English is also not my mother tongue, so when or if you review, please don't hesitate to prod me with the sharp end of the grammar stick. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
Warnings: X3 spoilers, language, possible violence. Possible fluff. Possible angst. Okay, what the hell, you might see a trained monkey wearing a fez. I'm leaving all doors open.
Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men. Not the comics, nor the movies or the TV-series. If I did, Pyro would have his own gig. Moody theme song and all.
I do, however, own my characters Eden, Gabriel, Mary (and her husband David) McKenna. So there.
Short start. Chapters get longer.
June 29, 1993 – Sydney, Australia
They hadn't even been in the new house for a day and already he could hear them arguing over the kitchen sink. Digging his hands around in the cardboard box that had been labelled 'John's toys', he didn't bother paying any attention to what the brouhaha was about this time around. Finding one of his dented Hot Wheels and a Lego soldier with half his printed face scratched off, he got off the living room floor and trudged out through the open front door.
"I asked you about this months ago and you said you had it covered!"
"I've been busy!"
"Yeah, busy screwing Marcia---"
"Oh shut the bloody hell up already! Marcia has got nothing to do with this!"
John didn't know who Marcia was. Sometimes, he wasn't even sure if his mom knew who Marcia was. His dad had once said that Marcia didn't even exist, so maybe his mom was just making things up. Why she'd do that, he didn't know. Because all the Marcia-talk seemed to do was to cause even more fights. And he definitely didn't see why anyone would want any more of that.
But as he stood there, in their naked front yard, he couldn't care less about the muffled shouting coming from inside their new house. Looking down the street, he noticed how all the other houses were a lot nicer than theirs. They had new paint on the walls, trimmed hedges and shiny cars parked in their garages.
John's new house didn't have a garage. John's family barely even had a car.
Pulling the Lego soldier's head off with his teeth to fit the little yellow man inside the Hot Wheel car, John walked out through the hole in the worn-down fence where a gate used to hang, and flopped himself down on the warm sidewalk.
"Hello!"
John looked up from dragging his toy car along a crack in the concrete. In front of him stood a boy with a clean white t-shirt, a pair of green shorts and a pair of scabs on each of his knees. The boy was looking down at him with a curious smile.
"Hi," John replied, pushing his mop of brown hair out of his eyes as he squinted against the Australian sun that shone directly above the other boy's head, making his dark auburn hair look like it was on fire.
"You just moved in?" the other boy asked.
John glanced to his right, at their new house with the pale green paint chipping off the façade.
"Yeah," he answered, feeling a little awkward since he was still sitting down.
"I'm Gabriel," the boy said, putting a thumb to his chest, "And that's my sister Eden." He pointed behind him, to a girl their age that John hadn't noticed. Her hair was the same dark auburn colour as her brother's. It was longer though, and she wore it in two neat pigtails on either side of her head.
"We live right there," Gabriel added, pointing to the house right next to John's. He blandly noted that is was nicer than theirs.
"Okay," John said, simply because he couldn't think of anything better.
"So what's your name?" Gabriel asked, since he apparently found John interesting even though he didn't say that much.
"St John…Allerdyce." John added his last name, just to have said something more.
"So people call you Saint?" Gabriel wondered.
"No." John almost sounded offended. "Just John."
"People call us Gabby and Eddie. Our mom says it's funny because it makes me sound like a girl and my sister like a boy. But we don't mind."
John leaned to the side to look at Eden who was drawing a big yellow sun on the sidewalk with an oversized bit of chalk. She looked up to meet his eyes with a glare.
"What's wrong with her?" John asked, looking back at Gabriel.
The other boy shrugged, pulling out a toy car from his pocket before sitting down with him.
"Nothing. She just doesn't like boys. They have cooties."
"But you're a boy," John pointed out.
"I know. But I'm her brother, I don't count."
John looked past Gabriel again. Eden, or 'Eddie', was adding what looked like a shark right next to her sun. Even if Gabriel said that there was nothing wrong with her, she sure seemed odd enough to John.