Winter Wonderland
This is the last part of the Comfort and Joys story. It's been around three years since the first of these tales, and I think that it is appropriate that I finally bring this trilogy to an end. Originally it was intended to be a one-shoot, but I am very glad with how everything finally turned out. This story can stand without knowledge of the previous two, but I think it works better if you have read the previous installments in the series. So, it pleases me to finally give you...
The house was small and mildly furnished. It was in a good school district though; Shan had made damn sure of that. That was why the house was so small; the property values in this specific Chicago suburb were really high. The question of asking their former teammates for help never really occurred to either of them. They both wanted to move away from that life. It was a web that could not easily be escaped, and it had been Shan who had put her foot down about not returning. It was closer to the dream, she had argued, two mutants living in a human neighborhood in harmony with their neighbors. Although no one in the neighborhood knew the two women were mutants. All the neighbors knew was that the couple that had moved into the small house on Fleance Street were that they were deeply in love and took good care of the Vietnamese woman’s younger siblings.
Inside the small house, there was a fire burning. Shan had always wanted a fireplace and Kitty hadn’t been one to deny her. The two women sat on the couch, Shan currently sprawled out and half asleep, her head in Kitty’s lap. Kitty held a book in one hand and absent mindedly stroked Shan’s hair with the other. Shan’s younger siblings were upstairs, sleeping. No threats of Santa were needed; Shan had worn them out earlier today by taking them on a scavenger hunt in the snow. Of course, Kitty had placed the items, phasing through the snow banks to make sure that her footprints could not be followed by the seekers on their quest. Chanukah had already come and gone, and so had the presents. Shan hadn’t been particularly religious, and she doubted if she ever would be. She had undergone far too much to have faith in a God. However, she did not want to deny her siblings the joy of the holidays. So, it was to Kitty’s traditions that the couple kept. The question of a bar and bat mitzvah for the twins had come up, but so far it hadn’t been discussed much.
“Kitty?” Shan asked, shifting her body so her face was now turned towards the ceiling.
“Yeah?” Kitty said not really ever taking her eyes off of her book, fingers now gently rubbing against Shan’s cheeks.
“Do you regret this?” Shan asked simply. It is the first time that either of them had even attempted to approach this topic with a ten-foot stick.
“Regret what?”
“Living here, as a civilian, with me? You were much more into the hero life than I was, and you were good at it. Do you regret this, being an aide to the mayor and having a partner who’s a librarian with two younger siblings that she has to look after?”
“There are certainly sometimes when I wake up and I wonder why there isn’t some form of alarm going off or why there isn’t an explosion, but no Shan, I don’t regret a second of this. I could have gone back after the whole Yuriko incident, but I don’t think I’d be as fulfilled. I know Piotr came back, but that is one less piece of drama I needed.”
There was a possessive snarl from the couch as Shan shifted her position slightly to loop her arm around Kitty’s body. Kitty put her book down and smiled gently.
“Trust me Shan, even my fantasies of Piotr could never live up to what we have, and that’s not including what you make me feel in the bedroom. If we factored that in, he would stand less of a chance than he currently does, and that’s a snowball’s chance in Hell,” Kitty said, her smirk growing slightly more wicked.
“Sorry about that,” Shan apologized, but her smirk told Kitty that Shan didn’t mean it. Kitty wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Trust me, that was puppy love, this, this is real,” Kitty said, lifting Shan up off of her lap and laying a soft kiss on her mouth.
Outside, the snow began to fall gently adding a layer of powder to the already white world. Neither of the two women noticed it however, they were safe, warm, and most importantly, together.
The house was small and mildly furnished. It was in a good school district though; Shan had made damn sure of that. That was why the house was so small; the property values in this specific Chicago suburb were really high. The question of asking their former teammates for help never really occurred to either of them. They both wanted to move away from that life. It was a web that could not easily be escaped, and it had been Shan who had put her foot down about not returning. It was closer to the dream, she had argued, two mutants living in a human neighborhood in harmony with their neighbors. Although no one in the neighborhood knew the two women were mutants. All the neighbors knew was that the couple that had moved into the small house on Fleance Street were that they were deeply in love and took good care of the Vietnamese woman’s younger siblings.
Inside the small house, there was a fire burning. Shan had always wanted a fireplace and Kitty hadn’t been one to deny her. The two women sat on the couch, Shan currently sprawled out and half asleep, her head in Kitty’s lap. Kitty held a book in one hand and absent mindedly stroked Shan’s hair with the other. Shan’s younger siblings were upstairs, sleeping. No threats of Santa were needed; Shan had worn them out earlier today by taking them on a scavenger hunt in the snow. Of course, Kitty had placed the items, phasing through the snow banks to make sure that her footprints could not be followed by the seekers on their quest. Chanukah had already come and gone, and so had the presents. Shan hadn’t been particularly religious, and she doubted if she ever would be. She had undergone far too much to have faith in a God. However, she did not want to deny her siblings the joy of the holidays. So, it was to Kitty’s traditions that the couple kept. The question of a bar and bat mitzvah for the twins had come up, but so far it hadn’t been discussed much.
“Kitty?” Shan asked, shifting her body so her face was now turned towards the ceiling.
“Yeah?” Kitty said not really ever taking her eyes off of her book, fingers now gently rubbing against Shan’s cheeks.
“Do you regret this?” Shan asked simply. It is the first time that either of them had even attempted to approach this topic with a ten-foot stick.
“Regret what?”
“Living here, as a civilian, with me? You were much more into the hero life than I was, and you were good at it. Do you regret this, being an aide to the mayor and having a partner who’s a librarian with two younger siblings that she has to look after?”
“There are certainly sometimes when I wake up and I wonder why there isn’t some form of alarm going off or why there isn’t an explosion, but no Shan, I don’t regret a second of this. I could have gone back after the whole Yuriko incident, but I don’t think I’d be as fulfilled. I know Piotr came back, but that is one less piece of drama I needed.”
There was a possessive snarl from the couch as Shan shifted her position slightly to loop her arm around Kitty’s body. Kitty put her book down and smiled gently.
“Trust me Shan, even my fantasies of Piotr could never live up to what we have, and that’s not including what you make me feel in the bedroom. If we factored that in, he would stand less of a chance than he currently does, and that’s a snowball’s chance in Hell,” Kitty said, her smirk growing slightly more wicked.
“Sorry about that,” Shan apologized, but her smirk told Kitty that Shan didn’t mean it. Kitty wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Trust me, that was puppy love, this, this is real,” Kitty said, lifting Shan up off of her lap and laying a soft kiss on her mouth.
Outside, the snow began to fall gently adding a layer of powder to the already white world. Neither of the two women noticed it however, they were safe, warm, and most importantly, together.