Glimpses
-Motivation-
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, the dulled rhythmic tap of high-heeled boots ringing to the high yellowed ceiling. Another set of footsteps chimed in briskly, scrabbling across the slippery tiles with an unseemly slap-slap that shattered the empty silence.
"Rogue! Like, wait up!" The fuschin-haired girl at her locker sighed against the metal, misting the distorted-mirroring surface that sent the warmth of her own breath flooding back to her. Behind her, the other bent over, grasping shaky knees as she gasped for breath, and gasped again as her schoolbooks began slipping to the floor. After a hasty recovery, she straightened like a shot, almost too perkily, lofty brown silky ponytail jouncing with a fluid flick. Her girlish voice was still just a trifle breathless as she turned to her companion, laughter and annoyance intermingling. "Why do you have to walk so fast? It's not like your locker is gonna run away, you know."
The loud metallic screech, followed closely by a deafening clang as the locker slammed shut, caused the brunette to wince, nearly dropping her books again. "Jeez, what's up with you today?"
An almost ghostly pale face, lips and lids sharply defined by deep purple, and prominent with a cleft chin jutting from a clenched jaw, was unveiled by the short, thick curtain of skunk-style hair as the darker-haired girl turned and leaned against the now-closed locker with another heavy sigh. A large pile of schoolbooks dropped from her arms to land at their feet with a flat, earsplitting smack. Her voice dripped exasperation. "Whaddaya want?!"
The Goth girl had crossed her arms firmly over the black cloth overlapping her forest green sweater, face dark and posture challenging, one eyebrow raised in unspoken derision. She felt no remorse when the freshman flinched at her harsh, cutting tone. She'd had enough of the world today, and something in her seemed to have loosened in an odd way that brought both pain and relief.
"I-is he, like, um, okay?" Kitty asked nervously, shrinking in on herself. "I tried everybody else already, but they wouldn't tell me anything. And you're like the only one Mr. McCoy'll let near him." Her chin dipped closer to the books she was hugging to her chest.
Rogue sighed again, this time out of resignation, knowing she wouldn't get rid of the girl till she gave her something to walk away with. Quashing the urge to pretend she didn't know who or what Kitty was talking about, the dark-haired girl ran a hand through the white forelock caressing her cheek and studiously avoided the questioning blue eyes. She spoke to the schoolbooks scattered across the floor, "Look, Ah'm really not the person ta ask about these thangs, Kit-cat. Ah don't know anythang about medicine."
"Well," the slender brunette floundered for a moment, brow wrinkling in confusion, "then, like, what can you tell me? Anything at all, Rogue. I just want to know if he's okay." She said this so earnestly the dark emerald eyes widened slightly, swiveling to fix on her. Kitty bit her lip uncomfortably under the sharply scrutinizing gaze before it softened a little, and Rogue relented her suspicion.
"Ah guess Ah could trah," she mused. "Tell ya what, Ah'll just tell ya what Ah saw." The girl at her elbow nodded eagerly. Playing with the diaphanous fabric of her sleeve, Rogue paused, gathering her thoughts. The gossamer material moved with a will of its own, constantly eluding her fingers as it shifted in wispy folds of transparent green. "Um, well, he hasn't woken up yet, but Mistah McCoy says he should be fahne once the internal bleedin' stops."
"Internal bleeding?" Kitty's eyes were huge.
Rogue had to exercise much self-control to refrain from giving herself a good hard whack upside the head. Me an' mah big fat mouth…
" 'S nothin' much, nothin' lahfe-threatenin' or anythang," she hastily reassured her friend. "He jus' needs more tahme ta heal'n with normal hurts."
Kitty clutched fistfuls of her dainty pink cardigan and shook her head helplessly, looking into the distance out the window as though hoping to find better answers there. Rogue looked away from that sorrowful, lost gaze, feeling a sudden surge of compassion mixed with an odd strand or two of envy for the smaller girl. All her life, Kitty had been coddled, surrounded by people close to her. In the eternal spirit of naïveté, she had come to rely on that snug ring of friends and family. But now, in less than a week, she'd lost one of them and had nearly lost another.
The deep green eyes came to rest on the brunette once more. Kitty lifted her head quizzically, catching the sudden movement. "Look, Ah got an ahdea. Ah won't be back at the manse for a whahle. I gotta work on a scahence project in the lahbrary. So how's 'bout you go back an' keep Kurt comp'ny in mah place? Tell Mistah McCoy Ah sent ya." Getting into the spirit of it, she went so far as to give the other girl a conspiratorial wink.
A great smile lit the heart-shaped face. "Really, Rogue? Oh, thank you so much!" Kitty gushed. "Like, you can't imagine how much this means to me. You're the best!" After a quick half-hug, the cheered brunette fairly skipped on her way down the hall, unheeding of her books now and trailing papers all the way.
Alone now, Rogue allowed herself a wry smile and a shake of the head at the girl's antics. Hopeless case. She chuckled discreetly to herself before abruptly sobering as she whirled around and hurriedly pulled her locker open once more, peering round the door down the hall, at the reason she'd taken the unusual initiative of dispatching Kit-cat more joyful than she'd arrived.
The person had been a mere tiny shadowy form against the glowing light of the windows in the front doors down the main hallway, but now he was much closer and much more visible. Narrowed dark eyes now widened far beyond their normal proportions and Rogue pulled back with a barely audible gasp of surprise before catching herself and her breath; she'd known who it was, she just didn't allow herself to believe it.
What is he doin' here? For it was Pietro Maximoff walking in her direction at what seemed the pace of a crawl, his head hanging and steps dragging. Even the gravity-defying wing-locks seemed to be drooping. He carried no books, though he usually had a couple with him; Rogue really couldn't deny he was an incredible student when he decided to be. She found herself glancing about for the rest of the Brotherhood, but the school was completely, eerily empty, and then she remembered she'd seen them leave more than a quarter of an hour ago.
She bit her lip in a flurry of indecision, chanced a glance back down the hall and cursed silently before she busied herself at her locker. When the dull steps were just behind her, she slammed the door shut and whirled around; ready to confront him, though she didn't have a clue why she was doing it or what she was going to say. As it turned out, her worries were groundless.
"P-Pietro!" Rogue's surprise was genuine; she'd turned too fast and lost her balance, knocking into him rather hard. She waited apprehensively for the tirade that always came all at once, the words tumbling over one another in a complete mess of gibberish. However, the blue eyes merely snapped up in passive surprise before they slid closed and, with a sigh, the silver head that had risen now falling back and away, and he turned and continued walking.
Leaving Rogue to gape after him in astonishment and utter incomprehension. She shook herself and picked up her books, her mind racing. What the hell?! Okay, now Ah know somethin's goin' down.
She started to run. "Pietro! Now jus' wait a minute!" Then abruptly he was gone without a trace, the hallway completely empty now. A gust of wind lifted Rogue's hair and tugged at it wildly. "Ah, shit. Ah shoulda known." She slumped against an anonymous locker in defeat, glaring at the nondescript floor tiles that still seemed to ring with her steps. And his.
Somethin's up with the Brothahood. She shook her head. She would never have admitted it to anyone but herself, well out of the vicinity of Jean or the Professor, but she worried about them. The Brotherhood… were ruffians; they were the bad guys. Still, Rogue worried.
She was used to ignoring it, but still, somewhere deep down inside, she worried when she remembered the sorry state of their house, utilities and money; she worried about the four boys living alone, all mutants, all in possible danger now from mutant hunters, with nothing to protect them but their bravado and their powers; she worried about Lance, the tough guy who was anything but, about Fred, simplicity personified, about Toad – Todd, the little kid at heart. And now, she found herself worrying about Pietro. Pietro. Rogue almost laughed.
A strange calm had washed over her as she retreated into old, old, familiar territory; her face gradually fell into its usual dark, weighed down expression. An involuntary sigh of relief escaped her lips as she tucked a renegade lock of white behind her ear. It was getting harder and harder to "keep your chin up", as Logan put it. She could feel the strain of it almost every second, nowadays.
Mellow golden light played over the walls, casting dancing shadows down the hallway. The rain had stopped – for a time. As she meandered through the corridors with no clear goal, Rogue fancied she could hear the ghosts of long-ago students whispering on their way down the hall. She smiled, nostalgia overtaking her as it always did at this hour. Sometimes she missed that whole silence, pristine and undisturbed.
Some days, she just wanted to go into her room and lock the door, shut out the rest of the world, close the lights and sit. But of course, there was always either the roommate, or something else. She was an X-man, after all; she had her duties and rules and she adhered to them scrupulously. Some days she felt like she was living in a straitjacket.
Rogue came to the doors. Behind her, a gloomy facelessness had overtaken the familiar hallways, seeping softly into every crack of light like a dark fog. She turned and blew a kiss to thin air; it felt only appropriate. The heavy metal door cracked open as she heaved her elbow against it, and an icy breeze blew a few thin tendrils through the slit. Rogue shivered and suddenly, she didn't feel like going home.
Home. The door slid shut with a click that seemed too loud, bouncing away into the gray-black ashes of the sunset. Rogue stood with her back against it, letting out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. It was so rare that she could be alone like this, not having to answer to anyone, and she'd had enough of answering today.
She had never used any tone remotely close to what she'd given Kitty today for a long time, since she'd joined the X-men, to any of them, at least deliberately. Rogue sighed heavily, dropping her books and burying her face in her hands; some days, she just wanted to tell them all to go fuck themselves, then chomp down real hard on a pillow, and scream. Some days, she wished they'd get the hell out of her life. Not for good; just for a good long while.
Slender gloved hands clenched into fists. Despite the bulky fabric, the potential weapons felt naked and small. Frustratingly impotent. Fingernails dug plushy trenches in the tough leather.
She never did anything though; not even anything remotely close to the scenarios she erected within the private confines of her mind, doing her best to shield them from the two resident telepaths. They had never yet invaded that privacy, but she supposed she was still too paranoid to trust them like that. Truth to tell, she could only attribute this unusual reluctance to act on her own wishes to fear, plain and simple. A fear she couldn't squash, that they were still watching and waiting, waiting to throw her out at the first sign of any misbehavior. And if the X-men threw her out, she didn't know where she would go. Rogue shivered at the sudden chill spreading through her despite the ample clothing that covered almost every inch of bare skin, and wrapped her arms around herself. She'd seen this truth before, but never had it appeared so plain, nor so cold.
With an effort, she wrenched herself from that particular path of the thought, back to the one at hand. She had never, ever seen this sort of behavior from Pietro. Or rather, lack of behavior. As a result, she didn't know what to make of it. At all. One thing she knew, however, was that something was very, very wrong. Wanda seemed to be missing, but that wasn't too unusual among the Brotherhood. However, Lance wasn't his easygoing self and had had a terrible fight with Kitty; Todd was always sullen and watched flies buzzing about without a twitch; even Freddy was unusually subdued. And now Pietro… If only she knew what was going on.
"Ah'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely, without knowing who she was apologizing to, or why. Had she forgotten? Or maybe she just didn't want to remember… The words became a chant as she sank to the floor. "Ah'm sorry Ah'm sorry Ah'm sorry…"
She remembered the day she'd left the Brotherhood. They hadn't been too worried when she'd started throwing things into a bag. After all, one or more of them sometimes disappeared for days on end. Pietro had been the first to sense something amiss. He'd caught her taking her favorite glass sculpture from the mantelpiece in the middle of the night. He'd said nothing, just watched her expressionlessly, but his silence and his eyes accused her, and Rogue had been forced to beat an ignominious retreat up to her room, leaving her sculpture where it was. It hadn't ended there; she'd known it wouldn't.
She had to admit, he was quick, that one. In more ways than one.
And so, the next morning, when she stormed to the front door, one of Todd's colorless, threadbare duffel bags slung over one shoulder of her dark trench coat, she found him leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed and eternal smirk firmly in place. Lance was at his side, eyebrows lowered beneath the irrepressible bangs. The other two peeked curiously round the kitchen doorway.
Rogue smiled ruefully at the memory. She'd pulled off her glove with a menacing growl. "Git the hell outta mah way, Speedy. Ah don't got the tahme today."
At the sight of her bared hand, dangerously close to himself, Pietro seemed to lose a little of his seemingly impenetrable cool, but he was still cocksure enough to grab her wrist at the sleeve and laugh, mocking her. "And just where do you think you're going, little miss?"
"Whah you–" Rogue had been fully prepared to give him a taste of her other hand as she shook her glove to the floor, but Lance, with a growl like an angry bear, had caught that hand as well. She was helpless, immobilized. "Let go a' me, ya stupid morons! Ah'm gettin' the hell outta the Brothahood, that's what Ah'm doin'. Ah'm goin' to the X-men." Lance took a sharp breath and dropped her hand like it was poison despite the sleeve, but Pietro grabbed it before she could put it to use, his already bruising grip tightening like a vise till she gasped.
She would never forget the malice in the dark blue eyes as he pushed his face so close to hers she was almost afraid he would actually touch her. His voice was the hiss of a coiled snake. "We not good enough for you, Roguey?" Before she had the chance to protest, he went on with an ugly smile, "Well, let me show you to the door." In the blink of an eye, he'd pushed her sprawling out onto the veranda, and by the time she regained her senses, the slam of the door behind her was only a faint ringing in her ears.
She still felt miserable at the mere memory of that fateful day. The disbelief in Lance's eyes, quickly coated with a thick layer of anger, had remained terribly blatant in the faces in the kitchen. It would've been funny if it hadn't been so awfully wrong.
But the worst, or… she didn't know. It was something but she didn't know what it was, and it had come with her, oldness, rough around the edges, to the stainless steel newness of the X mansion.
One hand slipped into a hidden pocket inside her tight-fitting, sleek black skirt and grasped something startlingly hard and cool in the soft, intimate warmth. Slowly she brought it up before her, till it caught the last little tinges of light. Even so, the delicate glass figurine threw out a dazzling display of swirling color, magnificent outstretched wings extended in flight into the trails of little diamond glints. A little smile flitted on the darkened lips, before disappearing when the dark eyes came to rest on the swan's head, where the pitted, jagged surface suggested something had been broken away.
She'd been so furious when she'd seen what he'd done, swore she'd kill him and thought up a few choice methods too, until she'd realized why, and laughed till she cried instead.
The Swan Queen's lost 'er crown…
Thunder rumbled. A particularly bright spot of rust-burnt sunlight lit and caught on the grooves etched along the graceful curve of the swan's neck. The words glowed fire, red-hot as when she'd first found the figurine on her dresser after Logan had closed the door and she'd dumped her duffel bag on the springy soft bed, a novelty in itself. The script had an oddly chipped and smoothened air as though whatever had cut it in had passed again and again, countless times till friction bored the surface into slippery glossiness and no roughness left to nick. The tiny letters, graceful and awkward at the same time, seemed to burn into her vision.
See you soon. A shadow fluttered. The words flickered, blurred and disappeared. Outside, the last vestiges of sun were washed away in the renewed downpour.
Slowly, Rogue returned the swan to its place in her pocket. Since that day, she hadn't seen the Brotherhood outside of school or battle.
That day, they had become the enemy. She'd been almost shocked at how easy the transition was, but she supposed that with their delinquency and their crude attitudes, she'd never exactly been able to think of them as allies, "her side". Housemates, maybe, distant enough. She'd made sure of that.
The worst was when she fought them.
They never seemed to notice her till she was upon them; indeed, they almost never took the initiative of attacking her, as though they'd forget her presence as soon as a battle broke out between the two sides.
But when she touched them… or even when she charged them. When they turned and looked into her eyes, there was always surprise in their gaze. Always. A flicker that gutted out so quickly it might never have come into being at all, a quirk of her guilty imagination. But when she fought them, she was always angry. It was the only time she could really be angry.
They were surprised every time. Rogue just couldn't understand it, and it frustrated her to no end thinking about it. But the worst part was that she did, shades of understanding overlapping till they formed a shadowy picture, blurry but all too visible.
Every time. Except with Pietro. He never looked at her. She wondered if the surprise was in his eyes too. Somehow she didn't think she'd be able to bear it if it was. He was too different.
In that suspended moment before the eye of time blinked again, during the transfer when the speed sizzled along both their limbs, she would feel more than hear the whispered words at her ear, so fast they almost came out all at the same time. "See ya soon, Roguey, see ya soon."
She hadn't understood the words, then or when they'd winked up at her from the polished clarity of the swan.
Then, Pietro had turned traitor himself. Sitting in the rubble, in the pathway of the Sentinel waiting in the shadows, she'd looked up and seen him there. The blue eyes, so hard and unforgiving that night, had skittered from hers like those of a frightened animal. Her eyes still watering from the dust raised by the ground's collapse beneath them, Rogue felt herself screaming and crying and laughing and a small part dying, inside, all at the same time. The violence of her reaction, albeit internal, to the white-haired boy's betrayal had frightened her; she still didn't understand it.
Emerging from the fog of the seemingly distant memories, Rogue raised a hand to her burning cheek. Her fingers came away wet, and she looked at them in dazed wonder.
Mystique's double-crossing was the main reason she'd left the Brotherhood, but there had been others. The X-men. A vivid memory gripped her. A starry night, hiding alone behind a tree, the rest of the Brotherhood long gone, the cold wind swirling around her, within her. They were laughing and teasing. They seemed so carefree, so happy…
It wasn't that the Brotherhood didn't give a damn about each other. They left each other alone. They gave her space, let her lock herself in and think without interrupting her, though that might have been because they were afraid of her, Rogue thought ruefully. The X-men certainly were. Not afraid, exactly. Cautious, hesitant to touch even her clothes, as though she had some contagious disease. She might not have caught those little moments before they slapped her on the back or hugged her if she hadn't been looking for them, she supposed. Still, they were there.
Now, Rogue wasn't that big on touch. She'd never hugged or kissed or anything like that very much even before her powers had appeared. It truly sucked on the romantic standpoint, she supposed, but she'd worry about that when the true time came. She'd been asked out a few times, but they had been very casual and more often than not she'd refused, not because of her powers but because she just wasn't feeling social at that moment.
It had never really been a big issue with the Brotherhood either, come to think of it. They weren't exactly the hug'n kiss types either. Rogue almost burst out laughing at the mere concept.
It was with the X-men that it became a problem. Slaps on the back, hugs, playful elbowing and in general lots of contact was an almost unconscious trait with these kids. Rogue rather disliked being constantly reminded of her "limitation". She dealt with it.
That had to be it. The freedom she'd enjoyed with the Brotherhood must have been because they were just too afraid of her to break her door down (as she'd heard Toad had done with Wanda; the screams had probably carried all the way down to Baltimore).
However, it sure didn't seem that way when they all converged in the living room for a TV dinner. The old TV, dust seeping from every crack, had been slimed once, watered thrice and knocked over countless times. Todd had found it in the basement. Mystique had her own in the lavish master bedroom.
They all sat on the amorphous mass of fabric-draped cotton that was the couch and passed the food around, playing Monkey-in-the-Middle with the overcooked sausages. Fred was always the monkey. The too-cramped couch was of a color somewhere between Todd's slime and swamp muck. Rogue was squashed in along with the rest of them, shoved, elbowed, teased mercilessly when Todd ambushed her for a hug, which was much too often, in her opinion, nearly sat on by Freddy. By the end of whatever pathetic sitcom it was they were watching that day (the TV was stuck on one channel because no one knew where the remote had gotten to), they were a laughing, scowling, complaining, and usually fairly slimy tangle of limbs because the couch would sink gradually in on itself as sand through a sieve, and it took half an hour just to get up. Rogue felt herself smiling and tried to stop, but couldn't, and didn't really want to, anyway. She even opened her mouth and laughed a little, though salty droplets trickled onto her tongue and she coughed from the brackish taste.
And then there was Scott. Rogue turned around and forced herself to see the other side of the equation. And Jean. Some thangs just ain't meant to be… And that was that.
Rogue shook her head ruefully as she gathered her books and stood, ignoring the tears lingering on her cheeks. She'd left the Brotherhood, chasing a dream into the clouds, and found that, when she arrived, she was living on a cloud.
-
The cold clean lights that flooded the bathroom when she flicked the switch caused her to flinch and attempt to hide behind her auburn hair. On a whim, she shut the lights and walked into the white-tiled room lit only by the aging yellow strains of a streetlamp just outside. The echoes of water rushing in the porcelain bowls resonated eerily, seeming to come from every direction at once in the semi-darkness of refracting slanted shadows. Outside, the rain pattered softly, slipping streaks down the window.
Even in the faint light that only just touched the matted, peeling plaster of the walls scrawled over with messages over messages, Rogue could see the tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. Her mascara and lipstick had run and she looked like some freshly fed vampire, especially when she smirked at the mirror, showing slips of teeth.
Ah gotta have me one a' these crahfests every once in a whahle if Ah'm not ta go insane.As she was freshening up for the long walk home, she thought she detected a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye. Dropping the bottle of eyeliner in the sink with a loud clatter, she leaped back against the wall, crouching instinctively in a defensive stance, arms rigid before her. "Who's thair?"
This time she definitely saw movement. Some one stepped into view, half in shadow and somewhat silhouetted against the old, stained-glass glow falling in a skewed rectangle onto the floor and the opposite wall.
Rogue's first bewildered thought was, Do Ah know 'em?!
For even in shadow, the person seemed familiar. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. The profile seemed almost unnaturally tall and hinted at a bearing somehow awkward. Sheer-lidded eyes glittered in a face almost statuesque in its half-definition in the dimness. A hint of copper shone in the dark mass falling about the slumped shoulders.
"Could… I ask you something?" The trace of déjà vu vanished when the person spoke, although the soft, hesitant voice was somehow familiar as well. Different, however, from the first impression.
Rogue shook her head in confusion, gnawing on her lip as she relaxed somewhat. "Who are ya an' what the hell you doin' here this tahme a' nahght?"
She sensed more than saw the other smile. There was a hint of nervousness in the tentatively playful tone. "It isn't that late. Besides, you're here, aren't you?"
"Git ta the point, won'tcha?." The dark-haired girl leaned against the wall, annoyed but reassured. "Ah don't got all nahght."
"A-are things okay up at the Xavier Institute?" She started at the question that came seemingly out of nowhere and the dark emerald eyes narrowed, deeply ingrained suspicion immediately kicking in.
"An' what's it to you?" The sound of feet shuffling uncomfortably scraped in the utter stillness. The other girl stepped forward, one hand outstretched, then seemed to think better of it, and the hopeful gesture fell away. Rogue saw now that the redhead was only slightly taller than herself.
"I-It's not what you think."
"Oh, yeah? What is it, then?" she demanded, voice hard. Normally even she wasn't this hard on outsiders poking around in her business, but the unmasking had set them all on edge.
A sigh. "Never mind." The girl sounded genuinely disappointed, a faint quaver in her voice as though she were inexplicably close to tears. And then suddenly she was gone, vanished into the shadows as though she'd never been there in the first place.
Rogue stared, as a trickle of warmth made its way sluggishly down her chin. What was that all about?
--
Dedication:
To Absolute Alcohol, Ellen, Chiru, Mistress of Dragons and Toni. Thanks for stickin' with me, y'all!
Info: Kurt is all screwed up, as y'all know, plus Rogue sapping him didn't help… The crown symbolizes loyalty in Irish lore. ^-~ Nope, Rogue doesn't know about Wanda. She was blobbed, 'member? And let's just say it's a bit of a touchy subject. 'Ah' as you should all know, is Rogue's Southern accent substitute for 'i', 'y', and 'er' (I think that's about it).
A/N: This whole thing is going to hell. . I promise some actual action soon. Jeez, Rogue had a lot to say. And she's not done yet! 0.o This was just growing out of control, so I was forced to split it in two unless I wanted to write clear through the next week to get it done and end up with a, I dunno, 15-page all-Rogue-thoughts chapter. 0.o Dang that's a scary picture. Next chapter will be Rogue again, probably shorter (though that assertion is questionable), and will involve the other X-men. I hope the Southern gal wasn't too OOC. I think I screwed up her and Kitty's speech patterns. Me no good with speech patterns. .
Yeah, yeah, I totally glossed over Rogue's touch issues, but that path of angsty goodness is getting really stale.
It's Friday the 13th! XD And I didn't even notice…
And I'm very very mad at refusing-to-upload-anything Document Manager right now, it's 2:30 in the morning and I have a moth snoozing right in front of me on the desk. . Isn't life wonderful?
I am definitely obsessed with Pietro. XD
Review Responses:
Absolute Alcohol – Miss a chapter, longer review! ^-^ The cup is half-full, eh? At least someone actually got Retrospection. . *hands AA a medal* Glad you could keep up with my disjointed ramblings there. I hope Rogue didn't disappoint you. She's hard to write! She's kind of… angsty/nostalgic in this. It's hard to make her happy when everyone else is moping around, that'd probably make her appear evil or something… Yeah, Rogue is a big candidate for yuri, but since I'm more a fan of yaoi and Wanda's dead (I think Rwanda ^-~ is probably one of the more popular pairings on that point), no worries there. I couldn't write Scott to save my life, so no Rott (lol), either. At the moment, I'm not quite sure what to do with Rogue in regard to the BoM… I don't think I'll have her go back, as that's way overdone and kind of unrealistic (although a nice concept), though who knows. She does have a part to play besides that, though. Yeah, Todd got screwed over and Pietro… Yeah. Cool. Pietrance is warming up in this, too. ^-^ Lance cheer him up? Who knows… These guys have their own methods. I'll go take a look at your suggestion, if I haven't already read it. Thanks much, and see ya!
Ellen – I dub thee the 2x Reviewer. ^-^ Keep it up! Lance is my fave BoM character just about tied with P. Yep, Pietro's hair is messy. 0.o Run for your lives it's the end of the world!!! BoM to the "rescue"? You'll see! You'll see…
Chiru – I'm a slashaholic m'self. Oooh, know whatcha mean. . Stupid blurbs with their stupid "popularity". Don't they have better things to do? Rogue is cool and all, but too angsty for my taste, so I guess Wanda's my favorite, too. I mean, Jean's boring; Kitty is… it's not her 'likes', I do pretty much the same, it's like some kinda weird useless instinct, but I can't say I like her much; Tabitha's… interesting I guess but her manner seriously undermines my attempts to like her; Rahne and Jubilee appear too briefly (plus Rahne's voice annoys the hell outta me and Jubilee… looks flimsy. Very different from her comic self). I have a very big inner sadist. In fact, I have an alter-ego who claims ownership of my darker stories. 8D What I hate, however, is saying things like "Wanda is dead" straight out and flat like that. . It seems… anticlimactic. I really dunno what exactly I'll be doing with Amia in this fic… I'll have to figure it out sometime… Which is why she's just skulking around in the shadows for now, literally. =D Thankee much. It is pretty hard to find a recent fic that portrays him properly. One usually has to go to the older ones for that. Pity. Ooh, intelligence. *plays with it and drops it* Whoops. ^-~Mistress of Dragons – Er, gee. . I guess Retrospection was more incomprehensible than I thought it was. Oh, well. I am putting him through quite a bit, aren't I? You'll get to see what he thinks of it, chapter after the next. *whaps Rogue with a slide rule* Em/Pietro, I hope you do, Em kill Pietro, I hope you don't. ^-^' Don't kill my poor P? Please? You can have her scratch him but I do hope he doesn't die. *sniff* That'd be so friggin' tragic! No tragedy, thank you very much. Angst is all good, but tragedy of the permanent variety is not for my P. Ramble on. Rambling is good because it makes for long reviews even if they are rambling. ^-~ Insomnia is good for me because it makes me crank out better fics. 0.o Dunno why but I think better late at night. Thank Ra my little sis is too small to hog the comp. I'm going to assume Glimpses 8 is late (rhymie…) because of the Document Manager problem…
Toni – Here's to soon! Thanks a lot, I'm glad you like it! ^-^
Recommendation of the Chapter:
Go read my Harry Potter fic! I command you! XD "Hunter's Moon – Last Dance" is probably the darkest story I've ever written. And no, that's not it.
Everybody should go read Chiru's Pietro-centric fics. All of 'em, especially the uber-licious "Shattered Silver". Love you forever, Chiru, for giving me such a long, lovely and angsty Pietro-Pietro-Pietro-and-more-Pietro fic to read. ^_^ It's probably my favorite all-Pietro fic to date. I absolutely adored the flashbacks of little Pietro (such a sweet li'l guy!), and I also really enjoyed the way you portrayed the Acolytes, which is saying something since while I like them, I'm not a fan, per se, more of a… partial person. Heehee. But yes, "Shattered Silver" is da bomb and I totally loved it. Go R & R, y'all, and make her feel guilty enough to continue it because I, for one, am starved for both Season 4 and Pietro fics, 'cuz frankly, FF.net category listings these days scare/revolt me. Plus, double-starvation is not fun. At all. .
I'm having a double-recommendation for this chapter because I just read one of the best BoM fics ever made: Homoinferior by Shindo and SRI Queen. An awesome, awesome, awesome fic with the kind of dark grayish (sorry for the weird description) atmosphere that's so prevalent and so appropriate among the older, better Brotherhood fics. Lance leaves the Brotherhood to go to UCLA and then doesn't want to return. Now that he's back… If you hurry up and get your ass over to EvolutionSlash (Yahoo group; find the link in Chapter 7 of AngelRosiel's "The Power of Slushies", awesome, absolutely adorable Pietrance right there) you might be able to catch it there. If not, well, you could ask for it again or dig around in FF.net… A definite must-read.
Ending Note: I seem to have acquired a little group of loyal reviewers. Coolios! I love you guys!
I've got a tiny headstart on the next chapter, so that should be up before long unless I go off on some other weird tangent again. I certainly hope not. Pietro has waited long enough. Weird how long it's taking for me to get around to writing my very favorite character. .
Freddy has not dropped off the surface of the Earth just yet, peeps. He'll have an appearance in Pietro-chapter. ^-^ The fellow's going to be somewhat difficult to provide a personality for…
Survival of the Fittest is probably one of THE best episodes in Evo, and Shadowed Past was awesome too. ^-^ Operation Rebirth… Magneto being magnanimous. 0.o That sounds bizarre, and not just in the noise sense, either. Spykecam was… bleh. Boring as hell. Even my Mom said so, and she isn't against Evan-centric stuff.
Okay, I'll stop babblin' now. ^-^' These AN's are getting impossibly long. So… tell me what you think of Rogue's monstrous collection of thoughts, and see y'all next chap!
Next Installment: Nostalgia (0.o I'm breaking the pattern! The sky will fall, the volcanoes erupt, and Jupiter spin out of orbit! Gaah!)
