I do not own X-men: Evolution
Remy Lebeau considered himself to be an excellent judge of character, a skilled reader of emotions and a highly sympathetic person.
Not that being an Empath had anything to do with it.
Gambit was sprawled out on the solitary couch in the Acolyte's rec room, lazily flicking through the TV channels when a veritable tidal wave of emotions surged against his empathic senses.
St. John Allerdyce slumped down into a broken recliner, rubbing his temples and looking generally unhappy with the world.
Remy muted the commercials and lifted his head, casting an appraising glance at the pyro whose mental state could only be described as "complicated".
"Chill, mon ami. Qu'est-ce que c'est le problem?"
Pyro was used to Remy's curious New Orleans dialect, so the Cajun knew that his hesitation before answering was due to some other factor.
"Nothin's the matter, mate. Jus' got a little bit of an 'eadache, is all."
Remy snorted. "Headache? Don't underestimate dis Cajun, Pyro. What's got you so angry, and confused, and—"
He stopped his search abruptly as he came across a rather different emotion. "Remy's not even goin' there, homme. This is about a girl, ain't it?"
In response, the fire starter got up slowly and, muttering incoherently to himself, stumbled off to his room.
"Damn'd...sheila...bloody hell." Remy caught a couple words before a door slammed; cutting off the rest of anything St John had to say.
Remy chuckled to himself. Whilst shuffling through Pyro's emotions like so many cards, he had found...something...that had never been there before.
"Def'nitely 'bout a femme." He flicked the volume back on the TV and settled back lazily to watch the cartoons.
"...and then he kissed me! What do you think that means?"
"I think it means that you are one helluva boy magnet, Amara." Tabitha Smith smirked at her best friend's annoyed expression with amusement.
Amara had told Tabby the whole story, downplaying Pyro's control over her power to a simple matter of extinguishing any fireballs she threw at him.
She was definitely not about to say anything about his holding her captive with her own power; it was extremely embarrassing for her to even think about it at the moment.
Plus Tabitha's mind was less than clean.
"So what happened next?"
Amara blushed a little, "I-uh...how do you Americans say this again? I kicked him...um...where it counts."
Tabby whooped with laughter as Amara turned redder, finally breaking down and giggling a bit as well.
The whole experience was rather surreal once she thought about it.
"So he's an Acolyte, huh?" Tabby recovered herself and went on, "That should make things interesting. It's like one of those soap opera romances...the boy from the other side of the tracks. Oh, Romeo and Juliet! West Side Story!"
"Uh, he is an Acolyte, yes, but..." Amara tried to make her friend listen, but was cut off again by a wickedly enthusiastic Tabby.
"Ooooh, sleeping with the enemy are we, Amara? That is so like Lance and Kitty!"
"WHAT?!!!"
"Chill, chill, I was only joking." Tabby immediately dropped her teasing smile; Amara's hair was starting to smoke a little. "Just relax. But it's true you know. He is the enemy."
Amara closed her eyes and counted to five slowly. "Tabitha. I don't even like the guy. I mean, people don't fall in love with random psychos who show up, critique your writing style while deflecting your attacks with his own mutant powers and then just kiss you on the spur of a moment."
She sucked in a long breath and let it out in a sigh, rubbing her right hand across her mouth gingerly. Her lips had been tender ever since that kiss; she was almost surprised that they weren't bruised.
"Well, I dunno." Tabby lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. "It sounds awfully romantic to me."
"To you, maybe. In Nova Roma things are done differently." Amara's eyes took on the faraway look that she sometimes got, signifying that she was immersed in memories of her island home.
"Yoo-hooooo. Earth to Amara?" Tabby waved her hand in front of her friend's face.
"Hmm? What did you say?"
Tabby couldn't help but to tease. "I said, you going for older guys now, Amara?"
"Tabby!" Amara chucked the book on the bedside table, narrowly missing her friend. "Wait...how d'you know how old he is?"
"Curious?"
"No, it's just—"
Tabby didn't wait for Amara to finish her sentence. "Oh come on, the Prof's got files on each one of Mags' bad boys on the computer. For reference, in case we hafta fight them, ya know? Here, I'll show you."
The energetic blonde pulled her reluctant friend off the bed and started happily dragging her out of the room by the wrist. Amara relented and stopped struggling in the hallways.
"So how do you know about that?"
"Let's just say I walked in on Rogue the other day..."
Click-click.
Click-click.
Click-click.
St John sat in his room alone, moodily glaring at the flame of his lighter as he flipped the lid open and closed over and over again. Why had he kissed the girl? He had no clue.
Pyro appreciated a beautiful girl as much as the next guy, but he was no Gambit to run back and forth for love or lust. Perhaps it was something peculiar to his mutation. A sort of pull towards anything to do with flame—light, heat, magma, you name it. That would be a plausible explanation, yes.
Click-click.
Click-click.
As for the girl herself...she looked barely a day over fifteen; maybe sixteen at the most. He himself was nineteen, and he preferred not to rob the cradle. Then again, some couples were decades apart...4 years wasn't that much of a difference, was it?
Click-click.
Click-cli--
"Damn." He cursed softly as the lighter lid snapped onto his finger. Why was he even getting distracted over the girl? Time for a change of pace.
"Damnit!" Pyro swore again as he tried sitting up. Getting involved with girls was a torturous business: loss of concentration, much confusion and unimaginable pain whenever he moved his legs in a certain way.
Wincing, he settled back into his original position, leaning against the backboard of his bed, resting his head against the pillow he'd wedged behind his neck. He flicked open the lighter.
Studying the flame, he poured all of his thoughts into it, clearing his mind and removing all the swirling emotions within himself to reside within the flame. He blew gently onto the fire and watched as it swirled and twisted into the minute form of a girl.
Fuelled by his emotions, the flame-girl detached herself from her original source of the lighter, floating down to rest gently upon his small bedside table.
Pyro kept his eyes fixed on the tiny sprite, still feeding his feelings into the flame, enjoying the sense of emptiness within himself. He focussed intently on his creation.
The fire girl danced lightly across the wood tabletop, leaving tiny smoking footprints precisely burned into the wood.
"Now don't do that, Sheila," St John murmured and twitched his eyebrow, causing the sprite to swirl towards him through the air. "Ol' Magneto'll have my arse if I damage any more furniture."
He glanced around at his room; though small, it still seemed bare as it had no furniture except for his bed, bedside table and dresser. Nobody really trusted him with anything more.
He turned his attention back to the inch-high figure floating in front of him, cupping it in the palm of his hand. The fire, which had burned the wood so easily, did nothing to his bare skin except to give a slight tickling sensation.
He sighed. "So wot d'you know about girls, pretty Sheila?"
At the door to the Aussie's room, Gambit and Colossus watched their teammate as he stared dreamily at his radiant creation, occasionally talking to it or asking it questions.
The two older Acolytes exchanged looks.
"Remy always knew dat kid was crazy."
"Da, but is better than him burning the place down."
A/N: Hooray for Piotr! He ROCKS! Now I sound like Lance...lol.