Disclaimer – Well, ah do disclaim. Marvel's and KidsWB's, not mine.

A/N – For Kiki. The title comes from the song of the same name by the Kinks, who are perhaps more famous for the song 'Lola'. Even so, I think I prefer this one if it came to the crunch. All feedback is intensely welcome. Really. Can I have some R & R, please?

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'Sunny Afternoon' By Scribbler

July 2004

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"Okay, I've got another one for you."

"No. No more. I'm not listening to any more of your corny jokes."

"I promise, this one's better than the others. See, there was this bar, and one night a monkey comes into it with a dog on a leash. So the bartender says - no, wait, there was a camel. Yeah, they got to the bar on the back of a camel, and when they got there they walked in and – after tying the camel up outside first, of course – they walked in and..." She stopped. "Actually, no, this isn't any better. Never mind."

"Are you ever going to give this up?"

"Short answer – no. Long answer – hell no. I'll make you laugh if it kills me."

Ray rolled his eyes. Sunlight filtered through the curtain, scattering across his face and throat as he dragged slowly on a cigarette, then offered it across. Tabby propped herself up on her elbows at the opposite end of the bed to accept it. Her feet rested on the pillow beside his head, and when he turned his face she felt the warm tingle of breath and smoke against her bare ankle.

"That tickles."

"Want me to stop?"

She settled back. "No, you can carry on."

"How generous of you."

Inhaling, she took a moment to regard him. His face was expressionless, but he had closed his eyes against the glare of the midday sun, which had shifted since she first drew the curtain across. She half considered going to close the other one, but was much too comfortable to move. So instead, she simply let the silence hunker down beside them.

Around the room was spread the carnage that accompanied making an elaborate costume from scratch; bits of brown cloth, reels with no thread left, bristling pincushions. A jar of mismatching buttons from Ororo's sewing basket gleamed at her from the corner. Ray had brought them with him when he arrived that morning, along with reams of cloth and carefully-measured patterns printed on what looked like tracing paper. Tabby had taken great delight in teasing him for not only knowing where the basket was, but also knowing how to use its contents.

Neither of them was quite sure who Bernard Belbin was, only that he was a local boy done good in the film industry. Some twenty-five years ago he'd moved from Bayville to L.A. to try and make it in 'the arts' – a nebulous term that more or less covered his need to wear long black coats and indulge in writing poetry, if Ms. Vasquez's words were to be believed. She'd been his English teacher back in the day, and had broken off her diatribe on Shakespearean Sonnets when she spotted a flyer advertising a parade in his honour that was taped to the classroom corkboard. She mentioned films nobody had ever heard of, nor wanted to watch, but the idea of a full-scale parade was an appealing one. As was the three thousand dollar prize money for best float, and thousand dollars for best individual costume.

Anyone could get on the Bayville High float if they signed up and went to a few after-school meetings. Tabby figured it was a small price to pay for the chance at a thousand smackeroos. Ray had reluctantly agreed to help her put together something to wear after a little prodding.

Principal Kelly had chosen to pay tribute to some film called 'Providence of the Cougar', which involved Native Americans and the obligatory 'bad' settlers tossing them off their land. As a result, Tabby had plumped for something approaching Pocahontas, but with a lot less fabric and a lot more cleavage – completely inaccurate, as far as history was concerned.

However, that was about as far as her design plans got. Never really one to plan ahead, she had talked the talk, but stopped short of any actual work. Thus, she had been surprised when Ray sat in front of her at lunch one day and dropped a pile of unprompted sketches in her lap. Each one depicted a design based loosely on what she'd envisaged, and each was both detailed and different than the rest.

That was the thing about Ray, she now thought, regarding him with eyes sated by nicotine and sunshine. He never seemed to want to do anything, but when he set his mind he was a damn near force of nature, bordering on blinkered in his single-mindedness to get things done and do them well. Pure obstinacy belied many of his talents. Not many people knew he was capable of just lying quietly like this. Even Tabby did not know all his secrets. Had she not bullied him into helping her, she might never have known he could draw, or that he knew the difference between cross-stitch and crosspatch.

But then, that was life with Ray. He was the kind of person who sat on the fringes, not saying much and then startling people when he chose to get involved. He could be a hothead when pushed too far, true, but there were different levels of hotheadedness in the world. Tabby knew that her own involved not looking before she leaped, and using brute force to get herself out of consequent trouble. Ray's was more 'push too far and watch fireworks from a distance'. He was an enigma dressed up in what-you-see-is- what-you-get, hiding much of himself and only letting a little out from under the edges.

Perhaps that was what had drawn her to him, back when they lived together in The House That Chuck Built. Those were the days when a friend was anyone who lasted more than a week in her company without leaving, or wanting a spot warming her mattress. Ray was never one to back down from anyone, least of all a girl who thought accountability was just a word in the dictionary. So they had shared a clandestine cigarette, gone to the mall, and when they got back they were friends. She and this rebel without a cause.

They had soon learned that, being mutants at the Xavier Institute, everyone was more than friends, because most of what happened to them really was catastrophic. So she and he were more than just friends. Neither one acknowledged it openly. They just knew it. It was something they were good at – meeting in the middle and understanding what the other wasn't saying. Being together and being uncomplicated.

She and Kurt had been more than just friends, too, but not in quite the same way. She really had liked the little fuzzball, and he'd lapped up her lack of revulsion like it was water and he'd just trekked the Sahara with an empty canteen.

Then she had moved out, and the gradient of things changed. Kurt didn't like coming over to the Boarding House. Politics distorted what had started between them. Tabby was no longer an 'us'; she was a 'them'. No matter that she still talked the same, walked the same, acted the same. He stopped coming over, and she was not one to backtrack and revisit old haunts once she'd finished with them. Gradually, they reverted to plain old just friends, and when Kurt found Amanda she wasn't all that upset.

Tabby's links to the mansion grew thin. Amara and Ray were the only two who sought her out of their own volition, because they were the only two who couldn't, or refused to see the lines in the sand.

And then one night she and Ray were eating a KFC he'd brought over because she had no cash, and she was soft from laughing at nothing and listening to him talk about some indie band all evening, and they just fell into each other. And when they realised that nothing had really changed, they figured it was official.

Tabby exhaled smoke and nudged Ray's ear with her foot. He opened his eyes and took back the cigarette. When he put it to his lips the cherry blazed, as though it were breathing life into him instead of the opposite. He tipped his head back and blew soft grey rings at the ceiling, giving her an unprecedented view of his pale throat.

"You need more sun."

"Says you," he replied, unhurried, and took another hit.

He sat up to give back the cigarette, which was now so short it looked in danger of burning his lips. Tabby nonetheless leaned forward to take it, allowing her hand to catch his with exaggerated slowness.

He raised an eyebrow at her, utterly unfazed by her seductress ways.

"No, really. You'll get rickets, staying indoors all the time."

"Look who was paying attention in biology class." He blew smoke through his nose as he talked.

"Just because I'm blonde doesn't mean I have to act blonde," she answered, slightly defensive.

Ray chuckled. It was a rumbling sound, starting deep in his chest and squeezing out like toothpaste from a tube.

Tabby grinned, the light of victory in her eyes. "I told you I'd make you laugh today. You're too serious, Ray."

His mouth slewed to one side in a wry expression, and he bumped her calf with his shoulder. She took this as a request for one more drag before the cigarette died, and inclined herself to pass it across.

Yet instead of taking it, he leaned up and caught the back of her neck with one hand. Their mouths met for a moment; smoke swirling in and out of each other until he pulled away again. It was his kiss to initiate, his to end.

Tabby knew her eyes looked especially blue in this light, and blinked slowly, tasting smoke and salt and the coffee from earlier that still clung to his lips.

"We should finish your costume," he advised, with one of those smiles that said he knew the punchline the rest of the world was still looking for. He had fallen back at a slight angle, so that the light from the window didn't hit him in the eyes anymore. The result was that his cheek rested on Tabby's left foot, which felt nice. Solid.

She mashed the last of the cigarette against the ashtray on the floor. Then she pushed her torso back onto the mattress and linked her hands behind her head, emptying her lungs of smoke. She was getting quite good at perfect rings.

"In a minute," she mumbled. "No rush."

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FINIS.

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