pineslog | and though the rules of the road have been lodged

[ Pietro couldn't say how long he's been going to see Jiaying. Since the beginning, he thinks, near to when he'd first been transitioned into general classes and it had become painfully obvious that his English was far from the biggest obstacle to his success. He remembers sitting in the hallway outside her office at the school, staring at the painting on the wall for what felt like years while the adults tried to decide what to do with him.

Nowadays, he sees her at her professional office once a week - or at least that's what was written on his calendar when he recovered from his accident, and he doesn't question it. Mostly he still talks about school, how he's doing on his assignments and what strategies he's using to keep on task during class, but he talks about other things, too, as the thoughts bubble to the surface of his mind. ]

Do you believe in extraterrestrials? [ is what comes out of his mouth midway through their first session since the flood. Probably there's a reason for the question, and probably part of that reason is the flood, but explaining himself takes time Pietro isn't usually inclined to volunteer. ] Aliens, UFOs, that sort of thing.

[Her small office in the form of half a store building is as welcoming as it gets. It's not overly decorated but just had enough of a personal touch to make her appear somewhat personable. She's always tried to come across as motherly and caring.

At the sudden question today, she gives him a curious look but ultimately doesn't appear to judge.]

Yes. But what brought this on?

[ Pietro makes a thoughtful noise, considering. It's not a secret, exactly, but there are parts of this that are personal, and as usual those are the parts he's careful to excise from the story, although at least that's on instinct rather than out of any particular distrust. He trusts Jiaying more than most people; it's just that he doesn't trust most people at all. ]

Cassian and I found some debris, from the flood. [ Cassian and him and some other people who are not as important to him as Cassian, at least until they'd called Lorna. ] Probably just some rich asshole's private jet, but for a moment I thought--

[ You know. Aliens. He shrugs, like that's it, but he's not actually that good at pretending. ]

Do you imagine there's intelligent life, too? Not just tardigrades and bacteria.

[She taps her fingers once, lightly, against the table and glances up at the camera facing her table before she smiles.] I can't speak about it but I'm living proof of such beings. [She chuckles a little and ducks her eyes almost demurely.] I assure you I'm not just telling you this as your therapist to make you feel better.

You're--? [ If the flash of surprise across his features is any indication, that wasn't the answer he was expecting, even remotely. His eyes following her gaze, brows pinched, to the-- Oh. The camera. Contrary to all outward appearances, Pietro hasn't missed the fact that there are cameras all over this town; it's only that as far as he remembers, there always have been. Also, he doesn't care.

But Jiaying clearly does. And even Pietro understands, on this subject, that discretion is important. The humans so easily come to fear them. (Them, which now suddenly includes Jiaying.) He shouldn't ask anything here, but he has so many questions. ]

Haveyoualways-- [ he starts, forgetting to regulate his speech for what is probably not the first time in Jiaying's office. He bites his lip and tries again. ] When did you know?

[ All her life? Or like him, after years of thinking he was human? (Is this what he is? What "mutant" means? Not from this planet?) ]

In my 30s. I'm not one of them but they made me. I'm different.

[She doesn't belong among the rest of these humans. She manages to suppress any physical manifestations of that hatred, keeping the session mostly professional. She tilts her head curiously.]

You are too, aren't you?

[ He hesitates, because these are things you don't say out loud, but it feels familiar somehow too, to share what he is with someone like Jiaying. Someone he trusts.

Just not in words whoever is on the other side of those cameras can use against them. He nods. ]

Since I was twelve. When my mother-- [ Died. Everyone knows that. He doesn't like to talk about how. ] And then everything was different. Like- when you drag your finger along the edge of a record, and whatever song you're listening to stretches out for an eternity -- except it didn't for anyone else.

[ Just him. ]

[she nods. She's seen so many different powers in her lifetime, helped so many through them. She can vaguely guess at what his powers might be.]

It's isolating when others don't understand.

[ He's outside when Cassian arrives, not because he doesn't want the other man to come inside, but because his room feels about the size of a sardine can right now, and he needs to be somewhere else. Moving. It's lucky he hasn't worn a path in the driveway yet.

But he gives a wane smile all the same, not unhappy to see the other man, just - nervous. Uncertain. A lot of things. Dread has settled heavy in his gut. ]

What do you think about a walk?

[ To the woods, or wherever, as long as it isn't here. ]

A walk sounds good.

[ They can stay away from buildings, and maybe manage to make some distance between themselves and recording equipment.

He wants to reassure Pietro in some way but isn't entirely sure how best to manage that; instead of saying anything, Cassian reaches out and pats Pietro on the arm. ]

I'll try to keep up.

[ Pietro huffs a small, enigmatic sort of laugh that Cassian will probably understand a lot better in a minute. ]

Good luck.

[ So at least his capacity for sass is unaffected. The physical contact doesn't go unappreciated, however; he leans in just a touch, and seems to settle a little before he pushes off away from the neighborhood.

It's funny, now Cassian is actually here, the pounding of Pietro's heart isn't only from anxiety. The chance to show off what he's capable of, even in a limited capacity, is rare enough to be a little exciting, too. If Cassian doesn't cast him away altogether, this could be a little fun.

But that's a big If. For now, as they pull out of earshot if not yet out of sight, Pietro considers his next words as carefully as he ever does. ]

You know that I am...different, from the others at school. [ "different" ] But there is more than that. Not just that I am smarter, or learn faster, or have less patience for their rudimentary lessons, but also that I'm not exactly-- human. [ Er. ] As it were.

[ Surprise??? ]

[ It's a small gesture (too small, really) but it's a start; Cassian gives one of his small smiles and walks alongside Pietro, hands in his pockets, tilting his head at the word 'different'.

If he were a less controlled person he might have kept right on tilting as Pietro kept talking. Not human was not what Cassian was expecting, even while keeping an open mind.

So he blinks, and pops his eyebrows up, and then gives a single nod. ]

I'll have to be honest, you look very human. [ It could be a joke but it isn't. ] What do you mean?

Most of the time, I blend in, except for- [ He gestures to his own hair, bane of his existence, with a chagrined twist of the mouth. ] But that's only on the outside.

[ The inside is what matters -- to him, and to Cassian, so this is the real moment of truth. Expose himself for the freak he is, and see how quickly Cassian pulls back from him. It's inevitable. Inescapable. No point in turning back now. ]

I'm a mutant. The next step in human evolution.

[ It sounds like something someone else said to him, a scrap of learned pride he's donning like armor in the face of presumed rejection, as if genetic superiority will keep him company when everyone else leaves. ]

For me, that means-- [ he makes a nervous, circular gesture in the air with one hand, searching for the right words--

Then, with a glance aside to be sure they're really out of earshot, he snaps his fingers instead. Only the sound it makes isn't a snap at all; it's a crack, the way the end of a whip sounds when it breaks the sound barrier. ]

My mind is not the only thing that is fast.

[ The next step in human evolution. Does that mean confined to the same planet, or no? Cassian tilts his head, a wry small smirk at Pietro's gesture towards his hair - he always thought it a unique and interesting quality, though he understood Pietro's dislike of it...thought he did, anyway - and then Pietro snaps his fingers.

Cassian's eyes go wide.

Everything he knows about Pietro has to be reevaluated in this new light, specifically the way he behaves, his reactions, how quickly he grasps what he's read, listened to, is shown. ]

That's pretty fucking amazing.

[ He frowns in the next instant. ]

School must be hell for you. [ Not that Cassian wasn't aware that it was, but suddenly he's glad he never had the impression he should attempt homeschooling for Pietro. ]

[ Pietro's smile breaks with an exhale like a delicate release of pressure, because yes, it is pretty fucking amazing, thank you, and the fact that Cassian sees that -- that he isn't disgusted, or afraid, or any of the thousand other worst case scenarios Pietro has conjured up in the last few minutes -- is pretty amazing, too. ]

No more than everything else, [ he jokes ("jokes"). ] -Well. A little more than everything else.

[ English lit is basically torture. ]

You aren't-- [ Bothered. Hostile. He doesn't know to finish that thought. ] It frightens people, sometimes.

Highschool, at least, will be over soon.

[ There's of course the option of college, or at the very least there should be, if they weren't all being corralled from the outside world like bacteria in a petri dish.

Cassian shakes his head at the idea that he'd be frightened by what Pietro is capable of. Amazed, sure, and re-evaluating in his previous assessments and assumptions, without a doubt. ]

There are...billions of lifeforms in the galaxy that can do things I can't. Even just ordinary humans. It's part of you, and you're important to me. That is stronger than fear. What matters is what you do, not just what you can do.

You see. [ Pietro sounds sort of bewilderedly grateful for that, that he's important enough to anyone to be listened to and understood like this, even knowing he would do the same and more for Cassian in return. ] I don't want to hurt anyone.

[ Want being the operative word. His eyes drop at that thought, troubled. It matters what he does, but what will he do? ]

Only, I doubt the choice will always be so simple. I have– dreams about it, you know? Of a war between mutants and humans. [ Are they still dreams if he's awake? ] At any moment, I am more dangerous to them than a loaded gun, [ With a nod toward town, toward humanity. ] And that is all most of them will see. A weapon that is not theirs to control.

[ Cassian blinks at Pietro's description of his dreams, pause noted - and are actually they dreams, or really memories? Because it speaks to the idea of a place where Pietro isn't safe, where a war has already happened or looms on his horizon.

It strikes him suddenly how his entire life seems like a weird sort of fiction right now. A twist, he thinks ruefully, around every corner! ]

I know something about war. [ Cassian sighs. ] It was all I knew, before I came here. [ A universal truth. ] Conscious life is conscious life; a weapon is something you point at someone else, that cannot make the decision for itself whether or not to fire.

Humans, here in particular, have led a dangerously sheltered kind of life. When you grow up and you're told, everyone is like you. Everyone looks like you, thinks like you, behaves like you? That leads to some pretty spectacular failures in understanding other people.

[ Pietro listens to Cassian in a way he doesn't to just about anyone else — because Cassian is his brother but also because he is a soldier, a person with concrete experience instead of everyone else's hypothetical bullshit — and that's true now more than ever. The words feel like articulating something Pietro's only managed to express in scathing quips, emotion always sharpening his thoughts into a dangerous tangle he can't sort through without drawing blood, but here's Cassian, explaining it so simply. Weapons don't have choices, and he does, so he isn't one — only the humans here are too narrow-minded to see it. He nods. It makes sense.

But what can he do about it? ]

Because of their failures, I am trapped like this — slowing myself down to a crawl every minute of every day for the rest of my life, just to make them more comfortable.

[ And Pietro rarely so much as scoots over on the bus to make anyone more comfortable. ]

Or someday I stop hiding, and risk them coming for us all.

[ Lorna. Wanda. Even Cassian. Mutations are genetic, after all. ]

[ There's real risk, real danger in what Pietro is describing - while Cassian has spent a lifetime interacting with other cultures, species, this town is not a shining example of those experiences.

So he's hesitant to dismiss them as not a problem. Out of the two of them, Cassian suspects Pietro has a better understanding of what xenophobic earthlings might get up to, if pressed. ]

I can't tell you that hiding is worth it, in the end. I can't even tell you that I think you won't exhaust yourself this way, that you won't...reach a point in which doing what you know you can will outweigh the risks in the moment.

Obviously it's easy to say that you shouldn't have to - just because it's easy, doesn't make it less true. But I don't know what would happen, here. It's a small town, we're heavily monitored... [ Cassian shakes his head. ]

My point is: you shouldn't have to hide, and if I know you, there will reach a point where hiding is no longer a real option for you. When that happens? And whatever happens after? That isn't on you, that isn't your fault. That is on the people who decide what their fears and presumptions of what it means to be human 'like them' means to anyone who doesn't fit that mold.

Self-preservation is important, protecting family and community is important. But so is being true to yourself, or you end up suffering from every direction, and it is hell. It is. Trust me.

Edited 2017-06-02 08:50 (UTC)

[ Pietro does trust him. But Cassian sounds so much like he knows what he's talking about right now, it strikes Pietro that he doesn't think of Cassian as someone who hasn't been true to themselves, not ever. Cassian is more controlled than him, yes, more cautious in ways that are occasionally frustrating for someone as unapologetically headstrong as Pietro, but he's always been honest, to Pietro's memory. He's always been sincere when they're together.

But maybe he isn't always. Maybe he can't be. Pietro doesn't want that for either of them. It makes his chest ache just to think about.

(That isn't your fault. That hits him under the ribs, too. It still feels like his responsibility.) ]

I wish I could simply make them see. [ His voice is small, a vain, childish hope he promptly shakes his head to dismiss. He isn't a child anymore. ] When pigs fly, perhaps. Until then, I won't put our family in danger unnecessarily.

[ And unnecessary includes for his benefit, whatever his frustrations. This may be about the worst way he can imagine to spend the rest of his life, but his siblings' needs always, always come first. ]

How is it you know so much about this kind of thing, anyway?

and though the rules of the road have been lodged

Jiaying

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Cassian

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