Unlikely Hero [Roomies/By Invitation]

[Evan Brackett]

((Open to all of Evan's dormmates plus anyone those people invite. Just keep it reasonable. Haha.))

The dorm was unusually quiet. Evan was apparently the first one to get back after classes had ended, which was odd. The boy entered his room with a shrug, dropping his bookbag on his desk chair. Sometimes anomalies just happened.

It wasn’t a bad day out (a little blustery, but otherwise fine), and Evan had decided it was a good idea to go for a jog before he started on his homework. He needed the exercise. Besides, Robbie was always nagging him about getting out more anyway. Changing into his basketball gear and pulling sweats on over it, Evan headed out. He had just started jogging along a shoveled out path out near the school boundary when he heard a strange noise.

Mew.

Evan froze. What was that? He glanced around the ground but didn’t see anything until

Mew.

There was a kitten. In the snow. Wet and crying. Evan cooed instantly (thank God no one was around to hear that), picked up the kitten, and tried to dry it off with his jacket sleeve. When that didn’t work out as well as he had planned, he unzipped the top part of his hoodie and gently placed the kitten inside. The kitten’s first instinct was to climb out of the dark place and it began to claw at his chest. “Ow! Ooow,” he cried awkwardly between giggles. The phaser plucked the kitten away from his jersey, and tried to get it to lie down. It complied when it realized the inside of the jacket was warm, curling up in a small pocket that its weight formed above the jacket’s elastic. Evan appeared to have a pot belly.

...Surly no one would notice.

Evan put one arm around the outside of his jacket to help support the kitten as he walked. His destination? The dorm room. He couldn’t very well leave the kitten out in the snow, and he couldn’t be sure that the kitten would be properly taken care of if he gave it to someone else. (Also, he had already grown attached to the little bugger, and didn’t want to give it up.) There were obstacles on the way, but he took care to dodge the security guards and passersby. The real challenge was yet to come anyhow. Evan wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with Mia, seeing as he was sure she had their entire dorm bugged. Regardless, it was for the kitten’s sake, and being caught was a risk he was willing to take.

That being said, when he slowly opened the door to his suite, he wasn’t sure who he’d find.

[Levi Xu]

Levi slammed the door to his dorm as hard as he entered, just because he felt like slamming things that day. With an exaggerated sigh, he dropped his backpack down by the door, not even bothering to remove the heavy math textbook his teacher had loaned to him for reference as he tried to catch up with the rest of the students his age. It was bad enough that they'd put him into remedial courses for most of his subjects, but they were remedial freshman courses. He was supposed to have studied them over the past year, but no, it was spent in the hospital and then at the compound. (Now that he thought about it, was Mr. Underwood just planning on forging a high school diploma for him in a few years? It wasn't like he was going to be able to pass any standardized tests with the limited progress in his studies. The only think Mr. Underwood had really insisted on was his language lessons and the training he taught himself.)

And now his math teacher wanted him to do extra work.

He sighed again, then debated getting up to see if Evan was in his room. If he had to do extra homework, he might as well have a study session with his best friend, right? But he felt far to lazy to do so, so he did the next best thing.

Yell Evan's name. "EVAN! YOU AROUND?" Levi called out, then kicked the arm of the couch when there was no answer. Dammit. Now he either had to wait or do it on his own, or ask Mia.....Yeah, he was going to wait.

A few minutes after he had decided to wait for Evan the very person walked in. Levi popped his head up over the back of the couch and started talking right away. "Hey Van, are you any good at math? My math teacher gave me a bitchload of extra work to do to get me caught up and I don't even know where to start. It's not fair that they've got me in this class and I'm sorry but did your stomach just meow at me? Are you hungry?"

[Evan Brackett]

The kitten, it’s attention waring thin, began to wiggle and meow in Evan’s jacket as the door swung open. He shushed it, and the calico quieted for a moment. Its silence only lasted long enough for Levi to appear from behind the couch and start talking. The brunette jumped, surprised by his roommate’s sudden appearance and frightened that he had been caught with his kitten. Levi hadn’t seemed to notice, though, at least not until the kitten decided to mew one more time.

Evan shook his head vigorously. “N-no. No. That would be weird. What were you saying about math class?” He tried to distract the other boy by changing the subject back to school. He stepped into the suite and shut the front door behind him, all the while still cradling his new-found ‘belly’ in one arm. It was only seconds later that the kitten decided to make an appearance, climbing up Evan’s shit as it had before and peering through the opening of his hoodie. The phaser yelped as sharp claws dug into his chest, and he unsuccessfully tried to pull the kitten off. It began to meow repetitively again, so he unzipped his jacket, coaxed the kitten into his arms, and began to pet it until it stopped.

“Uh...” he flashed Levi a weak smile. “Please don’t tell anyone. We’re not suppose to have pets in the dorm.” Of course the other boy was painfully aware of that fact, but Van didn’t remember that until after he already had opened his mouth. “I mean, uh. She was in the snow freezing to death. I couldn’t just leave her there.” He continued to pet the kitten, watching it as it nuzzled into the crook of his arm.

He walked over to couch and leaned against the back of it, holding out the kitten so Levi could see it. By that time, it was purring obnoxiously loud. “Isn’t she sweet?”

[Mia Keystone]

Mia had been busy playing Fallout New Vegas while simultaneously running her searches on one Sean Neville. If she was going to spend a day a week with the old bastard she was going to know exactly who she was dealing with. She was focused, headphones on as she blasted Irish fighting music (for some reason the aggression the Drop Kick Murphy's stirred suited her mood when it came to Neville) when a flicker of something shady on the camera in the dorm caught her mind.

Evan. Evan with something in his coat. The student who had moved into her dorm suddenly, with apparently no real reason, was very clearly hiding something in his jacket. Mia had been ignoring Evan since he moved in, in the hopes he would stay out of her way and leave her shit alone. But this, this was interesting.

As was the new kid yelling out at him. Mia had been keeping a close eye on the little chinese kid who had just randomly appeared out of nowhere, and who seemed to dislike the school way more then the usual transfers. And he was too old for a someone who’d just developed powers, unless he was a weirdo like Doc Campbell.

Mia saved her game and quit without moving her eyes from the screen, watching carefully as the two boys talked. Was this a drug thing? Or was he stealing something? Was Levi in on it? Was it some sort of drug ring? With a thought she switched on the audio, and listened to the boys talk about maths and other things she didn’t care about. What had she had to spring on them?

No. It was a cat. Mia’s eyebrows raised and she smirked. Oh man, that was lame. Time to make her presence known. Pulling herself out of her chair, she pushed open her room’s door and made sure to shut it firmly behind her.

”Boys boys boys,” She chided, arms across her chest as she shook her head sadly. ”What is a bedraggled animal doing in our dorm? And why is it holding a cat?”

[Levi Xu]

As soon as he'd heard the meowing, Levi had jumped to a conclusion. Combining what he knew of Evan with the fact that there was still a ton of snow on the ground, his explanation for the little furry head that popped out of his jacket made complete sense. "Aww, kitty!"

Levi's grin only faltered slightly when Evan mentioned the rules about the pets. In theory, they made sense, people had allergies. But he'd had to let Jake take Buccaneer away, and he hadn't heard from either of them since. That wasn't Evan's fault though, and at least he seemed to get that it still hurt. "Of course you couldn't. It's supposed to get even colder tonight. Let me see!"

Evan brought the kitten over, and Levi cooed over her again, gently reaching out to stroke the soft fur behind her ears. "She is sweet. What's her name? Where did you find her?" He grinned up at his friend, but was then distracted by a particularly loud purr, so he addressed the kitten. "Hey there, kitteh. Aren't you pretty? Did Van save you?" Even though the older boy sometimes complained about not being particularly strong with his power, nothing could convince Levi that he wasn't a superhero.

And it seemed like the day might be going better, until Mia decided to butt in. Levi didn't really have anything against her, except her being nosy and him having a lot of secrets to keep. But then she went and insulted Evan, and--The twins had taught some things well--she was on his shit list. "New roommate for Me, Van, and Sawyer, 'cause our current one's a bitch."

[Evan Brackett]

Evan grinned as Levi pet the kitten and asked his questions. “Well, she seems to like climbing things, so I was thinking of naming her Spider because, you know, spiders climb things really well,” He said matter-of-factly. After all, she had already scaled his basketball jersey multiple times. If only he knew the irony of giving her such a name. “Plus she has a lot of black and brown coloring like a spider does.”

Levi was receiving the kitten so well that Van nearly forgot that he was trying to hide her. The phaser jumped with a start when he heard Mia’s bedroom door swinging open, and he unnecessarily pulled Spider back to his chest to shield her from sight. The kitten quickly protested by meowing and wiggling. Evan quickly gave up on trying to hide her from his other roommate, and he set the kitten down on the back of the sofa (all the while keeping an eye on her, of course).

Mia’s tone alerted him to the fact that she knew of the kitten already, but it took him a stretch to realize she had insulted him along the way. The tall boy’s eyebrows knitted together as he opened his mouth to retort, but Levi already had him covered. That was probably for the better; anything Evan could have come up with wouldn’t have been as snarky. He laughed at the statement for a second, but stopped when he remembered he didn’t want news of this getting out. Insulting Mia was certainly a step in the wrong direction.

To answer her question, he reiterated to her what he already told Levi. “And I just don’t want the kitten to die. Please don’t tell anyone.” He didn’t know what it would take to get Mia to keep this quiet, but he had doubts that asking nicely would do the trick. Despite such doubts, he thought it was a good place to start.

[Mia Keystone]

Mia’s eyebrows shot up, and after looking at Evan with an unreadable expression and she rounded in on the new kid, Levi. ”Funny thing there, kid,” she said with a crooked smile that was not at all friendly. ”I seem to remember being here way before you, or the Samaritan over there,” she tilted her head towards Evan, ”rocked up in my dorm, so watch. Your. Mouth.”

He was new, so he didn’t know much about how things ran here. That wasn’t a bad thing, not at all, but it just meant she’d have to call him up if he stepped on her toes. Wasn’t like she didn’t appreciate someone showing a spine though. As long as he knew when to stop.

Evan, on the other hand... Mia pulled away from Levi to glance at the other boy and rolled her eyes. Trying to pin the death of a baby animal on her, like no one had tried that one before. She lent back against her door and shrugged.

”Rules are rules, boys. I didn’t make them but,” with a sly smile she held up her hands in a what can you do gesture. What she was really pointing out though, was that so far, there was nothing in it for her. And that was, in her eyes, the real problem here. She had found out a secret, and they knew she knew, so therefore, she would get something out of it. Case closed.

The kitten was really cute, in all honesty. And there was no way Mia was going to make Evan throw it back out into the snow. How it had gotten there was perplexing enough but that wasn’t really her concern.

[Levi Xu]

Levi's eyes went wide when Evan named the kitten. He knew he was pretending not to know that Van was just his mind-mannered secret identity, but wasn't naming his pet "Spider" a little on-the-nose? It certainly wasn't expected though, if no one else knew about his alter-ego. "That's a cute name. Hello, Spidey." He gave the sweet little creature a good scratch behind her ear. "Hello Zhizhu." The Spider arched her neck into his hand and purred loudly. "Hey, apparently she speaks Chinese too." This was, easily, the most adorable cat he'd ever seen. (Levi was more of a dog person, really.)

In theory, Levi could like Mia. She seemed fun, in an intense sort of way, and she was smart. But he had fierce loyalty, even if nothing else about him even suggested fierce. "Don't be mean to Evan, then. He's never done anything to you." His grin reset itself into a thin line as he met her eyes. He'd met intimidating people before, and she wasn't one of them. "And then I'll watch it."

Of course, Evan was going the more diplomatic route, because who could stand having the death of a cute baby furry thing on their conscience? "We just want to keep her here until we can find someone who can take care of her." Well, Levi would rather keep her here forever, because damn, the little Spider-Cat was cute.

[Sawyer Carson]

Sawyer had perfected coming in very quietly and not being noticed. She'd been listening at her door the entire time. So the boys had a cat. Well she'd better go out and see if it was cute or not. She was to be on her way to dance soon and had already gotten dressed. A suprisingly sober Sawyer emerged from her bedroom in time to hear the little debate they had begun. Mia was obviously just being a stick in the mud because she could. Poor Evan. He seemed too nice to defend against her. And Levi seemed too... oi. Too loud to not get himself killed in the process of defending anyone.

Aproaching the feline on the back of the couch, Sawyer watched it eyeing all of them a little. "Lighten up, Mia." She smiled at the other girl. "You break half the rules in this school, what's a cat going to do to ruin your 'good behavior' track record now?" Gently petting the kitten she put her face to it and wrinkled her nose in its fur. "Besides," Standing upright again she crossed her arms. "Spider is an edgy name. I think it'd be cool to have a dorm cat. There are way worse things I could get caught for around here than this little thing." I smiled to Evan and then thought about it.

"Evan... there wasn't anyone else around outside was there? Or maybe a missplaced mysterious set of clothing? How do we know this cat isn't a person... just in cat form?" Making a face, Sawyer looked at all of them then to the cat. This posed a very difficult pickle for the four of them. Cat or... not cat? Pet or... foe? "Am I the only one thinking this is dangerous outside the rules of the school?" It was a really cute cat and though caution changed her tune a little, she still really liked the idea of having a cat around this place.

[Evan Brackett]

“You don’t have to do that,” he told Levi as he was defended. “It’s not a big deal.” It was Evan’s poor attempt to dissipate the growing tension, because that seriously wasn’t helping the situation. The tall boy nervously bit his lip when Mia rolled her eyes at him. He wasn’t trying to pin the kitten’s possible death on anyone, but just wanted to explain his reason for breaking the dorm policy. Had Evan realized the technopath would take his words in such a way, he probably wouldn’t have spoke up at all.

Evan frowned at Mia’s gesture and gave Levi a helpless glance. “Ah, well...” The brunette knew he would never be allowed to keep Spider in the dorms, but he also wanted her to stay there. He had become attached to the kitten as soon as he had named her, even though he knew that someone would come to take the kitten away eventually. Maybe he could convince his parents to take her in. Except they already had plenty of animals at the farm, and he didn’t think they’d be thrilled about another addition. It wasn’t something he looked forward to dealing with.

In the mean time, he wanted to stay with the kitten for as long as he could. Sawyer’s intervention only helped as she made some very good points. “Right,” he agreed with her, at least on breaking the rules. As for the rest, he was pretty certain that Spider wasn’t a shifter, as likely as it was. “No, I don’t think it’s like that. I found her curled up in a snowbank, and a person wouldn’t do that if they were cold. A person would have gone inside,” he reasoned.

“Now that I think about it, she’s probably starving. We should try to feed her.” Van picked up the kitten, brought her into the kitchen area, and set her down on the floor. As he opened the fridge, he asked no one in particular, “Do you think she’ll drink milk, or should we try to give her something else? She’s still kinda young so I’m not really sure.”

[Mia Keystone]

Mia’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at Levi for a moment before smirking. He was standing up for his friend. Sure, he was doing it in a boring and unoriginal way, but it meant he had a spine. More then she could say, so far, for Evan. ”Ha, you’re alright,” she nodded, then cocked an eyebrow. ”But your boyfriend should stand up for himself and not get a newbie to fight his battles.” She fell back, taking her position back against a wall with her arms crossed. It wasn't like she had meant something by boyfriend other then a joke... but it was pretty interesting how close the two seemed, since Levi was still new.

Sawyer’s entry was followed with unreadable eyes, though Mia returned the smile with a crooked one of her own. ”I do so enjoy being a model student,” she muttered and watched with mild interest as Sawyer fell in love with the thing.. Spidey, had they said? Spider was a cool name, she guessed. But didn’t Evan know that you never named something you couldn’t keep? It was a sure fire way to get attached ”No cat shifters at Hammel since last year,” she added absently, because Mia would know. Of course.

As for feeding it... not that she wanted to help or anything but Mia touched her phone and did a quick net search on feeding a kitten. ”cow milk’s not good for cats,” she said to no one in particular. ”Need tuna or sardines or something... because carrying cat food around the school is subtle as a lion’s cage.” Mia still wasn’t looking anywhere in particular; this was out of character for her and she knew it. Zac would never let her hear the end of it if it got out Mia had gone soft and while Mia didn’t give a fuck what the students thought, they were more likely to want to talk to her and ask for things if they weren’t scared of her.

Stupid kitten.

[Levi Xu]

"But she's being rude to you!" Levi looked up from the cat to Evan, honestly perplexed. Why wouldn't he defend his friend? He liked the older boy, but sometimes the mild-mannered secret identity aspect bothered him. He knew that he could stand up for himself, so why didn't he? But if that was what he wanted, Levi would stay quiet.

Or he tried, until Mia got another dig in. "He's not getting me to do anything!" He scowled; Jake had promised him that things would be different at Hammel, but he was still being treated like a kid, even by the other kids. "And he's not my boyfriend."

Sawyer, of course, had a good idea when it came to the "identity" of the cat. He figured his power might pick up on something if the cat was someone shifted. (He was wrong, on that, by the way. Very wrong.) But to clarify, he leaned close to the kitten again and asked, quite seriously, "You aren't a shapeshifter, are you? A person in disguise?" She meowed at him, and he looked up at Sawyer. "I don't think she's a person. Or at least not one who speaks English."

Already, he was attached to the cat, as were the rest of his roommates, apparently. Even Mia piped up about the food. (Or maybe she didn't want a sick cat in the dorms.) "They'll start serving dinner at the dining hall pretty soon. I can sneak out a tuna sandwich, or some turkey. Is that okay, Mia?" He didn't even have a computer of his own to check. And maybe if the girl was interested in the safety of the cat, she'd include Spider in the myriad of secrets she kept.

[Sawyer Carson]

She thought about the situation. Mia seemed to actually be helpful this afternoon, and while Sawyer had no idea what Levi's ability was or what it had to do with sensing shifters, her roomates were bringing up very logical explanations as to why this sweet little kitten could not possibly be a shifter. "If it's young it shouldn't have much solid food, though if it's been thriving outside for any length of time, I'm sure it's stomach has worked passed that already."

Thinking about it she sighed. Then it came to her. "We don't have to get a gigantic bag of food for the thing. Lord not even I can eat that much very quickly." Then again she hardly ever ate anything any how. "I'm going out later tonight, I can get a few cans of cat food and a small bag of the dry stuff." Shrugging she moved to the fridge and took out a bottle of water and a little dish. "Shove it in a bag and no one is going to notice. Honestly." She'd gotten a lot more incriminating things into the school that cat chow.

Pouring Spider some water she set it on the floor. "She's most likely had a lot of snow, but clean water never hurt." Eyeing the kitten she wrinkled her nose a little and looked up at Evan. "Speaking of clean. You nay want to bath her. God knows where she's been. And the warm water will keep her cozy." Ew.. she said Cozy. What a gross word. It was because she was sober. Sawyer was a totally different person off drugs and alcohol.

[Evan Brackett]

Despite Levi’s protests, Evan would have been content to let Mia’s words slide off his shoulders. Except she didn’t seem to have a shut up button. He glared at her for the comments, let Levi have his say, and then addressed the other boy. “She was being rude, now she’s just being petty,” the phaser explained to him, now thoroughly annoyed. He was done with being nice. “And I refuse to waste time and energy fighting her over it.” He glanced at Mia through the corner of his eye as he scratched Spider behind the ears.

He popped his head out of the fridge when Mia spoke up about the milk. “Oh, okay. No milk then.” Kicking the door shut, he leaned on the counter. “That might work,” he affirmed Levi’s suggestion. It did sound like a pretty feasible idea, considering that cat’s liked to eat chicken and liver and whatever else they put into Meow Mix.

Evan nodded at Sawyer’s offer. “Yeah, you’re probably right. And we can get a cat food-like dish from the dinning hall to hold her over in the meantime.” He gestured to Levi, suddenly deciding that they were going to raid the cafeteria together.

He moved over so Sawyer could get into the fridge then leaned back on the counter again. “Yeah, I can do that before we hit up the dinning hall,” Evan said with a smirk and looked down at the kitten. “How’s that sound, Spidey? You can be all clean and pretty!” Spider just pounced on his shoelace, completely disinterested in what he had been saying. The boy laughed and looked over to Mia. “I can just use regular shampoo, right?” He didn't see a reason why that wouldn't be safe; They used human products on the dogs and horses back home all the time.