ataraxion | 002 -- video;

[The sudden movement catches Taylor's attention, and she looks up in time to see him throwing one at the wall, to see him stop himself. That hadn't been quite what she'd meant, but maybe the girl meant more to him than she'd thought. She watches him as he pulls himself together, for a few moments after he's spoken.]

Lucky.

[She'd known plenty of girls who hadn't made it, and she had the feeling plenty weren't going to make it on this ship. She just needed to try her hardest on preventing the latter.

She stands up, moving to pick up the pot of paint again.]

Don't fuck up your arm. Better if you hit me than the wall.

[ He glances at her, surprised and, more importantly, surprised enough that it pushes him off balance for a moment, interrupting the angry flow of thought that Tommy's never been good at stopping once it starts, and-- And it's effective, actually, because on a deep gut-level, he doesn't want to hit her, won't ever out of anger if he's got anything to say about it.

So the immediacy of the feeling deflates a little, and he lets his arm drop back to his side. (She's right, too, about not fucking up his arm when they've got other things to do.) He scrubs his other hand over his face and then looks at her again. ]

There's only one person on this ship I wanna hit, and he ain't here right now. [ A pause and then, with a deflective one-shoulder shrug that says he wants her to know he gets the gesture even if he doesn't want to make a big thing about it, he adds, ] Thanks.

[It's her turn to be surprised, for a moment, not expecting any thanks. Maybe not sure what she was getting any for. Her own shoulders shift in a tense line, and she looks down at the paint pot in her hand, absently noting how much was left in it and how many more traps that equated to.]

Is he possessed?

That's what people are saying, [ Tommy says, and he sounds uncertain. He doesn't know what to think about that. Maybe it means Magneto's innocent, but it doesn't feel better thinking about him stabbing Alayne, even if it was a demon driving when it happened. ] Or was.

Fuck.

[Even seeing the demons in person hadn't made it quite real. The first concern had been about not letting people get possessed - she hadn't even thought all that much about what the demons would do when they were possessing someone, apart from talk big on the network. She's even gladder, now, that they'd taken the time to copy Dean's tattoo.]

There's... people where I'm from, they can make you do shit you don't want to do. [Miss Pinset, music instructor, literal pied piper, used to sing Taylor into classes when she was trying to skip. Her teammate, Impetus, complete sociopath with pheromone manipulation, used it to play with as many people as she could. And her games weren't the fun kind.

Taylor rubs a hand over the back of her neck, leaving smudges of paint there. If there was one thing she could say she absolutely hated, that was it.]

Always feel like scum afterwards.

[And she'd never stabbed anyone while under that sort of compulsion.]

[ It's an idea that makes his skin control, actually. Tommy gets that sometimes he's not as in control as he should be -- like that moment just a second ago where he nearly busted his fist on the wall -- but that's different than having someone or something else controlling you instead. It's one of the things Tommy's been trying not to think about from the first time that buddy of Dean's dropped the word "possession." ]

Yeah? [ It's a question because he doesn't know from personal experience but not a question too because he can kind of guess. ] But you do something fucked up while someone else's driving, it's their fuck up, right?

[ That's the real question. ]

[There was thinking about The Academy and there was thinking about The Academy, and this was straying into the latter; individual occasions coming to mind, specific memories Taylor would've preferred to have lost somewhere. Maybe she should have seen Histor about that, but the idea of having her memory scrubbed was just as fucked up. She didn't want anyone in her head, no matter what they were doing there.]

Doesn't stop you feeling like you should've done more to stop it. [It comes out harder than she means, and she takes a moment, chewing on the next words, shoulders shifting stiffly. It was her that had brought it up, not Tommy, and it was Tommy.] Or thinking like maybe, really, you wanted it. And that's why you didn't.

[ Tommy nods a little because he knows what that kind of regret feels like, and that's probably why he chooses not to press too hard on the subject or ask Tyke what people might've made her do. Even if it hasn't worked out so well for him, Tommy still thinks that stuff like that is better left where it won't be forgotten, exactly, but where you can at least sometimes pretend it's not there. ]

Or if it meant somethin' to you, you'd've found a way not to be in that position in the first place. [ Tommy frowns for a moment. ] But it still doesn't mean you did it.

[ And he doesn't sound happy about that, really, because -- in the particular case that started this conversation -- that means there's no one left he can blame for what happened to Alayne. ]

[It's not a good thing to be talking about - people being controlled, people getting possessed, girls getting stabbed. But when Taylor looks over at him there's still something like surprise touching at her eyes. Like she's still expecting to be told to deal with it, get over it, part of Academy life. Like she still isn't used to how Tommy just gets it.]

Doesn't mean I did it.

[But it had still been her. No, what Tommy said was right, and she knew it, took it as reminder. She reaches up to rub at her neck again, but it's more like she's pushing some of the stiffness away, this time. It isn't even about her, the whole thing. It was about that girl and her getting hurt, how worked up Tommy was about it, the guy he wanted to hit.]

Who was it? The guy.

[ His expression grows angry again as soon as she asks, and the muscles in his neck tighten for a second too. He doesn't resent her asking the question -- and he makes sure to look down at his feet, so she knows that the reaction isn't about her or what she wants to know -- but the worst part of having no one to blame is that he's got nothing to do with all his anger. He's just got to push it down with the rest and hope he finds a way to deal with it later. ]

The guy who calls him Magneto.

[Magneto. That wasn't the name she was expecting, and it catches her off guard. She wasn't expecting it to be anyone she knew, and she realises after a moment that that was stupid. She'd talked to too many people on this ship.

But then there's Tommy's reaction, that anger again, and Taylor can understand it even if they'd just talked about the fact it wasn't really Magneto that had done it. Magneto was the guy Tommy wanted to go and hit.]

You can't-- don't fight him.

[ Tommy glances up at her sharply, surprised. Other people were standing up for this Magneto guy too, saying he couldn't have done it and that it had to have been a demon, and maybe they're right. He just wasn't expecting to hear it from Tyke too. But now that he thinks about it, it shouldn't seem strange. Getting to know people. It's a side effect of being all trapped here together. ]

Right, 'cause he didn't do it? [ he asks, huffing out a breath that says that he sort of agrees even if he isn't happy about it. ]

[It might have been what they'd just talked about, but it wasn't what Taylor meant. She could leave it, though, from the way Tommy's answered it himself like that. Just nod, because Magneto didn't do it and she didn't like the idea of them fighting. But the real reason why she didn't like the idea of them fighting was slanted the other way.]

'Cause he could kill you. [A pause, because that was all she was going to say, but there were plenty of people on board the ship that could kill anyone. She scrubs a hand back through her hair.] Really fucking easily.

[ His eyes narrow, and it's tough to hear those words and not think of it like a dare. It's what people say all the time: I'm going to destroy you, I could take you with both hands behind my back. Baiting an opponent like that isn't Tommy's style, but that never stopped guys in training from doing it or guys at the gym, even some of the kids back in high school, though they weren't much good at it.

Tyke doesn't say it like a dare, though, and she seems to mean it honestly. She doesn't want him to fight. So he relaxes again, raises his eyebrows at her. ]

What d'you know that I don't?

[For a moment she's tempted to say just trust me. It'd be a kid thing to say, though, like a little girl. Please don't fight him, because I said so. Magneto's words weren't hers to share, but that wouldn't make her withhold tactical information from one of her teammates. She won't withhold information from Tommy.]

You remember him talking that whole thing about non-humans? He's got a path-- an ability.

[She feels, maybe, like it might be easier to say if she'd already told Tommy about her own pathos. But the idea of that sat heavy, now. Offering out one person's ability as a reason to avoid them, and then giving her own with the other hand. She rubs a hand over the side of her neck, arm crossed over her chest.]

He can manipulate metal. I haven't seen it in action, but from what he said it sounds like he can do shit like stop bullets. Fuck up guns. [Magneto had faced off against two armies and survived, he'd told her. But he hadn't said the specifics of the armies, or what kind of weaponry they were trying against him.] Maybe bigger.

[Not that Tommy went around armed anyway. But having a gun turned against him wasn't her worry.] And if he can stop bullets, he can make other things move like them.

[ Tommy exhales heavily and rubs his hand over his face again. He doesn't get any of this. Ever since Jenna told the world she was a vampire, it's been one thing that seems to come straight out of the movies after the next. And Tommy's tried not to judge or get hung up on it -- because this situation is too strange in general to get caught up on how it was strange specifically -- but it doesn't mean he gets any of it.

But he trusts Tyke (weird to think that after so long not trusting anyone), and he knows she wouldn't make this stuff up just to keep him from fighting some guy who might or might not deserve it. She probably could've just said Just trust me, and he would've. ]

So I'd get my ass kicked for nothing. Because he's got superpowers, [ he summarizes. ]

[Superpowers. Taylor smiles slightly, brief and humourless. That was comic book stuff, and Tommy had made comments about all the weird shit she'd seen, but they'd never talked about this specifically before. Now she knew - either there was nothing like her in his world, or it was hidden the same way it was in hers.]

Could. [She gives a shrug, a stiff little jerk of her shoulders.] Just because he's got them doesn't mean he'd use them.

[But it wasn't like a guy with a gun. Magneto couldn't be disarmed to level the playing field. Pushed too far and everyone used their pathos in the end, and she knew how Tommy fought.]

[ At that, Tommy just makes a flatly skeptical face. She knows Magneto better than he does, obviously given that he'd only ever paid attention to the guy in passing before. (Something he's starting to regret now; he should probably start watching more closely when people talk about weird shit on the network and not just skim through it as something he's never going to fully understand).

So maybe she's right and that's the kind of guy Magneto is but Tommy thinks that a person wouldn't hold back with a power like that, just like Tommy would never go easy on someone just because they can't fight like he does. ]

So he throws the fight or I lose. [ He doesn't sound as upset by that as he usually would be. Superpowers make the rules blurrier, and Tommy doesn't know how to feel about them yet. ]

[She gives a little huff at the look he gives her, something like a laugh, because yeah, she'd said it but she doesn't believe it either. If a guy like Tommy came after her in a hostile fight, she'd use her dogs, no questions - and that wasn't even speculation for her, considering some of the missions she'd run.]

Yeah. [Another shrug. She'd already said it: Magneto could kill him.] Yeah, that's it, I guess. [So don't fight him.]

[ It takes a lot of Tommy to let the urge to fight drop. When he was a kid, he'd wanted to go his whole life without being defeated. He wanted a record tat people would tell stories about. And even if this isn't losing a fight, it's walking away from one because he knows he wouldn't win if he tried. That's almost as hard. ]

Yeah, all right, [ he says after a long silence. ] As long as he doesn't mess with her again, I won't.

[If Taylor was in Tommy's position, she probably couldn't do it. Maybe say she would, but she knows, in the moment, she's bared her teeth at girls she'd consider more powerful than Magneto. Over far pettier things, too.

She doesn't know why Tommy's so protective over her - the girl that had been stabbed - but he hadn't asked why Magneto had told Taylor about his ability and Taylor won't ask why the girl means that much. She just nods and says,]

Okay.

[Then she looks away, like she hadn't just asked him not to fight someone, like she didn't feel something lighter for the answer she'd got.]

Okay, [ repeats Tommy, like he's confirming that they've made a deal (or that he's made a promise). He shoves his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie, tucking his comm away so that it's at least out-of-sight, out-of-mind for now. The people still trying to talk to him will have to wait a bit but since he's not tearing after Magneto, the rest doesn't seem as time sensitive.

He gestures with his head down the hall. ]

We've got more stuff to paint, right?

Yeah, right.

[She rolls her shoulders slightly, like she's loosening them up, and gives a whistle, the dogs immediately picking themselves up from the perimeter positions they'd been settled in, ready to scout down the corridor ahead of her and Tommy. They'd all had a break, if they could call it that. Back to work.]

This shit's going to be burnt on the back of my eyelids.

002 -- video;

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