fandomhigh | Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

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living on the outskirts

Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

"Once upon a time," Jono said, speaking without preamble as he walked into the classroom looking fairly well-rested, even if he smelled a little like Mr. Clean, "there was this bloke who didn't stand a chance in hell of fitting in, back home. He was, on top of being a little antisocial to start with, a mutant, hated and feared by humanity because his genes were a little different. And, beyond that... Well..." He held up a photo of himself in his X-Men days for the classroom to see, face unwrapped and fire twisting violently around him. "... Frankly, he was a little terrifying. Even other mutants, people with the same problems as him, shrank away from him as though he was a monster."

He managed to deliver that line in a fairly cavalier sort of way. It still stung, but the point was mostly moot, these days.

"And then, through an accident of fate or by the power of Fandom or after tripping into some strange sentient mist - don't ask - he found his way here. Here, surrounded by humans, aliens, mutants, fairies... So many people who were other, it was probably absurd of him to assume that they'd consider him all that different in the first place. He continued to be standoffish, continued to assume that there was no way anybody here could come to accept him as anything but what the people back home made plainly clear they saw him as.

"And then he found love. He found love twice, actually, both times with people who weren't quite normal themselves, and both times with young women that only cared to see him for who he was, not what he was. He had a hand in saving the day right alongside people that he's still proud to this day to have known as friends. Hell, he was even voted Prom King the year he graduated, and he's still half-convinced that the entire senior class had been drinking the spiked punch a little early when that decision came about."

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"The point is, even when he went home, he held on to that. He was still a mutant, still different in a way that wasn't going to ever let him really fit in, but he wasn't entirely so hesitant to let himself be happy, either. And if, to this day, the only regrets he really has are the result of things that are well beyond his control, well... then his time here wasn't a complete waste, and it's really no wonder he ultimately chose to come back here to teach this class, is it?"

Come on. Like you didn't see that one coming, kids.

"So, how about you lot? Any 'oh, I'm actually not as alone as I thought I was' stories to share about this place since you came here? You don't have to go quite as in-depth as I did. I hardly expect visual aides or anything. But I suspect I'm not the only one in this room who was surprised to find that I belonged somewhere, after being so resigned to the prospect of spending the rest of my life hated, feared, and hunted for what I was."

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"Then you should be more understanding of my desire not to say anything," Sholeh said, all stubbornness now. "Because you do know how terrifying it can be. Would you be so pro-tell everyone if you could have hidden?"

She'd wanted that to come out all accusatory, but there was a note of honest curiosity in there anyway.

"There was a phrase for people who were, whether they had the ability to hide or not," Jono replied, raising an eyebrow. "'Mutant and Proud,' they'd say. In my time here, I was... possibly the only one who couldn't hide easily."

What with the voice, and all. Even Kurt had his image inducer.

"That said, those who tried to hide nearly all wound up giving in and coming clean eventually. Some continued to tell themselves that nobody knew after showing what they were over and over, but we... let them cling to that illusion. It made them feel better, I suppose."

None of that actually answered her question, so he finally shrugged his shoulders and got down to it.

"If I could've hid, I might've. But not out of fear. I was never afraid for myself, or that someone would see me and run back to my world and start outing mutants by the score. I would've hid out of shame, I think. I had too many regrets, and this place was a clean slate where I didn't have to face them down unless I wanted to."

"I'm not ashamed," Sholeh said staunchly. "I'm proud not to be a one-face. I have two of the best sisters in the world. When they're not being jerks, I mean."

The silence in her head was tinged with shame and regret.

"But I'm not just going to break all our rules because of a...rousing speech," she continued. "They're trusting me. And if it comes out that I told people, I'd have to go away."

"Interesting way to put it," Jono mused, eyebrow still raised. "Proud to not be what we are, as opposed to telling me that you're proud to be what you are?"

He wasn't certain if she had meant that as some sort of attempt at rubbing it in his face that he was inferior, or if she hadn't even been aware that she'd phrased it that way, but she could be sure as hell that he was going to point it out.

"Nobody's forcing you to tell anybody, Sholeh. If I had any intention of taking away your choice, I've had more than ample opportunity to out you myself. Ask your sisters just how long ago I ran into them, sometime." He shrugged his shoulders. "If you don't want to tell people, that's completely your prerogative. But I'm going to hold by my previous assessment- You're absolute cack at lying about it. If you're not going to come clean, you're going to want to work on your acting skills, because the way you're covering it up is only going to rouse more suspicion than any self-respecting liar wants on their hands."

"I'm proud of that, too," Sholeh said. "But we're always surrounded by one--" a moment's pause, "--by the singly-aspected who can't ever fathom what it's like to be different from what they are. And I'm proud of being different."

A thought occurred to her then, deflating her a little. "Proud, even though I can't show it."

She wasn't going to dignify his comments about lying with a response. Mostly because it was true and she knew it.

"Bitter, innit? To feel pride about a difference that you have to hide away and pretend doesn't exist?" Weirdly enough, even Jonothon could comprehend that.

"You say one-face," he noted, after a moment's thought. "Are you saying it with contempt, I wonder? Because you say we can't ever fathom what it's like to be different from what we are, but the very nature of people like me is change. Not necessarily of everyone else that happens to be singly-aspected, granted, but of mutants, at least. If someone hadn't taken measures to ensure that my species would die out entirely as soon as the last of the current generation passes away, there would be people right this instant, waking up in bodies that haven't their entire lives been anything like their own. And it might scare the hell out of them, they might spend the rest of their lives wishing they could go back to being what they were, but they do know a thing or two about being different from what they are."

He smiled wryly at her.

"There are probably only a precious few who have any idea what it's like to be like you in particular, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that you can't fathom quite where we're coming from in some regards, either. And I dare say that there are some humans with no powers at all who are capable of grasping far more than you might think."

"Not contempt!" Sholeh mumbled. Just, you know, the casual disregard for a not-so-nice term that one had grown up hearing bandied about. "We can become one-faces, you know. It's just--" she shuddered and even as angry as she was, she brushed against her sisters, just to feel them and know they were there and okay. "--just kind of horrible to get there."

And why she could never, ever fall in love with a one-face boy.

"...Your people are dying?"

"My people," Jonothon replied, "are functionally extinct."

There was no way to rebuild a population on numbers like they had left. Mutantkind couldn't sustain itself on less than two hundred. Especially not while they were still being hunted. Especially when there were no new mutants being born into the world.

For better or for worse, so far as Jonothon was aware, that was... that.

"I wouldn't wish that on anybody, Sholeh."

"I wouldn't, either," Sholeh said softly. "Our home is dying. The landscape. That's why we're here. To try and keep it from dying completely, because if it does, we have nowhere else to go."

Jono bit the inside of his cheek while he listened to her words, while he absorbed what that meant.

"Do you know what's causing it?"

Because there were a countless number of realities that her people could potentially escape to if it came to that, but leaving home behind to die was something easier said than done.

Sholeh shook her head. "It's just all turning to desert. The water is drying up, lands that were once fertile farms turning to dust and sand. Every year we have less and less arable land. We've been trying to send people out, to anchor our landscape to another so we're not so adrift, but everyone we've sent out..."

She looked away, expression becoming cold. Shuttered. "They come back hurt and broken. If they come back at all. Because they trusted people."

*Are you sure you should be telling him all this?*

::Why not?! He already knows everything else!::

There was a lot of that story that seemed to hit a little too close to home for Jono. He frowned and nodded faintly, and then tilted his head at her.

"Anchor it to another? How do you mean?"

Jonothon suddenly suspected that her reality would be one heck of an interesting sight.

"Well, like Bridges," Sholeh said, trying to explain. "If you have people who can call both places home, they can create a bridge between them that links both places. And just having people who belong to both homes makes the links between them stronger."

"So... you're a bridge?" Jono tilted his head at Sholeh, looking her over thoughtfully. "And you were looking to... to tether your home to Fandom?"

He was trying to wrap his head around this one, yep. It was not the sort of solution that he was quite familiar with.

"I can't build a bridge that will get us there," Sholeh said. "But I'm an anchor. If I'm connected enough to this place, I can hold Tryadnea to it so it doesn't drift away."

"Well... then I have only one more question for you, Sholeh, and you can do with it whatever you will."

He lifted his chin a little, looking at her thoughtfully.

"How are you ever going to forge a meaningful connection like that with Fandom, if you don't even feel safe being yourself while you're here?"

Yes, back to that. But Jonothon wasn't expecting an answer, this time. It was hypothetical. It would give her something to chew on, perhaps.

Ouch. Way to make that questions a metaphorical punch to the gut, Jono. Wow.

For her part, Sholeh decided to make good on that clear exit out, gathering up her things and stumbling towards the door, heart too full of troubling thoughts for words.

In a few moments more, she'd be crying. She didn't want anyone to see that.

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Living on the Outskirts, Friday, Period 2

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