Disclaimer:
Yeah, Marvel still owns the X-men and I still own Susana. The Essex Street Retail Market is a real
place (yay for tour books at the local library), which I have unfortunately never
visited. Thus, my description is
probably ragingly inaccurate.
Sorry! Also, I'm not too sure
about how good my interpretation of Gambit is- remember, I speak Spanish, not
French.
Notes:
sound
*thought*
} telepathic conversation {
Setting: The same day. Essex Street, NYC, 3:00 PM
Susana stood at the periphery of a vendor's
stall and looked down the row at all the produce offered for sale. "I see...yuca, and nawe, and tautia."
}What, what, and what? I have no idea what you just said. They all look like tree roots to me.{
"Well, they are all roots...but
not from trees. Don't worry, I won't
make you try any of them if you don't want.
You're perfectly safe, mi amante. After all, deseo ser travieso con te toda la noche de largo, and that
won't happen if you're mad at me."
She shot him a significant look, and a woman who overheard her tsk'ed
disapprovingly, which gave Jono some indication of the meaning of her
words.
However, since he knew
he wouldn't be able to convince Susana to tell him what she'd said, he made a
mental note to ask Angelo when they got back to the mansion- provided Ange
wasn't on the roof smoking, moping over some new dramatic turn in his
perpetually on-again, off-again relationship with Jubilee, and dodging
Wolverine's efforts to 'protect' Jubilee. Then Jono remembered that Jubes was gone for
the week, visiting the Massachusetts Academy on a self-prescribed 'mental
health break'. Ange would be around,
he'd get a chance to ask.
Shaking himself from his reverie, Jono
followed Susana down the street to one of the stalls that seemed to
particularly interest her. She asked a
question in rapid Spanish, and listened carefully to the response. When she spoke again, it was accompanied by
an approving nod. The vendor passed her
a bag, which she filled with some of the strange rootlike things and a couple
of what she called plantains. To Jono,
they looked like oversized bananas. He
gave her a dubious look when she turned and grinned at him.
"Trust me. They're good!" When
he continued looking at her skeptically, she rolled her eyes and headed off
down the street, leaving him to follow on his own.
Forty-five minutes later, they had made their
way to the other end of the market.
Susana had amassed a large quantity of -to Jono's way of thinking-
extremely suspect vegetables, as well as three bottles of wine, and a large
canvas bag to contain her purchases. By
this point, she was thoroughly tired of Jono's running commentary on everything
she'd bought. When he looked askance at
the quantity of wine she'd bought, she snapped at him. "I'm takin' it back to the mansion with
me, and I'm gonna share.
Remember sharing? From, like,
nursery school? Or were you absent that
day? I believe they taught it on the
same day as 'trying different things', which would explain your attitude
towards everything I've bought, or even glanced at, today." She glared up at him in annoyance and turned
in a huff to go back to the subway station.
The pressure of his hand on her arm stopped her.
}Susana, luv, I'm sorry. I'm being an intolerable arse...{ He began, intending to apologize and explain
his attitude, but was cut off by Susana's indignant exclamation.
"Damn straight you are!" She ducked into a small, musty botanica on the side of the street opposite the
market. The bag was by this point
nearly too full, and it endangered every religious figurine, mysterious bottle,
or display she passed in her flight to the darkened back of the store. The clerk looked up from her novel, then
resettled herself on the stool behind the register and ignored the two
arrivals. The book, she thought, was
doubtless more interesting than these tourists' dispute could possibly be.
}Susana, stop, please!{ Jono implored her, a sincere plea evident in
his tone.
"Well, I rather have to now, don't
I? I seem to have run out of store to
escape into" she noted sardonically.
"Besides, you're blocking the way out. Now what?"
He stepped towards her and attempted to wrap
an arm around her. She didn't move
away, but neither did she cooperate.
}Susana, I'm sorry. It's
just...{
"What?
It's just what, Jonothan?"
Her voice was flat, bored, and it made Jono's insides- what was left of
them, at least- wrench in an extremely uncomfortable manner.
}I don't understand the Spanish language,
which means I haven't understood anything that was going on for the past hour
or so. It was frustrating me. I'm sorry I took it out on you, really I
am.{ He looked down at her, and was
reassured when she leaned against him.
"What do you say we go back to the
mansion now? We can stop by the
apartment long enough to drop off some of this stuff, and then we can get the
car and go on back." She pushed
around him, nearly sending several figurines to their untimely demises.
*Ok, Starsmore, that isn't quite what
you'd hoped for, but maybe you can make it up to the gel when you're back in
Westchester.* His decision made, he
nodded and followed her back to the subway station.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Same day, about 6:00 PM. Back at the Mansion.
Susana climbed wearily out of the passenger
seat of the Eclipse and went to the trunk to get the now half-empty bag. Leaving Jono to park the car in the garage, she
made her way into the mansion and to the kitchen. After appropriating a shelf in the fridge, she unpacked her bag
and put the wine in the door.
Straightening, she closed the fridge and left the room. After storing the bag in her closet, she
wandered down the hall to the mansion's rec room.
"Evenin', Bobby...Gambit. How ya'll doin' tonight?" she asked
tiredly, fatigue and strain strengthening her accent.
"Chere,
you feelin' ok? Gambit t'ink you not
soundin' so good." Shuffling a
deck of cards absently, he looked at her in concern.
Bobby set aside his comic book and patted an
empty seat on the couch. "Come,
sit. We, your personal therapists, are
here to help."
"Oh dear lord...I should be scared. No freezing my undies, or you're gonna
die. Understood?" At his nod, she gave him a wan smile and
sank to the couch. "Why is ya'll's
gender so annoying?"
"Gambit t'ink he could make a case
against your gender, too, petite."
He held up a hand "But that tells us nothin'. What's wrong, chere?"
He regarded her over the toes of his boots, which were propped up on an
ottoman. "What'd the British homme do now?"
"Where should I start?"
Bobby winced. "That bad, huh? I
thought he was, like, better than the rest of us at not doing stupid
things?"
"Hah.
No, he just does 'em without the audience." She rolled over and buried her face in the
crease between the couch's arm and back.
The next words she spoke were incomprehensibly muffled.
"Susana, petite, these old hommes didn't understand a word of that."
She lifted her head. "I said, I blame male PMS. He's usually a perfectly lovely
man." That said, she dropped her
head right back to where it had been.
Gambit and Bobby exchanged a look over her ponytail.
"Well, I think this calls for a bit of
our good friend Wolverine's preferred coping method." Bobby stood to leave.
"That is not the best way to deal
with this...that said, don't bother. A
beer apiece is not worth the extra body piercing. Go to the kitchen and look in the fridge
door." She rolled over so that the
back of her head was resting on the arm of the couch. Making shooing motions with her foot, she bumped his hip with her
toes. "Go already. I brought back some wine from the
market. Three bottles. Which," she grinned "seems to be
the perfect amount here." *God, I
wish Jubes was here.* Bobby left to get
the wine, and she stared at the ceiling in silence.
Meanwhile, Jono's day hadn't gotten the
slightest bit better. The drive home had
been tense and strained, he'd had to deal with crazed city drivers, and now
that he was back, someone had parked in the Eclipse's designated space. That meant he'd had to find an empty space-
no small feat in the packed garage- and by the time he'd done so, Susana was
nowhere to be found. And now, the
Professor had summoned him to his office, which meant it was going to be a long
time before he could continue his search.
Rubbing his temples in frustration, he walked down the hall to the
office.
Back in the rec room, Susana had wrapped
herself so securely in blankets that it was, Gambit thought, a wonder she could
get an arm loose to hold her bottle of wine.
But get an arm loose, she definitely had, and she was currently drinking
in a manner that would put a fish to shame.
Interspersed with the drinking, she was explaining what Jono had
done. Gambit felt sure that if they
weren't both at least a little bit drunk, it might make more sense. As it was, though, it made no sense,
something even she seemed to have noticed.
"I'll shut up now. Gambit, you should take some a that to
Rogue. I think she'd like
it." She grinned woozily at him. Nodding, he stood unsteadily and left the
room.
"G'night, petite, Bobby." He disappeared through the door, and she
squirmed around to face Bobby.
"Soo...what d'you think?" She watched him earnestly as he considered
an answer. When he spoke, the look of
concentration on his face was almost comical.
"I think...that you two are just going
through an un-fun phase now. You're
good for each other, though, so don't do anything stupid."
She blinked owlishly at him. "Bobby, you're...being serious."
"Yeah, well, I'm drunk. I'll deny it in the morning. What kind of damage would it do to my
reputation if it got out that I'm serious when I'm drunk?" He raised an inquiring eyebrow at her.
"Hank might put you on a permanent IV
drip of tequila." She slumped over
onto her side, nearly sloshing red wine onto the beige leather couch.
"Susana, you ok? Susana?" He relaxed when he heard a snore issuing from the ball of
blankets. Holding his bottle of wine up
to the light, he grinned. There were
only a few sips missing. Picking up her
bottle, he poured about a fourth of his wine into it, then corked both bottles
and took them to the kitchen. Passing
Jono coming out of the Professor's office, he stopped. "You might want to go retrieve your
fiancée from the rec room. I don't
think sleeping on the couch is a good place for her right now."
}Thanks, Bobby. Tell me, how pissed is she?{
"In which sense? She's very drunk, but I don't think she's
very angry at you. She says she thinks
you have male PMS." Bobby snorted
in suppressed laughter.
}Delightful.
Thanks, Bobby.{ Amusement,
annoyance, and love darted through Jono's eyes as he thought of Susana.
"No problem. Just...be nice to her tomorrow morning, will you? She's gonna be feelin' pretty rough."
}Sure thing.
Thanks again.{ He headed down the
hall to the rec room, where he found Susana still rolled into her blanket
ball. Lifting her off the couch, he
grinned at how easy it was. All that
time in the Danger Room and the gym was paying off. He carried her upstairs to their room, where he set her on the
bed and went to get a damp washcloth.
After
dabbing the makeup off her face, he dropped the cloth on the bedside table and
unrolled her from her blankets. She
woke up a little, and protested the loss of warmth. He ignored her protests, rolled her off of the blankets, and
tugged her clothes off. She'd ditched
the shoes on her own, he guessed. Now
that she was ready for bed, he tucked her under the covers and turned off the
overhead light. After folding the
blankets and her clothes, he slid into bed with her and shut off the
lights.