AN: Okay, advance warning of some (sniff sniff) angst. Oh come now, you knew it'd sneak in eventually. It's also getting a tiny bit more romantic. The next chapter will feature another dream sequence of the truly horrorshow quality. I don't own any of the books listed. Bleh. Oh, and sorry for the lamely semi-obscure Phish reference in the chapter title, it was that or an even more obscure reference to a 40's-50's era coffee jingle.
"Never again. Never ever again."
"Yeah, on reflection, it was a pretty like, bad idea to have caffeine with Pietro in your head and stuff."
Rogue sighed.
"Tell me about it. Pietro, I'm begging you shush!" she moaned. Pietro was talking too fast for her to even keep up at this point, which was sort of disappointing. His presence had actually been reassuring when she was confronting Scott. Even if he did keep calling her his girlfriend. Which was ridiculous.
"Maybe if you, like, thought calming thoughts?" Kitty suggested.
"Is it possible to think valium?" Rogue asked. "Jesus christ, it's making me tired just listening to him."
Kitty got up and picked up the phone.
"Who you calling?"
"Lance. He like, has to live with Pietro, they must've figured out a way to, y'know, calm him down by now. Hey Todd, it's Kitty, is Lance around? No, that's cool. I just have a question. Rogue, like, drank some coffee by mistake- Todd stop laughing. I mean it, this is serious! What do you guys do to calm Quicksilver down when he's super hyper?"
Rogue looked on apprehensively as she listened in on one end of Kitty's conversation with Todd, and one end of Pietro's conversation with himself. He'd picked through her brain like a kid in a toy store. He'd already read the majority of books she'd ever read, and spent twenty minutes talking about the children of the night and what beautiful music they make, had proclaimed himself far sexier than Lestat or Armand, and asked repeatedly if he could nibble on her neck. Then he'd gone back further, rereading the Chronicles of Narnia, all the Madeleine L'Engle books, and, to Rogue's horror, had found Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, which caused him to spend thirty minutes just acting creepy.
"Thanks Todd, say hi to everyone for me. I'll tell her." Kitty hung up the phone. "Todd says that he and Tabby and Freddy wanna thank you for knocking Pietro out. It's the first relaxing Friday night they've had since he moved in."
"Swell," Rogue muttered. "All I can say is that boy better be enjoying his beauty sleep, cause I am never laying hands on him again."
"Until you can control your powers anyway."
"Right," Rogue said. "Wait. What's that supposed to mean?" Kitty ignored the question and moved on.
"So Todd says that sometimes if they can get him to drink some warm milk it makes him quieter, other than that, they usually take something from him, like his pixie stix or whatever, and won't give them back until he goes and buys a stamp."
"A stamp?"
"From Canada."
Rogue got up. "Well, it's a little chilly to sprint to Canada right now, and knowing my luck, Pietro's powers'll give out before I hit the Catskills and I'll be stuck calling Scott to pick me up in the Blackbird. So warm milk it is."
"Maybe you should work out in the danger room. Couldn't hurt."
Rogue nodded, bid Kitty goodnight, and went to the kitchen. It wasn't going to be a pleasant workout with a glass of warm milk sitting in her stomach, but anything was better than a weekend with no sleep.
*****
I didn't know you could run up walls, Rogue thought, laughing as she sprinted across the ceiling too fast for gravity to keep up.
It's great, isn't it? You just gotta be careful where you do it, I've put my foot through the drywall a couple of times. That kinda puts a stop to the fun.
Rogue snorted as a memory surfaced of hanging from the ceiling suspended by one leg.
Not so funny when it happened, but we can all look back on it and laugh now.
As I recall, Lance and Freddy thought it was pretty funny back then too, Rogue replied. Real memories were stuck in her head now, like when Pietro first arrived at the Brotherhood house. It was tense at first, but whenever Mystique wasn't around and looking to blame someone for something, bonding came pretty easily. She could feel his fears wondering what he might have gotten himself into, his suspicious curiosity about Lance, about Freddy, about Todd, and about her. She stopped abruptly as memories surfaced about the field trip from which she never came home. It was a strange blend. She'd been flown to the Institute, with all these people she'd been fighting against, including the unconscious Mister Summers, having just nearly died in an icy cavern. She'd developed something of a crush on Scott, which she now chalked up to Florence Nightingale syndrome. That dissipated quickly enough when she saw what an ass he made of himself over Jean.
But at least she knew what was going on. Mystique had stalked in the Brotherhood house that night, locked the door, and not come out for days. The boys hadn't known anything about what had happened to Rogue until they saw her in school. Pietro's memories of seeing her in an X-Man uniform for the first time were equally sharp, stinging. There was a time their groups had clashed and she'd stolen Lance's power. Without stable ground to run on, Pietro had hit the ground, and he'd seen where the attack was coming from.
Rogue saw herself in his memory, and she looked possessed, her eyes rolling back in her head, hands reaching out and forcing the earth itself to shake.
The whole world was falling apart, Pietro said, calmer.
I didn't know.
Pietro sighed in her mind. I tried so hard to hate you. But it was pretty hard just managing to stay pissed. I mean, it's not like Mystique was a particularly good den mother. I don't know if she was as bad as Scott, mind you, but she was far from swell.
Rogue took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then started going through some t'ai chi forms to cool down.
It was the four of us versus you and the rest of Xavier's recruits. We'd fought them before, but you were with us. The ground was shaking, and I was sure the world was ending. But it didn't. And I should have been relieved.
Rogue finished her cool down and left the danger room, picking up her bag in the corridor and walking through the mansion's darkened and empty halls.
After every battle it's always the same. No ground gained, no ground lost, Rogue thought. Going back home, hurting and tired…
And it feels like the world should have ended every time, Pietro continued.
And it never does.
In the bathroom closest to the room she and Kitty shared, she turned on the hot water, the hiss sounding far louder than it was in the silence. Rogue stripped out of her sweats, dumping them in the laundry chute, and stepped into the steam.
So. Do you still think I'm shallow?
Rogue raised her face to the stream of water and smiled.
You've been playing in my mind all day. What do you think? She asked him.
Silence. Rogue turned so that the water was hitting her back and lathered up her hair.
Sandalwood. Nice. Pietro thought. It's kinda scary.
"Sandalwood scares you?" Rogue asked, speaking quietly.
No, Pietro replied, you loon. It's scary that no matter what I tell you, or what you see of my memories, the real me across town won't have any clue. There's no way I can tell him about how it all went, how fun it was to watch you almost kill Summers, how weird it was to be in your dreams, how cool it was to watch you play with our powers-
How fun it was to watch me taking a shower, Rogue added helpfully, picking up her razor and a bar of soap.
Just cause I'm not shallow doesn't mean I'm blind, he said pointedly. Now pay attention while you're shaving your legs or you're gonna cut yourself.