Touch Football mega thread

[nola_eleanor]

There was a field not too far from Phoenix Effect that was too small for all the various sports leagues in the city to have snapped up for weekend practices or games, but big enough for the fairly flexible game of touch football, so that's where they played. People came and went for most of the afternoon, though the game itself only lasted an hour and change. Almost everyone played, but there were several people watching, choosing to cheer or heckle or talk amongst themselves as it suited them.

When everyone got together enough to actually start the game, they divided into two teams, with Matteo as the referee. Zach's team was made up of Hazel, Max, Hanne, Nori, Nick, Alex, and Oliver; Kyle had Elspeth, Joel, Carrie, Caleb, Irene, Sam, and Elena on his team. It wasn't a blowout, but Zach's team won by a few touchdowns and were crowned the victors. Despite a couple minor accidents, everyone came out of it in one piece. More or less.

Comments

[nola_beast]

"Sure," he said, taking a swig of water from his stainless steel bottle. "And you know this win counts toward our running tally, right?" Of course Zach and Sam carefully kept track of their chess win-loss ratios.

[nola_cyclops]

"What are you talking about! This is a completely different game! This has to be a new tally. We can have a cumulative score across all competitions, and I'm very happy to compete with you in all kinds of activities, but you can't treat this like a chess game." Had Sam gotten worse since the whole thing happened or had he always been like this? Honestly he couldn't tell.

[nola_beast]

"Now, Sam, you're just saying that because this ruins your average," Zach said calmly, in his patient teacher voice, but the corners of his lips were twitching.

[nola_cyclops]

"I'm saying this because it's fair! The variables and rules and structures, not to mention difficultly levels, are vastly--" Oh, Zach was messing with him.

[nola_beast]

"I'm sorry to hear that this was very difficult for you," Zach said, just as solemn as before, but now he couldn't resist the slow-growing grin taking over his face.

[nola_cyclops]

"You are so infuriating--" But Sam chuckled, anyway.

[nola_beast]

"And you're so competitive." To be fair, though, so was Zach!

[nola_cyclops]

"I'm trying to talk to you!" Couldn't Zach feel this? How could Zach not feel this!

[nola_beast]

"I'm listening, but you just started yelling at me..." Zach knew he'd instigated it, of course. He was still grinning.

[nola_cyclops]

"You asked for it, I had no choice. But I'm trying to tell you something important. You can yell at me after I tell you, but before you do, you should know someone has already done that, and it pays to be original. Zach, look at me when I say this." Sam looked at Zach, direct and square and true. "Somewhere inside you, this won't sound insane. Your name is Henry McCoy. Hank. Beast. You're an X-Man. I don't know why we're here with new identities, but we aren't the only ones."

[nola_beast]

Zach's smile dimmed steadily throughout Sam's rush of information, but hadn't completely disappeared by the time he was done. It lingered there, frozen and stunned, more of a grimace than anything else. "What are you..."

He wanted so badly to argue against this. To say it was literally, positively insane, to ask if Sam needed help. But it was as if hearing Hank's name awakened that part of himself, and once they were out, he was flooded with memories and emotions he'd never known were there all along. Hank, being Hank, could see convincing evidence when it was laid out in front of him.

Zach rubbed his temples, eyes wide. "Stars," he muttered.

[nola_cyclops]

That was so Hank that Sam felt an overwhelming fondness for him. "I'm sorry, but I had to tell you."

[nola_beast]

"Who yelled at you?" Zach said, voice still soft and considering, turning over all this new information in his mind. One thing was certain—Sam was Scott, somehow all at the same time. That was as plain as the sky being blue and the grass being green.

[nola_cyclops]

"Who do you think?" Sam answered wryly, nodding over his shoulder towards Caleb. They may not be speaking, but if they were in the same shared space, then Sam was going to know where his brother was every single minute.

[nola_beast]

When he saw Caleb-Alex with new eyes, Zach barked a surprised laugh that turned into a sad ohhhhh midway through. He turned back to Sam and said, "That adds up. Who else is there? And why is this happening?"

Hank had always asked a lot of questions, but then, he'd answered a lot of them too.

[nola_cyclops]

"So far I know that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are here. And Jean." Sam tried not to give any of those names any particular weight; he was sure he failed. "We could really use your help on the why. I know it isn't Scarlet Witch, so it isn't another --" Huh."I was going to make a reference, but some of us are from different timelines and I don't know if you're from mine."

[nola_beast]

"Other timelines? Like Dark Beast?" Oh, this was getting better and better. "And Jean is here, but you're dating a man? Oh, Scott."

[nola_cyclops]

Yeah, there was no way this wasn't Sam's own personal Scott. None of them could ever quite say 'oh Scott' in the same way. Especially when it came to Jean. "Don't even get me started on Dark Beast, I was dealing with him right before I ended up here. Jean's timeline is one of the fictional movie timelines here, so she knows all of us in a different way.... and if you want to feel the full of effect of my current romantic situation, I suggest you take another look at Oliver."

[nola_beast]

The crowd was still pretty big, so Zach had to search a little more before he found Oliver talking with one a short brunette woman from the other team. It seemed impossible, but Zach's eyes got even bigger. "Oh, Scott."

[nola_cyclops]

"It's been an intense few days, to say the least," Sam said, although that was obvious.

[nola_beast]

"Okay, I need to focus." Zach put a hand on either side of his eyes, like he was blocking out the intense WTFery of the world he was now seeing in double time. In the grand scheme of things, Scott dating Quicksilver, though unexpected, was not the big issue right now. "So we have no ideas of why or how this is happening, or because of who?"

[nola_cyclops]

"Right now our strongest guess is Mojo, even though we've had to admit that it doesn't feel quite like that. What's getting me is that this illusion of this other life doesn't feel any less real now that I know about it. It doesn't feel like the usual kind of displacement. So I'm not sure if this is something we've been through before. I can't help but feel like who is here with us is intentional, but maybe it's truly all of us and we just don't know yet. It feels like a mutant thing, but admittedly my scope of information is small." He paused for a second, then added, "I can't shake the feeling that I need to see if the mansion, the school, is standing." He hadn't really been talking about that, but he just wanted to get into a plane and fly to Westchester. But maybe that was such a self-absorbed, absurd kind of notion.

[nola_beast]

"But how can there be a mansion, an actual X-Men, when they're fictional here?" Zach shook his head. "Sorry, I'm sure you've had the same thoughts. But I agree that this feels intentional. You and Jean, but from different universes. Making one of your earliest enemies one of your closest companions. Two brothers, now at odds." It wasn't like it'd been hard to miss the tension between Sam and Caleb out on the field. "And me..." He spread his large-but-not-absurd hands. "Weaker than I'd ever been in my whole life, maybe? I was born with powers, after all. Whatever it is, the current players seem to be off-kilter in a deliberate way."

Oh, the Hank side of him was coming fast and furious.

[nola_cyclops]

God, Sam had missed Hank. Scott had, too, in his own way: there was something about this rhythm, trying to solve a problem. "I've never wanted to see Bobby and Warren more," Sam admitted, because he was feeling nostalgic, because someone used to make jokes to get them through this enormous nonsense. "And I keep expecting to see them here. It feels like we're all back at the beginning, even with Alex, unless we're just barely scratching the surface of who has ended up here. "

[nola_beast]

"Are we sure they're not here already? Does that Pekinese across the street look familiar to you?" He half-smiled, because that was easier than freaking out.