There's a sentence in here that's dedicated to Crash. See if you can find it… and if you were serious about it, I'd suggest either watching Monty Python or reading Beyond the Pale. Either one is within range of the concept.

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Chapter Two: Loved

He flung himself on his bed; oh, it wasn't his, of course, not his and never had been his at all, but it was nice to call it that, no matter how horrific it caused to bring events in the future. It smelled of laundry detergent and dust and air, and he buried his face into the scarlet quilt and breathed in deeply. It smelled like home — or the home that wasn't a home, he reminded himself. It contradicted itself and he laughed into the fabric, realizing that he was comparing himself to a house and that it wasn't relieving him of the current task at hand. And he'd never had a home, anyway. This wasn't even a temporary placement.

Oh, he'd been sent to train them, had he? They hated him now, and he knew it, and he bounced around the place like a hyperactive kitten and scratched at their faces, meowing at them and daring them to correct him, dodging when they came at him like a coward. He was acting like a bastard and knew it, and rubbed it in their faces while kicking dirt behind him all the way and telling them to clean it up behind him. He was taking out his frustration on them, and it wasn't fair, and he knew it.

They'd laughed at him for hours after he'd told them what he'd said. They knew as well as he did that he was a mouse; a stupid, curled tail, white mouse, that ran after a piece of cheese and got stepped on at every interval. It was a game of cat and mouse — here's the mouse, maiden, he's come to save you, oh? Well, yeah, my mouse daddy's gotta big, big team of stronger mice than me, you don't want me for supper, I'm thin and scrawny and tough. You wouldn't like me.


I don't even like myself.

He sighed, and rolled over, arching his back with his head deepening into the pillow as he yawned, massaging the bags under his eyes. He hadn't slept in days and it was beginning to show; his skin was paler than usual and he felt like just lying down in the middle of the floor and not waking up. The bed was too soft. It had been damaged when Lance had thrown his stuff out the window — he still hadn't forgiven him for that. Not that it mattered of course; why should he forgive them if they hated his guts and didn't bother to hide it?

"Act like you don't like them, like their dogs underneath your feet, as they are. Give them reason to hate you. If they hate you, you'll be able to leave them all the better, Pietro. No guilt, no feelings, no hate, nothing. You'll be numb, and you'll love it, but won't feel anything at all. Anything at all."

You're so wrong, he nodded to the voice inside his head. You're so wrong.

Then why did he still follow that? Why did he still follow him, follow like a dog on a leash, and couldn't tear the voice out of his head through his ears and laugh at it like he did in his dreams — the ones unplugged by screams and people dying and fire, fire, covering everything. And people screaming and his skin scorching and the straw turning charred black. And the face, the face of an angel clothed in scarlet and black in front of him, smiling, taking him by the hand and running by his side, but touching out and burning his face until he screamed in pain.

And John wondered why he flinched whenever he lifted a lead.

He didn't hate the others, either, of course. They'd provided the warmth he'd needed, the kindness he'd thrived on for the weeks he'd left for, missing people in a sense that blurred. They were cold -- the same kind of cold that was as he was, and they'd all provided the answers he'd asked at points that hadn't made sense. He'd been the same, just like them, he still was, actually; that cold, chilled persona that blocked out the harder things and just kept you safe that all you need to think about and dream. It just jumbled together in a sort of paranoia that enveloped all of them in the turning of the weeks.

Sneak out, throw a blanket over Todd on the couch, turn off the TV, tiptoe past Wanda in the kitchen, her face plastered to the kitchen table, leave a note on the door, run, run, run. Fast. It never ended until he was there, panting with the sheer energy of it all and was grappled with the immense need to talk, and never stop.

It'd become a pattern. He'd run to the HQ, talk, jump up and down, get high off the ecstasy of running for that many hours until it all blurred together, seeing images he did not want to see. And he'd end up sobbing in the den watching the tape he carried in the pack and running it backwards, watching himself run back and forth like that little white mouse that inhabited his dreams and gnawed at the blackness that always came for him, there. That mouse would run, and run again, backwards and forwards, dropping the thought and relying on instinct to do the very thing he'd told himself not to do over and over and over. Didn't matter, of course, seeming as the action would already have been done by another and had been done. But guilt wasn't something he was accustomed to, and nodding now, he realized it hurt like hell.

It was pure reaction! He stared at his feet, toes curling at the end of the bed; pale white against the scarlet red sheets, never failing that bright color even though he'd washed them continuously for weeks. It was an omen, like in the books he read late at night, stealing them from Rusty's bookshelf while the guy was out wrecking havoc and flipping through at thirty seconds per page, devouring each with nothing else to do. Pure reaction, that's all!

It did no good to deny it. His brain took over his feet at different obstacles of the day; get out of homework by speeding out of the class before the teacher even had time to speak; shake people up enough to get rid of their money; dodge projectiles aiming for his nose. But sometimes, it was different; his feet took over his brain, and he'd know what he was doing split seconds before he did it, and he couldn't do one thing to stop it. Reaction, of course, defines as something done by instinct.

His instinct was to run. Like Speedy Gonzalas. He didn't even have a sombrero. What a waste.

Sighing once more, he rubbed his eyes and stood, shaking his head and glancing at the clock. 1:04. Frowning, he rubbed his eyes softly one last time and started down the stairs. The steps were rotting in some places -- he'd have to get Freddy to fix that. Scratching the back of his head, his frown deepened as he tapped the dusty banister with light fingernails thoughtfully, and continued down it, slower than his normal brisk pace.

He entered the kitchen, noting his sister sleeping quietly, her head resting on her arms as her back arched softly with each breath taken. Filling a glass with water, he watched her as she buried her head deeper into the red-torn fabric that she always insisted on wearing. Zipping quietly into the chair in front of her and taking a large gulp, he laughed inwardly as he thought about their names. Wanda. Pietro. Scarlet Witch. Quicksilver. They were all apt to think; scarlet clothing, silver hair, outfits, faces. Which one did they claim to, the one that held fast, stuck like glue?

He really didn't know.

Her face looked so much like his own it startled him, for a moment, after he brushed the last drops of the liquid from his mouth. He wondered vaguely for a second whether he was looking into a mirror, or maybe a screwed version of himself that wasn't to be. They were twins, and it showed, plainly. Her hair was flung over her face, like it did over his, and her legs were crossed even in her sleep -- damn it. A faint smile traced his cheeks as he beheld the thought of the probability of it all. Oh, great, now I'm comparing myself to a crazy person. Yippee for me!

But no, he reacted shortly, reeling back against the squealing chair as she moved her head, turning sideways, the movement tracing shivers down his spine. She wasn't so crazy anymore, was she? Far from it! Living memories of a life he'd never even come to dream of, knowing that such a thing would never come to be, living with the pain of the things that they had done to her. He knew it; he had watched it from the road, his hands in his pockets, his eyes flowing with tears, the stupid hope that she'd come back one day and come back! And he'd rescue her and they'd live in the happy world of their all-but-forgotten childhood with the dragons and the castles and the damsels in distress…

He couldn't save her. He didn't know how and he'd forgotten why he'd set out to in the first place. She definitely wasn't a damsel in distress at all -- and now he was reminiscing like a Goddamn Shakespearean; angst this, and oh, angst that…

Why should I even care? He asked himself, standing up, shaking some of the droplets of water in the glass over his head and zipping towards the door. 'S'not my fault she did those things… she should have listened to him when he told her in the first place.

He took another gulp of water, coughing hazardously as it went down the wrong pipe, being startled by the soft cries being called out from the rickety plastic table behind him. Reacting sharply, he streaked back to in front of the table and glared down at her face, his insides churning painfully.

"What did you say?" He whispered, knowing that she couldn't hear him.

A soft cry escaped from her lips as she frowned and twitched, her eyelids fluttering softly. "Stop… no, wait… unh…"

What the hell am I doing? He asked himself, but he didn't move. She's having a nightmare -- so what? I have them all the time and I live… lived…

"…Father…"

"Great," he muttered, wincing. He backed up and stared somewhat angrily down at her face and at the two large teardrops that fell down her nose as her face scrunched up, turning black as her mascara ran. "Just fucking peachy."

She wasn't as strong now that she'd lost all that stupid hate, and now with something like this stupid paranoia, she probably was going to drag the rest of them in it with her, wasn't she, the angsty bitch? She was something to be afraid of, sure, and he could add that to his list, but man, she was his sister. Flesh and blood, and no matter what Lance said, blood was thicker than water and he had to honor that. If for the sake of his own conscience. He had too much to worry about already.

Pietro looked at the glass, half-empty -- or half-full -- and sighed.

She coughed and spluttered as she rubbed her stinging eyes, feeling cold water wet her hair and making it sopping, falling off her chair, and then found herself standing before she hit the ground. Opening her eyes warily to the heavy sigh that her ears picked up, she stared at her brother, who was calmly leaning back in a chair with his feet on the table, his eyebrows perked and his eyes boring a hole into hers.

"Well?" He asked perkily after a moment of tense silence. "Aren't you gonna thank me?"

She almost laughed out loud. And here she was thinking that he was being gracious and caring, chilling her out of a dream that would have left her knee deep in humiliation the next morning. Not that it wasn't the same dream she'd had for weeks -- but such things weren't always defined on actions. And yet, here he was, same old, despairing brother with no way to go in the world, the coward, the rat, the boy she felt she loved and didn't know why.

"Thank you for soaking me," she said, quietly, sincerely, giving a short outbreak of breath out of her nose, and laid a hand on the table between them. "Happy?"

"Not very."

She started, and looked up from her hand to the boy in the chair beyond her, who was looking at her with an expression she couldn't define, as always. Did he enjoy having her puzzle over him, enjoy having her live through sleepless nights trying to decode the jigsaw that was her brother? She knew he wasn't just plain mean; they were twins, however absent each other had been from the other's lives, and she could sometimes just feel his stare on her back and his mind somewhere else.

"Why not?" She asked, staring at him curiously, her head peaked, her blinks slow.

He shrugged. "Dunno."

"Alright, then," she said, a smile beginning to form on her face as she sat down on the plastic chair that was already beginning to dry, "something's wrong with you. You know everything."

"Not everything," he muttered under his breath, and she frowned, staring at him with general concern etched on her face. "I don't know everything," he said louder, tapping the plastic with his fingers in a row.

"Come to think of it," she said, "I don't know everything either. I just know that you know everything and have told each and every single person that I can think of several times before."

He gave a half-smile at that, and she felt a small surge of triumph. "Mmmm," he said. "Not everyone."

She laughed, and swatted at him with the glass that was laid out on the table. She felt strangely exuberant, happy, sort of even thrilled to be awake. It could have been relief, or maybe just the kind of high someone gets when they are awake in the middle of the night; it was a high on life. It felt good, to be happy for once, or at least something similar to it.

He just took the glass from her hands and zipped over to the sink, rinsed it, put it in the dishwasher, and was back in his seat within twenty seconds, his hair flipped over his face hesitantly. He slicked it back with a lick to his palm, and sighed contentedly.

"Your power's so much cooler than mine," she said regretfully, watching him click his heels on the plastic once more. "I wish I could do that."

He shrugged. "Yours isn't so bad itself. You can… blast people! And… like… shoot people through the neck!" Shaping a gun out of his finger and thumb, he pointed at her and pretended to shoot.

"Oh, ah, you killed me," she said sarcastically, closing her eyes and pretending to fall back sharply. "I am dead. Poor me. I will never see the light of day again. Oh, boohoo for me."

"Yeah. Die, evil witch. Bam bam bam."

"But no, I'm serious," she said, tucking in her feet under her body casually.

"So'mI. Why aren't you dying, witch? Ack, we'll have to burn her! -- Get the stake, I'll have to go wake up the Townspeople…"

"You're lucky, you know. Like at the carnival when you kept winning all the prizes in the whack-a-mole race. You were there before I'd even blinked. That attendant's face was so messed up… and you gave me that giant purple teddy bear, remember? I got lemonade on it. I wonder what happened to that old bear?…"

He was looking at her uneasily. She frowned. "What? Don't you remember?"

"Yeah, sure, sis," he said, shrugging. Her frown deepened and she tapped his forehead, reaching across the table with a red draped and ripped arm.

"You can't possibly be serious! You were in my face about it for months!"

"Memories go quick in the mind of one as fast as I am."

"We went to that carnival with Dad, you can't tell me you don't remember, man! That was before that giant business trip he had to go on to Israel, he took us as a goodbye present! You threw up on the Fireball --"

She stopped. His face was still blank.

"You're impossible." She sighed, and got up, reaching for the black and read notebook accompanied by a large textbook. "I'm going to bed, now. You gonna stay here?"

He shrugged. "Might as well. Can't sleep, anyhow."

She peered closer at his face. "Yeah, I can see. Your eyes have giant circles under them. How about taking some sleeping pills?"

"Tried it."

"Music?"



"Yup."




"T.V.?"

"Honestly."

She shrugged, and moved the heavy books into her arms. "Yeah, well, try and perk up. We've got an English test tomorrow. The joy that is Advanced English has come to catch up to you, Pietro. Ever try studying for once?"

"I've read all the textbooks already. They're no challenge, really."

She smiled sadly and stroked an astray hair behind his ear, moving towards the door, waving with one pale white hand, much the same as his own. "Its all a challenge to you, isn't it?"

"You have no idea," he whispered to her back, as her figure swayed up the staircase with a hand to her mouth as she yawned quietly. "You just don't have any idea…"

He left the table with a flourish, after a minute, and scribbled a quick note onto a yellow sticky and stuck it onto the wall in the hall, grabbed Lance's jean jacket from the floor by the mat and shut the door quietly behind him. He took lengthy steps out into the pouring rain that soaked him from moment one, and stared silently at the figure in the yellow light of the attic above, stretching to close the window before it soaked the floor.

As Wanda trudged into the bathroom to brush her teeth at 1:35 that night, with the lightening storm raging over her head, she had no idea that that was the last time she'd see the boy she loved without a reason.

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I should have one of those strange Snood rhymes here, the kind you get telling you to register if you haven't already, but I'm just too lazy.