Time Warp: In which Levi is not MJ

[Levi Xu]

January, 2011

Levi had been at Hammel for almost 24 hours, and had yet to leave his dorm room. They'd set him up in an empty room to rest while the recruiting office sent out a recruiter to talk to his father about what had happened. (It was fumbled a bit because the head of recruiting, who was supposed to organize new student enrollment, was in the hospital for a family emergency. After confirming that Levi's power wasn't anything particularly dangerous, they had given him a dorm and a chance to lie down. The fact that he hadn't left the room since was noticed only after he'd skipped dinner that night, and both breakfast and lunch the next day.)

He'd spent most of those 24 hours crying.

The rest of the time had been spent trying to devise a way to escape and find Jake. But that probably wasn't going to happen unless he went to Paulo first, and that wasn't going to happen. Levi wasn't exactly afraid of returning to the compound but....well, it looked like the twins had killed whoever killed Mr. Underwood. They'd threatened Jake, and then they'd both left. If he returned, he probably wasn't very safe with them.

With Jake and Mr. Underwood gone, he probably wasn't very safe anywhere.

Finally, when he just felt dehydrated and groggy, he tried to write everthing down in the journal he hadn't touched since Jahel had decided to take him on a little field trip. He couldn't get much down though; his hands were shaking too bad, and now someone was knocking on his door. Frustrated, he finally slammed the journal closed and went to his door. He rubbed his red, tired eyes--he hadn't slept the night before, and it was obvious--to hold back any tears that might come, and opened the door.

[Evan Brackett]

It had been long since classes had started again following the winter break. Upon his return from the farm, Evan had been informed that he had a week to pack all of things before being moved into a new room. Despite sending them frequent complaint e-mails and visiting the office to speak with the department head, housing didn't let him keep his old dorm. So he began to pack and move his things to the co-ed floor.

He didn't know much about his new roommates, just that both of the girls terrified him (Mia for obvious reasons, Sawyer because she was a girl). The third kid was a new student that had come in the day previous, but Van hadn't heard from him at all. He only knew the other boy existed because he overheard him being brought in while unpacking, and after that, he kept the volume on his mp3 player turned up and his earbuds in so he could focus on setting up his new room.

It was only under an hour ago that he had finished settling in. Evan didn't have a lot of stuff to move, but he had changed up the orientation of the room's furniture. That alone took him half a day, since he was working by himself. After that it was just (re)making his bed, putting his clothes away, filling up his bookshelf, and hanging up some decorations.

Flopping on his bed with a huff, he spent a good chunk of the last hour just sitting in bed, listening to music, and resting. It wasn't until his stomach began to rumble that he realized it was dinner time. With a sigh, he pulled out his earbuds, shut off his mp3 player, and got up to go to the cafeteria. As he left his room, it occurred to him that the new kid might not no where the dinning hall was, so he stopped at his door and knocked. "Hey, new kid. It's dinning hours, do you need me to show you to the cafeteria?" Evan asked through the door. He was just going to continue on his merry way when there was no immediate response, but the door opened before he could turn around.

There was a hitch in the phaser's breath, and then, "Levi?!" He recognized him instantly--the boy he met a couple of times in town--even if the last time they saw each other was practically three months ago.

[Levi Xu]

Levi's breathing stopped for a moment and his eyes went wide. Right then, when he really needed a hero, Evan showed up. Spider-Man came for him. His chin quivered, and he managed to hold back from launching forward to cling to the older boy. "Please, save me. I hate it here." He wasn't supposed to be at Hammel. He was supposed to be back at the compound, sitting shiva for his fallen teacher. And if he couldn't be there, he should be with Jake and Buccaneer and the other dogs, heading far away from Vermont.

"I have to get out of here. I don't belong here." Now that he had someone he knew--and he did remember Van saying something about going to a private school but he hadn't known he was a meta--all the things he'd tried to communicate to the few staff he'd spoken to just came tumbling out. "I was doing just fine, and my father is not going to be happy I was taken here, and I have to get...."

Evan was here. Evan was a meta. "Oh my God. Van, are you meta too?" He had been right to like him before, when they'd met in town. Even if Mr. Underwood said that they were born, not made. Maybe the radioactive spider thing was a cover-up so they wouldn't call Spider-Man a mutant like they did with the X-Men. "Do you know how I can get out of here?" They let Evan into town, which was something the housing staff had been clear was off the table in his case.

[Evan Brackett]

A grin broke across his face, as inappropriate as it was at such a time. He himself had been upset, angered by the sudden displacement and tired from having moved things all day, but all that aggravation had since evaporated, replaced by the excitement of running into an old acquaintance. The wibbling, red-eyes, and general frustration of said acquaintance went unnoticed by Evan. He could be dense sometimes, especially when it came to important things.

But most of us already knew that.

"Me too!" he exclaimed with far more glee than the subject should allow. It was only after he said this did he realize what rough shape Levi appeared to be in, and his previous frown reappeared. "Oh, are you okay? You seem...disheveled." It really should have occurred to him that the other boy wouldn't be asking to be saved had he been okay, but it slipped out anyway.

The phaser just listened quietly to what Levi was telling him; he was used to seeing all different levels of reactions from new students. A brief smile flared up at the question, even though it was a sudden turn from the boy's more dismal rambling, a bit of his former excitement reappearing. "Yeah, I can phase...kinda. You're one? Wow. That's so awesome," he said, fawning slightly near the end.

Evan could tell right way that Levi wasn't asking to leave the dorm. It seemed like a pretty common question among students anyway, and the rest of what he said was an obvious indication that he did not want to be at the school. "Uh, the only way to 'get out' is to graduate. There's really no way to run away or be expelled. Trust me, people have tried." Personally, Van would have been gone years ago if he was capable of getting away, but nothing he could do compared to anything else he'd seen or heard. He never even dared to try.

[Levi Xu]

Levi blinked up at the older boy, wondering if it were possible that he looked anything but not okay. Disheveled was putting it politely. "No. I don't....I don't want to be here." As if that wasn't obvious. Sure, he was abandoned here--though no matter how angry he was at Jake for that, if the man showed up then wanting to take him away, he'd jump at the chance to go with him--but how many students had Hammel kidnapped? How could anyone like it there?

"And yeah, I am. A Meta. I didn't realize you were too when we met before." Or he would have said something. Fifi had brought a few "recruits" with her to the compound last summer. He could have brought Evan. Maybe things wouldn't have been so lonely then. It would have been nice to have a friend his age. "I don't know the technical term for it though." If there even was a technical term for giving him fantastic information on the people he met. (Come to think of it, why couldn't his power have done something useful like tell him that Spider-Man was a meta and not the result of radiation? That could have come in handy.)

"There has to be a way out. My dad could pull me out of school. I could go back to Portland." If his dad even wanted him any more. Jake had said that M.S.A.D. had done some bad things, and the words "terrorists" had been thrown around a few times when he had been in the office. They weren't, but his family were just humans. They might accept him on his own, but they wouldn't understand. "I just want to go home, Evan." The compound or Portland would suffice. He didn't even feel picky about it.

And then, as if to announce how miserable he felt, his stomach rumbled loudly. The last thing Levi had eaten was an apple he'd grabbed mid-morning before he'd taken the dogs out to play yesterday. His last actual meal had been dinner the night before that. He looked away from Evan and blushed slightly. Yeah, disheveled didn't cut it. "Uh, excuse me."

[Evan Brackett]

Polite was exactly what he was aiming for as Evan didn't want to be rude to his new roommate. The way Levi responded made him want to hug the other boy, though. He shifted his weight, considering it for a moment, before deciding that it would be too awkward to do when they barely knew each other. Instead, he settled for saying, "I'm sorry. I wish I could help."

"Yeah, well. It's not like you could have known this was here back then." He was going on the assumption that Levi's power hadn't manifested at that time. With the way Hammel was usually on top of recruitments, he didn't consider that he just hadn't been found yet. "You mean your power?" Van confirmed, not sure if that was what the younger boy meant. "That's cool, it must be really special then. What can you do?" There weren't many people that could say their power didn't have a name. Unlike most instances, where 'what can you do?' came up as an ice-breaker, Evan was genuinely interested in hearing about it.

The phaser scratched the back of his neck. "I know, but it isn't that easy. If it were, there would probably be a lot fewer people here." He knew that parents opinions on the way Hammel did things varied, but there were enough wary individuals that it was obvious parents couldn't just pull their kids out of the institute. He supposed that the policy was similar to that of regular school, except there was no home schooling option. Or any other schooling options. Okay, maybe it wasn't all that similar.

He found the stomach's outspokenness amusing, but not so much the fact that Levi probably hadn't eaten in a while. This he concluded on his own. "So you are hungry, then," he said with a soft smile. "Do you want to come to dinner with me, or would you rather I brought you back something?" Van wasn't going to coerce the other boy into coming with him, but he was going to make sure he ate something either way.

[Levi Xu]

Of course, Evan was interested in his power. Being weird, even for a meta, was not something Levi was particularly proud of, however. "It's kinda...I see people differently, and sometimes I just know things about them. It's like a psychic thing." No, they had pretty much cleared up that his ability wasn't something typically classified as psychic, but it was easier to just lie about it. "It's nothing cool. I can't really control it."

Evan's point about them not letting parents pull students out would have been disheartening if Levi wasn't so desperate already. As it was, it just seemed like a challenge. If his dad still wanted him around, it could be done. There had to be a way.

The older boy's offer to bring him some food made Levi smile slightly, the first time he'd since he'd stepped into the gristly scene in Mr. Underwood's study the day before. "I...I guess I'll come with you." Leaving the dorm for a reason other than leaving Hammel was significantly more appealing when he had a friend there. And even though he'd only met the boy a few times in town, he really did think of him as a friend.

And he needed them, considering how his best friend had abandoned him at Hammel, and taken his other best friend away with him.

He went back to his bed and opened his suitcase, rooting around inside until he found a sweatshirt to pull on. No, Levi was not planning on unpacking anytime soon. Even if it was a symbolic gesture, he was not going to accept the fact that he was stuck there forever. He pulled on his sneakers and shrugged up at the older boy. "Okay...uh, where's the cafeteria?"

There had been a short tour last night. He had not paid attention.

[Evan Brackett]

Evan smiled, thinking that he completely understood. "Kinda like ESP, then?" he tried. It made more sense to him that way, even if that wasn't what Levi was saying at all. "I think it sounds cool. A lot of people can't control their powers, that's why they're here." It was an attempt to sound reassuring. It might have worked too, except the words that came out of his mouth next kind of screwed it up. "I've been here since I was fourteen, and I still can't control my phasing." Evan: not Hammel's ideal poster boy. Although, he would look good on a poster. If anything, he only further proved that the place was more like a prison than a school.

His grin widened with the other boy agreed to come along. "Alright, cool." He had been ready to leave before approaching the new kid, so all he had to do was wait while Levi got dressed for the cold weather. He didn't ask about why Levi was still unpacked, he just assumed the younger student just hadn't taken the time to do it yet.

Evan nodded and began backing towards the door to the suite. "It's not far from the dorms," he responded, "Just down the stairs, and a bit of a walk. Kinda makes sense to keep it near housing, I s'pose." The phaser turned around then, afraid he'd be unable to maintain his direction much longer without tripping. "I can show you how to get there, and it shouldn't be too hard to remember, for future reference." He was secretly hoping the other boy would want to join him for future meals anyway. Dinning hours were really lonely when there was no one there to keep him company.

[Levi Xu]

ESP? Maybe it was a type of it, but since he didn't know for sure, he gave a non-committal half-shrug. But he was more interested in the idea that a super hero could be having trouble with his training. Then again, phasing wasn't really on the list of abilities the hero had in the comics. It wasn't a natural spider ability, so it might even be extra difficult for him to get a handle on. "When do you get to graduate then? When you're done with high school?"

If that was the only way out, Levi was super screwed. Apparently, being homeschooled in meta law and firearms didn't count as a well-rounded education. He hadn't been inside a regular classroom in over a year, and so he was going to have to repeat his freshman year entirely. He was never going to get out that way. (Or at least not until he was nineteen, which was way too far off for him to be happy about.)

Levi followed him, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "Do you need to pay or something? Or show an ID card?" If they had to show a Hammel ID, he was screwed, since he hadn't received one in his rushed enrollment last night.

Luckily, they didn't need them. The start of dinner was quiet, as Levi picked at his food with less interest than his stomach liked. It was apparently pork chop night, so Levi settled with some salad and macaroni and cheese instead. "Is the food usually good?" Maybe he'd been spoiled a bit at the compound. When Lala didn't cook, Jake had sometimes brought back some food from a restaurant in town. "Or is it always like this?"

[Evan Brackett]

"Most people get out when they graduate high school, but that's because they usually can control their powers by then. Otherwise, I think they won't let you go until you're no longer considered a danger to yourself or others. Something like that." He shrugged, having already given up on getting out at graduation. "I'm probably going to be here a while. There was someone who didn't even get recruited until he was thirty or something, and they still made him stay here for training." Honestly, Evan would rather die than be stuck there after high school, but he still hated training enough to not want to go. It wasn't so much the class that bothered him as it was being forced to use his power when he didn't want to. And he never wanted to.

It only took a shake of his head for him to answer the boy's question. Although, he almost regretted not saying no, because the quiet that followed was a little depressing. He ate his food in silence as well, not wanting to force the other boy to talk if he didn't want to.

The phaser paused mid-bite when Levi asked about the food, looking down at his plate of pork chop and green beans. "Um, no. This is pretty normal." Maybe he'd just been desensitized, but he thought it was better than most other school food. It was definitely better than public school food. Then again, Levi had said he was being home schooled when they met, so he probably just forgot how bad school food could be. "Here, have my jell-o," Van offered, pushing the dish closer to the other boy. "Can't really screw up jell-o."

He quietly returned to his food then, but after pondering about it a little more, he worked up the courage to ask, "Do you think it's going to be weird going back to school now, since you were being home schooled before? And you were in the hospital before that, right? So it's kinda been a while since you've been to school hasn't it?" Then after taking another bite he added, "But you said you liked school better, so I guess that's good." He really just needs to stop talking again.

[Levi Xu]

Perhaps the pork chops were good, but Levi wasn't going to try them. (And he just didn't like green beans. Hence the salad.) But surely the cafeteria would serve something like chicken on most days, right? His family wasn't Orthodox or anything; they didn't have different dishes for meat and dairy. But he generally kept kosher, and that meant no Jell-o. He blushed a little as he shook his head and pushed the dish back. "No, you keep it. I can't eat Jell-o. It's not kosher." Then, because he was used to needing to clarify that one, he added, "I'm Jewish."

Of course, things after that could only be a little awkward. He didn't want to talk about his family, because then he was going to have to pretend that he'd been living with them. He poked at a bit of sliced carrot in his salad with his fork, not making eye contact.

There was a part of him that wanted to be more social. Evan was a good guy. He'd been really nice the few times they'd met, and he was a meta who didn't want to be at Hammel. Of course they should be friends, but the rest of Levi didn't want to try to be happy right now. He was supposed to be mourning. He was supposed to be back at the compound. "Yeah, probably. They're probably going to make me repeat a whole year because I missed so much." That much wasn't a lie, at least. And it was going to be strange, living with all these other metas all the time. "It's been over a year since I've been in a school, so I'm not looking forward to classes." Unless the class was something useful, like shooting. But, dammit, Van was trying to be nice. Levi could try to be optimistic for him. "I guess it'll be nice to be around more kids my age. I guess."

Try being the operative word there.

[Evan Brackett]

With a frown, Evan took back the little dish. He was disheartened by the small rejection, even though it wasn't significant, and the given reason made him feel worse. "Oh," he said, also blushing. "Sorry, I didn't realize..." Maybe it wasn't obvious, but the phaser still felt guilty about not being able to piece that together. He absently prodded his meal while he waited for Levi to say something, then quickly looked away and stuffed some green beans in his mouth when he realized he had just been mimicking the other boy's movements.

He was glad that his questions diffused the awkward silence that followed, although Levi did seem a bit...depressed. Van understood that he didn't want to come back to school, but he didn't want to make the other boy sad. "Well, I'm kinda happy you're here," he shyly admitted. "I regretted not asking you for your number or something after we met in town. It was nice. Meeting you, I mean." If you ignore the fact that he initiated contact by accidentally tripping over a dog leash.

"Being with kids you're own age is nice," he affirmed, wanting to make Levi feel better. As long as they aren't stealing your pants while you are stuck in the wall. He didn't say that out loud, because it would not only be counter-productive, but then he'd have to explain that he had gotten stuck in the wall to the girl's bathroom once. Nothing good could come from either. "And if you're ever having trouble with school work, you can come to me," Evan offered, "I'd be happy to help, and I'm just in the next bedroom over."

[Levi Xu]

"It's okay, Evan." Whenever anyone heard that he was fluent in three languages, Chinese never surprised anyone and Hebrew surprised everyone. He was used to people not picking up on it. Of course, correcting people on it usually meant awkward silences. He poked more at his salad, pushing out the bits of red cabbage so they didn't touch the other vegetables.

Levi didn't know how to reply to Evan's other comment, though. The older boy had been nothing but kind to him, and it was a bit of a relief to have someone he considered a friend there.... Huh. He actually had a friend. The younger boy shyly smiled back, still poking at his dinner. "Yeah...I mean, it was nice meeting you too. I didn't get to meet a lot of the people in town. And how's Stella?" Ignoring Fifi and Jesse, because he was not going to blow their covers on the off chance Van knew them, the only people his age he'd met were Stella and Zac. "....Hey, do a lot of the people from the school get to visit town? I met this guy named Zac who seemed like he was too rich to be there. Does he go here too?" It was a fancy boarding school, and that would explain why a pop star would be hanging out in Pilot Ridge of all places.

But the offer of assistance made Levi actually grin. If he was going to be a freshman again, he was going to need a lot of help, and it would be a lot easier if he didn't have to ask a teacher. "Thanks. Are you smart?" Of course, he was joking. Spider-Man was a genius; he invented his webslingers and the web stuff, after all.

[Evan Brackett]

Evan was delighted to see the other boy smiling, but the inquiry about the albino confused him. "Hm?" Yeah, he actually had no idea who the other boy was talking about for a moment there. Sorry, Stella. It wasn't that she wasn't noteworthy, just that it had been a while and he didn't immediately understand what Levi was asking about. "Oh! You mean the girl I was with the last time we met? I dunno. I was helping her around town since she's blind, but I haven't really talked to her since." He shrugged. It was chance that had brought them together the first time, and it hadn't done so again.

"Yeah, you can visit town as long as you sign-out, obey the curfew, and the school doesn't have you on the flight risk list." Out loud, that sounded a lot more restrictive than he thought it was, but it wasn't hard to comply to. "And, yeah. Zac goes here," he added a bit hesitantly. There was no mistake in who Levi was talking about, there weren't a lot of Zac's around town that were obviously too rich to be there. "I try to avoid him, though." LaRousse was far too arrogant for the phaser to stand, even if he was one of Robbie's best friends.

Unsurprisingly, the joke went right over Van's head. "Uh..." Smart? He didn't think so. Sure, he got good grades, but that was because he spent a lot of time studying. That didn't count. When it came to practical, real-life application of knowledge, however, he always seemed to screw things up. "Not really," he replied sheepishly. "I can still try, though."

[Levi Xu]

"Oh, okay." Levi had thought--since Stella had stayed so close to Evan the whole time--that the two older students had dated, or something. Finding out that wasn't true made him feel a little happy, even if that little bit of happiness was entirely misplaced and made no sense.

It would have been good news, that students were allowed to visit town, up until Evan listed the caveats. Though he'd been forcing himself to at least attempt eye contact, Levi's head dropped farther. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, and waited a moment before nodding. Okay, no, he wasn't going to cry, not even over what seemed to be his last chance to get out of there. "I....I think I'm probably on that list." Understatement, tiny terrorist. From the sound of what the housing staff had said the day before, it would take months of good behavior before they would even consider it.

Honestly, he missed the comment about Zac. Otherwise, he might have asked why. The older boy had seemed nice enough; after all, he had been on a quest for stuffed animals for a girl he liked. That was pretty cute.

Really, it was enough that Van was older than him, and had attended classes. The fact that he worked hard was a bonus. "Thanks, Van, really. I'm probably going to need it."