The Violet Hour (X-Men AU)

24: Twenty-Four

        We only stood waiting a few feet from Charles who was checking in. Peter was still nowhere to be seen and I was honestly beginning to get worried. "And you?"

         "Beast."

      "Beast?" I questioned. "What are you, a werewolf?" The joke seemed wrong to make and I internally cringed.

        He shook his head, grinning. God, I was glad he found humour in it. "I turn into a beast, that's why. My proportions change and I get all blue and my teeth grow and claws and... I get really hairy." He smiled. "I used to be different, but I took a serum to try and fix my mutation, but now I've worsened into a beast."

       "Is worsened the word?" I asked, just to make sure this wasn't self-depreciation. Hank seemed nice, I didn't want him thinking badly of himself. But I got curious again. "How old are you?"

      "Twenty-eight," he replied, nodding. I nodded back. Wow, he was young. About eleven years older than me, but still with a Ph.D., that was crazy. But he changed the topic again, most likely not on purpose, "Oh yeah, and Logan. He goes by Wolverine. They're vicious animals, claws and all, but they're tiny and he is... he's far from tiny."

      I laughed. I genuinely laughed at that. Logan was probably an entire foot taller than I was. Hank laughed too, rubbing the back of his neck. Hank was much taller than me as well. I suppose everyone was much taller than me, but Logan was the tallest, Peter in second, then Hank in third.

      "And Sylvia, what does Sylvia go by?" I inquired, but Peter zipped back to my side, his arms full of things. "Oh my god..."

      He held out his arms to me, "Shrimp?" He had a plate teetering on the shit-pile of random objects with three shrimp on it. Reluctantly, I rejected it and he offered one to Hank, who oddly took one. "What are we talking about?"

        "Aliases." Hank said, tossing his shrimp tail into the nearest garbage bin.

       "Peter, put those things back," I intercepted once more, a slight frown on my face to show the disapproval. Who was I to talk, I had stolen just this morning. I'd done a lot this morning, actually. But he zipped away, then back, empty-handed, minus his bag he packed. 

     Sylvia by the desk waved over to us to follow them up to our rooms, Hank resumed from the question I'd asked beforehand. "And Sylvia is called Hex."

       "That's so awesome!" Peter exclaimed. I actually began to grin. Hex. That was completely and totally badass. "Now I want an alias, give me one."

      "Speedy Gonzalez," Sylvia said, butting into the conversation from the side, blue hair swinging in her face. "There you go, perfect. Update- The drinks in the room's cooler are free but there's only one pull-out couch in the living room of the suite so either you or Logan has to take it, Beastie."

    "He might kill me if I don't agree to give it up to him," Hank started. He and Sylvia drifted naturally forward to converse with Logan about the couch and that was the end of my conversation with Hank.

        "Hank told me he's a Doctor," I told Peter who was finishing his last shrimp. We'd missed out on lunch between running from the cops and being recruited for a prison break, he reminded me. "I don't know what of exactly, but he's twenty-eight and a Doctor."

        "You can tell he's smart by looking at him," Peter agreed. "What's his alias?"

      We neared the elevator, "Beast. I don't think he likes his mutation much, he says he turns blue and hairy and that it was a result of an experiment to fix his original mutation gone wrong."