fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room, Late Saturday Night

It had been a terribly long day, but Eleanor couldn't sleep. The excitement from traveling five time zones and four decades, perhaps, or the nervous energy from not being on the run for the first time in days. She wasn't sure how to relax, and had wandered into some sort of communal space.

She hadn't watched television in years, although she hadn't realized the surface had quite so many channels. There had to be something on, with this many channels, didn't there?

And so, it was around midnight, and Eleanor Lamb was watching a program quite inexplicably titled OCTO ER. It seemed to be fashioned around the lives and times of a number of cepholopods working in a deep marine emergency room, though the plot seemed less concerned with medical emergencies than it did which octopodes were having carnal relations with each other.

Octopodes? Octopi? Maybe she'd wait for the show to mention it, and see which term was canonical.

(SO SO OPEN. Someone teach this girl that soapy dramas require popcorn! OCTO ER 4EVA. Idea hatched from a particularly hilarious typo to

furnaceface back in, erm, October.)

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Evan noticed that, yes. It was difficult to miss for a kid who had spent the last couple of years folding into himself.

"I think they just want to pay it forward. I'm pretty sure they used to be students here, too."

"Altruism," she said, her tone a touch bitter. She laughed, but there wasn't any mirth in it. "There are few things less trustworthy than someone hiding under the cloak of altruism."

Eleanor? Your issues were showing.

"Ah." Evan chewed his lip for a moment, and then nodded a little. "I was once, um... hurt. A lot. By some men that kept saying, over and over, that they were just teaching me, just showing me the way things were meant to me. It got... really ugly."

He was vaguing this one up a notch. And then some. And for good reason.

"So... I know to take altruism with a grain of salt. I mean... I'm not just going to blindly accept anyone's idea of 'help' again. Not after that. But this place is..." He frowned a little more, groping for words. "I think Fandom would keep going, with or without people throwing money at it. The island has a mind of its own. It wouldn't let go of what makes it Fandom so easily."

A pause, and then he was burying his face in his hand.

"And now I sound like a crazy person."

"No, you don't," Eleanor said quickly. "Not at all. I ... I understand, what you mean."

He and Raven both had been willing to expose themselves, in ways she still couldn't imagine doing; that made him brave, not crazy.

Thinking of Raven made her connect a few other dots. She doubted if the boy was an alien, he'd look quite so human; he was human, just with some unusual features.

"Are ... you a mutant?" she asked. And then, remembering her conversation with Jeff, "... Is it rude if I ask that?"

"Well, I don't think it's rude, because I am one," Evan replied, offering her a faint smile. "Not everyone that looks different from humans is, not around here. But... I am."

He held up one hand, and focused on it for a moment, watched it shift from flesh to steel, then to something that bore a striking resemblance to wood, and then back to flesh again. It wasn't the sum of his powers by a long shot, but it seemed like the one least likely to freak people out. The stretching thing was... sometimes a bit much.

"Do you come from a place with mutants, or have you met another one here already?"

Eleanor had been watching his hand, and had to fight back the perverse notion to clap. It was wonderful, seeing what her new classmates could do.

The mutations she had frightened her, but the resultant powers ... those had opened the door to her freedom. Hard to imprison someone who could fling fire at you.

"The latter," she said. "My big sister -- except is it all right if I say that?"

She had been shown Raven's abilities in confidence; perhaps it wasn't her secret to reveal.

"My ..." She hesitated, but it was safe, here. And if it wasn't, this one revelation wouldn't change that. "... I was told it was for the Greater Good. What they did to me. First, for all of the city, and then, for all of humanity. They ... hurt me, too."

"Some mutants hide," Evan noted. "I won't ask who your big sister is, and if she's keeping it a secret, I don't have to know."

Not that he was going to persecute her for being a mutant, obviously. But he respected that some people had secrets, too.

"And... I'm sorry to hear that," he added, his tone dropping a little lower, worrying his lip as he looked at her. "And I'm glad you're here, instead of... still in a situation like that. Is that why you came to the island?"

She was grateful that he'd keep Raven's secrets. She would have to be more carful, about revealing them in the future. It wouldn't do to breathe a word into the wrong ear.

"It is," Eleanor said. "I escaped. I came here because here wasn't there."

She paused, not even sure how to phrase it, but she had a feeling ... that he'd understand.

"Is it safe here?"

Evan knew exactly what she was getting at, yeah.

"It's the safest place I know," he murmured. "The safest real place I know. We get invasions from time to time, things coming onto the island and attacking, but we always deal with them. And the people around here... they're good. We all band together because if we don't, we'll all be alone."

He looked down at his soup, giving it a distracted stir.

"Here won't ever be there. We're all too invested in making certain it stays safe to let that happen."

"Then I'll help," she decided. "Should something attack us ... I could be of great use in a situation like that."

Perhaps this was why the school had generous benefactors. Because it was a safe haven for so many. She had saved the Little Sisters not just because it was right, but because she could see herself in them. Mother was wrong. Utopia didn't lie in eliminating the self, but in expanding it with empathy to encompass all those around you.

"Thank you," she added, genuinely. "That ought to help me sleep easier, at least."

"Of course," Evan replied with a nod. "I know if it wasn't for this place, I'd lose way more sleep at night than I already do."

You tended to stay up and worry a lot when you were afraid you were part monster.

"And if there's anything else you need at all, let me know, okay? I'm in room 330, just down the hall."

"Thank you," she said. "And the same for you, as well, all right? I'm in room 305, and I'm ... I'm very useful to have in a fight."

In case of one of those invasions, in case whatever had happened to him hadn't made him the type to set things ablaze with his eyes or what-have-you, she was a good person to stand near in a situation like that.

Third Floor Common Room, Late Saturday Night

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