Xaviers!

On the sidewalk, Leo looked up at the building in which he used to live.

"I never thought I'd be back here."

"Yea me either." He commented.

"But I have something for the rats."

"Something... for the rats?" he asked, giving Ainsley a curious look.

"Is it cheese?" he grinned, "Please say it's cheese."

"Huh. Never woulda guessed."

He moved for the main entrance. "No time like the present."

He led the way inside and up the stairs to his former apartment with a determined stride. But when he reached the door he hesitated, appearing nervous.

Ainsley was eyeballing the service closet again and considering having a duck in, but rethought his plan when he noticed Leo's demeanor.

"We don't have to do this. We can go back." He assured the other boy.

Leo looked down as he gathered his resolve. With a deep exhalation, he raised his head.

"No. I can do this," he said, "But I need you to buzz the door. If my uncle is the one that looks through the peephole, he probably won't open the door for me."

Ainsley seemed more than happy to play the dupe, and he wandered up and hit the button without even giving Leo a moment to collect himself.

Leo darted off to the side before his looming presence could ruin the plan.

After a few moments, the door opens a crack and a middle-aged man who must have been a looker before male pattern baldness and a beer gut set in.

"What do you want?" he asks gruffly, sounding annoyed to be disturbed by someone unfamiliar.

Ainsley scribbled on a post it.


"Need in." And then thought about it for a second and added -

"I got beer."

The man eyes Ainsley with suspicion.

"What? So you can bloody rob me?"

"Need to talk about Leo." AInsley tried.

The man glares and asks, "What has that freak has done now? Not that it's any concern of mine."

"Better to talk inside." Ainsley writes, trying to convince the man to let him in.

"You a mutant too?" he asks, his negative feelings about them clear on his face.

"Do I look like a freak?" He wrote.

The man seems to consider before saying, "As long as you aren't one of his whiney friends, you can come in. But try anything and I'm calling the cops."

With that, he unlatches the security chain and opens the door. He then steps aside and motions for Ainsley to enter.

Ainsley stands in the door frame and slouches his bag off his shoulder to put his note pad away.

Or so it seemed to the uncle.

"Now Leo."

"Hey there Jimmy," Leo said as he barged through the doorway, pushing his uncle back with his mere presence.

Uncle James sputtered in fear, anger, and disgust, "G-get out! Now! Or I'll-"

"Call the cops? No you won't," Leo said, poking the man, "Because you're a coward, and now I'm much bigger than you. That's not a threat, just a fact."

"Fine," James seethed, "What do you want? Money?"

Leo laughed, "You could say that. Because you owe me you fuckin' thief."

"Thief?! Have you lost your mind?"

"You. A thief. You kept my inheritance from me and sold it to a god-damned pawn shop," Leo said, eyes boring into his uncle.

A red-headed woman who had aged far better than James, came into the room just in time to hear the accusation. "Tell me you didn't James," she said with a steel that froze her husband.

James whipped around to face his wife, suddenly more worried about her than the seven foot chimera in the room. "Fiona! Don't believe him, he's ly-"

"James Thomas Blackburn, did you or did you not sell what my sister entrusted us with?" she demanded.

"Do you have any idea how much taking care of that ingrateful little shit was costing me?!" he exploded, trying to intimidateher into dropping the issue, "Not enough for that junk to cover, I can tell you that much!"

Much to the surprise of both James and Leo, she didn't flinch. In fact, her cold fury only grew. "Several things are going to happen. One, you are going to apologize. Two; you are going to get your receipt or ticket or whatever. Three; you are going to take him to the pawn shop and buy him anything he wants from that list. Four; you are going to pay him back for everything else. And five; you are going to pray I don't take half of everything you own in the divorce. And if you fail any of these things, I know more than enough about your greedy little pig heart to interest the authorities."

As his aunt read his uncle the riot act, Leo beamed at the richly deserved fallout he had unleashed.

Ainsley smirked, though while the aunt in question was grilling the uncle, he was milling about the room casually.

He'd seen plenty of domestics, but he hadn't seen inside the Eskandari flat before, and he was curious to see if he could glean anything from it.

There is nothing in the room or visible through open doorways to suggest that a teenage boy had ever lived there. That aside, it was a pretty nice apartment, so the uncle probably has a well paying job. Though from the aunt's statement it might be less than entirely legal.

Leo stepped closer to Ainsley.

"... can't say I expected this to be Aunt Fi's last straw. But I like it."

"Do you find it suspicious in any way?" Ainsley asked.

"Nah. Fi's not like that. Sure, she doesn't usually stand up to him, but she's not a schemer."

"I..." he answered, thinking, "... don't actually know. But I'm not surprised he's crooked. I just hope blackmailing him with it doesn't backfire on her. Maybe I should put some more fear of me in him just to be safe."

"Doesn't hurt, but walk the line." Ainsley continued to tinker about like he wasn't actually speaking to Leo.

It probably would make him look a bit crazy if someone started paying attention.

"I won't hurt him, I promise," he whispered.

James cleared his throat ot break up their quiet conversation. "If we're going, let's go. I don't have all day."

Turning to face his uncle, Leo said, "Fine by me. I don't want to see your face any more than I have to either."

---

During the walk there, Leo took his uncle aside and whispered something in his ear. Whatever it was made the spiteful man pale. Without another word, he drifted back to Ainsley, looking satisfied.

Ainsley silently kept his head on a swivel and wondered to himself if his uncle had caught on yet that he was, in fact, a 'freak'.

"Still think he'll try somethin, or just don't trust the neighborhood?" he whispered.

"Yes." Ainsley replied with a smirk.

"You're right to be on the lookout. This isn't a good neighborhood to be like us."

Suspicious, fearful, and even hateful eyes were indeed upon them from windows and passers-by. At least no one was trailing them as of yet.

"I think there was some kind of mutant attack here, like, over a decade ago. Some people died."

"Yeah. Life sentences. But people here thought that was letting them off easy and haven't stopped making sure every mutant here pays for it."

"What a lovely neighborhood. Perhaps I'll summer here and drop the property value to five figures." He quipped.