AN: Okay, I forget what chapter we're up to. Anyway. In this chapter, the plot moves forward. I'm thinkin' there's maybe two, three chapters left in this puppy, though I've got a couple other stories in mind. Enjoy!
"You're kidding," Pietro said as his friends sat down. Freddy sprawled on the beanbag chair, Tabby perched on his dresser, Todd on his desk, and Lance picked up the desk chair and straddled the back, glaring grimly at Pietro.
"The hell I am," Lance snapped. "We've tried to reason with you. We've tried to chase you down. We've tried kicking your unconscious ass. So now, we're back to reasoning with you, but as you can see, you're now taped to a bed."
"I noticed that."
"Yeah, well you're a smart boy, Pietro," Tabby said, "which is why you're gonna listen to us this time."
"We didn't wanna tell you, yo…"
"But every time you touch Rogue…" Freddy continued.
"Just so you guys know, it is really annoying when you talk in tandem like that!" Pietro said, shutting up as he heard Lance's completion of the sentence.
"She fades away a little more."
Pietro looked at him.
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" The sadness in Lance's face only made Pietro angrier as his gaze darted from the face of one friend to the next. Tabby wouldn't look at him, Todd's gaze was reproachful and intense, Freddy's expression flat and dejected. Lance looked so tired, which was no wonder. After all, Lance always put everything right.
"Whenever you're in Rogue's head, she'll slip every now and then. She'll say something I only ever hear you say, or she'll smile your smile, or laugh your laugh."
"So? God, we've picked up tons of stuff from each other! Lance, we had to smack you nonstop for two weeks to get you to stop saying 'yo' at the end of your sentences!" Pietro protested, twisting in his prison of tape.
"It's more than that, Quickie," Tabby said, not unsympathetically. "There'll be no trace of her at all. We didn't think much of it…"
"But it happens more and more often now than it did when you two first started this weird thing of yours," Lance finished. "Whenever you're in her head she's only there about half the time, sometimes less."
"It's freaky, yo… It's like your ego's so big that it's actually eating hers," Todd added, something that might have been funny if it hadn't been true this time.
"We didn't want to tell you," Tabby said.
"You said that already," Pietro grumbled. "You had to tape me to a bed to tell me this?"
"Would you have held still long enough to listen otherwise?" Tabby asked. Pietro glared.
"My sheets are gonna be all covered in tape-goo now."
"All of you shut up," Lance snapped. "Now you've got two choices. You can either fuckin' behave yourself and keep your hands off of Rogue, or you can lie here till she graduates."
"I won't touch her anymore."
"You answered awful fast-" Tabby said.
"Don't you fuckin' start!" Pietro shouted. "Do not start! Jesus, I spent all this time trying to convince the Rogue I wasn't shallow and I shoulda been trying to convince you guys! Why the hell would I ever want to hurt her? She's the only person I've ever met capable of truly understanding another fucking person without wanting to change them, and you think I'd keep touching her even if I knew thathavingmeinherheadwaschangingher?" he ranted, speeding up the angrier he got. "Godyouguysaresostupidsometimes,it'ssoobviousIloveherthatevenshe probablyknowsitforgodssakes- whatareyoudoing?!!"
Lance had taken out his pocket knife and was sawing through the tape on the underside of the bed.
"I'm cutting you loose, jackass."
The Brotherhood collectively picked Pietro free from his tapey tomb and helped him up. He noticed that one of them had put him in a shirt saying "Out of body, back in five minutes." Wiseasses, he thought, but his heart wasn't in it. He sat on the edge of his bed and sighed, looking so sorrowful that Tabby felt guilty.
"Look…" she started. She took a breath and tried again. "Look, Quickie, they're havin' another dance in a week, what with Sadie Hawkins getting crashed by weird little dinosaur things. Ask Rogue, have a last date, get some closure. Do somethin' normal people do. It'll make it easier."
"No it won't," Pietro replied.
"No, it won't," Tabby admitted. "But you'll be glad you did it anyway."
Jean was bored out of her supernaturally gifted mind. Her homework was done, there was nothing to watch on TV, she'd just given up on the mystery novel she'd been reading after she accidentally gleaned from someone's head who killed the Duchess. Bored. Bored. Bored. Now what the hell was she going to do, talk to Duncan?
A very soft tap came through the wood of her door. "Jean?"
"Come in!" she said. Rogue stepped through the door, looking dejected and depressed.
"Hey Rogue, what's up?" Jean said, sitting up in bed. Rogue plunked down on the foot of it and bit her lower lip.
"Kitty just got a call from Lance. Pietro won't be botherin' me no more."
"Oh!" Jeans said cheerfully. Rogue looked at her, green eyes brimming with tears, and Jean got the message. "Oh…"
"Yeah. It gets better… worse… whatever."
"How?"
"Pietro wants me to go to the "Didn't Anybody See Jurassic Park?" Dance with him. A last date, in real life, kinda like normal people."
"Are you gonna go?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Rogue said. "But I wanna give him something… are you gonna go to the dance?"
"I thought I might. Scott's showing every sign of turning into a tolerable human being, I thought I might ask him. But what do you mean, 'give Pietro something?'"
Rogue took a deep breath.
"Do you think you can show him my memories of the past few weeks? I really want him to know what happened, it's not the sorta think I can really describe to him. Technically we were just hanging out, but it was so much more than that, and-"
"I understand, Rogue. Sure. I think I can do that…" Jean looked perplexed. "I've never tried it, but it seems doable…" Jean thought about the process: she'd have to form a link between the two, then act as something of an aqueduct. But she could figure that out on her own.
"So," she asked, ruffling Rogue's hair carefully. "What are you gonna wear?"
AN: In the next chapter, there will be shopping, there will be fashion, and there will be great preparations made for the "Didn't Anybody See Jurassic Park?" Dance. We'll see how it goes.