who_is_she | croquet champ

croquet champ

It took X-Ray almost two hours to realize the guy driving the car wasn't just a taxi driver or a chauffeur or something, but actually one of the owners of the camp he was headed to. Part of that was because the nerves were making him blind; his eyes were cycling uncontrollably through different types of vision, too fast to actually see anything, and it took him two hours to actually calm down long enough to be able to use his normal vision to see. Whenever that happened he had a pair of glasses he'd salvaged (one of the lenses was cracked) to black out the lenses with a sharpie. It wasn't perfect; because light still leaked through around the edges, but it at least stopped people from getting freaked out by his eyes rapidly changing color.

The man had chattered on incessantly for the first two hours, all about the camp and how it had started and the people there, and at first X-Ray thought he was trying to make it sound appealing when it was actually horrible, but as time wore on X-Ray realized he was speaking personally. And when X-Ray was finally able to take off his glasses he realized the man--Conner, he'd introduced himself as Conner--looked more like a dad than a taxi driver. He was wearing a yellow plaid short-sleeved shirt and a tie with turtles on it, and his hair was messy but looked like there had been an attempt to straighten it.

When X-Ray asked if Conner owned the camp, and then why he'd started a camp for kids with mutations, Conner had looked over at him with a gently happy expression and launched into an explanation. He told X-Ray about growing up with powers that nobody--including himself--understood, how difficult it had been, and then meeting his husband (X-Ray blushed furiously at this information) with a similar power, and how they'd both wanted to help kids like them.

The whole thing seemed too good to be true, and Conner seemed too nice and too gentle, and X-Ray half expected to be dropped off back at juvie with a "just kidding!" But sure enough, after another hour of driving they pulled off a dirt road onto a driveway that led up to a beautiful farmhouse. It was late afternoon in Georgia in July, at the heat was just starting to recede as the shadows lengthened.

"Well, here we are! Looks like dinner's gonna be up soon," Conner said, grinning over at X-Ray, then he started, like he remembered something, "Oh yeah, before I forget, is your birth name okay or is there something else you like to be called?" Conner asked, and X-Ray stared at him for a long moment, baffled.

"Uh... X-Ray," he said, and Conner grinned brilliantly.

"Cool. Come on, I'll introduce you to Gavin," Conner said, getting out of the car and waiting until X-Ray was at his side before walking towards the mess hall, which was set back a little behind the farmhouse, "The farmhouse is where Gavin and I and the other counselors stay, along with the offices and phones and everything. If you need anything, just go there. The mess hall is here and the cabins are behind that," Conner explained quickly, and X-Ray gazed around at everything as it was pointed out to him. He started to feel a growing thread of anxiety and took out his glasses again, putting them on before anyone could remark about his eyes. If Conner noticed he didn't say anything, but he didn't stop pointing things out, instead greeting every kid they passed by name and trading quips with them. X-Ray pushed his glasses up on his forehead so he could see well enough to follow Conner through the mess hall and into the kitchen, where another older man and a couple of kids were bustling around the kitchen.

"Hey, babe," Conner said, leaning around the table to plant a kiss on Gavin's scruffy cheek. Gavin had a full beard and messy dark hair, and was wearing a dark red plaid shirt with the sleeves pushed up his arms.

"X-Ray, this is Gavin, Torque and Vanessa," Conner said, pointing to the older man and then the other two campers in turn, "And this is X-Ray," Conner said, going back to put an arm on X-Ray's shoulder, and X-Ray immediately snapped the blackout glasses over his eyes, nodding in the approximate direction of the people he'd been introduced to.

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Gavin smiles warmly, extending his hand to shake X-Ray's.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you," he says, "It's great to have you here. I'm about to head down to the dining hall to help out with dinner, but Torque here is going to be staying in your cabin. Torque, buddy, why don't you go ahead and show him around?"

The boy standing to the side of Gavin nods eagerly, and raises his hand up to give X-Ray a high five.

"All right, man, let's do this!" he says. It takes Torque a moment to take in the blacked out glasses on X-Ray's face, and the way he isn't facing quite in the right direction, and he slowly lowers his hand as he realizes that X-Ray can't see it, opting instead to clap him on the back.

"You can drop your stuff off first and then we can take a tour. I'm so pumped to have a roommate finally," he says, guiding him in the direction of the cabins, "I've been staying by myself for like, forever, it's super boring."

Nobody asks him about the glasses, or his powers, or his name, and though that should be reassuring it just makes him more suspicious and anxious, and behind his glasses his eyes start flashing different colors. He's never had anybody not ask, he's never not had to struggle through the process of trying to explain something he didn't fully understand himself, and he's not sure how to not be suspicious of this sudden kindness.

He nods at the greeting, and turns his head towards the boisterous voice that greets him, startling a little when he feels a hand on his back. He doesn't say anything as the boy guides him away, doing his best to watch where he's going below his glasses, but his nerves are keeping his hold on his powers tenuous at best, and after only a couple of meters he stumbles on a rock and falls, his glasses flying off his face.

"Shit," he swears, the pain and humiliation only making everything worse, and he knows his eyes are brightly flashing through different colors now. Without the glasses all the different kinds of light coming into his eyes are extremely disorientating, and X-Ray struggles to get upright.

Edited 2014-11-14 01:19 (UTC)

Torque looks back behind him and sees X-Ray on the ground, and he jogs back quickly to help him up.

"Geeze, are you okay?" he asks, helping him to his feet. He picks up his glasses off the ground and wipes the dirt off them with his shirt, and puts them back in his hands.

"I'm sorry, I should have hung back. You can lean on me if you need to." He offers him his arm, and walks beside him at a slower pace than before. He notices his eyes flashing, cycling through the color wheel, and he bites his lip. He wants to ask, but he knew not everyone here liked talking about their powers as much as he did.

"...I've got super strength" he says instead, kicking a rock as they walk, "but not the fun kind. It runs on adrenaline, and when the rush is over, I can't move or do much of anything, and my whole body gets sore and achey. I fall down plenty, too."

Edited 2014-11-14 01:28 (UTC)

X-Ray doesn't answer Torque's questions, still disorientated, but gladly takes back the glasses. He turns them over in his hands a few times before he was sure they were the right way and puts them back on. He takes Torque's arm as well, embarrassed at needing to, and feels more surprised and embarrassed when he feels how thick and muscle-bound it is. He can't help wonder what this boy looks like, and if the rest of him is as large as his arm. He feels tall from the height of his shoulder, taller than X-Ray at least, which wasn't that hard when you were 5'5".

He feels oddly reassured by Torque's description of his own powers, glad to know he wasn't the only one who suffered from his powers.

"That sounds awful," he says finally, his voice naturally quiet and flat, and is quiet for another moment before he speaks again, realizing that he actually does want to volunteer the same information, "I can... See through things, sometimes. Or... Different light, and stuff, other times. It changes. Sometimes when I'm... Nervous, or upset, or angry it's like my eyes try to see everything at once but... I end up not being able to see at all. Sometimes it happens for no reason at all." He speaks haltingly, quietly, like someone who isn't used to speaking very much at all.

Torque feels a pang of sympathy for the boy as he takes the key from around his neck and unlocks the door to the cabin, letting X-Ray enter the room in front of him. The room is small, and Torque has taken up most of the wall space with posters of various sports stars, as well as the occasional motivational cat poster. There's a bunk bed in the corner of the room, and the top bed is unmade.

"I'm sorry man," he says, closing the door behind them. "You can wait here for a minute if you want to and I can show you around later. It's cool." He helps X-Ray sit on the edge of the bottom bunk bed, before flopping himself down beside him and picking

Edited 2014-11-14 02:20 (UTC)

"Yeah, that would be good," X-Ray says, sitting down carefully on the bed and pulling his backpack into his lap. For a while he just sits there, focusing on his breathing, and after a couple of quiet minutes he reaches up to take off his glasses. His eyes have stopped cycling now, though they occasionally jump to a different color and then back to his usual brown, it's much easier to see now. He looks over at Torque, surprised to see a large, handsome boy with a flat-top haircut. He's kind of... Cute, actually, and X-Ray looks away fast before Torque can catch him staring.

"Is this place real?" X-Ray asks, twisting his glasses in his hands, "I mean, yesterday I'm in juvie, and today this guy is driving hours just to pick me up and take me to this... This camp. I thought it would be like, hard work or something, but this... I wasn't expecting this. There's some catch, right?"

Torque shakes his head, a wide grin on his face.

"Nope!" he says, sitting up again and slapping his knees as he stands back up, "No catch. I've been here a while now and it's great, really, the guys who run this place really get it." He rifles through his stuff for a piece of paper, which he idly begins folding into a tiny football while he talks. He flicks it at X-Ray, before setting up his fingers like a goal for him to flick it back. "They've been through a lot, too, it's pretty crazy to hear about it when they talk about the stuff that happened to them 'cause of their powers. Hey, we should head down to dinner soon if you're feeling good enough. They'll be wondering where we're at. You can lean on me again if you want."

X-Ray startles at the piece of paper that hits him square in the chest, picking it up and hesitating being balancing the end on his knee and flicking it back towards Torque, smiling when it falls between his fingers.

"Yeah, um, that'd be good," X-ray says, finally putting his backpack down on the ground, "I am pretty hungry. I think I'm okay now, I mean, I can see and everything." X-ray gets quiet, thinking about what Torque had said about the camp, unable to stop himself from wondering if Torque's lying. He doesn't really seem the type--honestly, he seems like he'd tell X-Ray his social security number if he asked--but X-Ray isn't used to things being good. No matter what, he can't seem to quash the little thread of anxiety telling him not to trust this idyllic happiness.

"Cool," he says with a grin. He offers him a hand, helping him stand up and giving his shoulder a squeeze once he's on his feet.

"The dining hall's not far, and after we eat I can show you around more, 'kay?" He opens the door for him, and leads him down a dirt path through some trees to another log building. He holds the door for him again, and follows him inside, taking a deep breath to smell the food.

"Smells like mashed potatoes," he muses, waving at a group of kids standing together who were gesturing for him to come join them. He shakes his head politely, gesturing at X-Ray and shrugging his shoulders before turning back to X-Ray with a smile.

"My friends," he laughs, "Uhh, we can sit with them if you want, but you seem kinda...what's the word...interverted? They're like, all rambunctious and stuff, haha."

X-Ray follows Torque to the dining hall at a sedate pace, looking around at the camp like he hadn't had a chance to earlier. X-Ray feels his face heat up when Torque holds the door for him, and then it just gets worse when he ditches his friends to stay next to X-Ray. He knows it's probably just because Gavin told him to, but he's still touched.

"You mean introverted?" X-Ray says, and then, before he can tell Torque to go off with him friends, Conner steals X-Ray's attention.

"Hey, hey! X-Ray! Torque!" Conner is saying, waving his hand like an excited child, and then jumps up from the picnic table he's seated at with Gavin and a handful of campers, running over to them, "Hey guys! Why don't you come sit with me and Gavin? I saved you a seat!" Conner looks like he's about to blow a gasket, and X-Ray nods slowly and follows him over to a table.

"You can get your food over there," Conner says, pointing to a couple of fold-out tables with plates, utensils, and big bowls of food laid out on it, "And then come sit with us, okay?" Conner smiles brilliantly before he sits back down next to Gavin, and X-Ray moves over towards the food almost in a daze.

"Is he always like that?" X-Ray asks, glancing behind them. When Conner sees him looking he waves enthusiastically, and X-Ray's head snaps back around.

"Nuh uh" Torque laughs, filling most of his plate with brisket and mashed potatoes, "I have actually never seen him like that. He must like you." He waits until X-Ray has his food before making his way over to the table, sitting down in the seat beside Conner and digging in.

"Hey, guys, this is X-Ray," he says with a grin, introducing him to the other kids seated at the table. Gavin waves at him, smiling.

"Good to see you made it to dinner," he says, "You feeling okay? You looked a little sick earlier." He reaches over to wipe a crumb off the corner of Conner's mouth before rubbing the back of his neck and letting his hand rest there.

X-Ray takes a smaller portion of food than Torque and follows him over to the table, sitting next to Torque so that he's between X-Ray and Conner. X-Ray nods towards the other kids without making eye contact with any of them, then looks up at Gavin when he's addressed.

"I'm fine," X-Ray says automatically, and then stares when he sees the casual intimacy with which Gavin touches Conner, and the dopey way Conner grins back at him. X-Ray quickly looks away, but feels his face burning again as he considers the situation. He'd heard Conner refer to Gavin as his husband in the car, but he hadn't really believed it until he'd seen it, and even now he didn't quite believe it. He wasn't used to people being so open and accepting of a gay couple; honestly, he'd never seen any couple that seemed as happy just sitting next to each other as Conner and Gavin did. X-Ray leaned over to Torque, dropping his voice to a bare whisper so nobody but Torque would hear.

"Are they really married?" X-Ray asked, looking down at his food rather than over at Torque, "Isn't that weird?" He was more genuinely curious than anything else; he'd always kind of... Wondered, about himself, but he'd never actually thought it was something he could... be.

"Yeah," Torque says, in a whisper that was much too loud, looking confused, "Didn't they tell you? I thought they told everyone. What's weird about it?" He talks with his mouth full and doesn't wait for an answer before striking up conversation with the other people at the table, excitedly telling Gavin and Conner about some ideas he had for camp activities.

"I think you guys should get a boat," he says, "Like a real motorboat, off craigslist or something, and have somebody fix it up so we could go jet skiing. That would be kick ass. Or like, set up one of those obstacle courses in the water that knocks you off of stuff into the lake, like on Wipeout. I could help you set that stuff up after I do my schoolwork or on the weekends and stuff, I helped build one one time at summer camp when I was a kid."

X-Ray stares at Torque following his answer, not quite able to think of anything to say or follow Torque's thought process. X-Ray startles a little when Conner laughs loudly at Torque's ideas.

"Unfortunately, our lake is more of a pond. It's too small for a motorboat," Conner said, with the air of someone who had already been disappointed by this information, "But an obstacle course could be fun. Gavin?" Conner turned to his husband with his eyebrows raised and his expression hopeful. X-Ray watched them carefully and quietly while he picked at his food, waiting for the snide remarks or outright hostility that he'd always witnessed in the romantic relationships in his family.

"That sounds great, actually," Gavin says, swallowing and resting his arm on the back of Conner's chair before he continues, "I've actually looked around some, the pre-made ones are pretty expensive, but I know you can buy those floating trampolines for a couple hundred bucks. We could probably build something ourselves with a couple of those and some padded material." Torque claps his hands and reaches under the table to high five Conner.

"Nice," he says, "I am totally down to help with that, I already drew some ideas in my notebook."

He turns his grin to X-Ray, mouthing the words "obstacle course" silently at him.

Conner returns Torque's high five enthusiastically and then turns back to Gavin, grinning brightly.

"You're so smart, babe," Conner says throatily and then leans in to kiss Gavin. It's not just a peck either; in an effort to look away X-Ray finds himself looking at Torque, who is smiling and mouthing something that X-Ray can't make out. X-Ray raises an eyebrow and then shrugs and shakes his head, because he has o idea what Torque's trying to tell him.

"You can help out too, X-Ray," Conner says after surfacing for air, sounding slightly breathless. X-Ray looks at him, startled.

"I'm... Not very good at building things," X-Ray says, fiddling with the blackout glasses in his pocket. He'd taken shop class for an easy A and had ended up failing it when he kept accidentally focusing his eyes right through the wood, and sometimes, the floor. Any activity that required sight and concentration at the same time had become nearly impossible for X-Ray to do since his powers had surfaced.

"It's cool," Torque says, patting X-Ray on the back, "You can still help, I'm sure. If you want to I mean. It'll be fun."

"Uhh, yeah," Gavin says, nodding and wiping his mouth, smiling and looking a little flushed as he leans back in his chair, out of the reach of Conner's lips. "I'm sure we can find something for you to do when we start doing this. No pressure, though."

They chat awhile, about possibilities for the obstacle course and about other goings-on, and Torque finishes his food quickly, running off to dump his food in the trash before running back to lean over the back of his chair.

"So, X-Ray, you about ready for me to show you around?" he asks, grinning at him.

X-Ray nods gratefully, standing up to dump his trash and put away his dishes before following Torque out. Conner and Gavin were both dripping with happiness and affection for each other, and it made X-Ray feel weirdly itchy under his skin, and unsure of himself. He was glad for the time with just Torque, who had a very relaxing effect on him, for all he ran around and shouted and clapped. Even if Torque was just with him through obligation, still, X-Ray was enjoying it.

X-Ray realized that though the thread of anxiety hadn't disappeared, it hadn't grown into anything unmanageable either. He was calm, and he could see, and he'd had a nice time at dinner. It was unreal.

X-Ray put his hands in his pockets as he followed Torque back towards the camp, looking up towards where the sun was starting to set.

"There's tetherball over there," Torque says, pointing to a small tetherball court a few feet from the dining hall, where a couple of kids are hitting a ball back and forth, "I usually come out here and play some after I eat. And there's the lake. Well, pond, I guess, like Conner said, but still, it's pretty nice." He hikes up his sweatpants and ties them before they continue walking. "There's a little hiking trail that way, and there's a basketball court over there, too, by the barn. Oh, the barn has lots of animals. There's two dogs and some cats around here too, but they just hang out wherever."

He points out a few other sights as they walk past them before grinning at X-Ray again, shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt.

"See anything you want to do?" he asks, "We've still got a couple hours left before lights out, and it's the weekend, so we don't have to go to bed right away or anything."

X-Ray looks up sharply at the question, his gaze wary as he inspects Torque. If it were anyone else, X-Ray would suspect them of messing with him and suggesting they continue to hang out as a cruel joke, but with Torque, X-Ray couldn't even summon his usual suspicion of everyone.

"Um... I should probably just... Go back to the cabin and unpack," he said, grateful when he thought of a plausible excuse, "You can hang out with your friends, or whatever."

It wasn't that X-Ray didn't want to hang out with Torque more; that was the problem. He did want to hang around Torque like a lost puppy. But in X-Ray's experience, anything that seemed too good to be true probably was too good to be true.

Torque frowns, looking at X-Ray with concern.

"You sure?" he asks, taking a hand out of his pocket to scratch his neck, "I could help you unpack if you want to. I don't even know where those guys are at now, anyway."

Edited 2014-11-18 01:43 (UTC)

"That's not necessary," X-Ray said, somewhat coldly, and then turned on his heel and walked back to the cabin. He told himself this was for the best, if he kept a polite distance from his roommate, so that when they both left forever at the end of the summer nobody would end up hurt. X-Ray sighed as he made his way back in the now-dark, studiously ignoring the way Torque's wounded face hovered in his mind.

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