Plaster Disaster
By S. Mark Gunther
A funny thing in this world is how when someone is embedded in a foot think plaster wall it changes their perspective about something in their life. It's not normal to be embedded in a wall, henceforth why it can cause such changes in someone's thought processes. Todd was going through this as his mind began to work again after the blackout. He noticed that not only was he embedded in a wall in the Brotherhood house but that by some strange arrangement he seemed to be entangled with the wiring in the sheetrock and plaster. He tried to move but he seemed to just be caught and snared almost as if he was being held by some force.
"Fuck, yo," Todd muttered as he tried to extract himself from the wall. No dice. He was stuck and he knew it. And as he thought back to who put him in the wall, he realized that life really did suck ass.
***"Schnookums, I have a present for you!" Todd called out happily as he hopped into the front room of the Brotherhood house. "Schnookums?! Babycakes?!"
"Shut the hell up, slimeball," Wanda muttered from the couch, her eyes strangely glazed over and her face devoid of color. "I'm trying to watch the Martha Stewart marathon that's on and she's just about to explain how to decorate a house with goat's blood."
"But Wanda, I got you a little present, yo," Todd said as he slid over to the side of the couch where Wanda was sitting. He handed her a little box with a bow on it. She took it and tossed it out of the open window in the front room without a single glance at it. Todd gasped as he heard the delicate crystal inside the box tinkle and shatter as it hit the ground outside despite the box's protection.
"Wanda?! What the hell did you do that for?! That cost me an arm and two of my legs, yo! At least you could have opened it first!" Todd exclaimed, his normally reserved face going crimson as he realized that she just didn't care about anything he did for her.
"Todd, I'm going to give you five seconds to get out of my sight then I'm going to hurt you if you're not," Wanda said sharply as she turned to look at him for the first time. Todd saw the hate in his love's eyes for him and sighed softly. He turned and walked away, muttering under his breath "Stupid Crazy Red Bitch". The mere fact that he was finally really angry at the girl he wanted to love meant little to him but upon hearing the words Crazy Red Bitch, Wanda got even more angry then her norm.
"What did you say, Toad?" Wanda said softly. For a moment, Todd stopped. Todd's entire world stopped and he finally decided to express the frustration in his heart that he felt when he was around her.
"I SAID YOU'RE A STUPID, HEARTLESS, FRIGID, UGLY AND CRAZY LITTLE RED BITCH!!! I WISH YOUR ASSHOLE FATHER JUST DECIDED TO LEAVE YOU IN THE CRAZY HOUSE SO YOU WOULDN'T FUCKING BREAK MY HEART EVERYTIME YOU OPEN YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!!" Todd screamed at the top of his lungs. For a moment nothing happened. Silence drifted over the house as both people asorbed the statement that now hung in the air. Then the hex blast happened.
Wanda charged one of the largest hex blasts she ever had and fired it dead on at Todd, his face showing shock as the blast of energy hit him. The force was so strong that it slammed him halfway through the nearby wall. He got well started but then got stuck. He fell unconscious as soon as his body crumpled up in the wall. Wanda then walked over and proceeded to use her powers to bind him into the wiring of the wall, her eyes seeing wires and connective threads to use to tie him up. In a few moments she had him right where she wanted him, quiet and not able to bug her.
"No one calls me crazy anymore, Toad. No one." Wanda said quietly to the now unconscious frog boy stuck in the wall. She then turned around and walked out of the house, the Martha Stewart marathon forgotten about.
***"You know, some guys at least get to be told that they have no chance and whatnot. But what do I have? A girl who likes to hurt me when I say a word. A girl who likes to insult me and everyone she sees," Todd said idly as he looked around and noticed the predicament he was in. "I don't wanna love her anymore, yo. I'm tired of feeling like this about her. I'm tired of being slapped and kicked at and hexed just because I'm a teenager and my hormones are raging and I chose to like someone who can't love herself, yo..."
A tear fell from his eye and slid down his cheek but he couldn't stop it. He just ignored it and kept talking to himself. "Of course, she's not only beautiful and mean and hateful towards herself but she's been fucking brainwashed by that fuckhead Magneto, her own fucking father. So mabye it all makes sense: she's crazy and I'm just dumb for loving her. But why does she have to hate me so much? I mean, I know I can be annoying but she barely looks at me or speaks to me. She has no fucking idea how much I want her to at least acknowledge me. She gives everyone else in the house a little bit of respect but to me, the one person who would take a bullet for her, she does nothing. It ain't fair, yo. It's just not fucking right..." He sniffled softly and kept on crying and talking to himself. Out loud.
"Stupid Wanda. Stupid beautiful bitch...she has no idea how much I see in her, how wonderful she can be when she just decides to stop being so damned angry. She makes me smile so much but she makes me want to not look at her sometimes because she's so damned screwed up. And it's all because he powers are out of control sometimes. This sucks, yo...I wish I didn't love her. I wish I didn't want to know that she needs me even if she doesn't see it. I wish she could just accept that I like her, even if she didn't like me like that. Just accept that someone might actually want her to be in my life more then what I am now. It feels like she just despises the very air I breathe, yo. And...and I miss her when she's not around..."
Moments passed and Todd kept crying softly, his words now silenced by the steady flow of tears coming down his cheeks. He felt his heart beginning to rust over with sadness, his emotions seemed to be dying as he looked down at his crumpled self and silently brooded. He sighed and choked back one final sob before wriggling a little and trying to find a release for the prison he was in at that moment. Then he heard it.
"You're not getting out of there until I release you," Wanda said softly. Todd lifted his eyes and looked at her with shock. She seemed to be more sad then was her norm, her normally ashen face seemed even more pale and lifeless. Her eyes twinkled with unshed tears, her lips set up in a frown. She walked to his position and touched his face with her hand. Wanda cupped Todd's cheek in her hand and for a moment she seemed as if she was going to break down and cry right along with him. "And I'm not releasing you until you listen to me."
"What makes you think I want to listen to you now, Wanda?" Todd asked, hurt pracically flowing from his words, the statement escaping his lips before he could even check himself. Wanda mentally drove past the fresh stab of pain that erupted from his words and took a deep breath.
"What makes me know that you will listen to me is that I know you still love me. And because you love me, you have an obligation to listen to me. You need to listen to me now, if you don't listen to anything else in your life." Wanda fell silent and Todd just stared at her in shock.
"I'm listening, yo."
"Good." Wanda released the bonds she had on the wires and with a push of her hand against Todd's forehead, she pushed him out of the hole he was in. He fell backwards and stood up very slowly, his bones and muscles not used to being crumpled up for so long, even being a frog.
"Damn that hurts, yo," Todd said softly, his joints and bones popping as he stretched out. What he heard next shocked him to the core.
"I'm sorry I did that to you, Todd," Wanda said so softly that Todd wasn't sure if he had heard it or not. He decided in that moment of utter shock to just shrug and dust himself off. She looked through the hole at him and sighed. "Please come with me to my room."
"Alright, yo," Todd replied. He walked into the hallway and followed Wanda to her room, stepping in with more then a little bit of trepidiousness. Wanda shut the door with her powers and sat down on the bed. She looked down for a moment, trying to get her thoughts together. When she looked up, she saw Todd standing against the far wall, looking as small as he really was both inside and out. She saw him for what he was, a young man scared to be around someone who he both loves and fears. His face was sunken and withdrawn and he tapped his foot slightly as he looked at everywhere but her, his efforts centering on the little spot of floor in front of him.
"You don't have to be so far away, Todd," Wanda said softly. "I'd like for you to come closer to me. Please."
"I'm not sure I believe that, yo," Todd replied darkly, "Since everytime I've wanted to be close to you, you've pushed me away so hard. I mean, I know I'm smelly sometimes but damn..."
"That was before. This is now. Come closer so I can talk to you," Wanda said with a sad smile. Todd looked up at her and sighed. When she did stop being a bitch and showed off her soft side, Todd felt himself going all to pieces inside. He hopped over to her and stood in front of her. "Sit down." Todd did so and looked at the floor, waiting for her to go on.
"Todd, what really happened to me in my past?" Wanda asked softly. "Please don't lie to me. You've already told me enough from what I overheard you saying to yourself so please don't lie. Just tell me the truth." Todd looked at her and wondered what was going to happen. He started telling her all the things he knew about her, from all that Pietro had told them to his own recollection of the events at Arrowrose. He told her everything he remembered, not leaving anything out. It took about an hour and when he was done he felt even more tired then was his norm. Wanda sat silent for a moment and asorbed all that he had said to her.
"Why didn't you tell me all this before, Todd?" Wanda asked, a small tear running down her cheek. Todd caught the tear running and brushed it away from her cheek with his hand, the action coming before he could even realize it was happening.
"Truthfully, I didn't want you to leave. Pietro asked us all to keep what happened to you a secret...and I hoped that if you stayed I'd have more time to be able to get you to like me. But regardless, yo, I didn't want you to leave and go off and hunt your father down and die." A pause happened while Todd caught his breath and his mind which happened to be speeding off in about twelve thousand different directions. "I've been fighting this for so long, especially when you started to become even meaner then before and you sstarted to have flashbacks that that creep Mastermind sure as shit didn't expect to happen. It's been so hard, yo. But I just didn't want you to go. I wanted you to stay and realize that I might be someone you want to like like more then a friend."
"Todd, you don't know this," Wanda said after a long silence, "But I had a boyfriend while I was in the hospital."
"You did? How? And how do you remember that?" Todd asked, slightly confused.
"When you told me everything about my past, all the things I did came back to me." Wanda rubbed her hands together and sighed. "The first time I met Chad was when I was 14 and he was 17. At the hospital, we were allowed time out to play and be like kids from time to time. I used the time to be able to breathe fresh air and not be in a straight jacket and not be emotionally disected by all the doctors and nurses. It was the only time I ever felt somewhat happy." Wanda paused, wiping a tear away from her cheek as it slowly rolled down from her eye. "The first time I met Chad he was being taken outside for some fresh air as well. He was strapped to a wheeled gurney and his face was strapped in a mouthpiece. He looked like that bastard from Silence Of The Lambs...mabye that's why I can never watch that movie without wanting to kill the TV..."
"You mean, Dr. Lecter?" Todd asked softly, his mind getting a mental picture of what she spoke of. Wanda nodded and hung her head. A sob escaped her lips but she didn't try to stop it.
"Goddess, I still remember the way he looked. He was so small, like you, but he was so scary looking. He made me smile though. He didn't speak much and an orderly watched him constantly. I walked over and said something to him not expecting him to talk. But he did and he and I talked till they wheeled him back into the hospital...it must have been not more then a half hour...but I really liked him. You remind me of the way he was, even in the straps. I found out that he was like me, a mutant with really advanced powers...and he was crazy. He was crazy like St. John...but worse. But he, like you, had a good heart and was funny in a dorky sort of a way. Over time I saw him more and more, always in the yard and always in full straps. Time would go by and sometimes I wouldn't be allowed out and sometimes he was too far gone for time out. But even with all the things between us, we fell for one another. But I didn't know he liked me as much as I liked him until one night...
"Chad's power was that he could expand and contract objects with his mind. He got into the mollecular structure of things and just collasped them entirely or blew them apart. They kept him under nearly 24/7 sedation to make sure he didn't ripe the entire place apart. But one night they ran out of drugs to give him in the main section. Chad's body was strong enough then to just beat back any drug they gave him short of morphine. In the time it took them to get more drugs from the dispensary, Chad's body was strong enough to just rip the entire place apart. First his cell went up and then the doors on some of the other cells went up as well as he walked down the hall to my room. I heard the first doors busting open and woke up from my sleep," Wanda said softly, her voice wavering just slightly as she remembered it all, "Then suddenly he burst into my room. I screamed because I was scared but he took me in his arms and he held me...he kissed me for the first time...I kissed him back because I had wanted to for so long..." Wanda choked back another sob and shook her head for a moment before moving on. "We kissed while all the alarms in the hospital went off. He pulled back and he...he..."
"He what?" Todd asked, before he knew why he had said the words.
"...He said he was sorry but he had to go. I begged him not to go but he said that they were going to kill him because he was too powerful. I told him I wouldn't let that happen but I was too weak to do much from the medicine they gave me and he knew it. So he just held me close and told me to always love him and remember him. Then he turned to leave but before he could go out of the door, doctors burst in and shot a bunch of little tranquilizer darts at him. There must have been like 20 darts in him by the time I got over to him. He...he fell asleep in my arms while I knelt on the floor beside him...I didn't even hear his voice before he...he..." At that Wanda broke down completely and cried like she had rarely cried before. Her sobbing shocked Todd out of his shock of her story and he reached over to take her into his arms. She, for once, didn't fight him and hugged him back, her face burying itself in his shirt. She cried and cried, not caring that he was holding her, her heart shouting out at the top of her lungs that she was finally glad that he was there.
Time went by and Wanda slowly stopped her crying, pressing her face slower to his chest before pulling back and wiping her eyes. "After everything happened, Professor Xavier told me everything that had happened. That was the last time we spoke until I joined the Brotherhood. He had been working with me from time to time to get better...but he stopped after what happened to Chad. In one fell swoop, I was alone again. I vowed that I'd never be chained in anyone's place anymore and that I would never let anyone else into my heart. I broke out of the hospital when Mystique gave me her assistance and I will never go back. My father is now officially back on my list of people to not associate with. My plan worked nicely...except for you."
"Me?"
"Yes you, you little slimeball. Todd...Todd, I like you a lot and I don't want to like you because I don't want to lose anyone I love ever again. I...I'm scared, Todd. I'm scared to like you because everytime I see you, I see Chad again and it makes me hurt that I couldn't save him," Wanda said softly, looking into Todd's eyes. "You annoy the piss out of me sometimes...but he did as well...and he also made me smile a lot. He made me smile the same way you're beginning to make me smile."
"I've never seen that," Todd mused idly.
"That's because I didn't want you to see, Todd. I'm not going to be able to be with anyone for a long time, Todd. Not until I deal with him being gone can I deal with you or anyone else in my life being someone to love. I'm not going to push you away anymore without good reason...but you have to give me time." Wanda fell silent and looked down at her trembling hands. She then drew in a breath as Todd lifted up her chin and looked into her eyes. She noticed, for the first time, that Todd really did have beautiful eyes. Deep golden irises with flecks of red and black in them. It made him look much less like a boy and more like a beautiful, exotic male fantasy from some of her deepest thoughts. The mere fact that his eyes made her feel like this gave Wanda alternating waves of both repulsion and desire.
"What else can I do?" Todd asked, his hand feeling warm and soft against her skin. Wanda thought for a moment and looked at him.
"Shower."
"No."
"Todd, you asked me what you can do for me, I'm telling you to shower. Why do you have such an aversion to showering anyway?" Wanda asked softly. Todd looked off into the distance for a moment and then sighed a little.
"It's not the water so much...it's the soap."
"The soap?"
"When my mutation first began to show up, my smell began to become more pronounced even when I took like two showers a day. Finally it got so bad that my stepfather one day got fed up with me smelling and stripped me naked, slammed me in the tub and proceeded to scrub me down as hard as he could. That wouldn't have been bad except that he was so angry that he kept holding my head under the water trying to get me to stop squirming," Todd said with a dead voice, "That I stopped trying to fight eventually and he finished and left me lying in a tub with soap and water and a fractured, bleeding nose. From that day forward, till I came here, I decided until I could control my mutation I wasn't going to shower much at all."
"Goddess...Todd, I never knew..."
"No one does, Wanda." Todd wiped at his eyes a little. "I never told anyone because I don't want anyone pitying me. I'm not a cripple and I'm not a little kid, yo. I'm just small and short and weaker then most mutants in this damned town. I don't need pity."
"I'm not trying to pity you, Todd..."
"I know." A long silence followed and then Todd looked at Wanda. "Wanda?"
"Yes, Todd?"
"Can I...Can I hug you?"
"...sure."
"You mean it?"
"Yes, Todd. You may hug me. Hurry up before I change my mind." Wanda's face was determined but it held the ghost of a smile. Todd took this as a yes, finally, and wrapped his arms around Wanda's body. He clung to her tightly and she found herself hugging him back. At first she felt tentative but the sheer emotion in Todd's grasp made her reciprocate as she had never done before. They hugged and Todd's hands rubbed up and down Wanda's back, her eyes beginning to mist over slightly as she realized that she was finally beginning to feel happy again. Then she felt Todd's lips on hers and she looked down at him in shock.
Todd's eyes were closed and he had kissed Wanda without thinking. For a moment, Wanda debated...then all debating stopped as Todd rubbed a certain spot on her back that was most sensitive to touch. She moaned softly and that was all it took for Todd's tounge to enter her mouth. She gasped slightly but didn't pull back. Instead she kissed him back and pressed closer to him. For a moment, everything melted away as the two mutants found each other again for the first time. Todd clung closer to her and rubbed the back of her head with his hand, his heart swelling with love and desire for Wanda.
Wanda finally pulled back and touched Todd's cheek softly. "...Thank you."
"You're welcome...but why?" Todd asked, slightly confused.
"Thank you for being here for me when I wasn't able to appreciate it..." Wanda replied, her eyes shining a little. "Now go take a shower. I'll clean up the mess in the hall."
"Ok." With that Todd slid off the bed and hopped to the door. He stopped, however, and hopped back to stand in front of her. He kissed her cheek again and she instinctively touched his cheek back. Todd pulled back after a moment and looked into her eyes. "Wanda, you have to know this...I love you so much. I'll stay as long as you want me to. I've loved you for so long now that all I want is one chance to be able to show you that I'm more then flies and bad smells. I'm someone who loves you."
"I know." At that Todd nodded and bounded off, leaving a softly smiling Wanda sitting on her bed. She touched her cheek and felt the wetness that was Todd's last kiss. She could see Chad in her eyes, smiling at her again. Wanda smiled. It felt good to be loved again, even for a minute. The cost of the plaster to fix the wall was small compared to what she had gained, she mused.
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A/N: This was a little nugget of thought that started and wouldn't let me go until I finished it. I doubt I'll write a second chapter but I might write more Wanda/Chad flashback stories. That all depends on your feedback.