fandomhigh | Library [12/9]

"Yeah, seriously," Billy said, peering out as well for another look. "I don't remember hearing anything about the crazy people being armed. I'm trying not to wonder how many there are."

"I'm guessing like six, seven hun--"

A beat.

"Yeah, better not to think about it."

Billy nodded quickly, and looked back at the nice, safe books. "Have you found anything while you've been in here recently?"

"...I've been mostly reading comics," Topher admitted. He hesitated, biting his bottom lip, then added, "Look, this is going to sound kind of lame, but I don't actually know a ton about all this stuff. Like, non-sciencey... things."

"To be honest, I don't know a ton about it either. Well, that's not exactly true," Billy admitted. "I have some idea of how magic works where I'm from, but then I met all the other people who have powers here and now I feel like I don't know anything."

"If the world wasn't ending, I'd totally be asking if I could run some tests on you," Topher said, entirely without shame. "But, uh." He shrugged. "It is. So."

Thank you for that burst of optimism, Topher.

"What kind of tests would you run?" Billy said, going over to the bookshelves to see what kind of material was available, and maybe to hide a worried expression at being experimented on. "If the world hypothetically didn't end."

Sorry, Billy. If it helped, this was Topher's way of expressing that he liked you!

"Like a blood test," he said, shrugging as he picked up a book of his own. "And maybe some other stuff." A beat. "I mean, um, if you said I could."

Tony had taught him that!

[[Aaaagh, sorry I've been so slow! I'll be home and more consistent in like an hour.]]

Experimenting might have been a sign of liking someone in Topher's brain, but Billy wasn't entirely convinced.

"Would it hurt? I'm not so much into being in pain," he admitted.

[OMG I am slow all the time, it's fine. :D]

"Oh, no, totally not!" Topher said quickly. "No way. It'd be way painless. Just, like, a needle. One. For like a second."

Oh, Topher.

"Something tells me your pain threshold is higher than mine," Billy said with a smirk. "You know what would be really painless for me? If you took blood from like, Warren and looked at that instead, 'cause it'd probably look similar to mine."

"But I -- but then I -- but -- wait, why?"

Curiosity won out.

Billy had to bite his lip for a moment to keep from laughing. It shouldn't have been fun to make Topher sound like that, but it really was.

"We're both mutants," he explained. "There's this gene that gives people special abilities, and I'm pretty sure we both have it. Sometimes people inherit abilities from their parents and stuff, but for the most part, everyone gets something different. So like, Warren's got wings and I can make lightning." He still wasn't sure if the spells were part of that too, but he figured it'd all make sense eventually.

"Oh, is lightning the only--"

That cleared that up. But really, Topher, there was no need to talk down Billy's super awesome lightning power. Come on.

"Huh," he said, setting a book aside in favor of thinking on that. "So you're from the same place, or what?"

"Same place, different versions, as far as I can tell," Billy said. "Or maybe different times, like me and--other people."

Mentioning Tony right now didn't seem like the wisest idea. Billy liked Topher better when he wasn't pouting.

Hey. He had a cute pout, okay.

"Huh," Topher said. "But you don't know him outside of here. Like, from home. Do you?"

"No, I don't know him at home. That'd be really weird, to know one version of someone at home, and to know another one here." Possibly. So he'd heard. "But we've talked a little about the mutant thing and what it's like at home, and it sounded pretty much the same for both of us."

"Oh, weird," Topher remarked. "Wait, so you can do that healy stuff too? Like, I punched a wall and he fixed my hand by bleeding on me. Can you do that?"

Yeah, they weren't going to be researching today.

Yeah, but somehow, Billy didn't really mind that. This was a nice distraction from everything else that was going on.

"I could heal you, but it'd be with a spell, not by bleeding on you," he said, sitting back down at the table. "Which is good, because that'd be kind of gross."

"It is, right? He could have germs and stuff." Thank you, Topher. "The spell thing sounds better. How does it work? Like, when you do one? Do you have to say stuff, or just think it, or what?"

"I have to say it out loud, or it doesn't really work. I've tried just saying spells in my head, but nothing happens then," Billy said. "As far as I can tell, it just has to be something I want to happen, and I have to say I want it. Like, I'd say 'I want Topher to be healed' over and over a few times, like a mantra, and then it'd happen."

"Huh," Topher said, leaning in a little as he took that in. "That's really cool. You should, um, show me sometime."

You know. If the world didn't end.

"I could show you now, maybe. Is there anything you need?" Billy asked, ever helpful. He might have liked the idea of showing off a little too.

"Like right now?" Huh. "You can't, like, magic us the answer to how to get disappeared people back, right?" Topher asked, with maybe a little bit of a wry smile.

"I wish," Billy said with a sigh. "I've tried spells to bring people back, spells to make answers appear, spells to make the cloud go away...none of it's worked though. I guess there are some limits to what I can do."

Library [12/9]

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