SHOCK AND WONDERMENT! I'm still alive!!!
And so is this story! HA HA! I'd like to personally thank all 16 of you who reviewed. That makes me extremely giddy. And I'd like to personally appologize for the horrendous wait. -.- I have a list of excuses, but I respect you guys too much to start into it. Basically, I'm a horrible fanfic-mother, and deserve to be punished
But I have started chapter 4 already! Doesn't that make you happy?
No?
Get on with the story, peons!
Disclaimer: Amieva doesn't own X-Men, and you'd be a fool to think otherwise.
Well, you'd be a fool, but Amieva would think you the most wonderful person on the planet.
"Is it dead?"
"No. Geeze, Todd! Leave him alone already! HEY! Give him his wallet back!"
"John Alur... Alderice... Allurdyce... What the heck? Saint John? That's crazy, man! We got us a saint layin' dead on our couch!"
"Todd! Gimme that!"
John moaned and cracked one eye open. The light stung his retinas.
"OW! Led doe ob my tondue, Lanth!"
He turned his head slightly, feeling like there was a bomb going off in his brain. "Holy shit..." he grumbled, seeing two grown men chasing each other around the room. They seemed to have heard him and immediately stopped running.
The one with a gray tinge to his skin looked at John in shock. "You're alive, yo?"
"Unless this is Hell's idea of a sick joke." he replied, rubbing his temple and trying to relieve some of the pain in his throbbing head.
The tall muscley man with long chestnut hair snatched something out of the grotesque man's hands. "Knock it off, Todd. Grow-up, you're 22 for fuck's sakes!" He tossed the leather object to John on the couch.
John inspected the object and discovered that it was none other than his wallet. I.E, his sole possession for the time being. "Thanks mate." he struggled to sit up, but something jumped onto his chest and growled menacingly.
The man named Todd shrank away in fear. Even the tall guy took a step back. Apparently, they were afraid of what was glaring at John.
A pair of big yellow eyes surrounded by long black fur stared at him, not blinking. John gulped. Puss looked pissed. "Hello li'l fella. What's your name?"
"Careful, man." Todd warned. "That's Satan herself."
John foolishly didn't heed his warning and rached out to stroke 'Satan's' soft fur. She hissed and but his finger. "Shi-! I think she drew blood!"
"We tried to tell you." the tall guy tsked. "That's Morgan. She hates people."
"Yeah." Todd laughed, showing his crooked yellow teeth. "You shoulda saw the scratches she gave Lance when they first met!"
Lance growled. "I wouldn't be laughing, Toad! YOU'RE the one scared of being in the same room as her!"
Todd stopped laughing immediately.
Morgan jumped off John's chest and sauntered out of the room, being sure to bare her claws at Todd on her way by.
John did a sweep of his surroundings. Torn wallpaper, tattered furniture, broken television, green couch... John sat bolt upright. He was laying on THE green couch! A wave of pain kindly reminded him why he hadn't sat up in the first place. "Shit! Where the Hell am I?!" he demanded.
Lance crossed his arms over his bulky chest, staring down Todd, who looked like he was going to say something snarky. "A boarding house. Bayville, New York."
"Boarding house?! Why the- wait... Did you just say we're in Bayville?"
Lance just didn't understand why this guy was getting excited. It was only Bayville. It wasn't like they were getting launched into outter-space or anything.
John's mind was racing, and it hurt like hell, so he lay back again. If he was in Bayville, then maybe...
"I don't get it! Why would Mystique have to kidnap you? The rest of us came willingly." Lance exclaimed.
John shrugged. I guess she likes drugging me. So... what are you guys doin' here anyway?" He was hoping they might mention something. He wouldn't ask about her directly. He didn't want them to suspect anything.
"We are the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants." Lance said proudly.
John's heart sank. Brotherhood. Brother. All guys. She wasn't here.
Todd hopped over to the couch. "Move it, man!" he shoved John off with surprising strength.
"What the-"
"My cuddle bumps is comin' home, and I gotta clean the living room!"
John looked pleadingly to Lance, who just shook his head. "If you REALLY wanted to impress her, Toad, why don't you try bathing?"
Todd shuddered. "Eww... soap."
The Australian novelist had noticed that the goad-man was rather raunchy. He got up off the floor, watching Todd rearrange the cushions on the couch. "Cuddle bumps?"
"The only woman on the team, other than Mystique. Toad's obsessed with her. It's just too bad that he can't take a HINT!" he spat the last word directly at Todd.
In response, he stuck out his long green tongue at him, and continued to wipe the dust off the coffee table with his shirt sleeve. "You're just jealous 'cause YOUR girlfriend dumped you and ran off-"
Lance growled, and the room began to shake. Bits of plaster fell from the ceiling and threatened to smite the room's inhabitants. John tried to dodge the debris as best he could, but he was having a difficult time of it, because he was feeling groggy. He fell back and landed on his rear-end.
The floor began to shake even more violently as thunderous footsteps approached. A ridiculously obese man with no hair and a blonde goatee rushed... er... stomped hastily into the living room. "Guys! Knock it off! They're back!"
The room stopped shaking suddenly, and Lance, Todd and the fat man all looked at each other in panic.
"I-think-Toad-pissed-off-Lance-again." Wanda looked up from her book to see her home rattling in the distance.
"He gets what's coming to him." she replied boredly.
Pietro sighed. "Y'know, you haven't said two words to me since you got back!" he whined. "Are you still pissed about having to sleep in the airport? 'Cause, it's a little too dangerous to be out driving in that kind of rainstorm!"
She closed her book and glared angrily at her twin. "No, I'm just feeling jet-lagged, okay?! Sorry I'm not that chatty! Just let me get a few hours sleep. Then I"ll tell you all about my trip."
Pietro sighed as he pulled into the lane. "The-house-is-gonna-be-a-little-crowded."
"What? Did Fred's powers... expand, or something?"
"No. Mystique-brought-in-a-new-recruit-last-night."
Wanda groaned. "Another one?! God! Is he going to be Toad's replacement when I finally snap and kill him?"
Pietro laughed, somewhat nervously. "I-don't-think-so, sis."
"Darn. Well, who is it?"
"I-don't-know. Some-guy-from-Boston. I-didn't-go-with-them-to-pick-him-up."
Wanda shuddered. "He'd better not have an accent. I hate Boston accents." she unfastened her seat belt and opened the car door. Stepping out in the late-morning sun, she stretched her arms over her head, loosening her tight muscles. She yawned, thinking about how wonderful it would be to sleep in her own bed.
Pietro approached her with her luggage and tapped her on the shoulder. She dropped her arms and glared at him in annoyance. "What, you expect a lady to carry in her own bags?"
Pietro smirked. "Of course not. But you, Wanda, are no lady." he said slowly and articulately.
"YOU LITTLE-" she went to bash him on the head, but he dropped her bags and zipped away in a blink of an eye.
Todd hopped out of the room in excitement, giggling about how he got to see his 'precious flower' again. Lance tried to clean up the room a bit, since it was his fault it looked like an earthquake had hit them - literally. Fred, the large man, wandered off muttering something about baked goods. John looked out the large bay-window at the scene outside. A silver car pulled up to the house. The driverside door opened, and a thin man with white hair stepped out. Then the passenger door opened. John watched as one shapely leg popped out, then another, then a head of long black hair. Finally, the whole person was standing outside with her back to him, stretching out to her full height.
The white haired man appeared out of nowhere with an armload of luggage and tapped the woman on the shoulder. She turned and said something to him. He responded to her, and she scowled from behind her sunglasses.
John didn't get to see then end of the exchange because Lance pulled him away from the window and up a flight of stairs.
"Easy on the shirt, mate! It's the only one I got-"
"Your room is the one two doors down on the left, across from the bathroom."
John rolled his eyes. "Oh goody yay! I get me very own room?" he squealed sarcastically. "Back in Boston, I had me own apartment, mate." He looked down at his arm. "You can let go, y'know. I'm not gonna bugga' off. It's a bit far t'walk-"
"SUGAR PLUM!"
John and Lance heard Todd hopping across the wooden floor, followed by the voice of an annoyed woman. "Back off, Toad. I don't want to get funk on my new sweater."
"Oh, I know you missed me, babycakes! Gimme a kiss-"
There was an angry scream, a cry for help, and a loud crash.
Lance let go of John and bounded down the stairs. Feeling exceedingly curious, he followed closely behind him.
"Sweetie-pie? What'd you do that for?" Todd coughed up dust and spat out bits of plaster from the hole in the wall.
The woman sneered at him. "What did I tell you before I left, Toad?" She took off her sunglasses.
"That if I spoke to you, you'd kick my ass."
"That's right." she lifted her bags from the floor and carried them up the stairs, past Lance, who was gawking at the damage done to the front hall. She glanced at John, only for a brief moment.
His breath caught in his throat. It was like time slowed down before his very eyes.
She was beautiful. Her eyes like sapphire pools. They were eerily familiar. His dazed mind could only draw one conclusion. It was her! After five years, John knew she must've changed, but it was just so... surreal.
"Mind moving, pal?" Her voice was richer and more throaty, but it still had that essence that was undeniably hers.
John gaped at her. She didn't recognize him. Was he really that different?
"Wanda, this is the new guy." Lance stated.
She turned back to face him. She placed a hand on her hip and gave him a look of mock awe. "Oh! The new guy, huh? Well, it's nice to meet you, Mr. Guy. I'm Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a: The Scarlet Witch. I'm dead on my feet and would like nothing more than to go to bed and sleep for the next thirty-eight hours. So if you'd please get out of my way-" She pushed past him and continued up the stairs to the room at the end of the hall.
There was absolutely no doubt about it in John's mind. That was his Wanda.
Busy. That's what Wanda was going to be for the next few days. She had a ton of laundry to do. There was undoubtedly a bunch of her stuff missing from her room as well. Todd had the habit of going through her things when she was away for long periods of time. But there was always one thing he never touched.
She wrenched up one of the floorboards by her bed and slowly lowered her hands into the hole. She carefully extracted a cardboard box.
The flap on the top was labeled 'TREASURES' in black magic marker. Inside this box was all of Wanda's most precious things. She flipped the top open and did an inventory check.
A silver pendant from her brother. A bag of ball-bearings she found in her father's office. The newspaper clipping of Erik Lehnsherr's obituary, along with two pillar candles from the private memorial service-
Wanda pushed all of these things aside, so she could make room. Her hand brushed against the soft black fur of a teddy-bear in a Hallowe'en costume. A slight smile appeared on her face as she tugged the bear out of the rubble by its foot. Wanda replaced it with the bundle she had received from Bova, containing her mother's Tarot cards.
Wanda fell back on her bed. Her comfy, familiar bed. She held the bear out at arms length. It smiled dociley at her, it's little red cape hanging over her hand. She frowned. It always came back to this. Every time she had a bad night, or whenever she was under a lot of stress, Wanda would pull out the bear.
It was the only thing she owned that brought her any comfort. Not even her own brother could give her the consolation she got from squeezing the stuffed animal.
John.
She wanted to hate him. By all rights, she should! He had lied to her. He had kept her from knowing the truth. She wanted to forget all about him.
She wanted to pretend he never existed.
But not even the Scarlet Witch, and all the probability altering powers of the world could make that happen.
Wanda closed her eyes. She regretted yelling at him like that, but he did the unthinkable to her. Oh, the things she'd say to him if she ever saw his face again!
Oh the things she'd do...
"No!" Wanda chided herself, pulling the bear into her chest and rolling over to face the wall. "I'm not going to slip back into those stupid fantasies again. He's a jerk, and he's dead for all I care."
But try as she might to convince herself otherwise, Wanda missed him.
"John..."
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