Title: Simple Tensions

Part: 1/?

Author: Naisumi

Rating: PG-13~R(in later chapters)

Disclaimer: You've _got_ to be kidding...^.~

Archive: If you want, but could you tell me at least?

Warnings: Language


Notes: Wow, I'm on a roll tonight! Keep in mind, this was written at 4 in the morning with no sleep whatsoever and no caffeinated beverages after the initial wiredness of a coffee-flavored candy cane wore off. This is NOT betaread, this is in the FIRST PERSON point of view, and... n.n lots of Brotherhood.


Enjoy, and please give me C&C!!!


"blah." People speak

-- uh...scene switch



--

This is my story. You don't have to necessarily listen--you don't even have to pretend to listen. However, this is my story, and even if you don't care about it, it's still going to exist. I am going to exist. And there's little you can do about it.

It sounds kind of odd to say that, and it's a bit strange to even think that, but it's true, isn't it? If we don't like something, we leave it alone; we ignore it and try to go far away from it. But we never really try to do much about it, do we? And we never try to stop things from happening, do we? This life holds too many uncertainties. Most of these uncertainties can be ignored.

So, you can ignore me. Go ahead. But I'm still going to be here, and I'm still going to tell my story. I'm still going to tell my story--and out there, somewhere, someone is going to listen.




I pretend an awful lot, but then again, who doesn't? Sometimes we joke--my friends and I--that if all else fails, we should up and leave this lazy old town and join the freakin' circus. We're just teasing, really; it's just a gag, a prank we play on ourselves. But then again, we get kind of defensive sometimes, like all people do. Like, for instance, I remember this kid in my neighborhood that was German. His parents used to hold these late-night kaffee-klatsches where they'd get together with a bunch of friends and drink coffee or beer or vodka. They used to joke--the parents and their company--that back in Germany, everyone was a drunk and that beer flowed from the tap like water. And that was fine...joking around, calling each other deadbeat drunks. But if someone else--someone not German--was to call them the same thing, they'd be all over them and in their face and whatnot.

It's the same thing with every culture, really. I'm not trying to be racist or prejudiced; just making an observation. (A/N: And it is true, by the way. I'm Chinese so I've experienced it, and my friend who is from Germany has parents who actually do joke around with their friends about being drunks ^.~ Just so you know.)

Well, we're the same way. We're the same thing. We're family, you know? It doesn't matter if there's an argument going on; if some guy walked up to one of us and called us scum, the other three'd kick his ass. I feel safer that way, really. Plus, I get a lot of satisfaction knowing the other guy's wishing that he never said anything disrespectful, too.

Sometimes I wonder about us. About life. I mean, this town? This town ain't ever going anywhere. This town isn't even going with the times. A freakin' nuclear bomb could drop in Russia, and two weeks after, all these poor saps over here'd be wondering, 'What happened now? A bomb, you say? When'd that happen?'

It's all for the better, though. It makes the world seem less real; the hate less painful.




I was the first one here. I mean, it all fell into place later, but I was the first one physically here. Then Lance came, and Pietro, and Freddy. Rogue was here for a while, but that made no impact. She was never really with us anyway--not mentally or emotionally.

It all made sense after a while. It all even played out like a bad movie, filled with plenty of irritated tantrums and a few good earthquakes every now and then. Anyhow, it all made sense to me.

Lance is the oldest of us. The moody, badass senior who's got nothin' to lose and everything to gain. Right. Whatever. I swear he's a mother hen deep down inside; it just got buried under a landslide of major crap. That doesn't really matter, though, because three months into the Brotherhood (of Evil Mutants--don't let them convince you otherwise) actually getting formed, the Mother Hen in him burst out of the wreckage, clucking and cawing with a vengeance. Well, maybe it was after three months. Takes some time for a guy on the street to actually start giving a damn, if you know what I mean.

I'm not sure what to think of Lance. I don't think any of us do. I mean, we know almost nothing about his past, yet the minute he says 'Believe me,' we do. Maybe it's because he always looks like he's taking you seriously when it matters. Maybe it's because he acts like he's just one of the guys when he actually ends up cranking out some philosophical stuff disguised as street lingo. Maybe it's because we know he cares even though he doesn't act like it. Either way, I'd take Lance Alvers with his crazy streak and secretively hen-like impulses than any Scott 'I have a filing system in the trunk of my car' Summers any day.

All I have to say is: Cock-a-fuckin'-doodle-doo. (Seeing as Lance would probably kill me if I ever made a chicken sound in relation to him.)

Then there's Pietro. Oh, you know I have to do this. Pietro's absurd, quirky, disturbingly hyper, irritatingly smug, (I'm getting the thesaurus out at this point), upsettingly arrogant, and decidedly queer (Yes, I mean it literally, and yes, I mean it the other way, too). Pietro...is something else. Plus, Lance discovered the other day amidst many a chuckle and in wandering about a new supermarket, lost, that if we shorten his last name to the first two syllables, he could be the proud instrument that aids woman in her battle against messy menstrual cycles. We wasted lots of cheap cotton from inside old pillows over that one.

See, Pietro's got this weird puckish way about him (yes, I just used the word 'puckish.' Have you ever actually cracked Webster open before? Interesting words are in here. What the hell is a 'puccoon?' It sounds the sound a dying platypus might make.) that makes you want to either strangle him or start laughing helplessly. If you're not careful, he'll kick your ass later on for laughing. In fact, he's kind of like a penguin. Strutting around like he's wearing a tuxedo when he's actually a fat little bird that can't fly. Not that Pietro is fat or anything; he's anything but (Once, he told me that he had a 'girlish' figure--which made Lance laugh at him and accuse him of eating nothing but rabbit food again). So it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the analogy, since the guy can run really, really fast. It comes with the whole 'genetically mutated and screwed over for life' territory.

I could probably go on about Pietro for a while, seeing as he's got the weirdest little quirks (There was this odd little phase where he said 'whoosh' every time he opened the refrigerator door, but I have selective pondering as to keep myself sane. There's only so much a guy can take, you know. Plus, none of us really understood what that was about, though I got pelted with many carrots when I asked him if he'd gotten the fridge mixed up with the car door again. Heh. It was worth it.). However, I can't forget Freddy.

Ah, good ol' Freddy. Sometimes, he's all a guy needs, you know? I mean, with the crazy fruitiness that is Pietro and the quintessence (yes, Mr. Webster's sitting right next to me right now) of enigma that embodies Lance, it's nice to converse with someone who understands what you're talking about (and doesn't go off on weird tangents about hummingbirds. I swear...I'm scarred for life.). Or at least tries to.

Freddy's fine. He ain't the smartest, he ain't the best-looking, and he ain't the nicest or meanest or anything like that. He's just Freddy. I don't think I even know his last name. We just call him...Freddy. He's a pretty cool guy.

Did you know that he sculpts? Big, tall, hefty guy with the bright yellow mohawk? He has this thing for clay. I mean, he just loves working with it. It's amazing what he does with it, too--I mean, his hands are so...big, you'd never think that he was capable of molding that soft gray stuff into delicate little models. He made me a frog once, one that was sitting on a rock. I still have it in my room; I use it as a bookend even though I only have three books. As a joke, he made me another one, which was almost the same except for a little crown that was tilted jauntily to one side and its lips puckered for a kiss. He's like the big brother I never had, and he's the confession booth that I go to so I can talk about stuff, stuff that I need to be kept a secret, not solved or anything. If I want to solve anything, I'll go to Lance. But meanwhile, I'm better than okay with just talking to good ol' Freddy.

Actually, I lied. I have more than three books. I have tons. Lots and lots and lots. I even have 'A Tale of Two Cities.' Once, I was rereading it and Pietro came in (without knocking, the asshole). He recited Dr. Seuss to me for the better part of four hours, whereupon I finally gave up trying to tune him out with Metallica and yelled for Lance to help. After the Sugar-Crazed Fairy was banished, I finally got to settle down and finish the book. Again.

Okay, I admit that I'm a booknut. I love books. And that sounds unbelievably dorky--believe me, I know. I had to tell Lance once. Well, I didn't tell him. It was more like him holding up a copy of Charles Dickens and arching an eyebrow, looking for all the world like a good cop gone bad. Or like those guys from the old detective movies where the man in the trench coat knows what's going on but is waiting for a big long speech to clue the audience in on what he so expertly knows. I never really said anything, but I remember feeling a helluva lot more embarrassed than I've felt in a while when I scuffed my toe on the carpet and grabbed the book. I think I mumbled a 'thanks,' but please inform my brain if I did because I couldn't hear over all the blood deciding to pool in my skull. By all natural laws of anatomy, I should be dead by now.

But he understood. Well, maybe he doesn't understand all of it, but he just kind of tousled my hair, told me to not get myself fucked up and left. I wonder about what he meant by that sometimes. Most of the time, though, I just thank whatever Powers there are in this world that Lance Alvers didn't demand an explanation. Moreover, I thank whatever Powers there are in this universe that it wasn't Pietro who found one of my books. From then on, I kept all my lovely, paperback books in an old trunk I found behind the school in a dumpster. The bottom was falling out, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with duct tape. Ah...duct tape. I love duct tape. Duct tape is my friend.

Of course, Pietro doesn't very well like duct tape.

Then again, Pietro had his head duct taped to the coffee table when Lance was pissed once. Never mind that the speed demon had been asleep and Lance had been awake and scheming. Never mind that Lance had been rightfully pissed when he found out that Pietro had stolen his mattress to go sledding in the park (in July, no less. Lots of grass was torn up that day. I think that the ducks enjoyed pecking at the nice cheap cotton crap inside the mattress, though.).

Hell hath no freakish wrath like a Pietro scorned.

Sometimes I think we can all agree that he was a woman in all his past lives. Of course, I think we'd all be damned if we ever told him. He'd stalk us and make our lives miserable. Or a whole lot more interesting. Either way, it'd make the recitation of Dr. Seuss mangled with insertions from the Kama Sutra seem a whole lot less headache-inspiring. Can you believe that I've actually gotten that twice from him? What kind of guy does that?! It's inhuman! My innocence was corrupted that day.

Actually, I think my innocence was corrupted when I saw Duncan Matthews in the back of a pick-up with an indecently dressed hooker.

Ughhh.

I still spend nights filled with indigestion trying to get over that one.

Even though Pietro was pretty pissed off and our house ended up in extreme disarray, we somehow found ourselves flopped on the back porch (though Pietro claimed the steps and wouldn't let anyone else sit. Who knew that such a wiry guy could take up so much space if he wanted to? He's like a freakin' slinky!) and staring up at the sky. Of course, Lance knew all the constellations. And of course Pietro knew all of the ones that he couldn't remember.

It's interesting like that, really. I mean, we really complete each other as a group. Pietro talks too much and Freddy doesn't talk at all. Lance went a little crazy trying to cover all the bases and answer all the questions while I just...well, I shut up. According to Pietro, anyway. He says that I never talk when I'm supposed to except to make wise-ass cracks about random things. It pisses him off sometimes, but just in an irritated buddy-buddy way. I think it almost makes him respect me, too...not that he doesn't respect me for my own.

But in any case, it's interesting how that works. Sometimes life's just full of surprises.

And, of course, there's the even more interesting story of how everything just went to hell...

~tbc~