Family Reunion Time!

Barry was lounging about on one of the couches, absentmindedly watching TV while leafing through some magazines when something popped up on the news about a fire in a town called Peoria, which was somewhere in Illinois. It was shown on a map and he breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn't near his home. He briefly went back to his magazines when he heard someone walk in.

Admittedly, Noah had forgotten about the presence of Barry Jackson at Beata. Having been caught up in building up his endurance, doing work, getting to know people and trying to correct his metabolism-related issues, he'd barely had time to think about visiting his cousin. The redhead met Edward on the day of his arrival, but hadn't bothered to remember that he did, in fact, have two cousins attending the academy, not just one. Today, having heard Barry's name passed around near the Autumn dorms, he'd kicked himself mentally and decided that he'd finally go and meet him.

Noah couldn't even recall what the boy looked like, actually. It had been so long since he'd last seen his cousins. He only had a vague mental image of Barry after asking a staff member about his appearance, seeking to make it easier to find him. First, Noah had gone to Barry's dorm, but he hadn't been present. He wasn't anywhere in the yard, either, so naturally the next best place to look was the lounge. Upon arriving at the lounge, Noah found a young brunette man lying on one of the couches stationed in the vicinity, watching television. He looked up as Noah entered through the doorway. Wait.. He does look familiar. His thoughts flashed back to his childhood, remembering seeing that face at the occasional holiday dinners where their families had been forced to tolerate each other.

"You wouldn't happen to be Barry.. Would you?"

Barry looked up from his magazine and saw a redheaded boy that looked incredibly familiar. It took him a few moments, but he finally vaguely remembered who this boy was. "Yeah, I'm Barry. Noah?" he asked, "What are you doing here?" He couldn't believe it. He hadn't seen Noah since their mothers had that big fight all those years ago.

Noah rubbed the back of his neck. "Wow.. I thought it'd be at least a little harder to find you, but it took a grand total of five minutes." Grinning, he took a seat at one of the couches and settled his elbows on his knees. In response to Barry's question, Noah sighed. "Ah, y'know.. Parents wanted me out of the house." To put it simple, that was true. Truly, though, they couldn't bear to look at him any more, and were probably overjoyed that their son of unnatural, unfair physical abilities was finally out of their sight. They'd be free to indulge in all of his sister's stupid whims now without getting shit from Noah. How nice for them. Brushing off his momentary annoyance, he continued, "Glad I'm out of there, to be honest. This place is way more interesting. Tons of weird people to meet. How's it been here for you so far?"

"It's been pretty good. I really like it here." he replied. He was still really surprised that Noah was here. When they were kids he never showed signs of having a gift. His gift had shown up the day Edward had been taken. Granted, it was a very minimal change, but he was still faster than the fastest four-year-old in the world.

"It's already better than my place." The redhead uttered a dry laugh whilst slipping his phone out of his pocket. He fiddled nonchalantly with it as he spoke. "Man, we haven't talked in a long time.. I barely recognized you. Last time I saw you was at some sort of dinner God knows how long ago. Guess that's no thanks to our parents." His eyebrows shifted downwards a tad. "Geez. You'd think.. Y'know, what happened to Edward so long ago would have brought them together, not made them hate each other even more." The Autumn scoffed, pinching the ends of his cellphone. "My folks have never been the most co-operative people. They don't like me, and they don't like you guys."

He flinched slightly at the mention of Edward, but he didn't let it get to you. "Yeah, I have no idea why our parents didn't like each other. That dinner was at least 8 years ago." he replied. "Why don't they like you?"

Noah opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again, struck with sudden reluctance. With a start, he realized that he hadn't really talked about his parents to anyone before. He'd complained lightly to friends about them at school back home in Yellowknife, but they'd never gone any further than making jabs about their uptight personas. Noah's problems with Albert and Joanna Wayley ran much deeper than that. "To put it like they do, my parents don't know how to deal with me."

The Autumn interlocked his fingers loosely together and glanced at his sneakers. Barry seemed like the right person to speak of this to. He'd had his fair share of unpleasant experiences in life, as well, and he, too, could easily outrun a jet aircraft. Noah sighed deeply.

"Well, I'll save you the pain of regaling my whole goddamn life, but.. They were different when I was little," he went on in a flat tone. "For a little while, we actually managed to function like a normal family, but then the first grade had to come along. I don't know how it happened, and why it happened on that one particular date, but I was suddenly able to run fifty laps in five minutes during gym class one afternoon. My parents changed after that day. They felt like I was cheating at life by being as fast as I was, or some shit like that." His fingers tightened their grip on his knuckles, but Noah continued to limit his voice to a moderately quiet volume. "A little while after, they had my sister, and from that point on I just.. Kinda did my own thing." He shrugged and chuckled dryly. "Heh.. Not like they wanted me around, anyways." Noah leaned back in his seat a little, propping one elbow up on the arm rest of the couch. "And now that I'm here, they can have a nice little circlejerk about how much they hate me, and won't have to worry about me being in earshot.. Not that I really gave a shit to begin with, though." That was a lie, but Noah wasn't entirely aware of the fallacious nature of the statement himself, so he didn't dwell on it.

Quickly growing sick of talking about his parents, Noah turned to his cousin once more. "So, uh.. If you don't mind me asking, what's the deal with your family?"

Barry shrugged. "There's not really much to tell. My parents thought it would be better for me to come here and viola, here I am." he said. Noah's family was the complete opposite of his family. While Barry's family was kind and understanding, it seemed that Noah's was rude and close-minded.