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"What the..." Rahne bounded over to her window, which was being repeatedly pelted by rocks. Opening it, she stuck her head outside.
"Owch!"
"Oops, heheh, sorry there Rahne." Amara looked up at her roommate sheepishly. "Um, you wouldn't happen to have that old rope ladder of ours available, would you?"
"Aye, that I do..." Rahne threw the ladder out the window and helped Amara to hoist herself up into the room.
"What happened to ye? Where have you been all afternoon? I thought you would have come home after it started raining!" Rahne stared at her friend, who was standing in a constantly-growing puddle of rainwater, muddy, disheveled, and wearing a jacket that Rahne knew was not Amara's.
"I—can I tell you after I have a shower and put on some decent clothes?"
"Sure. Ye're lucky I was in here to change before dinner; else you would've had tae use the front door. I'm sure Mr. Logan would be very interested in where that jacket came from."
Rahne watched as Amara blushed, then hurriedly took off the jacket and gathered some dry clothes. "Yeah...Thanks Rahne, you're the best!"
Rahne waited for a couple minutes after Amara shut the door, then suddenly morphed into wolf. Trotting over to where the jacket lay, she took a few deep sniffs, nosing the folds of the material. Just as suddenly, she morphed back, staring quizzically at the offending jacket.
"Oh, Amara, what have you gotten yerself intae now?"
Amara Aquilla came out of the bathroom, feeling refreshed and a thousand times better than she had going in. She was greeted with the sight of Rahne sitting crosslegged on her bed, smiling smugly and with a knowing look in her eye.
"I knew that leaving his jacket in here with you was a mistake."
Rahne shrugged. "What can I say? Curiousity isna just for the cats. And incidentally," she shifted into wolf, trotted up to Amara and sniffed the air around her. Then she changed back. "Incidentally, you still smell like him."
"Uh-oh." The thought of Mr. Logan flashed briefly through Amara's mind: he would be able to sniff her out.
"How much do I still smell like him?"
Rahne shrugged. "Not very much. It's faint, but it's the long-lasting kind, that showering won't take off. You'll smell like him for another day."
"Oh no! What if Mr. Logan finds out? He'll give me extra danger room sessions and ground me for the rest of my life and make me polish the X-jet and not take me on any more missions and—"
"Cool it, lassie. I've got something that takes the smell away, alright?" Rahne couldn't help laughing at Amara's facial expressions right then.
"Really? Well, where is it?"
"If I give it to you, will you tell me everything? We've got twenty minutes before supper time..."
Ouch. But Rahne could be trusted; she wasn't like Kitty or Jubilee, who seemed to delight in updating everyone on everything that happened to everyone within the mansion.
"Alright, I promise." Seems like I've been making lots of promises lately.
Pyro sneaked quietly past the TV room and made his way cautiously up the stairs to his bedroom. Once there, he carefully shut the door and locked it. He looked down at himself. He was soaked; before leaving Amara he had insisted that she take his jacket. He had sort of felt guilty for making her wet and late, and it was the least he could do for her. St John snorted. He was going soft.
He stripped, peeling off the sodden clothes and throwing them to the floor in a heap. Reaching under his bed, Pyro brought out a flat stone that he had once found in the park.
Dragging it to the centre of his room, he retrieved his lighter and sent a ball of flame to rest, crackling on the flat stone, instantly filling the room with rolling waves of heat. He spread his clothes out on the floor near the fire; they would dry soon.
Slinging a loose towel around his waist, St John walked down the hall to the showers, whistling a slight tune. The afternoon had been very interesting.
"You mean you were lying like right on top of him?" Rahne's eyes were as big as saucers.
"I know! It was so weird..." Amara's voice trailed off as she thought back to it.
"You keep leaving your sentences hanging, you know that? It's really annoying." Tabby huffed, wanting to hear the rest of the story. She had dropped by in time to hear Amara confessing all, and as the first one who had known about Pyro and Amara, Tabby had taken it upon herself to listen to her friend confess along with Rahne. "So what happened next?"
"Oh, sorry. Okay, he was kissing me again, and so I figured, 'Hey, I made this guy practically swear never to bother me ever again, so I'll probably never see him again, except when we're battling.' So I kissed him back, one thing led to another, and..."
"Amara! You didn't!...did you?" Rahne gasped, horrified.
"No!" Amara blushed, realizing what her friend meant. "No, never like that! Not at all. I'm a princess, remember? I can't put a mark on the family honour..."
Tabby giggled. "So let me get this straight. You go to the park, it starts raining. You head home, bump into the amazingly hot Pyro-boy. He makes out with you for a bit, you make him promise never to do it again, and then you guys start up again?"
"Hey, the first time it was completely against my will! And I told you, he took advantage of my choice of words the second time...And I figured I might as well enjoy it for the time being."
Amara blushed. Thinking back on it, she wasn't sure that she would have done that if given a chance to redo it. It was completely undignified...at one point she had even been pressing herself against him, instead of the other way around. She could still remember the feeling of his hands traveling up and down her body...She blushed an even deeper shade of red.
Rahne and Tabby exchanged smirks over the top of Amara's blushing head. Something had finally caused Little Miss Princess to lose her cool, become unsure of herself; even gasp not in control of her own emotions!
It was Rahne who finally broke the silence. "Uhm, supper's in two minutes, guys. Amara, here's the stuff that will get rid of Pyro's scent." She tossed a small blue bottle at her friend. "You only have tae use a couple drops."
Tabby looked at the bottle with interest. "Where'd you get that stuff from?"
Rahne looked at it proudly. "I made it meself. When you've got a sensitive nose, there are some odours—however faint—that really irritate my nostrils, so I made this stuff, with Mr. McCoy's help o' course."
Tabby whistled. "You don't suppose you could make me a batch?"
A/N: Review please! Tell me whether I should introduce some kind of horrible conflict and turn this into a saga of undying love and heroic acts, or whether I should continue with short and fluffy liaisons that are threatened only by figures of authority (ie: Magneto and Sabretooth, Xavier and Logan). Tell me! :)
pietro's kitten: Ah, okay...thanks for the info on the website. Mmmm, Amyros....lol. Yes, Australians are definitely sexy, ranking up there with Cockney Brits and French Canadians. lol
Anna: I'm getting inspiration for these by leaps and bounds...I hope it doesn't run dry any time soon. But I'll be starting my summer job in a couple days, so enjoy the fast updates while you can.
Ima Super Mute Ant: I do make Pyro out to be quite the rakish dog, don't I? Another interesting aspect of his character, I suppose. I love playing around with characters that don't get much screen time: gives you more to work with, cause they don't have set roles.
pyroluver: I stopped just to make you all wait in agony and suspense for this boring filler chapter. Mwahahaha, I'm so evil! And here I am, updating!! Ta-da!