Welcome back to chapter three! I have the entire plot written out now woohoo! And I think it's a good one… **evil snicker**
Enjoy and please review! Special thanks once again to Soul Eater and Hyperly Mad.
Cat_eyes: The mystery voice will all be explained soon, don't worry!
UnknownSource: I have plenty more freaky nightmares where that came from ^^
Rita: Woohoo, thanks for the Rietro vote!
Rebecca: Thanks! I'm glad you think it's a good horror fic.
Thanks for your reviews!
~*~*~*
'Dancing with Death' chapter 3
By Tatum
Dinner break dragged by, the clock on the tower not seeming to move at all. Rogue shifted on her bench beside Kitty and Kurt. Scott and Jean lay on the grass in front of her, Jean resting her head on Scott's chest. It was this that was making Rogue so uncomfortable and she kept her eyes fixed on the oak tree a few inches away from the couple.
"I, like, can't wait for the dance tomorrow!" Kitty squealed, clapping her hands together in glee.
Rogue sighed quietly. She hated these school dances. The girls always spent ages getting ready to go and dance in their own stupid school GYM with the dumb boys. It was the same GYM it always was, just with a few added toilet roll streamers here and there.
"Who are you all going with?" Kitty continued.
"Two guesses who Jean and Scott are goink viz." Kurt rolled his eyes, watching the couple look at each other and smile. Rogue felt the jealously pumping through her and crossed her arms, hugging herself.
"Kitty, have you got a date?" Kurt turned to Kitty, who blushed.
"No yet. No ones asked me…" She gave a small glance to where the Brotherhood sat at the other end of the courtyard. Lance Alvers was sat in between Pietro and Fred Dukes.
Rogue jumped slightly when she saw that Pietro's blue eyes were fixed on her, almost unblinking. Rogue scowled at him and he smirked before turning away.
"Don't even think about it, Kitty." Scott glowered over at Lance, his chest puffing out angrily. "You don't wanna go with Alvers."
"I didn't say I did…" Kitty mumbled and turned back to her sandwich with a red face.
"I vas goink to ask you if you vanted to…" Kurt started, but then realized everybody was staring at him. He cleared his throat, hinting for them to leave him and Kitty alone for a second.
Jean and Scott laughed, turning to Rogue instead.
"So, what about you, Rogue?" Jean asked, cuddling into Scott's arm. "Who're you going with?"
Rogue glared at her. "Ah don't dance." She said eventually.
"Come on, I bet you're a great dancer!" Scott smiled. Rogue turned her eyes on him. They were talking to her as if she were a kid.
'Don't they get it?' She thought angrily. 'Ah don't -'
"Rogue?" Rogue looked up to see Pietro standing in front of her. Scott gave him a very nasty look.
"What do you want, Maximoff?" He snapped.
"Since when is your name Rogue, Specs?" Pietro answered back calmly. "I'm talking to this beautiful creature in front of me, not… well… you."
"And just what is that supposed -" Scott started to back-chat but Pietro continued talking over him.
"Rogue, can I talk to you for a second please? Alone?" He added.
"Erm… sure." Rogue stood up, ignoring Scott's 'what the hell are you doing' look and followed Pietro around the side of the school.
"Pietro, what do ya want?" Rogue leant against the wall, arms folded.
"Do you have a date for the dance tomorrow?" Pietro asked, leaning on his arm next to her. Rogue frowned at him, suddenly feeling very… excited? Nervous? Terrified?
"Wah you asking?" She asked. Pietro smiled.
"Wanna go with me?"
Rogue stared at him, letting the words sink in. Pietro Maximoff, one of the most popular guys in the year, was asking her, Rogue, out on a date. A Brotherhood guy and an X-girl? Weird combination.
"Ah, erm, well, ah…" Rogue was suddenly tongue-tied. "But Scott will -"
"You aren't worried about what Goggles will say, are you?" Pietro raised an eyebrow. "Its your life, not his."
True, Rogue blinked. It was her life. And it had just started to get exciting. Rogue looked up into his face, feeling a blush prickle her cheeks.
"Ok, ah will." She nodded, not sure what to say next. Pietro was still looking at her with a strange smile on his face.
"Can you still not touch anyone?" He asked eventually. Rogue shook her head.
"Then you'll just have to wear gloves for dancing, right?"
Rogue nodded. His next question made the hairs on her arms stand up.
"So, if I kissed you… it'd hurt?"
"…Yeah."
"I'm willing to risk it."
Rogue's heart skipped. He was leaning in towards her.
'Oh ma Gowd. If he kisses me, ah'll end up killin' 'im!'
"Pietro, don't -" She started, but Pietro cut her off, pushing his mouth to hers and shutting her up instantly.
Images started flashing across her mind, dancing in front of her eyes…. Pietro and his twin sister Wanda when they were babies, getting left with a foster family… Wanda getting put in the Asylum… then to when Pietro was older, going to join the Brotherhood… meeting and fighting Evan Daniels… lots of nasty thoughts about Evan… Wanda joining up with the Brotherhood after being in the Asylum and trying to kill him… and then, Rogue's mind screamed as the face of the Skull girl from her dream flashed in front of her eyes.
Rogue ripped her mouth away from Pietro's, staggering backwards. Pietro fell forwards, holding onto the wall, breathing heavily and gasping for breath as his face turned blue.
"Gowd, are you ok?" Rogue moved forward to him, patting his back uncertainly.
"I'll… I'll be… ok… I hope…" Pietro panted, his face slowly turning from blue back to white.
"Ah told ya not to, ya dumb ass. Ah coulda killed ya," Rogue frowned, punching his shoulder half-playfully.
"My fault, my fault…" Pietro nodded, beginning to breath slower now.
"You'd better go 'ave a sit down before next class starts. Are ya sure you're ok?"
"Yeah, yeah, just… don't tell Specs, ok? Leave it as a surprise for the dance?"
"Ok." Rogue watched him wink at her and stager away, shaking her head. As soon as he'd gone, she smiled properly for the first time in ages, her heart soaring as she leant back against the wall. When she made her way back to her friends, she didn't even bat an eye-lid that she had wandered in on Scott and Jean in mid lip-lock. Well… maybe half an eye-lid.
In her excitement, she'd totally forgotten about what she saw in Pietro's memory.
~*~*~*
"So, come on Rogue," Kitty rolled onto her chest on her bed, watching Rogue curiously. "You can totally tell me what happened at dinner today, I won't tell."
"What do ya mean…?" Rogue avoided Kitty's questioning eyes. Kitty snorted.
"You know perfectly well what I mean! Like, what happened with Pietro and you behind the school?" She grinned, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
"Ah… nothin'!" Rogue lied. Kitty sighed, more out of disappointment than anger.
"You know, Rogue, you've never really, like, TALKED to me before." She said, sitting up straight in her bed. Rogue blinked.
"What do ya think we're doin' raht now? Swimmin'?" She asked sarcastically.
"No, I mean… we've never TALKED talked. We've never gossiped about boys or, you know, girl stuff." Kitty shrugged, still playing with her hair.
"Ah don't lahke talkin' 'bout that sorta stuff." Rogue frowned.
"How do you know if you've never done it?" Kitty looked at her slyly. "Come on, Rogue, just tell me what happened. Do you like Pietro or something?"
Rogue looked at her hard, trying to figure out whether or not she should tell her what happened. She didn't want her telling Jean again like last time. But why not? They would see her with Pietro at the dance anyway. Did it really matter if she told Kitty first?
"Well… he asked me to the dahnce… and ah said yeah," She answered finally, looking down at her hands as a blush spread across her face.
"Oh my, like, God, really?" Kitty grinned like a Cheshire cat, staring at Rogue like she was the most interesting person in the World. "Do you like him? I always thought you liked Scott!"
"What!?" Rogue blushed even more. "Ah… he's ok…"
"Is that all that happened?" Kitty asked, pressing for more. Rogue hesitated.
"He kissed me…" She mumbled, her head almost buried in her knees. Kitty squealed happily.
"Way to go, Rogue! But wait, I thought you, like, couldn't touch anyone?"
"Ah can't, ah almost killed 'im," Rogue replied simply.
"But you're still going with him?"
"Yeah." Rogue couldn't stop the smile creeping across her face. She glanced at Kitty from the corner of her eye. "So are you goin' with Kurt?"
Kitty stopped squealing and blushed. "Yes,"
"You really lahke Lance don't'cha?"
"…Yes… but I'm glad I'm going with Kurt," She added. "At least Scott won't, like, give me dirty looks all night."
"Ya shouldn' be so bothered 'bout what Scott says," Rogue shook her head, subconsciously copying Kitty and playing with her platinum streak. "Its your life after all."
"I know, but I, like, promised Kurt I'd go with him and I don't wanna just dump him to go with Lance,"
"Ah understand."
The girls sat in a comfortable silence, still twiddling with their hair. Rogue felt a great swell of happiness inside her. For once in her life, things were starting to go right, the way she wanted them to go. She'd finally touched someone without putting them in a coma and she'd shared her first ever girly chat. She'd certainly felt uncomfortable at first, but Kitty must have been nervous too. Rogue knew she wasn't the most sociable of people and to be able to talk about personal things with a member of her own team made her feel a lot better, like she was starting to become accepted. She felt closer to Kitty than ever.
She's never thought she would have touched Pietro Maximoff with a 10-foot barge pole, never mind kiss him. She had always quite liked him, no matter how much she used to say she didn't.
Rogue drifted into a peaceful sleep, her head filling with images of Pietro. Not that she minded. She knew this would happen. Whenever she absorbed someone's energy, she also absorbed their thoughts, memories and, if they were mutants, their powers. For the rest of dinner break that day, she'd been whizzing around the courtyard like a whippet with a butt full of dynamite.
Pietro's memories weren't all that bad, mostly times when he was a baby, growing up with his foster parents and learning to control his powers. But then, all the happiness inside her vanished.
She was in the school GYM again and stood in front of her, with its back turned, was the skull freak. Another body was sprawled across the floor, but she was too far away to see who it was. It didn't look like Kurt, whoever it was.
Taking a step forward, she hid herself in the shadows behind the GYM equipment. The skull freak had turned away and was heading towards the door. Without a backward glance, she disappeared through it, her footsteps fading into the distance.
Rogue waited for the door to swing shut again, then emerged from her hiding place, moving to the body. Her heart hammered in her chest, silently praying that it wasn't one of her friends. But then she saw its face and her blood turned to ice.
It was her. Lying twisted on the floor, her head turned in an unnatural position, blood splaying from her mouth. There was what looked like a huge scorch mark branded across her still chest. A huge D shape. D for Dead.
Rogue felt the nausea rise in her throat. What the hell was going on? She took a step backwards, raising her hand to her mouth when something caught her attention. Her hands looked different. She looked down at her body and was startled out of her wits to realize that she was seeing all of this horror through Pietro's body. This must have been one of Pietro's own nightmares. If Pietro had seen this dream, then surely he must know about skull freak? But why wasn't skull freak chasing Pietro too?
She very well might be, said a small voice in her head. You'll never know unless you talk to him.
Rogue forced herself to wake up, snapping her eyes open. She had to talk to him. But the next time she'd see him would be at the ball tomorrow night. In the GYM.
'Please, God,' she prayed silently, her fingers crossing so hard they were cutting off the circulation. 'Please don't let those nightmares be real.'
~*~*~*~*~*
Tatum: Ooh, I liked that chapter the best so far, even if I do say so myself!
Rogue: Hey, it's getting' quite spooky now… ah'm not gonna die am ah?
Tatum: I can't tell you anything at all, you'll just have to keep reading.
Kurt: Am I goink to die? I vas zee body in zee first chapter, does zis mean I'm goink to get murdered? I don't vant to go to zee dance anymore, Kitty or no Kitty!
Tatum: Sorry, Kurt, I can't tell you anything either. It'll all be explained soon.
Pietro: Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! I haven't been seen dead in a dream, that means I'm gonna live woohoo!
Tatum: Don't be so sure, honey. I'm the author after all…
Pietro: But -
Tatum: Look, stop asking me questions. I'm NOT telling. Anyhu, dear readers, please review! I'll love you forever!
Enjoy and please review! Special thanks once again to Soul Eater and Hyperly Mad.
Cat_eyes: The mystery voice will all be explained soon, don't worry!
UnknownSource: I have plenty more freaky nightmares where that came from ^^
Rita: Woohoo, thanks for the Rietro vote!
Rebecca: Thanks! I'm glad you think it's a good horror fic.
Thanks for your reviews!
~*~*~*
'Dancing with Death' chapter 3
By Tatum
Dinner break dragged by, the clock on the tower not seeming to move at all. Rogue shifted on her bench beside Kitty and Kurt. Scott and Jean lay on the grass in front of her, Jean resting her head on Scott's chest. It was this that was making Rogue so uncomfortable and she kept her eyes fixed on the oak tree a few inches away from the couple.
"I, like, can't wait for the dance tomorrow!" Kitty squealed, clapping her hands together in glee.
Rogue sighed quietly. She hated these school dances. The girls always spent ages getting ready to go and dance in their own stupid school GYM with the dumb boys. It was the same GYM it always was, just with a few added toilet roll streamers here and there.
"Who are you all going with?" Kitty continued.
"Two guesses who Jean and Scott are goink viz." Kurt rolled his eyes, watching the couple look at each other and smile. Rogue felt the jealously pumping through her and crossed her arms, hugging herself.
"Kitty, have you got a date?" Kurt turned to Kitty, who blushed.
"No yet. No ones asked me…" She gave a small glance to where the Brotherhood sat at the other end of the courtyard. Lance Alvers was sat in between Pietro and Fred Dukes.
Rogue jumped slightly when she saw that Pietro's blue eyes were fixed on her, almost unblinking. Rogue scowled at him and he smirked before turning away.
"Don't even think about it, Kitty." Scott glowered over at Lance, his chest puffing out angrily. "You don't wanna go with Alvers."
"I didn't say I did…" Kitty mumbled and turned back to her sandwich with a red face.
"I vas goink to ask you if you vanted to…" Kurt started, but then realized everybody was staring at him. He cleared his throat, hinting for them to leave him and Kitty alone for a second.
Jean and Scott laughed, turning to Rogue instead.
"So, what about you, Rogue?" Jean asked, cuddling into Scott's arm. "Who're you going with?"
Rogue glared at her. "Ah don't dance." She said eventually.
"Come on, I bet you're a great dancer!" Scott smiled. Rogue turned her eyes on him. They were talking to her as if she were a kid.
'Don't they get it?' She thought angrily. 'Ah don't -'
"Rogue?" Rogue looked up to see Pietro standing in front of her. Scott gave him a very nasty look.
"What do you want, Maximoff?" He snapped.
"Since when is your name Rogue, Specs?" Pietro answered back calmly. "I'm talking to this beautiful creature in front of me, not… well… you."
"And just what is that supposed -" Scott started to back-chat but Pietro continued talking over him.
"Rogue, can I talk to you for a second please? Alone?" He added.
"Erm… sure." Rogue stood up, ignoring Scott's 'what the hell are you doing' look and followed Pietro around the side of the school.
"Pietro, what do ya want?" Rogue leant against the wall, arms folded.
"Do you have a date for the dance tomorrow?" Pietro asked, leaning on his arm next to her. Rogue frowned at him, suddenly feeling very… excited? Nervous? Terrified?
"Wah you asking?" She asked. Pietro smiled.
"Wanna go with me?"
Rogue stared at him, letting the words sink in. Pietro Maximoff, one of the most popular guys in the year, was asking her, Rogue, out on a date. A Brotherhood guy and an X-girl? Weird combination.
"Ah, erm, well, ah…" Rogue was suddenly tongue-tied. "But Scott will -"
"You aren't worried about what Goggles will say, are you?" Pietro raised an eyebrow. "Its your life, not his."
True, Rogue blinked. It was her life. And it had just started to get exciting. Rogue looked up into his face, feeling a blush prickle her cheeks.
"Ok, ah will." She nodded, not sure what to say next. Pietro was still looking at her with a strange smile on his face.
"Can you still not touch anyone?" He asked eventually. Rogue shook her head.
"Then you'll just have to wear gloves for dancing, right?"
Rogue nodded. His next question made the hairs on her arms stand up.
"So, if I kissed you… it'd hurt?"
"…Yeah."
"I'm willing to risk it."
Rogue's heart skipped. He was leaning in towards her.
'Oh ma Gowd. If he kisses me, ah'll end up killin' 'im!'
"Pietro, don't -" She started, but Pietro cut her off, pushing his mouth to hers and shutting her up instantly.
Images started flashing across her mind, dancing in front of her eyes…. Pietro and his twin sister Wanda when they were babies, getting left with a foster family… Wanda getting put in the Asylum… then to when Pietro was older, going to join the Brotherhood… meeting and fighting Evan Daniels… lots of nasty thoughts about Evan… Wanda joining up with the Brotherhood after being in the Asylum and trying to kill him… and then, Rogue's mind screamed as the face of the Skull girl from her dream flashed in front of her eyes.
Rogue ripped her mouth away from Pietro's, staggering backwards. Pietro fell forwards, holding onto the wall, breathing heavily and gasping for breath as his face turned blue.
"Gowd, are you ok?" Rogue moved forward to him, patting his back uncertainly.
"I'll… I'll be… ok… I hope…" Pietro panted, his face slowly turning from blue back to white.
"Ah told ya not to, ya dumb ass. Ah coulda killed ya," Rogue frowned, punching his shoulder half-playfully.
"My fault, my fault…" Pietro nodded, beginning to breath slower now.
"You'd better go 'ave a sit down before next class starts. Are ya sure you're ok?"
"Yeah, yeah, just… don't tell Specs, ok? Leave it as a surprise for the dance?"
"Ok." Rogue watched him wink at her and stager away, shaking her head. As soon as he'd gone, she smiled properly for the first time in ages, her heart soaring as she leant back against the wall. When she made her way back to her friends, she didn't even bat an eye-lid that she had wandered in on Scott and Jean in mid lip-lock. Well… maybe half an eye-lid.
In her excitement, she'd totally forgotten about what she saw in Pietro's memory.
~*~*~*
"So, come on Rogue," Kitty rolled onto her chest on her bed, watching Rogue curiously. "You can totally tell me what happened at dinner today, I won't tell."
"What do ya mean…?" Rogue avoided Kitty's questioning eyes. Kitty snorted.
"You know perfectly well what I mean! Like, what happened with Pietro and you behind the school?" She grinned, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
"Ah… nothin'!" Rogue lied. Kitty sighed, more out of disappointment than anger.
"You know, Rogue, you've never really, like, TALKED to me before." She said, sitting up straight in her bed. Rogue blinked.
"What do ya think we're doin' raht now? Swimmin'?" She asked sarcastically.
"No, I mean… we've never TALKED talked. We've never gossiped about boys or, you know, girl stuff." Kitty shrugged, still playing with her hair.
"Ah don't lahke talkin' 'bout that sorta stuff." Rogue frowned.
"How do you know if you've never done it?" Kitty looked at her slyly. "Come on, Rogue, just tell me what happened. Do you like Pietro or something?"
Rogue looked at her hard, trying to figure out whether or not she should tell her what happened. She didn't want her telling Jean again like last time. But why not? They would see her with Pietro at the dance anyway. Did it really matter if she told Kitty first?
"Well… he asked me to the dahnce… and ah said yeah," She answered finally, looking down at her hands as a blush spread across her face.
"Oh my, like, God, really?" Kitty grinned like a Cheshire cat, staring at Rogue like she was the most interesting person in the World. "Do you like him? I always thought you liked Scott!"
"What!?" Rogue blushed even more. "Ah… he's ok…"
"Is that all that happened?" Kitty asked, pressing for more. Rogue hesitated.
"He kissed me…" She mumbled, her head almost buried in her knees. Kitty squealed happily.
"Way to go, Rogue! But wait, I thought you, like, couldn't touch anyone?"
"Ah can't, ah almost killed 'im," Rogue replied simply.
"But you're still going with him?"
"Yeah." Rogue couldn't stop the smile creeping across her face. She glanced at Kitty from the corner of her eye. "So are you goin' with Kurt?"
Kitty stopped squealing and blushed. "Yes,"
"You really lahke Lance don't'cha?"
"…Yes… but I'm glad I'm going with Kurt," She added. "At least Scott won't, like, give me dirty looks all night."
"Ya shouldn' be so bothered 'bout what Scott says," Rogue shook her head, subconsciously copying Kitty and playing with her platinum streak. "Its your life after all."
"I know, but I, like, promised Kurt I'd go with him and I don't wanna just dump him to go with Lance,"
"Ah understand."
The girls sat in a comfortable silence, still twiddling with their hair. Rogue felt a great swell of happiness inside her. For once in her life, things were starting to go right, the way she wanted them to go. She'd finally touched someone without putting them in a coma and she'd shared her first ever girly chat. She'd certainly felt uncomfortable at first, but Kitty must have been nervous too. Rogue knew she wasn't the most sociable of people and to be able to talk about personal things with a member of her own team made her feel a lot better, like she was starting to become accepted. She felt closer to Kitty than ever.
She's never thought she would have touched Pietro Maximoff with a 10-foot barge pole, never mind kiss him. She had always quite liked him, no matter how much she used to say she didn't.
Rogue drifted into a peaceful sleep, her head filling with images of Pietro. Not that she minded. She knew this would happen. Whenever she absorbed someone's energy, she also absorbed their thoughts, memories and, if they were mutants, their powers. For the rest of dinner break that day, she'd been whizzing around the courtyard like a whippet with a butt full of dynamite.
Pietro's memories weren't all that bad, mostly times when he was a baby, growing up with his foster parents and learning to control his powers. But then, all the happiness inside her vanished.
She was in the school GYM again and stood in front of her, with its back turned, was the skull freak. Another body was sprawled across the floor, but she was too far away to see who it was. It didn't look like Kurt, whoever it was.
Taking a step forward, she hid herself in the shadows behind the GYM equipment. The skull freak had turned away and was heading towards the door. Without a backward glance, she disappeared through it, her footsteps fading into the distance.
Rogue waited for the door to swing shut again, then emerged from her hiding place, moving to the body. Her heart hammered in her chest, silently praying that it wasn't one of her friends. But then she saw its face and her blood turned to ice.
It was her. Lying twisted on the floor, her head turned in an unnatural position, blood splaying from her mouth. There was what looked like a huge scorch mark branded across her still chest. A huge D shape. D for Dead.
Rogue felt the nausea rise in her throat. What the hell was going on? She took a step backwards, raising her hand to her mouth when something caught her attention. Her hands looked different. She looked down at her body and was startled out of her wits to realize that she was seeing all of this horror through Pietro's body. This must have been one of Pietro's own nightmares. If Pietro had seen this dream, then surely he must know about skull freak? But why wasn't skull freak chasing Pietro too?
She very well might be, said a small voice in her head. You'll never know unless you talk to him.
Rogue forced herself to wake up, snapping her eyes open. She had to talk to him. But the next time she'd see him would be at the ball tomorrow night. In the GYM.
'Please, God,' she prayed silently, her fingers crossing so hard they were cutting off the circulation. 'Please don't let those nightmares be real.'
~*~*~*~*~*
Tatum: Ooh, I liked that chapter the best so far, even if I do say so myself!
Rogue: Hey, it's getting' quite spooky now… ah'm not gonna die am ah?
Tatum: I can't tell you anything at all, you'll just have to keep reading.
Kurt: Am I goink to die? I vas zee body in zee first chapter, does zis mean I'm goink to get murdered? I don't vant to go to zee dance anymore, Kitty or no Kitty!
Tatum: Sorry, Kurt, I can't tell you anything either. It'll all be explained soon.
Pietro: Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! I haven't been seen dead in a dream, that means I'm gonna live woohoo!
Tatum: Don't be so sure, honey. I'm the author after all…
Pietro: But -
Tatum: Look, stop asking me questions. I'm NOT telling. Anyhu, dear readers, please review! I'll love you forever!