XMMF Fic: "Cease Fire", Pyro/Kitty, rated T.
Title: Cease Fire
Author: Sionnain
’Verse: Movie
Pairing: Kitty/Pyro, implied Bobby/Rogue and un-requited Kitty/Bobby
Rating: T for drug use and swearing
Summary: At a typical college party, Kitty runs into an old classmate. Set post-X3, spoilers.
AN: Written for eldee, who wanted Kitty/Pyro post X3. I hope you like this, sweetie! Thanks to Kethlenda for the beta.
Cease Fire
It’s one of those times she wishes she could have stayed back in her dorm room, maybe eating pizza and watching The OC in her pajamas. In fact, that’s what she’d been anticipating doing when her classes were finished for the week.
So why she’s here at this party with her roommate, Kitty has no idea. Well, that’s not really true. She’s trying to placate Amanda after the other girl saw her sleepily reach her hand out and phase it through the alarm clock a few weeks ago.
Kitty hadn’t told her roommate she was a mutant. Amanda wasn’t exactly freaked out by it, but it had put a bit of tension in their relationship that hadn’t been there before. The two of them used to have breakfast before their Tuesday and Thursday eight a.m. class, but after Kitty’s little revelation, they’d stopped doing that.
So here she is at a party at some guy’s apartment, sitting on a futon with a drink made of flat soda and cheap rum, because she’d not wanted to say no when Amanda had hesitantly invited her to come along. Except that she isn’t having a very good time, and there are a lot of people crowded into the apartment she doesn’t know.
Amanda’s talking to some guy named Joel from her Anthropology class, waving her hands around and expounding about something with a serious expression. Joel is nodding and staring at Amanda’s breasts. Kitty hides her sigh in her bright red cup, her name written in a Sharpie marker on the side, and barely notices the person who sits next to her until he speaks.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Kitty Pryde.”
Her whole body tenses as she recognizes the voice. She turns her face up towards him, her fingers wrapped tight around her cup, and tries to make her voice neutral. “John. So you’re not dead, after all.” Her words aren’t threatening but they’re far from friendly.
John looks mostly the same as he always has, though his hair is dark again instead of tipped with blonde, and he’s got a bit of stubble on his face as if he’s forgotten to shave for a few days. He shrugs, leaning back and splaying his arms out along the back of the futon. It makes her want to get up, but she won’t give him the satisfaction of moving. “Nope. Not dead.” He smiles, quick and sharp. “Disappointed?”
“No,” Kitty says, narrowing her eyes at him. She’s had just enough rum that talking to him is a good idea. “I’m not like that. I’m not you.” She looks back down into her cup and defiantly drinks the rest of the too-sweet beverage. She’s not really developed a taste for beer and the cheap rum is all that’s available.
“I’d not be happy if I was dead, either,” John points out, and he’s watching her with the intensity of an animal seeking prey.
“So what are you doing now? Stalking people you used to know at parties? Must be quite a change from being Magneto’s lackey. Or are you, and this is just your newest assignment?” She smiles back at him tightly, shifting imperceptibly away from him.
His smile fades, face twisting into an unpleasant expression. “You know it didn’t work, what you tried to do to him. His powers are back. He’s back.”
“I didn’t do anything but save a kid from being killed,” she snaps, ignoring the quick flash of anger at his words. “It wasn’t my idea to cure him.”
“You, the X-Men, whatever. You’re all the same.” John’s voice is a shade away from bitter, and Kitty has a sudden flash of insight as to why he’s here, hanging around some college party where he doesn’t know a soul.
“He’s left you, hasn’t he? You haven’t heard a damned thing from him since he got his powers back.” He turns away, and she thinks she’s probably right. “Wow. How ironic.”
When he looks back at her, he looks bored, but his eyes are narrowed. “What do you know about anything? You can just go to school and pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Trust me, John. I really can’t.” Kitty stands up, finally unable to sit next to her old classmate. “I haven’t forgotten anything.” She pushes her way through the crowd and into the kitchen, where she fills up her glass a little bit with rum and doesn’t bother with the soda this time. Her hands are shaking. In her head she remembers standing there, the wind whipping her hair, watching Pyro as he threw fire into the dark black sky.
When she goes back into the living room, she’s hopeful that maybe he’s gone. He’s not, though; he’s sitting next to a girl Kitty’s seen around campus, lighting her cigarette for her, though not with his powers. He looks up at Kitty and smiles, then winks at her.
Kitty turns her back on him pointedly. She wants to go home, but she can’t, not now. She can’t leave Pyro in this room full of humans. She may be a University of Rhode Island student, but she’s still an X-Man.
She’ll stay at the party, and keep an eye on him. What else can she do?
* * *
Several hours later, she’s switched from rum to water and is standing out on the back porch, looking up at the stars. John’s inside, still lighting cigarettes the old-fashioned way and chatting up girls like he belongs here. Kitty overhears him telling one of the girls that he’s not enrolled in college, that he just lives in the area and works full-time. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t believe him, but she’s not sure what to think.
The night air is still hot and sticky, and she wishes he’d leave so she could go back to her dorm. The alcohol is gone and now they’re smoking pot in the living room, all in a circle, and Kitty excused herself by saying she has asthma. It’s sort of true, but mostly it’s just easier than saying, “I’m a superhero in training.”
“What, too good for drugs, Kitty-cat?”
Glaring, she whirls around and confronts John, who’s joined her out on the porch. “Actually, yeah.”
He smirks at her, lighting something that looks like a cigarette but isn’t. “I nicely volunteered to bring you some because of your asthma.” He holds the joint out to her.
“John, do you think I’m stupid enough to smoke anything you hand me?” She leans back against the railing on the porch, trying to look relaxed. She’s tense but not nervous; it’s not like he could grab her, really. She can get out of this situation if she wants. It’s everyone else she’s worried about.
“Look, Pryde. I’m not here to blow this place up or anything. But if you think I’m going to stand here and apologize or some bullshit, then you’re fucked in the head. I’d do it again.” His voice is soft but firm. “I would.”
At least he’s loyal to something. “So would I.”
“Yeah, I know. Do-gooder and all.” He walks over to her, his hands up. “You don’t have to have any, and I’m not going to do anything. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Kitty stands where she is, thinking that if she could get him to talk, she could pass some information on to Storm, maybe. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugs. “I just passed by and saw there was a party. You go to school here?”
It would be stupid to lie; he could figure it out easy enough. “Yeah.”
“You like it?”
“It’s fine,” she says, and notices the way the light from the streetlight across the parking lot throws a cold beam of silver-white over his face. It doesn’t make him look any less threatening, but she can see the pupils of his eyes are dilated.
He takes another drag of the joint and holds the smoke in his lungs; it makes him cough when he exhales.
She laughs at that. “Not used to it, are you?” It’s petty, but she’s in that kind of mood, just a little.
“You think Magneto let us smoke anything? He’s a general, Kitty, and drugs are for the weak. Addiction is for the weak. Everything is apparently for the fucking weak.” John’s voice is tight.
She cocks her head at him thoughtfully. “Well, he’s right, you know. But hey. We’re only human.”
“Not according to Magneto.”
“Yeah, and look where that got him.” Kitty watches him take another drag and wonders what the drug does to his ability to use his mutant powers. She’s incredibly conscious of the flame leaping bright and orange from his lighter.
It’s not the one she remembers, with the shark. It’s a cheap plastic Bic lighter, probably bought for less than a dollar at the gas station. Why does that make her feel a little sad?
“How’s everyone else in the black-leather club?”
Kitty’s not sure she should answer this, but she does so in as vague a manner as possible with the ubiquitous “Fine,” accompanied by a little dismissive wave.
He laughs. “Yeah. I thought you’d say that. Your friend, Rogue, she took the cure.” His voice is faintly derisive. “Bet Bobby’s happy about that. Or, was. She accidentally kill him or anything when her powers came back?”
“No. She put her gloves back on and went back into training,” Kitty snaps “Bobby’s fine.” She hides it well, she thinks, the old wounds. She’s not proud of herself for having a crush on her friend’s boyfriend. She still remembers the hot surge of jealousy when Rogue came back, glove-less and cured, and Bobby’s face the next morning, as if he won the lottery.
“Bet that sucks for him,” John says cruelly, a glint in his eyes like a kid pulling wings off a butterfly just for fun.
“I guess. He’s dating some girl from Boston College. Rogue’s seeing someone else.” Kitty smiles as his mouth tightens. She always wondered if Pyro had a thing for Rogue. It’s what everyone thought.
Except Jubilee, who thought Pyro had a thing for Bobby. Kitty used to tell her to stop reading Harry Potter fanfiction on the internet, because she was sure Pyro was pretty straight. Jubilee used to tell her to stop ruining her fantasies.
“Yeah? Who?”
“No one you know.”
Kitty’s aware of something between them that she doesn’t much like; some tension, maybe, like soldiers from opposing sides of a war meeting in a cease fire. But it’s not the tension she expects, which surprises her.
The smoke is sticky-sweet as it drifts over to where she stands. She’s going to have to go to the Laundromat tomorrow and wash her clothes. This is her favorite pair of jeans and she wants to wear them to class Monday.
He takes another drag of the joint. “You need to relax, Kitty.”
She opens her mouth to protest that, but before she can say anything, he’s got his arm around her shoulders and he’s pulling her in tight. He presses his mouth to hers and exhales. Thick smoke pours into her mouth as he passes it to her, his hand tight in her hair to keep her mouth to his.
She could pull away or phase through him if she wanted, but she doesn’t. She lets him kiss her, even keeps the smoke in her lungs for a moment before breathing out and shoving him away. He goes easily, a smirk on his face, and she’s coughing and glaring at him fiercely.
“What the hell was that?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know. I just think this may be the last time I see you for awhile. Wanted to make it memorable.”
Her mouth tastes like a mixture of dryness and pot. It’s not entirely pleasant. “Yeah, I thought you worked around here?”
“I lied,” he said, raising the joint and holding it between them. He lights it with a thought, watching it burn. “Sort of.”
She’s been stupid. Of course Magneto wouldn’t have forgotten him. He may be the enemy but he’s not stupid, and Pyro’s a loyal soldier. “He’s contacted you. You’re leaving to join him.”
He nods, watching the joint burn, then throws it up in the air. The flames flare bright for an instant before they fade, and ash flutters down between them and lands in her hair. A trip to the Laundromat and a late-night shower, apparently.
“Yeah. One last hurrah before it’s back to being a good soldier. Maybe I’ll go have some
rum and find one of those nice drunk human girls before I go. Think whoever’s place this is will mind if I use the bedroom for a bit?”
She shakes her head, and hides her smile because she probably shouldn’t be smiling at that. “You haven’t changed at all, Pyro.”
“Guess not.” He walks over to her, leans down, and kisses her again. This time, there’s nothing to taste but him. She blames the fact she’s kissing him back on the rum, but that’s probably not true.
“You could go back,” she says afterwards, resisting the urge to rub her fingers over her lips. He’d kissed her like she was his last meal before execution, and she thinks maybe her lips are bruised, just like they sometimes are in the brainless romance novels she borrows from her roommate when she’s sick of studying.
“I am going back.” He’s leaning against the porch railing and playing with his lighter; suddenly, she remembers it doesn’t matter that it’s not silver with a shark on it. He’s still dangerous.
“Not to him. To the Institute.” But she’s not sure that he could. Storm may tell him to get lost, if Bobby didn’t do it first. She still feels like she should say it, thought, especially knowing to whom he is returning and what that will mean.
“No, I really can’t.” He starts to move backwards, towards the house. She thinks of all the people inside, helpless, unaware of who he is or what he’s done.
She blinks, wondering if her heart’s hammering because of fear or if the second-hand smoke from the marijuana is making her paranoid. “You should go,” she says, raising her hands up a little, like they’re going to fight.
He laughs, shaking his head. “Yeah. I know. Bye, Kitty. See you around.” The words are ominous but also resigned, and she doesn’t want to think well of him so she just focuses on the ominous. Then she doesn’t have to think that he’s a good kisser.
“Yeah. See you around.”
She waits a few seconds for him to disappear back into the house, then follows. She methodically checks all the rooms but he’s nowhere to be found. She finds her plastic cup on the kitchen counter, amidst a sea of others, abandoned for a different vice. She fills it up with water from the sink and drinks four glasses straight until her head feels a bit more clear.
Kitty finds her roommate lying on her back in the living room, giggling and pointing up at the glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling, bright green thanks to the blacklight. She lies down next to Amanda, resigned to waiting until her roommate is sober enough to walk home.
“Who was that boy, Kitty? He seemed to like you. Do you know him?” Amanda obviously thinks being a mutant is like living in a small town, and that they all know each other.
“Yeah. I know him.” Someone’s arranged the stars on the ceiling in a very naughty pattern. Kitty giggles despite her lingering tension and the fading edges of her adrenaline rush. Sometimes it’s nice just to be a college student lying on the floor and not worry about would-be mutant terrorists crashing the party.
“He lit Madison’s cigarette, like, without having to hold the lighter to it.” Amanda turns her head to look at her. Her expression is curious but not mean. “Is he a mutant like you?”
“He’s a mutant. But he’s not like me.” Kitty hopes Amanda doesn’t want to know the difference, because she’s not sure having a conversation about mutant politics with her stoned roommate is a good idea.
“You mean he’s not, like, a nice one?”
Kitty feels absurdly pleased by that. “No. Not really. Hey, come on. Let’s go to the diner. I think we need some waffles. I’m buying.” It’ll mean forgoing Sunday-night pizza, but Kitty thinks this maybe be worth it.
“Ooh,” Amanda says, nodding seriously. “Yeah. We do. Seriously. With syrup. And hash browns.”
Kitty stands up and holds her hand down to her roommate. Amanda takes it without hesitating. “Hey, Kitty? Would you-would show me sometime? Like, the thing you can do? I wanted to ask but I didn’t want to like, you know. Be all nosy about it.”
She resists the urge to hug Amanda. “Yeah. I’ll show you, if you want. But not now. You’re too high and it would freak you out.”
Amanda laughs, and they move towards the door. She’s not hungry, but she wants to go to the diner in case anyone is following them. She doesn’t think he is, but she has to be sure.
Kitty listens to Amanda wax poetic about Joel from her Anthropology class, drinking coffee and toying with her waffles. She’s nodding along, but she’s mentally thinking about what to do about John. She’ll call Rogue in the morning, maybe, see if she thinks that Kitty should tell Storm about John being alive and back in Magneto’s service.
Except she’s not going to tell anyone about Pyro kissing her. There’s nothing important about that, and it’s probably better that no one knows. They wouldn’t understand.
Author: Sionnain
’Verse: Movie
Pairing: Kitty/Pyro, implied Bobby/Rogue and un-requited Kitty/Bobby
Rating: T for drug use and swearing
Summary: At a typical college party, Kitty runs into an old classmate. Set post-X3, spoilers.
AN: Written for eldee, who wanted Kitty/Pyro post X3. I hope you like this, sweetie! Thanks to Kethlenda for the beta.
Cease Fire
It’s one of those times she wishes she could have stayed back in her dorm room, maybe eating pizza and watching The OC in her pajamas. In fact, that’s what she’d been anticipating doing when her classes were finished for the week.
So why she’s here at this party with her roommate, Kitty has no idea. Well, that’s not really true. She’s trying to placate Amanda after the other girl saw her sleepily reach her hand out and phase it through the alarm clock a few weeks ago.
Kitty hadn’t told her roommate she was a mutant. Amanda wasn’t exactly freaked out by it, but it had put a bit of tension in their relationship that hadn’t been there before. The two of them used to have breakfast before their Tuesday and Thursday eight a.m. class, but after Kitty’s little revelation, they’d stopped doing that.
So here she is at a party at some guy’s apartment, sitting on a futon with a drink made of flat soda and cheap rum, because she’d not wanted to say no when Amanda had hesitantly invited her to come along. Except that she isn’t having a very good time, and there are a lot of people crowded into the apartment she doesn’t know.
Amanda’s talking to some guy named Joel from her Anthropology class, waving her hands around and expounding about something with a serious expression. Joel is nodding and staring at Amanda’s breasts. Kitty hides her sigh in her bright red cup, her name written in a Sharpie marker on the side, and barely notices the person who sits next to her until he speaks.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Kitty Pryde.”
Her whole body tenses as she recognizes the voice. She turns her face up towards him, her fingers wrapped tight around her cup, and tries to make her voice neutral. “John. So you’re not dead, after all.” Her words aren’t threatening but they’re far from friendly.
John looks mostly the same as he always has, though his hair is dark again instead of tipped with blonde, and he’s got a bit of stubble on his face as if he’s forgotten to shave for a few days. He shrugs, leaning back and splaying his arms out along the back of the futon. It makes her want to get up, but she won’t give him the satisfaction of moving. “Nope. Not dead.” He smiles, quick and sharp. “Disappointed?”
“No,” Kitty says, narrowing her eyes at him. She’s had just enough rum that talking to him is a good idea. “I’m not like that. I’m not you.” She looks back down into her cup and defiantly drinks the rest of the too-sweet beverage. She’s not really developed a taste for beer and the cheap rum is all that’s available.
“I’d not be happy if I was dead, either,” John points out, and he’s watching her with the intensity of an animal seeking prey.
“So what are you doing now? Stalking people you used to know at parties? Must be quite a change from being Magneto’s lackey. Or are you, and this is just your newest assignment?” She smiles back at him tightly, shifting imperceptibly away from him.
His smile fades, face twisting into an unpleasant expression. “You know it didn’t work, what you tried to do to him. His powers are back. He’s back.”
“I didn’t do anything but save a kid from being killed,” she snaps, ignoring the quick flash of anger at his words. “It wasn’t my idea to cure him.”
“You, the X-Men, whatever. You’re all the same.” John’s voice is a shade away from bitter, and Kitty has a sudden flash of insight as to why he’s here, hanging around some college party where he doesn’t know a soul.
“He’s left you, hasn’t he? You haven’t heard a damned thing from him since he got his powers back.” He turns away, and she thinks she’s probably right. “Wow. How ironic.”
When he looks back at her, he looks bored, but his eyes are narrowed. “What do you know about anything? You can just go to school and pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Trust me, John. I really can’t.” Kitty stands up, finally unable to sit next to her old classmate. “I haven’t forgotten anything.” She pushes her way through the crowd and into the kitchen, where she fills up her glass a little bit with rum and doesn’t bother with the soda this time. Her hands are shaking. In her head she remembers standing there, the wind whipping her hair, watching Pyro as he threw fire into the dark black sky.
When she goes back into the living room, she’s hopeful that maybe he’s gone. He’s not, though; he’s sitting next to a girl Kitty’s seen around campus, lighting her cigarette for her, though not with his powers. He looks up at Kitty and smiles, then winks at her.
Kitty turns her back on him pointedly. She wants to go home, but she can’t, not now. She can’t leave Pyro in this room full of humans. She may be a University of Rhode Island student, but she’s still an X-Man.
She’ll stay at the party, and keep an eye on him. What else can she do?
* * *
Several hours later, she’s switched from rum to water and is standing out on the back porch, looking up at the stars. John’s inside, still lighting cigarettes the old-fashioned way and chatting up girls like he belongs here. Kitty overhears him telling one of the girls that he’s not enrolled in college, that he just lives in the area and works full-time. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t believe him, but she’s not sure what to think.
The night air is still hot and sticky, and she wishes he’d leave so she could go back to her dorm. The alcohol is gone and now they’re smoking pot in the living room, all in a circle, and Kitty excused herself by saying she has asthma. It’s sort of true, but mostly it’s just easier than saying, “I’m a superhero in training.”
“What, too good for drugs, Kitty-cat?”
Glaring, she whirls around and confronts John, who’s joined her out on the porch. “Actually, yeah.”
He smirks at her, lighting something that looks like a cigarette but isn’t. “I nicely volunteered to bring you some because of your asthma.” He holds the joint out to her.
“John, do you think I’m stupid enough to smoke anything you hand me?” She leans back against the railing on the porch, trying to look relaxed. She’s tense but not nervous; it’s not like he could grab her, really. She can get out of this situation if she wants. It’s everyone else she’s worried about.
“Look, Pryde. I’m not here to blow this place up or anything. But if you think I’m going to stand here and apologize or some bullshit, then you’re fucked in the head. I’d do it again.” His voice is soft but firm. “I would.”
At least he’s loyal to something. “So would I.”
“Yeah, I know. Do-gooder and all.” He walks over to her, his hands up. “You don’t have to have any, and I’m not going to do anything. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Kitty stands where she is, thinking that if she could get him to talk, she could pass some information on to Storm, maybe. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugs. “I just passed by and saw there was a party. You go to school here?”
It would be stupid to lie; he could figure it out easy enough. “Yeah.”
“You like it?”
“It’s fine,” she says, and notices the way the light from the streetlight across the parking lot throws a cold beam of silver-white over his face. It doesn’t make him look any less threatening, but she can see the pupils of his eyes are dilated.
He takes another drag of the joint and holds the smoke in his lungs; it makes him cough when he exhales.
She laughs at that. “Not used to it, are you?” It’s petty, but she’s in that kind of mood, just a little.
“You think Magneto let us smoke anything? He’s a general, Kitty, and drugs are for the weak. Addiction is for the weak. Everything is apparently for the fucking weak.” John’s voice is tight.
She cocks her head at him thoughtfully. “Well, he’s right, you know. But hey. We’re only human.”
“Not according to Magneto.”
“Yeah, and look where that got him.” Kitty watches him take another drag and wonders what the drug does to his ability to use his mutant powers. She’s incredibly conscious of the flame leaping bright and orange from his lighter.
It’s not the one she remembers, with the shark. It’s a cheap plastic Bic lighter, probably bought for less than a dollar at the gas station. Why does that make her feel a little sad?
“How’s everyone else in the black-leather club?”
Kitty’s not sure she should answer this, but she does so in as vague a manner as possible with the ubiquitous “Fine,” accompanied by a little dismissive wave.
He laughs. “Yeah. I thought you’d say that. Your friend, Rogue, she took the cure.” His voice is faintly derisive. “Bet Bobby’s happy about that. Or, was. She accidentally kill him or anything when her powers came back?”
“No. She put her gloves back on and went back into training,” Kitty snaps “Bobby’s fine.” She hides it well, she thinks, the old wounds. She’s not proud of herself for having a crush on her friend’s boyfriend. She still remembers the hot surge of jealousy when Rogue came back, glove-less and cured, and Bobby’s face the next morning, as if he won the lottery.
“Bet that sucks for him,” John says cruelly, a glint in his eyes like a kid pulling wings off a butterfly just for fun.
“I guess. He’s dating some girl from Boston College. Rogue’s seeing someone else.” Kitty smiles as his mouth tightens. She always wondered if Pyro had a thing for Rogue. It’s what everyone thought.
Except Jubilee, who thought Pyro had a thing for Bobby. Kitty used to tell her to stop reading Harry Potter fanfiction on the internet, because she was sure Pyro was pretty straight. Jubilee used to tell her to stop ruining her fantasies.
“Yeah? Who?”
“No one you know.”
Kitty’s aware of something between them that she doesn’t much like; some tension, maybe, like soldiers from opposing sides of a war meeting in a cease fire. But it’s not the tension she expects, which surprises her.
The smoke is sticky-sweet as it drifts over to where she stands. She’s going to have to go to the Laundromat tomorrow and wash her clothes. This is her favorite pair of jeans and she wants to wear them to class Monday.
He takes another drag of the joint. “You need to relax, Kitty.”
She opens her mouth to protest that, but before she can say anything, he’s got his arm around her shoulders and he’s pulling her in tight. He presses his mouth to hers and exhales. Thick smoke pours into her mouth as he passes it to her, his hand tight in her hair to keep her mouth to his.
She could pull away or phase through him if she wanted, but she doesn’t. She lets him kiss her, even keeps the smoke in her lungs for a moment before breathing out and shoving him away. He goes easily, a smirk on his face, and she’s coughing and glaring at him fiercely.
“What the hell was that?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know. I just think this may be the last time I see you for awhile. Wanted to make it memorable.”
Her mouth tastes like a mixture of dryness and pot. It’s not entirely pleasant. “Yeah, I thought you worked around here?”
“I lied,” he said, raising the joint and holding it between them. He lights it with a thought, watching it burn. “Sort of.”
She’s been stupid. Of course Magneto wouldn’t have forgotten him. He may be the enemy but he’s not stupid, and Pyro’s a loyal soldier. “He’s contacted you. You’re leaving to join him.”
He nods, watching the joint burn, then throws it up in the air. The flames flare bright for an instant before they fade, and ash flutters down between them and lands in her hair. A trip to the Laundromat and a late-night shower, apparently.
“Yeah. One last hurrah before it’s back to being a good soldier. Maybe I’ll go have some
rum and find one of those nice drunk human girls before I go. Think whoever’s place this is will mind if I use the bedroom for a bit?”
She shakes her head, and hides her smile because she probably shouldn’t be smiling at that. “You haven’t changed at all, Pyro.”
“Guess not.” He walks over to her, leans down, and kisses her again. This time, there’s nothing to taste but him. She blames the fact she’s kissing him back on the rum, but that’s probably not true.
“You could go back,” she says afterwards, resisting the urge to rub her fingers over her lips. He’d kissed her like she was his last meal before execution, and she thinks maybe her lips are bruised, just like they sometimes are in the brainless romance novels she borrows from her roommate when she’s sick of studying.
“I am going back.” He’s leaning against the porch railing and playing with his lighter; suddenly, she remembers it doesn’t matter that it’s not silver with a shark on it. He’s still dangerous.
“Not to him. To the Institute.” But she’s not sure that he could. Storm may tell him to get lost, if Bobby didn’t do it first. She still feels like she should say it, thought, especially knowing to whom he is returning and what that will mean.
“No, I really can’t.” He starts to move backwards, towards the house. She thinks of all the people inside, helpless, unaware of who he is or what he’s done.
She blinks, wondering if her heart’s hammering because of fear or if the second-hand smoke from the marijuana is making her paranoid. “You should go,” she says, raising her hands up a little, like they’re going to fight.
He laughs, shaking his head. “Yeah. I know. Bye, Kitty. See you around.” The words are ominous but also resigned, and she doesn’t want to think well of him so she just focuses on the ominous. Then she doesn’t have to think that he’s a good kisser.
“Yeah. See you around.”
She waits a few seconds for him to disappear back into the house, then follows. She methodically checks all the rooms but he’s nowhere to be found. She finds her plastic cup on the kitchen counter, amidst a sea of others, abandoned for a different vice. She fills it up with water from the sink and drinks four glasses straight until her head feels a bit more clear.
Kitty finds her roommate lying on her back in the living room, giggling and pointing up at the glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling, bright green thanks to the blacklight. She lies down next to Amanda, resigned to waiting until her roommate is sober enough to walk home.
“Who was that boy, Kitty? He seemed to like you. Do you know him?” Amanda obviously thinks being a mutant is like living in a small town, and that they all know each other.
“Yeah. I know him.” Someone’s arranged the stars on the ceiling in a very naughty pattern. Kitty giggles despite her lingering tension and the fading edges of her adrenaline rush. Sometimes it’s nice just to be a college student lying on the floor and not worry about would-be mutant terrorists crashing the party.
“He lit Madison’s cigarette, like, without having to hold the lighter to it.” Amanda turns her head to look at her. Her expression is curious but not mean. “Is he a mutant like you?”
“He’s a mutant. But he’s not like me.” Kitty hopes Amanda doesn’t want to know the difference, because she’s not sure having a conversation about mutant politics with her stoned roommate is a good idea.
“You mean he’s not, like, a nice one?”
Kitty feels absurdly pleased by that. “No. Not really. Hey, come on. Let’s go to the diner. I think we need some waffles. I’m buying.” It’ll mean forgoing Sunday-night pizza, but Kitty thinks this maybe be worth it.
“Ooh,” Amanda says, nodding seriously. “Yeah. We do. Seriously. With syrup. And hash browns.”
Kitty stands up and holds her hand down to her roommate. Amanda takes it without hesitating. “Hey, Kitty? Would you-would show me sometime? Like, the thing you can do? I wanted to ask but I didn’t want to like, you know. Be all nosy about it.”
She resists the urge to hug Amanda. “Yeah. I’ll show you, if you want. But not now. You’re too high and it would freak you out.”
Amanda laughs, and they move towards the door. She’s not hungry, but she wants to go to the diner in case anyone is following them. She doesn’t think he is, but she has to be sure.
Kitty listens to Amanda wax poetic about Joel from her Anthropology class, drinking coffee and toying with her waffles. She’s nodding along, but she’s mentally thinking about what to do about John. She’ll call Rogue in the morning, maybe, see if she thinks that Kitty should tell Storm about John being alive and back in Magneto’s service.
Except she’s not going to tell anyone about Pyro kissing her. There’s nothing important about that, and it’s probably better that no one knows. They wouldn’t understand.