melancholy hill | closed.

David first felt the familiar tug of his abilities while he was at the grocery store outside of New York City. A simple suburban town where he could vanish from everywhere else that knew his name. David Haller, if that was truly who he was, the lines often blurred and confused him. Maybe he was Jemail or Jack, maybe David Haller had never existed. Even with his new state of mind, his new ability to control the familiar itch in his mind, the familiar brush of another's consciousness stuck inside his own as if they were caught in a web, a new power manifesting from that consciousness. Everything was far too crowded in his head, much too crowded to be any help to the causes he perhaps foolishly believed he could help. He couldn't save Syd, even after the Shadow King was defeated. The only thought running through his head was the fact that there was more he could do, there was always more. Instead of allowing himself to be consumed with the thoughts that would do nothing but allow his powers to control him, he bitterly tossed a bag of potato chips into his cart. Every day was another he had to overcome, a dull monotone of simply trying to exist peacefully.

---

Rogue, no, Anna was meditating. It was all she could think to do to stop the way her brain yelled at her, telling her how she was wrong. That whatever the Professor had seen in her died when the school had, that there was nothing left of her. Nothing left to her. She holed herself up in a cabin, up in Canada, where the snow fell frequently and gave her more excuses to stay inside. Keeping to herself, she found a nice and peaceful life, bundled up in layers and staying away from society. The nearest town was fifteen miles north. A fresh start, a new beginning, without fear of prosecution or hurting others. She could not see herself living like she was sure Bobby and Kitty had managed to, a life that was normal despite the powers that they held. The only one who knew what she felt like, the only one who was an outcast like she was, was the main reason she had ran to Canada in the first place. Logan, the man who seemed to change everything in her life for the better for once. Someone who managed to make her smile even though she never found much to smile about. She would never allow herself the same happiness she did back then, in the school, where Logan managed to laugh along with her stupid jokes.

Growing up, Sofia always knew that she was different. Her abilities didn't surface until she was sixteen, but, deep down, she'd always known that she was different than the other kids she went to school with. When she first realized what she could do, she accidentally ended up paralyzing the neighbor's cat. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it was enough to jar her a bit. The cat stayed away from her after that, and Sofia didn't mention the occurrence to anyone. But then it started to happen more and more frequently, and it was becoming harder and harder for her to conceal what she could do, especially when the paralysis lasted longer than it had the first time around. Soon, the secret got out. People started talking, and Sofia was labeled a freak. Her parents didn't know what to do with her. People looked at them differently simply because she was their daughter. If there was something wrong with her, there must've been something wrong with them too. That was just how their thought process worked. When they kicked her out of the house, Sofia was alone. She isolated herself, terrified of what she was and truly seeing herself as the freak everyone had painted her to be. Things didn't change until Phil Coulson showed up. With the help of him and the rest of SHIELD, she learned to control her abilities and she no longer saw herself as a freak. There were others with abilities, people she could talk to, but she hadn't spoken to any of her friends in months. After shit hit the fan with the Sokovia Accords and she'd been labeled a fugitive along with the others who had sided with Steve Rogers, she'd been trying her best to lay low. Maybe New York City wasn't the best place to go, but it was crowded, and if she tried her damnedest, Sofia knew she could blend in with ease.

---

He had been thinking about her a lot recently. She was the one person who understood him. There had been the others at the school, but no one had quite got him the way Anna had. Maybe that was why he'd been thinking about her, why he'd been searching for her. Wasn't there something about gravitating towards someone or something that seemed familiar? Logan didn't know, he just knew that he needed to find her. He would find her, it was just taking a lot longer than he would have ever expected it to. He liked to think that he knew her pretty damn well. They were like two sides of the same coin, both outcasts, made jokes at the least appropriate times sometimes, but so far he'd come up empty-handed. Until he found the cabin that is. He didn't quite know what it was that had brought him up that far north, there was nothing but snow covered landscape and forests for miles upon miles, but there was obviously something that drew him in. That something told him he was in the right place, that she was there. As stupid as it probably was to do so, he went with his gut instinct and started down the snow-covered pathway to the door. As he tapped his knuckles lightly against the wood door, he hoped that he was right.

David always considered that he was the only one to know his own issues. As if he was the only one on the planet with such a life as his, one where he couldn't decipher his own thoughts from the ones inside himself. Maybe this was his curse, the price he paid for whatever he had done in another life. As childish as it felt and as ridiculous as it might have sounded, it was his own belief. No one could know what was going on, not even Syd - though she tried her damnedest to. David was too far gone, floating on his own cloud far away from the insanity that was his previous life. The one where the voices and powers controlled him, the life where he was contained to simply being a nutcase above anything else. It wasn't until he bumped into someone at the store that he looked over, acknowledging the world surrounding him for the first time since he started aimlessly walking down the aisles. "Oh, my fault," he apologized, though it sounded insincere and unbelievable. It was his own inflection, the amount of monotone in his voice affecting his speech negatively. There was no true need for him to be sorry for the woman, anyhow, he knew, he didn't do truly that much damage.

---

If there was one thing that she wished she could change, though it was foolish of her, was the want and will to connect with someone. It was often miserable by herself, without anyone else there to speak to. Often than not she took up talking to the birds that tended to flock near the windowsill of her cabin. They didn't provide much conversation, but at least there was always the fact she could pretend. Walking around the cabin, the fire rumbling, she found herself content with wearing the bare minimum of clothing. No one came around, hell, she would often find herself naked most days simply out of the lack of necessity in clothing. The day was normal, exactly like every day before it for the past few months. She had gotten up, showered, meditated like Professor had taught her multiple times before, and then taken to eating the slowly declining source of food. Her thoughts often circulated on whether to let herself forget about food, to die off as if none of this happened. That she didn't happen. When the knock at the door brought her out of her thoughts, she automatically became cautious before answering it, opening the door a crack. "Yes?" She questioned, her voice a southern drawl before she managed to take in who was there. Logan. She quickly slammed the door shut before she leaned against the door.

Sofia still really didn't know how this could have happened. The Avengers were assembled as a team, and now half of them were considered fugitives by the government, and one of them had been seriously injured. She'd understood where Tony had been coming from to a certain extent, but the government already controlled enough as it was and she certainly didn't want them controlling her as well. She never imagined that anything would cause the Avengers to disassemble let alone that she would end up in hiding a second time but from the government this time around. She was honestly just waiting for someone to show up and try to take her in. She thought that she'd done a decent job at laying low, but Ross likely hadn't given up, whether he had Tony's help or not. She only went out when she had to, otherwise she stay hauled up in the small apartment she'd managed to snag for pretty cheap. As cheap as one could find anything in New York City anyway. When she went into her fridge this morning for breakfast, she realized that she would have to venture out to the supermarket to pick up a few things. The entire time, much like every other time she ventured out of her apartment, she was looking over her shoulder constantly. That was precisely what she'd been doing when someone bumped into her. She jumped slightly, obviously a bit startled. She shook her head when the man apologized, albeit with a lack of sincerity. "It's alright, I wasn't paying attention."

---

Logan really didn't know what he was expecting find on the other side of that door. He wasn't sure if his gut instinct to approach had been the best one, but he was almost certain that if there was anywhere that Anna would be hiding out it was there. Maybe it was stupid to go off of an instinct such as that, but he really didn't think that he had very much to lose. If he was wrong and she wasn't staying there then he would make up some bullshit excuse about having the wrong address and be on his way. If he didn't at least try he would never know if his instinct was the right one or not. He would never know if she was actually there or not, and the need to connect with someone who understood him in ways that no one else had ever been able to outweighed any doubts in his instinct that he had. Nevertheless, the seconds that passed between him knocking on the door and it opening slightly seemed like the longest seconds he had ever endured before in his life. He couldn't quite see who was on the other side of the door, but it was the unmistakable southern drawl that gave her away almost immediately. He didn't even get a word in edge wise before the door was being slammed shut in his face. "I was hoping for a warmer welcome than that." He called through the door.