Chapter two and you're still with me, my aren't you the brave one? Or possibly just bored . . .
I Turn The Light On and There's Nothing Left Redeeming
Kelly
li_luva_2000@yahoo.ca
`*~Chapter Two~*'
"Look, we wouldn't ask you if we didn't really need the help," pleaded Todd, his eyes dejected and sad. Lance stood behind him with an air of anxiety.
Jean didn't appreciate the interruption. This was supposed to just be a normal date with Duncan, she really wasn't planning on wasting her time with the Brotherhood. "Go find someone who cares to help you," she snapped, "I'm busy."
"But . . . Pietro . . ."
"You heard the lady, Tolanski," replied Duncan with a superior air, "Go take your stench somewhere else." Jean noticed Lance clench his fists, setting his jaw.
To her surprise, it looked as if Todd were about to cry. Lance seemed to have saw this as well and simply grumbled, "Fine, let's go Todd."
Duncan laughed as they left. "What losers. So as I was saying, that was when they awarded me with playoff MVP . . ."
*~*~*~*
Rogue shivered in the cool winter's air and pulled her wool scarf tighter around her neck. It was absolutely freezing outside. Her breath formed little tiny puffs of white, drifting off into nothingness after each exhalation. Shadows reached for her and she moved into their darkened comfort silently. Rusty old rails and spikes littered the ground in a haphazard arrangement and she was careful not to make a sound. He had to be here. Pietro had taken her to see this train wreckage yard about two days after he'd moved into the house. She remembered his exact words, his face had lit up like a child's, "I want to show you something . . . but, you can't tell anybody okay? I could tell right when I met you I could trust you."
Rogue couldn't help but laugh bitterly. Trust. What was trust when you'd laid the speed-demon out more times than you could remember in battle? Rogue knew she'd let them down, she had been so eager to get back at Mystique she didn't see she was hurting them - the poor boys who'd gotten nothing but hurt their whole lives by no fault of their own. She often wished she could go back to the simple life of the Brotherhood house. They'd been dealt losing hands and yet, somehow, they never let it beat them on a daily bases.
But when something snapped, it shattered. There was an intensity to all of her old friends that scared Rogue. She remembered one time it had taken Freddy, Pietro, Todd, herself and a cold, fully clothed shower to calm Lance down after he'd had a dream about his father from his old foster home. Rogue couldn't even imagine what it was like to get kicked around on a daily bases just because you were alive. Todd and Fred's past were variations of that same demented story that society was so eager to approve of because they were "just foster kids anyway." Pietro's past was still a mystery to her though. She often sat with up him on the back porch long after the other's had gone to bed, not talking and saying everything. He'd mentioned someone named Wanda once, then had shook his head fiercely and said nothing more, staring harshly off into the darkness. She'd left the Brotherhood the next day.
She spotted a figure perched on the edge of the roof of an old boxcar, glaring in the opposite direction from which she was coming. He turned his head languidly as she climbed the ladder but made no attempt to leave. They sat in silence for several minutes. Rogue studied Pietro, his features supernatural, accented by the cold moonlight. Ice blues eyes glinted listlessly in her direction and silvery hair gleamed like the freshly fallen snow. He looked like some tormented unearthly specter.
He wore nothing but grey sweat pants and a white t-shirt, the outfit he slept in. Ice had begun to form on his sweat soaked top and hair, and his lips were tinted an eerie blue color that Rogue didn't find particularly reassuring. He shivered violently.
"Pietro, you can't stay out here forever."
He sat, gazing off into the darkness, "Why not?" His voice shook.
She removed her heavy coat and draped it over his quivering shoulders. "Because they couldn't stand it if they lost another person, Pietro. You know that."
"That's easy for you to say. You abandoned us."
"I didn't abandon you. I just . . .just couldn't deal with Mystique anymore."
"You didn't have to fight us then . . ." he trailed off sadly, "You can't run from you're problems, Rogue."
"You're in a position to talk?"
"No," he replied thoughtfully, "I guess I'm not. But trust me Rogue, old problems find you, they never stay in the past . . . not the ones you want to forget about . . ." Silence descended over them for a second time that night and Rogue waited awhile before speaking again.
"What did you dream about Pietro?"
"What do you care?" he snapped.
"Was it Wanda?"
Pietro's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. His gaze shifted to his hands, "No."
"You're lying."
"And . . .?"
"And . . . I don't know Pietro," she found herself staring into her lap, "You don't owe me anything, you don't have to tell me the truth. I just wish you wouldn't lie to yourself."
He glared coldly at her, "You know what? You're absolutely right Rogue . . . I OWE YOU SHIT ALL! You have no fucking right to know. You wouldn't fucking understand, no one fucking understands anymore!"
"Pietro . . . I'm so sorry."
"Pity's not attractive on you Rogue. At least as a traitorous back-stabbing bitch you had some balls."
"But . . ."
"I TRUSTED YOU ROGUE! I trusted you . . .," his voice softened, "I've never trusted anyone else before in my whole life except you and her. Everybody leaves me." Tears glistened in his eyes. "Everybody leaves and betray and laughs at stupid FUCKING Pietro and his stupid fucking life and his stupid fucking hopes and his stupid fucking dreams! I'm sick of it, do you know that? Do you know what it's like to be so alone, Rogue? Does that feeling ever occur to you x-shits in your mansion with your professor and your convertibles and your danger room and your whole Full-fucking-House demeanor? Does it?" He began to cry bitterly.
"I didn't know," she said softly, "I didn't know, Pietro, I didn't know." She rubbed his back in small circles. He drew away sharply, his face distorted by sorrow, shaking from anger and the cold of the night. "That's
shit Rogue. You did know, that's why you left. You didn't want to end up like us . . ."
"That's not true Pietro."
"So then why'd you come to find me, huh? It's the same reason you fight us, the same reason you pretend like we never used to talk and laugh and be friends. Just to prove you're better then us now. Perfect little Rogue - Xavier's pet and the stick up Summer's ass!"
"Better than being Tabby's quick fuck! Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was worried about you, Pietro?"
"Cut the shit Rogue."
"You cut the shit, you self-centered brat! Todd and Lance are out there tonight worrying themselves sick because you decided that you'd like to be more of an egocentric freak than usual and run off, pining away over some girlfriend you had a lifetime ago!"
His eyes widened and his lower lip began to tremble. He buried his face in his hands, his voice barely a whisper, "She wasn't a girlfriend. She was . . . she was . . ." his body shook with sobs and he didn't finish.
"She was what?"
*~*~*~*
"Excuse me? Can you help me?"
Evan and Kurt were sitting in Burger Bomb, downing a plate of chili fries when the girl approached them. She was cute. Not a super-model or anything, but pretty. She had wore a navy and white Columbia jacket over tight flared jeans, and a yellow, hooded sweatshirt. She pushed a strand of curly reddish-brown hair from her face nervously as she spoke.
Evan grinned winningly at her, "Anything for a pretty girl."
She stared down at her feet, "Do you know where I can find Pietro Maximoff?"
*~*~*~*