Do not own Xmen in any way, shape, or form. This is just a sort of random fluffy oneshot that I wrote long enough ago, thought I'd share.
Leaves
Leaves
Some things you see with your eyes, others your heart.
Autumn had arrived in full swing at Charles Xavier's institute for Gifted Youngsters. The leaves had turned lovely shades of golds, reds, and oranges before the trees had begun to hibernate. Slowly, but surely the leaves had turned brown and then they all began to fall from their perches on the trees to rest upon the ground, littered about haphazardly. The normally pristine grounds were covered in them. Even the garden had the brown, crinkly, dead things littered about. Though, it could still seem the picture of peace and many more things. It was beautiful in its own way. A perfect picture for a tortured artist, or something like that. The grounds were lovely, even though they were covered in the brown, dead leaves. The school's beauty could never be fathomed and no one could ever be able to pinpoint why the grounds could hold so much to them. Only one figured seemed to mar the beauty of the scene, though whether he was marring it or not was up to the eye of the viewer.
A certain pyromaniac found himself outside with a rake, though not of his own choice, this was his punishment. Detention did him no good, so he had been told he had to rake up the leaves. It sounds lame, right? Well, John wasn't sure what else anyone could do. Everything else had been tried for him. He had been there for some time and nothing was working yet, so they were trying new things. Though, if they left John out here too long he'd be incredibly tempted to burn all of the leaves. Not that burning them would really make it look better or get rid of them, but it would relieve John's frustrations. He knew that would only get him into more trouble, though. He was stuck out here because of how he had been acting and using his powers. He was being punished.
Thoughts did seem to swirl in his head, though. He couldn't control them. He was thinking as his body moved naturally. He didn't want to think, but it seemed that it was automatically happening. He couldn't control it, almost like his fires. He could control them now, but he hadn't been able to when he was younger. HE didn't like to control them. He yearned to leave his fires flowing freely, so they could be wild, unlike him. He should have been untamable like the fire itself. Fire was passionate and John had so much in common with the element that he could control. He wished that he had other options, but he knew Xavier's was the right place for him at the moment. Though, he could still rebel and everything. He was a teenager!
A breeze of air bustled pass John and rattled the leaves, though he noticed that he had made quite the large pile and that the garden was pretty much clear of everything now. He had done all of that while he had been thinking. Wow! Thoughts seemed to overtake John again.
He remembered so much, but he didn't want to remember anything. The thoughts of childhood played over and over in his mind. He could remember a dog, a golden retriever, playing outside in the leaves with him. Jumping in piles of the dead, brown leaves had been fun as a child, but John's heart felt cold in his chest. He wasn't a child anymore and he wasn't the same person he had once been.
When John had found out about his mutation things had gone completely down. He didn't have a home anymore because of it, and he had lost the only other soul that had really cared about him, without really wanting much in return. Poor Max, who was the dog's name, had been left with John's so-called parents. He hated that idea and it just irked at the back of his mind. He felt himself seething at that moment.
He missed that dog and he had truly loved the dog. It had been the one thing that he missed completely about his home in Australia. He missed the dog that had loved him so much, the dog that he had walked, played with, and been best friends with for so long. He hated his parents completely, and he knew that they wouldn't keep the loving dog. The only reason they had let him keep it was because he actually cared for the dog. John could only guess where they had sent that dog when John was gone.
Gone? John wasn't gone, but he wasn't at the place that he had once considered home. He was now at Xavier's school. How had he gone so far? He had gone from being homeless, since his parents certainly weren't going to have a son that was one of those mutant freaks, to having a great home and becoming educated. How had it happened?
Wasn't it funny how just raking the leaves could bring all of these thoughts on?
John heard a rustling of something and turned easily holding the rake steady. A smirk appeared on his face, though only moments ago he had been in deep thought. He was smirking at none other than Miss Kitty Pryde, who actually looked different. John saw her in a different light or something. She didn't seem to be the completely dorky, over bubbly nerd at that moment. She was quiet and seemed so calm. Her face was set in a frown and she looked upset. John's first thoughts were to leave her alone and that's what he wanted to do, but for some reason he had this nagging in the back of his mind. He didn't know much about her, but he couldn't help her could he? John was the resident bad boy and he couldn't do anything to help. With those thoughts, John got back to work, though he didn't want to do the work at all.
Kitty hadn't even noticed John at all. She was deep in thought. Yes, Kitty was always thinking, but at the moment she wasn't being scholarly as she might be any other time. She was upset because of something trivial and she didn't really get it. Why was she so upset? It shouldn't have affected her at all. She should have just brushed it off. Why did she feel so incredibly sad that Piotr had laughed at her? Hell, Kitty was so much better off than many others, but she was upset. It didn't make sense. She should have been just fine. She had only had a crush on him. Why did it feel so bad to her? She couldn't explain it. She didn't want to think about it! It was horrible in her mind. She hadn't gone through many things. She had always been sheltered. She felt that she was being completely trivial and it was true. If John had heard her sob story he would have told her to suck it up and be a man, though, Kitty was far from a man.
It was a crush. Crushes were easy to get over, right? Kitty's mind traveled over reasons that she shouldn't like Piotr and she actually came up with very few. She wasn't sure at all, but she knew being so upset about trivial things wasn't going to get her anywhere. She found that the leaves were calming, though they reminded her that the trees were either sleeping or dead for the winter, depending upon whom you ask. With each step out onto the courtyard, Kitty felt her anger and confusion wash away. Out here she didn't know why she could think and remain calm, but she was able to do so. Though, as Kitty looked around, she hadn't noticed that she was walking the same path she had when she had first come to the school.
John had noticed. He was in a similar position to when they had first met. He had been heading somewhere with Bobby and some other student, who John couldn't remember at all, had been showing Kitty around. She had seemed so small and almost like a child. John and Bobby had thought she was younger than she was. He could still remember when she had been introduced and he had just sneered at her name. What sort of name was Kitty, anyway? He remembered so much at the moment. It wasn't a bad thing, but he couldn't understand the thoughts that were rushing through him. He wanted to talk to Kitty, and she was thinking the same thing when she had seen him, though, they both resigned themselves to go along their way.
Maybe it was the leaves that had sparked such things, but even the things that had moved them to think or feel in a certain way at the moment couldn't be enough to actually have either of them approach the other. They both continued what they had been doing. Kitty walked around quietly, deep in thought, and John seethed and allowed his mind to go into overtime while sneaking peeks at her from afar.