Title: Mirage
Fandom: X-men
Genre: Angst, Angst, Angst, but with light at the end of the tunnel… :)
Rating: PG-13/R
Summary: Because Pete is so good at angst. But I thought he deserved a small break.
He knew that it had been too good to be true. He knew that she was going to leave. Even as she vehemently denied it over coffee the next morning, he knew it was all too perfect to last.
When Summers' phone call had come in yesterday, and she had answered, he knew it was over. His desperate pleas that the team couldn't tackle its latest disaster without her had worked at her bleeding heart. The bleeding heart he had used to adore had completely annihilated any ability he had to hold on to her.
Within two hours, she was showered, packed and on her way to the airport in one of Jacqueline's private cars. She was officially gone.
He wandered around the place for the rest of the morning doing menial work. Tidying up his desk, making some official calls, shrugging off Tink's concern, but not refusing the consoling drink that she brought him a few moments later.
He killed as much time as he could before he found himself back in his bedroom. He was staring at the bed, trying to remember what she'd looked like underneath the top sheet, the soft linen barely covering her breasts. He knew he could remember. He always could.
He could always remember what it was like to see her, smell her, taste her, or feel her writing beneath him in resplendent ecstasy. After all, he might not look like much, but he was good in bed. Especially with her. Always with her.
He leaned back against the headboard, drink in hand, and just took in the atmosphere of the room. Her presence still seemed to be there. Lingering. Tormenting him. And yet, nothing calmed him more than being able to smell the lasting traces of her light perfume on the coverlet. He'd bought her that perfume. She hadn't even really worn perfume before him.
The towel she'd used for her shower was lying on the floor, and he walked over to pick it up. It smelled like her shampoo. The light scent of citrus combined with the light patchouli of the body wash she'd bought at that apothecary down the street. She always loved buying natural body wash. Pete came to absolutely adore the smells of lavendar and patchouli just the way that she came to appreciate the smell of good scotch and cigarettes.
Speaking of scotch, he refilled his glass from the bottle by the door. Taking a healthy pull, he dared to enter the en suite bathroom. The smells of her shower products were even more intense in here, and he found himself sitting on the edge of the tub breathing like a man addicted.
He wasn't sure when he started crying, only that he was suddenly in need of a Kleenex. He would have been embarrassed, except it wasn't just about Pryde. It was about all of it. Romany, Maureen, Pryde, his mother. It was all shit. Somehow, Pete Wisdom had let his entire life be turned to shit by Scicluna and her army of psychotic sycophants, and at the moment, it was a little more than he could bear.
When his doorchime sounded, he had every intention of letting it ring until the bastard on the other side died of starvation or simply left him alone. Hoewver, he'd been waiting for some files and that could be them at the door, and immersing himself in work was always good for his sense of self-worth. Always atoning.
When he opened the door, prepared to be his usual charming self, but there was not way to do it when his brain actually processed who was standing before him.
"I couldn't go." Her brown eyes were watering and she looked like someone who had clearly been battling themselves almost as intensely as he had. "I knew they need me, but… it doesn't matter."
"Why? Why doesn't it matter, Pryde?" He was not going to fall for it that easy, Universe. Niiice try.
"Because you need me more." She stepped toward him, and he retreated a step. Pete Wisdom, epic fuck-up that he may be, was not anyone's pity date.
"Then fuck it, Pryde. Go back to your Yes-Men. I don't need your sympathy." He turned away and headed back to where he'd sat his drink on the desk.
"Pete…" She was directly behind him now. He couldn't help but turn around. Damn those eyes to hell.
"What, Pryde?"
"Tell me you don't need me, and I'll leave. Just look me in the eyes and tell me that you don't want me to put down my suitcase, take off my clothes, and crawl into your bed, and I'll go. I'll go and never bother you again. It'll kill me, but—"
Moving quicker then he thought possible, he pinned her up against the wall with more strength then he thought he'd had left an hour ago. He kissed her with more passion and desperation than he'd ever kissed anyone. Even her. When he finally pulled back to look at her, she looked dizzy and satisfyingly befuddled. He pressed his forehead to hers and she smiled. God, he was nothing without her.
"No Yes-men?"
"No Yes-men." She shook her head, her hair rubbing against the wall behind her.
"Good." He kissed her again, and then a thought occurred to him. "Pryde?"
"Yes?" She looked surprised to be talking still, but didn't let it disrupt her focus.
"Is this for real?"
She looked as thought he was actually considering it for a moment before she responded.
"As real as it can be for now. I may need to go to New York from time to time, and I can't promise that we'll go skipping off into the sunset or anything. But, I love you, Pete, and I can't see myself willingly walking away from this again. Not this time. Besides, we both know that the sunset was never part of our deal anyway."
He snorted.
"True enough. But what are we—" This time it was his turn to be cut off in another suffocating kiss. When she broke it off, it was his turn to look confused.
"Pete? Stop talking."
He reached down and pinched her forearm lightly. She yelped in an adorable fashion and shoved his chest. "Ow! What was that for?"
"Just checking. Making sure you weren't a mirage."
Those were the last words spoken for a very, very long time. Pete never did get his files.