Chapter Text
It'd been forty nine hours since they’d landed back on earth. Misty’s face feels puffy, swollen and disgusting.
She’d been sick the whole way down. You’d think out of anybody the girl with storm powers would be the one to handle her pressure changes but fate and the egg whites in her stomach seemed to have other ideas about how the trip was going to go.
They’d managed to get a hold of Professor Glass upon touching down onto earth and she’d done what she could for them. She’d told them that according to Miss Vaum, the replacement gym teacher, Hex Centre would need a few more days for them to be clear to enter. So Professor Glass decided it was best for them to stay with a trusted adult in the meantime.
Sizzler rubs the frayed grown out ginger hair at the back of his head , standing besides Misty in an encroaching candy cane shaped slouch. “D-Do you think- uhm- its a good idea for us to be staying with Mr Tennant ? I - i don't know how e-equip he is to uhm- handle children.”
Glass shifts awkwardly, her pointed eyes focusing on the stiff ribbed outer walls of Mr. Tennant's Mobile home. “He was a teacher for 26 years. He’ll handle things fine.” She speaks curtly.
“Didn't he get fired for being an alcoholic like a month ago?”
“That's enough questions for now Mr. Whitaker.”
A long moment later, the mobile homes door rocks open. Mr. Tennant stands there, his eyes slightly red though likely from lack of sleep.
“Glass.” He addresses quickly.
“Kids. Hello.”
Alexi grins, shifting the temporary bag he’d been given from hanging on two fingers to just one and back again in a fidgeting movement. “Hello Mr. Tennant! I am so glad to see one of my favourite PE teachers!”
He lets out a short but fond huff noise. “Good to see you too, Tkachenko. Miller, Whitaker, Uuuuuuranus.”
“It's pronounced oh rah noose.”
“Okay then. So I take it these rugrats are staying here?”
Glass shifts, her posture straightening subtly. “It's temporary. I really am sorry-”
He waves a hand dismissively not from her face. “Don't worry about it. I might not be faculty anymore but I can see when a school's gone to all hell.”
“Hell it has been. “ She sighs. “We must keep these students safe. No matter the cost.”
“Understood. I will make sure to body the next evil theatre teacher going our way.” he gives a half salute. Glass suppresses a smirk. Tennant settles a hand on Alexis' shoulder. “Alright, indoors. It's not a lot but it’ll do until we can find accommodations for all of you.”
Alexi nods. He turns briefly to misty. “You okay?”
She snaps back to reality. “Oh. Uh. why?”
“You said the other day when picking me up for the party that you do not go to the poor part of the neighbourhood. I thought you may be freaked out.”
Mr Tennant visibly scowls. “Its not the poor part of town. It's just a trailer house.”
“Mm no I know the poor side when I see it. Oh, is that the new Disney movie? Beauty and her beast aha no way!”
“This is going to be a long day.”
Tennant sighs again. Misty takes in the room for a long moment. Plain walls, a faint stench of brandy and smoke. A diploma and old dusty frames of memories long since past adorning the walls.
Alexi was right, Mr. Tennant IS poor. She tries not to feel disgusted. Misty has never really had anything against people with less than her, or at least she hopes she doesn't. But her mom and dad always told her not to associate with them so she tries.
It's hard to find moments where they're proud of her. She’ll take them where she can get it. She picks out a spot next to the cracked and lightly stained tan leather couch that takes up the breadth of the living room, and elects to sit on the carpet. At least that looks like it's been vacuumed sometime in the past century. She settles in and Mr. Tennant mirrors her, just with a lot worse of a posture and in a pulled out oak dining room chair. He groans, rubbing down his neck just under the collar of his rather sporty attire.
“Im gonna order in a pizza.”
Misty straightens her back. “I don't eat that crap.”
Dorkius tips his whole head back as he groans. “But it was a weekend pizza!”
“Weekend midnight pizza.” Sizzler corrects.
“I don't know why we decided on that stupid team name.”
Alexi puts down the DVD he’d been inspecting. “It is not stupid! It is us! And we are friends now and we will eat pizza together on the floor of a strange man moving home!”
“You sure have a way of making homelessness sound fun, Alexi.”
“I will do my best!”
After being handled a complimentary thumbs up from one resident metal man misty relents. “Fine. i '’’ll like- eat your pizza.”
“I was going to order it whether you ate it or not, Miller. But- im glad.”
Tennant sets make a phone call in the kitchen, staring at the back of a pamphlet and rattling off specials and numbers into the telephone. Sizzler stretches.
“Im going to go put my sleeping bag on the porch- ah- so i don't. You know. Burn down the house in my sleep.” He shuffles awkwardly in that direction, rubbing down the tight ankle of one of his socks with his other foot. Alexi stands up. “I’ll bring mine too! Sleeping outside is good for a growing boy! Good air outside.”
SIzzler makes a valiant attempt at halting Alexi's stance but he's just as hard to budge in stubbornness as he is in weight and strength so it doesn't get very far. The two go outside to sit on the porch. Misty watches distantly as Dorkius makes himself comfortable, balling up an oversized hoodie and resting his chin on it, pushing his glasses back up on his face as he settles in to read his favourite- 1984.
Misty tilts her head at him, keeping her arms firmly crossed.
“I don't. Get it.”
“Well 1984 is like- not that different from what were going through with like- unchecked state surveillance and like government corruption and-”
She shakes her head. “No , not that. Like- I don't get how you can just- get so comfortable in here. This isn't your house.”
He debates on the comment for a minute, pausing in moving his book. He sets it down, open and spine creaking as he turns more towards her. “Im not usually comfortable anywhere, so i guess im just good at making the best of it.”
“How so?”
He wipes his nose. “Well I mean- I've got allergies and everything, but you know. I'm not exactly one to fit in. I- i like to hide. It's easier than being seen. Less road blocks. I've got an older sister and she's like- nothing like me. SHes the golden child, and she's popular and can go out whenever she wants. And she sits in the living room on the weekends and talks really loud on the house phone and she takes up a lot of space so i- take up less space. I'm shifty- I can match wherever I am. It's like my superpower! Ah. well. Literally too because I'm a shape shifter.”
She nods at his explanation, letting the smallest flicker of sadness overtake her face. She draws her knees close to her chest. “I wish I had that sort of problem.”
He raises a brow, and turns to her, waiting for some sort of elaboration. For her to explain exactly what it is that she means. She doesn't. She bites her tongue and holds her breath till she feels sparks moving down her hands and back.
Dorkius isn't given any time to pressure her, or say much of anything because Alexi and Sizzler come back into the room.
Sizzler announces in his high squeaky voice, stuttering. “P-Pizzas here!”
Alexi shoves him gently- pushing him into the room across the carpet like a hockey puck. “Yes yes very nice you are burning the box.”
The fire wielder yips, rushing over to the table to set it down, trailing smoke in with him. Tennant takes off his baseball cap, waving at the smoke and muttering curses. Misty is only really brought back from her conversation with Dorkius by a nudge to the side. Alexi standing there. She looks and follows his finger pointed at Mr. Tennant. He whispers.
“Male patterned baldness”
It's an off the cuff sort of remark for someone so kind to make, and it catches misty guard. She can't help the laugh she lets out. He grins at her, and pats her back.
“Good to see you smile. You’ve been a- tense for a while Misty.”
“Like, who isn't? We’ve had a bad month.”
He doesn't argue with her. She feels momentarily grateful for that.
Tennant gets paper plates for all of them, handing out out of date cardboard with smiling certified halloweenie pumpkin faces under their lips in black and orange probably toxic ink. The pizza box is open, sufficiently hot, steamed and greasy. She swallows thickly. She takes a slice from the box and drops it rather unceremoniously on her plate with a wet slap of plasticy cheese. She grimaces.
The others get their food, but nobody eats. Tennant gets a few bites deep into his meal and notices late. He tilts his head.
“Something I can help you kids with?”
Alexi offers his charmer smile. It's a bit of a grimace. “Ah, sure! Uhm. Give us time. Shoo.”
Misty honestly doesn't know why they ever let him read social conversations. She takes a deep breath and speaks up. “He doesn't mean that. He just means like- isn't there something you could maybe do for a minute?”
She clears her throat and gently nudges a bottle on the ground. He straightens, stumbling his words. “Ah, uh. Right. I’ll be back, kids, just going to step outside.”
They give a collective nod. By the time the swung open back door is on its third ricketting bounce against the sticky jammed lock there into what had become their routine. Joined hands around their meal- always in the same order. Misty holding one of sizzlers hands , conjuring ice into her palm so his touch doesn't burn. Alexis metal hand on his, linking into dorkius’s and coming back to misty. A semi circle of a friendship made far too fast.
Sizzler speaks first, he always does.
“We miss you, Ginger.” He speaks to their deceased friend quietly. He’d taken it the hardest, they all knew that. Dorkius shifts. “Gwion too.”
Alexi sighs, and says the same thing he always does. “Things will get better. I'm sure of it. We just need to keep our noses to the grind stone.”
“Yeah.” SIzzler nods. There's steam clouding around his head from burnt off tears. Misty blows it away to save his face.
“Lets eat?” Misty skips her normal quips or well meaning words, not finding the motivation to speak anything else. The others nod.
The meal went fine. She wasn't really worried about that. It's greasy but it's good. It's the type of food her parents would disapprove of. THough they have no idea where she is anymore.
They probably don't even care that she's gone.
It's a bad thought and she knows it, but she doesn't bother calming the storm. She just sits in it.
Alexi cleans up the dinner table with Dorkius.
“Movie?” Dorkius asks. Alexi brightens instantly at the mention of one of his favourite things.
Misty's gut twists. Sizzler looks at her and exhibits a social knowledge far beyond his normal. He looks to the side.
“Eh , it's a little hot to crowd around the TV monitor. Alexi we can play uh- battle ships on the porch. Dorks, you too!”
“No misty?” He laughs a little.
“I just don't think she wants to.”
All the eyes in the room fall onto misty. She squirms under their gaze for just a moment, Or maybe she doesn't. She's not quite sure what she does, her head feels a bit windy.
“Yeah, I've got to get started on my nighttime routine.”
Alexi chuckles, mumbling something about girls and skin care. In the end Sizzler and Alexi go outside and Dorkius stays indoors, shifting into a small cat and coiling onto the couch, going dead to the world almost instantaneously. Misty smiles just a little at that, but it's soon dissolved. The tempest thrumming under her skin grows louder and more uncontrolled.
Her voice climbs in pitch as she looks away from the bedroom, from the east and from the comfort and the socials and the people.
“Ah, Mr Tennant- can I like- take a really quick shower?”
The man who’d just come back inside shrugs and grunts a reply. She takes it as a yes and ushers herself away into the dingy bathroom. SHe presses her back to the pale door with dark loops in its form, brushing the slightly broken door knob with the back of her shirt. SHe sighs. This place is gross and she hates it, but any water will do. She turns on the shower and lets it squeal like a pig- wincing as the pipes rattle and water comes shouting from the stout circle head of the shower. She watches the water trickle and skip down the yellowed form of the bathtub, pooling.
With less regard for germs than she’d normally give she presses her face against the side of the tub and moves her hand to the water, causing choppy waves and storming liquid.
She doesn't know how long she spends in that steamed room, cooling the storm inside of her chest, but it must be a while. A headache pounds behind her eyes, thrumming and pulsing in a sick wave that stirs her stomach. She fights with it until the lights go off and the midnight bugs begin ministrating outside, making themselves be playfully known just on the cusp of a chipped white window.
Eventually, she thinks she's settled the storm brewing, and she stands, turning off the water with a creak and rubbing her frizzy hair down.
She turns and that's when she sees it.
The fogged up mirror.
Mirrors have always been a subject of contention for Misty, something she didn't want to face but would daily.
You could call it a phobia. The way it took her breath, made her feel shaky and weak. Snatched away all the wind that rides through her spirit and soul and pumps it out in shallow shaking breaths.
But she won't call it that. Because she's beautiful.
Madeline Miller is the Beauty of every and all school picture family portraits and dentist commercials that exist. She is the girl who eats and works out well but not too well, just enough to show that she's better than you. She is the girl who spends two hours morning and night doing a 23 step skin and hair care routine glaring at her face in the mirror and digging mascara into her eyes until she can't see anything because Misty is perfect.
Even if her reflection is terrifying.
She looks at it for a moment, back to the wall. Staring out at the foggy face framed in dripping steam. A dark brown eye and a light blue one lancing right through her like one of her icicle daggers, breaking her apart under its judgement. Because that's what it's always been. Judgment. At home and now from the government. Now from the world.
She feels the anxiety in her legs first, blooming on the cap of her knee and swelling like a balloon, expanding till it pops and she dips. Sweat or condensation drips down her nose as she leans on the sink. Her breath itches up her throat, clawing like an irate mole digging its way out of somewhere deep and dark.
She needs to get out of here.
She just needs out.
Her hands find the slightly slippery doorknob. She gives it a harsh pull until it comes open, and darkness spills into the room. The only light in that unfamiliar place comes from outside, where she can hear the steady fall of rain pittering and going faster.
She runs for the screen door, and thrusts it open with a scream of breath she really hopes is all in her head and steps out onto the damp wood of the patio.
She moves to step off of the incline and trips on somebody's foot, smashing off of the side into the mud and grass, coiling like a broken fractured slinky in the dark cold night.
She lifts her head, trying to convince her heart to stop clamouring past her teeth. Her eyes catch on a puddle formed in the drive way, steadily filling with water. Her reflection stares back at her, wavering with little sways and cracks of power from the sky.
The face that looks at her is broken apart by a spiderman sock.
She raises her head, just a little. Glowing like a candle is sizzler, head steaming as fat droplets of water splatter against his overheated but earnestly smiling face.
“Uuh. HI misty.”
She sputters,pushing herself up onto slightly skinned elbows in the muck, squinting up at Sizzler. It almost looks like with the asthigmatized glint of hard light that he's got a halo over his head.
“What are you doing out here?”
He blinks.
“Me and alexi were sleeping out here. Remember?”
She lets out a breath. “Oh. right.”
He makes a small noise. “Are… uh. Are you okay? You're not going to go all out. Crazy weather witch on us are you?”
“N-no. Not… not again. I wont hurt anyone.” again again again.
Sizzler offers a hand. She takes it. The cool water burns right off.
“...I get it. I mean- hurting people.”
He gently leads her back to the porch , to sit on the step just below the soft light being prodded by moth wings.
“..I uh- I had a. A guinea pig. P-Peaches! And uh. I really liked her but one time I- i got - out of control and I-”
She swallows.
“Oh.. Oh Nenad.” His eyes widen slightly at having his first name- real name being used. He sighs.
“It happens. And- I - i don't want you to feel like you have to go away from us just because- because something bad might happen.”
“It's not .. you three who I'm trying to get away from. I just…”
The rain starts to slow into a steady drip. “... Everyone wants me to be a certain way and like- I am. Im totally in control of- everything and then- I'm not and I just- I can't afford to do that. My parents- they’ll…”
She trails off. What her parents have to say shouldn't matter. She knows that. There are barely even parents to her.
Still.
Just still.
“Lady fosage- the uh- when we were having our therapy in the theatre room she… she told me that I shouldn't feel guilty for what happened if it wasn't what I intended all of the time. Its- theres a difference between feeling uhm- guilty like bad for whoever got- got hurt- and feeling responsible. Because it's an - an accident when you mess up.”
“And when it isn't an accident?”
He shrugs. “Well then you probably didn't mess up.” He pauses and then continues.
“I - I mean. I don't know but. Yeah.”
She sighs. “Thank you, sizzler.”
He nods.
“Were… were you serious?”
“About what?”
“About when this is over. Let me like- work on your parents yacht. So- so we can hang out.”
“You.. you don't have to work, nerd. You can just come hang out with me. There's no point in having a yacht if you don't have friends to hang out with it on.”
He smiles crookedly. “Ha, yeah, I guess that's true. We can get all of weekend pizza together and like- it’ll be great.”
She laughs low in her chest. “I hate that stupid name.”
He shrugs. “It's not stupid when you're in it. Your- cool so you make things cool by proxy.”
She gives him an awkward side hug. “I'm not that cool when I'm with other people like that. When I'm all fake. I'm much cooler when I'm with you guys.”