A/N: I always get annoyed when people put translations, etc. down at the bottom, because by the time I get to the bottom I've forgotten what they were translations of. So maybe this is going to achieve the same effect, but whatever, it's my story so I make the rules.

Translations:

fou - crazy

d'accord - okay

garcon, tu n'as pas une cervelle - boy, you don't have a brain

belle soeur - beautiful sister

mon ami - my friend

bail her up - corner her (Australian slang)

xxxxxxx

"You ain't gonna believe this, mate, but-"

"Shut up, fou, I'm watchin' this!" Pyro leaned forward on the couch and elbowed Remy Lebeau in the upper arm, finally catching the taller man's attention. Remy rolled his eyes towards the redhead and cleared his throat. "What." Pyro ignored the irritation that rolled off the Cajun in waves, and flung a hand out for emphasis.

"I just had the weirdest day, Rem; give a bloke some sympathy here!" Remy ran a hand through his already-disheveled, just-a-little-too-long hair, and mentally kissed that night's rerun of The Sopranos goodbye.

"D'accord, Johnny. Remy is your very own soundin' board." John, either completely missing or completely ignoring the sarcasm, cleared his throat.

"Ok, great. So here's what happened. You know that Wanda girl? Pietro's sister?" Remy nodded lazily, fingertips flicking against the pack of cigarettes in his lap. "She's been followin' me around. I told you 'bout that, right?"

"And then I told you it was nothin' more than your special brand o' paranoid psychosis." Pyro smirked, shook his head.

"See, I was all inclined to believe you, mate, you bein' the cunning sort and all, but then she was in the park today and come on, Remy-boy, how is that a coincidence?" Now Remy sat back, a bit surprised.

"Wanda Maximoff was in the park? Just havin' a stroll?" He laughed. "All right, Johnny, you might be onto somethin'." Pyro nodded energetically.

"That's what I'm saying! Right, so I snuck 'round behind her so's to bail her up, since, whew, she may be a pretty lady but she sure can do some damage. And what does she do?" He paused, as if actually expecting Remy to supply the answer. Lebeau smiled sardonically, raising his brows in exaggerated curiosity. "She blushes! Fires right up! And so I goad her a bit-"

"You 'goad her'? Garcon, tu n'as pas une cervelle. You know she could take you apart like a Lego castle?" Pyro shrugged.

"Sure she could. But she didn't. Just hit me with one o' them lovely blue shocks." He patted the burned spot on his chest. "Didn't say a word, either, just stood there all red-faced. Went beautifully with her shirt," he finished, grinning. Then, thoughtfully, "Besides. That sheila was shocked enough I could have melted her pants off before she noticed." This thought brought a smirk to his lips, and to Remy's. The Cajun shook his head, chuckling, and patted the Australian on the shoulder.

"Well, well," he said, the TV in the background forgotten. "It does appear that Speedy's belle soeur has a weakness after all. And jus' what are you going to do about it, mon ami?" At this, Pyro's grin turned evil.

"Oh, me? Nothin' much, my dear Remy, nothin' much at all."

"You're going to stalk her back, aren't you."

"Always could read me like a book," John conceded cheerily, and sat back, crossing his arms behind his head. "Now, how about them Sopranos?"

xxxxxxxxx

Wanda might not have noticed it. She might have just carried on, oblivious.

If she were blind, that was.

He wasn't even being subtle about it! He was just blatantly popping up places, places where he had no right to be!

It was a week since their confrontation in the park, and Wanda had now spotted John in twelve different hardly-covert locations, from the aisle parallel to hers in the grocery store to the tree beneath which she had paused to lace up her left boot a little tighter on the way to meet Lance and Freddy. And every time, every time, he had vanished just as quickly as he'd appeared. So that was a whole new reason for her fury: not only was he stalking her right back, he was… well, damn it, he was better at it than she was.

Not that she'd been stalking him, really. Just… Well.

She wasn't doing it anymore, was the important thing. Wanda snorted at that thought, brows furrowing dangerously. As if she needed to. He had that covered, didn't he?

Now that Pyro was playing her game, the game she hadn't even meant to begin, and playing it like a master, Wanda found that her (not attraction, not attraction, not attraction!) minor obsession with him had turned decidedly more violent. He made her feel off her guard, and embarrassed, and dizzy, and-

Wait.

Dizzy?

"He does not make me dizzy," Wanda muttered to herself, picking up one of the cute little ceramic creatures Toad had taken to giving her at random intervals and joggling it in her palm. "Unless it's dizzy with rage," she amended, to make herself feel better. It didn't work. She hurled the figurine at her bedroom wall, and watched it shatter against the plaster and drywall with a very satisfying smash.

If she'd been pleased at hearing that he didn't mind her following him about (that, in fact, there was no one else he'd rather have following him about, not that that made any difference at all to anything), that brief flash of pleasure was gone. Zip. Out the window. Now, Wanda was mainly just pissed off.

Which had to explain the dreams. When you're furious with someone, you think about them a lot. And when you think about them a lot, they show up in your dreams. It's a scientifically proven fact. She knew this. It made sense. Obviously. And besides, it wasn't as if they were particularly raunchy dreams at all! Hardly. Just, well, and anyway, she couldn't remember them very well in the morning, so what did it matter?

A knock at the door made Wanda jerk around, eyes flashing.

"Who is it?" She'd gotten better at controlling her temper, much better, but Wanda was more on edge these days than she'd been since first getting out. Pietro, hearing the sharpness in her voice, very cautiously opened her door a crack and poked his head around it.

"It's me," he said unnecessarily. She stared at him, blank-faced. "Freddy went and got pizza and we were wondering if you wanted any." A millisecond's worth of pause, which for Pietro meant he was deeply, seriously considering whatever he was about to say. "And Lance got beer." Wanda swung her legs off her desk and stood, brushing off her thighs. The apprehension in her brother's eyes was gratifying, and she felt her anger drop a smidge. Enough for a slight smile, anyway, since really, he hadn't done anything wrong. Yet.

"And you think getting me drunk would be… a good plan?" Pietro, now picking up on the noticeably-less-infuriated tone of her voice, pushed the door open wider and shrugged.

"I'm hoping you'll be one of the pass-out-after-one-can drunks, you know?" Wanda shook her head and brushed past him, letting her twin pull her door closed behind him as he followed her downstairs.

xxxxxxxxxx

As it turned out, Wanda Maximoff wasn't a passing-out type of girl. No, she was one of the start-rambling-aimlessly-about-any-topic drunks, and it only took two beers to get her to the point of sitting next to Toad, of all people, flinging her hands about for emphasis and complaining about the stupidity of 99% of licensed drivers. Toad, wisely sober enough to dodge the occasional accidental hex bolt that flew from Wanda's inebriated fingertips, was all too pleased to listen. Across the room, Pietro and Lance were locked in a staring contest that was far more epic in their own heads than in real life while Freddy swayed gently to the sound of his own voice, crooning old Beatles ballads in front of the TV.

"And then they-" A hiccup. "They think, and this is the wors' thing of all, but they think they can jus' drive right behind you like it's some sort of… of bumper cars game, the fuckers!" She wasn't sure if she was making sense, but Toad was nodding enthusiastically so she figured it must be coming out all right. Then again, Toad would nod enthusiastically about anything she said, so there was that… Wanda wrinkled her nose, deciding it didn't really matter if she made sense or not. "Because," she said aloud, "no one in this house makes any sense anyway."

"Nope," Toad agreed, inching closer on the couch, "we're totally cr- uh, non-sense-making," he corrected, having come dangerously close to using the word which Wanda had expressly forbidden weeks ago. The C-word. Crazy. Wanda didn't notice, and laughed.

"Yeah. You know what's really non… non-sense-making?" She paused, trying to clear her vision and her head enough to continue that sentence, and frowned at the double image of Toad's hand creeping towards her knee. She slapped at it, unintentionally sending a jolt of static electricity magnified by her powers into the younger boy's wrist that was strong enough to make him snatch his hand away with a loud yelp. Unbothered by the exchange, Wanda went on. "What's really non-sense-making is that Pyro won't leave-" She hiccupped again, put a hand to her throat, blinked wildly for a moment. "-won't leave me alone, and I don' even mind." She laughed again, and waved her hand in the air between her face and Toad's. If she'd been actually looking at the other mutant, she might have seen the sudden change in his expression, the darkening of the eyes and the suspicious downturn of the mouth. "Seriously," Wanda said, suddenly feeling as though he hadn't believed her. "I'm not joking, Toad."

"He bothering you, sweetcakes?" Toad asked, choosing to ignore the part where she claimed not to care. Because that would be ridiculous, and stupid, and- and- and completely unfair! But Wanda swung around and put a hand on his shoulder, which on the one hand was the closest she'd ever gotten to willingly touching him without some ulterior motive involving a whole lot of pain, but on the other hand didn't make him feel any better about what she'd said about the Acolyte. She stared at him, pupils dilating, breath smelling of alcohol and pepperoni (which was the sweetest smell in the world to Toad, at the moment), and shook her head.

"I don' like him, or anything," she said in a low voice, as if needing him to confirm it. Toad nodded hesitantly. "It's not like I… like I want him…. Around," she added, blushing without realizing it.

"Right," Toad said nervously, with a helpless, humorless giggle. "You don't. He's nasty and mean and set me on fire that one time." Wrong thing to say. Wanda smiled, eyes going dreamy.

"Yeah… That was funny."

"Yo, that was awful," Toad corrected, and Wanda shrugged.

"Anyway. Pyro," she said, drawing out the syllables and sitting back against the sofa, removing her hand from Toad's shoulder. "Hm." Toad, feeling sick, scooted closer.

"But, babykins-"

"Shut up," Wanda told him, and closed her eyes. When Toad tried to grab her arm, she shook him off and, unsurprisingly, he soared across the room and into Freddy's stomach. Pietro, sweating with the effort of keeping still and wide-eyed for such an agonizingly long time, glanced automatically up at Toad at the moment of impact, and Lance let out a triumphant hoot. He slapped the coffee table they were leaning over, and a fine crack ran through the glass.

"Beat you, Speedy-weedy!"

"Shut your face," Pietro said sullenly, and then promptly passed out.