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WHO: Billy & Terry (& Bradbury)
WHERE: Terry's Apartment
WHEN: 5/11 or "in the evening whenever"
WARNINGS: n/a
SUMMARY: Terry offered to give Billy Teddy's stuff from when he was here last.
FORMAT: in the style of your choice.

So, okay, Billy had tried his best to pretend everything was easy to deal with. And in a way, that wasn't a lie. It wasn't like his own world hadn't been turned on top of itself a few times, it wasn't like he didn't personally possess enough power to go and potentially do something like this. (Now there was a thought -- don't even.) Seeing and talking to Kate had been good, though, a sense of normalacy even in this totally abnormal place. But there was still this question about Teddy's stuff, and he thinks about it a lot the second day and decides to go over to Terry's place that night, hoping he's not going to seem too desperate or forward, or insert other negative adjective. Anyway "evening whenever" it is, so he knocks on the door. Hopefully he's home.

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The person who opens the door isn't Terry. In fact, it's someone who looks nothing like Terry. Bradbury spends half a beat staring over the top of Billy's head before he adjusts his gaze down to squint at him, a little baffled. He's about the right age, but Terry's friends aren't usually polite enough to do anything as mundane as knock.

"You here for Terry?" He's obviously on his way out, car keys dangling from one hand and jacket pulled on over a black shirt. Without waiting for an answer, he looks over his shoulder and calls out.

"You got a visitor!"

Terry's first reaction is suspicion. Because he never gets visitors -- that's what happens when you resign yourself to being a complete social failure -- or at least, he never gets visitors that don't just teleport into the middle of his apartment unannounced. It takes him a full five seconds to even remember inviting Billy over to pick up his alien boyfriend's box of miscellaneous stuff.

By the time he gets to the door, it's open and Bradbury's standing there with a guy roughly his age (but infinitely more put together, at least on the outside). Somehow, this already feels awkward and he's already regretting it a little bit.

He exhales. "Right. Hi, Billy."

"Hi," That's for Terry, and he looks over at Bradbury and introduces himself again anyway, even though Terry clearly just said his name because he is polite enough to do mundane things like knock and introduce himself, "Hi, I'm Billy." And then once that's taken care of, he looks back to Terry since his dad/friend/roomate/other person is clearly on the way out, "I didn't come at a bad time, did I?"

"Rick Bradbury." He'd offer his hand to shake, but settles for giving a small nod of acknowledgement, glancing between them. Well, he remembers enough about being a teenager to know Terry probably won't appreciated being reminded to lock up the house and take care while he's in front of a friend (forget it, he wouldn't appreciate it even if they were alone) so he finally just waves a hand at them both.

"Sorry -- I'm heading out, but make yourself at home." That's for Billy, and the silent look he gives Terry has the raised eyebrow that implies don't trash the place without saying it.

Then he's gone.

Terry responds to Bradbury's raised eyebrow with a slight shrug of his shoulders and a flat look of his own, as if to say that Bradbury should know well enough by now that there's never guarantees, especially not with anybody that Terry knows. Billy, at least, seems less psychotic than the majority of the other teenagers Terry knows, so there's that.

He shuts the door behind Billy after Bradbury leaves, explaining with a sort of habitual dryness, "Obviously, he's my dad." A pause, then he heads back towards the bedrooms, gesturing for Billy to follow after him. "Abby kept all of Teddy's stuff in a box. So."

"Your dad?" Terry is either just that lucky or maybe this is one of those guess-he's-my-dad-while-here sort of things. Not that it matters either way, biology was weird and there was no reason nonbiological parents couldn't count.

Anyway he follows Terry back towards the bedrooms, and nods. "That was nice of you, to hold onto it."

"Honestly, I sort of forgot I even had that crap until you showed up."

Which is easier than saying that he kept it because Abby would've wanted to keep it, and if she ever came back, she'd be devastated if her little box of mementos was missing. It doesn't even contain anything especially valuable -- some photos, some of Teddy's clothes, things like that. Terry hasn't even looked at the contents in what has to be years.

He pauses at one of the doors -- Bradbury's room now, formerly Abby's -- and lets them both in. It's a fairly unremarkable bedroom, except for the black cat on the windowsill and that box, sitting on the desk. Terry goes to pick it up, offering it to Billy. In a girl's curly handwriting, Teddy's name and a crooked smiley face are written in sharpie on the side.

"You wanna go through it, or?"

It's strange to think how emotional a box can make him, when he had only just seen Teddy yesterday. It feels like a million years ago now, and the new reality he's found himself in seems eerily real very quickly, without having some weird sense that 'maybe I'm just dreaming' or 'this can't be real.' There's more to it, though, then just the loss. Seeing Teddy's name written like that in an unfamiliar handwriting ornamented with a smile and everything makes his heart drop a little bit. There's no reason to feel jealous about it. It's just a box - but it symbolizes a life Teddy had that didn't include him (or did, but a different version of him, or with memories he doesn't have, so doesn't that amount to the same thing?)

Billy shakes his head - better to sort through those feelings, and this stuff, when Terry wasn't there to watch him start to tatter and fray at the edges. "When I get back. Thanks, it's. It means a lot to me."

The nagging, vaguely uncomfortable feeling that's been steadily growing in the pit of his stomach suddenly becomes too full blown to ignore. Somehow, he's found himself in a situation too personal for how superficially he knows Billy, and he isn't sure what to do with it. Without really meaning to, he thinks about Abby, how glad she might have been to see Billy after all these years, how eager she would have been to tell him everything, to help fill in the blanks.

Terry doesn't know how to offer any of that, even though he has some of those memories too. The gap between him and this other kid he barely knows is just too wide.

"Yeah, well." He glances away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry there isn't more." Or maybe that's better. He doesn't know. He doesn't know why he feels compelled to go on either, adding awkwardly at length, "You can come by again whenever. There isn't any other dusty crap laying around, but I bet Rick would cook if you wanted."

"Oh, no, that's - I mean, I wasn't expecting to find this at all, it's really great you kept it, and I'm sure I'm not explaining it right, but." He stops, slows down. He can tell that things aren't exactly totally okay here, and he's not quite sure how to make it better, but knows he really wants to express his gratitude that someone who is a total stranger to him would be willing to give him this box of memories that belonged to a version of his boyfriend he'd never meet. "I'm always willing to accept food. We could, uh, watch movies or play video games or whatever you're into, too."

He tries to be appreciative of the sentiment, instead of recoiling from it -- natural instinct, not really bred out of not wanting to be friends so much as a terrible past full of terrible experiences involving attempts at being friends. Especially in context, it's a weird place to hit the ground running. He's still "that guy that knew that girl that was kinda best friends with your boyfriend."

He swears he's too pessimistic for this kind of thing now, but.

"I've got Rock Band. My boss and me used to play, but our guitarist got ported out a while ago." God of fear. Also a brat. "If you're not allergic to raccoons or anything, I'll introduce you."

The context is definitely strange - layered on top of that is the guilt that back home there's still a parasite waiting for him because he screwed up trying to bring said boyfriend's mother back from the dead. But it really seemed like he had two choices here: 1) admit that it was terrifying being away from home, that he had literally been a matter of minutes away from suicide before he'd been suddenly been ported here, and fall into a crazy depression from the combination of those things with a dash of everything is still my fault and Teddy isn't here to hold my hand OR 2) try a pretend to live a seminormal life and hope that his brain picks up and holds on to that reality enough. Wasn't like he was any stranger to the idea of fabricated realities, was it?

"Rock Band. Excellent." Except ok, "What does that have to do with racoons, though?"

He's not very good at this. He's painfully aware of it, and inwardly willing the situation to resolve itself as quickly as possible, because in all honesty, the longer he spends trying to interact with other sort of human beings, the more likely it is that he'll say something to mess it up. Like the circumstances aren't already awkward enough already.

But, oh. Right. The raccoons.

"April -- my boss." Might as well be blunt about it. Terry waves his hand a little, as if to say, it's really not a big deal. "Her power is like, controlling raccoons or something. They follow her around. Nest in people's hair and stuff. Whatever."

At least the description of April's power gets Billy to laugh. "Oh man, I'm not sure if that's really great or really unfortunate." He's leaning towards unfortunate, but, man, racoons can be cool when they aren't being terrifying, right? And as a weapon we can definitely see the positives there. Though for some reason he also has the image of Tom Nook, bane of every Animal Crossing player's life stuck in his head. Maybe it's "boss" and "racoons" in the same sentence. Which, speaking of, "What kind of job do you have?"

Unfortunate is the word that Terry would choose -- but then again, he's a pessimist, so unfortunate tends to come up a lot with him anyway. His relationship with April is a strange one, filled with small woodland creatures. But he won't explain it too much. Billy's bound to find out first-hand sooner or later anyway.

"I'm April's intern. At City Hall." Not that he has any interest in politics. He's immortal -- those things start feeling irrelevant when he thinks about them too hard. "Basically? I make a lot of coffee. And a lot of copies."

The flatness of his tone suggests he doesn't find it a particularly thrilling lifestyle. But truthfully, the mundane quality of it can be comforting.

He goes on dryly, "If you're into slave labor, she could probably hook you up."

"Coffee and copies, that's really living the high life." Not that he knows what he wants to do with his, but those are details, right? "If I ever decide that's what I want to do, I'll definitely give you a call. I might to the school thing in the fall - it seems kind of a waste to start in with it the month before the summer starts."

Terry rolls his eyes a little, but just a little, and mostly for show. He's not any more sorted out than Billy is (maybe he's less), but it gets him out of the house -- which, if his pallor is anything to judge by, he probably needs. It beats sitting in the dark avoiding people all day, every day.

"The school thing. Right."

Terry remembers that too. Supposedly there's a future where he grows up, gets somewhat functional, and gets a useful education, but he isn't there yet and he isn't sure he wants to be. He hasn't done school since high school. And the sarcasm he responds with betrays what kind of experience he thinks that was.

"Because school doesn't completely blow most of the time or anything."

"I think maybe all my grandmother's lectures finally got to me." It's only partly a joke - Grandmother guilt is definitely the worst as far as he's concerned. But partly, he just wants something that counts as normal. His powers aren't, and he's not always sure he wants those, so having a fallback plan seems like a really really good idea. You know, become an account or something like that.

Terry makes a bit of a face. Lectures. His favorite thing.

"Seriously?" Obviously he doesn't exactly buy that reasoning. "I think I'd rather feel guilty than have to deal with school." And people. And expectations. And all the general crap that going to school brings around.

"Maybe your grandmother isn't as good at it as mine is." Go to a goo school, get a good job, marry a nice jewish girl, etc. etc. "It would be good to know how to do something."

He's pretty sure his grandmother would be horrified to see him anyway -- the human one he knows he has, at least. Do demon lords have mothers? Maybe if he does have a dark demonic grandmother, she'd be able to coerce him into doing things. He's not exactly eager to find out.

"You mean besides alter reality or whatever the hell it is you do?" Maybe he just doesn't really remember normalcy -- or he's given up on it. "What else is there, underwater basket weaving?"

"Altering reality isn't really a viable career option, I don't think." Maybe it is - but he gave up superheroing. For good reasons, as he was learning. At least, maybe he'd go back and do it, but only for as long as it took to get this mother parasite gone and then. And then that was it.

Really.

"I dunno, maybe I'll become an accountant." That was stable right. Being a super hero was like the opposite of stable.

When did he turn into this person? If the Billy of a year ago had seen him talking like this they would have had A Discussion about it, but now he's pretty much okay with the idea of trying to be. Normal. At least for the most part.

Terry makes another face. Because accounting. He tries to imagine the other reality alterer he knows saying something like that and the mental image is purely ridiculous in his head. Jenny Quantum wanted to rule the world. Billy Kaplan wanted to be an accountant. Maybe it just takes all kinds.

"Please tell me you're kidding." Well, maybe that's insensitive. But he's not really good at being sensitive anyway. "Not that I buy into the whole spandex gig, because that gets stupid fast too, but. Seriously?"

"Seriously. I mean, it's a life skill or whatever adults are always trying to tell you about, right? You're kind of employable for forever." It sounds dumber the longer he describes it, he's well aware, "I guess I just...even if I never did anything with it, it'd be something."

Life skill. Right. Maybe he just doesn't grasp the concept entirely. Does that happen when you start coming to terms with your immortality? Or maybe it's his social ineptitude showing again. Who knows.

"That's seriously what you want?" He's skeptical. A little judgmental too. Not because he doesn't understand the desire to be normal -- he does. Definitely. But his powers are awful. Dangerous. Nothing but harmful. Billy is different, right? "What happened to the whole, I dunno, teen hero thing?"

"I'm not a 'teen hero' anymore. We stopped being the Young Avengers awhile ago, so." He shrugs. It's not something he wants to get into, though it's true that talking about it would probably be good eventually. Just, you know, with people he knows better. He'd already talked about it a bit anyway and that was totally enough right?

"Why, what do you want to do? Work with the Initiative forever?"

"What? No."

Terry makes another face. Truthfully, the Initiative was only a slight upgrade from high school. Just another place where he didn't fit in with his peers and managed to ruin mostly everything for everyone.

"But I'm pretty sure there's nothing school can do for me either."

Unless colleges can take your powers away, of course.

"Then don't go to school." Billy shrugs. He knows its not for everyone - but he and his analytical skills are going to learn some accounting. Or something.

"Not planning on it." His tone is dismissive. There will be as little accounting in Terry's future as humanly possible. "I'm immortal anyway, so there's not a whole lot of point to it."

"Really? You're a immortal?" This is somehow now 900 times cooler than any discussion about school.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I can't be killed, so I guess I am. Supposedly." Suddenly, he seems unwilling to discuss it in detail. It's frustrating really, that the demonic side of him affects just about everything. He can't even die properly. "I did get autopsied and embalmed once though. That sucked."

Edited 2013-06-14 08:03 (UTC)

Okay yeah that definitely puts a damper on the whole being immortal is cool. "That sounds horrible."

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