revivalproject | Shelter From The Storm

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Shelter From The Storm

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, Dustin, You?
WHERE: The Diner
WHAT: Sheltering from the Blizzard
WHEN: During the Blizzard
WARNINGS: CW: Discussions of accidental explosions

I. Keeping The Food Going

For once there was a proper way for Tommy to distract himself from the madness of the storm. And he always needed the distractions. The storms made him less himself, took away his power, took away his strength. Tommy hated nothing quite like the storms. He'd been hurt so many times during them, been lost, been broken in his heart and mind.

"Here," he says as he whips the space blanket off of his shoulders and draped it over another person's shoulders. "I'm trying to get the fire going to cook. Just, uh, give me more time. I've got some dried meat you could nibble on if you need."

II. Judgements Spoken | CW: Discussions of accidental explosions

It was later in the day and things were settling down when it happened. Tommy finally had an open fire going near one of the vents in the kitchen so people could stay warm. It was sorta cramped staying back there, but they would do what they had to do. But he was getting ready to settle down and then it happened.

A shadowy figure seemed to manifest as Tommy was moving to sit down. One he recognized. A high school aged girl, who looked scared, and unerringly right at Tommy, who paled.

"You're not real," he hissed at the ghostly form. "You're not real. Like all the storm images. Go away!"

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Wait, what? Tommy's attention turned to Dustin, and while he was shaking and white as a sheet, he was still confused.

"You can see it?"

And the apparition stood there and scoffed.

"How else would he know you for what you are?"

Dustin stares right back at him, looking equal parts surprised and confused.

"...Should I not be able to?" he asks with a blink. Having only been in one other storm before this, in which the most prominent apparitions attacked him and others, that and some vague memories of Keith describing the monsters are all Dustin has to reference. Maybe someone had mentioned that they were supposed to be for personal eyes only and he simply doesn't remember. With his abilities gone, that's entirely possible.

The ghost itself interrupts Dustin's thoughts. "The hell is it even talking about?" he grumbles, pulling the blanket Tommy had thrust upon him earlier tighter around his shoulders.

In normal storms, no. And this was clearly not a normal one. But Tommy was now clearly in a greater panic.

"Leave," he says, his voice shaking. Whether it's for Dustin or the apparition isn't evident.

"Mutie scum," the figure said. "Haven't even told them how you almost killed us. How you ruined our lives! I lost FINGERS!"

She waves the offending hand, missing two fingers and covered in burns, in front of his face.

Dustin's initial impulse is to assume that's meant for him. His annoyed frown shifts into one of confused concern, brow furrowed.

"I...I don't think I..." But the apparition cuts him off again. Dustin soaks in what it says, in spite of the fact that Tommy obviously doesn't want him to; his abilities make ignoring things like this impossible, and even without them, the habit remains.

Mutie? The term sounds familiar somehow, though frustratingly he doesn't remember why. It also sounds a bit like a slur. Dustin's opinion of whoever this drops precipitously, but he can't just brush off its accusations, either. Tommy's obviously shaken by it. Did he actually hurt this person? Multiple people? Why?

Curious, confused, and feeling more than a little awkward about this whole situation in general, Dustin continues to observe in timid silence.

"I didn't mean to," Tommy said, cringing away from the figure. "I just wanted him to stop bullying me. I didn't even know I could do that. I didn't mean it!"

He really hadn't meant it, and it wouldn't stop. At all.

"Leveled the school. Those stupid heroes never should have broken you out!"

Dustin might not have his powers right now, but that doesn't make him totally incapable of reading between the lines, or completely forgetting conversations that he had nearly eight months ago. It's the mention of heroes that finally jogs his memory.

Right, Dustin realizes, his eyes widening. Tommy's not human. The general story is similar enough to things he remembers reading online, in the months leading up to him running away from home, about people like him - people with abilities, though ones that would be more noticeable when they actually manifested. More destructive.

"It was an accident," he murmurs, mostly to himself. "You must not have known."

"Mutie freak! You nearly killed us all! You're just as bad as your grandfather, as your mother!"

"Shut up!" Tommy shouted, hands coming up to cover his ears. Because it was a mistake, and he hated to hear this all. "Shut up. I didn't want it. I didn't ask for it!"

Okay, this is getting out of hand. Dustin abruptly gets to his feet.

"Tommy," he interjects - because he already knows that trying to talk to the apparitions is a waste of time. "It doesn't care. Stop."

Truly they're lucky Tommy's without his powers. Because otherwise he might well bring this building down around their heads.

"I didn't mean for any of it," Tommy whispered again, and he didn't even notice the thing evaporating.

Dustin prepares himself to more firmly interject, but the ghost is already leaving, and Tommy seems...well, less intent on arguing. Spent. He falters, unsure if he should say anything at all. Maybe he could just. Sit down, and they could both pretend this never happened.

After a few moments of awkward quiet, Dustin makes up his mind. "...Who are you trying to convince?" he asks, cautiously.

Spent was definitely a correct term for it. In fact, he was shaky for the pain that it felt for him. He had taken the silence and just sat down on the floor, clearly curling in on himself some.

And then there's that question. He can't help the anger that bubbles up in him. He jumps to his feat.

"I didn't know I could do it! I don't care that my team thought maybe it wasn't an accident. And the courts sure as fuck didn't believe me. But I was!"

Likewise, Dustin can't help the instinctive step back he takes in the face of Tommy's aggression, or his own defensiveness that flares up in his chest and makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

"Man, I know!" he spits back, though the way he ducks his head and raises his hands betrays the fact that he's not trying to start a fight with that tone. Force of habit and all. "I fucking get it, alright? I--"

A beat. Dustin forces himself to take a breath through his nose, mouth pursed thin, in an effort to level out his temper. Do I really want to talk about this?

Another breath.

"--It's not like you're the only one that's ever happened to," Dustin blurts, practically tripping over his own words. "Even on my version of Earth, there--I was looking for people, like--like us. I can kind of...slip under the radar, I guess, but in a lot of cases, this shit just happens. And the people that see it, they don't know what to do with stuff they don't understand. At best you're crazy, at worst..."

He trails off, eyes flickering toward the floor.

"...I get it."

"I get the worst," Tommy says with a whisper. Because some mutants were on the front edge of that. He hadn't been. But the words actually started to slow him down.

"I've tried to live my life better since then. I was... I almost got worse. But I try to be a hero. I don't hurt people unless there's no other choice."

And with his powers, there are almost always other choices.

"I believe you," Dustin replies almost immediately, gaze flashing back up to meet Tommy's eyes. "You haven't given me any reason to doubt it. Even this..."

He shrugs, gesturing vaguely in the direction of where Tommy's specter used to be standing.

"...I don't really care if what you're doing now is like...some kind of atonement for the mistakes you made in the past," he continues. "The people you hurt, they might never forgive you and that's their right. Your actions after will tell everyone else what kind of person you want to be. That's all that matters."

Is it? Tommy bites his lip, and he looks like he's shaking, like he's ready to run away.

But there is nowhere to go.

"I just want to protect people."

Dustin would hardly blame him for trying. But at the moment, he just looks tired.

"I know," he repeats, starting to sound a little flustered. "Broken record, man. I get that this shit sucks, but you gotta--"

As if summoned by Dustin's attempt at try and tell someone else to just get over their problems, a familiar, ghostly figure appears several feet behind Tommy. She's an older woman, probably somewhere in her late forties based on the firm lines on her face and the streaks of gray in her black hair that Dustin remembers her having, set with thin reading glasses and in casual wear that she might have worn around the house on one of those rare weekends she had off from work.

It's how she looked the night he ran away. Dustin is struck by the fact that he remembers this, the clarity of it, in spite of his powers being repressed by the storm; it must have stuck with him more than he realized. But more than that, he's startled by her being here at all.

"--Ugh--not fucking now, mom!" Dustin snaps. The 'don't talk to the storm ghosts' rule apparently only applies to people that aren't him.

Yeah, definitely only applies then. Tommy looks over his shoulder and sees the figure. Oh shit.

"But... it's your mom?"

"Not my real one," Dustin mutters bitterly. "She just--"

Once again he's cut off. Rose Thatcher's ghost clears the distance between them in several long strides, passes through Tommy like he isn't even there, and slaps him across the face. Or tries to - her spectral hand phases through Dustin's cheek just like the rest of her went through Tommy a moment earlier, but the smack of contact still sounds solid enough to make him recoil. Rose's eyes are wild with fury, face twisted in a snarl. It's an expression completely alien to Dustin's experiences with her; even on his most difficult days she was, at worst, frustrated and tired with him. Nothing like this.

Dustin's been thoroughly stunned into silence by these events, but Rose definitely isn't.

"I have never met someone so utterly ungrateful in my entire life!" she spits, voice full of bile and hands clenched into fists at her side. "How dare you. I let you into my home, raised you, saved your life, and the first thing I hear out of your entitled little mouth when I finally manage to track you down again is that I'm not your 'real mother?' Is anything good enough for you?!"

Oh, well that was a thing. Tommy had seen a lot of fucked up shit before, but he'd never had something walk through him. He was too stunned for a moment to turn, but when he did he could see the way Dustin looked.

"Woah," he says, finding his voice again, "don't even go there lady. Sometimes it's hard to come up with the right terms for family, and he clearly meant you didn't give birth to him to clear it up for ME."

Dustin glances at Tommy for just long enough to pass him a pained expression before his eyes stick to the floor by his feet. "...No, I--"

"--Meant it exactly how you said," Rose continues, heedless of Tommy as she looms over Dustin's head. Or maybe it just seems that way because he's starting to shrink further into himself, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders more and more. "Didn't you? Spiteful little shit. Lucky for you, I couldn't possibly call you my son anymore, not after what you did to me. So I guess you got what you've always wanted."

"Yeah, well then who gives a fuck. Maybe you're a spiteful bitch," Tommy shouts at her. No, this feels too much like his birth mother for him to tolerate it. "Why don't you fuck off. Anyone who dares call their kid 'ungrateful' can bite me. I'll kick your fucking ghost ass!"

In spite of Tommy's quickly mounting anger at the situation, Rose continues to ignore him. Her hard eyes burn holes into the top of Dustin's head as she quivers with rage. She knows he has something to say, and she's waiting for him to spit it out.

"...Tommy," he says quietly. "It's..."

"Go on," Rose's specter urges, her voice tight.

"...She's right, you know?" Dustin murmurs. "I deserve this."

Rose hardly misses a beat. "There we go," she declares with a haughty nod. "What did you say earlier? 'The people you hurt might never forgive you?' Maybe you should have considered that before you stole my work and destroyed my career. Most of that research was older than you are, and you, what? Sold it for bus tickets and gas station sandwiches? Was it worth it? Did you even think about the consequences, even once?"

"Bullshit," Tommy answers, moving through the ghost this time to touch Dustin's shoulder. "I don't care what she thinks of you, or who the hell she thinks she is. You're a kid. I expect you'll get fucking mad for me saying it, but you are. And I was in your fucking situation it sounds like. And I get how fucking hard it is."

He doesn't want to see something of himself in this asshole. But he does anyway.

Dustin flinches from the unexpected touch of Tommy's hand, but he doesn't move away, doesn't get mad. He's too tired to be mad.

"Of course you didn't," Rose continues, even as her form shimmers and fizzles away. "Shame on me, for trusting a child as much as I did. I should have known better."

Dustin doesn't say anything at first, just letting Rose's words linger in the empty air while he simmers in his own guilt. She's right, again. He'd thought about the consequences insomuch as he wanted the research she was doing to stop, but never once had he thought about how that would affect her job, her life. He hadn't wanted to. It was so much easier, just to keep his bitter memories to himself and leave that part of his world behind.

Eventually, Dustin finds his voice again. "...So, what?" he mutters. "I'm supposed to use that as an excuse? Like, because I'm immature, the fact that I wanted to hurt someone and succeeded at it is okay?"

"Bitch," Tommy grumbles under his breath. His attention is on Dustin now, because it's more important.

"No, not an excuse. We don't make excuses, you and me. They don't justify things. But we can explain why we are the way we are. And accept that we can change."

IT had been a struggle for Tommy, but he'd gotten there long ago.

Shelter From The Storm

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