookies and we all sat in the kitchen for a while," Kellan says with a little bit of a grin. Once they're inside Billy says to turn around and he raises a brow. "Turn around? Why did we come here?" He glances between Vic and Billy as though not entirely sure why they'd come all the way out to immediately turn around.
"Planner helping Planner," Vic agrees. "We gotta stick together." He sighs wistfully, "I wish I'd been around for that. I was working every day. I mean I would've wanted to be there to support Kaleb, of course." When Billy says to turn around, he tells Kellan, "I think we're going to look at diners?" He glances to Billy to see if he's correct.
"We came here to shorten your travel times, Kel. But you're the one who raised security concerns with having a wormhole in the school itself, so I'm adapting. Instead, I'll put in a wormhole down the street. Slightly less convienent, but it solves the issue of having to ask permission and explain wormholes to this Professor." Billy shrugs, grinning dimples as he does so, "I'm working with the cards you guys are playing me, here, guys." Then he glances back to Vic, "What do you *do* for work?" he inquires, which is asking maybe a lot since he makes vague and fake sounds of 'internship' when work comes up for him.
"Oh, I didn't realize we came out here just for that," Kellan says and then looks just a little bit sheepish. He turns then, as the others do, and heads toward the doors and back out the way that they had come in. "Got it," he says with a little bit of a smile, giving Vic a bit of a shoulder-bump on the way out. He smiles a little when Billy asks about Vic's job and says, "He's got a cool boss and the food is fantastic." There are fringe benefits.
Vic grins at the shoulder bump and shoots Kellan a sweet, almost shy look. "Yeah, I work at a Greek restaurant called Saganaki. The owner's really nice, lets me eat a lot of great food. I'm his handyman, basically. If he needs something heavy lifted up, I do it. If something's broke and I can fix it, I fix it. I sweep up the place, too. Basically, whatever he needs me to do. I'm gonna learn how to install appliances so I can do that and save him some money. It doesn't look all that hard."
"Hey, my job… well, suffice it to say, the mess hall is fine but I consider bringing my own lunches." So as far as Billy is concerned, Vic's got the better job. He turns a grin to Kellan, "Yeah, man, like, sure, I appreciate the trust — insofar as trust is involved when bossman reads our mind — in the Professor saying I can come around, but no, this is practical. Vic was complaining how many hours of his life was being devoured by travel times. I'm here to shorten it. Other visits…well, those can be for other reasons. A Mage-Mutant Galla, perhaps. Or, Mage-Mutant Peace Accords."
Kellan smiles at that shy look from Vic and his lips tick upward a little bit more. "Have you been to Saganaki?" he asks Billy curiously. When they get back to the car he climbs back in and reaches into the back to grab another Pepsi and Doritos. They might be heading to a diner but there's no reason not to have a few chips on the way, right? There's a slight groan at the Mage-Mutant Gala. "If I never see another Gala it will be too soon." He complains a bit, but the truth be told, Kaleb endured most of those for him, so it's only a token moaning.
"I don't think I've ever been to a gala," says Vic. "I've got those nice suits Kaleb got me, though, in case one breaks out. I'm ready." They walk, and his pace is easygoing, matching himself to the others. "You should come to Saganaki sometime," he tells Billy. "If you haven't already. There's a courtyard where Lambert lets people hang out and just be themselves. Mutant, queer, colored, he doesn't care. The rule is everyone has to be cool, treat each other with respect, and don't start fights."
Billyl ooks over to Vic for a long moment, furrowing his brow, "How does he keep the peace? Its not like you can just say, hey, everyone be cool, and everyone actually be cool." He shrugs but follows along towards the diner down the road, and once they get there, Billy lifts Kellan and Vic's non-dominant hands and lays it over the doorknob, "The lion, the witch, the wardrobe…" This is repeated until the spell is complete, and he diner is bound to Narnia, and thus, Narnia to the diner. "There. Just a little walk."
"He's part satyr, if you can believe it," Vic says. "He's got his own powers, I guess. If you get too riled up, he just tosses you out. Sometimes I toss them out, but it doesn't happen very often. It's still a small crowd that goes back to the courtyard. Word hasn't gotten around about it, much." Then he quiets for the spell. Doesn't want to distract the big brother.
He gestures, and Billy lets Vic open the door with his opposite-hand— then goes through with the pair, and on the other side, casts the return spell to bind both directions. Billy then looks to Vic, "So yeah, there. Easy transit, Narnia to the diner, diner to Narnia. Narnia, either way, to home." But he nods, "I'll come visit this place of our bosses, it sounds interesting, and I'd like to meet him. This.. part-satyr. Whatever a satyr is."
"Apparently the Greek pantheon exists," Vic says, like he knows this is true but it's still in his 'incredulous' file. "And there are satyrs. His dad or grandad is one. He's got really cool goat eyes. Anyway, he's really nice, and you'll love the food. I swear his cooking is magic." Vic looks wistful thinking about it. "Mom loves his baklava. Anyway! Yes! Thank you so much." He hugs Billy. Vic is a hugger.
"Why not?" wonders Billy dryly, "My dad's got a trio of gods on his shoulder, and…stuff. I am such a bad Jew." he sighs with long-suffering. Billy waves it away with a hand, "So I'll come by, but in the meantime, there, yeah. Also I love baklava, just so we're clear." He returns the hug, because really, Bilyl is a hugger too. There might from time to time be a challenge of who hugs more. Not now. But sometimes. "Let me know if there's any issues."