Xaviers!

"I'm pretty good at handling objects. If you give me the scraps, I'll see what I can do with them."

"It's only the one scrap, but I'd really appreciate it if you could." She turns into the candy shop, ignoring the strange looks that are being cast at her and Will.

"No guarantees, but I'll see what can be done."

Will did NOT ignore the looks the two of them were getting, and continued to stand behind Tereza, shrinking down an inch or two to try to be less noticeable and taking a half-step closer to her.

"I'll take two dozen..." She gets out before she gets a strange look on her face, "... chocolates." She glances at Will, just the slightest tinge of yellow around the edges of her irises. "What can I get you?" She asks Will before glaring a little at one of the people that's staring maybe a bit too much.

"Nothing, I'm really fine," Will said, a little quickly. "Just don't forget her popcorn."

"You sure? You're helping me out. I at least owe you something." She takes a protective half-step back towards Will.

Will shook his head, quickly. "You don't owe me anything, Tereza...I'm happy to help.

Let's just get what you need and get out of here."

She blinks a little bit. "Right." She turns back to the person waiting on her, "Two boxes of cheese popcorn." The person raises an eyebrow and Tereza shakes her head, "You heard me. Two boxes." After the boxes are brought out and her chocolate is wrapped up, Tereza pays before handing one of the boxes to Will and picking up the other herself and making an exit.

"Geez, you think they'd never seen a mutant before," Will mumbled as they walked out, his green lightning veins throbbing ever faster. "The Brotherhood did us no favors."

"Favors are not a thing the Brotherhood is interested in doing," Tereza says, freeing up a hand briefly to run it over the back of her neck. "You okay?"

"No. Not really, not yet.

I used to be able to walk down here no problem, without any strange looks whatsoever. Maybe I'm just forgetting what it was like at the beginning," he sighed. "But this sucks."

"Well, you're safe with me, so fuck them. Right?"

"You've got the wrong Will for that attitude," Will said, smiling sadly. "I just want everyone to be happy."

"And we want you to be happy," she says, bumping up against him in some sort of odd gesture that she obviously expects to be comforting.

Will juggled his popcorn slightly. "Um...thank you. I try..." he said, raising an eyebrow at Teresa's odd gesture.

She catches the look and he can almost see the rewind-replay in her head. "Was... was that too much? I'm sorry. My other half's more of a contact... person. Hard to explain."

"No, no! No, no. No. I don't mind contact; I don't mind contact at all, usually. I mean, I know I'm weird like that, but...

No. I just...didn't get it. Maybe it made more sense on all fours."

"I think it's meant to be reassuring? She's kind of embarrassed and not making sense at the moment."

"What is, uh, 'she' saying?"

"Well, she likes to refer to you as 'Brother' and..." She looks puzzled, "And I've never seen her... this socially concerned for someone before? I mean, she gets protective, but that's generally a threat-response thing. She's... trying to explain it to me, but I'm not quite getting the instincts. She wants you to... play and be happy?"

"I'm 'Brother', am I? What's everyone else? Sam? Viv? The other Will?

And she wants me to, what, go fetch?" Will giggled a little bit.

Tereza loses herself in thought for a moment as they approach the bus stop. "Viv is 'My Heart', I think. There's some part of the metaphor lost on me, I think. Sam is 'My Soul'. That's... that metaphor is too deep to put into words. Other Will? Other Will is also 'Brother', but she also calls him 'The Hunted' and that's not a compliment. I think she's still sore about having her head squashed."

"From what I understand, she started it," Will smiled. "I suppose it just gives her that much more of a reason to join in the fight--get a little bit of revenge."

"'The Hunted'. And 'Brother', too. Your wolf has a funny way of putting things, sometimes. I wouldn't have guessed 'brother' for...well, either of us."

"Early mental association maybe. She doesn't seem to care too much about the gender association. She says she'd be just as happy to call you 'Sister' if you preferred that."

"OH, no, that's not the issue. That's all well and good. I don't fit neatly into, well, any category, so it's all good.

Just never thought I'd be that close to a wolf, that's all."

"I do get the impression we're kind of hard to get along with. Prone to some serious mood swings."

Will gave Tereza a blank stare.

"I locked myself in the closet for three weeks and encouraged people to use me as a trash can. If I ever, and I mean ever, complain about someone being hard to get along with, I want you to freeze me solid and stick me in the back of a freezer until I get over myself."

"Fair enough," she says, giving him a half-smile. "So why the surprise about being close to a wolf?"

"I've never been much of a dog person, in every way that sentence can be parsed. Never been a fan of the slobber. Not very good at turning into specific animals. More of an object than a person. You know the drill."

"So more of an expectation to be chased and batted around than included?"

"It makes more sense to me, honestly, than being part of the pack proper. Like, You, yes. Sam makes sense, and I guess Viv does too, now.

Again, though, if you're looking for a wolf, someone to run with and hunt with and howl at the moon...I think, again, you've got the wrong Will. That does sound like the kind of thing he might do.

Not so sure he'd appreciate not being the Alpha though. I guess he got all the ego. I just want to help, as awkward as that is."

"I've got plenty of wolves to run with. I guess... I need people to keep me... human, I guess?"

"Me, help you with your identity issues? That's not so much the blind leading the blind as it is the blind blinding the sighted," Will half-grinned.

"It's not..." She purses her lips as she tries to figure out how to phrase it. "It's not quite the same as that."

"If it were, you'd have been holding out yet another power development on me.

What is it then? I won't judge."

The bus arrives and she takes the few moments it takes to hop on and find a seat to gather her thoughts. "My solutions tend to be a bit violent and being bitten only exaggerated those tendencies. Sam, and especially when she's feeling the Morrigan, really doesn't discourage that. And Vivienne's solutions tend to be straight to the point as well. You... you see things differently. You can find creative solutions to problems and you help remind me that not everything has to end in violence."

"You need an angel on your shoulder, then?"

"I guess you could put it that way."

"Well, I'll do my best. With three of you against me, I'll probably be outvoted more often than not...but I'll try."

"It's not really a democracy per se. I don't know that anyone ever actually votes."