Fearful Symmetry

[Tom Harriman]

Once the initial Quarterback / Harriman introductions are out of the way, we'll be progressing into the first get-together of Greek Club (http://www.sw-fans.net/wiki/index.php?title=Greek_Club). If you have a high school student in LA, and you want to get them involved with the Club, shoot me an IM or PM and I'll bring you up to speed!

- - -

The bell rang out shrill, announcing the end of another hour of Advanced Physics. Relief swept in a wave across several of the students, and in truth Tom couldn't really blame them. The material in today's lesson had been dry; one of those annoying sessions where he couldn't escape the need to hammer home the tiresome specifics of the maths and equations that held up everything they did. If he could have, he would have burned every single text book, and erased every single equation from existance. Seemingly random strings of letters and numbers didn't mean anything to anyone, save for the extremely dull and boring fringes of science society. What he lived for - where his passion lay - was in the concepts; the understanding. Every single one of those students could flunk their maths papers for all he cared, so long as they grasped what the theory behind it all meant.

Glancing briefly at the schedule in front of him, he smiled a little at the reference to the freshman class he was teaching after lunch. They were dealing with the rotation of galaxies in today's lesson, and Tom had reserved the use of the gymnasium for a "practical" demonstration that would require extensive use of crashmats and dodgeballs. He chuckled, glad that unlike his own experience of education, he'd managed to find a way to make the subject he was passionate about into something enjoyable for everyone.

Eyes peeling away from the desk, he watched the last few students file away through the doors, escaping into the cacophany of noise that populated the main corridor. One lingered behind, a little slower at packing his books away than the others had been. Tom recognised the young man instantly: why anyone had bothered to brief him on the 'new' students might have been something of a moot exercise - they were all new to him - he couldn't mistake the floppy-haired pretty boy appearence of a certain Ethan Evans.

One thing leapt out in his mind in particular: the name of a school that the boy had formerly attended. It wasn't certain, by any extent; most of what Tom knew was rumour and hearsay after all. But there had been that time when he'd responded to a break-in at one of the labs and, well... that many mutants happening to conveniently be all in the same place had to be more than just a coincidence.

Of course, "So, hi: I guess you're a mutant, then," was hardly the best way to strike up a conversation; there was the mystery of Ethan's change in schools to be resolved, too. Instead, Tom went for something that he hoped was much more subtle:

"Hey, Ethan. Got a few spare minutes? I could use some help setting up in the gym for my class after lunch."

[Ethan Evans]

Although only a matter of days had passed since Ethan had transferred in, those days had been infinitely less painful than his first few at the Cullen Institute. It helped that he didn't have a certain ex-girlfriend of his telling everyone what a mutant hating monster he was, though it felt stranger than he'd imagined to be back into a normal high-school. Somewhere that the halls weren't full of kids spontaneously bursting into flames or walking through walls to get to their next class.

Shoving the last of his textbooks – well-worn, in spite of being barely understood – into his bag, Ethan looked up and realised he was the only one left in the classroom. As he shrugged the satchel onto his shoulders, Evans felt a second of hesitation – he'd avoided the subject of sports, on the basis that he had an injury he was carrying over from the previous football season. But just setting up the gym for another class couldn't present any opportunities for his... abilities to act up, surely?

“Of course. I'd be happy to help, sir.”

[Tom Harriman]

Sir? Internally, Tom cringed. No one had called him that since back in Scotland, and he'd grown so accustomed to the first-name basis of teaching undergrad students back in New York that he'd been completely unprepared to utter it again. Sir is my dad, he thought with an internal shudder.

Tom didn't let his discomfort show externally however, burying it beneath a flash of an appreciative smile. "Fantastic, thanks." He jerked his head towards the door, but hesitated before speaking. "I'd ask you to lead the way," he admitted, "But I guess you're just as unlikely as I am to know where you're going." He chuckled, slinging his own bag over his shoulder, and covering the few paces towards the doorway in long strides. He grabbed at the door, throwing it open with a flourish, and forced himself not to use his abilities to push it open further out of reflex, like he allowed himself to do at home.

"I think," he said with a frown, as Ethan followed him out into the corridor, "It's this way." Settling with the 50/50 odds of which way to go initially, he strode off confidently towards the right, measuring his pace to ensure that he didn't leave the 'new kid' behind. If the rising concentration of football players heading into and out of what appeared to be a locker room was anything to go by, odds were he'd made the right choice. "You any good at football?" he asked casually, as an off-hand conversational question, despite knowing full well that the kid was. "Never really got around to learning how it all worked - they don't play it much back home."

[Ethan Evans]

Is it that obvious? Ethan watched the uniformed players, feeling a moment of sadness that he would never be one of them again, would never know how it felt to be a part of a team – though he understood, deep down, that it was a loss he'd have to accept. As quarterback for the Apple Valley Arrows, he'd almost killed one of his team-mates with a lethally strong pass. The staff at the Cullen Institute had tried to help him learn to cope with his mutation, but even they couldn't teach him to control his powers, under pressure.

“I used to play,” he admitted. “Not any more though. Got to focus on my studies.”

[Tom Harriman]

Focus on your studies?

There was something about the way the admission had been phrased - the tiniest little inflection - that undermined the honesty of the words in Tom's mind. Focussing on studies was all well and good but, well, Tom could sense that there was an air of longing and disappointment at no longer being able to play. Something about an injury had been mentioned by someone at some point, but right now he wasn't buying it. His mutation, maybe? But then, what the hell could be so bad that he wasn't able to play anymore? It clearly wasn't a physical deformaty or anything like that; surely every other concievable 'superpower' could only improve his chances, if they affected his playing at all?

Fighting against the urge to frown, he instead shoved open the doors to the gym, and ducked inside. "So, how are you getting on with the physics side of things?" he asked, changing tactics completely, trying to ease Ethan into relaxing a little so he wasn't so careful with his choice of words. "It's a pretty heavy course to come into part-way through."

[Ethan Evans]

“It's tough,” he nodded – no need to lie there. “But if I put in the hours, I'm sure I can do it.”

In spite of everything that had happened, Ethan's confidence remained largely unshakeable. He had never been naturally gifted when it came to science, maths and the like, but he was blessed with a fierce desire to succeed. Without sports or any of the Cullen's teachers extra-curricular activities to eat up his time, there was no reason he couldn't ace just about everything.

Having found their way to the gym doors, Ethan held one open and let Harriman pass through.

“Did you just transfer here too?”

[Tom Harriman]

Tom bowed his head briefly in thanks, catching the door behind him with a hand as he passed, allowing Ethan to follow. "Aye," he stated, simplifying his personal circumstances somewhat. It was an accurate enough assessment for now anyhow, particularly when it was the kid he really wanted to be talking about.

Heading for a set of double-doors flush with the wall, he fumbled the keys from his pocket and plucked out the one that was hopefully responsible for this particular lock. If not, they'd probably be here some time, as the sports staff at the school seemed to be about as organised and ordered as a Glasgow football riot. Fortunately, the lock twisted with a satisfying clunk, and the door swung open with a creak, revealing an assortment of stowed gym equipment.

"Used tae lecture at one of the universities over in New York, actually," he expanded casually, grabbing a large string bag of dodgeballs and dumping them beside the door, wondering if it'd be too insane and over the top to mix in other balls of different colours and test the kids on the star spectra work they'd been doing two weeks previous. Deciding against it, he turned and flashed a smile in Ethan's direction. "Whereabouts did ye escape from tae come hang in the glorious California sunshine?"

[Ethan Evans]

Hauling the dodgeballs free of the storeroom, Ethan stooped to catch a stray which made a bid for freedom. He weighed it for a moment in his palm, and felt the urge to spin it on his fingertip – but refrained.

“I grew up in New York,” he answered, not exactly thrilled that they had some shared past. Harriman sounded like he was from Ireland, but Ethan couldn't be sure. Either way, it wouldn't have been polite to pry into a teachers past. Instead, he let the ball he was holding fall to the ground with a rubbery doink, whereupon it bounced back up to his waiting hands.

“Where do you want these, professor?”

[Tom Harriman]

"We are demonstrating," Tom explained, his sentence interrupted in the middle by his straining to shift a particularly heavy and unweildy crash mat, "What happens when two galaxies intersect, through the medium of dodgeball." He glanced over his shoulder and flashed a grin, and nodded vaguely in the direction of one of the corners of the gym. "I need two 'galaxies': ten kids on each side, maybe give 'em three balls each, and space them two or three meters apart? Space the galaxies, say, ten meters apart? Not too far - you know as well as I do that these Freshmen cannae throw for shit."

He winced a little inwardly at his accidental blunder into profanity, but didn't draw attention to it. Hell, maybe Evans wouldn't notice. Or wouldn't care.

Grabbing the crash mat again, he pulled and, with considerable effort, haulled it free from beneath whatever had been trapping it. A basketball tumbled free from where it had previously been balanced; idly checking that Ethan wasn't staring directly at him, he pushed out with his powers, and knocked it casually off the end. With a smile of satisfaction at himself, he dragged the mat the rest of the way out of the hall, trying to work out where he was going to position his 'landing zone'.

"Bit of a change o' pace coming out here isnae?" Tom offered conversationally as he worked. "New York is a hell of a city - you miss it much?"

[Ethan Evans]

Not that it bothered Ethan, but the professor's language was almost cause for a double-take. It was probably commonplace for teachers and students to trade that kind of colourful language in Ireland – or wherever it was that Harriman came from. Fortunately, a reply wasn't exactly necessary so Ethan kept on shifting about gym equipment to make way for Harriman's warring galaxies, until another question came along.

“A little... but I've got family here, so it's not so bad.”

[Tom Harriman]

Tom had expected the conversation to be totally detached from him personally; a means of subtly finding out about Steve Rogers High's newest student. As the subject turned to family however, it became the exact opposite, the notion hitting him in the chest like a hammer. Ethan spoke of family as his solace: the silver lining to his cross-continent relocation. For Tom however, the journey had moved him further away.

Granted, in the grant scheme of things, the width of North America wasn't much more of an obstacle than the Atlantic Ocean presented, and yet in his mind it seemed all the more insurmountable. That was the point of course: relocating to another continent to distance himself from his family; save them from the fallout of his freakish mutation, and the attention it had garnered from the British Army. But in New York, the Atlantic crossing had simply been akin to crossing a river to hide his scent from the dogs. Here, a whole third of the world away, it felt more like he'd fled in cowardice.

He missed them. It had been years since he'd seen his little sister; he missed her little teenage tantrums, her cute little girly obsessions; she was in her twenties now, and had probably grown out of it. That was a sobering notion. He'd never even met his niece; she'd been born while he'd been studying in New York, and given his circumstances, he hadn't been able to go home and meet her. And of course, Jace hadn't bothered to bring her out here to meet him, the arrogant ass. Tom even missed him though, and their infuriating father. He missed them all. He missed home. Missed being able to read a newspaper or mark coursework without having to cringe at the spelling errors that technically weren't, because of the "It's American English" excuse.

He drew in a calming breath; squashed his own issues down. "You doing alright making friends?" he asked, deftly deflecting his thoughts back on track. "I'm surprised you've not tried out for the Football team; heard you used to be quite the quarterback."

[Ethan Evans]

It seemed like he'd dodged the metaphorical bullet a couple minutes earlier, but brushing aside the Professor's question about football – but now Harriman was back on the subject again, and pairing it with another of Ethan's least favourite topics: friends.

Back at Apple Valley, he'd had plenty of friends, until his girlfriend had torn the gymnasium to the ground and he'd put another member of the football team in hospital. His welcome to the Cullen Institue had been about as warm as a polar bears behind and with Jacinda around, reminding everyone what an insensitive mutant-hating asshole (her words, not his) he'd been, there wasn't anyone especially keen to make a pal out of Ethan Evans.

Well, he'd told himself, maybe I don't want to be friends with a bunch of mutant freaks anyway – but no matter how many times he thought it, it was never the consolation it should have been.

“Used to be,” Ethan answered, finally gathering the strength to speak. His voice was cold and clipped. Football had been his life and dream, the thing that he was best at, but because some higher power had pissed in his genetic gene pool, he'd never have the chance to play it again.

“Like I said, I'm out of the game.”

He avoided Harriman's gaze for a moment longer before shooting the Professor an expectant glance, in the hope that they could hurry along setting up the gym.