AN: Well, there was more, but my browser crashed and took a goodly portion with it. This is sorta the beta version of chapter 12, since I'm not sure I like it. In any case, disclaimer du jour: I don't own KFC.
Kitty tapped her feet impatiently as Scott drove for home, much as she'd done the entire day, to the chagrin of teachers and fellow students alike. She'd pestered Jean all lunch period to try and reach Rogue's mind to see what was going on, and to which Jean replied, "Do I look like Cerebro to you?" She tried to complain to Lance, who only contributed "well, if you see him, tell him it's his turn to make dinner."
"You let Pietro cook?" she asked.
"We would, but he usually just steals other people's food at the drive through. That reminds me, can you also tell him we voted for KFC tonight?"
Kitty sighed as she recollected the conversation with her oh so unromantic boyfriend. This was a great love story happening right in front of them! A girl who can't touch anybody, a boy with an ego to big to let anyone get close to him, and they were perfect for each other anyway. Meanwhile, she was stuck in class for eight hours wondering what the hell had happened! Life was cruelly unfair, what kind of a god would allow her to sit through forty-five minutes of algebra while one of her closest friends could be in crisis, or have a boyfriend for the first time, or-
"Kitty?" Kitty blinked to see Scott's red sunglasses.
"What?"
"We're home."
Kitty phased through the car door and zipped up the path to the door.
"That just better not have broken my auto-locks," Scott muttered as the younger girl phased through the front door.
Kitty bolted up the stairs. At least she knew she couldn't walk in on anything too embarrassing, after all, no physical contact.
She couldn't have been more wrong. She knew something was amiss when she heard the guitar line coming out of her room- way out of character for Rogue. She pushed the broken remains of her door open- was it more damaged now than last night? -and her jaw dropped. Rogue was standing on her desk, arms in the air, dancing like a maniac, downing pixy stix and, dear god… singing?
"Pour some sugah on me! In the name of love, pour some sugah on me, come on fire me up! Pour some-"
"Rogue?"
Rogue stopped in mid head bang.
"Um… Kitty, this is so not what it looks like."
"It looks like you're standing on your desk headbang to like, Def Leopard."
Rogue blinked, reaching over to her computer and stopping her MP3 player.
"Oh. Um… I guess it is what it looks like."
"Oh my god, is that Pietro?!" Kitty shouted, pointing at Rogue's bed.
"Um… yes."
"Um, yes? You're eating pixy stix and singing eighties rock, and Pietro's like, in your bed, unconscious or asleep or- oh my god, is he like dead?"
Tell her yes, I wanna see what happens.
"He's not dead, just vacationing in my head again. The idiot."
I'm brilliant, you know it.
"Does the professor know?"
"Yeah. Logan nearly eviscerated Pietro."
"Don't you mean your boyfriend, stripes?" a voice rumbled from the doorway. Kitty looked at Logan, blinked, then at Rogue, who she tackled, shrieking and giggling.
"Jeze, calm down Kitty!"
"Like how could you not tell me?"
"I was gonna get around to it."
Logan cleared his throat and the girls looked up from their pile on the floor.
"If you two are finished?" Kitty and Rogue separated and sat quietly. "Rogue, the Professor wants McCoy to keep an eye on your boyfriend's body, since he's not using it. Take him down to the infirmary."
Aw, come on, I'm not sick, I'm just asleep. Exceptionally handsome and asleep.
Rogue sighed and scooped up Pietro's body off her bed and zipped him downstairs to the infirmary.
"Hey!" Kitty called. "Tell Pietro it's his turn to get dinner. KFC."
Dr. McCoy was puttering around, and leapt about a foot into the air when she appeared.
"Rogue! Don't sneak up like that."
"Sorry, I keep forgettin' I can."
"Dropping off your boyfriend's body?"
"Yeah, we got some errands we gotta run," Rogue said, smiling at Pietro's sleeping face, leaning down and kissing his hair. "Tell everyone I'll be back after dinner!" With that Rogue was gone in a sharp gust of wind, flying across the pavement.
Where are we going? Pietro asked. Rogue grinned mischievously.
We're gonna get dinner.
Two sprints later, Rogue was on the doorstep of the Brotherhood house holding two buckets of fried chicken and a bag of side dishes. Lance opened the door and his jaw dropped.
"HeythereRocky, amIlate?" Rogue asked. He looked disturbed. It was Rogue on his doorstep, but she was smiling Quicksilver's smile.
"Are you okay Rogue?"
"Yeah, sure, never better. Now come on, I'm hungry, and this damn chicken's getting cold."
Lance stepped aside and let her in, staring as she zipped inside, into the fridge and grabbed herself a soda.
"Hey, is Quickie back with dinner?" Tabitha shouted from upstairs.
"Kinda!" Lance called back. She scampered down the stairs, giving him a weird look.
"Whaddayou mean, 'Kind-' oh…" She caught sight of Rogue zipping around, setting the table just shy of breaking the sound barrier. Lance shot Tabitha a concerned look, she just shrugged and started perusing the bucket for wings.
"Hey Rogue?" Lance asked.
"Yep?"
"Where's Pietro?"
"Lunaticwentandtouchedmeagain, hisideaof beingromantic. Todd! Freddy! Food!" she hollered. The two boys hopped and lumbered down the stairs respectively, diving into the chicken before they even managed to sit down. About three bites into a thigh, Todd looked up.
"Hey, where's Pietro?"
"He decided he wanted to hang out in Rogue's head again," Tabby said around a mouthful of chicken and biscuit.
"Where's his body, yo?"
"Institute," Rogue shrugged. "McCoy's keeping an eye on him, lucky man."
"Lucky man?" Lance asked, both eyebrows arched.
"Of course, I mean, few and far between are those who look anywhere near as good in a coma as Pietro," Rogue said.
That finally got their attention.
"Rogue, can we talk to Pietro for a second?"
"Hang on." Hey, you think you can work the vocal cords? She asked him.
Um… yeah, I think so.
"Miss me?" Rogue said, her accent gone entirely. Everyone's jaw dropped, food falling out of Tabby and Todd's mouths. "That's disgusting," Rogue added.
"Pietro?" Tabby asked. Rogue- or apparently, Pietro- shrugged.
"That's me, blondie."
"You wanna fill us in on what's going on?" Lance asked. 'Pietro' rolled his eyes.
"Could you be any slower, Rocky? I am fond beyond words of the Rogue, she knows me better than anybody, no offense. But she said we were a bad idea cause of the whole no touching thing. So I just hopped back into her head and everything's great!"
There was a long pause as everyone digested this information.
"Kay, not to be a jackass, yo, but what about your body?" Todd asked. 'Pietro' gave him a scathing look.
"It's fine, they've got it hooked up to gizmos at the institute."
"Yeah, but, you ain't in it yo."
He has a point, Rogue thought.
No he doesn't, Pietro thought back.
"It's not like anything bad's gonna happen to it."
"You think," Lance said.
"I think," 'Pietro' conceded.
"Did you also ever think that maybe Rogue had a point when she said that you and her was a bad idea?"
'Pietro' scowled.
"Watch it Rocky."
"I'm just sayin', what kind of life is this for you two? Her boyfriend's her imaginary friend, you don't even live in your own body?"
Rogue's eyes shut, and when she opened them, the next words she spoke were her own.
"This is the last time Lance. I won' t let him do this again."
Lance sighed.
"Don't get me wrong," Lance said. "There's just got to be a better way."
That's profoundly helpful, Lance, Pietro thought dryly.
"If there is a better way," Rogue said, "I don't know what it is."
The rest of dinner was largely silent, and afterwards, Rogue bid the brotherhood goodbye and ran back to the institute. The trip back was largely silent as well, at least until Pietro said,
Did you mean what you said back there? About not letting me touch you again?
I can't let you keep hurting yourself.
Not even if I want to?
Not even if you want to.
Pietro was silent momentarily, feeling the rush as someone else did the running for once so to speak.
What makes you think you can stop me?
Rogue halted suddenly, right outside the boundaries of the institute.
If you don't stop on your own, I won't see you anymore. At all.
If I don't stop on my own, you'll see me all the time, in your head.
I want it to work Pietro, but Lance has a point. It's no kind of life. And I don't know what repeated exposure to my power can do. The only other person I've ever touched more than once is Scott, twice, you're already up to three. It could kill you for all I know.
Well, we'll test it out on Summers, and see how it goes.
AN the second: Okay I like it a bit better having read it again. I had more, but my computer crashed, so we lost about a paragraph. So anyway, next chapter, more complications, including Rogue acting increasingly not herself. I'm gonna try and actually have the plot move forward next chapter, as opposed to taxi-ing on the runway as it appears to be now.