hybrid_prince | Open Post

"The pleasure is mine," Kurt assures them both in his thick accent. "You are missed at home, brother."

"Don't worry," David says, leaning in to whisper in Tommy's ear. "Everyone on Krakoa has this whole weird 'we are bothers and sisters' thing going on. You get used to it."

With that he gestured for Kurt, who moved forward to wrap a hand around both of their biceps and then there was a burst of smoke and the scent of brimstone and an unmistakeable 'BAMF'ing sound. It wasn't just something people used without it having a basis in reality. Just like that they weren't in front of the apartment, but rather in front of an embassy building, outside of which was an arch filled with light, made of vines. Kurt released the two so he could walk through it. David just took Tommy's hand and laced their fingers together, pulling him through.

The portal was like warmth and welcome, if that could be a thing, washing over the skin. Could acceptance be caressed over skin? Could love burn like a tonic going down the throat. Could belonging wrap itself around your body and refuse to let go? Perhaps, because that was what going through the portals always felt like to David.

And so they arrived in a beautiful wooded grove, like a tropical paradise, with countless other arches around them, something written in a strange set of symbols above each one. And almost immediately there was another mutant there, a young woman with flowers in her hair who reached out and placed a hand on Tommy's arm.

"She needs your permission," David explains. "We have our own language now. All mutants who arrive are given the whole of it, reading and writing and all of our knowledge, telepathically. But we still respect those who are not willing. But everything is written in Krakoan, and a lot of people prefer to converse in it. It would be best if you agree. The other option is Billy could give you it by magic."

Tommy didn't get it, and he wasn't used to it. And much as he wanted to burrow against David's side for contact, David wasn't the right person and it wasn't gonna help.

And then the portal was ... warm and welcoming. Loving. But cloying and clinging too, and it was too much contact. Again. And then once more when some girl he didn't know was touching him and Tommy just overloaded. He bolted away out of reach, eyes too wide and too wild, panic all over his face.

He realized he'd done it and that he must be just still moving when everyone else stayed frozen and he made a conscious effort to calm down and hold still as everything else came back into focus. Christ. He was so fucked up. He was back on Earth, with a friend, about to see his brother ... and all he wanted in this moment was a familiar colorless room, his bed, and Teddy. Everything else felt like too much and every touch felt like the wrong touch, and just reminded him he was screwed up and alone and had fucked over his brother and everyone else without meaning to.

"Sorry," he mumbled, arms hugging around himself. "I'll uh ... Billy can do it. If he wants. If not, she can later?" he tried to offer, not quite looking David in the eye.

"Yeah," David agrees, and he speaks to the young woman in Krakoan, explaining the situation. She nods and moves back amid the trees, no doubt to wait for others to arrive. Kurt, having stood by for it all, looks to David.

"To your dome?"

"That seems best. Tommy, can Kurt take us to my place?"

David had a dome? What the fuck was this place, even? Maybe it wasn't even really earth and the skrulls just tossed him in some weird simulation. Or maybe it was an alternate earth and somewhere this universe's Tommy was off being a dick or dead or something.

His head fucking hurt.

"Yeah, that's fine. Sorry," Tommy said again, moving back in closer again, pushing his hair back out of his face again.

"It's okay," David promises, his voice soft, calming. "We're on Krakoa now. It's an island in the pacific. It's our home. If it wasn't for the fact that the first time you always come into the grove, I'd have taken you by the Sanctum and taken the portal there, it goes right to the dome."

He reaches up and pushes more of Tommy's hair back out of his eyes and kisses his forehead. Kurt approaches and grips them again and in more smoke and brimstone they're outside of a silvery dome, one overgrown with plants. The dome is one of many in a large clearing, and there are people everywhere, talking and laughing. David ignores them and nods to Kurt before opening the door and guiding Tommy in. This? This looks more familiar. The outside is strange, but despite the strange architecture, the place is covered with familiar things. David's computers and couch. Billy's collection of nerdy collectibles. An open air kitchen with large windows and plants growing in it, and further along a hall going somewhere.

"Would you like to wait on the couch, or do you want to help me try and rouse William out of his latest search?"

Tommy licked his lips and nodded. David touching him at least he didn't freak out about.

The dome was another matter. There were just ... fucking people. So many people. It was loud and it was busy and laughing and Tommy should be fine with it. He'd NEVER been afraid of noise or crowds. And he wasn't now it just ... felt wrong. It made him want to shrink away and made him want the same thing he wanted before - their room, Teddy.

He ignored it, following David and then relaxing a little when they got inside, where it was quiet and less foreign. Tommy was used to the clutter of David's multiple computers, Billy's nerd shit. He wasn't used to it lately, but it hadn't been that long either. Seven months might feel longer, but it wasn't just overwhelming. "I'll wait, I guess. You should probably warn him anyway?" Tommy said. He rested his hand on the pocket at his side, where the letter was. He hadn't read it. He wanted to know, but he kind of didn't, too. So he wasn't going to. But he was going to tell Billy the truth, so it didn't look like Tommy was trying to bullshit about it. He just didn't know how.

"Alright. Help yourself to whatever you want in the kitchen."

With that David slipped off, stopping only to take the bag from his shoulders and drape it over a hook, his coat going up beside it, leaving him in a t-shirt. He disappeared down the hall and through a door that, when opened, poured out a mixture of blue and gold light. Soon it closed behind David.

And, five minutes later, the door snapped open and Billy was racing out of it, in pajama pants and a black t-shirt and around his shoulders was draped Dr. Strange's cape, clasped closed with the Eye of Agamotto. With a flick of Billy's hands the clasp came undone and the cape lingered in the air until David, coming out after Billy, tapped it on the shoulder and tilted his head. With that the cloak seemed to shrug and return to the room the two had come out of.

None of that, though, mattered compared to Billy threw himself into Tommy's arms. Billy, suddenly a touch shorter than Tommy, and still leaner. Billy with shadows under his eyes and the darker shadow of a two-day growth beard on his cheeks and chin.

"Tommy," he whispered, wrapping his brother in his arms. "I couldn't find you. I bent all my magic on it, but I couldn't. I can never find you with my magic. It's like it rolls off you like water."

David moved past them into the kitchen and began preparing coffee. Billy would need it.

Tommy waited, fidgeting in place, noting all the little details. The bag, the coat. Billy's things and David's. They both lived here now. Billy hadn't wanted to stay in his place without Teddy, maybe. Tommy didn't blame him.

Billy hurtling out of the room didn't surprise him, but the cloak did. Tommy wanted to ask, to try to ask about the Eye and the cloak and anything else that was putting off talking about where he'd been and what he'd done. But then Billy was flinging himself at him and Tommy just wrapped his arms around his brother. It was weird, but Billy almost seemed shorter than him. Maybe it was how they were standing.

And Tommy had that urge again to just crumble. He wanted to cry and let his brother hug him. He couldn't DO that, because he didn't get to have that from Billy, and Billy wouldn't get it even if he had. It wasn't something Tommy would have wanted before. Or should want now.

So he just hugged back, taking a few deep breaths. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm okay. We're okay."

Billy squeezed at his brother with all his might, just holding him, like he was scared if he let go Tommy would disappear again. It wasn't until David came over and rested his hand against Billy's elbow, a familiar sort of touch from how softly Billy looked at David, that Billy let go. And then he pulled Tommy over to the couch.

"I'd rather check you over first, magically. Make sure you really are. Is that alright?"

"William, maybe let him talk first. He's probably got a lot to say," David chided softly, moving to push a coffee into Billy's hands. And shortly after returning with a plate of bagel pizzas for Tommy.

And Billy nodded. Took a deep breath and looked at Tommy.

"Do you have any idea where Teddy is? You both just... disappeared. No one could find you. I thought..."

Billy's voice t railed off, his thought unvoiced. That he had come to think they had run off together. Except that didn't make sense. Neither of them would be able to hide from him.

"Yeah, it's okay," Tommy said, swallowing. He missed the touch, or at least the implication behind it, because he was too busy trying to pull himself back together into some kind of normal again.

Still, he took the out David gave him, sinking back down to sit. He took the pizza bagels, just looking at them and then giving David a quiet "thanks", but then setting them aside, hands clasping in his lap, then unclasping again. "He was with me. We got taken together, by aliens ... we didn't know who. Skrulls found us and broke us out, brought me here. I have a letter for you. From Ted."

Tommy wanted to put this off, but that was being a chickenshit and he knew it. So he didn't, just took a deep breath, swallowing hard. "Look, I don't want to go through this a bunch of times so I'll just tell you two and you can tell everybody else, or just say whateveryouwant. I don't care. I just ..."

Tommy trailed off, chin ducking which hid his face behind his hair. He pushed it back again, vividly remembering Teddy's fingers doing that and resolving to cut it as soon as he could. "I was over at Teddy and you's place, talking, and aliens gassed us, took us. Humanoid, kind of amorphous, I think. Or hard to see. Cloaked, maybe. I couldn't get a look before I went down. I don't know where they took us really, but when the Skrulls busted us out, they said it was like ... an exotic animal zoo. For elite alien cultures or something. They broadcast it, but no one gets to go there." His mouth twisted in self disgust. "They put Teddy and me in a cell and just ... kept us there. We never fuckingsawanyone. For the whole time. No windows. The light was always the same, couldn't tell if it was day or night or anything. We didn't know how much time it was."

He was talking around shit and Tommy knew it. He was trying not to ... think about it too much too. What had happened, what it had felt like, how close they'd been by the end. Teddy probably fucking knew more about him now than anyone. It had just ... felt like forever.

Tommy grimaced. "They made us fuck," he finally said, abrupt in the way Tommy always was when he didn't know how to say something. "There was something ... I don't know. In the air. In the food. Something. In the beginning it was like we just couldn't not touch each other. And then it got more and more intense and we just ..." He shrugged tightly. "They wanted a zoo with people who fuck. So they made sure we did. They'd let me out to run sometimes, once they figured out I got fucked up if they didn't let me. A door would open up to a track. But that was it. No books, no TV. Just ... us. Until the skrulls found us. Teddy had to go back with them. And didn't want to be around me after ... everything. So they brought me back here."

Tommy brought out the letter, tossing it onto the table in front of Billy. "I'm sorry," he said, voice soft.

For the whole of the thing, the two of them are silent, listening. And the more that Tommy talks, the more horrified Billy looks. At one point his eyes actually flash to David, pained. At last, he reaches for the letter. Which he settles in his stomach before pulling Tommy into his arms to hug him.

"You're not responsible for what was done to you," Billy promises his brother, his voice soft and sad. "I'll never blame you for that," he insists.

When he's done, he pulls way and opens the letter. as he reads it, he looks angrier and angrier. AT last he starts cursing in Krakoan. Cursing until he finally holds it up and burns the thing between his fingers.

"William, what...?" David asks, concerned.

"A dear john letter," Billy hisses out. "He sent me a DEAR FUCKING JOHN Letter!"

"You should," Tommy said. Because they hadn't had to work that hard to make him. Because he hadn't even bothered trying to fight it after a while. Because he'd do stupid shit like try to tickle Teddy when they were bored and Teddy would try to shift his ticklish spots around, or Tommy would dream about being trapped and not being able to breathe and Teddy would kiss him when he woke up and pet his hair and talk to him and Tommy would think thank fuck you're here, even though he shouldn't. Because he was screwed up enough that instead of wanting to book it away like Teddy, who wanted it bad enough to drug him and shove him on a ship, he missed it and had fallen for his brother's boyfriend while he was in an alien sex zoo.

Yeah. Billy SHOULD blame him. Tommy blamed himself. He blamed the fucking alien perverts too, but. He blamed himself. He even blamed Teddy a little, for leaving him alone, and that was just pathetic.

He jumped when Billy started yelling and setting the letter on fire, the room doing that same odd little freeze that Tommy thought meant he was having some kind of brief panic that had him vibrating too fast. He breathed to slow down until it looked normal again.

He winced. "It's probably becausehe'sfreakedout. About what happened. He doesn't want to see me. He knocked me out to get me on the ship to send me here. Maybe he's afraid if he looks at you ..." he'd see Tommy? Or he'd see Billy hating him for what they did?

Fuck, he didn't hate Tommy did he? They'd been ... needing to be away, to not see him. Tommy could understand it. But Teddy had been his whole world and the only reason he was sane. A lifeline. The thought that he felt like he did about Teddy and Teddy couldn't stand the thought of him, it made Tommy feel like he wanted to throw up.

"Will," David said, rising to move to Billy when the other gets up and starts pacing, ranting in Krakoan. The way David catches Billy in his arms, his voice soft and pressing his forehead against Billy's?

It's intimate. It's intimate and in the way that Teddy and Billy used to be. Surely that has to raise some flags. But at last David kisses Billy's forehead and presses him back toward the couch. Toward Tommy.

"Whatever he decided," Billy says at last, "is Teddy's idiot decision. But you're not responsible for what happened. What those aliens... You were assaulted, Tommy. Repeatedly. Never ever blame yourself for that. And if Teddy wants to be an asshole who hurts you like that, making you feel like shit. As for the people that took you, I'm going to..."

"You're not," David answers firmly. "If the Skrull wish to seek vengeance, then they can. But letting an Omega level mutant go judgement on others, it's not okay."

Tommy was too caught up in his own head and his own mess to catch the implication at first. The soft tone didn't get through to him, the way David caught Billy up in his arms didn't. What finally did it was the way Billy just stopped, and David's forehead pressed against his. Because ... yeah. Teddy would do that. When Tommy paced and couldn't stop or started to wind himself up. He'd touch him, make him stop and lean into him, and it worked. Tommy had needed it, especially before they'd started letting him run. There'd been some times when it felt like Tommy might well vibrate out of his own skin, or blow himself up just because he couldn't stand it, even with all the sex.

It was the same kind of I'm here calming gesture. It was ... bodies and people that knew one another.

Tommy couldn't help but laugh, brief and rough and ugly. David and Billy got together while him and Teddy were spending months fucking. He didn't even know how to feel about it. Teddy had broken up with Billy, but that was probably only because he was fucked up over what happened. So Tommy hurt for him. But he hurt for Billy too, who'd been here alone, and found David, who was good at making you feel better when you were alone.

It made sense, but at the same time none of this made any fucking sense.

He couldn't let it stand with Billy thinking like that though. "I wasn't. Assaulted. We were ... in it together. I knowitsoundsfucked up. It was. But it was just ... it wasn't that."

Tommy couldn't think of it like that. Assaulted. Forced. Maybe in the beginning but ... or maybe Teddy always was? Maybe he was just trying to make it easy on Tommy, and it was just the drugs making him want Tommy.

Tommy curled over his knees, face buried in his hands. It wasn't. He needed that to not be how it was. "I don't even fucking know who they are, anyway," he said, barely audible.

"You were both assaulted," David counters, his tone brooking no argument. "The two of you were forced into something you wouldn't do. Chemical compulsion is still assault, Tommy."

Because David couldn't begin to understand the build up of emotion between Tommy and Teddy. But he touches Billy briefly and speaks to him again, voice low and soft and Billy nodded, walking off down the hall. When Billy was gone David turned back to Tommy.

"He needs to rest. He's been running on empty for months," David sighs, moving to sit by Tommy, his hand on Tommy's back. "You... don't have to remember this. The suffering, what you went through. Or, at least, you don't have to feel it. We've got a lot of telepaths here. They can make this easier for you."

If it was still assault, then it was Tommy who'd done the assaulting. Because he hadn't needed it. If Teddy turned up here now and wanted to, Tommy would kiss him in a second and crawl into his arms.

So David, for all his good intentions and surety, just made it worse, because Tommy couldn't stop thinking about it. Wondering. All the times Teddy begged him, kissed him, touched him. Did he hate it now? Did he feel sick thinking about what he'd done? Tommy felt sick, but it was about that - the idea that Teddy was ashamed and revolted. Assaulted.

He looked up in time to see Billy leaving, watching him. Tommy's eyes were red and his lip was torn from biting it. He shook his head violently at David's suggestion. "No! No one in my head. I don't want to lose it. I ..." Tommy groaned. "I'm so fucked up. I didn't ... the drugs at first. I guess. But it felt like it was so fucking long, David. Just us, all alone. And I didn't need ... I just wanted him. He was all I had and he didn't want to look at me as soon as we got the hell out of there. So it was just me. I thought it was real and I miss him and he was getting assaulted every time I touched him. We were a fucking zoo exhibit. And I still ... what is wrong with me?"

He swallowed. "I don't even know what to do."

"Tommy, they were assaulting you too," David counters, his fingers carding in Tommy's hair. "You were treated the same way as him. So there's nothing wrong with you. There's..."

He jumps as he hears what sounds like ultra-fast knocking on the door. And then after a second, again. What? David frowns, getting to his feet and crossing to the door to open it.

"Jean-Paul should know better than to knock like," he starts to say and then he opens the door and... That's not Northstar. That's Josh. And another of the Five with him. Tempus?

"Dude, where the hell have you been?" Josh asks, demands really as he pushes past David to enter. And David stared out at the sky. Which was dark.

It wasn't even noon yet on Krakoa. How was it so DARK?

"I just got back with Tommy, what are you?"

"That was, like, twelve hours ago," Tempus countered. "People have been looking for you for hours, to check in.

"There was, like, this fuzz around here. I brought Eva," Josh explained, looking across the room at Tommy.

"There's a temporal distortion here," Tempus continued, and David was just staring in shock. His mouth was moving through a few aborted comments and then... His eyes flashed to Tommy.

"Oh god."

"But I didn't NEED it anymore. And he wanted away from me, and I just want to be back with him. So one of us is fucked up, and it's probably the guy that MISSES getting put on display to fuck," Tommy said harshly.

The fingers in his hair were good, but bad for the same reason they'd been before. Because it wasn't Teddy.

He bolted up at the door banging, whirling around to look at the door. It was strange too, since the knocking seemed to slow down once Tommy was looking at it. He frowned when David swung the door open. He recognized Josh, though it was another person he didn't know that well. And he tensed when Josh just pushed his way in, scowling and wiping at his eyes quickly.

And then everyone was staring at him, including the one he didn't know at all. Tommy know who Tempus WAS, just because he'd scanned through pretty much everyone's bios so he could recognize them. But he didn't KNOW them. Tommy looked between them and then at David. "What?" he asked. He didn't know what the fuck disturbances meant here, he'd never been here before.

David has so much to say and so much that can’t be said in front of strangers.

“Secondary mutation,” David observed for Tommy. “You’re around the age for it, and given all we know about Wanda and the like, it... seemed possible. Everyone just assumed you didn’t because you hadn’t manifested something. I’ll explain later. For now.”

He looks to Josh and Eve. “Can you extend my apologies to my team. I’ll try to meet them toMorrow morning as scheduled. If not send Northstar over. I’m the mean time...”

“David, we’re supposed to...”

“No,” he says, firmly. “I have to take care of Tommy. He’s been through something traumatic.”

“Just because you’re sleeping with his...”

David starts cursing in krakoan and pointing at the door. Josh raises his hands defensively before herding Tempus out. Once they are gone David slams the door.

“Fucking... seems like stuff is more complicated than I ever could have expected.”

Tommy didn't know what that fucking meant. He was just ... overloaded and exhausted. He hadn't slept really since he woke up after being dosed. It was like he didn't remember how without Teddy right there. And right now he kind of wanted to explode everyone in the room except David, and himself for good measure. "What mutation? I do the same fucking thing I always do."

Tommy watched them leave, shaking his head. "I already figured out you and Billy," he said. "I don't ... whatever you had to do. You'll have to figure it out with Ted when him and Billy talk. But I don't ... I'm glad he had you."

Tommy sank back down on the sofa. He looked toward where Billy had disappeared, wondering if he should take off, give them time to work shit out together now. Where was he gonna go though? He had no way off the island anyway.

"Oh, Billy already knew he was going to have to grovel to Teddy," David sighs as he returns to the couch. "And I... knew I was going to lose a friend. It wasn't what we wanted. But it... happened. I just didn't want you to know."

Didn't want Teddy to know either, but he knew it was bound to happen.

"We... for a while we thought you'd run off. Together. The two of you. That was unfair of us."

But then he settles next to Tommy, leaning against him. "Sometimes, when mutants get older, their powers change. They grow. I can't affect time. Even with all of his powers, Billy can't affect time. He can see through it, he can touch alternate worlds, but he can't mess with time. So it's not us that distorted time around us."

"He'd have forgiven you. Teddy's ... he's good," Tommy said, shrugging. "He still will, probably. Both of you." Maybe they'd just both date Billy. Billy was the most powerful magic user in the universe. He probably could use two boyfriends to help keep him level. Him and Teddy would make up, and David and him would work it out, and Tommy would just ... maybe get over his shit and let the telepaths in his head to make him forget after all.

Maybe if he forgot, Teddy would let them help him forget too, and then Teddy wouldn't feel like he couldn't be around Tommy at all.

He shook his head. "No. They just ... came for us. Out of nowhere."

He leaned back into David, shutting his eyes and dropping his head onto David's shoulder. "I know that. I'm not completely stupid. But there's a million mutants on this island, right? And Billy's got new powers all the time. I just run fast and blow shit up, David."

"William doesn't have no powers," David counters. "And his magic never interfaces with the flow of time. It just doesn't work. I know because i watched him struggle, time after time, to try and use his magic to look back and find out what happened the day you disappeared."

David sighs and strokes his fingers in his friend's hair. Long and still somehow silky soft.

"Tommy... How long did it feel like you were with him there?"

"So you think I ... just jacked up time on the island? I don't even FEEL any different, David." He'd felt it when his powers manifested, been constantly restless and needing to move, energy bubbling up all over. He didn't have anything like that. He just had a headache from not sleeping and from being fucking miserable.

"I missed you," Tommy said. He had. He'd missed a lot of things, but David was his best friend. Tommy had missed Billy and him the most.

He shrugged. "I don't know. We couldn't tell. There wasn't a schedule. They fed us like ... it was a reward when we ..." Tommy blew out a slow breath. "No way to measure time. It felt like ... I don't know. A long time. I saw the date when I broke into your apartment - your old apartment, and I freaked out at how long it was. But then I freaked out because it wasn't long enough."

"I think you altered time around us," David corrects. "When Tempus's powers first manifested, it was in a heightened emotional state. And frankly, you're emotional right now. Sometimes emotion just happens to affect things. Perhaps that's what this is. You feel like the world is going too fast around you, so... you slow what's right around you down. Let the world race on without you."

But yes, he missed Tommy too. Wraps an arm around Tommy to just hug and hold him.

"Maybe... it was longer, Tommy. And honestly, that would make how you feel about Teddy make sense. Sex releases positive endorphines. Your body, over time, associated pleasure and happiness and some form of relief with Teddy. Your subconscious attaches to him. It... it can make people fall in love."

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