Issue 1 Downtime

Cal's phone got a text shortly after dinner.

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hey...can we talk?

The answer came pretty quickly.

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Like I told you, whenever you want.

About four minutes later, there was a knock at Cal's door.

"It's... uh... open. Come in, I just have to turn off the... discouragements." There was the sound of movement and something powering down from inside the room.

Haley didn't think overly hard about what the hell "discouragements" were, but was probably glad they were turned off. She looked around to see if anyone was coming, pushed open the door, and then shut it behind her once she was inside.

"Hi..." she said meekly.

Cal's room... was more of a workshop. Or rather, a mass of half-finished projects covering every surface aside from his bed, with boxes taking up much of the walking room. His bed happened to be where he was working at the moment, sitting cross-legged as he assembled something, the cube flashing happily at the end of the bed (though with a few boxes to keep it from falling off if he moved the wrong way and shifted the bed.

All in all, not the most comfortable surroundings to hole yourself up in.

Cal looked up, his extremely tired eyes still rather unreadable as they fixed on her. "Hi," he said.

"I...wanted to apologize for last night. I...I know it's not an excuse, that saying that 'you weren't supposed to hear that,' is really just kinda a cop out and stuff but...well. It's different. I'm sure you think lots of things to yourself that you'd never ever say out loud to anyone. And...sometimes my powers don't seem to let me have that."

Haley stood awkwardly in front of Cal's door. "I...like you a lot Cal. You're probably my best friend here, and I don't want to lose that."

Cal looked up at her again, a little longer, then looked back down at his work. "It's all right. Things are the way they are. Getting reminded of it isn't your fault. I shouldn't let myself forget it just because it's more fun that way."

"I...what does that mean?" she asked, confused, her voice catching a bit.

"It means that we all act like everyone's the same here because we're all mutants, and that means we're supposed to be all enlightened or something, but that's bullshit. We're the same people we were before we came here, and we want to be around the same people we wanted to be around before we came here, and the same people want the same things from us as before we came here."

"Does...that mean you don't want to hang out anymore?" she asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Nah, I don't mean that. I'm not going to pretend it's more than it is, though."

"That what is more than what it is?"

"You, me, us," he said, looking up... but it was only to find a little screwdriver that had slid from the edge of the bed, which he picked up and started using.

"Do...you want there to be more than what there is?" she asked, taking a few steps into the room.

Cal chuckled at that. "When has what I want ever mattered for anything. Things are the way they are."

"What you want matters a lot, Cal. I know it may not have in the past, but that's then. This is now. What do you want, that I can give you?”

Cal's hand stopped for a moment, as he considered all the answers he could give, all the wild, happy answers he could give.

And all of them, ones that he didn't have any right to ask for. "Nothing," he said, without looking up.

"Nothing? There's nothing that I could give you?"

Cal's eyes closed for a moment, looking tired, extremely tired, before he straightened and blinked, forcing himself to focus again. "What do you want me to say, here, Haley. I'm trying not to be a prick about all this."

"I want to know what you want, Cal." she said. "And I want to do it the normal way instead of trying to fish for it in your head. You're my friend and I care about you a lot and I just want you to be happy for a change."

"What I want is to stop feeling second class every time some hot guy is around or being talked about. But that's just the way things are. I can be the one who drops everything when you need something, but I'm not going to measure up like that."

"So what you want is for me to be your girlfriend, is what I'm hearing. Because we're friends right now, so there can't be jealousy. I know we've made out and stuff but...well.... Do you want to be more than friends?"

"Yeah, I know, start laughing," Cal said, focusing more on the project.

"Answer the question, Cal. Do you?" she said softly.

"Like I said, what I want doesn't matter," he said quietly.

"Yes, it fucking does!" she sighed in exasperation.

"I thought just being friends with benefits was like every guy's dream. Is it not yours? Do you want more than that? Do you want to just stick to being friends and not complicate things?"

"Cal, what. Do. You. Want?"

"That's what douchebags who get everything they want and don't have to learn to appreciate it want," Cal snapped at her, some of his irritation boiling to the top when she mentioned 'friends with benefits'.

"Well if you aren't that then fucking tell me what you want!!!"

"Of course I want you to be my girlfriend," he muttered, showing all the hope and confidence of the president of the computer club asking out the head cheerleader. Which, more or less, was what was happening.

"So ask me," she said, a slight smile forming on her face.

Cal swallowed, a million questions going through his mind, ranging from 'is this a setup' to 'is there a wrong way to do this'. Finally, though, the question... was really barely audible due to sheer nerves. "Will you be my girlfriend?"

"Yes," she smiled warmly, crossing the room and squeezing next to Cal on a small sliver of bed.

Cal's eyes closed as he leaned, tiredly, against her, unable to ignore his tiredness and take a break from the project at the same time. "And before you ask if that was so hard... Yes. It was."

"You thought asking me out was hard? Wait until I start demanding presents, and give you a love fern that I expect you to care for like a small child or puppy," she teased.

"What's a love fer-" The answer came to him from a web search before he could finish the question. "Oh holy shit, that's a thing? Ah, well, I'll just make something to water it, then graft in palm tree DNA so that it grows little coconuts on it. Total win."

Haley giggled. "So now you have to figure out what our first date is gonna be."

"Is it too late to re-think this?" Cal joked, tossing the little screwdriver down and resigning himself to the fact that nothing else was getting done tonight with his work. Not that he really cared.

"Yep. You're mine now," she grinned, hugging him tightly

"Admittedly... I like the sound of that," Cal sighed.

"...Want to get someplace where it doesn't feel like there are a hundred little cameras on us?"