New X-Men prompts 2, 8 and 12
Title: Malcontent
Fandom: New X-Men
Claim: Kevin/Cessily
Prompt: Rough Hands, by Alexisonfire
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1070
Summary: The fact he can't harm her is hard to swallow.
He is talking to Laurie, excitement kicking into gear which is all wrong, 'cause he's not anticipating anything great happening in the next few seconds, and so of course he knows it's her.
“Well I'll see you, Kevin.” She says, smiling, as Josh approaches. “I hope your weekend goes okay.”
“Sure.” He nods and turns to look at Josh, returning the 'back off' glare to show this isn't him admitting defeat.
Josh motions Kevin away from her, holding his arm so he can whisper, “I hate myself,” in his ear, too close for Laurie to hear but reinforcing everything that separates them. It's not okay for Kevin to touch Josh or cuss him out on his bullshit confidence, although apparently it's fine the other way round.
He shakes his head and mutters, “Good one, Josh,” under his breath, loaded with sarcasm, and Josh smirks like yeah, you bet it was.
Laurie laughs at something he says walking off and Kevin makes a face, wondering why are you even here. So what you couldn't be happy with your anti-mutant psycho gang, you should have found somewhere else to get a second chance. You hated all of us till you became one.
He's on the stairs when he notices the flower fallen out of Laurie's hand, and he kneels to pick it up, unconsciously watching it wither and die in his grasp. Kevin slides down with the edge of the step above digging into his back and begins to systematically mutilate the petals, gritting his teeth, imagining Josh rotting the same way, these non-enjoyable fantasies he represses hard and would never tell anyone about for fear he'd end up living one of his nightmares where he's caged or chained up, held down with synthetic straps and unable to touch. He indulges them solely when he can be certain there's no telepaths around (he's stupid to think that means they're not listening).
The absorption prevents him realizing the silver girl with the red hair is watching him from the top of the next level. Kevin sits near her in most things totally regretting his decision to come back, slow speech bleeding apathy, body language stinking of indifference. He only talks when he's asked a direct question, and he could never have impressed her that way. It's surprising she's still interested, that she was in the first place, considering she's nice and people like her and he's no one, nothing.
She can touch him, though, seems to look at him, not through him. It feels weird after all this time, but kind of a good-weird. Definitely not a bad-weird. He was so scared when she put her hand on him, on his cheek, internally going no no no, don't do that, please, you'll die, you'll be annihilated. She stayed the way she was, flashing a satisfied, bright smile Kevin could not return, choking on nerves and seemingly unnecessary panic.
Cessily, he thinks, as she comes up, venturing another one at him. Cessily Kincaid.
“You weren't in any classes today.” Cessily says, shocking him with the knowledge that she actually noticed.
She leans against the wall and shoves her rucksack to one side. The buttons holding up her socks are chipped but the rest of her is perfect. He used to get so many dirty looks off girls like her, back home. She takes the dead flower out of his hands and twirls it absently in her fingers, thinking, adjusting her collar with the other hand as if it's him making her nervous, and that's ridiculous if he can't harm her.
“Quiet type?” She asks softly, after he fails to reply in the space of a whole minute, gazing at her, dumb-shit.
“No.” He shakes his head, “No, that's not it at all, it's just-” you don't want to know me, I'm not a nice guy, I killed my pop when my powers manifested, accidentally, and then someone else, less accidentally, because I got mad.
“I've just yet to catch you in a good mood.”
He shrugs into himself, embarrassed. His articulacy is sure off the charts today.
"My mom used to love these,” Cessily says, turning the rose over, inspecting the yellowed edges and acting as if it's still precious, delicate. “She would hold onto them for so long, even when they'd gone stale like this.”
“Stale anyway.” He says, wrinkling his nose, and she laughs at his candour.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean-”
“It's okay,” She cuts across, hurriedly. “I'm not offended. They are pretty unoriginal, I guess.”
She is really sweet, and there is a sudden hook in his stomach, a lump in his throat, but it's not the same as it is with Laurie, because he can have this and that's not right, that doesn't synch with any of his experiences. He shouldn't let her think he's enough of an asshole just to force himself on the first girl he can touch.
“Can I keep this one?”
“If you want.” He tries to act casual about it, though of course it's not his to give. He's alright with that idea. It'd be alright if Josh saw it on her like, that's what I could do to your whole crappy romance if I wanted. It's petty for sure, Kevin's always been malicious and doesn't see any point in stopping now, no matter how much he keeps getting told fifteen is a transitory period and he has to work with people here, that he doesn't have to be on his own.
Cessily fixes the stem behind her ear and he reaches across to touch, stopping just short because he still doesn't really believe he won't hurt her.
“You don't have to ask permission.” She folds her hand over his. He's better prepared for it this time, it's not insane feeling her mirror-like skin against his. His fingers move to trace her hair, and that's metal too, must be, because it doesn't fall apart when he marvels at the texture of fine metallic strands.
“Funny, right?” She misreads him, sounding the same far-off type of sad as she did when she mentioned her mom.
“It's nice.” He replies, meaning it. Her expression as she sees he's being real is sort of adorable, and the conversation stays with him, awkwardly more memorable than what Laurie's ever graced him with.
Title: Lifelike
Fandom: New X-Men
Claim: Kevin/Cessily
Prompt: Citizens Of Tomorrow, by Tokyo Police Club
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2012
Summary: Prodigy's vision of the future is expansive.
Cessily arrives last, very late, crying hard and unable to hide it, feeling like she's going to have to drop the pretence and liquidize at any moment. The shelter is filled with faded green light from a weird kinetic residue which shows she missed the main event of Julian exploding with impotent rage. She guesses Santo expressed his differently, in taking out a huge chunk of the wall, although he is now conspicuous by his absence and she seems to have missed him, too. Brian makes a better attempt than Julian does at welcoming her, but still can't quite manage to meet her eyes, and anyway none of this matters because Sooraya is gone.
Kevin isn't with them, despite promising her he'd be here tonight. She walks though out back. He's knelt next to the edge of the fence on her right side, face screwed up flush against the chain link. He makes a gruelling noise on noticing her, and she sees the remains of a small animal in his hands, perhaps a rat. It's times she's confronted with sights like this she could say maybe they are evil people, crazy, capable of everything David accuses them of doing, but she knows in this case he's experiencing an almost primordial need to drain the life from something. He likes to think he has control over his power, over death, except he couldn't do anything to prevent Sooraya's, which is probably why he looks to be affected so bad.
“Baby,” she says, going closer than most people would ever dare, sliding her arms around his chest, curling only slightly extended fingertips into his armpits. “Just stop, okay? It's not doing anyone any good.”
He brushes the ashes from his fingers like sand before he pulls himself up, then places them gently beneath her ears. Ordinarily she might call him on it, tell him straight that's gross, Kevin. In this instance she gives into him tilting her jaw up towards him, so much taller even though he hunches all the time, and they kiss open-mouthed, sloppy but practised.
“I am never going to let him do that to you.” He whispers after, leaning to press their foreheads together. Her eyes are aligned with his and it would be easy to believe him, if the real situation wasn't so totally out of their control.
Cessily has yet to tell him about the room in the last lab they destroyed where she poured in underneath a reinforced door and found specifications for new ways to blend living metal, research on altering a person's neural formatting to make them embrace a deadly strain of mutation.
She holds onto him, nuzzling his cheek with her nose, and replies fiercely, “You either.”
“Let's go home,” he says, finally. “There's nothing to discuss, as far as I'm concerned.”
Kevin takes her hand, loose crook, and they leave the yard looking at each other. It's late enough now for Cessily to get on a fairly empty bus and not get bothered. The perfect world David has created is very mutant friendly but she is recognizable as one you shouldn't extend friendship to. Kevin's never needed to worry about standing out or garnering unwanted attention. He's unremarkable; can sink into the background almost as effectively as if it were his secondary mutation. They stop by an electrical store and the screens in the window are still lit up, regurgitating over and over how Sooraya Qadir has been executed, how attorney general David Alleyne is surely on course to become the youngest ever president of the United States.
“Son of a bitch.” Kevin mumbles, worn, the hot edge of his anger running below the surface. “People are such fuckin' morons, I swear to god.”
Cessily closes her eyes and leans into him, plays with his fingers folded carefully in her lap, and thinks about how much she loves him.
She enjoys his arm around her waist, thumb rubbing non-possessively on the bare skin of her hip while she's standing up to Julian, challenging some of Hellion's more questionable leadership decisions, and he's slumped in the chair next to her uninvolved, his eyes on her the entire time. It's sort of awesome when Julian looks to him, exasperated, asking if he has anything to add and he blinks slowly, clears his throat, snapping out of it long enough to reply Nuh-uh, Cessily said it already.
Julian and Sofia got married but the relationship is strained with the pressure of being on opposite sides, and Cessily thinks it's a good thing they didn't commit like that, it's not really for them. After all, they never planned for this to happen. They did talk a couple of times about making another loser like them, then figured it'd be so irresponsible because of the direction David is taking the world in. Plus there's no way to know whether Kevin would even be able to hold their child and she feels way too young to have one, for them to be parents. She was twenty four in August and Kevin won't get there until January. Sort of late for Saturnalia but so obviously that melancholy sombre type she's worried any offspring of theirs are gonna grow up just like him, moody, difficult, prickly.
She doesn't think the way they fuck is quite there yet either; that's not baby-making sex, that's some seriously edgy, selfish, exploratory shit, the novelty not quite worn off for either of them. Cess can't imagine a better way to lose her clothes than to have him rot them off her and he still likes to make her gasp teasing the very edge of her opening with his thumb, the place where she starts seguing into softness, a wetter type of metal. She treasures him drawing it out for as long as she can handle, entertaining himself ultra friggin sinister, whispering “I could play with your clit forever, Cessily,” in her ear before she begs for release and he finally lets her come on his fingers, licking them clean right in front of her.
The fact he's still in touch with Laurie Collins bothers her, she'd be lying if she didn't acknowledge that, but he also knows Laurie was a classic case of wanting what you can't have and she hopes she's the one that's real to him now. The New Mutants lost Josh long ago and he failed to take advantage of the situation, found out he didn't feel all that great about it, in the end.
They're not in high school anymore and she guesses it's inevitable they changed, in most cases for the better. She tried being nicer to people that didn't appeal to her straight off, and Kevin grew up too, left behind some of the spite he used to harbour for those that seemed happier than him.
He will wince when he thinks of all the dick things he said to her back then, it's not my fault you feel that way being one of the most epically mean. They still argue a bunch but now he makes it up kissing her and murmuring apology while she makes it even internally thinking, Well, you wouldn't have looked twice at that before you manifested. It's easy to dismiss Kevin as pale and plain and pinch-faced. Only, he's not. He had brown eyes when he took the goggles off, smelled strongly of solder, a familiar metallic tang, and her initial opinion had rocketed from 'you could be cute if you tried slightly harder.' It's always been about potential with Kevin, wasted talent. Not fulfilling any of your early promise.
But Cess doesn't have a crush now. She loves that. She loves watching him show off, putting a fire out with his bare hands. The way he places them to kill is truly disturbing, but he touches her with the same ones and it's all intimacy, familiarity, impatience snapping her vest straps against her shoulder blades in the elevator.
When they get to their door she digs her hand into his pocket searching for the end of the thick key chain looped through his jeans, and once they're through he edges her into the adjoining wall, sliding his fingers inside the band of her panties.
“Are we gonna bone?” He asks, drawling soft as he spreads her apart and she feels holes opening all over the cotton, stupidly thin material dissolving into gossamer shreds.
“You're needy.” She retorts, and he nods, yeah, okay, whatever, appropriately shamed, not lying. Kevin is so touch starved, that's just the way it works between them.
Tonight, it doesn't feel right it being slow, taking time over it, even doing it at all but they go ahead anyway because they still love each other, Sooraya's execution doesn't change that. They can't afford not to take advantage of any moment where it's just them, but it does feel almost wrong with her mouth around him, him muttering for her to stop a few minutes in and crawling over her 'cause she is so gorgeous, the best thing that's happened in his miserable life, so good at sucking his cock and he totally wants to fuck her before he's all gone.
He's rougher than he normally is and after he comes outside of her body she gets her revenge circling his nipples with her fingers, watching them grow noticeably sore, knowing the feel of metal against his skin is a serious kink. She hooks her knuckles through his black magnetized bracelets and drags his hands up above his head for a second, squeezing his wrists, leaving him aching. She finds his mouth dry when she bends down to take it, and Cessily thinks, unrequited my ass.
“I'm sorry you had to see that, earlier.” He pants, grimacing as if she's forcing it out of him. “I felt bad, I just couldn't take the mood in there any longer.”
She lets him go and rolls over, stretching out her leg to push their clothes off the bed, causing a dull thump as his belt buckle hits the carpet.
“I told you,” she says. “You don't have to worry about yourself with me. It was rough on you, I understand.”
“Last week, I saw her dead. Like with my decayed sight, and I didn't say anything, you know, I didn't think it meant that she'd actually die.” It comes out in a rush of the sheer need to tell her, almost to frighten her, like he wants to make her hate him.
She goes back out in the cold air once she thinks he's asleep and leans over the rail that prevents her from falling twelve storeys, thinking about Sooraya and whether she died for something good, or just their collective refusal to conform.
There's still ten years left in this time-line until Cessily collapses to the ground outside the Whitehouse with Storm's static crackling around her, head screaming, You can't save her, baby. You can't even touch her. Remember what I'm always telling you. Just let it go. The world goes white from Surge's overload and she'll never know what happened to him in there, whether he was killed before he got to Laurie, if he died without any powers allowing David to break his neck. But this is only one future and maybe in another he doesn't do it that way and stays with her, she dies with him, lying together like broken dolls on the lawn.
Or maybe she wakes up with the sun steaming through the windows in her old room back at the institute, slides in beside him a little later at the cafeteria and tries to make her smile break through to him. He reciprocates shakily, hand sneaking down to trail a soft touch against her leg below her shorts and they're both only sixteen with their lives stretching ahead of them, the whole episode adding up to nothing more than a beautiful illusion.
Title: Walpurgis
Fandom: New X-Men
Claim: Kevin/Cessily
Prompt: Alone, by Dinosaur Jr.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1232
Summary: Kevin has a problem with authority.
Tonight is special for some reason and Selene requires a sacrifice, or at the very least a display of appreciation, so she sends him with Blink to bring back a body for their queen to feast on. She knows they're the most devoted, nurturing a constant thirst for her approval, and she trusts them together for that.
Blink chose an anonymous male she found at an underground show and followed home, human, no powers, so easy. He's the same age as them, a little younger maybe, not even done with senior year, and he's nothing but sustenance, just like the unluckiest guy going, tonight. Kevin asked him for a light and then closed his hand around the flame and Blink teleported them to a high place overlooking the city, no wind to carry sound, nobody else around to witness this. Kevin used to throw up when she did that, every time, the nausea of disorientation causing him to puke before he even knew what he was doing. He's okay with it, now. This kid isn't, and he's the only one out of them that doesn't stay on his feet.
He sees Kevin first, Kevin's thin face and outward normality illuminated in the magenta flare of Blink's diminishing field. He doesn't wear gloves much anymore, so his hands are pale and clammy and itching to reach out to people, all the time. He's pleased she picked someone young and sick-makingly nice looking for them to tear apart. Somebody will probably miss him. He probably doesn't deserve it one bit.
“F-fucking freak.” He crawls backwards on his hands, stammering.
Kevin wonders if it's natural, and frowns at him quizzically before breaking into a grin. “What did you call me?”
Clarice snickers beside him, thoroughly stoked; the nameless man gasps sharply when he notices her feral green eyes shining out of the dark.
“Don't scream, sweetheart.” She says, and Kevin's insides turn over as she extends an index finger and opens a large cut on the man's side, rips reality at the seams out of nowhere. He's whimpering disbelievingly, trying to cover the blood with his palms and just getting it all over them.
Kevin takes pity on him, bends down to his level and whispers shyly, “You can scream if you want,” stroking his earlobe and feeling a quenching sensation as the decay spreads down his neck and he empties his lungs to their maximum capacity, choking on the horror.
“Are you trying to out-creep me, Ford?” Clarice asks, gently amused at his theatrics.
She kind of reminds him of Cessily, a little bit, in that she's stronger than she looks and has the same sense of playfulness, only a whole lot darker. Blink is in some ways the opposite of Cess, accepts her weirdness and has a nice sideline in ripping people to shreds, which is probably not something Cessily would ever enjoy doing.
If there's one thing he dislikes about Clarice it's that she's older and wiser and he hates people talking to him as if their experience is so much richer than his, because they're allowed to touch whatever they want, brush up against stuff, try things out and learn from it. He guesses maybe he can put his hand into a flame without getting burned, but that's about it, the only advantage to being totally noxious and unwholesome.
“It's not hard.” He snorts, and it isn't, really, she might be the one who looks more alien, but he's saturated in death by now, has an aura like it's coming out of his pores. He's killed people on the pretext of making up for lost time and his previously rare, derisive laugh has turned cracked and ugly.
However, he's not cruel enough to stretch his hand out on the man's face. Not yet. Instead he flexes it, stalling for time. He's gone corroded most of his hair, which in an eerie coincidence is the same black-brown colour as Kevin's, just perhaps not as scruffy, and some of his clothes and Blink's light slices deeper into him every time she fires up. She can have as much of him as she wants, as long as there's enough left for what he needs, at the end.
Poor guy is messed when Kevin finally bites him, going for the shoulder instead of the neck, the best part he has already ruined. Drawing blood from a flatscan is beneath him, really, but it's easy and he doesn't give a fuck. He takes care not to drain everything, 'cause he's not sure if it's okay, and he's punished hard when he makes mistakes, although it is good to cross that line, sometimes. Blink gets it. She watches him feed with a smile on her face until he looks up at her, fangs still buried pretty far in.
“You're going to seriously have to pay for that, Kevin.” She tells him when he gets up unsteadily, having taken way too much, lost himself, someone's blood dark around his mouth.
Before the night is over with, Selene calls him to her in the wreckage of the Hellfire Club and makes him tell her what he knows about Emma Frost (not much) and X-Force (nothing). Kevin knew the institute, has information he's sometimes reluctant to give up, and so he lies through his teeth, to her, to himself. He could never hide anything from her she really wanted to find, if she wasn't just drawing it out, teasing him with it. She asks him what he would do to them for her, these people he used to live with, kids in the same position as him he used to see every day.
“Touch them,” he answers, blankly, casually so that she has less of a reason to suspect. “Kill them. Bring you their ashes.”
Well, not Cessily, he remembers, I couldn't do it to her. He tells himself that's a physical thing, there's no attachment left, there are others out there he's useless against and she only still exists to him because they were closest. He can't think what she ever saw in him.
“I wish I'd found you sooner.” Selene says, circling. “There's so much of her interference in your mind. I don't suppose Clarice told you, but...Emma Frost left her to die.”
Kevin licks his lips, glad Blink isn't here now, gone from where she was earlier, macking on Mortis below the throne, pinching her tits, causing her eyelids to flutter. Lois like that is sort of hot, but whatever. Selene encourages them in front of him, making him feel jealous by extension, something he thought he'd gotten shot of, obviously not. Blink got most of the credit for their offering.
“Okay.” He says, honestly unsure of where this is going.
“Yet she left you to me.” She finishes, and he can't hardly say no, that wasn't right. Maybe he couldn't have turned his power into anything intelligent that could ever help someone, but the accusation that he's lacking sophistication, artistry, the conviction to be an X-man, has always bugged him. It's either killing someone, or losing to them. He can't change that. She's pissed with him for drinking the city kid's blood. He guesses she's telling him in her strange, archaic way he should be grateful he fits in any place at all.
Fandom: New X-Men
Claim: Kevin/Cessily
Prompt: Rough Hands, by Alexisonfire
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1070
Summary: The fact he can't harm her is hard to swallow.
He is talking to Laurie, excitement kicking into gear which is all wrong, 'cause he's not anticipating anything great happening in the next few seconds, and so of course he knows it's her.
“Well I'll see you, Kevin.” She says, smiling, as Josh approaches. “I hope your weekend goes okay.”
“Sure.” He nods and turns to look at Josh, returning the 'back off' glare to show this isn't him admitting defeat.
Josh motions Kevin away from her, holding his arm so he can whisper, “I hate myself,” in his ear, too close for Laurie to hear but reinforcing everything that separates them. It's not okay for Kevin to touch Josh or cuss him out on his bullshit confidence, although apparently it's fine the other way round.
He shakes his head and mutters, “Good one, Josh,” under his breath, loaded with sarcasm, and Josh smirks like yeah, you bet it was.
Laurie laughs at something he says walking off and Kevin makes a face, wondering why are you even here. So what you couldn't be happy with your anti-mutant psycho gang, you should have found somewhere else to get a second chance. You hated all of us till you became one.
He's on the stairs when he notices the flower fallen out of Laurie's hand, and he kneels to pick it up, unconsciously watching it wither and die in his grasp. Kevin slides down with the edge of the step above digging into his back and begins to systematically mutilate the petals, gritting his teeth, imagining Josh rotting the same way, these non-enjoyable fantasies he represses hard and would never tell anyone about for fear he'd end up living one of his nightmares where he's caged or chained up, held down with synthetic straps and unable to touch. He indulges them solely when he can be certain there's no telepaths around (he's stupid to think that means they're not listening).
The absorption prevents him realizing the silver girl with the red hair is watching him from the top of the next level. Kevin sits near her in most things totally regretting his decision to come back, slow speech bleeding apathy, body language stinking of indifference. He only talks when he's asked a direct question, and he could never have impressed her that way. It's surprising she's still interested, that she was in the first place, considering she's nice and people like her and he's no one, nothing.
She can touch him, though, seems to look at him, not through him. It feels weird after all this time, but kind of a good-weird. Definitely not a bad-weird. He was so scared when she put her hand on him, on his cheek, internally going no no no, don't do that, please, you'll die, you'll be annihilated. She stayed the way she was, flashing a satisfied, bright smile Kevin could not return, choking on nerves and seemingly unnecessary panic.
Cessily, he thinks, as she comes up, venturing another one at him. Cessily Kincaid.
“You weren't in any classes today.” Cessily says, shocking him with the knowledge that she actually noticed.
She leans against the wall and shoves her rucksack to one side. The buttons holding up her socks are chipped but the rest of her is perfect. He used to get so many dirty looks off girls like her, back home. She takes the dead flower out of his hands and twirls it absently in her fingers, thinking, adjusting her collar with the other hand as if it's him making her nervous, and that's ridiculous if he can't harm her.
“Quiet type?” She asks softly, after he fails to reply in the space of a whole minute, gazing at her, dumb-shit.
“No.” He shakes his head, “No, that's not it at all, it's just-” you don't want to know me, I'm not a nice guy, I killed my pop when my powers manifested, accidentally, and then someone else, less accidentally, because I got mad.
“I've just yet to catch you in a good mood.”
He shrugs into himself, embarrassed. His articulacy is sure off the charts today.
"My mom used to love these,” Cessily says, turning the rose over, inspecting the yellowed edges and acting as if it's still precious, delicate. “She would hold onto them for so long, even when they'd gone stale like this.”
“Stale anyway.” He says, wrinkling his nose, and she laughs at his candour.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean-”
“It's okay,” She cuts across, hurriedly. “I'm not offended. They are pretty unoriginal, I guess.”
She is really sweet, and there is a sudden hook in his stomach, a lump in his throat, but it's not the same as it is with Laurie, because he can have this and that's not right, that doesn't synch with any of his experiences. He shouldn't let her think he's enough of an asshole just to force himself on the first girl he can touch.
“Can I keep this one?”
“If you want.” He tries to act casual about it, though of course it's not his to give. He's alright with that idea. It'd be alright if Josh saw it on her like, that's what I could do to your whole crappy romance if I wanted. It's petty for sure, Kevin's always been malicious and doesn't see any point in stopping now, no matter how much he keeps getting told fifteen is a transitory period and he has to work with people here, that he doesn't have to be on his own.
Cessily fixes the stem behind her ear and he reaches across to touch, stopping just short because he still doesn't really believe he won't hurt her.
“You don't have to ask permission.” She folds her hand over his. He's better prepared for it this time, it's not insane feeling her mirror-like skin against his. His fingers move to trace her hair, and that's metal too, must be, because it doesn't fall apart when he marvels at the texture of fine metallic strands.
“Funny, right?” She misreads him, sounding the same far-off type of sad as she did when she mentioned her mom.
“It's nice.” He replies, meaning it. Her expression as she sees he's being real is sort of adorable, and the conversation stays with him, awkwardly more memorable than what Laurie's ever graced him with.
Title: Lifelike
Fandom: New X-Men
Claim: Kevin/Cessily
Prompt: Citizens Of Tomorrow, by Tokyo Police Club
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2012
Summary: Prodigy's vision of the future is expansive.
Cessily arrives last, very late, crying hard and unable to hide it, feeling like she's going to have to drop the pretence and liquidize at any moment. The shelter is filled with faded green light from a weird kinetic residue which shows she missed the main event of Julian exploding with impotent rage. She guesses Santo expressed his differently, in taking out a huge chunk of the wall, although he is now conspicuous by his absence and she seems to have missed him, too. Brian makes a better attempt than Julian does at welcoming her, but still can't quite manage to meet her eyes, and anyway none of this matters because Sooraya is gone.
Kevin isn't with them, despite promising her he'd be here tonight. She walks though out back. He's knelt next to the edge of the fence on her right side, face screwed up flush against the chain link. He makes a gruelling noise on noticing her, and she sees the remains of a small animal in his hands, perhaps a rat. It's times she's confronted with sights like this she could say maybe they are evil people, crazy, capable of everything David accuses them of doing, but she knows in this case he's experiencing an almost primordial need to drain the life from something. He likes to think he has control over his power, over death, except he couldn't do anything to prevent Sooraya's, which is probably why he looks to be affected so bad.
“Baby,” she says, going closer than most people would ever dare, sliding her arms around his chest, curling only slightly extended fingertips into his armpits. “Just stop, okay? It's not doing anyone any good.”
He brushes the ashes from his fingers like sand before he pulls himself up, then places them gently beneath her ears. Ordinarily she might call him on it, tell him straight that's gross, Kevin. In this instance she gives into him tilting her jaw up towards him, so much taller even though he hunches all the time, and they kiss open-mouthed, sloppy but practised.
“I am never going to let him do that to you.” He whispers after, leaning to press their foreheads together. Her eyes are aligned with his and it would be easy to believe him, if the real situation wasn't so totally out of their control.
Cessily has yet to tell him about the room in the last lab they destroyed where she poured in underneath a reinforced door and found specifications for new ways to blend living metal, research on altering a person's neural formatting to make them embrace a deadly strain of mutation.
She holds onto him, nuzzling his cheek with her nose, and replies fiercely, “You either.”
“Let's go home,” he says, finally. “There's nothing to discuss, as far as I'm concerned.”
Kevin takes her hand, loose crook, and they leave the yard looking at each other. It's late enough now for Cessily to get on a fairly empty bus and not get bothered. The perfect world David has created is very mutant friendly but she is recognizable as one you shouldn't extend friendship to. Kevin's never needed to worry about standing out or garnering unwanted attention. He's unremarkable; can sink into the background almost as effectively as if it were his secondary mutation. They stop by an electrical store and the screens in the window are still lit up, regurgitating over and over how Sooraya Qadir has been executed, how attorney general David Alleyne is surely on course to become the youngest ever president of the United States.
“Son of a bitch.” Kevin mumbles, worn, the hot edge of his anger running below the surface. “People are such fuckin' morons, I swear to god.”
Cessily closes her eyes and leans into him, plays with his fingers folded carefully in her lap, and thinks about how much she loves him.
She enjoys his arm around her waist, thumb rubbing non-possessively on the bare skin of her hip while she's standing up to Julian, challenging some of Hellion's more questionable leadership decisions, and he's slumped in the chair next to her uninvolved, his eyes on her the entire time. It's sort of awesome when Julian looks to him, exasperated, asking if he has anything to add and he blinks slowly, clears his throat, snapping out of it long enough to reply Nuh-uh, Cessily said it already.
Julian and Sofia got married but the relationship is strained with the pressure of being on opposite sides, and Cessily thinks it's a good thing they didn't commit like that, it's not really for them. After all, they never planned for this to happen. They did talk a couple of times about making another loser like them, then figured it'd be so irresponsible because of the direction David is taking the world in. Plus there's no way to know whether Kevin would even be able to hold their child and she feels way too young to have one, for them to be parents. She was twenty four in August and Kevin won't get there until January. Sort of late for Saturnalia but so obviously that melancholy sombre type she's worried any offspring of theirs are gonna grow up just like him, moody, difficult, prickly.
She doesn't think the way they fuck is quite there yet either; that's not baby-making sex, that's some seriously edgy, selfish, exploratory shit, the novelty not quite worn off for either of them. Cess can't imagine a better way to lose her clothes than to have him rot them off her and he still likes to make her gasp teasing the very edge of her opening with his thumb, the place where she starts seguing into softness, a wetter type of metal. She treasures him drawing it out for as long as she can handle, entertaining himself ultra friggin sinister, whispering “I could play with your clit forever, Cessily,” in her ear before she begs for release and he finally lets her come on his fingers, licking them clean right in front of her.
The fact he's still in touch with Laurie Collins bothers her, she'd be lying if she didn't acknowledge that, but he also knows Laurie was a classic case of wanting what you can't have and she hopes she's the one that's real to him now. The New Mutants lost Josh long ago and he failed to take advantage of the situation, found out he didn't feel all that great about it, in the end.
They're not in high school anymore and she guesses it's inevitable they changed, in most cases for the better. She tried being nicer to people that didn't appeal to her straight off, and Kevin grew up too, left behind some of the spite he used to harbour for those that seemed happier than him.
He will wince when he thinks of all the dick things he said to her back then, it's not my fault you feel that way being one of the most epically mean. They still argue a bunch but now he makes it up kissing her and murmuring apology while she makes it even internally thinking, Well, you wouldn't have looked twice at that before you manifested. It's easy to dismiss Kevin as pale and plain and pinch-faced. Only, he's not. He had brown eyes when he took the goggles off, smelled strongly of solder, a familiar metallic tang, and her initial opinion had rocketed from 'you could be cute if you tried slightly harder.' It's always been about potential with Kevin, wasted talent. Not fulfilling any of your early promise.
But Cess doesn't have a crush now. She loves that. She loves watching him show off, putting a fire out with his bare hands. The way he places them to kill is truly disturbing, but he touches her with the same ones and it's all intimacy, familiarity, impatience snapping her vest straps against her shoulder blades in the elevator.
When they get to their door she digs her hand into his pocket searching for the end of the thick key chain looped through his jeans, and once they're through he edges her into the adjoining wall, sliding his fingers inside the band of her panties.
“Are we gonna bone?” He asks, drawling soft as he spreads her apart and she feels holes opening all over the cotton, stupidly thin material dissolving into gossamer shreds.
“You're needy.” She retorts, and he nods, yeah, okay, whatever, appropriately shamed, not lying. Kevin is so touch starved, that's just the way it works between them.
Tonight, it doesn't feel right it being slow, taking time over it, even doing it at all but they go ahead anyway because they still love each other, Sooraya's execution doesn't change that. They can't afford not to take advantage of any moment where it's just them, but it does feel almost wrong with her mouth around him, him muttering for her to stop a few minutes in and crawling over her 'cause she is so gorgeous, the best thing that's happened in his miserable life, so good at sucking his cock and he totally wants to fuck her before he's all gone.
He's rougher than he normally is and after he comes outside of her body she gets her revenge circling his nipples with her fingers, watching them grow noticeably sore, knowing the feel of metal against his skin is a serious kink. She hooks her knuckles through his black magnetized bracelets and drags his hands up above his head for a second, squeezing his wrists, leaving him aching. She finds his mouth dry when she bends down to take it, and Cessily thinks, unrequited my ass.
“I'm sorry you had to see that, earlier.” He pants, grimacing as if she's forcing it out of him. “I felt bad, I just couldn't take the mood in there any longer.”
She lets him go and rolls over, stretching out her leg to push their clothes off the bed, causing a dull thump as his belt buckle hits the carpet.
“I told you,” she says. “You don't have to worry about yourself with me. It was rough on you, I understand.”
“Last week, I saw her dead. Like with my decayed sight, and I didn't say anything, you know, I didn't think it meant that she'd actually die.” It comes out in a rush of the sheer need to tell her, almost to frighten her, like he wants to make her hate him.
She goes back out in the cold air once she thinks he's asleep and leans over the rail that prevents her from falling twelve storeys, thinking about Sooraya and whether she died for something good, or just their collective refusal to conform.
There's still ten years left in this time-line until Cessily collapses to the ground outside the Whitehouse with Storm's static crackling around her, head screaming, You can't save her, baby. You can't even touch her. Remember what I'm always telling you. Just let it go. The world goes white from Surge's overload and she'll never know what happened to him in there, whether he was killed before he got to Laurie, if he died without any powers allowing David to break his neck. But this is only one future and maybe in another he doesn't do it that way and stays with her, she dies with him, lying together like broken dolls on the lawn.
Or maybe she wakes up with the sun steaming through the windows in her old room back at the institute, slides in beside him a little later at the cafeteria and tries to make her smile break through to him. He reciprocates shakily, hand sneaking down to trail a soft touch against her leg below her shorts and they're both only sixteen with their lives stretching ahead of them, the whole episode adding up to nothing more than a beautiful illusion.
Title: Walpurgis
Fandom: New X-Men
Claim: Kevin/Cessily
Prompt: Alone, by Dinosaur Jr.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1232
Summary: Kevin has a problem with authority.
Tonight is special for some reason and Selene requires a sacrifice, or at the very least a display of appreciation, so she sends him with Blink to bring back a body for their queen to feast on. She knows they're the most devoted, nurturing a constant thirst for her approval, and she trusts them together for that.
Blink chose an anonymous male she found at an underground show and followed home, human, no powers, so easy. He's the same age as them, a little younger maybe, not even done with senior year, and he's nothing but sustenance, just like the unluckiest guy going, tonight. Kevin asked him for a light and then closed his hand around the flame and Blink teleported them to a high place overlooking the city, no wind to carry sound, nobody else around to witness this. Kevin used to throw up when she did that, every time, the nausea of disorientation causing him to puke before he even knew what he was doing. He's okay with it, now. This kid isn't, and he's the only one out of them that doesn't stay on his feet.
He sees Kevin first, Kevin's thin face and outward normality illuminated in the magenta flare of Blink's diminishing field. He doesn't wear gloves much anymore, so his hands are pale and clammy and itching to reach out to people, all the time. He's pleased she picked someone young and sick-makingly nice looking for them to tear apart. Somebody will probably miss him. He probably doesn't deserve it one bit.
“F-fucking freak.” He crawls backwards on his hands, stammering.
Kevin wonders if it's natural, and frowns at him quizzically before breaking into a grin. “What did you call me?”
Clarice snickers beside him, thoroughly stoked; the nameless man gasps sharply when he notices her feral green eyes shining out of the dark.
“Don't scream, sweetheart.” She says, and Kevin's insides turn over as she extends an index finger and opens a large cut on the man's side, rips reality at the seams out of nowhere. He's whimpering disbelievingly, trying to cover the blood with his palms and just getting it all over them.
Kevin takes pity on him, bends down to his level and whispers shyly, “You can scream if you want,” stroking his earlobe and feeling a quenching sensation as the decay spreads down his neck and he empties his lungs to their maximum capacity, choking on the horror.
“Are you trying to out-creep me, Ford?” Clarice asks, gently amused at his theatrics.
She kind of reminds him of Cessily, a little bit, in that she's stronger than she looks and has the same sense of playfulness, only a whole lot darker. Blink is in some ways the opposite of Cess, accepts her weirdness and has a nice sideline in ripping people to shreds, which is probably not something Cessily would ever enjoy doing.
If there's one thing he dislikes about Clarice it's that she's older and wiser and he hates people talking to him as if their experience is so much richer than his, because they're allowed to touch whatever they want, brush up against stuff, try things out and learn from it. He guesses maybe he can put his hand into a flame without getting burned, but that's about it, the only advantage to being totally noxious and unwholesome.
“It's not hard.” He snorts, and it isn't, really, she might be the one who looks more alien, but he's saturated in death by now, has an aura like it's coming out of his pores. He's killed people on the pretext of making up for lost time and his previously rare, derisive laugh has turned cracked and ugly.
However, he's not cruel enough to stretch his hand out on the man's face. Not yet. Instead he flexes it, stalling for time. He's gone corroded most of his hair, which in an eerie coincidence is the same black-brown colour as Kevin's, just perhaps not as scruffy, and some of his clothes and Blink's light slices deeper into him every time she fires up. She can have as much of him as she wants, as long as there's enough left for what he needs, at the end.
Poor guy is messed when Kevin finally bites him, going for the shoulder instead of the neck, the best part he has already ruined. Drawing blood from a flatscan is beneath him, really, but it's easy and he doesn't give a fuck. He takes care not to drain everything, 'cause he's not sure if it's okay, and he's punished hard when he makes mistakes, although it is good to cross that line, sometimes. Blink gets it. She watches him feed with a smile on her face until he looks up at her, fangs still buried pretty far in.
“You're going to seriously have to pay for that, Kevin.” She tells him when he gets up unsteadily, having taken way too much, lost himself, someone's blood dark around his mouth.
Before the night is over with, Selene calls him to her in the wreckage of the Hellfire Club and makes him tell her what he knows about Emma Frost (not much) and X-Force (nothing). Kevin knew the institute, has information he's sometimes reluctant to give up, and so he lies through his teeth, to her, to himself. He could never hide anything from her she really wanted to find, if she wasn't just drawing it out, teasing him with it. She asks him what he would do to them for her, these people he used to live with, kids in the same position as him he used to see every day.
“Touch them,” he answers, blankly, casually so that she has less of a reason to suspect. “Kill them. Bring you their ashes.”
Well, not Cessily, he remembers, I couldn't do it to her. He tells himself that's a physical thing, there's no attachment left, there are others out there he's useless against and she only still exists to him because they were closest. He can't think what she ever saw in him.
“I wish I'd found you sooner.” Selene says, circling. “There's so much of her interference in your mind. I don't suppose Clarice told you, but...Emma Frost left her to die.”
Kevin licks his lips, glad Blink isn't here now, gone from where she was earlier, macking on Mortis below the throne, pinching her tits, causing her eyelids to flutter. Lois like that is sort of hot, but whatever. Selene encourages them in front of him, making him feel jealous by extension, something he thought he'd gotten shot of, obviously not. Blink got most of the credit for their offering.
“Okay.” He says, honestly unsure of where this is going.
“Yet she left you to me.” She finishes, and he can't hardly say no, that wasn't right. Maybe he couldn't have turned his power into anything intelligent that could ever help someone, but the accusation that he's lacking sophistication, artistry, the conviction to be an X-man, has always bugged him. It's either killing someone, or losing to them. He can't change that. She's pissed with him for drinking the city kid's blood. He guesses she's telling him in her strange, archaic way he should be grateful he fits in any place at all.